I don’t know who The Swell Season are, but, God bless them, they’ve done the best cover of “Drive All Night” ever. The singer absolutely understands what this great song is about. He even drags out the word “lives”, which is essential.
A live full-band version exists, too, and it is just as good.
Filed under: Popular Music on March 7th, 2010 | 2 Comments »
In the Dana Heritage Project’s Catalog of Significant Objects, the Sesame Street Book and Record is a cherished item. I cannot remember a time in my life before I heard this recording, so I must have had it since I was very, very young.
Actually, I never really possessed this record until I was much older. It was always at my grandparents’ house, where I could listen to it on visits. And since I visited so often, and since I loved Sesame Street so much, I have heard this album more times than I could ever count. Of course, I got older, and though I never forgot that this record existed, I only thought of it occasionally. Then, a couple years ago, my grandmother gave it to me as a Christmas present.
As you can see from the cover, the Sesame Street Book and Record “contains [a] 24 page illustrated book”, and a “full color poster [is] included”. Most of that stuff is long gone from my copy. I have three or four pages from the book inside the gatefold jacket, and the vinyl album itself isn’t even in a sleeve. Naturally, the disc is in fairly bad shape, with plenty of pops, and a couple skips on side two.
But, aside from the magical nostalgic quality, what I can appreciate about this record even as an adult are the songs. They’re clever, sweet, and performed in a surprisingly unadorned style when compared to what is popular today. The little kids sound like little kids, and not children mimicking Aretha Franklin. Susan’s a little bit soulful on “I’ve Got Two” and “Nearly Missed”, and the backing band gets pretty funky in “Up and Down”, but you never forget that it’s a record for children. “What Are Kids Called”, “Somebody Come and Play”, and “J-Jump” are especially sweet. “Number 5″, “I Love Trash”, and “Rubber Duckie” are lots of fun, and “Green” is a quality song. I seem to recall “People in Your Neighborhood” being a favorite.
I don’t know if I would have admitted it at the time, but the Sesame Street Book and Record was my favorite album until I was a teenager.
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Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, Nostalgia, Popular Music on October 19th, 2009 | No Comments »
On January 31, 1988, I watched the pilot episode of a television program called The Wonder Years. Though the show was set in the late 1960s, I related to it because I was about the same age as the main character. As the series began, Kevin Arnold was starting junior high; so was I - in real life. Through subsequent seasons, the show dealt with many topics relevant to my (or any young man’s) life. But one theme of The Wonder Years was always outside the realm of my experience: Kevin Arnold’s difficult relationship with his father. Many episodes dealt with this topic, and it always made me simultaneously uncomfortable and grateful. I felt uncomfortable because the tension seemed so real, and I knew that many fathers and sons had strained relations. I felt grateful because I did not. And though my life has certainly not been free of regret, and though “I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought / And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste”, I have never had to regret any aspect of my relationship with my father. We have always got along well.
So, as I sat with my father on a blanket under the open sky last Saturday night, watching Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play “Racing in the Street”, I felt like things couldn’t get better.
Sure, it looked like the sky might open up any time and unleash a raging storm. But aside from a few sprinkles here and there, the weather held out. And, sure, I was a little worried about how bad our view would be way back on the lawn, but that actually turned out great, too. And, if $56 per ticket seems expensive, we did get three solid hours–twenty-seven songs–of rock.
Miriam and I met my dad at my Uncle Tom’s apartment in Tampa. It could not have been more conveniently located. We ate an early dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse, which was enjoyable and new to me. We made it to the Florida State Fairgrounds before six o’clock, but they didn’t open the gate for a little while after that. We weren’t too far back in the line at the gate, but there were still enough people that I was slightly nervous about getting a decent spot on the lawn. Plus, while were were standing there, the sky, which had spent the earlier part of the day raining, then the afternoon threatening more, began doing just that. It didn’t last, though, and by the time we reached the grass we were hopeful. Though there was a mad dash for the closest seats on the lawn, we managed to find a great spot.
As I expected, “Badlands” opened the show, but for the next two songs I was nervous. Springsteen’s voice was shot. It wasn’t that he couldn’t sing in tune; he couldn’t sing. I honestly expected him to call the show off. But he drank some sort of hot beverage, saying, “I’ll be better in a few songs”. Sure enough, he was. By the time he got to “Seeds” his voice was strong. In the request portion of the show, which has become a fixture of the last couple tours, Bruce grabbed just about every sign from the pit. I saw some fools asking for “Ramrod” and “I’m a Rocker”. Fools. I did see someone after my own heart requesting “Drive All Night”, though, of course, we didn’t get it. What we did get was “Growing Up”, requested by a child in the front row, “All or Nothing at All” which has only been played six times ever, and “Jole Blon” which hasn’t been played since 1981. So, we did okay, especially considering that a few nights later he played “Ramrod”.
I was hoping to hear some classic songs I had not yet heard live, and I got them, including, in the encore, “Rosalita”. After “American Land”, I figured the show was over. But the crowd was so frantic that he busted out “Bobby Jean” and “Dancing in the Dark”, then, finally, “Hungry Heart”. The place was out of control, and I didn’t think he would try and top it, so we grabbed our blanket and were making our way out when the noise got even louder. Something was happening on stage that we couldn’t see. Then we heard Bruce grab the mic and say, “I guess we forgot one”, before the opening strains of “Thunder Road”. It was incredible.
Still, in a show which included so many highlights (including an enthusiastic version of–of all things–Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More”, which, as you know, is my personal anthem), perhaps the best single performance of the night was an astonishing version of “Johnny 99″. It turned into a rollicking railroad reel with dueling guitar solos and showboating. It was thrilling.
Nevertheless, ages and ages hence, when I think back on that night, I’ll most fondly remember hearing “Racing in the Street” while seated on a blanket with my father under the open sky.
Filed under: Family, Musings, Nostalgia, Popular Music, Television on September 20th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Much ado is being made today about the simultaneous release of the newly-remastered Beatles catalog, and the interactive video game, Beatles Rock Band. I am intrigued by the former, and ambivalent about the latter.
One one hand, Rock Band strikes me as the height of poserdom – another example of the artificial replacing the real in our society. We don’t play tennis or go bowling anymore; we play Wii Fit. We don’t play guitar; we play Guitar Hero. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were introduced to one another on the afternoon of July 6, 1957. Had the two merely played guitar-shaped pieces of plastic in their bedrooms instead of real guitars, popular music would be quite different today. When the Beatles played the Ed Sullivan Show seven years later, an army of American boys were inspired to pick up their own guitars, start rock bands, and write the rock songs that defined an era. What if today’s kids are picking up game controllers instead of real instruments? Wither music?
On the other hand, a segment I heard on the radio last night raised a point I might have otherwise never considered. A caller to On Point said that he treasures the quality time he has spent playing Rock Band with his children, and that it has helped him feel more connected with them. They get to know his music, and he gets to know their music. This got me thinking: what if the millions of parents who felt so upset by rock music in 1964 had instead been able to share the experience with their children? After all, shaggy hair and suggestive hand-holding talk wasn’t really what bothered parents about the Beatles. The Beatles were the physical embodiment of the growing divide separating the World War II generation from their kids.
The Beatles are popular enough, and certainly not at risk of being forgotten, even by kids today. So I don’t think all this hoopla is about introducing a new generation to Lennon-McCartney. I think, rather, that it might actually be about bonding. Video games have divided parents and children for more than twenty years. If Beatles Rock Band can bring them together, things really will have come full circle.
Filed under: Musings, Popular Music, Technology on September 9th, 2009 | No Comments »
As much as I would like to go to the E Street Band show in Tampa on September 12, the only tickets left are for the lawn at the top of the amphitheater, or are good seats, but priced at $98. Seeing as I’d need two or three, the latter seems out of the question.
Filed under: Popular Music on August 3rd, 2009 | No Comments »