Discography - Week 34

So, we've now two-thirds of the way through our year-long Discography music discussion (or at least the first year of our Discography music discussion).  I don't know if too many of us will weep piteous tears for the passing of 2016, a year of historic assclownery in American history.  Personally, it's been a pretty sweet year, but generally it has sucked beyond all sucking.  That said, one of the things that has made it wonderful has been the extraordinary folks who have participated in this blog discussion.

We our back to our normal anarchic non-themed approach, although several folks are still very much in the holiday season (including Dave Wallace who is unrepentantly holiday-themed all month).  We already have tentative thematic plans for Weeks 41 and 49, due to various and sundry secret high level meetings, but, as Master Shake reminds us, all will be revealed.

Oh, and I should point out that the last line of Gary Beatrice's posting was also the line of the night at Dave Kelley's senior prom.

Dave Mills

Stars, Take Me To The Riot

Stars are an electro-pop band from Montreal, where they've shared members and song-writing with two other fantastic Montreal bands, Broken Social Scene and Metric. All three bands are worth a listen. There's nothing particularly deep or world-shattering going on in the average Stars album. It's generally atmospheric, synth-heavy, and somewhat baroque indie music. The band is fronted by two vocalists, Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan, and on this track, Torquil affects a few nice Robert Smith (of The Cure) vocal moments. All in all, it's a good upbeat indie anthem that, while it is probably ultimately about a relationship (since most Stars songs seem to be), also includes the line: "Take me, take me to the riot... and let me stay." This gives it good theme-song potential for times such as ours...

Gary Beatrice

Old Crow Medicine Show, 8 Dogs 8 Banjos

I understand and share everybody's concern about the presidential election. But you can't stay down. I tried lifting your spirits with gospel songs, I tried raising you up with fast songs. By God, if you can't get your toes tapping and your body bouncing with this bawdy, rocking number from the world's most rocking and best live bluegrass band, Old Crowe Medicine Show, then there isn't anything I can do to help you.

If nothing else I bet I made Dave Kelley feel pretty good for three minutes.

Dave Wallace

Vince Guaraldi Trio, TheChristmas Song

When I was in college, I bought two Christmas albums that I continue to listen to repeatedly and religiously (pun intended) every holiday season.  One was the Phil Spector album discussed in my previous post.  The other was Vince Guaraldi's brilliant soundtrack for the Charlie Brown Xmas special.   I love the entire thing, and I could have picked any number of songs off it, but I've always been partial to the version of The Christmas Song that closes the album.  A perfect, serene way to end the album.

Kathy Seiler

Louis Armstrong, What a Wonderful World

My song this week isn't a Christmas song, but since we watch "Christmas Vacation" (one of my favorite movies), every year after we decorate the tree, I associate this song with this season. So I'm sort of both still in and not in theme with Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World". I love the message in this song. The amazement of the beauty of nature around you, appreciating my children will eventually know more than me (oh please please please let this happen), acknowledging the rainbow of people in the world, and my favorite part - that when friends shake hands, they are really saying "I love you."

I'm struck by how hard it must have been for Mr. Armstrong to sing this song when it was released in 1967. Racial tensions abounded, and yet this man could sing this song with a smile that could light up an entire theatre. I often find tears in my eyes from this simple message of peace and joy to be found in the world around us. But when I consider who sang it and when, I get that feeling in my gut that reminds me of how awful we can be as human beings to one another at times. Rising above that and continuing to send messages of peace to combat our violent and often hateful tendencies as a species is the only real weapon I own. 

So I send to you all, whether I have actually met you or not yet, this song and a handshake. I am proud to be among such wonderful friends.

Phillip Seiler

"I walk where the bottles break

And the blacktop still comes back for more"

John Gorka, Where the Bottles Break

So begins John Gorka's "Where the Bottles Break" and it sets the tone immediately for what is to come. The visual is clear. This could be any city street where shards of broken glass gather in the crevices and corners. But how do those bottles get broken? Who does this? Gorka lets us know: the bottles just break. Nobody does it. Or perhaps where we find ourselves, everyone does. Does it matter? The broken glass just is. 

The song features John's wonderfully rich baritone voice over the restrained but quietly intense acoustic guitar. There is pressure here, waiting to explode, much like the people of the streets he is singing about. 

These people aren't saints

No people just are

They want to feel like they count

They want to ride in their own car

John has wonderful turn of phrases in some of his lyrics but I find him strongest when he paints these everyday pictures of life. They are vivid and real and raw. We know these people. We know what happens to them.

It happens when the money comes 

The wild and poor get pushed aside

It happens when the money comes

The poor get pushed

But the kicker to this song written in 1990 or 91 comes in the chorus and is why it is spinning round my head these days. 

Buy low, sell high

You get rich and you still die

Money talks, people jump

Ask "how high" low life Donald what's his name

And who cares , I don't want to know what his girlfriend doesn't wear

It's a shame that the people that work

Want to hear about this kind of jerk

Yes it is.

Dave Kelley

"In a world so hard and dirty

so fouled and confused

I went looking for a little bit of God's Mercy

And I found living proof."

This is a line from "Living Proof" off of Springsteen's woefully underrated "Better Days" album.  It was written shortly after the birth of his first child and is about how that event pulled him out of one of his depressive periods.  It is also not my selection this week but does a good job of setting up my choice.

Steve Earle, Nothing But a Child

On one hand this song fits in well with the time of season as the first verse tells the story of the Three Wise Men and the birth of Jesus.

"They chased a brand new star

ever towards the West

Across the mountains far

but when it came to rest

They scarce believed their eyes

they'd come so many miles

And this miracle they prized 

was nothing but a child"

I was raised in a religious household but struggle to keep my faith.  As Miranda commented last week, that does not prevent me from embracing the moral teachings of Jesus and the code of ethics laid out in the New Testament.  I wish the vast majority of professed Christians would try to follow his teachings.  As has been pointed out by many, religious conservatives are always trying to put the Ten Commandments everywhere while never discussing the Beatitudes which are so much more profound and beautiful.  I find it amazing that the New Testament tells the story of a savior who was born, not into great wealth and power, but in a manger to a poor couple.  He then spent his time on earth with the beggars, the prostitutes (Phrasing), the poor, and the afflicted.  His teachings preach compassion, love for your fellow man regardless of his or her station, tolerance, and kindness.  His few harsh words are reserved for the wealthy or those who harm children or try to prevent them from coming to him.  Yeah man, sign me up for that.

At the end of the day though, I find that this song is really about hope and redemption.  Specifically the hope and redemption we see through children.  Last week several noted the fact that during this holiday season we are kinder and more compassionate than usual.  More concerned about giving unto others and placing ourselves a little lower in our hierarchy.  I totally agree with that as well as the concept that basic to humanity is a desire to help others.  I think where children are concerned, those feelings are true 365 days per year.  I cannot even imagine the fierce love that parents have for their children no matter their age.  It is true that there is a percentage of parents who are truly horrific to their children, but these lowlifes are outliers.  The vast majority of people are very concerned with the welfare of children whether they are the parents are not.  If adults could be as awesome with each other as the vast majority of us are with children, imagine what this world would be.  I also firmly believe that while childishness is a bad thing (See Trump, Donald), being childlike, being able to see reality briefly through the eyes of a child is a wonderful and beautiful thing.  I suspect the Christmas season helps us to do that as the traditions remind us so strongly of our own childhoods.

"Now all around the world

in every little town

Every day is heard

a precious little sound

And every mother kind

And every father proud

Looks down in awe to find

Another chance allowed."

"Nothing but a child

Could wash those tears away

Or guide a weary world

into the light of day

And nothing but a child

could help erase those miles

So once again we all

can be children for a while."

This was the last song on the last record that Earle recorded before descending into several years of personal hell which involved divorce, heroin addiction, and imprisonment.  Even at his happiest he is no sentimentalist, and he was not anywhere close to his happiest when he wrote this song.  Even at his most desperate he found hope, not so much in religion I think, but in children.  Hell, maybe children should be our religion.

No one needs to be told how much of our world is hard and dirty or how fouled and confused things are.  God knows the horrors that the incoming administration may lay at our feet.  For me, I have to take solace that there is so much living proof out there that we are better than this.  Peace on earth and goodwill to all won't be achieved anytime soon, but we can all make our little corner of this earth a better place.

Gary Scudder

Amalia Rodrigues, Povo Que Lavas No Rio

OK, this week's pick is as strange as it is utterly predictable.  When Mike Kelly, Kelly Thomas and I were shepherding the students around Portugal we were able to see a, sadly brief, Fado performance in a tiny bar in Lisbon.  The singer had to be somewhere in his 80s and maneuvered around the bar with canes.  Still, he worked the room, including a very Ric Flair worthy fake handshake with an admirer (he didn't put out his right hand then swipe it up to brush his hair, but instead swung it around, in glorious pantomime, to scratch his left forearm - which must be the Portuguese equivalent).  He only sang four songs, which still inspired me to buy two of his CDs from him that night.  I don't speak Portuguese, and at times it sounded like a Russian doing sections of the music from The Third Man at the Buena Vista Social Club karaoke night, but I still found it oddly moving.  During his last song he ended up performing a duet with the bar owner, who I'm assuming was his son.  My interpretation of the song was that it was a metaphorical discussion between old age and young age on the impermanence of life,  but Mike, who has much better instincts for this sort of thing, proposed that it was just two dudes fighting over a girl.  I don't really know that much about Fado other than the fact that it's essentially Portuguese blues about how much it sucks to be Portuguese.  My choice this week is Povo Que Lavas No Rio, by Amalia Rodrigues the "Queen of Fado".  She was buried in Prazeres Cemetery (the "Pleasures" Cemetery) in Lisbon - my all-time favorite cemetery, which I revisited on our trip - until public outcry led to her being re-interred at the National Pantheon (the first woman to be so honored).  Again, I don't understand a word she says (sort of like listening to an early REM album), but she can really sing - and how can you not love a song that starts out with the words:

"To those who wash (clothes) in the river
And who use their axes
To carve the wood for my coffin . . ."

And my lack of Portuguese didn't stop me from downloading two of her albums on my iPod.  In a painfully inauthentic world, I love almost anything that is authentic.  Oh, and Dave Kelley told me that he also heard Fado in Portugal and loved it.