OLD MUSIC

Robert Zimmerman - Happy 80th Birthday! - Forever Young


I once stood shoulder to shoulder with Bob Dylan at a urinal in Buffalo at a golf course. I was there to golf, he was there for a wedding. True story.
 

Richard Thompson pre-beret with I Ain't Going to Drag My Feet No More

 


Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane: how we made White Rabbit

All fairytales that are read to little girls feature a Prince Charming who comes and saves them. But Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland did not. Alice was on her own, and she was in a very strange place, but she kept on going and she followed her curiosity – that’s the White Rabbit. A lot of women could have taken a message from that story about how you can push your own agenda.

The 1960s resembled Wonderland for me. Like Alice, I met all kinds of strange characters, but I was comfortable with it. I wrote White Rabbit on a red upright piano that cost me about $50. It had eight or 10 keys missing, but that was OK because I could hear in my head the notes that weren’t there. I used that piano to write several different songs. When I started making money I bought a better one.




I heard Ravel’s Bolero on the radio and it surprised the hell out of me. I love Spanish music and I’m inspired by things irrespective of how popular they are. Bolero starts off with a couple of instruments and then more are added. It feels like how an orgasm is built. My song also built in that same way.

The song is a little dark. It’s not saying everything’s going to be wonderful. The Red Queen is shouting “off with her head” and the “White Knight is talking backwards”. Lewis Carroll was looking at how things are run and the people who rule us.

I was performing White Rabbit with The Great Society and Jefferson Airplane asked me to join the band. I said “you betcha!” because I really liked Jack Casady’s playing – the sound of his bass just knocked my socks off. The song is in F sharp, which is difficult for guitar players as it requires some intricate fingering, but [lead guitarist] Jorma [Kaukonen] and Jack are very good musicians so they were able to adapt to it and do it very well.

White Rabbit’s been bringing in royalties for over 50 years. I still get to pay my bills off that one song. Now that’s a good song!

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2...f-jefferson-airplane-how-we-made-white-rabbit
 
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When time travel becomes a thing, sign me up for a trip to see the Huskers circa 1985 for the New Day Rising tour. Books About UFOs

 


'The Downward Spiral' is a top-25 album. Johnny Cash's rendition of 'Hurt' is better than the original.

 

And on the NIN subject....'Reptile' is Reznor's best song.
 

I remember watching this clip on SNL as a kid, thinking it was bizarre and maybe I was just too young to get it. 45 years later still weird, but I enjoy the quirky song itself. George with Crackerbox Palace

 

Neil Young Young during a SNL rehearsal in 1989. His drummer is Steve Jordan who will be filling in for Charlie Watts when the Stones come to Minneapolis. I will be there.

 
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Neil Young Young during a SNL rehearsal in 1989. His drummer is Steve Jordan who will be filling in for Charlie Watts when the Stones come to Minneapolis. I will be there.
I like to think of Steve Jordan (the drummer not the Vikes TE) as the producer of my favorite Soul Asylum album, And the Horse They Rode In On.
 

Before my town was hooked up for cable I remember hoping this would get played on NBC's Friday Night Videos. Elvis Costello with Everyday I Write the Book.

 

Some righteous rock & roll being played here by The James Gang with Walk Away:
 

So, this is 10 years old, which I think falls in that sweet spot between new and old music, so I'm placing it here, just discovered it tonight and F#CK, THIS ROCKS! Sturgill Simpson can kick out the mf'in jams:
 



Before my town was hooked up for cable I remember hoping this would get played on NBC's Friday Night Videos. Elvis Costello with Everyday I Write the Book.

I was also a Friday Night Videos denizen for the same reason as you Ope. The only video I specifically recall is this "gem", because as it was playing my Dad woke up to use the bathroom and yelled at me to get to bed:
 

I keep stumbling down a wonderful rabbit hole tonight--here's 20 year old Steve Earle jamming at Guy & Susanna Clark's home on Christmas Eve with Rodney Crowell and a few other troubadours to an old Bob Wills song:
 

I was also a Friday Night Videos denizen for the same reason as you Ope. The only video I specifically recall is this "gem", because as it was playing my Dad woke up to use the bathroom and yelled at me to get to bed:
I definitely remember Duran Duran being in heavy rotation. Another prominent memory is, "Oh gawd, not Culture Club, again!"
 


When I heard this on the Rushmore soundtrack, I presumed it was the The Who. Nope, The Creation with Making Time

 



Hearing this song always gives me an earworm, pleasantly. The Buzzcocks, Why Can't I Touch It:

 
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This is my favorite song off Hang Time, even more than the ones that got radio and MTV exposure. Always hope Soul Asylum plays it live but usually disappointed. A perfect blend of their early punk sensibility with power pop, Marionette


I dig the 'Mats callback with the Seen Your Video shoutout.
 
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Like most of The Beatles: Get Back - and the original 1970 documentary Let It Be - the creation of “Get Back” is presented as a fly-on-the-wall moment. The cameras catch McCartney strumming away at his bass, seemingly searching for inspiration. Ringo Starr and George Harrison look on as their bandmate works to create a song.

McCartney sings along to his chords, but doesn’t appear to use real words. Instead, it’s simply vowel sounds and rhythmic phrasing, basically gibberish designed as a placeholder where lyrics could potentially go.

The songwriting legend continues chugging along on his bass, occasionally changing the chord and pace.

- After 30 seconds, a fledgling idea starts to form.

- A minute in, the clearer vision begins taking shape.

- By the 90-second mark, McCartney’s Beatles bandmates begin to pick up on what he’s doing. Starr claps along with a percussive concept, while Harrison strums some guitar ideas.

- Two minutes in, “Get Back” is truly a song, bearing a strong resemblance to the version that would eventually become a chart-topping hit in 1969.

Whether the song came together exactly this quickly is up for debate. The documentary is edited, and even though director Peter Jackson added more than six hours of footage to what had been Let It Be, there was still plenty of material left on the cutting-room floor. Regardless, it’s clear that McCartney shaped “Get Back” quickly, with the film’s footage capturing a significant portion of the song’s creation.

Musical development​

"Get Back" is unusual in the Beatles' canon in that almost every moment of the song's evolution has been documented, from its beginning as an offhand riff to its final mixing in several versions. This is covered in bootleg recordings, books[2], the 1970 documentary Let It Be and the 2021 Peter Jackson-directed documentary The Beatles: Get Back.

The song's melody grew out of some unstructured jamming on 7 January 1969 during rehearsal sessions on the sound stage at Twickenham Studios.[2] Over the next few minutes, McCartney introduced some of the lyrics, reworking "Get back to the place you should be" from fellow Beatle George Harrison's "Sour Milk Sea" into "Get back to where you once belonged".[3] McCartney had played bass on Jackie Lomax's recording of "Sour Milk Sea" a few months earlier.

On 9 January McCartney brought a more developed version of "Get Back" to the group, with the "Sweet Loretta" verse close to its finished version. For the press release to promote the "Get Back" single, McCartney wrote, "We were sitting in the studio and we made it up out of thin air ... we started to write words there and then ... when we finished it, we recorded it at Apple Studios and made it into a song to roller-coast by."[4]

On 23 January, the group (now in Apple Studios)[10] tried to record the song properly; bootleg recordings preserve a conversation between McCartney and Harrison between takes discussing the song, and McCartney explaining the original "protest song" concept. The recording captures the group deciding to drop the third verse largely because McCartney does not feel the verse is of high enough quality, although he likes the scanning of the word "Pakistani".[clarification needed] Here the song solidifies in its two-verse, three-solo format.

At the beginning of the Let It Be version of the song, Lennon can be heard jokingly saying "Sweet Loretta Fart (often misheard as "fat", due to Lennon's pronunciation[5]), she thought she was a cleaner, but she was a frying pan." The album version of the song also ends with Lennon famously quipping "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we passed the audition".[6] (He had said that at the end of their 30 January 1969 rooftop concert on the roof of Apple Studios, but Phil Spector edited it into "Get Back" on the Let It Be album.)[6]

In an interview in Playboy magazine in 1980, Lennon described "Get Back" as "... a better version of 'Lady Madonna'. You know, a potboiler rewrite." Lennon also said that "there's some underlying thing about Yoko in there", saying that McCartney looked at Yoko Ono in the studio every time he sang "Get back to where you once belonged."[7]

Early protest lyrics​

When McCartney introduced the song to the group during the Twickenham rehearsals, the lyrics were mostly incomplete except for the "Get Back" chorus. McCartney improvised various temporary lyrics leading to what has become known in Beatles' folklore as the "No Pakistanis" version. This version parodied the anti-immigrant views of Enoch Powell, a Member of Parliament (MP) whose racist speeches had recently gained much media attention.

The lyrics addressed attitudes toward immigrants in the United States and the United Kingdom: "... don't need no Puerto Ricans living in the USA"; and "don't dig no Pakistanis taking all the people's jobs", though these lyrics were meant to be a parody and a criticism of those prejudiced against immigrants.[8] Later during the same session, the subject of immigration came up again in an improvised jam that has become known as "Commonwealth". The lyrics included a line "You'd better get back to your Commonwealth homes".[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Back
 
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Using the "less is more" to solid effect is the Jesus and Mary Chain with Just Like Honey


It was also used with great effect as the closing credit song for Soffia Coppola's Lost in Translation.
 

Time to get in the spirt. Bruce & the E Street Band with Santa Claus is Coming to Town

 

Happy 96th (yesterday) to Dick Van Dyke. [John Madden Voice] Here's a guy...who held his own singing in a movie next to Julie Andrews. Props.

 



Lots of debate over who the best ever band is and there is no right answer. On this night, however, there is absolutely no doubt who it was. Absolutely blew the Stones away at their own gig. I would kill to go back in time and see them during this era.

 
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Most often in the few dozen times I saw him live, there were bigger fan favorites, but but this was usually Grant Hart's most captivating song. The Main

 




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