1000 SONGS - DAY 251 SONG # 282

Day 251: Hillbilly Music

I have to do it now, after having posted a song from the Kinks' Musswell Hillbillies' album. One could choose Hank Williams for the Hillbilly theme. As everybody knows, my mother in law and poor me have at least two things in common, love for the most wonderful person in our little world, and,  respect for the man in black and his songs. As this one man's life has been more or less linked to June Carter, who was a daughter of Maybelle Carter, the Carter Family is the best choice for me to render some real hillbilly music (later to be called country). Here are two recordings, Gold Watch and Chain & Church in the Wildwood. I really love their accent, the way they pronounce "poor",    "bosom", "hair", "fair" "clear", "dear" and so on.

Darling, how can I stay here without you

I have nothing to cheer my poor heart

This old world would seem sad, love, without you

Tell me now that we're never to part

Oh I'll pawn you my gold watch and chain, love

And I'll pawn you my gold diamond ring

I will pawn you this heart in my bosom

Only say that you'll love me again

Take back all the gifts you have given

But a ring and a lock of your hair

And a card with your picture upon it

It's a face that is false, but is fair

Tell me why that you do not love me

Tell me why that your smile is not bright

Tell me why you have grown so cold-hearted

Is there no kiss for me, love, tonight

There's a church in the valley by the wildwood
No lovelier place in the dale
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the dell

Oh, come to the church in the wildwood
Oh, come to the church in the dale
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the dell

How sweet on a clear Sabbath morning
To listen to the clear ringing bell
It's tones so sweetly are calling
Oh, come to the church in the dell

There, close by the side of that loved one
Neath the tree where the wild flowers bloom
She sleeps, sweetly sleeps, neath the willow
Disturb not her rest in the tomb

1000 SONGS - DAY 250 SONG # 281

Day 250: Another great song written by Ray Davies

Everybody knows that I am a fan of Ray Davies as a songwriter and the Kinks as a band from childhood days on. Although it is Song # 281, and, according to my statistics, there have been posted nearly twice as much songs (without alternative versions) on this here "1000 Songs Challenge", I count Day 250, and this is some kind of jubilee, it is a Jubeljahr, a jubilee year. Listen to Oklahoma USA, this very beautiful song from the Kinks' 9th album, Muswell Hillbillies. About daydreams and movies and poor girls living for/with both. And enjoy the cover version by Yo la Tengo, from their Fakebook album (at least, I got it...):

All life we work but work is a bore

If life's for livin' what's livin' for

She lives in a house that's near decay

Built b'for the industrial revolution

But in her dreams she is far away

In Oklahoma U.S.A.

 With Shirley Jones and Gordon McRea

As she buys her paper at the corner shop

She's walkin' on the surrey with the fringe on top

Cause in her dreams she is far away

In Oklahoma U.S.A.

She walks to work but she's still in a daze

She's Rita Hayworth or Doris Day

And Errol Flynn's gonna take her away

To Oklahoma U.S.A.

All life we work but work is a bore

If life's for livin' then what's livin' for

1000 SONGS - DAY 249 SONG # 280

Day 249 - Another song by a widely unknown 80ies band

On the internet, they call The Lucy Show a post-punk band or a New Wave band. Named after Lucille Ball's 6oies Sitcom (the follow-up of "I Love Lucy"), the band  consisted of two Canadian guys who had gone to London and were responsible for the songwriting, and two English musicians. Although their first album was not unsuccessful (#1 on CMJ album charts), A&M Records cancelled the contract, and their next record label, Big Time  Records, went bankrupt. Bad luck, as one might say. At least Mark Bandola still has a band, called Typewriter. After listening to some of their songs, I decided to like The Lucy Show more. I own their first album (vinyl version) which I have bought when it was released (1985) and still like. After listening again to some of the tracks from Undone, I am convinced that the best song on that album is "Resistance". Straight forward rock tune, expressive, the slightly dark mood of England's middle of the 80ies New Wave bands,  a riff you will remember and a very interesting way in which it is followed up and/or backed by the synth-sounds. So everybody who is bashing 80ies music -  listen to bands like The Lucy Show and you will learn to think twice. Great track, one of those the replay button has been invented for. To be played at maximum volume. The picture on the upper left shows a Roland Jet Phaser AP 7, one of Mark Bandola's favourite effect  units for electric guitar.
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1000 SONGS - DAY 248 SONG # 279

DAY 248: Beautiful Music from Seattle

There is more than Grunge and SubPop to Seattle. F.e., Transmissionary Six, a band with ties to the Walkabouts, The Willard Grant Conspiracy and the like (sounds like alternative folk rock). In principle, singer/songwriters Terri Moeller and Paul Austin form Transmissionary Six, both of them having also been members of the Walkabouts. They have recorded 7 albums from 2002 to 2008 before giving up the project. Now they have started again, as one can read on their homepage. German Wikipedia is more detailed about them than the English one (so, I guess, they are more successful in Europe than in North America). Therefore, I've linked to the description of the band on the homepage of  FILMguerrero, (one of) their record label(s). Ever since I have first heard "Infrared" (thx to Hermann Dörfler), this tune stuck to my mind. I had a hard time searching for it, since there is a Placebo song called Infrared, that will always pop up before the TM6 tune in search machines. It has a kind of Velvet Underground or Lou Reed feeling to me (or a bit of Galaxy 500), but this is not all about the tune, there is an extra, that only TM6 seem to be able to add to that kind of music. The other tune is Zero Gravity (also featured on TM6's homepage). Go and buy their records!:

1000 SONGS - DAY 247 SONG # 278

Day 247: A beautiful song by a singer from Algiers

Souad Massi was born to a  Kabylian family in Algiers, Algeria, 40 years ago. After having started a career as a musician, she was more or less forced by her circumstances to work as an engineer for an architect. She joined the hard rock  group Atakor at the end of 1997 (or begining of 1998), but went to Paris in 1999, where she started her career as a solo artist in 2001 with her first album Raoui.  She is decribed by critcis as a singer/songwriter that incorporates different musical styles (from Fado and Flamenco to Country and Rock) into her musical style. A song from her first album that I particularly like, is "Pas de temps". Hopefully you have some time to listen to it.

On m'avais dit que la vie est belle

Mais moi je la trouve des fois cruelle

La fumé noir a pris la place du ciel

Les grandes tours ont caché des étoiles

J'ai plus de rêves, j'ai pas de maisons

J'ai pas de cheminée pour le feu

J'ai plus d'époque, j'ai pas de saisons

J'ai pas de temps pour ce jeu

Non,non,non,non

J'ai pas de temps pour ce jeu là

J'ai pas de temps pour ce jeu

J'ai pas de temps pour ce jeu là

J'ai pas de temps pour ce jeu

Attendre la nuit pour pleurer

Cacher ses larmes jusqu'au soir

Ecouter le vide nous murmurer

Jusqu'au matin notre histoire

Seule dans la rue déserte

Seule traversant l'hiver

Je marche sans tourner le tête

Je suis mon chemin de solitaire

1000 SONGS - DAY 246 SONG #277

DAY 246: A Song from Ghana

Captain Yaba from Northern Ghana has already been featured on this blog, with the dance track Yaba Funk on Day 20, Song # 39 . I recommend to click on the link, read about the Captain's life  and listen to that track. But before you do that, listen to Nerinbalankina; 6 minutes of driving, liight funky African dance music. I came to know it as part of a sample CD with music from West Africa and it struck me immediately as an outstanding track on that compilation of fine songs. I am happy about having finally found it on You Tube.

1000 SONGS - DAY 245 SONG # 276

DAY 245: A song that reminds me of someone

This song reminds me of two persons, both of them dead. The one is the man who plays the trumpet, Chet Baker. The other one is the singer, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, a musician, writer, poet and painter born in Lyon in 1956. French singer using the English tongue. Only recently I have learned that she died of cancer in 2004. She stayed in New York  as a young woman (middle of the seventies), where she made friends with Patti Smith and Richard Hell; there is a very strange video showing her dancing and singing in a black and white kind of sweat suit to a disco version of Arthur Browns "Fire" (Serge Gainsbourg has something to do with that), she is considered to have been a pioneer of "Worldbeat", and, most importantly, I own three of the albums she made. My favourite one is the one for the soul, and it features this here track that came to my mind when thinking about another song to add to my 1000 favourite songs. Its mood is some kind of relaxed melancholy, I would say. Here it is, the Fog Horn Blues, from 1985:

I've burnt my mouth eating
The last of you
I'm leaving me
I'm through drinking
The least of you
Oh I'm leaving me
With nothing left
But the fog horn blues
Nothing left, but the fog horn blues...

The ocean turned full moon
And just for you
Oh I'm leaving me
I'm lip-reading
The best of you
Oh I'm leaving me
Rings under my eyes
With the fog horn blues

I've burnt my hair smoking
The lust of you
Oh I'm leaving me
I'm breast-feeding
The lack of you
Oh I'm leaving me
Out on a limb
With the fog horn blues

I stole a boat kissing
The waves of you
Oh I'm leaving me
I'm diving in
The deepest you
Oh I'm leaving me
Red rag to a bull
With the fog horn blues
Red rag to a bull
With the fog horn blues...

1000 SONGS - DAY 244 SONG # 275

DAY 244: A song from my childhood and from one of my favourite movies

This here song has been featured prominently in Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise. The first version I came to know was the one featured on Creedence Clearwater Revival's debut album, on which one can also find one of the best versions of Suzie Q ever recorded. The song was written and first recorded by Screamin Jay Hawkins who did more than one recording of the song. One of his versions is featured in the Jarmusch movie, and the song is one among the 500 songs that are listed in the  Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for having shaped Rock and Roll. Here is the originbal recording, followed by two performances done by SJH, one from his early years, one from later on. Aesthetically, he uses - in an ironic way -  the stereotypes about the black man's religion - voodoo - as constructed in the white man's imagination. Then there is a live version by CCR and one done by Nina Simone, one of my favourite musicians of all times (and this is a wonsderful version, as sure as hell):

1000 SONGS - DAY 243 SONG # 274

DAY 243 - A Song about a guy driving a motorcycle

Here it is, as brought forth by Suicide in 1977, covered by angry man Henry Rollins (the version from Hot Animal Machine that I do like more than the one from Hard Volume as featured on the soundtrack of The Crow) and by the formidable Young Gods. More music, less words:

pure trance, longest and definitely best version:

1000 SONGS - DAY 242 SONG #273

Day 242: One of my favourite waltzes

This waltz is said to be in 6/8 rather than in 3/4, and when clapping to it, I have the feeling that this might be right. Whatever the difference might be, this piece of music tends to be featured as the Waltz #2 of Shostakovitch's Jazz Suite #2 (even on the U-Tube links featured in this blog). This is wrong. The Waltz #2 is pièce 7 of the Suite for Variety Orchestra and nothing else. It has become famous for being used in the soundtrack of the Stanley Kubrick movie Eyes Wide Shut (one of the rare movies I like altough the man formerly married to Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes stars in it). There exist also some versions of the theme I would rather not recommend (by Andre Rieux and James Last, f.e.). Here is a version one could appreciate, another one (with scenes from the movie in the background) that I find rather wonderful and a full rendering of the suite in question, a fine version, in my humble opinion.