Unprincipled Principals

Song 453: This week the playlist features Lives in the Balance by Jackson Browne, who also wrote the song, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. A couple of years ago, I  created a Spotify playlist called Dave Elder's Favorite Anti-war Songs (which you can hear by clicking on the title), mainly as a showcase for If I Was You, and recently I started asking people on Facebook for suggestions to add to that collection. Someone mentioned this cut, which is the title track for Jackson's 1986 release, and it grabbed me on the first spin. I had been a big Browne fan during the 1970s, often learning to sing and play his new material very soon after release dates, but I lost track of him during the 1980s, and this tune makes it clear to me that I have some catching up to do. Interestingly enough, I wrote If I Was You in reaction to Reagan's early moves to try to start an over-the-top war with Nicaragua, and Jackson evidently wrote this piece in reaction to Reagan's covert Contra war on Nicaragua, though, as the YT video makes quite clear, the words here could well apply to W's Iraq invasion, like other times where a government lies to a people and a country is drifting to war. So, knowing that they sell us our clothes and our cars, they sell us everything from youth to religion the same time they sell us our wars, like Mr. Browne, I too want to know who the men in the shadows are and I want to hear somebody asking them why they can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are but they're never the ones to fight or to die.

Stimulating Advice About Restraint

Song 452: This week on the playlist you’ll find Kicks by Paul Revere & The Raiders, written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this 45 came along, in the spring near the end of our HS freshman year, it became an instant favorite for me and my friend Brian Johnson. We had started talking about having a band together, and his mother had already gotten him an electric guitar and small amp. Not long after, my mother bought me an acoustic guitar. I remember this track being one of the two cuts that Brian and I discussed playing - the other being Day Tripper - though maybe there were more we considered that I don't recall. Given my family's disdain for the devil's music and the immoral behavior it generally seemed to promote, ranging from promiscuous love/sex to wanton alcohol/drug usage, I felt pleased that the words on this hit did not cross those lines, but rather, offered advice about drugs that sounded quite sensible to me at the time. Of course, decades of personal interactions have since taught me that many of my fellow human beings have much deeper and more complex reasons for seeking chemical assistance - it's not about needing to fill the emptiness inside, finding a little piece of paradise, bringing someone peace of mind, or killing boredom with some Kicks. While the message here might sound simplistic and moralistic to me these days, I don't let it dampen my enjoyment of a very engaging musical spin.

A Constructive Way to Get Somewhere

Song 451: Seven weeks after my previous personal friend song post, this week the playlist comes around to Build a Bridge from Both Sides by my good friend Terry Kitchen, who also wrote the song, which appeared on his 2009 CD Summer to Snowflakes, and you can find a YouTube video of the cut by clicking on the title. A couple of years ago, when creating a Spotify playlist called Me and My Songwriter Friends (which you can hear by clicking on the title), in the process, I combed through friends' recordings on Spotify, finding some very good stuff I hadn't heard before, and I mixed the shiny new gems with some familiar favorites as the playlist took shape. I would rank this tune as one of the best new discoveries from that undertaking, and as timely as the lyrics might have been at the records' release, they have an even stronger resonance a decade later. Indeed, the only way to make it across the great divide is to build a bridge from both sides, and not a barrier.

She Looked Too Familiar to Him

Song 450: The week the playlist comes around to Centerfold by The J. Geils Band, written by Seth Justman, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this hit came along in the fall of 1981, it made a big splash, and I heard it a lot, without really making any effort to do so. A fun tune, and musically alluring, it also stirred some annoyance in me over the moralistic POV expressed in the words, though I never let THAT interfere with my pleasure in the record. However, it did strike me as hypocritical that the singer who enjoys perusing centerfolds would feel revulsion when discovering revealing photographs of a personal acquaintance. In fact, I had, a decade earlier, told my female companion of the time that I thought her attractive enough to grace top girly mags like Playboy and Penthouse, and that I would feel honored (and NOT disgusted) if she ever showed up on their pages. While To see her in that negligee Is really just too much for one fellow, it would never make my blood run cold. It's OK, though - I understand This ain't no Never-Never Land, so I can enjoy the ride without having to agree with every turn that the lyrics might make.

Those Destructive Types

Song 449: The week on the playlist you’ll find War Pigs by Black Sabbath, written by Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward, and you can find a dynamic YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Not long after I finished the final version of my If I Was You song video, and got it uploaded to YouTube (click on the title and you can watch that video), I started doing posts on Facebook to try to spread the word about it. Then in early 2017, I created a Spotify playlist called Dave Elder’s Favorite Anti-war Songs, which you can hear by clicking on the title. A couple of months ago, in response to one of my Facebook posts, someone suggested that I check out this Black Sabbath cut that I'd never heard before. When I finally got around to it, about a month ago, not only did it have me hooked on the first spin, but I also found the video quite impressive. I have called the If I Was You video the second-best anti-war song video of all time, and I have another very particular song video that I would nominate for first place, but now I have to admit that the matter has gotten a bit more complicated. For those of us who oppose war, though, more anti-war song videos will always be a good thing, even if it means more competition. If you check out the Spotify playlist, you will probably notice that this track now appears there, as it has very quickly become a genuine favorite, with lyrics that paint a very clear picture of the Evil minds that plot destruction while making war just for fun/Treating people just like pawns in chess. I can't say when their judgement day comes, but I hope that some of the rest of us will survive it and carry on in a more peaceful and cooperative future.

A Problematic Judgemental Relative

Song 448: The week the playlist recognizes Your Auntie Grizelda by the Monkees, written by Diane Hildebrand and Jack Keller, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When the sad news about Peter Tork arrived a few days ago, I decided to feature a Monkees track this week, and as far as I could tell, this cut was evidently the only one where Peter sang the lead vocals. The Monkees brightened my HS years, and I tried to watch their TV shows when I could, though I had to do so slyly, since my parents and grandparents did not approve of the devil's music, but when we did manage to have them on, they made me smile, along with both of my brothers. Thanks to the series, and good friends who had their records, I quickly got to know their music quite well, to the point where I could sing along with much of their repertoire, including this tune. A few years later, when I got to know the music of CSN, I remember reading the story, probably in Rolling Stone, that Stephen Stills had applied for a spot with a developing TV show, and when he got rejected, he suggested that PT might satisfy the developers' preferences, and that was how Mr. Tork got the job. I would guess that most listeners recognize the portrait this tickler paints of a woman so proper She couldn't budge a smile and do it for free, particularly when she's judging others over her tea. We have to say good-bye to Peter Tork, but we can thank him for the way he made us chuckle. No bird of grace ever lit on Auntie Grizelda, but perhaps one will fly over Peter's tombstone.

At the Economic Breaking Point

Song 447: The week’s playlist track is Busted by Johnny Cash, written by Harlan Howard, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. I don't recall whether I learned this song from my Ohio relatives' vast country music collection, or if I got to know it in the early 1970s when I could pursue my own musical interests more extensively, but by my early twenties it had become one of my JC favorites. Having grown up in a struggling working-class household, I understood the message all too well, though my family did not farm, and we fortunately never found ourselves in circumstances as desperate as those outlined by the track's lyrics. Ironically, this tune appeared during an era of overall economic prosperity, and considering how much tougher the U.S. economy has become for a large percentage of the population, far too many people now have A big stack of bills Getting bigger each day, and some really have to beg like a dog for a bone, but maybe, if enough can put together how they got Busted, and trickled on, the story might get turned around (Hint: see Song 444).