It's Been Too Long....

Far be it from me to blame Donald Trump's presidency for everything . . . but I have to say, I haven't felt in the mood for writing about pop songs lately. However, I'll take a page from New York City's post-9/11 scrappiness, and make a stand here:  No vainglorious pettifogging bully is going to stop me from writing about the music I love.

Although it just might take a little time for me to get back into the groove. So here's my solution:  I'll just set the iTunes shuffle on, and write about the first song that comes up. Cross your fingers!

"Girl Talk" / Georgie Fame

Oh, my. Every since "Yeh Yeh" hit the airwaves in 1964, I've been a fan of this Brit charmer. So just imagine my delight when, in my most intense fangirl mode for Alan Price, I discovered that he and Georgie Fame had teamed up for a British TV series (and a couple of diggable albums). Not only that, Georgie had recorded an album with the Count Basie orchestra, fulfilling his ultimate goal of becoming a jazz musician. Wikipedia doesn't even show it, but I own that LP. It introduced me to the music of Mose Allison and a whole lot more. (Here's a crib sheet for that whole complicated music heritage...)

And so when in the year 2000, Georgie Fame wanted to go full-on jazz, Go Jazz Records made it happen . . .

Born Clive Powell, he was molded into a pop star by Larry Parnes, who forced him to change his name and to sing the sorts of tunes that had worked for Parnes' other clients like Billy Fury and Marty Wilde. But Clive/Georgie really just wanted to be a jazz pianist -- and so when the pop frenzy died down, Clive -- who'd already established himself with a sizzling residency at the London's Flamingo club -- drifted jazzward. He secured career stability by becoming Van Morrison's go-to keyboard player, and then took his free time to do what he wanted to.

Gotta love that.

The title of this 2000 album has some ambitious literary connections, to Dylan Thomas and Federico Garcia Lorca. Well, jazz has always tied itself to serious poetry. But there's nothing stuffy about the relaxed groove of this track. First off, there's the sexy syncopation of the musical phrasing. Then there's the flirtatious lyrics ("She bats her eye / You wanna fly / She sighs her sigh / You wanna cry / Hands on her hip / You wanna flip....") Wowza. And then there's that copasetic sax line, winding around, like a beckoning finger. Come here, big boy...

So while Larry Parnes' other "stars" have faded, Georgie Fame survives. Canny career moves have something to do with that, but I like to think it's also just about talent. This guy had the chops to impress Alan Price, and Van Morrison, and those savvy Flamingo audiences.  He gets a groove that transcends pop and jazz classifications. And when the day is done? I'm pretty darn happy just sitting here listening to the groove . . .

Summer Shuffle June 2016

First of all, I'm freaked out that it's 2016. But I'm moving past that, truly. And offering a panoply of tunes to make your June celebratory to the nth degree. 

1. I'm On an Island / The Kinks
From Kink Kontroversy (1965)
Oh, my man Ray Davies, the presiding genius behind the Kinks. And here, even as early as 1965, he was sectioning off the experiences.  I've heard that he will only ever sing this song on Iceland, the island for which he wrote this tune. Damn, I have a whole cabinet of Icelandic experiences, but Lord if I don't want to go to Iceland ONLY to hear Ray sing it.

2. Wake Up / Alan Price
From Rising Sun (1980)
Alan, you'll never know how much of my life was devoted to chasing you down, But here's a taste -- and a pretty good tune to connect to your iPhone alarm.

3. Man in the Bottom of the Well / Bill Kirchen with Elvis Costello
From Word to the Wise (2010)
Elvis, Nick, Bill. Need I say more? I cannot help but dig those majestic riffs, climbing out of the depths of whatevs..

4. Mondays / Killer Tuesday / Black Uhuru
From Liberation: The Island Anthology (1993)
I do love the random logic of the shuffle. Because how else would we get this exTREMEly copasetic track, which does go on and on, but hey, what else did you have to do with your time?

5. I Swear I Saw Christopher Reeve / Jill Sobule   
From Dottie's Charms (2014)
A Midwestern interlude, courtesy of my girl Jill. Who seriously I just. I've never been there but I know the place like the back of my hand. Check it out.

6. Staten Island Baby / Black 47
How much do we love Larry Kirwan's celebration of the Irish-American  experience?

7. Islands in the Stream /Bonnie Raitt and Nick Lowe
Oh, Bonnie my girl. I so love you. And yet -- you sang this with Nick? I can't even.

8. Birds in Perspex Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
Quirky -- yeah, that's the RH thing.

9. Fire Island / Fountains of Wayne
How much do I love this deeply resonant, yet laidback track? This sums up summer to me.

10. House of the Rising Sun / The Animals
Lord. So much began here. Honor paid to Eric Burdon's iconic voice, but also to the rest of the Animals (including oh yes my hero Alan Price.)

52 GIRLS

"To Ramona" / Alan Price

Yes, I know the song was written by Bob Dylan. It's from his 1964 album Another Side of Bob Dylan, a somewhat amusing title in retrospect, since it featured pretty much the same folk-singer side of Bob Dylan that had taken the Greenwich Village clubs by storm in 1961. The only shift was that he was moving away from political protest songs and becoming -- as this song so amply demonstrates -- more personal and poetic. But compared to what happened on his next album, when he "went electric," this was nothing.

To be quite honest, I don't like the Bob Dylan version -- especially not after having heard this tender cover, sung in Alan Price's husky Geordie tenor.

The word is -- and who would ever doubt the word? -- that Bob Dylan wrote this song about Joan Baez. Considering that Alan Price hung out with Dylan and Baez during Dylan's 1965 UK tour, most memorably chronicled in the D. L. Pennebaker documentary Don't Look Back, it seems only fitting that Price should later cover this song on his 1966 album A Price On His Head.

This sure is one hell of an ambivalent, complicated song. Our singer clearly loves this girl, but he's also lost patience with her idealism, her hunger for acceptance. Underneath all the verbiage, it's still a kiss-off song, despite the romantic waltz tempo, the sweetly looping melody. But where Dylan's nasal croon betrays exasperation and disdain, Alan Price's smoky voice adds a note of wistful regret that redeems the whole song. 

 

Dylan paints her as an innocent rube -- "watery eyes," "cracked country lips," "returnin' / Back to the South" -- which doesn't seem fair when you think of Baez, already a major voice in the folk-protest movement when young Bobby Zimmerman washed up in New York City, fresh from Minnesota.  Sure, some of the bitterness in his voice is explained by knee-jerk protest folkie scorn for the system that's been wasting her soul: "It's all just a dream, babe / a vacuum, a scheme, babe / That sucks you into feelin' like this" and, later in the song,  "fixtures and forces and friends . . . that hype you and type you / Making you feel / That you gotta be just like them." But there's still a cruel personal subtext.

 

Maybe I'm being unfair to Dylan. No doubt at one point he really did love Joan Baez. ("Your magnetic movements / Still capture the minutes I'm in" -- if that isn't a sexy line, I'll eat my whatever.)   But having seen how badly he treats her in Don't Look Back, I've got my guard up.

 

For all those word-crammed verses only mask the fact that he's basically given up on her. He blames her for self-sabotage -- "Yet there's no one to beat you / No one to defeat you / 'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad" -- and in the last verse, he washes his hands of her problems: "For deep in my heart / I know there is no help I can bring / Everything passes / Everything changes / Just do what you think you should do." In other words, hasta la vista, baby. 

Yet I think of Alan Price, quitting the Animals at the height of their popularity because touring drove him so crazy, and I sense he is a bit more on the side of the idealistic dreamer than opportunistic Bobby D ever could be. Even as he disengages, there's a rasp of sorrow in his voice as he sings, "And who knows, maybe / That some day baby / I'll come cryin' to you." When Bob Dylan sings this, I don't buy it, but Alan Price's rueful shiver of self-honesty sells it.

Do I think Bob Dylan is a great songwriter? I do indeed. But he's not an artist that touches my heart. Alan Price, on the other hand...

51 DOWN, 1 TO GO

52 GIRLS

"Rosetta" /
Alan Price & Georgie Fame

Putting Alan Price and Georgie Fame together made no sense. What was this, the land of Dueling Keyboards? I loved Georgie Fame and the Famous Blue Flames' mid-60s classic "Yeh Yeh"; I adored Alan Price's organ solos on Animals' hits like "House of the Rising Son" and "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood." Not only were they both keyboard whizzes, they both had smoky sexy voices with Northern accents. Together?  Wasn't that too much of a good thing?

Silly me. The key thing (no pun intended) was how much these two entertainers enjoyed each other, how they fed off of each other's snappy pop energy. Their 1971 LP Fame & Price Together is packed with gems like "Home Is Where Your Heart Is," "That's How Strong My Love Is," and the Randy Newman satire "Yellow Man."

Or Exhibit A, "Rosetta," the big hit single off this wonderful album.

Fun Facts to Know and Tell: Fame & Price Together was produced by Mike Smith, the same producer who turned down the Beatles when they auditioned for Decca Records. It was written by someone named Mike Snow (anyone? anyone?) and was also recorded that same year by the popular German artist Klaus Wunderlich, known as a genius on the Hammond organ. There's something about this song that keyboardists love.

Well, for one thing, keyboardists like to show off their lightning-fast finger work, and this song's swinging tempo offers such an opportunity, leapfrogging up and down the keys as it rattles along. Duelling Keyboards indeed -- the faster Georgie goes on his verse, the faster Alan has to go on his. And look at that video -- they're both having a fine time amping up the tempo, yet never losing the snappy swing of it. Rock AND roll....

I suppose this song could be called a novelty. Proper girls -- girls who get songs named after them -- are not supposed to be hell-raisers, but here's our Rosetta: "Well, my little girl is a sweet little girl / But she does things that make your eyebrows curl / You let her loose for a Friday night / You know it's gonna end in a fight." What?  (I do love that image of making your eyebrows curl, and the way Alan rolls the R on Rosetta? Bestill my heart.)

She's hardly a dainty thing. "Rosetta drinks her whisky neat / She gets in a fight and she might get beat." This is way before the Spice Girls introduced the concept of Girl Power, remember. But in the hard-drinking Geordie culture that Price and Fame (from Newcastle and Lancashire, respectively) grew up in, a lass who can put away some liquor is a lass to be respected.

And respect her he does: "So I go round on the Saturday night and ask her if she feels alright." (Cue up a hammering set of descending chords, almost as if he's traipsing down the steps to her basement flat.) "Rosetta, are you better, are you well, well, well . . . " I love those repeated well-well-wells, their sassy harmonizing, which somehow morph into a sort of tut-tutting commentary -- as in "well, well, well, what have we here?"

In verse two they go out again, but her reputation precedes her: "Knocked on the door but we couldn't get in / 'Cos the boss don't want no fuss." They find another bar, Rosie ends up passing out, he has to take her home and pour her into bed. And a second round of well-well-wells ensues.

But he doesn't sound exasperated or critical of his little spitfire -- both vocals are full of joviality and yet tenderness. (Don't think too hard about the fact that each verse is sung by a different bloke -- so long as they're happy with it, more power to you, Rosetta.)

That chipper syncopation, half boogie-woogie and half music-hall softshoe, is nothing but high spirits and good will. This is a song that never fails to make me feel happy. I love how their voices blend on the chorus, how the pianos pound together. Too much of a good thing? I think not.

36 DOWN, 16 TO GO

The Thursday Shuffle

The stack of new CDs on my desk is making me feel very guilty, but sorry -- coming off a few days of mild flu, I need to flex my blogging muscles first with a Shuffle. Herewith, the first Shuffle of 2013!

1. "To Be Someone (Didn't We Have A Nice Time?)" / The Jam
From All Mod Cons (1978)
All neurotic guitar strums, power chords, and rat-tat drums, the Jam gave punk rock a snappy urban flair that should have warned us Paul Weller wouldn't be happy for long in a rock straitjacket.  I love how the song evolves from the coaxing first verse ("To be someone must be a wonderful thing" ) through the punchy second verse ("No more swimming in a guitar-shaped pool") to the defiant chorus ("But didn't we have a nice time?"). How does a punk reconcile worldly success with his rebel outsider image?  

2. "She" / Gram Parsons
From Gp (1973)
Ah, so the new music shows up anyway! After years of thumbing past Gram Parsons LPs in record bins while looking for Graham Parker albums, a great article in the recent Uncut (which I only bought for the Ray Davies interview) persuaded me I've been missing something special all these years. And dang, they were right! Plangent and laid-back and oh, so country soulful.

3. "Build Me Up, Buttercup" / The Foundations
From Build Me Up Buttercup (1968)
An all-time feel-good favorite -- everybody knows those opening beats couldn't be anything else.

4. "She Comes Around" / The Fortunate Sons
From The Fortunate Sons (2008)
No, not a Creedence Clearwater tribute band -- these Fortunate Sons happen to be Scotland's answer to the Black Keys, a surprisingly persuasive Delta-blues band from Glasgow that  I fear may have broken up since this debut album was released. "She comes a-rround / To ease my pain, ease my pain" -- whoa, that vocal is just d r i p p i n g with lust.

5. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" / The Alan Price Set
From The House That Jack Built; The Complete 60s Sessions (2005)
In this BBC recording with his new band, Alan Price couldn't resist reinterpreting this Nina Simone song that had been such a hit for his former band, the Animals. (And gave it yet another spin in 2008.) Add some horns, slow down the tempo to a jazzy lope -- though still not as mournfully slow as Nina's -- a perfect declaration of independence. Sadly, this album is an out-of-print import -- grab it if you ever can.

6. "Over the Rainbow" / Israel Kamakawiwoole
From Facing Future (1993)
Yes, the song you've heard in countless movie soundtrack, just a simple ukelele and one heavenly voice singing two old standards that cannot fail to bring a lump to the throat. Call it schmaltz if you will, but it still provides an instant mood lift when it dials up on my shuffle.

7. "I Like It Like That" / Brinsley Schwarz
From Nervous on the Road (1972)
The kings of pub rock, inviting us to a party we don't want to miss. Don't know which of the Brinsleys is singing on this delicious old chestnut, but you can't mistake that roadhouse piano -- that's pure Bob Andrews. I only knew this as a Dave Clarke Five song; who knew it had been co-written by Chris Kenner and Allen Toussaint? How fitting that Bob Andrews now hangs with Toussaint's circle in New Orleans -- serendipity indeed.

8. "You Ain't A Cowboy (If You Ain't Been Bucked Off)" / Corb Lund
From Cabin Fever (2012)
A new favorite, from my end-of-year round-up. Definitely check this guy out!

9. "The Informer" / The Kinks
From Phobia (1993)
Maybe Ray Davies wrote this after seeing the old John Ford movie on late-night TV, but somewhere in there I believe he's also singing it to his brother Dave, as their forever-fraught relationship was on the verge of bringing the band crashing to an end. Poignant, poignant indeed....

10. "Blue Condition" / Alan Price and Georgie Fame
From Fame and Price, Price and Fame Together (1971)
What a lovely, if all too brief, collaboration this was. Georgie's innate jazz chops and Alan's R&B-pop instincts melted into each other like a dream. "I'm in a blue condition, and it's not too good for me / I'm in a strange position, I need you to set me free" -- oh, but there's nothing blue about Price's boppy, syncopated tune. They're having way too much fun here for anybody to feel blue.... 

The Return of the Shuffle!

When life's too mixed-up and muddled-up for blogging, there's always the Shuffle. 

1. In a Space / The Kinks
From Low Budget (1979)
Most likely that Ray Davies wrote this one sheerly for the pun: "in a space" = "inner space," as in the opposite of "outer space." But who cares? By the time he's done, he's managed to deliver an existential commentary on the population explosion. My favorite part is at the end, when Ray goes all Jagger on us ("Well I'm out in inner space / And I'm lookin' at the people . . .").    

2. So Long Dad / Alan Price
From A Price on His Head (1967)
Great Alan Price cover of a Randy Newman song, all ragtime and snarky satire. In fact, coming from a Geordie, the satire works even better: "Home again, but we won't be living here Dad / The smoke makes Jane's eyes tear so bad, and we can't have that / I'll write you where we're at / Janie's uncle owns a bank, I think I'll try my hand at that.. . ."

3. If You Need Me / Tom Jones
From It's Not Unusual (1965)
An ambitious young Tom Jones took on Wilson Pickett, Solomon Burke, and the Rolling Stones when he covered this Pickett song in 1965 -- and he totally nails it. All the more pity that he was seduced by Vegas and American TV and hordes of lingerie-flinging female fans. It would take him another 40 years to finally get back his soul-man cred.

4. Here Comes Flash / The Kinks
From Preservation Act II (1973)
For the uninitiated, Flash is the villain of the Kinks' satiric rock opera Preservation, a master spiv with more than a little of the Kray twins about him. "You'd better run, you'd better fly / Hide your daughters, hide your wives / Lock your doors and stay inside / Here comes Flash!" Yeah, it's a campy slice of theatricality, but you gotta love it.

5. Queen of Hearts / Dave Edmunds
From Repeat When Necessary (1979)
The other half of Nick Lowe's Labour of Lust, recorded at the same time and with the same musicians, a.k.a. Rockpile. Primo rockbilly, written by country guitarist Hank DeVito, and perfect material for Dave Edmunds, with its speedy vocals and clangy guitar strums. If all you know is Juice Newton's hit cover, you MUST check out this original.

6. Fear Is Man's Best Friend / John Cale
From Fear (1974)
What is this, Welsh Night? Tom Jones, Dave Edmunds, now John Cale? (Plus we all know the Davies brothers and Alan Price are really Welsh...). Well, I'll admit I wasn't cool enough to know this album in 1974, but hey, it's not how you start the race, it's how you end it.

7. To Susan on the West Coast Waiting / Donovan
From Barabajagal (1969)
Oh, so now we break the Welsh streak with a Scotsman. The Shuffle really is teasing me tonight. Donovan's fey flower-child persona is the perfect antidote to Cale's art-rock, but that tentative, wistful vocal delivers a punch of anti-war propaganda all the same.    

8. This Empty Place / The Searchers
From The Definitive Pye Collection (1969)
While all the other British rockers were going psychedelic, the Searchers clung to their backbeat roots. Yet there's something brittle and haunting about this track, with its restless bossa nova beat, the low vocal swoops, the sibilant drums and clangy guitars. Love is not going well for this fellow.

9. Time Wraps Around You / Velvet Crush
From Teenage Symphonies to God (1994)
Lovely crunchy psychedelic grunge, from a Rhode Island indie outfit that deserved to be better known. Is that a mellotron in the bridge or just wicked bad feedback?

10. Night Ride to Trinidad / Robyn Hitchcock
From Groovy Decay (1982)
And while we're in the psychedelic groove, here's a gem of jump-jive jazz from the surreal genius of Robyn Hitchcock. Cue up some sassy horns: "Well the worst trip I ever had / Was a night ride to Trinidad." Why Trinidad? Maybe because it rhymes. Any starting point will do, and after that just free-asociate like hell. It's the ride that matters.

Wednesday Shuffle

It's been raining off and on for a week.  And I've got a wicked cold incubating in my sinuses. So forget the looming book deadline -- let's shuffle! 

1. "Mercury Poisoning" / Graham Parker
From Another Gray Area (1982)
So what do you do on your first album after leaving Mercury Records?  You write a song about how much you hated Mercury Records! "Their promotion's so lame...the geriatric staff thinks we're freaks... I've got a dinosaur for a representative" -- GP pulls NO punches on this mischievously danceable track -- and we can't help but sing along.

2. "You Don't Know Me" / Ben Folds with Regina Spektor
From Way to Normal (2008)
This snappy little duet got a lot of airplay a couple years ago, and why not? Ben and Regina blithely trade zingers, their voices weaving in contrapuntal accusations. Why do we always imagine that our true loves will "get us," when in the end we're always disappointed? Just another lesson in disillusionment from this master cynic.  

3. "Ohio" / Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
From So Far (1974)
Ah...the days when music and politics walked hand in hand.  The Kent State shootings chilled our generation in May 1970; the next weekend, 100,000 students marched on Washington; this record hit the airwaves 2 weeks later, an amazing feat in that pre-digital era. The righteous indignation shivering through Neil Young's voice still stirs me to the bone, more than 40 years later.

4. "Hold On" / Ian Gomm
From Summer Holiday (1978) (Original US title: Gomm With the Wind)
Sparkly New Wave pop from ex-Brinsley Ian Gomm's debut album. This was the album's big radio hit, rising to #18 on the US charts in 1979 (nearly as good as the #12 scored by ex-bandmate Nick Lowe that same year with "Cruel to Be Kind," a song Gomm and Lowe co-wrote). The chorus is a real earworm hook -- just try to get it out of your head.

5. "Do You Remember Walter" / The Kinks
From The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society (1968)
This should be the theme song of all high school reunions. "I bet you're fat and married and you're always home in bed by half-past eight / And if I talked about the old times, you'd get bored and you'd have nothing more to say" -- a jaunty tune underlaid with despair at the fleeting power of nostalgia. Not coincidentally, that's the theme of this entire album, a neglected masterpiece for sure.

6. "Chasing Forever" / Ron Sexsmith and Don Kerr
From Destinations Unknown (2005)
Wistful folk-pop from my favorite Canadian songwriter. Ron's quite a Kinks fan himself, and this album is its own kind of Village Green, reflecting on nostalgia and preserving an already-lost past in songs like "Lemonade Stand" and "Diana Sweets."  I've surrendered to the inevitability of Ron Sexsmith; might as well buy all the albums, they're all soul-satisfying.

7. "Nutted By Reality" / Nick Lowe
From Jesus of Cool (1978)
That album cover, featuring Nick in six different outfits (twelve if you count the inside shots), clues us in: This album is all about showing how many different musical styles he can master. And this track goes even further -- it's a two-fer!  Adolescent humor rules (a song about castrating Castro -- really?) and if we Americans weren't exactly sure what it means to be "nutted" by reality -- well, it's too catchy for me care. Am I the only person who hears the McCartney parody in all this?     

8. "My Home Town" / Alan Price
From Geordie Roots and Branches (1982)
A brassy updated version of this clever little rag, first heard in the brilliant film soundtrack for O Lucky Man! I'm guessing that this album was never released in CD -- I only have the vinyl, and it's one of my most precious rarities -- it was recorded for a Newcastle charity project as a favor to Alan's former Animals bandmate Chas Chandler, a year before their second reunion tour.  This track isn't nearly as charming as the O Lucky Man! original, but the very fact that I've got it on my iTunes at all brands me as a hopeless Alan Price fangirl.

9. "Bone Tired" / Gomez
From A New Tide (2009)
I like this young-ish English band (debut 1998), but for some reason I can't quite love them.  They've got too many songwriters, and in the name of versatility they dabble in too many styles, so I can never quite find their groove. But hey, I'm still waiting for them to grow on me. Listen and see what you think.   

10. "List of Distractions" / Fionn Regan
From 100 Acres of Sycamore (2011)
On the other hand, the minute I heard this winsome Irish songwriter I knew I loved him. This is his second album, and it's just as charming as his first, The End of History.  Dig his sweetly confiding voice, the truly poetic lyrics, the romantic sweep of his melodies -- I'm a sucker for it all.

SATURDAY SHUFFLE

Here's a slightly different twist -- this shuffle is not from my full music library, but my huge Vacation playlist, designed to provide road tunes for the July 4th exodus.  Pop it in the car's music player and enjoy!

1. Call Me The Breeze / Alan Price and Rob Hoeke
From Two of a Kind (1977)
Sorry to start out with an obscure one -- even I wouldn't own this album if it hadn't been for my lifelong Alan Price fandom.  Here he pairs with Dutch keyboardist Rob Hoeke (AP has this thing for collaborations with fellow keyboardists, from Georgie Fame to Zoot Money) to make a swinging little album that's actually a ton of fun.  Really, it should be better known.  This J.J. Cale cover is considerably peppier than J.J.'s laidback version; it really lets out the clutch and takes off.

2. Tighten Up Pt. 1  / Archie Bell and the Drells
From Tighten Up (1968)
"Hi everybody, this is Archie Bell and the Drells, of Houston, Texas. We don't only sing, but we dance just as good as we walk!"  Poor Archie Bell was already serving in Vietnam when the record he'd cut just before being drafted hit the charts.  It was all over the airwaves that summer, agitating dancing bodies everywhere, a marvelous melange of irresistible riffs cycling from instrument to instrument.  ("Tighten up on that bass, now....Now look here, we're gonna make it mellow now!")  A long cool drink of pure summer fun(k).

3. Helen Wheels  / Wings
From Band on the Run (1973)
Hang on tight!  Paul McCartney -- determined to prove that he could rock out without the Beatles -- tore into this road song with no brakes whatsoever. The internal combustion of those twin descending guitar riffs, the pavement-pounding drums, the thrumming bass line -- hell on wheels indeed! 

4. If I Had $1,000,000 / Barenaked Ladies
From Gordon (1992)
Barenaked Ladies are right up there with Commander Cody, They Might Be Giants, and Flight of the Concords in my pantheon of comic rockers. I love the call and response on this ambling country rocker, as the singer earnestly offers his riches to his true love -- but as for what he'd buy her with his lottery winnings... 

5. Rango Theme Song  / Los Lobos
From Rango Soundtrack (2011)
Fandango gave me this song for free after I went to see this animated movie last winter. (Okay, so I'll see anything with Johnny Depp in it -- wanna make something of it?)  But it soon earned a permanent spot in the rotation, a campy take on the classic western theme song, mariachi horns and all. 

6. She Loves the Sunset / Old 97s
From Blame it On Gravity (2008)
Throw in a cha-cha beat and some pedal steel twang and what do you have?  This winner by the delightful Old 97s.

7. Shiftless When Idle  / The Replacements
From Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out the Trash! (1981)
Well, this one sure puts the garage in garage rock.  Nobody else has ever stuffed this many car puns into one song, with the possible exception of Little Village's "She Runs Hot."  It only lasts 2:18, but that grinding gear-shift guitar, the relentless bashing drums, and Paul Westerberg's slightly strangled vocals defiantly break the speed limit, cruising with the top down, tossing beer cans out the back as they roar into the night.  


8.  Young Americans  / David Bowie
From Young Americans (1975)
Bowie put on his soul shoes, hauled in a gospel choir and a hot sax (David Sanborn!), and lit up the discos in the summer of '75 with this hectic take on American culture. ("Blacks got respect and whites got Soul Train...")   Bowie himself described it as "plastic soul . . . the squashed remains of ethnic music as it survives in the age of Muzak rock, written and sung by a white limey."  Yep, that pretty much nails it.


9. Gone, Gone, Gone / Colin Farrell
From Crazy Heart: The Soundtrack (2010)
Who knew Colin Farrell could sing country?  As if Jeff Bridges' mesmerizing performance in this film wasn't enough, and all those superb Ryan Bingham-T. Bone Burnett songs too. This song nails the dieselbilly sound perfectly -- "I was born on a flattop two-lane, / Picked up a guitar, and every day I'd sing / Till I was gone, gone, gone..."   You just gotta drive to this one.

10. One More Day / Bill Kirchen
From Hammer of the Honkytonk Gods (2007)
Well, speaking of dieselbilly -- here's the king himself, pickin' and grinnin' with a fiddle and roadhouse piano.   "Well I reckon we all gotta pay the diagnosis / So I'm turning my two weeks notice / Then I 'scuse myself while I kiss the sky . . . I'm gonna live it up like there's no tomorrow / Crank up the love, turn down the sorrow, / Get my ducks in a row for one more day!"  Hey, a little shot of carpe diem philosophy is just what you need when you're heading out the door for vacation!

SATURDAY SHUFFLE

Can't shuffle during the week these days, with electric drills and hammering going on all day every day.  (I HATE this renovation.) Thank god for the weekend!

1. Mean Mr. Mustard / The Beatles
From Abbey Road (1969)
One problem with the shuffle: It's always jarring to hear one isolated section of the great Side Two medley on this album. (Read my You Never Give Me Your Money post for the full version of how much I love this "musical mosaic"). Every time I hear John sing that Mr. Mustard is a "dirty old man," I think of Paul's grandfather -- "such a clean old man" -- in A Hard Day's Night.  And "his sister Pam" -- is that Polythene Pam, whose song we'll get next?  (And is Polythene Pam the roommate of Lovely Rita Meter Maid?) Yeah, I know, I listen to too much Beatles music. But I love that Mr. Mustard "keeps a ten bob note up his nose" -- perfect Lennonesque detail. 

2. Why Why Why Why Why / Brinsley Schwarz
From Nervous on the Road (1972)
Another throwaway Nick Lowe country rock gem, featuring one of his standard lonely losers.  Miserable in love, miserable out of love, moping around the house -- sound familiar?

3. The Thrill / Alan Price
From Alan Price (1977)
The cynical side of Alan Price, the side that made his O Lucky Man! soundtrack so brilliant. "Oh I just love the thrill of rock and roll / It gives release unto the darkest soul / The thickest yob can get a job / Rock and roll can keep you off the dole."  And is it sung like a rock anthem? No indeed -- it's a chirpy little music hall ditty, sung over a ragtime piano. So there!

4. Space Oddity / David Bowie
From Space Oddity (1969)
One of the great eccentric rock songs of all time, inspiring one of my earliest posts here.

5. I Wish I Felt This Way At Home / Dolly Parton
From Just Because I'm a Woman (1968)
Adultery, one of the great themes of country music. That tremble in Dolly's voice is super-saturated with guilt and desire; yet she still has an innocent, forthright quality. (This is from her first solo album, when she was still Porter Waggoner's "girl find.") She really does wish she felt this way about her husband, that's the kicker.  She means to be good... 

6. Pressure / The Kinks
From Low Budget (1979)
This album marked the Kinks' US comeback with a vengeance.  Just to prove they weren't British Invasion fossils, here comes this proto-punk anthem, given Ray Davies' special fragile neurotic twist: "Pressure, pressure, I've got pressure! / Oh, yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah..."  Was Ray mocking punk, or trying to keep up with the times?  Both, no doubt. 

7. You're Wondering Now / The Specials
From The Specials  (1980)
Ah, the lo-fi charms of the Specials! That knock on the door, the muffled "You can't come in!" And then the mopey shuffling reggae begins, brooding over how he's going to get by now that he's on his own. At last the instruments pack up, and he's singing alone, still wondering how... 

8. She's Going / The English Beat
From Special Beat Service (1982)
Perfect segue!  So it's going to be a ska Saturday -- I can live with that. Hear how the English Beat jacked up the ska tempo, made it more frantic, more urban.  Different drugs, I guess.

9. Take the Money and Run / Steve Miller
From Fly Like An Eagle (1976)
The tempo just got laidback again; we're far away from the Brixton streets, loping around in sunny Texas.  Yahoo! I wasn't living in the US in 1976, so I missed the radio overload of this song, thank goodness. Remember all those anarchistic 70s movies about wild young couples on crime sprees? Badlands, The Getaway, Sugarland Express (with True Romance and Natural-Born Killers their 1990s offspring)?  This song should have been the soundtrack for all of them.

10.  Hey Jude / The Beatles
From Past Masters, Vol, 2 (compilation)
So we begin and end with the Beatles -- that's fitting. Does this song go on too long?  Maybe, but I always, always, end up singing along with the "la la la la-la-la-las," which I'm sure was what Paul McCartney intended. My private theory: this is Paul's comeback to "All You Need Is Love"; he wanted the swaying crowds to be chanting along to his song, dammit.  And now they are.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Dedicated to the memory of John Lennon, who left us 30 years ago today.

1. "Like Humans Do" / David Byrne
From Look Into The Eyeball (2001)

Funny, I was just talking about the Talking Heads this morning with my dog-walking friend Dan. I so loved them once, but then David Byrne jumped the shark for me. I have no idea where this song came from -- I actually think it's an iTunes sample track -- but I have to admit, it's an utter groove.  Makes me feel guilty that maybe I dropped David B too hastily...

2. "Senses Working Overtime" / XTC
From English Settlement (1982)
"And I've got one two three four five! / Senses working overtime" -- I'm rarely sure what XTC songs are about, but who cares, so long as they're larded with koan-like statements ("tryin' to taste the difference 'tween a lemon and lime / Pain and the pleasure and the church bells softly chime ") and surreal images ("And all the world is football-shaped" -- well I guess that makes more sense if you're from the land of round footballs...) 

3. "Long Road Ahead" / Jim Ford
From Sounds of Our Time (2007 compilation)
The album tells me this track is from 1969, but considering how little of Jim Ford's music ever hit the mainstream, I'll have to take it on faith.  Nick Lowe vouches for this guy -- the epitome of country soul, with a trailer-park stoner groove -- and that's good enough for me.

4. "Nothing To Say" / The Kinks
From Arthur, Or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1969)
A generation gap face-off from Ray Davies, intoned in a stagey old-man voice (at least the father's half is).  So many great songs from this criminally neglected album. This is the first rock song I ever heard that mentioned chilbains -- and come to think of it, it's still the only one. 

5. "Bring the Old You Back" / Jon Lindsay
From Escape from Plaza-Midwood (2010)
Lindsay again? He must have rigged my iTunes. But it's so snarky and melodic, I won't complain.

6. "Young Conservatives" / The Kinks
From State of Confusion (1983)
Another blast of Kinksian satire, from later in their career when Ray Davies worked a little harder to churn out topical numbers.  Hate to tell you, Ray, but they're still with us, only older -- and now they're running Congress.

7. "Ashgrove" / Dave Alvin
From Ashgrove (2004)
The album's title track is a tasty bit of blues from the ex-Blasters brother Dave, a tribute to a seminal music club where he first fell in love with music.  Heard this once live, and it was killer.

8. "Frida" / Sanseverino
From Le Tango des Gens (2001)
A toe-tapping treat from Paris, a sassy track of modern swing-jazz (go figure!), sent to me years ago by a fellow Kinks fan. Wickedly addictive.

9. "Take Me In Your Arms and Love Me" / Alan Price
From Songs from Top of the Pops (bootleg compilation)
No link, sorry, as this is a fan recording, capturing Price's many appearances on the late beloved British weekly music show.  It's true that Gladys Knight and the Pips did this song better, but those of us who have a weak spot for Alan Price -- and I'm one -- enjoy his rendition just fine.

10. "George Jones Talkin' Cell Phone Blues" / Drive-By Truckers
From The Fine Print (2009 rarities compilation)
Please listen to this one -- it couldn't be more fun.  An oddball scenario (aging country music star wrecks his car while chatting on his cell), with a refrain that cracks me up every time: "If you don't change your ways, my friend / You'll be singing duets with Tammy again." 

Alas, not a single Lennon track, or even a Beatle song, but such an eclectic sequence, even John might have gotten a kick out of it.  I'd like to think so!

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Another week older, and yet no wiser....

1. "Pictures in the Sand" / The Kinks
From The Great Lost Kinks Album
Ray Davies in music hall mode -- all he needs is a straw boater, striped blazer, and cane.  No wonder this catchy little bit of nonsense ended up on The Great Lost Kinks Album, a collection of odds and ends that Ray never intended to be released. (He even had to sue the record company to get them to withdraw it from the stores.) But we Kinks fans are nothing if not completists; TGLKA is a must-have in any Kinks Kultists kollection.  

2. "People Are Talking" / Alan Price
From Travellin' Man (1986)
Again, I am outed for my music geek obsessions -- yes, I did buy this obscure Alan Price vinyl LP on eBay and transfer it to digital. Wanna make something of it? It's a lovely romp, full of old rock 'n' roll covers and new songs that sound like old rock 'n' roll covers, and Alan is clearly having a blast. "People are talking / About me and you  / The things they are saying / Are making me sad and blue" -- fill in the gaps with boogie woogie piano and you've got the idea. 

3. "I Saw Her Standing There" / Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard
From Last Man Standing (2006)
Well, at least we're getting to a well-known song, though not the obvious rendition. But that's the point of this duet album, giving all these classic songs fresh life in the hands of Jerry Lee and a surprising roster of collaborators.  This track is an irresistible example -- once you've heard Little Richard's trademark yelp after the line "How could I dance with another?," it'll never again sound  right without it.

4. "Scar Tissue" / The Red Hot Chili Peppers
From Californication (1999)
Man, do I love this album. That lounging funky rhythm, the drawling vocals -- "With the birds I’ll share this-a lonely view" -- existential poetry married to a soaring rock riff. This song always gets me where I live, and I have no idea why.

5. "'Till We're Nude" / The Replacements
From All For Nothing/Nothing at All (compilation)
Existential? Soaring?  Nope, it's just the Replacements, blasting out angsty punk-ish rock and roll in their grungy basement. "Me and you, we ain't through / We ain't through until we're nude" -- sometimes that's as much of a social contract as you need.

6. "A-OK" / Motion City Soundtrack
From I Am the Movie (2003)
I refuse to call these guys an emo band. It's true that most of their songs consist of Justin Pierre parsing and probing the fine shadings of his own neuroses.  So what? With that thrashing beat and the hyperkinetic guitars, it's impossible to feel mopey. "Someday you'll understand / That everything is A-OK" -- so she insists, but he's not buying it.  

7. "Dear God (Sincerely M.O.F.)" / Monsters of Folk
From Monsters of Folk (2009)
When I first got this heady album, I pored over it, trying to pin down which song sprang from which musician in this "super-group" -- M. Ward? Yim Yames (a.k.a. My Morning Jacket's Jim James)?  Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst? But this swirly, synthy first track made it easy -- they each sing one verse!  


8.  "It's Alright" / The Kinks
From The Kinks (1964)
Jump back 45 years in time (!!) to this early Kinks track, stripped-down and primitive rock and roll. (In glorious mono!)  The Kinks never were quite convincing as a blues band, but it's fun to hear them give it a go, wheezy mouth harp and all. 

9. "Oxford Comma" / Vampire Weekend 
From Vampire Weekend (2008)
Back into the indie world, with a vengeance. Something about these guys I've loved since my first listen....

10. "American Pie" / Don McLean
From American Pie (1971)
Might as well end the evening with the entire history of rock and roll, packed into one grab-bag of pseudo-cryptic lyrics -- a fluky classic, but a classic nonetheless. Scroll down here to get the lowdown.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE 
OMG, is it Wednesday again ALREADY?

1. "Veronica" / Elvis Costello
From Spike (1989)
As I recall, this was the album that made me "go off" Elvis -- despite this perky pop single co-written with Paul McCartney (that's him on the old Hofner bass, though I think EC dubbed his own backing vocals). It ticks along too briskly, the lyrics nearly unintelligible, as if Elvis was trying to disguise the fact that this is no love song, but a fretful rehash of "Eleanor Rigby."  That soaring, swinging melody though -- it's hard to resist.

2. "Eros' Entropic Tundra" / Of Montreal
From Satanic Panic in the Attic (2004)
Absurd song title aside (all Of Montreal's titles are overwrought like this), it's a winsome bit of indie pop, with a definitely Kinky flavor.  As Kevin Barnes miserably moans, "All I ever get / Is sa-a-ad love . . ."

3. "A Question of Temperature" / Balloon Farm
1967
Hazy, hectic, with an insistent beat -- this psychedelic classic, with a definite garage-y vibe, emanated from a New Jersey band that barely outlasted this one single's blip of underground success.  Thanks to my pal Blamo for introducing me to it on his famous Blast-o-palooza mix-tape CD; you can also find it on the first Nuggets set.

4. "You Want It" / The Village Green
From When the Creepers Creep In (EP, 2006)
Another rarity -- an impulse download from a quirky Seattle band with an uncanny predilection for neo-British Beat pop.  Most of this EP ended up on their later album, but "You Want It" mysteriously fell by the wayside. Too bad -- it glowers and lurks very nicely.

5. "Gospel Night" / Dave Alvin
From Blue Blvd (1991)
I love how Dave Alvin's slightly gruff voice narrates the unglamorous lives and loves of ordinary  people, the stuff of California trailer parks and roadside diners, served up with a whomping beat, honkytonk piano, and spanking guitar licks.

6. "League of Failures" / Jill Sobule
From California Years (2009)
Loveable losers -- does anybody get them better than Jill Sobule?

7. "Take Me With U" / Marshall Crenshaw
From What's in the Bag? (2003)
Marshall covering a Prince song?  Well, why not -- that foxy syncopation, those sneaky guitar riffs -- a perfect MC vehicle, it turns out.

8. "Love Like a Glove" / Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit
From Nick Lowe And His Cowboy Outfit (1984)
Another cover -- as it happens, Nick singing his then-wife Carlene Carter's song.  Rather an undistinguished cut, I have to say.  And I'm not jealous of Carlene Carter at all.

9. "Say It Isn't True" / Alan Price
From Liberty (1989)
And yet another cover, this one of a Jackson Browne track from Lawyers in Love.  Alan must have loved this bittersweet song, because after making it the last cut on this rather obscure 1989 album, he threw an even longer version onto 1995's A Gigster's Life for Me. Alan's take is much more dramatic than Jackson's -- if only it didn't drift into bombastic overkill.

10. "One Irish Rover" / Van Morrison
From No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986)
Gotta love this Van classic, a tenderly lurching waltz with just a whiff of lonely self-pity.  Self-mythologizing, yes, but Van wears that soulful troubadour mask so convincingly.  A lovely song to [yawn] go to sleep on . . . .