1000 SONGS - DAY 331 SONG # 362

DAY 331: A Tune with a Strange Title by a Genius that Hardly Anyone Remembers

Gary McFarland started with being a musician at age 25 or so; he attended the Lenox School of Jazz and  Berklee School of Music and  moved to New York City at age 27 to work as a musician. He became a well known and much sought-after composer and arranger working with the likes of Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Anita O'Day, Gábor Szábó and others. When he went on doing some more popular music stuff, some folks of the self-assigned intellectual superiority predisposition seem to have critizised him for that. So, fama says, he went on to do one of his master works, namely a suite called "America The Beautiful: An Account of its Disappearance", which  reflects his dissatisfaction with the way US-American civilization went in sacrificing the beauty of its (first stolen and then inherited) landscape for the sake of capitalism (or so). He died a strange death, being poisoned at a New York bar in November 1971. Largely forgotten for a long time, some of his work has been rediscovered (and made availbale again) during the last years. Here is #2 from the said "America the Beautiful" a composition bearing the wonderful name "80 Miles An Hour Through Beer-can Country" (featuring many a fine musician, like Randy Brecker or Eric Gayle). As a bonus-track I add the Samba-version of "A Hard Days Night":

1000 SONGS - DAY 330 SONG # 361

Day 330: My Favourite Version of my Favourite Song about a Hat from 1967

Procol Harum have already been featured on this blog. There is many a fine song that Gary Brooker has composed with Keith Reid writing rather surrealistic lyrics to. Homburg certainly is among the utmost finest (to show some understatement). Certainly, the original version is a good one. Nevertheless, the one live version that Gary Brooker and some fine musicians have done here is unbeatable in my humble opinion. Here it is with lyrics:

Your multilingual business friend

Has packed her bags and fled

Leaving only ash-filled ashtrays

And the lipsticked unmade bed

The mirror, on reflection

Has climbed back upon the wall

For the floor she found descended

And the ceiling was too tall

Your trouser cuffs are dirty

And your shoes are laced up wrong

You'd better take off your Homburg

'Cause your overcoat is too long

Town clock in the market square

Stands waiting for the hour

When its hands they both turn backward

And on meeting will devour

Both themselves and also any fool

Who dares to tell the time

And the sun and moon will shadow

And the signpost cease to sign

For the sake of completeness, the original version (in a slower tempo with a younger voice):

1000 SONGS - DAY 329 SONG # 360

DAY 329: Another Fine Song by Brian Eno

One of my favourite albums of all time certainly is "Another Green World" by Brian Eno. After that, he did "Discreet Music" and "Before and After Science" and then turned to Ambient Music, at some point abandoning vocals. "Another Day on Earth" (2005) was the first solo-album by Eno again introducing the strange idea, that there is a singer to a song and something like a song on an abum. The album in question starts with this:


And methinks, THIS is beautiful.