MAIL: A MIXED MAILBAG

I am so uncertain as to whether there are any songs about e-mails that I am not going to look. Any complaints about that, send me a S.A.E. for my nuanced response. I like letters, yet I cannot recall the last time I either sent or received one, other than electronically. Even birthday and christmas cards seem but a fond memory, as even aged aunts resort to social media to mark their notice of such milestones. So, what then is the purpose of a postal service, mail and mailmen (and women)? Junk, bills and amazon deliveries seems to be the answer. Given at least one of our small and loyal band of posters works in a country where such luxury no longer exists, how long, I wonder, will the rest of us be graced by the regular tap tap tap of the postman's knock? And will that demise be hastened by the opinion of the extravagantly haired buffoon (U.S. version) wanting to knock postal voting out the ocean?

Time then to remind ourselves of the power of the post: the excitement and anticipation of writing and sending a letter to a loved one, awaiting, with baited breath, for a response. And then? Tell me text is as poignant, e-mail as effective, and I'll tell you different. Far too quick, too instant: where's the build up of hope, increasing by the day, layer upon layer. And supposing then, like this song, you then get this reply?

Since the gruff tones of Alex Chilton helmed the original Boxtops version, back in 1967, this song has been covered oodles, often from similarly chalky voiced singers, most attacking the lyric at the same lick. Walking in Memphis hitmaker Marc Cohn gives it a slightly less frantic approach, a sense of quiet determination rather than the breakneck rush of the original. I like it and hope he got there safe.

But it isn't always so simple, as Richard Thompson so exquisitely describes. A rousing song he still finishes most live shows with, it has a real zydeco vibe to it, many folk learning of the song through the version by cajun squeezeboxer Jo-El Sonnier. But prior to that, swamp rocker Jerry Williams had released the featured version, again, as with 'The Letter', a less frantic version, one that swings, perhaps like a pendulum of the emotions brought on by the letter in question. I say swamp rocker because that's what Williams sounds like, and an assumption I certainly initially made. In fact, he was a Swede, most of his career based there, as early rock'n'roll enticed the youth of his homeland just as much as the rest of the world. As a bonus, here is a link to the great RT, knowing he has fans here, this being from David Sanbourn's great 80s/90s TV show, Night Music, and which features him, alongside both Thompson and the above mentioned Sonnier.

Worse still than any reply, is the spectre of no reply, insult added to by the injury of having the letter you first sent dropped back to your door. Classic Elvis is the template, obviously, but I enjoy this curiously upbeat version, coming from the possibly little known Dave Kelly. However, if you are familiar with UK blues maestros, the, um, Blues Band, fronted by ex-Manfred Mann frontman and BBC radio blues broadcaster Paul Jones, you will recognise the voice and the slide guitar of Kelly. Sticking with a mail theme, here is that band, with a Son house classic.

You can find these songs yourself, but maybe won't think of this.....

Mail: Rikki Don't Lose That Number

purchase [ Pretzel Logic ]

It's no surprise that the first page or more of a Google search about "mail to yourself" is all about computer apps and email tips. But when Steely Dan penned this song (1974), they were singing about the USPS; the Internet was still Vint Cerf's project.

This appears to be about the only Steely Dan song that has never been appeared in SMM. We've covered the passing of Walter Becker back in early 2018 (thanks Darius) and 30 or more Steely Dan songs here at SMM over the years. In fact, of the 30 or so appearances of Steely Dan - stretching back as far as 2008 - a majority of them were posted by Darius, with a few by [interestingly] Any Major Dude and Geovicki.  And ther have been others including my mentor boyhowdy. I've done a few myself. You can type <steely> into the top right search window of the SMM site to reminisce.

And back in 2009, there was a mail-related Postage Paid theme that includes writings from several of SMM's blogging projenitors if you want to continue down the nostalgia path.

Of course, it's the line from <Rikki  Don't Lose That Number> "..send it off in a letter to yourself" that entitles me to include Steely Dan once again. What a way to keep a backup of your data! What about Google Sync?


Of note is the fact that Walter Becker is credited with vocals and bass guitar while Jeff "Skunk" Baxter gets the guitar credit.

AllMusic.com tells us it was the band's biggest hit, so here's a collection of versions from

Stanley Dee

Skunk Baxter

Bad Sneakers

Mail: Take A Letter Maria

R.B. Greaves: Take A Letter Maria 

[purchase] 

I’ve written in the past about how I started paying attention to music in 1969. as a result of hearing WABC, the classic New York Top 40 station, in the station wagon that took me to my summer day camp. And that fall, I have a vague recognition of being in the car with my mother, and hearing “Take A Letter Maria” on our car radio, and proclaiming it a hit. I was 8 years old, and already thought that I was a music critic. And here I am, more than 50 years later, still pretending to be a music critic of sorts. 

The funny thing is that my 8 year old self was right. “Take A Letter Maria” became a No. 2 hit on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart, blocked from the top spot by The 5th Dimension’s “Wedding Bell Blues,” also a great song. 

I’d be shocked if anyone reading this doesn’t know the song—it is sung from the perspective of a man who had just learned of his wife’s infidelity, and dictates a letter to his secretary, the titular Maria, informing his wife of their separation. At the end, he asks Maria to dinner. It’s a surprisingly peppy song, considering the subject matter, with Latin influences and mariachi horns. I think that the narrator is supposed to come off as a sympathetic character, trying to recover from the discovery that his marriage is over, and he’s been cuckolded. And overall, I think that holds up today, despite the fact that he breaks up with his wife by letter (the functional equivalent of the uncool breakup by text), and the fact that in today’s environment, asking out Maria would raise questions of power differentials and sexual harassment. To be fair, we don’t know whether Maria accepted the invitation. Also, I have to admit that the fact that he instructs Maria to “send a copy to my lawyer” makes me happy. 

“Take A Letter Maria” was written and recorded by R.B. Greaves, and I’d be shocked if most of the people reading this knew that, and if they did, if they knew anything else about Greaves. 

Greaves, who was the nephew of the great Sam Cooke, was raised on a Seminole reservation, but moved to England in 1963. A few years later, performing as Sonny Childe, and fronting a band called The TNT, Greaves became a popular live soul/R&B act in England and recorded a few singles, before leaving The TNT during the summer of 1967. (Without Childe/Greaves, The TNT became the backing band for P.P. Arnold, probably best known for her versions of “The First Cut is the Deepest” and “Angel of the Morning.”) 

Greaves’ big hit was recorded at the legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, and featured the house musicians, including Donna Jean Thatcher (probably better known from her days with the Grateful Dead as Donna Jean Godchaux), Eddie Hinton, Jimmy Johnson and David Hood. And it was produced by Atlantic Records head Ahmet Ertegun (not even close to being best known as my ultimate boss during the summer of 1982). 

Greaves’ followup, a cover of the Bacharach/David song, “Always Something There to Remind Me,” stalled at No. 27 on the Billboard chart, and that, pretty much, was that for Greaves, although he continued recording into the 1970s. He died of prostate cancer in September 2012 at the age of 68.

Patterson Hood, of the Drive-By Truckers, who is the son of David Hood, the bass player on “Maria,” has covered the song during solo shows, sometimes with his father on bass. Here’s one such performance, in which Patterson talks about how the Rolling Stones wanted to record in Muscle Shoals in 1969, before leaving to perform at Altamont, and that on that day, Greaves recorded “Maria” during the day, and the Stones appeared at night to record “Brown Sugar.”

MAIL: POSTCARDS/FAITHLESS

 This could go either way. My occasional forays into musics outside the SMM staples of vocals/guitar/bass/drums seldom capture many glimpses, this post adding injury to insult by featuring one of the more vilified singers of recent(ish) times, tho' she is still active. So, listen to the track. Something familiar in the vanilla tones?

Or indeed the song, it being reprised, or at least the female vocal part, as My Lover's Gone, for the Dido debut solo album, No Angel. I'll come off the fence. I like Dido. There, I've said it, never quite understanding the usual smirks whenever her name comes up, at least in this country. (Is it any different in the U.S.?) Sure, she has a massive audience and has sold oodles of product, but in this land of loathing for tall poppies, the critical reception has been traditionally to scythe her down. Let's examine the evidence.

Dido, or Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, as she is compulsorily referred to within sneering put-downs, possibly never planned it thus. Her name(s), clearly, were given by her parents, who actually might take some deserved flak for that, and her musical history only began through her brother, Rollo, needing some female vocals for his band, Faithless. As with the featured song. Rollo, strangely never Rollo Constantine O'Malley Armstrong, is the famously non-participant member of Faithless, writing much of the material, leaving the other core members, Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz, possibly also neither their full or given names, to perform them with associated session men and sundry electronica. Her cameo vocals were sufficient to grasp her a recording contract. And her own material, a sweeter and blander, more easily digested version of her brother's music, often written with him, was poised to fill the middle ground. There are myriad singers occupying arguably similar ground, and I will offend the fans of Sia and Paloma Faith by including them in that terroir, but it's true. There is always a niche for well played and performed, exquisitely  produced pop music. But Dido had one huge stroke of luck, with one of her songs being picked up by star of the day/for the day Eminem. His sampling of her vocals was a master stroke, massively expanding both his appeal and hers, hoovering up both sales and plaudits aplenty. Thank you, Stan.

It is true, I haven't paid huge attention to her later work: I have her later recordings, or access to: my wife is a fan, having graduated effortlessly to that status, courtesy her adoration of Faithless and all things related. (An anecdote: it was my picking up her mention of the diminutive Maxi Jaxx on her dating site bio, that both caught my eye, endearing me to her, mistaken in her belief that my tastes did not run quite as far as they do. Had she then known I was listening also to hardcore bagpipe-driven folk-rock and steel drenched country, things may have turned out very different.......) But my affection remains, as those about me four scorn and disdain. The fondly remembered music mag, (The) Word, went on record to say that when they put her on the cover, it was their least selling copy, arguably saying more about their audience than Ms Armstrong. Perhaps I will have to check my stats after I post this?!

Purely because I hadn't realised this before, let me also draw attention to her appearances with and for other artists. Now it may be that Carlos Santana can be a bit of a tart, beefing up his appeal by and nearly inventing the idea of stuffing albums with as many guests as he can find, but this collaboration with Dido isn't so terribly bad.

As is, neither, this duet with Rufus Wainwright, for one of the Bridget Jones sequels. Quite a bit better, actually.If the notoriously picky and spiky Wainwright was willing to share a song with her, up a little further she goes in my estimation.

Check yer mail!

Mail: Letters to Cleo

Letters to Cleo: Here and Now 

[purchase Aurora Glory Alice] 

This theme was inspired by the attempt by the Trump administration to damage the United States Postal Service, apparently to make voting by mail more difficult, or subject to challenge, or both. 

Despite that, I’m not going to write about a song that discusses the mail, or letters, or mail carriers. Instead, let’s discuss the band Letters to Cleo, making this my second consecutive post about a Boston area band. 

Formed in 1990, the lineup coalesced around 1994, and the band’s name came from a box of letters that singer Kay Hanley had sent to a childhood pen pal that were returned, and which she discovered when the band was trying to pick a name. 

Their first album, Aurora Gory Alice, spawned a single, “Here and Now,” that was a Billboard Modern Rock hit, was popular on college radio, and was on the Melrose Place soundtrack. It’s a great alternative pop/rock song and is probably the one Letters to Cleo song that anyone who could name a Letters to Cleo song could name. 

After that, the band released a couple of albums with decreasing success, had some songs on soundtracks (including covers of “I Want You to Want Me,” and “Cruel to be Kind,” from 10 Things I Hate About You), had some personnel turnover, and broke up in 2000. The members went off to solo careers, or formed or joined other bands. Singer Hanley also provided vocals for the Josie & The Pussycats movie. There were some brief reunions in 2007 and 2009, and that would have been that. Letters to Cleo would be one of those bands that some people fondly remembered, and “Here and Now” would show up occasionally on radio or streaming stations that play 90s alt-rock. 

Except that’s not what happened. 

In 2011, Michael Schur, one of the creators of the great TV show, Parks & Recreation, saw Hanley at a charity music event in Boston. He was a fan of Letters to Cleo, and decided to put one of the characters, Ben Wyatt, played by Adam Scott, in a t-shirt with the image of the Aurora Gory Alice album on it. He got approval from the dormant band’s management to create the shirt, which had never before existed. In anticipation, the band printed up a few hundred shirts and posted it on their website. 

After the episode aired in 2012, Letters to Cleo trended on Twitter, and the t-shirts started to move. And in 2014, when the show created a “Pawnee/Eagleton Unity Concert,” they called in a bunch of real stars to appear, including Ginuwine, Jeff Tweedy (as the frontman of the reunited band Land Ho!), The Decemberists, and Yo La Tengo, who dressed up as Indiana University coach Bobby Knight and performed Night Ranger's "Sister Christian,” as Bobby Knight Ranger. And Letters to Cleo. 

I couldn’t find their performance (and actually don’t specifically recall if they showed them perform on the show), but you can see some of the members in this video.

After that, they put out some new music and a holiday EP, and did some shows before live shows ended earlier this year. So, are they back? I wouldn’t bet against it.

Count: Count Me In

purchase [ LRB Playing to Win album]

A trip to Australia is on my bucket list, for sure. Given my experience with my yearly trip to see my mom in Eastern Washington state, which takes 5 days just to travel there and back- a trip from Istanbul to Australia seems ... outlandish.

Australia, because this post is about a group from Down Under.

When I think Down Under, the first music that comes to mind is - of course - "I come from a land down under", the classic from Men At Work. Yes, the Wiki tells us that there are lots of other famous Aussie musicians [ link], but my age and generation bring up this one first.

Howsomever, my initial search for music related to the current theme drew me to a song by the Australian Little River Band. The Ranker link above has these two ranked at numbers 23 and 24 (with the Little River Band one step ahead as I post).

Little River Band, according to the Wiki, came on the scene a few years before Men At Work, and they are still at it in one configuration or another, but not much in the way of original members - and a fair amount of litigation in the process.

Various songs titled Count Me In are listed, starting with a Gary Lewis and the Playboys piece from the 1960s with the Little River Band's piece nesteled into the middle of the list chronologically. None seem to have much relation to each other, so here's a smattering of them:

Gary Lewis (1960s)

311 (this century)

COUNT: 1,2,3,4,

There are few more rousing introductions to any piece of rhythmic music than the exhortation to the band of a swift entry count, the musical equivalent of get on your marks, get set, go. And many have made much of this, with particular favourites being the Ramones (on just about everything) and, in the middle eight drop of Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen. (It's at 3.04.) But there is another, a far more languid take on it, the appeal of which lingers for all time, making me smile even now.....

By slowing it down, as well as getting to 6, Richman totally blew my twenty year old mind when I first heard it, 'with my radio on', and it became one of the few singles this album buyer bought. Adding to the joy and the confusion was that it was on both sides; the version above nominally the A side, Roadrunner (twice) being on the flip. Even more confoundingly, 'twice' was the earlier version, '72, I think, against the '74 of 'once'. The charts were clearly not ready for this garage band romp until softened by the early UK stirrings of punk in 1977. A relatively early adopter, I was already in thrall to the Beserkely record label, the self-entitled 'Home of the Hits', populated with such delights as the Rubinoos and Greg Kihn. Trivia moment: although Roadrunner (once) is often attributed to the Modern Lovers, Richman is here actually backed by the Greg Kihn band. I don't know whether it made any impression in the U.S., but it captured a credible 11 in the UK singles chart. Richman later toured, this time with the Modern Lovers, promoting the LP, Rock'n'Roll With the Modern Lovers, getting another hit with the equally quirky (and even stranger) Egyptian Reggae, an instrumental. I didn't catch the tour, deeply of a friend who did, hooking up with the band and accompanying the band for the rest of the tour and to Germany. A very surreal experience, I gather and I am uncertain whether he was ever the same.

This is neither the time nor place to discuss further the charm of Richman, taking his idiot savant persona further and forward in ever more endearing/annoying directions. (I have R&RwtMLs and can still enjoy it, but I would confess to that being entirely as much as I need. There are only so many Ice Cream Men and Rocking Leprechauns I can stomach.)

The earlier Roadrunner (twice) probably deserves a little background, if only to namecheck the produce, welsh Velvet Underground man John Cale, he perhaps appreciating the debt to VU song, Sister Ray, which is hardly dissimilar.

The lyrics of the song are also conveniently very conducive to a counting theme, as Richman returns, time and time again, in the chorus, a repeated and echoed refrain of Roadrunner, then applying the time old contrivance of emphasis: 'I said roadrunner once, I said roadrunner twice', failing to even leave it at that. It's a delight.
You're begging to ask, was there a Roadrunner (thrice)? Of course there was, a live version, a b side of a later single.

Once, twice, thrice.........

Counting/Count: 12345678910

Human Sexual Response: 12345678910 
[purchase] 

Did I ever see Human Sexual Response live? Did I interview them at WPRB? I have no memory of doing so, but there’s also a good chance that I did one or both of those things, because they performed at City Gardens in Trenton during my time at WPRB. 

I do remember playing their music on the radio pretty often, initially “Jackie Onassis” from their debut, Fig. 14 (where they rhymed “Onassis” with “sunglasses”), but there were a bunch of other good songs on that record. And their second disc, “In a Roman Mood” might have been better, with the highlight being “Land of the Glass Pinecones” a true earworm if ever there was one. (Note—the Allmusic biography of the band refers to this album as “a comparatively dour affair, loaded down with art rock pretensions and lifeless arrangements,” but the same site’s review of the album itself says that it is an “extraordinary album.” Who to believe? Me.) 

If you’ve never heard the band, try to track them down. Think a mix of Talking Heads, B-52s, and fellow Boston-area band Mission of Burma (but not really like any of them), often with sexually related lyrics, befitting a band named after the famous Masters and Johnson book. One of the good non-“Glass Pinecones” songs on the album is “12345678910” which, I think, is another sex-related song, but I’ve read the lyrics a bunch of times and can’t really be sure what it is about exactly. So, I’ll just let you decide. (Too bad that the song wasn’t on Midnight Oil’s album, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1). 

Despite generally good reviews and reportedly great live performances (which makes me think that I would have remembered seeing them), the band broke up after the second album. One member left music and went to work for Sun Microsystems. Most of the other members joined different bands, sometimes together, sometimes not, and one of the band members, Dini Lamot, became a drag performer. They have reunited for the occasional show, most recently in 2017. Here’s a video of our featured song from that show, and it looks like fun.

Count: You Can't Count On Me

 

Purchase: You Can't Count on Me, by the Counting Crows

A dual threat here: A warning that you can't count on me, by a band that has named itself by one half after the action of counting. Not by numbers, though but more the collective images of wishing and dreaming. The band has made a wonderful song referring to the children's fairy tale of its own collective, being a murder (that's a gathering of crows). We could throw in a song about murder by numbers, as well, and still be revolving in the same metaphorical and imagistic theatre (that's a song by the Police). 

"You Can't Count On Me" was the second single release from the Counting Crows mid-career reflection on transformation, Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings. Here was an album that featured an A side that was a blistering collection of rare, fired up rockers, about fame, about success and excess. The B side was the comedown from the party, softer, more reflective, somber tunes, cottony and easier, as if to sooth the lingering hangover from Saturday night, and the overabundance that often leads to a the guilt of over-indulgence.

"You Can't Count On Me" serves as a bit of a warning, as well as a break up song. Adam Duritz, famous for his dating life (which is a bit criminal, given his talent for crafting poetry that triumphs as song, but is at its heart poetry, nonetheless), writes a lot about love, and the ease at which it fails, disappoints and breaks apart an otherwise resilient soul and psyche. This song is Duritz's final word, so to speak, about the disappointments of love and his acceptance at his own failures. When you listen to the work he's done since 2008, which sadly there hasn't been nearly enough of, Duritz seems more accepting of his losses, and has moved in a direction of his work that isn't as self-introspective. But at the time, "You Can't Count On Me" seemed to serve as the final word on his private life. 

And while the song seems to fit into the Saturday Nights side of the album, it's actually part of Sunday Mornings. Duritz said in an interview that he wanted to write a song about breakups that captured both the sadness of ending a relationship, but also showed the honest truth about the damages he felt he'd caused by coping to his culpability. It's a self-flagellating song, and Duritz pulls no punches on the sadness he knows he has caused. A brave sentiment, but one that fits with his ethos as a writer, to tell truths, no matter how hard, in a beautiful way. He said, "I wanted to write a song about leaving someone that alternated between honest sad feelings about the loss and brutally honest admissions about the damage done. However honest my regrets have been and however much I ‘did the right thing.’"*

The power of Saturday Nights, Sunday Mornings comes from its relatability and realness. One need not be a rock star to regret excesses or the choices we've made. We hurt people, even when we don't intend to; we are self-serving creatures, even if we have the ability to recognize what we've done wrong and how we should have been better. We don't alway achieve redemption despite how hard we might work for it; even after we give up the habits that cause problems, after the initial lightness of freedom, we still feel the sorrow and the grief. Life can't always be a Saturday night; eventually the morning comes and we wake to a clarity, no matter how muddied or sad. 

The quote from the Adam Duritz interview comes from the always phenomenal and long lasting music blog, "Ryan's Smashing Life" http://www.rslblog.com/

(DON'T) COUNT: ME OUT/GERRY RAFFERTY

Well there are a lot of those in the music biz, I thought, on a first mistaken hearing of the title of this piece. Maybe one, then, for another day. But count, that's whole lot trickier. Do I run with one, two, three or go for the title; digits or Dracula? When in doubt I plod my traditional route and ask my i-tunes search, today quite pleased with the outcome. Welcome back, Mr Rafferty, it being some time since he last featured, 2017, I think.

With a golden voice and a seemingly effortless gift for melody, Rafferty could bridge the worlds of folk and pop/rock without giving any clue they could be different genres, with often acerbic lyrics preventing any slide into saccharine. McCartney-esque is a description often given and one I dislike, as I prefer my tea and coffee without ten heaped spoons of granulated. This song, from his 1971 debut, Can I Have My Money Back, typifies my description. With a keening vocal over a strummed acoustic, there soon kicks in some more rhythmic backing, with delightfully choppy electric guitar underpinning the rest of the song. A plea for acceptance as himself, for himself, rather than any easy and more acceptable conformity, berating anyone who may feel a casual acquaintance may offer any deeper understanding of his psyche. This is a subject to which he returns throughout his recording career and nine subsequent albums. Brought up in the rough and tumble of Paisley, then a grim town in the central belt of Scotland, not far from Glasgow, he retained a life long loathing and suspicion of the trappings of fame and fortune, with the paradox that he ultimately did very well from both, at least financially. A grotesque irony comes in the second verse, wherein he passes comment around his fondness of alcohol:
"When the sun goes down You'll find me sitting in a bar in the dark side of the town And if you tell me that I drink too much and that it's going to be the death of me Hear me shout, don't count me out."
Given, nearly forty years later, it was alcohol related liver disease he died of, with his later years awash with disturbing tales of alcoholic mayhem, the runes were already being cast. Indeed, may have been cast long before, his father and brother both succumbing to similar.

This first LP came after his partnership with Billy Connolly, the Humblebums, had foundered, with Connolly, an extremely adept banjo player, finding he preferred the long between song anecdotes to the singing itself. The record was not then a huge success, if a critics favourite, and it might be that it was more the record company that would seek their money back. But these were different days, and record companies, even his label, Transatlantic, a small and predominantly folkie imprint, had more money and faith than now seems the norm. Hooking up with Joe Egan he then formed Stealer's Wheel, as outlined in the previous piece referenced above. Again, no fortunes then made: this was years before Reservoir Dogs, and the pair split in no small acrimony.

A prolonged delay, on legally binding requirements, meant Rafferty had plenty time to hone his craft, second solo record, City to City, not arriving until 1978. With both Baker Street and Right Down the Line present and featured as the lead singles, this was a turning point and he never much had to worry about money again. This was able to give hime sufficient security to increasingly turn his back on the "industry" he despised and to stubbornly do as he pleased. Refusing to re-record or re-release Stuck in the Middle With You when Tarantino could have allowed it to hit paydirt was one such obstinacy. Interestingly, as time went by, his endeavours to remove himself entirely from the control of others preface what is now increasingly everyday practice. 2000's Another World was made at home in his own (mobile) studio, and, to begin with, was only available via his website, an early adopter of this approach, www.gerryrafferty.com, everything, even the promotion directly down to his own efforts. OK, it later received a release on the Hypertension label, but this style of working seemed to appeal to Rafferty, he using his website to be the conduit of new material and information for the next three years, if increasingly intermittently, perhaps as the booze was taking greater hold.

Rafferty has been sadly overlooked and undervalued since his demise. Seen as a two trick pony in hindsight, this simplification devalues the huge body of work up to a similar standard. I would go as far as to suggest he is one of the UK's finer songwriters, and certainly one of the better singers. He also was a capable record producer of others. Maybe it isn't news that he produced the first ill-fated version of Richard & Linda Thompson's Shoot Out the Lights, commonly referred to as Rafferty's Folly, the legacy of which suggests he wasn't up to the game. That is unfair, his style just not bleak enough for the songs. What is less well known is that he also produced the debut outing by fellow Paisley-ites, the Proclaimers. I really think he deserves a decent tribute album to remind how very much more to him than two singles there is. (In fact, there is one, if little known, featuring and performed by his friend, the singer Barbara Dickson, which is possibly worth seeking out, if a little M.O.R. in approach and audience intended.) There was, however, a 2012 tribute concert at Glasgow's Celtic Connections annual festival. Here's Ron Sexsmith:

Finally, and if only because I would be pilloried if I didn't mention the B word, I was uplifted to appreciate the end to the debate as to whether it the sax solo in Baker Street was Rafferty's idea or that of the player, the now also deceased Raf Ravenscroft. Ravenscroft was on record at one time to state it was of his doing, being asked to fill in between verses, and coming up with the iconic riff spontaneously, in the studio. Rafferty disputed this, citing Ravenscroft as not even being his first choice to play with him, although the two continued to work together, even after the argument, for his next few records. The answer to the quandary came with the release of the City to City remasters in 2011, including a pre-saxophone demo of the song. With the same riff on Rafferty's guitar. Like to hear it?

Go, Gerry, R.I.P., I did count on you.

Count/Counting: SCTV's Count Floyd

My last post, about the TV show The Great has, so far, turned out to be one of the least popular things that I’ve ever submitted to this blog, so it seems like a really, really good idea to follow that up with another TV related post. 

I’m not sure why The Theme Picker chose this theme, and frankly, I argued against it, but because I’m only a Theme Suggester and Backup Theme Picker, I lost this round. The first thing that popped into my head was to write about the SCTV character Count Floyd, memorably portrayed by Joe Flaherty. And when I read the Wikipedia article about the character, I was laughing out loud, which I think we can agree is unusual when reading Wikipedia, and that convinced me to follow this route, even it ends, like my last TV related post, with almost universal indifference. 

I’ve written about SCTV before, so I won’t repeat all of the background stuff about the show, but you are, of course, welcome to read that post before continuing.  And I'm still doing this after reading the article in Sunday's New York Times about the racism in the Second City organization.

One of the basic conceits about SCTV is that it is about a generally low budget TV network. There was a time, which I’m old enough to remember, when local TV stations ran shows featuring usually bad , low budget horror movies and/or cartoons, hosted by someone who might be vampire, a clown, an astronaut, or something else. Usually, to save money, these characters were portrayed by employees of the station. Here’s a Wikipedia article about the “horror host” tradition, and here’s the recent obituary for Bob March, who portrayed “Captain Satellite” in the Bay Area for decades. And here’s an interview with the late Frank Avruch, who was a staff announcer at a TV station in Boston before becoming probably the most widely seen Bozo the Clown. 

Count Floyd was created to host SCTV’s Monster Chiller Horror Theater, and was the alter ego of (fictional) SCTV newscaster Floyd Robertson, also played by Flaherty. Although Count Floyd was a vampire, his lack of commitment to the character often led to him howling like a werewolf. The main running joke in the sketches was that the movies tended to be awful, and often unrelated to the horror genre, forcing Count Floyd to struggle to make them seem scary, and often ending in him getting frustrated and breaking character. Count Floyd also tried to sell his supposedly young audience overpriced items, maybe hearkening to the time when Soupy Sales, a children’s show host in New York, on New Year’s Day, 1965, asked his viewers to send him “little green pieces of paper” from their parents’ wallets. 

In addition to the fact that Flaherty was hysterical, SCTV used these sketches to show bits of movie parodies, often badly executed “3D” films. such as Tip O’Neill’s 3-D House of Representatives, Dr. Tongue's 3D House Of Stewardesses, Dr. Tongue's House Of Cats, or Dr. Tongue's Evil House Of Pancakes. (Dr. Tongue was played by John Candy, and his sidekick, Bruno, was played by Eugene Levy, who has been nominated for an Emmy this year for Schitt's Creek).  And even when the movie failed to show up, Count Floyd simply made up a plot and described it. They also used the character in a “Siskel & Ebert” style review show called Scary Previews. There was even a Count Floyd album, featuring, among other songs, “Reggae Christmas Eve in Transylvania.” It was the only non-Bob & Doug McKenzie album related to SCTV. 

Like the vampire/werewolf that he was, Count Floyd didn’t die when SCTV went off the air. Rush used a Count Floyd video to introduce “The Weapon,” on tour in the early ‘80s (see the video above). And fellow SCTV alum Martin Short included new Count Floyd segments in his late 80s animated series, The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley. But that’s not all. There’s a funny Count Floyd video about how to make funny videos. A Count Floyd video about smoke detectors. And the character popped up elsewhere, mostly in Canada, promoting various things. 

Flaherty, who played Harold Weir in the great series Freaks & Geeks, wore a vampire costume in one episode, which you can see about 24 seconds into this compilation clip, and that had to be a callback to Count Floyd. 

As recently as 2014, Canadian band The Wet Secrets used Count Floyd in their video for “Nightlife,” although strangely, he looks a little like Grandpa Munster in some of the shots.

(THE) GREAT : VALERIO

Is there a more chilling song in the the already well-refrigerated canon of Richard Thompson? No stranger to a bleak lyric, this song, from his acclaimed 1974 duet debut, alongside his then wife, Linda, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, says more in the stark description and build up than any delineation or hint of what might come next. Because it doesn't need to. Linda's icy narrative tells exactly where it is going, where Valerio is going. And with him, any dreams for a brighter future. I guess it's an allegory for the futility of love, which is as daunting a phrase to write as to consider, our hearts and souls all praying for the opposite. The album is not short on other such cheerful ditties either, End of the Rainbow being a blunt warning against any hope for anything at all.

Richard & Linda

But I have always wondered whether there ever was a Valerio and it seems there was. In 1863 it was reported that a 'dreadful accident' had taken place as 25 year old Carlo Valerio performed his high wire act at Cremorne Gardens. Here is an excellent blog article that describes it all. Thompson's skill is to weave the tale into a wider perspective, deploying the style of an ancient broad sheet ballad, the traditional folk idiom being full of songs about disasters and death, yet cataloguing a far more universal prophecy.

I have always loved the darker aspects of Richard Thompson's writing. Whilst he always comes across as less pessimistic in real life, engaging a dry wit, heavy with a shy self-deprecation, his songs lightening up (a little) over the years, it is these early shards of nihilism I enjoy(!?) the most. Not for nothing were a couple of early cassette compilations called Doom and Gloom From the Tomb, Volumes 1 and 2. Often asked why his material has such depressing content, here is as good a recent interview, with some possible explanation, as any.

Richard solo

I am an avid seeker of cover versions. So, are there any great Great Valerio's out there? Maybe a reggae version, or thrash metal? Well, if there are, I can't find 'em, most fitting into a similar niche of austerity, artists also with a trad.arr. streak embedded in their marrow. So June Tabor, Maggie Holland, even Barb Jungr; no surprises there. But Cathal Coughlan's maverick Fatima Mansions? The angry and cathartic irish rockers might seemingly have little in common with the chamber chill of this song. But you'd be wrong. OK, it seems a fairly straight facsimile, but Coughlan's voice is way more yearning than the reportage of the original. It works. Similar, yet poles apart.

Fatima Mansions

There's this and this, but you might consider this.

Great: Great Nations of Europe

purchase [ Newman's Bad Love album]


When I was a kid, my folks picked up a couple of Tom Lehrer albums for family entertainment. Being distant/removed from mainstream US life, we listened to our limited collectıon of LPs to the point that we had the full album memorized.  Lehrer's music was pithy and dealt with social and political issues of his day (says wikipedia about him). He played the piano to accompany his satire of current affairs, performing songs like Poisoning Pigeons in the Park and Who's Next (to get the A-bomb).

I suppose not everyone cares for the wry humor that is Randy Newman's trademark. For me, his songs give pause, a chance to stop and think about what his lyrics convey, and more often than not they tease people/animals who consider themselves "great". He's got no respect for the ones at the top.  We're talking <great>, right? There's nothing   that says great is "good" or great is "bad", as in great big mistake.

I wouldn't credit Newman with a great voice - or great piano chops. That's not his style. It's lyrics that matters. They bite, cut and hurt, but make you stop and think about what's right and what is wrong.
How prescient is Newman's Great Nations of Europe, released back in 1999. And while it may be named "...Europe", dont think for a minute that the actual target is that local. As I said, it's aimed at you and me. At the end of the story, it's a bug from out of Africa, not the China virus that's going to come for us all, just like the Conquistadors carried their bugs West in the 16th century. But for now, everyone is as happy as can be.

Great: The Great

[stream on Hulu] 

I watch a lot of TV in general, but the end of almost all outside the home entertainment and, until recently, televised sports, has meant that I have watched even more. One of my favorite shows from the last few months was The Great, on Hulu, which describes itself as “a satirical, comedic drama - based on the occasional historical fact - about the rise of Catherine the Great from outsider to the longest reigning female ruler in Russia's history.” It is completely over the top, barely historically accurate, bawdy, violent, silly, and exciting. Basically, it was a lot of fun, with some great performances (and some of the most amusing color blind casting that I’ve seen). And yes, they address the whole “sex with a horse” thing. (“Fake news,” apparently.) It has been nominated only for best directing and best writing in a comedy series Emmys, which is not nearly enough. 

There are ten episodes in the series, and at the end of each episode, the credits roll over a modern song, and the choices by music supervisor, Maggie Phillips, who had a similar role with The Handmaid’s Tale, are generally inspired. Warning, spoilers follow! 

Episode one, where we first learn of Catherine’s goal to wrest control of the country from her feckless husband, ended with Patti Smith’s strangely faithful cover of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants To Rule The World.” In episode 2, she begins to gather allies, and the credits play over Primal Scream’s “Movin’ On Up.” Cat Power, who titled an album The Greatest, contributed “Free,” for episode 3, although that song is from a different album. In episode 4, Catherine and her officially appointed lover enjoy each other’s’ company, so what better song could play during the credits than Buzzcocks’ great pop/punk song “Orgasm Addict?” And in episode 5, Czar Peter has been poisoned, but Catherine realizes that she’s not ready to take over, so Courtney Barnett’s rocking "Nobody Really Cares If You Don't Go To The Party,” with the lyric "you say you'll sleep when you're dead, I'm scared I'll die in my sleep" highlights Catherine’s ambivalence. 

The second half of the season begins with episode 6, where Catherine attempts to interest Peter in science, to less than positive results. Under the credits, we hear Thomas Dolby’s signature song, “She Blinded Me With Science.” As Catherine seems defeated in episode 7, Phillips chose Sharon van Etten’s lugubrious cover of “(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, And Understanding,” featuring Josh Homme (and if you want more, and I think better, covers, check out this post). But as the treasonous planning picks up in episode 8, the credits play over female hard rock pioneer Suzi Quatro’s “The Wild One.” And as Catherine’s plot seems likely to succeed, the credit music is Cass Elliot’s appropriately hopeful “New World Coming.” 

The final episode ends with a cliffhanger, after a pregnant Catherine sacrifices her lover to save her coup. But is he dead, and does she succeed? (We do know the real answer to the second question.) And in a twist, the season ends with a haunting new cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire,” by Simone Istwa. It is the only one of the credit songs that appears on the show’s soundtrack album, which otherwise features selections of the show’s original music composed by Nathan Barr. Including a song called “Tainting the Borscht.” 

I could have linked to the videos of all of the songs, but instead, just go here, and you can read more about the music, and play all of the songs. And you can look forward to season 2. 

Huzzah!

GREAT: THE GREATNESS AND PERFECTION OF LOVE/JULIAN COPE

So much of what is deemed is great just grates. At least to my ears. I have always had a taste eccentric to the vox populi, preferring and tending to seek out the less well served by collective opinion. I guess as in the same way my favourite dog breed is under. Luckily, courtesy this mouthpiece, my clarion call to the masses, this allows me free rein to inveigle my audience, that's me and my sockpuppets btw, into submission.

The Greatness and Perfection of Love

I bloody loved this album when it came out, World Shut Your Mouth, the first record by Julian Cope after the demise of The Teardrop Explodes. Always prone to overtly english vocals: Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers, Ray Davies, Cope was another who rejected the standard transatlantic twang most UK singers have always tended to adopt, knowing, I guess, the bigger market. Mind you, I had always been pretty keen on the Teardrops, especially the standout single, below.

Reward

Cope was never going to be conventional. Coming from Tamworth, a desultory town slightly north of Birmingham, it was never going to be his provider, that taking a move to Merseyside where his accent would always have been a sore thumb amongst those around him. And perhaps why and how a young Courtney Love took such a shine to him? When the record came out, in 1984, I really thought he would be a big star. Hell, he was even on Top of the Pops with the title track, confusingly not included on the album, it coming out two years later, sporting his own design microphone stand.

World Shut Your Mouth

In the years since he has built a name for eccentricity, inconsistency and a weird sort of reliability to avoid entirely any kind of pigeon holing, with this not the place to celebrate his increasingly bizarre stylistic ricochets. Well, not entirely and not now. But, should his musical meanderings not prove easy enough on your ear, consider the fact that he is a celebrated author on subjects as unrelated as (am I still allowed to call it, even if he does?) krautrock and ancient monuments.

Elegant Chaos

Lunatic and Fire Pistol

Back to the o.p. and why it is so great. One reason is always within the lyrics; is he really singing "the greatness and perfection of love"? Sounds mighty like the "greatest imperfection" to me, so much so I am not going to check, preferring the incongruity. But it isn't by any stretch the only good track on the album, I being drawn also to the oboe led majesties of Elegant Chaos and Lunatic and Fire Pistol, peculiar whimsies of uncertain provenance. This pair stand out, along with Head Hang Low, at full arms length from the poppier, Teardroppier other songs, betraying his then state of mind.

Head Hang Low

Fast forward and Cope is still around, with somewhere around 20 albums under his own name, more if you include ones his many and varied labels have suppressed or rejected, often sneaking out years later under some arcane imprint. Some are good, very very good, some frankly unlistenable, but always interesting and seldom classifiable alongside his peers. Somehow I think I need to return to his muse another day.

World!

Great: "Someone Great", By LCD Soundsystem

Purchase LCD Soundsystem's "Someone Great" from the 2007 full-length Sound of Silver

In life--in our understanding of truths, or our philosophizing a way to a discovery--simple doesn't necessarily mean simple--the most profound truths are the most relatable and easiest to understand. The same goes for songs: sometimes the simplest melody can be the most addictive. “Three chords and the truth” ( I think Bono said that, though the phrase itself has a long history—perhaps in another post?). Think of some of the great rock songs: the power is in the simple structure, repeated over and over again ("Wild Thing", "Baba O'Riley", "Bad Moon Rising"). Things need not be overly complex to be enjoyable. The groove gets cut into your mind, and the song has a nurturing sense. There’s a science to why pop music is so addictive, and so pleasing to listen to--it feeds into pleasure sensors in the mind, which produce the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine is the same chemical reaction one gets from good food, alcohol, illicit drugs--it creates a physical pleasure, and in the car of music, joyfulness. Music is a language that speaks on multiple levels, and while music can be complex, there is no denying that a simple melody, or a fun, jumpy pop song, is addictive. And the understanding of what a guilty pleasure is comes in to play--it's usually the silly, cheesy--simple--songs that get the most play, get stuck in our heads. The songs we keep rewinding when no one else is in the car. I fully admit to having put some serious strain on the speakers to a few Ke$ha songs, and the Black Eye'd Pea's "I Gotta Feeling." Music's power to uplift and raise the spirit is a certainty of our human nature, as real as breathing, engrained right into our DNA. 

LCD Soundsystem, James Murphy's now cult-status musical collective, is an endlessly fascinating band with a wildly interesting catalog of music. LCD Soundsystem are a modern, definition-and genre-defying musical experience. Are they rock, are they electronica? Post-punk, art-rock, indie, or dance? Dance rock? The soundscapes are large, looming, immersive. At their best, LCD Soundsystem are hypnotic and the idea of simple  as applied to their music comes not from a lack of technicality or multi-layered compositional complexity, but from an aural ethos and creative pattern that exists across their catalog. This is sound, built on a singular foundation, that is allowed to grow, and an LCD Soundsystem song is an organic experience that grows in a way that few songs do.

While not simple at all, the music often stems from the simplicity of construction: Electronic keyboards, sounds and beats mix with traditional instrumentation and tones, organic guitars, spoken mantras delivered prayer-like, noises and pulses, not so much mixed, but stacked upon one another to achieve a great big sound from what was simple to start.  How to best describe LCD Soundsystem, as filtered through my own listening experience: One instrument, one beat, repeated over and over, built upon, layered and rising into a complex, multi-faceted composition. LCD Soundsystem's songs are meant to be felt, and the layers of aural texture, while analog and seemingly made of brick and mortar rather than digital and electronic signal, are tangible and blocky, like an old video game blipping and bleeping on a small screen. But, that is to deny the complexity, and the often beautiful and addictive songscapes the band makes. The sound is rudimentary and unvarnished, old school console tech, beamed in from a spaceship from a 1960s sci-fi movie, blinking and pulsing, but still real and perceptible by touch. I know the music is not low-fi; it's probably more high tech than I could conceivably understand. But LCD's sound maintains the beautiful simplicity and masterly complexity of a basement Mozart sending new world symphonies into far outer space via a Radio Shack satellite dish. 

Of their extensive catalog--the songs are long, the albums true long players--"Someone Great" from 2007's Sound of Silver, resonates with me. The song is classic LCD--a simple build, that winds itself up into a full blown celebration of sound that lies somewhere within the realm of New Order at their brightest,  Joy Division risen from the dead, Kerouac talking though an old time radio, and a trip to someplace stellar and aglow, that requires a open-windowed roaring drive on the open, empty highway, and the kind of freeing abandon that comes from dancing in a sea of flashing neon and star light. The thing that makes LCD's music hard to describe is the evocations of sensation their soundscape creates. There is a reckless, yet tightly crafted abandon in their music, and it can feel like flying. No song has this kind of effect more so than "Someone Great" which is a deceptively sad song and a meditation on the process of grief. The sentiment might get lost in the throbbing grooves and ever-building beat if you’re only dancing to it. But that’s the beauty of LCD Soundsystem—you gotta listen to everything. It’s a demand, and Murphy’s music isn’t made for a mindless twirling listen. The kind of rockers who disdain dance music, or techno, want to get on the dance floor and move, but they can't miss the melancholy elegy of the song. The entirety of Sound of Silver is enigmatic in its refusal to fit into one mode, or to be classified as any one type of music. Like Murphy's poetic imagery and his pulsing rhythms and otherworld melodies, there are layers here which grow expansive with every listen. Rolling Stone said of Sound of Silver, "It was an album as raw and honest in emotion as it was clever and slick in execution, and the results appealed to fans from all over the musical map."* The lyrics of "Someone Great" are the most striking part of this brilliant composition, as they capture a concept familiar yet all together baffling: how the world can keep moving and continue on, even when we are wasted and laid prone by our grief. There is a moment in the song that resonates where the speaker marvels at the weather: it's beautiful outside, shouldn't the weather meet me in my pain? Murphy sings, :The worst is all the lovely weather/ I'm stunned, it's not raining."  And indeed the rise and emotional crest of the song itself resembles the strange ride through the ebb and flow of grief--lows and the bright highs that come as we grapple with acceptance and learn to navigate a new landscape. But even in that navigation, there is the endless sense that this sadness will never end. The most powerful moment in the song comes when Murphy repeats, over and over, "And it keeps coming", ending the refrain with a simple answer to his unasked question, "Till the day it stops."

A sad song set to a joyful, upbeat and danceable melody sometimes hits the hardest--but why shouldn't life's worst moments be set to something beautiful? Isn't life meant to be a celebration, most so at the end, as we go home?  A mediation on grief that doesn't shy away from the pain it is trying to convey, but still has the nerve to approach it through joyful, prayerful celebratory sound--that's an act of healing in itself. 

"Someone Great" strikes me as a particularly important song right now, in the strange, terrifying, awful year we are experiencing. I know that despite the terrible lows that keep coming at us--division, anger, fear, loss, separation and isolation--music has been a constant. A comfort and meaning maker when I have trouble making sense of much of what I hear and see, and worse, what I feel in my interior. And being isolated in the way we have been since March, the interior is more important than ever, as we seem compelled to spend a lot more time in our heads, with our anxieties and repetitive thoughts than seems fair. When I am at a loss with what to do with the turmoil this pandemic, social unrest and separation from family and the connections that make life meaningful has allowed, when the world ceases to work they way we've known it to work for so long, music helps me make sense. A beat, a lyric, a rising crescendo and an orchestral explosion of noise and melody is a healing force. Music makes sense when nothing else does. 

Space Voyage Rock 'n Roll 

* Harris, Sophie. “LCD Soundsystem's 'Sound of Silver': 10 Things You Didn't Know.” Rolling Stone, Rolling Stone, 22 Sept. 2019, www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/lcd-soundsystems-sound-of-silver-10-things-you-didnt-know-110495/.

Great: The Great Pretender

purchase [ Platters version]
purchase [The Band version ]
purchase [ Freddy Mercury version ]

There are many notable version of The Great Pretender and it is no surprise that it was voted one of the greatest songs of all time by Rolling Stone magazine back in 2004 (Yeah, OK, in @ #360, but still...) But the song also carries on our previous mask theme, where the protagonist puts on a public face/performance that just aint true. And it would appear that this is something you just about have to do when you get up on a stage, be you Dolly Parton, Elvis, Freddy Mercury, Roy Orbison or Sam Cooke.

Way  back in  the year I was born, the story goes, a music producer named Buck Ram wrote this song in 20 minutes in a Vegas hotel washroom. At the time, he was the manager for the Platters, who recorded the song as a follow up to their first hit, Only You. When Mercury records signed them in a two-fer deal on the coat-tails of The Penguins (who, unlike the mostly unknown Platters, had a charting hit called Earth Angel), it wasn't at all clear that The Platters would go down in history. But they did- for a number of reasons - and the Penguins mostly did not. They went on to have many hits (something like 40 of them in about a 10 year span), they were like the first cross-overs from doo wop R&B to rock, they included a female in the line-up, and then they rapidly fell out of favor after they were busted.

Sam Cooke did a  version on his 1960 album Hits of the 50's

Dolly Parton covered it in 1984. Now there's someone who was well aware of the need for pretense as part of her show/pesona. Says Michelle Lindsey [link], "‘The Great Pretender’ is what she set out to be as a poor kid playing dress up, writing songs and hoping to become a star. ...  [Parton] admitted, ‘I do it because I’m a show person.’ To drop the pretence, the persona and age like a normal human being is not an option. You see this now in almost every famous person, trickling right down even to the average person in the street."

The most familiar to me is the version from the Band. I guess by that time I was consuming most of the music that was being produced and The Band, as J David recently noted was [link] hot. J David references the Stage Fright album. How appropriate! The best way to get over your stage fright? Pretend.

The version by Freddy Mercury in 1987 has a certain poignance to it in that it immediately predates his HIV public announcement, and most research indicates that he must have been aware of his health issues well before the song came out. That said, there isnt much debate about his sexual orientation at that time, and that, too, could certainly entail an element of pretense. These factors may be part of the strength of his commanding performance of the song. About Bohemian Rhapsody, Freddy's lover, Jim Hutton said "Freddie was never going to admit it publicly, because he had to carry on the charade about being straight, for his family. But we discussed it many times."

Old and In the Way also cover the song in a wonderful country style, this recording without Garcia unfortunately.

None of the above will be confused with the Foo Fighters' song similarly named The Pretender, which is a great song but doesn't pass our theme test for "great" unless you force a match like this :

Great: Not Great Men

Gang of Four: Not Great Men
[purchase]

There’s an old theory of history called the “Great Man” theory, which, not surprisingly, looks at the historical record by focusing on a series of “Great Men,” like kings, generals and presidents. I suspect that this is still the way that many children are taught history in school, despite the fact that most modern historians believe that so many other factors shape history, including people who aren’t men, or aren’t “great.” And as a former history major, I’m happy to see that broader inquiry into the lives of all people, no matter what gender, or what level of “greatness,” has in many ways changed the shape of the historical narrative. I do believe that while there’s still a reliance on teaching history through focusing on prominent individuals, many schools are widening their curricula to take into account the lives and influence of “ordinary” people. Although as John Oliver pointed out on Sunday, there are big problems about how American History is taught.  History teachers, feel free to comment. 

For example, one recent, high profile example of this was The New York Times’ “1619 Project,” which investigated the profound influence that slavery had on the founding and development of the United States, from 1619 to the present. And although one of my favorite college professors, among others, have raised questions about some of the premises of the “1619 Project,” the disagreement didn’t dispute the essential conclusion that slavery was an enormous factor in our nation’s development. (And some of the disputed language has been revised.)

But, as I often have to remind myself when I go off on a tangent, this is a music blog, even though my musing was inspired by our featured song, Gang of Four’s “Not Great Men,” from their remarkable and influential debut album, Entertainment!.  Andy Gill, one of the band’s founders and its guitarist (who died in February, possibly as an early casualty of COVID-19) once said about the album,

I remember saying to Rob Warr, who was our friend and managing us at the time, and the others: ‘Do you realize how important this is? Do you realize that this is going to change the musical landscape? Do you realize that they’re going to teach this in schools?’ And they’re like, ‘You’re mad, you’re fucking mad,’ and just basically laughed at me.” As it turned out, “I kind of was right, but everybody else thought I was being stupid and crazy. 

Although I don’t remember the first time that I heard that album at WPRB, I do know that it became a regular part of my shows, and most of my fellow DJs loved it (and based on a quick look at some playlists, they still love it, decades later). The album was unlike anything I had ever heard before, with pounding beats, metallic guitars and political, Marxist influenced lyrics. From 1979’s Entertainment! through the Yellow EP, 1981’s Solid Gold and 1982’s slightly more accessible Songs of the Free, the Gang of Four was incredible. After that, I sort of lost interest, as they went through personnel and stylistic changes and a series of breakups and reformations. I interviewed drummer Hugo Burnham on the air at WPRB, and always assumed that it was in connection with a gig at City Gardens, but my research indicates they only played there at times that I wouldn’t have been on campus. So, maybe it was when they played in another club in the area. I remember being impressed by Burnham’s intelligence, and after leaving the band, he ultimately became a college professor. I think that I eventually did see them the summer after graduation at The Pier in NYC.

“Not Great Men” takes direct issue with the “Great Men” theory of history:

No weak men in the books at home
The strong men who have made the world
History lives on the books at home
The books at home

It's not made by great men [Repeat: x4]

The past lives on in your front room
The poor still weak the rich still rule
History lives in the books at home
The books at home

Political criticism that you can dance to.

Bonus cover: I came across this cover of “Not Great Men” by what appears to be an all-female Javanese gamelan ensemble, Sekar-Melati, which is both utterly unexpected and completely charming.


And, remarkably, there’s another gamelan cover of that gamelan cover, this time with vocals:

Kreasi Bari GFS · Not Great Men (Gang of Four Cover - Gamelan slendro)