Ain't No Grave. . .

Photo Credit Hisks

(I put this together before George Jones' death, and included "She Stopped Loving Her Today" as just a great funeral song. Now it is a small tribute to someone I've listened to my whole life.) 

This week's songs are about death and funerals--the touching, the maudlin, and the odd.

I love the music, the way Lyle catches the feel of a funeral. . .and even a bit of humor.
Lyle Lovett: Since The Last Time

This song is one of Jim's favorite gospel songs. I love the way it builds up to LAZARUS! and the joy in it.
Aretha Franklin: Mary Don't You Weep

This song captures the feeling I had after my mother died, and I came home from the hospital the day she died. I was alone.
Patty Griffin: Long Ride Home

THE funeral song. It has everything. . .the funeral procession, heartbreak, death, . . .and the Possum hisself:
George Jones: He Stopped Loving Her Today

The next one is sort of a funeral song, since coming to weep at an old lover's grave in mourning clothes is certainly. . .funereal.
The Chieftains and Mick Jagger: Long Black Veil

Moon Too--This Time in Pink

Photo from Stock Exchange

Tonight is the pink moon, the full moon in spring when the flowers are in bloom. So I thought a second round of moon songs was in order. Jim is a lot of the inspiration for this entry, and the source for a lot of really cool songs.






First, there is actually a Pink Moon Song! I can't say I like it, but here it is:
Nick Drake: Pink Moon

Jimmy says this one's nostalgic (that's 'cause he's old--I'm not, at least not compared to him!)
The Capris: There's A Moon Out Tonight

This song just delights me. Jimmy suggested it. It's sweet, and funny, and just amazing. I hope you like it.
Hondo Crouch: Luckenbach Moon Texas

We both said "how did we forget this one?" when I found it while searching on YouTube:
Jerry Butler: Moon River

I may need to sneak around and do the blog away from Jim. He always makes me put in a Tom Waits song. Of course, he finds such good ones. Here is a moon song.
Tom Waits: Grapefruit Moon

We enjoyed our Pink Moon tonight. It was lovely. Hope you like our moon songs! Please share the blog if you like it!

The Importance of Music in the Human Condition

Photo from sxc.hu

Every few years, a movie will come out for people in the grown-up world. The Big Chill, American Grafitti, Grease, The Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, American Pie, even Mama Mia!. . .all tapping in to the collective memory of a generation. All of these movies use triggers from the past--clothes, slang, camera angles, and other cultural cues--to remind their audience of days gone by. They also use music.

Lots of music. Sometimes the actual songs, sometimes re-vamped versions from the latest stars, sometimes entirely new songs written "in the style" of the past--but always, music permeates the movie, helping the process of pulling the audience from its present back into the past that for so many is a nostalgic wonderland they wish to revisit. 

Music is one of the commonalities of the human experience. I don't know of any tribe or group that does not embrace some version of rhythm and note. Even deaf communities, who stridently refuse anything the "hearing culture" has that underscores their lack of hearing, play music--loudly enough to feel the beat they cannot hear. Music, like scent, affects non-logical parts of our brain and moves us in ways conscious thought cannot.

What moved that first person to tap on a rock or strum a stretched bit of sinew to make sound? Since I am not a composer, I can only guess by looking at the times I want to hear music. When I am restless, I long for a rhythm to cajole movement from me, to "help me through the panic, till I'm gathered safely in," to quote Leonard Cohen--though I imagine he had a different sort of panic in mind. When I clean house the mess aggravates me unless I am playing raucous music--the tempo gives me the heart to create disorder in the process of organization.

When I am nostalgic, or lonely, or sad, I long for music to fit my mood. Sir Elton is right, "when every little bit of hope is gone, sad songs say so much." The sadness another soul used to write the song allows my own tears to flow. And when I am ambitious, or angry, or exultant, wild anthems, even ones as silly as "We Built This City on Rock and Roll" provide a soundtrack--that odd word invented for music cued to a story--for my own rising feelings.

Of course, there is also love. I feel sure the first song was a love song. The alternating delicate, deep, longing, elemental series of chemical markers that lure us together and make us crave a bond are a primordial soup full of potential music. I sang along with the love (and lust) songs of my parents when I was a child, but I was a full-fledged adult before I understood them. Even as a teen, I had crushes, but never understood the mind-altering affect of emotional and physical longing until later. Now the songs I heard as my husband and I dated and started our married life can erase the years, any petty annnoyances, and send me racing to his arms full of youthful love.

I read an artilce by David Byrne, once of The Talking Heads, who has quite the brain for muscial science. He sees computers creating our music today, and voices calling for "music" to consist of algorhythms organizing sounds of nature without a human composer. "Music made by self-organizing systems means that anyone or anything can make it, and anyone can walk away from it. . . Though this industrial approach is often frowned on, its machine-made nature could just as well be a compliment—it returns musical authorship to the ether. All these developments imply that we’ve come full circle: We’ve returned to the idea that our universe might be permeated with music." 

I cannot be so circumspect. Like my teenage self, a computer will never understand the depths required for music that reflects the most important moments of humanity.  You must experience tears, and touch, and wonder, and awe before you can write a series of notes or stanza of words that will touch the heart of another.

The radio is full of bubble-gum songs put together by corporate conglomerates to manipulate the emotions of distracted people wanting to sing along with something on their commute to a sterile cubicle. I sing along with them myself. Their triteness is the auditory equivalent of a potato chip--you can take in a lot without any feeling of nourishment or fulfillment.

But the songs that are remembered, the compositions that survive for decades and centuries, are made of sterner stuff. To be truly appreciated, they require focus. In our endlessly distracting, computer-driven world, taking the moments to savor the efforts of another mind is a way to ensure we will continue to have music for our life moments.

Songs About Clothes and Other Wearables

Photo courtesy of Tombre

I was surprised at how many songs there are about clothes and other wearables. I picked these songs based solely on which ones I most wanted to hear. If you have any suggestions for clothing songs, let me know--there's plenty of possibilities for another run.

Clothes tell us a lot about a person. . .and when Dylan decides to write about it, it can tell you a lot about a love affair.
1. Bob Dylan: Spanish Boots of Spanish Leather

This was probably the first song about clothing I ever heard. Dolly captures the feeling of not belonging and not knowing why perfectly.
2. Dolly Parton: Coat of Many Colors

I love the odd lyrics. And I love long jackets. And finger nails that shine like justice.
3. Cake: Short Skirt Long Jacket

My father used to sing this song. He was especially fond of Marty Robbins (and because of that, I sometimes find myself singing El Paso. But that's a song set for another time.)
4. White Sportcoat and Pink Carnation

"That suit's pure herringbone."
5. The Coasters: Shopping For Clothes

There are whole wardrobes still to explore--yellow jackets, hats of all kinds, jeans and dresses. Stay tuned!

Choo-choo!

Photo from sxc.hu

I hesitated to do songs about trains, since it could almost be a never-ending topic. So here's one entry, with more to come at a later date:

Jerry Jeff Walker and Jimmy Buffet wrote this song together. It's gently sad and nostalgic, just like a train song should be.
1. Jerry Jeff Walker: Railroad Lady

This song was written by Steve Goodman, which I didn't know until last week when I was working on this blog. He's a strange mix of humor and gentleness. He does it a bit differently from other versions I've heard.

2. Steve Goodman: City of New Orleans

Every train song should have a little tap dancing!
3. Dorothy Dandridge and Nicholas Brothers: Chattanooga Choo Choo

There are a lot more versions to this song than I would have thought.

4. Mary Chapin Carpenter: Downtown Train 

Finally, my husband's favorite:
5. Thomas the Train Theme

There are only a zillion train songs out there. Please share your favorite for the next round!

At The Races

We have a small horsetrack not far from us. I've never been there, but I'd like to go at least once. I have read almost every book Dick Francis wrote. My vicarious adventures with him and my past as a little girl who wanted (and never got) a pony make me race-curious. Here are songs about a variety of races:

This video has some footage from the very first horse race movie, done in 1878. There are several verses I don't remember hearing before. Doo-da, doo-da!
Stephen Collins Foster; Camptown Races

Probably one of the sweetest songs about racing evah.
Dan Fogelberg: Run for the Roses

Now for something a little more rowdy. This song carries images of car and horse racing, and how it can be an odd escape for things you don't want to face.
Cake: He's Going the Distance

And now for something completely. . . .different. The weird genius that is Spike Jones. I especially love the puns!
Spike Jones: Spike Jones' William Tell Overture. . .and Feeeeeetlebaum.

My father always loved this song. He was a country boy, and I don't know if he ever was involved in drag racing, but I know he wanted to be. If he was, it would have been especially interesting because he lived in the mountains, and would have been racing down hairpin turns.
The Playmates: The Little Nash Rambler (BEEP! BEEP!)

If you find yourself having to rush around today, try to have at least as much fun as the fun in these songs. Tell me how you like the music choices in the comments!

Pro-California

Sigh. I am so nicey-nice. I feel guilty about shunning a state. Not a person, not a group. A STATE! In my last blog, I said I didn't like California. Ok. I don't HATE it. I just . . .wouldn't want to live there. I'd visit (especially if it was a stop on the way to Hawaii)! So here are some of the tons and tons of songs that like California:

I confess to sometimes having a vague fond memory of SoCal when it's rainy and 37 degrees again in Virginia:
1. The Mamas and The Papas: California Dreamin'

For people who moved away. . .and want back in:
2. Wallflowers: Back to California

You can't really do a pro-California song list without the Beach Boys, can you?
3.The Beach Boys: California Girls

I had a little debate about putting this one in. It's *not* melodic, but it's definitely pro-California. It's by the incredible Tom Waits.
4. Tom Waits: Going Out West

And now for the big finish.
5. Tony Bennett and Judy Garland: I Left My Heart in San Francisco

So now maybe I will be allowed to enter the state if I decide to visit. I sort of miss fresh kumquats. . .