A Song Not Just For Teenagers

Song 222: This week's playlist song is Spanish Caravan by The Doors, who also wrote the song. The Doors being the band that in their prime could rock the reptile brain like no other RnR combo, they got a lot of criticism at the turn of the '70s for being too adolescent, with the implication that their music, and particularly their lyrics, did not deserve the kind of attention that a serious, reflective adult might give to, say, Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and other major rockers. In the early '70s, being a singer/songwriter type, I understood that critique, as ridiculous as it might seem today, but even so, some of their songs stood well above the criticism, and this song qualifies as one of those -- the words still defy any logical interpretation, as do most tracks by the Doors, and they sketch a hazy, dream-like vision that fits in quite well within the landscape of most of the other dark dreams drawn by Doors lyrics, but they don't sound silly, overblown or teeny. On the musical side, I always enjoy the acoustic guitar flourishes that open the recording with a hint of Spanish classical music, and the way the track later hits full-throttle RnR after the electric guitar jumps in on one of the same riffs. I thought this song sounded as good as it gets when I first heard it take off from a friend's turntable, and after all the decades in between, having heard it hundreds of times, it still sounds that good to me.

A Rose by a Very Particular Name

Song 221: Following last week's song by my friend Jeff Larson, this week's playlist track is one that he turned me on to, and which I quickly grew to love -- Rose of Cimarron by Poco, written by Rusty Young. I knew and liked a few Poco tunes, but I didn't know their music as well as Jeff did, and he played this title track to their 1976 album after telling me he thought I'd really like it. I think he might have played most, if not all, of the rest of the LP, but this opening track just amazed me. I heard at least enough of the rest of the album to know I wanted to add it to my collection, but I liked this particular song so much that I might have even bought the record just to have a copy of this Rose for my own. I always enjoy the way the song moves from the first sort-of-normal part into the extended instrumental coda that ends the piece, and I feel that the track perfectly expresses the feeling of traveling through the American desert. I admit, though, that until researching this song today, I didn't know that the Rose of Cimarron was actually a real person -- apparently she was a woman who, during a shootout at the Oklahoma Territory town of Ingles in 1893 between U.S. Deputy Marshals and the Bill Doolin Gang, gave the outlaws some help that ended up being the key to their escape from the lawmen. She did this because her lover was a member of the outlaw gang. Rusty Young read about the Rose while on tour in Oklahoma with Poco, and turned the story into a song, but you don't need to know that story to enjoy the track, though it can add some deeper meaning to the lyric to know about the real Rose of Cimarron.

Good Thing We Brought the Umbrellas

Song 220: Once again, the playlist gets to a point 7 songs from the last personal friend song post, so this week's tune is Rain Soaked Cloud by my friend Jeff Larson, who also wrote the song. The track is about as new as anything on the playlist, coming from Jeff's July 2014 CD release, so I can't claim to have any historical associations with it, but I have listened to it a lot over the past couple of months. If you haven't heard any of Close Circle yet, this song makes a fine introduction, and will give you a good idea of what the rest of the CD holds in store. Jeff has his America friends backing him up on this one too, by the way -- Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell both do backing vocals, plus Gerry also handles the Wurlitzer and he produced the track. Close Circle has gotten a bunch of very favorable reviews lately, and you can find links to them on Jeff's Facebook page. Jeff and I haven't seen much of each other since I moved back to the East Coast in the fall of '88, but recently we hooked up on a morning in Manhattan in early June to share a bite and talk things over, and yes, as it so happened, we carried our umbrellas because the walk from the hotel to the eatery took place under a Rain Soaked Cloud.

The Drummer Said I Needed to Hear This One

Song 219: Today I posted Feed the Tree by Belly, written by Tanya Donelly, as this week's playlist song. The home page of my website, daveelder.com, has a link to a YouTube video of the tune. While a lot of videos from this era, a couple of decades ago, don't move my meter very much, this one managed to hold my interest for the duration of the track, due to some very skillful editing, even though most of the imagery just shows the band appropriately performing the tune in a forest. Apparently it got plenty of attention when it appeared in early 1993, becoming a smash buzz bin MTV hit and garnering a nomination for Best Alternative Video VMA. I didn't watch MTV at the time, or ever, really, so I heard about this song from my drummer friend John Paul Wasicko, around the time when we began talking about maybe playing some music together, which we would start doing not long after (J.P. played drums on my Country Drivin' CD). I liked not only J.P.'s style of drumming, but also his taste in music, with this song, and the album Star, being a prime example. He told me he was really excited about this new song, along with the rest of the CD, and that I needed to hear it. After he put the CD on, playing this track, it didn't take long for me to feel the buzz, and I had a feeling that I'd probably like the rest of the record as much as he did. I also had a feeling at that moment that soon enough he and I would play some good music together, which I think we did.