#64) "Wango Tango" by Ted Nugent - Take away his brashness and over-the-top political views (or who knows, maybe keep them right in place) and Ted Nugent is undeniably one of the greatest rock and roll musicians of all time. A killer, killer axe grinder, he rose to fame in the 1970s by forging a unique brand of rock and roll, louder and more obnoxious than ever; not a 'wall of sound', more a shriek from the end of the alley, or the edge of the woods, but always with just a little humor folded in. This somehow allowed him to swagger across the stage dressed like Tarzan without detracting from his legitimacy, and to everyone's shock, without the need for - or distraction of - drugs and alcohol.
Wango Tango is an awful song that I love listening to. No better representation of the Motor City Madman probably exists, and for my money it possesses all the requisite ingredients for a basic rock and roll stew: loudness, sexually charged energy, blistering guitar licks, and yet just a splash of spazzy, because rock and roll should never, ever take itself so seriously it can't climb up on a buffalo once in a while.
Ted Nugent has always realized this, and if people realized that he realizes this, they might not be quite as outraged by the outrageous things he says.
Er, maybe they would anyway...but in any case, Wango Tango tears it up.
"My baby like to rock, my baby like to roll / my baby like to dance all night, she got no control..."
#65) "Chevy Van" by Sammy Johns - I firmly believe everyone needs a little Uncle Ted in their lives, but I'll be the first to admit he's not what I want the most of along with me on 1/48/50.
The vibe of this trip will revolve more tightly around the likes of Chevy Van. This is another of those songs that resides inside a singular emotional moment. It's ultimately just an anecdote of a chance encounter, some version of which happens every single day somewhere, the kind of thing that for most people makes life worth living, at some point in that life at least.
But Chevy Van captures a special point in American history. The fact that these days this song - or this type of song - would be lucky to draw four people to Room 103 of the county annex out on Highway H for a Tuesday night performance, much less reach #5 on the Billboard Top 100 (as it did in 1973), is unfortunate, to say the least.
Makes me think we lost something along the way.
"I put her out in a town that was so small / you could throw a rock from end to end..."
#66) "Ventura Highway" by America - One of my favorite songs of all time: gorgeous instrumentation, complex rhythm, wildly inscrutable lyrics that don't have to mean anything, but mean everything. Ventura Highway isn't a place, or a road...man...it's a state of mind.
America vocalist and writer Dewey Bunnell has said he considers Ventura Highway his most enduring song; or so he was quoted on Wikipedia. But I have no reason not to accept it. This isn't a college paper I'm writing here, and if he doesn't think it, he damn well should. For all it's acoustic AM Gold vibe, Ventura Highway really is pretty timeless. Listening to it always makes my day, no matter how roughly that day has unfolded.
"This town don't look good in snow..."
#67) "Sister Golden Hair" by America - Another graceful beauty by America, Sister Golden Hair isn't quite so timeless. In fact, if any song smells the most like 1975, I'd say it's this one. But like Chevy Van, the song movingly captures the sadness of the post-60s/pre-80s era in a suitably introspective way.
'Sadness' isn't even quite the word; anxious, maybe, but not overwrought. Melancholy. The 70s were a lull between what was and what would be in this country, a kind of psychological nexus, and although I was only a young child at the time, the afternoon sunshine dripping down the kitchen walls from the window above the sink, I think, sounded a lot like this.
"I ain't ready for the altar, but I do agree there's times / when a woman sure can be a friend of mine..."
Friday, December 27, 2013
Friday, December 20, 2013
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#60) "Truckin'" by The Grateful Dead - I can't say I'm a fan of The Grateful Dead. I don't really get the appeal, and to be honest, there's always been something about the concept of the 'Deadhead' that's annoyed me a little. Not to mention, the band's 1987 Touch of Grey was proof positive that even the grittiest, most anti-establishment rock outfit with the grittiest, most die-hard following is in danger of selling out.
But the older I get, the more I appreciate Truckin'. Sometimes there's nothing better to groove to driving down the road; sometimes this is what I want to hear just sitting in a chair staring out the window. At the same time, the older the song gets, the more significant it becomes. On the surface, it would seem a musical travelogue of the band's tireless life on the road, but it also captures a snapshot of America at a specific moment in history, that precipitous time when everything was changing, and open drug references and 'hippie' defiance were still new and terrifying to Middle America, and thus groundbreaking in music (yet tame, of course, by today's standards).
There are those who dig even deeper into the lyrics, consider Truckin' a metaphor for Life, and I can get down with that.
"What a long, strange trip it's been..."
#61) "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash - In 1996, when I was working in country radio, I found Cash's American Recordings CD stashed amongst the collection of 'hot country' artists of the day. I can't remember what about it caught my eye, or what prompted me to listen (I was indifferent to Cash when I first got that job, and country music in general), but I was blown away by the gravitas of the songs, the fact that, though he was already in his mid 60s by then, Cash was still making relevant, impactful music. Little did I know American Recordings was only the start of a twilight resurgence for the Man in Black that would continue, with a little help from the competent Rick Rubin, right up to the time he died.
This was before all of that though, before his cover of Nine Inch Nails led to a posthumous explosion in popularity, before the Joaquin Phoenix movie, before it became uncool not to recognize his greatness. Cash deserves all of it certainly, but in this instance, I really was country when country wasn't cool, digging it way back when I was not allowed to play it on the air. I played Drive On (from American Recordings) once, and immediately got a call on the studio line from the station general manager, who seemed to be always listening.
'What the hell...!' he cried. "That's not hot country!'
Though I wanted to, I didn't bother asking what the CD was doing in the on-air booth with all the Shania Twain and Brooks and Dunn and Jo Dee Messina if I wasn't supposed to play it. But I was a Johnny Cash fan from that day forward in any case.
With its train rattle rhythm and one of the wickedest guitar licks ever fried in a pan, Folsom Prison Blues is from the vintage era of Johnny Cash. Outside of Ring of Fire, it's probably his signature song. The live version is the one to seek out, a little faster, little kickier than the album original, recorded at Folsom Prison, as a matter of fact, in the late 1960s. "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die," Cash warbles in his powerful - yet intriguingly unsteady - baritone. A second later, someone, presumably a member of the felonious audience, screams out "woooooo!", which I have always thought is as unsettling as it is hilarious.
Folsom Prison Blues is perfect for a road trip; always gets me thinking about freedom; that is, personal freedom, the simple yet seminal right we all (should) have to come and go as we please at any given second of our lives, to choose whether to stand on pavement or on grass, as it suits us. I can't imagine having that basic right taken away. I've known guys who have sat in jail, known some who have sat in jail repeatedly. And a few, even, who just can't seem to stay out of trouble, the majority of their adult time has been spent behind bars. No hardened criminals, mind you, but more than a few local losers who aren't bad people, just keep screwing up, and doing time, screwing up, and doing time, over and over.
This is beyond comprehension to me. One time locked up would be my only time. I would be lucky to survive it; I sure as hell wouldn't be back.
"But those people keep a-moving, and that's what tortures me..."
#62) "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns and Roses - Predominant here is what I believe to be the driving force behind G-n'-R's greatness back in the day: Slash's guitar work.
Also, if 1/48/50 is at all going to be about taking a little bit of the past along with me, no other song reminds me more of being fifteen than Sweet Child O' Mine.
"Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place, where as a child I'd hide..."
#63) "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen purists may disagree, but Born in the USA should never be dismissed, or God forbid excluded, when discussing his complete body of work. The Boss's transformation from wild-eyed denizen of boardwalk carnivals in the 1970s to working class everyman who comes home spent and falls asleep in the dim light of his own regret in the 80s could easily be considered a perfectly organic evolution. Bruce couldn't get into his 30s and 40s and still be singing songs like Rosalita, could he? There is probably no more lamentable cold hard truth about Life than the fact that as we age, "Rosalita" - and all that she implies - goes away.
Born in the USA is by no means my favorite Springsteen song. But it's one of those loud, ringing anthems that complements any ride into - or out of - any community, any cruise past strip malls and factories and antenna farms and housing developments surrounding sporadic vestiges of our agrarian past - the odd silo, or random barn sprouting up from the now lifeless land. It truly plays well as one sails past a lot all at once. And I love the fact that the song is not uber-patriotic. In fact, it's not patriotic in the least. If anything, it's an indictment of the USA in the post-Vietnam era. The whole album is this, really, and as I understand it, Springsteen has refused more than a few politicians and organizations who didn't understand this and asked permission to use the song as a patriotic anthem.
For that reason alone, Born in the USA is worthy of Bruce's pantheon.
"They're still there, he's all gone..."
But the older I get, the more I appreciate Truckin'. Sometimes there's nothing better to groove to driving down the road; sometimes this is what I want to hear just sitting in a chair staring out the window. At the same time, the older the song gets, the more significant it becomes. On the surface, it would seem a musical travelogue of the band's tireless life on the road, but it also captures a snapshot of America at a specific moment in history, that precipitous time when everything was changing, and open drug references and 'hippie' defiance were still new and terrifying to Middle America, and thus groundbreaking in music (yet tame, of course, by today's standards).
There are those who dig even deeper into the lyrics, consider Truckin' a metaphor for Life, and I can get down with that.
"What a long, strange trip it's been..."
#61) "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash - In 1996, when I was working in country radio, I found Cash's American Recordings CD stashed amongst the collection of 'hot country' artists of the day. I can't remember what about it caught my eye, or what prompted me to listen (I was indifferent to Cash when I first got that job, and country music in general), but I was blown away by the gravitas of the songs, the fact that, though he was already in his mid 60s by then, Cash was still making relevant, impactful music. Little did I know American Recordings was only the start of a twilight resurgence for the Man in Black that would continue, with a little help from the competent Rick Rubin, right up to the time he died.
This was before all of that though, before his cover of Nine Inch Nails led to a posthumous explosion in popularity, before the Joaquin Phoenix movie, before it became uncool not to recognize his greatness. Cash deserves all of it certainly, but in this instance, I really was country when country wasn't cool, digging it way back when I was not allowed to play it on the air. I played Drive On (from American Recordings) once, and immediately got a call on the studio line from the station general manager, who seemed to be always listening.
'What the hell...!' he cried. "That's not hot country!'
Though I wanted to, I didn't bother asking what the CD was doing in the on-air booth with all the Shania Twain and Brooks and Dunn and Jo Dee Messina if I wasn't supposed to play it. But I was a Johnny Cash fan from that day forward in any case.
With its train rattle rhythm and one of the wickedest guitar licks ever fried in a pan, Folsom Prison Blues is from the vintage era of Johnny Cash. Outside of Ring of Fire, it's probably his signature song. The live version is the one to seek out, a little faster, little kickier than the album original, recorded at Folsom Prison, as a matter of fact, in the late 1960s. "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die," Cash warbles in his powerful - yet intriguingly unsteady - baritone. A second later, someone, presumably a member of the felonious audience, screams out "woooooo!", which I have always thought is as unsettling as it is hilarious.
Folsom Prison Blues is perfect for a road trip; always gets me thinking about freedom; that is, personal freedom, the simple yet seminal right we all (should) have to come and go as we please at any given second of our lives, to choose whether to stand on pavement or on grass, as it suits us. I can't imagine having that basic right taken away. I've known guys who have sat in jail, known some who have sat in jail repeatedly. And a few, even, who just can't seem to stay out of trouble, the majority of their adult time has been spent behind bars. No hardened criminals, mind you, but more than a few local losers who aren't bad people, just keep screwing up, and doing time, screwing up, and doing time, over and over.
This is beyond comprehension to me. One time locked up would be my only time. I would be lucky to survive it; I sure as hell wouldn't be back.
"But those people keep a-moving, and that's what tortures me..."
#62) "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns and Roses - Predominant here is what I believe to be the driving force behind G-n'-R's greatness back in the day: Slash's guitar work.
Also, if 1/48/50 is at all going to be about taking a little bit of the past along with me, no other song reminds me more of being fifteen than Sweet Child O' Mine.
"Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place, where as a child I'd hide..."
#63) "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen purists may disagree, but Born in the USA should never be dismissed, or God forbid excluded, when discussing his complete body of work. The Boss's transformation from wild-eyed denizen of boardwalk carnivals in the 1970s to working class everyman who comes home spent and falls asleep in the dim light of his own regret in the 80s could easily be considered a perfectly organic evolution. Bruce couldn't get into his 30s and 40s and still be singing songs like Rosalita, could he? There is probably no more lamentable cold hard truth about Life than the fact that as we age, "Rosalita" - and all that she implies - goes away.
Born in the USA is by no means my favorite Springsteen song. But it's one of those loud, ringing anthems that complements any ride into - or out of - any community, any cruise past strip malls and factories and antenna farms and housing developments surrounding sporadic vestiges of our agrarian past - the odd silo, or random barn sprouting up from the now lifeless land. It truly plays well as one sails past a lot all at once. And I love the fact that the song is not uber-patriotic. In fact, it's not patriotic in the least. If anything, it's an indictment of the USA in the post-Vietnam era. The whole album is this, really, and as I understand it, Springsteen has refused more than a few politicians and organizations who didn't understand this and asked permission to use the song as a patriotic anthem.
For that reason alone, Born in the USA is worthy of Bruce's pantheon.
"They're still there, he's all gone..."
Friday, December 13, 2013
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#56) "Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate" by Jackson Browne - When I was in high school, I was constantly on the hunt for musical heroes. While all in all I have fairly eclectic tastes, my 'heroes' list has never strayed too far from what I call white boy troubadours: John Lennon, Meat Loaf, Bruce Springsteen, Hank Williams Jr., Frank Sinatra, Tom Waits, among others, and principal among them (at least from age 18-22, when it mattered most): Bob Seger.
One night long ago, somewhere, I so frustrated a girlfriend (we'll call her Sammy) with a blowhard-ish sermon about what Seger's music is really saying (and that I was likely the only one understanding) that she blurted out, "You know what? I don't think you're Bob Seger at all...if you're like anyone, it's him!"
She pointed to the radio. 'Him' was Jackson Browne. The song playing at the time, Running on Empty.
"What the hell does that mean?" I said, flailing in the most sticky and viscous indignation my 18-year-old self could muster, as though she'd just questioned my manhood.
"I just don't think you're Bob Seger," she shrugged flatly. "You remind me of that guy."
I was appalled! Jackson Browne was obviously no Bob Seger, and she clearly wasn't listening! She wasn't understanding! She didn't GET me! ;-)
Now, twenty-five years later, I look back on her evaluation and think it was not only spot on, but, frankly, one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me.
Those for whom music is more than mere background noise know what it means to search for heroes, artists from whose songs we can report the news of our existence, compile the soundtrack of my lives. Naturally those heroes change over time, because we grow, evolve and adapt to changing life circumstances and stages. But I think Sammy was right even back then. It took me a while to come to Jackson Browne, because I didn't understand. I wasn't listening. I didn't get him.
Without question, the 'essence' of me, that is, the stuff that hasn't changed over time - how I cope with other people, with myself, with my emotions, with heartache and jubilation alike, with all those drastic changes in circumstances and stages - can be found in the comfy old shoe melancholy of Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate. The highway, the looking back, the looking forward, the old friends slipping away, the mellow, just-this-side-of-sentimental reflection that seeps out of the sunlight...never overwrought, never hyper-sensitive or drama-fueled...yes, that's pretty much how I've always rolled, emotionally, ever since I've been rolling.
And I gotta say, it's made for a slow, steady pleasurable ride that I wouldn't trade for anything.
"Sitting down by the highway (looking down the road), waiting for a ride / I don't know where I've been (wishing I could fly away), don't know where I'm going (wishing I could hide)..."
#57) "Love's the Last to Know" - by Bob Seger - Oh Sammy, that poor girl, suffered at the hands of my ego too often! In another instance, it wasn't enough to tell her about Seger, to blather about my essence, about some rarefied plane I'd cooked up in my mind, I felt compelled to play the music for her.
'Just listen to this one song,' I told her, 'and you'll understand what I'm talking about! You'll understand me!'
She reluctantly agreed to give a listen, and as I fumbled to rewind the cassette tape to just the right spot, I caught her rolling her eyes.
'Does this song have a lot of piano in it?' she groaned.
An astute observation, I've always thought, for a couple of reasons, and the answer, of course: hell yes, a lot of piano.
Love's the Last to Know doesn't move me quite like it used to. But it illustrates as vividly as a photograph the type of person I was once, or thought I would be...er, at least tried to make myself. And it still makes me think of morning as the best time to skip town. To that end, I have no doubt 1/48/50 will be launched in Steinbeck's hour of the pearl.
"There's a distant sound, to the outward bound, on a cold and windy night / A restless sigh as it fades away, a longing at first light..."
#58) "Whiskey River" by Willie Nelson - I'm not sure where this particular live version was recorded (Austin City Limits...?), or what album it was first released on (Willie and Family Live...?) but it is a great example of musical innovation, vastly different from the 1972 original by the lesser-known Johnny Bush, who wrote it. A friend of mine could not believe Willie's sharp, funked-out interpretation, which throws the country music playbook (of the time, anyway) out the window, and more importantly, captures a moment in country music history when lines were more blurred. It was harder to figure out just how the likes of Nelson (et al.) identified - as a redneck, or a hippie. Lots of twang and fiddle and pickin' going on (Willie's a killer picker), but rednecks don't groove like this...do they? And what's with the braids and bandanna?
Today, mainstream country music lamentably is mired in stereotypes that don't leave a lot of room for variety. Or braids and bandannas.
As one who has sort of always identified as a little bit redneck and a little bit hippie, and being from Wisconsin, Whiskey River has on more than one occasion provided the perfect accompaniment to the spastic moves I would bust out after 8 or 9 Pabsts, back in my younger days, when Pabst Blue Ribbon wasn't the victim of ignorant hipster whimsy, but simply the beer we could afford.
"Feeling the amber current flowing from my mind...."
#59) "Love Like You" by Paper Tongues - Something about this power ballad stirs me like no other, literally makes my heart beat faster. It's a custom-made wedding song, but encompasses all things good, fresh, and exhilarating. Seriously, this song would have you believe getting out of bed in the morning can or should be a nitrous-fueled acceleration toward the sun as she throws back her long blonde hair.
And really, what in the world could possibly be wrong with that?
"Your heart is a like a castle in my sky..."
One night long ago, somewhere, I so frustrated a girlfriend (we'll call her Sammy) with a blowhard-ish sermon about what Seger's music is really saying (and that I was likely the only one understanding) that she blurted out, "You know what? I don't think you're Bob Seger at all...if you're like anyone, it's him!"
She pointed to the radio. 'Him' was Jackson Browne. The song playing at the time, Running on Empty.
"What the hell does that mean?" I said, flailing in the most sticky and viscous indignation my 18-year-old self could muster, as though she'd just questioned my manhood.
"I just don't think you're Bob Seger," she shrugged flatly. "You remind me of that guy."
I was appalled! Jackson Browne was obviously no Bob Seger, and she clearly wasn't listening! She wasn't understanding! She didn't GET me! ;-)
Now, twenty-five years later, I look back on her evaluation and think it was not only spot on, but, frankly, one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me.
Those for whom music is more than mere background noise know what it means to search for heroes, artists from whose songs we can report the news of our existence, compile the soundtrack of my lives. Naturally those heroes change over time, because we grow, evolve and adapt to changing life circumstances and stages. But I think Sammy was right even back then. It took me a while to come to Jackson Browne, because I didn't understand. I wasn't listening. I didn't get him.
Without question, the 'essence' of me, that is, the stuff that hasn't changed over time - how I cope with other people, with myself, with my emotions, with heartache and jubilation alike, with all those drastic changes in circumstances and stages - can be found in the comfy old shoe melancholy of Sleep's Dark and Silent Gate. The highway, the looking back, the looking forward, the old friends slipping away, the mellow, just-this-side-of-sentimental reflection that seeps out of the sunlight...never overwrought, never hyper-sensitive or drama-fueled...yes, that's pretty much how I've always rolled, emotionally, ever since I've been rolling.
And I gotta say, it's made for a slow, steady pleasurable ride that I wouldn't trade for anything.
"Sitting down by the highway (looking down the road), waiting for a ride / I don't know where I've been (wishing I could fly away), don't know where I'm going (wishing I could hide)..."
#57) "Love's the Last to Know" - by Bob Seger - Oh Sammy, that poor girl, suffered at the hands of my ego too often! In another instance, it wasn't enough to tell her about Seger, to blather about my essence, about some rarefied plane I'd cooked up in my mind, I felt compelled to play the music for her.
'Just listen to this one song,' I told her, 'and you'll understand what I'm talking about! You'll understand me!'
She reluctantly agreed to give a listen, and as I fumbled to rewind the cassette tape to just the right spot, I caught her rolling her eyes.
'Does this song have a lot of piano in it?' she groaned.
An astute observation, I've always thought, for a couple of reasons, and the answer, of course: hell yes, a lot of piano.
Love's the Last to Know doesn't move me quite like it used to. But it illustrates as vividly as a photograph the type of person I was once, or thought I would be...er, at least tried to make myself. And it still makes me think of morning as the best time to skip town. To that end, I have no doubt 1/48/50 will be launched in Steinbeck's hour of the pearl.
"There's a distant sound, to the outward bound, on a cold and windy night / A restless sigh as it fades away, a longing at first light..."
#58) "Whiskey River" by Willie Nelson - I'm not sure where this particular live version was recorded (Austin City Limits...?), or what album it was first released on (Willie and Family Live...?) but it is a great example of musical innovation, vastly different from the 1972 original by the lesser-known Johnny Bush, who wrote it. A friend of mine could not believe Willie's sharp, funked-out interpretation, which throws the country music playbook (of the time, anyway) out the window, and more importantly, captures a moment in country music history when lines were more blurred. It was harder to figure out just how the likes of Nelson (et al.) identified - as a redneck, or a hippie. Lots of twang and fiddle and pickin' going on (Willie's a killer picker), but rednecks don't groove like this...do they? And what's with the braids and bandanna?
Today, mainstream country music lamentably is mired in stereotypes that don't leave a lot of room for variety. Or braids and bandannas.
As one who has sort of always identified as a little bit redneck and a little bit hippie, and being from Wisconsin, Whiskey River has on more than one occasion provided the perfect accompaniment to the spastic moves I would bust out after 8 or 9 Pabsts, back in my younger days, when Pabst Blue Ribbon wasn't the victim of ignorant hipster whimsy, but simply the beer we could afford.
"Feeling the amber current flowing from my mind...."
#59) "Love Like You" by Paper Tongues - Something about this power ballad stirs me like no other, literally makes my heart beat faster. It's a custom-made wedding song, but encompasses all things good, fresh, and exhilarating. Seriously, this song would have you believe getting out of bed in the morning can or should be a nitrous-fueled acceleration toward the sun as she throws back her long blonde hair.
And really, what in the world could possibly be wrong with that?
"Your heart is a like a castle in my sky..."
Friday, December 6, 2013
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#50) "14 Years" by Guns N' Roses - Not only is this not much of a road song, it might very well be considered the anti-road song....all that 'the road' is not. Nothing good is going on here - no high spirits, no joy, no wanderlust, no revelry; an urge to escape from something surely, but no opportunity to do so, at least at the moment. In the moment this song creates, you got a real mess on your hands.
In researching it, I discovered something I never knew in 22 years: Izzy Stradlin sings lead, not Axl Rose. I had no idea! But it doesn't change anything; the song is still one of G-n'-R's more emotionally complex numbers, a haunting portrayal, in my mind, of the deep-rooted anger that divorce can bring. I say divorce, because that's how the song has always read to me. It's significant that it's 14 years on trial here, not 2 years or even 5, nothing that could be dismissed as a come-and-go relationship, a mere break-up, but well past a decade of (presumably) marriage that crashes and explodes in an acrimonious fireball. We can all spare a year or two...but 14 years? That's when the best you can probably hope for from anger is that it cools down and crusts over into regret.
I've always liked the wicked piano riff too. And though it may not be a road song, on the album (Use Your Illusion II), it leads directly to one...a monster, in fact:
"Don't get back 14 years, in just one day..."
#51) "Yesterdays" by Guns N' Roses - Not much to say, leaving town, baby...leaving town, getting out. Because yesterday's got nothing for me.
"Some things could be better, if we'd all just let them be..."
#52) "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" by Tom Waits - Also not much of a road song, but a deceptively simple lament of the sorrowful reality that is the adult world. I really like singing along with this. My voice is almost as smooth as Tom Waits'. ;-)
"I don't wanna live in a big old tomb on Grand Street..."
#53) "So It Goes" by Tom Waits - From the early years, when Tom Waits (who looms large in my musical consciousness, mind you) could still carry a tune, So it Goes is quiet and folk-oriented, speaking nothing of the long experimental miles he would travel musically in decades to come, instead speaking its truth within the framework of a singular emotional moment. Always makes for powerful stuff.
"And so it goes, nobody knows how to get to the sky..."
#54) "Ship of Fools" by Bob Seger - This song does away with the bare bones roots rock Seger made himself famous with, and takes an intriguing allegorical approach to the subject of identity, and - I think - solitude and how the two relate to one another. It leads to a tragic (or not so tragic, depending on your point of view) finish, and twenty-five years later I've never been able to figure out just what is being said.
But I keep listening; all told, I think I've spent more time trying to interpret this song than any other, and somewhere lost on a long highway with miles before and miles behind is the perfect place to try figuring just what's going on in the song, and my life.
And how the two relate to one another.
"Well he stood there like some idol, and he listened like some temple, and then he turned away..."
In researching it, I discovered something I never knew in 22 years: Izzy Stradlin sings lead, not Axl Rose. I had no idea! But it doesn't change anything; the song is still one of G-n'-R's more emotionally complex numbers, a haunting portrayal, in my mind, of the deep-rooted anger that divorce can bring. I say divorce, because that's how the song has always read to me. It's significant that it's 14 years on trial here, not 2 years or even 5, nothing that could be dismissed as a come-and-go relationship, a mere break-up, but well past a decade of (presumably) marriage that crashes and explodes in an acrimonious fireball. We can all spare a year or two...but 14 years? That's when the best you can probably hope for from anger is that it cools down and crusts over into regret.
I've always liked the wicked piano riff too. And though it may not be a road song, on the album (Use Your Illusion II), it leads directly to one...a monster, in fact:
"Don't get back 14 years, in just one day..."
#51) "Yesterdays" by Guns N' Roses - Not much to say, leaving town, baby...leaving town, getting out. Because yesterday's got nothing for me.
"Some things could be better, if we'd all just let them be..."
#52) "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" by Tom Waits - Also not much of a road song, but a deceptively simple lament of the sorrowful reality that is the adult world. I really like singing along with this. My voice is almost as smooth as Tom Waits'. ;-)
"I don't wanna live in a big old tomb on Grand Street..."
#53) "So It Goes" by Tom Waits - From the early years, when Tom Waits (who looms large in my musical consciousness, mind you) could still carry a tune, So it Goes is quiet and folk-oriented, speaking nothing of the long experimental miles he would travel musically in decades to come, instead speaking its truth within the framework of a singular emotional moment. Always makes for powerful stuff.
"And so it goes, nobody knows how to get to the sky..."
#54) "Ship of Fools" by Bob Seger - This song does away with the bare bones roots rock Seger made himself famous with, and takes an intriguing allegorical approach to the subject of identity, and - I think - solitude and how the two relate to one another. It leads to a tragic (or not so tragic, depending on your point of view) finish, and twenty-five years later I've never been able to figure out just what is being said.
But I keep listening; all told, I think I've spent more time trying to interpret this song than any other, and somewhere lost on a long highway with miles before and miles behind is the perfect place to try figuring just what's going on in the song, and my life.
And how the two relate to one another.
"Well he stood there like some idol, and he listened like some temple, and then he turned away..."
Friday, November 29, 2013
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#46) "How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty - This well-constructed, and for me sublimely moving, song harnesses the super-concentrated energy of something like Walking on Sunshine by Katrina and the Waves, but dampens it with a wind blast of anxiety, creating a strange but compelling emotional juxtaposition. Everything about it - from the marching forward melody, to Rob Thomas' disquieted vocals, to percussion that sounds like rocks tumbling down mountain faces onto roadways - mesmerizes me into daydreams about those heart-breaking instances - in relationships, lives, eras and worlds alike - when the end is already in motion before you realize what's happening.
Matchbox Twenty is one of those workhorse bands that never achieve superstardom, exactly, but never go away, and never seem to do anything wrong. While How Far We've Come is a resonant reminder of the instability that permeates life, it's also, I think, an affirmation that rock solid reliability, in music at least, does exist.
"Say your goodbyes if you got someone you can say goodbye to..."
#47) "I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am" by Merle Haggard - It might be considered traditional country, and for this list, a traditional 'road song', but there is really nothing traditional about Merle Haggard. A country music artist with folk sensibilities and an unerring ear for sweet melody, Haggard always spoke from the heart, even when it was unfashionable, sometimes especially if it was, and without trying too hard became country music's foremost troubadour. Today he resides as an elder statesman.
There's a sharp sullenness marking much of his music, which is what I love about it, but with the (slightly) lesser known I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am, Haggard takes a gentler tack with his ruminating. By all accounts, he lived much of what the song's about as a young man, and you can tell. There's a quiet but powerful authority to the lyrics, which lends a true presence to its melodic beauty. All of this conspires to make the fact that, until about 1960, there probably weren't many amongst the cell mates, prison guards and rough women who knew him who thought Merle Haggard would amount to much truly amazing. And inspiring.
"Hey I'm not bragging or complaining, I'm just talking to myself man to man..."
#48) "Fast as You" by Dwight Yoakam - In the early and mid-1980s, Dwight Yoakam helped spark a neo-traditional movement in country music; drawing a little from the Bakersfield sound, but adding a more sexually charged, and far hipper, dimension that was all his own.
Fast as You is perhaps the best example of this, a song so slick you can dance to it without moving, and I was lucky that it was more or less my introduction to country music. I'd grown up hating (er...not appreciating) the genre, but then, ironically enough, took a job as a deejay at a 100,000 watt country station. One Friday night, someone requested this song, and as it played over the on-air booth monitors, I realized there was much more to country than the stereotypes I'd been mocking most of my life, and for that matter, more to the stereotypes than meets the eye...or the ear.
"Maybe I'll break hearts too..."
#49) "Stay with Me" by Faces - Ronnie Wood's axe grinding at the beginning is an air-guitarist's dream, but it's Rod Stewart's one-of-a-kind voice that keeps this song from becoming disposable. The late 60s/early 70s was the best era for Rod, in my opinion. Before he glammed out (Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?), before he lamed out (Forever Young)...back when he was just a rock and roller with a sense of humor, a slight chip on his shoulder and a killer voice, who didn't have anything to say or prove, and thus said and proved everything.
"I don't mean to sound degrading, but with a face like that you got nothing to laugh about..."
Matchbox Twenty is one of those workhorse bands that never achieve superstardom, exactly, but never go away, and never seem to do anything wrong. While How Far We've Come is a resonant reminder of the instability that permeates life, it's also, I think, an affirmation that rock solid reliability, in music at least, does exist.
"Say your goodbyes if you got someone you can say goodbye to..."
#47) "I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am" by Merle Haggard - It might be considered traditional country, and for this list, a traditional 'road song', but there is really nothing traditional about Merle Haggard. A country music artist with folk sensibilities and an unerring ear for sweet melody, Haggard always spoke from the heart, even when it was unfashionable, sometimes especially if it was, and without trying too hard became country music's foremost troubadour. Today he resides as an elder statesman.
There's a sharp sullenness marking much of his music, which is what I love about it, but with the (slightly) lesser known I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am, Haggard takes a gentler tack with his ruminating. By all accounts, he lived much of what the song's about as a young man, and you can tell. There's a quiet but powerful authority to the lyrics, which lends a true presence to its melodic beauty. All of this conspires to make the fact that, until about 1960, there probably weren't many amongst the cell mates, prison guards and rough women who knew him who thought Merle Haggard would amount to much truly amazing. And inspiring.
"Hey I'm not bragging or complaining, I'm just talking to myself man to man..."
#48) "Fast as You" by Dwight Yoakam - In the early and mid-1980s, Dwight Yoakam helped spark a neo-traditional movement in country music; drawing a little from the Bakersfield sound, but adding a more sexually charged, and far hipper, dimension that was all his own.
Fast as You is perhaps the best example of this, a song so slick you can dance to it without moving, and I was lucky that it was more or less my introduction to country music. I'd grown up hating (er...not appreciating) the genre, but then, ironically enough, took a job as a deejay at a 100,000 watt country station. One Friday night, someone requested this song, and as it played over the on-air booth monitors, I realized there was much more to country than the stereotypes I'd been mocking most of my life, and for that matter, more to the stereotypes than meets the eye...or the ear.
"Maybe I'll break hearts too..."
#49) "Stay with Me" by Faces - Ronnie Wood's axe grinding at the beginning is an air-guitarist's dream, but it's Rod Stewart's one-of-a-kind voice that keeps this song from becoming disposable. The late 60s/early 70s was the best era for Rod, in my opinion. Before he glammed out (Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?), before he lamed out (Forever Young)...back when he was just a rock and roller with a sense of humor, a slight chip on his shoulder and a killer voice, who didn't have anything to say or prove, and thus said and proved everything.
"I don't mean to sound degrading, but with a face like that you got nothing to laugh about..."
Friday, November 22, 2013
Reason #17 to Live Nebulously: Black Thursday...??
Seriously? Can't we have a break from the noise? A one-day reprieve from the vigilant consumerism that permeates our lives year-round, but really gets ramped up this time of year in an effort to safeguard what we have come to believe constitutes a 'happy' holiday season?
I say this not because I'm above it all, but because I am as susceptible as anyone. I can't say I've ever (or would ever) stand huddled in the pre-dawn darkness in front of a Best Buy on Friday morning to save $50, but would I hoist myself up at 8 p.m. Thursday night after consuming six pounds of turkey? I might; I just might.
I don't appreciate feeling like I should, feeling as though if I don't, I'm missing out on something important. I don't think it should be an option. Opening the doors to the absurd spectacle (sometimes outright freak show) that is 'Black Friday' on Thanksgiving night is not only exploiting both consumer and worker, it is the very antithesis of what the holiday should be about and needs to remain: quiet, reflective, small and insular, everything closed, with the exception of a convenience store or two, for travelers, or in case someone forgot the stuffing. A breather from the other 364 days to appreciate everything in our lives that money can't buy. Just one day. We can handle one day without the noise, can't we?
Just one day?
I say this not because I'm above it all, but because I am as susceptible as anyone. I can't say I've ever (or would ever) stand huddled in the pre-dawn darkness in front of a Best Buy on Friday morning to save $50, but would I hoist myself up at 8 p.m. Thursday night after consuming six pounds of turkey? I might; I just might.
I don't appreciate feeling like I should, feeling as though if I don't, I'm missing out on something important. I don't think it should be an option. Opening the doors to the absurd spectacle (sometimes outright freak show) that is 'Black Friday' on Thanksgiving night is not only exploiting both consumer and worker, it is the very antithesis of what the holiday should be about and needs to remain: quiet, reflective, small and insular, everything closed, with the exception of a convenience store or two, for travelers, or in case someone forgot the stuffing. A breather from the other 364 days to appreciate everything in our lives that money can't buy. Just one day. We can handle one day without the noise, can't we?
Just one day?
Friday, November 15, 2013
The Top 100 Songs (or so) I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#42) "Summertime" by Kenny Chesney - Kenny Chesney has built his career largely around kicking back and looking back. His music for the most part avoids the piss and vinegar prevalent among many of his country music co-stars; that is, it avoids being overly 'country', 'American', or 'Southern', sentiments which can lead to a kind of exclusion unless you're determined to strike a serious, and absurd, pose.
This laid back (and truthfully no less 'country', 'American' or 'Southern') musical style and vibe appeals to me. Chesney has come to represent, for me, what being a small towner should be about...and was for me, to an extent, in days gone by (minus the cowboy hat and boots, which I would look positively horrendous in). Some of the first times and good times in his music are idealized, but really no more so than they wind up being in people's memories. Some people were lucky enough to get a taste, just a taste, of something idyllic. I was one of them.
Summertime is an ode to the sweetest season; the only season I would ever dream of trying to pull off 1/48/50 in. It's a clarion call to the anticipation and practice of a perfect summer. Like much of Chesney's music, it just kind of feels good, and more importantly, I get the sense that everyone's invited to the party.
"The nights roll in, man, just like a long lost friend..."
#43) "Winning" by Santana - Winning was released in 1981, but I didn't realize it was Santana until 2007. I'm not sure who I thought it was all those times it droned in the background on this classic rock station or that; some one-hit wonder of the era, I guess. It's not Carlos Santana singing, it rarely (never?) is, and the singer's vocal style is a bit different from other Santana collaborations. But the guitar work is hard to mistake for anyone but Santana, and this just might be the mother of all 'never say die' survival songs. I don't like the thought of getting out of bed without this song within reach, really, much less driving 14,000 miles across the country.
"I had a dream, but it turned to dust/what I thought was love that must have been lust..."
#44) "(Sittin' on) The Dock of a Bay" by Otis Redding - Recorded just a few days before the soul singer's untimely death in 1967, (Sittin' on) The Dock of a Bay became a huge hit in the aftermath. But to dwell on the posthumous factor is to detract, unfairly in my opinion, from the greatness of the song. Between the elegant arrangement complementing his butter smooth voice, and his butter smooth voice complementing lyrics that are as salty as they are tragic, I think even if Redding were alive today this would still be considered, and rightly so, one of the greatest recordings ever.
And if you really think about it a moment, sitting on the dock of a bay, wasting time, might just be the ultimate, ultimate state of living nebulously!
"Sitting here resting my bones, and this loneliness won't leave me alone..."
#45) "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train - Train is one of those bands people love to hate; their songs usually turn up on playlists as dirty little secrets, but this keeps the band quietly and securely living on the close periphery of stardom. They never make a huge impact; never reveal themselves as game changers, never sweep the Grammies (although they have won). But since the late 90s they've kind of always been there, doing their thing. Everybody knows the band, but nobody seems to know what the lead singer's name is offhand, and nearly everyone I've talked to over time has at least one song they like that they were surprised to learn was a Train song.
For me, Train's music is like wine. The more time goes by, the better it tastes - the richer and more complex the notes. Drops of Jupiter, Meet Virginia, Calling All Angels...songs that used to annoy me (without really knowing why) simply don't anymore (also without knowing why).
I have a special place in my heart for 2009's Hey, Soul Sister. It was released at a time of upheaval in my life. When everything was changing all at once, when it was anybody's guess how things were going to shake out, and I was faced with coming to terms with a few of the leaden realities of life, this song came along like a gasp of relief, a brightly lit reassurance that everything was going to be all right, that I was going to be all right. Music doesn't normally serve that function for me, but Hey, Soul Sister was at the right place at the right time.
This laid back (and truthfully no less 'country', 'American' or 'Southern') musical style and vibe appeals to me. Chesney has come to represent, for me, what being a small towner should be about...and was for me, to an extent, in days gone by (minus the cowboy hat and boots, which I would look positively horrendous in). Some of the first times and good times in his music are idealized, but really no more so than they wind up being in people's memories. Some people were lucky enough to get a taste, just a taste, of something idyllic. I was one of them.
Summertime is an ode to the sweetest season; the only season I would ever dream of trying to pull off 1/48/50 in. It's a clarion call to the anticipation and practice of a perfect summer. Like much of Chesney's music, it just kind of feels good, and more importantly, I get the sense that everyone's invited to the party.
"The nights roll in, man, just like a long lost friend..."
#43) "Winning" by Santana - Winning was released in 1981, but I didn't realize it was Santana until 2007. I'm not sure who I thought it was all those times it droned in the background on this classic rock station or that; some one-hit wonder of the era, I guess. It's not Carlos Santana singing, it rarely (never?) is, and the singer's vocal style is a bit different from other Santana collaborations. But the guitar work is hard to mistake for anyone but Santana, and this just might be the mother of all 'never say die' survival songs. I don't like the thought of getting out of bed without this song within reach, really, much less driving 14,000 miles across the country.
"I had a dream, but it turned to dust/what I thought was love that must have been lust..."
#44) "(Sittin' on) The Dock of a Bay" by Otis Redding - Recorded just a few days before the soul singer's untimely death in 1967, (Sittin' on) The Dock of a Bay became a huge hit in the aftermath. But to dwell on the posthumous factor is to detract, unfairly in my opinion, from the greatness of the song. Between the elegant arrangement complementing his butter smooth voice, and his butter smooth voice complementing lyrics that are as salty as they are tragic, I think even if Redding were alive today this would still be considered, and rightly so, one of the greatest recordings ever.
And if you really think about it a moment, sitting on the dock of a bay, wasting time, might just be the ultimate, ultimate state of living nebulously!
"Sitting here resting my bones, and this loneliness won't leave me alone..."
#45) "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train - Train is one of those bands people love to hate; their songs usually turn up on playlists as dirty little secrets, but this keeps the band quietly and securely living on the close periphery of stardom. They never make a huge impact; never reveal themselves as game changers, never sweep the Grammies (although they have won). But since the late 90s they've kind of always been there, doing their thing. Everybody knows the band, but nobody seems to know what the lead singer's name is offhand, and nearly everyone I've talked to over time has at least one song they like that they were surprised to learn was a Train song.
For me, Train's music is like wine. The more time goes by, the better it tastes - the richer and more complex the notes. Drops of Jupiter, Meet Virginia, Calling All Angels...songs that used to annoy me (without really knowing why) simply don't anymore (also without knowing why).
I have a special place in my heart for 2009's Hey, Soul Sister. It was released at a time of upheaval in my life. When everything was changing all at once, when it was anybody's guess how things were going to shake out, and I was faced with coming to terms with a few of the leaden realities of life, this song came along like a gasp of relief, a brightly lit reassurance that everything was going to be all right, that I was going to be all right. Music doesn't normally serve that function for me, but Hey, Soul Sister was at the right place at the right time.
Friday, November 8, 2013
The Top 100 Songs (or so) I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#38) "Twenty-one" by The Eagles - There's a brand of breezy cockiness to this song that I felt deep in my bones around the age of twenty-one (maybe a little younger, maybe a little older), even though I had little at the time to be cocky about. I was a young parent, had no money, had taken my turn in line with the other losers in town either not smart enough or motivated enough to go to college, whose paths crossed mine amid the few low-pay, low talent jobs available.
But I was nevertheless certain of things back then, certain as much of what I didn't want in my life as what I wanted. I knew what I was capable of, if not exactly where I was headed; I knew what mattered and what didn't; I existed, in my mind at least, on a self-styled rarefied plane of existence, knowing myself, knowing 'things'. Twenty-one was a truly authentic contribution to the soundtrack of my young life, and these days, its bright tune and fantastically optimistic lyrics still speak to me, even though I have crossed the halfway point and don't have nearly as much time on my side.
But truthfully, I didn't have nearly as much time as I thought back then either. It's always later than we think, which is why optimism, even if it drifts into cockiness once in a while, is vital.
'They say a man should have a stock and trade/but me, I'll find another way...'
#39) "Ragin' Cajun" by The Charlie Daniels Band - Though the story this song tells is pretty ridiculous, Charlie Daniels is unique in country music for his brand of folklore-style storytelling, and Ragin' Cajun not only vividly illustrates CDB's tightly woven musicianship (also unique - as in rare - in country), but gets me thinking a little about what it means to be southern.
I am not southern. I'm the opposite of southern, in fact. I am from Wisconsin...northern Wisconsin, at that. I've always had a theory that the further north you travel, the less communicative people become. Not unfriendly or hostile, necessarily, just with less to say, and less concern whether anything gets said...laconic, terse. I've always liked being a part of that culture a little.
But in the south, man...they are just full of their southern pride, and never content to revel in it quietly. Some of it is warranted - an undeniable friendliness and slower pace (that I've experienced anyway), pockets of really good food (Creole, Cajun, et cetera...) - some of it isn't; that is, some of it comes across like an over compensatory response to losing the Civil War...but it's there, it's real, and felt by just about everyone. Their land, their women, their sports, their traditions, figures of speech and habits, all of it lauded in song time and time again, under the unified banner of 'southern', and in this song, literally, the fiery explosion of fiddles that ushers in its frolicsome, square-dancin' middle eight section with the absolutism of a new law being enacted.
Yes, I'm proud to be where I'm from, but that pride just never reaches a fevered pitch in Wisconsin, or anywhere north of St. Louis that I've seen. For reasons I can't quite explain, I find the phenomenon of southern pride fascinating.
'He was faster than a copperhead, and he warn't afraid of hell...'
#40) "I Ain't Heard of That" by Slim Thug - Talk about a narrative that I don't understand, I am about as far away from the person anyone would expect to be listening to this song as can be.
And yet, I don't like having to buy into that thinking. Is music not the universal language of mankind? What's the point of making music if only for a depressingly narrow audience? Of course, subject matter is a factor. You got to be able to relate to a song somewhat in order to be fully moved by it. And I don't pretend to be moved by the lyrics to I Ain't Heard of That. They are witless and menacing, and like the previous Charlie Daniels song (ironically enough), tell a more or less ridiculous story.
But it's the rhythm of this song that gets me...infectious, hypnotic. Rhythm, for my money, is what MAKES music the universal language. Ever since the first Cro-Magnon, bored out of his gourd on a long, winter night, thought to pick up two bones off the cave floor and start tapping away on a rock, then kept at it over and over again, until his snaggle-toothed girl hoisted herself up and started shaking her ass, rhythm has been what's brought us together.
Not as a culture, or a race, but a species.
"If it make you want to move, then move..."
#41) "We Can Make the Morning" by Elvis Presley - I'm a big 'late Elvis' fan. Everything he did from his television 'comeback special' in '68 until his death in '77 represents the quintessential Elvis, what he felt he was, and was, really - his music rooted, style-wise, in the gospel he loved above all else. I am well aware there are many in the world who would heartily disagree. Elvis is the King of Rock and Roll, they'd say, and all that Vegas-era crap he did after meeting with Richard Nixon is just his musical decline mirroring his physical decline.
But for me, there's something refreshing, something hauntingly distant and ethereal sounding, about his music from his final decade: Kentucky Rain, If I Can Dream, Memories, his fantastic live rendition of Unchained Melody in the very last weeks of his life, when it was apparent that while his body may have failed him, his voice never did. His voice soars in this era, and the music follows, as if caught in a swift updraft, right through the rain into the sunny cloud tops. We Can Make the Morning is quintessential 'late Elvis'...and late Elvis songs are like the soundtracks to dreams for me...good dreams. The ones you don't want to wake up from. I predict more than a few of them on this 1/48/50 list.
And yeah, maybe a few early ones too. ;-)
"Hope creates a foothold for the light...."
But I was nevertheless certain of things back then, certain as much of what I didn't want in my life as what I wanted. I knew what I was capable of, if not exactly where I was headed; I knew what mattered and what didn't; I existed, in my mind at least, on a self-styled rarefied plane of existence, knowing myself, knowing 'things'. Twenty-one was a truly authentic contribution to the soundtrack of my young life, and these days, its bright tune and fantastically optimistic lyrics still speak to me, even though I have crossed the halfway point and don't have nearly as much time on my side.
But truthfully, I didn't have nearly as much time as I thought back then either. It's always later than we think, which is why optimism, even if it drifts into cockiness once in a while, is vital.
'They say a man should have a stock and trade/but me, I'll find another way...'
#39) "Ragin' Cajun" by The Charlie Daniels Band - Though the story this song tells is pretty ridiculous, Charlie Daniels is unique in country music for his brand of folklore-style storytelling, and Ragin' Cajun not only vividly illustrates CDB's tightly woven musicianship (also unique - as in rare - in country), but gets me thinking a little about what it means to be southern.
I am not southern. I'm the opposite of southern, in fact. I am from Wisconsin...northern Wisconsin, at that. I've always had a theory that the further north you travel, the less communicative people become. Not unfriendly or hostile, necessarily, just with less to say, and less concern whether anything gets said...laconic, terse. I've always liked being a part of that culture a little.
But in the south, man...they are just full of their southern pride, and never content to revel in it quietly. Some of it is warranted - an undeniable friendliness and slower pace (that I've experienced anyway), pockets of really good food (Creole, Cajun, et cetera...) - some of it isn't; that is, some of it comes across like an over compensatory response to losing the Civil War...but it's there, it's real, and felt by just about everyone. Their land, their women, their sports, their traditions, figures of speech and habits, all of it lauded in song time and time again, under the unified banner of 'southern', and in this song, literally, the fiery explosion of fiddles that ushers in its frolicsome, square-dancin' middle eight section with the absolutism of a new law being enacted.
Yes, I'm proud to be where I'm from, but that pride just never reaches a fevered pitch in Wisconsin, or anywhere north of St. Louis that I've seen. For reasons I can't quite explain, I find the phenomenon of southern pride fascinating.
'He was faster than a copperhead, and he warn't afraid of hell...'
#40) "I Ain't Heard of That" by Slim Thug - Talk about a narrative that I don't understand, I am about as far away from the person anyone would expect to be listening to this song as can be.
And yet, I don't like having to buy into that thinking. Is music not the universal language of mankind? What's the point of making music if only for a depressingly narrow audience? Of course, subject matter is a factor. You got to be able to relate to a song somewhat in order to be fully moved by it. And I don't pretend to be moved by the lyrics to I Ain't Heard of That. They are witless and menacing, and like the previous Charlie Daniels song (ironically enough), tell a more or less ridiculous story.
But it's the rhythm of this song that gets me...infectious, hypnotic. Rhythm, for my money, is what MAKES music the universal language. Ever since the first Cro-Magnon, bored out of his gourd on a long, winter night, thought to pick up two bones off the cave floor and start tapping away on a rock, then kept at it over and over again, until his snaggle-toothed girl hoisted herself up and started shaking her ass, rhythm has been what's brought us together.
Not as a culture, or a race, but a species.
"If it make you want to move, then move..."
#41) "We Can Make the Morning" by Elvis Presley - I'm a big 'late Elvis' fan. Everything he did from his television 'comeback special' in '68 until his death in '77 represents the quintessential Elvis, what he felt he was, and was, really - his music rooted, style-wise, in the gospel he loved above all else. I am well aware there are many in the world who would heartily disagree. Elvis is the King of Rock and Roll, they'd say, and all that Vegas-era crap he did after meeting with Richard Nixon is just his musical decline mirroring his physical decline.
But for me, there's something refreshing, something hauntingly distant and ethereal sounding, about his music from his final decade: Kentucky Rain, If I Can Dream, Memories, his fantastic live rendition of Unchained Melody in the very last weeks of his life, when it was apparent that while his body may have failed him, his voice never did. His voice soars in this era, and the music follows, as if caught in a swift updraft, right through the rain into the sunny cloud tops. We Can Make the Morning is quintessential 'late Elvis'...and late Elvis songs are like the soundtracks to dreams for me...good dreams. The ones you don't want to wake up from. I predict more than a few of them on this 1/48/50 list.
And yeah, maybe a few early ones too. ;-)
"Hope creates a foothold for the light...."
Friday, November 1, 2013
The Top 100 Songs (or so) I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#34) "Going to California" by Led Zeppelin - Another touch of surreal, Middle Earth-ism in Robert Plant's poetry and Zeppelin's music, Going to California encapsulates, in my mind, the entire 'trip' of the late 1960s. The plunky guitar seems to carry Plant's cloud-strewn voice in from another dimension, encapsulating both the excitement and beauty, and the menace and madness, of California dreaming.
And if you think about it, it could be applied not just to the flower children of the 60s, but the Okies of the 30s, or the gold diggers of 1849. There's always been something about California that hurts as much as it heals, and never heals quite like it's expected to.
"Spent my days with a woman unkind/smoked my stuff and drank all my wine..."
#35) "Take it to the Limit" by The Eagles - I have sort of a love/hate relationship with The Eagles. They were a pretty big deal to me once (Hotel California was one of those songs I spent more than a few Saturday nights playing backwards on my record player when I was kid, searching for hidden messages, because how could there not be hidden messages in that one!), but I simply don't care for them anymore. Something about their music grates on me now, or worse, fails to keep my interest. I've said it many times: the only way to really offend me is to bore me.
But there are a couple of hold-outs in their library that have stood the test of time, and one of these, surprisingly enough, is 1975's Take it to the Limit. Surprising, in that I don't imagine a lot of energy was put into the writing of this song; it's basically just a jumble of half-baked lyrics set to a lumbering horse-trot beat. But it nevertheless captures the spirit of 'the road' pretty well in my mind, and what I find interesting is that while most highway songs are from a youth's perspective, Take it to the Limit seems to come from a later stage in life, suggesting a desire to not go gently...
Which doubtless will be much on my mind by the time 1/48/50 rolls around.
"But the dreams I've seen lately, keep on turning out, and burning out, and turning out the same..."
#36) "Snowbird" by Anne Murray - 1/48/50 promises to be a fairly cathartic experience all around, happening at a time when I will be not only taking stock of my life, but the times in which it has played out. Acknowledging this necessitates bringing along music from the cradle of my life, unfashionable - and a little embarrassing - though it may be.
For better or worse, Snowbird is not only one of the first songs I remember hearing in my life, but its sound - mainly the crisp, gleaming orchestral accompaniment - is what I remember of much of the music playing when I was very young. I could not have custom ordered better parents, but they were not rock and rollers, and the music that was playing in those early days (before I could choose what music played) was either classical, or some form of AM gold - Carole King, The Carpenters, James Taylor, Barry Manilow, Stephen Bishop - either piddling from the tweezy tweeter of the tiny AM radio on the window sill behind the cash register in their book store, or thumping from the whopping 8-track stereo system (about the size of a small car) that prepossessed our living room..
Truth be told, I'm not embarrassed at all. Snowbird is a pretty song. It's not sexy, but its airy gentleness makes its well suited for introducing any young child to the world. It's not fashionable, but maybe that just means it will never go out of style.
"The thing I want most in life's the thing that I can't win..."
#37) "Hey Nineteen" by Steely Dan - More magical, musical elixir from Steely Dan, Hey Nineteen is flawless insertion of vocals into flawless rhythm, dressed in a flawless arrangement of horns, guitars and synthesizers. True to their track record, it does not fail to suggest a certain bewitching sleaziness running silver - or maybe gray - just beneath the skin, and leave it to Steely Dan to make a song about a mid-life crisis sound sexy and vital.
This would be a good 'offbeat' song to watch a woman dance to.
"The Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian, make tonight a wonderful thing..."
And if you think about it, it could be applied not just to the flower children of the 60s, but the Okies of the 30s, or the gold diggers of 1849. There's always been something about California that hurts as much as it heals, and never heals quite like it's expected to.
"Spent my days with a woman unkind/smoked my stuff and drank all my wine..."
#35) "Take it to the Limit" by The Eagles - I have sort of a love/hate relationship with The Eagles. They were a pretty big deal to me once (Hotel California was one of those songs I spent more than a few Saturday nights playing backwards on my record player when I was kid, searching for hidden messages, because how could there not be hidden messages in that one!), but I simply don't care for them anymore. Something about their music grates on me now, or worse, fails to keep my interest. I've said it many times: the only way to really offend me is to bore me.
But there are a couple of hold-outs in their library that have stood the test of time, and one of these, surprisingly enough, is 1975's Take it to the Limit. Surprising, in that I don't imagine a lot of energy was put into the writing of this song; it's basically just a jumble of half-baked lyrics set to a lumbering horse-trot beat. But it nevertheless captures the spirit of 'the road' pretty well in my mind, and what I find interesting is that while most highway songs are from a youth's perspective, Take it to the Limit seems to come from a later stage in life, suggesting a desire to not go gently...
Which doubtless will be much on my mind by the time 1/48/50 rolls around.
"But the dreams I've seen lately, keep on turning out, and burning out, and turning out the same..."
#36) "Snowbird" by Anne Murray - 1/48/50 promises to be a fairly cathartic experience all around, happening at a time when I will be not only taking stock of my life, but the times in which it has played out. Acknowledging this necessitates bringing along music from the cradle of my life, unfashionable - and a little embarrassing - though it may be.
For better or worse, Snowbird is not only one of the first songs I remember hearing in my life, but its sound - mainly the crisp, gleaming orchestral accompaniment - is what I remember of much of the music playing when I was very young. I could not have custom ordered better parents, but they were not rock and rollers, and the music that was playing in those early days (before I could choose what music played) was either classical, or some form of AM gold - Carole King, The Carpenters, James Taylor, Barry Manilow, Stephen Bishop - either piddling from the tweezy tweeter of the tiny AM radio on the window sill behind the cash register in their book store, or thumping from the whopping 8-track stereo system (about the size of a small car) that prepossessed our living room..
Truth be told, I'm not embarrassed at all. Snowbird is a pretty song. It's not sexy, but its airy gentleness makes its well suited for introducing any young child to the world. It's not fashionable, but maybe that just means it will never go out of style.
"The thing I want most in life's the thing that I can't win..."
#37) "Hey Nineteen" by Steely Dan - More magical, musical elixir from Steely Dan, Hey Nineteen is flawless insertion of vocals into flawless rhythm, dressed in a flawless arrangement of horns, guitars and synthesizers. True to their track record, it does not fail to suggest a certain bewitching sleaziness running silver - or maybe gray - just beneath the skin, and leave it to Steely Dan to make a song about a mid-life crisis sound sexy and vital.
This would be a good 'offbeat' song to watch a woman dance to.
"The Cuervo Gold, the fine Colombian, make tonight a wonderful thing..."
Friday, October 25, 2013
The Top 100 Songs (or so) I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#31) "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin - I was in seventh grade the first time I heard this song, and speaking candidly, it blew my fucking mind. I think I was just the right age, and the right kind of kid moreover, to be wowed by the very first notes: the spindly guitar, accompanied by magical medieval-sounding flutes and lyrics that don't really make a lot of sense but suggest something really important is happening, or about to, or maybe did many ages ago.
But I was also easily swept up in the hype surrounding the song, regarding the (gasp!) Satanic messages allegedly embedded backwards. I had smuggled the album out of my brother's bedroom (because he was safely away at college) and spent more than a few Saturday nights cross-legged on my bed, actually playing it backwards on my record player (turning it by hand), keeping watch for anything sounding the least bit discernible. I must say, two things actually did emerge - fairly clearly - from the slurred, milky jumble: the words '666' and 'the power of Satan'.
I was floored. I played it over and over again to make sure I wasn't imagining it, then combed backwards through the entire song feverishly, searching for other mysterious messages, hoping to put together a puzzle, like a military code cracker picking up a faint signal from the other side of the ocean. I even played it for a buddy, pretty much forced him to take the same interest in it I was by insisting that what we found might be of monumental importance. He wound up hearing the same menacing words, looking up at me with a slow raise of his eyebrows. (Just his agreeing to come over was of no small significance, considering this was the same kid that the previous summer I'd 'trained' in karate, until he started to suspect I wasn't the brown belt I claimed to be and was just taking him into the back yard and smacking him around a few days a week.
Nowadays, there is plenty of information on-line regarding alleged backmasking by various bands, from Led Zeppelin to the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, equally as many instances of band members denying it with an impatient roll of their eyes. And why wouldn't they deny it? It's ridiculous. I don't think I heard anything in Stairway... but a random stretch of reverse speech that just happened to sound like those words. And really, even if it were true, who cares....? But in 1986, I was sure - sure - I was onto something huge, and my investigative work helped while away an entire season of cold winter nights.
I sort of lost track of Stairway... over time; I've never been a huge fan of Zeppelin in general, though I do recognize their greatness, and significance in the annals of rock history. Problem is, Zeppelin was a little too present on a lot of 'classic rock' stations between the ages of 18 and 25. 'Classic Rock' was and is, in my eyes, the stalest of radio formats, turning greatness from the likes of the Stones and the Beatles and Zeppelin and Pink Floyd (et al.) into 'two-for-Tuesday' or 'drive-at-five' caricatures.
But lately I've been on a Zeppelin kick, and as an adult, can appreciate Stairway to Heaven on a more complex level. Whether it's the intriguing (if still inscrutable) lyrics, John Bonham's gratuitous punishment of the drums, Robert Plant's voice transmogrifying from a small wooden sermon for the desperate into a great winged bird swooshing out of the sky, or Jimmy Page's guitar solo, which I think is as stirring a musical composition as any I've ever heard, or all of the above, my mind is still blown.
"There's a feeling I get, when I look to the west, and my spirit is crying for leaving..."
#32) "Southern Cross" by Crosby, Stills and Nash - Southern Cross has a weird way of making me as enthusiastic about break-ups as relationships. Never maudlin or mawkish, never desperate or over-wrought, it "nicely makes way" through my consciousness with a grandeur befitting the ocean and the stars it concerns itself with. According to Stephen Stills (er, according to Stephen Stills according to Wikipedia...), the song really is about utilizing the beauty of the universe to heal your wounds, which has worked well for me for 40 years now.
For me, this song is part of the beauty of the universe.
"Cause the truth you might be running from is so small/but it's as big as the promise, the promise of the coming day..."
#33) "My Little Town" by Simon and Garfunkel - It's easy, on the surface anyway, to dismiss Simon and Garfunkel as feckless folksies; Art, with his frizzy balding pate, softly padded soprano and sneer that makes you certain that he's certain he's smarter than you (er...something like that...); Paul, short and tender, and just a little too poetic for this bad ol' world (the kid you know must have gotten put in headlocks a lot growing up), writing songs that are quiet and thoughtful and elegant, yes, but too careful, timid even...sometimes.
But there is an unspoken rage, a certain savagery, to Paul Simon's poetry; you just have to sit down a moment and listen. Within his carefully calculated lyrics and S&G's misty musical arrangements lie suggestions that he might not have taken crap from anyone looking to put him in a headlock back in the day. Or at least looking back, wishes he hadn't. And Art, well, a cursory review of his biography will reveal a pretty interesting guy, far beyond music. Not feckless or 'folksy' at all, really...
Never judge a book by its cover is the moral of this tale.
There is no better example of the venom embedded in Simon and Garfunkel's deceptively serene music than 1975's My Little Town. It's far and away my favorite song by this duo because I had my own 'My Little Town' growing up. Raised in a micro rust belt on a considerably northern fringe - a community only recently waking up from a 45-year post-industrial hangover - I understand the drab tableau being painted colorlessly - or 'all black' actually - in this song. And if art is about what the viewer feels more than what the artist feels, then for me there's a powerfully felt darkness swimming like an amoeba in the horns and cowbell combo that pulls this song to its frustrated climax like a wagon.
This, to speak nothing of Paul's lyrics, compelling as always, and Art's voice, neither too arty (no pun intended) nor trying to be something it isn't; that is, trying too hard to rage. He's just a man looking back on his youth in a slow simmer. And whenever I drive anywhere, through any 'little town', I think about all the slow simmers that have gone on there, and are still going on, in homes at the end of blocks and apartments above main street drug stores and woods behind high schools, and consider My Little Town their universally recognized anthem.
"Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town..."
But I was also easily swept up in the hype surrounding the song, regarding the (gasp!) Satanic messages allegedly embedded backwards. I had smuggled the album out of my brother's bedroom (because he was safely away at college) and spent more than a few Saturday nights cross-legged on my bed, actually playing it backwards on my record player (turning it by hand), keeping watch for anything sounding the least bit discernible. I must say, two things actually did emerge - fairly clearly - from the slurred, milky jumble: the words '666' and 'the power of Satan'.
I was floored. I played it over and over again to make sure I wasn't imagining it, then combed backwards through the entire song feverishly, searching for other mysterious messages, hoping to put together a puzzle, like a military code cracker picking up a faint signal from the other side of the ocean. I even played it for a buddy, pretty much forced him to take the same interest in it I was by insisting that what we found might be of monumental importance. He wound up hearing the same menacing words, looking up at me with a slow raise of his eyebrows. (Just his agreeing to come over was of no small significance, considering this was the same kid that the previous summer I'd 'trained' in karate, until he started to suspect I wasn't the brown belt I claimed to be and was just taking him into the back yard and smacking him around a few days a week.
Nowadays, there is plenty of information on-line regarding alleged backmasking by various bands, from Led Zeppelin to the Beatles to the Rolling Stones, equally as many instances of band members denying it with an impatient roll of their eyes. And why wouldn't they deny it? It's ridiculous. I don't think I heard anything in Stairway... but a random stretch of reverse speech that just happened to sound like those words. And really, even if it were true, who cares....? But in 1986, I was sure - sure - I was onto something huge, and my investigative work helped while away an entire season of cold winter nights.
I sort of lost track of Stairway... over time; I've never been a huge fan of Zeppelin in general, though I do recognize their greatness, and significance in the annals of rock history. Problem is, Zeppelin was a little too present on a lot of 'classic rock' stations between the ages of 18 and 25. 'Classic Rock' was and is, in my eyes, the stalest of radio formats, turning greatness from the likes of the Stones and the Beatles and Zeppelin and Pink Floyd (et al.) into 'two-for-Tuesday' or 'drive-at-five' caricatures.
But lately I've been on a Zeppelin kick, and as an adult, can appreciate Stairway to Heaven on a more complex level. Whether it's the intriguing (if still inscrutable) lyrics, John Bonham's gratuitous punishment of the drums, Robert Plant's voice transmogrifying from a small wooden sermon for the desperate into a great winged bird swooshing out of the sky, or Jimmy Page's guitar solo, which I think is as stirring a musical composition as any I've ever heard, or all of the above, my mind is still blown.
"There's a feeling I get, when I look to the west, and my spirit is crying for leaving..."
#32) "Southern Cross" by Crosby, Stills and Nash - Southern Cross has a weird way of making me as enthusiastic about break-ups as relationships. Never maudlin or mawkish, never desperate or over-wrought, it "nicely makes way" through my consciousness with a grandeur befitting the ocean and the stars it concerns itself with. According to Stephen Stills (er, according to Stephen Stills according to Wikipedia...), the song really is about utilizing the beauty of the universe to heal your wounds, which has worked well for me for 40 years now.
For me, this song is part of the beauty of the universe.
"Cause the truth you might be running from is so small/but it's as big as the promise, the promise of the coming day..."
#33) "My Little Town" by Simon and Garfunkel - It's easy, on the surface anyway, to dismiss Simon and Garfunkel as feckless folksies; Art, with his frizzy balding pate, softly padded soprano and sneer that makes you certain that he's certain he's smarter than you (er...something like that...); Paul, short and tender, and just a little too poetic for this bad ol' world (the kid you know must have gotten put in headlocks a lot growing up), writing songs that are quiet and thoughtful and elegant, yes, but too careful, timid even...sometimes.
But there is an unspoken rage, a certain savagery, to Paul Simon's poetry; you just have to sit down a moment and listen. Within his carefully calculated lyrics and S&G's misty musical arrangements lie suggestions that he might not have taken crap from anyone looking to put him in a headlock back in the day. Or at least looking back, wishes he hadn't. And Art, well, a cursory review of his biography will reveal a pretty interesting guy, far beyond music. Not feckless or 'folksy' at all, really...
Never judge a book by its cover is the moral of this tale.
There is no better example of the venom embedded in Simon and Garfunkel's deceptively serene music than 1975's My Little Town. It's far and away my favorite song by this duo because I had my own 'My Little Town' growing up. Raised in a micro rust belt on a considerably northern fringe - a community only recently waking up from a 45-year post-industrial hangover - I understand the drab tableau being painted colorlessly - or 'all black' actually - in this song. And if art is about what the viewer feels more than what the artist feels, then for me there's a powerfully felt darkness swimming like an amoeba in the horns and cowbell combo that pulls this song to its frustrated climax like a wagon.
This, to speak nothing of Paul's lyrics, compelling as always, and Art's voice, neither too arty (no pun intended) nor trying to be something it isn't; that is, trying too hard to rage. He's just a man looking back on his youth in a slow simmer. And whenever I drive anywhere, through any 'little town', I think about all the slow simmers that have gone on there, and are still going on, in homes at the end of blocks and apartments above main street drug stores and woods behind high schools, and consider My Little Town their universally recognized anthem.
"Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town..."
Friday, October 18, 2013
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#27) "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - While it's true this song is overexposed, sometimes nauseatingly so, it's with good reason. This medley is one of those rare musical creations that transcends time. It could have been recorded in 1965, 1985 or today, and Kamakawiwo'ole's hypnotic voice and finessed agitation of a ukulele would stand up to even the fiercest scrutiny of changing tastes, fashions and styles.
It was in fact recorded in 1988, and released on a '93 album. Kamakawiwo'ole passed away in 1997 at the age of 38, and the surge of this song's presence in countless movies, television shows and commercials since then has been driven by a posthumous appreciation that might get a little annoying but is not at all surprising. Kamakawiwo'ole left behind a sort of music alchemy - a reconstruction of two old classics into a new classic that frankly sounds and feels a lot like an afternoon most of us hope to one day find in the afterlife.
"Someday I'll wish upon a star/wake up where the clouds are far behind me...."
#28) "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen - Given enough time, The Boss appears on the radar of just about every American teenage boy worth his restless salt, whether that restlessness has him staring down the highway leading out of New Brunswick, New Jersey or Bangor, Maine, Park Falls, Wisconsin or Casper, Wyoming. Though he's never quite topped my musical heroes list, Springsteen (early especially) still holds a place in my heart. His music is an oil essence of earnest romanticism, and no road trip would be complete without the very last word of road trip songs: Born to Run.
This is what we all imagine the road to be, isn't it? From the engine-driven drum roll that opens the song, to the action-packed bass riff that carries Springsteen's whimsically poetic lyrics, this is what we dream we are escaping to when we stare down any length of highway, and what we're sure beyond a shadow of a doubt we're escaping from. And when we go, we go with every confidence that we will 'walk in the sun' soon enough. It's a serenade firmly rooted in youth to be sure, but the song's energy can bring that feeling back at any age.
"It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap/we gotta get out while we're young..."
#29) "My Old School" by Steely Dan - If the word 'alchemy' could be used to describe just one band's music, I'd quickly submit Steely Dan to the short list of candidates for the honor. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's perfectionism in the studio is reportedly the stuff of legend, and really no surprise when you consider what they contributed to the 1970s. You can't create something as intricately woven, as brightly dyed, as My Old School (among countless others) without holding it to some level of perfectionism. Perfectionism is how greatness gets done. It's how you guard against allowing anything - even the act of getting out of bed in the morning - to become 'good enough.' You never grow weary and settle.
The most interesting thing about the music of Steely Dan just might be the lyrics embedded in the slick, jazzy riffs. A seedy underworld of drugs, sex and all around dysfunction belies the bouncy, bright rhythms and hooks, and serves as testament not only to their perfectionism as musicians, but complexity as artists.
"California tumbles into the sea/that'll be the day I go back to Annandale..."
#30) "Without Me" by Eminem - I raised two kids, and there was a time when I worried about the music of Eminem. Not because I think swear words are evil, or raunchiness has no place, or believe 'bad' music makes for 'bad' kids...I don't believe that at all, actually. Kids who are raised right will turn out okay in spite of Slim Shady. Kids who aren't raised right are going to face challenges...may turn INTO Slim Shady.
No, my problem with Eminem was not a soccer mom outrage, but more a disbelief, and certain disquiet, at the acceptance of him into the mainstream. When he first rose to fame in the late 90s, his popularity struck me as a significant lurch forward in the gradual but consistent coarsening of our society that's been going on the last several decades.
Not even a coarsening so much, come to think of it (again, I'm no prude), rather, a steadily increasing lack of subtlety. I mean, let's not kid ourselves, society has always been coarse beneath the surface. People are coarse beneath the surface. But Eminem helped spearhead the dissolution of a base standard for public behavior.
"Cause I'm only giving you things you joke about with your friends inside your living room," he sang, "the only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of you all and I don't have to be false or sugarcoated at all..."
For better or worse, that made total sense to me. And everyone else.
But 2002's Without Me reveals that Eminem is, essentially, a joke...in a good way. I can get on board with anyone who shows me they have a sense of humor, that they don't take themselves too seriously (Miley Cyrus accomplished this, sort of, on SNL not two weeks ago), and the humorous video is indisputable evidence that no matter how seriously Eminem was taken, how legitimate his talent, how accurately his crass persona may have reflected something about our society as much as it affected, he was never too cool to have to pull his superhero tights out of his ass when they bunched up.
I can totally get down with that. Don't think for a second I haven't cruised along, bobbing my head just like Eminem and Dr. Dre do in the video. And don't think for a second I won't do it on 1/48/50, even though I'll be almost 50...
But so will Eminem, as he is, and will always be, two months older than I am. A fact that my teenage son found hard to wrap his head around, back in the day. ;-)
"Feel the tension soon as someone mentions me..."
It was in fact recorded in 1988, and released on a '93 album. Kamakawiwo'ole passed away in 1997 at the age of 38, and the surge of this song's presence in countless movies, television shows and commercials since then has been driven by a posthumous appreciation that might get a little annoying but is not at all surprising. Kamakawiwo'ole left behind a sort of music alchemy - a reconstruction of two old classics into a new classic that frankly sounds and feels a lot like an afternoon most of us hope to one day find in the afterlife.
"Someday I'll wish upon a star/wake up where the clouds are far behind me...."
#28) "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen - Given enough time, The Boss appears on the radar of just about every American teenage boy worth his restless salt, whether that restlessness has him staring down the highway leading out of New Brunswick, New Jersey or Bangor, Maine, Park Falls, Wisconsin or Casper, Wyoming. Though he's never quite topped my musical heroes list, Springsteen (early especially) still holds a place in my heart. His music is an oil essence of earnest romanticism, and no road trip would be complete without the very last word of road trip songs: Born to Run.
This is what we all imagine the road to be, isn't it? From the engine-driven drum roll that opens the song, to the action-packed bass riff that carries Springsteen's whimsically poetic lyrics, this is what we dream we are escaping to when we stare down any length of highway, and what we're sure beyond a shadow of a doubt we're escaping from. And when we go, we go with every confidence that we will 'walk in the sun' soon enough. It's a serenade firmly rooted in youth to be sure, but the song's energy can bring that feeling back at any age.
"It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap/we gotta get out while we're young..."
#29) "My Old School" by Steely Dan - If the word 'alchemy' could be used to describe just one band's music, I'd quickly submit Steely Dan to the short list of candidates for the honor. Walter Becker and Donald Fagen's perfectionism in the studio is reportedly the stuff of legend, and really no surprise when you consider what they contributed to the 1970s. You can't create something as intricately woven, as brightly dyed, as My Old School (among countless others) without holding it to some level of perfectionism. Perfectionism is how greatness gets done. It's how you guard against allowing anything - even the act of getting out of bed in the morning - to become 'good enough.' You never grow weary and settle.
The most interesting thing about the music of Steely Dan just might be the lyrics embedded in the slick, jazzy riffs. A seedy underworld of drugs, sex and all around dysfunction belies the bouncy, bright rhythms and hooks, and serves as testament not only to their perfectionism as musicians, but complexity as artists.
"California tumbles into the sea/that'll be the day I go back to Annandale..."
#30) "Without Me" by Eminem - I raised two kids, and there was a time when I worried about the music of Eminem. Not because I think swear words are evil, or raunchiness has no place, or believe 'bad' music makes for 'bad' kids...I don't believe that at all, actually. Kids who are raised right will turn out okay in spite of Slim Shady. Kids who aren't raised right are going to face challenges...may turn INTO Slim Shady.
No, my problem with Eminem was not a soccer mom outrage, but more a disbelief, and certain disquiet, at the acceptance of him into the mainstream. When he first rose to fame in the late 90s, his popularity struck me as a significant lurch forward in the gradual but consistent coarsening of our society that's been going on the last several decades.
Not even a coarsening so much, come to think of it (again, I'm no prude), rather, a steadily increasing lack of subtlety. I mean, let's not kid ourselves, society has always been coarse beneath the surface. People are coarse beneath the surface. But Eminem helped spearhead the dissolution of a base standard for public behavior.
"Cause I'm only giving you things you joke about with your friends inside your living room," he sang, "the only difference is I got the balls to say it in front of you all and I don't have to be false or sugarcoated at all..."
For better or worse, that made total sense to me. And everyone else.
But 2002's Without Me reveals that Eminem is, essentially, a joke...in a good way. I can get on board with anyone who shows me they have a sense of humor, that they don't take themselves too seriously (Miley Cyrus accomplished this, sort of, on SNL not two weeks ago), and the humorous video is indisputable evidence that no matter how seriously Eminem was taken, how legitimate his talent, how accurately his crass persona may have reflected something about our society as much as it affected, he was never too cool to have to pull his superhero tights out of his ass when they bunched up.
I can totally get down with that. Don't think for a second I haven't cruised along, bobbing my head just like Eminem and Dr. Dre do in the video. And don't think for a second I won't do it on 1/48/50, even though I'll be almost 50...
But so will Eminem, as he is, and will always be, two months older than I am. A fact that my teenage son found hard to wrap his head around, back in the day. ;-)
"Feel the tension soon as someone mentions me..."
Friday, October 11, 2013
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me On 1/48/50 (cont...)
#23) "Theme from 'The Jeffersons'" - Yes, the television show.
Among the great TV theme songs of history, The Jeffersons ('Movin on Up') stands head and shoulders above the rest, as does the show itself, for that matter. Some of my earliest, and most pleasant, memories involve watching this 70s hit from my mother's lap, laughing when she did without knowing why.
Ground-breaking in its day, The Jeffersons portrayed a successful African American family whose patriarch was a loud-mouthed 'black Archie Bunker'. Much like All in the Family, from which it spun off, The Jeffersons was a smart and funny examination of our prejudices, ever optimistic that finding humor in them might lead to healing. It was very of the times, admittedly a bit precious by today's standards (although that fact is perhaps a whole other blog post), but the theme song, sung by Ja'Net Dubois, who played Willona on Good Times (another juggernaut from the Norman Lear era of television) is pretty bad ass for any generation. Loud and bombastic, on the far side of sassy, exuding as much jubilation as any church choir in its throes, it was born in an age when theme songs not only established the premise of their show, but geared the viewer up for what was to come every week, kind of like the person who comes on stage and warms up the audience before the star steps out.
Not only do they not write 'em like this anymore, they don't write 'em at ALL anymore, sadly. Television theme songs have been deemed an unnecessary interruption of viable ad space, and with very few exceptions, they're either non-existent or trimmed way down, sometimes to a three-second banner (a la Frasier).
As to where I actually found a copy of this song: back in the infancy of Napster, when it was still technically legal, if not entirely ethical, I got my hands on every TV theme I could think of, the actual broadcast versions, and to this day, periodically take a trip down memory lane with all of them.
The Jeffersons theme remains the only one worth jammin' out to, certainly the only one worth bringing on a road trip.
"Fish don't fry in the kitchen/beans don't burn on the grill..."
#24) "Under Pressure" by Queen - This song is one of those rare gems whose whole is worth more than the sum of its parts, and that's no small feat, considering the parts include Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. Musically tight and emotionally dramatic without ever going over the top (even when Mercury's voice soars into the stratosphere), Under Pressure ranks in my Top 10 greatest songs of all time, sporting one of the greatest lines of all time, as well:
"Love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night."
#25) "The Dope Show" by Marilyn Manson - Once at work a few years ago, this song played on the radio, and a co-worker who had a past as a stripper, said proudly, "This was one of the songs I used to dance to!"
On the surface it makes sense, but it's just a little too on the nose. If I could choose, I'd rather watch a woman dance to something a little more off-beat ... maybe The Jeffersons theme? (Just kidding...er, sort of...;-). And I wonder now, as I did then, if this girl knew exactly what The Dope Show is about, the indictment it serves our society.
Does she need to know? Not necessarily. There's an undeniable greasiness to this song that lends itself well to the manufacture of sexual tension. But if you're going to co-opt someone else's art as a medium in your art, even (or especially) for something as elemental as stripping, you ought to know what you're getting yourself into. The mediums should sync up a little.
Yes, sometimes I do wonder if I over-think things...
"They love you when you're on all the covers/when you're not, they love another..."
#26) "Against the Wind" by Bob Seger - This isn't Seger's greatest song, nor my favorite in his library, but for better or worse, I'm at the right age for it; I get this song in a way I couldn't have when I was 19 and far more moved by it than I am now. It's the ideal song with which to drive parallel to an unending horizon at a high rate of speed and really think about your life.
And somewhat to that point, interesting side note: since hearing it for the first time when I was very young, probably age 10 or 11, Against the Wind has always evoked a very specific image in my mind. This image was (re)created, virtually identically, in the movie Forrest Gump. It happens at the end of the running scene. Gump is making his way along the exact same shoe-string road, through the exact same featureless valley with the very same buttes in the background that, for whatever reason, I imagined as a kid whenever this song played.
And what do you know? Against the Wind is the song that's playing in the scene.
Coincidence? Of course; how could it not be? But the similarity was uncanny enough for me to actually gasp out loud when I saw the movie for the first time. I mean, seriously, I always pictured that very road, and from that vantage point.
To be honest, I like thinking the director had the same vision for the song as I did; that, without realizing it, he or she placed that song in that shot in the film for the same reason I would have. I prefer to think of the otherwise chance occurrence as evidence that Henry Longfellow was right: music is, in various ways, the 'universal language of mankind.'
Has it really been 20 years since Forrest Gump was released?
"I've got so much more to think about/deadlines and commitments/what to leave in, what to leave out..."
Among the great TV theme songs of history, The Jeffersons ('Movin on Up') stands head and shoulders above the rest, as does the show itself, for that matter. Some of my earliest, and most pleasant, memories involve watching this 70s hit from my mother's lap, laughing when she did without knowing why.
Ground-breaking in its day, The Jeffersons portrayed a successful African American family whose patriarch was a loud-mouthed 'black Archie Bunker'. Much like All in the Family, from which it spun off, The Jeffersons was a smart and funny examination of our prejudices, ever optimistic that finding humor in them might lead to healing. It was very of the times, admittedly a bit precious by today's standards (although that fact is perhaps a whole other blog post), but the theme song, sung by Ja'Net Dubois, who played Willona on Good Times (another juggernaut from the Norman Lear era of television) is pretty bad ass for any generation. Loud and bombastic, on the far side of sassy, exuding as much jubilation as any church choir in its throes, it was born in an age when theme songs not only established the premise of their show, but geared the viewer up for what was to come every week, kind of like the person who comes on stage and warms up the audience before the star steps out.
Not only do they not write 'em like this anymore, they don't write 'em at ALL anymore, sadly. Television theme songs have been deemed an unnecessary interruption of viable ad space, and with very few exceptions, they're either non-existent or trimmed way down, sometimes to a three-second banner (a la Frasier).
As to where I actually found a copy of this song: back in the infancy of Napster, when it was still technically legal, if not entirely ethical, I got my hands on every TV theme I could think of, the actual broadcast versions, and to this day, periodically take a trip down memory lane with all of them.
The Jeffersons theme remains the only one worth jammin' out to, certainly the only one worth bringing on a road trip.
"Fish don't fry in the kitchen/beans don't burn on the grill..."
#24) "Under Pressure" by Queen - This song is one of those rare gems whose whole is worth more than the sum of its parts, and that's no small feat, considering the parts include Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. Musically tight and emotionally dramatic without ever going over the top (even when Mercury's voice soars into the stratosphere), Under Pressure ranks in my Top 10 greatest songs of all time, sporting one of the greatest lines of all time, as well:
"Love dares you to care for the people on the edge of the night."
#25) "The Dope Show" by Marilyn Manson - Once at work a few years ago, this song played on the radio, and a co-worker who had a past as a stripper, said proudly, "This was one of the songs I used to dance to!"
On the surface it makes sense, but it's just a little too on the nose. If I could choose, I'd rather watch a woman dance to something a little more off-beat ... maybe The Jeffersons theme? (Just kidding...er, sort of...;-). And I wonder now, as I did then, if this girl knew exactly what The Dope Show is about, the indictment it serves our society.
Does she need to know? Not necessarily. There's an undeniable greasiness to this song that lends itself well to the manufacture of sexual tension. But if you're going to co-opt someone else's art as a medium in your art, even (or especially) for something as elemental as stripping, you ought to know what you're getting yourself into. The mediums should sync up a little.
Yes, sometimes I do wonder if I over-think things...
"They love you when you're on all the covers/when you're not, they love another..."
#26) "Against the Wind" by Bob Seger - This isn't Seger's greatest song, nor my favorite in his library, but for better or worse, I'm at the right age for it; I get this song in a way I couldn't have when I was 19 and far more moved by it than I am now. It's the ideal song with which to drive parallel to an unending horizon at a high rate of speed and really think about your life.
And somewhat to that point, interesting side note: since hearing it for the first time when I was very young, probably age 10 or 11, Against the Wind has always evoked a very specific image in my mind. This image was (re)created, virtually identically, in the movie Forrest Gump. It happens at the end of the running scene. Gump is making his way along the exact same shoe-string road, through the exact same featureless valley with the very same buttes in the background that, for whatever reason, I imagined as a kid whenever this song played.
And what do you know? Against the Wind is the song that's playing in the scene.
 |
| LIVE FROM MY HEAD - This scene, a YouTube still frame of the movie Forrest Gump at the end of Gump's '3 years, 2 months, 14 days and 16 hours' of running, depicts a tableau startlingly similar to that which I always imagined as a kid when I heard Bob Seger's Against the Wind, right down to the hue of the daylight. |
Coincidence? Of course; how could it not be? But the similarity was uncanny enough for me to actually gasp out loud when I saw the movie for the first time. I mean, seriously, I always pictured that very road, and from that vantage point.
To be honest, I like thinking the director had the same vision for the song as I did; that, without realizing it, he or she placed that song in that shot in the film for the same reason I would have. I prefer to think of the otherwise chance occurrence as evidence that Henry Longfellow was right: music is, in various ways, the 'universal language of mankind.'
Has it really been 20 years since Forrest Gump was released?
"I've got so much more to think about/deadlines and commitments/what to leave in, what to leave out..."
Friday, October 4, 2013
The Top 100 Songs (or so) I Absolutely Must Have on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#18) 'Night Moves' by Bob Seger - When I was a senior in high school, a bunch of friends and I all worked at the same place and hung out afterwards, and like many teenagers, we were on a never-ending search for someone to buy us alcohol, a quest that frequently led to a local married couple. These two, who must have been in their late twenties at the time but already looked rode hard and put away wet, had no problem providing us with booze and a place to drink it, which turned out to be their janky apartment above a drug store downtown.
Halfway through one particular party, the cops showed up, like cops tend to on small town Friday nights. We all fell silent at the sound of pounding on the apartment door. "Police department!"
Not a peep out of any of us for several moments. The swish of traffic on the street below filled the dead air that not ten seconds earlier had been congested with shouting, laughter and loud music.
Another round of pounding, more forceful this time. "Police! Open the door now!"
Any rebelling teenager worth his or her salt knows the response to this is to sit tight. They can yell and pound all they want, but unless they have a search warrant, they can't come in unless you let them in. Er...at least, that's what we all thought, and I think most of us were prepared to turn out the lights, keep quiet and wait it out.
But the married couple's response seemed to belie this confidence. They both sprang up and hastily disappeared into their bedroom without a word, as though knowing something we didn't, like the cops might actually have every intention of battering that door down. We heard the muted click of their bedroom door being locked, and in a panicked flash all followed suit, dashing into the kitchen and climbing through a window, onto a fire escape in the back of the building.
Seven of us stood there nervously, bouncing to keep warm without coats in 20 degree temperatures, as a buddy and I frantically tried to lower the ladder down to the ground to make our escape. We couldn't figure out how to do it, and wound up trapped on that fire escape, staring helplessly out at the roofs of buildings across the alley, windows of other apartments winking back at us dimly through the winter night. Another round of pounding on the door came to us, reaffirming the cops' determination. We all knew it was only a matter of time before they either tore the door down or got wise and came around back to the alley. Six people climbed back into the kitchen, took their chances hiding in a pantry closet. I was one of three, desperate to avoid an underage drinking fine, who jumped.
As I was plummeting 15 feet to the alley below, arms and legs extended out, Night Moves was playing.
Or should have been.
Bob Seger is just one of numerous musical 'heroes' I have moved beyond, because tastes and influences and circumstances are ever-changing. But there was a time when his music was nothing less than the soundtrack of my young life, both how I saw myself and what I saw myself becoming. And I'd be surprised to learn there's a Midwestern man in his forties or fifties right now, once a Midwestern teenager, who can't relate to Seger in much the same way.
In a rush to consider him overrated, I think Seger is underrated. I can see why some music purists don't like him. There's nothing hip about his music, or especially innovative; he's not a romantic poet like (early) Springsteen, nor does his music home in on something specific, like John Mellencamp and his farm country pride back in the day.
Seger lands on the bare bones side of roots rock. After his initial success in the late 1970s, he just grabbed that ball and took off running without ever trying something different, as both Springsteen and (especially) Mellencamp have (Key West Intermezzo and Pink Houses, for instance, are about as far apart, stylistically and in terms of subject matter, as can be imagined). There's warmth and reassurance in Seger's consistency if you can relate at all, testament to the very roots he rocks, but there's also boredom that doesn't go down so well on a dreary afternoon in Grand Rapids, Anywhere.
And then, of course, Like a Rock wound up in a Chevy commercial, and Seger and his music really became a caricature.
But there are subtleties in many of his songs that too often go unnoticed or unappreciated. It's too easy to dismiss Seger on the grounds of throwaways like Betty Lou's Getting Out Tonight, or Rock and Roll Never Forgets and miss what's really going on in Night Moves.
Reportedly inspired by the movie American Graffiti, Night Moves is a dark, sophisticated rumination that never turns sappy or melancholy, with lyrics that aren't too on-the-nose, but at the same time never try to be something they're not by straying too far from what the song's about: two teenagers looking for any opportunity to get their hands on each other and imagining how the news will play out among their social circle (in those Medieval days before Facebook when news traveled only a fraction of a second slower).
Implicit here are many facets of the world I knew the night I plummeted from that second story fire escape, and will want to be reminded of at certain moments during 1/48/50: keggars in downtown apartments; keggars in the woods; peppermint schnapps; worrying about the cops; worrying about parents (coordinating our stories); worrying about kids from other towns who showed up at our parties unexpectedly; guys you didn't mess with; guys you did mess with; fresh-faced, pony-tailed girls with big hair, big glasses and nice asses slid into tight jeans with rips in the knees, who laughed at everything; the bluster, the machismo, idiocy, bad jokes, fake facts, false starts and unhappy endings that for all of us - or most of us - protected a still tender naïveté, but with a shell about as unbreakable as a Saltine...
And these days, of course, I frequently awake to the sound of thunder... so maybe Seger isn't a poet, but instead, some kind of prophet.
"How far off I sat and wondered..."
#19) "Theme from 'New York, New York'" by Frank Sinatra - This song doesn't really matter to me one way or another, it's just great fun to sing along to. Though, come to think of it, I guess I can't say it means nothing. New York, New York is one of the first songs I ever took notice of, that I ever heard, in fact. When I very young I remember hoisting my Bee Gees transistor radio (seriously) up to my ear when this song came piddling out of the little water drop tweeter, and feeling really good listening to it.
It still makes me feel good. How can anyone hear that leg-kicking coda and not feel good? It might not be the song to define Sinatra's career, but I think it very much defines Sinatra. The tart melody and anxious lyrics are an ideal blend of the Chairman's finger-snapping Rat Pack side and his melancholy, staring-into-a-whiskey tumbler on a Sunday evening side.
I'd have loved to see him perform it live. (I guess that's what YouTube's for...)
"These little town blues/are melting away..."
#20) "Orange Blossom Special" by The Charlie Daniels Band - Instrumental, and reaching speeds of MACH 1, the CDB's Chicago performance of Orange Blossom Special makes them the Metallica of country music. Truthfully, this is country music you could bang your head to.
A consummate musician who travels with a merry band of consummate musicians, Charlie Daniels has always held a unique place in my heart as kind of a maverick in the business. Here, Daniels not only starts a fire with his fiddle bow (fiddle fire, literally...), but plucks his way through some 16 measures at just about the same speed, garnering the cheering approval of the crowd.
I've broken a sweat air-fiddling to this bad boy! I've broken a sweat listening to it.
#21) "Katmandu" by Bob Seger - Forgive me, Bob Seger was too important a part of my young life not to show up a few times on this list. Katmandu, from 1975's Beautiful Loser, might be considered one of his rock and roll throwaways, were it not for two things:
1) His vocals, thick and powerful, worthy of the greatness that's revealed on his live albums of the time.
2) His nod to the Midwest in the second verse, specifically the line, 'I'm tired of looking at the TV news...' There has always been something about television news, local television news, especially on gray days that get flushed into darkness, that has driven me toward (the likes of) Katmandu.
Further evidence that Seger knows things.
"But no one loves me here anyway..."
#22) "Ain't No Ramblers Anymore" by The Charlie Daniels Band - This might just be the first actual 'road song' on this list. Playful and spirited, it's another example of the CDB's tight musicianship, and precisely how I want the open road to unravel before me. The song describes a lot of what I want to see, but also how I want to feel when I see it. And any song that sounds like it could be played by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem is automatically going to get my attention.
"They ain't ever going to Boise..."
Halfway through one particular party, the cops showed up, like cops tend to on small town Friday nights. We all fell silent at the sound of pounding on the apartment door. "Police department!"
Not a peep out of any of us for several moments. The swish of traffic on the street below filled the dead air that not ten seconds earlier had been congested with shouting, laughter and loud music.
Another round of pounding, more forceful this time. "Police! Open the door now!"
Any rebelling teenager worth his or her salt knows the response to this is to sit tight. They can yell and pound all they want, but unless they have a search warrant, they can't come in unless you let them in. Er...at least, that's what we all thought, and I think most of us were prepared to turn out the lights, keep quiet and wait it out.
But the married couple's response seemed to belie this confidence. They both sprang up and hastily disappeared into their bedroom without a word, as though knowing something we didn't, like the cops might actually have every intention of battering that door down. We heard the muted click of their bedroom door being locked, and in a panicked flash all followed suit, dashing into the kitchen and climbing through a window, onto a fire escape in the back of the building.
Seven of us stood there nervously, bouncing to keep warm without coats in 20 degree temperatures, as a buddy and I frantically tried to lower the ladder down to the ground to make our escape. We couldn't figure out how to do it, and wound up trapped on that fire escape, staring helplessly out at the roofs of buildings across the alley, windows of other apartments winking back at us dimly through the winter night. Another round of pounding on the door came to us, reaffirming the cops' determination. We all knew it was only a matter of time before they either tore the door down or got wise and came around back to the alley. Six people climbed back into the kitchen, took their chances hiding in a pantry closet. I was one of three, desperate to avoid an underage drinking fine, who jumped.
As I was plummeting 15 feet to the alley below, arms and legs extended out, Night Moves was playing.
Or should have been.
Bob Seger is just one of numerous musical 'heroes' I have moved beyond, because tastes and influences and circumstances are ever-changing. But there was a time when his music was nothing less than the soundtrack of my young life, both how I saw myself and what I saw myself becoming. And I'd be surprised to learn there's a Midwestern man in his forties or fifties right now, once a Midwestern teenager, who can't relate to Seger in much the same way.
In a rush to consider him overrated, I think Seger is underrated. I can see why some music purists don't like him. There's nothing hip about his music, or especially innovative; he's not a romantic poet like (early) Springsteen, nor does his music home in on something specific, like John Mellencamp and his farm country pride back in the day.
Seger lands on the bare bones side of roots rock. After his initial success in the late 1970s, he just grabbed that ball and took off running without ever trying something different, as both Springsteen and (especially) Mellencamp have (Key West Intermezzo and Pink Houses, for instance, are about as far apart, stylistically and in terms of subject matter, as can be imagined). There's warmth and reassurance in Seger's consistency if you can relate at all, testament to the very roots he rocks, but there's also boredom that doesn't go down so well on a dreary afternoon in Grand Rapids, Anywhere.
And then, of course, Like a Rock wound up in a Chevy commercial, and Seger and his music really became a caricature.
But there are subtleties in many of his songs that too often go unnoticed or unappreciated. It's too easy to dismiss Seger on the grounds of throwaways like Betty Lou's Getting Out Tonight, or Rock and Roll Never Forgets and miss what's really going on in Night Moves.
Reportedly inspired by the movie American Graffiti, Night Moves is a dark, sophisticated rumination that never turns sappy or melancholy, with lyrics that aren't too on-the-nose, but at the same time never try to be something they're not by straying too far from what the song's about: two teenagers looking for any opportunity to get their hands on each other and imagining how the news will play out among their social circle (in those Medieval days before Facebook when news traveled only a fraction of a second slower).
Implicit here are many facets of the world I knew the night I plummeted from that second story fire escape, and will want to be reminded of at certain moments during 1/48/50: keggars in downtown apartments; keggars in the woods; peppermint schnapps; worrying about the cops; worrying about parents (coordinating our stories); worrying about kids from other towns who showed up at our parties unexpectedly; guys you didn't mess with; guys you did mess with; fresh-faced, pony-tailed girls with big hair, big glasses and nice asses slid into tight jeans with rips in the knees, who laughed at everything; the bluster, the machismo, idiocy, bad jokes, fake facts, false starts and unhappy endings that for all of us - or most of us - protected a still tender naïveté, but with a shell about as unbreakable as a Saltine...
And these days, of course, I frequently awake to the sound of thunder... so maybe Seger isn't a poet, but instead, some kind of prophet.
"How far off I sat and wondered..."
#19) "Theme from 'New York, New York'" by Frank Sinatra - This song doesn't really matter to me one way or another, it's just great fun to sing along to. Though, come to think of it, I guess I can't say it means nothing. New York, New York is one of the first songs I ever took notice of, that I ever heard, in fact. When I very young I remember hoisting my Bee Gees transistor radio (seriously) up to my ear when this song came piddling out of the little water drop tweeter, and feeling really good listening to it.
It still makes me feel good. How can anyone hear that leg-kicking coda and not feel good? It might not be the song to define Sinatra's career, but I think it very much defines Sinatra. The tart melody and anxious lyrics are an ideal blend of the Chairman's finger-snapping Rat Pack side and his melancholy, staring-into-a-whiskey tumbler on a Sunday evening side.
I'd have loved to see him perform it live. (I guess that's what YouTube's for...)
"These little town blues/are melting away..."
#20) "Orange Blossom Special" by The Charlie Daniels Band - Instrumental, and reaching speeds of MACH 1, the CDB's Chicago performance of Orange Blossom Special makes them the Metallica of country music. Truthfully, this is country music you could bang your head to.
A consummate musician who travels with a merry band of consummate musicians, Charlie Daniels has always held a unique place in my heart as kind of a maverick in the business. Here, Daniels not only starts a fire with his fiddle bow (fiddle fire, literally...), but plucks his way through some 16 measures at just about the same speed, garnering the cheering approval of the crowd.
I've broken a sweat air-fiddling to this bad boy! I've broken a sweat listening to it.
#21) "Katmandu" by Bob Seger - Forgive me, Bob Seger was too important a part of my young life not to show up a few times on this list. Katmandu, from 1975's Beautiful Loser, might be considered one of his rock and roll throwaways, were it not for two things:
1) His vocals, thick and powerful, worthy of the greatness that's revealed on his live albums of the time.
2) His nod to the Midwest in the second verse, specifically the line, 'I'm tired of looking at the TV news...' There has always been something about television news, local television news, especially on gray days that get flushed into darkness, that has driven me toward (the likes of) Katmandu.
Further evidence that Seger knows things.
"But no one loves me here anyway..."
#22) "Ain't No Ramblers Anymore" by The Charlie Daniels Band - This might just be the first actual 'road song' on this list. Playful and spirited, it's another example of the CDB's tight musicianship, and precisely how I want the open road to unravel before me. The song describes a lot of what I want to see, but also how I want to feel when I see it. And any song that sounds like it could be played by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem is automatically going to get my attention.
"They ain't ever going to Boise..."
Friday, September 27, 2013
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#14) 'I Got a Name' by Jim Croce - I have a somewhat haunting memory of hearing this song for the first time around 1979 or 1980. I was with my parents at a bar or diner somewhere; it was a Saturday or Sunday morning, bright sunlight through a fly-speckled window laying a yellow bar across a heavily worn 50s-era red carpet. I Got a Name was pulsing thickly from a jukebox in a corner and I remember being intrigued, even at age 7 or 8, by the line 'Moving me down the highway...', excited by the implied limitlessness, with no actual clue as to what the lyrics were really saying.
As a teenager, I rediscovered it on some '70s Hits!' compilation I picked up at Pamida, and its talk of pines trees lining winding roads and (especially) the north wind whistling down the sky spoke profoundly to me, though I was still unable to wrap my head around the message.
Now, of course, life IS well on its way to passing me by, so, road trip or not, I feel I gotta keep moving. Gotta keep moving.
"They can change their mind, but they can't change me..."
#15) 'Sister Christian' by Night Ranger - Hard as it is for me to believe, or admit, this song has probably commanded more of my attention over the years than any other, on account of two separate heated arguments I've had about it.
As a teenager, I rediscovered it on some '70s Hits!' compilation I picked up at Pamida, and its talk of pines trees lining winding roads and (especially) the north wind whistling down the sky spoke profoundly to me, though I was still unable to wrap my head around the message.
Now, of course, life IS well on its way to passing me by, so, road trip or not, I feel I gotta keep moving. Gotta keep moving.
From 1973, this was one of the last songs Croce recorded before his death, reluctantly, because he did not write it. But it fits well in his repertoire, and seamlessly into the singer/songwriter vibe of the time, when many songs emerged that traded hipness for a recognition of something else...something personal and satisfying that we don't always reveal to other people, but surely gets bandied about our minds in moments of reflection, and makes many of these types of songs enduring classics. I was pretty devastated (okay, just highly annoyed) when I Got a Name appeared in a Remax commercial last year, though have since learned that it's been used in many commercials and films over time...no doubt for for that very 'personal and satisfying' element.
"They can change their mind, but they can't change me..."
#15) 'Sister Christian' by Night Ranger - Hard as it is for me to believe, or admit, this song has probably commanded more of my attention over the years than any other, on account of two separate heated arguments I've had about it.
The first, when I was eighteen, driving somewhere with a girlfriend. Sister Christian was playing on a mixed tape, and at the end I took it upon myself to sing the last bellowing note - the (overwrought) 'YEEAAAH....MOTORING!...'
This annoyed her more than impressed her, but she didn't know what she was getting herself into when she said I sounded flat.
The second, many years later, was a far less emotional, more intellectual, debate over whether the song should be lumped in, and dismissed, with other 'hair metal' power ballads of the day.
I'll address the singing part first: yeah, I was probably flat. In fact, I'm sure I was. I just couldn't be told anything in those days. My Herculean ego could only interpret her (mostly passing) critique as a totally unfair, and heartless, criticism. Had I been in her shoes, I might have conceded just to shut me up, but (to her credit) she didn't. She stood her ground, insisted that it didn't matter how many times I rewound the tape and sang again (determined to prove I could hit the note), I was still coming up flat every time. All these years later I have no problem admitting she was right.
As to whether Sister Christian is a 'typical' power ballad, deserves to be deposited on the ash heap of 80s hair metal history along with Every Rose Has Its Thorn by Poison, Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue or Carrie by Europe, I don't think so. I won't presume to bore the reader with what I think the song's about (or pretend that I care much), but merely from a musicality standpoint, I think Sister Christian stands head and shoulders above any other swaying lighter stadium anthem.
The piano at the beginning and end really is quite lovely, the line 'You're motoring...', as it's applied here, fairly poetic (though, admittedly, much of the rest of the song's lyrics are pretty awful). The guitar solo acts as all good guitar solos should, spinning wildly away from the original melody but never at its expense, instead taking the song to a new place for a moment. And I especially like the thunderous drumming at the very end (the result of the song's composer and singer, Kelly Keagy, being Night Ranger's drummer). I think it blends with the piano, and punctuates the melancholy of the song. To me it's always sounded like noises coming through walls from the next room, or the next apartment, or the house next door. You wonder what's going on, but you may never know because it doesn't concern you. Not everything that happens concerns us. And that thought by itself has always struck me as sad.
The video, though, I admit, is kind of hilarious...how old were the band members, like 35, cavorting with school girls?
"And you know that you're the only one to say okay/but you're motoring..."
#16) 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica - I think it was Kurt Loder from MTV who once aptly called Metallica the 'thinking man's metal band'. They were also, in their day, hugely ground breaking. How crazy must it have been to be a teenager in '83 and hear The Four Horsemen or Whiplash for the first time? These days fast and loud of that caliber is a common tool of the trade in metal, but thirty years ago it was largely unheard of and, for kids needing such an outlet, probably perceived as a form of alchemy.
"That's life, and as funny as it seems/some people get their kicks, stomping on a dream..."
This annoyed her more than impressed her, but she didn't know what she was getting herself into when she said I sounded flat.
The second, many years later, was a far less emotional, more intellectual, debate over whether the song should be lumped in, and dismissed, with other 'hair metal' power ballads of the day.
I'll address the singing part first: yeah, I was probably flat. In fact, I'm sure I was. I just couldn't be told anything in those days. My Herculean ego could only interpret her (mostly passing) critique as a totally unfair, and heartless, criticism. Had I been in her shoes, I might have conceded just to shut me up, but (to her credit) she didn't. She stood her ground, insisted that it didn't matter how many times I rewound the tape and sang again (determined to prove I could hit the note), I was still coming up flat every time. All these years later I have no problem admitting she was right.
As to whether Sister Christian is a 'typical' power ballad, deserves to be deposited on the ash heap of 80s hair metal history along with Every Rose Has Its Thorn by Poison, Home Sweet Home by Motley Crue or Carrie by Europe, I don't think so. I won't presume to bore the reader with what I think the song's about (or pretend that I care much), but merely from a musicality standpoint, I think Sister Christian stands head and shoulders above any other swaying lighter stadium anthem.
The piano at the beginning and end really is quite lovely, the line 'You're motoring...', as it's applied here, fairly poetic (though, admittedly, much of the rest of the song's lyrics are pretty awful). The guitar solo acts as all good guitar solos should, spinning wildly away from the original melody but never at its expense, instead taking the song to a new place for a moment. And I especially like the thunderous drumming at the very end (the result of the song's composer and singer, Kelly Keagy, being Night Ranger's drummer). I think it blends with the piano, and punctuates the melancholy of the song. To me it's always sounded like noises coming through walls from the next room, or the next apartment, or the house next door. You wonder what's going on, but you may never know because it doesn't concern you. Not everything that happens concerns us. And that thought by itself has always struck me as sad.
The video, though, I admit, is kind of hilarious...how old were the band members, like 35, cavorting with school girls?
"And you know that you're the only one to say okay/but you're motoring..."
#16) 'Master of Puppets' by Metallica - I think it was Kurt Loder from MTV who once aptly called Metallica the 'thinking man's metal band'. They were also, in their day, hugely ground breaking. How crazy must it have been to be a teenager in '83 and hear The Four Horsemen or Whiplash for the first time? These days fast and loud of that caliber is a common tool of the trade in metal, but thirty years ago it was largely unheard of and, for kids needing such an outlet, probably perceived as a form of alchemy.
But Loder was right. There was more to Metallica than merely metal for the sake of metal. They were fantastic musicians, really did play as fast and precise live as on their albums, but more to the point, James Hetfield, the primary songwriter, was a kind of poet, and as such, their songs tended to be not just 'fast and loud', but worthy indictments of injustice and tragedy far and wide.
By 1986, Metallica hit their stride musically. Master of Puppets, the song, is what kids today might call epic. Almost nine minutes of emotionally complex metal virtuosity, and probably a stronger anti-drug message than 'Just Say No' spoken in a hundred different languages.
"Needlework the way/never you betray/life of death becoming clearer..."
#17) 'Blackened' by Metallica - From 1988's ...And Justice For All (their best album, for my money; the one that introduced me to the band), Blackened is another sterling example of Hetfield's poetry, further evidence that Kurt Loder hit the nail on the head. If environmentalists took this tack to get their message out, we might have a cleaner, more livable world on our hands, global warming a thing of the past.
Metallica could sustain me clear across the wind-swept plains if I needed them to. Maybe I'll devote an entire state to them....Nebraska?
By 1986, Metallica hit their stride musically. Master of Puppets, the song, is what kids today might call epic. Almost nine minutes of emotionally complex metal virtuosity, and probably a stronger anti-drug message than 'Just Say No' spoken in a hundred different languages.
"Needlework the way/never you betray/life of death becoming clearer..."
#17) 'Blackened' by Metallica - From 1988's ...And Justice For All (their best album, for my money; the one that introduced me to the band), Blackened is another sterling example of Hetfield's poetry, further evidence that Kurt Loder hit the nail on the head. If environmentalists took this tack to get their message out, we might have a cleaner, more livable world on our hands, global warming a thing of the past.
Metallica could sustain me clear across the wind-swept plains if I needed them to. Maybe I'll devote an entire state to them....Nebraska?
"Blackened is the end/winter it will send/throwing all you see/into obscurity..."
#18) 'That's Life' by David Lee Roth - In the end, the big end we all face, this song is really all that's left to say. This is our charge on Earth: to roll with things, with the lemons, the shit sandwiches, the shit that happens, the treachery and dishonesty, disappointment and hurt feelings...to grin and bear it, to laugh out loud as much as possible, try not to take things too seriously for too long, least of all ourselves.
#18) 'That's Life' by David Lee Roth - In the end, the big end we all face, this song is really all that's left to say. This is our charge on Earth: to roll with things, with the lemons, the shit sandwiches, the shit that happens, the treachery and dishonesty, disappointment and hurt feelings...to grin and bear it, to laugh out loud as much as possible, try not to take things too seriously for too long, least of all ourselves.
Roth has always been good at not taking himself (too) seriously, and he really shows his range here, legitimately belting this number out without making you wonder why he's bothering. You got to respect anyone who can shift from the likes of Panama to That's Life, from (Just a) Gigolo to Yankee Rose.
Whether it's Frank Sinatra's version or David Lee Roth's, That's Life has done a better job of casting me out of funks than any other song. It is critical musical gear for 1/48/50.
Whether it's Frank Sinatra's version or David Lee Roth's, That's Life has done a better job of casting me out of funks than any other song. It is critical musical gear for 1/48/50.
"That's life, and as funny as it seems/some people get their kicks, stomping on a dream..."
Friday, September 20, 2013
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#10) 'Middle of the Road' by The Pretenders - All things musical considered, Middle of the Road might just be an incarnation of the perfect 'rock and roll' song. It's tight and energetic without becoming hysterical, angry without resorting to savagery, emotional, but never at the expense of a base logic. Lyrically it is a unique assessment of facing middle age and the attendant concessions, which for better or worse, resonates with me in a way I never imagined it would. And Chrissie Hynde is - and always will be - pretty damn hot.
'The middle of the road is trying to find me/I'm standing in the middle of life with my plans behind me..."
#11) 'Luka' by Suzanne Vega - I figure this one might raise some eyebrows. There's nothing about this song that speaks of - or to - anything even remotely associated with freedom or the open road; no sir, not much here to lift your spirits. But those elements are just part of the equation, in my eyes, to a good road song. Luka has a way of getting my mind wandering to places. It reminds me of high school, of my first love (playing on the radio, and on MTV, at the time), and like any good folk (ish) song, is designed to get the listener thinking. And what does an elongated road trip offer more than lots and lots of time to think?
Not to mention, the guitar work in this song is gorgeous, and does, in fact, always lift my spirits, in spite of the bleak subject matter. I suspect this too might be by design.
'You just don't argue anymore...'
#12) 'American Idiot' by Green Day - As For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield is inextricably linked to the 60s, to love-ins and hippies and civil unrest and Vietnam, American Idiot will forever be associated with the 2000s - the Bush White House, the rise of uber-patriotism in the wake of 9/11, the Iraq War, political polarization in a media-soaked society. With an appropriate lack of subtly and providing more energy than four cans of Monster, this is Generation Y's foremost protest song. And no thinking person should ever dismiss any protest song outright.
Another good song with which to punish your steering wheel.
'Welcome to a new kind of tension/all across the alien nation...'
#13) 'Wanderlust' by Paul McCartney - Placing Paul McCartney on any list is never going to be a simple matter. For my money, McCartney is the greatest rock/pop performer ever...period...for his ability to shriek out (convincingly) songs like Helter Skelter, Oh Darling, Why Don't We Do it in the Road or Maybe I'm Amazed, while at the same time giving us Yesterday, Let It Be, Penny Lane, or something so oddly compelling as Let 'Em In, and doing it all fairly consistently for 50 years now. There's never appeared to be any limit to this man's ability and range in the musical realm.
'Sir Paul' indeed....
And for a man who claims he's okay with silly love longs, when he does get personal, it's a surprisingly intense affair. Much evidence of this can be found on his 1982 album Tug of War, perhaps his best post-Beatles work. It's an anguished collection of music evincing in no uncertain terms his fragile state of mind in the aftermath of the death of John Lennon and his turning 40 in a world far more uncertain than his generation once hoped.
Amidst this string of pearls, Wanderlust emerges. Dignified in its sadness, the opening piano riff is - quite literally, I think - what a goodbye sounds like in our minds as it's happening.
Or should.
'Oh where did I go wrong my love/what petty crime was I found guilty of/what better time to find a brand new day...''
'The middle of the road is trying to find me/I'm standing in the middle of life with my plans behind me..."
#11) 'Luka' by Suzanne Vega - I figure this one might raise some eyebrows. There's nothing about this song that speaks of - or to - anything even remotely associated with freedom or the open road; no sir, not much here to lift your spirits. But those elements are just part of the equation, in my eyes, to a good road song. Luka has a way of getting my mind wandering to places. It reminds me of high school, of my first love (playing on the radio, and on MTV, at the time), and like any good folk (ish) song, is designed to get the listener thinking. And what does an elongated road trip offer more than lots and lots of time to think?
Not to mention, the guitar work in this song is gorgeous, and does, in fact, always lift my spirits, in spite of the bleak subject matter. I suspect this too might be by design.
'You just don't argue anymore...'
#12) 'American Idiot' by Green Day - As For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield is inextricably linked to the 60s, to love-ins and hippies and civil unrest and Vietnam, American Idiot will forever be associated with the 2000s - the Bush White House, the rise of uber-patriotism in the wake of 9/11, the Iraq War, political polarization in a media-soaked society. With an appropriate lack of subtly and providing more energy than four cans of Monster, this is Generation Y's foremost protest song. And no thinking person should ever dismiss any protest song outright.
Another good song with which to punish your steering wheel.
'Welcome to a new kind of tension/all across the alien nation...'
#13) 'Wanderlust' by Paul McCartney - Placing Paul McCartney on any list is never going to be a simple matter. For my money, McCartney is the greatest rock/pop performer ever...period...for his ability to shriek out (convincingly) songs like Helter Skelter, Oh Darling, Why Don't We Do it in the Road or Maybe I'm Amazed, while at the same time giving us Yesterday, Let It Be, Penny Lane, or something so oddly compelling as Let 'Em In, and doing it all fairly consistently for 50 years now. There's never appeared to be any limit to this man's ability and range in the musical realm.
'Sir Paul' indeed....
And for a man who claims he's okay with silly love longs, when he does get personal, it's a surprisingly intense affair. Much evidence of this can be found on his 1982 album Tug of War, perhaps his best post-Beatles work. It's an anguished collection of music evincing in no uncertain terms his fragile state of mind in the aftermath of the death of John Lennon and his turning 40 in a world far more uncertain than his generation once hoped.
Amidst this string of pearls, Wanderlust emerges. Dignified in its sadness, the opening piano riff is - quite literally, I think - what a goodbye sounds like in our minds as it's happening.
Or should.
'Oh where did I go wrong my love/what petty crime was I found guilty of/what better time to find a brand new day...''
Friday, September 13, 2013
The Top 100 (or so) songs I absolutely must have with me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#5: 'Without Love' by Tom Jones - Once recently, as I pulled into the K-mart parking lot, I was blaring this song and singing along to the best of my ability. My driver side window was open, and when it came to the great six-step crescendo of horns and vocals, I sung so loudly (straining a groin muscle trying to do what Jones does), a guy walking out of K-mart looked up startled from his phone to see my gigantic mouth open in a full-throttle bellow. Poor guy.
I really like the 'aging Sinatra/fat Elvis' vibe of this late-60s ballad (as I am a fan of both aging Sinatra and fat Elvis). There's no arguing the sentiment, and though it's hard to listen to (or watch) She's a Lady or his later version of Prince's Kiss and take him too seriously, there's no denying Tom Jones' magnificent tenor and effective method of attack, or the fact that, with the right song, he sounds like, and becomes, nothing less than the bomb motherfucker.
Rather than the lovesick hippopotamus I became in the K-mart parking lot.
"Without love, I had nothing, nothing at all...(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)"
#6: 'Sweeter Than Wine' by The Brains - Once more, I feel The Brains will provide a kind of insulation from dark thoughts on the road...although maybe not. I'm not sure this song doesn't have a streak of Patrick Bateman-esque cannibalism running through it. But its (even strayer) Stray Cats hook and smooth vocals - and just a little the suggestion of something sinister - are pretty compelling. It will keep me from falling asleep at the wheel, if nothing else.
"I like the way, the way that she dances/get this started and skip the romances..."
#7 'God' by John Lennon - John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was Lennon's first post-Beatles offering, and God, playing at the end, is a cathartic summation of the rage, disillusionment and weariness (with everything except 'Yoko and me...') coursing through the album. It's a little hard to plug in personally to God, though, as it is so unambiguously about Lennon, but the mood of the song (wrought by the angry punching of piano chords, percussion lumbering along reluctantly, Lennon's tormented vocals...) evokes a sense of precipitous futility, a kind of event horizon from which there is no turning back felt by most people (even those who weren't around in the 60s) at some point in their lives. It makes me think of tides turning, paradigms shifting, ground crumbling beneath feet, and in the end, when the dust has settled, nothing being left but the sunlight captured in the strangely beautiful album cover art, which just might be where we all should want to be headed. No matter how we get there, or when.
#8: 'Somewhere Only We Know' by Keane - By no means a 'road song' in the traditional sense, Somewhere Only We Know is a wind-driven piece of music that, for me, captures something larger than itself. The thoughts that, on a day-to-day basis, inspire me, frighten me, bring me up, take me down, turn me out, lead me to loving, sometimes hating, cause me to reflect, to mourn, to move on, get me writing or sometimes render me unable to write, all sound a lot like Somewhere Only We Know. And it would be a long 14,000 miles without hearing this once, somewhere along the way.
"Oh simple thing, where have you gone/I'm getting old and I need something to rely on..."
#9: 'The Golden Age' by Cracker - Released in 1996, The Golden Age was a divergent musical path for Cracker. I might never have known about this beauty, had it not wound up on a CDX release sent to the country radio station where I worked at the time.
It is 'country', I guess, certainly possesses the requisite twang, but that's about it. The Golden Age exists - plays - on a more complex level than any country song...at least anything considered 'hot country'. Like Somewhere Only We Know, it is lush and spacy and grabs at a weightier sadness than merely our emotions, holding court in a larger venue and seeming to flourish in long, lingering sunlight. I'd venture The Golden Age as my favorite song of all time. 1/48/50 would feel incomplete without it.
And so would I.
"The flaxen light, off of the dying wheat/your rye whiskey mouth, and your dandelion teeth..."
I really like the 'aging Sinatra/fat Elvis' vibe of this late-60s ballad (as I am a fan of both aging Sinatra and fat Elvis). There's no arguing the sentiment, and though it's hard to listen to (or watch) She's a Lady or his later version of Prince's Kiss and take him too seriously, there's no denying Tom Jones' magnificent tenor and effective method of attack, or the fact that, with the right song, he sounds like, and becomes, nothing less than the bomb motherfucker.
Rather than the lovesick hippopotamus I became in the K-mart parking lot.
"Without love, I had nothing, nothing at all...(!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)"
#6: 'Sweeter Than Wine' by The Brains - Once more, I feel The Brains will provide a kind of insulation from dark thoughts on the road...although maybe not. I'm not sure this song doesn't have a streak of Patrick Bateman-esque cannibalism running through it. But its (even strayer) Stray Cats hook and smooth vocals - and just a little the suggestion of something sinister - are pretty compelling. It will keep me from falling asleep at the wheel, if nothing else.
"I like the way, the way that she dances/get this started and skip the romances..."
#7 'God' by John Lennon - John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was Lennon's first post-Beatles offering, and God, playing at the end, is a cathartic summation of the rage, disillusionment and weariness (with everything except 'Yoko and me...') coursing through the album. It's a little hard to plug in personally to God, though, as it is so unambiguously about Lennon, but the mood of the song (wrought by the angry punching of piano chords, percussion lumbering along reluctantly, Lennon's tormented vocals...) evokes a sense of precipitous futility, a kind of event horizon from which there is no turning back felt by most people (even those who weren't around in the 60s) at some point in their lives. It makes me think of tides turning, paradigms shifting, ground crumbling beneath feet, and in the end, when the dust has settled, nothing being left but the sunlight captured in the strangely beautiful album cover art, which just might be where we all should want to be headed. No matter how we get there, or when.
"The dream is over/what can I say...?"
"Oh simple thing, where have you gone/I'm getting old and I need something to rely on..."
#9: 'The Golden Age' by Cracker - Released in 1996, The Golden Age was a divergent musical path for Cracker. I might never have known about this beauty, had it not wound up on a CDX release sent to the country radio station where I worked at the time.
It is 'country', I guess, certainly possesses the requisite twang, but that's about it. The Golden Age exists - plays - on a more complex level than any country song...at least anything considered 'hot country'. Like Somewhere Only We Know, it is lush and spacy and grabs at a weightier sadness than merely our emotions, holding court in a larger venue and seeming to flourish in long, lingering sunlight. I'd venture The Golden Age as my favorite song of all time. 1/48/50 would feel incomplete without it.
And so would I.
"The flaxen light, off of the dying wheat/your rye whiskey mouth, and your dandelion teeth..."
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