1000 SONGS - DAY 314 Song # 345

Day 314: A Song from "The Denver Gentlemen" by The Denver Gentlemen

This here is a song from the 2005 album "The Denver Gentlemen" by The Denver Gentlemen. If you want to know some things about this band click HERE. The Denver Gentlemen have some relations to 16 Horspower and other dark "Denver-style-bands". Its idiosyncratic muscial style  has also been labelled as "Indie Rock" or "Gothic Country" a.t.l. Anyway, the song featured here is called "Dance and Make Babies", and to me, it is just music (like with religion, it is with music: no need for further labels). It is, indeed, very intersting kind of music:

1000 SONGS - DAY 313 Song # 344

Day 313: Take a Look at Yourself

Today,  in the course "Introduction to the General History of Religion", which is a cooperation of two colleagues and me (nobody can give a course like that on his/her own), America was on the list (2nd part: Aztecs, Inkas, Christianity in US., African-American and Afro-American Religions), and therefore the Nation of Islam. 5 Percenters seem to be an offspring of NOI, and Keith Edward Elam, aka The Guru, member of Gang Starr, seems to have been a 5 percenter. Anyway, he is dead, and he was one of the best voices in Rap history, and besides of being a member of Gang Starr (already featured on this here blog), he did that cool hip-hop-jazz fusion thing, called Jazzmatazz. Here is "Take a Look at Yourself" from the first, and "Lifesaver" from the second Jazzmatazz-album.

1000 SONGS - DAY 312 SONG # 343

Day 312:  A Working Man's Song, Once More

A working man is a working man, and there are so many songs about the working man, from "Sixteen Tons" to "Working in a Coal Mine". Among the working men, you find the slaves, those people ripped off of their individual human rights. By the use of metaphor, Afro-American and African-American (offspring of) slaves in the NEW world have called themselves "Israelites", just because in the story of sacred history "owned" by their suppressors, Israel was a slave in Egypt's land. Makes me think and wonder. Ska, not Reggae, Dekker, not Marley: The Israelites, 1969:

Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
so that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Get up in the morning, slaving for bread, sir,
So that every mouth can be fed.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

My wife and my kids, they are packed up and leave me.
Darling, she said, I was yours to be seen.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Shirt them a-tear up, trousers are gone.
I don't want to end up like Bonnie and Clyde.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

After a storm there must be a calm.
They catch me in the farm. You sound the alarm.
Poor me, the Israelite. Aah.

Poor me, the Israelite.
I wonder who I'm working for.
Poor me, Israelite,
I look a-down and out, sir.

1000 SONGS - DAY 311 SONG # 342

DAY 311:  Two of Bob's Mainstream US "Rock-Ballads"

Back in the late 70ies and early 80ies Bob Segers more ballad-like songs were on something like constant air-play (at least I remember it like that). They really fit well with todays mood, a rainy saturday in spring, and, I heard "Still the Same" when shopping, a song written by Bob Seger and to be found on his 1978 album "Stranger in Town". That's why I put it here. The other one, from Bob Seger's  1982 album "The Distance" was written by Rodney Crowell. It is relatively hard, if not impossible, to find a decent video featuring those tracks on UTUBE.

1000 SONGS - DAY 310 SONG # 341

Day 310: A beautiful song by Bonnie Prince Billy

Everbody loves Will Oldham (a.k.a. Bonnie Prince Billy), at least for the Johnny Cash version of his seminal song "I see a darkness". One could also mention that he did the best version of "Puff the Magic Dragon" ever recorded (Sorry, P, P & M). Here is something else, a song that has what I would call Nick-Drake-Qualities, as far as mood is concerned. Enjoy "The Way", from the "Prince's" album "Master and Everyone":

1000 SONGS - DAY 309 SONG # 340

Day 309: My Funny Valentine

Last Time I posted a version of this song was on 2011-02-14. Three yeras gone since Chet Baker's version. This is an easy post, neither do I  have to write anything about the song, nor about the singers: Ella, Nico, & Etta. Enjoy!

1000 SONGS - DAY 308 SONG # 339

Day 339: Songs by Johnny Hickman

Johnny Hickman is a great guitar player of Cracker fame, a decent person, a nice guy and he wrote some really beautiful songs. Here is a link to his homepage, where you can buy some of his music: http://johnnyhickman.com/index.htm. Of all the songs posted here, I have at least bought one versio, because Johnny deserves to have some outcome of the great work he does to ease our minds. First, there is Little Tom, with lyrics, from his solo album "Palmhenge", after that, you'll find Hold of Myself, one of my all time fav tunes, in an "unplugged" version done by the great Hickman, and, later on, in the official Cracker version. May Johnny live on and prosper!!!

Well someone shot the president, on the night that I was born
I wasn't born to poverty or wealth
Just one in a million babies, often to be told
Keep their opinions to themselves
I really wasn't all that small but they called me Little Tom
And they sent me to school far away
I don't really get it and I may never know
But they said at the time that there was no other way,
no other way

Well they say I had a sister, but she died when I was young
In a home that the government had found her in
And the place they found for me they called the great opportunity
Still I wish she could have died with me around her
See some kids got a beatin', some kids went away
Sometimes I'd hear 'em leaving in the night
One time I saw Jesus standing outside in the rain
And he told me that I was gonna be all right,
gonna be all right

Well the priest there he bought me a suit, and we got in his car
And he took me for a ride downtown
Said the Army is the place for you,
You'll be a man before they're through
He walked away while I was just staring down
Now which God made the criminals, and which God made police
And which God makes the ones like me
Where do bad guys come from if they don't fall out of the sky
When I get out I'm gonna work at stayin free,
just stayin free

1000 SONGS - DAY 307 SONG # 338

DAY 307: Two Great Cover Versions by Galaxie 500

Galaxie 500 were a US-American alternative rock band active in the late 80ies or so it seems. They are often said to have been largely influenced by Velvet Underground, and in fact there are some songs on the three albums they have released that very much sound like VU, but there are others too,  that sound, like, e.g., the Feelies. They have also done two beautiful cover versions (as far as I know; there might be more). Here are those, the first one of George Harrison's Isn't it a Pity. This is a simply great version (I do not comment on the many other more or less fine cover versions of that tune to be found). Although - as Galaxie 500 (and others) have shown - this is a really marvellous tune, I could not and cannot listen to the original recording done by George due to too much SCHMALTZ and very strange arrangements. But Galaxie 500 have done a version that brings out all the (more or less) hidden beauty in that song. This is the first song rendered here. Afterwards, I will go on with Galaxie 500's version of Joy Divison's "Ceremony". "Ceremony" was the first single by New Order after the death of Ian Curtis, with vocals done by Bernard Summer. I feature one of the three versions recorded by Joy Divison (in contradistinction to GH's failed attempt to make his point), the one from the STILL album - what a broken performance and so great (you will never get the lyrics from that one)

1000 SONGS - DAY 306 SONG # 337

Day 306: Just another great band from Hungary

Quimby from Hungary are listed als "Alternative Rock" - as I have written in my last posting, "alternative" means something like "good" to me, irrespective of the genre. As I have some inclination towards Hungarian, and I also do think that it fits well with music (in contradistinction to some friends who have the opposite, clearly ungrounded theory), I do like that song that sounds like a mix of Calexico, Element of Crime and Marcy Playground to me. "Neki megadom magam" seems to mean something like "I will let him have it myself", if I understand it correctly.

1000 SONGS - DAY 305 Song # 336

DAY 305: A Good One Gig in Amsterdam

Fred Eaglesmith, a Canadian guy, is one of the great persons acting in what is called "alternative country". Alternative Country simply is good music as compared to non-alternative anything. "Alternative" (with some very rare exceptions) has become a label for "good" in the music scene, irrespectively of the genre. I have never seen a live performance by him, but sure as hell, I will do everything to see Fred in person and on stage before I leave this dull form of existence. If you want to understand what I mean, look at and listen to the second link featured here. As this is a full show of something like 80 minutes duration, I have put on one clip of that show first, 4 minutes of York Street. Show was done in Paradiso, Amsterdam.