Filed under: sing like no one is listening, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions | Tags: At the Circus, Groucho Marx, Kermit the Frog, Lydia the Tattooed Lady, The Muppet Show
I want to assure readers that I do listen to new music. I just streamed the new Killers album when it came out, and I’ve enjoyed the new Foo Fighters, the new Kings of Leon. I’m not as up to date on stuff as maybe you are, or someone like my brother is, though. Between work, projects around the house, and a child, my attentive listening time is significantly diminished. I’m opening with this caveat because I worry that the most recent posts on this website are wearying to you folks because of where I’m getting many of these recent songs for my days.
That said, if you’ll indulge me, let us once again turn to The Muppet Show. The second episode of season one opens with Kermit the Frog launching into one of my all-time favorite songs, a song which I’ve carefully memorized so that I can sing it to my son because it makes him smile.
“Lydia, the Tattooed Lady” was written by Yip Harburg and Harold Arlen, two men who have had a huge impact on popular culture, even if you’ve never heard of them. Among other classics, these are the guys who wrote the lyrics and music for The Wizard of Oz, including “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” ranked as the 20th century’s number one song by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Both “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” were written in 1939, which, based on those songs alone has become in my mind the most important year in music history. “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” appeared in the Marx Brothers movie At the Circus, and it became one of Groucho Marx’s signature tunes. Apparently Groucho brought the New York Stock Exchange to a standstill in 1950 when he commandeered a microphone on the floor of the Exchange and sang “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” before telling jokes for a quarter of an hour.
I think a lot about what it would have been like to witness certain historical events. Usually those fantasies are based on the solemnity or import of the moment, like Lincoln’s inaugurals, or the surrender at Appomattox Court House. Those would have been cool to see, but, man, I bet listening to Groucho sing at the NYSE is a memory that those who witnessed it treasured through all of their days.
That being said, I much prefer Kermit’s version of “Lydia the Tattooed Lady,” which comes complete with a tattooed pig Muppet demonstrating all of the lyrics in the song. It’s such a fun little tune, and there is something about the lyrics that makes them fun to sing in a physical way, akin to the pleasure of chewing on a delicious piece of taffy.
My only hope with any of these posts is that the music will make you as happy as it makes me. This song is one that I’m even more eagerly hoping you’ll enjoy, so that you, too, can make someone smile when you sing it to them.
Filed under: Inspirational Anthems, sing like no one is listening, Songs for Contemplation, Songs of Triumph, Songs to listen to with the windows down, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions | Tags: John Denver, Mother Nature's Son, Paradise, Prisoners, Rocky Mountain High
When I was a kid, for reasons I cannot entirely recall, I bought a John Denver’s Greatest Hits album. At that time, the only song I knew was “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” and maybe I bought the album because that song is supposed to be easy for a novice to learn how to play on guitar. I’m pretty sure this was before YouTube, so I couldn’t just sit down in front of the computer to watch the song on repeat. The point, though, is that after listening to his greatest hits I really didn’t think that much of John Denver.
Decades later, I discovered Toots and the Maytals, who do an outstanding version of “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” This, naturally, led me to revisit Denver’s original version of that song, and then to explore John Denver some more.
I will always be the guy who prefers to buy an album. I love having physical copies of music and books. That said, one of the things I love about streaming music is that I can explore an artist’s entire catalog to find my favorites before I buy an album.
Rocketing to the top of my ‘gotta buy soon’ list is John Denver’s 1972 masterpiece Rocky Mountain High. Denver had been playing in folk groups for years before going solo in 1969, and in three short years he released one of the greatest albums of all time. He adopted the stage name of Denver when he was eleven years old, because, as a military kid who moved his whole childhood, Colorado was his favorite state, embodying the wilderness, solitude, and independence that he valued. As a kind of paean to his favorite state, Denver put his whole soul and ambition into Rocky Mountain High and he hit right where he was aiming.
The actual song “Rocky Mountain High” has become one of the official state songs of Colorado. Track two, the wonderfully energetic cover of The Beatles’ “Mother Nature’s Son” seems, in Denver’s hands and with his outlook and background, as though the song was always destined to be Denver’s. Next comes the gorgeous “Paradise,” the sweet “For Baby (For Bobbie)” and “Darcy Farrow.” Side one then concludes with the pulsing romp of “Prisoners,” easily the best song I’d never heard. Side one of this record may be one of the best side ones of any record ever made. You have to listen to it.
Side two has the fantastic “Goodbye Again” and then a five-song “Season Suite” that is in no way as pretentious as it might appear when you read the track titles on the back of the record.
In short, this is an album bursting at the seams with energy and passion. Even if, musically, Denver’s ouevre wasn’t always your cup of tea, as it wasn’t mine, the personality of Denver leaping into your ears through these songs is absolutely irresistible. Every track will become a song for your days.
Filed under: sing like no one is listening, songs that make you feel cool in uncool moments, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions, Time to Party Tunes | Tags: Funky Kingston, Mango Records, Pomp and Pride, Pressure Drop, Reggae, The Maytals, Toots and The Maytals, Toots Hibbert
It’s probably not inaccurate to say that for most Americans Bob Marley and the Wailers are the most recognizable reggae group. I would even hazard that Marley and his band are the only reggae artist many Americans have ever heard of. As I’ve written before, this is an incredible shame, because discovering that reggae has its own unique history distinct from just one artist was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
To anyone who feels well-described by the above paragraph (as I used to be, I assure you), your first assignment is to pick up the landmark soundtrack album The Harder They Come. The first feature film made in Jamaica, The Harder They Come’s greatest cultural legacy is the superb soundtrack, released in 1973. With stellar tracks from Jimmy Cliff (the film’s star), Scotty, The Melodians, The Slickers, and Desmond Dekker, it introduced the world at large to some of the best music being made in the world.
In addition to the above-named artists, Toots and the Maytals had two of their most popular songs featured on the soundtrack, “Pressure Drop” and “Sweet and Dandy,” easily two of the most energetic and indispensable songs I’ve ever heard. This is not hyperbole. The more I listened to just these two songs, the more I needed Toots and the Maytals in my life.
Originally just a vocal trio called The Maytals, the group decided to fully incorporate its studio band in 1972, changing their name to Toots and the Maytals, giving deference to their main songwriter and spirited frontman Frederick “Toots” Hibbert. Hibbert is the man to thank for pretty much the whole genre, introducing its very eponym in the 1968 song “Do the Reggay.” Rolling Stone ranked him as the 71st greatest singer of all time. Toots and the Maytals still hold the record for most number one hits in Jamaica, with an astonishing thirty-one. The Random House Dictionary even references Toots in its definition of Reggae.
1973’s Funky Kingston was the first truly official Toots and the Maytals album, and it stands to this day as the group’s most seminal work, perhaps truly as the definition of reggae. Thanks to a little tweaking by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell shortly after its initial release, Funky Kingston boasts some of The Maytals’ greatest hits: the roaring “Funky Kingston” and the absolutely unbelievably good “Pressure Drop.” It also features Toots and co. outperforming John Denver on their cover of his “Country Roads,” and gives the world one of the unconditionally greatest songs of all time in the Toots-penned “Pomp and Pride.”
Maybe Toots’ lyrics weren’t political enough to be considered as significant at large like Marley’s lyrics, but The Maytals’ music outshines The Wailers consistently. I’ve never listened to a Bob Marley album and experienced the same kind of stupidly innocent joy I feel when I listen to Toots and the Maytals. “Pomp and Pride,” like “Pressure Drop” or “Sweet and Dandy,” is a simple, universal song with a melody immediately pulsating with the heartbeat of happiness. You can’t help but play the song on repeat, opening your ears to it as soon as you hear the knock on the door of the opening drumbeats. Once you let the song in, it never stops, with The Maytals’ backing vocals swirling effortlessly around their charismatic frontman’s archetypal voice, the rhythm driving forward through every verse and bridge. Listen, then listen again, and be glad you have.
Filed under: Sunny Dispositions | Tags: Hello Starling, Josh Ritter, Kathleen
It’s just after noon on a frigid, sunny day in this mountain town of mine. The outside world is a steady -8 degrees Fahrenheit, though the wind and clouds of yesterday are absent, so it’s actually much more pleasant out there now than when it was warmer (at 1 degree F) yesterday. Nonetheless, motivation is lacking, even among the animals of the house; they’ve taken shelter in the blankets of the bed, resting their heads on the pillows and pretending to be asleep when I ask if it’s time to go outside.
They and I need some motivation, a song to enliven us, to encourage us to venture forth into a beautiful day. The song I keep coming back to, and which might actually get me out of this chair and into a thick coat, is “Kathleen” by Josh Ritter.
“Kathleen” first appeared on Ritter’s third album Hello Starling, from 2003. At the time he was gaining a reputation in Ireland, living there and touring as the opening act for The Frames (the band of Glen Hansard, star of the movie Once) before eventually headlining his own shows. He had self-recorded, published, and promoted his first three albums; it wasn’t until 2005 that he was signed by the major label V2 Records, whose first act was to re-release Hello Starling to a wider audience.
The elements of the song are straightforward folk-pop, the kind of tune Simon & Garfunkel might have made if they gave up on harmonizing and were partial to mid-song organ solos. There isn’t a misstep to be found among the steady acoustic guitar, the direct drumming, the comfortable low background hum of the organ; so venture out into the day and let “Kathleen” push you towards something to smile about.
Filed under: Inspirational Anthems, Night Drive Tunes, Rainy Day Songs, Songs to listen to with the windows down, Sunny Dispositions
There are some songs & bands that I need to be in the mood for: it needs to be a bright fall afternoon for Belle & Sebastian, I need to be particularly melancholic for Death Cab, there should be a quiet and serene twilight for Iron & Wine…but I can never say no to “Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!” by Do Make Say Think. This song has been on steady but slow repeat for the past three years, lifting me higher when I’m bright, making me whole when I’m heartbroken. It tells you everything is going to be okay when nothing seems like it is, makes you smile even wider when you think it’s not possible to feel any happier, and at 3:05 fills your whole body with so many notes that you swear they start coming from your skin.
-Rebecca
Filed under: Night Drive Tunes, Songs for Contemplation, Songs to listen to with the windows down, Songs to start your day, Sunny Dispositions | Tags: Austin, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, More a Legend than a Band, Rounder Records, The Flatlanders
I bet you didn’t know that Smokey, the over-the-line fragile pacifist from The Big Lebowski, also happens to be, in real life, one of the triumvirate leaders of perhaps the greatest band Country music has ever seen. His name is Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and along with Butch Hancock and Joe Ely, he makes up The Flatlanders, a group which, during their original ’70s career, released exactly one artistically compromised eight-track album on an unknown label with no distribution power, and yet still managed to influence the likes of iconic bands from The Clash to Uncle Tupelo.
The band was formed in 1970 in Lubbock, Texas, and after playing with a rotating cast of musicians, Ely, Hancock, and Gilmore, all guitarists, solidified the group with a fiddler, an upright bassist, a mandolin player, and even a guy on musical saw, who learned that instrument, and the autoharp, just so he could join the band.
In 1972 the Flatlanders went to Nashville and cut a record on the bargain-bin Plantation label, but the album was shelved following a pretty dismal response to the first single, “Dallas”. It was eventually released in 1973, in the above-mentioned form, and limited almost exclusively to truck stop eight-track racks. By then, most of the supporting musicians had left the band, and eventually even Gilmore, Ely, and Hancock drifted apart with the Texas winds.
The band had trouble finding a national audience because their sound was simultaneously too weird, and just way too Country for Country. The musical saw, especially, gave their songs that haunting sound like wind whistling through a dusty Old West town; it carried the hint of a Western scored by Ennio Morricone.
As the years wore on, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely, and Butch Hancock all became (relatively) well-known names in the music world, infiltrating the consciousness of Country fans on both sides of the Great Plains. I have never heard any of their solo music, and had never heard of the Flatlanders before, but I recognized those three names immediately when I stumbled across them in the Country section of the local library. They graced the cover of the 1990 Rounder Records release “More a Legend than a Band,” a reshuffled reissue of the Flatlanders’ lost landmark they recorded in ’72. Ditching two weak covers of Country standards and adding four completely unreleased tracks from the original sessions, “More a Legend than a Band” is one of the most aptly titled releases in all of Country music. It addresses not only the almost-mythic influence of a band which never had a hit single, or even a proper record release, but also the exquisite music on display here. Upon first listen, you might find it weird, especially when that musical saw kicks in. But in the universe of Country music, this group of songs acts as a pivot around which the rest of the world turns. There was nothing like it before, and there has been nothing quite like it since.
I have yet to find a summer jam. There are a few bobbing up to the surface every now and again, but it seems as soon as I put an effort into making one of them my summer jam, it recedes back to the murky collection of music overtaken, disappeared, like waves under waves under waves. Which, I suppose, is the beauty of summer jams. Or anything really. There is a proverb, a saying. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. When the beer is running on an endless loop and the girls all look so pretty and the days stretch out forever and the boys will strength from nothing for a baseball game that isn’t a league function, the summer jam will appear.
What, then, makes a good summer jam? I kicked off the season with Neil Young. He’s a toss-up. If you don’t have a backyard, he’s a winter scene. I would argue, however, “Are You Ready for the Country” turned up to a moderate level while nibbling at some whiskey in a wicker chair, shoes off, absently swinging a badminton racquet at the fireflies ain’t a note short of idyllic.
After that, I spent the latter half of July cleaning and listening to rap. I was heavy on Cam’ron and the Diplomats. Juelz Santana’s “There it Go” is solid, but – via Girltalk’s use in Night Ripper – played out. I’ve thought on multiple occasions that “Soap Opera” from Cam’ron would work. It’s got the nice sped up chipmunk vocals of yesteryear, the Kanye West aesthetic. Cam goes smooth over hard, thus allowing the audience to either groove slowly with drink in hand or simply head nod in time while playing a game of H-O-R-S-E.
Of course, by calling out these songs as potentials, they can be nothing more than that. The summer jam must occur naturally, unguided. Kissing the one and only Wendy Peffercorn in a game of spin the bottle cannot will not compare to unexpectedly locking up with The Icebox (pre-makeover) outside the concession stand in the mist and echo of the park lights freshly extinguished. It has and always will be a season of spontaneity.
Until someone hires me full-time.
So, y’all got a summer jam yet?
Filed under: Songs for Contemplation, Sunny Dispositions | Tags: Angus and Julia Stone, Big Jet Plane
Near the end of summer the songs slow. Our bodies wade through the the heat, and the metronomes shift down in bpm’s. We return from vacation and life seems as congested as morning traffic. “Back to School Sale” signs go up outside of Target, Staples, and Office Max, insulting freedom everywhere, even after we’ve thrown our graduation caps.
Angus and Julia stone’s “Big Jet Plane” is what Au Revoir Simone’s “Backyards of our Neighbors” was to me a few years ago. Its melody is weighted down by the sun. It’s the melancholy of peeling skin, knowing that soon you will be indoors, shivering beneath the blankets.
Filed under: Inspirational Anthems, Songs for Contemplation, Sunny Dispositions | Tags: But Seriously Folks, Joe Walsh, John Ruskin, Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder, Unto this Last
It’s bad enough that rap music has chosen to evolve from a minority’s angry shout for equality and recognition into an amoral celebration of substance-less materialism, but now we’ve got a sing-along, genre-less (because it tries to be pop and hip hop and maybe even fucking calypso, who knows) top ten radio hit by a guy named either Travie McCoy or Travis McCoy (the internet knows not) that triumphs a hyperbolic avarice until now relatively unknown. The song, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, is called “I Wanna Be a Billionaire.” It is unoriginal, shallow, ridiculous, and available for listen every six to ten minutes on the What’s-Hot-Now! radio stations that plague our country.
It is true that we are raising a nation of wimps; that the pursuit of wealth with a minimum of exertion has become the norm. That the sweat of one’s brow has decreased in value while the depth of one’s pockets has become the standard measure of stature and worth. Aside from the very noble profession of engineering, the top college majors of 2010 were those whose sole raison d’être are the making of money: namely, Business. As Rebecca Mead so eloquently put it in her New Yorker article “Learning by Degrees”:
“… one needn’t necessarily be a liberal-arts graduate to regard as distinctly and speciously utilitarian the idea that higher education is, above all, a route to economic advancement. Unaddressed in that calculus is any question of what else an education might be for: to nurture critical thought; to expose individuals to the signal accomplishments of humankind; to develop in them an ability not just to listen actively but to respond intelligently.”
When economic advancement is the sole motive behind a person’s life decisions (go to college, become a shitty musician, etc.) the quality of an individual’s actions decreases. We get businessmen who throw their clients under the bus in the name of profits; people in the music business (can they really be called musicians? half these people don’t even know an instrument beyond the beat machine and AutoTune) distill away any sense of musical identity so that they may appeal to the lowest common denominator and get their songs on the radio. They glorify sex and violence and money as ends in and of themselves, and not means toward something higher.
What bothers me the most is not the presence of this kind of music; there has always been terrible, shallow music. But the extreme popularity of it today is soul-crushing.
John Ruskin, the revered British art and social critic, wrote a series of essays on political economy which, when compiled, were entitled Unto this Last. The essays, written in 1860, deplore the prevailing economic mindset of the time, which calculated human beings as only another variable in the calculus of the means of production. What Ruskin argued was that by forgetting the human element–love, compassion, need, appreciation for beauty, honesty, integrity–our economics were doomed to create an unfeeling population whose chief interest was in obtaining their neighbor’s purse and not promoting their well-being. He foresaw a world in which altruism was extinct and man’s pleasure came from wealth alone. Yet there was hope left in his predictions. As has been the belief of my family for generations, our salvation lay in honest and dedicated work. In the fourth and final essay, “Ad Valorem” he writes:
“What is chiefly needed…is to show the quantity of pleasure that may be obtained by a consistent, well-administered competence, modest, confessed, and laborious. We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek–not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace.”
One of the musical champions of simpler pleasure, one who has pursued peace throughout his career, is Stevie Wonder. I thought of him immediately when I was unfortunate enough to hear “I Wanna Be a Billionaire” yet again on the radio at work. Especially on his 1976 masterpiece Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie celebrates the joy and worth of family and love; the “harmless pride” of one’s heritage; the pursuit of peace through acknowledgement of the obstacles toward it; and the simpler pleasures that make life joyous.
To prove that a massively popular song can still be filled with such ideals, look no further than “I Wish.” It’s a rollicking song, and Stevie glorifies his youth, despite the poverty, and the brief and harmless departures the young sometimes take from their parents’ wishes.
I feel that I must clarify my point of view: wealth is not necessarily an evil; only the worship of it, and the glorification of the base activities wealth, at its simplest, allows. One of the great songs about money is Joe Walsh’s “Life’s Been Good,” from his 1978 album But Seriously, Folks. The song is sarcastic and insightful, with Walsh listing all the things his money has bought him, and how truly worthless they are. The one important thing, and the one thing that will last when all his money has come and gone, is his appreciation that “Life’s been good to me so far.” It is the rock star version of one of my grandmother’s favorite sayings: every day, count your blessings; you will see that you want for very little, and need even less.
Filed under: Inspirational Anthems, sing like no one is listening, Sunny Dispositions | Tags: birthday, birthday!Can't Help but Smiling, Devendra Banhart, What Will Be will Be
Tomorrow is my birthday: a score + four. It’s pretty invigorating.
Half my life ago I was agonizing on the fact that teenager-dom still seemed so distant. Life was a constant popsicle enduced brain-freeze of emotion that summer. The future felt so far away. My sister and I spent hours in the library that summer. I did not yet feel justified in reading “adult” books, in fact I felt guilty checking out books from the “young-adult” section as it was. The librarian’s skeptically furrowed brow plagued me whenever I stood, tip-toed, on the other side of the counter and slid her my library card across the counter. It felt burnt in my forehead “twelve- not quite a teen.”
It was the awkward chubby year, which didn’t help much either. I would thumb through Mom’s Vanity Fair’s and day dream about being a well-collected woman someday, married to JTT and walking down the red-carpet. It was hard to imagine what I would make of myself in those days, but it seemed to be something that was always on my mind.
Now, being there, most of the time I still feel like a little girl playing with her mom’s makeup when I get ready in the morning. But instead of romping around in her high-heels pretending to be a superstar, I’m going to work in my own. Going to look at houses. Planning my wedding. It’s so much more fun, building a real life instead of a pretend one. Especially when the future doesn’t seem so out of reach.
It’s just like Devendra Banhart said, “Mama ain’t it wild when you can’t help but smiling? What fun to not know why, we’re lost in the one thing, truly worth getting lost in? It’s so nice to think that you’re alone, and to look up and see you’re home.”
-Laura Celeste
Songs For Your Day 