Here's where I ruin that John Sebastian song everyone likes.
I think this song is usually sung much more upbeat than the words tell it to be. John Sebastian performed it on a lark at Woodstock, which I think is so cool. He just happened to be backstage and they needed an acoustic act, so he grabbed a guitar, took the scaffold, and happened to have Darling Be Home Soon in his head from his days with Lovin' Spoonful (they'd recently broken up).
I enjoy the idea that all a person wants is to talk with his lover while she's away. I'm kind of going through this with someone right now. All I can really imagine is lying in bed and discussing and hatching adventures we can go on together.
I hope my interpretation conveys that feeling a little more than the original.
Here's where I ruin that Billy-Ray Cyrus song everyone liked. I always thought it would be better as a sad song because the lyrics are really a downer. It reads like what you would write if you were making fun of an old-fashioned country break-up song.
I especially like all the poetic turns the song makes around body parts in general and fingers/lips in particular.
First You can tell my lips to tell my fingertips they won't be reaching out for you no more.
And then You can tell your brother Cliff whose fist can tell my lip he never liked me anyway.
That's pretty golden because it rhymes both halves of the song in a way that links them thematically and gives your brain a little flash of slanted recollection. It's a neat little song, and even though it does not stand up to the test of time, I can see why it was such a huge success.
HERE'S WHERE I RUIN THAT ROLLING STONES SONG EVERYONE LIKES
I've always thought this was a sad song. The narrator describes himself as a man of wealth and taste. Then he gets to murdering Jesus, the Czar and his ministers, little Anastasia, everyone the Nazi's killed, countless armies via kings and queens, the Kennedy's, the poets on their way to Bombay, and then he threatens the listeners if they don't show him some courtesy and sympathy or aren't polite enough.
And my favorite part of this song is that Lucifer, in the middle of the song repeats his assertion that he's a man of wealth and taste. Sure, that works with the mechanics of a song—lots of songwriters do this to tether themselves to the beginning, or they liked the line so much they stuck it in as a hook, or they were just stuck and it got them out of a hole they'd dug. But what's great here is how much we know about this narrator. Satan comes with a lot of baggage. We already think we know all there is to know. So when he repeats himself, it's as if he's trying to convince himselfafter the litany of crimes we know are evil.
But the next verse, he compares cops to criminals and saints to sinners, saying he's just one side of a coin. So, might as well call him by the name Lucifer, his pre-fall name, meaning bringer of light or morning star. Mick and Keith are really outdoing themselves here. They've obviously read some Milton and had some decent education. "I'm in need of some restraint" is his explanation as to why one should use Lucifer instead of the myriad monikers associated with this character. Knowing his name controls him to some degree, but it's also his slave name. That's the name we gave him as an angel before he rebelled.
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell
—Macbeth 4:3
That's one of my favorite quotes from Shakespeare, and I think the Stones are riffing it a little. Here Shakes uses his knowledge of the devil's name but doesn't say it. He acknowledges that the brightest angel named for bringing light is the one who fell from heaven. And even "though all things foul will bear the brows of grace... grace must still look so."
Lucifer has to think of himself the way he does because it helps him cope with his duty to use humans to accomplish horrible deeds. And why does he need sympathy? Because he never had a choice in the matter. God preordained all of it. The Lucifer had to fall in order to be the catalyst in the Fall of Man in order for God to give his only begotten son to humanity to sacrifice for their sin.
I remember arguing with Christians about John Milton's Paradise Lost in community college. You can't help but side with the devil. He's a tool of God for the salvation of man. His sacrifice is as important as Christ's, but he resents it. He understands his place and hates God and Man for it. What's more relate-able than that? What's more Christian than that story? Christ is worshiped for his selfless sacrifice. Doesn't Lucifer deserve at least a little sympathy for his reluctant sacrifice?
This is where I ruin Max Raabe's Der perfekte Moment... wird heut' verpennt
I've received a lot of support for my guitar vlogging. A lot of people have recommended songs I should cover, and even though I'm just messing around with some new toys, the response has been all positive. I love that about 2018 so far.
My dear friend in Germany, Isabella, called me a couple weeks ago to tell me that she was going to have her baby that day. A little over a year ago, her boyfriend of 6 years lost his fight with bone cancer. This year, she's given birth to a bouncing baby boy. That kind of emotional swing is something I've not been able to pull off. Rock-bottom despair with no faith that the indifferent world had any kind of goodness to offer to buying stake in its future with optimism and excitement is a miraculous recovery from depression.
And she sent me a video of Max Raabe when she saw my sad song videos. I laughed through the whole video and re-watched it a dozen times probably. I told her the whole point of what I was doing with my guitar was to sing songs that were secretly sad. And she countered by reminding me that I was in a sandbox and could do whatever I wanted. I told her I wanted the boat in the video. She explained to me why that wasn't a good plan.
Max Raabe is a big star I've always dug. He started the Palast Orchester having fun with German pop songs from the 1920's and 30's. His modern pop songs are all interesting and often hilarious. German humor is special in its acknowledgement of the absurdity and futility of our existence in this aloof universe, and I love it.
13 years ago I was heart-broken when Bella called off our wedding. When I was with her I thought often about sandboxes and playgrounds. I guess she'll be going to both more often in the very near future.
Here's where I ruin that Radiohead song everyone likes
When I was a kid, I had to go to my friend's house to watch MTV because my family didn't have cable. I was a jealous friend. When I was 14, we moved to Orange County, and the HOA wouldn't allow antennae, which meant we had to get cable. And it happened to be the greatest years in MTV history.
In the early and mid-90's, the music world was a filled with great acts like Nirvana, Bon Jovi, Dr. Dre, 2 pac, Cypress Hill, Radiohead. And some of the best work from your favorite 80's stars like Madonna, Janet Jackson came out at that time. Everyone was making music videos, and they were cool as hell.
Radiohead came out with their first album, Pablo Honey. Four guitar players in a band? Why not! That guitar pound like a shotgun cocking to introduce the chorus of Creep was a wakeup call. Radiohead really stood out in the giant wave of alternative rock, and they'd go on to evolve and grow as I did through those formative years.
But Creep is so great because who hasn't felt like they "don't belong here"? It's a unique theme for a pop song but immediately accessible to everyone. And haven't you thought someone else was so perfect that you're ugly and unworthy by comparison? Well, Thom Yorke obviously has.
Much later I got off a train in Prague. A guy with a car said he ran a little hotel called Prague Lion and would give us a ride into town if we just checked out the hotel. I rode in front and Kid A was playing on his CD player. He'd gotten the album that day and was stoked. We ended up staying at his hotel and having a crazy adventure in the Czech Republic filled with absinth, running from the law, and an insane ossuary. But that's another story.
The two halves of the song mirror each other wonderfully. Ugly is echoed by horror, and disease rhymes with design as the first lines of both halves so that all the stuff in the middle is sandwiched together perfectly.
Plus, all the movie references in both halves strengthen that bond. Leather studded kiss in the sand is a reference to Sandy getting her leather kiss in Grease. And psycho, vertigo, and rear window are all references to Alfred Hitchcock movies.
What do all the movies have in common? The horror of romance? The dangers of love? The acceptance of our worst attributes? Who knows? Who really cares? Thematically, it works with the mechanics of the song in such a tight way that all the weird French stuff and the Fashion/Real Bitch bridge thing that happen in the original version are there just for fluff that work because the rest of the song is so damned strong.
My favorite part of the song is "I don't want to be friends." In the original version I swear I hear "I don't want to be French" the first time she says it after the French part of the song. But that could just be my lying ears.
Who can't relate to the sentiment of wanting more than friendship from someone? The complete letdown and heartbreak contained in the last few lines of the song, the idea that even a bad romance is better than friendship, is something I think everybody can relive at the close of the song. For a pop song to leave you lamenting one-sided love is impossible, so Lady Gaga belts out the chorus a few more times in the original.
It's a tricky little song in a lot of ways. Bad Romance has plenty for your brain to suss out and it happens to come in a fun package. I hope you like my stripped down version of it.
Here's where I ruin that Elvis Presley song everyone likes.
Mac Davis wrote it back in 1969, and Elvis made it huge, and a ton of people have covered it. I did a punk rock cover of it with my band back in the day. Everyone has heard this song.
And we're still talking about generational poverty in a barbaric way at the highest levels of politics and governance.
People don't you understand, this child needs a helping hand?
When I hear songs like this I wonder what conservatives think if they think anything at all about words.
In a world where words are mattering less and less, maybe songs are mattering less, too. Perhaps they've always dismissed songs like this like they dismiss giant portions of their supposedly favorite book.
The message of this song is that nothing will change unless we do something. I don't want to get too preachy here, but if they weren't going to listen to the republican Elvis Presley, trying to talk sense or write parable-esque songs now isn't going to work.
Ugh, but I don't feel like giving up just yet. I was in Vegas on October 1. The worse shooting in history, and we've done nothing. It isn't apathy. . . people care, but what's with the inaction? Lethargy? Phlegmatism?
Take a look at you and me, are we too blind to see?
And the saddest thing about this song is that the cycle continues.
I do want to ask: what are the characters' races in your mind's eye when you hear this song?
What is it with conservatives standing behind books no one ever reads in their entirety?
No one has EVER read Atlas Shrugged from cover to cover. NO ONE! I read the Bible cover because someone forced me to, but not even priests or pastors do that. There is a mysterious power in quoting books and saying you stand by books no one else has read.
It isn't just conservatives. I read Ulyssesonly because I didn't want people wielding its power against me. I never took a class in which is was assigned and I've read itTWICE! Once as a young writer living abroad and again in college. Snobby pseudo-intellectuals like to use it as a kind of litmus test to see if you're in their club.
But I'm not reading Atlas Shrugged. I got maybe 100 pages in and put it down. I read The Fountainhead when I thought I wanted to be an architect, and that was enough Ayn Rand. I liked that one. Ayn Rand is all about replacing god with the dollar. It's incredible to me that no one holds Christian conservatives to task on this.
If there's someone out there quoting books in your life, either dismiss them altogether or read their book and crush them. You'll more than likely lose a friend/family member in the process, but who cares? We're all headed the same direction.
Here's where I ruin that song by Leonard Cohen everyone likes.
When I was a teenager, a girl said her favorite poet was Leonard Cohen. I was really into the Beat poets back then. But I knew Leonard Cohen because of Concrete Blonde's cover of Everybody Knows, and I'd heard a few of his other songs via Jeff Buckley. Back at her place she showed me a book called Stanger Music. I was instantly in love with both her and him.
Fast forward a few years, and I'd met a Finnish woman in Germany, but she moved back to Finland. We were using phone cards and payphones to keep in contact because texting was expensive and there was no such thing as social media. We decided to meet in Warsaw: September streets and coffee shops and the Fotoplastikon and the Jazz Jamboree atop the Palace of Culture and Science.
When she got back home to Vaasa she sent me a book and a mix-tape. The first song on the mix-tape was her favorite: Famous Blue Raincoat. It was the first time I'd heard the song. It was the last mix-tape I ever received. I never saw the girl again. I listened to the song over and over again to try and figure out what was so painful about it.
"My brother, my killer" to be cuckolded might feel like being killed, and a friend might seem like a brother, but there's also an implicit forbidden vaginal theme here. Brothers, after all come from the same woman. These two have also shared a woman.
"You treated my woman to a flake of your life" something as insignificant as a flake from one perspective is monumental to another. What is a flake of life? Rhyming thematically with the "lock of your hair," the shadow man literally gave to her, it's a nice figurative echo.
"Four in the morning the end of December" seems like just a throw away until you think about it. "I see you there with a rose in your teeth" is great since roses are a winter-blooming/December flower. And in the end when it's revealed the song is an epistolary you realize how much time has passed since she's been writing the thing. His woman Jane has awoken to blithely send her regards to the letter's recipient. The day has begun. He's been writing this thing for hours.
"Thanks for the trouble you took from her eyes; I thought it was there for good, so I never tried" has to be one of the saddest lines of any song ever written.
Leonard Cohen played the Palace of Culture and Industry in 1985. It was hugely controversial at the time because everyone thought he would be too political on the wrong side of the iron curtain.
Leonard Cohen wrote all the songs for one of my all-time favorite movies McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
Leonard Cohen performed a song with Manu Chao calle Partisan, which is maybe my favorite song by him. Plus, Manu Chao is cool.
Leonard Cohen is considered by most to be some kind of renaissance man. I think of him as a poet and novelist who made some very good songs.
He died in November of 2016, and the world is better off having known his presence and much worse for the loss of it.
This is where I ruin that Bruce Springsteen everyone loves.
This song about someone remembering the Vietnam war ten years afterward is powerful in that its lyrics read like flashbacks. The narrator remembers how he got into the war, how he couldn't get a job afterward, how his friend died over there after having fallen in love with a Vietnamese woman, and how now he lives in the shadows of the penitentiaries and the fires of the refineries.
Springsteen hid all this in a pop anthem. Brilliant in that it's preserved for people like me who strip away everything and think about the words.
My microphone was giving me problems on this one, but I liked how it watered down the guitar and made my voice sound a little washed away too. So I haven't re-recorded for those reasons. Seems more painful and ruined this way.
The last line of the last verse is my favorite: "Nowhere to gun and nowhere to go"?!?! Gun rhymes with gone, like he's gone nowhere, but then of course, gunning being the only job he's ever really known beside working in a refinery or rotting in a penitentiary.
And of course, gun rhymes with run, and I've heard the Boss sing it as "run" before. But "gun" is better I think. It kind of sounds like "come" too, which screws with your brain when you hear "go" right after. And "gun" gives you a nice rhyme with "go" making the whole thing more true-feeling.
This is where I ruin that Coldplay song everyone likes. I love how this song is basically a 3-chord-country song that mixes in motifs of jaundice, suicide, drowning, and the futility of loving someone else. My favorite line is "then I took my turn/what a thing to have done." That sentiment of "everyone else has tried, so I guess I will too now" has no business being in a pop song, but there it is, and it's beautiful and sad. It's overshadowed by the "bleed myself dry," but it's subtly powerful in a short, sweet song like this.
This is where I ruin that song Dylan wrote and Hendrix made iconic. Its lyrics are psychedelic enough to be open to constant interpretation, enabling it to stalk our culture. It was even a pivotal motif in Battlestar Galactica!
This is where I ruin MIA's awesome homage to the Clash. She managed to take a playful song about a damning political topic and modernize it into something topical and relevant and to breathe new life into it.
This is where I try to ruin a Britney Spears song. I hope you like my sad version of it.
I always thought this song was about abuse inside of a relationship, but playing it now it feels like it's about the torture one feels when one is ignored in the digital age. People forcing one another away when technology is bringing us closer together is the strangest phenomenon to come about in my lifetime.
This is where I try to ruin a Guns n' Roses song. It's been one of my favorite songs since 1986. I like the way it morphs into Bowie's Heroes in my mind. Heroes has been part of my life for a long time, too, and I was lucky enough to play it in German to a puzzled crowd at the Blackfriars' Playhouse many years ago.
And I think the Dolphins in Heroes are a reference to French royalty. But that's for a longer conversation.
This song is about how people want to believe in each other and how they are all connected in this gamble of a life but can't seem to find that connection.
It's always night or else we wouldn't need the light.
You can keep looking for those emotions forever because it's all true. We are all connected and everyone else actually wants to find the same things you're looking for, even if they don't know it.
Just don't stop believing it.
People will let you down, but don't stop believing in them.
