I can only ever realize in retrospect how much the music I showcase on this blog (and on my radio show, more on that later) reflects my mood.
It usually takes someone saying something like, "man, all the songs you played just now were really sad," to make me even think about music in terms of "sadness" or "happiness" because strangely enough that's just not how I think of it.
Maybe it's because I myself tend to be a bit melancholy when left unchecked, or maybe I find sadness more interesting than happiness because what I am really looking for is honesty.
I've written before about the Four Tops (also here) and how Levi Stubbs is, to me, a shining example of something rare: a person who is nice, and happy, and creative, and successful.
That is what I want. I know it's a lot to want. But that's what ambition is.
*
I've also written before about my radio show, which is broadcast on WCBN at 88.3fm or wcbn.org.
For the past year it's been late at night, and I've grown really used to it that way. It was not always -- or even often -- easy to leave my house at eleven or midnight on twenty-degree nights to walk a mile (uphill both ways, kids) to the radio station.
But every time I did it, every time I pulled up off the couch and put on a sweater and filled the pockets of my coat with trail mix, I'd think to myself, "this is what ambition is."
*
Now my radio show will be on at a time when most people can actually listen to it if they wish: 9am-11am Eastern Daylight Time, on Wednesday mornings.
And now I want to share a happy song.
The song: The Four Tops, "Sweet Understanding Love"; 1973
There are many things to love about this song, but one of my favorites is when they start spelling out L-O-V-E (I mean, who does not love that) but it's all these ridiculously long phrases like, spoiler alert, "O is for the only love I've ever known, given to me by you" and "V is for the value of our priceless understanding".
Ah, well. It's not very smooth. But when is it ever?
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
I Think You're Crazy Just Like Me: Formerly Mega-Popular Songs I Think Could Stand A Comeback
The song: Gnarls Barkley, "Crazy"; 2006
The song: Outkast, "Hey Ya"; 2003
The song: Macy Gray, "I Try"; 2000
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
EDIT:
If "Hey Ya!" comes back then it would be only fair:
The song: Outkast, "The Way You Move"; 2006
But only when it's really hot outside.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Here I Am I'm A Man On The Scene: Version v. Version
Previous Version v. Version:
*
The song: Otis Redding, "Hard to Handle"; 1968
The original. Released posthumously.
The song: Patti Drew, "Hard to Handle"; 1968
The first cover.
The song: The Grateful Dead, "Hard to Handle"
Performed live approximately 90 times between March 1969 and August 1971.
The song: The Black Crowes, "Hard to Handle"; 1990
Breakout single for the group; brought the song to a new generation.
*
I usually try to maintain a journalistic sense of distance when I present Versions v. Version (usually not succeeding very well, but oh well).
This one, however, poses two questions that for me personally have very clear answers:
- Are you more into rock or soul? (Or if you want to spell it out, guitar or horns?)
and
- What's more compelling to you, male arrogance or female arrogance?
(So for me it's Patti Drew 4eva. But for you it may be different. That's why I do this.
And also to listen to the same great song four times in a row.)
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Sunday, May 5, 2013
And Everything Looks Worse In Black and White: "Kodachrome"
As I've said before, I really respect Paul Simon.
He has two gifts where he could have had just one: the ability to write a really catchy pop song, AND the ability to write songs that feel real and touch people's hearts.
This is why I have long thought that if I were to meet a space alien who wanted to learn what humanity was all about, I'd make them listen to Graceland.
(That's also a self-serving desire because, hey, come on, hey, who wouldn't want to say they once listened to Graceland with a space alien?
Right.
I am picturing a Twilight-Zone-style alien here, like one with a mid-range suit and pomade in his hair.
I know this all sounds 100% crazy, but these are just the things I think about when I sit on my couch at night.)
In any case, I have written about Paul Simon before here ("Something So Right") and here ("Graceland", hosted on my friend's blog Mom And Not Mom).
And I'm back to it again.
*
Two interesting facts about this song:
1. The phrase that Paul Simon originally wanted to build a song around was "Going Home", but he replaced it with "Kodachrome" because it was unique and had more possibility.
I find that really fascinating. I know how it is when you start with the shell of an idea and then start writing and realize you've ended up somewhere completely different, but I find the original idea always has at least some resonance with the finished product. So it's interesting to think of the phrase "going home" -- which always sounds poignant to me, for whatever that says about me -- in relationship to this song.
2. The line "and everything looks worse in black and white" was how he sung it in 1973; in 1991 he performed it as "everything looks better in black and white". If that's not an interesting comment on age, the passing of time, and cultural shift, I don't know what is.
Let's listen to it.
The song: Paul Simon, "Kodachrome"; 1971
*
Like many of Paul Simon's songs, this one is a relatively complex metaphor and when I try to unravel it I sometimes confuse myself. I know, however, that it's about memory. This is a subject that means something to me.
Ask me in a week and I'll probably think differently, but what I think right now is that this song is about the ability to create and retain memories without being consumed by them. What I might also call "living life", which sounds glib but I don't mean it to be. Life is uncomfortable. It feels weird and unpleasant a lot of the time, and I think it's easy to try to dodge those feelings with fantasy, or undue nostalgia, or denial.
Joan Didion says, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live. . . We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience."
I think she and Paul are really onto something there.
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
He has two gifts where he could have had just one: the ability to write a really catchy pop song, AND the ability to write songs that feel real and touch people's hearts.
This is why I have long thought that if I were to meet a space alien who wanted to learn what humanity was all about, I'd make them listen to Graceland.
(That's also a self-serving desire because, hey, come on, hey, who wouldn't want to say they once listened to Graceland with a space alien?
Right.
I am picturing a Twilight-Zone-style alien here, like one with a mid-range suit and pomade in his hair.
I know this all sounds 100% crazy, but these are just the things I think about when I sit on my couch at night.)
In any case, I have written about Paul Simon before here ("Something So Right") and here ("Graceland", hosted on my friend's blog Mom And Not Mom).
And I'm back to it again.
*
Two interesting facts about this song:
1. The phrase that Paul Simon originally wanted to build a song around was "Going Home", but he replaced it with "Kodachrome" because it was unique and had more possibility.
I find that really fascinating. I know how it is when you start with the shell of an idea and then start writing and realize you've ended up somewhere completely different, but I find the original idea always has at least some resonance with the finished product. So it's interesting to think of the phrase "going home" -- which always sounds poignant to me, for whatever that says about me -- in relationship to this song.
2. The line "and everything looks worse in black and white" was how he sung it in 1973; in 1991 he performed it as "everything looks better in black and white". If that's not an interesting comment on age, the passing of time, and cultural shift, I don't know what is.
Let's listen to it.
The song: Paul Simon, "Kodachrome"; 1971
*
Like many of Paul Simon's songs, this one is a relatively complex metaphor and when I try to unravel it I sometimes confuse myself. I know, however, that it's about memory. This is a subject that means something to me.
Ask me in a week and I'll probably think differently, but what I think right now is that this song is about the ability to create and retain memories without being consumed by them. What I might also call "living life", which sounds glib but I don't mean it to be. Life is uncomfortable. It feels weird and unpleasant a lot of the time, and I think it's easy to try to dodge those feelings with fantasy, or undue nostalgia, or denial.
Joan Didion says, "We tell ourselves stories in order to live. . . We look for the sermon in the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we are writers, by the imposition of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the 'ideas' with which we have learned to freeze the shifting phantasmagoria which is our actual experience."
I think she and Paul are really onto something there.
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Sunday, April 28, 2013
We Got A Thing Going On: Milestones
I hope it still counts as National Karaoke Week, because I want to write about karaoke again.
Most specifically, a karaoke experience I had in January 2012 that I hope to remember all my life.
I was visiting my friend in Chicago and I had just had a haircut -- a haircut that the lady cab driver who took us home that night at 4 AM said made me look like Diana Ross, ie a really great one.
We went to karaoke at the VFW Hall near my friend's house, and the whole place and the whole experience I can only describe as "heavenly and bizarre". In the heavenly column, Maker's Mark and ginger cost us only $3, and in the bizarre: well, so many things, but I'll start with the implacable and enormous ladies' room attendant who silently guarded the paper towels whilst reading a series of paranormal romance novels.
The karaoke performance I remember from that night isn't my own (which was an entirely forgettable rendition of "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolguard"), but Commander Bill's. It was a VFW hall, remember, so it seemed only natural (?) that the karaoke impresario should be an elderly black man in full naval dress whites. He regularly reminded singers not to swear on the mike because "there are ladies present".
And then he took the mike himself, and hidden behind a bank of audio equipment so that only the top of his white hat showed, he sang this song.
*
The song: Billy Paul, "Me and Mrs Jones"; 1972
Sometimes songs hit you in exactly the right time and place for you to remember them in a different way forever. This was the time and place for me and "Me and Mrs Jones".
There were many more notable things about this experience (including Commander Bill's dog, a fat and bug-eyed chihuahua named Whispers) but the most personally notable was that it inspired me to write again.
I had been in a spell of extreme writers' block/depression -- for writers I believe this is two terms for the same thing -- since April 2010, and although I still wrote things like e-mails and grant proposals and press releases and all that, I didn't really write. Or I guess I felt like I didn't. It hurt.
But karaoke at the VFW hall was such a capital-E Experience that it grabbed me by the guts and said, "get OVER yourself, you HAVE to write this down". So the next day I bought a notebook at the Safeway by my friend's house and on the four-hour train ride from Chicago to Ann Arbor I wrote an essay I called "24/7".
A month later I started my blog, and this is its 100th entry. (I found myself engaging in a bit of a similar reflection at the 50th.)
I don't always love my blog. Sometimes I read old entries through my fingers (that one I linked to up there) and sometimes I can't read them at all. But what I love about it is that it is, unimpeachably, writing. And what's more, and even better, writing that lives on the Internet and that other people can see (although that part also freaks me out sometimes).
But even if I knew that no one would ever read it again, I would still write in this blog. There are very few things in life more painful than knowing that your self-image isn't in line with what you are actually doing, and I found it extremely painful to be a writer who didn't, couldn't, wouldn't write.
I know I am a writer because my first reaction when I hear or see or do something interesting is, "I have to write that down." But it took me a while to see that that is really all it is.
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Most specifically, a karaoke experience I had in January 2012 that I hope to remember all my life.
I was visiting my friend in Chicago and I had just had a haircut -- a haircut that the lady cab driver who took us home that night at 4 AM said made me look like Diana Ross, ie a really great one.
We went to karaoke at the VFW Hall near my friend's house, and the whole place and the whole experience I can only describe as "heavenly and bizarre". In the heavenly column, Maker's Mark and ginger cost us only $3, and in the bizarre: well, so many things, but I'll start with the implacable and enormous ladies' room attendant who silently guarded the paper towels whilst reading a series of paranormal romance novels.
The karaoke performance I remember from that night isn't my own (which was an entirely forgettable rendition of "Me and Julio Down By The Schoolguard"), but Commander Bill's. It was a VFW hall, remember, so it seemed only natural (?) that the karaoke impresario should be an elderly black man in full naval dress whites. He regularly reminded singers not to swear on the mike because "there are ladies present".
And then he took the mike himself, and hidden behind a bank of audio equipment so that only the top of his white hat showed, he sang this song.
*
The song: Billy Paul, "Me and Mrs Jones"; 1972
Sometimes songs hit you in exactly the right time and place for you to remember them in a different way forever. This was the time and place for me and "Me and Mrs Jones".
There were many more notable things about this experience (including Commander Bill's dog, a fat and bug-eyed chihuahua named Whispers) but the most personally notable was that it inspired me to write again.
I had been in a spell of extreme writers' block/depression -- for writers I believe this is two terms for the same thing -- since April 2010, and although I still wrote things like e-mails and grant proposals and press releases and all that, I didn't really write. Or I guess I felt like I didn't. It hurt.
But karaoke at the VFW hall was such a capital-E Experience that it grabbed me by the guts and said, "get OVER yourself, you HAVE to write this down". So the next day I bought a notebook at the Safeway by my friend's house and on the four-hour train ride from Chicago to Ann Arbor I wrote an essay I called "24/7".
A month later I started my blog, and this is its 100th entry. (I found myself engaging in a bit of a similar reflection at the 50th.)
I don't always love my blog. Sometimes I read old entries through my fingers (that one I linked to up there) and sometimes I can't read them at all. But what I love about it is that it is, unimpeachably, writing. And what's more, and even better, writing that lives on the Internet and that other people can see (although that part also freaks me out sometimes).
But even if I knew that no one would ever read it again, I would still write in this blog. There are very few things in life more painful than knowing that your self-image isn't in line with what you are actually doing, and I found it extremely painful to be a writer who didn't, couldn't, wouldn't write.
I know I am a writer because my first reaction when I hear or see or do something interesting is, "I have to write that down." But it took me a while to see that that is really all it is.
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Thursday, April 25, 2013
And I Don't Care Who's Watching, Watching, Watching: Happy Birthday!
I am fortunate enough to have what seems like an insane (and growing!) number of beautiful, talented, kind people as my friends.
And I am ridiculously proud of all of them for everything they do which is a good feeling, I would even venture to say perhaps the BEST feeling.
I just love my friends, is all I want to say. I keep trying to talk around it but it always comes back to that. It may seem like an obvious thing to say but I need to say it occasionally. Experience has shown me there is nothing more valuable in life than a true friend, and I've resolved never to take that for granted.
*
Today though I want to talk about one special friend in particular: the future famous stand-up comedienne Carolyn Racine.
(It's her birthday in a few days.)
I also want to talk about karaoke, because I understand that it's National Karaoke Week and I am just delighted that that exists.
The first time I did karaoke with Carolyn, she had just come from a family funeral. She was wearing a green shirt. And she decided to sing, of all the many possible songs out there to sing, this one:
The song: Usher, "Love In This Club"; 2008
As you may imagine, this was a truly transcendent karaoke experience and I remember watching her with that feeling -- the best feeling, you may recall -- of "THAT's my friend? That's my friend!!"
Then she walked off the stage, I asked her if she'd ever done that song at karaoke before, and she said (in this perfectly deadpan way that anyone who has met Carolyn will surely recognize), "Oh, I've never done karaoke before."
Friends, I call that CHUTZPAH, and this is just one of the many facets of Carolyn that inspire my admiration and respect. I won't get too far into reminiscing about Carolyn here, because she's not DEAD or anything, it's just her birthday. (Almost.)
There's a perfect combination of factors that lead me to be continually compelled by someone, and it's this: that I understand them, but they still surprise me. And even though I have known Carolyn for years, have travelled internationally with her, have even cried on her shoulder after drinking too much red wine and watching Fiddler on the Roof, I am always surprised by her talent, her drive, and the depth of her observations about people and the world.
And that's a real, real good thing. Happy birthday, boo. I just realized I forgot to send you a card.
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
And I am ridiculously proud of all of them for everything they do which is a good feeling, I would even venture to say perhaps the BEST feeling.
I just love my friends, is all I want to say. I keep trying to talk around it but it always comes back to that. It may seem like an obvious thing to say but I need to say it occasionally. Experience has shown me there is nothing more valuable in life than a true friend, and I've resolved never to take that for granted.
*
Today though I want to talk about one special friend in particular: the future famous stand-up comedienne Carolyn Racine.
(It's her birthday in a few days.)
I also want to talk about karaoke, because I understand that it's National Karaoke Week and I am just delighted that that exists.
The first time I did karaoke with Carolyn, she had just come from a family funeral. She was wearing a green shirt. And she decided to sing, of all the many possible songs out there to sing, this one:
The song: Usher, "Love In This Club"; 2008
As you may imagine, this was a truly transcendent karaoke experience and I remember watching her with that feeling -- the best feeling, you may recall -- of "THAT's my friend? That's my friend!!"
Then she walked off the stage, I asked her if she'd ever done that song at karaoke before, and she said (in this perfectly deadpan way that anyone who has met Carolyn will surely recognize), "Oh, I've never done karaoke before."
Friends, I call that CHUTZPAH, and this is just one of the many facets of Carolyn that inspire my admiration and respect. I won't get too far into reminiscing about Carolyn here, because she's not DEAD or anything, it's just her birthday. (Almost.)
There's a perfect combination of factors that lead me to be continually compelled by someone, and it's this: that I understand them, but they still surprise me. And even though I have known Carolyn for years, have travelled internationally with her, have even cried on her shoulder after drinking too much red wine and watching Fiddler on the Roof, I am always surprised by her talent, her drive, and the depth of her observations about people and the world.
And that's a real, real good thing. Happy birthday, boo. I just realized I forgot to send you a card.
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
You Were Better For Me Than I Was For Myself: Our Song
A few years ago my friend told me of a friend of hers who had a "song" with herself.
(You know what I mean by having a "song" with somebody right?)
And her song with herself was, wait for it, "Still The One" by Orleans.
If you think about that, really think about it, I am pretty sure you will find it -- as I did, and do -- an unbearably clever and adorable idea.
I've never forgotten that and I think about it every time I hear that song. Of course I considered what my song with myself would be, but never came up with it and obviously you can't rush into a decision of that magnitude. In this, as in many other things in life, I am a bit of a late bloomer.
*
The song: Junior Walker and the All-Stars, "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)"; 1966
This is my favorite version of this song, but it's gotten a bit lost between the classic 1964 Marvin Gaye original and the . . .well let's say divisive James Taylor cover of 1975. (Hardcore fans of this song might be interested to know that Marvin Gaye also recorded it in German: "Wie Schön Das Ist".)
I should have known that my song with myself could only have been written by the magical conglomerate that was Holland-Dozier-Holland (authors of some of my absolute favorite songs, including "You Keep Me Hangin' On", "Come See About Me", "I Can't Help Myself", etc etc etc), because I have always loved Motown, and I mean always. As a child I listened to oldies radio (KISN 97.1 FM in fact) as often as I humanly could.
(This may explain something about me.)
*
I chose "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" as my song with myself because I finally understand that life is so much better when I am my own friend, so to speak. It's very easy to forget to be your own friend.
We have a strange relationship in this culture to the concept of "self-love". We vaguely know that we are supposed to do it and that Oprah thinks it's the key to success or something like that. I don't know about you but I am actually kind of inclined to believe Oprah when she talks about the keys to success because, damn, girl! But, we also constantly watch ourselves and others for the strange sin of being "too full of yourself" or "thinking you are better than you are".
What I think is happening there is confusion between "self-love" and "self-absorption", which if you take the prefix off is also a true statement. But in fact love is not absorption, it's just. . .affectionate acceptance, in its most basic form. "I see you, and I like what I see." (Equally important halves.)
Definitely a hard thing to learn to say to yourself. But, how sweet it is!
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
(You know what I mean by having a "song" with somebody right?)
And her song with herself was, wait for it, "Still The One" by Orleans.
If you think about that, really think about it, I am pretty sure you will find it -- as I did, and do -- an unbearably clever and adorable idea.
I've never forgotten that and I think about it every time I hear that song. Of course I considered what my song with myself would be, but never came up with it and obviously you can't rush into a decision of that magnitude. In this, as in many other things in life, I am a bit of a late bloomer.
*
The song: Junior Walker and the All-Stars, "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)"; 1966
This is my favorite version of this song, but it's gotten a bit lost between the classic 1964 Marvin Gaye original and the . . .well let's say divisive James Taylor cover of 1975. (Hardcore fans of this song might be interested to know that Marvin Gaye also recorded it in German: "Wie Schön Das Ist".)
I should have known that my song with myself could only have been written by the magical conglomerate that was Holland-Dozier-Holland (authors of some of my absolute favorite songs, including "You Keep Me Hangin' On", "Come See About Me", "I Can't Help Myself", etc etc etc), because I have always loved Motown, and I mean always. As a child I listened to oldies radio (KISN 97.1 FM in fact) as often as I humanly could.
(This may explain something about me.)
*
I chose "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)" as my song with myself because I finally understand that life is so much better when I am my own friend, so to speak. It's very easy to forget to be your own friend.
We have a strange relationship in this culture to the concept of "self-love". We vaguely know that we are supposed to do it and that Oprah thinks it's the key to success or something like that. I don't know about you but I am actually kind of inclined to believe Oprah when she talks about the keys to success because, damn, girl! But, we also constantly watch ourselves and others for the strange sin of being "too full of yourself" or "thinking you are better than you are".
What I think is happening there is confusion between "self-love" and "self-absorption", which if you take the prefix off is also a true statement. But in fact love is not absorption, it's just. . .affectionate acceptance, in its most basic form. "I see you, and I like what I see." (Equally important halves.)
Definitely a hard thing to learn to say to yourself. But, how sweet it is!
Yrs,
AW
inbedwithamywilson@gmail.com
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