Author: Roger

I'm a librarian. I hear music, even when it's not being played. I used to work at a comic book store, and it still informs my life. I won once on JEOPARDY! - ditto.

Obsessed with cover songs

Walk Away Renee

Beatles' Second Album backOK, I admit it: I’m obsessed with cover songs. And it goes back decades. I discovered that the source of most of the US album Meet The Beatles was the UK collection With The Beatles. What was cut? Why five of the six cover songs, all but Til There Was You from The Music Man. The five covers were all soul-related and showed up on The Beatles’ Second Album.

Motown was always putting songs from one artist as album cuts for another. A tune written and produced by Holland-Dozier-Holland might show up on both a Supremes and Four Tops album. Several songs written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong, and produced by Whitfield, were recorded by both the Temptations and Gladys Knight and the Pips. The Temps recorded War, but Motown, fearing it might be too controversial, allowed the lesser-profiled Edwin Starr to release the single and get the hit.

I’ve listened to every episode of Coverville, which recently hit the 1400th episode milestone. The tracks here are, to the best of my knowledge, NOT on those OTHER cover songs posts I’ve created. 

Hound Dog: Big Mama Thorton;  Elvis Presley

Proud Mary: Creedence Clearwater Revival; Ike and Tina Turner 

Me And Bobby McGee: Roger Miller; Janis Joplin 

Try A Little Tenderness: New Mayfield Dance Orchestra;  Otis Redding 

I Fought The Law: The Crickets; The Bobby Fuller Four; The Clash

I’m Not Your Stepping Stone: Paul Revere and the Raiders; The Monkees – not all that different

See this post about Walk Away Renee.

More toonz

I Can’t Get Next To You: The Temptations;  Al Green

Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?: The Shirelles; Carole King with the Mitchell-Taylor Boy and Girl Choir, co-written by CK

Alison: Elvis Costello; Linda Ronstadt. Elvis HATED Linda’s covers of his songs.

Fire: Bruce Springsteen;  The Pointer Sisters

Wrecking Ball: Neil Young; Emmylou Harris

Tainted Love: Gloria Jones; Soft Cell

MacArthur Park: Richard Harris; Donna Summer

I Am Waiting: The Rolling Stones; Ollabelle

Everytime You Go Away: Hall and Oates; Paul Young 

Sail Away: Randy Newman; Etta James

Stand By Me:  Ben E. King; John Lennon

Bye Bye Love: The Everly Brothers; George Harrison – a rewrite inspired by his breakup with Pattie Boyd

Not a grammar nazi

You know like, so, um

grammar naziI looked it up: “A grammar nazi is a pedant who compulsively criticizes or corrects people’s grammar mistakes, typos, misspellings, and other errors in speech or writing.” And that never was me, although I have been accused of the same.

Either in this blog or my old Times-Union site, I openly surrendered the fight over its and it’s. I’ve discovered that even people who are otherwise good writers simply can’t get it. It reminds me of a Paul Simon interview about how, when working with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, they just didn’t understand things in minor keys.

The only people I correct over typos are a handful of my fellow bloggers, and then always by email or text. The number of typos I have made on Facebook is enormous, ironically often made worse by autocorrect.
.
I can NEVER spell tintinnabulation, which means “a ringing or tinkling sound,” without looking it up. For years, I misspelled Pete Townshend’s last name as Townsend.

Basically, if I understand what is intended, I’m good. This is why the new definition of literally so utterly confounds me.

In part, that’s why I’ve adopted the singular they, because, ultimately its, I mean it’s, less confusing.

Filler

I’ve come around to accepting the use of the filler in informal speech. What is that? “In linguistics, a filler, filled pause, hesitation marker, or planner is a sound or word that participants in a conversation use to signal that they are pausing to think but are not finished speaking…

“In American English, the most common filler sounds are ah or uh and um … Among younger speakers, the fillers ‘like’, ‘you know’, ‘I mean’, ‘okay’, ‘so’, ‘actually’, ‘basically’, and ‘right?’ are among the more prevalent.”

It’s not as though I like, you know, “like”, especially in its Valley Girl intonation. However, I’ve been watching JEOPARDY – no surprise. During the interview section, Mayim or Ken will ask about something on the contestant card that they fill out. Mayim in particular will ask a question as a statement. “You hung out in the South Pacific with sharks. Tell us about that.” So many contestants will reply with “So” before launching into the story that I’ve given them a pass.

And if you’ve been on enough ZOOM meetings, you know it’s difficult to ascertain when a person is finished talking. A “you know” or “um” is actually a useful cue to keep me from interrupting someone.

Verbify

Finally, I’ve never been that fussy when the culture tries to verbify a word from another part of speech. I remember that a columnist – I don’t recall who – was fretting about the word “party” becoming a verb! PARTY is a NOUN, they grumbled. Somewhere between Sam Cooke’s “We’re having a party” and Prince’s “We’re gonna party like it’s 1999,” that fight was SO lost.

A tree branch falls in Albany

greenery

tree branch fallsIf a tree branch falls in Albany, NY, and I don’t hear it, did it really come down? Apparently, if I am to believe my eyes. And now YOU can believe it because I have PICTURES. And as we all know, pictures never lie.

I’ve been really tired the past three weeks. This is a function of staying up until 3:30 a.m. the night of the daughter’s prom the second Saturday in June, then essentially pulling an all-nighter a couple of nights later, for reasons I will share eventually.

After a couple more weeks chock full of events, including the Albany High School graduation on June 26, I went to bed and slept until about 8:30 a.m. Apparently, I missed a severe morning thunderstorm, an event that would usually awaken me.

“I wonder if the tree branch that fell hit the shed.” my wife wondered. What tree branch? There was a storm? Oh, THAT tree branch. And, no, the shed is fine.

tree brach falls 2The branch is about 3.6 meters tall, a little less than twice my height. For such a relatively small piece, it’s a bit heavy. I offered my daughter money to trim off the greenery and throw it onto the compost, but she declined. So I did it myself.

We’ll have to call a tree service. That tree was trimmed maybe a decade ago. My wife called them again five years later, but they never showed up.

Hey, does anyone in Albany want a nice piece of wood? One could use it for jousting, or some other medieval sport. 

Unrelated

The things I do to maintain peace and quiet. I was at the CVS register, picking up a package. There was a young woman and a teen female trying to make a purchase from the autopay, though I neither knew nor cared what they were buying. It appeared they put in every cent they had. But it was $6.07 short. The machine told everyone within 30 feet: PAYMENT INSUFFICIENT or some such. Three times.

Finally, I asked if I could pay the balance. They said yes. And the damn loud machine stopped talking. BTW, 607 is the area code of Binghamton, NY, my hometown.

Running hot and cold

avoiding the sun

hot and coldKelly wrote about hot and cold. Specifically: “Every couple I’ve ever known, of every combination of people, has a hot one and a cold one.

“This isn’t about looks, but about reactions to temperature. Every couple has one person who always thinks it’s on the cool side, while the other always thinks it’s on the warm side.” And for the most part, I think he’s correct. But he’s NOT right about my wife and me.

It’s because my wife has a far greater tolerance for the extremes than I do. I’m the temperate one. In the house, I need it warmer in the winter AND cooler in the summer than she does, by about three degrees Fahrenheit. So I HATE it when she bakes in the summer, but LOVE when she does so in the winter.

The first floor has, thank Allah, air conditioning. When I climb the stairs, it feels like another climate. Why doesn’t she have the fan on in our bedroom? The fact that we aren’t currently IN our bedroom is not a reason.

The GREAT outdoors?

It is even more true outdoors. She is NOT a sun worshipper, but I actively avoid direct sunlight if possible. Partially, it’s the vitiligo, but I also fear heat stroke. I almost ALWAYS have a cap on, preferably white or a light color. Long sleeve shirts may seem counterintuitive, but I can’t afford to burn. And, if I can find them, sunglasses.

I LOVE sunglasses. And that applies to the winter as well, with the glare of the snow. Because I got frostbite when I was about 15, my feet are particularly susceptible to the cold. If my head, ears, hands, or feet are cold – and this is true, indoors or out – I’m pretty miserable.

My wife can tolerate about 20 to 85 F, but I’m more of a 25 to 80 F guy. Or maybe 28 to 77. My tolerance for the cold outdoors has definitely lessened. I remember riding my bicycle when it was 20F; now it has to be 35F.

Weirdest album from a mainstream artist?

Berry Gordy’s sister

The_who_sell_out_album_frontMy bud Greg Burgas asked his readers: What’s the weirdest album released by a mainstream artist? Off the top, I couldn’t think of any except from one pair of musicians.

Then I found this list of 35 albums. And I own several! The first, though, I heard of only weeks ago.

Frank Sinatra – Watertown (1970). A concept album that one of my news feeds just mentioned. It Was re-released in June 2022. He “was approached by “Big Girls Don’t Cry” writer Bob Gaudio to do a song cycle about a man whose wife left him with his kids.” It’s named for an upstate New York city; I probably should get it.

The Fireman – Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1994). “Without a drop of publicity, 1994 saw Paul McCartney quietly releasing his ambient techno album.” To me, it sounds “at worst needlessly repetitive.”

Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (1979). This has some good songs, actually, such as Send One Your Love, but also a lot of tedious “synthesizer experimentation.” It was “a detour so far from the commercial norm that it risked alienating scores of unadventurous listeners.”

Yoko Ono/John Lennon – Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968). I wasn’t even going to consider it because I don’t think of Yoko as a “mainstream artist,” even though I own a few of her solo albums. I haven’t listened to Two Virgins in decades. Side one of their Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions (1969) is unlistenable, but side two is conversational, a bit melancholy, and documents Yoko’s miscarriage. Wedding Album (1970) has Yoko yelling JOHN, and John yelling YOKO for twenty minutes; side two is a dialogue about bed-ins and the like.

Bob Dylan – Slow Train Coming (1979). Musically interesting but lyrically theologically lazy.

Starkey

Ringo Starr – Beaucoups of Blues (1970). I LIKE this album quite a bit. “Ringo hunkered down in Nashville, rounded up the city’s top session players, and recorded this love letter to Music City that’s as authentic as the most classic George Jones platter… Beaucoups of Blues remains Starr’s most thoroughly enjoyable, though misunderstood, solo outing.” Agreed. Title song.

Paul McCartney – McCartney II (1980). Why is this album even on the list?

The Who – The Who Sell Out (1967). “Arguably the Who’s greatest album… The oddness [comes] from the fact that these are book-ended by radio jingles and commercials.” SpongeBob SquarePants used this model for an album. Tattoo.

Bob Dylan – Self Portrait (1970). As mentioned, I bought this for my high school girlfriend. I specifically recall a strange version of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer. I always wondered if it was in response to the duo’s A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission). “At the end of the 1966 recording Simon says, ‘Folk-rock,’ and, after an audible noise, ‘I’ve lost my harmonica, Albert.’ This presumably refers to Dylan’s manager, Albert Grossman.”

What now?

Neil Young – Trans (1983). “He ticked off “his new label by releasing a vocoder-heavy synth-rock album. He followed it up with a rockabilly disc, and was sued shortly thereafter.” I like Trans, and especially Mr. Soul.

The Clash – Sandinista! (1980). “The Only Band That Mattered follow-up London Calling with a three-LP set filled with reggae, hip-hop, and pop experiments sprawled all over the place.” I bought this album right away and listened to it a lot. Police On My Back.

Joni Mitchell – Mingus (1979). I didn’t appreciate the dialogue as much as the music.

Marvin Gaye – Here, My Dear (1978). “Quite possibly the only album that nearly launched an invasion of privacy lawsuit.” A divorce album re: him and Anna Gordy, Berry Gordy’s older sister. Indulgent but oddly interesting.  When Did You Stop Loving Me, When I Stop Loving You?

Devo – E-Z Listening Disc (1987) [Compilation]. Someone from Rykodisc sent this to me when I was working at FantaCo. I think it’s a hoot. Jocko Homo.

The one I think is most “out there” is probably the Fireman or maybe Joni.

Ramblin' with Roger
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