Nonsense: iieee

Tori Amos: iieee

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When it comes to nonsense songs usually they're a bit silly, or at least perceived that way. This song doesn't fit that category. It appeared on my favorite album of all time, Tori Amos' "from the choirgirl hotel". The album is quite dark, having been written in the aftermath and depression of having had three miscarriages.

In the song, Tori takes on God and religion as she is wont to do and asks why people must be made to sacrifice so much for him, and questioning the whole "God has a bigger plan for us" thing, as she can't see what the plan for losing a child could possibly be. The title of the song is actually a sort of chant. In interviews she has said that a small Native American boy's spirit visited her in the wake of her miscarriages and he often chanted this. But I take such things with a grain of salt, as she tends to get pretty outlandish in interviews. Regardless, it is certainly a chant and sounds somewhat Native-American in nature.

Nonsense: Ooh La La

Faces: Ooh La La

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Poor old Granddad, I laughed at all his words...

Confession time: the first time I heard this song, I thought it was a Rod Stewart cover. And I suppose that's true, in an odd sort of way, though not in the way I meant it. Because 25 years before Rod Stewart turned this song into a cheesy pop hit, his band Faces recorded it as the title track to their last album.

Or perhaps I should say that it was technically his band. Because ironically, Rod's not on the track at all. Indeed, though the Wikipedia page for the song claims that both Stewart and songwriter Ronnie Lane laid down vocals for the track, there's a distinct possibility that Rod was missing during the original recording session, as he was for the vast majority of the sessions for this last-gasp record from a band that was, for all intents and purposes, already splintered to the core, primarily due to the way Stewart had alienated his bandmates, thanks to a bit of smugness from a rising-star solo career.

Instead, we get a one-shot combo that turned stress and disaster into gold: co-writer Ronnie Wood in his first-ever turn on vocals, sweet seventies folk-rock bass and drums, barrelhouse piano flourishes, and Ronnie Lane jammin' on an acoustic guitar. And though I claim age for my original error - after all, I was born in '73 - and though the song has been covered by plenty of others in its long life, in this case, at least, it turns out there's nothing like the original...as a number of commercial-producing advertising agencies, and the producers of Rushmore, who used it as a credit roll, know well.

Nonsense: Wiggy Waggy Woo

Barrence Whitfield & the Savages: Wiggy Waggy Woo

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Before Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings brought classic R&B and soul back to the hipster mainstream, there was Boston's Barrence Whitfield & the Savages, who ripped it up through a half-dozen albums from the mid-'80s to the mid '90s. As such, they were both born too late and ahead of their time.

"Wiggy Waggy Woo" comes from their final album, Ritual of the Savages. It's a cover of a song originally recorded in 1956 by the Cadets, under the pseudonym the Jacks. And it's as much fun as the title suggests. It's the adrenaline rush of love set to music. If you need a mid-afternoon pick-me-up at the office, ditch the coffee, download this track, and crank it up.

Nonsense: Wang Dang Doodle

Hindu Love Gods: Wang Dang Doodle

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In 1984, vocalist Bryan Cook along with Bill Berry, Peter Buck, and Mike Mills of R.E.M. played three shows in Athens, Georgia under the name Hindu Love Gods.  At one of those shows, the original quartet was joined on stage by R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe and singer songwriter Warren Zevon. The group recorded two songs with Cook and Zevon in 1984 and played one more gig in 1986 with Cook and Stipe. That was pretty much it.

Then, in 1987, Berry, Buck, and Mills joined Zevon in the studio to serve as the backing band on his 1987 release Sentimental Hygiene.  One night during the Hygiene sessions, the band stayed late in the studio and recorded a collection of blues standards and one Prince smash ("Raspberry Beret").  Ten tracks from that late night recording finally surfaced in 1990 as a self-titled release from The Hindu Love Gods.

This track is a rollicking reading of Willie Dixon's "Wang Dang Doodle." It's a fitting song to have come from an all night recording binge.

Nonsense: I Zimbra

Talking Heads: I Zimbra

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I Zimbra led off Talking Heads third album, Fear of Music, and it was quite a departure from what had come before. The sound was denser, with overdubbed parts instead of the basic four- piece band sound the band had exhibited on their previous albums. The rhythm was complex. Soon enough, I would come to understand that this sound was influenced by African music. And the words made no sense, but the groove more than made up for it. Still, where did Talking Heads come up with a complete lyric of detailed nonsense? That turns out to be an interesting question.

The words to what Talking Heads called I Zimbra are by Hugo Ball, who the band properly credited. Ball was one of the founders of Dadaism. I have heard the term, but I never really knew what it was. So, for this post, I thought I had better find out. What follows is what I came to understand after a brief bit of research. Any mistakes are my own.

The art and poetry of the Victorian Era, and of the early 20th century are marked by extravagant beauty. In music, this period represented the flourishing of Romanticism. But World War I began to change that. Ball initially was an idealist and a patriot, and he volunteered for the German army at the beginning of the war. But, like so many others, he quickly became disillusioned, not only with the war but also with the culture that produced it. After the ugliness of the war, the beauty of prewar culture seemed absurd to Ball and his fellow Dadaists. Their work was meant to emphasize this absurdity by shattering the forms of prewar art, and also by using these forms but stripping them of meaning. The words that became I Zimbra were an example of the latter. Interestingly, the Dadaists were drawn to African and other native musics. They were considered primitive, and therefore less shaped by a culture that had no meaning. David Byrne’s lyrics for Talking Heads, even though they were in English, often had an absurd feel. I think Byrne may well have been reacting to the “deeply meaningful” lyrics of 1970s singer-songwriter’s by creating lyrics that meant nothing at all, or at least not very much. If so, it is easy to see what would have drawn him to the work of Hugo Ball.

Nonsense: Phish

Phish: The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony

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Phish: Guelah Papyrus

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Phish: Gotta Jibboo

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Notorious for choosing words for their mouthfeel, rhythm, and sound rather than any specific meaning, long-standing jamband kingpins Phish have an entire catalog of songs with both titles and lyrics that make little sense - starting with "Fee" and "You Enjoy Myself", the first and second tracks on their 1988 debut (the second of these being mostly an instrumental based on an especially heavy LSD experience in Italy, with the sole lyrics "Boy! … Man! … God! … Shit!...wash Uffizi, drive me to Firenze.").

Here's three favorites from the quartet, presented in the order of their release: the bouncy improvisational gin-joint jamjazz of The Oh Kee Pa Ceremony, the sweet and groovy Guelah Papyrus, and the trippy horns-and-all funkjam of Gotta Jibboo, a song which apocryphally takes the second word in its title from the invented name which lead singer Trey Anastasio's pre-literate firstborn gave to her milk and juice.

Ironically - or perhaps not so - the term "jibboo" has nonetheless come to be used as a slang term for marijuana in many hidden recesses of user culture, which says just about everything about the community that would follow these awesome musicians to the end of the earth.

Nonsense: Ya Ya

Lee Dorsey: Ya Ya

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This song is so infectious and fun, it's hard not to love. America agreed by making it a number 1 hit in 1962.

In the song, which was apparently inspired by a nursery rhyme, but for the life of me I couldn't tell you which, seems to be referring to a lover as Ya Ya. He's "sitting in La La waiting for my Ya Ya". Regardless, the song is clear, he wants her to hurry up and get to where he is.

Nonsense: Diddy Wa Diddie

Leon Redbone: Diddy Wa Diddie

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Thanks to Geoviki, I now know that La La La La La Means I Love You. But, can somebody tell me what Diddy Wa Diddy means? There is not even agreement on how to spell it. Blind Blake probably wrote the song, and some of his recordings of say Diddie Wa Diddie. Others have it as Diddy Wah Diddy. To add confusion, there is even a completely different song with the same name, and there too, the spelling varies.

This Diddy Wa Diddie comes from Leon Redbone’s second album. I had discovered him first on Saturday Night Live, and then on his debut album the year before. I didn’t know much about where this music was coming from at the time, but I was hooked right away. Now, I can recognize strains of blues, jazz, and jug band music, all as they sounded before World War II. The music still sounds as fresh to me as it did then, and it opened the door for some wonderful artists who have come along since then.

Nonsense: Doop-Doo-De-Doop

Blossom Dearie: Doop-Doo-De-Doop (A Doodlin' Song)

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Jazz singer and pianist Blossom Dearie was a mainstay in the early days of Verve Records, thanks to her distinctively girlish voice and a wry sense of humor that shines through clearly here, on a delightfully lighthearted album recorded in 1959 at the peak of her rising popularity.

There's little more to say about this fun little ditty, but in general, it is a typical example of the great work Dearie produced throughout her life. Dearie's catalog is well worth exploring in other ways: through her work with Bob Dorough for Schoolhouse Rock, for example, or through her constant appearance on indie soundtracks in the last couple of decades before her death last year at the age of 84. Among those who track the rise and fall of the industry, she is notable for starting her own private label, Daffodil Records, in the mid-seventies after tepid support from her own label left her frustrated about how best to get her particular style of supper-club jazz to the masses. And her solo instrumental piano work is delish, too.

Nonsense: Ne Ne Na Na Nu Nu

Bad Manners: Ne Ne Na Na Nu Nu

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I actually remember this one with a couple extra Nas in the title, but no matter. Madness, the Specials, and Bad Manners all belonged to the wave of ska bands that emerged from the London punk scene in the late 70s, and reached American shores starting in about 1980. Ska is not punk, of course, but the scene welcomed them anyway. Like punk, ska served as a conduit for the anger of working class youth, but ska also added in the grievances of immigrants to London from the Caribbean, who faced not only working class exploitation, but also racial prejudice. In the music of Bad Manners, the answer to these issues was to party. Bad Manners also covered some of the kitschy songs of early rock, such as My Girl Lollipop and even The Monster Mash, but done ska style. Ne Ne Na Na Nu Nu is a Bad Manners original that recalls the use of nonsense syllables in the rock n roll of the fifties, while delivering the high energy of ska. It is also a fine example of this band's unique sense of humor.

Nonsense: La-La Means I Love You

Laura Nyro: La-La (Means I Love You)

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This nonsense song title includes its own handy parenthetical interpretation for those of us who aren't quite sure what "la-la" actually means. Now we know.

There's not a cover of this song that I don't love, which lets me know right away that I need to be checking out the writer – Thom Bell. Just as the songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland defined the Motown sound in the 60's, the same is true for Thom Bell and the Philly Soul sound. Bell was an influential session pianist, songwriter, and producer who, with partners Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, was instrumental in some pretty awesome hits by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, the Spinners, Billy Paul, and the O'Jays.

This cover of the 1968 Delfonics tune is by one of my favorite vocalists and a superb songwriter in her own right. She's performed a number of 60's soul hits over her too-short career. This one's from the posthumously released Angel in the Dark and was recorded around 1995.

Magic -> Nonsense: Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo

Bobby McFerrin: Bibbidy-Bobbidy-Boo

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Joyce: Bobbidy-Bobbidy-Boo

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Two vastly different takes on a bit of Cinderella magic ease us from one theme into the next this week: Bobby McFerrin's totally deconstructed high-concept vocaljazz, which starts with almost a full minute of the original before kicking in all fragmented and scatlike, and Brazilian mononomic vocalist Joyce's jazzy, bouncy bossa nova, which - given the nonsensical lyric at the song's core - works out just fine for those of us who can't understand a lick of Portuguese. Both tracks originally came to me over at Covering The Mouse, a well-constructed, well-curated coverblog which features Disney covers exclusively. Viva la inscrutable!

Magic: I Can't Get Next To You

The Temptations: I Can't Get Next To You

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The sorcerer in this song is a self-proclaimed BAMF. Dude can turn back the hands of time. He can change anything from old to new. He can turn a river into a raging fire. He can even live forever! Scary!

All this incredible magical power, however, is proving utterly ineffective at turning around the guy's chances with one particular woman. Don't believe me? Hold it, hold it, listen….

Magic: Marie Laveau

Dejan‘s Olympia Brass Band: Marie Laveau

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This week would not be complete without a song about Marie Laveau, “The Voodoo Queen of New Orleans”. The best known song about her is probably the one by Bobby Bare, and if someone else would like to post that, please feel free. Laveau is usually portrayed as evil and capable of doing great harm with her magic. I like this song because it shows another view of the matter. Here, Laveau is a folk hero, offering charms and fortunes to those who seek her out. New Orleans legend Dr John also likes this song; he would later cover it.

Magic: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis

Richard Shindell: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis

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Richard Shindell: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis [live]

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Solas: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis

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Solas: On A Sea of Fleur De Lis [live]

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One of the best-known songs in ex-pat Fast Folk-era singer-songwriter Richard Shindell's catalog, and one of the most cryptic, this song appears as the centerpiece to his 1992 debut album Sparrows Point, and - in its original form - it features the appalachian dulcimer, on which it was composed.

Like so much of Shindell's songs, On A Sea Of Fleur De Lis tells its tale in first person; as near as I can tell, the narrator is a nun, though it could merely be an autobiographical echo of Shindell's own time in the seminary before he set out to become a songcrafter. But truly, there are layers upon layers here. Perhaps it is enough to say that the narrator, seemingly caught in a web of religious trappings, longs to be a witch again, naked and cradled in the arms of the sacred elm or willow, and the song is her prayer.

But like a spell, an ex-witches prayer can take many forms. The vast difference in tone and mood between the hollow, ringing original and the rich, joyous celtic-tinged cover Solas brings forth in live performance is an exercise in transformation, turning pensiveness into celebration, completing the circle that four versions lay out for us, setting free the trapped soul of the tale.

Magic: James

Annie Gallup: James

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I am a long-time fan of Annie Gallup, part songwriter-part poet-part novelist - each of her songs is a story within itself, powerful enough to make me weep but brilliant such that I am smiling through my tears, appreciating the way she has drawn me in to connect, to relate, to captivate...

Listening to her lyric weavings is magical in and of itself: her gift of language and whispery vocal, clever plotline and perfectly-timed tempo - this tune speaks of a magician. We have all known a James... someone we wanted to believe could pull rabbits out of hats, even when we knew the secret behind the trick was old and repetitive and predictable - then again... sometimes they end up surprising us... and themselves...

Magic: The Grey Wizard Am I

Gandalf The Grey: The Grey Wizard Am I

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My fellow Tolkienites and I rejoiced today upon the announcement that the upcoming adaptation of The Hobbit will indeed be filmed on director Sir Peter Jackson's homeland of New Zealand, following much boring legal nonsense. Not the biggest issue in the world, but for us nerds it was a life or death decision. New Zealand is Middle Earth, period.

What better way to celebrate than to listen to Chris Wilson's weirdo project Gandalf The Grey from 1972 (not to be confused with Gandalf, a complete different band). More info here.

The image at the top of this post is taken from Hobitit, a Finnish 1993 TV production of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings. It was incredibly entertaining, but not for the reasons intended.

Watch it at your own peril here. It's one of the most gloriously rubbish things you will ever see.

Magic: Crazy Man Michael

Richard Ruane: Crazy Man Michael

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I have mentioned before how I once did a guest post on Boyhowdy’s excellent blog, Cover Lay Down. That post included the original version of Crazy Man Michael by Fairport Convention, as well as an American version by Natalie Merchant. There, you can also find the story of how Crazy Man Michael came to be written. All of the other versions I could find at that time were by artists I had never heard of. To change that, an artist I am familiar with could have done a version since then. Or, I could have found out about an artist who had already done the song, and that is what happened. I discovered many artists this past summer at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, including a wonderful band called Bread and Bones. The band includes Richard Ruane, Beth Duquette and Mitch Barron. Although Crazy Man Michael appears on an album by Richard Ruane, recorded before the band officially got together, all of the future members of Bread and Bones are heard here, and the album is available on their website. All of this matters only because Ruane and company have taken Crazy Man Michael and made the song their own, with beautiful results. Beth Duquette appears elsewhere on the album, but the female singer here is Patti Casey.

But what about our theme? In the case of this song, it’s a good question. You could say that the song describes a man’s madness, and no magic is involved. But I prefer to think that Michael or his true love have gotten on the bad side of a sorcerer, who clouds Michael’s mind and causes him to carry out a terrible curse. Indeed, once this happens, Michael’s mind clears, and he discovers what he has been driven to do. Also, when the raven utters his curse, Michael calls him a sorcerer. So this is a different kind of magic than we have been seeing so far this week, but it is consistent with the traditions of the British Isles.

Magic: Country Magic Edition

Larry Jon Wilson: Sheldon Church Yard

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Country Joe and The Fish: Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine

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Tony Joe White: Conjure Woman

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It's true that in many rural areas of America magic has and likely always will be practiced to some degree. The 'roots' of magic have been credited to the Celts living between 700 BC and 100 AD, who are believed to be descendants of Indo-Europeans. From the Latin word Paganus we have Pagan which means 'country dweller'. Witch, having its origin in the Anglo-Saxon word 'wicca' is derived from the word 'wicce,' which means 'wise'. Rumors of black magic, witchcraft and voodoo around rural areas are the inspiration behind Larry Jon Wilson's Sheldon Church Yard. In Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine by Country Joe we see that being unfamiliar with country ways can be deadly! Conjure Woman by Tony Joe White demonstrates that while fear is a factor for some folks when dealing with certain witches, it also shows the isolation she certainly feels from living in the swamp for so long.

Magic: Love Potion Number Nine

The Searchers: Love Potion Number Nine

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Originally this song was performed by The Clovers in 1959, but when I think of it, I always think of this 1963 version by The Searchers which peaked at #3 on the charts.

It tells the tale of a young man who visits a gypsy because he needs help in the love department and heard that she sold love potions. She reads his palm and then brews him a potion. The potion ends up not making people fall in love with him, but instead he falls in love with everyone he sees. The song was banned by some stations because it mentioned that he ends up kissing a cop. Pretty risque back in the day.