This is another one of those there’s-too-little-going-on-but-if-I-combine-everything-and-throw-in-some-gratuitous-filler-then-I-have-a-blog-post post. So here goes;
Only a few days until Vegas! For those of you who won’t be able to make the Vegas Podcast-A-Palooza, which I will be hosting, you can watch the video stream here beginning at 6:45 PM Eastern on Saturday. Before I leave, I’ll try to remember to schedule a blog post with the video embedded so you can also see it here at WFW.
Speaking of the Popdose Podcast, it’s now available at iTunes. Please do us a favor and write a review.
As long as I’m now doing their podcast, I figured I should write a column for Popdose as well. But rather than create something new, I’ve decided to move Songs I Never Get Tired Of over there, and we’ve given it the much better name of Infinite Play. My first entry, about You And Your Sister by Chris Bell, is now online.
Lawrence Kirsch’s book, The Light In Darkness, is now out. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s a look at Springsteen’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town album and tour as told by us fans, with lots of incredible pictures. And by “us fans,” I do mean it. My essay made the final cut and begins on p. 146. My buddy Pete Chianca from Blogness has his on p. 48.
Think about those words for a second. Putting aside the grammatically incorrect double negative, it’s a remarkable concept. Compare it with with Woody Allen, who, in Annie Hall, said that life was “full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.”
Better still, compare it with Thoreau, who wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Bruce spits in the face of those words, challenging Thoreau not just on the idea of the first part, but also by to be buried with the song and inviting us to sing along.
More than anything else Springsteen has written, it’s his philosophy. It’s why Ramrod opens Side Four of The River. As the bleakness of Fade Away and Stolen Car still resonate comes one gigantic, stoopid car-as-penis metaphor along the cheesiest organ riff this side of a United Skates Of America reminding you that it’s important to be able to still have fun, even as you slip back into the slap-in-the-face realism that closes the record.
I’ve clutched onto those words in my darkest times. When I joined Facebook, I listed them as my “Religion.” I thought it was a nice little multi-layered piece of wordplay, reflecting both my belief in its importance as well as irreverently suggesting that Springsteen is my personal Lord and Savior.
In early-1985, I was still caught up in the throes of the Brucemania that had hit the year before. I think I only had three of his albums by February: Born In The USA, Born To Run, and Greetings From Asbury Park (by virtue of its $3.99 cost. “The Nice Price,” as the sticker on Columbia’s budget line said). By February, perhaps upset that I was hogging the good stereo in the living room with music they didn’t want to hear, my parents gave me an early 16th birthday present of my own system, a Fisher model with fully automatic turntable, dual cassette deck, and a five-band graphic equalizer.
While Dad haggled over the price (he had long cracked Crazy Eddie’s code on their tags and knew the lowest they could go), I went over to the Springsteen section of the record racks to determine which of his earlier records would get the prestigious first spin on my new stereo. My choice: Darkness On The Edge Of Town.
I thought the music was incredible – especially Max’s drumming on Candy’s Room, Roy’s piano on Racing In The Street, and the greater emphasis on electric guitar throughout – but I didn’t get the lyrics as I did on others. It wouldn’t be until my mid-twenties, after I had experienced firsthand a lot of what he was singing about, that the album’s brilliance would be apparent. But I loved Badlands from the beginning, its joyous and defiant stomp of a refusal to accept less of life than you give it, and, most importantly, its reminder that it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.
Somebody recently asked what I would say to Springsteen if I ever had the opportunity to meet him. My response was easy: thank you. And today, I add “Happy 60th birthday.”
Over at Fuel/Friends, Heather has a new track from the upcoming CD by The Mountain Goats, news that can only be described as “freakin’ sweet.” John Darnielle is an amazing songwriter and The Sunset Tree is one of the definitive albums of this decade, which features This Year.
Putting aside the fact that Darnielle is a worse haircut away from winning a Rod Blagojevich lookalike contest, this is one of the greatest teen angst songs ever recorded, so much so that even at 40 it pulls at me. A great crooner can set a mood with the opening notes. You immediately know whether he’s in or out of love. There’s no way Darnielle’s voice will ever be confused with Chris Isaak’s, but his edgy, desperate tone still tells you everything you need to know about him as soon as he opens his mouth.
I broke free on a Saturday morning
I put the pedal to the floor
Headed north on Mills Avenue,
And listened to the engine roar
My broken house behind me and good things ahead
A girl named Cathy wants a little of my time
Six cylinders underneath the hood crashing and kicking
Ahhh listen to the engine whine
That could easily have been penned by Bruce Springsteen circa 1975. But Darnielle isn’t shooting for one last chance to make it real. And Cathy isn’t Wendy or Mary; she doesn’t have guys screaming her name at night in the street. She’s as alone and screwed up as he is. And it’s all summed up in the singular line of the chorus.
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me.
We use that phrase so often that its meaning has been stripped. “I’m going to finish this project/run that extra mile/eat that giant plate of nachos if it kills me” (that last one just might work). But there’s no doubt that Darnielle is deadly serious about it. One more year, then I graduate and I can get out of this house (a lesser talent would have over-emphasized the stepfather), and this shithole town. And when that happen, “there will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem.”
For all the intensity of the performance, what stands out is how the song never breaks out. In the hands of lesser talents, the drums would kick in and electrics would replace the acoustics. There’s also the chord progression. Each line in the verse and chorus with an A chord, rises to the E (the V, which is supposed to provide resolution), and drops back to the A at the end of the line. And in the chorus, he suspends the E chord, replacing the G# with an A. It may seem like a small detail, but it’s those subliminal touches that make Darnielle stand out among his peers. The beauty of This Year is that, no matter where the lyric goes, the music keeps bringing Darnielle back, trapping him in his hellish existence. You don’t know if he will make it, but you’re rooting for him.
And yes, that is the song Craig Finn paid tribute to it at the end of Girls Like Status.
It was song number three on John’s last CD
Gonna make it through this year if it kills me
And it almost killed me
Whenever somebody asks me what’s the best thing about being a fan of both Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen, besides the hundreds of great songs and killer live shows, I answer, unequivocally, “The chicks are great.” After that, my favorite thing is how deep their love for music is. Over the years, both in their interviews and the songs they’ve covered, they’ve turned me on to so many great songs and artists that may have otherwise have been forgotten.
The other day I came across this video of Elvis (with Squeeze and Nick Lowe!) singing Manfred Mann’s Pretty Flamingo, a song that was in Bruce’s rotation of covers in the mid-70s. I couldn’t think of a song that I had ever heard both of them do (not counting, of course, when they paid tribute to Joe Strummer at the MTV awards with a blistering version of London Calling)
Costello plays it very close to the original, which is what you do in these situations (it was the Montreux Festival. The year isn’t given, but judging by Costello’s glasses, I would place it at either 1981 or 1982). You’re playing with some friends, so you do a handful of your songs, the same amount of their songs, and encore with a song you all love that doesn’t require too much rehearsal. This performance is just a bunch of friends having fun on stage, and it’s a blast to watch (I love when Difford seems to be laughing at something on his left, so it was probably something Lowe did).
Bruce, on the other hand, blows the doors off of it.
Like he did with Quarter To Three, he finds layers of depth, adding a sense of longing to a seemingly slight, but fun, British Invasion pop song. By slowing it down, having Danny play the opening riff on the organ, and his Isaac Hayes-like rap, he finds a connection between London, Memphis, and the Jersey Shore that nobody else could have done.
In yet another reason why the Internet rules, Soul Train has its own YouTube channel.
I can be 98% sure that, in the mid-70s, I was the only boy in my neighborhood who watched Soul Train. Obviously, I had no idea why it was such a culturally important show, and it didn’t matter that the dancers or performers looked like nobody I knew. But I do attribute my deep love of soul music to those Saturday mornings.
So while going through the videos they have up (only 43 now, but they’re always adding more), I came across this clip (with Don Cornelius rocking the Curtis Mayfield glasses something fierce) of The Five Stairsteps performing (OK, lip-syncing) their hit “Ooh Child.”
I had heard this song growing up, but it wasn’t until years later when it was on the Crooklyn soundtrack that resonated with me. When you analyze “Ooh Child,” what stands out is how it seems like it’s an unfinished song, just a verse and a bridge, which gets repeated. But that’s also the beauty of it. The lyric doesn’t need to give the backstory. The music provides it all, especially the horns, which are simultaneously sad and uplifting, and the spectacularly funky drums. And that key change between sections gives the whole thing such a feeling of optimism that it always makes you feel better when you listen to it.
I’m going to post more of these old clips int he future, but until then, I wish you all peace, love, and soul.
We critics always talk about artists as the sum of their parts, how well they created their own style out of their influences. When you see this clip of I Want You Back, you hear why Michael Jackson couldn’t become anything other than a megastar.
I listened to this about five times yesterday, and finally hit upon the reason. As a singer, Jackson took bits and pieces of pretty much every major Motown star in this one song. I couldn’t find Martha and The Vandellas or Mary Wells, but follow along…
0:21 The first note we ever hear out of him is a whine worthy of Smokey Robinson.
0:30 Singing right up against the beat in the first verse (listen to the phrasing on “had you to myself” and “picked you from the bunch.” Think Marvin Gaye in songs like I’ll Be Doggone or Ain’t That Peculiar.
0:51 Was the attempt to channel Levi Stubbs on the emphasized “Oh” on the first chorus just a fluke? Hell, no. Wait for it.
1:54 Gaye’s phrasing with another attempt at Stubbs’s grit on “Now that I’ve seen you in his arms,” followed by another Smokey whine, which segues effortlessly into…
2:00 …Wordless vocals straight out of Sly & The Family Stone (not a Motown act, of course, but it shows The Corporation was listening).
2:09 The first “All I want/All I need.” Sweet and innocent like Diana Ross. But it all builds up to…
2:17 ALL I NEEEEEED!!!!! The kid nails Stubbs’ greatest moment, the a cappella shout in Bernadette.
2:34 After more Stubbs on the “Baby”’s he uses his melisma to climb up on “let you go-oh-oh” instead of down. Where the fuck did that come from? Forty years on, that moment is still remarkable.
2:49 Those “Hahs” and “Ows” that close out the song let James Brown know that there’s a new sherriff in town.
Let’s not forget the backing vocals and choreography straight out of The Temptations, and you have the previous ten years of Motown encapsulated in less than three minutes.
Last Friday I went to see Neko Case with my good friend Marie. I didn’t write a review of the show here because, if you read this blog regularly, you know how I feel about anything Neko does. That voice is absolute perfection.
Before the show, she told me that she was listening to a back episode of the podcast and was surprised to hear me play a Merle Haggard song. I guess she remembered me saying some disparaging things about country music many years ago, which I can see me doing at the time, and wanted to know how/when I changed my attitude.
It turns out it was a gradual and natural process. In the mid-90s, alt-country started to gain mainstream attention. In a short period of time, The Jayhawks, Golden Smog, Wilco, and Son Volt released major label albums. I had been a fan of The Jayhawks for a few years, when a friend turned me on to Hollywood Town Hall. But I didn’t realize that it was part of a whole scene. Those four albums, and the intertwining history of those groups, opened up my ears to some new sounds. I was also getting into Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, and John Hiatt after years of reading their praises.
I’m pretty sure I already had the two Gram Parsons solo discs by this point. I had known about him from reading interviews with Elvis Costello, who has often credited Sweethearts Of The Rodeo with overcoming his fear of country music. Johnny Cash also entered the picture around here, too. I had known the major hits but didn’t think of him as an icon until Costello played the PG Equestrian Center in 1994 and he played the first American Recordings album before coming onstage. Delia’s Gone coming out of a huge PA system on a hot summer day? Holy crap.
Fast-forward a few years and Wilco has cemented itself as the best band in America. Old 97s, Neko Case, and some of the other Bloodshot acts were entering my scope. It just made no sense to have this prejudice against country music, and I started investigating the acts that they listened to. I still have a lot to learn about sub-genres like Western swing and Bakersfield, but it’s getting there.
Uncle Tupelo usually gets the credit for kick-starting the genre of alt-country, but the real inventor of the sound is Paul Westerberg. Years before Farrar and Tweedy, Westerberg saw that it was Hank Williams, not Elvis or Joey Ramone or Sid Vicious, who was really the first punk. The difference is that Westerberg didn’t flaunt it; he hid behind it. So today’s Song I Never Get Tired Of is what I consider to be Ground Zero for alt-country. It’s the B-side to the ‘Mats first single, If Only You Were Lonely.
And as a side note, it’s also one of the prized possessions of my record collection, bought at the sadly departed Records Yesterday And Today in Rockville, Maryland, where Henry Rollins used to buy his records as a kid.
Those not paying attention would hear If Only You Were Lonely as a parody of a country song. I’m pretty sure I did when I first heard it. There’s a lot of drinking, a guy trying (and failing) to get laid, and plenty of funny lines in there. But the truth is that Westerberg, more than any of his peers, understood why great country music always works. It’s why Achin’ To Be, Sadly Beautiful, and As Far As I Know grab a hold of your heart and don’t let go, and also why Unsatisfied and Answering Machine can kick you in the gut when you need it most. But it was there from the beginning of Westerberg’s career, and he buried it on a B-side, that fucker.
When I moved here, one of the things I said I wanted to do was to get back into performing. Nothing major, just get my guitar playing and singing to the point where I can do an open mic night every once in a while. So for the past few weeks I’ve been going through my mp3s and creating a playlist of all the songs I used to do, and adding some stuff that has only come out since I stopped performing in 1996.
Every few days I’ll put that playlist on shuffle and go through whatever comes up, making sure that I still remember the songs. I have no problem with most of the songs that regularly made it into my set (as if I could ever forget a word of Tangled Up In Blue), but there are some that have nuances – either musically or lyrically – that need a little bit of touch-up work.
Surprisingly, my voice is now in pretty good shape after the years of inactivity, but it has dropped a little bit. While certain songs now sound better, the top of what was once my range is gone. Today’s Song I Never Get Tired Of is one of those that caused cats all over Chicago to panic when I tried singing it, It Makes No Difference by The Band.
Yeah, I had to remove the capo and play it in G, and it sounds pretty good that way. But it works better in B-flat because the high notes draw out the pain in the lyric, and Rick Danko sure does that here. And with Levon Helm and Richard Manuel supporting him with those harmonies on the chorus, the result is one of the great country breakup songs.
By the way, according to either Helm’s or Barney Hoskyns’ bios of The Band (I forgot which one), Robbie Robertson’s mic was, unbeknownst to him, turned off during The Last Waltz so that he wouldn’t ruin the performance. And he suffers from a horrible case of Guitar Face, especially during this song, but it’s all redeemed when Garth Hudson steps out from the keyboards to play that alto sax solo.
Since the version above edits out a portion of the first and second verses (thanks, Marty), here’s a really nice homemade cover that has the entire song and gets those harmonies right, even as it devolves into laughter at the end.
EDIT: I fixed the post to change the order of the videos and remove the half-finished sentence. Wow, I must have been really tired when I did this.
I haven’t done a Song I Never Get Tired Of in a really long time. Ironically, I simply got kind of tired of doing it. But yesterday I woke up with this song in my head for a reason I can’t figure out. After all, I hadn’t heard it in a long time and there’s nothing going on that mirrors what’s going on in the song. But it put me in a great mood for the rest of the day and into today, so I figured I’d resurrect the SINGTO category. Here’s Josh Ritter with Kathleen.
The nerdy-guy-pining-for-the-hot-chick is a staple of pop music. Hell, Roy Orbison built an entire career around it (I was listening to a lot of Orbison on Saturday, so that could explain it). But Ritter’s not staring at her from across the room. He knows it’s a longshot, but he’s going for it with everything he’s got, including that stunning opening line that serves as the title of this post.
I love how he brings his voice up in the third verse. It gives an extra degree of poignancy to that line “Every heart is a package tangled up in knots someone else tied.” And the other cool thing is that he’s not looking to get laid. He’s just looking for a moment with with her alone – driving her home – away from the guys hovering around her, because he knows he can win her over if he just got the chance, and he’ll have something to build on for the next time he sees her.
Here’s Ritter covering, without any amplification, The River in Dublin, which he prefaces with a funny story about Liverpool washout Robbie Keane.
When I interviewed Jonathan Coultontwo years ago, we talked about the difficulties in writing humorous songs that the listener can keep coming back to long after the joke has worn off. He said the keys were subtlelty and empathy for the characters. Jens Lekman also writes incredibly funny songs with a great deal of heart. I got turned on to Lekman a few years ago when somebody sent me an mp3 of “Black Cab.” I was instantly smitted with its haunting beauty and wit, but only recently have I further investigated his other work. So this week’s Song I Never Get Tired of is my favorite of what I’ve heard by him so far, “A Postcard To Nina.”
This is a live version from the Troubador in LA, and he also tells the story behind the song, which is surprisingly true.
Here are the lyrics in case you can’t make out what he’s singing because of the live mix.
