BREAK/BROKEN: BREAKDOWN

Hmmm, possibly straying to close to the bone with this one, given I am currently "unwell" and away from work. Let's just say the NHS is a tough frontline to be patrolling at present, as we balance the (I wish!) post-plague demand with the ongoing per-plague issues, with much less than pre-plague resources or manpower. I'm OK, no walls hit, being able to recognise the signs and to get the help, but it set me thinking about how popular music tackles this phenomenon. Sure, I need to call it stress and burn-out, but it is, is it not, as much a cipher as was/is nervous breakdown. (And I'm sorta guessing, that the myriad breakdowns in bluegrass are probably a whole different kettle, if a shame, as there are so many good ones.....)

19th Nervous Breakdown/Rolling Stones

Clearly the template was the Stones. Far from number 19 myself, it is a cracking little number, prescient and surprisingly forthright for its day, when Jagger was singing about more than just chicks and whips. Indeed, it was, almost, a subject they stuck with for a while, but I'm eschewing the mother's little helpers for now. But that's enough about me. Where else can we find psych advice?

Breakdown/Grace Jones

I am uncertain if, in the the original Tom Petty version, this was a song that fits this concept/conceit, with the lyric sounding an almost passive aggressive exhortation to a possibly soon to be ex, but I so much like the idea of Grace Jones imparting wellbeing advice. I think she might, too. So, that being sufficient, Dr Jones is yer girl. Mind you, she has form in this arena. And her remedy, is it not, actually half the battle. 

Breakdown/Dawn McCarthy & Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Kris Kristofferson strikes me as a fella who knows a demon when he sees one, and he certainly captures the sense of oft accompanying melancholia that can sit alongside anxiousness, shame and guilt. He wrote the above song, arguably better known in the version by the Everly Brothers, but I like this one, the poignant pairing of vocals as evocative as the siblings, maybe, courtesy Oldham/Billy, that little bit more. 

Breakdown/Jack Johnson

I think this is probably allegorical, a characteristically bouncy song from the onetime surf dude. I think he is better than he usually gets credit for, and if he can't say stop, I want to get off, well, who can? It is an insightful lyric, actually, and one that heightens my opinion of him all the more. For perspective, however, i offer the below, a truly ludicrous song that has my tongue as far in my cheek as it goes. If I were ever to worry, ol' Eddie has me convinced I ain't. Which makes this indulgence totally therapeutic, don't it?

Nervous Breakdown/Eddie Cochran

So much better am I now feeling, care of the healing power of rock and roll, here is something that also popped up, something I have on an odd compilation, Beginners Guide to Asian Lounge, which is actually pretty good. The mix of instrumentation and internal rhythms are quite a good representation of the maelstrom of conflicting emotions that congress when the candle has burnt too hard. Unless I am just hearing that as I need, but, either which way, all things being equal, normal service to be returned sooner or later

Emotional Breakdown/Mo Magic

(You liked the Earl Scruggs at the beginning too, did you?)

SOMETHING WITH 20: TWENTY FLIGHT ROCK

OK, OK, a bit obvious, but I can think of a dozen and two thirds reasons why it has legs aplenty, perhaps even enough for two crabs. Plus, and here is the bonus, it gives the opportunity to celebrate one Connie 'Guybo' Smith. Who he? What, aw, c'mon (everybody), SWIDT.

No, of course I didn't know either, a gap in my and, possibly,  your encyclopaedic I am now happy to fill.
Twenty Flight Rock, or 20 Flight Rock as it looks better, was a rock'n'roll/rockabilly banger that first made its appearance in 1956 film, The Girl Can't Help It, a film to celebrate the emergence of teenagers as a viable sub-group of society and a market for the cinema to exploit. Naturally, music and sex were the selling points, the latter in the form of twin peaks, not the film, actress Jayne Mansfield. As in most such films, the plot is the usual mess of wannabe stars, svengalis and shattered dreams. Or thereabouts. The plot doesn't really matter, it is really all about the music, the OST littered with soon to be idols like Little Richard, Gene Vincent, Fats Domino and, of course, Eddie Cochran.

Following the success of the film, Cochran put out the song again, re-recorded, to be a bit more polished than the raw barnyard trio version in the film, where the instrumental might had been voice, guitar, bull fiddle and a cardboard box. A 2nd guitar and backing vocals were added for the newer version, which is, inevitably, not a patch on its predecessor. Apart from Cochran, the other one constant was Guybo. A boyhood chum of Cochran, he played various stringed bass instruments alongside him for most of the early classic years, and was on the farewell tour of the UK, that ironically became just that, as Cochran was killed in a road traffic accident. Guybo lost his place in the sun, but continued to be a reliable source of detail around these formative days, popping up in documentaries. Hell, he even has a facebook page, if somewhat quiet of late.

Arguably the Cochran legacy gained no small boost from his death: nothing like the early burn of a free spirit to grant status as an icon. This happened perhaps more in the UK than at home, as, unlike many of his compatriots yet or ever to grace these shores, the british Teddy Boys took especially to Cochran, likewise to, injured in the same crash but surviving, Gene Vincent. (But let's face it, these cool dudes looked one whole lot more street than much of their R'n'R compadres.)

The song has lived on in many versions. True, most do nothing fancy with it, regurgitating the basics and, give or take an occasional sax, leaving at that. Indeed, think of any revivalist band treading the boards between now and then, yup, they'll do it, whether anodyne chart teds, Showaddywaddy, or genuine believers like the Stray Cats. But a few bear mention. Legend has it that it was the song used by Paul McCartney to serenade John Lennon, as the latter recruited the former to what, in time, became the Beatles. No recordings of that remain, bar this near decade later studio eavesdrop, but McCartney has oft included it in live performances. I prefer this version, however, from the Beatles in Hamburg biopic, Backbeat, where the story and the song see to come together.

Rivals the Stones, always IMHO a sturdier torch holder of the R'n'R essence, had to show that anything they did was better, an easier task given the Beatles being long gone by this 1981 performance.

But all this rock and roll credibility forgets this is essentially a rockabilly song, the country hick version, no les potent for its lesser sophistication. So who better than Commander Cody to give a (slight, very slight) country twist.

Perhaps the closest in spirit to 1956 and The Girl Can't Help It is this final clip, the effervescent energy of Leith identical twins, Craig and Charlie Reid, aka the Proclaimers, bursting through the grooves.

Rock the joint!

Creepy Crawlies: Boll Weevil

Eddie Cochran: Boll Weevil

[purchase]

You don't hear much about Eddie Cochran or the boll weevil anymore, but they were once both a pretty big deal.