"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...

First Song on the Shuffle

"How Can I Be Sure" /
Shelby Lynne

Complicated history here. Felix Cavaliere's the Young Rascals (or at this point had they conceded that they should just be called The Rascals?) released this song in 1967, as a teaser for their album Groovin'. I heard the single on the radio all right--WIFE Good Guys radio in Indianapolis--and I'm pretty sure my older brother Holt owned the album. (Even now it's probably mouldering away in a cardboard box in some ex-girlfriend's garage.) I preferred the lazy psychedelia of the title track, with its flower-child bird tweets and bursts of lush harmony, but the minor-key waltz of "How Can I Be Sure?" was a close second. Yes, it had corny strings and even a Parisian-cafe accordion, but there was a haunting sense of emotional limbo at the end of every verse. (And that plinking electric piano, like a neurotic tap on the shoulder . . . )

Dial things forward, and we get the next charting of this song, in the UK in September 1970 for my girl Dusty Springfield. It's a perfect song for Dusty, with her contralto throbbing with vulnerability. In her hands, Cavaliere's cry of adolescent uncertainty became a weary anthem of a heart that had been broken too many times already. Yeah, teen idol David Cassidy finally boosted this song to #1 in the charts with his cover version in 1972. (Disclaimer: I spent a good 6 months of my life in love with David Cassidy. Never you mind when that was.)  But Cassidy just copied Cavaliere's take. Dusty's was something richer, and deeper.

So it's no surprise that the gifted singer/songwriter Shelby Lynne would have included this on her 2008 homage to Dusty Springfield, Just a Little Lovin' . And hand it to Shelby -- her "How Can I Be Sure" is even more tortured than Dusty's take. Lynne goes Dusty one better -- she's not just about love anymore. When she punches out the phrase "In a world / That's constantly changing," it becomes a politically charged signal for a world gone off the rails.

This is the album that turned me on to Shelby Lynne, who I personally think is one of the great singer/songwriters of our time. Okay, anybody who'd dedicate an entire album to Dusty Springfield would already have my vote, but everything else I've heard from her, I've loved. She's got darkness, she's got sincerity, she's got brains. She started out country, where she never got the love she should have; she went more pop and the wider audience gave her at least some of the respect she deserves.

Her voice is twangier than Dusty's, but still in that same musky contralto range, and like Dusty she conveys an undertone of tragedy. (In Shelby's case, that's a no-brainer -- she and her sister Alison Moorer as teenagers saw their abusive father shoot their mother to death -- so, yeah, whiners, top that.) Like Dusty, she screens an ambiguous sexuality behind an intensely private persona.

Yeah, it's a song about unstable mental states. ("Whenever I--I am away / From you / I wanna die. . . ." Trust is in short supply -- "How do I know? / Maybe you're trying to use me / Flying too high can confuse me" -- and the singer is pleading for mercy ("Touch me / But don't bring me down.")  And like Dusty, Shelby flings her hearts into those phrases, opting for the downward curl of pessimism.

Back in 1967, "don't bring me down" was no doubt a drug reference. In 2008, it's all about not being disheartened for the brave fight ahead.

Either way, the song builds to that last wonderfully inarticulate verse: "How can I be sure? / I really really really wanna know / I really really really wanna know..." Felix Cavaliere and David Cassidy were asking a girlfriend to commit. Dusty was asking a lover to offer safe haven.

Shelby Lynne? She's throwing down a gauntlet. Account for yourself, people.

S Is For...

26 artists, A to Z. How long I've been waiting to give you S -- the peerless Dame Dusty Springfield. 

Dusty Springfield / 
"The Look of Love"

Oh, Dusty. That smoky contralto, the raw emotion, the unmitigated soulfulness. I'm forever fascinated by how convent girl Mary O'Brien of north London transformed herself into the White Queen of Soul.

And a big piece of this is the Bacharach-David connection. In the 60s, all the girl singers wanted a piece of the Bacharach-David franchise, which Burt's muse Dionne Warwick had neatly sewed up in the USA (although Beatles gal pal Cilla Black stole a march on Dionne by scoring a #1 UK single with "Anyone Who Had a Heart"). Sure, Dusty was a major contender, having scored a 1964 top ten hit with "Wishin' and Hopin'," as well as her UK hit "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself." But Dionne still ruled the roost.

Then this number came along. It was originally an instrumental, which Bacharach wrote after watching Swiss sex goddess Ursula Andress perform in the film Casino Royale. (Because, yes, that's how good Burt Bacharach is -- he could toss off a classic song like this as if it were just a doodle.)  Hal David added some lyrics, and suddenly it was a song, and who did the guys tap to sing it for the soundtrack?

My girl Dusty.

So many other people recorded this: Stan Getz, Sergio Mendez, Lainie Kazan, Claudine Longet (aka Mrs. Andy Williams), Dionne Warwick (of course), even freakin' Nina Simone. But as far as I'm concerned, Dusty's version is the only one that matters,

It's a classic bossa nova, sussurating and lush. Dusty's come-hither-husky vocals float over the rhythm track, amplified by echo effects to sound even more sexy. I can see the smudged mascara, the hungover affect -- yeah, the lyrics pretend that this song is all about seduction, but Dusty delivers the morning after.

They look at each other, they want each other. "How long have I waited?" Dusty exclaims, with just a whisper of a wail. Then, eyes on the prize, she follows it up with chapter and verse: "Waited just to love you / Now that I have found you / [beat beat] Don't ever go." Caressing the syllables, stroking the sound, working the textures of her voice to find every nuance.  

It's pop classic gold, underlaid by tasteful movie-music strings and soft Latin percussion. The throaty sax solo in the middle eight is just about perfect. And here's sex-exhausted Dusty, stretching out her arms, begging, "Don't ever go."

It's one of my top candidate for the Sexiest Song Ever -- the other candidates being Dusty's "Breakfast in Bed" and "I Close My Eyes and Count to Ten."  And while we're at it, let's throw in "You Don't Own Me," which is so much better than the current plastic stupid pop hit by Australian singer Grace. (Don't get me started.)

Dusty was the real deal. We won't see her like again.

My Musical Advent Calendar

"Mary's Boy Child" /
The Springfields

Instead of a glitter-spangled scene with doors for every day of December, how about a daily treat from my iTunes holiday playlist?

So who are the Springfields?  I could say they were England's answer to Peter, Paul and Mary, except they didn't stay together long enough to become that much of a folk institution.  But listen when the female singer takes off in the second verse -- sound familiar?

Yes, that's Dusty Springfield herself (born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien), singing with her brother Tom (born Dionysius O'Brien), who would later write the hit song "Georgy Girl" for the Seekers. The Springfields only played together from 1961 to 1963, but they did have one big hit -- "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" in 1962 -- before Dusty split off to launch her blockbuster solo career.

This is from their 1962 Christmas EP Christmas with the Springfields.  Listeners at the time would have recognized it as a 1957 Harry Belafonte #1 hit single. The Springfields slightly tone down the calypso rhythm, but it still dances along. And while it tells the traditional Christmas story, shepherds and angels and star and all, it's filtered through a bit of an island sensibility ("so the Holy Bible say..." "by and by they find a little nook . . . "). The humble birth is more important than the glory here, though Dusty's powerful contralto throws in an entire heavenly host for good measure.

Poking around the internet, I was delighted to find this rare track -- and amazed to find a YouTube video of it as well.  I felt so certain that Dusty Springfield, with her Roman Catholic convent school upbringing, must have a Christmas song around somewhere, and here it is.  I love that it's not a holiday romance pop song, not a jokey Santa cartoon, but something celebrating the actual Nativity.  That refrain -- "Now man will live forever more / Because of Christmas Day" -- well, that's the most important thing about Christmas.  God bless you, Dusty.

"You Don't Own Me" / Dusty Springfield

How did I never know this song was originally recorded by Lesley Gore?

Wait -- it was 1963. It hit #2 on the charts. Where was I? (Okay, yes, deep in a Beatlemania haze, but STILL...)

Then it swung by me again in 1964, on Dusty Springfield's debut album (in the US) Stay Awhile/I Only Want to Be With You.  Was it released as a single in the States?  I have no idea.

Nevertheless, I remain firmly convinced that I never heard Lesley Gore's version at the time and that Dusty's is hardwired deep in my girl-group DNA. And, yeah, you know I am a Lesley Gore fan, but hey, Dusty is on my shortlist of Golden Girls. This song means the world to me because of how Dusty sang it.

One thing Lesley and Dusty had in common -- a very, VERY complicated sense of wanting autonomy and yet craving love. Dusty tended more towards the victim end of the spectrum, which to me made it all the more affirming to hear her declare: "You don't own me / I'm not just one of your many toys." (Ah, that well-placed word "many," and what a special shiver of disgust Dusty gave it.)

The demands pile up from there on, escalated with key changes: "Don't say I can't go with other boys," "Don't tell me what to do/ Don't tell me what to say,"  "Don't put me on display," "Don't try to change me," "Don't tie me down" -- yikes!! But the weary doggedness with which Dusty sings it tells me that she's make these requests before and they've fallen on deaf ears.

In both Lesley's and Dusty's versions, the requisite pop strings and horns undergird her (putative)declaration of freedom:  She doesn't tell him how to live his life, so surely he should understand that she is "free / And I love to be free / To live my life the way I want / To say and do whatever I please." So why do I sense that this cry of independence is not being heard by the man in question?

Wow. This is 1963/64, long before Helen Reddy's 1975 "I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar." Feminism was still just a glimmer of an idea; if anything, it was nothing but Helen Gurley Brown and Sex and the Single Girl (a 1962 book quickly subverted by the 1964 Natalie Wood movie.)

Sure, both Lesley and Dusty would eventually be identified as bisexuals/lesbians. Did that give this proto-feminist anthem a special oomph? Maybe so from their perspective; but for me, that is totally irrelevant.

Because, yes, do I still snarl this under my breath when a domineering man tries to push me around?

You betcha.

I Love This Song!

5 Favorite Opening Riffs --
Guitar Heroes

Note that I'm not saying The Best Opening Riffs-- too many songs, too little time; I couldn't even limit it to 10 (thanks for all the suggestions), so 25 Favorite Opening Riffs it has to be, in five 5-riff installments.

A few arbitrary rules: 1. One riff per band. 2. Has to be an opener, starting from the record's very first note.  3. Vocals don't count. 

Let's face it -- guitar licks are our opening-riff bread and butter. And here are the masters: 

Fun, Fun, Fun / The Beach Boys

Probably the perfect surf guitar lick -- stolen from Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode," of course, but just enough crisper and tighter. This is a song near and dear to my heart, if only because it mentions Indianapolis in it.  The Beach Boys rushed out this single in February 1964, knowing that in a week or two the British Invasion would hit, and their clean-cut monopoly of the airwaves would be over. Well, they went down swinging with this one.



California Dreamin' / The Mamas and the Papas

Fast-forward to January 1966, with Beatlemania subsiding (until Sgt Pepper) and Folk Rock making its bid to take over. And here came John Phillips & Co., ready to score a hit with this beauty. That brooding acoustic opening (played by Wrecking Crew guitarist P. F. Sloan) was the perfect mix of protest-song edginess and sublime melancholy. They may have been dreaming of California (and recording it in L.A.) but the mood here is definitely cold and gray as a New York City winter.


Son of a Preacher Man / Dusty Springfield

Dripping slow and sweet as tupelo honey, this sexy September 1968 hit comes from the iconic album Dusty in Memphis. That's guitarist Reggie Young of the Memphis Cats, bringing a lazy Southern style to Dusty's soul sister sound. This narrowly beat out Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" -- there is no doubt what Dusty and the preacher's kid will be throwing off the Tallahatchee Bridge.



Ohio / Crosby, Still, Nash & Young

Protest song? This is the greatest one of all time. And that opening is just about perfect -- insistent, calm, ruthless. The marching tempo, the blithe skipping treble notes, that stern bottom line, and just enough harshness to the electric guitar to let you know we mean business.  In June 1970, this was the record that defined us.


Stairway to Heaven / Led Zeppelin

Oh, this song goes a LOT of different places before its eight minutes are over -- but for a perfect slow acoustic opener, can you beat this?  I always forget how slow it is, each note taking its exquisite time before the recorders kick in. Nevertheless, you know exactly what song this is. Wait for it....

52 GIRLS

"Georgy Girl" / The Seekers

Anyone remember this movie?  1966, British, in arty black and white -- it was part of that brief new wave of British filmmaking that began with the gritty realism of The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner and ended with the absurdism of If . . . . My favorite era of filmmaking, hands down.

But this one in particular had a story that really spoke to me. Georgy/Georgina, played by Vanessa Redgrave's kid sister Lynn, is an impulsive, cheerful, slightly overweight girl, harboring a mad crush on the gorgeous boyfriend (Alan Bates) of her icy, elegantly beautiful roommate (Charlotte Rampling). Just guess which character I identified with.

With its perky whistling motif, "Georgy Girl" sounds more like cabaret, or at least folk music, than backbeat rock & roll. The Seekers (note: NOT the Searchers) weren't British but Australian -- the first Aussies, in fact, to score Top 5 hits in the US, UK, and Australia -- and they clearly identified as folkies. The songwriter was Dusty Springfield's brother Tom, her old partner from the folk trio the Springfields, who had also written the Seekers' earlier acoustic hits, "I'll Never Find Another You" and "A World Of Our Own." (The Seekers' lead singer, Judith Durham, even sounded like a Dusty Springfield, minus the Motown influence.)  Yet the times they were a-changing, and this song mixes things up with a brisker, boppier, tempo, and lyrics by musical comedy actor Jim Dale. 

 

Despite its plucky melody, we all knew this was a desperately sad song. Addressed to Georgy by an omniscient narrator, the song goes to the heart of her paradoxical nature: "Hey there, Georgy Girl / Swingin' down the street so fancy free / Nobody you meet could ever see the loneliness there / Inside you." It's almost as if this is her shrink singing, the close folk harmonies adding a sort of clinical detachment. Men pass her by, unattracted by her frumpy appearance; we're still in pre-Swinging London when the bohemian look was not In. Yet in that wistful bridge, Durham's voice rings out solo, noting Georgy's secret hunger for love: "You're always window shopping / But never stopping to buy / So shed those dowdy feathers and fly! / A little bit." As a clumsy pre-teen, I took that directive very much to heart.

Teetering on the cusp of the Be Yourself groovy 1960s, in the chorus the singers become cheerleaders urging Georgy to self-actualization -- "Hey there, Georgy girl / There's another Georgy deep inside / Bring out all the love you hide / And, oh, what a change there'd be / The world would see / A new Georgy girl." In verse two Durham exhorts her: "Don't be so scared of changing / And rearranging yourself / It's time for jumping down from the shelf / A little bit." I love how they tack on those last short phrases -- "inside you," "a little bit" -- knowing that Georgy is only ready for baby steps toward Finding Herself.

This song was so inspiring, so heartening to me, that I pretty much refused to acknowledge that there was another set of lyrics for the end credits:

 

 

Wait -- how did Georgy get from lovable eccentric to a selfish gold-digger? Sorry, you'll just have to see the movie. . . .  

 

27 DOWN, 25 TO GO

Take It All / Adele

Well, in case you haven't heard, Nick Lowe is releasing a new album this fall.  It's called The Old Magic and from what I've seen of the track list, it's chock-full of new songs, several of which we heard at various Nick shows over the past few months. Here's a link to the Yep Roc Records press release.

I should be thrilled, right?  So why am I so ambivalent?

In 2005, when I first became a Nick Lowe fan -- okay, a rabid Nick Lowe fan -- the chap hadn't put out a record in several years; some people even referred to him as "semi-retired."  But since then, Nick has released not only the new album At My Age (2006) but long overdue reissues of Jesus of Cool (2008) and Labour Of Lust (2011), a "best of" collection (Quiet Please, 2009),  and somewhere else in there a boxset of his 1994, 1998, and 2001 albums (The Brentford Trilogy).  To date, I have seen him live over a dozen times, and that's with hardly any major traveling. (Really., I was going out to Chicago anyway...).

[So what does this have to do with Adele? Wait for it.....]

So here's my question:  Did I discover Nick Lowe because he was already heading for a late-career revival -- or did I cause it?  Because, you know, I have blogged about this guy A LOT, usually in raving, swooning tones. I still feel personally invested in Nick and his career, but -- and this is an odd feeling for me -- being a Nick Lowe fan doesn't make me special anymore.  Being a Kinks fan, or a Marshall Crenshaw fan, or a Graham Parker fan, or a Greg Trooper fan, or a Robyn Hitchcock fan, will always feel like joining an elite club of music lovers. (The Paul McCartney thing, I'll grant you, is an aberration...). I like that inner circle feeling.

Okay, so clearly I've got to go sort all this out.  In the meantime -- since I've clearly got WAY TOO MUCH invested in being a "special" fan -- let me send myself to the woodshed, and prove that I can also love a #1 hit...



Liking Adele is a wonderfully uncomplicated thing for me.  C'mon, I'm a Dusty Springfield fan; how could I not love the power and the passion Adele pours into her voice?   Three years ago, when her first album 19 came out, all the buzz was about Amy Winehouse, with the public fascinated by her trainwreck behavior.  (Really, people, you should be ashamed.) But here was Adele on the scene at the same time, and I couldn't understand why she wasn't being touted as the real deal in comparison to Amy Winehouse. I'm delighted that she's now been vindicated with a smash hit album (where is Amy Winehouse these days?), and even after being temporarily nudged aside by the heavily subsidized Lady Gaga juggernaut, Adele has quietly returned to the top of the charts.  It's refreshing to see that quality sometimes does win out. (Okay, so maybe that explains Nick Lowe too. Maybe.)

If you listen to the radio at all, you have no doubt heard Adele's magnificent "Rolling in the Deep." It's probably been overplayed, in fact, and if you're like me, an overplayed hit single is anathema.  So just let me introduce you to this other track from her album, so you can see that the girl has legs.  It's a solid, solid album, track after track.  Just because it's a hit doesn't mean it's not good.

I realize that the Dusty comparison isn't just because of Adele's range, or the way she plays with her voice, or the back-up vocals -- it's also her no-holds-barred approach to love.  "Take it all, take all my love" -- isn't that the sentiment behind all of Dusty's oeuvre?  "You're giving up so easily / I thought you loved me more than this" -- it's easy to characterize her as the submissive female, but the fact is, she humbles her male lover with her unconditional passion.  Whether or not he deserves it is totally beside the point.  Dusty's lovers never deserved it; we only listened to her because she herself was so operatic in her passion.  The word is used too loosely these days, but Dusty was a diva -- and I believe that Adele inherits that mantle.  I am thrilled to hear she's got a #1 hit.  If life were only that fair always!

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Well, here we are again. Or rather, here you are again, since I am somewhere else, remotely blogging from some rocky New England beach. (Lobster dinner, anyone?) But so long as I don't get my iPod waterlogged...

1. "The Colour of Your Eyes" / Dusty Springfield
From Dusty . . . Definitely (1968)
Written by Dusty's partner Norma Tanega, this shimmering tone poem may not rank up there with Dusty's great soul numbers, but for pure late 60s schmaltz -- turn on the strings! hear that quivering flute! -- it's pretty darn lovely.

2. "Be My Love" / Geraint Watkins
From Dial W for Watkins (2004)
Maybe I first discovered this guy's work because he plays keyboards for Nick Lowe. So what? That's Watkins' dilemma --he's so in demand as a session man, somehow he never got around to the solo career he deserves. "Come on, little darlin' / Be my love" -- Geraint trips pleadingly down the scale, dropping into a throaty coax. There's just a whiff of zydeco in the rhythm, and a touch of twang in the chugging chorus -- pitch-perfect Americana, served up by a Brit.

3. "I Want to Break Free" / Queen
From The Works (1984)
Of course I listen to Queen -- what are you, some kind of rock snob? I love the over-the-top drama, Freddie Mercury's histrionic vocals, the synthesizers, even the arena-rock guitars. (Only when Queen is doing it, that is -- they're just having so much fun.)

4. "Pieces of What" / MGMT
From Oracular Spectacular (2007)
Reverbs, synths, the whole electronica package, mixed up with yelping vocals that sound just amateur enough to make this endearing. In fact, I sometimes mistake this for a Minus 5 song when it first comes up -- that's how loose and genial it is. I enjoyed this debut album so much more than I expected.

5. "Wine Do Yer Stuff" / Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen
From Lost in the Ozone (1971)
Why, oh why, oh why didn't I discover these guys back in the 70s? I would have had SO much fun listening to this in college. Laidback country-rock, topped off with a little psychedelic druggie culture -- Americana begins here.

6. "Solar Sex Panel" / Little Village
From Little Village (1990)
I amuse myself, when listening to Little Village tracks, by imagining which one of the talents in this all-star project contributed what. The piled-on puns have to be Nick Lowe, but I'm betting John Hiatt was right there, throwing in all those car puns. Yes, it's ultimately a stupid song, hardly worthy of their talents. But Hiatt sings it as if it mattered.

7. "Six-Fingered Man" / Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint
From The River In Reverse (2006)
Elvis gets funky -- as who wouldn't, with Allen Toussaint sitting over there at the piano, tossing off those elegant little riffs? It's a wonderful swampy stew.

8. "I Think We're Alone Now" / Tommy James and the Shondells
From I Think We're Alone Now (1967)
THE perfect groping teen make-out song.

9. "Ten Girls Ago" / Graham Parker
From Struck By Lightning (1991)
Resurrecting a perky New Wave beat, my (new) idol Graham Parker trotted out this endearing track on Struck By Lightning, one of the best albums I've ever heard. He's not slamming that old romance, more poking fun at himself (and grateful that now he's in a better place). The sound, though, takes me back to my own crazy 80s. "It was just a crazy thing / Flying an airplane made of string / Sweet pain of a needle's sting / Ten girls ago...."

10. "Woman In a Bar" / Lloyd Cole
From Antidepressant (2007)
Here you go, Uncle E -- I am listening to Lloyd Cole. And I like it. Witty, articulate lyrics and a sweetly rocking beat.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Round and round and round she goes, and where she stops --

1. California Girls -- The Beach Boys
From Summer Days (And Summer Nights!) (1965)
I swear, a sea breeze just stirred my hair -- and is that sand between my toes? An instant trip to Southern California. When this first came out, I rankled at the line, "Those Midwest farmer's daughters really make me feel all right," but I longed to become a California girl myself. White Levis, Sun-In in my hair -- I tried everything. And then of course there's the Beatles' parody in the bridge of "Back in the USSR" -- "well, the Ukraine girls really knock me out ..."

2. "Lately I've Let Things Slide" -- Nick Lowe
From The Convincer (2001)
One reason I love the Shuffle: Nick Lowe suddenly appears when I least expect it -- and it hits me all over again why I love him so. "Smoking I once quit, now I've got one lit / I just fell back into it . . ." -- how succinctly he nails this lovelorn loser, sloping around his messy flat, laundry piling up in the corners, a carton of untouched takeaway spoiling on the table. God is in the details, both lyrics and music (those Nashville horns!).

3. "Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast)" -- Lostprophets
From Liberation Transmission (2006)
Welsh indie rockers! Mostly this got onto my iPod because it is just so much damn fun to proclaim that staccato chorus at the top of your lungs: "Standing on the rooftops, everybody scream your heaaart out!" One of the rare tracks where a crunchy metallic tangle of guitar is totally necessary.

4. "No More, No Less" -- Collective Soul
From Dosage (1999)
My dear rock chick buddy Sharon loves this band, just loves 'em to death. I hear the hooks, I appreciate the soulful metal quality, but in the end, they just don't light my fire. Too much open passion for me, and not enough irony. Can't help it; I'm an irony junkie.

5. "Sister Madly" -- Crowded House
From Temple of Low Men (1988)
Irony -- like this. That great skippy pop rhythm sets off a tart little character study ("sister madly, stepping on my head!). Wonderful bebop piano solo too. Thank you thank you thank you Inaki for hepping me to this band -- I knew the singles, but there's so much more to discover.

6. "Willie and Laura Mae Jones" -- Dusty Springfield
From Dusty in Memphis (1969)
There's not a bad track on this album, is there? Dusty shows Bobbie Gentry how it's done. It matters not one whit that Dusty never lived in a shotgun shack at the edge of a cotton field; she never slept with the son of a preacher man either.

7. "Nightswimming" -- R.E.M.
From Automatic for the People (1992)
Ah, the mesmeric powers of Michael Stipe. The piano reels off endless arpeggios, strings and clarinet mourn, Stipe scats the same melodic phrase over and over -- and yet somehow I'm back in Indiana, in the dark of a summer night, brooding over boyfriends lost. Who knew R.E.M. had so much sweetness and melancholy in them?

8. "Take Off Your Uniform" -- John Hiatt
From Slug Line (1993)
In which Johnny H. langorously strips a coffee shop waitress and makes sorrowful, sympathetic love to her, in his best soulful yelp. A true man of the people. Why is this guy not bigger than Bruce Springsteen? Oh, I know the answer. . .

9. "One Thing" -- Neil Young
From This Note's For You (1988)
Possibly my favorite Neil Young album, his one brief shining jazz moment (that achingly beautiful guitar line!). Whatever was going on in Neil's life at the time, he proved beyond a doubt that he had intimate knowledge of the blues. "I think we're heading for a heartache / That's my suspicion / I think we're heading for a heartache / That's how I feel." The quaver in Neil's voice never worked better.

10. "Sound and Vision" -- David Bowie
From Low (1977)
Glam meets funk, all gussied up with synths -- yes, the experimental 80s were upon us, with Bowie and Brian Eno leading the way. This album is most memorable to me as the inspiration for Nick Lowe's own e-less EP titled Bowi. But you gotta love this disco-ready musical collage, with Bowie alternately growling and wailing disconnected phrases, like snatches of conversation overhead at a bar. Strung along that brilliant rhythm track, it's a song that begs to be danced to. With drugs.

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 21-25

My second British Invasion -- those enchanted years at the end of the 70s and dawn of the 80s, when punk and New Wave were busy duking it out for musical supremacy. This was music that just crackled with fresh energy; every Tuesday held the promise of some new amazing LP that would blow my mind.

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

21. "Pump It Up" / Elvis Costello (1978)
By the time Elvis Costello burst onto the scene, I had become an album buyer, not a singles buyer, and hardly ever listened to the radio; MTV hadn't yet materialized to propel singles with catchy videos to the top of the charts. But I need at least one token Elvis Costello single -- he's such a musical hero of mine -- so I'll choose "Pump It Up" in honor of his second album, This Year's Model, the LP that first introduced me to his spiky charms. In general I'm a deep-tracks album fan when it comes to Elvis,* but "Pump It Up" was widely played in the fall of 1978, at least in the bars I frequented; some clubs even played this primitive video. As a newly-minted Elvis* fanatic I was proud to watch him storm the shores of America. What a tight little rocker this is! It starts out emphatically, with brisk drums and bass, then layers on Telstar twangs of guitar, a barrage of funhouse organ, and finally Elvis's* vocals, a nonstop assault of aggression and malice. We couldn't decipher everything he spat out, I'll admit -- many evenings were spent with ears patiently bent to the stereo speakers, trying to work it all out. (New Wavers would never do anything so retro as print lyrics on album covers.) But certain phrases came through loud and clear: "She said that's that / I don't want to chitter-chat"; "There's nothing underhand / She wouldn't understand" ; or "She's been a bad girl / She's like a chemical / Though you try to stop it, / She's like a narcotic." (Watch out ladies, the skinny nerd in the glasses sees right through you.) Melody was replaced with a terse morse code of repeated notes and thrusting jabs of drums, bass, and guitar. When all else failed, we could certainly join in the head-banging chorus: "PUMP IT UP! when you don't really need it/ PUMP IT UP! until you can feel it." I didn't know what I was singing about -- drugs? sex? -- but I knew it had to be sung loud. Maybe not a feel-good singalong, but exhilarating? You bet.

22. "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" / "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards" / Ian Dury and the Blockheads (1978)
My first couple of years in New York was a charmed era, musically speaking; riding the crest of the New Wave, we had so many clever, catchy bands to listen to. But I was always seduced by the wordsmiths, and there were some days when even Elvis* took a back seat to the razor-sharp wit of Mr. Ian Dury.

23. " A Message to You Rudy" / The Specials (1979)
With Elvis* as their godfather, the Specials got a shortcut onto my playlist in 1979. But it wasn't just the Elvis Connection; one listen to this track and we had to love this band, with their slappy ska rhythm, punk attitude, and pointed social commentary. How much had changed in the 10 years since The Foundations broke onto the charts; by 1979, all the cool bands rallied to the Rock Against Racism agenda, and times were ripe for a ska revival. What better trailblazers than this black-and-white band from Coventry, with their pork-pie hats and mohair suits? For at least a month after we discovered this album, my office mate Susan Roberts and I would drop this onto the turntable the minute we got home from work. That intro accordion would start its lazy wheeze, and we'd kick off the work heels and collapse gratefully onto my sway-backed sofa. I had no idea who "Rudy" was -- only later would I learn it was short for "rude boy," the 60s Jamaican equivalent of a hip-hop gangsta. The context made it clear, though: "Stop your messing around / Better think of your future / Time you straightened right out / Creating problems in town." (I could just picture a scene from that Jimmy Cliff movie The Harder They Come.) Despite a snappy horn section, the Specials' version sounded just amateur enough to be a credible voice from the slums. Terry Hall and Lynval Golding sing the lead together, but not quite together, and lay on the rude boy accent; the backing singers sound like they're way across the alley, kicking at cans; then the whole joint swings when the trombonist lays into his solo in the middle eight. (That would be guest star Rico Rodriguez, who played the same bit on Dandy Livingstone's 1967 original.) Yeah, yeah, the politics were there -- two years later when Brixton burst into riot, I instantly thought of this song. But who am I fooling? What I really loved about this track was simply that ska beat. That happy-go-lucky looseness was the best thing about this track -- how brilliant of producer Elvis* to just say no to slickness.

24. "Rock the Casbah" / The Clash (1982)
In theory, yes, I thought punk music was a great liberating force for popular music. In reality, most punk bands were too crude for my taste. (I'm thinking of a Stranglers show at the Roundhouse in 1977 . . . ) But I always had to make an exception for the Clash.

25. "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself" / Dusty Springfield (1964)
Okay, so Dusty had nothing to do with New Wave or punk -- but then, she wasn't really British Invasion either, not in the classic sense. She was just one of the greatest girl singers ever, her voice pure Motown housed by accident in a nice Irish Catholic convent girl. For years, there was a funny sort of competition going on between Sandie Shaw, Dusty Springfield, and Dionne Warwick to see who could be the foremost interpreter of Burt Bacharach/Hal David songs. (Later even Elvis* would give it a shot.) To me, though, there's no question that Dusty won that competition hands down. Memorable as their melodies may be, the point of a Bacharach/David song is always the tortured emotions -- break-ups, separations, dissolving marriages, stealthy lust. And come on, nobody did tortured emotions like Dusty did. The scenario here is all too familiar: Dusty's moping around the house after losing her lover. (Pair this with Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight" if you're really in the mood for self-pity.) "I just don't know what to do with myself," she sighs. " I'm so used to doing everything with you / Planning everything for two / And now that we're through . . . " I love how the lines get progressively shorter, until the final line weakly peters out; it perfectly mirrors how her life is closing in on itself. Even that little trumpet riff that punctuates the verse is a compressed version of that same melodic phrase. Yet she flings her voice into the crest of each line as if there's no tomorrow. "Going to the movies always makes me sad," she wails, "Parties make me feel as bad." She's out there, trying, but it's no use. And now, verse three, here comes the kicker, and it's quintessentially Dusty: "Baby, if your new love ever turns you down / Come on back, I will be around / Just waiting for you . . . " Only Dusty can make crawling back such a noble romantic gesture. The production is exquisite, with just enough strings and backing vocals to underscore the operatic shimmer of Dusty's voice. Oh, and that flagellating kick-drum! This is no time for half-emotions, my friends. Pull out all the stops.

* NOTE: On this blog, the single name "Elvis" will ALWAYS refer to Costello, not Presley.

"You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me” / Dusty Springfield

DAYS OF LOVE SONGS

A month of love songs and nothing from Dusty Springfield? I don’t think so. If it’s thwarted passion and extravagant emotion you want, Dusty’s your go-to gal. I won’t say that her damaged take on love is the last word on it, but let’s get real here, ladies – we all know what it feels like to be a victim, and Dusty fearlessly plumbs the very depths of that for us.

Released in early 1966, this single was Dusty’s biggest hit ever – her only UK #1, and a smashing #4 success in the US. Throughout the rest of her career, this was her big concert showstopper, though its vocal demands made her dread singing it -- just when you think she can't go any higher, the key shifts upward yet again for that last verse -- ouch! While Dusty started her career with gutsy interpretations of American soul numbers, this song taps another vein, once that's not so familiar to me: diva-like Italian pop. An English translation of an Italian number called "Io che non vivo (senza te)" (or "I, who can't live without you"), it’s so operatic, it should carry a warning label.

Dig that melodramatic scribble of strings that underlines her vocal entrance: “When I said I needed you /You said you would always stay.” We know what’s coming – let’s just wait for that other shoe to drop. “It wasn’t me who changed, but you / And now you’ve gone away.” What we have here is a Grievance, girls. And so it follows, as the night the day, she’s going to have to abase herself for love, traipse right after him and track him down, “and beg you / To come home.” (The way Dusty throws her voice into that “beg” is heart-wrenching.)

Pride? That’s for those who don’t really love. Stripping away every last vestige of dignity, Dusty reins in her voice to supplicate, “You don’t have to say you love me / Just be close at hand.” The chord shifts upward, raising the stakes (and the volume): “You don’t have to stay forever / I will understand.” Another shift, and she clenches down, all her passion bursting through: “Believe me, / Believe me, / I can’t help but love you” (her vocal shiver on “can’t” is simply heart-breaking) “But believe me / I’ll never tie you down.” That “tie you down” sounds so frail and tentative, it simply kills me.

There’s a shivering breakdown after that chorus, returning to the second verse: “Left alone with just a memory,” Dusty describes herself, dropping behind the beat as if she’s crippled. “Life seems dead and so unreal,” and her nauseated curl on “dead” cuts to the bone. “All that’s left is loneliness / There’s nothing left to feel.” But somehow we know that there’s a lot more to feel, and Dusty is just about to lay it on us.

“You don’t have to stay forever,” Dusty assures him in the second half of the chorus. Jesus, what are you doing, girl? How can you say that? You’re laying yourself on the road in front of his car for just a few more nights? This is the absolute limit, the furthest love can go without being masochism. (Or maybe it IS masochism.)

You thought you were in love? Hell, no, Dusty is going to show you what love is, even if her vocal cords rupture. It isn’t pretty, but goddamit it’s extraordinary. I’m humbled by her no-holds-barred passion, every time I listen to this track. All you modern soul singers, the Amy Winehouses and Lily Allens and even the Adeles and Duffys of this world – behold the master at the top of her game, and know how far you still have to go.

You Don't Have To Say You Love Me video

You Don't Have To Say You Love Me sample

"Breakfast in Bed" / Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield is no role model for little girls. Helplessly addicted to bad relationships, hung up on men who don't deserve her, inclined to jump into bed on carnal impulse -- I'm telling you now, don't let your daughters listen to Dusty Springfield. The next thing you know, they'll be Paramore fans and then where will you be?

On the other hand, Dusty was one of the great female voices of the 20th century, and one of the smartest song stylists ever -- a girl could do worse than cut her musical teeth on this.

Here's a quintessential Dusty track, from her classic 1969 album Dusty in Memphis. For Dusty, going to Memphis was more about recording in the superb Stax studio with Memphis session musicians than it was about going country -- still, "Breakfast in Bed" has a fair amount of twang, despite all the horns and strings. And the story, that's a perfect Dusty tale, featuring her as The Other Woman.

"You've been crying," she starts out, breathy and sympathetic -- I can just see her, standing in her doorway, her blond bouffant hair and mascaraed eyes just a little rumpled. "Your face is a mess / Come in baby / You can dry your tears on my dress." The dress is such a specific detail, I can't help but picture that too, him sinking to his knees at her feet. Yes.

It's not the first time she's laid out this welcome mat: "Don't be shy, you've been here before / Pull your shoes off, lie down / And I will lock the door." Yeah, we're in the world of secrets and lies, and the way Dusty's voice caresses those lines makes it damn provocative. "And no one has to know you've come here again," she promises, her voice rising and shivering with passion. She is NOT a disinterested party -- she's been counting the days since his last visit. "Darling, it will be like it's always been before." How many times? Best not ask. "Come on over here," she invites him, huskily. I see him sinking onto the mattress with enormous relief.

Just in case there was any doubt about it, the chorus makes it clear just how Dusty plans to comfort this hurt soul. "Breakfast in bed / And a kiss or three," she offers (love that "or three" -- so who's counting?). The horns are getting nice and blowzy by this point; she's not just a shoulder to cry on, she's woozy with lust. "You don't have to say you love me," she adds, almost shyly (the title of another great Dusty song, by the way). That's pure Dusty, that pathetic refusal to make any demands on this guy. She's such a creature of passion, she can't help herself.

And despite the confident sexuality of the opening, by the last verse Dusty's neediness starts showing. "What's your hurry? / Please don't eat and run / You can let her wait, my darling." He's already pulling away, and she knows it. "It's been so long / Since I've had you here," she moans. "You will come again / Darling it will be / Like it's always been before." And that's the sad thing -- it WILL be like it's always been before; he will still go home to his wife in the end.

Usually I hate The Other Woman. (That Avril Lavigne song, the one about doing it better than your girlfriend, makes me puke.) For Dusty, though, I'll make an exception. Dusty may be The Other Woman, but she's still a love slave and victim, with a throaty shiver to her voice that just won't quit.

Breakfast in Bed sample

“You Don’t Own Me” / Dusty Springfield

MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!

So where were the women in the British Invasion? Well, there was Liverpool’s own Cilla Black, Brian Epstein’s sole female client; there was Petula Clark, though I never really warmed to that type of hard, strong female voice (don’t even mention Helen Reddy, Pat Benatar, or Stevie Nicks). Marianne Faithful sounded soulless and hollow to me, and we all knew she got her break just by being Mick Jagger’s girlfriend.

But then there was Dusty Springfield. That platinum bouffant hair, the enormous fake eyelashes – the look was classic Swinging London Bird, even though she was channeling American soul with all her might (decades before Joss Stone and Lily Allen). The raspy velvet of Dusty’s voice has always seemed quintessentially English to me, and one of the most gorgeous things in music.

Even on an early track like “You Don’t Own Me” (from her 1964 UK debut album, A Girl Called Dusty), Dusty was already DUSTY, with that dead-on command of vibrato and phrasing and vocal coloration. This was no stripped-down Merseybeat number, but a full-fledged studio production with strings and horns and exotic percussion and back-up oooh’s – but then, a big emotive voice like Dusty’s deserved a big emotive arrangement, didn’t it?

In some ways, this track is astonishingly feminist. “You don’t own me,” she begins, in a darkly warning voice, “I’m not just one of your many toys / You don’t own me / Don’t say I can’t go with other boys.” Well, maybe that’s more sass and sexual liberation than true feminism, but for mid-60s Britain it’s plenty bold (compare that to clingy Cilla Black songs like “Anyone Who Had A Heart” and “You’re My World”.) The key is minor, threatening, with tense thrumming piano chords and clanging strikes on a xylophone. Even when it switches to a major key for the chorus, it’s still feisty, mounting in volume and shifting keys up the scale: “Don’t tell me what to do / And don’t tell me what to say / And please, when I go out with you / Don’t put me on display.” Long before the phrase “trophy wife” was coined, Dusty was spurning it.

Sinking back into minor key for the next verse, Dusty’s voice darkens again: “You don’t own me / Don’t try to change me in any way / You don’t own me / Don’t tie me down, ‘cause I’ll never stay.” Ah, Dusty’s phrasing – it’s sheer genius, how she resists the beat, makes him wait for a key word, then bitterly snaps a word short or hustles carelessly through a phrase. And listen to where she lets her voice shiver – on “own” and “don’t” and “never stay” – this guy had better pay attention. “I don’t tell you what to say / I don’t tell you to what to do,” she points out in the second chorus, with a particularly percussive attack; “So just let me be myself / That’s all I ask of you.” Flinging her voice out there. Going for broke.

The orchestra’s in full swing by the middle eight, as she passionately declares, “I’m free, and I long to be free / To live my life the way that I want / To say and do whatever I please.” She wants the man, all right, but on her terms. This track is worth twenty anthems like “I Am Woman” – it’s sung by a creature of desire and impulse and pride, not just some programmatic equal-rights robot.

You know what? The British Invasion didn’t need any other women. So long as we had Dusty, we were good to go.

"I Close My Eyes and Count To Ten" / Dusty Springfield

Here I was, doing my grocery shopping this afternoon, and what should I hear on the usually-obnoxious Food City muzak but this 1968 Dusty Springfield number. I had to stand there in the aisle with my trolley for a moment, marveling. Dusty! -- my favorite girl singer ever.

I got the best of both worlds with Dusty Springfield: she was English with a blond beehive and heavily mascaraed eyes -- absolutely required for me in the 1960s -- but she sang like an R&B goddess; she could hold her own against Aretha or Gladys Knight or Irma Thomas and could whup Diana Ross's skinny little Motown butt.

Actually, the singer I most often equate with Dusty is Patsy Cline -- our two great interpreters of frustrated female desire. Nothing ever turns out right in a Dusty Springfield love affair: the guy doesn't even notice you ("Wishin' and Hopin'"), or it means more to you than to him ("You Don't Have To Say You Love Me", "Stay Awhile"), or he's treating you wrong "(You Don't Own Me"), or he's gone and left you ("I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself," "Everyday I Have To Cry Some", and countless others). Men are shits, but desire triumphs over good judgment every time, and the girl takes it on the chin because she's a weak-kneed fool for love ("Son of a Preacher Man"). I'm sure that Dusty's romantic view of life warped me permanently...but man could she sing.

This track begins with just a pounding, insistent piano, but more and more gets layered in as the song builds -- strings, a horn section, echo-chamber vocals -- sliding in and out of major and minor keys, trading on and off between straightforward pop and something jazzier, almost Brechtian. That incredible voice swoops and dives through all the dense arrangements with a blend of breathy fragility and steely vitality; hoarse when it needs to be, spine-shivering powerful when it really counts.

Maybe no song ever has replicated the torment of insecure love like this one. "We were strangers a moment ago /With a few dreams but nothing to show / The world was a place with a frown on its face / And tomorrow was just, I don't know..." Dusty's timing here is impeccable, the way she lags ever so slightly behind the beat, as if stumbling in doubt; then when she finds her way into the chorus, she hits every beat confidently and you begin to hope this time happiness might actually stick -- "But the way you make me feel / The moment I am close to you / Makes today seem so unreal / Somehow I can't believe it's true..."

Nor can we, and we find ourselves getting tangled up in diminished and seventh chords and nothing seems certain -- "But what is happening to me is only a dream" -- and Earth to Dusty! You just met this guy! Don't count on it...but Dusty is too far gone to hold back now. And isn't that what we love about her?