CRANKY OLD FART'S
BROWSER HISTORY
#364 [archive]
• Eight O'Clock in the Morning
by Ray Nelson
[Archived page]
This is the short story that inspired John Carpenter's They Live. It's quite good, and makes for an interesting comparison to the movie.
• This experimental show takes place at a Brooklyn bodega
[Archived page]
I hope they film the play, then put it on-line for streaming. I wouldn't even pirate it — I'd pay!
• My horny raccoon roommate and me
[Archived page]
• A 72-year-old egg
[Archived page]
• Yes, it's OK to laugh at wealthy Burning Man attendees mired in muck
[Archived page]
🌎 THE NEWS YOU NEED 🌎
• Secretary of Navy: Tuberville "aiding and abetting communists" with military blockade
[Archived page]
OK, so there's this wingnut Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Football) who's angry that the military reimburses for travel expenses when someone needs to go out-of-state for an abortion. In revenge for this abomination to God, Tuberville has blocked all military promotions (who knew Senators had that power?), and now the Army, Navy and Marine Corps have no Senate-approved commanders in place.
Other than how this screws over low-ranking officers, I give no shits at all about Tuberville's blockade. It makes him look like an idiot, and he is an idiot, and I'm pretty sure the Army, Navy and Marine Corps can do all their armying, navying, and marine corpsing without Senate-approved leadership.
But man, that "aiding and abetting the commies" crack is a flashback to stupider times, and good for a genuine laugh.
[Archived page]
Oklahoma follows Florida, by treating right-wing bullshit as educational materials. Doubtless other states will join in, creating a Confederacy of Dunces for the next generation.
• New York City almost and very nearly bans AirBNBs
[Archived page]
Whether this is a shrewd move or stupid, I'm not really sure.
I'm posting it mostly so's I can add that I've always hated the concept of AirBNB. Why would anyone visiting a strange city want to make things even stranger by sleeping in a stranger's spare bedroom? That's why hotels exist.
Likewise, if you need to get from someplace to someplace else, why would anyone ride in some stranger's car? That's why taxis exist.
• Advanced-level insanity: New York students face up to 60 active shooter drills before graduating
[Archived page]
• All cops continue being bastards
This is my other project, an ongoing collection of police brutality, beatings, and general corruption, almost always unpunished. Join the fun.
♫♬ MUSIC ♫
• As Time Goes By — Harry Nilsson
• Some Humans Ain't Human — John Prine
❔ MYSTERY LINKS ❔
• Click
• Click
• Click
• Click
• Click
👁 VIDEO 👁
• How to turn your neighborhood into a village
• Operation DOMINIC nuclear tests (1962)
"This video has been sanitized. Classified portions have been removed." (1998)
• "Remember, coughs and sneezes cause diseases."
⚰️ OBITUARIES ⚰️
9/7/2023
Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.
Tip 'o the hat to the AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Kottke,org, Looking for My Perfect Sandwich, MetaFilter, Miss Miriam's Mirror, RanPrieur.com, @soberscientistlife, Voenix Rising, and anywhere else I've stolen links, illustrations, or inspiration.
Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Wynn Bruce, Joey Jo Jo emeritus, John the Basket, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn't always shitty.
My neighbor stays in AirBNBs when she travels. I watch her dog while she's gone and I often get weird texts of the kind you would not associate with travel. Like "How do I unscrew this ceiling light to replace a light bulb?" And "What's the thing you combine with baking soda to clear a drain?" These are not problems I've ever had in a hotel but there you go.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I gather AirBNB has created a new industry: people buy houses and condos simply to rent them on AirBNB. Nobody lives there. So yeah, fuck AirBNBs, it's taking housing stock off the market to enrich a very specific type of landlord whose tenants would otherwise simply stay in hotels. It's in keeping with the theme of the New Economy jobs being the same as the Old Economy jobs, just without security, benefits, sick days or a future.
Of the dozen or so unpopular opinions I most frequently spout and re-spout, none are more reliably argued against than BNBs. They're so homey, people say, how can you not love homey?
DeleteThey're SOMEONE ELSE'S HOMEY which is not homey at all.
So you have brightened my first thing in the morning. I do love being agreed with.
And I'd even forgotten about the full-time BNBs. What a joy that must be for the neighbors.
If nobody lives there I wonder how they handle getting the trash and recycling to the curb by 4AM every Thursday?
Take it out Wednesday night?
Deletej
Well, yeah, but the homeowner isn't there, there's no landlord on the premises, no tenants who actually live there. Seems to me, getting the trash and recycling ready hinges entirely on a note that says "Don't forget to set the trash and recycling out on Wednesday night."
DeleteEasily forgotten, and it's next week's BNB customers who'll smell the stench.
In other Civil Rights news . . .
ReplyDeleteOxford Town
Oxford town, Oxford town
Everybody's got their heads bowed down
Sun don't shine above the ground
Ain't a-goin' down to Oxford town
He went down to Oxford town
Guns and clubs followed him down
All because his face was brown
Better get away from Oxford town
Oxford town around the bend
Come to the door, he couldn't get in
All because of the color of his skin
What do you think about that, my friend?
Me, my gal, and my gal's son
We got met with a tear gas bomb
Don't even know why we come
We're goin' back where we come from
Oxford town in the afternoon
Everybody's singin' a sorrowful tune
Two men died 'neath the Mississippi moon
Somebody better investigate soon.
Songwriters: Bob Dylan
Oxford Town lyrics © Special Rider Music, Universal Tunes
Ooh, this one I like a lot.
DeleteSeattle has the bluest skies you've ever seen, and San Francisco has cable cars halfway to the stars, and this is the anthem Oxford MS gets and deserves.
He went down to Oxford town
Guns and clubs followed him down
All because his face was brown
Better get away from Oxford town
Terrific song, sung well too, short and to the point and to my playlist, thanks.
Not all of Dylan's early songs were political. This one isn't.
ReplyDeletejtb
Girl From the North Country
If you're travelin' in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Remember me to one who lives there
For she once was a true love of mine
See for me if her hair's hanging down
It curls and falls all down her breast
See for me that her hair's hanging down
That's the way I remember her best
If you go when the snowflakes fall
When the rivers freeze and summer ends
Please see that she's wearing a coat so warm
To keep her from the howlin' winds
I'm a-wonderin' if she remembers me at all
Many times I've hoped 'n' prayed
In the darkness of my nights
In the brightness of my days
If you're travelin' in the north country fair
Where the winds hit heavy on the borderline
Please say "hello" to the one who lives there
Oh she was once a true love of mine
Songwriters: Bob Dylan
Girl from the North Country lyrics © Universal Music Publishing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JncbFS5ek74Group
I am digging this with Dylan and Johnny Cash, but also windering at the lyric,
DeleteRemember me to one who lives there
For once she was a true love of mine
Some kind of homage when Paul Simon wrote Scarborough Fair?
The girl from the north country (Minnesota) was Bonnie Beecher, who Dylan dated and was quite close to before and after they dated. She later married Hugh Romney who generally goes by the name Wavy Gravy. She and Wavy are alive and well in their 80s.
DeleteI couldn't discern exactly what you were asking, so I answered a different question.
jtb
Mrs Gravy is Bob Dylan's ex? And he wrote a pretty good song about her?
DeleteEven when you answer your own questions I learn something faskinating.
My question was basically "What's up with that?" about Paul Simon's Scarbotough Faire, which has a line very similar to a line in Dylan's Girl from the North Country. "Remember me to one who lives there, For once she was a true love of mine."
My follow-up question is, Who makes the gravy in Wavy Gravy's commune?
There must be 20 traditional folk songs that have a verse that ends "For she once was a true love of mine." Dylan has (or had) a broad knowledge of traditional folk. He would sneak a line in here and there. In this case, Paul Simon did too.
Deletejtb
Really, huh. Never would've guessed. So Dylan swiped it from 18 other guys, and Paul swiped it from Dylan.
DeleteReduce, reuse, recycle.
Deletejtb
Damn, can't even get a slogan right
DeleteReduce reuse recycle
Commas don't grow on trees but wherever they grow we need them in the wild
I like it better with the commas, and also thank you for the period at the end.
DeleteI threw in the period for free, but you know that second comma is an Oxford, right? I thought you were allergic.
Deletejtb
Free period was the only part of high school I didn't hate.
DeleteI have complaints about Oxford University, but their comma's OK by me.
So why no dot after Mr? I've adopted that convention in respect to your site standards. Is that also a free period or is it taxed?
DeleteAnd anybody who bullies anybody is a pissant. I'm sorry you were bullied by high school pissants and glad it didn't turn you into one. Now you're a gentleman and those assholes are still pissants. Cold comfort, but comfort.
John
I generally don't do periods in the middle of a sentence. It looks... weird and wrong, rarely even kinda confusing, so no dots from me, for Mr, Mrs, Dr, MD, etc.
DeleteHey, I googled an old bully of mine a few years back, and he'd died a few years before I googled him Death sucks, but only usually. Sometimes it's sweet.
There's nowhere below to reply so I'm a-gonna pre-ply. Let's remember that Paul Simon and Bob Dylan were born the same year: 1941. They were both precocious musicians, Dylan playing guitar in school talent shows by age 13 or so, and Simon actually becoming a professional performer (with Garfunkel at shows where Simon's Dad was performing) and a professional songwriter also in his teens.
DeleteThey were both drawn to folk, Dylan to the western folk movement, mostly Woody Guthrie and other western and midwest folkies, and Simon to the New York folk movement which included Pete Seeger who almost singlehandedly saved the Hudson River and was an important leader of the eastern folk movement.
The "She was a true love of mine . . . " line goes back at least two hundred years in English and Scottish folk music, and both of the older men would have been familiar with a dozen versions of songs whose first verse ended that way. Simon and Dylan followed parallel career paths, both leaving folk, but retaining some folk sounds and ideas in their later songs.
Paul and Bobby both sang the Civil War version of that folk form at an early age. Paul recorded it on an early album and put his own spin on it. . .
"If ever I return pretty Peggy-o,
If ever I return pretty Peggy-o,
If ever I return all your cities I will burn,
Destroying all the ladies in the air-e-o."
You'll find the same repeated lines in the blues: singers borrowing and stealing from each other and creating blues forms with repeated borrowed lines. There was little or no mass communication infrastructure in the areas where folk and blues were mostly played, so a repeated line might not be recognized as such by a rural audience at a fish fry.
The story goes on and on . . .
jtb
Thanks, Mr Basket, very informative and appreciate as always.
DeleteWhat most surprising is that Paul Simon and Bob Dylan were born the same year, because Dylan's 20 years older in my perception.
Probably because Simon went away and Dylan never did, to his detriment.
Damn.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that twice or thrice before, but it never hammered me so hard as just now.
Hope that young feller keeps writing songs. Kid's got a knack.
He was 21 when he wrote the song and just 22 when it was published. He might have had a future, but he didn't have much of a past.
ReplyDeletejtb
At that age a fair assessment of me would've been, no future, no past, but now the future's passed at high speed with few regrets here.
ReplyDeleteAll this Dylan talk is just beating (off) around the bush. Fact is, Zimmerman's only real contribution to culture is his Victoria's Secret commercial. Says more about the Boomers than any of his lyrics.
ReplyDeleteOh man, the marvelous things I('ve missed out on not watching the minimum required television every day. The commercial is excruciating, but I'm sure he was very well paid and needed the money.
DeleteI was making a little point over a few days. To Oxford Town, Girl From the North Country, and Masters of War, I was going to add: A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall, Talkin' World War III Blues, Bob Dylan's Dream, Don't Think Twice It's All Right, and Blowin' in the Wind.
ReplyDeleteThere hadn't been many comments for a few days, so I decided there was room to make a small but, to me, important point about music (not about the relevance of Dylan's cultural contributions): That these songs are all on one album, "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", and that together they comprise a work of aural art that exceeds any value the individual songs might have. (Dylan sang "Blowin' In the Wind" at Dr. King's March On Washington in 1963, so, for those of an age, that might stand out, but on the album from the previous year it doesn't).
Doug and I have gone back and forth over the last couple of years about albums vs singles, and I argue that, frequently, they are different art forms, and that I think he undervalues the former. It's a trivial point, but a point about an artform that I've been enjoying for more than six decades. I bought that album when I was 12, and again when I was 14, because my parents' console turntable needle had worn the record grooves to a series of random bumps and every song sounded like Edison shouting "Mary had a little lamb" on his first test pressing (I wore it out).
Albums can tell a story that individual songs frequently can't: Choosing to listen to only singles deprives the listener of an aspect of musical art that is available but frequently ignored.
Sure, some albums, many albums, are collections of singles and trash. But I can't imagine listening to a song from Abbey Road, for example. I have my third copy of that album, and I've never picked out a song to listen to by itself. The entire album is the work of art the lads (by then older than lads) intended as an artistic statement.
OK, I could go on, but I'll whistle myself done. That's what I was doing. I won't respond to the Dylan commercial. Dylan became a capitalist like most everybody else. But when he was 22 he created a piece of timeless art that said something important about his time.
John
He didn't need the money. I don't think anyone has ever understood why he did that (and other) commercials. He's like a scuzzier version of the monolith in 2001.
DeleteOf course he needed the money, just like he needed the money when he sold his catalog for $300 million in 2020; just like he needed the reported $300,000 he charged the Pope for a Command Performance in 1997. Dylan turned into Mr Jones because most of us do. He started as a slightly conservative midwesterner with the Mesabi Range around him and a twang in his voice, and he never really changed. He stopped writing "protest songs" the day Kennedy was murdered and got the hell away from progressives like Suze Rotolo and her family to marry an apolitical playboy bunny/filmmaker. Don't look back, indeed.
DeleteBut for a couple of years there, he wrote songs to make a dying Woody Guthrie proud of him and succeeded. He was one of the ten best songwriters of the second half of the 20th century and then his muse left him and he flamed out on a never-ending tour.
John
Next time I argue for albums over singles I'll pick a less volcanic artist like Lou Reed.
Deletej
I'm not sure I even knew that was the crux of the long conversation. I've never been big into music, and thought you'd been teaching me some of the finer points of music appreciation.
DeleteSingles versus albums? You'll be astounded at my lowbrow ear, but the albums I've listened to all the way through, more than once, are… very few. Certainly less than ten — greatest hits albums, Pink Floyd's The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon (because the songs are so connected they're basically one song all the way through), and few pirated mp4s where I accidentally got the album instead of the single, and they held my ear's interest. A few times you've convinced me to listen to an entire album, but even then it was 10-12 separate mp4s, in no particular order, and I only kept the tunes I liked.
If I tried it again, I'm guessing you'd want me to play The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, but I gotta plead out, just cuz I know in advance BD's talk/singing will make me hate a few of the songs.
Abbey Road, though? There've been Beatles songs I didn't swoon for, but not many that grated at me like (sorry) Mr Dylan sometimes does. Abbey Road is supposed to be one of the greats, and I've never heard it all the way through, so I shall. I'm obtaining it now. Thanks, teach.
"a scuzzier version of the monolith in 2001" ... well, that's what he looked like in the ad.
DeleteI can't even fathom the man's life. No concerns about money, health, or any of the ordinary worries of ordinary men. Didn't look like he was even in the same place, so I guess he did it because when you have that much money you do whatever the heck you want.
Wait, he did *other* commercials? Nah, I don't even need to know.
Abbey Road was made to be listened to straight through. At the minimum, each side was written and recorded to be listened to straight through (everything was records and tapes and you flipped both. John and Paul didn't imagine a time when people could consume an entire album without flipping, but Abbey Road works straight through. To encourage you, John and Paul sequenced side 2 to run straight through. Yeah, I don't think you'll find many better examples of albums that were made to start at side 1 cut 1 and run all the way to the end.
DeleteI have more to say about other albums, and I wasn't trying to trick you. I was making my argument by example when I was mugged. I don't mind being mugged by an informed mugger as happened in this case, but I never quite made it to my point. I'll try later. Gotta go. Voices Carry.
jtb
My first surprise is Maxwell's Silver Hammer. I sure thought that was from Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
DeleteI love a few of Lou Reed's songs, but he's well below my Mendoza Line.
Yeah, I'm pretty much with you on Lou Reed. I used him as my argumentum ad absurdum.
DeleteAs for Abbey Road, the Beatles never made a better album, and it was made of a piece: a wonderful example where the whole is considerably greater than the sum of its parts.
John
I listened to Abbey Road several times last night, on a loop. You know I lack any expertise but I will tell you, it was not an unpleasant experience. I really liked the music montage toward the end.
DeleteActually, don't tell John I said this, but I'm listening again today.
"As for Abbey Road, the Beatles never made a better album"
DeleteRidiculous. It's a fragmentary last ditch effort to salvage a dozen half-songs and leftovers, and it features one of Lennon's all time worst (Come Together) and one of Harrison's worst (Something). Ringo, as always, saves the day with his contributions.
Brian Wilson already made an album in this style a few years earlier, with the unreleased SMiLE, which is the greatest pop album of all time.
I'll take all of their 70s solo stuff over Abbey Road, especially Ram and Plastic Ono Band.
My Ranking:
1. Rubber Soul
2. Revolver
3. White Album
4. Help
5. Beatles For Sale
6. Sgt. Pepper's
7. Hard Day's Night
8. With The Beatles
9. Please Please Me
10. Yellow Submarine
11. Magical Mystery Tour
12. Abbey Road
13. Let It Be
A couple of these albums I've never even heard of. "Beatles for Sale"? "With The Beatles"? Really?
DeleteObviously, I have nothing to bring to a conversation about great Beatles albums, but I look forward to reading it...
https://www.youtube.com/@TheBeatles/releases
DeleteIf I had two hours, I'd be happy to respond, but I have ten minutes. So. SMiLE was unreleased because it was unfinished. But Brian was a genius for a couple of years with an unlimited budget that ended up destroying the Beach Boys. But the fragments he managed to produced sounded pretty good. Another two or three million bucks and he would have produced an album that nobody could perform live. But it would have sounded great.
DeleteAnd mixing British releases with American and global releases from the Beatles is comparing Apples with Apples and finding them different. It was all pretty good music.
Your assertion that Abbey Road was uncompleted (presumably because of squabbling) is within the realm of the possible but just isn't the case. Mark Lewisohn among others has documented just about every day of the creation of the last two Beatle albums, and maybe they would have been even better without the fighting and maybe not, but they released what they intended to release, not half-songs and leftovers.
A lot of people put Rubber Soul and Revolver at the top of their Beatles album ranking. They are terrific albums, but I think they kept getting better (except for Magical Mystery Tour). Sometimes art really is a matter of taste.
And placing Let It Be at the bottom has become really popular in the last couple of decades. While it didn't rock as hard as previous Beatle albums, it contains fine songs. I prefer it to Pet Sounds for example.
The Beatles grew and changed in the nearly nine years they produced albums. Their budgets grew larger and they became international businessmen as well as international rock/pop stars. John Lennon became a drunk. Comparing on some arbitrary scale the work of four guys just barely 20 with work they did when they were over 30 and possessed financial comfort and families is impossible and arbitrary.
Separating the art from the artists is a 20th century exercise that didn't yield much insight into either one. I think it was worth trying, but what you end up with are lists like the above: more interesting than useful.
John
There's no place to reply above. I listened to some Beatles tonight because it's been quite a while since the lads spent time in my ears. My sound equipment from the 70s and 80s, pretty good stuff, has been lost in divorces and floods and a moderate famine or two, so I listen to my computer on my Koss cans and that's the best I can do.
DeleteI came back to make a comment about the weaker parts of the Beatles' later works and found that you'd already made it. When the guitar boys hit a weak spot (or an entire weak album) Ringo would play a 9/4 - 10/6 fill a few times, then kick the bass a couple times, and the band was back on track. Not always as simple as that, but Ringo saved more songs than he gets credit for. I read the comments above and see that you've already covered that. Nice observation.
John
https://youtu.be/5w02O-XdsXE?si=iOIlcelfnqr6FCJ6
ReplyDeleteLou Reed - Metal Machine Music, Pt. 1
DeleteGrating mechanical sounds, ambient music from a welding shop.
https://youtu.be/Wo9nZEalABQ?si=jlSqu1FacUWoVGss
ReplyDeleteLou Reed - Berlin
DeleteNever heard that before. Very annoying beginning, raucous birthday party shouting. Nice piano stuff. I could listen to the piano stuff, but the annoying whispers I mostly can't understand make it hard. Having now heard it once, I doubt I'll listen again.
Mr Reed was occasionally brilliant, but frequently not.
https://youtu.be/FsCx5Iej6HY?si=kMUTkonjPoAazVma
ReplyDeleteLou Reed - A Dream
DeletePoetry recited over odd background noises.
Ir's certainly wrong for me to judge someone else's artwork without, you know, turning off the lights and slipping into headphones and cranking the volume to 11, none of which I did, but probably it's brilliant. I even Googled the lyrics, but it's not for me. I'm not brilliant enough for this particular art.
https://youtu.be/NSNyt8MZTqI?si=n9IMxA7CPGr6Aj65
ReplyDeleteLou Reed - Hello It's Me
DeleteNever heard this before, but he's reciting the poetry instead of whispering it, and the background music compliments the words, and I like it very very.
Goodbye, Andy.
Jeez, I like this.
https://youtu.be/ts5ynBweHZ4?si=tnpo3TQYAzWLEJok
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9hSgs0ITI0
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Du3Zv7RpePM
I listened to that American Graffiti soundtrack, on double vinyl, a million times when I was a kid - Thanks, Mom!
DeleteSometimes it's hard to make a point obliquely, which was my point. The original has the time and temperature of the culture and the sound of the music around it built in. By the time somebody covers it ten years later, the ethos and atmosphere have changed, sometimes radically. See also Louie Louie; Louie, Louie; and Stay.
Deletejtb
Stay - The Zombies
DeleteI've been listening to the Jackson Browne version for so long I'd almost forgotten liking this. Shorter than I'd remembered...
Stay - Jackson Browne
DeleteWell, hello again.
I like it, sure, everybody likes it, but what the hell is Louie Louie about?
DeleteA sailor talking to a bartender ("Louie") about his girlfriend.
Deletejtb
Well, that fairly well fits the lyrics, so I'm gonna guess you're telling the truth. Not sure I've ever heard those lyrics sung, though.
DeleteLouie, Louie, oh, oh, me gotta go
DeleteLouie, Louie, me gotta go
Fine little girl she waits for me
Me catch the ship for cross the sea
Me sail the ship all alone
Me never think me make it home
Louie, Louie, oh, me gotta go
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
Three nights and days me sail the sea
Me think of girl constantly
On the ship I dream she there
I smell the rose in her hair
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
Me see Jamaica moon above
It won't be long, me see my love
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I never leave again
Louie, Louie, oh, me gotta go
Louie, Louie, me gotta go
I say, me gotta go
I say, me gotta go
Songwriters: Richard Berry
Louie, Louie lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
This song has been recorded dozens of times. When the Kingsmen recorded it they were in a small studio and the vocal was picked up on a ribbon mic about four feet above the head of the singer. He was shouting to make himself heard and the lyrics are a little hard to decipher. The FBI couldn't even figure them out when they were asked by the Feds to determine whether the lyrics were dirty. They weren't, but they are hard to understand.
DeleteJohn
All I ever knew for sure was Louie, Louie, gotta go. Still a great song, though.
Deletehttps://youtu.be/d7wBvyrao8I?si=jc4oNsZg1wttdPw7
ReplyDeleteJohn Cale - Close Watch
DeleteHave I ever heard of John Cale before seeing him in the Lou Reed songs an hour ago? Not sure.
It's beautiful, deep, but I'm ugly and shallow and it's something I'd appreciate a few times (just did) but not catchy enough to get lodged in my stupid brain.
Who is John Galt? Fuckit, the question above is Who is John Cale? Easier answer. . .
DeleteFormer member of the Velvet Underground before he was fired for enjoying esoteric ambient music or being an asshole or being British, depending on the source. Also, the second person to record Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, in this case on the Cohen tribute album "I'm Your Fan" in 1991, eight years after Leonard released the song to the entire world (except the USA) on his album Various Positions. Mr Cale asked Leonard to fax him the verses Leonard had written, and then Cale went out to dinner. When he returned he had no visible floor because Leonard had written nearly 80 verses, making Cale's London studio floor a fax receptacle. Cale mostly used the verses Leonard had recorded, but found a couple more he liked as he swam through the endless loop of his flat floor.
Fast forward to 1994 and Jeff Buckley, looking for the ashes of his dead father, finds a very small pub in NYC, hears the recording of Cale singing Hallelujah, and thinks Cale wrote it. Buckley records it on his only album, "Grace", and for several years everybody thinks Buckley wrote the damn song. In the ensuing 14 years, everybody who can carry a tune and dozens who can't record Hallelujah on record, TV shows, movies and in the Webosphere.
Jesus, thinks Cale, I just sort of liked the song. But it's just a fucking song. Not any more, John. Who is John Galt has become Who is John Cale because of all that fax paper spread across his floor. Leonard dies, Cale lives, and nobody with a brain gives a rat's ass about John Galt.
John
Eight years after he recorded Hallelujah before anyone covered it. So the song was not instantly mega popular.
DeletePeople are idiots.
And also, dang, I thought songwriters had a union and an acronym I can't remember at the moment protecting their rights for republications and remakes and clearance in other media and all. Like everything else, it's not for the little guy I guess? And Cohen was a little guy?
The law is some tricky shit.
Happy New Day man!
You might be thinking of BMI and ASCAP. Those are two international organizations that make sure that the writer, publisher and label of a song get compensated when someone covers a song they recorded. Anybody can cover anybody's song as long as they pay through BMI or ASCAP. It's polite to ask the original writer first, but not required. The compensation process is logistically complicated but conceptually simple.
DeleteJohn
Remember, eight years after Cohen recorded Hallelujah Cale covered it on a tribute album to Cohen. Every song on the album was a Cohen song. Cohen was admired and respected in the serious music business, so if you're asked to choose a Cohen song and cover it, you do it. So it was a simple twist of fate that it was covered at all, and Cale did a bang-up job. In his own way, Cale found the song hidden in the song.
DeleteArtists like to be covered, especially artists who need money. I doubt Leonard made any money on I'm Your Fan, but he was flattered, and that's worth something.
John
So how long was Hallelujah praised by insiders before it cracked through to outsiders, hallelujah?
DeleteWhy Robert Forster? To my knowledge he was never a singer, and I say that after listening to his rendition of "Tower of Song"...
You haven't heard Leonard's rendition. I was a Cohen fan from the first album, but he was sometimes filed under Leonard Cohen and sometimes filed under Miscellaneous C. I was grooving out to Bird on a Wire, Suzanne, Sisters of Mercy, Hey That's No Way to Say Goodbye, Bird on the Wire, Story of Isaac, Famous Blue Raincoat, Joan of Arc, Chelsea Hotel #2, Who By Fire, and many others. I liked Hallelujah too, but Leonard's arrangement was not what you hear today, and it just went by as another of Leonard's wonderful songs that most people would never hear. I guess I was wrong about that one.
DeleteJohn
Wow, that's interesting. He wrote the song but had a different arrangement, so it never went anywhere.
DeleteI am of course trying to find that version. Is this it? It says it's original, but it this version wasn't supposed to blow me, well it does. Hard to imagine what arrangement would sink it...
Yes, that's it. As I said, I loved it the first time I heard it, but it doesn't sound much like other people did it or, for that matter, how Leonard did it on his last tours.
DeleteHe was recording on the cheap, as usual, and discovered the Casio keyboard and played it all through the album. Without the luxury of a large recording budget, Leonard had to do much of his recording fairly cheaply. In many cases this was a plus, since Leonard's voice is nice and got deeper with cigarettes and age, but he wasn't a terrific guitar player, so he needed to hire musicians to help him. There were hundreds of guitar players and other players who would have stepped in for free for Leonard, but between musicians' union rules (any decent recording facility is a union shop) and Leonard's pride, he rarely left the backup folks unpaid. He had some lean years in middle age and, of course, went broke in old age, forcing him to go on tour into his 70s. THAT'S when he sorta became a superstar and knocked 'em dead at Glastonbury. Odd career, odd guy. It's very difficult to find anyone who worked with Leonard or was close to him to say a bad word about him. He seems to have been a genuine gentleman.
John
Cohen got better with age.
DeleteDylan got worse.
How's about John?
Also, to clarify my earlier comment:
DeleteI'd thought the original 'Hallelujah' wasn't going to blow me AWAY. I did not expect it to blow me.
I'm a Cohen guy and a Dylan guy, and neither got better with age. In the world of rock, very few people do, and I have no idea why.
DeleteQuickly, Dylan's work from 1961 through 1966 contained all his best albums save 1 (Blood on the Tracks [1975]). He's still putting out albums at roughly the rate of one every two or three years, but they haven't been listenable since roughly 2000 and haven't been good since the sixties (exception noted).
Cohen's best work was in the 60s and the 80s with adequate work in the 70s. His work since the 80s has been spotty at best.
Paul Simon, probably America's best songwriter of our generation, wrote and recorded stunning songs from the 60s through the 80s (about 25 years) and tapered off after that, with occasional good, not great, music after that.
The jazz writers/players seem to have a slightly longer spring and a shorter winter. Mose Allison, one of America's great jazzers, wrote and performed more quality stuff when he was young, but produced competent stuff when he was older.
Dave Brubeck (and his quartet) released their magnum opus, "Time Out" when Brubeck (who wrote most of it) was 39 and Paul Desmond (who wrote Take Five) was 35.
T. S. Eliot wrote The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock when he was in college and wrote many fine poems later in life but none of the stature of Prufrock.
Not based on the above (which is provided strictly for illumination) humans seem to be more creative when we're young. I have no idea why. Perhaps because songs and poems stop blowing us when we get older.
John
I'll make two clarifications about Leonard . . . 1) That list of Cohen songs that I listen to over and over that I commented yesterday were all on early albums. There are a few mid-career albums I come back to, but, at least for me, no later ones; and 2) Dylan got an early start and Cohen got a late start. Dylan took a bus to NYC when he was 19 (he claimed he hitchhiked -- he didn't) and went directly to Greenwich Village and went to a coffee shop where somebody was playing music and ran smack into Dave Van Ronk, who offered to put Dylan up on his couch for a while. Dylan had an album out (with Columbia no less) when he turned 21. Cohen was a poet and fiction writer in Canada for a decade before he picked up a guitar. He even had a best-seller, but a best-seller in Canada isn't many books, and he wasn't making enough money to live. His parents helped him out, but he wanted to be independent so he decided to take the guitar seriously and hired an itinerant guitar instructor he met in the park next to his parents' house. The guy was from Spain, and taught him a couple of traditional Spanish guitar techniques (Cohen's playing has always sounded different than just about every other folk singer -- that's the Spanish influence). Unfortunately, the lessons ended early and abruptly when the teacher committed suicide. Leonard always wondered whether his inept playing had driven the guy over the edge. Leonard was sort of joking, but not quite 100%. Finally he headed south for Nashville, thinking he might be able to become a country singer, but he got no farther than Greenwich Village. He got even luckier than Dylan, and ran into Judy Collins, known widely as the nicest person in folk, and when she heard him play "Suzanne", she decided to record it. She ended up getting Leonard a contract for one album with Columbia, and it was a terrific record, so he got a shot at more. Leonard was 33 when he got his first recording contract.
DeleteOK, maybe too much information, but I've always thought it was interesting that these two guys, about the same age, both came to New York, and one was pretty much done with his brilliant work before the other started recording, and they became lifelong friends. On virtually every occasion that they happened to be in the same city at the same time they made a point of having coffee together. This continued until Leonard's death.
John
It *is* interesting and not at all "too much information," though as said before I dunno why you waste time tutoring me when you could have your own page in an hour.
DeleteDon't do it, though. I enjoy the tutoring, and you're the source for most of what little I know about rock and roll and folk and funk.
Youngens got the spunk and also the time. Once successful, McGenerally speaking, they have less to offer. Not much Bob Dylan could know of ordinary people in the 21st century.
I am, by the way, still searching — Googled some just a few days ago — for that 1960s singer I'd forgotten, and I have another clue that might be worth mentioning:
I forgot him, I think, because I get tired of him. His relaxed but tired singing is the same in every song and gets monotonous after half an album.
Still looking, though.
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kNTOZnz2mnOiO0wR0vTjn0ygTSXecYlWI&si=EXqk1MKeUVbvWb0Q
ReplyDeleteI might listen to the whole album later if I need background noise, but for this morning I picked three songs at random. 2 out of three are fine, lyrics and tunes, a little softer than I usually prefer, and Mr Cale's singing voice doesn't make listening easy.
DeleteOK, I'm still listening to all the youtube links, but it feels more and more like I'm playing Lester Bangs and I just don't have the passion experience or knowledge to have anything to say on music so I'll shut up now.
Deletehttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiN-7mukU_RGeUH0dtrx72FMM_ivXGmgJ&si=BLO9q1d8aKVlFibE
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/kyPhvHEtRuw?si=wq6AJynVP9C6yu_R
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/PTi1d1x9Mlk?si=wTx88gJEwRRX4T7k
ReplyDeletehttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrv5a_5drVgRU8DbUto0hlqAy0yRp-CvT&si=h9zZMxAKOld8VelO
ReplyDeletehttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6ogdCG3tAWis8381V3_hT6zlRmOVKJ_u&si=jTbAXUKFr0fxnG9q
ReplyDeletehttps://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mVrKhAm2FZiRjaUnlTBdLOFthTVDyxNn8&si=UzC0iQlYgmamUSOY
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsROL4Kf8QY
DeleteI'm sure the information at the web addresses referenced deserve thoughtful answers. I gave up after the first several because my language is English (and a little bit of Spanish and Esperanto) and it was getting a little too esoteric for me.
DeleteSorry, shit, gotta go. . . ..John
Who gets interrupted at two in the morning? Married people. Jesus.
DeleteI saw Jackson Browne from 30 or 40 feet away in Seattle do Stay (Just a Little Bit Longer) with guitar, violin, cello, standup bass, swapped mandolin/banjo, and electric piano (the venue didn't have a resident piano). I saw at least ten roadies, and I suspect I didn't see them all. Of course that doesn't include the instrument techs.
I never saw Maurice Williams perform anything at all, but I doubt he had many roadies and I doubt he had any techs. In the end, the singer becomes the song and I very much regret not seeing Mr Williams perform the song he wrote. But I do know that a lot of shit changed in the 15 years between Mr Williams' performance and Mr Browne's.
Context isn't everything, but it can't be discounted. That was my little point, perhaps made badly.
John
Maurice's original is sweet, underwrought, there and then it's gone. Jackson's rewrite is so long, radio listeners have never heard it.
DeleteMe, I likes 'em both, but today I'm feeling uncomplicated and prefer the original.
This is a wonderful capture with good sound and fairly foggy picture. Two giants of world music sit next to each other and play some of the best acoustic guitar you'll hear. Also, each guy sings harmony for the other. Ever tried to sing harmony for a couple of notes? Try a whole song.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, here are two of the best writer/musicians of my time performing live. This might have been the only time they played together. Is that possible? And no "take two". Watch George's left hand on Here Comes the Sun. Jesus.
John
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEgBMTMUanU
I'm still on John Stewart, but I won't love the link, promise.
DeleteYa can't learn unless ya ask. What in the world does the phrase "love the link" mean?
Deletejtb
Fat men have fat fingers. It means I won't lose the link.
Delete