Lighting a Dark Memory

Song 327: This week on the playlist you can hear The Lights of Downtown by The Long Ryders, written by Stephen McCarthy. It seemed appropriate to follow up last week’s track by The Byrds with one by The Long Ryders, who not only drew obvious inspiration from The Byrds, but who also had the honor of working with original Byrds member Gene Clark while recording their first full-length album Native Sons. One of my CA musician friends introduced me to the music of The Long Ryders by giving me a cassette of his favorite LR cuts, and not long into my first time through with that collection, listening to the car tape player while cruising the East Bay in my ’67 Plymouth Fury, I had become a fan. This number from their 1985 LP The State of Our Union sounded to me like a kind of musical cowboy movie, and it quickly got my attention as being one of the best of the bunch. As a kid, I had enjoyed plenty of cowboy movies and TV shows that revolved around an almost-cartoonish level of violence, but I had also understood the clear distinction between such entertainment and the real-life experience of brutality, which I sought to avoid in my own life, as much as possible. The words of this song echo the thoughts I had growing up about the deep regret that I knew I’d feel if I ever took someone else’s life, or caused someone serious lasting physical harm. One lesson that I absorbed from the fiction I watched and read as a child was the resolve to walk away, and stay away, from any situation that could potentially lead to the kind of tragic consequences that would leave me shaking my head and having to say I can’t run away, I can’t hide — it’s a slow death for me inside.

A Special Person

Song 326: This week, if you’ve never made his acquaintance, the playlist can introduce you to Mr. Tambourine Man by The Byrds, written by Bob Dylan. For a little over a year after the Beatles rocked my world, the British Invasion bands dominated the air waves, but then, in the spring of 1965, an American band came along with a huge hit that sounded every bit as good as all of those English spinners, and arguably even better than most of them. Not many of my friends had Byrds records, though, so I didn’t get to hear as much of the band in HS as I would have liked, but I remained interested in their music. I still remember walking into the local guitar store near the HS one day and scrutinizing a Byrds music book, though I didn’t have enough money to buy a copy, but I did try to memorize a few guitar chords. During the graduation week festivities in 1969, on the way back to town from a scheduled celebration at a nearby state park, the radio happened to play this cut, and I well remember how the 4-year-old golden oldie, which was ancient by the standards of that time, filled the window van with a magic sound that created an enduring, enchanted memory. A few years later, in my early 20s in the early ‘70s, after I had acquired all of the necessary Beatles, Dylan, Rolling Stones and other required LPs, I went through an enjoyable Byrds phase, getting acquainted with lesser-known tracks, but also relishing the privilege of having this piece of wizardry at my fingertips whenever I felt like hearing it. At some point during my HS years — possibly during the music book perusal — I had learned that this tune had been written by that same Dylan guy who had written the PP&M hit Blowin’ in the Wind and the S&G cut The Times They Are a-Changin’, and I would start noticing his name attached to other fine songs, though I wouldn’t actually hear Dylan’s voice until the fall of 1969 when I got to Northwestern U. On a side note, it seemed appropriate to follow up last week’s post about a track by my friend Patti Rothberg with a number written by Dylan, because Patti has gotten at least 1 or 2 reviews that favorably compare her work with Bob’s, and I definitely agree with that reviewer POV. 

What Belongs to Who

Song 325: Seven weeks after my last personal friend song post, this week on the playlist you’ll find This One’s Mine by my friend Patti Rothberg, who also wrote the song, and there’s a YouTube video of her performing it live here. My recording engineer and co-producer David Seitz introduced me to Patti in the fall of 2003, while we were both using the same studio. At the time, I was working on Elder Street, and she was working on Double Standards. I quickly became a PR fan, and her earlier CDs Between the 1 and the 9 and Candelabra Cadabra soon became regular spinners on my player. When I finally got around to getting an iPod, those 2 CDs were also among the first group of albums to find places on the drive, and Patti’s music kept me company on lots of metro rides. This track is the third cut on her debut CD, and like many other PR tracks, has humorous remarks that still make me smile, despite having heard them countless times. If you’ve never experienced Patti’s wit and wisdom before, the line “I could say that you were a dirty dog but that’s an insult to the fleas” can give you a taste of what you’ve missed.

A Fun-loving Fellow

Song 324: This week on the playlist you can hear Honky-Tonk Man by Dwight Yoakam, written by Johnny Horton, Tillman Franks and Howard Hausey. The original version of this cut came out when I was 4. My Ohio relatives had a good collection of country LPs, and on our summer visits, I essentially had my pick of listening material after I had demonstrated an ability to handle the records and the turntable with appropriate care, so during my grade school years I would soon learn many country classics of the era, getting to know the Honky-Tonk Man long before the Beatles rocked my world. I always appreciated the fun quality of the track, never taking it too seriously, but even as a kid, I thought the guy spending his time and money chasing women in bars and then calling home to ask his wife for help after he blew all of his cash sounded very entertaining in a song, but would have been a jerk in real life. Whatever changes I went through in my teens and twenties regarding viewpoints on relationships, that perspective didn’t change. When Dwight Yoakam’s version came along in 1986, peaking near the top of the country charts, it brought back memories of preteen times. If there’s any truth to the rumor that I played bass for a Bay Area country bar pickup band during a few years of that decade, then it’s quite possible that the group’s lead singer might have called this tune during a set on any given gig night, with the rest of us enthusiastically jumping in. On a side note, this track is a fourth sly reference to the second verse of my own song As Long as Merle is Still Haggard, where the second line begins with But Dwight was only Yoakam when he said… You can find the As Long as Merle is Still Haggard video here.

A Thrilling Ride

Song 323: This week the playlist rides on The Crystal Ship by The Doors, who also wrote the song. During my HS years, my record collection consisted entirely of 45s, and most of those I bought used from my best friend’s younger brother and smuggled into a special basement hiding spot. Not long after I brought it home, the Doors’ debut single quickly became a regular spinner, and I always listened to both sides, actually preferring this B-side cut to the more famous A-side hit. Even though I owned no LPs in that fall of my junior year at HS, I got to hear The Doors quite a lot at the time, sometimes at friend’s houses and also at certain school gatherings, such as the monthly layout session of the student newspaper where I always played a role, so I soon got to know that disc very well. This track, like most of the others, rattled the religious conflict that I struggled with as I listened to a singer of the devil’s music tell about a ship that would contain a thousand girls and a thousand thrills, feeling quite certain that none of the older generation members at my church would approve of the thrills or the girls, but I enjoyed it so much that I couldn’t resist taking the musical ride on that boat, no matter what it might do to my soul. I’ve always relished Ray Manzarek’s piano solo in the middle of the song, which takes me every time along some magical dark Twilight Zone seas of thought, as it did when I first heard it. Ray died in May of 2013, but his music lives on, and The Crystal Ship still sails.