Thursday, June 11, 2009
Alvin and me
This morning, I realized that a chipmunk had invaded our house.
This presented a new pest control problem for me. I've dealt with a lot of varmints over the years in my various domiciles, but chipmunks were new. Would they eat poison pellets? Could they be driven out my back door? Did I really want to dispose of one stuck to toxic glue?
I don't like mice, but I understand them. They avoid humans and I can play a long game of killing them with poison. Chipmunks, though, LIKE humans. And not just the food. I know because when I woke up this morning one was crawling across the bed. I flicked my leg and sent it sailing across the room.
How much would a chipmunk in the bedroom not work for my wife? I cannot in words express such a massive amount of not-workedness. So I went to the hardware store and bought a metal chipmunk trap to capture the tawny rodent alive. Forty bucks! But I considered. With poison, you wait. A live trap has a chance of immediate results--immediate as in, before my wife gets home from work. And I admit deep down I've kind of wanted a metal animal trap in the past. No reason. Just another irrational desire related to hardware.
I baited the trap with peanut butter and granola. Ten minutes later, bang. It took me longer to *set* the trap. I walked the unhappy chipmunk to the forest near the golf course down the street and turned it loose. We were both happy at the parting.
This presented a new pest control problem for me. I've dealt with a lot of varmints over the years in my various domiciles, but chipmunks were new. Would they eat poison pellets? Could they be driven out my back door? Did I really want to dispose of one stuck to toxic glue?
I don't like mice, but I understand them. They avoid humans and I can play a long game of killing them with poison. Chipmunks, though, LIKE humans. And not just the food. I know because when I woke up this morning one was crawling across the bed. I flicked my leg and sent it sailing across the room.
How much would a chipmunk in the bedroom not work for my wife? I cannot in words express such a massive amount of not-workedness. So I went to the hardware store and bought a metal chipmunk trap to capture the tawny rodent alive. Forty bucks! But I considered. With poison, you wait. A live trap has a chance of immediate results--immediate as in, before my wife gets home from work. And I admit deep down I've kind of wanted a metal animal trap in the past. No reason. Just another irrational desire related to hardware.
I baited the trap with peanut butter and granola. Ten minutes later, bang. It took me longer to *set* the trap. I walked the unhappy chipmunk to the forest near the golf course down the street and turned it loose. We were both happy at the parting.
// posted by KC45s @ 8:21 PM 
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
The Last Dom
It's been a tough year for Burt Reynolds, and I mean that sincerely. Once head of the weirdest posse of all time, Burt is on the verge of going it alone in the 21st Century as Jerry Reed and now Dom DeLuise have ascended to their final rewards. He's still got Jim Nabors, sure, but you know Jim's only got so many openings in his schedule, and as far as I know he remains in Hawaii full time these days. That's a long flight to take just to sit around and watch the Seminoles play the Gamecocks.
What's Burt going to do? I wondered. Besides make straight-to-video films, I mean? If I had his number I'd invite him over. People get lonely at times like this.
I think of DeLuise as always wearing a hat and carrying a megaphone. You, too? Why is that? A line of frozen food enters my mind's eye, too, though perhaps like everyone I'm just confusing DeLuise with Paul Prudhomme.
But such impressionistic thoughts aside, we can definitely say the man had a good run. He enjoyed a mildly inexplicable heyday a generation ago, playing main ham to Reynolds' hot-roddin' good old boy self, and whether it was throwing down an accent that would've embarrassed vaudeville (Smokey and the Bandit II) or daring to don tights for the lucrative cultural abortion that was Cannonball Run, DeLuise provided solid professional support, even if his comedy was as broad as his waistline. (And if you think that's an old one-liner, you should watch Cannonball Run.)
Not surprisingly, DeLuise got his break with another celebrity who made an industry out of going through the motions. I refer to Dean Martin, a pioneer in that sort of thing, and perhaps still its greatest practitioner. Sensing the Dean Martin Show was a place where shame had no place, DeLuise did an over-the-top "magic" act with the Pickled One as his stooge. Having killed, he started showing up as a regular in sketches, trying to guide Dean onto the shores of Being Interested.
DeLuise then found his way into Reynolds' apathetic orbit in the late 1970s. At the time, it seemed like the best orbit to be in. Burt ruled the box office and had become a cultural icon. Able to do just about anything he wanted in Hollywood, Burt settled for sucking in Dom's old pal Dino for Cannonball Run, and that was that for being a cultural icon, the after-hours parties with Farrah and Barbeau notwithstanding.
Along the way, DeLuise pitched in on a strange Reynolds dark comedy called The End as a psychiatric patient who agrees to kill a suicidal Burt. The End was essentially a love story. No one in Burt's life will pay attention to him even though said life is about to be ended by a terminal disease. Once even Kristy McNichol ignores him, Reynolds gets some attention at last from Dom's character.
Only one director in those days offered unlimited opportunities to scream and make faces, and so DeLuise ended up with Mel Brooks. Between them they chewed through all the scenery on the 20th Century Fox lot, a less-than-easy task in the all-silent Silent Movie, though they managed.
After that, Brooks descended into mediocrity, and DeLuise, already there riding shotgun for Reynolds, appeared in Spaceballs and that Robin Hood movie while transitioning to the easy ride that is providing voices for animated entertainment (including Ren & Stimpy). A man's got to save for retirement.
The obits list him as a quadruple threat of actor/comedian/chef/author. I was surprised to find out that he published more than a half-dozen children's books in addition to his cookbooks. Kids' lit and cookbooks provide two of the most reliable last refuges for fading celebrity, and DeLuise, having survived the implosions of Reynolds and Brooks, to say nothing of the TV variety shows that once supported him, took advantage. You have to hand it to him. He made the most of his fame.
What's Burt going to do? I wondered. Besides make straight-to-video films, I mean? If I had his number I'd invite him over. People get lonely at times like this.
I think of DeLuise as always wearing a hat and carrying a megaphone. You, too? Why is that? A line of frozen food enters my mind's eye, too, though perhaps like everyone I'm just confusing DeLuise with Paul Prudhomme.
But such impressionistic thoughts aside, we can definitely say the man had a good run. He enjoyed a mildly inexplicable heyday a generation ago, playing main ham to Reynolds' hot-roddin' good old boy self, and whether it was throwing down an accent that would've embarrassed vaudeville (Smokey and the Bandit II) or daring to don tights for the lucrative cultural abortion that was Cannonball Run, DeLuise provided solid professional support, even if his comedy was as broad as his waistline. (And if you think that's an old one-liner, you should watch Cannonball Run.)
Not surprisingly, DeLuise got his break with another celebrity who made an industry out of going through the motions. I refer to Dean Martin, a pioneer in that sort of thing, and perhaps still its greatest practitioner. Sensing the Dean Martin Show was a place where shame had no place, DeLuise did an over-the-top "magic" act with the Pickled One as his stooge. Having killed, he started showing up as a regular in sketches, trying to guide Dean onto the shores of Being Interested.
DeLuise then found his way into Reynolds' apathetic orbit in the late 1970s. At the time, it seemed like the best orbit to be in. Burt ruled the box office and had become a cultural icon. Able to do just about anything he wanted in Hollywood, Burt settled for sucking in Dom's old pal Dino for Cannonball Run, and that was that for being a cultural icon, the after-hours parties with Farrah and Barbeau notwithstanding.
Along the way, DeLuise pitched in on a strange Reynolds dark comedy called The End as a psychiatric patient who agrees to kill a suicidal Burt. The End was essentially a love story. No one in Burt's life will pay attention to him even though said life is about to be ended by a terminal disease. Once even Kristy McNichol ignores him, Reynolds gets some attention at last from Dom's character.
Only one director in those days offered unlimited opportunities to scream and make faces, and so DeLuise ended up with Mel Brooks. Between them they chewed through all the scenery on the 20th Century Fox lot, a less-than-easy task in the all-silent Silent Movie, though they managed.
After that, Brooks descended into mediocrity, and DeLuise, already there riding shotgun for Reynolds, appeared in Spaceballs and that Robin Hood movie while transitioning to the easy ride that is providing voices for animated entertainment (including Ren & Stimpy). A man's got to save for retirement.
The obits list him as a quadruple threat of actor/comedian/chef/author. I was surprised to find out that he published more than a half-dozen children's books in addition to his cookbooks. Kids' lit and cookbooks provide two of the most reliable last refuges for fading celebrity, and DeLuise, having survived the implosions of Reynolds and Brooks, to say nothing of the TV variety shows that once supported him, took advantage. You have to hand it to him. He made the most of his fame.
// posted by KC45s @ 10:00 PM
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
45s: "All Fired Up," by Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar was part of the early wave of unabashed female rock singers to get radio airplay and move units, a few steps behind Ann Wilson, but one or two ahead of Joan Jett. Equipped with a butchy New Wave haircut, leather pants, and a powerful set of pipes, Benatar broke through at the very end of the 1970s and ran through the gamut of rock/pop cliche so fast that, by 1985, she had compressed success, decline, and the desperate grasp at relevance into an amazingly short period of time.
Uncharacteristically upbeat, layered with voices that in the past she didn't need, "All Fired Up" arrived at the end of Benatar's chart-making career. Say what you will about her, but Benatar broke with a sound that belonged to her, not ambitious by any means, but straightforwardly hers. "All Fired Up," unfortunately, could've come from anyone, and with the exception of the chorus, it doesn't demand anything of her distinctive latest-in-a-line-of-rock-belters voice. Alas, the video is worse, featuring the then-de riguer shots of backstage antics performed by hair band refugees--one of whom is Pat herself, now permed for a new era.
Benatar's success began with the whup-up "Heartbreaker." Early on, however, she flirted with disaster. "Hell Is for Children" surprisingly rocked for a song about child abuse, but even at this early date (1980) Benatar had passed the first station on the road to rock decline--the Urge To Be Socially Relevant. On the way, she threw out the impossibly popular "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," a novelty even Queen might reject, as well as "Fire and Ice," a welcome return to her earlier, earthier sounds.
The Benatar Express then whistled past the next stage on the way to iniquity: the over-the-top cinematic video. "Shadows of the Night" had her flying a WWII fighter plane. In the meantime, the song pretty much laid her rock sound to rest.
Everyone remembers the follow-up, "Love Is a Battlefield," and it's "Beat It" choreography. If nothing else, it proved Benatar could dance better than Stevie Nicks.
The next stop was to enlist a children's choir, a strategy for has-beens that in those days was second only to singing with an African-American choir. "We Belong" forced Benatar to compete with machine noises as well as the pre-adolescent sopranos, and even her mighty voice had trouble making it through the din. In another baffling Nicks-esque move, she appeared on the cover of her album Tropico not only in multi-layered gypsy clothes but holding an owl!
[Full disclosure: I have an unfortunate affection for "We Belong" that I attribute in part to the acoustic and bass flourishes, in part to the vocal's sincerity, and in part to the fact that Benatar looks just great in the video. Forgive me, I was young...]
Around this time she embraced the truest sign your career is over: recording the theme song to a movie. This is in and of itself a phenomenon worthy of a long post, but for now let's just say Benatar fit the criteria a movie studio looked for:
Movie soundtrack work had pretty much marked the end for a number of Seventies music figures. Bob Seger did "Understanding" for Teachers, Jackson Browne's watery voice gave us "Somebody's Babe," one of the worst hits of the decade, for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and of course Kenny Loggins transcended the entire concept by stringing together so many soundtrack hits that the end of his career lasted eight years.
But Benatar hadn't been around nearly as long as those guys!
Uncharacteristically upbeat, layered with voices that in the past she didn't need, "All Fired Up" arrived at the end of Benatar's chart-making career. Say what you will about her, but Benatar broke with a sound that belonged to her, not ambitious by any means, but straightforwardly hers. "All Fired Up," unfortunately, could've come from anyone, and with the exception of the chorus, it doesn't demand anything of her distinctive latest-in-a-line-of-rock-belters voice. Alas, the video is worse, featuring the then-de riguer shots of backstage antics performed by hair band refugees--one of whom is Pat herself, now permed for a new era.
Benatar's success began with the whup-up "Heartbreaker." Early on, however, she flirted with disaster. "Hell Is for Children" surprisingly rocked for a song about child abuse, but even at this early date (1980) Benatar had passed the first station on the road to rock decline--the Urge To Be Socially Relevant. On the way, she threw out the impossibly popular "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," a novelty even Queen might reject, as well as "Fire and Ice," a welcome return to her earlier, earthier sounds.
The Benatar Express then whistled past the next stage on the way to iniquity: the over-the-top cinematic video. "Shadows of the Night" had her flying a WWII fighter plane. In the meantime, the song pretty much laid her rock sound to rest.
Everyone remembers the follow-up, "Love Is a Battlefield," and it's "Beat It" choreography. If nothing else, it proved Benatar could dance better than Stevie Nicks.
The next stop was to enlist a children's choir, a strategy for has-beens that in those days was second only to singing with an African-American choir. "We Belong" forced Benatar to compete with machine noises as well as the pre-adolescent sopranos, and even her mighty voice had trouble making it through the din. In another baffling Nicks-esque move, she appeared on the cover of her album Tropico not only in multi-layered gypsy clothes but holding an owl!
[Full disclosure: I have an unfortunate affection for "We Belong" that I attribute in part to the acoustic and bass flourishes, in part to the vocal's sincerity, and in part to the fact that Benatar looks just great in the video. Forgive me, I was young...]
Around this time she embraced the truest sign your career is over: recording the theme song to a movie. This is in and of itself a phenomenon worthy of a long post, but for now let's just say Benatar fit the criteria a movie studio looked for:
- A recognizable artist, successful but not too successful, and never a critic's darling;
- Said artist was at a crossroads, with declining sales due to changing (or in Kenny Loggins's case improving) tastes;
- Said artist would accept a bundle of money to record a single pasted over a music video that was, for all intents, a movie trailer.
Movie soundtrack work had pretty much marked the end for a number of Seventies music figures. Bob Seger did "Understanding" for Teachers, Jackson Browne's watery voice gave us "Somebody's Babe," one of the worst hits of the decade, for Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and of course Kenny Loggins transcended the entire concept by stringing together so many soundtrack hits that the end of his career lasted eight years.
But Benatar hadn't been around nearly as long as those guys!
// posted by KC45s @ 3:10 PM
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
45s: Feels like the second time
Cover songs. We've always had them. In fact, rock-and-roll was based on them, for as we know, the vanguard of rockers ripped off the music of the black man (and woman) in order to bring those tremendous sounds to skittish white people. While this sort of thing led to the spectacle of Pat Boone covering Little Richard—the equivalent of a lemur pretending to play chess in Bobby Fischer's ill-fitting clothes—it inaugurated one of rock music's grandest traditions, as well as a nod to jazzier, poppier peers delving into songbooks and whatnot in the 1950s.
While the Cover Song medium has provided a venue for countless atrocities, it's also inspired later generations to sanctify the practice. Punk bands always threw in a de rigeur cover on their albums; twenty years later, several of punk's offspring contributed to the blizzard of tribute albums released in the 1990s. That trend took one of the medium's greatest strengths—its genius for inspiring dizzying Technisonic Postmodern Mind-Fuckedness—and ran it into the ground. It also brought us Common Thread, the disc that resurrected the Eagles.
In our post-ironic age, bands have scour the whole of pop history for primo tunage to cover, sometimes to unleash latent unmentionable feelings, as when Urge Overkill redid "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" and in the process made it safe for hipsters to admit they dug on Neil Diamond; and sometimes to see who can rescue the most forgotten of the forgotten, and you can see the carnage on YouTube any time you want.
But we're off-course here, sorry. Pop may have eaten itself—certainly it seems to be in the midst of a sixteen-year vomiting up of itself—but that doesn't mean we listeners haven't benefited. I am aware that there is a kind of music fan who damns remakes. Their real fury seems reserved for covers of songs they enjoyed in their youth, a bit of prejudice no longer confined to Boomers, alas. But I am here to preach that there are covers that surpass (or at least compete with) the original hit. Not the obscure original version of the song, mind you, not something on Laura Nyro's first album, for instance. But the hit that in most cases inspired an artist born later to have a crack at a song him- or herself, and create a version you might have actually heard.
"My Way"
Frank Sinatra covered by Sid Vicious
Read on the page, the lyrics to "My Way" sound like the rantings of a hated, drunken asshole trying to justify a lot of the shit he inflicted on the world and insisting that not only was it right that he acted that way, but that he deserves praise. As Sid sings in the kind of raspy and anti-tonal scream that is the hallmark of New World Order conspiracy theorists who shout on street corners, his version comes across as consumptive self-loathing, whereas Sinatra just sounds like a dick. Why the Chairman insisted on this being his "national anthem" was beyond me. Until I started reading on the life of Frank Sinatra, that is. It's all clear now. Bonus reading: the final word on why "My Way" shouldn't have been his trademark.
"Proud Mary"
Creedence Clearwater Revival covered by Ike & Tina Turner
Of all the classic rock/oldies songs overplayed into sonic pablum by American radio and bar bands, CCR's "Proud Mary" is one of the very, very few I can hear (if it hits me in the right moment, you dig) and still rock out. Let me add that CCR was one of the first bands I really loved when I started relating to music in a semi-adult way, so I've actually heard this song about ten thousand more times than I should've by the year 2008.
That "Proud Mary" survived a forty-year campaign to make me hate it, CCR, and the idea of cleaning plates in Memphis attests to its greatness.
Yet, the cover version is even better.
If you have not gone through puberty yet and would like to in about eight nice-and-rough minutes, this clip will take you there. Start at the 3:00 mark if you're in a real hurry. You will never accept workin' for the man night and day again. You will agree that a woman in sparkly high heels is the greatest gift God ever gave straight men. You will ask for Ikettes and a horn section for Christmas.
You will also pray that you never work for a taskmaster like Ike Turner. Because listen to that band. Tight as a squirrel's asshole, if I may quote a redneck I once knew.
Even the shorter radio version of the song is a hurricane. It's really so fantastic, from Ike's rumble to Tina's monologue—perhaps the only spoken-word intro in history that works—to that explosion when the band kicks in. How can you stay in your seat then? Answer: you can't, you just motherfucking can't, yet if you try to dance to it you better have paddles on hand, because unless you're in very good shape, and unless you possess Massive Funk +4, you're taking your life in your hands. And that's what a great song should do! Kill you! I have heard this song come on my radio and pulled the car to the side of the road to listen. Because you should not try to dig it and operate heavy machinery. 'Nuff said.
"Light My Fire"
The Doors covered by Jose Feliciano
Look, I'm not going to mock the Doors as the most overrated act of all time, a singles band masquerading as rock legends and Bringers of the Profound. Nor will I say they mostly sucked, though they mostly did.
Why this untoward show of mercy? Because even a band with a bloated rep and congenital suckophrenia can record a good song. And "Light My Fire" is good. Jesus Christ, having listened to the flashback hour on the oldies station and heard what else was on the radio in 1967, I've no doubt the Doors must've been cool, cool rain to the adults (of all ages) in the listening audience.
But it's Joe Happy in a landslide. While aware such a verdict offends millions, I cannot even conceive of a competition here. Because when you're so into a song it reduces you to crying "Lightmyfirelightmyfirelightmyfire" over and over, truly you've tapped its primal power in a way the Drunken Dionesian could only admire. Come on, you know you love the ballad more, the Latin flavor, the yearn on "...higher," and the fact the man has turned a rocker built around a wacky organ into three minutes o' sugar-talk guaranteed to land him in some sweety's, uh, arms. Oh, Jose.
"Since You Been Gone"
Kelly Clarkson covered by Ted Leo
At the risk of losing my spot at Hipster Local #44, I kind of liked the Clarkson hit from a few years ago. Not as music, God knows, but as craft, or if you prefer, pimping, it was aimed at females 13-21 and I am sure hit dead on. Whereas Clarkson played up the anthemic qualities of the whole girl power thing, Leo goes acoustic, sings in his highest range, and discovers for all of us that this is actually a funny tune, though I suspect he's laughing at Clarkson, and not with her. Which is okay.
"Daydream Believer"
The Monkees covered by Anne Murray
If you're a girl, chances are "Daydream Believer" is among your favorite Monkees songs. If you're a boy, and you lend any credence to the Monkees whatsoever, chances are that you have a pop music blog, and no sex life. Being too young to care about the band's pre-Fab Four baggage, I hear them as just another singles band of 1960s, lumped in with occasionally gear outfits like Paul Revere & the Raiders or Tommy James & the Shondells. As I am a boy, I don't care for their "Daydream Believer" beyond the inexplicable studio-chatter opening. Actually, I don't like Anne Murray's version, either, but it's even more syrupy—Canadians love syrup!—and therefore wins by a nose for giving the song what it deserves.
Note: I like the Shonen Knife cover, but I tend to like Shonen Knife covers sight unseen, all ten million of them, perhaps because they're all the same. And Paul Westerberg used to do a rockin' "Daydream Believer" in his concerts.
"Pretty Woman"
Roy Orbison covered by Van Halen
Note that I love Roy Orbison. But the early VH was a force. Listen to that guitar churn! David Lee Roth even gives up clowning for a few minutes, so awesome is the Big O's power; to his credit, he dares the immortal "Mercy!" and is not found wanting. You were worthy, Van Halen, and mighty were your works.
"Just My Imagination" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg"
The Temptations covered by the Rolling Stones
I'm going to give the Temptations the edge on the former, but on the latter it's the Stones in an upset. Mainly because for the 1970s Mick Jagger to even pretend to miss out on getting the girl was a welcome novelty.
The Eddie Kendrick vocal on "Just My Imagination" is one of the great performances in the Temptations catalog. Here at the Satellite of Love, we greatly admire powerful singers who make it look easy. As ballads lead even those with good taste astray, "Just My Imagination" must've presented Kendrick with a mine field, but the man never strains. The understated arrangement of the voices and music on the bridge is fantastic and throws in some fine Paul Williams agonizing for added drama. To their credit, the Stones, knowing their strengths, turned the song into one of the straight-ahead rockers they could do in their sleep in those days.
Whereas Mick's singing on "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" is just nasty. Not "Brown Sugar" nasty, but nasty. You get the idea that while he ain't too proud to beg, he'll do it, and if you've got a whip in your hand, even better. Tremendous open, as well.
While the Cover Song medium has provided a venue for countless atrocities, it's also inspired later generations to sanctify the practice. Punk bands always threw in a de rigeur cover on their albums; twenty years later, several of punk's offspring contributed to the blizzard of tribute albums released in the 1990s. That trend took one of the medium's greatest strengths—its genius for inspiring dizzying Technisonic Postmodern Mind-Fuckedness—and ran it into the ground. It also brought us Common Thread, the disc that resurrected the Eagles.
In our post-ironic age, bands have scour the whole of pop history for primo tunage to cover, sometimes to unleash latent unmentionable feelings, as when Urge Overkill redid "Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon" and in the process made it safe for hipsters to admit they dug on Neil Diamond; and sometimes to see who can rescue the most forgotten of the forgotten, and you can see the carnage on YouTube any time you want.
But we're off-course here, sorry. Pop may have eaten itself—certainly it seems to be in the midst of a sixteen-year vomiting up of itself—but that doesn't mean we listeners haven't benefited. I am aware that there is a kind of music fan who damns remakes. Their real fury seems reserved for covers of songs they enjoyed in their youth, a bit of prejudice no longer confined to Boomers, alas. But I am here to preach that there are covers that surpass (or at least compete with) the original hit. Not the obscure original version of the song, mind you, not something on Laura Nyro's first album, for instance. But the hit that in most cases inspired an artist born later to have a crack at a song him- or herself, and create a version you might have actually heard.
"My Way"
Frank Sinatra covered by Sid Vicious
Read on the page, the lyrics to "My Way" sound like the rantings of a hated, drunken asshole trying to justify a lot of the shit he inflicted on the world and insisting that not only was it right that he acted that way, but that he deserves praise. As Sid sings in the kind of raspy and anti-tonal scream that is the hallmark of New World Order conspiracy theorists who shout on street corners, his version comes across as consumptive self-loathing, whereas Sinatra just sounds like a dick. Why the Chairman insisted on this being his "national anthem" was beyond me. Until I started reading on the life of Frank Sinatra, that is. It's all clear now. Bonus reading: the final word on why "My Way" shouldn't have been his trademark.
"Proud Mary"
Creedence Clearwater Revival covered by Ike & Tina Turner
Of all the classic rock/oldies songs overplayed into sonic pablum by American radio and bar bands, CCR's "Proud Mary" is one of the very, very few I can hear (if it hits me in the right moment, you dig) and still rock out. Let me add that CCR was one of the first bands I really loved when I started relating to music in a semi-adult way, so I've actually heard this song about ten thousand more times than I should've by the year 2008.
That "Proud Mary" survived a forty-year campaign to make me hate it, CCR, and the idea of cleaning plates in Memphis attests to its greatness.
Yet, the cover version is even better.
If you have not gone through puberty yet and would like to in about eight nice-and-rough minutes, this clip will take you there. Start at the 3:00 mark if you're in a real hurry. You will never accept workin' for the man night and day again. You will agree that a woman in sparkly high heels is the greatest gift God ever gave straight men. You will ask for Ikettes and a horn section for Christmas.
You will also pray that you never work for a taskmaster like Ike Turner. Because listen to that band. Tight as a squirrel's asshole, if I may quote a redneck I once knew.
Even the shorter radio version of the song is a hurricane. It's really so fantastic, from Ike's rumble to Tina's monologue—perhaps the only spoken-word intro in history that works—to that explosion when the band kicks in. How can you stay in your seat then? Answer: you can't, you just motherfucking can't, yet if you try to dance to it you better have paddles on hand, because unless you're in very good shape, and unless you possess Massive Funk +4, you're taking your life in your hands. And that's what a great song should do! Kill you! I have heard this song come on my radio and pulled the car to the side of the road to listen. Because you should not try to dig it and operate heavy machinery. 'Nuff said.
"Light My Fire"
The Doors covered by Jose Feliciano
Look, I'm not going to mock the Doors as the most overrated act of all time, a singles band masquerading as rock legends and Bringers of the Profound. Nor will I say they mostly sucked, though they mostly did.
Why this untoward show of mercy? Because even a band with a bloated rep and congenital suckophrenia can record a good song. And "Light My Fire" is good. Jesus Christ, having listened to the flashback hour on the oldies station and heard what else was on the radio in 1967, I've no doubt the Doors must've been cool, cool rain to the adults (of all ages) in the listening audience.
But it's Joe Happy in a landslide. While aware such a verdict offends millions, I cannot even conceive of a competition here. Because when you're so into a song it reduces you to crying "Lightmyfirelightmyfirelightmyfire" over and over, truly you've tapped its primal power in a way the Drunken Dionesian could only admire. Come on, you know you love the ballad more, the Latin flavor, the yearn on "...higher," and the fact the man has turned a rocker built around a wacky organ into three minutes o' sugar-talk guaranteed to land him in some sweety's, uh, arms. Oh, Jose.
"Since You Been Gone"
Kelly Clarkson covered by Ted Leo
At the risk of losing my spot at Hipster Local #44, I kind of liked the Clarkson hit from a few years ago. Not as music, God knows, but as craft, or if you prefer, pimping, it was aimed at females 13-21 and I am sure hit dead on. Whereas Clarkson played up the anthemic qualities of the whole girl power thing, Leo goes acoustic, sings in his highest range, and discovers for all of us that this is actually a funny tune, though I suspect he's laughing at Clarkson, and not with her. Which is okay.
"Daydream Believer"
The Monkees covered by Anne Murray
If you're a girl, chances are "Daydream Believer" is among your favorite Monkees songs. If you're a boy, and you lend any credence to the Monkees whatsoever, chances are that you have a pop music blog, and no sex life. Being too young to care about the band's pre-Fab Four baggage, I hear them as just another singles band of 1960s, lumped in with occasionally gear outfits like Paul Revere & the Raiders or Tommy James & the Shondells. As I am a boy, I don't care for their "Daydream Believer" beyond the inexplicable studio-chatter opening. Actually, I don't like Anne Murray's version, either, but it's even more syrupy—Canadians love syrup!—and therefore wins by a nose for giving the song what it deserves.
Note: I like the Shonen Knife cover, but I tend to like Shonen Knife covers sight unseen, all ten million of them, perhaps because they're all the same. And Paul Westerberg used to do a rockin' "Daydream Believer" in his concerts.
"Pretty Woman"
Roy Orbison covered by Van Halen
Note that I love Roy Orbison. But the early VH was a force. Listen to that guitar churn! David Lee Roth even gives up clowning for a few minutes, so awesome is the Big O's power; to his credit, he dares the immortal "Mercy!" and is not found wanting. You were worthy, Van Halen, and mighty were your works.
"Just My Imagination" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg"
The Temptations covered by the Rolling Stones
I'm going to give the Temptations the edge on the former, but on the latter it's the Stones in an upset. Mainly because for the 1970s Mick Jagger to even pretend to miss out on getting the girl was a welcome novelty.
The Eddie Kendrick vocal on "Just My Imagination" is one of the great performances in the Temptations catalog. Here at the Satellite of Love, we greatly admire powerful singers who make it look easy. As ballads lead even those with good taste astray, "Just My Imagination" must've presented Kendrick with a mine field, but the man never strains. The understated arrangement of the voices and music on the bridge is fantastic and throws in some fine Paul Williams agonizing for added drama. To their credit, the Stones, knowing their strengths, turned the song into one of the straight-ahead rockers they could do in their sleep in those days.
Whereas Mick's singing on "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" is just nasty. Not "Brown Sugar" nasty, but nasty. You get the idea that while he ain't too proud to beg, he'll do it, and if you've got a whip in your hand, even better. Tremendous open, as well.
// posted by KC45s @ 9:17 PM
Sunday, March 15, 2009
45s: Second-string triumphs
Because sometimes the big hit isn't the best hit.
Big hit: "Billy Don't Be a Hero," by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
Forgotten better hit: "Who Do You Think You Are?"
No list of worst songs of the 1970s misses "Billy Don't Be a Hero." Conceived by a seven-piece (!) Cincinnati band prone to extremely poor clothing choices, "Billy Don't Be a Hero" told a sad story for the post-Vietnam era--soldier leaves girl to fight, becomes a hero, dies. While aware some explained the song as a Civil War-themed tune, I doubt that America's then-embryonic Shiloh Re-enactment Culture bought the single to the top of the pops.
You never know how the bummer formula will work in pop music. Political songs, for example, tend to fail all over the place, and even the ones that make it--from Joan Baez to Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler to Green Day--often get old fast. Yet Billboard chart history is laden with way-downer topics like dead teenagers, suicides, ghetto life, self-loathing, spouses who die in three verses, and anything recorded by David Geddes.
Anyway.
The Rhino Records liner notes to one of the "Have A Nice Day" volumes called "Who Do You Think You Are?" a lost Buckingham's song, and that's a fair, if flattering, assessment. It's catchy, a pure product of studio doo-daddery, and ultimately three minutes of empty calories. That of course describes the bulk of pop music in the 1970s. So good (or at least so reliably pop) that St. Etienne, a British foxy-babe-and-a-drum-pattern dance band, had a hit with it almost twenty years later.
Big hit(s): Countless Motown classics, by Smokey Robinson
Forgotten good (not necessarily better) hit: "Cruisin'"
Having been one of the major forces behind Motown's success, and then pioneered the get-it-workin' "quiet storm" sound, Smokey went all Marvin Gaye in 1979 with "Cruisin'." His amazing high tenor had lost none of its old power, and The People stood up and paid attention--while Robinson had thrived on the R&B charts, "Cruisin'" was a Top Five pop hit, his first big one in awhile, and it set him up for another string of successful singles that carried him into the late Eighties (and what can only be described as a brave collaboration with Rick James).
Listen and try to keep your hips from a slow grind. It's a great song, never mind its more recent ruination at the hands of Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow. The open is a hook-and-a-half, the chorus fantastic, the performance throughout worthy of better-known Lover Men like Gaye and Al Green, and I mean that as a huge compliment, because just nobody promised a great fuck and transcendence more convincingly than those two.
Big hit: "Layla," by Derek and the Dominoes
Forgotten better hit: "Bell Bottom Blues"
Being a post-Boomer, recent revisions of that term notwithstanding, I feel I have a certain freedom to despise Eric Clapton in all his guises. Oh, I recognize the virtuoso guitar player, and can maintain a certain respect for his willingness to go on musical explorations, albeit without any love for the forms that take fifteen-minutes to bring to a close.
But, after decades of saturation classic rock airplay and celebration of his godhood, to say nothing of his sin of convincing many soulless white people they understand the blues, I want no more of the man, though with the mellowness of age I have ceased sticking pins in my Clapton doll. Instead I spend my time baffled that anyone thinks Steve Winwood is worth listening to.
But "Bell Bottom Blues" really works. A minimum of showoffy guitar, and Duane Allman's voice on the chorus is tough as nails. "If I could choose a place to die... it would be in your arms." That's good stuff. One of my problems with EC is that his music always seems to hover at arm's length, from him and from me. Not "Bell Bottom Blues." There's real yearning here, no doubt part of the celebrated hungering for Patti Boyd, and really, you have to be feeling it deep to moan "You won't find a better loser" with this kind of power.
Big hit: "Been Caught Stealing," by Jane's Addiction
Arguably just as good other hit: "Jane Says"
As embarrassing as it is to admit, I thought in 1988 that Jane's Addiction was the future of rock and roll. Clearly, Alternative Nation was going to break through eventually--REM already had--and "Been Caught Stealing," a corker of guitar-driven chaos, made me look forward to a future when bands readily sampled livestock on their songs.
But I really loved "Jane Says," another piece of downer rock, and a de riguer-for-its-time portrayal of heroin addiction howled over a guitar that's either a sell-out of mammoth proportions or a welcome mockery of the then-popular hair band power balladry. What sets "Jane Says" apart from most downer rock is it creates an atmosphere of genuine sadness. Using "I'm gonna kick tomorrow" as a chorus knocked me out. By making it desperate and pathetic rather than defiant, the band voiced some of what I was seeing around me. She don't mean no harm. Man, it took me a long time to figure that out.
Big hit: "My Sharona," by the Knack
Forgotten other hit: "Good Girls Don't"
One of the more celebrated "Next Beatleses" to come along, The Knack cranked out an album for pennies, and made somebody--I'm assuming it wasn't the band members--a fortune. "My Sharona" had a beat that never changed, the result being the musical equivalent of an assault by an obsessive-compulsive collector for your neighborhood loan shark.
"Good Girls Don't," by contrast, sounded something like cut-rate Cheap Trick with a touch of New Wave. Though it brought a welcome harmonica solo to the pop charts, and like all Knack music sounded like four unpretentious guys having a good time (a virtue, in my eyes), "Good Girls Don't" got most of its attention due to its lyrics. In rock you know you've done something right when there's a "single version" and an "album version," and the album version of "Good Girls Don't" featured this immortal rhyme:
It's a teenage sadness
Everyone has go to taste
An in-between age madness
That you know you can't erase
'Til she's sitting on your face
What can I say? Thirty years ago, I thought that was pretty awesome.
Rock must be free to be stupid, and the Knack weren't afraid. I'll still take it over "My Sharona" any day. Have a one-click listen.
Big hit(s): Numerous cock-rock classics, by The Who
Forgotten decent hit: "Don't Let Go the Coat"
If Smokey Robinson warmed up for the Eighties by stepping into Marvin Gaye's shoes, Pete Townshend decided to explore the pleasures of being Elvis Costello. Meanwhile, Roger Daltrey got a perm. It was a new decade indeed.
It is reassuring that even Pete Townshend eventually ran out of anger. Fifteen-plus years of furious rock, studio fistfights, and relentless stage shows may not be a cure available to everyone, but I have to think there are lessons there for the anger management industry. Could even an angry, can't-be-pleased juvenile like Townshend tap The Mellow? You better bet your life. Hell, he opened up his romantic side and found a sense of humor!
It must have been catching, because "Don't Let Go the Coat" is the kind of Who song Daltrey usually refused to sing, if rumors about some earlier Who work are true. A mid-tempo love song with a jangling guitar and no screams represented a substantial change in the band's approach, to say the least. But it's interesting to me that "Don't Let Go the Coat" kept Townshend trademarks of quirky word choices (and word-play) and the odd little twists of phrase that always quietly contributed to his unique songwriting. A footnote in a monstrous career, true, but proof positive they could have made a nice living as Squeeze had fate dealt them that hand.
Big hit: "Ruby (Don't Take Your Love to Town)," by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
Forgotten faux-epic other hit: "Something's Burning"
Let us venture once more into the career of Kenny Rogers, the country and western Cher.
"Something's Burning" gave future singing star/sex symbol Mac Davis one of his early songwriting breaks, so factor the cost of that to our culture into your calculations. Like other First Edition hits, it provided a gimmick. Whereas "Just Dropped In" blew future minds by putting Kenny Rogers on a piece of psychedelic pop, and "Ruby" had just a nudge of anti-Vietnam sentiment, "Something's Burning" opened with the recording of an actual heartbeat providing the rhythm.
(Ahem.)
That aside, "Something Burning" is memorable--I use the word loosely--because it evolves--I use the word loosely--from a standard pop song remarkable only because Kenny Rogers is trying to rock out, to a kind of Wall of Sound big finish that I find strangely compelling. Not on any musical level, at least I don't think so, but I'm not sure why, unless the idea that Kenny Rogers is rocking out--I use the term loosely--is just that odd.
Big hit: "Billy Don't Be a Hero," by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods
Forgotten better hit: "Who Do You Think You Are?"
No list of worst songs of the 1970s misses "Billy Don't Be a Hero." Conceived by a seven-piece (!) Cincinnati band prone to extremely poor clothing choices, "Billy Don't Be a Hero" told a sad story for the post-Vietnam era--soldier leaves girl to fight, becomes a hero, dies. While aware some explained the song as a Civil War-themed tune, I doubt that America's then-embryonic Shiloh Re-enactment Culture bought the single to the top of the pops.
You never know how the bummer formula will work in pop music. Political songs, for example, tend to fail all over the place, and even the ones that make it--from Joan Baez to Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler to Green Day--often get old fast. Yet Billboard chart history is laden with way-downer topics like dead teenagers, suicides, ghetto life, self-loathing, spouses who die in three verses, and anything recorded by David Geddes.
Anyway.
The Rhino Records liner notes to one of the "Have A Nice Day" volumes called "Who Do You Think You Are?" a lost Buckingham's song, and that's a fair, if flattering, assessment. It's catchy, a pure product of studio doo-daddery, and ultimately three minutes of empty calories. That of course describes the bulk of pop music in the 1970s. So good (or at least so reliably pop) that St. Etienne, a British foxy-babe-and-a-drum-pattern dance band, had a hit with it almost twenty years later.
Big hit(s): Countless Motown classics, by Smokey Robinson
Forgotten good (not necessarily better) hit: "Cruisin'"
Having been one of the major forces behind Motown's success, and then pioneered the get-it-workin' "quiet storm" sound, Smokey went all Marvin Gaye in 1979 with "Cruisin'." His amazing high tenor had lost none of its old power, and The People stood up and paid attention--while Robinson had thrived on the R&B charts, "Cruisin'" was a Top Five pop hit, his first big one in awhile, and it set him up for another string of successful singles that carried him into the late Eighties (and what can only be described as a brave collaboration with Rick James).
Listen and try to keep your hips from a slow grind. It's a great song, never mind its more recent ruination at the hands of Huey Lewis and Gwyneth Paltrow. The open is a hook-and-a-half, the chorus fantastic, the performance throughout worthy of better-known Lover Men like Gaye and Al Green, and I mean that as a huge compliment, because just nobody promised a great fuck and transcendence more convincingly than those two.
Big hit: "Layla," by Derek and the Dominoes
Forgotten better hit: "Bell Bottom Blues"
Being a post-Boomer, recent revisions of that term notwithstanding, I feel I have a certain freedom to despise Eric Clapton in all his guises. Oh, I recognize the virtuoso guitar player, and can maintain a certain respect for his willingness to go on musical explorations, albeit without any love for the forms that take fifteen-minutes to bring to a close.
But, after decades of saturation classic rock airplay and celebration of his godhood, to say nothing of his sin of convincing many soulless white people they understand the blues, I want no more of the man, though with the mellowness of age I have ceased sticking pins in my Clapton doll. Instead I spend my time baffled that anyone thinks Steve Winwood is worth listening to.
But "Bell Bottom Blues" really works. A minimum of showoffy guitar, and Duane Allman's voice on the chorus is tough as nails. "If I could choose a place to die... it would be in your arms." That's good stuff. One of my problems with EC is that his music always seems to hover at arm's length, from him and from me. Not "Bell Bottom Blues." There's real yearning here, no doubt part of the celebrated hungering for Patti Boyd, and really, you have to be feeling it deep to moan "You won't find a better loser" with this kind of power.
Big hit: "Been Caught Stealing," by Jane's Addiction
Arguably just as good other hit: "Jane Says"
As embarrassing as it is to admit, I thought in 1988 that Jane's Addiction was the future of rock and roll. Clearly, Alternative Nation was going to break through eventually--REM already had--and "Been Caught Stealing," a corker of guitar-driven chaos, made me look forward to a future when bands readily sampled livestock on their songs.
But I really loved "Jane Says," another piece of downer rock, and a de riguer-for-its-time portrayal of heroin addiction howled over a guitar that's either a sell-out of mammoth proportions or a welcome mockery of the then-popular hair band power balladry. What sets "Jane Says" apart from most downer rock is it creates an atmosphere of genuine sadness. Using "I'm gonna kick tomorrow" as a chorus knocked me out. By making it desperate and pathetic rather than defiant, the band voiced some of what I was seeing around me. She don't mean no harm. Man, it took me a long time to figure that out.
Big hit: "My Sharona," by the Knack
Forgotten other hit: "Good Girls Don't"
One of the more celebrated "Next Beatleses" to come along, The Knack cranked out an album for pennies, and made somebody--I'm assuming it wasn't the band members--a fortune. "My Sharona" had a beat that never changed, the result being the musical equivalent of an assault by an obsessive-compulsive collector for your neighborhood loan shark.
"Good Girls Don't," by contrast, sounded something like cut-rate Cheap Trick with a touch of New Wave. Though it brought a welcome harmonica solo to the pop charts, and like all Knack music sounded like four unpretentious guys having a good time (a virtue, in my eyes), "Good Girls Don't" got most of its attention due to its lyrics. In rock you know you've done something right when there's a "single version" and an "album version," and the album version of "Good Girls Don't" featured this immortal rhyme:
It's a teenage sadness
Everyone has go to taste
An in-between age madness
That you know you can't erase
'Til she's sitting on your face
What can I say? Thirty years ago, I thought that was pretty awesome.
Rock must be free to be stupid, and the Knack weren't afraid. I'll still take it over "My Sharona" any day. Have a one-click listen.
Big hit(s): Numerous cock-rock classics, by The Who
Forgotten decent hit: "Don't Let Go the Coat"
If Smokey Robinson warmed up for the Eighties by stepping into Marvin Gaye's shoes, Pete Townshend decided to explore the pleasures of being Elvis Costello. Meanwhile, Roger Daltrey got a perm. It was a new decade indeed.
It is reassuring that even Pete Townshend eventually ran out of anger. Fifteen-plus years of furious rock, studio fistfights, and relentless stage shows may not be a cure available to everyone, but I have to think there are lessons there for the anger management industry. Could even an angry, can't-be-pleased juvenile like Townshend tap The Mellow? You better bet your life. Hell, he opened up his romantic side and found a sense of humor!
It must have been catching, because "Don't Let Go the Coat" is the kind of Who song Daltrey usually refused to sing, if rumors about some earlier Who work are true. A mid-tempo love song with a jangling guitar and no screams represented a substantial change in the band's approach, to say the least. But it's interesting to me that "Don't Let Go the Coat" kept Townshend trademarks of quirky word choices (and word-play) and the odd little twists of phrase that always quietly contributed to his unique songwriting. A footnote in a monstrous career, true, but proof positive they could have made a nice living as Squeeze had fate dealt them that hand.
Big hit: "Ruby (Don't Take Your Love to Town)," by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
Forgotten faux-epic other hit: "Something's Burning"
Let us venture once more into the career of Kenny Rogers, the country and western Cher.
"Something's Burning" gave future singing star/sex symbol Mac Davis one of his early songwriting breaks, so factor the cost of that to our culture into your calculations. Like other First Edition hits, it provided a gimmick. Whereas "Just Dropped In" blew future minds by putting Kenny Rogers on a piece of psychedelic pop, and "Ruby" had just a nudge of anti-Vietnam sentiment, "Something's Burning" opened with the recording of an actual heartbeat providing the rhythm.
(Ahem.)
That aside, "Something Burning" is memorable--I use the word loosely--because it evolves--I use the word loosely--from a standard pop song remarkable only because Kenny Rogers is trying to rock out, to a kind of Wall of Sound big finish that I find strangely compelling. Not on any musical level, at least I don't think so, but I'm not sure why, unless the idea that Kenny Rogers is rocking out--I use the term loosely--is just that odd.
// posted by KC45s @ 4:18 PM
Thursday, March 12, 2009
45s: More ballads but not power ballads so much as freak hits by unusual balladeers
"You're In My Heart," by Rod Stewart
There is a concept in paleontology called the transitional fossil. As you'd guess, it means a fossil of an organism with elements of earlier life forms as well as those of the forms its descendents would evolve into. In other words, the so-called missing link.
"You're In My Heart" is the Archaeopteryx the career of Rod Stewart.
Before it lived the Rod of legend, a ballsy, bluesy-voiced singer with that rare combination of soul and humor. He fronted the endearingly sloppy Faces, channeled their sound into perfect raucous rock like "Every Picture Tells a Story," and in his solo work sang amidst mandolins and acoustic guitars and sawing fiddles, evoked the mood of a knockabout young man ("Gasoline Alley"), stole his daddy's cue for a number one song that is actually, shockingly great ("Maggie May"), went wry and self-effacing ("You Wear It Well").
Few in rock have fallen so far. It's hard to believe we slagged McCartney for years when this was going on.
"You're In My Heart" is famously about soccer, of course, but sold its millions masquerading as a love song. The decidedly un-raucous arrangement makes use of the folkish fiddle and acoustic guitar heard in the earlier Rod species. It features the winning self-deprecation soon to be buried under unfortunately non-rhetorical questions like "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" And you know what? There's some terrific, funny lyrics going on:
The big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent
Who tried to change my point of view
Her ad lib lines were well rehearsed
But my heart cried out for you
And he concludes on the sincere and tender tone that was a Stewart trademark:
And there have been many affairs
Many times I've thought to leave
But I bite my lip and turn around
'cause you're the warmest thing I've ever found
From here on natural selection took over. He bled out the sincerity. After many reinventions, he became the current organism: Celine Dion with a Y-chromosome. Proof again that nature does not evolve toward perfection.
"The Air That I Breathe," by the Hollies
Another reinvention, and a strange one.
Underrated, though not tragically so, The Hollies rode some of the best tenor harmonies in pop history to a string of Sixties hits ("Bus Stop," "Pay You Back With Interest") as part of the British Invasion, lost guitarist/second vocalist Graham Nash to Crosby and Stills, and went through the de riguer psychedelic period that aided numerous career suicides across the music business throughout the late years of the decade.
By the early 1970s, the band had recorded the oddly popular and super-mellow world-uniting "He Ain't Heavy (He's My Brother)" and scored a Number One in the U.S. by somehow convincing AM radio to use "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" to drub listeners into utter hopeless submission. These songs had nothing in common besides some of the musicians involved.
In 1974, the Hollies grabbed a song co-written by Albert Hammond--he of "It Never Rains in Southern California" (and father of one of the Strokes)--and, drowning it under choruses and studio overdubs that 10CC did better, gave us four minutes of "The Air That I Breathe." Well, you take the hits where you can get them if you're the 1974 edition of the Hollies. Even if it means burying the trademark piece of your sound--lead singer Allan Clarke's big harmonies.
"You're Having My Baby," by Paul Anka
There's a thesis to be written about this song that draws in Roe v. Wade, conservative tastes in music, the adult contemporary genre, the differences between music and show business, the unique culture of casino showrooms, feminism, postmodernism, Canadians, reproductive biology, unlikely comebacks, Hindu mythology, and that gold disc we shot into space in the Seventies.
I haven't done the research, though, so let's just say Anka gave us one of the true jaw-dropping Number One hits ever:
The need inside you
I see it showing
Oh, the seed inside you baby
Do you feel it growing
Are you happy knowing
[Big churchy chorus] That you're having my baby!
Push! PUSH!
I really can't describe "You're Having My Baby." Find it. Listen to it. Wonder at what was going through the heads of Americans in 1974. In the meantime, I'll get to work on that thesis.
There is a concept in paleontology called the transitional fossil. As you'd guess, it means a fossil of an organism with elements of earlier life forms as well as those of the forms its descendents would evolve into. In other words, the so-called missing link.
"You're In My Heart" is the Archaeopteryx the career of Rod Stewart.
Before it lived the Rod of legend, a ballsy, bluesy-voiced singer with that rare combination of soul and humor. He fronted the endearingly sloppy Faces, channeled their sound into perfect raucous rock like "Every Picture Tells a Story," and in his solo work sang amidst mandolins and acoustic guitars and sawing fiddles, evoked the mood of a knockabout young man ("Gasoline Alley"), stole his daddy's cue for a number one song that is actually, shockingly great ("Maggie May"), went wry and self-effacing ("You Wear It Well").
Few in rock have fallen so far. It's hard to believe we slagged McCartney for years when this was going on.
"You're In My Heart" is famously about soccer, of course, but sold its millions masquerading as a love song. The decidedly un-raucous arrangement makes use of the folkish fiddle and acoustic guitar heard in the earlier Rod species. It features the winning self-deprecation soon to be buried under unfortunately non-rhetorical questions like "Do You Think I'm Sexy?" And you know what? There's some terrific, funny lyrics going on:
The big bosomed lady with the Dutch accent
Who tried to change my point of view
Her ad lib lines were well rehearsed
But my heart cried out for you
And he concludes on the sincere and tender tone that was a Stewart trademark:
And there have been many affairs
Many times I've thought to leave
But I bite my lip and turn around
'cause you're the warmest thing I've ever found
From here on natural selection took over. He bled out the sincerity. After many reinventions, he became the current organism: Celine Dion with a Y-chromosome. Proof again that nature does not evolve toward perfection.
"The Air That I Breathe," by the Hollies
Another reinvention, and a strange one.
Underrated, though not tragically so, The Hollies rode some of the best tenor harmonies in pop history to a string of Sixties hits ("Bus Stop," "Pay You Back With Interest") as part of the British Invasion, lost guitarist/second vocalist Graham Nash to Crosby and Stills, and went through the de riguer psychedelic period that aided numerous career suicides across the music business throughout the late years of the decade.
By the early 1970s, the band had recorded the oddly popular and super-mellow world-uniting "He Ain't Heavy (He's My Brother)" and scored a Number One in the U.S. by somehow convincing AM radio to use "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" to drub listeners into utter hopeless submission. These songs had nothing in common besides some of the musicians involved.
In 1974, the Hollies grabbed a song co-written by Albert Hammond--he of "It Never Rains in Southern California" (and father of one of the Strokes)--and, drowning it under choruses and studio overdubs that 10CC did better, gave us four minutes of "The Air That I Breathe." Well, you take the hits where you can get them if you're the 1974 edition of the Hollies. Even if it means burying the trademark piece of your sound--lead singer Allan Clarke's big harmonies.
"You're Having My Baby," by Paul Anka
There's a thesis to be written about this song that draws in Roe v. Wade, conservative tastes in music, the adult contemporary genre, the differences between music and show business, the unique culture of casino showrooms, feminism, postmodernism, Canadians, reproductive biology, unlikely comebacks, Hindu mythology, and that gold disc we shot into space in the Seventies.
I haven't done the research, though, so let's just say Anka gave us one of the true jaw-dropping Number One hits ever:
The need inside you
I see it showing
Oh, the seed inside you baby
Do you feel it growing
Are you happy knowing
[Big churchy chorus] That you're having my baby!
Push! PUSH!
I really can't describe "You're Having My Baby." Find it. Listen to it. Wonder at what was going through the heads of Americans in 1974. In the meantime, I'll get to work on that thesis.
// posted by KC45s @ 8:00 PM
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Under construction
Making some changes for possible move to Typepad. Links and whatnot up for grabs at the moment. See you soon.
And now, the Cars of War:
And now, the Cars of War:
// posted by KC45s @ 11:23 AM
