Over: Don’t Dream It’s Over

Crowded House: Don’t Dream It’s Over
[purchase] 

When this theme was announced, I decided to write about the X song, “Once Over Twice,” but before I even started that piece, I heard Crowded House’s great ballad, “Don’t Dream it’s Over” twice on different Sirius XM stations while driving around in my car. So, it seemed like the universe, or at least the satellite radio folks, were telling me something. 

This song was discussed on this blog back in 2011, before I started writing here, by “boyhowdy,” who was one of the fine writers who attracted me to the blog as a reader first, and then as a writer. Unfortunately, he doesn’t write very often here anymore (and not at all since 2018), but still writes quite well and somewhat irregularly at Cover Lay Down. As it is my oft-stated policy not to try to write something if someone has said it better already, and because boyhowdy is a really good writer, let me quote briefly from his short post: 

this well-known EnZed pop ballad is clearly intended to be romantic in nature. But strip away the pop production . . .and it, too, transforms effectively as an anthem for our times, a call for change in a world where the vitriolic stream of talk radio madness overwhelms any attempt at rational discourse, where the news stations dumb down our world daily in their attempt to demonstrate that every idea has two equal and equivalent sides, where my inner city students struggle to find safe haven in a culture which seems to have forgotten them. 

And remember that passage was written in 2011, when the idea of Donald Trump as president still seemed like a joke. (Damn. Can’t stop inserting politics into music posts. Bad Jordan.) 

“Don’t Dream It’s Over,” was written by Neil Finn, who I still have trouble distinguishing from his older and also very talented brother Tim, for his band Crowded House, and was released on their 1986 self-titled album. It was a massive international hit, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US. Since I’m stealing stuff from better writers, here’s a description of the song two Australian writers, Andrew Ford and Anni Heino, from their book, The Song Remains the Same: 800 Years of Love Songs, Laments and Lullabies, as excerpted in The Guardian: 

It was the song you danced to at the end of the night, pressed close to the intriguing person you’d just met while wondering what might happen next. The palpable sincerity in Neil Finn’s voice and the expansive melodic line of the song’s chorus encouraged hope. The song was also fast becoming an anthem for Antipodeans overseas, the slightly maudlin counterpart to Men at Work’s novelty song Down Under. 

If you read the Guardian piece, there’s a lot more about the musical attributes of the song that I have no ability to write myself. 

According to Finn, despite the fact that he knew the song was good, it almost didn’t come together. He told Uncut (I can’t find a link to the whole interview): 

The day I did it, I knew I had something quite special. Then the next day we played it with the band and it sounded like a bag of s--t. It was only when Mitchell (Froom) suggested the bassline, which Nick (Seymour) elaborated on, that it really found its groove. I was wavering away doing demos, and Mitchell made some quite profound suggestions. Like an R&B bassline might be better than a rock or pop approach, or a Hammond organ could sound nice. These were not textures I was used to. He filled in quite a few areas that we weren't covering, but maybe it made our individual sound less distinctive. It took a while, but then 'Don't Dream It's Over' started to work in the US and whole record went on to have a pretty big life. 

Somehow, Neil Finn ended up in the most recent touring version of Fleetwood Mac (replacing Lindsey Buckingham), and the band performed the song as a duet by Finn and Stevie Nicks. Check out this version from a show in Auckland, New Zealand, not that far from where Finn was born, and where he probably never dreamed he’d be singing on stage with Stevie Nicks.

Hey now!

Over: The Once Over Twice

X: The Once Over Twice
[purchase] 

I think that the impetus behind this theme is the end of the Trump Error, and one of the things that many of us are hoping for is that politics won’t be a constant drumbeat in our brains. So, except for this brief mention, I’m going to try to steer this piece away from politics and toward music. 

Many critics consider X’s second album, Wild Gift, to be their finest, and I agree—and the fact that this is the second time I’ve written about the band here, both times about songs from the same album, bears that out. Which is not to say that they haven’t released a lot of good music (and their album from last year, Alphabetland, their first in years, would have been on my “Best of 2020” list, if I was still writing one at my other blog). But there’s something about Wild Gift’s mix of punk and Americana, and the skewed harmonies of Exene Cervenka and John Doe, that hit the sweet spot.

“The Once Over Twice” kicks off the album with a blast of punk/rockabilly guitar, and then we are off to the races with a sad, concise slice of life tale written and sung by Cervenka. The opening lines are killer: 

I just heard the sad song by another band
Sung by another man
He gave me the once over twice 

The phrase “the once over twice” generally means giving an attractive person the “once over” and liking what you see so much that you feel compelled to do it again. Clearly, it is a sign of attraction, so are we seeing the start of a new relationship? Something hopeful? Nope. 

I said when
He said okay so long. 

Oh well. After considering her options, in the face of rejection, the singer decides: 

I got some more scotch instead 

Before beginning to wallow a little: 

Then I died a thousand times
He hung me with the endless rope
Then I died a thousand times
Maybe you don't but I do
Got a hole in my heart size of my heart 

And then, it appears, she reaches acceptance: 

I'll see you and I'll raise you off the floor
I'll floor you and we'll dance without a band 

In an article from a few years ago about the album, the writer recounted Cervenka telling him that Wild Gift, "showed off ‘our sense of humor,’ . . . More personalized songs such as ‘The Once Over Twice’ detailed a want for something greater, but settling ‘for some more scotch instead.’ She continues that, as a writer, she lived for whatever was inside her head, then worked to get it all out quickly.” 

Whether or not you agree with Rick Anderson, an Allmusic reviewer, that some of Cervenka’s lyrics in the song “don’t amount to much more than pretentious high school noodlings” (I don’t), it is hard to disagree with his conclusion that “when she and Doe sing those lines together in their inimitable raw harmony, the effect is electric.” 

Also, later today, Trump’s term will be OVER!! OVER!! OVER!! WOOO HOOO!! 

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

Blood: Beauty Way

Eliza Gilkyson: Beauty Way
[purchase]

For the next two weeks, our theme is Blood, vaguely derived from the classic heart symbolism for Valentine’s Day which falls during this period, but also because we thought it was a good idea.

Sometimes, when a theme is announced, I need to search my iTunes library for a song, and other times something just jumps into my head. And for some reason, that is what happened here, despite the fact that there are many more obvious choices.

The amount of music out there is staggering. I’m sure that there are many people whose musical taste and collection (tangible or virtual) has basically stagnated. But for me, and other music fanatics, it is impossible to keep up. I have a pretty significant collection of music, and a pretty broad range of musical likes, but I simply can’t know everything, or keep up with all of the new good things. I hear all of the time about music I should like or should check out, and often when I do, I realize, yeah, that’s pretty good. And maybe I’ll download a few songs and check them out more.

Which is a long way of getting to my point—there are people making great music out there—music you might really like, if you heard it, but you just haven’t had the chance. Eliza Gilkyson is one of those musicians who has had a long career in the industry, great reviews, but not a huge amount of name recognition outside of the Austin area. Although, to be fair, she has been pretty popular in these pages, having been tagged in 6 prior pieces, more than Aimee Mann, Alejandro Escovedo, Pete Townshend and Harry Chapin, to randomly choose a few people with bigger profiles.

Gilkyson comes from a musical family. Her father Terry was a folksinger in the 50s and 60s, and then became a songwriter for Disney movies—his songs include “The Bare Necessities” from The Jungle Book. Her brother Tony was the guitarist in Lone Justice, and for a period, X, and also produces. Her sister Nancy is a singer and an executive at Warner Bros. Records. Eliza began her career singing on her father’s demos and soundtracks, including a couple of Disney TV shows. She moved from Hollywood to Santa Fe, New Mexico in her late teens, started a family and began releasing records. Her musical and personal journey took her to Austin, then back to Los Angeles, then to Taos and to Europe, before returning to Austin. Her son Ryder has produced some of her albums, and her daughter Delia has sung on some of them. Her songs have been covered by Joan Baez, Lucy Kaplansky, Bob Geldof, Roseanne Cash and others. She even has a couple of Grammy nominations, and was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame.

Our featured song, “Beauty Way,” from Gilkyson’s 2000 release, Hard Times In Babylon, is a semi-autobiographical tale about the hard life of a musician who comes close to, but just misses, hitting it big. What always struck me about the songs were her lyrics, which make it almost seem like her desire to play music was irresistible, and that she simply had to keep going, no matter what the result:

I worked the clubs along the Sangre de Cristos 
Polished the diamond in the rough 
By the time I hit L.A. I was hotter than a pistol 
But you're never hot enough little darling 
You never really hot enough 

I felt the lights on the big, big stages 
The fire burning in my soul 
I've had those nights when my guitar rages 
But it's not something you control little darling 
It's not something you control 

And there’s the blood reference—the Sangre de Cristo mountains, which run from Colorado to just north of Santa Fe. But I also think of the metaphorical blood that Gilkyson spent trying to make it in the music business.

A little side note--back in the days before iPods and CD burning, I was one of those people who made mixtapes, which I listened to on a tape player or in the car. In 2001, I included a version of “Beauty Way” on a tape, followed by a Los Lobos song, “Down on the Riverbed.” At some point, I was listening to the tape, and realized that the two songs mentioned red-tailed hawks, making it a great subconscious segue. Which is something that only ex-college radio DJs think about.

Fireworks: The Fourth of July

X: The Fourth of July

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LA Punks, country troubadours, rockabilly guitars, deeply rooted Americana rock. X had it all covered. 

X were ahead of their time, firmly planted in punk, but expanding deep into what we now all alt-country. They were the sound of Los Angeles for a while, but their expressive, off-centered sound had a broad appeal. See How We Are is a ready-made prose poem, filled with images of stories you know and might have told about yourself.

Founder and co-leader, Jon Doe is a bit of a renaissance man—actor, singer, poet of the miseries of life. And he’s never been better than on their break though masterpiece, 1987’s See How We Are.

“The Fourth of July” is a song about dissolution and loneliness . Doe’s protagonist tells of a relationship that is fading fast but he still clings to what they had. He says he has no idea what’s wrong, but offers a full, blanket apology for whatever he’s done. It’s dark melodrama, but he uses the 4^th of July motif as a way to say, whatever’s wrong, let’s forget about it for tonight and celebrate. The Mexican kids shooting fireworks below don’t care what’s happened, and really, why should they, and why should we, for that matter?

Fireworks in the air; the summer is still young; you should be drunk and celebrating late into the night like there really isn’t anything serious to worry about. The 4^th of July is one of those kinds of holidays where everything should be golden and horizons untroubled. It’s always been one of the best days of any year for me.  X’s take on the day might be wrapped around a tearful little lament, but it sounds great—chiming, Leslied guitars, reverbed-out drums, Exene Cervenka’s gospel-glorious backing vox.

X started much different than what they ended up as, trading trashy, rifle-shot punk tunes for something much more rock ‘n roll, full of the traditional soaring choruses, strutting and twanging guitars , always with a hint of rockabilly reverb, and Doe’s low drone playing off Cervenka’s beautiful and sharp howl. They never lost the sharp edges, but X did lots of sounds well, and to me, that’s as punk as you get—doing it the way you want to, disdaining labels and just playing it out as loud, fast and hard as you can.

 

National Celebrations: 4th of July

X: Fourth of July

[purchase]

Two weeks in a row of me going with the obvious choice. But, sometimes the obvious choice can be a good one. Dave Alvin's "Fourth of July" is a great song. It's not necessarily about patriotism, and yet it is. Alvin's lyrics ostensibly tell the story of a deteriorating relationship. (Could his declaration "We gave up trying so long ago" refer to both his romance and his nation?) It's also a tale of working class poverty, a familiar theme in Alvin's music. The song's narrator lives "on the lost side of town" and isn't getting July 4 as a day off from work. And why are those darn kids shooting off fireworks?! Oh, yeah: "We forgot all about the Fourth of July!"

Despite the despair, the song ends on an optimistic note. "Whatever happens, I apologize," he tells his wife/lover. And he finds an appreciation for those kids -- Mexican kids, he specifies throughout the song -- celebrating their country and the American spirit.

Pretty good songwriting for a guy who started out as "merely" an ace rockabilly guitarist. Through a long career, Alvin has grown so much as a composer that he's now as much known for his songwriting as his virtuoso guitar work.

In a book about the influences of Townes Van Zandt's songwriting (I'll Be Here in the Morning: The Songwriting Legacy of Townes Van Zandt), Alvin identifies with another Texas songwriting legend: "I'd probably be more in the Guy Clark camp, because my songwriting style is more journalistic....The drama is in the stories, in life is where dreams and reality collide. We go through the day-to-day life...and that's where the collision between how we think it should be and the humdrum of survival is."

"Fourth of July" is Alvin's signature song, and he's recorded it many times. My favorite remains the first version, from his brief stint with X, on which he plays guitar, with John and Exene handling vocals.

Musical Couples: Exene Cervenka & John Doe

X: White Girl
[purchase]

When I graduated from high school in 1978, rock radio in New York still mostly played classic rock, even on the now legendary WNEW-FM, which was tamer than in its true heyday, but still played a little broader selection of music. We really didn’t hear much punk music, but some of the “new wave,” like Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson began to infiltrate the playlists. At some point that year, WPIX-FM began to focus on playing new wave (their slogan was, “From Elvis to Elvis”), but by the time it was beginning to get some traction, I was off to college. Starting in early 1979, I began to work at WPRB-FM, our college radio station, which I have mentioned more than a few times already. It was there that I began to really be exposed to new wave, punk, and hardcore music. But even then, it was still enough of a niche that we had a “specialty show” that ran once a week after midnight called “Crest of the New Wave.” (Along with others, such as “The Musical Box,” for prog rock.) I learned to mix in the newer sounds with more of the music I had listened to in high school, leading to, I hoped, an interesting and eclectic mix on my shows, and later when I became program director, on the station as a whole. I still try to do that on my iPod, and that appreciation for a varied mix of music is why I have long been a fan of this blog and have enjoyed writing for it over the past few months. I’d also like to point out that my son is a college DJ at WSPN-FM, and his show is called “Throw It Against The Wall And See What Sticks,” designed to allow him to play pretty much whatever he wants, so maybe that gene runs in the family.

None of that really relates to the theme, but I write it to give some context for how I came to appreciate this song. “Los Angeles,” the debut album by X, is considered by many to be one of the seminal punk albums, mixing the energy of punk with rockabilly, country and classic rock, and featuring great lyrics, musicianship and vocals. I remember listening to it when it came out in 1980, and not really getting it, probably because I lacked the foundation to understand it at the time. I played songs from it on the radio, intrigued by the fact that this punk album was produced by Ray Manzarek of The Doors, a classic rock band that I was certainly familiar with, although I have always considered them overrated.

But over the next year, my musical horizons continued to broaden, and in 1981, X released “Wild Gift,” and I finally got it. It is just a great album (and yes, I also learned to appreciate “Los Angeles,” too). It won all sorts of critical awards and acclaim, which were justly deserved. What I liked was that “Wild Gift” wasn’t all fast songs—it was eclectic but was still coherent. To me, the standout track is “White Girl,” a slower song about punks in love, or at least in lust. Exene Cervenka and John Doe’s harmonies reminded me in many ways of those of Grace Slick and Paul Kantner from the early Jefferson Airplane music that I had become obsessed with in high school, but the subject matter of “White Girl” was rooted in and describes its own time and place. Cervenka and Doe met in 1977, formed X that year and married in 1980. They divorced in 1985, the same year that X released the ironically titled “Ain’t Love Grand.” Despite the divorce, they continued to write and record together, as well as separately, producing more excellent music.

Fade-Outs: 4th of July

X: 4th of July

[purchase]

Dave Alvin: Fourth of July

[purchase]

I've been thinking - and blogging - about fourth-generation Californian Dave Alvin this week, as my family and I head up his native coast for the last weeks of school vacation; if you're a fan, or just a curious kitten, feel free to head over to Cover Lay Down for a few coversongs from his folkier side.

But sifting through the sands of any artist's career pulls up more than coverfolk. And interestingly, though his live version, recorded fifteen years afterwards on Out of California, finds a stopping place for its slowed-down, pensive transformation, Alvin originally recorded this song twice in the same year: once as a solo artist, and once as a member of the LA-based countrypunk band X. Both of the '86-'87 versions are rockers, in the same way that Springsteen was during the eighties, though the solo take is a bit more tejano-country; both fade out into oblivion, fitting both the unfinished emotional distance of the lyrics and the wail and cry Alvin pours through his frustrated and lost narrator.

Black and White: X Edition

X: Under The Big Black Sun

[purchase]

X: White Girl

[purchase]

I have to take advantage of this week's topic to feature one of my all-time favorite bands, X. Considering how good they are, I can't believe they aren't more popular and acclaimed. So it goes.

But don't take it from me. Listen to the tunes, man.

Record Labels: Slash Records

Violent Femmes: Gone Daddy Gone [purchase]

X: White Girl [purchase]

Slash Records was one of the main labels of the Los Angeles punk movement. Starting with a Germs 7" single in 1978, Slash Records captured the sound of L.A. for eight years. In addition to The Germs, artists that got their start on Slash included X, Los Lobos, Violent Femmes & The BoDeans (both from Wisconsin), The Dream Syndicate, The Blasters, Green On Red, Gun Club, and The Misfits.

The Sun: Under The Big Black Sun

X: Under The Big Black Sun [purchase]

"Smoke in one hand, looking for a drink,
Drink in the other hand,
Pointing out midnight."

Here's a "sun" song off a "sun" album from sunny southern California. And by sunny, of course I mean dark, seedy, noir-ish underbelly. Where some folks turn to The Doors for a Bukowskian visage of Los Angeles, I always opt for X, and this was X at their peak. Actually, with Ray Manzarek on board as producer of their first four albums ... that classic run from Los Angeles to More Fun In The New World ... it was both a bridge between generations and a passing of the torch. Of this tune, the album's title track, John Doe says, "The lyrics are mostly Exene's. I was listening to a lot of Bo Diddley then, so the melody was influenced by him."

"I'm doing everything alone,
Rave on children and try to sleep."

Hell Week: Devil Doll

X: Devil Doll

[purchase]


Devil Doll is from More Fun in the New World, the fourth album by the band X. Many of the songs from the 1983 production later found themselves performed acoustic in the X side project, The Knitters. Here's an interesting 1986 video with the band, it has interviews and a live performance featuring The Blaster's Dave Alvin, who at that point in time had joined the band for a spell.

City Songs: Los Angeles

X: Los Angeles

[purchase]

If I wasn't so busy this week, I could have posted a ton of other great city songs. We'll have to do this theme again. (State and Country themes would work too.) Anyway, here's one more. Nice high energy riff on this one.