Top 19 -- The Beatles: Revolver

On Facebook I was asked to list my top ten all-time albums that most influenced me. Since I can't list anything without a huge explanation, this is it. Not only that but I'm writing about my Top 19 instead of my Top 10. 

Here's what I wrote on Facebook today, "Here's another quick story:this was the first real Beatles album I ever bought and it was in the months after I graduated from college. I'm not sure why it took so long. In college I had the Blue and Red best of albums and I guess that was working out okay. I'm really happy that this was the first proper Beatles CD I ever bought, from front-to-back, I consider it their best one. The music and the lyrics were so awesome and psychedelic that it was conscious expanding. The autumn that I bought this album, I was still delivering pizzas, so anytime I hear a song from Revolver, I can still smell pizza or steak and cheese subs. It's a delicious memory."

What's there to say about the Beatles that hasn't already been said? They're the most influential band of the last 60 years and you can make an argument that they're the most influential band since a bunch of neanderthals first got together and started rhythmically banging rocks and sticks together at the same time. 

Some of my earliest memories are from The Beatles. I can dimly recall being a toddler and going into my parents' bedroom before the crack dawn begging to watch television. Back in those days, TV wasn't a 24/7 thing. For most channels, the broadcast day would begin at 5:55 AM and end at 1:00 AM. Those five-ish hours where there was no programming would be filled with a test pattern and music from a local radio station. When I'd awake prior to start time, my Mom would plop me down in front of the TV, find my favorite station (WLVI Channel 56 forever!) and tell me to listen to the music and watch "The Wheel", which is what I'd call the test pattern, mostly because it looked like a wheel. 

The one song that I remember most from my wheel watching was the Beatles "Good Day Sunshine", which is one of the songs featured on this album. 

As I grew older, the Beatles' music was always around. I think that it was REM front man Michael Stipe who described it as "elevator music".  The reason isn't because it's as banal and soulless as the music that was once played in elevator, but because it's everywhere all the time. 

In junior high school, my music teacher spent a half year explaining to us, in great detail, about the "Paul is Dead" rumor. A lot of that explanation used lyrics and music from Revolver. One of his biggest pieces of "evidence" were the opening lyrics, "She Said, She Said". Unfortunately, since there was no internet around in 1987, I don't think that my teacher knew that the lines, "I know what it's like to be dead" were spoken by Peter Fonda to John Lennon while the former was tripping on LSD at a Hollywood party. 

The Blue Album, which I referred to above, was an album that I listened to a lot in college. There were more than a few cuts from "Revolver" on that as well. 

In any event, when I finally put on the album and listened to it, I had a flood of memories rushing back to me. Even though it was brand new, it felt like something that I had been very aware of almost since birth. 

Good Songs XXVII

Pop Song ’89 – REM

Jingling Baby – LL Cool J

Paint It Black – Rolling Stones

Let’s Go Crazy – Prince

Don’t Drink the Water – Dave Matthews Band

Flagpole Sitta – Harvey Danger

I Am the Walrus – The Beatles

Sure Shot – The Beastie Boys

Rock & Roll – Led Zeppelin

Bulls on Parade – Rage Against the Machine

Number One Blind – Veruca Salt

School Days – Chuck Berry

The One – Tracy Bonham

Calling Dr. Love – KISS

Mountain Song – Jane’s Addiction

Moonlight Drive – The Doors

Where It’s At – Beck

Manic Depression – Jimi Hendrix

Alone + Easy Target – Foo Fighters

With Plenty of Money and You – Count Bassie and Tony Bennett

Deeper Shade of Soul – Urban Dance Squad

Rape Me – Nirvana

Rhinoceros – Smashing Pumpkins

I Wanna Be Just Like You – Big Bad Voodoo Daddy

If you look at two of the last five songs on this mix, guess which movie I was really into at this point in my life? If you said “Swingers”, you win a no-prize. At this time in my life, it was no surprise that I obsessively watched the adventures of Mike, Trent, Sue, Rob and Charles. They were around the same age, they were in the same weird limbo between career and college, they drank a lot, played Sega and looked for girls. This was all stuff that my friends and I did. The only difference is that they were in Los Angeles and I was in Boston.

The style was consuming for awhile; I tried being a martini drinker, dressing nice(r), listening to swing music (I bought the Swinger soundtrack AND a Big Bad Voodoo Daddy CD), but it didn’t stick. By the summer I was back to my beer-drinking, slovenly-dressed, rock and rap ways. It was a nice suit to try on, but it didn’t fit.

This was a pretty decent Good Songs, on this listen I enjoyed pretty much all of the songs* and it’s one that I’ll probably fire up again. What I found interesting, is that not only do Count Bassie and Tony Bennett make their first appearance on the penultimate Good Songs tape but Prince, Chuck Berry and the Rolling Stones do too.

* I haven’t heard DMB’s “Don’t Drink the Water” in years, but I remember it being one of the last songs of his that I actually enjoyed. On this relisten, I can say that the song is excruciatingly terrible. It’s plodding, masturbatory, directionless and the lyrics are so ham-handed, I wouldn’t be surprised if Porky Pig was listed as a co-writer. Even the uncredited background vocals of Alanis Morissette doesn’t help much—though the way I felt about her at this point in my life, I’m sure it was a strike against the song. I always thought that it was DMB’s fans that drove me away, turns out it was him all along.

I wonder what took me so long to include the Rolling Stones on a Good Songs tape? The answer to that question is because I don’t own any of their albums, tapes, CDs, 8-tracks or MP3s (except for this one). It’s not because I don’t like the Rolling Stones, they’re an all-time great band, but I’ve never been inspired to transfer money from my wallet to a store’s cash register in exchange for one of their albums.

This isn’t a situation like Bruce Springsteen or Pink Floyd where I’m not crazy about their music, but I get why they have fans. I like the Stones and all of their hits and I’m sure I’d be crazy about their deep cuts too. But the Rolling Stones seem to be everywhere and they’ve never left us, which I think is the big differentiator from other bands that are seemingly everywhere like the Beatles or Led Zeppelin*.

* The Who fit into this mold too and I don’t own anything by them either, despite really enjoying their music. There’s a lot of great Who songs and they’re different and they’re loud and they’re smart and they have great lyrics and music, but I’m just not a Who guy. There’s not even a Who song on any of the 28 volumes of Good Songs, which is kind of surprising. I also don’t have a Tom Petty song on any Good Songs tape, which is even more surprising.

But the Rolling Stones won’t go away. The Beatles’ songs are still everywhere but the band broke up, John and George died, as a collection of individuals they did their own things. And some of that thing includes Beatlesque stuff, but they aren’t coming back. Same with Zeppelin. John Bonham is dead and Robert Plant—for whatever reason he’s giving this week—doesn’t want to reunite with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.  

This is my problem with bands like the Stones or the Who, they’re old (in their 70s) and they’re still touring. And yes, they’re still pulling in fantastically large crowds and are selling out arenas all over the Earth, but at some point, enough is enough. One could argue that these bands love what they’re doing and they’re moved by the spirit of the music. But when was the last time the Who or the Stones played at a small club? They’re playing in places designed to get as many people as they possibly can for as much money as they possibly can.

And that’s fine, I am not of the mind to tell a person when he or she has too much money*. But at the same time, it starts to look a little embarrassing, doesn’t it? I understand that baby boomers and the like will still feel youthful as long as Mick and Keith are prancing around a stage at Madison Square Garden like they did almost 60(!) years ago. But they’re not fooling anyone and they haven’t for quite awhile. Aside from Lorne Michaels or a few investment bankers, who thinks that Mick Jagger is cool**?

* Around the time that I created this mix tape, Led Zeppelin announced that they were going to lend their song, Rock & Roll, to a Cadillac commercial. It made me so angry and I mentioned that to my roommate, who was an accountant at a (then) Big Six accounting firm in Boston. We had a heated debate on selling out and how much money should a band make and whether commercial music is art. Not surprisingly I was on the liberal side of the argument and thought that this was abhorrent as Page, Plant and Jones had plenty of money and were ruining their song. My roommate said I was crazy and that pop music is a commodity and if someone wants to buy it, they should get cash for it. I was adamant that he was wrong, but after going over that debate, I was the one who was wrong. There is integrity among artists, but there’s never a time when one has “too much money” and for me to suggest that was dumb and naïve.

** Keith Richards will always have some semblance of coolness only because of what he’s done in the past. As a person, right now in 2015, Keith Richards isn’t really cool at all. He's old, he's broken down, unintelligible and is miming his way through old age. But the life that Keith Richards has lead is undoubtedly cool, so it carries over into his present day-to-day life. And I know how ridiculous it sounds for a 40-year-old man to be judging who or what is cool, but it’s my blog and it’s what I do.

 

As I get closer to the end of this project, the idea of youth and nostalgia is becoming more and more clearer. No one wants their youth to end—actually I should amend that, no one wants the youth that they have encased in amber (like the dinosaur DNA hidden in the mosquito in Jurassic Park) to end. But like that dinosaur DNA, if you try to replicate that youth now, it would go horribly wrong. And that’s what the Rolling Stones and their ilk are caught up in—though caught is probably the wrong word. Maybe partake? I don't know.

Audiences have long struggled when it comes to deciding how they want their entertainers to age. Do you want them to keep going on and on and on and on doing the same stuff year after year, decade after decade like the Stones or the Who? Do you want them to evolve as people and as artists so that their new stuff sounds nothing like their older stuff that you grew up with, like the Beastie Boys did before MCA died?

I don’t have the foggiest idea and often go back and forth on the topic as there are pros and cons to both sides of the argument. The Rolling Stone solution (for lack of a better term) is good because you can pay for your seat, hear the songs that you love, take a stroll down memory lane and for awhile feel like you’re young again. No one wants to hear a new Paul McCartney song or a new Stones song because you love the old ones so much and don’t want to sacrifice a hit for a song that will probably suck*.

* Musicians are like athletes. They peak in the late 20s and by the time they’re in their 30s (especially if they’re successful) it’s all downhill. There’s nothing worse than a millionaire trying to remember what it was like when he or she was poor.

But at the same time, that visage of nostalgia is smashed when you look on the Jumbotron and see octogenarians singing about banging chicks, taking drugs and being street fighting men. It’s embarrassing. And after the embarrassment wears off you look around and see all of the old faces and it dawns on you that you’re old too. That realization, juxtaposed with the music echoing your youth can be a real mindfuck down depression road.

The Beasties solution is the other side of the coin where you know you need to change, you do it and hope that your fans come along for the ride. It would have been real easy for the Beasite Boys to release License to Ill 2, LtI 3, LtI 4 and so on. The records would have sold a bunch, they’d have made a lot of cash and they’d be the heroes to bro-frat boys everywhere. But they realized that that wasn’t who they were and they changed it up for “Paul’s Boutique”, which was so far ahead of it’s time (it’s probably my favorite album ever) that it was a bomb.

No one knew what to do with a non-wiffle-ball-bat-raping Beastie Boys.

They released “Check Your Head” and their audience started to catch up. By the time they released “Ill Communication”, the Beasites were back on top and they were given carte blanche to do whatever the hell they wanted. 

Full disclosure: I love the Beastie Boys, they're one of my favorite acts. So I think that the way that their career trajectory went was probably the way I'd do it if I was in a band. But it was a struggle to go from hasbeens to geniuses and I bet they lost a lot of fans who thought that they “sold out” or “got weird”. Not a ton of bands can do this and the road to Cleveland is littered with acts who tried to switch it up and got left in the dust. If MCA hadn't died and the BBoys toured until they were 80, I'd probably line up to see them (though I'd have wondered if maybe they should change their names) so maybe it has more to do with the generation. On the whole, Baby Boomers are obnoxious and I've been waiting for them to exit the stage since I was a teenager, so there's a good possibility that I'm transferring my frustration with a whole generation on a five dudes from England. 

Because I get why these nostalgia shows are so popular. The last two concerts I saw were Living Colour (who played the entirety of their first album from front to back) and the Kings of Rap Tour (De La Soul, Ice Cube, Public Enemy and LL Cool J), so it’s not like I’m trolling for new music every weekend. It’s cool to take that DeLorean back to 1993 and relive your youth, I get it. I mean, I do it once or twice a year at most, but I wonder if it takes a toll on the artist?

And as terrible as this sounds, the only solution is death. Not your death, of course—that's crazy, but the death of your favorite rock star, which is terrible thing to wish for. But with the death of an important band member, that band stays crystalized in amber forever.

I’m not a person who puts too much stock in legacies—I think for the most part people who talk about that stuff are full of shit—but do you know how terrible the Doors would have been if Jim Morrison lived? He was would have spent the 1970s doing one embarrassing thing after another, recorded sloppy albums with messy poetry and it would have been bad. The 80s and 90s would have seen a revitalization in the Doors (like our 80s and 90s) and there would have been reunion concerts and Morrison being paraded around on talk shows like some relic from the dangerous past.

Jim Morrison, the one that we know, could have only existed in one time and that was the late 1960s. People had a higher tolerance for bullshit back then and the stuff he used to pull was considered whimsical and free-spirited.

“He doesn’t kow-tow to the Man, man.”

But you know who the Man is? It's us. If you paid money to see the Doors and Jimmy decided to tie one on or whip out his penis and the show was cancelled after two songs? That sucks, no matter how good of a story it is. You paid to hear music, not some drunk slurring through his songs*. I went to a Jane’s Addiction show where security was a joke and a crush of people bum rushed the stage in the opening minutes. The concert was postponed for an hour and when the band came back, they played for 40 minutes (all slow jams) before splitting. I felt ripped off.

* I know I wrote about this in a previous entry, but I bought a Jimi Hendrix/Jim Morrison "bootleg" that I thought was going to be magical. It was terrible. Hendrix was way too wasted to play the guitar and when he brings Morrison on stage to sing some song, Jim is too drunk to remember the words. I felt as if both of the ripped me off from beyond the grave. Stupid hippies. 

It’s almost better to go out early and leave a pretty corpse.

A few things:

Harvey Danger – When this song came out, I had a girlfriend and she said that every time she heard “Flagpole Sitta” she thought of me. I’m not sure why and I’m not sure if she still feels that way, but it was an interesting observation to make*. That got me thinking, I wonder if there are other songs that people associate with me? I know that there are a ton that I associate with people I know. I should probably make a list, I bet that would be interesting.

* My friend Ryan’s sister Keri said that every time that she hears Living Colour, she thinks of me. That’s probably because when I was at Ryan’s house, I’d make him play Vivid over and over and over again. It’s probably a PTSD thing. Sorry about that, Keri.

Veruca Salt – This song (Number One Blind) is on a very short list of my favorite songs of all-time. It wasn’t particularly popular, it doesn’t hold any special significance to an event that happened in my life, but for some reason I really love it. Okay, it’s the guitar solo at the end, so awesome. If I end up drinking too much and have my laptop in front of me, I will watch this video (only shown on MTV five times) on a loop.

REM – I put this song on here because it reminded me of a really tough time in my life and how I get past it. I was living in Winthrop with some friends and I couldn’t take my fund accounting job any more, so I quit (for the second time in four months). It felt awesome to leave and the last day was fucking great. However, after two months of no job, that awesome feeling was not so awesome anymore. I missed my work friends, I missed having money and I was getting worried that I’d never find a job.

I found one. For about a month I worked as a sales associate at J. Crew in Danvers, MA. There was nothing good about this gig: the commute sucked, the job was mind numbing, the money was horrible, no one there liked me and I used to let Gordon College coeds steal as much stuff as they wanted because I was so apathetic. But the muzak played “Pop Song 89” a few times during my shift (also George Harrison’s “What is Love?”) and it was the only good parts of my miserable day.

Things eventually got better, I ended up getting a job that I loved which lead to better jobs and experiences but when I hear both songs now, I think about those long, sad days and how tough it was.  It’s been a difficult few months for yours truly, but after listening to these two playlists and remembering where I was when I created them, I know that things are going to get better. There is some darkness in every life, but you have to keep plugging away and push and eventually that spring light is going to come cascading in.

I’m sure of it.

Good Songs XXIII

I Can’t Even Tell – Soul Asylum

Hurricane – Bob Dylan

Sex Type Thing – Stone Temple Pilots

Hey Joe – Jimi Hendrix

Connection – Elastica

My Hero Zero – Lemonheads

Disarm – Smashing Pumpkins

No Woman, No Cry – Bob Marley

Stand – REM

The Summer Wind – Frank Sinatra

The Maestro – The Beastie Boys

LA Medley – Jane’s Addiction

Linger – The Cranberries

Night of the Living Baseheads – Public Enemy

Love Rears Its Ugly Head – Living Colour

Fire Woman – The Cult

Cut Your Hair – Pavement

Warped – Red Hot Chili Peppers

I Will Follow – U2

This edition of Good Songs is a continuation of the last edition of Good Songs, complete with the TV Theme Songs* between every other song. It was created in the Summer of 1996 when I didn’t have much to worry about other than starting a career, getting out of my parents’ house, wondering if I’d ever find a girlfriend and battling the ennui of being done with school.

* I still can’t believe that I spent about $100 buying a bunch of TV theme song CDs. I mean I guess that I can believe it; I love television and this is something that I’d totally do (and in fact, did). But I’m not sure what I was trying to accomplish here. I wouldn’t play them at a party, that’s insane. I wouldn’t listen to them over and over and over again like a Beatles CD, that’s even crazier. Best case scenario: I’d listen to discs once and put them back on the CD shelf. God damn, 1996 Byron, you sure knew how to waste money.

Even though my birthday is in September—and for the most part I don’t like my birthday—I love September. Football starts, baseball season is coming to a head and as much as I enjoyed my summers, by mid-August I was bored and wanted to get back to school (both high school and college). Despite coming at the end of summer/beginning of fall, September has an air of regeneration and newness.

Going to class was enjoyable because of the promise of actually sticking to a resolution that you were going to “bear down this year and get back on track”. Playing on a sports team was fun because the weather was nice and you didn’t totally despise your teammates quite yet. Going to parties (usually outdoors) was awesome because of the weather and the fact that you actually had things to talk about. Not to mention that there were new girls to talk to; a whole class of new girls that just started school—girls that might not have any idea of who you are and who might think you’re cool because you’re older.

This September freshness wilted as the days got shorter, but whenever I think of a time being completely happy, content and full of hope, I’m usually picturing some time in September.

September 1996 was different. For 17 years, it was engrained in my consciousness that September is when I was supposed to go back to school. But it didn’t happen that year because I graduated college in May. School was over for me, summer had passed and I was unemployed and alone.

A few years before I graduated college, my friend Brownie and I were playing Sega and bitching about the women at our colleges—as guys are wont to do. His older brother, who had graduated from college that year, heard us complaining and said something to the effect of, “college is the best place to find a girlfriend; they’re all  your age, you have a ton in common with them, they’re in the same income bracket and they’re literally all around you. When you graduate, it’s hard to find girls with the same interests.”

That bit of information stuck with me and now that I was out of college, it scared me. I had no idea where to meet women*, for so many years scores of girls were all around me. Now I was back home and there was no one. And even if there was a woman that I liked, I didn’t have the confidence to speak to her (no job and living with mom and dad will do that to a guy), so I was in the moebius strip of wanting a girl, but not being able to talk to one**.

* There was a farm stand about a few miles from my house. One day after I went to the gym (I went to the gym a lot because I was so bored) I stopped there to buy a Gatorade. The girl who worked there was cute and I couldn’t get the nerve up to ask her out. So even though it was out of my way, I’d stop by there every day to buy a Gatorade all with the intent of asking her out. I’d pound the drink on the way home and throw the empty bottle on the passenger side, vowing not o clean up the mess until I asked her out. I dumped the bottles three weeks later, numberless.

** The college I went to was about a half-hour from my house and the bars where we used to drink were about the same distance. Thursday nights were the big bar nights and I had a lot of fun going to these holes-in-the-wall and blowing off steam. During the Autumn of 1996, it would be about 11:00 at night, I’d be lying in bed and I’d legitimately wonder if I could make it to one of these bars for last call. Just stop by have a drink, talk to old friends and see where the night took me. I’m glad I never did it because that would have been the worst mistake of my life. Just thinking about it now is embarrassing as hell.

On the first day of school I sat in my house by myself. My parents were at work, my brother was starting his college experience in Western Massachusetts and none of my friends were around. I felt lonely and useless, as if I should be going somewhere or doing something, contributing to the betterment of myself or society. At the very least I should be experiencing something cool, like traveling across country or bumming around Europe for a month. But I was too afraid to do either of those things by myself*. There was a lot of shoe gazing and pity partying.

* I wish I had more courage during that time in my life to travel more. It’s the one thing I regret most.   

I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, ashamed that I was delivering pizzas without any direction. Fighting that feeling in my belly that it was time to go back to learning, that vacation was over until next summer. Looking back, the problem wasn’t that I was unsure about an unsettled future, it was that I had no schedule. One of the things that I like about school was that it was a structured environment; you get up, you go to class, you come home, you do homework, lather, rinse, repeat. I’m a person who abhors surprises and cherishes regularity. That September I was set adrift without any sort of roadmap. I’d try to convince myself that I missed the learning or I missed my friends (both true) but what I really missed was the day-to-day monotony. When every day is a vacation from the norm, nothing is really special.

To cheer myself up, I would drive to Hampton Beach with my dog and go for a walk. Since it was September, there was barely anyone there—even in the middle of the day. My dog and I would take long walks where I would glumly think about my future. The summer work schedule of 4:00 – 8:00 pm, so idyllic a month ago, was a cruel reminder of how pointless my life was. Eventually September turned into October which turned into 1997 and things got on track; I found a job, I moved out, the life of not being a student became normal. I guess that I grew up, but listening to these songs again brings me back to that time of complete and total uncertainty.

I know that Beck’s “Loser” is often held as the anthem for slackerdom, but Soul Asylum’s “I Can’t Even Tell” might be a better representation of that ethos. It has the same unattached point of view of the singer’s life mixed with a sense of frustration that Loser doesn’t posses. Loser seems proud of it’s title, while Soul Asylum lead singer David Pirner seems to be genuinely confused and unsure of what his life has become. This is confusion is seen from the singer osculating from accepting and almost celebrating his lot in life (“No one sees what I see, this is my blessing”) to wailing about his existence (“Is that what life’s about? I can’t even tell.”).

Yes, it’s typical 90s navel gazing wrapped in a clichéd “thoughtful” approach to the examined life and its minutia—this was the main theme for Kevin Smith’s first film “Clerks”—but at this time in my life, it felt as if this song was speaking directly to me. In the mid-90s, the intelligent approach to pop culture was always to be depressing, which is a simplified generalized statement, but it was true. The good bands sang depressing songs, good films were about depressing subjects, same with books and stand-up comedy were rants about how the world was completely fucked up. Even the fashion of the day was depressing, bulky sweaters and flannels for the ladies, same for the guys. The only thing that was still bright and shiny was TV, but that was considered a wasteland full of vapid, pretty people with idiot problems. Yes, there were plenty of other cultural touchstones that celebrated fun and enjoyment but it wasn’t taken too seriously. To be depressed meant you were thoughtful and serious and caring.

It’s no wonder I spent a good part of 1996 completely bombed or depressed.

Here are some quick hits before I hang myself with a guitar string:

The Lemonheads: I chose this song because Schoolhouse Rocks was something that I really loved as a kid. And without YouTube, this was literally the only way that I was going to be able to hear those songs again. I’m writing a blog series about a bunch of old mix tapes, so you know that I’m pretty interested in nostalgia. Here’s another example. And Evan Dando and Melissa Auf der Maur (one-time bassist for Hole) have a pretty fun give-and-take during this song. It’s bouncy, it’s sugary, it sounds like a lot of fun—like watching five straight hours of TV on a Saturday morning fueled by bowls of Trix and Lucky Charms.

Bob Marley: I already wrote about him, but I cannot hear this song without thinking of the scene from “The Office” (American version) where receptionist Erin (played by the awesome Ellie Kemper) emphasized the wrong words and added misplace punctuation to the song’s title, completely changing the meaning: “No, woman. No cry.” I’m sure that’s exactly what Marley had in mind.

REM: at first listen, this would be a song that I wasn’t too keen on. It was a little too shiny and happy for this person. But along came “Get A Life”, which was a TV show from the early 90s about a psychotic grown-man (the brilliant Chris Elliot) who lived with his parents and had a paper route and everything changed. “Stand” was the theme song for this TV show* and it beautiful juxtaposed what the show was about with the cheerfulness of the tune. I heard the song enough that I grew to like the song on its own merits.

* I was trying so hard to be so clever, a full TV theme song on a tape littered with TV theme songs? You rascal! Ugh.  

Frank Sinatra: this was before the whole “Swingers” fad swept the nation. I genuinely liked Sinatra, Dean Martin and the entire Rat Pack because it was so much different than what was popular during those days. My friend Brownie also liked them too and we’d listen to the Best of Sinatra while aimlessly driving around Amesbury in his 1978 (I think) Chevy Malibu. Once we took a ride with one of our friends to Hampton Beach and blasted it while cruising the strip. “We’re never going to get girls now,” my friend moaned from the backseat. You’re right Sluf, it was Frank Sinatra that was stopping you from getting laid that night. BTW, there is no doubt that this was my favorite Sinatra song because Martin Prince sang it on "The Simpsons". Man, I don't think anything has had more of an influence on me. 

Red Hot Chili Peppers: this is the only album that former Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro played on and it was a huge departure from RHCP’s normal funky, bass-soaked sound. I may be one of the only people who really enjoyed the hard, fast, guitar rocking direction of “One Hot Minute” because it’s universally ignored by RHCP fans. Bass solos can go straight to hell.

U2: this was U2’s first US single and I still think it’s one of their best songs. It’s not completely self-indulgent, it’s not overly serious, it doesn’t have something bigger to say; it’s just a good rock song. I don’t even know if Bono can write a song like this anymore (I seriously doubt it) but I wish that he would. Actually, strike that, I don’t wish that he would, I wish that U2 would just be done. There’s no need for bands to be closing in on 35 years of making music, that’s just overstaying your welcome.

Good Songs XX

It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over – Lenny Kravitz

Are You Gonna Go My Way – Lenny Kravitz

Believe – Lenny Kravitz

Don’t You (Forget About Me) – Simple Minds

It’s the End of the World As We Know It – REM

Instant Karma – John Lennon

Magic Carpet Ride – Steppenwolf

Born to Be Wild – Steppenwolf

Are You Experienced – Jimi Hendrix

Fire – Jimi Hendrix

Glory Days – Bruce Springsteen

Summer of ’69 – Brian Adams

Bad to the Bone – George Thorogood

I Drink Alone – George Thorogood

O-O-H Child – Five Stairsteps

Is There Any Love In Your Heart – Lenny Kravitz

This is the most anonymous Good Songs tape I ever made. I don’t remember when I made it, I don’t remember listening to it, I don’t even recall where I got the CDs or tapes to make this tape because I can tell you that I didn’t own any of the original recordings that these songs came from. And that’s probably because I don’t really like any of these artists enough to buy one of their recordings*.

* That’s not entirely true, I do own a few Jimi Hendrix CDs. I do like John Lennon and REM, I’m not a complete monster.

When I look at this track list and listen to the playlist, I think that the only thing in my mind when creating this playlist, was that I sorta enjoy some of these songs and I should tape them now because I may never get the opportunity to do so again. Remember, this was before downloading music, so finding and keeping songs that you liked (or even tolerated) was a bit more difficult than it is now.

This is probably going to be a very short entry.

One of the artists from this list that jumps out at me is Bruce Springsteen. I don’t really like Bruce Springsteen’s music too much. It’s not that he sucks, because he doesn’t. It’s not that I don’t like him or that he seems like a jerk, from what I understand he’s one of the nicest guys in the business. It’s not that I think he’s lazy or coasting, he still puts on there-hour shows.

Everyone has that one band that the rest of the world is into, but that they just don’t get. And that’s me with Bruce. Maybe it’s generational, it could be geographical. And I do think Springsteen looks kind of silly singing earnestly about the plight of the working man while he’s made more money than God, though at the same time I don’t find him to be a hypocrite. It’s weird and hard to explain. He’s played on the radio a lot and was played on MTV a ton, but Billy Joel was played more – and man, am I sick of Billy Joel. I even like his politics, in fact I like Springsteen's political stances more than I like his songs, which is bizarre because his politics bleed into his tunes. There are people who I am big fans of sportswriters like Joe Posnanski and the Boston Globe’s Peter Abraham* as well as comedian Jon Stewart who are die-hard Boss aficionados and folks around here went bananas for him when he played at Fenway Park a few years ago. But he just doesn’t do anything for me.

* There is no faster way to get Twitter blocked by a member of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) faster than ripping on Bruce Springsteen. They love Bruce Springsteen more than a 90s frat guy loved Dave Matthews. They wear that Springsteen Army badge on their sleeves and will defend the guy until their death.

I guess that the closest song that I relate to is “Glory Days” and it’s mainly because it’s about baseball—though calling a fastball a “speed ball” is a bit lame. But I have to admit, Bruce does a pretty good job of telling the story of a former high school hero who has fallen on hard times in the real world. It’s a bit of a cliché, but it works.

Speaking of clichés, for some reason I really bought into what Lenny Kravitz was selling in the mid 90s, eh? When I look at past versions of Good Songs, it’s pretty obvious that not only was I keeping up with new rock, I was really into classic rock too. Led Zeppelin, the Doors, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, the Grateful Dead all make appearances in past tapes. And it’s no surprise that I was into Kravitz, because he was completely derivative of anything that aired on typical classic rock radio.

The opening organ riff of “Believe” sounds exactly like the opening organ solo from “Your Time is Gonna Come” by Zeppelin. And the entirety of the song sounds like a psychedelic Beatles throw-away complete with the ascending strings and the new-age hippie mantras. “Are You Gonna Go My Way”* sounds as if Kravitz spent a lot of time listening to Jimi Hendirx and Jimmy Page. The guitar solo is pretty cool – I’m not made of stone, people! – but at the same time, it’s guitar-god-by-the-numbers.  We’ve all heard it before.

And I guess that’s why some people see Lenny Kravitz as a joke; everything he does has been done before. His crime isn’t that he doesn’t necessarily play it worse, but that he plays it the same. When he remade “American Woman” in the late 90s, it sounded exactly like the Guess Who’s version. If you want to hear that song sung the same way, wouldn’t you just listen to the original artist?

What do I know, Lenny Kravitz is a millionaire many times over who has slept with scores of beautiful women and knows Sherman Helmsley – his mom was on “The Jeffersons”. I’m sure he doesn’t care what anyone says about him.

* Someone told me that AYGGMW is about Jesus Christ. Wikipedia doesn’t say anything about that in its write-up, so I’m going to assume that this is an urban legend. However one can find the Christ imagery in this song if you listen. I’m not sure if that makes the song better or worse, your mileage may vary. I also thought that the girl Mitch Kramer made out with in “Dazed and Confused” (Julei Simms, real name Catherine Morris) has a cameo in the video. I do not believe that is the case either.

Quick hits before I put this forgettable entry to bed:

George Thorogood: you and your friends may have a song that you normally hate, but you like when you’re drunk. Neither of these two songs fit that bill for me and my friends. For the life of me, I can’t fathom why I would waste the time taping these two cheeseball tunes, but apparently I did. The only thing that I can think of is that back in the 90s, the Boston Bruins used “Bad to the Bone” as their song for that particular season’s marketing campaign. When a Bruins commercial aired, they’d play the “Bad to the Bone” opening guitar riff and show Cam Neely checking someone into the boards (probably a Nordique). Then the riff would play again and Ray Borque would unleash a slap shot past a hapless goalie (usually a Whaler). Again the guitar riff would sound one more time and there would be a fight between a Bruin and a Canadien. Maybe I was trying to recapture the glory of the 1992-93 Adams Division Champion Boston Bruins (sporting a 51-26 record)?

The Five Stairsteps: this song was on the “Boyz in the Hood” soundtrack and during this time in my life I was obsessed with that movie—I bet I watched it every day during the summer of 1992.  It’s still a very good movie (it was on yesterday, as a matter of fact) though it hasn’t aged that well. In any event, it’s the one song on here that I still enjoy.

Simple Minds: speaking of movie songs, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” is one of those songs that are so identifiable with a movie, in this case “The Breakfast Club”, it’s difficult to separate one from the other. In fact, the song and the movie’s subject is so intertwined, that when I was listening to it today, it actually reminded me of my high school days. I am sure that the guys in Simple Minds did not want that to happen. But that’s what happen when you don’t say no to that sweet, sweet John Hughes money.

Brian Adams: he has been on two different Good Songs tapes, albeit with the same song. That fact hurts my soul.