Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. DLVIII--Dog's Eye View: Dodge

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway, they say...I'm (over a week) late again....

During the time I was trying to write the Great American Novel (which, sadly, turned out to not be so great), I went into quite a folk music phase.   I bought numerous folk compilations, both old and new, to get a nice variety of folk tunes as well as being introduced to a number of new artists.  As I dug through the folk selection at the now defunct Borders bookstore, I came across this week's album and took a chance on it.  This week's tune immediately stood out and has been a favorite of mine since the late nineties.  Unfortunately, as I was doing my half-assed research this week, I realized that I didn't remember a single other tune from the album.  Suppose that's a listening for another day....

As I wrote about Dog's Eye View in Vol. CDXXV, I thought I'd write about the man who wrote and originally performed this week's tune, Vic Chesnutt.  Chesnutt was born in Jacksonville, FL in 1964, and began writing songs at the age of five.  In 1982, at the age of eighteen, Chesnutt was in an auto accident (he'd been drinking and driving) that left him partially paralyzed from the neck down.  Though he would be wheelchair bound for the rest of his life, he was able to continue playing the guitar and began his career in 1985.  He was discovered by Michael Stipe of R.E.M. fame in a music club in Athens, GA, and Stipe would produce his first two albums.  Chesnutt gained a measure of fame with the release of this week's featured album, a benefit recording to help musicians without insurance pay for their healthcare.  Chesnutt would perform with numerous artists over the course of his career, and all told released seventeen studio albums.  Chesnutt attempted suicide several times, and sadly in 2009 he took his own life at the all too young age of forty-five.

"Dodge" was originally released by Chesnutt on his 1993 album Drunk.  The version I'm writing about appeared on the 1996 release Sweet Relief II:  Gravity of the Situation.  The song was not released as a single either time it appeared on an album.  Drunk did not chart, but Sweet Relief peaked at #115 on the Billboard 200.

Every now and again when I'm listening to my tune of the week in preparation for its post, it dawns on me that the song is much better than I had originally thought.  Such was the case this week.  As I listened to this tale of a lifelong fuckup, I was massively impressed by Chesnutt's lyrics which show a character with a lot more self-awareness than is usual in a pop song.  There's also a sense of the character being between a laugh a tear (to steal a phrase) at his predicament, and for whatever reason the "welp!" of his attitude appeals to me.  To cut to Dog's Eye View, I love the sparseness they bring at the beginning (swear it sounds like a ukulele at the opening but could just be an acoustic guitar).  Lead singer Peter Stuart captures all of the lyrics' pathos with an inspired performance.  There's an extended whistling solo in between the verses, and the band closes with a nice crescendo that reminds me of a performer taking a bow with a flourish before leaving the stage.  A wonderful song with a wonderful performance--a gem that should not be forgotten.

Blogger's Aside: I'd never heard Chesnutt's version of this song (probably has something to do with there not being enough hours in a day) but decided to give it a listen before writing this post.  I wasn't too sure after the first listen, but by the third it was genius.  My pop sensibilities went with Dog's Eye View, but with a few more years hindsight, I very well may have chosen Chesnutt's original version.  Definitely worth a listen.

Lyric Sheet.  "I've done shit everywhere that there is to eat/Guess it's time for me to get the fuck out of Dodge..."

Enjoy:

And the original:

Fuck Donald Trump

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CDLXXII--R.E.M.--(Don't Go Back to) Rockville

One of these days I'll get another one on time....

This week's tune is the one that made me an R.E.M. fan.  While the rest of the album would eventually become songs that I loved, this week's tune was the one that made me keep coming back and giving more listens until I had become infatuated with the entire album.  And just to tell you how old I am, it was on an actual LP that I first listened to R.E.M.....

I wrote about R.E.M. in Jukebox Vol. CXXXII, and as the band is still not performing together, and showing no signs of ever doing so again, that brief bio is pretty much going to cover everything I'd want to note about the band.

"(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" was the second single from R.E.M.'s first LP, the rather prophetically named Reckoning.  The single did not chart, while the album reached #27 on the Billboard 200 (which kind of surprised me as I seem to remember my store selling about three copies--which may be great in Decatur, Illinois for a quirky band from Athens, GA).

Fun Fact:  "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" was written about a love interest of bassist Mike Mills, Ingrid Schorr, while the two of them were in college.  Ms. Schorr would eventually become a journalist and wrote a somewhat humorous piece about her fifteen minutes of rock and roll fame--and the inaccuracies in the song as well as how those inaccuracies only grew through the years as R.E.M.'s fame grew as well.  

"(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" is not the standard fare for an R.E.M. song, as it is more or less a country and western song (the song was originally performed in a punk style, but while recording it the band made it country in a joke aimed at its manager).  The song is a plea from Mike Mills to his then girlfriend to not go back home to Maryland and stay in Athens with him (even with the inaccuracies that part of the song is more or less true).  Michael Stipe's vocals are impassioned (though when the band performed it live Mills sang lead), the band sounds like a country and western bar band on a Friday Night at the Dew Drop Inn (fully intended as a compliment), and together they made a hell of a song. In the end, though, what the song highlights is R.E.M.'s versatility, which in turns shows its greatness as it stretched the limits of its talents and made a musical moment of wonder.

Lyric Sheet:  "At night I drink myself to sleep/And pretend that I don't care that you're not here with me/"Cause it's so much easier to handle/All my problems if I'm too far out to sea..."

Enjoy:

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCLVII--Indigo Girls: Closer to Fine

A folk song and female vocalists...does it get any better than that?  Not for emaycee it doesn't....

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers met in elementary school, began playing together in high school, and by the time they reached Emory University, they had become the Indigo Girls.  They released their first single in 1985, an EP later that same year, and their first full-length album in 1987.  They then signed to Epic Records and released their first major label album in 1988, which also became their first hit.  Over the course of the last thirty-four years, the Indigo Girls have released fifteen studio albums (two of which hit the top ten), three live albums, and five compilations.  Both Ray and Saliers have released solo albums, but they continue to tour and record together, having released their latest album in 2015 and completing their most recent tour in 2018.  They have been nominated for seven Grammy Awards, and won once for Best Folk Album.  Ray and Saliers are both very politically active, having associations with environmental groups, animal rights groups, anti-death penalty groups, and are considered icons in the gay rights movement (both are lesbians).  Overall, a nice little career for the duo.

"Closer to Fine" was the first single released from their ever so cleverly named 1988 album, Indigo Girls.  It would go on to be the highest charting single of their career, reaching #58 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  They are joined by the Irish band Hothouse Flowers for backing vocals on the single.

Fun Fact:  There's a great scene in the movie The Hollars (hardly an Oscar nominee but well worth 90 minutes of your time) where as a woman is being carted into surgery for a brain tumor, her two sons and her husband serenade her with "Closer to Fine."  Not quite as good as the Indigo Girls' version, but uplifting in its own way.

Written by Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls do not collaborate on their songwriting, just work together on the arrangements once they're in the studio), "Closer to Fine" is a song about the many paths that life offers us to happiness, and that the less one thinks about said paths, the happier one is likely to be (as an official old fart, I can attest to the accuracy of this).  There are several aspects of the song that stand out to me--first being, as a devotee of the acoustic guitar, is the wondrous harmony between Ray and Saliers guitar playing, which shines through the song.  Though written by Saliers, Ray takes the lead vocals, but Saliers harmonizing on the chorus is as wondrous as their acoustic guitars.  But what really takes the song to another level for me is one of those special moments that so many great songs have, and in "Closer to Fine" it's where their voices jump up an octave as they accentuate the word "fine."  It not only makes for fun singing along, but emphasizes the notion that they are indeed fine, and that happiness is right at their fingertips.  I can honestly say this is one of the better folks songs of the last thirty years, and one that reminded me of the joy I took from folks music, and would send me on a folk finding spree that would last for the better part of the next ten years. A great, great song.

Lyric Sheet:  "And I went to see the doctor of philosophy/With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee/He never did marry or see a B-grade movie..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CXXXII--R.E.M.: Imitation of Life

Trying to pick my favorite R.E.M. song was a bit like trying to pick my favorite dessert--far too many sweet, sweet choices.  In the end, I chose "Imitation of Life" because of how much it surprised me.  R.E.M. had pretty much reached the point of still being a very serviceable band, just not a band that I was still highly anticipating any release they had (and not that performers don't surprise later in their careers--Springsteen, Neil Young, and Lou Reed all had stellar releases at various points deep into their latter years).  And still does for that matter--whenever I'm listening to my R.E.M. playlist I find "Imitation of Life" to be one of the songs I most look forward to hearing.

Formed in Athens, Georgia in 1980, R.E.M. started as a critic's darling without a lot of sales and ended in 2011 as one of the greatest bands of all time with a shitload of sales.  They are often credited with being one of the biggest guiding forces of the alternative rock scene, and their influence on so many of the bands that came out of the 1990's alternative explosion (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and a host of others) was seismic.  Along the way they released 16 studio albums, sold over 85 million records, had epic world tours, won 3 Grammy Awards, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their first year of eligibility.  And yet, as one comment I read while I was doing my half-assed research for this week's tune noted, they were one of the few bands to become popular and still remain cool.

Released in 2001 on their Reveal LP, "Imitation of Life" met with very little commercial success (par for the course for R.E.M. after the mid-nineties) only reaching #83 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and probably not with much of a bullet).  It did, however, become R.E.M.'s first #1 single in Japan, so at least there's that.

If there's any one word I could use to describe "Imitation of Life" it would be joyous, though I don't think the song is meant to be so.  Throughout the course of its career, R.E.M. often could turn songs of a sad nature into upbeat pop songs ("Fall on Me," "Man on the Moon," "Don't Go Back to Rockville"), and "Imitation of Life" is another such single.  Led by Michael Stipe's compassionate vocals and veiled lyrics, it seems to me a song about courage in the face of sorrow and one's daily strife, about enjoying the moment, though it could mean fuck all for all I know, as Stipe is known for a) obscure meanings, and b) never discussing his obscure meanings.  But I like the imagery, from freezing rain to hurricanes, from sugarcane to cinnamon, and Peter Buck's usual steadfast guitar work, all of which come together to form the umpteenth pop gem featured here on Friday Night Jukebox, of which I'm certain there'll be more than a few still coming.

Liner Notes:  "This lightning storm/This tidal wave/This avalanche, I'm not afraid..."

Enjoy (and note that in the video Michael Stipe gives ample evidence that being a good dancer is not a requisite for being a frontman for a great band...):

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee