#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..."
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