I live in two places: one physically, one in my yearning
memory—Istanbul and Washington, DC.
I couldn’t be much further apart. One place is home; one
place is home, as well.
How do I reconcile that? It’s like living inside a
tinker-toy poem, constantly trying to make shapes that make sense. Love one
place unconditionally; fall in and out of love with the other depending on a
whim, troubled by the traffic and the wind…It’s confusing.
And when I’m this confused, I realize music is the thing
that soothes, and makes my hourglass soul make sense.
So, today I give you two songs that are both about home
(homes, really), and that help me make sense, in the beatific, sonically
soothing way that music helps me make sense of life (I'd be screwed without music, I promise) :
Neither song is really about the place it names—Elbow makes
a giant musical palette to throw sound at, as they do so brilliantly time after
time, using the name only, but using it beautifully well; and REM is singing
about not DC, but the suburbs, as all of us who tell you we are from DC do,
when, really, none of us are—no one is from DC; we all commute. It’s not a
city, but we keep trying.
What does that mean? Who knows…it’s a lost weekend; it’s a
strange life. I haven't been home in too long.
But, leaving home is strange: some people run; others are looking for adventure.
When I think of home, on my
better days, I feel OK about being a little lost.
When I don’t, I listen to the music, listen long, listen deep, with a truth seeking soul and hope itwill be the reliable voice that makes some kind of sense for me. It’s
never failed me before; I hope it won’t now…
The British have always, at least in the canon of popular song, been coy about referencing our towns and cities, seeming much happier to fantasise around the US, with a decades long parade of the never traveled singing about Amarillo or somesuch. True, there are exceptions, if one enjoys paeans to the joys of Durham Town., but all pretty thin on the ground, with maybe more Yanks singing about Liverpool than actual Liverpudlians. But the field of folk is different, many of the songs stemming from a time before Uncle Sam was even a glimpse in the telescope of the Plymouth Brethren, and it is here I have had to search.
I live in Lichfield, a very small city, about the size of a market town, population about 35k, based around a cathedral (see above picture) built in between 1195 and 1249 and, yes, it did take that long, making Gaudi seem somehow less of a slouch down in Barcelona. In the English midlands, a 40 minute drive northward from Birmingham, it is close to the centre of the country. I love it and, after 12 years, feel proud to call it my home. So, songs about Lichfield?
Luckily I have one that hits all my spots, as I make no secret of my awe and admiration for the family Thompson. Richard Thompson has had a near half century of muted fame, usually happily ensconced to the side of the radar, preaching to the converted, a hardcore base of staunch supporters stretching back to his actually only very brief tenure within Fairport Convention, to his duo with erstwhile wife, Linda, and beyond. RT has written many a song about his home country, perhaps most famously a hill in Surrey, and has become ever more English the longer he has lived in L.A. Well, this isn't about him. Nor indeed his son, Teddy, who has carved out a career singing such homegrown fare as this, showing apples don't necessarily always fall closest to the tree. No, this is another family member, daughter of Richard and Linda, sister of Teddy, one Kami Thompson. Her apple is perhaps slap bang right next to the trunk, as what she felt the 2014 world needed more than anything else was a folk-rock duo like, well, the comparisons are inevitable, her ma and pa. And so, with husband, James Walbourne, guitar on hire to many and varied, including Jerry Lee Lewis and Son Volt, the Pogues and the Pretenders, they form the Rails, their debut appearing last year. It is an unwritten rule that SMM avoids lifting music from under a decade old, even in these mp3 light, YouTube heavy days, but I feel I can get away with this, as it comes from an unreleased radio session. (Hell, without it, I would be scuppered for this piece as it so clearly references the city, my home.)
Trivia fans may also be intrigued to know that a frequent member of the larger live Rails band, on 2nd guitar, is one Zak Hobbs, Kami's nephew and, yes, RT's grandson. Here he is with grandpa.......
Of course, and there is always an of course with trad.arr., a slight problem is that many versions of the same song abound, each with a varied memory of who said what, living tradition and all that malarkey. So here, in memory of where my brother used to live, or, at least, relatively nearby, here's another version, by the seemingly now lost in action great folk hope of 2000, Bill Jones. Curiously, although she was born in Staffordshire, the county within which is Lichfield, her version talks of Southampton............
I live in Tarrytown, New York, a village in the Town of Greenburgh, in Westchester County. We are located on the eastern bank of the Hudson River by the Tappan Zee Bridge.
I grew up on the other side of the Hudson, in New City, which is in Rockland County. At the time my parents moved there it was the less developed side. Commuting to New York from Rockland was difficult—if you didn’t drive, you either took the bus and dealt with the tight spaces and traffic, or took the train, which had a sporadic schedule and left you in Hoboken, New Jersey, where you then transferred to the PATH train into the city. When it came time for my wife, young son and I to leave Manhattan, I strongly preferred Westchester, where Metro-North trains run regularly and pretty consistently, directly to Grand Central Station. I suggested to my wife that I would be willing to move as far north as Tarrytown, which was the first express stop north of Yonkers.
And that’s where we ended up, and boy, did that turn out to be a lucky break.
Although far from perfect, Tarrytown was at the time, and continues to be, a great little village. It has the river, a nice business district and excellent schools (don’t be fooled by the statistics—for many reasons, they really don’t tell the true story). Most of all, it has great people. Our village has a great mix, including people like me, who moved here to commute to New York, lots of people who were born and grew up here, and a large population of recent immigrants, many from Central and South America, making it a remarkably diverse and interesting town. Sure, we have our moments of conflict, but for the most part, people get along. And while some might disagree, things have even improved over the years—young families who previously might have moved to Brooklyn, or other nearby villages such as Hastings, are discovering the charms of Tarrytown, including a numberofexcellentrestaurants and shops, a great coffee shop, and a relatively new riverwalk. Not to mention, one of the great live music venues around, the Tarrytown Music Hall.
Forbes recently ranked Tarrytown as one of the 10 prettiest towns in America (which is a big country, with lots of pretty towns), and the real estate blog Movato ranked it as the second best place to live in New York State (which is a big state, with lots of good places to live). Now that I work here, I’ve come to appreciate it even more.
We also have some pretty interesting history. Tarrytown is where British spy John André was captured, exposing Benedict Arnold’s plot (yes, I have worked him into this blog again). It was also the home of Washington Irving, whose Legend of Sleepy Hollow takes place in the village just to our north (with which we share a school district and many other things, including a superb AYSO program) has turned our area into the home office for Halloween, and the fictional locale of an entertainingly insane television show (which, while shot in North Carolina, occasionally shows an establishing shot of the real thing). Abraham Lincoln's funeral train stopped here, and FDR's passed through on its way to Hyde Park.
Until the completion of the Tappan Zee Bridge in 1955, though, the area was pretty quiet (other than the occasional protest and attempted bombings at the nearby homes of John D. Rockefeller and other Standard Oil executives in the early part of the 20th century), and since then has developed like many other New York suburbs, without losing its charm. We are getting a new bridge, which is currently under construction, and the project was used as a backdrop last year by President Obama and Governor Cuomo for speeches about investment in infrastructure. I got to volunteer at the event and shake the President’s hand—although my wife’s picture made it to the front page of the local newspaper (I'm the bald guy in the back reaching out my hand).
So, yeah, we like it here.
Our song is, appropriately, entitled “Tarrytown,” although it is also called “Wild Goose Grasses.” It is based on old English (or Irish) ballads, particularly “The Butcher Boy,” which itself is based on older ballads. You gotta love folk music. It is a song about the tragic results of unrequited love, sometimes sung from the male perspective and sometimes from the female. This song is credited to John Allison, a collector of such ballads, who either wrote the words and music, or just one or the other, or neither, depending on what you read. You gotta love folk music. This version is by the Weavers, and there are others out there, including by Harry Belafonte, the Brothers Four and one from the 1970s by Pete Seeger and Ed Renehan, from an album of songs relating to the Hudson River.
For the second week in a row, I am going to bend (not break) the rules. No "south" in the title and only one use of the word in the lyrics: a single mention of the south side of Chicago. But Newman leaves no doubt about the brunt of his jibes: he's singing about "down here".
Although we probably shouldn't assume that North/South is a predominantly American theme, for many reasons - more than 100 years after the war that tried to split the South from the North - the US is still dealing with the issue (Selma ... 10 Years a Slave ...Neil Young and Lynard Skynard). For the record, and perhaps the "lite" aspect of this is all for the best, the Google prompt for a search for South leads to ... South Park. But of course.
North <> South ... East <> West ... Male <> Female ...there are too many dichotomies in life to list them all. Or to dwell on them. Too firmly believing in things has a tendency to lead folks to take sides - not just to take sides, but to try to defend one side over another when, in fact, there is always more than one (right) side to any issue. There is no South without a corresponding North. That said, some wise man once said that music soothes the savage beast - certainly it should bridge a North/South divide.
But back to American rock and our theme. We were looking for Songs South, and I suggested in the lead off prompt to my fellow bloggers (which none has yet taken up) that they might try Idlewild South/Allman Brothers. Now, there's a quintessentially southern (or is that Southern with a capital S?) band and a southern sound. I also proposed that someone take on Southern Man (see above).But those are really a bit too trite (you'll agree?)
How about Randy Newman? Now there's a musician who regards few constraints towards taking sides or soothing the savage beast. His take on the south is so "in your face", whether you agree with his perspective(lyrics) or not. Pardon my French (as my folks used to say). He describes southerners so:
we don't know our ass from a hole in the ground
Ouch! But if you are taking offense, you missed the whole point above (and I lived in Greensboro, NC for years and years). What I do like about this song (typical of the man) is its irreverance. And the way it seems like "I could write that song" (but couldnt) - so simple on the surface, but so deep below. Lyrically and musically.
If you look to the left, you can see that the concept behind this theme was to write about songs that “reference warmer climes.” When we chose this theme, it was because it was freezing in the Northern United States, and we were longing for more tropical weather.
Turns out, pretty much since the day the theme started, it has been freezing cold in the American South, with snow and ice storms in places where such weather is incredibly rare, including Texas, Louisiana and Georgia. I, however, am most interested and concerned about the weather in Tennessee—Nashville, in particular, where my son and his girlfriend moved last fall. They have already seen, first hand, cold and snow that I bet they never expected, and have had to chip a layer of ice off their car. Having grown up in the Northeast, they have now experienced what it is like to live in a place that doesn’t have a fleet of snow plows standing by, or a stockpile of salt and sand, and where the drivers aren’t used to the weather conditions.
In their honor, then, is this tune from bluegrass band Lost Highway, called, appropriately, “Tennessee Snow.”
Bet you're expecting me to extol the merits of a good old Cornish burr, Devonian dipthongs or even just my home county of Sussex and it's own idiosyncratic twang, but, no, they haven't written songs about that (unless you mean this, God help us!) I refer, and you knew really, didn't you, to the 1985 song by Tom Petty. Strangely, as a band of Floridians transplanted to the West Coast, I never really think of them as "Southerners," irrespective of latitude, as "the South", in music at least, seems to reserve itself for the Deep South, the territories of Stax and Capricorn record companies, so Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, plus or minus parts of Texas. (If that's wrong, forgive me, but, just as you guys have quaint visions of Swinging London, so too do I about the seamy side of N'Awlins, with accents as stiff and impenetrable as a burnt hoggroast.)
There's a southern accent, where I come from
The young'uns call it country, the Yankees call it dumb
I got my own way of talkin' but everything is done
With a southern accent where I come from
Now that drunk tank in Atlanta's just a motel room to me
Think I might go work Orlando if them orange groves don't freeze
I got my own way of workin' but everything is run
With a southern accent where I come from
For just a minute there I was dreaming
For just a minute it was all so real
For just a minute she was standing there with me
There's a dream I keep having where my mama comes to me
And kneels down over by the window and says a prayer for me
I got my own way of prayin' but everyone's begun
With a southern accent where I come from
I got my own way of livin' but everything gets done
With a southern accent where I come from
Now I just love the sentiment in those lyrics, the sheer pride in belonging, into having an identity forged and formed in geography, believing the song could hold equivalent credence to other maverick nations, clinging on to their territories. "With a Scottish accent, where I come from" somehow comes instantly to mind. And the tune, too, carries a sedate majesty, tinged with just enough melancholia for the days gone by.
For such a simple song it is certainly my favourite within the Tom Petty canon, and it covers remarkably well.
So, here's Tom:
But don't you think the song was actually made for this guy?
Though, I have to say I am also very keen on this version, by Dawn Landes:
I lived ‘down
South’ for a number of years, but I hated Southern music, or “Country” as it
should be properly named. Wouldn’t even entertain it. Granted, I was down there
when Grunge was bitch-slapping the popular music scene and Nirvana was sitting
atop a new Olympus.
Country music
was the stuff the sorority girls who wouldn’t give me a second glance were
listening to. My general impression of country music was of those girls heading
to Walnut Creek Amphitheater in straw cowboy hats, mini skirts and boots. Or
rednecks in pickups.
I defined
country music by the those who listened to it, with no understanding or knowledge
of the roots and history, the depth or multitudinous of genres and styles, and
I failed to read its influence on almost everything else I was listening to.
But, to be fair, my strongest impression of ‘country’ music
at that time was Alan Jackson’s “Chattahoochee”, which made brave but strange
reference to ‘hootchie coochie’, among other things my misplaced northern soul
just couldn’t cotton to…
Which is too
bad, as I feel I came to a grand tradition pretty late, and have been trying to
make-up ground for a long time.
Luckily, I found
Hank Williams, listened to more than the radio hits of the Allmans, and Lynyrd Skynyrd;I found Cash—but we all did, at some
point. I found a lot of good stuff, mostly through what I was already listening
to and following the influences of bands in the alt-country scene that I’d
learned to love, like Uncle Tupelo, Wilco, and The Jawhawks. It is strange, in
retrospect, how much I loved those bands yet still took such a circuitous route
to country music.
However crooked,
or slow, I did find my way.
And I can’t
think of a better song to fit this month’s category of “South”, than Hank
Williams’ “Honky Tonk Blues”.
The song is
perfect: a strutting, ramble-rhythm, fiddles in the back pushing the melody,
the purring shimmy of the pedal steel and Williams’ inimitable lamenting
warble—I can’t call it a yodel. That voice was the veritable personification of
pain and misery, light coming though it like a half-empty whiskey bottle on the
windowsill. To say he yodeled would be to diminish the palpable spirit he
brought to song. That voice, a transcendent, plaintive howl, personifies in a
single instance, the searching earnestness of all his pain, misery, mischief,
and occasional happiness. Some might hear Williams pull that ‘country shit’ and
think, no, not for me. But, they are missing out on what amounts to pure
poetry.
“Honky Tonk
Blues” is exactly what it is: a shuffling lament of leaving the country for the
big town, and wanting nothing more than to get back home. It’s ‘country mouse,
city mouse’, a tale told and retold. It’s William’s warning about straying too
far from what you know, but then, when you take Williams’ hard luck myth and
real life blues, all of his songs are some kind of warning. Hank ‘s legend
sometimes outshines the simple, sad elegance of his music. But songs like
“Honky Tonk Blues” are pure magic, and do more than cast a spell. Rather, his
music spells out the blueprint for country music. He reminds me of all the stuff I missed when I
was down South, and make me want to get back as soon as I can. Honky Tonk
blues, indeed.
For our last theme, Jukebox, I somehow figured out a way to write about the Gettysburg Battlefield. However, the connection between this theme, Songs South, and the Civil War, not to mention the war’s continuing influence on American culture as we approach the 150th anniversary of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, is certainly more obvious. Being born in, and having lived my whole life in the North, though, I have to admit that I don’t have personal knowledge of what Southerners think, and to be fair, not all Southerners, or Northerners, for that matter, think the same thing.
But what I want to start off by discussing, and I’ll get to the music eventually, is the fact that throughout the South, Confederate politicians, generals and other “heroes” are honored with monuments, school names, and maybe most egregiously, by the Federal Government with at least 10 Army bases named for generals who took up arms against the very forces that now honor them (and in other inexplicable ways). President Obama, the country’s first African-American president (whose wife’s maternal great-great-great-grandmother, Melvinia Shields, was a slave) has even sent a wreath to be laid at the Confederate Memorial in the Arlington National Cemetery (on land that was formerly Robert E. Lee’s home, and which is bordered by the Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway), despite a petition signed by many prominent historians urging him not to do so. To again reference petition signer Professor McPherson, “I don’t think it appropriate for a president to send a wreath honoring a group that tried to break up the United States.”
I also don’t get it. Benedict Arnold was one of the most effective American generals in the Revolutionary War until he switched sides, and did some damage for the Brits (including, interestingly, capturing Richmond, the future Confederate capital). But there isn’t a Fort Benedict Arnold anywhere, or a Benedict Arnold High School. (Yes, there are a few historical markers commemorating his pre-traitorous accomplishments, and a few that generally commemorate his achievements, but simply omit his name, but had he never turned traitor, things would have been very different.) We don’t honor Aldrich Ames or Tokyo Rose, or John Walker, Jr. or any of the Americans who have assisted Al Qaeda or ISIS. And I suspect that many of the supporters of honoring Confederate “heroes” who took up arms against Americans are the same people who still call Jane Fonda a traitor for having expressed support for the North Vietnamese government (but not actually, you know, shooting any Americans).
It’s actually pretty clear to me: Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution states:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.
And while I wasn’t there, I’m pretty confident that people like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Nathan Bedford Forrest (who likely led a massacre of black troops at Fort Pillow and was an early leader of the Klan), and the officers and men that they commanded were “levying war” against the United States. I don’t buy the arguments made by Southern apologists that secession wasn’t illegal—it was—or that no Confederate was convicted of treason—that was an embarrassing matter of political expediency, not to mention that the 14th Amendment made it clear that anyone engaged in acts of “rebellion” had certain rights taken away.
Much has been written about the Southern “Lost Cause” nostalgia, and all of that is too much to tackle in what is, really, a music blog, so let's talk about music. There are few bands that are as committed to analyzing their Southern identity as the Drive-By Truckers (who I have writtenaboutmany, manytimes). In fact, there may not be any other bands that do so to the degree that the Truckers do. They come by it naturally—the founding members, Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley, are from Alabama, and the band is essentially centered in Athens, Georgia. But Hood has been especially vocal about the fact that his upbringing was not traditional—his father, David Hood, is a legendary Muscle Shoals sideman and producer, who appeared on countless great records with black musicians—and his family was anti-segregation when that was not the popular thing. And Athens, where he ultimately settled as an adult and where he lives, is a liberal bastion in a conservative state.
Southern Rock Opera is considered to be the Truckers’ defining album, and while it may not be my favorite (I like a couple of the later ones with Jason Isbell a little better), it clearly is the one that not only moved the band into the public eye, it crystalized their viewpoint and, for better or worse, set them up as analysts of what Hood, in “The Three Great Alabama Icons,” called “the duality of the Southern Thing.” In an excellent essay for The Bitter Southerner website in 2013, Hood discussed the legacy (and burden) of Southern Rock Opera, and defined the “duality of the Southern thing” as
being from a region that is known for great music and literature and art and something called “Southern hospitality,” but is also known for Jim Crow laws, slavery, racism and the Ku Klux Klan. I talked about being fiercely proud of the good parts of my heritage and mortified and ashamed of the bad parts, the ones that too often define how other people perceive us.
And that’s what both of these songs are about.
“The Southern Thing,” is a song which Hood wrote to tie the whole project together. It is, stylistically, probably the most “Southern Rock” song on the album, and it describes, with some examples, the duality that he feels as a Southerner who is proud of his identity, even if he doesn’t agree with every—even most—of the stereotypes of that identity. Better you should read the lyrics, than for me to try to summarize them.
The next song on Southern Rock Opera is “Icons," a spoken word essay about Ronnie Van Zant, Bear Bryant and George Wallace, as paradigms of the duality, and points out that there were Southerners who were against segregation and racism, just as there were Northerners who supported it. But the song is mostly about Wallace, who as the song notes was an avid segregationist and racist, yet, at the end of his career, “opened up Alabama politics to minorities at a rate faster than most Northern states or the Federal Government. And Wallace spent the rest of his life trying to explain away his racist past, and in 1982 won his last term in office with over 90% of the black vote.” Despite that, Hood consigns Wallace to hell,
not because he's a racist… His track record as a judge and his late-life quest for redemption make a good argument for his being, at worst, no worse than most white men of his generation, North or South… But because of his blind ambition and his hunger for votes, he turned a blind eye to the suffering of Black America. And he became a pawn in the fight against the Civil Rights cause.
Hood notes in the Bitter Southerner piece that this song is, for the most part, written from the viewpoint of his father. He also mentions that Wallace’s grandson is a big fan of the Truckers.
Interestingly, when they perform the songs live, they switch the order, which makes sense from a performance standpoint—in essence “Icons” acts as an introduction to the more rocking “Southern Thing.” Here’s a video from a 2012 show (recorded and edited by DBT fan extraordinaire “Jonicont”) that shows this—and that Hood goes way off script, to make some topical political points, without losing the underlying message.
OK, it's BAND SOUTH in this case, but that's allowed, and is probably a pretty good opportunity to give this bigintheUK band a buzz, not least given my equivocal and almost love-hate relationship with them. Are they known of across the pond? Somehow I doubt it, except to the core of anglophile anglophone addicts whom I know exist in no small number. But their whole identity is rooted in a dingy lacklustre version of northern England, their name being wholly ironic, marrying kitchen sink reality to luscious, silky tunes and arrangements. And thereby lies my issue, as the sharpness of the lyrics may often be missed within the sheen given to the songs, sometimes leaving a faint lingering taste of saccharine where the vinegar should be.
Paul Heaton, because they were basically his band and brand, even if ably supported by a core of regulars and a float of occasionals, formed the group in 1988, along with fellow Housemartin, Dave Hemingway. Within that earlier and quirky, shortlived group, also including Norman, later "Fatboy Slim", Cook on bass, they sent a bizarre mix of marxism and christianity to the top of the UK singles charts with an acapella version of Caravan of Love. His abiding acerbic style was well characterised by the title of their first LP, "London 0, Hull 4" , Hull being, shall we say, one of northern England's less glamorous cities.
Rather than a traditional jangly guitar based quartet, The Beautiful South started life with an altogether different vibe, with shared vocal duties between the two ex-Housemartins and the first of three subsequent female vocalists, with often lush keyboards. Songwriting duties, largely Heaton's forte, were shared with Dave Rotheray on guitar, and they hit the ground running with this song, "Song for Whoever", which neatly sets out the stall for their aforementioned sweet cynicism, the theme of the "self-serving industry of lovesongs" being a recurring motif.. The front cover, above, also gave some clue to those prepared to search beyond melodies alone. In 1991, they also won the Brit award (think British Grammy) for best video, "A Little Time", their only actual number one single, reproduced below:
Following this there followed a steady stream of successful albums, with a change of female vocalist between their 3rd and 4th, and the sound increasingly embellished by added horns. However, before Briana Corrigan left, the band managed their biggest US exposure with this, "We Are Each Other" in 1992.
Jacqie Abbot, who replaced, had a slightly less astringent style and lasted for a further six years, the sound gradually becoming more influenced by country and/or soul stylisations, which her voice suited well. Here is a good example, "Perfect 10". The group called it a day in 2000, before a desultory final incarnation in 2003, with now 3rd female singer, Alison Wheeler. Whilst the thrill had largely gone, this line-up did produce a last-gasp covers record, in 2003, with "Golddiggas, Headnodders and Pholk Songs, largely successful major transformations of well-known popsongs of the past 30 odd years, and a lasting favourite of mine. Knowing we like a good cover over here on Starmaker Machine, here is a key track, Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper". Citing "musical similarities", maybe the irony of this irony being beyond them, they folded for the final time in 2007.
Interestingly, at the time of writing, Paul Heaton has reunited and put out new material with Jacqui Abbott, whilst Hemingway and Wheeler, together with some of the core erstwhile musicians, have re-grouped as The South, basically a tribute act to their old selves. One suspects that neither Heaton nor this version have each other on their respective christmas card lists..........
NightRanger—I’m not going to claim I know much about them, save for a little trivia
(their guitarist, Brad Gillis, was one of OzzyOsborne’s ever-changing stable of
guitar heroes; singer Jack Blades went on to form Damn Yankees with Ted Nugent, which made
for a large part of the soundtrack that haunted all the frat parties I went to
freshman year down in Carolina—Damn Yankees were huge in NC in the early ‘90s
and I don’t have much else to say about that). Most importantly, they wrote Sister Christian, one of
the 80s greatest rock epics. It was their most popular song, and Sister Christian
went on to reclaim its greatness as the haunting musical stage dressing
to one of the greatest scenes in modern cinema (Boogie Nights), and no one
who’s seen the film can forget the epic drums that so perfectly
suited the spring-coiled violence about to unfold.
I can't
overstate this: Sister Christian—it was their greatest song. It has worked it’s
earnest way to becoming one of your favorite rock songs. And it was such a
strange anthem, sad and yearning, set to a rumbling take off engine thrum, and
like the greatest of rock songs, can fuel not only nostalgia, but oddly slide
it’s way in as an identifying soundtrack to a lot of ‘moments’, be it a first
kiss, a drunken sing along, or a violent shootout/robbery gone terribly awry.You choose, but, you know I'm telling the truth...
NightRanger? Am I really talking about Night
Ranger? The name doesn’t even make sense, but on second thought, my original
thesis—that Night Ranger is one of those bands that it's better to not know
much about—I guess I’m proving that wrong already, and we’re barely out of the
introductory paragraph.
As
I write this, I’ve got a Night Ranger playlist going on the youtubes…and though
I started this piece with one line repeating in my head, I realize, as always, I
should let the music speak for itself. If you're so inclined to recall the 80s,
and the buzzsaw guitar and strident keyboard marches that made rock music so
infectious, Night Ranger isn’t so bad. And trying to assign a scientific or
aesthetic principal to what makes music good, what makes a particular band or
song worth the cost of nostalgia, well…maybe that doesn’t need a thesis or an
explanation. As always, let the music speak for itself and prove its own point.
When I saw the theme for this
month’s theme of jukebox there
was one line that came to mind immediately—the opening line of Night Ranger’s “You Can Still Rock in
America” from their 1983 breakout album, Midnight Madness: “Little sister
by the record machine...”
“You
Can Still Rock in America” satisfies all the check boxes a band would need to
achieve an ‘anthem’, especially for the 80s: diddley-do keyboards, cowbell and
gong driven drum march, fuzzed out, metal guitar riffs and acrobatic
soloing. And, don’t forget the audience-participation-ready drum and vocal
breakdown. This was formula driven rock, arena ready before the tour even hit
the road, but it was brilliant right out of the gate. It might have fit into a
formula then, but as I sit and listen to it now, there is an
earnestness, a driving kind of beauty to the music that, if I can look at it
from my 43 year old perspective, reminds me of all that was good—No,
divine—in what made me fall in love with rock music, which is a relationship
I’ve had in my life that has truly made all the difference.
I remember when I was 7th
and 8th grade, discovering good music for the first time, these guys
rocked, despite what I was learning in my own,
older-brother’s-record-collection-Master-Class (which, of course was the
Beatles and the Stones). I had access to good music early, and my parents were
very cool about buying me ‘boom boxes’ and ceding over to me their turntable.
My bedroom and my pawn store bought-and-borrowed record collection was my
original sanctuary, my real classroom. When I think back to my childhood, I am
lucky to have an endless amount of great memories, but my best ones are of
learning to love music to the LPs playing on my scratchy, one-speaker
turntable. And for a long while, there was good music playing. Sadly, Night
Ranger, which in my final assessment right now I will say was a great band,
gave way to Hair Metal, and the overdone silliness of the LA rock scene—for a
while I thought Cinderella, Bon Jovi and Dokken were the pinnacle of rock
greatness…What can I say: I followed trends. The late 80s were a bad time for
popular music, and my allegiance to great bands, to great music, wouldn’t be
that tight until later in life. I was over eager, and perhaps I let slip a few
times...bad decisions...what excuse can I plead-I abandoned the turntable for
cassettes, and started listening to what everyone else was listening to. I’m
not proud of a lot of what I can pull out of my old collection…
But, hang
on a minute: the more I dig into what I was listening to at the time, the
more I think maybe I can give myself a small break: I snatched up the Van Halen catalog in
1984 and it got regular rotation in my concert hall bedroom, as did AC/DC’s Back
in Black, so…I have no real excuse for delving into bad music...I just like music. And that's where Night Ranger comes in: a bridge between the silly and the not-so bad...so I ask myself now, because back then there was no question: I could definitely rock, but now can you still...?
Maybe, “You Can Still Rock in America”?
Give it a
shot. It’s cheesy, of course, in the way 80’s ‘metal’ can be, but it’s a
jukebox song, and while it might be a lesser entry into the endless and
everlasting fuck the rules, break down the walls, go nuts escapism anthem
blast creed that tattoos the glorious history of this beautiful thing we call rock ‘n
roll, it still works damn well. It’s exuberant the way rock music should be: it
drives; it puts a foot to the floor, it has girls and fast cars, it's vaguely
rebellious about something vaguely troubling, maybe being young, maybe too many
rules. Who cares. Since when has rock ‘n roll needed something specific to
rebel against, so long as you’ve got wailing guitars and a good solid beat
pushing you into doing your very worst?
It’s rock n roll. It might be
a little silly, and sometimes I think we need to feel guilty for loving
something that might come across as dated, or too much of an era, or just to
silly and earnest in what is—in this case, Night Ranger was a great rock band,
full of radio friendly hooks, sugar-sweet anthems and fist in the air, foot to
the floor rock. Sometimes you need a little Night Ranger, lest you start taking
this whole rock thing a little too seriously. Rock music is supposed to be
mindless and it should make you go a little nuts, but it should also remind you
of who you used to be, before you got too old to still rock (in America…).
(Slightly tangential to our theme - a related last minute entry)
If I don’t misremember, most of my
association with the jukebox is vicarious: I read lots of Archie comics and
watched shows like Happy Days. There weren’t any jukeboxes where I grew up, but
that’s probably because the Jukebox was rather American. That’s not to say I had no direct
experience with them, but mine was limited to that period of my life when I had
my own money and was of an age where my tastes would have run in that
direction. I recall a “Wall-o-matic” I ran across in a booth at a diner oncet,
and a couple of full-size Wurltizer kind of things in a bowling alley or maybe
a bar I might have been in.
Wall-o-Matic
When I was in the the USofA for one year in
1965-6 and had just started to listen to the kind of music that would have
likely been stocked in a jukebox, I was just a little too young to be putting my
own quarters into jukes. A few years later, when I next returned to the land of ”Good and
Plenty”, my musical interests had veered toward music like “Long Distance
Runaround” by Yes - clocking in at around 13 minutes and not the kind of
material that was generally used to stock most jukes.
my 45 collection
However, back to ’65, when I had just started
listen to juke-potential music a-la top 20. I was in the habit of using my
allowance to purchase the occasional 45 and had begun to amass a collection of
the things – storing them safely in a case made specially for that purchase (that's mine above). One
of my first purchases was a copy of Bobby Fuller’s “I Fought the Law”. I don’t
recall ever having watched this clip – looks like it might have been made for
TV – but I couldn’t help but grin at how politically inappropriate it must seem
today. In further doing my research, I see now (and wasn’t previously aware)
that Bobby Fuller was dead less than a year after his version made the charts
(and the jukeboxes of America).
Written by Sonny Curtis (who took on Buddy
Holly’s lead role with the Crickets after Holly’s death a few years before
this version came out), the song has since been covered and covered, and is ranked
well up the list in Rolling Stones Top 500 of all time.
Time for a quickie again, much as promoted by erstwhile and occasional Darius of this parish, 'cos there isn't always time for learned theses and sometimes just the song will do.
I have to admit to one big soft spot for Sweet Baby James, tho' I prefer the soft-rock addled troubadour of the 70s to his later more earnest presentation. Who can but fail to be bowled over by the plaintiveness of his vocal in this no-little self-reverential song? And if you aren't, what about :
The lovely Linda Ronstadt etches the country up a notch or two, and, if I am not mistaken, ol' JT plays the guitar on this version too. What, you want more quirky?
That's Judith Owen, occasional Richard Thompson sides(wo)man and wife, no less, of Harry Shearer. And if you want outright odd, how about this, about which I know nothing:
I guess the problem with this song, and, arguably, it's author and most well-known interpreter, is that they were, for a while, just too damn ubiquitous. But I don't care. They can do no wrong with me. (Well, except for that godawful Mexico song.........)
Nostalgia fest: Buy it! (This page covers all the above and more.)
In this post-Brian Williams world, I have been reading a great deal about the unreliable nature of memory. It always strikes me when I speak with old friends that I can have a strong memory of something and they don’t, or when our memories are different, even when I know they were there. For example, when I was a senior in college, I got the opportunity to visit the Gettysburg battlefield with a group of professors and grad students, led by the eminent Civil War historian James McPherson. My friend Judith was the only other undergraduate invited. I recall that I got the invitation because I had a big car and was friendly with one of the grad students (who later wrote a book about Springsteen). I’m not sure what Judith’s in was, but she later became a history professor and worked with McPherson, so maybe there was something there. She’ll probably read this and let me know, and based on the video linked below, she has a different memory of how I got invited.
Anyway, there are things about that trip that have stuck in my mind to this day, more than 30 years later, especially walking across the field toward Cemetery Ridge as we recreated Pickett’s Charge. A few years ago, Judith contacted me to say that she was going to be participating on a panel honoring Professor McPherson, and told me that she was going to tell an anecdote referencing something that I said during that walk. And to be honest, I do not remember saying it—but it was so memorable to her that she told the story at the conference. It’s here, starting at 24:25. And I’m happy that what I apparently said got laughs from the assembled historians.
There were no jukeboxes at Gettysburg, but trust me, I’ll get there.
It was probably my 12th birthday, but I’m not sure, and I remember that someone gave me a copy of Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. which had come out earlier that year. I can’t specifically recall if I was familiar with his music or who gave it to me, and I do remember some surprise, because I know that I had never mentioned to anyone that I wanted that album. And I remember putting it on the turntable and being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of words and the cleverness of the lyrics, as much as the power of the music.
No, I didn’t become a crazed Bruce fan, and it wasn’t a religious experience for me. But I have always liked his music. I’ve only seen him once, at Princeton a few years before I went to Gettysburg, and my most powerful memories of the show (other than that it was great) are that he messed up “Born to Run," and that the crowd jumped up and down so much, it damaged the gym floor. And I do think that his body of work has been consistently excellent, for much longer than most artists stay relevant.
As I said, (and have written about elsewhere) I loved the wordplay on the debut album. While the song “Growin’ Up” isn’t as thesaurus reliant as “Blinded By The Light,” it has its moments. Clearly based on Springsteen’s memories of, yeah, growin’ up, he wrote:
The flag of piracy flew from my mast, my sails were set wing to wing I had a jukebox graduate for first mate, she couldn't sail but she sure could sing.
So, what’s a “jukebox graduate”? Someone who only knows what she learned from music? Someone who wasn’t “book smart”? I’m not really sure, but it is a great phrase, and has been co-opted as the inspiration for at least two blogs (one by a former Smithie), a band and a middle school club in North Carolina.
Really, it doesn’t matter that I didn’t remember my memorable remark to Judith, or who gave me Springsteen’s debut. But both my trip to Gettysburg and that album have continued to resonate with me through the years.
Ever wonder
about what NOT to play on the jukebox? That’s assuming all you button-pushing country
music loving cowboys can even find a jukebox in some out-of-the-way diner or laundromat
in a turnout off America’s loneliest highway.
In “Please Mr. Please,” Olivia Newton-John beseeches us to
“Please, Mr., please don't play B-17, it was our song, it was his song, but
it's over.” She put that song out back in 1975 when “you can hear your five
selections for a quarter.”
In “Don’t Rock the Jukebox,” Alan Jackson's heart ain't
ready for the Rolling Stones. He wants to hear some Jones, as in George Jones,
but the heartbroke hillbilly would settle for any good ol’ slow country song with
some wailing pedal steel guitar. It’s better that he’s using music to “drown a
memory" than the typical whiskey of choice mentioned in most country songs
with the same sorrowful theme.
“Bubba Shot the Jukebox” is another one that a friend on social
media brought to my attention. She stated, “It was a very funny song, and I
loved singing along to it.” As told by Mark Chesnutt, the song does have quite
a story. Isn’t it so true about how a sad song can make you cry? Or nostalgically
bring back a memory of an old flame? Or,
as in this song’s case, inflict pain?
So what’s one to do if you’re in Margie’s Bar and hear that
mournful song that makes you break out in a cold sweat and sends a teardrop
down your nose? I wouldn’t recommend doing what Bubba did … jumped to his feet,
went to his truck and got a Colt .45. The song’s plot only thickens when the sheriff
arrives with his bathrobe on. I’m not going to give away the punch line (the “hook”
as they call it in the music business).You’re just going to have to listen to the song to find out what Bubba Boy
is charged with, and what his response is.
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