Of all the 20th century American writers that wound up required reading by the time I reached high school, John Steinbeck held my interest the longest. It wasn't so much what he wrote about as his style of writing, his 'voice', that gripped me - descriptive without being too wordy, deliberate without being too sparse, profound without ever becoming tangential. From school, it is Of Mice and Men and The Pearl I remember most clearly. Years later, as a young man, I would read The Grapes of Wrath and The Winter of Our Discontent and be moved in the manner I'm sure the author intended. The Grapes of Wrath, especially, deserves its accolades.
But it was Travels with Charley - not required reading in English but recommended by my 12th grade Social Studies teacher - that really rocked my socks. Steinbeck's written account of the three months he spent driving across the United States in the fall of 1960 was a big deal, to say the very least, in the starry eyes of this acne-ridden teen. Since then, only The Pillars of Hercules by Paul Theroux has had as much impact, in terms of stirring restlessness, although that was a different voice and a different style of travel in a different part of the world. Travels With Charley became the gold standard for the most seminal of travel - the American road trip. And it has remained so to this day.
Well, it has in my mind, at least. Unfortunately, the book's veracity has come under fire in recent years. It was fact-checked by writer Bill Steigerwald in 2011 and reportedly came up short in the truth department. Steinbeck's own son expressed skepticism as to whether Travels with Charley deserved to be considered non-fiction, and according to The New York Times, was quoted as saying, of his father, "He just sat in his camper and wrote all that shit."
The charges, spelled out compellingly in Steigerwald's blog:
1) Many of the accounts of Steinbeck's time on the road, and some of the people he claimed to have met along the way, do not jibe with letters he sent home during the period, in terms of location and time frame; nor were some, speculatively speaking, likely to have been possible.
2) A close examination of his itinerary suggests that he rarely stayed in his much-ballyhooed camper, Rocinante, during the trip, opting instead to seek out luxury hotels and resorts - hard evidence that the image of the glad-handing scribe drifting with the wind, slipping in and out of the towns, lives and conversations of ordinary people across the fruited plain, set forth so convincingly in the book, might well have been Steinbeck's finest fiction.
3) Most damning of all is the notion that Steinbeck did not make the majority of the trip alone; his wife Elaine accompanied him for much of it, and other times he sought out the company of friends or acquaintances.
The alleged fabrications and high living are disillusioning, but the suggestion that the great author spent only a very small portion of his epic road trip by himself is the real offense, as far as I'm concerned. Why would Steinbeck have wanted someone along with him? No offense to anyone in my life I could choose to travel with, but taking someone along on 1/48/50 would turn my odyssey into just another vacation. My trip will not be about seeing landmarks...well, it will be that too, in some measure; but something else, something important, will also be in play. A large part of the mission of 1/48/50 will involve the marshaling of loneliness, facing solitude from the other side of distance. In other words, dealing with myself, sorting out the collected echoes in my head, reconciling my hopes for the future with all the memories that appear as distant points of light before closed eyes as I try to fall asleep.
I'm not entirely surprised to have learned these things about Travels... Steinbeck got away with it in 1962 because, I'd venture, society at large was less informed, less discerning, less savvy than today. In our post-A Million Little Pieces world, it should perhaps come as no surprise that even the loftiest literary voices of any era are not above scrutiny.
Nor should they be.
Truth is, I had my own suspicions back in the day, though I didn't realize it. I could never have imagined the caliber of accusations flying around currently, but I did think some of the dialogue in the book came across awkward and inorganic, and in some cases downright unlikely. Some things didn't seem to fit, surely.
But I was eighteen years old, and I didn't care. Travels with Charley was as dazzling a read as I had ever read, and made me want to take off. It was as much a clarion call to going and drifting as any song I have ever listened to, handily stirring my already churning restlessness, and inspiring me to plan 'the big trip', the trip I would one day write about, just like Steinbeck, the trip I now refer to as 1/48/50. For a short while, I even considered retracing his route, though I have since abandoned that notion.
As for Travels... itself, I read it again recently, for the first time in several years, and nothing is lost, even knowing what I now know. Really, who cares? The heart of the book still beats strongly. Maybe Steinbeck didn't make it the whole way alone. Maybe every conversation didn't take place exactly as he set it down, maybe some of them didn't take place at all...maybe he did 'sit in his camper and write all that shit'...but he took the trip, at least, in spite of failing health, and his descriptions of certain landscapes are first rate; his observations, as they paint a portrait of America at the dawn of the 60s, are spot on (and in more than a few passages prophetic); his homecoming to Salinas, California, especially the final moments he spends looking down on the long valley of his youth before turning away forever, is still quite moving.
It's all super concentrated in the first line of the book: When I was very young, and the urge to be someplace else was on me...
The elegance of that line floored me when I was a senior in high school, because I felt it. I very much felt that urge to be someplace else.
And I still do.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#84) "Amarillo by Morning" by George Strait - I'm not a fan of horses, somewhat wary of an animal so large and so aware of what's going on around it, and the one and only time I went riding resulted in my face and eyes swelling up like tomatoes...from an allergic reaction to horse hair, or hay, or something. Nevertheless, I'm a sucker for a good 'cowboy' song (the late Chris Ledoux has some douxzies...;-). They often exist in that singular emotional moment I speak of, which the best songs of any genre capture handily by looking neither too far ahead, nor too far behind.
1983's Amarillo by Morning is a good example of the difference between capturing a moment in the life of someone who just happens to be a cowboy - story-telling in its most basic sense - and perpetuating a stereotype, which is what country music seems to do best nowadays. George Strait's pared down delivery coupled with an equally austere instrumentation complement the story of someone who is actually pretty nebulous, between towns and between lives.
This particular cowboy's thoughts do not travel much past later that day, bucking at the county fair, though it's clear it's a long way to fall from where he once was. The melody is haunting, but never becomes mawkish, and at the end, the fiddle keeps going after everything else has stopped, until it too fades away like the night, leaving me with the impression that the song is still playing somewhere, for someone.
And what fuels a road trip, what sparks wanderlust with greater fidelity, than the maddeningly delicious thought of everything that's going on at any given moment in all the places you aren't?
"I ain't rich, but Lord I'm free..."
#85) "The Secret of Life" by Faith Hill - Penned by one of the best songwriters in country music (Gretchen Peters), Faith Hill brings to life this reflection on priorities and simple pleasures, makes it 'ready for prime time' with her voice and star power. Once more, I generally don't go for songs bent on teaching me a lesson, but Peters' philosophy and wit temper the preachy-ness here, and the song turns into a potent cautionary tale for one powerful line, at just the right moment.
"Ad on TV says 'just do it' / hell if I know what that means..."
#86) "The Boys of Summer" by Don Henley - To me, The Boys of Summer isn't so much a song as an experience.
It's what it sounds like when rain starts to drench a sidewalk that's been baking in the sun all afternoon, and it is the feeling that comes when that storm has passed, when all that remains are flooded streets to splash through, and you realize that you are at a crossroads in your life, that it might very well be the end of an era, and the wind that follows the storm, which comes from the southwest and is warm in the manner of slowly drawn butter, means more than it ever has before, and might ever again.
"Out on the road today, I saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac..."
1983's Amarillo by Morning is a good example of the difference between capturing a moment in the life of someone who just happens to be a cowboy - story-telling in its most basic sense - and perpetuating a stereotype, which is what country music seems to do best nowadays. George Strait's pared down delivery coupled with an equally austere instrumentation complement the story of someone who is actually pretty nebulous, between towns and between lives.
This particular cowboy's thoughts do not travel much past later that day, bucking at the county fair, though it's clear it's a long way to fall from where he once was. The melody is haunting, but never becomes mawkish, and at the end, the fiddle keeps going after everything else has stopped, until it too fades away like the night, leaving me with the impression that the song is still playing somewhere, for someone.
And what fuels a road trip, what sparks wanderlust with greater fidelity, than the maddeningly delicious thought of everything that's going on at any given moment in all the places you aren't?
"I ain't rich, but Lord I'm free..."
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HORSE'S ASS - My one and only trail ride was spent sneezing and wheezing my way through an allergic fit, and culminated with two swollen, red eyes and congested lungs. I think my expression, as I gratefully guide 'Moose' back to his stable, says it all.
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#85) "The Secret of Life" by Faith Hill - Penned by one of the best songwriters in country music (Gretchen Peters), Faith Hill brings to life this reflection on priorities and simple pleasures, makes it 'ready for prime time' with her voice and star power. Once more, I generally don't go for songs bent on teaching me a lesson, but Peters' philosophy and wit temper the preachy-ness here, and the song turns into a potent cautionary tale for one powerful line, at just the right moment.
"Ad on TV says 'just do it' / hell if I know what that means..."
#86) "The Boys of Summer" by Don Henley - To me, The Boys of Summer isn't so much a song as an experience.
It's what it sounds like when rain starts to drench a sidewalk that's been baking in the sun all afternoon, and it is the feeling that comes when that storm has passed, when all that remains are flooded streets to splash through, and you realize that you are at a crossroads in your life, that it might very well be the end of an era, and the wind that follows the storm, which comes from the southwest and is warm in the manner of slowly drawn butter, means more than it ever has before, and might ever again.
"Out on the road today, I saw a deadhead sticker on a Cadillac..."
Friday, February 14, 2014
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#80) "Freebird" by Lynyrd Skynyrd - It may be considered among the greatest rock and roll songs of all time (certainly among the greatest 'air guitar' numbers), but honestly, Freebird isn't my favorite, not by a long shot. I can't even say I've listened to it straight through since my teenage years; it's a bit slow-moving, bordering on ponderous, usually leaves me tuned out midway through the second verse. But like more than a few denizens of the 'classic rock' realm, a heightened self-awareness and maturity in middle age has enabled me to re-discover it, and realize there's a reason it's considered classic, a reason why it endures, finding new fans in each new generation, usually right around the age of 15 or 16, when you first realize you won't always have to stay in one place if you don't want to. There will come a time...a time soon...and you'll be free.
A melodically disquieting guitar riff strings together lyrics of longing that include what I think is a fairly heady question. If I leave here tomorrow, Mr. Van Zant sings, would you still remember me?
Not 'please remember me', or 'I'll remember you', but would you? As in, will you? The grammar's off a little, but the line always gets me thinking about the underlying futility of most relationships, romantic or otherwise. I'm not convinced most people have remembered me when I've left, and looking back (the older I get...the more time that passes), I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Then of course there's the monster guitar solo, consuming the song at the end and, in some live versions, pushing it 100 miles per hour for a full ten minutes. It's no wonder Skynyrd generally chose this song to close out their shows. Freebird was the first song - way back in 7th or 8th grade - to make me appreciate the guitar solo as an emotional expression all its own, and - if I make it that far without switching songs or stations - I never, ever tune it out.
I think it very well might have been the first I ever air guitared to as well...it was either Freebird, or the solo in Led Zeppelin's Heartbreaker.
Probably Freebird. It's easier to play. ;-)
"And this bird you cannot change..."
#81) "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses" by Kathy Mattea - It would be easy to dismiss this as just another blob of fluff oozing out of a genre of music that is the world's foremost producer of fluff. It has the usual punny mass embedded in the lyrics, like a lot of country songs ("10 more miles, on his 4 day run...get it? 10/4!...he's a trucker!"), and for some reason, I'm thinking I'd never want to watch the video. But its steady, guitar-strummed rhythm and sunlit melody helps Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses wrap its arms around something more than mere sentimentality. It addresses a certain tenderness I like to think courses through all of us, whether we show it, a shared sense of surrender to the passages that punctuate our lives - in this case, retirement, rekindled love, and leaving. Laugh and mock all you want, are there any among us who don't want this to be their life at some point, particularly in the twilight years?
Also, I really like the line, "A few more songs from the all night radio..." for its reference to what lamentably has become the by-gone era of 'all night radio' for truckers.
When I was a young man, many were the nights I spent taking relentlessly restless 'runs' up and down the main drag of my town. From the Hardees on the west end to the Soo Line trestle on the east end, and back again, this went on all night. Sometimes past bar close. Sometimes, even, until it was light out. And in these throes of having nowhere to go but being reluctant to go home, my radio was almost always tuned to the AM side. The local station, WATW, ended its broadcast day at midnight, and was replaced by the trucker's network until 7 a.m.
I can't for the life of me remember what the network was actually called, but I remember names like Charlie Douglas, and Road Gang. They played country music and humorous bits and all that, but also frequent weather forecasts and current conditions from Interstates and major highways all over the country, and that's what I found intriguing. These reports mentioned certain communities by name, and listening to them always got me wishing I was somewhere else, or on the way to somewhere else.
One time, the weather announcer followed his radar images right through my area: 'Strong line of storms is making its way through Minnesota, right now, crossing I-35, these will continue on into northern Wisconsin, and into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan along US Highway 2 through the overnight hours," his voice crackled over the AM band. "There's a band of showers just head of these storms. If it's not raining in Ashland, Wisconsin right now, it's going to be in the next few minutes."
As if on cue, the downpour started not thirty seconds later, and the timing of this, for reasons I couldn't explain (but no doubt have spent the last year writing about here), seemed to ease the loneliness of that hometown night.
Today of course, automation has made nearly every radio station in this country a 24/7 operation, and satellite radio (and Internet for that matter) means nobody has to ever be without a voice from somewhere. So while 'trucker's radio' does still exist, it simply doesn't mean as much as it used to. Nobody's ever really 'alone' at all, even in the overnight hours.
In the end, this may be a good thing, but I still like the thought of being awake when the rest of the world is sleeping, still crave a little late night alienation once in a while, and miss the days when there was just one unique outlet for that unique set of circumstances.
"They'll buy a Winnebago, set off to find America..."
#82) "And When I Die" by Blood Sweat and Tears - Smart, funny and clever, this song's good humor goes a long way toward clipping long thoughts. It's fun to sing, and is also very much an essential truth. Testify!
"Don't wanna die uneasy..."
#83) "Time" by Pink Floyd - I was planning to keep Pink Floyd off this list, intending to save them for when (if ever) I list the top complete albums to take with me on 1/48/50 (a list on which they would appear at least twice). I've blogged about them in the past, always seem to have too much to say, and frankly, there isn't really anything about their music that complements the road.
Mind expanding yet technically flawless it may be, but cruising down the highway for 14,000 miles, I don't know that I'll want to be weighed down or distracted by the heavy serum dripping out of Dogs, Echoes, Us and Them or The Great Gig in the Sky.
But I've decided to make an exception with Time, because it is the band's masterwork (in my opinion), hanging prominently in an already impressive gallery.
It's the only song on The Dark Side of the Moon that credits all four band members as writers, and that makes sense, as contributions from each to an aggregate greatness are not hard to identify. Nick Mason's rototom rattle for the first two minutes is like the palpitating heart of someone who has just realized the enormity of the truth behind Roger Waters' psychologically dense lyrics. (Half a page of scribbled lines...indeed.)
David Gilmour and Richard Wright's shared lead vocals sound eerily similar, and Gilmour's guitar solo has a compelling vocal quality, sounds like someone sitting across from you whose company you don't particularly enjoy; someone who is intermittently lamenting and bitching so incessantly (about the passage of time...or perhaps the shit hand life's dealt), you don't know whether to sympathize or tell him to shut the hell up. It evokes as much derision as sympathy.
Now that's an emotionally expressive guitar solo...
Then all of a sudden, close to the end, comes that mysterious female voice. I haven't been able to determine if it's Clare Torry, whose vocal stylings (this might be the one instance when that phrase actually makes sense) simultaneously sew The Great Gig in the Sky together and tear it to shreds, or another backing vocalist on the album, Doris Troy. I'm thinking it's Troy, but it is bewitching either way, a presence seeming to come out of nowhere, as if from hiding (yet there the entire time), offering a lovely lilted flutter of beauty for a second or two, yet no fucking solace whatsoever.
Time seduces, then filets into long, red ribbons that bunch up in the corner of the room.
Come to think of it, maybe I will leave this one home on 1/48/50. :-/
"The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older..."
A melodically disquieting guitar riff strings together lyrics of longing that include what I think is a fairly heady question. If I leave here tomorrow, Mr. Van Zant sings, would you still remember me?
Not 'please remember me', or 'I'll remember you', but would you? As in, will you? The grammar's off a little, but the line always gets me thinking about the underlying futility of most relationships, romantic or otherwise. I'm not convinced most people have remembered me when I've left, and looking back (the older I get...the more time that passes), I'm not sure how I feel about that.
Then of course there's the monster guitar solo, consuming the song at the end and, in some live versions, pushing it 100 miles per hour for a full ten minutes. It's no wonder Skynyrd generally chose this song to close out their shows. Freebird was the first song - way back in 7th or 8th grade - to make me appreciate the guitar solo as an emotional expression all its own, and - if I make it that far without switching songs or stations - I never, ever tune it out.
I think it very well might have been the first I ever air guitared to as well...it was either Freebird, or the solo in Led Zeppelin's Heartbreaker.
Probably Freebird. It's easier to play. ;-)
"And this bird you cannot change..."
#81) "Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses" by Kathy Mattea - It would be easy to dismiss this as just another blob of fluff oozing out of a genre of music that is the world's foremost producer of fluff. It has the usual punny mass embedded in the lyrics, like a lot of country songs ("10 more miles, on his 4 day run...get it? 10/4!...he's a trucker!"), and for some reason, I'm thinking I'd never want to watch the video. But its steady, guitar-strummed rhythm and sunlit melody helps Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses wrap its arms around something more than mere sentimentality. It addresses a certain tenderness I like to think courses through all of us, whether we show it, a shared sense of surrender to the passages that punctuate our lives - in this case, retirement, rekindled love, and leaving. Laugh and mock all you want, are there any among us who don't want this to be their life at some point, particularly in the twilight years?
Also, I really like the line, "A few more songs from the all night radio..." for its reference to what lamentably has become the by-gone era of 'all night radio' for truckers.
When I was a young man, many were the nights I spent taking relentlessly restless 'runs' up and down the main drag of my town. From the Hardees on the west end to the Soo Line trestle on the east end, and back again, this went on all night. Sometimes past bar close. Sometimes, even, until it was light out. And in these throes of having nowhere to go but being reluctant to go home, my radio was almost always tuned to the AM side. The local station, WATW, ended its broadcast day at midnight, and was replaced by the trucker's network until 7 a.m.
I can't for the life of me remember what the network was actually called, but I remember names like Charlie Douglas, and Road Gang. They played country music and humorous bits and all that, but also frequent weather forecasts and current conditions from Interstates and major highways all over the country, and that's what I found intriguing. These reports mentioned certain communities by name, and listening to them always got me wishing I was somewhere else, or on the way to somewhere else.
One time, the weather announcer followed his radar images right through my area: 'Strong line of storms is making its way through Minnesota, right now, crossing I-35, these will continue on into northern Wisconsin, and into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan along US Highway 2 through the overnight hours," his voice crackled over the AM band. "There's a band of showers just head of these storms. If it's not raining in Ashland, Wisconsin right now, it's going to be in the next few minutes."
As if on cue, the downpour started not thirty seconds later, and the timing of this, for reasons I couldn't explain (but no doubt have spent the last year writing about here), seemed to ease the loneliness of that hometown night.
Today of course, automation has made nearly every radio station in this country a 24/7 operation, and satellite radio (and Internet for that matter) means nobody has to ever be without a voice from somewhere. So while 'trucker's radio' does still exist, it simply doesn't mean as much as it used to. Nobody's ever really 'alone' at all, even in the overnight hours.
In the end, this may be a good thing, but I still like the thought of being awake when the rest of the world is sleeping, still crave a little late night alienation once in a while, and miss the days when there was just one unique outlet for that unique set of circumstances.
"They'll buy a Winnebago, set off to find America..."
#82) "And When I Die" by Blood Sweat and Tears - Smart, funny and clever, this song's good humor goes a long way toward clipping long thoughts. It's fun to sing, and is also very much an essential truth. Testify!
"Don't wanna die uneasy..."
#83) "Time" by Pink Floyd - I was planning to keep Pink Floyd off this list, intending to save them for when (if ever) I list the top complete albums to take with me on 1/48/50 (a list on which they would appear at least twice). I've blogged about them in the past, always seem to have too much to say, and frankly, there isn't really anything about their music that complements the road.
Mind expanding yet technically flawless it may be, but cruising down the highway for 14,000 miles, I don't know that I'll want to be weighed down or distracted by the heavy serum dripping out of Dogs, Echoes, Us and Them or The Great Gig in the Sky.
But I've decided to make an exception with Time, because it is the band's masterwork (in my opinion), hanging prominently in an already impressive gallery.
It's the only song on The Dark Side of the Moon that credits all four band members as writers, and that makes sense, as contributions from each to an aggregate greatness are not hard to identify. Nick Mason's rototom rattle for the first two minutes is like the palpitating heart of someone who has just realized the enormity of the truth behind Roger Waters' psychologically dense lyrics. (Half a page of scribbled lines...indeed.)
David Gilmour and Richard Wright's shared lead vocals sound eerily similar, and Gilmour's guitar solo has a compelling vocal quality, sounds like someone sitting across from you whose company you don't particularly enjoy; someone who is intermittently lamenting and bitching so incessantly (about the passage of time...or perhaps the shit hand life's dealt), you don't know whether to sympathize or tell him to shut the hell up. It evokes as much derision as sympathy.
Now that's an emotionally expressive guitar solo...
Then all of a sudden, close to the end, comes that mysterious female voice. I haven't been able to determine if it's Clare Torry, whose vocal stylings (this might be the one instance when that phrase actually makes sense) simultaneously sew The Great Gig in the Sky together and tear it to shreds, or another backing vocalist on the album, Doris Troy. I'm thinking it's Troy, but it is bewitching either way, a presence seeming to come out of nowhere, as if from hiding (yet there the entire time), offering a lovely lilted flutter of beauty for a second or two, yet no fucking solace whatsoever.
Time seduces, then filets into long, red ribbons that bunch up in the corner of the room.
Come to think of it, maybe I will leave this one home on 1/48/50. :-/
"The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older..."
Friday, February 7, 2014
The Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#76) "Simple Life" by Mary Chapin Carpenter - I wouldn't know much or anything about Mary Chapin Carpenter were it not for my time working in country radio in the late 1990s, and even then, she was an enigma. There always seemed to be something off about her, reluctant even, something (someone) different from the Shania/Faith/JoDee/Martina/Tricia ranks of the day. Reading about her now, it seems my suspicions were correct.
It's also possible that I was the reluctant one, never anything more than indifferent to Mary Chapin Carpenter. None of the music from her hey-day has ever gotten me to really take notice, with one exception: 2001's Simple Life. Its elastic beat and odd melody strewn with Beatles-esque harmonies distinguishes Carpenter even further from country music, and though it might be considered the end of her 'hey-day', I'd be willing to bet she views it as the beginning of a whole new chapter, her much overdue departure from the country music genre she never quite fit into.
I don't normally respond well (er, at all...) to songs that are overly message-y, and Simple Life is not all that different from countless self-esteem/coping with life/everything's okay numbers (the country music genre is full of them). But I like the way it goes about it: cleverly waiting until the very last minute, very last second, to poke you right between the eyes.
"The simple life is overrated..."
#77) "Early Morning Rain" by Gordon Lightfoot - Gordon Lightfoot is probably best known for The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a song about a tragedy that affected my home region directly. It proved to forever connect the Canadian-born singer with the Great Lakes, but I've always thought there's something uniquely 'northern' about all his music.
I don't think I'm alone in this. I've seen Lightfoot live in concert three times in my life, in (fittingly enough) Duluth, Minnesota, the port that Edmund... sailed out of on that fateful day in November 1975 (well, Superior, Wisconsin specifically...but one of the 'twins' nevertheless...), and always got a sense - from each well-timed round of applause to certain songs, or lines in certain songs, or to remarks made between songs - that the audience considered Lightfoot one of them - a 'northerner', who knew what they knew.
In other words, the South has no small number of boisterous good ol' boys lauding their way of life with their rebel cries and flags and cowboy hats. Northerners have Lightfoot as their musical ambassador; his plaintive, sometimes brooding music befits roads strung through snow-packed woods, early frost and early dawns, bitter winds, long twilights, long winters, and all else that tends to engender the unique and persistent solemnity southerners just can't quite understand.
I used to think the singer in Early Morning Rain, the 'character', is a traveler IN an airport, and for this, the song always evoked a fairly on-the-nose restlessness. But now I realize he's more or less homeless, having nowhere to go and unable to get home, standing outside the chicken wire fence at the far end of the runway in the early morning rain, as if having just emerged from the nearby woods, watching the 707 as it takes off.
In spite of this, or maybe because of it, the song's pulsating acoustic rhythm, lyrics full of longing and town crier vocal styling still get me feeling exuberant and restless, wanting to be on my way somewhere, between places. Frankly, it seems the guy in Early Morning Rain is as 'nebulous' as you can get without being dead.
NOTE: It has to be the original single version from 1966 that I take with me on 1/48/50, not Lightfoot's own cover version from Gord's Gold, a compilation album released in the 70s. The original is much more energetic, crisper, snappier, and boy, do I love me some crispy snappy! ;-)
"She's away and westward bound / far above the clouds she'll fly..."
#78) "I've Gotta Be Me" by Sammy Davis Jr. - When it was released as a single in 1968, born into a world getting its ass kicked by the electrified energy of exciting new things like acid rock and Motown, I've Gotta Be Me must have sounded like Sunday sing-along in the geriatric ward. But take a moment to listen, open your mind, and you might realize that this song's only real crime is being uncool.
Written for a completely forgettable Broadway musical, it's actually a fairly stirring affirmation of 'self', an ode to dreams, to keeping them alive, to never settling or conforming, living life by one's own terms. It's a sentiment precious few of us have not felt or practiced at one point or another in our lives, and it was just starting to burgeon in '68, with all of society trying to strike a blow to conformity. Measured by that yardstick, I've Gotta Be Me wasn't really outdated at all. It was as much a part of what the 60s were all about as anything.
And really, what's not to love about Sammy Davis, Jr. to this day?
"I'll go it alone, that's how it must be / I can't be right for somebody else, if I'm not right for me..."
#79) "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" by Toby Keith - Without question, I have - at certain moments and for certain reasons - a strong sense of abiding patriotism. But I think here, more than in any other facet of our lives, we should all be trying to strike a balance. There's a time to recognize the greatness of this country, the success story that it very much is overall, unique in the history of the world, and there's a time to step back, acknowledge its exploits, its mistakes, its ill-advised decisions.
There's been a lot of both in 238 years.
When I look back on the 2000s, I can't help but cringe: the 2000 election set the tone for the decade, chopping the country up (seemingly irreparably) into talking point armies of red and blue states. Then came 9/11, followed by interminable war, natural disaster, corporate greed, financial meltdown...all of it engendering a strange cocktail of impending doom, and complacency in the face of that doom, that permeated our society and seems to have stuck.
All told, it was a shitty, divisive decade.
In country music, the 2003 feud between Toby Keith and The Dixie Chicks was an encapsulation of that division. I was ambivalent. I didn't think what Natalie Maines said to a London crowd was too swift (not so much what she said, as the timing of it - on the eve of a major conflict), yet I found the new, totally immovable patriotism in this country hard to swallow, and the suggestion - just that icy whisper that you were somehow NOT patriotic if you dared raise questions about things - unsettling, to say the least.
That being said, I think Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue is a great song. Maines was quoted as saying she thought the song made country music sound ignorant. But its purpose, I believe, wasn't to sound smart. I don't even think it was intended to be all that political. Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue reflected a deeply emotional response to what really was a 'sucker punch' on September 11, 2001. We had the right to be outraged then, galvanized in that outrage; we should not have felt sheepish for our anger or desire for retribution. Courtesy... represents that well I think, without trying too hard.
It surely represents accurately the part of me that - sensible and open-minded as I am - wanted to see the guilty parties fry when it happened, and ten years later, rejoiced when Osama bin Laden got fried.
And the bells at the end of the song, like all bells in anything, are beautiful.
How could I not bring this song along on 1/48/50?
Please support our military, no matter how you feel about the war.
http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/
"Cuz we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way..."
It's also possible that I was the reluctant one, never anything more than indifferent to Mary Chapin Carpenter. None of the music from her hey-day has ever gotten me to really take notice, with one exception: 2001's Simple Life. Its elastic beat and odd melody strewn with Beatles-esque harmonies distinguishes Carpenter even further from country music, and though it might be considered the end of her 'hey-day', I'd be willing to bet she views it as the beginning of a whole new chapter, her much overdue departure from the country music genre she never quite fit into.
I don't normally respond well (er, at all...) to songs that are overly message-y, and Simple Life is not all that different from countless self-esteem/coping with life/everything's okay numbers (the country music genre is full of them). But I like the way it goes about it: cleverly waiting until the very last minute, very last second, to poke you right between the eyes.
"The simple life is overrated..."
#77) "Early Morning Rain" by Gordon Lightfoot - Gordon Lightfoot is probably best known for The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a song about a tragedy that affected my home region directly. It proved to forever connect the Canadian-born singer with the Great Lakes, but I've always thought there's something uniquely 'northern' about all his music.
I don't think I'm alone in this. I've seen Lightfoot live in concert three times in my life, in (fittingly enough) Duluth, Minnesota, the port that Edmund... sailed out of on that fateful day in November 1975 (well, Superior, Wisconsin specifically...but one of the 'twins' nevertheless...), and always got a sense - from each well-timed round of applause to certain songs, or lines in certain songs, or to remarks made between songs - that the audience considered Lightfoot one of them - a 'northerner', who knew what they knew.
In other words, the South has no small number of boisterous good ol' boys lauding their way of life with their rebel cries and flags and cowboy hats. Northerners have Lightfoot as their musical ambassador; his plaintive, sometimes brooding music befits roads strung through snow-packed woods, early frost and early dawns, bitter winds, long twilights, long winters, and all else that tends to engender the unique and persistent solemnity southerners just can't quite understand.
I used to think the singer in Early Morning Rain, the 'character', is a traveler IN an airport, and for this, the song always evoked a fairly on-the-nose restlessness. But now I realize he's more or less homeless, having nowhere to go and unable to get home, standing outside the chicken wire fence at the far end of the runway in the early morning rain, as if having just emerged from the nearby woods, watching the 707 as it takes off.
In spite of this, or maybe because of it, the song's pulsating acoustic rhythm, lyrics full of longing and town crier vocal styling still get me feeling exuberant and restless, wanting to be on my way somewhere, between places. Frankly, it seems the guy in Early Morning Rain is as 'nebulous' as you can get without being dead.
NOTE: It has to be the original single version from 1966 that I take with me on 1/48/50, not Lightfoot's own cover version from Gord's Gold, a compilation album released in the 70s. The original is much more energetic, crisper, snappier, and boy, do I love me some crispy snappy! ;-)
"She's away and westward bound / far above the clouds she'll fly..."
#78) "I've Gotta Be Me" by Sammy Davis Jr. - When it was released as a single in 1968, born into a world getting its ass kicked by the electrified energy of exciting new things like acid rock and Motown, I've Gotta Be Me must have sounded like Sunday sing-along in the geriatric ward. But take a moment to listen, open your mind, and you might realize that this song's only real crime is being uncool.
Written for a completely forgettable Broadway musical, it's actually a fairly stirring affirmation of 'self', an ode to dreams, to keeping them alive, to never settling or conforming, living life by one's own terms. It's a sentiment precious few of us have not felt or practiced at one point or another in our lives, and it was just starting to burgeon in '68, with all of society trying to strike a blow to conformity. Measured by that yardstick, I've Gotta Be Me wasn't really outdated at all. It was as much a part of what the 60s were all about as anything.
And really, what's not to love about Sammy Davis, Jr. to this day?
"I'll go it alone, that's how it must be / I can't be right for somebody else, if I'm not right for me..."
#79) "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue" by Toby Keith - Without question, I have - at certain moments and for certain reasons - a strong sense of abiding patriotism. But I think here, more than in any other facet of our lives, we should all be trying to strike a balance. There's a time to recognize the greatness of this country, the success story that it very much is overall, unique in the history of the world, and there's a time to step back, acknowledge its exploits, its mistakes, its ill-advised decisions.
There's been a lot of both in 238 years.
When I look back on the 2000s, I can't help but cringe: the 2000 election set the tone for the decade, chopping the country up (seemingly irreparably) into talking point armies of red and blue states. Then came 9/11, followed by interminable war, natural disaster, corporate greed, financial meltdown...all of it engendering a strange cocktail of impending doom, and complacency in the face of that doom, that permeated our society and seems to have stuck.
All told, it was a shitty, divisive decade.
In country music, the 2003 feud between Toby Keith and The Dixie Chicks was an encapsulation of that division. I was ambivalent. I didn't think what Natalie Maines said to a London crowd was too swift (not so much what she said, as the timing of it - on the eve of a major conflict), yet I found the new, totally immovable patriotism in this country hard to swallow, and the suggestion - just that icy whisper that you were somehow NOT patriotic if you dared raise questions about things - unsettling, to say the least.
That being said, I think Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue is a great song. Maines was quoted as saying she thought the song made country music sound ignorant. But its purpose, I believe, wasn't to sound smart. I don't even think it was intended to be all that political. Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue reflected a deeply emotional response to what really was a 'sucker punch' on September 11, 2001. We had the right to be outraged then, galvanized in that outrage; we should not have felt sheepish for our anger or desire for retribution. Courtesy... represents that well I think, without trying too hard.
It surely represents accurately the part of me that - sensible and open-minded as I am - wanted to see the guilty parties fry when it happened, and ten years later, rejoiced when Osama bin Laden got fried.
And the bells at the end of the song, like all bells in anything, are beautiful.
How could I not bring this song along on 1/48/50?
Please support our military, no matter how you feel about the war.
http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/
"Cuz we'll put a boot in your ass, it's the American way..."
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