Songs for a Tuesday Morning: Summer Reading Listening List

While reading The Illustrated Man this past weekend, and reconnecting with my inner teenage bookworm, I started thinking about musical versions of short stories and novels.  That's because one of the stories in the collection, "The Rocket Man," was turned into a bittersweet tune by a group called Pearls Before Swine back when I was in high school--one of those songs you hear once on the radio and it stays with you forever.  Which also got me to thinking about how that just doesn't happen these days, and I wonder--is that because there aren't songs like that anymore (possible), or because there are no radio stations like WBCN anymore (very possible) or just because I don't listen to radio at all anymore (ding ding ding ding ding)?  How do people get turned on to new music these days?  

MYSPACE:  That would be me. 
FACEBOOK:  No, that would be me.
THE INTERNET:  Sorry, kids--without me, you're nothing.

So in the spirit of using the internet as a radio station, here are four songs based on three novels and a story.  (I thought about including "White Rabbit,"  but that's one of those songs which, once you hear it, you can't really listen to anything else but that, over and over again, in order to recapture that initial musical high.  Which kinda makes it the perfect song about drugs, doesn't it?)

First, we have that Pearls Before Swine version of that Ray Bradbury story.  Then we have the Velvet Underground version of the novel on which the recently-closed Broadway show was based (for which Nina Arianda won the Tony, and rightly so).  We have the first Kate Bush song I ever heard.  (Probably the first one you ever heard too, if you're of a certain age.)  And, as evidence of either the breadth of my musical taste or its decadence,  a Jim Thompson novel as sung by (I kid you not) MC 900 Foot Jesus.

Enjoy. 

Rocket Man

Venus in Furs

Wuthering Heights

The Killer Inside Me

Songs for a Tuesday Morning - "Who's the other guy playing with him?"

The story goes that when Brian Jones played a Robert Johnson record for Keith Richards, Richards gave Jones a puzzled look and said, "So who's the other guy playing with him?"

And there will be a bunch of other guys playing him tonight at the Apollo Theatre, where they're holding a Robert Johnson at 100 concert (which I would love to be going to but I can't) (and technically he's almost 101--he was born on May 8, 1911).

So, in case you too have other plans, here are three versions of his most famous song. 

The original:

Cross Road Blues

The Cream version:

Crossroads

And the Ry Cooder (yes--honest) gospel version from that Ralph Macchio/Jami Gertz movie in the 80's:

Crossroads

Songs for a Tuesday Morning: The smell of burning leather as we hold each other tight

Since I've been feeling more walled up than a Poe protagonist lately, here are three Wall Of Sound-related tunes, two produced by Phil Spector and one a loving homage to all things Spectorish.

"River Deep--Mountain High"  from 1966 barely climbed to 88 on the Billboard 100 and was one of the most expensive singles ever produced at the time, costing over $20,000 in 1966 dollars (that's $138,000 in Today Cash)--which didn't include Phil Spector's private arrangement with Ike Turner (Spector paid him $20K just to stay away from the recording studio while Spector cut the single and the album with  Tina Turner).  The failure of the single to chart depressed Spector so much that he didn't do another musical thing for the next two years except sing the phrase "Music critics suck" over and over again.

River Deep, Mountain High

This next one is not as Wall-of-Soundy as RDMH, but it's definitely memorable for its subject matter alone.  Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and recorded by The Crystals in 1962, the song was supposedly created after Goffin and King discovered that Little Eva (the singer on their "Do The Locomotion") was being beaten by her boyfriend, and when they asked why she put up with it, she replied that it was because he loved her.  (Shades of Carousel.)

He Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss

And finally, on a (thankfully) much sillier note, we have this hot and sweaty duet between Fee Waybill and Re Styles from The Tubes' second album, which was arranged in Wall Of Sound style by Jack Nitzsche.  It's one of my favorite songs, and it totally deserves to be in a John Waters movie somewhere. Or have John Waters direct a video of it.

Don't Touch Me There

Songs for A Tuesday Morning: the day we give thanks . . .

Ah, Thanksgiving--the day we give thanks that we no longer live with our parents.  Not as musical a holiday as Christmas, because songs about becoming your parents are a rarity. Unless you're Loudon Wainwright III:

Thanksgiving

And of course the one performance everyone should listen to on Thanksgiving, because, like a good Thanksgiving dinner, it can't be beat:

Alice's Restaurant

Songs for a Tuesday Morning: Loco motion is the way he moves

I've been pondering the whole road/destination thing for the last month (People are either roads or destinations.  Discuss.), and have found some musical support for the road side of the argument--as long as that argument centers on how men like to treat women the way trains treat stations--by (you should pardon the expression) rolling in periodically and then (you should pardon the expression) pulling out.

Here are two songs that make the case for the prosecution, and one that makes the case for travel by foot.  The first is from Rosanne Cash, and as you'd expect, it's all country.

My Baby Thinks He's A Train

And on the jump blues side of the dance hall, what does Rosetta Howard have to say? Rosetta honey, what do you think men are like?

Men Are Like Streetcars

We'll leave Rosanne with the final word here, which is simply this: men may be trains, but God help you if you ever climb aboard one of them.  (Confession:  I adore this song.  Every time I hear the steel guitar and the drums come in at the start of the third verse, I get chills.)

Runaway Train

Songs for a Tuesday Morning Afternoon: If you were here, I'd only bleed you

When their first album came out, people referred to it as MUTTER or MUMBLE because the lyrics were so unintelligible that the songs sounded like a side project of the Cocteau Twins.  But their sound got--shall we say brasher?--over the years, an evolution you can clearly see between their IRS releases and their Warner releases.  The IRS REM has a small club sound that occasionally erupts into something that shakes the walls; the Warners REM has an arena sound that occasionally gets very quiet and intimate.

Side note: Rolling Stone voted Murmur Best Album in 1983, over Thriller and Synchronicity.  I'm guessing that you, like me, are trying to remember the last time you listened to Murmur all the way through, and knowing that it was a lot longer than the last time you heard a song from Thriller or Synchronicity . . . .

Shiny Happy People


Losing My Religion


(Don't go back to) Rockville

Songs for a Tuesday Morning - Utter Nonsense

Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when parents listened in to what their teenage sons and daughters were singing along to on their Japanese-made transistor radios. Imagine their approval of The Beatles (they wanted to hold your hand). Imagine their fear of The Rolling Stones (they wanted to knock up your daughter). Imagine their utter inability to understand the lyrics, never mind the appeal, of the Rivingtons' two mid-level R&B hits that were swiped by The Trashmen and turned into the #4 1963 hit "Surfin' Bird." Imagine these fortyish souls saying to themselves, "What total verbal nonsense!" And then imagine how easy it must have been for these ex-youngsters to forget that in their day they were doing the Lindy Hop to "Mairzy Doats."

Papa Oom-Mow-Mow 


Mama Oom-Mow-Mow

Songs for a Tuesday Morning: Talk-Show Religion and Soap Opera Love

Where were we?  Oh yeah--David Byrne.  To continue:

My favorite Talking Heads song? The incredibly depressing one with the uplifting tune.

AMANDA:  "Psycho Killer?'
MATTHEW:  Okay--the OTHER incredibly depressing one with the uplifting tune.
AMANDA:  "Once In A Lifetime?"
MATTHEW:  No, it's--
AMANDA:  "Burning Down  The House?"
MATTHEW:  NO!  It's THIS incredibly depressing song with the great uplifting tune:


Road to Nowhere


As for my favorite David Byrne solo album? The one that has this cover: 

My favorite David Byrne solo song? Track 11. 

The first 30 seconds? Not bad. The next 3 minutes? Brilliant. Thanks to the horns.  Listen to those horns. Listen to what they do and where they go starting at the 2:10 mark.  They're so good they make you think you can dance salsa without a single lesson.

This is happy. 

This is great stuff. 

This is exactly what you need to hear during a second straight week of gray crappy rainy weather to make you feel, well,--

AMANDA:  Glad to be alive?
MATTHEW:  Well, I wouldn't go that far.
AMANDA:  Try it some time.

Lie To Me

Songs for a Tuesday morning: Like a pizza in the rain

Something Wild got a Criterion re-issue last Tuesday, and watching it again reminded me of when I first saw the film, which is when I fell in love with Melanie Griffth, and thought Ray Liotta could act.  (I know, I know--Goodfellas--but seriously--he's never been better than in this flick.)

It also reminded me of how much I love the David Byrne of those years, and how well Jonathan Demme's soundtracks stand up years after their original release.  The soundtrack for this particular film is like a snapshot of the mid-80's, encapsulating musically exactly what the film does: a crazy point in time where you could have a dozen different moods and styles clashing up against each other, and yet they were all part of one big crazy all-enveloping thing that could grab anyone, say anything, and go anywhere.

So, because we all need to feel like we can do that, or make things that do that, here are two songs from the Something Wild soundtrack to get us through a rainy cloudy gloomy Tuesday, and maybe just help us to relive--and recreate?--an anything-can-happen moment.

Loco de Amor

Ever Fallen In Love

Songs for a Tuesday Morning: Sex Machines and the Broken-Hearted

Texas is burning, New York is drowning, half the people I know are floundering, and the other half are out there somewhere I guess--God knows--I don't.  So until God figures out that you  make it fucking rain where the fires are, let's all boogie down by answering two musical questions:


1.  What do you get when you cross this guy

with these guys?

Answer:  This guy:


Whole Lotta Sex Machine


2. And what happens when you remix Jimmy Ruffin so he sounds like a trailer for an indie movie?


Why this, of course:


Chasing The Broken-Hearted


Take it to the bridge, people, cuz unhappiness is just an illusion.

Songs for a Tuesday Morning - I am so easily deceived

It was 80 degrees in New York on Monday. And yes, the last time that happened, it was like the groundhog seeing his shadow--we got eight more weeks of February. 

EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN: Oh great--so it's gonna happen again, right?
ME:  Not meteorologically--only in my soul.
EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN:  Heh--proves you have one.
ME:  Hey--you oughtta thank me.
EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN: Why would we do that?
ME:  Well who do you think brought this weather?
EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN: You?  Really?
ME:  Through the power of musical prayer.
EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN: You've been whistling again, haven't you.
ME:  Singing.
EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN: [bemused] Actual singing.
ME:  Oh yeah.  When I'm not talking to myself.
EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN: And what have you been singing?
ME:  Two songs that feel like spring to me.  Songs that make me feel, oh, 28 again, actually.  And nothing feels more like springlike than that.  Or like these: 

Teacher, Teacher - Rockpile
Heart - Rockpile

EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN: Bouncy.
ME:  ♪♪♪♪♪
EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN:  Are you . . . whistling?
ME:  Yes, as a matter of fact, I--
EVERYBODY IN MANHATTAN:  Taxi!

Songs for a Tuesday morning: That's where I long to be . . .

"Here comes Randy.  He's alone.  What's his problem?"

That's how Budd Boetticher described the basic set-up of the seven films he made with Randolph Scott in the late 50's. 

Now me, I'm no stranger to the late 50's (except when I wear day makeup).  And yes, I've been depressed lately.  Frankly, I feel like that quote above should read: "Here comes Matthew.  He's alone.  What's his fucking problem anyway?" And because some films are comfort food, I've been spending a lot of time these last few weeks curled up on the couch watching old westerns.  Which means listening to a lot of western title songs.  (And whistling them, too, which has gotten me kicked out of a couple of bars.  With good reason--nothing clears out a Friday night March Madness crowd quicker than a whistled version of "Gunfight At The OK Corral.")

I wanted to give you a sample of what I've been subjecting myself to, and skim the cream rather than scrape the bottom of the barrel (cough)"Liberty Valance"(cough).  So here are two classic Western songs, one from a Howard Hawks film, and one from a John Ford film.  If they're not familiar to you, they deserve to be. 

The Hawks is from Rio Bravo, and if you followed The Sopranos, you heard this played under the credits of one of the episodes in Season 4.  Picture John Wayne listening to this.  Picture John Wayne having to listen to this.  While Walter Brennan makes faces at him off-camera:

My Rifle, Pony and Me - Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson

The Ford is from The Searchers.  It's the title song--not just the two excerpts played at the beginning and the end, but the whole thing.  Which makes you appreciate the genius of Ford.  Because to my tinhorn ear, the whole song is less than the sum of those two excerpted parts.  See if you agree:

The Searchers - Sons of the Pioneers

Till next time, I'm off to ride lonesome; see you seven men from now.

Songs for a Tuesday morning: the 6 o'clock alarm would never ring

We had a 70 degree day here last Friday, followed by a bunch of lousy cold days, which is the weather equivalent of Catherine Deneuve saying she'll always remember you and then looking at you like you're slug slime when you bump into her at BAM and say, "Remember me?" Or like a door opening, and then when you start to step inside, slam! Right in your face. And to add insult to injury, we're expecting snow tomorrow.

So, since it's still too cold to break out the Two Gentlemen score, let's see if we can usher in the warm weather, or at least get through the fecking day, by the power of musical prayer, with a jaunty Old Familiar in two versions. Here's the one you all know:

Daydream Believer - The Monkees


And here's the one you probably don't know, sung by the song's writer, the late John Stewart. Although if, like me, you grew up listening to a good FM station, you probably heard this version more than the one above. God knows I did, listening to WBCN back in the day. And did a total double-take at the last line. As you will too, if you are hearing this for the first time:

Daydream Believer - John Stewart

Songs For A Tuesday Morning: It's All I Want To Do So Won't You Dance

Of all the Australiennes I adore, I've been in love with this little lady the longest:



(And I use the word "little" literally--Kylie is what, five-feet-nothing in her bare feet, and probably four-eleven in a bathing cap.)

She came out with a new album this year (Aphrodite; another tiny lass--four-feet-nine in her bare clam shell, according to Hesiod) and lately I've been listening a lot to the first track, "All The Lovers." But not the actual track on the album, which is below.

All The Lovers (Original)

It's okay, but not great. I mean, it's a serviceable dance number with a breathy vocal that floats above a lot of synth that completely overpowers a barely-heard piano that is actually playing something interesting, musically. (The piano in this song is the dance version of the lute in PDQ Bach's Sinfonia Concertante, where he says: "It's a very nice lute. We hope you enjoy it. Think of it while you're listening to the bagpipes.") But this version of the song doesn't lift you up, and it certainly doesn't take you higher (higher) (higher) (higher). It's too polite, almost. What it needs, frankly, is a touch of Phil Spector melodrama. Which is gets in spades in this remix:

All The Lovers (Matty Boy Remix)

Now this is a version that can get your tired ass up off a 3AM bar stool and back onto the dance floor. It has weight, and it does what a good remix should always do: deliver the pleasure of the original in a booty-shaking package. This is the version I listen to when I want to spin around the living room and try not to knock over the lamps. But it's still not the version I listen to most. That, oddly enough, would be this one:

All The Lovers (Acoustic)

This version, because it's simple and quiet, puts the vocals up front and lets Kylie do something you don't see pop singers do that much--quietly and deliberately seduce the living hell out of you. In this version, if you don't want to dance when she asks you to dance, or find yourself breathing when she tells you to breathe, then you should check your pulse. It's sexier than the other two because it's intimate, and it's better than the other two because it's treated like a song, and not an excuse to twirl around the living room knocking over lamps.

Plus: you get to hear the piano. (And the cello!)

Songs For A Tuesday Morning 12-14-10

And then there are Tuesdays when you wonder what it's all for, when everything seems pointless and stupid and hopeless and you're such a mess that there are a dozen different people inside you who pop out at various times with no warning at all. In my case today, it's Sad Matthew, Barking Matt, Lonely Matty, Leave Me Alone Matty, and Fuck Everybody But Matthew, and that was just since 6AM. Oh yeah--and Mechanical Matt, who woke up and showered and got dressed and walked into work. I'm assuming. Since neither I nor any of my other personalities have any memory of that at all.

On Tuesdays like this, Hope is a heavier weight to carry than Despair, because Despair has wings, Despair can fly far far away while Hope has to walk, step by step, with the world on its shoulders. So on Tuesdays like this, the only way to lighten that burden is to crank it up loud and let Hope dance all over Despair like, well, like a bunch of neglected Brits from the 80's:

Birth School Work Death - The Godfathers

Songs For A Tuesday Morning - Pearl Harbor Edition

Tuesday. The day that will live in infamy. And doubly so since today is Pearl Harbor Day. (Does that mean the rest of the week is made up of days that will die in outfamy?) (Sorry; just channeling my inner Groucho.)

Today's Tuesday song is appropriate to both the day and the occasion. It's by these guys:



It's the first song on the killer first side of Graham Parker's Squeezing Out Sparks, which gets my vote as one of the top ten perfect sides in rock. Five songs and every one of them a classic: "Discovering Japan," "Local Girls," "Nobody Hurts You," "You Can't Be Too Strong," and "Passion Is No Ordinary Word." Here's the first one. And if you know this album and you're like me, you won't be able to listen to this without wanting to hear the next four in sequence.

Play it loud, and try to get through the day without bombing Hawaii.

Discovering Japan - Graham Parker and The Rumour