RIGHT: FATE'S RIGHT HAND/Rodney Crowell

Couldn't resist. Or at least I think I couldn't, but maybe not. Fate. Kismet. Call it what you will, it's all pre-destined, yeah? Maybe.

In keeping with my last posting, I thought I would again follow on the dextrous direction that began with red and was followed by the devil. In truth, I am not sure of what fate's right hand, or indeed left, might mean, or how they may differ, unless the former is the butter side up, the latter, butter side down. Indeed, is luck the same as fate? Is fate the same as luck? I am uncertain whether this metaphysical troubled Rodney Crowell much when writing the song. It just sorta sounds good, the lyric then being one of those stream of consciousness lists like Reasons to be Cheerful (right hand) or We Didn't Start the Fire (left hand), the words as important for their order and sound as their meaning, yet entirely also dependent thereupon. Clever, if confusing.

Rodney Crowell feels to have been around forever in my musical lifetime, first as the callow youth alongside Emmylou Harris in her Hot Band, writing the knock-out (and album stand-out) side one closer, Till' I Gain Control Again, on Elite Hotel. That was back in 1975, and he has kept on keeping on. Marrying into country royalty, becoming husband to Roseanne, daughter of Johnny, Cash in 1979, until 1992, will have done no harm either, but he was already successfully penning material for a range of significant other artists, including Bob Seger, as well as a roster of more typical country performers. Having had limited success with his solo records, he effectively put his career on hold to helm her own, writing much of the material and producing. In the 80's he hit his own paydirt, with a run of records that cemented his reputation. 1988's Diamonds and Dirt managed 5 (country) number ones alone. Here's one of 'em.

However, for me it is his later trio of recordings, starting with The Houston Kid, in 2001, that hold the strongest appeal. Biographical in style, I strongly commend these three, with Fate's Right Hand, containing the eponymous song of this piece, and The Outsider making up the triad, now commonly referred to as the Houston trilogy. This period of his life also produced his book, the commendable and likewise autobiographical Chinaberry Sidewalks: a Memoir, covering the same somewhat tumultuous childhood as do the songs. Wonderful stuff. Here's a song:

Into the last decade he has again teamed up with Emmylou Harris, producing a brace of duet albums and going on tour with her, still managing other output as well. This years Close Ties reveals him now to be an elder statesman, performing alongside ex-wife Cash and Sheryl Crow, amongst others. I have seen him twice within the last five years, once with Emmylou, and once as a featured singer with the celebrated Transatlantic Sessions, the show that brings together the best of scots/irish with american musicians, held every year over here in the UK. On both occasions he shone, the grittier counterpoint to Emmylou at the one, and an altogether americana tour de force at the other.

A final word, lest all this talk of country be off-putting. This isn't and never has been any saccharine "& western": his genre has always been in those slightly rougher roadhouses, where rockabilly meets western swing, leaving always room for a weeping steel barroom ballad, ahead of another rousing rocker. I'd like to shake his hand. Right hand.

Choose Rodney!

RIGHT: DEVIL'S RIGHT HAND

I don't know what colour the devil's right hand may be, but it would not surprise me if it were, too, red, what with what he has in it, as the theme moves to another right hand. (And there are a few other right hands out there, should the rest of the team choose to follow.....)

The song, 'Devil's Right Hand', written by Steve Earle in the very early 80's, yet appearing first on 1989's 'Copperhead Road', down to an earlier record label owning the rights to it, on an album they never released. So already typically part of the Earle paradigm of paradox, luck never quite in step with his profligate writing talents. And, since then, much as Earle's fortunes have changed in every which way, down, up and sideways, so the song has morphed with him, appearing in many styles and with, often, subtle symbolic shifts in the lyric.  It was still his encore when I saw him live last year.

At face value it is a simple and almost traditional folk ballad, warning of the dangers of gunplay. Earle himself fought initially shy of citing it an overt anti-firearms/anti-handgun song. But, at at time when his own private life was under some federal scrutiny, there came a surprising life imitates art moment.  I will let Earle take up the tale:

And I make no bones about including a 3rd version, this time the re-recording for the 'Brokeback Mountain'. Why a re-recording? It seems there was some disquietude in having a film set between 1963 and 1983 featuring a song (nominally) from after that time. This faster version is designed to be in the style of relevant time period. (And you thought filmmakers just slap any old song in to fit a mood, with neither thought nor consistency! Well, of course most do......)

With a song of this sort, a message with a moral, a good ol' tale of ornery folk, it has been hardly surprising that it has been much covered by the great and the good, with the royalty of country outlaw chic leading the way. Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings have each performed it separately, as well as together, in tandem with Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, as the Highwaymen. Webb Wilder, Bob Seger and, english folk giants, Show of Hands (not on youtube), have also done the song proud. (Strangely, and I cannot quite see why, youtube shows me that not a few white supremacist bands have taken it up. I had never quite seen them on that side of the gun lobby, not least as I might be reasonably happy to see them all shoot themselves up, but I digress...)

Devil's Right Hand, buy it and make him one-handed!! Even more versions than featured here!!!

Homonyms: Blue Monday

Bob Seger: Blue Monday (Fats Domino cover)

[purchase]

New Order: Blue Monday

[purchase]

Mondays really have a bad reputation and that plays out in musical titles. Of the many songs I know about Monday, not a single one is uplifting. There's Stormy Monday, Monday Morning Blues, Manic Monday, Rainy Days and Mondays, and of course I Don't Like Mondays. So I guess it's no surprise that there are two versions of a song called Blue Monday.

The first was a 1956 hit for boogie woogie piano bluesman Fats Domino. I'm using a cover of that song, though, by Detroit's own rocker Bob Seger, used in the soundtrack for the 1989 movie Roadhouse. His version doesn't deviate much from Fats', and after growing up outside of Detroit myself, I always like some Bob Seger!

The second is a synth pop club dance song by New Order (surprisingly, we've never posted that band before). It was the biggest selling 12" single ever in the UK, and various remixes, re-recordings, and covers roam the internet. From the book Manchester England: The Story of the Pop Cult City we find that "Blue Monday was really influenced by four songs…The arrangement came from 'Dirty Talk', by Klein & MBO, the beat came from a track off a Donna Summer LP, there was a sample from 'Radioactivity' by Kraftwerk, and the general influence on the style of the song was Sylvester's '(You Make Me Feel) Mighty Real'." Both the base and drum tracks were synthesized, and the choir was sampled from Kraftwerk, one of the first records to sample another artist's song like that.

Songwriting: Night Moves (Edit)

Bob Seger: Night Moves

[purchase]

The song Night Moves by Bob Seger recalls a youthful love affair. Seger has explained that the song was written about an Italian woman whom he dated when he was 19. He starts out the song by introducing the couple. Her “points” are self-explanatory; his “points” refer to metal objects worn by rebels on their shoes in the late 50’s and early ‘60s:

I was a little too tall
Could’ve used a few pounds
Tight pants, points, hardly renowned.
She was a black-haired beauty with big dark eyes
And points all her own, sitting way up high,
Way up firm and high.

As the love affair begins, the couple is found in the back seat of his car--practicing their “night moves.”

Out past the cornfields where the woods got heavy
Out in the back seat of my 60 chevy
Working on mysteries without any clues

Working on our night moves
Trying to make some front page drive-in news
Working on our night moves
In the summertime
In the sweet summertime

As Seger continues to describe this youthful rendezvous, he is quick to point out that the relationship was not about love or marriage, it was just a summertime romance.

We weren’t in love, oh no, far from it
We weren’t searching for some pie in the sky summit
We were just young and restless and bored
Living by the sword

And we’d steal away every chance we could
To the backroom, to the alley or the trusty woods
I used her, she used me
But neither one cared
We were getting our share

Working on our night moves
Trying to lose the awkward teenage blues
Working on our night moves
And it was summertime

For anyone who thinks sexy has to be explicit, the next verse dispels that myth. The verse concludes the first part of the song with a consummation of the physical relationship.

And oh the wonder
We felt the lightning
And we waited on the thunder
Waited on the thunder

My favorite part of the song is the pregnant pause which follows the onslaught of the lyrical thunder. The sparseness of this interlude has flavors of intimacy, solitude, but most of all satisfaction.



The song could have been a rock and roll anthem at this point. However, when the lyrics resume, the story is elevated to greatness.

It is not clear how much time has elapsed when he “awoke last night.” But it is clear that the “thunder” is not the same thunder from the previous verse. The girl is gone and the ’60 Chevy too. We don’t know if he is married, divorced, or single--whether he lives in the same town anymore, but it doesn’t really matter. All we know is that the song that he is humming from 1962 won’t be found in that week’s hit parade.

I awoke last night to the sound of thunder
How far off I sat and wondered
Started humming a song from 1962
Ain’t it funny how the night moves
When you just don’t seem to have as much to lose
Strange how the night moves
With autumn closing in . . .

When Seger sighs, “Ain’t it funny how the night moves,” the “night moves” no longer describe the physical acts of the couple. Instead, the title phrase is now talking about the passage of time.

The remembrance in this verse transforms the song. Seger is not simply bragging about a girl he dated; he is talking about more than the end of one youthful summer. The song now becomes universal. Even though the autumn of our lives is closing in, even though we may have become established “with something to lose,” even as we slog through our daily routine, the grind of the rat race, all it takes is one moment, one bolt of thunder, and all the memories of youth and vibrancy and angst and vigor come flooding back.

But why the refrain?

So Bob Seger has given us one of the classic rock songs of all time, one of my all-time favorites, and now I’m going to criticize it. Sorry, that’s how it goes.

The song should end after the line about “autumn closing in.” Instead we get a big refrain that adds nothing new and seems false. You can try to recapture the glory days, but it’s like the 50 something man at the dance club trying to pick up 18 year old women. No matter how hard you try, you can’t go back. When you hear the female back-up singers, it’s as if Seger is haunted by the memory of his first time even when he is with other women.

Had the song ended with “autumn closing in”, it would have recognized the fragility of youth, that the night has moved. To maximize the effect, it could have ended the first side on vinyl. Song fades to silence, the needle lifts and returns to rest. Time to contemplate the impact of the end of innocence and acknowledge that life moves on. Also, it would have left everyone wanting more.

The lyrics of the refrain do not add to the feeling of the song. Although Seger ends with a repetition of “I remember,” that point was already made when he started humming a song from 1962.

This is definitely one of my favorite lyrical songs of all time, but could it be better? Listen to the song again and cut it off after “autumn closing in” and consider the silence.

Bob Seger: Night Moves - Edited

What do you think?

For numerous insights into the song, try segerfile.com.

A lengthy description of the history and production (including technology) of the song and album is found at mixonline.com

For miscellaneous song facts that have not been verified for accuracy, see songfacts.com

There is undoubtedly plenty of commentary about this song in cyberspace. One that I found interesting is at popdose.com

Reader submission from Dave.