BETWEEN THE BEATLES COVERS

"I'm Only Sleeping" /
Rosanne Cash

So now we've heard from the folk folks, the soul contingent, and the reggae crew -- what about country artists?  It would seem like an obvious connection. There was a definite rockabilly streak trailing through the mid Beatles' catalog -- "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby," "I'm A Loser," "She's A Woman," "What Goes On," "I'm Looking Through You" -- no doubt inspired by all those Carl Perkins and Buddy Holly records the Fabs listened to as boys in Liverpool. Country music even solved the perennial What To Do With Ringo question by providing the Buck Owens song "Act Naturally."

Yet surprisingly few country artists have tried their hand at Beatles covers. Sure, there are some gems -- I'm thinking of Emmylou Harris's doggone woeful "For No One," Dolly Parton's fast-break jig "Help," or Johnny Cash's going-to-meet-my-maker turn on "In My Life." Still, the only Beatles cover that ever hit #1 on the country charts was by Johnny's daughter Rosanne -- "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" (1989) transformed into a brisk little Texas two-step.

But Rosanne Cash recorded another Beatles cover, "I'm Only Sleeping," which was never released until it surfaced on her 1995 compilation Retrospective. And "I'm Only Sleeping" doesn't sound country at all -- reminding me that Rosanne Cash, like her daddy before her, is much more than just a country artist.

The Beatles' version of "I'm Only Sleeping" mesmerized me the minute I first heard it on Revolver back in 1966.  John Lennon claimed he was only writing about his fondness for sleeping (fast-forward a few years to John and Yoko's bed-in for peace) but the narcotized tempo, John's weary vocal, and the distorted backwards guitar blips telegraphed to all of us who were In The Know -- this was a Beatles drug song. I mean, come on! "When I'm in the middle of a dream / Stay in bed, float upstream" . . . "Please don't spoil my day / I'm miles away" . . .  "Lying there and staring at the ceiling / Waiting for a sleepy feeling" -- how could we NOT have thought this was about the hazy escapism of drugs?

In fact, I've thought of this as a druggie song for so many years, hearing Rosanne's version was like a shot of energy. Her robust contralto does not sound enervated or weary -- I get the impression that she's staying in bed because she's pissed off.  Or maybe -- I like this scenario even better -- she's an overworked mom who's finally got a few hours to herself and she does not want to be disturbed. 

Though she dials down the psychedelic effects -- her guitar is a brisk acoustic strum, the drumbeat has a little more kick to it, the background oohs hit their beat instead of oozing in -- Rosanne is clearly not going for a country sound here. She commits herself to that backbeat rhythm, and she doesn't deny the inherent spooky melancholy of Lennon's melody, with its circling chromatics and unresolved minor key. (Dig how the second half of each verse repeats the same melodic phrase three times, while the underlying chords shift restlessly -- "[Am] Please don't wake me / [G] No don't shake me / [Am7] Leave me where I am."). The electric guitar part (I'd love to know who played this for her) reads more as rock distortion than as country twang, adding another element of disorientation.

Staying in bed isn't about laziness, it's about escaping a complicated life, and even sleep doesn't drive away the demons. Members of the Cash family know about demons; I'm betting that Rosanne zeroed right in on this subtext. Whether it was about sleep or drugs, John Lennon's original song always begged the question:  What is there about your life that you so desperately need to escape?  Money, fame, critical acclaim, worldwide fan devotion, none of it made John Lennon any happier with himself.

Rosanne Cash may not answer that question, but she lets this song ask it all over again. If one definition of a good cover is that it makes you hear the original song afresh, then Rosanne scored big with this one.

The Saturday Shuffle

At last -- a free hour in my day!  Let's turn on the old shuffle machine and see what it yields...

1. Do You Want It All? / Two Door Cinema Club
From Tourist History (2010)
Tasty little morsel of British indie pop, sort like Death Cab for Cutie meets the Kooks. (And no, that's not a reference to the sadly kaput marriage of Ben Gibbard and Zoe Deschanel). The production values are quirky, almost lapidary, with fragments of phrases repeated urgently, like mantras, over a peppy rhythm track spiced with space-age sound effects. But absolutely radio friendly!

2. When in Rome / Nickel Creek
From When Will the Fire Die? (2005)
Sitting sweetly at the intersection of bluegrass and indie pop, this wonderful trio (also, sadly kaput) composed of fiddler Sara Watkins, her guitarist brother Sean, and mandolinist Chris Thiele (now of Punch Brothers) was a real find for me. Snarky lyrics and modernist rhythms, textured with Americana  instrumentation -- trust me, it's a winning combination.

3. The Rat's Prayer / The Soft Boys
From A Can of Bees (1980)
And now for something completely different -- at least on the surface -- Sir Robyn Hitchcock's first band, psych-folk-punk renegades the Soft Boys. Garage-y guitars and drums, herky-jerky tempos, folky harmonies, and best of all, wickedly absurdist lyrics.: My. Cup. Of. Tea.

4. Better Days / Roseanne Cash
From This One's For Him (2012)
No, not the Kinks' "Better Things," but a wise and rueful Guy Clark song, covered here by real Nashville royalty, Twitter queen Roseanne Cash. This new tribute album is one of the finest country albums of many a year -- with Clark's warm and witty songs as the foundation, it should be brilliant, and it is.

5. Martha My Dear / The Beatles
From The White Album (1968)
Paul McCartney in full music-hall mode -- scrumpdillyumptious.  I say music-hall, but alongside the oom-pah/ragtime beat Sir Paul can't help tossing in a bossa nova groove here and there.  And yes, we all know he really wrote this about his Old English sheepdog ("hold your head up, you silly girl / Look what you've done" -- poop on the carpet!), but it's still a crazy mad wonderful song.

6. (I Wanna) Call It Love / Sondre Lerche
From Duper Sessions (2006)
Remember the Steve Carell movie Dan in Real Life? Probably not; it was highly missable.  But I loved the soundtrack tunes by this sweet Norwegian singer-songwriter, and immediately plucked several other tunes out of his slim catalog. There's a little soft-shoe jazziness here too, a smooth strain of Cole Porter romanticism, but with a touch of Scandi angst, too.  Well, why not?

7. Groovy Movies / The Kinks
From The Great Lost Kinks Album (1973)
Sorry, no link -- it's a bootleg. (Got to solve this mp3 posting conundrum...) This album only hit the market for a nanosecond before the horrified Kinks demanded it be withdrawn; most of it was discarded demos, scraps of songs that Ray Davies had written for other projects, padded out with some Dave Davies solo work.  This is one of the Dave tracks, sloppy rather than whimsical, but kinda endearing all the same.

8.  Cry Like a Baby / The Box Tops
From The Best of the Box Tops (1968)
Hard to believe this came out the same year as "Martha My Dear"; it's soul-saturated Memphis pop, with horns instead of oom-pah, Farfisa organ instead of plinky piano, and a raft of gospel back-up singers.  And the divine vocals of Alex Chilton...

9. I'm a Soldier in the Army of the Lord / Lyle Lovett
From Smile: Songs from the Movies (2003)
Full-on gospel -- whoever said Lyle Lovett could only do country?  This track appeared in the 1997 Robert Duvall film The Apostle (searing performance, Bobby D!) and it sure enough gives me that old-time religion. Do I love this cat's voice or what?  That supple vibrato with just enough creak and twang -- there's no one else sounds even remotely like him.

10. We Should Be Making Love / Huey Lewis & The News
From Hard At Play (1999)
Lazy, loungy, soulful pop, as easy on the ears as Huey himself is easy on the eyes (Huey and Daryl Hall: my two big 80s music crushes.)  And one of my favorite song premises:  Our singer hero is always listening to his woman friend's romantic issues, until now he's finally 'fessing up that he longs to BE her romantic issue.  You could slide into this like a pair of warm moccasins, girl.  Why not?

SATURDAY SHUFFLE

Anybody else tired of April showers?  Better turn the music up loud.


1. Addicted to Love / Robert Palmer
 From Riptide (1985)
From the very first beats on those whomping drums, I start to grin despite myself.  "The lights are on, but you're not home / Your mind is not your own... One of the classic MTV videos, with sultry scarlet-lipped models gyrating and strumming guitars, and Palmer in a devastatingly well-cut gray suit.  That mesmerizing rhythm line drove this song straight to #1; a great 80s throwback.   

2. Every Planet We Reach Is Dead / Gorillaz
From Demon Days (2006)
Damon Albarn gets his funk on.  The comic-book element of this project is lost on me, but I sure do dig their sound -- electronica that manages NOT to be tedious or repetitive. It can be done!  


3. Uncorrected Personality Traits / Robyn Hitchcock
From I Often Dream of Trains (1984)
A cappella psycho-babble whimsy from the delectable Mr. H.  One of the funniest songs ever.

4. I Was Watching You / Rosanne Cash 
From Black Cadillac (2006)
Rosanne's album-length elegy for her parents -- who just happened to be Johnny Cash and June Carter -- is pretty good proof that talent is genetic.

5. Some Other Guy / The Searchers
From Sugar and Spice (1963)
I think Johnny Kidd and the Pirates (remember them?  no, me neither) recorded the original hit single of this snappy little Lieber-Stoller teen love song, but every British Beat band did a cover of it; there's grainy film somewhere of the Beatles singing it at the Cavern Club. For my money, though, the best is the Searchers, with the extra zing of their guitars.      

6. I Bet You Won't Stay / The Cascades
(1965 single)
Sorry, no link for this one -- an obscure pop single which I have in bootleg only because Ray Davies wrote it.  And you thought the Cascades' only song was "Rhythm of the Rain"? In fact they recorded a couple of Ray's early songs, when he was still hedging his bets with a little freelance songwriting. Oddly jazzy, with a jangly electric piano and tons of reverb -- they do perfect justice to the wistful neurosis of this song.

7. Another First Kiss / They Might Be Giants
From Mink Car (2001)
There's always a daffy angle to every TMBG song, but they can also do earnest surprisingly well. Of course there can only be one first kiss -- but that won't stop the ever-winsome John Linnell from trying.

8. Vanity Press / Graham Parker & the Figgs 
From Songs of No Consequence (2005)
The object of today's high-energy satire: unscrupulous journalists, for whom Graham Parker seems to have reserved a special circle of hell.  Clever lyrics fly thick and fast; you gotta listen close to get every flash of wit. But never fear, GP still packs in a killer hook in the chorus. 

9. Die Die Die / The Avett Brothers
From Emotionalism (2007)
I love these guys, with their hoarsely sweet folky harmonies, plucky banjo, and soaring melodies. This earlier album, before their "breakthrough" I and Love and You, proves that they've got the chops to be around for a while.


10.  Without Love / Nick Lowe
From Labour of Lust (1979)
Sigh...I know I've written about this song before.  But now that Labour of Lust's been reissued, it's on my daily playlist all over again. "Without love, I am an island / All alone, in a heartbreak sea...."

“World Without Sound” / Rosanne Cash

I seriously dig this Black Cadillac CD. It’s Rosanne Cash’s breakthrough album, or at least the first one that registered on my music radar (I’ve read that she’s had a load of hit singles, but they must have been on the country charts – I sure never heard of them). Now, however, I’ve listened to Rules of Travel too and I realize I've underrated Rosanne – blame my knee-jerk prejudice against anybody who gets an easy “in” to The Biz through celebrity parents. (I’m still resisting her stepsister Carlene Carter, but that’s a whole other story….)

Black Cadillac had a natural PR hook – it’s Rosanne’s coming-to-terms with the loss of her parents (her stepmother June Carter Cash died in May 2003, her dad Johnny Cash just four months later in September 2003). But one of the strengths of this album is how deep down Cash digs with her songwriting. She refuses easy answers and cheap sentiments; it’s mournful but never whiny, and several songs – like this one – take the meditation on grief and loss further, describing how a surviving orphan reevaluates her universe. Anyone who’s lost a parent knows what that’s about.

Leading off with a boozy horn section riff, “World Without Sound” is one of the CD’s more uptempo tracks, a sort of Texas two-step that’s far less country than I expected – just like her dad, who was more of a rocker than he got credit for, Rosanne has shed those Nashville bonds. “But who do I believe / In this world without sound?” she wonders (“sound” being the essence of the two musicians’ souls), and her confident vocal makes it a real question, not a self-pitying complaint. “Who do I believe / Once they put you in the ground? / Who do I believe / When the night’s falling down?” Yes, she’s feeling lost, but instinctively I trust she’ll find her way – and I’m curious to see where she winds up.

The issue of faith clearly perplexes Rosanne (in another song on the album, she rejects “your tired religion” -- I’m guessing not all the Cash/Carter children see eye-to-eye on this question). On “World Without Sound” she gets right into it: “I wish I was a Christian / And knew what to believe / I could learn a lot of rules / To put my mind at ease” (hardly sounds like organized religion works for her, now does it?). The successive verses are all about exploring new reasons for living – wealth, friends and family, artistic success, politics. Of course, just about every one of these dreams has tempted me too. F’instance: “I wish I lived in Paris / And dreamed in French each night” (dig that tasty little sax fill there) “And had a dozen children / And raised them up just right.” She piques our interest, and then she pushes it too far, till the crazy hope deflates like a punctured party balloon. Frankly, she doesn’t hold out much hope for any of these fantasies. “I wish I was John Lennon / Free as a bird / And all of you who sit and stare / Would hang on my every word.” Yeah, like that’s gonna happen. That didn't even work for John Lennon.

So there’s no magic answer . . . unless it’s the quest itself that gives life meaning. After all, she’s already filling that “world without sound” with her own sound, and a fine sound it is, too. So this is Rosanne Cash, hunh? Maybe talent does run in families.

World Without Sound sample