AS SUMMER WINDS DOWN: Whole Albums to Travel By

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.  ;-)

"Plastic Ono Band" / John Lennon

"Blue" by Joni Mitchell

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.

1970

2000

"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..."

The NEXT Top 100 (or so) Songs I Absolutely Must Have With Me on 1/48/50 (cont...)

#170) "River" by Joni Mitchell - For me, music is just music. I either like something, or I don't, and I resist labels that try to tell me what I "should" be listening to. But I can't deny there are some performers who are geared specifically - solely - toward a certain listener. Katy Perry, Adele, Rhianna, Taylor Swift, for instance...these singers make music for girls and/or women, no question. It is the female psyche, not the male, being represented in their songs. At the same time, plenty of their male counterparts in popular music pander solely to the instincts of men, although (and this shouldn't be too surprising) generally speaking, it's more acceptable for a female to rock out to Guns and Roses, or Kid Rock, or Eminem, or Korn, to shave her head, get a tattoo and stage dive at OzzFest, than it is for me to ever admit there's something about the song Teenage Dream that appeals to me. (Even now, I sit with my fingers poised above the backspace key, contemplating taking that last line out...;-)

Recently, I was called out, good-naturedly but seriously, by someone (a woman, and Millennial) for listening to "River" by Joni Mitchell. She thought it was funny, as though the song was too drenched in estrogen for any man to have on his phone. Privately, I was thinking, aren't we all supposed to be beyond that?, but I just smiled and shrugged, saw no need to get into a debate. I was - and am - unflinching in my love of "River", for a couple of reasons.

Number one, I think what distinguishes a performer from an artist is universality - the ability to touch hearts and minds across gender, and race, and nationality. In some songs, from some artists, it doesn't matter if you can relate specifically to what's being sung about. You feel. And the need society has to tuck things away into a nice, tidy genre so that it may be digested easily, sucks. Not just music, but movies, books...marketing really is the killer of art.

Number two, the exquisite beauty of "River" completely transcends gender, even THOUGH, yes, it's very much a song about a woman's experiences/thoughts/emotions.  No matter. Its evocative brew of woodsy imagery and equally woodsy foreboding, lovely piano work and Mitchell's astonishing voice, are impossible not to be moved by, and testament to her artistry. And of course, there is the line, "I wish I had a river I could skate away on...."  The depth and range of that sentiment is not likely to wind up in a Katy Perry song anytime soon.

And don't let them kid you, men have feelings like this. If they don't, it's only because they won't allow themselves to. They protect themselves from anything the least bit emotionally challenging, or potentially messy, usually with jokes, sarcasm, or (too often) anger. Hey, sometimes I do too. And to that end, make no mistake, I'm all for men being men and women being women. I cringe mightily at the thought of a politically correct, gender-neutral world. But at a certain point, a man just starts being repressed. We are all outfitted with the same complement of emotions at birth. It's what we do with them, or what happens to them perhaps, as time passes, that determines who and how we are.

I personally would not want to be a man living his life (or driving 14,000 miles) without a river to skate away on, at least in his mind.

"I wish I had a river so long, I would teach my feet to fly..."


#171) "Come Monday" by Jimmy Buffet - I'll say right off the bat, that in general I'm not a fan of Jimmy Buffet. The whole "parrothead" thing repulses me, not sure why. Maybe because "Margaritaville" is wholly overrated, even as a cult classic.

But "Come Monday" wins me over. Part of this might be that it was one of those songs "rocking" my cradle, drizzling out of a little AM transistor radio when I was very, very young. If you're listening at all at that age, you don't forget what you hear, and for better or worse, what I heard early on was a heaping helping of AM Gold, thanks to my parents.

But even today, there's something about "Come Monday" that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. As the refrain ramps up, the instrumentation works in tandem with the melody (and Buffet's voice) to create a powerful little moment of anticipation, of longing, of anxiety. I can never say quite what I'm anxious about listening to this song, only that I am.  Like Joni Mitchell's "River", it is at once beautiful and haunting.  Dated, and yet timeless.

"I spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze..."