War and Memory: Children’s Crusade

Sting: Children‘s Crusade

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I can’t say that I know all of the reasons this was such a slow week here, but I do know one reason. Our own Boyhowdy lives in Monson MA, which you may know was hit by a tornado on Friday. He and his family are fine now. Boyhowdy responded to this disaster in heroic fashion, with some of his best writing and by sharing music on his own blog, Cover Lay Down. I know our readers will wish him this best as Monson struggles to regain a sense of normalcy. And I know that I can speak for my fellow Star Makers in adding our best wishes to those.

Meanwhile, I do have one last song for our War and Memory theme. Children’s Crusade is Sting’s take on World War I, a subject Geovicki spoke of so eloquently in her last post. The Great War, as it was called, has left a deep scar on Western culture, particularly in Europe. About 70 years later, Sting is still writing a song about it. Sting equates the loss of young lives in the war to the legendary “children’s crusade” of 1212. According to the legend, tens of thousands of children responded to the visions of a young boy by committing to a journey to the Holy Land to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity. They marched to the Mediterranean Sea, where they were taken by two unscrupulous sea captains to Tunisia, and sold as slaves. End of Story. So it plays out as a tale of a sacrifice of Holy Innocents, and that is the parallel that Sting wants to draw. That is also what the references to slavery in the lyrics are about.

War and Memory: And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Eric Bogle: And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

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World War 1 was one of the first modern wars, with its reliance on twentieth-century technology such as machine guns, chemical gases, tanks, telephones and wireless communication, and airplanes. All of the world's great powers of the day were involved, with over 70 million military personnel (including my grandfather). Nine million were killed and many more wounded, like the soldier in this song.

This song, written by Scottish-Australian Eric Bogle in 1971, describes the horror of the Battle of Gallipoli (Turkey), where the combined Australian, New Zealand, and British army suffered a bloody defeat by the Turks. It's a descriptive and bitter recollection of the battle, its cost in human life, and the ultimate pointlessness of war.

War and Memory: Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town

Mel Tillis: Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town

[Out of print, it seems]

“Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town” was a hit for Kenny Rogers and The New Edition in 1969 at the height of the Vietnam War, and so was perceived by many to be about that conflict. When country singer Mel Tillis, who wrote the song, first released it in January 1967, the “old crazy Asian war” he was referring to was the Korean conflict of the early 1950s.

The storyline is simple: a man returned from doing his “patriotic chore” without his legs, and his wife Ruby is sleeping with other men while he is cooped up at home. And she doesn’t care about how he feels at all. No wonder he has fantasies of putting Ruby into the ground.

Tillis, who released the song in January 1967, said he based the lyrics on a couple in his neighbourhood. In real life, the man was wounded in Germany in Word War 2, not in Korea. Tillis spared us the bitter end of the story: the ex-GI killed his straying wife and then himself.

Mel Tillis re-recorded the song in 1976 with an outstanding banjo solo. It is worth seeking out.

Song Chain => War and Memory: Born in the USA

Richard Shindell: Born in the USA

[purchase]

From transformative covers of songs with California in the titles, it’s not hard to get to another transformative cover. This one also kicks off a week of songs about people affected by wars, both soldiers and those who waited for them at home. It’s all in honor of Memorial Day, but I hope this theme resonates for our readers in countries other than the United States as well.

Here then, is Richard Shindell’s version of Bruce Springstein’s Born in the USA. The lyric presents a portrait of a man who served in Vietnam, and now he is trying to make it as a civilian, while still holding on to the memories of the men he served with. Springstein’s original recording was a rock anthem, and people latched onto it as a patriotic song. But for me, Shindell’s version does a better job of focusing on the lyric, and therefore brings the protagonist to life more vividly. Springstein is an artist I have a great admiration for, but this is one time when his performance did not best serve his lyric. I’m sure any number of Springstein fans will disagree with me in the comments; I would ask that you do so respectfully.

Song Chain: California Dreamin'

This photo of California Dream Inn is courtesy of TripAdvisor.

Eddie Hazel: California Dreamin'

[purchase]

The last song was a fast cover of a mid-tempo song about California. This one's a slow cover of a mid-tempo song about California (or at least about wanting to be in California).

Eddie Hazel, mostly known as a guitarist in the P-Funk army, only released one solo album during his lifetime, 1977's Games, Dames, and Guitar Thangs. From it comes this slow-burn take on the Mamas & Papas hit.

Song Chain: Hotel California

The Gipsy Kings: Hotel California

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Spanish guitar? Makes me think of this familiar, yet not, cover of the Eagles hit.

The Gipsy Kings are a pop-rhumba-flamenca group hailing from France, although their heritage is Spanish Romani. And this beautifully arranged song is from the soundtrack to The Big Lebowski. It's got one of the best intros ever.

Song Chain: That World Outside

Mink Deville: That World Outside

[purchase]

I must have heard You Don’t Own Me before, because I saw Dirty Dancing when it came out in the theaters. But I don’t remember the song, so rediscovering it here was a pleasure indeed. Starting with that great growly sax sound, and continuing with swelling strings done right, even into the doo-wop backing vocals, Own Me was great. Many of these same musical elements can be found in the music of Mink Deville, and I offer That World Outside as an example. Here is that growly sax again, and the swelling romanticism. The Spanish guitar on this one is a special bonus. This link in the chain then is all about feel.

Song Chain: You Don't Own Me

The Blow Monkeys: You Don't Own Me

[purchase]

It only took Boyhowdy's descriptive phrase: gender-bent folk rock offers just the right tone of righteous, defiant anger to trigger a bunch of entries that I thought would fit in our chain. You see, I collect genderbending songs. Aaaaaaand, I think that's all I'll say about that. ;)

Actually , I'm spoiled for choice here. Two runners up were Cam Clarke's Son of a Preacher Man or The Czars Where the Boys Are. But the clear winner for "defiant anger" has to be this Lesley Gore cover from 1987's soundtrack to Dirty Dancing.

Song Chain: Beautiful

Clem Snide: Beautiful (Christina Aguilera cover)

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For me, the song chain challenge is no challenge at all, but rather the way my mind works anyway. I am, after all, the product of the very last vinyl-to-tape generation - and so, letting the mind open to the possibility of the next natural song is merely an echo of an earlier era, spent on the floor at my father's vast and varied record collection, where - in order to ensure that no silence interrupted a good evening of listening, or perhaps merely to make sense of the mix tape creation process - the three minutes listening to one song could be used wisely to search for another, so as to have it waiting for the switch-out with little more fuss than the lift and slide, the slide and drop.

Such quick-changes can come from anywhere, of course - which is to say, most chains, and most mixtapes, do not use the same sort of connection between one pair of songs and the next. Today, for example, we've gone from a titular connection to one of narrative meaning, and an antithetical one at that - for after seeing this afternoon's post of "Oh, Pretty Woman", this song came to mind, mostly, because Christina Aguilera's hit "Beautiful" always seemed like a kind of reclamation of the feminine mind from the objecthood which Roy Orbison's chart-topper imposes on the gender...and Clem Snide's grungy, gender-bent folk rock offers just the right tone of righteous, defiant anger against the femme-flattening two-dimensionality which so plagues the patriarchal society, even today.

Song Chain: Oh, Pretty Woman

Roy Orbison: Oh, Pretty Woman

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Okay, I'll get this started, and say obvious song is obvious. I saw Darius's title and thought it was actually this song, so this post is all about making mistakes at first glance.

When I was young, in 1965 when this song came out, I couldn't tell the difference between Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley, so I thought it was an Elvis song.

I always think this song is titled "Pretty Woman" but it's got an "Oh," in front of it.

And my picture of that pretty woman? Is a guy. That's J-Rocker Kaya, who looks way better than I do in makeup.

Show Tunes => Song Chain: Pretty Women

Peabo Bryson: Pretty Women

[purchase]

Welcome to our Song Chain theme. This is a musical version of the old word association game, where one person thinks of a word, and the next person says the first word that comes into their head. So I hope this week is as much fun for our readers as I believe it will be for my fellow Star Makers and me.

Geovicki completely surprised me with her post of songs from Hedwig and the Angry Inch. First of all, I knew Hedwig had been a movie, but I didn’t know that it was a stage show first. And then, she took a Show Tunes theme, and found a way to include a J-pop artist. So the connections to this post are that I am concluding our Show Tunes theme, and I am offering a surprise.

Pretty Women comes from Sweeney Todd, and it’s no surprise that someone covered Sondheim, or that it was done as jazz. But I have never heard Peabo Bryson singing jazz before, and he does it very well. And he is working with Herbie Hancock, of all people. The combination works beautifully.

Show Tunes: Hedwig and the Angry Inch version

Spoon: Tear Me Down

[purchase]

Bonnie Pink: The Origin of Love

[purchase]

Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a glam-rock musical written by (and for) former Army brat John Cameron Mitchell. It premiered off-Broadway in 1998. The plot sounds farfetched and convoluted in description (gay man meets Army officer in East Berlin and undergoes a botched sex change to escape Communist rule, ending as a failed rock singer whose young almost-boyfriend steals her songs and becomes a star). But it's easy for the audience to fall in love with the flawed Hedwig as she tells us her story, and the music (by Stephen Trask) is great.

Tear Me Down is the self-actualizing song that introduces a defiant Hedwig to the audience. Spoon drops the energy level to suit their style, but it's still a terrific anthem. It's from a Hedwig tribute album, Wig In A Box, released in 2003.

The Origin of Love is a ballad based on Aristophanes' monologue in Plato's Symposium. It postulates three sexes of humans (man-man, man-woman, woman-woman) who were split by angry gods and forced to search out their other halves to find completion. The vocalist, Bonnie Pink, is a J-pop star, and the song's from an album of cover songs she released in 2005.

Show Tunes: It Ain't Necessarily So

Bronski Beat: It Ain't Necessarily So

[purchase]

Aretha Franklin: It Ain't Necessarily So

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Porgy and Bess, the 1935 faux-folk opera by the Gershwin Brothers, was a creation of its racist times. On one hand, it perpetrates a seriously distorted view of black America of that or any other time, with its focus on drugs, gambling, casual sex, and violence. On the other, it gave focus and prominence to many black singers and actors when roles for them were few and far between. Plus the blues-jazz music is flat-out wonderful. Best known is Summertime, the most covered song in history. This song, though, is not a bad second choice. Sportin' Life, the drug dealer, humorously expresses his disbelief about the truth of some famous Biblical stories.

I've chosen covers by two very different but no less compelling singers. The first is by Bronski Beat, an 80s synth pop group fronted by Glaswegian Jimmy Somerville, later of the Communards. I think I've mentioned my affection for falsetto singing; Jimmy's pretty well known for standing out in any high-pitched crowd. The second is by Detroit's own Aretha Franklin, from her self-titled 1961 album. Aretha needs no further introduction.

Show Tunes: Frank Mills

The Lemonheads: Frank Mills

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There have been many covers of the various groovy pop hits from Hair, the sixties celebrational musical which first hit Broadway in 1968 - from the Cowsills' 1969 chart hit title track to Three Dog Night's Easy To Be Hard, from Quincy Jones' version of Walking In Space to Canadian folkpop singer-songwriter Serena Ryder's wonderfully bombastic 2006 take on Good Morning Starshine, which I posted way back in May of last year when I took on the topic of showtunes coverage at Cover Lay Down.

But my favorite has to be this 1992 cover from The Lemonheads - likely just Evan Dando, performing under the name of the band he led and founded, plus either a drum machine or some random bandmember patting gently away on a guitar case. Frank Mills appeared as a coda of sorts on their alt-pop album It's A Shame About Ray, and surprisingly, though it had already been recorded by the likes of Liza Minelli and Barbra Streisand before them, their performance manages to come off without a hint of irony. Instead, it's delicate acoustic grunge, tender and raw, much like Dando himself, who was quite literally a crackhead throughout much of the early nineties, but has since cleaned up a bit.

Show Tunes: I've Gotta Be Me

Sammy Davis Jr: I’ve Gotta Be Me


“I’ve Gotta Be Me” was a surprise #11 hit for Sammy Davis Jr in early 1969, while it still featured in a not excessively triumphant Broadway musical titled Golden Rainbow, starring Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé. The musical ran on Broadway from late December 1967 to February 1969. In between, Lawrence released a single of “I’ve Got To Be Me”, followed shortly after by Sammy Davis Jr, who tweaked the title for his more successful record.

Davis performed “I’ve Gotta Be Me” in 1972 at the black consciousness concert PUSH Expo, co-organised by the Rev Jessie Jackson. The line-up of the concert, which was made into a documentary film titled Save The Children, was hip and impressive. It included Marvin Gaye, Quincy Jones, Curtis Mayfield, Roberta Flack, Bill Withers, The Main Ingredient, Gladys Knight, Jerry Butler, The Temptations, Ramsey Lewis, Zulema, The Jackson 5, The O’Jays, Cannonball Adderley and more. In that line-up, Sammy Davis Jr was a contradiction and an anachronism.

His scene was Vegas, the Rat Pack and “The Candy Man”, not socially hip soul music and the funk; he had recently endorsed Richard Nixon, not the on-going fight for civil rights and against urban decay (even Sammy’s recent cover of Elvis’ “In The Ghetto” had been a drug-fuelled joke). He did not follow Jesus, but had converted from the Puerto Rican Catholicism of his grandmother to Judaism. And he didn’t even like black Sisters, going for Scandinavian types instead. He was regarded by many as a sell-out, an Uncle Tom (poor, tragic Uncle Tom, the fictional character who has received a bad rap for being a collaborator with the oppressor, which in Harriett Beecher-Stowe’s anti-slavery novel he most decidedly wasn’t).

Now Sammy, a man who never was confident about who he was, stood in front of a potentially hostile crowd with whom he had no apparent cultural, political, religious or even social connection. He did not launch straight into song. He addressed the crowd, slowly and purposefully – a little like Martin Luther King Jr when he used to begin a speech. “I am not here [long pause] but as only one way. I am here, because I have come home as a black man.” Polite applause. Sammy’s voice rises: “Disagree, if you will, with my politics, but” – and now with slow, precise deliberation – “I will not allow anyone take away the fact that I am black.” Huge cheer. The piano starts, and Sammy’s diffident stage act kicks in: “I would like to sing – if you would like for me to sing [cue Sammy lapping up the approving bonus cheer]… ‘Whether I’m right, or whether I’m wrong…’.”

What better song could there have been for Sammy to sing at that moment than the anthem for self-acceptance?

Show Tunes: Pirate Jenny

Nina Simone: Pirate Jenny

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Most of the songs this week have come from Broadway, and, in a sense, Pirate Jenny is no exception. The song comes from The Three Penny Opera, which debuted in the original German in Berlin in 1928. However, the lyrics heard here are the English translation that was done for the first Broadway production of the show. In the show, Polly Peachum is a maid in an inn by the harbor in London, and she takes abuse regularly from the patrons. Pirate Jenny is Polly’s fantasy of revenge for this abuse. Some productions of The Three Penny Opera have given the song to a different character, the prostitute Jenny, but this is not what Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, who wrote the original book and music, intended. Nina Simone’s performance clearly belongs to Polly. Simone gives the song a spare arrangement, and she speaks rather than sings many of the lyrics. This gives her performance a raw power which suits the song perfectly.

Incidentally, there is a recording of this song by Steeleye Span, with the title The Black Freighter. Ironically, there is no black freighter in the German. The corresponding lyric in the original describes a ship “with eight sails”. However, since that doesn’t scan properly in English, it was replaced by “the black freighter.”.

Show Tunes: There Are Worse Things I Could Do

TheAudience: There Are Worse Things I Could Do

[Purchase]

I've always sort of believed that seeing the movie "Grease" was sort of a rite of passage for girls of a certain age growing up...they had to see it, and usually then watch it over and over at every sleep-over. It was like an unwritten rule, though that may have only been my generation. A shame, really.

As it is, Grease is a classic movie, but began as a theatrical production in 1971 in Chicago, and then the movie was made of it in 1978. This song, "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" is certainly not one of the most famous from the movie, but it's still memorable, as it takes on a popular character, the tough girl Rizzo, and shows her softer side.

This version is sung by the little known and long defunct British band TheAudience. Lead singer, the beautiful Sophie Ellis-Bextor, went on to bigger fame as a solo artist doing mostly dance and pop music, but these are her beginnings, humble or not. I enjoy what I've heard (merely this EP) from TheAudience more than her solo work as the band seems to have more character.

Show Tunes: I Get a Kick Out of You

Dolly Parton: I Get a Kick Out of You

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Anything Goes is a classic musical from 1934. The songs are by Cole Porter, and they include some of his best known numbers. The first song in the show is I Get a Kick Out of You. The show is a romantic farce, and a lot of fun. That sense of fun is what comes through most in Dolly Parton’s version of Kick. For the first minute, the song is an instrumental, with Chris Thile on mandolin sounding quite a bit like David Grisman. Finally, Parton enters. She doesn’t take the song too seriously, but she gives it all the fizz and sass it needs.

Show Tunes: My Favorite Things

John Coltrane: My Favorite Things

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Musicals are not really my thing to say the least, but when the great jazz cats ran away with show tunes I've always been all ears. Take My Favorite Things, which was originally written by Rodgers and Hammerstein for The Sound of Music. I'm sure Trane's revolutionary modal remodelling, featuring his at times almost Indian-sounding soprano sax, will make your jaws drop. But do pay attention to McCoy Tyner's waltzing wizardry on the piano, too.

Show Tunes: Millworker

Pearl Jam: Millworker

[live, 2004]

Emmylou Harris: Millworker

[purchase]

Lavinia Ross: Millworker

[purchase]

I posted the author's "original" of this song way back in 2008 for our Work theme; aptly enough, the song was written for the score of the James Taylor-penned musical "Working", based on the Studs Terkel novel of the same name. Though neither the musical nor the 1979 album this song ultimately appeared on were terribly well received, I've always liked this simple song, and ol' JT clearly does, too, or he wouldn't keep recording it, trying to find just the right balance between the resignation and the desperation of the narrator, a widowed blue-collar millworker and mother from my home state of Massachusetts.

But today is for coverage, and thankfully, a number of musicians have taken this one on, from Pearl Jam to Emmylou Harris. Here's both: the former live and ragged; the latter, recorded relatively early in Emmylou's career, a solid countrypop tune exactly as plaintive and haunting and dreamlike as you'd expect it to be - plus a warm, gentle cover I just received in the mail last week from organic farmer and occasional singer-songwriter Lavinia Ross.