Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
Friday, February 28, 2025
Over the next four years, it will not be the last child's death caused by MAGA
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Monday, February 24, 2025
Sunday, February 23, 2025
Saturday, February 22, 2025
Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DXXVII--John Mellencamp featuring Bruce Springsteen: Did You Say Such a Thing
Less than two weeks late?
I've noted a time or two that during the worst of the pandemic when I took my youngest son to Tae Kwon Do that there were several months where only the students were allowed in the school, and I'd sit in our car and listen to tunes while he had his lessons. On one such evening, I came across this week's tune in my YouTube queue, and was taken aback because I had no idea John Mellencamp had a new album, let alone one with three songs featuring Bruce Springsteen. I immediately gave it a listen--and literally immediately added it to my Friday Night Jukebox lineup. It never ceases to amaze me that even fifty years into my musical journey I can still be absolutely blown away, thrilled and chilled, by a song just like this week's featured post....
This is the third time I've featured a song by John Mellencamp, which is a bit surprising since he's one-third of my Holy Trinity of Working Class Rock with Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty (first Mellencamp post here, second Mellencamp post here), which, as my pandemic comments above, I've noted before. As I wrote about him just last February, there hasn't been anything of note in his career, though I would like to mention that he has now released twenty-four studio albums and seventy-one singles which makes for quite the musical output for the guy who started out as Johnny Cougar....
"Did You Say Such a Thing" was the third single from Mellencamp's 2022 album, the rather knavely entitled Strictly a One-Eyed Jack. The single did not chart (should have!), while the album showed that Mellencamp's heyday is long gone, peaking at #196 on the Billboard 200.
Fun Fact: There's a line in "Did You Say Such a Thing" where Mellencamp intones "You got your bird seed all wrong" which I though was some clever backwoods country witticism. Nope, looked it up online and it's just a lyric in a song, though it sure seems like it could become some kind of hillbilly wisdom.
No matter how hard I try, I will not be able to do this week's song justice. Every time I've played it this week while doing my half-assed research it shakes me to my core with how good it is. From Springsteen's ominous guitar at its outset to Mellencamp's gravelly vocals, from the defiant lyrics to Springsteen's fiery guitars and his devil may care backing vocals, "Did You Say Such a Thing" hits every right note and shows us that rock and roll will never die, that at its finest it can say so much about the human experience and our participation in it. A stunning, stunning piece of work from two artists showing us how to not only age gracefully, but purposefully. Just beautiful.
Lyric Sheet: "I guess I'll see you tomorrow/Unless you'd be gone/Never too soon for me/You got your bird seed all wrong..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
Friday, February 21, 2025
Special kind of stupid to trust Trump with your Social Security number
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Wednesday, February 19, 2025
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DXXVI--Willie Nelson: On the Road Again
A week and a half late again...with feeling!
In August of 1981, one of country music's greats released a two LP best of called Greatest Hits (& Some That Will Be), and the folks at Columbia were kind enough to send a promo copy to my first store there in Decatur, Illinois. I spent months listening to it--in many ways the album was my stepping stone to furthering my interest in country music which had been pretty close to zilch prior. It would eventually culminate in a trip to the Illinois State Fair to see aforesaid great live (while she would never remember, it was technically my daughter's first concert). As you might surmise, it was also my introduction to this week's tune....
Willie Nelson's career started before I was even born (1956 to be exact), and sixty-nine years down the road he's still making music as he prepares to hit ninety-two years old this April. Needless to say, there isn't any way to capture his career in a paragraph, as Nelson has become an icon for generations of fans and has stretched the boundaries of country music in ways anyone not named Johnny Cash has not. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, Songwriting Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, winner of numerous Grammys, and being an Academy Award nomineee are just a few of the accolades Nelson has acquired through his many years. His album discography is here (over a hundred studio albums between solo and collaborations--surely a Friday Night Jukebox record), and his single discography is here (over a hundred and thirty--with twenty-five #1's--also Jukebox records). Nelson is a strong supporter of cannabis rights, leans left politically, was an original founder of Farm Aid, and has been active in numerous other charities. A life well lived and well done.
Fun Fact: Nelson is a devotee of martial arts, and holds black belts in several different styles, including Tae Kwon Do like my youngest son. Cool!
"On the Road Again" was the first single from the soundtrack to the rather florally entitled Honeysuckle Rose (from the movie of the same name which Nelson also starred in). The single would hit #20 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the country singles chart. The soundtrack would hit #11 on the Billboard 200 and as with the single, #1 on the country albums chart. Nelson would also receive an
Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song.
Asked to write a song about life on the road by the movie's producers, Nelson penned "On the Road Again" on a barf bag while on a flight to one of the movie's sets. It's a happy go lucky affirmation of traveling the world and making music with your band, and Nelson keeps the tempo and the vocals as upbeat as any good show would be. Bonus points to me for finally noticing after forty years of listening that there's a harmonica in the song. Nothing earth shattering for this one--just two and a half minutes of good music and fun.
Lyric Sheet: "On the road again/Just can't wait to get on the road again/The life I love is making music with my friends..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
Monday, February 17, 2025
Sunday, February 16, 2025
Saturday, February 15, 2025
Friday, February 14, 2025
Thursday, February 13, 2025
Wednesday, February 12, 2025
Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DXXV--Gerry Rafferty: Baker Street
So far behind now I might never get caught up....
My introduction to this week's tune was WLS-89 out of Chicago in 1978, the year it became a big hit for this week's featured artist. Oddly enough, I didn't care for it in its original run, and it was only years later that I began to appreciate its greatness. Better late than never....
I briefly touched on Gerry Rafferty when I wrote about his original band Stealer's Wheel in Vol. CCCLXXII, but as his career stretched out for many more years I'll do a proper bio paragraph. After his time in Stealer's Wheel, Rafferty hit mega stardom in the late seventies, and sadly his career never recovered from it. Over the course of the next three decades Rafferty would continue to record, but his discomfort with the trappings of fame would only fuel his alcoholism and his withdrawal from society. For his career, Rafferty released eleven studio albums (one #1 in the U.S. and two top fives in the U.K.), and twenty singles with a top five in America and two more top fives in Great Britain. Rafferty's behavior veered erratic as his alcoholism worsened in his last years, and he succumbed to liver failure in 2011.
"Baker Street" was the second single from Rafferty's 1978 album, the rather urbanly named City to City. The song would reach #2 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100 and #3 in his native U.K. The album would be the only #1 of his career here in the States and would peak at #6 on U.K. Album Chart.
Fun Fact: While doing my half-assed research, I came across this line in Wikipedia: "[The sax solo] is said to have been responsible for a resurgence in the sales of saxophones and their use in mainstream pop music and television advertising." Ahem. Nothing against the brilliant sax solo, but it seems to me there was this kid Springsteen with a sax player something something Clemons that lit the saxophone scene just a few years before....
"Baker Street" opens with an eerie, smoky sax solo and you immediately know you're headed into territories unknown. While largely autobiographical, the song has echoes of feelings so many of us know: waiting for the one lucky break, the chance that there's a start for something new. Rafferty nails just about every aspect of this one--the lyrics are damn near literary, his vocals capture the joy and pain of his protagonists, the killer sax solo, a killer guitar solo, and a man making the most of his abilities. In the end, it's a song about hope, even if in all likelihood it's a false hope. For even a false hope is better than no hope. Thus endeth the lesson....
Lyric Sheet: "Windin' your way down on Baker Street/Light in your head and dead on your feet/Well another crazy day, you'll drink the night away/And forget about everything..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
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