#284) "Journey to the Center of the Mind" by The Amboy Dukes - On one hand, it's difficult to associate Ted Nugent - Mr. Anti-Liberal/Anti-Drug/Good Hunting Uber 'Merican - with a song I've always associated with hippies and their chemically expanded minds (or at least nerdy kids LARP-ing rather than hunting and fishing). 'Twas the times, I guess, the late 1960s, Summer of Love, etc. What else could a young Nuge do but dress like Sgt. Pepper and participate if he wanted to get anywhere, get anyone to take notice?
On the other hand, I've never been one for pointing fingers when it comes to music. At the end of the day, songs are about whatever the listener wants them to be about. That's the artistic process at work, really. "Journey to the Center of the Mind" need not be about drugs any more than John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" (which isn't...), and I truly don't care if it is or not. My point is that musically speaking, as early as this song came in his career, it still has Nugent's fingerprints are all over it, which is what I like about it. He was still a good decade away from swinging across the stage in a loin cloth, but you can tell by the body language of the blistering guitar licks heard here, that the Motor City Madman, as we would come to know, love and hate him, was already present.
"Beyond the seas of thought, beyond the realm of what / Across the streams of hopes and dreams where things are really not..."
#285) "Sweet Young Thing" by The Chocolate Watchband - I don't know what else to say about this song other than sometimes sexy is just sexy. It always makes me sort of wish I had come of age in the 60s. I can think of no better soundtrack to being that age, discovering all that I could as fast as I could, than this song, and this kind of music.
I had hair metal to treat my acne, and it was just not the same. "Hey sweet young thing, come on an open your door..."
#282) "Interstate Love Song" by The Stone Temple Pilots - I was never really into The Stone Temple Pilots. In fact, were it not for Scott Weiland's distinctive vocals, I might not otherwise have known "Interstate Love Song" was their song, because I honestly can't say it ever did anything for me.
Looking back, I don't know why. It's really a gorgeous piece of music, one of those (in my opinion) perfectly constructed songs, universally appealing, that from my point of view wound up draped fully across the decade in which it was released. In the past, I've said that nothing smells like 1975 more than "Sister Golden Hair" by America, more recently I claimed nothing smells more like 1997 than Smash Mouth, but nothing smells more like the whole of the 1990s (especially as time has passed and it's gelled into a by-gone era) as "Interstate Love Song".
It never got my attention, and yet it always seemed to be playing in the background of my life - on the radio at work, in my car, the jukebox at a bar, at parties, on TV. It was, in a word, ubiquitous, and it isn't hard to understand why. It's brilliantly not too "grunge" for its own good (or post-grunge, or other classification that for better or worse helps us interpret our world), not too much anything and yet a little bit of everything. There is nothing specific in its lyrics that speaks to me personally, but when I think of the full scope of being in my twenties - of ceremonious drinking late into the night all the way to sunrise, of flannel and hole-y jeans and carefully crafted stubble, of smoking cigs because I still had plenty of time to quit and taking selfies (with an old film camera) with one of them dangling out of my mouth because I was the even more carefully crafted "writer guy", hell-bent on doing things my way, living life on what I thought were my own terms - it's simply this song that is playing in the background, probably more frequently than songs I liked a lot more, even though I never actually listened to it until three years ago. "Waiting on a Sunday afternoon, for what I read between the lines / Your lies..." #283) "Why Can't I?" by Liz Phair - Same exact deal as above, only replace the 1990s with the 2000s, and replace hooking up, drinking until dawn and cigarettes dangling from my mouth with attempts to quit, health kicks, kids, business ventures and all the attendant adult bullshit "writer guy" swore would never, ever be his life. My stubble was still there, but a little grayer. I was still writing, but it was less a pleasure, more a chore. I found I didn't have nearly as much time as I once did...and noticed it was running a lot faster. Though, of course, not as fast as it is now. 😐
While all of that transformation and transition was going on, "Why Can't I?" was the song droning in the background. "We're already wet and we're gonna go swimming..."
August 1, 2007 was a memorable day in my life, for all the wrong reasons. It was the day when the I-35W bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota collapsed during rush hour traffic, killing 13 and injuring over a hundred. I was nowhere near the Twin Cities when it happened, but the tragedy affected me emotionally nevertheless.
In my youth, there were two main go-to destinations in my life. One was Duluth, Minnesota, just an hour away from where I grew up. I reserve a special place in my heart for Duluth to this day. Among the most physically beautiful cities I've ever been to, she was in my youth keeper of all the "big city" shopping mall action I could handle - Aladdin's Castle, Musicland, Orange Julius, Barnes and Noble, et cetera. Duluth had everything my hometown didn't have. The trick was finding a way there.
The other was Minneapolis. Any trip there meant something truly awesome was happening. I'm very familiar with I-35, which runs from the Twin Ports to the Twin Cities, where it splits into 35W, which runs through Minneapolis, and 35E, which wends its way through St. Paul. I rarely had any reason to go to St. Paul. Minneapolis was where it was at. I had crossed that 35W bridge countless times on my way to the airport, or Valley Fair, or the Mall of America, or the Metrodome or numerous points around or south of the Cities.
That fact alone isn't significant, of course. In theory, we're all a hair's breadth away from tragedy at any given moment, so the number of times I drove over that bridge prior to its collapse doesn't mean anything. But there was something about crossing that particular span that always sent an anxious trill through my bones.
I don't mean in a clairvoyant way. I don't claim ever to have thought something would happen, no
visions of the future, but I can in good conscience say something about it unnerved me. It was high, for starters, arching more than a hundred feet above a stretch of the Mississippi that seemed like a gaping maw, surrounded by a visually severe landscape - the big beautiful Minneapolis skyline on one side, and a lot of rough industry - with a power plant, and a dam - on the other. It was more exciting than intimidating I guess, but every time I crossed that bridge, I thought about it collapsing out from underneath me. Again, to be clear, I never thought it actually would, but the hypothetical notion would float through my mind, and so when it did, when I realized it was that bridge's demise being covered on the national news, I was left momentarily floored.
The other reason the tragedy affected me, is because I've always considered infrastructure to be a big deal. Our bridges should no more be collapsing out from under us - ever - than our drinking water should be tainted with lead or other poisons, and yet we are reminded time and time again when some unexpected-and-yet-really-no-surprise tragedy occurs that not nearly enough time or attention is being given to shoring it up. If it were, perhaps things like the I-35 bridge collapse, or the entirely outrageous Flint, Michigan water scandal (not to mention countless places across the country where people's tap water comes out flammable) might be avoided. Clear roadways to get around, potable water and electric power should in 2017 be considered basic human rights the world over.
A report earlier this year by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association found that over 50,000 bridges - many of them part of major roadways bearing huge traffic loads on a daily basis - are structurally deficient. The report stressed that "structurally deficient" doesn't mean collapse is imminent, only that problems have been detected that need or will eventually need repair, but it's unnerving just the same to think about that number: 50,000-plus bridges in this country all trembling - however slightly (and who knows how many are more than slightly) - under the weight of our need to get from one place to another on a daily basis, our reliance on big rigs moving product, our love of driving, of motion, of freedom, needing some kind of repair work. In the case of the I-35 Bridge, the sheer volume of
traffic it endured on a daily basis was staggering, and as early as 1990
(just 23 years after it was constructed) it had been labeled
"structurally deficient", and would again receive this
designation in 2005, two years before it came down.
How many of the 50,000 bridges noted in the ARTBA report currently have a cloudy history like that? One would be far too many.
It's especially frightening, considering I love driving over bridges. I have on numerous occasions driven out of my way just to be able to drive over a bridge, and the specific route I take on 1/48/50 will almost certainly be determined (partially, at least) by whether there's a bridge I can drive over.
Indulging this little driving kink should not be a matter of tempting fate.
#279) "Rocker" by AC/DC - Before the untimely death of lead singer Bon Scott, AC/DC was considered hard rock. The loud, aggressive style of music they helped pioneer in the 1970s didn't become the caricature I knew as "heavy metal" until the 80s, with, I'd venture, the release of the monumental album, Back in Black, a tribute to Scott with new front man, Brian Johnson.
That album is great, groundbreaking in its way (forging new paths in musical metallurgy), but as a whole, the genre got lamer and lamer as the decade progressed, more about image in the video age than anything real or relatable. By the time I entered high school, it had been watered down to a little thing called hair metal, which didn't provide or produce much good in the world, outside of the ratted hair look (on women). That noise wasn't silenced until 1991, with a band called Nirvana and a music (-al movement) called "grunge", which, when you think about it, also wound up becoming a caricature.
The album Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap has always struck me as a solid emissary from that moment just before hard rock became metal. And "Rocker", the best example of rock and roll that may have been hard, but had not yet lost its more organic, bluesier roots in the dervish of spandex, eye liner and ratted out hair...on men...that for better or worse, informed my youth.
This is nothing less than rock and roll history:
"Got little red socks, blue suede shows / V-8 car and tattoos..." #280) "Ride On" by AC/DC - From the same album, and nothing if not "bluesy", there are two things I love about this song: 1) the message. It's how everyone should approach life, really the only option everyone has, and at certain moments in my own life it's actually served as a beacon. Ride on. 2) Angus Young's guitar solo, which, for my money, is among the best ever, in "rock and roll", "hard rock", "metal" or whatever else you want to put quotes around.
"Bought myself a one-way ticket, going the wrong way..."
#281) "Big Balls" - On the surface a throw-away, but listen, and consider it was the mid-1970s when this was recorded. It was actually kind of funny, and daring (dare I say: ballsy), for its day.
Whether it holds up today, either as a piece of art, a piece of comedy, or a piece of music, I'm not so sure. But there was a time, man, 7th or 8th grade, when "Big Balls" was pretty shocking and hilarious and cool, and I felt pretty shocking and hilarious and cool jamming out to it. That alone makes it worth taking along on my road trip. "It's my belief that my big balls should be held every night..."
#277) "Walking On the Sun" by Smash Mouth - What the band America was to the 1970s, it might be said Smash Mouth was to the 1990s. Make no mistake, I think America was a much better band, and their music had a much greater (lasting) impact. But as I once said that nothing smells more like 1975 than "Sister Golden Hair", nothing smells more like 1997 in my mind than "Walking on the Sun".
Into a world with "Friends", "Frasier" and "Seinfeld" on TV, "blazing fast!" 56K technology taking the Internet by storm, and everyone drinking fancy coffee in a fancy coffee house and planning to publish a poetry book, Smash Mouth released "Walking on the Sun", a never unlistenable little jam that says more about the let-down of the 1960s than a lot of painstakingly rendered historical documentaries. I feel the second verse in particular distills the unfortunate road society has taken since that time (idealism crushed cruelly beneath the boot heel of corporate-controlled consumerism) down to a simple, deceptively rhetorical question: "Twenty-five years ago they spoke out and they broke out of recession and oppression And together they toked And they folked out with guitars around a bonfire Just singing and clapping, man, what the hell happened...?"
Drop the mic, boys...
"Because fashion is smashing the true meaning of it..."
#278) "Drinking Song" by Loudon Wainwright - Though it might be considered a deep track (truthfully every one of Wainwright's songs, other than 1972's "Dead Skunk", which for better or worse is probably what he'll be remembered for, might be considered a deep track), "Drinking Song" encapsulates everything I've loved about the man and his music over the years.
It is quintessential Loudon. He treats the guitar as much as a percussion instrument as a string. The song starts like any other of his ditties - a little anxious but also a little clever and wry, nothing if not comical. But like all his music, the best of it at least, "Drinking Song" has a way of turning overcast as it wears on. By the end, that trademark anxiety Wainwright employs to fuel his music has gotten itself onto you, like a musty smell, and you are left sort of wondering why you were laughing at all.
" Drunk men stagger, drunk men fall, drunk men swear and that's not all / Quite often they will urinate outdoors..."
#274) "Tin Man" by America - When I was younger, I didn't like "Tin Man", primarily because I didn't get it. I should have, maybe. Being the writer dude/self styled intellectual I worked oh so hard to convince the world (and myself) I was, I should have totally been down with the stream-of-consciousness headiness of the vibe, and up to the challenge of its poetically inscrutable lyrics.
But alas, it was all too much for me to wrap my head around...because - I think - it was just so fucking awesome...actual poetry, as opposed to merely overwrought and heavily cliched imagery. Or maybe it's just complete nonsense. Honestly, that would be okay too.
And I definitely wasn't mature then enough to appreciate the artistry of America's collective musicianship. Dewey Bunnell wrote "Tin Man", but like many of America's songs, it's the other two members, Dan Peek and Gerry Beckley, joining in that helps create the unforgettable sound that, as I've said in the past, is on one hand helplessly dated to the 1970s, yet beautifully timeless at the same time.
Now as a full-fledged adult, I still don't know what the hell the song is saying, I just love it. Love me some America, man. I feel like there's important stuff - heady and just a little horrifying - going on in their music, both lyrically and melodically, and yet, nothing at all at the same time. Maybe more than any other band or artist, America should be brought along on a cross-country road trip.
"But Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn't, didn't already have..."
#275) "A Horse With No Name" by America - See above.
"The ocean is a desert with its life underground and a perfect disguise above..." #276) "Lonely People" by America - And again. Although the lyrics are more straightforward in this one, it's still just pleasant to listen to. "Don't give up until you drink from the silver cup / you never know until you try..."
#271) "If I Can Dream" by Elvis Presley - Sometime in the 1990s, we thought fit to put Elvis Presley on a postage stamp, and got into a national debate about which Elvis it should be - young, sexy, boundary-pushing "Elvis the Pelvis" of the 1950s, or fat, bloated, drug-addled Elvis, who through most of the 70s lumbered onto stage in a purple cape suit, breathing heavily and sweating up a storm, but whose magnificent voice never failed him even when it was clear his body had. The U.S. Postal Service actually let people vote for their favorite stamp, and in the end, young Elvis won out. Not too surprising, I guess.
Young Elvis may very well have been the best looking dude of the 20th century (his aesthetic surely remains a gold standard for many women today), but the King's best music came during the fat years, when he simply stopped giving a shit, started singing the music he wanted to sing, which for Elvis was a lot of different types of songs, most of them arranged in a specific gospel-based style that gave him a platform to showcase his voice and stage presence.
This musical trend began in 1968, with the televised live concert known as the "Comeback Special", which aired on NBC on December 3. Elvis wasn't out of shape yet, still looked the part, still looked pretty good, actually, maybe the best he ever had (certainly the best he ever would). He performed some of his classics and some new music, and he closed the show with "If I Can Dream", a powerful song worthy of his voice and delivery that also echoed the hopeful and idealized sentiment of the era, signaling to the American public (a public quite different from that which was only allowed to watch him from the waist up thirteen years earlier) that the King of Rock and Roll hadn't gone anywhere, just grown up a bit, and was now paying attention to things going on, along with everyone else.
Great song. Great performance. Pity that "hopeful and idealized sentiment" went largely ignored.
"There must be peace and understanding sometime, strong winds of promise that will blow away the doubt and fear..."
#272) "Memories" by Elvis Presley - Another song that debuted on the '68 Comeback Special and was eventually released as a single, as love ballads go - by the King, or anyone else - this is about as good as it gets. "Sweet memories, of holding hands and red bouquets, and twilight trimmed in purple haze / And laughing eyes and simple ways, and quiet nights and gentle days with you..." #273) "Unchained Melody (Live)" by Elvis Presley - Performed weeks before his death in 1977, this is, for a variety of reasons, one of the worst live performances of any song, by anyone, ever. It's also one of the very greatest, for all the same reasons, and maybe a few others.
#269) "Mama Luba" by Serebro - With the potent sex appeal of the three members of Serebro to contend with (seeming to confirm everything I've ever heard about the exceptional beauty of Russian women), it would be easy to dismiss "Mama Luba" as mere pop tripe performed by women who better be good-looking, because they're certainly not Joni Mitchell.
But "Mama Luba" is beyond catchy. The combination of driving rhythm, urgent melody (and vocals) and a synthesized horn jam end run that itself could teach a course in sexiness scratches deep enough to become a legitimate groove, the kind that gets into your blood as well as your ear. And honestly, that it's sung in Russian doesn't hurt...(although I don't know why I just typed that).
Sadly, the rest of Serebro's music is what you might expect from any manufactured girl group, Russian, American or otherwise: cloying, overtly sexual (that is, to the point of being annoyingly so...), sassy and salty for the sake of being "sassy and salty"...but"Mama Luba" more than makes up for the other fails simply by not trying too hard. Yes, the women of Serebro are purrrrdy (okay, astonishingly hot), but truly, it wouldn't matter if they weren't (and agreed, it shouldn't). I'd still be jamming out...;-)
Sorry, the lyrics are in a Russian...;-)
#270) "Silence on the Line" by Chris LeDoux - On the surface, just another country ballad about cowboys and rodeos, hard falls and painted canyon walls...and whatnot and shit...but not really. If you sit and listen to this song, a richly textured (and kind of devastating) story is revealed, a story that touches on some universally known themes: the death of dreams, what we wish mattered in life compared to what ends up mattering, how we see ourselves as opposed to how others see us, the relationship between men and women, what's expected of men as time passes...
A former rodeo rider, LeDoux passed away in 2005 at the age of 56. Taken way too early, he left behind a musical legacy worthy of remembrance, with "Silence on the Line" worthy of analysis.
Truthfully, no other song has ever moved me quite the same way. "Well there's silence on the line, and now I hear her saying / 'Babe, I only need a man for the things a man is good for...'"
#267) "When the Stars Go Blue" by Tim McGraw - Tim McGraw made this Ryan Adams song a hit in 2006, and he's to be applauded for it, as it's neither a typical country ballad, nor typical of McGraw (although he did do a stupendous job with "Please Remember Me" a few years earlier, kind of an off-beat ballad itself, so perhaps this was not totally out of left field). If the word "gorgeous" can ever be used to describe a song without sounding like overkill (or in the case of country music, overcompensation), this is it. "Please Remember Me" is lush and lovely, but it might be said, by those with no taste for ballads of any kind, that it's a bit fruity.
Whereas there's nothing fruity about "When the Stars Go Blue". To me, it seems naturally placed wherever it's heard. It drips like rain off the roof on a gunmetal gray afternoon...or maybe it's the sound of the light that cascades down through the clouds when they break up later in the evening. Maybe it's the overnight.
Or the sound of a new day. Maybe the new day's rain.
"Where do you go when you're lonely? Where do you go when you're blue...?"
#268) "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" by Gerry and the Pacemakers - There are some songs that just seem to come from a faraway place, a place you know is remote, a place people neither travel to or from very often. For me, "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" is one of those. Out of its very arrangement (full of wispy strings, totally uncertain-sounding horns, overly cautious percussion, and an oboe that sounds as though it's contemplating whether there's any reason to go on living) broadcasts an unavoidable (and undeniable) sense of remoteness that, for my money, can only get anywhere by riding the light through the vast sky. In other words, like "When the Stars Go Blue", "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" is uniquely gorgeous.
But it's also odd as hell for how Gerry Marsden sounds as he's singing it. Maybe it's my imagination, but for a song of hope, Marsden sounds intractably cold, and wholly unsympathetic to whoever he has caught crying.
Maybe it's merely the best a hard-bitten Liverpudlian can muster in the emotions department. It could also be intentional, I guess, a vocal stylization if you will, to match the haunting melody. If so, here's a song that truly captures the nuanced subtleties of the human condition: "There there...it's okay to cry, just....okay, come on, all right then, you're good...let's get up now, pull yourself together...hey, stop it... stop it..." "We know crying's not a bad thing, but stop your crying when the birds sing..."
#264) "Them Bones" by Alice in Chains - Back in the early 1990s when I was an angst-ridden 20-something making my way through a world where flannel had suddenly become cool, I wasmuch more an Alice in Chains man than Nirvana. Layne Stayley had the greatest voice, and just as Ozzy's banshee wail was perfectly suited to Tommy Iommi's dark musical vision in the early days of Black Sabbath, there really could not have been a better companion for Jerry Cantrell's music than Staley's panicked growl.
I would say AIC was the best thing to come out of Seattle at the time, best of the "grunge" movement. Yeah, yeah, I know people love their Nirvana, but there was something in Alice in Chains' sound that I was able to dial into that just wasn't there for me with Kurt and crew. In as far as I refuse to believe (or accept) that at the end of the day all art is merely hoax, I can say I always felt more emotionally and psychologically connected to Alice in Chains than Nirvana.
There was a lot of "grunge" back then and there's always been a lot of "metal", but as I've remarked about other special bands/artists on this list over the years, who else could "Them Bones" be but Alice in Chains? That's saying something...
"I feel so alone, gonna wind up a big ol' pile of them bones..."
#265) "Whale and Wasp" by Alice in Chains - From their incredible Jar of Flies EP,the deeply compelling instrumental"Whale and Wasp"really doesn't need (or deserve) me trying to describe or explain. It's a "just listen" proposition...
Man, just listen...
#266) "I Can't Live Without my Radio" by LL Cool J - Long before I was an angst-ridden 20-something, I was actually a hip hopper in training.
Er, at least, in 7th and 8th grade I did the best I could. Which, looking back at the clothes and gear I employed to try pulling it off (bright yellow parachute pants, and a Swatch watch...lol!!), actually left me a totally legit b-boy, if the "b" stands for "Best of intentions But Bunk moves and emBarrassingly Badly dressed". I think I had a pretty nice pair of Converse though, actually...although I killed off any swagger they might have lent me in the summer of '86 with the beret. 😕
Ay-yi-yi...
I did have one thing going for me: my older brother attended college in New York City at the time, and not only were there solid bragging rights to be dug up out of that fact alone, but he would send me cassette recordings of real live New York radio, where, on certain stations (including the now legendary but defunct Kiss FM), rap music was being played on-air...something unthinkable in northern Wisconsin back then, where only recently had we finally gotten an FM station that wasn't still scooping out gelatinous blobs of Carpenters, Orleans, Christopher Cross and America (or .38 Special if they really felt like rocking out).
I wasn't aware at the time, but I very well might have been getting exposed to some great groundbreaking stuff on account of those tapes, stuff that you had to be a local to hear, and I seem to recall the on-air deejays being as much performers themselves as they were announcers: I know I saved those tapes. I'll have to dig them out someday and figure out how to play them again. (I can't remember the last time I pressed an actual physical "play" button.)
THEY should definitely come along with me on 1/48/50!
But being from small town Midwest, that was all very unusual. I jammed to those cassettes over and over, but there were three must-have mainstream rap albums that were far more important back then: Run DMC's Raising Hell, Run DMC's King of Rock, and LL Cool J's Radio. Cory, Max and I would break dance (or maybe just convulse spastically) in our front yards with those albums playing as loud as we could manage (can't remember which of us had a portable boom box...it wasn't me...). And I remember trying to do my best pop and lock moves to "I Can't Live Without My Radio", throwing in some moonwalking (??!!), before throwing myself onto the sidewalk for the worm...and feeling more "street" than I ever had, or ever would again
It's one of those memories that makes me fucking cringe, but which nevertheless I wouldn't trade for anything.
Musically speaking, "I Can't Live Without my Radio" holds up. It's definitely dated to the 80s, but there's something still very listenable about it, something hypnotic about the relationship between LL Cool J's flow and the simplistic but jackhammer rhythm surrounding it. "My radio believe me I like it loud / I'm the man with the box who can rock the crowd / Walkin' down the street to the hardcore beat / While my JVC vibrates the concrete..."
#262) "Rainbow Ride" by The Charlie Daniels Band - Charlie Daniels has never been shy about voicing his opinion, and those opinions have changed over time. A "long-haired country boy" long ago, he has turned staunchly conservative in recent decades, his views driven by a strong Christian faith.
That's fine, but "Rainbow Ride" might be the best evidence that before they've been anything else, Charlie Daniels and his band have been consummate musicians, a fairly funky jam band, able to whip their music into a frenzy with precision-timed riffs and interesting harmonies, leading the audience (or the listener) to a certain emotional place where politics should not be allowed to go, or can't survive.
Like the man says, "cowboys, hippies, rebels and yanks", you just gotta sit back and listen...and groove. Or you should, anyway... "See the nighttime rainbow colors flying by / Close your eyes and let it happen / Rising, falling, gently calling you / Let the evening fly away, while you're dreamin' / Come on take that rainbow ride with me..." #263) "American Pie" by Don McLean - Over the decades, I think there have actually been more than a few days on which it might be said "the music died": Jim, Jimi, Janis and Ronnie, Lennon, Presley and Kurt Cobain...for some the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls were points of no return...for me, for personal reasons, Layne Staley's inglorious demise was the end of something more than just his life. But the original "day the music died", immortalized in "American Pie", was February 3, 1959, when Ritchie Valens, the Big Bopper Richardson and Buddy Holly perished in a plane crash in an Iowa cornfield. I've always thought the whole "day the music died" concept was an elegantly astute observation on McLean's part. The imagery he weaves through the lyrics of the eight-and-a-half minute song clarify the sentiment, placing a punctuation mark not only at the end of his childhood, but the end of the "innocent" 50s.
When I was a young man listening to this song, and fantasizing that I was singing it (er, like everyone, right...?), I would make up my own lyrics to kind of tailor-fit it to my life, my experiences, my own loss of innocence, etc. Now, almost three decades since then, the strangest thing happens when I listen to "American Pie" - I find that I don't have to change the lyrics at all. McLean's allegorical words strangely fit my experience, my memories, without any alteration necessary.
A testament to his artistry, I would say.
"I met a girl who sang the blues, and I asked her for some happy news / But she just smiled and turned away..."
#260) Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day - One of Green Day's best was written for front man Billy Joe Armstrong's father, who passed away when he was ten, but the song is so good at collecting emotional fragments and assembling a larger sense of loss, it oddly makes the whole worth more than the sum of its parts. If that's not an apt description of art, I don't know what is. The poetic lyrics do a nice job of intriguing rather than explaining, almost as if they're holding something back, not revealing everything they know. At least not right away.
The video, which draws heavily from the anxious, war-torn 2000s, is a bit over-wrought at moments, but there lies a dreaminess within it that lends itself to the "art", doing the music and lyrics justice. It's in the way it's shot, and the way it's acted.
To that end, I love the look of the kids in the video; I always have. Actors Jamie Bell and Evan Rachel Wood were excellent choices to represent average kids, looking and acting (and speaking) exactly as average kids would if they found themselves torn apart by the sense of duty and equally potent sense of futility that war evokes.
No doubt plenty of "average kids" actually did find themselves torn apart back in 2005, just as they did in 1968.
And 1952. And 1943. And 1917....
"Summer has come and passed / The innocent can never last / Wake me up when September ends..."
#261)"Uneasy Rider" by The Charlie Daniels Band - Charlie Daniels is one of the greatest country musicians - greatest musicians of any genre - of all time. "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", his most famous song, with its tight (as in circulation restricting) sound was innovative (as in Earth shattering) for the time, and it's actually only the beginning. Some of the greatest country songs of all time are CDB deep tracks.
That being said, Charlie Daniels is not the same person he was when he started out. Over his long, illustrious career he has undergone a dramatic sea change, the once "long haired country boy" becoming (like a lot of "elder statesman" country singers) a staunchly right-wing conservative, driven by his faith and a balls-to-the-wall (and for this, unavoidably self-righteous) brand of patriotism. He's entitled to his opinions of course, and he's certainly never failed to use his music to express them (in other words, it shouldn't be all that surprising), and mind you, I do not have a problem with patriotism or ALL right-wing thinking.
But I don't know, man...I've been going through a kind of divorce from country music the last few years, as it's become more aligned with the far right in this country. Not the right, not normal conservative/Republican, but the ideology that gave us President Trump. I just can't get there the same way anymore.
Perhaps that's because I too have gone through a sea change over time. As I've aged, I've gotten less conservative. Not MORE liberal, exactly, just less conservative. I support the military (certainly the vets), I support cops, I'm for law and order, and ultimately I just want it to be fucking quiet in my neighborhood and my midst at any given hour of the day. I support gun ownership, but do I think those rights should be left unrestricted? No. I'm a mid-western, middle-aged heterosexual male, but do I care if gays get married? Nope. Do I think pot should be legal? Yup. Do I think we should gut out every last bit of green space to, as Joni Mitchell sang, "put up a parking lot"? Nope. We have enough parking lots. Enough opportunities to consume.
I'm a middle-of-the-roader on just about everything. I refuse to take a cartoonish stance on one side or another of the brewing culture war in this country.
At the end of the day, it should only ever be about the music, and to that end, everyone should be able to groove to whatever they want - together, ideally. Music really should be, to quote Longfellow, the "universal language of mankind".
It's just that Charlie makes it about much more than the music. A song like "Uneasy Rider", which in 1973 satirized (if not mocked) the south, southern culture, and the very type of "redneck" people that he now identifies so staunchly with, would never, ever be recorded by 2017's CDB. And that's too bad.
Charlie must have realized his sea change early on, because there is a 1988 "update" to "Uneasy Rider" (on the album Hometown Heroes) in which Charlie and a buddy find their way into a gay bar...in this incarnation, he's the redneck, laughing with a predictable roll of his eyes at all the funny queens and the "orange haired feller" on the stage "singing about suicide". It's meant to be funny...but it isn't. It tries way too hard, its premise makes HIM the one with the issues, and in the current agitated political climate, it's even less funny than it was 30 years ago.
I still enjoy the original "Uneasy Rider" though. Not because it's "liberal" or "Democrat", because honestly it wasn't actually those things in 1973 either (Charlie Daniels was never those things entirely...he was always a maverick, hard to figure out...good for him), but because it is funny...it's clever. It tells the story of a situation you'd never want to find yourself in, but also depicts the exact way you fantasize that you would handle it. "I couldn't resist the fun of chasing them just once around the parking lot..."
#258) "The Stroke" by Billy Squier - I remember being eight or nine years old, hanging out with my grubby-fingered friends somewhere, hearing this song on the radio and thinking it was so raunchy, so dirty, sooo something we, as kids, were not supposed to be listening to. Not that I didn't want to listen. I definitely wanted to, and I definitely did. There seemed something compellingly sexual about "The Stroke." It might have been what I saw as the gender-busting slide of Squier's vocals, maybe a little bit the hip-swinging rhythm, and partially the lyrics...although we weren't really listening to the lyrics then, other than the words, "...stroke me...", which we would chant over and over, kicking up playground dust.
If we had been listening to the lyrics, we probably still would not have realized that they're actually about politics, about the government giving us all the stroke. And not in a good way.
At least that's what I've chosen to believe throughout my adult life. Billy Squier has been quoted as saying the song is actually about the music business, which is sort of a bubble popper for me because the lyrics work so well applied to the political realm, really word for word. They could be about any industry I guess, any industry marinating in duplicity and insincerity....but they describe blandness as well, a certain ineffectual lameness that in my eyes is no better represented than by American politics....on both sides of the aisle.
In any case, there are songs that you just enjoy listening to, no matter what they're about, and no matter how much time passes. For me, "The Stroke" is one of them.
"Spread your ear pollution both far and wide / Keep your contributions by your side..." #259) "Radar Love" by Golden Earring - "Radar Love" is so much a road song - the road song - it's more or less a stereotype at this point (guaranteed to start playing in any movie or video game where someone plants their ass behind a steering wheel), but like "The Stroke", it's also a pretty durable jam, sounding just as fresh, just as urgent, just as "of the moment", as it did in 1973, without sounding all that much like it's from 1973. Golden Earring are a Dutch band with a long history going back to the early 1960s, and until...like...five minutes ago, I had no idea that they also sing "Twilight Zone" (1982). Now that I know it, it makes perfect sense.
I like "Twilight Zone" too, but it doesn't sound as fresh all these years later. Not like "Radar Love", anyway. I know I've named more than a few "ultimate road songs" on this list, but "Radar Love" might just be the Mother of them all. Its infectious rhythm turns airborne coming in contact with the confident, sometimes blistering vocals, creating a strange combination of Kiss-style sexual tension and earnest highway restlessness that would make Bruce Springsteen proud.
And the lyrics...well, they're not especially poetic, or daring, or political in any way...they're just pretty cool. They themselves might be the Mother of all road lyrics.
"The radio's playing some forgotten song / Brenda Lee's "Coming on Strong"....
#256) "And So It Goes" by Billy Joel - Most ballads travel toward a certain emotional pitch, rising to a climax as they progress. In "And So It Goes", Billy Joel does things differently, achieving the improbable by getting the song where it needs to go without it ever really sounding like it's going to....or even has the stuff to.
From the first few introspective chords it stays quiet, just artist and piano, slowly filling the room with tension, right up to the rafters. It releases that tension just as quietly with five slightly less introspective/slightly more emotional piano chords, leading the listener to a calm internal catharsis that flashes up and flickers out a second later.
This is not easy to do without becoming overwrought. The result is a song that can, in my opinion, take its place among the loveliest ballads ever recorded.
Whatever you may think of his style or image through the years, Billy Joel is a superb songwriter, songcrafter...
"And so it goes, and so it goes, and you're the only one who knows..."
#257) "Where's the Orchestra?" by Billy Joel - Less emotional in this one, more stunningly philosophical. Listen closely to the lyrics and try to argue that it's not, word for word, a seamless metaphor for life itself. It might be the most appropriate "road song" I've put on this list. At least for the road trip I will take, at the time in life when I will take it.
"Here I am in the balcony / How the hell could I have missed the overture?"
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums.
In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through.
So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
"Beautiful Loser" by Bob Seger
"'Live' Bullet" by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums.
In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through.
So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums.
In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through.
So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
"Million Mile Reflections" by The Charlie Daniels Band
"The Rutles" by The Rutles
Conceived by Monty Python collaborator Neil Innes and Python's own Eric Idle, "The Rutles: All You Need is Cash" was a pretty brilliant 1978 "mockumentary" about the pre-Fab Four, Dirk, Stig, Nasty and Barry. The soundtrack, music written by Innes, digs even deeper into that brilliance. Fantastic parody. And honestly, 40 years on, each song still could stand on its own, be considered derivative (in a good way) rather than parody.
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums. In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through. So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
I made it to Kansas, and even with clouds and rain the experience did not disappoint. As is often the case, the video just doesn't do it justice. In fact, for my money, never before have the words "doesn't do it justice" been more appropriate than here and now.
Of course, social media blew up on the day of the event, so there's nothing posted here, really, that hasn't been posted/shared already someplace else. But I can't not post something about "The Great American Eclipse". Seriously, a total eclipse of the sun is something everyone should see at least once in their life. This one was worth every long mile driven, every raindrop dodged.
This series of pictures was taken at 10 minute intervals, beginning at 12:30 p.m. Although it was sometimes difficult to discern what was the eclipse happening and what was merely cloud cover, they illustrate an unmistakable darkening of the sky in the last half hour before totality.
Here I am, three days before the "Great American Eclipse" (more to the point, two days before I drive 9 hours to view it). I'm packed up (well, mostly), got my camera, laptop, my official ISO-approved eclipse glasses (which I will be rocking the hell out of come Monday afternoon*)...I'm all set to travel, and fairly excited. After all, I've had this appointment for 38 years.
Then I awake this morning to find Monday's weather forecast for the town I'm staying in has changed. For three weeks it's been exactly the same: "Clear, High of 88". But all of a sudden, it's altered: "Mix of clouds and sun, chance of afternoon thunderstorms...."
That was earlier. It's changed yet again in just the last two hours: "Some clouds and an isolated thunderstorm in the afternoon..."
I'm pretty dismayed that the word "sun" has been removed completely from the official text. Like an outdoor wedding, company picnic, or chalk art festival, this celestial event is kind of dependent on good weather....or at least sunny weather.
Man, that figures.
Further investigation isn't making me feel any better. According to NJ.com's interactive map, created using National Weather Service forecast models to predict what geographical areas of the country are most likely to have clear the skies during the eclipse, the likelihood of clear skies in the area where I'm headed is currently listed as "Iffy".
*sigh...*...So figures.
No reason to panic just yet. Things can change on a dime. Maybe "some clouds" will play out as "partly cloudy". But acknowledging the strong possibility that it could just as easily translate into "mostly cloudy", I really have no choice but to begin considering a Plan B.
To that end, there's really just one alternative: drive. Drive, and find a sunny spot. Go where the sun is, and the clouds aren't.
On the surface, I have no problem with that. If I have to head west early that morning, toward Colorado, in search a little patch of blue, I will. Driving long distances is nothing to me (truth be told, once I'm out on the road, I'll be resisting a small but potent urge to stay out there).
The trick, though, is that I have to stay within the path of totality. That's the whole reason I'm doing this. If I were okay viewing a partial eclipse, I wouldn't be bothering with a road trip at all. I'd just step outside in my bathrobe and check out what's going to be at least a 70 percent event where I live. (Although, on that same NJ.com interactive map, the likelihood of clear viewing in west-central Wisconsin is currently listed as "Poor".)
But no, I want to see the moon's fully monty, and I'm willing to trek further to make that happen without clouds getting in the way. But that means I have to do it along the 70-mile wide track where the moon's shadow will be complete. And that track does not follow a straight line, but rather bends across the country in a mild arc, which means I won't simply be able to head west toward Colorado, I'll have to head north-west (a little at a time) toward Wyoming.
Zig-zagging my way through Nebraska in a frenetic navigation of Interstates and county roads just to keep within the path of totality could turn into an exercise in frustration really fast. And truth be told, if a storm front happens to sweep across the nation's midsection overnight Sunday and keeps the whole area under cloud cover Monday, I'll pretty much be sunk. I'll only be able to drive so far before having to head back. I mean, come on, I don't want to be stuck calling into work on Tuesday from Washington State....or South Carolina (if I head east).
Er, do I...? ;-)
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When viewing the eclipse, make sure you protect your eyes. Granted, you'll have to go out in public with something like these on, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to see afterward? (Besides, don't these puppies scream "Hollywood"? ;-)
So, for a variety of reasons, most of which have to do with money, some of which have to do with laziness, I simply wasn't able to make 1/48/50 happen this summer. I guess I never really thought I'd be able to (damn it, I have to start planning seriously at some point...), but I imagined it would be nice to be out and fully nebulous for the "Great American Eclipse", which will happen just over a week from now, August 21, when the moon passes in front of the sun directly over the continental United States for the first time in 38 years.
It's too bad 1/48/50 couldn't happen, but I'm taking a drive nevertheless. The eclipse will be partially visible where I live, but I'm seeking out the "path of totality", which, yes, sounds like the title of some prog band's concept album, but is actually the narrow strip of the moon's shadow (or umbra) that will create complete darkness for a few spell-binding minutes.
It wasn't easy to find a hotel room. All along that path of totality (which traverses 11 states, from Oregon to South Carolina), hotels, resorts, inns and B&B's have been booked solid for months, but I was lucky to find a place right near the Nebraska/Kansas border, and for a low rate too.
Of course, I'm hoping "low rate" doesn't come with complementary fleas and bed bugs. :-/
Weather also is a potential problem. The area I'm driving to isn't known for long stretches of cloudy days this time of year, but it is known for thunderstorms. The eclipse starts around 11 a.m., with totality taking place at 1:00 p.m., hopefully before any storms start popping off.
Right now the forecast for the town I'm staying in on August 21: "Clear, high of 88, low of 60." I'm sure hoping that holds.
50/50 - Map showing probability of clear skies on August 21, 2017, during the "Great American Eclipse". My search for the "path of totality" will bring me down to the Nebraska/Kansas/Missouri region, where, judging by the map key, there seems to be a fifty/fifty chance of cloudy skies raining on the moon's parade.Image: Joshua Stevens/NASA
But hey, whatever happens - fleas, bedbugs or inclement weather - no regrets. Truth is, I'll drive wherever I have to for clear skies, and sleep in my car if need be.
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums. In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through. So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
"The Beatles / 1962-1966" by The Beatles
A compilation album, but proof positive that while The Beatles' ultimate greatness came later in their too-short career, the groundwork for that greatness was being laid (and evident) in "Love Me Do"'s first wheezing harmonica note.
"The Very Best of CCR" by Credence Clearwater Revival
Again, I know it's a greatest hits package, but honestly, it might be the greatest "greatest hits package" ever released.
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums. In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through. So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
"King of Rock" by RUN-DMC
Man, in the summers of '84, '85 and '86, I was one freckly, gingery B-Boy wannabe! ;-)
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums. In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through. So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
"Greatest Hits (And Some That Will Be)" by Willie Nelson A healthy dose of what made Willie a legend...
"God's Problem Child" by Willie Nelson A healthy dose of what makes Willie a legend...
Those rare musical treasures that require no song-to-song cherry picking, no fast forwarding (for those 35-plus who know what that is...), no selective exclusion from playlists. They are their OWN playlists...each a greatest hits package of brand new material, still fresh even decades on from their release. You know...desert island albums. In the case of 1/48/50, whole urban areas, entire counties, fully one half of any state even, may be traversed on the power of a single inspired album playing all the way through. So good, in fact, they require no two cents thrown in by the likes of me. Just listen. ;-)
