cooltunes

I’ve long admired the writings of Reynolds Price. If you grew up in the deep South, you would recognize a certain courtly cadence to the speech patterns that he captures like no other contemporary writer, and he gets in a whole lot else besides.

He had some medical problems a while back, and I did a search to help me recall what they were. In the process, I found that he co-authored Copperline with James Taylor.

Yes, that does account for the unique nature of the lyrics, and why they run deeper than the average Taylor song.

Many singers have covered the song, which is featured on Herbie Hancock’s latest album, ‘River: The Joni Letters’

So far, I only have the Linda Ronstadt version, which is on the morning playlist. It’s a working Saturday, and not too early for Christmas-related music.

Youme and Meyou:

‘. . . a phone line, a laptop
and a box of tangerines’

Certainly not the most politically correct song, but such fun to listen to.

With an intro by a physicist, not that the song has anything to do with physics, but everything to do with memory and nostalgia. And no annoying popup windows with this link.

Remember what the dormouse said.

Perhaps it’s not such a great idea to go looking for dormice in casseroles and whatnot in restaurants in Italy.

To its credit, the link contains a recipe for macaroni with dormouse and thrush sauce. If that’s the sort of thing that gets you all worked up. Pay close attention though, prepping that dormouse is a labor-intensive task.

And all these years I thought it was, ‘Keep your head. Keep your head.’

Perhaps not since there are only two known users, Enya and Roma Ryan. Ryan cobbled together the language from various sources including Elvish, Hindi and Siberian Yupik.

The sneezing season is too early this year. Despite taking a massive (for me anyway) amount of antihistamines, I still had to sit upright several times last night to blow my nose. Which affected my dream cycle, or maybe it was the pills.

So it was that I dreamed of trying to sell the idea of Netflix to my dad, who died ten years ago. (’$20/month. Every month?’) And I woke up with ‘Lush Life’ in my head.

I often get music first thing, no outside source - the mind keeps churning out the odd song as I stagger toward the bathroom. Most times, it’s some banal piece. This time, I got to consider the ‘twelve o’clock tales’ and ‘troughful of hearts’ lyrics as I brushed my teeth.

There are worse ways to start a day. The version I listen to most is Queen Latifah’s from her Dana Owens Album.

The ‘can’t take my eyes off you’ song from the film ‘Closer’.

It was Rice’s first big hit.

There I was, sitting on the sidelines at some bizarre audition-like situation with a band whose music I was less than enthused about. Not metal, but something akin to. The large woman beside me and I were supposed to be singing backup, which she knew how to do, but when I asked for the music, there was none.

It gets better.

She got up to solo, and knowing this kind of music, she rocked out to the enthusiastic response of the crowd. Then it was my turn.

Every song I ever knew vanished immediately from the repository in my brain. I stood for some awkward moments, then began. The only thing that popped back into my mind was “‘What a Wonderful World”, the Louis Armstrong classic. It’s the kind of music played in front of stores that don’t want teens to loiter. Lots of teens in the audience.

But what saved me was that I sang the Eva Cassidy version. And because my mom is freshly in another world watching over me, I woke up. But the dream hung on, as early morning ones tend to do, and I was explaining to the audience that I picked it as a tribute to a singer who died at 33.

“What a Wonderful World” was the last song she performed in public.

Her recording of “I Know You by Heart” works well as a lament of someone losing a lover. But in a chapel as part of my mom’s funeral service, it was unbearably sad.

My mind processes everything differently with a cold. Several times a week I pick up an egg or two in the morning. Today when I reach for the eggs, the famous lyrics pop into my head, and I’m having to forcibly remove them.

Who else was stuck on the lyrics? Donny of The Big Lebowski for one.

From the very first line, I got it wrong. I thought it was ‘So you’re dancing out the ocean.’ It’s ‘I saw you dancing out the ocean.’ Next verse, ‘In the second that the hammer hits’, I heard ‘in the second that you have a hit’. Next verse, ‘Like freedom fields where wild horses run/When stars collide like you and I/No shadows block the sun.’

All these years (and thank god no one heard me), ‘Like freedom feels where wild horses run/Wind starts to glide like you and I/Though shadows block the sun.’ No wonder it never made sense. Because then it gets dark.

Fourth verse: it goes ‘Drunken nights in dark hotels.’ I sang, ‘Guns and knives in dark hotels.’ And then the grammar seemed to go bad in the last verse, ‘For each man in his time is cain’. I thought of it as either ‘is king’ or ‘is came’.

How long has this song been around? My bathroom tiles are terminally embarrassed.

Sometimes I wake up with songs in my head, this time the old Moody Blues song, which I liked much better the way I first perceived it: Knights in White Satin, never reaching the end. It made for a memorable image. Interesting to note the other mondegreens associated with the song.

Tony Joe White is still performing the blues, and singing this song. Some say it’s ‘Polk’ Salad Annie, others say it’s ‘Poke’.

We are grateful for the cool marine breezes that make up our Bay Area summer wind. But the capricious wind of the song is not to be trusted if you want to hang on to your sweetie.

‘Give him a lonely heart like Pagliacci
And lots of wavy hair like Liberace.’

Mr. Sandman.

Written by Screamin Jay Hawkins, who eventually performed it while wearing a black cape after rising out of a coffin onstage. His crazed singing style influenced Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, Nick Cave and Marilyn Manson.

The lyrics are very simple, and the version I’ve listened to most is Nina Simone’s.

What song rhymes ‘Pagliacci’ with ‘Liberace’?

a) Mr. Wonderful
b) Mr. Sandman
c) Who’s Liberace?
d) Mr. Lucky

If you don’t know Liberace, you should look him up.

Answer to the quiz tomorrow. Unless it gets past 100° again, in which case I will not be present.

Lyrics to an old, old song that might not make it to modern playlists.

Don’t you know me, I’m your native son.

Written by Steve Goodman, The City of New Orleans has a way of sticking in your head. According to this, the song inspired the name of the ABC news show.

And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father’s magic carpet made of steam.

Was it a an actual house of gambling? A brothel perhaps named for a famous madam? Or a prison or slave pen?

Did Bob Dylan steal a folksinger’s arrangement of it? Who all has covered it? How is it different when a woman sings it?

And all this time, I thought it was ‘She sewed those new blue jeans.’

Not your usual sweet route to dreamland, lyrics here.

I couldn’t help but recall the lyrics to Poor Butterfly after seeing the Butterfly Zone at the Conservatory of Flowers in SF.