"Here Comes a Regular" by the Replacements — Not their best work, but a huge downer as someone pointed out during the last list and that made me pop it on to The List to give it a whirl because it’s been a while and it really belongs here. I’ve been listening to a lot of Replacements lately, though this isn’t always a Replacements crowd. I’ll leave it here for now; I’ve been really really getting into "Love Lines" again from Hootenanny, which is just plain, good old fun. There was a band, or a solo guy with a guitar who could do an amazing version of this song, and very soulful. They were called Zen something or other… but I haven’t seen them around in a while. One hopes they did or are doing well. Maybe it was Zen Motorcycle or is that the title of a book?
"Sweet Jane" by the Velvet Underground/Lou Reed — Worth checking out the version by the Cowboy Junkies for sure, which is sung almost a capella and from what I understand was recorded in one session (The Trinity Sessions) in one take in the church with little equipment. Now, that could be myth, but it could also be true… I see no reason to really just make it up and the album certainly sounds like it. The Reed version of "Sweet Jane" is still my favorite for his sarcastic tone and the way he belts out anything and everything he does.
"Missing You" by John Waite – I ain’t missing you at all, he says. It kinda reminds me of Frankee’s song “Fuck you Right Back” which I like — a lot — but if you think about it, if she doesn’t really care any more, then why bother writing the song in the first place? Doesn’t mean I’m sorry she wrote the song. I’m not. I’m glad she wrote the song. I’m glad John Waite, especially wrote "Missing You" because I can’t tell you how many break-ups I went through (albeit with the same person) and listened to this same song over and over again that I swear my neighbors were ready to sign a petition to have me thrown out of the building. Great song, but can you blame them? If you haven’t heard in a while, certainly worth a listen.
"Le Salon" by Autour de Lucie — Please please please give it a chance… you just might like this music… I know you will if you give it chance. Especially if you like American or British pop, there’s no reason why you wouldn’t like French pop. (It’s even poppier — is that a word? — especially this song.) Worth listening to, downloading and checking out.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Color me Impressed.
Glad you mentioned Cowboy Junkies version of Sweet Jane, but regardless of who's performing it, these are some of my favorite lines of all time:
Ridin’ in a stutz bear cat, jim
You know, those were different times!
Oh, all the poets they studied rules of verse
And those ladies, they rolled their eyes
I take a little issue with your statement that Morrissey wasn't big on humor. One of the reasons I like him and the Smiths was the understated, mordant and dry humor: "I traveled South again / I traveled North / I got confused I killed a horse..."
"You Wear it Well"--great great song--sad and evocative--that I've come to like more than "Maggie Mae."
Here goes a regular--thx, Gordon
2 - Mike
Lots to like on here. The Smiths are another English treasure, and Gordon's right, Morrissey is one of the great wits as well as being a great lyricist and chronicler of the downer that the Thatcher years put us on, to be young in 80s Britain, to be in love and unemployed, to be Job Centre fodder, to be sensitive to what it is to be human. The Smiths produced so many great songs in their short career and Morrissey continued to do so afterwards. To me he is one of the very major talents as a lyricist and poet of inner life that the UK produced in the 20th century. For dry ironic humour...
"I was looking for a job and now I've found a job, heaven knows I'm miserable now"
followed by the more heartfelt
"In my life
why do I give valuable time
to people who don't care if I live or die"
The song "There is a light that never goes out" might be construed as a miserabilist anthem (as so many of his songs are wrongly interpreted) but the lyric shows a man who knows what passionate reverence and reverent passion is. He feels it, and so do you when you are in love or in obsession and you hear this song...
"Driving in your car
Oh, please don’t drop me home
Because it’s not my home, it’s their
Home, and I’m welcome no more
And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten-ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure - the privilege is mine",,,
The Smiths' Johnny Marr is one of the great pop guitarists of the late twentieth century and a connection with a later choice on this list is his participation in the band Electronic with Bernard Sumner of Joy Division and New Order.
One of the most pleasurable wonderful uplifting experiences of mine lately was to see the artist and photographer Phil Collins installation entitled "The World Won't Listen" which is a static camera video of a succession of Colombian Smith's fans performing a Smiths number in front of a varied studio backdrop such as a mountain lake or a chalet. I'd urge any Smiths fan and any one interested in fandom to see if it comes your way. It's a glorious tribute to the Smiths and to how music we are entraptured by can make us feel. The installation was one of the nominees for this year's Deutsche Borse Photography prize.
Joy Divison are from the same area of the UK as the Smiths, are equally peculiarly English and a product of time and place, and ten times darker than The Smiths, probably helped in that by chemical ingestion and the rumbling of Hooky's bass and Curtis's wired performances and the effects that the epilepsy Sadi mentions had on Curtis's performances. Curtis hung himself on the very eve of the band's planned departure for their US tour. To see video performances of him doing stuff like LWTUAA or Transmission is heartbreaking and knowing his history of epilepsy and the effect that his medications and depession was having on him is harrowing, true roadcrash tv.
For me there is a link between Cowboy Junkies and Joy Division. Several years ago I was leaving a supermarket in Tel Aviv and was wearing a tshirt of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures album and a young Israeli came up to me and pleaded with me to sell him the tshirt. I went from there straight to a little club in south Tel Aviv for a drink and on a large screen the Beatles' film Yellow Submarine was being shown with the sound turned off and coming out of the speakers instead was that magnificent Cowboy Junkies album. I'd never heard them prior to that and the first song that I walked in on while Yellow Submarine was on this big screen was Sweet Jane. It was like a drug experience minus the drugs. Unforgettable. One of the great albums and one of the great vocal performances.
So thanks for the list Sadi and for prompting a revival of those memories.
Re Autour de Lucie and other French stuff you have featured before you'll be pleased to know that in the Virgin megastore in Piccadilly Circus up in the World Music dept there is a lovely display at the moment (or there was a couple of weeks ago) of French musical stuff, and lots of it, the usual suspects such as Gainsbourg and Bruni and MC Solaar and Air but also harder to get stuff. One of my favourite films is La Haine, directed by Kassovitz in 1995, which has a great soundtrack including a number from Solaar. Do you know the film? Given the recent unrest in the banlieus and in central paris itself the film is still very topical and relevant. It has excellent central performances, works brilliantly (and aptly) in black and white, and has a a soundtrack I think you'd love
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3 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
Sadi and Mike--just one more example of Morrissey's dark wit: "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before."
Nothing's changed
I still love you, oh, I still love you
...Only slightly, only slightly less than I used to, my love.
I was delayed, I was way-laid
An emergency stop
I smelt the last ten seconds of life
I crashed down on the crossbar
And the pain was enough to make
A shy, bald, Buddhist reflect
And plan a mass murder...
4 - Mike
Ha, Gordon. The songbook is full of little gems like that isn't it. It's dry English humour with that deadpan delivery that people sometimes mistakenly take as utter seriousness...which isn't to say that Morrissey is a comedian either; but to think of him, as many people seem to, as a miserabilist is as off the mark as, say, those folks who describe Leonard Cohen as depressing. Morrissey's willingness to document the contradictory inner life is refreshing.
I saw him with The Smiths at Glastonbury in the 80s and the crowd he attracted was so adoring and so eager to see him and the band that some of them lost their manners and urged the preceding act, Melanie (remember her?), to hurry up and get off the stage - or words to that effect. When The Smiths did finally appear they did a good but disappointingly short set, probably about 30 minutes and they were gone.
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5 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
I think I developed an appreciation for English humor partly by my early love of the Kinks ("People take pictures of each other, just to prove that they really existed / Just in case someone thought they had missed it...").
You mean "Brand New Key" one-hit wonder Melanie?--no wonder she was "invited" to leave the stage: "Here's your hat, what's your hurry?"
6 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
Alright Mike and Gordon - Maybe you're both right and i'm wrong (i'll take your word on it - i'm enlish, working class, but never particulrly found Morrissey funny but that's just me... seriously... i don't say that to be snide. Explain this to me...
I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour
But heaven knows I’m miserable now
I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I’m miserable now
In my life
Why do I give valuable time
To people who don’t care if I live or die ?
Two lovers entwined pass me by
And heaven knows I’m miserable now
I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I’m miserable now
In my life
Oh, why do I give valuable time
To people who don’t care if I live or die ?
Okay, i admit, i've laughed my ass off to that and other Morissey songs but prob. not in the way that you have (the ironic sense) more the (awwwwww sense).
BUT, and here's the thing, i've always always always been a huge Smiths fan so go figure... All of these years and i've been missing it???? How fucked up is that? Well, I dunno about all this... i'll have to take you at your word, tho it does explain a few things but let's at least admit - he does rather come off as humorless... i think...
cheers to all...s.
7 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
p.p.s. - i like "I Got A Brand New Key" and even bigger news - she almost made the list this week - maybe Morissey does have sense of humour after all...
I know i was going to put it on as tongue in cheek (b/c i've been listening it as somewhat of a joke, so...).
Melanie is okay - even if a one hit wonder.
HE thought so- or someone backing him did,..
8 - mike
Yep, you got it, though to be fair I did like her rendering of Ruby Tuesday a lot. She did some turkeys though, Brand New Key, The Nickel song etc. The Smiths fans were in no mood to stand about listening to stuff like that and very ungallantly started to lob mud towards the stage to get her off.
Brand New Key was made even worse when it was covered and adapted by a yokel band, The Wurzels, and released as "Brand New Combine Harvester". supposedly as humour but it was awful and absolutely unfunny and somehow was a top ten hit.
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9 - mike
Sorry Sadi, messages crossed. Liked Ruby Tuesday best of hers and I forgive her the rest because of it. I think you're right about Morrissey too, there is a sense of "awwww" as you say, and having seen him being interviewed lately by Jonathan Ross it's as plain as ever that he doesn't suffer fools (in this case Ross himself) gladly.
10 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
God, i remember the Combine Harverster Song from the UK when i was a little kid ~ what a world we live in !!! sheesh...
11 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
well, nobody should suffer fools gladly ~ really...i could be totally wrong about him, (i'm sure you all will let me know, lol) which is cool cool, because now i'm curious and want yet more instances - i see what you're saying (she says planning on listening to The Smiths all day... ) (do they count??) so we'll see....
My God - i still can't get over the combine harvester song... do you know (dink dink dink) i knew i recognized the melody but for all these years (husband laughing hystically in backgrund) i never knew from where...) EVEN back THEN!!!
i'll be out for a few hours later on this afternoon, btw, so don't think i'm ignoring any points or issues/questions etc ~ will be hre for a while... when gone... then back... like any normal person... lol... ; )
12 - Rodney Welch
Melanie's "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" is still, to my ears, one of the great singles of the 1960s. The lyrics are as much of a document of Woodstock as anything Joni Mitchell had to say:
We were so close, there was no room
We bled inside each others wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace
Of the songs on Sadi's list, I'm moved to comment on five:
* Love the Replacements, but I could take or leave "Here Comes a Regular"; I don't go much for that kind of crying-in-my-Jack-Daniels self-pity.
* "Sweet Jane" is a classic rock anthem that has also been memorably covered by Mott the Hoople. The Cowboy Junkies' dragged-down amphetamine version is not their own invention -- the Velvets played it the same way on their classic live set 1969 -- but Margo Timmons brings a lot of anguished soul to it.
* "Missing You" is Top 40 dreck. I don't miss it at all.
* "Love Will Tear Us Apart" is pure dynamite. It never gets old. One of those songs -- like Johnny Thunders' "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" -- that immediately summon up a time and place, as well as an untimely death.
* "Dancing in the Dark" is a glorious paean to rock and roll at its most private and intimate. Specically, he's talking to a girl -- he's saying life's boring in this little town; let's dance, let's fuck, let's experience life, you and me. But more than that I always think he's really talking about the experience of listening to music; not the crowd experience at a live show, but the redemptive quality of hearing a great song when you are your loneliest.
13 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
hey Rodney ~
Well, who can beat Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart - it's just an amazing song and as you point out, it never gets out... timeless classic...
Dancing in the Dark - i wrote a whole blog entitled that with the same spirit you describe aboutr life at its lonliest .., you might like it... not sure... it may or may not be your thing...
John Waites - pure fun, but a good break-up song, hence the (albeit) bad humor about overplaying it (rather like Harry Nillson's If Living Is Without You ~ same kinda deal...)
MUST MUST MUST GET READY TO GET TO DOCTOR APPT.
MORE LATER... PROMISE... sorry have to run...
will address Replacements issue and others later.. promise.. for now
a bien tot all..
back later on..
chat chat chat...
cheers,
s.
14 - Steve
Interesting list as always Sadi!!
Re. The Smiths, though not really a fan, I did enjoy "How Soon Is Now" and "What Difference Does It Make?" because they had great music in them. I think Morrissey is not meant to be taken seriously (have you heard of his last solo album or two and the tracks of it??...like "You Are The Quarry" and "Last Of The Gang To Die" etc...definitely tongue in cheek). I recall one of their songs now -
"Girlfriend In A Coma, I know, I know, it's serious" lol. Anyway...many British music crtics seem to love dark music, but they also love it when artists poke fun at dark themes...not generally what I look for in songs myself but anyway...
What you said about the Cowboy Junkies is spot on Sadi re. the church et al, from what I heard, they appeared on the scene here the year or so after I arrived back in Canada, the crtics loved them, I thought they were ok, a little dull musically maybe for me, which are my feelings for much Canadian music alas.
"Missing You" may have been Top 40 dreck but it was above average Top 40 dreck for me, one of my friends really loved that song though. I preferred John Waite in his Bad English days, though.
Re. "Love Will Tear Us Apart", I don't have the original but do have covers by Paul Young (1983) and Simple Minds (2001). I preferred the covers myself.
I have an extended remix of "Dancing In The Dark" that runs 6 mins 9 secs. which makes a nice change from the origiinal version, they had to release it twice in the UK, first time reaching #28 in 1984, second time #4 in 1985, after the album became so huge in the States.
Very familiar with "You Wear It Well", brings back memories of Scotland in the 70's, my cousin's mother would always be playing his stuff at parties at her place, even into the 1990's now that I think about it.
Kajagoogoo weren't bad, their later tunes "Big Apple" and "The Lion's Mouth" were good too. Limahl's tune "Only For Love" was my fave of his, all just pop to veg out to really. By the end of the 80's they'd dumped Limahl and changed their name to Ellis, Beggs & Howard, but I think folks thought they sounded like a law firm so they didn't do well. Their biggest hit "Big Bubbles, No Troubles" made #41 in the UK I believe.
Don't worry about sacrilegious jokes, Sadi, it's only when people are serious that I get concerned lol.
15 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
Hye Steve - yet MORE technical problems for me... what is UP with new computers... i have a lemon and they say i can't return it b/c i had to know within fifteen days... gotta love that one... that's a new one for me.. never heard of such a riduclous thing... in any event...
The Smiths - probably not meant to be taken seriously but hard sometimes when you listen; i remember driving round w/ my husband who couldn't stand them an di i just started laughing - generational differences perhaps - but i'm not sure... just differnt taste in music...
i wish i had that extended remix of dancing inthe dark... thta would rock the house.., i really need your email so we can exchange mp3s together... that would be a good idea and fun too...
my back is killing me so i'm going to rest a while..
more, certainly, later, to get to the rest of your comments... esp. the funny ones about Limahl..
Maggie Mae and Scotland - funny ~ i too made the association. Maybe we were there around the same time or visiting. not sure... but that's interesting ....
no taker's on my choice of Dylan this week - boo hoo...does nobody feel for this song? am i alone ? (i know you're not a big fan, Steve...)
more later...
16 - mike
I love that Dylan but I don't know that particular recording. I've always thought that the lyrical style and delivery of that song foresaw hip hop 15 or 20 years early, it was proto hip hop...
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The hand made blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun an' moon
To understand you know to soon
There is no sense in tryin'. etc etc
Re the Smiths I think they are a serious band but Morrissey has dry sense of irony sometimes running concurrent with the angst and knowingness. one difference between them and Joy Divison it seems to me is that the latter don't have this self-deprecating humour or show the same self-awareness in their stuff. Their music comes from a different place in the head and the heart.
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17 - Rodney Welch
Trivia: what Bob Dylan song did Jimmy Carter once quote in a campaign speech?
Answer: "It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding." Carter said something to the effect that he dreamed of a country that was "busy being born."
I like the song okay, but it's one of those that I've never listened to all that closely.
18 - Steve
Alas, Sadi, that Bruce Springsteen remix is only available on cassette tape from me, about half my music collection is on tape, not CD. I have heard it is illegal for Canadians to file share on the Internet (if that's what you call it, anyway), so I'm not sure what the rules are here in Canada, though that may be fine for American residents. I don't know, really, never done it. Unfortunately, it looks like it is only available on vinyl in the US as part of a 17 track 12" collection of Springsteen songs, so it may be hard to come by down there.
Actually, I looked up the dates for "Maggie May" and "You Wear It Well" and I was not in Scotland when they were UK #1's (1971-1972) but, of course, they've had alot of play since then.
Re. your back, Sadi, have you ever tried a chiropractor?? Or does it only bother you occasionally?
19 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
hey Mike - that Dylan song is one of my favorites and that recording in particular is one you should seek out... you can get it legally i believe you can just buy it... or maybe not.. i'm trying to remember how i got it but do a search. it's the 64 philharmonic tour (pardon typos guys) i'm having keyboard issues beyond belief... ) ... anyway... back to Dylan...
Yeah, that version is pretty great and shows him at his finest really with a real Dylan-esque wit and sarcasm but sense of humor as well, tho apparently he used the same joke night after nigiht at each show (to the same reaction) and whe he goofed it up one night, went back and did the samne thing to get the "right" reaction....
funny...
still... love him anyway... just found it funny but ultimately,he's a performer and human and that's what his job was ... is... to peform and entertain and he does a great job of it still....
see if you can find it. it's worth it...
20 - Rodney Welch
Sadi,
Sounds like you're stuck on Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall. Last week if was "If You Gotta Go," and this week it's the one that comes directly after it.
"Yes, it's a very funny song."
21 - Gordon Hauptfleisch
("Explain this to me:
'In my life
Oh, why do I give valuable time
To people who don't care if I live or die ?'")
Yes, that is effectivley heartbreaking and not funny. Sorry, Sadi--I sincerely wasn't trying to criticize. What I was clumsily trying to get at was the Morrissey has that many-angled complexity and ability to be both witty and poignantly thought-enducing that the best songwriters have (Ray Davies, Costello, Dylan, Westerberg Springsteen--who, by the way, I've seen gloriously live about eight times).
Anyway, it was 3am in the morning and in my soul, and I though I wasn't trying to be cranky, I can see how it came out that way. I'm only a music snob in the daylight hours.
22 - Steve
Just wondering, Sadi, you ever heard of a band called Blancmange??
23 - chantal stone
Sadi....i'm just now tuning in and i have to say that i love love love the Smiths!! "How Soon is Now" is SUCH a great song, i was just listening to it last night.
seems like many of us are getting on the same musical-wavelengths here!
24 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
hey Steve - i remember the Blancmange - sure-- but what was their BIG hit ... i can't remember it now... and i LOVED them... it'll come to me tomorrow ... if you remember, tell me, now i'm dying to know....
cheers
s
25 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
chantal ~ you're right, pure coincidence or chance that we have similar taste or likes which is great - it seems there si really something for almost everyone, which makes me happy... tho makes job hard sometimes twice a week!!!! but i'm glad you all tune in... ; )
what's your favorite smiths songs - what are they, i should say....