Music – Page 30 – Maverick Philosopher

Saturday Night at the Oldies: A Couple of Suicide Songs

Tastes in music are pretty much generationally-rooted. Just to yank (tug?) Dale Tuggy's chain a bit, I said to him while we were rooming together in Prague, that the heavy metal stuff he likes is "music to pound out fenders by," a phrase that Edward Abbey (1927-1989) applied to all rock music. I claimed heavy metal has little by way of melody. Tuggy, who is 20 years younger than me, demurred and pointed me to some songs one of which is Metallica's Fade to Black. The song was released in '84 when Tuggy was 14, so maybe it had the sort of impact on him that Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone (1965) had on me when I was 15.

"Fade to Black" features a very nice acoustic guitar intro and does have a melody, but can it hold a candle melody- or lyric-wise to Tom Wait's suicide song, Shiver Me Timbers? You decide.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Days of the Week

Melina Mercouri, Never on Sunday

Mamas and Papas, Monday, Monday

Marianne Faithfull, Ruby Tuesday. Moodier than the Stones' original.

Simon and Garfunkel, Wednesday Morning 3 AM

Donovan, Jersey Thursday

Easybeats, Friday on My Mind

Sam Cooke, Another Saturday
Night

Bonus cut: Jerry Lee Lewis, Lonely Weekend

September Songs

September again. A lovely transitional month leading from hot August to glorious October.

Dinah Washington, September in the Rain

Rod Stewart, Maggie May. "Wake up Maggie, I think I got something to say to you/It's late September and I really should be back at school."

Carole King, It Might as Well Rain Until September

Frank Sinatra, September of My Years

George Shearing, September in the Rain

Walter Huston, September Song

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Fruits and Vegetables

Mongo Santamaria, Watermelon Man, 1963. 1963 was one great year for popular music of all genres.

Peter, Paul and Mary, Lemon Tree, 1962

Harry Nilsson, Coconut, 1971

Chet Atkins, Orange Blossom Special

Led Zepellin, Tangerine, 1970

Little Richard, Tutti Frutti, 1956

Harry Belafonte, Banana Boat Song, 1956

……

Booker T and the MGs, Green Onions. Roy Buchanan guitar slinger version.

Dee Dee Sharp, Mashed Potatoes, 1962

The Kingsmen, Jolly Green Giant

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Beethoven, Billy Bob, and Peggy Lee

The Man Who Wasn't There is one of my favorite movies, and the best of Ludwig van Beethoven is as good as classical music gets. So enjoy the First Movement of the Moonlight Sonata to the masterful cinematography of the Coen Brothers.

Here is the final scene of the movie. Ed Crane's last words:

I don't know where I'm being taken. I don't know what I'll find beyond the earth and sky. But I am not afraid to go. Maybe the things I don't understand will be clearer there, like when a fog blows away. Maybe Doris will be there. And maybe there I can tell her all those things they don't have words for here.

That is the way I see death, as an adventure into a dimension in which we might come to understand what we cannot understand here, a movement from night and fog into the clear light of day. It is a strange idea, I admit, the idea that only by dying can one come into possession of essential knowledge. But no more strange than the idea that death leaves the apparent absurdity of our existence unredeemed, a sentiment expressed in Peggy Lee's 1969 Is That All There Is?

Perhaps no other popular song achieves the depth of this Leiber and Stoller composition inspired by the 1896 story Disillusionment (Enttäuschung) by Thomas Mann.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Dylan’s Civil Rights Songs

The 1963 March on Washington now lies 50 years in the past. Those civil rights battles were fought and they were won. What could be achieved by legislation and government intervention was achieved. Unfortunately, the civil rights movement gradually transmogrified into a civil rights hustle and grievance industry as the original ideals of Martin Luther King, Jr. were betrayed by race hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. And now look at the mess we are in. But it was a time of great and inspiring music. Here are some of Dylan's singular contributions.

Blowin' in the Wind

They Times They Are a' Changin'. A wonderful alternate version by the man himself.

Oxford Town

Only a Pawn in Their Game

The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll. What ever happened to William Zantzinger? See here. The Althouse take on the case.

The Death of Emmett Till. Once again: Trayvon Martin was no Emmett Till!

Chimes of Freedom. Duet with Baez. (Or is it Joan Osbourne?) The Byrd's folk rock version.

When the Ship Comes in. Duet with Baez at the 1963 March on Washington. Clancy Bros. version.

After Dylan did his bit to change the world, the quietist and poet in him won out over the activist and he bid farewell to his past, and, like a quintessential American, moved on down the line.

Restless Farewell. Mark Knopfler rendition.

My Back Pages. Byrds' version.

Some Songs of Summer

Lovin' Spoonful, Summer in the City, 1966

Chad and Jeremy, A Summer Song, 1964

Mungo Jerry, In the Summertime, 1970.

Robin Ward, Wonderful Summer, 1963

Seals and Croft, Summer Breeze, 1972

Johnny Rivers, Summer Rain, 1967. It came out the summer we were all listening to the Beatles' Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band, and captures the mood of that summer for me.

Eddie Cochran, Summertime Blues, 1958. An early teenage anthem in rockabilly style by one who died young. Wikipedia:

On Saturday, April 16, 1960, at about 11.50 p.m., while on tour in the United Kingdom, 21-year-old Cochran died as a result of a traffic accident in a taxi (a Ford Consul, not, as widely reported, a London hackney carriage) traveling through Chippenham, Wiltshire, on the A4. The speeding taxi blew a tire, lost control, and crashed into a lamp post on Rowden Hill, where a plaque now marks the spot. No other car was involved.^[11] Cochran, who was seated in the centre of the back seat, threw himself over his fiancée Sharon Sheeley, to shield her, and was thrown out of the car when the door flew open. He was taken to St. Martin's Hospital, Bath, where he died at 4:10 p.m. the following day of severe head injuries.^[12] Cochran's body was flown home and his remains were buried on April 25, 1960, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Cypress, California.

Blue Cheer, Summertime Blues, 1968. A heavy metal version of the Eddie Cochran rockabilly number. The first heavy metal song? If you remember Blue Cheer, I'll buy you a beer.

Doors, Summer's Almost Gone, 1968

Sarah Vaughn, Summertime, early '50s

Jamies, Summertime, Summertime, 1958

Percy Faith, Theme from a Summer Place, 1960. I remember a girl complaining that this "old fogey music" was being played on the R & R station we were listening to: had to have been either KRLA, KFWB, or KHJ, Los Angeles.

For a Race-Baiter, It’s Always Selma Again

One protestant asks another, "Why is Rome called the Eternal City?' "Because there is always Rome!"

For a race-hustler like Jesse Jackson, It Is Always Selma Again.

It's a bit of a paradox: leftist race-baiters fly under the euphemistic flag of 'progressive,' while hopelessly stuck in the past. The civil wrongs were righted, but they want to turn back the clock. A pox on their racist house.

Brother Jesse and Co. are stuck inside of Selma with the Oxford blues again.

In case you missed the allusion, it is to Bob Dylan's 1966 Blonde on Blonde track, Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again.

Philosophical Fatigue and Faded Love

Tompall Glaser, I Ain't Looking for the Answers Anymore

Faded Love

A Girl I Used to Know

Saturday Night at the Oldies: J. J. Cale and Some Songs from the Summer of ’63

J. J. Cale has died at the age of 74. Better known to musicians than to the general public, Cale was the writer behind such songs as Eric Clapton's After Midnight and Lynyrd Synyrd's Call Me the Breeze. Here he is on Mama Don't.

The summer of 1963 — 50 years ago! — featured an amazing number of great tunes in several different genres. Here is a sample from the Billboard Top 100.

Country Crossover

Dave Dudley, Six Days on the Road

Bobby Bare, Detroit City. I don't reckon Bobby be a pinin' for DEE-troit these days. Can't get no PO- lice protection.

Lonnie Mack, Memphis. Mighty fine guitar slingin.'

Johnny Cash, Ring of Fire

George Hamilton IV, Abilene

Surf Music

Jan and Dean, Surf City

Hot Rods

Beach Boys, Shutdown

Folk/Protest/Social Commentary

Peter, Paul, and Mary, Blowin' in the Wind

Trini Lopez, If I Had a Hammer

New Christy Minstrels, Green, Green

Romantic/Torch

Brenda Lee, Losing You

Barbara Lewis, Hello Stranger

Ruby and the Romantics, Our Day Will Come

Bobby Vinton, Blue on Blue

Black Girl Groups

Orlons, Not Me

Shirelles, Foolish Little Girl

Chiffons, One Fine Day

Crystals, Da Doo Ron Ron

Solo Black Artists

Doris Troy, Just One Look

Inez Foxx, Mockingbird

Sam Cooke, Another Saturday Night

White Boy Groups

Randy and the Rainbows, Denise

Dovells, You Can't Sit Down

Four Seasons, Candy Girl

Solo White Artists

Bobby Darin, 18 Yellow Roses

Wayne Newton, Danke Schoen

Elvis Presley, Devil in Disguise

Those were just some of the songs from that summer of '63, the summer before the JFK assassination. It was a hopeful time, race relations were on the mend. But then everything fell apart and here we are 50 years later in the midst of serious national decline with a incompetent race-baiting leftist occupying the White House.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Gene Pitney

Gene Pitney was born 17 February 1940 and died 5 April 2006. Biography here.

Pitney was something of a melodramatic crooner in such hits as Town Without Pity, but he also penned upbeat chartbusters like Hello Mary Lou for Rick Nelson when he was called Ricky and He's a Rebel for the Crystals. The latter, featuring Phil Spector's wall-of-sound production job, has that oddly stirring quality common to many of Spector's productions.

Bobby Vee's Rubber Ball is a Pitney composition.

I Wanna Love My Life Away

Only Love Can Break a Heart, 1962. One of the great torch songs of the 1960s.

24 Hours From Tulsa, 1963

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

Crying. But the Big O does it best with a little help from K D Lang.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Some Suicides

Del Shannon (Charles Weedon Westover), December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990, known prmarily for his Billboard Hot 100 #1 hit, Runaway, 1961. "Suffering from depression, Shannon committed suicide on February 8, 1990, with a .22-caliber rifle at his home in Santa Clarita, California, while on a prescription dose of the anti-depressant drug Prozac. Following his death, The Traveling Wilburys honored him by recording a version of "Runaway"." (Wikipedia)

Dalida, O Sole Mio. I think I'm in love. "Dalida (17 January 1933 – 3 May 1987), birth name Iolanda Cristina Gigliotti, was a singer and actress who performed and recorded in more than 10 languages including: French, Arabic, Italian, Greek, German, English, Japanese, Hebrew, Dutch and Spanish." [. . .]On Saturday, 2 May 1987, Dalida committed suicide by overdosing on barbiturates.^[7]^[8] She left behind a note which read, "La vie m'est insupportable… Pardonnez-moi." ("Life has become unbearable for me… Forgive me.")" (Wikipedia)

The Singing Nun, Dominique, 1963. "Jeanine Deckers (17 October 1933 – 29 March 1985) was a Belgian singer-songwriter and initially a member of the Dominican Order in Belgium (as Sister Luc Gabrielle). She acquired world fame in 1963 as Sœur Sourire (Sister Smile) when she scored a hit with the her French-language song "Dominique". She is sometimes credited as "The Singing Nun". [. . .]

Citing their financial difficulties in a note, she and her companion of ten years^[8]^[9]^[10], Annie Pécher, both committed suicide by an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol on 29 March 1985.^[11]^[12]
In their suicide note, Decker and Pécher stated they had not given up their faith and wished to be buried together after a church funeral.^[7] They were buried together in Cheremont Cemetery in Wavre, Walloon Brabant, the town where they died.^[13] The inscription on their tombstone reads "I saw her soul fly across the clouds", a line from Deckers' song "Sister Smile is dead". (Wikipedia)

Phil Ochs, Small Circle of Friends. There but for Fortune. "Philip David Ochs (/ˈ oʊ k s /; December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer) and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and distinctive voice. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and released eight albums in his lifetime." [. . .] "On April 9, 1976, Ochs hanged himself.^{[110]" (Wikipedia)}

Time to Fire Up the BBQ

But before I do, I'll wish my American readers a happy and healthy Fourth of July to the strains of Johnny Horton's The Battle of New Orleans.

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Captain Beefheart and Buck Owens

Don Van Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart, died of complications of multiple sclerosis at age 69 in December, 2010. Obituary here. Apparently, hanging out in the Mojave desert can do strange things to your head. Here is a taste of desert strangeness from the 1969 Trout Mask Replica album. Far out, man. Here is something rather more accessible from the 1967 debut Safe as Milk album. And I think I remember hearing Abba Zabba from that same album back in the day. (Which reminds of the saying, 'If you remember the '60s, you weren't there.')

From Lancaster-Palmdale to Bakersfield and the 'Bakersfield sound' of Buck Owens and his Buckaroos. I once had a girlfriend, half Italian, half Irish. Volatile combo, not recommended. I had me a Tiger by the Tail. My wife's half Italian, but the phlegmaticity of her Polish half mitigates, moderates, and modulates her latent Italianate volcanicity, which remains blessedly latent, if it exists at all.

Truck Drivin' Man. Act Naturally.