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Day #20 - of the 30 day music meme
Day # 20 of the 30 Day Music Meme.
I discussed this meme with Mother on the phone. And she wondered how I did it. She can't remember the name of songs or singers. And has never really been into music that much. When she was young, she liked Pat Boone, Perry Cuomo and Frank Sinatra, and was never really into the Beatles or Elvis, or the Rolling Stones. She did like Simon & Garfunkle, Peter Paul and Mary though. And Broadway Show tunes.
Mother: How do you remember these song titles and singers?
Me: I don't really - I look them up.
This one is hard. I went through thirty some songs on my Iphone (I have over 5,000). And considered a couple of David Bowie songs. I'm saving the Leonard Cohen for later.
The song I chose is one that has been haunting me for quite some time now. And it feels apropos of these last five years and the times in which we are living, and it, like many brilliant songs, can be read more than one way I think.
Here is Ann Wilson of Heart explaining one of the many meanings of the song and it's relevance today along with her cover of the song.
And here's the cover by Buffalo Springfield in 1967. Buffalo Springfield was the band that Neil Young and Stephen Stills created in the late 1960s with Bruce Palmer and Dewy Martin. And the Song was written by Stephen Stills. Yes, Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
This is the band playing the same song in 2011
Here is an American Bandstand interview with Buffalo Springfield, about how they put together their band. A history of the band can be found here.
Another interesting and recent covers of the song:
I discussed this meme with Mother on the phone. And she wondered how I did it. She can't remember the name of songs or singers. And has never really been into music that much. When she was young, she liked Pat Boone, Perry Cuomo and Frank Sinatra, and was never really into the Beatles or Elvis, or the Rolling Stones. She did like Simon & Garfunkle, Peter Paul and Mary though. And Broadway Show tunes.
Mother: How do you remember these song titles and singers?
Me: I don't really - I look them up.
This one is hard. I went through thirty some songs on my Iphone (I have over 5,000). And considered a couple of David Bowie songs. I'm saving the Leonard Cohen for later.
The song I chose is one that has been haunting me for quite some time now. And it feels apropos of these last five years and the times in which we are living, and it, like many brilliant songs, can be read more than one way I think.
Here is Ann Wilson of Heart explaining one of the many meanings of the song and it's relevance today along with her cover of the song.
And here's the cover by Buffalo Springfield in 1967. Buffalo Springfield was the band that Neil Young and Stephen Stills created in the late 1960s with Bruce Palmer and Dewy Martin. And the Song was written by Stephen Stills. Yes, Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
This is the band playing the same song in 2011
Here is an American Bandstand interview with Buffalo Springfield, about how they put together their band. A history of the band can be found here.
Another interesting and recent covers of the song:
no subject
Richard Thompson is another one of those special artists in my life, one I've followed closely for four decades. I've only met him briefly, but my tours to England were organized and led by his wife, Nancy Covay Thompson. (I kind of watched their son Teddy grow up....)
"Wall of Death" was the final song on "Shoot Out the Lights" (1981), the last album by Richard and his first wife, Linda Peters, before their marriage collapsed. On the surface, it seems a very slight song to end such a pivotal album in his life; it's about the motorcycle stunt riders in a carnival, whirling around the walls of the circular track by sheer centrifugal force.
But if you know Richard Thompson, and the songs he writes, the song is a key to his entire output. Thompson writes songs of deep melancholy--with heartbroken and sometimes disturbed characters--but his melodies can be bright and even danceable (if you catch him in the right mood). It's as if he finds writing about these characters on the edge emotionally liberating for both himself and his audience. Or as the song puts it;
On the wall of death
All the world is far from me
On the wall of death
It's the nearest to being free
Richard Thompson has been riding the Wall since he cofounded Fairport Convention in 1967. I'm in for as long as he stays up there....
https://youtu.be/GcFhyy2kgdo
no subject
No matter. Great song, from a superb debut album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km-tUWNttNk
The things that you learn
but now all that burns
is a candle
And the fog melts over the night
and it softens the edges
I begin to write
In the dead of the night