Daniel - February 26, 2012

When I started this blog I would usually know by mid-week what song I was going to do.  Not so the last two weeks.  I've sat down in front of the piano, messed around until something felt right.  Not sure why this one this week.....my interpretation of Elton John and Bernie Taupin's Daniel.

Do you remember when you knew exactly how many records you had?  When I was a teenager I had a mental tally of my inventory at all times.  Records weren't cheap for a shiftless teen in the mid 70's and the collection grew slowly - one album at a time, usually purchased from The House of Music in Stettler, Alberta.  One of those records was Elton John's Greatest Hits and it saw a lot of play time.  I also had a 45 of Someone Saved My Life Tonight from Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, the album Tumbleweed Connection, then later the early live trio album 17-11-70.  

When I left home I discovered a lot of different music and Elton had to take a seat way at the back of the bus, behind the likes of  Muddy Waters, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Captain Beefheart, Thelonious Monk, and many others.  Decades later, after I had started playing music, I rediscovered Elton John...and Bernie Taupin.  Their classic songs from the 70's are, uh, classics.  Interesting, unusual, and beautiful chord structures with engaging lyrics that dig more deeply than standard pop fare.

In 1967 Bernie Taupin answered an advertisement placed in the New Musical Express by Liberty Records A&R man Ray Williams, who was searching for new talent.  After auditioning unsuccessfully for King Crimson and Gentle Giant, Elton John answered the same ad and although neither Bernie nor Elton passed the audition for Liberty, Ray Williams recognized their respective talents and put them in touch with each other.  Says Taupin: 

I didn't play any instruments.  I had no concept of a bridge or a chorus.  I wrote some sort of nonsensical psychedelic lyrics that were plagiarized from a conglomerate of things in vogue, and actually got a reply.  So I went to London and this guy said, "I've got this kid.  He wants to write songs, but he doesn't write lyrics.  He's auditioned for us, and everyone said no.  Maybe you two guys should hook up."  That how it is.  Mick Jagger meets Keith Richards at a train station and says something like, "What's that album?  Can I hear it?"  It's kismet.  Elton had answered the same ad.

The song Daniel was written and recorded the same day.  Taupin penned the lyrics in the morning, brought them down to Elton who put the music to it and bing bang boom recorded it that day.  This was typical of their approach during a very productive period in which they wrote 12 songs in two days.  The song originally had a third verse which fleshed out the story of a Vietnam vet who returns to the USA after losing his eyesight.  Elton thought it too long and even after the verse was cut, the producers thought the song too somber and sluggish to be a single.  Elton insisted and despite a lack of promotion from the record company it became a hit.  

I think the elimination of the third verse is one of the things that makes this such a great song.  By making the narrative less specific the emotional template is opened up for the listener to enter the song and apply it to their own stories.  For me, a line like "your eyes have died, do you see more than I" carries much more weight as a poetic metaphor than a reference to an injury.

Daniel - lyrics by Bernie Taupin

Daniel is travelling tonight on a plane

I can see the red taillights heading to Spain

And I can see Daniel waving good-bye

God it looks like Daniel

must be the clouds in my eyes

They say Spain is pretty, I've never been

Daniel say its the best place he's ever seen

and he should know, he's been there enough

Oh I miss Daniel

I miss him so much

Chorus

Daniel my brother you are older than me

Do you still feel the pain of the scars that won't heal

Your eyes have died, do you see more than I

Daniel, you're a star in face of the sky

Here's Elton doing Daniel, live in Edinburgh 1976, solo piano

Here's Elton and band - Nigel Olson, Davey Johnstone, and Dee Murray - lipsynching Daniel on some creepy 70's Top Ten countdown show.  Even if you don't watch this whole video, please watch the first 10 seconds.

A pretty interesting cover of Daniel by Tortoise and Bonnie Prince Billy

Finally, from my ep Eelgirl a version of Good-Bye Yellow Brick Road I recorded with Scott Henderson on guitar and Lily Fawn on the musical saw...me on accordion and vox

http://www.myspace.com/music/player?sid=86808805&ac=now

The Far Side Banks of Jordan - February 20, 2012

I first heard this song on the June Carter album Press On, on which she and Johnny Cash sing it as a duet.  At the time I was listening to the record a lot, Johnny was ill, adding to the emotional weight of the song.  I have always enjoyed singing and playing it and thought I would bring some more Cash into February as well as take the opportunity to use the piano in the lovely house in Montreal where we are fortunate to be staying.

Here's me performing the song

and here's the version from June Carter's album Press On

The Far Side Banks of Jordan

I do believe my steps are growing wearier each day,

I've got another journey on my mind.

The lures of this old world have ceased to make me want to stay

and my one regret is leaving you behind.

And if it should be his will that I am first to cross

and somehow I believe that it will be

when it comes your time to travel, likewise don't feel lost,

for I will be the first one that you see.

Chorus

I'll be waiting on the far side banks of Jordan

I'll be sitting drawing pictures in the sand

And when I see you coming I will rise up with a shout

come running through the shallow water reaching for your hand

Through this life we have toiled to earn our meagre fare

it has brought trembling hands and failing eyes

So I'll just sit here on the shore and turn my eyes away

until you come then I'll see paradise.

Chorus

Bouncy Castles - February 12, 2012

Bouncy Castles - February 12, 2012

I wrote this song a few years ago, I don't exactly where it came from.  There was a bunch of fragments floating around in a tepid, gelatinous sea, some crazed molecular shit went down and this song crawled out.  It started out with just me on piano. When it was brand new I was playing it on a tour with Vancouver band The Co-Pilots and their guitar player Chad dubbed it an anarchist hymn.

Someone else called it my Bohemian Rhapsody - I don't know about that, but pretty high praise to a guy who was obsessed with Queen in his adolescence and whose first rock show was Freddie and crew (with Thin Lizzy opening!)  Whatever.  It evolved into an epic with full band orchestration - follow this link to hear it as performed by The Euphorians, recorded live off the floor in my basement by Mike Hall

click here: BOUNCY CASTLES - THE EUPHORIANS

and then I recently arranged it for solo accordion.  Here's a link to a performance of the song:

Bouncy Castles

I made a profession out of earnest confession 

I was thinking to myself "I got it made"

as I spiraled down and out of a flesh-coloured parkade

on my way to the land of bouncy castles

where life's rich pageant exceeds television

on my way to the land of red wine by the box

where I throw away the locks

throw away the keys

always do exactly as I please

throw away the locks

throw away the keys

always do exactly as I please

I can't stand it

sleeping on the ground on the coldest planet in the universe

and what's worse

this planet don't even qualify to be a planet

damn it

I can't stand it

Well have you heard the news if you did you probably got the blues

just turn on your TV and you'll see

when the clouds devour the sky all the birds and butterflies will die

what will happen

is they'll drown

tattered wings and broken bodies fall to the ground

where they carpet the asphalt where spoked light standards sprout

where the crack whores roam on high heeled bones

thrust their jaws to heaven and mo-o-o-an

They took a taser, a medical laser, and an antiquated phaser

hooked the electrodes to my knees a peck on the cheek and a little squeeze

and they blasted my ass due south

upon arrival they hosed the vomit out of my mouth

Then they tucked me in a bed where every ridiculous thing I ever said

when I was three sheets to the wind

was played on a tape over and over again

when I could no longer hack it they buttoned up my special jacket

then they put me on a jet ski commandeered by Dostoyevsky

he said "Son we're on a mission up the river to discover the heart - 

of the human condition

And I have it on sound authority that when we get there,

we'll find some pretty good fishin"

And we can throw away the locks

throw away the keys

always do exactly as we please

throw away the locks

throw away the keys

always do exactly as we please

Sunday Morning Coming Down - February 5, 2012

Each Saturday afternoon for eight years I hosted a radio show called Hillbilly Heaven at Victoria's campus community radio station, CFUV 101.9 FM.

http://cfuv.uvic.ca/

Hardcore C&W was the heart of the show, as well as acting as a springboard to explore other musical tangents.  The show also supported local and touring musicians by regularly hosting live, on-air sessions and interviews.  Some notable guests included Neko Case & Carolyn Mark aka The Corn Sisters, O Susanna, Cousin Harley (Paul Pigat), Linda McRae, and Dan Boekner (Wolf Parade).  My favourite and most frequent musical guest was Victoria's own Clay George.

An annual feature of Hillbilly Heaven every February, was Johnny Cash Month. All Johnny, all month, leading up to a big live show featuring a diverse cross-section of local musicians covering Cash.

I had a thought when I started this blog a month ago, that maybe I'd make February Johnny Cash month.  I'm not so sure now.....don't want to plan that far ahead, enjoying seeing what percolates up.  This week though, it's Johnny......Sunday Morning Coming Down

Sunday Morning Coming Down

This song, strongly associated with Johnny Cash, was penned by Kris Kristofferson.  The original version of it was recorded by Ray Stevens in 1969. At the 2009 BMI Country Awards, at which Kristofferson was honoured as an icon, he recalled how when he was struggling, still a very unknown songwriter, Stevens took a chance on his tune:  "Nobody had ever put that much money and effort into recording one of my songs.  I remember the first time I heard it - he's a wonderful singer - I had to leave the publishing house and I just sat on the steps and wept because it was such a beautiful thing."

Stevens added that he was drawn to the song because he felt Kristofferson had a "spark."

"He was very talented, very smart and right on time with his style," Stevens recalled.  "A lot of people since then have copied those songs that he put out so at this point in time it doesn't seem all that different.  It still is of course. There are very few writers who get that spark at the right time."

Here is Ray Stevens version of Sunday Morning Coming Down.  It skillfully walks the line between beauty and cheese.  I especially like the choir in the background singing "Bringing In The Sheaves" at the beginning of the second verse.

Kristofferson had almost got fired from his job as a janitor at Columbia Studios when he interrupted a Cash recording session to give him some demo tapes.  Cash later said he accepted them, but never remembers listening to them.  The story of Kristofferson landing a helicopter on Johnny Cash's Hickory Lake property to give him the demo tape of Sunday Morning Coming Down is the stuff of legend, and as is the way with legends, there are many variations of the story.

June Carter says she heard a horrendously loud sound and ran to wake Johnny up telling him that the tourists were now "....coming by air."  Kristofferson emerged from the cockpit clutching a tape that included Sunday Morning Coming Down.  Cash met him as he walked across the yard, took the tape, angrily pitched it into the lake, and ordered Kristofferson to get the hell of his property.

Says Kristofferson of the incident:   "I knew John before then.  I'd been his janitor at the recording studio, and I'd pitched him every song I ever wrote, so he knew who I was.  But it was still kind of an invasion of privacy that I wouldn't recommend.  To be honest, I  don't think he was there.  He had a whole story about me getting out of the helicopter with a tape in one hand and a beer in in the other.  John had a pretty creative memory but I would never have disputed his version of what happened because he was so responsible for any success I had as a songwriter and performer.  He put me on the stage the first time I ever was, during a performance  at the Newport Folk Festival."

Cash did eventually hear the song and decided he wanted to perform it on his network television show - only the network censors objected to the line "On a Sunday morning sidewalk , I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned." Kristofferson attended the rehearsal where the producers and Cash debated the line, and the producers offered the singer alternate lines.  Cash said he'd have to think about it - and the producers told him they couldn't air the song if he didn't change it.  Kristofferson sat in the Ryman balcony during the taping, and when Cash reached the line, he looked straight at Kristofferson and sang the line as it had been written.  It was featured in the TV show and to everyone's surprise, the live version from the TV show became Kristofferson's first #1 hit.

Here's a sweet version of 70's era Johnny and a young Kristofferson performing Sunday Morning Coming Down.

Sunday Morning Coming Down 

(There are a few variations on the lyrics....this is the way I sing it)

Well I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt

And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more for dessert

And I fumbled through my closet, through my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt

Washed my face and combed my hair, stumbled down the stairs to meet the day

I'd smoked my mind the night before with cigarettes and songs I'd been pickin'

But I lit my first and watched a young kid cussin' at a can that he was kickin'

And from a window above came the Sunday smell of someone frying chicken

And it took me back to something I lost somewhere, somehow along the way

Chorus

On  a Sunday morning sidewalk, Lord, I'm wishing I was stoned

Cause there's something about a Sunday that makes a body feel alone

And there's nothin' short of dying that's half as lonesome as the sound

As a sleeping city sidewalk, and Sunday morning comin' down

In a park I watched a daddy with a laughing little girl he was swinging

And I stood by the Sunday school and listened to the song they were singing

And I walked across the street and somewhere far away a lonesome bell was ringing

and it echoed through the canyons, like the disappearing dreams yesterday.

Chorus

To read a highly entertaining, well-written, and anecdote-laden article about Kris Kristofferson's career, check this link out

http://www.ohboy.com/media/kris.nashvillescene.pdf

and here's a brief bio of his early career..... 

There is no archetype for a country and western songwriter, but if there were, I feel certain the biographical arc of Kris Krisotfferson's early life would not be a template.  The son of a two star Air Force general, Kristofferson attended Pomona College where he was a star athlete - boxing, rugby, track and field - and studied literature, specializing in the writing of William Blake.  While at Pomona, he drew attention with a series of short stories published in the Atlantic Monthly and went on to win a Rhodes scholarship to attend Oxford University where he received a masters degree in English literature.  While in England, promoted as "a Yank at Oxford," he recorded an unsuccessful album with Top Rank Records and performed under the name Kris Carson.  Returning to the U.S.A. Kristofferson bowed to family pressure and entered the army, achieving the rank of captain, training as a parachute jumper and helicopter pilot, and becoming a veteran of the elite Airborne Rangers.  When his tour of duty in West Germany ended in 1965, he was offered a position as professor of English Literature at West Point.  The week he was to assume his new job, he informed the military and his family that he had decided to move to Nashville to become a country and western songwriter, a decision that would tear an irreparable rift between him and his family.  His mother wrote him to say no one over the age of 14 listened to the kind of music he wrote, "and, if they did, they weren't the kind of people we would want to know."  The story goes that these words of William Blake -  "Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang the best." - were an inspiration and a comfort to Kristofferson at the time.

After moving to Nashville with his young family (he had married his high school sweetheart and had two kids) Kristofferson struggled for several years, held an assortment of jobs, was divorced, and had established a reputation as a guy who liked to drink and party hard.  By the spring of 1969, three chart placings (Vietnam Blues - Dave Dudley, Jody and the Kid - Roy Drusky, From the Bottle to the Bottom - Billy Walker and the Tennessee Walkers) and a failed single (Golden Idol  backed with  Killing Time) was all he had to show for four years in Nashville.

He got a break when Roger Miller decided to record a song Kristofferson had co-written with Fred Foster, Me and Bobby McGhee  (viewed as being a hobo ballad in the same vein as  King of the Road, but with more of a "hippie slant") and also recorded two other Kristofferson compositions, Best of All Possible Worlds  and  Darby's Castle.  Soon after, Ray Steven's recorded Sunday Morning Coming Down  and Kristofferson's star began to rise.