“John Brown” makes a fitting Memorial Day song, one to come after we sweep up from the parades and put away the speakers’ microphones, to remind of us of the deeply personal sacrifice made when our young go off to fight. And a song to make us think before asking one more soldier to pick up a weapon overseas.
Author Archive
A Memorial Day Song: John Brown
May 27, 2011Don’t Put a Price on My Soul: Bob Dylan, Justice and the Law
March 28, 2011Early next month, a group of lawyers will gather at Fordham Law School for a symposium on Bob Dylan and the Law. There’s a certain irony to this confab since Dylan’s so deeply wary of all institutions, especially powerful ones that wield the law. In Dylan’s songs, the legal system does not meet out justice; instead, it becomes a corrupt, often blind instrument of oppression designed to prop up the powerful and the wealthy. At the same time, a conference on Dylan and the law makes sense since it is a recurring theme in his songs ad appropriate as with each passing day corporate interests seem to gain at the expense of the individual.
Going Down to Laurel – Steve Forbert
March 18, 2011Our connections to individual songs can be intensely personal. A song might be no more than white noise to one person and yet to another it can be like a punch to the chest that stops the heart and snatches the breath. So it is for me with Steve Forbert’s “Going Down to Laurel.” Released in late 1978, I had been living in Ireland at the time and don’t remember hearing it until the summer of 1979 when I returned to the States. It was the summer before my senior year of college; much of the music I fed on in high school had grown stale and began giving way to new acts like the Ramones and the Clash that would become new favorites. Here came this bright-eyed folkie, full of verve and fun, an undeniable energy synched with the rhythm of my heart.
Ft. Worth Blues – Steve Earle
March 15, 2011Steve Earle headed out with guitar slung on his shoulder, a head full of ideas, a mug full of attitude, a longing heart and appetites big as Texas. Fates and circumstance led him to Townes Van Zandt who became mentor, friend and shaman feeding those appetites with everything from how to pick a guitar, turn a lyric and, so the story goes, make sure he used clean needles when shooting heroin. When Towns Van Zandt passed away on New Year’s Day 1997, Earle kept following, finding his friend wherever he turned until he finally sat down in Galway, Ireland two months later and wrote Fort Worth Blues as a tribute to his departed friend.
Blowin’ in the Wind – A Live Performance by Neil Young
December 7, 2010And then came Neil Young, fuzzy guitar and wavering voice bringing a song that had all but stagnated into a museum piece back to life, a song that did nothing but ask questions, a song that made it possible to challenge, to dare. Standing in the darkness, he made it possible to wonder why and that song provided the common text around which 20,000 people could unite and know we were not alone. As the crowd cheered, we did so in appreciation of what the artist had just done for us. We stood in a collective sign of relief and empowerment, no longer alone, but connected in an experience that only certain art can provide.
My Old Man – Steve Goodman
November 23, 2010My Dad would’ve turned 83 today, so you won’t blame me if I gave Steve Goodman’s ode to his father’s passing a spin. Singing in a rueful voice, the whisper of strings in the background, Goodman’s meditation on his Dad teeters on the maudlin. He saves the song with the honesty of his portrait and the truth he finds.
Jackson Square by Mason Jennings
October 26, 2010Jackson Square
Written and performed by Mason Jennings. An odd, moving song with music breezy as a day at the beach and a story sad enough to make you stop and cry. The strumming guitar and twinkling piano float like a Jack Johnson song, yet the lyrics tell a song of heartbreak and sorrow. It opens with our narrator sitting with a loaded gun at a little graveyard, seven police cars headed his way. He makes one plea:
Just because you say it doesn’t make it true
You can say that I’m guilty man I just don’t care
You can burn my body black
Just don’t make me go back to Jackson Square
Waiting on a Friend – The Rolling Stones
October 21, 2010Waiting on a Friend
Performed by the Rolling Stones. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
What a perfect, hip-swaying, Reggae mellow ode to friendship. No snarling here, no sex or drugs, just a Caribbean breeze of a summer song with Mick singing about the virtues of a friendship. Bill Wyman’s soulful bass and Charlie Watt’s subtle drumming set the foundation, but the real musical touches come from the guests: Nicky Hopkins lightly tripping on the piano and Sonny Rollins adding the sax solos that shimmy and shine in perfect keeping with the song’s laid back groove. The sax solos and Mick’s soft “do-do-dos” end the song as if the friends of the title have caught up and they’re lounging with their feet up watching some island sunset.
There’s a Wall in Washington – Iris Dement
October 19, 2010There’s a Wall in Washington
Written and Performed by Iris Dement.
Introduced by insistent bongos and a sound bed of piano and guitar, Iris Dement steps the microphone and in a clear, strong voice wails, “There’s a wall in Washington.” Her voice rasps with earnestness, the lyrics as straightforward as a punch.
Like the monument itself, the song unfolds unadorned by needless details or melodrama.
It’s My Life – the Animals
October 18, 2010From the opening heavy strums of Chas Chandler on the bass followed by Hilton Valentines’ dirty guitar riffs, this song is trouble, but what makes it are the swaggering vocals laid down by Eric Burdon. What misunderstood teenager (and aren’t all teenager misunderstood) wouldn’t relate to the anger and bravado in Burdon’s voice?
Nightly Song 