Come On Let’s Eat

Independence Day 2022

I hope I’m not the only person exhausted by the incessant need to find things we can’t agree on. That, my friends, is a choice.

So rather than struggle to demonstrate commonality through song, allow me to indulge in something I hope we can easily agree on: food. I recognize food insecurity is real. I also believe meals serve many purposes. So let’s celebrate our country’s culinary bounty and agree that any country fortunate enough to sing about food is a pretty good place.

The link to the expanded playlist appears at the end of the post and, if you can’t wait, right here.

Gimme a Pig Foot and a Bottle of Beer—Bessie Smith (1933)

What better way to start than with the Empress of the Blues calling for some authentic soul food? As a kid, my grandfather would make “man lunch” a couple of times a year. Pig’s feet (and other nearby parts) figured prominently. Maybe all poorer people share soul.

Beans and Cornbread--Louis Jordan and His Tympani 5 (1949)

The clown prince of jump blues got more mileage out of food and eating as subject matter than anyone else I can think of. One suspects he was a man of large appetites. His good-natured story-songs inspired a Broadway show and New Wave‘s Joe Jackson to get us all dancing the Lindy again.

Watermelon Man–Herbie Hancock (1962)

There was a time in living memory–well, my living memory, at least–when the pop charts contained a much wider range of music than they now do. That included jazz. This piece, from Herbie Hancock’s first album as a leader, was a hit for Mongo Santamaria a couple of years later. If you’re interested, there’s a great video where Herbie explains how this song came together to, of all people, Elvis Costello, after which he plays it in two styles.

Coconut—Harry Nilsson (1971)

I’m a latecomer to the Nilsson party and, if I’m honest, I still find myself standing at the entryway debating whether I want to commit. None of that really matters because every party needs cocktail ingredients and in this summertime classic the man who rhymed his surname delivers.

Jambalaya—Professor Longhair (c. 1978)

Sometimes a classic jumps genres. I know the die-hard country fans will disagree with me about this (and I will profess my deep love for Hank Williams) but when ‘Fess took this tune down to New Orleans, he made it his own. I can’t hear it any other way and just looking all this up prompted me to make a pot of that Acadian stew for dinner last night. (And now my kitchen smells like Louisiana.)

RC Cola and a Moon Pie-–NRBQ (c. 1980)

I often forget that this band, whose fan base has always seemed to really heavily on frat boys and preppies living in the Northeast,  emerged from Florida. So of course they celebrated regional junk food. I dare you not to sing along with the chorus.

BONUS VIDEO AND PLAYLIST

I could go on all day so check out the playlist for extras including some original versions, cocktail songs, alternate versions, the song I nicked the post title from and, maybe, even some classic rock and antipodean pop. (I’m still debating what level of chauvinism I want to embrace this year.)

Enjoy the holiday. Despite being in a bit of a mess, it really is a great country and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. So, let’s not screw it up.

Chicken and Honey—The LeRoi Brothers (1982)

My roots music fascination is long-lived, so I first heard the group that lured away Fabulous Thunderbirds drummer Mike Buck soon after it was released. It’s got guitars. It’s got twang. It’s got guitars and twang. Who needs anything else?

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Only a Memory

Memorial Day 2022

Photo: courtesy U.S. Army by Elizabeth Fraser

Once again the unofficial start to the summer season has begun in clouds and rain. Maybe that’s fitting, given recent events.

This year, I think, we ought to also remember the innocent victims, the students and congregants and clubgoers, who also were part of the fabric of our country. Their loss is no less a national wound than anyone who died in combat.

If you are a veteran you may disagree with me. I am not diminishing your service, or that of your fallen comrades. I  respect your time and the risks you took and I am grateful that you served. But we’ve allowed our streets, schools, entertainment palaces and houses of worship to become target zones. And in so doing, we have necessarily expanded the pool of lost lives.

There are, today, dozens of families in New York and Texas left with sure-to-fade memories and the certainty that future dreams will never be realized. Songwriters seem to know that. So, here’s a set of memory songs and a playlist for Memorial Day 2022. If your fave isn’t here, I may have included it there.

In Memory of Elizabeth Reed–The Allman Brothers Band (1970)

Anything, Proust reminded us, can trigger a flood of memories. We don’t always need words to evoke the past. We don’t even necessarily need our own past, at least when it comes to a song title. This early instrumental from the band that created Southern Rock as a genre, legendarily drew its title from a headstone in a Macon, Georgia graveyard. Yet to me, it’s always sounded very personal and evocative.

Memories Fade—Tears for Fears, (1983)

I was never a big fan of synthesizers. It’s more truthful to say I recoil from them. So for a synth-pop record to lodge in my brain for forty years, there must be songcraft and quality aplenty. The harrowing songs on this debut record–before the smash hit album that let TFF own the mid-80s–still resound. Maybe it’s the pain, evident in this ditty.

Those Memories—Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, & Emmylou Harris.(1987)

More typically, memory songs are about lost loves. I suppose that’s almost redundant. Without lost or unrequited loves, why would we need songs? Here, the late 80s country supergroup composed of three of my favorites takes on a familiar tale in a familiar manner to stellar results. As a bonus, the band contains John Starling (g), Leland Sklar (b), Mark O’Connor (v),  David Lindley (m), Herb Pedersen (g), Russ Kunkel (d) and Steve Fishell (st).

Memory Lane–Minnie Riperton (1979)

I’d nearly forgotten about Minnie Riperton until I went canvassing for memory songs. There was a time when she was destined for great things, although it turned out her true destiny was to leave us far too early. This 1979 hit showcases her vocal range and serves as a lovely time capsule of late 70’s R&B. You’d never know from the video, itself a period piece from the early days of the form, that she’d be dead seven weeks later.

Only a Memory—The Smithereens (1988)

A true product of my age and upbringing, in my heart of hearts I believe that guitar-pop songs ought to be about girls. Some bands just instinctively understand this, arguably none more so than New Jersey‘s greatest band, The Smithereens. Here they turn the girl who got away into much more than a memory.

You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory-Johhny Thunders (1978)

Can there be such a thing as a punk standard? And could such a song have been crafted by a notorious junkie? Based on a glance at YouTube I’d say that the answer to both is yes. And what a song. Despair, desperation and defeat in a little more than 2:50. Johnny gets the last word, don’t try.

VIDEO BONUS AND PLAY LIST

Thanks for the Memory—Bob Hope (1938)

Even as a kid, I knew that Memorial Day (or Decoration Day as my grandfather insisted on calling it) was about fallen soldiers. And just as certainly I knew that soldiers and sailors had no greater friend than Bob Hope. His USO shows seemed to be aired annually. And this, his signature song first introduced in The Big Broadcast of 1938, was always the last number

Here’s the playlist:

 

 

See You in September

Labor Day 2021

Wistful. The word itself evokes the feeling. Just try to say it without sighing.

If months belonged to adjectives would there be any argument that September is the most wistful? I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way. Some of the greatest songs ever written to convey that feeling put the month front and center

So let’s say goodbye to Summer 2021 by celebrating September and all the wistfulness it conveys. There’s an extended playlist available here and at the end.

(NB: Tending, as my lists do, towards older and less popular material, the below videos are, for the most part, not record company productions.)

September Song Johnny Hartman (1955)

Although not widely known, Johnny Hartman might have been the greatest male ballad singer of the 20th century. To the extent that he’s known at all, it’s because of his 1963 collaboration with John Coltrane. Here, on his debut, he delivers a mood-setting version of this Kurt Weill classic.

See You in September The Happenings (1966)

If this mid-60s staple reminds you of another New Jersey foursome you’ll be forgiven because The Four Seasons are of the same time and place. I’ll fess up:  until I went looking for it I’d always assumed this song was one of Frankie Valli‘s lesser vocal performances.  Doppelgangerness aside, it’s an emblematic classic. Jersey boys, it turns out, don’t just come from Newark, they come from Patterson, too.

September Girls Big Star (1974)

The most influential band most people have never heard of had their own take on the year’s ninth month and girls at school. This Alex Chilton-penned confection appeared on the band’s second record. If you ask me, Chilton hadn’t lost a step and even learned a thing or two after The Box Tops disbanded.

September–Earth Wind and  Fire (1978)

Among the sillier things ever said to me was the assertion by a recruited-jock-roommate at a large state university that, as college students, we were now free to listen to “other” music. The other music he had in mind was EWF. I didn’t need his permission. The band was always a guilty pleasure and this song has always delighted me.

September Skies Brian Setzer Orchestra (1994)

Recent readers may not be aware of my Long Island roots or my deep admiration of my near-contemporary, Bellmore‘s King of Twang, Brian Setzer. A triple threat in the playing, singing and songwriting trifecta, here, armed with just a guitar, Nassau County’s heppest cat demonstrates that he learned a couple of tricks from the masters of mid-century mid-fi. The song was written in the 1990s though the full-band version in the playlist sounds like it came from the era of the Rat Pack.

Flaming September Marianne Faithfull (1995)

What does one make of a singer whose earliest success is inextricably linked to the success of her boyfriend’s band and who then went on to release at least two masterful albums recorded a decade and a half apart? The residual sexism in that question aside, Marianne Faithfull more than earned her rightful place in the history of Anglo-American popular music, as demonstrated here in this deep cut from a later record.

Video Bonus and Playlist

Papa was a Rolling Stone The Temptations (1972)

This past Thursday was the 3rd of September so you didn’t think I’d let this one pass, did you? As Motown goes, it doesn’t get much better than this  A song written by Barrett Strong and Norman Whitfield who also took the producer’s chair. Vocals by The Temptations, And every bit of studio magic they could muster. A dance tune that has earned its designation as a masterwork.

Here’s the link to the playlist. Enjoy it and the day off, if you have it off.

Wave it Wide and High

July 4, 2021

Puzzling out whether it should be 60 or 100 degrees on the eve of Independence Day seems about as fruitless a task as figuring out whether the country can make it five more years to celebrate its 250th birthday.

But I’m not letting myself give in to despair because, as always, I find some hope and the glimmer of

Here Comes the Rain Again

Memorial Day 2021

Unofficially the beginning of summer, here in the Northeast the Memorial Day weekend seems to have become the last gasp of April. At least it seems as though, in recent years, there have been more of these cool rainy weekends than not.

What if nature is trying to give us a pause to remember why we even have this holiday?

It Must Have Been the Roses

Easter 2021

Photo by David Bartus from Pexels

It strikes me as more than a bit ironic that the flower most associated with Easter–the Christian feast day celebrating the Ressurection–is also the one most likely to be encountered at a funeral.

Maybe lyricists noticed the same thing. Because when it comes to inspiration, there are only a handful of songs inspired by lilies,

Gonna Sit Right Down and….

Early Fall 2020

Around here, autumn’s crispness has arrived right on schedule. And while I’ve often tossed around the idea of basing a playlist on my favorite season, I’m not quite ready to do so yet.

What I’ve been dwelling on recently are letters.  Despite email, text and other expedited forms, a physical letter–even better, a handwritten note–still stands out. Is

Workin’ for a Living

Labor Day 2020

As our pandemic summer nears its end I’m grateful that the people I know and care about are safe and healthy. And I’m thankful to be working when so many are not.

Here in the US we celebrate working with a last weekend of ease. And what’s

Key to the Highway: A July 4th Playlist

July 4th Weekend  2020

I’m most sentimental about the two  greatest American holidays: Independence Day and Thanksgiving. I get downright maudlin over the machinations of the Continental Congress and the 13 delegations to it.

Let’s agree on this: whatever your political preference, it’s easy to say that this year everything’s a mess.

That doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate the things that make our country great. My dad

Long Gone Blues: A Sixpack and Playlist

Memorial Day 2020

In a world turned sideways how do we mark the passing of time and remember the things we ought to?

As a kid, I hated having to march in the Memorial Day parade. To put that in perspective, if I was asked to do so more than a handful of times that would have been a lot. Yet I saw the very idea as a major encroachment.

It takes a lifetime to recognize sacrifice and understand that rituals are not devoid of meaning. They are how we