"Under the Milky Way" / The Church

Sometimes (not always) Spotify delivers on the promise. I don't think I'd ever heard this song until the algorithm threw it at me as an option for an 80s Grab Bag playlist -- but the minute I heard it, I knew it had to be in the mix.

But who is The Church? They're from Australia, so right away I ask myself, why do we not hear more about Aussie bands? Think of it: Beyond Men at Work, AC/DC, Crowded House, and INXS, who is there? Olivia Newton-John, Kylie Minogue, the BeeGees? Please. 

But I digress. Just listen to this track (which did in fact apparently crack the U.S. Top 40 in 1988) and what's not to love?

 

That folky acoustic opening draws us in, with its almost incantatory melody, but that's just the tease. It builds ominously from there, with spangly guitar flourishes and layers of synths (do I hear a wheeze of bagpipes?); all those minor and suspended chords keep us uneasy, while the drumbeat drives mercilessly ahead. Songwriter/bassist/frontman Steve Kilbey's languid vocals drip with insinuation ("Wish I knew what you were looking for / Might have known what you would find..."), and I'm hooked on the allusion and confusion. What could be more Eighties than that?

(I know, I know, I used to say that the Eighties were the decade that ruined music, but then I realized that about half of the music I most love to listen to is from the Eighties, so sue me. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.) 

Anyway, it's a hooky, haunting pop song, and we just don't have enough of those.  

Wikipedia (because I trust it a whole lot more than Grokipedia) tells me that The Church are still touring and recording: Steve Kilbey is the only original member left, but I gather he's pretty much the driving force of the band anyway. I've listened to several of their other tracks and they're all tasty. Why has their music heretofore flown so far under my radar?

Then again, it's nice to know that there are frontiers yet to be explored . . . 

 

   

 

 

 

 

   

"Blame It on the Boogie" / Michael Jackson

When I say I'm not a Michael Jackson fan, I always have to qualify it. When the Jackson 5 first hit, I loved seeing little Michael steal the show, and their first string of Motown hits were solid radio faves. But then I lost the thread -- god, there was so much music in the early 70s that was way more to my taste -- so it wasn't until Michael broke out on his own that I paid attention again. Off the Wall took me totally by surprise, and I played it nonstop; I still think it's an extraordinary album. I got excited when Thriller came out, and it delivered the goods -- "Beat It," "Billie Jean," "Wanna Be Startin' Something," and the cryptic "Human Nature," which still kinda seems like Michael was trying to tell us something.

But in the MTV-dominated world of 1982 pop, Thriller got overplayed and overhyped and suddenly the spell snapped, at least for me. I stopped listening to Michael Jackson, and from then on he was just a curiosity to me, a mix of creepy tabloid stories and baffling reports of sold-out arenas. I knew absolutely nobody who listened to the so-called King of Pop.

And the stories got creepier. And the death story was gruesome. And how could you even listen to his music anymore?

So when my Spotify algorithm suggested this song for a playlist I was making, I almost clicked over it. But I didn't -- and it took about 10 seconds for me to be seduced by this song. It went straight onto the playlist, and every time it comes on I laugh out loud with joy. Listen and I think you'll see why. 

 

Now, I wasn't aware of this song when it first came out in 1978 -- it was recorded not by Michael solo but by the Jacksons, as they had to rename themselves after leaving Motown. Michael was already one foot out the door -- Off the Wall would come out just a few months later -- but in this video, they are still pretty adorably a brother act, with matching Afros and sunny smiles. Michael hasn't yet bleached his skin or changed his nose, and even though he's clearly front and center, Marlon and Randy and Tito and Jackie are still in the picture. 

But more than that, it's an infectious dance track with hooks galore and no matter who recorded it, it will get me out of my chair and dancing EVERY TIME. 

There's an odd story behind the song. It was actually written by a guy named, yes, Mick Jackson (what are the odds?), an English singer-songwriter with only a couple of albums to his name. This is far and away his biggest hit, and even when he wrote it, he was thinking of it as a number he might be able to sell to Stevie Wonder. (This is probably why my personal trainer always thinks it's Stevie when it comes on my workout playlist, as it often does.) Here's Mick's recording -- a genial little disco groove, but nothing memorable.

 

Mick released his version in 1978, but the Jacksons' manager heard it pre-release at a showcase, snapped it up, and somehow got the Jacksons to record their version so fast that it was actually released before Mick Jackson's.

Well, sorry Mick, but the Jacksons' track is head and shoulders better. They've taken the tempo up a tick, added a funky bass line, and brought the harmonies forward on those key words in the chorus, both the stuff you can't blame it on -- "sunshine," "moonlight," "good times" -- and the real culprit, snuck in as if no one if listening, "boogie."  I love it when everything else drops out and it's just a capella on those harmonies.

This is just pure fun distilled into three minutes and thirty-two seconds, and it restores my faith in the King of Pop. 

"Another Day"/"Silly Love Songs"/"Goodnight Tonight" / Paul McCartney & Wings

 I was wrong about Paul McCartney.

Mind you, I've been in love with this man since February 1964. And I'll go to my grave insisting that McCartney was the true musical genius of the Beatles, with a melodic gift on the level of Cole Porter and Puccini and Mozart. (I'll grant that Lennon might have been the literary genius of the band.) I'd say more but I'm saving it for my masters thesis, when and if that ever happens.

I've never wavered from loving Paul's early solo albums (McCartney and Ram for sure, and I'll go deep on the often-undervalued Wild Life.) When Wings came along, I obsessed over Band on the Run (still one of my favorite albums of all time), and played all the other albums endlessly. For all of Paul's solo albums since then, it's never been hard to find gold. 

But Paul's pop singles -- especially in the 70s, when everyone was obsessively comparing the ex-Beatles' solo careers -- well, those were another matter altogether. Were they cheesy? Possibly they were cheesy -- I couldn't decide. And when other music fans I respected dissed those tracks, I backed off. (The fact that those songs sold like crazy was beside the point.) I became convinced that Macca had no one around him who'd tell him when something was not up to his best. If only I could become the one person Paul trusted (naturally, because he was in love with me -- oh, don't get me started), I could help him out by telling him that those tracks were crap. 

But were they?

I've spent the last 48 hours listening to these 3 tracks over and over, and I am gobsmacked.

Let's start with "Another Day," Paul's 1971 debut single as a solo artist. I'm sure I disliked it when it first came out because Paul wrote it with his new wife Linda, and I was sore that he'd married her. I was also disappointed that he seemed to be trying to write another "Eleanor Rigby," describing the sad routine of a lonely woman -- dressing in the morning, drinking coffee at the office, going to the post office. Yet the tune is so boppy and perky, it seemed like there was a disconnect. 

But I listen to it now, and I see how the perkiness is just the brave face the woman puts on, staving off the quiet despair that is so clear in the lyrics. And it's complemented by the other half of the song, which switches to a poignant minor key waltz ("Sad / so sad /sometimes she feels so sad") as she fantasizes about the man of her dreams, who in reality is a cad who leaves her. It's a heartbreaker, and I'm drawn in by its genuine sympathy for this nameless woman. That sort of observational social commentary was always Paul's thing in the Beatles era. If I hadn't been so jealous of Paul's marriage, I'd have gotten this years ago.

It was songs like this, I suppose, that John Lennon mocked Paul for. Paul defended himself by writing 1976's "Silly Love Songs." It's the song that Macca-haters bring up first when they're trying to prove that he's a lightweight, and therefore it was for years the song that made me most embarrassed to still be a Paul McCartney fangirl. But I am so over that now. If you actually listen to this song's melodic energy, it's hard to resist. 

Simple? It's anything but. Listen to how it builds and builds, interweaving various melodic themes (not so different from the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations," which when you think about it is also pretty much just a silly love song). When the whole thing gets going, it's all contrapuntal and polyrhythmic; you could crawl inside it and get lost. My heart kicks over at that surprisingly insightful middle eight: "Love doesn't come in a minute / Sometimes it doesn't come at all / I only know when I'm in it / Love isn't silly, love isn't silly at all." (Rhyming "minute" and "in it" = genius.)  And yes, it helps that this song is a perfect vehicle for McCartney's voice. It's also one of the catchiest tunes he ever wrote, which I know isn't the point, but it is the point. Paul, I am so sorry for taking this song on face value. Can you ever forgive me?

And finally I started listening to "Goodnight Tonight," which came out in 1979. I don't think I EVER listened to this single back in the day. It seemed to me that Paul was selling out by going disco, and I was a New Wave girl who hated disco. But while I'm sure it played in dance clubs, this is so much more than a mindless disco track.

The rhythmic patterns of this track are insane. That Latin percussion, the saucy guitar licks, the flamenco guitar in the middle eight -- and let's not overlook the gorgeously melodic bass line (another topic for my masters thesis: how Paul McCartney transformed the role of the bass in rock music). Lyrics? Pretty much non-existent, just repeated "Don't say it / don't say it / don't say it / Don't say goodnight tonight," though the verse has a lovely leaping plea ("Don't say goodnight to love"). It's basically a seduction track, but it's so joyful and tender. Again, a track you can get lost in -- and now that I'm not fighting the disco wars, I am very happy to sink into its groove.

So after all these years, mea culpa, Paul. I doubted you and I was wrong. 

And now that we've cleared that up, any chance you'd still take me on as your most trusted crap tester (with benefits)? Because I'm totally available for the job...

 

 

"You're So Vain" / Carly Simon

Lately it seems every song I get hooked on turns out to be something I've written about before. So I'm thoroughly jazzed to discover that this earworm -- which has been haunting me since I put it on a solar eclipse playlist for April 8th ("you flew your LearJet to Nova Scotia / to see the total eclipse of the sun") -- is fresh territory.

Honestly?

I mean, when it hit the airwaves in November 1972, this song was everywhere. And I know you know it, so don't pretend you don't.

That fall I had just discovered a local "all hits all the time" radio station in Springfield, MA, that I played constantly (no Spotify back then, kids, no computers -- I actually played this on my clock radio, since I didn't even own a car at the time). This rolled up regularly, alongside the Doobie Brothers ("Listen to the Music"), America ("Ventura Highway"), and Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show ("Cover of Rolling Stone," which -- prepare to have your mind blown -- was actually written by Shel Silverstein). And yes, also Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman," so Carly wasn't the only chick putting out feminist manifestos at the time.

Simon had already been on my radar, with her moody, angsty "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," which came out a year and a half earlier, blowing my young mind by questioning the marriage/kids imperative. 

But this song? This was full-on female swagger and sass, with perfect pop instincts. Best of all: It's a riddle for the ages. Because who exactly WAS this egotistic ex she's skewering? Mick Jagger? David Bowie? Warren Beatty? David Cassidy? The one person she has definitively said it wasn't was James Taylor, whom she'd married just before the song came out. Damn -- way to play your cards, Carly.

But all that buzz obscures Carly's classic songwriting chops. She starts in verse one with a skewering real-time shot of the preening male diva -- "You walked into the party / Like you were walking onto a yacht / Your hair strategically dipped below one eye / Your scarf it was apricot." In verse two she widens the shot to Mr. X's jet-setting activities, at the Saratoga racetrack ("where your horse naturally won") and up in Nova Scotia viewing the aforementioned eclipse. How coolly she backs into her devastating remark, "You're where you should be all the time / And when you're not you're with / Some underground spy or the wife of a close friend..."

And then in verse three she makes it personal. "You had me several years ago / When I was quite naive." Has she moved on? Enigmatically, she comes back with "I had some dreams /They were clouds in my coffee / Clouds in my coffee..." Well there's a whole world there to explore.

Funny thing is -- fifty years on, I can still sing every word of this song. Hard-wired, I tell you.

Happy St. Paddy's from Dexys Midnight Runners

Yes, those Dexys Midnight Runners, and don't pretend you didn't love their big 1982 hit "Come On Eileen." Just in case you were on another planet when this single hit the airwaves, here's my previous post on that beloved hit. 

Dexys Midnight Runners generally get clocked as a one-hit band. But just listen to this track, the first single released from Dexys 1982 album Too-Rye-Ay (and the album's first track). What's sad is that I've never heard it before, and it's actually every bit as catchy and delightful as "Come On Eileen."

Everyone's having fun here, the scrappy vibe propels it forward (those spiky fiddles playing like a soul band's horn section), and there's a riff I can't get out of my head. 

We could be listening to the Dubliners and the Chieftans singing the auld tunes on St. Patrick's Day or we could be having a rare bit o' fun with Kevin Rowland (aka Dexy). I know which side of the soda bread I'm slathering my Kerrygold butter on.

"The Guy Who Doesn't Get It" / Jill Sobule

Okay, this song has been obsessively occupying my cerebral cortex for at least a week now. Maybe writing a blog post is the only way to exorcise it. Trouble is -- and this, dear readers, is at least two-thirds of why I so rarely post these days -- I've already written about this song. Back in 2007, in fact. Because the songs I love keep coming back to me, and this is one I really love.

Way early in my blogging days, back when iTunes still was a Wild West of user-posted playlists (like Spotify was just a few years ago), you could actually discover new artists from other music fans. Somehow I landed on someone's playlist of great girl singers, or something like that, which is where I first found this song. I instantly fell in love with Jill Sobule's music. I'm way down that road now; I've bought all her albums, seen her several times in concert, subscribed to her Patreon account. So writing about this song is more than deja vu all over again. It's a tribute to how satisfying it is when you see how right your first impressions were.  

Jill Sobule is like this great girlfriend you can sit up late with, drinking margaritas and eating Doritos and getting slaphappy. Her songs are so perky, her voice so kittenish, you don't realize at first how snarky her lyrics are; then suddenly you're in on the joke and you love it -- like in this brilliant song from her Pink Pearl album (2000).

The joke here is not that the girl singing the song is suicidally depressed -- although she is -- it's that her obtuse boyfriend hasn't got a clue. "Can't you see that I am dying inside?", she starts singing, in that sweet-and-innocent voice, even before the listless acoustic guitar and bored-sounding drums lurch in -- "Can't you hear my muffled cry?" On the second verse, a lazy slide guitar joins in as she wearily elaborates: "Don't you know my life's a quiet hell? / I'm a black hole, I'm an empty shell / Does it occur to you that I might need help?/ You're the guy who doesn't get it."

Okay, that's the premise; we've all known/dated/married men like this. But then, Jill being Jill, she pushes the scenario into Luis Bunuel territory: "Say I'm in the tub with a razor blade / You'd walk in and ask me "How was your day?" / Then you'd lather up and start to shave / As I bleed on the new tile floor..." The NEW tile floor; that's the detail that grabs me -- trust a woman to notice, even as she's slitting her wrists, that the blood's going to ruin her nice new floor.

She could say anything and he'd never notice. In the next verse, she compares him to Nazi collaborators; in the second bridge she hauls out one more melodramatic scenario: "Say the car exhaust engulfs my brain/ The Nembutol is racing through my veins / You come in and ask "Are you okay?"/ As I close my eyes forever." Pause and -- wait for it! But, erm...

A plunking piano ambles in, as if it's not even worth the effort to get the notes right. Jill tries the chorus one last time, asking wryly, "What's going on inside those vacant eyes?" And of course she has no answer -- none of us do. None of us ever do. But sometimes, the only thing that keeps you sane is knowing that at least your girlfriends know just what you're talking about.

"I Say a Little Prayer for You" -- A Bacharach Smackdown

When Burt Bacharach died in February, I started making a playlist -- as one does -- and found myself having to make a lot of choices. I mean, I couldn't have the Dionne Warwick version of every song. In some cases, it was a coin flip -- go with Dusty Springfield here, opt for Jackie DeShannon there, a little Sandie Shaw here, a little Karen Carpenter there. Throw in some Isaac Hayes and a touch of Herb Alpert, and you start to realize just what genius songwriting Burt Bacharach and Hal David were guilty of.

Now don't get me wrong: In the world of Bacharach, Dionne Warwick more than earned her stripes. She not only had the voice he needed -- the range, the clarity, the pitch, the emotional texture -- she also had the musical intelligence for a composer who liked changing keys and time signature so much, damn all the pop music conventions. A child of a gospel choir family, she'd also gone to a music conservatory; she knew her stuff. Bacharach himself called her his muse, and I'll fight you to the death for her versions of "Don't Make Me Over," "Do You Know the Way to San Jose," and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." 

But then I ran smack into this conundrum. 

I grew upon Dionne's million-selling 1966 single "I Say a Little Prayer for You." It's a masterpiece, no doubt about it. It's got that brisk scat-like rhythm, the crisp muted horns, and an indefinable undertow of something I can only call Santa Monica surf. And there's Dionne's vocal, delicate and yet razor sharp, recounting all the ways in which she thinks of her man throughout her day. Hal David's lyrics deftly walk us through her day -- waking up, applying her make-up, riding the bus to work, taking a coffee break -- she's a career girl, she has it together, and she's happily in love. David apparently intended the song to be about a woman whose lover/husband is serving in Vietnam (1966, mind you), but there's nothing anxious about this track. She shouts her love to the rooftops (the chorus exults, "Forever, forever, we never will part, oh how I love you") and she's down on her knees thanking God for blessing her with such a love. It's sunny and delicious. As a pre-teen, this told me everything I wanted to believe about how wonderful it would be as a grown-up -- a competent modern female -- to love and be loved.

But now that I am a grown-up, why does Aretha Franklin's version pack such a punch? The edgy growl in Aretha's voice clues us in from the get-go: She's worried about this guy, and for good reason. With that gritty soul arrangement and the gospel choir of girlfriends doing the call and response, she's testifying to her anxieties. Whereas Dionne I imagine springing out of bed, Aretha seems to be hauling herself groggily out from under the covers; Dionne is patting her coiffure into place while Aretha yanks a comb through her hair, attacking those overnight tangles. She doesn't have a lot of down time, and when she does -- the bus ride, the coffee break -- it just opens the door for worrying. Whether he's in Nam and just a no-good lowlife, she's praying for him, asking for protection. Gratitude? Forget about it. She doesn't trust him, she's waiting for bad news. And all those details about her daily life read as the strength of a woman who keeps putting one foot in front of the other, getting up, going to her job, because she's learned she can't depend on anyone else -- and surely not on that man. Even the chorus reads differently: I zero in instead on the feisty lines "Together, forever, that's how it must be / To live without you / Would only mean heartbreak for me..." She can already taste the heartbreak, because she's tasted it before. This is a whole 'nother song.

Well, I put both in my playlist. How could I not? But I'd love to hear which one speaks most to you...

"Summer of My Wasted Youth" / Amy Rigby

October 3rd, the Loft at City Winery, and I'm finally committing myself to an indoor show in a small space where no one is masked. Do I freak out? Well, for a few minutes, but once I'm there, it's easy to forget what year this is. I'm with my longtime crew of Kinky/Jiggy friends, I'm at my old City Winery stomping grounds (well, um, they moved during the pandemic so it's actually a new place, but they've still got the City Cab on tap and great flatbread pizzas).

My friends are here for the opening act, Rogers & Butler, and they do a bang-up job. Really good band, and great songwriting, although since we are sitting at the edge of the stage we can only hear bass and drums and no lyrics. Erp. Because I am actually here for the headliner, one of my top Girl Songwriters of all time, Amy Rigby. I put her right up there with Jill Sobule, Aimee Mann, and Jenny Lewis in my pantheon of chicks who do the feminist thing with wit and irony and a whole lotta snark. And, being a Lyrics Girl, I really want to hear Amy Rigby's lyrics.

But then she pulls out this old acoustic number, from her 1998 album Middlescence (you can also find it on the excellent 18 Again: An Anthology), and I am a puddle of emotion. 

Most of us have had a time like this, where even if you did have a job (or, as Amy puts it, a "j-o-b," as if it were something dirty and unmentionable), it was a dead-end job you didn't care about. When everything seemed possible and nothing seemed urgent; when your pleasure-to-obligation ratio was WAY skewed to the pleasure end of the equation. 

It's a brilliant title, playing off on that old-fart trope ("ah, my wasted youth" or "youth is wasted on the young") with the truth of the matter, which is that they were also wasted most of the time, dropping acid, smoking pot all day, drinking cheap beers at the Polish bar. Still, was it wasted time?  I beg to differ. She buys a guitar, though she hasn't yet learned to play it; she floods her brain with country music. Whatever music she'll eventually make is in there, gestating. 

A sense of loss haunts every line, the realization that the freedom and fun of the summer of '83 has since vanished. Listening the other night, I was especially hit by that one line, almost a throwaway line: "the summer I believed in us" -- you know from the past tense that she's no longer with that guy, and only now can she see how much disillusion and heartbreak was lying in wait for her in the fall of '83. 

Still, though you can't go back again (and would you really want to?), sometimes you can reconnect with who you used to be. Maybe it's because over the pandemic I went to my high school reunion and stirred up all those old memories; maybe it's because I'm zeroing in on the Medicare years and have a heightened sense of time passing. But this song flushes up so many feelings about one summer in Indianapolis -- not '83, but not much earlier -- and I realize I kinda miss the girl I was then.

Thank you, Amy Rigby, for giving her back to me.

"Well I Done Got Over It" / Bobby Mitchell

Lord know where I chanced upon this beauty -- some show we were watching this summer. (I suspect it was the riveting Chris Rock season of Fargo.) But the minute I heard it, I knew it was going onto my permanent playlist. Have a listen:

Here's what little I know about Bobby Mitchell: Born in Algiers, Louisiana, he had a few local hits with high school friends the Toppers in 1953 when he was just 17; a year later the band broke up when several members got drafted. Bobby kept at the music thing, though,and while he never broke through to national fame, he was a fixture on the New Orleans R&B scene until he died in his 50s.

This particular song was originally recorded by Guitar Slim in 1953 as a slouchy blues number. It's since been covered by Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, and I'm sure a host of others. But listen to how Bobby Mitchell transforms it. He leads off with a howl of frustration, a la the Isley Brothers' "Shout" (Mitchell recorded this in 1960, a year after "Shout"), then goes into a finger-snapping cha-cha beat, with a taunting sax and jittery splashes of roadhouse piano. His woman has done him wrong, and no matter how often he claims he's gotten over it, we know he's still riled up. 

Almost as if to punish himself, he keeps rehearsing the facts of the case ("I didn't want you to be no angel"; "Every time I turned my back / You was out with some other man"; "I remember the day I first met you / You seemed to be this sweet little thing..."). He still can't believe he let her fool him like that. And of course, this being a blues song, he has to repeat the title phrase over and over, but with Bobby, it's as if he's still trying to convince himself. Fact is, he is anything but over it.

This song just crackles with energy, with hurt, with drama. We're in the thick of it with him, and there's no telling how things will end up. Mitchell's vocal is supple, emotive, and oh so relatable. It's just a crazy wonderful song, and I can't believe it's as obscure as it seems to be. Which just tells you, there's so much good music out there we have yet to find...   

"Ooh La La" / Faces

I'm pretty sure I didn't hear this song on US radio when it was released in May 1973. Yet I'm guessing it has played on enough movie and TV soundtracks since then that it seems totally familiar to me now. And when it came up on Spotify a couple weeks ago, my immediate response was -- "Oh, this song -- I love this song!" And it hasn't left my head since. 

In 1973, if I knew anything about the band Faces, it was that Rod Stewart was their lead singer. At first I'd loved his 1971 solo hit "Maggie May," but I quickly got tired of him as a solo artist. So why would I be interested in Faces?

But here's the thing: Rod Stewart has nothing to do with this track. It was written by the two Ronnies -- Lane and Wood (yes, that Ron Wood, now of the Rolling Stones) -- and although Ronnie Lane usually did lead vocals when His Rodness couldn't be bothered, in this case good ol' Woody took the mike, a rare occasion. 

This may be the album's title track, but it lands as the last track of Side B, and it's anything but a statement song: It's as loose-limbed and carefree as could be. To me, it could just as easily be The Band; it's all acoustic twang, clogging shuffle, and drawl, and Ron Wood's vocals have an unaffected Rick Danko quality that's totally endearing. It's got an offbeat jerky tempo and a rambling melodic line and, well, you just have to collapse into it.

The song's premise is simple -- a grandfather telling a youngster "I wish that I knew what I know now / When I was younger." Lane and Wood were still in their twenties when they wrote this, so hardly grizzled oldsters dispensing advice. But it's not portentous (not like Bob Dylan's "My Back Pages" or Cat Steven's "Father and Son"); the old guy's basically giving the kid tips on how to avoid floozies, and the kid doesn't listen, and now he's woefully sorry. And life goes on...

Aha! My research now tells me where I first learned to love this song: It's played over the end credits of Wes Anderson's Rushmore. (Which honestly is one of the best soundtrack albums ever. I adore Wes Anderson.*) It all makes sense now.

Well, hell, take a listen. Put your feet up. Enjoy. 

*Go see his new film The French Dispatch -- it's a wondrous delight!!

 

 

 

 

 

"Let's Go Surfing" / The Drums

For years I resisted Spotify and now I'm a convert. Because Spotify gives me what iTunes used to and no longer does: User-created playlists. Some of my favorite artists today I only know because of iTunes user playlists. So how happy am I that I can now discover totally new-to-me songs like this 2009 indie pop gem?

Who are the Drums? I'd never heard of them before this song swam onto my radar. They're an NYC band founded in 2008, and this is the first track from their debut EP Summertime! (They've since released five albums; band members come and go, but the one constant is front man Jonny Pierce.) I haven't yet got around to exploring the rest of their music, I'm still just grooving on this track. Apparently it made more of a splash in the UK than here; go figure. 

I dig that peppy backbeat rhythm track, with its retro New Wave energy, and how it plays against the legato melodic line of the verses. Pierce's vocal coaxes us, "Wake up, / It's a beautiful morning" and I'm ready to go. The chorus swerves into plaintive punk-y mode ("Oh mama / I wanna go surfing / Oh mama / I don't care about nothing"), then turns a little dazed and confused in the chanted monotonic bridge ("Down down baby / down by the rollercoaster"). It's all hooks all the time, and I love it. 

And the best thing about this damn song? That earworm whistling riff.

It's just fun, just pure fun. Enjoy.

 

 

"Sway" / Dean Martin

How did I get here? I have no idea. We've been working our way through the classic TV series The Sopranos, which sneaks in a ton of iconic Frankie and Deano music, and a recent episode of the adorably quirky What We Do in the Shadows features a faux Rat Pack. But this particular Dean Martin track was already on my iTunes, and every time I listen to it I fall more in love with it. 

Now, I greatly admire the work of Francis Albert Sinatra, and I feel a fond buzz for Sammy Davis Jr. But Dean Martin is my Rat Pack fave. I mean, listen to the warmth of that voice, those emotive swoops and shivers. That mambo rhythm is so freaking seductive, and Dean's delivery adds an extra shiver of excitement. ("When we sway I go weak..."). Is it overproduced? Yeah, maybe, but I wouldn't give up those strings for anything.

"You know how, sway me smooth, sway-hay me now..."

"Sway" is Dean before he became enshrined as Deano, when he was still known mostly as Jerry Lewis' straight man. (Yet another mind-blowing layer of Dean Martin's career.) While Martin was one of many 50s Italian crooners, this song isn't Italian at all; it was written as "Quien Sera?" in 1953 by Mexican bandleader Pablo Beltran Ruiz, rewritten with English lyrics by Norman Gimbel (who a decade later would translate for us "The Girl from Ipanema"). Martin recorded it soon after the original, in 1954. It wasn't his biggest hit ever -- for that, you'd have to go to his schmaltzy 1963 "Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime" -- but it did hit a respectable #15 in the US. And for my money, this sexy supple number blows that hit out of the water.

Because the wink-wink was always Dean Martin's ace in the hole. Sinatra was ineffably cool, Davis was earnest, Martin was ironic. He had to be ironic to stand up against Jerry Lewis' full-frontal low-brow comedy; in the Matt Helm movies, he was the ironic anti-Bond. His weird and wonderful late 60s-early 70s TV show The Dean Martin Show was, I firmly believe, a groundbreaking post-Laugh In send-up of the variety show genre. He cultivated a drunk persona to give himself room to be loose, to improvise, to be in real time.

The irony here is all flirtation, of course, the engaging to-and-fro of the mambo. Yet it feels remarkably sincere, doesn't it? I love it. I hope you do too.

"Autumn Almanac" / The Kinks

Fall is hands-down my favorite season. I mentioned that to my husband the other day and he huffed and said, "I guess." But it isn't up to him; it's MY favorite season. 

First, because it's the time of year when you go back to school, and I was always that annoying girl who couldn't wait for school to start again. (Cue up the Staples commercial.)

Second, I have a fall birthday (October 8 if you have your calendar handy), and third, I grew up in Indiana where the fall colors are every bit as awesome as they are in New England. Though, lucky me, I now live in New England where I can enjoy them there too. 

Plus I wrote my college thesis on John Keats, whose ode "To Autumn" is on my short list of the greatest poems of all time.

So naturally this Kinks song should tick all my boxes. But oh my brothers and sisters, it is a Kinks song, written by the Kinks' presiding genius Ray Davies, and therefore . . . well, sit back and strap in. 

It opens with timeless pastoral charm: “From the dew-soaked hedge creeps a crawly caterpillar"; "Breeze blows leaves of a musty-colored yellow"; his friends gather for “tea and toasted buttered currant buns.” The sound is an old-timey music hall softshoe, with corny horns, plinky piano, and sugary backing ooh’s; good times, good times.

But once Ray Davies has hooked us, he begins to sneak in class details, the satire layering in plumping rhythms: “I like my football on a Saturday, / Roast beef on Sundays, all right. / I go to Blackpool for my holidays, / Sit in the open sunlight.” (Any Ted Lasso fans here?)

In the last verse, Ray lets his narrator hang himself: “This is my street / And I’m never gonna leave it,” he stoutly declares, “And I’m always gonna stay here / If I live to be 99 / ‘Cos all the people I meet / Seem to come from my street”). Well, yeah, if you never go anywhere else, that’s who you’re bound to meet, innit?

This single was released October 13, 1967. I see it as an answer to the Beatles' single "Rain," which came out in May 1966: The Beatles dreamily sitting in an English garden, waiting for the sun, while the Kinks -- blocked by a US ban from touring internationally -- focused on the guy who swept the garden's leaves into his sack. Yin and yang.

But what strikes me most in 2021 is how eerily well Ray Davies captured the owner of that garden, that little tract of English earth. Far from being a nature lover, a friend of the planet, he closes himself off from everything outside his garden gate. He votes for Brexit; and if he's American, he votes for white supremacy, for anti-vaxxing, for Trump. 

Deep breath. 

On the other hand, it's just a brilliant pop song, where moon-and-June love lyrics have been thrown out the window in favor of sneaky satire and a damn good pub singalong. 

God save the Kinks.

"Der Kommissar" -- After the Fire

Sometimes the song finds you. 

Okay, so everybody else is writing about the Rolling Stones and how sad they are about Charlie Watts dying. Yet here I am, fulfilling the brief of this blog, writing about this strange piece of 80s flotsam just because I can't get it out of my head.

Spotify cast this song my way, on some random exercise playlist. Of course I knew it -- well, sorta -- but did I? As the kids used to say on American Bandstand, it had a great beat and I could dance to it. But that simply doesn't account for how it has lodged in my brain for the past couple of weeks. And so, apologies in advance if I am now passing that earworm on to you.

 

For years I've maintained that the 80s was a decade that nearly killed music. But Spotify algorithms betray me again and again, and now I have to face how much 80s music I actually do love. Not that I know much about this band, After the Fire. Wikipedia tells me they were a British prog-rock band with Christian overtones, who went New Wave around 1979. This 1982 track -- an English-language cover of an 1981 song by Austrian artist Falco -- was their one and only US hit, and they split soon after. Which is a shame, because this catchy number ticks off all the boxes on the New Wave checklist: whipsaw rhythms, synths, offbeat subject matter -- and you can't deny the hooks.

Yes, it's more than a little paranoid -- all those repeated "Don't turn arounds" and that ominous "The more you live, the faster you will die." But those of us who grew up fearing both the Nazis and the Commies easily feed into this.  Downward driving melodic lines smash up against propulsive "uh-ohs." In 1982, the Cold War was still engaged, the Berlin wall was still in place. This song earns its edgy vibe.

Maybe this wouldn't have climbed the charts if the video hadn't been so stylish and cool. After all, this was the MTV era, when a snazzy video could leapfrog a song to chart success. But I don't even remember the video, and I respond like a lab rat to this song's strangulated vocals, jerky syncopations,  and sexy undertone.

It makes me laugh out loud and it makes me want to dance. And in this crazy world, what more could you want?

Still Crazy After All These Years

 Well, it's been a while, and I've got no excuse. Except maybe the pandemic, and who isn't tired of hearing about that? So let's just strike a line through that and pick up where we left off. And my shuffle tells me this is a good track to land on. 

 

 

This single came out in 1976, just after I'd left the USA to live in England for a while. (Just as Paul Simon had, before the Sounds of Silence's strange revival re-launched his career.) 

But honestly, even though Simon and Garfunkel had been so significant in my musical upbringing, at this moment in time I had lost interest. As one does. 

At the time, I probably wouldn't have appreciated Simon's world-weary folk-rock shrug about meeting an old lover. Maybe I was too young to relate to the song's duality: Between nostalgia for the past and energy for new horizons. 

But I'm older now, and wiser. And -- yes -- this song now makes total sense to me. 

And here's hoping that, whatever goes down, I remain crazy, as needs be.

Shadow Sgt. Pepper's

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6aO6I1ee54Eijz0XzCf0QKMy quest: to put together an entire Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band track list, using only cover versions.  Let's call it my Shadow Sgt. Pepper's.

Now, Sgt. Pepper's isn't just a landmark in pop history, it's a landmark in my personal pop biography. Back when it was released, in the summer of 1967 -- a.k.a. the Summer of Love -- I was a geeky pre-teen in Indianapolis, far from the capitals of cool. I had to depend on my 16-year-old brother to clue me into the secret messages on this baffling new LP.  He owned the record, so I had to wait until he wasn't home to steal it, decoding this treasure box of music in my own pink bedroom with the canopy bed.

For those of us who grew up spinning Sgt. Pepper's on a vinyl turntable, the order of the songs is fixed and immutable. My challenge was not only to find brilliant and creative covers -- NOT mere slavish imitations of the originals -- but also to get a sequence that would flow as well as the original album did.

Here's what I came up with, loaded into one Spotify playlist. Face it, I'm still that geeky pre-teen, obsessed with Sgt. Pepper's.

"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
Cover by Jimi Hendrix
At first I resisted -- I am no Jimi Hendrix fan.  I just don't get it. Great guitarist, okay, but he rarely delivers what I want out of a rock song. Nevertheless, his whacked-out version of this opening track -- which I've read he was performing already in Stockholm 2 days after the LP was released -- puts a loose and goofy and utterly delicious spin on the original. He opens the throttle and lets its rock soul really soar, adding a little loungy soul-man stuff of his own.


"With a Little Help From My Friends"
Cover by Johnny Chauvin and the Mojo Band
I love the old-timey music-hall shuffle of the original, supremely perfect for Ringo Starr's limited voice. So what's an American equivalent of the British music hall sound? How about a little uptempo Cajun zydeco from this bar band out of Lafayette, Louisiana?  Chauvin's voice is infinitely better than Ringo's; he doesn't sound quite so hapless, but he sure does seem to enjoy the help of his band buddies. Lots of squeezebox going on, but some lively electric guitar, too. This song just makes me feel happy.


"Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds"
Cover by Beth Hart and the Ocean of Soul 

Everyone knows this track as a psychedelic milestone -- but what if you made it a wild soul-blues anthem? As my West Coast girl Beth Hart does, with flagrant abandon. I've been a fan of hers since a random Sirius radio showcase seven years ago -- dive deep into this track,  sister!

"Getting Better"
Cover by Gomez
From their 2000 compilation Abandoned Shopping Trolley Hotline, this cover from the English indie band Gomez finds a mellow vibe within this anxious track. Rhythms swing; the rumpled texture of the singer's voice -- think of it as bed-head vocals -- convey a sort of let's-do-brunch weekend zen. (Gomez fans, please help me out -- which guy is this singing?  I looooove his voice.) As Paul sang it, his new love was just beginning to make his life better; Gomez is practically dizzy with uxorious contentment.  Funny how little it takes to change a song.

"Fixing a Hole"
Cover by the Wood Brothers
As I was just saying the other day....


"She's Leaving Home"
Cover by Harry Nilsson
Lord, I loves me some Harry Nilsson. How delighted was I to find this song, on his 1967 album Pandemonium Shadow Show, released the same year as Sgt. Pepper. Like Hendrix, Nilsson was covering this song while it was still new, before it had been ossified by years of familiarity. He delves deep, discovering bittersweet depths within it that to my mind outdo Paul's earnest rendition. I think of Harry Nilsson as one of our greatest interpreters of abandonment -- forever missing the father who walked out on him -- yet his sweetly yearning vocals always adding consoling heart to a song. He throws in an orchestra, he adds some weird percussion sound effects, he goes movie-music with this generation-gap melodrama -- and somehow it works. The haunting social commentary becomes a tender universal statement of loss and change. John's snide line "Fun is the one thing that money can't buy"? It's downright plangent when Harry sings it. I imagine John and Paul listening to this album in 1967 and thinking, "Wow -- we wrote that song?" That's my measure of their genius -- that their songs contain more than they ever consciously realized.


"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite"
Cover by Will Taylor and Strings Attached

"Mr. Kite" is such a freak-show of a song, it's really hard to top what Lennon did with it without going overboard.  Yet I like how this Austin ensemble pushes the envelope even further. Tons of strings, banjos, blues guitar, the whole works. They switch around tempos, they go deep into the psychedelic effects, and the vocalist (someone named Will Walden?) takes liberties with the melody. Sure, it runs on, but so did the original -- a good song to fall asleep to if you wanted some strange dreams. And dig the little surprise at the end.

"Within You, Without You"
Cover by Big Head Todd & the Monsters

This 90s band out of Colorado dives to the trippy heart of this song. Recorded for a George Harrison tribute album, it adds layers of shimmer and distortion that George Martin would never have imagined, then serves it all up with a blues jam twist. About time somebody put a little unh-hunh to raga rock.


"When I'm Sixty-Four"
Cover by Cowboys on Dope
Now this is a hoot. A German country-rock band tackles this Paul McCartney music-hall chestnut and totally transforms it.  Minor key, for one thing -- how brilliant! The "cowboy" part of their name adds some down-and-dirty twang, but it's the "dope" part -- the gritty woozy undertone -- that makes this so delectable. And why shouldn't boozy losers also be able to imagine knitting by the fireside and renting a cottage by the Isle of Wight?


"Lovely Rita"
Cover by Fats Domino
Okay, so maybe he loses the campy irony of the original.  Still, the King of New Orleans soul is out to score with this lady Rita, and he lays out some considerable charm to do so. Most telling variation from the original: "When are you free to have a drink [NOT TEA] with me?" The loungy tempo, the playful vocals -- it's all good, sugar.

"Good Morning Good Morning"
Cover by Micky Dolenz
 All right, yeah, I was obsessed with the Monkees in the fall of 1966; for a while there, Davy Jones even toppled Paul McCartney from my fangirl list of must-haves. But it was Micky who really made the Monkees work as a rock/pop band, and now I can admit that. This gem from his 2012 solo album Remember kicks Lennon's tortured bio-tune into easy samba mode, and it comes out surprisingly well. I would have thought that this angry, conflicted song could never be dialed back to yoga mode. I was wrong.


"Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)"
Cover by the Persuasions
The original reprise offered a distinct contrast to the opening track -- let's go for contrast again. Whereas we had Jimi Hendrix jamming it up for Track 1, let's dial things back to 60s doo-wop with the Persuasions, jacking up the tempo and adding an insouciant wink of fun.


"A Day in the Life"
Cover by John Mark Nelson
Coda or climax? It's never been clear which "A Day in the Life" was meant to be, and let's leave it in glorious ambiguity. This version is from the Minnesota Beatle Project, an intriguing 4-CD series (2009-2012) that celebrates a panoply of Minnesotans tackling Beatles material. A wunderkind from Minnetonka, MN, young John Mark Nelson somehow gets this complex and ambiguous song. He changes up the tempos and alters the textures of the song even more radically than John and Paul, intent on blending their disparate material, ever did. More importantly, Nelson restores to this song the youthful earnestness that we forgot it deserved. (Because really, how old were John and Paul when they wrote this sweeping indictment of mass media?)  His voice trembles with the sorrow that lives down deep in things - what more could this song deserve?

Shadow Rubber Soul

I can't help myself -- Revolver was so much fun, I just had to do another one, and what better than the magnificent Rubber Soul? Think of it as a birthday present to myself, my birthday being October 8th (the day before John Lennon's birthday, as I have been acutely aware since 1964).

Only one hitch:  The LP I bought with my babysitting money in 1966 was significantly different from the LP that was released in the UK in 1965, with various songs siphoned off for Beatles VI . Which tracklist should I follow? I've opted for the British version, because it's longer and just too juicy to resist.  But the song sequence of the platter I spun ad nauseum in my pink bedroom still has a hold on me....

To listen to these alternative tracks, listen to my Spotify playlist here.

Drive My Car
Cover by Bobby McFerrin
How delicious is this? The amazing Mr. McFerrin, creating an entire orchestra with just his own voice, which is perfect for this sprightly jazzy number, a classic escapist Paul track. Don't it just make you want to head out of town? Beep-beep unh beep-beep yah!

Norwegian Wood
Cover by Tim O'Brien
That plangent pennywhistle opening tells you we're going Appalachian with this eternally mystifying tale of the Girl Who Wouldn't Play By the Rules. What a groundbreaker it was back in the day: A chick who was even more elusive than the guys who wanted to make time with her. "She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh" -- a feminist statement if ever there was one. The ever-wonderful Tim O'Brien -- whom first I heard on a "Muswell Hillbillies" cover -- pushes this folk-rock classic into bluegrass territory, stripping away the Swinging London 1960s subtext. Here we are in 2013, and the mating dance is just as confused as ever.

You Won't See Me
Cover by Dennis Brown
Why not go reggae with this number?  The late great Jamaican star Dennis Brown infuses this edgy track with a mellow shrug of "whatever, mon."  When John Lennon sings it, you have the sense that he's lashing out at a girlfriend who doesn't measure up; Brown is just happily checking out. "Time after time / You refuse to even listen" --  that's your trip, sister, but he's already moved on.

Nowhere Man
Cover by Paul Westerberg
As already stated, I love this track to death -- a heartbreaking cover of an already heartbreaking song.

Think For Yourself
Cover by Molly Maher and Her Disbelievers 

From the wonderful Minnesota Beatles Project, this spiky feminist reading throws a little paprika in the face of this "don't fence me in" tune. Having a woman sing it instead of a man makes all the difference. When we heard George sing this in 1965, he was pushing back against all sorts of things -- smothering females, government interference -- but in Molly Maher's hands it's a groovy kick in the head against all the forces that be. Love how she plays with the melody, kicking it up a notch, flicking a corrective note, letting us all know that this girl is here and must be reckoned with. Got that, fellas?   

The Word
Cover by Bettye Lavette
The magnificent Bettye Lavette, reinterpreting Beatles classics as only a chick with some serious cred could do. Did the Beatles even know how funky this song could go? "Word" in 1965 meant some underground code, but let's bust that loose today, y'all. Check out 2:34 in this track -- you think this song is over? Take a deep breath, and oh yes, let's get down to where the word really happens....

Michelle
Cover by Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals
I've been a Ben Harper fan for a while now, having been turned on at the Tibet House benefit to #2 in my House of Bens. (Sorry, but Ben Folds grabbed the top spot years ago, but seriously, Ben H you rock the soulful dimension here.) When I was a kid, the sappy David and Jonathan single edged the Beatles original, but I'm open to interpretations, and the reggae-tinged Harper version offers some intriguing alternatives. Who is this Michelle, anyway?

What Goes On
Cover by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Remember these original roots rockers, of "Mr. Bojangles" fame? I love how they take this proto-country number and twang it up. The Beatles always hedged their bets with some country-esque tracks, and the NGDB rises to meet the challenge with an unapologetic twangy rendition of this secondary track.

Girl
Cover by Rhett Miller
Now you know I love Rhett Miller, lead singer for the Old 97s, alt.country faves who zoomed straight onto the list of My Guys. I dig the earnestness of his rendition, a perfect counterpoint to John Lennon's ambivalent approach to this girl. Where John sounds on the verge of dumping her, Rhett sounds entranced and intrigued by her mystifying ways. What we lose in the raw pain of Lennon's original, we gain in Miller's willingness to let the girl be her own person. A toss-up, in my book.

I'm Looking Through You
Cover by Ted Leo 

Paul's matching song to John's "Girl," the original of "I'm Looking Through"-- said to be written about his then-girlfriend Jane Asher, whom naturally I hated with a passion --  had a fair bit of snarl to it. But nothing like what Ted Leo brings to it, in this speeded-up, garage-y post-punk cover from 2005. Dial up some cheese-grater rhythm guitar, crashing cymbals, reverb, and hallucinatory feedback -- Paul's song was a gentle slap on the wrist compared to this. This guy is so outta there...

In My Life
Cover by Johnny Cash

John Lennon was 25 when he wrote this song (at least the verses -- McCartney did the middle eight), looking back at his Liverpool childhood. Johnny Cash was in his late sixties when he recorded this stripped-down acoustic cover, and the world-weary tenderness his gruff baritone brings to it proves what a great song it is. And his genius phrasing -- "Some forever . . . not for better" -- that fraught pause after "some are dead" -- this is how the song is sung by someone reflecting at the end of a rich, full, perplexing life. Sad that Lennon never lived long enough to give us a version like this.

Wait
Cover by Ben Kweller & Albert Hammond Jr.

My number 3 Ben, after Folds and Harper, but oh, I do love this guy too.  The tentative herky-jerky tempos of this track make you wait for it -- trembling on the interface -- "I know that you will wait for me." It's all about quivering on that junction, poised to go one way or another. Wait, in other words -- the essence of this track.  

If I Needed Someone
Cover by Randy Bachman

Canada is in the house! Randy Bachman -- yes, Winnipeg's own Randy Bachman, of Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive -- gives a slouchy jazz spin to this track on his 2018 tribute album to George Harrison. If the original was inspired by the Byrds and Indian classical music, this one has drunk the Steely Dan kool-aid. Whether or not this was written about Pattie Boyd, George wrapped up ambivalence and wistfulness in one fragile package. Randy Bachman, though? He's just enjoying his groove too much to commit to anything.

Run For Your Life
Cover by the Razorbacks
Let's go down-and-dirty rockabilly for this zinger of a song, which John Lennon years later designated the song he most regretted writing. If I hadn't already been a Paul Girl for Life, "Run For Your Life" would probably have been the final stroke that ruled out John for me. (Because in 1964, all Beatlemanic girls had to pick.) But the Razorbacks (more Canadians!) throw on an ironic redneck twang that somehow redeems this song. He's screeching up in his Pontiac Firebird, layin' down the law -- and there she is in her Daisy Dukes, all wide eyes and innocence -- aw, shucks, girl, you know I didn't mean it!

Revolver, Redux

A couple of years ago, obsessed by Beatles covers, I put together two playlists: One was the tracklist for the Beatles' album Rubber Soul, except it consists of cover versions of each song; the second was an all-covers version of the Beatles' iconic album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. 

Now I've done another one, this time for the Beatles' stunning 1966 album Revolver. As much of a Beatlemaniac as I was in 1966, I was a little young to figure out what was going on here, although the boys (well, really, Paul) obligingly offered up a few can't-miss hits like "Eleanor Rigby" and "Got to Get You Into My Life" to keep us baby boppers in the fold. But it was all a matter of time before this became one of my favorite LPs of all time. 

As Blogger has recently changed its interface, I'm trying something new: instead of inserting separate videos for each cover song, I've collected them all in a Spotify playlist. (Apologies to those of you who may not use Spotify, but when I look back at those earlier cover track lists, I see that many of the links are now expired or invalid -- we can only deliver the technology we can deliver.) Here's the Spotify link: open.spotify.com/playlist/5FpwM9BaZQdUjJjAQA0r0e. Please do let me know in the comments section if this works for you.

My criteria for including a certain cover is that it has to offer something different from the original without completely losing what made it a great song in the first place. Let's see how these covers deliver.

1. Taxman -- Junior Parker: "Taxman" is about sleaze, and Memphis bluesman Junior Parker accepts the inevitability of sleaze with a laidback funky groove, which strikes me as way more cynical than the insistent pulse of the Beatles' original. Parker died, sadly, of a brain tumor in 1971; this was on one of his last albums, The Outside Man (1970). It's a gem.

2. Eleanor Rigby -- Aretha Franklin: On her 1970 album This Girl's in Love With You, the Queen of Soul took this classic and made it real. As she sings it, Eleanor and Father MacKenzie are just trying to get by -- no string quartets, just funky keyboards and a horn section. Ditch Dickens and bring in James Baldwin. Amen, sister.

3. I'm Only Sleeping -- Roseanne Cash: I love Roseanne Cash; I think her musical taste is extraordinary. From her 1995 Retrospective album, this track adds a plangent note of despair to the original track's druggy checkout. 

4. Love You To -- Jim James: There are very few covers of this track out there, maybe because its hazy psychedelia is too iconic to cover. Nevertheless my dear boy Yim of My Morning Jacket tackles it, and by adding an echo-chambered banjo makes it his own yearning cry for connection.

5. Here, There, and Everywhere -- John Denver: No one did sweet and earnest like the young Paul McCartney, unless maybe it was John Denver, Mr. Rocky Mountain High. On his 1966 debut John Denver Sings, this simple acoustic track never tries to be an anthem, and that's its strength -- it proves that this is just a great song, whomever's singing it. 

6. Yellow Submarine -- Willy Chirino: The Beatles' original based its goofy appeal on British music hall sounds; Cuban-born Willy Chirino takes it full-on rumba and it's even more intoxicating.

7. She Said She Said -- The Black Keys: On their 2002 debut album The Big Come Up, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney layered a dirty blues buzz over Lennon's LSD reverie. It's a little less trippy, a lot less paranoid, and a good deal more determined to take down that artsy girl and her faux insights. Which, on some days, is exactly what you want.

8. Good Day Sunshine -- Roy Redmond: I know just about nothing about Roy Redmond, beyond that his style was Northern Soul, and he released this track in 1967 as a single on Loma Records. But man, listen to this beauty. He takes McCartney's bouncy horn-inflected pop song, slows it waaaaaay down, throws in girl-group backing singers, and adds all sorts of testifying. ("What you say?" "Oh, can't you feel it?"). McCartney's sun shines on village fetes and garden parties; Redmond's invites you to open the fire hydrant and boogie on the fire escapes. 

9. And Your Bird Can Sing -- The Jam: Paul Weller claims Revolver was the primary influence on their 1980 LP Sound Affects, and while this Beatles cover didn't make it onto the final tracklist, it was definitely part of the creative process. They punched up the tempo and added a little more aggro, as befit the punk era. Lennon's original sly ribbing of Mick Jagger becomes more of an FU -- and who's to say that John wouldn't have wanted it that way?

10. For No One -- Emmylou Harris: One of my all-time favorite Beatles tracks. Emmylou's version (from her 1974 album Pieces of the Sky) wins because it effectively flips the script: Suddenly I'm thinking only about how the girl feels. And amazingly, it works just as well this way -- that's the mark of a great song.  

11. Doctor Robert -- Dr. Sin:  A 2005 recording from a Brazilian hard rock band -- and man, this one sizzles. Lots of insistent drums, doubled vocals, and background grunge, cutting away to an almost baroque refrain. If the original was all about satirizing one pill-peddling MD, this track slings a lot more mud.

12. I Want to Tell You -- Ted Nugent: I disagree with just about everything Ted Nugent says, thinks, believes, and stands for. I looked so hard to find another cover of this song that was anywhere as good as this. But what the hell -- let me be the open-minded, tolerant person I wish we all could be. This track from Nugent's 1978 album State of Shock pumps some very vital oxygen into this track, and let us give props where props are due. 

13. Got to Get You Into My Life -- Earth Wind and Fire: Released in 1978, this horn-inflected funk version takes the Beatles track out of British music hall and into a greater reality. Which only proves what a durable standard Macca's track could be.

14. Tomorrow Never Knows: Nação Zumbi: Another dynamite Brazilian band laid down this track in 2017, adding many layers of aural fuzz to the trippy original. Can you dig it? 

Please let me know if the Spotify model works for you -- and if these covers ring your chimes. The Beatles were not only great performers, they were extraordinary songwriters, and IMO their legacy is only enhanced when other artists turn out dynamite versions of their best tracks. Let's discuss...  

"Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)" / Elvis Costello

In these pandemic days, I find it easy to fall into an apocalyptic frame of mind. What if all those dystopian sci-fi movies about alien invasions are simply coming true, and the coronavirus is just a very special sort of alien? What if this was the plan all along: That we'd populate the world with suitable hosts, only to make ready for the Second Coming of the Microscopic Invaders?
 
In 1991, Elvis Costello proved eerily prescient in this track from the album Mighty Like a Rose, with a machine-gun patter of half-explained references and darkly insinuating imagery.

 It's paranoid as hell -- "The man in the corner of this picture has a sinister purpose" -- with  an insistent drum beat, minor key, and cacophonous background instrumentation. The focus is squarely on the observer: "Wake up zombie, write yourself another book," exhorting him/her/you/me "You want to scream and shout my little flaxen lout" ("waxen lout"/ "Saxon lout" in successive verses). And always that urgent refrain: "Hurry down Doomsday, the bugs are taking over."

You want End of Times? We'll give you End of Times in the middle eight:

Forget about Beethoven, Rembrandt and rock and roll 
Forget about Mickey Mouse, Marlboro and Coca Cola 
Forget about Cadillac, Mercedes and Toyota 
Forget about Buddha, Allah, Jesus and Jehovah

In other words, WIPE THAT SLATE CLEAN.

Years ago -- 1977 -- I had a dream that Doomsday was coming. I was living in England at the time, doing grad school, but the dream was a full-on reenactment of the civil defense drills of my Indianapolis grade school. (Duck and cover, run for the fallout shelter, because the Soviet Union is going to bomb us out of existence.) In my dream, the BBC issued a "kiss your asses goodbye" alert. Why on earth the USSR would be bombing the UK in 1977, I didn't stop to question. Dream Me felt 100% certain that this was The End.
 
So what did I do in my dream? 
 
I went for a walk among the Victorian streets of North Oxford, enjoying the spring blossoms on the trees, the birds twittering in the trees, the whole English at-last-winter-is-over gratitude. And I felt the weight lifting off my shoulders. That essay on Samuel Richardson that my tutor was waiting for? No need to write it at all. The do-or-die exams looming three months away? No need to study for them. The terrifying question of finding a job once I had my degree? Oh, honey, neither you nor the jobs will be here in a few hours.
 
And as I walked around in my dream, I felt so free, so relaxed, so relieved. So what if I never got my dream job? So what if I never married and had kids? So what if I never wrote the book that would be read for generations? None of it mattered. I was going to die in an hour or so -- so PFFFT!
 
I've never forgotten that extraordinary sense of peace.
 
And if the coronavirus comes for me now -- if the bugs truly are taking over -- let's just hope I can meet the Doomsday bugs with that same grace.

Stay safe, wear that face mask, be well.

It's About Time

"Time Has Come Today" / The Chambers Brothers

Quick -- what day is today? (Day of the week, date of the month, whatever.) And how many days has it been since you last talked in person to anyone who isn't in your quarantine home pod? When did you last go to the grocery store? How long since you did laundry? How long since your last haircut (or coloring)? Was the meal you're currently digesting lunch or dinner, or a post-lunch/pre-dinner snack? Has it been 14 days (our coronavirus benchmark) since that last risky foray into unprotected society? Exactly how many weeks/months have you been in lockdown?

In this weird new reality, we operate in an elastic limbo of time -- days blend together, weeks disappear. Yet at the same time we hover over a relentless 24-hour news cycle. How have the Covid-19 numbers changed overnight? Which state is now the hotspot? What new outrageous thing has our Kleptocrat in Chief said or done? What has the Supreme Court weighed in on? What new hero has raised his/her voice? What new victim has been shot in cold blood? Which of our cultural icons has died today? (Me, I'm still grieving Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne, but you could as easily be verklempt about John Prine, Ellis Marsalis, Bucky Pizzarelli, or any of many others.)

Pandemic Time. We joke about it on Facebook, but it's a real phenomenon. 

To comfort myself, I'm re-reading Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain -- hardly escapist reading, but perfect for right now. It's about tuberculosis patients quarantined in a clinic in the Alps on the eve of World War I. Day after day passes monotonously and yet swiftly; holidays succeed each other in surprising speed. And yet the patients are always marking time, with daily temperature charts (check our 14-day quarantine record-keeping) and the doctors' diagnoses/sentences of six months or ten months until they are cured.

With time on my mind, I offer you this 1968 track from the Chambers Brothers, Mississippi gospel singer brothers who, in the spirit of the 60s, ventured into folk and then psychedelia (perfect for these mind-altering times.) It's particularly fine late-night listening.

Hark ye to that timekeeper drummer (live, human, no drum machines here), the way he drives the track, alternately slowing down, speeding up, tick-tocking, vibrating, smashing down. Pick up, too, on the ominous special effects -- the cuckoo clock, the satellite-like guitar twiddles, the screams of the tormented, the cruel laughs of the tormentors. We are not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

From the echo-chambered background vocals, to the Hendrix-like half-sung testifying of the verses, there's an edge of spookiness, a sense of history trembling in the balance. Social commentary creeps in ("The rules have changed today / I have no place to stay / I'm thinking about the subway"), but in the spirit of the 60s, it was all cool. "I've been crushed by a tumbling tide / And my soul's been psychedelicized." Open your mind to the possibilities, man.

 

It's mesmerizing without being boring; instrumental solos cascade and build, always heading somewhere. I'm on the edge of my seat, riding the drummer's tempo changes, waiting for the singer to step back in and take charge. And when he does, it's with a chuckle and a smile. He's navigating the changes, finding some kind of grace in the midst of apocalypse. Setting an example of how to surf time.

And in these days, when I'm feeling lost in time, sinking into this music track somehow lifts my soul. I hope it does the same for you.

Stay safe and be well....