Blog
Song Discovery 4: 09.12.27
Written by Jimmy
This is our New Year’s gift to all of you. We polled the Band for some of their ‘hidden gems’ they wanted to share. From weird to wonderful… you decide.
1. From Nataasha, we start with a little Nick Drake, Things Behind the Sun. Three ‘fun facts’ on Nick Drake: a) none of his albums sold more than 5,000 copies on their initial release, b) he OD’s on Nov 25th 1974 but it wasn’t until 1979 that folks started looking at his work seriously, and c) by mid 90’s he was the musician most cited as ‘influence’ to current singer songwriters, including REM, Badly Drawn Boy, Kate Bush, etc… Wished they had bought a few of his albums at the time… See Van Gogh, and listen to Vincent (the OTHER great Don McLean Song)
2. More from Natasha, with Tomorrow from Strawberry Alarm Clock, a sixties psychedelia LA group. three little facts: a) group took its name from Strawberry Fields Forever, b) the drummer Randy Seol appeared as one of the bachelors on Dating Game in US (same as Blind Date in UK), and the lead guitarist Ed King went on to join Lynyrd Skynyrd (of Free Bird Fame). they are credited with creating bubble gum music, which reached its perfection with: Yummy Yummy Yummy I got Love in My tummy. Nataasha????
3. Ed comes in with Tom Waits Big in Japan. Fun facts: a) Tom’s parents were both schoolteachers from Pomono California, b) he hung out in Echo Park in 70’s LA, with the likes of the Eagles, Jackson Browne (Doctor My Eyes) ,etc… and c) his 1985 album Rain Dogs is considered one of the top 100 albums of all time. Oh, and Scarlett Johansson covered 10 of his songs for her debut album Anywhere I lay my head, e.g., Falling Down.
4. Mike Park goes with Sigh No More, Mumford and Sons. Stick with them — they take a long time to tune up! I love Roll Away Your Stone. These guys support Laura Marling quite often. Fans will recognise Laura from an earlier Song Discovery Posting
5. And sense all the 20 year olds in the band seem to want to go back to the sixties, I’ll do the same and point you to Phil Ochs Outside a Small Circle of Friends. A great song about indifference. A couple facts: a) bringing this top 5 to some sort of symmetry, Phil Ochs also declined into mental instability and took his own life (although Nick’s might have been an accidental OD, b) his siblings were Sonny (Sister Sonia) and Michael which are also two of the sons names in the Godfather series, and c) the song here was inspired by the story of Kitty Genovese who was stabbed to death in New York while a group of neighbors watched on from their windows — no one shouted, no one called the cops. And of course the extreme contrast between the jaunty light music and the dark lyrics provide Exhibit A that Americans can do irony.
Okay, that’s it. Comment away and enjoy.
Jimmy