Because I was there, far far away. I’d never seen Metallica before. Nice band.
Lyres, Don’t Give It Up Now
In anyMy Facebook friend Darren Viola posted this clip today of Boston’s Lyre’s playing somewhere haughty. My guess is Newport, but they rock as anyone would hope they would.
In any case, no matter what this is, it is a pretty sweet documentary look at people dancing. Go!
Song of the Week – Darling Be Home Soon, Joe Cocker
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
John Sebastian wrote “Darling Be Home Soon” for the soundtrack to Francis Ford Coppola’s 1966 film You’re a Big Boy Now, while still with The Lovin’ Spoonful.
“Darling…” is very sentimental which is typical of so many other Sebastian compositions. It was one of five songs Sebastian played at his unscheduled performance at Woodstock.
The Lovin’ Spoonful version is terrific but Joe Cocker did it one better. He ditched the sappy strings for a more organic musical arrangement (including a great piano part) and gave it a gospel feel, all without losing the earnest sentiment of the original.
The lyric is a love letter to a dear one that is away and sorely missed. This has got to be the only song in rock history that would attempt a rhyme like “dawdled” and “toddled.” A bit twee, but perfect for the emotion of the song.
The melodic structure of the composition is flexible enough to have a different form in each of the verses. For instance, in the first verse the last two lines end in rhymes. In the second verse the last three lines rhyme. In the final, shortened verse, there is no rhyme for the final line.
Although I chose to present the Cocker version to you, check out the Lovin’ Spoonful original too.
Enjoy… until next week.
Afternoon Snack: Marvin Gaye, “Let’s Get it On”
When I was first really nailed by the radio, in 1962, Marvin Gaye’s Hitch Hike and Can I Get a Witness were the hits of the great Motown singer.
Old Marvin kept producing, but by the mid-70’s, when I finished college, I got my first “real” job as a social worker working for the Oakland Housing Authority.
My work day was in the midst of the African American community in Oakland, a culture that is both rich in custom and heritage, yet sadly overlooked and dismissed.
Well, Marvin was at his peak over the decade I worked in West Oakland, producing such great songs as Mercy Mercy Me, Got to Give it Up, and for sure Let’s Get it On.
These songs were great, and they come up once in a while, but I stuck a Motown greatest hits collection on my Playlist, sort of randomly–that is without looking at any of the titles, since I could guess, and liked most–and the other day Let’s Get it On came on and reminded me not just how great Gaye was, but how fantastic the Funk Brothers and Motown musicians and arrangers and producers were.
Let’s Get it On sort of typifies this for me, with a great song and melody, fantastic production (listen to the Wah Wah guitar fills through the verse till the drums come and and the horns phatten the sound duplicating the guitar line).
And, everything just builds, sort of like the song, sort of like the subject of the song.
Great stuff from a great, albeit troubled artist. Why are these things so often linked? Sigh. BTW, there were a lot of takes of the song out, but somehow this vid, from Soul Train, seemed the right way to go.
Night Music: Black Crowes, “Hotel Illness”
The Black Crowes came to me at an interesting crossroads of my life. I was just finishing graduate school, while working full time. My son, Joey, was a handful of years old, and I saw the Crowes, touring behind their first album, along with Jellyfish, also hot locally at the Warfield in San Francisco in March of 1992.
A month later I would have a Masters Degree in English, have completed a novel, and my marriage was over.
It was all very strange, and it was a tough time, but it all led to where I am today, and for that I could not be happier.
Anyway, while building up my playlist the other day, I was thinking of songs–just cuts, not necessarily albums–that were fun and this song by the Crowes popped up.
It is indeed a pop rocker, but quite tuneful, and really well executed. And hey, talk about upbeat.
Song of the Week – I Can Help, Billy Swan
IGNORED OBSCURED RESTORED
Someone recently posted a list of Tom Petty’s favorite songs as enumerated in an appendix to his biography. I checked it out and was surprised by one of his selections – “I Can Help” by Billy Swan. Just last week he included the song in the playlist for his SiriusXM radio show, Buried Treasures. Clearly he’s fond of this song.
For me, the 1974 hit is a reminder of my high school days, driving around town, listening to AM radio, which is pretty much all most cars had back then.
It’s a slight song, both lyrically and musically, but it’s also very catchy — especially its use of those distinctive, alternating Farfisa organ chords over the rockabilly shuffle. Many articles claim the organ Swan used was a wedding gift to him from Kris Kristofferson and (then wife) Rita Coolidge. But in a 2007 article I found, Swan told interviewer Richard Buskin that the gift organ was used to write the song and produce a demo, but was not the one he used on the commercially released recording.
Although “I Can Help” was Swan’s only hit as a performer, he had earlier success in the music business. He wrote “Lover Please” that was a top 10 recording in 1962 for Clyde McPhatter, who had left the Drifters in 1954 after serving a stint in the Army.
As a producer, he hit in 1969 with Tony Joe White’s Southern cult classic “Polk Salad Annie.” As an instrumentalist, he was a touring musician in bands for Kristofferson, Kinky Friedman and Billy Joe Shaver.
Swan says he wrote “I Can Help” in just 20 minutes. More than 40 years later, that 20 minutes of inspiration is still satisfying listeners.
Enjoy… until next week.
Teenage Lust, Teenage Lust
Wikipedia says this band is a glam band from the 70s, but has no info.
Evan Davies led his WFMU show off tonight with this tune, which has an opaque edition on YouTube, which you’ll see below.
But first, my comments. This is good! Not the sound quality, though it doesn’t really hurt, but the guitar, and the song itself, and the drummer is working hell hard. Plus the bass is in there churning.
Maybe Evan will see this on Facebook and fill us in with whatever details, but in the meantime, Thanks Evan!
Evan’s show is great, I don’t listen enough, but we also have to remember he gave us the fabulous Graveyard. Thanks Evan!
A Gym Song I Can Stand
I hear/see this at the gym and I can live with it. Although I’m puzzled why most everything that gets mass attention these days with any kind of heavy guitar sound must be of the Black Keys imitating The White Stripes imitating whoever variety.
I shouldn’t complain. At least it’s not fucking Cake By The Ocean for the trillionth Chinese Water Torture time.
I will say that, if we’re doing this kind of stuff, I’ll take this all day. From my pick for most underrated album of all-time, Masters Of Reality’s Blue Garden.
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats: I’m Listening
This is not an upbeat tune, but it has a drone-y appeal. From the most recent album
This is another midtempo tune with a dubious sexual ethic. From 2015
This is from 2014. I’m sensing a pattern.
These guys can play and are fun, in a biker chick line of coke kind of way. I’m not denigrating that at all.
Happy Birthday Aretha.
My friend Vincent pointed out that the backup singers are perfectly synched with head flips in this Aretha Franklin cover of a Burt Bachrach/Hal David tune, which is awesome.
This is not a rock song, not really an R&B song, but Happy Birthday Aretha. Nobody else could make this song mean so much.