Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CDXVIII--Pete Droge: Beautiful Girl

 Oftentimes a song that's in a movie takes on a new meaning after having seen said film, but this week's tune had already endeared itself into my heart long before I ever saw the movie from whence it came (actually a quite enjoyable flick as well, Beautiful Girls).  This week's featured song is another in a long list of songs/albums that I discovered during my eighteen years with Camelot Music, which ultimately proved a lot more musically fruitful than financially....

Mercifully, after several of the featured artists of the past few weeks literally had novel length bios, the Wikipedia entry for Pete Droge was quite short...and hopefully my artist info paragraph will be as well.  Droge was born in Seattle in 1969 and his solo career began in 1994 with the release of his debut album, Necktie Second (with the minor hit "If You Don't Love Me (I'll Kill Myself)").  Droge would add his backing band, The Sinners, on his second effort.  In 2003 he was a part of the supergroup (who were so super that I'd never heard of them until I read about it this past week) The Thorns with Matthew Sweet and Shawn Mullins.  Droge has had some good fortune with movie soundtracks, having songs featured in Dumb and Dumber and Zombieland (as well as the aforementioned film of our weekly tune).  He also had a cameo in one of my all-time favorite movies, Almost Famous.  For his career, Droge has released seven studio albums, with the last coming in 2014.

Fun Fact:  Not that anyone other than me and my longtime partner care, but I've been calling the love of my life "Beautiful Girl" for as long as I can remember, and not only did her nickname come from this week's featured tune, but she actually is quite a beautiful girl....

"Beautiful Girl" was not released as a single (though it should have been, God damnit), and surprise of surprises was featured on the soundtrack Beautiful Girls.  Despite my best efforts (Google search), I was not able to discern if the soundtrack ever charted.

Written with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame, "Beautiful Girl" starts with some ominous imagery, but eventually becomes a different kind of love song--one that speaks to the contentment of being where you want to be with the person you want to be with.  Droge delivers spot on vocals (with a hint of early Dylan's short and sweet staccato vocalizing) that capture not only the uniqueness of a burgeoning love but also its uncertainty.  The chorus is a sweet piece of pop pie, and the guitar (especially the solo at the close of the song) captures all the yearning and heavenly serenity of holding your baby in your arms.  All in all, it's a reminder that while not all love songs are created equal, they still can make the world go round....

Lyric Sheet (Dedicated to the one I love...):  "Stained glass casts a flickering light/With the curtains closed I can't tell if it's night/But I know for sure that this sure feels right/With you here between my arms..."

Enjoy:

Republicans = Losers

Peace,

emaycee

Goodbye and good riddance to a piece of shit

You are an agent of the state whose job is to come in close contact with people who have no real choice in the matter. You are a coward unfit to wear a badge, and the only pity here is that the state will pay you a pension you don’t deserve. https://t.co/PpDmeyKqyC

— Julian Sanchez (@normative) October 18, 2021

The Republican Party Is Now a Fascist Cult Just Like Nazi Germany

Peace,

emaycee

 

Persecuting children

America's not so finest

 News this week that prosecutors in Cobb County, Georgia are going to charge a twelve year old autistic child with a felony in connection with threats the boy supposedly made to school officials (another case in Everett, Washington with authorities charging an eleven year old autistic girl, as well) made me wonder just how many of these folks so eager to prosecute disabled children would be just as eager to prosecute the traitors and cop killers who stormed our nation's capitol building on January 6th.

My guess is that it would be a big fat zero.

And quite frankly, the lot of them should be prosecuted for child abuse for what they're doing to those two children in Georgia and Washington.

Taxing the Wealthy Is Good Politics for the Democratic Party

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCCXLIII--Danny O'Keefe: Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues

 Regular readers (both of you) will remember that when I was a newbie in the music industry my store used to get loads of promotional singles from CBS Records and its subsidiaries, which my first wife and I would listen to for a fun evening in the days when we were dirt poor.  This week's tune was on one of those promos, though it was actually a cover version of it by the late, great Leon Russell--which he took to #63 on Billboard's Hot Country Singles Chart, and also caused me to seek out the original version which is this week's featured song.

Danny O'Keefe was born in Spokane, Washington in 1943, and began his career with a band called Calliope in the late 60's before embarking on a solo career.  Over the course of the last fifty some odd years, O'Keefe has had enough success to keep making music, and has had a number of his songs recorded by artists such as Jackson Browne, Elvis Presley, Willie Nelson, and Jimmy Buffett.  For his career he has released fifteen studio albums, with the latest having been released in 2017.  

"Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues" was released as a single in 1972, on his album simply entitled O'Keefe.  The single reached #9 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album peaked at #87 on the Billboard 200.

Fun Fact:  "Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues" has been covered by more than twenty artists...which goes a long way toward explaining how O'Keefe has made a living playing music for over fifty years.

Though O'Keefe had some success with his songwriting, "Good Time Charlie's Got the Blues" was the only one that was a hit--and it isn't hard to see why.  O'Keefe weaves the tale of a man looking into the mirror and seeing his own mortality--while he's watching his friends leave town and settle down, he knows that he should but doesn't know if he can.  O'Keefe's heartfelt vocals capture perfectly a man at a crossroads, and he's ably backed by a sparse musical accompaniment featuring a sweetly yearning slide guitar and a melancholy harmonica, both kept in rhythm by some rapturous bongos (second time in three weeks!). O'Keefe (as noted above, a native of Washington state) also wonderfully juxtaposes the protagonist stuck pondering his uncertain future as the rain falls in the Evergreen State, while everyone else is headed for the joyous sunshine of L.A.  And it all concludes with about thirty seconds of "looking in the rear view mirror" whistling (always an emaycee fave).  Overall, it's a fine piece of country folk--and another in a long line of instances where an artist managed to make three minutes of magic that lasted a lifetime for the rest of us.

Lyric Sheet:  "I got my pills to ease the pain/Can't find a thing to ease the rain/I'd love to try and settle down/But everybody's leavin' town..."

Enjoy:

Taxing the Wealthy Is Good Politics for the Democratic Party

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCXI--Death Cab for Cutie: I Will Follow You into the Dark

Another week, another kick in the ass to my New Year's resolution of actually publishing Jukebox posts on their scheduled Friday....

This week's tune comes courtesy of another late night of not being able to sleep and channel surfing which somehow made it to VH-1 before finding anything else of interest to watch.  Doesn't help the coolness quotient much, does it?

Every now and again while doing my half-assed weekly research for FNJ I'll come across a band that hasn't been as commercially successful as I would have guessed, but Death Cab for Cutie is the first that I recall as having been more successful than I would have thought.  Formed in Bellingham, Washington is 1997, Death Cab for Cutie was originally a solo project for band leader Ben Gibbard, but after having been signed to a recording contract, he decided to make a band of it.  Over the last twenty-one years they have released nine studio albums, six EPs, and thirty singles.  They've had a #1 album, three other albums in the top ten, and one more in the top twenty.  Surprisingly (at least to me), they've done this without much help from hit singles--of the thirty they've released, only two have hit the Billboard Hot 100, and those two topped out at #60 and #70.  The band has also been nominated for eight Grammy Awards, toured the world over (they've done especially well in the UK--so many cool kids in the UK!), and have another five years to wait for their shot at being enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  Damn fine career if you ask me....

Fun Fact:  For the three people who probably don't know already, Death Cab for Cutie was named for a song by the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band called, surprisingly enough, "Death Cab for Cutie."  The song was originally released in 1967, making the band's name choice a bit odder than it already is (we're talking thirty years down the road, for God's sake).  Gibbard has admitted if he'd known what a pain in the ass the name would become, he'd have chosen a different band name.  For those who don't have my curiosity, the original song is actually quite listenable...and don't let the fact that it's a take off of Elvis (Presley, not Costello) stop you from giving it a listen.  It's actually quite clever and catchy.

"I Will Follow You into the Dark" was the third single released from the band's 2005 album Plans.  It was not one of the two singles they had that actually cracked the Billboard Hot 100, though in an odd turn of events, it was eventually certified as a gold single, and is the band's best selling single in their history.  Sometimes greatness isn't as evident in the present as it should be (see also, Van Gogh, Vincent).

I've noted a time or two here on FNJ that simplicity is not an impediment to greatness in a pop song, and "I Will Follow You into the Dark" does nothing to dispel that notion--well, at least as simple as a  song that's about following one's love into the Great Beyond at the end of one's days can be.  The song is just Gibbard and acoustic guitar--Gibbard's vocals are a delight, almost reminding me of a softly played clarinet, and the guitar matches the whimsical nature of the song word for word.  Gibbard has a way with turning a phrase ("...everything to see from Bangkok to Calgary" "...in Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule"), and takes what could easily have been a maudlin song and imbues it with a touch of humor and a lot of heart.  In the end, it's a quirky masterpiece that'll bring a smile--and those are always most welcome.

Liner Notes:  "If Heaven and Hell decide/That they both are satisfied/Illuminate the 'No's' on their vacancy signs/ If there's no one beside you/When your soul embarks/Then I'll follow you into the dark..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Oh yeah

Kickin' some republican ass tonight!

The devil gets his due:  for the first time since 1989, Democrats have won the Virginia governorship, the New Jersey governorship, and the race for mayor of New York.  We picked up at least twelve House seats in Virginia, won both the Lt. Gov. and AG elections there as well, won the special election in Washington state (giving us control of all three legislative branches in both New Jersey and Washington state), and passed the Medicaid expansion in Maine.

It doesn't quite make up for last November's election debacle...but it's a fucking good start.

Oh yeah, indeed...

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee