Author Archive
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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August 11, 2010
Falling in love, a simple and powerful idea, yet those words have been so overused that they’re stripped of meaning. From the opening mariachi horns, Johnny Cash wakes us up to the meaning of falling in love, of falling into that “ring of fire.” His voice, at once tough and desperate, conveys the truth of the experience, makes us understand that “love is a burning thing.”
Falling in love is not a deliberate act, not one we can pre-plan or guide. The heart goes and we follow. It’s a helpless feeling to want someone so much. In that early love, we don’t know what will happen, we don’t k now if the other loves us back or can ever feel the way we do about them. It is less a letting go, then a falling. No rational person would make that choice, and yet we can’t help ourselves. Johnny sings in that hard voice:
Posted in Bob Dylan, Country Music, Johnny Cash |
Tags: Bob Dylan, Country Music, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Love Song, Merle Kilgore, Ring of Fire
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August 4, 2010
Bastards of Young
Written by Paul Westerberg and performed by the Replacements.
The Replacements, true to their mix of anarchy, stubbornness and virtues, swear they’ll never make a video. They’re about the music, the rock n’roll; screw the star-making machinery and their vapid three-minute faux movies. Of course, principals and the music industry don’t mix, so when the Replacements sign their major label deal, they reluctantly agree to do a video. True to their subversive spirit, they do the video their way, which means making a non-video video.
Posted in Paul Westerberg, The Replacements |
Tags: Paul Westerberg, The Replacements
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July 27, 2010
Kathleen
Written and performed by Josh Ritter.
“All the other girls here are stars – you are the Northern Lights”
As long as poets have written their verses, they’ve sought metaphors to convey the beauty and spirit of the objects of their affection. So few succeed, yet here comes Josh Ritter out of Moscow, Idaho with an opening line to make you swoon. That he sticks to the metaphor speaks to the depth and conviction of his craft:
They try to shine in through your curtains – you’re too close and too bright.
They try and they try but everything that they do
Is the ghost of a trace of a pale imitation of you.
Posted in Josh Ritter |
Tags: Josh Ritter, Kathleen, Singer Songwriter
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Nightly Song 