Discography - Week #4

Already a month into this experiment, and the songs and supporting commentary have been amazing.  It will be great after a year to take a step back and see how it all comes together.

Gary Scudder

Drive- By Truckers, Marry Me, and Uncle Tupelo, Looking for a Way Out

It's very unusual for me to end up first on a weekly list because I slide them into the blog first come first served, and my notorious lack of organization always dooms me to later in the week.  However, in this case I'm actually writing this a couple weeks early.  I'm on my way back to Indiana this weekend for my mother's funeral, which is obviously going to be sad and trying, but I'm also an oddly optimistic person (you can't read as much Marcus Aurelius as I have over the years and not end up with a somewhat more balanced view of the world) and it will also mean that I get to see some dear friends (some of who participate in this blog discussion).  This attempt at a more balanced world view sounds lovely in a philosophical way, but in the real world it often ends up as an almost schizophrenic balancing act between two very different worlds. I guess this is a clumsy way of explaining why I chose two songs this week.  Like most folks, I guess, I have very mixed emotions about my hometown, which is probably best shown by the fact that on all my official documents I list my hometown as Rising Sun and not Lawrenceburg.  Mike Kelly and I had a discussion once about whether it takes three or four drinks for our speech to slow down and our native Nebraska and Indiana accents, respectively, which we do our best to squelch, to start to come out.  As much as I perpetually mock Indiana (and anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that Indiana is one of my favorite whipping horses) I will always be that Hoosier kid, and I do take a strange pride in being from Indiana; although, as the old joke reminds us, far from Indiana.  So, I chose two songs from my two finalists for greatest American band of all time, the Drive-By Truckers and Uncle Tupelo.  If you dissect these two songs you will find most of my conflicted emotions about returning home.  For that matter, you could probably do that just by balancing out the lines,"It's a cartoon town, and I play my part," and "Torn between the unknown, and the place you call home." Having said all that, I suppose I should just leave it with the line, "There was a time, that time is gone."

Dave Wallace

John Doe and Kathleen Edwards, The Golden State

Confession: I was never a big X fan.  But John Doe has had a terrific post-X career, largely working in the alt-country arena.  This is his peak.  Brilliantly juxtaposing cliches, Doe reflects on the dual nature of relationships. And kudos to Dave Kelley crush Kathleen Edwards for the fantastic co-lead vocals.

Miranda Tavares

Melissa Etheridge, No Souvenirs

A couple weeks ago I wrote about Grand Funk Railroad because I loved the way they captured the simplicity of happiness. But we human beings are complex, regularly experiencing multiple distinct, often conflicting emotions. And that's No Souvenirs. On it's face it's a song about a break-up.  However, the raw vulnerability of the lyrics and Etheridge's simple but powerful vocals and guitar are a striking contrast. The lyrics say "I know we're over, but I'm here if you change your mind." But instead of voicing this in the whiny, plaintive voice of much of today's indie rock (just the derivative stuff, of course; nothing that gets mentioned on here ), she belts it out boldly. The lyrics mention shame, but the guitar is unabashed. 

And even in the lyrics alone, there are layers to this song. This was written before Etheridge was open about being a lesbian, and so, to be honest to herself but to avoid alienating any listeners, she refers to the subject of the song as "you" as opposed to "him" or "her."  We've all loved and lost, and at this point in our lives we've probably been both the one running and the one discarded. Etheridge's use of "you," plus her easy, off-handed way of conveying both the rage and desperation of the runner and the grief and longing of the discarded make it easy to identify with either. Maybe I'm the one escaping, and, in my eagerness to erase all evidence of our time together, I surge, tornado-like out the door, my wake engulfing our photos, our memories, our entire music collection, your self-respect, and the last can of who-hash. "Burn the pictures, break the records, run far away to a northern town." Or maybe I'm the one watching the cyclone whirl out of sight, feeling so exposed it's as though it took my skin with it. "But if you want me, you can call me." 

And I can't mention this song without ensuring the meaning of the buffalo is clear. That first verse. It refers to a charm on a charm bracelet. 

Dave Kelley

Many of my selections have and will continue to focus in significant part on the lyrics to a beloved song.  In that vein, prepare yourself for some lyrics that could have been written by Shakespeare or F. Scott Fitzgerald.  Maybe even both working together.

"Boom shaka laka laka, boom shaka laka laka"

Sly and  the Family Stone, I Want to Take You Higher

Obviously I am being facetious about the lyrical quality of my selection for this week.  They could be singing a recipe for tuna casserole for all I care.  This song does what music at its most basic level can do.  It is fun.  It is catchy.  You are happier after the song ends than before it began.  Such a great blending of voices, horns, and a mother fucker of a bass line.  I love the mix of male and female voices as well as the instrumentation.  I think the song is best heard at high volume driving in your car on a beautiful day or late at night when your inhibitions against dancing and shaking your ass are at their lowest.

Sly and the Family Stone made so much great music in a relatively limited period of time.  Some of it was very socially relevant.  Unfortunately, substance abuse and other issues derailed a great career.  Much of what Prince did a decade later was very influenced by Sly.  Sadly, I think that Sly's genius is becoming increasingly overlooked.  For me, sixties and seventies funk is one of my absolute favorite genres.  Parliament Funkadelic and Bootsy Collins era James Brown would be other personal favorites of mine from that period.  ("Atomic Dog" was almost my selection for the week.)  Sadly, in the late seventies, crappy disco music won the day and the funk music which helped create disco became less popular and more obscure.  (Admittedly there was also some great disco music.) 

I will bore you all in future weeks with my take on lyrically amazing songs.  For this week though, to quote great the great philosopher from New Jersey:  "Turn on your stereo, open up your windows, wake up the neighbors, and blast the mother fucker as loud as it will go."  If listening to this song at high volume does not make you feel alive, call 911!

Jack Schultz

Gary Beatrice

Lucinda Williams, Blessed

Lucinda Williams is the best songwriter since Bob Dylan, and I don't know that there is anybody else even in the conversation. She may never top her brilliant back to back to back albums, Lucinda Williams, Sweet Old World, and Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, but if anything her career has become more interesting in the past decade plus as she's become more prolific and apparently more confident of her art. Many of the post Car Wheels albums have slow spots, songs that don't work, some albums I rarely return to at all.  But I find even her swings and misses fascinating.

The title track to this underrated album has her at the top of her game and it ought to be played during every Sunday religious service. We are blessed by those around us, the saints, the sinners, those who we barely notice. God is everywhere. Let her voice and music wash over you and you'll believe.

Nate Bell

Nate's pick--the Many Tragedies of John Henry (Drive-By Truckers "The Day John Henry Died" , John Henry by Johnny Cash, Bruce Springsteen, and yes, Gangstagrass)

Yes, I'm cheating again.  We are asked to pick a song, and I have picked one, except it's a Song.  The Ballad of John Henry has been played by many artists in many different ways, but each artist represented here brings a different perspective to the "folk hero" John Henry.

The core story everyone knows--Man versus machine, which becomes a Pyrric, fatal victory for Man.  This song has been used to stand in for the early Labor Movement, as a parable of Big Progress, for an allegory for the inevitability of progress in a mechanized age.  However, at its base, this is a Song about that Man who never had a chance in this world.

The Drive by Truckers describe a man never taught to read, ground under the wheels of progress by an uncaring corporation, who has realized that the company has no use for a machine that breaks, and certainly no need for a machine that needs to feed a family, or be taught to read.  It tells the song from the perspective of other workers bent on escape--it's a cautionary tale to pack and and head to the mythical West where an equally mythical employer might have regard for their workers.

Bruce (in his Seeger sessions) evokes one of the more classic versions.  It's sung in raucous and jaunty tones, but still evokes the desperation of a man who has to prove his worth to continue to feed his family.  Note the line where his wife Polly takes up John Henry's hammer after his death, in order to continue to earn and survive.

Tied for the Pathos Prize, however are Johnny Cash's version and Gangstagrass.  In Johnny Cash's version, we have an extended conversation throughout the song, as John's father imparts the ideals that John must also show how much use he can be to the rail company, beyond hammering---go to the foreman and tell him you can "turn a jack, lay a track, pick and shovel, too".  The stakes are made quite clear--  "If engines are a substitute for the living, what's the substitute for bread and beans?" The extended version tells how in this version, John Henry did not expire immediately after the contest with the steam drill--but had time to tell his wife she must take up the hammer.  And to be sure that in order to feed the family she needed to impose upon the foreman that she could also turn a jack, lay a track, and pick and shovel, too...to keep the family fed.

I'm hard-pressed to decide whether the Cash narrative is more soul wrenching, or the Gangstagrass version.  Gangstagrass has clearly done their research,* as they point out what others skirt around, that John Henry, a black man, was  "born into slavery, when he was just a baby", and had later ended up post-CW reformation as part of a prison forced-labor gang.  The following verses emphasize the lack of freedom "stupid as hell to to say he had his freedom yet" and "couldn't never leave if he felt low"---as John watches as his crew mates die from the gas and dust all around him.  With lively banjo and crisp traditional chorus, the rap versing makes it clear that this John Henry is simply walking into the steam drill contest with a clear, fatalistic view that he may die---and at least die on his own terms, using the only skill he is allowed.  

As we all sit reading this on our comfortable electronics, listening in our white-collar world, I think we owe it to the real John Henry to listen to all the versions of his tale.  Our lives are built on the literal sweat and blood of "heroes" like this, who perished in a hopeless struggle to build the lives we all enjoy today.

*I was inspired to research a bit and would cite by way of excerpts, Scott Reynold Nelson "Steel Drivin' Man:  John Henry, the Untold Story of an American Legend (2006).  This study indicates that the real-life John Henry he found was most similar to the Gangstagrass iteration.

Dave Mills

Frightened Rabbit, Holy 

Frightened Rabbit is one of my favorite bands of all time, pretty constantly in rotation for me since their 2006 debut LP, Sing the Greys. While I absolutely love their sound, I come back to their music as much or more for the lyrical quality. They are equally masterful at expressing both depression and intimacy, and they are unsparing in their view of the human condition. Their videos often connect their music to dystopian life in Glasgow's modernist housing estates. As such, their music provides a nice soundtrack for the well-intentioned but alienating failures of modern architecture. And they provided one of the tracks that kept me sane when religious fundamentalists took over the school where I used to teach and drove me out. That’s the track I’ve chosen for this week, from the album Pedestrian Verse (2013). You can relish the lyrics of the full song through the link above, but here’s the first verse and chorus.  

Holy

You read to me from the riot act
Way on high
Clutching a crisp new testament
Breathing fire
Spare me the fake benevolence
I don’t have time
I’m too far gone for a telling
I’ve lost my pride
I don’t mind being lonely
Leave me alone
You’re acting all holy
Me, I’m just full of holes

Mike Kelly

Bob Craigmile