because it’s new year’s eve (for us red sea pedestrians), i thought i’d make a somewhat appropriate entry into the book of my musical guilty pleasures:
it’s hard for me to believe that simply red was one of the bands that resulted from a famous sex pistols stint in manchester in 1976 (a set of shows that ultimately inspired the creation of the buzzcocks, the smiths, joy division/new order, not to mention factory records. this bit of history, by the way, is chronicled in the movie 24 hour party people, a painful but interesting work. i defy you to not hate the happy mondays once you’ve seen it.) i mean, here’s the seminal british punk act inspiring other complete musical departures… and simply red?
simply red? holding back the years, the major hit for the band in the states, is a lulling, wistful ode to growing up, moving on, yet holding on to your dreams. this is no anarchy in the uk, kids — mick is wishing for the arms of mater. (mater? pater? who the hell calls their parents in latin?) apparently, the song originally was not so subdued.
and yet, that’s exactly what i love about it. it’s meditative elevator music, an earworm of a song that never leaves you. when i was 20 and starting my life over (the first time) in a variety of ways (moved away from our childhood home, starting out at a new university, etc.), i completely glommed onto a song that captured the way i felt. and whenever i hear it, it brings me back straightaway to a spring and summer i cried through after an excruciating, but expected, breakup.
good. times.
but the good thing about hearing the song now is that i did keep holding on — to myself. and i’m still here. still annoying people. still listening to bad music.
and still trying to make each year better than the last.
to those of you who celebrate rosh hashana, l’shanah tova!
yesterday, i had the pleasure of sitting beside two mothers, both with babies. one was armed with weisbluth’s healthy sleep habits, happy child. the two began to talk about sleep training. i began to smile, thinking about the joys of sleep training (or lack thereof) my kids.
in order to fully prepare yourself for sleep training, you ought to first start by watching a 72-hour marathon of something truly awful, never once allowing yourself to rest. (i recommend something like saved by the bell. or caillou. or, perhaps, jerry springer?) intermittently, you need to start a painful discussion with your partner every six hours or so, just so that you can get yourself swirled into an emotional fever pitch. fight about money? your in-laws? your politics? his wandering eye? whatever gets you truly exhausted and exasperated — that’s your topic. also, whack yourself in the head a few times. sporadically, of course, and not enough to cause brain damage. maybe you shouldn’t eat much, either, during this time.
once you’ve completed torture time, get ready to rumble.
seriously, i thought i was going to lose my mind when BC was a baby. nevermind that she had reflux, was colicky, did not gain weight well, and was often sick. she never. ever. slept. my mother would try to make me feel better: she’s always awake because she’s so smart — she’s curious about the world. [note to self: must remember this line when BC’s first child never sleeps.] but all the books i read said that a child naps a certain number of hours, a child goes to bed for certain hours.
BC never did either.
i would start the nightly walk with BC once the colic started. i sang the entire Beatles repertoire, i sang plenty of the crosby, stills, nash catalog, and of course, i sang her nightly bedtime song:
the girl loved my singing, but she’d never settle down to sleep. i’d rock her, she’d nap, i’d put her down, she’d wake up screaming. i had to feed her every time she wanted food — she was a poor weight gainer, so i was shoving a bottle at her every time i could, all hours, all the time. it was a dance that led her to poor sleep habits for awhile and led me to a horrific case of shingles.
girlfriend didn’t have a full night of sleep until she was 18 months old.
when jools started down that path, there was no way on Dog’s Green Earth we were reliving that fun. see, i am from the rock the child to sleep attachment parenting front but my husband is from the shut the door and let him scream until next tuesday front. (not to be confused with those women from venus and men from mars fronts.) in short, we could not agree.
there was a time when i’d laugh at the idea of paying for someone to help you learn parenting skills. i laugh no more. the woman who saved our sleep, our marriage, our sanity, cost us very little compared to what she gave us: she got BS and me on the same page about sleep training (read: gentle ferberization), and she got jools sleeping perfectly in no time. she gave us a plan; we followed it. and. it. worked.
i have friends who are serious attachment parenting people; and if that works for them, i am happy. live and let live. i think different kids have different temperaments, and so what works for one child may not work for them all. for me? well, i was always afraid i would roll over on a baby if i co-slept. i was that tired. and the funny thing that i notice about some of my friends who let the kids sleep in their rooms — they have a hell of a time getting their kids out of their bedrooms and into their own rooms later on.
so now, our sleep is interrupted more by other things: sick kids, kids who fear the impending death of their mother, angst. but we turn on our nighttime music, cuddle up with whatever (or whoever) is near, and attempt to re-enter that magical realm of morpheus.
so, as i listened to the mothers — one, a mother of a three-month old, and the other, a mother of a toddler and a newborn — talk about sleep theories, i chuckled to myself.
the late, great sylvester james was a hell of a guy — and girl, i suppose, performing solo as well as part of a transvestite group which at one point included divine among it’s ranks. s/he did his bit for freedom and the american way, and it was a sad, sad day when we lost him to AIDS in 1988.
it’s pretty damn hard for me to choose between funk and you make me feel (mighty real), as they both put the fun into funky, HI-NRG disco. but back when i was allegedly too cool to like any sort of dance music, well, i secretly treasured this song among others.
good thing it has a great hook. his falsetto is SO damn high, there’s no WAY anyone over the age of four can sing along with it. acceptably, that is.
anyway, i’m too busy dancing right now to say anything terribly clever. besides, in disco, it’s not exactly about the lyrics, for the most part.
good old bronski beat. is it gayer than gay? you betcha. and i. don’t. care. see, a great dance song is a great dance song. period. it doesn’t matter, especially when the whole damn thing is infectious.
i certainly didn’t care about the band’s sexual orientation when i entered the melody, a now-defunct club in cespool scenic new brunswick, nj, [motto: it’s a shithole, but it’s our shithole] in the mid- to late-80s. club shmell, smell, hell, or any derivative you prefer, was the dive place you could often find me and my friends on a thursday, friday, saturday…hell, we loved that dirty old sinkhole, which has since been raized (but for which a devoted following still reunites to dance and reminisce.) i was wondering what would be painted on the walls that week, often in full dayglo technicolor. i was hoping i could make my fuzzy navel last for at least an hour while i bopped around. i was searching the upstairs and downstairs, pondering the sort of crowd that would be there (other than the regulars and often matt pinfield, who dj’d there among other souls. he is such a sweetie; i attended one of those reunions last february and was delighted to talk with him for a few minutes. in the words of junie b jones, i love that baldie.)
it was a filthy musical nirvana, a place where young johnson & johnson execs rubbed elbows with rutgers students who, in turn, danced around with the less-than-affluent townspeople at times. and it was the first place i heard hit that perfect beat, a song that, to me, screams flailing around with your girlfriends and ignoring the guys who are staring at you, wondering whether they ought to take a chance and ask you to dance. [answer: don’t bother.] ah yes. there i am, a gallon of stiff stuff in my punky tresses to make it stand up like a cockatiel.
(hey, i’m a jersey girl. i’m obligated to have big hair.)
so if you play smalltown boy or hit that perfect beat, you may make my hair stand on end; though now that i think of it, jimmy somerville’s banshee wail could do that to anyone, cosmetically-bolstered or otherwise.
linda ronstadt is one cool, determined, strong lady with a killer voice. as the original female rock arena queen, she has taken some incredibly gutsy artistic risks by moving away from her stock and trade – country rock – and trying her hand at opera, broadway, nelson riddle pop standards (long before the likes of rod stewart was singing them), and traditional hispanic mariachi music. i have tremendous respect for her, even though i’m not fond of a ton of her catalog. she has been a very generous performer, too, featuring music from then-lesser-known artists like warren zevon and elvis costello.
okay, sure. when i was like 11 or 12, i wanted to BE linda ronstadt. i wanted to be jet-setting around with governor moonbeam, or the eagles, or any of those folks, preferably not fueled on cocaine. i wished i had a HUGE voice that could probably knock down a tower of speakers with a single note.
but i didn’t. and i still don’t. still, that won’t stop me from trying whenever you’re no good comes on the radio.
(of course, this is the weirdest video of it i’ve seen. ronstadt is playing live in a prison wearing a dorothy-from-oz dress. guess toto was too scared to come along.)
G-d help anyone within earshot when this song comes on (my kids cover their ears on demand. it’s THAT painful.) and yes, i know she’s covering it, just like she’s covered a zillion other songs. but in this case, no one’s ever captured the angst that she conveys. angst coupled with anger: i bet she’d probably rip you to shreds if you were the song’s subject.
probably why the prisoners watching her didn’t move a muscle during her performance.
her original, for purists her prefer her without the wizard of oz get-up.
this may come as a wild surprise to you, gentle readers: i do not care for country music. sure, there are a few country classics i have grown fond of over the years: patsy cline’s voice, so soothingly painful; some western stuff from buck owens; that sort of thing. but as what passes for country these days sounds like soft rock that has been perverted into some sort of populist nashville pap (ladies and gentleman, my proof: shania twain. i rest my case, your honor), my love of country generally is limited to rockabilly elements or generally countrified rock. in other words, i like the allman brothers and even graham parsons if i’m in a certain mood, and that’s probably about as country as i generally get.
slide guitars, duane allman aside, make me cringe.
(full disclosure of just how much of a super-colossal hypocrite i really am: i am related to a woman who writes songs for a number of country artists and who was nominated for a grammy (among other major awards) as the co-author of faith hill’s hit this kiss. i haven’t seen robin lerner since 1985; and she probably doesn’t remember me from adam. but she made a huge impression on me, even then. i only wish i could have gotten to know her better, as we both write. ah well. so yes, i’m a hypocrite when i tell you that, while i don’t care much for modern country, i will always cheer on anything my cousin writes cos she’s the granddaughter of the amazing woman for whom julian is named.)
anyway, enough of the walk through my family tree. it will probably come as a HUGE surprise that i adore the song amie by pure prairie league.
(did you just do a spit-take of your coffee all over your keyboard? so sorry. go wipe it up. i’ll wait.)
…tapping foot…
okay now. all better.
is it because my oldest friend in the world is named amy? is it because of the adorable little gee-tar solo with which i always try to sing along while performing a mean air guitar? (trust me, you don’t want to be around when i try it. neither do my kids.) is it because i am a complete sucker for songs that follow a basic chord progression (A, G, D)? who the hell knows. i mean, i am stumped here: completely and unalterably. the words don’t move me. but the music does.
i now feel like expressing love for john denver next. please, please, stop me before this happens. friends shouldn’t let friends gush about the late, great bard of the colorado rockies.
velvety smokey robinson has been around since the dinosaurs played records for the cavemen. seriously, the man has had the midas touch for a thousand years. to list all of his hits would take up this page and then some. and i love a bunch of them, though i’m not as keen on his stuff from the 1980s on; but it’s hard to dislike that voice: you see,when smokey sings, i hear violins.
but i like to wallow like the next girl, so tears of a clown holds a special place in my heart. stevie wonder wrote the instrumental track and gave it to smokey as a christmas present (can you imagine the exchange? merry christmas, man. here’s a hit song.) smokey apparently thought it all sounded circus-like and wrote about the tears of a clown. hell, i’d be willing to bet it is the only hit song to ever namecheck pagliacci. who knows — it could have made opera lovers out of motown fans for all i know.
can you imagine if this had been covered by someone from the stax roster? it would have been slower, sadder, grittier. i don’t know of any stax covers (though i absolutely adore the english beat’s version, peppy rasta ska that it is) but as it’s a motown song, it’s the happiest sad song there is!
and when someone’s broken up with you, i guess it’s better to wallow to something with a good beat. gets you on your feet again.
today is our old cat dum-dum’s birthday. he would be about, oh, i dunno, 40 at this point. we had to give him away because my beloved politically-incorrect brother, larry, was allergic to him. he went to a great home, probably with people who would let him roam outside. (we often joke with my mother — is today your birthday? her birthday is tomorrow, but for years, we have teased her about celebrating dum-dum’s birthday instead of her’s.) he was one lucky-ass cat.
which brings us to today’s guilty pleasure — and one of my all-time favorite songs. in fact, if there is one song that pretty much sums up my lot in life, it’s this one:
i was first introduced to this song when it was disco-fied by amii stewart in the 1970s:
oh how i loved that song — and still do (in spite of the fact that i have no earthly idea why amii stewart is trailing colors in this video, like a late-to-the-party acid flashback.) i loved it secretly, though, as i wasn’t allowed to love disco lest i be disowned by my oldest brother, BTD. (he literally told me that if i bought the saturday night fever album, i would be out of the family.) it wasn’t cool to like disco, so being 12 or 13, i of course complied like the lemming i was.
but i had heard it was a cover song, so i had to hear the original. and did i ever! the memphis horns i love so well jumped out at me, as well as steve cropper’s guitar. and floyd , the ever-industrious writer and performer at stax, pushes the song over the top with his somewhat raspy voice. i cannot imagine anyone else, now, singing this song, though it has been covered hundreds of times by everyone from legions of american idol contestants to david bowie (the latter being just strange, sounding like something the saturday night live band would play. bowie isn’t known for having a great deal of range in his voice. and it shows.)
i am a lucky person. i have a fantastic family. i have friends i cherish. i have health insurance, which keeps me annoying the rest of the world for years to come. i continue to live a forest gump-like life, where i land in historic situations without knowing it until years later. oh, and i win concert tickets an awful lot. so this song speaks to me. it always has. it always will.
gee, so this must be the video that inspired the brady bunch’s dance moves in sunshine day! the bradys probably ditched the tambourines for safety reasons, i’m sure.
grammy legend wilson pickett, raspy-voiced devil known for land of 1,000 dances, BS’s favorite mustang sally, and funky broadway (a song that has driven me, at times, to substitute anything but funky, funky broadway in the lyrics. f’rinstance, instead of:
Every town I go in, there’s a street
Name of the street, ha
Funky, Funky Broadway
Down on Broadway
There’s a nightclub
Now, now, name of the nightclub, now baby
Funky, Funky Broadway
substitute, hell, anything:
Every football team I see, there’s a player
Name of the player, ha
Funky, Funky Broadway
Down on Broadway
There’s an plumber
Now, now, name of the plumber, now baby
Funky, Funky Broadway
and so on, nonsensically. it drives me insane in a bad earworm way.) wicked pickett had a troubled life, from start to finish. you could hear it in his voice, a voice you could imagine screaming at you in a smoky bar as you gingerly moved away from him for fear of getting your ass kicked.
but it’s a voice that emoted. it’s a voice that pleaded to be heard, a voice that growled at you, and not always in a malevolent way. in the midnight hour, written by pickett and stax backup legend steve cropper, is a song which moves the emphasis onto the second beat, a bit of a revelation in the 1960s. it wasn’t the first to do that, but it is one of the earlier hit songs demonstrating that that i can think of. it’s just a great hip-shaker.
and oh my LORD, open your ears and listen to that horn section. it’s not a technically complex line, but it kicks. admittedly, add the memphis horns to mary had a little lamb and i’ll adore it. but they open the song up into a new level of soul transcendence.
it’s august, which around these parts is hotter than july. in honor of the heat, i’m making a leetle leitmotif for this month’s picks: my favorite guilty pleasures — in soul!
sam and dave were part of the stax roster of the 1960s/early 70s, a dream team of memphis soul artists backed by musicians like steve cropper and duck dunn. admittedly, i didn’t know any of this stuff until the blues brothers came out. that was when i had my first taste of a musical genre i adore. then, about 12 years ago, a colleague of mine lent me a HUGE box set of stax. (note to BS: a box i am still looking to obtain.)
and i was smitten.
now, i love my share of motown, but where motown records of that era sounded more sanitized and pop-py, the stuff stax put out was earthy and funky. kind of like the beatles versus the stones: i like them both, but for very different reasons. and people love soul man, i thank you, and wrap it up — lord knows they’ve been covered a bunch of times.
but my favorite sam & dave song is still hold on (i’m comin’) — which was sanitized by the record company to hold on (i’m a-comin) because someone somewhere was afraid of the sexual connotation. they didn’t have worried — it was what dave porter, the co-author of the tune, told isaac hayes when hayes wanted to write this song and porter, evidentally, was taking too much time in the toilet. (you just never know what will inspire an artist.) somehow, i guess they thought it was better to sound like a shuffling racist caricature than it was to sound like a sex machine. oh well.
i just love the message of the song — that the singer’s love is reliable and unwavering, even in times of trouble. it’s what i always teach my children when i tell them i love you no matter what. yes, they may grow up to be white collar criminals or axe murderers, but they will still be my babies. and i don’t want them to be sad and lonely.
see, i will bake them that cake with the file in it. no matter what.
