Discography - Week 15

We are now fifteen weeks into our Discography discussion.  First off, I should make the general announcement that it's time to start thinking/planning/scheming for our second thematic week, which will fall on Week 17; so, not this week nor the next, but two weeks hence.  Through a secret negotiation with the esteemed and occasionally excellent Gary Beatrice we'll be discussing Guilty Pleasures.  This can include either a particular band or an album or a song.  You know, one of those groups or songs that you find yourself listening to on the QT, and not quite understanding why you like them, and hoping that your more music savvy friends don't find out.  This will require honesty and courage, which, in the general populace are in short supply, but abides in abundance in this select fraternity.  This week (and next) we'll be reveling in our usual anarchic approach of talking about whatever we're talking about (to quote the truly excellent Sanford Zale).

Gary Beatrice

Amy Winehouse, You Know I'm No Good


Amy Winehouse was the first musician that I was a big fan of at the time who died at the peak of her powers. I was too young to appreciate the sixties legends at the time, and there have been a slew of my favorites who've passed on since then, but to the best of my recollection each of them had peaked. Winehouse left us some great music and performances, but I believe she could have been a giant. To me she sounded like a 21st century version of a rat pack vocalist fully immersed in the music and the themes of modern life.

I love "You Know I'm No Good" and it also makes me terribly uncomfortable. Lyrically and vocally Winehouse spews self hatred and anger, and if I sent the correct version the rapping at the instrumental break that break only serves to intensify those feelings.

It may be better to burn out than it is to rust, but not at 27.

Dave Wallace

Bif Naked, Twitch

Bif Naked is a Canadian singer-songwriter with punk rock roots, who made several very good albums in the late 1990s/early 2000s.  Her ode to bad boys (with a hint of her bi-sexuality tossed in), Twitch is a kick-ass rocker, and I love the quick nod to My Boyfriend's Back, which is a clear thematic influence.  After that reference, the song just barrels along to the end, steamrolling everything in its path.  A great driving song with an excellent guitar solo.

Miranda Tavares

Van Morrison, Cleaning Windows

So, we're all Truckers fans here. You know that Jason Isbell song Something More Than Free? Beautiful song (although I'd be hard-pressed to find an Isbell song you couldn't call beautiful) about how work is killing a man, but he still thanks God for it every day, partly because he needs money, partly because he needs to feel useful and worthwhile, mostly because it's just how he was raised and he doesn't know any other way to be. Or that Chris Knight song Enough Rope that Bob did a few weeks ago, where the man is so stuck in his daily grind he can't even see death as a way out? Yeah...this is not those. 

Morrison sings about carrying ladders and cleaning the fan light, reading his Kerouac and listening to his blues, playing his saxophone and smoking his smokes. He doesn't try to make these things any more or less important than they are; they are simply his life, at least for that moment. He is incredibly self- aware...and he is happy.

I was raised on Sesame Street. I was taught "chase after your dreams!" and "you can do anything you want!" and "just work hard and nothing can stop you!" The most obvious problem of all of those sentiments, of course, is that none of them are really true. But even as a kid I understood the idea behind a sentiment, understood that it wasn't strictly literal, so I wasn't too damaged by that piece of the lies the muppets told me. What caused me angst throughout childhood, into my 20's, hell, up to about 5 years ago, if I am being honest (and why would I not be; we are all baring souls here, in one way or another) was that these sentiments presupposed that I had dreams, and specific goals in mind, and a plan to work hard at. I didn't.  I don't. I never have. I don't want to change the world. I don't care if I leave a mark. I just want to read my Stephen King (he may not be Kerouac but he's a goddamn genius), listen to my blues, and smoke my smokes. And, I suppose, collect the paycheck that allows me to enjoy those aforementioned things. I will never cure cancer, I will never run for office, I will never win the Pulitzer or a Nobel prize in anything. And it took me over 30 years to realize that that's ok. I'm happy cleaning windows. 

Nate Bell

Sting, Fill 'er Up

I appreciate Sting.  I'm not a superfan, but I do have a real appreciation.  I think in the 80s he made quite an impact on pop music with the Police. His solo works, I find a good handful of them ethereal, soulful, and with some very rich imagery.

Now my wife, well...she HATES Sting.  She complains about his "whiny" voice, she thinks he is pretentious and self-involved, and you can play a Sting song and just watch her become visibly angry.  (similar theme is true for Neil Young, BTW).

One night writing this blog I challenged her, that I would play a Sting song and if she would only listen, I guaranteed she would like it.  This is that song, and I was correct :)

Fill 'er Up is a playful, tongue -in -cheek homage to a revival tent Baptist spiritual.  It's fun, has some very nice phrasing, and Sting does a credible turn at being a down-south rural blue collar guy:

Mobile station,
Where I stand
This old gas pump
In my hand.

The Boss don't like me
Face like a weasel,
All on my hands
The smell of diesel.

it *doesn't* take itself very seriously, and yet still manages to hold the same rousing Big Church feel as a real come to Jesus  song---and he closes the piece out with a full-voiced choral narration.  

With as much musical help as Sting always has, there is plenty of complexity (slide guitar, piano), and a large amount of vocal backing.

Still very fun and tells a good story, and has a good moral lesson which is, to quote the Best TV Show Ever:  "If you can't do something smart, do something right".  And I can't honestly come up with anything better than that, myself.

Dave Mills

Blind Pilot, Packed Powder

This is the most recent track released by the Portland, Oregon band Blind Pilot. It's an early release for the full album, due out August 12. I chose this track because, first of all, I love Blind Pilot's music, and they take way too long to release albums (Three Rounds and a Sound in 2009, We Are the Tide in 2011, and now finally And Then Like Lions next month), so I'm eager to jump on the little morsels they drop in anticipation of new albums. But I also chose this because it's just a genuinely enjoyable song that instantly got me thinking about my own checkered employment history -- the various jobs I've held, the various expectations I had going into those jobs, and the various ways in which they've actually changed me, often contrary to what I expected going in. Before my current gig as a college prof, a gig I've managed to milk for 22 years now, I squandered my prime years working for K-Mart, doing everything from cleaning up the unspeakable things that people do in K-Mart bathrooms to fetching carts from the parking lot during sleet storms to stocking shelves, running the layaway department, unloading trucks, and selling TV's. In and around the 6 years I spent working for them during high school and college, I mowed lawns, did quality-control testing on power tools, installed computer networks, tutored student athletes, and taught standardized test prep courses. I'm sure there were other odd jobs that escape me now. I look back on each of the jobs I can remember now with a certain level of nostalgic fondness (except for certain moments at K-Mart), but I was always very ready to leave those jobs when the time came. I didn't know who I was, that's for sure, but I also knew that I wasn't the guy who would be satisfied in any of those jobs for the long haul. The verses of this song capture, for me, the unexpected ways in which those jobs changed my view of the world or myself, but the chorus also captures my sense of being ready to move on, to grab the next opportunity or challenge, to see how the powder burns. Maybe this song will provide a soundtrack for your own nostalgic look back at the ways you've worked in/on the world and the ways the world has worked in/on you.

Dave Kelley

Townes Van Zandt, To Live Is To Fly

"Everything is not enough, and nothing is too much to bear."  Townes Van Zandt  "To Live is to Fly"

It was inevitable that I would pick a Townes Van Zandt song eventually.  The only hard part was deciding which one.  Recently fellow esteemed musicologist Miranda and I caught a great acoustic set by Darrell Scott at a tiny venue in Cincinnati.  Not surprisingly, Scott did a cover of a Townes' song.  He chose "Loretta" and I soon began a week long binge listening to some of my favorite Van Zandt songs.

As Gary pointed out in his comments about Townes, his mental health and substance abuse issues interfered greatly with his recordings and often his live performances.  They did not interfere with his writing however.  His studio records are hit and miss, and I would suggest that someone starting a collection of his work begin with "Live at The Old Quarter" which features just Townes and his acoustic guitar.  Alcohol, heroin use, and bi-polar disorder are a pretty lethal combination and wound up killing Townes in his early fifties.  Steve Earle has said that Townes was a great teacher but a horrible example.  He spent years living in cheap hotels and shacks in the middle of the woods and apparently sold the rights to much of his music to get money to score heroin.  I highly recommend a documentary about him entitled "Be Here to Love Me."

Tortured genius is an overused cliché for sure, but it is one that applies to Townes.  Listening to his music and his lyrics, one is just stunned by his talent.  He should be up there with Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, and Bruce in the pantheon of great American songwriters based on his work.  I think his personal issues are to blame.

Unlike many of his best songs, "To Live is to Fly" is not overwhelmingly sad.  The singer (and I feel certain that this is autobiographical) is a rambling man who is always ready to leave where he is and move on to the next place.  Much like the John Wayne character in "The Searchers" he has some regrets about this but has to follow his nature.  If you think the journey is more important than the destination, this one's for you.

"Living's mostly wasting time

and I'll waste my share of mine

but it never feels too good

so let's not take too long"

"Days up and down they come

like rain on a conga drum

Forget most, remember some

but don't give none away

everything is not enough

nothing is too much to bear

where you've been is good and gone

all you keep is the getting there"

"To live is to fly

low and high

so shake the dust off of your wings

and the sleep out of your eyes"

"Goodbye to all my friends

it's time to go again

Think of all the poetry

and picking down the line

I'll miss the system here

the bottom's low and the treble's clear

but it don't pay to think too much

on what you leave behind"

I think religions and schools of philosophy have been based on less than what he says in the final verse.

"We all got holes to fill

Them holes are all that's real

some fall on you like a storm

sometimes you dig your own

The choice is yours to make

Time is yours to take

some sail into the sea

some toil upon the stone

To live is to fly

low and high

so shake the dust off of your wings

and the sleep out of your eye"

Gary Scudder

Kathleen Edwards, Pink Emerson Radio

OK, part of this relates to my recent pilgrimage to Quitters Coffee in Stittsville, a suburb of Ottawa, Ontario, where I was lucky enough to meet the excellent Kathleen Edwards.  I managed to embarrass myself by telling her how much I loved her music (she had brought me my lunch, a great smoked meat sandwich [this was Canada, after all], which was a little disconcerting) but she hung around for a few minutes and chatted about how much she liked Burlington. I'd been planning on submitting this song (and doubtless several other of her songs) soon anyway.  While I'm seldom guilty of hyperbole (shut up), and even factoring in that she's very early in her career, I think she's got the potential to be this generation's Lucinda Williams.  This is the first Edwards song that I fell in love with, and I still think it's great.  Essentially, I think it's a dark rumination on figuring out what's important in life, and having the sense to grab it when it's time. This is from her second album, Back to Me, which I still think is her best effort.  I'm happy to see that she's been playing a few gigs, which gives me hope that she'll get back in the studio soon; that said, I hope she keeps the coffee shop.