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.

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!

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.

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.

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.