Archive for September 2010
September 30, 2010
Rex Bob Lowenstein
Written by Mark Germino and Performed by Mark Germino and The Sluggers.
A paean to a mythical disc jockey, Rex Bob Lowenstein represents a rapidly fading or possibly vanished time when radio disc jockeys infused personality in the music they played. Full of gusto and bathed in real love for great radio, Germino performs the song as a fist-pumping rejection of all things corporate infringing on musical freedom. Rex Bob Lowenstein plays John Henry against the steam shovel of programmed radio and the Clear Channels of the world.
Posted in Mark Germino |
Tags: Mark Germino, Rex Bob Lowenstein, Songs about disk jockeys, Songs about djs
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September 28, 2010
(You Got to)Walk and Don’t Look Back – Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger
Written Smokey Robinson and Ronald White. Originally performed by The Temptations, this article concerns the version by Peter Tosh and Mick Jagger.
A great song, written by members of the Miracles (Smokey Robinson and Ronald White) and originally recorded by The Temptations, “Walk and Don’t Look” has been recorded by dozens of artists, but never better than the version by Mick Jagger and Peter Tosh.
Peter Tosh usually eschewed love songs, but the positive message of this song combined with the opportunity to sing with Jagger proved irresistible. Tosh’s politics mesh perfectly with the optimism that love can solve our problems. Tosh sings the opening verse:
Posted in Mick Jagger, Peter Tosh, Rolling Stones |
Tags: Mick Jagger, Peter Tosh, Reggae, Rolling Stones, Temptations
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September 27, 2010
Love to Burn
Written by Neil Young and performed by Neil Young and Crazy Horse.
An often overlooked song, “Love to Burn” proves that the best art offers mystery and exploration. In this case, Neil Young meditates on a tangled relationship, one soaked in love and strife, a relationship torn asunder by demands of the self, individual concerns that make impossible the leap of faith that love demands.
Opening with a wall of sound featuring Young’s backup band, Crazy Horse, as well as Young’s thudding guitar, the music makes palpable the fury, anguish and yearning that drive the song. We can sense the pounding thoughts, the self-recriminations and the loss of direction as the singer dwells on the relationship.
Posted in Crazy Horse, Neil Young |
Tags: Love to Burn, Neil Young, Neil Young and Crazy Horse
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September 24, 2010
Time
Written and performed by Tom Waits. The song originally appears on his Rain Dogs.
A beautifully sad song that will break your heart, Wait’s sings the song in the second person, addressing not only the dying man waiting for the bandages to come off, but each of us. It’s lush and warm with an easy melody that gently holds Wait’s gruff voice. Listen as he leans closer and whispers with an intimacy that comforts and chills, singing as if breaking news of the inevitable, singing as if on the inside or our minds.
Posted in Tom Waits |
Tags: Desolation Row, Rain Dogs, Time, Tom Waits
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September 23, 2010
Roadrunner by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers
Written by Jonathan Richman and performed with the Modern Lovers.
Sometimes you just have to drive. Late at night, find a highway and drive. No particular place to go. Turn the radio up loud (or CD or MP3 player). If you’re near Boston, maybe you take the car out onto Route 128 or drive up and down the Mass Pike; Massachusetts late at night with the radio on. The tires hum, the music sets a beat and maybe your heart matches it all, a Zen triad out on the highway, passing under the power lines, passing pine trees in the dark, going faster miles an hour. Now you’re a roadrunner, in love with the modern world, Massachusetts late at night, when it’s cold outside and you got the power, you got the magic and you feel alive.
Posted in Jonathan Richman, The Moderen Lovers |
Tags: Driving Songs, Jerry Harrison, Jonathan Richman, Road Song, Roadrunner, The Modern Lovers
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September 22, 2010
I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive
Written by Hank Williams and Fred Rose. Performed by Hank Williams.
The last song Hank Williams recorded, “I’ll Never Get Out of this World Alive” didn’t hit the charts until after his death in January 1953. Coming out so soon after William’s mysterious demise – they found him in the backseat of his Cadillac on the side of the road on New Year’s Day – only added pathos to what sounds like a throwaway ditty. Listen enough and you hear country blues at its finest and maybe even a nihilistic anthem.
Posted in Country Music, Hank Williams, The Blues |
Tags: Country Blues, Country Music, Death Songs, Hank Williams, Ray Charles
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September 21, 2010
Girl from the North Country
Written by Bob Dylan
A Dylan staple for over 45 years and covered by others “Girl from the North Country” can first seem like nothing more than a romantic remembrance of a past love, one told with great affection and telling detail. Yet this song is not as simple as it seems; it skirts the edge of sentimentality to resonate with a potent mix of desire, loss and longing not for a past love, but for meaning. It is not an easy song, refusing to wallow in the past and refusing to deny the loss of the love and a younger self. Nor does the song take the easy way out, refusing to conclude with familiar bromides or clichéd resolves. Instead, the song ends with an uneasy sense of how our present depends upon the past.
Posted in Bob Dylan, Folk Music, Johnny Cash |
Tags: Bob Dylan, Folk Music, Girl from the North Country, Johnny Cash, Martin Carthy, Scarborough Fair, Simon and Garfunkel
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September 20, 2010
Take a Letter Maria
Written and performed by R. B Greaves.
I kept my cool, I ain’t no fool.
Take a Letter Maria is the very definition of hip-swinging, sophisticated soul. R. B. Graves, who wrote and performed the song, sings with a voice so full of confidence and hipster’s grace that you can picture his sharp suit and wry grin, maybe even the cocked hat as he unfurls his tale. His voice is so smooth that it will come as no surprise that he’s a nephew of Sam Cooke. The Latin beat and mariachi horns add to the jauntiness of the tale. In the end, Greaves writes with such subtle complexities and sings with such smooth soul that his performances makes new and vibrant what would otherwise be a tired story of betrayal and romance alive.
Posted in R. B. Greaves, Soul Music |
Tags: Muscle Shoals, One Hit Wonder, R. B. Greaves, Sam Cooke, Soul Music, Take a Letter Maria
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September 16, 2010
Rock and Roll
Performed and written by the Velvet Underground.
Some songs document moments, but the best create moments. So it goes with “Rock and Roll,” the Velvet’s wall of sound coursing through us as if the band plugged not into amps, but directly to us, Moe Tucker’s drum beat becoming our pulse. The song sweeps us up and as an earlier New York author wrote, “Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth.” It’s not the idea of rock and roll; it is rock and roll.
Posted in Bob Dylan, Velvet Underground |
Tags: Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Rock and Roll, The Avett Brothers, Van Morrison, Velvet Underground
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Nightly Song 