DONE: RUST (WHAT'S DONE IS DONE)

Nothing like a bleak and misty January morn to instil a sense of hopelessness. No, scratch that, not hopelessness, more inevitability. Hopeless is a a state of feeling, an ur-idealism, whereas inevitability carries at least a tint of realism, an acceptance possibly,  rather than the blanket sense of fear. Which may have you thinking to skip this one, for fear of contagion. But don’t go, I’m OK and this gets lighter. Well, not the song. Clearly.

Rust (What's Done Is Done/Therapy?

A confession. I originally planned this post around a different song altogether, that being the Joni Mitchell deep cut, Nothing Can Be Done. But I discovered my compadre, KKhafa of this parish, was planning on doing the same song, getting his dibs in first. That needed some swift recalibration, and another song to convey a similar mood. Digging around in various lyrics search engines I eventually came across this, by Therapy?, the metalheads from N'orn, a band I have never knowingly heard or investigated. But their name, ahead of listening to the track, gave a semblance of also being able to address the full mental health of my current. Plus, for all I knew, maybe listening to them would prove good medicine. (Intriguingly, a scan through their song titles gave me no small joy, as they contain some evident wit and a fair amount of apparent self-deprecation. Jude the Obscene certainly grabs the eye, as a title, as does Stark Raving Sane and Perversonality, each title suggesting some experience on one side or other of a white coat or padded cell.)

Stories (cello version)/Therapy?

So, I listen, bemused. Not really heavy metal as I know or ever knew it, smacking more of punk in the pace and the attitude. Do I like it? Not sure I'd go that far, but it has a certain angular graceless charm. It comes from the band's 7th album, High Anxiety, in 2003, with wiki telling me the sound, my bad, is actually melodic punk, rather than metal, heavy or otherwise. Sometimes a four piece, as on this record, more often they have been a trio, my interest piqued by the fact that cello featured amongst their available instrumentation. Sure, it isn't really evident in Rust, but the other track, above this paragraph, displays this better. Clearly a wormhole needing exploring!

Peek-a-boo/Siouxsie & the Banshees

Martin McCarrick is the cellist, and was a member of Therapy? between 1996 and 2004, doubling also on guitar. I confess to being unfamiliar with his name, so decided to do a bit of a search, discovering him to be quite the journeyman, with time spent in, or attached to, a number of bands, with quite an illustrious career. Possibly better known as a Banshee, he featured on several of their records, between 1984 and 1995. Starting off as their string arranger, for the Thorn EP, he was later contributing keyboards, as well as playing cello. This includes the accordion in Peek-a-boo, above. But even ahead of that he was a Mamba, Marc Almond's backing band of the early 80s, and with whom he has maintained a lasting link. At possibly the same time he joined Therapy?, he was also integral to any number of looser knit collectives, including This Mortal Coil and Dead Can Dance. He would also add the strings to records by Kristin Hersh and, later, Skunk Anansie. Diversity clearly his middle name, it seems almost strange he spent so much time in the less than rarified atmosphere of the Belfast rockers. Unless it is just me? Unsurprisingly, he has since become a well known soundtrack composer, as well as working with his wife, Kimberlee, as/in the McCarricks, she playing violin to his cello.

Letter From Nagoya/The McCarricks

My final clip shows him, back with Marc Almond, back on accordion and playing live, in 2020, ahead the pandemic. Let's truly hope he isn't done.

Hymn of Love/Marc Almond

Where we began...... 

(And I no longer feel hopeless, btw.)

LEFTOVERS: LEAVES: TEA

Let's get this straight, tea is so not my cup of tea. I can't stand the stuff, being an avowedly (instant) coffee man. Yet it is an enduring image in the world of popular song, often used to evoke a peculiar englishness that has, bar the drinking of it, gone. But it gives me the opportunity for a list post, which, in the leftovers pile, will at least avoid any flak for using up "all the ideas" Thus, in time honoured, please warm your pots.......

Cup of Tea/Shack. Lovely peaceful vibes, with a hint of ye olde psychedelia which belies its youth, the song being barely a decade old. Given that it stems from the never more aptly named Head brothers, arguments might exist as to whether this song is about assam or darjeeling. Or indeed anything more exotic, but it has a timeless, restful quality I can drown in.

Penny Royal Tea/Kristin Hersh. I know, I know, it's a Kurt song, but I prefer this version to the original, excepting the Unplugged performance. I wondered quite what Penny Royal tea was, thinking it may even be a brand of teabags available in Walmart or some such, then that the song may have been a play of words, bemoaning the pitiful returns on his song publication rights: royal tea/royalty, right? As ever, wiki is my friend, and it is apparently an often unsuccessful chinese abortifacient...

Tea and Sympathy/Janis Ian. Beautiful string arrangement with typically understated Ian vocals, a wry reflection on loss. And at last a song about tea tea. I would politely endure a cup of tea under the circumstances described, and traditionally have about one cup a year, usually with aged relatives. And similar references, no doubt.

Tea For One/Led Zeppelin. Not an entirely dissimilar concept as above, portrayed and presented a little differently, it's true. Percy missing his missus, tea for one being the metaphor for alone. Whilst I can't imagine vintage Zeppelin drinking anything but (vintage) champagne, OK, maybe brown ale for Bonzo, strangely the idea of the current Plant drinking a mug of tea, probably in a Wolverhampton Wanderers mug, seems entirely apposite.

Tea Leaf Prophecy/Herbie Hancock featuring Joni Mitchell. Her song, mind, but this version has always appealed more, the original still displaying residual vestiges of a folk tendency within this, as we later learnt, decidedly jazz singer. It is also good to have a salient reminder of the erstwhile bonus in every olden days cuppa, that of having your fortune made available courtesy the leaves left in the base of the cup. Try doing that with a teabag, Mr Lipton!

Tea Stain/Tindersticks. Cripes, I love(d) this band. As an instrumental this isn't perhaps the most representative of their output, but does give the european arthouse soundtrack quality they inhabit so well. It's a pity as I can picture their lugubrious singer, Stuart Staples, finding it only too easy to imagine him with old tea stains down the front of a crumpled white shirt. (You wanna hear him sing? Sadly I can find no further tea references, Will coffee do?)

Tea For The Tillerman/Cat Stevens. Bit of vintage Cat when he was still Cat, rather than Yusuf realising he didn't sell so well without a bracketed reminder. This album and the follow up, Teaser and the Firecat, soundtracked my miserable teens, the angst and ennui of his vocals hitting a chord with lonely adolescents everywhere. There seem to be a lot of websites arguing the meaning of the phrase, but I think the picture says it well enough, whether the jovial beardy is the man who tills the soil or pulls the tiller. Personally I think the 1 minute version on the album is probably better.

Tea Leaves/The Snails. I'll be honest. This isn't the song I wanted to include, hoping that a song of equally little-known band UK The Scaremongers might be available on YouTube. It wasn't, but I encourage you look for the song, part of the Sound of Mature Huddersfield as they style themselves.
This song? It OK.

So, that's yer lot. Eight, as anything more might be seen as hogging it, seeking vaingloriously too wide a demographic where at least one song might appeal. (Memo to self, what do they drink in Tarrytown?) No room even for this......

Explore!

JULY/THE CUCKOO

Sure, you know this, of course you do. You may have sung it as a child; it certainly sounds as if you should have sung it as a child. I didn't but, when I first heard it, I sort of wish I did, or had. I first came across it on the remarkable Kristin Hersh solo album, 'Hips and Makers', in 1994, somewhat of a sidestep from her earlier and later career as, arguably, THE Throwing Muse. (No argument really, but reference is always made, compulsorily, to her half-sibling in the band, Tanya Donnelly.) Tucked in towards the end of a slew of songs of sparse self-immolation comes this cover of an old english folk song, Roud 413 no less. (Me, neither.) It stands out by virtue of its simplicity, perhaps the trigger to her later album, consisting entirely of traditional appalachian ditties, 'Murder, Misery and then Goodnight', also strongly commended. Many of this songs on that set too have a link back to the ballad traditions of Britain.

So what have cuckoos to do with July? Well, everything apparently, or sort of, at least over here. Let me direct you to the lyrics, except, being from the canon of trad.arr., often the lyric varies from version to version, as there is some uncertainty as to whether they "never holler cuckoo till the 4th of July" or whether they "sucketh white flowers to keep her voice clear", the lines apparently interchangeable. This may help. But, as I was saying, it was deemed so essential that a cuckoo's song be heard to beckon in the start of summer that the venerable Times of London traditionally published,  and may well still do, yearly letters around when readers had heard their first of the year. Indeed, a book has put these together. And for those who are thinking the 4th of July late for summer, and I write on the 15th after a full 8 weeks without rain, the suggestion is that the July versions of the song emanate from singers trying to appeal to an american ear.

The list of performers who have included this song in their repertoire is huge, not unexpectedly including the greats of folk song on both sides of the pond, from Jean Ritchie to Shirley Collins, Doc Watson to Martin Simpson, let alone Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. More surprising are versions by rock/blues screamer  Janis Joplin (in Big Brother and the Holding Company) and rapper Buck 65. Here, however are a few more elegant versions, three of my, other than Kristin, favourites.

Archetypal englishman in L.A., Richard Thompson, together with Eliza, daughter of Martin, Carthy and Canadian legend Garth Hudson:

 A radically different version from blues muso-ethnologist Taj Mahal:

And Laura Veirs, with a fairly traditional take:

Hell, I haven't even included Townes, Rory and many, many more. (And some of these, mentioned and/or featured may offer the flower sucking over July. So sue me!) But, before I send you to the record store, all this romanticism should not take away the ugly truth about this bird.

Do you know, if you like the Kristin, buy the whole damn album!