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We've lost another one: Bill Withers has died. This one's not a loss to the coronavirus, though.
"Ain't No Sunshine".
"Lean on Me".
"Use Me".
"Just the Two of Us".
and, lesser known but worth remembering:
"Lovely Day".
"Grandma's Hands".
"Harlem".
and a number of others. His career was brief, but he burned bright.
"Ain't No Sunshine".
"Lean on Me".
"Use Me".
"Just the Two of Us".
and, lesser known but worth remembering:
"Lovely Day".
"Grandma's Hands".
"Harlem".
and a number of others. His career was brief, but he burned bright.
For no particular reason: I have Groove Music doing a random trawl through my music. The screen shows a window of thirteen songs. (You can scroll ahead or back, but thirteen is all you can see at one time.) For no particular reason, here's the current set, starting from the current song
Sly & the Family Stone, "Love City"
The Vogues, "You're the One"
Mike & the Mechanics, "Black & Blue"
Barbra Streisand, "People"
Lesley Gore, "Brink of Disaster"
The Seekers, "The Times They Are a Changin'"
Lesley Gore, "My Town, My Guy and Me"
Elton John, "Little Jeannie"
Tommy James, "Crystal Blue Persuasion"
Jackson Browne, "The Load Out"
Mary Hopkin, "Goodbye"
Gene Pitney, "Last Chance to Turn Around"
Diana Ross, "This House"
For whatever it may be worth.
Sly & the Family Stone, "Love City"
The Vogues, "You're the One"
Mike & the Mechanics, "Black & Blue"
Barbra Streisand, "People"
Lesley Gore, "Brink of Disaster"
The Seekers, "The Times They Are a Changin'"
Lesley Gore, "My Town, My Guy and Me"
Elton John, "Little Jeannie"
Tommy James, "Crystal Blue Persuasion"
Jackson Browne, "The Load Out"
Mary Hopkin, "Goodbye"
Gene Pitney, "Last Chance to Turn Around"
Diana Ross, "This House"
For whatever it may be worth.
For reasons that seemed good to me, I looked up the Smothers Brothers on Wikipedia. There, I learned that their album "The Two Sides of the Smothers Brothers" devoted one side to songs rather than comedy because they had used almost all of their comedy routines on their first album, and could only come up with one side's worth of new routines. At the Amazon link for the album, many of the reviewers considered the singing half to be mediocre.
I will grant that the comedy side is very strong; if nothing else, it includes the classic "Chocolate" routine, But, though I haven't heard the album literally in decades, I remember enjoying the music a great deal. I am currently being earwormed by a medley of those songs: "Stella's Got a New Dress", "The Four Winds and the Seven Seas", and "Map of the World".
Amazon says they only have 11 copies in stock. I'm thinking of making a music run soon, and I may grab that album. Gonna get me some Glen Campbell and John Denver too, because that's the kind of mood I'm in.
I will grant that the comedy side is very strong; if nothing else, it includes the classic "Chocolate" routine, But, though I haven't heard the album literally in decades, I remember enjoying the music a great deal. I am currently being earwormed by a medley of those songs: "Stella's Got a New Dress", "The Four Winds and the Seven Seas", and "Map of the World".
Amazon says they only have 11 copies in stock. I'm thinking of making a music run soon, and I may grab that album. Gonna get me some Glen Campbell and John Denver too, because that's the kind of mood I'm in.
Fifty Freaking Years
Jan. 23rd, 2020 09:23 pmI do not smoke; I never have. I certainly have never bought cigarettes.
Cigarette ads were banned, in the U.S., from TV and radio on April 1, 1970 - almost fifty years ago.
So why on Earth am I being earwormed by an old jingle for Kent cigarettes? ("To a smoker, it's a Kent!")
[I remember disturbingly many cigarette jingles and slogans. Winston, Salem, Tareyton, Camel...]
Cigarette ads were banned, in the U.S., from TV and radio on April 1, 1970 - almost fifty years ago.
So why on Earth am I being earwormed by an old jingle for Kent cigarettes? ("To a smoker, it's a Kent!")
[I remember disturbingly many cigarette jingles and slogans. Winston, Salem, Tareyton, Camel...]
Favorite Singers IV: Enya
Jan. 3rd, 2020 12:57 pmMy first encounter with Enya was an MTV video of "Orinoco Flow", soon followed by "Caribbean Blue". I found the tunes to be catchy, and, though the lyrics seemed to lack real substance, they *sounded* good. I purchased "Watermark" and "Shepherd Moons" soon after, and have since added "A Day Without Rain" and "Amarantine" as well.
The first thing to note about Enya is that a fair number of their songs - "Na Laetha Geal M'Oige", "Smaointe", "Deora Ar Mo Chroi" - are in Irish, which language I do not know. A number of the rest - "Cursum Perficio", "Afer Ventus", "Tempus Vernum" - are in Latin, and though I took two years of that in college, that was more than forty years ago, and I haven't exactly kept up. So, that's about 20% of their output which might as well be instrumentals, as far as I'm concerned. The human voice is one of the most flexible musical instruments there is, of course.
In general, then - and this includes Enya's English language work - what attracts me is simply the sound. The formal pace of "Flora's Secret", the somehow threatening tones of "Tempus Vernum", the geographical rhymes of "Orinoco Flow" - these are enough to please me, whether I understand the words or not.
Enya is my go-to singer for the times when I just want to close my eyes, lie back, and let beautiful sound just wash over me.
The first thing to note about Enya is that a fair number of their songs - "Na Laetha Geal M'Oige", "Smaointe", "Deora Ar Mo Chroi" - are in Irish, which language I do not know. A number of the rest - "Cursum Perficio", "Afer Ventus", "Tempus Vernum" - are in Latin, and though I took two years of that in college, that was more than forty years ago, and I haven't exactly kept up. So, that's about 20% of their output which might as well be instrumentals, as far as I'm concerned. The human voice is one of the most flexible musical instruments there is, of course.
In general, then - and this includes Enya's English language work - what attracts me is simply the sound. The formal pace of "Flora's Secret", the somehow threatening tones of "Tempus Vernum", the geographical rhymes of "Orinoco Flow" - these are enough to please me, whether I understand the words or not.
Enya is my go-to singer for the times when I just want to close my eyes, lie back, and let beautiful sound just wash over me.
Favorite Singers III: Sheena Easton
Dec. 30th, 2019 06:57 pmMy first encounter with Sheena Easton came while watching the Bond flick "For Your Eyes Only"; she sang the title song. I didn't find it especially memorable, and I don't remember what prompted me to buy "The World of Sheena Easton", a greatest hits album.
What puts her on my list? Easy: her voice. Oh, my, that voice. This is, of course, highly subjective, but to my ears she has one of the most beautiful voices of any popular singer I've heard. Indeed, my biggest complaint about her is how rarely she sings songs worthy of that voice.
When I did the FB "Thirty Songs in Thirty Days" challenge, I put her up three times: for the exuberant "So Far, So Good", the lovely duet (with Kenny Rogers) "We've Got Tonight", and the anguished "I Wouldn't Beg for Water". Without sacrificing purity of tone - not far behind Patsy Cline, in that respect - she pumps powerful emotion into those songs. Mostly she sings love-cycle songs, but within that limited area she covers all the bases, and (mostly) beautifully. I will admit to disliking some of her songs - "Sugar Walls" for one, "Strut" for another - but I like most of them. In addition to the three I mentioned above, I would name the reproachful "You Could Have Been with Me", the frantic "Telefone", and the desperate justification song, "When He Shines". Those are the songs I like best, but the contrasting pair "Morning Train" and "Modern Girl" bear mention, and her cover of the classic "Jimmy Mack" is IMO better than the original by Martha and the Vandellas - and, coming from an old Motown fan like me, that's a major concession.
Oh, that voice...
What puts her on my list? Easy: her voice. Oh, my, that voice. This is, of course, highly subjective, but to my ears she has one of the most beautiful voices of any popular singer I've heard. Indeed, my biggest complaint about her is how rarely she sings songs worthy of that voice.
When I did the FB "Thirty Songs in Thirty Days" challenge, I put her up three times: for the exuberant "So Far, So Good", the lovely duet (with Kenny Rogers) "We've Got Tonight", and the anguished "I Wouldn't Beg for Water". Without sacrificing purity of tone - not far behind Patsy Cline, in that respect - she pumps powerful emotion into those songs. Mostly she sings love-cycle songs, but within that limited area she covers all the bases, and (mostly) beautifully. I will admit to disliking some of her songs - "Sugar Walls" for one, "Strut" for another - but I like most of them. In addition to the three I mentioned above, I would name the reproachful "You Could Have Been with Me", the frantic "Telefone", and the desperate justification song, "When He Shines". Those are the songs I like best, but the contrasting pair "Morning Train" and "Modern Girl" bear mention, and her cover of the classic "Jimmy Mack" is IMO better than the original by Martha and the Vandellas - and, coming from an old Motown fan like me, that's a major concession.
Oh, that voice...
Bruce's Train
Dec. 28th, 2019 11:39 amI was just listening to Bruce Springsteen's "Land of Hope and Dreams", and realized it's a direct rebuttal to Woody Guthrie's "This Train". Both use a train ride as a metaphor for the passage to Judgement Day, but there's a significant difference. "This Train" includes the line "Don't carry nothing but the righteous and the holy", and goes on to list those who are excluded: gamblers, smokers, "two-bit hustlers" (and also bigger fish: "wheeler dealers", "con men"). Springsteen, by contrast, sings "Yes, this train carries saints and sinners / This train carries losers and winners / This train carries whores and gamblers / This train carries lost souls".
I know which one is more Christ-like. Never forget the fate of St. Dismas.
I know which one is more Christ-like. Never forget the fate of St. Dismas.
I'm not sure when I encountered Mary Chapin Carpenter. Some years back, I put out a call for country singers I might add to my collection, and I recall that desert_vixen recommended her album "Party Doll" at that time, but I'm pretty sure I already had her "Come On Come On" by then. In any event, those are the two albums of hers that I have.
Carpenter is probably my favorite country singer, for a variety of reasons; I'll focus on three of them here.
First, her songs are quite varied in emotional tone. "The Bug" is silly, "He Thinks He'll Keep Her" serious; "Down at the Twist and Shout" is raucous, "I Am a Town" subdued; "I Take My Chances" is defiant, "Only a Dream" sorrowful. She's certainly not the only singer with this variety, but one-note singers are not rare. Some of those do what they do very well, but don't do very much; Carpenter hits a range of emotional tones, and hits them well.
Second, perhaps part of the first: there is a particular range of emotions that she evokes that appeals to me. At one end, the gentle nostalgia of "I Am a Town"; in between, the lovely reminiscence of "This Shirt"; at the other end, the certain hope of "Almost Home". I see these as lying on a single spectrum, and they lift my heart.
Finally, she has a gift for lyrics. Some extracts that I particularly like:
From "I Take My Chances", this hubristic declaration:
"Some people say that you shouldn't tempt Fate, and for them I cannot disagree
But I never learned nothin' by playin' it safe; I say Fate should not tempt me!"
From "Stones in the Road" (like me, she was born in 1958):
"When I was ten, my father held me / On his shoulders above the crowd
To see a train all draped in mourning / Pass slowly through our town
The widow knelt with all her children / At the sacred burial ground
The TV glowed, that long hot summer / With all the cities burning down"
And from the oddly triumphant end of "He Thinks He'll Keep Her" ("she" is a recent divorcee):
"For fifteen years she had a job / And not one raise in pay.
Now she's in the typing pool at / Minimum wage!"
[NB: The version of "I Take My Chances" on "Party Doll" differs from that on "Come On Come On"; I can understand why she made the change, but I think it weakens the song.]
Carpenter is probably my favorite country singer, for a variety of reasons; I'll focus on three of them here.
First, her songs are quite varied in emotional tone. "The Bug" is silly, "He Thinks He'll Keep Her" serious; "Down at the Twist and Shout" is raucous, "I Am a Town" subdued; "I Take My Chances" is defiant, "Only a Dream" sorrowful. She's certainly not the only singer with this variety, but one-note singers are not rare. Some of those do what they do very well, but don't do very much; Carpenter hits a range of emotional tones, and hits them well.
Second, perhaps part of the first: there is a particular range of emotions that she evokes that appeals to me. At one end, the gentle nostalgia of "I Am a Town"; in between, the lovely reminiscence of "This Shirt"; at the other end, the certain hope of "Almost Home". I see these as lying on a single spectrum, and they lift my heart.
Finally, she has a gift for lyrics. Some extracts that I particularly like:
From "I Take My Chances", this hubristic declaration:
"Some people say that you shouldn't tempt Fate, and for them I cannot disagree
But I never learned nothin' by playin' it safe; I say Fate should not tempt me!"
From "Stones in the Road" (like me, she was born in 1958):
"When I was ten, my father held me / On his shoulders above the crowd
To see a train all draped in mourning / Pass slowly through our town
The widow knelt with all her children / At the sacred burial ground
The TV glowed, that long hot summer / With all the cities burning down"
And from the oddly triumphant end of "He Thinks He'll Keep Her" ("she" is a recent divorcee):
"For fifteen years she had a job / And not one raise in pay.
Now she's in the typing pool at / Minimum wage!"
[NB: The version of "I Take My Chances" on "Party Doll" differs from that on "Come On Come On"; I can understand why she made the change, but I think it weakens the song.]
Favorite Singers I: Sara Bareilles
Dec. 26th, 2019 06:37 pmA while back, I mentioned a number of singers and groups that I count as favorites. I intend this to be the first of a series of posts discussing why they hold that rank with me.
I first encountered Sara Bareilles when James Nicoll posted a link to the video of her "Gonna Get Over You". The song seemed to be a fairly standard love-cycle piece, but the video, especially the ending, was entertaining. A while later, he linked to the video of "Brave", and that was what hooked me. Soon after, I bought "The Blessed Unrest", which includes "Brave", and was quite taken with its contents. Later, I added "Kaleidoscope Heart" and "What's Inside: Songs from Waitress".
A fair fraction of her work consists of love-cycle songs, and are not, to my mind, exceptional - although I'm very fond of the proposal song, "I Choose You". Apart from these, though, she shows good thematic range. "Brave" is a song of encouragement, and a very good one. "Cassiopeia" cleverly casts the story of a supernova in that constellation as a love story. "Chasing the Sun" is set "in a cemetery in the center of Queens" ("My floor is someone's roof...") and carries a strong "life is to be lived" message. Just the titles of other songs from "The Blessed Unrest" point at her variety: "Hercules", "Manhattan", "Satellite Call", "Eden", "Islands"...
Bareilles has a good voice, the ability to laugh at herself, and a wide-ranging curiosity which produces clever and thought-provoking lyrics. I've mentioned before that I group Janis Ian, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and Phoebe Snow together, as early-70s singers whose songs often are meatier than the usual run. Except for the timing, Sara Bareilles fits well with them.
I first encountered Sara Bareilles when James Nicoll posted a link to the video of her "Gonna Get Over You". The song seemed to be a fairly standard love-cycle piece, but the video, especially the ending, was entertaining. A while later, he linked to the video of "Brave", and that was what hooked me. Soon after, I bought "The Blessed Unrest", which includes "Brave", and was quite taken with its contents. Later, I added "Kaleidoscope Heart" and "What's Inside: Songs from Waitress".
A fair fraction of her work consists of love-cycle songs, and are not, to my mind, exceptional - although I'm very fond of the proposal song, "I Choose You". Apart from these, though, she shows good thematic range. "Brave" is a song of encouragement, and a very good one. "Cassiopeia" cleverly casts the story of a supernova in that constellation as a love story. "Chasing the Sun" is set "in a cemetery in the center of Queens" ("My floor is someone's roof...") and carries a strong "life is to be lived" message. Just the titles of other songs from "The Blessed Unrest" point at her variety: "Hercules", "Manhattan", "Satellite Call", "Eden", "Islands"...
Bareilles has a good voice, the ability to laugh at herself, and a wide-ranging curiosity which produces clever and thought-provoking lyrics. I've mentioned before that I group Janis Ian, Judy Collins, Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, and Phoebe Snow together, as early-70s singers whose songs often are meatier than the usual run. Except for the timing, Sara Bareilles fits well with them.
It's a Wonderful Time
Dec. 6th, 2019 04:34 amI'm sitting here listening to Dan Fogelberg's "Only the Heart May Know". The song is a duet, but his partner is not identified on the album. It took me only a few seconds of googling to identify her as Emmylou Harris.
It is, in many ways, a wonderful age to live in.
It is, in many ways, a wonderful age to live in.
There was a discussion today on the American Dialect Society mailing list on the history of the phrase "different drum". Linda Ronstadt's song of that name came up, and that got me to thinking about her. I have four of her albums, and one of them has "Different Drum" and "Long Long Time"; this amuses me, because they could easily be interpreted as two viewpoints of the same unrequited love - the first by the object of the other's affection, the second by the would-be lover.
That, in turn, got me to thinking about favorite singers. I've talked before about the difference between a partial order and a total order, and how many rankings are simplified by regarding them as partial orders rather than total orders. I have more than one favorite singer; each of them is the best at the particular thing(s) that they do, and trying to put one above the other is fruitless and frankly unnecessary.
Most of my favorite singers happen to be women.
Here are some of them: Sara Bareilles. Mary Chapin Carpenter. Sheena Easton. Enya. Heart. Janis Ian. Linda Ronstadt. Roxette. Dusty Springfield.
Maybe sometime I'll do some posts about what I like about each of them.
That, in turn, got me to thinking about favorite singers. I've talked before about the difference between a partial order and a total order, and how many rankings are simplified by regarding them as partial orders rather than total orders. I have more than one favorite singer; each of them is the best at the particular thing(s) that they do, and trying to put one above the other is fruitless and frankly unnecessary.
Most of my favorite singers happen to be women.
Here are some of them: Sara Bareilles. Mary Chapin Carpenter. Sheena Easton. Enya. Heart. Janis Ian. Linda Ronstadt. Roxette. Dusty Springfield.
Maybe sometime I'll do some posts about what I like about each of them.
Mash! Mash!
Nov. 1st, 2019 08:56 pmMy Inner Minstrel's penchant for creating mash-ups of different singers has gone too far this time.
I'm currently being earwormed by a mash-up of "Feed the Birds" (a cheery song from the Andrews/Van Dyke "Mary Poppins") with "Patches" (a Bobby Vinton weeper about an ill-fated love affair, which ended in the suicide of one and a declaration of intent to suicide by the other).
This is no good. This is beyond the pale. IM, *SHUT UP*!
I'm currently being earwormed by a mash-up of "Feed the Birds" (a cheery song from the Andrews/Van Dyke "Mary Poppins") with "Patches" (a Bobby Vinton weeper about an ill-fated love affair, which ended in the suicide of one and a declaration of intent to suicide by the other).
This is no good. This is beyond the pale. IM, *SHUT UP*!
There is now a Klingon version of "Never Gonna Give You Up".
Back in the mid-70s, I took a couple of linguistics classes from Marc Okrand, the man who later developed the Klingon language - Intro to Linguistics, and a survey course on California NA languages. I remember him as being a nice guy.
Back in the mid-70s, I took a couple of linguistics classes from Marc Okrand, the man who later developed the Klingon language - Intro to Linguistics, and a survey course on California NA languages. I remember him as being a nice guy.
It's been a couple of months since my last Amazon raid. I'd been holding off, because I'd bought so many books lately that I wanted to catch up as much as possible. I am now close enough, so...
E-books: Genevieve Cogman, _The Masked City_ (Invisible Library); Ben Aaronovich, _Foxglove Summer_ (Peter Grant); Myke Cole, _Legion vs Phalanx_ (military history); O. Westin, _Micro Science Fiction_ (a compilation of their delightful short-short Twitter fiction); Tim Powers, _Alternate Routes_ (I've fallen behind on Powers, and I'm trying to catch up); Dennis Taylor, _We Are Legion (We Are Bob)_.
Dead tree: Bill Willingham, _Werewolves of the Heartland_ (more Fables); George R. Stewart, _Storm_ (I talked about this one a while back); Robert Merton, _On the Shoulders of Giants_ (history of science, I think); the fourth volume of _Saga_; R. A. Lafferty, _Okla Hannali_ (his one historical novel)
Music: Jackson Browne, "Hold On"; Dan Fogelberg, "The Innocent Age"
:rubs hands:
E-books: Genevieve Cogman, _The Masked City_ (Invisible Library); Ben Aaronovich, _Foxglove Summer_ (Peter Grant); Myke Cole, _Legion vs Phalanx_ (military history); O. Westin, _Micro Science Fiction_ (a compilation of their delightful short-short Twitter fiction); Tim Powers, _Alternate Routes_ (I've fallen behind on Powers, and I'm trying to catch up); Dennis Taylor, _We Are Legion (We Are Bob)_.
Dead tree: Bill Willingham, _Werewolves of the Heartland_ (more Fables); George R. Stewart, _Storm_ (I talked about this one a while back); Robert Merton, _On the Shoulders of Giants_ (history of science, I think); the fourth volume of _Saga_; R. A. Lafferty, _Okla Hannali_ (his one historical novel)
Music: Jackson Browne, "Hold On"; Dan Fogelberg, "The Innocent Age"
:rubs hands:
Nostalgia Rebuke
Sep. 24th, 2019 03:44 pmFor a long time, I wanted a copy of Neil Diamond's first album, but I couldn't find the CD anywhere. It turns out that it was never released on CD. However, recently the contents of his first two albums were released on a single CD, "The Bang Years", which I now have and am listening to.
Just a quick note: one of the songs is "Red Red Wine", a song about a guy who, having broken up with his lady friend, has fallen into the bottle. Not particularly interesting, except for the fact that he pronounces "wine" as "whine", with the full voiceless approximant (the one that some people use to distinguish, e.g., "whither" from "wither").
I can see no explanation for this except, maybe, overcorrection. (That's the same phenomenon that produces "Missourah", in an overreaction to "tobaccy" and such.) It just sounds weird.
Just a quick note: one of the songs is "Red Red Wine", a song about a guy who, having broken up with his lady friend, has fallen into the bottle. Not particularly interesting, except for the fact that he pronounces "wine" as "whine", with the full voiceless approximant (the one that some people use to distinguish, e.g., "whither" from "wither").
I can see no explanation for this except, maybe, overcorrection. (That's the same phenomenon that produces "Missourah", in an overreaction to "tobaccy" and such.) It just sounds weird.
There are two songs on my hard drive titled "Colour My World". Both of them are love songs, though referring to different stages of the cycle, and I like both of them.
Both of them use British spelling. This is understandable in the case of Petula Clark, given that she's British. But why the hell did *Chicago* use that spelling?
Both of them use British spelling. This is understandable in the case of Petula Clark, given that she's British. But why the hell did *Chicago* use that spelling?
Unusual Songs, #1: "The Piper"
Aug. 29th, 2019 07:39 pmThe Piper is one of Abba's most unusual songs. Poking around, I see many interpretations of it, tying it to the Pied Piper of Hamelin, to the Antichrist, to fascistic leaders, and no one seems to see that it's obviously about the Great God Pan.
"He gave them a dream
He seduced everybody in the land
The fire in his eyes
And the fear was a weapon in his hand."
I mean, come on! Where did you think the word "panic" came from?
(A lot of the song, especially the chorus, is rather twee, but I like that one verse.)
"He gave them a dream
He seduced everybody in the land
The fire in his eyes
And the fear was a weapon in his hand."
I mean, come on! Where did you think the word "panic" came from?
(A lot of the song, especially the chorus, is rather twee, but I like that one verse.)
