Sunday, December 15, 2024

#948. Lineage of Song: “Killing Me Softly”



Don McLean

Lori Lieberman

Roberta Flack

Fugees

When the Fugees exploded on the scene, it was because they settled into music appreciation like few others. That’s the kind of act I appreciate, in any medium.

Sunday, December 08, 2024

#947. Lineage of Song: “99 Problems”


Jay-Z

Hugo 


Here’s one of my favorites, actually, not necessarily the original but the remake, which was featured in the credits for another remake, the 2011 version of Fright Night

It’s worth noting Hugo was actually recruited by Jay-Z to his label, and that’s how his cover happened. Also, the most infamous version of “99 Problems” is on The Grey Album, the Danger Mouse mashup of Jay-Z’s Black Album and the Beatles’ White Album. Due to legal issues the whole project is tantamount to urban legend, so I haven’t really pursued it, much less heard any of it until after posting this, when it occurred to me to see if YouTube could help. But it turns out as far as this particular track is concerned, it’s almost exactly the Jay-Z version with minor injections of “Helter Skelter.” Which makes me less interested in experiencing the whole album.

Sunday, December 01, 2024

#946. Lineage of Song: “Every Breath You Take”

 

The Police

Sean Combs


I include this one because the famous guitar riff running through it was included in the recently disgraced Combs’ tribute to his late friend Notorious B.I.G. (there’s surprisingly a whole recent history of new songs doing that, borrowing wholesale elements from other songs, like Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice Baby” or Train’s “Play That Song”). 

Actually I once again confess that part of this project is shamelessly only to spur me into to watching the results after posting, and doing so led me to revisiting Diddy’s song for the first time since its original release, which revealed that the backing vocals are themselves a riff on the Police song, so it also operates as a cover.

Sunday, November 24, 2024

#945. Lineage of Song: “Walk This Way”

 

Aerosmith

Run DMC


This one’s here because it’s such an iconic moment of its time but kind of gets lost in the shuffle. It elevated both acts and foreshadowed what both genres needed to do to push forward. Arguably one of the most important songs in American pop history as a result.

Sunday, November 17, 2024

#944. Lineage of Song: “I Shot the Sheriff”

 

Bob Marley

Eric Clapton

The legend as to why this one happened is that Eric Clapton thought Bob Marley deserved more exposure. He did, and he did!


Sunday, November 10, 2024

#943. Lineage of Song: “She Said She Said”

Beatles

 
Mark Mulcahy


This one’s really interesting. Mojo, one of those music magazines that attaches CDs to the cover, underwent a whole project of compiling Beatles cover albums for their most famous releases about a fifteen years back. Since I never subscribed to Mojo it was a constant treasure hunt checking the shelves for a new release. “She Said She Said” is from Revolver, and the Mark Mulcahy cover is how I fell in love with the song (the whole cover album is great), since it’s otherwise one of the more obscure Beatles tracks.


I don’t know, and since internet coverage is sadly never really complete it’s been tough trying to verify over the years, if I got the whole collection (as far as I could tell there was only one other, from just before I first saw the project’s results), so here’s the albums Mojo covered: Revolver (as Revolver Reloaded), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (since most of my collection is in binders and the disc itself isn’t labeled I don’t have titles for this or the next one), Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album (as No. 0000001 and No. 0000002), Abbey Road (as Abbey Road Now!), and Let It Be (as Let It Be Revisited).

Sunday, November 03, 2024

#942. Lineage of Song: “Viva la Vida”

 

Coldplay

Weezer


“Viva la Vida,” full of strings and chiming bells, gave new dimensions to Coldplay, and was embraced as a major new addition to rock lore, which led to a cover version by Weezer included as a bonus track on its Hurley album just a few years after its release. (And yes, Weezer named its album after the character from Lost, which is why he appears on the cover.)

Sunday, October 27, 2024

#941. Lineage of Song “Seven Nation Army”



White Stripes

Oak Ridge Boys

C. W. Stoneking

Living Colour

Audioslave

Flaming Lips

KT Tunstall

Metallica

Maroon 5

Kind of went all out with this one. “Seven Nation Army” might be considered the last hurrah of the rock era. It was hailed instantly as a classic. Jack White and Meg White (not siblings but exes) were the epitome of the garage band, the last innovation of the rock formula. Fans have been decrying the death of rock ‘n’ roll since at least Nirvana lost Kurt Cobain, and while there are still significant acts with hit songs (Imagine Dragons are the leading contenders), there’s minimal mainstream awareness compared to rock’s heyday, when it was inescapable. Jack White continues as a solo artist these days, and has also transformed into the last historian, still actively pursuing his passion for the form and music in general. 

Sunday, October 20, 2024

#940. Lineage of Song: “Minnie the Moocher”

 



Cab Calloway was one of the classic artists to show up populating the Blues Brothers music landscape. He’s included here mostly because it’s him performing the same song in two different eras, and at least for my dad, who loves him in the movie, when I got him a CD of vintage Calloway, was utterly indifferent. Sometimes artists age to perfection, having performed the same material for years. That was my dad’s opinion, anyway.

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”

 




In Blues Brothers, the boys are challenged to play Country/Western music, an archaic term at this point (my parents always used it, too), but historically relevant. Western was basically traditional American folk, the original pop music (“Oh My Darling, Clementine;” “Home on the Range,” “Oh! Susanna”), part and parcel with the genre being a longtime staple in film and television, the classic cowboy way. So they didn’t do a Country song, of course, but a Western, the theme to the classic TV show. Today, like cowboy movies, Western doesn’t really exist in the pop culture, and Country is associated most with Southern living. Probably the cowboy hats the guys invariably wear are a relic of the Country/Western days.

Sunday, September 29, 2024

#937. Lineage of Song: “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love”

 

Blues Brothers

Solomon Burke

Wilson Pickett

Rolling Stones


Here we enter Blue Brothers territory. John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd first portrayed Jake and Elwood Blues on Saturday Night Live before filming the movie (which also happens to share the basic plot of most Muppets movies), although “the Good Ol’ Blues Brothers Boys Band” plays a lot more actual blues music in Blue Brothers 2000 (and a lot more played around them).

Bit of housekeeping this edition…As of this one Blogger isn’t just letting me watch the videos in the post. Not sure if it’s just me. But they still populate once I go to YouTube itself to play them. 

Sunday, September 22, 2024

#936. Lineage of Song: “With a Little Help from My Friends”



 

Joe Cocker

John Belushi

I’m including the Belushi version because I love that it exists, it’s Belushi doing a straight version of Cocker, from the first season of Saturday Night Live, which for those who’ve never seen it, it’s amazing how little time the original cast really had; it was originally much more a spotlight for the celebrity host. Belushi, and Chevy Chase’s Weekend Update, was pretty much the exception. That’s exactly why things played out the way they did. Belushi and Chase were the breakout stars for a reason. But to be fair, they had a little help from their friends. So to speak…

Sunday, September 15, 2024

#935. Lineage of Song: “Respect”

 

Otis Redding


One of the most famous songs originating with one artist but ending up owned by another is undoubtedly “Respect.”

Sunday, September 08, 2024

#934. Lineage of Song: “That’s All Right, Mama”

 

Arthur Crudup


The song that launched Elvis’s career, “That’s All Right” was originally composed by Arthur Crudup on the bones of earlier blues music, and wasn’t particularly successful for his own career (he actually did another song that was basically the same thing just to get a little more mileage out of it).

Sunday, September 01, 2024

#933. Lineage of Song: “Hound Dog”

 

Big Mama Thornton


Dipping back into the Elvis playbook…

It’s become somewhat popular in recent years to claim Elvis simply ripped off black performers, but the counterargument is that his willingness to sing their songs made it widely acceptable to appreciate them. Either way, great music was happening.

Sunday, August 25, 2024

#932. Lineage of Song: “Ring of Fire”

 

Anita Carter

Johnny Cash

Here’s part of music lore! Cowritten by June Carter and originally recorded by her sister (somewhat forgotten and/or overshadowed by the much wider reputation of the guy June ended up marrying later, the Carter family had a considerable reputation of its own).

Sunday, August 18, 2024

#931. Lineage of Song: “Layla”

 

Derek and the Dominoes 

Eric Clapton

Eric Clapton’s career and legacy tends to be downplayed somehow, possibly because there was a time he leaned into the stereotype and then when he pulled back and just leaned into the music. I’m not sure there’s a lot of people who understand the difference. But you can probably hear it in these two distinct versions of the same song.

Sunday, August 11, 2024

#930. Lineage of Song: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”

 



Here’s one of the most legendary songs, and covers. Great voice, difficult name to remember: Israel “Iz” Kamakawiwo’ole.

Sunday, August 04, 2024

#929. Lineage of Song: “Hallelujah”

 

Leonard Cohen

Jeff Buckley

John Cale

Father Ray Kelly

Pentatonix

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”

 

Russell Crowe 

Alan Doyle

So when people deny Russell Crowe his musical accolades, I’ve got at least one song to make the counterargument: “Testify.”

It’s easy enough to find on YouTube, usually a performance he gives at an awards ceremony he’s otherwise hosting. Between that and the Alan Doyle cover with the video starring Crowe, I assumed for a long time that it was a cover. It’s a great song. But as far as I can tell (the always reliable Wikipedia), it’s a song Crowe and Doyle wrote. Both sound great singing it. Anyway, it deserves a wide audience somewhere, and should elicit many covers through the years.

Sunday, July 21, 2024

#927. Lineage of Song: “Beautiful Girls”

 

Sean Kingston

“The Beautiful Boys”

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"

 

Garth Brooks

Billy Joel

Bob Dylan

Here's one of those instant miracles, Bob Dylan's popular comeback "Make You Feel Your Love," adopted by Garth Brooks and Billy Joel in rapid succession.

Sunday, July 07, 2024

#925. Lineage of Song: "Can't Find the Time to Tell You"

 



Hootie started out as a cover band, just playing the music they loved. They’re pretty good either way.

Sunday, June 30, 2024

#924. Lineage of Song: "Hey, Hey What Can I Do"

 



My brother is a big fan of Led Zeppelin, and joined the Hootie backlash early on, so when Darius Rucker said "Hey, Hey What Can I Do" was the only song that he could reasonably tackle from Robert Plant's range, he somehow took it to mean Plant had more range or some other permutation of a better voice.  I disagree with that assessment.

Sunday, June 23, 2024

#923. Lineage of Song: "Blue Suede Shoes"








Of the songs from other artists Elvis covered, the earliest and most famous is undoubtedly "Blue Suede Shoes." Also tossed in for good measure are versions from Buddy Holly and John Lennon.


Sunday, June 16, 2024

#922. Lineage of Song: "Can't Help Falling in Love"



UB40

Elvis


Twenty One Pilots

Elvis was known primarily for singing, and not so much for songwriting, so the bulk of his material was either written for him or outright cover material, even if his singing made it instantly identifiable as "his," making his songs all the more interesting when someone later came up with their own versions, as UB40 did with "Can't Help Falling in Love." Included also is a more recent version from Twenty One Pilots, one of my favorite active bands.



This is a version of the song “Can’t Help” borrowed its melody from, “Plaisir d’amour,” from the 18th century, including one by Paul Robeson.


Sunday, June 09, 2024

#921. Lineage of Song: "Unchained Melody"

 

Todd Duncan

Les Baxter

Righteous Brothers

Elvis, as depicted in Elvis

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”


 




2011 ended up being a crazy year for me. The last movie I saw in theaters was Warrior that September. But, oh was I rewarded.

Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton play brothers who end up fighting in an MMA tournament by the end of the movie, and of course in the final round they face each other. It’s the definition of classic filmmaking, possibly the last time Hollywood revisited its Golden Age successfully. 

It’s a sequence pumped full of drama, and the denouement is pitch perfect, in part because of the song playing in the background, “About Today” by The National.

Now, because by 2011 pop rock had all but disappeared from radio and pop culture in general, I knew nothing at all about The National, and didn’t pursue them on their own terms for more than a decade. In fact it wasn’t until last year when they had one of those compilation discs attached to a music magazine that I finally did, promoting their latest CD, which I also subsequently got.

If all this had played out just a few years prior, it would’ve been very different. 2011 was the beginning of a whole downturn in my circumstances, so I had very little money to play with by the time I discovered The National. I was grateful for having that moment in Warrior with them, and the memory to keep them in mind long enough to get back to them at some point.

Sunday, May 05, 2024

#916. Lineage of Song “All Along the Watchtower”


U2

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”

Billy Joel
Fall Out Boy

My head cannon says we eventually got “Turn the Lights Back On” because the Fall Out Boy follow-up to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” happened.

Billy Joel was an icon from the ‘70s to the ‘90s, an incredible run of music some of us consider on par with what the Beatles collectively produced in the ‘60s. When he started dabbling in classical music, it seemed he’d found a new purpose in life, and he released an album of original compositions, but then realized the classical world didn’t clamor for him the way the pop world did, and he went radio silent except for regular touring (plus a song here or two) for decades.

Broadway did one of its compilation musicals around his work. Billy Joel always resisted writing an autobiography or memoir, even though he led a fascinating and very public life, where he was actually a boxer and member of a band before he broke out as a solo artist, and just the actual “piano man” origins chronicled in the song that helped define him.

“We Didn’t Start the Fire” was a song that went beyond what pop music usually encompasses. It’s a list of defining moments and personalities drawn from his lifetime to that point, and runs contrary to the usual pessimistic view that history always seems to trend in a negative direction. I remember it being featured in one of my classes in middle school as a teaching tool. 

After he walked away in 1994, people had weird takes on his legacy, saying the deliberate walkout “so early” diminished his legacy. Most artists would kill for just a handful of what Billy Joel accomplished in song. He put together a mainstream run that’s virtually unparalleled, unbroken from his breakthrough to River of Dreams.

And eventually someone paid tribute to him and helped continue that legacy. This just doesn’t happen, folks. (Ace of Base did an obscure sequel to Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia,” though. It’s part of their criminally underrated Cruel Summer album. Very close but not quite.)

And then we got Billy Joel’s “Turn the Lights Back On,” his contribution to the late career statement song so many artists since Johnny Cash dropped “Hurt” have pursued. The song is great, the video is phenomenal.

Sunday, April 21, 2024

#914. Lineage of Song: “Man of Constant Sorrow”


As performed in O Brother Where Art Thou?
Alison Krause & Union Station
Home Free

This one’s a little tongue-in-cheek, since of the two versions from 2000, the same person’s singing.

In the (what I consider) classic film O Brother, Where Art Thou? George Clooney leads an inept trio of runaways from a chain gang, which at one point pretends to be recording artists called the Soggy Bottom Boys. 

Now, despite being the nephew of Rosemary Clooney (White Christmas), George didn’t sing on the soundtrack, so when his character leads “Man of Constant Sorrow,” that’s Dan Tyminsky you’re hearing, and that’s Tyminsky with Alison Krause in the second video. The soundtrack was by far a bigger success story than the movie itself, leading to a renaissance for Americana music that also led to a brief revival of interest of folk music later that was another reason rock lost favor with critics and/or fans.

Eventually “Man of Constant Sorrow” gained enough traction to carry cover versions from the likes of Home Free. Despite being more than a century old today, it wasn’t until Tyminsky covered it in 2000 that it reemerged into the popular consciousness.

But as with many things, we can circle the conversation back to Bob Dylan:


Here’s the Stanley Brothers before him:


Here’s Joan Baez singing “Girl of Constant Sorrow”:

Going way back here’s Emry Arthur:

Sunday, April 14, 2024

#913. Lineage of Song: “Bully Boys”

As sung in Robin Hood
Alan Doyle performs it live
Colm McGuinness
Random folk version

I’ve blogged about this phenomenon before, but it still fascinates me and has actually gotten bigger since then…

This time I’ll go a little deeper. Let’s rewind to Russell Crowe in the ‘80s, when you had to be Australian to know he existed. At this point he really was making his name as a pop act. The song most relevant to later eras would be “I Just Wanna Be Like Marlon Brando.” Eventually he did in fact become an acting icon.

But he never left his interest in music behind. He ended up making friends with Alan Doyle of the Newfoundland folk band Great Big Sea, and they made music together and Doyle showed up in a number of Crowe’s movies. (Their biggest musical collaboration would be “Testify,” a song so good I still swear it can’t possibly originate with them or is a testament to just how good Crowe really is.) Doyle’s biggest role was as Alan-a-Dale in Robin Hood. When you cast an authentic musician in the role who regularly performs folk music and composes original material, the likelihood of something great resulting increases. He cobbled together a tune that’s half in the background of one scene, forgot about it, and a few years later was made aware that folk acts had claimed it and made it their own, finishing it out however they felt like, and the music scene began crediting it as another folk traditional from some point long in the past, original composer “unknown.”

So he finished it out himself and released it on an album. In recent years, after acts like Mumford & Sons made it briefly seem folk music would explode again in all the ways fans still lament Bob Dylan abandoning in Newport, there’s once again been a resurgence. Nathan Evans went viral with “Wellerman,” a traditional sea shanty, and on the album he subsequently got to make he included a cover of Doyle’s “Bully Boys.” Colm McGuinness has a video where he accompanies himself brilliantly, and that’s become a favorite of mine…

It’s strange how these things turn out. When I started this series I didn’t immediately think to include “Bully Boys,” since I’d covered it before (heh), but it would be woefully incomplete without it. Anyone can look up traditional songs that trace back centuries. This is one that played out over very recent history in the most unlikely ways. It will probably never top any charts, but has woven its way deeply across the English speaking landscape (and for all I know, elsewhere). This is the kind of thing that fascinates me.

Saturday, April 06, 2024

#912. Lineage of Song “The Weary Kind”

Colin Farrell
Jeff Bridges
Ryan Bingham 

This one's a departure from what I've been talking about, since all three versions of "The Weary Kind" included above were done at the same time, for the same reason, a film called Crazy Heart

It's just interesting, to me, that even that's possible, that we so seldom think of how radically different a song can sound if a different person is singing, not merely in a rearrangement but in the vocals themselves.  Jeff Bridges sounds completely different than Colin Farrell, Bridges playing the cagey veteran who gifts Farrell the song, which in the real world was composed by Ryan Bingham, who later became a little better known for a supporting role in Yellowstone, where he sometimes sings, too (his introduction merrily jokes about how depressing his music sounds).

And I've loved the song, regardless of who sings it, since I first saw the film.  I was reminded recently of how canned music written for movies has become in recent years, but "The Weary Kind" is a considerable exception.  Much of what Bridges sings to represent a legendary career is a little on the nose (written sometimes to comment on the state in which we find him rather than to reflect on a heyday).  "Weary Kind" is a song that eclipses this fictional output and sounds like it could easily have landed on the radio in real life.  Maybe it did?  I don't know.  

Sunday, March 31, 2024

#911. Lineage of Song: “Bitter Sweet Symphony”


Ren

The Verve

The convoluted saga of “Bitter Sweet Symphony” is another you can read about elsewhere, but it’s worth talking about in a more general sense. Like a lot of listeners, it was a clear highlight of late Nineties radio for me, one of those contradictions you can’t help but laugh about when people say rock was a wasteland by that point (always greatly exaggerated). I didn’t know anything about the legal battles that tanked the Verve in its wake. It seems the band borrowed some notes from an orchestral version of a Rolling Stones song in order to achieve its signature sound.

Anyway, it’s a great song, still one of my favorite ever. More recently British indie hip hop star Ren offered his version, which carries the same string arrangement but all-new lyrics (no one does it quite like him), once more emphasizing just how far the Verve reached, very much like how the Animals completely reinvented the sound of “House of the Rising Sun,” making the song its own, though “Bitter Sweet Symphony” literally is its own song. I just don’t get how petty people can be. 

Sunday, March 24, 2024

#910. Lineage of Song: “Only Wanna Be with You”

Bob Dylan “Idiot Wind”



“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”

The Animals
 
Woody Guthrie 

Bob Dylan

“House of the Rising Sun” is another song you can read about on Wikipedia, its incredible origins. Like a lot of people I first heard it as a song recorded by the Animals, and I thought it was a song by the Animals for the longest time, until very recently, when I learned not only Bob Dylan had recorded it on his debut album a mere three years earlier than the Animals version, but Woody Guthrie before Dylan…and apparently it was a well-traveled folk song for…probably…centuries before that. Like true folk songs it becomes impossible to learn the actual origins, only the places here and there where it surfaces, like little signposts. 

So in effect it’s one of the purest folk songs we currently enjoy. The Animals version is iconic in its own right, a defining moment in the band’s relatively short history, in the history of the era it came from (the Sixties), rock music itself, and apparently folk (most people tend to associate Dylan as straddling the line, but history flattens everything). It’s one of my favorite songs, anyway, caused me to track down an Animals hits compilation for my collection a decade ago once I realized how important the song was to me.

And as someone who likes collecting songs to try and learn to sing, it’s always nice to think of this as a part of a long tradition. Because that’s what music is really all about.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

#908. Lineage of Song “Wagon Wheel”


 Darius Rucker, 2012
Bob Dylan sketch, 1973

Old Crow Medicine Show, 2003

The story of “Wagon Wheel” is pretty well detailed (have a look at Wikipedia), but I want to write about it as an authentic version of how a song enters the popular consciousness, not just as a pop song that does well on the charts but permeates in folk fashion, so that it feels like it was always there, and always will be.

Dylan gets the initial credit, but even he’s riffing on earlier material. Bob Dylan is recognized by discerning music fans as one of the defining artists of the past hundred years, with his own belief that he was just trying to live up to earlier acts like Woody Guthrie, whom more recent generations know only through Dylan’s admiration (pop music can be fickle). Dylan’s voice, heavily criticized in recent years in its current state, has actually been a source of contention throughout his career, which is okay since his songwriting has always been his calling card and he’s been covered heavily through the years, so it’s not surprising that even an abandoned sketch ends up with a meaningful legacy.

Old Crow Medicine Show picked the sketch back up some thirty years later, completing it in its current state, around the same time Darius Rucker was trying to start up a solo career. When he first tackled the idea of being a country act, nobody took him seriously (possibly because he seemed to be lampooning the idea himself in commercials), but then started recording anyway. By his own admission he stumbled on “Wagon Wheel” almost by accident, initially unsure the material fit him. 

It ended up becoming a career-defining song, the kind country bars play so much people get sick of hearing it. 

To get to that point is improbable. Rucker first made his name as lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish, the band credited with ruining rock music in the ‘90s, the antithesis of the grunge sound that was supposed to be the next evolution of the format but ended up dying with Kurt Cobain instead. Hootie for about a year was inescapable, and then was turned into a punchline and an afterthought. Rucker’s reinvention as a country star was a solid second act, but “Wagon Wheel” returned him to levels of success he’d previously enjoyed with Hootie, and, arguably, beyond. 

If Rucker is remembered in a hundred years it’ll be for “Wagon Wheel.” It’s very likely the song will outlive him. That’s the way these things go. It’s also done it with Dylan, with the blues artists who toyed with it previously, even with Old Crow Medicine Show.

Far too often today we tend to grow precious with our current interests, believing that if they no longer exist in the exact form we know them they’re instantly and forever ruined. But history adapts everything it remembers. That’s the whole point. If it endures it’s changed at some point, with the times, waiting for some new source of inspiration. The lineage of “Wagon Wheel” is a vivid example of that.

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.

The thing I love about the show so much is its rich cast of characters, which draws on American eras the way its predecessor did with British, which among others has a caveman in its collection, whereas we’ve got Thor, a Viking.

And gosh I love that crazy bastard.

Thor is still hilariously bloodthirsty even after a thousand years haunting the grounds of Woodstone Manor would eventually inhabit. But he’s so congenial about it! 

It probably wouldn’t be fun to experience an actual Viking raid, but Thor depicts a version of the character of these Vikings that make them seem almost…normal. None of the other ghosts, much less Sam (the woman who can see them, although her husband Jay can’t, but has gotten surprisingly cool with the whole affair), really bat an eye at it, because, again, he’s as companionable as anyone.

Anyway, it’s my favorite new show in years, even if it’s technically a version of another show. It’s easy to separate the two when the casts are so different. I’ve seen some of the BBC version, and it’s enjoyable, too. But gosh I love the American version.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

#906. Disturbed, “Sound of Silence”

 


In 2015, Disturbed released its sixth album, Immortalized.  If you look at the summary of critical reception over at Wikipedia, you'd think there wasn't much to talk about.  Based on the flood of praise for the band's cover of "The Sound of Silence" I discovered years after the fact, I would certainly question such conclusions.

Once the video for the cover was released later that year, things began to change, and it was even nominated for a Grammy in 2017 as Best Rock Performance (losing to David Bowie's sentimental favorite, "Blackstar," with other nominees including Twenty One Pilots' "Heathens," featured as one of the few original songs in Suicide Squad).

These days I discover music most easily on YouTube, which is how it went with this song, which has since remained, in the years that've followed, one of my most frequent views on the site.  It's a powerful vocal performance (suggestions always include testimonies to such), a  heavy and yet elegant reinterpretation of the classic Simon & Garfunkel harmonies, plus a spare but equally effective accompaniment.  I get that Disturbed is not known for this kind of music, so the band's fans, and anyone else following their activities, probably never expected it in a million years (although maybe they did? I have no idea), but if a classic song gets a new version that's this good?  You don't quibble with its provenience.  And it should be hailed widely both for its own time and as part of the continuum of the rock genre.  Which is of course impossible in the current "rock is dead" era that must be continuously affirmed by never, ever admitting anything good can possibly still happen.

In a perfect world radio (which still exists) would have this in regular rotation.  Not just stations catering to Disturbed's regular fanbase, but to the broader set, where it really belongs.  

A classic is a classic.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

#905. Tracy Chatman’s “Fast Car”

 


On February 4th Tracy Chapman reminded the world that she exists, taking the Grammys stage with Luke Combs in support of his recent cover of her 1988 song “Fast Car.”

It caused something of a sensation.

With the exception of another hit somewhat belatedly in 1995 (“Give Me One Reason”), it seemed all too easy for the pop world to leave Chapman behind. Until the Grammys viral moment I didn’t even know the name of the song was “Fast Car.” 

It was just a song I knew, and knew that I loved. It’s kind of symptomatic of the modern pop song. The station I check in with these days advertises itself as playing the best of the “80s, 90s, and today,” literally lumping three decades into that last signifier. I mean, the only reason the ‘90s are listed at all is because four decades would probably be too much. I mean, we’re here in 2024. Time to knuckle up and name the ‘00s, the ‘10s (even if a century ago we didn’t until the “Roaring ‘20s,” even if that’s a poor excuse at best). Call them the Oughts, the Tens, or Twenty-Tens if you must. I mean, what the heck are we gonna call these decades when they are the relevant nostalgia period?

The ‘90s are a whole decade that still define pop music, but for all the wrong reasons. “Boy bands” are now Korean, but they still contain no actual instruments. Rock music was so ruthlessly dismissed it effectively killed it as a mainstream phenomenon (and even today, the acts that do manage to make it are mocked or ignored when discussing what happened to the genre). 

The ‘80s were hair bands and Michael Jackson, the splintering of rock into pop and various kinds of heavier sounds that increasingly had no place in the mainstream. And you had Chapman, who in the ‘60s would’ve been accepted as the prodigy she was. What a pure voice, such perfectly spare composition, the stuff they built that decade around. 

And she vanished without a trace for twenty years, and took back the stage with effortless grace. 

I guess that’s its own commentary. Wait long enough and I guess things will be rectified. If you’re lucky you might even be able to enjoy it personally.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

#904. Perfect Darius Rucker vocals

A collection of videos (and some songs I couldn’t find videos for) of perfect Darius Rucker vocals, not to be confused with a greatest hits or singles or in other words comprehensive listing…

“Let Her Cry,” Hootie & the Blowfish, Cracked Rear View (1994) One of the iconic hits from Hootie’s debut album, a ballad of heartbreak.


“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.


It’s pretty great.


"Now and Then" John Lennon December 2023 tribute performance. It was kind of immediately embraced by at least a visible part of the fanbase.


"Free as a Bird"

That was the first “new song,” from Anthology 1.


"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.

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...