Discography Year Two - Week 10

It's the tenth week of this year's edition of our Discography music discussion, and apparently the theme this week is how fucking old I am - and also how generally out of it I am.  First off, as usual, everyone's choice are much cooler than mine. Secondly, Gary chose Sinatra's It Was a Very Good Year, which, despite being a fantastic song, I also remember hearing in the 60s. Thirdly, Phillip Seiler is so old that he was actually a teenager when there was still a Soviet Union (we will not discuss how old I was when the Soviet Union stopped being the Soviet Union [although, truthfully, did it?]).  And finally, our resident gamine, Alice Neiley, had a moment of cultural existential angst related to her students not knowing who Lauryn Hill is, whereas I have similar moments of horror when my students are not conversant in Marcus Aurelius [sigh]. Still, how can a person be depressed for long when New Orleans is referenced?  I know that Andy Burkhardt, who still refuses to submit a song, will appreciate the Trombone Shorty reference.  And when in the hell are we going to Nawlins?

Gary Beatrice

Frank Sinatra, It Was a Very Good Year

I find Frank Sinatra's "It Was A Very Good Year" to be brilliantly sad and evocative. Mostly it's his vocals, which are as strong as I've heard them to be, and the way the strings wash over his voice. But the lyrics add to the overall effect.

My parents were huge Sinatra fans and I became a fan too, which is not at all surprising since I grew up Italian and in the NorthEast. I remember hearing "It Was A Very Good Year" and I found the lyrics to be mysterious. Who had a very good year? Some of the women he associated with did, but did Sinatra? Did either party play a role in the happiness of the other?

For the most part the questions don't matter, and the song, it's vocals, strings and lyrics are as evocative today as I found it sitting around the stereo console listening to it with my parents in the 60s.

Dave Wallace

John Hiatt - You Must Go

After selecting a Lilly Hiatt song last week, I shockingly realized that I've never picked anything for this blog by her dad, John Hiatt, one of my favorite artists.  Hiatt's made a bunch of great albums and had an unbelievable string of records in the '80s and '90s - Bring the Family, Slow Turning, Stolen Moments, Perfectly Good Guitar, Walk On.  I could have picked any one of a bunch of his songs, but I landed on his ode to a restless wanderer, You Must Go.

Phillip Seiler

Public Enemy

Fight the Power

When I was 16, I had the opportunity to travel to the Soviet Union for two weeks with a group of fellow high school students who were studying the Russian language. Students from three different schools were part of our contingent. On the bus ride up to NYC to catch the plane, we started to get to know each other mostly through the one medium teenagers care most about: music. It was on this ride that I had a conversation with Roger, the only black student on the trip, about rap. He was a proponent and wondered how I felt about it. Being the 16 year old, conservative, latently racist idiot I was, I told him I didn't consider it music. (I.E. the 80s equivalent of "Disco sucks") We had some debate about this and I remember it being reasonably civil which he deserves great credit for since I really was being an entitled white suburban asshole of the worst sort. But I vaguely remember it being left at I should keep giving it another try. We left it there as I was about to get a tape from a very cute new wave girl featuring REM's Murmur on side A and Reckoning on side B and this was exactly the sort of music I was looking for at that time in my life. 

Fast forward a few years and I was DJing on WRUV-fm, the radio station of UVM. My politics had flipped 180 degrees and I was genuinely opening myself up to new experiences, especially from those that had differing histories than mine. And into that state of possibility, Public Enemy stomped in and shook up my world.

Until then the rap I knew was mostly that which had crossed over into the mainstream. I was completely unprepared for the sonic maelstrom that is Public Enemy. Every track is a feast full of so many carefully crafted musical moments and elements that I am still discovering things listening to their tracks that are now almost 30 years old.

Fight The Power was, of course, featured in Do the Right Thing and was probably the pinnacle of commercial success Public Enemy would achieve. That is unfortunate because they are still going strong and dropping jams full of meaning, message, and musical brilliance. Chuck D is a unique and distinctive MC with an immediately recognizable delivery, Flavor Flav for all his goofiness works a crowd like no other, and Terminator X provided all the sonic mix you need on the turntables (he has since retired.) They were a perfect cocktail of talent.

So thank you Roger for planting a seed and for Chuck D and all the PE members past and present for providing all the nutrients it needed to grow.

Finally, power still needs to be fought: our freedom of speech is freedom or death. Word.

Alice Neiley

I’m not sure whether it’s because a break is around the corner (Thanksgiving), or because of how much I NEED the break that’s around the corner, but my teaching has been extra sassy for the last few weeks. Given my fairly high level of sass ‘on the regular’ with students, this increase is saying…something. It’s led to some pretty fabulous moments in the classroom, though – and ultimately to my song choice and the album-like structure of my post for this week.

Intro: The Usual Sass 

I’m genuinely shocked by the pop-culture staples my students are unimpressed with, or worse, unfamiliar with. I’ve been known to dramatically gasp, even more dramatically sigh, and sadly shake my head at the number of students who haven’t read Crime and Punishment or Langston Hughes’ poems, and those who haven’t seen the movies The Sandlot, Life is Beautiful, etc. Yes, these references somehow relate to the course material…I don’t totally remember how at the moment, but trust me. Then, I often take a (yet again, very dramatic) deep breath and say: “Everyone calm down. Don’t worry. I’ll rescue you,” and proceed to either send the entire class links to articles on said pop-culture phenomena or links to the actual phenomena themselves. Whether they read/watch/listen to these things is unknown.

Chorus: Anecdotal Harmony 

This Week’s Discography Choice: Last week we were talking about the need for balance in rhetorical appeals. Not just between the three points on the rhetorical triangle, but within each – like the balance of different KINDS of pathos. Nostalgia was the type of ‘emotion’ we were dealing with, and though it can often be sort of awful in writing, it can also work magic if it’s balanced with a little edge, concrete observations, sharp rhythm, something. That’s when I brought up Lauryn Hill’s “Every Ghetto, Every City”, a song with an absolutely flawless balance of nostalgia and badass funk, the juxtaposition of which just enhances both and makes the song…well…one of the greatest hip hop songs ever. The nostalgia is in both the groovy Stevie Wonder-esque beat that begins the tune, sets the tone for the entire thing, and never stops, as well as the lyrics – “A bag of Bontons, twenty cents and a nickel/Springfield Ave. had the best popsicles/Saturday morning cartoons and Kung-Fu/Main street roots tonic with the dreds/A beef patty and some coco bread”. My adoration of this song skyrockets on those lyrics especially, because they enhance that juxtaposition I mentioned earlier: the badass funk. Hill’s powerful voice spittin’ the rhymes, landing heavy on the beat, is never more present than on those most nostalgic, image based words.

In fact the whole ALBUM plays on this contrast, pushes against nostalgia, pulls it in. Another example: there are little intro/outros throughout the album, bringing some songs into being and trailing the ends of others. The first track on the album “Intro”, recreates a middle/high school scene, complete with a bell ringing and attendance (nostalgia), but when Lauryn Hill’s name is called, she doesn’t answer (pushback). The following track, “Lost Ones” adds to this pushback with its pretty heavy rap/hiphop style until…the chorus! The melody jumps out like a gift of the familiar, satisfying harmonies, tiny vocal solos rising from the thick dubbed over vocals. Sigh.

Outro: The Extra Sass 

When I used “Every Ghetto” as an example of excellent writing balance, the students just stared. One person had heard of Hill. ONE. I dramatically slumped forward onto the podium. I told them that sadly, this time, they were beyond my ability to rescue. That they were doomed. Just doomed.

Kevin Andrews

Before we started this series, I came up with a list of 10 or 15 songs/artists that were meaningful to me. Some of them got bullet points or notes about lyrics or whatever. One of the songs was Do You Realize? by The Flaming Lips. The list also included a singer/songwriter named Steve Goodman. I couldn’t decide on a specific song, I guess because Steve the person was more meaningful.

After the recent passing of Tom Petty and the discussion that followed about what songs and artists mean to us I was reminded of Steve. Steve passed away in 1984 after a 17-year battle with leukemia. He was the kind of performer that could stand on stage with only a guitar and have 500 or 5000 people listening at attention or laughing and singing uproariously. A few of Steve’s songs got noticed, City of New Orleans (recorded by Arlo Guthrie) Go Cubs Go and A Dying Cubs Fan Last Request – his tributes to his favorite team. His good friends John Prine and Jimmy Buffet wrote with him and recorded his songs. As my dear friend Sanford Zale would say, he raised the human spirit. I still miss him a lot.

This is a concert recording from 1976 if you’re interested. It’s black and white and grainy but that's what the world was then. The first song is a good intro to Steve.

All of that for this strange and totally unrelated band, The Flaming Lips. This song is uplifting and tragic, beautiful, sad and absurd. It makes me happy like Steve did. 

Dave Kelley

So after getting perhaps getting too heavy and sentimental last week, I am switching up this week to an instrumental song designed to make you smile and shake yo ass.

"Tripped Out Slim"  Trombone Shorty

Shorty is a great musician from New Orleans who also is blessed with a kick ass band.  He is an absolute must see live.  He is a virtuoso trombone player combining jazz, funk, R&B and soul.  This is just a great fun song which reminds me of my favorite American city.  So fix up some red beans and rice, a little gumbo,a sazerac, and shake your money maker while you dance to this song.

Kathy Seiler

My post this week is because I'm white and nerdy.

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Ode to the Brain! Symphony of Science/melodysheep

I’m nerding out on the blog this week with the Ode to the Brain song because I was going over the nervous system and senses in my Human Biology class on Wednesday. I was, as usual, waxing philosophical about how amazing our senses and brains really are and getting very animated, which usually makes my students look at me funny (and probably pity me). If I can show them that not only is science cool, but also that you don’t have to be ashamed of liking science, even if you used to hate it, I’m happy to be pitied. And as I’ve posted before, I love integrating music into my classes.

I found this song when I first started teaching at Champlain and tout it to my students as one of the most responsible uses of auto-tune I’ve ever seen (Ke$ha, who is heavily auto-tuned, and from whom I will NEVER post a song, was very popular at the time). I like to show this song at the beginning of a class about the nervous system. Snippets of documentaries about the brain, Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, Oliver Sacks, and pieces of TED talks by VS Ramachandran and Jill Bolte-Taylor - highly recommended to watch – are all sampled. It integrates my love of science with my love of music, and the messages conveyed in it are ones that I find both wondrous and moving.

“Here is this mass of jelly you can hold in the palm of your hand, and it can contemplate the vastness of interstellar space.” – VS Ramachandran

“…seeing with the brain is often called imagination.” – Oliver Sacks

“Information in the form of energy, streams in simultaneously, through all of our sensory systems… and then it explodes into this enormous collage, and in this moment, we are perfect, we are whole, and we are beautiful.” – Jill Bolte-Taylor

Cyndi Brandenburg

I know I am contributing something ridiculously late, but it's starting to feel like it's been way too long since I've come around.  When I heard this sweet beauty yesterday, it struck a chord as I was thinking about both the constants and the changes that pattern our lives.  Whether it's a welcome new season that arrives too suddenly too late, or experiencing ever briefly what it might be like to live without children in the house, or dreaming up some shared imaginary future travel plans with so-lucky-to-have good friends--we find a way to hold it all and to live it as honestly as we can in wholly imperfect ways. It's a metaphor for many things, not the least of which is my erratic presence as a contributor to this blog. 

Mandolin Orange, Take This Heart of Gold 

Cheryl Casey

Listening to Statler and Waldorf just made my heart melt. My love of all things Muppets can never be overstated. Thank you, Phil!

I have been to NOLA more than a handful of times and stopped enjoying it after my first time. That being said - I would wholly entertain returning if only with such excellent company.

Scudder, thank you for the introduction to Lee Morgan; his story is tragic and his music has been making my paperwork this evening far more tolerable. 

As a newbie to submitting commentary, I confess I'm not quite in the habit of this Friday night/Saturday morning deadline thing, so here is what I should have submitted a few days ago!

Cowboy Mouth, "Jenny Says"

I've been inclined to return to this song again and again in my music selections in the last couple of weeks. It addresses my constant internal debate between just needing to "let it go" and my habit of wrapping myself up in stress. I kind of love blasting this song and singing along - yes, maybe some dancing happens, too. It's cathartic, and pretty on point these days. 

Hopefully I'll remember to spend some time on more intelligent commentary for this coming week's blog!

Gary Scudder

Lee Morgan, The Sidewinder

Last week I brought up the trumpeter Lee Morgan in my rambling discussion of John Coltrane's seminal album Blue Train.  Sadly, I also had to admit that I knew nothing of Lee Morgan until I recently saw a documentary entitled I Called Him Morgan, and that's when I finally put it together that he was the Lee Morgan who played on the Coltrane album.  I'm a very, very vain man, and it eats at me when I come face to face with my alarming ignorance (so each day is one long continuous comeuppance), which I can only blame on a typically poor Hoosier education and a small, smooth brain.  The song, from the 1964 album of the same name, is just eminently cool.  The very tight, and mostly very young, quartet features Morgan (trumpet), Joe Henderson (tenor sax), Billy Higgins (drums), Barry Harris (piano), and Bob Cranshaw (bass).  The album was a surprise crossover hit and seemed to presage a great career for Morgan, that sadly never came about.  Morgan was shot by his estranged common life wife Helen in a small jazz club in Harlem in 1972 in the middle of a blizzard.  It took over an hour for the ambulance to arrive (either because it was actually during a blizzard - or because it was in a little jazz club in Harlem) and by the time it showed up Morgan had bled out.  You should give the documentary a look (I saw it on Netflix).  It's not fantastic or anything but it does include a ton of great music.