Almanac Music: ‘Ziggy played guitar’- Songs Referencing Musical Instruments
“Johnny B. Goode”, written and sung by Chuck Berry. One of the side-A labels of original US single release. [Wikimedia Commons.]
Almanac Music: ‘Ziggy played guitar’ – Songs Referencing Musical Instruments
Hi, Almanackers! This piece in my long-running series about key popular song themes concerns songs that reference musical instruments.
So, dear readers, please put your relevant ‘musical instrument’ songs in the ‘Comments’ section. Below, as usual, are some examples from me to get the ball rolling.
’Jailhouse Rock’, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, performed by Elvis Presley (1957)
‘Spider Murphy played the tenor saxophone / Little Joe was blowing on the slide trombone…’
‘Johnny B Goode’, written and performed by Chuck Berry (1958)
‘But he could play a guitar just like a-ringing a bell’
‘Yakety Sax’ (instrumental, widely known from The Benny Hill Show), written by Spider Rich and Boots Randolph, performed by Boots Randolph (1963)
‘Ziggy Stardust’, written and performed by David Bowie (1972)
‘Ziggy played guitar’
‘Venus and Mars/Rock Show’, written by Paul and Linda McCartney, performed by Paul McCartney and Wings (1974)
‘It looks a lot like the one used by Jimmy Page’
‘Cavalry’, written by Daryl Braithwaite and Tony Mitchell, performed by Sherbet (1975)
‘Cavalry/Sound your trumpets’
‘Fernanado’, written by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson, performed by ABBA (1976)
references bugles, drums, guitar
‘O Philistine’, written by Danny Douma and David Palmer, performed by Wha Koo (1977)
‘In the distance I hear the wheeze of congested calliopes’
‘Money for Nothing’, written by Mark Knopfler and Sting, performed by Dire Straits (1985)
‘You play the guitar on the MTV’
‘Baby Grand’, written by Billy Joel, performed by Billy Joel – featuring Ray Charles (1987)
………………………………….
Now, dear readers / listeners – it’s over to you. Your responses to this topic are warmly welcomed. In the ‘Comments’ section, please add your own choice of a song (or songs) referencing musical instruments, along with any other relevant material you wish to include.
[Note: as usual, Wikipedia has been a solid general reference for this piece, particularly in terms of checking dates and other details.]
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About
Kevin Densley is a graduate of both Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. He has taught writing and literature in numerous Victorian universities and TAFES. He is a poet and writer-in-general. His sixth book-length poetry collection, Isle Full of Noises, was published in early 2026 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.
Three that quickly come to mind,
‘Mr Tambourine Man’ – Bob Dylan/The Byrds
‘Guitar Man’ – Elvis Presley
‘Piano Man’ – Billy Joel
Red guitar: Australian Crawl
While my guitar gently weeps: The Beatles
When you walk in the room: Jackie De Shannon (and many cover versions)
Sultans of swing: Dire Straits
Do Ya: Electric Light Orchestra (original by The Move)
Stranger: Electric Light Orchestra
Loser gone wild: Electric Light Orchestra
Rock ‘n’ roll is king: Electric Light Orchestra
Long black road: Electric Light Orchestra
Jeff Lynne’s ELO: When I was a boy
Blue violin: Electric Light Orchestra Part II
The fox: Electric Light Orchestra Part II
Blue guitar: Justin Hayward and John Lodge
Christie Lee: Billy Joel
Drums of heaven: Midnight Oil
Primitive love rites: Mondo Rock
One man band: Leo Sayer (Roger Daltrey also played this song)
Electric guitar: Talking Heads
Angel fingers: Wizzard
When gran’ma plays the banjo: Roy Wood
You sure got it now: Roy Wood
Three fine songs to kick off proceedings – thanks, Col.
Wonderful list, thank you Liam – even down to (perhaps) lesser-known songs that bring back memories for me, like Aussie Crawl’s ‘Red Guitar’.
Good morning Kevin,
As you probably know, Red Guitar was on Australian Crawl’s debut album The Boys Light Up. The song was definitely one of the lesser known tracks from the album. The strange thing is a few years later Australian Crawl released White Limbo (on the album Semantics) which was much better known and has been used in compilations. I think that’s odd, because much of White Limbo sounds like it’s copied from Red Guitar.
Of the Electric Light Orchestra songs mentioned above, I’ve always remembered the lyrics in Loser Gone Wild: “I don’t mind if violins don’t play, I won’t listen to them anyway”. Given ELO’s history with violins and cellos, this is a bit peculiar, right? A bit like John Lennon singing (in the song titled God) he didn’t believe in the Beatles or his former idols like Elvis and Zimmerman (Bob Dylan).
The title track of Frank Zappa’s vicious and absurdist satire, the 3LP set, Joe’s Garage
It wasn’t very large
There was just enough room to cram the drums
In the corner over by the Dodge
It was a ’54 with a mashed up door
And a cheesy little amp
With a sign on the front said “Fender Champ”
And a second-hand guitar
It was a Stratocaster with a whammy bar.
Good morning, Liam – interesting additional material. My connection to Australian Crawl goes back to their earliest days, when the pub band I played in did a couple of Crawl covers (‘Beautiful People’ and ‘Indisposed’) almost as soon as the songs themselves first came out on record.
Thanks, Mickey, for the Zappa song – it’s good to get something a bit left-of-centre here and there.
I’m reminded of an interview Zappa did on American TV (early in his career) where the conservative male host said to him, ‘You have long hair – does that makes you a girl?’ And Frank wittily replied to the host, who had an artificial leg: ‘You have a wooden leg, does that make you a table?’
Good morning KD – nice to be back in song theme zone. I’d like to add:
Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells….the entire lyrics follow:
Grand piano
Reed and pipe organ
Glockenspiel
Bass guitar
Double-speed guitar
Two slightly distorted guitars
Mandolin
Spanish guitar and introducing acoustic guitar
Plus, tubular bells
Good morning, Karl: ‘Tubular Bells’ – what an excellent, superbly on-theme choice!
This old guitar – Neil Young.
Sultans of Swing – Dire Straits -“they don’t give a damn about any trumpet playing band”
Another non-Bob song that sprung to mind, which I quite liked back in the day:
Bread – Guitar Man (1972)
‘Who draws the crowd and plays so loud
Baby, it’s the guitar man
Who’s gonna steal the show?
You know, baby, it’s the guitar man’
PS – this ‘Guitar Man’ is not to be confused with Jerry Reed’s ‘Guitar Man’ which Col R referenced in the opening post to this theme – sung by Elvis.
Guitar Band – Stevie Wright
Farfisa Beat – Squeeze
Little Drummer Boy – trad
Mandolin Wind – Rod Stewart
Mars Needs Guitars – Hoodoo Gurus
This Guitar Says Sorry – Billy Bragg
Jail Guitar Doors – Clash
Those Conga Drums – Jonathan Richman
She Bangs The Drums – Stone Roses
Summer of 69 – Bryan Adams
“my first real six-string”
Rapture – Blondie
“‘Cause the man from Mars stopped eatin’ cars
And eatin’ bars, and now he only eats guitars, get up”
So You Want To Be A Rock n Roll Star – The Byrds
“So you want to be a rock and roll star?
Then listen now to what I say
Just get an electric guitar
Then take some time and learn how to play”
Fender Stratocaster – Jonathan Richman
“Born in the fifties, looking so bold
Fender Stratocaster
Everything your parents hated about rock & roll
Fender Fender Fender
Wangin’ & a-twangin’, sounding so tough
Fender Stratocaster
& the kids in my corner, they can’t get enough
Fender Fender Fender
Like the wind in your hair when the top is down
Like taillights headed for another town
Fender Stratocaster
Well, there’s something about that sound
Like gasoline in the sand
Fender Stratocaster
Like a motorcycle at a hot dog stand
Fender Fender Fender
Like the Dunkin’ Donuts in Mattapan
Fender Stratocaster
Like the Thrifty Drugs in Santa An’
Fender Fender Fender
Well the sound is thin & the sound is cheap
Like a tin can falling on a dead end street
Fender Stratocaster
Well, there’s something about that sound”
Of course the floodgates will open KD once we include more songs with “bells” in this list
Thank you, Dips, for your fine, thematically highly apt pair of choices for- of course, ‘Sultans of Swing’ also mentions ‘Guitar George’ who ‘knows all the chords’.
Thanks, Karl, for Bread’s ‘Guitar Man’ – I like this song, too.
Thank you, Swish, for your excellent array of ‘musical instrument’ numbers. ‘ Fender Stratocaster ‘ was a great one to quote at length – and I think you’re so right regarding songs with bells.
Wide Open Road, The Triffids (Well the drums rolled off in my forehead/And the guns went off in my chest/Remember carrying the baby for you/Crying in the wilderness)
The One on the Right is on the Left, Johnny Cash (Now this should be a lesson if you plan to start a folk group/Don’t go mixing politics with the folk songs of our land/Just work on harmony and diction/Play your banjo well/And if you have political convictions/Keep them to yourself)
County Fair, Bruce (At the north end of the field where they set up a stand/And they got a little rock and roll band/People dancin’, yeah, out in the open air/It’s James Young and the Immortal Ones/Just two guitars, baby bass and drums/Just rockin’ down at the county fair)
Garageland, The Clash (Twenty-two singers/One microphone/Back in the garage/Five guitar players/One guitar/Back in the garage/Complaints, complaints)
Thanks, Rick, for a great opening four choices. ‘Wide Open Road’ and ‘ The One on the Right is on the Left’ are both personal favourites.
Rick’s reference to Garageland made me think of Gracelands (one of my all time favourite songs:
Gracelands – Paul Simon
‘The Mississippi Delta was shining like a national guitar
I am following the river down the highway through the cradle of the civil war’
The Road _ Danny O”Keefe (also recorded by Jackson Browne)
“Gamblers in the neon, clinging to guitars” – I have posted the full text in an earlier thread.
Stories We Could Tell – John Sebastian (also recorded by Jimmy Buffett, the Everly Brothers and several others but Sebastian wrote it)
Talkin’ to myself again
Wonderin’ if this travelin’ is good
Is there somethin’ else to doin’
We’d be doin’ if we could?
But all the stories we could tell
If it all blows up and goes to hell
I wish that we could sit upon a bed in some motel
And listen to the stories we could tell
Stared at that guitar in that museum in Tennessee
The nameplate on the glass brought back twenty melodies
The scars upon the face told of all the times he fell
Singin’ all the stories he could tell
All the stories he could tell
And I’ll bet you it still rings like a bell
I wish that we could sit upon a bed in some motel
And listen to the stories it could tell
If you’re on the road tracking down your every night
Playing for a living beneath a brightly colored light
If you ever wonder why you ride the carousel
You do it for the stories you can tell
All the stories we could tell
If it all blows up and goes to hell
I wish that we could sit upon a bed in some motel
And listen to the stories we could tell
Yes I wish that we could sit upon a bed in some motel
And listen to the stories it could tell
(I should have posted this in the Carnivalesque thread as well, given the line “if you ever wonder why you ride the carousel”.)
Mary Chapin Carpenter – A Lot Like Me
… ‘Cause I was living on nothing but a young girl’s dreams
With my cowboy boots and my old six-string
Hitching my wagon to a star
Dreaming of leaving those local bars
When I’d get him up at closing time
For a couple of songs and a chance to shine
Like the star that he longed to be
He looked a hell of a lot like me
I Wanna Learn a Love Song – Harry Chapin
I come fresh from the street
Fast on my feet, kinda lean and lazy
Not much meat on my bones, and a whole lot alone
And more than a little bit crazy
The old six string was all I had to keep my belly still
And for each full hour lesson I gave, I got a crisp ten dollar bill
She was married for seven years to a concrete castle king
She said she wanted to learn to play the guitar
And to hear her children sing
So I’d show up for ’bout once a week
In my faded tight legged jeans
With a backlog full of hobo stories and dilapidated dreams
She said, “I want to learn a love song full of happy things”
She said, “I want to learn a love song, won’t you let me hear you sing?”
She said, “I want to learn a love song, I want to hear you play”
She said, “I, I want to learn a love song before you go away
”
So I tried to teach her a couple of chords and an easy melody
But it always turned out she’d rather listen to my guitar and me
I could hear her old man laughing in the den, playing stud poker with the boys
While I sang so soft in the living room
Too scared to make much noise
I came one week, and the den was dark, and she met me at the door
And we sat on the couch and we sang and talked ’til I could not sing no more
The silence kept on building, her eyes grew much too wide
And I could hear both of our heartbeats, but there was no place to hide
She said, “I want to learn a love song full of happy things”
She said, “I want to learn a love song, won’t you let me hear you sing?”
She said, “I want to learn a love song, I want to hear you play”
She said, “I, I want to learn a love song before you go away”
Well, I guess you know what happened, God, I, I never been so clean
Yes, I feel like I’m working in a Hollywood movie, or living out a good bad dream
And all them pin-up girls in that tinsel world, never touched me like she can
It took another man’s wife in the real world life to make this boy a man
She said, “I want to learn a love song full of happy things”
She said, “I want to learn a love song, won’t you let me hear you sing?”
She said, “I, I want to learn a love song, I want to hear you play”
She said, “I want to learn a love song before you go away”
I guess you know I stayed
(Ooh, ooh, ooh)
Paul Kelly – The Oldest Story in the Book
“Richard’s guitar knows a whole lotta tunes
Harry starts a-picking on the mandolin”
(I posted the full text in the Telephone thread)
And one of my fave opening lines to a song Karl, noice pick up!
Old Guitars, Dave Warner’s from the Suburbs, on his album, When, which I highly recommend (Was a time I recall in local halls/When young men touched some magic space/Small amp and a cheap guitar made us tingle/Mingling in the atmosphere/We’re the smile on Maggie May/The chalk marks where John Lennon lay/We’re an old guitar./Old guitars never lose their heart/They lose their way they fall apart/But nothing else reaches the stars/Like the sound of old guitars.)
Old Violin, Johnny Paycheck and as good as his original is, my lean is to the George Strait cover (I can’t recall one time in my life/I’ve felt as lonely as I do tonight/I feel like I could lay down and get up no more/It’s the damndest feeling, I never felt it before/Tonight I feel like an old violin/Soon to be put away and never played again)
You Just Can’t Play a Sad Song on a Banjo, Willie Nelson (Now we all know the violin plays sweetly/And the steel guitar thrills all the world completely/But for all around good fun there’s really only one/And it’s round and firm and fully packed and puts the blues on the run/And you just can’t play a sad song on the banjo)
Strawberry Woman, Jason Isbell (There’s a warm wind blowing through the laundromat/There’s a young man crying in a cowboy hat/He got square-toed boots, so he ain’t for real/Wouldn’t last five minutes on a pedal steel)
Different Drum – Stone Poneys
Hong Kong Garden – Siouxsie and The Banshees
“cymbals crashing everywhere”
Yep, Karl, Simon’s ‘Graceland’ is a ripper song, and, as Rick indicates, isn’t the opening line classic stuff? – ‘The Mississippi Delta was shining like a National guitar’. Thanks for selecting this wonderfully on-theme number.
Excellent, on-theme, detailed material as usual, Dave – thanks for your bunch of fine additions to this developing ‘musical instruments’ songlist. (And, to single out but one song among those you put forward, your choice of ‘A Lot Like Me’ has given me a nudge to play some Mary Chapin Carpenter – an artist I like but haven’t listened to for a while.)
Thank you for your latest choices, Rick. These songs speak for themselves, like all good songs do, but I must admit that reading the lyric selection from Dave Warner’s ‘Old Guitars’ gave me a wonderful flashback to playing bass guitar with Murmurs in the Freshwater Creek Hall (near Anglesea) when I was eighteen. Even now, as I sit writing this, I’m only about fifteen minutes away from that very same hall!
Thanks, Swish, for your latest two. I thought ‘Different Drum’ was a particularly fine pickup, worthy of a Karl Dubravs Gold Star Award – and these awards are not given out lightly!
Devil Went Down to Georgia – Charlie Daniels Band
“Now you’re playin’ pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the Devil his due
I’ll bet a fiddle o’ gold against your soul, I think I’m better than you”
Bang The Drum Slowly – Emmylou Harris
“Bang the drum slowly, play the pipe lowly
To dust be returning, from dust we begin
Bang the drum slowly, I’ll speak of things holy
Above and below me, world without end”
Swordfishtrombone – Tom Waits
“He went and took up with a Salvation Army band girl
Who played dirty water on a swordfishtrombone”
The Hula-Hula Boys, Warren Zevon (I saw her leave the luau/With the one who parked the cars/And the fat one from the swimming pool/They were swayin’ arm in arm/I can hear the ukuleles playing/Down by the sea/She’s gone with the hula hula boys/She don’t care about me)
Real Live Bleeding Fingers and Broken Guitar Strings, Lucinda (I climbed all the way inside/Your tragedy/I got behind/The majesty/Of the different shapes/In every note/The endless tapes/Of every word you wrote/With real live bleeding fingers/Broken guitar strings)
No Surrender, Bruce (Well, now young faces grow sad and old/And hearts of fire grow cold/We swore blood brothers against the wind/I’m ready to grow young again/And hear your sister’s voice calling us home/Across the open yards/Well, maybe we’ll cut someplace of our own/With these drums and these guitars)
(Crazy for You But) Not That Crazy, Magnetic Fields, and if you don’t know this artist or the album this song is from get on it, brilliant (I pretended you were Jesus/you were just dying to save me/I stood beneath your window/with my ukulele/I made my yard a playground/just in case we had a baby)
Thanks for your three choices, PB. To select one for comment, ‘Devil Went Down to Georgia’ is just about the musical instrument song par excellence.
Thank you, Rick, for your latest four songs – to pick out just one for comment, Springsteen’s ‘No Surrender’ is among the top few songs on the Born in the USA album, in my opinion – and, I realise, that’s saying something.
Ukelele Lady – Bette Midler & others
Squeezebox – The Who
(Double entrendres and unusual instrumentation)
The theme is buzzing along nicely KD. One gold star already to Swish (deservedly, again) although I would have awarded it to him for ‘Mandolin Wind’ :).
I feel like a bronze star is due for Peter B’s ‘Ukelele Lady’ ~ with my favourtite version belonging to Arlo Guthrie.
Now, to add to the list:
The Lemon Pipers – My Green Tambourine
Don McLean – American Pie
‘In the streets, children screamed
Lovers cried, and the poets dreamed
Not a word was spoken
Church bells all were broken’
My first entry was all about guitars. Here are some other instruments
The Old Orange Flute – The Dubliners
In the County Tyrone, near the town of Dungannon,
Where many the ructions meself had a hand in.
Bob Williamson lived, a weaver by trade,
And all of us thought him a stout Orange blade,
On the Twelfth of July as it yearly did come,
Bob played with his flute to the sound of a drum.
You may talk of your harp, your piano or lute,
But none can compare with the Old Orange Flute.
Bob, the deceiver, he took us all in;
He married a Papist named Bridget McGinn.
Turned Papist himself and forsook the old cause
That gave us our freedom, religion and laws.
Now, boys of the townland made some noise upon it,
And Bob had to flee to the province of Connaught.
He fled with his wife and his fixings to boot,
And along with the latter his Old Orange Flute.
At the chapel on Sunday to atone for past deeds,
He’d say Paters and Aves and counted his beads.
‘Til after some time, at the priest’s own desire
He went with his old flute to play in the choir.
He went with his old flute for to play for the Mass,
But the instrument shivered and sighed, oh, alas,
And try though he would, though it made a great noise,
The flute would play only “The Protestant Boys.”
Bob jumped and he stared and got in a flutter
And threw the old flute in the blessed holy water.
He thought that this charm would bring some other sound;
When he tried it again, it played “Croppies Lie Down.”
Now, for all he could whistle and finger and blow,
To play Papish music he found it no go.
“Kick the Pope” and “The Boyne Water” it freely would sound,
But one Papish squeak in it couldn’t be found.
At the council of priests that was held the next day
They decided to banish the old flute away.
They couldn’t knock heresy out of it’s head,
So they bought Bob a new one to play in it’s stead.
The flute was condemned and its fate was pathetic
‘Twas fastened and burned at the stake as a heretic.
As the flames soared around it, they heard a strange noise;
‘Twas the old flute still whistling “The Protestant Boys.”
“Toora lu, toora lay”
(Similar theme) The Orange and the Green – The Irish Rovers
“For both sides tried to claim me, but I was smart because
I played the flute or played the harp, depending where I was”
Danny Boy – Lots of folk singers and sentimental Irish people.
“Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling”
O’Carolan Tribute – The Fureys
I sat and I thought of a man O’Carolan
Who played for kings and lords and ladies
To hear him play, oh must have been wondrous
To feel such music played at his command
And the people spoke of your mighty godly gift
Bestowed on you when you were a boy
To play the harp with your magical fingers
To compose such music that left no desire
The Piper O’ Dundee – Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger (Traditional song from the Jacobite Period)
The piper came to our town
To our town, to our town
The piper came to our town
And he played bonnielie*
He play’d a spring the laird to please
A spring brent new from ‘yont the seas
And then he gae his bags a wheeze
And played anither key
And wasna he a rougey, a rougey, a rougey
And wasna he a rougey, the piper o’ Dundee
McPherson’s Lament. (Words by Robbie Burns, tune supposedly written by James McPherson himself – McPherson was a real person, hanged in 1700)
Fareweel, ye dungeons dark and strang, fareweel,fareweel tae ye,
MacPherson’s time will no be lang on yonder gallows tree
Chorus
Sae rantinly and sae wantonly, sae dauntinly gaedhe
For he played a tune and he danced aroon, below the gallows tree
It was by a woman’s treacherous hand that I was condemned tae dee
Above a ledge at a window she sat and a blanket she threw ower me
Chorus
There’s some come here tae see me hang, and somecome tae buy my fiddle
But before that I would part wi her I’d brak her through the middle
And he took the fiddle in tae baith o his hands andhe brak it ower a stane
Sayin, nay other hand shall play on thee when I am dead and gane
Chorus
The reprieve was comin ower the Brig o Banff tae set MacPherson free,
But they pit the clock a quarter afore, and they hanged him frae the tree.
Chorus
Double entendres and (especially) unusual instrumentation welcome – thanks, PB, for ‘Ukulele Lady ‘ and ‘Squeezebox’.
Yep, the theme is really buzzing along, Karl. Swish is certainly a gold star winner, one way or the other!
Thanks for your latest two – I thought ‘American Pie’ was aparticularly good pickup, as you had to really look closely to find the musical instrument.
Nice to be here: Moody Blues
The Orange and the Green was a 1967 hit song by The Irish Rovers about a divided family during the Northern Ireland “Troubles” (really a Civil War)
“Oh, it is the biggest mix-up that you have ever seen.
My father, he was Orange and me mother, she was green”
“With Mother every Sunday, to Mass I’d proudly stroll.
Then after that, the Orange lodge would try to save my soul.
For both sides tried to claim me, but i was smart because
I’d play the flute or play the harp, depending where I was.”
Thanks for ‘Nice to Be Here’, Liam, from one of your ‘go to’ bands, the Moody Blues.
Thank you, PB, for ‘The Orange and the Green’, where the musical instruments mentioned have a symbolic/emblematic meaning. I also recall that when I was a kid in the late sixties/early seventies The Irish Rovers were really big – on TV, the radio and in terms of popular recordings.
Kate Bush – ‘The Saxophone Song’, a moody, atmospheric, wonderful song, written when Kate was around fifteen and recorded when she was sixteen. It appeared on her first album, The Kick Inside, released in 1978:
The Saxophone Song
You’ll find me in a Berlin bar
In a corner, brooding
You know that I go very quiet
When I am listening to you
There’s something special indeed
There’s something special indeed
In all the places where I’ve seen you shine, boy
There’s something very real in how I feel, honey
It’s in me, it’s in me, and you know it’s for real
Tuning in on your saxophone
The candle burning over your shoulder
Is throwing shadows from your saxophone
A surly lady in tremor
The stars that climb from her bowels
Those stars make towers on vowels
You’ll never see that you had all of me
You’ll never see the poetry you stirred in me
Of all the stars I’ve seen that shine so brightly
I’ve never known or felt, in myself, so rightly
It’s in me, it’s in me, and you know it’s real
Tuning in on your saxophone
Donovan – Hurdy Gurdy Man (1968)
Thrown like a star in my vast sleep/I open my eyes to take a peep
To find that I was by the sea/Me gazing with tranquility
‘Tis then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man/Came singing songs of love
Then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man/Came singing songs of love
“Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy”, he sang (repeat twice)
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by means of a hand-cranked rosined wheel which rubs against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin (Wikipedia).
Peter B, I posted The Orange and the Green at 5.19 yesterday along with quite a few other songs, which for some reason Kevin did not comment upon.
Thanks for Donovan’s ‘Hurdy Gurdy Man’ and the accompanying material, Karl – a spot-on song, to be sure, for this theme.
Arthur – Hoodoo Gurus
“Arthur played the bass
He had an angel’s face
Jiving with the Hoodoos, man,
No-one could take his place”
Smartarse Songwriters – Skyhooks
“I don’t wanna hear no love songs, seventy-eight piece
orchestra, girl choirs, fancy session men, multi-track
harmonies, conga drums, moog synthesizers, electric
pop-up toasters, Phase 3 GT Falcons with suckpower…”
Million Dollar Riff – Skyhooks
“Well there’s a thousand guitars all over the land
And a thousand drummers and a thousand bands
And a thousand agents with their ears to the ground – Gimmee Gimmee
They’re all lookin’ for the riff with the million dollar sound”
Rockabilly Billy – The Sports
“Rockabilly Billy bought an engagement ring
Gave it to his girl and she didn’t say a thing
And now he’s getting worried
Cause he sold his guitar
Had to get a job yeah parking cars”
Apologies, Dave, for omitting, initially, to comment upon your fine, thoughtful selection of thematically apt folk material, including ‘The Orange and the Green’. I intended to do so, of course, but was distracted from the computer just after the time you posted this material. Your comments and song choices I’m referring to illustrate, among numerous other things, the (perhaps surprising) extent to which folk songs directly refer to musical instruments.
Fine foursome of Oz songs, thanks Swish. I remember buying the ‘Million Dollar Riff’ single as a teenager. Back then, of course, one bought singles a lot, sometimes because one didn’t have the ready funds to buy albums – and also because most albums were one-third quality and two-thirds filler crap.
To celebrate The Beatles taking the US by storm, via the Ed Sullivan Show & ‘I Wanna Hold Your Hand’ zooming to #1, on this day in 1964 ~ here’s:
Back In The USSR
‘Oh, show me ’round your snow-peaked mountains/Way down south
Take me to your daddy’s farm
Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out/Come and keep your comrade warm
I’m back In the U.S.S.R
You don’t know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the U.S.S.R’
Steve Earle, part 1:
Guitar Town (Nothing ever happened ’round my hometown/And I ain’t the kind to just hang around/But I heard someone calling my name one day/And I followed that voice down the lost highway/Everybody told me you can’t get far/On thirty-seven dollars and a Jap guitar [with awareness he changed the line to cheap guitar]/Now I’m smokin’ into Texas with the hammer down/And a rocking little combo from the guitar town)
Hillbilly Highway (Now Granddaddy rolled over in his grave/The day that I quit school/I just sat around the house playing my guitar/And Daddy said I was a fool/My mama cried when I said goodbye/You never heard such a lonesome sound/Now I’m standing on this highway/And if you’re going my way/You know where I’m bound)
NYC (He was standing on the highway somewhere way out in the sticks/Guitar across his shoulder like a 30-ought-six/He was staring in my headlights when I come around the bend/Climbed up on my shotgun side and told me with a grin)
You Know the Rest (Robert Johnson went to the crossroads, a guitar in his hand/Well, the devil had him a guitar too/He says, “This is what you need, man”/Yeah, you can be the best and you know the rest/Well, this song ain’t got no reason/Hell, this song barely rhymes!/Well, it come to me when I was asleep/And it wakes me up sometimes/I can’t get no rest, you know the rest)
Thanks, Karl – with the mention of exotic instruments like balalaikas in ‘Back in the USSR’ you are very much in your own gold star territory!
Thanks KD! I’m trying to empty my non-Bob entries before I get into his Bobness ~ he has quite a contribution to make to this theme ~ but for now here is:
Blue Mink (featuring Herbie Flowers) with Banner Man:
‘…..And the drums went boom as the cornets play
And the tuba “Umba’ed” all the way
And the kids and the dogs were laughing as they ran
And the Banner-Man held the banner high
With an Allelujah in his eye
And I wish that I could be a Banner-Man
Thanks so much for the highly apt Steve Earle, part 1 songs, Rick. I loved your attention to lyric detail, too, especially in your informative square brackets ‘cheap guitar’ comment.
I really like ‘Banner Man’, Karl, as I’ve indicated in a comment connected to a previous theme. Thanks for putting the song forward in the present context
And, of course, I very much look forward to the material related to His Bobness.
Some Tom T songs, and I know I’ve banged on about Tom T many times in KDs theme songs project but he is such a good songwriter. Short stories in under 3 mins. Filled with human emotion, wit & humour, wry observations, empathy and a real feel for community, all of which can be heard in the following songs:
Homecoming (Well, I knew you was gonna ask me/Who the lady is that’s sleeping in the car/That’s just a girl who works for me/And man, she plays a pretty mean guitar/We worked in San Antone last night/She didn’t even have the time to dress/She drove me down from Nashville/And to tell the truth I guess she needs the rest)
The Year that Clayton Delany Died (Clayton was the best guitar picker in our town/I thought he was a hero and I used to follow Clayton around/I often wondered why Clayton, who seemed so good to me/Never took his guitar and made it down in Tennessee/Well, daddy said he drank a lot, but I could never understand/I knew he used to pick up in Ohio with a five-piece band/Clayton used to tell me, “Son, you better put that ol’ guitar away/There ain’t no money in it, it’ll lead you to an early grave”)
The Little Lady Preacher (She had a guitar picker by the name of Luther Short/A hairy-legged soul lost out in sin/She would turn and smile at Luther when the program would commence/With a voice as sweet as angels, she would break out in a hymn/I was picking for her too with what we call the doghouse bass/I clung to every word that passed her lips/She was down on booze and cigarettes and high on days to come/And she’d punctuate the prophecy with movements of her hips)
Nashville is a Groovy Little Town (Remember how I used to sit and drink and play guitar/And I’d get up and sing for all those folks at Jody’s bar?/Well, I found out it ain’t too bad, the way I pick and sound/Nashville is a groovy little town)
Cinnamon Girl – Neil Young
“ Ten silver saxes, a bass with a bow
The drummer relaxes and waits between shows
For his cinnamon girl”
His Bobness is chaffing at the bit to join in, so I’ve promised to let him loose tomorrow. Meanwhile, here’s:
Me & Bobby McGee
‘I pulled my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana
I was playin’ soft while Bobby sang the blues, yeah
Windshield wipers slappin’ time, I was holdin’ Bobby’s hand in mine
We sang every song that driver knew’
And for explanation:
the “harpoon” refers to a harmonica, often called a “blues harp” or “mouth harp” in musical slang.
As I’ve indicated a number of times before, Rick, I’m a big Tom T fan myself, and his songs are always most welcome in this long-running Almanac theme series. Thanks for your four from Tom.
Thank you for Young’s ‘Cinnamon Girl’, Swish – he’s been popular over our long and enjoyable song theme journey.
And the journey continues…
Fine pickup with ‘Me and Bobby McGee’, Karl – thank you.
And, Karl, I meant to add above – yes, let loose the Bobster!
Boy on the Run – The Dingoes (written by Broderick Smith and Chris Stockley)
Down the street the accordions are calling
“Stay away boy, there’s nothing for you here”
And he can hear the buildings falling
As they’re stripping away all of his years
Baby Let Me Bang Your Box – Daddy Cool (originally a hit in the US for Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts)
Well my baby had a party the other night
The party was gettin’ dead
I spied a piano in the corner
Looked at my baby and said
Baby let me bang your box
Baby let me bang your box
Baby let me play your eighty-eight
I’m gonna bang till the whole house rocks
When I was young, they called me “Piano Bill”
When I was young, they called me “Piano Bill”
Cause I played so fine, gave everybody a thrill
(I don’t think this was really a song about piano playing)
Cosher Bailey’s Engine.
This is a folk song about Crayshaw Bailey, a Welsh Industrialist who made money in Iron and Coal but also ran a railway in Wales. Some of the verses are about “Cosher” and other verses have been added about (fictional) members of his family. It is definitely a folk song, no one knows the writers of the lyrics. Ewan MacColl recorded a version of it and I first heard it sung by Martin Wyndham- Read at Frank Traynor’s folk club in 1964. Mostly however it was sung at Welsh Rugby matches. I have included the first verse, the chorus and the verse that mentions a musical instrument.
Cosher Bailey had an engine
It was always wanting mending,
And according to the power,
She could do four miles an hour
Chorus:
|Did you ever see
Did you ever saw
Such a funny sight before
Cosher Bailey’s aunty Anna
she played the grand pianna
She went Hammer! Hammer! Hammer!
All the neighbours said, “God damn her””
Thank you for these three interesting and thematically highly fitting choices, Dave. Two of the songs provoked personal memories. I remember Brod Smith phoning twenty -one year old me around 1983 to discuss some original songs I’d sent him on cassette, while when I was about a decade younger the kid up the street from where I lived used to play me selections from his older brother’s wonderful record collection, often new releases, and one was the Daddy Who, Daddy Cool album which included ‘Baby Let Me Bang Your Box’. The kid who introduced me to this song, who was a few years older than me, also explained its, er, ‘meaning’ to a wide-eyed me.
Happy Sunday KD!
A bit of drizzle over this way this morning ~ it is refreshing after a few days of ‘hot’.
Here’s Bob’s opening triplicate:
Talkin’ New York (1962) – the 2nd song Bob wrote after arriving in New York in January 1961 & the first original sing to be released on a studio album.
‘Well, I got a harmonica job, begun to play
Blowing my lungs out for a dollar a day
I blowed inside out and upside down
The man there said he loved my sound
He was raving about he loved my sound
Dollar a day’s worth’
A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall (1963) – from the Freewheelin’ album
‘And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin’
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin’’
Dusty Old Fairground (1963) – a demo song played only once in concert in April 1963 ~ and finally officially released on the 2025 Bootleg Series Vol.18 ;Through The Open Window’.
‘As the harmonicas whined in the lonesome nighttime
Drinking red wine as we’re rolling
Many a turnin’ I turn, many a lesson I learn
From following them fairgrounds a-calling’
Happy Sunday to you, too, Karl! It’s muggy where I am, though I don’t think much rain is in the offing, alas.
Excellent to see that The Great Man has entered the building with a triplicate – and ‘Hard Rain’ would be in my top five Bob favourites.
‘Violin’ written and recorded by Kate Bush (released on the Never For Ever album -1980). While Kate is generally known for ethereal, moody, ‘inventive’ material, she has recorded some rockers along the lines of this one.
Violin
Four strings across the bridge
Ready to carry me over
Over the quavers, drunk in the bars
Out of the realm of the orchestra
Out of the realm of the orchestra
[Pre-Chorus]
Filling me up with the shivers
Filling me up with the shivers and quivers
Filling me up with the shivers
[Chorus]
Get the bow going
Let it scream to me
Violin, violin, violin
Get the bow going
Let it scream to me
Violin, violin, violin
[Verse 2]
Paganini up on the chimney
Lord of the dance with Nero and old Nicky
Whack that devil into my fiddlestick
Give me the Banshees for B.V.s
Give me the Banshees for B.V.s
[Pre-Chorus]
Jigging along with the fiddle, oh, Johnny
Jigging along with the fiddle-dee-dee
Jigging along with the fiddle-dee-diddle-dee-dee
[Chorus]
Get the bow going
Let it scream to me
Violin, violin, violin
Get the bow going
Let it scream to me
Violin, violin, violin
[Instrumental Break]
[Pre-Chorus]
Jigging along with the fiddle, oh, Johnny
Jigging along with the fiddle, oh, Johnny
Jigging along with the fiddle-dee-diddle-dee-dee
[Chorus]
Get the bow going
Let it scream to me
Violin, violin, violin
Get the bow going
Let it scream to me
Violin, violin, violin
[Outro]
Get the bow going
Let it scream to me
Violin, violin, violin
Get the bow going
Let it scream to me
Violin, violin, violin
Adelaide – Paul Kelly
“Find me a bar or a girl or guitar, now where do you go on a Saturday night?
I own this town, I spilled my wine at the bottom of the statue of Colonel Light
And the streets are so wide, everybody’s inside
Sitting in the same chairs they were sitting in last year
(This is my town!)
All the king’s horses, all the king’s men
Wouldn’t drag me back again
To Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide”
Careless – Paul Kelly
“How many cabs in New York City, how many angels on a pin?
How many notes in a saxophone, how many tears in a bottle of gin?
How many times did you call my name, knock at the door but you couldn’t get in?
How many stars in the milky way, how many ways can you lose a friend?”
Charlie Owen’s Slide Guitar – Paul Kelly
“I was crawling, in need of inspiration
So disgusted, aching for a cure
Right there in my neighbourhood
A spell from the old, dark wood
Charlie Owen’s slide guitar”
Love PKs Careless, up there with Deeper Water as some of his best songs.
Some pre 60s songs:
Watching terrific tv show, Fallout and it has a great soundtrack including this instrumental, Devil Drums by The Raymond Scott Quintette and recorded way back in 1939.
Has Duelling Banjos been mentioned? (I’m sure it has). A great bluegrass instrumental by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith and ah, appropriated for the film, Deliverance, which had a huge impact.
Padam, padam…, Edith Piaf
The Toy Piano, Liberace, another instrumental to warm the heart
Thanks for the fine Paul Kelly triple, Swish – excellent stuff!
Interesting and highly fitting (theme-wise) selection of material, thanks Rick – a neat idea to go a bit further into the historical past than is typically the case in terms of our themed songlists.
And for some reason or another, I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Lee (Liberace), so I was pleased you included ‘The Toy Piano’ – basically, I feel, I’ve liked Liberace because of his entertainment value, a significant part of which was a witty sense of humour. Musically, well, that may have been a different matter, even if he was certainly a well above-average pianist. I agree with a comment I read somewhere that his approach to playing resulted in rendering difficult music simpler, and simpler material more ‘difficult’.
Some Bruce:
A Night with the Jersey Devil, released as a Halloween single but if you saw Bruce in the 70s and 80s he used to tell a great story about meeting Clarence for the first time and rubbed a fair bit of this (hilarious) spooky Jersey devil story in it, which we got to see at the Sydney 85 shows (16 witches cast 16 spells/Make me guitar outta skin and human skull/Sing you a song like the wind in the sandy loam/Bring you baby out’cha your happy home)
Rosalita (Well, hold on tight, stay up all night, ’cause Rosie, I’m comin’ on strong/By the time we meet the morning light, I will hold you in my arms/I know a pretty little place in Southern California down San Diego way/There’s a little café where they play guitars all night and all day/You can hear ’em in the back room strummin’/So hold tight, baby, ’cause don’t you know daddy’s comin’/Oh, everybody, so!/Rosalita, jump a little lighter)
Freehold, written about his home town, first played at a fund raiser for the local Community centre and it was played during Springsteen’s Ghost of Tom Joad solo tour in Australia, where he played the Palais! Two nights, just brilliant (Well my folks all lived and worked right here in Freehold/I remember running up the street past the convent to the church here in Freehold/I chased my daddy down in these bars/Grew my hair long and fell in love with a guitar/Here in Freehold)
The Wish, one of my fave Bruce songs, it is a throwaway tune and a birthday song for his Mum but Bruce being Bruce there is so much more in it than that, especially the psychological observations ([First verse] Dirty old street all slushed up in the rain and snow/Little boy and his ma shivering outside a rundown music store window/That night on top of a Christmas tree shines one beautiful star/And lying underneath a brand-new Japanese guitar … [Last verse] Last night we all sat around laughing at the things that guitar brought us/And I laid awake thinking ’bout the other things it’s brought us/Well tonight I’m taking requests here in the kitchen, this one’s for you, ma, let me come right out and say it/It’s overdue, but baby, if you’re looking for a sad song, well I ain’t gonna play it)
Thanks for the four Bruces, Rick. In the best possible way, ‘Rosalita’ is the gift that keeps on giving when it comes to our series of themed songlists.
Here’s a triplet of early 60’s Dylan demos ~ eventually released on the Bootleg series:
Eternal Circle
‘As the tune finally folded I laid down the guitar
And looked for the girl who’d stayed for so long
But her shadow was missin’ for all of my searchin’
So I picked up my guitar and began the next song’
Lay Down Your Weary Tune
‘The ocean wild like an organ played
The seaweed wove its strands
The crashing waves like cymbals clashed
Against the rocks and the sand’
Percy’s Song
‘And I played my guitar through the night to the day
Turn, turn, turn again
And the only tune my guitar could play
Was, “Oh the cruel rain and the wind”‘
Orchestra Ladies – Ross Ryan
“ Step right on up ye who seek to delight
I?m a stranger in town and I’m free for the night
I have a fine room in a city hotel
Where I keep a guitar and the songs that I sell
All of you orchestra ladies in town
With your five-and-ten jewels and your four dollar gowns”
Waiting For The End Of The World – Elvis Costello
“ Things got back to normal as the train began to roll again
We got to the station about twenty minutes later
The legendary hitch-hiker says that he knows where it’s at
The guy’d like to go to Spain or somewhere like that
With his three-tone Bible and his smoldering cigarettes
His suntanned lotion and his castanets”
When Bouzoukis Played – Vicky.Leandros
,” When bouzoukis played
Through the summer night
It was near the shore
We’d never met before
But you took my hand
That scene was grand
And fires lit the sand
When bouzoukis played, the dance began”
Thanks for the Bob triplet, Karl. Interesting how many demos he did that were released much later – far more than any other musical artist it seems. As a contrast, one of my personal favourites, Kate Bush, as far as I’m aware, has very few demos in a similar context, apart from a small number of early ones (like the wonderful ‘Fire Inside a Snowball’) that could be officially released.
Thanks, Swish, for your latest three – mentions of castanets and bouzoukis deserve a special nod in terms of our instruments theme.
Here are four songs from various genres.
(traditional folk)
Brisbane Ladies (to the tune of the English folk song Spanish Ladies) First verse, chorus and instrument verse.
Farewell and adieu to you Brisbane ladies
Farewell and adieu to you girls of Toowong
For we’ve sold all our cattle and have to be moving
But we hope we shall see you again before long
Chorus
We’ll rant and we’ll roar like true Queensland drovers
We’ll rant and we’ll roar as onward we push
Until we get back to the Augathella station
It’s flaming dry going through the old Queensland bush
The girls of Toomancy they look so entrancing
Those young bawling heifers are out looking for fun
With the waltz and the polka and all kinds of dancing
To the racketty old banjo of Henry Gunn
(19th Century Music Hall “folk”)
McNamara’s Band
Oh, me name is MacNamara, I’m the leader of the band
Although we’re few in numbers, we’re the finest in the land
We play at wakes and weddings, and at every fancy ball
And when we play the funerals, we play the March from Saul
Oh, the drums go bang and the cymbals clang, and the horns they blaze away
McCarthy pumps the old bassoon while I the pipes do play
And Hennessey Tennessee tootles the flute, and the music is something grand
A credit to old Ireland is MacNamara’s band
(20th Century Singer-Songwriter folk)
Song for Jacqueline – Judy Small
The clouds outside my window
Are grey and white today
I’m six miles high in sunshine
and I”m flying home to stay
And suddenly my magazine
is blurring through my tears
For Jacqueline du Pre has died
at forty two young years
And oh to see her fingers dance
Upon the trembling string
And oh to feel the spirit rise and to hear the cello sing
And to hear the cello sing.
Music’s always moved me for as long as I recall
And watching people play has been
the greatest joy of all
I’d sit in my pyjamas watching concerts on tv
The orchestra will fill my head
playing just for me
And clearly I remember the first time I saw her there
Young and strong and tossing back
A mane of long blonde hair
The power of her playing held me
spellbound to the screen
The cello took me places my young heart
had never been
The plane is coming down now
as I wiped away my tears
The woman sitting next to me
says “Are you alright there dear?”
And I smile a little sadly
cause I know I can’t explain
I lost a piece of childhood
I can’t get back again.
But I still hear the music so strong and grand and pure
and I still recall the pleasure
that touched me to the core
And I think when I get home tonight
I’ll while the time away
With Elgars Opus ninety five and Jacqueline du Pre
(Musical Comedy Jazz)
Now You Has Jazz – Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong, written by Cole Porter
(This comes from the 50s film “High Society” and is the best thing about the film. I saw it with my parents as a kid and liked it. Got it out on video 40 years later and realised how much the times, and my taste had changed. The music was still good, though.)
Dear gentlefolk of Newport
Or maybe I should
Say hats and cats
I want you to lend an ear
Because, well, I want you
To hear some really
Shimmering sharps and flats
For these cozy virtuosi
Just about the greatest
In the trade are fixing
To show you now, precisely how
Or approximately
Jazz music is made
Well, you take some skins
Jazz begins
Then you take a bass
Man, now we’re
Getting someplace
Take a box
One that rocks
Take a blue horn
New Orleans born
You take a stick
With a lick
Take a bone
Ho ho, hold the phone
Take a spot
Cool and hot
Now you has jazz, jazz
Jazz, jazz, jazz
That’s positively theraputic
Now you has jazz, jazz, jazz
Masters Hall and Young
That’s Ed Hall
And Tommy Young
Now you has Masters
Kyle and Shaw
That’s Billy Kyle
Arvil Shaw
Now you has Mr. Barrett Deems
And now listen to, well, you know who
Hey, Pops, you wanna grab a little, leave a little
Yeah, Daddy, yeah
Here we go
If you sail
(Sailing, sailing)
Over the sea
(Will you wait for me)
Take my tip, they’re all
Molto hip in Italy
(Well, Arrevederci)
(As for France)
Oh, I know you’re
Very big there
(Yes, believe it or not)
I do believe, I do indeed
(Frenchmen all prefer what
They call le jazz hot)
Take a plane
(Bobba doo zot)
Go to Siam in Bangkok
Today round the clock
Well, they all like to jam
Indians on the Amazon
Beat one bar and
All of them are
(Well, gone, man, gone)
From the Equator
Up to the Pole
Everybody winging
Everybody singing
That rock, rock, rock
Rock, rock and roll
From the East to the West
From the coast to the coast
Jazz is king cause jazz is
The thing folks, dig, best
That’s jazz
Thanks for this – as ever – interesting and apt selection of songs, Dave. To select just one to comment upon – as you do, I have a particular liking for ‘Now You Has Jazz’. Bing and Pops make a perhaps surprisingly good singing combination, though one says this then recalls Crosby’s brother having a well-known band that started of decades earlier, Bob Crosby and the Bobcats and therefore the Crosby brothers connection to music that could swing.
Louisiana Saturday Night, Don Williams, one of country music great singers, that’s all (My brother Bill and my other brother Jack/Belly full of beer and a possum in the sack/15 kids in the front porch light/Louisiana Saturday night/Hey, you get down the fiddle, and you get down the bow/Kick off your shoes, and throw ’em on the floor/Dance in the kitchen ’til the morning light/Louisiana Saturday night)
Yodeling Accordion Gal, The Topp Twins, remember this great comedy duo from NZ, and as it turns out they’re fans of yodeling, mind you, who isn’t.
When She Plays the Toy Piano, Magnetic Fields an odd as and charming songwriter with beautiful melodies you can float away on (When?she plays the toy piano/With her?arabesques and trills/She’s a wonder, we all love her/But it doesn’t pay the bills/She should sell that toy piano/Move to town, and get a job/Buy a studio apartment/Settle down and marry Bob)
You Play Glockenspiel, I’ll Pay Drums, The Beautiful South, as fine a British pop band as ever there was (You do English, I’ll do sums/You break fingers, I’ll break thumbs/You play Dad’s, and I’ll play Mum’s/You play Glockenspiel and I’ll play drums)
Such an interesting and, of course, thematically spot-on quartet of selections, thanks Rick. The lyrics to ‘Louisiana Saturday Night’, for example, instantly and in a highly effective way evoke a particular location and time.
Here’s 3 non-Bob songs:
Neil Young – Tonight’s The Night
Well, late at night when the people were gone
He used to pick up my guitar
And sing a song in a shaky voice
That was real as the day was long
JJ Cale – After Midnight
After midnight
We’re gonna let it all hang out
After midnight
Gonna shake your tambourine
Steely Dan – Deacon Blue
Learn to work the saxophone
I’ll play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whiskey all night long
And die behind the wheel
Thanks, for the ‘three non-Bobs’, Karl. J J Cale’s, in particular, is something of a classic, isn’t it?
I can’t believe such an obvious one has been overlooked (by me, more than anyone else lol): “Won’t get fooled again” by The Who.
“Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again”.
As for songs mentioning bells, the first that comes to my mind is “The Bells of Rhymney”. Although it’s originally by Pete Seeger, I know the version by The Byrds.
“Lay down your weary tune” has been mentioned already (as a Bob Dylan song) but for what it’s worth, I’m more familiar with The Byrds’ version.
Here’s Bob’s Tuesday triple:
Chimes Of Freedom – 1964 (off the ‘Another Side of Bob Dylan’ album)
In the city’s melted furnace, unexpectedly we watched
With faces hidden while the walls were tightening
As the echo of the wedding bells before the blowin’ rain
Dissolved into the bells of the lightning
She Belongs To Me (1965 – off the ‘Bringing It All Back Home’ album)
Bow down to her on Sunday
Salute her when her birthday comes.
For Halloween buy her a trumpet
And for Christmas, give her a drum.
Farewell Angelina (1965 outtake that Joan Baez made her own ~ which is OK, given that it was probably written by Dylan about Joan when the relationship came to a shuddering halt).
Farewell Angelina, the bells of the crown
I’ve been stolen by bandits, I must follow the sound
The triangle tingles, the music plays slow
But farewell Angelina, the night is on fire and I must go
Regarding your earlier comment re the number of Dylan demo’s that emerged much later (1991 onwards) ~ by mid 1963, of Dylan’s 58 composed songs, only 13 made it onto a studio album.
Over time, others recorded the demos (eg refer Liam’s comment directly above about The Byrds & Lay Down Your Weary Tune).
And yes, JJ Cale’s ‘After Midnight’ is a classic as are a good number of other JJ Cale songs – I’ve got a lotta love for his music & songs.
Thank you, Liam, for your latest choices and comments. One of (the many) interesting aspects of these themed songlists is that quite often apparently obvious song inclusions take a considerable time to surface and, sometimes, I suppose, never do.
Thanks, Karl, for Bob’s Tuesday triple – he’s really coming into his own in terms of this musical instruments theme!
Thanks, also, for the additional material about his demos – it seems that, especially earlier in his career, he was simply writing too many songs to fit on his own albums (as opposed to being recorded by other performers).
More Bruce:
Blinded by the Light, defs the first reference and I threw the second in because it is a theme adjacent reference :) (adman drummers, bummers and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat/In the dumps with the mumps as the adolescent pumps his way into his hat … Some silicone sister with her manager’s mister told me I got what it takes/She said, “I’ll turn you on, sonny, to something strong, if you play that song with the funky break”)
Wild Billy’s Circus Story, musical instrument reference just barely sneaks in! (Whoa, and a press roll, drummer go, ballerina to and fro/Cartwheeling up on that tightrope with a cannon blast, lightning flash/Moving fast through the tent Mars bent, he’s gonna miss his fall/Oh, God save the human cannonball)
New York City Serenade, a stunning highlight of his most recent visit to Australia in 2017 (Ah, shake it, downtown, watch it, oh, watch out for your junkman/Shake it, watch out, bah, ah, ah, watch out for your junkman/Ah, shake that guitar, shake that damn guitar, ah, watch out for your junkman/Ah, shake, talking ’bout it, ah, ah, come on, little girl/Watch out/Ooh, ooh, ooh/Ooh, ooh, ooh/Oh, ah, yeah/Oh, huh, oh, huh/Shake that damn guitar/Ah, watch out for your junkman)
Kevin D’s post about Kate Bush’s The Saxophone Song has me reflecting on one of the great lifestyle choice songs, Van THE MAN Morrison’s Cleaning Windows: “I’m a working man in my prime, cleaning windows”.
Oh, Sam was up on top
And I was on the bottom with the v
We went for lemonade and Paris buns
At the shop and broke for tea
I collected from the lady
And I cleaned the fanlight inside-out
I was blowing saxophone on the weekend
In that down joint.
… featuring some great mellow baritone Sax riffs (to rival Clarence Clemons). And the word “down” sung strung out over 3 beats.
Thanks for this Bruce trio, Rick – some of his numbers are epic, multi-themed wonders, like ‘Blinded by the Light’.
‘Headknocker’ from Foreigner’s eponymous debut album (1977):
‘He’s got an old Fender Strat
Plays behind his back
While he sings out Louie, Louie’
That is some serious Dylan in your last post Karl. I think Bruce’s version of Chimes is pretty damn good and Dylan’s “version” of Farewell, Angelina from the Bootleg series is a standout for me.
Here are a few rippers, if I do say so myself:
Kick Out the Jams (motherfuckers), I had to add the bracketed phrase because that is how we were first introduced to the song in our teens and is to today how I know this great ragged and raw song by MC5 (So you got to give it up, you know you can’t get enough Miss McKenzie/’Cause it gets in your brain, it drives you insane/With the frenzy (The frenzy, eh, eh, eh)/The wigglin’ guitars, girl, the crash of the drums/Makes you wanna keep-a-rockin’ ’til morning comes/Let me be who I am/And let me kick out the jam/Yes, kick out the jams/I done kicked ’em out)
Australian Heat, Dave Warner’s from the Suburbs, towards the end of the song Warner adlibs to his sadly passed away foil and legend of a guitar player, Johnny Leopard the following line, “give me a bit of air-conditioned guitar Mr Leopard” and the line has stayed in the song when played live ever since. Johnny Leopard and that line are synonymous with the song and Warner.
Kick Drum Heart, The Avett Brothers, if you are not familiar with this band and song, go have a listen, great country rock band of the 2000s, title is basically the chorus, with the added delight of the instruments! (My-my-my heart like a kick drum/My, my heart like a kick drum/My, my heart like a kick drum/My, my love like a voice)
Golden Ring, George Jones and Tammy Wynette, yes, left the best to finish, and wow, this song, their voices deliver, sad and reflective, literally the base ingredients of great country songs. Here’s the whole song’s lyrics:
In a pawn shop in Chicago on a sunny summer day
A couple gazes at the wedding rings there on display
She smiles and nods her head as he says Honey that’s for you
It’s not much but it’s the best that I can do
Golden ring with one tiny little stone
Waiting there for someone to take it home
By itself it’s just a cold metalic thing
Only love can make a golden wedding ring
In a little wedding chapel later on that afternoon
An old up right piano plays that old familiar tune
Tears roll down her cheeks and happy thoughts run through her head
As he whispers low with this ring I thee wed
Golden ring with one tiny little stone
Shining ring now at last it’s found a home
By itself it’s just a cold metalic thing
Only love can make a golden wedding ring
In a small two room apartment as they fight their final round
He says you won’t admit it but I know you’re leavin’ town
She says one thing’s for certain I don’t love you anymore
And throws down the ring as she walks out the door
Golden ring with one tiny little stone
Cast aside like the love that’s dead and gone
By itself it’s just a cold metalic thing
Only love can make a golden wedding ring
In a pawn shop in Chicago on a sunny summer day
A couple gazes at the wedding rings there on display
Golden ring…
Rick K ~ I agree with your comment on Bruce’s coverage of Chimes of Freedom. I actually showcased him doing CoF in an earlier Dylan covers article.
Now, for a few more non-Bob entries:
Eric Bogle – No Mans Land
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o’er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
Steely Dan – Aja
Chinese music always sets me free
Angular banjoes sound good to me
Aja
When all my dime dancin’ is through
I run to you
The Waterboys – Don’t Bang The Drum
I know you love the high life, you love to leap around
You love to beat your chest and make your sound
But not here man – this is sacred ground
With a Power flowing through
And if I know you you’ll bang the drum
Like monkeys do
Thanks for your non-Bob three, Karl. It’s almost a binary thing for you, isn’t it? … Bob / Not Bob … or, if you like, a quintessentially dichotomous situation …
Perhaps my personal take on a comparable musical duality is the following – Lennon / McCartney …
Yes, we all have our own favourites, and that is only natural.
(Note: these comments are meant with friendly humour!)
Rick, you are right to post George Jones and Tammy Wynette with Golden Ring as it is the definitive version. But you should also check out Emmylou’s version which she performed with Linda Ronstadt and Kate and Anna McGarrigle. It is some of the finest harmony singing in country music.
Thanks for the tip (reminder) Dave, I haven’t listened to that version for years. On it now! Cheers
Three more very different genres
(County)
Drunken Angel – Lucinda Williams
Sun came up it was another day
And the sun went down
You were blown away
Why’d you let go of your guitar
Why’d you ever let it go that far
Drunken Angel
Could’ve held on to that long smooth neck
Let your hand remember every fret
Fingers touching each shiny string
But you let go of everything
Drunken Angel
Drunken Angel
You’re on the other side
Drunken Angel
You’re on the other side
(Scottish Folk from the Jacobite Rebellion)
Hey Johnny Cope
Cope sent a challenge frae Dunbar,
Sayin ‘Charlie meet me an’ ye daur;
An’ I’ll learn ye the airts o’ war,
If ye’ll meet me in the morning.’
Chorus
Hey! Johnnie Cope are ye waukin’ yet?
Or are your drums a-beating yet?
If ye were waukin’ I wad wait,
Tae gang tae the coals in the morning.
When Charlie looked the letter upon,
He drew his sword its scabbard from,
‘Come, follow me, my merry men,
And we’ll meet Johnnie Cope in the morning.’
Now Johnnie, be as good as your word,
Come, let us try baith fire and sword,
And dinna flee like a frichted bird,
That’s chased frae its nest i’ the morning.
When Johnnie Cope he heard o’ this,
He thocht it wouldna be amiss,
Tae hae a horse in readiness,
Tae flee awa in the morning.
Fye now, Johnnie, get up an’ rin,
The Highland bagpipes mak’ a din,
It’s better tae sleep in a hale skin,
For it will be a bluidie morning.
When Johnnie Cope tae Dunbar cam,
They speired at him, ‘Where’s a’ your men?’
‘The de’il confound me gin I ken,
For I left them a’ in the morning.’
Now Johnnie, troth ye werena blate,
Tae come wi’ news o’ your ain defeat,
And leave your men in sic a strait,
Sae early in the morning.
‘In faith’, quo Johnnie, ‘I got sic flegs
Wi’ their claymores an’ philabegs,
Gin I face them again, de’il brak my legs,
So I wish you a’ good morning.’
(Pop song from 1959)
The Three Bells – The Browns
There’s a village-hidden deep in the valley
Among the pine trees half forlorn
And there on a sunny morning
Little Jimmy Brown was born (bum, bum, bum, bum)
All the chapel bells were ringing (bum, bum)
In the little valley town (bum, bum)
And the song that they were singing (bum, bum)
Was for baby Jimmy Brown (bum, bum)
Then the little congregation
Prayed for guidance from above
Lead us not into temptation
Bless this hour of meditation
Guide him with eternal love
There’s a village, hidden deep in the valley
Beneath the mountains high above
And there, 20 years thereafter
Jimmy was to meet his love (bum, bum, bum, bum)
All the chapel bells were ringing (bum, bum)
‘Twas a great day in his life (bum, bum)
‘Cause the song that they were singing (bum, bum)
Was for Jimmy and his wife (bum, bum)
Then the little congregation
Prayed for guidance from above
Lead us not into temptation
Bless, oh Lord, this celebration
May their lives be filled with love
From the village, hidden deep in the valley
One rainy morning, dark, and gray
A soul winged its way to Heaven
Jimmy Brown had passed away (bum, bum, bum, bum)
Just a lonely bell was ringing (oh-oh)
In the little valley town
‘Twas farewell that it was singing (oh-oh)
To our good old Jimmy Brown (little Jimmy Brown)
And the little congregation (bum, bum)
Prayed for guidance from above (bum, bum)
Lead us not into temptation
May his soul find the salvation
Of thy great eternal love
(60s Folk)
The Bells – Phil Ochs
Hear the sledges with the bells, silver bells
What a world of merriment their melody foretells
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle in the icy air of night
All the heavens seem to twinkle with a crystalline delight
Keeping time, time, time with a sort of Runic rhyme
From the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells
Hear the mellow wedding bells, golden bells
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells
Through the balmy air of night how they ring out their delight
Through the dances and the yells and the rapture that impels
How it swells, how it dwells, on the future how it tells
From the swinging and the ringing of the molten golden bells
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells
Of the rhyming and the chiming of the bells
Hear the loud alarum bells, brazen bells
What a tale of terror now their turbulency tells
Much too horrified to speak, oh, they can only shriek
For all the ears to know how the danger ebbs and flows
Leaping higher, higher, higher, with a desperate desire
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire
With the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells
With the clamor and the clanging of the bells
Hear the tolling of the bells, iron bells
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels
For all the sound that floats from the rust within our throats
And the people sit and groan in their muffled monotone
And the tolling, tolling, tolling feels a glory in the rolling
From the throbbing and the sobbing of the melancholy bells
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells
Of the moaning and the groaning of the bells
Hear the sledges with the bells, silver bells
What a world of merriment their melody foretells
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle in the icy air of night
All the heavens seem to twinkle with a crystalline delight
Keeping time, time, time with a sort of Runic rhyme
From the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells
oops!
I should have indicated that Phil Ochs only wrote the tune of The Bells. It is actually a poem by Edgar Allen Poe that Phil set to music and released on his 1964 album “All the News That’s Fit to Sing.
There’s certainly a wealth of material to listen to/digest in your latest group of selections, Dave. I found all of the individual songs of considerable interest, but the Ochs / Poe ‘collaboration’ particularly so.
We’re well into the not-so-nervous nineties now…
‘Hammer Horror’, written and recorded by Kate Bush, on her second album, Lionheart (1979) – the song commences: ‘You stood in the bell tower / But now you’re gone…’
Thanks so much for your latest four songs, Rick, which I didn’t see when you first posted them – apologies for that. To select just one for comment – yes, if memory serves me correctly, one-time married couple George Jones and Tammy Wynette did do some memorable duets, didn’t they? Was ‘Golden Ring’ in any sense about their own bust up, or recorded before they split?
Ha KD, no worries. Re George and Tammy doing some memorable duets, well, yes, they recorded a number of albums, both while married and after. They even did an album called George & Tammy & Tina (their daughter). And their duets, well the best of them are some of country music’s best songs, with Golden Ring being their absolute best. It was recorded a year after their divorce but not sure a timeline applies to this fiery relationship and they were close for years after they split, right up until Tammy passed away. Cheers
Hi John Paul
Guess what? Bob’s back in the building and this triplet should welcome in 100!
Tombstone Blues (1965 off Highway 61 Revisited)
Where Ma Rainey and Beethoven once unwrapped their bedroll
Tuba players now rehearse around the flagpole
And the National Bank, at a profit, sells road maps for the soul
To the old folks home and the college
Desolation Row (1965 off H61R)
You would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row
Rainy Day Women #12 & 35 (1966 – Blonde on Blonde album)
Well, they’ll stone you and say that that’s the end (Yeah)
Then they’ll stone you and then they’ll come back again (Yes they will)
They’ll stone you when you’re riding in your car
They’ll stone you when you’re playing your guitar
Cheers, BNB
Well done Karl and Bob and Swish and Dave, Liam and Peter B, CR and Mickey R and of course the coach, KD, an excellent and speedy century.
More Bruce:
These songs are all from his 2020 album, Letter to You, which is an album that follows on from the release of his Memoir and the Broadway show based on that book as well as turning 70 but more specifically learning that he is the last surviving member of his first band, we’re all of that age with less years ahead than behind us and we all spend a lot of time reflecting and remembering and wondering what does it all mean, well Bruce wrote an album about that and even though it is a lesser album in his catalogue, there are moments when Springsteen hits it out of the park, the last two songs in this list are what I’m talking about.
Last Man Standing (Lights come up at the Legion Hall/Pool cues go back up on the wall/Pack your guitar and have one last beer/With just the ringing in your ears/Rock of ages lift me somehow/Somewhere high and hard and loud/Somewhere deep into the heart of the crowd/I’m the last man standing now)
House of a Thousand Guitars (So wake and shake off your troubles, my friend/We’ll go where the music never ends/From the stadiums to the small-town bars/We’ll light up the house of a thousand guitars/House of a thousand guitars, house of a thousand guitars/Brother and sister, wherever you are/We’ll rise together till we find the sparkThat’ll light up the house of a thousand guitars)
Rainmaker (People come?for comfort or just to come/Taste the dark sticky potion or hear the drums/Hands raised to Yahweh to bring the rain down/He comes crawlin’ ‘cross the dry fields like a dark shroud/Rainmaker, a little faith for hire/Rainmaker, the house is on fire/Rainmaker, take ev?rything you have/Sometimes folks need to b?lieve in something so bad, so bad, so bad/They’ll hire a rainmaker)
Ghosts (Old Fender Twin from Johnny’s Music downtown/Still set on 10 to burn this house down/Count the band in, then kick into overdrive/By the end of the set, we leave no one alive/Ghosts runnin’ through the night/Our spirits filled with light/I need, need you by my side/Your love and I’m alive/I shoulder your Les Paul and finger the fretboard/I make my vows to those who’ve come before/I turn up the volume, let the spirits be my guide/Meet you, brother and sister, on the other side)
I’ll See You in My Dreams (I got the old guitar here by the bed/All your favorite records and all the books that you read/And though my soul feels like it’s been split at the seams/I’ll see you in my dreams/I’ll see you in my dreams when all our summers have come to an end/I’ll see you in my dreams, we’ll meet and live and laugh again/I’ll see you in my dreams, yeah around the river bend/For death is not the ?nd and I’ll see you in my dreams)
Thanks for the additional George/Tammy info, Rick. I’ve since done a bit or further reading about them – ’twas a ‘learning opportunity’ for me, though I’m aware of a reasonable number of their key songs, particularly ones they recorded separately.
Of course, I join with you in congratulating all concerned in a top quality and particularly quick century!
Thanks, also, for the quintet of ‘2020 Bruce’, too!
Thank you, Karl (alias BNB) for the spot-on mid-sixties Bob ‘triple’. You and the Bobster are really hitting it out of the park – if I may continue the baseball analogy – in this ‘musical instruments’ songlist. Cheers from KD (alias John Paul).
Thanks KD (JP) ~ and his Bobness hasn’t even got a sweat up on this theme yet. How about a ‘homer of songs’ from 1966’s Blonde On Blonde album?
Base 1 ~ my favourite Dylan song since I first heard it in 1971 ~ Visions Of Johanna
‘The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain’
Base 2 ~ I Want You
The guilty undertaker sighs
The lonesome organ grinder cries
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn
But it’s not that way
I wasn’t born to lose you
Base 3 ~ Absolutely Sweet Marie (not sure if this ‘trumpet’ qualifies as a ‘musical instrument’)
Well, your railroad gate, you know I just can’t jump it
Sometimes it gets so hard, you see
I’m just sitting here beating on my trumpet
With all these promises you left for me
But where are you tonight, sweet Marie ?
Home base ~ Fourth Time Around
I stood there and hummed, I tapped on her drum
And asked her how come
And she buttoned her boot, and straightened her suit
Then she said, “Don’t get cute”
Cheers KD (B?B)
What a massive homer you and Bob have hit in this latest selection of songs – thank you Karl. (I’ll pay the trumpet reference, too.)
And my understanding is that many Dylan aficionados agree with you that ‘Visions Of Johanna’ is Dylan’s absolute high-water mark
Into the great wide open: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Sad tidings KD ~ Andrew Ranken, drummer for The Pogues, passed away on 10 Feb (age 72).
Here’s a classic & FA favourite to remember & thank him via this theme:
Fairy Tale In New York
‘The boys of the NYPD choir were singing “Galway Bay”
And the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day’
Thanks, Liam, for the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers song – I’m a big fan of Tom’s music.
Thank you, Karl, for ‘Fairy Tale in New York’ – certainly a classic and FA favourite. Vale Andrew Ranken.
Hey KD, does Stay Free, The Clash get through with this reference: I practiced daily in my room/You were down the Crown plannin’ your next move/Go on a nickin’ spree, hit the wrong guy/Each of you get three years in Brixton – it is an autobiographical song by Mick Jones, clearly referencing practicing his guitar.
And a few more:
Bass Playin’ Man, The T-Bones, a great Victorian country rock band that have been around forever!
Alpha Male & The Canine Mystery Blood, Tommy Womack, another great unheralded country rock singer-songwriter from the US (I love my boy and he’s becomin’ a drummer/Got a drum kit from Santa, at this rate by summer/He’ll be keepin’ a beat in a world that needs a metronome/Shoved up its ass so hard/That all voices’ll raise in the heavenly choir/Shit’ll get straight, brothers’ll hug/We’ll dance like we did in the decades of drugs)
The World Needs a Melody, George & Tammy, okay this aint no Golden Ring but even their lesser songs have a bit of sparkle because of their damned beautiful voices (The world needs a tune that it can hum/Hmm, mmm, the world needs a guitar that it can strum/The world needs a melody that it can sing, sing, sing, sing/Let’s all sing together/In the sweet bye and bye/We shall meet on that beautiful shore, mmm together/The world needs a bell it can chime, chime, chime, chime, chime chime/The world needs a drum to keep the time, mmm mmm/The world needs a melody it can sing, sing, sing, sing/Let’s all sing together)
Bob just dropped by and asked me to pass on this triplet:
Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands
With your mercury mouth in the missionary times
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes
Oh, who do they think could bury you?
……..
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands
Where the sad-eyed prophets say that no man comes
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums
Should I leave them by your gate
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
Country Pie
Just like old Saxophone Joe
When he’s got the hogshead up on his toe
Oh me, oh my
Love that country pie.
Listen to the fiddler play
When he’s playin’ ’til the break of day
Oh me, oh my
Love that country pie.
Three Angels (a spoken song off the 1970 New Morning album)
The angels play on their horns all day
The whole earth in progressions seems to pass by
But does anyone hear the music they play?
Does anyone even try?
Hi Rick – I feel that ‘Stay Free’ is fine and it can be seen as including a reference to a music instrument, in broad, if covert, terms. Thank you for this and the other three songs. I’m also pleased that you included ‘The World Needs a Melody’, apropos of our recent comments on George and Tammy’s duets.
Thanks for another Bob bunch of songs, Karl.
I’m forever indebted to The Great Man for writing ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’, not only for the song itself, but because it inspired George Harrison to write ‘Long, Long, Long’, which, as many would know, appeared on the Beatles’ White Album.
Karl, you got that right with VoJ, what an incredible song. The Bootleg series that featured BoB, with whatever number of versions of VoJ is sensational. One of the great musical experiences in my life was listening to each version as he and the band get closer to the final magnificent version. Being able to be that close to a genius at work, including the mistakes, the wild shots, the depth of thought demonstrated to “find” the song was a breath-taking experience. And the song is worth that work. He knew he had something rare from the beginning but it took equal parts of creativity, discipline and musical knowledge to turn it into the expression that we hear as a song. And that is before we even attempt to comprehend the ideas running through the lyrics. The honesty of the soul, what poets dare to consider that the rest of us mostly dare not contemplate about relationships and the frailty of our beliefs, let alone the masks we wear and the gap between our best selves and our real selves. Cheers
Speaking of one album of an artist producing a motherlode of songs for this week’s theme, may I present The Clash and 5 songs from their great shambles of an album, Sandinista
1. Hitsville UK, trying to compare the breakout of small record labels in London as part of the punk/DIY movement to the rise of Motown in the 60s (They cried the tears, they shed the fears/Up and down the land/They stole guitars or used guitars/So the tape would understand/Without even the slightest hope of a thousand sales/Just as if, as if there was Hitsville in UK/I know the boy was all alone ’til the Hitsville hit UK)
2. Let’s Go Crazy, yeah, its about England’s role in slavery of 400 years (Starin’ dreads are jerking their locks/The White Star liner sank in the docks/But on the drummers face, there is a look of dread/He drums away 400 years of dread/The dancer man, with the the power of mas/Smoking to the mighty sparrow’s blast/But you better be careful/You still got to watch, watch yourself)
3. The Crooked Beat, celebrating reggae (Start the car, let’s make a midnight run/Across the river to South London/To dance to the latest hi-fi sound/Of the bass, guitar and drums/Seekin’ out a rhythm that can take the tension off/Steppin’ in and out of that crooked, crooked beat/Take a piece of cloth, a coin for thirst/For the sweat will start to run/With a cymbal splash, a word of truth/And a rockin’ bass and drum)
4. If Music Could Talk, another reggae excursion, The Clash really did dig that groove (I feel alright/Gotta Fender Stratosphere/I can do anything tonight/It’s in neon lights an’ global rights … ‘Cos tonight the sailor boys have hit Shanghai/The kick-out traffic goes creaking by/I smash my glass and shout shanghi/My drummer friend comes shooting by/He said Errol Flynn will never die/Oh no! Who am I to question why? … I come down in Yamaha-ha/They make the best pianos)
5. Corner Soul, in a way, this song is the core of the album and Strummer’s manifesto about people just wanting to get along with each other while politics tries to drive a wedge between us, the Grove he mentions is a reference to where he lived and The Clash formed, Ladbroke Grove, in the mid 70s, a melting pot of the time of young, unemployed, immigrants and creatives, living and loving and being until money and politics blew it all up (Beat the drums tonight, Alphonso/Spread the news all over the grove/The big meeting has decided/That total war must burn on the grove)
Thanks so much for the five Sandinista songs, Rick. I can imagine you on that SBS TV show Mastermind with The Clash as your specialist subject!
(Enjoyed reading your comments on ‘Visions of Johanna’, too.)
The weekend rolls around but as we know, the weekend is when his Bobness does his serious work. Here’s another triplet:
You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere (ooh-wee ride me high!) ~ there are several versions of this song
Buy me some rings and a gun that sings
A flute that toots and a bee that stings
The sky that cries and a bird that flies
A fish that walks and a dog that talks
Billy (from the Pat Garrett soundtrack) – maybe this song’s debut in these theme
Guitars will play your grand finale
Down in some Tularosa alley
Maybe in the Rio Pecos valley
Billy, you’re so far away from home
Simple Twist Of Fate
A saxophone someplace far-off played
As she was walking on by the arcade
As the light bust through a beat-up shade
Where he was wakin’ up
She dropped a coin into the cup
Of a blind man at the gate
And forgot about a simple twist of fate
Thank you, Karl, for this latest selection from the Dylan oeuvre. The Pat Garrett & Billy the
Kid film (1973), apart from Bob’s soundtrack, also included one of his very rare acting roles, of course.
Good Sunday morning KD
It could be argued that Robert Allen Zimmerman has been acting out multiple Bob Dylan roles for over 65 years!
Did you ever see ‘Hearts Of Fire’ (1987) where Bob plays an ageing rock star?
OK, enough of Thespian Bob, let’s return to Nobel Prize Winning Lyricist Bob.
Up To Me ~ a Blood On The Track (1975) outtake that hits a sweet note with me
And if we never meet again, baby, remember me
How my lone guitar played sweet for you that old-time melody
And the harmonica around my neck, I blew it for you, free
No one else could play that tune, you know it was up to me
Romance In Durango ~ Desire album (1976)
Sold my guitar to the baker’s son
For a few crumbs and a place to hide
But I can get another one
And I’ll play for Magdalena as we ride
Blind Willie McTell ~ a 1983 Infidels outtake that ranks solidly in my top 20 Dylan songs
See them big plantations burning
Hear the cracking of the whips
Smell that sweet magnolia blooming
(And) see the ghosts of slavery ships
I can hear them tribes a-moaning
(I can) hear the undertaker’s bell
(Yeah), nobody can sing the blues
Like Blind Willie McTell
Thanks, Karl. In terms of our musical instruments theme, Bob, to use baseball parlance again, has been hitting triples left, right and centre lately. Thank you for the latest three songs.
In terms of your ‘Thespian Bob’ comments, Bob is certainly not alone in his role playing. I’m reminded of the well-known Shakespeare monologue, from As You Like It, which begins
‘All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts….’
Ah yes KD ~ we’re all actors in the same play as we all fade into grey~~~~
Bob has reminded me of his somewhat lost mid-late 80’s lyrics:
Dark Eyes – from Infidels album (1985)
A cock is crowing far away and another soldier’s deep in prayer
Some mother’s child has gone astray, she can’t find him anywhere
But I can hear another drum beating for the dead that rise
Whom nature’s beast fears as they come and all I see are dark eyes
Where Teardrops Fall – from Oh Mercy (1989) ~ these instruments have been recycled
We banged the drum slowly
And played the fife lowly
You know the song in my heart
In the turning of twilight
In the shadows of moonl
You can show me a new place to start
Ring Them Bells – from Oh Mercy
Ring them bells for the blind and the deaf
Ring them bells for all of us who are left
Ring them bells for the chosen few
Who will judge the many when the game is through
Ring them bells, for the time that flies
For the child that cries
When innocence dies
Thanks, Karl, for your three ‘middle-eighties Bobs’ – I think this current theme may be his most prolific yet!
The Clash’s final studio album, Combat Rock has some offerings:
Inoculated City, powerful imagery and then the metaphor of guns as a military tattoo drum roll turns the meaning a lot darker(At every stroke of the bell in the tower, there goes/Another boy from another side/The bulletins that steady come in say those/Familiar words at the top of the hour/The jamming city increases its hum, and those/Terrible words continue to come/Through brass music of government, hear those/Guns tattoo a roll on the drums)
Sean Flynn, son of Errol, working as a photojournalist, he went missing in Cambodia in 1970 (You know he heard the drums of war/When the past was a closing door/The drums beat into the jungle floor/The past was always a closing door/Closing door)
Know Your Rights ([Intro] This is a public service announcement… with guitar!)
Straight to Hell, banjo is also mentioned later in this song damning racist views on immigration, a song from 1982 still reverberates today (If you can play on fiddle/How’s about a British jig and reel?/Speaking King’s English in quotation/As railhead towns feel the steel mills rust/Water froze in the generation/Clear as winter ice/This is your paradise)
Rock the Casbah, yep, again The Clash nailing it and 40+ years later they’re songs and perspective continue to shine (By order of the prophet/We ban that boogie sound/Degenerate the faithful/With that crazy Casbah sound/The Bedouin, they brought out/The electric kettle drum/The local guitar picker/Got his guitar-picking thumb/As soon as the Sharif/Cleared the square/They began to wail)
While several contributors are beating the drum slowly and playing the pipes/fife lowly. here are two more songs containing these lines.
No Man’s Land – Eric Bogle
Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side?
A rest for awhile in the warm summer sun
I’ve been walking all day and I’m nearly done
And I see by your gravestone that you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, William McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they beat the drum slowly?
Did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o’er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing ‘The Last Post’ in chorus?
Did the pipes play ‘The Flowers o’ the Forest’?
The Streets of Loredo (also known as the Cowboy’s Lament) This song goes back at least to the early 20th Century and has been recorded by Marty Robbins, Johnny Cash, Cisco Houston and loads of others.
As I walked out in the streets of Laredo
As I walked out in Laredo one day
I spied a young cowboy, wrapped all in white linen
Wrapped in white linen, as cold as the clay
[Chorus]
“Oh, beat the drum slowly and play the fife lowly
Sing the Death March as you carry me along
Take me to the valley, there lay the sod o’er me
I’m a young cowboy and know I’ve done wrong”
[Verse 2]
“I see by your outfit that you are a cowboy”
These words he did say as I boldly walked by
“Come sit down beside me and hear my sad story
Got shot in the breast and I know I must die”
Yes KD, Bob has had a lot to say on the instrument front ~ but alas his stocks are getting low.
Today we fast forward to the late 90’s and early 00’s for another triplet:
Standing In The Doorway ~ from his 1997 ‘Time Out Of Mind’ album.
I’m strumming on my gay guitar
Smoking a cheap cigar
The ghost of our old love has not gone away
Don’t look it like it will anytime soon
You left me standing in the doorway, crying
Under the midnight moon
Moonlight – ffrom the 2001 Love & Theft album
(PS ~ I have a soft spot ffor this song)
‘Doctor, lawyer, indian chief,
it takes a thief to catch a thief
For whom does the bell toll for, love?
It tolls for you and me’
Sugar Baby – 2001 Love & Theft
‘Just as sure as we’re livin’, just as sure as you’re born
Look up, look up, seek your maker, for Gabriel blows his horn’
Final Bob entry (from me) tomorrow.
Thank you for the selections from Combat Rock, Rick – strong and highly apt lyrics there, for sure.
Thank you, Dave, for the two songs which add to the ‘beating the drum slowly and playing the pipes/fife lowly’ sub-theme (if it may be called that).
Thanks, Karl, for your ‘Penultimate Bob’ triplet, in terms of this musical instrument theme – he’s contributed wonderfully to it.
Dis anyone say Drive-By Truckers? Some songs from their seminal 2001 album, Southern Rock Opera:
Ronnie and Neil, about the so called feud between Lynard Skynard and Neil Young (Ronnie and Neil, Ronnie and Neil/Rock stars today ain’t half as real/Speaking their minds on how they feel/Let them guitars blast for Ronnie and Neil)
Guitar Man Upstairs (I used to have me a woman and a pretty fine home/But it took so much to keep ’em both going I was always out and gone/I came home one afternoon to get me change of clothes/Caught a quick-walkin’ slick-talkin’ guitar-picker headin’ out my back door)
The Southern Thing (Ain’t about my pistol/Ain’t about my boots/Ain’t about no northern drives/Ain’t about my southern roots/Ain’t about my guitars, ain’t about my big old amps/”It ain’t rained in weeks, but the weather sure feels damp”/Ain’t about excuses or alibis/Ain’t about no cotton fields or cotton picking lies/Ain’t about the races, the crying shame/To the fucking rich man all poor people look the same)
Road Cases (Got them pretty road cases/Protect our asses, protect our faces, protect our guitars, protect our amps/Got them pretty road cases throw them out an airplane and they’ll just bounce)
Life in the Factory, another huge nod to LS (They spent years inside the Hell House/Then they opened for the Stones and The Who/90 degrees, outdoor summer festivals/Them boys wouldn’t even break a sweat/Played each show like their lives depended on it/300 a year will take its due/They kicked The Stones ass out at Knebworth/Ask anyone who was there and they’ll tell you/They hit the road doing ninety/Leave them steel mills far behind/Ain’t no good life down at the Ford plant/Three guitars or a life of crime)
Cassie’s Brother, who happens to be Steve Gaines, and when he joined LS by chance, it amped their guitar sound, he played on one album, Street Survivors, the last album before the fatal plane crash that killed Steve, his sister Cassie, Ronnie and three other people (Cassie’s brother was an Okie boy/Played guitar just like a god/Write you a song and sing it too/Music so fine it makes you feel brand new/Ooooh, that boy is funky)
Three Great Alabama Icons, this is a spoken word song and references George Wallace, Bear Bryant and Ronnie Van Zant, the following is where guitar is mentioned but worth listening to the whole song, hell, the whole album (There’s few things more loved in Alabama than football and the men who know how to win at it. So when the Bear would come to town, there would be a parade. Me, I was one of them “pussy boys” cause I hated football, so I got a guitar, but a guitar was a poor substitute for a football with the girls in my high school. So my band hit the road, and we didn’t play no Skynyrd, neither. I came of age rebelling against the music in my high school parking lot. It wasn’t until years later, after leaving the South for a while, that I came to appreciate and understand the whole Skynyrd thing and its misunderstood glory)
Thanks for this wealth of interesting and thematically well-fitting material by Drive-By Truckers, Rick. Wonderful!
Some more Steve Earle:
Yours Forever Blue, from The Mountain, his great bluegrass album with the Del McCoury Band (I’ll buy myself a guitar, any kind will do/The only song I know, play it soft and low, while I moan the blues for you/Oh, the whole night through, yours forever blue)
Lonelier Than This (It doesn’t get any lonelier than this/Because I’m on this road alone/My heartbeat ringing like a hollow drum/I’m about as lonesome as a poor boy gets/And there’s nothing I can do/Because it’s dark out here and I can’t find you)
Christmas in Washington (So come back, Emma Goldman/Rise up, old Joe Hill/The barricades are going up/They cannot break our will/Come back to us, Malcolm X/And Martin Luther King/We’re marching into Selma/As the bells of freedom ring)
Jerusalem, this was written in 2002 as an anti-Iraq war song, we have come so far haven’t we to end up where we started (Then the storm comes rumbling in and I can’t lay me down/And the drums are drumming again and I can’t stand the sound/But I believe there’ll come a day when the lion and the lamb/Will lie down in peace together in Jerusalem)
Thanks for the Steve Earle quartet, Rick – lyrics like these certainly underline the very important (often figurative) role references to musical instruments play in song lyrics, which was the fundamental kick-off point for this current theme.
Wednesday rolls around ~~ and here is my final Dylan entry to this theme.
If this theme had been on site before June 2020, then I would have offered this trivia question.
”In all of Dylan’s 500+ original songs, what instrument has never been mentioned in the lyrics?
Usually there is feint gasp of surprise (especially amongst Bobcats) when I reveal the answer is ‘piano’!
But alas, in 2020, Dylan gave us ‘My Own Version Of You’ on the Rough & Rowdy album:
‘I’m gonna make you play the piano like Leon Russell
Like Liberace – like St. John the Apostle
Play every number that I can play
I’ll see you baby on Judgement Day
After midnight if you still want to meet
I’ll be at the Black Horse Tavern on Armageddon Street
Two doors down not that far to walk
I’ll hear your footsteps – you won’t have to knock’
Cheers, KD
Thank you for ‘My Own Version Of You’ Karl, especially on account of its unique place (mentioning a piano) in the Dylan body of work.
Another Dylan trivia question: ‘Which famous pianist did Dylan appear with on the David Letterman Show?’ (It’s probably just about the most surprising guest pairing in the show’s history.)
Answer: Bob appeared on the same show as Liberace! There’s a video clip and photos available online in this context.
Some soul, white funk, folk and country:
Hey Harmonica Man, Stevie Wonder, in the early 60s when Stevie started to break onto the charts, Motown tried to brand him in several different ways, unsuccessfully (for instance this song comes from his album Stevie at the Beach – yeah, they tried to rub a bit of that Beach Boys magic on him). Unsuccessfully. He was 14! No worries, things worked out okay in the end (boy, didn’t they) but another reminder that even the greatest artists journey to greatness is via gravel roads.
Sound Your Funky Horn, KC and the Sunshine Band, another delightful track by a band unfairly maligned considering how much joy they have brought to so many people, this song cites many instruments (Bass man, turn the power on/Drummer, drum the beat/Tenor man, come take your stand/Everybody on your feet/Everybody sound your funky horn/Come on, get down/Everybody sound your funky horn/Come on, get down/Guitar, keep the rhythm/Congas and the groove/When my main man gets on his horn/Everybody’s got to move)
Amarillo, Emmylou, first song on the second of two albums released in 1975 to announce Emmylou as an artist in her own right, this song was cowritten with Rodney Crowell and a few of us on listening to it might be looking down at our shoes pretending we, ah, don’t recognise the protagonist at all, not one bit (If we only hadn’t stopped in there for coffee/If someone hadn’t played, “The Window Up Above”/Oh he’d still be mine today/But he heard those fiddles play/One look and then I knew this must be love)
Down at the Borderline, Vince Gill, the title track of the 4th in a series of 12 EPs Vince is releasing over a 12 month period to commemorate 50 years in the biz and defs worth checking out, particularly regarding KDs latest theme, as so far the photo on each EP cover has commemorated/celebrated a key musical instrument of Vince’s life in music (There’s sawdust floor and a shuffleboard table/Creole cookin’ in the air/Whatever you do, you better not cross Mable/There’s a pistol in her beehive hair, a loaded pistol in her beehive hair/We dance to the Cajun fiddles/Have ourselves a real good time/There’s a chance we’ll drink just a little/Down at the borderline, way down at the borderline/Man, I’m a sucker for the folks on the Bayou/Best you’re ever gonna find/Treat ya like they give a damn about you/Down at the borderline, way down at the borderline)
Thank you, Rick, for the latest WONDERful song choices and accompanying lyrics and other interesting bits.
Drift Away – Dobie Gray, written by Mentor Williams. One of the best songs about rock music (even though it wasn’t actually a rock song itself)
Day after day I’m more confused
Yet I look for the light through the pouring rain
You know that’s a game that I hate to lose
And I’m feelin’ the strain, ain’t it a shame
Oh, give me the beat boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Give me the beat boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Beginning to think that I’m wastin’ time
I don’t understand the things I do
The world outside looks so unkind
And I’m countin’ on you, to carry me through
Oh, give me the beat boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Yeah, give me the beat boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
And when my mind is free
You know a melody can move me
And when I’m feelin’ blue
The guitar’s comin’ through to soothe me
Thanks for the joy that you’ve given me
I want you to know I believe in your song
Rhythm and rhyme and harmony
You’ve helped me along, you’re makin’ me strong
Oh, give me the beat boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Give me the beat boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Oh, oh, oh, give me the beat boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Give me the beat boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away
Nah nah nah, won’t you, won’t ya take me, oh take me
Great pick, thanks Dave – what a superb song!
2 x 2 A couple of great singer-songwriters:
Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett (Nibblin’ on sponge cake/Watchin’ the sun bake/All of those tourists covered with oil/Strummin’ my six-string/On my front porch swing/Smell those shrimp, they’re beginnin’ to boil/Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville/Searchin’ for my lost shaker of salt/Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame/But I know, it’s nobody’s fault)
Livingston Saturday Night, the harpoon reference in the song is to Buffett’s long standing band member, Greg “Fingers” Taylor and his brilliant harp work (Listen to the sound of the hot country band/Boot heels a-shufflin’ on the dance floor sand/Hum a song, play some pong, eat a deviled egg/Temperature is risin’, better pop another keg/Fifteen may get you twenty, that’s all right/’Cause they’ll be rockin’ and a rollin’ on a Livingston Saturday night/[Bridge] “Where’s that harpoon man?”)
Forgotten Coast, James McMurtry (I’m gonna trade my car and change my name/Put Wesson Oil in my bar and chain/I’m gonna fix a road-kill black bear roast/And get fat on that forgotten coast/No one’s gonna find me there/With my steel guitar and my rockin’ chair/Among the seafood shacks and oyster boats/I’ll hide out on that forgotten coast)
Long Island Sound (New Mexico’s lost on the back streets of Austin/Carolina keeps all her thoughts to herself/Tennessee’s tight and he will not stop talking/Somebody shush him ‘fore I have to myself/Wrote that verse for the kids but I never did sing it/I filed it away and forgot it in time/My old guitar sits in the back bedroom closet/Next to the shotgun I got when I was nine)
Oh, what the hell, I should throw in another JB song, Somethin’ So Feminine About a Mandolin
Cheers
Thanks for these five songs, Rick – Jimmy Buffett, to pick one of the artists involved, has been a great friend of these Almanac themed songlists, hasn’t he? – and I do hope this continues.
And, finally – finally! – I get to include one of my favourite Joni Mitchell songs in one of our themed songlists: ‘Carey’, from her Blue album (1971). As many would know, the song has a beautiful calypso touch. In terms of a musical instrument reference, note the following:
‘Maybe I’ll go to Amsterdam
Or maybe I’ll go to Rome
Rent me a grand piano
And put flowers round my room…’
Great Joni call, love Carey. She’d have a few more songs referencing musical instruments for sure.
Time for The Hold Steady to, ah, hold and deliver:
Constructive Summer (Me and my friends are like/The drums on “Lust for Life”/We pound it out on floor toms/Our psalms are sing-along songs/And this whole town is like this/Been that way our whole lives, just/Work at the mill until you die/Work at the mill, and then you die/We’re gonna build something this summer/(We’re gonna build something this summer)/We’ll put it back together/Raise up a giant ladder/With love and trust and friends and hammers/(This summer!)/We’re gonna lean this ladder/Up against the water tower/Climb up to the top and drink and talk/(This summer!)
We Can Get Together (Let it shine down on us all/Let it warm us from within/He wasn’t just the drummer/He was the singer’s younger brother/I still spin that single, but it don’t sound that simple/Let it shine down on us all/Let it warm us from within/He wasn’t just the drummer/He was someone’s little brother/I still spin that single, but it don’t sound that simple anymore/Heaven is whenever we can get together/Sit down on your floor, and listen to your records)
First Night (Don’t bother talking to the guys with the hot soft eyes/You know they’re already taken/Don’t even speak to all those sequencers and beats boys/When they kiss, they spit white noise/When they kiss, they spit white noise/When they kiss, they spit white noise)
T Shirt Tux (There’s that girl from your work and she’s here with some guy/He’s got a t-shirt tux and piano key tie/The rest of us were rolling our eyes at the handshake he did with the doorman/But that’s how he gets the stuff that makes him feel so important)
Heavy Covenant (Seeing stories in the scorch mark/Hearing bass lines in the buzzing of the lights/Call down to the desk and say we’re going to need another night/We’re gonna stay a second night … First I watched him play his instrument/A resonator with a missing string/Then I asked him about the songs he did/How he decides what songs he’s gonna sing/Then I asked if I could shake his hand/And I palmed him almost forty bucks/Then I asked about the other stuff)
Um, have I scrolled over/missed? ” The bass guitar, and drums really thump”.
Masters Apprentices, Turn Up Your Radio.
Glen!
Glad you really like ‘Carey’, too, Rick. I feel It’s one of those songs that’s hard not to like, isn’t it?
Thanks, also, for The Hold Steady numbers, of course!
I’m reasonably certain the Master’s Apprentices’ ‘Turn Up Your Radio’ hasn’t been mentioned until you did so, Glen. Thanks for this one.
I am being lazy, too much like hard yakka for an old bloke to thoroughly check song lyrics but here’s a few more running through the ageing mind.
Pick guitar, fill fruit jar, be gay-o : Hank Williams, Jambalaya.
Just a cymballs and a timpanies: Eddie Cochran, Sitting in the balcony.
Glen!
Ah, Glen, time waits for no man, including me – or woman … but I did take the time and effort to go through our increasingly long songlist and it appears that ‘Jambalaya’ and ‘Sitting in the Balcony’ are new to our ‘musical instruments’ collection. Thanks for these.
Some banjo, and a couple of other music producing thingamajigs:
Yellow Rose of Texas, Roy Rogers (I’m goin’ back to find her,/My heart is full of woe,/We’ll sing the songs together/We sang so long ago,/I’ll fix the banjo gayly/And sing of long ago,/And the Yellow Rose of Texas,/Is to be mine forevermore)
Wagon Wheel, Old Crow Medicine Show (Runnin’ from the cold up in New England/I was born to be a fiddler in an old-time string band/My baby plays the guitar/I pick a banjo now/Ah, the north country winters keep a-gettin’ me/And I lost my money playin’ poker so I had to up and leave/But I ain’t a-turnin’ back/To livin’ that old life no more)
Who’s Gonna Play This Old Piano, Jerry Lee (Who’s gonna play this old piano after I’m not here/Who’s gonna sing these sad songs to you cause your eyes to fill with tears/Who’s gonna keep these ivories talking like Jerry’s doing now/Who’s gonna play this old piano after my last bow)
I’d Rather Have You, Johnny Cash (I don’t crave applause and praise or holidays with my way paid/I don’t want to incorporate nor to be top rate nor a head of state/I don’t want to play the didgeridoo nor the sitar or the kazoo/Just the two of us alone will do, I’d rather have you)
Nice variety of thematically spot-on songs in your latest bunch, Rick. Thank you , as we get very close to the big 150.
Now, for our 150, let’s go back to just before 1850, to a song by Stephen Foster, one of the most popular American songs ever written, ‘Oh Susannah’ – a song which over the course of time has come to exist in various forms and recorded by many different artists.
You know the relevant lines: ‘I come from Alabama with a banjo on my knee…’ (Thanks for prodding me with your banjo references, Rick.)
And, to be fair, the title of the song immediately above is usually spelt ‘Oh Susanna’ – that is, without the ‘h’ at the end, though I have seen it spelt with the ‘h’, too. The former spelling for the Stephen Foster song, though, is the correct one, as far as I’m aware.
And I’m becoming even more pedantic: on the original (1848) sheet music the title is (note exclamation mark) ‘Oh! Susanna’.
Hi Kevin,
I’ll be pedantic too.
The version I know is written as ‘Oh! Susannah’.
And speaking of exclamation marks, the album it’s from is ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’
Suffice to say, I refer to The Byrds.
Of course, neither song was originally by The Byrds.
Additionally, the full name of the lead song on the album is ‘Turn! Turn! Turn! (To everything there is a season)’.
Interesting – thanks, Liam. I love The Byrds version of ‘Turn! Turn! Turn! (To everything there is a season)’, incidentally.
Really, the original sheet music from 1848 is definitive in terms of the title of the Stephen Foster song I listed, though from there, admittedly, the history of the song becomes complicated.
I should say, a touch belatedly, congratulations to all concerned in relation to reaching the 150 comments milestone with this musical instruments theme. This has been a particularly interesting thread, I feel, with more songs to come.
I plan to post a new theme next Friday 27 February.
Let me join in the history and pedantry. Turn, Turn, Turn (To Everything There is a Season) was set to music by Pete Seeger. Most of it is from the Book of Ecclesiastes (King James version). Pete added turn, turn, turn, to the title and chorus and the words “I swear it’s not too late.” after a time for peace. This (and the tune) gave him copywrite royalties from The Byrds hit (half of which he donated to progressive political causes)
Wikipedia points out that the original (Hebrew) version of Ecclesiastes is attributed to King Solomon which would date the song to the 10th Century BC making The Byrds version the oldest set of lyrics to be Number One on the American Pop Charts.
You wanted to know all that, Didn’t you?
Thanks for your interesting input, Dave – most of which I was personally aware of, but many wouldn’t be across all the detail. The bit I didn’t know was that Seeger was able to obtain royalties by doing so little to the pre-existing material.
The Book of Ecclesiastes has been so influential upon so many writers.
There’s a Marty Robbins tune, Crying Steel Guitar Waltz. That’d be right at home with these tunes.
He also recorded a tune Chapel Bell Chimes. Bells are probably not a musical instrument.
Glen!
Hey Karl I don’t think you included Murder Most Foul in your Dylan songs for this theme so I’ll throw it in, with three references:
1. Guitar Slim – Goin’ Down Slow
Play it for me and for Marilyn Monroe
And please, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood
Play it for the First Lady, she ain’t feeling that good
2. Play Jelly Roll Morton, play Lucille
Play Deep in a Dream and play Drivin’ Wheel ?
Play Moonlight Sonata in F sharp
And Key to the Highway by the king of the harp
3. Play Marchin’ Through Georgia and Dumbarton’s Drums
Play Darkness and death will come when it comes
Play Love Me or Leave Me by the great Bud Powell
Play the Blood Stained Banner – play Murder Most Foul
Also, Guitar Slim has a song called Guitar Slim, so that’s anotheree.
All good Rick. To be honest I am happy for you or anyone to do song themes lyrics from Dylan discography post 2001’s Love & Theft album.
The only reason I threw in ‘My Own Version Of You’ from R&RW was its unique ‘piano’ reference.
Cheers, KD snr
Hi Glen – thanks for your pair of choices. We’re paying bells for this theme. They can be wonderfully tuneful and musical (e.g. Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, various combinations of church bells).
Thank you, Rick, for ‘Murder Most Foul’ and ‘Guitar Slim’ – and thanks, Karl, for your further input in relation to RK’s most recent comments.
There’s always a Slim Dusty tune, or two, out there. We can add, The Lame Fiddler, also You and My old Guitar.
The Joy McKean tune, Wind Up My Gramophone: That’s outside the scope of our subject matter?
Glen!
Thanks, Glen, relevant Slim Dusty tunes like yours are always welcome, of course – as are anything thematically fitting by Joy McKean.
With the Elvis in concert film showing currently and a couple of great FA reviews I thought I’d lean in:
I Try To Think About Elvis, Patty Loveless (I try to think about Shakespeare/Leap year/The Beatles or the Rolling Stones/I try to think about hair-do’s/Tattoos/Sushi bars and saxophones/I try to think about the talk shows/New clothes/But I guess I should have known/I just can’t concentrate/You’re all I think about these days)
Johnny Bye Bye, Bruce, a b-side from his BitUSA phenomenon, this is a sad reflection on the King, with a twist of Chuck (Well, she drew out all her money from the Southern Trust/And put her little boy on a Greyhound bus/Leaving Memphis with a guitar in his hand/On a one-way ticket to the promised land/Hey, little girl with the red dress on/There’s a party tonight down in Memphis town/I’ll be going down there if you need a ride/The man on the radio says Elvis Presley’s died)
and a couple of other great songs that engage musical instruments in the lyrics:
Thunder Road, Bruce, and yes I checked, it hasn’t been included yet! (Well, I got this guitar, and I learned how to make it talk/And my car’s out back if you’re ready to take that long walk/From your front porch to my front seat/The door’s open, but the ride it ain’t free/And I know you’re lonely for words that I ain’t spoken/But tonight we’ll be free, all the promises’ll be broken)
A Little Bit of Soul, Aretha (Now, how am I doing? (Doing alright now)/Am I doing alright? (Doing alright now)/I got this song (doing alright now)/And I got this boy (doing alright now)/I got a piano man (ah-ah-ah)/And a great big band (ah-ah-ah)/Now, wanna hear the trumpets (ah-ah-ah)/Blowing out loud/Let me see the action/Coming in from the crowd/And take these rock by my hand (doing alright now)/A little bit of soul)
With all this Elvis chatter, I was led to ‘Walking In Memphis’ and yes, there is a line that fits this theme:
Now Muriel plays piano
Every Friday at the Hollywood
And they brought me down to see her
And they asked me if I would
Do a little number
And I sang with all my might
She said “Tell me are you a Christian child?”
And I said “Ma’am I am tonight”
Thanks, Rick, for the EP related pair of selections, plus a bit of Bruce (glad you checked!) and Aretha.
Thank you, Karl, for ‘Walking in Memphis’ – fine pickup. Coincidentally, this song has been repeatedly going through my head recently.
And yes, I note just a tad belatedly that there are actually two Bruces! (The ‘Johnny Bye Bye’ B-side momentarily threw me.)
I’m finding KD, for your music theme posts, that 25% or so of the songs I submit come from playlists friends and I have put together through the years via my streaming services (Tidal and Spotify). A song will come on through the shuffle and at some point I will hear the word guitar or mandolin, and then, well, in the next few hours the penny will drop and so I note it down to send through. The next 4 songs all come from playlists I have been listening to in the last few days.
Spanish Johnny, Emmylou, she is a regular on most any playlist I put together (We had to stand, we tried to judge, we had to stop him then/For the hand so gentle to a child had killed so many men/He died a hard death long ago before the road come in/And the night before he swung he sung to his mandolin)
Johnny’s Rhum, Jimmy Buffett, his tribute to the French Elvis, Johnny Hallyday (I had a dream I was down at Jojo’s/Havin’ a burger ‘neath the setting sun/Johnny was sitting in the corner/Sippin’ on a glass of Depaz Rhum/He was checking out all of the tombstones/’Cross the cemetery in Lorient/The stage was hung, the soundcheck done/He was ready for everyone/He strummed a guitar made of orchids/And the who’s who all were there/Bill Haley, Carl Perkins, not to mention Buddy Holly/Plus, a couple of Jordanaires)
Charlie Green Play that Slide Trombone, Jim Croce, this wasn’t from a playlist, I was listening to Bessie Smith’s Empty Bed Blues, from 1928, and songs don’t get much closer to single entendre but even with all that going on, it was Charlie’s trombone that stood out, which apparently Bessie loved and she had a song called Trombone Cholly (her nickname for Charlie). Jim Croce I think, took that song and turned it into this song, don’t you just love how music and songs morph into other songs through the years, which is one of Dylan’s best talents, taking bits and pieces and rewiring them into even more impressive songs, but anyways here are a few lyrics from Jim’s song (I know a fool who blows a horn/He comes from way down south, oh yeah/And you ain’t seen some blowin’ since you been born/Like when a trombone’s to his mouth
/He wails and moans, grunts and groans/He can moan just like a cow/And you ain’t seen some blowin’ since you been born/’Cause he won’t show them how/Oh charlie won’t you play that thing/I mean it’s my trombone/Make it talk/Make it sing)
Wild is the Wind, Nina Simone, like Emmylou, Nina gets a guernsey more often than not in my playlists because her singing and her songs are so damn good for the ear, and mind and heart (Love me, love me, love me, say you do/Let me fly away with you/For my love is like the wind/And wild is the wind/Give me more than one caress/Satisfy this hungriness/Let the wind blow through your heart/For wild is the wind
/You touch me/I hear the sound of mandolins/You kiss me/With your kiss my life begins/You’re spring to me/All things to me)
There’s richness and a very pleasing eclecticism (which is not exactly the same thing, of course) in these latest choices of yours, Rick.
Most – but by no means all – of my song choices for this theme series come from my highly formative 70s and 80s music listening and playing years, Rick. That said, a chosen song can be anything from being one I discovered this morning to one I first heard as a six year old in 1968 – e.g. the Beatles ‘Hey Jude’ which dropped on the family turntable at that time.
Found this when checking some other Waylon Jennings lyrics and remembered how much I like this song. It clearly belongs in this string.
Luckenbach Texas. (Back to the Basics of Love)
The only two things in life that make it worth livin’
Is guitars that tune good and firm feelin’ women
I don’t need my name in the marquee lights
I got my song and I got you with me tonight
Maybe it’s time we got back to the basics of love
Let’s go to Luckenbach, Texas
With Waylon and Willie and the boys
This successful life we’re livin’
Got us feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys
Between Hank Williams’ pain songs and
Newbury’s train songs and “Blue Eyes Cryin’ in the Rain”
Out in Luckenbach, Texas, ain’t nobody feelin’ no pain
Thanks, Dave, really good pickup with ‘Luckenbach Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)’. Glad you took the time to add it here.
I probably shouldn’t bring up an old thread on the day a new one is introduced, but I realised that this English novelty song from 1962 is about (unsuccessfully) attempting to move a piano. The word piano is not mentioned in the song but that is clearly the object that Fred and his fellow removalists are to move.
Right Said Fred – Bernard Cribbins
“Right,” said Fred, “Both of us together
One each end and steady as we go.”
Tried to shift it, couldn’t even lift it
We was getting nowhere
And so, we had a cuppa tea and
[Verse 2]
“Right,” said Fred, “Give a shout for Charlie.”
Up comes Charlie from the floor below
After strainin’, heavin’ and complainin’
We was getting nowhere
And so, we had a cuppa tea
[Verse 3]
And Charlie had a think
And he thought we ought
To take off all the handles
And the things wot held the candles
But, it did no good
Well, I never thought it would
“All right,” said Fred, “Have to take the feet off
To get them feet off wouldn’t take a mo.”
Took its feet off, even took the seat off
Should have got us somewhere, but no!
So Fred said, “Let’s have another cuppa tea.”
And we said, “Right-o.”
“All right,” said Fred, “Have to take the door off
Need more space to shift the so-and-so.”
Had bad twinges taking off the hinges
And it got us nowhere
And so, we had a cuppa tea and
[Verse 6]
“Right,” said Fred, “Have to take the wall down
That there wall is gonna have to go.”
Took the wall down, even with it all down
We was getting nowhere
And so, we had a cuppa tea
[Verse 7]
And Charlie had a think, and he said, “Look, Fred
I got a sort of feelin’
If we remove the ceiling
With a rope or two
We could drop the blighter through.”
[Verse 8]
“All right,” said Fred, climbing up a ladder
With his crowbar gave a mighty blow
Was he in trouble, half a ton of rubble
Landed on the top of his dome
So Charlie and me had another cuppa tea
And then we went home
[Outro (spoken)]
I said to Charlie, “We’ll just have to leave it
Standing on the landing, that’s all
You see the trouble with Fred is, he’s too hasty
And you’ll never get nowhere if you’re too hasty.”
Thanks for ‘Right Said Fred’, Dave. Great ‘novelty’ number – I missed it when you originally put it forward, probably because of responding to lots of new theme material.