Sunday, December 15, 2024
#948. Lineage of Song: “Killing Me Softly”
Sunday, December 08, 2024
#947. Lineage of Song: “99 Problems”
Sunday, December 01, 2024
#946. Lineage of Song: “Every Breath You Take”
Sunday, November 24, 2024
#945. Lineage of Song: “Walk This Way”
Sunday, November 17, 2024
#944. Lineage of Song: “I Shot the Sheriff”
Sunday, November 10, 2024
#943. Lineage of Song: “She Said She Said”
Sunday, November 03, 2024
#942. Lineage of Song: “Viva la Vida”
Sunday, October 27, 2024
#941. Lineage of Song “Seven Nation Army”
Sunday, October 20, 2024
#940. Lineage of Song: “Minnie the Moocher”
Sunday, October 13, 2024
#939. Lineage of Song “Theme from M*A*S*H”
As a kid who grew up with a dad who loved M*A*S*H, listening to the instrumental theme song was just a fact of life. It was years, decades, before I finally saw the movie (both were based on a book by Richard Hooker, which I read a few years ago), and found out the theme song had lyrics! The film’s director, Robert Altman, contracted the job of writing the lyrics to his son, who subsequently, as the legend goes, raked in perpetual piles of cash when the song played weekly and then forever in syndication, thanks to the show.
Sunday, October 06, 2024
#938. Lineage of Song: “Theme from Rawhide”
Sunday, September 29, 2024
#937. Lineage of Song: “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love”
Sunday, September 22, 2024
#936. Lineage of Song: “With a Little Help from My Friends”
Sunday, September 15, 2024
#935. Lineage of Song: “Respect”
Sunday, September 08, 2024
#934. Lineage of Song: “That’s All Right, Mama”
Sunday, September 01, 2024
#933. Lineage of Song: “Hound Dog”
Sunday, August 25, 2024
#932. Lineage of Song: “Ring of Fire”
Sunday, August 18, 2024
#931. Lineage of Song: “Layla”
Sunday, August 11, 2024
#930. Lineage of Song: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”
Sunday, August 04, 2024
#929. Lineage of Song: “Hallelujah”
Here’s one of the most famous songs of the modern era, and cover songs.
Back in college I took a class in Canadian literature, and the professor was a huge fan of Leonard Cohen. In fact I learned Cohen’s poetry before knowing, really, about his music career, but then I had a look around and found his style was very close to spoken word accompanied by instruments.
Anyway, John Cale covered “Hallelujah,” setting the style for how Jeff Buckley would achieve immortality. It’s the Cale version included in Shrek, but aficionados still adhere to Buckley. Cohen’s can be heard in Zack Snyder’s Watchmen.
But for my money, once I discovered it on YouTube, my favorite is probably Father Kelly’s riff.
Sunday, July 28, 2024
#928. Lineage of Song: “Testify”
Sunday, July 21, 2024
#927. Lineage of Song: “Beautiful Girls”
A peculiar thing happened along the way to Sherwood…
In the last twenty-odd years Russell Crowe’s public profile has undergone a remarkable series of twists. He went from being the most acclaimed actor of his generation with the Oscar-dominating one-two punch of Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind to a perennial punching bag for any number of reasons, whether an on-set “behavior challenge” that led to South Park famously lampooning him or critics somehow being more interested in his waistline than his talent. Then of course people discovered he really just wanted to…sing! (That last sentence works better if you have a bit of Monty Python in you.)
Which is hilarious because in his native Australia, Crowe was a pop star in the Eighties. Seriously. Guy has been doing music his whole life.
It got to the point, once he became famous as an actor, that Crowe went out of his way to cultivate a relationship with Alan Doyle from the Canadian band Great Big Sea, leading to a series of collaborations, both musically and onscreen. Doyle showed up in a number of Crowe’s movies in minor roles, the most significant being Alan-a-Dale in Robin Hood.
The rest of the Merry Men, Scott Grimes (with legitimate vocal training behind him) and Kevin Durand (otherwise known for tough guy roles), as it turned out, liked singing, too.
The four of them ended up singing Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls” on the publicity tour, and I’ve spent many hours YouTubing the results over the years. Crowe minimizes his contributions during these performances, giving all the space to Doyle, Grimes and Durand, but he clearly enjoys himself singing backup and clapping along.
With apologies to Kingston, they’re the reason the song is never that far from my thoughts.
Sunday, July 14, 2024
#926. Lineage of Song: "Make You Feel My Love"
Sunday, July 07, 2024
#925. Lineage of Song: "Can't Find the Time to Tell You"
Sunday, June 30, 2024
#924. Lineage of Song: "Hey, Hey What Can I Do"
Sunday, June 23, 2024
#923. Lineage of Song: "Blue Suede Shoes"
Sunday, June 16, 2024
#922. Lineage of Song: "Can't Help Falling in Love"
Sunday, June 09, 2024
#921. Lineage of Song: "Unchained Melody"
Another astonishing cover in pop culture lore would be Elvis covering "Unchained Melody."
The trailer for Elvis chose to spotlight “Melody” rather than many other songs more closely associated with Presley, and for that reason, for me anyway, it got me thinking about what he accomplished singing it, showcasing his range, and that he wasn’t just a novelty talent famous for being famous.
The song itself was in wide circulation a decade before the Righteous Brothers popularized it, originating in a film actually called Unchained, and performed by Todd Duncan. Les Baxter was among those who jumped at the chance at covering it. Among others U2 eventually did a version, too.
Sunday, June 02, 2024
#920. Lineage of Song "I Will Always Love You"
I figured I could continue this series with arguably one of the most important covers in the history of pop music, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." There are crazy people who still think Dolly Parton’s is the best. Houston’s is as perfect a vocal recording as I’ve ever heard.
Saturday, May 25, 2024
#919. Obi-Wan Kenobi (the TV show)
Recently I had a chance to watch Obi-Wan Kenobi thanks to another Disney dump of streaming material to home video. Being one of the genuine fans of the prequel trilogy, this was particularly a big deal for me, with Ewan McGregor reprising the title role, and Joel Edgerton in a supporting role once again as Owen Lars (back in 2002-2005, he was still struggling to make a name for himself in Hollywood, but his career took dramatic swings upward in the years that followed), not to mention Hayden Christensen in one of his several recent revivals of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.
Set a decade after Revenge of the Sith, Kenobi is still reeling from not only the loss of the whole Jedi Order but his friend Skywalker. In fact he has no idea Skywalker survived the duel on Mustafar. He eeks out a meager existence on Tatooine, kept a formal distance from young Luke by Lars, unwilling to let a man who failed his own friend have any responsibility over the boy he's taken into his care.
The remaining Jedi are still being hunted, this time by a band of Inquisitors, one of whom we eventually learn has a considerable secret, a parallel narrative that dovetails nicely with the unlikely and yet compelling reunion between Kenobi and Skywalker. Right off the bat the stakes change dramatically when Leia is kidnapped from Alderaan, and Kenobi is asked for the first time to rescue her.
The results could've been better, they could've been worse.
The acting from unestablished actors can be spotty, no real attempt at quality control apparently made in the rush to get through production, which began life as a film but reverted to a TV show when Solo underperformed at the box office. Like Star Trek sticking to familiar formulas, these Disney+ shows have begun to stick to predictable beats, and you either accept that or you don't, the bad guys keeping the good guys on the run and frequently resorting to backwater worlds that are always this side of sci-fi Western towns in need of some kind of rescue.
Obviously the whole Leia affair is a retcon, one solved in the traditional "we promise not to bring it up in the material that follows but was filmed long before" manner, and even Kenobi and Vader having an epic confrontation of any kind before the Death Star is a stretch, but a more acceptable one. They likely chose Leia over Luke for the arc in the interests of going for the unexpected, but at least it gives us a little more Bail Organa (once more played by Jimmy Smits) and fleshing out the world of Alderaan.
That the show brought back Edgerton but essentially had nothing for him to do except deliver a few pithy lines early on and then late in the show indulge in the kind of redeeming action sequences he clearly outgrew later, is the most mystifying thing about it. I've been a huge fan of his for more than a decade at this point, and he's long since proven his exceptional acting skills. The Leia heist robbed him, most of all, of quality material.
Little enough is asked of McGregor, too, but given the nature of his arc it's more understandable. He and Christensen get to indulge in the best lightsaber sequences since their heyday, and that alone was surely worth the price of admission. By the time we catch presumably our last glimpse of Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, the whole thing has proven worth it. It's decent material. I don't know how much it matters to an increasingly restless fanbase who never warmed to the prequels much less sequels, and hypocritically fell in love with goofy animated shows and Baby Yoda after devoting all their time to demonizing Jar Jar Binks. And truthfully I don't care.
Sunday, May 19, 2024
#918. Lineage of Song: “Hurt”
Ending this series for now with the cover that cemented a legacy, a career, and a life.
The Nine Inch Nails original version is something I had to work my way through later, since it was Johnny Cash’s take that I heard first. The Cash video is especially moving, and clearly inspired later late-stage takes like Billy Joel’s recent “Turn the Lights Back On.”
My dad’s a pretty big fan of Johnny Cash and there was a period where we listened together all the time, but it was all his earlier stuff. To this day I’m not sure he knows “Hurt” exists, probably wouldn’t know what to make of it, the same as although hilariously the reverse of his relationship with Cab Calloway, whom he adores in Blues Brothers but when I got him a CD of his vintage material had no idea why it was remotely relevant, because there was only one version he was prepared to admire.
“Hurt” will long be the classic example (it’s now more than two decades old!) of what it looks like for an aging well-known music act to make a definitive late career popular impact. Knowing what Cash sounded like in his prime and then hearing him like this is elegiac.
Sunday, May 12, 2024
#917. Warrior, The National, “About Today”
Sunday, May 05, 2024
#916. Lineage of Song “All Along the Watchtower”
Bob Dylan
Jimi Hendrix
In the final episode of Battlestar Galactica, the Jimi Hendrix version of “All Along the Watchtower” plays in the closing moments, which for me was a perfect note to end on, and one of my favorite moments of a TV show or movie using an established song to incorporate into a scene.
Otherwise this one’s pretty straightforward. It’s a Bob Dylan song Jimi Hendrix quickly adopted, and then later U2 did their take, too, and they’re all great. This is the strength and purity of artists embracing great music and just keeping it going. It’s the whole point.
Sunday, April 28, 2024
#915. Lineage of Song “We Didn’t Start the Fire”
Sunday, April 21, 2024
#914. Lineage of Song: “Man of Constant Sorrow”
Sunday, April 14, 2024
#913. Lineage of Song: “Bully Boys”
Saturday, April 06, 2024
#912. Lineage of Song “The Weary Kind”
Sunday, March 31, 2024
#911. Lineage of Song: “Bitter Sweet Symphony”
Sunday, March 24, 2024
#910. Lineage of Song: “Only Wanna Be with You”
“Put on a little Dylan, sitting on a fence…”
“Ain’t Bobby so cool…”
“Tangled up in blue…”
Listening to “Only Wanna Be with You,” in hindsight, it’s half tribute to Bob Dylan. It’s not something I picked up on, back in the day. Hootie haters, today, they only hear “I only wanna be with yoooou,” the refrain, but the song is better known, in some circles, for the legal problems the band got into for borrowing wholesale from Dylan’s “Idiot Wind.” At one point it’s just Darius Rucker singing from it. It’s something, again, you don’t notice if you’re not paying attention, but inescapable once you do.
I’ve gotta figure some of the backlash Hootie faced was the rock scene not figuring this out, that Hootie was completely immersed in the music it loved. For years they toured as a bar band, so they played what they loved, interspersed with their own stuff. Not nearly enough is made of how much the band adored R.E.M., how Rucker tried singing like Michael Stipe on many tracks in Hootie’s early releases. Rucker isn’t Stipe, though, so to hear him bury his full-throated grandeur in Stipe murmur can be disorienting.
But aside from “Only Wanna Be with You,” Hootie never really pursued Dylan. There isn’t an outright cover in any of the band’s recorded material. Just imagine! A huge part of Dylan’s legacy is other artists eagerly covering his music, and a significant portion of the history of rock music is a result of that. By the time Hootie came around, Dylan was beginning a reemergence, but aside from “Make You Feel My Love,” which Billy Joel happily covered, the scene had begun to move on. At any rate, Hootie’s audacious sampling of “Idiot Wind” was a new way to spotlight Dylan, but it didn’t really catch on, except to say some five years later when Old Crow Medicine Show resurrected “Wagon Wheel,” which Rucker eventually made his own, bringing the whole thing full circle.
Sunday, March 17, 2024
#909. Lineage of Song: “House of the Rising Sun”
Woody Guthrie
Sunday, March 10, 2024
#908. Lineage of Song “Wagon Wheel”
Darius Rucker, 2012Bob Dylan sketch, 1973
Old Crow Medicine Show, 2003
Sunday, March 03, 2024
#907. Ghosts’ Thor
CBS’s version of the BBC’s Ghosts has been one of my favorite shows in recent years, with the third season recently debuting.
Saturday, February 24, 2024
#906. Disturbed, “Sound of Silence”
Saturday, February 17, 2024
#905. Tracy Chatman’s “Fast Car”
Sunday, February 11, 2024
#904. Perfect Darius Rucker vocals
“Earth Stopped Cold at Dawn,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Fairweather Johnson (1996)
Hootie’s first song that should’ve been a single but wasn’t, although I still heard it years later at a department store.
“Tootie,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Fairweather Johnson (1996)
One of Hootie’s true buried treasures (no video found of Darius singing but plenty of covers, which is testament enough.
“Michelle Post,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Musical Chairs (1998)
Hootie’s third album saw the band bust loose from expectations. This one’s pretty stripped clean, almost just Darius with backing vocals and banjo.
“Desert Mountain Showdown,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Musical Chairs (1998)
Another delight, a hoedown that became a staple of Hootie’s concerts.
“Fine Line,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Scattered Smothered and Covered (2000)
A Radney Foster cover circa the first album but finally released officially years later.
“I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love with You,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Scattered Smothered and Covered (2000)
Another great cover. Hootie started as a cover band and it always shows, as they’re excellent at interpreting material.
“Can’t Find the Time,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Me Myself & Irene soundtrack (2000)
Another cover, this time leaning deep into soul territory.
“Exodus,” solo, Back to Then (2002)
The best song from Darius’s first solo album, although he sings it better without musical accompaniment.
“When She’s Gone,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Hootie and the Blowfish (2003)
“Little Darlin’,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Hootie and the Blowfish (2003)
Hootie’s fourth album builds and expands on Musical Chairs in its best moments. “Little Darlin’” is another buried treasure. They both are.
“State Your Peace,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Looking for Lucky (2005)
I didn’t choose a lot of rockers for this list, but here’s a good one.
“A Smile,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Looking for Lucky (2005)
By the fifth album Hootie had lost all mainstream momentum. A real pity, as songs like this in an earlier era would’ve been iconic.
“Alright,” solo, Learn to Live (2008)
“This,” solo, Charleston SC 1966 (2010)
Two songs that illustrate how perfectly Darius slipped into country music.
“True Believers,” solo, True Believers (2013)
Other than the other highlight from this album, this would be one of my personal favorites for true calling cards of his country efforts.
“Wagon Wheel,” solo, True Believers (2013)
The song that made Darius as a country artist blow all the way up, and probably his musical legacy.
“Not Tonight,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Imperfect Circle (2019)
“Lonely on a Saturday Night,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Imperfect Circle (2019)
If Hootie’s comeback had landed, these songs would be recognized as classics.
“Fires Don’t Start Themselves,” solo, Carolyn’s Boy (2023)
Darius’s most recent single, and one of his best vocals, incredibly still finding new depths.
Saturday, February 03, 2024
#903. Now and then, I miss you...
You’ve probably heard the Beatles released a new sing. Argylle kind of builds itself around it, even.
"Real Love"
That was the second “new song,” from Anthology 3.
“Now and Then” was one of two songs kicked around for Anthology 3, but the original recording quality just wasn’t there, and George just didn’t feel it was worth pursuing.
Part of the problem that will exist as they were finished some thirty years ago is that “Free” and “Real Love” were rough even themselves in how they found John, and the remaining Beatles didn’t play around too much with what they did.
“Now and Then,” as finally completed, is noticeably different. I’ve been obsessed with it since first hearing it. It’s obviously not a traditional Beatles song, but it sounds like a perfect coda, even tribute to John, and the end of the band, something that never happened back in the day, when the Beatles existed one day and didn’t the next, and everyone just went off to solo projects.
Paul & Ringo put in the work. Everything about the song sounds like what the band, at its height, was doing, even the bits pulled from other songs (which Beatles songs absolutely did, even if one magazine article I read seems to have somehow forgotten).
I’ve been catching up with the Beatles for two decades, and anytime someone suggests Beatles music somehow isn’t relevant today (as the major criticism of Yesterday somehow was, despite the recent phenomenon of One Direction, and probably BTS was already a thing back in 2019, and even more ironic if it wasn’t, and of course Coldplay, the latest band to scare people who don’t want any competition to the Beatles legacy), it just baffles me. It’s endlessly rewarding.
And we just got something new. Only the Beatles. As ever.
Saturday, January 27, 2024
#902. Come and I Will Sing You
"Come and I Will Sing You (The Twelve Apostles)" has been an obsession of mine since I first heard it on the Great Big Album The Hard and the Easy, released all the way back in 2005 (if I can possibly believe it...!), one of the rare songs sung by Bob Hallett (sort of the band's own Ringo Starr in that regard).
...The problem is that Bob Hallett sings it...Bob's great! Don't get me wrong. But he doesn't exactly sing...clearly. That's of course him singing in the first of the two videos (the second being an adorable version I found last month in my further attempts to get my family to love the song as much as I do), so you can hear what I mean.
But that's also part of the charm! I love listening to Bob sing it. Actually learning what he's singing becomes difficult, however, so that's why it's taken the better part of twenty years to do so...
Obviously I didn't dedicate a great amount of time in the past two decades to do so, but the interest was always there. The song itself is based on traditional material (as with much of Great Big Sea's catalog), and the variations are known by different titles, but the gist of it is that it's a version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which itself has enough weirdness just trying to interpret what all the figures mean, which is also the fun of "Come and I Will Sing You," once you find out what Bob's singing.
To wit (and this is my version, don't you know):
Come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you one-o. What will the one be? One the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you two-o. What will the two be? Two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you three-o. What will the three be? Three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you four-o. What will the four be? Four gospel preachers, three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you five-o. What will the five be? Five ferrymen under the bush, four gospel preachers, three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you six-o. What will the six be? Six the six pallbearers, five ferrymen under the bush, four gospel preachers, three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you seven-o. What will the seven be? Seven stars under the sky, six the six pallbearers, five ferrymen under the bush, four gospel preachers, three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you eight-o. What will the eight be? Eight Gabriel singers, seven stars under the sky, six the six pallbearers, five ferrymen under the bush, four gospel preachers, three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you nine-o. What will the nine be? Nine bright-eye shiners, eight Gabriel singers, seven stars under the sky, six the six pallbearers, five ferrymen under the bush, four gospel preachers, three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you ten-o. What will the ten be? Ten the ten commandments, nine bright-eye shiners, eight Gabriel singers, seven stars under the sky, six the six pallbearers, five ferrymen under the bush, four gospel preachers, three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you eleven-o. What will the eleven be? Eleven that went straight to heaven, ten the ten commandments, nine bright-eye shiners, eight Gabriel singers, seven stars under the sky, six the six pallbearers, five ferrymen under the bush, four gospel preachers, three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
So come and I will sing you! What will you sing me? I will sing you twelve-o. What will the twelve be? Twelve the twelve apostles, eleven that went straight to heaven, ten the ten commandments, nine bright-eye shiners, eight Gabriel singers, seven stars under the sky, six the six pallbearers, five ferrymen under the bush, four gospel preachers, three of them were drivers, two of them were lily-white babes, clothed all in green-o, one the one that's all alone and ever more shall be.
Hey!
Finally I decided I just needed to sing it, so I learned it, and some of it was tongue-tying until I learned it well enough, and that's how I spent the weeks of Christmas and so I've satisfied both my curiosity and interest in the song. At last!
And here's some explanations:
- "One the one..." This one's pretty self-explanatory. This is God.
- "Two lily-white babes" These are Jesus and Mary, born without original sin.
- "Three of them were drivers" The Three Kings.
- "Four gospel preachers" Well, Matthew Mark Luke & John.
- "Five ferrymen" One of the difficult ones to parse. Possibly the five wounds of Christ on the cross.
- "Six pallbearers" Also subject to wide interpretation, possibly the six jars of water Jesus turned into wine, or the six days of creation.
- "Seven stars" Probably the seven sacraments.
- "Eight Gabriel singers" Archangels.
- "Nine bright-eye shiners" The orders of angels in general.
- "Ten commandments" Self-explanatory.
- "Eleven that went straight to heaven" The apostles excluding Judas.
- "Twelve apostles" And including him.