Posts with Music

Lyrics written by Frank Lebby Stanton and published in his Songs of the Soil (1894)
Music by Carrie Jacobs-Bond, published as part of Seven Songs as Unpretentious as the Wild Rose in 1901

Just a’wearyin for you
All the time a’feelin blue
Wishin for you, wonderin when
You’ll be coming home again
Restless don’t know what to do
Just a’wearyin for you

Morning comes, the birds awake
Seem to sing so for your sake
But there’s sadness in the notes
That come trillin from their throats
Seem to feel a sadness too
Just a’wearyin for you

Evening comes I miss you more
When the dark gloom’s round the door
Seems just like you ought to be
Here to open it for me
Latch goes tinkling, thrills me through
Sets me wearyin’ for you
Just a’wearyin dear for you

You have been asking for these two songs in the car lately. One is about being unhappy in California; the other is about being happier elsewhere (“y dejaste tu pais por esto?”). It’s really more specific than that — both songs are really about L.A. Not that I think you get any of that. So far, Texas seems to be the only state you know of other than Georgia (thanks, Sandy Cheeks). For the second song, I thought you liked it for the picture of Neko Case on the album cover, but when the song played this morning I heard you in the back seat quietly repeating the word “tambourine” in varying tempos and inflections.

Here is a video for the first song, Van Nuys es Very Nice by Los Abandoned:

And here’s audio for the second, In California by Neko Case:

So there you go. Oh, unrelated: We were looking for things that start with the letter “S” earlier, and I laid out some crayons that are shaped like cartoon dinosaurs. I said “I dunno, maybe one of these starts with an ‘S’ or something.” You totally rose to the challenge by saying “Stegosaurus starts with an ‘S’.” and grabbing the Stego from the lineup. Even better, when it’s time at school tomorrow to show and tell your three objects that start with an “S”, the stegosaurus will be joined by a super-villain! I don’t know what kind of evil dealings a super-villain could get up to with a Strawberry Shortcake stamp and a stegosaurus, but it would be diabolical I’m sure.

We have been reading the Jungle Book for the past few nights. Despite coming to the book after repeated viewings of the Disney movie, you insist that Shere Khan is female, and you correct me every time I say “he”.

We’re only reading a few pages per night, because you have lots of questions and there are no pictures to distract you from asking them. So we’ve only just reached the hunting-song of the Seeonee pack. It comes only a couple of pages after the pack’s tiger-corrupted youth rise up and drive Mowgli out, and when the song is read in the kind of voice you use when reading to someone who is 18 inches away, it sounds lean, angular and dangerous.

You had me read it twice more after the first time through, and you would have had me read it again if I hadn’t insisted on moving on. You acted like you’d never heard anything like it. And maybe you hadn’t.

Hunting-Song of the Seeonee Pack

As the dawn was breaking the sambhur belled

Once, twice, and again!

And a doe leaped up, and a doe leaped up

From the pond in the wood where the wild deer sup.

This I, scouting alone, beheld

Once, twice, and again!

As the dawn was breaking the sambhur belled

Once, twice, and again!

And a wolf stole back, and a wolf stole back

To carry the word to the waiting pack,

And we sought and we found and we bayed on his track

Once, twice, and again!

As the dawn was breaking the wolf pack yelled

Once, twice, and again!

Feet in the jungle that leave no mark!

Eyes that can see in the dark—the dark!

Tongue—give tongue to it! Hark! O hark!

Once, twice, and again!

Today I discovered that you already know at least two things that I had thought you might learn from me. First, you can point out which rectangles are squares and which are not, although you have not so far articulated what the difference is. Second, you know the Peanut Butter Jelly Time song. I’ve been meaning to share that with you for like a year, and just never got around to it. But it’s like in Jurassic Park—the Peanut Butter Jelly Time song will find a way.

I’m not sure if this is cheating. Because I’m not sure whether it makes any sense that “Ben Folds” gets filed under “F” and “Ben Folds Five” gets filed under “B”. Or maybe it doesn’t. This is a Flaming Lips song that Ben Folds re-worked for a compilation album called “Lounge-a-palooza”. I really enjoy it, even if the album version is a little lifeless.

The underlying Flaming Lips work was from a few years before my brother called me and said “the new Flaming Lips is out, and you’ve got to get it right now and lay down on the floor with headphones on and listen to it.” And that was a couple of years before my brother called me and happened to mention that the new Flaming Lips album was out and, eh, it kind of sounds like the last one. Then my brother stopped calling me. About the Flaming Lips, anyway.

And I guess “Flaming Lips” starts with “F”, from which fact I hope this post may borrow a sense of legitimacy.

For reference, here’s the original Flaming Lips version.

My Feist phase lasted about a year and is long since over, but this is still an awesome video.

Sg, this has been stuck in my head for days. It seems like I have been hearing it on loop without stop since I first heard it. Why won’t it just leave me alone? I played it for you yesterday, hoping that (like in the Ring) I could get rid of the curse by offering it a substitute victim. No such luck. Or maybe I need more victims, like the four people who read this site:

(Updated; see below.)

Yesterday we were riding in the car and listening to the Winstons’ “Amen Brother”. When we reached the amen break (the five seconds of solo drums that are perhaps the most-sampled waveform of all time), you said “that has the Powerpuff song in it!” Your comment came from out of nowhere, but, indeed, the Powerpuff Girls theme song relies heavily on the amen break.

This kid better watch out:

UPDATE: In case you aren’t familiar with the Powerpuff Girls, here’s the show’s intro (featuring the amen break, sped up to tempo):

So “E” is the first section of my library not dominated by a few big players, which means that I had to spend a few minutes digging a little deeper. I ended up not being able to decide, so here are songs that represent the four pillars of a 30-something yuppie’s music collection. The tracks themselves are from from Echo and the Bunnymen, Duke Ellington, Enon and Cesária Évora. Enjoy some or all of them!

I hadn’t planned to do another musical alphabet post so soon, but I was just taking a preliminary run through the “D” artists in my iTunes. I was thinking about how hard it is to just pick two or three tracks from among so many greats— Dylan, Miles, Nick Drake, De la Soul, the Dead Kennedys (umph), Dead Meadow, Claude Debussy, Depeche Mode, the Dirty Projectors, DJ Shadow…

Then I ran across the only track I could possibly post, and I figured I may as well go ahead.

If you tried to figure out which album in my collection is the very best album ever by focusing on objective criteria like number of track listens, number of whole album listens, length of time the album has been in rotation and the amount of that time it has been in heavy rotation, then Blowout Comb, by the Digable Planets, is easily in the top five. Where their debut album was cute and clever, Blowout Comb tones down the precious and trades in the bebop samples for some gritty funk and NYC nativism. Dre’s Chronic was less than two years old when Blowout Comb was released; Warren G’s Regulate… was still news. But the Planets and producers put together a sound that seemed to come from some time much later in hip hop history, when the pitfalls of G-funk had been identified and getting it right was easy. A few years ago it still seemed fresh, and even today it’s a little hard to tell from cues in the music when the album was produced.

I had never seen this Digable Planets video before tonight, and I like it. I got a pretty good laugh at Mecca rolling her eyes as she reaches one of the weakest rhymes in the track (near the end, just before the Jazzy Joyce cameo). For your viewing pleasure, the Digable Planets’ “9th Wonder (Blackitolism)” (viewing in High Quality recommended):

1.   I got all into Los Campesinos! for about 45 minutes last year. I still think they’re pretty OK, but I try not to think critically about it because I’m pretty sure the attraction wouldn’t stand close scrutiny.

 
2.   Carrie Nations (of Athens, Georgia, recent years, not to be confused with any other band by the same name) is my brother’s old band, and I really wish they’d made more albums before splitting up.

 
3.   I’m doing a pretty good job making it through “C” without leaning on the Cure. Don’t think that means we’re going to be able to steer clear of Morrissey or the Smiths. Sg, you already like Johnny Cash (you’re particularly fond of his rendition of “I’m Just an Old Lump of Coal”), and we’re going to build on that.

The albums containing these songs were released in July and August of 1993, while I was enjoying my last pre-college summer. Also that summer:

• A magnitude 7.8 earthquake off Hokkaidō, Japan launched a devastating tsunami that killed 202 on the small island of Okushiri, Hokkaido;
• UN inspection teams left Iraq (on the same day the Bjork album was released), then Iraq agreed to UNSCOM demands and the inspection teams returned;
• White House deputy counsel Vince Foster was murdered in Virginia by Hillary Clinton and a gang of satanic pixies who forced Rush Limbaugh to watch the whole thing, thus turning him evil;
• A federal judge sentenced LAPD officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for beating the crap out of Rodney King;
• NASA brings glory to the United States by losing radio contact with the Mars Observer orbiter 3 days before the spacecraft is scheduled to enter orbit around Mars; and
• (On the same day the Breeders album came out) Russia completed removing its troops from Lithuania.