An Independence Day Shuffle

Happy July 4th! 

For this shuffle, I made a special curated playlist of songs about freedom and America, for your listening pleasure.

Note that the links (click on song titles) now go to YouTube rather than Amazon. Three reasons: YouTube gives you the full track, not just a sample; none of you ever buy the Amazon tracks so I'm not getting any revenues anyway; and my Best Food Writing book is now being published by a Hachette subsidiary that potentially may get screwed by Amazon. So until YouTube turns out to be a tool of the corporate machine (any day now...)

Because this is what it means to live in America today -- figuring out whether Facebook, Amazon, Google, or Apple is The Man. (Disclaimer: It's definitely not Google because I love Google....)

1. "Time I Took A Holiday" / Nick Lowe
From Dig My Mood (1998)
Oh, yes, let's start things off slouchy and mellow. (Note: loads of chat before they get to the song, but ohmigod do we not love Daryl Hall too?) "It's time I took a holiday / Before I blow my top / I've got to kick my shoes off / Before I drop..." Nick's vocals make it clear he's not relaxed yet (dig the unresolved chords building up urgency), but he's gonna be very soon. "I gotta get some attention / In my baby's arms...." Volunteering for duty, Mr. Lowe!

2. "America" / Simon & Garfunkel
From Bookends (1968)
A seminal song from my angsty teen years -- as I explain here. And while we're on the subject -- is this the same Kathy's as in "Kathy's Song"? Was she pissed off when Carrie Fisher entered the picture?

3. "Fourth of July" / Dave Alvin
From King of California (1994)
America as most folks know it. "Hey, baby, it's the Fourth of July," Dave implores her, adding (a telling detail), "Whatever happened, I apologize." Dammit, it's supposed to be a holiday -- why can't they get in a happy place?  I love how he sets this all-too-real scene: "On the stairs I smoke a cigarette alone / Mexican kids are shooting fireworks below." Been there.

4. "The Only Living Boy In New York" / Simon & Garfunkel
From Bridge Over Troubled Water (1970)
On a day devoted to independence, here's a song about breaking free. "Tom, get your plane right on time.." What a lonely, existential song this is, and yet how full of hope. "I know that you've been eager to shine now." Bio notes: Tom was Art Garfunkel's name in the early S&G iteration Tom and Jerry, and while he was off in Mexico making a movie (Catch-22) Paul Simon was back in NYC, writing wistful songs about their impending break-up. Maybe it's those plush background ah's, all full of spacey cloud-surfing promise, but somehow I get the idea that Tom's gonna make it out okay. Even though quite possibly Jerry had all the talent....

5. "Summertime" / DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince
But hey, July 4th isn't just a holiday -- it's shorthand for THE summer holiday, height of the sizzle and shizzizzle, and let's sample this early rap classic, full of urban heat and real-time celebration. WAY before Will Smith jumped the shark.  Fire hydrants shall be opened -- let the tar roof barbecues begin.

6. "Political Science" / Randy Newman
From Sail Away (1972)
Lest you be feeling patriotic on this most American holiday, here's our national Snarkmaster, laying on us a political treatise with seven delicious layers of irony. Really, when Randy Newman gets in gear, he takes no prisoners. "They all hate us anyhow / Let's drop the big one now." This calls for a roundtable of pundits to discuss amongst themselves.

7. "Livin' in America" / Black 47
From Fire of Freedom (1993)
If America is truly a nation of immigrants -- a piety seldom remembered on July 4th -- then let's have a very ambiguous Irish take on what it feels like to live on the edge of American affluence. "In the cold daylight / I feel like shite" -- telling it like it is. Riding subways, minding other people's children, laboring like a navvy -- "Oh, mammy dear, we're all mad over here / Livin' in America."

8. "Disney's America" / Graham Parker
From 12 Haunted Episodes (1993)
It takes a transplanted Englishman like Graham Parker to see America clearly and whole. I can just imagine GP and his wife taking the kids to Williamsburg and having this brilliant vision of how the whole thing went down. Please, if you listen to nothing else, listen to every word of this brilliant song.

9. "Gotta Be Free" / The Kinks
From Lola V Powerman and the Moneygoround Part 1  (1970)
This Americana-tinged track (a hint of Muswell Hillbillies to come?) from Lola V Powerman, Ray Davies' lament about how the music industry had screwed his band. All quite true, of course, but as a listener this is my take-away: Freedom at any price. It was 1970, after all, and whether or not we were legit hippies, we all wanted to be free. And isn't that what Independence Day is all about?  

10. "Live Free or Die" / Hayes Carll
From Flowers and Liquor (2007)
While we're in a country frame of mind...a little sneaky satire from Hayes Carll, about a prison inmate's view on freedom. Mayhap you have never thought about why being in a New Hampshire prison is especially tough: "Live free or die / Oh Lord tell me why/ Can't they say "Seat belts fastened" or "Oklahoma is OK"? / "Vacationland" sounds mighty great / Wouldn't mind stamping out "The Garden State." Because we can't all be free, even on July 4th.

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.