Archive for the ‘Folk Music’ Category
March 18, 2011
Our 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.
Posted in Folk Music, Love Song |
Tags: Folk Music, Love Song, Music Review, Song Analysis, Song of the Day, Steve Forbert
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March 15, 2011
Steve 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.
Posted in Country Music, Folk Music |
Tags: Folk Music, Music Review, Song Analysis, Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Tribute Song
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October 26, 2010
Jackson 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
Posted in Folk Music, Mason Jennings |
Tags: Folk Music, Jackson Square, Mason Jennings, Tragic love song
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October 19, 2010
There’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.
Posted in Folk Music, Iris Dement |
Tags: Anti-War Song, Blowin' in the Wind, Iris Dement, Masters of War, Vietnam Memorial
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October 15, 2010
Jesus, the Missing Years
Written and Performed by John Prine. These poets, or in this case, a singer-songwriter, can be trouble. No wonder Plato wanted to exile them from his Republic. These poets are like a force of nature tending towards disorder, challenging what we see, asking questions no one wants asked. It’s Warren Zevon declaring “I was born to rock the boat” (from “Mutineer”) and Bob Dylan declaring, “the sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken.” Along comes John Prine asking questions and poking fun at Jesus or at least the common notions of Jesus and you know that’s trouble. It’s why parents get so upset about the music their kids listen to. (As the elders issue their cries and objections – where are you now Tipper Gore? – over the supposed violence or misogyny of rap and hip-hop, listening to a good old Chicago folkie begs the question who’s more subservice, L.L. Cool J or Steve Goodman?)
Posted in Folk Music, John Prine |
Tags: Bob Dylan, Jesus the Missing Years, Jim White, John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Songs about Jesus
1 Comment »
October 6, 2010
Written and performed by Greg Brown.
An autumnal drama, “Laughing River” tells the story of an aging minor league baseball player forced to watch his dreams slip away and learn to face a world with smaller dreams and colder reality. Soaked with the melancholy that the changing of the season and the falling of the leaves can bring, Brown gives voice to those moments when we see all too clearly that we have lost our youth and the grand hopes we nurtured, a moment when forced to accept the realities of growing up.
Posted in Folk Music, Greg Brown |
Tags: Baseball Songs, Best Baseball Songs, Folk Music, Greg Brown
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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
2 Comments »