#185) "An American Dream" by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - I've got all sorts of songs that remind me of my childhood, most of them on the "AM Gold" or "Singers and Songwriters" side of things (my parents were not exactly rocking out to Kiss back then), but "An American Dream" is one of the first songs I remember really liking.
In fact, that's all there was to it. I was around the age of seven when it was released, and it didn't mean anything to me, didn't stir my young emotions, make me think of being on the road or wish I was older than I was, didn't accompany any Wonder Years-esque experiences. I just liked it. Liked the way it sounded. And so rather than making me think of anything specific, it kind of just contributes a shade to the abstract watercolor of my memory. I guess I do remember throwing a fit once when my older brother turned the radio off while I was listening to it, but that kind of stuff happened a lot.
These days, I still enjoy the chilled-out melody, Caribbean(ish) vibe, and Linda Ronstadt's harmonies. Interestingly, the song makes me think of two colors together: red and white. Although I have to say I don't find the subject matter - taking a trip in your mind because you are "without any means" - quite as charming as I think I'm supposed to. But at least I can listen to the whole thing, without getting into a physical tussle with my brother.
I'd soooo win now. :-)
"I think a tropical vacation this year, might be the answer to this hillbilly beer..."
#186) "Lullaby" by Shawn Mullins - When I first heard this song in 1998, I was not impressed. Here was "that guy", I thought, drawing his super sensitive hair out of his super sensitive eyes and mumbling knowing lyrics under a heavily processed rhythm, trying way too hard to be something, to create an image, tell a story...and likely getting laid a lot for all his super sensitive effort.
I don't know what my problem was. Maybe I just wanted to be that guy!
But in any case, now, far removed from its hey-day, from the glare of pop radio and distraction of whatever celebrity it might have afforded Mullins at the time (for a short while), this song is pretty moving, and reviewed with fresh ears even takes on historical significance.
Better than any "grunge" band or song, "Lullaby" captures the disillusionment that was seminal to Generation X - those of us who came of age caught between the narcissistic Boomers and the jaded (depressingly dumbed-down) Millennials.
With sharp references to parents who partied with "Dennis Hopper, Bob Seger and Sonny and Cher", the girl in the song finds herself anxious in her twenties as a result of having grown up with all that mess, adrift in a strange, unnerving world, and with this story Mullins hit the nail on the head, I think, about an entire generation, the first to have to grow up dealing with the consequences of all the freedoms that came out of the Sixties. It's from a Hollywood Hills point of view, of course, but it could really be anyone, anywhere. There were many times in my life, coming and going, job to job, year to year, I think I met that girl. Now, she lives permanently impressed in the abstract watercolor of my memory.
Maybe in a way I was "that guy", after all...
And today, although generally I walk on the sunny side of the street, sometimes it's hard to look outside and rest assured "everything is gonna be all right"...
"She still lives with her Mom outside the city / down that street about half a mile..."
Friday, March 25, 2016
Friday, March 18, 2016
The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#183) "When October Goes" by Barry Manilow - Once again, Barry Manilow proves that he is capable of being soulful, performing something that engenders looking the audience in the eye as he sings, rather than gazing vapidly out at the exit signs while cheesy-love-lines-set-to-music dribble out of his mouth.
Manilow had a hand in writing this one too. So the story goes, he was given lyrics written by Johnny Mercer shortly before Mercer's death. He put those lyrics to a solemn melody well-suited to the subject matter, and aptly created a potent musical cocktail. For my money, "When October Goes" is Manilow's most durable - if not memorable - song.
Of course, the first time you hear it, it immediately becomes memorable...far more memorable, in my opinion, than any of the songs that made him famous. It's not music to party to (or drive to, really), but haunting and insightful, it is, for better or worse, where you find yourself going as the years pass and there's less partying, more time for thinking about things, after you start to realize (and have to accept) that you're not going to live forever.
"It doesn't matter much, how old I grow / I hate to see October go..."
#184) "The End of the Innocence" by Don Henley - An inconvenient truth, but undeniable: rarely do artists, of any genre of music, improve with age. The lucky and/or talented ones start out strong, drawing from the vitality of their own youthfulness, and tapping into something coursing through the collective vein of the times they were born to. But time passes and times change, passions cool, and the luminosity of nearly all star power - even the greats, even the game changers - transforms with age. It doesn't flash out, necessarily, but it changes hue, and surely dims.
There have been exceptions: the Beatles just kept getting better and better throughout their short span of years (of course, they were pretty killer from day one); Johnny Cash did the best work of his career right around the time he reached retirement age. Tom Waits has changed course musically over the years in the interest of staying innovative, and in doing so, also created his most notable work in the back nine. Aerosmith were rock gods in the 70s, fell apart, then were completely revitalized by Run DMC in 1986, after which they carried out a second act of stardom some would say eclipsed their first. Sometimes an untimely death makes a difference: Elvis was a bonafide has-been in the years leading up to his passing in 1977 at age 42. Post-mortem was when he became truly larger than life, the "ELVIS!" we know today.
But those are exceptions. Popular music is driven primarily by youth and vitality. It's about having the energy to anticipate and seek out the best and beautiful in life, and eventually we all cross a point at which much of that energy is behind us. When you're a celebrity, you not only have to deal with your own changes, but changes in your audience as well. So you really have just two choices, to paraphrase Neil Young: burn out early, or just fade away.
Don Henley is on the short list of artists who forged an impressive second act. He was a major player in a major band in the 1970s, and then in the 80s established himself, for a while, as a valid and relevant solo artist.
That impressive second act culminated with 1989's The End of the Innocence, an album in which he brought all of it home, all of his stuff (so to speak), as an artist, a man, and a baby boomer.
This is not hip or stylish music...even way back then, standing on that precipice between hair metal and grunge, "The End of the Innocence" seemed "old" to this 17-year-old. It was "adult" music, and lacked the energy to get me keyed up. But now, I get it...I sooo get it...potently nostalgic without ever becoming overly-sentimental, and with help from Bruce Hornsby's stalwart piano riff and a chilling horn solo, "The End of the Innocence" is just plain gorgeous, not a song, so much, as a type of warm musical bathwater to be slipped into, in moments when we take stock of our lives.
"I need to remember this, so baby give me just one kiss / And let me take a long last look, before we say goodbye..."
Manilow had a hand in writing this one too. So the story goes, he was given lyrics written by Johnny Mercer shortly before Mercer's death. He put those lyrics to a solemn melody well-suited to the subject matter, and aptly created a potent musical cocktail. For my money, "When October Goes" is Manilow's most durable - if not memorable - song.
Of course, the first time you hear it, it immediately becomes memorable...far more memorable, in my opinion, than any of the songs that made him famous. It's not music to party to (or drive to, really), but haunting and insightful, it is, for better or worse, where you find yourself going as the years pass and there's less partying, more time for thinking about things, after you start to realize (and have to accept) that you're not going to live forever.
"It doesn't matter much, how old I grow / I hate to see October go..."
#184) "The End of the Innocence" by Don Henley - An inconvenient truth, but undeniable: rarely do artists, of any genre of music, improve with age. The lucky and/or talented ones start out strong, drawing from the vitality of their own youthfulness, and tapping into something coursing through the collective vein of the times they were born to. But time passes and times change, passions cool, and the luminosity of nearly all star power - even the greats, even the game changers - transforms with age. It doesn't flash out, necessarily, but it changes hue, and surely dims.
There have been exceptions: the Beatles just kept getting better and better throughout their short span of years (of course, they were pretty killer from day one); Johnny Cash did the best work of his career right around the time he reached retirement age. Tom Waits has changed course musically over the years in the interest of staying innovative, and in doing so, also created his most notable work in the back nine. Aerosmith were rock gods in the 70s, fell apart, then were completely revitalized by Run DMC in 1986, after which they carried out a second act of stardom some would say eclipsed their first. Sometimes an untimely death makes a difference: Elvis was a bonafide has-been in the years leading up to his passing in 1977 at age 42. Post-mortem was when he became truly larger than life, the "ELVIS!" we know today.
But those are exceptions. Popular music is driven primarily by youth and vitality. It's about having the energy to anticipate and seek out the best and beautiful in life, and eventually we all cross a point at which much of that energy is behind us. When you're a celebrity, you not only have to deal with your own changes, but changes in your audience as well. So you really have just two choices, to paraphrase Neil Young: burn out early, or just fade away.
Don Henley is on the short list of artists who forged an impressive second act. He was a major player in a major band in the 1970s, and then in the 80s established himself, for a while, as a valid and relevant solo artist.
That impressive second act culminated with 1989's The End of the Innocence, an album in which he brought all of it home, all of his stuff (so to speak), as an artist, a man, and a baby boomer.
This is not hip or stylish music...even way back then, standing on that precipice between hair metal and grunge, "The End of the Innocence" seemed "old" to this 17-year-old. It was "adult" music, and lacked the energy to get me keyed up. But now, I get it...I sooo get it...potently nostalgic without ever becoming overly-sentimental, and with help from Bruce Hornsby's stalwart piano riff and a chilling horn solo, "The End of the Innocence" is just plain gorgeous, not a song, so much, as a type of warm musical bathwater to be slipped into, in moments when we take stock of our lives.
"I need to remember this, so baby give me just one kiss / And let me take a long last look, before we say goodbye..."
Friday, March 11, 2016
The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#181) "Pride (In the Name of Love)" by U2 - U2 is one of those bands I had to grow into. I resisted them for years, on some kind of principle I could not have easily explained. I guess I was always turned off by what I saw as pretentiousness: Bono seeming to hold court in every song, self-proclaimed prosecutor of all the world's good fights and heady messages. It was a lot to take in for a dopey kid from northern Wisconsin whose biggest concern at the time "Pride (In the Name of Love)" came out was hoping the Super Mario Bros game in the alcove of the Pamida would be free when I biked two miles out there (it almost never was). I always sort of felt like I was neither cool enough nor smart enough to understand why Bono was so upset.
FROM THE ONION: Bono outbids everyone at Charity Auction for Bono-autographed guitar (CLICK HERE ;-)
And yet, virtually every song in the U2 library is pretty much a classic at this point, and truth is, there really isn't any pretentiousness to be found, if by that word one means "false", "exaggerated" or "undeserving." Forging a unique sound and a unique interpretation of the world, a unique sensibility (which the band has shrewdly allowed to grow and develop as the years have passed), U2 enjoys a well-deserved legacy. And while it's quite possible that Bono might be a pill at cocktail parties, he nevertheless seems legitimately (as in genuinely) committed to things he's committed to...and there's nothing wrong with that. He has walked the walk as well as talked the talk.
And if I may speak plainly, musically speaking, "Pride (In the Name of Love)" is just fucking epic...listen to it with headphones: the ringing guitar, the vocals, the message...it all combines as alchemy. Great music for being on the road, driving really fast, in open spaces that are splashed in sunshine.
"Early morning, April 4 / Shot rings out in the Memphis sky..."
#182) "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash - I guess I should have known better, but I was surprised to learn that "Rock the Casbah" was not just a random jam for 1982, but was actually inspired by the ban on Western music after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979...er, at least, that's what Wikipedia tells me.
And why not? It makes sense...I guess I never wanted to know too much about this wicked little snake charm of a song, didn't want to mess with how it gels in my mind as it plays. This is no garden variety pop ditty, neither in its structure nor its vocals, which aren't too noteworthy at first, until Joe Strummer shreds the entire room with that one killer line: "The crowd caught a whiff / of that crazy Casbah jive..."
The whole of this song is killer - percussion, piano, bass riff...it's one of those rare treasures that makes you really appreciate the creative process, and wonder how something like it happens at all. It makes me wish I could have been a fly on the wall as it was being conceived / written / composed / recorded.
Like "Pride (In the Name of Love)", "Rock the Casbah" was a song I didn't really appreciate until later in life, but when I did, I became a fan in a washout of enthusiasm. And like Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and Mellencamp's "Pink Houses", it would seem to be a song that frequently gets misunderstood by certain people.
I don't get into any of that. I just jam to this one. And the video cracks me up. In a good way.
And in these troubled times, maybe we should take what it's showing to heart... ;-)
"By order of the prophet, we ban that boogie sound / Degenerate the faithful, with that crazy Casbah sound..."
FROM THE ONION: Bono outbids everyone at Charity Auction for Bono-autographed guitar (CLICK HERE ;-)
And yet, virtually every song in the U2 library is pretty much a classic at this point, and truth is, there really isn't any pretentiousness to be found, if by that word one means "false", "exaggerated" or "undeserving." Forging a unique sound and a unique interpretation of the world, a unique sensibility (which the band has shrewdly allowed to grow and develop as the years have passed), U2 enjoys a well-deserved legacy. And while it's quite possible that Bono might be a pill at cocktail parties, he nevertheless seems legitimately (as in genuinely) committed to things he's committed to...and there's nothing wrong with that. He has walked the walk as well as talked the talk.
And if I may speak plainly, musically speaking, "Pride (In the Name of Love)" is just fucking epic...listen to it with headphones: the ringing guitar, the vocals, the message...it all combines as alchemy. Great music for being on the road, driving really fast, in open spaces that are splashed in sunshine.
"Early morning, April 4 / Shot rings out in the Memphis sky..."
#182) "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash - I guess I should have known better, but I was surprised to learn that "Rock the Casbah" was not just a random jam for 1982, but was actually inspired by the ban on Western music after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979...er, at least, that's what Wikipedia tells me.
And why not? It makes sense...I guess I never wanted to know too much about this wicked little snake charm of a song, didn't want to mess with how it gels in my mind as it plays. This is no garden variety pop ditty, neither in its structure nor its vocals, which aren't too noteworthy at first, until Joe Strummer shreds the entire room with that one killer line: "The crowd caught a whiff / of that crazy Casbah jive..."
The whole of this song is killer - percussion, piano, bass riff...it's one of those rare treasures that makes you really appreciate the creative process, and wonder how something like it happens at all. It makes me wish I could have been a fly on the wall as it was being conceived / written / composed / recorded.
Like "Pride (In the Name of Love)", "Rock the Casbah" was a song I didn't really appreciate until later in life, but when I did, I became a fan in a washout of enthusiasm. And like Springsteen's "Born in the USA" and Mellencamp's "Pink Houses", it would seem to be a song that frequently gets misunderstood by certain people.
I don't get into any of that. I just jam to this one. And the video cracks me up. In a good way.
And in these troubled times, maybe we should take what it's showing to heart... ;-)
"By order of the prophet, we ban that boogie sound / Degenerate the faithful, with that crazy Casbah sound..."
Friday, March 4, 2016
The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)
#179) "Both Sides, Now" by Joni Mitchell - The first I ever heard of this song was the 1967 Judy Collins version, with its sunny-sounding harpsichord business evoking images of balloons, clowns and amusement parks. I was a young child, probably not even five, and in spite of the happy imagery floating through my mind, "Both Sides, Now" was among the first songs I can remember moving me emotionally.
Of course, I didn't know why at the time, and now, looking back, Collins' version pales in comparison to Mitchell's own two years later, and dissipates entirely in the ambient heat and light of her 2000 re-boot. In that version, her re-arrangement of the song from a folk oriented guitar piece into a majestic sounding American Standard is testament, I think, to the woman's tremendous sense of artistry, her ability to key into the natural evolution of herself and her work...and her fans.
And it's bittersweet that I am the right age to finally understand what she's talking about. Years ago, "Both Sides, Now" was among the first to move me, and it just might end up being, years from now (hopefully), the last song I'm ever moved by. That 2000 version, in particular, stands as the song I'd prefer to be listening to at the moment I pass.
2000
#180) "Fallin' in Love" by Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds - No particular memories with this song, as such, no long thoughts to speak of (or write about), no grand insight (delusions of grandeur ;-). I just like the way it sounds, and I really like the way it makes the scenery look when I'm driving along and it's playing.
Which makes it, in my mind at least, a quintessential road song.
"I could never see, what fate had planned for me..."
Of course, I didn't know why at the time, and now, looking back, Collins' version pales in comparison to Mitchell's own two years later, and dissipates entirely in the ambient heat and light of her 2000 re-boot. In that version, her re-arrangement of the song from a folk oriented guitar piece into a majestic sounding American Standard is testament, I think, to the woman's tremendous sense of artistry, her ability to key into the natural evolution of herself and her work...and her fans.
And it's bittersweet that I am the right age to finally understand what she's talking about. Years ago, "Both Sides, Now" was among the first to move me, and it just might end up being, years from now (hopefully), the last song I'm ever moved by. That 2000 version, in particular, stands as the song I'd prefer to be listening to at the moment I pass.
1970
"But now old friends, they're acting strange, they shake their heads, they say I've changed / Well something's lost, but something's gained, in living every day..."
#180) "Fallin' in Love" by Hamilton, Joe Frank and Reynolds - No particular memories with this song, as such, no long thoughts to speak of (or write about), no grand insight (delusions of grandeur ;-). I just like the way it sounds, and I really like the way it makes the scenery look when I'm driving along and it's playing.
Which makes it, in my mind at least, a quintessential road song.
"I could never see, what fate had planned for me..."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)