Music Archives

August 14, 2016 By Jay Jurisich

Pink Floyd: contradiction and simplicity in an enduring band name

Whatever you think about their music, past or present, the band Pink Floyd has an amazing, enduring name, with a subtle power that reveals itself gradually over time. The name was created on the spur of the moment by early member and “crazy diamond” troubled genius Syd Barrett, by combining “the given names of two blues musicians whose Piedmont blues records Barrett had in his collection, Pink Anderson and Floyd Council” (Wikipedia). The unique combinations of strangeness and familiarity, modern (“Pink”) and retro (“Floyd”), young and old, have led to this being an enduring name still vital nearly 50 years after it burst upon the London music scene in the mid-1960s. Contradiction and simplicity combine to form one of the greatest band names of all time. And it only works because “Pink” can be a name and not just a color, which is only the case because “Floyd” is a name. Note, for instance, how much less interesting is the contemporary band name Pink Martini.

July 15, 2015 By Zinzin

From Lead Belly to Pussy Riot: branding lessons and inspiration from over a century of band names

This project began with modest ambitions: a casual examination of some band names that have inspired us over the years, along with their origins or creation myths. As we dove into this treasure trove of nomenclature, however, the scope escalated into an deep investigation of over a hundred years’ worth of band name etymologies. The first dozen or so entries are not band names per se, but stage names, nicknames, and pseudonyms of seminal artists that have shaped the course of music and the manner in which bands and musicians are branded.

January 11, 2014 By Zinzin

Blackbird (rehearsal outtake), by Paul McCartney

A great video of Paul McCartney rehearsing Blackbird in the studio, c. 1968 Beatles White Album sessions. Love the close-up of the wingtips toe tapping.

Blackbird
By John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

October 10, 2013 By Jay Jurisich

Chips, chips: Via Con Me, by Paolo Conte

No matter how dark of a mood might ever overtake you, I defy you to not be happy when you hear this song. It’s wonderful…. Chips, chips!

The accompanying video scenes, though unrelated, fit the mood quite nicely. They were taken from the films, “Top Hat” (1935), “Shall We Dance” (1937) and “Swing Time” (1936), starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

March 13, 2013 By Jay Jurisich

Bowie and Burroughs: systematic derangement

David Bowie performing the song, “Blackout,” live in Dallas, 1978.

Bowie cuts it up with Burroughs

In 1974, Bowie read Nova Express by William S. Burroughs, met with Burroughs (Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman, Rolling Stone, February 28, 1974), and was influenced by Burrough’s “cut up” writing technique. Here are Bowie’s cut up lyrics for “Blackout,” which appears on the 1977 album Heroes:

Blackout

by David Bowie

Oh you, you walk on past
Your lips cut a smile on your face
Your scalding face
To the cage, to the cage
She was a beauty in a cage

Too, too high a price
To drink rotting wine from your hands
Your fearful hands
Get me to a doctor’s I’ve been told
Someone’s back in town the chips are down
I just cut and blackout
I’m under Japanese influence
And my honour’s at stake

The weather’s grim, ice on the cages
Me, I’m Robin Hood and I puff on my cigarette
Panthers are steaming, stalking, screaming

If you don’t stay tonight
I will take that plane tonight
I’ve nothing to lose, nothing to gain
I’ll kiss you in the rain
Kiss you in the rain
Kiss you in the rain
In the rain
Get me to the doctor

Get me off the streets (get some protection)
Get me on my feet (get some direction)
Hot air gets me into a blackout
Oh, get me off the streets
Get some protection
Oh get me on my feet (wo wo)

While the streets block off
Getting some skin exposure to the blackout (get some protection)
Get me on my feet (get some direction, wo-ooh!)
Oh get me on my feet
Get me off the streets (get some protection)
Get a second
Get wo wo
Yeah
Get a second ? breath on advice ?
And a second blow
Blackout

David Bowie and William Burroughs, 1974; Photograph by Terry O’Neill; Courtesy of The David Bowie Archive 2012

The inspiration of dreams

In an excerpt from Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman, Bowie and Burroughs discuss the importance of dreams in their work:

Burroughs: Do you get any of your ideas from dreams?

Bowie: Frequently.

Burroughs: I get seventy per cent of mine from dreams.

Bowie: There’s a thing that, just as you go to sleep, if you keep your elbows elevated you will never go below the dream stage. And I’ve used that quite a lot and it keeps me dreaming much longer than if I just relaxed.

Burroughs: I dream a great deal, and then because I am a light sleeper, I will wake up and jot down just a few words and they will always bring the whole idea back to me.

Bowie: I keep a tape recorder by the bed and then if anything comes I just say it into the tape recorder. As for my inspiration, I haven’t changed my views much since I was about 12 really, I’ve just got a 12-year-old mentality. When I was in school I had a brother who was into Kerouac and he gave me On The Road to read when I was 12 years old. That’s still a big influence.

The cut up method

The cut up method of writing that Burroughs and Brion Gysin invented in 1959 can perhaps be thought of as conjuring the dream state of any piece of text. Burroughs described the process in The Cut Up Method (1963), and included at the end of his essay a cut up version of what he had just written, which perfectly demonstrates the process and its poetic value:

ALL WRITING IS IN FACT CUT UPS OF GAMES AND ECONOMIC BEHAVIOR OVERHEARD? WHAT ELSE? ASSUME THAT THE WORST HAS HAPPENED EXPLICIT AND SUBJECT TO STRATEGY IS AT SOME POINT CLASSICAL PROSE. CUTTING AND REARRANGING FACTOR YOUR OPPONENT WILL GAIN INTRODUCES A NEW DIMENSION YOUR STRATEGY. HOW MANY DISCOVERIES SOUND TO KINESTHETIC? WE CAN NOW PRODUCE ACCIDENT TO HIS COLOR OF VOWELS. AND NEW DIMENSION TO FILMS CUT THE SENSES. THE PLACE OF SAND. GAMBLING SCENES ALL TIMES COLORS TASTING SOUNDS SMELL STREETS OF THE WORLD. WHEN YOU CAN HAVE THE BET ALL: “POETRY IS FOR EVERYONE” DOCTOR NEUMAN IN A COLLAGE OF WORDS READ HEARD INTRODUCED THE CUT UP SCISSORS RENDERS THE PROCESS GAME AND MILITARY STRATEGY, VARIATION CLEAR AND ACT ACCORDINGLY. IF YOU POSED ENTIRELY OF REARRANGED CUT DETERMINED BY RANDOM A PAGE OF WRITTEN WORDS NO ADVANTAGE FROM KNOWING INTO WRITER PREDICT THE MOVE. THE CUT VARIATION IMAGES SHIFT SENSE ADVANTAGE IN PROCESSING TO SOUND SIGHT TO SOUND. HAVE BEEN MADE BY ACCIDENT IS WHERE RIMBAUD WAS GOING WITH ORDER THE CUT UPS COULD “SYSTEMATIC DERANGEMENT” OF THE GAMBLING SCENE IN WITH A TEA HALLUCINATION: SEEING AND PLACES. CUT BACK. CUT FORMS. REARRANGE THE WORD AND IMAGE TO OTHER FIELDS THAN WRITING.

The cut variation images shift sense advantage in processing to sound sight to sound. Bowie: “I will sit right down, waiting for the gift of sound and vision.” No advantage from knowing. “And I will sing, waiting for the gift of sound and vision.” We can now product accident to his color of vowels. “Blue, blue, electric blue / That’s the colour of my room / Where I will live.” Systematic derangement: seeing and places. “Blue, blue.” Cut back.

If you find yourself in London soon, check out the exhibition David Bowie is at the Victoria and Albert Museum (modestly, “The world’s greatest museum of art and design”), 23 March – 11 August 2013:

The V&A has been given unprecedented access to the David Bowie Archive to curate the first international retrospective of the extraordinary career of David Bowie – one of the most pioneering and influential performers of modern times. David Bowie is will explore the creative processes of Bowie as a musical innovator and cultural icon, tracing his shifting style and sustained reinvention across five decades.

The V&A’s Theatre and Performance curators, Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh have selected more than 300 objects that will be brought together for the very first time. They include handwritten lyrics, original costumes, fashion, photography, film, music videos, set designs, Bowie’s own instruments and album artwork.

March 8, 2013 By Jay Jurisich

Get your yé-yé’s out: France Gall sings “Laisse tomber les filles”

France Gall has one of the best stage names ever. Often dismissed as a mid-1960s “baby pop” singing “doll” of the immortal and twisted Serge Gainsbourg, she was born Isabelle Geneviève Marie Anne Gall on 9 October 1947 in Paris, France, and managed to create (or was given) a galling Gallic name that James Joyce would have been proud to have coined. Gall was (is?) a popular French “yé-yé” singer.

I love France Gall’s song, “Laisse tomber les filles” (“Stop messing around with the girls”), written by Gainsbourg, and the pre-music-video video of the song below, from 1964 (age 17!), is wonderful, like a time capsule from a vanished world. Possibly the first example of really great terrible lip-synching.

February 11, 2013 By Jay Jurisich

Cristo Redentor by Donald Byrd, 1964

Jazz great Donald Byrd died last week at the age of 80. The the video below is his amazing jazz hymn, “Cristo Redentor,” which appeared on the classic 1964 album A New Perspective.

About the project, Byrd said: “I mean this album seriously. Because of my own background, I’ve always wanted to write an entire album of spiritual-like pieces. The most accurate way I can describe what we were all trying to do is that this is a modern hymnal. In an earlier period, the New Orleans jazzmen would often play religious music for exactly what it was – but with their own jazz textures and techniques added. Now, as modern jazzmen, we’re also approaching this tradition with respect and great pleasure.”

August 29, 2012 By Jay Jurisich

Regina Spektor: The Prayer of François Villon (Molitva)

There was a great Terry Gross interview with Regina Spektor on Fresh Air recently (On Growing Up A ‘Soviet Kid’). During the broadcast, Terry played Spektor’s recording of the song, “The Prayer of François Villon (Molitva),” by the Russian poet and singer-songwriter Bulat Okudzhava. The song appears on the Deluxe Edition of Spektor’s new album, What We Saw From The Cheap Seats.

June 7, 2012 By Jay Jurisich

Neil Young’s Americana: God Save The Queen / My Country Tis of Thee

The folk song collective unsconscious

Neil Young’s album, Americana features Neil Young and Crazy Horse cover versions of 11 classic Americana folk songs that many of us grew up singing: Oh Susannah, Clementine, Tom Dula, Gallows Pole, Get A Job, Travel On, High Flyin’ Bird, Jesus’ Chariot, This Land Is Your Land, Wayfarin’ Stranger, and God Save The Queen. Or, I should say, we grew up singing the sanitized versions of many of these songs, which are considerably richer and darker in their original lyrics, as Young sings them.

You might wonder why an album of Americana includes “God Save The Queen,” the national anthem of the country whose yoke the United States threw off over 200 years ago. Well, for one thing, “Americana” as an idea or regional identifier includes all of North America, not just the U.S., and as a Canadian Young grew up singing “God Save the Queen” every day in school. In the U.S., of course, our national anthem is “The Star Spangled Banner,” but prior to 1931 the national anthem of the United States was “My Country Tis of Thee,” sung to the tune of, you guessed it, “God Save The Queen.”

June 1, 2012 By Jay Jurisich

With God On Our Side: K’naan’s brilliant interpretation of a Bob Dylan classic

K’naan, born Keinan Abdi Warsame in 1978, is an amazingly talented Somali-Canadian poet, rapper, singer, songwriter and instrumentalist based in Toronto after surviving a harrowing upbringing in war-torn Somalia. He recorded the song above, a cover version of Bob Dylan’s “With God On Our Side,” for a compilation album that came out earlier this year, Chimes Of Freedom: The Songs Of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years Of Amnesty International. K’naan’s version of the song, with substantially new lyrics, is fantastic, with his own desperate wartime childhood history woven into it. I’ve included the lyrics, below, side-by-side with Dylan’s original lyrics, and a stunning early Dylan recording of the song below. Enjoy.

With God On Our Side (K’naan / Bob Dylan)

With God On Our Side (Bob Dylan)

It’s a movie and the whole world is viewing it
And the popcorn is dreams torn, but we’re always chewing it
The set design is by God but the costumes’ by the devil
And the screenplay is adapted from a book that’s embezzled

This is where I grew up
This is where I grew proud
This is where neighbors never say music is too loud
This is where the streets have no name, but they have history
This is loss’s victory

Oh my name it ain’t nothing; my age it means less
The country I come from could be like the rest
I was taught and brought up there, laws to abide
And the land that I live in has God on its side

I was young; I grew. I could tie my shoe
I was blind, but I knew, that I would always see blue
Blue seas I see through, on the bottom I’ll meet you
And when we come up for a breath, would you mind if I kiss you?

Childhood came up for the kiss, but its lips was painted with mist
And the sunny skies came and I missed it
Vanished and windswept
Landed and we slept in the arms of convenience, blanket obedience

Now the Somali-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too was soon laid away
And the names of our warlords
I was made to memorize
With guns in they hands, they say
God’s on their side

I had an undying wish to keep from dying
I had an untimely hitch keep me from climbing
But I climbed the hitch itself and I tried flying;
I had an uprising in my soul

The left was fighting the right
And the right was fighting the light
And the light was blind in the night
And the night woke up in tears
When my fingers went to wipe them
They became a poem but to write them
They would have to speak tears in another language;
That would take years

So now as I’m leaving
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feeling
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor:
If God’s on your side then
Would you ever need war?

Oh my name it is nothin’
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I’s taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I’s made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don’t count the dead
When God’s on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I’ve learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It’s them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we’re forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side.

In a many dark hour
I’ve been thinkin’ about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can’t think for you
You’ll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I’m leavin’
I’m weary as Hell
The confusion I’m feelin’
Ain’t no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God’s on our side
He’ll stop the next war.

And for comparison, and because Mr. Dylan was just awarded the Medal of Freedom this week by President Obama, and because it’s such a great song, here’s a great live bootleg version of Dylan performing With God On Our Side from 1963:

As a Forgotten Nomenclature aside, the name shown on the video above, Elston Gunnn, was an early alias for Robert Zimmerman, before he changed it to Bob Dylan. Here’s the story told by Bobby Vee about the time that a young man named Elston Gunnn briefly joined his backing band, The Shadows:

“He [Dylan] was in the Fargo/Moorhead area. He was working as a busboy at a place called the Red Apple Cafe. We didn’t know that at the time. Bill [Velline] was in a record shop in Fargo, Sam’s Record Land, and this guy came up to him and introduced himself as Elston Gunnn–with three n’s, G-U-N-N-N.

“He said he heard we were looking for a piano player, which we were, and he said that he had just gotten off the road with Conway Twitty. Bill was blown away. ‘Man, how good can this be? This was as good as it gets!’ And went over to the radio station with him, over to KGFO, and there was this piano in the studio and auditioned him on the piano. He came back and he said, ‘He played pretty good in the key of C.’ We didn’t realize it at the time, but that’s all he could play in, was the key of C. I-IV-V in the key of C.

“So we hired him to come out. And he was a neat guy. He was friendly. I remember his dark, curly hair. We bought him a shirt to match ours and paid him 15 bucks a night, which was about what we were making. Went to pick him up for the show, and he didn’t have a piano. There weren’t a lot of piano players in our area anyway–there were mostly guitar players–but they had the little Wurlitzer pianos, and we just assumed he had a piano. He didn’t, of course. We took him to the gig anyway, and there was a piano there. It was terribly out of tune. He sat and he played that, and when he got lost he would come up and do background parts and do Gene Vincent handclaps. It was a trip!

“It was ill-fated. I mean, it wasn’t gonna work. He didn’t have any money, and we didn’t have any money. The story is that I fired him, but that certainly wasn’t the case. If we could have put it together somehow, we sure would have. We wished we could have put it together. He left and went on to Minneapolis and enrolled at the University of Minnesota. A couple of years later I was in New York in Greenwich Village. I was walking down the street. There was a record store there, and there was an album in the front window. And it said, ‘Bob Dylan.’ And I thought to myself, ‘Looks a lot like Elston Gunnn!’

“I probably plugged into him on the second or third album, and the stuff was really unusual. It was so far removed from what I was doing. Not long after that, I started listening to his stuff and really became a big fan.”

(Source: The Bob Dylan Who’s Who)

Now it’s clear that if Bobby Vee had had God on his side, Elston Gunnn may have made his career as a member of The Shadows. Oh well, you can’t always get what you want….

May 5, 2012 By Jay Jurisich

Neko Case sings Harry Nilsson’s “Don’t Forget Me”

Neko Case sings Harry Nilsson’s “Don’t Forget Me” on Austin City Limits. This is absolutely incredible, one of my favorite performances and songs ever. Seemingly simple, but incredibly powerful.

I’ve been a big fan of Neko Case for years, and she’s a fantastic songwriter. But something about this song, maybe the combination of the restrained explosion of Case’s voice with the great Harry Nilsson’s words, just slays me. Incredible. I could–and have–listen to it over and over and over.

Don’t Forget Me

In the winter time, keep your feet warm
But keep your clothes on and don’t forget me
Keep your memories
But keep your powder dry, too

In the summer, by the poolside
While the fireflies are all around you
I’ll miss you when I’m lonely
I’ll miss the alimony, too

Don’t forget me, don’t forget me
Make it easy on me just for a little while
You know I think about you
Let me know you think about me, too

And when we’re older and full of cancer
It doesn’t matter now, come on get happy
‘Cause nothing lasts forever
But I will always love you

Don’t forget me, please don’t forget me
Make it easy on me just for a little while
You know I think about you
Let me know you think about me, too

Harry Nilsson’s original version of Don’t Forget Me is pretty great, of course, but Neko Case manages to top the great master himself, which is no small feat.

March 15, 2012 By Zinzin

A Melodious Thunk Was Heard ‘Round Midnight from Melodious Funk

“‘Round Midnight” is a 1944 jazz standard by pianist Thelonious Monk. Thelonious Sphere Monk (1917-1982) was one of the giants of jazz, and one of the most unusual. As Monk’s Wikipedia entry notes, “His compositions and improvisations are full of dissonant harmonies and angular melodic twists, and are consistent with Monk’s unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of silences and hesitations. This was not a style universally appreciated; poet and jazz critic Philip Larkin dismissed Monk as ‘the elephant on the keyboard.'” But this elephant, and his music, could dance — “at times, while the other musicians in the band continued playing, he would stop, stand up from the keyboard and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano” — and Larkin, a famous curmudgeon who disliked all jazz once bebop sprang on the scene around 1940, apparently just couldn’t appreciate the intricate strangeness of Monk’s elephantine beauty. Oh well, to each his own.

Music

Bowie cuts it up with Burroughs

Blackout

The inspiration of dreams

The cut up method

The folk song collective unsconscious

Don’t Forget Me

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