Author Archive
June 3, 2010
Best Baseball Songs
Usually I write on one song at a time, but here’s a baseball songs for your consideration. Each concerns a team, a player or has some relation to the game. Baseball has to figure in the song, so “Wild Thing” doesn’t make the cut no matter how attached it has become to baseball since the movie Major League.
I’ve started with my favorites, the songs I like or play or find interesting. I’m sure you’d come up with a different list. I then included a longer list of others you might find interesting. Of course, I’m sure that I’ve missed more than my fair share so add your comments and post of other songs.
I start with the lists and then provide notes for the top thirteen down below. Enjoy
Posted in Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Berry, Song Lists, Steve Goodman, The Hold Steady, Warren Zevon, Wilco |
Tags: A Cub Fan's Dying Request, Baseball Songs, Best Baseball Songs, Bob Dylan, Centerfield, Chuck Berry, Cubs Songs, Drop Kick Murphys, Eddie Vedder, Greg Brown, Joe DiMaggio songs, John Fpgerty, List of Best Songs, Meatloaf, Steve Goodman, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Tessie, The Hold Steady, Warren Zevon, Wilco
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June 2, 2010
Kiss Off
Performed by the Violent Femmes. Written by Gordon Gano.
At their best – and that includes “Kiss Off” – the Violent Femmes distilled a raging stream of consciousness that gave voice to horniness, confusion, anger, fear, rebellion and a general what-the-fuck attitude. We’re not talking about the idea of teenage angst or anyone else’s idea of angst; we’re talking the thing itself. Their songs arose from the usual themes of sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, or more precisely, a longing for sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll and they avoided clichés, wallowing and novel staring in favor of primal scream. “You can just kiss off/yeah, yeah, yeah” the bellow.
The Violent Femmes were three guys banging three unamplified instruments – upright bass, simple snare drum and acoustic guitar – for all their worth. In songs like “Kiss Off,” Gordon Gano sings with an urgency that captures the collision of what’s racing around his mind and coming from his crotch.
Posted in Violent Femmes |
Tags: Gordon Gano, Kiss Off, Punk Folk, Violent Femmes
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June 1, 2010
Gallo del Cielo
Written and Performed by Tom Russell.
Here is an example of songwriting at its best, making a sublime legend of a story of a man who steals a fighting rooster. Like all great stories, there is so much more to this song than what first appears: adventure, loyalty, honor, gambling all set against the backdrop of a time before California joined the U.S. The Tex-Mex music, complete with accordion, perfectly matches the lyrics.
Come along for the ride with Carlos Zaragoza who “left his home in Casa Grandas when the moon was full.” He flees with “no money in his pocket, just a locket of his sister framed in gold.” Russell’s singing imparts nobility to this effort. Zaragoza heads to El Sueco, where he steals the roster called Gallo del Cielo, the rooster from heaven, and then travels north of the Rio Grande. Listen to the details; hear the hints of beauty and mystery, and the accordion weaving underneath that adds resonance.
Posted in Joe Ely, Tom Russell |
Tags: Gallo del Cielo, Joe Ely, Tex-Mex Music, Tom Russell
6 Comments »
May 31, 2010
Absolutely Sweet Marie
Performed by Jason and The Scorchers and written by Bob Dylan.
To live outside the law, you must be honest
A great version of a great song, Jason and the Scorchers demonstrate how to do a cover song. I want to talk about this song first, then riff for a bit on cover songs and list some great covers.
Jason and the Scorchers burn through this song with a frenzy that completely remakes the Dylan original. They do what great cover versions require: They make the song their own with no regard to the original. They re-envision the song so we see it anew again, see it in ways not imaginable before, yet obvious once we hear the new version. Where Dylan’s version played coy and danced around the swirl of images, Jason and the Scorchers roar through the verses, turning gentle references into dangerous shards and making clear the sexual longing and thwarted lust. Whipping guitar, pounding drums and bass and Jason’s snarl remove any doubt about the meaning of the song.
Posted in Bob Dylan, Country Music, Cover Songs, Jason and the Scorchers |
Tags: Absolutely Sweet Marie, All Time Best Cover Songs, Bob Dylan, Country Music, Cover Songs, Cow Punk, Jason and the Scorchers, Speed Country
6 Comments »
May 30, 2010
The Bike
Written and Performed by Amy Correia
At first listen, “The Bike” comes off as a sweet, breezy song about a girl and her bike tooling around New York City, a perfect accompaniment for a brilliant spring day. It’s a great example of well crafted pop music with a swelling chorus bound to lift your spirits. Open the windows, put the tops down, cruise along and blast this song. Perfect.
Hey and I’m riding around riding around on it
Hey just riding around riding around on it
On the second, third and tenth listen, “The Bike” reveals its great depth and mastery in both the song writing and the performance. The sweetness is still there, though you start to sense the mettle that girds it. And the breeziness of the chorus remains irresistible, though you begin to understand how joy seeks to overcome the underlying sadness and death that underlies that story of the bike and the life she confronts. A pop song? Yes, but one bordering a true art.
Posted in Amy Correia |
Tags: Amy Correia, Bicycle Songs, The Bike
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May 29, 2010
Damn Your Eyes
Performed by Bettye LaVette on the album Bettye LaVette in Concert: Let Me Down Easy. Written by Steve Bogard and Barbara Wynick.
This woman can sing, can grab you by the collar, shake you up and make you tremble. A nine minute song with five verses and a chorus, yet it all comes down to the title line, “Damn your eyes.” With Bettye LaVette, one line is enough. With that single, short line she makes us understand that dilemma when the brain knows better, but the heart, the stomach and the groin can’t help themselves. Damn your eyes. She wails, she growls, she stammers, she whispers and she howls. Damn your eyes. How much meaning, how much life she pushes through those three words. Damn your eyes.
Make her the Queen of Soul. Make her the Queen of Heartache. Give her whatever crown she wants. Bettye LaVette climbs into the song and the two – woman and song – are never the same.
Posted in Bettye LaVette, Cover Songs, Soul Music, The Blues |
Tags: Bettye LaVette, Damn Your Eyes, Soul Music
2 Comments »
May 27, 2010
Windfall
Performed by Son Volt and written by Jay Farrar, lead singer of the group.
“May the wind take your troubles away.”
Released in late 1995 on Trace, “Windfall” is the first song on the first album from Son Volt, a band formed by Jay Farrar after the break-up of Uncle Tupelo. The song captures a melancholic urgency, a longing for connection through music. It is one of the most personal songs in my life, in part because of the nature of the song and in part because it ran through my mind so often during a particular crisis that it became part of that formative moment.
Posted in Son Volt |
Tags: A Father's Love, Down Syndrome, Galway Kinnell, Parenting, Son Volt, Windfall
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May 26, 2010
Mama Hated Diesels So Bad by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen
Performed by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen and written by Blackie Farrell
I’m a sucker for a tear-jerker country song and they don’t come any better or jerk any more than Commander Cody’s “Mama Hated Diesels So Bad.” With the winding of the pedal steel, the irresistible hook of the chorus, the poignancy of the lyrics and Billy C. Farlowe’s singing, the song will pull you in, sit you down and make you listen.
The song opens with Billy C. leaning into the mike and half-talking, half-singing the chorus over the somber strumming of the guitar and the pedal steel:
Mama hated diesel so bad
I guess I knew it was something to do with Dad
The first time I seen her cry
Was after one of them things went by
Mama hated diesel so bad
Posted in Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Country Music, Country Swing, Rockabilly |
Tags: Bill Kirchen, Commander Cody, Commander Cody and his Lost Plaent Airmen, Country Music, Country swing, Mama Hated Diesels, Rockabilly
2 Comments »
May 24, 2010
Grits Ain’t Groceries
Performed by Little Milton and written by Titus Turner.
Sometimes everything comes together on a perfect record and that happened for Little Milton in 1969 with “Grits Ain’t Groceries. “ A song that professes love of outlandish proportions, if a man sung this for you, you would swoon indeed.
Shimmering guitar, hard-punching horns, thumping bass, perfectly paced drums and heartfelt singing mix to create as good an R & B record as you can find. The song combines a near Shakespearean chorus with swaggering and braggadocio verses that match incredible claims with a voice ready to back them up. Do not take Little Milton lightly.
The song opens quickly with a plaintive cry, “if I don’t love you baby,” answered by a thundering horn section and the rest of the chorus:
If I don’t love you baby
Grits ain’t grocery,
Eggs ain’t poultry,
And Mona Lisa was a man
Posted in Little Milton, The Blues |
Tags: Checker Records, Grits Ain't Groceries, Little Milton, The Blues, Titus Turner
1 Comment »
May 21, 2010
Rockaway Beach
Written and performed by the Ramones
The 10th Annual Joey Ramone Memorial Tribute (has it been that long?) takes place this week in New York and that has me thinking Gabba-Gabba-Hey. Better yet, “1-2-3-4” and we’re off:
Rock Rock Rockaway Beach
Rock Rock Rockaway Beach
Rock Rock Rockaway Beach
We can hitch a ride
To Rockaway Beach
Throw in some Beach Boys, a hint of Dick Dale’s guitar, add Phil Spector’s Wall-of-Sound, shake like crazy and out comes the Ramone’s Rockaway Beach: pure city exuberance. It’s not the lyrics; it’s the energy. We all know the “bus ride’s too slow.” Gotta go. Gotta go. Can’t picture these Forest Hills and Staten Island boys at the beach? Spider-limed Joey sunning his late night pale skin? They’d fit right in on Rockaway Beach; everyone does.
Posted in Punk Music, The Ramones |
Tags: Punk Music, Rockaway Beach, The Ramones
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Nightly Song 