Go to Gillette Stadium on any given Sunday and it's a cacophony of Ozzie Osbourne, AC/DC, Rush, Aerosmith, and God knows how many more.
The Patriots loved to play music -- at ear-splitting decibels -- designed to get you, the fans, into the game. I suppose getting cranked up by good, old-fashioned, kick-ass rock 'n' roll is better, for everyone's safety, than Tom Brady's preferred method ... which is to say "get all lubed up and be loud." But if you've been to as many rock concerts as I have, and have a good case of tinnitus going on, it can all be a little harsh.
Still, there's a strong correlation between loud, raucous music and loud, raucous crowds. That only stands to reason.
It makes sense. Music creates ambiance. Music may be one of the biggest contributors to ambiance. Well that and, perhaps, some good wine.
You wouldn't, for example, play the second side of Led Zeppelin IV at some high-brow, wine and brie, PBS-style fund raiser. A string quartet might be more appropriate. You might, however, put on the second side to Led Zeppelin IV if you wanted to make out with some girl. At least, that's what Mike Damone thought when he was giving his friend, Rat, some idiotic advice in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."
I never got that, by the way. I could think of many, many songs or entire albums that created a better mood for seduction than the second side to Led Zeppelin IV.
Anyway, when it comes to ballparks, football games, the gym, working around the house, we all have our favorites. By now, thanks to iTunes and iPods, we can pretty much categorize every genre, and make our little lists of what we want to hear when we're in different moods. For example, gym songs are much different than clean-the-house songs. And cruising songs are different than both. Football music is in a class by itself.
I'll be in Indianapolis Sunday, and I'm sure I'll hear 'em all. "Crazy Train," "Welcome to the Jungle," "Rock & Roll Part 2," "For Those Who Are About to Rock," "We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions ..." They're all pretty much universal by now.
But here are a few more.
In no particular order they are: "Nighttime is the Right Time," J. Geils. This was the Geils band at its best. Driving rhythm, great Peter Wolf vocals ... This is what made J. Geils one of the best U.S. bands of the '70s and '80s. It kind of gets your blood boiling. If there's a runner up, it would be "House Party" another pot-boiler.
"Baba O'Reilly," the Who. Actually, you hear this a lot. They play it at the Patriots once in a while, but you hear it more at high school football games. Even though the song came out in 1971, when some of today's crop of high school kids' grandparents might have just been getting out of high school, it's still a staple.
"Sirius," by the Alan Parsons Projects. This is the one that is the instrumental prelude to "Eye in the Sky." I've heard this one pounding out of speakers in so many high school gyms that it's indelibly etched in my brain. I actually wish they'd keep going and finish up with "Eye in the Sky," because that's one damn good song!
The "Black Eyed Peas" may have stuck out the joint last year when the did the halftime show at the Super Bowl, but "I gotta Feeling" is pretty good song just same. And since Sunday's game starts at 6:30 p.m., I "Gotta Feeling" Sunday night's going to be a good night.
A few years ago, when the Red Sox were in the throes of the "Curse of the Bambino" they used to play the opening section of Michael Oldfeld's "Tubular Bells" during the player introductions. Lest anyone not remember the significance of that, "Tubular Bells" was the theme to "The Exorcist." So I'm sure it's easy enough to do the math there.
The Sox also used to play the part of album where the late Viv Stanshall, of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (yes, there was such a band) named off all the instruments Mike Oldfield used in his opus as the music crescendo-ed to a climax with loud tubular bells. Only every time another instrument was named, PA announcer Carl Beane would substitute the name of a player.
I'd say that's unique. It's certainly the most creative use of pre-game stadium music I've ever heard.
Anyway, back to the mundane ... somebody, somewhere, always plays "Eye of the Tiger," from Rocky III. It's an all-right song. Most interesting than the song, is the knowledge that the lead singer, a guy by the name of Jim Peterik, was the also the lead singer from a group out of the early '70s, "Ides of March," which did a Blood, Sweat & Tears sound-alike song called "I'm Your Vehicle."
Anyway, if you want to see something funny, click on this.
Another staple, of course, is Thin Lizzy's "The Boys are Back in Town," although personally, I like the title song to the album, "Jailbreak" a little more.
Here's one that I like, that nobody ever plays, probably because it was almost a throwaway cut on Van Halen's "1984" album. It's called "Panama," and it has all the ingredients of your basic mindless, high-powered, all-hat-no-cattle rock 'n' roll party song. In other words, a perfect song to work out to, party to, or just listen to if you're in a funk and need something totally undemanding of your time and energy.
Similarly, "Get This Party Started," by Pink kind of falls into that category too. To me, it would be one of those songs they played during time out, to get people out of their seats and moving around. And if you know anything about the Super Bowl, especially if you're there watching it live, that's all there are. Every commercial takes an eternity, the halftime show is a half-hour, and the whole thing kind of takes on the effect of filming a television show.
None of that time in the stadium is dead time. All of it is taken up by some ungodly noise or another. Pink's just as good as anything else.
There are about a thousand and one Stevie Ray Vaughn songs that would definitely qualify as "music to get revved up by." The best one, though, is "The House Is Rockin, Don't bother Knockin." Love it.
A lot of those 12-bar blues type songs are good exercise songs. They have a steady beat, they drive, there's very active drumming, and decent guitar work. One of my favorite '80s type 12-bar blue songs was "Keep Your Hands To Yourself," by the Georgia Satellites.
I discovered YMCA aerobics classes in the '80s, and this instructor, who had the body mass index of a pencil, used to get us all going by playing that song. By the time I was done, I was sucking wind like nobody's business. Despite that, it remains one of my favorite songs, and it's on heavy rotation when I go to the gym.
She also used to play John Fogarty's "Rock 'n' Roll Girls" off the "Centerfield" album too. Made me want to go right out and buy a saxophone. Funny. Fogarty's rebirth was the song "Centerfield," but I never really liked it all that much. It's made its way into the Hall of Fame of baseball songs, but it doesn't come close to "Talkin' Baseball" by Terry Cashman. But that's another song for another day.
And speaking of the ol' 12-bar, Aerosmith's "Big Ten Inch (Record of My Favorite Blues)" gets a lot of iPod time at the gym too.
You could probably pick four or five good Sly and the Family Stone songs to add to this list, but I'll confine it to one ... the obvious one ... "Dance to the Music." I'll bet if they ever played that at a football game, the place would really be rocking.
Once in a while, I'll watch those old Ed Sullivan nostalgia shows on PBS, and they'll show the clip of Sly and the Family singing that song ... and Sly and his sister going into the audience to coax a little participation out of the suit and tie crowd.
This was still the sixties, and most of the people in the audience probably had never heard of Sly and the Family Stone, and probably never wanted to. And they didn't know what to make of it all.
List isn't complete without at least one Rolling Stones song on it, and my choice would be "Honky Tonk Woman," even though they've done better songs (though certainly not many!). Again, it has the proper qualifications ... it's loud, a little bit raunchy (ya think!), and it drives.
The Beatles didn't do much in the way of stadium music, unless you take some of the earlier Chuck Berry/Carl Perkins covers ... and I don't count them. The Beach Boys have a few that could qualify, my favorite -- of this ilk, at least -- being "Surfin' USA," because, again, it's a Chuck Berry ripoff. And, of course, you do hear "Glory Days" by Bruce Springsteen every now and then.
I will conclude with one song I wish would STOP being a stadium classic, and that's "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond. Its only raison d'etre in the first place is a fluke. Someone in charge of playing music over the Fenway Park public address system heard it somewhere else and played it in between the top and the bottom of the eighth inning one night. It stuck. And now, I'm afraid, it's here to stay. Pity.
I'm sure many people have many other songs. These are but a few. Any suggestions are welcome.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Friday, January 20, 2012
Peace, love, and happiness
Well, last week we explored as many songs about heartache and heartbreak that we could fit into a readable column. The feedback was great. Seems that's a universal subject ... timeless to boot ... and that we've all had one, or perhaps more than one, of the experiences brought forth by some of these songs.
So in the interest of fairness, I thought I'd try to identify my favorite "songs that just make you feel good." They don't churn up any raw emotion ... they don't make you feel like your baby just left you or that your dog died. They just, you know, give you a nice, inner glow. You hear them and you just walk around with a smile on your face the whole rest of the day. And as longhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif as there's no emotional connection with the person you're trying to forget, you can seek them out when you're depressed and -- for that three or four minutes, at least -- escape that elephant of moroseness pressing down on your chest.
So here we go ...
"59th Street Bridge Song" by Paul Simon. I like the Harper's Bizarre's version of this better than the recorded original, so I provided a link to a live performance of it by S&G.
Doesn't matter. It's such an infectious song. It's a walking song, if you know what I mean. All I think of when I hear it is walking around New York, or Boston, on days when I have nothing to do ... no people I have to see. Perfect days to get lost in the city and become an observer. You can't help but feel absolutely uplifted after you've heard it.
"Life's A Long Song," Jethro Tull. Actually, this isn't necessarily written as an uplifting "feel-good" song. Ian Anderson has said it's about taking stock of your life and trying to make some good out of the things that happen to you. Remember, he says, "Life is a long song ... but the tune ends too soon for us all."
It's an important thing to remember. You're in that box a long, long time. The tune ends too soon for us all.
And I love, love, love this version of it. One of great things about Jethro Tull over the year was their ability to arrange songs that would make a chamber orchestra jealous ... and then turn around and do something totally, uncompromisingly, rocking like "Locomotive Breath." Anderson was never a darling of the critics, and -- thus -- I always thought he was/is unfairly underrated. To this day, Tull is one of my all-time favorite bands.
"It's A Beautiful Day," U2. OK. I have to admit before anything else, that I'll always think of the New England Patriots winning their first Super Bowl when I hear this song. It's one of the two that U2 played during the halftime show. And when the Patriots raised the banner the following September, that's the song they played. Not only that, it's the song they played to test the PA system out.
But beyond all that, this song's pretty simple to figure out. It's about feeling hopeless but being able to rejoice in what you have.
"What you don't have you don't need it now ... what you don't know you can feel it somehow ..."
Oh ... and one more thing. I was once asked, "if you could be anyone in the world, who would you be?" My answer: Bono. I've seen U2 a couple of times, and the sway he holds over his audience ... unbelievable. I'd love to have that much impact on people.
This is one of two U2 songs on this list (well, there could be more than two, but you have be as diversified as you can).
The other one is "Gloria.". This, of course, comes from the group's early days when they were very up front about their Christianity. And while I'm not always a big fan of "God Rock," this song is different, somehow. The final chorus ... "Gloria, in te domine/Gloria, Gloria ... sounds like it's coming right from the heavens.
The version of this song that U2 did at Red Rocks, way back in 1984, is still one of the best. I was once under the influence of a particular organic chemical (back when I did that sort of thing) while riding home from somewhere with that Red Rocks tape blasting at full decibels. I could have sworn that the final chorus was coming right out of the sky!
"The Swallow," The Moody Blues. This is probably not one of the better known Moody Blues songs. It's by Justin Hayward, he of plaintive, painful, heart-rending love ballads like "Nights in White Satin," where you just want to cry for anyone that tortured.
But this is the 60-something-year-old Justin. The song is off the band's "Strange Times" album ... a record that barely made a dent in the popular culture of 1999. In fact, if you haven't ever heard of the album, or the song, you're hardly alone. I'd say you were in the majority.
But I'm a fan ... or this band, and of this song. It has a peaceful vibe to it. He said he wrote it because every evening he and his wife would sit out side and watch the swallows from their home in Monaco. Just a peaceful, romantic thing to do, I'd imagine.
"It's so strange/life in the really slow lane/Take it easy/That's what we'll do."
Nothing says contentment like that, does it?
Enjoy "Nothing Changes," which was tacked on to the end of this clip.
"Peaceful, Easy Feeling," Eagles. If you're going to to write a blog post about "feel-good" you have to include this ... even though it's not one of my personal favorites. Truth? I always gravitated toward Don Henley when it came to the Eagles. Henley was grit. Henley was caustic, acerbic observations about the "beautiful people" he had to deal with in the music business. Henley was "Hotel California" and "Life in the Fast Lane."
Glenn Frey, even though he didn't write this particular song (nobody from the group did), took the lead on it. Which is fine. Frey was always more laid back. In fact, were it not for the fact that somebody had to play drums, you'd never know Henley had anything to do with this song. Frey sings it, Bernie Leadon provides the main harmony, and Randy Meisner comes in at the end ... for the third part.
It's a nice song, though. Kind of gives off a good vibe. Like a great majority of rock songs, it has to do with "man loves woman and isn't quite certain where it's all going to go." But in this particular case, "I have a peaceful easy feeling ... 'cause I'm already on the ground."
"Buy For Me The Rain," by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. This is just a gorgeous song. Just listen to it. It is beautiful. You can't help but feel 10 times better after hearing it than you did before.
It comes with a few caveats. "Buy for me the robin, darling, buy for me the wing/Buy for me a sparrow, almost any flying thing/And I’ll buy for you a tree, my love, where a robin’s nest may grow/Buy it for me now, babe, the years all hurry so."
I think that's the verse that kind of sums up the song. Life for the now. The years all hurry so. Or, as Ian Anderson would say, "the tune ends too soon for us all."
"Groovin," The Young Rascals. The Rascals were a favorite at my address growing up. This is another song that just kind of defies explanation. It just is. Me 'n' my sweetie, groovin on a Sunday afternoon, creating our own vibe. Sometimes, simple is better.
"Daydream," Lovin' Spoonful. Another song like "Groovin," that that doesn't need all that much of an analysis. It's out of the same era ... mid 1960s, when there were a lot of these "feel-good" songs that -- for all I know -- came out of the artists' habitual inhalations of organic chemical substances.
That sort of thing did produce its own unique vibe.
By the way, The Spoonful impressed Paul McCartney enough that he wrote a tribute to it of sorts ... "Good Day Sunshine" from the "Revolver" album.
"Lazy Day" by Spanky And Our Gang. This complete the trilogy of mid-sixties, hippy-dippy feel-good songs you'll see here.
I don't know ... I suppose it would be nice to have that much merriment in your life, but again, one can only imagine what substances were being smoked while a lot of these songs were conceived and even recorded.
What makes these songs to special to me is the era in which they were recorded. In many other aspects, it was horrible. We were in the middle of a horrendously unpopular war, there was civil unrest in many of our major cities, we were only three or four years removed from John F. Kennedy's assassination ... there were plenty of reasons to for us to be an unhappy, apprehensive and dour nation.
Yet these minstrels -- and that's what they were -- who walked around singing about love and peace, and "saying right out loud, I love you" in the middle of a crowded park ... they performed a service. They reminded people that they can find their own happiness in life's most mundane moments ... a walk in the park, or even a walk past a house with a freshly mowed lawn (one of the best aromas I know, by the way). They reminded us that life didn't need to be complicated, and a struggle all the time.
As the sixties progressed, of course, the horror took over. The negative overwhelmed the positive. We had Chicago, Altamont, Manson ... the decade careened to a tumultuous close. But for those few years in the mid-sixties, when there was still an element of optimism, those kinds of songs really illustrated it.
I will conclude this piece with a Beatles song off "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" that I've always loved. It's "Fixing a Hole" by Paul McCartney.
First of all, some idiot thought this was about drugs when Sgt. Pepper came out. Was that person serious? It was? Just like "Hey, Jude" was about heroin because of one line that could have only been interpreted that way by someone hopelessly paranoid and out of touch?
"Fixing A Hole" is not about drugs. In fact, it's probably one of the few songs on Sgt. Pepper that isn't, in some way, related to, or in response to, drugs.
By the time Pepper came out, everybody wanted to know more about this LSD. And when the Beatles admitted they'd used it -- which they had been doing since about 1965 -- that just left all their songs open to whatever meaning people wanted to give them.
It didn't help when songs like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" alluded to hallucinogenic experiences ... or when the bridges to "A Day in the Life" exploded in cacophony as soon as Lennon sang "I'd Love To Turn You On."
These days, that might mean something else. Back then, it meant "drop acid."
It may sound like a song about Sir Paul doing chores around the house ... fixing his roof, filling the cracks in his walls ... but while the song wasn't about drugs, it's also true that few Beatles songs from that era came metaphor-free.
So it is with this one. But I like the metaphors. I like the fact that McCartney was saying that after all the hurly-burly of Beatlemania, he was ready to take some time for Paul ... that the world couldn't own him forever ... that it was time for him to kick back a little and figure out what was important in his life.
For that was basically where the Beatles themselves were at after they stopped touring in 1966. I think Paul wrote about all their efforts, collectively, over that autumn and winter leading into "Sergeant Pepper" to step back from the maddening crowd and re-establish their connection with themselves.
The line that always stood out to me: "I'm taking the time for a number of things/that weren't important yesterday."
Love that line. Says it all to me.
Thanks for reading ... and, again, any input is welcome.
So in the interest of fairness, I thought I'd try to identify my favorite "songs that just make you feel good." They don't churn up any raw emotion ... they don't make you feel like your baby just left you or that your dog died. They just, you know, give you a nice, inner glow. You hear them and you just walk around with a smile on your face the whole rest of the day. And as longhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif as there's no emotional connection with the person you're trying to forget, you can seek them out when you're depressed and -- for that three or four minutes, at least -- escape that elephant of moroseness pressing down on your chest.
So here we go ...
"59th Street Bridge Song" by Paul Simon. I like the Harper's Bizarre's version of this better than the recorded original, so I provided a link to a live performance of it by S&G.
Doesn't matter. It's such an infectious song. It's a walking song, if you know what I mean. All I think of when I hear it is walking around New York, or Boston, on days when I have nothing to do ... no people I have to see. Perfect days to get lost in the city and become an observer. You can't help but feel absolutely uplifted after you've heard it.
"Life's A Long Song," Jethro Tull. Actually, this isn't necessarily written as an uplifting "feel-good" song. Ian Anderson has said it's about taking stock of your life and trying to make some good out of the things that happen to you. Remember, he says, "Life is a long song ... but the tune ends too soon for us all."
It's an important thing to remember. You're in that box a long, long time. The tune ends too soon for us all.
And I love, love, love this version of it. One of great things about Jethro Tull over the year was their ability to arrange songs that would make a chamber orchestra jealous ... and then turn around and do something totally, uncompromisingly, rocking like "Locomotive Breath." Anderson was never a darling of the critics, and -- thus -- I always thought he was/is unfairly underrated. To this day, Tull is one of my all-time favorite bands.
"It's A Beautiful Day," U2. OK. I have to admit before anything else, that I'll always think of the New England Patriots winning their first Super Bowl when I hear this song. It's one of the two that U2 played during the halftime show. And when the Patriots raised the banner the following September, that's the song they played. Not only that, it's the song they played to test the PA system out.
But beyond all that, this song's pretty simple to figure out. It's about feeling hopeless but being able to rejoice in what you have.
"What you don't have you don't need it now ... what you don't know you can feel it somehow ..."
Oh ... and one more thing. I was once asked, "if you could be anyone in the world, who would you be?" My answer: Bono. I've seen U2 a couple of times, and the sway he holds over his audience ... unbelievable. I'd love to have that much impact on people.
This is one of two U2 songs on this list (well, there could be more than two, but you have be as diversified as you can).
The other one is "Gloria.". This, of course, comes from the group's early days when they were very up front about their Christianity. And while I'm not always a big fan of "God Rock," this song is different, somehow. The final chorus ... "Gloria, in te domine/Gloria, Gloria ... sounds like it's coming right from the heavens.
The version of this song that U2 did at Red Rocks, way back in 1984, is still one of the best. I was once under the influence of a particular organic chemical (back when I did that sort of thing) while riding home from somewhere with that Red Rocks tape blasting at full decibels. I could have sworn that the final chorus was coming right out of the sky!
"The Swallow," The Moody Blues. This is probably not one of the better known Moody Blues songs. It's by Justin Hayward, he of plaintive, painful, heart-rending love ballads like "Nights in White Satin," where you just want to cry for anyone that tortured.
But this is the 60-something-year-old Justin. The song is off the band's "Strange Times" album ... a record that barely made a dent in the popular culture of 1999. In fact, if you haven't ever heard of the album, or the song, you're hardly alone. I'd say you were in the majority.
But I'm a fan ... or this band, and of this song. It has a peaceful vibe to it. He said he wrote it because every evening he and his wife would sit out side and watch the swallows from their home in Monaco. Just a peaceful, romantic thing to do, I'd imagine.
"It's so strange/life in the really slow lane/Take it easy/That's what we'll do."
Nothing says contentment like that, does it?
Enjoy "Nothing Changes," which was tacked on to the end of this clip.
"Peaceful, Easy Feeling," Eagles. If you're going to to write a blog post about "feel-good" you have to include this ... even though it's not one of my personal favorites. Truth? I always gravitated toward Don Henley when it came to the Eagles. Henley was grit. Henley was caustic, acerbic observations about the "beautiful people" he had to deal with in the music business. Henley was "Hotel California" and "Life in the Fast Lane."
Glenn Frey, even though he didn't write this particular song (nobody from the group did), took the lead on it. Which is fine. Frey was always more laid back. In fact, were it not for the fact that somebody had to play drums, you'd never know Henley had anything to do with this song. Frey sings it, Bernie Leadon provides the main harmony, and Randy Meisner comes in at the end ... for the third part.
It's a nice song, though. Kind of gives off a good vibe. Like a great majority of rock songs, it has to do with "man loves woman and isn't quite certain where it's all going to go." But in this particular case, "I have a peaceful easy feeling ... 'cause I'm already on the ground."
"Buy For Me The Rain," by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. This is just a gorgeous song. Just listen to it. It is beautiful. You can't help but feel 10 times better after hearing it than you did before.
It comes with a few caveats. "Buy for me the robin, darling, buy for me the wing/Buy for me a sparrow, almost any flying thing/And I’ll buy for you a tree, my love, where a robin’s nest may grow/Buy it for me now, babe, the years all hurry so."
I think that's the verse that kind of sums up the song. Life for the now. The years all hurry so. Or, as Ian Anderson would say, "the tune ends too soon for us all."
"Groovin," The Young Rascals. The Rascals were a favorite at my address growing up. This is another song that just kind of defies explanation. It just is. Me 'n' my sweetie, groovin on a Sunday afternoon, creating our own vibe. Sometimes, simple is better.
"Daydream," Lovin' Spoonful. Another song like "Groovin," that that doesn't need all that much of an analysis. It's out of the same era ... mid 1960s, when there were a lot of these "feel-good" songs that -- for all I know -- came out of the artists' habitual inhalations of organic chemical substances.
That sort of thing did produce its own unique vibe.
By the way, The Spoonful impressed Paul McCartney enough that he wrote a tribute to it of sorts ... "Good Day Sunshine" from the "Revolver" album.
"Lazy Day" by Spanky And Our Gang. This complete the trilogy of mid-sixties, hippy-dippy feel-good songs you'll see here.
I don't know ... I suppose it would be nice to have that much merriment in your life, but again, one can only imagine what substances were being smoked while a lot of these songs were conceived and even recorded.
What makes these songs to special to me is the era in which they were recorded. In many other aspects, it was horrible. We were in the middle of a horrendously unpopular war, there was civil unrest in many of our major cities, we were only three or four years removed from John F. Kennedy's assassination ... there were plenty of reasons to for us to be an unhappy, apprehensive and dour nation.
Yet these minstrels -- and that's what they were -- who walked around singing about love and peace, and "saying right out loud, I love you" in the middle of a crowded park ... they performed a service. They reminded people that they can find their own happiness in life's most mundane moments ... a walk in the park, or even a walk past a house with a freshly mowed lawn (one of the best aromas I know, by the way). They reminded us that life didn't need to be complicated, and a struggle all the time.
As the sixties progressed, of course, the horror took over. The negative overwhelmed the positive. We had Chicago, Altamont, Manson ... the decade careened to a tumultuous close. But for those few years in the mid-sixties, when there was still an element of optimism, those kinds of songs really illustrated it.
I will conclude this piece with a Beatles song off "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" that I've always loved. It's "Fixing a Hole" by Paul McCartney.
First of all, some idiot thought this was about drugs when Sgt. Pepper came out. Was that person serious? It was? Just like "Hey, Jude" was about heroin because of one line that could have only been interpreted that way by someone hopelessly paranoid and out of touch?
"Fixing A Hole" is not about drugs. In fact, it's probably one of the few songs on Sgt. Pepper that isn't, in some way, related to, or in response to, drugs.
By the time Pepper came out, everybody wanted to know more about this LSD. And when the Beatles admitted they'd used it -- which they had been doing since about 1965 -- that just left all their songs open to whatever meaning people wanted to give them.
It didn't help when songs like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" alluded to hallucinogenic experiences ... or when the bridges to "A Day in the Life" exploded in cacophony as soon as Lennon sang "I'd Love To Turn You On."
These days, that might mean something else. Back then, it meant "drop acid."
It may sound like a song about Sir Paul doing chores around the house ... fixing his roof, filling the cracks in his walls ... but while the song wasn't about drugs, it's also true that few Beatles songs from that era came metaphor-free.
So it is with this one. But I like the metaphors. I like the fact that McCartney was saying that after all the hurly-burly of Beatlemania, he was ready to take some time for Paul ... that the world couldn't own him forever ... that it was time for him to kick back a little and figure out what was important in his life.
For that was basically where the Beatles themselves were at after they stopped touring in 1966. I think Paul wrote about all their efforts, collectively, over that autumn and winter leading into "Sergeant Pepper" to step back from the maddening crowd and re-establish their connection with themselves.
The line that always stood out to me: "I'm taking the time for a number of things/that weren't important yesterday."
Love that line. Says it all to me.
Thanks for reading ... and, again, any input is welcome.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Heartache and Heartbreak
As I often do when I sit down to write, I put my tunes on. And since this is a music column, naturally, I put the music on today to come up with a theme, because I didn't really have one.
And I'm thinking, "That's great. Two weeks into this, and I'm fresh out of ideas. Some blog."
Then, the Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See" came on. I'm not one for country rock ... usually. I won't say I hate it, but but it's not generally the music I listen to when I really need, as the Rolling Stones would say, an emotional rescue.
But there it was. I love the song anyway, and I'd love it even if I didn't know what it was about. First, I love flutes. I love Jethro Tull, and I love the Moody Blues, and Traffic, and MTB. And the flute is the first thing that got me with this song.
But I got to really listening to the words. They're not particularly profound. You don't need Cliff's Notes to figure out what they mean. Actually, they're pretty raw.
I like raw. Particularly this verse: "I'm gonna find me/a hole in the wall/I'm gonna crawl inside and die/Come a later now/a mean ol' woman, Lord/never told me goodbye."
It helps to know the author wrote the song about his former girlfriend, who shot herself and shot the couple's dog in a unique murder/suicide. Lovely.
But don't those lyrics just cry out "despair?"
Music ... all music ... probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for heartache and heartbreak. It's the soundtrack of all our emotions, really. There isn't a single episode on my life, especially a sad one, that doesn't spring to mind if I hear a certain song.
For example, I can't hear "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues without thinking about my freshman year of college, when I was crushing madly on a girl from Connecticut named Melinda ... who, as you might have guessed, returned my affections with considerably less gusto and enthusiasm.
But Melinda did tell me she liked opera, and that one of the local companies was performing Puccini's "Tosca" (a little highbrow cultural reference to impress you all). I'd never heard of it. Outside of "Carmen," and that's only because of the "March of the Toreadors," I couldn't name one.
So I did what any totally infatuated 18-year-old would do. I went to the opera house and bought two tickets. Then, I went to Melinda's dorm and asked her if she'd like to go with me.
She turned me down.
I ended up giving the tickets away. But that's not why I remember "Nights."
I remember it because the next day, still enormously depressed over being summarily rejected, I went into the Northeastern University bookstore to find an economics book the professor had assigned us to read. But our bookstore didn't have it. Try the Harvard Coop, I was told.
That was OK with me. Road trips in and around Boston always cleared my head. They still do.
I found the book at the Coop, took my place in line, and noticed there was some very exotic music playing from what appeared to be an elaborate Sensurround speaker system. The music just came out of everywhere.
What I was hearing was the "Sunset/Twilight Time" cuts from the Moodies' "Days of Future Passed."
When "Nights" came on, I recognized it. And man, did it just fit my mood! It's not exactly an uplifting song anyway, with a very haunting flute and perhaps the most angst-ridden "I love you" ever recorded. Not to mention that the crescendo that leads to the "Late Lament" poem that closes the album is, at the same time, heartbreaking and breathtaking.
Usually, when I'm feeling emotional, songs like "Nights in White Satin" really bring it to the surface. In fact, as I mentioned in the initial post here, it's one of only three songs in recorded rock history that make me stop in my tracks and just listen.
Now, there's been considerable discussion about how and why Justin Hayward of the Moodies wrote this. He was 19 (and, as an aside, how must it feel to have hit your creative and commercial peak before you even hit 20?) and in between relationships.
He sat up one night, unable to sleep, and composed the song to reflect his state of mind about ending one relationship and perhaps beginning another one.
I'd also heard, somewhere, that the title was inspired by the song "In the Still of the Night" by the Five Satins, but I think the Moody-philes have settled on this: He was trying to sleep on a new set of white satin sheets he'd been given, and between his mental anguish and his difficulty adjusting to the sheets, he just couldn't.
Anyway, "Can't You See" and "Nights in White Satin" are two of my favorite (if that's a term you can use here) songs about heartache and heartbreak, which is the topic of today's discussion.
Here are some others songs that make my list of the most profoundly sad songs about heartache and heartbreak:
"Aimee," by the Pure Prairie League is a breezy, country-rock song by the group whose main contribution to music might have been that it gave us Vince Gill (though not on this record). But right off the bat, we get to the issue. Aimee and our singer just can't seem to connect. He keeps falling in and out of love with her, and he's reached the point where he wants to try to make it work. But, as he sings, "you're off with someone else and I'm alone."
And I have to tell you ... when you're crushing on someone, or if you sense something's about to end, the knowledge that the person you're crazy about is out having a good time with someone else while you're home stewing over it is just torture.
"If You Could Read My Mind," By Gordon Lightfoot is an awfully sad song. It just tears the heart right out of you.
There's a personal story behind this song too, because it came out my senior year of high school, all while I was trying to work up the nerve to ask my sister's best friend to the prom.
And, just like with "Nights," those memories are indelible. She went with me. Win. We never went out again. Fail. And when I hear the mellow acoustic guitar opening to the song, I always have to brace myself.
Gordon says he wrote this about his divorce, and that certainly sounds right. It speaks to a relationship that's suddenly grown cold and distant. "I don't know where we went wrong, but the feeling's gone, and I just can't get it back."
If anyone ever said that to me, or even if I ended up feeling that way toward someone else I've loved for a long time, I really don't know what I'd do either.
Another song that speaks to divorce is "Fortress Around Your Heart" by Sting. It's heavy on visuals and metaphors, but he's said that it's about the pain that surrounded the dissolution of his first marriage.
Sting said it was about the walls he set up to protect his ex-wife when he, and The Police, first started getting famous. The point is that now that the marriage had begun falling apart, he had to penetrate that fortress he'd elaborately constructed, and it had become impossible.
I think this about sums it up: "This prison has now become your home/A sentence you seem prepared to pay."
One of the sadder songs, to me, is "Silver, Blue and Gold" by Bad Company. This one's just full of lines that can absolutely crush your heart. But to me, the most painful one is this: "Oh the time that it takes for a love to grow cold/Is a wonder to me/I'm walking around with my head hanging down/Tell me where is she?"
Sometimes, the dynamic just changes. There's a different vibe. It might take a while for it to all come out in the wash, but it's there. And it can absolutely make you crazy..
And, of course, is there a more plaintive plea than "Don't forsake me 'cause I love you?" How many times have we all had people we've loved completely cut us out of their lives.
When George Harrison recorded the album "All Things Must Pass," it was filled mostly with songs that had been rejected by the Beatles. One of them was the title song.
The day after he died, CBS showed an old clip of Harrison on a talk show, and of all the songs he could have played, that's the one he chose.
I think it's his best song. It's all about how nothing ever stays the same ... including love.
You could read the song a couple of ways. One interpretation, of course, is that it was a veiled reference to his belief that all this "Beatles" stuff had to end eventually, because nothing lasts forever.
But, he also says that sometimes, love doesn't last forever either. I suppose it's little consolation to someone who's just been told "It's over." But there it is. All things must pass. He keeps saying "it's not always going to be this grey," but that's a tough concept to grasp while you're going through such a change. You get it, eventually. But not right away.
And on a personal note, if there's a song in the rock repertoire that can make me want to cry in a heartbeat, it's this one.
About 20 or so years ago, maybe more, Chris Isaak burst onto the scene with a song called "Wicked Game." I'm sure we all remember the video of him cavorting around the beach with this super-model chick. In 1991, videos didn't have the capacity to go viral the way they do today, but this one got a lot of notoriety just the same ... more for the images on the beach than what the song was actually about.
But listen to it (that's why I've provided links for all these songs). There's just a wealth of self-flagellation material in this one, starting with "strange what desire will make foolish people do."
"What a wicked game to play/to make me feel this way/what a wicked thing you do, to make me dream of you/what a wicked thing to say/you never felt this way/what a wicked thing you do/to make me dream of you."
Can that be any sadder? That whole song is about how he didn't want to fall in love with the woman, but couldn't help himself ... and once he was good and hooked, she turned around and walked away. Wow.
Then there's this one: "Junkie" by 100 Monkeys. Now, I don't want to take credit for being hip here. It was recommended to me by someone who's much hipper than I could ever be. It's an interesting song. It's along the lines of "Should I Stay or Should I go" by the Clash (not part of this list) in that the lyrics are extremely biting.
Ever since you left me/I won't pick up the phone/ Every single time I do/Someone asks me if you're home/And I have to say no/They have to ask where did you go."
It's bad enough that it's over. But having to explain to everyone why it's over, or when it ended, is 10 times worse. It's easy to see why you'd just want to curl up into the fetal position and shut the world out.
Before I get to the final three "heart of hearts" on the list of "heartache and heartbreak" songs here's a list of honorable mentions (you'll have to find your own links on these): "Heartbreak Hotel," Elvis Presley; "Don't They Know It's the End of the World" by Skeeter Davis; "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone, Bill Withers (with all the "I knows" in it); Roy Orbison (take your pick, but "Crying" and "It's Over" are the two that most readily come to mind); "Caroline, No!" by the Beach Boys; and "I'm So Lonesome I could Cry" by Hank Williams.
Now ... for the final three (to go along with the first two songs on this list):
"Tangled up in Blue" by Bob Dylan sure sounds as if it's a song about his old days in and around the New York folk scene. There's a Montague Street in New York (well, it's in Brooklyn, actually), and the folk movement blossomed in the cafes around Greenwich Village in the early sixties. Those were heady times, and, as we've already seen from the numerous stories and biographies about the man, Bob Dylan was no stranger to entangled relationships (See "Boots of Spanish Leather").
Regret runs through this song like a raging river. He paints vignettes of a relationship he had with a women ... one that ended badly. But the key line is this "And when, finally, the bottom fell out I became withdrawn/the only thing I could think to do was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew/tangled up in blue."
And that's it. You put one foot in front of the other, and keep going forward. There isn't much else you can do.
The Young Rascals came out with "How Can I Be Sure" in either 1966 or 1967 (I don't remember). It isn't about heartbreak as much as it is about heartache. Have you ever wondered, as you find yourself falling head over heals for someone, where you stand? You can think of little else, and you start wondering whether this person you're spending all your time thinking about feels the same way.
Here's a sampling: "How do I know?/Maybe you're trying to use me/Flying too high can confuse me/Touch me but don't take me down."
That's the wonderful thing about music. Someone like Eddie Brigati (who wrote the song) can just touch the emotions of so many. Wonderfully sad song!
I was the king of teenage crushes. As a result, I found myself thinking about that song a lot!
For perhaps the most universally famous song about heartache and heartbreak, we turn to Eric Clapton and "Layla." For this, I've provided the link to the original cut, as opposed to the slowed-down "Unplugged" version broadcast on VH-1.
I think we all know what it's about, but for those who don't: Eric Clapton was profoundly in love with George Harrison's ex-wife, Patti Boyd. He wrote the song about his unrequited love for her, and based it on an Arab tale about a princess, Layla, who was forced to marry someone other than the man who was passionately in love with her.
Every verse of this song is heartbreaking. But the one that jumps out at me is this: "I tried to give you consolation/When your old man had let you down./Like a fool, I fell in love with you,/Turned my whole world upside down."
This has all the elements ... damsel in distress, white knight, and that long, lurching road to hell that takes place when you ride to the rescue once too often and develop an infatuation.
And of course, "Layla, you've got me on my knees" pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
A couple of interesting music things about that song. First, the song was written and recorded in 1970 by Derek and the Dominos, with Duane Allman playing slide guitar. But it didn't achieve chart success until two years later, by which time Duane Allman had died.
Second, the long piano coda at the end was written not by Clapton, but by Jim Gordon. Clapton never performs it in concerts.
Anyway, these are my top heartache/heartbreak songs. Some of these feelings I actually experienced when, in high school and college, I seemed to fall in and out of love every five minutes. Others have dealt with friends and/or colleagues who have had their dreams and fantasies shattered by fractured relationships.
I hope you enjoyed this. And feel free to chime in with yours.
--------
I've added a few, based on some feedback I got, and a few others I'd forgotten about that really seem appropriate.
The Beatles did their share of angst-ridden breakup songs. But none of them as mature, and stark, as Paul McCartney's "For No One."
"The day breaks, your mind aches, there will be times when all the things she said will fill your head/you won't forget her."
And that's it, really. You play these tapes in your head over and over, wondering what you did wrong, and how, or why, it was wrong.
Just about the enire "Rumours" album by Fleetwood Mac is about breakups ... Stevie Nicks' and Lindsay Buckingham's and Christine and John McVie's. There's lots of good material to choose from. "Go Your Own Way" is certainly the most bitter of the three, basically an "eff-you" song to Nicks. And "Silver Spring," by was Nicks' song Buckingham ... and he fought, and succeeded, in keeping the song off the album.
But I'm going with these two: "Gold Dust Woman" and "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."
Stevie Nicks says to this day, she has no idea what "Gold Dust Woman" is about, except that there was cocaine involved. I'd suggest, though, that like just about everything else involved in that album, there were residual feelings about Buckingham that cropped up. How else would you explain this: "Did she make you cry/make you break down/shatter your illusions of love/is it over now/do you know how/to pick up the pieces and go home?"
"Don't Stop" was written by Christine McVie and dealt with how heartbroken John McVie was at the breakup of their marriage. It was her plea that he cheer up, and look forward rather.
It's become an anthem of optimism, of course, helped immeasurably by Bill Clinton using it as his 1992 campaign song. But it deals with some pretty raw emotions. The fact that it has a barrel house boogie background probably hides the rawness of the song very well, but it's there.
In contrast, we have James Taylor's "Fire and Rain," which kind of connects two or three different episodes in his life, particularly the suicide of a friend (Suzanne). But its chorus unites all the elements: "I've seen fire and I've seen rain/I've seen lonely days that I thought would never end/I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend/But I always thought that I'd see you again.
Here's one you just have to listen to. It has the lyrics written into the video, but they really don't do the song justice. You have to really HEAR it to understand the aguish. It's "Sometime around Midnight" by the Airborne Toxic Event.
Like I said ... it doesn't need a description. It needs a listen
And finally, "Midnight Confessions" by the Grass Roots seems to be an unlikely song about heartache and heartbreak. But what do do when the object of your affections is married, or otherwise taken:
"There's a little gold ring that you wear on your hand/that makes me understand/there's another before me/you'll never be mine/I'm wasting my time."
Or, from another perspective (England Dan and John F. Coley's), "It's sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along."
And I'm thinking, "That's great. Two weeks into this, and I'm fresh out of ideas. Some blog."
Then, the Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See" came on. I'm not one for country rock ... usually. I won't say I hate it, but but it's not generally the music I listen to when I really need, as the Rolling Stones would say, an emotional rescue.
But there it was. I love the song anyway, and I'd love it even if I didn't know what it was about. First, I love flutes. I love Jethro Tull, and I love the Moody Blues, and Traffic, and MTB. And the flute is the first thing that got me with this song.
But I got to really listening to the words. They're not particularly profound. You don't need Cliff's Notes to figure out what they mean. Actually, they're pretty raw.
I like raw. Particularly this verse: "I'm gonna find me/a hole in the wall/I'm gonna crawl inside and die/Come a later now/a mean ol' woman, Lord/never told me goodbye."
It helps to know the author wrote the song about his former girlfriend, who shot herself and shot the couple's dog in a unique murder/suicide. Lovely.
But don't those lyrics just cry out "despair?"
Music ... all music ... probably wouldn't exist if it weren't for heartache and heartbreak. It's the soundtrack of all our emotions, really. There isn't a single episode on my life, especially a sad one, that doesn't spring to mind if I hear a certain song.
For example, I can't hear "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues without thinking about my freshman year of college, when I was crushing madly on a girl from Connecticut named Melinda ... who, as you might have guessed, returned my affections with considerably less gusto and enthusiasm.
But Melinda did tell me she liked opera, and that one of the local companies was performing Puccini's "Tosca" (a little highbrow cultural reference to impress you all). I'd never heard of it. Outside of "Carmen," and that's only because of the "March of the Toreadors," I couldn't name one.
So I did what any totally infatuated 18-year-old would do. I went to the opera house and bought two tickets. Then, I went to Melinda's dorm and asked her if she'd like to go with me.
She turned me down.
I ended up giving the tickets away. But that's not why I remember "Nights."
I remember it because the next day, still enormously depressed over being summarily rejected, I went into the Northeastern University bookstore to find an economics book the professor had assigned us to read. But our bookstore didn't have it. Try the Harvard Coop, I was told.
That was OK with me. Road trips in and around Boston always cleared my head. They still do.
I found the book at the Coop, took my place in line, and noticed there was some very exotic music playing from what appeared to be an elaborate Sensurround speaker system. The music just came out of everywhere.
What I was hearing was the "Sunset/Twilight Time" cuts from the Moodies' "Days of Future Passed."
When "Nights" came on, I recognized it. And man, did it just fit my mood! It's not exactly an uplifting song anyway, with a very haunting flute and perhaps the most angst-ridden "I love you" ever recorded. Not to mention that the crescendo that leads to the "Late Lament" poem that closes the album is, at the same time, heartbreaking and breathtaking.
Usually, when I'm feeling emotional, songs like "Nights in White Satin" really bring it to the surface. In fact, as I mentioned in the initial post here, it's one of only three songs in recorded rock history that make me stop in my tracks and just listen.
Now, there's been considerable discussion about how and why Justin Hayward of the Moodies wrote this. He was 19 (and, as an aside, how must it feel to have hit your creative and commercial peak before you even hit 20?) and in between relationships.
He sat up one night, unable to sleep, and composed the song to reflect his state of mind about ending one relationship and perhaps beginning another one.
I'd also heard, somewhere, that the title was inspired by the song "In the Still of the Night" by the Five Satins, but I think the Moody-philes have settled on this: He was trying to sleep on a new set of white satin sheets he'd been given, and between his mental anguish and his difficulty adjusting to the sheets, he just couldn't.
Anyway, "Can't You See" and "Nights in White Satin" are two of my favorite (if that's a term you can use here) songs about heartache and heartbreak, which is the topic of today's discussion.
Here are some others songs that make my list of the most profoundly sad songs about heartache and heartbreak:
"Aimee," by the Pure Prairie League is a breezy, country-rock song by the group whose main contribution to music might have been that it gave us Vince Gill (though not on this record). But right off the bat, we get to the issue. Aimee and our singer just can't seem to connect. He keeps falling in and out of love with her, and he's reached the point where he wants to try to make it work. But, as he sings, "you're off with someone else and I'm alone."
And I have to tell you ... when you're crushing on someone, or if you sense something's about to end, the knowledge that the person you're crazy about is out having a good time with someone else while you're home stewing over it is just torture.
"If You Could Read My Mind," By Gordon Lightfoot is an awfully sad song. It just tears the heart right out of you.
There's a personal story behind this song too, because it came out my senior year of high school, all while I was trying to work up the nerve to ask my sister's best friend to the prom.
And, just like with "Nights," those memories are indelible. She went with me. Win. We never went out again. Fail. And when I hear the mellow acoustic guitar opening to the song, I always have to brace myself.
Gordon says he wrote this about his divorce, and that certainly sounds right. It speaks to a relationship that's suddenly grown cold and distant. "I don't know where we went wrong, but the feeling's gone, and I just can't get it back."
If anyone ever said that to me, or even if I ended up feeling that way toward someone else I've loved for a long time, I really don't know what I'd do either.
Another song that speaks to divorce is "Fortress Around Your Heart" by Sting. It's heavy on visuals and metaphors, but he's said that it's about the pain that surrounded the dissolution of his first marriage.
Sting said it was about the walls he set up to protect his ex-wife when he, and The Police, first started getting famous. The point is that now that the marriage had begun falling apart, he had to penetrate that fortress he'd elaborately constructed, and it had become impossible.
I think this about sums it up: "This prison has now become your home/A sentence you seem prepared to pay."
One of the sadder songs, to me, is "Silver, Blue and Gold" by Bad Company. This one's just full of lines that can absolutely crush your heart. But to me, the most painful one is this: "Oh the time that it takes for a love to grow cold/Is a wonder to me/I'm walking around with my head hanging down/Tell me where is she?"
Sometimes, the dynamic just changes. There's a different vibe. It might take a while for it to all come out in the wash, but it's there. And it can absolutely make you crazy..
And, of course, is there a more plaintive plea than "Don't forsake me 'cause I love you?" How many times have we all had people we've loved completely cut us out of their lives.
When George Harrison recorded the album "All Things Must Pass," it was filled mostly with songs that had been rejected by the Beatles. One of them was the title song.
The day after he died, CBS showed an old clip of Harrison on a talk show, and of all the songs he could have played, that's the one he chose.
I think it's his best song. It's all about how nothing ever stays the same ... including love.
You could read the song a couple of ways. One interpretation, of course, is that it was a veiled reference to his belief that all this "Beatles" stuff had to end eventually, because nothing lasts forever.
But, he also says that sometimes, love doesn't last forever either. I suppose it's little consolation to someone who's just been told "It's over." But there it is. All things must pass. He keeps saying "it's not always going to be this grey," but that's a tough concept to grasp while you're going through such a change. You get it, eventually. But not right away.
And on a personal note, if there's a song in the rock repertoire that can make me want to cry in a heartbeat, it's this one.
About 20 or so years ago, maybe more, Chris Isaak burst onto the scene with a song called "Wicked Game." I'm sure we all remember the video of him cavorting around the beach with this super-model chick. In 1991, videos didn't have the capacity to go viral the way they do today, but this one got a lot of notoriety just the same ... more for the images on the beach than what the song was actually about.
But listen to it (that's why I've provided links for all these songs). There's just a wealth of self-flagellation material in this one, starting with "strange what desire will make foolish people do."
"What a wicked game to play/to make me feel this way/what a wicked thing you do, to make me dream of you/what a wicked thing to say/you never felt this way/what a wicked thing you do/to make me dream of you."
Can that be any sadder? That whole song is about how he didn't want to fall in love with the woman, but couldn't help himself ... and once he was good and hooked, she turned around and walked away. Wow.
Then there's this one: "Junkie" by 100 Monkeys. Now, I don't want to take credit for being hip here. It was recommended to me by someone who's much hipper than I could ever be. It's an interesting song. It's along the lines of "Should I Stay or Should I go" by the Clash (not part of this list) in that the lyrics are extremely biting.
Ever since you left me/I won't pick up the phone/ Every single time I do/Someone asks me if you're home/And I have to say no/They have to ask where did you go."
It's bad enough that it's over. But having to explain to everyone why it's over, or when it ended, is 10 times worse. It's easy to see why you'd just want to curl up into the fetal position and shut the world out.
Before I get to the final three "heart of hearts" on the list of "heartache and heartbreak" songs here's a list of honorable mentions (you'll have to find your own links on these): "Heartbreak Hotel," Elvis Presley; "Don't They Know It's the End of the World" by Skeeter Davis; "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone, Bill Withers (with all the "I knows" in it); Roy Orbison (take your pick, but "Crying" and "It's Over" are the two that most readily come to mind); "Caroline, No!" by the Beach Boys; and "I'm So Lonesome I could Cry" by Hank Williams.
Now ... for the final three (to go along with the first two songs on this list):
"Tangled up in Blue" by Bob Dylan sure sounds as if it's a song about his old days in and around the New York folk scene. There's a Montague Street in New York (well, it's in Brooklyn, actually), and the folk movement blossomed in the cafes around Greenwich Village in the early sixties. Those were heady times, and, as we've already seen from the numerous stories and biographies about the man, Bob Dylan was no stranger to entangled relationships (See "Boots of Spanish Leather").
Regret runs through this song like a raging river. He paints vignettes of a relationship he had with a women ... one that ended badly. But the key line is this "And when, finally, the bottom fell out I became withdrawn/the only thing I could think to do was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew/tangled up in blue."
And that's it. You put one foot in front of the other, and keep going forward. There isn't much else you can do.
The Young Rascals came out with "How Can I Be Sure" in either 1966 or 1967 (I don't remember). It isn't about heartbreak as much as it is about heartache. Have you ever wondered, as you find yourself falling head over heals for someone, where you stand? You can think of little else, and you start wondering whether this person you're spending all your time thinking about feels the same way.
Here's a sampling: "How do I know?/Maybe you're trying to use me/Flying too high can confuse me/Touch me but don't take me down."
That's the wonderful thing about music. Someone like Eddie Brigati (who wrote the song) can just touch the emotions of so many. Wonderfully sad song!
I was the king of teenage crushes. As a result, I found myself thinking about that song a lot!
For perhaps the most universally famous song about heartache and heartbreak, we turn to Eric Clapton and "Layla." For this, I've provided the link to the original cut, as opposed to the slowed-down "Unplugged" version broadcast on VH-1.
I think we all know what it's about, but for those who don't: Eric Clapton was profoundly in love with George Harrison's ex-wife, Patti Boyd. He wrote the song about his unrequited love for her, and based it on an Arab tale about a princess, Layla, who was forced to marry someone other than the man who was passionately in love with her.
Every verse of this song is heartbreaking. But the one that jumps out at me is this: "I tried to give you consolation/When your old man had let you down./Like a fool, I fell in love with you,/Turned my whole world upside down."
This has all the elements ... damsel in distress, white knight, and that long, lurching road to hell that takes place when you ride to the rescue once too often and develop an infatuation.
And of course, "Layla, you've got me on my knees" pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
A couple of interesting music things about that song. First, the song was written and recorded in 1970 by Derek and the Dominos, with Duane Allman playing slide guitar. But it didn't achieve chart success until two years later, by which time Duane Allman had died.
Second, the long piano coda at the end was written not by Clapton, but by Jim Gordon. Clapton never performs it in concerts.
Anyway, these are my top heartache/heartbreak songs. Some of these feelings I actually experienced when, in high school and college, I seemed to fall in and out of love every five minutes. Others have dealt with friends and/or colleagues who have had their dreams and fantasies shattered by fractured relationships.
I hope you enjoyed this. And feel free to chime in with yours.
--------
I've added a few, based on some feedback I got, and a few others I'd forgotten about that really seem appropriate.
The Beatles did their share of angst-ridden breakup songs. But none of them as mature, and stark, as Paul McCartney's "For No One."
"The day breaks, your mind aches, there will be times when all the things she said will fill your head/you won't forget her."
And that's it, really. You play these tapes in your head over and over, wondering what you did wrong, and how, or why, it was wrong.
Just about the enire "Rumours" album by Fleetwood Mac is about breakups ... Stevie Nicks' and Lindsay Buckingham's and Christine and John McVie's. There's lots of good material to choose from. "Go Your Own Way" is certainly the most bitter of the three, basically an "eff-you" song to Nicks. And "Silver Spring," by was Nicks' song Buckingham ... and he fought, and succeeded, in keeping the song off the album.
But I'm going with these two: "Gold Dust Woman" and "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."
Stevie Nicks says to this day, she has no idea what "Gold Dust Woman" is about, except that there was cocaine involved. I'd suggest, though, that like just about everything else involved in that album, there were residual feelings about Buckingham that cropped up. How else would you explain this: "Did she make you cry/make you break down/shatter your illusions of love/is it over now/do you know how/to pick up the pieces and go home?"
"Don't Stop" was written by Christine McVie and dealt with how heartbroken John McVie was at the breakup of their marriage. It was her plea that he cheer up, and look forward rather.
It's become an anthem of optimism, of course, helped immeasurably by Bill Clinton using it as his 1992 campaign song. But it deals with some pretty raw emotions. The fact that it has a barrel house boogie background probably hides the rawness of the song very well, but it's there.
In contrast, we have James Taylor's "Fire and Rain," which kind of connects two or three different episodes in his life, particularly the suicide of a friend (Suzanne). But its chorus unites all the elements: "I've seen fire and I've seen rain/I've seen lonely days that I thought would never end/I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend/But I always thought that I'd see you again.
Here's one you just have to listen to. It has the lyrics written into the video, but they really don't do the song justice. You have to really HEAR it to understand the aguish. It's "Sometime around Midnight" by the Airborne Toxic Event.
Like I said ... it doesn't need a description. It needs a listen
And finally, "Midnight Confessions" by the Grass Roots seems to be an unlikely song about heartache and heartbreak. But what do do when the object of your affections is married, or otherwise taken:
"There's a little gold ring that you wear on your hand/that makes me understand/there's another before me/you'll never be mine/I'm wasting my time."
Or, from another perspective (England Dan and John F. Coley's), "It's sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along."
Saturday, January 7, 2012
The initial post: Random musical observations
I was dispensing some advice to a very good friend recently (unsolicited, which is par for the course in my case) about how to forge a new career when your current situation just gets too unbearable.
“Here’s what you do,” I said. “Make a list of all the things you love to do … and then try to figure out a way you can make some kind of money by playing to your passions and your strengths. Because in the end, that’ll make you happiest … and it’ll make all the hard work you’re going to have to put into it a heck of a lot more palatable if you have a visceral passion for it.
Take me. I love to write. And I love music. More than any single thing in life, I love music. I wake up every day with a tune in my head, and I can honestly say I’m never without one for a minute. I hum to myself if I’m working … I have to have the ear buds with me if I’m exercising … and just about all my emotions can be very easily put to music (at least in my mind).
So what do I do? I write sports. I’m not complaining. It’s been a fabulous career. But it dawned on me -- while I was walking today on one of the most spectacularly unseasonable days in the history of January – that if I could have the dream job of dream jobs, I’d spend the entire day at the piano, or the guitar, and I’d be the entertainer I’ve always wanted to be.
Seriously. Although I’m not going to threaten Lennon & McCartney anytime soon, I’ve been known to pen a song or two. And one was called “The Star of My Own Show,” which is about a guy who fantasizes he’s putting on a concert while hacking around in his basement. Sort of like Guy Patterson banging on the drums while closing down his father’s appliance story in “That Thing You Do.”
Long ago, in another lifetime, I actually wrote a music column … called “Midnight Ramblings.” It was a once-a-week deal for the paper I still work for, and it was during the ‘80s, when I was trying to hang onto my 20s as I was careening toward 30. It was a lark, really. There was a lot going on in music, and it was a wide-open palate.
These days, there’s probably still a lot going on in music, but I’m not as inclined to keep current the way I was back then. At age 58, there’s no way I could ever pass myself as “young,” and I’m afraid I’ve gotten to the point where I say to myself, “well, what IS the point?” If I start rattling off lyrics and factoids about modern music, circa 2012, to the kid who sits at the next series of desks from me, who’s not even 30 (the only other person at my end of the room who would even know anything about those lyrics or factoids), he’s liable to think I’ve flipped my lid.
Besides, you don’t HAVE to branch out as long as you have XM Radio, or you link to Pandora. You can pretty much have it your way with regards to the type of music you listen to. And if you’re like me, and download music like a fiend, you can sit and listen for hours to stuff geared specifically to you, and never hear the same song twice. You can’t do that on XM, where a lot of songs – even the old ones – seem to be in heavy rotation. These days, you never have to branch out and experience the great unknown if you don’t want to.
But if I’m to take my own advice, I would say that it’s time for me to stop shoving my love of music in the background … and to find a way to make it a more dominant part of my life. So hence, I’ll be blogging under the title “Midnight Ramblings” at least once a week.
This is not a new title. It’s the name of the column I wrote. If you’re astute, you’ll know right away that it’s a reference to the Rolling Stones song “Midnight Rambler,” which is off their “Let it Bleed” album. It’s kind of a creepy song, inspired (or so the story goes) by Albert DiSalvo, a/k/a “The Boston Strangler.” I don’t have any special affinity for the song. It’s certainly not my favorite Stones song. I just liked the pun.
I have no idea what I’ll be bringing up in these blogs. Anything and everything, I suppose. A friend recently told me I’m “very eclectic,” which is actually a nice thing to say about someone. It means I’m not a one-trick pony … that my interests are varied.
That’s how I am about music too. I don’t like any particular genre to the exclusion of all others. Conversely, though, I never cared for disco (understatement); never fully understood rap; and have a low tolerance for country/western. However, put on some bluegrass and I’m there.
If I could accurately describe myself, I would say I cringe at any music that’s manipulative or maudlin. That would encompass anything by Barry Manilow, most of John Denver’s repertoire, and (most especially) McArthur Park.
And while I may not always appreciate or understand when bands take sharp turns away from what they do well, I most always respect it. Stagnation and art, to me, are mutually exclusive terms. I always considered it one of modern music’s great tragedies, for example, that the rest of the Beach Boys couldn’t jump out there on the edge and support Brian Wilson when he was trying to make the “Smile” album. Because of that, a tremendous piece of music stayed hidden for almost 40 years.
But they were too worried about breaking out of the surfer/automobile mode, and just couldn’t see where music was heading in the mid-1960s. Brian Wilson was a visionary. He could.
Anyway, while I was walking in the 55-degree January weather, I thought about all of the wonderful things about music … how it stirs you up, calms you down, comforts you, DIS-comforts you (at times), makes you laugh and/or cry; makes you stop in your tracks sometimes; and flat-out leaves you walking on air by its sheer power and/or beauty.
I could go on all day about this, but what I’ve decided to so is come up with 10 random observations based on the songs I heard as I was walking along the boulevard of my home town.
-- With apologies to Christopher Walken and the Blue Oyster Cult, the Stones still win the prize for the best use of the cowbell. It heralds the opening of “Honky Tonk Woman,” one of the best songs they ever recorded. And next time you hear it, really listen to it. Beneath the raunch guitar, that cowbell is always there. So, as the saying goes, “more cowbell.”
-- But when it comes to great Rolling Stones moments, for me it’s the extended guitar solo at the end of “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” off “Sticky Fingers.” Every time I hear it, I lament the fact that Mick Taylor’s tenure with them was so brief.
-- Someone once wrote that an LSD experience was like “going from black and white to color in the Wizard of Oz.” I don’t know about that. I’ve never dropped acid. But I would have to think the aural equivalent of such a profound shift in mood would be the crescendo that bridges the third and fourth movements of “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.” It is a brooding piece of music, in the key of C Minor, for three movements, with the “three dots and a dash” musical phrase dominant throughout. But after the third movement, the music builds and builds until it explodes into C Major. I don’t know how that registers as an LSD experience, but as a musical experience it’s one of the best ever.
-- There are three songs that I cannot hear and without stopping what I’m doing so that I can experience them totally. One is “Stairway to Heaven,” and I can’t explain that. We’ve all heard that song so much we can probably sing it in our sleep. But I still have to drop everything and listen. The second is “A Day in the Life (Beatles).” It doesn’t matter what else I’m doing. I have to stop dead in my tracks and drink it all in. The third is “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues. There’s something profoundly timeless about all three, even if the extended version of “Nights” has all that hippy-dippy Graeme Edge poetry in it.
-- There is a whole slew of songs I wish I’d written, and genres don’t matter. But of anything I heard today while I was walking, I’d have to say that the fourth movement to Dvorak’s New World Symphony makes me insanely jealous. It is just majestic.
-- Most people would consider “Jessica” by the Allman Brothers to be a neat little guitar song that Dickie Betts wrote for his daughter of the same name. And, of course, it is. Nobody can play it like Dickie Betts either. But there’s a piano bridge between the two main guitar parts that just absolutely knocks you out. I could die happy if I could play piano like that.
-- Has anyone ever stopped and wondered why we, in Boston, celebrate our nation’s independence by making a song that commemorates Napoleon’s defeat by the Russian Army the centerpiece of our civic celebration? Well, we do. Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” is a piece depicting the battle between the French and Russian Armies in 1812 as Napoleon sought to conquer Europe. You can even hear snippets of “Le Marseilles” in it. The ending, with all those bells and cannons, is counterpointed by, what was then, the Russian National Anthem (the Russians successfully defended their homeland against the French, and it’s been said that when all the bells of Moscow peeled at once, you couldn’t hear yourself think). True story: My wife and I, along with some of our friends, used to make the yearly trek onto the Charles River Esplanade to hear the Pops concert on July 4. One year, we got to sit up on the top floor of Emerson College, which was command central. But the year that really stood out for me was the year we walked across the footbridge that crosses Storrow Drive (now named for Arthur Fiedler) after the show ended and could still hear every church bell in Boston ringing like crazy. The church bills were part of the tubular chorus that helps bring the overture to its rousing conclusion.
-- A lot of very knowledgeable people consider Andrew Lloyd Webber a hack. For all his success in musical theater, he doesn’t seem to get the props afforded to, say, Stephen Sondheim. This is hard for me to understand. No disrespect intended to Sondheim, but if I never heard anything from “Sweeney Todd” ever again, I could live with that. But I bring up Webber because of one song in “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” and that’s “Everything’s All Right.” It’s in 5/4 time … a key signature made famous by Dave Brubeck in “Take Five.” For a guy just coming out of the chute and introducing himself to what can be a really snotty social set (I’m talking about theatre critics here), that’s pretty damn daring. J.C. Superstar has some pretty sophisticated stuff on it … and there was similar sophistication in “Evita.” Maybe, to some, he exhausted his creativity after he split with Tim Rice (after Evita). You couldn’t prove it by me. I always like his stuff.
-- How could so many people be so wrong about “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys? When it came out in 1966, it barely caused a ripple … and that’s with two bonafide classics on it (“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows”). I don’t count “Sloop John B,” because that was shoved down their throat by the record label so there could be a “hit” on the album. Brian Wilson says it’s the only song he ever recorded that he didn’t like. “Good Vibrations” is still, to me, the most wondrous rock ‘n’ roll song ever written. But “God Only Knows” is a masterpiece by any definition you want to use. How “Pet Sounds” could have been so poorly received by the music cognoscenti back then is simply beyond my comprehension. I guess it’ll be forever cursed with the label “ahead of its time.”
-- But if you want to talk about an entire GROUP being ahead of its time, how about the Buffalo Springfield? How could they have missed with a lineup that included, in its original incarnation, Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furey (with Jim Messina coming later) miss? Easy. Drugs. Jealousies. The times. And an eclectic musical palate that made them difficult to pigeon-hole. Today, on my iPod, however, I heard Neil Young’s “Mr. Soul.” And being the aficionado I am about these things, I remembered reading somewhere that the record company that recorded Springfield didn’t want Young to sing lead on any of his songs because his voice sounded “too weird.” Well duh! It still sounds weird. But “Mr. Soul” is one fine song, with Stills’ ferocious guitar solo in the middle adding much spice to it.
Well, that should about do it for now. Anything more and anyone reading this might eventually explode. Let’s see what this blog brings in the future.
Thanks for reading.
“Here’s what you do,” I said. “Make a list of all the things you love to do … and then try to figure out a way you can make some kind of money by playing to your passions and your strengths. Because in the end, that’ll make you happiest … and it’ll make all the hard work you’re going to have to put into it a heck of a lot more palatable if you have a visceral passion for it.
Take me. I love to write. And I love music. More than any single thing in life, I love music. I wake up every day with a tune in my head, and I can honestly say I’m never without one for a minute. I hum to myself if I’m working … I have to have the ear buds with me if I’m exercising … and just about all my emotions can be very easily put to music (at least in my mind).
So what do I do? I write sports. I’m not complaining. It’s been a fabulous career. But it dawned on me -- while I was walking today on one of the most spectacularly unseasonable days in the history of January – that if I could have the dream job of dream jobs, I’d spend the entire day at the piano, or the guitar, and I’d be the entertainer I’ve always wanted to be.
Seriously. Although I’m not going to threaten Lennon & McCartney anytime soon, I’ve been known to pen a song or two. And one was called “The Star of My Own Show,” which is about a guy who fantasizes he’s putting on a concert while hacking around in his basement. Sort of like Guy Patterson banging on the drums while closing down his father’s appliance story in “That Thing You Do.”
Long ago, in another lifetime, I actually wrote a music column … called “Midnight Ramblings.” It was a once-a-week deal for the paper I still work for, and it was during the ‘80s, when I was trying to hang onto my 20s as I was careening toward 30. It was a lark, really. There was a lot going on in music, and it was a wide-open palate.
These days, there’s probably still a lot going on in music, but I’m not as inclined to keep current the way I was back then. At age 58, there’s no way I could ever pass myself as “young,” and I’m afraid I’ve gotten to the point where I say to myself, “well, what IS the point?” If I start rattling off lyrics and factoids about modern music, circa 2012, to the kid who sits at the next series of desks from me, who’s not even 30 (the only other person at my end of the room who would even know anything about those lyrics or factoids), he’s liable to think I’ve flipped my lid.
Besides, you don’t HAVE to branch out as long as you have XM Radio, or you link to Pandora. You can pretty much have it your way with regards to the type of music you listen to. And if you’re like me, and download music like a fiend, you can sit and listen for hours to stuff geared specifically to you, and never hear the same song twice. You can’t do that on XM, where a lot of songs – even the old ones – seem to be in heavy rotation. These days, you never have to branch out and experience the great unknown if you don’t want to.
But if I’m to take my own advice, I would say that it’s time for me to stop shoving my love of music in the background … and to find a way to make it a more dominant part of my life. So hence, I’ll be blogging under the title “Midnight Ramblings” at least once a week.
This is not a new title. It’s the name of the column I wrote. If you’re astute, you’ll know right away that it’s a reference to the Rolling Stones song “Midnight Rambler,” which is off their “Let it Bleed” album. It’s kind of a creepy song, inspired (or so the story goes) by Albert DiSalvo, a/k/a “The Boston Strangler.” I don’t have any special affinity for the song. It’s certainly not my favorite Stones song. I just liked the pun.
I have no idea what I’ll be bringing up in these blogs. Anything and everything, I suppose. A friend recently told me I’m “very eclectic,” which is actually a nice thing to say about someone. It means I’m not a one-trick pony … that my interests are varied.
That’s how I am about music too. I don’t like any particular genre to the exclusion of all others. Conversely, though, I never cared for disco (understatement); never fully understood rap; and have a low tolerance for country/western. However, put on some bluegrass and I’m there.
If I could accurately describe myself, I would say I cringe at any music that’s manipulative or maudlin. That would encompass anything by Barry Manilow, most of John Denver’s repertoire, and (most especially) McArthur Park.
And while I may not always appreciate or understand when bands take sharp turns away from what they do well, I most always respect it. Stagnation and art, to me, are mutually exclusive terms. I always considered it one of modern music’s great tragedies, for example, that the rest of the Beach Boys couldn’t jump out there on the edge and support Brian Wilson when he was trying to make the “Smile” album. Because of that, a tremendous piece of music stayed hidden for almost 40 years.
But they were too worried about breaking out of the surfer/automobile mode, and just couldn’t see where music was heading in the mid-1960s. Brian Wilson was a visionary. He could.
Anyway, while I was walking in the 55-degree January weather, I thought about all of the wonderful things about music … how it stirs you up, calms you down, comforts you, DIS-comforts you (at times), makes you laugh and/or cry; makes you stop in your tracks sometimes; and flat-out leaves you walking on air by its sheer power and/or beauty.
I could go on all day about this, but what I’ve decided to so is come up with 10 random observations based on the songs I heard as I was walking along the boulevard of my home town.
-- With apologies to Christopher Walken and the Blue Oyster Cult, the Stones still win the prize for the best use of the cowbell. It heralds the opening of “Honky Tonk Woman,” one of the best songs they ever recorded. And next time you hear it, really listen to it. Beneath the raunch guitar, that cowbell is always there. So, as the saying goes, “more cowbell.”
-- But when it comes to great Rolling Stones moments, for me it’s the extended guitar solo at the end of “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking” off “Sticky Fingers.” Every time I hear it, I lament the fact that Mick Taylor’s tenure with them was so brief.
-- Someone once wrote that an LSD experience was like “going from black and white to color in the Wizard of Oz.” I don’t know about that. I’ve never dropped acid. But I would have to think the aural equivalent of such a profound shift in mood would be the crescendo that bridges the third and fourth movements of “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.” It is a brooding piece of music, in the key of C Minor, for three movements, with the “three dots and a dash” musical phrase dominant throughout. But after the third movement, the music builds and builds until it explodes into C Major. I don’t know how that registers as an LSD experience, but as a musical experience it’s one of the best ever.
-- There are three songs that I cannot hear and without stopping what I’m doing so that I can experience them totally. One is “Stairway to Heaven,” and I can’t explain that. We’ve all heard that song so much we can probably sing it in our sleep. But I still have to drop everything and listen. The second is “A Day in the Life (Beatles).” It doesn’t matter what else I’m doing. I have to stop dead in my tracks and drink it all in. The third is “Nights in White Satin” by the Moody Blues. There’s something profoundly timeless about all three, even if the extended version of “Nights” has all that hippy-dippy Graeme Edge poetry in it.
-- There is a whole slew of songs I wish I’d written, and genres don’t matter. But of anything I heard today while I was walking, I’d have to say that the fourth movement to Dvorak’s New World Symphony makes me insanely jealous. It is just majestic.
-- Most people would consider “Jessica” by the Allman Brothers to be a neat little guitar song that Dickie Betts wrote for his daughter of the same name. And, of course, it is. Nobody can play it like Dickie Betts either. But there’s a piano bridge between the two main guitar parts that just absolutely knocks you out. I could die happy if I could play piano like that.
-- Has anyone ever stopped and wondered why we, in Boston, celebrate our nation’s independence by making a song that commemorates Napoleon’s defeat by the Russian Army the centerpiece of our civic celebration? Well, we do. Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” is a piece depicting the battle between the French and Russian Armies in 1812 as Napoleon sought to conquer Europe. You can even hear snippets of “Le Marseilles” in it. The ending, with all those bells and cannons, is counterpointed by, what was then, the Russian National Anthem (the Russians successfully defended their homeland against the French, and it’s been said that when all the bells of Moscow peeled at once, you couldn’t hear yourself think). True story: My wife and I, along with some of our friends, used to make the yearly trek onto the Charles River Esplanade to hear the Pops concert on July 4. One year, we got to sit up on the top floor of Emerson College, which was command central. But the year that really stood out for me was the year we walked across the footbridge that crosses Storrow Drive (now named for Arthur Fiedler) after the show ended and could still hear every church bell in Boston ringing like crazy. The church bills were part of the tubular chorus that helps bring the overture to its rousing conclusion.
-- A lot of very knowledgeable people consider Andrew Lloyd Webber a hack. For all his success in musical theater, he doesn’t seem to get the props afforded to, say, Stephen Sondheim. This is hard for me to understand. No disrespect intended to Sondheim, but if I never heard anything from “Sweeney Todd” ever again, I could live with that. But I bring up Webber because of one song in “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” and that’s “Everything’s All Right.” It’s in 5/4 time … a key signature made famous by Dave Brubeck in “Take Five.” For a guy just coming out of the chute and introducing himself to what can be a really snotty social set (I’m talking about theatre critics here), that’s pretty damn daring. J.C. Superstar has some pretty sophisticated stuff on it … and there was similar sophistication in “Evita.” Maybe, to some, he exhausted his creativity after he split with Tim Rice (after Evita). You couldn’t prove it by me. I always like his stuff.
-- How could so many people be so wrong about “Pet Sounds” by the Beach Boys? When it came out in 1966, it barely caused a ripple … and that’s with two bonafide classics on it (“Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows”). I don’t count “Sloop John B,” because that was shoved down their throat by the record label so there could be a “hit” on the album. Brian Wilson says it’s the only song he ever recorded that he didn’t like. “Good Vibrations” is still, to me, the most wondrous rock ‘n’ roll song ever written. But “God Only Knows” is a masterpiece by any definition you want to use. How “Pet Sounds” could have been so poorly received by the music cognoscenti back then is simply beyond my comprehension. I guess it’ll be forever cursed with the label “ahead of its time.”
-- But if you want to talk about an entire GROUP being ahead of its time, how about the Buffalo Springfield? How could they have missed with a lineup that included, in its original incarnation, Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furey (with Jim Messina coming later) miss? Easy. Drugs. Jealousies. The times. And an eclectic musical palate that made them difficult to pigeon-hole. Today, on my iPod, however, I heard Neil Young’s “Mr. Soul.” And being the aficionado I am about these things, I remembered reading somewhere that the record company that recorded Springfield didn’t want Young to sing lead on any of his songs because his voice sounded “too weird.” Well duh! It still sounds weird. But “Mr. Soul” is one fine song, with Stills’ ferocious guitar solo in the middle adding much spice to it.
Well, that should about do it for now. Anything more and anyone reading this might eventually explode. Let’s see what this blog brings in the future.
Thanks for reading.
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