Graveyard Woman, Soulful Mama, Buick 6

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Wondering what model, exactly, was a Buick 6, while listening to one of my very favorite Dylan songs, I went searching and found eleventyleven sites making, consistently, two comments about the song:

  1. “obviously” the weakest track on “Highway 61 Revisited” (I’d put that on Queen Jane, but then, thats ONLY in comparison to the rest of the album, not the rest of music in general, because compared to most music, Queen Jane is in the top 1% of the top 1%)
  2. “obviously” a cheating song—this is the one that fires me up.

the cover of Bob Dylan's album 'Highway 61 Revisted'The song opens with mention of “a graveyard woman” and “my soulful mama”. Much is made of the “but” introducing the soulful mama:

I got this graveyard woman…
But my soulful mama

The rest of the song, borrowing[ahem] from old blues, is about not much and everything, but certainly doesn’t elaborate on any cheating, or even the existence of two women in our narrator’s wife.

Instead, the assumption is that the “graveyard” woman is lifeless, but his “mama” is soulful.

Well, I’m telling you, I got a woman I’ll go to the graveyard loving, and ain’t nobody gonna tell me she’s less than full of soul, hers and mine both.

resurrection

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

I just missed the 23rd anniversary of my first post on my first blog: March 12.

The last post here was 6 1/2 years ago. From August of 2012 to that last post in 2018 I wrote just a dozen posts. In 13 years I’ve averaged a post a year, though, not really.

I retired in 2022 and as I learn to cope with Long COVID I’m finding new and better ways to spend my time.

One of them is music. Music coming in and flowing out.

Because music helps.

Sales for Soupy Life

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life, though lyrically inappropriate for minors, is famous for its drum riff, but I’m always hooked by the ripping punchy bassline (surprise surprise.)

Turns out that bassist, Tony Sales, is the son of comedian Soupy Sales.

I love trivia like that.

You may, if you so desire, go listen to the ridiculous but wonderful cover by the Smithereens:

CCR = John Fogerty

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Every place John is mentioned online, someone brings up the immense unfairness of the bass player and drummer of CCR never getting their due from him.

As a bass player and drummer myself, that all sounds like kneejerk emotional reaction, not objective assessments of Doug Clifford’s and Stu Cook’s value to the band. I’m not good enough to play drums for John, but I can play the bass line on any CCR song without even practicing.

There is nothing distinctive, irreplaceable about CCR’s rhythm section. Any competent bass player and drummer could have backed up Fogerty and CCR would have been the same band. With the right choices, they might even have been better.

CCR was John Fogerty was CCR. His songwriting, his guitar playing, crimenently his voice. Anything special and unique about that group was that man.

Endgame

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Today is the 16th anniversary of this blog, the first online writing I did.

I’m an early adopter. I worked with computers in the days of the earliest programmable calculators. I built my first website in about 1994. I launched my web business in 1999.

And in 2002 I started this blog after I built my own blogging tool from scratch because I couldn’t find one that did everything I wanted. (Nowadays self-hosted WordPress, launched in 2003, is the obvious choice. Avoid Wix and Weebly. End of rant.)

An overview of my relationship with music has seen few edits since I first wrote it 16 years ago. I grew up with music the way most people grew up with television.

Over the past decade I’ve spent more time writing music than writing about it. I perform in our living room. I used to have a cover band and we performed in bars. I’ve played my music in coffee shops. Dragging all my equipment out somewhere to play for the same people who’d come to my living room quickly seemed a waste of time.

Though I don’t write about music as much as I once did I am primarily a writer. Novels, a children’s book, a bunch of business books in the past, and a dozen blog posts a month in various places.

My first post, on March 12th of 2002, was about the Irish band Hothouse Flowers. I was hearing all kinds of new music as my kids got older (16 years ago their ages ranged from 12 to 22.) All these new sounds flooding my life, and the joy of sharing them with my kids, made me want to talk about it all. But not just “I like this, that, and the other band.” Details. What made the music or lyrics special. What the bands seemed to be trying to do. What made the performers interesting.

I’ve written about famous people, household names. I’ve written about folks who have a strong cult following. I’ve written about musicians who’ve never published a single tune publicly. And I’ve shared my own music extensively.

But I don’t know what to do with this site anymore. Before writing this I reviewed the last few posts I wrote—in the fall of 2016, nearly a year and a half ago.

This site has seen long dry spells, sometimes lasting years.

I’m not sure this is that.

I’m wondering, in this and in many things, if it’s time to start thinking about an endgame, closure, wrapping things up and putting them in the closet, leaving room for the few things that really matter to me anymore.

Dylan’s Nobel

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Short version: lyrics are poetry, and I’m with Rolling Stone on this one.

[az]B00138H876[/az]The official Nobel press release says The Nobel Prize in Literature for 2016 is awarded to Bob Dylan for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.

Do they not have the right to award it to whomever they please? Is there supposed to be some internal logic we don’t expect from Grammys or Oscars?

This is an organization that gives the world’s most famous peace prize and it’s named after the guy who invented dynamite. I, for one, think Mr. Zimmerman would find that amusing, though to this point, he has yet to comment on the award.

Americana: A Few Opinions

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Like the difference between a redneck and a hillbilly, scissoring Americana out of the pages of country pop, folk-rock, and alternative music is an ethereal thing. It’s been on my mind the past 12 hours, since I went to see an “Americana” band last night, and except for Steve Earle’s Copperhead Road it was an evening of country-pop and, I kid you not, 70s and 80s metal.

Hint: if the band is singing about pouring sugar on a deaf leopard or whatever that was, it ain’t Americana.

I’m not here to set the record straight. This is just the opinion of an aging hillbilly who writes and performs Americana.

Oh, that’s it. Joel is feeling misunderstood. Again.

I’ll come in through the back door with examples first, explanations later.

Some artists I consider Americana through and through:

(Their name links to their website, and I’ve included a link to their stuff at Amazon. Yes, it’s an affiliate link. If you use it I might make some money. Americana doesn’t care. Neither do hillbillies.)

And some who spend a lot of time there, but whose main body of work might tend toward straight country or rock:

  • Johnny Cash
  • Bob Dylan
  • Loretta Lynn
  • Woody Guthrie
  • Neil Young
  • The Band
  • Willie Nelson
  • Bonnie Raitt
  • Alison Krauss
  • Emmylou Harris

Here’s my attempt to identify the musical elements that make me think “Americana”:

  • It must twang. If there is no twang, it might be rock, it might be country, might even be bluegrass, but it ain’t Americana. Twang it must. Twang it will. No twang, no Americana. Have I made myself clear?
  • If there is not a dobro or other slide guitar, you, at the very least, expect one, knowing it is lurking around the next bridge. Fiddle is optional.
  • The singer’s voice is more notable for its expressiveness and power than silken smooth beauty. (Emmylou Harris gets a pass here, because she’s Emmylou Harris fer cryin’ out loud.)
  • The lyrics are thin slices of truth from the sandwich of life, subtle commentary on the wider world through the lens of a moment in time as told by a weary wanderer. It may put you in mind of cowboys and sunsets. Might could, anyway.
  • Acoustic, electric, fast, slow, drums: all immaterial. Both Neko Case’s Mood to Burn Bridges, a whip-fast rocker with drums and electricity, and Patty Griffin’s Long Ride Home, a melancholy acoustic number (and, lyrically, perhaps the best song ever written about regret) both qualify, unequivocally.
  • Vocal harmonies show up. A lot.
  • You won’t hear distortion on the guitar. Maybe it’s there, I don’t know, but it ain’t no grinding crunch.
  • It has nothing to do with politics. The word America (or is it American?) is, in this case, geographical, historical.
  • Sorry. Stumbled upon a video of case/lang/viers performing their album live and went into a trance. I sorta like the way Neko tosses that red mane. Where was I? Huh. That’s all I got.

Who’s driving this life, anyway?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Lyrics should amplify the emotional impact of the music. Or is it the other way round?

As I’m gearing up for a major life change (leaving a home I love in northern Wisconsin to move to Phoenix, Arizona for the sake of my family) some music on a long trip reminded me that I’m not always doing my best. I skated through school. Straight As, but still, I skated. I could have done so much more with my time and resources, but being just a little above whoever was in 2nd place was good enough — because all I cared about was being 1st, not about being best.

Most people think I’m wildly productive, writing book after book, managing 3 family businesses, and still having time for friends and family.

What I see most days is a person who won’t do the work to lose weight and eat healthier, turns in about 1/4 of the art he could be producing, and is a little too quick to call it a day and watch TV.

[az]B00004Y6Q0[/az]In Mark Knopfler’s Speedway At Nazareth from Sailing to Philadelphia he sounds like a man who blames everyone but himself, losing race after race for an entire season because, for instance, “She went around without a warning” and as anyone knows “the Brickyard’s there to crucify anyone”. He points out that “we were robbed at Belle Isle” and lost another because “my motor let go”.

Near the end, one last excuse about how “we burned up at the lake” and then, the last line puts it all in perspective:

But at the Speedway At Nazareth I made no mistake

Not a whiner making excuses, but a guy who knows whose job it is to win the race, and who sometimes can’t look that truth in the face.

Until one single win gives him the courage to admit who’s driving this life.

[az]B0009IW9D4[/az]On the same stretch of road I revisted John Cougar Mellencamp’s Scarecrow. I’d forgotten what a great album it is.

Minutes To Memories is the rambling commentary on life of an old man on the bus, as recorded by the young man singing. The last lines of the chorus sound at first like a curmudgeon’s denigration of a younger generation:

You are young and you are the future
So suck it up and tough it out
And be the best you can

It may sound like Don Henley singing “get over it!” but, really, is there another way to live? What we do today, what we do every day, is our future, ours and that of everyone our life touches.

Is there another option when things go sideways but to suck it up and tough it out?

Is there ever a time, a place, a circumstance to not “be the best you can”?

I Know Why He Acts This Way

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

Found some old notes I’d written about my favorite Jude Cole album. Twelve years ago, actually. Much has changed. Like, now I’m happy. Also, I’ve seen Madison.

  • Speed of Life — only one I’ve heard on the radio. Great tune, fascinating mental imagery. I have a live version recorded in some radio studio, too.
  • Believe In Me — “I may not make a million dollars, but a million dollars won’t make me.” He sure knows how to write. Simple tune with wonderful lyrics.
  • Move if You’re Going — not my favorite music, but it’s about getting on with your life after tragedy. I listen for the lyrics.
  • Lowlife — not what it sounds like. He writes lots of musical prayers. I sing ’em real loud.
  • Joe — oh so scary song about a perfectly normal guy; except he’s having an affair with his neighbor’s wife while he beats his own; wishes his kids would just leave him alone, and ends with him sitting in the basement holding a Purple Heart and a loaded gun. I’m almost crying writing this; at my lowest times, this song really really helped me not to end it all, and I don’t know how or why. Kiefer Sutherland, who loaned Jude his guitar to record his very first album with, does some of the vocals. Listen with headphones in a dark room. It’s a deeply moving song for me.
  • Sheila Don’t Remember — he really doesn’t understand why this girl he had a one-night-stand with doesn’t even remember him. I’ve looked for something deeper, but I haven’t found it.
  • Take The Reins — when you let others control your life, your heart, your mind, you’re in trouble. Take it back, ’cause no matter how hard it is, it can’t hurt the way it does right now
  • Madison — I have no idea what this is about, but it sounds like a ‘never going back’ tune. I was born in Wisconsin, but I’ve never even seen Madison.
  • Hole at the top of the World — another sad song about a dead marriage. For a happily married guy, he sure nails the feelings.
  • Heaven’s Last Attempt — a gentle but powerful song about how the right kind of love might save your life. Or, might not.

Why does Dylan’s commercial affect my car-buying beliefs?

Posted on by Joel D Canfield

A testament to the power of musical connections indeed.

I’m a die-hard Nissan fan, and fairly dismissive of American cars (too many Pintos and Vegas in my past.)

And yet, after watching Dylan’s Chrysler commercial last night, I feel an overwhelming desire to buy a Chrysler product.

My Little One, who’s not yet 10, watched the whole thing, and at the end when the snippet of lyrics comes in, she squealed “I KNEW it was that song” and made that the first song on her bedtime playlist.

The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine is toying with my head, and it’s all because of music.

This machine kills anything you want killed. Use your power for good instead of evil.