52 GIRLS

"Lalena" / Donovan

I meant to stay away from the oldies for a bit -- but this girl muscled her way forward, and for some reason my ears can hear nothing else today.

By the time this winsome single came along in hippie-dippy 1968 -- a follow-up to "Hurdy-Gurdy Man," one of the great psychedelic mind-trips -- we all knew the Donovan lexicon. The wobbly reverby vocals, the gentle acoustic strum, the background flutes and harps. Flower child music to the Nth degree.

Yet this one had something special -- instead of being just about love and meadows and sunshine it actually had a social message. Donovan has said that he was inspired to write this song by watching Lotte Lenya playing the streetwalker Jenny in G.W. Pabst's 1931 film of The Threepenny Opera, and learning that now for the first time, I see the song slightly differently. But not all that much -- even if you didn't know that provenance, you could feel the groundswell of sympathetic sorrow in "Lalena," a cry of commiseration for all the outcasts of society.

Donovan's trembly vocals come into their own here, the gentle melisma like a caress of concern. "When the sun goes to bed / That's the time you raise your head." In 1968 I thought this was just because Lalena was a cool countercultural chick who liked to sleep in -- but now that I know the Lotte Lenya inspiration, seeing as how she's a working girl, the pity in the next lines make more sense: "That's your lot in life, Lalena / Can't blame ya, Lalena." Anybody who wants to enact legislation against this trapped and desperate misfit will have to take it up with the esteemed member from Glasgow, Mr. Leitch.

Given Donovan's Scottish accent, I wasn't one-hundred-percent sure what he was saying in the next verse. Turns out it really was nonsense syllables: "Aw Tee Toft / La Dee Da." But I picture Donovan watching this German film with subtitles, and hey, who knows what he meant to convey. And the next line is certainly an armchair critic's cry of sympathy: "Can your part get much sadder?"

In the bridge, there's a hippie-dippy possibility, like an Herbal Essence shampoo commercial : "Run your hand / Through your hair" -- but no, it's just a prostitute's attention-getting hair-fluff. While my 1968 self saw the next line -- "Paint your face with despair" -- as a reference to a French street mime single-tear make-up, now I know that it's just the heavy mascara and rouge of any lady of the night. The despair part comes free.

Oh, and that tender bridge, full of strings and woodwinds -- maybe it seemed a little weird and retro in 1968, but I'll bet the 1931 movie had put those orchestrations in Donovan's mind, and they would not be denied. Seemed odd at the time, but now it makes the song.  

I imagine Donovan, the famous folkie, sitting in his living room watching this film and being overwhelmed with emotion. A song HAD to be written. The song in fact didn't even make it onto his Hurdy Gurdy Man LP and was only released as a single, but that single hit hard on the US charts. (Contractual disputes, no UK release, but hey, it's an old story to a Kinks fan.) All I know is that in 1968, this high school kid heard the song on the radio and fell in love with it.  Forever.

8 DOWN, 44 TO GO

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

I've been stuck in a continual loop of summer songs, thanks to a Facebook thread -- so I'm primed to see what surprises the Shuffle's gonna throw my way today....

1. "In the Bleak Midwinter" / Cyndi Lauper
From Merry Christmas -- Have a Nice Life! (2004)
Ha -- talk about a change of seasons! The irony is just too perfect. Yes, a traditional English Christmas carol from Cyndi "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" Lauper. I always liked Cyndi -- her Boho flake image seemed as genuine as Madonna's seemed calculated -- and an off-the-wall choice like this seems totally in character for her. Here she tenderly strums her autoharp and unleashes a pure madrigal voice to produce a true olde English sound, plaintive penny whistle and all.

2. "House of the Rising Sun" / Alan Price
From Rising Sun (1980)
No, not the Animals' version -- this is solo Alan Price, nearly 20 years later, reclaiming the song that made him famous (well, he did arrange the Animals' version, and still gets songwriting royalties). Somehow it works just fine, with a jazzy tempo, scolding sax, and a brand-new syncopated organ solo in the middle eight. It won't replace the original in my heart (one of my 100 Favorite Singles), but this rendition is perfectly delightful on its own merits.

3. "Think" / Aretha Franklin
From Aretha Now (1968)
Soul Sister No. 1, setting that man straight. I'll confess, I can't hear this anymore without picturing Aretha in her pink waitress uniform, reading the riot act to Matt "Guitar" Murphy in The Blues Brothers, while Belushi and Ackroyd watch from their diner stools and Lou Marini plays his sax atop the diner counter. (Here's the link: Think.) A great moment in film!

4. "All Day and All of the Night" / The Kinks
From The Kinks (1964)
Those first grating chords, and an idiot grin busts out on my face. That's how I know the Kinks are my favorite band -- the way the world stops for me when this song pops up unexpectedly. Not my fave Kinks track, not by a long shot, but compared to most of the rest of all music? No contest. Dave's churning solo could have been cut yesterday, that's how raw and vital that guitar sounds.

5. "I'll Fight" / Wilco
From Wilco (The Album) (2009)
I'm not a rabid Wilco fan, which is why I was immune to the backlash against this album. "Safe"? "Commercial"? It's like the R.E.M. thing all over again. Who cares? I enjoy Jeff Tweedy's music -- a burnished patina of Americana laid over hooky tunes with ambiguous lyrics. Though there's nothing ambiguous about that first verse: "I'll fight, I'll fight, I'll fight / I'll fight for you, I will." That absolute commitment buoys this upbeat track, a spectacularly non-whiny love song -- what a rare thing!

6. "Pastime Paradise" / Stevie Wonder
From Songs in the Key of Life (1976)
Fact of life: I will accept any political rhetoric if it's delivered in Stevie Wonder's blissfully tuneful package. Maybe I'm hypnotized by that supple Latin percussion, the fluid synthesizers, the lush symphonic texture that Stevie could mastermind at the height of his golden period. When I listen to the words, I think, What idealistic nonsense! But Preacher Stevie makes me believe.

7. "Rivertown" / Hayes Carll
From Little Rock (2005)
Roots, roots, roots. Or is it alt.country? My friend Jim emailed me a few twangy tracks by this guy, and I've enjoyed them without ever getting around to exploring more of his music. It's all in the Townes Van Zandt / Steve Earle / Robert Earl Keen line, but very likeable -- even this lugubrious story, told with a slouchy beat and the lonesome whine of pedal steel. (On other tracks, Carll balances that out with a goofy sense of humor). A bit generic, perhaps, but moody and mesmerizing.

8. "Younger Girl" / Kippington Lodge
Oh, how embarrassing. Yes, I'm such a Nick Lowe sap that I even have this rarity, a live-from-the-BBC recording of a Lovin' Spoonful cover by Kippington Lodge, Nick's first band when he was still a teenager. I don't even think it's Nick singing, more likely his schoolmate Barry Landerman. And that woozy, wheezy organ -- Bob Andrews? Chronology is hazy with obscure tracks like this. Is this version better than the Lovin' Spoonful's? Oh, come on, that question is not even relevant. It's Nick.

9. "Towers of London" / XTC
From Black Sea (1980)
Eccentric architectural musings from Andy Partridge (unless Alex tells me it's Colin Moulding). No wonder Andy and Robyn Hitchcock like to collaborate -- this could be the B-side to "Trams of Old London." A whole song about the navvies who built Tower Bridge for Queen Victoria -- now that's what I call a pop song! But it is, it's so catchy, with that New Wave-y quirky production. I really need to do a full post on this song.

10. "Oh, Gosh" / Donovan
From Troubador (compilation)
What gives this track such an airy texture? Is it the breathy jazz flute, the light brushes on the drums, the plucked upright bass -- or was there really a summer breeze flowing through the studio in 1968 when Donovan cut this track? Nobody could sell that flower child vibe like Donovan. The sincerity is what does it -- "Oh gosh! Life is really too much / (Life is really too much)" (I love how his doubled vocals split, jumping from speaker to speaker, doing a one-man call-and-response). Blissful.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 56-60

For better or worse, my musical tastes were born out of the British Invasion, so it's no surprise I'm hitting a run of mid-60s English rock in the heart of my list -- and no surprise that I've already written about so many of today's songs. Some of these bands belong to that elite group of artists who've nabbed more than one spot on my list (guess which); others are more in the category of one-hit wonders, but as my write-ups explain, don't dismiss them so quickly.

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

56. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" / The Animals (1965)
The last great Animals single to be recorded with Alan Price on organ -- and oh, it's a sizzler.

57. "Sunshine Superman" / Donovan (1966)
So many great Donovan tracks, it was hard to choose just one. (I'm prepared now for the onslaught of comments telling me which Donovan tracks you thought were better.) But in the end I had to go for "Sunshine Superman" because it encompasses everything we loved him for -- folkie innocence, hippie psychedelia, and a nifty world music groove.

58. "Time of the Season" / The Zombies (1969)
Thank goodness I've got links for the rest of today's songs -- that leaves me plenty of room to write about this song. As many of you know, I go weak in the knees whenever I think about the Zombies. They weren't around very long -- in fact they broke up a full year before this single was released. Fun facts to know and tell: Wikipedia tells me that it was rock & roll zelig Al Kooper, who'd recently become an A&R exec at Columbia Records, that pushed to lift this track from their 1968 farewell album Odessey and Oracle and put it out as a 45. How cruelly ironic, then, that it turned out to be their best-selling single ever, at least in the U.S. (The Zombies were one British Invasion band that didn't really catch on over here, though I can say I was a Zombies fan from the get-go.)
Talk about the Spookiness Quotient -- this song is simply drenched with it. Some songs just deserve to be heard in the dark, late at night, and this is one of them. That mysterously tip-toeing bass line, the descending triplet on the organ, strange little percussion accents like bumps in the night -- dig that one repeated tic, a lightning-swift combo of block clap, cymbal, and gasp (sounds like somebody's being whipped down in the dungeon). Above all, it's Colin Blunstone's other-worldly voice, doubled and echoed until it sounds like it's coming from some parallel dimension. And on the second verse, all those overlapping voices, falsettos and booming baritones, coming out of the woodwork like a spirits at a seance: "What's your name? (What's your name?) / Who's your daddy? (Who's your daddy?)/ (HE RICH) Is he rich like me-ee? / Has he taken (Has he taken) / any time (any time) / (TO SHOW) To show you what you need to live?" It's like an allusive, coded conversation, something heard through a wall maybe; we have no idea what they're talking about. In the bridge, the imaginary voices take the lead: "(Tell it to me slowly!) / Tell you what?/ (I really want to know). . . " Then they all chime in together in thick clotted sacral harmonies for the refrain: "It's the time / For the see-ea-son for loving," ending on a VERY disturbing chord. After which, off goes Rod Argent's lunatic, inspired organ solo -- I've got to think that Al Kooper was grooving on that. The baroque textures of this song tap into so many dark psychological states -- it makes me think of time travel, of drug trips, of haunted houses, of black magic, of kinky sex, of mad wives locked in the attic, of evil clowns and malevolent ventriloquist's dummies coming to life. You know, like The Twilight Zone on acid, with a script by Ray Bradbury, directed by David Lynch, starring Jeremy Irons and Amanda Plummer. Gothic and stylish, a pure class act.

59. "Concrete and Clay" / Unit 4 + 2 (1966)
Ah, just listen to that cowbell intro. A fluky hit, catapulted from obscurity by pirate radio stations (raise your hand if you saw the film Pirate Radio, a.k.a. The Boat That Rocked), this irresistible little swinger was best listened to on a transistor radio snuggled underneath your pillow. Few songs transport me back as totally as this one does.

60. "A World Without Love" / Peter & Gordon (1964)
The fact that this song was written by Paul McCartney is one-hundred-percent beside the point. I adored Peter Asher, and the heavenly harmonies on this record were pop perfection.

"Hurdy-Gurdy Man" / Donovan

I'm deep into a new book called Please, Please Me: Sixties British Pop Inside Out by Gordon Thompson, so all I can think about right now is UK pop from the 1960s (I know, I know, that's hardly a change for me). While this doesn't have all the salacious details about rock star lives that I was kinda hoping for, it's great on stuff like who engineered which track, how they created certain sound effects, how various songs evolved, and who really played the drums for the Dave Clark Five. And I'm just enough of a record geek to care.

I was too young when these records first came out to pay attention to technical stuff like this, but according to Thompson, "Hurdy-Gurdy Man" has been called by some sources the first Led Zeppelin recording, because most of the members of the band -- which hadn't yet formed -- were called in for the recording session. Thompson insists that this wasn't the case. John Paul Jones, Led Zep's eventual bassist -- at the time a very in-demand session musician -- was the musical director for the session. But instead of having John Bonham on the drums, Jones called in Clem Cattini, who'd long been his go-to drummer, and he hired Alan Parker for guitar instead of Jimmy Page (another popular session man, though his claim to have played Dave Davies' part on early Kinks recordings is apocryphal).

Well, I'm no Led Zep fan, so the exact personnel doesn't really matter to me. Still, I couldn't stop listening to this track after reading this. It's such a fantastic number, moody and ominous in a way that Donovan's early folky music hadn't been. There's the minor key, of course, and the hynotically repeated, downward-sliding melodies; there's the exaggerated tremble of Donovan's voice, sounding almost artifically distorted. When this came out in 1968, that psychedelic texture was still something novel and exciting. Sure, Donovan had already given us "Sunshine Superman" and "Mellow Yellow," so we knew that our sweet Scottish flower child was exploring the wonderful world of drugs. But the darkness of "Hurdy Gurdy Man," the disconnected groping for meaning, was a whole new dimension.

"Thrown like a star in my vast sleep," he begins, in a hushed and haunting voice, "I open my eyes to take a peep /To find that I was by the sea / Gazing with tranquility." But there's no tranquility here; a military drum fill erupts, then an exotic Indian tambura, then that insinuating sliding guitar line, like a foghorn moaning through the night. "Twas then when the hurdy gurdy man / Came singing songs of love," Donovan intones, but it sure doesn't sound like a song of love. "Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang," Donovan repeats, like he's in a trance. Whatever this mind-blowing message of the hurdy gurdy man is, it comes off as mumbled nonsense.

What's a hurdy gurdy man doing here? I visualize an Italian street-corner musician with a handlebar mustache, hardly the groovy hippie image you'd expect. Songfacts.com and Wikipedia tell me that the song was in fact written as a gift for Donovan's mentor Mac MacLeod, whose band was named Hurdy Gurdy, but once the song was written Donovan decided not to give him the song and recorded it himself. Too bad -- that prosaic explanation takes all the fun out of it. I like to imagine the Hurdy Gurdy Man as a mysterious figure like the Fool on the Hill, a magus who has all the answers, while we unenlightened souls can only hear it as gibberish.

It gets even more portentous in the next verse: "Histories of ages past / Unenlightened shadows cast / Down through all eternity /The crying of humanity." When you see the words printed out baldly like that, it's pretty silly, isn't it? But not when it's sung, over that insistent drum beat in that spooky echoey voice. And then the hurdy gurdy man becomes, for no discernible reason, a "rolypoly man -- roly poly, roly poly, roly poly, poly he sang . . . " It should sound cute and cuddly, but it's anything but. You just want to dive into those tangled skeins of sound and lose yourself.

Hurdy Gurdy Man sample

"Season of the Witch" / Donovan

The thing I love about this track is, it's not what you'd expect from Donovan Leitch, the Scottish flower child -- fact is, it smoking rocks out. That guitar line is full of slouchy blues attitude, and Donovan wails away with gusto on the refrain, "You've got to pick up every stitch!" I've never had the slightest idea what he means by that (I flash to a baffling image of Donovan knitting a Fair Isle sweater), but by God, I love it.

I know people who consider Donovan a lightweight because of that fey quality in so many of his songs -- "Mellow Yellow", "Sunshine Superman," "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" -- but when this record came out in 1966, the rock world was careening straight for the Summer of Love, psychedelia was the flavor of the month, and Donovan took to it like a duck to water. There's something trancelike in these riddling repeated phrases, the hovering two-chord progression, the floaty syncopation. It makes me high just to listen to it.

"When I look out my window," Donovan starts out, with a campy sort of off-beat emphasis, "Many sights to see. / And when I look in my window, / So many different people to be." Heavy, man. The second verse offers more of the same mirrors-within-mirrors concept: "And when I look over my shoulder, / What do you think I see ? / Some other cat looking over / His shoulder at me." It's the sort of thing that can seem very profound when you're in a certain, well, chemically enhanced frame of mind. Best not to enquire too closely, though -- by the time he gets to the "rabbits in a ditch" and the "beatniks out to make it rich" lines, I'm not hung up on the logic any more; I know they're there just for the sake of the rhyme. The video to this would definitely include abstract iridescent color puddles spreading and mutating, like slides from biology class, or a reel of film burning up in the projector. Turn on the black light and strobes now.

Trust Donovan to embrace the hippie zeitgeist so totally that he makes it his own. "Season of the Witch" has a haunting minor-key edge, but thanks to its mellow loose-limbed rhythm, it never gets too eerie or disturbing. No bad trips here, man. This song doesn't sound dated at all to me; on the contrary, between that curlicuing guitar and the noodling organ fills, it just grooves away, uncomplicated, enthusiastic. Sure, there's a witch here, but a mystical Druid-type witch, not a scary toothless warty Halloween hag. Light a candle, draw a pentagram on the floor, and see where she'll take you.

Season of the Witch sample

“Sunshine Superman” / Donovan

MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!

One thing the British Invasion rescued us from was folk music – relentlessly earnest coffee-house acts like Peter Paul & Mary and Judy Collins. There was Bob Dylan, too, but even though he came to the party dressed as a protest singer, we all knew he was going to have more up his sleeve. I adore the D. A. Pennebaker film Don’t Look Back which shows Dylan on his 1965 UK tour; in one of my favorite moments, Dylan enviously asks Alan Price (who’d just quit the Animals), “So who is this Donovan?” Price tells Dylan that Donovan is a Scottish folk singer and “he’s very good, actually.” Then Price adds (deadpan), “Better than you.” Dylan scowls.

Donovan -- the first singer I ever knew of who went by just one name -- started off as a traditional folkie, with “Catch the Wind” and “Universal Soldier,” but the Donovan I loved blossomed in 1966. Let the Mods drift into psychedelia; Donovan cornered the market on flower-child innocence. His song titles tell you all you need to know: “Mellow Yellow,” “Sunny South Kensington,” “Epistle to Dippy,” “There Is a Mountain,” “Wear Your Love Like Heaven.” Strictly speaking, I suppose this wasn’t British Invasion anymore, but Donovan never really belonged to any movement – he was just Donovan.

“Sunshine Superman” starts off intriguingly, with a muted plucked bass line, tiptoeing softly into the scene; then a harpsichord-like keyboard lays down a suspense-movie soundtrack. Guitar feedback flits through like a creaking floorboard. “Sunshine came softly through my /A-window today,” Donovan begins, in that velvety brogue of his. “Could’ve tripped out easy, but I / I’ve changed my ways.” Now that’s an arresting opening, even though it lapses next into love-song cliches: “It’ll take time I know it / But in a while / You’re gonna be mine I know it / We’ll do it in style / Cause I’ve made my mind up / You’re going to be mine.” But by now you’re hooked on that hypnotic melody – it’s almost like atonal plainsong, most lines being subtle variations of a basic pattern, with octave jumps bracketed by three-note chromatic sequences (except for that curling phrase, “I’ll tell you right now,” a jazzy dissonant touch that I love).

The lyrics go off in surreal, min-expanding directions. “Superman or Green Lantern ain’t got / A-nothing on me” – that’s the classic, but so many others stick in my mind. “You can just sit there thinking / On your velvet throne / About all the rainbows that you can / A-have for your own….” “Everybody’s hustlin’ baby / For a little scene…” “We stood on the beach at sunset / Do you remember when? / I know a beach where baby / It never ends….” “Pick up your hand and slowly / Blow your little mind.” What does it mean? Who cares? Logic is so 1965, man.

This track has so much texture, you can get lost in it. There’s Jimmy Page, moonlighting from the Yardbirds, on those twangy guitar accents; sexy Latin percussion lays down a sinuous cha-cha rhythm; and that plinging keyboard dances all around the vocal. How that jerky syncopation manages to feel so spacey, so blissed-out, I don’t know. It’s a wondrous thing.

Donovan started out in turtleneck sweaters and a seafarer’s cap; but by “Sunshine Superman,” he was wearing an embroidered Nehru jacket and visiting India with the Beatles and the Maharishi. It’s astonishing, how rapidly the scene evolved from 1964 to 1967, and Donovan was right there in the vanguard, floating serenely on his own magic carpet. Looking back at the 1960s, sometimes it’s hard to imagine how anybody took flower children seriously – but then I listen to Donovan and feel the love vibes all over again.

Sunshine Superman sample