Category: music

The Lydster, Part 63: The Songs


It’s been long been my philosophy that, as much as I love providing information for youse folk, a primary point of this blog is as a resource for myself. Things I think I’ll remember “forever” fade into oblivion.

With that in mind, I’m going to note the songs I sing to my daughter. Often, it’s the case that I’ll take an existing song and put new lyrics to it. If I do that, though, it has to be a song that she does not know. Once, I tried singing something to the “Wonder Pets” theme: “Lydia, Lydia, my favorite girl…” I was scolded, and told “THAT’S not how it goes.”

So, I take songs obscure to her. One of the first was this ditty:
“I love Lydia
I love Lydia,
‘Cause she is my daughter
Oh yeah
She is my daughter.”
This is to the tune of I Eat Cannibals by TOTAL Coelo. I didn’t even KNOW what the tune was at first, since I don’t even own it, I don’t think.

Another song I adapted Turn Down Day by The Cyrkle, a group best known for covering Paul Simon’s Red Rubber Ball. The words vary, but I usually start with the chorus, usually trying to prod the child out of bed:
It’s a day-care day
And it’s time to get some clothes
It’s a day-care day
Let’s get ready.

These tend to be the morning songs.

There are a slew of tuness to choose from when I sing to her at bedtime. Many are standard children’s songs, though she likes a variation on Twinkle, Twinkle about traffic lights which she taught me. “Sing A Song of Sixpence” is altered from “pecked off her nose” to “[kiss sound] kissed her nose”, at her instance, NOT me being overprotective.

The Car Song I learned from my father and I sing to her: “Mommy, won’t you take me for a ride in the car.” Be Kind to Your Parents was from from a record my sister Leslie and I had on red vinyl when we were kids; we sang it at my 50th birthday party.

But always, these are the last two. When she’s really tired, these are the ONLY two: A, You’re Adorable, which my mother sang to me – indeed the ONLY song I remember my mother ever singing to me, and for which I changed many of the lyrics, starting with J (“you’re so jolly”) because I couldn’t remember the original; and Good Night, the song from the Beatles’ white album, during which I turn on her night light, then slowly dim the overhead light.

Tomorrow, my take on yesterday’s news.

ROG

ROG

Ray Davies Is 65 – tomorrow

I think I may have heard the Kinks’ All Day and All of the Night as an in-store play in a Binghamton, NY department store called Philadelphia Sales. It seemed to be the loudest, most unrelenting piece of music I ever heard; I loved it.

The Kinks seemed to go in and out of fashion. There was the early success, then a second wave in the early 1970s (Victoria, Lola, Apeman) to some spotty success in the late 1970s (Superman) and somewhat greater acclaim in the early 1980s (Come Dancing, Don’t Forget to Dance).

I’ve been listening to a lot of Kinks music this month. One is the The Ultimate Collection, a 2002 greatest hits compilation. It’s a great grouping of songs, though it does not include the minor hit Destroyer [YouTube video], which cops the main riff from All Day and All of the Night, and the storyline is a continuation of the Lola saga. Fortunately, that song and Give The People What They want both show up on a live Kinks album I own.

Nor does the collection contain anything from my favorite Kinks album, the 1971 release Muswell Hillbillies. It was their debut album on RCA Records after their previous contract had expired. “The album is named after the Muswell Hill area of London, where band leader Ray Davies and guitarist Dave Davies grew up and where the band formed in the early 1960s.” The album bombed horribly, especially in contrast to the hits, but I enjoyed it greatly. It has elements of Dixieland jazz, dance hall tunes, and country. While Alcohol is probably my favorite song, I recall going around at the time saying, in the manner of Complicated Life, “Why is life soooo COM-plicated?”

I’m pleased to note that Ray Davies’ Other People’s Lives was one of my favorite albums in 2006. I noted at the time: “Given its long gestation period, an amazingly coherent album.”

So Ray Davies has had a positive musical effect on me for over four decades. Happy early birthday, Ray.

Old friend of mine with Ray late in 2005 or early in 2006.
ROG

ROG

Barry Manilow Turns 65 66

And I thought I’d acknowledge that; now I have.

Actually, there is one song Manilow wrote and performed that I rather like. Call it a guilty pleasure. And no, it’s not “I Write The Songs”, which was actually written by sometime Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, the guy who wrote ‘Disney Girls (1957)’. Bruce, BTW, turns 65 on June 27.

The Manilow song I like is Could It Be Magic. I love how the intro morphs into the main theme and then morphs back into the outro piano bit. Here is how Barry himself describes it: “I thought I had come up with the coolest batch of chords in my composing experience. And then I realized that before I had that glass of wine, I had been playing my Chopin preludes. And I wrote the song around Chopin’s ‘Prelude in C Minor.'”

This has brought me a whole lot of sympathy for at least some of the musicians who have cribbed parts of other songs. I always believed George Harrison when he copped ‘He’s So Fine’ for ‘My Sweet Lord’. Paul McCartney was so worried that he had inadvertently stolen the tune for ‘Yesterday’ that he ran around asking people if they’d heard the song before. The difference between Harrison and Manilow is that Manilow’s subconscious had the wisdom to swipe from a dead guy whose work is in the public domain, while Harrison pilfered from a more recent composition.

Manilow
Chopin
ROG

ROG

Cinderella, Barbara Seagull and a Mama

Once upon a time, I wrote about my celebrity crushes that I had before I was 18. My buddy Greg, being the irascible sort, criticized me for being some sort of age fascist. It wasn’t that; it was that there were just so many of them that I was mildly embarrassed to go further.

Worse, I left off at least three:
Lesley Ann Warren – star of a production on CBS of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella in 1965, which would have made me 12. I’m pretty sure it was repeated at least once and that I watched it each time. It’s the earliest item that shows up on her IMDB TV or movie resume when she was 19.

I must say, though, that she was no Barbara Bain (and Leonard Nimoy no Martin Landau) when there were cast changes on the CBS television show Mission: Impossible in 1969 and 1970. Nevertheless, I watched.

Still, I have a soft spot for her Cinderella version, having purchased the soundtrack only in the last couple years, even though her predecessor, Julie Andrews and her successor, Brandy, are both more professional singers.
Here’s a segment of the program; Lesley’s entrance in this scene is at about 2:30, and she sings “In My Own Little Corner” – I do love that song – at about 4:30.

The first time I knew saw Barbara Hershey was in a disturbing little 1969 movie called Last Summer, also starring Richard Thomas, Bruce Davison and the Oscar-nominated Catherine Burns; haven’t seen it since. Leonard Maltin gave it three and a half stars; Roger Ebert gave it four stars. An event on the set was so traumatizing to Barbara, that for a time, she changed her name to Barbara Seagull. Just yesterday, I discovered it on YouTube, but haven’t watched. The compiler called Last Summer “a small twisted film…not easy to find. It’s quite sexual and very controversial for its time.”
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Subsequently, I saw her in The Right Stuff (1983), The Natural (1984), Hoosiers (1986), Lantana (2001) and most notably in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986- very fond) and Beaches (1988 – treacle). Oddly, I didn’t see her in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) as Mary Magdalene, and I don’t remember why, since the controversy made me want to watch it all the more. She’s also known as a partner of Lost’s Naveen Andrews, who’s two decades her junior, which is cool.

Above: 30 seconds from 1968’s With Six You Get Eggroll, which I must have seen on TV

From the outset, I was a huge Mamas and the Papas fan. I loved the tight harmonies especially, and bought all their albums, starting with the first one; still have most of them on vinyl. While John Phillips was the primary writer of the group, Michelle Phillips (nee Gilliam) has co-writer credits on songs such as California Dreamin’ and Creeque Alley. Most of the lead vocals fell to Denny Doherty or Cass Elliot, but every once in a while Michele got a bit to show her ethereal pipes, such as on Dedicated to the One I Love or the beginning of Got A Feeling.

Michele’s personal life, it became clear, was a mess. She was married to John but sleeping with Denny. She was friends with some of the victims of the Charles Manson murders. She was once married to Dennis Hopper for eight days.

But in that American second act tradition, she began to act in movies and on TV. Her IMDB record shows her on multiple episodes of Love Boat, Fantasy Island, and Hotel before her six-year stint on Knots Landing. I don’t recall seeing any of them.

She sings from time to time, including at tributes to her musical colleagues. Cass died in 1974, John in 2001, and Denny in 2007, making Michelle the sole survivor of the group. I believe today is her 65th birthday (I’ve seen references to both 6/4/44 and 4/6/44.)

ROG

W.W.C.T.G.Y.T.B.N.C.O.S.Y.A.O. Question

I think it was Mark Evanier who came up with the notion of the W.W.C.T.G.Y.T.B.N.C.O.S.Y.A.O. (the World Wide Conspiracy To Get You To Buy New Copies Of Stuff You Already Own). This is why I’m less than excited by the remastered Beatles music coming out 09/09/09.

I haven’t done this in a while, but last week, I went to the library, got five CDs and burned them. I’m totally unapologetic about it, too, because every single album I’ve not only purchased but still own in vinyl. Until I get around to buying one of those turntables that will convert vinyl to digital form – I saw one listed recently for a little over $100 – then I will keep at it.

So what is on my little foray this week?

Boston- Boston. Yes, THAT album with More than A Feeling, et al.
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young – Deja Vu – with four writers, they worked hard to be equitable, with each getting two songs, Stills/Young getting one, and the other song a cover of Joni Mitchell’s Woodstock.
Devo- Q: Are We Not Men? A: We are Devo – features one of my all-time favorite covers, Satisfaction. Incidentally, I have a schlocky instrumental album of Devo songs, done by Devo.
The Guess Who- co-founded by Randy Bachman, who later founded Bachman-Turner Overdrive, it has some decent songs. But the one that most fascinated me when i first bought it was a song I did not know before, Hang On To Your Life, which ends with the stark parts of Psalm 22.
Neil Young – Harvest. I listened to this album a LOT in my college years.

I could only take out five at a time. So what was interesting to me was what I didn’t take this time:
Allman Brothers – Brothers and Sisters. I have a colleague who burns so much Allman music for me that I may have ODed on them.
John Lennon – Rock and Roll. I bought this album on December 9, 1980, the day after Lennon died; they were sold out of Double Fantasy by the time I got to the store (Just a song or strawberries) at lunchtime. This is an oddly unsatisfying album, one I didn’t listen to much at the time. Mayne I SHOULD revisit for that reason alone.
Pretenders – the first album. It was a double album with out takes and alternate versions; almost certainly for next time.
Van Halen – the ONLY Van Halen I’ve ever owned, which I probably got for Happy Trails.

Oh, the questions: how do you feel about buying things (DVD, CDs) that you already own (VCR tapes, LPs or cassettes)? Do you avoid them? Pick only the core stuff? Seek out compilations? (Most of my early CDs were greatest hits collections of artists I already owned heavily on vinyl, such as Billy Joel and Elton John.) Do you have a mechanism to convert to newer formats?
ROG

ROG
Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial