Random Shuffle – Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Pat Carrell, & Sam More with Conway Twitty

Originally written on August 31, 2006.

“Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” – Lucinda Williams
From Car Wheels on a Gravel Road

Lucinda has a voice that is country, earthy, sad, and beautiful all at the same time. She writes lonely songs about country roads, failed love, and all the pain and hurt that make up a life. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, the album, is about as perfect as an album can be. There simply isn’t a bad song on it.

The song is just exactly the kind of song I love. It has jangly guitars, a nice little rhythm section to it, it is country without being too country, it rocks without really being rock, and it has a great sing-along little chorus.

If it was socially acceptable, if my wife wouldn’t kill me, and my God wouldn’t damn me, I’d ask Lucinda Williams to be my mistress and ask her to sing this song to me.

“Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings” – Lucinda Williams
From 05/16/03

Originally this is off of Lucinda’s World Without Tears album, an album I have never found myself getting into all that much. There are some good songs there for sure, but overall it never really catches me, not like Car Wheels anyway.

Upon listening to this live version I may have to reconsider the whole album again. The bootleg itself is exceptionally good, which is tremendous considering the other Lucinda boots I own sound like crap. A terrible thing, in my opinion, to get a bootleg of an awesome live artist only to be let down by the sound quality.

This is the show closer of that boot, and I get a couple of minutes worth of crowd noise before, presumably, she comes out for the encore. An interesting thing that comes from listening to a bootleg that is still on the computer in a random order. You get every note and every pause.

“May This Be Love” – Emmylou Harris
From Wrecking Ball.

Emmylou Harris has a gorgeous, moving voice, but to be honest many of her songs leave me with little impression. This is doubly strange when I consider that she does convey a great deal of emotion in her songs. They just don’t tend to stick with me.

This is from her second album, I believe, with producer Daniel Lanois. There are lots of his trademark ethereal sounds throughout, but to be honest, once again, most of the album doesn’t leave a mark.

Take this song for instance, it is four minutes of guitar fuzz and Emmylou singing what must surely be a great, tragic song, but while listening I keep wondering when it will end. It is moving in its own little way, and perhaps if I had the headphones plugged in and a starry sky to look upon, I would be moved. But as is, it seems nice, but it is nothing I’ll remember.

“Single Girl” – Pat Carrell
From Songcatcher

Songcatcher, the movie always seemed like a way to cash in on the whole O Brother, Where Art Thou? buzz. The soundtrack carries several lovely songs and a number of irritatingly country songs.

“Single Girl” is a funny, very country little ditty that reminds me of both my grandma and a lady who tells stories on the local radio station on Saturday mornings. At just over a minute it isn’t much more than a snippet, but one that sticks with me.

“Rainy Night in Georgia” – Sam Moore and Conway Twitty
From Rhythm, Country and Blues

This is a great old, sad, soul song made famous by Book Benton. Here it is covered by Sam Moore of Sam and Dave fame and country legend Conway Twitty. It is from an album that coupled country singers with their soul-singing counterparts. Mostly, it stinks but this and a version of “Ain’t It Funny How Time Slips Away” by Lyle Lovett and Al Green make the album worth any money you might spend.

Sam and Conway are obviously having a lot of fun singing this old song, and they even throw a little banter midway through that sounds natural and fun.

Random Shuffle: Louis Armstrong, Bruce Hornsby, The Libertines, The Rolling Stones, The Blues Brothers

Originally posted on August 26, 2006.

“Kiss to Build a Dream On” – Louis Armstrong
From Sleepless in Seattle

I periodically think of myself as a great jazz lover. In fits and spurts, I try to be. Back about ten years or so I was with a friend at his friend’s house and the subject went naturally to music. Well, it went naturally there because I was checking out his CD collection. The discussion turned to jazz and I mentioned I liked Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Sarah Vaughan. Condescending with a whisper he said, “Oh so you like vocal jazz?”

I had never thought about it like that. Isn’t jazz jazz? I had just begun to listen to the likes of Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and by that, I mean I had heard talk about their frenetic awesomeness amongst deadheads. I got the knock of vocal jazz not being real jazz and split. I have since dug what this guy would dub real jazz, but it is a moderated digging. I whip out all that cosmic jazz once in a while, but I can’t take in more than smaller doses.

Louis Armstrong started in the real jazz category, being a trailblazing blower, but in the latter days became the unique voice singing such family hits as “Wonderful World” and “Hello Dolly.” This song falls straight in that camp, being off of the soundtrack to Sleepless in Seattle of all things. It’s a darn fine song though, and one I stuck on my wedding CD.

Most days I’ll take this version of jazz over the real stuff, hands down.

“Rainbow’s Cadillac” – Bruce Hornsby
From 11/06/98

There is a video on YouTube, but the embed has been disabled, you can watch it by clicking here.

I didn’t really get into bootleg trading until just after I graduated college. I had moved to Abilene, TX to start graduate school – start over really, as I didn’t know a soul. Actually I never really got to know many people and left after a semester. But while I was there my refuge was bootlegging.

During this time Bruce Hornsby played a long run at Yoshi’s in Oakland California to promote his album, Spirit Trail. The tour was highlighted by guitar work from Steve Kimock, and a couple of guest spots from Phil Lesh and Bob Weir. This was one of the few performances Lesh had given since Jerry Garcia’s death a few years back and really marked his return to music.

This run came out on tape quickly and with a fantastic sound quality. In those days we were still using analog tapes and the sound quality often degenerated quickly through each generation of recording (unlike CDs where you can get an exact copy of the music, with analog the quality of a recording digressed every time you recorded it). This was an amazing thing to me to have so much high-quality music so quickly after it had been performed.

Now that I’ve moved to the CD world and almost everything is high quality, such recordings are no longer rare. In fact, I’ve only got a couple of these shows on CD and the tapes have long since been given away. But it still brings fond memories. Some of the only ones from that small chunk of time I spent in Texas.

It’s a great performance too. “Rainbow’s Cadillac” is one of Bruce’s finest songs, and an excellent jamming song done live. He pretty much nails the sucker. The sound is great and there is an energy at these shows that this was a new Bruce. Great stuff folks.

“Can’t Stand Me Now” – Libertines
From the Libertines

Peter Doherty, lead singer of the Libertines, and now Babyshambles, is a pretty danged good musician/songwriter but has so thoroughly screwed up his life that it’s all kinds of sad. We don’t hear much about him on this side of the ocean, but in England, he’s all sorts of tabloid fodder, what with the heroin addiction, the multiple arrests, and his off-and-on relationship with Kate Moss.

The Libertines were an excellent British, indie rock outfit, that broke up in, well, tabloid fodder. This is a really great upbeat, heavy drum, pop song. Maybe that’s not very indie rock of them, but a good pop song is a good pop song. And 9 times out of 10 I’ll take a good pop song over a great classical, jazz, or obscure rock song.

“Dead Flowers” – The Rolling Stones
From Sticky Fingers

The first time I ever heard this song was through a live performance by Townes Van Zandt over the closing credits of The Big Lebowski. I hunted the song down and eventually got the Rolling Stones album. Yeah, I know I’m a little behind on the Stones, but I’m slowly catching up with them.

Great freaking song. What more can be said? One of my all-time favorites. It’s a favorite daydream to learn to play this song (when I learn to play an instrument) and please the crowd (for of course I’ll make it big as a musician) when I whip it out.

“Turn On Your Lovelight” – Blues Brothers
From Blues Brothers 2000

This is an old blues number, but I know it mainly through the Grateful Dead. Pig Pen used to do these half-hour rave-ups to it. He’d rap along about women and drinking and whatever while the Dead freaking took off behind him. If I could go back in time I’d go back to 1968-69 San Francisco and groove to Pig taking off on this song. The tapes simply can’t do him justice.

The Blues Brothers don’t do the song justice. Man I dig the Brothers, and the original movie is a classic. The sequel had some good moments but sorely missed John Belushi. I miss Pig Pen on this song. It’s got all kinds of cool bluesmen playing along, but it ain’t got no soul.

RIP Ron “Pig Pen” McKernan

Random Shuffle: (08/08/06) – Neil Young, Wilco, George Jones, U2, & The Grateful Dead

“Rockin in the Free World” – Neil Young
From Freedom

The first time I ever heard this song was on an MTV awards show – I assume the VMAs, but I really don’t remember. It was an amazing performance with Pearl Jam as the backup band. It was really quite incredible watching the grandfather of grunge jamming like it was the rapture along with up-and-comers Pearl Jam (this was the early 90s so PJ was still fairly young as a band). It was, and is, one of my favorite all-time live television performances (Editor’s Note: You can watch that performance here.)

Eddie Vedder sang the verse about the addict mother putting her kid away to get a hit. The kid, as the song says will “never go to school/never get to fall in love/never get to be cool.” At the time I felt those lyrics were staunchly pro-abortion perhaps because the rest of the lyrics have a liberal tint and Eddie is quite outspoken on his pro-choice views. Over time I have come to feel that it isn’t as pro-abortion as it is a condemnation of a country that can allow its poor and downtrodden to live in such a way that they’d abandon their children.

This is not in any way meant as a means to debate the abortion issue. Believe me, I never intend to get political here. It’s just when I hear this song I always think of that performance and Eddie singing those lyrics so passionately.

This is a less fiery, acoustic version. I’ve heard Mr. Young perform this song acoustically much more than electric, which seems strange to me since it works so much better wired up.

Neil gives it his best shot, and the audience obviously digs it, out-blasting Neil on the final chorus.

“Pot Kettle Black” – Wilco
From Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Have I mentioned I completely adore this entire album? For ages and ages, I had heard about the album and the whole back story about their record label dropping the band because YHF wasn’t commercial enough.

Ultimately I didn’t actually listen to the album until several years later – last year to be precise. I got a copy of the album and listened to it pretty extensively while on a train through the north of France. Turns out YHF is the perfect album to listen to while on a train in France. Watching the picturesque landscape roll by as Jeff Tweedy and company gently rock is just about as perfect as it gets.

This is a great mid-tempo number that conjures up images of rolling hills, tiny towns with their high church towers, and lots of gorgeous French trees.

“White Lightning” – George Jones
From Super Hits

After listening to countless youngsters with their super-loud car stereos roll by, an old roommate, and good friend proclaimed that he too was going to buy a souped-up stereo, but instead of whatever hip-hop record that was currently a hit, he was going to play some George Jones. He never did buy that stereo, but the idea always brings a smile to my lips.

I know this ode to bootleg liquor because of an East Tennessee band Robinella and the CC String Band. They have a great version on their first album. Robinella’s beautiful, country-changed voice is much more appealing than old Georges, and I love George Jones. Maybe it is George’s rather embarrassing drunkenness over the past few years that makes me prefer this song sung by another. It’s kind of like listening to “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton, knowing he doesn’t play the song anymore since he’s drug-free.

Ah, it’s a good song, and George does a good job of making it fun and silly. But a smooth female voice will always win with me.

“New Year’s Day” – U2
From War

Does Epic Rock get better than this? From the thundering bass to the Edge’s screaming guitars to the haunting, mysteriously political lyrics this song single-handedly solidifies U2 as a great rock band, never mind their dozen or so other great songs. It also makes me forgive them for their excesses and rather suckiness of the last several albums.

One New Year’s Eve my brother swore up and down that VH1 would surely play this song as the clock struck 12. They didn’t, but we sat staring at the TV hoping to hear the song and prove him right. The clock kept ticking and we wondered if they had played it an hour earlier for Eastern time, or would play it later for Mountain and Pacific. I’ll never forget the awkwardness of not only wanting to hear a great song but to prove my brother right. He was so sure they would play it that I felt bad for him when they didn’t.

Funny how songs evoke such memories.

“Brown Eyed Woman” – Grateful Dead
From Dicks Picks 7

During my months in Abilene, TX a liquor store used this song in the background for their commercials on David Gans’ Grateful Dead Hour.

One of Robert Hunter’s great western lyrics. He has this amazing ability to represent the mythos of the old west, while still hitting on contemporary themes. This is a pretty straight-up live version, which is to say it’s rather great.

Random Shuffle: July 25, 2006 – Beat Farmers, Pearl Jam, Wilco, Bruce Hornsby & Jim Croce

“Happy Boy” – Beat Farmers
From Tales from the New West

A local radio station plays this song every Friday at 5 in the PM. It’s a great, zany way to begin the weekend. It is a short little ditty with odd little lyrics (about putting his dead dog in a drawer and forgetting about him). But it is full of bouncy beats and a chorus that goes something like “hubba hubba hubba”. For Friday rush hour traffic it is just about perfect.

There was a radio station in Oklahoma that used to play “Land of a 1,000 Dances” every Friday morning to get people prepared for the weekend. It seems strange that radio stations play the same song every week. You’d think we’d all get tired of it. Yet there is something sort of comforting about that routine. It is a full reminder that the weekend is here.

Of course, radio stations have been playing the same songs a lot more often than once a week for years now…

“Dissident” – Pearl Jam
From VS

Right around the time I bought Pearl Jam’s second album, I read an article that talked about listening to one album over and over for days and weeks. Something struck me about that concept and I began listening to VS over and over again. I both took great pleasure in listening to the album and fulfilled some secret yearning to love a piece of music so much that I couldn’t listen to anything else.

Listening to the song, and album, now I’m not sure why I couldn’t give it up. My friend Eric Berlin recently posted his top 5 favorite bands of all time and asked for everyone to release their own lists. It’s a difficult thing to do. Bands like Pearl Jam would have once topped that list. For a time in my life, I loved PJ immensely. But over the years I found other bands and let Pearl Jam slip into the background. Bands that I love right now like Wilco may, in ten years, slip away as well. So, how do you choose your all-time favorites?

“(Was I) In Your Dreams” – Wilco
From Being There

My wife put this song on the only mix tape she ever made me. It was long before we were married or even dating. It was while she was living in Canada – having a miserable time in the snow – and we had become good friends with a hint of romance simmering behind the scenes.

With every song, she included an appropriate lyric and commented on why she included it in the tape. For this song, she had to not so subtly remind me that she just liked the song and that she didn’t expect me to be dreaming of her. It was very typical of her strategy at the time to give me something that hinted at something more, but then immediately take it away.

It remains one of my least favorite Wilco tunes.

“The Way It Is” – Bruce Hornsby
From 10/09/97

Bruce Hornsby plays this song for nearly every concert he performs. Having been written nearly 20 years ago, that adds up to thousands of performances. You’d think he’d get tired of the song. Truth is, Bruce is such a cool guy he continues to play the song because he knows his fans love it. He understands that at each performance a percentage of the folks paying to see him are people who only know his hits. To make them, happy, and for them to get their money’s worth he always plays several of his big hits, and “The Way it Is” is the biggest.

To true fans eternal joy, and to not get too bored with the songs, he often changes the arrangement. I’ve heard it done slow, fast, and with weird rhythms. That and Bruce’s insatiable desire to improvise create a thousand different versions of the song for him to play.

This performance was actually with the Roanoke Symphony. For the most part, you wouldn’t know it on this song because Bruce rocks it out pretty much. He stretches it out for 8 minutes and keeps it completely interesting.

“Time in a Bottle” – Jim Croce
From Classic Hits

Another song that stirs the old memory cords. My first true love and I were really better friends than lovers. We came to know each other in what I’ll call pivotal moments in our lives. We were both teenagers and full of angst and lust and wonderment over what would happen to us in the future.

We were the best of friends for a long time until we decided to become more. Problem was we lived some hundred miles apart and finding the time for the physical ties that belong with something more was difficult. Truth being told I had also very limited experience with the somethings more and was too shy to do much in that regard. We did spend a great deal of time writing letters (was in the time before e-mail) and chatting on the phone. Letters involved much drawing of hearts in the margins and the quoting of poetry and lyrics.

My dear once wrote the lyrics to “Time in a Bottle” for me in the margins and I treasured them dearly.

During the summer past my senior year I broke up with the young lass. In a few weeks I was headed to college many a mile away and I knew our love would not see us through. Intending to make the transition easier I ended our short-lived fling. This was during a week of summer camp and for the talent competition she sang this song to me. It was a beautiful, lovely, weepy thing, and my last true memory of the girl. A treasure for a life time.

Random Shuffle – July 17, 2006: Digital Underground, Journey, Coldplay, Guns N Roses, & Hart-Rouge

Originally written on July 18, 2006.

“Humpty Dance” – Digital Underground
from Sex Packets

My first thought when I listen to this 80s classic is about how dirty it is. It’s really quite filthy. I’m surprised my mother allowed me to listen to it. Of course, as a child, which I was when this was a hit, I didn’t grasp the blatant innuendo splattered throughout. I just thought it was a funny song with a silly character in a mask.

Reading the lyrics I’m kind of amazed this became a hit and didn’t hit all the censors. If memory serves this was right around the 2 Live Crew law suits – maybe that’s it, nobody bothered with a guy talking about tickling ladies’ rears with his nose when the Crew was being way more explicit. Or maybe the song is so funny nobody minded the crassness.

Now I can’t help but sing along and blush at the filthiness.

“Faithfully” – Journey
from Greatest Hits (You didn’t think I owned real Journey albums, did you?)

File this under embarrassingly sappy songs that I love. My friend Mullins, you see, graduated from Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey Clown College. That’s right, there is a college for clowns, and it is amazingly difficult to get into. Mullins went, graduated, and even though never landed a job in the circus is a clown through and through.

There is a lyric in this song that goes something like this:

Circus life
Under the big top world
We all need the clowns
To make us smile

Whatever cheesy parts reside deep in my guts, they get all gooshy when I hear those lines. I can remember driving north of Birmingham, Alabama headed back to college in Montgomery, and tearing up over those lines, missing my pal who had recently taken off to Tennessee. Funny how the mushy parts make us all twirly inside, even though it’s nothing but cheese.

“I Used To Love Her” – Guns N Roses
from G N’ R Lies

A great rock n roller about murder. My friend Juliana (who happens to be married to the clown Mullins) says that all great country artists have to write a song about killing someone. Well, Guns N Roses area bout as far as you can get from country, but this is a great murdering song.

It is a great song to sing loud, and then get evil glares from those who don’t know the song. It’s also a great song to irritate my wife with, and she knows the darn song.

“Yellow” – Coldplay
from Parachutes

For the longest time, I thought this was a Pearl Jam song and it caused my renewed interest in the band. It has since become the only Coldplay song I enjoy. The rest of their songs are too whiney and too soft to be rockers. I always feel like they are playing soft as a tease and then they are gonna hit it with some awesome rock, only to be left with a lot of softness.

I really dig the relaxing summertime vibe of this song. It makes me want to roll out my blanket and lay out under the stars.

“Dieu a Nos Cotes” (With God On Our Side) Hart–Rouge
from A Nod To Bob

Reading reviews of this Bob Dylan tribute album I find that this song is almost universally despised. I rather adore it. It’s a lilting, beautiful thing. Though most reviewers don’t really say why they don’t like it, that it is in French seems to be the problem stewing behind the bad-mouthing. Perhaps this is due to those not understanding the language (and after all, it is the language of Dylan that most love).

The song itself is an anti-war rant that touches on all the major wars of the US up until the cold war. I suspect some detractors rather despise the fact that Dylan is speaking out so directly against war and that this new version may be using his words as a means to rail against the current war in Iraq (and in French no less, how dare those spineless bastards speak out against war, don’t they know we saved their asses in both World Wars?. Never mind that the band is French-Canadian.)

I speak a little French, but I can’t really understand what they’re saying. Looking at comparison lyrics it seems like the translation is pretty literal, but who knows they may have thrown in an “American is a hate-filled war-mongering country” and I might have not noticed. But the thing that is interesting is that none of the reviews mentioned any change in Dylan’s lyrics, but seem to hate it being translated into French. I would think fans would enjoy the fact that other languages are taking note.

Me? I love the song. I’m not a big fan of the English version, honestly, but it is such a soft lilting thing in the French.

Random Shuffle (06/10/06) – Sarah McLaughlin, The Lemonheads, The Black Crowes, Prince & Nico

Originally posted on July 11, 2006.

“Building a Mystery” – Sarah McLaughlin
From Pure Moods – Celestial Celebration

I’ve never been much of a Sarah McLaughlin fan. I like her whisper of a voice but there is something about her songs that just don’t move me in anyway. This particular song I like okay, mainly because it brings up a fairly specific time frame (college years) that I enjoy getting nostalgic about.

This particular version is a rather scorching live version (sorry I couldn’t find the clip on YouTube). Sarah really gets into it (she even lets loose with an F-bomb) and the band behind her nails the groove. It is off of one of those new agey Pure Moods disks that my wife got from the library. Most of the album was way too ‘new jazz’ for my tastes, but there are a few good numbers that go well with a nice mix tape to get the wife in the mood.

“Frank Mills” – Lemonheads
From It’s a Shame About Ray

Speaking of Nostalgia, this Lemonheads brings me back to my late high school years like a bullet. On the liner notes of this album were all the lyrics to the songs, but they were jumbled up like. So you might get one line from song 1 then it would go to another line from song 2. I spent several hours one night going through each song and matching up the lyrics.

Yes, I was once a lyrics freak. I used to keep a notebook of my favorite lyrics. Of course, I used to also consider myself a poet and kept a notebook full of those awful things.

Speaking of lyrics I once tried to write out the lyrics to Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” and got them all wrong. I was way too young to understand the overstated sexual overtones of the song and thought it was a nice ode to vegetables and picnicking. Hilarious.

This is, of course, a cover of a song from Hair. Evan Dando pretty much nails it with his soft-man voice and an acoustic guitar. He hits the hippie naivety of the song without an ounce of irony. Much better in fact than the more popular cover of “Mrs Robinson” he also sings on the same album.

“She Talks to Angels” – The Black Crowes
From Shake Your Money Maker

Throw this one into my pile of all-time favorite songs. Most of the Black Crowe “rockers” I could live without, but there is something about their organ-laced ballads that melt my kidneys.

This one with its tale of a misguided lass moves me in ways I can’t speak of around children.

I saw the Crowes at the end of a very long festival concert, and I must admit I didn’t much care for them. But again it was at the end of the night after hearing something like 8 hours of music. This was also Atlanta in the middle of summer so my skin was burnt to a crisp. What really stands out to me is the gyrating couple standing near us. The man was behind doing his thing while the lady was reaching around back and….oh the kiddies again, um never mind.

“7” Prince
From The Hits

This song always reminds me of my cousin Clifton. I have a very specific memory of him playing this song and loving it right before we left for some family get-together.

Prince always reminds me of working on an EPA Superfund project. Me and my boss used to crank up the hits collection and rock out. She was a cool boss. But the secretary there was a total wash-out be-ach. She complained once because I played “Sexy MF” and she was offended by the cursing. The funny thing was she used to get explicit with her own sexual history. Pissed me off. I can’t have Prince get funky, but she can tell me, in detail, about her own funkiness?!

Speaking of that lady, first day on the job she had a 3.5-inch floppy disk turned backward trying to stick it into the computer. I watched her try it three or four times before she asked for help. Hilari-freaking-ous.

“These Days” – Nico
From The Royal Tenenbaums Soundtrack

I usually make a face when someone mentions Nico simply because I have old tendencies towards the Velvet Underground and there was a whole history with Nico and the Velvets. Rumor has it Andy Warhol made the Velvets have Nico sing a few numbers in order for him to fund the band.

Turns out Nico has a really pretty voice and this song is beautiful. She has a very nasally kind of delivery but it matches perfectly with the acoustics and the longing lyrics. It also fits perfectly into the film, something Wes Anderson has a knack for.

Random Shuffle (06/27/06) – Elvis Costello, Lyle Lovett, The Rolling Stones, Ben Folds & Bob Dylan

“Allison” – Elvis Costello
From My Aim is True

I’ve never really got Elvis Costello. Most of his songs don’t really translate well into my brain waves. I don’t really have anything against him, I don’t dislike his songs, but I don’t find a whole lot in them to really like either. Which is weird to me, because I rather dig his nerdy schtick and I know folks who totally dig him, and those folks are folks I can generally groove with. I do, however, dig his wife, Diana Krall.

This is one of the few songs I really, truly dig. It’s got that romantic groove going and the close-out line “my aim is true” that cuts deep.

“What’d I Say” – Lyle Lovett
From Smile

Now Lyle Lovett is an artist I can fully and wholly dig. He’s a darn fine musician, a wonderful songwriter, and seemingly an all-around good guy – or at least a wry, funny one.

This is from an album full of songs he has performed for various movies. Lyle is quite a movie man, having performed songs for all kinds of films, and even acted in a number of Robert Altman flicks. None of the songs here are original, it is a bunch of covers, generally really slow covers – which means it’s an album I’m not all that fond of – with a few exceptions, notably this Ray Charles cover.

No doubt this is a great song, and Lyle gives it his best go, but it is a song I’ve long since grown tired of; which is no fault of its own. It’s just one of those songs I’ve heard so many times I can’t listen to it anymore.

The Lyle version is a fine rendition, but nobody beats Ray Charles, especially on the orgasmic moans toward the end. Lyle just can’t get into the sex of it.

“You Got the Silver” – The Rolling Stones
From Let It Bleed

My favorite incarnation of the Stones is the country honk version. I’m an old-school country man anyway, and the way the Stones can cut country music with a raunchy rock n roll edge slays me.

This is a slow-paced, fast song. It’s a simple love song sung plain by Keith Richards. The organ solo in the middle of this two-minute ditty nails everything a good song should. When it’s followed up by a jaunty, rollickin’ piano-based rave it’s pure joy.

“Brick” – Ben Folds Five
From Whatever and Amen

A song about abortion that never mentions it. It weighs like a ton of blocks named in the title. If you let it, it will make you see the misery and loneliness of life.

In but a few verses Ben Folds tells a story so completely, and with such heartbreak it’s hard to believe it is just a pop song. It is a song I both love and hate. I love it for its perfectness, for its ability to transcend pop and convey real, raw emotions. I hate it for the same reasons, it’s just not something easily listened to, for it is too real. How this became something of a hit is beyond me.

“I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight” – Bob Dylan
From Biograph

It’s hard to choose a favorite Dylan. There is the political spokesman, the prophet and preacher, there is the storyteller and poet, and then there is the lover, whose words penetrate the heart and soul – ok, yeah, I gotta go for the lover. His words are so heart-achingly beautiful, that it’s hard not to fall in love all over again.

This is a perfect love song. The melody is simple and sweet the lyrics are the whisper of a lover who promises nothing more than a wonderful tonight, but he doesn’t have to promise more. Tonight’s enough.

Random Shuffle (06/20/06) – Loretta Lynn, The Bangles, Phish, Ben Charest & Natalie Merchant

Originally written on June 20, 2006.

“Portland, Oregon” – Loretta Lynn with Jack White
From Van Lear Rose

Over the last several years I’ve heard a lot of buzz about Jack White and the White Stripes. They were leaders in the whole garage rock will save us trip a few years ago when a few guitar-heavy bands with singular names began to bust down the teen pop revolution from the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera.

I was certainly no fan of teen pop, but musically I was in my own world of bootlegs, folk, bluegrass, and jam bands. If I wanted garage rock to save my soul I had music from the 60’s to do it. What did I need the Vines or the Shins or Jack White for?

When White produced a highly praised album by Loretta Lynn he got my attention. I didn’t know much about Loretta Lynn except her old-school country roots, which was more than enough to get me to buy this album.

Truth be told, I flippin’ loved it. Loretta’s country charms and home-spun tales mixed perfectly with Mr. White’s loud rollicking guitars. Loretta seemed to give White a grounding while he stirred up Loretta’s dust.

This is, perhaps, the best song on the disk, a duet no less with a good story to back up the electricity.

I’ve found the truth in the White Stripes and I’ve begun to find the path again to Rock ‘n Roll.

“Manic Monday” – The Bangles
From Different Light

Somewhere in the 90’s nostalgia for everything 80’s began to come around. Halfway through that decade, it seemed all of my peers were enamored with the one we had just left. I spent the latter part of the millennium picking up every greatest hits package I could find from the “Me Decade.”

For the most part, I’ve lost patience with all the one-hit wonders and giant popsters. I think I saturated myself too intensely with the stuff. It’s kind of like on pop stations today where they play the same four songs over and over again. Even if those songs are fantastic, you get sick of hearing them. There are a lot of songs from the 80’s, but there isn’t a “hit” that I’m not sick of hearing.

That being said, the Bangles were one of the larger rock acts of the time, and this song is a nice one (though I’d still take “Walk Like an Egyptian” over this one.)

“Belleville Rendez-Vous” – Ben Charest
From The Triplets of Belleville

Ah, this is more to my liking these days. The movie, Triplets of Belleville is a lovely, stylistic, beautiful tale of a French bicyclist who teams up with some vaudeville-style singers to rescue his kidnapped grandmother. It is told with almost no dialog but engages the viewer with glorious visuals and a soundtrack to dance to.

This is the theme song, and it’s a bouncy, jazzy, dance-along affair. The kind of song used to impress young college girls and music store hipsters. This is the French version, so I can’t actually understand much of what is being sung, but I don’t care. It’s enunciated in a manner that allows me to sing along while totally destroying the words.

Watch the movie, and buy the soundtrack.

“Waste” – Phish
From Billy Breathes

I’ve never been much for Phish. For a while many claimed they were descendants of the throne of the Grateful Dead, a proclamation that garnered them as many detractors as it did fans.

I think they are astute musicians with some pretty darn fine chops, but I just can’t get into their songs. Partially it is the lyrics. Lyrically they are more Zappa-influenced than Robert Hunter. Though I’m not really a lyric guy, I want what I can understand to make some sort of sense – to be funny, poetic, or at least interesting. Phish seems to be mostly silly, and it kind of annoys me.

Billy Breathes is supposed to be their American Beauty, their masterpiece. And while it does have some killer songs, as a whole it doesn’t get a lot of spins at my house. “Waste” is a pretty mellow rocker, with some lyrics I can actually kind of dig. “Come waste your time with me” is something I can put my larynx into.

There is a nice follow-up with the lyrics, and the melody is nice and smooth. If the rest of their songs had this kind of flow, I might become a fan.

“Wayfaring Stranger” – Natalie Merchant
From House Carpenter’s Daughter

I’m an old 10,000 Maniacs fan, and followed Natalie into her first solo disk. After that I kind of lost track. I’ve dug the hits and nearly bought her folkie albums, always balking at the ever-increasing charge for a full album these days.

“Wayfaring Stranger” is absolutely one of my all-time favorite songs. Its lyrics burrow down into the depths of my insides, and its sad weepful melody knocks me out. Natalie’s accented, lisp of a voice carries with it some kind of mystery. The backing band on this live version (not actually on House Carpenter’s Daughter) plays the song in the reserved, hushed tones it deserves.

Random Shuffle – KC and the Sunshine Band, Arrested Development, John Prine, Elton John, & Donna The Buffalo

“(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty” – KC and the Sunshine Band From The Best of KC and the Sunshine Band

Truth be told, if the story comes out, I’m really not a fan of dance music. Disco, hip hop, techno, and rave music all get a collective ‘meh’ from my bones. Maybe it’s that I’m a middle-aged white boy with a Church of Christ background (where dancing is a sin) but the appeal of the dance club is completely lost on me. The loud music, the smoke, and the embarrassment of having to shake my hips in rhythm just turn me off from the whole scene. This being true, the music involved has never really done anything for me, either.

There are a few exceptions. “Shake Your Booty” is one of them. It has enough infectious pop grooves in it to make a grandma shake. It also reminds me of a Simpsons clip show where they play this song along with a montage of all the Simpsons’ nudity from previous episodes. Hilarious stuff.

The booty shake of the music isn’t enough to get me out on the dance floor mind you. If played in public, I might jiggle my buns for the laugh effect, but then I’d keep myself firmly rooted in standing-ness, or sit-down-ness and just sing along. If the mood struck me, and I was feeling particularly frisky, I might get down a little in the privacy of my own home. The problem then comes back to my non dancing background and any attempt at hip movements from this old body usually results in laughter from my wife.

“Tennessee” – Arrested Development
From 3 Years 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of…

I grew up in the 80’s. My musical sensibilities were developed in the early 90’s. I don’t like dance music. Rap and hip hop mean MC Hammer, Young MC, and Vanilla Ice to me. I came of age musically at a time when radio wasn’t dominated by hip-hop acts. This isn’t really to diss the genre of music, I just don’t get it. I see guys I work with, a good 5-10 years younger than me completely engaged with rap artists. I suspect if I had been born a few years later, I too would have at least some existence with this culture. As it is, what I know of it comes from a period of time when it was marginalized as a novelty. Hammer and Vanilla were not real artists, they were mocking the true performers. They were circus performers, acceptable to the mainstream audience at a time when they didn’t know what to do with hardcore artists.

Even so, I think Arrested Development put out some dang good music for the time. “Tennessee” along with “People Everyday” stands up to the best music in my collection. They have just as much in common with what is now termed “Americana” as they do with rap. They threw in fat beats along with a folksy, country twang.

I know I’m no longer hip. My musical universe is so outside the popular or even hip world it would make me sad if I cared. I don’t know where Arrested Development fares amongst the kids today and their Eminems and Tupacs. What I do know is “Tennessee” is a great freaking song, no matter what genre you put it in.

“Fish and Whistle” – John Prine
From Souvenirs

Souvenirs is Prine’s album full of cover songs, except that he’s covering himself. Essentially he wrote a whole bunch of beautiful songs as a young man, but as an older man, he felt he could do better. Sometimes he’s right, other times he sounds pretty much like he did when he was younger.

For “Fish and Whistle” I can’t make any proclamation, for I’ve never heard the original. But I must say this version is a treasure. Prine’s voice has aged gracefully over the years. It is never something you would call beautiful, but now the ruggedness has been toned down by something sounding suspiciously like wisdom. His lyrics have always been beyond his years, and now his voice has caught up to that.

The music here is lilting, catchy, and sunny. Honestly, I have no idea what the lyrics mean. They sound like Prine is making some kind of joke that I just don’t get, or being cynical about religion without being too hateful about it. Either way, it’s fun to sing along even if I don’t know what I’m saying.

“Candle in the Wind (acoustic version)” – Elton John
From Yellow Brick Road

Elton John completely ruined this song for me with his Princess Diana tribute. I was never mesmerized by the Princess in life or death. I didn’t wish her any harm, and she seemed to have done some good in this world, but she lived in a world I just wasn’t particularly interested in. John changing his lyrics to lionize her, however honest and heartfelt, always seemed like a cheap way to make a buck.

This version begins to sway my feelings back. It is an acoustic version with a guitar playing the piano parts. It seems more stripped down, more honest. Like it has torn the exuberant, Liberace Elton away from the honest songwriter.

It is a beautiful, heart-tearing version of a song I’m happy to relive again.

“Conscious Evolution” – Donna the Buffalo
From Live from the American Ballroom

I must say the time I caught this band live here in Bloomington it was a much better show than what I hear from this live album. Maybe it was that I was but ten feet from the band, or maybe it was the pretty girls dancing around me, but that show was so sweeeet, where this disk is a good deal of fun, but nothing mind-blowing.

This song has a good deal of verve to it. They get out there a little bit with a revolution groove that jiggles my innards. There is a curviness to the guitar that completely melts my inner sanctum.

Halfway through it morphs into “Working on a Building” an old spiritual that fits perfectly into their root’s musical background and their own spiritual lyrics.

Editor’s Note: I couldn’t find a Youtube clip of the live version of the song I’m writing about here, so I found a different one.

Random Shuffle – June 06, 2006 – Jimmy Buffett, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt & The Magnetic Fields

“Barometer Soup” – Jimmy Buffett
from Barometer Soup

I once played this song at a party where my Trinidadian friend was in attendance. Upon hearing Buffett’s white boy take on her native Caribbean beats she could only shake her head in disgust.

By no means am I a Parrotthead. Buffett gets very repetitive and annoying, yet there is something soothing, playful, and even lovely in some of his music. This is one of my favorites. It’s got a lilting rhythm accentuated by steel drums.

The lyrics are simple, hopeful, and full of not exactly wisdom but soothing in their own cheesy kind of way.

The wisdom of Buffet goes something like this:

Sail the main course
In a simple sturdy craft
Keep her well stocked
With short stories and long laughs
Go fast enough to get there
But slow enough to see
Moderation seems to be the key

Besides anyone who bases his life on sitting on the beach, drinking margaritas, and having fun can’t be all that bad.

“Running on Faith” – Eric Clapton
from Unplugged

This is a song that had more weight for me a few years back than it does now, but it still moves me down to my bones.

Tis a song filled with loneliness from someone left with nothing but the hope of love, a hope that is slowly running out. For many a year, I felt just exactly like that. And though today I have a true love, I remember the loneliness, the pain, the wondering longingly if there was someone out there just for me.

Put in the hands of Eric Clapton and an acoustic guitar and the song just aches. Listening to this song for the first time in a very long time just now fills my eyes with tears and a pain in my heart. Loneliness is a bastard, sometimes even when you’re not alone.

“Rocket Man” – Elton John
from Honky Chateau

They say this is based on a Ray Bradbury short story. With all the imagery of space and that lonely synth playing, one can easily see how.

I’ve mentioned before on Random Shuffle how I’ve really begun to dig into the early years of Elton John. This song fits right into that spectrum, and I certainly dig the crap out of it, though I’ve certainly known this song for many a year.

The lyrics “Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids/In fact it’s cold as hell” just gets me every time.

“Angel from Montgomery” – Bonnie Raitt
from Road Tested

This was written by John Prine, but Bonnie Raitt has really made it her own over the years. There is a version that appears on both Prine and Raitt’s disks where they duet on this song, which is just jaw-droppingly gorgeous. Prine’s rasp fits perfectly into Raitt’s soulful mourn of a voice. When Raitt sings

How the hell can a person
Go to work in the morning
Come home in the evening
And still have nothing to say?

Breaks my heart every time. The lyrics tell the story of an old woman to perfection.

This is another live version with guys like Shawn Colvin and Bruce Hornsby playing along. Not that you can tell because they don’t do much more than sing backup. Here, Raitt speaks the verses rather than sing and though she still has soul, it just can’t compare to the duet with Prine.

You owe it to yourself to seek out that version.

“Absolutely Cuckoo” – Magnetic Fields
From 69 Love Songs

Stephen Merritt, the brains and main performer for the Magnetic Fields wanted to create an album of 100 love songs. But after considering how long that would actually be he settled for the next best number when considering love.

The three-disk set that comprises 69 Love Songs is a rare and beautiful thing made up of quirky instrumentation and ironic, funny lyrics.

This song wraps lyrics around each other with a fast, almost pulsating instrumentation. At just under two minutes it is quite short (most of the songs on the album are) but it moves along like a snowball rolling down a steep incline. It’s not the best song on the album, but it fits perfectly well amongst all the quirkiness.