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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Songs for Our Sad, Sad Times

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

This is the song that first made a Jill Sobule fan of me. I discovered it late one night a decade or so ago, surfing iTunes user playlists (back before iTunes decided they would eliminate the personal interface to instead monetize everything to feed the iTunes Store).  Talk about AHA moments.

I'm way far down the Jill fangirl road by now -- but sometimes it's good just to remember how you got there. And given this past week's events, this snarky little track from Pink Pearl (2000) seems all too relevant.



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

Okay, that's the premise; we've all known/dated/married men like this, and we're smiling in recognition and shaking our heads. But then, what if the guy isn't her crush/partner/husband? What if he's just a guy she ran into at a "gathering" at a friend's house?

What if that happened years ago? And what if he has completely forgotten about it? (Not even worth jotting down on his weirdly detailed monthly calendar....)

And what if, no matter how little he noticed, it's the night she could NEVER forget, the night that radically wrenched her soul and her psyche into a critically different dimension? That changed her life?

Oh, there's more -- there's her bleeding on the new tile floor (God, how I love that detail, like Mary Tyler Moore going on about having to regrout the bathroom in the film Ordinary People), there's her huffing the car exhaust, there's her zoning out on Nembutol -- Jill being Jill, she gives us a royal flush of scenarios. All of which add up to the same downer conclusion.

So here I am, watching these dueling testimonies, and remembering how it felt to be violated that morning years ago, and how hard it was to stand up in court, terrified, and tell my truth. And I'm just saying, Christine Blasey Ford is my hero.

And anybody who doesn't get that, in my opinion, hasn't got a voice in this debate.

www.jillsobule.com

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.)

My Favorite Albums of 2014

Dottie's Charms /
Jill Sobule

What?!  I haven't written yet about Dottie's Charms?  Man, I really can't believe I missed posting this, because this totally endearing concept album by Jill Sobule floated me through several dreary months this year.

Here's the concept, in a nutshell:  Jill bought this charm bracelet on eBay and began to muse about what each charm symbolized in the life of its anonymous owner.  She asked several writers and poets each to write lyrics about one of the bracelet's charms, which Jill then set to music. (When I saw her this summer at the City Winery, she actually passed that precious bracelet around the audience -- gotta love it.) 

It's a life in miniature, and in other hands it could have turned out hokey. But Jill's genuine curiosity about what makes people tick is one of her defining traits. She's one of the special ones, the artists whose work plumbs to the heart of what makes us human.

A sample track, for your delectation:

As a child of the Midwest, this one goes deep.  I remember my (possibly all-time closest) friend Beth Wood doing her term talk on Mackinac Island, making it sound so alluring. It's still on my travel bucket list.  

Jill's lyricist on this one was music journalist David Hadju -- a New Jersey guy, granted, not a Midwesterner. Still, he gets a lot of things right -- not just the fine points of Mackinac/Mackinaw pronunciation, but its essence ("quaint as crochet," "it's like Bermuda in Michigan," and -- spot on, here -- "No glitz, no buzz / Preserving a history that never quite was.")  Of course he can't resist mentioning the 1980 time-travel fantasy Somewhere in Time, filmed on Mackinac, and its male lead, the late great Christopher Reeve. (Moment of silence.)  Yeah, yeah, I know the original novel Somewhere in Time was set in New York City -- I'm a huge fan of that book, I even once snagged a signed letter from its reclusive author Jack Finney. But I'll give the moviemakers a pass for changing the location, because who could resist filming on Mackinac Island?

Then, hidden inside the travelogue, we discover a wisp of a story about a fleeting affair. The details are few and tantalizing -- "The kiss in my vestibule, / The stain on my slip." I can't help imagining it was illicit, maybe even adulterous. But Dottie's sure not telling.

Jill's musical setting is perfect:  A little old-fashioned finger-picking, almost square-dance music, switching to a dreamy waltz in the chorus.  Sung in her winsome girlish voice, it's a tentative reverie, a page from a private memory book.  I can just picture sixty-year-old Dottie twirling the charm on her bracelet, lost in reminiscence.

Did she love the guy?  Was he the great love of her life?  Probably not -- but it meant enough to her that she bought that charm for her bracelet.  Along with ten other charms, all with tracks of their own, telling other pieces of Dottie's patchwork life.  

I highly recommend Dottie's Charms. In my humble opinion (okay, I can't resist), it's the year's most charming album. 

My Musical Advent Calendar

"Merry Christmas to the Family" /
Jill Sobule

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

Ah, yes, let's get ourselves in a holiday mood with this deliciously dyspeptic charmer, written by the brilliant Texas country songwriter Robert Earl Keen Jr. and sung by the subversively charming Jill Sobule. You can find it on You Sleigh Me, a 1995 Atlantic Records compilation of Christmas songs by various of the label's artists. (This would have been just after Jill's self-titled sophomore album and her first MTV hit "I Kissed A Girl".)  No wonder she looks like a kid in this video:

An interesting choice for a young pop hopeful, on an LP where her label-mates were crooning stuff like "Blue Christmas" and "The First Noel." But then, Jill has always marched to her own drummer, and that wicked glint of humor in her eye is precisely why I love her.

Now that we're sunk deep in the reality TV morass of Honey Boo-Boo and Duck Dynasty, perhaps this dysfunctional family portrait doesn't seem quite as satiric as it did 20 years ago, but it's still a hoot.  It's like a slow-motion train wreck, as each ill-assorted family member strolls in the door. I can just feel the downward spiral of events gathering force.

But notice how Keen keeps the sentiment just this side of snarky, mainly with that innocently holy refrain of Feliz Navidad (leave it to a Texan). And Jill brings her own daffy sweetness to the table, judging nobody and ready to go with the flow. Because, hey, why not?

Truth be told, if you strip away the socio-economic particulars, doesn't this out-of-control holiday reunion bear a scary likeness to all our families? The names have been changed to protect the innocent, that's all.

ROAD TRIP!!!

...but alas, the other passengers in the car needed to sleep, make phone calls and work on their laptops while we drove. So I spent eight hours in the car AND DID NOT GET TO LISTEN TO MY IPOD PLAYLISTS AS I HAD PLANNED!!

Needless to say I am pouting about this, big time. Because I am JUST THAT PETTY, when provoked.

So all I had were the tunes in my head, which for whatever reason produced this random playlist.

OneRepublic / "Counting Stars"

Look, I'm not saying I like this song. But as current pop earworms go, it's pretty earwormy. My 19-year-old daughter (whom we just took back to college -- hence the long drive) makes me listen to pop stations when we ride in the car together, as we did earlier this week.  I find this song much less offensive than others. (How's that for damning with faint praise?)

Jenny Lewis / "Rise Up With Fists!"

The leap from OneRepublic to Indie It Girl Jenny Lewis makes sense only in some convoluted fold of my gray matter. (Probably because 3 weeks ago I was reading that she released a new album, The Voyager, and I'm still dithering about whether or not to buy it). I guess my problem is that I keep wanting her to be Jill Sobule and she just isn't as loveable as Jill. But then, who is?


John Hiatt / "She Loves the Jerk"

Maybe in the car I was beginning to think too much about the fact that I have this new John Hiatt album on that iPod, which I haven't yet been able to listen to properly. But out of nowhere, this early Hiatt gem planted itself in my cerebral cortex, and it lodged there for at least 150 miles. Which is a good thing in my book.

The deep, deep songcraft here slays me every time. Simple plot: Guy loves girl, who loves another guy, but spends hours on the phone confiding in the first guy, who we can all see is better for her . . . yadda yadda yadda. But seriously, how could you not love lines like, "'Well you married the wrong guy,' is all I ever say / But she'll never let him go /He's a no-good so-and-so, / Though she knows it will never work, she loves the jerk." And so the dance goes on.

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

And then, because of Jenny, it did eventually come back to Jill.  And if things landed on this song in particular -- well, remember, it was a long drive and OTHER PEOPLE IN THE CAR WOULDN'T LET ME LISTEN TO MY IPOD. In such situations, I find my girlfriend Jill to be a great comforter.

This is the first song that hooked me on her incredible body of work, for which I shall forever be grateful, as I explain here.

52 GIRLS

"Lucy At the Gym" / Jill Sobule

Because we don't have enough songs about eating disorders. In fact, I can't think of any other songs about eating disorders -- but leave it to Jill to know how much we needed one.

I was so happy to find this video, telling the song's story in Sims animation. We see our singer arrive at the gym -- where, she's quick to tell us, "I don't go that often,." Her slightly shlumpy build bears witness to that fact. (The real Jill Sobule, of course, is petite and elfin, not shlumpy at all.) That remark quickly establishes her as one of us, who always intend to go the gym and never do.

Ah, but Lucy?  Lucy's always there. Already we see that her animated character is thinner than the singer's, as she trudges dutifully on the treadmill. "I stare at her ribs," Jill tells us in a sort of horrified fascination, "they show through the spandex." She observes Lucy's obsessive behaviors -- "Lucy on the scale for the third time" and "She's staring at the clock / And like the second hand she never stops."

Notice how the melodic line doesn't quite resolve, the chromatic intervals rambling around, making no progress. With deadpan irony, Jill notes that Lucy on the treadmill is "going somewhere"; after she switches to a Stairmaster, "She's climbing the stairs / And when she reaches the top" -- which of course one never does on a Stairmaster.  We see her "little legs working," we are told that she's in the gym "through thick and thin," "little" and "thin" suddenly becoming loaded words.

Ah, that poignant bridge, picturing Lucy in the shower -- obsessively soaping her bony limbs no doubt -- and then going home alone. There's a yawning emptiness to that passage, as there is to her life, and all the exercise in the world isn't going to fill it.

That wistful motif on the recorder reminds me of a 60s song, "Come Saturday Morning," the theme song from Liza Minnelli's first big movie role The Sterile Cuckoo. (It was sung by the Sandpipers, with Dory Previn lyrics and music by Fred Karlin, who also wrote the Carpenters' "For All We Know".)  It's an eccentric little film about a friendless college student who has a nervous breakdown -- a pretty apt musical allusion, I'd say.

The real kicker is verse three, the inevitable day when Jill makes it to the gym and Lucy's not there. "It's got me kinda worried / So I imagine the worst," Jill tells us in her tremulous girlish voice. Remember, she doesn't even know this girl, she's only watched her from afar -- but something about Lucy's compulsive behavior has gotten under her skin.

And then, to cheer herself up, she pictures Lucy in heaven, a gleaming gym where "Everyone is beautiful and thin / And here there's no sin " (psychologists have written reams about how anorexics confuse body image and sin, but Jill and her co-writer Robin Eaton do it so deftly). And with the ultimate irony, God adds "And your life can begin."  Anorexics are always postponing life, just until I lose the next few pounds.  But sometimes they die first. 

A powerful cautionary tale, right? But scrolling through the comments on YouTube for this video, I read one that says: "I listen to this everyday. It reminds me it's worth it. I hope I reach the top." The Lucys of this world are so skewed, they can't even see that Lucy's plight is meant to be a tragedy. My heart aches for them.

45 DOWN, 7 TO GO

52 GIRLS

"Joey" / Jill Sobule

Now let's hear from the ladies.

I remember watching Joey Heatherton on variety shows when I was a kid. In black tights, an oversized sweater, and that short tousled blonde hair -- well, even at age 9 I knew there wasn't a chance in hell I'd ever be able to pull off that particular sex kittenish look, but man, was it appealing. Put her right up there with Ann-Margret and Connie Stevens (a.k.a. Cricket on 77 Sunset Strip) and they defined the 1960s idea of a Sexpot. An impossible standard for us little girls to live up to.

Yet for all her tomboyish charm, you knew that Joey was fragile, and more than a bit needy. Ann-Margret seemed like a tiger compared to Joey, Connie Stevens like a scrappy toy poodle. But Joey? I worried about Joey.

Turns out I wasn't the only one . . . .

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jill Sobule is one my favorite singer-songwriters. On Jill's delicious 2004 album Underdog Victorious there are a lot of personal songs about the various zigs and zags of her own coming of age, but this one character study fits right in.  Written with co-writer Bill Demain, the sensibility is seamlessly in line with the rest of the album. I can just picture little Jill or little Bill watching Joey go-going away on The Dean Martin Show or The Hollywood Palace and developing a kidlet crush on her.

The plush tones of that opening "Joey," sung with a Joey-like breathiness -- it lays down a cushion of retro 1960s movie music sound.  But then the song breaks into a perky bossa nova -- the other side of the 60s sound -- as Jill fills in the bio. The first part of the story is all glamour and success: "Joey was the It Girl at just fifteen," "Joey got a start in the night club scene / Even though she studied ballet under Balanchine." (That next line, "She could take a swan dive if you know what I mean" is a cool little in joke, since Bill Demain is one half of the wonderful duo Swan Dive.) She's on the Rat-Pack cool Dean Martin show, she's wowing the troops in Vietnam with Bob Hope and the USO, she's marrying Dallas Cowboys star receiver Lance Rentzel. She's the golden girl, to be worshipped from afar.

It's in the bridge where Jill starts to make it personal. The melody goes higher and more legato, as she wistfully reflects, "All she ever wanted was your love and respect / Isn't that the same thing that we all want, Joey, Joey?" Yes, and that human need -- that hunger to be loved -- can sometimes lead us into dark alleys.

And the second chapter of this American life is not so golden. "I remember Joey in a mattress ad/ I guess around this time was when things got bad / When her husband got arrested she looked so sad." Those Serta commercials played up Joey's sexpot image, as she seduced you into her bed -- nod, nod, wink, wink -- with an unbearable cheesiness. And then her all-star husband turned out to be a mess, arrested in 1970 for exposing himself to a 10-year-old girl. Stuck in her 60s go-go girl image, Joey saw the acting roles dry up, the variety shows disappear, the records stalling on the charts. Is it any wonder that she began to slide into substance abuse?

I love how every verse ends with a pair of dance steps, thrusting off-beat rhythms inviting us to dance like Joey, doing the frug, the monkey, the jerk, the Watusi, the pony. I regret to say that I know how to do every single one of those dances and can demonstrate them upon request.

Now Jill/Bill enters the picture. "Yesterday in line at the A&P / I saw Joey on the back of Star magazine / They said she's using again and she still won't de[tox]." That verse hits me with such poignancy. And the capping line: "She's got the jerk, she's got the monkey." I picture a jerking addict in the throes of withdrawal, I remember the slang term for addiction "got a monkey on his back." And my heart breaks for the It Girl at the end of the line.

 "You can stay at my place if you want to, Joey," Jill/Bill shyly offers in the final chorus. Because those childhood crushes? We never get over them, one way or another.

7 DOWN, 45 TO GO 

Looking For A Place to Live / Bill Demain

God forbid this should happen to any of us. But it happened to Bill Demain: a devastating flood washed out his condo in Nashville, only to be followed a few months later by a second tragedy, a house fire that wiped him out completely. For more than a year he lived out of a suitcase, in limbo, waiting to find a new home.  Now, Bill's not your average homeless person. He's a fairly successful singer-songwriter, not only as one-half of the duo Swan Dive, but also as a songwriter who's collaborated with the likes of Jill Sobule, Bill Lloyd, and Marshall Crenshaw. On top of that, he's a well-respected music journalist, writing for mags like MOJO and Classic Rock. Which just underscores that a misfortune like this could befall anybody.

But as luck would have it, this homeless period had a silver lining; it inspired Bill to write a collection of songs that he has now released as his first solo EP.  And -- no surprise -- it's a truly winning album, offering an eclectic range of pop styles, well-crafted lyrics, and charming vocal performance. More than that: it's got heart.  When you think about it, that only makes sense -- that a brush with tragedy would call out wistfulness, nostalgia, soul-searching, and mordant humor.

I'm going for the lead-off track here, although you really must check out the entire album (it's finally up on iTunes and Amazon's mp3 store now; or you could order your very own copy here).  And why not? "Looking For A Place To Live" kinda says it all, doesn't it?

Acoustic folk seems just the right style for a displaced troubador; it's as if he hasn't got much but his guitar case to lug around (one of the few things Bill had time to grab when fleeing the fire was his 1937 Martin). That gentle rambling strum is perfect pavement-pounding music. But leave it to Bill to face his dilemma with wry humor: "I know how Columbus felt / Sailing round in circles / His coffee in a cardboard cup / And the Sunday classifieds." That sense of being an explorer -- that's probably the only way to face house-hunting and still stay sane.  And if, along the way, you gain some sympathy with the dispossessed of this world ("Out with the refugees / Dreaming of vacancies / For what seems eternities...") -- well, that's a good thing, too.

Of course, good songwriting never stops with the obvious.  In the process, he comes to understand what's really important:  "Maybe home is nothing more / Than where you hang your hat." I like the fact that this song works even if you don't know Bill's story: maybe it's just about a young couple searching for a place to move in together, or maybe it's about a guy being thrown out by his girlfriend / wife and having to find himself a new lonely bachelor pad.

What matters is the wistfulness, the existential sense of dislocation. (Does anybody else hear a bit of Bookends-era Simon and Garfunkel here?) It's a song that treads lightly and takes nothing for granted.  A song about stripping your life down to essentials.  So self-effacing, so artlessly charming -- and so haunting.  In a good way.

SUNDAY SHUFFLE


First of all, a belated happy birthday to psych-folk-punk troubador and all-around free spirit Robyn Hitchcock.  And now, let's welcome spring!

1. I Feel Fine / The Beatles
From Past Masters, Vol. 1 (compilation)
Ah, 1964 -- the Beatles were in their heaven and all was right with the world.  That jangly lead guitar riff, just slightly behind the beat; John's insinuating vocal, hovering chromatically above an uneasy 7th chord; that alternating backstop of harmonies, in lush major-key resolution -- it wasn't simple, but it was exciting. Does this guy really feel fine?  Maybe, but he doesn't trust it, which is why he keeps repeating "you know, she said so" and "I feel fine."  And what an opener: that single guitar note, warping into feedback (an early version of the "Hard Day's Night" chord strum?) -- they had us at hello.  

2. Good Vibrations / The Beach Boys
From Smiley Smile (1967)
Genius, sheer genius -- a scant three years after "I Feel Fine," and music had traveled light-years. As I said here, one of the great singles of all time. Forty-four years later, it still hits it out of the park. 

3. Alienation's For the Rich / They Might Be Giants
From They Might Be Giants (1986)
Proving once again that there is a place for accordions in rock music.  I love Flansburgh's drunken growl and howl here, the strangled cry of a common working stiff.  Watching Spanish TV, drinking Miller Hi-Life -- nope, he's not alienated or nothing.   

4. Seven Miles an Hour / Marshall Crenshaw
From Miracle of Science (1996)
I like to think of this as Marshall's answer to "Expressway to Your Heart" -- he's stuck at work, watching the clock, longing to get home to his girl (or at least someone he hopes will become his girl). Except when he leaves, the traffic jam he's caught in isn't on a Philly roadway, but on the crowded sidewalks of New York. Ever try to walk fast in New York at 5pm? I can manage about four miles an hour, tops; he's doing seven, AND playing a killer guitar riff.  Please, if you listen to only one song on today's shuffle, listen to this one.

5. Wintertime Blues / John Hiatt
From Master of Disaster (2005)
A jaunty little street-corner buck-and-wing from Johnny H., full of pickin' and grinnin'. But man, can I relate: "There's no spring, there was never any spring / Spring's a long gone thing, there won't never be a spring no more / At least that's the way it feels when your skin is cracked and peeled / And you've been livin' under 60 pounds of blanket and the snow's driftin' up to your window.."  

6. Spiderman / Jill Sobule
From California Years (2009)
Now here is a delicious little bit of Hollywood whimsy -- pair this up with the Kinks' "Hollywood Boulevard."  Our singer's dressed up as Spiderman, riding the L.A. subway to work (no one's ever on the train, of course), working the crowd outside Grauman's Chinese. I love the amiable guitar strum, like something out of a 50's Western.  A sweetly etched cameo about the death of American dreams, the sort of thing Jill does better than almost anybody.

7. Out of Time / Chris Farlowe
From Out of Time (compilation)
Now we're jumping back in time, to 1966, when Chris Farlowe scored a UK hit with this Stones song (lucky they shared a manager).  But oh, what a great blues voice he had. "You're out of touch, my baby / My poor old-fashioned baby / Oh, baby, baby, baby you're out of time."  Of course, in the end he's blowing her off (I told you it was a Stones song), but at least Farlowe sounds a little regretful. Dig the "Soldier Boy" strings in the intro.

8. UK Jive / The Kinks
From UK Jive (1989)
I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- even weak Kinks albums are full of gems.

9. Down Among the Wines and Spirits / Elvis Costello
From Secret, Profane, and Sugarcane (2009)
Elvis goes old-timey Americana, Dobro and steel guitar and mandolin and all.  What saves this is a tap dancing syncopation that helps him stuff in way more words than any bluegrass song would ever need.  But hey, it's Elvis -- Elvis always needs a lot of words. And it's worth it for a verse like, "Down among the wines and spirits / Where a man gets what he merits / Lives with the echoing words of their final quarrel / The vacant chamber / The empty barrel" -- well, there's a whole novel right there. 

10. Right Now For You / Al Kooper
From I Stand Alone (1968)
Starts with an exploding grenade and gunfire, then a swell of spooky orchestration, heard as if in the next hotel room -- a tasty sliver of this unjustly neglected masterpiece album by Al Kooper. I suppose this is the sort of record that led to the over-produced crap of 1970s prog rock; still haunts and mesmerizes me, though. 

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 . . . .

THURSDAY REVERB

So who says the Reverb has to be something I wrote years ago? How 'bout something I just wrote in January -- which NOBODY commented on -- about an artist I'm DETERMINED to turn you guys on to? I had the pleasure of seeing Jill last night, downtown at my new favorite hangout, the City Winery, doing a show in which her songs alternate with stories told by the delightful actress-writer Julia Sweeney. (And yes, I promised I'd mention the opening act, Justin Trawick, who was a hoot and a half himself). The evening couldn't have been more fun, and I'm on a Jill Sobule jag all over again...

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

"Sweetheart" / Jill Sobule

I'm a little hurt that Jill Sobule decided to move out to California without asking me. I mean, I know our acquaintance never amounted to more than me sitting in the audience while she sang on stage, but still. The point was, she was living in Brooklyn, just over the river, and I liked the idea that this girlfriend -- potential girlfriend, anyway -- was just a subway ride away.

It does make me feel a little better, though, to listen to California Years and discover that Jill is the same fish out of water there as she was here. I mean a real misfit, not a rocker cliche in biker boots. The Stevie Nicks/Chrissie Hynde/Joan Jett singers never did much for me anyway. I totally prefer Jill's elfin quality, the breathy voice, the wry self-effacing humor -- she had it all down long before Zooey Deschanel wandered onto the scene, with her own saucer eyes and effortless vocals. (I love Amy Rigby for that same quality.) Clinging onto the margins of the music world, Jill -- notice how we're on a first-name basis -- has never been the Next Big Thing. (As she says in an earlier song "Freshman," "I live like a freshman / I still have a roommate") In fact, to finance this album she had to solicit donations from her fans, which is why track 14 on the new album is called "The Donor Song."

When an artist is this fringe-y, it's easy to miss when they release a new album. Catch 22 -- the label doesn't spend money to promote it, so no one knows about it, so it doesn't sell, so the label doesn't spend money to promote it. But over the holidays, Amazon offered a $5 album sale for MP3 albums, and (I never can resist a sale) as I browsed through the choices, there was California Years, an album I hadn't even known existed. I one-clicked immediately.



On first listen, I realized that I already knew this one track; I had heard it last summer on Sirius Radio (on Sirius Disorder, or The Loft, or whatever they're calling my obscure boho station these days). I remember being so enthralled by it, I could barely drive. I can still visualize the hillside road I was cruising up in Connecticut when it came on -- cows to the right, corn to the left, aching blue skies above. Not that I noticed. Jill's whispery little-girl voice was made for storytelling intimacy, and when she starts on a story, I am so there with her.

It's a simple story. Jill is sitting in a diner, watching a waitress, fantasizing about being her sweetheart. I picture the diner, the same one in that Adrienne Shelley movie Waitress, one of the best girlfriend movies of the past few years. My other point of reference is a lovely old Maria Muldaur song, also called "Sweetheart," also about a waitress (this one in a donut shop), only that one's from the waitress own viewpoint, fantasizing about one of her regular customers -- who so carelessly calls her "sweetheart" as he picks up his daily coffee. I'd love to know if Jill had this song in mind when she wrote hers.

Maybe that's why Jill calls this song "Sweetheart," instead of "Waitress" -- but it could also be because to her, the table-waiting is really irrelevant. Like Ray Davies, Jill is never a passive observer; she fiercely projects her emotions and sympathies into a vignette. I am so moved by her tenderness, all the more so because it's for a woman she doesn't even know.

Despite that gamine quality, Jill's a scrapper, flaring up in righteous anger about the male customer berating this poor waitress. Then in verse two she drifts off into her own fancy about how she'd care for this woman. ("If I was your secret / And you were my keeper / I think we'd be happy..."') A plangent bit of slide guitar sneaks in (the superb Greg Leisz), and some soft male back-up vocals -- an intriguing touch, as if to fudge the sexuality.

Is the waitress gay? Does Jill even know, or care? Because the fact is, she's never going to make a move with the waitress. This romance is all in the World of What If. Which, if we're honest, is where most of our most passionate romances lie anyway. The power of her fantasy tells us less about the waitress's beauty than it does about Jill's own loneliness and longing. Oh, she'd write songs for this woman, IF she was her sweetheart . . . but hey, Jill has already written the song.

THURSDAY REVERB

Way back in the early days of this blog, when I hadn't a clue how to post the music I was writing about, I didn't get much response when I waxed eloquent about some of my more obscure music choices. A darn shame, really. Optimistically, I'll blame it on the fact that you couldn't hear the song in question, so I'm giving it another shot -- this time with one of my homemade videos attached. Trust me, you don't have to know who Jill Sobule is to get a kick out of this particular number . . .

Monday, January 01, 2007

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

Jill Sobule's like this great girlfriend you can sit up late with, drinking margaritas and eating Doritos and giggling and getting slaphappy. Her songs are so perky, her voice so kittenish, you don't realize at first how snarky her lyrics are; then suddenly you catch her winking at you and you're in on the joke and you love it. She's like the patron saint of insecure misfits and underdogs, with a Geiger counter in her brain that ticks wildly at every absurdity. Even when life doesn't work out for her -- like in this brilliant song from the Pink Pearl album (2000) -- she can't help but sketch it with sick, dry humor.



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

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

"I'm sure that you really care for me / And your heart's as big as Germany," she goes on, and of course the word Germany is not idly chosen: "But you're as blind as they were back in '33 / You're the guy who doesn't get it." Sure, it's stretching the point a bit to compare the guy to a Nazi collaborator, but what the hey -- he's not listening anyway, is he? She could say anything and he'd never notice. She hauls out one more melodramatic scenario, upping the ante for shock value: "Say the car exhaust engulfs my brain/ The Nembutol is racing through my veins / You come in and ask "Are you okay?"/ As I close my eyes forever." And still . . . no reaction.

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

www.jillsobule.com

"Sweetheart" / Jill Sobule

I'm a little hurt that Jill Sobule decided to move out to California without asking me. I mean, I know our acquaintance never amounted to more than me sitting in the audience while she sang on stage, but still. The point was, she was living in Brooklyn, just over the river, and I liked the idea that this girlfriend -- potential girlfriend, anyway -- was just a subway ride away.

It does make me feel a little better, though, to listen to California Years and discover that Jill is the same fish out of water there as she was here. I mean a real misfit, not a rocker cliche in biker boots. The Stevie Nicks/Chrissie Hynde/Joan Jett singers never did much for me anyway. I totally prefer Jill's elfin quality, the breathy voice, the wry self-effacing humor -- she had it all down long before Zooey Deschanel wandered onto the scene, with her own saucer eyes and effortless vocals. (I love Amy Rigby for that same quality.) Clinging onto the margins of the music world, Jill -- notice how we're on a first-name basis -- has never been the Next Big Thing. (As she says in an earlier song "Freshman," "I live like a freshman / I still have a roommate") In fact, to finance this album she had to solicit donations from her fans, which is why track 14 on the new album is called "The Donor Song."

When an artist is this fringe-y, it's easy to miss when they release a new album. Catch 22 -- the label doesn't spend money to promote it, so no one knows about it, so it doesn't sell, so the label doesn't spend money to promote it. But over the holidays, Amazon offered a $5 album sale for MP3 albums, and (I never can resist a sale) as I browsed through the choices, there was California Years, an album I hadn't even known existed. I one-clicked immediately.



On first listen, I realized that I already knew this one track; I had heard it last summer on Sirius Radio (on Sirius Disorder, or The Loft, or whatever they're calling my obscure boho station these days). I remember being so enthralled by it, I could barely drive. I can still visualize the hillside road I was cruising up in Connecticut when it came on -- cows to the right, corn to the left, aching blue skies above. Not that I noticed. Jill's whispery little-girl voice was made for storytelling intimacy, and when she starts on a story, I am so there with her.

It's a simple story. Jill is sitting in a diner, watching a waitress, fantasizing about being her sweetheart. I picture the diner, the same one in that Adrienne Shelley movie Waitress, one of the best girlfriend movies of the past few years. My other point of reference is a lovely old Maria Muldaur song, also called "Sweetheart," also about a waitress (this one in a donut shop), only that one's from the waitress own viewpoint, fantasizing about one of her regular customers -- who so carelessly calls her "sweetheart" as he picks up his daily coffee. I'd love to know if Jill had this song in mind when she wrote hers.

Maybe that's why Jill calls this song "Sweetheart," instead of "Waitress" -- but it could also be because to her, the table-waiting is really irrelevant. Like Ray Davies, Jill is never a passive observer; she fiercely projects her emotions and sympathies into a vignette. I am so moved by her tenderness, all the more so because it's for a woman she doesn't even know.

Despite that gamine quality, Jill's a scrapper, flaring up in righteous anger about the male customer berating this poor waitress. Then in verse two she drifts off into her own fancy about how she'd care for this woman. ("If I was your secret / And you were my keeper / I think we'd be happy..."') A plangent bit of slide guitar sneaks in (the superb Greg Leisz), and some soft male back-up vocals -- an intriguing touch, as if to fudge the sexuality.

Is the waitress gay? Does Jill even know, or care? Because the fact is, she's never going to make a move with the waitress. This romance is all in the World of What If. Which, if we're honest, is where most of our most passionate romances lie anyway. The power of her fantasy tells us less about the waitress's beauty than it does about Jill's own loneliness and longing. Oh, she'd write songs for this woman, IF she was her sweetheart . . . but hey, Jill has already written the song.

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

Jill Sobule's like this great girlfriend you can sit up late with, drinking margaritas and eating Doritos and giggling and getting slaphappy. Her songs are so perky, her voice so kittenish, you don't realize at first how snarky her lyrics are; then suddenly you catch her winking at you and you're in on the joke and you love it. She's like the patron saint of insecure misfits and underdogs, with a Geiger counter in her brain that ticks wildly at every absurdity. Even when life doesn't work out for her -- like in this brilliant song from the Pink Pearl album (2000) -- she can't help but sketch it with sick, dry humor.



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

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

"I'm sure that you really care for me / And your heart's as big as Germany," she goes on, and of course the word Germany is not idly chosen: "But you're as blind as they were back in '33 / You're the guy who doesn't get it." Sure, it's stretching the point a bit to compare the guy to a Nazi collaborator, but what the hey -- he's not listening anyway, is he? She could say anything and he'd never notice. She hauls out one more melodramatic scenario, upping the ante for shock value: "Say the car exhaust engulfs my brain/ The Nembutol is racing through my veins / You come in and ask "Are you okay?"/ As I close my eyes forever." And still . . . no reaction.

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

www.jillsobule.com