FEET/FEAT: FOOTWEAR

Unless you are super hard or super poor, all of us need some shoes on our feet, so as to protect our tootsies from the assaults of hot tarmac, wet mud, ground glass or dog poop. You name it, any of those can make a make a walk in the park anything but a walk in the park, as well as giving ample opportunity to strut your stuff or stamp your style. So, tonight I am going to be looking at the popular topic of shoes through the medium of popular song. (Well, I like 'em.)

Barefoot/Ray Collins Hot Club

Barefoot isn't shoes, but I can't resist this instance of unshoddery, so delightfully kitsch it is. Apparently the title track of a German film, thus Barfüss, it is by the Ray Collins Hot Club about whom I know nothing. So imagine my surprise as I discover they still exist and are still playing, having only come into being this century.

Men in Sandals/Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby

Ooof! Has there ever been a better exposition of the horror of men in sandals? DOI, here, I am actually quite partial to a sandal in the summer, although only ever paired with shorts or flappy linen trousers, as they don't go with else. And never, absolutely with socks, that peculiarly English affectation that curdles my blood. Wreckless Eric is a chap unlikely to take kindly to the sort of men who rock that particular folly, with his wife, Amy Rigby singing and explaining exactly why.

Bad Sneakers/Steely Dan

I never got the fancy trainers argument, all these megabuck sports shoes worn as a badge of one-upmanship. Wrong generation, I guess, my son still near needing a separate room to house his collection, at 13 his defined go-to essential in a family trip to NY in the 90s being the Nike Store. To me they are just plimsolls or gym shoes, not my bag at all. I don't see Becker and Fagen ever having been that keen either.

New Shoes/Paolo Nutini

Back at the beginning of his career, Scots-Italian singer Paolo Nutini was a simpler soul, the pleasure of some new leather sufficient to give him joy. And inspiration. With his heritage, I can see him in a pair of snakeskin winkle pickers, so his expectation to be walking to the break of dawn, blister free, may be optimistic.

 

Blue Shoes Stepping/The Bible

I have a pair of blue shoes. Not suede, I am afraid, but still quite natty. I like a fancy shoe, having also examples in green and red, but the blue ones were a mistake, pinching my toes and hobbling my gait. The blue shoes quoted here sound a bit more promising. The Bible never got quite as much acclaim as they deserved, despite boasting Kirsty MacColl's brother, Neil, and ace songwriter, Boo Hewerdine in the frontline. 

In These Shoes/Kirsty MacColl

Talking of Kirsty MacColl, perhaps this is the time to veer off into the world of women's shoes, a strange and mysterious money pit where any link between the number of feet and the number of shoes needed is of no connection or relationship. A single pair is never enough and Imelda Marcos the only upper limit. (And, funnily enough, there is a song about Imelda.)

Soul Shoes/Graham Parker & the Rumour

Finally, a song that really makes me smile, especially in this version, filmed decades after Graham Parker and the Rumour originally recorded it, showing exactly my style, a built for comfort ambience embracing the band from head to their soul shoes. Of course, the video never gets around to showing their feet, but I will bet the shoes on show would be well worn and battered, much like the band themselves appear. Marvellous.

It's all cobblers, innit?! My favourite.

All Apologies: Green Monster Edition

No, this post is not about a famous wall in Fenway Park in Boston. The green monster I refer to is jealousy. It is one of our most powerful emotions, and here it drives two very different women to an act that they feel compelled to apologize for later. But their apologies are as different as are the women themselves.

Kirsty MacColl: Miss Otis Regrets

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Miss Otis Regrets is a standard by Cole Porter. Porter often focused on the foibles of the upper classes, but perhaps never as scathingly as here. The title character, driven by jealousy, has done something awful. So what does she apologize for? Through her servant, she sends regrets for missing a social engagement the next day.

Kirsty MacColl first recorded Miss Otis Regrets with the Pogues for Red Hot and Blue, an album created to raise money for AIDS awareness and research. That was a great version, but I did not feel that I could use it, because it was done in a medley with Just One of Those Things, which does not fit our theme at all. Fortunately, MacColl recorded Miss Otis Regrets again, this time as a stand-alone track. But this time, the Pogues were not involved. MacColl does just fine on her own though.

Tracy Nelson: Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair

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Now here is another woman in the same situation. Driven by jealousy, she has committed the same crime of passion as Miss Otis. But her reaction is quite different. She cannot live with what she has done, and she apologizes for something she knows cannot be made right, by begging the judge to show her no mercy. She is sorry, and she wants to pay the highest possible price. For this, she commands far more of our sympathy than Miss Otis does.

Send Me to the ‘Lectric Chair was made famous by Bessie Smith about 75 years ago. Since then, many blues and jazz singers, both female and male, have sung it. David Bromberg did a great version, and I would love to have an mp3 of Roy Bookbinder’s rendition. But, even though the arrangement is quite different, Tracy Nelson’s version strikes me as being the closest in spirit to Smith’s.

Three Minute Pop Songs / One Word: Days

Kirsty MacColl: Days

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My first post this week featured a perfect Tracey Ullman popcover of a Kirsty MacColl song; I couldn't resist the chance to end the week with an equally perfect cover performed by Kirsty herself.

Days, which first emerged on 1989 hit record Kite, is a lovely, dreamy pop take on a Kinks song that charted third highest of MacColl's lifetime releases. I've always found the song a bit more poignant since the English singer-songwriter's untimely death by speedboat a decade ago at the age of 41. And it makes a great transition song for our upcoming theme, which will feature songs with one-word titles.

Sports: England 2 Colombia 0

Kirsty MacColl: England 2 Colombia 0

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This isn’t a song about sports. Rather, the World Cup match between England and Colombia serves as a backdrop for the game being played by a man and a woman. They go on a date to a pub to root for England. She finds out that he is married. By the time England completes its decisive victory, she has learned sympathy for Colombia. This is a relationship tale as only Kirsty MacColl could tell it. She is sorely missed.

Leftovers (Horns): Latin Edition

During Horns week I didn’t have the problem of submitting material too late to get it posted; I simply had more material than I had time. This would have been my last post, if the week had been longer.

Latin America has a rich musical tradition. Here, musical ideas brought from Africa by slaves were allowed to remain more intact than in the United States, and also melded with the musical traditions of the Native Americans of the area. Add European instruments to the mix, and, eventually, you get Latin American music as we know it today. And you get some of the most exciting music for horns found anywhere in the world. It was only natural that musicians working in other genres would occasionally be drawn to Latin sounds, and would produce wonderful music of their own as a result. Here are three fine examples.

David Byrne: Make Believe Mambo

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In my post on “Mr. Jones”, I mentioned that Talking Heads’ last album sounded quite a bit like the solo album that David Byrne was working on at the time, Rei Momo. Byrne was exploring Latin music, and he was able to assemble a band of the finest Latin musicians working in New York at the time. Each song on Rei Momo explores a different style of Latin music, with the song I have chosen obviously representing the mambo. Incidentally, Rei Momo is a Brazilian term that means “king of the carnival”.

Kirsty MacColl: Mambo de la Luna

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Kirsty MacColl made a name for herself in left-of-center pop in the 1980’s. When she sought to broaden her sound, she made a trip to Cuba to learn about the music there. The result was her wonderful album Tropical Brainstorm. Sadly, this was to be her final work; she died in a boating accident not long after the album was released.

Raul Malo: Takes Two to Tango

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When Raul Malo of the Mavericks began his solo career, he wanted to celebrate his heritage. Malo was originally from Cuba, and he wanted to bring this music to an English-speaking audience. This song features guest vocals by Shelby Lynne, whose music is also well worth seeking out.

Footwear: In These Shoes?

Kirsty MacColl: In These Shoes?

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A cheeky, saucy little number from the ever wonderful, and dearly missed, Ms MacColl. This really showcases her great sense of humour and features a nice, sultry salsa-style backing.

Then I met an English man
"Oh" he said,
"Won't you walk up and down my spine,
It makes me feel strangely alive"
I said "In these shoes?
I doubt you'd survive"
I said "Honey, let's do it!"