One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#333) "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin - This, perhaps more than any other song, is a love/hate relationship for me. Anybody who has followed this page over the years knows that I'm an unapologetic fan of 70s AM Gold-type music. Some of it I love because I maintain it's authentically beautiful, and/or musically sound (if not cool), like The Carpenters, or Bread, and some of it I love just because it reminds me of my childhood, the first days of my life I can remember, like Barry Manilow, etc., because it's what my parents listened to.

But "Cat's in the Cradle" is a weird one for me.  As much as I enjoy listening to it, it also annoys me in a way others of its kind don't. I'm not sure why. Harry Chapin's 1981 death was untimely, and I don't really know anything else about him or his music, don't know any other songs of his (meaning: have no memories from childhood), so maybe that unfamiliarity ignites some kind of unconscious aversion. The song is repetitive, doesn't really go anywhere musically, and yet, the story it tells is ultimately so profound, so relevant to most people's existence (to some extent), that it's okay. I listen anyway. Feel compelled to listen.

I can't honestly say I relate to it. I was lucky. I had an attentive father, and in turn, like to think I was attentive to my sons as they grew up. And yet, Life still feels this way sometimes, as I age. There just isn't enough time for anything, and before you know it, your opportunities vanish, and even before they do, you're stuck having to prioritize them, because there are always "planes to catch, and bills to pay..."

"And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me, he'd grown up just like me / My boy was just like me..."

#334) "Carry on Wayward Son" by Kansas - With a mad laboratory assemblage of musical hooks and harmonies pieced together in a sloppily genius discipline of weird science, "Carry on Wayward Son" takes really sharp corners on two wheels, all the while offering heady lyrics worthy of 1970s airwaves (worthy of the band that also gave us "Dust in the Wind").

But also, this song is - for my money - among the first arena rock anthems, and I never really thought of it that way.  Watching the live video, which I only did in recent months, reveals that Kansas was, in terms of visuals, of general vibe, closer to a "hair band" (as opposed to a prog rock band) in 1976 than I ever would have imagined listening to this song and putting my own spin on it all these years.

And I'm not complaining. :-) There's nothing, musically or visually, I don't love about this, to be honest. At the end of the day, it's kind of exactly the way I always pictured it, without realizing what it was I was seeing. 

"And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know...."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#331) "Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" by Creedence Clearwater Revival - From a musical standpoint, there's nothing not to like about CCR. At the height of the tumultuous 1960s, the Fogerty brothers, Tom and John, along with Stu Cook and Doug Clifford, came onto the scene with a homespun sound that was no less agitated, no less emotionally chaotic and intense, than anything from the time that might now be called acid rock. They weren't exactly the downhome bayou brothers their music suggested, they hailed from the San Francisco area, but they weren't "hippies" either, though they were aware of what was going on around them and certainly had something to say about it, which they did, quite powerfully, through their music.

Music's a funny, wonderful thing, isn't it?  Songs have a way of becoming personal property in the listener's mind, and playlists like this one, whether designed for a road trip or just sitting at home chilling, have a way of reading as nothing less than a soundtrack of the listener's life.

But tastes, and therefore influences, change over time. If I'd started a list like this when I was 22, I don't think it would have been nearly as diverse or interesting, as I would have been far more inclined to include only music I felt told my story, as I believed it to be.

That's still somewhat true now, of course, but far less so than once would have been the case.  As I've aged, I think I've broadened my musical scope. I appreciate songs simply for their musicality now, appreciate the artist's moment rendering that music in whatever way they have. In other words, it no longer has to be something I can relate to on a personal level in order to get my attention, and yet (and here's the "funny and wonderful" part), I still do feel it personally, just in a broader - and frankly, more satisfying - way.  I appreciate live music more than ever before as well, perhaps because I dabble a little myself, and while I can play, I never feel like I could get up in front of people and play with a bunch of other musicians, with precise timing, or engage in some epic guitar or keyboard solo without fucking up, having (or wanting) to start over. I know it's about practice, practice, practice, but it also involves a certain God-given gift bestowed upon the Billy Joels, Les Claypools, Princes and Walter Becketts of the world (among others), which I just don't have. Most people just don't have.

"Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" gets interpreted different ways by different people, probably because it was recorded at such a crazy time in history, and there's definitely a heaviness present to reflect that fact, a sense that it's saying something, has an important message. It's not entirely clear what that message is, you just know its heavy, and you feel compelled to find it.

John Fogerty has said the song isn't really about the Sixties, or Vietnam, or any one momentously bad thing that happened at the time, but actually about the band's unhappiness being superstars. At first glance, that might seem to cheapen it, but I don't think it does. It makes the song greater, turns it into a broad collector of all the sadness, frustration and heartache and melancholy Life can dish out, a universal anthem, with one size fitting all.

The straightforward notion that it's just about a sun shower is valid too, because I've truly always thought, musically, it sounds like rain falling on a sunny day.

Doesn't it...?! It sounds like a sun shower.  Which, at the end of the day, is all it needs to sound like.

"And forever on it goes, through the circle, fast and slow..."


#332) "Fortunate Son" by Creedance Clearwater Revival - Here, CCR doesn't fuck around with metaphor, no need to interpret what this song is about. Although, in keeping with the band's offbeat vibe, it's a slightly different take on the antiwar message: not about the horror or futility of war, as such, but the class warfare that went on in the time of something so crazy as a national military draft. 'Twas ever thus: the poor, furthest away from ever being able to enjoy the American dream as it was presented, were the ones expected to fight for it....and then totally shit on by the American public if they were lucky enough to come marching home.  Liberal, conservative...there is a lot of blame to go around for what happened back then.

But none of it ever sullied (or sullies) the unique splendor of John Fogerty's voice.


"Some folks are born silver spoon in hand / Lord, don't they help themselves..."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#329) "So Far Away" by Carole King - How lovely is this song? Really....just how lovely? Like a fire crackling or the night whispering or a really good cup of coffee just waiting for you to lift it up to your needy and grateful lips for that soul-feeding first sip in the bright morning sunshine....er, something like that.

I discovered "So Far Away" when I was in high school, when it - like I - was less than 20 years old. I was in the throes of a fairly potent singer/songwriter phase at the time, and big on remembering the 1970s not for the awkwardly troubled and anxious times they were, but simply as I remembered experiencing them as a young kid, which involved less trouble and anxiety, more late morning sunshine illuminating the woods behind our house, where all I had to do was play Army (and the only threat was wood ticks), while my parents sat around drinking coffee and talking about interesting stuff, selling books for a living.

Admittedly, my memories of that time are a bit rose-colored, but they're not completely off base or fabricated. AM Gold was always playing in the background, leaking from some tiny radio somewhere, and "So Far Away" (along with other "woodsy" [in my mind] music from the likes of The Carpenters, James Taylor, Barry Manilow...) has always represented the calm, almost primitive beauty I enjoyed when I was still very young, for which (although I didn't realize it at the time, and wish I had), I was very lucky.

So the song has always held a deeply personal significance for me, but nowadays, I also think its timing was historically significant: released in 1971, at the tail end of an era of social upheaval, which gave rise to a winsome restlessness that would in turn imbue popular culture for the next ten years, Carole King offers a different tack for her generation at the trailhead of the 1970s, and in a way (although this may or may not have been her intent), foreshadowed what was to become of the modern American family: not physically far away, necessarily, but emotionally and psychologically distant, perfect strangers living and raising children under one roof, strained circumstances that led her generation to its soaring divorce rate. The lyrics could be considered a metaphor, really: doesn't anybody stay in one place, anymore?, King sings.

From about 1970 on, they didn't as much, even in (or especially in) their hearts and minds.

"One more song about moving along the highway / Can't say much of anything that's new..."


#330) "Laura" by Billy Joel - I've said it before (I've said lots of things more than once on this page, I've come to realize), but I feel it bears repeating: Billy Joel gets a bad rap, skewered by music purists for being too slick, too polished, and for this, inauthentic, lacking a certain critical rawness in the whole smoky, gritty, street-wise thing that was a recurring theme of his music/image, at least early on.

But to me, that's always meant that he's just too damn good.  A masterful songwriter and performer, Billy Joel identified as the piano man, but he really could have gotten away with calling himself the music man. Seriously, if Michael Jackson was the king of pop, and Howard Stern is the king of all media, then Billy Joel gets my nomination for the king of all music.  He's one of those artists who sees music - the notes, the chords, their harmonious mesh with rhythm - in multiple dimensions, multiple colors, and was able to forge a seemingly effortless presentation by pairing beyond-handy chops on multiple instruments with not just a rock solid understanding of, but an innovative approach to, the songwriting process.  His album The Nylon Curtain (1982) is a perfect example of his experimental side, and "Laura", a clear homage to the Beatles that nevertheless stands on its own, is front and center.

And speaking my truth, I, like doubtless every man at some point in his life, knew a few girls like Laura back in my day. Just sayin'...;-)

"Here I am, feeling like a fucking fool...."

One More (?) Go Around: A Hundred Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50

#327) "Foolin'" by Def Leppard - Simply put, one of the best hair metal songs ever, although Def Leppard frontman Joe Elliot would likely not appreciate any further association with hair metal than has already taken place over the years. And I guess it really isn't a fair categorization, if calling anything they did "hair metal" places it anywhere within the vicinity of White Lion, or Winger. And "Foolin'" pre-dates the height of "hair metal" by a couple of years, was howling away when "the kids" were still digging Michael Jackson, the Police and Culture Club...and USA for Africa. ;-)

But whether you call it hair metal or whatever, "Foolin'" is, decades later, still kind of awesome (and this might be a reason not to call it hair metal): aggressive and anxious in equal measure, the authentically haunting melody pairs seamlessly with growling guitars, pounding drums and Elliot's formidably squealing vocals.

Let's just agree to call it a great song...from the hair metal era.

"Is anybody out there, anybody there / Does anybody wonder, anybody care..."

#328) "No Excuses" by Alice in Chains - Alice in Chains is another band that doesn't deserve to be chained (sorry...) to its association with a specific era of music, in their case "grunge".  That being said, Alice in Chains was the best of the grunge bands in my opinion, tasking one of the greatest rock voices of all time in Layne Staley with the job of being the perfect vehicle with which to carry Jerry Cantrell's sinister harmonies.

"No Excuses", from the 1994 EP Jar of Flies, is one of those rare things I was into as it was happening.  Usually, I display a sort of automatic skepticism when it comes to anything current, anything too cool, too of the moment, and then reliably come around years after the fact, flashing a "what was I (not) thinking...??" shrug and going on and on about everything I missed. Many of the songs on this very list, which I've been churning out for almost six years now, are songs I came late to.

But the grinding sense of alienation, the false hopes and empty promises, the fatalistic sense of departure, perhaps to something you can't come back from, so effortlessly forged in "No Excuses" by Staley's compelling vocals, was something I was absorbing fully like ointment when I was 21 and this music - and music like it - was slow-crawling up the charts.

"You my friend, I will defend, and if we change well I'll love you anyway..."