RIP Barry
Rock History
Today is your lucky day…..I have a Neil Young Three’fer for you instead of our normal Two’fer.
Last week I was listening to my copy of Neil’s 1976 retrospective, Decade, and reading the liner notes for the first time in many years. His liner note for Heart of Gold from the Harvest album (his only #1 hit single) caught my attention….
This song put me in the middle of the road. Travelling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there.
The end result of Neil heading for the ditch was three albums that are now referred to as the Ditch Trilogy…..
- Time Fades Away
- On The Beach
- Tonights the Night
These albums are about as far away from the middle of the road sound of Harvest album as you can get. Some people hate them but they are among my favorites. They are raw, powerful, and serve as a living reminder of Neil’s absolute artistic integrity. Let’s listen to a song from each of these albums.
Don’t Be Denied (Time Fades Away)
Revolution Blues (On The Beach)
Borrowed Tune (Tonights The Night)
So, if you have wondered why I have dragged this blog back into the on-going political fray about Sequestration…..let’s just say I headed for the ditch 🙂
I have made several posts over the past year about response songs. All of these posts were based on things that I read. This week I had a moment of blinding insight when I discovered a potential response song myself. Here is my story…….
On Tuesday I was listening to Joni Mitchell’s 1968 debut album, Song to a Seagull, that was produced by David Crosby. The first track of the album, I Had a King, came on and it was like I was hearing it for the first time. As I listened to the lyrics I was thinking about how Joni and Graham Nash had been a couple and I started to wonder if Graham might have been the King that Joni was referring to. Let’s listen to the song before I continue my story so you can share that moment with me….
This is truly a gorgeous song which makes me wonder why I was thinking so hard when listening to it (but sometimes I can’t help myself). My blinding insight occurred as I continued to listen and here is how it sounded in my head…..
Holy shit, Graham had a song called I Used To Be A King on his 1971 debut album, Songs For Beginners. I always thought it was just a follow-on song to his song King Midas In Reverse from his time with the Hollies but maybe it was a response song….
So…out comes Songs For Beginners and before you know it I Used To Be A King is blasting out of my stereo. Listen with me……
So back to the conversation going on in my head….
These songs have to be related and surely I am not the first person to notice! Let’s find out what other people might be saying….
Out comes my laptop and off I go to internet, the fountain of all knowledge. Sure enough, I found a few references to these two songs……….the best one was from likemariasaidpaz.blogspot.com….
Graham Nash’s Songs For Beginners
I used to be a king
And everything around me turned to gold
I thought I had everything
Now I’m left without a hand to hold
But it’s alright
I’m okay
How are you?
For what it’s worth
I must say
I loved you
And in my bed
Late at night
I miss you
Someone is going to take my heart
No one is going to break my heartAgainI love that song and I love that album. “I Used To Be A King” is ‘inspired’ by Joni Mitchell’s “I Had A King.” Joni’s song was written to early in her career to have been about Graham (she hadn’t met him yet); however, he wrote “I Used To Be A King” as he and Joni were in the process of breaking up. Though not about Graham, the two songs do work as a call and response.Graham Nash was always my favorite of the three in Crosby, Stills and Nash. I like David Crosby and Stephen Stills (and love Neil Young) but Graham Nash’s vocals and lyrics always spoke to me in a way that few ever manage to. I consider it one of the great losses of this period that Graham released so few solo albums. I think he easily outpaced other solo male singer-songwriters (including Jackson Browne and James Taylor) and that he could have been among the finest.Songs For Beginners makes that so clear. It remains a perfect album.
After reading this I am convinced that the author of the above post nailed it! Sure enough, Joni and Graham were not a couple when the song I Had A King was written and recorded! Even though the song was not about Graham, I Used To Be A King is clearly about Joni and is almost certainly a clever reference back to I Had A King.
At the end of the day, I feel somewhat vindicated by my blinding insight! Regardless, it was a really fun exercise. As always, let me know what you think.
Here’s a little bonus. Let’s listen to King Midas In Reverse, the Hollies song that I thought might might be related to I Used To Be A King…….
I have been promising to produce a series on American Protest Music for months and I am just about ready to roll it out. What better way to get us in the mood than to cover a couple of post-Beatles protest songs from Paul McCartney and John Lennon for our Two’fer Tuesday post this week.
First up is a strange little protest song from Paul McCartney and Wings called Mary Had A Little Lamb.
Nope….I’m not kidding, Paul released this little ditty in 1972 as a protest against the BBC (the cover for the single is shown above). Let’s listen and then I will give you the rest of the story…..
You might be asking how Mary Had A Little Lamb became a protest song? Well, Wing’s previous single, another protest song called Give Ireland Back To the Irish, was banned from the BBC. Paul wrote and released Mary Had A Little Lamb in protest of the banning of Give Ireland Back To the Irish. His thought process was that he would write a silly little song, one that the BBC couldn’t possibly ban, that everyone would know was making fun of the BBC ban of Give Ireland Back To The Irish. Response to the song was mixed but I personally think that it was a brilliant move! Believe it or not, the song rose to #9 on the singles charts. As a bonus, let’s listen to Give Ireland Back To The Irish……
John’s song, Working Class Hero, was much more serious, as usual! Working Class Hero was written as a protest of the inequalities of modern social classes and the ways that society works to make people not think about/protest these inequalities (Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV/And you think you’re so clever and classless and free/But you’re still fucking peasants as far as I can see). As I noted, this was not a silly little ditty…..let’s listen….
I personally think this was John’s most powerful song in his post-Beatles solo career. We will revisit it’s message as part of the upcoming American Protest Music series.
As always, let me know what you think!
The Buckinghams, a group out of Chicago, caught my attention in 1967 with the release of Kind of a Drag which was a huge hit. The horns played a prominent role in this song and would become a staple of not only their sound but the sound of Chicago in general. James Guercio, the producer of many of the Buckinghams early singles, went on to produce the early albums of the group Chicago which was well know for their horn driven sound. Here is what my Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia has to say about the history of the Buckinghams……
The Buckinghams were one of those sleek, expensively barbered, well tailored, highly commercial rock groups beloved by record companies, adored by fans, and scorned by rock critics and intellectuals. They came out of Chicago at the height of the mid-sixties’ rock boom and moved right into a hit formula, doing everything an efficient computer might recommend and never making a mistake – as far as singles were concerned. The albums were something else, with soon-to-be-Chicago-mentor James William Guercio taking over completely. Guercio’s axiom seemed to be, “Be commercial with singles, experiment with albums.” As a result, the Buckinghams unleashed a horde of schizoid long-players….catchy ditties surrounded by dross. The band never really dissolved – it just became easier and easier to ignore as the years went by.
Enough talking…..let’s listen to some music. First up is their huge #1 hit, Kind of a Drag, in glorious mono. That is followed by a short entertaining mini-documentary about the song.
Kind of a Drag (mini documentary)
Don’t You Care was a follow-up to Kind of a Drag which made it up to #6 on the charts.
Our final song from The Buckinghams provides an interesting example of the experimentation introduced by the group’s producer, James Guerico. The original single included an section with weird sound effects that I think totally destroyed the flow of the song. Let’s listen…..
The group also hated this version of the song and many radio stations refused to play it. An edited, more radio friendly version of the song was produced and distributed to radio stations. Let’s listen to that version….
This edited version reached # 11 on the singles chart and was the group’s last hit. The group split with James Guerico in mid-1968 due to creative differences, like the ones involving Susan, and their success as a group was basically over. The group went from being named the most listened to group in the US for 1967 to being a group of “has beens” in less than a year. This was story repeated through the 1960s. But as Neil Young said in yesterday’s post, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”
Yesterday I did a heart felt post about the life lessons offered by Mary Chapin Carpenter’s song, The Long Way Home. You will probably remember that Mary encouraged us all to slow down, relax, and enjoy life.
While I know that Mary’s advice is something that I ought to try to follow, I have to admit that I find it hard to do. I am, at heart, a workaholic that finds it hard to slow down, much less relax. So…..tonight Neil Young has agreed to present a dissenting opinion that is closer to how I actually live my life. Let’s listen to My My Hey Hey…….
The two key lines in the song that I most identify with are:
It’s better to burn out, Than to fade away
It’s better to burn out, Than it is to rust
I don’t expect to ever be accused of fading away or rusting 🙂 After all, Rust Never Sleeps!
Burning Out, on the other hand,…….is a daily possibility for me.
Here are the complete lyrics to the song in case you are interested. Let me know whether you follow the advice of Mary or Neil.
My my, hey hey
Rock and roll is here to stay
It’s better to burn out
Than to fade away
My my, hey hey.Out of the blue
and into the black
They give you this,
but you pay for that
And once you’re gone,
you can never come back
When you’re out of the blue
and into the black.The king is gone
but he’s not forgotten
This is the story
of a Johnny Rotten
It’s better to burn out
than it is to rust
The king is gone
but he’s not forgotten.Hey hey, my my
Rock and roll can never die
There’s more to the picture
Than meets the eye.
Hey hey, my my.
There is a significant debate going on in the United States today regarding gun control. I won’t bore you with the specifics of this debate, or my position regarding the debate, but it has reminded me of a related discussion involving Lynyrd Skynyrd back in the 1970s.
In 1975, the group released their Nuthin Fancy album which featured a song called Saturday Night Special. Let’s listen……
I think the meaning of this song was pretty clear….get rid of “Saturday Night Specials”! Note: Saturday Night Special is a slang term for cheap handguns that were very easy to acquire back in the 1970s and accounted for a significant number of murders. This was a surprising message coming from a southern rock group. It caused quite a stir and more than a little backlash from gun rights activists.
The group then proceeded to greatly confuse their position on gun control the very next year by releasing an album named Gimme Back My Bullets. Let’s listen to the title song from the album…..
Many people chose to interpret Gimme Back My Bullets as an indication that the band had changed their minds regarding the gun control message of Saturday Night Special. Gun rights activists celebrated the song and you can still find YouTube videos today using the song to rail against any type of gun control.
The debate of the real meaning of these two, seemingly contradictory, songs continues to this day but I know their real meanings. Post a comment and let me know your thoughts about their meanings. I will do a short post tomorrow and tell you what I know about the topic.
As I mentioned several weeks ago I just finished reading Neil Young’s new book, Waging Heavy Peace. He tells some great stories in the book so I figured you might enjoy one more of them.
A few weeks before the people who would found Crazy Horse (as yet unnamed), Danny, Billy, Ralphie, and me got together in my Topanga living room, I had been sick with the flu, holed up in bed in the house. Susan was bringing me soup and good stuff, but I still felt like shit. I was delirious half the time and had an odd metallic taste in my mouth. It was peculiar. At the height of this sickness, I felt pretty high in a strange way.
I had a guitar in a case near the bed – probably too near the bed in the opinion of most of the women I had relationships with. I took it out and started playing; I had left it in a tuning I was fond of, D modal, with the E strings both tuned down to D. It provided a drone sound, sort of like a sitar, but not really. I played for a while and wrote “Cinnamon Girl.” The lyrics were different from how the song eventually ended up, but all those changes happened right there, immediately, until the song was complete.
Then I took the guitar out of D modal and kept playing. At the time, there was a song in E minor on the radio that I liked, “Sunny” or something like that. I remembered hearing it in the drugstore at Fairfax and Sunset while I was shopping for something to ease flu. The song kept looping in my head, endlessly, like some things do when I’m sick and maybe a little delirious. So I started playing it on the guitar, and then I changed the chords a bit – and it turned into “Down By The River.” I was still feeling sick, but happy and high. It was a unique feeling . I had two brand-new songs! Totally different from the last album!
Then I started playing in A minor, one of my favorite keys, I had nothing to lose. I was on a roll. The music just flowed naturally that afternoon and soon I had written “Cowgirl in the Sand.” This was pretty unique, to write three songs in one sitting, and I am pretty sure that my semi-delirious state had a lot to do with that.
So……with a story like that I know that you will forgive me for turning today’s Two’fer into a a Three’fer! Let’s listen to the three masterpieces that Neil wrote on the same day while delirious from the flu. Absolutely amazing…..
Cinnamon Girl
Down By The River
Cowgirl In The Sand
This post goes out to my friend Gerard who has been sick with the flu during January. Hope you are feeling better!
So before we get to far into February, 2013 I thought we should try to do a wrap up of some of the other musical events that took place in January, 1973. We have previously touched on several of these events including: the release of Aerosmith’s first album: Carly Simon’s chart topping single You’re So Vain, and Stevie Wonder’s hit with Superstitiion. Here are some of the other musical happenings from January forty years ago…
In 1972 Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, and Peter Criss were trying to decide where to head with their current band, Wicked Lester, which seemed to be collapsing around them. Gene and Paul decided that Wicked Lester’s lack of success was due to a lack of musical vision and had started to experiment with makeup and costumes (see the picture at the beginning of this post). The band needed another guitar player and this slot was filled by Ace Frehley that fall. The band was complete but two more changes were needed before they could make their big push for success and fame. First, they needed a new name. Paul suggested KISS and the name stuck. Second, they needed formalize their early experiments with makeup and costumes by selecting personas for each member of the band. Gene became the Demon, Paul became the Starchild, Peter became the Cat, and Ace, my favorite, became the Spaceman. Here is what KISS looked like around that time.
KISS’s first concert performance took place on January 30, 1973 and the rest is history. I can’t show you that first performance but I do have a video of a performance from later that year which is supposedly the oldest existing KISS video. Let’s watch…….
While KISS was just starting in January of 1973, Free was nearing its end. The band released Heartbreaker in January 1973 and had one more tour before their official breakup. I hated to see Free end but…… the breakup of Free allowed Paul to form Bad Company which would go on to produce some of my favorite music in the 70’s. To celebrate the greatness of Free here is a video of them performing Heartbreaker during a 1972 tour in Japan. The video is not the best quality but this is rock history so I hope you will enjoy it.
Elton John released his sixth album, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Player, late in January, 1973. This album continued his push towards a more pop sound and gave him his second straight #1 album. Much of the album was more poppy than I cared for but I did enjoy some of the songs including Daniel which was my favorite. Let’s listen to Elton perform Daniel on Top of the Pops in 1973……..
Jim Croce released his Life and Times album in January, 1973. His career was just starting to peak at this point but tragically this would be the last album to be released before his death in a plane crash in September of 1973. While Jim is best know for his catchy, borderline novelty, songs like You Don’t Mess Around With Jim, I am here to tell you that he was much more of a talent than indicated by these songs. Jim was one hell of a singer/songwriter and, had he lived, I believe he would have become one of the best singer/songwriters ever. To make my point, here is a wonderful song from Life and Times.
RIP Jim
thebestmusicyouhaveneverheard 