Jill Sobule: Dottie's Charms

A Stroll through American Popular Music and Our Lost Dreams.

Jill Sobule’s latest album “Dottie’s Charm” is unique. The closest equivalent albums I can think of are Randy Newman’s “Sail Away” or the Kinks' “Village Green Preservation Society.” Jill Sobule asked her favorite authors to write lyrics about a charm bracelet she had received as a gift. Who was the former owner, Dottie? What had she done with her life? The authors went in search of Dottie and America. It is a witty look at the history of American popular song and our dreams: “Preserving a history that never quite was.”

The album has fun with many musical styles: there is a rousing Union fight song that turns quirky (“Women of Industry”), sad country songs that are really funny when you realize what is happening (“Old Kentucky”, “I Hate Horses”), a beach party dance rave song about a weekend that is best forgotten (“Flight”).

My favorite songs? They are all great; I really do close my eyes and travel through time and around our country but I linger the most at:

1.“Lonely 88” is a bittersweet look at an musician:

“And now I’m here alone as the moon goes thru its phases
And the only folks who call are candidates
I blow the dust off, pick a score, and limber up my wrists,
And in the stillness I begin to celebrate…”

2.“Statue of Liberty” has such a haunting, end-of-an-era feel to it worthy of Randy Newman’s “Dayton, Ohio - 1903”

3. “I Swear I Saw CHRISTOPHER REEVE”

“Quaint as crocheting
Silent as that “c”
Just came to Mackinac
Came here with me…
So magically sweet and so sublime
Almost don’t care that there’ll be no next time.”

There is exhilarating sense of fun and adventure as we jump from musical style to musical style. Yet beneath the party it is about a country unable to be at ease or find happiness. It is very witty and very sad, but in a way that is cathartic. I’m not alone in feeling displaced and all at sea. We are a country of strangers.

It is odd that the concept album is now “dead.” And here is one of the most accomplish concept albums. It is a backward glance whose strength is fighting sentimentality all the way down the line but holding on to real, conflicting emotions. It isn’t simple, it’s like life.


http://harpers.org/blog/2014/05/jill-sobule-dotties-charms/

A few paintings I've been working on.

I’ve been spending my time healing by getting better at painting. Here is a copy of a still life. It is new for me since it is a black and white under painting with colored glazing.

I am doing a painting of Marykate O'neil in water lilies. I want it to very Monet, so I did a copy of one of his Water Lilies. (This still isn’t done, but it is fun to look at).

A copy of a Van Gogh I painted for fun. (I still have some fine tuning to do).

I did a quick painting of a Degas just to feel what it is like to dance!

 

I Went to a Garden Party

When I was a kid I loved the song “Garden Party” by Ricky Nelson. I thought it was so funny that he was walking around his friend’s boring garden party, yawning at the poetry reading and smoking a joint -- and he begins to trip. I was young and stupid. I have gotten better. Now I am old and stupid. He is the real story from Wikipedia: 

The song tells the story of Nelson being booed off the stage at Madison Square Garden, seemingly because he was playing his newer, country-tinged music instead of the 1950s-era rock that he had been successful with earlier, and his realization that "you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself"

On October 15, 1971, a Rock 'n Roll Revival concert was given at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The playbill included many greats of the early rock era, including Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Bobby Rydell.

Nelson came on stage dressed in the then-current fashion, wearing bell-bottoms and a purple velvet shirt, with his hair hanging down to his shoulders. He started playing his older songs "Hello Mary Lou" and "She Belongs to Me", but then he played The Rolling Stones' "Country Honk" (a country version of their hit song "Honky Tonk Women") and the crowd began to boo. While some reports say that the booing was caused by police action in the back of the audience, Nelson took it personally and left the stage. He watched the rest of the concert backstage and did not reappear on stage for the finale.

The song tells of various people who were present, frequently in an oblique manner ("Yoko brought her Walrus", referring to Yoko Ono and John Lennon), with a chorus:

But it's all right now, I've learned my lesson well

You see, you can't please everyone, so you've got to please yourself

One more reference in the lyrics pertains to a particularly mysterious and legendary audience member: "Mr. Hughes hid in Dylan's shoes, wearing his disguise". The Mr. Hughes in question was not Howard Hughes, as is widely believed, but ex-Beatle George Harrison, who was a next-door neighbor and good friend of Nelson's. Harrison used "Hughes" as his traveling alias, and "hid in Dylan's shoes" most likely refers to an album of Bob Dylan covers that Harrison was planning but never recorded. "Wearing his disguise" also suggests that Harrison traveled incognito.

The phrases "Out stepped Johnny B. Goode / Playing guitar, like a-ringing a bell" refer to Chuck Berry and his song, "Johnny B. Goode".

In the song's final verse, Nelson sings, "But if memories were all I sang / I'd rather drive a truck", possibly a reference to Elvis Presley's career before his explosive rise to international superstardom in 1956.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLm9KX-LvMM

Love is...

“Love is like the end of the world. Suddenly you realize that you have past your Fail-safe Point and no further go code is needed before delivering your ordnance.” – Vincent Blackwood 

I’ll Make Some Lucky Woman A Good Wife

“Trust me; Vincent is a bigger lesbian than me!!!” Thank you Nicole Jeppsen, when you or Jill Sobule tell me I'm a total lezbo, you are both right. It really makes me glow. Seriously. Reading that on Christmas day is the best gift this chick with a dick could ever get.

I think being a lesbian is a privilege. It means being loving, honest and lacking in any bullshit. It is a state of mind that I really do strive to uphold in all my dealings with people and attempts at art. It is like being a Beat poet or a hippy. If I am uncertain about the honest way to live my life, I don’t ask myself, “What would Jesus do?” I ask myself “What would Jill do...what would Nicole do?” I then know how to treat someone with love and respect -- and not give into hate and fear.

When I hear that clerks in Utah are refusing to issue a marriage license to someone because they are gay, I know who is going to hell.

Origin:

Jill, Kerry and Nicole have all told me I am a lesbian. I am honored. I posted it on Nicole’s Facebook page but only her friends could see it so I posted it here.

The Jill and Julia Show

Dear Kerry,

I just watched the movie The Jill and Julia Show (written and performed by Jill Sobule and Julia Sweeney). I'm sorry you didn't get to see it. I dreamt about it, so it played in the "Happy Place" in my dreams all night. The place you and I still meet whenever either of us needs to create, dream or is in desperate need of a hug.

Their show came from that happy place too. It was created, I suspect, by lying on the carpet of the living room; tossing toy blocks down and just trying to make each other laugh. The blocks are all the things in their life that they are trying to make sense of. They turn those anxieties into joy because they have a friend in their sandbox that lights up at the sight of them and wants to play. That joy is infectious. I glowed too.

They both have brilliant things to say, yet it is that glow of friendship and love I took away. Julia talked about how her former coworker from Saturday Night Live, Victoria Jackson, is trying to save Julia from going to hell. Hell?! Aren’t the gates of heaven and hell adjacent and unmarked? It is easy too pick the wrong door but I think Jill and Julia know the right one. If they act out of love and not hate they don't need a sign from God (or Victoria) to know which door to pick.

Mind you, when someone hates you and is calling you too crazy, too Godless, too female, too untalented, too silly, too smart, too black, too queer, too old, too Jewish or just too different, it is easy to pick the wrong door and hate them back. For Jill and Julia, I think they just laugh and enjoy the show. The fool is writing their act for them.

Kerry, I'll be Loving You…Always,

Vincent

For a good time call:

http://www.jillandjuliashow.com/

https://www.facebook.com/JillAndJuliaShow

Song Sung Borrowed

Dear Kerry,

As you know, I can write okay lyrics but can’t write amazing melodies. As I was listening to our local classic rock station this morning I realized my lack of talent really shouldn’t stop me:

"Song Sung Blue" by Neil Diamond is Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, second movement.

"Annie's Song" by John Denver is really Tchaikovsky’s song: Symphony No. 5, second movement. The divorce now makes sense.

"Uptown Girl" by Billy Joel is Ravel’s Bolero. I don’t want to know when and where Billy discovered this, but I think it evolved Christie Brinkley.

"Clothesline Saga” by Bob Dylan is based on Bobbi Gentry's “Ode to Billy Joe”. So that’s what happened to Bobbie Gentry.

"A Groovy Kind of Love" is heavily based on the Rondo movement of Sonatina in G major, op. 36 no. 5 by Muzio Clementi. Extra points here for stealing from obscure source material. Any fool can steal from Mendelssohn.

"I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar is the slow movement form Mendelssohn's violin concerto in Em.

"Somewhere"  from West Side Story  takes a phrase from the slow movement of Beethoven's 'Emperor' Piano Concerto, which forms the start of the melody, and also a longer phrase from the main theme of Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. (Stephen Sondheim hates his lyrics to this song. The phrase is so short that he had to put the emphasis is on the “Ah”… “There’s AAA place for us…” A friend of his calls this the “Ahhh Song”.

"American Tune" by Paul Simon was Johann Sebastian Bach's tune first, from his St. Matthew’s Passion

"All by Myself" by Eric Carmen - borrows heavily from Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor.

"Never Gonna Fall in Love Again" by Eric Carmen borrows from the Adagio of Rachmaninoff's Symphony No. 2.

 ‘This Train Is Bound for Glory’ Woody Guthrie’s machine borrowed the gospel song ‘This Train’ but added better lyrics.

"I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" by Joseph McCarthy and Harry Carroll - based on the Fantasie Impromptu in C Sharp Minor by Frédéric Chopin.

“Stranger in Paradise" by George Forrest and Robert Wright, in the Broadway musical Kismet, is based on a theme from Alexander Borodin's Polovetsian Dances.

"A Lover's Concerto" by the Toys is based on J.S. Bach's Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach.

"A Whiter Shade of Pale" by Procol Harum is (loosely) based on J.S. Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3, Air (commonly known as Air on a G String) and Cantata 140 "Sleepers Awake".

"Could It Be Magic" by Barry Manilow was inspired by Chopin's Prelude In C Minor (Prelude #20: Largo).

"Catch a Falling Star" is a melody from Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture.

"Can't Help Falling in Love" sung by Elvis is really from Martini’s “Plaisir d'Amour”. Thank you…thank you very much.

"Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" by Allan Sherman is Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” Now you know what Allan did at camp Grenada… tried to find a rhyme for Grenada… Faddah?!

“Love Changes Everything” by Andrew Lloyd Webber is the second section of the slow movement to Schubert's D960 piano sonata.

"Girl from The North Country" by Bob Dylan is the folk song “Scarborough Fair”.

‘With God on Our Side’ by Bob Dylan is a re-working of “The Patriot Game”, an Irish ballad written by Dominic Behan.

"Surfin' U.S.A."  by Brian Wilson is "Sweet Little Sixteen" by Chuck Berry.

"My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison is based on the Ronnie Mack song "He's So Fine".

“Bitter Sweet Symphony” by the Verve?  Nope, The Rolling Stone “The Last Time”.

"Whole Lotta Love" by Led Zeppelin is based on "You Need Love" by Willie Dixon.

"Avalon" by Al Jolson, Buddy DeSylva is Giacomo Puccini's aria “E lucevan le stele”, from the opera Tosca. Funnier still, I don’t think Jolson had anything to do with “writing” this song. I don’t see Al as a songwriter…as a thief, sure.

"Hello, I Love You" by The Doors is Ray Davies’ "All Day and All of the Night". I can imagine the Lizard King in court claiming he was on the beach when this song just popped into his head…from the radio next to him? Game, set and match to Ray Davies.

I’m not making fun of anyone on the list – well, maybe the last few who used songs still in copyright.  Part of the folk tradition is to take old folk songs and use new lyrics to make them more relevant to whatever rally you are going to. The best example of that is “John Brown’s Body is a Moldering in the Grave” became “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. And the Civil War was one big-ass protest rally (a rally still known as the war of Northern aggression in the South.) I think it is fine to take a classical song and add your own poetry to it. That isn’t stealing; it is a sign of breeding, bitches.

Kerry, I’ll be loving you…always.

Vincent

Bunny Moon croons "It's Okay"

 “It’s Okay”

(A Lullaby to Yourself)

It’s okay

That feeling your feeling that never goes away.

You feel like a leaf in the wind -- lost and alone

But a woman-child will catch you before you land

And smile at the magic in her trembling hand.

It’s okay.

It’s okay.

It’s okay.

Champion animal rights and crusade against the nuke.

Cry alone in your bedroom, be Pete Townshend with a uke.

It’s okay to claim your sister is a bunny or a rat

And make your profile picture the family cat.

Write vulnerable songs you dare not share -- worry sometimes

If you’ll ever fit in, a smart woman in foolish times.

It’s okay

That feeling your feeling that never goes away.

You feel like a leaf in the wind -- lost and alone

But a woman-child will catch you before you land

And smile at the magic in her trembling hand.

It’s okay.

It’s okay.

It’s okay.

 

Origin:

I had written a version of these lyrics that just didn’t work. I was trying TOO hard and trying to be too big. I wrote an anthem. I tried to write “Blowing in the Wind” and it was AWFUL. But the image of being a leaf in the wind just worked so well. I knew I would use that somewhere. I also thought of the image of someone catching the leaf. Once again – just a simple clean image that is moving.

Recently I watched a profile of Herman’s Hermits and loved it. “No Milk Today” is an awesome song, but I didn’t know it was arranged by John Paul Jones who would go on to form Led Zeppelin with Herman’s Hermit’s session guitarist Jimmy Page. I also didn’t know that the Who were Herman’s Hermits opening act. Herman’s Hermits once DESTROYED a Holiday Inn, the management mistakenly blamed Keith Moon and banned the Who for life.

 It got me recalling a version of “Mrs. Brown You Have a Lovely Daughter,” sung by a woman. It is a more interesting song when sung by a woman. I keep imagining Mrs. Brown’s face – and Mrs. Brown had no idea what her lovely daughter had been up to -- until now.

I couldn’t find THAT version on Youtube, but I found Lynsey Moon a young woman who sings like Joan Baez and plays the electric ukulele like she is Pete Townshend. (You haven’t lived until you heard the Who sung by a woman in a bunny hat). Lynsey sits in her bedroom and uploads videos of herself doing sixties rock and obscure modern oddness as she pets her bunny and worries about how odd she is. She, of course, is magical. She reminds me of my wife, Kerry, so writing the lyrics came very easily. I also included a bit of my friends Nicole and Tippy in the lyrics…the cats and the rats…the rats and the cats. But then Kerry was a “Hello Kitty” girl herself.

The REAL Lynsey Moon can been found at: http://lynseymoon.bandcamp.com/

Or catch her being Lynsey at: http://www.youtube.com/user/eyerockeyeroll