Roads/Streets: Baker Street

[purchase Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street]

“Baker Street” means chlorine to me. Over the summer and winter holiday in high school, we had two-a-day swim practices, one from 6-8am and the other from 3-5pm. In between practices we’d scarf down donuts from Burger Hut or burgers from Dairy Queen. We’d hit the mall and play video games. Or we’d sleep.

Exit the water and “Baker St” would be playing with uncanny frequency on the radio in the locker room. To save money on electricity, maintenance and maybe lawsuits, high school pools are kept very cold and are jacked with chlorine. Two hours in the West Bend natatorium and your eyes squeeze shut with a red crust, your skin burns and you can’t smell anything delicious: fresh donuts, pizza, oniony burgers. In hindsight, I don’t think two hours, much less four hours in that pool was very healthy. Neither is burning 3000 calories in a day. After the last lap, you’re in a druggy hungry haze. 

If you’re listening to the radio and lucky to hear “Baker Street” from the beginning, the flute, bells, cymbals and congos are all shaking themselves into the mood, all knowingly subservient to the alpha dog about to burst in: that massive, liberating sax. Then the opening glory is abruptly taken away, like a magician yanking the cloth off a table and leaving the cutlery and bowls. Gerry Rafferty enters with his modest coffee house voice and the song gets mellow and trippy.

The song wasn’t meant for younger kids as far as I felt, especially with that flute and those congos, but the sax belonged to everyone. Solos are born when words fall short of expressing the leap our gut takes. I can imagine Dave Grohl listening to and experiencing that sweeping leap many times as a kid like I did, the solo remaining in his head long after the song finished. (Iwonder if he played that solo on an air trumpet or air guitar) And with the Foo Fighters cover of “Baker Street” in 1997, Grohl tried to summon the liberating effect of that solo by replacing the sax and with a whopping, epic guitar. Vocally, Grohl sings almost the same as Rafferty, but hits an emotional chord that the cool Rafferty didn’t. It’s almost as if Grohl brings more backstory into the song, sees howling storm where Rafferty saw grey clouds. Grohl is more tender and tenuous in his delivery, especially for the lines “He’s trying” and “When you wake up it’s a new morning/the sun is shining it’s a new morning/You’re going, you’re going home”. It’s a reverent, deceptively sentimental cover but like most Foo Fighters songs, a little too safe. 

I only go home in the summer these days and for a nostalgic trip, I usually go back to the high school pool once. Not trusting the water, I still wear a cap and goggles. Haven’t heard “Baker Street” in the locker room, just the sax loop in my head, lap after lap.




(Posted on behalf of Jake, who will some day do his own)

Roads/Streets: Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley

purchase the entire album: Robert Palmer [Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley]

One of the funkiest pieces I know. It is a lesson in itself to compare Robert Palmer's version above with the original author's rendition, below.

I used to have a vinyl copy of Sneaking Sally Through the Alley; I used to have a large LP collection that included a ton of Little Feat as well. I'm pretty sure, however, that I purchased this on it own merit and only later realized the signature slide guitar that ties the two together. It was in New Orleans that British singer Robert Palmer joined forces with Lowell George to create the album of the same name. The song is the third in a rolling sequence without break that begins with Sailing Shoes, continues with Hey Julia and then on to Sneakin' - arguably one of the finest sequences of songs ever. You may also know that Little Feat had earlier come out with a 1972 album titled Sailing Shoes - the song actually being written by Lowell George.

The band for Sneakin' Sally is primarily the Meters, which included Art Neville (later one of the Neville Brothers), in addition to Lowell George and some slick mouth-harp work from Steve York as well.

Sneaking Sally was written by Allen Toussaint, who we sadly lost in the fall of 2015. He is also the author of other hits you probably know, such as Dr John's Right Place, Wrong Time.

 

Roads/Streets: Bleecker Street

Jonatha Brooke: Bleecker Street (Simon & Garfunkel cover) [purchase]

Bleecker Street, the New York City East-to-West thoroughfare that gives this song its name - once known as a nexus of the American bohemian movement and now home to Marc Jacobs stores and an apparently still-hopping nightclub district - is unquestionably a touchstone of art and culture: home of CBGB and Cafe Wha?, where Hendrix, Dylan, Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor began their careers, it is name-dropped in lyrics by Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Fred Neil, Iggy Pop, Paulo Nutini, Steely Dan, and the title of an opera which won its composer the Pulitzer Prize in music upon its release in 1955.

According to Wikipedia, is it also the home of Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum and the restaurant Woody Allen's character owned in the movie Sleeper (The Happy Carrot). More recently, it served as the inspiration and name for a line of bags from popular designer Coach. Pretty cool, for a single street.

I've never been to Bleecker Street, and to be fair, I'm not likely to have reason to do so any time soon, unless I suddenly decide I want to hang out at its upscale eateries, or ogle Alicia Keys as she walks out of her stately home in the Village. But I've lived this song, pulled from Simon & Garfunkel sleeper debut Wednesday Morning 3 A.M., where it stands as one of just four original songs from a duo whose career would go on to help define the street in the wake of The British Invasion.

Bleecker Street never charted, though I'd argue it's one of Simon's finest, simplest compositions, a love song to the down and out that chills the bones. But its the cover, by Jonatha Brooke, which we've chosen to share today. Brooke's version recaptures the sweet ache of the dissatisfied outsider that so typifies the work of this particular place and sound in the distance between her inimitable voice and its ringing, high-production contemporary production; it appears on Bleecker Street: Greenwich Village In The 60's, an appropriately titled "various artists" collection of tender tributes to the great songs first written, performed, and celebrated in and around Bleecker that comes highly recommended, with beauty galore from Ron Sexsmith, Suzanne Vega and John Cale, Loudon Wainwright, and others. I listen to the album often, but ultimately and inevitably come back to this cut for the way it gentrifies bohemia without aggression, even as it celebrates its past - and so it is ever thus, on street and in song.

Roads/Streets:Tenemos Roads

National Health: Tenemos Roads
[purchase]

There was a time and place when the idea of a “supergroup” combining the members of Hatfield and the North and Gilgamesh would have been a big deal. That time was the late 1970s, and the place was England, particularly Canterbury. I’ve written in the past about the so-called “Canterbury Scene,” focusing mostly on the bands Gong and Soft Machine, but there were many other groups, often with overlapping membership, that created interesting music at that time and in that place. These musicians were, for the most part, profoundly talented, extremely adventurous, and mostly forgotten, certainly on this side of the Atlantic.

Hatfield and the North was one of the best regarded bands from this scene. After the usual musical chairs, its membership essentially solidified as vocalist/bassist Richard Sinclair (formerly of Caravan, later of Camel), guitarist Phil Miller (formerly of Matching Mole), drummer Pip Pyle (formerly, and later, of Gong), and keyboardist Dave Stewart (formerly of Egg and not the guy from the Eurythmics, but later of Bruford), and a trio of female singers known as the Northettes, Barbara Gaskin, Amanda Parsons and Ann Rosenthal. Gilgamesh was somewhat lesser known, was organized around keyboard player Alan Gowen, and included, among others, guitarist Phil Lee and bassist Neil Murray (later of Whitesnake and Black Sabbath). Both bands played music that was a fusion of rock, jazz and classical influences.

The new band, which came to be called “National Health,” was to include most members of both, but, of course, that was unlikely to work out.  Initially, Bill Bruford was the drummer, but he was replaced by Pyle, Murray replaced Mont Campbell as bassist, and by the time the self-titled debut album was released, Gowan was credited only as a guest, along with Parsons, the only Northette to participate. Nevertheless, they created a great album, if maybe not quite a masterpiece. Mostly instrumental, it is complex, interesting prog rock without much of the pompousness that has given the genre a bad name.

Leadoff track, “Tenemos Roads,” a 14 and a half minute piece written by Stewart, has a catchy opening theme and a long instrumental section before Parsons’ ethereal vocals enter. Prog rock songs often have spacy lyrics, and “Tenemos Roads” is part of that tradition. Something about a place in the stars, and history and men making war and fish living in the sea. Whatever. After a bit of spacy noodling, the song picks up again, and almost rocks out to the end.

I know that may not sound all that enticing, but trust me, it is really good, so give it a listen.

National Health released a maybe even better album the next year, Of Queues And Cures, and then went into hibernation, reuniting in 1982 for D.S. Al Coda, a tribute to Gowen, who had died the previous year of leukemia. And that was pretty much it from this particular combination of musicians, except for some live releases and Missing Piece, a collection of early songs featuring Bruford, Steve Hillage and others.

Roads/Streets: SHAKEDOWN STREET by the GRATEFUL DEAD

The Dead are in my head a lot these days, the recent 5cd charity tribute, 'Day of the Dead', justly garnering a lot of media attention and revitalising my interest and curiosity in the band. Nobody born in the late 50s or 60s could fail but to be aware of this momentous band, but fewer actually have heard that much of them or have them on their shelves. OK, I discount of course the tie-dyed masses who can still congregate at the drop of a tab and can discourse eloquently, if carefully and slowly, as to the relative superiority between different performance, Oakwood 90 versus Santa Barbara 68, say, which, for all I know exist within the vast vaults of live available recordings, legit and otherwise. (Hell, I even know someone who felt this 80 disc box set an essential. Eight zero!!) I confess I have never really got the Dead live, or, for that matter, live recordings generally. Had I ever actually seen them actually play I guess that would have been a game changer, but their trips over the pond here to blighty were few, and I was at school when they played Bickershaw festival in 1972. Listening quietly and soberly to live concerts on disc or youtube at home seems somehow, sorry, such a waste of my precious time. One day, maybe, but I'm a studio guy. I like my records tailor made for the home listening experience, without the audience attention, duff notes and drum solos.

Like so many bands I became aware of in my teens, the Grateful Dead I probably liked as an idea more than as an actuality. Like Frank Zappa and the Mothers, they were a name I was happy to drop, establishing my dude credentials, or should that be pretensions, a band for a T shirt or a name check. I hadn't even really heard that much until I hit my country-rock infatuation. The initial releases of American Beauty were flawed by pretty dodgy stereo separation but I could still identify with the strength of the songs, so it was a delight when CDs ushered in remastered versions, and I belatedly put my wallet and my ears where my imagination and affectation had previously been. Yes, a decade or so late but that's me, always late to the party. My first trip to the U.S. resulted in the necessity of buying a Garcia T shirt and the latest record by the band, maybe purely so I could say where I bought them. Man. (Actually, Orlando, so maybe not so cool.......) This was 'In the Dark' in 1987, a patchy record but one that contains this, my favourite Dead song, one that even now I am thinking of how I can make seem appropriate to play at my funeral. (This is a habit of mine, making playlists for events I may not even be attending myself.) Since then I have cherry picked their studio catalogue, finding songs I like alongside one that, frankly, I don't so much, but an enjoyable trip anyway. (I am so not going to say long or strange within the context of this piece!)

So finally to the song in the title. I didn't get around to hearing this until probably only a year of so back, probably not until the release of this recommended double studio retrospective, which makes it last year. Sure, I had read about it, and was aware of the vitriol poured upon it. Indeed, the idea of the Dead do disco did always seem to smack of some bizarre desperation, and I hadn't wanted to hear the depth of the described disgrace. And I am 100% sure that, in the day and at the time, I would have been as horrified as the next hipster, sucking disco being anathema to me until I begrudgingly let Blondie and Roxy Music sneak some into my consciousness. But do you know, I really rather like it. In fact, I'd go further, I love it. Add the fact that it is an ear worm of such persistence that I find myself humming it all over the place. It is cheesy, cheerful and chock full of a chutzpah that, damn it, just ought to make the sanctimonious nay-sayers smile and celebrate. Maybe a bit like the shock of other icons and idols of yesteryear playing Sinatra songs, unthinkable in the day, but, you know, it works. Likewise, contrary to my above comments, I did take a wander through the youtube, browsing the live spectacle, and, if anything, the clip below adds to my pleasure. Garcia is smiling. I am now old enough to dispel the notion that rock gods should not smile during the serious ritual of performance. I love to see musicians enjoy their art rather than suffering for it. It's here

I mentioned the charity record at we started. It's too long, there are too many indulgent and lazy re-runs of lesser known songs, the sound is muddy and it is bloody brilliant. How is that my conclusion?  Well, probably because between the reedy vocals and wibbly meanderings there are out and out gems. In particular those featuring the National directly and indirectly shine, arguably unsurprisingly as twin brothers, Bryce and Aaron, both of that band, curated the whole project. But Bonnie 'Prince' Billy and Orchestre Baobab, an afro-cuban band from Senegal of all places, throw in a couple of doozies. Even the reliably much reviled Mumford and Sons give a not half decent version of my second favourite Dead song, 'Friend of the Devil'.( War on Drugs take on 'Touch of Grey' hits my spot, too.) As for the version of my title song, thus by default my third favourite Dead song, this is by Unknown Mortal Orchestra and is pretty handy too, adding only a little extra funkiness. Below is their performance of it on Conan:

I'm am not going to send you to the big river this week, nor point you to the original recording. In the spirit of the whole, do some good, buy the charity set direct from the label.

Roads/Streets: Thunder Road

purchase [Thunder Road]

Roads ahead. Roads behind. Roads leading everywhere. I recall a story off a 60's comedy album called <Bert and I> wherein the humorist explains that "come to think of it, you can't get there from here".

Bob Dylan sang about roads more than once (On the Road Again and many many other songs that include references to roads  such as Tangled Up in Blue's 'by the side of the road'...." and this song that includes the lyrics "how many roads.." . A few blues-men sang about cross-roads and other roads. Seems like if you are a musician, you sing about some kind of roads. And then Bruce Springsteen sang about roads. Thunder Roads.

There's a certain - limited -  American romanticism in the image of Jersey streets/life - the probable venue for Thunder Road- it being Springsteen's home turf and evocative of the events in the lyrics.
In the late 70s Springsteen was one step short of rock god. Heck - most polls still place him at or near the top of their charts.  The <Born to Run> album  has been voted and re-voted as one of the best because it includes: "Thunder Road" , "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"  ,"Born to Run"   , "She's the One"  and " Jungleland". And the E-Street Band (apropos our theme) includes "street".

Thunder Road leads off the album. According to multiple web sources, the song has been through a number of revisions (the girl is now Mary, previously Angelina or Chrissie; now out of here ... previously ...) On occasion a solo/acoustic rendition, at other times, the full power of  the E-Street Band  in force,  the song may be Springsteen's best. There's more than one essay written about it: the Jersey kid who aims to "make it good somehow ... pulling out of here to win"

Aside from the obvious (title), there aren't many direct "road" reference in Springsteen's lyrics : "...two lanes...", "... dusty beach road..." and "savior to rise from these streets", but there are many about cars: burnt-out Chevrolets .. wings on wheels...roll down the window and more. The Internet informs us that Springsteen had a '57 Chevy with fire/flames painted on the body.

Sez the Boss: there's magic in the night

Father: Daughters

Purchase [Daughters]

John Mayer's <Daughters> has plentiful references to fathers and their relations to their daughters within. As you might suspect, the general tone/trend of the song is that fathers (need to) look out for their daughters. Repeated several times throughout the song: "Fathers be good to your daughters.."

What means? You would assume that any parent (any adult) would be "good" to a minor - it's so basic an ethic standard that it is embedded in the law. It makes me think: is there something below the waterline here? And again in the lyrics: "lookin' out for every girl .." - My sense is that the underlying message appears to be that girls need more looking out for than boys. Wrong?

An article in the Guardian entitled "Girls have a right to roam too" highlighted the dicotomy of our (admittedly more liberal in this respect now than in the past) society regarding the way we "look out for" our daughters. The article focuses on how we limit the freedoms of unmarried girls in our effort to "protect" them: fathers (and mothers) place more limits on their girls' freedoms than on their boys' in a well-meant effort that is primarily focused on keeping them from getting pregnant [sorry: fact]. Life isnt fair: boys can roam/girls are at risk if they do- although even that, too, appears to be somewhat curtailed these days.

But, fathers:they get to roam.
Love the guitar work here from Robbie McIntosh. It's more than just an accompaniment to Mayer.

Father: Outfit

Outfit, by The Drive-By Truckers

Purchase Outfit

The Drive-By Truckers are a group of novelists parading as a country rock band: amazingly well versed in telling stories in their songs, often done in the most literary ways. Adopting the voice of a character, using metaphor and image in ways seen traditionally in literature, sometimes even forgoing singing and just delivering lyrics as spoken monologues.  Not that this is unique in music, by the Truckers take on everything, from lyrical content to song structure, is 

rare and unmatched as far as anything else going on in the rock world. Their catalog is full of characters and settings that would be lucidly at home in any Flannery O’Connor story. My favorite member of this outfit is the now solo Jason Isbell. He’s delivered a library’s worth of southern gothic, tall tales and legends, outrageous characters and backwoods, down-home spirit in his music. My words pale in comparison and in accurately praising or describing the true-to-life and tangible literary landscape that Isbell is responsible for bringing to vivid life though song.

One of my favorite songs is the ballad Outfit, from Decoration Day. It’s a monologue, delivered to an unseen child by a distinctly opinionated, and somewhat weary father. The speaker’s voice is soaked in wisdom, perhaps whiskey, too, and the advice he offers covers some distinctly strange notions and concepts of how to live a good life. But in the end, it’s a story of a man’s love for his family delivered to a possibly wayward child who he fears losing, or perhaps sees slipping into the kid of life he himself could have had and because of his proximity and understanding of that particular danger, wants nothing more than for his child to do right. And in that worry about his child going wayward, we also read the father’s lamenting the life he’s lived. Good or bad, you can tell dad wants better for his own son, and though the advice is delivered out of love, there is a bit of envy, too: the speaker has lived a life, that while live primarily out of love, hasn’t been quite the one he wanted. His son, meanwhile, is a singer, as opposed to a house painter and refrigerator repairman.  When the father tells the son “Don't sing with a fake British accent”, there’s a bit of envy there. As if he should harbor such opinions.

But more, so, there’s the admonishment to not repeat the same mistakes and above all, to never act like “act like your family's a joke.” In the end, I suppose it’s a song about what every good father wants for his children: for their lives to be better than his own.  

Here's Isbell, post Truckers, doing Outfit on KEXP...

Father: Drive (For Daddy Gene)

Alan Jackson, Drive (For Daddy Gene)

Purchase

Alan Jackson has certainly achieved elder statesman status in country music, and rightly so. But, I’ve always felt his work could be separated between the genuine country good, and the cheesy, cliché-ridden country bad. Songs like Midnight in Montgomery and Murder on Music Row delve into the tropes and images that divide ‘real’ country from the terrible pop, or “bro” country that dominates radio. Then, he cranks out stuff like Chattahoochee, which I know is popular, but has always struck me as appealing to the lowest common denominator of hillbilly ‘aw shucksisms. It’s like Eric Church, who is pretty darn cool in most regards, using ‘mom’s apple pie’ as a key image in a song: it lacks legitimacy and seems like taking the easiest road to wedging in a nice fitting rhyme. Or appealing to what’s comfortable and well known, in order to add some kind of inclusiveness to the music. But, shouldn’t music be about exploring new emotional venues? I don’t know—relying on hack cliché is my biggest gripe with country music, but then, what form of popular music doesn’t rely on the easily identifiable to sell a theme? And t-shirts.  Jackson has done more good than bad, and errs more towards the soulful legacy of Hank Williams than some of his elder contemporaries.  But, he can clunk with the worst of ‘em, too.

Drive (For Daddy Gene), a song about the bonding experiences between father and son, then son become father to his own children straddles the border between the genuine and the over-mapped imagery of “Dad”. But, it’s a wonderful song, with a soaring hook, and just the right amount of sentimentalism to relate to on a level that invokes unaffected authenticity.  Jackson mines the imagery of restoring first a boat with his own father, then a truck, and ends up doing the same with his own daughters later in life to talk not only about beautiful memories, but also of the sense of growth and of freedom that comes from learning to drive and being the pilot, so to speak. The idea of piloting moves from the actual sense of being at the wheel to being able to eventually pilot one’s own life according to and because of the lessons passed on from father to child. And I suppose a little sentimental cliché never hurt anyone, least not when we’re talking about dad (or mom, or little sis….). And really, what else is a father meant to do than teach his children to be better than he was?

And, I must confess, I put on Chattahoochee while I was writing this, and now its stuck in my head…grumble, grumble…

FATHER: NEVER ANY GOOD/Martin Simpson

I guess many of us tired old bloggers are at the time of life where we are beginning to evaluate/re-evaluate our fathers, as so touchingly displayed in J. David's piece below. I lost my own pa nearly 30 years ago, his memory now more benign presence than black hole, but this is neither about me nor him, being more an opportunity to, possibly, introduce, a name less well known than I would like, one Martin Simpson.
For me, as a UK based folkie, his name has always been bubbling under my surface tensions, a perennial on the listings pages over decades, cropping up in good company yet never quite as celebrated as the company kept: he has appeared with June Tabor and been a member of the Albion (Country/Dance) Band on occasion. His style is an interesting hybrid of an english tradition, albeit with odd tunings, spun with a delta blues bottleneck bravadaccio, honed from years resident in the U.S., styles that are seldom played alongside each other. And devoutly acoustic, no mean hand also on banjo. However, in recent years, into his 4th decade of recordings, he has hit a purple patch of masterful solo records and a slew of collaborations within which he has seemed the patrician guiding focus. Awards and accolades have tumbled around him in swathes, his admirers including one Richard Thompson, who has said:  “I am a big fan of Martin's playing. Perhaps the highest praise I could give is to say that he never stops getting better!” Here they are playing together.

But what has this to do with fatherhood? Time for the song:

I just love the apparent disparagement of the lyric, the way the narrative catalogues the shortcomings, perhaps being the voices of criticism the boy Martin heard of his father in childhood, the sums thereof unwittingly combining to produce an adorable image of a wonderful father, hang the husband, breadwinner stuff, just a lovely and loved man who adored his son. OK, perhaps a rose tinted memoir, but one that effortlessly has me welling up even just thinking about the song. Live in concert it has a particular poignancy, as Simpson describes how he, as the son of an older father, his father being over 50 when he was born, himself became a first time father in his 50s. The hope he can be the same to his son exudes from every pore of his being. And maybe the song is right. Why is it that the workplace statistics of a man are so more highly celebrated than the more ethereal family persona? The list of giants of politics, business and, yes, even the arts are littered with distant figures from their  neglected progeny and worse, cruel and insensitive parenting almost de rigeur for the self-made man.

There are other songs by others that touch on similar territory. Some perhaps even written with the insight of having not been themselves the father they reminisce so fondly of. To all intents and purposes, Ian Dury seems not to have been an easy man but his song to his father hits a similar vein:

Isn't it the truth, as we get older, abetted by those annoying and increasing similarities in the mirror, far from hoping we won't become our fathers, as teenagers, in time, inevitably, we do.

Buy the studio version of 'Never Any Good' and hope your own sons will think so kindly.

Father: One Hell Of A Life

 
Katell Keineg: One Hell Of A Life
[purchase]  

This was originally posted on my personal blog, Another Old Guy, but considering the theme, I really can't imagine posting anything else. My father died on May 15. My family had a week to get our acts together and to allow family to fly in from out of town. We had a celebration of his life on May 22, at which friends and family talked about their memories of my dad. He was a very funny guy, and most of the speakers tried to honor his memory with some humor. Here's what I said:

My father wasn’t famous. Except maybe in his own mind. But he was my hero.

He taught me so much. I won’t say that he taught me everything, because he didn’t. I learned lots from my amazing mother, my family, my teachers and professors, my friends, colleagues and, of course, my wife. Who had to fix a few things my father taught me....

I don’t want to focus on most of the things Dad taught me, like how to throw a ball, ride a bike, shoot a basket, hit a forehand, drive a car, or burn meat on the grill, but on three big things, which are related, I guess.

First, he taught me to always try to do the right thing, not because of fear, but because it was the right thing. He never sat me down and said, “Son, always do the right thing,” but as far as I could see, that was how he modeled his life. Which is not to say that he was a saint, or followed every rule to a T. I mean, he was a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer in New York City, and there are some stories....

I’m not going to dwell on that, because, frankly, it is dull, and I’ve said all that I can say, really. Instead, the second thing I want to talk about is how he taught me to be a father. Dad worked hard. He got up every morning, went to work and came home. But I don’t remember many times that he wasn’t home by dinner time or had to work on a weekend, which gave us the chance to spend time together, talking, playing ball, watching TV or listening to music. He taught me that spending time with your family was more important than work, which may have hurt my career, but made me realize what the correct allocation of time was. Woody Allen, whose humor Dad introduced me to, once supposedly said, “80 percent of life is just showing up.” And Dad was there for us way more than 80%. He was at performances, assemblies and games (and if he never had shown up at my soccer games in high school, I don’t think I ever would have gotten off the bench). He took me to museums, shows, sporting events, and to hang out with him in court. He was there when I was admitted to practice, and moved my admission to the Southern District. He met Katharine before my mother did, when I was moving apartments, and he famously reported that she “put in a full day’s work.” And he continued to be there for my kids, attending plays, performances, more soccer games and other events for as long as he was able. Even after he was sick, he actually came to watch me coach a soccer team of boys he didn’t know, because I told him that they were a fun team to watch. And he didn’t even like soccer.

Dad taught me that you need to respect your kids, and give them as much responsibility as they can handle. That you need to give your kids freedom to make their own choices and decisions, while being there to give advice, counsel and support. And he taught me that even when your kids become adults, you still need to be there for them, to support them and advise them, without trying to run their lives.

The last thing I want to highlight is how he taught me to be a husband. Never in my life can I remember a time that my father didn’t light up when my mother entered a room. I never remember a time that he didn’t look at her with complete love and admiration and respect. I saw that he treated her as his best friend, his partner and equal in all ways. That didn’t mean that there weren’t “spheres of influence,” areas that he took the lead, as there were areas that Mom was in charge. But even though Mom, for most of my childhood, was a stay at home mom, I never once got the impression that he considered her role in the family any less important than his, or that she was in any way less than him. Maybe that stemmed from the fact that she had tutored him in high school algebra or not, but that was the kind of relationship I looked for, and was lucky to find.

Dad did, however, like to wind me up . . . occasionally . . . particularly with respect to his apparent belief in the “sports announcer’s curse”—that what the play by play guys said, somehow affected the game. It made me crazy that a man of reason and logic such as my dad would even pretend—and I’m not sure he was totally pretending—to believe in such a superstition. But even with that, I will certainly miss watching games with him. I said to Katharine the other day that I was sad that the Mets just missed winning the Series in what would turn out to be his last full season as a fan, but I also realized that, considering that he lived nearly 3 years after his diagnosis, like the last Mets season, he made it interesting longer than expected, and gave us what could only be considered as bonus happiness.

Anyone who knows me knows that I often try to tie things to music, and in preparing for today, I listened to a great song, not one that is at all well-known, so it appeals to my music snobdom, and not one that Dad would ever have heard. It is by the Breton/Welsh folk-rock singer Katell Keineg, and it is called “One Hell of A Life.” It is written from the perspective of someone who is dying, and she sings, in a sentiment that I think Dad would have appreciated, “When I’m dead please don’t philosophize or feel regret, just remember when I said: I had one hell of a life.” As much as I will miss Dad, I can honestly say I have no regrets about our relationship. We spent lots of time together, we talked regularly, and constantly told each other, and showed each other, how much we loved each other. And he had one hell of a life.

Girl: Jane of the Waking Universe

Purchase: Guided By Voice's Mag Earwhig! 

I’m still thinking about my previous post, so I bring this burning question to the fore: Why are there so many songs about girls named Jane?

I mentioned Jane’s Addiction, and their eponymous femme subject who has become perhaps the most popular Jane in rock and rock, though The Velvet Underground’s Sweet Jane might want to argue that she holds top honors. And I’ve thought of a whole lot of other Janes, and I wonder: why is the name Jane so popular in the arts?

There are seriously a lot of songs about Janes. I searched a few lists of Jane-related songs, and f I could still add a few Janes I knew that weren’t included.

It’s an omnipresent moniker Tarzan had his Jane; Dylan had his Queen Jane, approximately; we all wonder still what happened to Baby Jane…I’ve know exactly one Jane my entire life, which seems an odd ratio: for someone who’s name appears in so many songs, you’d think I’d have known more.

OK, so, enough of my brain working through these odd trenches it gets lost in.

One of my favorite Jane songs is Guided By Voice’s Jane of the Waking Universe. Off 1997’s Mag Earwhig! Not their greatest album, but it did mark their transition into a more sonically sound and well-recorded band. Do the Collapse would follow, which was produced by Ric Ocasek of The Cars, which is like, all BV albums, brilliant in its own way, in its own special, sonic universe. Jane rounds end the end bit of a typically 20-plus track suitcase of pop rock oddities and anthemic hallelujahs to the god’s of indie rock joy. The lyrics mine the typical mystical beer can visions of Robert Pollard, who, whether he’s writing about kicking elves, having bulldog skin or being a tree, is a prolific madman genius who has given me some of my greatest and most beautiful musical moments. Jane of the Waking Universe is but one. And, on a new listen (It’s been a while since I dug Mag Earwhig! out for a listen, I’m going to say this: it’s freaking great. I may never meet many Janes, but goddamn if I’m not happy about being able to go back to old friends like GBV…Any Janes out that want to comment on why you’re so damn popular as an appellation, motif and theme…? 

 By the way...I can hope that when I'm Mitch Mitchell's age, I can still kick as much ass...

Girl: Beatles Girl

When the "Girl" theme first popped up, it seemed a natural to go with a post featuring the Beatles - "Girl" from Rubber Soul. The more I delved into the Beatles/Girl idea, the more I was amazed at the number of Beatles songs that reference "girl".

Enough so that it prompted me to dig deeper into the word itself: just what is "girl"? My research indicates that first and foremost, a girl is younger than a woman, So, I wonder how cognizant of this the Beatles were as they penned their lyrics - there is an element that might be flagged inappropriate today: a little on the young side. A "girl" is certainly un-married (and the term girl-friend only dates back to the 1890s apparently). The OED guesses that the word comes from "gyrle" , that meant a child - either male or female, but possibly around the 14th Century, it became mostly female. That said, there isnt much doubt that today it means an unmarried female, likely younger than 20 (that number is mine).

The term also seems to embody a certain amount of protective ownership. That is, if "she" is your girl, your have taken responsibility - for care, upkeep and maintenance. (And that could possibly continue beyond her marriage)

But, back to the Beatles and their girls. The band has girls all over the place - not just in the obvious song title alluded to above: I count 4 beatles songs with "girl" in the title, but more songs than you would beleive have the word in the lyrics! I'll start you off with a few, but suggest you head over to the quiz below to quench your thirst for more.

"Moscow girls make me sing and shout" - Back in the USSR; "She's not a girl who misses much" - Happiness is a Warm Gun; "She was a girl in a million my friend"- I'm a Loser; "You know you twist little girl..."- Twist and Shout. Here's the quiz:
http://www.sporcle.com/games/scarequotes/beatles-girl-songs



If pressed, I might call Rubber Soul my favorite Beatles album (after the White Album, which is so eclecticly perfect).

Herewith, a collection of "girls":
 

Ukelele version

Girl: Slade's Gudbuy T’Jane

Purchase Slade, Gudbuy T'Jane

It might make things easier to start this post off by asking, “What song isn’t about a girl?” I’ve certainly never written one that isn’t about a girl.  When I was young, spinning the AM dial endlessly looking for music, I was struck by the fact that almost every song was about love. Most of them about being in love with girls.

So, it was particularly hard to choose a song for this post, but for some reason I got on a Slade kick and few weeks back, and thought: why not Gudbuy T’Jane?

Why was I on a Slade kick? Why not? Slade was a glam rock outfit from England, who, while never really going over the top in terms of acclaim, did notch 17 consecutive top 20 hits in the early 70s. Not a bad run. Brits know them better than Americans, but those of us who went a little nuts for Quiet Riot’s Cum on Feel the Noize owe Slade a certain debt of gratitude. I don’t recall how I got down the Slade rabbit hole recently, but I did. And I’m glad of it.

Slade is an interesting band. A little glam, very British looking, but they always sounded to me like a bottom-heavy southern rock band. Perhaps it the vocal delivery, twangy and snarly, or maybe it’s just the very American riffs that power most of their tunes. Try not to pay attention to the ridiculous Viking cum Highlander cum Martian explorer get ups: these guys looked goofy, but they capture and very specific, 70s riff rock vibe that sinks in, like only the best pop songs can.

“Gudbuy T'Jane" is about a girl, of course named Jane. A little research says it was written for a particularly spaced out San Francisco radio DJ who allegedly assaulted one of the band members. Supposedly she kicked him, hard, with heels. But then again, there’s also the claim it was written about witnessing a very specific sex act on some obscure San Francisco game show. Again, by a girl named Jane. The song was originally titled Hello T’ Jane. Details are murky. What is clear is that the song was written as the single follow up to one of those top 20 tracks, Mama Weer All Crazee Now. Hello again, Quite Riot?  (That’s a connection of explore sometime, perhaps: bands that do multiple covers of the same band.) What’s also pretty clear is the fun riffed-out groove of this peon to our mysterious girl, Jane. Rock like this put Jane in good company with the likes of Queen’s Fat Bottom Girls, Rod Stewarts Hot Legs and maybe even the girl with American Things, in AC/DC’s You Shook Me All Night Long. I would count her in the same company as Jane’s Addiction’s Jane, but, then again, you never know. We never to know our Jane’ as well as we’d like, do we? 

GIRL : New York Girls

I suppose I may be the exception to the rest of the blogging parade here in that I don't know any New York girls. Girls from York, sure, one or two, yet how is it that this most english of songs relates to the women across the pond? To answer this question I consulted all my usual sources of education and edification, aka Google, and the fabulously entitled Shantypedia was the best I could find. (As a swift digression, don't you just love how any manual of information nowadays is a hyphen-pedia, and every crisis a hyphengate-gate? If there were a massive fallout between Jimmy Wales and his team, would it be pedia-gate? Actually, probably Wiki-gate, but anyway.......) So, moving on, we establish it is a sea-shanty, a song sung by jolly jack tars as they avasted landlubbers ahoy, or, more likely, suffered in the  bowels of an unforgiving galleon, gnawing on rancid ship's biscuit. In another twist of fate, such songs of self-encouragement to lighten the curse of a sailor's life are now sung by choirs of earnest townsfolk in striped pullovers, a glee club for the vocally seasick. But, again trying to stick to the point, has this song ever been sung in an american tradition or do the US maritime corps sing of Old York girls? In the absence of me providing you with an answer, can any of my reader supply the answer?

Let's have a version:

I hope you stuck with that, if only to read the lyrics, as it saves me cutting and pasting elsewhere, itself no mean challenge, as, similar to most songs in any folk tradition, there are as many versions as, um, versions. I accept it hasn't aged well, as in from 1975 to the present, rather than the 200 odd years of the song being known, but, back then, this toothsome band were almost quite the big thing in one of the regular sightings of a predicted folk music revival, vying with the better known Fairport Convention to be at the forefront. (And, actually, still are, as seems compulsory for all bands of that decade. 'Commoner's Crown', the LP from which it came was their big budget breaker, or would be breaker, reaching 21 in the album chart.) The song is actually far from typical of their style, perhaps trying a introduce a levity into their otherwise very serious and strait-laced fusion of traditional folk with electric rock instrumentation, and features no less than Peter Sellers on ukelele and vocal asides. Again, hard to believe now, but he was the only uke player anyone could think of at the time. No such shortage now, eh, and more's the pity.

Fast forward to 1989 and it is (the) Oysterband, featured here by august sometime colleague Boyhowdy in 2008, who are having jolly japes with the tune. I like to think it has a little more muscle than Steeleye, but it is still a fairly overt bid for crossover commercialism. Failed, of course, but still, to this day, a staple of their live show, they too still plugging away valiantly.

As a bit of a diversion, even if not answering the question of my first paragraph, with Finbar Furey being irish through and through, but, for the purpose of its place in Martin Scorsese's 2003 film, 'The Gangs of New York', this is defined as close an imagining of how the native New Yorkers of 1863 caroused. (Come to think of it, most native New Yorkers of 1863 were probably irish through and through too.) I guess you had to be there?

My final offering is from only just recently defunct folk big band Bellowhead, darlings of the last predicted folk revival. Somehow this grabs bits from all the 3 earlier examples, filtering them through a venn diagram of weird versus trad, with a side order of shake vigorously.

So, me Santys, New York girls or Tarrytown men, can YOU dance the polka?

Steeleye, Bellowhead I can point you to, but for Oysterband get this, even if the song isn't included, and for Finbar, get the film.

Girl: Girl of My Dreams

Bram Tchaikovsky: Girl of My Dreams
[purchase, if you have lots of money to burn, or a turntable]

One of the true joys of being a music fan is hearing something wonderful and totally unexpected for the first time. Back in the 1970s, particularly in the heyday of WNEW-FM and WLIR/WDRE, the DJs, who had access to new music before any of us listeners, would spin something new, maybe by a brand new band, or even by a known artist, and you would get that feeling in your gut, or the hair would stand up on the back of your neck.

I was lucky to be in that situation myself for the 3 and a half years that I worked at WPRB while in college. As a DJ, and then, even better, as assistant program director and program director, I often got to hear records immediately after they were taken out of the boxes they were shipped in. And before the Internet, it was much rarer to hear music before it was released.

I can’t remember exactly the first time I heard Bram Tchaikovsky’s album Strange Man, Changed Man, but it grabbed me immediately, and became something that I played on the air regularly. It was a record that came directly out of left field. Tchaikovsky (It took a little while to determine that, in fact, Bram wasn’t related to Pyotr Ilyich, although it wasn’t until many years later that I learned that his real name is Peter Bramall) was a member of The Motors, an English band that I was aware of, but he, personally, had not made any impression on me.  The incredible power pop of SM,CM was a revelation, even overlooking the fact that Bram’s voice wasn’t great, or that the sound on the album was kind of muddy. It is one of those albums that I will always love, even if I rarely play it anymore.

Although SM, CM is strong from start to finish, the standout track, which was a minor hit, was “Girl of My Dreams,” a pretty love song to an inflatable sex doll. It is one of the great songs of that oft-maligned genre, right up there with, if not quite equal to, The Records “Starry Eyes.”

Bram and his band, with a revolving door of members, put out two more good records, but never quite hit the heights of the debut. By all reports, he retired from the music business in 1981, possibly opening up a recording studio. Lately, though, it appears that he may be gigging in England again.

Mom >> Child: Dweezil Zappa

Buy Zappa's Motherly Love from Amazon

I'm going to conjecture that I am not the only one who feels that I didnt "do [enough] right" by my mother for Mother's Day. Flowers dont quite cut it, eh? It's a debt you can never really re-pay. And I would like to think that the debt we feel (ought to feel) goes well beyond a commericial prompt from flowers.com.

Next theme question: if your mom a girl? vice.com had an interesting take on this thought this past week...

All the same... me thinks it is part of human nature to rebel - to rebel against our mothers (and fathers)... to rebel against the powers that be: be it your recording company , be it the headmaster of your school, be it the law makers who define the conditions under which we co-exist. And in this, Frank Zappa excelled: with or without "The Mothers of Invention" - he pushed the limits of the acceptable. Lewd at times? maybe - depends on your interpretation of his lyrics. Irreverant to his mother? No that I know of. Pro-active regarding our legislative rights - most certainly!

Sad to read that Frank Zappa's son (who has taken on some mantle of his father's legacy) is embroiled in legal issues regarding the "Mothers" appelation. Granted: the name/rights likely never belonged to the Zappa family, but I can't imagine many who dont see "the Mothers of Invention" associated with the Zappa name. What [social] value in litigating? None. Monetary ... perhpas some.

So... Sons of mothers and fathers. Children... Someone ought to take on the Frank Zappa brand, and who better than his progeny? Dweezil has been working at it for some time now. I would give him a vote of confidence - but maybe not because of his "chops".

Mom: Mom (Lucero)

Lucero: Mom
[purchase]

This theme came at a very difficult time for me. There has been something going on in my family that I haven’t written about, and lately, thinking about it and dealing with it has taken up most of my otherwise unoccupied time. I write for three music related blogs, and I know that my readership isn’t exactly huge. While I hope that those of you who do read my writings find them worthwhile, in reality, I mostly do it for myself. I enjoy having an excuse to write, even if it is mostly ignored, because it is the writing itself that is the most rewarding to me. Although I do like it when I find out people are actually reading it, and even better, when they think it is good.

I’ve held off writing about the fact that my father is dying because it is hard. He’s been fighting metastasized lung cancer for a few years now, going through surgery and cycles of chemo and radiation therapy. Gradually he has wasted away from a man who, in his seventies, would play tennis as a warmup to 18 holes of golf, to where he is as I write this, unable to get out of bed. From a smart, funny, strongly opinionated man to someone who rarely speaks and often seems confused.

The fact that I’m dealing with a dying parent is not anything particularly unique, especially among my contemporaries. In fact, my wife and I consider ourselves lucky that this is the first of our parents for whom this has become an issue. So not writing about it (although I have not been hesitant to discuss it with friends) has been partially an attempt not to make it seem like I think my situation is anything special. But since writing to me is therapeutic, and because Star Maker Machine wants me to write about Moms, and I can’t write about my Mom now without writing about how my father’s condition has affected her, I decided to start typing. Dad’s decline and impending death has had a profound effect on my mother, to say the least. And I am so proud of her for the way that she is handling everything.

My parents have been a couple since high school. They stayed together through college and married shortly after graduation. I was born not too long after that, while my father was in law school. They were kids then and they have been married, happily, I believe, for nearly 57 years. My parents were best friends, did virtually everything together, and I cannot ever remember hearing either of them say anything negative about the other. It was, by all accounts, a true partnership and a true love affair.

As was the norm then, and is still common today, my parents worked as a team, but with different domains. Dad went to work, dealt with the finances, and was involved in big family decisions. Mom ran the house and dealt with most of the kid-related and family issues. Her quiet strength was the hub around which our family revolved, even as we married and had our own children, even as in many ways, she revolved around Dad.

But my father’s retirement, then illness, began to shift the paradigm. Although they continued to do most things together, Mom started to do things to get herself personal time. She continued to play golf and tennis. She lunched and shopped with friends. She took up bridge and signed up for adult education courses (sometimes with Dad). All the while, she took care of Dad, gradually having to do more and more as he was able to do less and less.

It finally got to the point where Dad couldn’t easily walk up and down the stairs, and for that, and other, reasons, my parents prepared to sell their house and buy a smaller one on a single level, expecting that it would be easier for both of them. Mom, and to the extent possible, Dad, started to pack up their stuff and begin purging years of accumulated possessions. Mom began to assume the job of dealing with their bills, for the first time, and I spent time with her working through how to pay things online, so that she didn’t need to save piles of papers or write and mail checks. My wife and I helped to organize their files, arranged for shredding of boxes of documents, and the whole family pitched in to help get rid of unneeded items. It took a while to arrange both the buy and the sell, and closings were planned, tentatively, for late April or early May.

I was so impressed by how my mother just did what needed to be done. She took an increasingly large role in dealing with Dad’s doctors, and with the real estate agents, movers, bankers, mortgage brokers, contractors and lawyers involved in the sale of her old house and the purchase and renovation of her new house. I have tried to help as much as I could, but she was in charge, doing many things she had never done before.

Earlier this month, Dad took a turn for the worse, and over the past few weeks, his decline has snowballed to the point that we aren’t even sure if he will survive to the move date, next week, my 55th birthday. Two days ago, I sat with Mom at the closing, signing my father’s name to the sheaves of papers, under a power of attorney, and she stoically and repeatedly signed her name. Afterwards, we went back to the house that she no longer owns, so I could see my Dad, who was, with his aide, watching the Mets rout the Braves in a day game. He was awake, acknowledged me with a smile, but I have no idea whether or not he really knew who I was, understood that we had come from the closing, or appreciated the power display our favorite team had unleashed. Meanwhile, Mom simply took care of what needed to be done.

These days, when I cry, it isn’t because I’m sad that my father is dying, although I am, because at this point, I think that death is preferable to the life he has. I cry for my Mom, who will be without her best friend, living in a new house alone, and forced to take on unexpected responsibilities. But I know that she can, because she is such a strong person, and even in her late seventies has untapped personal resources to draw upon.

Lucero is a band that is mostly known for exuberant rocking songs about various forms of debauchery, misbehavior and lost love, often tinged with regret. But they also write slower, gut wrenching personal songs. “Mom,” which closes their great album 1372 Overton Park, is one of those—a song that both apologizes to a mom for the singer’s misdeeds, but also thanks her for what she has done for him. It isn’t the most appropriate song for this piece, but it is a good one, by a band that should be better known.

MOM: THIS IS TO MOTHER YOU/Sinead O'Connor

Being a mother may not be the first thought about Sinead O'Connor. Indeed, many may go further and say maybe more a mother-something than a mother, such is her ability to annoy and antagonise so many groups in society, whether the catholic church or the estate of one Prince Rogers Nelson. But she strikes me a someone who deserves some recognition of this aspect of her life, most of her 4 children having songs in overt dedication to them in her discography. Let's also not forget her own turbulent childhood, with her mother taking most of the blame for myriad accusations made of abuse toward her, and possibly thus, I wonder, the catalyst to her maverick talent. Motherhood seems to hold very mixed emotion for her, struggling to avoid her experience of her own mother colouring the experience her children have of her, through all of this gaining some sort of skewed acceptance of what seems to have been a fractured childhood. This piece is not to stare goggle-mouthed at her sideshow, but to accept and to celebrate her songs about this no small part of her life and her muse.

Universal mother was her 4th album, it's title playing on a matriarchal deity and her own motherhood, several of the songs being near lullabys to her eldest child, John, including this one, below, 'John, I Love You,'

and 'My Darling Child.' (Here let me advocate breaking a rule of mine and actually reading the Youtube comments made under the clips, being nearly all words of praise and amazement for these simple hymns, with seldom a troll in sight.)

In 1997, 3 years after 'Universal Mother' came the EP, 'Gospel Oak', from which the title song of this piece comes. Here the lyric is more ambiguous, uncertain whether addressed to a child or a lover. Or even to her own  mother, killed in a car crash some 10 years earlier? It sounds a song of a bitter forgiveness to me.

Flash forward several years, to 2012, and there comes this further confessional, 'I Had a Baby', the lyric marveling the outcome of the relationship that led to that child, now appreciating a greater insight as to how the child has to deal with the manner of their procreation, and creators. I can't think of any other artist laying open their life so honestly in song.

I have no way of knowing how "good" a mother is Sinead, or even, frankly, quite what that means. It isn't my concern, either. What I do know, however, is that, as a parent, most of us muddle through and do our best, and I am sure she is no different. But, should her 4 ever doubt their mothers love, these songs surely give a greater power and demonstration than many of us get to ever keep. Keep well, Sinead, keep strong.

Buy I Want to Mother You, noting, with irony, that the hard copy starts at a cent and runs to near $90. So how do you define the worth of motherhood?