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.

All Apologies: "Regrets? I've Had a Few" Edition

Susan Werner: Sorry About Jesus

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Ani DiFranco: Superhero

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Dory Previn: Left Hand Lost

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Where does sorry end and regret begin... or vice versa? - there's a fine line between apologizing to someone else and apologizing to yourself for things you wish you'd done/said/thought differently... things which are unalterably life-changing, and indelibly mark a that-was-then, this-is-now crossroads...

Susan begs forgiveness for weird "Jesus freak" (we all knew one) behavior while in high school - "I'm hardly like the person that I was back then"...

Ani laments a relationship-induced self-transformation from strong to vulnerable, knowing she can never go back - "and now look at me, I am just like everybody else"...

Dory ponders who she would have been and what she might have accomplished, if she had not allowed the nuns in school to change her natural left-leaning inclination to the other side - "and I'll never be completely me again"...

I personally am sorry/regretful I don't post here as often as I used to, sometimes even missing a week altogether (very unlike me!) - I vow to do better in the future...

All Apologies: Glad and Sorry

Faces: Glad and Sorry

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"Glad and Sorry" is a bittersweet Ronnie Lane song from the last Faces album, Ooh La La. It's one of those songs that works better when you don't try to analyze it. It's all about the performance. You pick up the vibe from the music, and maybe a few words resonate, but that's all you need to know.

Golden Smog: Glad and Sorry

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Twenty-something years later, alt-rock supergroup Golden Smog covered it on their first full-lengther, Down By the Old Mainstream. The main piano riff is rendered on electric guitars, giving the song a bit more edge, but otherwise their version is spot on. The loose, relaxed vibe that permeates the album made "Glad and Sorry" a perfect fit.

All Apologies: I'm Sorry I Love You

The Magnetic Fields: I'm Sorry I Love You

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The driving force behind the Magnetic Fields, Stephen Merritt is well known in certain circles for his apt ability to evoke the complex emotions of the hipster set. Case in point: his delightfully imperfect three-volume 69 Love Songs project, which - like poet Pablo Neruda's 100 Love Sonnets - provides an intensely personal collective litany of the many ways that love manifests in our hearts and our lives.

The jangly, fuzzed-out eastern-toned surf-rock of I'm Sorry I Love You makes for an interesting apology/sorrow song, framing love as a temporary rose, fraught with its own passing, and the sorrow and pain that inevitably follows. The paired male-and-female vocals lend a rich layer of nuance to the universality of the message, too. Listen to the end, though, and the truth is revealed: roses bloom and die, but in this case, at least, the hopelessness and bitterness present in our narrator's lyric springs from the cavalier attitude of the gardner, not the rose inherent.

All Apologies: Forgive Me

Patti Rothberg: Forgive Me

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The biggest part of saying you're sorry is so you can potentially get the offended party's forgiveness. Despite being the offended party in the scenario, this song became very pertinent to me after a break-up I had many years ago, when I felt like if I had just not played it so cool, if I had just not played hard to get, or had been faster in realizing I wanted to be with him, then maybe he wouldn't have gotten bored and moved on.

Patti Rothberg had minor success with her single "Inside" from her debut album "Between the 1 and the 9" in the late '90s, but hasn't been able to recreate the magic since. This song is from that stellar debut that still remains one of the favorites in my collection, simple and affective songwriting that often touch on feelings that are slightly different than the typical love and lost that most are about.

All Apologies: I’ll Say I’m Sorry Now

Shawn Colvin: I‘ll Say I‘m Sorry Now

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Often, “I’m Sorry” means “I’ll change and try to undo what I have done”. But there also times when it simply means “I wish things had gone differently.” I’ll Say I’m Sorry Now finds Shawn Colvin’s narrator facing the fact that her relationship is doomed. She knows she can’t fix it, but she’s not quite ready to give it up entirely. She wants to apologize while she still can. And she does so beautifully. The arrangement on this one is suitably spare. There is no way to dress up what she has to say, no way to make it easier to take.

All Apologies: I Apologize

Billy Eckstine : I Apologize

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This 1950 hit for bop big band leader cum vocalist Billy Eckstine is a cover of an earlier Bing Crosby song. It showcases his smooth-as-butter baritone with a lush orchestra. And damn, does he ever sound sincerely sorry! I'd forgive him, wouldn't you?

Eckstine broke a lot of musical ground, both in the bop jazz world (working with Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Sarah Vaughan, Dexter Gordon, Art Blakey…) and as one of the first black romantic singers interpreting American standards. His 1942 rendition of Skylark introduced the first black vocalist ever heard on US network radio. If not for the overarching racism in America at the time, he probably would've been as popular as Frank Sinatra, who recommended Eckstine as his replacement when his voice failed during the late 40's.

And now I'll offer my own apologies for not being able to post again for the next week – I'm headed for the east coast.

All Apologies: Sorry

The English Beat: Sorry

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I am sorry that I missed last week's challenge, being on vacation ("up north" in the vernacular of the natives) and away from my computer. This is kind of a two-fer, then, although I'd have chosen this song anyway.

The English Beat (or simply The Beat in Britain) was probably one of the better-known ska revival bands that popped up in England in the late 70's (as did The Selector, who Darius featured a few weeks back). They banged out albums in 1980, 1981, and 1982 and then broke up to form two new bands: Fine Young Cannibals and General Public.

This song is from their last album. What made the English Beat one of my favorite bands was not only their infectious rhythm, their sparkling vocals, and their tight arrangements, but their clever lyrics, e.g.:

Words are just another violence,
Nothing rings as true as silence.

Dave Wakeling, lead singer and nouveau Californian, has reformed the English Beat in recent years and tours the US regularly. They perform the old hits and are quite good if you have a chance to catch them live.

All Apologies: Criminal

Fiona Apple: Criminal

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I would like to begin by assuring our readers that our One Word theme is indeed over. But it’s hard to apologize, to admit that you were wrong. So that explains the one-word titles to start the week. Sometimes one word is all you can manage.

Take Fiona Apple. Her character in Criminal knows she must apologize. But she can’t quite bring herself to do it. It’s never stated who is being addressed in the song, but it’s not the lover she has wronged. She has gone to friend, or maybe even a therapist, to help her find the courage to apologize. The remorse is already in place, so she’s just seeking that final push.

All Apologies: Apology

The Posies: Apology

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And I asked again
Would it be alright for me
To acquire someone else's disenchantment?
I could reconnect to another time and place
Reconsider letting loose and running rampant

Take me back
Teach me
Take me back
Apology
I never meant to be and I won't take much with me

Just an open mind and a second nature
Don't forget you might just drink the water
If it illustrates the nonesuch nomenclature

So push the button ring the bell
Behold your tongue it's served you well
Enough to bring you here, won't you please

If we fall to touch

There will be no backlogged time
You can make believe it like a bunch of postcards
And the stones will read in a modest fashion
Don't expect too much - you might be disappointed

One Word / All Apologies: Sorry

Caitlin Cary: Sorry

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And I am sorry, sorry, sorry for my arms.
I tried to protect you.
Sorry, sorry, sorry for my arms.
I have darkened all of your charms.

Caitlin Cary may be less famous than Ryan Adams, her better-known partner in Whiskeytown, but don't sell her short: the fiddle playing songwriter has a power that lingers, regardless of mainstream cachet. And she certainly knows how to play the strong one, as in this gentle Americana ballad, its lyric a litany of regret for the way her shadow and strength and well-intentioned protection stunted the growth of someone loved yet unnamed.

Odds are good that Cary's "other" here is a lover, not a child. But the potential is there, and it's a scary conceit, for a parent - so hard, in the end, to nurture without smothering, to protect without damaging, and almost impossible to know whether you've gone too far until it's too late to do more than regret. As such, I keep Cary's apology as a morality play, a bulwark against the balance, a reminder that love can kill. May we never need to step into her sentiment.

One Word: Hush

Deep Purple: Hush

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Written by Joe South, covered most effectively by Deep Purple. This is one of the great singles of 1968, in my opinion.

One Word: One World Edition

Every week, we find out what the new theme is, and every week there are artists I want to post who don’t have a song that fits. This week has given me the chance to get to some of these artists. Here are three more.

Tish Hinojosa: Rancherita

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Tish Hinojosa is a Mexican-American. The album I have, Homeland, is a celebration of her heritage, so it’s only natural that some of the songs are in Spanish. Rancherita means “little ranch girl”, and here she is serenaded beautifully by the cowboy who loves her. The accordion part, by the legendary Flaco Jiminez, has a bit of a polka feel to it. Settlers from Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe brought their accordions and their polkas with them when they came to Texas. There, Mexican migrant workers heard this new sound, and brought it back with them to Mexico. And that’s how the accordion found its way into norteno music.

Angelique Kidjo: Batonga

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Angelique Kidjo hails from the African country of Benin, but her music is an amalgam of various African styles, as well as being influenced by American R & B and even rock. She has done amazing covers of Jimi Hendrix and the Rolling Stones. Batonga is an original song. Most of the words are in Yoruba, but the title is a word Kidjo made up when she was a girl. She used it to respond to boys who taunted her at school, and they had no response because they didn’t know what the word meant, and they didn’t want to admit their ignorance to a girl. Batonga, to Kidjo, has come to be an assertion of a girl’s right to an education, and it is now the name of a foundation in which Kidjo is very much involved, and which is dedicated to that purpose.

Jim Lauderdale: Whisper

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It’s not that I have anything against the English language. I had better like it, since it’s the only one I speak. And it is certainly possible to express oneself beautifully in English. Take Whisper. In 1978, this song would have been a country chart topper, and regarded as a classic country song ever since. Whisper is a great example of how to say I love you in a country song, and Lauderdale gives a wonderful sincere performance. The production is perfect, with the song having everything it needs and not a trace of the overpruduction that mars so many country songs. The only trouble is, Whisper didn’t come out until 1998. By then, was considered alt-country, and not nearly enough people got to hear it. I’m happy to have a chance to do a little something about that.

One Word: Home

Azure Ray: Home

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I wasn't sure where to go with this theme since there are so many possibilities, but I knew I wanted to choose a word that really meant something, that was important.

"Home" means something different to everyone. Despite my mother living longer in our current house than she ever did in the place where she grew up, that area is still "up home" for her. And then there's people who feel very little attachment to a place but instead feel it to people, either because they moved around a lot, or because they don't have fond memories of where they grew up and therefore feel no attachment to it. But when we do call something "home", it's a good thing, it's the place we want to be, the place we feel safest and more like ourselves. Sometimes it becomes where ever your family is, or sometimes it's a specific house, piece of land, or an area. Where you know the streets by heart, where they sell all the foods you grew up on, and where you can still see your 3rd grade teacher at the grocery store every once in a while.

Next month I am moving. I had moved home and was living with my folks in the house I grew up in the last few years until I saved up some money, and now I am moving to another state, and away from what I call "home", and despite loving where I am moving, and being excited about starting this new venture, I don't think any place will ever be "home" like that old farmhouse I grew up in.

This song is good because it deals with all those feelings of comfort and belonging that come from feeling "at home", and the fact that sometimes that means being around the people you choose to be your family, and not the ones given to you genetically. It's a beautiful, and emotional song that really fits the word.

One Word: Satellites

Rickie Lee Jones: Satellites

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Whatever became of Rickie Lee Jones? She burst on the scene thirty years ago with her huge hit Chuck E’s In Love, and then vanished, never again coming anywhere near that kind of success. Of course, I’m sure many of our readers know that she’s been here all along. Jones has released a steady stream of albums ever since that debut. She has even managed to stay on a major label. And she has proven to be a brilliant songwriter and a very good interpreter of other people’s songs. But Jones has always had a distinct persona, (her detractors call it an affectation), of this jazzy street urchin. Her best songs are poetry with mostly acoustic musical settings that suit the characters and moods perfectly.

All of this is on display in Satellites. The song seems to me to be a celebration of a friendship that is deepening into something more, but, as happens with the best songwriters, other interpretations are possible. The joy of the moment is unmistakable. The musicality of the piece is revealed in Jones’ use of dynamic shifts; the song goes from louder to softer sections in unexpected ways. Get to know the song though, and you won’t be able to imagine doing it any other way.

One Word: The Pearl Jam Edition

Pearl Jam: Porch

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Pearl Jam: Breath

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Pearl Jam: Corduroy

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Pearl Jam: Smile

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Pearl Jam: Wishlist

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Pearl Jam: Sad

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When I first started posting here (thanks, Ramone666!) I was adviced to keep the posts as short as possible. I always try to and I usually fail. I'm a born rambler.

But this time I will keep it short. I will only say that Pearl Jam is the greatest active American rock band, and any other band can only hope to achieve such an impressive body of work.

One Word: Amnesia

Kevin Salem: Amnesia

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I can't remember why I posted this song.

Oh that's right...because it rocks! It's just meat-and-potatoes guitar pop, but that's not a bad thing. This song was part of my personal soundtrack in the mid-'90s, and it still sounds good today. I'm glad I didn't forget about it.

One Word: Penguin Café Orchestra Edition

Penguin Café Orchestra: Milk

Penguin Café Orchestra: Coronation


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When the Penguin Café Orchestra released their more or less eponymous album, Music from the Penguin Café in 1976, the record stores were perplexed. The music was too discordant to be classical, too melodic to be avant-garde, folk wasn’t the word and neither was pop, or prog rock. The state of confusion was perhaps added to by the musicians including Simon Jeffes and Steve Nye whose careers crossed effortlessly between classical and rock. For years the album was hard to find precisely because retailers didn’t know which bin it went into. One sure place to find it was in that category useful for any music that defied labels; contemporary jazz.

More subversive than confronting, Music from the Penguin Café Orchestra is a deceptive album. Some tracks wash over without calling attention to themselves until you take the time to listen closely. Others set you up to sit in a comfortable chair only to whip it away. Emotionally it reminds me of having hangovers on a Sunday afternoon when I was still young enough to have done something incredibly stupid the night before and think melancholic self–reflection was enough to redeem me. With subsequent albums the Orchestra mellowed, by which I mean there were less surprises in the music. About this time it started to be categorized as ‘new age’ and was deemed acceptable for actual cafes, as though it were the perfect music to sip a latte to. That is both wrong and embarrassing

Guest post by John

One Word: Ripple

Jimmie Dale Gilmore: Ripple

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If you have followed my posts both here and on Oliver di Place, you know that I am a great fan of the Grateful Dead. Why then am I posting a cover of Ripple? Simply because Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s version is stunning and will not be denied.

Ripple is a Robert Hunter - Jerry Garcia collaboration, with Hunter responsible for the lyrics. The song comes from the early 70s, a period when many young people were engaged in spiritual searches, and Ripple reflects this. Hunter believes in a higher power, he just hasn’t identified it yet. Some of the lyrics seem to echo Judeo-Christian writings, while other parts of the song hint at Eastern beliefs. The brief chorus is in the form of a haiku. But, whatever the tradition, Ripple is a statement of faith. And that is why the song works as a whole.

For Gilmore, that statement of faith is the key. His delivery of the lines makes it clear that he believes. Gilmore’s arrangement is an added bonus, especially the fiddle solo. This one just shines.

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.