Sunday, December 30, 2018

When Footwear Becomes a Priority


Song 440: The week on the playlist you can check out Blue Suede Shoes by Carl Perkins, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Maybe the best way to start out the new year would be to put on a very different pair of shoes. Growing up, I knew nothing about RnR until the Beatles rocked my world in the winter of 1964, but as a teenager, mostly I heard the current records, so I didn't start to catch up on the previous generation of rockers until the early 1970s, when a 1950s revival bubbled up through the Chicago airwaves. I soon learned about this classic hit, and before long, I got to hear it, with that first spin making it clear to me how this rocker had earned its place. I only found out today, though, by doing some research, that Johnny Cash had actually given Carl the idea for the title. The cut took an interesting ride, with Perkins writing the piece on 12/17/55, recording it two days later, seeing it rise to the top of some charts by early February, and then having it make him the first country artist to reach number three on the rhythm and blues charts in mid-March. With that kind of success, I guess you can do anything, as long as you remember to lay off of them shoes.

Sunday, December 23, 2018

One That Sounds Familiar But Also a Bit Different


Song 439: The week on the playlist you’ll find Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town by Bruce Springsteen, written by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie, and you can catch a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I enjoyed lots of Christmas music, both religious and secular, when growing up, and I became obsessed with RnR after The Beatles and their fellow British invaders rocked my world in the winter of 1964, but up to the middle of the 1970s, I heard very little crossover between those two musical spheres. However, during the Santa season one year (probably 1977, though it could have been the year before) this rocking version of a 1930s holiday classic came sailing across the radio waves, and it really impressed me that Bruce had figured out such a cool way to rewrap an old standard that predated RnR. His moves inspired a vague idea that someday I might try to write my own Yuletide song, and I came up with a title. A few years later, hearing my good friend and fellow singer-songwriter Jeff Larson play me his newly-written Home for the Holidays, I felt that the time had come to give Commoner's Carole its wings. Not long after, when wondering about how to present my own First Noel tune, I started playing around with solo acoustic guitar versions of familiar melodies I had grown up with, and the vision of Holiday Card began to take shape. Now, just a bit under four decades later, I finally finished the record, and you find the CD page by clicking on the title. Also, you can find the Commoner's Carole Lyric Video by clicking on that title. Merry, Merry, Happy, Happy!

Sunday, December 16, 2018

A Moving Self-Analysis


Song 438: This week on the playlist you can hear Just Dropped In by Kenny Rogers & The First Edition, written by Mickey Newbury, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Hits like this one would sometimes rattle the inner conflict I felt during my HS years between my personal obsession with the devil's music and my parents'/grandparents' condemnation of it. I would feel some guilt over my enjoyment of lines about tripping on a cloud and falling Eight Miles High (Song 435), but I never had any interest in actually experiencing drug-induced aeronautics - I could relish the entertaining way that the singer shared his adventure, but it never made me want to take that kind of ride. I couldn't imagine any pleasure in pushing my soul into a deep dark hole and then following it in, and I did not want to get so uptight that I couldn't unwind, but I could have fun listening to a singer share those moments in an intriguing musical way, so I Just Dropped In and got a kick out of what condition his condition was in.

Sunday, December 9, 2018

An Enjoyable Place to Spend Some Time


Song 437: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week the playlist comes around to Happy Little World by my friend Chuck Brodsky, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This Chuck track always makes me smile. We met during the final year or two of my decade in the Bay Area, and I learned one of his numbers which I truly relish entitled Blow 'em Away (Song 45). Though I seldom do covers while performing, I made an exception with that tune, and have sometimes included it in otherwise all-original sets. I would discover this cut back in the winter of 2017 when I decided to put together a Spotify playlist called Me and My Songwriter Friends (which you can hear by clicking on the title), and if you listen to that collection, I guarantee this piece will raise your spirits when it comes along. I keep in touch with Chuck, even though we haven't seen each other since a chance encounter at The Nameless Coffeehouse in Cambridge during the mid-1990s, and who's to say what's real, but the next time I contact him, I plan to tell him that he really did come up with a pearl when he decided to tell us about his Happy Little World.

Sunday, December 2, 2018

A Fellow With Remarkable Qualities


Song 436: The week on the playlist you can meet Magic Man by Heart, written by Ann and Nancy Wilson, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. As RnR essentially lost its artistic edge around the turn of the 1970s, Heart really lit up the airwaves in the middle of the decade as one of a handful of shining stars flying over a sea of dull commerciality. I well remember discussing the Wilson sisters' glittering new gem with a good friend during a local bus ride in Chicago (back before I owned a car). Of course, being a young guy in my 20s at the time, I fantasized about a woman of Ann's or Nancy's calibre looking at me, saying she Had never seen eyes so blue and then, soon becoming her Magic Man. I also smiled every time I heard the suggestive line about how He's got the magic hands! Looking back, Well, summer lover passed to fall, and now, inside the months of moon Never think of never Let this spell last forever - it has, after all, lasted over 4 decades so far, so Try try try to understand, if you can.

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Flying a Bit Higher Than Others


Song 435: The week the playlist can take you to Eight Miles High by The Byrds, written by Gene Clark, Jim McGuinn and David Crosby, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I heard about the controversy over this 45 when it came out, but I don't think I actually heard the single at the time. Due to an accusation that the record encouraged drug usage, many radio stations refused to air it, and our local top-40 broadcaster may have numbered among the bunch taking that attitude. When, at the turn of the 1970s, I could begin collecting albums, I wanted to get Byrds LPs as soon as I could, and upon hearing this cut for the first time, I felt the group had exceeded my high expectations. The sound seemed to take some surprising turns, in light of their more well-known work, but I totally enjoyed the ride. I took note of both the jazz influence and the Indian classical leanings that shaped McGuinn's lead guitar riffs, and I relished the hints of Gregorian chant stylings in the vocal harmonies. I also knew, having flown to Europe in the summer of 1969 on a tour with my HS select choir, that airplanes crossing the Atlantic fly somewhere in the range of Eight Miles High (usually six or seven), so I understood the lyrics as a story of a tour to England, and I never gave much thought to the supposed druggie references in the lines. The intriguing musical innovations where The Byrds broke new ground in recordings like this one have inspired me to explore unusual harmonies and chord sequences, with one prime example of that influence being Marketplace - the Elder Street track which I posted as my September 2018 SoundCloud release, and which you can listen to by clicking on the title. So when you touch down, maybe you'll find that it's stranger than known, but maybe, in addition, you'll find that you like it that way - I know I did.


Sunday, November 18, 2018

A Sad Red-Letter Day


Song 434: The week the playlist comes around to Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2, written by Bono, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen and David Howell (the four band members), and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In the fall of 1983, my good friend Eddie Spitzer started a music store in the back of a record shop on Telegraph Ave. in Berkeley, so of course, I visited him a number of times there, and in doing so, I kept hearing this new LP by an Irish quartet, and what I heard sounded so good that soon enough, I walked out with my own copy. I liked every track on the album, and I had that 33 on the turntable a lot. This rocker clearly conveys the disturbing brutality that had tormented Northern Ireland for far too long, referencing a well-known massacre and painting an unsettling picture of its horrific aftermath. There's many lost, but tell me, who has won. Certainly, none of the common folk numbered among the winners in that bloodbath. During that era, just like this foursome, I saw no escape route from the violence in their neighborhood, and I would have echoed Bono when he sang, How long must we sing this song? However, The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 brought both sides together, and largely put an end to the casualties, although not completely. For the Irish, the sad story of mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart has mostly become a thing of the past, and perhaps the resolution of this conflict has some lessons to offer, and to apply to other battles where The trench is dug within our hearts. On a side note, 2 other cuts from Under a Blood Red Sky have appeared on this list - 11 O'Clock Tick Tock is Song 181, and Gloria is Song 362.

Sunday, November 11, 2018

This One Makes a Lot of Noise


Song 433: The week the playlist features Hound Dog by Elvis Presley, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This early Elvis hit was the only one of his that I knew in my younger years. I had some awareness of the man's career and stardom, but had no contact with any of his output, other than hearing this single once on the radio. When the Fab Four rocked my world in the winter of 1964, they immediately got me hooked on RnR, but it surprised me, a few years later, to learn, from their official biography book, that Presley had been their original inspiration. I had guessed, from the sound of this record, that EP was some kind of hillbilly singer, but when the early 1970s unfolded a sort-of 1950s RnR revival, I got to know Elvis' music much better, and thereby, to appreciate his place among the early rocking musical pioneers. At some point in that era I acquired an LP of his greatest hits, which included this track along with a lot of other fun stuff, so that by the time he left the land of the living, I understood what a gem the music world had lost. Only in recent years did I learn that my best friend's mother has been a life-long Elvis fan - during our teenage years, living in a highly-religious home where the parents and grandparents despised the devil's music, I attended a church where the older generations expressed this same outlook, so it would have astounded me to learn that any of my friends' parents were actually fans of a rocker, let alone my closest buddy's mom. On my visits to his home, we would often listen to his Simon and Garfunkel collection, but I never got to witness his mother enjoying the music of Mr. Presley. I may very well get to share a meal with the two of them, plus some of their other family members, a week from Thursday, and if I do, I imagine that the topic of Elvis and his music might animate our conversations.

Sunday, November 4, 2018

Identifying a Very Memorable Type


Song 432: The week the playlist comes around to Twentieth Century Fox by The Doors, who also wrote the song. You can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The Doors lit such a big blaze with their opening single in the summer of 1967 that even though I had no hope at the time of owning their first album, so many of my friends had it that I soon knew the entire record. I also remember often hearing the whole LP during the monthly extended after-school work sessions when those of us on the student newspaper would put together that month’s issue. At some point during the fall of my HS junior year, my English teacher just randomly asked the class which band currently was the thing, and without hesitation, a bunch of us answered in unison: The Doors! I always relished the way the lyrics on this track outline a figure that breathes life into the trademark name of a movie production company and then illuminate her with multiple shades of meaning. Within a day or 2 of my early arrival at N.U. in the fall of 1969, a local RnR band played a fun set in the parking lot next to my dorm, and I still remember their performance of this tune. The words of this piece always stayed with me, reminding me to Just watch the way she walks, and inspiring me to write my own lines about how she moves, though I don’t at the moment have any links to that particular rocker, but maybe someday. On a side note, 2 other cuts from their eponymous debut The Doors have appeared on this list - Soul Kitchen is Song 56, and The Crystal Ship is Song 323.

Sunday, October 28, 2018

Uncertainty About the Near Future


Song 431: The week the playlist features How's It Going to Be by Third Eye Blind, written by Stephan Jenkins and Kevin Cadogan, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I liked the second single (Graduate) from Third Eye Blind's eponymous first record, having heard it quite a bit on the radio, but then, about a year after its release, one night while sharing dinner with a friend at a Manhattan restaurant, I got to hear the entire album as background music. I liked everything on the CD, so following that enjoyable meal, I soon added the disc to my collection. This marks the 4th appearance of this list of a cut from TEBGraduate is Song 105, Burning Man is Song 117, and Thanks a Lot is Song 320. The singer here has decided that if a relationship has deteriorated to the point of exchanging blows, it makes more sense to walk away rather than to engage in physical altercations. Understandably, if Where we used to laugh There’s now a shouting match Sharp as a thumbnail scratch, then I too would want to get out of this, and likewise, I would also wonder How's It Going to Be if I felt I wanted to get myself back in again just to feel the soft dive of oblivion.

Sunday, October 21, 2018

What You Wear to Cover Your Head


Song 430: Seven weeks after my previous post about a personal friend, this week the playlist puts the spotlight on Hats by Jeff Wilkinson, who also wrote the song, with this being his first appearance on the playlist, and you can find a YouTube video of his track by clicking on the title. Back around the turn of the 1990s, he and I together created what we called The Camptown Coffeehouse in Brooklyn where we presented shows at a church on 7th Ave. of our favorite fellow singer-songwriters. While we have not been in touch for a couple of decades, I always respected his talent, and I think this cut from his 2005 CD Landscapes showcases all of them pretty well. During the era when we ran the coffeehouse, one night at the weekly Jack Hardy songwriter gathering in lower Manhattan, someone put forth a challenge for the following week to write a song about hats. I responded, but I didn't consider my hat tune anything special, and I soon rewrote the lyrics, turning it into a tale about AIDS called Fire in the Blood. I don't recall whether Jeff attended those two songwriter gatherings, but if he did, and this piece was the result, then I'd have to say that he rose to the challenge better than anyone else. Like him, I know how it feels to figuratively have too many hats, but at this point in my life, the phrase has come to have a literal meaning as well, and I wonder if that also might have happened to him. Maybe one of these days we'll reconnect, and I will get to ask him.

Sunday, October 14, 2018

A Spirit Rising With the Sun


Song 429: The week the playlist comes around to Angel of the Morning by Merrilee Rush & The Turnabouts, written by Chip Taylor, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This 45 topped my own personal chart not long after it appeared in the summer between my HS junior and senior years, and at some point during that season my best friend and I had a conversation that referenced the tune. Two years earlier, I had given up resisting my obsession with the Devil's music, and this particular discussion circled around the idea that we didn't let our religious morality interfere with our listening pleasure. My friend mentioned that the couple in this saga are obviously not married, and after spending a romantic night together, are apparently about to split up, which ran counter to our foundational ethics, but that never moved us to turn down the dial when the radio played the single. A few years later, during the spring of my sophomore year at NU, I had an intense but short-lived romance with a young woman who I had met in a religious context, and had come to know mainly through letters we exchanged over a couple of years. We were just friends until we were suddenly more than that, and just as suddenly we were just friends again. After the romance ended, we still kept in touch by mail for another couple of years, and at some point, I wrote something about how much I relished this recording. Her next reply expressed surprise at my enjoyment of Merrilee's hit, and made clear that she shared my delight. So for all three of us, If morning's echo says we've sinned by savoring this track, Well, it was what I wanted now, and it was what we all wanted 50 years ago. On a side note, that stormy romance from early 1971 inspired a stack of songs, with Stormy Winds being perhaps the best of the bunch, and you can find a YouTube lyric video of it by clicking on the title. On a second side note, this marks at least the third appearance on this list of a composition by Chip Taylor - Wild Thing is Song 187 and Try (just a little bit harder) is Song 333.

Sunday, October 7, 2018

Ignoring the Clock Won’t Help

Song 428: The playlist song for this week is Running Out Of Time by Joan Osborne, written by Joan Osborne and Louie Pérez, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I picked up a copy of Joan's then-current CD Righteous Love not long after catching her performance on a TV show back around the turn of the millennium, and from the first spin, I felt I had made a pretty good investment. A few years later, when a friend gave me an iPod for Christmas, RL numbered among the favorites that I soon added to that player. This cut, which opens the album, marks the 3rd appearance on this list of a track from that disc - If I Was Your Man is Song 274 and Righteous Love (the title track) is Song 342. I don't hear very much melody in modern music these days, and so I have always appreciated the melodic quality of Osborne's work, both in her lead vocals and in the accompanying riffs, with this recording providing a prime example of each. Any time this woman feels like bouncing anyone a message off the night sky, hopefully we'll all get it in a while.

Sunday, September 30, 2018

Sound Makes the Record Go Round

Song 427: This week the playlist features the sound of Lazy Music by Captain Beefheart, written by Don Van Vliet, Jan Van Vliet and Andy DiMartino (note: Don Van Vliet was Beefheart's legal name, and Jan was his wife), and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Back in June of 1974, my car radio surprised me one day with Sugar Bowl (Song 148), and I liked that cut so much I added Unconditionally Guaranteed to my collection not long after. The LP became a regular spinner on my turntable, and almost every track left a deep impression, to the point that this marks my 4th UG blog - Upon the My-O-My is Song 265 and Magic Be is Song 350. The Captain had established an earlier reputation as an experimenter in the fusion of rock and jazz, but what I had heard of his previous work hadn't really grabbed me, whereas his spring 1974 offering immediately got my attention. Evidently critics did not applaud Beefheart's move towards more conventional songwriting and recording, but I personally would echo the Sounds reviewer Steve Peacock, who wrote in the 4/6/74 edition, ”Something very strong does glow through what would otherwise be an unexceptional album, but it's something that I feel rather than can identify." When writing the Song 265 blog a few years ago, it surprised me to learn that less than a year after UG's release, the band members and the band leader all disowned the 33, but that hasn't changed the way I hear it - for me, Lazy Music still makes the whole thing keep going round and round.

Sunday, September 23, 2018

Vital Personal Connections

Song 426: This week on the playlist you can hear Friends in Low Places by Garth Brooks, written by Dewayne Blackwell and Earl Bud Lee, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Around the turn of the 1990s, Garth Brooks emerged as one of the fresh faces lighting up the New Country scene, as it was called by the NYC country station that I listened to a lot during that stretch, and this hit stood out as one of his most entertaining releases. I had to smile at a guy who could ruin a black-tie affair just because he showed up in boots, especially when he didn't mean to cause a big scene. In researching this piece, I learned that Garth cites James Taylor as a major musical influence, as do I, and though I didn't previously know it, it doesn't surprise me - I can sense the JT echoes in Brook's performance. While he may not be big on social graces, I'm sure he'll be okay because he does have those friends in low places. On a side note, this track is the third sly reference to the final verse of my own song As Long as Merle is Still Haggard, which begins with the line So I think Aaron's been Tippin a few and Garth is one for the Brooks. You can find the Merle video by clicking on the title.

Sunday, September 16, 2018

Choosing Which Route to Take

Song 425: This week the playlist features Highway to Hell by AC/DC, written by Bon Scott, Angus Young and Malcolm Young, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I had heard a few of AC/DC’s earlier efforts, and I thought they showed some potential, but when this hit came along in the summer of 1979, it really made me smile, especially in light of my early struggles as a teenager to reconcile my obsession with the devil's music that my fundamentalist religious parents and grandparents reviled. Having left that youthful guilt behind by a decade, I too could wave to Satan while Paying my dues, being on the way to the promised land. Then again, Taking everything in stride, maybe I sometimes Don't need reason, but I often feel like I do need rhyme. In addition, I'll admit that I do pay attention to stop signs and speed limit, which might have helped me get past the kind of sudden ending that AC/DC lead singer Bon Scott sadly came to about seven months after this single got released.

Sunday, September 9, 2018

A Lot Going On After Dark

Song 424: This week on the playlist you’ll find The City Never Sleeps At Night by Nancy Sinatra, written by Lee Hazlewood, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. At some point not too long after the record's release, I added These Boots Are Made for Walking (Song 352) to my singles collection, and it came with this shining B-side gem. I obviously wasn't the only one in my neighborhood enjoying the flip side of the hit - one day when delivering the newspaper to the restaurant/bar a few lots away from my parent's home, I heard it playing on the jukebox, which meant that one of the customers had invested some pocket change to relish this musical ride. The lyrics paint engaging pictures that, back then, looked like Manhattan to me, and mostly still do, though the moving images could fit a number of other lively nocturnal urban settings as well. The words and the music clearly portray the Big hellos and goodbyes while along the way Not a single ho-hum appears, which might actually answer the question of How come the city it never sleeps at night.

Sunday, September 2, 2018

Analyzing the Glaring Contradictions

Song 423: This week on the playlist you can hear Double Standards by Patti Rothberg, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Once again, seven weeks have passed since my last personal friend song post. I met Patti in the studio one night in 2003 while she was working on her third album, and this is the title track for that project. At the time, I was working on the Elder Street cut Marketplace, which I just posted yesterday as my September 2018 SoundCloud release. Anyway, I quickly got acquainted with her music, and immediately became a big fan. I had the pleasure of hearing a number of DS pieces before the official release, including this one, and I liked them all. I even considered jokingly suggesting to Patti that she could run for president as a way to promote her release, since presidential candidates very often say one thing and then do another and that fact would easily highlight her song and her CD. While I didn't actually mention the idea to her, I still think it might have made for a very entertaining record promotion campaign, and of course, her little piece of advice about Don't you even try To make sense of all you see applies to the current moment quite a bit more than it did 10 years ago.

Sunday, August 26, 2018

Time to Meet With a Special Person

Song 422: This week on the playlist you’ll find Midnight Mary by Joey Powers, written by Artie Wayne and Ben Raleigh, and you can catch a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I heard this hit on the radio at the small diner down the road from my parents house one sunny afternoon when I stopped in briefly, probably to deliver the local newspaper. While I had remembered that interlude as being a summer day, my sources indicate that this 45 made the charts in the fall of 1963, and peaked in early January of 1964, so perhaps I just happened to catch it on a warm autumn day, but regardless of how my memory may have confused the particulars, I fondly recall the lasting musical and lyrical impressions it gave me. I enjoyed it so much that I learned the chorus melody and words just from that initial encounter, and I would, in solitary moments over the next few months, often sing that chorus to myself, just for my own pleasure. Of course, when February rolled around, a quartet from Liverpool rocked my world, and I starting learning a whole new set of melodies and lyrics, but I still never forgot about midnight and Mary.

Sunday, August 19, 2018

An Intoxicatingly Risky Way to Move

Song 421: This week’s playlist track is Arrested for Driving While Blind by ZZ Top, written by Billy Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard (the 3 band members), and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When Tejas came along in late 1976, I felt like ZZ Top had hit a real peak, fulfilling the music promises of their earlier work. I especially relished the understated humor in the words on this cut, which planted a lyrical seed in the back of my mind that would eventually become Drivin' in My Sleep Again after some addition inspiration from my friend Eddy Lawrence's tune Sleepdriving Again which appeared on his 1994 CD Used Parts. A few months after I added the Texas trio's LP to my collection, I got to see the three perform at the Chicago Stadium on a chilly winter night (2/19/77). They had a truly impressive stage set-up on the tour that included a live bull and tender on a separate platform next to where they performed. I felt like I saw and heard a very good show that night, though, as a musician, I also noticed that the sound coming to the audience included more than just the parts the three musicians on the stage played. The woman who sat next to me that night, also a musician, noticed the same thing, and later confirmed through people she knew who had connections with ZZ Top that yes, they did indeed use a click track when they performed, meaning that they augmented their live sound with prerecorded additions that they controlled from the stage. Still, I felt like they did a very good job of communicating that wonderful feel Of rollin' in an automobile, along with many other special moments.

Sunday, August 12, 2018

That Uncontrollable Emotional Attachment

Song 420: This week on the playlist you’ll find I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You) by Hank Williams, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The Ohio relatives' extensive country music collection introduced me to Hank, as well as other classic artists of the 1950s and 1960s, and I found Mr. Williams quite impressive. At some point in the 1960s, I watched a move about Hank on TV, and that film contains a very entertaining story about him writing this song in a record company executive's office during the man's lunch break. It makes for a fun tale, and a memorable movie scene, but I would bet the flick writers spun it out of whole cloth. However mundane the tune's actual genesis might have been, though, in contrast to its theatrical promotion, the piece itself still stands out as one of Hank's best. Whenever I hear it, a picture from the past comes slowly stealing, giving me that old time feeling, and I Can't Help It (If I Still Love this one).

Sunday, August 5, 2018

Making Hard Labor Sound Better

Song 419: This week on the playlist you can listen to Finest Worksong by R.E.M., written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I thought R.E.M. sounded pretty good the night my band Victims of Technology opened for them and the Lloyds at The Stone in San Francisco (6/22/83), but when Document came along 4 years later, I thought they have moved up to a whole new level. The album became a regular spinner for me, and it would also find a sweet spot on my iPod not long after that shiny mp3 player arrived, so over the years the record has enlivened many moments, including through ear buds on NYC subway rides and blasting from a portable speaker set while driving along interstate highways. This cut opens the LP with a bang, and sets a very high-energy tone for the ride. Three decades after its release, I would say an even greater share of workers feel that What we want and what we need Has been confused, been confused, but hearing this track can also impart the feeling of being in Your finest hour and believing that Another chance has been engaged.

Sunday, July 29, 2018

A Clever Take on an Old Fairy Tale

Song 418: After hearing about Little Things last week, this week's playlist track centers on a specific little one, in a very entertaining way: Li'l Red Riding Hood by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs, written by Ron Blackwell, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. During the stretch when this novelty number graced the airwaves in the summer of 1966, my family did our warm-weather visit to the Ohio relatives, which during that decade had changed from the yearly routine it had been in the 1950s to being an even-numbered-year outing. Our stay in 1966 included my cousin treating me to my first motorcycle ride, and also him spinning If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears for me and my brothers in a sparkling bedroom of the uncle's newly-completed house — the family had previously lived in the building's basement for at least ten years. Then one sunny afternoon, a bunch of us played miniature golf at a nearby course that featured background music courtesy of the local Top-40 station, and hearing this hit made the game even more fun. I always savored the word play about the wolf wearing his sheep suit, and the way the singer ends by making a wolf sound followed by a sheep sound. Since he had such a big heart, the better to love her with, perhaps she (Red) really would have seen things his way before they got to grandma's place.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

How the Small Stuff Can Add Up

Song 417: This week on the playlist you can hear Little Things by Bush, written by Gavin Rossdale, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title.  Bush first got my attention when Everything Zen (Song 89) made a big noise on the airwaves in the winter of 1995, and soon enough, after hearing a couple of other tracks from the album, I added Sixteen Stone to my collection. This cut from the record vividly portrays, in both music and words, the all-too-common life experience of small annoyances quickly adding up to much greater difficulties and defying attempts at resolution, along with the feeling of being pulled strongly in 2 polar opposite directions. Like songwriter Rossdale, I too can claim a talent that might make me best at forget, but his word play on the lines Here comes a lie/We will always be true never fails to make me smile. I would guess, though, that Gavin is probably not Loaded on wrong when he suggests Going up when coming down/Scratch away - that might actually be good advice.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

Someone You Might Not Have Noticed

Song 416: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week the playlist features Laundromat Girl by my good friend and former Berkeley housemate Carol Denney, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I had heard her do this cut live at least once, and I didn't really get it the first time around. When I got to hear it as the opening track of The Rich Will Never Be Poor, though, I did get it right away, and I liked it a lot more than I would have expected, given my initial reaction to it. Soon enough, I had The Rich Will Never Be Poor loaded onto my iPod, and over the last decade I have listened to the record a lot, with this opening tune setting the mood for the listening experience. Having lived in the Bay Area for about a decade, it's possible that I might have met the Laundromat Girl sketched here, but since I cannot claim her interest, it may not matter. Similarly, I would not know how to tell if something's wrong with that girl, but whether there is or not, Carol sure makes her sound intriguing. When I got the CD back in 2010, I still lived in Highland Park, NJ, and when I would head over to do laundry, I would hear this chorus in my head while looking at the woman behind the counter, because, even though I knew she was not the original subject of the piece, at that moment, she was the Laundromat Girl in my life.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Get Wise to the Divisive Hustle

Song 415: This week the playlist honors Us And Them by Pink Floyd, written by Roger Waters and Richard Wright, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Warren James, as my first dorm roommate at NU, introduced me to the music of Pink Floyd because he really liked them, but what I heard didn't interest me at the time. When Dark Side of the Moon came along a few years later, though, it did grab me, and I felt it deserved all of the attention it got. This particular epoch paints a very clear picture of the simplistic, fearful authoritarian mindset that fuels all large-scale violent conflicts, up to and including major wars. The lyrics also make the point that theft underpins the us vs. them mentality. While this kind of hostile rhetoric never disappeared, lately it has gotten a lot louder, which makes this cut all the more meaningful for the present moment. Us? We're always the good ones, even if we start wars for oil. Them? They're always the bad ones, even when they feed the hungry. Listen, son, said the man with the gun, there's room for you inside. Well, If I Was You, I wouldn't go inside the war machine - better to recognize that at the core of the divisive Us And Them phrase lies a strategy as old as the Roman Empire: Divide and Conquer. If you don't want to be conquered, tune out the authoritarians sowing the division. On a side note, you can now find the If I Was You song video pinned to the top of my FB musician page if you just click on the title.

Sunday, July 1, 2018

A Dying Man’s Instructions

Song 414: This week the playlist comes around to Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport by Rolf Harris, who also wrote the song. You can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. During the summer of 1963, I heard this novelty tune coming out of transistor radios at least a few times while hanging out at the nearby park down the road where kids gathered to play games like chess and checkers and to do simple, fun, crafty stuff. I really liked the catchy chorus, although at the age of 11 I didn't have any clue as to the nature of the story, other than that it obviously referred to the kangaroo country Australia. When, as a young adult a decade later, I added this hit to my record collection, I learned the lyrics and understood the basic context of the extended joke. Even then, though, I did not know what the Abos were - I pictured some sort of horse/donkey type of animal, but only recently did I learn that Abos referred to Aborigines, meaning that the singer had enslaved a group of Australian indigenous people. If I had known that, even as an 11-year-old, it might have clouded my pleasure in the cut, but this one isn't meant to be taken seriously anyway, so maybe they tanned his hide when he died, Clyde, and that's it a-hangin' on the shed, but I can still smile about it.

Sunday, June 24, 2018

A Melodic Communicator

Song 413: This week on the playlist you can hear Songbird by Fleetwood Mac, written by Christine McVie, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When the duo of Buckingham and Nicks replaced Bob Welch as the front performers for Fleetwood Mac, they helped to take the band to a new level, both artistically and in terms of commercial success, in the summer of 1975. A little over a year-and-a-half later, Rumours came along, and I heartily agreed with the critics who asserted that it sounded even better than its predecessor. I always believed that the title slyly referenced the whispers of romantic dalliances between band members. The McVies had divorced, while the Buckingham and Nicks romance flickered on and off, and at the time I suspected both Buckingham and Nicks of a McVie hookup, though I don't now recall what fueled that speculation. I pictured the stirring ballad that concludes the LP's side one as a statement of renewed dedication, though in real life, maybe it didn't work out that way. About a year-and-a-half after the release of Rumours, I relished my first visit to the city where FM had recorded the album, and having just moved to the Bay Area, Sausalito seemed like a truly inspiring place. During the 7 years I lived in Berkeley, though, I don't think I ever realized that Songbird had been recorded at U.C. Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium, though I always appreciated the cut's concert hall ambience. To this day, I savor hearing a certain Songbird singing about how she loves her lover Like never before.

Monday, June 18, 2018

Covering a Lot of Ground Very Quickly

Song 412: This week's playlist pick is 3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds by Jefferson Airplane, written by Marty Balin, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This post arrives a day late due to a local internet outage. Surrealistic Pillow very quickly made my personal top 10 of favorite LPs, and this 216 mph mover would be the 3rd SP cut to appear on the playlist (She Has Funny Cars is Song 154 and Somebody to Love is Song 267). Back in the days of 2-sided records, very often the first and last tracks on a side were the best, and this rocker opens side 2 with a bang. I always picked up a satirical edge to the lyrics, and found it amusing, although, in the current political atmosphere, it wouldn’t surprise me to hear a more serious right-wing version of these words, with various demonizations filling in the blanks after the phrase Do away with people . . .  I truly relished the second verse’s suggestion about living in a circus tent where all the other freaks can share my cares. The term hippie freak was originally meant as a smear, but counter-culture types adopted it as a communal descriptive for members of the club, and when I grew my hair long enough to earn the title in 1971, I proudly wore that label and shared it with my fellow freaks. I did not share the interest many of them had, though, for a smoke that could cost 65 dollars, but I also did not judge them harshly for that interest, especially since it seemed to have the effect of moving someone from a Do away with people frame of mind to one of Know I love you baby.

Sunday, June 10, 2018

A Unit That Still Works Well

Song 411: This week on the playlist you can hear There Ain't Nothin' Wrong with the Radio by Aaron Tippin, written by Aaron Tippin and Buddy Brock, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This entertaining novelty single came along in the early 1990s as part of the New Country scene happening then, according to the branding of the NYC country station I listened to, and the hit introduced me to the voice of Mr. Tippin, who I hadn't heard before. It didn't take long to warm up to this one, as anyone who has driven an old clunker for a while can relate to the lines about bald tires, as well as needing a carburetor and a set of plug wires. Of course, the ride completely crosses the border into fantasyland when, after a cop stops the singer for Out-of-date tags and no tail lights, the officer lets him go because of his marvelous radio, but you might very well have guessed from the opening narration that the drive was headed in that direction. On a side note, this track is the second sly reference to the third (and final) verse of my own song As Long as Merle is Still Haggard, which begins with the line I think Aaron’s been Tippin a few. You can find the Merle video by clicking on the title.

Sunday, June 3, 2018

The Part That’s Hard to Pin Down

Song 410: This week on the playlist you’ll find Spirit Slips Away by Thin Lizzy, written by Phil Lynott, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I first heard about Thin Lizzy when Wild One (Song 296) showed up on the radio near the end of summer in 1975, and I liked that cut enough to take a chance on the Fighting LP, which soon proved to be a worthy investment, with this track being one of its highlights. As much as I enjoyed the album, it didn't garner much attention for the band, unlike their followup record Jailbreak which brought them their biggest hit (The Boys Are Back in Town) and a lot more popularity. I felt the earlier 33 deserved more attention than the latter, but evidently the RnR audience as a whole disagreed with my POV. To this day, I would much rather hear the Fighting gems than the Jailbreak highlights, but I also don't begrudge the quartet their commercial success, And when the music that makes you blue Unfolds its secrets, the mysteries are told to you, no matter which album the music comes from, so When the darkness starts to fall May the angels bring their flame to you, to me, and to us all.

Sunday, May 27, 2018

A Meandering Walk in the Park

Song 409: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week’s featured playlist track is Child's Play by my good friend Jeff Larson, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. We became buddies soon after watching each other perform at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco back in 1979. As things developed over the following year or two, we performed a few times together as a duo called Dusty River, and during that era, at some point Jeff gave me cassettes of his music, which I enjoyed spinning on my player. A while back, I started making mP3s from old cassettes, including some JL ones, and I sent him copies of his early work. Doing so, I found out that he had forgotten about some of those tunes, and then, lo and behold, along came a fresh version of Child's Play. I'll admit that at first, I still preferred the original, but it didn't take too many replays for me to truly appreciate the new edition, and having heard it plenty of times in the last few years, I relish it even more. Like him, I have, at least once or twice, found myself in a place where I can't remember, the details fade/Blurry and broken, the promises made, and so I've played the game when it's easier pretending with answers always pending, but I will continue to listen for A whisper of something I've found to be real.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Still Time to Change the World

Song 408: This week the playlist salutes Chicago by Graham Nash, who also wrote the song. Having mentioned the Windy City in last week's post, this hit seems like a natural followup. I arrived in that area in the fall of 1969, just as the aftermath of the demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic Convention unfolded. Early in the course of the Chicago Eight trial, the judge denied Black Panther Party activist defendant Bobby Seale his constitutional right to counsel of his choice, and then illegally denied his right to defend himself. When Seale vehemently protested the judge's actions, he was bound and gagged, which inspired Nash's opening lines. During this stretch, while evolving my own personal singer-songwriter style from a combination of various musical and lyrical influences (and singing in Chicago), I felt the RnR scene lacked songs that applied to current events, so Graham's deft single in the spring of 1971 helped to fill that void. Back then I truly believed that it was starting to get better, but now, nearly 5 decades later, we still have a lot to do, especially in regards to war vs. peace, which was the spark that lit the 1968 convention fracas (Viet Nam). In recent years, it seems that the threat of nuclear war has increased, so the world could genuinely be dying to get better, and if We can change the world, we should Open up the door, because Somehow people must be free. I would disagree with Nash on one line, though, and that's because we actually do need rules and regulations, particularly in order to keep some people from taking away the rights of others.

Sunday, May 13, 2018

Ready To Turn the Key

Song 407: This week the playlist comes around to Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When The Stones showed up as part of the British Invasion that followed The Beatles debut, I liked what I heard from them, just as I did The Dave Clark Five, Herman's Hermits, etc., and they had a few 45s that really lit up the airwaves in that era. At the turn of the 1970s, I began my album collection, having flown from the family coop, and I added a number of older RS LPs, but I found their current ones a bit disappointing, so I generally didn’t go for their newer releases. This single did get my attention, though, when it blasted out of the radio speakers in the summer of 1981, and I heartily agreed with the reviewer my Oakland housemate Doug quoted who said it proved The Rolling Stones could still get it up. During a trip back East that summer, I remember hearing it while riding the bus near the Chicago area, which was where I had lived only a few years earlier, before moving to CA, and it fit that moment perfectly. Having become an East Bay dweller, I did not wish to linger in the Windy City, and if someone had to start me up, I would gladly Ride like the wind at double speed and never stop, never stop until I got back to the West Coast, running hot, even if I had to blow my top, because getting stranded in Chi-Town would have truly made a grown man cry.

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Where the Angels Are Coming From

Song 406: This week on the playlist you can hear It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels by Kitty Wells, written by J.D. Jay Miller, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. In the summer of 1960, my family travelled to visit the Ohio relatives, as we had every summer of my life, and by that point, it had become a regular part of the stay that I would spend some time spinning favorites from the aunt and uncle country music collection. They gave me free rein, with the understanding that I would handle the records and equipment with care, which I did, and among the classics that I enjoyed was an album that included this cut. On that 1960 sojourn, or possibly the 1962 trek, when our yearly visits became once-every-two-years in the 1960s, I sat in the living room beside the console, singing along with this track, and my fervently-religious father said to my aunt, "I don't know if I like hearing my son singing those words." Aunt Mary chuckled and replied, "He doesn't know what it means!" Not wishing to jeopardize my access to the country music stash, I said nothing, but inwardly, I thought, "I do know what it means." In reality, though, as a sheltered pre-teen, I actually didn't get the forbidden implications of the lyrics, comprehending it only in terms of grade-school-level boyfriend/girlfriend tussles, which I had no personal experience with, having only witnessed them as an observer. This 1952 single became the first No. 1 Billboard country music hit for a female solo artist, paving the way for other singers like Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn. Truly, too many times married men think they're still single, and that has caused many a good girl to go wrong, but in this case, it also caused a talented young woman to top the charts.

Sunday, April 29, 2018

Time to Make a Decision

Song 405: This week the playlist you will find Him or Me - What's It Gonna Be? by Paul Revere & the Raiders, written by Mark Lindsay and Terry Melcher, and you can check out a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This 45 was blossoming around the same time as the May flowers during my sophomore year. I knew that those revolutionary rockers had a new hit, and I even knew its title, a couple of weeks before I got to actually hear it. While the older generation at church would rail against the Devil's music, my fellow fundamentalists in the church youth group shared my enthusiasm for RnR, so after one Sunday night service, a few of us had gathered at one member's family car for some reason, with, of course, the radio being on, and this record then lit up the airwaves, creating yet another memorable teenage music moment for me. I especially relished the vocal interplay in the verse sections, which sharply contrasts with the more rocking chorus parts and seemed a bit surprising the first time through. Well before Paul got to the line, So, if you'd be so kind, would you please make up your mind, I had already made up my mind about how much I liked this track, and 51 years later, it still sounds just as good to me.

Sunday, April 22, 2018

A Well-Grounded Self-Portrait

Song 404: This week on the playlist you can find Face of the Earth by Days of the New, written by Travis Meeks. During the later stretch of the 1990s, I often listened to Howard Stern, and in addition to hearing him say plenty of entertaining things, plus a sizable share of truly crazy stuff, I also caught some intriguing new music. When Days of the New appeared in the middle of 1997, it impressed me every bit as much as it did him. I especially savored the way the band managed to generate a genuine hard rock sound via acoustic guitar and strong vocals. Most rockers, myself included, usually reach for an electric guitar and/or an electric keyboard when seeking to produce a hard rock sound, but the band Days of the New proved that, in the right hands, an acoustic guitar can rock just as hard as an electric one. Being an earth sign myself, I take pleasure in sprinkling my own lyrics with mentions of dust, stones, etc. (for example, my song Just a Stone),  and I relish it when others do too (such as Taurus Patti Rothberg on Treat Me Like Dirt, which is Song 17 on this list), so when Taurus Travis Meeks sings, I am the ground and the dirt/Walk on me/Face of the Earth, it resonates strongly in my domain. FWIW, Travis turns 39 on Friday, so HB, TM!

Sunday, April 15, 2018

A Fantastic Way to Travel

Song 403: This week the playlist comes around to Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf, written by Rushton Moreve and John Kay. You can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this hit came along in the fall of my HS senior year, a few people panned it as an obvious drug reference, and a celebration of hallucinogenics, but to me, it perfectly embodied the spirit of rock and roll that I had come to treasure. The record featured the kind of sound that grabbed me, and the lyrics spoke eloquently about the marvelous ride that the sound would provide as it moved the listener from here to there, going to places near and far, to the stars away from here. Nearly 50 years later, I still feel that fantasy will set you free if you let the sound take you away, and I personally don't need any chemistry to assist in catching the ride, but I also don't condemn those who feel that they do. For me, today, the same as 50 years ago, all I have to do to take that Magic Carpet Ride is to hear the record. All aboard!

Sunday, April 8, 2018

How The Parts All Fit Together

Song 402: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week on the playlist you’ll find The Part That Repeats by my good friend Gregg Cagno, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. This clever musical message about the intersection of songwriting and romance touches on a subject we both know well, and I would readily echo his thoughts about how The Part That Repeats fits into the picture, both in relationships and in melodic narratives about them. In fact, if you'd like to understand more about the craft of writing a song, you might do well to spend some time studying the lyrics of this tune. While, as the old saying goes, rules are made to be broken, generally, you would start off with a line about love gone bad, and after that, list all the things you've done since she split, and how that makes you feel like shhh… Then, upon crossing over a short bridge, you would wrap it all up in the third verse, always coming back to The Part That Repeats in the appropriate places. I personally feel his words fill in the whole scene pretty well, but if, after hearing and absorbing the complete track, you still have unanswered questions about these instructions, surely Gregg would gladly fill you in.

Monday, April 2, 2018

Advice About a Good Way to Move

Song 401: This week the playlist comes around to Walk This Way by Aerosmith, written by Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I guess it makes sense to follow up last week's saga about a Steppin' Stone with a musical suggestion about how to walk, and/or where to do so. From at least my HS days a decade earlier, the phrase that became the title of this track had been a standard joke that played on the dual meaning of the term, with comic scenes in TV shows and cartoons that toyed with those three words, so when the record came along, it seemed to have fulfilled some sort of destiny. Aerosmith got a lot of criticism back in the 1970s for sounding too much like Led Zeppelin, and that critique seemed accurate to me at the time, but I truly enjoyed their records anyway. Toys in the Attic got plenty of spins on my turntable, and this particular cut gave me a few clues about how to make certain moves. Maybe, like them, I was a high school loser too, but a little bit later in life, I appreciated it when Aerosmith came along and gave me the word about somethin' I missed.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

The Role Not Played

Song 400: This week on the playlist you can hear (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone by The Monkees, written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I heard this cut not long after it appeared as the B-side of I'm a Believer, perhaps courtesy of a friend spinning the 45, although I also might have heard it on the TV show, which I tried to catch whenever possible. Soon enough, a number of friends had copies of More of the Monkees, and thanks to them, I got to enjoy the LP quite a bit, as it quickly became a personal favorite. In particular, I always liked hearing the chorus harmonies on this track, picturing the shifting musical intervals as I listened. Somehow I gained access to the music book for the album, and from studying that manual to play this tune I learned all about the concept of bar chords and got a lot of practice doing those fingerboard moves. It surprised me to learn recently that the band actually did not like the record very much, even though it spent 18 weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart, also hit #1 in the UK and became the best-selling album of the year. Band member Mike Nesmith told Melody Maker magazine that More of the Monkees was "probably the worst album in the history of the world" but I personally think it deserved the honors it got, I liked it even better than their first 33, and I still prefer it to this day.

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Hanging Around For a Long Time

Song 399: This week on the playlist you can hear Tom Dooley by The Kingston Trio, which is a traditional song arranged by Dave Guard on this hit. You can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I actually first heard this single in my 5th grade classroom, as we were learning and doing some folk songs, probably around this time of year, back in 1962. In that era, it didn't  impress me, and I felt the lyrics didn't  tell the story very well. Over the next couple of years I would hear some other folk music that I liked, but when the Beatles and their fellow British invaders rocked my world in the winter of 1964, my interest in folk music waned, and would not rekindle itself until the turn of the 1970s, when my circle at Northwestern U. widened my listening experience with their LP collections. Still, during that stretch, music fans in my sphere tended to see the Kingston Trio as commercializers of folk music, and therefore generally unworthy of serious consideration. Fast forward to the middle of the 1980s, when flea markets became a good place to buy used albums, and I started to expand my collection, with a bunch of Kingston Trio 33s among the many added to the stash. I soon found that the more of them I got, the more I liked what I heard, including this cut, which sounded a lot better to me than it had a couple of decades earlier. At a certain point, maybe 6 months into my new-found appreciation for the KT, I happened to mention them to my good friend and fellow singer-songwriter Jeff Larson, and I discovered that he had begun collecting their records around the same time I had, developing a similar admiration for them in the process. Whether or not the real life Mr. Dooley died a long time ago by Hangin' from a white oak tree, the record about him still sounds pretty good to me almost 6 decades after 3 guys in a small room put it down on tape.

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Not So Easy to Read

Song 398: I wonder if anyone could have predicted that this week’s playlist track would be If You Could Read My Mind by Gordon Lightfoot, who also wrote the song. You can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Around the time this 45 topped the charts 47 years ago, when I headed over to the record store, I could only afford one LP/week, so I asked the clerk if he would recommend Lightfoot's Sit Down Young Stranger or Arlo's Washington County, and when he chose the former, I followed his advice. From the first spin on the turntable it felt like the right choice, and over the next few months, I added a few additional GL albums to my stash, soaking up a lot of his vision, and in the process, teaching myself a bunch of his tunes. That stretch also coincided with a romantic roller-coaster up and down that led to a whole pile of my own songs, including Elder Street's Stormy Winds and At the Crossroads. I recently did lyric videos for both of them, and you can catch those depictions by clicking on the titles. I would credit Bob Dylan and James Taylor as the primary influences on Stormy Winds, but when I wrote At the Crossroads I felt myself channeling Lightfoot, along with the Rolling Stones, and Read My Mind was the Gordon cut on the top of the stack. Interestingly enough, that summer, I met a songwriter in Atlanta who claimed that Lightfoot had stolen Read My Mind from him, and I thought it unlikely, but I won't claim to know for sure. Later, in 1985, my good friend Jeff Larson treated me (and himself) to a Lightfoot show at the Concord Pavilion on 9/12 as a birthday gift, and though from Gordon's sarcastic between-song banter, it seemed like he himself wasn't enjoying the event, Jeff and I had a pretty good time, and I still treasure the memory of that late summer afternoon.

Sunday, March 4, 2018

Turn the Burner Down

Song 397: This week’s playlist track is Melting Pot by John Mellencamp, who also wrote the song. You can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I had gotten Rain on the Scarecrow as a gift a few years earlier, but it was the 1991 Mellencamp LP Whenever We Wanted that really got my attention. I remember the NYC buses plastered with ads for it, and hearing plenty of good stuff from it on the radio, so I soon had my own personal copy as a regular spinner on my turntable. Two other favorites from it already made this list - Crazy Ones (Song 285) and Get a Leg Up (Song 111) - so it surprised me to read today that John, while quite pleased with the album at release time, later lowered his own opinion of it. Personally, I still like the record, and the lyrics on this tune sound even more meaningful to me now than they did 2 decades ago. Back then I understood the basic reference to the U.S. working class, and how The hawks live upstairs and they use Money, sex and power to gnaw at your brain to Keep you bleeding, begging and snotty if you make your home in that Melting Pot, but this seems more true now than ever. Sadly, it's understandable why you might feel the need to Get yourself a weapon after being Beat up and lied to For your whole life but perhaps it might be a good time to lower the heat on the Melting Pot instead, and lift the working class up rather than continuing to make things worse, which a group of selfish super-rich types wants to continue to do. On a side note, I will admit that I didn't plan this interesting bit of synchronicity where last week's cut has a 2-word title PM and this week's one has a 2-word title MP, or the fact that I featured a CCR track the week before my previous Mellencamp post, just as I did this time around. Stuff happens, doesn't it!

Sunday, February 25, 2018

On a Roll

Song 396: This week the playlist comes around to Proud Mary by Creedence Clearwater Revival, written by John Fogerty, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this 45 came along 49 years ago, in the winter of 1969, it was the first I heard of CCR, and it made me an instant fan. Their followup Bad Moon Rising (Song 284) confirmed that status, but they already had me with this one. Of course, I initially thought the title was Rollin' on the River so mentions of Proud Mary did confuse me for a bit, until I got it sorted out. When I began my LP collection in the fall of 1969, Bayou Country in due time became part of it, and subsequently I surmised how to perform this piece, so I would regularly share it during guitar circle gatherings. Upon moving to the Bay Area, I soon started hanging out with a bunch of other songwriter types at a Berkeley pizza place reportedly owned, in partnership, by former CCR member Tom Fogerty. In that era I would often joke with fellow musicians about the El Cerrito bayou, since that East Bay municipality was actually CCR's home, rather than the southern Louisiana area implied by their early record lyrics, but rollin' on the river still felt pretty good, even when it was actually a modern ferry heading to Angel Island in the SF Bay rather than an old steam riverboat moving along the lower Mississippi.

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Figuring Out Directions

Song 395: Seven weeks after my last personal friend song post, this week the playlist track would be Toward the Road On the Left by my old San Francisco buddy Jim Bruno, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Jim and I both moved to the Bay Area from IL in the summer of 1978, though I don't think he thumbed his way there, which I did, and I arrived from the Chicago area, whereas he had lived further downstate, but we met soon after arriving, and I liked what I heard from him. I persuaded him and his sometime partner Shawn Colvin to make the scene at the Berkeley pizza joint where I had started spending time, and soon enough, they became part of that musical circle that included myself, Bob Nichols and Carol Denney, along with some other talented singer-songwriter types. Last spring, when I decided to put together a Spotify playlist called Me and My Songwriter Friends, I included Jim among the 19 melodic mates that enliven that experience, with this cut being one of the two JB numbers on it. I had only heard it shortly before I added it, but I think it aptly showcases Jim's gifts, and it sounds pretty good to me every time I hear it. You can find that Spotify playlist by clicking on the title.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

No Advance Notification

Song 394: This week’s playlist track is Without a Word of Warning by Gary Lewis and the Playboys, written by Gary Lewis, Leon Russell and Tommy “Snuff” Garrett, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I decided to post a Gary Lewis number this week as a roundabout tribute to his father Jerry, who died in August of 2017. I knew very little about the father's comedy, but the son's music made a major impression quite early in my songwriting fixation. As I mention in the Song 303 post (about Green Grass), at the point when that 45 teased my ears, along with Monday, Monday and a few other spring 1966 hits, I ceased to even pretend to resist the devil's music. Not long after, I picked up the acoustic guitar my mother gave me and wrote 8 songs in my first week of fretboard obsession. My appreciation for Lewis & crew grew as his discography did, and I added a couple of his singles to my stash, but I didn't have this one, which was evidently the b-side of Save Your Heart for Me. I did get to hear it on a regular basis, though, thanks to its inclusion in a greatest hits LP owned by a family who I spent a lot of time with during my final 2 years of HS. I played pool with all of the 6 siblings in their basement, but it was the eldest daughter (the one my age) who I imagined I heard at night calling me, wanting me and needing me by her side. True to the background music that I treasured, at some point, Without a Word of Warning she tore all my dreams apart.

Sunday, February 4, 2018

Determined to Escape

Song 393: This week the playlist features Rusty Cage by Soundgarden, written by Chris Cornell, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I added a copy of the A-Sides CD to my collection not long after it came out in late 1997, and it immediately became a regular spinner on the player. Maybe I didn't listen to it every day, but I did have it playing at least every other day for a couple of years. The Rusty Cage that the singer intends to escape could signify a restrictive romantic entanglement or an oppressive employment trap, and I would bet he sketched the scene that way intentionally, giving listeners involved in either situation a good reason to scream along with him. While I've never been outside when it's raining icepicks, I do feel like I have broken out of a Rusty Cage a few times over the years, and I would imagine most listeners feel that way as well, even if they've never been hit with a hand of broken nails. That particular line might make you wonder, though, if there are any surviving photos of Mr. Cornell's partner's hands after a visit to a nail spa that went horribly wrong.

Sunday, January 28, 2018

An Update on That Old Dance

Song 392: This week the playlist frolics to The Brand New Tennessee Waltz by Jesse Winchester, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. The early 1970s singer-songwriter trend didn't shower Jesse with the kind of attention shown to artists like James Taylor and Jackson Browne, but I liked what I heard from him, so before too long I added his eponymous debut LP to my collection, and that album included this cut. Having grown up listening to Pee Wee King's waltz (see last week’s post), this number became its obvious companion, and the new lyrics soon occupied a space in my memory quite close to the original set. Just as the first song became part of a classic country music foundation for me, so too did this one join a small core group of singer-songwriter recordings that informed and influenced my pursuit of the craft. If listening can make you feel like You're literally waltzing on air, you'll probably have a lot of respect for the man who penned the lines, even when he admits that There's no telling who will be there when you dance.

Sunday, January 21, 2018

The Tune That Moves the Dancers

Song 391: This week the playlist swings to The Tennessee Waltz by Pee Wee King, written by Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I learned this tune well before my first double-digit birthday, thanks to the OH relatives with their extensive country music collection. On our summer visits, they gave me complete access to their LPs and turntable, so I quickly got to know a bunch of country classics. I heard this original record first, and later got acquainted with the Patti Page hit version, liking both of them, though of the two, I still preferred King's recording, not knowing, or caring, that for much of the rest of the world, Patti had far outsold Pee Wee. In those years before The Beatles rocked my world and got me focussed on music with a back beat that you can't lose, this cut existed as part of a core group of about two dozen country tracks that animated my musical spirit. I knew the melodies and all of the words, I would often sing along with the records, and would also sometimes sing them to myself at times when I wasn't close to the LP stack. In addition, they might appear in my dreams, so well before the British Invasion awakened an interest in RnR and songwriting, I already had a country foundation to build on, which included a very catchy dance in 3/4 time that was truly stronger than drink and that offered a warning about what could happen if you let an old friend cut in with your partner.

Sunday, January 14, 2018

Quantity Vs. Quality

Song 390: This week on the playlist you’ll find Too Much Of Nothing by Peter, Paul and Mary, written by Bob Dylan, and you can check out a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I first encountered this tune a few years after its release, during the height of my Dylan obsession, by hearing tracks from The Basement Tapes on the radio at the point in the early 1970s when they existed only as bootlegs. Bob's version pegged my meter, but I found the PPM record quite pleasing as well, and as the one version of the piece that I could buy at the time, I got to liking it even more when it became a regular spinner on my turntable. Four decades later, the lyrics can apply to the current era when a certain president can walk the streets and boast like most But he wouldn't know a thing (and he clearly doesn’t). Many workers, including some who expected the man to save their jobs, have already gotten Too Much Of Nothing from him, and I don't expect that pattern to get better any time soon.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

That Question May Have Been Answered

Song 389: The question on the playlist this week is Should I Stay or Should I Go by The Clash, written by Topper Headon, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Joe Strummer, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. A full week into the new year, following a couple of weeks of brutal cold weather along the East Coast, coupled in some places with a sizable snowfall, this particular question might have occurred to a number of residents in the affected areas. Back in the early 1980s, I generally didn't get that excited by releases from The Clash, but I thought this one justified all of the attention it triggered. That attention continued through a number of reissues for a few years, plus one in 1991, and then the cut had a huge resurgence in 2016 via its inclusion in the Netflix sci-fi drama Stranger Things, so while it may or may not be here 'til the end of time, listeners have for the most part answered the question by having it stick around, evidently because they like the sound of it.