1000 SONGS - DAY 358 Song # 389

DAY 358: Are You Still Mad?


There are many fine Swedish singer-songwriters (Christian Kjellvander, for example). Then there is Annika Norlin. There are some of her songs I really like and some I do not like that much. This here song is really great, I love it. Unfortunately, the person who uploaded it to U:TUBE has forgotten to close the "video" at the end of the song. So there are two minutes (or so) of silence to it. Nevertheless, this does not fit all too bad to that very silent song.




Here is an English translation  of the lyrics, hopefully it is soemthing like correct:

Hey you, it's been a while

Six-hundred days, but who's really counting

And I thought you could hear from me and I'd say that everything is fine

I have met someone else now, he treats me well

I walk and hum all the time now

And I've colored my hair and I've gotten a pollen allergy and

Are you still mad?

 

Dad was at the hospital, he's coping well

But he is much thinner now

The cat had four fine babies

Three of them died and the fourth is named Sam

I learned to play harmonica, I got spare time when you disappeared

Ah

 

Are you still mad?

Are you still mad?

Can you still read me?

I used to scream and cry and puke

But there were days

I remember them

The best ever

Are you still mad?

 

I saw Kjell Höglund, I wish I was him

I went there alone

Anna said she saw you in the city

She said you looked happy and had a new hairstyle

She said it suited you, ah

And I, I hum a lot but I hardly sing anymore

 

And are you still mad?

Are you still tired?

Do you still wish that we never had met?

1000 SONGS - DAY 357 SONG # 388

DAY 357: ON A COLD AND WET DECEMBER'S DAY

Kristofer Åström from Luleå, Sweden has been the frontman of a band called "Fireside" and also plays with a band by the name of "Easy October". He has released a lot of music as a singer-songwriter. This is all I know about him. Some of his songs come with rather eccentric videos, like the one for "The Wild" which is based on scenes from the paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. As today is a cold and wet day in Christmastide (we call it "Raunächte" in German) the first of the songs featured here, "Poor Young Man's Heart" perfectly fits my current mood. The second one is "The Wild" and the third one, "Just a Little Insane"  brings in some more joyful moods.

1000 SONGS - Day 356 SONG # 387

Day 356: The Guy That Beats Dylan

I came to know the music of Willy Tea Taylor by chance. He was on the Gondola Sessions, where I listend to Johnny Hickman and David Lowery of Cracker fame. As soon as I heard "Marshall Law" (the first song featured here) I was sure, that he was a great one songwriter and performer. Today, I finally bought two of his records (those I could find on the Intenet and download). Please buy his music, that guy is a genius, and, as one commentator has written on U:TUBE, "Damn if Willy Tea aint the modern day Bob Dylan" - so maybe, Willy will get the Nobel Prize some day.

Marshall Law:


You Found Me:


Chickamauga:

1000 SONGS - DAY 355 Song #386

Day 355: A Song about what Time Does 

Butch Hancock, born 1945, is a Texan country-musician who is probably better known as a songwriter than as a recording artist. Nevertheless, he also does fine versions of the songs he has written. Looked at by some as a forerunner of “alternative country”, his songs have been covered by Emmylou, Linda Ronstadt, Texas Tornados amongst others and mostly by Joe Ely, who was a member of the Flatlanders (1970-1973, reunited in 1997 in the context of the movie The Horse Whisperer, for which they recorded the song South Wind of Summer), like Butch. I especially do like Butch Hancock’s album “Eats away the Night”. Here is the title song of that album.

1000 SONGS - Day 354 Song #385

TAG 354: Was (Nieder-) Österreichisches

Ich habe einen Lieblingsplatz auf der großen weiten Welt. Das ist die Bodenwiese am Gahns im südlichen Niederösterreich. Erstens natürlich, weil es dort einfach schön ist. Zweitens, weil dort die Waldburgangerhütte steht. Und - last, not least - weil die Maria die Hüttenwirtin dort ist, meine Lieblingshüttenwirtin. Maria kann auch sehr schön singen, was sie hier unter Beweis stellt, in einem Duett mit Herrn Trabitsch, Klaus aus Prigglitz (Nachbargemeinde zu meinem Wohnort), aka Captain Silver (of Ostbahn's Chefpartie fame). Die beiden singen ein Lied, das in der österreichischen Volksmusik in verschiedensten Variationen überliefert ist, hier so, wie es Arthur Halberstadt (1874-1950), der - jüdische - Volksmusikforscher aus dem Semmeringgebiet aufgezeichnet hat (es ist von sowas wie einer Halberstadt-Tribute-CD genommen). Halberstadt hat auch in von Peter Rosegger herausgegebenen Zeitschriften publiziert, aber es scheint (so verstehe ich die Nachforschungen der guten Maria), dass der Briefwechsel zwischen dem Nobelpreiskandidaten, der gegen Tagore unterlag  und dem Volksmusikforscher verloren gegangen ist. Hier ist es: Maria Ströbl und Klaus Trabitsch spielen "Wan I's aufdenk". Ich liebe es. Die Bilder sind alle von der Bodenwiese oder aus Prigglitz.

1000 SONGS - DAY 353 Song # 384

Day 353: The Man Who Saved the Blues

Today there were three CDs in my mail, containing some of the best music I have heard for a long time – very special gifts to me, a fan of the blues. Gary Clark Jr. sounds to me like the one and only true heir of Jimi Hendrix and I look at him as the one person saving the blues for the next generation (I have to add: forget it, old slowhand). And boy, can he play guitar (again: slowhand?). Here are just two songs from “Blak and Blue”: “When my train pulls in” and “Next Door Neighbour Blues”. Two versions of the first one, two versions of the second one. Another marvellous thing about Gary Clark Jr.: He can do equally convicing different versions of his songs. And he has a great great band. These here are just examples. Check him out!!

1000 SONGS - Day 352 Song #383

Day 383 - A Song About the Danger We All Live in

Bahamut - a kind of primordial being, as known from many cosmogonic myths around the world (methinks) is the main figure of a wonderful song by Hazmat Modine, a band from New York. This band's leader (virtuosity in playing the harmonica), Wade Schuman seems tohave written lyrics like that:

 No one has ever seen Bahamut
Some think it's a fish
Some think it's a newt
Some think it's a cat
All we know is that the lonely Bahamut
Floats endlessly through all time and all space
With all of us and everything
Floating in a single tear
Of his eye

Well, Bohemoth calls us his own
While Bahamut wanders alone
When they both go out to play
On that cold and rainy day

Simply great, great music, enjoy it if you can

1000 SONGS - Day 351 Song # 382

Day 351: Attwenger 

Attwenger from Upper Austria are Markus Binder (dr, voc, lyrics) and Hans Peter Falkner (acc, voc). They started with a kind of crossover between Austrian Folk Music and Contemporary Approaches to Music and developed that style on various albums in various directions. Nuff said. Here are two great tracks: "dog" - which does not mean the animal we all like, but is Upper Austrian dialect for "day" ('tag')  {Bangok!} - and "hintn umi", which could be translated as "round the / behind my / back" ('hintenherum' 'hinter meinem rücken'). Everybody thinks that Falco was a serious contribution to contemporary music by an Austrian guy and since then .... I think, Attwenger are one of a kind of serious contribution to new musical sytles.

1000 SONGS - Day 350 SONG # 381

DAY 350: A Song about Me & Myself

In the original 30 days song-challenge, there might have been categories like "a song that describes you". Among those songs describing me (although it is a song representing the female side) there is the "Gin House Blues". Two songs are filed under that title nowadays, both of them first recorded by Bessie Smith (1894-1937). The original one, with the title "Gin House Blues" was written by Fletcher Henderson and Henry Troy, recorded by Bessie Smith in  1926. The other one, originally called "Me and my Gin" (the one that describes me) was recorded by Bessie Smith in 1928. It was allegedly written by a man named Harry Burke. Be that as it may, it has become the song to be known as "Gin House Blues". Andy Fairweather Low (of Amen Corner) did a version of it, and the first version you find when you google the title, is one rather superfluos live version done by Mr. Low and Old Slowhand. As I do not appreciate their mutual effort too much, I do not include it here. In contradistinction to these merry ol' englishmen, Nina Simone did a really good version of that song (as was to be expected). So let's get to the Bessie Smith version first, then to the rendering of Queen Simone (what a great version!), and, for completeness' sake, add the original "Gin House Blues" in Bessie's version.

1000 SONGS - DAY 349 SONG #380

DAY 349: CHAMBER MUSIC

I listend to Jethro Tull a lot when I was a teenager. During the last years I have rediscovered them. Ian Anderson is a fine musician, without any doubt. "Thick as a Brick" is a masterpiece, in my opinion. But there are many more fine tunes composed by Anderson. I always loved the more reduced ones, the poetic ones, those in "odd" time signatures more than the rock songs in 4/4 (although there are some fine songs among them, too, and after not listening to it for decades, I can also appreciate "Locomotive Breath" again). Most famous of the "odd" time compositions is the 5/4 "Living in the Past", but methinks that Ian is a master of the 6/8 time and the way to put his lyrics in there with those breaks (he stops the sentence and leaves out something like two eights and puts the last syllable on the last 8 - or something like that). I recently discovered two chamber music versions of two of my favourite Anderson compositions, Wond'ring Aloud and Life is a Long Song.






As a bonus track, a version of "Wond'ring Aloud" other than featured on "Aqualung", called "Wond'ring Again" - first song of side b of second disc of "Living in the Past" (I think, but maybe another alternative version); so beautiful: