Cry Cry Cry: Crying, Waiting, Hoping (and sometimes Prayin')

Buddy Holly: Crying, Waiting, Hoping [purchase]

This gem is a home recording made by Buddy Holly in 1958, shortly before his untimely death.

While not the same song, it bears some resemblance to this 1955 recording from the Singing Ranger, Hank Snow:

Hank Snow: Cryin', Prayin', Waitin', Hopin' [purchase]

Cry Cry Cry: Cry on my Shoulder

Bonnie Raitt: Cry on My Shoulder

[purchase]

Some musical pairings seem obvious in retrospect, but make no apparent sense at the time. In 1988, executive producer Hal Willner was working on Stay Awake, his album of unusual takes on songs from Disney movies. Here were Sun Ra doing Pink Elephants on Parade, Tom Waits voicing the seven dwarves, and Sinead O’Connor on the title track. And Willner had the crazy idea of pairing Bonnie Raitt, known at the time mainly as a blues artist, with Don Was, from one of the strangest groups of the 80s, Was (Not Was). And remember that, to be one of the strangest groups of the 80s, you had to be really strange.

The song was Baby Mine, (heard here during the week of the same name), and the pairing worked amazingly well. So well, in fact, that Raitt tagged Was as her producer for her next album. This was Nick of Time, and the album proved to be Raitt’s commercial breakthrough, after almost twenty years in the music business.

Of course, Cry on My Shoulder comes from Nick of Time. The song was written by Michael Ruff. Ruff is one of those people who is regarded as a “songwriter’s songwriter”. You’ve probably heard his songs without knowing they were his. Besides Raitt, artists who have recorded his songs include Natalie Cole, India Arie, Kenny Loggins, Huey Lewis and the News, and The Doobie Brothers. Ruff doesn’t really tour, never venturing much beyond his native Hawaii. And he is primarily a Christian artist, doubly insuring his distance from the mainstream.

Cry Cry Cry: All My Tears

Julie Miller: All My Tears

[purchase]

It's no secret I'm a coverhound, and this one's been done plenty raw and emotional, both by Steve Earle and Emmylou Harris, not to mention an oddly endearing christian rock take from Jars of Clay. But though most covers take both Julie's original intonation and Buddy Miller's ringing electric atmospheric undercurrent as gospel, I prefer the sparse mountain banjo and breathy vocals of Julie Miller's own solo effort, revisited as an appalachian tune for the 2001 film Songcatcher years after the song first debuted as a countryrock duet with Emmylou on Julie's 1993 album Orphans and Angels.

Emmylou's Wrecking Ball demo recording isn't bad, either. The piano is a nice touch.

Emmylou Harris: All My Tears

[demo unreleased; final version here]

Cry Cry Cry: O Mary Don't You Weep

Bruce Springsteen: O Mary Don't You Weep

[purchase]

O Mary Don't You Weep is a pre-Civil War era spiritual that calls to mind themes of liberation from bondage and the salvation that can come from faith. The narrative covers the raising of Lazarus from the dead, the parting of the Red Sea, and the promise of the rainbow. Each verse ends with Mary, don't you weep no more. Pharaoh's armies got drowned-ed. O Mary, don't you weep.

This song has been recorded countless times, by the likes of Pete Seeger, The Caravans, Burle Ives, and Bone Thugs 'n Harmony. I've heard several versions, but I only own one which is by Bruce Springsteen from his Pete Seeger Sessions album. I like this version a lot, and the video is also cool if you ever get a chance to see it.

Cry Cry Cry : Voir un ami pleurer

Jacques Brel : Voir un ami pleurer

[purchase]

"Voir un ami pleurer" ("To See A Friend Cry"), was on Jacques Brel's swan song album that he recorded in 1977, 3 years after being diagnosed with lung cancer. He had stopped touring since 1966, hadn't recorded a real album since 1968, and was living in French Polynesia, but he came back to France to record. He passed away in 1978.

Here's an attempt at an English translation

Of course, there are the wars in Ireland /And tribes without music
Of course, all this lack of tender / And there is no more America
Of course, money has no smell/ but lack of smell gets up our nose
Of course, we walk on flowers/ But....to see a friend cry

Of course, there are our defeats/ And death at the very end
Our bodies already incline their heads/ Amazed to be still standing
Of course, there are unfaithful women / And assassinated birds
Of course, our hearts lose their wings / But....to see a friend cry

Of course, our exhausted cities / By these 50 year old children
Our impotence to help them / And our loves which have a tooth ache
Of course, time that goes too fast/ These subway trains full of drowned people
Truth avoiding us/ But....to see a friend cry.....

Of course, our mirrors are honest / Nor the courage of being jew
Nor the elegance of being negro /We think we are wicker, we're only tallow
And all these men who are our brothers/ So much so that we're no longer amazed
When out of love they lacerate us / But....to see a friend weep......

Cry Cry Cry: The Sky Is Crying

Stevie Ray Vaughan: The Sky Is Crying

[purchase]

The guitar wail. The vocal moan. The heartstring masculinity of the core metaphor. The poignancy of the posthumous album, the best of a bluesman lost in his prime to foggy weather and a helicopter pilot's inexperience.

I maintain that The Sky Is Crying is Stevie Ray Vaughan's greatest album, bar none -- if for no other reason than that the sheer raw emotion of the songs it contains, coupled with the bittersweet hope of its very existence, has helped me get through so many periods of great sadness and loss. Its title song is just one gem among many recorded in life, and released first in death. Talk about the blues incarnate.

Cry Cry Cry: I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

Al Green: I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry

[purchase]

This is a theme I can really work with. I love depressing music. Let's start with a great cover of one of the all-time great sad sack songs. Al Green sings Hank Williams.

Gender Benders: Wilder Than Her

Dar Williams: Wilder Than Her

[purchase] out of print EP - 1997

Dar Williams: When I Was a Boy

[purchase]

So... I'm still at my mom's... and my sister took pity on my poor folk-deprived soul and brought me a totebag of OKOM (Our Kind of Music) CDs to keep me company while I'm here - I bought a mini-boombox for the kitchen and I'm finally getting my long-overdue music fix (just hit a vein, baby!)...

A song I'd been planning to post for this week anyway was on a mix I'd made for her years ago - meant to be. In this case, I heard Dar's cover years before I heard Fred Eaglesmith's original... and I always loved that she didn't change the gender - what seems at first to be a "who's wilder than who" competition soon segues to the narrator's (no matter the gender) relief that She brings much-needed balance and peace to their life together...

She takes the fire
And turns it down low
She takes the night
And makes it not so cold
She takes the distance
And breaks it into miles
She makes my life
just a little less wild

Dar's song When I Was a Boy is, to me, the ultimate gender bender - Dar says:

"The feminists are going to say, "Why couldn't you be that way when you were a girl?" But I wasn't like a boy, I was a boy. So there was grit to stick to that strong line. I was describing how I was a boy, and then I was trying to decide how to end the song. I thought the song was going to be a whole thing about women in the world, but I realized it's just not a feminist song. It's not a song about women, it's a song about children. So that's why the ending is "when I was a girl." And that's what made all the difference. Because if it was turning into a feminist manifesto, it would have been really heavy. It would have been like that rib that they put on the car in the Flintstones, and the whole car falls over! It would have been that rib.

I think there is a lot of empathy between men and women, and they want to share, but they get polarized by these debates. I didn't want to feel that I was arguing against men, especially since men get shafted so much by their roles. Actually a lot of women that I speak to who would have been the separatists, they feel sorry for men. They don't feel like men are the enemy, they feel like men are the victims of these roles."

Gender Benders: The Ballad of Mary Magdalen

Richard Shindell: The Ballad of Mary Magdalen

[purchase]

American expat singer-songwriter and ex-seminarian Richard Shindell is known for his ability to give poignant and poetic first-person voice to a wide variety of otherwise-unheard members of society and history -- the immigrant, the cab driver, the civil war widow. He is willing to take on female voices more than most, in fact; off the top of our heads, fellow SMM contributor Susan and I were able to come up with no less than four female-voiced gender benders in the Shindell canon, from the aforementioned war widow to the grandmother-voiced Abuelita to Money For Floods, a gorgeous lamentation from the perspective of a woman who thought she was living okay on the edge until she lost it all to tragedy.

Of the four, I like this one best -- it's straightforward, philosophical, and eminently feminist without losing its perfectly melancholy core, and the live version beats the early original by a hair. But the others are all amazing in their own powerful way.

Gender Benders: Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

Tom Waits: Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis

[purchase]

In every Tom Waits song, there's always (at least) one killer line, like "Never drive a car when you're dead" or "I got a hole in my roof, the shape of a heart".
My favorite one in this song : "Hey Charlie I think about you/Everytime I pass a fillin' station/On account of all the grease/You used to wear in your hair"

The first words, "Hey Charlie I'm pregnant", make no doubt. The narrator is a woman, and despite Wait's voice, we buy it. A beautiful story from one of his greatest albums, one that reads like a hard boiled novel. Sad, poignant of course, but beautiful.

Gender Benders: Now I’m Your Mom

David Byrne: Now I‘m Your Mom

[purchase]

I know a couple with two kids. When the kids had both reached the age of eighteen, the woman of the couple decided to do something she had always, apparently, wanted; she set about, with her husband’s approval, becoming a man. So now those kids have two fathers.

So, what David Byrne has imagined here is not impossible. Here is Byrne’s tale of a “new” mother, explaining to her daughter what happened to Daddy. To my knowledge, David Byrne is, and has always been, male.

Gender Benders: I'll Be That Girl

Barenaked Ladies: I'll Be That Girl

[purchase]

The Barenaked Ladies' evoke a bit of a gender bending spirit simply due to the fact that these "Ladies" are actually five Canadian goofballs who are most certainly not females.

In this track from their mega-hit album, 1998's Stunt, the guys bend things a little further. At first listen, it all seems like just another batch of nonsense from the band that boasts many other comical and colorful songs in their catalogue. There is a darker side to this song, however, with talk of sadness, madness, and using a gun to ensure there is no tomorrow.

It's unclear in the song just who exactly singer Stephen Page is willing to change for, but it is clear that person has no interest in the narrator as he is. The song stands as a slightly creepy study of obsession.

Gender Benders: Lola

The Raincoats: Lola

[purchase]

For what you could call a double gender bender, check out The Raincoats and their delightful ´79 postpunk cover of the Kinks hit Lola. The Ray Davies penned original already raised some serious gender issues, but the all-girl Raincoats gleefully upped the ante and didn´t even think of changing Davies´ original he-form. "She picked me up and set me on her knee, and said little boy won´t you come home with me..." Confused? You will be.

Gender Benders: House of the Risin’ Sun

Bob Dylan: House of the Risin‘ Sun

[purchase]

The folk process can be a messy business. The identity of a song’s author usual gets lost. Lyrics change, sometimes obliterating the original meaning of the song. Slang expressions that were understood in the song’s earliest days become obscure lyrical mysteries, leading to misunderstandings of the song’s meaning. People steal arrangements of a song from each other. Someone manages to copyright a version of a song which had long been public domain. Sometimes, in the history of a song, a set of lyrics from a completely different song get mixed in. So mixing in a little gender confusion is just one more thing.

The above may seem like a very long list. And surely, you would never find all of that applying to a single song, would you? You would if the song is House of the Rising Sun.

There are two distinct lyrical threads found in versions of House of the Rising Sun. The male version is the story of a gambler who has reached the end of his luck; he must now return to New Orleans to face the debts he incurred at the House of the Rising Sun, apparently a gambling house. But, in the female version, The House is clearly a brothel; the protagonist must return there and live out the rest of her days as a prostitute. There are versions of the female lyric which use strong language and explicit descriptions to eliminate any doubt as to the subject of the song. The “cleaned up” versions of the song were created by artists who wanted to maximize the popularity of their versions.

Dave van Ronk, during the first flowering of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early sixties, learned House of the Risin’ Sun from a folk singer named Halley Wood. In that scene, all of the musicians knew each other, and often caught each other’s performances. So when Van Ronk performed his original arrangement of the song, it was heard by among others, a young Bob Dylan. The story continues, thus:

“Dave had recently begun playing his new setting for House of the Risin’ Sun at the time young Bob Dylan was recording his first album. One night Bob asked Dave if it would be OK to record the song using the new arrangement, and Dave said, please don't, I plan to record it myself. Bob said, Ooops, too late, I sang it in the studio earlier today.

Dave soon had to quit playing the song because the Greenwich Village audiences regularly commented, ‘Oh, you're playing that Bob Dylan song!’ “

The final irony was that Dylan soon had to stop performing it himself, because of comments that he was playing “that Animals” song. They, of course, learned the song from Dylan’s recording. And one of the members of the Animals turned around and copyrighted the band’s arrangement.

Dylan’s version uses a hybrid of the male and female lyrics. He sings from the woman’s point of view, and she tells the tale of the gambler who led her astray. One of the last verses rhymes a line about having “one foot on the platform, and one foot on the train”, with a later line about a “ball and chain”. Many people have sung these lines, saying that the add to the mystery of the song; in fact, both of these phrases as used here are apparently old slang terms for getting pregnant!

The earliest known versions of House of the Rising Sun, (also known under the title Rising Sun Blues) date from the early 1930s. These are the female lyrics, with no reference to a gambler; his story comes from a song from around the same time, called Bounder’s Luck.

My source for the research for this post, as well as the quote above, was The Mudcat Cafe. This is an excellent resource for folk song research, with more information than you could ever want. The distillation of this research, as well as any mistakes, are my own.

Gender Benders: Your Woman

White Town: Your Woman

[Purchase]

When the theme was announced I thought of this song and this song alone. Admittedly, other than covers, I can't think of one song that was more memorably a gender bender than White Town's one-hit-wonder "Your Woman" from 1997.

The incredible catchy electro-pop hit managed to rise up the charts despite (or maybe because of) it's strange gender-bending qualities. White Town was the musical project of Jyoti Prakash Mishra, and the song was a re-working of a classic Bing Crosby song that was originally "My Woman". So the decision to take it in the gender-bending direction was Mishra's own. On wikipedia he's quoted as saying this about the decision:

When I wrote it, I was trying to write a pop song that had more than one perspective. Although it’s written in the first person the character behind that viewpoint isn’t necessarily what the casual listener would expect.

That's for certain! When it came out I suspected it to be sung by a drag queen.

Gender Benders: Oops! ...I Did It Again

Richard Thompson: Oops! ...I Did It Again

[purchase]

Yes, this is the same song as the Britney Spears hit. If you know it, you know that the lyrics are not gender specific. But, what interested me is how the song completely changes meaning because of the gender of the singer, (and possibly, the age!). Spears sings this as a teasing flirtation, all part of the game. By the end of the song, it’s not clear who won, or if anyone did. But, Richard Thompson, playing a bit of a cad, makes it clear that this is a brush-off. No questions asked, it’s over.

Of course, Spears and Thompson each have well-established public personas, and these personas influence how we hear their performances. Nevertheless, I find the gender of the singer relevant to how we hear the song.

Gender Benders: Angel From Montgomery

John Prine: Angel From Montgomery

[purchase]

I am an old woman..., Prine begins, in that weary, gravelly voice, and you accept it, and move on, granting the songwriter the innate privilege of the narrative voice. Or not: perhaps you have heard Bonnie Raitt's 1974 cover first, and the dissonance is jarring.

No matter. Prine wrote it, and dared make it the centerpiece of the second side of his 1971 debut; his is the quintessential gender bender. That the version here is from Souvenirs, his late-career remake of his own canon, only gives it the gravitas of age it richly deserves, even as it acknowledges our mutual familiarity with Raitt's classic take.

Fathers and Fatherhood: Daddy's Working Boots

Dolly Parton: Daddy's Working Boots

[purchase]

A perfect example of a good old Christian country song: an affectionate celebration of the working man, told through a focus on the trappings of the blue-collar life and the ways in which work itself can be a kind of love, complete with a confident plea for Daddy's heavenly reward. First released way back in '73, Dolly's young voice is sweet and clear, and the choir of angels that joins her for the final verse is a perfect touch.

Fathers and Fatherhood: The Memories and Legacy Edition

Michael Smith: I Brought My Father with Me

[purchase] on the Time CD

Catie Curtis: Dad's Yard

[purchase]

Todd Snider: Missing You

[purchase]

I am still in the small town of Flowery Branch, Georgia - what was to be a two-week visit (from my home in Florida) with my mom has turned indefinite. We have begun home hospice, and I have chosen to be the primary caregiver - we are taking this One Day At a Time... the process could be days/weeks/months... and I am exactly where I need to be...

I am reminded of how different this is from my father's passing, almost 14 years ago... on my 19th wedding anniversary – I had not spoken to him in the 3 years before his death because he had chosen to take his life in a direction I did not wish to follow. I felt no guilt about our diverging paths, only regret that there was a finality to whatever possibilities I may have envisioned for our future - on the day after his memorial service, as my mother, brother, sister and I drove up to Anna Ruby Falls to scatter his ashes, we took turns telling stories of our interactions with him over the years... and it was like putting together the pieces of a puzzle, as we all had such different, and sometimes conflicting, memories to share.

My father is so much in me: my love of music, my affinity for the written word and my appreciation of humor, especially a good pun - on the dark side, I have also inherited his qualities of perfectionism which leads to procrastination which leads to paralysis.

My time, energy and music collection are limited these days... but my memories are boundless and my legacy is dear - thanks to Michael, Catie and Todd for sharing theirs with us...

Fathers and fatherhood : Song for my father

Horace Silver Quintet: - Song For My Father

[purchase]

Me and my father don't talk much, or hardly at all, but he has a great blues and jazz records collection - along with the complete discography of French folk poet and singer Georges Brassens. I usually give him Cds and compilations for his birthday or for Christmas, and he looks happy.
So I guess the best song I could choose for a Father's day is a song without words. Steely Dan fans will recognize the first bars of "Ricky Don't Lose that Number".

Now I gotta go, because my 18-month old son is coming with a book he wants me to read for him.

Fathers and Fatherhood: My Father’s Piano

Kristina Olsen: My Father‘s Piano

[purchase]

Sometimes you don’t learn to appreciate a father until after he is gone. The narrator of My Father’s Piano has that piano to remember her father by. And it represents all of his best qualities in her memory of him. I put this song in a mix of songs I made for me and my wife, which I called Bittersweet. These are songs of warm nostalgia, tinged with regret for those which are gone forever. There are many songs like this, but it is the mark of a great songwriter to capture these conflicting emotions well. Kristina Olsen has done that here.

My first acquaintance with Kristina Olsen was at a small folk and folk dance festival held outside of Boston. (Hey, Boyhowdy, ever heard of NEFFA?) She presented a workshop on unusual musical instruments from Victorian England. Olsen had several of these with her, and could play all of them.

Fathers and Fatherhood: Take Her in Your Arms

Andy M Stewart and Manus Lunny: Take Her in Your Arms

[purchase]

Songwriters as a group seem to have uneasy relationships with their fathers. To start with, there simply are far more songs about mothers. But, beyond that, do you want to give your father a mix for Father’s Day that includes a classic about how he never had enough time for his son, (Cat’s in the Cradle)? Or how he wasn’t there at all, (Papa Was a Rolling Stone)? You see the difficulty.

Even Take Her in Your Arms is not a thank you for a father’s good advice. Rather it is a comic portrait of a lovesick young man who should have asked his father’s advice, but never did.

When you hear about Celtic folk music, you usually hear about how wonderful Irish music is. And it is. But the Scots more than hold their own. Andy M Stewart and Manus Lunny were in the “Scottish Supergroup” Silly Wizard. Since then, they have continued to produce fine work, both as solo artists and as a duo.

Fathers and Fatherhood: Father and Daughter

Paul Simon: Father and Daughter

[purchase]

This one triggers a specific memory for me.

First, let me say that I am one of those people who hates sing-alongs. I always feel that I’m going to get it wrong. So I don’t sing.

But when my wife and I took my daughter to see The Wild Thornberry Movie in the theater, something came over me. When the story is over, a song plays while the end titles roll. In The Wild Thornberry Movie, that song is Paul Simon’s Father and Daughter. In the theater, I was hearing it for the first time. By the time the chorus repeated for the first time, I had turned to my daughter, and was singing it to her. The magic carried through to the end of the song and a little beyond. That moment is now my reminder, if I ever need it, of just how much I love my daughter. The years that have passed since then have not changed that.

Bonus trivia fact: Nigel Thornberry was voiced, in the movie and on television, by Tim Curry.

Fathers and fatherhood : Adam Raised A Cain

Bruce Springsteen: Adam Raised A Cain

[purchase]

Well, it's not exactly an ideal song for a Father's day mix, but I really can't come up with songs about peaceful father to son relationships. Or let us say that my favorite songs about fathers deal with opposive daddies, sometimes even physically ("A Boy Named Sue"), or imaginary and fantasized ones ("Papa Was A Rolling Stone").

That's probably one of the reasons why Bruce is my favorite singer. Fatherhood is a recurrent theme in his songs, going from the anger of "Adam" or "Independance Day" to a more peaceful feeling in "Walk Like A Man". But I really prefer the angry Boss of Darkness or Nebraska, when he sings about having a father rather than being one.

Fathers and Fatherhood: Dad

K's Choice: Dad

[Purchase]

It seems like every other week we get a theme that a song by K's Choice would be good for. I have decided to choose other selections for some of those since I don't want it to be a glut of them, or to make it sound like I'm obsessed with them. Simply put, it's been very coincidental that the themes match up with their songs.

But I have held back long enough, this song is too good a fit not to post. "Dad" is a simple piano ballad sung as if written as a present to their own father (the group's songwriters are a brother and sister duo). But what is great about it is that though it's mostly a very sweet and sappy ballad, it's got enough realness to keep it sounding intimate and personal. It's really beautiful and touching, and a must-have for any Father's Day mix if you ask me.

Fathers and Fatherhood: Daddy, What’s a Train?

Utah Phillips: Daddy, What‘s a Train?

[purchase]

I wasn’t expecting to get to post the transitional tune this week, but here it is.

I am 43 years older than my son, (now 5). So I grew up on another planet. This was a world where TV signals came through the air, and were caught by something called an antenna. After a storm or a windy day, my father would go up on the roof, and turn the antenna back to its optimal position. A computer was a machine that took up an entire room, and only institutional users had them.

And, in the next town over, there was a railroad track. I always felt lucky when we happened to go through that town as one of those impossibly long freight trains came through.

A few years ago. they shut down that line. They pulled up the tracks, they even took out all of the railroad trestles. Now, if you didn’t know where the tracks used to be, you could never tell. Going back before my time, I imagine this happened a lot. Air freight came in, and it must have seemed like all freight shipping by train would become a thing of the past. And that would be around the time that Utah Phillips wrote this song.

Questions : May I ?

Kevin Ayers: May I ?

[purchase]

A man stops his car, enters a cafe and sits down at a girl's table, asking this simple "May I?". Not an easy thing to do. Asking a question is risking an answer, and that's the fear of the shy. The one who's been sitting at another table wishing he could have done the same.

Questions: Three Questions

These three songs have three things in common: the titles, of course, are all questions; the artists all happen to be female; and these are songs that I would have posted over the course of the week, if this had been a normal week. It wasn’t. I have been putting the finishing touches on the restoration of Oliver di Place, and my glitches have glitches. But I do have my new file host. In fact, this post is a test of that host, so if anyone has any problem listening to or downloading the tracks, please let me know in the comments.

Cheryl Wheeler: Is it Peace or Is It Prozac

[purchase]

Cheryl Wheeler is one of those artists who is often labeled folk or singer-songwriter. Neither label really describes her art. Wheeler writes most of her material, and she plays acoustic guitar, but she plays with a full band, and uses whatever instruments suit her material. For Is It Peace or Is It Prozac?, Wheeler chose an arrangement which begins and ends with a snatch of elevator music, to help make her point about the overmedicating of America. As always, Wheeler makes her case with warmth and good humor.

Devon Sproule: Does the Day Feel Long?

[purchase]

You’ve probably heard of those hippie communes that were all the rage in the sixties. And it’s easy to believe that these were nothing more than an expression of the misplaced optimism of youth, and that the communes all died out when the sixties gave way to the disillusionment of the seventies. But Devon Sproule can tell you that some of these communes still exist; she grew up on one. Perhaps it is this lifestyle that left Sproule open to a variety of musical influences. Her interests in folk, country, and jazz can be clearly heard here.

Mia Doi Todd: What If We Do?

[purchase]

As I write this, I realize that something else unites these artists. None of them can be easily pinned down to a single musical genre. And Mia Doi Todd is perhaps the most baffling of all in this respect. Her first musical training was as a classical singer. She had a major label deal at on time on Columbia Jazz. And her early recordings, featuring just her and an acoustic guitar, might have been considered folk. Don’t even try to add her talent as a painter, or her study of avant garde dance to the puzzle. All of this might make it sound like her music would be “difficult”. But this is not the case at all. Original, yes, but accessible as well. The best way to get a handle on it is to just listen.

Questions: The Dar Williams Edition

Dar Williams: Are You Out There?

Dar Williams: What Do You Hear in These Sounds?

[purchase]

Dar Williams: What Do You Love More Than Love?

[purchase]

From Dar's song-by-song interpretation of the tracks from End of the Summer and The Green World:

Are You Out There?: "This is my ode to all the small radio stations and late night radio heroes who changed the lives of millions of kids out in the suburbs. I never knew about Vin Scelsa's show growing up, but I did discover New York's Pacifica station, WBAI, and from them I learned the "politics of love and music" and felt like a secret radical. Long live the Pacifica network! I took the names of our local deejays, Jim Olson and Johnny Memphis, because they are two of my present radio heroes."

What Do You Hear in These Sounds?: "Everyone says that therapy makes people "worse than they already are". This was not my experience. I think everyone was more happy after I went, and, as a nice perk, it saved my life. Thanks to all the women who sang on this, to Steve Miller for piecing it all together, and, of course, all my therapists."

What Do You Love More Than Love?: "As far as most of my songs go, this one is a happy one," says Williams, who wrote the tune as a result of a trip to the Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan, east of Nepal. "As I was spinning the prayer wheels and visiting ancient temples, I asked myself a lot of questions about how to love without needing to be loved so much. The trip was an antidote to thinking about my touring life and career in general".

Questions: Can I Kick It?

A Tribe Called Quest: Can I Kick It?

[purchase]

A sweet self-referential hip hop vibe from my younger days, built atop highly recognizable samples from Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side, Ian Dury and the Blockheads's What a Waste, and a tidbit of Prokofiev. The lyrics are a bit dated -- does anyone remember who David Dinkins is anymore? -- but Shaheed, Q-Tip, and the rest of the Tribe kick it up in such style on this debut album you'll still find yourself boppin' along. Like the song says: if you feel the need to freak do the jitterbug...this rhythm really fits like a snug glove.

Questions: What Would _____ Do?

Ben Lee: What Would Jay-Z Do?
[purchase]

Bruce Robison: What Would Willie Do?
[purchase]

We've all seen the bumper stickers, tee shirts, wrist bands, necklaces, license plates, bracelets, hats, billboards, etc... asking the simple question, "What Would Jesus Do?" This is not such a bad question to ask at times when faced with difficult decisions in life. The theory is that if you stop to ask yourself what Jesus would have done in placed in your situation, you will be guided to a moral and just answer that will lead you to the best possible conclusion.

But what about those times when Jesus just doesn't have the right answer? Aren't there some other spiritual guides we can turn to?

Questions: Why Does It Always Rain On Me?

Travis: Why Does It Always Rain On Me?

[Purchase]

This was the first song I ever heard by the band Travis. It is from their 2000 album "The Man Who". At the time, I had just started doing a radio show on my college's station and we had to play a certain amount of designated songs from a list our first semester doing shows. I thought the name of this one was appealing, so I played it and really liked it, and then continued to play it every show I did the rest of the semester. Later that year, one of my apartment-mates arrived back from her study abroad adventure in London and said Travis was really popular over there and she had fallen for their music while over there. So it seems kismet that I was to discover them that year.

The song is a lovely melancholy pop song. The singer inquires where the sunny days have gone and why all this misfortune always seems to find him.

Questions : When Will We Be Married ?

The Waterboys : When Will We Be Married ?

[purchase]

The Jayhawks : Will I Be Married ?

[purchase]

(bonus track) : Estil C. Ball & Orna Ball : Paper of Pins

Although they (almost) share the same title, those two songs from 1988 and 1989 ask questions about a future wedding in opposite ways : while in the Waterboy's song, marriage seems like a hope, the Jayhawk's character pictures it with fear. But in the first song, I can sense a hidden threat from the courting guy ("when you'll go, you'll go with me", the "black bow"). Is it because he's determine to take her whatever happens and to take her even to death's shores? But maybe it is just my interpretation or my twisted understanding of English...

The bonus track has no question in his title, but I found it yesterday while digging for old rarities for River's Invitation. I didn't know this folk song, but in a certain way it's an answer (in a man and woman, call & response way so popular in the beginning of the century)to the first 2 songs, with a great punch line.

BTW, this month will be our 7th wedding anniversary. I realized that AFTER picking the songs (not that I had forgotten...).

Questions: How Will He Find Me?

Deb Talan: How Will He Find Me?

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Before she joined up with Steve Tannen to became half of indieblog darlings The Weepies, but after cutting her teeth on the music industry with an upbeat Oregon popband called Hummingfish, Deb Talan had a relatively low-key, small-scale career as a solo artist on the New England coffeehouse circuit.

Her final solo effort from this period, 2001 live release Sincerely, reveals an artist on the cusp of full-formed musicianship -- still a bit unrefined, still a little repetitive -- but the potential for greatness was there. It comes to a head in this simple, plaintive song of age and desirability, which Talan's fragile performance frames perfectly.

Bonus for Weepies watchers: this live bootleg version of How Will He Find Me?

Questions: Where´s Captain Kirk?

Spizzenergi: Where´s Captain Kirk?

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"So when I awoke from the dangers of space
I looked and I saw a familiar face,
The time warp in space made a change in me
For I was the captain and the captain was me..."

You don´t have to be a trekkie to enjoy this fine piece of new wave mayhem, released by the groundbreaking Rough Trade label back in ´79. Beam me up, Scotty.

Questions : Why Don't You Do Right ?

Lil' Green : Why Don't You Do Right ?

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It was only a few years after discovering this gem from the 1940's by Lil' White that I realized it was in Roger Rabbit's soundtrack.

The song was written by Joe McCoy, and first recorded by the Harlem Hamfats under another title, Weed Smoker's Dream (another great drug song btw).
But this wonderful version by Lil'Green, with new lyrics (very typical of women's blues), and Big Bill Broonzy on guitar, is a real standard, covered by Peggy Lee with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, then Amos Milburn, Johnny Otis and even Jessica Rabbit.

Questions: How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down?

Silver Jews: How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down?

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The Silver Jews are David Berman's band, though he started it along side Bob Nastanovich and Stephen Malkmus (of Pavement), he has remained it's only consistent member. This track is featured on the 2005 album "Tanglewood Numbers".

It's difficult not to get a smirk when you see the name of this song, and it certainly is a fun, spirited country-esque rock song. But clearly, the person asking the question has the wrong idea about love or at least is not very creative.

Questions: Is It Like Today?

World Party: Is It Like Today? [purchase]

Eliza Gilkyson: Is It Like Today? [purchase]

As someone who worked in the service industries through much of the ubiquitous Top 40 radio nineties, I must have had this song buried in my brain somewhere, but it was Eliza Gilkyson's 2005 pensive folkcover that sent me to the stacks to rediscover it, and finally listen to the lyrics.

Turns out the original is pretty deep. Plus it's got a great British janglepop thing going on.

Questions: Can You Get To That?

Funkadelic: Can You Get To That? [purchase]

I wanna know...

Metals: Silver Hair

Michael McNevin (with Tom Prasada-Rao): Silver Hair

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Major life challenges have kept me from posting the last few weeks... but I love this song, co-written by Michael McNevin and Tom Prasado-Rao, so much that I'm attempting to come up for air to share it with all of you - I dedicate it to my mom, who is fighting the good fight, and sports the most beautiful head of silver hair... which I am proud to have inherited...

On a lighter note, I ran across the following, applicable to our outgoing theme, on Punoftheday.com:

"Dreams of gold lead the gang to boron the safe at the chemical plant but when the copper arrived they felt out of their element and now they argon."

Metals: Silver and Gold

Bono & Keith Richards: Silver & Gold

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Can I get one more under the wire?

This song originally appeared on the Artists United Against Apartheid album in 1985. It came out the year before I moved to South Africa, and my understanding of apartheid at the time that I heard this record was very limited. I understood it more as a fashionable cause than as a reality.

After arriving in the country, it didn't take long to recognize that apartheid was worthy of worldwide condemnation and protest. Seeing an entire race of people legally and consistently relegated to second class status, and worse, was horrifying to an American kid. Bravo to Little Steven, Bono, The Specials, Keith Richards, and everyone else in the international artistic and political communities who took a stand. Even more props to the people of South Africa, who I've always loved, for making an incredibly difficult change - not without its bumps, bruises, and fractures.

This is not Bono at his best - he's a little too breathy and affected for my taste, but the song is pretty strong, and Richards's guitar is excellent.

Metals: Gold In The Air Of Summer

Kings of Convenience: Gold In The Air Of Summer

[purchase]

... slipping one more in under the wire from my #1 favorite Norwegian artists (except maybe Sissel Kyrkjebø).

Metals : Lift The Iron Curtain

Lord Ivanhoe & His Carribean Knights : Lift The Iron Curtain

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It was Winston Churchill in 1946 who first used the expression "iron curtain" that had "descended on the continent". This is big wall of suspicion and fear was an obesssion to a lot of people, especially in the 1950s, and everywhere in the World, even in the peaceful and sunny archipelago of Trinidad & Tobago, where the colorfull, local music style was about to invade the whole world before the neighbors in Jamaica took over.
As blogger Zero G noticed in his post, ""Lift the Iron Curtain" is a sincere plea with a sly dig at Britain ("I think the Russians are selfish/In a way, they are like the British/For no man can get inside/To see what Moscow has got to hide").
On the other side of the curtain, people were probably thinking the same thing...

Metals: Brass In Pocket

The Pretenders: Brass In Pocket

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Brass is a metal alloy consisting of copper and zinc, but within this song it's a synonym for money. Indeed, brass and other copper alloys, were often used in making coins in ancient times.

This #1 hit from 1980 features Chrissy Hynde singing about all the things she has going for her and why she's going to make you notice her...she's special.

Metals: You Got The Silver

The Rolling Stones: You Got The Silver [purchase]

Susan Tedeschi: You Got The Silver [purchase]

A blast from the past to clear the palate and the plate for the second half of the week. The loose, surprisingly sparse original was the first Stones song to feature Keith Richards on solo vocal, way back on their seminal 1969 recording Let It Bleed; the cover, from modern blueswoman extraordinaire Susan Tedeschi, retains both the arrangement and the pacing of the original -- the slow start, the high wailing finish -- but tightens it up a notch throughout. Both are beautiful.

Metals: Going For The Gold

Bright Eyes: Going for the Gold

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Musical Wunderkind, Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, has been composing music since he was 13 years old. He has been extremely prolific in his career, releasing no fewer than 22 albums under various band names before his 30th birthday, and that doesn't even count the many guest appearances & singles that he's released during that same time period. Oberst is also a co-founding member of Saddlecreek Records, which now boasts a few bands that have been heard of outside of Omaha (e.g., Smashmouth, Rilo Kelly, Neva Dinova, and others).

Going for the Gold is a really great song, from an album that collects songs from four artists. It's worth checking out.

Metals : Heart of Gold

Jean-Jacques Milteau (With Mighty Mo Rogers) : Heart Of Gold

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A perfect transition post, If I had known last week end. Both a guest star and a "metal" song, this cover of Neil's "Heart of Gold" was recorded in Memphis by French harmonica player Jean-Jacques Milteau with la creme de la creme of local studio musicians, giving this folk-rock standard a strong Soul flavor. Bluesman Mighty Mo Rogers sings, and JJ plays with a bluesy sound. Contrary to Neil Young, he plays in 2nd position or "cross harp". The song being in G, he plays a with a C harp (instead of a simple G) that gives him all the blue notes. Of course it's not the original, but I like this version. In fact I really love when soul and folk meet thet way.

Seems like sometimes the most original things I come up with are by French musicians. Hope you don't mind.

Metals: Lithium

The Polyphonic Spree: Lithium

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Lithium is the lightest of metals. In fact, it corrodes quickly under normal conditions and therefore must be kept in an oil or gel to be sustained for any period of time. It only occurs naturally on the planet in compounds because of this. A number of practical uses have been found for it, most notably being its use in batteries. But another use is as a mood stabilizer. It can be used to treat bipolar disorder, mania and depression, but must be monitored because above a very small amount it is very toxic.

The mood stabilizing affects of lithium is what inspired the Nirvana song named after it. The song is a tale of all the highs and lows a person can go through and how the lithium makes us stop feeling the things we once did. The song deals with the feelings of this treatment and how sometimes feeling awful is better than feeling nothing at all.

This cover of the song by The Polyphonic Spree takes a completely different feel to it. The Polyphonic Spree is a "choral symphonic rock" group that features about 20 members in robes that makes music that's entirely too happy for its own good. Many have thought the group to be some kind of religious cult before, but really it is just the brainchild of rocker Tim DeLaughter, previously of the group Tripping Daisy. When The Polyphonic Spree takes on this Nirvana classic all of the sudden it feels like a song by Stuart Smalley with it's overly happy and hopeful take on life. Overall, I really like this cover simply because it takes a classic song that almost everyone knows, and gives it a whole new spin.

Metals: Gold Rush

Mark O'Connor: Gold Rush

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Gold has no utilitarian value, but it was the very first metal discovered anyway -- way back in 6000 BC, apparently by some stone age man looking for a nice anniversary gift for the stone age woman who has everything.

Since then, of course, gold has built a reputation for driving men mad enough to face malls on Christmas Eve, fork over two month's pay for tiny round fingerhoops, or even swarm California to sift dirt by the side of some muddy stream all day. People write songs about all of its uses, and there's enough good ones out there; it's a good bet you'll see a few more gold tunes as we pursue our metals theme this week.

But this jumpin' tune is a great starting point for any set. Bill Monroe wrote it, and fiddle master Mark O'Connor's version is just light and frothy, a full-blown reel in a bottle. That's Bill there on mandolin, spinning the gold himself.