sometimes there's a reason things are unreleased

Someone sent me a link to an article in vulture.com (which, admittedly, I hadn't heard of) about some unreleased Weird Al Yankovic parodies. The article is here. I was a bit skeptical of the chances that these are real, since there are lots of song parodies out there that people think are Weird Al, but aren't really. "Cat's in the Kettle" and "Baby Got Jack" come to mind.

But these seem to be legit. Maybe if Al had devoted some more work to these they could be good parodies. But they're not there yet. The best (by far) of them is a parody of The Beatles' "Taxman"

i have failed as a father

It was a small group of people -- my son, me, and a few other adults. Referring to a videotape, I said "Oh, this has Ringo Starr."

My son asked who Ringo Starr is.

When I told him that he was the drummer for the Beatles, he asked "was that the pothead band that made bad music?"

ouch =/= help

I was once talking to a friend about the Rutles. I avered that "Ouch!" was my favorite song of theirs. He said he didn't like it because it was exactly the same song as "Help!", the Beatles song that it was parodying. I argued that it was a close parody but it's not the same song. The melody, I pointed out, is different. No dice. He insisted that it's the same song and since he's a musician (he'd been in, like, you kow, actual bands) he knows better.

Well, I don't care how many bands he's in. It's a different song. You can judge:

a blog devoted to bad records

My wife found a great blog.

A guy named Darryl W. Bullock blogs about the world's worst records. Like Bullock, I have an appreciation for truly awful records. But he blogs specifically about the topic. As near as I can figure, he sticks to a once-per -week schedule, and typically includes audio, so you can hear the awful songs.

Interesting for me, he discusses a lot of music that I have in my collection, though I typically have them on compilations as opposed to having the original single. That's true of Eilert Pilarm, a Swedish Elvis impersonator who doesn't have a good enough grasp of English to pull it off. Also of Congresswoman Malinda Jackson Parker (yes, she was a congresswoman -- in Liberia) who recorded two songs about mosquities. Here is one of them:

Aw, heck. While we're at it, here's a Eilert Pilarm doing "Jailhouse Rock" (with lyrics):

I also enjoyed Bullock's entry on The Buggs (a thinly disguised Beatles ripoff from the 1960s), largely because he discussed a truly awful record that I used to own on vinyl.

I love perusing Bullock's blog, and repeatedly finding myself saying, "Yeah! I remember that! I remember that!" Go give it a read.

childhood listening

When I was a child growing up, there were a lot of records in the house. Most of them were classical, and I never really listened to them. I suppose that's in part due to the fact that my grandparents were always pushing me to listen to classical music, which made it somewhat unnatractive. I often, however, listened to the few other  records (or at least parts of them) that my parents had.

Following are some memories of them:

Meet the Beatles (The Beatles)
For some reason I generally listened only to the first side. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "All My Loving" were the first and last songs on the side, and they were my favorites, so I couldn't take a short cut and listen to only one or two songs. Yes, technically I suppose I could have picked up the needle and moved it. But I didn't. So the songs on the side 1 are much more embedded in my mind than those on side two. It was years before I found out that my father didn't like the Beatles. One other random thought: For some reason, when I listened to "It Won't Be Long," I pictured the Beatles as frogs onstage, jumping each time someone said "Yeah" in the chorus. Mind you, in my mental image they were also jumping one at a time. Someone sang the line "It won't be long." Then there are a bunch of "yeah!"s. Each "yeah" is sung by one of them who is jumping forward and either from stage left to stage right or vice versa. It was quite a disturbing mental picture.

Moving (Peter Paul and Mary)
As with the Beatles album above, I generally listened to the first side and not the second. In fact, it was often only "Puff The Magic Dragon." Sometimes, though, I would listen through to "This Land is Your Land," and sometimes I would listen to the whole side. On rare occasions, I would listen to the second side. There was a time I thought they were all Jewish. That impression was based on two things: 1) Peter and Paul both had goatees (which I, for some reason, associated with rabbis); and 2) on side two, they did a song called "Man Come Into Egypt" which used the story of Moses and the biblical exodus as an allegory for the then-modern civil rights movement. For the record Peter is Jewish. Years later I interviewed them when they performed at Queens College. I spent a few minutes with each one, discussing political issues of the day. Peter actually gave me his publicist's number so I could call and we could talk at length. He explained that he was impressed that I was talking about real issues rather than glitzy Hollywood stuff. I called and left a message. But I never followed up and never did write the article. I was too disgusted with their knee-jerk leftism. But I still like a lot of their music -- this album in particular.

Oliver! (Broadway soundtrack)
For a long time I only listened to "Pick a Pocket or Two" and "Be Back Soon." Gradually I started listening to the whole album. This is by far my favorite Broadway soundtrack. And to make it even better, I played Fagin in my sixth-grade class production of the play. Admittedly not much of a singer, I was reduced to rapping "Pick a Pocket or Two." Our production was abrdiged, so I didin't have to do Fagin's other numbers, "Be Back Soon" and "Reviewing the Situation." My favorite tracks (as of now) are "Consider Yourself" and "Oom-Pah-Pah." But there are some clever lyrics throughout.

My Son the Folksinger (Allan Sherman)
As a kid, I didn't always get the humor. Even after it was explained to me. But with time and an increased knowledge of pop culture and the references that were built into the songs, I gradually developed a better and better appreciation for Sherman's work. THere are several parodies here, for which I hadn't heard the originals until decades later. Notably, I didn't hear "The Streets of Loredo" (which is parodied as "The Streets of Miami") until I was in my upper thirties and bought a box set compilation of Dick Curless CDs. I'll also note that, in a bit of anal-retentiveness, I used to list this album in my database as "Allan Sherman's Mother Presents My Son the Folk Singer."

words. fail. me. (part 4)

At what point is it a different band? (part 3)

Awhile ago (here and here) I talked about the question of when a band has changed enough that, even with the same name, it's a different band. In those posts I looked at specific issues with specific bands. In the first, I considered Dr. Feelgood, a band that -- through a variety of personnel changes -- no longer contains any of its original members. In the second, I considered Ducks Deluxe, a band that broke up in 1975 and reunited more than thirty years later.

In a more general sense, the question of whether a band is still really the same band comes down to who is the creative force, and who gives the band its sound. Granted, that's all kind of vague, which leaves lots of room for debate.

People often refer to "early Beatles" or "late Beatles" to distinguish, because the band's later psychedelic sound was so vastly different from the earlier merseybeat. Heck, even when they made Abbey Road, trying to back to their earlier style, they produced a record that bore little resemblance to their early material. But because of the continuity -- no breakups and no change in personnel (at least once they got famous) -- no one thinks of them as different bands.So, could the Beatles have replaced anyone and still been truly the Beatles? Lennon and McCartney were the creative axis. George Harrison was, by far, the best musician in the group, and Ringo gave the band its goofy factor. So it's easy to say that each of the four was a necessary ingredient in the band.

the Merseybeat Beatles

The psychedelic Beatles

But I don't think so. I'll buy Lennon and McCartney -- each was necessary for the band to truly be the Beatles. But Harrison? As good as he was, he could have been replaced. There are lots of other good guitarists who could have stepped in. And similarly, Ringo could have been replaced. I'll note that for a time it was thought that all four members of the Who were essential. But when Keith Moon died, he was replaced by Kenney Jones and the band played on. I'll admit that there were some (purists?) who didn't accept it. But there are also some who haven't come to terms with the idea of Pink Floyd without Syd Barrett. Backing up to the Who, though, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are the essential ingredients. I realize, of course, that events being what they are, I'm not going out on much of a limb by saying that.

To take an example from the other end of the spectrum, there's Squeeze. The band has gone through more lineup changes than anyone would care to remember. But through it all they remained Squeeze because Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook were there.

songwriting lessons i have learned

I have previously mentioned that I do a little songwriting on the side. I'm not particularly prolific. If you look at completed songs, I have three -- and two of them involve co-authors.

There was a time that I wrote prolifically. Back in high school I wrote dozens (maybe hundreds) of songs. But, to be charitable, they weren't very good. I think my more recent efforts are better. There are a lot of reasons for the improvement. But I'm going to focus on three lessons I've learned. Let me note that I am focusing here on the lyrics rather than the melody. There are two reasons for that:

1. I think of myself more as a lyricist than composer; and
2. I know very little formal music theory, and so can't express concepts of melody or chord progression in written form. At least not well.

I try not to be too rigid. In many of my early attempts at songwriting, I thought that verses had to match each other syllable for syllable. If the first verse had ten syllables in the first line, then each verse had to have ten syllables in the first line. So I spent a lot of time counting syllables, and trying to add or delete in order to make the count right. This led to many awkward turns of phrase, and many words that were pronounced with the emphasis on the wrong syllable. I have since learned to rely on feel rather than syllable counts. If it sounds right, then it doesn't matter if two syllables are squeezed together or one is drawn out a little longer. Consider, for example, the Lennon/McCartney classic, "I Saw Her Standing There":

The first line of the first verse has seven syllables: "Well she was just seventeen." The first line of the second verse has five: "Well she looked at me." But it works because "she was just" in the first verse is pressed into the same musical space as "she" in the second.

When rhyming, it's more important that the sounds please the ear than that the rhyme is perfect. Take, for example, the first two lines of Billy Joel's "You May Be Right":

That's right. He rhymed "party" with "sorry." But it worked.

Finally, I have learned not to try to spell out every detail. This one I only learned recently, and it was a real epiphany that allowed me to finally make progress on a song I was working on called "Do You Think of Me (Now and Again)?" It's a song about remembering a former significant other. I had been having trouble for the longest time, trying to figure out the details of the past relationship and how to put it in words. Then it hit me: I don't have to. I can be vague, provide enough information to provide context, and let the listener imagine the details. A good example is the Elvis Presley song "Teddy Bear" (written by Kal Mann and Bernie Lowe):

It's a great song. It gets the idea across. But there's not really much detail.

here comes the solo

I guess I’m just perpetually behind, but I only now heard about the lost guitar solo that George Harrison recorded for “Here Comes theSun.” The Living in the Material World (Note: the link I just provided is to the DVD released in the British format. The only reason I didn't link to the American format is that I couldn't find it on Amazon.) documentary includes footage of Harrison’s son in the studio with George and Giles Martin, listening to recordings from the session that produced the Beatles classic. The solo is one of the things they hear. You can see it in the following clip, with the solo starting at just about the one minute mark.

It’s a well-played solo, and musically very interesting. But it just doesn’t sound right to me; it’s not in keeping with the general tone of the song. An old friend once said, there are usually reasons why those alternate and unused takes remained alternate and unused. He was right (said the guy who buys every damn rerelease of every Monkees album as soon as Rhino puts it out so he can hear…).