Fucking Joni Mitchell

"Coyote" by Joni Mitchell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7MbmXklj3Q
A few weekends back, I found myself up late (an unusual circumstance), clicking the TV remote weakly and aimlessly (a too usual circumstance), and fell across The Last Waltz, a movie I remembered loving when I first saw it long ago. I fell back into it pretty well right away and pretty well started loving it all over again, too, but I also found myself, this time around, distracted and annoyed by the between-song interviews, which were giving so much face time to Robbie Robertson. I know he was the chief songwriter, but he was coming across (admittedly, to my drooping old self) as a preening, narcissistic dick. I couldn't figure out why the director of the thing, Martin Scorsese, had decided to talk to him so much when I'd always assumed that the other guys couldn’t not also be interesting (I can still be slightly fanboyish once in a while, despite my about-to-be-a-grandfather status), especially because Mr. Robertson was, as I’ve suggested, acting like a 1970s-style hipster egomaniac.

But because there was so much good music coming at me, I didn’t pick at that little nit of irritation, especially since a big part of so many of the wonderful songs I was hearing was Mr. Robertson’s beautiful electric guitar. Jesus, he could really play. (He almost kept up with Eric Clapton on the blues number the latter sang and played during his turn on stage.) And all those great male voices! Levon Helm's was my favourite (always had been), but I could die easily enough listening to Rick Danko or Richard Manuel sing me out.

I guess I'm saying the TV signal was a happy one, but a high-testosterone one, too. And then, out of nowhere, a packet of digital info had a stunning, spotlit Joni Mitchell coming out and singing a number called "Coyote." (Before she started she not only kissed Mr. Robertson, she stroked his face, so I take back anything less than complimentary I might have been thinking about him.) Female beauty doesn't come much better than how Ms. Mitchell looked that night, and female voices don't sound much better than hers did that night, and I realized I was just watching what I was watching and just hearing what I was hearing almost forty years after it happened, several thousand kilometers from where it happened, through a smeared lens (you know, fucking movies) and lousy speakers, and that I was in a highly suggestible condition (it was late, and I was tired, and I'm older than I used to be), but now I really did feel younger and happier and more cheerful than I had in some time -- and it was the middle of the night! (Women! Music!)

What would we do without love songs? Joni Mitchell's "Coyote" is one of those two-ships-passing-in-the-night love songs, and the way it was sung that night in 1976 was flawlessly primal and pure, and so sophisticated, self-mocking, self-knowing, other-knowing, ethos-knowing, earthy, happy, wistful, and (best of all) ecstatic. No matter when you were born, no matter if you're a man or a woman, whenever you get the chance to see an acutely intelligent, acutely ecstatic woman tame a big male stage and a big, intoxicated audience like the one she was singing to, you should take that chance. (Women! Music!) And because the song is also an ingeniously loose, swinging poem, listen to every word. Because the voice is perfect, listen to every note it sounds. Because "The Band" becomes a nice, steady, sort-of-jazz combo backing a very bright star, listen to them, too, if you want to. But make a special effort to listen for the bliss in the surging love added by that voice's new words to the last iteration of the song's only repeating couplet. She was fucking Joni Mitchell, man. She had it all.

Listen to it again. Watch it again. You know you want to. (Put some headphones on this time.)

Three-and-a-half Minutes (times x) Is Enough For Me

"Outta Sight" by James Brown and the Famous Flames
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zieXmNwHGYA

I saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and since then, I've watched it every day, on some days more than once, on some days more than more than once. You get -- you are the recipient of -- everything in this performance: the utmost control, precision, complexity, simplicity, passion (gusto, brio), artifice, kinetic grace (what a dancer he was!) . . . I know that's not everything, but it's enough for me. 

After my fifth or sixth viewing, I told myself that I'd watch the others on stage at least a little bit. But I couldn't. You can't take your eyes off James Brown here because you are afraid that if you do, you'll miss something: every note, every chord, every fraction of every beat surges through his body, which both controls and is controlled. Plus, he sings and screams, with flawless power, like a supreme being. 

He was just a man, of course, and by some accounts, a deeply flawed one. As a musician, though, he's about as immortal as they come. He gets right to the middle of you, like a god should.  

Soulitude

"634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A.)" by Wilson Pickett
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My2apquxKKQ

Solitude and I seem made for each other, so what was I recently doing, making a phone call late one beery night to Soulsville, U.S.A? Isn't fooling around on the phone kid stuff? But since I had the number and all I had to do was look up Memphis's area code – why not? All I got for my trouble, though, was a recorded message about somebody not having set up his voice mailbox, which I surmised meant that the number itself was still active. Too bad, because I really wanted to talk to someone, and although I wasn't nearly drunk enough to believe that the person who had yet to set up his voice mailbox was Wilson Pickett himself (he was just sixty-five when he died too soon eight years ago), I was drunk enough to want to talk to him, and to imagine what I might say had I been speaking into his activated voice mailbox: “Mr. Pickett? Big fan. Just listened to ‘634-5789 (Soulsville, U.S.A)’ for the first time in years, and I gotta tell you, I think it’s gonna stay in my private rotation for a while. Since I've had a few beers I can’t at the moment remember how the Internet let me stumble on it (the Internet loves you, by the way) -- but Jesus, did you understand romantic love, or what? Lord have mercy, who knew all I had to do was pik-upp the tel-e-phone’? . . . Mr. Pickett, I think the kids today (not enough of them listen to you, but that's a whole other thing and I haven't got much time) -- the kids today might refer to what you’re proposing as a “booty call,” but maybe, in their zingy, callow cynicism, they’re missing your promise of ‘no more lonely nights.' I may be a touch or more beyond jaded myself, but I did pick up on the plural noun in that phrase. You’re making a promise, and, from what I understand, booty calls are not only not promises, they’re anti-promises. That’s how I know you understood romantic love – you got that it was nothing but promises. . . . Anyway, just wanted to let you know I love the song, still and forever. And kudos to the composers and all the players and other singers who helped you so sublimely sing this lovely, simple, cheerful number into the eternal airs of Planet Earth. Take care, and don’t let being dead get you down too much. I know it’s small consolation, but some of us can still hear you, and you still sound absolutely fucking great.” 

Then I listened to the song again (more than once). 

Before I went to bed, I thought about activating my own voice mailbox after all these lonely nights (gotta be closing in on a couple of thousand), but since I rarely receive any calls these days, booty or otherwise, there wouldn't have been much point.

Sing

"I Don't Want To Spoil The Party" by The Beatles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHdi2W1-Uuc

While wasting time online a couple of days ago, I discovered that Roseanne Cash once covered this song, which, because it's a country song (just ask George's guitar), makes beautiful sense. I liked her version a lot (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnEFsYwBXD8) (I hadn't stopped wasting time): nice vocals, great (better-than-the-Beatles) players -- nifty violin and a very witty steel guitar . . . at least I think that was a steel guitar. But I still had several other things to avoid, so you know the story -- I had to listen to the original. And then (because you know the rest of the story) I had to listen to it again . . . Okay, once more (had to) . . . Eventually, the lesser world outside my headphones pushed inside, so I eventually took them off, but here's what I remember:

Those voices, together. Those together voices. John sings lead in the verses, and, whether it was a stroke of some kind of lucky genius or not, somehow it was decided that Paul would take over for the twice-sung chorus -- or bridge, or middle-eight, or whatever that mid-song melodic shift is called (I'm not a musician) -- with George crucially crooning under each of his pals. I also remember feeling inexcusably happy for about two-and-a-half minutes.

There are a million songs that mix melancholy with cheerful guitars and drums going at a lively tempo, but few do it like this. I think the operative adjective here is "plaintive." Those voices and those lyrics tell you that, despite the instrumental brio, you're listening to a sad song and to singers whose souls are being ripped to shreds. Tonight they've been made sad, but they still love the girl who's no longer around, and will be glad if they find her (they won't find her): two notes, three voices, four words ("I still love her"), regret and sadness and hope -- that's some nice basic arithmetic. (Makes you think of Bach.)

I also maintain that, even if you resist singing along beyond the second or third line of the first verse, it's utterly impossible not to join voices with those three naive boys as they tell us during the chorus that they still love the girl who's no longer around. You will surrender because you will want to hear yourself being plaintive and young, too.

If you won't sing, or hum, or dance along to whatever it is that you listen to, what's the point? The Beatles, in this song, tell you not to spoil the party because you have, after all, chosen to go. Listen to them.

Really

"You Really Got Me" by The Kinks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dk3Ei_yoI4c

I don't know why this song still moves me and still makes me so happy -- it couldn't be more primitively adolescent. If I hear it while I'm driving, my ass dances. If I hear it while I'm sweeping up, or washing dishes, or vacuuming, or walking from one room to another at home wondering why I left the one for the other, I dance. Can't help it. The band's equally helpless, insistent repetition of so few words and amplified guitar chords proves the title: he who sings this and those who play it have truly been gotten. They get started, but get stuck really fast. They don't even want to be singing and playing. They only, always, want to be at her side, they can't sleep at night without her, and they're fine with that:  "See, don't ever set me free . . ." I get that. Bitter irony: once you get set free -- at least when you haven't wished it -- by the person whose side at which you always want to be, you've actually been sentenced to solitary confinement, and you're just a dead man talking (to himself).

No wonder they called themselves The Kinks. Just kids, sure, but I suspect they probably knew how imperfect they were, and the rest of us are. And if you don't love the sound of that snappy snare drum counting out all the heartbeats front and centre, you might want to consider a defribrillation implant. I hear they're routine.

Merry Any Day Of The Year

"Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_a0zOLMAfw

Back when the Rolling Stones were my favourite band (a long time ago, back when I still had favourite things), this was my favourite Rolling Stones song. So I guess even when I knew nothing, I knew something. I've been reminded of it because, earlier this week, I heard a radio interview with the director of a documentary called Twenty Feet from Stardom, which is about back-up singers. Among those featured is Merry Clayton, who in this number sings back-up to Mick Jagger and who blows him out of the water despite his being in very fine and graceful fettle himself (it's hard to hear in the mix, but listen for his growl of appreciation and encouragement from behind her for how she's raised a third warning cry about rape and murder during her turn up front).

Yup. It's Ms. Clayton who blows not only Mr. Jagger out of the water, but all the players as well, and lifts the whole thing into an ocean sky of pure aural splendour. Without her, "Gimme Shelter" would be a pretty good punch-in-the-gut rock song; with her, not only does your gut get punched, your flesh gets goosed, you hair raised, your spine tingled, your blood heated, your heart gladdened, and your circuits repaired: you're hearing a true and magnificent Wow! song. I love great female voices singing greatly, as Merry Clayton's does on this song, and even though I can't sing for shit myself, I still do it a lot when I'm alone. But I gotta admit I don't even try to accompany Ms. Clayton here -- hell, I can't even keep up with Sir Mick on this number. Instead, I settle for playing clumsy but energetic air drums to Charlie Watts's primal ferocity, and tell myself I don't need no stinking aerobics and that sometimes it's good just to shut up -- easy to do, as long as I get to listen to "Gimme Shelter" once in a while.

Oh, yes: I have got to see that movie. (Gotta stop spending so much time alone, too, I guess . . . Well, no, maybe not -- if I did that, I'd have to cut down on my singing.)

Got Nothin' Here (Just A Pair)

"Tiger Woods" by Dan Bern*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tctfq4tplQ4
You don't often hear in a few minutes of pop music as much as you hear in these few minutes.

It's not about Tiger Woods, it's about testicles (the human ones), and while sneering at their oversized reputation, this surreally funny, wonderful song alludes to five cultural icons -- three human (the title character, plus Muhammad Ali and Madonna) and two non-human (arches that are golden and a bridge over a golden strait). Because of its subject, the song may be of no interest to women, but I think anyone who digs comedic flights of fancy, and tall tales, and lacerating self-mockery, and urgent, growly rock n' roll would probably like it.

Other than, in the final refrain, swinging a golf club at the end of an outrageous and hilarious series of similes about balls (the human ones), Tiger Woods doesn't do anything. The comparisons threaded earlier through the song are also very funny, especially the one about the singer's own pair swelling -- at least "on [his] really good days" -- to the size of a small dog. Before he swings his big swing, Tiger Woods is just a static big-balled icon the big-balled singer admires. How do we know the singer has a big pair? Because he tells us he does. We infer that Tiger Woods has an even bigger pair since the singer repeats a few times that sometimes he wishes he was Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods (his usage, not mine). Big always wants to be bigger, I guess.

Muhammad Ali gets fleshed out slightly more when we're reminded that back when he was Cassius Clay he asserted that bragging wasn't bragging if that which was being bragged about was true, which is no big surprise -- neither the assertion nor that Cassius Clay would've made it. Sadly, that was a long time ago, before Mr. Ali (I'll always call that big-balled son of a bitch "Mister) "fought too many fights/and left his brain inside the ring." This song may admire the size of Mr. Ali's balls, but it isn't blind to the high price that sometimes gets paid for having things like that. (Hmm . . . you get to have big balls, but you lose your brain . . .)

Which brings us to Madonna, who, according to the singer, was gone down upon by, at the time, a thirty-four-year-old friend of his who had dedicated his life to accomplishing that very empty goal. It turns out that despite having balls large enough to have been granted permission to go down on Madonna one night in a hotel in Rome, he was too young and it was too soon -- the singer tells us his friend's life has been nothing but depression and shit ever since. (Hmm . . . you get to have big balls, but you lose your mind. . .)

Which brings us to the singer, whose main concern seems to be distinguishing between women who ignore him because they "like" him and women who ignore him because they ignore him. I guess it's not the most important question, but it's not without interest. In any case, he guesses that all you need to do is ask them, and that all you need to do that is "one good pair of big balls", and, as he's already told us, he owns such a pair.

You know what? I think he's confused about big balls. Shouldn't his ambition be, well, bigger? Big balls are for more than boys or men just trying to get laid -- they're also for boys or men trying to be brave when it's hard to be brave. Most of us -- Tiger Woods, the singer or his thirty-four-year-old friend, you other guys or me -- almost never have to be brave. Which is why this song is so cheerfully, ironically, and sneakily subversive. You might even call it the perfect amorality tale.

Cassius Clay and Muhammad Ali had to be brave. They weren't bragging, because it was true. Yes, sir.

By the way, when you listen to this great song again (if you do), while you're admiring the sneery, growly voice telling its funny cynical stories so concisely, and while you're revelling in the hilarity of all the differently large balls and the mockery of all men (I told you ladies there's something in this song for you), remember also to enjoy getting your hair raised by all the jangly guitar and other controlled noises behind the beautifully delivered lyrics. Those are some words, and that is some music.

* This song was written way back in 1998, when Tiger Woods was just a sports wunderkind and had yet to reveal himself as a major-league asshole.