Monthly Archives: May 2023

Song of the Week – Blowin’ in the Wind & A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall, Bob Dylan

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Ignored            Obscured             Restored

It’s Boston in the early ‘80s and I’m in my mid-20s…  Maybe I’ve been out at The Seven’s draining a few pints of Guinness over heavy, deep, and real discussions with close friends.  Maybe I just got home from hearing some great live music at The Rat or The Paradise, or from partying at a wildly fun house party.

I’m on a work assignment that has me taking a 3-hour drive, back and forth between Albany every Sunday night, and Boston each Friday evening.  I’m spending a lot of hours with my Alpine cassette player, in my car – alone – in the dark.

It’s at times like these that I most enjoy The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.  The album always fits the mood when you are having quiet time, alone – physically or in your own head space.

So, I honor this album, today, on

the 60th anniversary of its release.

Two of the five songs Dylan chose to play at The Concert for Bangladesh (1971) were from The Freewheelin’…  Let’s let them be the SotW.

And how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take ’til he knows
That too many people have died?

Sadly, today’s plague of gun violence makes these lyrics as relevant now as they were 60 years ago.

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
And where have you been, my darling young one?
I’ve stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I’ve walked and I’ve crawled on six crooked highways
I’ve stepped in the middle of seven sad forests
I’ve been out in front of a dozen dead oceans
I’ve been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard
And it’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard, and it’s a hard
It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

Sadly, it too has lyrics that still apply today!

BTW, that cassette I was playing in my late-night car drives had The Freeewheelin’ Bob Dylan on one side, and Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska on the other.  A perfect combo.  Just like rice and beans.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – London Homesick Blues, Jerry Jeff Walker ft. Gary P. Nunn

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Ignored             Obscured              Restored

Jerry Jeff Walker is best known for two songs – his own “Mr. Bojangles”, and “London Homesick Blues” from his terrific, live ¡Viva Terlingua! album (1973).  The peculiar detail is that “London Homesick Blues” was written and sung by Gary P. Nunn!

The song is autobiographical and was written while Nunn was on tour in England in a band supporting Michael Murphey.  The lyrics are a straightforward description of what Nunn was experiencing while he was in London, squatting on the couch in a flat with four other guys.  He has described that it was foggy and rainy all the time, and that the heat in the flat went off from 6 AM to 6 PM every day – difficult surroundings for a boy from south Texas.

Well it’s cold over here and I swear,
I wish they’d turn the heat on.


And where in the world is that English girl,
I promised I would meet on the third floor?


And of the whole damn lot, the only friend I got,
is a smoke and a cheap guitar.


My mind keeps roamin’, my heart keeps longin’
to be home in a Texas bar.

Then there’s the line everyone remembers and many mistake for the title of the song.

I want to go home with the armadillo.

Nunn thought about making “armadillo” a proper noun in reference to the Armadillo World Headquarters, a large venue in Dallas where he performed with Murphey in 1972.  But he didn’t, and even he isn’t sure why.

The way Nunn tells the story, the idea for playing “London Homesick Blues” on ¡Viva Terlingua! was a spontaneous decision.  At one of the concerts where the album was recorded in the Lukenbach Dancehall, the atmosphere was electric.  The hall was packed to the gills, and everyone was pumped up and having a great time.  Walker looked over to Nunn and said, “Do that song you were singing under the trees this afternoon.”  The rest is history!

“London Homesick Blues” became the informal state song of Texas.  For many years it was played over the closing credits for the PBS program Austin City Limits.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Star, Stealers Wheel

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Ignored             Obscured              Restored

Stealers Wheel is best known for their 1973, Leiber and Stoller produced, one-hit-wonder – “Stuck in the Middle with You.”  It was written by Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan and appeared on their debut album.  Rafferty went on to greater fame as a solo artist with the evergreen “Baker Street” among other hits.

The band’s next album Ferguslie Park (1973) contained another song that I always enjoy hearing called “Star.”  It was penned by Egan and released as a single but only managed its way to #29 on the US singles chart.

Lyrically, “Star” addresses the subject of fame and how public adulation also has a downside – isolation.

So they made you a star, now your head’s in a cloud
And you’re walking down the street, with your feet off the ground
They read in the press all about your success
They believe every word they’ve been told
After all you’ve been through, tell me, what will you do
When you find yourself out in the cold?

The music blog No Words, No Song summarizes the music:

“Star”, for example, boasts the wonderful poignancy of Joe Egan’s lyrics, alongside a delightful melody. Gerry Rafferty’s voice complements Joe Egan’s perfectly. And the song features a number of unexpected elements for a record made in the midst of the glam rock era — including a mournful harmonica, a kazoo, some woodblocks and an upright piano sounding like something you used to find pushed against a back wall in those clubs which host promising acts on the way up and former superstars on the way down.

“Star” is another example of a great pop song buried on an album that almost no one has heard.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Just Out of Reach, The Zombies

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Ignored             Obscured              Restored

I always loved the music of The Zombies.  They had a string of Billboard Top 10 hits beginning with “She’s Not There” (#2) and “Tell Her No” (#6), and ending with “Time of the Season” (#3) in 1969.

But as you know, the SotW likes to go further into the deep cuts.  So today I offer a cool Zombies’ track from 1965 called “Just Out of Reach.”

“Just Out of Reach” has a cool backstory.  While most of the Zombies’ songs were written by Rod Argent, “… Reach” was written by vocalist Colin Blunstone as one of their contributions to director Otto Preminger’s 1965 movie Bunny Lake is Missing.  It was only the second song Blunstone had written.  Argent and the group’s other main songwriter, Chris White, were on a deadline to produce three songs for the film but ran into a bout with writer’s block.  So, they challenged Blunstone to come up with something… and he did!

“… Reach” is a great example of ‘60s British Invasion/Garage Rock.  Its rhythm reminds me of The Monkees’ “(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” (1966), though the melody is much different, and it has a cracking, ‘60s sounding Argent organ solo.  It was released as a single in the US but dropped off the charts without even breaking the Top 100.  Too bad because it deserved much better.

Enjoy… until next week.