Song Musings

Happy hump day and welcome to the first post-winter installment of Song Musings 2024 – yep, as of yesterday, spring has officially started, at least for folks in the Northern Hemisphere. In case you’re new to my recurring midweek feature, these posts dig deeper into songs I’ve only mentioned in passing or not covered at all to date. This time, my pick may surprise some of my regular readers: Sailing by Christopher Cross. Yep, a track that’s on the lush side but I’ve always dug it.

Written by Christopher Cross, Sailing was featured on his eponymous debut album that came out in December 1979. The song also appeared separately as the album’s second single in June 1980. It became one of the San Antonio singer-songwriter and guitarist’s best-known and highest-charting songs, topping the Billboard Hot 1oo in the U.S., as well as the pop charts in Canada. Elsewhere, it did best in New Zealand (no. 8), The Netherlands (no. 18) and Ireland (no. 21).

In addition to enjoying significant chart success, Sailing won three Grammys in 1980 for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Arrangement of the Year. It also helped the Texan win the Album of the Year and Best New Artist categories. Sailing and the album were produced by multi-Grammy winning Michael Omartian who also played piano on it and arranged the strings. Apart from Cross, Omartian has worked with the likes of Steely Dan, Dolly Parton and Rod Stewart.

Sailing was one of the first digitally recorded songs to chart. It also is widely considered as a classic example of the yacht rock genre. Drawing on smooth soul, smooth jazz, R&B and disco, yacht rock was popular between the mid ’70s and mid ’80s. At the time it was known as West Coast or adult-oriented music. The term “yacht rock” was only created in 2005 by the makers of an online video series of the same name, which followed the fictionalized lives and careers of American soft rock stars of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Here’s a live version of Sailing, which apparently was captured in September 2022.

Cross has said Sailing was inspired by an older friend from high school who would take him sailing as a teenager to leave the troubles of everyday life behind for some time. Apparently, this friend was like an older brother to Cross during what was an emotionally difficult time for him.

During his Grammy acceptance speech Cross noted that while Sailing was his favorite song on the album, it wasn’t meant to become a single initially. Later, he told Songfacts he didn’t believe Sailing was going to be a hit, thinking it “was way too introspective.” Given how wrong Cross was, perhaps it’s not suprising Sailing was covered by a number of artists over the decades. SecondHandSongs counted 85 versions. Here’s a neat a cappella rendition Take 6 recorded for their 2018 album Iconic.

Following are some additional tidbits from Songfacts:

In a Songfacts interview with Christopher Cross, he told the story of the song: “I was just at home sitting in this cheap apartment, sitting at the table. I remember coming up with the verse and chorus, and the lyrics to the first verse of the chorus all came out. These tunings, like Joni [Mitchell] used to say, they get you in this sort of trance, so all that came out at once: ‘It’s not far down to paradise…’ The chorus just sort of came out.”

“So I got up and wandered around the apartment just thinking, ‘Wow, that’s pretty f–kin’ great.’ I just thought, ‘That’s really cool.’ So then I sat down and had to try to come up with other stuff to make the rest of the song, but I thought I had something there.”

“Then it took about two years before I had a bridge to that song, because the modality of the modal tuning thing, it gets pretty linear, and you’ve got to be careful. There are writers – I won’t mention who – whose songs can get kind of boring because everything’s this modality. So I knew I needed to lift the song out of that modality in the bridge and make key changes.”

“It took about two years before I came up with the bridge that changes all the keys to where it lifts, but it was a pretty special moment.”

Michael Omartian, who was Cross’ producer, also contributed keyboards and background vocals to the album. Omartian has worked on many hit songs – he co-wrote “She Works Hard For The Money” and produced “We Are The World” with Quincy Jones. Jay Graydon, who is also a hit songwriter and producer, played guitar on the Christopher Cross album. He singles out Omartian and David Foster as guys who are great to have in sessions. “These guys are just incredible musicians,” he told Songfacts. “I’m pretty good at doing string stuff and synth overdubs, and of course guitar overdubs and stuff, but you bring good guys in, then it gets really masterful.”

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; SecondHandSongs; YouTube

The Sunday Six

Good morning/afternoon/evening/night – regardless in which time zone you are, I hope you’re feeling great. If you live in a U.S. state that observes daylight savings time and forgot to adjust your watch, don’t worry, you didn’t miss the departure of the magical music time machine that once again will take us to six different tracks from six different decades and in different flavors.

Michael Brecker/Midnight Mood

For our first stop today, we’ll stay in the current century with soothing jazz by saxophone great Michael Brecker. Between 1969 until his untimely death in 2007 at the age of 57, he collaborated with many music artists outside the pure jazz realm, such as Steely Dan, Dire Straits, Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon. While Brecker’s recording career as a sideman started in 1969, his solo eponymous debut album didn’t appear until 1987.  Midnight Mood, composed by Austrian jazz fusion keyboarder and Weather Report co-founder Joe Zawinul, is from Brecker’s June 2002 studio album Nearness of You: The Ballad Book.

The Replacements/Can’t Hardly Wait

Next we shall head to July 1987, which saw the release of the fifth studio album by The Replacements, arguably one of the best and most influential rock & roll bands of the ’80s despite repeated acts of self-sabotage that hindered their success in the music industry. Pleased to Meet Me, the only album recorded by group as a trio, was well received by critics. In addition to its punk roots, the band got into other genres like soul and jazz. A case in point is Can’t Hardly Wait, penned by Paul Westerberg and featuring ex-Box Tops and Big Star vocalist Alex Chilton on guitar.

Hank Williams/Honky Tonk Blues

Our next stop takes us all the way back to September 1952 and Moanin’ the Blues, the sophomore album by Hank Williams. Like his November 1961 debut Hank Williams Sings, it featured songs that all had been previously released as singles, including the hits Lovesick Blues, Long Gone Lonesome Blues and Honky Tonk Blues. Apparently, Honky Tonk Blues took various attempts to record between August 1947 and December 1951, making it one of the most challenging track for Williams to record. In the end, things worked out well and Honky Tonk Blues peaked at no. 2 on the U.S. Country charts.

Deep Purple/Speed King

Time to push the pedal to the metal with Deep Purple and a hard rock song with some of the coolest lyrics. Speed King, credited to all members of the group – Ritchie Blackmore (guitar), Ian Gillan (vocals), Jon Lord (organ), Roger Glover (bass) and Ian Paice (drums), was on the British group’s fourth studio album Deep Purple in Rock released in June 1970. The song, which is made of lyrical bits of rock & roll hits by Little Richard, Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry, also became the albums lead single in May of the same year. Hang on to your seats – ha ha ha ha!

Sting/Shape of My Heart

After some charging high-speed hard rock & roll, I think this would be an opportune moment to slow things down. For this we shall travel to March 1993 and Sting’s fourth solo studio album. Ten Summoner’s Tales is the ex-Police frontman’s Mount Rushmore, in my humble opinion. Here’s the beautiful Shape of My Heart, which Sting co-wrote with guitarist and his long-term sideman Dominic Miller. The song also became the album’s fifth single in August 1993.

The Beatles/Back In the U.S.S.R.

Once again, we’re reaching the final stop of another music excursion, which I hope you’ve enjoyed. Let’s make it count with a song by my all-time favorite band The Beatles from their self-titled November 1968 studio album, aka. The White Album: Back in the U.S.S.R.. The album’s opener was written by Paul McCartney and, as usual, credited to him and John Lennon. The song is a parody of the patriotic sentiments about the U.S. expressed in Chuck Berry’s Back in the U.S.A. and The Beach Boys’ California Girls. Take it away, lads!

Of course, this post wouldn’t be complete without a Spotify playlist featuring the above tracks. So long and see you next time!

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube; Spotify

Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark Continues to Shine At 50

Note: This week, Song Musings, which normally runs on Wednesdays, will appear tomorrow, Thursday, January 18

Today, 50 years ago, Joni Mitchell released the acclaimed Court and Spark. Not only did the Canadian singer-songwriter’s sixth studio album become her most successful to date, but it also introduced jazz elements, marking an important stylistic evolution in her music. Or, as Apple Music puts it: Court and Spark sits halfway between Joni Mitchell’s folkie past and her jazz-rock future.

By the time Court and Spark appeared on January 17, 1974, Mitchell was in the sixth year of her recording career. Each of her four previously issued albums reached higher chart positions in Canada than its predecessor. With Court and Spark, she topped the charts there for the first and thus far only time. In the U.S., where Mitchell had lived since 1965, the album surged to no. 2. Elsewhere, it reached no. 14 in the UK, no. 18 in Norway and no. 34 in Australia.

Court and Spark took longer to come together compared to Mitchell’s previous albums, which until the predecessor For the Roses she released at a pace of one per year. As a 2017 Uncut story posted on Mitchell’s website explains, the delay can largely be explained by Mitchell’s search for the right backing musicians for her increasingly complex songs. In the end, Los Angeles jazz fusion ensemble L.A. Express turned out to be the right fit.

Led by Tom Scott who had played woodwinds and reeds on For the Roses, L.A. Express included Larry Carlton (guitar), Joe Sample (keyboards), Max Bennett (bass) and John Guerin (drums). Court and Spark also featured some other prominent guests, such as José Feliciano (electric guitar), Robbie Robertson (electric guitar), as well as David Crosby and Graham Nash (backing vocals each). Time for some music!

Court and Spark opens with the title track, which finds Mitchell on piano. The song explores love versus freedom, a key topic on the album. A contemporary review by Jon Landau of Rolling Stone noted the song delves into the idea that the freer the writer becomes, the more unhappy she finds herself, and the more she surrenders her freedom, the less willing she is to accept the resulting compromise.

Help Me became the album’s second and most successful single, reaching no. 6 and no. 7 on the Canadian and U.S. pop singles charts, respectively. It marked Mitchell’s only top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Songfacts explains Mitchell sings about a guy she’s falling in love with while at the same time knowing the relationship is doomed, as he is “a rambler and a gambler” who loves his freedom. Mitchell reported called Help Me a “throwaway song,” but a “good radio record,” explaining, “My record companies always had a tendency to take my fastest songs on album for singles, thinking they’d stand out because they did on the LPs. Meantime, I’d feel that the radio is crying for one of my ballads.”

Free Man in Paris, which also became the album’s third and final single in July 1974, is about the pressures the music industry puts on artists. Songfacts notes the “free man” is David Geffen, co-founder of Asylum Records, Mitchell’s label at the time. The song featured José Feliciano on electric guitar, and backing vocals by David Crosby and Graham Nash. Geffen doubted the song’s hit potential and needed to be convinced that it be released as a single. While it didn’t match Help Me, it made the top 20 in Canada (no. 16) and reached no. 22 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100. Notably, it peaked at no. 2 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. Not too shabby – most importantly, it’s a great song!

Down to You is another gem featuring Mitchell on piano. The song, which takes part in the aftermath of a one-night stand, addresses the need to either change one’s life or take responsibility for it. Down to You won Mitchell and Tom Scott the 1975 Grammy Award for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) – one of for which she had been nominated, including Album of the Year.

The final track I’d like to highlight is Raised On Robbery. It also appeared separately as the album’s lead single in December 1973. The song has a cool rock & roll vibe that’s a bit reminiscent of Chuck Berry. It’s about a prostitute trying to pick up a man sitting by himself in a hotel. The track features Robbie Robertson on electric guitar.

Court and Spark evidently had some remarkable effects on other artists. According to Wikipedia, Mitchell told Rolling Stone in a July 1979 interview that when she played the newly completed album to Bob Dylan, the maestro fell asleep, apparently in the presence of David Geffen. Mitchell brushed it aside as Zimmy likely trying to be “cute” in front of the label boss. Stevie Nicks reportedly took LSD while listening to the album at her producer’s house, recalling it “a pretty dynamic experience” – jeez, you can’t make this stuff up!

Court and Spark received various accolades. In 1974, it was voted ‘Best Album of the Year’ in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll. It’s also on Rolling Stone’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time; in the most recent 2020 revision, it came in at no. 11o, its highest ranking thus far. Last but not least, Court and Spark was also included in the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die published in 2006.

References: Wikipedia; Apple Music; Joni Mitchell website; Uncut; Rolling Stone; Songfacts; YouTube

Albums Turning 50 This Year: A First Peek

A new year means more albums hitting the big 50. Like in 2023, this preview is based on a review of Wikipedia and an initial selection of 40 studio albums that appeared over the course of 1974. From there, I narrowed it down to six favorites, each of which are briefly highlighted, followed by a Spotify playlist that captures one song from each of the 40 albums, except for Joni Mitchell. I’m planning individual, more in depth posts about the six picks and possibly a few more, all timed to each album’s anniversary date.

Joni Mitchell – Court and Spark (January 17, 1971)

Kicking off this preview is Court and Spark, the sixth studio album by singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, one of the many outstanding artists hailing from the Land of the Maple Leaf. Not only did Court and Spark become Mitchell’s most successful album, but it also marked the start of her transition from a “straight folkie” to an artist who incorporated jazz elements in her music. Court and Spark featured prominent guests from both the jazz and other music realms, such as pianist Joe Sample (co-founder of The Jazz Crusaders), jazz bassist Max Bennett, session guitarist Larry Carlton and The Band’s Robbie Robertson. Here’s Trouble Child, which like all other except for one track was penned by Mitchell.

Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic (February 20, 1974)

While my favorite Steely Dan album will always remain Aja, there’s a lot more to the Dan than their September 1977 gem. Every time I see Good Stuff, an outstanding tribute led by my dear friend Mike Caputo, I’m reminded how great their earlier music was as well. Case in point: Pretzel Logic, their third studio album and final as a standing band featuring Donald Fagen (keyboards, saxophone, vocals), Walter Becker (bass, guitar, backing vocals), Denny Dias (guitar) and Jim Hodder (drums). That said, Hodder only sang backing vocals on one track, and the album had significant contributions from many prominent L.A. session musicians, already foreshadowing the approach Fagen and Becker would take starting with the next Steely Dan album Katy Lied. Here’s the excellent Night by Night, which has become one of my favorite Dan songs pre-Aja.

Lynyrd Skynyrd – Second Helping (April 15, 1974)

With (Pronounced ‘Lĕh-‘nérd ‘Skin-‘nérd), the Southern rockers had released a strong debut in August 1973, which not only charted in the U.S. and Canada, but also overseas in the UK and Switzerland. While their follow-on Second Helping included what arguably is their signature song, Sweet Home Alabama, which became their first charting single and a major hit at home and elsewhere, the album missed the charts overseas. That said, it did better in the U.S. and Canada than their debut, peaking on the mainstream charts at no. 12 and no. 9, respectively. Here’s Don’t Ask Me No Questions, a great rocker co-written by guitarist Gary Rossington and lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant. The horns by Bobby Keys, Trevor Lawrence and Steve Madaio give it a nice soul vibe!

Eric Clapton – 461 Ocean Boulevard (July 1974)

461 Ocean Boulevard, one of my favorite albums by Eric Clapton, marked his triumphant return to music after a 3-year hiatus due to heroin addiction. It also represented a clear break from Clapton’s hardcore blues rock-oriented days with John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers, The Yardbirds, Cream and Derek and the Dominos – all music I love as well. Sadly, his struggles with addiction weren’t over, and he would soon replace heroin with alcohol before finally getting sober in 1987. Here’s the fantastic Let It Grow, one of three tracks on the album Clapton wrote or co-wrote.

Supertramp – Crime of the Century (October 25, 1974)

Supertramp are a band I will always associate with my school days back in Germany, which in the U.S. would have been the equivalent to middle school. The English group became very popular in Germany, especially when they released their Breakfast in America album that topped the charts there and in many other countries. Crime of the Century, their third studio album, predated Breakfast in America by about 4.5 years. The song I best remember hearing on the radio is the opener School. Like all other tracks, it was co-written by Rick Davies (vocals, keyboards, harmonica) and Roger Hodgson (vocals, guitar, pianos). Typically, both alternated lead vocals, which in this case were sung by Hodgson.

Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (November 22, 1974)

This brings me to the final album I’d like to highlight in the post’s main section: The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, the sixth studio album by Genesis. The British group became one of the few progressive rock acts I warmed to in the ’80s. I had always liked The Carpet Crawlers, which I had well known from the radio. Interestingly, according to Wikipedia, the song missed the charts everywhere, which I find hard to believe. The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway was a concept album telling the strange story of a poor Puerto Rican boy from The Bronx, who goes on a bizarre adventure in New York City, which ends in death. That said, musically, the group’s final album with original lead vocalist Peter Gabriel remains a gem, IMHO. Here’s the title track credited to all five members of the band: Gabriel (lead vocals), Steve Hackett (electric guitars), Tony Banks (piano), Mike Rutherford (bass) and Phil Collins (drums, bell-tree, glockenspiel, triangle, wind chimes, tambourine, timbales, backing vocals).

Here’s the above-mentioned Spotify playlist. It doesn’t include Trouble Child by Joni Mitchell who in January 2022 removed her music in solidarity with Neil Young to protest the platform for hosting Joe Rogan’s podcast, which spread dangerous misinformation about COVID-19.

Sources: Wikipedia; YouTube; Spotify

Song Musings

Happy Wednesday and I’d like to welcome you to another edition of my weekly feature that takes a closer look at a song I’ve only mentioned in passing or not covered at all. As I was looking through my list of picks highlighted in previous installments, I noticed David Crosby wasn’t on there. Since I’ve covered him on multiple other occasions, the challenge was to find a song that meets the aforementioned criteria. One that did is Laughing.

Penned solely by Crosby, Laughing appeared on his debut solo album If I Could Only Remember My Name, released in February 1971. The peculiar album title probably wasn’t a coincidence. Grief-stricken over the death of his girlfriend Christine Hinton in a 1969 car accident, Crosby had gotten into hard drugs. While despite prominent guests initial reviews by critics were less than glowing, fans embraced the album, probably thanks in part to the huge popularity of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young’s Déjà Vu, which had come out less than a year earlier.

Crosby wrote Laughing after George Harrison told him about Indian guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. While Harrison believed Yogi’s teachings provided answers to life’s big questions, Crosby was skeptical. At the same time, he did not want to offend Harrison, so in the song he concludes “a laughing child in the sun” is the only person who knows the truth. One would wish Crosby would have shown similar constraint when it came to his former bandmates from CSN/CSN&Y.

The recording of Laughing in October 1969 coincided with the sessions for Déjà Vu. But in addition to lack of room, I guess it wasn’t quite at the level of Crosby’s Almost Cut My Hair and the title track. It still had notable guests, including Graham Nash (guitar, vocals), the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia (pedal steel guitar), Phil Lesh (bass) and Bill Kreutzmann (drums), as well as Joni Mitchell (vocals). Here’s a nice live version captured in December 2018 and released in November 2022 on Live at the Capitol Theatre as David Crosby & The Lighthouse Band, less than two months prior to Crosby’s death on January 19, 2023 at the age of 81.

Following are some additional tidbits from Songfacts:

In a Songfacts interview with David Crosby, he recalled the conversation that led to this song. “I was very taken with George,” he said. “I liked him a lot. He was very friendly to me. He invited me over to his house, we had dinner together, we talked a lot. Paul was very friendly to me, John was very friendly to me, Ringo was very friendly to me, but the one that I had the relationship with was George.

So, George gets a hold of me one day and he says, ‘I met this fellow in India. A teacher, a guru that I like a lot.’ And I said, ‘Really? No s–t?’ And he said, ‘Yeah. I think he’s got something.’ And I said, ‘Well, that’s wonderful.’

And what I wanted to say – the exact words I wanted to say – were, ‘Take it with a grain of salt.’ Because I am a skeptical person about religious teaching. I don’t believe in God and I’m not really a big fan of religion… any of them. Buddhism isn’t exactly a religion, it’s a philosophy, and I did not want to come off like a snot to my new friend who I really respected hugely, so I didn’t say anything.

But I had it in my head: ‘Take it with a grain of salt. Don’t just accept it at face value.’ So I wrote that song to tell him that. That the person I thought was the wisest I had met was a child laughing at the sun. And that I thought I could learn more from that child laughing at the sun than I could from anybody teaching.”

The members of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young often contributed to each other’s albums. On “Laughing,” Graham Nash sings harmony vocals, and Joni Mitchell comes in at the end of the song singing, “In the sun.”

When they recorded it, Nash and Mitchell were living together. Previously, she and Crosby were a couple.

Crosby considers the guitar sound this song’s secret sauce. He explained in the CSN boxed set: “Stephen Barncard was my engineer and he did a lot of work to get that acoustic guitar sound. I don’t think anybody’s ever gotten a better one, frankly. The key to the whole enterprise was great instruments, incredibly well tuned. You can’t even attempt this music any other way. And Garcia was wonderful because he’s always trying to push the edge of the envelope. He always wants to play something that he hasn’t played before.”

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; YouTube

Song Musings

Happy Wednesday and welcome to another installment of my weekly feature where I take a closer look at a song I’ve only mentioned in passing or not covered at all to date. The Bangles are a band I dug right away when first hearing their breakthrough single Manic Monday in early 1986. I remember borrowing from somebody a copy of Different Light and taping it on music cassette. Apart from Manic Monday, the pop rock group’s sophomore album spawned various other hit singles.

For this post, I deliberately decided to stay away from Different Light. Since beyond the band’s most successful studio album I was only familiar with a few additional songs, this meant I had to do some research. My pick is Anna Lee (Sweetheart of the Sun), the great opener of The Bangles‘ fifth and most recent album of original music, Sweetheart of the Sun, which came out in September 2011.

Unfortunately, neither the album nor the song went anywhere, which perhaps explains why we haven’t seen any other studio releases of new original music by The Bangles. While many critics viewed the album as a successful reinvention of the band’s early musical style, it merely reached an underwhelming no. 148 in the U.S. on the Billboard 200 – the only country tracked by Wikipedia, in which it charted.

Co-written by group co-founders Susanna Hoffs (vocals, electric guitar, percussion), Vicki Peterson (vocals, electric and acoustic guitar) and her younger sister Debbi Peterson (vocals, drums percussion), Anna Lee (Sweetheart of the Sun) was also released separately as a single but missed the charts altogether. Here are the three ladies with a live rendition of the song, captured in 2014.

Sweetheart of the Sun was the band’s second album since their 2003 reunion, which they had marked with Doll Revolution. It also was their first as a trio following the departure of long-time bassist Michael Steele (born Susan Thomas) in early 2004.

Sweetheart of the Sun was co-produced by Matthew Sweet. The power pop singer-songwriter would subsequently collaborate with Hoffs on a series of three cover albums appropriately titled Under the Covers, featuring renditions of songs from the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s.

Technically, The Bangles are still around. In 2018, co-founding member Annette Zilinskas returned as bassist after a 35-year absence. The most recent evidence of touring activity on Setlist.fm are three gigs in 2019.

Following are some additional insights from Songfacts:

The titular Anna Lee is a fictional person based on some of the women from the late ’60s and early ’70s who inspired the Bangles girls. Hoffs explained to Culture Brats: “There’s a woman named Toni Stern who wrote with Carole King in the ’70s. Vicki (Peterson) and I read a book, Girls Like Us. It was about Carly Simon, Carole King, and Joni Mitchell. There was also a series of books that came out: Hotel California and Laurel Canyon. I read all of these books and recommended them to the other girls in the band. We all loved it.”

“We were so fascinated reading about Carole King and Carly Simon and Joni Mitchell, girls that were big influences on us as female artists and realizing that being little girls growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, these women had a huge impact on our lives. They were icons to us.”

“We were envisioning the world of Laurel Canyon back in the day. I don’t remember if Carly Simon was living up at Laurel Canyon, but Carole King was there, that’s where Toni Stern was living. They got together and wrote together.”

“There were all these women who were strong women who had a very defined sense of self, coming out of an era where the music world was dominated by men, kind of a Boys’ Club. These women were finding their voices and we were commenting on that. It was our nod to the women who came before us.”

“Actually, we got an email from Toni Stern, thanking us for mentioning her and the fact that she was an inspiration to us. There was a really interesting description of her as a female writer and the whole Laurel Canyon scene and her and Carole King writing these great songs together. It became this really inspirational image so we sort of fashioned our own version, our own mythical ‘Lady Of The Canyon’ called Annalee.”

Another inspiration was a lyric from The Band’s “The Weight.” Said Hoffs: “And there was that great song by The Band where’s this little thing ‘keep Anna Lee company.’ Something about that name. For me, I always connected that with that song as well.”

Hoffs told MusicRadar.com how the song came together. “We wrote that in the studio together, all three of us. For some reason, I really wanted to write in the studio, and it’s something Matthew was pushing us to do. The music came together very fast. It started with the riff, and then we all just chimed in singing. It’s very ’60s and ’70s, but hey, that’s fine – that’s the idea. [laughs]”

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; Setlist.fm; YouTube

The Sunday Six

Happy Sunday! What do Bruce Cockburn, The Guess Who, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Robbie Robertson and Neil Young have in common? Apart from having written great songs, each was born in Canada, a musical treasure trove and the geographical destination of today’s journey. While the magical music time machine won’t visit any of them, the trip will feature six other great artists from the land of the maple leaf. Hope you’ll join!

Oscar Peterson/Blue and Sentimental

Our Canadian excursion shall start in 1956 with music performed by a virtuoso who is considered one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time: Oscar Peterson. Peterson was born in Montreal and worked with the likes of Count Basie, Roy Eldrige, Buddy Rich and Ella Fitzgerald. Over a 60-year-plus career from the mid-1940s until 2007, the man Duke Ellington called the “maharaja of the keyboard” released more than 200 recordings and won multiple awards and honors. Blue and Sentimental, composed by Basie, Mack David and Jerry Livingston, appeared on a 1956 album titled Oscar Peterson Plays Count Basie. The track may not be particularly virtuous, but it sure as heck is a beautiful piece of music!

The Tragically Hip/New Orleans Is Sinking

After this smooth start, let’s rev up things with The Tragically Hip. Canada’s best-selling band between 1996 and 2016 remained largely obscure beyond the country’s borders, which continues to puzzle me. During their 33-year run from 1984 until 2017, the alternative rockers from Kingston, Ontario released 13 studio albums, one live album and one compilation, among others, and received multiple Juno Awards and other accolades. It all came to an end in October 2017 after the death of vocalist Gord Downie. New Orleans Is Sinking, credited to the entire band, is a charmingly crunchy tune that was included on their sophomore album Up to Here, which appeared in September 1989.

Sarah McLachlan/Angel

Our next stop takes us to July 1997 and one of the most stunning pop ballads I know: Angel by Sarah McLachlan. The singer-songwriter, who was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, started playing music as a four-year-old with the ukelele and later studied classical guitar, classical piano and voice. At 19 years, she signed her first record deal and released her debut album Touch the following year in October 1988. McLachlan was inspired to write Angel after she had read press accounts about musicians getting into heroin to escape the pressures of the cutthroat music business. The intense ballad was the fourth single off her fourth studio album Surfacing. The tune enjoyed particular success in the U.S. where it climbed to no. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also became McLachlan’s only hit to top the Adult Contemporary chart. Surfacing won four Juno Awards including Album of the Year.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive/Roll On Down the Highway

Let’s go back to the ’70s with a nice rock song by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, aka BTO. They were formed in 1973 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, by brothers Randy Bachman (vocals, lead guitar), Tim Bachman (rhythm guitar, vocals) and Robbie Bachman (drums, percussion, backing vocals), along with C. Fred Turner (vocals, bass, rhythm guitar). The group, who after some interruptions and different line-ups disbanded for good in 2018, enjoyed their biggest success in the mid-’70s. BTO’s best chart and sales performance came with their third studio album Not Fragile, released in September 1974. Off that album, here’s Roll On Down the Highway, a tune co-written by Turner and Robbie Bachman.

Leonard Cohen/So Long, Marianne

No Sunday Six trip can skip the ’60s as long as I’m the conductor of the magical music time machine. This brings us to an artist AllMusic’s Bruce Eder called “one of the most fascinating and enigmatic — if not the most successful — singer/songwriters of the late ’60s”, an artist I sadly know much too little about: Leonard Cohen. Bob Dylan described the man, who was born on the Island of Montreal (Westmount), as the “number one” songwriter of their time. Remarkably, Cohen focused on poetry and novels in the ’50s and much of the ’60s, and already was in his thirties before he decided to make music his main career. So Long, Marianne, a song from his December 1967 debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen, immediately struck a chord with me when I first heard it many years ago.

Double Date With Death/Loin

The final stop of our little excursion to Canada acknowledges that French is the mother tongue of approximately 7.2 million Canadians or about 23% of the country’s population. This takes us back to the present and a group from Montreal you may not have heard of yet: Double Date With Death. From their Soundcloud profile: Double Date with Death (DDWD) is a psychedelic rock band with catchy melodies and thunderous riffs. On stage, the quartet led by Vincent Khouni and Julien Simard transports the audience with their explosive energy and contagious enthusiasm. DDWD is part of the art rock wave sweeping through the Montreal alternative scene. Notice to all fans of Ty Segall, the Oh Sees, Chocolat or Corridor: Portraits, their brand new full-length, is now out (March 17, 2023). And from that album, here’s Loin (far). While I would call it more dreamy than psychedelic, I liked this tune right away!

My work here is almost done except for one thing, as repeat fellow travelers know – a Spotify playlist featuring all of the above tunes.

Sources: Wikipedia; AllMusic; Double Date With Death Soundcloud page; YouTube; Spotify

Song Musings

It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time again to take a closer look at a song I’ve only mentioned in passing or not covered at all on this blog to date. My pick for this installment of Song Musings is Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush. I won’t deny this tune falls outside my core wheelhouse, now perhaps even more than back in the ’80s when it first came out, and yet I find myself drawn to it!

Written and produced by the British singer-songwriter, the synth-pop song first appeared in August 1985 as the lead single to her fifth studio album Hounds of Love. At the time, it became Bush’s biggest hit overall since her January 1978 debut single Wuthering Heights and her first top 40 single in the U.S. To me, there’s something hauntingly powerful about Running Up That Hill. And while based on what I’ve heard to date I find Kate Bush can be quirky, I have to admit this lady is an impressive artist.

In 2022, the song, aka Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), enjoyed a massive resurgence, topping the charts in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Ireland and New Zealand. It also peaked at no. 3 in the U.S., marking Bush’s highest-charting single to date on the Billboard Hot 100. The tune’s renewed popularity was fueled after it had been featured in the fourth season of the Netflix series Stranger Things.

“It’s about a relationship between a man and a woman,” Bush explained in a 1985 interview, as documented by Songfacts. “They love each other very much, and the power of the relationship is something that gets in the way. It creates insecurities. It’s saying if the man could be the woman and the woman the man, if they could make a deal with God, to change places, that they’d understand what it’s like to be the other person and perhaps it would clear up misunderstandings. You know, all the little problems; there would be no problem.” Here’s a cool live version featuring then-Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour who adds a bit of rock flavor.

Running Up That Hill helped make Hounds of Love a commercial success for Bush after relatively low sales of the predecessor The Dreaming from September 1982. Hounds of Love did best in the UK where it reached 2x Platinum status, which there means one million in certified unit sales. In Germany and Canada, it secured Platinum status, based on 500,ooo and 100,000 certified unit sales, respectively. The album topped the charts in the UK and The Netherlands, and reached the top 10 in Germany (no. 2), Australia (no. 6), Canada (no. 7), as well as no. 9 in France and Sweden.

Following are some additional insights from Songfacts:

Bush wrote this with the title “Deal With God.” Her label made her change it because they didn’t think radio stations in any religious countries (Italy, Ireland…) would play a song with “God” in the title. Bush thought that was ridiculous, but agreed to the change because after spending two years making the album, she didn’t want her song to get blacklisted because of the title.

It was a rare creative compromise for Bush, and one she came to regret, as she feels “Deal With God” is the proper title and part of the song’s entity.

This was Kate Bush’s biggest hit in the US, where she has a small but devoted following. She was a chart regular in her native UK, where the Hounds Of Love album knocked off Madonna’s Like A Virgin to claim the top spot, and popular throughout much of the world, but remains mostly unknown in America.

Stateside success was never her priority. Bush rarely plays live and never did a concert in America. Her record company had a hard time promoting her there because she didn’t travel to the country and didn’t do many phone interviews with American journalists. While “Running Up That Hill” was taking off in other parts of the world, American radio was saturated with more straightforward acts like Duran Duran, Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis & The News, and Phil Collins. A lot of it had to do with MTV, which didn’t put the “Running Up That Hill” video in rotation.

Bush wrote “Running Up That Hill” using a Fairlight CMI digital synthesizer. She was one of the first to use the device, including it on her 1980 album Never For Ever.

Typically, Bush writes on piano, but composing on the Fairlight opened up new gates of inspiration. “There is something about the character of a sound,” she said in a 1992 radio documentary. “You hear a sound and it has a whole quality of its own that can be sad or happy, and that immediately conjures up images, which can of course help you to think of ideas that lead you onto a song, so everything is crucial for trying to find some direction with inspiration. A good sound is worth a lot artistically.”

Kate Bush not only wrote her own songs, but starting with her 1982 album The Dreaming, was also her own producer, a rare feat at the time especially for a female artist. Until she came along, the only woman on this level who did her own writing and production was Joni Mitchell, another singer of immense influence and acclaim.

The song’s concept is a flip on the Faustian bargain where one makes a deal with the Devil. When Bush thought about what it would take to switch places with your partner, she first thought of the deal with the Devil, then decided it could also be done through a deal with God, which would be even more powerful...

…Bush often used interpretive dancing in her music videos to express the emotion of her songs. By the time she released “Running Up That Hill” in 1985, she felt the art was being cheapened by the newer crop of talent on MTV. She explained in a 1985 TV interview with Canada’s Good Rockin’ Tonight: “During the gap between the last and this album, I’d seen quite a few videos on television that other people had been doing. And I felt that dance, something that we’d been working in, particularly in the earlier videos… was being used quite trivially, it was being exploited: haphazard images, busy, lots of dances, without really the serious expression, and wonderful expression, that dance can give. So we felt how interesting it would be to make a very simple routine between two people, almost classic, and very simply filmed. So that’s what we tried, really, to do a serious piece of dance.”

Clad in Japanese hakamas, Bush and her dance partner, Michael Hervieu, perform an intimate dance routine before they’re torn apart by a crowd of masked strangers. The dancers’ archery-inspired gestures are referenced in the single’s cover art, which features Bush brandishing a bow and arrow. The clip was directed by David Garfath and choreographed by Diane Grey.

Instead of airing the music video, MTV decided to use footage from Bush’s performance on a BBC TV program. According to the singer’s brother Paddy Bush, “MTV weren’t particularly interested in broadcasting videos that didn’t have synchronized lip movements in them. They liked the idea of people singing songs.”

Bush did just one concert tour – a run of 24 shows in Europe in 1979. She stopped touring because she got so focused on making music and the visuals to accompany it. “Running Up That Hill” she performed at just a handful of charity events until 2014, when she put on a production called Before The Dawn that ran for 22 shows at the Eventim Apollo in London. These shows were highly theatrical, with dialogue, dancing, illusion and elaborate set design framing her performances.

Bush’s record company wanted to release “Cloudbusting” as the first single, but Kate convinced them to release “Running Up That Hill” instead. Since they had already renamed her song, it was considered a compromise...

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; YouTube

Song Musings

Happy Wednesday and welcome to another installment of Song Musings where I take a closer look at tunes I’ve only mentioned in passing or not covered at all to date. Today’s pick is Amelia by Joni Mitchell.

My intro to the Canadian singer-songwriter happened some 40 years ago with her 11th studio album Wild Things Run Fast from 1982 and I instantly loved Chinese Café / Unchained Melody. That said, I didn’t start to further explore her music until a couple of years ago.

From Mitchell’s albums I’ve heard to date, Hejira has become a favorite. Amelia is the second cut on Side one (speaking in vinyl terms). Like all other tracks on the great record, it was solely written by her. Check out that beautiful and warm sound – I totally dig it!

Amelia was inspired by Mitchell’s breakup of a short relationship with John Guerin, the drummer of jazz fusion ensemble L.A. Express, her backing band from the mid to late ’70s. According to Wikipedia, The song interweaves a story of a desert journey (the “hejira within the hejira”) with the famous aviator Amelia Earhart who mysteriously vanished during a flight over the Pacific Ocean.

Mitchell has commented on the origins of the song: “I was thinking of Amelia Earhart and addressing it from one solo pilot to another… sort of reflecting on the cost of being a woman and having something you must do.” Here’s a nice live version from 1983.

Hejira had some notable guests. Amelia featured prominent session guitarist Larry Carlton, who played on hundreds of albums by artists, such as Steely Dan, Linda Ronstadt, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones and Sammy Davis, Jr. Vibraphone was provided by English jazz musician Victor Feldman, who has played with the likes of Cannonball Adderley, Gregg Allman, Johnny Cash and Rickie Lee Jones, among many others. Carlton and Feldman also appeared on various other albums by Mitchell.

Hejira, which captures Mitchell’s experiences during a period of frequent travel in late 1975 and early 1976, was received favorably when it appeared but neither matched sales nor chart performance of its predecessors. In Canada, it peaked at no. 22 and in the U.S. it climbed to no. 13. It did best in the UK where it reached no. 11.

But, as happens frequently in music, in the years since its release the album has been considered one of the gems in Mitchell’s recording catalog. The most recent revision of Rolling Stone’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, published in September 2020, ranks Hejira at no. 133. It was also voted no. 776 in the third edition (2000) of Colin Larkin’s All Time Top 1000 Albums.

Following are some additional insights on Amelia by Songfacts:

Mitchell (from a 1996 interview with the Los Angeles Times): “I wrote the album while traveling cross-country by myself and there is this restless feeling throughout it… the sweet loneliness of solitary travel...“

Amelia Earhart vanished while flying over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. Mitchell alludes to this when she sings:

A ghost of aviation
She was swallowed by the sky
Or by the sea like me she had a dream to fly
Like Icarus ascending
On beautiful foolish arms

Icarus is a figure from Greek mythology whose father, Daedalus, crafted him a set of wings made of wax. Despite his father’s warnings, Icarus flew too close to the sun and his wings melted, sending him to his death in what is now called the Icarian Sea.

Joni Mitchell sings in the first verse about:

Six jet planes
Leaving six white vapor trails across the bleak terrain
It was the hexagram of the heavens
it was the strings of my guitar
Amelia, it was just a false alarm

She explained the lyric to Robert Hepburn for Mojo magazine in 1994. “Basically the false alarm was the end of a relationship. Two scorpios couldn’t let each other go. It was done, but we couldn’t let go; we belonged to each other. It was winding down and I am driving solo without a driver’s license across the country. I think of Amelia I think solo flight. I can’t remember how many hotel rooms later it was complete.”

The late David Crosby, who was in a brief relationship with Joni Mitchell in 1967 and remained a friend thereafter, covered Amelia on his sixth solo album Sky Trails, which came out in September 2017. Nice rendition!

Going back to Songfacts, here’s what Crosby reportedly told Uncut about the tune:

“I’ve always wanted to sing that song. I love that song! What a stunning piece of work she did, the two levels of it talking about Amelia Earhart and taking about her own love life at the same time, so eloquently, with such a beautiful set of words. Her version is quite ornate. I tried to sing it very simply.”

Sources: Wikipedia; Songfacts; YouTube

What I’ve Been Listening to: Dawes/Misadventures of Doomscroller

I’m thrilled my first full-fledged album review of 2023 is music by a contemporary band. While I featured Dawes and their song Ghost In The Machine in a Best of What’s New installment last July and also highlighted the great tune again in part 1 of my 2022 year-end feature, it wasn’t until this past Saturday that I finally listened to Misadventures of Doomscroller, their latest album released in July 2022, which includes this track. It was pretty much instant love – something that rarely happens to me, especially when it comes to contemporary artists!

Dawes emerged in 2009 from rock band Simon Dawes after that group’s co-songwriter Blake Mills had departed. This led them to both shorten their name to Dawes and change from a post-punk to a folk rock-oriented sound. AllMusic describes it as “influenced by the gentle acoustic style and rich vocal harmonies of the Laurel Canyon sound (Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell) as well as the shambling, romanticized Americana of the Band.” That’s a great characterization. For this album, I would add a pretty sophisticated, progressive rock-like complexity to their music.

The current line-up of Dawes features brothers Taylor Goldsmith (guitars, vocals) and Griffin Goldsmith (drums), along with Wylie Gelber (bass) and Lee Pardini (keyboards). Misadventures of Doomscroller is their eighth studio album. According to this review by Entertainment Focus, it was produced by the Los Angeles band’s longtime collaborator Jonathan Wilson, who has also worked with Angel Olsen, Benmont Tench, Jackson Browne, Margo Price and Father John Misty, among others.

Dawes (from left): Griffin Goldsmith, Wylie Gelber, Taylor Goldsmith and Lee Pardini

“We’ve always prided ourselves on being minimalists. With this record we set out on being MAXIMALISTS,” the band’s main songwriter Taylor Goldsmith told Entertainment Focus. “Still a quartet. Still not letting these songs hide behind any tricks or effects. But really letting the songs breathe and stretch and live however they want to. We decided to stop having any regard for short attention spans. Our ambitions go beyond the musical with this one.”

I’d say it’s time to take a closer look at some of the goodies. Opening the album is the impressive medley Someone Else’s Cafe/Doomscroller Tries to Relax. Like all other tracks except for one, it was penned by Taylor Goldsmith. The two tunes are connected by a middle section, creating a feel of a song suite. “The first half of this song could be about tyrants,” Goldsmith explained to Entertainment Focus. “But it could also be about anyone who thinks that a little more control is gonna make everything ok. The second half is a response to that developing reality of the first half. The world might be a scary place sometimes but, to some degree, I want to believe I can decide how I respond to it.” Check out this neat sound and cool groove – so good, all of its 10-plus minutes!

The next track I’d like to call out is Comes In Waves. In a news post on the group’s website, Goldsmith notes: I had this riff and one of the verses for a while. Griffin, Wylie and Mike Viola came over to my backyard (this was peak covid) to just play music together for one of the first times since lockdown. I started sharing the song and Griffin and Mike started singing their background parts you hear on the choruses on the record immediately. It inspired me to finish writing it. The lyric is about the arbitrary demands I make on myself. I want to perceive me or my life a certain way but I make no exceptions for an off day or a misstep. Whether it’s a win or a loss, it’s all transient, and only when I can live in some version of that awareness (which is itself transient) am I able to bat away any fears or anxieties or the consequences of an over indulged ego.

Since I already covered the excellent Ghost In The Machine twice, I’m skipping it in this review. Instead, the last tune I’d like to highlight is titled Everything Is Permanent, the only track on the album Goldsmith co-wrote, with Jimmy Joliff. Evidently quoting Goldsmith again, the above news post notes it’s a song (about how everything about us is tracked, documented, recorded, filed, mined, bought, sold, etc. etc. on some level) that is wrapped around a molten core of a breakdown/ freakout/majorminorinterweave that is probably the moment I’m most proud of on the whole record. After showing you the blood and guts, we gently sew the song back together again and end with what could be the tagline for all of social media and the screen-life-culture that we subscribe to these days to varying degrees: “Did you really need to cry? Or be seen crying?”

Misadventures of Doomscroller is an album I can highly recommend. To start with, Dawes are really fine musicians. If I would have to call out anybody in particular, I would pay close attention to drummer Griffin Goldsmith. I also love Wylie Gelber’s melodic bass playing. The other thing that stands out to me is the group’s neat harmony singing. The comparisons to CSN and The Band are not off-base!

Last but not least, here’s a Spotify link to the album. In case you don’t know it already, hope you will further check it out and dig it as much as I do!

Sources: Wikipedia; AllMusic; Entertainment Focus; Dawes website; YouTube; Spotify