The Lads

I'm posting these photos for no special reason, really. Just 'cuz they make me so damn happy.

Both shots taken from the wonderful Beatle Photo Blog which should already be in your RSS feed reader and if it's not rectify that postdamnhaste.

Walk on the Wild Side

Why, hello, creepiest video ever.

And they said you couldn't out-skeev Lou Reed. Challenge accepted.

I keep expecting to see Chris Hansen walk in and introduce himself to Dave Stewart.

Favorite Song Friday: Nobody's Girl

I recently admitted to Scott—now that I am clearly well beyond the realm of personal embarrassment and into the “might as well be an open book” phase of my life—that back when we were in high school and Bonnie Tyler’s insidious “Total Eclipse of the Heart” came out, that I had confused Ms. Tyler with Bonnie Raitt.

Yes, really.

And I’d heard (on the local FM radio station in Hartford I spent those years listening to) and read (in favorite magazines of the time like CREEM and Hit Parade) all this stuff about what an awesome guitarist Bonnie Raitt was. And then I hear “Total Eclipse,” and I somehow had myself convinced that this was Bonnie Raitt, and I remember thinking, “I’m just not hearing the awesome guitar.”

Wrong Bonnie, dummy.

Because Bonnie Raitt, high-priestess of the blues and the Madame Curie of the slide guitar? Well, she is no Bonnie Tyler.

Favorite Song Friday – Bonnie Raitt – “Nobody’s Girl”

When Bonnie mounted her big comeback from her high-partying existence with 1989’s sublime, Don Was-produced Nick of Time, her legacy was pretty much already set. She had been a legend for years— “Angel From Montgomery” had pretty much guaranteed all by its jaw-dropping self back in 1974—and if anything it was an album that came out early in the 80s, Green Light (featuring among other things a couple of stellar NRBQ covers, the irresistible “Willya Wontcha” and the mini-hit of “Keep This Heart In Mind”) that showed people Bonnie was also of the 80s (or at least the early 80s). But the truth is by the end of the 1970s Bonnie was better known for being a hard partier who played a mean guitar than a phenomenal blue guitarist who also partied pretty hard. And it was taking its toll on her record sales. Green Light sold…OK, despite how good it was. And the follow up to that, 1986’s Nine Lives, really didn’t do that well and wasn’t particularly memorable.

So what was she coming back from in 1989? Middle-age, somewhat. With Nick of Time, Bonnie really kinda did what Paul Simon did three years earlier with Graceland—showed that the proverbial old dog could indeed blend some new tricks into a great assortment of all the good things she’d been doing for years. So alongside her hard-charging, hell-bent version of John Hiatt’s “Thing Called Love,” there was the keyboard-driven subtlety of “Nick of Time.” Alongside the slide-driven cool of “Have a Heart” you had the sheer delicacy of “Cry on My Shoulder.” It all made for Nick of Time easily being one of the best albums she ever made, and one of the best albums ever made by someone a full two decades into her career.

In other words, Bonnie was still of her roots, big-time. But she also was very much in touch with this odd new era in which she was now existing, and she was showing all the whipper-snappers out there just how one cool-ass lady could do it. Hell, even the album cover (see above) showed it—a lovely Bonnie, a touch of grey peaking out of her shock of wild red hair, standing as confidently with her guitar slung over her shoulder as Bruce Springsteen once did as a very young man. It was as bold as that Molly Shannon “I’M 50!” character (even though Bonnie was only 40 at the time), yet instead of being played for laughs, it was stone serious. Bonnie was back. And badass as ever.

“Nobody’s Girl” traipses the tender line between Bonnie’s freewheeling early years and the wise-sage days that began with Nick of Time. It is stark and beautiful, just Bonnie and a pristine, crystalline guitar. She sings in a voice steeped in well-earned wisdom, yet lends some vulnerable lace to her familiar raspy leather. Like most of her songs, she didn’t write “Nobody’s Girl.” But it could easily be seen as her story.

She don't need anybody to tell her she's pretty;
She's heard it every single day of her life.
He's got to wonder what she sees in him
when there's so many others standing in line.
She gives herself to him;
but he's still on the outside.
She's alone in this world.
She's nobody's girl.

She's shows up at his doorstep in the middle of the night.
Then she disappears for weeks at a time.
Just enough to keep him wanting more
But never is he satisfied.
And he's left to pick up the pieces
Wondering what does he do this for.
She's off in her own little world.
She's nobody's girl.

The girl Bonnie sings about is her own version of Manic Pixie Dreamgirl, beholden to no one and the object of desire to so many, yet still infused with that little girl spirit that wants—needs—to sometimes be taken care of. Bonnie understands the story as she tells it, for sure, but she also understands the story of the suitor who longs to be with the song’s main character. She’s played both roles in her life, and here, she gets them both at once. That’s what gives “Nobody’s Girl” is rich, deep soul. Everything it has has been hard-earned.

And it’s never more apparent or profound than at its bridge.

He said, "Before I met her, I didn't love nothin'.
I could take it or leave it - that was okay.
She brings out a want in me
of things I didn't even know that I need."

As she sings, Bonnie accompanies herself with one of the prettiest, most fragile guitar lines of her career, little blue notes shining over her words, tinkling like the charms on a bracelet dangling from the title girl’s wrist. The song is lonely, unique, yet vaguely reassuring. A paean to those things, as she sings, we didn’t even know that we need. Yet we still continue to need them. We always do. Bob Dylan ridiculed such self-contradiction “Just Like a Woman.” Here Bonnie Raitt embraces it, at least for a few moments, however reluctant and doubting that embrace may be.

She does anything she wants any time she wants to
with anyone - you know she wants it all.
Still she gets all upset over the least little thing
Man, you hurt her, it makes you feel so small.
And she's a walking contradiction,
but I ache for her inside.
She's fragile like a string of pearls.
She's nobody's girl
She's fragile like a string of pearls.
She's nobody's girl.

Meet the new Bonnie, same as the old Bonnie. In some ways it’s true. “Nobody’s Girl” is a gorgeous little ballad about such disparate wantings: independence and companionship, self-reliance and vulnerability, wanderlust and cold comfort. And that is exactly what it aims to be. Because in this way it can speak to everybody. Even as it remains beholden to nobody.

Imagine the Band

I did not think this was going to work.

Favorite Song Friday: Silly Love Songs

Paul McCartney’s "Silly Love Songs" is both one of the more reviled as well as ingenious pop tunes ever, a song that manages to be both a catchy little ditty and a surprisingly complex composition.

The majority of the song is based around a repeating three-chord-structure. These basic chord changes are first heard in the oddly industrial-sounding introduction—seriously, what the hell's up with that? Is it meant to counterbalance and highlight the most basic element of humanity throughout the rest of the song? An ironic counterpoint to the lushness to follow? Or on his own ability to seemingly churn out perfect pop ditties with automaton-like efficiency?—where they’re run through twice. A simple but unusual pattern, it consists of the tonic, mediant and subdominant, rather than the far, far more common tonic, subdominant and dominant; making things even a bit more interesting, the mediant and subdominant are both seventh chords, adding a certain amount of tonal richness and ambiguity.

Then we’re into the main body of the song. The chord changes are heard once again, but this time the feeling is completely different. Where before we had sixteenth notes on the high hat and factory-like percussion with whole note chords on the piano, the percussion has disappeared to be replaced by standard (if outstanding) drumming (courtesy of Joe English), with eighth notes on the high hat. The piano’s still there, but it’s no longer just playing bare chords, instead comping tastefully.

The main difference, though, is the bass line, certainly one of the finest in rock history as well as one of the most memorable and, not incidentally, mixed extremely high. In fact, it’s the lead instrument of the song, louder than either the drums or piano. Which, astonishingly, are the only instruments for this first verse. Just bass, drums and a little bit of colorization from the piano comping quietly in the background. That's it. Drums, some restrained piano, and carrying much of the melody and harmony simultaneously, lead bass—not at all standard for your typical silly love song. I can't think of another hit that's almost entirely just bass and drums.

Then, of course, there’s the vocals, singing one of those instantly catchy melodies McCartney literally used to be able to write in his sleep (cf. "Yesterday).  Even if you haven't heard the song in decades, I'm sure you can sing the melody flawless. Except, here's the thing: mind-bogglingly, this fantastic melody is never heard again until the very end of the six-minute-tune.

Think about that for a second. Imagine being able to write a melody as lovely and catchy as the first verse’s: "you’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs." Now imagine you’ve got so much talent that you can simply toss it to the side and move on. After all, you’ve got plenty more where that came from. That's unreal.

But that's not all. Oh, no. In fact, before the song’s over, McCartney will come up with five different melodies to go over that one basic set of chord changes, as well as others for the different sections of the song. Many of them are related to each other yet remain distinctly different, thanks to augmentation, diminution, interpolation, extrapolation and so on. Tasteful New Orleans brass suddenly pop up to introduce the chorus, during which they disappear, to be replaced by strings. This is the "I love you" section and, sure enough, it’s the same three chords again with a new melody on top.

After the chorus, we get the second verse, the "I can’t explain, the feeling’s plain to me, say, can’t you see" (hey, I never said the lyrics were brilliant) verse, whereupon McCartney comes up with a different, yet equally catchy melody—his third, for those keeping track at home—over the same chord changes. This time, Linda’s singing the "I love you" melody from the chorus in the background, kept company by the horn section.

Another chorus, this time both Paul and Linda singing the "I love you" melody and then we come to the bridge, the "love doesn’t come in a minute" section, which is played over an entirely different set of chord changes—the first that's happened in the song.

And then it’s right back to the good ol’ three-chord-structure again, this time for the solo. But as there’s no noticeable guitar in the song and the piano’s been relegated to simple comping and the bass has been taking the leads all along, what’s he to do? Why, he has the horn section take the solo, playing yet another melody, this one a variation on what they’d been playing in the background during the second verse, related to the original melody, only now each of their phrases is answered by the strings.

Then we’re into yet another section. It could be the chorus or it could be a verse, since they’re over the same set of changes. Since Paul’s singing yet another melody, the "how can I tell you about my loved one" line, however, it might simply be a whole new section, especially since it’s over a setting similar to the industrial introduction. Sans percussion sounds, however, its effect is completely differently, largely thanks to the addition of the drums and bass. After two runs through this, Linda begins to sing the "I love you" chorus part behind Paul’s lead line.

We come out of that for a quick trip to the brass and strings running through the changes once, and then it’s back to the new version of the introduction section. This time through it’s Paul singing the "I love you" melody while Linda soon adds the "I can’t explain, the feeling’s plain to me" part from the second verse. After a bit Denny Laine chimes in with the "how can I tell you" line that Paul’d had the first time but has since discarded. And, of course, all this is interlocking over the same three chords.

Finally we get back to a verse, and at long last we get the triumphant reappearance of the first melody, more than five long damn minutes after we first encountered it. Whereupon the entire song wraps up—and yet, interestingly, it ends not after another chorus, as would be expected, but at the end of this verse and, enigmatically, on an unresolved mediant chord rather than the expected tonic, giving a strangely unsettled feeling to the entire thing, as though McCartney's daring people to look more deeply into what would seem at first or second or ninth glance a simple pop throwaway, knowing that if they did they'd see a composition that's light years away from merely being a simple silly love song, its title notwithstanding.

There are but a small handful of artists ever who could have pulled off a feat this tricky and and audaciously hide the whole damn thing in plain sight. Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, Stevie Wonder and Prince are the obvious contenders, but I'm not sure any of them (certainly, Spector seems especially unlikely) would have had the restraint to pull off the curiously minimalist instrumentation at the beginning. (The fact that while McCartney's a multi-instrumentalist, like the rest, he's perhaps first and foremost a bassist obviously has more than a little to do with that.) 

But here's the kicker, and the reason that this song I've always loved is one of my all-time favorites: rumor has it that McCartney wrote it as a one-fingered-salute to the critics (some even say it was John Lennon himself) who’d said he was no longer capable of writing anything other than silly love songs.
McCartney picked up the gauntlet and created a complex composition disguised as the fluffiest of pop hits so successfully that even today few look past the title—and made millions off it.

Know what that is? That's ninja. Hell, that's beyond ninja: that's punk. That's punk on a level Malcolm McLaren never even dreamt of.

Summer Breeze

I had no idea this was coming. I'd bought the Isley Brothers album 3+3 because (I think) it'd been recommended in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, and I was looking to fill gaps in my education. And did this ever.

I saw the song title, I suppose, but I did all my listening in those days while commuting, so I rarely had time to do more than glance at the CD cover. But even if I did see the title, I doubt I really expected this great R&B/soul/funk band to take on the (admittedly, beloved) soft-rock wimpfest.

I was very, very wrong.



Makes me feel very, very fine. 

Stage Fright

There are many things in rock history nearly impossible to believe. That John Lennon was not clearly the dominant musical force in the Beatles, for instance—nor was Paul McCartney. That there are people who still don't understand how staggeringly talented Elvis Presley was. That Buddy Holly was only 22 damn years old when he died. 22! The mind boggles.

But I'm not sure anything surpasses the fact that Rick Danko was only the third-best vocalist in the Band.

This guy. This guy. Wasn't even second-best. He was third.

Just does not seem possible. And yet.

(Also, yes, The Last Waltz was beautifully shot, but never more so than this song. Even for Scorsese, this is just gorgeous.)

Look, George Harrison was a fine singer...but he was very clearly not one of the two best in his group. Same with John Entwhistle and Mike Mills.

But Rick Danko? All but a small handful of top-+notch bands ever would have been pleased as punch to have him as their lead singer, and he could easily have made a very good band a top-notch one. Yet so loaded with talent was the Band that he was relegated to last place as a vocalist. (We'll ignore Robbie Robertson's blessedly rare forays into singing back then.)

The magical thing about the Band, of course, was that as musicians, they were all—including the otherwise rapacious Robertson—incredibly generous, able to step to the front and happy to fade into the back. The result, when everything aligned just so, was perfection. And never more so than on this, one of the great examples of a great band not only firing on all cylinders, but gracefully and graciously passing the ball back and forth.

Then some returned to the motherland The high command had them cast away And some stayed on to finish what they started They never parted, they're just built that way

I sometimes wonder if Robertson knew he was writing so autobiographically there.

Eleanor Rigby

Yes.

Q.U.E.E.N.

I would like to say something intelligent about this. But Janelle Monáe is so goddamn awesome that she drives most logical thoughts from my head. Except that every time I listen to her, I think she's the David Bowie of this young century.



"Categorize me? I defy every label." 

Favorite Song Friday: Crowing

Back in the 90s (wow, did I just say that?) one of my favorite bands was Toad the Wet Sprocket.

Not as edgy or groundbreaking as Nirvana, not as genre-bending as Rage Against the Machine or the Red Hot Chili Peppers, they nonetheless existed confidently on their own plain for a while. They were an extremely literate, mid-tempo band that paid particular attention to creating some absolutely gorgeous and unforgettable hooks. Lead singer Glen Phillips evoked easy comparisons to Jackson Browne’s bell-clear pitch and earnest delivery. And they could change it up, too—when they rocked they positively burned through the speakers (“Woodburning,” “Is It For Me,” “Fall Down”). When they went softer they had a breezy, almost angelic quality to them (“All I Want,” “Something’s Always Wrong.”) Why they didn’t last another 10 years or so is a mystery to me—they had integrity, talent and a highly accessible sound.

They take centerstage nicely today for Favorite Song Friday.

Favorite Song Friday: Toad the Wet Sprocket – “Crowing”

What makes a love song work? Honesty, for one thing. Sincerity, yeah—we kinda have to believe Paul McCartney when he sings “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, tomorrow I’ll miss you, remember I’ll always be true.” If we don’t, well, it won’t be nearly as effective. 

A love song doesn’t need to be slow—witness “Layla” and “Foxey Lady” and even “I Want You.” It doesn’t necessarily have to be happy either. Natalie Imbruglio recorded a Jim Dandy of a love song with “Torn” and no one would ever accuse her of sounding happy. The aforementioned Jackson Browne became an veritable institution by exploring the darker sides of love. Bruce Springsteen devoted an entire album to the idea of love and marriage (Tunnel of Love) and no one will ever accuse that of being particularly gleeful. And if happiness were required in writing and singing songs of love, Elvis Costello may be standing by the road with a sign that reads “Will Express Bitterness and Resentment in Song for Food.”

It is in this universe where Toad’s  “Crowing” so easily exists. It isn’t happy, though it isn’t entirely sad. It indeed has a melancholy feel, sure, but is wrapped in such a lovely and rich melody it’s easy to get sucked in and rope-a-doped into thinking it may, in fact, have some optimism attached to it. Even though I’m not sure it does.

The song is given its soul by a simply stunning chord progression that effortlessly bounces between major and minor, creating a lush, dreamlike sound that in some ways reminds me of the breathtaking chords that open up “Ziggy Stardust.” The way those minors hit, though, lend a jarring depth to the song, as well as adding an element of foreboding tension that hangs over every note as a result.

And the words. The words are downright poetic, in the truest sense of the word, in that they focus more on feel and imagery than any particular plot or story point. The very fact that the chorus comes back to the line, “He was crowing for repair” speaks to this. What does that even mean? In the literal sense it’s hard to put your finger exactly on it. In the more ethereal sense, though, Phillips’ mournful, almost abashed reading of these lines speaks to regret and loss.

Been waiting to find

You could have been happier, given the time

If he’d make up his mind

You’d give yourself to anybody who would cross that line

And it was never a question

He was crowing for repair

You’d give him love and affection

You couldn’t keep him there

Get over regrets

You were sleeping with the angels, he was under the bed

And the more skin that you shed

The more that the air in your throat will linger when you call him your friend

And it was never a question

He was crowing for repair

You’d give him love and affection

You couldn’t keep him there

What exactly is going on here? Betrayal, certainly on an emotional level, is palpable. So is empathy…to a point. Because at the start of the second verse the narrator tells the subject to get over it. But look inside those images. Sleeping with angels. Air lingering in your throat as you search for words that may or may not be right. Shedding skin as an idea of openness, revelation. 

“Crowing” gives the listeners credit for paying attention and connecting the dots for  themselves, using image and tone rather than, really, any level of exposition to make the point. This is a staple in poetry, yet not always so in rock music.  Toad makes it work by simply sticking to the script and allowing it to unfold on its own time. Witness the bridge as a perfect example.

Staring at a cold little hand

Reading fault lines of a shell of a man

You were waiting for a word from above

Wouldn’t you know it, no answer ever did come

Glen Phillips seems to want to give us a reveal at the end – "You hoped for something that never showed up, and for that I am sorry." OK, we get that. But what? What did you hope for? We know love and affection wasn’t enough based on the words in the chorus, so what was? Or—and this very well may be the main point—is it something the narrator simply doesn’t know? Something he wishes he knew, but he just can’t seem to figure out.

Perhaps it’s fitting that the album that “Crowing” appears on is called Dulcinea, named for Don Quixote's super-idealized love of his life, the girl of his dreams who clearly doesn't exist. Or, more to the point, she does exist, just not at all as he sees her.  But he pursues her anyway, believing the beauty of even an idea this good is worth it. Like the narrator in “Crowing,” he’s chasing a specter and nothing more. 

In Toad’s version we know there are troubled waters in front of him—words and phrases like “cold little hand” and “shell of a man” (one magnificent rhyming couplet, BTW)—clearly steer us in that  direction. But whatever else is out there the singer needs to figure out for himself. And we, the listener, need to figure out for ourselves.

“Crowing” works beyond its rich chords and oblique, evocative words, because it challenges the listener to go along on the journey with it without ever showing us what's truly behind the curtain. That’s why I love the song—there is nothing at all obvious or deliberate about it. Like the fabled Dulcinea of Quixote’s dreams, we have to find it on our own.

The Art of the Fugue

I don't get it.

I mean, I understand—roughly— what a fugue is. But I don't get how someone can compose something this beautiful and intricate...and then go on to compose a dozen variations on it, not to mention hundreds and hundreds of other pieces of roughly equal complexity and brilliance.


Some people, man...they just don't seem quite like...people.

RIP Richie Havens

Woodstock is iconic enough that you didn't have to be there...hell, you barely have to have been alive...to recognize and appreciate its most signature moments. Or, for that matter, to simply appreciate that August 1969 weekend of music as the one big, sprawling, glorious mess it was.

Moments like Joe Cocker practically leaving his lungs on the stage while wringing every ounce of soul any one man could ever get out of "With a Little Help From My Friends."

Or the only days-old Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young introducing their magic to the world in the wee wee hours of the night.

Or a pregnant Joan Baez singing a defiant "Joe Hill" for her husband, who at that moment was in prison for draft evasion. (Yes, it was a different time, wasn't it?)

Or, yes, Jimi Hendrix, at the height of his powers and with barely a year left before he'd be dead, almost bringing the sun out all by himself with his Monday morning rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner."

These are all seminal rock-n-roll moments, and Woodstock, while of course suffering from decades of mythology and overhype, has regardless earned its place on the very, very short list of the most important events in rock-n-roll history.

Plenty of bands and artists that I have come to love played up there at Yasgur's Farm that weekend, like The Who and The Band and Jimi and Janis and Sly and the Family Stone, playing epochal sets that have rightly stood the very demanding tests of time. I know practically every frame of Michael Wadleigh's brilliant and provocative documentary, which came out a year later. I wasn't at Woodstock...I was 10 months old, after all...but what that August 1969 weekend left behind meant plenty to me, and helped to shape my love of music in a weird way all its own.

Funny, though. Whenever I think of Woodstock, I don't think of any of those moments mentioned above, great though they all are.

Instead I think of this.




Ah, Richie Havens. Straight out of Greenwich Village, robes flowing and a voice filled with gravel, all thumbs and gums as he strums his guitar faster, faster, faster, eyes shut tight, practically pleading his one word incantation over and over as he not only opened but awakened the whole festival. "Freedom!! Freedom! Freedom!"

What makes it all the more amazing, of course, is he never planned on doing it and basically made the whole thing up as he went along. Richie had opened everything up impressively and his set was done. The problem was there was no one to go on next. Bands scheduled to play early-on were stuck in traffic, many on the jammed and soon-to-be-closed New York State Thruway. The already cash-strapped promoters were starting to panic as fans kept coming and coming and the gates (as they were) were literally flung open for free and most of the talent was yet to arrive. They needed something, someone to fill the empty spaces.

That someone was Richie Havens, who delivered his now-legendary improvised and impassioned plea, over and over. While the festival waited for acts to arrive who would make history, history was in fact made with raw eloquence by a man who simply did what he knew how to do. He just played. They needed him to play, and play he did. Richie played and played, his fingers devouring his guitar strings, his voice growing rougher and more ragged with each word he sang. They needed him to play, and Richie Havens played.

He plays today still.

Rest in peace, Richie.

Silly Love Songs

So you were probably wondering—as most people do on a Thursday afternoon—"say, what would it sound like if Neil Young and Crazy Horse had covered Wings on their Live Rust Tour?"

Well. Wonder no more.

What's wrong with that? Not a thing. 

Wishing Well (or the sound of a baseball hitting you in the spine)

Last night at my son’s baseball practice—a somewhat chilly, overcast night—batting practice was nearing an end. Given that my right arm now contains all the power of the police chief in a lawless 1870s Deadwood, I no longer pitch batting practice. (Doc, it hurts when I do this.) So I was playing the highly visible yet trained-monkey-capable role of “feeding the pitcher.”

Meaning after the pitcher threw a pitch to the batter, I reached into the ball bucket and fed him another. And again. And again. And again. Yep. Where I once dreamed of playing in the major leagues, I have now settled into my role of handing the ball to the guy who’s acually going to throw it.

(Cue Karate Kid "You're The Best" montage)

Anyway it was the last batter, and I had just taken a throw from the outfield and turned back to face the pitcher’s mound from my position directly behind it. As I did I noted our head coach (I am the assistant coach…my job often entails handing the ball to the guy who’s pitching…but then again we’ve covered that), standing at the mound, had a look on his face that I’d seen before. His eyes were a bit wider than usual. His mouth seemed to want to form words, yet no words came. His face moved in slow motion as he attempted to convey…something...to me. Something that seemed imminent.

It dawned on me—there was a ball heading at my head. I was about to be hit. That was it, wasn't it.

Yes it was.

“DAN LOOK…” was all he got out before impact. I praise the effort, though.

In that final fragment of a second I braced myself in the way that must have seemed like the best idea at the time: I stood there and did absolutely nothing.

THUD!

The ball didn’t hit my head. It hit me instead perfectly in the center of my back, right on the spine between the shoulder blades.

BTW?

Ow.

As everyone winced and I kind of let out a loud groan, my inner Lou Gossett (more Sgt. Foley than the whale guy from Jaws 3-D) came out, as I conveyed about 9 seconds of rather refreshing blind rage.

“You OK?” the coach asked.

“I’M FINE!!! WHY IS SOMEONE THROWING THE BALL TO SOMEONE WHO ISN’T LOOKING?! ISN’T THAT ONE OF THE CARDINAL RULES OUT HERE?! HUH?! OR IS TOO MUCH FUN TO SEE A COACH TAKE A FASTBALL TO THE BACK???!!!”

Silence.

I turned to face the perpetrator who had spined me, yelling as I turned, “MAKES SENSE, DOESN’T IT? DON’T THROW THE BALL UNLESS SOMEONE IS LOOKING?! HAVEN'T WE BEEN TEACHING YOU THAT SINCE YOU WERE 5 YEARS OLD?!”

I finally came face to face with the 13-year-old fiend who nailed me. And...

...it was the quietest kid on our team. And he was wincing like a frightened beagle.

Suddenly I felt like kind of a jerk.

I mean, he didn’t mean it. And I apologized for my outburst and just reminded him to never throw the ball when someone wasn’t looking, and he nodded and apologized, and I gave him a pat on the back. And then fired a fastball into his shoulder blade.

Heh.

(No, of course I didn’t. I told you my throwing arm is shot, didn’t I?)

So anyway, today my back is sore where the ball hit me. End of that part of the story.

But driving into work today I put on a song that I’ve loved for 20+ years. One of the angriest, most visceral songs I have ever heard, yet also one that is strangely melodic. It's sorta punk but sorta not. Sorta metal but sorta not. It's just...power. Angry power. Complete with a guitar solo that has to be heard to be believed—I am fairly certain the guitar filed abuse charges after it was over.

Listen.

Man, the way it builds on some simple acoustic guitar chords, and then keeps building and building? And that detached, bloodless way Bob Mould sings the words? And that solo! (It starts at 2:28 when Bob tears his hand down the neck as brutally as the villain in a slasher film.) The way it reverberates and lingers through the end of the song? Damn! I’m not sure what Bob is so angry about, but I hope it’s not because of something I said.

But I realized…to close this little circle I’ve opened up and to wind this silly story around to actually fit in with this here music blog of ours…that when I first heard this song in 1989 or so it hit me at totally unexpected level. Raw. Painful. Totally by surprise. If blind rage has a sound, this might be it.

This song hit me like a fastball to the spinal column. Now that I know what that feels like, I can confirm this.

Not a good thing to have a baseball do that. But a song? Pretty damn good.

(Now I need someone to get me some ice. Please?)

Sherry Darling

Bruce Springsteen's 1980 album, The River, is a collection which was very deliberately designed to mix light and dark, heavy and light. As Springsteen himself has said:

"Originally [The River] was a single record. I handed it in with just one record and I took it back because I didn't feel it was big enough. I wanted to capture the themes I had been writing about on Darkness [on the Edge of Town]. I wanted to keep those characters with me and at the same time added music that made our live shows so much fun and joy for our audience." 

He also said, 

"Rock and roll has always been this joy, this certain happiness that is in its way the most beautiful thing in life. But rock is also about hardness and coldness and being alone. I finally got to the place where I realized life had paradoxes, a lot of them, and you've got to live with them."

"Sherry Darling" is the second song on the first side and embodies perfectly what Springsteen was going for. A callback to Springsteen's beloved frat rock of the 1960s, it even has fake crowd noises mixed in and is not only one of The River's lighter songs, but one of the most lightweight he'd recorded since his debut. 

And yet, a few years ago I came to realize that even most of Springstee's lighter songs can surprise you in some way, and usually have unexpected depth and weight to them. For instance: 

Your Mamma's yappin' in the back seat
Tell her to push over and move them big feet

Okay. Take that opening. That's funny, and in a way he'd never been before, not on record. It's direct, it's real and dagummit, it's just plain funny. Sure, it's got a car and it's got parent-child tension, both standards for Springsteen, but that kind of humor is new for him.

Every Monday morning I gotta drive her down to the unemployment agency

And there we go. Right there we're suddenly in different territory, both for him and for most rock music. For all he would later draw attention for his first subtle and then overt political stands, the class consciousness which had been there from his first record—and really exploded on Darkness—is right smack dab in the third line of this seemingly lightweight, throwaway summer beach bar song. You know who doesn't get driven to the unemployment agency in the backseat of their daughter's boyfriend's car on a regular basis? Anyone who's middle-class or wealthier. That's strictly a working class or working (or trying to work) poor phenomena.

Well this morning I ain't fighting tell her I give up
Tell her she wins if she'll just shut up
But it's the last time that she's gonna be ridin' with me 

Now there's girls melting on the beach
And they're so fine but so far out of reach
Cause I'm stuck in traffic down here on 53rd street

Again, the sense of longing Springsteen can't help but slip into this seemingly lightweight, throwaway summer beach bar song is striking. He was going for fun. But he's Bruce Springsteen, so the real world can't help but make its presence felt, the knowledge of what's out there, what he wants, and what he cannot have. It's there, he knows it's there, and it's unobtainable--it's not for the likes of him.

Now Sherry my love for you is real
But I didn't count on this package deal
And baby this car just ain't big enough for her and me 

So you can tell her there's a hot sun beatin' on the black top
She keeps talkin' she'll be walkin' that last block
She can take a subway back to the ghetto tonight

Another indication that the people in this song are not exactly upper-class.

Well I got some beer and the highway's free
And I got you, and baby you've got me.
Hey, hey, hey what you say Sherry Darlin'

And then comes something a bit strange structurally, where after the solo, part of the chorus is reworked a bit so it functions more as a bridge, right before one last quick chorus proper. And what a bridge, as a lovely vista suddenly opens up:

Well let there be sunlight, let there be rain
Let the brokenhearted love again

And a brief move into a minor chord for this wonderfully romantic image:

Sherry we can run with our arms open before the tide

And how different is all that, really, than:

Someday girl, I don't know when,
we're gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go
and we'll walk in the sun

Thematically, it's not. It's only the music of this seemingly lightweight, throwaway summer beach bar song that makes it different--that and the fact that he was always open about wanting to put more light songs on this particular album, and its placement right as the second song, an admission that I think has unfairly colored our opinions of this particular song.

To all the girls down at Sacred Heart
And all you operators back in the Park
Say hey, hey, hey what you say Sherry Darlin'
Hey, hey, hey, what you say Sherry Darlin'

Well, I ain't Sherry, but here's what I say: I say this is a magnifcent piece of rock and roll songwriting, combining an upbeat melody over (mainly) three chords with authentically funny lyrics...but which has more than a shadow of seriousness, of bone-deep longing, and the limitations brought on my class divisions, as well as the conviction that love can (maybe at least partially) overcome all that.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what constitutes a seemingly lightweight, throwaway summer beach bar song for one Bruce Springsteen. 

But also too, let's simply give it up for the fun song, dammit. So much of the greatest rock and roll is about pain in its various forms, and the few truly great upbeat songs—U2's "Beautiful Day," say, or "Sherry Darling"—get downgraded for lack of seriousness and angst. But it's like comedy. When listing the all-time greatest films, why are so many of them dramas and so few comedies? Part of it is the bias we have or have inherited for thinking drama is more inherently worthy. But part of is that there are fewer truly great comedies. But not because there are fewer comedies made. It's because comedy is so damn hard. 

"Sherry Darling" shows that Bruce Springsteen is, once again, a master of more than one genre.

Oh, and it's got a good beat and you can dance to it. (And the Big Man!)

Favorite Song Friday: St. Elmo's Fire

I don’t know what possessed me to pick up an expensive import copy of Brian Eno’s Music for Films when I ran across it in a small independent record store in Washington D.C. when I was about seventeen. I’d never heard a single second Eno’s work, although I knew him from his collaborations with David Bowie and, to a much lesser extent, Talking Heads.

But buy it I did. And when I got home a few days later, I cranked up the stereo, having not the slightest idea what to expect. I listened. And a bit less than an hour later when I was able to move again, I shut my mouth, picked up my eyeballs from where they’d fallen on the floor and popped them back in. And my life has never been the same since. I’d bought my first ambient record.

Ambient, to me, often sounds like what I’d imagine a long space voyage would sound like if the spaceship were built in the late seventies and the designers were inspired by the sterile beauty of Stanley Kubrick’s films. It’s usually fairly or very slow, although sometimes the beat is so ambiguous as to be almost missing altogether. On most of Eno’s ambient recordings there are rarely any percussion instruments used in the normal way. Things shift in and out of focus, appear and disappear, come and go, as though you’re traveling through a musical fog. Here, listen to this—it's the very first Eno I ever heard:

Right? See what I'm sayin'? Didn't that just totally fill your very soul with a heady and untenable combination of quiet peace and desperate longing? It sounds, to me, like lying back, all alone, staring up at the sky on a beautiful spring day in a verdant, pastoral (is there any other kind?) field which happens to be located on a spaceship bound for a distant galaxy on a decades-long voyage.

This is not music for everybody, I realize. During my college years I played Music for Films several times a week, I’d guess, when I wasn’t playing The Replacements or R.E.M. or Springsteen. It was a sort of aural palate cleanser. The only other Eno I bought back then was Another Green World which is, for my money, his masterpiece. Another Green World is a bridge between Eno’s ambient work and his more traditional pop-related material. In fact, most of the album is actually ambient, something which is easy to overlook, so striking are the numbers with lyrics. Chief among them is the odd piece of pop perfection which is "St. Elmo’s Fire."

I’ve never been entirely sure why this song smacked me over the head as it did the very first time I heard it, but writing the piece just now, I played it a half-dozen times in a row and the thing still does a number on me. It’s superficially a straight-forward pop song, three minutes long, three verses, three choruses, guitar solo, the whole regular schmeer. Yet it’s sort of a really catchy pop song done by an alien who’s really, really familiar with our culture and gets it completely…almost.

It starts off with some knocking, perhaps wood blocks, perhaps not and the sound of something, perhaps a tape, starting up. Then a few notes are repeated over and over on the piano, a driving motion that’ll serve as the pulse of the song. Some clattering percussion, almost devoid of rhythm, enters. Insistent chords bang out on another keyboard instrument, first insistently syncopated but subtly shifting so it’s instead squarely on the first downbeat. And then Eno starts singing.

He’s got a somewhat talky sort of voice but if it’s not necessarily much better than other talkers like Lou Reed (when Reed cares to try) or J Mascis, it’s a bit more accessible and less grating. It may not knock Lennon or McCartney off their perches as amongst the greatest rock voices ever, but it fits the material.

The first verse lets us know what we’re in for:

Brown Eyes and I were tired
We had walked and we had scrambled
Through the moors and through the briars
Through the endless blue meanders

And without a pause we go into the chorus:

In the blue August moon
In the cool August moon

What does any of this mean? What could endless blue meanders be? After listening hundreds of times, I have no idea. Nor could I possibly care less. The words work. The sound of them, the images they convey, the tone they set, are all that matters. They sound good and somehow manage to mean nothing in a rather poetic way without being pretentious at all. They’re almost little more than another instrument, like the piano or the percussion or the guitar solo, yet weighted with some emotional resonance I don’t fully understand. Another verse and another trip through the chorus gives us more of the same:

Over the nights and through the fires
We went surging down the wires
Through the towns and on the highways
Through the storms in all their thundering
In the blue August moon In the cool August moon 

Then the final verse:

Then we rested in a desert
Where the bones were white as teeth, sir
And we saw St. Elmo’s Fire
Splitting ions in the ether

Again, the scene set is beautiful and haunting and if we get no more than stray images and a hint of story supplied mainly by ourselves, it’s no less powerful for that. And then comes what may be the most amazing part of the song: the guitar solo.

As Eno is not one to bow to tradition just for tradition’s sake, there aren’t a lot of solos in his work. Yet here he’s got a guitar solo right smack dab in the standard place. Except that it’s not. For one thing, rather than soloing over the verse chords or the chorus chords once, the guitarist, King Crimson leader and frequent Eno collaborator Robert Fripp, solos over the chorus chords, seems about to wrap things up, and then decides to go over another chorus. What’s more, when the lyrics kick back in for two more choruses, he keeps soloing, albeit more softly. Which means that very nearly one-third of the entire song is the guitar solo—and well over one-half if you include the sections where Eno is also singing over the solo—a ratio wildly out of balance for a pop song. Meanwhile, harmonically, the entire song is remarkably simple, with the verses consisting of nothing more than the I chord, and the chorus just vi-IV-V repeated over and over.

But more than anything it’s the sound and style of the solo itself that’s so stunning. It’s not clear whether Fripp wasn’t sure what to play or whether he was just asking Eno what he was looking for, but Eno later said:

"...on ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ I had this idea and said to Fripp, ‘Do you know what a Wimshurst machine is?’ It’s a device for generating very high voltages which then leap between the two poles, and it has a certain erratic contour, and I said, ‘You have to imagine a guitar line that has that, very fast and unpredictable.’ And he played that part which to me was very Wimshurst indeed." 

So if you can just picture those two poles in the background in all the Frankenstein films, with the electricity sparking back and forth between them, you can imagine this solo. It’s a really gorgeous and melodic version of that. And it’s the combination of the anarchic, blistering guitar solo, the odd instrumentation elsewhere in the song, the impressionistic lyrics and the sheer melodic appeal of the tune itself that makes this one of the great, albeit rather obscure, pop songs in history.

In the blue August moon
In the cool August moon
In the blue August moo
In the cool August moon

It was only recently, though, that I realized that Eno's lyrics are essentially a highly intellectualized version of "a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom" or "da-doo-ron-ron-ron" or "sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-tee-da" or "de-do-do-do-de-da-da-da" or, for that matter, "hello, hello, hello, how low." There are somethings which regular words are not capable of quite capturing, and sometimes words mean so much more than they seem.

Radio Hook Word Hit

So...Chris Mars has said the reason he's never joined either of the mini-reunions the Replacements have had is because he doesn't really do music anymore; he's been a serious and successful painter since a few years after the band broke up and, in fact, contributed the cover paintings to all the Slim Dunlap tribute albums.

I feel like this piece, entitled Dr. Glaxo, might just have a message. Aw, I'm probably reading into it. I do that sometimes. 

But he did record one of Slim's songs for the recent 'Mats LP Songs for Slim, playing all the instruments on his track.



How the hell is that the sound of a guy who hasn't played drums this century? Or guitar, for that matter?

Man, no one plays drums quite like Chris Mars. The secret ingredient to the impossibly delicious taste treat that was the Replacements.

Favorite Song Friday: Friday I'm In Love

I admit, back in the 80s, the Brits and their music just kinda eluded me.

No, not those Brits. Not the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and the Who and the Kinks and Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd all the others who came over with the initial British Invasion. Hell, that made up at least 75% of my musical formation back then. Still does – maybe not that high a number. But my love for the music from the UK in that era will never die. How could it?

I mean the other Brits. The ones who came a generation later. The ones who arrived on the scene with their own version of post punk, of pop, of alt and of new wave. I’m talking The Cure, The Jam, The Smiths, XTC, English Beat and all the others who came and dominated so much of the 80s scene.

By the time I was old enough (read: late high school and especially college) to really start exploring the studio with my musical leanings and leave my Beatles/Bruce/Dylan comfort zone, I admit I turned to our shores instead. I immersed myself in every single sound R.E.M. every made, I learned to worship at the Replacements’ altar. I was much more interested in what Bob Mould or The Smithereens had to say than Robert Smith or Morrissey. Hell, I even avoided U2 until Rattle and Hum made it simply impossible. And I’m Irish! (Well, half).

Was it smart? Nope. It was, in fact, the opposite of smart, for someone who prided himself as such a music fan to shut out this whole block of  wondrous artists. Which is to say, it was stupid.

It changed with Robyn Hitchcock, oddly enough. When I heard how much R.E.M. worshipped him, when I learned he was basically the evolutionary Syd Barrett, when I heard what he did by blending Beatles pop with a punk sneer and 80s production splendor, it dawned on me I wasn’t too good for this stuff. And I needed to listen up. Now.

But this isn’t about Robyn, delightful maniac though he is. Nah, that’s for another post.

This is about where he led me back to, and how he got me to give The Cure a chance. And it led to this sheer piece of refined gold.

Favorite Song Friday – “Friday I’m In Love” – The Cure

That’s right. I came to the 80s Brit scene in…1992.

Oh well.

Scott mentioned a couple weeks ago, as he wrote in this space about XTC’s “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead,” about that sound that starts it all, followed by that chord. And how much it means to the overall song.

Allow me to steal.

The way “Friday I’m In Love” starts, with an other-worldly arpeggio that sure, maybe we’ve heard a million times before, but it’s just so perfect in setting the scene for this straightforward love song. So much of rock-n-roll comes down to the beginning, the way a song kicks off. Think “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Purple Haze,” “Finest Worksong” and “A Hard Day’s Night,” “You Really Got Me” and “Pride.” Sometimes those first few seconds are the make or break moments.

Robert Smith and his mates do it with those few floating notes to open up “Friday I’m In Love.” It’s the gateway to the splendor ride the song takes us on. But all the promise, all the hope, every expectation we get out of the genre that is the love song can be found in those first few seconds.

What follows is pop perfection, something I’ve written about many times on these pages. But Smith literally walking us through his week of longing is the very picture of that very crystallized rock-n-roll virtue we first heard when Elvis checked into the Heartbreak Hotel: I want you, I need you, I love you. Now here are 1,000 reasons why.

“Friday I’m In Love” has it all, from the big stuff—such remarkably clever lyrics and storytelling, a melody line so perfectly resolved at every verse despite the lack of a chorus, and that ringing sound that the Cure made for their own, a sound that was always so sweet and so terrifying, so bleak and somehow so redeeming. It’s all there.

I don’t care if Monday’s blue

Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too

Thursday I don’t care about you

It’s Friday I’m in love

Monday you can fall apart

Tuesday Wednesday break my heart

Thursday doesn’t even start

It’s Friday I’m in love

Saturday, wait

Sunday always comes to late

Friday never hesitates

I don’t care if Monday’s black

Tuesday Wednesday heart attack

Thursday never looking back

It’s Friday I’m in love

It doesn’t require complex geometric formulas to tell a story about being in love and staying in love. Sometimes it just has to be something as simple as a calendar. Robert Smith shows us how it’s done here. Does he ever.

And then there are the other touches. The way Boris Williams starts a tiny bit early at the outset on the drums, lending a sense of rush to it all. The delightful harmonies that come in on the “Friday I’m in love” line and nowhere else on the verses, and how they lends such a gorgeous luster to the full flourish on the “Saturday” mini-bridges.

But my favorite touch comes just after the 2 minute mark, where they add basically an entirely new movement to the song. A different tempo takes over for a brief while as the song goes to places totally off the initial rhythm line, places we never saw coming. Which in, say, a 9-minute song by Yes is not unusual. But in a 3 ½ minute pop song? Not easy to do.

Dressed up to the eyes
It's a wonderful surprise
To see your shoes and your spirits rise
Throwing out your frown
And just smiling at the sound
And as sleek as a sheik
Spinning round and round
Always take a big bite
It's such a gorgeous sight
To see you eat in the middle of the night
You can never get enough
Enough of this stuff
It's Friday, I'm in love

I’m not sure the Cure has ever been accused of being “quirky.” But there are such irresistible little offbeat images tucked into there, almost as if Smith just had to get these words out, even though they don’t really seem to fit. “As sleek a sheik?” “A gorgeous site to see you eat in the middle of the night?” That’s adorable! When he finally admits “You can never get enough of this stuff,” we can see exactly what he means.

The final trick is what happens at the end of this little head over heels dalliance, when the song pretty much crashes back into the first verse, seamlessly. Somehow they make it work.

So there you are. Everything I love about music—great lyrics, wonderful band interplay, toying with structure, delectable melodies and a hook that plays over and over in your head long after the song has ended. All found here, thanks to a band I should have found half a decade earlier. But either way, late to the party though I was, I love it.

Which is apropos. It’s Friday, after all.

New Year's Day

So my imaginary friend Chris mentioned that he has several times been stuck in hotel courtesy vehicles with drivers who are enamoured of this series of God-awful albums.

Naturally, I was horrified, as would any right thinking mammal, upon hearing The Clash covered by—and this is really their real name—The Cooltrane Quartet. Because I mean really. Need I say more?

But then I made the mistake of playing this one.

And...and...

...and I kinda love it.

I don't like cool jazz—in fact, I pretty much hate it the way DT hates hair metal. And I'm not at all fond of lounge singing or, indeed, almost any jazz vocals. But damn if this doesn't somehow work.

Favorite Song Friday: Fast Car

One little person, one resonant voice, one crystal clear acoustic guitar, one heartbreaking story.

One masterpiece.

Favorite Song Friday—Tracy Chapman—“Fast Car”

Sorry I couldn't find the studio version, but this live version sans production is awesome.

What a song.

The first time I heard it I really didn’t know what to think. It was 1988. Glam rock (Aqua Net rock, really) ruled the roost with a faux-iron gloved fist. “Sparse” was not a term of art of the day. Nor was “folky” or even “acoustic.” Or, really, “socially conscious.”

I mean sure, there were bands that had a social and political heartbeat. Big time. U2 and REM and the Smiths and Sting and Peter Gabriel and Bruce Springsteen had their fingers on the pulse of what was happening in America and in the world. (More on that in a minute).

But not like this. Not the way Tracy Chapman hit the scene.

In an era defined by noise and production, Tracy Chapman offered silence. In a genre that at the time was all about strutting and cocksure, Tracy Chapman brought a clear, plaintive, solitary plea for action. Or at least understanding.

"Fast Car" is riveting in its sparseness, haunting and unforgettable in its ability to tell a such a lonesome story. That Tracy Chapman made such an honest, stark debut (it was the first single off of her self-titled debut album) at a time of such excess is admirable. That the song became as big as it did at the time? Remarkable.

I once saw “Fast Car” described as “Born to Run for the disillusioned.” That’s a good analogy. Because much like Bruce’s greatest song, “Fast Car” is about the dream of departure, of a literal vehicle of escape from misery into something better. When Bruce sings, “Someday, Wendy, I don’t know when, we’re gonna get to that place where we really want to go,” it’s very similar to Tracy singing, “Maybe together we can get somewhere.” In fact, the sentiment is identical.

The difference, of course, is tone and tenor. Where Bruce’s dream is a sonic boom of hopeful romanticism, Tracy’s is a fading heartbeat, a last whisper of desperation. And despite the sheer motionlessness of “Fast Car”—whose ghostly emptiness, interestingly enough, evokes another Bruce Springsteen masterpiece, his Nebraska album—there is power in Tracy’s voice. Enough to create images that will not go away.

The song is all about that voice—poetic and blunt, almost professorial—and the simple, circular acoustic guitar that hangs over every verse, every word. Its delivery is so subtle you could miss it if you don’t pay attention. But the words—the story of a woman longing to catch one break and to flee with her family from crippling poverty—pack the blow of a sledgehammer.

You got a fast car

And I want a ticket to go anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Anyplace is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove

You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won't have to drive too far
Just 'cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

You see my old man's got a problem
He live with the bottle that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
I say his body's too young to look like his
My mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody's got to take care of him
So I quit school and that's what I did

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
We leave tonight or live and die this way

There are glimpses of hope that run through the words, despite the crushing despair of that fourth (and eventually, twice more repeated) verse, and despite the awful circumstance of the story. The car is a symbol and a means of escape at first, a chance to find something better. It seems reachable for awhile, and remains so at the bridge, where the song seems to snap awake and very briefly bathe itself in that joyful noise that Springsteen chose to tell his story a decade earlier.

I remember we were driving driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

The notion is a seductive one, and Tracy delivers it masterfully. “Hey, this could work! Remember all the good times we’ve had? We can make this happen!” But reality returns when the verse quiets down, once more, into that simple, sad guitar that leads the story onward.

You got a fast car
And we go cruising to entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
And I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You'll find work and I'll get promoted
We'll move out of the shelter
Buy a big house and live in the suburbs

You got a fast car
And I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinking late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together you and me would find it
I got no plans I ain't going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving

Hope is replaced by hardness here, and the image of the car now turns into one of inertia, of being stalled. What good is a fast car if you’ve got nowhere to go? What good is it if it doesn’t even run?

I’ve focused an awful lot on the lyrics of this song, which are of course critical in that Tracy’s voice is the main instrument on display and the song is so story driven. But that guitar, that simple four-chord pattern, is as integral to the song as the words are.

In the very first rock-n-roll song about rock-n-roll stardom, “Johnny B. Goode,” Chuck Berry uses a staggering guitar solo between the second and third (and final) verses to bring the story to life. It’s almost as if he says, “I’ve told you about this young boy and his ability in these words, but now I’m going to show you.” The guitar does the talking for him and completes the story better than any words ever could.

Tracy Chapman does something very similar with her acoustic guitar on “Fast Car.” It’s a pretty enough little melody, but there’s a droning quality to it as well, a loop that never seems to close. And each time she returns to that chord pattern, never changing in volume or pace, the story seems to get further away from the plan of escape and deeper into the reality of unceasing hopelessness. It’s a masterful musical decision to spotlight the guitar the way she does, and much like Chuck did with his solo on “Johnny B. Goode,” it gives “Fast Car” its true soul.

In the fall of 1988, not long after her debut album came out and around the time the  album was  rocketing to the top of the charts and the song was making its way into the Top 10, Tracy Chapman joined a team of megastars—Sting, Peter Gabriel and Bruce Springsteen—on a tour for Amnesty International. While her songs and style fit right in, the placement was still odd. Here was this little black woman in just her early 20s, onstage by herself with only her acoustic guitar, joining three veritable rock legends who each became known for their larger-than-life personae on the stage. I saw the show in Montreal and wondered how she would be received.

The response was unforgettable. 60,000-plus fans in the horrible Olympic Stadium applauded her longer and louder than any of her better known and longer established colleagues that night. And Tracy offered a shy smile of thanks as a result before getting back to work and offering up her next story of social enlightenment.

With “Fast Car,” one woman stands alone, telling a story of, essentially, being alone, yet hoping for something better. The hope never arrives, but the words and the song still ring as loud as anything of that era. Louder, even.