Late: It's Too Late

Isaac Hayes: It's Too Late

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One of the saddest songs of the 70's is Carole King's ode to lost love, It's Too Late. It was the first of three #1 hits from her enormously popular album Tapestry (I Feel the Earth Move and You've Got a Friend were the other two), and was Grammy's 1972 Record of the Year.

There'll be good times again for me and you
But we just can't stay together
Don't you feel it too
Still I'm glad for what we had
And how I once loved you.

A song so popular must have a bushel of covers, right? Right! Here's one by soul/R&B singer Isaac Hayes, recorded in 1973 at the Sahara Tahoe. Isaac knew about breakups, apparently: he married four times.

Late: Gotta Get Up

Harry Nilsson: Gotta Get Up

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I was a latecomer to the work of Harry Nilsson, mostly because I'm not as old as I look, and because my house was totally bereft of his albums when I was growing up. But songs like Gotta Get Up prove the man's undersung status as both songwriter and arranger.

The rich melodic cacophony of sound that builds to a peak in just a few lines - the piano, the guitar riffs, the heartbeat drum, the horn section, the Lennonesque "la la la la la" voices - aptly paints the frantic urgency of middle age, the late night desperation that sours the party lifestyle when daybreak is imminent and the responsibility of workaday life looms large. The cartoonish accelerated endcap captures the same rush of panic-fueled urgency I remember from my own fading youth when the subway hit the sunrise and I knew I wasn't going to make it in on time. And that loose, lascivious sailor's accordion when the nostalgia kicks in? Pure genius.

Late: Born Too Late

The Poni-Tails: Born Too Late

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When I thought of songs about being late, this was the first that came to mind. When I was younger I loved to listen to oldies from the 50's and 60's with my parents. We used to have the oldies station on in the car and often in the house, so I knew those songs as well, if not better, than I knew the hits of the day. I liked them so well that my mom teased me that, like the girl in this song, I was also born too late, since I seemed to love the music from this era so much. But in the song the girl is lamenting her love for an older boy who won't even give her the time of day. Most of us have been there before.

The girl group The Poni-Tails had a few other singles, but none did as well as "Born Too Late", which wasn't even originally a single, but a b-side that the DJs took a liking to instead of the A-side. I'm glad they did, because this song is a little gem and always been a favorite oldie of mine.

Late: Too late to die young

Dan Bern: Too Late To Die Young

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You can be late for a bus, late for a party, or late for an appointment. Although it may be a slight perversion of the intent of this theme, you can also be too late to die in your youth. Iowa native Dan Bern laments the slow death of Elvis and envies those who crashed and burned.

Late: Traffic Jam

James Taylor: Traffic Jam

[purchase]

Damn this traffic jam
How I hate to be late
It hurts my motor to go so slow
Damn this traffic jam
Time I get home my supper'll be cold
Damn this traffic jam

In a bit under 2 minutes, James Taylor's syncopated vocal and percussive instrumentation explore the sacrifices (punctuality, warm food, auto performance, health and fuel efficiency) incurred by gridlock - little did he know in 1977 how much worse it would get!

And, thanks to boyhowdy, here's an amazing cover from one of my favorite a cappella groups:

Da Vinci's Notebook: Traffic Jam

[purchase]

Late: Yours Forever Blue

Steve Earle and The Del McCoury Band: Yours Forever Blue

[purchase]

Talk about late! Here’s a guy who loses the woman he loves, and that’s when he decides to be faithful to her. It doesn’t sound like she’s coming back.

The song is by Steve Earle. Usually, Earle is not afraid to speak his mind. But his album The Mountain showed a different kind of fearlessness. The entire album is a collaboration between Earle and the Del McCoury Band. McCoury was and is one of the big names in bluegrass music. My first reaction, and many other people’s I’m sure, when I heard of this project was, “huh?” Earle does not have a typical bluegrass voice, to put it mildly. But he set his mind to doing this album, and doing it right. I remember reading how Earle had to basically relearn how to sing for this. The results? Earle still doesn’t have a typical bluegrass voice, but somehow it works. He does have an unmistakable talent for writing in this style. The Mountain was an album I knew I would either love or hate. It has become a favorite.

Late: Wake Up Little Susie

Grateful Dead: Wake Up Little Susie

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Here's a song about suddenly having to contemplate the consequences of being late. It may seem a bit out of character to hear the Grateful Dead covering it, but their influences were always larger than the general public gave them credit for.

This particular recording comes from a performance at the Filmore East on February 13, 1970, and features just two members of the Dead--Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir--in an acoustic setting. It was released three years later on the album History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1: Bear's Choice.

The song was written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and of course the Everly Brothers had a big hit with it in 1957. Thirteen years later, when the Dead covered it, it was already an "oldie", and that was forty years ago! But the song is as fun to sing along to today as it was then.

Late: Is It Too Late

Squeeze: Is It Too Late

[purchase]

Our narrator has burned bridges galore, stealing money out "her" purse, getting drunk and stupid, and only then realizing that he was in love. Is it too late to "unload that gun" and get into her favor? Unless our unnamed foil is a complete idiot, the answer is probably "yes", but honestly, with such gleeful delivery, such cheerfulness, such breakneck uptempo presentation, it hardly seems like he cares.

You've never heard Squeeze like this, in full-blown barrelhouse rockabilly mode. But then, hardly anyone has heard Frank, in part because the piano-led album was overall such a diverse departure from their signature sound, in part because a label change at the wrong time buried sales despite critical celebration, and in part because by the tail end of the eighties, their greatest hits were already an essential part of the classic rock canon, so boldly that very little of what happened afterwards made a difference to the world. Still, there's joy here, if you're up for the risk.

Late: Late For the Sky

Jackson Browne: Late For the Sky

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This week is for songs about being late. For much of the week, I suspect that that will mean late for an appointment or late for work. I have some songs I’m considering that would fit that way. But being late doesn’t have to mean that. For Jackson Browne in Late For the Sky, being late isn’t about arriving behind schedule; it’s about staying too long. Not all relationships are meant to be, and there can be a time when neither partner can bring themselves to break it off, but the relationship has been over for a while. I could go on, but Browne puts it far more eloquently than I could.

Late / 1991: Come Down In Time

Sting: Come Down In Time

[purchase]

1991 Elton John/Bernie Taupin tribute album Two Rooms is a popstar throw-away, for the most part, though it has a few high points if you like Jon Bon Jovi, Kate Bush, Wilson Phillips and/or Sinead O'Connor. But I have a soft spot for Sting's smooth jazz period, and his short, bluesy pianobar take on Come Down In Time is well worth sharing. And the sparse ambiguity of the original lyrics here has always captivated me: is our narrator at fault for waiting to long, or did he come down in time after all, only to find that his planned rendezvous was never in the cards to begin with?

Oh, and if possible, I'd like to ask for a bonus point for posting a song that fits in all three of our most recent themes: Late, 1991, and Torch Songs.

1991: I Misunderstood

Richard Thompson: I Misunderstood

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I remember reading a review of Richard Thompson’s album Amnesia in 1988. I had never heard of him before, and here was this review that talked about this brilliant guitar player who could also write songs pretty well. Now, I knew all about brilliant guitar players. They were the guys who played these amazing solos, really ripped it up. The best ones never lost track of what song they were playing, always wandered far afield but found their way back. So, I put Amnesia on the turntable, and prepared to be transported. Didn’t happen. There really weren’t any solos. Sure he played loud, but Thompson never went anywhere. There were a couple of great quiet songs, but they had nothing to do with great guitar playing as I understood it then. So I was disappointed, and I resolved to regard the music of Richard Thompson with suspicion from then on.

Fast forward three years. Now it was 1991, and Richard Thompson had a new album out, Rumor and Sigh. More to the point, I was no longer an I, but rather part of a we, about to be married. We heard 1952 Vincent Black Lightning on the radio. Now that is a brilliant song, no doubt. But it’s also the only song like it on the album. Soon enough, we were hearing Feel So Good, Read About Love, and of course I Misunderstood as well. These were more like what I remembered, and I wasn’t that impressed at first. But my now-wife latched on to the lyrics. And Thompson is a wonderful writer. So, being in the same car, Thompson stayed on. And his music grew on me. And grew. Just like in Where the Wild Things Are.

So here’s how I see it now. Richard Thompson is indeed a great guitarist, but in ways I didn’t understand at first. His talent has as much to do with what he doesn’t play as what he does. His playing can carry a song, as it does on Vincent Black Lightning. But he can also pull back and be part of the band. And, when Thompson writes, he knows which approach will be better for the song. I thought I didn’t like him at first, but I misunderstood.

1991: Visual Kei

Don't you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me?

X Japan: Joker

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Buck-Tick: Sakura

[purchase]

Luna Sea: Moon

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So far we've mostly talked about what Americans were up to in 1991, until David just highlighted a Swedish group in the last post. Many of you have asked me what the Japanese crowd were busy with that year. By "many," of course, I mean "none." Still, I remain convinced you lot are undoubtedly wondering about it, but an unusual shyness has come over you.

X Japan, the premier Visual Kei group, was at their peak. The term Visual Kei was somehow derived from one of X Japan's catch-phrases, "Psychedelic violence crime of visual shock." It is probably more accurately translated as, "Your parents are gonna have (Hello) kittens when they find out that you fangirl us." The tune here, "Joker," is from their 1991 CD, Jealousy. Have fun playing "guess the English words" with this song. It's a pretty straightforward speed-metal rocker and showcases Yoshiki's intense drumming style that led to neck surgery last year and a bunch of cancelled concerts. At the end of this month, X Japan will finally play their long-delayed US tour, hitting Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Chicago, Vancouver, Toronto, and New York City. You lucky stiffs!

Buck-Tick (from "bakuchiku", or firecracker), another mover and shaker in the VK scene, released their sixth major album that included Sakura (Cherry Blossom). This is not to be confused with the classic Sakura I posted during Public Domain week. I get all tongue-tied trying to express the awesomeness that is Atsushi Sakurai, their lead singer. I'm clearly not the only one who thinks so, if the fanvid on YouTube is anything to go by – it's set to Tom Jones' Sex Bomb.

Luna Sea makes for a nice end to our threesome. Moon is from their eponymous first album. They, too, are reuniting this fall with a "20th Anniversary World Tour Reboot -to the New Moon-", slated to show up in LA, Germany, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Tokyo in November. Luckily for Sugizo, one of Luna Sea's guitarists, this doesn't overlap with X Japan's tour – he's in both bands at the moment.

1991: Golden Age

Union Carbide Productions: Golden Age

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Union Carbide Production was a hellraising group of young men from Gothenburg, Sweden who quickly became known as the roudiest bunch in town, both for their chaotic live shows, but also for their arrogant attitude.

Early U.C.P. may have sounded a lot like The Stooges, but these were no thugs, junkies and petty criminals from Ann Arbor. These were snotty upper class kids with money to burn, straight outta da fancy suburban neighbourhoods. They talked in interviews about how much they loved playing tennis, spening obscene amounts of money, driving expensive cars their dads bought for them, and chilling in the tanning bed. And how they only played rock 'n' roll because their decadent livestyle was boring.

Throughout the gigs, frontman Ebbot Lundberg would insult the audience, especially during shows in America where he would spend more time talking about how fat and disgusting everyone was than actually singing. Wherever they went they got on everybody's nerve, just as intended.

It's interesting how punk rock was supposed to be provocative and against the grain, but once you provoke the punks and the rockers themselves and go against their grain, they couldn't hate you more if they tried. When they really should appreciate it. When punk and its aesthetics become generic and evolve into little more than rules you must follow in order to be punk... That's the moment the polar opposite becomes punk.

That's when you need spoiled rich kids telling crusty drunks with a mohawk living in a dumpster just how pathetic they are. Those who don't get that, don't know what punk was supposed to be in the first place.

U.C.P. knew this perfectly well and stopped playing raunchy Stooges rock the moment they realised that's what people expected them to do. Instead they mellowed out and embraced darker and more psychedelic sounds on the 2nd album, and by the third one (from which the song Golden Age is taken) they were downright folksy and Rolling Stones-y.

After recording their fourth album Swing in Chicago with Steve Albini (during which time they got a fan letters from everyone from Sonic Youth to Kurt Cobain), U.C.P. called it quits in 1993. Several members, including singer Ebbot Lundberg and guitarist Björn Olsson, would go on to form The Soundtrack Of Our Lives. Another excellent band worth your time.

1991: Big Sky Country

Chris Whitley: Big Sky Country

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We’ve heard from some of my fellow Star Makers that 1991 was a distracting year. Me, all I was doing was getting married. So I didn’t have time to watch videos on MTV all day, and find new music that way. MTV was moving away from music anyway, and they were also starting to feature music I didn’t like. I also had less time to read music magazines. So how was I to find music? In the first part of the year, what I did have was a lot of time in the car with my fiance. And after we got married, we still spent a lot of time in the car. We live close enough to Philadelphia to hear their radio stations, so we listened to a lot of WXPN from the University of Pennsylvania. Maybe you’ve heard of the station, because of a program that is now nationally syndicated: The World Café with David Dye. 1991 was the year that the World Café first went on the air.

It was on WXPN that I first heard Big Sky Country. There was no heavy beat, the synthesizers were subdued and joined by “real instruments”, the singer sounded like a human being rather than a processed electronic something… In short, the 80s were over, musically. Now I enjoyed much of the music of the 80s, but I was ready for something new. Big Sky Country had passion without screaming vocals or guitars. There was subtlety, and there was an instrument I had never heard before, the resonator guitar. This was my something new.

Chris Whitley was a late bloomer. In 1991, he was my age, 31. And this was his debut. In my married life, I have found it harder to keep track of an artist’s career than it used to be. So I lost track of Chris Whitley, and, in fact, I got this album long after the fact. In researching this post, I found out why I haven’t heard anything about Whitley recently. Lung cancer took him in 2005, at age 45. I hope his music does not get forgotten.

1991: Girlfriend

Matthew Sweet: Girlfriend

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1991 was a weird year for me. I finished college December of the previous year, and was out on my own for really the first time. I moved into a depressing attic apartment, and spent a lot of time feeling lonely and sorry for myself.

As others have mentioned, 1991 was the year grunge broke. But for me, it was the year popular culture started to pass me by. I never got into grunge, and a look through my 1991 releases shows a lot of boxed sets, best-ofs, and a few new albums from "established" artists.

One album, however, was a breath of fresh air for me: Matthew Sweet's Girlfriend. It had melodies and harmonies, but it also rocked when it needed to. And with guitarists Richard Lloyd (Television) and Robert Quine (The Voidoids) on board, how could it not?

In retrospect, it was probably the album that hooked me on power pop.

It was hard for me to pick just one song to represent it. While the ballad "Winona" is probably my favorite song on the album, I'm going with the title track, a first-rate rocker.

1991: Elmira St. Boogie

Danny Gatton: Elmira St. Boogie

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For this weeks theme I've chosen an instrumental. 1991 saw the beginnings of the grunge era but this isn't about that. Danny Gatton comes in at 63rd on Rolling Stone magazine's '100 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time'. Sharing a place in Nashville in the mid 60s with Roy Buchanan, they also shared the title, 'The World's Greatest Unknown Guitarist'. His most common nickname 'The Humbler' was given to him by Amos Garrett, the guitar player on Maria Muldaur's 'Midnight at the Oasis', due to Gatton's ability to out play anyone in a jam session. Gatton even mentored an 11 year old Joe Bonamassa, coaching him on various styles of guitar playing, including jazz, rock and country. In 1992 '88 Elmira Street' received a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. That might have been his best shot at receiving the recognition he so greatly deserved but it was not to be. The award was won by Eric Johnson for 'Cliffs Of Dover'. Gatton was appreciated by his musical peers however. Admirers include folks like Eric Clapton, Willie Nelson, Les Paul, Steve Earle, Albert Lee, Steve Vai, and Slash from Guns N' Roses. I find it very troubling that Gatton and Buchanan shared one last similarity; they each took their own lives. That is the official position; in Buchanan's case, friends and family have disputed that. Over a three day period in January 1995, $25,000 was raised for Gatton's widow and daughter in a series of tribute shows at Tramps club in New York. Capping the three day event with Les Paul, Albert Lee and James Burton all on stage together for a twenty minute jam. So, from 1991 and the Grammy nominated 88 Elmira Street, here is Elmira St. Boogie.

1991: Brothers Unaware

Live: Brothers Unaware

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I think for this round, boyhowdie has chosen one of the strongest years in music. (Not that I was much aware of it at the time with a new baby---let's just say I had to make up for lost musical time somewhat later.) Grunge, which gave us arguably the year's top album in Nirvana's Nevermind, was gradually giving way to Post Grunge, an odd categorization that defines a genre by what it came after rather than what it is.

A whole bunch of bands who would become huge in the 90's released strong, memorable albums in 1991 (and I'm guessing we'll see some of these here this week). R.E.M.'s flagship Losing My Religion showcased Out of Time. Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger and Pearl Jam's Ten kept the spotlight on the Seattle scene, while Toad the Wet Sprocket's Fear and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik represented southern California.

Live, a band from Pennsylvania with a particularly craptastic name (one that's fairly hard to track in a database, at least), debuted their first major-label album, Mental Jewelry. Many of the songs are based on the writings of an Indian philosopher. These quasi-religious themes continued in their later music. Sadly (perhaps predictably), the positive introspection they embraced in their songs is nowhere to be found these days among Live's band members – they're currently caught up in a rather nasty lawsuit over songwriting credit and royalties owed.

1991: Night Parade

Robbie Robertson: Night Parade

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Once upon a time, Robbie Robertson was in a band called, eh, The Band. They got their first gig backing Bob Dylan, and then went on to invent what we now call Americana music. Then Robertson went solo, and all of that went out the window. I can’t think of anyone who reinvented their sound more completely as a solo artist. On Robertson’s second solo album, Storyville, from 1991, that meant atmospheric music with a great groove. Night Parade leads off the album, and sets the tone perfectly.

Torch Songs: Torch Song Trilogy

I couldn’t resist using the title of this post this week. I knew it had to be a three-song post at week’s end. Fortunately, there are plenty of great songs available.

k d lang: Black Coffee

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We’ve been hearing the name Peggy Lee a lot lately, and yes, Black Coffee was one of her signature tunes. It was also recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, so it certainly qualifies for our theme. K d lang did this wonderful version with the legendary Nashville producer on her album Shadowland. Lang’s voice is perfect for this or any torch song. If she ever does an album of torch songs with a small jazz ensemble, I’ll be the first one in line to get it.

Lyle Lovett: All My Love is Gone

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Lyle Lovett is known for not-quite country music, as well as his later large band experiments. His songs are often quirky, with his droll sense of humor and taste for bizarre and absurd scenarios coming through. But All My Love Is Gone is a fine example of torch song purity, and Lovett nails it with his performance. He plays it straight here, and it really works.

Was (Not Was) featuring Mel Torme: Zaz Turned Blue

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Not that I have anything against the bizarre and absurd. Mel Torme, in his heyday, was known as the Velvet Fog for his silky smooth vocal delivery. In the early days of Was (Not Was), David Was was working as a jazz reviewer, and he wrote a glowing review of a Mel Torme concert. Torme, in gratitude, reached out to Was (Not Was) and offered his services. A hasty decision, perhaps. The result was Zaz Turned Blue. The Wases wrote it as a spoof of the crooner genre, setting a strange tale to a melody and arrangement that sound like torch song heaven. This one fits right in with our theme, until you catch the words. But a funny thing happened. Mel Torme not only performed the song on the album, he also added it to his concert repertoire. So in the eyes of Was (Not Was), this one may have started as a practical joke or Torme, but if so, it backfired.

Torch Songs: A Long Way Down

Driver Quartet: A Long Way Down

[out of print]

I've written about Driver Quartet before, but when I saw what this week's theme was, I knew I had to post another song from them.

"A Long Way Down" is another Adam Bernstein original, recorded for both their EP and their album. This time I went with the earlier, EP recording.

Those of us who have been there know: It is indeed a long way down.

Torch Songs: You Don't Know What Love Is

image by Roy Lichtenstein, 1963

Karrin Allyson: You Don't Know What Love Is

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John Coltrane: You Don't Know What Love Is

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You don't know what love is
'Til you’ve learned the meaning of the blues,
Until you’ve loved a love you've had to lose,
You don't know what love is.

Here's a classic jazz torch song from the Great American Songbook. But who torches it better? Gal, guy, or… Well, can you have a torch song without lyrics? I think so.

Representing for the women is Karrin Allyson, from her 2001 Grammy-nominated album, Ballads: A Tribute to John Coltrane. A nice, church-going girl from Kansas, she skipped around the midwest before settling in New York City and releasing 12 albums (and counting).

Saving the best for last, we have a classic take by John Coltrane (yet another heroin addict, but one who kicked his habit after several firings by Miles Davis, another—you guessed it—reformed addict. The smack-filled 50s were especially hard on jazz musicians). From 1962's Ballads, a gem of an album if you like your Coltrane mellow. That's McCoy Tyner on piano, Jimmy Garrison on bass, and Elvin Jones on drums. This version has my vote. If you don't think that listening to Coltrane is a religious experience, maybe you should visit San Francisco and check out a service at the Saint John Coltrane African Orthodox Church. From their website I learned that the weekly service features "the Coltrane Liturgy, which combines the Divine Liturgy of the African Orthodox Church and the Twenty-third Psalm, with the melodies, harmonies, and rhythms of Saint John Coltrane's masterpiece: A Love Supreme."

Torch Songs: Beulah The Good

James Jackson Toth: Beulah the Good

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I've wanted to post this song for quite sometime now but have been patiently waiting for a theme that it would fit. When I first learned of this song by James Jackson Toth, I didn't know that he was the front man for Wooden Wand And The Vanishing Voice. He has also recorded under the name WAND. On this track his former wife, Jessica Bowen, serves up the background vocals. Dylanesque in sound, Beulah The Good is a surreal take on a tale of lost love with lines such as 'It was like I lost my favorite hair between the bristles of a broom'. That said, I'll let the song take it from here.

Torch Songs: Nothing Compares 2 U

Sinead O'Connor: Nothing Compares 2 U

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These days torch songs don't often make the charts, or at least the ones that sound as melancholy as the subject matter within them don't. But one of the saddest and most beautiful torch songs to have made it to #1 in the last few decades was Sinead O'Connor's fantastic cover of the Prince-written "Nothing Compares 2 U".

Back in 1990 when this song came out people were blown away by not only the beauty of the song, but by the simplistic and emotional video that went with it. A video mostly of O'Connor staring at the camera and singing, and at one point a single tear rolls down her cheek as you know she's feeling the words she's singing. If you ask me, Nothing Compares 2 this song.

Torch Songs: Why Don’t You Do Right?

Jessica Rabbit (sung by Amy Irving): Why Don‘t You Do Right

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As we have seen this week already, “torch song” is a slippery term, hard to define. But I know a definition that captures it exactly. A torch song is that moment in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? where we first meet Jessica Rabbit. Jessica’s speaking voice was done by Kathleen Turner, who used a Lauren Bacall kind of voice that was perfect. So I was surprised to learn that Turner didn’t do Jessica’s singing voice. That was Amy Irving, who I never knew could sing. The song, of course, was Why Don’t You Do Right?, and here it is. The song was originally a signature song for Peggy Lee, but I would have to say that Jessica more than does it justice.

Torch Songs: Motown

The Four Tops: Standing in the Shadows of Love

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Smokey Robinson and the Miracles: The Tracks of my Tears

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The Temptations: Since I Lost My Baby

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I wonder what was going on in the love lives of Motown's hit makers circa 1965-66? These three songs from that seemingly woeful year were huge successes for their biggest names, and they're all torch songs by men (yeah, Darius, I agree: guys sing this genre quite well!) Standing in the Shadows of Love was written by the noteworthy and prolific trio of Holland-Dozier-Holland (they wrote nearly everything Motown produced), and the last two songs were penned by Smokey Robinson (who, along with Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, wrote most of the rest).

Looks like the Motown bunch were crying all the way to the bank.

Torch Songs: One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)

Lou Reed: One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)

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From the album simply entitled Duets, Lou Reed and bassist Rob Wasserman have produced a great cover of this fine old standard. But it's is a departure from most of the other versions I'm familiar with. You might say this isn't your father's 'One For My Baby'. Written for the musical comedy film 'The Sky's The Limit', starring Fred Astaire, Reed and Wasserman take this song to a new level. Interestingly the word torch was added in a line that replaces one from the original and that seems to be tailor made for this weeks theme. For the sake of comparison I've included the Johnny Mercer track as well.

Johnny Mercer: One For My Baby (And One More For The Road)

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Torch Songs: Faded Love

Patsy Cline: Faded Love

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One of the most influential singers to ever come out of the Nashville sound was Patsy Cline (Virginia Patterson Hensley). Her career lasted only five-and-a-half years before the fateful plane crash that took her life. During those five years she recorded the classic Walkin' After Midnight, I Fall to Pieces, She's Got You, Crazy , and Sweet Dreams. In 1963 she covered the Bob Wills song Faded Love. Her version became a hit on the country charts reaching number seven, but it wasn't released until after her death. It is the title track of her fourth album which was to become her final recording session. It was reported that she cried through most of the session, being taken by many of the song's lyrics. The emotion was carried into most of the songs on the album, but can be heard especially on Sweet Dreams and Faded Love. I first became acquainted with Faded Love, not by Patsy Cline, but by Micky Gilley. It wasn't until years later that I heard Patsy's cover, but as much as I liked Gilley's, I realized then and there that I had been missing out.

Torch Songs: Wicked Game

Chris Isaak: Wicked Game

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As we move through our new theme, it would help to have a definition of the term “torch song”. On the sidebar, you will see “sentimental songs of unrequited love”. Certainly, that’s part of it. But some of the classic torch songs depict a love that is requited for a time, and then lost. Others depict a love that is slipping away, usually because of the misbehavior of the party being sung about. Dictionary.com has the definition as “a popular song concerned with unhappiness or failure in love”, and that covers the range of possible topics better. That definition also says that the term dates from 1925-30, which is earlier than I expected. That means that torch songs predate the big band era. So, stylistically, torch songs begin with the Tin Pan Alley sound and really start to flourish with the big bands. After World War II, things get interesting. Most people would look at the classic crooners of the 1950s, and say that torch songs belong especially to the female contingent of that group. But you also find jazz singers working with small groups, doing material that certainly would qualify. And then there is country music. I would say that the country divas of that period certainly should be considered torch singers as well.

So, is it only a torch song if it is sung by a woman? I would say not. The singer must be the party who is wronged or unfulfilled in love. The fact that more male torch singers can be found nowadays than in the past reflects changes in gender roles in our society.

Finally, this brings me to Chris Isaak and Wicked Game. Musically, this one does not fit any of the classic sounds. Certainly the subject fits, and the song could be arranged to fit perfectly. I can imagine kd lang doing this one with a full orchestra. But Chris Isaak’s original is also a torch song. That’s because of his approach as a singer. We hear that this is an idealized love that went astray, and we hear in his performance the combination of love and hurt that makes a torch song. That’s good enough for me.

Tobacco / Torch Songs: Don't Smoke In Bed

Peggy Lee: Don't Smoke In Bed

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Susan had originally planned on posting a different version of Don't Smoke In Bed this week, but since she never got to it, I'm taking the opportunity to offer my own favorite take on this old torch song.

Nothing against Nina Simone - she's the queen. But I just love the way songwriter Peggy Lee's original vocals grow ever distant and echoey towards the end of the song, as if her voice were fading slowly into the night. It's a chilling treatment of the sparse lyrics, a fitting tribute to the woman that some cite as the world's first truly famous singer-songwriter - and an apt transition into a week of songs that lament unrequited, unfinishable, lost or incompatible love.

Tobacco: Ode to Nic

Pee Shy: Ode to Nic

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As anyone who has been a smoker or known a smoker will tell you, quitting is tough, and you will miss cigarettes for years and have cravings all your life. In many ways, coping with quitting isn't unlike coping with the loss of a relationship. Something that was familiar and comforting at one point is now lost from your life and you now have a void you don't know how to fill.

The Tampa-based band Pee Shy saw this and wrote a song about quitting smoking like an ode to the loss of a guy. In this case, Nic is Nicotine and not Nicholas.

Tobacco: A Small Cigar

Jethro Tull: A Small Cigar

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This one comes from an album called Nightcap - The Unreleased Masters 1973-1991. I assume that it was a demo that was never more fully developed for the full band; it would be more correct to call this an Ian Anderson solo track. However, Anderson thought enough of the song to release it again on a proper album, Too Old to Rock N Roll, Too Young To Die, which came out nine years later. The song is certainly not what I usually think of when I think of Jethro Tull. The arrangement starts with just voice and acoustic guitar. Towards the end, a piano part joins and then replaces the guitar. And that’s all. The lyrics seem to me to be delivered with a wink, telling how a party crasher becomes the life of the party, and what he does when he leaves. It’s worth remembering that Jethro Tull is a British band, and class consciousness is much more pronounced there than here in the United States.

Tobacco: Cigarette Abana

Habib Koite & Bamada: Cigarette Abana

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Lyrically, this little number is a simple morality tale, recounting the story of a boy who is the only one in his circle of friends who doesn't light up. Eventually, in the face of a litany of smoking's benefits - which includes the true fact that a cigarette wakes you up like coffee, and the dubious assertion that with a cigarette in bed, you hardly need a woman - our subject buckles to peer pressure...only to get sick, thus proving the song's anti-smoking message.

Of course, for those of us who don't know french, Cigarette Abana is merely a delightfully bouncy worldbeat hit for Malian star Habib Koite, whose work is as listenable as it is rich in African traditions, instrumentation and melodic sensibility. It originally appeared on Koite's 1995 debut Muso Ko, where it brought him international acclaim and recognition; the afro-cuban arrangement here is a 2001 reworking: no less wonderful, as is the rest of his utterly amazing third album Baro, but perhaps produced with slightly more Western ears in mind.

Tobacco: One Hundred Cigarettes

U.S. Rail: One Hundred Cigarettes

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U.S. Rail were a local New Brunswick, N.J. band from the early Aughts. I never had the chance to see them live, but I became friendly with one of the guys just before the band fell apart. They described their sound as "folk punk for punk folk", but I think "lo-fi indie rock, with occasional folkie touches" is more accurate. Either way, they came up with a clutch of short, catchy songs on their only album, as the banjo-powered "One Hundred Cigarettes" shows.

Tobacco: King Of The Road

Roger Miller: King of the Road

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When I announced this week's theme on our little collaborative's backchannel listserv, I noted that smoking and tobacco references often function as signifiers of class or social status, and as earlier entries have demonstrated aptly, it's true - though of course, as times evolve and smoking goes underground, old songs can take on new meanings, too, changing one-time rebels into more pitiful social outcasts in the eyes of the beholder. But smoking and its references can also signify mood - of post-sexual or post-prandial satisfaction, of nervousness or nerve, and of a dozen more connotive, memetic associations, that live in culture like spores, familiar to us all.

Nowhere do these several functions come together more sharply and effectively than in the dual references to tobacco found in King of the Road, Roger Miller's 1964 country celebration of the free-traveling underclass. First, the notation that our narrator "ain't got no cigarettes", coming as it does at the end of a litany of housing and other household signs which are absent in the life of the titular hobo, casts sharp relief upon the unpinned lifestyle, combining as it does the constant requests to "bum" a smoke we've all experienced in the wild, and the sheer triviality of owning so little that cigarettes themselves fall into the "too heavy to carry" category. And second, the subsequent verse's beginning, with its potent imagery of smoking "old stogies" that the narrator has found, reveals deep truths about the hobo's sense of inner worth incarnate - a king indeed, smoking such high-class rolls, even if his royal trappings are scavenged.

Teddy Thompson & Rufus Wainwright: King of the Road

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The Proclaimers: King of the Road

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As a homecoming - I've been away for the past few weeks, and just returned home today - I've included two favorite versions of the oft-covered song. Teddy and Rufus slow the thing down, and it just sounds good, especially when placed in the context of its origin in the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack. And The Proclaimers' 1990 cover is a bonus I couldn't resist - delightfully accented, proving primarily, to American ears at least, that the sentiment is more universal than you might think.

Tobacco: Perfume and Tobacco

Amos Garrett: Perfume and Tobacco

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If you know the name of Amos Garrett, you may know him as the player of the guitar solo on Maria Muldaur’s hit Midnight at the Oasis. I hope you know more than that, because Garrett has much more to offer. He has done studio work for Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, and Paul Butterfield, just to name a few. But Garrett also has had a fine career recording under his own name. He has been in a number of bands, large and small, loud and soft. But here we find him singing in a fine and mellow baritone, playing some of the sweetest acoustic guitar you would ever care to hear, and accompanied only by a stand-up bass. That’s all that Garrett needs to shine. Perfume and Tobacco has the beauty of a smoke ring. Enjoy.

Tobacco: Cigarette State

Robbie Fulks: Cigarette State

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The ninth wealthiest state in the union in terms of gross domestic product is North Carolina. They are the largest producer of tobacco in the United States. One of the six most important crops grown by American farmers, the plant is native to the Americas, though it is farmed on all continents except Antarctica. By 2005 tobacco represented 15.5% of the total value of all crops grown in North Carolina, but production has fallen 60% between 1997 and 2003. North Carolina has been one of the centers of the US tobacco industry from production of tobacco, to growing, to its final product manufacture.Ranking first in the United States in the production of tobacco, North Carolina had a 2006 annual farm income of $506.2 million dollars. With that in mind, I would like to present Cigarette State by Robbie Fulks.

Tobacco: We Love To Smoke

Patty & Selma Bouvier: We Love To Smoke

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"We Love to Smoke is a song originally meant for the episode Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious sung by Patty and Selma Bouvier, but it was cut because it did not receive any laughs.

It was to be a parody of the song I Love to Laugh from the film Mary Poppins and also contains a reference to another song from that film, Chim Chim Cherr-ee. The music was written by Alf Clausen and the lyrics by Al Jean and Mike Reiss."

(source)

Tobacco: I Smoke a Lot

k's Choice: I Smoke a Lot

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This song immediately came to mind for this theme for obvious reasons. I've posted k's Choice here a number of times before so I'll spare you their history, but their music just seems to fit the themes often. Lead singer, Sarah Bettens, has a voice that you can believe when she says "I smoke a lot", and despite not being a smoker myself, there is a universal quality to the song that everyone can probably relate to. There's always someone who thinks they need to lecture us on how to properly live our lives and let us know that whatever our vices might be, that we ought to stop, as if we didn't already know.

Tobacco: Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)

Tex Williams: Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette)

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Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) was conceived as a novelty song. Usually, that means that it might sell some, but the song will then be forgotten. Indeed, this is Tex Williams’ only real claim to fame. But the song has endured, and many artists have covered it over the years. Perhaps this is a testament to the talent of the song’s author, one Merle Travis. Travis was basically an unknown when he wrote Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!, but he would later become famous for Sixteen Tons and Dark as the Dungeon. Eventually, Travis would record his own version of Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! as well.

Fade-Outs/Tobacco: My Last Cigarette

kd lang: My Last Cigarette

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I thought if I hurried, I could get the lowest hanging fruit of all for this week's theme.

k.d. lang, an artist who's difficult to categorize (country? jazz? pop? yes!), released an album in 1997 called Drag. The album cover makes a playful, unrelated, pun on the title. Notice, also, the lack of an actual cigarette. This collection of cover songs all dance around the theme of smoking, some of which are more obvious than others – for example, Steve Miller's The Joker is included (I'm a joker, I'm a smoker, I'm a midnight toker… ), as is the Albert Hammond, Jr., tune, The Air That I Breathe.

My Last Cigarette (not to be confused with another song she recorded, I'm Down to My Last Cigarette) has the added bonus of a fade-out ending. W00t!

Fade-Outs: Knockin' On Heaven's Door

Randy Crawford: Knockin' on Heaven's Door

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I've had an utterly craptastic day and need some music to cheer me up. My usual choices under the circumstances are J-rock or jazz. Since J-rockers don't seem to use the fade-out, you lucky folks get a jazz post.

This is the stellar R&B vocalist Randy Crawford, with David Sanborn on sax and Eric Clapton on guitar. The song, of course, is a Bob Dylan cover and fits my mood a bit. Now if you'll excuse me, the pain meds seem to be wearing off, so I'll go dip into the next dose and crank up the volume…

Fade-Outs: Not Fade Away

Buddy Holly: Not Fade Away

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I couldn’t resist the irony of this one. That’s right, the original recording of Not Fade Away fades out at the end. But the song never has. People have done all kinds of things with the song. The Rolling Stones gave it an intentionally muddy production, but with a great harmonica part. For the Grateful Dead, the song became a staple of their live shows, and a frame to hang some of their trademark jams on. There is even an ill-advised version by Diana Ross and the Supremes. And I assume the song is still played by bar bands everywhere.

So it’s surprising to go back, and here just how simple and skeletal the original is. Holly and the band set up that Bo Diddley beat, with no adornment, and they just ride it for just under two and a half minutes. There is barely any room for solos or anything else. Holly and his handlers probably thought they could have a quick hit by following the Bo Diddley beat fad, and that the song would ultimately be forgotten. Maybe someday, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Fade-Outs: Johnny Clegg

Johnny Clegg & Juluka: Akanaki Nokunaka

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Johnny Clegg & Savuka: One (Hu)'man One Vote

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Johnny Clegg is a hero of mine, and not only for his music. In the 70s, he formed the first interracial band in South Africa, with all that entails. For starters, it was actually illegal under apartheid for the races to mingle, let alone form bands. Clegg, a white teen with an unstinting affection for Zulu music, persisted in learning Zulu guitar and dance from black musicians and artists, barely keeping one step ahead of the law. The biography of his early days is absolutely fascinating, describing how their popularity grew by word of mouth and in opposition to the South African government.

Clegg formed two bands: the first, Juluka, disbanded when his co-founder headed back to cattle farming. Clegg formed Savuka soon after. I'm including a song from each group. Needless to say, political themes dominate many of Clegg's songs. The first song I've featured is sung in Zulu, so I'm at a loss about the meaning. The second, though, is mostly English and the message is bold and straightforward. In the silly season of American elections, it's easy to forget the importance of democracy and the critical importance of the vote.

Fade Outs: I Believe In You

Talk Talk: I Believe In You

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I've posted once before about Talk Talk and in that post I mentioned that I never recommend them to anyone. This is true. But if I had a list of the most underrated albums of all time (oh wait... I do) then The Spirit Of Eden would probably top the list. It's one of the most haunting albums in my library.

Fade outs are often cop outs, but there is nothing about The Spirit Of Eden or the featured track I Believe In You that cops out. On the contrary this album represents the moment that Mark Hollis fully embraces his artistic vision. He sloughs his New Romantic pop image and creates a masterpiece of brooding, cerebral post-pop with nary a radio friendly song in the lot.

The featured track is about talking a friend out of slipping back into heroin use, and as always, the cardinal feature of all Talk Talk songs is Hollis's weeping voice.

Fade-Outs: 4th of July

X: 4th of July

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Dave Alvin: Fourth of July

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I've been thinking - and blogging - about fourth-generation Californian Dave Alvin this week, as my family and I head up his native coast for the last weeks of school vacation; if you're a fan, or just a curious kitten, feel free to head over to Cover Lay Down for a few coversongs from his folkier side.

But sifting through the sands of any artist's career pulls up more than coverfolk. And interestingly, though his live version, recorded fifteen years afterwards on Out of California, finds a stopping place for its slowed-down, pensive transformation, Alvin originally recorded this song twice in the same year: once as a solo artist, and once as a member of the LA-based countrypunk band X. Both of the '86-'87 versions are rockers, in the same way that Springsteen was during the eighties, though the solo take is a bit more tejano-country; both fade out into oblivion, fitting both the unfinished emotional distance of the lyrics and the wail and cry Alvin pours through his frustrated and lost narrator.

Fade-Outs: Houses in Motion

Talking Heads: Houses in Motion

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Almost two years ago, our theme here was Tricky Beats, and I did a series of posts on polyrhythm. If you missed it, I explained how polyrhythm works here. In polyrhythmic music, the Western ear does not hear divisions of measures, the way we do with the music we are more familiar with. Instead, there are these multi-measure cycles. The different rhythms all start at the same time, and there are times during the music when they all come together for a brief moment, before flying apart again. The effect is sort of like a musical perpetual motion machine, with each part moving according to its own logic. The resulting sound has the same fascination as watching a high wire act.

On albums of West African music released here in the United States, songs are usually less than ten minutes long. But when these same musicians perform in Africa, a single piece can last a half hour or more. Subtle shifts emphasize one rhythm over another as the music progresses, and the fascination never ceases. I have only read about these performances, but I would dearly love the chance to attend one some day. Talking Heads, with their album Remain in Light, were inspired by the music of West Africa. All of the songs on the album fade out. The songs are short by African standards, but the fade-outs suggest a longer work.

Me Last/Fade-Outs: Oh, Lonesome Me Edition

Don Gibson: Oh, Lonesome Me

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Ray Charles: Oh, Lonesome Me

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Neil Young: Oh, Lonesome Me

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This is a case study in how to make a cover your own. The original was recorded by "The Sad Poet" Don Gibson in the late '50s. Despite its self-pitying lyrics, Don takes it at a fairly sprightly pace, a tactic that no doubt helped make it a country and pop hit. (Having "I Can't Stop Loving You" on the flip side didn't hurt, either.)

In 1962, Ray Charles released two critically acclaimed (and very successful) albums of country songs. The second volume, Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, Vol. 2, included a his version of "Oh, Lonesome Me". Ray picks up the tempo and gives it a big-band arrangement and a soulful vocal. And like most of his country recordings, it works surprisingly well.

Fast-forward another eight years. At the dawn of the singer-songwriter era, Neil Young decided to include a rare cover song on his own critically acclaimed and very successful album, After the Gold Rush. Neil's version is agonizingly slow, and in a way is a more appropriate fit for the sad lyrics, which themselves are a very good fit for Neil's style. Indeed, so completely does he inhabit this song, it was years before I realized it was a cover. (And when M. Ward and Lucinda Williams covered the song last year, they used the Young version as their template.)

Despite the disparate arrangements, all three of these versions have one element in common: Nobody could figure out how to end the song properly, so they all fade out, making this a good transition post between last week's theme and this week's.

Me Last: Jonny Lang (Fargo's Homeboy) Edition

Jonny Lang: Lie To Me

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Jonny Lang: Breakin' Me

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I believe that, with last month's Denver concert, Jonny Lang is now the "name" musician I've seen in concert the most. And he's still young, too (29 now), so the future's bound to hold more of the same. He gives a helluva performance, let me just say. He tours a lot, too, often with Buddy Guy's Jimi Hendrix Experience Tour (along with a bunch of other terrific guitarists; look for it in a city near you).

Jonny was a wee 15 years old when he recorded Lie to Me, and you'd never know it. (On this album he also covers Sonny Boy Williamson's Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, which for once is age appropriate and not skeevy or pedophilic). He's probably the last person you'd even expect to be a Grammy-winning blues artist. He's about as white as it gets, hails from Fargo, North Dakota, and is a nice Christian boy. Cute, too (see picture).

He was a relatively ancient 17 when Breakin' Me came out. Whoa. Whatever I was flailing around doing at 17 doesn't begin to compare.

Me Last: Oh, Pick Me! Edition

Richard Thompson: Hope You Like the New Me

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There are times when imitation is the sincerest from of stalking. That’s the kind of creepy concept that Richard Thompson can capture better than anybody else. This song is proof. All Thompson needs is his voice and acoustic guitar, with minimal accompaniment. I will always admire Richard Thompson’s music, but songs like this are why I don’t know if I would want to spend too much time alone with him.

Tanita Tikaram: Swear By Me

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Tanita Tikaram first came to the attention of the music industry at age 19, with her song Twist in My Sobriety. The song had an unusual and beautiful arrangement, and featured Tikaram’s amazing smooth alto sob of a voice. It would probably have been better for her artistically if she had not been on a major label. By the time her third album, Everybody’s Angel, came out, there were clearly pressures on her to make her music more commercial, and a lot of the album is overproduced. Still, there are moments like Swear By Me, where her talent shines through. Eventually, it got to the point where Tikaram got out of her major label deal with the traditional Best Of album. She then dropped out of the music world for a time, and only recently returned as an independent artist. She’s back to making songs with the stark beauty that defined her in the first place, and her newer work is well worth seeking out.

BR5-49: You Are Never Nice to Me

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The story of BR5-49 is much simpler. They came out of Nashville’s alt-country scene, making the kind of music that would have led to a steady gig at the Opry if they had been born a few years sooner. You Are Never Nice to Me sets up a classic train sound, and goes from there. The song actually has nothing to do with trains, but it’s a great ride anyway.

Me Last: Björk x 2

Björk: Come To Me

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Björk: Army Of Me

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I've adored Björk ever since I saw the video for Play Dead seventeen years ago. Depressing how time files, ain't it? I instantly fell in love with her (and it's still one of the top ten song I've ever heard) and that powerful initial reaction is most likely the main reason I still prefer Björk's early stuff over her latter works.

Yup, I'm gonna be an irritating "I like the early stuff better" grouch. I'm all for following your heart, ignoring people's expecations and doing whatever the hell you want, but as much as I respect Björk and her unique take on music there's a big part of me that just wants another Debut, or a Post or if we're really lucky: another Here Today, Tomorrow Next Week. Hell, even another Telegram would be sweet.

But that's never going to happen, Björk is one of those rare artists that never looks back, a truly admirable trait. But I wish she would. Just once. Please? For old times' sake?