Black cats carry around their stigma like horseshoe-shaped rabbit's foot. False accusations and defiant attitude has lead to them being referred to in countless songs. Here are three that discount any negative effect that melanin rich felines have on those (non-rodents) around them.
Back in 1984 I met this girl who didn't have a cell phone. So in order to communicate with her I had to have a government worker come to my house, pick up my text message, take it to a facility where they dumped it into a sorting machine with everyone else's text messages, then they bagged it up and had another federal employee hand deliver it to her house. The elegant process which set me back 20 cents, took at least two days to get my text to her house 20 miles away. These days it only takes 4 hours to get a message to Neptune. Anyway, in one of the early texts (perhaps even the first one) I sent her some of the lyrics to this song.
XTC - Rocket From a Bottle
Two years later, in fact 30 years ago this very day, I started making payments on a sofa and a girl. That day I sang this next song to her in front of both of our families and a few close friends.
In December 2011 during the 14th hour of a 16 hour drive, with resentment building between us, this song came on my car's mp3 player. It was as if we were in a bad movie with a great soundtrack and the perfect perspective inducing song started playing . As I sang it to her I got it through my head that it's not her fault that I'm a ________ (fill in the blank). I don't think she even realized that I was singing it to her, but I felt calmer while she seethed. All I can say is that we made great time while she was pondering false-imprisonment charges.
Matthew Sweet - Sick of Myself
Word has it that my parole hearing scheduled for today has been postponed indefinitely. Yay?
This week Leonard Cohen passed away at the age of 82. We remember him here with 3 cover versions of his creations plus his rendition of a acutely relevant, cynical/hopeful observation of Democracy in the US.
Concrete Blonde - Everybody Knows
Jarvis Cocker - I Can't Forget
Leonard Cohen - Democracy
I'll let the titles of the previous three songs speak for themselves. The fourth (bonus)song is not the version I was looking for. There was a higher quality take recorded in a radio studio that 89x used to play back in the 90's.
For the past six months there have been two albums that I've listening to at a couple of times a week. The first is Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride by Sydney, Australia's The Black Ryder.
Perusing through youtube the other day for footage shot at the Magic Stick in Detroit, I came across a clip of Secret Twins. I remember being impressed by this Ypsilanti duo when they warmed-up for Best Coast back in 2010. At the time they didn't have a cd out so I thought I had heard the last of them. Praise the power and reach of youtube, for not only was there video of the band at a different Magic Stick show but this video shot on the street corner in Royal Oak with a speeding freight train in the background may be precisely what the founding fathers of Rock and Roll had in mind when they created the genre.
The album that this song is from, 'Ill Fit', is now available on iTunes.
In 1969 bassist Bijou Drains formed a band that included his former chauffeur Speedy Keen on guitar, drums and vocals, Dixieland pianist Andy 'Thunderclap' Newman and 16 year-old guitarist Jimmy McCulloch. Mc Culloch at the age of 14 was in the band One in a Million that opened for The Who on their tour of Scotland in 1967. After his stint with Thunderclap Newman at the age of 21 he became a member of Paul Mc Cartney's band Wings. He passed away in 1979 at 26. It is believed he flew too close to the Sun.
Bijou Drains was actually The Who's guitarist Pete Townshend, which explains why an obscure bassist would have a chauffeur.
Thunderclap Newman - Something in the Air
The Concretes - Say Something New
For those new recruits whose imaginations are having puppies we have............
The other day while digging up the media to fill out the Whip-poor-will post I came across the Raveonettes version of Hank Williams 'I'm So Lonesome I could Cry'. Their effort was definitely blogworthy. Although when I clicked on the youtube video to preview the song, I found in the right-hand column a couple of other intriguing tunes that the Danish band had covered. So I pulled their version of the Williams classic from the whip-poor-will post so that it could lead off this post of Raveonettes covers. The whole dilemma reminded me of an always compelling, fascinating, educational, recurring theme that Chicago Sun-Tmes columnist Sydney Harris used to use periodically called "Things I Learned En route to Looking Up Other Things".
On this date in 1944 Roger Daltry, vocalist for the Who was born in London, England. Even though Roger is an old man I still would watch out when he's birthday punching.
On the same date in the village of Betchworth, Surrey, England, Mike D'abo ,Manfred Mann singer songwriter was also born.
At their advanced age (> 57) I'm sure they're feeling thankful for the small things today.
Other notable musicians and vocalist that share this birthday are
Frederic Chopin 1810
Glenn Miller 1904
Harry Belafonte 1927
Jerry Fischer 1942
Tony Ashton 1946
Burning Spear 1948
Bill Ding 1958
Dafydd Leuan 1969
and unfortunately Justin Beiber 1994.
On this date in 1967 the Beatles recorded ' Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'
Editor's note : I translated this from American English to Japanese. When I tried to translate back into English it came out like it was written by Sarah Palin (you know, where you understand each word, just not in the order that they're written or spoken). So just enjoy the music.
90年代半ばでは私が大工だったら「カーペンターズのトリビュートアルバムに少年ナイフの貢献「世界の上に「聞きました。
