The Volokh Conspiracy

The Kennedy Center will honor country legend Merle Haggard at the 33rd annual Kennedy Center honors this December.  Now in his seventies, Haggard has had a remarkable — and remarkably influential — music career.  Though he has a new album, I’d rather highlight one of his oldies, “The Bottle Let Me Down,” from 1966, a classic of country blues in the spirit of Hank Williams.  Here’s a taste:

Tonight the bottle let me down
It let your memory come around
The one true friend I thought I’d found
Tonight the bottle let me down 

I’ve always had a bottle I could turn to
And lately I’ve been turnin’ every day
But the wine don’t take effect the way it used to
And I’m hurtin’ in old familiar ways

Here are the full lyrics, the song, and a live version.

Live’s “Overcome” was not written as a 9/11 anthem, but it became one for many anyway.  It was written before the attack, and appeared on Live’s mediocre “experimental” V, released in September 2001.  In the wake of the World Trade Center’s collapse, the song struck a chord.  Here’s the first verse:

Even now 
the world is bleeding 
but feeling just fine 
all alone in a castle 
where we’re always free to choose 
never free enough to find 
I wish something would break 
Cos we’re running out of time

Here are the full lyrics, the video, a 9/11 tribute video, and a live performance.

When I saw this song performed in concert,  it was quite intense.  Alas, Live is on hiatus.  Ed Kowalczyk and the other band members have gone their separate ways.

It’s Labor Day weekend.  I’m not ready for summer to be over, but it’s not like I have much choice in the matter.  Death Cab for Cutie‘s “Summer Skin” seems appropriate. Here’s the second verse:

I don’t recall a single care
Just greenery and humid air
Then Labor Day came and went
And we shed what was left of our summer skin

Here are the full lyrics, the song, a fan made video. and a live version.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) will no longer allow D.C. metro riders to exit the system with negative balances on their SmarTrip cards.  Instead, riders will have to use the cash-only “ExitFare” machines to pay the remaining fare.  Before, a rider could exit with a negative balance but could not use the card again before restoring a positive balance.  More here.

This new WMATA policy reminds one VC reader of 1959 the Kingston Trio hit. “M.T.A.” (aka “Charlie on the MTA”).  The song, written in 1948 by Jacqueline Steiner and Bess Lomax Hawes for Progressive Party candidate Walter O’Brien’s mayoral campaign, tells the story of a man trapped on the Boston MTA because he did not have enough money to pay the fare.  It begins:

Let me tell you the story
Of a man named Charlie
On a tragic and fateful day
He put ten cents in his pocket,
Kissed his wife and family
Went to ride on the MTA

Charlie handed in his dime
At the Kendall Square Station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there the conductor told him,
“One more nickel.”
Charlie could not get off that train.

Here’s a site with the full lyrics and the history of the song, a Kingston Trio performance, and the Dropkick Murphys’ version, “Skinhead on the MBTA.”

Somewhere along the way former Fugee Wyclef Jean got the idea he should be the President of Haiti.  And as the Washington Post reported just last week, he could have been a contender.  Haiti’s electoral council had other ideas, however, disqualifying him for failing to satisfy the residency requirement.  Although he was born in Haiti, Jean has not lived in Haiti since he was nine. Jean’s statement is here.  Given his questionable financial and non-profit management skills, it’s not clear Haiti’s the loser in this.  As President he could have made high-profile appeals for aid, but who knows where the money would have gone.

This wasn’t the first time Wyclef Jean thought about politics.  He recorded the song “If I Was President” in 2008 which features this chorus:

If I was president
I’d get elected on Friday
Assassinated on Saturday
Buried on Sunday
Then go back to work on Monday
If I was president

One version of the lyrics can be found here (he’s used different versions at different times), and here are a video, a live performance in Madrid, and a live acoustic version from the Chappelle show.

I’ve never thought of Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World” as a political song, but given some of my recent posts I may need to reconsider.  Co-written with Lou Adler and Herb Alpert, the song has been covered by acts from Herman’s Hermits and Art Garfunkel to Bryan Ferry and Rod Stewart, the song made Rolling Stone‘s list of the greatest 500 songs of all time.  Here’s how it begins:

Don’t know much about history
Don’t know much biology
Don’t know much about a science book
Don’t know much about the french I took

But I do know that I love you
And I know that if you love me too
What a wonderful world this would be

Here are the full lyrics, the original song, the scene from Animal House featuring the song, and a 2008 Obama campaign ad using the song (with new lyrics) to attack John McCain.

Ellen has pretty good music tastes for a nine-year-old girl.  That’s another way of saying her tastes extend beyond Miley Cyrus, Ke$ha, and the Jonas Brothers.  One of her current favorites is Paramore, a band she learned to like even before the “Twilight” soundtrack made them cool. One of their recent singles is “The Only Exception,” which Ellen likes to sing with her 2-year-old sister in the car. (Madeline only sings the chorus.)  It’s an affecting song, and looks to be Paramore’s highest charting single yet.

When I was younger I saw my daddy cryand curse at the wind
Broke his own heart and I watched as he tried to reassemble it
And my momma swore that she would never let herself forget
And that was the day that I promised I’d never sing of love if it does not exist

But darling you are the only exception

Here are the full lyrics, music video, an performance on Ellen, and a live acoustic version.

“Him’s now a real boy!”  So exclaimed Madeline Joyce with wonder and excitement at the conclusion of Disney’s Pinocchio yesterday.  The movie may have been made 70 years ago, but it still has the  ability to capture the imagination of a 2-and-a-half-year-old girl.  It’s nice to know the frenetic displays that pass for children’s programming have not dulled the power of classic films.

Pinocchio was released in 1940, and was its second full-length animated feature.  (Disney released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937.)  The film received the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year for “When You Wish Upon A Star,” written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington, and sung by Cliff Edwards (playing Jiminy Cricket). Here’s how it begins:

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do

Here are the full lyrics and a video.

What rock bands have the most consecutive gold or platinum albums?  The Beatles and the  Rolling Stones are obviously one and two, but would you believe number three is Rush?!? I was surprised (and maybe a bit gratified), but after watching the Beyond the Lighted Stage, an excellent new documentary about the 40-plus-year-old band, it makes some sense.  (My wife, who hates Rush, actually liked the film.)

The band has a deep, devoted following — almost exclusively male — that’s probably just as quirky (and nerdy) as the bandmates themselves, with their sci-fi epic album sides, frequent time signature changes, and shout outs to “the genius of Ayn Rand.”   Neil Peart, the Rand fan who writes their lyrics, is arguably the best rock drummer of all time. Geddy Lee is an incredible bassist too, and Alex Lifeson is no slouch.  They are highly esteemed by musicians, if not by rock critics or contemporary rock fans.  Among those who appear in the film to praise Rush’s influence are Trent Reznor, Billy Corgan, Kirk Hammett, Taylor Hawkins, Jason McGerr, Gene Simmons, and Jack Black. It also highlights Cleveland’s role in bringing Rush to American fans; WMMS added “Working Man” to its playlist as a “bathroom song” (a track long enough for DJs to take a quick break) before they’d even been signed in the U.S.

Like many others, I went through a Rush phase.  They were staples on Philadelphia’s two AOR stations (WMMR and WYSP), and Exit . . . Stage Left was a part of my own regular rotation.  My first high school band included a Rush song in our basic set.  Big mistake (see the Rush fan demographic noted above).  Our next band replaced Rush with cooler tunes (The Police, INXS, etc.), but more than a few rehearsals would devolve into YYZ jam sessions.  Watching Beyond the Lighted Stage brought back a rush of Rush memories, including playing “The Spirit of Radio” at a high school dance.  It was a poor choice, to be sure, but I still like it. Here’s a taste the lyrics:

All this machinery making modern music
Can still be open-hearted.
Not so coldly charted, it’s really just a question
Of your honesty, yeah, your honesty.

One likes to believe in the freedom of music,
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity.

Here are the full lyrics and a few live versions.  Now I think I’ll go listen to Exit . . . Stage Left.

I don’t follow celebrity divorces much, but one recent Hollywood split inspired a reader to recommend this week’s song lyric.  He writes: “In the wake of Sandra Bullock’s marital betrayal by Jesse James, I was a little startled by this lyric to “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” (sung by Linda Ronstadt, not Warren Zevon, the lyrics’ author) when it came on the radio recently.”

Well I met a man out in Hollywood
Now I ain’t naming names
Well he really worked me over good
Just like Jesse James
Yes he really worked me over good
He was a credit to his gender
Put me through some changes Lord
Sort of like a Waring blender

Poor poor pitiful me
Poor poor pitiful me
Oh these boys won’t let me be
Lord have mercy on me
Woe woe is me

The song, written and first performed by Zevon was allegedly written to mock Jackson Browne.  True or not, the song was somewhat successful as recorded by Rondstadt and, more recently, by Terri Clark.  Here are the full lyrics, Linda Ronstadt performing in 1977 and for the Clintons, and Terri Clark’s more recent version.

And here’s a brief item for those, like me, who needed an update on the Bullock-James divorce.

Growing  up in Philadelphia, it was probably inevitable that I’d prefer “God Bless America” over the “Star Spangled Banner.”  The former became the de facto national anthem for the Philadelphia Flyers after their Stanley Cup championships of 1974 and 1975, at which the song was sung by Kate Smith.  That it was written by Irving Berlin doesn’t hurt either.  As sung by Smith, the song always included an introduction which is often forgotten:

While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer.

Here are the full lyrics and a Kate Smith performance.

Happy Fourth of July!

Following on Ken’s post below, I thought I’d highlight a lyric from Blows Against the Empire, the first album released by Paul Kantner, et al. as “Jefferson Starship” (as opposed to Jefferson Airplane; I like to pretend that the thing called “Starship” never existed), and it includes appearances by a wide range of folks, including Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Graham Nash, and many others (more here).  I was a wee infant when the album was released, but I remember some of the songs from the album-oriented rock stations I listened to as a tween and a middle school teacher who had a Jefferson Airplane obsession. (Remember when radio stations would play entire album sides uninterrupted?  Remember actually listening to “albums”?)

Blows Against the Empire was a politically idealistic, counter-cultural, sci-fi concept album, but it also addressed some more mundane concerns.  Several songs could well be about Grace Slick’s pregnancy, including (appropriately enough) “Child Is Coming,” co-written by Paul Kantner, Grace Slick and David Crosby (who also performs on the song), while also fitting in with the album’s broader narrative.  The second verse sounds like something out of a Glenn Beck monologue (a thought that would likely give Kantner, et al. heartburn), but it’s still a good old song:

What are we gonna do when Uncle Samuel comes around
Askin’ for the young one’s name
And lookin’ for the print of his hand for the files in their numbers game
I don’t want his chances for freedom to ever be that slim
Let’s not tell ‘em about him —

Here are the full lyrics and the song.

Donna Summer’s “Last Dance” (written by Paul Jabara) won both a Golden Globe and Academy Award in 1978.  So one might not expect it to provoke much controversy in 2010 — at least that’s what folks at Wendy’s thought when it included the song in a kids meal “Car Karaoke” music CD.  Not so fast.  The song’s early lyrics are tame enough, as were those included in the CD, but at least in some versions of the song, the chorus line “I’m so bad” becomes “I’m so horny” at the end of the song.  According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, this upset some parents whose children received the giveaway CD, so Wendy’s pulled it.  It seems someone should have read the full lyrics before distributing the song to kids.

It seems like a good day to dip back into the great American songbook, so how about Irving Berlin’s  “A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody.” Said ABC Radio in 1945: “If the Ziegfield Follies glorified the American girl, it was Irving Berlin who painted her picture in music.  Here’s a song that reflects all the beauty and charm of its lovely inspiration.”  This one is old enough to be in the public domain, so I can post the full lyrics:

I have an ear for music,
And I have an eye for a maid.
I like a pretty girlie,
With each pretty tune that’s played.
They go together,
Like sunny weather goes with the month of May.
I’ve studied girls and music,
So I’m qualified to say…

A pretty girl is like a melody
That haunts you night and day,
Just like the strain of a haunting refrain,
She’ll start up-on a marathon
And run around your brain.
You can’t escape she’s in your memory.
By morning night and noon.
She will leave you and then come back again,
A pretty girl is just like a pretty tune.

Unlike some of the other songbook standards I’ve posted, this one has not been covered as much recently.  But here is a classic recording by Mario Lanza. Fred Astaire also danced to the song in “Blue Skies.”

If I hear one more song with Auto-Tune I think I’ll foreswear the FM dial for good.  Don’t these guys know it makes them sound like Cher?  I am not alone in my disdain for the over-use of pitch-correction technology.  Jay-Z even wrote an award-winning song about it, “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune).”  The lead single off his latest album, The Blueprint III, won a Grammy. Here’s how it begins:

Only rapper to rewrite history without a pen,
No ID on the track let the story begin, begin, begin

This is anti-autotune, death of the ringtone
This ain’t for iTunes, this ain’t for sing alongs
This is Sinatra at the opera, bring a blonde
Preferably with a fat ass who can sing a song, wrong
This ain’t politically correct, this might offend my political connects
My raps don’t have melodies, this should make jackers wanna go and commit felonies,
Get your chain tooken, I may do it myself – I’m so Brooklyn.
I know we facing a recession, but the music y’all making going make it the great depression
All y’all lack aggression put your skirt back down, grow a set man
Yeah this just violent, this is the death of autotune, moment of silence

Here are the full lyrics, the video, and a live performance with John Mayer.

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, so I thought I’d blog “Memorial Day” by James McMurtry off of his critically acclaimed album Childish Things.  It doesn’t focus so much on the reason for the holiday as the dysfunctional dynamics of holiday family get-togethers.  Here’s the chorus:

It’s Memorial Day in America
Everybody’s on the road
Let’s remember our fallen heroes
Y’all be sure and drive slow

Here are the full lyrics and the song. And here’s a list of VC readers’ prior Memorial Day Sunday Song Lyric suggestions.

Heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio died last week at the age of 67.  Dio was a monster of rock, having fronted Rainbow, post-Ozzy Black Sabbath, and Dio, among others.  Wikipedia also credits him with popularizing the “devil’s horns” hand gesture.  He never reached the top of the charts, but his work (and voice) should be familiar to anyone who ever went through a metal phase — and how many others can claim tribute songs by Tenacious D.

VH1 deemed Dio’s “Rainbow in the Dark” as one of the top 40 metal songs of all time, but it was never one of his favorites.  For whatever reason, I always preferred “The Last in Line.” though never really promoted as a single, it was a staple on album-oriented rock stations in the 1980s.  The lyrics aren’t poetry — this is metal after all — but it’s a memorable song, and pure Dio.  It begins:

We’re a ship without a storm
The cold without the warm
Light inside the darkness that it needs, yeah

We’re a laugh without a tear
The hope without the fear
We are coming – home

Here are the full lyrics, the music video, and a live performance from 2002.

Paul Weller has a new album out.  NME likes it.  I’ll need to give it a listen at some point (perhaps when I’m done grading exams).  He’s put out some good stuff solo and with The Style Council, but my heart stays with his early work with The Jam, one of my favorite bands.  He penned lots of  tracks to choose from for an SSL.  For some reason, this morning I’m stuck on “Going Underground” — their first number one single in the UK.  Here’s how it begins:

Some people might say my life is in a rut,
But I’m quite happy with what I got
People might say that I should strive for more,
But I’m so happy I can’t see the point.
Somethings happening here today
A show of strength with your boy’s brigade and,
I’m so happy and you’re so kind
You want more money – of course I don’t mind
To buy nuclear textbooks for atomic crimes

And the public gets what the public wants
But I want nothing this society’s got -
I’m going underground
Well the brass bands play and feet start to pound
Going underground,
Well let the boys all sing and the boys all shout for tomorrow

Here are the full lyrics, a video, and a live performance.

There are lots of songs about Mom — readers contributed a bunch here.  For today’s lyric, I thought about “There’s Always a Mother Waiting at Home.” Here’s the chorus:

If sickness overtakes you
Or old companions shake you
As through this world you wander all alone
When friends you haven’t any
In your pocket not a penny
There’s a mother always awaiting you at home

The version I’m familiar with is by Johnny Cash from Personal File, but it’s a much older song by James Thornton dating from the turn of the century.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Leonard Cohen has to be among the greatest living lyricists.  His music and lyrics have inspired countless musicians and songwriters (and more than one VC post).  He also seems a particularly appropriate source of Sunday Song Lyrics as so many of songs, like this week’s selection — “Tower of Song” — are about music.

“Tower of Song” was the last track on 1988′s I’m Your Man (not to be confused with the 2006 tribute film).  It’s been covered by folks as varied as Peter Gabriel, the Jesus and Mary Chain and Marianne Faithful, and provided the title for a 1995 tribute album.  Here’s how the song begins:

Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day
Oh in the Tower of SongI said to Hank Williams: how lonely does it get?
Hank Williams hasn’t answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
A hundred floors above me
In the Tower of Song

Here are the full lyrics, a live performance, and a version with U2.  Here’s a tribute site with lots of good stuff.

Michael Weintraub and Tyler Cohen wonder what are the best songs about technology.  Weintrabu focuses on songs “whose lyrics deal explicitly with technological innovations and their cultural effects,” and suggests Paul Simon’s “Boy in the Bubble.”  It’s a good choice.  Paul Simon is a great songwriter, and “Boy in Bubble” was a popular song.  Here’s how it begins:

It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don’t cry baby, don’t cry

Here are the full lyrics, the video, and a live performance.

“Boy in the Bubble” is one good song about technology, but is it the best?  What’s your favorite? And why?

Punk pioneer Malcolm McLaren died this week. McLaren managed both the New York Dolls and the Sex Pistols. While neither band lasted too long in its initial incarnation, both were quite influential.  Under McLaren’s leadership, the Sex Pistols courted controversy and cemented their place in history.  Their 1977 single, “God Save the Queen,” was almost never released.  Workers at the pressing plant stopped work because they were offended by the record cover (which, interestingly enough, would later be recognized as one of the best covers of all time) and the song was banned by the BBC.  Perhaps due to the contorversy, the song still hit number 2 on the UK charts.  Many thought the lyrics scandalous at the time — but time’s change.  Here’s a taste:

God save the queen
The fascist regime
It made you a moron
Potential H bomb
God save the queen
She ain’t no human being
There is no future
In England’s dreaming
Don’t be told what you want
Don’t be told what you need
There’s no future
No future
No future for you

Here are the full lyrics, the song, a video, and a live performance from 2007.

Is the Easter Bunny a white rabbit?  I’ve always assumed so. The Easter Bunny may be a white rabbit but he or she still does not have much to do with Grace Slick’s “White Rabbit,” the classic song she immortalized with Jefferson Airplane in 1967.  The rabbit of which Slick sang was the nervously late character from Alice in Wonderland (aka Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) – “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date!” — not a purveyor of jelly beans and creme-filled eggs.  Interestingly enough, the song was originally performed by Slick’s earlier band, The Great Society.  After Slick joined Jefferson Airplane, they included the song on their album Surrealistic Pillow.  And surreal the lyrics are.  Here’s the final verse:

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s “off with her head!”
Remember what the dormouse said;
“Feed Your Head”

Here are the full lyrics, a performance from the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and another from Woodstock.

What’s the best political song of all time?  The folks at the New Statesmen believe it’s “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie.  Here are the later lyrics, which are probably less well known than the opening.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

The full lyrics are here.  The song can be heard here.

Is the New Statesmen list a good one? Or is it too weighted toward older songs and the musical preferences of aging boomers?  Luke Lewis at NME weighs in:

Now it’s traditional at this point to belly-ache about the fact there’s no hip-hop, only three female artists in the list blah-di-blah. But, you know, it’s political magazine, not a music mag, so it’s not like they were gonna acknowledge riot grrrl.

What is telling though, is the absence of any songs from the past twenty years (apart from ‘Killing In The Name’), and it’s always a fault of these lists that they completely ignore metal – I’d argue Metallica’s ‘One’ and System Of A Down’s ‘BYOB’ are as incendiary protest anthems as you’ll find anywhere.

Alex Chilton died this week at 59.  His music did not have much commercial success beyond a few songs recorded with the Box Tops as a teen, (most notably “The Letter”).  But his influence was substantial.  When I was in college, most of the “cool” bands listed Alex Chilton and Big Star as important influences.  The Replacements even named a song after him.  Decades later his influence would continue.  One of Big Star’s songs became the theme for “That ’70s Show,” and the band was reconstituted in the 1990s with a two of the Posies. Big Star was supposed to play last night at SXSW in Austin.  They performed a Chilton tribute instead.

Alex Chilton’s death has prompted numerous remembrances, including remarks by Rep. Steve Cohen on the floor of the House and an NYT op-ed by Paul Westerberg. From the latter: “The great Alex Chilton is gone — folk troubadour, blues shouter, master singer, songwriter and guitarist. Someone should write a tune about him. Then again, nah, that would be impossible. Or just plain stupid.”  Stupid or not, Westerberg and the Replacements recorded a song about Chilton in 1987, and it’s as fitting a tribute as any.  Here’s a taste:

Cerebral rape and pillage in a village of his choice.
Invisible man who can sing in a visible voice.
Feeling like a hundred bucks, exchanging good lucks face to face.
Checkin’ his stash by the trash at St. Mark’s place.

Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round
They sing “I’m in love. What’s that song?
I’m in love with that song.”

Here’s the song, and the video.