tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23494100144155183872024-03-08T13:37:59.991-08:00Words and Music (Listen, Read)deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-71270101831223984322018-07-04T13:50:00.000-07:002020-04-19T14:51:00.561-07:00You're Killing Me<b>"Mack the Knife," as sung by Bobby Darin</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8iPUK0AGRo"><b>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8iPUK0AGRo</b></a><br />
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I've talked about this song before (<a href="http://deejayjay-waitaminute.blogspot.com/2015/04/happy-birthday-for-me.html?showComment=1430773774068#c8141862157155455638">when I was celebrating the singer</a>), but for some reason, earlier today something reminded me of <i>this</i> singer. Bobby Darin delivers such a crackerjack performance on this number you can almost forgive him for "If I Were a Carpenter" (I know he didn't write it, but still). When I was a little kid, "Mack the Knife" was a hit on the radio and was so different from all the Elvis (he was hardly any good by then) and Ricky Nelson and Fabian and Pat Boone (Pat Goddamned Boone!) that came through the tiny tin speaker of my pocket transistor radio. It was even one of the handful of 45s I owned. And my parents liked it, too, because it was a throwback to when they had time for dancing and singing themselves.<br />
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The players start out a little stiffly, but that changes after just a few measures, and if you're at all like me, you will be singing and dancing (or at least moving joyfully) before you're halfway in. If you feel up to it, try belting out the last iteration of <i>". . . back in town"</i> along with Mr. Darin. You won't make it to the end, but you'll be in a good mood for <i>at least</i> half an hour. I'll take that any day. And it's all about a serial killer who preyed on the anonymous poor.<br />
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Great songs, huh? They're <i>ruthless</i>. <br />
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<br />deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-31461115047421786832018-06-09T15:48:00.000-07:002020-04-19T14:53:43.415-07:00An Important Number*<b>"Sweet Old World," by Lucinda Williams</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJCu3d6EX0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJCu3d6EX0</a><br />
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Lately, a couple of famous people have committed suicide.<b>**</b> One of them I'd never heard of (fashion), the other I had (food, travel). Everyone is asking why (me included), but the only people with the answers are the dead ones, and they're not talking. It's quite a fix for the rest of us since that kind of information could be useful some day -- not as a reason to do it, but as a reason <i>not</i> to.<br />
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It's a strange thing, being alive, and I think there's science enough to prove how unlikely it all is. There's probably also science enough to explain how songs soothe us the way they do as we walk along the edge of all that randomness without falling off. But I don't understand all that science very well.<br />
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What I do get is that in this song, Lucinda Williams is a clairvoyant messenger who understands the whys and the why-nots of being alive. If there's a sadder, wiser, happier (listen to the last little riff), more stunningly beautiful song sung in a more angelic voice that reveals more of the truth, I'd like to hear it. (And the band had better be perfect too.) Meanwhile, I'll keep listening to this one.<br />
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<b>* ** <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; display: inline; float: none; font-family: "salsa" , serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 34.9px; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">1-833-456-4566 (It's a suicide hotline available across Canada.)</span></b>deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-59228435644438245902018-05-14T18:48:00.002-07:002018-06-12T12:36:12.332-07:00Grinning It Out<b>"Give Me One Reason," by Tracy Chapman , with Eric Clapton (and the soulful pros playing along)</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIXh0JNvuHs"><b>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIXh0JNvuHs</b></a><br />
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At first, you don't get it: Ms. Chapman is singing a sad song but she can't stop smiling. Then you realize that she realizes she's singing one of <i>her</i> sad songs (and what a beautiful song it is!) with a band that has chops to spare, and with a guitarist who makes you think that maybe God is String Theory. (I think "Clapton is God" was a widespread graffito long ago and far away, in the 1960s, in London, England.) I don't know how to play the guitar (I don't know how to play anything), but Mr. Clapton does, and <i>his</i> guitar has got the blues nailed. <br />
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I recommend you watch the video for that entrancing and entranced smile that Ms. Chapman can't stop. But then you should listen to this four-plus minutes of blues brilliance while your eyes are closed. Your smile might or might not be as lovely as hers, but it'll definitely be as happy. deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-7790638541470263582018-04-30T15:29:00.002-07:002021-02-12T16:11:32.281-08:00Why I Feel Good About The Future<b>"Make Me Feel," by Janelle Monae</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGRzz0oqgUE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGRzz0oqgUE</a><br />
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Do yourself a favour: Listen to this song while you follow the lyrics* because if you listen to it while you watch the video, you'll get distracted from the musical brilliance. (Of course, you won't be able to read all the lyrics anyway if, like me, you're the type to close your eyes when you start moving helplessly to such an overpowering groove.) Because the video is also brilliant, watch it, if you want to, at your second listen (believe me, there'll be a second listen).<br />
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They say that Frank Sinatra was a master of unorthodox phrasing, but there's no denying that Janelle Monae is his equal while she's singing this song. Listen to her sing the word "<i>ques</i>tions," and the word "<i>in</i>tentions," and the word "<i>com</i>pression," and the word "<i>con</i>fessions," and the word "<i>stop</i>," and the word "<i>jean</i>," and the word "<i>shag</i>," and the word "<i>don't,</i>" and tell me she's not in touch with the fanciful possibilities of the English language and with the marvellous little surprises of musical syncopation.<br />
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You can hear James Brown and Michael Jackson in this song, I think. And Prince -- you can hear Prince, too (he's gotta be the source of that jangly rock guitar riff in the chorus that explodes at you out of nowhere). I imagine you can hear other performers as well, but I can speak only to what I know when I'm discussing music made by someone from a much younger artistic culture than mine. (Some of us lucky bastards aren't yet blind or deaf.)<br />
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But make no mistake -- this is all Janelle Monae's song. I suppose you could say it's just another irresistible funk number, and I imagine you could say its sexual charge is meter-breaking, and I wonder about how the accompaniment to the singer's stunning voice is produced (people? machines?), but what I really want to believe is that this number is about nothing more than being carried away by love . . . Wait -- "nothing more than"? Jesus, being carried away by love is everything. Janelle Monae, while she's feeling <i>her</i> everything here, makes us feel <i>our</i> everything, too, which is one of the great things that great singers do.deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-48601860229833391702018-04-02T14:20:00.000-07:002020-04-19T14:57:17.636-07:00Sometimes You Just Know<div>
<b>"I'll Take You There," by the Staple Singers</b></div>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY3vgBzgYn4"><b>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY3vgBzgYn4</b></a></div>
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Because I'm certain non-material phenomena don't exist, "soul" is a word I like to use carefully. Like millions of others, I was brought up to believe that it denoted an actual entity that existed somewhere inside me, but also separate from me; unlike me, however, it would live through a blissful eternity if I behaved myself before I had to leave the scene. The whole scheme eventually struck me as unjust and nonsensical and I abandoned my belief in it a long time ago.<br />
<span id="goog_1137803047"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><span id="goog_1137803048"><br /></span>
Singing isn't my new religion, but I love it infinitely more than I ever did that old religion. I find it infinitely more useful, too. And I think I get the use of "soul" when it comes to singing (and playing): it's artful <i>and</i> sincere, and it makes you and the singer(s) and player(s) ecstatic or sorrowful (mostly the former, in my experience).<br />
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Heck, I'm just running my mouth. Listen to this song, its soulful lyrics, its soulful players, its soulful singers, the <i>soulful </i>woman singing lead. You'll know what I mean.<br />
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(Of course, the joke's on me because I think they're all talking about heaven, and I don't believe in heaven.)deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-22124645499150233742018-03-14T14:50:00.000-07:002018-07-20T13:04:48.552-07:00A Different Dementian<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>"I Can't Forget," by Leonard Cohen </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llkmYnl3I6s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llkmYnl3I6s</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Earlier today, I had a fascinating experience. I had purchased a book of fairly sadistic-looking crossword puzzles, and soon after settling in with the first puzzle, I started thinking I'd already tackled it. I went to my pile of old (mostly solved) volumes and, sure enough, I came across one with the same damned cover as the one I'd just bought. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">No big deal, really -- I'd just plow through the thing again because the fun with crosswords is in their doing, not in their doneness. Don't get me wrong -- I like to solve them, but if I come up short, I come up short. But here's the fascinating part of the experience: After almost completing the first one, I decided to see if my first stab at the thing had been more successful or less than my present effort . . . And it was exactly the same! Disappointment and relief at the same time: I hadn't become any smarter, but at least I hadn't gotten any dumber. </span><span style="font-family: "times";">But, Jesus in heaven, my memory -- it shouldn't be that faulty. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times";">What to do, then, but to listen to the great Leonard Cohen sing this song from thirty years ago? Like pretty well all his songs, this one has so much more in it than its uncomplicated aural beauty (that steel guitar -- oh, man, what a sweet buttery treat): It's got a regretful older guy, a warm city, and a truck, and the changing seasons, and an ever remembering, ever forgetting human brain. All in under five minutes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">I <i>still</i> get sad when I remember Leonard Cohen isn't here anymore. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span>deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-4963648635914983852018-02-22T17:30:00.001-08:002020-04-19T15:02:41.624-07:00Gruntuation<b>"Lawyers, Guns, and Money," by Warren Zevon</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP5Xv7QqXiM"><b>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP5Xv7QqXiM</b></a><br />
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I like it when songs abandon love, their most common subject, for stories. Love is wondrous, of course, but sometimes you can get too much of a good thing.<br />
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This song tells a hilarious, cynical, <i>very</i> short story (it clocks in at under four minutes), with a really unreliable narrator -- he ain't nothing if not obvious. I think an aesthete might call it using broad, mordant brushstrokes. The broadness includes the raucous players, who sound like they're having the time of their lives. They're all pounding at their instruments with great wit and panache, and Mr. Zevon (goddam, I miss that unlucky bastard), does what he so often did so wonderfully while he was still here -- talk really clearly to us while also grunting and yelling and exclaiming with near-monosyllabic verve: <i>Hyeah! . . . Alright! . . . Huh! </i><i>. . . Yes! . . . Unh! . . . Oow! . . . Yeh! . . . Yeh! . . . Yeh! </i><br />
<i>. . . Unh! . . . Alright!</i>deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-76421177884280254982018-01-02T16:04:00.000-08:002020-04-19T15:05:04.074-07:00Upkeep<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>"St. James Infirmary," as performed by Louis Armstrong et alia</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzcpUdBw7gs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzcpUdBw7gs</a></span><br />
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I recently stayed overnight in a local hospital because a part of my body that had been proceeded upon normally and safely in a local clinic by highly qualified and competent medical professionals entered the subset of statistically anomalous phenomena that force all those poking and probing pros to make you sign a paper that acknowledges the reality of inner organic variety. My particular anomaly involved a significant loss of blood, but I was taken care of with great respect and kindness and ability, and when I arrived home with my clean bill of health, I started wondering about songs involving hospitals. This song topped the Google list. I'd listened to it before, and maybe because I'm probably just generally sadder now than I was then, it struck me as a <i>very</i> sad song. But the celestial trumpet and clarinet and voice also cheered me up because, well, sad songs, if they're beautifully played and sung, can't <i>not</i> make you feel happy, especially just after you've been loved by strangers. It's a nice little irony.deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-44783710034868683012017-10-20T14:51:00.003-07:002021-02-12T16:30:04.956-08:00Up, Frontman<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>"At The Hundredth Meridian," by the Tragically Hip</b></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3ZjAFD-WNc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3ZjAFD-WNc</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On stage, he mesmerized us all (and himself, too, I'd guess). He couldn't really dance, but he could really beautifully move that utterly honest, entranced body of his when it contained only the music he was hearing. He "danced" like Van Morrison sings: you can't exactly predict what's about to happen, but when it does, you know it was the right thing to do. I saw The Tragically Hip in a small venue (can't remember what it was called) in Toronto in the early 1990s. My friends and I were a lot older than most of our fellow fans, and I myself was probably the most uncomfortable near-geezer in that little hall. (<i>W</i><i>here were all the chairs?</i>) But it was all tremendous vibrating fun, and we all got to see a top-notch rock combo right in front of us in a place that wasn't big enough to muddify the music. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">No song I heard at that concert stands out above the others, so I can't choose a number from the night that makes me feel both great and grateful to this band and its kinetically amazing front man, who died far too early a couple of days ago. I like to believe he was as good a father to his four children, who were with him when he died, as he was a rock star and an activist and worker for a wider benevolence.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">But this song, this number, this three-and-a-half minutes of swampy, joyous energy -- well, it makes me believe in magic, an essential element of all great songs. And if you don't think Gord Downie was a magician, just listen to him sing this song, especially when, near the end, for the seventh and final time, he sings the phrase "where the Great Plains begin," stretching it and holding on to it until you're worried he might not make it out of the song alive. He did, of course, which is at least partially why it gets me down that he isn't anymore. </span>deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-89861825372067490792017-09-27T13:28:00.002-07:002021-02-12T16:44:01.487-08:00Guest Who?<b>"Chelsea Hotel No. 2," as performed by Rufus Wainwright</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRTZTiivUvY">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRTZTiivUvY</a><br />
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Oh, the poetry in this song, lewd and cynical: ". . . <span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>Giving me head on the unmade bed/While the limousines wait in the street</i> . . . "; rueful and grieving: ". . . </span></span><i><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ah, but you got away, didn't you babe/</span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You just turned your back on the crowd/</span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">You got away, I never once heard you say/</span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I need you, I don't need you/</span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I need you, I don't need you/</span></span></span></i><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>And all of that jiving around</i> . . ."; laudatory:<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> ". . . <span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><i>I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel/You were famous, your heart was a legend</i> . . . ";</span></span> funny: </span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">". . . </span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>You told me again you preferred handsome men/But for me you would make an exception</i> . . .". There's cruel poetry, too: ". . . <span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>I remember you well in the Chelsea
Hotel/</i></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>That's all, I don't even think of you that often</i>." </span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">The star of the song, according to legend, is a dead female rock 'n' roll singer, but it's </span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">composing Leonard Cohen and singing Rufus Wainwright (my favourite reader of the former's songs), together again, melting everything inside you until it comes out your eyes. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #222222; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0px;">I recommend listening to it more than once. </span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: #004000; font-family: "times";"></span><br />
<br />deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-26294493344188924242017-08-28T16:12:00.002-07:002021-02-12T16:50:13.913-08:00Not Here, Not There, But Everywhere<b>"I've Been Everywhere," as sung by Johnny Cash and played by players whose names I don't know but who perform this number so flawlessly and beautifully that I couldn't help feeling better when I finally decided to listen to it. (And who doesn't need cheering up once in a while?) </b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyjia-uobh0"><b>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyjia-uobh0</b></a><br />
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I've heard parts of "I've Been Everywhere" countless times, but had never closely listened to the whole thing until yesterday. Shame on me. It's the human heartbeat sped up and amplified and the human brain humorized and satisfied and improved, and whatever functioning human limbs and digits and joints and muscles you've still got, energized. You don't <i>have</i> to move while it's in your ears, but I dare you <i>not</i> to. Some of the rhymes are even deft enough to have come out of a rapper's brain.<b>*</b> The song was born in Australia about sixty years ago and has been, if not everywhere, a lot of places where folks speak English, each locale supplying its own subset of "everywhere." Since Johnny Cash lived in North America and I live in North America, I've chosen his version. Well, that and the witty, twangy, virtuosic combo playing the hell out of backing him up. Once Mr. Cash finishes his unerring vocal, they play us down the road, the crackerjack guitarist and pianist leading the way. What geographers, all of them!<br />
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<b>(*</b> I'm waiting for a hip-hop version of this gem. That's the kind of cultural appropriation I could get behind.)<br />
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<br />deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-14661749673611158642017-08-01T12:28:00.001-07:002019-05-08T13:31:38.058-07:00Basie Ball<b>"Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?" by Count Basie and his Orchestra, with vocals by Taps Miller and Ensemble</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-7Ac2LVVYU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-7Ac2LVVYU</a><br />
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I love baseball, especially daytime baseball: everything <i>feels </i>clearer (at least it did when I played). The baseball team I'm helplessly in love with is having an off year, but I still love it as I would a wayward child, and today<b>*</b> that team played a wonderful game with a hootingly dramatic conclusion (yes, I hoot when I watch baseball) -- a walk-off, extra-innings grand slam homerun. I've only now come down from the high, but you know how euphoria is -- it can always use some music. <br />
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So, of course, I had to google-meld baseball and songs (and singers and singing and playing and seeing and listening), and many of the results were -- forgive me -- hit or miss. But not this one, not "Did You See Jackie Robinson Hit That Ball?" Everyone and everything is having absolutely brilliant swinging fun during this song: the voices, the horns, the reeds, the percussing personnel, the emerging <i>zeitgeist</i>. I was yet to be conceived when it was made, and although I may have seen Jackie Robinson on television in my infancy and toddlerdom (my father loved baseball, too), I have no memory of doing so. Which doesn't matter, of course, because I love history as much as I do baseball and music, and Jackie Robinson, for my money, and until I can be convinced otherwise, is still one of history's heroes.<br />
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(And how cool it would've been to have a name like Count Basie!)<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">*</span></b> "Today" is now last week, which is when I wrote the three paragraphs above. Between then and now, the same hitter who walked the team off into<i> that</i> victory with his wonderful hit did an even more wondrous thing a few days later! What made it better and even more delightful? This time it was a "<i>S</i><i>uper</i> Grand Slam" [my italics], which the Baseball Almanac tells us is one consisting of (and I'm paraphrasing here) the guy at home having to bring three of his friends home and then coming home himself by hitting into the distance where it's now someone else's the ball they were all playing with. It was all very giddy and joyous and warm and strange and delicious, and it lacked Jackie Robinson's historical punch, but I'll never forget how stupidly happy I felt at least twice last week. deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-78746417081779322712017-05-14T14:31:00.003-07:002021-02-12T17:17:18.760-08:00Send More Chuck Berry<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><b>"Wonderful Woman," by Chuck Berry</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRFg9zUZnpU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRFg9zUZnpU</a><br />
Right now I'm reading <i>Astrophysics for People in a Hurry</i> by Neil Degrasse Tyson. As a retired person, I'm not generally in a hurry about anything, but as an older person, I should be. But with a title like that, the book had to be an attempt to explain complicated things even to slower-moving dopes like me. So I bought it.<br />
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So far so good. Mr. Tyson's voice gets a bit cutesy at times, but it's also very funny and very lucid, and I'm understanding stuff I sort of knew and sort of learning new stuff that I definitely didn't know. But what's a dope gonna do? <br />
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Here's my favourite part so far: "<i>Pioneer</i> [a space probe engineered to escape the solar system] wore a golden etched plaque that showed, in scientific pictograms, the layout of our solar system, our location in the Milky Way galaxy, and the structure of the hydrogen atom. <i>Voyager</i> [another space probe engineered to escape the solar system] went further and also included a gold record album containing diverse sounds from mother Earth, including the human heartbeat, whale 'songs,' and musical selections from around the world, including the works of Beethoven and Chuck Berry. While this humanized the message, it's not clear whether alien ears would have a clue what they were listening to -- assuming they have ears in the first place. My favorite parody of this gesture was a skit on NBC's <i>Saturday Night Live</i>, shortly after the <i>Voyager</i> launch, in which they showed a written reply from the aliens who recovered the spacecraft. The note simply requested, 'Send more Chuck Berry.'"<br />
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Chuck Berry isn't here anymore, but his music is still moving through our part of the universe. "Wonderful Woman" is the single off an upcoming collection called <i>Chuck, </i>his first album in many, many years. You listen to it and you feel eruptive, deep gratitude for the fact that you have ears, and for the part of your brain that understands poetry, and for the hair on your body that gets raised by the acute electricity of amplified guitars (Mr. Berry has a partner, and that partner fits his partner), and for the ability of your feet and hands to respond to clanging, slapping, splatting percussive actions by other human bodies. <br />
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Not bad for any five-minute chunk of cosmic time. <br />
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<br />deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-47080644976722253872017-04-15T15:36:00.001-07:002018-04-18T14:37:19.093-07:00Gun-Free Dance Club<b>"Shotgun," by Junior Walker and the All-Stars</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMs9NudasVI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMs9NudasVI</a><br />
The word "shotgun" can denote a higher-status position in a vehicle carrying more than two people (you're in the front, beside the person in possession of the steering wheel, accelerator, brakes, and, at least temporarily, your life); it can also denote a dramatic method both for smoking marijuana and drinking beer. Its most common correlative in the physical world, of course, is as a fearsome weapon of death. Like most people, I've ridden shotgun many times, and like many people, I've consumed (very rarely and long ago) marijuana shotgunally; a beer shotgun isn't anything I've accomplished (I'm not even sure how it's done), but I doubt I'll include that fact on the lengthy list of my final regrets. Nor have I ever wielded a shotgun; hell, I've never even touched or been close to one because they scare the shit out of me, and I like to think I'm smart enough by now never to be near things that scare the shit out of me unless I absolutely have to. My dreaming brain will occasionally scare the shit out of me, but I don't have much choice about associating with that fascist bastard. <br />
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But I think it's fair to say that in this song "shotgun" refers to a dance. True, there's the sound of gunfire to kick things off, and talk of shooting someone before he runs, but there are also a red dress, high heels, downtown, breaking it down, The Jerk (a stupid fun dance I often danced back in the nineteen-sixties, when I was still a kid and when this song was on the radio), playing the blues, digging potatoes (whatever that means), picking tomatoes (huh?), and twine time (no idea). All that to just one guitar chord, a scrumptious saxophone, a couple of soulful male voices, and, every once in a while, a <i>staccato </i>snare drum punctuating the groove. <br />
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Shotguns, I believe, can't be fired <i>staccato</i>. . . . Yeah, this song is definitely about dancing. deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-707742321797949422017-03-19T16:16:00.001-07:002019-05-08T14:13:45.026-07:00Gods Die, Too<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><b>"I Got To Find My Baby," as performed by Chuck Berry</b></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ugW4gw0yeA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ugW4gw0yeA</a></span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">He really is one of the greats. Between my daily non-musical spells and moments, I've been listening to him, and reading about him, all day. He was all twangy, hilarious, insightful, lyrically nimble <i>brio.</i> He pretty well invented rock 'n' roll, which is definitely one of the happier complications of simplicity we've got. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">What a guitar player! What a songwriter! What a singer and showman and master of elemental rhythms! And what a poet! (You heard me.) I began the day convinced that "Too Much Monkey Business" was my favourite of his tunes (it <i>is</i> utterly brilliant fun), but by noon I was no longer sure because by then there were just too many others vying for top spot. A lot of the Euro-descended boys who copied him became much richer and more famous than he ever was, but that's white supremacy for you. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times";">In the end, I decided on a straight blues number he covered in 1960, when he was thirty-four and still in his prime. I was still just a kid then, and knew more about Elvis Presley than about him (there's that white supremacy again). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">His rock 'n' roll songs were great because he understood the blues, as "I Got To Find My Baby" so deftly demonstrates. </span></div>
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deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-65010470297051925232017-03-12T16:38:00.002-07:002020-01-03T11:34:12.294-08:00Still Alive At Ninety-Five<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>"Do It Again," as sung by Shirley Horn</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOnXpg0Erqc">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOnXpg0Erqc</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">George Gershwin (music) and Buddy DeSylva (lyric</span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">s) came up with this beautiful thing in New York City back in 1922, and about forty years later, also in New York City, Shirley Horn sang all the notes and words. That's some pretty good integration. As a rule, I hate big cities, but I gotta admit they're good melting pots that hold things like human ingenuity, human dexterity (musicians!), and human female voices like Shirley Horn's doing this number till you think you might just melt into some kind of longing goo. She's the one in charge and she's the one <i>not</i> in charge, she's the seducer and she's the seduced. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the way Eros is supposed to dance its way through human populations? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">There are many other lovely versions of this song by many other great singers and ensembles, but this one is easily my favourite, not just because of Ms. Horn's superb performance, but also because of the band's gently swinging support. There's a horn -- I think it's a trumpet -- that provides some particularly impish, naughty punctuation here and there throughout the glorious three-minute spell that you're under while you listen to this New York City miracle.</span><br />
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deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-42393930540856914802017-03-10T16:19:00.000-08:002017-04-16T17:18:59.407-07:00Pretty Fly For A White Guy"<b>Come Fly With Me," as sung by Frank Sinatra</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmQq6yLe2ww">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmQq6yLe2ww</a><br />
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Any song that uses the word "rarefied" correctly and naturally is a song you've gotta listen to at least once. And because it's Sinatra still at the height of his wizardry, my bet (and suggestion) is that you might repeat the experience a few times. A great orchestra in juicy, fleshy, swinging form (those horns! those strings!) lifts the voice and the words to "where the air is rarefied" -- i.e., way up there above the rest of us who aren't in love with anyone. The song is a sunny, romantic fantasy that touches down in faraway places like Bombay, Peru and Acapulco (<i>Ac</i>-apulco, as the singer sharply phrases it), but what's wrong with that for a few minutes once in a while? <br />
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Myself, I wouldn't get into an airplane for anything in the world (not money, not love, not nothing) unless everything on the ground was on fire, but when I put on "Come Fly With Me" by Frank Sinatra and his musical co-pilots, I'm ready to get on board, put my seat into an upright position, and fasten my seatbelt. deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-20266328423963003042017-03-01T14:46:00.001-08:002017-03-02T08:07:03.455-08:00Shoo-Bop, My Baby? Yup. Shoo-Bop, My Baby It Is<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>"Hello Stranger," by Barbara Lewis</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Y1O9eVKRs"><b>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3Y1O9eVKRs</b></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Over the last two days, I've watched the miraculous movie <i>Moonlight</i> twice, the first time on my daughter's recommendation (she called it "stunning," and she was absolutely right), the second time on the recommendation of my compulsion to repeat ecstatic experiences. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen and it's still bouncing around in my head like a little ball made of light and truth and brimming life. "Hello Stranger" comes near the end, in a diner, out of a jukebox and straight into the bloodstream. The song is simplicity itself, but if it doesn't make you swoon (or sway, or maybe even get swept off your feet), you might want to check your pulse to see if you still have one. The singers, lead and background both, are all velvety longing and love, the organ flows through it all like a serene, necessary river, and even the drums (busily simple, if that's possible) are all tasteful charm. I vaguely remember it from my teenage years, but I was too tone-deaf to pay it close enough attention back then. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">"Hello Stranger" isn't profound, but it's lovely and sweet and honest, and it helps buttress the profundity of a great piece of cinematic art. It also helps me remember why I've always loved jukeboxes. </span>
deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-38311160443430099592017-02-15T17:05:00.001-08:002018-02-09T17:02:50.003-08:00Funkamentalism<b>"Play That Funky Music," by Wild Cherry </b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-q8Gtr4coM"><b>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-q8Gtr4coM</b></a><br />
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How much fun is this song? Barrels of monkeys everywhere have no choice but to bow in its direction -- that's how much fun it is. It tells a story, it mocks itself, it growls, it comments socially, it scorches you with its guitars (the very brief solo is acutely, burningly precise), and moves your limbs and pulse with its horns and percussive, bassy joy, and its singers convince you that they mean every word they sing. It happened in 1976, which is about an average half-life span ago. I was listening to a lot of blues and rootsy rock 'n' roll back then, but I always turned up the car radio when this barrel of monkeys came on. Who wouldn't? And who wouldn't turn it up at any time in the intervening forty years no matter where he was or whom he was with, or no matter how old he and his fellow listeners were? None of 'em would have a choice but to stop whatever they were doing for this untamed burst of soulful fun. The band should've called itself "Wild Cheery."<br />
<br />deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-50763107980713696642017-01-16T16:19:00.001-08:002018-05-17T14:51:58.697-07:00Sympathetic Nervous Systemic Ecstasy<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>"Cold Sweat" (Parts 1 and 2), by James Brown and whatever his band was called in 1967</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bztE5IbQOo">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bztE5IbQOo</a></span><br />
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This body blow of a masterpiece, apparently put together and recorded in one take during one afternoon in Cincinnati, Ohio, hit the world (dazed the world? KO'ed the world?) in 1967. If I recall correctly, 1967 was a heyday year for all the young rock gods living outside of Cincinnati, Ohio taking three days to get a guitar break down, which might have been be part of a song that might have taken several weeks, on albums that might have taken several months to finally . . . what, "get right?" <br />
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<i>One afternoon</i>. C'mon, rock gods of 1967. James Brown and his company of consummate musical pros and artists made this -- "Cold Sweat," goddammit -- in less time than it took you guys to survive a minor siege of LSD madness. I've read some technical analyses of its great simplicity, and I sort of understand them, but what I <i>do</i> understand is that even if I one day end up in a hospital where no one knows me, in a bed constructed to keep me in it, and none of my children have yet reached me, and I'm worried about unfinished business, and I'm feeling pretty clammily anxious, I will search this song out, demand it from whomever <i>is</i> there. I am willing to pay extra taxes for it, beginning now. <br />
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Listen to it many times -- for the singing (and the screaming, oh, the screaming), for the horns, for the sax solo, for the bass line, for the drummer (who "gets some"). It's all so simple, and yet nobody thought it up until James Brown and his band thought it up and then played it, <i>together</i>, like early gods of the earth.<br />
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It's a hammer to the heart and the brain, and the rest of whatever body you've been blessed or cursed with, which will not only be compelled to move when you hear it, but to understand more than a little bit about itself (as opposed to the amorphous silliness of whatever "spirituality" is supposed to teach you).deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-77202207947559341642016-11-23T16:35:00.000-08:002017-04-05T17:27:10.739-07:00Knocked Out<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><b>"Knock On Wood" by Eddie Floyd</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kceiks__PsE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kceiks__PsE</a><br />
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If you're like me when you're making dinner for one, you do more than a little scrolling through your playlist to find a tune that will help you through the tedium of mincing garlic, or chopping or cutting or slicing some other dead thing, vegetal or carnal, o<i></i>r waiting for heat to do its physics. If you're even more like me, you will always stop at this great song because you can't <i>not</i> stop at it -- sorry, the rhythm guitar's slinky stroking of the groove makes that impossible. Add to that wonderfulness the lyrics' explication of the standard swoon of extremely experienced romantic love -- Mr. Floyd <i>really</i> doesn't want to lose what's good (thunder, lightning, the frightening way he's loved), he <i>really</i> knows he's a very lucky guy -- and you also, inevitably, start knocking on wood yourself. You don't even have to leave your post at the cutting board. If you're <i>really</i> like me, you remind yourself of how lucky you are just to get to listen to this song, even when you're making dinner for one. <br />
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Wood? Consider yourself knocked on. Person like me? Consider yourself knocked out.deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-3327569558016840422016-11-11T09:31:00.001-08:002017-01-14T15:11:28.307-08:00He Was Our Man<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>"Tower of Song" by Leonard Cohen</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times";"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiAuXRK3Ogk"><b>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiAuXRK3Ogk</b></a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This song contains one of my favorite couplets of all time -- </span><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, my
friends are gone and my hair is grey/I ache in the places where I used to play -- </span></i><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">but there are so many brilliant, funny, arresting, heartbreaking lines from so many of his songs that I'm going to indulge myself:</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">From "I'm Your Man": <i>If you want a lover/I'll do anything you ask me to/And if you want another kind of love/I'll wear a mask for you</i> . . . From "Chelsea Hotel": <i>You told me again you preferred handsome men/but for me you would make an exception</i> . . . From "Dance Me To The End Of Love": <i>Dance me to the wedding now, dance me on and on/Dance me very tenderly and dance me very long . . .</i> From "Famous Blue Raincoat":<i> Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes/I thought it was there for good so I never tried</i> . . . From "Hallelujah": <i>Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you</i> . . . From "The Faith": <i>The sea so deep and blind/The sun, the deep regret/The club, the wheel, the mind/O love, aren't you tired yet?</i> . . . </span></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><br /></i></span></span>
<span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;"><span lang="EN" style="color: #333333; line-height: 107%; margin: 0px;">I could go on, but I have to go out into the crisp clarity and brightness of the November autumn day outside my four walls -- to the bank, to the grocery store, to whatever other sacred trivial stuff I get to do while I'm still alive. The newspapers tell us that he died peacefully in the company of his family. Good for him. </span><br />
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<br />deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-22883566546283192072016-08-08T18:13:00.002-07:002017-01-14T15:13:41.655-08:00Not When, Not Where, Not What, Not Even Who <b>"Why," by Annie Lennox</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYFUqxypkbA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYFUqxypkbA</a>W<br />
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This might be the saddest goddamned love song I've ever heard. It's got everything love has: passion, boredom, pity, self-pity, weakness, strength, honesty, dishonesty, despair and hope and inside-out wretchedness. It's also about two people who are finished with each other, which is why it's so goddamned sad. And, just as love so often does when it spreads through you, it never lets you know who's talking or what's being heard or felt by the partner in the whole enterprise. Nobody gets -- i.e., understands -- love, so that's no big surprise, but it takes a master actor-singer to get us hoping that someone might.<br />
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From what I can tell, Annie Lennox is one of those masters. She uses the studio and her backing singers to ecstatic effect, but they know who's boss in this tune; you don't even have to listen closely to realize her voice is always in charge. But then, almost four minutes in, when you've already been bushwhacked by all the aural beauty, you get the singer singing and reciting the blunt, hair-raising poetry of the song's last words: <i>This is the book I never read/These are the words I never said/This is the path I'll never tread/These are the dreams I'll dream instead/This is the joy that's seldom spread/These are the tears/The tears we shed/This is the fear/This is the dread/These are the contents of my head/And these are the years that we have spent/And this is what they represent/And this is how I feel/Do you know how I feel?/'Cause I don't think you know how I feel/I don't think you know what I feel/I don't think you know what I feel/You don't know what I feel. . . . </i><br />
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Whew</i>. The song is done, and so are you.<br />
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(I like singing along to the music I listen to as much as any fellow, and, thankfully, those lines are great even with lesser voices like mine trying them out, but they're even greater when you stop singing and just pay attention to them. Just stop and listen. Maybe tomorrow, if you're feeling up to it, try joining in.)<br />
<br />deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-2853198980903345372016-07-16T18:35:00.002-07:002017-12-16T14:27:52.867-08:00Something Else<b>"Tell It Like It is," as performed by Nina Simone</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBImi5rMIYg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBImi5rMIYg</a><br />
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Strong, proud, helpless, vulnerable, cool, ecstatic Nina Simone pretty well says all there is to say about romantic love in this song, and it takes her only about four minutes. She's got some help, of course: her elemental and soulful band, and her piano, which forces you to sway yourself into a good mood; but most especially her voice's masterful knowledge of all our connective tissues. (In another life, she would have made a great doctor.) She hums and semi-sings in little waves of pure human sound before she sings the lyric, and hums afterwards (remember -- she's in love), and takes us up there with her as she does.<br />
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I'm sort of embarrassed that I took so long (sixty-plus years, more or less) to start listening to this great musician, this great artist of song and feeling. She died quite some time ago, and I barely knew who she was back then. I've since learned she suffered greatly (mental illness, racism, thieves, trouble with men, and more), but my hunch is that when she was happy, she was <i>really </i>happy. She was, and this song is, something else. deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2349410014415518387.post-68007201641288775472016-06-08T13:11:00.000-07:002016-08-12T18:22:06.177-07:00Can We Be Franklin?<b>"I Say A Little Prayer," as performed by Aretha Franklin</b><br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8cCwwsWTlI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8cCwwsWTlI</a><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>"I
don’t care what they say about Aretha,” Billy Preston, who died in 2006, once
said. “She can be hiding out in her house in Detroit for years. She can go
decades without taking a plane or flying off to Europe. She can cancel half her
gigs and infuriate every producer and promoter in the country. She can sing all
kinds of jive-ass songs that are beneath her. She can go into her diva act and
turn off the world. But on any given night, when that lady sits down at the
piano and gets her body and soul all over some righteous song, she’ll scare the
shit out of you. And you’ll know—you’ll swear—that she’s still the best fuckin’
singer this fucked-up country has ever produced.”</i></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "times";">That's the final paragraph of David Remnick's wonderful profile of Aretha Franklin in the April 4, 2016 issue of <i>The New Yorker. </i><i> </i></span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "times";">To realize that what Billy Preston said was utterly true, all you have to do is listen to this song and hear Aretha Franklin's body and soul all over it. What a treat to the blood and the brain it is to hear (twice!) that silky, sexy voice caress </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="font-family: "times";"><i>". . . There is no one but you . . ." </i>like it's got the whole Eros thing in us completely figured out. "The Sweet Inspirations" are the pleasingly identified girls behind her (more bodies and souls all over the song), and are just as wonderful: all that gorgeous mutuality makes you wonder how we ever manage to feel unhappy sometimes. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times";">But whenever you do feel miserable, or just mildly sad, or just a little off, I suggest this singer and these singers singing this song. They're all over it.</span><br />
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<br />deejayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14530106477265676002noreply@blogger.com0