| King Missile – Detachable Penis Lyrics | 3 months ago |
| I've listened to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, John Coltrane, The Beatles' "A Day In The Life," Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come," and Bach's Mass in B Minor. All sublime, of course, but I can safely say that this is the most profound and moving piece of music in human history. Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Ha!" is a distant second. And that's the truth. | |
| Peter Gabriel – Big Time Lyrics | 5 months ago |
| I agree with everything that was said here, but I'd like to add a bit more social/political/cultural context: Gabriel wrote this song in 1985, the year Ronald Reagan began his second term as U.S. president; Reagan's political and temperamental soul-mate was British P.M. Margaret Thatcher, whose Tory coalition had governed the U.K. for six years by that point (and would continue to do so until 1990, when Thatcher was ousted in intraparty fighting; Reagan would step down in 1989 after serving his limit of two full terms). Both were free-market fundamentalists, opposed to efforts for greater social and economic equality or an extensive social safety net, and during their governance, high-flying financiers and instant billionaires were very much in vogue. Yuppies (young urban professionals), who came to be characterized by material success, a greed for more, and concomitant egotism, seeing themselves as the "biggest of the big," were considered the epitome of success, with their expensive cars, condos, summer houses, and clothes. Many in the U.S. ended up being caught up in insider trading scandals and eventually did prison time. But they were riding high in the mid-'80s, and Peter Gabriel, whose politics were definitely diametrically opposed to those of Thatcher and Reagan, captured the narcissism and big-headedness of the era beautifully in this song. | |
| Tom Petty – Learning to Fly Lyrics | 5 months ago |
| This song really hits hard and true. My favorite TP song for sure. Sums up life (at least mine) for sure. | |
| The Byrds – Just a Season Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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AYFKM?? January, 2023 and NOBODY has commented on this beautiful song from The Byrds' 1970 "Untitled" double vinyl LP? Roger McGuinn co-wrote this song with Jacques Levy (with whom he also co-wrote the better-known "Chestnut Mare," also on "Untitled," and a number of other songs). Levy, a Jewish NY-born and -bred Renaissance man (clinical psychologist, professor of literature, songwriter), later collaborated with Bob Dylan (whom he met through McGuinn) on a number of songs. Unfortunately, Levy lost a long battle with cancer and died, age 69, in 2004. "Just A Season" is a wistful looking-back-at-life type of song. The protagonist reflects on all his past adventures/misadventures, including romantic entanglements, and wonders if it all has had any meaning or if his life was just "circles without reason" and, in the end, "just a season." Is there NOBODY else out there who hasn't heard and been affected by this beautiful song? |
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| The Band – Chest Fever Lyrics | 1 year ago |
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Nine comments so far and nobody, but nobody, mentioned Garth Hudson. This song IS Garth Hudson. Robbie Robertson was always a canny businessman who early on figured out how to monopolize songwriting credits for most of The Band's original material, thus earning the overwhelming share of royalties in spite of the other members' contributions. When the group originally broke up in the '70s, it was amid a good deal of rancor over Robertson's actions (the other four members reunited in the '80s WITHOUT Robertson). Levon Helm always cited "Chest Fever" as an example of the unfairness of the royalty/credit distribution for The Band's original songs: "When you hear 'Chest Fever,' what do you remember, the lyrics or the organ part?" As of now (Nov. 2022), Robertson and Hudson are the only two living ex-members- pianist/vocalist Richard Manuel committed suicide in 1986, bassist/vocalist Rick Danko died of complications of diabetes and heart disease in 1999, and drummer/multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Levon Helm died in 2012 after a long fight with cancer. Hudson, now 85, was the quietest and most introverted (and eldest) member of The Band. He eschewed the Hammond organ, a staple of most rock keyboardists, in favor of the Lowrey organ, from which he derived his unique and varied palette of organ sounds (he was and is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist- he plays all the keyboard instruments, accordion, and all the saxophone family, among others). He played it with apocalyptic effect here on "Chest Fever." As for the song's meaning? I don't know. I do see some surreality in the lyrics, which has led some to say that it's about an acid trip because "The Band were a psychedelic rock band after all." That's kind of off-target IMHO. When The Band emerged as an act in its own right in 1968, after long tenures backing Ronnie Hawkins (thus their original name, The Hawks) and Bob Dylan and as session musicians, they were seen as a countertrend to the psychedelia that had emerged and grown in the period of late '65 through '67- a return to roots- folk, bluegrass, old Americana, blues, R & B, C & W and so on. The trend was exemplified by the straight-ahead "swamp rock" of Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Byrds' turn toward C & W on their 1968 album "Sweetheart of the Rodeo," The Beatles' turn from the psychedelia of SPLHCB and "Magical Mystery Tour" to the bluesy grittiness of "Lady Madonna," The Stones' abrupt about-face from the spacey psychedelia of "Their Satanic Majesties' Request" to the straight-ahead blues rock of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," and Dylan's own "John Wesley Harding," released at the end of '67 after his withdrawal from public life for 1 1/2 years following his summer '66 motorcycle crash, and which was recorded in Woodstock with The Band as they working on their own debut album, which included "Chest Fever." I mostly agree with Robertson that the lyrics weren't about anything in particular and were just place markers for the music, which only strengthens the argument that Hudson got shafted on credits and royalties. The Band certainly were not a "psychedelic band" in that era in the sense that Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, and the early Pink Floyd and Grateful Dead were. The Dead certainly were influenced by what The Band was doing- after their highly psychedelic 2nd and 3rd studio albums ("Anthem of the Sun" and "Aoxomoxoa") and a very psychedelic first live album, they turned strongly towards roots music in 1970 with their next two studio albums, "Workingman's Dead" and "American Beauty." Just sayin'. |
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| Jethro Tull – My Sunday Feeling Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[jcaudio:43735] Exactly. To use the old expression, "the morning after the night before." On the vinyl release, the first song on the first side of Jethro Tull's LP debut (1968), "This Was." Therefore, the analogue, if you will, to The Doors' "Break on Through (To The Other Side)" or The Grateful Dead's "The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion." | |
| Beck – Nobody's Fault But My Own Lyrics | 1 year ago |
| @[Spotintheclouds:43127] When I first heard the song's opening, I thought it was a cover of The Doors famous apocalyptic masterpiece. | |
| Van Morrison – Glad Tidings Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| @[Hal:41199] Boutham My SECOND favorite from "Moondance." My favorite has to be "Into the Mystic." | |
| Van Morrison – Glad Tidings Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| @[Hal:41198] Boutham My SECOND favorite from "Moondance." My favorite has to be "Into the Mystic." | |
| Grateful Dead – Brokedown Palace Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| @[kobrienbusiness:39764] So sorry for your loss; my wife Betsy died of the same cause, age 53, on 20 Dec. 2008. | |
| Grateful Dead – Passenger Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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At this late date, surprised (Halloween Day, 2021), surprised no comments on this song. A deep cut off 1977's "Terrapin Station," an album I'm not deeply familiar with (though it includes a number of their well-known standard, e.g. "Estimated Prophet" and their cover of "Sampson and Delilah"). I stopped buying their studio albums with the one immediately preceding, 1975's "Blues for Allah," then also bought "In The Dark," released in 1987. This is an outlier in the Dead's oeuvre: melody by bassist Phil Lesh with lyrics by the Buddhist monk Peter Monk (that's his actual name)- Monk's only songwriting credit with the Dead, and his only credit listed in AllMusic and Discogs. Though Lesh was the primary band member in the writing, the lead vocal duties are shared by guitarist Bob Weir and vocalist Donna Godchaux. Lesh has said the song began as "a joke," a parody of Fleetwood Mac's "Station Man." It is a good, uptempo rocker featuring Garcia on soaring slide guitar, very reminiscent of his slide work on his song "Deal," which first appeared on a studio album on his solo debut "Garcia," 1972. In any case, a very unique origin story for this song- written by Lesh (who usually ceded songwriting duties at this point to Garcia or Weir) with lyrics by a one-off contributor, and lead vocals not by the songwriter but by other members of the band. I'm 66 years old and just heard this song on the radio for the very first time today (as I was driving back from a Covid-19 screening, in fact). Immediately downloaded it from iTunes when I got home. Learn something new every day, even at my age. |
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| Roy Orbison – Southbound Jericho Parkway Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| No one commented on this psychedelic masterpiece by the great four-octave singer? OK, everyone was going a little psychedelic during that period, but this is a forgotten masterpiece. And Roy Orbison left us way too soon. | |
| Traffic – No Face, No Name, No Number Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| Beautiful and haunting song from Traffic's debut album; surprised no one has commented on it yet. | |
| Grateful Dead – Ramble On Rose Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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I have to agree with hohw89: This song is about what Bob Dylan used to call "the old, weird America." As far as I know, no other white American popular music act of the latter half of the 20th century, outside of Dylan himself (and perhaps the late, great John Prine, whose emphasis was more contemporary) captured that vanished America better than the Grateful Dead. The America of patent-medicine con artists traveling town to town, leaving before the locals discover that their cure-all elixirs are worthless. The America of traveling carny shows, of women on the run from checkered pasts and abusive men, hoping to find just one man good and true. The America of Indigenous nations shattered by white greed and violence, of down-and-outers, rural and urban, of every race, color, and background, of desperadoes escaped from prison or the latest heist-gone-wrong, hoping for one decent night's sleep in a barn or a rain-drenched back alley before heading out on the run again, one step ahead of the law. The America always on the run from its past, much of it evil and indefensible (250+ years of slavery), hoping for redemption and a newfound, or made-up, innocence. The picaresques and shady but charismatic characters depicted in "Ramble On Rose"- Shelley and her Frankenstein, Crazy Otto, the gladhanding evangelist Billy Sunday, the enigmatic Rose herself, rambling on but looking for some place, any place, she might finally settle down, and all the others- all belong in this tradition. And no other band has evoked the horror, the beauty, the despair, and the hope of these characters as The Dead did. Will they find what they're looking for? Will they ever settle down easy? "The grass ain't greener, the wine ain't sweeter, either side of the hill"- pretty fatalistic at first. But still they ramble, never giving up. |
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| Linda Ronstadt – Long Long Time Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| The lyrics in the first verse are a straight slam of all the "advice" friends give you when you're down, whether it's the death of a loved one or the end of a relationship: "Love will abide, take things in stride- sounds like good advice, but there's no one by my side" and "Time washes clean love's wounds unseen- that's what someone told me, but I don't know what it means." Gary White (the songwriter) and Linda Ronstadt (the singer) are basically saying in that first verse that easy bromides or canned advice from third persons are basically worthless and don't help anyone get over a loss. Ask anyone who's lost a loved one to death or had a failed long-term relationship- they'll say, "don't give me your easy advice from some Hallmark card or self-help book. If you want to help, just SHUT UP and listen, and let me vent or grieve." People who've been through know that it really will hurt- for a long, long time, perhaps the rest of their lives. | |
| Linda Ronstadt – Long Long Time Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| The lyrics in the first verse are a straight slam of all the "advice" friends give you when you're down, whether it's the death of a loved one or the end of a relationship: "Love will abide, take things in stride- sounds like good advice, but there's no one by my side" and "Time washes clean love's wounds unseen- that's what someone told me, but I don't know what it means." Gary White (the songwriter) and Linda Ronstadt (the singer) are basically saying in that first verse that easy bromides or canned advice from third persons are basically worthless and don't help anyone get over a loss. Ask anyone who's lost a loved one to death or had a failed long-term relationship- they'll say, "don't give me your easy advice from some Hallmark card or self-help book. If you want to help, just SHUT UP and listen, and let me vent or grieve." People who've been through know that it really will hurt- for a long, long time, perhaps the rest of their lives. | |
| Eric Clapton – The Core Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| @[force263:35299] Agree. In the '80s, he took one of his greatest songs (one of the great anthems of classic rock), "Layla," and turned it into a boring acoustic ballad. Well, anything for $, I guess; that seemed to be his guiding principle in the '80s- a period when he also made obnoxious beer commercials for the Superbowl-watching set. | |
| Eric Clapton – The Core Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| @[force263:35298] Agree. In the '80s, he took one of his greatest songs (one of the great anthems of classic rock), "Layla," and turned it into a boring acoustic ballad. Well, anything for $, I guess; that seemed to be his guiding principle in the '80s- a period when he almost made obnoxious beer commercials for the Superbowl-watching set. | |
| Traffic – Cryin' To Be Heard Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| Little-known deep track from Traffic's second studio album, written by Dave Mason and lead vocal by him. Melancholy and haunting reflection on the fact we are often the sources of our own misery, and the need for compassion and empathy for others as well as ourselves. | |
| R.E.M. – Camera Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| I believe the Carol Levy interpretation. I don't know if it's relevant, but Michael Stipe is certainly aware that he was born on Jan. 4, 1960, the same day that Nobel literature laureate Albert Camus died- in a car crash. | |
| Dantalian's Chariot – Madman Running Through The Fields Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| Nobody so far has commented on this psychedelic classic from the very short-lived Dantalian's Chariot? I've heard it said that this is just another break-up song, about a man explaining his breakdown to a friend after the collapse of a relationship. More likely, this is the mixed aftermath of a first trip- feelings of ecstasy and of profound revelation in conflict with anxiety that one has lost one's mind. Superb eerie keyboard effects and lead vocal by Zoot Money (soon to join Eric Burdon and The New Animals, who covered this song) and alternately arpeggiated and clanging guitar from Andy Summers, who went on to the Soft Machine and a brief stint also with The Animals before finding fame in the late '70s and the guitarist third of the trio The Police. | |
| Buffalo Springfield – Broken Arrow Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| @[Pleo:33575] "Chicago" is a Graham Nash song. | |
| Foo Fighters – DOA Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| @[Hereisgone:30854] That line is a cop from The Doors' song "Five to One." | |
| The Animals – It's My Life Lyrics | 4 years ago |
| @[OpinionHead:30647] This is not an "eff you song." The singer is not telling his girlfriend that he's ditching her for other women. Rather he is telling her that he is willingly pimping himself out to rich women (i.e., become a "kept man") so that he can enrich himself and, eventually, return to the (equally impoverished) girl he's addressing in the song (and who tearfully begs him not to do it: "Are you gonna cry while I'm squeezin' them dry...," "someday I'll treat you real kind.") The Rolling Stones' "Play With Fire" or Bob Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone," both also from '65, are "eff you songs": addressed to rich, snotty girls, taking them down a peg. | |
| Bob Dylan – Visions of Johanna Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[eddiebobcat:29429] What are you on about, man? Are you deliberately kidding? The Stones are my favorite rock band of all time and Dylan is my favorite (non-classical, non-jazz, non-blues) songwriter of all time, but "VOJ" has nothing to do with "Get Yer Ya-Yas Out," which was released in 1970 and based on live performances in NY during their fall '69 tour. Incidentally it isn't The Stones next to the mule (or perhaps a donkey); only the band's drummer, Charlie Watts, wearing an Uncle Sam hat and a bare-woman's-breasts T-shirt, and clutching a guitar in each hand, leaping in the air next to the beast of burden (to use the name of a later Stones song). Dylan wrote this song in late '64 or early '65 and it has nothing to do with The Stones or their tour of years later. | |
| Marmalade – Reflections Of My Life Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| RIP Dean Ford a.k.a. Thomas McAleese (1945-2018). | |
| Bobby Goldsboro – Honey Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[Zorro3:28705] Terry Jacks: "Seasons In The Sun." | |
| The Lovin' Spoonful – Butchie's Tune Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| Can't believe nobody has commented on this song at this late date (September 2018). It's a wonderful piece of rockabilly, a classic breakup song with a fine vocal by LS drummer Joe Butler (who cowrote the song with bassist Steve Boone; one of the few major LS songs not written or cowritten by John Sebastian) and beautiful Floyd Cramer-style lead guitar by Zal Yanovsky. | |
| The Mamas & the Papas – Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming to the Canyon) Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[jimbo1955:27069] i'm pretty sure the canyon referred to in the song is Laurel Canyon, LA, populated at the time by artists, musicians, some record company execs, and more well-to-do hippies. In 1966-67 it was, like the Haight in SF and the Village and East Village in NY, a magnet for people, including often young, impressionable girls, who were looking for an alternative lifestyle. | |
| The Byrds – Psychodrama City Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| Surprised there is no comment on this song. It's Crosby being uncharacteristically tongue-in-cheek, almost Dylanesque in his social commentary about the absurdities of contemporary (1966) life and about his friends' reactions to it- simultaneously spoofing both 'straight' society and the hipsters' and protesters' predictable reactions to it in the best post-1964 Bob Dylan manner. Given Crosby's sometimes overblown romanticism and humorlessness in most of his songwriting, this song stands out as an exception. Great jazz-influenced guitar work from McGuinn, and Crosby's rhythm guitar playing is good as well. | |
| Phil Collins – Take Me Home Lyrics | 5 years ago |
| @[BlimpyJones:26900] Also Helen Terry. | |
| Jethro Tull – We Used To Know Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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Well, it certainly seems to be about the struggles of a group of young musicians, barely able to pay the rent on flea-bitten apartments (or flats to use the British term), who finally achieved success. "Every morning's shilling spent/made no sense to leave the bed" I would guess refers to feeding coins into the slot to keep the radiator heat going, a typical thing in old London apartments (and in other British cities) back in the day, wit penny-pinching landlords doling out heat in a very miserly, Dickensian way to the impoverished tenants. I'm also guessing the last verse ("Each to his own way/I'll go mine...") is Anderson addressing band co-founder/guitarist Mick Abrahams. The two men founded Jethro Tull and struggled for success before finally breaking through in 1968 with the release of the band's debut album, "This Was." Then Anderson and Abrahams had a major falling-out: Abrahams wanted to continue in the bluesy, jazz-inflected mode of early JT, while Anderson, the main songwriter/lyricist, wanted to take the band in a more experimental or "prog-rock" direction (result: "Aqualung," "Thick as a Brick," and several albums following). Abrahams quit just as the band was beginning to put together their second album, "Stand Up," which includes this song. After quitting Tull, Abrahams founded the blues-rock-with-jazz-overtones band Blodwyn Pig, which released two albums over 1969-70 before splitting up. His replacement on guitar in Jethro Tull initially was Tony Iommi, fall 1968, who appeared with the band when they lip-synched their performance for the Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus in the late autumn. But Iommi was already in the process of forming Black Sabbath and quit after a few weeks to be replaced by Martin Barre, who became the permanent lead guitarist. |
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| Cream – Wrapping Paper Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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A slow blues ballad, released as Cream's first single (just ahead of "I Feel Free"), fall 1966. It's true Baker frequently has stated that he hated it, but then Baker was often quite free in his disdain for Bruce and his music, and the two men infamously did not get along well, both before Cream formed and during its heyday (their mutual dislike eventually led to Cream's demise, fall 1968). Baker has also claimed that Clapton hated it as well; since I've never seen any statements from Clapton one way or the other about this song, who knows if that's true or if it's simply Baker trying to enlist Clapton in his feud with/hatred of Bruce? In any case, as I write (fall 2017), Jack Bruce has been dead three years and Baker, who may or may not have been sincere, posted an expression of condolence on his website at the time of Bruce's death. I happen to like the song. I also feel Bruce was the main driving force and creative engine of the trio, while Baker was competing with the likes of Keith Moon for most-showboating-drummer (this was before Bonzo John Bonham had become famous, or infamous, for the same thing) and Clapton was overplaying and taking longer and longer guitar solos in Cream's live performances. Yes, Bruce had his myriad faults as well, but without him Cream had no heart or soul. As for the person who said he didn't care for Baker's "Toad," I agree. You can toss in "Pressed Rat and Warthog" for good measure. Some people can do spoken lyrics/raps (Bob Dylan, the late Gil Scott Heron, and thousands of good hip hop artists, not to mention Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant"), and some people can't. At least "Wrapping Paper" wraps up in less than four minutes' time. Live in concert, "Toad" could drag on forever, eliciting Grateful-Dead-on-a-particularly-bad-night tedium. |
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| Grateful Dead – Mission In The Rain Lyrics | 6 years ago |
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This song is listed under both Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia (it originally was on one of his solo albums but became a regular part of the Dead's set list during Garcia's life time). So I find it hard to believe that this achingly beautiful and excruciatingly sad song has elicited no comments thus far under either listing. Garcia and regular Dead lyricist Robert Hunter came up with this song during 1975 and was originally released on Garcia's (third) solo album "Reflections" in 1976. Garcia was quite open about the song's meaning: he reflects on his dreams of 10 years before (1965-66 when The Warlocks/The Grateful Dead were in their formative stage) and how the dreams of the hippie counterculture, exemplified by the Dead's participation in the dead center (as it were) of Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' Acid Tests in late '65 and '66, looking back from the disillusionment of the mid-'70s, seemed to come to nothing. Garcia recognizes his own responsibility when he sings about only doing things halfway in his life. It is one of the few songs in Garcia or The Dead's oeuvre that refers directly to the city of San Francisco, where Garcia (alone among the members of the band) was born and where he lived most of his youth (his family moved a lot after his father's untimely death). The Mission is the actual Mission District in the city, the largely Hispanic/Latino district south of Market St./downtown SF, not some small-town old Spanish mission as in one of the Dead's songs about the Old West, etc. I wonder what he would have thought about the city's recent transformation into an ultrarich enclave where the average price of a modest home is over $1 million, and where the traditional Latino/Hispanic working class community in the Mission is being priced out of the neighborhood (of course, the Haight, Hippie Central in the mid-'60s where the band were in residence '66-'68, is even higher priced now). He would have been even more disillusioned, I guess. Garcia was born in and lived much of his youth in Excelsior, a southern SF neighborhood close to the Mission District. Two footnotes: Garcia of course was not himself Latino/Hispanic; he was Euro-Spanish on his father's side (Latin American Hispanics have mixed feelings about Euro-Spaniards, whom they feel condescend to them) and Irish/Scandinavian on his mother's side. Garcia's older brother Clifford ("Tiff") was named for his mother's maiden name; Tiff just recently died (Sept. 2017) at the age of 79. My wife (who is Mexican and now a dual U.S./Mexican citizen) and I were in SF over the Indigenous People's Day/Columbus Day weekend (early Oct. 2017) a few weeks ago. We went down to the Mission to see what was left of the Mexican/Hispanic culture and neighborhood that hadn't been overrun by the new high-tech multimillionaires and their gentrification. This was Monday, Oct. 9, the first full day after the devastating fires began up north, in Sonoma, Napa, and Yolo counties, with smoke drifting down into San Francisco. We saw busloads of Hispanic families being brought to local churches and service organizations in the Mission; most of them were evacuated workers and their families in the Napa and Sonoma wineries whose homes were under threat or already destroyed by the fires. Now they were living temporarily in a neighborhood they couldn't afford any more. What would Jerry make of all this? What does Hunter, who actually lived in the Mission during the Haight's peak hippie years (1964-68) think about all of this? In any case, a sad, evocative song; even more resonant in this time with this cruel and despicable national Trumpist regime in power. |
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| John Lee Hooker – I'm Going Upstairs Lyrics | 6 years ago |
| MMMM, hoooohoooo, yow! So Hooker, the voodoo blues master, the haunting haunter of Delta and electric blues, sings in the outro to this chilling, irresistible song about love betrayed, down-and-out rejection, spat on, thrown out into the cold, tossed aside- but strong and resilient and defiant. Girlfriend tosses him aside for the "younger stud," mother dies and father (perhaps with his own woman on the side and so no time, place, or use for his own son) rejects him, but it's OK, Johnny Lee finds his shelter and his strength where he can- on the water, probably the mighty Mississippi itself, houseboat or canoe or any old conveyance. Johnny Lee will survive and defy those who betrayed and threw him aside. He don't need no land, or any people who treat him like dirt. John Lee Hooker, Mississippi-born black sharecropper from deep-Jim Crow, supremacist lynch mob South, Detroit auto worker, the original boogie child, struggled his way up learning blues guitar and writing his own songs even as he worked in the factories during the war during the day time. Inspiration to The Doors, The Animals, Santana, Canned Heat, and countless others. My favorite of the classic-era blues artists, in incomparably fine form on this relentlessly driving song- JOHN LEE HOOKER LIVES FOREVER! | |
| Kaleidoscope – A Dream For Julie Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| These are the lyrics for the song "Here Come The Nice," by The Small Faces, not "A Dream for Julie," by Kaleidoscope. | |
| ZZ Top – Sure Got Cold After The Rain Fell Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| No comments?!? A long and "deep-track" gem from ZZT's second LP, "Rio Grande Mud," with superb guitar playing (both arpeggiated rhythm guitar and bluesy lead and solos) and lead vocal by Billy Gibbons. A slow track, very deep and downbeat, ZZT at their best. | |
| The Rolling Stones – Sittin On A Fence Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| Very beautiful and relatively little-known song from The Stones' deep catalogue. Recorded in early Dec., 1965, in LA, during the sessions for the album "Aftermath," but did not make it onto the pressings of the either the UK or US editions of that album." It made it in the States, finally, on the catch-all album "Flowers," summer 1967, which was originally not released in the UK. Finally released in the UK on "Through The Past Darkly: Big Hits, Vol. 2," late summer 1969, though not onto the US pressings of that album. Made it onto the second "Hot Rocks" anthology, subtitled "Big Hits and Fazed Cookies," released in both the UK and the US in 1972. Personnel: Mick Jagger: lead vocal; Keith Richards: acoustic guitar and harmony vocal; Brian Jones: lead acoustic guitar and harpsichord; Bill Wyman: bass; Charlie Watts: tambourine. | |
| The Rolling Stones – 19th Nervous Breakdown Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| @[winsfordtown:18678] Unlikely. Chrissie Shrimpton didn't like drugs (and used to complain that Mick, on his rare nights off when they were in their London flat, smoked hash, became contemplative, reading, and ignoring her). And Jagger according to his own account didn't take acid for the first time until that notorious Feb. '67 weekend when he took it at Keith's country house, Redlands, and the house was busted by the zealous and corrupt cops. In fact it was something of a point of contention in the ever-shifting balance of friendship/enmity among Brian/Keith/Mick. After Mick and Keith bonded starting in '63 and through '64 into '65, over songwriting, encouraged by manager Andrew Loog Oldham; Brian, the original leader of the band who couldn't or wouldn't write original song material, was frozen out. But when Brian, with Anita Pallenberg, and Keith, got into acid during the latter half of '65 (attending an acid test in SF while Mick declined to go), Brian and Keith rebonded in the late '65 through '66 period. During that time Mick smoked cannabis, popped amphetamine pills both to maintain his slender build and to maintain his energy level for the Stones' hectic touring/rehearsal/recording schedule, but avoided LSD. A dedicated reader of the 'serious' papers such as The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Observer, Mick believed the stories circulating in '65-'66 about people freaking out and losing their minds from acid and similar psychedelics, and, ever the cautious rebel, shunned the drug. In fact he sued The News of the World, the lowbrow right-wing Sunday scandal sheet, which mistakenly quoted him saying he had used LSD in the past (the NOTW reporter had confused Mick with Brian Jones). The lawsuit fed the right wing's resentment of Jagger and the Stones and helped lead to the Feb. '67 Redlands bust. Meanwhile through late '65 and '66 Jones, Richards, Pallenberg, and various other friends were immersing themselves deep into psychedelic drugs and related culture, and making fun of Jagger for his caution on the subject. Since most of the major LSD-using British rock and pop stars had tried the drug by '65 or early '66 (including all the Beatles and Jones and Richards among the Stones, and of course Eric Burdon, who became one of the main proselytizers for it starting in 1965), Jagger not taking it for the first time until 1967 made him a latecomer. Of course, that first trip, and Jagger and Richards's shared travails through the court system (parodied in the song "We Love You"), plus Pallenberg leaving the increasingly dissipated and abusive Jones for Richards, plus Jagger's final split with Shrimpton late '66/early '67 for the more drug-friendly Marianne Faithfull, ultimately resulted in Jagger and Richards's permanent bonding and the final outcome of Jones being the odd man out, increasingly alienated from both Jagger and Richards (Jones never forgave the latter over Pallenberg). But at the the time of the recording of this song, late '65, it was Jagger who was largely alone, with Jones and Richards bonding over acid. | |
| Phoebe Snow – I Don't Want the Night to End Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| Surprised there are no comments on this one. One of Phoebe Snow's most poignant songs, almost painful to listen to, especially in light of her later life: more or less giving up her career to care for her severely disabled daughter from infancy until the latter's death at age 31, and Phoebe's own untimely death in 2011. | |
| The Rolling Stones – Child of the Moon Lyrics | 7 years ago |
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This song kind of falls between the cracks. Original demos were recorded during '67 in the midst of the chaotic and frequently-interrupted (due to drug busts, legal hearings, etc.- the right wing of the British Establishment was doing its best to destroy The Rolling Stones via constant harassment of Jagger, Richards, and Jones during '67; they did not succeed, although they damaged Brian Jones seriously, psychologically and emotionally and even physically) "Satanic Majesties" sessions. From its sound, it certainly has a psychedelic vibe and is not in step with the band's return to blues and acoustic folk blues in '68. Some commentators have also said that the song is a love note from Jagger to Marianne Faithfull. Don't know, but of course it first saw light of day in public as the B side of the release of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," a full-scale return to blues-based hard rock, which Jagger and Richards have both called an anthem about surviving, especially after the weirdness of acid-tinged '67 and the legal hassles. On the demos, Nicky Hopkins plays very Nicky Hopkins-style piano. On this release, he plays organ- the exact reverse of "Sympathy for the Devil," on which Hopkins plays organ during the early phases of the song's recording, then switches to piano for the studio version that became familiar to the public as the lead-off track for "Beggars Banquet." Personnel for this release of "Child of the Moon": Mick Jagger, vocal; Keith Richards, guitars; Brian Jones, Mellotron; Bill Wyman, bass; Charlie Watts, drums; Nicky Hopkins, organ. After its release as a the B-side of a single, this track did not see the light of day again until the release of "More Hot Rocks (Big Hits and Fazed Cookies)" near the end of 1972. One of the great lesser known Stones tracks in any case. |
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| Traffic – Every Mothers Son Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| This song is brilliant; the brooding Hammond organ, the piercing guitar lead (both played by Winwood, who also played piano and bass on the track and did the vocal). Capaldi contributed by playing the drums and (probably) writing the lyrics, but the rest is all Winwood. | |
| Fairport Convention – It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[aiiiiee:12633] And the fact that the song title name-checks one of Dylan's best songs. | |
| Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Still...You Turn Me On Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| I know that Lake was feeling the weight of the years of constant gigging and touring, first with King Crimson and then with ELP, when he wrote this. I've always loved this song but it also creeps me out- I see hints of necrophilia in it, especially the whole bit about the addressee of the song being "buried in disguise" with "dark glass in [her] eyes" and "[her] flesh has crystallized." That whole bit made me wonder if it is about a man whose girlfriend, "Paint It, Black"-style, has suddenly died and he is struggling with incipient madness and suicidal thoughts: "Everyday a little sadder, a little madder, someone get me a ladder": is the singer contemplating hanging himself from a height to join his dead lover? Of course, as with so many songs, the danger of overinterpretation is always present: Lake was just coming up with lyrics (in his exhausted state), under time pressure, with the press of the band needing to turn out another album and go back out on the road, and he wasn't worrying about people reading all kinds of dark or macabre things into the lyrics. | |
| Steppenwolf – Monster Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| @[kfe2:10823] True. The album was called "Monster." Why isn't Steppenwolf in the R&RHOF? On second thought, considering how ridden with corruption and cronyism THAT institution is, and some of the un-worthies who have been admitted to the Hall, perhaps it's a mark of honor that Steppenwolf- a great band with a lot of memorable songs- is NOT in it. | |
| Joe Cocker – Hitchcock Railway Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| My favorite JC song. | |
| The Doors – The Crystal Ship Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| So many Doors songs to love, so many reasons to rue the impossibility of their ever reuniting in this part of the astral plane (Jim and Ray: hope you guys are having plenty of chances at bliss and making sublime music wherever you are; John and Robbie: hope you guys are with us a long time). But this may be my favorite song by them. So simple, yet so wrenching, heart-felt, and haunting. | |
| Eric Clapton – The Core Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| No comments? This is Clapton's most explosive and fiery song, cowritten with and featuring co-lead vocal by Marcy Levy a.k.a. Marcella Detroit. This song simply blows me away. | |
| Little Feat – All That You Dream Lyrics | 8 years ago |
| Can't believe nobody ever commented on this song. This is one of those philosophy-of-life/disillusionment songs that crop up among the best rock bands. Stylistically these songs vary but they usually have a similar theme: smashed dreams, loss of innocence, struggling to go on in the face of failure of one's hopes. I think of The The's "This Is The Day," The Grateful Dead's "Box of Rain," Talking Heads' "Once In A Lifetime," Marmalade's "Reflections of My Life," The Kinks' "Life Goes On," and this song by Little Feat (written by guitarist Paul Barrère but with lead vocal by the band's other guitarist, the ill-fated Lowell George) as falling in this category. Some are jaunty (The Kinks and, in a different way, Talking Heads), some are sad and somber (Marmalade), some sound like (in a manner like much of Little Feat's music) 3 a.m. in a barroom after too much whiskey and bad cocaine (to quote a lyric from another Little Feat song). I have no idea what was going through Paul Barrère's brain when he wrote this, but it's unforgettable. | |
| Eddy Grant – Electric Avenue Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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Eddy Grant's biggest hit but by far not his only one. First big worldwide hit was with his British quintet The Equals in the '60s, "Baby Come Back." The Equals were one of the first major racially integrated English bands. Grant was born in Guyana and his parents moved to the UK when he was a young kid. He grew up in Kentish Town, London. Hard to understand why so many misunderstood this song. Sure it has an upbeat tempo, irresistible hook, and energy, but the lyrics couldn't be more explicit: this is one angry, politically engaged song. |
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