"The Pretender" by Jackson Browne (1976)

Whatever it is you might think you have,
You have nothing to lose,
For every dead and living thing
Time runs like a fuse:

And the fuse is burning,
And the earth is turning.

I know I've long since blown this "album a day" thing. It's a great ambition but I've too much other stuff that I need to dedicate my brain cycles to.



It's not like I'm still listening to music every day, and that it doesn't continually churn in my head, like the outro solo/jam on the first cut on this album, "The Fuse". In fact, I think Jackson Browne, for me, has always been in the constant unconscious part of my brain ....

I guess they got a lot to do before
they can rest assured their lives
Are justified
Pray to God for me, babe,
He can let me slide.

Tomorrow (Sat 3/6) I will have attended my second funeral this week, of people who died young. My friend, Tommy, dropped dead at age 51. He had a great life. He was a drummer for a polka band.

Well I been up and down this highway,
Far as my eyes can see.
No matter how fast I run,
I can never seem to get away from me.
No matter where I am
I can't help thinking I'm just a day away
From where I want to be,
Now I'm running home, babe,
Like a river to the sea.

A couple of days ago Tommy was just a day away from being gone. You just never know.

Well I can see it in your eyes,
You've got those bright baby blues

I remember this girl, Amy M., when I was a freshman in college. She was gorgeous, extremely sexy and had these mesmerizing electric blue eyes. My friend Dave and I sat in his room in Pete Wright dorm and sang her this song, on our guitars with me singing harmony, this haunting song of hope and desperation, and she just sat there looking forlorn because we all somehow thought the song was about her. The next image I remember of her is the next semester, sneaking out of the boy's dorm at 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday, with her boyfriend dorm counselor.

You watch yourself from the sidelines
Like your life was a game
you don't mind playing
To keep yourself amused.
I don't mean to be cruel, babe,
But you're looking confused.

Baby, if you can hear me, turn down your radio,
There's just one thing I want you to know,
When you've been near me
I felt the love stirring in my soul.

I've been listening to Jackson Browne since I was in high school. He's always had a grounding effect on me. I think it's because he has a way of stripping off all of the rock-n-roll veneer and giving you something real:

It's so hard to come by, this feeling of peace
(This friend of mine said) Close your eyes
And try a few of these.
I thought I was flying like a bird
So far above my sorrows
But when I looked down, I was standing on my knees
Now I need someone to help me,
Someone to help me, please.

Jackson says here he needs someone to help him, but it's just his desperation in realizing that the only person that can help him is himself. "In the end there is one dance that you'll do alone." (That's from another JB album, but anyway.)

This album is full of loss and sadness. I read once where this album was recorded after his wife committed suicide. It has a lot of sobering images, especially the title track (and album cover picture), with lines like "the children solemnly wait for the ice cream vendor." It makes you feel like it's all fake, like it's all for nothing, like it doesn't matter. When I saw my friend Cindy tonight, Tommy's widow, it was just harrowing.

Living your life day after day
Soon all your plans and changes either fail or fade away

Tommy lived a good life. He will be remembered. But, in the end, Jackson reminds us that we each have to justify our own lives, and somehow find that kernel of existence:

Never should I had of tried so hard to make a love work out
I guess
I don't know what love has got to do with happiness
But the times that we were happy
Were the times we never tried.



What is life, if not the privilege of "getting up and doing it again"? When that stops happening, you are dead. Maybe the secret of life is the ability to continually fooling ourselves into being happy. If you really want to find it, it better be something beyond "whatever may lie in those things that money can buy". JB leaves us with a final admonition to "say a prayer for the Pretender", but I think what he is really trying to do is push us beyond the veil of post-modern emptiness to finally abandon shallow materialism and seek real truth, truth that lies in real people living real lives that make a difference.

Goodbye, Tommy, we miss you.

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44. "Oranges and Lemons" by XTC (1989)

Press "play" and let me tell you about the most brilliant pop song ever written, "The Mayor of Simpleton".



"Why?" you say.

Because has outstanding qualities in three important areas: lyrics, arrangement and musicality. All of these contribute to an overall double-meaning that offers the listener something new on each spin.

Lyrics:
Each verse has 2 lines of self-effacement:
Never been near a university
Never took a paper or a learning degree

Two lines of self-affirmation:
Some of your friends say that's stupid of me
But it's nothing that I care about

Two more lines of self-effacement (which have an end rhyme that goes with "Simpleton")
Well I don't know how to tell the weight of the sun
And of mathematics well I want none

And two lines of the main idea:
And I may be the Mayor of Simpleton
But I know one thing and that's I love you.

The bridge is a straightforward, impassioned plea for love:
I'm not proud of the fact that I never learned much
Just feel I should say
What you get is all real, I can't put on an act
It takes brains to do that anyway

And the final thought of the song:
When all logic grows cold and all thinking is done
You'll be warm in the arms of the Mayor of Simpleton.

So lyrically, we have a complex, but structured, wordy plea for affection based on evidence that the singer is a "simpleton". Sounds manipulative if you ask me. Yet there is believability that the singer is sincere, at least in his final statement and his declaration of love.

Arrangement:
The brillance of this song is the arpeggiated bass line that rambles up and down througout the song, giving an "unsure" sense to the message, as if the singer has trouble believing the argument himself. It is in the "self-effacement" lines, like Never been near a university / Never took a paper or a learning degree that this unsurity really comes through, as if the singer is wondering whether this lame argument is going to work.

Suddenly, however, in the "self-affirmation" lines, the bass gives up its rambling, plays the root of the chord, and gives the song a firm footing: Some of your friends say that's stupid of me ... etc. Then it's back to the rambling for the next two "self-effacement" lines, and back to the solid root notes when he says Mayor of Simpleton, but reverting to the uncertain rambling when he says I know one thing and that's I love you. So arrangement-wise, the bass is alternating between this unsure, bumbling, kid-like shuffling and this strong, man-like affirmation, which really comes through on the bridge, especially on the line, It takes brains to do that anyway. So which one should we believe?

Musicality
By that I mean the way the song is performed and put together. You have a singable, upbeat melody with a stong back-beat snare drum at the same time that you have the arpeggiated bass line. The guitar is present but minimal throughout most of the song, mostly providing off-beat fill but also some very subtle licks at crucial times. Partridge's vocals and his inflections bring home the sure/unsure feelings througout the song, where he alternates between hopeful sincerity and desperation, with just the right hint of male bravado. The vocal harmonies add that extra element of showiness that borders on being too much but in reality make the song.

Message
The final message of the song hits home with the final chorus when Partridge finally declares, with the bass firmly in the root, You'll be warm in the arms of the Mayor of Simpleton. Final statement. But then the song ends with that rambling feeling that makes us feel that, now that he's played his trump card, he's unsure of the response.

What we are presented with is a double message because, as we have mentioned, the lyrics indicate that he is someone simple, but in reality we have a complex, crafted message. And the line What you get is all real I can't put on an act / it takes brains to do that anyway is just a bluff. Everyone knows plenty of stupid people who don't tell the truth. But this is more than just an act, it is a well thought-out, intriguing presentation, even a proposal, if you will.. So does he really love her or is he just trying to bluff her? If he is bluffing he certainly goes to a lot of trouble, so she must be worth it.

The only thing we can really trust, in the end, is his sincerity. He shows us that though he may be a complex person, he really has one, simple message: I love you. So why all the complicated gyrations? Because for whatever reason he feels the need to show off in order to get her validation. The song ends up delivering a universal theme: the eternal dance of the sexes, and the jumping around is not unlike some strutting peacock seeking his ladybird's reaction.

And that is why I believe this is the most brilliant pop song ever written.

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p.s. Happy Valentine's Day.

43. "I'm Good Now" by Bob Schneider (2004)

Look, ya'll. I found the coolest thing in the whole wide world. I can put links to songs on my blog now. Check it out:



Ok, so I'm kind of getting behind on my blogging. I certainly can listen to a CD a day, because I do that anyway, but it's awfully hard to find the time to blog about them all. So if I don't have anything earth-shattering to say I'm just going to put them up and say whether I liked them or not.

I'm digging Bob Schneider. All you 40-somethings (or over) out there who are stuck on the 70s, you should listen to Bob. I have to say that this album, when I first listened to it a couple of weeks ago, sounded kind of like he wasn't sure if he wanted to be "Texas Country" like Pat Green, etc., because there are a couple of songs on here like that (especially the title cut), but I have to say I have considerably warmed to this album. There's a kind of feel-good groove to this album, if you don't count the couple that seem out of place ("C'mon Baby" and "Bridge Builders"). But the more I listen to it the more I like it. It even has a nice pretty final song, "Getting Better", that is kind of lovey-dovey. Aw.

We should all like Bob Schneider. He is a hard-working Austin musician who deserves to hit it big because he's paid his dues and lord knows he's at least as good as a lot of the other crap out there.

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42. "Ghost in the Machine" by The Police (1981)

I don't like to get nostalgic in these posts but I just remember getting really excited when this album came out. I was a freshman in college and Grant, Dave and I blew off some rehearsal or another one weeknight to drive from Fort Worth to Dallas to see them at Reunion Arena (which was recently demolished). We all got yelled at the next day when we showed up in our Police t-shirts.

I like the Police because they resisted doing the "has-been" tour for a really long time, something like 25 years, then they did ONE tour and that was it. As far as this album goes I think it has some fine moments, but the first two albums to me have more of a raw feel which really makes this band memorable. It's like Sting took piano lessons and had to work keyboards into this album. "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" is the big hit off of this album (see the cheesy 80s video below) but I think my favorite cuts are the lesser known ones like "Too Much Information" and "One World (Not Three)".

Plus there is a lot of jumping around, which a lot of bands from that era seemed to do. Jumping around is cool. Oh yeah, we were also really excited when we figured out that the computer-looking pictures on the album cover were actually the three band members: Andy, Sting and Stewart. The "ghost in the machine" are humans, man.

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41. "Grave Dancer's Union" by Soul Asylum (1992)

I tried to get a good job
With honest pay
Might as well join the mob
The benefits are okay
Standing in the sun with a popsicle
Everything is possible
With a lot of luck and a pretty face
And some time to waste

You leave without a trace
Leave without a trace
Leave without a trace

I tried to dance at a funeral
New Orleans style
I joined the Grave Dancer's Union
I had to file
Trying to do the right thing, play it straight
The right thing changes from state to state
Don't forget to take your mace
If you're out working late

I liked to see your face
You left without a trace
Leave without a trace

Life is absurd and you have to make the best of it if you want to stay sane. Is David Pirner of Soul Asylum an "absurdist hero" because he is faced with an absurd situation and keeps on going anyway? Maybe. The other day I was watching a re-run of "The Office", when Michael Scott finally realized that his girlfriend was taking advantage of him and he was broke because she ran up all his credit cards. He walks out of the office, walks to the railroad tracks, sits in a boxcar, and sings a chorus of "Runaway Train":

I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
here I am just a-drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train
An everything seems cut and dried
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there

The train never moves for Michael Scott, by the way; his girlfriend shows up and he has to face his problems after all.

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p.s. There is a short ad to start the video. The 90s were so cool.


Soul Asylum - Without A Trace (Official Music Video) - Watch more top selected videos about: Soul_Asylum

40. "Wormwood" by Moe. (2003)

The header to this blog suggests that a large majority of the CDs in my collection are actually the crappy ones that I am left with because my kids stole all the good ones. This CD is actually kind of a reverse of that: I have no idea where it came from or how it ended up in my collection.

Well, I have some idea. I mean I can't really say I have "no" idea, because I have an idea. I mean, it didn't come from Mars, nobody broke into my house and put it there, etc. The idea is that one of my kids got this CD, didn't like it, and forgot about it. Since no one, to my knowledge, has ever played it, it never got separated from its case and has therefore remained in fairly pristine condition in the "M" section. I have always known it was there because of its bright yellow cardboard packaging. Until this week I had never listened to it nor had any idea what kind of music was on it. Ok, well, I had some idea because, after all, I know what kind of music gets played around here.

Moe is a jam band, and I really am not much into jam band music. I gave this CD an honest two listens. I am still not a jam band fan, mainly because of this type of thought-deterring lyricism:

Back in the summer of 88
I didn't know how to rock and roll
I saw your face as i drove away
How could i know what you'd do to my soul?
Goodbye suzie goodbye UNH
Ive been down this road before
I said that right when i hit LA
Im feelin alright
Im feelin okay

Okay, Alright
Okay, Alright
Okay, Alright
Okay, Alright

Did you know that this is like Moe's eighth album? Neither did I. How about this one, "Kids":

Hey Michael
How are you my friend?
Hey Michael
How the hell have you been?

Do you remember that time
Way back when we were nine
You tried to be my good friend
And yet I turned you in

Kids will try to run you over
Kids will try to bring you down
Kids will never say they're sorry
Kids back then are older now

Jam bands are not my thing. I never understood the Grateful Dead either. I mean, I understood their lyrics just fine, but I never understood the appeal. Bands like this one, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident and Phish are cool I guess. To each his own. Actually I kind of like Phish becuase they are such awesome musicians. But I will sell you "Moe" disk real cheap if you want it.

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p.s. I couldn't find a video of these guys that wasn't a cell phone upload.

39. "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon" by James Taylor (1971)

So close your eyes,
you can close your eyes
it's alright
I don't know no love songs
And I can't sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song when I'm gone

Now before you think I'm going all cheesy on you let me tell you that for me listening to James Taylor is going back to my musical roots, man. As a high school kid, JT is the first singer I really ever got, that really ever made sense to me in a poetic way. In a sense I can attribute all of this musical pontification to first being inspired by James Taylor. I'm serious. Well, JT and Jackson Browne, but we'll get to JB later.

It's a shame that James gets dissed by people thinking he's too vanilla and schmaltzy. His early stuff -- which is up through the album "JT" -- has that certain magical quality of being simple yet complex at the same time. Lyrically he's straightforward, but with that vein of melancholy that makes you consider some undefined pain or longing, especially when referring to traveling:

I had a little woman in Memphis
She wanted to be my bride
She said, settle on down, traveling man
You can stay right by my side
I tried so hard to please her
But I couldn't hold out too long
'Cause one Saturday night I was laying in bed
And I heard that highway song
Back on the highway, yeah, yeah, yeah
Back on the road again

There's just something about this early JT that goes with the fall of the year, when the sunlight is at a certain angle, that stirs up the restlessness oh so subtly in the soul. It's that part of you that is impelled to move out of that place of slumber, something disquieting, not like a clap of thunder, but like the wind changing directions:

Love is just a word I've heard when things are being said
Stories my poor head has told me cannot stand the cold
And in between what might have been and what has come to pass
A misbegotten guess alas and bits of broken glass

I think there is a certain poetic appeal to being a wandering seeker, someone who is hungry for truth and light; but I think in the end we all have to make some kind of choices. Still, it's in our nature to be restless -- in mine anyway -- and on certain days when the wind is blowing just right and the sky clouds over in that sort of uncertain way that you don't know if it's going to rain or just be drizzly and nasty, that life just seems like some sort of highway, and all you can do is get up, make a move, and don't let the grass grow under your feet:

I said all the dead head miles
And the insincere smiles
Sometimes I can laugh and cry
And I can't remember why
But I still love those
Good times gone by
Hold on to them close or let them go, oh no
I don't know
I just seem to sing these songs
And say I'm sorry for the friends I used to know

It's on those days, like this specific overcast pissing rain Monday, February 8, 2010, driving in my car up highway 77, that I get it:

Sweet misunderstanding, won't you leave a poor boy alone
I'm a one-eyed seed of a tumbleweed
In the valley of a rolling stone

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