And I Love Her

 

And I Love Her, the  Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, 1964

A beautiful love song, all Paul, of course. The clip is from the movie A Hard Day’s Night.

I was just perusing some old New Yorkers and I read back to back articles about the evil of Hitler and the genius of the Beatles. The burning issue was, just what was it that made Hitler so gosh-darn evil? We don’t know. It was a very long article that came to the final conclusion that certain things are just plain inexplicable. The second one was actually the same article. It  asked, just what was it that made the Beatles so goddam brilliant? We don’t know. Some things defy explination. Conclusion – The Beatles are to musical genius as Hitler is to evilness.

Yes I do have a morbid fascination with Hitler.

An Occasional Dream

“I keep a photograph/it burns my wall with time”

An Occasional Dream, David Bowie, Space Oddity, 1969

Space Oddity wasn’t Bowie’s first album, but it was his first ‘real’ album. After years of fooling around, aping popular styles trying to break a hit, performing in a mime troupe and trying to be Anthony Newley, in 1969 Bowie was starting to develop an original identity and also enjoyed his first hit single. Weirdly, many accounts do not count Space Oddity as  a proper album and many discographies begin with Hunky Dory instead. Inexplicable, because Space Oddity is a certainly a proper album, and a very good one, which is also a stylistic missing link between the twee showtunes of Images and the more rocking sound that would develop later. This song is dedicated to Bowie’s first love, Hermione Farthingale, also the muse behind Letter To Hermione and other love songs.

I recall how we lived

On the corner of a bed

And we’d speak of a Swedish room

Of hessian and wood

And we’d talk with our eyes

Of the sweetness in our lives

And tomorrows of rich surprise…

Some things we could do.

In our madness

We burnt one hundred days,

Time takes time to pass
And I still hold some ashes to me,

An Occasional Dream.

And we’d sleep,oh so close,

But not really close our eyes

‘Tween the sheets of summer bathed in blue…

Gently weeping nights

It was long,long ago

And I can’t touch your name.

For the days of fate were strong for you…

Danced you far from me.

In my madness

I see your face in mine.

I keep a photograph,

It burns my wall with time

Time,

An Occasional Dream

Of mine.

An Occasional Dream

Of mine.

An Occasional Dream

Of mine.

 

Amy, Amy, Amy

 

This is  Amy Winehouse’s UK debut Frank, 2003.

Amy Winehouse broke in the USA with  Back To Black but back home she’d already made a name for herself with Frank.  She’d already earned the nickname Wino. Now her nickname is Crackhouse. Back in 03 she was a different Amy – healthy, vibrant, beautiful. Frank is less polished that B2B, less tight lyrically, the vocal style still not  fully developed. But as this song shows, Winehouse was already an accomplished songwriter, self-aware and witty. By the time she made it here, the rock star persona was well in place, the psychobilly jazz diva who now comes off more like Shane MacGowan’s baby sister.

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is your song today, not where I’ve been all this time (I wish). My laptop was at the computer hospital with a virus.

Amsterdam is a track from John Cale solo debut Vintage Violence. Overall the album was rather lighthearted and tuneful, which is very un-Cale. We’re talking about a man whom Nick Cave accused of ‘lacking a sense of humor’. This particular track, however, is a pure dour sourpuss John  Cale classic.

She’s back from amsterdam
And I think the journey did her well
Her face has lost it’s touch
The tell tale signs of loneliness inside

But I love her still
And need her company still more
Come down, come down once more
And I think, the journey, did her well

She says she fell in love
With men who knew the way to treat a lady
Her life has settled for the best of things
That I couldn’t give her

And it’s not her fault, she’s not the one to blame
Come down, come down, come down once more
And I do believe the journey did her well
Yes I do believe the journey did her well.

Amlapura

 

Amlapura from the unfairly much maligned Tin Machine II. Critics usually point out the two Tin Machine albums as Bowie’s career low-ligt. I beg to differ. I think the first Tin Machine album kind of sucked and the second was awesome. The real low point for Bowie was Tonight, the only album that I don’t like and even that had Loving the Alien. So if you’ve heard that Tin Machine II is a career worst, then listen to this song and judge for yourself. If you don’t like it you can still enjoy the sight of db performing shirtless. Funny how you don’t see him prancing around without his shirt on very often. Some people have washboard abs; young Bowie had a washboard ribcage. Here, safely into middle age, he actually looks healthy for the first time in his life.

o

American Wedding

“Where is vodka/where is marinated herring?”

An anthem from my favorite live band! Yes Eugene, I hate American weddings too!

Gogol Bordello is a unique entity in the music world. For one thing they are one of a handful of artists, including M.I.A., who make music that reflects a modern diaspora. They are the only band I know of who speak from a Russian/Ukrainian/Eastern Eurapean diaspora. Their music is different from world music or folk music. The music of artists like Cesaria Evora or Bebel Gilberto or Ali Farka Toure, no matter how popular or bestselling still remain in their own ‘ghetto’, classified strictly as ‘ethnic music’, meant to represent ‘exotic’ cultures and have a transportive effect. The diasporic music of Gogol Bordello is outside convention. It incorporates traditional themes, cultural references, and instruments, but it is modern, polyglot, young and multicultural. It is music by, and about and for immigrants, children of immigrants, young people who bridge multiple cultures. It is a new genre – Punk Folk. (Not so new, really, remember The Poques invented Punk Folk back in the 70s).

 

Although technically, Eugene Hutz is Ukrainian/American, I’m going to refer to him as a Russian, because to differentiate between Russianness and Ukrainianness is to draw a line that isn’t there. The two cultures are so close, with such a long history together that to find differences is to nitpick. That said…Hutz is the first and at this point only figure in popular culture who speaks from a uniqely Russian perspective. Only a Russian would think to write a love song to his good friend alcohol. Only a Russian would take pride in being a disgusting, dirty drunk – ‘a dirty, old and useless clown’. It takes a Russian audience to even begin to fully appreciate his music. Even the name Gogol Bordello is joke that mainstream listeners don’t get (probably not meant to get). Half the lyrics are in Russian, and there are many references that are aimed not just at Russians, but at very specific Russians – it is true that most Russians would not get the Zvuki Mu reference, and it proves once and for all that Eugene is one of us. For us, by us.

Video:Bonnaroo 2008. You can’t see me, but i’m out there.

American Pie

First off, I’m sorry I missed a day. I swore I would never miss a day. Sorry. Computer trubbles.

I hope you all watched the inogyoorayshun. I didn’t. I was asleep. Why they gotta inaugurate so early? I guess I missed a momentous occasion. We must drink!

And also, here’s your damn song already.

American Pie, by Don McLean, from the album of the same name, dated 1971, singalong version for maximum fun. Try to guess all the hip pop cultural references!

American Music

“Every time I look at that ugly moon/it reminds me of you”

American Music, Violent Femmes, Why Do Birds Sing? 1991

The Violent Femmes I didn’t like at first. I thought the singer’s voice was annoying. Actually his voice is annoying, but that’s kind of the point. I’m thinking this song is somewhat ironic? Correct me if I’m wrong.

American Dream

American Dream, Lucinda Williams, World Without Tears, 2003

Kind of a love  it or hate it song from a love her or hate her singer. Williams does turn some people off because of her swamp monkey accent and the fact that she like cowboy hats. Williams appeals to me because she writes honestly about hard times and heartbreak. This is a song about hard times.

Sorry vids not working. Here are the lyrics. Try to imagine it. Or better yet, buy the album.

Last time I saw you, you had dirt under your nails
Your eyes were glassy and you looked so pale
You said my life has become a livin’ hell
Ain’t got enough money to pay my bills

Everything is wrong
Everything is wrong

Got a friend with a needle stuck in his arm
He got hooked on heroin in Vietnam
It used to help kill the pain some of the time
Now I can’t sleep at all since I got back home

I worked in the strip mines off and on
Now I can’t seem to get rid of this cough
Ain’t been many jobs these last few months
And the last one I had I got laid off

I ain’t got no hot water and they shut off the heat
Can you loan me some money for something to eat
Been out here on this corner for about a week
Tryin hard to stand on my own two feet

They want to try and tell me where I can live
They kicked me off my land and told me they’d give me
A nice little tract house with running water
But how am I gonna explain that to my Navaho mother

My American dream almost came true
But the things they promised me never came through
I believe in the American dream
But things are never quite what they seem

Everything is wrong
Everything is wrong
Everything is wrong
Everything is wrong

America Is Waiting

 

America Is Waiting, Brian Eno & David Byrne, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, 1981

In 1981 Eno and Byrne invented the musical technique that would later make Moby a millionaire.