We're #6! We're #6!

You were probably wondering, "hey, which blog is the sixth hit on Google in the Netherlands for 'bruce springsteen songs on infidelity'?"Well, wonder no longer: it's us. We are.

True story.

Favorite Song Friday: The Rake's Song

In rock-n-roll, the subject matter is not always clean and lovely. Of course it isn’t.

Because for all of the lovey-dovey splendor of, say, “Love Me Tender” or “Peggy Sue” or “I Want To Hold Your Hand” or “God Only Knows,” there is always the grittier, less pleasant underside that is so prevalent and so powerful on rock’s landscape it’s impossible to fully tell the story without it.

Hence “Gimme Shelter” and “For What It’s Worth” and “Revolution” and “Freddie’s Dead.” And “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Anarchy in the U.K.” and “Living For the City” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” And so on.

And there’s love and the darkness it brings with it. Jealousy. Obsession. Sickness. Rage. Maybe even…MURDER???? (cue scary music)

But seriously. In even the prettiest rock-n-roll people get stalked (“Every Breath You Take.”) In rock-n-roll people are beset with blind fits of jealousy that leads them to madness (“Alison” comes to mind, to name just one). And in rock-n-roll, people sometimes even die. And not cleanly and wussily like “Seasons in the Sun.” No, I’m talking rage-filled death like in “Hey Joe.” Or cold, detached murder like “Nebraska.”

Rock-n-roll. An American Killer! (cue music again…no, Scott, not the Benny Hill theme…fine, forget it!)

This happy topic leads us to this week’s installment of Favorite Song Friday.

The Decembrists – “The Rake’s Song”

If you don’t know the song, I implore you to listen to it and to admire its power and the sheer virtuosity of one of the most talented American bands to come along in years.

And I apologize for making you listen to a song about infanticide.

(Oh, and the video, I just noticed, is also the stuff of nightmares. Win-win!)

Not unlike (coincidentally, I swear) the choice of “Cannonball”  in the first installement of Favorite Song Friday, “The Rake’s Song” is propelled along by a thunderous bassline that dominates the entire song, this time courtesy of Nate Query. Colin Meloy’s acoustic guitar sits neatly on top of it as it pulsates three notes at a time, again not at all unlike the way Kim Deal does in "Cannonball."

The similarities end there.

Where “Cannonball” was, as discussed, an exercise in restraint, “The Rake’s Song” is a gorgefest of sinful malevolence. Everything about the song is violent.

Colin Maloy's nasal sneer has never sounded more sinister and downright sadistic as he does in spitting out the story of the evil and unrepentant rake, who feels burdened by his three kids after his wife dies so he decides to dispatch all three with brutal haste. Jenny Conlee’s Hammond Organ roars in at each chorus and cloaks the bass and guitar chords in evil grandiosity, the kind of sound you expect to hear when entering a haunted house. And John Moen, while remarkably restrained on drums at first, eventually hits them so hard I think you actually hear the snare say “ow” at the 2:02 mark.

The lyrics, of course, are all Colin, and represent the Decembrists at their high-English, hyper-literate best, telling the tale of a man who simply wants to live “easy and free” and is never bothered by his decision to snuff out his entire family. A sampling:

One can one do when one is a widower?

Shamefully saddled with three little pests?

All I wanted was the freedom of a new life

So my burden I began to divest.

Charlotte I buried after feeding her foxglove,

Dawn was easy, she was drowned in the bath

Isaiah fought but was easily bested

Burned his body for incurring my wrath.

Yikes. Someone has anger issues. And commitment issues. Despite his lovely taste in flowers.

None of this would work, of course, if “The Rake’s Song” weren’t so meticulously and exquisitely crafted as a standalone rock-n-roll song. It’s downright catchy, from the thumpity bass to the “All right, all right, all right!” chorus to the power chord-driven mania of it all. If it weren’t for the high-test rock opera that surrounded it on their wondrous 2009 The Hazards of Love album (something about a forest and a queen and bad people doing bad things…trust me, it works) you could easily see something like this falling into one of the Ramones' sets. Or Lou Reed’s.

It’s brutal and it’s ugly and its subject matter caused the band to be lambasted and vilified by the self-righteous faux moralist crowd who denounce the evils of rock-n-roll and Hollywood while doing things like cheering on American wartime violence in their next hypocritic breath. Fine. Good for them. Yawn.

But it works, truly. It works in the sanguine, subversive spirit in which rock-n-roll was founded—getting into those bad, nasty areas we don’t really like to talk about, but damned if we can’t sing about them. “The Rake’s Song” not only embraces bad behavior, it practically throws it a graduation party.

Shiny Happy Losing My Religion

I'm...having trouble processing this. This song is so ingrained in my DNA from hundreds upon hundreds of times listening to the studio recording, as well as dozens of live recordings, even scores of times playing it (poorly) myself. And then...this.

I...I...I don't know if I can do it... 

I  think I thought it's fascinating, the way altering the pitch of a just a few notes completely and totally changes our perceptions of the whole structure. Honestly, listening to this really does make me feel slightly woozy.

The results are even more dramatic, I think, if less intestinally-jarring, when it comes to Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" and "Riders on the Storm" by the Doors

but since I don't have anything like the same emotional attachement to those bands, it doesn't affect me nearly as much. Still worth a listen or three, of course.

Favorite Song Friday: Sick of Myself

When DT first suggest Favorite Song Friday, I immediately thought, "you're an idiot." But, to be fair, that's only because that's always my first thought every time he suggests something and, again, to be fair, only because he is. (The fact that he's less of an idiot than I is immaterial.)

My second thought: wow, great idea. Love it.

My third: what'll my first favorite song be?

My fourth and last ever thought: duh.

When it comes to things I really love, it's not unusual for me to not know how I feel about it for a while. I rarely go from disliking something to loving it, or even from liking it okay to loving it, but I very often go from "I don't know how I feel about this" to "oh my God, I love this."

"Sick of Myself" is not one of those. It's one of those fairly rare instances where I fall deeply, madly, head over heels in love within seconds.

I loved the opening, the chicken scratch guitar count off, instantly. By the time the chord progression had been played through once, I was all in. When the entire band kicks a few seconds later, I was ready for marriage. By the time we got to the first line of the chorus I'd amended my will. By the end of the second chorus, with its cool extra line in the minor, I'd transfered all my earthly possessions. And after the entire thing was over—including not one but two false endings! two of them, for pete's sake!—I had my tantō in hand, ready to disembowel myself, if that's what the song demanded. Fortunately (for me, at least), it didn't.

I'm not exaggerating. (Okay, well, maybe slightly.) The first time I put it on the stereo, as the count off started, I remember nodding my head. When the guitar started, I actually said out loud, "oh my GOD." We were made for each, this song and I.

Everything about this song is amazing. The melody is irresistible without being cloying, the lyrics are clever yet insightful (an interesting and rare look at the way early infatuation can actually make one question one's own self-image) without ever veering close to the pretentious, and the playing is simply spectacular—including the incendiary Richard Lloyd playing a bitingly angular solo that would seem completely out of place in such a poppy tune, yet which instead manages to elevate the entire thing emotionally and conceptually.

I've listened to this song hundreds of times and I don't think I've ever been in any mood where I wouldn't be delighted to hear it. A song like this—or pretty much his entire Girlfriend album, an utter masterpiece—makes you think Matthew Sweet would and could have been heir to the Brian Wilson/Paul McCartney pop-rock crown, something which clearly didn't happen. At times that seems like it's a shame. But when you've got even one gem this flawless, well, that's more than enough.

Girls

So my six-year-old comes up to me as I'm watching the new David Bowie video.

"Why can't girls be in bands?" she asks.

I'm not thrown by this. A few of her three older sisters have asked this when they were about her age, so I'm feeling fairly confident I know how to answer.

"Of course girls can be in bands," I say. "You want to see some examples?"

"Yes, please," she replies eagerly, the unprompted politeness indicating she really means it.

So we pull up the YouTube and start taking a tour. We view some Kim Gordon fronting Sonic Youth, then watch Tina Weymouth driving Talking Heads, which leads to my viewing this utterly charming video for the first time ever and how have I never seen it before and doesn't it just make it all the sadder that Byrne left a band this great?



We check out Chrissie Hynde leading the Pretenders and then I go back and we watch some Janis and some Joni and the Wilson sisters from Heart and then first Stevie followed by Christine with Fleetwood Mac. By now YouTube seems to have caught on to what we're doing because the recommended videos in the sidebar are tending to be conveniently on point.

She enjoys seeing artists she's heard many times but never actually seen, such as Cyndi Lauper, Aretha Franklin and Kathleen Edwards.



Perhaps showing she's really her father's daughter—and, just as crucially, her mother's—she loves Shirley Manson with Garbage.



We've spent a very pleasant hour this way and it's about time to set the table for dinner, so I agree to click on one more video. She points to the one she wants. Barely thinking—clearly—just remembering that I always loved the song and haven't heard it in years, I click on it. Her eyes light up. Naturally, it's her favorite of them all. Long blonde hair, glamorous dresses and a pink guitar: what's not to like, right?



I am in so much trouble in a few years.

Favorite Song Friday

A new weekly feature here at Reason to Believe, at least for this week (no, I haven’t cleared this with the site’s co-founder, though I sense he’s watching me and quietly smoldering right…about…now…) will be “Favorite Song Friday,” where I (or we…or I) pick a favorite song every week and write about it. Simple, right?

And we’ll (or I’ll) try to make them less than obvious choices, just so we’re not always writing about, say, “Born to Run” or “A Day in the Life” or “Radio Free Europe” or “Fernando.” (Hee. I kid. Just making sure you’re paying attention).

This week, up first, one of my absolute lock-down rock-solid favorite songs of the 1990s.

The Breeders - “Cannonball”

In Almost Famous, in a deleted scene that ranks as one of the great cutting room floor scenes in movie history, lifelong friends and Stillwater bandmates Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) and Jeff Beebe (Jason Lee) have a discussion that could have been a movie unto itself—they talk about the how the greatness of rock-n-roll, and all that we love about it, can be found in the subtleties. Or, as Russell puts it, “It’s not what you put into it. It’s what you leave out….That’s what you remember. That’s rock-n-roll. What you leave out.”

Hence "Cannonball" by The Breeders.

“Cannonball” is an unbearably catchy song, so utterly pop in form and sound. It propels along like a joyride on Josephine Wiggs' jaunty and unforgettable bassline and some awesome little fishhook guitar notes that the Deal sisters bend over the rhythm lines, with cryptically distorted vocals that would have made 1984 Michael Stipe proud.

But “Cannonball” is also brilliant example of what a song doesn’t need to succeed. What it leaves out.

Like guitar solos. There isn't one in sight. Just those great little hooks they occasionally drip in over the crunchy rhythm line, though even those are used sparingly, sometimes showing up and sometimes not.

And drums fills, which barely exist. (Only once, I think).

Or a bridge. Which doesn’t exist.

Or, really, much in the way of lyrics. As best I can tell there are four lines in the song, not including the megaphone-induced chorus so delightfully embeds itself into the listeners’ minds. Though even the sparse words contains a gem like "I'll be your whatever you want." And multiple references to someone being a "little libertine."

And there’s even more (less) in the form of some awesomely unique touches. Like the way Wiggs teases us with two five-note-intro basslines, only then stops and resumes and establishes the song's tempo in a different key. I don’t recall this happening that often in pop songs, if at all, and the result is so jarring and so irresistible that it adds one more delectable layer to the song.

There's also what happens after the 2^nd “verse,” which ends with the line, “The bong in this reggae song.” At that moment the music drops out completely, leaving only Kim and Kelley to sweetly harmonize before a fuzzed up runaway guitar explosion snaps us full speed into the chorus again. Only this time, the chorus starts with its second section first (“Hey now – in the shade, in the shade”) before finally immersing itself in the full glow of the chorus (“Want you, coocoo, Cannonball”). It’s a subtle changeup, but it’s there, and it adds a level of anticipation that the best of pop-rock always has to offer.

A third verse repeats pieces of the first and second, followed one final time by the chorus, which only comes once before the bass takes back over and the song ends, abruptly, on the off-beat. And that’s “Cannonball.” Three and a half minutes of strange and slightly unconventional pop that works to an absolute tee.

The Breeders probably didn't have the prime they deserved. Initially an early 90s supergroup where Kim Deal from the Pixies and Tanya Donnelly of Throwing Muses joined forces (along with Kim’s twin sister Kelley, Josephine Wiggs and drummer Jim MacPherson), but by the time Last Splash and “Cannonball” came out in 1993, Donnelly was gone, leaving the Deal sisters to do their thing. And after this song, which was huge on 90s alt-radio and huge on MTV, The Breeders never really landed a second punch quite like the first glorious blow of “Cannonball.”

But man. For at least one moment, they put out a song that was sheer perfection in pop structure, playfulness and, more than anything, restraint. And the result is just a great, great song.

Whole Lotta Helter Skelter

When DT and I did our Top 50 Beatles Songs, our most concise write-up was for "Helter Skelter." We wrote, in its entirety: "In which the Beatles invent grunge." It's a funny line, and a catchy one. And the fact that it's true doesn't hurt.

One of the interesting things about getting old is being able to actually witness trends. And one of the things I've noticed is fewer and fewer music fans seem to realize just what a rock and roller Paul McCartney is. He's well past the Wings period—and that, too, seems almost forgotten by rock fans these days, actually—and beloved, not just for his work with the Beatles, but as an elder statesman still bringing the goods live.

But—pace John Fogerty—Paul was the world's greatest Little Richard student and, with "Long Tally Sally," perhaps the only artist ever to cover one of Little Richard's greatest hits and actually top it. And when Paul decided he wasn't going to let any Who song claim the mantle of "heaviest rock song ever," he was a man on a mission. And damn if he and the lads didn't succeed.

But, as I say, even as music fans know the song "Helter Skelter" inside and out, it feels like the importance of it, and the sheer audacity, sometimes gets missed. Which is why pairing McCartney the vocalist (as well as, in places, Lennon the bassist and Harrison the guitarist) with the unquestioned all-time hard rock kings is a welcome corrective. Any vocalist replacing the ingrained-in-the-DNA vocals of Robert Plant has to be able to bring the goods.

He does.



Yes, she is. 

Why I Hate ABBA (Part 1, I think)

“I can’t do disco, man. I’d rather sell vacuum cleaners. They make better music!” – Dr. Johnny Fever, “WKRP In Cincinnati”

I don’t hate disco. Far from it, actually.

But I do hate ABBA.

Or, okay. Given that I am a practicing Christian who genuinely does try (and usually succeed) at loving his fellow man, I suppose I shouldn't (and therefore don't) technically hate anything or anyone.

So, okay, I'll amend that thought. When it comes to ABBA...how to put this properly...I...um...I...

...no. No. I hate them.

I was out the last night at a gathering and was talking with a couple of very cool pals before I left. We were talking about music and the stuff that did it for us. We mentioned all of our favorites and talked about what it was about music that pressed our buttons. Soulfulness, honesty, talent to be sure, connection with the fans, as well as that indescribable something that sets off tripwires in our brains and draws us forever to certain bands and certain singers. Certainly I've had many of those, one of which I wrote about it depth here a few months ago. It was a cool discussion, one I hope we continue.

But when we got around to discussing stuff we didn't like, I instantly offered up, "My absolute basement is ABBA. Nothing is worse than that for me."

They didn't object, but they were surprised. And one of them asked why. He was just curious.

And I...I had no real definitive answer.

I mean, I talked in broad strokes about how sanitized and phony it sounds to me, even telling him, "I'd rather listen to a truck backing up for three hours." I talked about how soulless it was, how squeaky clean and detached. But I didn't have that absolute locked down Grade A reason for it. Something like "They killed my whole family and left me alive to be haunted by it when I was a child." Or something maybe a little more harsh.

So. Why do I hate ABBA so damn much?

Hmm.

It's easier first to say what the reasons are not.

It’s not the super-heavy production. Hell, tons of legendary artists have had high levels of production gloss placed atop their music. Like, say, The Beatles? Or U2? Pink Floyd? Or Bruce Springsteen ever since he discovered Brendan O’Brien? And the results with all have been pretty amazing. So it’s not that.

It’s not that it's so wrapped up in disco or dance. Hell, I really like good disco. And dancing is good! I mean, no, I can't do it, and I dance like an arthritic goat on ice, but it's still a very good thing. As for disco, sure, there was a lot of slop offered up in disco's mid-70s heyday, but any moreso than all the lousy hair/glam rock of the late 80s? Nope.

And despite all the bad stuff, there were simply rock solid awesome tunes like "Don't Leave Me This Way" and "Turn the Beat Around" and "Jungle Boogie." Not to mention supreme artists like Donna Summer and Chic and, hell, the Bee Gees? No, no. The outright hatred of disco (despite Dr. Fever's noted objections above, which were obviously done for comic effect) were often rooted in homophobia and racism, and the blanket dismissal of it all (again, Johnny Fever made his comments in a sitcom for laughs, and plus he was a whacked out old rocker, so I'll excuse it) was highly unfair. So disco, dance music? No. Not why I can't stand ABBA.

It’s not that it’s pop. Again, weren’t the Beatles pop? Wasn’t Elvis? Isn’t U2? Hell, wasn’t REM and Nirvana before too long? All of them charted, and high. So no, it’s not that ABBA was so very pop.

It's not even that it sounds so...cheesy. I like cheese! (Scott doesn't, but that's just an issue for him to work out in psychotherapy). Musical cheese can be enjoyable and filling, if not exactly healthy. But take Barry Manilow. While my love of him isn't quite as far-reaching as Scott's (he knows Barry will one day come for him), I genuinely appreciate and enjoy Mr. Pincus. He's talented and he sings well and he has a good voice and seems to enjoy himself and seldom take himself too seriously. Cheesy can be good. Yes, it can be bad too (see Diamond, Neil).  But that's not the reason.

It’s not even the ridiculous costumes ABBA wore. Because lots of bands had ridic...

...

...

Okay. Maybe the costumes had a little to do with it.

All You Need Is Love

Watching the Christianist below, I thought of the words of a few noted philosophers. Not so much my normal standbys of "seventy times seven" or "turn the other cheek," notions so radical that virtually none of even the most dedicated of that philosopher's adherents are able to really follow them fully.

No, instead, I listened to this sad little man, and I thought:

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. In the end, cowards are those who follow the dark side. 

Beware of the dark side. Anger, fear, aggression: the dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will.



Or, to put it another way: it's easy—all you need is love. 

Brand New Day (Please)

It will never make sense. Ever. It happened 60 miles away from me and 3,000 miles away from Scott, but I can say with certitude that it hit us both equally. Which is to say, it devastated us. And our families. And everyone we know. And everyone we don't know.

We pray. We try to give comfort where we can and find comfort where can. And we hope - we hope - that someday soon we do better. That we are all able to do better by our fellow citizens. We have no choice.

Tomorrow is a brand new day. And may it please, somehow and someway if only for a fleeting moment, be a better one.

David Bowie on the Pixies

I'm not sure I agree with everything he says here but I'd still pay a pretty penny to hear David Bowie talk at length about, well, pretty much every artist there is or ever was.

Looking at this and how damn gorgeous a physical specimen he is, in addition to his obvious intelligence and musical talent and sheer charisma, his absence from the public stage these many years suddenly struck me as especially ominous. He's going to be gone one day, hopefully not for a long time, but...but in the meanwhile, I hope someone's getting his autobiography out of him in some fashion.

And just because, here's Frank Black and the Thin White Duke getting fashionable. Of special note is just how much Reeves Gabrels shreds it here, and—in stark contrast to the late and not at all lamented Tin Machine—in a good way.

They're doing it over there but we don't do it here. 

Your Time Is Gonna Come, Loser

The mind is an odd thing. How many times have I heard each of these songs without hearing the connection between them?

The other night, I was hit with the urge to put this on one (along with the out-of-the-blue suspicion that my daughters would love it instantly—I was right).

The moment the drums kicked in, I started wondering what it was reminding me of. The vocals added to the mystery. But once the chorus kicked in, I got it.

Because I think of Beck as being part of the whole alternative rock scene with his emphasis on irony and collage, the incredibly obvious comparison to Led Zeppelin never struck me before, but both are musical omnivores whose deepest, most lasting bedrock loves are the blues. Layer some hip-hop beats, or Joni Mitchell-inspired acoustic guitar over that foundation, and the results can be gloriously transformative, bringing something new to the table while retaining the utmost reverence for those that came before.

You can't write if you can't relate and my time is a piece of wax. 

You're a loser, baby? Not to worry—your time is gonna come.

Frank Zappa

Scott recently sent me a post from RockTownHall.com entitled “Did Frank Zappa Actually Like Music?” Here’s the link.  

The point was yes, he was an amazingly proficient guitar player who attracted crazy-talented musicians to carry out his musical visions. But does it sound like he was really enjoying himself? Was he emotionally invested in it?

And I have to say, after thinking about it…no. I don’t think he really did. I don't he was as crazy about music as he should have been. And I don't even think it's that close.

I think he liked being good at music—he liked playing the guitar and tossing off killer riffs and creating intricate sounds with monster studio players. But with a few exceptions—most notably his earliest stuff with the Mothers of Invention—his music, while to be appreciated, always left me a bit cold.

Take the Joe’s Garage albums, no doubt one of his most popular recordings. At the outset he has three absolutely Grade A rock songs, bawdy and nasty and rock-n-roll to the core: “Joe’s Garage,” “Catholic Girls” and “Crew Slut.” And at the end you have a stunningly gorgeous piece of extended guitar work called “Watermelon in Easter Hay” that goes on for close to nine minutes and is mind-boggling in how moving it is. And throughout you have this dead-on statement about the evils of censorship. But in that middle 60% of the album(s) you mostly get sexual innuendo-rich musiporn. You get extended sophomoric jokes that only he seems to be in on. And it’s not bad—it’s just…cold. And it’s a shame.

Or take this clip from Saturday Night Live in 1978, when he first gives a monologue and then offers up soon-to-be-hit “Dancin’ Fool.”

Zappa comes across as 100% too cool for school throughout, starting with his cue-card focused monologue reading and extending all the way through this somewhat funny song. But rather than deliver it with the drollness we hear on the Sheik Yerbouti record, he delivers everything—monologue, lyrics, and particularly the interplay with the young woman at the end—with this clipped, detached, “let’s get this over with” level of apathy.

Zappa comes across as the eye-rolling senior at a freshman party, who doesn’t need to be there but keep showing up anyway, if only to point out how stupid this all is.

Which is a damn shame, really. Because holy crow could the man play. Check out the studio version of one of his finest hours, all the way back from his debut album Freak Out! in 1965. Yes, it’s got a social pulse—a rather hard look at the Watts riots of that year. But there is a soulful menace in Frank’s voice—save for the sarcastic “Blow your harmonica-phone!” at the end—that propels the song every bit as much as the thunderous bass and chaotic guitar.

He sounds pissed, and he sounds invested. Once more, the man had chops most could only dream about. He was an intelligent and thoughtful advocate for free speech and he attracted only the very best of the best of musicians for when he felt like playing. It’s just a shame we didn’t hear more stuff like his in the quarter-century of his career that followed. More music that sounded like he cared, rather than just reminded us how smart and talented he was.

Giving Thanks

With apologies to my family and friends, this year I think I'm most thankful to have discovered that this brave new world has such creations as this in it.



I've got to be free...

Such a Long Way To Go

If there was ever an award given called, "The Greatest Six Word Backing Vocal Line For a Hideously Bad Song In Music History," I think it would be this right here.



(I have watched this about 5 times now and I cannot stop laughing. The way he runs in there? The way he looks straight up at the mike and so earnestly belts it out? The soundless argument with the engineer? God SCTV was funny!)

Seriously though. Christopher Cross gets a backup singer as great as Michael McDonald in the studio to somehow help to help rescue this musical equivalent to a bowl of stale mayonaise, and all he asks him to do is SING SIX FREAKING WORDS???

What a waste. And how amazing is it he makes it in there for that final time? Thought for sure he'd miss it.

Bob Dylan and Election Day

For a number of years now I have tried to make it a point of listening to Bob Dylan on Election Day. Not that Bob (to the best of my knowledge) has ever really come out and injected himself into political races. But something about the way he writes, something about the universal iconoclasm of what he’s been doing for half a century just makes me want to listen to him when each major election roles around. It makes sense because even decades detached, Dylan seems to get the sheer brilliant chaos that accompanies this country around every corner. And on Election Day, for me, it works.

In 2006 it was just as personal as it was political. I was in my 10^th year of working in politics and I felt the oncoming need for a change. And the same time the country was starting to make a change as well; the Senate and House went back to the Democrats that night and the repudiation of the Bush/Cheney years was beginning to take hold. So with all of this going on I put on his transitional masterpiece Blood on the Tracks.

In 2008, knowing that full level of change was about to be realize with the election of Barack Obama as the nation’s first ever black President, I went lo-fi and obvious, listening to The Times They Are-A Changing.

In 2010, with things swinging back to the right and the Tea Party entering a period of full-bloom, I went back to Bob’s beginnings and listened heavily to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. The album is an odd but lethal cocktail of whimsy, nihilism and pure prescience, and I used it as a chance to re-ground myself in this latest new reality. And one song, well, stood out amidst all the madness of the day. “Down the Highway.” For me it was wistful hopefulness.

Well I’m bound to get lucky, baby,

Or I’m bound to die tryin’.

Alas…no. Didn’t help in the end.

This year I dug back into vintage mid-60s Bob again, playing bits and pieces of Another Side of Bob Dylan and Bringing in All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited to get myself primed for the historic night. And various disparate lyrics stood out to me.

One struck me when thinking about voting and the absolute necessity of that right:

Striking for the gentle, striking for the kind

Striking for the guardians and protectors of the mind.

— "Chimes of Freedom," 1964

One about the President, facing his last ever Election Night:

Even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.

— "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)," 1965

And even one about the challenger:

You try so hard but you just don’t undertstand

What you’ll say when you get home.

Because something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is,

Do you, Mr. Jones?

— "Ballad of a Thin Man," 1966

And today, with the election once more behind us and a decisive victory at hand, I specifically wanted to hear one song. One somewhat buried track from the magnificent Bringing it All Back Home.

The rumbling blues of “On the Road Again.”

Where Dylan captures the sheer indescribable madness all around him and wonders how in the hell anyone can put up with it.

I wake up in the morning there’s frogs inside my socks,

Your mama she’s hiding inside the icebox,

Your Daddy walks in wearing a Napolean Bonaparte mask.

And you ask why I don’t live here?

Honey, do you have to ask?

Your grandpa’s cane, it turns into a sword,

Your grandma prays to pictures that are pasted on a board,

Everything in my pockets your uncle steals.

And you ask why I don’t live here?

Honey, I can’t believe that your for real!

Well there’s fistfights in the kitchen, they’re enough to make my cry,

The mailman comes in, even he has to take a side,

Even the butler, he’s got something to prove.

And you ask why I don’t live here?

Honey, how come you don’t move?

That is the vibe I got last night from watching the returns come in and the Electoral Map got bluer and bluer, and Senate candidates who actually made lame excuses for acts of rape and called legitimate dissent un-American and allowed millions and millions of nameless, faceless “dark money” to be spent on their behalf with little regard for the truth kept losing and losing.

And I thought, “Why are they all losing? Why is America saying no to them?”

And my answer, inside my head? “Honey, do you have to ask?”

Great Writing

And here we have a perfect example of outstanding writing: it gets right to the point, says its piece, and gets out. Kind of like a Miles Davis solo. 

No wonder Miles and Teo worked so well together. 

Kashmir

I've been wondering: how does watching bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and self-proclaimed golden gods Led Zeppelin turn into what are undeniably old men affect our view on aging? I mean, look at these guys:

Let the sun beat down upon my face

They're old. (Well, three of them are.) They look great, each in their own way. Jimmy Page looks incredibly cool (if incredibly sweaty), John Paul Jones appears to be a decade younger than the others—closer in age to whippersnapper Jason Bonham—and Robert Plant looks like one badass beach bum who's barely been out of the sun since the 70s. He looks cool. He looks great. But he's old.

Does seeing the cute Beatle get increasingly jowly and obviously dye his hair make us feel our mortality all the more, or is the fact that he's still playing (wonderfully) to stadiums full make us feel like there's no need to get put out to pasture at the ripe old age of 64?

I don't know. And I'm not really going anywhere with this. I just wonder what effect, if any, it's had on those of us who grew up listening to rock and roll as time marches on, both for us and for the bands we listened to back when we was young.

Here Comes the Flood

Sure, PG was using it metaphorically, but even there, the need for community shines through.

Lord, here comes the flood 
We'll say goodbye to flesh and blood 
If again the seas are silent In any still alive 
It'll be those who gave their island to survive 
Drink up, dreamers, you're running dry.

The Road and the Sky

For my peeps on the east coast. Stay dry, my friends.

Now can you see those dark clouds gathering up ahead? 
They're going to wash this planet clean like the Bible said 
Now you can hold on steady and try to get ready 
But everybody's gonna get wet 
Don't think it won't happen just because it hasn't happened yet