Getting the Lighting Right

Song 331: This week on the playlist you can hear In a Different Light by The Bangles, written by Susanna Hoffs and Vicki Peterson. When The Bangles came along in the mid-‘80s, they may very well have been the group that ended the argument over whether an all-female band could rock and roll to the same degree that an all-male outfit or a mixed group could — they certainly had me rocking. This song, which is a sort of title track for their second LP Different Light, appeared as the second cut on side 1, coming right after the opener Manic Monday. That opening Prince composition, credited to the pseudonym Christopher, justifiably took the quartet to the top of the charts, but when I put the album on the turntable, I always liked track two better, particularly savoring the lyrical metaphors that playfully hint at the differences between the singer’s romantic imagination and the disappointing reality of the you who is the song’s subject. Between the lines, I could easily picture a lover who left the singer feeling like she would rather sit in a darkened room and only look at her old squeeze from a distance.

A Name to Remember

Song 330: This week on the playlist you can hear Jack Straw by The Grateful Dead, written by Robert Hunter and Bob Weir. This track is another rock and roll cowboy movie, similar to the one from 3 weeks ago (Song 327) The Lights of Downtown by The Long Ryders. While it appeared on the triple album Europe ’72 which arrived in November of that year, I didn’t get to know it until the middle of the following decade. Living and sharing a 6-bedroom house in Berkeley with 5 others, at some point around ’85 or so, I welcomed a new housemate named Mikey who moved into the back room right next to the kitchen. Like everyone else in the house, I spent a certain amount of time in the kitchen making meals, eating them and cleaning up after them, and Mikey being a sociable guy, he often had his door open and his stereo playing. He would spin Europe ’72 a lot more than any other records, and I certainly didn’t mind. I quickly got to know and like the entire 3-disk set, with this cut soon becoming a favorite. Having been raised in a religious Christian setting, I couldn’t help but feel the irony expressed in the lines about jumping a watchman, stealing his rings and his money, and then asking ain’t that Heaven sent? No matter how many times I’ve heard this track, though, it never hurts my ears to listen to it once more.

Some Women You Might Have Met

Song 329: This week on the playlist you can hear Sisters of Mercy by Leonard Cohen, who also wrote the song. Tonight I feel a certain sense of inevitability in following up last week’s track by one of the original singer/songwriter types, Hank Williams, with a cut by a singer/songwriter from a later era who shared the same astrological sun sign, and who died a week ago, on 11/7. In the late spring of 1970 I took advantage of a local record store special and added a pair of Judy Collins LPs to my collection, with Wildflowers being one of the two. Over the following summer, as I struggled to forge my own unique musical identity, I listened to that album a lot, and soon got to know the words of the songs by heart, including all 3 of the LC compositions. I had also entered into a new phase of the Christian belief that I had grown up with, and at a certain point in time that summer, one of Leonard’s couplets from this tune opened up an enlightening moment for me, as I listened to Judy sing  “I’ve been where you’re hanging, I think I can see how you’re pinned: When you’re not feeling holy your loneliness says that you’ve sinned.” Recognizing the hang-up, I promptly disconnected from the pin, and immediately felt freer and more at ease. I’m glad that the Sisters of Mercy brought Leonard some comfort in his life, and while sadly he’s no longer around to give directions, I would guess that anyone looking for the sisters can still read their address by the moon.

Needing Some Room

Song 328: This week the playlist comes around to Move It on Over by Hank Williams, who also wrote the song. When Hank had his first big hit on the country charts in 1947, rock and roll did not yet exist as an official music genre, but hearing this track now, it certainly sounds like an early version of the concept. Junior has even claimed that his father invented rock and roll, though Senior had a few contemporaries approaching a similar synthesis from different directions, such as blues singer Roy Brown who did Good Rocking Tonight that same year. This cut definitely proves that Hank started his remarkable, short-lived, troubled, prolific and monumental career with a bang, though, as he shows off the musical lessons he had learned as a teenager from blues street player Rufus Tee-Tot Payne. While I remember hearing lots of HW records during my pre-teen summer visits with Ohio relatives, I don’t recall meeting this piece until George Thorogood’s cover came across the airwaves in late 1978, and when I learned that it was a Hank tune, I felt that I could gladly slide it on over to give that hot dog even more of my musical respect than the large amount I had already earmarked for him because I felt he had earned it.