"Merry Christmas, Baby" / Charles Brown & Bonnie Raitt

I'm all juiced for Christmas songs. I love it all, carols and schmaltzy Tin Pan Alley standards and endless rounds of The Nutcracker, the whole shebang. 'Tis the season to hear Elvis croon "Blue Christmas," Dion rock around the Christmas tree, and Nat King Cole yearn for chestnuts roasting on an open fire. It's worth wading through all the sticky-sweet "Silent Nights" and "White Christmases" to find gems like Johnny Mathis's "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" and -- yes, I'll confess -- James Taylor's ultra-sappy "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas." I even get a thrill from hearing Dean Martin slosh his merry way through "Baby It's Cold Outside," or -- a true test of the Christmas spirit -- the infamous duet of Bing Crosby and David Bowie on "The Little Drummer Boy." Bring it on.

Of course, a little rock 'n' roll sass can do wonders for even the silliest holiday standards. My three favorite Christmas albums of all time have to be the Phil Spector Christmas album (long live the Ronettes' "Frosty the Snowman" and Darlene Love's "Marshmallow World"!), a seriously rockin' compilation of vintage R&R called Hot Rod Holiday, and Christmas With the Beach Boys (dig that magic moment when "Little Saint Nick" almost morphs into "Run Run Rudolph"!). Granted, a lot of dreck has been served up over the years as well. Apparently you couldn't be signed to the Motown label without turning out at least one LP of holiday cheese, and over the years every Nashville star had to ladle out a serving of Christmas treacle at some point. Don't even mention that Bob Dylan Christmas album to me, either. But what really leaves me cold are those self-righteous Very Special Christmas all-star charity things. Do we really need to hear Madonna sing "Santa Baby" or Sting twiddle his lute on "I Saw Three Ships"? Okay, I take it back about Sting; that boy does English folk like nobody's business. But all those Bon Jovi and Eric Clapton and Sheryl Crow over-achieving renditions of the same old carols and standards -- let's kick it up to eleven! -- are just too tedious.



Here's the exception, though. The old R&B standard "Merry Christmas, Baby" (not the same song as the Beach Boy's "Merry Christmas Baby") is performed on the second Very Special Christmas album by singer/pianist Charles Brown, the same guy who did the original back in 1947 with Johnny Moore's Three Blazers (Johnny Moore wrote the song with Lou Baxter). A top ten hit in 1947, this song has been covered by everybody from Chuck Berry and B. B. King to Hanson and Bruce Springsteen (also on one of these Very Special Christmas discs). But the song really belongs to Charles Brown, and it's a joy to hear him update his recording. He's paired up with Bonnie Raitt, who spearheaded a revival of his career in the late 1980s; they recorded this track in 1992, a few years before his death in 1999. I'm betting this wouldn't have qualified for this all-star project without Bonnie's presence, but she brings enough blues cred with her that nobody dared mess with the old-school groove of this track.

Like a lot of modern Christmas songs, this one hasn't got a thing to do with Jesus; even Santa only makes a brief off-screen appearance. Mostly it's a love song, a contented jazzy stroll by a man who wakes up Christmas morning happy with his baby. (Translation: He got some holiday nookie.) It's so laidback, I don't even feel my usual impatience with the long solos in the instrumental break -- it's Christmas morning, we've got the day off, who's rushing anywhere? Bonnie and Charles turn it into a duet, which works great -- I love the bit where he sings, "I would love to kiss you baby" and she replies, invitingly, "Well, I'm standing right here underneath the mistletoe."

Christmas trappings? Who needs 'em? All this couple has is "good music on my radio" and each other. Yeah, there are presents there, but they're almost irrelevant; they're simply proof of affection. It almost doesn't matter what's inside the tinsel and paper. There's no decorations, no big fancy dinner, no floods of friends and relatives to raise the stress levels. It's just the two of them, and it's bliss.

In the last verse, he lazily sings, "I haven’t had a drink this mornin’ baby / But I’m all lit up like a Christmas tree." I love that image. So here's my Christmas wish for all of you -- whatever it takes, may you be lit up like a Christmas tree on Friday. Joy to the world indeed.

"Tell It Like It Is" / Aaron Neville

I finally got to see Pirate Radio the other day -- went by myself to an afternoon showing down in the East Village, only two other people in the theater -- this movie seems doomed for obscurity. I loved it, though. How could I not love a movie with "All Day and All Of the Night" blasting over the opening credits?

Along with all the British Invasion classics on the soundtrack -- the Kinks, the Who, Dusty Springfield, the Hollies, the Troggs, the Tremeloes, the Easybeats -- there was loads of American music of the era as well. I came straight home from the movie intent on downloading Otis Redding's super-soulful "These Arms of Mine." But then I got lost wandering around the archives of early 60s soul; when I woke up, this Aaron Neville song was glued to my brain instead.



Not that I'm complaining. Forget the Neville Brothers; I love Aaron's small-label stuff from the early 60s. Everybody covered this song eventually -- Percy Sledge, George Benson, Etta James, even Otis himself -- but Aaron's original 1966 recording is still the definitive version. Note how the low-fi production values muted Neville's distinctive vocal stutter, so it was just texture instead of an annoying tic.

Aaron's tenor vocal coats this song in caramel, skimming lightly over unstressed words, hitting the main verbs and nouns like a hammered dulcimer. That langorous beat is the ultimate slow dance tempo, yet the lyrics follow the rhythms of conversation (it's only one step from here to Barry White's bedroom murmur). He's speaking intimately to his lover, chiding her: "If you want / Something to play with / Go and find yourself a toy / Baby my time / Is too expensive / And I'm not a little boy." That last line dives right into sexiness; sure, his voice is high as a boy's, but that trembling quaver tells you he's got a man's passion, and he will not be denied.

The saying "Tell it like it is" got picked up as the Sixties wore on, becoming a political catch-phrase, but in this song, it seems like the singer's speaking out not from courage but from desperation. He oscillates back and forth between accusing ("If you are serious / Don't play with my heart / It makes me furious") and cajoling ("But if you want me to love you / Then a baby I will, / Girl you know that I will"). This girl is driving him crazy. He may be playing the lord and master, but she's the one who holds the cards.

In the bridge, he falls back on the tried-and-true carpe diem argument that men have used for centuries to lure a woman into bed: "Life is too short to have sorrow / You may be here today and gone tomorrow / You might as well get what you want / So go on and live, baby go on and live." Horns moan in the background, cranking up the temperature.

So what is it that makes this song so sexy? Sure, there's the emotive tremor of Aaron Neville's vocal, but don't overlook that lagging stroll tempo, the shuffling drums, or those repeated unresolved chords, holding off chord resolution time and again, while desire builds underneath. He's quivering on the threshold, like a time bomb set to go off. Speed the thing up and you lose it; get too raw and raunchy and you've lost it again. Listening to this song, I am reminded that soul music first got its name from the deep emotion it expressed. I grew up on the slick products of Motown -- and I'll never stop loving them -- but man, this is the real thing: A guy, a girl, and raging hormones. That's telling it like it is.

"Magic Marker" /
Monsters of Folk

I bought this CD in early October, but I lent it to my college-age son -- and presto, just like magic, it disappeared into his music collection. I finally retrieved it at Thanksgiving, but by then I was deep into a self-induced Kinks coma and couldn't listen to anything else. In fact, thanks to the hangover from Kinks Month, I still haven't been able to listen to much new music lately. But I left Monsters of Folk on rotation on my CD player, and this week it suddenly jumped into the forefront. I'm digging it now, just as I suspected I would.

Background: Monsters of Folk is what's nowadays called a "side project" -- what we used to call a "super group" -- composed of Matt Ward (who records as M. Ward), Jim James from My Morning Jacket (herein given the endearingly goofy pseudonym Yim Yames), and Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis from Bright Eyes. I already had all of them on my iTunes, but I'd never have thought of mixing them together -- Bright Eyes' breathy pop cleverness, My Morning Jacket's rootsy earnestness, and M. Ward's snarky existential indie-folk seem to live in different realms. The first few spins, I felt compelled to tag each song as a Matt song, a Conor song, or a Yim song. But now I've relaxed into its overall genial vibe -- their collaboration seems more like Travelin' Wilburys than, say, Little Village -- and as each talent steps up to the mike, I can enjoy his distinctive idiom for what it is.



"Magic Marker" -- one of the Yim songs -- feels like the heart of the album for me. It's such a mellow, retro-sounding song, the first time I heard it I thought it was a cover of some well-loved old favorite (from some reason, I keep imagining it's late Graham Parker). Acoustic, with a gently rollicking rhythm, it pours out like maple syrup on pancakes. Like a lot of James' songs, the lyrics are a little opaque, but I like that; that laidback simplicity is deceptive.

There's something deeply reassuring about the chorus: "Ordinary don't mean nothin' no how / Look what's ordinary now." (I imagine Yim, in his flannel shirt and beard, flicking around the TV channels in disgust.) Who would want to be "normal" in a world where Lady Gaga and Russell Brand can appear on network TV? And I love the chorus's next image: "It's got a magic marker stain / On its face and it needs a shower." I can look around my desk right now and see papers defaced where some Sharpie has bled through. It's a striking visual detail that perfectly defines the soiled, spoiled nature of modern culture. Yim may be a Young Codger, but he's awfully sincere.

The first couple of verses baffle me, as if I just stumbled into an ongoing conversation. He's talking about some "frozen kid" (himself?) who's feel ostracized; it seems that he's gone out on a limb to impress somebody (a girl?) -- as he puts it, "All the freaked-out measures / I took, tryin' to make you sick of smilin'". But in the third and fourth verses, he hits his stride, with his central image of a Tootsie Roll Pop: "There's something sweet waiting in the center / Taste and see. . . . How many licks does it take to get / To the center where there's something sweet." Underneath all the poses, he promises her, is something geniune and wonderful; he's urging her to work a little to find his real self.

Okay, so that's all there is to it. Two arresting images -- the Magic Marker bleed-through and the Tootsie Pop -- and that dumbstruck remark "Look what's ordinary now," which gets repeated over and over, in Yim's hushed and husky vocal. Every verse more sounds get layered in -- another guitar, a dobro, a bass, synths, backing vocals, finally even drums -- but it remains gentle and light. With a minimum of fuss, Yim spins us through the shallowness of modern relationships, the tackiness of our mass culture, and the importance of being real -- and all without one bit of preaching or poeticizing. That hook seems so gentle, but it ingratiates itself until you wake up singing it. Like I said, syrup on pancakes. It's a winner.

"These Roads Don't Move" / Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard

What's with all these "side projects"? Back in the day, you were either in a band or you weren't. Remember how Eric Clapton had to break up Cream before he could be in Blind Faith? But now you've got guys like Jack White, who can do White Stripes and the Raconteurs and who knows how many other bands all at the same time. Or those guys in Monsters of Folk, Conor Oberst and M. Ward and Jim James, all of whom belong elsewhere. Jeff Tweedy dances in and out of Wilco, Golden Smog, and Loose Fur, then records with Billy Bragg, the Minus 5, 7 Worlds Collide -- jeez, when the guy wakes up in the morning, does he even know who he's working with today?

So yeah, I was skeptical about this One Fast Move project. It began as the soundtrack for a documentary about Jack Kerouac's novel Big Sur, enlisting Jay Farrar -- the alt-country pioneer of Uncle Tupelo and then Son Volt -- and Benjamin Gibbard of the indie pop band Death Cab for Cutie (not to mention his side project Postal Service). The pairing is hardly obvious. Sure, they both exhibit a depressive streak, but with Gibbard, the depression comes out like your seventh-grade boyfriend's wistful poetry; Farrar's brand of melancholy is hard-bitten and adult, best suited to grubby barrooms and high-plains truck stops. Marry all this to lyrics taken straight from Kerouac's scouring prose -- well, watch out, sister.

But to my surprise, I loved this album. (Read here for my Blogcritics review.) Forget the film, forget even the book: This album is on my permanent playlist for its musical merits alone. Dark as some tracks may be, they're balanced by exhilarating songs like "These Roads Don't Move." Admittedly, I'm a sucker for traveling songs, especially when they're a metaphor for getting a fresh start. But I love the central image of this song -- "These roads don't move, you're the one who moves" -- an almost Zen-like koan about how travel offers a glimmering hope of change.



Throughout the album, I love how Farrar's flexible melodies accommodate the extra syllables of Kerouac's prose, imposed on bedrock rhythms that make up for the lack of rhyme scheme. Different melodies convey different moods, and Gibbard takes the lead vocal on the more tuneful, hopeful songs (which better suits his voice anyway). The passage Farrar chose for "These Roads Don't Move" is a rare island of optimism in the novel: "There is no need to say another word / It will be golden and eternal just like that / Something good will come of all things yet / Simple golden eternity blessing all." If there's irony there, it's dramatic irony; at this moment in the novel, Kerouac does believe in redemption and clean slates and all that sort of stuff. Notice how the melody soars upward at the end of lines, or nestles in a comforting little glissando phrase. And as the chorus repeats that "These roads don't move, you're the one who moves" mantra, it does so with a tuneful hook that swings you right down the road with it.

Verse two is more explicit about his journey: "Now get my ticket and say goodbye / And leave San Francisco behind / Go back home across Autumn America / And it'll all be like it was in the beginning." Verse three casts a shadow -- mentioning "dark torturous memories" and "irrational mortal loneliness" -- but by then we're just sailing along on that steady, wheeling beat, uptempo and bright. Yeah, there's the Western loneliness of a slide pedal steel guitar, but there are also shuffling drums (who knew Ben Gibbard was also a drummer?) and a brisk guitar strum to keep our narrator skipping right along.

I'm guessing this side project will be a one-time deal; Farrar and Gibbard are both too much in demand. If Kerouac hadn't brought them together, who would have imagined this? Yet Gibbard's honey and Farrar's grit add up to a beautiful and haunting album. I highly recommend.

"Over My Head" / Ray Davies

Kinks Month isn't over -- not quite yet. I know that Phobia was the last album by the Kinks, but Ray Davies is still working. And if you don't know Ray's solo output, oh, man, you should.

Back in the summer of 2005, I was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner one night, half-watching the little black-and-white TV on a shelf over the kitchen table. I wasn't even looking at the screen -- scrubbing a saucepan, maybe, or sweeping the floor -- but when the first strains of this song came on, I whirled around. My heart leapt. I knew it was Ray, of course -- who else sings like that? -- but I didn't know the song. Could that mean that the Kinks were still around?

Sadly, no, I soon learned as this documentary, The World Through My Window, continued. This program (or "programme," made for British TV) shows Ray recording his new solo album, Other People's Lives -- amazingly, his first solo studio album since the Kinks had dissolved in 1995. Several Kinks classics were played, naturally -- "Days," "See My Friends," "Waterloo Sunset," "Dead End Street" -- but it was the new songs that dazzled me. The minute the show finished, I ran to my computer and used my then-rudimentary Google skills to find out what Ray Davies was up to. Which led me to the Ray Davies Official Forum, and jimmied open the lock that had kept this fangirl too quiet for too long.

For many reasons, Other People's Lives was a Major Life Album for me. I've never felt so transported at any concert as when I stood pressed against a stage watching Ray and guitarist Mark Johns perform The Getaway (Lonesome Train) -- on numerous occasions, I'm glad to say. But listening to this album again today, I realized that it was "Over My Head" that first grabbed me, that first listen on that fateful TV show.



Listen to Ray's vocals, so ragged and world-weary -- as befits an album that's mostly about staring down mortality and his own human frailty. But oh, Mr. Davies has no intention of going gentle into that good night; he kicks back with crunchy guitars, whomping drums, and a hip-shifting funk-infused rhythm that needs no Viagra.

"Wakin' up, / Feeling rough / Totally stressed," he begins, intimately, in a hungover growl. He proceeds with short, unrhymed lines ("Every day is a day at a time / Step by step" -- dig that sly AA allusion), as if he's just setting his feet on the floor, taking stock. His diagnosis? He's definitely battered, shattered, worse for wear: "Hit a wall, took a fall /To a new depth." (An echo of the album's second track, the soul-scouring "After the Fall.") But like a true survivor, he has tools for patching himself up: "Count to ten, / Focus then / Take a deep breath."

The second part of the verse becomes more legato and finally begins to find rhymes, as he steadies his head. He bleakly assesses the world around him -- a world he's learned to cope with, he admits, by merely smiling and pretending. We've seen this Ray Davies before, the guy who just wants to drift away to his island in the sun.

But as he swings into the chorus -- climbing into a higher register and a major key -- for the first time his escapist technique actually seems to work. "I'm a million miles away from it all / And let it go right over my head / Let 'em chase and the winner take all / And let it go right over my head." Can it be? Ray Davies, achieving Zen calm at last?

Well, not entirely. The chorus dissolves back into minor key, sadly repeating the phrase "Over my head," with a tremulous little glissando. He knows he can't check out so completely; it doesn't solve anything. In the ensuing verses, he's still barraged by the people around him, still distressed by the defection of his lover ("Didn't know you were close to breaking / So you thought it should end / Left it all for a new location / So you could start up again"). In the second chorus, he admits that he's only buying time -- "Right now I want some peace of mind / So let it go right over my head." By the final verse, he's crawling back into bed, pulling the sheets over his head.

At six-minutes-plus, I suppose this song goes on too long -- later verses become a mash-up of the earlier ones, as the sonic tangle grows denser and denser. But I dunno, as I get lost in it, I don't recall ever wishing it would end sooner. You know me, I'm a great fan of the underproduced three-minute pop song -- yet I sink wistfully into this build-up of "Over My Head." It's like wading through a beautiful but gloomy swamp (the New Orleans vibe is pervasive on this album, even though most of it was recorded in London). I keep hearing new things, little curls of guitar, splashes of honky-tonk piano, ghostly extra vocals that could be Ray or could be someone else. . .

What a joy is it to have to grapple with a song like this. What a joy it is to hear a middle-aged musician NOT trying to imitate his younger hit-making self, NOT acting like he's still a randy 19-year-old. Discovering Ray Davies after all these years, I was thrilled to discover that he was writing Music For Grown-Ups -- and that's something we grown-up rock fans need desperately.

Thanks again, Ray. And again, and again, and again...

"Drift Away" / The Kinks

Phobia would be the Kinks' swan song -- at least, that is, if Ray and Dave Davies don't decide tomorrow to get the band back together, which they could absolutely do. Hey, there's nothing stopping them, folks. AHEM.

But in 1993, they didn't know Phobia would be their last album, and they certainly didn't go out with a whimper. It's one of the band's hardest rocking albums, which normally isn't my cup of tea. I'll make an exception for Phobia.



Case in point: "Drift Away." Sure, it's another take on that iconic Ray Davies theme, escaping the pressures of modern life. As far back as "I'm On an Island" he's been nursing this fantasy, through "Apeman," "Complicated Life," and "Holiday." But this entire album is about the relentless tension of late 20th-century life; it's almost apocalyptic in its vision. Tangoing off to an island in the sun isn't a feasible option any more. The very desperation with which Ray clings to his fantasy proves how sick his world is.

He begins wistfully enough, with few measures of what sounds like an Irish sea chanty: "Drift away, / Just drift away / Sometimes I wish I could just drift away." But then the drums smash through, and the snarl of guitar takes off. And singing in his most savage voice, Ray prophesies fire and brimstone: "They say there's gonna be a river of blood / It's apocalypse now / So we're waiting for the flood." It's not just natural disasters either -- "While the dollar falls down / The yen's gonna climb / It's a moral decline / And I'm losing my mind." It's half sung, half shouted, with not a trace of that winsome opening melody. It's like the cry of a drowning man, fighting his way to the surface for one desperate gasp of air.

The metal guitars, the sledgehammer drums, the fierce wall of sound -- they don't go away for the chorus, even though it shifts from minor to major key: "I think I'll just drift away / To that island of my dreams / Live in total fantasy / Close my eyes and drift away." It's hardly a sustaining illusion, though; whereas in earlier songs his escapism promised some relief, here it's just not working.

In verse two, 'back in the real world," Ray finds another villain -- "The man on the news is going over the top / Now he'll say anything so his show don't flop." Ray's had his fill of brushes with the media, and he cuts them no slack: "They shout the story to the nation / Pass on the panic to the population." It resolves in a miserable wail of "It's all over now." And when the chorus rolls around again, Ray admits that his drifting away is only a vain wish. Melody devolves into a series of aggressively shouted "drift aways," on the brink of panic.

"Now all the politicians are running out of hope," Ray declares in the last verse; "They've burned all their bridges / Now they just can't cope." He flings fragmented images at us -- suicides dangling from ropes, newsmen exhorting the populace, rivers of blood flowing. It's like a Hieronymous Bosch painting, surreal and terrifying.

And this is only track three of the album -- Ray and Dave have a lot more apocalyptic vision to load on us as the album continues. You gotta hand it to them -- they never did slide into middle-aged complacency, did they? God Save the Kinks.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT: Other's People's Lives and "Over My Head"

"UK Jive" / The Kinks

It was all my fault, I'm sure. By 1989 I wasn't listening to the Kinks anymore; why should anyone else? And with their new record company, MCA, breathing down their necks, the Kinks -- amidst epic battles between the brothers Davies -- cranked out UK Jive on a minimum of inspiration. Not only did they rip off riffs from other artists (hear them go all Talking Heads in the middle of "Aggravation"), they recycled their own songs mercilessly. It probably deserved to be the flop it was.

But coming to it years later, I discover that this record isn't nearly as awful as it was rumored to be. In fact, there are more than a couple tracks I like quite a lot. Fr'instance. Take a little bit of "Come Dancing" nostalgia, blend it with the boppy danceability of "Jukebox Music," and you've got "UK Jive," the album's title track title. It should be a cynical bit of throwaway fluff, and maybe it is. But I don't know, I can't help liking it -- and feeling guilty that I wasn't around to stand up for the Kinks when it first came out.



That jitterbug beat, the jiving guitar licks, put us in a Fifties mood from the very start, and Ray's lyrics recreate a vintage scene from his old North London haunts: "Another Saturday night and everybody gets together / The pubs are turning out and all the streets are alive / But the people wanna party so they come back to our house / Everybody gonna do the U.K Jive." By all accounts Ray and Dave's father, Fred Davies, was quite a party animal, and this description is no exaggeration -- after last call, the regulars did reel across the road from the Clissold Arms to the Davies house on Denmark Terrace to keep the party going. "Dad's got a crate of beer and it's an open invitation / He's ever-so elated and so are his mates."

I can just imagine skinny little Ray Davies and his baby brother, jostled up against the wall in the front room, getting a taste of adult fun. It worked in "Come Dancing," that child's-eye view of adult thrills, and Ray Davies never throws away a useful concept. But I don't know, I fall for it all over again. I love the feeling of being in that front room with him, no matter how crowded and cacophonous it might be.

In verse two, we get another nugget of Davies family history: "Mum's all annoyed dad forgot the inflation / He blew all his wages by half past nine." (Remember in "Come Dancing," the boyfriend who "blew his wages for the week / All for a cuddle and a peck on the cheek"?) With Micawber-like improvidence, Mr. Davies has "bought a gramophone on the never never [Britspeak for 'installment plan'] / And the tally man's gotta have his money on time." Ah, considering how Americanized the Kinks had begun to seem by 1989, these Britticisms are welcome indeed.

There was a whole sub-genre of "dance songs" in the late 50s, early 60s, that contained dance instructions right in the song; Ray's calling them out here, his arch vocals trading off with swinging horn licks: "Swing your partner to the left, / Swing her back to the right. / Don't stand in the middle / And act cool all night." (Later on in the song he adds, "You've got to learn to swing both ways," with an extra suggestive wiggle in his voice -- a sly "Lola" reference.) Next he launches into a sort of fight song, perfect for a raucous post-pub singalong: "Do that U.K. Jive/ Do that U.K. Jive / U.K. O.K. U.K. O.K. gimme that U.K. Jive." Well, you'd have to be made of stone not to join in on that chorus.

Like most rock songs of this era, it goes on a bit too long, but as it peters out with extra solos, Ray does a sly dirty old man routine: "Blow in my ear, / I like the way you do that." I'm reminded of Ray Charles, and all those chuckling asides that made "What'd I Say" so much fun. ("Are you jiving me? / Oh, you bad pussy cat / You'll make papa mad.")

Is is worthy of the Kinks? Not really. On the other hand, if Aerosmith or Queen or Bruce Springsteen had turned out something this catchy, they'd have been media darlings for it. It just wasn't, apparently, what music fans wanted to hear from the Kinks in 1989. More's the pity.

AND ON WE GO: Phobia and "Drift Away"