Gravity, by Freakwater.
This song is a sweet little ditty about getting old.
It’s the third Freakwater song in this project, which says something about their ability to get in my head over the course of 25 years and stay there.
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Had to move this up a full step to sing along passably, and that’s probably giving me too much credit.
Atlantic City, by Bruce Springsteen.
As noted previously, Nebraska is my favorite Springsteen record, and most everything on it is sacred to me in one way or another. This song probably made me weep when it came up after Superstorm Sandy (the dumbest and most Springsteenesque possible name for a thing that was a hurricane but also not a hurricane?) about the boardwalk getting all washed out and whatnot. Maudlin! Springsteen? Never! Always. Glorious.
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OK, the funniest part about the online chords for this is the 50+ deep comment thread arguing about what fret to put the capo on, because Bruce recorded Nebraska on like the 1970s equivalent of a voice memo, and it’s all just a little out of tune. And I don’t think these are quite the right chords, anyway. The online chords are easier to edit than Wikipedia, tbqh, but you have to log in to do it, and I think, just, no one does, but they do comment, so maybe? A fork of Mediawiki would probably do a much better job at negotiating this sort of thing, except you’d need the whole community and bots and all that dressing.
1000 Dollar Wedding, by Gram Parsons.
OK, it took a few days, but the good news is that I did a Gram Parsons song. The bad news is that now I’m listening to a podcast from the same series… about Insane Clown Posse.
There’s not much I could say about this song that hasn’t already been said, written, or speculated, but I’ll just add that I thought I had heard it in a movie soundtrack? But I don’t think I have. Does it come up in Kill Bill, maybe? Which would be kinda sensible but also a little on the nose?
I don’t think I’d ever heard the rather straight ahead Willie version, but maybe the Evan & Juliana cover from that tribute record?
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After a long tungsten run, I switched the overhead lights in my office back to daylight bulbs. It’s summer outside today, but fall is coming. Winter, too, from what I hear. Eventually. Today is day two hundred and fifty-five, so please update your databases accordingly.
El Paso, by Marty Robbins.
The country adjacent theme is still because I’m listening to the Gram Parsons Bandsplain podcast (these things tend to last a few hours), even if some of us know this song better from the Grateful Dead’s version. I listened to Robbins, and frankly, I’m probably hearing Bob Weir’s cadence in my head for the most part, but still, let’s credit this story song to the original author this time.
Somehow, I feel like I heard this on the radio growing up, maybe on the oldies station? But I also think it’s mashed up in my head with Come A Little Bit Closer (I guess they played a lot of Jay and the Americans?) and maybe even Gimme Three Steps? Basically, there are a lot of songs that involve two dummies shooting it out in or near a bar over a girl. They are dummies!
Crazy, by Patsy Cline.
This song ended up in front of me tonight because I started trying some Gram Parsons songs, realized I didn’t know any of them, and looked for some easier Willie Nelson stuff, tried his take on Crazy, and then said screw it, just do it Patsy’s way, since that’s the version I know best.
And then I completely failed at it, but there are lessons here, like, some things sound better in rehearsal, or in your head, or in the car.
Black Magic Woman, by Santana.
I was reading the oral history of Smooth today, and legitimately don’t know how the verses go, plus, ugh, but that story was so irredeemably silly, I was inspired to try a Santana song.
Somehow, I feel like I played this song better when I was 15.
All I Want Is You, by U2.
This song is the closer on Rattle And Hum, an album (and a tour/making of documentary film that I owned on VHS!!) that I think some people don’t like? I love that stupid album and the movie, and you can’t convince me otherwise. I may or may not have starred in a full-on music video of Desire that played at my Bar Mitzvah. In a leather jacket. Combing my hair. Dancing in front of a brick wall. Let’s never convert that to DVD, Mom.
Had to add the little guitar fills and solo or The Edge will come find me. As a teen I always played this with A and D chords, but I found it tonight with a capo in G#/C#, so, ok, let’s do that.
Crown of Love, by Arcade Fire.
This song is one that stuck in my head for years. I remember hearing it live the first time we went to see Arcade Fire in person, at the arena in DC, after putting on our facepaint/glitter at the hotel, being told by guys in t-shirts that my seersucker looked uncomfortably warm… was that the show Antibalas and Dan Deacon opened? I think it was. Anyway…
“the only thing you keep changing
is your name.
my love keeps growing,
still the same,
like a cancer,
and you won’t give me a straight answer.”
…kills me.
This song deserves all the usual orchestration and whatnot, but it was time to sing this for the dog, who has been a pain in the butt for a couple days.
Five to One, by The Doors.
Some of y’all know this song, and some of y’all know this sample. I’ve been listening to The Doors episode of the Bandsplain podcast, and the little clip they played of this and, well, all the other Jim Morrison bits and pieces reminded me pretty explicitly of what is best tagged as “my Jim Morrison period” so I figured this number would be a somewhat less dramatic way to channel it a little. As opposed to, say, The End. But I still kinda feel like doing Moonlight Drive.
The version from the double live CD compilation from the ’90s is the one that plays in my head, so I sing parts of the end in that cadence, even though I didn’t drop everything out or banter with the crowd or anything.
I really should’ve given the guitar solo another take or two, but the new dog wasn’t enjoying the high notes, and apparently is of course not a fan of my scream-singing, as evidenced by me looking around at him and trying to figure out if he was about to drop bombs on the office rug while I did the vocal video.
[UPDATE: I messed up the day count, maybe for the first time? Fixed it now.]
Peggy-O, by the Grateful Dead.
We’ve established I’m a sucker for a story song, and I’m not above calling this song somewhat cover-of-a-cover-adjacent, since the origin story is some flavor of Scottish folk song, if you believe Grateful Dead forums and Wikipedia. Maybe I should just be tagging some of these as “traditional” and leave it at that.
Sophomore year of college, when there was a lot of Dead flowing, the Deadest-head in the dorm room who brought it all to light for us got a giant book of Dead lyrics for the holidays or a birthday, I think, (with some pre-wiki explanation and context, IIRC), and I remember spending some fond hours with it.
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Regarding the crack about the hat at the top of the recording: I wasn’t the one who went into the attic of the hotel suite in Eastern New Mexico to see what was there, and I definitely wasn’t the one who removed the hats, but I was the one who staked a claim on the black one, and that has made all the difference. Also, I nearly drove myself delirious from dehydration when I wore it on a 100 degree desert working outdoors in double-knee Carhartts, as one did in the middle of the year 2001.