Neil Young Covers: Lotta Love

Nicolette Larson: Lotta Love

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A dear college buddy (and his wife) came into town a few nights ago for a concert... and we've had a great time catching up as well as reminiscing - last evening we invited over another couple (mutual friends from that time in our lives) and the six of us sat out on our patio until 2 a.m... eating, talking and laughing...

We also did a bit of singing, when Kathy (not having a clue as to the Star Maker Machine theme this week) asked each of us what our favorite Neil Young album was - I had to chime in with Comes a Time, which we immediately put on the CD player, followed by After the Gold Rush, which segued to Nicolette's debut album...

The story goes that "while being driven by Young in his car one day, Larson played a cassette which was the demo of Lotta Love and Young told her the song was hers if she wanted it." - her version reached #8 on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 chart in February 1979 and #1 on the Easy Listening chart, ranking as the #10 Adult Contemporary hit of the year.

Sadly, Larson died on December 16, 1997 at the age of 45 from cerebral edema - I love that we still knew all the words to these Neil Young songs, more than 3 decades after the recordings were released...

Neil Young covers: Helpless

Patti Smith: Helpless

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doa: Helpless

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Cowboy Junkies: Helpless

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I'm squeaking under the time-wire this time…I started out this posting week in the ER (I'm okay now) and my mom is also gracing another hospital with her presence (she's doing as well as an 86-year-old can). So I think the title of my post says it all when it comes to serious health issues: they can leave us feeling helpless.

Recently, Patti Smith has been broadening her punk roots: This song's downright ballad-y. It's from her 2007 album Twelve, a great selection of a dozen cover tunes.

The second version is from a 2004 EP Deadstock, which also includes pretty faithful cover versions of CSN-and-sometimes-Y tunes Ohio, Woodstock, and Find the Cost of Freedom. Will you hate me when I mention that doa are Japanese?

Finally, I've included my favorite version featuring a live Margo Timmons' soulful croon.

Aaaaand...looks like I made this week's deadline!

Neil Young Covers: After the Gold Rush

k d lang: After the Gold Rush

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One thing that has become clear to me this week is that Neil Young’s songs have layers of meaning, with different aspects calling to different listeners. Dolly Parton once asked Neil Young about the meaning of After the Gold Rush. Here is the story:

“…when we were doing the Trio album, I asked Linda and Emmy what it meant, and they didn't know. So we called Neil Young, and he didn't know. We asked him, flat out, what it meant, and he said, 'Hell, I don't know. I just wrote it. It just depends on what I was taking at the time. I guess every verse has something different I'd taken.”

To me, the song has a structure, with one verse each for past present, and future. And there is an environmental theme, with the last verse having a few humans selected to travel to a new, clean, planet and a fresh start, while the unlucky ones left behind look on in envy and sorrow for what has happened to their world. K d lang latches on to this sense of loss, and delivers one of her most subtle vocals in her version of the song. Lang can belt out a ballad with the best of them, but she knows that a quieter performance serves this song better.

Neil Young Covers: Harvest Moon

Cassandra Wilson: Harvest Moon

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I can't imagine this week going by without offering up jazz diva Cassandra Wilson's beautiful interpretation of "Harvest Moon", the closing track to her critically acclaimed 1996 album New Moon Daughter. The entire album sounds like it was recorded on a midsummer night among ancient oak trees draped in Spanish moss.
Her version of "Harvest Moon" is gilded with melancholy and is a "must hear".

Neil Young Covers: Ohio

Dala: Ohio

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I would like to believe that I can write the words “Kent State Massacre”, and everyone would know what I was talking about. But it probably isn’t the case. When it happened in 1970, it was easy to believe that no one would ever forget it, and that was what Neil Young wanted to make sure of when he wrote Ohio for Crosby Stills Nash and Young. I was nine and a half at the time, but I had an older brother who was in high school, and therefore very aware of the draft. Nowadays, it is the law here in the United States that you must register for the military draft when you turn 18. But there hasn’t been an actual draft in wartime since the Vietnam War. Our young people today take it for granted that they would only serve in an American war if they volunteered. And, partly for that reason, none of the wars the United States has fought in since Vietnam has given rise to the kinds of widespread student protests that were common in those days.

On April 30, 1970, President Nixon announced that he had expanded the war to Cambodia. Students at Kent State University in Kent Ohio quickly organized a series of protests. By May 4, the decision had been made to bring in the National Guard to force the students to disperse. It’s hard to say why things got out of hand the way the did. The students had been throwing rocks, first at the police, and then at the Guardsmen when they arrived. But, none of the students got closer than about 100 yards from the Guardsmen. You would have to have a pretty good arm to be much of a threat at that distance. Whatever the case, some of the Guardsmen opened fire. In 17 seconds, 67 rounds of ammunition were fired at the unarmed students. When it was all over, four students were dead or dying, and nine others were wounded. Two of the students who died weren’t even part of the protest; they just happened to be in the wrong place, on their way to their next class.

Those were the events that shocked a nation, and inspired Neil Young to write Ohio. The song was released as a single a couple of weeks after the event, and came out on a live CSNY album the following year. CSNY recorded the song as a rock anthem, and it worked as a powerful protest song at the time. But, as I noted in my introduction, these are very different times than those. There is no anti-war movement to rally, not like there was then. So how should a contemporary artist cover the song? Dala has answered that question brilliantly. Instead of a protest anthem, they render the song as a cry of mourning. The slow it down, and remove the wailing of the electric guitars from the original. Neil Young and Co made Ohio a rallying cry, and the victims of Kent State martyrs to the cause. Dala finds the humanity in the song, and reminds us that the victims were somebody’s sons and daughters. Young’s writing allows both approaches, and each one is or was utterly right for its time.

Neil Young Covers: Burned

Wilco: Burned

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For the soundtrack to the 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol, Wilco covered "Burned", a song Neil Young wrote and sang on the first Buffalo Springfield album thirty years earlier. While the original had that "vintage whine" of Neil's, we get Jeff Tweedy's stoner-drawl and some far out guitar feedback--which may actually fit the lyrics better. Many cuts on the Warhol album have 90's era bands (R.E.M, Luna, Bettie Serveert) knocking out 60's covers. As with most soundtracks, it's a mixed bag.

Teenage Fanclub also covered an uptempo version of "Burned" as a B side to their 1995 "Sparky's Dream" single. I don't have it but you can check it out here .

Neil Young Covers: Cortez The Killer

Marissa Nadler: Cortez The Killer

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Carrie Rodriguez: Cortez The Killer

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Built To Spill: Cortez The Killer

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Clem Snide: Cortez The Killer

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There's been a lot of great Neil Young coverage released since the turn of the millenium; of the 200 covers in my private stash, over half were released in the last decade alone. But no single song has caught my fancy more effectively than Cortez The Killer.

Originally released in 1975, with a crying guitar riff that ranked #39 on Guitar World's 100 Greatest Guitar Solos, and later named one of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, Cortez is a somewhat pensive, almost wistful, eminently political, entirely accurate historical recitative for the bulk of its journey.

In the last verse, though, the narrator switches into first person, describing a woman he knows, who's "living there today".

Wikipedia writers cite temples and Cortez' mistress La Malinche (Doña Marina) as the possible subject of these lines. Personally, I think that's a grave misinterpretation of how Young writes.

Instead, I think the woman is real - that the whole story of conquest is revealed as a metaphor in the last few lines, wherein the whole thing collapses back on you like a brick wall, placing the personal in the political in a way that only true genius can. Try it, up against Carrie Rodriguez' alt-country, Clem Snide's angsty whine, Marissa Nadler's echoey nufolk, the heavy jamband rock of Built To Spill - four vastly different takes on the emotional core of the piece - and see what I mean.

Neil Young Covers: Cinnamon Girl

Replicants - Cinnamon Girl

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I saw Neil Young once. It was the Ragged Glory tour.

It was a total spur-of-the-moment thing, and the nose-bleed seats were testament. My brother and I were waaay up in Cloud City, but I didn't care. It was a Big Rock Show and I was excited. Sonic Youth was a support act.

All during Sonic Youth's set, a drunken, long-haired man in a very unwashed Neil Young tour tee-shirt stood - in the row before us - screaming his throat to shreds: "Get off the stage!!! Neil!!! Whoo!!! Get off the stage!!!"

After the break, once Neil did take the stage, the fine fellow slumped into his seat, passed out, and only barely vomited all over his shirt... ah, good times.

Neil Young Covers: Old Man

The Boxcar Lilies: Old Man

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There are three ways that I can think of to interpret the song Old Man. The narrator could be addressing an imaginary old man, who represents what he thinks he will be like in quite a few years, looking back at his life. The narrator could be addressing an actual old man, but not one that he knows well; in that case, the narrator is simply projecting his own concerns onto a relative stranger, seeking to reassure himself that there is a future for himself. Or the narrator could actually know the old man well enough to compare himself; in this case, the narrator is seeking common ground with someone from another time. I find all of these possible meanings in the original, and The Boxcar Lilies preserve them beautifully. I want to reassure the 24 year-old narrator that there is indeed a future to look forward to, and more love to be won and lost and won. I’m a bit older than that, as you may have guessed.

Nine Lives: The Lovecats

The Cure: The Lovecats

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When The Cure released The Lovecats in 1983, the song rose to number seven on the British singles chart. So it’s kind of hard to believe that the album it appeared on at the end of that year, Japanese Whispers, was a holding action, a single and flip sides compilation to keep the fans happy until the next official album came out. At that time, The Cure had just changed bass players, and they or their label seem to have decided to release Japanese Whispers because they weren’t sure when the next album would be ready. Even more remarkable: nowadays, Japanese Whispers is only available as an import.

As for the song, The Lovecats may be described as a love song where the lovers are feral cats. Or maybe fans of The Cure really did court each other this way in 1983. Either way, the song sounds like cats, and not just because of the feline vocalizations. It also has a great beat.

Nine Lives: Big Cat

The Clean: Big Cat

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How do you know if your cat is overweight? You should be able to feel the backbone and ribs. If you can't feel the ribs without pressing, you may have a fat cat. If , viewed from the side, your cat has no noticeable waist but just a mass of belly fur sweeping the floor, you may have a fat cat. Finally, if you wake up each night wondering if someone is pushing a large boulder down the stairs -THUD THUD THUD--only to discover that it's your cat seeking a midnight snack, you may have a fat cat.

Nine Lives: Tom Cat Blues

Jorma Kaukonen: Tom Cat Blues (orig. Jelly Roll Morton)

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No, it's not a cover of Tom Scott title cut Tom Cat - it's a cover of a Jelly Roll Morton tune from singer-songwriter Jorma Kaukonen.

Though he once made his name on the electric scream of the sixties, the Jefferson Airplane/Hot Tuna alum has become a well-deserved staple of the modern contemporary acoustic set in his old age thanks to a mellow, fatherly voice, a campfire wizard's hands on the strings, and a penchant for Piedmont style acoustic blues fingerpicking.

His transformation of Morton's ragtime protojazz, off 2002 roots radio chart-topper Blue Country Heart, features fellow heavyweights Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas on Mando and dobro, respectively; the track, like the rest of the album from which it springs, is effortless and epic, proving that the man's still got the stuff. Kudos, Kaukonen.

Nine Lives: Black Cat Bone

Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Johnny Copeland: Black Cat Bone

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This version of Black Cat Bone begins with Albert Collins and Johnny Copeland talking about hearing the song played by Hop Wilson, who wrote it. As nearly as I can tell, that would have been in Houston Texas, in about 1950. Very quickly, the song became a blues classic, and it was recorded in the 50s by Lightning Hopkins, Muddy Waters, and many others. By 1985, the song had become one of Albert Collins’ signature tunes, and he was the one who brought it to the sessions for the album Showdown! This was one “super group” album that lived up to its billing. The idea was to bring together three of the biggest names in blues at the time and let them make magic. Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, and Robert Cray did just that.

In African-American folk belief, a black cat bone is a lucky charm, with the power to render the bearer invisible or bring about the return of a lost love. Here however, the singer is the victim of extraordinary bad luck, and he believes that his girlfriend has used a black cat bone to put a curse on him. There is a rather gruesome ritual for the proper making of a black cat bone charm. I will spare you the details, but you can find a description if you are curious in Zora Neal Hurston’s Mules and Men.

Nine Lives: The Wild Cats Of Kilkenny

The Pogues: The Wild Cats Of Kilkenny

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‘The Wild Cats Of Kilkenny’ appeared on The Pogues’ epic 1985 album Rum, Sodomy And The Lash. The instrumental track was written by the dentally-challenged frontman Shane McGowan, whom everybody knows, and the band’s multi-instrumentalist Jem Finer, who is rather more obscure. Still, every Christmas you’ll hear one of his songs…

Kilkenny is, of course, a town in Ireland that also lends its name to the county in which it is located (we could also make up, if we so wished, an urban legend that the name also served to inspire the makers of South Park). There is a poem about the cats of Kilkenny, titled without much prevarication “The Cats of Kilkenny”:

There once were two cats of Kilkenny
Each thought there was one cat too many
So they fought and they fit,
And they scratched and they bit,
Till excepting their nails
And the tips of their tails,
Instead of two cats, there weren't any.

The Pogues in the title of their song probably referred to the epic cat fight of the poem (for there is no doubt that the two protagonist felines were indeed of wild temperament), which is believed to be an allegory for a bloody and self-destructive territorial dispute between Kilkenny and Irishtown. That conflict gave rise to the phrase “Kilkenny cats”, to describe, as wordsmith.org puts it, “people who fight relentlessly till their end”.

Mutual destruction seems to be a badge of honour in some quarters: Kilkenny’s local hurling team (that’s the sport, not the post-drinking activity) is dubbed “The Cats”.

Nine Lives: Cat People (Putting Out Fire)

David Bowie: Cat People (Putting Out Fire)

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With the release of the post-disco classic Let's Dance in 1983, David Bowie took another trend-leading musical shift. Produced by Chic's Nile Rogers, it also features Stevie Ray Vaughan on lead guitar. Four hit singles came out of this album, including this re-recorded version of Cat People (Putting Out Fire), from the 1982 erotic thriller of the same name. Bowie begins the song in a slow, goth-y baritone (and when did his voice get that low? It used to be pretty airy in the 70s, I remember), and then he kicks up the beat so you can, yanno, dance to it. This is one song where the producer's skill really stands out. So does the percussion.

My absolute favorite manga artist, Miyamoto Kano, drew this charming catboy (or nekomimi), which is a fashionable Japanese trope in both manga and cosplay. Half the fun is plotting out exactly how one has become a nekomimi, and I won't elaborate about how much other characters really, reaaaally like those ears and tail.

Nine Lives: The Kitty Cat Song

Lee Dorsey: The Kitty Cat Song

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A New Orleans native who once boxed as "Kid Chocolate", Lee Dorsey was already in his 40's when he started pummeling the pop charts with hits like "Ya Ya" and "Working In a Coalmine". For the B-side to his 1966 single "Ride Your Pony", Lee recorded this infectious little kitty ditty.  A lot of Dorsey's songs back then were produced by Allen Toussaint with his house band, The Meters, providing instrumental backup.

That same year, The Troggs recorded "The Kitty Cat Song" for their debut album "From Nowhere...The Troggs".

Nine Lives: Nashville Cats

Lovin' Spoonful: Nashville Cats

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The Del McCoury Band: Nashville Cats (Lovin' Spoonful cover)

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I always heard a short lick of tongue-in-cheek in the original slinky, funky take on this mid-sixties tune from Lovin' Spoonful, though I don't think it was purposeful: it's a wry tune to begin with, but Darius wasn't wrong way back in 2008 when he described the song as an honest homage from lead songwriter John Sebastian to the band's country and bluegrass influences.

But in the hands of twangy honkytonk bluegrass icon Del McCoury, the word "cats" rings especially true, as a reflection of the compatriots he knows well from his long career in the Ole Opry and beyond, just over the border from his native North Carolina. And dig those bluegrass harmonies, from the man and his sons.

Nine Lives: Tom Cat

Tom Scott and the L.A. Express: Tom Cat

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For a while in the 70's, it seemed like Tom Scott was everywhere. Movie scores? He scored or performed on Uptown Saturday Night, Stir Crazy, Taxi Driver, Bladerunner, and Heaven Can Wait. TV themes? He wrote 'em for Family Ties, Starsky & Hutch, and The Streets of San Francisco. (it was a family business – his dad also scored a ton of things in his day, including the theme from Dragnet). He featured on other artist's stuff, like Joni Mitchell’s Court And Spark, Carole King’s Jazzman, Paul McCartney’s Listen To What The Man Said, Rod Stewart’s Do You Think I’m Sexy, and Blondie’s Rapture, but he's best known for his collaborations with Steely Dan, including the songs Babylon Sister, Deacon Blues, Peg, Black Cow, and especially the album Aja, for which he arranged and conducted all the horns. If that didn't make him cool enough, he was also one of The Blues Brothers.

Tom Cat is from the 1974 album of the same name, featuring Tom and the L.A. Express: electric guitarist Robben Ford, keyboardist Larry Nash, bassist Max Bennett (who wrote this tune), and drummer John Guerin. It's got that horn-dominated pop-jazz sound that reminds me of so much L.A. music of the time, maybe because Tom Scott was clearly playing on all of it.

Nine Lives: Big City Cat

Steve Forbert: Big City Cat

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I’m sure there will be a stronger feline presence here as the week goes on. The “cat” in Big City Cat is thoroughly human, and the word only comes up at the end of the lyrics. But Big City Cat is a song about beginnings, so it seemed like a good place to start. Steve Forbert arrived in New York City from Meridian, Misissippi, intent on making a living as a musician. His material was well suited to the New York City music market of the late 70s, and he did eventually break through and get a major label contract. But Big City Cat describes his feelings on stepping onto the surface of a new planet at the start of this journey. New York City was a new world to Forbert, and not entirely a good one. But Forbert was able to maintain a sunny outlook that wound up being so appealing on his first album. Ironically, it wound up being his treatment at the hands of that major label that finally washed that optimism away. But that is a tale for another time.

Alphanumeric: Hello Cruel World

E: Hello Cruel World

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Mark Oliver Everett may have wanted to escape the shadow of his father, physicist Hugh Everett III when he began his musical career. Maybe that’s why he decided to simply call himself E. I must say, however, that I doubt that many music fans would have made the connection; I had to look it up. Regardless, E it was, and E it remained when he later formed the band Eels. The music of Eels had a darker sound, but E as a solo artist was a master of pop hooks. Hello Cruel World sounds like it should have been a major hit until you listen to the lyrics. The song sets out a series of somewhat surreal scenarios, connected tenuously at best. The writing contains great imagery, and a slide show goes by in my head whenever I hear the song. I don’t claim to be an expert on the music of Eels, but I have never heard anything of theirs that affects me in the same way.