Footwear: Big Shoes

Jill Sobule: Big Shoes

[purchase]

A sweet, funny and heartbreaking tale about having to wear orthopaedic (yes, we use extra letters here in the UK!) shoes in school...

"When everyone wore loafers
I needed more support
I'd always hide when we take a drive
To that awful store
I had a choice of black or blue
The biggest ugliest ass shoes
but what could I do
My feet they came out funny

Mary McKay she had Mary Janes
With that patent leather shine
She was known as Tinker Bell
And I was Frankenstein

Big shoes before they were big
Big shoes I'll never forgive
My mother made me wear big shoes

In my school when Spring came
Sandals they were all the rage
With plastic beads on straps to match
Their painted nails
Heavy-footed in the hall
What I wanted most of all
Was red ball jets
So I could get over the schoolyard fence

Kip O'Neil she had high heels
She went all the way
By the time I got up to bat
They called off the game

Big shoes everyday
You can hear them coming a mile away
Outside you hear them say
Here comes Big Shoes

And when I could go to the real shoe store
On the shelves I looked in horror
On display were combat boots and platforms
Here comes Big Shoes

Big shoes before they were cool
Wanted feet so miniscule
I even wore them at the swimming pool
Here comes Big Shoes

Big shoes everyday
You can hear them coming a mile away
Outside you can hear them say
Here comes Big Shoes"

Footwear: The Other Shoe

Old 97's: The Other Shoe [purchase]

They may be pop stars now, but back in the day the Old 97's were the little alt.country band that could, with a clever spark plug of a frontman in Rhett Miller. I think this stands as one of their best early tunes, a riff of sorts on Jimmy Webb's classic song, "By The Time I Get To Phoenix." In this one, the protagonist lies underneath the bed while his wife and her lover do the deed. This being a country song, I think you can figure out what happens next. Kin to songs like "Hey Joe" and "Miller's Cave," "The Other Shoe" is an example of country music's basic thematic sturdiness. Give us some hurt feelings, a little gunplay, and Old Testament vengeance and we're happy.

One old brown shoe falls in slow motion,
And the bedsprings hover right above your head,
As bedsprings do, when you're beneath them.
Someone else just climbed into your bed.

By the time she thought you'd probably got to Phoenix,
She'd arranged for your shoes to be filled.
Well, you've got your pride, and a blue-steel .45,
And you're waiting for the other shoe to fall.

You'll dig a double grave out in the meadow,
And you'll curse the rain that turns the dirt to mud.
You'll take I-35 south towards Laredo,
Then you'll try to find a doctor who can prescribe an elixir
That'll make everything better, except your late wife and her lover.

By the time she thought you'd probably got to Phoenix,
She'd sealed her fate and gotten herself killed.
Well, you've got your pride, and a blue-steel .45,
And you're waiting for the other shoe to fall.

Footwear: Turtle Shoes

Bobby McFerrin: Turtle Shoes

[purchase]

Long before he crashed the Pop party with Don't Worry, Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin was a true-blue jazzman, pushing the envelope with innovative bodysound and a voice that could imitate pretty much any instrument. His second album, "The Voice", is notable for being the first jazz vocal album recorded without accompaniment or overdubbing; on Spontaneous Inventions, the primarily live and improvised third album on which today's track emerged, he pairs his four-octave range with the likes of Manhattan Transfer, soprano saxophonist Wayne Shorter, comedian Robin Williams, and Herbie Hancock (that's Herbie on piano in the track you hear here).

You may remember Bobby for his Grammy-winning earworm, but it's worth noting that he won five of his eight Grammys before that song was even recorded: four of them in the Vocal Jazz category, two of them alone for his work with Manhattan Transfer and scatman Jon Hendricks on Night in Tunisia from this 1985 release. Turtle Shoes may be short, but it's a masterpiece of slow jazz improvisation, a playful, slippery ditty on the back of a turtle's plodding, shod baseline. So stop saying "ick", and listen to the damn track already.

Bonus trivia points: McFerrin came from a seriously musical family; his father, operatic baritone Robert McFerrin Sr., provided the vocals for Sidney Poitier in the cinematic version of Porgy and Bess.

Footwear: Red Ball Jets

Steve Goodman: Red Ball Jets

[purchase]

What are Red Ball Jets?

Just let Steve Goodman tell you…

If you want to read a great book about the amazing Steve Goodman, check the comments to this post for info! (And maybe even the comments to this post if Clay is on his game.)

Footwear: Red shoes edition

We've already had two posts on red shoes (Loretta Lynn's Little Red Shoes and Elvis Costello's Red Shoes), but there are plenty more out there. Quite why the fascination with red I do not know, but it's certainly a popular colour when it comes to footwear songs! I like to think, as a 'friend of Dorothy' that it's all about the magical ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz...but, then again, perhaps not.

Whilst there are a load of songs about red shoes in particular, possibly the most famous 'shoe song' features a different colour...I'm truly surprised that no-one has posted it yet!

Chris Rea: Red Shoes [purchase]
(Not so much because it's a great song as because he comes from my home town!)

Tom Waits: Red Shoes By the Drugstore [purchase]

Sawyer Brown: Ruby Red Shoes [purchase]

Elton John: Ballad of the Boy in the Red Shoes [purchase]

Kate Bush: The Red Shoes [purchase]

Throwing Muses: Red Shoes [purchase]

David Bowie: Let's Dance [purchase]



N.B. The Raincoats also did a song called Red Shoes, but it's pretty awful, so that's why I didn't include it here!

.

Footwear: Shoes and Clothes

Pernice Bros.: Shoes and Clothes

[purchase]

One of my favorite songs from Joe Pernice's best album. Has Pernice ever written a melody that didn't beg to be sung along with?

Footwear: Sand On My Shoes

Kinks footwear left to right Ray Davies, Peter Quaife, Dave Davies, Mick Avory

[purchase]

The Kinks: Sand On My Shoes

Here is a great lost Kinks track bound for official album release glory under another title. Any Kinksnerds know what song Sand On My Shoes would become?

Footwear: In These Shoes?

Kirsty MacColl: In These Shoes?

[purchase] the superlative 3 disc set From Croydon to Cuba: An Anthology

A cheeky, saucy little number from the ever wonderful, and dearly missed, Ms MacColl. This really showcases her great sense of humour and features a nice, sultry salsa-style backing.

Then I met an English man
"Oh" he said,
"Won't you walk up and down my spine,
It makes me feel strangely alive"
I said "In these shoes?
I doubt you'd survive"
I said "Honey, let's do it!"

Footwear: These Boots Are Made For Walking

Nancy Sinatra: These Boots Are Made For Walkin´

[purchase]

Operation Ivy: One Of These Days

[purchase]

"Are you ready boots? Start walking..." Lee Hazlewood´s ´66 composition for the daughter of ol´ blue eyes remains a pop classic. Everything fits, from the trademark sliding bass line to Nancy´s Lolita vocals to Lee´s clever wordplay. "You keep lying when you oughta be truthin', and you keep losin' when you oughta not bet. You keep samin' when you oughta be changin', now what's right is right, but you ain't been right yet."

It´s funny to notice that Bay Area ska punks Operation Ivy give their hiccupping cover ("pick it up pick it up!") a different title, leave out most of the lyrics and don´t credit a composer either. To them it´s a traditional. Very subversive, gentlemen...

As for the boots pictured above, these were made for scoring goals of course. Go Holland!

 

Footwear: Stinkfoot

Frank Zappa: Stink Foot

[purchase]

Okay, so seriousnous, glamour, or utilitarianism may pull sway with a foot-fetishized (s)talking-point-style-topic, but worn enough they'll all end up in the same court: Stink Foot!

"Stink-foot, Stink-foot, I ain't lyin'
Could you rinse it off, do you suppose?"

I have to say, I'm a tad gleeful to plop a Zappa into our soiree. He's my spiritual guiding whatzitz, after all.

Footwear: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

Traffic: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

[purchase]

Rickie Lee Jones: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

[purchase]

EMF: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

[purchase]

At almost twelve minutes long, Traffic's 1971 laid-back jazz jam anthem is heavy with solos from the various bandmembers, and a tight funk/rock chorus which plays on their supergroup sound -- fitting for a song which supposedly emerged from a brainstorm session about rock stardom.

The lyrics, written by songwriters Winwood and Capaldi, offer a bitter, cynical take on the industry's tendency to profit off the backs of artists everywhere, but the Miles Davis-inspired slowjazz setting, the length of the piece, and the band's tendency to perform the song as an even longer space-jam in concert, are anathema to traditional A&R radioplay; as such, the piece seems to offer ample evidence for salvation for the artist's dream, as if suggesting that, through attention to dreams and the music itself, rather than focusing on the trappings of stardom, cool will win out in the end. Appropriately, of course, FM DJs were happy to play this subversive track despite its length and diversity; it remains a late-night staple of classic rock stations.

Another doubly-covered set, this one vastly divergent: the slow, dreamy jazz-piano-and-organ take from Rickie Lee Jones is almost as recognizable as the original, while UK indie dance/electro-alternative band EMF weighs in with a typically nineties techno-rock rarity that falls somewhere between the original and the stuttered yet contagiously danceable synths of their greatest hit Unbelievable.

Footwear: Sailin' Shoes

Little Feat: Sailin' Shoes

[purchase]


Little Feat got their name from drummer Jimmy Carl Black's comment on guitarist Lowell George's small fat feet. George was an amazing singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist - here's a worthwhile interview to learn up on him.


Lowell George backed Robert Palmer in this nifty cover.

Robert Palmer: Sailin' Shoes

[purchase]

Footwear: Bad Sneakers

Steely Dan: Bad Sneakers

[purchase]


If any major fool had a large sum of money to spend, I'd bet they'd get some good sneakers, lest they be called a squonk.

Footwear: My Adidas

Run DMC: My Adidas

[purchase]


Say you wanna be a B Boy? You need the proper accouterments: Kangol hat, Cazal shades, 3-stripe tracksuit, gold rope chains, boom box, but most of all - a pair of Adidas. Without them, you can't rock the beat.

Footwear: Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes

Paul Simon: Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes

[purchase]

Graceland is Paul Simon's last great album. And it really is great.

I happened to be living in South Africa when it came out, so it has always been an important record for me.  I heard it frequently in people's homes, and I played it almost constantly on my little one-speaker tape recorder.

Paul Simon instantly became a sort of hero in South Africa when he recorded this record there in spite of accusations that he had broken cultural and legal boycotts against the country. His use of South African sounds, South African musicians, and a South African recording studio was great validation for many (but not all) of the citizens of a country that saw itself as, at best, outside of the world community and, at worst, shunned by it.

One striking thing about the South African people, at that time at least, was that they were very concerned about how the world saw them.  As I was preparing to move back to California probably 10-15 people independently said to me, "Go back and tell people that our country is beautiful.  Tell them that we're not bad people.  Tell them that many of us hate the current system.  Tell them that many of us want a freer country too..." etc.  I was struck by their concern for these things.

Of course apartheid is now history.  I saw it in action back in the mid and late-80's, and it was extremely disturbing and awful to witness; however, I loved that incredibly beautiful country and its many wonderful people. I appreciate Paul Simon for being able to find some of what was beautiful about them, at the time when they needed it most, and showcase it to the world.

Graceland was Album Of The Year.  The title track was Record Of The Year.  The album has sold more than 14 million copies, making it Simon's most commercially successful album.

Footwear: Boots of Spanish Leather

Bob Dylan: Boots of Spanish Leather

[purchase]

Nanci Griffith: Boots of Spanish Leather

[purchase]

Martin Simpson: Boots of Spanish Leather

[purchase]


There's been a Bob Dylan song in almost every single theme we've attempted here on Star Maker Machine, but those of us who appreciate his iconic songwriting know there's no such thing as too much Bob Dylan. Hence, Dylan's neo-traditional ballad of separation, loss, and fine Spanish footwear, with the boots in question the final request from a left-behind lover who, after thrice refusing material possessions, finally asks for the memento as a signifier of his acceptance that he will never again have what he truly desires.

Call it cavalier or callous, the power of those final three verses, spoken by the remaining narrator after the dialogic "other" has faded from the song, are undeniable. In fact, I believe the song is one of Dylan's most powerful and enduring -- and for a man with such a canon, that's saying a lot, indeed. But then, I'm not alone in this assessment, which I share with no less an authority than the Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th edition, which included the lyrics to this song in a section titled "Popular Ballads of the 20th Century."

That said, it may be sacrilege, but as someone who has gone on record as preferring Dylan the songwriter to Dylan the performer, I genuinely prefer both of today's covers to the original 1964 performance from Dylan's seminal work The Times They Are a-Changin'. Nanci Griffith's genderbent countryfolk take is more plaintive and delicate, as her songs are wont to be; master guitarist Martin Simpson's version is more mystical and poignant, revealing the song as less neo- and more a true traditional folk ballad from across the sea. Each, in its own way, hits the gold standard of coversong, subjectively speaking: though there are a dozen or more covers of this one out there, it is these two which, for me, transformed the original song from something decent into something truly great, more than worthy of its inclusion in my own high school English Lit textbook.

Footwear: Red Shoes (The Angels Wanna Wear My)

Elvis Costello: Red Shoes (The Angels Wanna Wear My)

[purchase]

Hem: (The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes

[purchase]


I had a feeling I'd have to be quick with 'red shoes' songs this week, and I see Paul beat me to it with the first one...nevermind, there are still plenty to go around. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least another five songs just about red shoes, never mind any other colour!

Elvis Costello is one of my faves, and there are no two ways about it, this is a brilliant song, also covered very ably by Hem on Almost You: The Songs of Elvis Costello...this cover technically breaks the '20th century songs only' rule here at SMM, the CD it is on being released in 2003, but it's ever so pretty!!

.

Footwear: Slip In Mules

Sugar Pie DeSanto: Slip In Mules

[purchase]

An awesome song here from the not-talked-about-nearly-enough Sugar Pie DeSanto. The best line? "And it ain't the back that's cut too low"...risque business!

DeSanto was born Umpeylia Balinton in Brooklyn, New York in 1935, although moved to San Francisco at a young age, and it is the Bay Area with which she is most associated. She is possibly best known for her collaborations with Etta James, although had had hit singles in her own right before this - the first being I Want To Know in 1960. The song above was released in 1964, and it's a corker!

Footwear: Shoe Salesman

Adrian Belew: Shoe Salesman

[purchase from Adrian]

Purportedly, Adrian Belew was discovered playing in a hotel lounge band by none other than Frank Zappa. After putting in time under Zappa's musical tutelage, Belew went on to record with a who's-who of avant-garde artists: Zappa, David Bowie, Talking Heads, Paul Simon, Cyndi Lauper, Laurie Anderson, Nine Inch Nails, and King Crimson, to touch on the most well-known. Throw in William Shatner, Jars of Clay, Crash Test Dummies, and Peter Wolf, and it becomes apparent that Adrian is one of the most diversely spread guitarist/ producers in the rock spectrum.

And, like all most of those artists, he seems to have a pretty good sense of humor, to boot! Check out these grimace-inducing lines from today's selection, for example:

"Oh, I love her even though
she's made a heel out of me

My baby's in love with a shoe salesman
now I don't fit her, no, I don't fit her
now I don't fit her anymore"

...but, within the context of the song, and delivered in Belew's keening tenor, they work perfectly!

"Shoe Salesman" is from the CD single for "Pretty Pink Rose," Adrian's almost-hit that featured David Bowie on vocals. I'm not sure if the song ever was on another official release, and my rushed looking over the Amazon collection didn't turn it up, so the "buy" link up top goes to Adrian's webstore. Lotsa good stuff going on there!

If you really want to keep on top of the guy, he's got his own Blogger page, too: Elephant-Blog!

Footwear: Little Red Shoes

Loretta Lynn: Little Red Shoes

[purchase]

Here’s some scary music from Appalachia.

Loretta Lynn gives a firsthand account the trials and tribulations of her poor family trying to make do without adequate healthcare, charity, or transportation. The somewhat creepy background music orchestrated by Jack White is a perfect accompaniment for Loretta’s tale.

Dying is a big part of folk music. Loretta’s story about her little red shoes evokes the traditional bluegrass/folk song Put My Little Shoes Away (sometimes credited to Woody Guthrie) which is another first-person account told by a dying, but stoic, child. Little shoes are the primary image in each song.

We know Loretta pulled through, but the fate of the other little kid is not clear.

Bill Monroe: Put My Little Shoes Away [purchase]
Freakwater: Put My Little Shoes Away [purchase]