#967. Lineage of Song: “Forever Young”

Bob Dylan

Rod Stewart

Joan Baez

Here’s Bob again. It’s somehow still easy to take him for granted. It shouldn’t. The Rod Stewart version was apparently conceived as its own song, although there’s a ton of overlap. I never really got Rod Stewart as an artist. I kind of find him, David Bowie, Elton John, all of them to be careers that happened because they were willing to challenge expectations based on how they looked, outright displays of defiance that worked. We’re gonna sing in a traditional fashion but not look traditional, so our flamboyance is gonna cover the difference. Anyway.

#966. Lineage of Song: “Superman”

 

The Clique

R.E.M.

I’ve been at this project for about a year at the point I’m writing this (though it’ll be well into early 2025, and thus comfortably past a year of posts, by the time it’s published), and remarkably, whether new entries simply occur to me or I stumble on new material, the plot moves ever onward. This one’s the latter, since until reading about it a few moments ago I had no idea R.E.M.’s “Superman” was a cover.

#965. Lineage of Song: “Cruel Summer”

 

Bananarama

Ace of Base

Taylor Swift

I was/am a big fan of Ace of Base. “Cruel Summer” was, I think, the last time they had a hit song. I didn’t particularly care that it was a cover. Taylor Swift’s song is unrelated, but it shares the title, so here it is. It’s the song the radio station I listen to on Sunday mornings is most likely to play from her catalog.

#964. Lineage of Song: “Once in a Lifetime”

Talking Heads

Kermit the Frog

Muppets Tonight was a short-lived but fine addition to the Muppets canon. It gave unexpected pleasures like this random complete cover, and it also introduced Pepe the Prawn (okay?), who stands, to date, as the last breakout creation of the crew. If you’ve never seen it, my personal recommendation is the Jason Alexander episode. Alexander will always be best known as George on Seinfeld, but he’s surprisingly versatile when given the opportunity. Among the later sitcoms he tried to launch, my favorite was Listen Up, which ran for a single season in 2004/2005. The last episode feels like you’re watching a stage production. It’s Alexander stripped down to his most relaxed state, the total opposite of George Costanza. In the Muppets Tonight episode, the whole point of every sketch is him trying to avoid the famous histrionics, with the best one being him playing Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective (as recently portrayed by Kenneth Branagh in a rewarding series of films). All the Muppets keep calling him “Hercules.” He keeps setting them straight. They keep calling him Hercules. It ends with him ranting about the end of Superman (1978), the implausibility of the time travel gimmick…

Watching the actual Talking Heads video, listening to the song through that lens, it feels like a later generation’s conception of Buddy Holly (see also: Weezer’s “Buddy Holly,” the video for which features the Fonz). But Buddy Holly was never a geek, to his fans. He was idolized by Paul McCartney and John Lennon. He was a pillar in the birth of rock. It probably doesn’t help that while a good experience for fans, Gary Busey’s portrayal in The Buddy Holly Story leaves the geek impression very much in mind.