Barracuda

Barracuda, John Cale, Fear, 1974

This isn’t the oldies radio Barracuda you know and love (we’ll get to that one later). No, this is the ever cryptic John Cale, at the high point of his career, the Island years.

Dark woman in the water drowning
Sinking in a funny way
Black footing for a face exploding
Mimicking our final days

The ocean will have us all
The ocean will have us all

Dark woman in a cupboard burning
Woman, what have they done
Dark woman like a panther breathing
Woman, what can be done

The ocean will have us all
The ocean will have us all

Cold cost of the death of nothing
Slipping just like nothing did
Burnt scarecrow in the wind was choking
Smoking in the summer heat

Barracuda, barracuda
Wont you lay down your life for me
Won’t you love me barracuda
If you always need to bring out the worst in me

Ten morons with their whistles blowing
Howling like a winter gale
Dark woman like a crow a-crowing
Crowing for the carrion meat

The ocean will have us all
The ocean will have us all

Dark forest with the moon arising
Smiling at you out of reach
Cracked window in a chapel dreaming
Hoping that the twain’ll meet

Barracuda, barracuda
Wont you lay down your life for me
Won’t you love me barracuda
If you always need to bring out the worst in me

Bargain

Bargain, The Who, Who’s Next, 1971

If I had to commit to a favorite Who album, it would be this one.

The video is a tour capping 2000 show at the Albert Hall. The young gun on drums is none other than Zak Starkey, son of Ringo, master of his father’s trade.

Barabajagal

Barabajagal, Donovan, 1969

 In the early sixties Donovan Leitch mastered the trick of playing harmonica while strumming his guitar and set about conquering the world as Britain’s answer to Bob Dylan. It didn’t take long to realize that nobody wanted a kinder, gentler Dylan (a similar epiphany occurred a few years later, when Marc Bolan realized nobody wanted an even less coherent Donovan). Donovan soon found his own identity as the dippiest hippie who ever trippied. As the sixties waned, the world changed, and Donovan’s  acid-baked musing went out of fashion. People started to say ‘dippy hippy’ like it was a bad thing. Sad to say, I don’t hear psychedelic folk songs about Atlantis making a comeback just yet. But they will, and when they do, Donovan shall be revered as a god. It was undoubtedly lyrics like this one, that earned Donovan a reputation as someone whose love of LSD and weed left him without two brain cells to rub together.

In love pool eyes float feathers after the struggle.
The hopes burst and shot joy all through the mind
Sorrow more distant than a star.
Multi colour run down over your body,
Then the liquid passing all into all
Love is hot truth is molten.

True true, true true the song he sang her while the leaves cooked
Ting ting, ting little bell he rang her, sleepily she looked.
He filled, he filled a leather cup, holding her gaze
She took, she took a little sip while this song he sang

This is unfair (although the jury’s still out on the brain cells); even if he never quite scaled the highest heights of poetic eloquence, Donovan could still write one hell of a pop song. This song proves that he had some pretty rockin’ moments, with a little help from The Jeff Beck Group. Someone told me that Robert Plant can be heard singing backup, “if you listen really hard”. The backup singers sound female to me, and I haven’t found any corroborating evidence. It’s not inconceivable, however, especially considering the fluid nature of the Jeff Beck Group, the fact that Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones had both been members, the party-like atmosphere typical of recording sessions during this time, the habit of musicians to bring all their buddies to work with them, and the fact that I’m listening to the song on my laptop. Somebody please demystify my mind.

Bankrobber

Bankrobber, The Clash, Black Market Clash, 1980

What do The Clash and Jethro Tull have in common? They both write songs about the British way of life, instead of endlessly yammering about how great America is. Very unusual.  This song is on one of Strummer and Co’s favorite topics,  the hardship of the working class. For the video they had their roadies stage a fake heist. The two were picked up and questioned by police, because they made such authentic looking robbers.

Bang Bang

Bang Bang, David Bowie, Never Let Me Down, 1987

I’ve found out that Never Let Me Down is Bowie’s least critically acclaimed album – so much so that Bowie himself was forced to apologize for the badness. I, however didn’t get the memo. I love this album. It was my reigning favorite Bowie album, back when I was about 12. I used to listen to it over and over on my little walkman as I froliced about in the woods. And when I wasn’t doing that I would watch a video of the Glass Spider concert. This was, back in the days of VHS, a copy of a copy taped from television. The image was fuzzy and the colors were all wrong. I watched it religiously, especially when I was home alone – every time I was home alone actually. Of course, now I have the DVD. I still love to watch it. I don’t care what the critics had to say. I love the theatricity of it. The choreography is awesome. So what if the backup dancers are inexplicably dressed. So what if one of them is named Spaz Attack. So what if db decided to give his old schoolmate Peter Frampton a job for the summer. Sowhat if db chose to wear a jumpsuit. It’s fantastic show. This song is a particularly dramatic moment. I always thought it was real – that she was really a random girl from the audience, who just happened to be a professional dancer.

This song was originally written by Iggy Pop. It was on his 1981 album Party. This is Iggy’s version.

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, The Poques, Rum Sodomy and the Lash, 1985

This is one of about ten million versions of this song; it’s been covered by Joan Baez, the Dubliners, and many others, but this is the most famous version. It’s an antiwar song, specifically dealing with the brutal Battle of Gallipoli during the first world war.  Although the narrator is an Australian, it was written by the Scottish Eric Bogle. In fact it fits very well into the Celtic music tradition. Ever notice how many Celtic ballads begin with  the words ‘When I was a young man’ and then recount his adventures up until death’s very door? It’s like that. Only less boring than usual.

 

Band On the Run

Band on the Run has to be Paul McCartney’s solo masterpiece. It was one of a handful of McCartney albums that stand beside his Beatles work. Out of the four, it was Paul who was able to reqularly rescale those heights of brilliance. Of course it is the subject of fervent debate which Beatles but out the most Beatles-quality solo material. My money is on Paul, all the way. Paul put out four solo albums that were as good as anything the Beatles ever did. None of the others came as close as many times.

The famous cover was taken after a dinner party Paul and Linda hosted. The people in the picture are not the members of Wings – Wings at the time had a membership of three. Although all the guests were stars (at least at that time and place) only one is known to me – the great Christopher Lee, then known as a b-movie Dracula, now known as Saruman (among many great roles). Lee is third from the right.

The video was filmed at the Coachella music festival only a few months ago

Ballrooms Of Mars

“You dance with your lizard leather boots on”

 

This is the saddest most haunting song on The Slider. All the more so because the Slider is otherwise very hard-rocking. It only hindsight that makes Bolan’s darker, more sensitive songs seem prescient. But I’ve always felt that Bolan somehow knew something no else did, like part of him was already on the other side. “There are things in night that are better not to behold”

Ballroom Dancing

The song Ballroom Dancing first appeared on the 1982 album Tug Of War. This version is from the movie Give My Regards to Broad Street, 1984. The film and accompaning soundtrack album featured revisions of classic McCartney songs dating all the way back to the Beatles, along with a couple of originials. Many of the songs were changed for the movie, including this one, which was extended with an extra couplet. The movie was a huge critical and commercial failure, although the soundtrack became a hit. Perhaps someone made the mistake of treating as an actual feature film. It fails as such – it’s no more and no less than a very long music video. There’s a ‘plot’ involving some stolen master tapes, but mostly it’s an excuse for McCartney to flit from video set, to rehearsal, to recording studio, to radio show, with fantasy sequences sprinkled throughout. There’s a particularly fine Dickensian sequence set to an orchestoral arrangement of Eleanor Rigby. It’s a gift to McCartney fans who want to spend a couple of hours watching their hero do his thing in technicolor. People who don’t  unconditionally love Paul McCartney should stay away. I think it’s one of the best music movies ever, so it’s clear which team I’m on.

Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife

Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife, Marianne Faithfull, 20th Century Blues, 1997

If anyone was born to interpret the Brecht/Weill oeuvre, it’s Marianne Faithfull. She has the life story for it, with dramatic highs and lows, pendulum swinging back and forth from poverty to wealth, and hard-won wisdom at the end.  20th Century Blues is a live album, featuring songs from the Threepenny Opera, the Seven Deadly Sins, and other classics.

For years this song confounded me. The soldier’s route seemed so random. Where was he going, wandering all over the map? Then I realized my mistake. I had been visualizing the soldier as a Yankee boy from Podunkadunk, Indiana. But, of course, the soldier is German. D’oh! His path is the path of the German army, rolling triumphant through Poland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, before  grinding to a halt, finally defeated by the vast and inhospitable Russian empire.

What was sent to the soldier’s wife
From the ancient city of Prague ?
From Prague came a pair of high heeled shoes,
With a kiss or two came the high heeled shoes
From the ancient city of Prague.

What was sent to the soldier’s wife
From Oslo over the sound ?
From Oslo he sent her a collar of fur,
How it pleases her, the little collar of fur
From Oslo over the sound.

What was sent to the soldier’s wife
From the wealth of Amsterdam ?
From Amsterdam, he got her a hat,
She looked sweet in that,
In her little Dutch hat
From the wealth of Amsterdam.

What was sent to the soldier’s wife
From Brussels in Belgian land ?
From Brussels he sent her the laces so rare
To have and to wear,
All those laces so rare
From Brussels in Belgian land.

What was sent to the soldier’s wife
From Paris, city of light ?
From Paris he sent her a silken gown,
It was ended in town, that silken gown,
From Paris, city of light.

What was sent to the soldier’s wife
From the South, from Bucharest ?
From Bucharest he got her this shirt
Embroidered and pert, that Rumanian shirt
From the South, from Bucharest.

What was sent to the soldier’s wife
From the far-off Russian land ?
From Russia he sent her a widow’s veil
For her dead to bewail in her widow’s veil
From the far-off Russian land,
From the far-off Russian land.