Discography - Week 30

The election is now behind us, although, sadly, I suspect not the rancor and the damage to the public discourse.  I am very pleased to welcome my friend Phillip Seiler to the discussion.  Having acted with him in the recent play (well, he acted and I posed) I can attest that he is a fine actor, and also a person who knows a lot about music.  Welcome aboard!

Phillip Seiler

First, a thank you to Scudder for inviting me to be a part of this sandbox collective.

I did not expect my first song to be a Todd Rundgren song but one would have shown up eventually. His album Healing was the first that profoundly changed how I thought about music and what it could mean. He’s had a long career, mostly practiced in self-induced obscurity. After all, lyrics from the first song on the album that followed his 1972 breakthrough “Something/Anything” (featuring Hello It’s Me) are “I only want to see if you’ll give up on me”. But I stuck with him and his 90s foray into rap/electronica leads to my song, which I can’t stop thinking about given this election.

Todd Rundgren, Temporary Sanity
and live for the synth part replaced by Todd on guitar
Rundgren is an acquired taste much like cilantro. To those of us tuned to whatever muse he serves, his music is mana from another universe. To everyone else, meh. Smarter fans than I opine that Todd favors some unusual chord progressions which may be the cause of this phenomenon. My own musical skills are all vocal so I’ll just take that on faith. I find this song singable, catchy and weirdly hopeful in all its cynicism. But in 2016, over 20 years after this song was written I find the lyrics unfortunately relevant and an antidote to complacency.

“One long trail of twisted bodies
as the strong crush the weak
We must be crazy
We are crazy
This is our natural state
As our children die around us
we just sit here and wait
for a little temporary sanity”

Yep.

Gary Beatrice

Steve Earle, Someday

Steve Earle is one of our greatest songwriters, and the deceptively simple "Someday" may be his best written song. It is certainly his saddest.

As Gary Scudder pointed out many weeks ago there are tons of great songs about one's home and hometown. Bruce Springsteen could probably release a great album of past tracks broaching the subject matter. But Earle's character doesn't even live in an area you'd find on a map or ever intentionally visit. I think of all the empty, virtually nameless places along I-75 in Kentucky and Tennessee where the protagonist has the best job available in town, the job pumping gas at the station off the interstate. When the most exciting activity at home is to "drive down to the lake and then turn back around" is there any wonder that the people who stop for gas "don't even know there's a town around here"?

So what is Earle's poor, lonely, likely uneducated character going to do? Unlike many of Springsteen's characters he doesn't have the knowledge or experience to make big plans. He doesn't have the self confidence to leave this town full of losers as a winner. He likely can't even find a Wendy nearby to share his dreams and visions.

Dave Wallace

Hole, Petals

I think it's generally considered that Live Through This is Hole's best album (and it is great), but I've always preferred Celebrity Skin, and I frequently return to the album.  It's chockful of great songs - the title track, Malibu, and the killer closing quartet of Boys on the Radio, Heaven Tonight, Playing Your Song, and Petals.  I considered choosing all of these but decided to go with the last one.  I've always found Courtney Love's rumination on lost innocence to be especially powerful.

Miranda Tavares

I had the unfortunate luck to read Nate's post before I wrote mine, and, sadly, but not uncommonly, I cannot compete. But I have had this song making a frequent appearance in my head the past few days, and I feel compelled to share my thoughts with friends. 

Live - The Beauty of Gray

On it's face, this song is about race. I mean, it's obvious, right? There's an explicit reference to color. But it's not. It's about the difference between you and anyone that shares the opposite belief or ideology. 

We have certainly come face to face with those that share our opposite viewpoint. I have struggled these last few days with how my fellow human beings could sign up for such an abominable future. I have read, I have soul-searched, I have cried, I have ruminated, I have contacted relatives in Canada about moving in with them. None of this is hyperbole, and most of this is not about how I expect my way of life to suffer as a result of recent developments (although I think it will). My issue, the one that leaves me curled up in a ball on the couch, nauseous, unshowered, both hungering for and fearing socialization (both real and virtual), is feeling completely disconnected from half of the people surrounding me. 

I do not understand why so many voted for what, to me, is clearly a bigoted, misogynistic, power-hungry, irresponsible liar. I may never understand that. To me, the choice was crystal clear. However, as right as I am sure I am, the people with the opposing viewpoint are just as sure they are right. They don't understand my position anymore than I understand theirs. And, sure, some of the votes came from straight-up racists, bigots, and misogynists. There's no doubting that. But there's just no way that all of those in favor are like that. We could not have made the progressive strides forward in this country if that were so. Also, I just straight-up refuse to believe that. 

So where does that leave us? I am sure I am right; nothing will change my mind. Those opposite are sure they are right; nothing will change their minds. Who is actually right? What is the truth? Well, I have been a lawyer for some time now, and, having spent hundreds of mind-numbing hours listening to opposing testimony, one of the most important and elemental things I have learned from said miserable experience is this: the truth is somewhere in the middle. 

I hate this idea. It grinds against every bone in my body. But it does seem more feasible than the idea that half the country has gone batshit crazy. So, I am black. Those opposite are white. The truth, the right choice, the correct path, is...gray. 

Nate Bell

Really struggling this week, so it's been hard to write anything. No music in my heart and no music in my soul.  

Borrowing the words of a poet laureate, (Joss Whedon, via Firefly): 

"When you can't run, you crawl, and when you can't crawl, when you can't do that, you find someone to carry you"

I read through the phenomenal posts, and it looks like I found some people to carry me.

So what music do you turn to, when your own words fall flat, when you need poetry, eloquence beyond your ability?

Of course it's the Beastie Boys.

The Beastie Boys, Sabotage

"I can't stand it I know you planned it

I'm gonna set it straight, this watergate

I can't stand rocking when I'm in here

Because your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear

So while you sit back and wonder why

I got this fucking thorn in my side

Oh my God, it's a mirage

I'm tellin' y'all it's sabotage

So listen up 'cause you can't say nothin'

You'll shut me down with a push of your button?

But yo I'm out and I'm gone

I'll tell you now I keep it on and on

'Cause what you see you might not get

And we can bet so don't you get souped yet

You're scheming on a thing that's a mirage

I'm trying to tell you now it's sabotage

Why; our backs are now against the wall

Listen all of y'all it's a sabotage"

Half the country is scheming on a thing that's a mirage...not looking forward to how things play out when the mists clear. 

N

Cyndi Brandenburg

Ani Difranco

Napolean (for when you are angry) 

Your Next Bold Move (for when you are contemplative, but I’m linking to a live version, so it will also make you smile) 

Both Hands (for when you are distractedly thinking about something else) 

Writing something this week is way harder than I expected it to be.  I can’t quite settle and find the grounded space within which to make clear sense out of things.  The intense build-up of the past month has suddenly been replaced with an awareness of an impending void, one which will likely be difficult to fill—at least in the immediate near future.  So I am trying hard to take my own advice from last week; that is, to get out of my head from time to time and appreciate the momentary good things that happen to come my way.  I anticipate finding a lot of them, as I long as I keep the doors open to unexpected possibility.  

Tuesday night was simultaneously amazing and shocking.  Ani Difranco is, hands down, the best performer I have ever seen live in concert.  She made a few political references in between songs, but we were a crowd of solidarity, her music speaks for itself, and mostly she just played and sang her heart out.  It was awesome.  Then my husband, my son, and I got in the car, turned on the radio, and dropped a string of F-bombs the whole way home.  (I thank you, Ani, for teaching me the power of the strategically placed F-bomb, by the way.)  

Ani Difranco is a political activist, passionate about breaking down patriarchy, committed to inspiring people to care enough to reclaim their power and make their voices heard (seriously? Nearly half of us didn’t even show up? Vote Dammit!).  So this week, what I offer here are what I believe to be 3 relevant song selections, depending on your mood.  Take a listen….

Dave Mills

When I saw the news of Leonard Cohen's passing today, I knew I couldn't let this week go by without contributing to the discography. I had to pay homage, and since I've been listening to a lot of music as a coping mechanism this week anyway, maybe this is me getting back in the groove of contributing. Apologies for the length, both in terms of songs selected and words written about them. May this serve as a helpful distraction from other news...

I want to share three tracks from Cohen's legacy:

The Story of Isaac (1969) 

You Want It Darker (2016) 

Anthem (1992) 

The first two draw directly from the narrative in the Hebrew Bible of Abraham nearly sacrificing his son Isaac, driven by the voice of God. The third track alludes to it through the mention of a "perfect sacrifice," but doesn't engage the story directly. I find it fascinating that this story stuck with Cohen throughout his career.

"The Story of Isaac," from one of his earliest albums, relates the events of Genesis 22 from the point of view of Isaac, and then spins out from there to cast the leaders of the late 60's in the role of Abraham, and the youth of that generation as Isaac:

You who build these altars now,

to sacrifice these children,

must not do it anymore.

A scheme is not a vision,

and you have never been tempted

by a demon or a God.

I nerd out a bit on this stuff because the book I'm supposed to be writing right now (but am not because I write discography entries instead) deals with how Abraham and Isaac became symbolic figures in terms of which post-WWII philosophers and activists made sense of their time and place in history. Isaac in particular becomes a figure for the counter-culture and student movements, as they saw themselves sacrificed on the altars of militaristic, nationalistic, consumeristic Abrahams gripped by divine destructive visions. For other versions of this, check out Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited" and George Segal's sculpture made to commemorate the Kent State massacre in 1970. The sculpture features a college-aged Isaac menaced by a militaristic older Abraham. It's a powerful image. (Incidentally, Kent State administrators freaked out when they saw it and refused to accept it, even though they'd commissioned Segal to sculpt the memorial. So it's at Princeton today, not Kent State.) Anyway, that Cohen included a track like this on a 1969 album is perfectly in keeping with his time and place and sense of self. That he returns to it in 2016, a month before his death, is really fascinating, and suggests that he might have seen parallels between our present situation and the tumult of the late-60s.

2016's "You Want It Darker" is one of those tracks where the instrumentation and lyrics mesh exceedingly well with Cohen's voice, which is not an easy thing to achieve. In this track, I think it is Abraham who speaks, not Isaac. And I think Abraham is addressing the God who has told him to sacrifice his son. I think this because of the word "hineni," which is repeated throughout the song. Hineni is Hebrew for "Here I am." In the  Genesis narrative, that is Abraham's response to God when God calls him to leave his homeland and when God calls him to sacrifice Isaac. When God says "Abraham," and Abraham says "Hineni," he's saying more than just "hey," or "what's up?". He's saying "Here I am, fully present to you, ready to serve you in whatever way you require." That he responds this way to a God who demands child sacrifice is both a source of admiration from those who attempt to share his faith and of horror from those who cannot fathom such a faith. As with the 1969 track, Cohen doesn't leave the Abraham narrative to history. He brings the full tension of it into the present:

I struggled with some demons;

they were middle class and tame.

I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim.

You want it darker?

Hineni, hineni.

I'm ready, my lord.

Intoned this way, in a contemporary setting, in Cohen's dark voice, "hineni" becomes menacing, and evokes a sense of religious zealotry that is responsible for many recent evils in the world, whether 9/11 or the 81% evangelical vote for Trump. Across nearly 4 decades, Cohen's music suggests that we are all-too-eager to sacrifice others on the altar of our self-serving agendas, agendas which we are all-too-eager to magnify to the level of ultimate transcendent purity and perfection.

But, I've chosen Cohen's "Anthem" as the final track in this brief journey, so as to end on a slightly hopeful note. In this song, the tone is perhaps as close to hopeful as you'll get from Cohen, so much so that the background music seems to be on a completely different plane from his voice. (It's not his best album, musically, in my opinion, but there are some good lyrics.) Many of the lyrics paint bleak pictures, with unending wars, "killers in high places" summoning up "a thundercloud," etc. In the face of such realities, Cohen sings (if "sings" is the right verb),

Ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.

Rather than seeking to appease bloodthirsty transcendent agendas with perfect offerings and "final solutions," Cohen invites us to embrace the brokenness of everything -- our sacrifices, our ideals, ourselves -- and to see in that brokenness the space for the light to enter. In this way,

every heart, every heart

to love will come,

but like a refugee,

It is perhaps those who are so confident of their straight and narrow path to truth, to political solutions, to purity, to perfection, who end up doing the most damage. We've seen some version of that this week, I think. But perhaps, if we can dwell with the brokenness in all things and live like a refugee (with all due apologies to Tom Petty), we'll find our way to love and its solutions. Incidentally, this is part of the message that the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (who lost his family in the Holocaust) takes from the Abraham/Isaac tale. Abraham not only says "hineni" when God tells him to kill his son, he also says "hineni" when God tells him to stop, at the end of the narrative. As radical and frightening as Abraham is, in the end, he doesn't go through with it. He's not so blinded by allegiance to his divine ideal that he's unable to redirect and choose love over violence. It's still a very fucked up story (and Jewish midrash contains no end of speculation on the devastating effects of this event on Isaac, who in many accounts, is said never to have smiled or laughed again, even though his name literally means "son of laughter"). Levinas says that the stance of "hineni" toward each other as full fellow humans is the only way to prevent religious and political violence. To respond to the face of the other, the one who seems utterly different from myself, by saying "hineni -- I am fully present to you, I truly want to see you, and I'm ready to serve you in whatever way you require," is to short-circuit oppression, abuse, and other forms of violence. Whether or not Levinas is ultimately correct, a bit more of this stance certainly can't hurt in our new political reality. Let's hope enough of us find it possible in the coming days to embody some measure of openness to the other. If so, them perhaps the "mighty ship of State" can sail on "through the squalls of hate" and democracy can truly come to the USA, as Cohen hopes in "Democracy" (the next track on the album after "Anthem"). Time will tell.

Dave Kelley

I am writing this on election eve because, depending upon the results, I may be in no mood to do so after tomorrow.

Public Enemy, Fight the Power

I am not a rap fan in the least although I totally recognize the art and social significance of the best of it.  I was inspired to pick this song because of the deplorable efforts to prevent people of color from being able to cast their vote.  I do not want to recognize this as the country in which I live.  The attempt to restrict the minority vote is going to continue no matter who is the next president.  Trump would fill the federal judiciary with extremists who would make no effort to protect voter rights.  If Clinton wins, the far right will blame it on their failure to prevent people of color from voting and redouble their efforts.  Public Enemy had a CD titled "Fear of a Black Planet."  It should be reissued as "Fear of a Black Electorate."

If your election strategy is to prevent people from voting, you suck.

Gary Scudder

Frank Sinatra, The House I Live In

I guess after all the ill-will and anger and insanity of the campaign that I felt the need to promote a song that speaks to a more optimistic America, that actually worked to face and solve its problems instead of just blaming others and fueling anger and hatred towards each generation's "other."  So, I'm proposing Frank Sinatra's The House I Live In, which was written and recorded in 1945 as a way to promote greater understanding of racial and religious diversity.  By all rights, and especially considering what a natural contrarian I am, I should find this song hokey, but I never have, and can't imagine I ever will.  Here's a link to the short film which won a special Academy Award.  It opens with Sinatra recording If You Are But a Dream, which is, as you know, one of my favorite songs, and also a wonderful metaphor for the dream of an America which we can never quite get right, but which hopefully we'll keep clumsily chasing.  I guess it's an elegiac recalling of a simpler, oddly gentler, age, or at least an age when the fascists lived overseas.