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.

Concert Review – Wilco – Bloomington, IN (07/17/06)

The last and first time I saw Wilco in concert I walked out. That’s right, walked right out the door on one of the best bands playing rock and roll today. This was just after A Ghost is Born came out, so it was well into all the hoopla over Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Frankly, at the time I wasn’t much of a fan, I had only heard the Being There album and attended the show more out of something to do, than any real relationship to the band or their music.

They were playing a club way too small for them at the time. It was standing room only, and within a few songs into their set, the place was swelling. Everyone was jostling for position, pushing, squishing, and elbowing in every direction. It was more than my wife, and our friend could take.

The final poke was from an enormous young man who was not only pushing for the front row, but talking obnoxiously loud on his cell phone right in front of us. My two companions moved way to the back of the small club. I moved to a friendly section of the crowd but knew my time was coming. After a few more songs I found my people and we decided to walk out. The band was good, but not knowing any songs and the rotten crowd overruled anything our ears were hearing.

Fast forward to last night, I have since become a convert to the Wilco idolatry religion, and am very excited to see them again. Hoping to finally rid myself of the stigma of having once walked out.

This time the venue is much larger and more fitting to the band’s status. The IU Auditorium is a medium sized auditorium with lots of seats and space.

The opening band was local and an odd mix of the Meat Puppets, “Space Oddity” era David Bowie and Radiohead. They started promptly at 8:00 to a crowd at less than half capacity.

Opening acts are an odd thing to me. They say they are there to get the crowd jazzed and loosened up, but the crowds I’ve seen are usually bored by an opener and keep looking at their watches hoping those fools will get off the stage so the headliners will appear.

I guess it’s a good opportunity to hear bands you might not have heard before.

The opening band played a good 40 minute set. After a long 40 minute pause, Wilco finally took the stage at 9:20.

The crowd now at full capacity gave the auditorium a good holler.

They opened with a rumbling version of “Airline to Heaven” followed by a scorching “Kingpen.”

The crowd was pretty tame. My section of the balcony was half standing, half still in their seats. Songs from Yankee Foxtrot Hotel got the biggest cheers of the night, but songs from all of their other albums got noticeably less participation in the sing-alongs.

Actually my realization for the night is that Wilco has very little in terms of sing along lyrics. Sure, they have a few good belters such as the hillbilly bluegrass chanter “Forget the Flowers” and the nonsensicalness of “I’m a Wheel” is a hoot to scream a long with, but so much of their music has these sorts of odd tempos and changes that render any typical sing-along too difficult to enjoy.

They more than make up for this with the music. There are so many great hooks in their songs as to get lost in them trying to count. The quiet beginning of “At Least That’s What You Said” followed by the loud, pounding rhythm which is then followed by a louder, more pounding rhythm is a slice of pure rock and roll heaven.

More than once I reached the point of ecstasy where my body shook to the beat as only a white boy can, my eyes closed and my smile took over my whole person. Surely the sign of a great rock concert.

Lead singer/guitarist/primary song writer Jeff Tweedy goaded the audience by saying we were acting rather mild for an audience he had been pre-warned would be rowdy. This was the beginning of Little 500 week at Indiana University, the loudest, most party-rific week at a school which has often won the title of “#1 Party School.”

The audience responded by jumping over the rails at the front row and cramming right up against the stage.

The band closed a second encore with “California Stars” and we walked out into the cool spring night under lovely Indiana ones.

Setlist:
1. Airline To Heaven
2. Kingpin
3. Handshake Drugs
4. A Shot In The Arm
5. At Least That’s What You Said
6. Hell Is Chrome
7. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
8. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
9. Forget The Flowers
10. War On War
11. Jesus, Etc.
12. Hummingbird
13. The Good Part
14. Walken
15. Heavy Metal Drummer
16. Theologians
17. I’m The Man Who Loves You
18. Monday