The Weekly Southern Blog

One Last Song Before I Die!

9/30/2011

If you could only listen to one last song before you die, which would you choose? One time when I suppose I had nothing better to do, I began to think of what is my favorite song of all time. I have had many favorite songs over the course of my life that have spent time at number one in my head. I could almost make a Billboard-type list, complete with dates served, but it would be too long to fit here.

For music aficionados like me who love a lot of music, it would seem to be a difficult choice. But for me it wasn't. Once I got this premise in my head, it only took a couple of seconds to come up with an answer. Over the long haul, one song immediately stood out in my mind as my favorite of all time, and the one I would choose to listen to if I only had time for one more song before I died.

It is . . . wait for it . . . Over the Hills and Far Away by Led Zeppelin. It is three songs in one and has a little bit of everything that I enjoy in music. It opens with an almost folksy acoustic guitar introduction that is a short song all in itself, expertly played by Jimmy Page and sung by Robert Plant, complete with trilling, rolling triplets accompanied by ringing chords, without any percussion or bass. Alone acoustic begins in the center and after the first verse of the introduction, it moves to the left stereo channel and a beautiful twelve string joins in unison in the right channel. (The only way to listen, enjoy, and study good music is through headphones, where you can hear and identify every instrument and pick apart each one’s role in the song.)

There follows your traditional rock sound in the second and middle part of the song, with drums and bass added, the left stereo channel filled by the crunchy, distorted electric guitar sound I love so well, and the right continuing on with an acoustic. In the middle of this passage is the must-have guitar solo that used to be the staple of a good song and a good recording. It pans constantly from left to right and back with seemingly no plan or reason, as if the engineer had just gone nuts at the mixer board while mastering the song.

The last part is another short mini-ballad, this time of a very soft electric sotto voce with no accompaniment that crossfades with the middle rock part of the song. This last guitar’s volume is quite low and its reverb set so that it sounds very far away, as if in an echo chamber. It is at once both chilling and haunting, and hearing the song for the first time you think it is over and this last guitar will fade out to nothing, only for it to come back from the nether regions of the void with keyboards fading in in the background for what every good songs needs, a great ending. Just absolutely gorgeous, from beginning to end.

I can, and have, listened to it over and over again. In fact, if I’m sitting with a guitar in my hand and nothing special in mind to play, somehow the opening of this song naturally comes to mind and I begin to play it, and then the rest of the song automatically follows to its completion.

After hearing and loving this amazing composition, performance, and recording one last time, I believe I could lay down and die happy. Years ago when I first thought of this question, I asked a friend of mine what he would choose, and he said he couldn’t pick just one. When I told him my overwhelming choice he said, “That’s not a bad one to have if you have to have one.”

That is the song I would chose if I could only pick one to hear one last time before I die. What would yours be?

Jeff Vanderslice

0 Comments

Conversations about Music with Friends

9/13/2011

2 Comments

I just had the opportunity to listen to my favorite song by the Association, "Everything That Touches You." While it wasn't their biggest hit by a long shot, it was their best song (in my less than humble opinion). Enjoy!

Brother Mo and the Acid Kings

Sounds like the Beach Boys and The Mama's and the Papa's had a baby and they called it pleasant schlock!

El Muso

Yes, that's sort of true. However, I will never be 14 again and at 14, this song was cool. I'm guessing that James West and Artemus Gordon thought it was cool, Ilya Kuriakin and Napoleon Solo thought it was cool, etc. Also, the song is terrifically hook laden and the Wrecking Crew laid down a nice, mid 60s, LA groove.

On those rare occasions when I hear stuff like this, I am always knocked out again with the memory of how cool this kind of music sounded to me. You know, it was in that brief time from about 1965 to 1967-68 when the eastern doo-wop had turned into the Four Seasons and the LA cats were bringing their laid-back, folk/rock approach to that sound. The Association, Turtles, Mamas and Papas, Beach Boys, and others all worked in this vein before it faded away in 1968-69.

Anyway, no amount of snarky comments shall vanquish my affection for songs like this. Some songs matter just 'cause they take you back to that place long ago. That's one of the great things about music--even (or perhaps especially) this music.

Brother Mo and the Acid Kings

Well Artie, I guess you're right, its still fairly gay though, but it's a well crafted sort of gayness. Yes, it reminds me of the days of yore when guys in bands had those page boy haircuts and they were by default better qualified to be jockeys than say....actual men. But that's just my opinion. Excuse me while I go listen to some Sinatra or maybe some Wilson Pickett or better still, I think I'll sing me a song, "boys and things they come by the dozen, that ain't nuthin but 10 cent luvin, hey pretty mama let light your candle cause mama I'm to hard to handle ,yes I am"! By the way, I wasn't singing that to you, so don't get any ideas. You never know about people who listen to certain kinds of music!

El Muso

Otis Wannabe,Well, one thing is true, even though you didn't mention it. With the possible exception of the Lovin' Spoonful, has anyone ever made a recording with an autoharp that didn't sound gay/feminine? And this song certainly has its share of auto-harp.

That said, I still like it, which, I guess, makes me a manly man who is in touch with his feelings and not some overcompensating, insecure macho man like, well, you know who I'm talkin' about. Yes, I'm the kind of strong, sensitive man that women want and need.

(and the chorus girls sing, "Yeah, baby, uh-huhh! Just do me like that"!)

Brother Mo and the Acid Kings

I take it back. It isn't a combination of The Beach Boys and The Mama's and The Papa's, its more like The Pointer Sisters meets The San Francisco Gay Men's Choir, "and all the colored girls go doo, do, doo, do, doo, do, doo, do!"

El Muso

If this conversation has been offensive in any way, we sincerely apologize. In fact, we don't know who these people are, nor do we condone their use of pejorative terms like "Gay" or support the idea that "The Association" ever made good records! There are clearly some who would disagree--and for that we apologize as well!

The Editors

2 Comments

Pink Floyd and Eternal Youth

9/7/2011

1 Comment

El Muso,

I fear that thou dost protest too much! Sure, Pink Floyd, particularly in their early years, were a self-indulgent group of LSD-taking, art-school poseurs. However, speaking as a self-indulgent, art-school student from 1971 to 1973, I found their earlymeanderings very entertaining. Their “music” was the perfect accompaniment to my own trips and, with a hint of menace in some of the indistinct vocals, added a shivery edge to the experience.

Jimi asked, “Are you experienced?” and my answer is, “Yes I am.” I am neither proud of that now nor particularly regretful. It was where I was at that time. Thank God I am no longer that person but, hey, it was what it was. A gracious and loving God saw me through that time and brought me to a better place. However, as I listened again to that old Pink Floyd “music,” I laughed with the remembrance of those crazy days. Ahh, the power of nostalgia!

Brother Mo and the Acid Kings

1 Comment

Pink Floyd "Suck"....and You Know it!

9/7/2011

1 Comment

Never has a band been responsible for so much meandering equine feculence as Pink Floyd. Yes, they had a few good tunes, mostly sandwiched between bunches of self-conscious, art school babble! When you can’t play or write, all the artifice in the world can’t hide it!

If anyone doubts my word just watch the videos below and if you’re not smoking some weed or imbibing some illicit substance you will have to acknowledge the truthfulness of it. This is hippie music at its worst, only possibly eclipsed by watching Country Joe and the Fish at various festivals back in the day—an atrocity so overwhelming that I can only liken it to being drained bya succubus.

It’s hard to blame all of it on hippies mind you, it's more a function of youth, something that might have been excused when you were eighteen and ripped, trying to put the moves on some young hippie chick and your mind had been muddled by having watched 2001 A space Odyssey or some philosophy classes. But when you’re as old as Pink Floyd or even close to it, there are no more excuses.

El Muso

1 Comment

1-1-1990, The Day the Music Died

9/1/2011

1 Comment

I don’t mean that literally, of course. I just mean that they stopped making good music after that date. Well, not literally that date, but pretty close to it, close enough that you could separate the musical styles from the 80’s and the 90’s. I became musically aware in the late 70’s but it was the 80’s when I learned to play guitar and learned to really study music. And as far as I’m concerned the 80’s was the best decade for music ever. In fact the 80’s was the best decade for a lot of things, including U.S. presidents, but we’ll stick with music here.

I like the music of the 70’s when the electric guitar came into its own, and like some of the 50’s and 60’s music as well. But the music of the 80’s, for me, represents the pinnacle of rock. The 90’s and after basically blew chunks. Oh, there was some good music still made after 1989, but all that was any good at all was basically throwbacks or retro songs that were clones of the 80’s style. I like a few bands from after 1989, such as Train, Third Eye Blind, and so on, but I believe the grunge style of music that came out of Seattle in the 90’s, as popularized by bands such as Nirvana, was the death knell of good music.

Soon into the 90’s I found myself rarely listening to the radio anymore with the crud they were playing. Even classic rock stations became an endangered species, and good ones are even rarer these days. I would be lost now without my mp3 player with its treasure trove of mostly 80’s tunes. I don’t even turn on the radio anymore. Back in the 80’s I used to be on top of virtually everything about the modern music scene, even in genres I wasn’t a fan of, but now, I know next to nothing of what is hot, what is popular, and what is not. But I don’t care, because it is all crud to me. As far as music goes, I’m living in the past, and couldn’t be happier and couldn’t care less.

Another thing I lament is the demise of the guitar solo, kind of like the demise of the complete game shutout in baseball. Back in my day, nearly every song went by variations of the same formula, basically two verses, then a bridge and a guitar solo, possibly followed by a third verse and oftentimes not. It was almost a requirement to have a guitar solo in a song, even in pop. Nowadays you would be hard pressed to find any guitar solos in any popular songs, not that I listen to them, but when I do I never hear a solo.

Beginning in the 70’s and continuing in the 80’s, the solo became such a staple that some guitar virtuosos, such as Joe Satriani and others, gave up the vocals and the verses, and made entire songs out of guitar solos. To me, nothing sounds better than a wailing, distorted, effected-out guitar singing and screaming in a recording and especially when it replaces the vocalist at the forefront for a solo or a break. I could go on and on and list the best and my favorite guitarists and solos, but that would go on and on for pages, so I won’t even get started.

Just suffice it to say that I am very sorry that both my kind of music and the guitar solo both seemed to die at the same time, right around 1990. To be honest, I just don’t get what the younger generation sees in the crud they call music. But then my parents and those older than me could never see what I found so great and fascinating about the arena and big-hair rock of the 80’s. So I guess the cycle goes round and round endlessly. Each generation seems to have its own music that helps to define it. And since some of the best years of my life were spent in the 80’s and that was when I learned to love music and play the guitar, it is the songs of that decade that defines not only my taste in music, but part of my life. Each time I listen to one, it takes me back to a certain time, or a certain place, or a certain person, and they are mostly good memories. No other music can do that for me.

Jeff Vanderslice

1 Comment

One Last Song Before I Die!

Conversations about Music with Friends

Pink Floyd and Eternal Youth

Pink Floyd "Suck"....and You Know it!

1-1-1990, The Day the Music Died

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