Surprise!: The Mariner’s Revenge Song

The Decemberists: The Mariner’s Revenge Song
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I wrote previously about seeing Richard Thompson in England with my family. A few years later, we took our second, and to date, last, family European trip to Amsterdam. One of the highlights was seeing The Decemberists at the Paradiso, a legendary club that holds about 1500 people, standing, in a former church. The Stones, U2, Prince, The Police, Bowie and Pink Floyd have all played this relatively small, but wonderful, venue.

The Decemberists were a band that we were just getting into. I love them because of the complexity of their music, their literate lyrics, often based on myth, folklore or historical themes, and their willingness to embrace being pompous. Others, I know, hate them for exactly the same reasons. You know a band is a bit pretentious when their most recent album of new material is hailed as a move toward simplicity, but still contains lyrics such as “Hetty Green/Queen of supply-side bonhomie bone-drab/(Know what I mean?)”

It was an excellent show, even though the Dutch are the tallest people in the world, making it a bit hard to see the stage, even for me, who is 6’ 1”. In addition to the great music, they are just fun to see. At one point, Colin Meloy, the lead singer, led the crowd in “mid-show calisthenics”. And later, the band and audience reenacted the 1667 Battle of Chatham, a successful Dutch attack on the British Navy. For me, that show turned The Decemberists from a band I liked into one of my favorites. And it was another musical experience that my whole family enjoyed together.

Despite the nautical theme, the band didn’t play “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” that night. Apparently, they had put it on hiatus for a while. It is, in many ways, the prototypical Decemberists song. It sounds like an old shanty, it is about adventures on the seas, takes place in the belly of a whale, and concerns violence and revenge. And it uses language not common in rock music, such as “rake and roustabout,” “consumptive,” “privateer,” “priory” and “magistrate.”

The song is sung by a young seaman to an older captain, in the belly of a whale. The captain doesn’t recognize the younger man, who reminds the older man of how he had taken advantage of the younger man’s mother, caused her to lose all her property and die. He tells the captain how the mother swore her son to obtain revenge on her deathbed. The younger man explains how he bided his time until he found the object of his revenge and hired on with a privateer to track down and avenge his mother. But just as he was about to be able to kill the evil doer, a whale attacked the ships and killed everyone except the narrator and his nemesis. At the end of the song, the narrator informs his companion:

It gives my heart great joy
To see your eyes fill with fear
So lean in close
And I will whisper
The last words you'll hear

I suspect that that the captain was pretty surprised.

Surprise!: Surprise, Surprise

Chris Smither: Surprise Surprise
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Chris Smither is one of those musicians I learned about on account of my love for Bonnie Raitt's music. On her Give It Up album, she covers Love Me Like a Man from Smither's 1970 album I'm a Stranger Too. On Takin My Time, she does I Feel The Same. I know that bowhowdy has posted about him more than once and there is plenty you can learn from there.

Smither has been doing his thing since some time in the 60s and it shows. It's apparent in the sparse guitar that does all it needs and a little more. It's there in the way his vocals are right on: gritty, sort of like Dylan from the 70s with a touch of John Prine mixed in.

Here we've got Smither in a 2009 trio with Zak Trojano doing the percussion and David Goodrich on 2nd guitar. It's a song for our times that deals with the theme of our current financial woes:

just when things were looking up, they arent looking so good
they told you they would fill your cup ...
the trickle down will float you up
surprise, surprise, it ain't so

The album, Time Stands Still is perhaps his best. There is a cover of It Takes s Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry that is the best I have ever heard. The rest of the album is just as good.

Surprise!: Karen by Night

Jill Sobule: Karen by Night

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Prepare to be surprised. If you look on the sidebar to your left, you will see that our new theme is Surprise!. It’s pretty vaguely defined, so it should be all the more surprising. Pretty much anything can happen here for the next 24 hours. The surprise may be a feature of the music, a narrative turn in the lyrics, a cover song that you always thought was the original, or something else. Even I don’t know all of the surprises in store, but I can’t wait to find out.

Consider our first example. This one is all about the lyrics. Karen is nice, if somewhat mousy. She runs a shoe store, and all of her employees agree on this point. But they have never seen what happens after dark… The surprise actually comes fairly early in the song, and then only deepens. Jill Sobule displays here the odd sense of humor that made her song I Kissed a Girl, (what I call the real one), a novelty hit. Sobule can also get serious, and is a fine songwriter either way, so I am doing her something of a disservice in sharing another of her “funny” songs. I encourage you to learn more about her work.

Richard Thompson Covers: Beeswing

Mary Lou Lord: Beeswing

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1952 Vincent Black Lightning and Beeswing both stand out on the Richard Thompson albums on which they originally appeared as acoustic ballads amidst mostly electric full-band songs. Mary Lou Lord covers both on her solo acoustic album Live City Sounds, but with very different results. She pushes her delivery of Vincent Black Lightning, and instead of sounding passionate, it sounds strident and forced. But Lord’s version of Beeswing is another matter. She sings this one with a restraint that perfectly conveys the sense of fragility that Thompson wrote about. The song seems to be set in modern times, but the female protagonist might as well be a gypsy girl from an old English folk song. Lord sings, “She was a rare thing/ Fine as a beeswing”, and you utterly believe her. The romance in the song must end, and Lord adds to her version some tolling chords at the end that bring out this sense of finality perfectly.

Richard Thompson Covers: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning

Del McCoury Band: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning

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Here we are again, at the altar of the "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." J. David wrote a great essay about the song earlier this year. But it wouldn't be right to let a week of Richard Thompson music race by without including the quintessential song about "an object that's British and romantic and mythological," as Thompson described it.

By virtue of composing "1952 Vincent Black Lightning," Thompson has been called "the man who wrote the best song about a motorcycle, despite never having owned one." It's hard to imagine the song played or sung by anyone else. Yet somehow, ten years after the original appeared on Thompson's 1991 album Rumour and Sigh, the Del McCoury Band managed to transform "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" from British ballad to a bluegrass standard. Mandolin, banjo and fiddle breaks replace sophisticated finger picking, and McCoury's bluegrass tenor supplants Thompson's British Isles baritone. There's also a minor lyric tweak -- the town down to which James and Red Molly did ride changes from Box Hill to Knoxville.

Like so many bluegrass legends, Del McCoury started his career as a sideman for Bill Monroe, but he didn't stay with the Bluegrass Boys for long. McCoury largely left music behind in the 1960s, occasionally playing mid-Atlantic bluegrass festivals while working fulltime in construction. McCoury shifted back to music fulltime in the 1990s, forming a band with his sons. As the group's popularity grew, Del and the boys collaborated with Steve Earle on his bluegrass CD, The Mountain. McCoury and Earle famously fell out, as McCoury tired of Earle's constant use of profanity -- "There's no room for vulgarity in bluegrass," McCoury reportedly complained. After The Mountain, McCoury's career took off. He was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry and became recognized as a standard bearer of modern bluegrass music.

"Black Lightning" is from the McCoury Band's 2001 album, Del and the Boys. "It's a song I really like to do," McCoury told a reporter. "It paints a picture." In 2002, the International Bluegrass Music Association's named it the Song of the Year, a feat Thompson celebrated on his website.

Richard Thompson Covers: The Great Valerio (II)

Maddy Prior/Martin Carthy: The Great Valerio

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To offer up a decent Richard Thompson cover, I had to put on my thinking cap to recall a few songs that were at least as good as the originals from the triple threat (songwriter, guitarist, vocalist). So let’s first revisit 1974 when Richard and Linda Thompson released their first album together. I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is now considered essential listening by the cult like fans who revere the Thompsons’ music. When it comes to music of inimitable beauty, they totally get it. That masterpiece album gave us plenty of great cuts that have been covered by many over the years, even though it arguably had some of the darkest music of their Thompsons’ career.

For an excellent cover of a song from that original album, I chose “The Great Valerio” as done by Maddy Prior and Martin Carthy (co-founders of the classic British folk-rock band, Steeleye Span). I looked for a cover where the covering artists make the song their own, adapt it to fit their style, and sculpt it into a rendition that might even perhaps surpass the original. The Great Valerio, of course, is a tightrope walker, and acrobat, and a great hero. But, Thompson in his unique way of crafting a song, draws us in when he wrote:

Fools who think they see the light,
Prepare to balance on the wire,
But we learn to watch together,
And feed on what we see above.

For an excellent tribute album with this and other great covers, check out the 1994 release called “Beat the Retreat: Songs by Richard Thompson.” There are many super covers on this project from the likes of R.E.M., Bonnie Raitt, Los Lobos, Graham Parker, Bob Mould, Blind Boys of Alabama, June Tabor, Dinosaur Jr., and others. You may actually discover some covers that you feel are rendered better than the originals, but I don’t want to get into that. However, let us know what you think of the album’s closer, Maddy and Martin's version of “The Great Valerio.” Do they truly get it too, or is it just another imitation?

Richard Thompson Covers: The Great Valerio

June Tabor: The Great Valerio

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June Tabor’s arrangement of The Great Valerio has no rhythm track. Tabor sings the melody over a near-drone played on diatonic accordion, fiddle, and viola. So she gets very little help with the melody, and none with keeping time. For a singer, this is the equivalent of working without a net, and that is the point. The Great Valerio is about a tightrope walker who represents the courage in life that the watchers in the seats cannot find in their own lives. The song expresses a combination of wonder at his talent and sorrow at the failings of those on the ground. Tabor’s arrangement and her vocal capture this tension beautifully.

Richard Thompson Covers: Tear-Stained Letter

Patty Loveless: Tear-Stained Letter

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Patty Loveless is an unlikely artist to cover Richard Thompson. For most of her career, Loveless has stuck to traditional country music fare -- not surprising given her classic country pedigree. She’s a distant cousin of Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle, and counted Porter Wagoner and the Wilburn Brothers as early career mentors. Loveless emerged as a hitmaker in the mid-1980s, part of the neo-traditionalist movement that also spawned Randy Travis, Ricky Skaggs and Dwight Yoakam, among others.

Her recording of “Tear-Stained Letter,” the opening track on her eighth release The Trouble with the Truth, represented the first time Loveless ventured outside the country mainstream for material. Thompson introduced "Tear-Stained Letter" on his 1983 album Hand of Kindness, his first post-Linda solo record. Five years later, Cajun singer Jo-El Sonnier scored an improbable country music hit with the song. Loveless's version was released in 1998, adding twang Sonnier's version lacked. Apparently in an attempt to further countrify the song, Loveless and her producer/husband Emory Gordy Jr. changed one of the song’s wittiest and most essential lines. Thompson's “My head was beating like a song from the Clash” became “My head was spinning just a little too fast.” It's not clear why that revision was made; Sonnier's version made the country top 10 with the Clash name check intact. Country fans who didn't know the Clash were just as unlikely to get the Arthur Murray reference, yet that remained. For those familiar with the original, the lyric update mars Loveless's interpretation.

Loveless returned to the Thompson songbook seven years later, covering “Keep Your Distance” on 2005's Dreamin' My Dreams. Loveless has put her recording career largely on hold the past few years, and the twin Thompson tracks remain the only non-country music songs in her catalog.

Richard Thompson Covers: When I Get To The Border

M. Ward & Zooey Deschanel: When I Get To The Border
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I’m a huge Richard Thompson fan, but I was surprisingly not excited about this theme. Maybe it is because I haven’t found a Thompson cover that I love as much as the original. Which is not to say that there aren’t many, many good ones. I found an article in which Thompson listed his 5 favorite covers of his songs, and he chose Bonnie Raitt’s cover of “Dimming of the Day” as his favorite—and it is good. Number 3 was Dinosaur, Jr.’s cover of “I Misunderstood,” which is very different from the original, and I almost wrote about that.

Instead, I picked this one, M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel’s version of “When I Get To The Border.” Deschanel was starring in a now forgotten movie called The Go-Getter, and Ward was doing the music. The director suggested that they sing a duet for the end credits, and they decided to do this cover. Ward and Deschanel apparently enjoyed themselves so much that they formed She & Him, released two albums and a Christmas album, and have toured together. I don’t think this song is commercially available, so the link above is to the DVD of the movie.

Apparently, Zooey Deschanel is a very divisive figure. Google her name, and you find as many sites hating her as you do fan sites. I’m a fan. I loved her in Elf and (500) Days of Summer, and I really enjoy her sitcom, New Girl. I understand those who find her cutesy and affected, but I’m charmed.

Her singing isn’t amazing, but it is similarly charming, and I like her voice and style more than a lot of artists that get more respect. And Ward does a pretty good job, too. So, their version of the song is enjoyable. But let’s be fair—Ward is no Richard Thompson, and Deschanel is no Linda Thompson. And the arrangement and instrumentation isn’t as interesting as the original, and the guitar playing isn’t as exciting, despite the fact that Nels Cline, the innovative guitarist from Wilco (and more experimental solo/group recordings) is credited on the track. It is, in the end, a good cover, not a great cover, of a great, generally unappreciated song.

Of course, great, unappreciated songs are pretty much all that Richard Thompson writes. This one, from 1974, is the first song on the first album credited to Richard and Linda Thompson, I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. It is an incredible album, and the song discusses a pretty bleak life, with hope existing at the border, which, I think, but am not sure, is the edge of heaven. When the narrator gets there he finds a “dusty road that smells so sweet/ Paved with gold beneath my feet” and states, “I’ll be dancing down the street.” My interpretation fits with this quote from Thompson--"If you don't believe in anything beyond the solidity of this world, then the world is a terrible place...There's no victory in this world in the end; all you can do is get out of it." (Rolling Stone -- April 5, 1979). Personally, I don’t agree with this philosophy, but I also don’t think that you need to agree with a song to like it.

Richard Thompson Covers: House of Cards

Robert Plant: House of Cards

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Richard Thompson and Robert Plant were born about a year apart (Plant being slightly the older – ’48 & ‘49). At first blush, one wouldn't likely group them together. In popular memory, Robert Plant, through his association with Led Zeppelin, calls up images of the rough and tumble rock scene. Thompson may date to the same era, but the popular image of Thompson/Fairport Convention is of a softer aspect of the rock scene of the late 60s/early 70s.

Granted, Richard Thompson certainly earned acclaim for his electric guitar work early on, but – as boyhowdy has noted – his religious conversion and his “sheik’s” influence did tone down his proclivity toward heavier rock. All the same, both are products of the same British rock scene.

For my part, I see trends in Plant’s authoring of Stairway to Heaven that pre-sage an affinity to the softer music of Thompson’s House of Cards. Band of Joy, Plant’s off and on ensemble, provides a great hard-hitting balance to this song –it causes one to think about the lyrics, yet cuts through the folk to the rock. The song has been interpreted in folk style by many, but the lyrics deserve the roughness of Plant’s (and Band of Joy’s) interpretation.

Shake your windows/ rattle your doors . . .

Cracked and shaking/ days are numbered . . .

Curiously, there are numerous others who have penned songs of the same name, generally with the same conceit – after all, what is a house of cards made of?

Richard Thompson Covers: The Dimming Of The Day

Mary Black: The Dimming Of The Day

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I'm cheating a little here, posting a cover which I've handled recently. But I suppose sharing it is a sort of penance, at that. Because although Mary Black's sort of folk music once turned saccharine in my ears, I've recently come around to the Irish siren, even posting a full-fledged feature on her long career at the top of the Irish trad-pop scene over at Cover Lay Down.

And now that I've come around, of all the covers of this song I carry in a coverblogger's collection, this one stands out, even among classic takes from Bonnie Raitt and, more recently, a Grammy-winning Alison Krauss. Something about the purity of Black's voice at the height of its potency, and how perfectly the full orchestral ebb, sway, and pulse of her everpresent production carries it into the depths of the universal core. Something about how the fluid calm builds into the emotional storm, crashing like thunder, flashing like rain. Something about the sadness of a song of longing, written and first performed by a married couple whose narrative of commitment belied a storm of their own, once which would eventually tear them apart.

The Dimming of the Day has always been one of my favorite songs from Richard and Linda Thompson. And it's especially poignant if you consider that it springs from a time when they were both deeply searching for themselves, their relationship already fracturing, held together mostly by the power of their own music.

Richard Thompson Covers : Withered And Died

Elvis Costello : Withered And Died

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It is believed that Elvis Costello recorded "Withered And Died" as an apology to Richard Thompson. He had Thompson waiting in the wings to play on his 1984 album Goodbye Cruel World but it never happened. So before the album was released Costello, credited as "The Imposter", released his cover of the I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight track as a B-Side to his UK #48 single "Peace In Our Time". That single was probably the best thing Costello did all year. Seriously. To those who purchased the 1995 Rykodisc reissue of Goodbye Cruel World, Costello wrote in the liner notes : "Congratulations! You just bought the worst album of my career!"

Richard Thompson Covers: Crazy Man Michael

Three Quarter Ale: Crazy Man Michael

[purchase]

Richard Ruane: Crazy Man Michael

[purchase]

So here we are in a week of Richard Thompson covers, and the first song is Crazy Man Michael. Some of you may be thinking, “Wait, isn’t that a traditional tune?” And my answer is, not anymore. The melody certainly reflects Fairport Convention’s devotion to the traditional music of Britain, and the text shows just how well steeped in traditional lore Richard Thompson was in 1969. But what happened was this. Fairport was always on the lookout for interesting songs, and Thompson was inspired to create a new lyric to a traditional melody. That lyric was the one you hear in this post. But, when Thompson brought the resulting song to the band, David Swarbrick thought the song needed a new melody, and that is the song we hear now. So, born of a traditional melody, Crazy Man Michael wound up being an entirely original work.

The next question is, “is Michael really crazy?” A literal reading of the lyric would seem to indicate as much, but there is a suggestion of sorcery. Perhaps, Michael is under a spell, or perhaps his lover is. The words of the raven would seem to belong to a third party, a vengeful sorceror or a wronged goddess perhaps. I’m sure Richard Thompson knew the lore of ravens when he wrote the lyric; the raven in British lore represents a goddess or spirit who collects the spirits of warriors slain in battle. These ambiguous elements in the lyric probably explain the song’s appeal to other artists. Three Quarter Ale performs it in a way that emphasizes the magical elements, and brings a dark fairy tale quality to the song. Nature, in this reading, is an emotional funhouse mirror, twisting and distorting the intent of the human heart. Richard Ruane, who now leads the band Bread and Bones, focuses on Michael’s state of mind. At times, the background vocal and the bass line seem almost out of synch with the rest of the song, as Michael’s sanity waxes and wanes. Ruane also perfectly captures the haunted quality of both the lyric and the melody.

Dance Music: Too Fat Polka

Frankie Yankovic: Too Fat Polka

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In 2009 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States eliminated "best polka album" as a Grammy award category. I was rather irritated by this decision as I grew up on polka, and while I hated it as a youth, it now holds a dear place in my heart. Those of us with Czech, Polish, German, Ukrainian, or other Central and Eastern European heritages have danced many a polka at family weddings and other festivals. My folks used to make me dance with their friend's sons at gatherings. Even Bob Dylan mentioned growing up with polka music and dancing in a 2009 interview in Rolling Stone.

Polka has a long and glorious history, and modern polka even extends to a Mexican sub genre called conjunto. It is believed that polka dancing originated in Bohemia in central Europe in the mid 1800s, and quickly spread across Europe. European immigrants brought it to the United States. The two most popular types of polka in North American are the Polish-style, with roots in Chicago, and Slovenian-style or "Cleveland Style." The Polish-style features the accordion, Chemnitzer & Star concertinas, upright bass or bass guitar, drums, and a clarinet and trumpet, or two trumpets. The Slovenian-style is similar, but usually very fast in tempo, and features accordion and saxophone or clarinet.

Frankie Yankovic (no relation to Weird Al), America's Polka King, popularized the Slovenian-style polka in the United States. He obtained an accordion at age 9, and was a working musician by his teenaged years. He had his first platinum record in 1947 with the tune "Just Because," and made 200+ original recordings in his long career. He was the first polka musician to appear on television, and the first to win a Grammy for Best Polka Album when the category was created in 1985.

The song "Too Fat Polka" is one of my favorites in Yankovic's collection. Not only is it gloriously politically incorrect, but you can hear all of the musical parts that make Slovenian-style polka so much fun. I believe that part of the song is sung in Slovenian too (please correct me if I am wrong). You can also hear a banjo in the background, which is one of the instruments that is unique to Yankovic's band and his polka style. I dare you not to tap your foot while listening to this song.

Dance Music: Put Your Cat Clothes On

For these guys, Elvis has never left the building

Carl Perkins: Put Your Cat Clothes On

[purchase]

One of the highlights of my visit to Tokyo last October was a Sunday in Shinjuku's Yoyogi Park. It's one of Tokyo's largest parks, hosted the 1964 Olympic Village, abuts the gorgeous Meiji Shrine, and is one of the best people-watching venues anywhere. On that Sunday (Halloween, coincidentally) I saw all sorts of groups and clubs coming together for whatever it was that caught their non-work fancy: cosplayers in their Gothic Lolita finery gathered near the entrance, martial arts clubs practiced together in a shady field, adult jump-rope clubs perfected their routines near the pedestrian bridge, teenaged girls worked out synchronized pop dance moves, dogwalkers paraded their pets on the main walkway. The variety of activity was astounding.

The most unusual gathering, though, has to be the Tokyo Rockabilly Club, who set up shop right at the main entrance and have been doing so every Sunday for years. In Japanese fashion, they uniformly dress to conform to a non-conforming greaser standard: leather jackets, massive pompadours and ducktails, sunglasses, and shocking (for Japan) tattoos. They crank up their boom boxes to feature both Japanese and classic American rokabiri (rockabilly) hits. And then they dance. The photo I took doesn't do it justice; you should check them out on YouTube.

Carl Perkins was one of Sun Records' biggest rockabilly stars in the mid-50s, loved and covered by both Elvis and The Beatles. His first hit was the classic Blue Suede Shoes, but the one I'm going with seems to suit the Shinjuku crowd scene better. Rock on!

Dance Music: Fancy Footwork

Chromeo: Fancy Footwork
[purchase]

I don’t dance. That said, when I do dance, it’s typically only under the influence of excess. Excessive energy, excessive chemicals, and excessive beats. Chromeo really lays it on thick. All the time. Their music is saturated in babymaking funk grooves and shameless Romeo-lyrics. Their live performances are every bit as indulgent. Sporting glowing, feminine, high heeled legs as stands for their synthesizers, the duo pumps venues full of retro synthesizers and vocodered vocals to induce an indefatigable dance trance throughout fans of surprisingly varied ages.

When a friend called me with the invite of an extra ticket to Chromeo’s latest St. Louis show, I anticipated a dance club atmosphere, where I would either be submerged in an incessantly colliding crowd of people wearing their sunglasses indoors or sitting at a table in a futile attempt to have a conversation whilst under bombardment from the beat machines. We ended up standing on the balcony of The Pageant, overlooking the small sea of dancers, and not a single person in the concert hall was sitting down. Dance afflicted even the parents who had obviously only come to chaperone their eager children to what must have been one of their first shows. Within minutes (of finishing my first drink) I found myself shaking my hips and flittering about like the unfortunate victim of a spasm-heavy seizure, and I was loving it.

My friends and I danced all night at that concert, even through the choreographed, tailored-for-MTV, pop openers, Mayer Hawthorne. I can’t say that any of the songs Chromeo played were significantly distinguishable from each other. The same bouncy beat kept people’s feet moving at a pretty consistent rate, and the instruments and effects weren’t particularly diverse. But why do they need to be? Chromeo is a duo with a singular goal: make people dance. And that’s exactly what they accomplish.

Dance Music: I Can't Dance

Tom T. Hall: I Can't Dance

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And now a word from the loyal opposition.

Not that I’m opposed to dancing. Not at all. It's just that, like Tom T. Hall sings here, “I Can’t Dance.” His song speaks the painful truth for those of us who love music, but who can’t manage to bring our arms, hips or feet to move in time with it.

If you listen to Tom T.’s music, his confession that he can't boogaloo with the best of them hardly comes as a surprise. Many superlatives can be used to describe his music; “danceable” isn’t one of them. "I Can't Dance" came out just as "The Storyteller" was hitting the bigtime, writing and singing songs like "Harper Valley PTA," "Ode Salute to a Switchblade" and "The Ballad of Forty Dollars." Great stories, told with wit and keen attention to detail. When a Tom T. Hall song came on the radio, you didn't dance to it; you sat there and you listened to it.

One person who sat and listened was Gram Parsons. He covered “I Can’t Dance” on his final record, Greivous Angel; because of that record’s fame, Parsons’s version is better known than the original, which first appeared on Hall’s 1970 record, 100 Children.

Dance Music: Boogie Wonderland

Earth, Wind & Fire with The Emotions: Boogie Wonderland

[purchase]

Earth, Wind & Fire's "Boogie Wonderland" is not about what you think it's about.

The casual listener can be forgiven for believing "Boogie Wonderland" is merely a paean to the disco era: The bouncy rhythm, the cool vocals by Maurice White, the Emotions' soul-sister backing chorus. The song wants you to believe it's a magical place, this Boogie Wonderland.

But, for a moment, stop dancing and listen closely to the lyrics. "Boogie Wonderland" is actually a tale of lonely people at the end of their rope.

The mirror stares you in the face and says, baby, nuh uh, it don’t work. You say your prayers though you don’t care, you dance and shake the hurt.

"Boogie Wonderland" is about escaping into fantasy, and, perhaps even surrendering to insanity. In an interview on the SongFacts website, Allee Willis, the song's writer, says the lyrics were inspired by the movie Looking for Mr. Goodbar. "It's really about someone on the brink of self-destruction who goes to these clubs to try and find more, but is at least aware of the fact that if there's something like true love, that is something that could kind of drag them out of the abyss."

I chase my vinyl dreams to Boogie Wonderland, I find romance when I start to dance.

Says Willis: "'Boogie Wonderland' for us was this state of mind that you entered when you were around music and when you danced, but hopefully it was an aware enough state of mind that you would want to feel as good during the day as you did at night."

As a listener, I'm a sucker for music like this -- songs that seem happy, even optimistic, on the surface, but are really about things much darker. "Happy Trails to You," which I wrote about a few weeks ago, is like that. So too is "We'll Meet Again," the Carter Family's "Keep on the Sunny Side," and even "My Window Faces the South."

But "Boogie Wonderland" stands out for me -- partly because it has a serious groove those songs lack, and partly because it's from my era. And maybe mostly because the song's writer, the amazing Allee Willis (read about her here), is my aunt.

Dance and shake the hurt. Boogie Wonderland!

Dance Music: Apparently Nothin'

Young Disciples: Apparently Nothin’ [purchase]

Acid Jazz.  A dreadful name for a wonderful little movement.  Back in the early 1990s, inspired by the likes of Roy Ayers and Donald Byrd, British soul and hip-hop musicians began to weld organic and traditional soul and jazz instrumentation and arrangements to sampled loops and beats to create a truly funky hybrid of old and new.  While the new genre was somehow named after one particular label, it was Gilles Peterson's Talkin' Loud imprint that seemed, for a while at least, to be churning out future classics at a remarkable rate.

In amongst these classics was Road To Freedom, the first and only Young Disciples album.  Featuring the remarkable voice of Carleen Anderson, daughter of Bobby Byrd, the record's lead single was this lesson in the futility of war and hate.  A worthy lyric, to be sure, and one that is as important now as it was when this album was released two decades ago, but that's not what makes this record so remarkable.

The fact is that this song - and indeed this is true of the entire album upon which it features - is one of those rare records that transcend time and place: it could just as easily have been released today as is in any of the last six decades.  On top of that, as soon as that bassline kicks in you just can't help but move.  Perfect dance music, in other words.

Dance Music: Jitter Joe

Girls From Mars: Jitter Joe

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I was going to post this this week in any case, but the last post by 1001 Songs of Carolina Girls makes a great lead-in to this one. You see, now we are going to talk about swing dancing. I am old enough that this is the dance music of my parents’ generation. My father never talked about dancing, but my mother grew up in New York City during the swing era, and she liked to cut a rug in her younger days. Jitter Joe was a hit for the group Cats and the Fiddle, who were active during the 1930s and 40s. Girls From Mars take the inspiration for their version of the song from Cats and the Fiddle. The Girls, as they refer to themselves on their website, began performing for swing dance groups in the Philadelphia area in the 1990s. These days, members of the trio are living in Philly, Massachusetts, and New Mexico. They still manage to get together for small tours, which can be in any of those places, and can include dances, festivals, and house concerts.

Bonus: Here’s a video of Peter Strom Jandi Kim demonstrating a Lindy hop to a recording of The Cats and the Fiddle. You can see how the Carolina shag is related to this dance.