a) a treasured instrument used by the likes of bassists like mccartney and sting
b) a fish found in the depths of the mississippi
c) an amazing soul singer who went without writing credits for her biggest hit for decades
well, duh.
fontella bass is still around and singing her heart out, especially in gospel circles. but the lady is best known for a song you’ve probably heard on commercials, movie soundtracks, and if you’re like me, in your head on days when your kids fight over who is breathing whose air. rescue me, released in 1965, is a fun song, with a thumping horn and drum section. for years, i thought it was aretha singing it — at the time, i didn’t know there were others with heart-stoppingly huge voices out there. but there are.
rescue me is also a song that gave bass a share of heartache for a long, long time. was it because she was a woman? was it because she was african-american? hard to prove, of course, but for a long time, no one was willing to give her credit as a co-author of the song, which resulted in financial losses for her, not to mention the fact that she notes (on her website) that she was known as a troublemaker for demanding her rights. (bet that made it hard to get work.) finally, in 1990, she started to get paid for the song, only to have to file suit against American Express (and Ogilvy & Mather, the ad agency) when she heard the song used on an Amex commercial without her permission.
i hope someone invents a typeface named after her. it would be bold, sans serif, that’s for certain.
when i was 19, i wanted nothing more than to look like rachel ward as she looked in the movie against all odds. i thought she was (and is!) incredibly gorgeous, with her dark swirls curving around her porcelain face. i got an ill-fated perm, a perm which haunts me to this day in family photos, a perm second only in ridiculousness to the horrific perm i had in 1988, when my then-boyfriend (now BS) announced: you look like a poodle.
(for the record, he has since learned to make criticisms comments more judiciously for fear of incurring the wrath of G-d a flood of tears.)
but in 1984, i cut my long straight hair and permed it, and i listened incessantly to phil collins’ title film track against all odds:
(ah yes. is that phil singing, or is it the aztec? or is it mayan? incan? south and central american history has never been my strength, though i’ll still take it on Jeopardy! long before i take Calculus for $200, Alex.)
ah, phil. (not to be confused with the group BS refers to as phil and the phils.) this was the point when phil went from being cool to being hot. and without calling up the spirit of Dr. Fahrenheit, there is a vast difference, musically, in being cool versus being hot. when phil was with genesis up until about 1981 or so, he was cool. he took musical chances. he wrote interesting, non-vapid songs. like this. i even liked his first two solo albums. no lie.
but then, he got very polished, and he had a musical midas touch that lasted for years. genesis got MTV-friendly. his songs became utterly obnoxious. (if i have to hear sussudio any more in my lifetime, i may spontaneously combust.) he produced everyone and their dog (Frida, Philip Bailey, Eric Clapton), showcasing his exceptional and unique gated reverb drum sound. i wanted to cheer him on; there’s something so likeable about him. but once you start writing disney soundtracks, you often become less musically interesting (though probably incredibly wealthy. old rockers never die: they either write cartoon soundtracks (billy joel, elton john), broadway musicals (billy joel, pete townshend), or go classical (billy joel, elvis costello, paul mccartney.) (note to self: what is UP with billy joel?)
the last song i can recall that he wrote that moved me to tears is against all odds. sure the movie, a remake of out of the past, is murky and convoluted, in spite of the saving grace that is rachel ward’s hair. but the song is powerful and showcases phil at his best: singing about lost love. i’d argue the best work he has ever done is when he is in searing emotional pain (see: Duke, Face Value, Hello, I Must Be Going). of course, i would never wish that on anyone, let alone someone as nice as phil; but i think once his life got in order, his music became less emotional and less gripping.
after divorce #3, phil has formally announced his retirement from music, at least from center stage. he’s going to sit back and collect memorabilia from the Alamo. i think that’s a nice euphemism, sort of like how politicians retire to spend more time with their families.
it’s against all odds that he might write another amazing classic. but i’ll never, ever count the bald guy out.
summer in the southland especially makes me reach for two things: a cold drink (with or without an umbrella), and some nice rootsy, bluesy rock. and today’s guilty pleasure monday selection, while not well-known, is a special song for me.
all the time in the world, which you can also find on my muxtape as various (since it wouldn’t edit, for reasons i will never understand), is a song by the subdudes, a group from nawlins, looziana (i am learning to pronounce things properly). i cannot claim to have sought them out at first; i actually became acquainted with them, and this song in particular, thanks to a mixtape my best buddy murph made me in the mid ’90s. i never actually listened to the aforementioned mixtape until one fateful day.
i was in an untenable situation at work. i won’t go into details, but suffice to say, i was not in the right place, i was not being given any direction, and i had a lot of responsibility with very little authority. i knew things were wearing me down, and i knew this was probably not an optimal situation, but i didn’t quite know what to do.
one monday, i walked in, dressed in ratty jeans and t-shirt. i was going to pack up my office, as i was told i was going to be moving offices. precisely at 9, i was called into my boss’s office. he was seated there, along with the company’s VP of human resources. not a good sign. i sat down. my boss, who, i have to believe has a good heart in non-work situations, was a bit on the bombastic side, immediately barking at me: wreke: you’ve been terminated!
wha?????
then, the HR veep interjected, no, boss, wreke hasn’t been terminated. her job has been terminated and she has been restructured. wreke has not been terminated!
what????? i hadn’t even had coffee yet, and i was hit broadside with this one.
the HR Veep continued. you have an interview out at the new campus (about 15 miles away.) have you ever been there?
uh, no, i replied, still completely dumbfounded.
you have an interview there at 11. i’ll give you directions. you need to find a job within the company within 30 days or you really are terminated.
i’ll say it again: wha????
i put some stuff in jo-jo, my little-honda-that-could (theme song: jo-jo was a car who thought he was a honda, but he knew he couldn’t last), and looked down at myself. i wore my worst jeans and an old shirt today. i thought i was going to move boxes. and now i was going on an interview?
i was doomed.
in fact, i wasn’t. i later learned that i could have been terminated, like many other people that day, but my original boss at the company, whom i adore, knew my sorry situation and had arranged for me to have an interview over in the international division. lucky for me, my interview was with a person i knew, albeit only virtually and not in real life, a person who had helped me with some tech work remotely while the person was in germany and i was in the US. i wrote to said person and indicated that i owed him a beer when he returned to the US.
little did i know that the person had returned during the year and that he was a she 🙂 and in spite of the fact that i almost talked my way out of the job, she hired me. she ended up being a fantastic boss; a terrific and highly respected colleague; a person my kids call aunt; and a clutch, clutch friend i treasure to this very day. (also, no one sings hong kong phooey in german the way she can.)
but, back to the song, right? well. after i finished that fateful interview, figuring i had blown it, i went to make the long drive home and call BS. great news like this has to be shared, right? i put murphy’s mix for the first time into the tape deck (remember those, kids?), fast forwarded it to a random spot, and started to play. and d’ya know what song i was in the middle of?
yep. all the time in the world. and right out there, in scenic dulles, va, a place that doesn’t actually exist, i had an epiphany: i may be on the job hunt, but after two years of long hours, i had a break. i had breathing space.
and, for the first time in years, i had all the time in the world.
lucky for me, i am related to none other than my middle brother larry (motto: no 1970s song is too sappy; no fiscally conservative wingnut is too crazy), dean of 1970s muzak music. one time, my darling big brother made a CD mix for me which included a crazy semblance of songs. one of them was treat her like a lady. i imagined at first the song made it on the mix simply because the lyrics are so uncomfortably sexist. see, the singer is giving his man-friends advice on the allegedly weaker sex:
All my friends had to ask me
Somethin’ they didn’t understand-a
How I get all the women
In the palms of my hand, now
And I told them, to treat her like a lad-ay
(You got-to, got-to treat her like)
Um-hum all the best you can do
(Treat her like, you got-to, got-to treat her like)
You got to treat her like a lad-ay, she’ll give into you
Ah-hum now who can see, you know what I mean?
oh, so THAT’S what those guys are doing in those classes! you know, the ones where they learn to pick up women? (oh, that’s going to give me all sorts of strange search results. all i need to use are words like naked and off we go into wacko land.) what a novel concept: listen to a woman and she might start to feel appreciated. only, silly girl, you thought he really was interested in you!
(of course, if we are the weaker sex, then how come you don’t see women going to classes learning how to pick up men?)
ahem.
anyway, back to the song. i thought at first my brother had put that song on the CD just to piss his feminist sister off. but no, he hadn’t. it’s just a song with a killer hook. no malicious intent. how it didn’t become a bigger hit, i just don’t know.
yep, i guess larry isn’t so bad. he also introduced me to the dead kennedys. [punk alert, punk alert: offensive language. don’t put on the speakers in front of the kiddies or the boss.] so sometimes, no matter how different, brothers and sister can work together and even learn from each other. maybe we never had a hit record, and maybe he’ll never see eye-to-eye with me on political issues, and maybe i’ll never forget how he used to use me as the human punching bag during 1971; but larry and i actually get along now.
just something i’ll have to point out to BC the next time she wants to put her brother in a headlock.
in honor of the US’s big birthday bash later this week, i’m sharing:
guilty pleasure monday: the patriot version.
(no, we’re not listening to god bless the usa; i think that song and lee greenwood should just be launched into iraq, where the people there will surely think of something suitable to do with them both.)
american tune, a song paul simon produced sometime just after he split with partner art garfunkel, is a very simple, but moving song. i often listen to it; i imagine if woody allen had been a folky, this would have been the song he would have sung. the narrator (who allegedly wrote this, depressed after Nixon won re-election in 1972) is world-weary, wondering what’s gone wrong, a thought sadly still relevant.
what some don’t realize is that the song is an old, old tune, a re-working of a J. S. Bach chorale from St. Matthew Passion (which J. S. ripped off from Hans Leo Haßler, who wrote it as Mein Gmüth ist mir verwirret, which of course translated means my ferret is on fire. kidding on the translation, though the ripoff is true. shame on you, johann.)
this, in turn, has been reworked throughout the ages for other purposes. one of my favorite reworkings, originally sung by the weavers and unfortunately only available as a 30 second sample, is peter, paul and mary’s because all men are brothers. despite the somewhat dated lyrics (yellow, white or brown? not sure where that would put me in the color lineup. someone hadn’t heard of estee lauder’s palette then, apparently), the lyrics still grip me and ring true:
My brothers and my sisters forever hand in hand
Where chimes the bell of freedom there is my native land
My brother’s fears are my fears yellow white or brown
My sister’s tears are my tears the whole wide world around.
(see, i like me some folks tunes about brotherhood.)
which brings us to rhymin’ paul simon, who apparently followed the tradition and ripped the tune off for himself, calling it now an american tune (because apparently early folk incarnations, citing brotherhood, wouldn’t do for america: brotherhood, apparently, is not american. ripping things off and calling them american? now, that’s as american as the original colonists themselves, isn’t it?)
and his tune is personal. it’s not about the greater community of humankind, like those early, dare i say it, socialistically-minded folkies sang. it’s about how he is sad. and tired. and introspective. it fits in nicely with the me generational thinking of the 1970s, which blossomed in the 1980s and which hasn’t quite progressed in much of our populace in modern days.
ah well. happy birthday, america; rest up. we’re not always on the side of right, but we’ve done okay historically, and there’s always time to change the road we’re travelling on today. we have a lot more fight ahead of us to make the world a better place. and we have a lot more fight in us to do the right thing and make it so.
let’s roll.
We come on a ship we call the Mayflower,
We come on a ship that sailed the moon
We come at the age’s most uncertain hour
And sing the American tune
But it’s all right, its all right
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s gonna be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest,
That’s all, I’m trying to get some rest.
AMERICAN TUNE
(words by Paul Simon music by JS Bach/Haßler)
Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken,
and many times confused
And I’ve often felt forsaken,
and certainly misused.
But it’s all right, it’s all right,
I’m just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be
bright and Bon Vivant
So far away from home,
so far away from home.
I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
Don’t have a friend who feels at ease
Don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees.
But it’s all right, all right,
We’ve lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we’re traveling on,
I wonder what went wrong,
I can’t help it
I wonder what went wrong.
And I dreamed I was flying.
I dreamed my soul rose unexpectedly,
and looking back down on me,
smiled reassuringly,
and I dreamed I was dying.
And far above, my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty,
drifting away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying.
We come on a ship we call the Mayflower,
We come on a ship that sailed the moon
We come at the age’s most uncertain hour
And sing the American tune
But it’s all right, its all right
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s gonna be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest,
That’s all, I’m trying to get some rest.
as the school year closes (at least around here — most of the rest of the nation has been out of school probably for six months by this point, but not OUR schools, which stay open practically until the next millenium), i am inspired to revisit an old chestnut from the teacher-who-tames-the-unruly-and-impossible-class genre. it’s another one of my 4:30 movie favorites, to sir with love, starring brilliant actor sidney poitier and a host of other mostly-english actors you’ve probably never heard of.
in typical hollywood fashion, the movie completely bowdlerizes the novel, down to the fact that when the girls burn something in poitier’s classroom, no one ever tells what’s causing that smell. (it’s a sanitary napkin. used. yech.) not to mention the fact that london’s east end in the mid-1960s was a very rough place, thanks to kray-zee guys like these. (i, of course, follow the east end of london closely, the current bowdlerized version anyhow, via eastenders. so i should know. of course.)
but i rabbit on digress. and this is about guilty pleasure songs, not films. apparently, the american idol folks had lulu on in the not-too-distant past, reviving this old chestnut. i’m sorry i missed it but am glad i can still see it, for while i avoid AI like the plague, i do like seeing old singers trotting out their hits. and it is a lovely song, much better than the crap lulu ended up singing for eurovision a few years after.
pat benatar was definitely a killer queen of sorts in the early 1980s. she and her band rocked with such hits as hit me with your best shot, you better run, and heartbreaker. for my part, i was simply glad that we were moving away from those aurally-boring earthmamas and ladies who graced the world with to-the-floor gypsy wear (paging stevie nicks!) i welcomed the chipmunk chick — she seemed like someone who would kick christopher cross’s ass and eat peter cetera for lunch.
of course, i still have nightmares about the embarrassment that is love is a battlefield: careful. piss me off and i might shake my tits at you. i can’t remember whether it was letterman or conan o’brian who showed that one relentlessly, though i suspect it was the former (who also showed stevie nicks’ edge of seventeen relentlessly, too. just so you know: no woman singer is immune.)
but that came later. for now, i will share with you the fact that i adore pat when she sings we live for love. sure, it is a shameless disco song by a rocker chick who was probably begging for airplay by any means necessary. but it is a fun song, filled with her sweet, high voice.
back in the days when we, too, could experiment with makeup and no one would say: oh, that’s just too young for you. when we could cut our hair really short and wear extremely tight leggings and not care about whether our circulation was going to be negatively affected. we could wear too much makeup, and, well, so was everyone else. and we could wear those incredibly awful shirts and look like frantic bumblebees.
edie brickell is an inspiration to any of us chicks who wish we could just jump up on stage and start singing with a local band. which is what she did one night when the new bohemians were playing. the rest is one-hit wonder history.
what i am is one of those quizzically-lyric’d tunes that just makes you want to bop around, whether you are in a bar or whether you’re dusting your furniture. i remember when it came out. i was in graduate school, living in one of the many ancient 1900s rowhouses that new brunswick is famous for. yes, just me and three others: my buddy Kip (who is still friends with me, years later, in spite of the hyperventilation incident during finals); another woman who had a boyfriend who liked to hunt and cook venison in our ancient kitchen; and a woman who apparently had psychological issues. serious ones. (we just won’t go there today.)
oh, and did i mention that the giant oil drum which held the key to the power in our home was actually leaking copious amounts of oil into the ground and into our home? i suspect we all ended up with our fair share of brain damage from the fumes.
ah, the handy street house from hell:
this is probably not OUR handy street house from hell, but it sure looks like it; and based on the oil situation, it could have been what happened to us.
but back before we ended up on the porch because of the nasty-ass venison fumes; and back before i moved out because i could no longer live on a Superfund site, we had us some happy times. like defrosting the ancient tundra that had formed in the ancient freezer. and studying like crazy. and my most favorite memory: when my boyfriend, now known as BS around these parts, came to visit me one day. somehow, Kip and I were cooking something — G-d knows what, considering that the kitchen was semi-functional — and BS showed up. edie brickell came on the radio. next thing i know it, BS and i are dancing around the kitchen, along with Kip. it was so spontaneous, and probably hilarious considering the (lack of) size of the kitchen.
but there we were, silly as ever. is there anything too deep about this memory? probably not.
I’m not aware of too many things
I know what I know, if you know what I mean.
elton john has been through many metamorphoses. he has been just the piano player with the honkin’ big glasses. he has been the guy in the goofy donald duck costume, lording over central park. he’s been married, and he’s been gay. (still is, of course.) he has been the champion of AIDS causes and of little ryan white. he has been the friend and defender of lady diana. and of course now, he takes his place as a sort of elder statesman in the pop pantheon. he has had monster hits, and he has made some monster dogs.
there are those who like to think of sir elton as a bloated relic of bloated material. granted, there’s not much that i really enjoy from his catalog once you get into the 1980s, but like him or not, the man has had an amazing career, and there’s a reason for that. even the most jaded music fans should hear me out.
the elton john i love best is the early elton john; slightly unsure of himself and very hooked on piano-based ballads and rockers. his first few albums, while not necessarily chockablock with hits, contain some extraordinary music. my personal favorite of them is tumbleweed connection, a sort of concept album which uses the old west as a backdrop for some incredibly moving music. there are no US singles here, so this is an album i think largely forgotten by many. burn down the mission is probably the most famous song on the LP, with perhaps country comfort also getting some AOR airplay in the ’70s. but certain songs, however unknown like talking old soldiers, are incredibly powerful. i defy anyone to hear that and not be moved. and where to now, st. peter (a cheerful ditty about suicide) was a favorite when i was young, prompting me to actually buy the sheet music and learn how to play the song properly.
but probably my favorite song on the album is come down in time, a slightly mysterious long song. i’m not too crazy about this particular clip of come down in time: elton is much older, and he sounds a little like elvis as he tackles it. nevertheless, it is a beautiful song, whether it’s like this or this (which is the demo, and a bit rushed.) for anyone else, it would probably be a careermaker.
for sir elton, it was just a hint of things to come.
those of us ladies of a certain age — and we know who we are, don’t we, now? — were big fans of the partridge family (aka the pretend cowsills) back in the day. sure, even at age 5 i knew that no one was playing their instruments — duh! — but i didn’t care, cos i had my very first crush on this man:
yes, there i was, a preschooler, deciding that david cassidy was the cutest guy alive. (well, second to paul mccartney, of course, back when he still could be called cute… although i suppose you can refer to some older people as cute, but then it means something entirely different.) even then, i knew i had to keep a thin veneer of cool about me at all times; but i had a few of their albums (thank G-d for Hal Blaine, huh?), a few comic books, and a scary knowledge of the shows.
the latter doesn’t seem remotely interesting except for one little detail: this was in the era before VCRs. in fact, this was the era before prime time shows were syndicated, much less repeated, save for 1950s gems like i love lucy. i had to depend on my photographic memory to remember the songs, especially since not all of them ended up on the albums.
one in particular was my favorite song of all. stephanie was actually from a very special episode guest starring (say it with me now)…ooohhh. ahhhhh. bobby sherman!!! (nope. bobby didn’t do anything for me, either. while i am sure sherman is a good person, even at age 5, i knew i didn’t like anyone who might call me little woman.) after some breaking and entering that would normally land a dude in jail, bobby sherman and a dorky, tone-deaf guy named lionel poindexter (whose mother obviously didn’t love him when they saddled him with that sucker) end up getting their music and lyrics together (courtesy of the partridges, of course.)
what amazes me to this day (if i may say so myself…and i will) was that after hearing that song during that one episode in 1970, i never forgot it. in fact, i did what any self-respecting preschoolerfreak of nature wunderkind little kid would do: the minute we got a piano, two years later, i sat down and figured the song out. only, too bad for me: the only parts i remembered were: stephanie, whose eyes are blue/what would life be like with you… skip ahead to the chorus: and i’m doin’/all i can do/all but the growin’/that’s up to you. yes, i was mystified as all hell trying to figure out what growing had to do with anything, but i was even more frustrated that i wanted to hear this song again… and i couldn’t, except for in my head or through my fingers on the piano.
thank G-d for youtube.
so dad, if you’re out there (and i know you are), now you know why i just had to sit at the piano and play a stupid set of chords, over and over. this may sound familiar to you now.
and i’ll dedicate this guilty pleasure monday to my beautiful cousin stephanie, even though her eyes aren’t blue. and she doesn’t need to grow.
can someone please unglue susan dey‘s fingers from the keyboards?
