"Marie" Townes Van Zandt

There is not a more depressing-scary-horrible beautiful song than "Marie". If you have no idea who Townes Van Zandt was here's a quick bio: Born to a wealthy Texas family, left it to pursue music, had electro-shock treatment, fell off a roof, lived in a trailer and died of alcoholism, in between all of which he made a reputation for himself as the greatest songwriter of all time. Seriously, above Dylan in a lot of people's minds. Lyle Lovett, Steve Earle, Guy Clark...all of that music movement would be nothing without Townes's tutorship.

And Marie is a perfect example of the beautiful brutality of his music. Played in a minor key with a great base line run, the melody can be played by most anyone who has ever spent minimal time on the axe. Somewhat like a Dylan song the iceberg below the waterline is the ingredient that makes it so powerful. True artistry is doing so much with so little words and three chords. First verse:

"I stood in line and left my name
took about six hours or so
Well, the man just grinned like it was all a game
said they'd let me know
I put in my time till the Pocono line
shut down two years ago
I was staying at the mission till I met Marie
now I can't stay there no more"

The narrative continues with its voice running from place to place looking for a job and some money with Marie, mostly living under a bridge as a homeless couple. It has a Steinbeck-ian feel to it throughout the entire song, the only difference is that it is present day and this man is not any Oakie, the Joads have been long gone by the time Townes penned this piece.

And early on during the song it appears to NOT be that depressing and not really much of anything, just some guy mumbling about his problems but the height of the tension climaxes when Marie becomes pregnant, winter time has come and they still have nowhere to live. Unemployment checks have run out, welfare is unavailable and the only thing the narrator can think of doing is hopping a train and heading south except for the fact his wife is incapacitated by her pregnancy. The last verse:

"Marie she didn't wake up this morning
she didn't even try
she just rolled over and went to heaven
my little boy safe inside
I laid them in the sun where somebody'd find them
caught a Chesapeak on the fly
Marie will know I'm headed south
so's to meet me by and by"

It is hard to get the feel from these lyrics that one will get when listening to the horribly tragic guitar and Townes's low, rambling, understated voice. It is not happy like Woody Guthrie nor Ramblin' Jack Elliot's. It is sad, sad like a divorce and a death on the same day, the kinda sadness that leads one to drink. For Townes there is no question he had much more of this bottled up inside of him and no question to why he slowly killed himself with poison for forty years.

"Our Love is Here to Stay" Bobby Short-Late Night at the Cafe Carlyle

People love to talk about MLK and all the civil rights activists but in my mind the people who really changed things in their own way were the musicians. There was Sinatra stating he would not play if Sammy had to walk in the back door, there was Elvis taking black music and showing it to the world. Bobby Short was another man who never made speeches, nor protested anything on the streets; rather his protest was to play music to people who would never let him serve dinner in their homes. His charm, polite manners, amazing showman and musicianship converted high society and won them over. His love of Cabaret music, impeccable style and soft somewhat feminine voice left many to question his sexuality. But Bobby pulled some serious women in his day and was always seen with very desirous candy on his arm, including Gloria Vanerbilt. He was the first black man to be listed on the Social Register and an absolute icon who played for presidents and heads of states.

But he was most famous for his wonderful shows at The Cafe Carlyle, until his later years twice a night, almost everyday of the week. I first saw him there, barely old enough to drink while I sat at the bar alone, it opened up my mind to a world of music that people reserve only for those over seventy. Throughout the years it became a family event to see him around Christmas and are some of the greatest holiday memories I possess.

And he was humble, he would talk to you if you could hang with his wit. One night I called The Carlyle to see if I could get his set list, they didn't have it but gave me his agent's number. I was looking for the name of a song and the only thing I remembered was the opening lines. I called the agent and they gave me another number to call, called that and another run around. After about six numbers I called the last one, a 212 area code and a man answered the phone. I explained I was looking for Bobby Short's set list that he was currently working. The reply was "Well this is Mr. Short, who is this?" I stated my name, he replied "Yes, but who are you?" That admittedly snooty remark turned into an hour long conversation in which he explained every song on his setlist and why he played them, but the title of my song just wasn't clicking so I sang it to him over the line. To my surprise he started singing alone and told me the whole history of why he loved it. Amazingly, it was home number and I probably called twice a year until his death just to hear his answering service, the message of which was just as elegant as the man.

"Our Love is Here to Stay" is a song you probably have heard before instrumentally in movies or maybe a Nora Jones cover but this version is the way George and Ida Gershwin had intended it to be played. There is nothing but piano, brushes on the drums if you listen closely and Beverly Peer on the Bass Fiddle. It is simple, beautiful and reminds you of everything that love is supposed to be: deep, undying and epic. I am not saying it is, and for most it never will be and that is why this song is so important. Spend the .99 on it and if you like it the entire album, put aside your cynical ways, macho mentality and homophobia about Cabaret music and give it a chance. Everyone needs one day to grab your lover and slow dance around the living room whispering this song in her ear, if you do it right she'll relax in your arms and remember once again why she puts up with you in the first place. And in today's world where sexual roles in society are so confused and switched you'll feel like a man again taking charge and being a strong romantic, she'll feel like a woman and placate you in every way you've imagined.

"Indian Girl" Rolling Stones-Emotional Rescue

The follow up to some girls was just as strong and just as varied as its predecessor. "All About You" showcases Keif's beautiful, slow ballad voice, "She's So Cold" is typical Mick Jagger sex filled rock and "Dance Pt. 1" picks up right where "Miss You" left off. However the best song on the album, one of the most overlooked Stones songs of which there are a myriad is: "Indian Girl". This song has a Mick vocal, some horns, a great acoustic guitar rhythm. Listen to it when you are about to fall asleep so your selective hearing kicks in and you can actually hear the tracks laid down upon each other, beautifully relaxing. In that semi-conscious state your mind will drift to banana republics, oppressive heat and humidity, mirror sunglasses and fatigues on men with belts of bullets running through the jungle and starving children in the streets. "Indian Girl" addresses the typical life of a peasant in a South American dictatorship, the lyrics start with a simple question:

"Indian Girl, where is your mama?
Indian Girl, where is your papa?
He's fighting the war in the streets of Masaya."

and continue with the line:

"Lesson number one that you learn while you're young,
Life just goes on and on getting harder and harder."

The theme itself is simple, make no mistake this isn't a Dylan epic or even a Springsteen anti-rock, soul searching track. In reality this song doesn't really have much to it that is extraordinary with the exception of the last spoken verse that is mouthed in typical Mick accented' vernacular. Here it is:

"Mr. Gringo, my father he ain't no Che Guevara
And he's fighting the war on the streets of Masaya
Little Indian girl where is your father?
Little Indian girl where is your momma?
They're fighting for Mr. Castro in the streets of Angola.

And here's the way it sounds:

"Mr. Ginnngo-a, myfatherheain'tnoCheee Guevaraaaaa
He's fighting the war onthe streets of Masayaaaa
LittleIndian Girl whereisyour faatheerrr?
LittleIndian Girl whereisyour maaamaaa?
They'refightingforMr.Castro inthestreetsofAAAAAngoooooola.
LaLaLaLa LaLaLa LaLaLaLa LaLaLa.

It's awesome, Mick is on such a different level that he can pronounce any word in any way he wants. He can read the word "Cat" and make is sound like "Dog" but he can do that because he is Mick Jagger. Mick, the man who in his sixties is still rocking hard and working out for two hours before a show. Mick the man who had to sleep with David Bowie because he has already slept with every woman on the planet so he figured he'd pick a guy that every woman wants to sleep with. Mick, a man who in a perfect world would be wearing a beret, green fatigues and mirror sunglasses as a dictator in a Latin American country. Refugees from around the world would be lining up to give away their freedom without question, come to think of it I've done that every time I've dropped four grand for a Stones ticket and never thought twice about it.

"Quizás, Quizás, Quizás" Arielle Dombasle and Julio Iglesias

I am not a gay man but I feel confident enough in my sexuality to say that if I was Julio Iglesias in his prime is the man I'd want to brush up against in the morning. But I am a straight man, in turn Arielle Dombasle in her prime is who I want to be spooning with in the morning after a bottle or two of Bordeaux and a set of dirty white sheets. Born in Connecticut and raised in Mexico of French decent, currently the wife of Bernard-Henri Lévy, this woman is more sophisticated than BMW's iDrive. Julio, born in Madrid, law student, soccer player and guilty of causing more women to slide out of their seats this side of Tom Jones. Together they take the Cuban born Osvaldo Farrés's song to level of sexual tension and longing not seen since I walked by the red light district windows in Amsterdam when I was fourteen.

The song itself is simple (Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps) and has been covered by a plethora of people including such undersiables as (I shutter to think) two of the Spice Girls and The Pussycat Dolls. Under Arielle and Julio the song sheds the chez of the former mentioned and the Nat King Cole-Norman Rockwell-type bubble gum sweetness which corrupts it totally. No this version from Dombasle's "Amor" album, is just under three minutes for a reason, because that's how long it is going to take once you shed those clothes of hers off, but like the act you are ready to hit the replay button time and time again until exhaustion.

The song retains its Cuban feel and sound, with little overproduction. Arielle's voice purrs during her first part until Julio comes in deep and low with a hint of sheepish longing. They continue stabbing back and forth throughout the remainder of the song ramping up the sexual tension until the end where the question remains answered only with the word Perhaps three times over. The lyrics are terribly simple and straight forward, six verses comprised of four lines with little more than fix or six words per line. Their meaning? Just as simple, it is someone asking "Yes?" and always getting a reply of "Maybe."

Probably the majority of songs in the world are written about love or sex, out of those a majority are about unrequited love and this song is no different. It is an example of an age old problem that has started wars, been the cause of murders and countless restless nights alone. It is what strip clubs and the prostitution business base their livelihoods on and for women the reason why they'll pass on the entree and walk around in crippling heels every evening. Everything in our lives eventually comes down to these emotions and even these two sex icons have felt it, they must have or else they couldn't sing about it with such convincing sincerity.

"One For Daddy-O" Miles Davis-Ballad and Blues

"Autumn Leaves" is probably the best known song on this album which is straight out of grammar school music class (or maybe high school for you public school kids), "It Never Entered My Mind" is a classic as well, Jane Monheit does an excellent version on "Live From the Rainbow Room" Anyway, I feel that this is a well known song but every time I mention it in a conversation the person looks at me as if I am speaking in Latin.

So, One For Daddy-O, eight and a half minutes of pure jazz bliss. Miles's second solo starts off with a loooong held note, in it he is telling you he is the coolest, blackest motherfucker on the planet and everyone else is a high school algebra teacher who drives a K car from his parents house to class everyday. This song is everything jazz should be, it is edgy, it is cool (the word cool in the way we use it today was invented by jazz musicians as a description of this type of music in opposition to Bird and Dizzy or Ellington type bop and swing). The song is women in black dresses sipping gimlets, men who wear hats and are not afraid to smoke. It is about stockings and affairs...everything you pictured (or at least I did) adults doing before you became one. And while all that was happening in the white section of town, up in Harlem, downstairs in a small club it was blacks drinking gin, sweating through the smoke and the stench of too much cologne watching some of their own prove that indeed they are not equal to the whites, here they are the superior race.

So if you're missing a little romance in your life and you feel about as cool as the first time you tried to take a bra off in your teens throw this song on and down a martini...not today's definition of one either. Pour a half a bottle of Gin over ice and wave a bottle of vermouth in front of the mixer (that's enough) pour it into a nice big glass, throw a black suit on and a crisp white shirt, leave the top three buttons undone; select this song on your iPod and put it on repeat. That broad across the way you've been thinking about having a drink with? Mix another one for her and give a knock on the door, Miles has your back, just make sure you have that bra removal step down because you'll be putting those skills to work in about ten minutes.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find (Pittsburg)" / "Shut out the Light"

In my mind it is almost impossible to separate these two songs so I am throwing them in as one post. If you want a perfect representation of the song writer that Springsteen is, not the cheese-dick pop hero he has become of recent years; no the gritty, pensive, man who can write two minutes of music that will stop your heart....this is the proof.

I searched for a while to figure out when "A Good Man is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh)" was written since it appeared on "Tracks" which was released in 1998. I am sure I am just missing it but if I had to guess it fits in with "The River" album and some of those beauties such as "Stolen Car" and "Wreck on the Highway" That album was released in 1980 which would make sense because I am fucking confident that while writing both these songs he HAD to be watching "The Deer Hunter" which was released two years earlier, it is widely known that cinema is a huge influence on his music. Also, I always think of the classic movie "Big Wednesday" when Jack Barlow comes back from Vietnam...that's a whole different blog but it you have never seen that movie it is a masterpiece.

The meat of the song.

The first verse is an electric guitar fingerpicked while Bruce sings in a very fragile, raspy voice, he's singing this about a woman he knew or loved and it hurts him to think of her this way:
"It's cloudy out in Pittsburgh, It's raining in Saigon, snows falling all across the Michigan line."
A woman is sitting by a Christmas tree listening to a radio by herself.

The second park kicks off with that typical Jersey Shore sound and Bruce digresses into what this woman's plight is currently. What always sends spears into my heart about Bruce and this song in particular are the two or three words that take it to another level.

"Once she had a feller, once she was somebody's girl and she gave all she had that one last time"

Now he could have just said she was married, that would have been enough knowing (you know the guy is gone, I'm not giving it away here, you had to know) how hard it is to lose someone. But Bruce takes it up a step and let's you know that she's been around, she's known many men and none of them worked out, just when she was about to quit she found him. This skill, in my mind, is the difference between your standard successful song writer and men like Bruce, Dylan and Van Zandt.

The bridge is my favorite:

"Well the picturesss on the table by her bed, him in dress greens and her in her wedding whites, she remembers how the world was the day he left and now how that world is dead. And a good man is so hard to find"

Out of the over 58,000 men who died in Vietnam many of their wives possessed these same sentiments. A lot of men left and a lot of them never came back. Ever. There would be no more Christmases, no more picnics on those long summer days. The last thing these men saw was a shitty jungle in a shitty country that they were in for a shitty cause, mismanaged by shitty politicians.

So now in the song we have a woman without a husband on Christmas and his daughter asleep while she sits up and thinks about how her life has been stolen from her, with that Jersey Shore sound-Italian Accordion style music progressing in the background. The juxtaposition is chilling, happy, joyous sounds, sounds that one pictures hearing on the boardwalk eating cotton candy playing while the listener is dealing with the thought of a gaping chest wound that leaves a man's organs on the jungle grass; tie that in with the dreadful loneliness of her solitude and the dreary hard winter that exists in Pittsburgh and it is one of the most powerful images Springsteen has ever painted.

I always picture this woman as Adrienne from Rocky, someone who was misunderstood most of her life, someone the world has taken advantage of in many ways. I think what trips that thought in my head is the verse:

"She got time now for Casanovas, Yeah those days are gone. She don't want that anymore, she's made up her mind, just somebody told her, As the nights get on
When a good man is so hard to find."

I see those guys on the corner from Rocky singing around the fire in the oil drum. In my mind Philly is just as bad as Pittsburgh, and in the winter they are just so dark and cold it leaves one dead inside. I also see those single mothers with the weight of the world on their shoulders trying to find someone else and how close to impossible it is for them to have someone.

The song ends just as it began with her alone, she is in bed now and thinks about it all. The entire Vietnam War can be summed up in the last lines:

"Well she thinks how it was all so wasted and how expendable their dreams all were
When a good man was so hard to find. Well it's cloudy out in Pittsburgh"


Shut out the Light

Another Vietnam song and another one that takes its theme (almost exactly this time) from "The Deer Hunter" This one though has none of that Jersey Shore Sound, it has more of that driving tempo that was evident in the song "Devils and Dust" years later. This song was the B side to the single Born in the USA.

There is a scene in "The Deer Hunter" when Meryl Streep is getting ready for the boys to come home from 'Nam...if you remember that scene and the ten minutes or so that it encompasses you have the first verse to that song. I've been away for long periods of time in the Military and regardless of the action you saw or hadn't seen when you come home things are never as good as you hoped them to be. With a woman there is always a terrible tension and with the rest of the world it scares you to think that everyone was going about their daily lives while you were in a very bad place. The second half of the first verse represents that and just how hard it can be to come back home again.

"Well she called up her mama to make sure the kids were out of the house
She checked herself out in the dining room mirror
And undid an extra button on her blouse
He felt her lying next to him, the clock said 4:00 am
He was staring at the ceiling
He couldn't move his hands"

It is also terribly sweet and always hit me right in the heart. You know she's looking in the mirror, trying to look perfect, and you know what? She probably isn't the type of woman to dress flashy but this guy has been away for a long time and, yup he deserves it, undoes an extra button on her blouse. The thing is it doesn't matter if it was Sasha Grey waiting for him dripping wet naked on the front porch, nothing is gonna happen because even pussy isn't going to get a man's mind off the fact that he played Russian Roulette with his buddy in a POW camp and watched pieces of his head stick to the ceiling.

The next verse is a Chevy commercial, well back when Chevy actually was worth something. In America, Bruce's America the only thing that is second to a woman is a car. A car defines you, but in this light it isn't a douche bag pulling up to the club in a yellow Ferrari. This car is a piece of steel that he has worked on, that has taken him to and back from the factory, the car where he probably lost his virginity. A car back then for the working class was an heirloom, it was freedom and it was something that men took very seriously, they were chariots and they were emperors in their own lives no matter how insignificant they appeared to the outside world. If you offered a guy like this a Prius they would never stop laughing at you.

"Well deep in a dark forest, a forest filled with rain
Beyond a stretch of Maryland pines there's a river without a name
In the cold black water Johnson Lineir stands
He stares across the lights of the city and dreams of where he's been"

The above last verse is where the song goes from basic story telling into a little more poetic, non literal storytelling. Springsteen has always done a fine job of producing an unusual cadence in his music the second line sounds more like: "BeyondthestretchofMarylandPines there's ariiiiivvverwithoutanaaaaama" It works every time he does it, it just adds a lot of spice to a song that is very simple. I don't know if he is standing in that river, if it is literal. Often times I think the river flowing around him is his civilian life he has returned to and regardless of how many lights his loved ones put on for him, or how many bright lights of the city there are, for Johnson there will always be blackness flowing around him; even in his sleep his dreams will be filled with the horror he was witnessed.


In these two songs any notion of Springsteen you have acquired over the years, his "image" should be washed away. It drives me INSANE when people describe him as a Mellencamp (who has zero talent) when he is an ocean compared to that shallow puddle. What's left is the real Boss who elevated rock music out of the disco age and into the limelight where it belongs. It also drew serious attention to the Vietnam Veteran's life back in the United States and the horrors they had to deal with, all in all you are a slightly more complete person for having these two on your ipod.

"Never Knew How Much (I Needed You)"

I'll say it first and straight that the album version of this song is totally over-produced and downright terrible, however as bad as it is on the album the live version from the video "Brothers of the Road", a live concert from Gainsville, Florida shot in the 70's is amazing. It is somewhat of a difficult DVD to find but in well worth the trek, every song is well done and it is a beautiful sight to see Greg in leather pants, thin, lean and healthy.

But why this song?

The first time I heard this song was in college sitting in a room with a bunch of guys who were, much like myself, a little outside the norm in our music tastes. After the viewing was over we were trying to capture what this song was, what emotion it was trying to explain, and more so what would you be doing cinematically while it was playing in the background. The 3/4 of a bottle of Cutty Sark which was flowing throughout my veins at the time gave me an idea:

You are driving through the desert, possibly route 50, into the sunset westbound in a black Cadillac convertible. On the passenger seat is a bottle of tequila and an 8x10 picture frame holding a black and white of your ex girl, a girl you loved intensely and terrible hard. The glass in the frame has spider cracks but is still intact and you look at it every ten seconds or so against the white leather seats while your shoulder length hair flies in the wind. You have a frilled white tuxedo shit on and a pair dark, heavily starched blue jeans and a pair of black cowboy boots with yellow piping. This song is being played on an eight track cassette, a box filled of them is laying on the floor in the back and while you have a bunch of great tunes you just keep replaying this over and over again. On the backseat is an old green military sea bag with your name stenciled on the side and a nylon string guitar that you bought in an old pawnshop in Juarez. You don't really know where you are driving to, but it is out to Cali somewhere because that is where all dreams start and you have no idea how you are going to make money but you always have in the past so it is of no concern. All you know is that right now the only thing that is keeping you from pulling that .38 out of the glove compartment and ending that terrible hollowness and longing is Greg raspy, from deep down in the heart singing the last verse and refrain:

Today I watched the sunset on the freeway,
strangled on the poisoned air.
But miles behind on the other end,
I know you'll always be waiting there.
Girl you treat me with your kindest hand,
you're in my heart, in my mind and I'm so glad...

I never knew how much a man needed of woman,
I never knew how much a boy needed a girl,
I never knew how much I needed you....

You can purchase the video on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Allman-Brothers-Band-Road/dp/6305130930