LISTENING PARTY: This Fire

Two embarrassing confessions, one after another
On Januray 20, 1998, I sat down with my friends Kristen, Jessica and Dan to watch the premiere of “Dawson’s Creek” a new teen drama on the fledgling WB network. Dan and I worked at Blockbuster at the time, and one of the downsides of the job was that while we were supposed to watch something called a screener, which was a two hour long video tape of ads that ran on a loop. A lot of time they were ads for movies that were coming out on video tape, but some promotional consideration was paid for to air ads for things that you couldn’t find in a Blockbuster Video. Like the premiere of “Dawson’s Creek”. One 2-hour screener probably had the Dawson’s Creek ad six times, and during an 8-hour shift you would watch the screener 4 times, meaning on the days when we didn’t defy corporate orders and put in a movie instead of the screener (which wasn’t as often as it would be a few weeks later when I was promoted to assistant manager) I would see the Dawson’s Creek ad 24 times a day, 5 days a week. And it became kind of a joke between me and Dan, about how many times we saw the Dawson’s Creek ad, that we would have to watch the premiere. We HAD TO.

We did watch about the first twelve minutes of the premiere and then we all just started doing other things. The show didn’t really captivate us. It never was supposed to. I was not exactly its target audience, and while I don’t think Dan really cared, I was secretly disappointed. Which is directly tied to my second embarrassing confession: the reason I was so pumped for Dawson’s Creek had to do with its theme music, “I Don’t Want to Wait” by Paula Cole. Because one year earlier, I had purchased Cole’s second album, and fell deeply in love with it. That’s my second embarrassing confession: I love “This Fire”

It’s like how some people have weird attractions to girls with hair on their face, or dudes with lazy eyes. There’s no way to really explain away it; if you’re being honest, you dig bearded ladies or lazy-eyed dudes because you’re just a sick freak. And that’s the best way I can describe my love for Paula Cole’s “This Fire”. I’m a sick freak.

This isn’t like my love of Meatloaf, or Rush’s early 90s work, where I can love it actually, but also from a safe, ironic appreciation of how cheesy it is. “This Fire” does not allow me that. I can’t claim to love it because it’s cheesy. It’s so overly earnest it would turn cheese right into skim milk.

I had seen Paula Cole perform with Peter Gabriel a few years before, and when I stumbled upon her record at my local Strawberries, and with disposable income for the first time in my life, I bought it, without even having heard a single song from it. (Can you imagine a time before hearing ‘Where Have All The Cowboys Gone’ or ‘I Don’t Want to Wait’?)

And I listened to it. And I loved it. And I’ve been ashamed ever since. This is my Paula Cole cry for help. Somebody start calling around to set up the intervention.


“Tigers”- One way to know that you’re about to listen to an overly-earnest album. It starts with a cappella singing. Oh God, sitting here listening to the lyrics to this song closely is about as painful as reading some girl’s high school journal. She just said something about sex-starved teachers staring at her ass, and then followed it up by ‘Goodbye lions, tigers, and bears.” So this song is about a loss of innocence, perhaps? God, at least when Alanis Morrissette awkwardly revealed her sexual history with a gross old man, it was Dave Coulier. Unless Paula Cole’s professor was Mr. Feeney from Boy Meets World, I just can’t get behind this. The song ends with backwards singing, which sounds like Paula is sucking all the words she just sang back into her throat. If only I could do that with all the vomit I spewed during this song.

Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?- You’ve heard this song. Don’t pretend you haven’t. Unless you were born three days ago and haven’t discovered what a radio is yet. I feel like the 90s was the only era of music where there were this many songs with spoken word verses. I would also like to point out to Miss Cole, that cowboys in general did not enjoy the most stellar reputation for how they treated their ladies. Besides, I thought all cowboys were into other cowboys. Where have all the cowboys gone, Paula? Up to Brokeback Mountain. You’re going to be waiting a long time.

Throwing Stones- I should point out that Paula Cole picked out a really killer band. Jay Bellerose has become this generation’s Jim Keltner--the session drummer who plays drums on every cool singer-songwriter album recorded in the last decade. If you own a record produced by Joe Henry or T-Bone Burnett, Bellerose is the drummer. The guy is amazing. The record sounds great. It’s very well produced, and I believe that Cole got a Grammy nomination in 1997 for producing this record. What she did not get a Grammy nomination for? Non-pretentious lyrics. Because this record does not really have any of those.


Carmen- This song is a really beautiful song. It’s really sparse, it sounds like it’s only a single guitar and maybe a bass, and then the whole rest of the song is in the drums. I’m not usually a drum guy, but this record has some of the best drum playing of any record I’ve ever heard. I don’t know who Carmen is, but I do know that he eats acid. I’m not usually a drug guy, but I thought you dropped acid. Like isn’t that the terminology? Or are people eating acid now? That just sounds dangerous.


Mississippi- This song features a didgeridoo. And mentions that Cole likes it from behind. That combination must make it unique in pop music, right?

Nietzsche’s Eyes- In case you hadn’t figured out that Paula Cole went to college, she has a song named Nietzsche’s Eyes. She might have well just included a Photostat of her BA in the album’s liner notes.

Road to Dead- Many of these songs have a certain musical kinship to the work Peter Gabriel was producing at this time. Weird bubbling keyboards. Guitars used more as textual effects than harmonically. Great, atypical drumming. I thought I’d bring that up. Like I said, lots of this record sounds really really good. What doesn’t sound so good is writing lyrics that make it sound like you think Dead is a place. I mean, you could walk on a road to Death, I suppose. You could walk on the road to the Dead. But a road to dead? That just sounds like you didn’t learn proper grammar. And as we learned the last song, we know Cole went to college, so what gives.

Me- As I usually do before I start one of these, I went to youtube and searched for Paula Cole songs, and found about 14,000 videos of women singing this song into their computer cameras. I suppose it is a really empowering song. You know what’s an even more empowering song for ladies to sing in the privacy of their bedrooms into their webcams? “Sussudio.”

Feelin’ Love- Do we really need a song about sex at this point? We already know that you like it from behind while someone plays a didgeridoo. What else do we need to know? That you can come up with five and a half minutes worth of strained sexual metaphors? Got it. This guys makes you feel like a sticky pistil leading into a stamen. Those all sound like sexy words, but I don’t know. If my wife were to say that to me, I’d probably hide her copy of Planet Earth from her for a while. Near the end, Paula Cole tells us that she is both Barry White and Isis, and I couldn’t help but think of a team-up between the late soul-singer and the 70s super heroine. What adventures they’d have had.



Hush hush hush- This sound features Peter Gabriel and a very determined clarinet. Thinking back upon it, I wonder if I heard that Peter Gabriel appeared on this record, and that’s why I bought it. But he sings about 8 bars in this song. How do you think something like that works? Paula Cole sings back-up on PG’s 1993-4 world tour, goes into the studio, and invites him in? Did she write those lines in the song with him in mind, or did she find the best two lines on the whole album for him to sing on? I’d be a little intimidated, if I felt Peter Gabriel owed me a favor, asking him to sing just two lines on one song on my album. How did she know that these two lines were the best ones for him to sing? What if your next album you come up with something even better for Peter Gabriel to sing, but oops, you’ve already used up your shot. I couldn’t take that level of pressure. But I’d probably never be asked to sing the Kate Bush part on “Don’t Give Up” either, so I doubt it’ll ever come up.

I Don’t Want to Wait- There are about 7 billion people on the planet. It’s a huge figure, one almost beyond human comprehension. If you want to realize how big the number 7 billion is, just think about how many times you’ve heard this song. Because you’ve probably heard it at least 7 billion times. Now imagine that every time you heard it, a new person was born. And now you’re starting to get a handle on our burgeoning overpopulation problem.

But honestly, what did you think of this song before you’d heard it billions of times? It’s hard to remember, but I remember thinking the song was pretty pisser. I thought this whole album was pretty pisser.

And now comes the shocking third embarrassing confession: I still love this record.

I wrote this months ago and have had it saved on my computer under an innocuous title so that it wouldn’t arose my wife’s suspicion. Several nights since I’ve had nightmares where federal agents seize my computer, having gotten word that I was involved with “some unsavory Paula Cole stuff.” I wake up in cold sweats. But I felt like it was time for me to be honest with all of you. I have a problem.

There aren’t really any programs for people like me, who love, irrationally, music that even Sarah McLachlan finds too preachy and feminist. I also have been having nightmares about Aborigine porn.

LISTENING PARTY: Magic & Loss

The same day I purchased Mighty Like A Rose by Elvis Costello, I also picked up Lou Reed's Magic & Loss. God love the cut-out bin. This is Lou Reed's concept album about the deaths of the legendary songwriter Doc Pomus and an unnamed friend, both from cancer, both within a year of one another. This might be the hardest "Listening Party" for me to do because the subject matter of these songs is so deeply personal, so deeply heartfelt, and so deeply, deeply earnest. But then again, this is the haircut Lou was sporting at the time:

Somebody wants you to know this is a Getty image, apparently

"Dorita"- This is a serious album for serious people. Do you know how I know that? Because Lou starts it was an instrumental 'overture' or as he labels it "an invocation of the human spirit in music." Really, Lou? Because you know that wankcase who goes into Guitar Center just to play all the guitars with no intention of ever buying any of them? "Dorita" sounds a lot like his wanky guitar noodlings. The guys behind the counter at Guitar Center aren't impressed, and neither are we, Lou.


"What's Good"- Another reason I know this is meant to be a serious album for serious people is that each song has a subtitle. This one is called 'The Thesis.' I learned in ninth grade English class that you never tell your audience what your thesis is. But I never went to grad school, and I'm pretty sure Lou Reed did, and maybe that's what they tell you to do there. This is my favorite song on the album. The other day I mentioned a few quotes from Mighty Like A Rose that were contenders for my senior yearbook quote, and this song has one too: "Life's like sanskrit read to a pony; life's good, but not fair at all." It's probably the truest thing Lou Reed has ever written. Or at least tied with that bit in Walk on the Wild Side about that guy going down on other guys while dressed as a girl. Or all the songs about guys getting stabbed that he's written. But this is the most adult, thoughtful thing he's ever written, and he put it at the beginning of his thoughtful and adult album. It's all downhill from here.


"Power and the Glory Part I"- Reason number 3 why this is a serious album for serious adults is that it features songs broken up into parts. Like a classical piece of music. Or the Star Wars movies. Speaking of Star Wars, this song features the vocal stylings of jazz legend Little Jimmy Scott. I don't really know why he's here, other than Lou Reed thought he'd have Little Jimmy Scott sing on his record, and when you're making serious music for serious people you can totally just do whatever the hell you want. Also, if making pretentious music were some kind of video game, Lou Reed would've just gotten a dozen new lives for name-dropping 'Leda and the Swan' halfway through this song.

"Magician"- There's not a whole lot to say about this song, and I better save what little I do have to say because it's one of about six songs on this record that has practically identical music on it. I think you can get away with that when you're doing a concept album. For example, on Pink Floyd's 'The Final Cut' record, Roger Water sings the whole album on one note.


"Sword of Damocles"-So I was 15 when I heard this record for the first time and I bet Lou Reed thought that naming a song 'Sword of Damocles' would send a kid like me running to an encyclopedia (remember those?) to find out what he was referring to. Unfortunately for him, Mr. Burns made a reference--with visuals!!--to the Sword of Damocles, like, two years earlier. If the Simpsons had made me aware of the prevalence of using methamphetamine among cross-dressers, I don't think I would've needed Lou Reed at all. This song is probably the most tuneful on the record, and Lou Reed almost sounds like he's actually singing a few times.


"Goodby Mass"- Okay, so this is just Magician again, with different words. And a misspelled title. Who spells it 'Goodby'? I think one would pronounce that "gud-be" and maybe that's what Lou Reed wants us to do. The subtitle to this song is 'In A Chapel Bodily Termination.' Say what? Apparently when you're the legendary Lou Reed you don't need correct spelling or correct grammar. Oh my god this song did that thing where you totally thought it was over and then another verse started. It's probably not a surprise that a concept album about death would make me want to kill myself, but the surprise is how much it makes me want to kill myself.

"Cremation"- The subtitle to this one is 'Ashes to Ashes' which seems like maybe the typography guy switched the two of them up. This song is really pretty good. Lou probably should've just put out this song with 'What's Good' and 'Sword' and called it an EP. Or filled the B-side with feedback. I think I'll mention that Lou engaged the services of the great Rob Wasserman on bass for this album. Lou has usually had pretty good taste in bass players, which is good, because most Lou Reed songs only have two chords in them, so it's up to the bass players to make them sound different from each other.


"Dreamin'" Oh, Lou. No one will ever take you seriously if you start dropping g's off your words!

"No Chance"-This song is different than most of the other songs on this album. A few weeks later, I picked up Lou Reed's 'New York' album, and basically "No Chance" sounds like every song off of that album. So if you listen to song, you can basically skip 'New York'. And if you've ever heard 'Sweet Jane' and 'Perfect Day' you've basically heard every Lou Reed song ever written.

"Warrior King"- I've made it two and a half minutes into this song without having typed anything. I seem to remember liking this song a lot when I was 15. So I think I've spent the last two and a half minutes trying to figure out what was wrong with me when I was 15.

"Harry's Circumcision"- This is Lou Reed's song about a mohel.

"Gassed and Stoked"- This song's chorus is an operator telling you that this is no longer a working number, which I think was, in the early 90s, supposed to represent the finality of death: the person you are trying to call is dead, and that is why the number no longer works. But listening to it today, it just sounds like Lou's friend didn't pay his cell phone bill.

"Power and Glory Part II"- Do you know how sometimes you really like a movie, and then they make a sequel and it's terrible? Or how sometimes you really don't like a movie, and then they make a sequel anyways, and you can't believe anybody would want to see it, and then one night you flip past it on cable and it's unbelievably terrible? Guess in which way 'Power and Glory Part II' is terrible.

"Magic & Loss" aka 'The Summation.' This song is six minutes and thirty nine seconds long. I think, if you just listened to 'What's Good', 'Sword of Damocles' and 'Cremation' it would take you less time. So that might be my recommendation. Although I do like the last minute or so of this song, where I'm guessing somebody in the control booth signaled to Lou that maybe his concept album needed a big finish, so he dialed it up to '4'. Yes, this is a pretty low key album, and to be honest, I probably prefer the seven times he plays the song Magician with different lyrics to the other numbers where he tries unconvincingly to rock.
I read an interview with Lou about this record, where he said that it was supposed to be instructive, it was supposed to tell people how to deal with death. He hoped, in 1992, that other musicians would follow in his footsteps. He even made a suggestion: MC Hammer should do a concept album about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. If only Hammer had listened to ole Lou, we might have been spared 'Addams Family Groove.' After all, there are fates worse than death.

LISTENING PARTY: Mighty Like A Rose

(Note: There are no Youtube videos for any of these songs, and trying to embed links to napster didn't work, so if you're curious what any of these songs sound like, you can listen to the entire album free here )
I've been thinking about Elvis Costello's Mighty Like A Rose a lot the past few days, for two reasons. I've recently moved into my grandmother's old house, and I purchased MLAR on an October afternoon 15 years ago with my father before visiting my grandparents. The second reason is that my beard is itching like crazy. This reason is relevant because sometime between the 1989 release of his album "Spike", which at the time was his biggest US hit ever, and 1991 when MLAR was released, Elvis grew probably the grossest beard of all time. He had a habit of following up big commercial success with something really offputting: for example, after his huge song Oliver's Army made the album "Armed Forces" a sales juggernaut, he got drunk in a bar, made racist comments about Ray Charles, and then got beat up by a girl. That he was able to claw his way back from that, primarily on the back of his single Veronica is astonishing. And then he grew the beard:


Anyway, this is the album he made. I have a deep affection for it, although it tends to be one of his more maligned albums. It has a nasty streak, but if EC's beard was half as itchy as mine is, I understand.

"The Other Side of Summer"-My favorite part of this song is that it has a verse dedicated to talking about how stupid "Imagine" by John Lennon is. I thought I was the only one who felt this way. My other favorite part is that it has, and I checked the liner notes, three different bass parts. Everything on this album is so thick sounding, the musical equivalent of split pea soup. And nothing says split pea soup like three different bass players. (The liner notes by EC also revealed that most of this song was cut live, meaning that all three bass players were playing at the same time. This is many people's versions of hell~ especially anybody who lives below someone listening to this song on a stereo system with a subwoofer.)

"Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)"- Do you need anymore evidence of the beard's misanthropic effects than the title of this song? Any song that wishes for nuclear annihilation that isn't written by Randy Newman is bound to be pretty severe. This song only features one bass player, the great Nick Lowe, which suggests to me that all the rest were killed by radiation from the nuclear fallout.

"How to Be Dumb"- This song only features one bass player, too, but it's written about a bass player, so that counts, right? This song is allegedly (like OJ killed his wife allegedly) about former Attractions bass player Bruce Thomas, who wrote a book about life on the road with EC. This might be the most vituperative song ever written. And if you don't know what vituperative means, Elvis is going to write a song about you, too. All that having been said, this is the most "classic" EC song on the record, and if he didn't call Bruce Thomas "the funniest f**ker in the world" very clearly enunciated, it might've been the single. At one point my senior year, I considered using the song's last lyrics as my yearbook quote: "Scratch your own head, stupid, count up to three, roll over on your back, repeat after me: don't you know how to be dumb?" Luckily wiser heads prevailed.

"All Grown Up"- I question the appropriateness of a man who just wrote a song called 'How to Be Dumb' writing a song about being all grown up. This is the song where Elvis first works with a string section. Perhaps coincidentally, this is also the song where many people stopped liking Elvis Costello.

"Invasion Hit Parade"- Damn that beard must be itching him like hell. Because this song makes him sound miserable. It features only one bass player, but it does feature two Elvises, as he credits himself twice, once as "DPA MacManus" (his given name) and as "E.C." Although in fairness, I surmise that the reason he uses his surname is because his father is credited with playing trumpet on the track. So maybe he just wanted to highlight his dad's involvement. Or maybe, since he credits himself as playing an instrument called "Radio Hail, Hail Freedonia Breakthrough" (which sounds like he's scatting into the blades of a small office fan) it's also possible every decision he made on this album was made just for perversity's sake.

"Harpies Bizarre"-On this song, there is only one bass, but it is hung upside down. I'm not kidding, the credits read "hung upside down Rickenbacker tremelo bass." So my question, given EC's penchant for verbally eviscerating bass players, is the bass player himself also hung upside down? This song also features a bassoon, meaning it is the favorite EC song of my friend Jess, who used to be a concert bassoonist, even though she's never heard it. Bassoonists are a loyal breed. Well, at least I assume so, since if they weren't, I'm sure Elvis would've written a song about it.

"After the Fall"- Elvis writes in the liner notes that this was the last album he recorded where he still thought in the two-sided vinyl format, meaning that he meant for this song to be the last song on side A. And since this song is probably the most depressing and tuneless song I've ever heard, my guess is that he didn't really want you to listen to the seven songs on side B. In all likelihood because you'd either hung yourself halfway through this song, or because you'd smashed the record into pieces.

"Georgie and Her Rival"-I've seen Elvis over a dozen times in concert, but I've never heard him play this song. I bet he's forgotten it even exists. But it's not terrible, and paying attention to the lyrics for the first time ever, it's a pretty clever little story song. Elvis even sounds like he used a ton of hair conditioner in his beard, because he doesn't sound like he wants to kill you musically.

"So Like Candy"- This song was co-written with Paul McCartney. From the Beatles (I know, I know, I bet you thought it was the guy from Wings.) Bass player count: two. I think it's the only song from this album that he still plays live, and it's pretty clear he likes it. There's a great line at the end about "Candy" taping a note to a record sleeve, which is one of those terrific images that seems so real. Things that seem less real? That anybody in the latter half of the 20th century is named Candy.

"Interlude: Couldn't Call it Unexpected No.2"- Who called for an interlude? Even if it did feature the Dirty Dozen Brass Band? And what kind of guy calls in the Dirty Dozen Brass band and has them play for 21 seconds? Same guy who thought this was a good look:

"Playboy to a Man"- Also co-written by Paul McCartney, except this time it's the guy from Wings. According to the liner notes, Elvis sang this song through a long rusty lead pipe. There's no joke that goes along with that. I just wonder who went to the junkyard to fetch the long rusty lead pipe? I will bet all the money in my pockets versus all the money in your pockets it was the bass player.

"Sweet Pear"- Where is Elvis meeting all these girls with the weird names?

"Broken"- This song was written by Elvis's then wife, Cait O'Riordan. When I was a teenager, I used to imagine getting married to somebody with as Irish a sounding name as Cait O'Riordan, but I would skip the part where she wrote songs that I recorded on my albums. I also skipped the part where she was a 14-year old boy, because that is who these lyrics sound like they were written by.

"Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4"- Don't bother looking for number 3. It's like that prank where kids release 3 goats into a school and paint 1, 2, and 4 on the sides so that everybody's looking for "goat number 3" all day. The final lines of this song were also contenders for yearbook quotes: "I can't believe I'll never believe in anything again." There's a truth bomb, right there. He sounds almost happy on this song. Know why? No bass player. Just a tuba. And how many bands do you think would be improved by replacing their bassists with tuba players? If you answered all of them, you would be correct. I've seen Elvis sing this song several times, and each time he shuts off his mike and sings out into the hall un-amplified. It's a show-boaty thing to do, no doubt, but he's smiling when he does it, as if to say "Holy shit was that beard itchy."

LISTENING PARTY : Dance Naked

John Mellencamp can't get no respect. He's seriously like the Rodney Dangerfield of rock and roll. Part of it his own fault: a lot of his stuff is pretty terrible. And nobody will ever forget his decision to spend much of the 80s wearing either a vest with no shirt or his grandmother's eyeglasses. And yes, who the hell wants to live in a pink houses? But he's released a number of really pretty excellent albums that are considered, thoughtful and soulful (Big Daddy, Human Wheels, Mr. Happy Go Lucky).

I'm not going to talk about any of those albums today. I'm going to talk about Dance Naked.

"Dance Naked"- I don't think rock lyric writing gets more zen then the opening couplet of this song. "I want you to dance naked/so I can see you." It's really a simple request, really. I know that it sounds pretty misogynistic, or sexist, or really just kind of creepy, but John does tell you near the end that you can dance naked "but only if you want to." There are a great many pick-up lines that I have heard that I cannot imagine ever working, but having a rock singer from Indiana who not only has cauliflower ears but a cauliflower face say to you "I want you to dance naked, but only if you want to"? I can actually see that working.

"Brothers"-I've never had a brother, and I don't think I would like to have one. John Mellencamp's tale of two brothers who wreck each other cars, get each other beat up, and don't approve of anything the other one does, well, it isn't doing too much to make me rethink my position. Especially, because with my luck, my brother would become a high-selling but critical ignored or underestimated singer-songwriter who would write songs about how much he can't stand me. Luckily I have sisters who are far more attractive and successful than me, with doctorates in biomedical engineering. I dodged a bullet there.

"When Margaret Comes to Town"- I love songs with girls' names in them. Especially when the name in the title is part of a statement, or a question, or just a dependent clause. "When Margaret Comes to Town." "Meet Virginia." "Amy Hit the Atmosphere." "Debbie Does Dallas." I can't remember who that last one is by. This song has a pretty cool little breakdown section right before the guitar solo. T

This album's history, from what I can remember from an issue of Entertainment Weekly I read 15 years ago, was that after the commercially disappointing "Human Wheels" album, Mellencamp decided to record an album really quickly (like two weeks-quickly, although that seems like a long time to me) and a side effect of this is that only three of the songs have a bass guitar on them! So it's two guitars and drums and that's it. Where was his bass player? On vacation? How badly did John Mellencamp want this album done? Bass player: 'I'll be fishing until the 12th, but I'm available after that.' Mellencamp: 'Screw you. I'm getting this album done in 3 hours or I'm not doing it.'

"Wild Night"-This is the one you know, the cover of the Van Morrison song that you probably don't know. It's also the first one to feature a bass guitar, played by the then unknown Me'Shell Ndegeocello, who sings duet. This is the only song that songs really fleshed out and produced, which might have something to do with the fact that somebody else wrote it in 1971. That would be like dressing a 24-year old up as a baby and talking about how well behaved it is. Clearly cheating.

"L.U.V."- I started writing songs by myself the summer this album came out, and I used this song as the template for most of them. To whit: verses filled with nonsense rhymes semi-rapped like Dylan in Subterranean Homesick Blues, with a rather catchy chorus. There's a great moment, however, right after the solo section where Mellencamp sings a capella "Wait a minute, let me check my tan/ Am I the same color as Superman?" My guess is probably, since Superman grew up in Kansas, which is right near Indiana. You guys were practically neighbors. Also, because of his Kryptonian ability to absorb the yellow sun, I'm going to guess he can't tan.

"Another Sunny Day"- This is the ballad on the record. I think it's about the environment. Actually, the more I listen to it, it seems like John's complaining about people complaining about the state of the environment. I always thought he was a bit more progressive, because, frankly Mr. Cougar Mellencamp, even back in 1994 the planet was going to hell. I wonder if he still sings this song after watching "An Inconvenient Truth"? Probably not, as it's kind of sucky no matter what the lyrics say. Listen, Mr. Mellencamp, I know that you're going to die soon, but I'm hopefully not going to, so I might have to worry about where I live being underwater when I'm older. I'm sorry if that's bumming you out. But it wasn't like "Rain on the Scarecrow" was exactly a real upbeat number.

"Too Much to Think About"- We're back to rocking out, without the bass again, and I think this is the album that made me really appreciate what a good bass player could bring to a song. Or even a really terrible bass player. Namely: bass.

This title of this song may refer to any number of different things. One thing it certainly does not refer to? This album.

"The Big Jack"- I've been ragging on this album and it certainly deserves a lot of it, but frankly, I own it and know it well because when I was 15, I kind of liked it. Hell, I still kind of like it, in the same way that I like Count Chocula--I like it but at least now I'm aware that it's not any good. And I like it anyway. One thing that makes the album really likable? It is about 30 minutes long. I think kids today would feel ripped off, especially since CDs can hold more than twice that, but for me, there's something comforting about putting this CD on and knowing that it will be over faster than an episode of "Herman's Head."

"The Break-Out"- This album is what used to be called an EP, which was like a single but longer. EP stood for Extended Play, and full-length albums used by called long players, as though long and extended were different measurements on the same scale. Like there's hot and cold? This is like hot and warmer. Warmer than what? Hot? Cold? Isn't extended relative to what it's been extended from?

In case you haven't figured it out, "The Break-Out" has nothing discernible interesting going on in it. It's a pretty standard plate rock song, the kind you'd throw on the end of the EP you were recording in two weeks while your bass player is on vacation as a stop-gap measure between two excellent critically acclaimed but commercially disappointing albums. This disc probably sold more than all of his really great albums combined, which is too bad, because if this were my first exposure to John Mellencamp, I'd spend the whole album messing with the EQ on my stereo trying to figure out why every song was so trebly and then Me'Shell Ndegeocello would start playing the bass line to "Wild Night" and blow out my speakers and I'd throw this album in the trash.

LISTENING PARTY: Awake

I don't remember when I first heard about John Wesley Harding, but I do remember that when I did, it was in reference to his reputation as "Elvis Costello-lite." I remember being slightly disappointed when I finally tracked down a JWH album and didn't really find that he had very much in common with Costello at all. I learned later that he used two thirds of the Attractions as his backing band on his first two records, so that might be where the comparison comes into play. But in the early summer of 1999 when I bought the only JWH CD I could find, "Awake", I was almost offended by how unElvisCostellolike it was. But then again, I was 20 years old and was fond of portmanteaus like unElvisCostellolike. I've clearly gotten over that now.

"Good Morning (I Just Woke Up)"- This song starts out with an alarm going off, and the song coming out of a cheap radio speaker. It is thirty five seconds long. I remember being disappointed that such a catchy number would be so truncated. I've since heard the full version, and thirty five seconds was about right.



"Your Ghost Doesn't Scare Me Anymore"-I've heard every JWH album by now, but Awake was my first, so at the time I didn't realize exactly how many songs about ghosts he'd written. I imagined when I was 20 that this was a metaphorical ghost, like the singer can't help but be haunted by the memory of someone, but now I believe it's supposed to be taken literally, and now that I'm 30, I think this increases its awesomeness by 4000%. I like the idea that somebody might eventually become friends with the ghosts in their house. Like why didn't Scooby and Shaggy just try giving some of those ghosts Scooby Snacks? It might have made their problems a lot easier.

"Windowseat"-One of the biggest things I learned since my overly serious young adulthood, is that not everything is metaphorical. This is a song about a boy being born aboard an aeroplane. I swore that this was supposed to be symbolic, but really, JWH just decided to write a kind of Dickensian story about a little boy who is born and lives his entire life aboard an aeroplane. The chorus? "I know I've got the whole world at my feet from my windowseat." Most songwriters would never have entertained such a notion, deciding instead that there were songs that needed to be written about how women do you wrong, or baby let's get into some make of automobile and blow this town we're in, because we're tramps or whatever. Not John Wesley Harding. He wants to write songs about stuff you've never thought about. Like what it would be like to live your entire life aboard an aeroplane. I give this song an A quintillion plus for awesomeness.



"Burn"-Another thing JWH does? He writes a song called Burn and then builds a drum loops out of flicking lighters and lit matches. Basically, we're all going to burn in hell, according to the singer. My favorite bit is when he tells his lover to put him atop the funeral pyre, and then have the house band play 'Light My Fire' which he has selected mainly for its mention of fire, because it's a terrible song, and the 'fire' is metaphorical, which we have already established is not how JWH rolls.
One thing that I think is really cool is that during the choruses, when the full drum kit comes in, you can still hear the matches and lighter loop. Because that's how he rolls, too.

"It's All My Fault"-The middle third of the album drags a bit, and it starts here. This is a pretty good tune, especially when the female voice in the chorus tells JWH that it's all his fault, and he apologizes for writing this song. He does a much better song around this theme on his next record called "I'm Wrong About Everything" which might be his most famous song thanks to its appearance in the movie "High Fidelity" which tells you all you need to know about JWH's career: he's a terrific songwriter who most people have only heard for thirty seconds in the background of a movie starring John Cusack. For comparision, think about that awful Aerosmith song from the movie "Armageddon" Couldn't JWH have gotten some love for that song, seeing as how he's actually written songs about the armageddon? And I bet somewhere in his vast catalog of unreleased songs he has one about the government sending a team of miners to stop an asteroid from destroying the earth. Because that's how JWH rolls.



"Sweat, Tears, Blood and Come"- The title of this song sounds like the album title of some Norwegian Metal band. It's actually a really pretty little melody, with the unfortunate fact that he references "come" like seventeen times. Also, is that how that word is spelled? He is British, so perhaps that's how they spell it over there. Except it would be ironic, since the original British words we Americanize by dropping the 'u', like favour vs. favor, rumour vs rumor, et cetera. But in this case, apparently, we actually added a 'u'. I mean, we also dropped the 'o' and 'e' and maybe it isn't a British spelling thing at all, but more just one of those record label things where they didn't want the word cum to appear on the back of the CD, so they used the other spelling even though grammatically it doesn't really make very much sense. But then again, neither does using the spelling on a CD jacket as an etymology lesson. PS-This song is way way too long, if you couldn't have guessed by the above diatribe.

"Poor Heart"- I don't know if JWH thought much about the sequencing of this album, putting all these slower numbers right in the middle. Maybe it's a concept album about being asleep, and this is the part of the night when you're asleep and nothing happens. You aren't dreaming, you aren't rolling around restlessly. You're just snoring and farting. At least, that's what I do in the middle of the night. This song doesn't really do much for me. He just keeps talking about his body parts and how poor they are. Poor eyes, poor mouth, poor head, poor gallbladder, poor clavicle. What he should've done is written a song about a body part that becomes independently wealthy. Like an old lady dies and leaves her fortune to her young next door neighbor's spleen. And then he has to try and haggle with the spleen to get the money. That actually sounds like next summer's Eddie Murphy movie.

"Miss Fortune"-We pick things up with this song about a young orphan boy who gets adopted by a wealthy older man who makes him dress up like a girl. The first verse of the song is like half of a Dickens' novel: "I was born with a coathanger in my mouth, and I was dumped down south. I was found by the richest man in the world, he brought me up as a girl. My sheets are satin but my minds a mess, there are worse things I confess than having tea in a pretty dress." That's like a hundred pages of a cross-dressing version of Oliver Twist. JWH actually wrote a novel based on the story of this song,(true story) and it's pretty good, but the song is way better. Mainly because it has a glass harmonica solo in it. That's when you play wine glasses by rubbing your wet finger across the rim. Name one novel that has that.

"Song I Wrote Myself in the Future"- One thing pop music doesn't deal with much is time travel. Like actual time travel, and not some kind of symbolic thing. So JWH has decided he is going to write himself and send back in time to an earlier version of himself. The best part is that he doesn't seem to give himself any real practical advice, which is kind of how I imagine actual time travel going down. Like you would go back in time to meet your earlier self, and I bet most of us would forget all the things we'd want to warn our former selves about and instead just start reminiscing about stuff from both of our pasts. "Remember when we were five? Man, Cookie Crisp was delicious."



"Something to Write Home About"-This song is very reminiscient of "Poor Heart" except much better written. Which as a songwriter I can confirm is something that happens: you write a song that's not that good, but then you borrow parts you like from it to write a new, better song. What you shouldn't do is include both songs on the same album, like two songs away from each other. And you certainly shouldn't put the weaker song on first, because I think if I heard this song first, I'd like it a whole lot more. And I'd like it a whole lot more if I'd never heard "Poor Heart" at all. During the song there's some kind of sound effect that sounds like a gerbil running in a wheel, and I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out what it is, so that's the other thing I wouldn't do: I wouldn't write a song that sounds a lot like a song I already wrote and then put both songs on the album, and I wouldn't use a weird and totally distracting sound effect on the better of the two songs. I don't know who told JWH this album needed to have forty-seven songs on it, but obviously he's never heard Led Zeppelin IV. That album only has like three and a half songs on it.

"You Were Looking At Me"-This is clearly not the best JWH album, as I'm really struggling to think of things to say to cover for the fact that a lot of these songs are just middling to okay. If I had to recommend a JWH album to purchase, I would recommend 2000's "The Confessions of St. Ace" or 1992's "Why We Fight" which are both superior albums. But this one was first, and it will always remind me of a specific period of my life, and particularly a specific night from that period, when I didn't even listen to this album. And while I bought this album the week that Star Wars: The Phantom Menace was released, that wasn't the night that this album reminds me of. Because, really, I don't ever want to be reminded of the Phantom Menace.

"You Little So & So" Okay, I'm listening now to the remastered deluxe version of this album right now, and I know this wouldn't really go with the whole "deluxe" version idea, but if I were JWH, when I rereleased this album I would've cut out "Poor Heart" and "You Were Looking At Me", kind of like when the Coen brothers released their director's cut of their first movie "Blood Simple" they cut like ten minutes out of it, instead of adding thirty, like most people do. JWH should've streamlined the album because it would've flowed a lot better without the really dirgey songs. And actually if I'm pretending I'm JWH, what I'd actually do is go back in time to myself in 1996 and tell myself not to even put those songs on the first version and then I would go back to the present and add them to the deluxe edition, thus restoring the universe to its proper order. Or I could just make a playlist on iTunes with the songs I want. There are a few ways to handle this situation.

"I'm Staying Here and I'm Not Buying a Gun" This is one of the best song titles of all time. This is like a Morrissey song title, but with the benefit of not being a Morrissey song. (I like Morrissey, but the titles are usual the best part of his songs, which is why he usually repeats them 400 times during the song) This song also seems to be the one where JWH remembered that he'd hired a drummer for this album and lets him play. I really like that he keeps referring to someone as "Pilgrim" which I like to think is him doing a John Wayne impression, because I love when foreigners think everybody in American is a cowboy. Seriously. It's way cooler than how we really are.



"Late O' Clock"- This is the second half of the "Just Woke Up" song, and it benefits from having had about forty five minutes of music between the two halves. So you forgotten how catchy it was, but you've also forgotten how annoyingly catchy it was.

"Wooden Overcoat"- This was a hidden track on the original, and I never knew what it was called until it was properly released on the deluxe edition. Remember when artists put hidden songs on CDs? It was actually kind of a pain in the ass if you put on Nirvana's "Nevermind" and about six hours after the twelfth song finished the hidden song started to play. It would scare the shit out of you, if you, like me, used to put CDs on at night in the dark before you went to bed. Whose idea was it, the first hidden track on a CD, I wonder? Probably the same guy who came up with the packaging of CDs, with the impossible shrinkwrap and those stickers across the top that always leave a sticky residue on the case. Oh, who am I kidding? Nobody buys CDs anymore. I blame the decline in CD sales not just on the internet and music pirates, but on making CDs so difficult to open that Indiana Jones had an easier time getting the Ark of the Covenant. This song, by the way, is pretty good, and would've better a far better choice for the running order than "S,T,B&C", "Poor Heart" or "You Were Looking At Me."

The deluxe CD has two Bruce Springsteen covers, "Jackson Cage" and "Wreck on the Highway" (which is actually a duet with Bruce Springsteen) and I was surprised to learn that Bruce had asked JWH to open for him on his "Tom Joad" tour, which must be quite a thrill. In the original liner notes JWH thanked Bruce Springsteen,and I remember thinking that it must be another guy named Bruce Springsteen, seeing as how he also thanked Steve Martin who was his manager, and it wasn't the same guy as the guy from "The Jerk". I wonder if when Bruce asked JWH to tour with him, he was like "Hey, man, that 'Windowseat' song is tight. Make sure to play that one. You can skip some of those slow, weird ones." and then JWH was all like, "Sure thing, Pilgrim."

LISTENING PARTY: Transverse City

I have never wanted an album like I wanted Warren Zevon’s “Transverse City”. I first became a Zevon fan the end of my sophomore year of high school when I picked up his then most recent album, “Mutineer.” In short order (well as short order as a 15 year with no money in the pre-internet days when people had to go to record stores and buy records with money instead of just stealing them off the web) I picked up “Mr. Bad Example”, “Sentimental Hygiene”, “Learning to Flinch”, and “A Quiet Normal Life” (the best-of collection of his 70s work.) I had read somewhere (and where did we learn things before the internet allowed us to just look up whatever we wanted? I think it was from one of the Rolling Stones Album Review Guides) that Zevon released an album between “Sentimental Hygiene” and “Mr. Bad Example.” I had never seen this CD at any of the record stores I frequented (although I feel like I made a lot of my CD purchases at places like “Circuit City” and “Lechmere’s” at the time) and when my friend Kris told me that she had tried to order the CD for my birthday and was told by our local record shop that the title was unavailable I learned a terrible, horrible phrase: Cut-out. I was never going to be able to find “Transverse City.”
It was about 10 months later (an eternity when you are 15-16) that I learned of a second phrase: Cut-out bin. And in this cardboard bin filled with cassette tapes with their spines sliced, I found a $2.99 copy of Warren Zevon’s “Transverse City.” It was at an old music store frequently found in malls called “The Wall” and I was with my friend Kris, who lent me the $3 I needed to pick up the tape, bringing the whole thing full circle. It is hardly the best Warren Zevon record, but it is my favorite. You can probably make an argument that it is not as warm sounding as the best of his 70s records, or that it lacks the punch of its predecessor, “Sentimental Hygiene.” And that it points the way towards the more simultaneously garish and cheap-sounding production of his 90s work. You may complain, like Zevon’s mother did, that there are no funny songs. But I rejoinder with three simple words:
CYBERPUNK. ROCK. OPERA.

“Transverse City”- I feel like Zevon has been listening to lots of Kraftwerk before recording this song. Or maybe that Taco guy. There’s something so German and Math-y about the way this song opens. Luckily he brought Jerry Garcia to play lead guitar on the track. That’s right, the leader of the Grateful Dead is playing on German Synth-Rock. Did they have to give Garcia a B-12 shot before he started playing? The lyrics sounds like they come from Blade Runner: The Opera. He keeps singing to some girl named Pollyanna, and if I were him I would’ve invited Haley Mills to appear in a music video where she dances around a bank of computer screens and slow dancing with robots. But maybe that’s why Virgin has never offered me a record contract.

“Run Straight Down”- I want to be a chemist so I can make what ever compound Zevon is naming under the music of this song. I bet whatever it is could eat through a safe door. Listen to the video clip. He sounds like he’s naming the ingredients in “Fruity Pebbles” after sugar and rice. Continuing the guest-guitarists-from big-bands theme he’s got going, Dave Gilmour from Pink Floyd plays lead guitar on this track. At least Gilmour has experience playing guitar on inscrutable concept albums. I can totally see Gilmour just nodding as Zevon explained his idea. “It’s going to be a concept album about a dystopian future in which people are controlled by chemicals and consumerism.” Gilmour: “One of our albums had a pig singing through a vocoder.” Point: Pink Floyd.


“The Long Arm of The Law”- Zevon is great at dropping completely disarming details into his lyrics. The song just kind of details somebody who is a criminal, and most of the lyrics are pretty generic “When I was born, times were bad, when I got older, they got worse. First words I ever learned were ‘Nobody moves nobody gets hurt.’” But then he has one verse in the middle that talks about a war in Paraguay back in 1999. This album came out in 1989. He’s talking about the future! I love reading about futures that have already passed. Like how Logan’s Run took place in like 1992. “We’ll all be wearing shiny uniforms by then, and they’ll kill all the old people!” Guest star for this track: Jazz pianist Chick Corea, who doesn’t seem to do anything that worth bringing in a jazz great for. Maybe it’s part of Zevon’s theme: in the future, there will be jazz pianists, but they’ll only be able to play on MOR radio albums, way, way down in the mix.

“Turbulence”- This song is about a Russian secret agent. My favorite lines? “Well, I’ve been fighting the mujahaddin, Down in Afghanistan. Comrade Gorbachev, can I go back to Vladivostok, man?” I love that he refers to Gorbachev as “man.” If Zevon had had another verse where he had somebody say to Khrushchev “Bummer, dude” I think it would be the best song of all time. Also, I had to consult the lyric sheet for the spelling of Vladivostok, and there’s a verse that Zevon sings in Russian, and in the lyric book it says [there is Russian lettering here] [unable to re-type] [what should we do?] Guest star: JD Souther on harmony vocals. We’re a long way from the Hotel California, JD.

“They Moved the Moon”- I really like this song. It’s more of a mood piece. Jerry Garcia’s back on guitar for this one. I like to pretend that they just couldn’t get Garcia out of the studio. He just kept on hanging around. It sounds like he was just noodling around, and Zevon puts a bunch of post-processing on the guitar to make it sound like different things. Like outer-space machines. Or something. The song really is pretty awesome, although I like to pretend that the chorus is literal. Or like, if the guy in the song met up with a third grader. “They moved the moon, when I looked down. When I looked away, they moved the stars around.” “Yeah, mister. It’s called the Earth’s rotation.”

“Splendid Isolation”- This song doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the tracks. It’s also the only song that anybody who doesn’t own this album may have ever heard. It’s all about going off to live in the desert like Georgia O’Keefe. Or Michael Jackson in Disneyland. Best line ever: “Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand. And lead me to the world of self.” This song is really a classic. Bonus: harmony vocals by Neil Young, and a great harmonica solo by Warren Zevon. Although that may be a liner notes error, because I know how much Neil Young loves the harmonica. And because it doesn’t sound like the voice harmonizing with Zevon is that of a sick Canadian bobcat. God, how could I be so cruel to Neil Young? Now that I listen to it, the harmonica is most likely not Young, because it doesn’t do that thing that Neil Young harmonica solos do, where it sounds like he just thought that all you had to do to play the harmonica was breath in and out of it really hard. There are individual notes, Neil!


“Networking”-This song brings back the sound effects, where we open with the sounds of people eating lunch. This song utilizes a number of Heartbreakers, so it has a nice organ sound on it courtesy Benmont Tench. And apparently since Zevon had his own bass player, Howie Epstein gets to play the banjo. I think that’s buried way down in the mix. My fiancee loves this song, especially the chorus where Zevon tells you that you upload him and he’ll download you. She always sings along with that part. I love imagining that for many people back in 1989, those two words meant nothing. Oh, Warren, you were so ahead of your time. Open question: is upload/download supposed to be a sexual thing?

“Gridlock”- Alright, we’re never going to make it to the 1999 War in Paraguay if we can’t through this traffic! God, it sucks to think that in the future we’re still going to be sitting around , bumper-to-bumper. Where are our jetpacks and flying cars, Warren? I think Warren must’ve been kicking himself when he realized that by 1999 we eliminated the need to physically move ourselves around at all, able to teleport our minds and communicate telepathically. Man, Gorbachev, let’s just get out and walk. Neil Young on guitar, this time.

“Down at the Mall”- Wait. Americans are consumerist freaks? We like to buy stuff? Malls are really big? After you’re done recording this song, Warren, I have the broad side of a barn I need hit. Would you mind coming down? There are a few nice touches, like when he’s naming all the stores he’s going to go to, and there’s a second voice talking over the list, and it says that they’re going to stop to buy some oriental imports. I like that. Also, I like that he let Howie Epstein play bass, instead of giving him a banjo and telling him to sit in the corner and shut up. At this point I should probably point out that both Warren Zevon and Howie Epstein are dead, which makes me a very insensitive person.

“Nobody’s In Love This Year”- I love this song, and it’s one of the great Zevon love songs. I’m sorry, one of the great Zevon we’re-not-in-love songs. This might be my favorite song title of all time. Guest appearance by Mark Isham on flugelhorn. . Zevon was a great writer, if he wasn’t always a great performer of his own material. Case in point: the “orchestra-hit” keyboard line throughout the song. But the guy is all class, because he pronounces maturity as “ mah-tour-ity” as opposed to “match-err-ity.” He’s like Frasier.

(There is no live version of "Nobody's In Love This Year" I could find, so here is his great we're-not-in-love song from "Mr. Bad Example" instead. "Searching for A Heart")

This album was reissued on CD in 2002 to capitalize on…I’m sorry, commemorate Zevon’s passing. And as such they dug up probably the only bonus track they could find, a demo of “Networking” which frankly ruins my listening experience, because “NILTY” is such a great album closer, and they only include one bonus track? I’m listening to it, because I said I would, but it really cheeses me off.

The album cover is Zevon surrounded by a fractured background of cars and stores and other signs of the capitalistic black spot on the soul of America. I used to think his hair was deliberately styled to make him look like a mad scientist or like Renfield from Dracula, but looking at video performances from the time, this was apparently how Zevon wore his hair. Two years later he would show up with a beard, and I think I can say on behalf of people who look at faces everywhere, it couldn’t have come a moment too soon.

LISTENING PARTY: Under the Blood Red Sky

LISTENING PARTY: Under the Blood Red Sky

I was exposed to most of the music I listened to growing up through my parents’ record collections. (Well, primarily my father’s, as my mother wasn’t exactly a music buff.) And my father, I like to imagine, grew up in some kind of South Shore version of Quadrophenia, where there was a clear line of demarcation with regards to popular music. Hence, growing up, I really had little knowledge of the music of the Beatles (except a charming and I’m sure now worth a fortune if I could find it copy of Alvin and the Chipmunks Sing the Beatles) because my father was a Stones fan. And while I grew up with an appreciation for the high pitched strained singing of Neil Young, there was no Bob Dylan in my house. In fact, looking back on it now, the first time I probably heard any Dylan (except maybe “Rainy Day Women” on the FM radio) was his vocal contributions to “The Traveling Wilburys” Volume I, one of my and my father’s favorite records in the late 80s. Dylan teamed up with Tom Petty, Roy Orbinson, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne from ELO. He had obviously come a long way from Greenwich Village.



So, suffice to say, I think I made my Dylan journey from a different starting point than many others, and while I have an appreciation for his early records--I own Bringing it All Back Home through John Wesley Harding--I find a lot more enjoyment in his later, weirder works. The only “classic” Dylan album that I really really love--it’s my favorite Dylan album and one of my top ten favorite albums of all time--is Blood on the Tracks. But even that is tainted by my spotty pop culture history. I picked it up at the end of my senior year of high school because the film Jerry Maguire featured “Shelter from the Storm” over its closing credits. Show me the shame, Jerry.

And I was so enamored with that record, I went to Tower records--truly dating myself here-- and scoured the Dylan bin for another masterpiece. And what I came up with was Under the Blood Red Sky. I don’t know why I chose this particular record, instead of Highway 61 Revisited, or Down in the Groove (on either end of the quality spectrum) but instead ended somewhere right in the middle. And Under the Blood Red Sky is pretty much in the middle. It followed Dylan’s “comeback” album (his , like, 50th by that point) Oh Mercy and was so trashed at the time of release that the fact that Dylan did not release any new original material for seven years was not exactly something that caused mourning among music listeners. But I love this record. A lot of it is nostalgia, but that’s why we love any record. Also, I love how much fun Bob Dylan seems to be having pissing everybody off.

“Wiggle Wiggle” I don’t even think I need to comment on this. Look at this title! “Wiggle wiggle wiggle like a swarm of bees/ wiggle on your hands and knees” This album was produced by Don Was, who was pretty famous as a producer in the late eighties early nineties for producing modern AOR (album oriented rock--code words for albums dads think are cool.) So it sounds a little like a Bonnie Raitt album, but some part of Dylan must’ve enjoyed that. Maybe he was hoping he'd run into her during recording and then he could put the wiggle-wiggle on her. Or something.

“Under the Blood Red Sky” Dylan is clearly just ripping off nursery rhymes for this one. “There was a little old man who lived in the moon, one day he came passing by.” And there’s something about a little girl getting a diamond as big as her shoe, as long as she continues to live under a blood red sky. Although I don’t know who would want a diamond that big because I’m guessing wearing it as a ring would break your finger. But don’t worry, she’s not going to get that diamond after all, because Dylan informs us that she and the little boy are getting baked into a pie. Is that something that happened a lot? Did deviants kidnap children and bake them into pastries? Could you imagine Chris Hanson from Dateline stinging those guys? “Is that cinnamon in your pocket? Are you telling me you came to see an underage girl with cinnamon in your pocket and you weren’t planning on turning her into some kind of turnover?”

“Unbelievable” This is one of those almost rockabilly numbers that is probably more fun to play than to listen to. Somebody’s having fun playing a B3 organ, and there’s somebody playing a piano that plays like one note every fourteen bars, and he sounds like he’s having a good time. Like if you were a musician and Bob Dylan wanted you to play on his record, what would you do? Would you be jazzed, and then show up and he says “Wndwnafjw;ioe;qnfmd;afni’” which then the producer would translate for you as “We’re going to play a number called ‘Unbelievable’.” And you’d be psyched, imagining the organ part of “Like A Rolling Stone” and then Dylan played this number. It’s like having your parents tell you that Christmas has come early this year, except the whole family just converted to Judaism.




“Born in Time” This is a really pretty song, and one that I’ve read was left over from the Oh, Mercy sessions, which might be why it sounds like Dylan actually wrote a song instead of just making one up on the spot. I also like the phrase “born in time” and the way Dylan uses it differently throughout the song. The drums do sound like they were recorded in outer space, though, which is unfortunate. And somebody is singing harmony vocals with Dylan, which seems as challenging as trying to put a brassiere on a jellyfish.



“TV Talking Song” Well that was nice while it lasted. This is Dylan just trying to “Subterranean Homesick Blues” except way, way, way shittier. I have to admit I’ve never listened to what Dylan was talking about before, and now that I am I wished that I haven’t. It’s some kind of story about Dylan being in London, which he helpfully explains is a town, which is good, because that’s the only time he deals with anything specific. There’s some kind of riot and the TV cameramen jump over Bobby D and so he goes home and watches it on TV. So I guess it’s some kind of commentary on the way television detaches us from events, except that Dylan seems detached from this song the whole time. He sings it the same way I answer my girlfriend’s questions when I’m watching TV. We’re both trying to tell you something, but oh, what’s that shiny thing over there.


“10,000 Men” I’m a big title guy, so when I buy an album I look at all the song titles and try and guess which ones I will like the best based on those titles. I did not have high hopes for “10,000 Men” and my guess was right. He does say that he has “10,000 women in his bed” and he makes it sound like it’s right this second, which means he should probably finish this song up and get back to them, because if they’re anything like the 10,000 women Bret Michaels has in his bed during “Rock of Love” somebody’s going to end up dead soon if Bobby D doesn’t get on top of it.

“2 X 2” I’m sure someone might have fun analyzing this, but while I didn’t like the title 10,000 Men, I was excited about 2 X 2. It’s not bad.

I guess a note here about the album’s cover, and Dylan record covers in general. Has there ever been a major artist who has released so many albums without any of them having really great covers? His two most recent, “Modern Times” and “Together Through Life” feature some nice black and white photography, but for almost every other Dylan album it’s a picture of him, shot seemingly by an instamatic camera. Like the album artwork was due two days earlier and he hasn’t gotten around to it, so he hands some lady passing by his disposable camera and asks her to take a snapshot like he was a tourist. Which I guess he kind of is. A tourist of Earth. This cover is him crouching in the dirt, looking like he lost a quarter.

“God Knows” This is another song that was written for the Oh, Mercy sessions and sounds like he spent more than forty seconds thinking about it. I’d love to hear the Oh Mercy version, because that album was produced by Daniel Lanois, who while occasionally overbearing, at least knows how to provide proper atmosphere. The lead guitarist on this album sounds like the one who plays in your dad’s cover band. The one that plays family parties and on the town common on the Fourth of July. I don’t know why Dylan decided that this version of the song was the one he wanted to release, but maybe he just needed the money. He does have 10,000 women back home to feed. This song fades out in the middle of a lyric. Who does that? Dylan doesn’t even get to finish his sentence. It’s like when an old guy accepts his lifetime achievement award at the Oscars and he gets to thank his wife and his (cue music-we’ve got a Debi Allen dance number to get to). Unacceptable.


“Handy Dandy” I’m guessing this song excited the band when they heard it. It does kind of sound like “Like A Rolling Stone” complete with prominent B3 organ. And the lyrics are absurd. I don’t know who this Handy Dandy is he’s talking about, but I guess it might be somewhat autobiographical, because you probably need to be a dandy to score 10,000 women, and you certainly need to be handy if you’re going to bed them all at the same time. This might be the best song on the record.



“Cat’s in the Well” Man this guy has got his hands full. He’s got a harem the size of a small town and now his cat is down in the well, and apparently his horse is going bumpety-bump. That sounds severe. This song is a lot of fun, too. It reminds me a lot of Dylan’s last couple of record where it seems like he gives his band a light little song template (here’s a boogie number, let’s do a rockabilly one) and let’s them have fun with it. Then he just makes shit up on top of it. I think if I’d written the lyrics to “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” I’d kind of put my feet up a bit, too. There are more words in that song than there are in most Tom Clancy novels.

I’m sure I haven’t done a good job of selling you folks on this record. Which isn’t really my intent, I suppose. It is a listening party, and this just happens to be one of those parties that doesn’t work out so well, a kind of “Costume party in July” listening party. Only half of the people dressed up and nobody’s dancing to the music. So we’re all just going to stand around, holding our empty glasses and stare at each other until the record’s over.

What does it say about me that while I know intrinsically that “Blonde on Blonde” is a vastly superior record, given the choice I’d probably rather listen to this one? The one that I spent a forty minutes listening to intently in the attempt to talk about why I liked it?

Is this new wallpaper?

LISTENING PARTY: Never Home

Freedy Johnston wrote what is among the greatest songs ever, “Bad Reputation.” It’s from his third record, “This Perfect World” and it is about as perfect a song as has ever been written. I like Freedy a lot, and I especially like his fourth record, “Never Home” which has to be one of my favorite album title/album cover art combinations ever. I first picked this record up in May of my senior year of high school and was disappointed it wasn’t as poppy and polished as his previous record, but with time I realize that this lack of polish is what makes it the best of his (admittedly great) catalog.

“On The Way Out”- This is a song about shoplifting. The first couple of times I listened to it, I tried to figure out what Freedy was singing about metaphorically because there is no way that anybody would write a song about shoplifting. But Freedy does. I’ve never personally shoplifted, but I imagine it’s a lot like what this song describes. I love that the narrator is really only stealing because they’re bored, which is the only way I can justify in my head the choices Winona Ryder has made with her life. Why else would you attempt to shoplift panties when you’re a millionaire? For the same reason you date anybody, so long as they play guitar and have had their photo printed in Spin. Because you’re bored. God this song is fantastic.



“I’m Not Hypnotized”- Another song that is deceptively about exactly what it says it is about. Again, I thought this song was metaphorical, but upon closer examination, this song is about someone attempting to hypnotize someone else. And it answers what I’ve long suspected about stage hypnotists: they rely on the inherent showmanship in their “victims” for their trick to work. Next time you go see a hypnotism show, just imagine the person being hypnotized just reciting the chorus to this song. Hypnotist: “You are now a chicken.” Freedy: “Whatever, I’ll say anything, but I’m not hypnotized.”

“Western Sky”- Each of these songs is like a tiny short story. This is a song about a couple moving out west, except the husband is too afraid to fly, so he drives while she flies. That’s what the song is about. How frickin’ awesome is that? It also contains one of my favorite verses in music ever: “An exit in the rain/ she answers before it rang/ he could only say her name.” Johnston is fantastic. Maybe Winona should’ve dated him. Maybe he’d have straightened out her life.



“One More Thing to Break”- This is a terrific name for a song. Maybe he’s talking about Winona Ryder. I have to admit that I’ve never done any research into this, but I don’t think Freedy is her type. He does have quite the receding hairline, and we all know how much she loves men with long, greasy, unwashed hair. I’m more convinced than ever that these two need each other. It would allow Winona to show she has grown as a person that she is able to date a bald man who writes terrific songs about unexpected things, instead of a greasy haired heroin addict who writes songs named after vaguely narcotic sounding carbohydrate chains. And Freedy would get what I’ve long called the “Lyle Lovett bump,” when a great unappreciated singer-songwriter dates/marries a much more famous Hollywood actress.

“He Wasn’t Murdered”- I wonder if Randy Newman invented the concept of writing songs about losers who don’t redeem themselves in anyway, but if he did, Freedy Johnston should send him a card every Father’s Day. This song, like each on this album, tells a little story. How does this work as a one-line description of a sketchy character: “Looking both ways down a one way street”? That’s right. Amazingly.

“You Get Me Lost”- I’m now going to pretend this song is told from the point of view of Winona Ryder. That aside, it’s a really beautiful love song, and a pretty accurate description of how men fall for women. Maybe he’s writing this ABOUT Winona, and maybe when he says “I don’t care where we’re going” it’s because she’s about to take him on a crime-spree?


(Oh, Freedy... you never stood a chance with Winona, did you?)

“Hotel Seventeen”- Freedy released two more albums after this, “Blue Day, Black Nights” which contains a song about a deep-sea diver and one told from the point of view of a newborn baby. His last record, “Right Between the Promises” was released in 2001. Eight years ago. I’ve heard that he’s recorded a new one, and that it’ll be out soon, but I’ve been hearing that since 2004 at least. This guy is one of those guys who needs to put a record out every eighteen months. This song is probably the weakest on the record, which is why I haven’t really said anything about it.

“Gone to See the Fire”- Thank god. A song about an arsonist. It had been a while, like two whole songs, since Freedy wrote about anything seedy. Again, I spent a fair amount of time when this album first came out trying to figure out the deep symbolic meaning of this song. But it’s just a song about a guy who sets buildings on fire because he likes to watch things burn. The girl in this song does better detective work over the course of the three minutes of this song than the entire cast of CSI: Miami does over the course of an entire season.

“Seventies Girl”- This is a song about a guy whose new girlfriend discovers his old girlfriend’s left behind clothes and starts dressing up like her. The chorus? “Seventies Girl, don’t come any closer.” This song is pure brilliance. I bet you’re wondering why this guy still has his old girlfriend’s clothes? Well, he explains it. Because these clothes were in the suitcase that she threw at him when she walked out. I mean, if you get so angry at your boyfriend that you throw a suitcase full of your clothes at him when you’re walking out, how do you go about getting those clothes back? If you’re smart, like this lady seems to have been, you just write those clothes off. That’s what you get for throwing a suitcase at a guy. That his new girlfriend is dressing up in your twenty-year old clothes that I’ve got to imagine you would’ve given away or thrown out yourself? Better to just let these things go. Oh, wait, you’re not real. Never mind.

“If It’s True”- This song seems to be about a young couple that discovers that it may be pregnant. I love the chorus, “if it’s true” because that strikes me as exactly the way a young dope like this narrator would have this argument. We can’t afford this baby, we don’t really know each other that well, if it’s even true. The lyric writing in the bridge is phenomenal. “In a land-locked town with a backwards name selling paintings of the sea. If I won’t believe my own advice I won’t ever fool a child and they won’t forgive you once they seen you’ve tried.”

“Something’s Out There”- This song is about alien abduction. Or about someone who thinks he’s been abducted by aliens. I love that he tells people that you need to talk to him during the day because he’s somewhere else at night, i.e. getting anally probed aboard a spaceship. I know I’m probably making this album seem like a joke, but if you don’t pay too much attention to the lyrics, it sounds like a really well-written and produced singer-songwriter album,and you can just pretend these are all songs about love. But you’ll be missing something wonderful--it’s a well-written and produced singer-songwriter album about people getting abducted by aliens. And arsonists. And shoplifters. And that kid who you watched get hypnotized on stage at summer camp that you knew, deep down in your heart was only faking for the attention.


(There are a shocking lack of FJ videos on Youtube, so I'll include here the aforementioned "Bad Reputation" for your listening pleasure.)

BUY THIS RECORD!