On Thursday, December 7, 2000, I made a pilgrimage. I took the day off of work and then proceeded to make the three hour drive to Huntington, Long Island. At the top of a hill in the middle of the Huntington Rural Cemetary, is the grave of Harry Chapin.
I was nine years old on July 16, 1981, when Harry was killed in a car accident on the Long Island Expressway on his way to a benefit concert, and barely knew who he was at the time. As I grew up, and mainly in high school and college, I came to know who he was, what he accomplished, and why his death at a very young age was such a tragic loss.
I chose the date of the trip because that was Harry’s birthday. He would’ve been 58 then if he were still alive.
I made the drive alone. I know I didn’t have to do it alone; it’s just that the people who understood, couldn’t take the time to go. The people who could take the time to go, didn’t understand.
His tombstone is a giant rock. In the face of the rock is chiseled the opening verse to one of my favorite songs of his: “If a man tried to take his time on earth and prove before he died what one man’s life could be worth, I wonder what would happen to this world.”
I left at about 9 in the morning, got there at about noon, and walked around the cemetery for a little bit. When I couldn’t find the grave on my own, I went to the office, where they looked up the location in the records and I found it with minimal difficulty thereafter.
In all, I stayed by the grave for about fifteen minutes. I spent the time thinking, contemplating how the world had changed in the nearly twenty years since Harry last walked this earth, and how much we still need a voice like his.
I stopped at a pizza place on the way back before I got back on the L.I.E. and found myself wondering if it even existed thirty years before. Judging by the architecture of the strip mall in which it was located, I figured it was safe to assume the answer was ‘no’.
I hinted at this in my previous blog entry about the end of the world, but I didn’t come out and say it outright: the world is always ending, albeit not in the apocalyptic sense of the word. There is something different about the world today, than it was yesterday, and it will be something different again tomorrow.
Someone who is here today, will not be here tomorrow. Someone who is not here today, will be here tomorrow. Think of anyone who has died at any time, and ask yourself: how has the world changed since they died? Think of the musician Aaliyah, who was killed in a plane crash less than three weeks before the September 11 attacks. If we could somehow bring her back to life, would she even recognize the world as it is today?
You don’t even need to look to people who died before major historical events. Just since I wrote the essay about the end of the world (where I said that there were 18 verified people still alive who can be verified to having been born prior to the year 1900), the oldest person in the world — Besse Cooper — died at the age of 116. Now there’s no one left who was born in the year 1896.
Every day is different; the world is always ending. And it’s always beginning. I’m not saying this in an apocalyptic sense of the word. Or, for that matter, an even vaguely spiritual or religious sense. It just is different.
That’s neither a good thing nor a bad thing. It is neither to be celebrated nor feared. If you’ve ever gone somewhere for an extended period of time and then returned home — for example, at college — you know that things change all the time. And it might take some time to get used to what changed.
I don’t particularly care whether or not that pizza place was there in 1981. If Harry Chapin were to return, he wouldn’t recognize the world in which we live today. Could he get used to it? Possibly, but we’d have a lot of explaining to do.
So earlier today, WXPN completed the countdown of the greatest rock songs as voted on by their listeners. A couple of months ago, I wrote about the songs I voted for and the process by which I chose them.
Now that it’s over, it looks as though four of the ten songs I voted for made the final list. In order as they got played, they were “Instant Karma!” by John Lennon, “Crazy on You,” by Heart, “Love Reign O’er Me,” by the Who, and “Piece of My Heart,” by Big Brother and Holding Company (although XPN credited it to Janis Joplin herself).
I think it’s funny that there was a minor slip-up with the playing of “Love Reign O’er Me,” in that they started out by playing the excellent cover of the song done by Pearl Jam a few years ago. Nothing against the Pearl Jam version (it’s a solid, faithful rendition of the original).
In an earlier blog entry, I had a chart of each year’s countdown, what I voted for, and how my votes panned out. Here’s an updated version of that chart:
(Harry Chapin, Tori Amos, Phil Ochs,
Nine Inch Nails, Portishead, R.E.M.,
Marvin Gaye, Def Leppard, Alice in Chains,
The Who, John Lennon, Sarah McLachlan,
and “Weird Al” Yankovic)
Ask any historian or average guy-on-the-street, about what the most important historical events of the 20th century were, and you’d be hard pressed to find someone who won’t mention the two so-called “World Wars.” They were the two bloodiest, most violent, most traumatizing wars in world history. Huge numbers of warriors and civilians were killed in these two wars. The survivors who came back from these wars were rightly disillusioned by everyone involved in sending them off to fight in the first place.
But one thing people kind of overlook about these wars is the fact that the two of them, collectively, spanned approximately a decade (1914 – 1918 and then 1939 – 1945).
Just as fascinating about the wars themselves is their respective aftermaths. Politically, the wars saw the effective end of monarchies and empires, replaced with an increasingly secular society. Just as fascinating, though, is the impact of the wars on culture.
Two of the three major musical revolutions occurred, not surprisingly, in the aftermath of the two world wars. In the 1920′s, it was jazz music; in the 50′s, it was rock and roll.
Both of these musical styles built dramatically on existing styles, but they definitely made things new and different. (And, not coincidentally, both of these musical styles come from urban slang for sex. The third musical revolution of the 20th century — hip hop music — also is slang for sex…)
Jazz probably would have progressed to rock music sooner, had it not been interrupted by the Great Depression and the second World War.
My local radio station, WXPN, has had a running countdown for the past nine years, where they solicit their listeners for their input into the topic at hand (usually single songs but there’ve been a few that were more than just single songs) and compile the results into the 885 top examples of that topic.
So this year, they’re asking for votes for the greatest rock songs of all time. While I was trying to decide on the ten songs I’d be using, I thought of the origins of rock. If jazz got stifled by the events of the 1930′s, rock was allowed to flourish thanks to the events of the 1960′s.
Rock music essentially says, “We’re here and you can’t ignore us. We’ll do what we want to do, fuck who we want to fuck, and be what we want to be.” It’s with those thoughts in mind, I present to you the ten songs I voted for:
1. “Love Reign O’er Me,” by The Who
2. “Filthy Mind,” by Amanda Ghost
3. “Holiday,” by Green Day
4. “Coma White,” by Marilyn Manson
5. “Change (In the House of Flies)” by the Deftones
6. “Breathing,” by Kate Bush
7. “Piece of My Heart,” by Big Brother and Holding Company
In anticipation of the shutdown of Apple’s MobileMe service, I am re-posting some of my old blog entries before they become harder to retrieve.
This entry was originally posted on January 12, 2006. I have modified the URL’s of the references to older blog entries of mine by linking to the re-posts of those entries.
Looking over my blog entries about both the best music of 2004 and of 2005, I felt the need to qualify what may be regarded as a trend in my tastes.
I called the song “Come to Jesus,” by Mindy Smith the worst song of 2004 and “Let Go,” by BarlowGirl the worst free download of the week from the iTunes music store. The former song has a very overt message, expressed in its title. The latter is much more subtle and subversive in its lyrics. (Read them here…)
Back in the 1950′s, Rock and Roll music was regarded as a tool of the devil. A lot has changed in 50 years. Both songs that I mention here have catchy beats that are brought down — hard — by the message that the songs are trying to convey. And the message is one I cannot embrace, which is ostensibly a willingness to move away from personal responsibility in the name of religion.
I want to underscore that I don’t have an inherent dislike of the marriage of music and spirituality. Were it not for religion, we probably wouldn’t have music at all today. In just about every faith’s hymnals, you are bound to find songs to inspire and impress you.
Even in the rock music era, there is definitely room for spirituality. When I put in my votes for all-time greatest songs on WXPN , the two songs that came out on top of my list (“Fallen Icons,” by Delerium and “Idol” by Amanda Ghost) have extremely spiritual connotations, which I more than embraced. The former tells the story of the pursuit of “firecracker, lightning seed” culminating in the narrator realizing “It was always in me.” And the latter questions “Why can’t I find myself an idol, somebody that I can look up to?”
If the subtlety of the spirituality of these two songs is lost on you, how about the more overt lyrics of a song like “Hallelujah,” by Leonard Cohen? (I’ve always had a fondness for Jeff Buckley’s version of that song.) Over and above the title, what about the reference to the Biblical tale of Samson and Delilah? “She tied you to her kitchen chair / She broke your throne and she cut your hair / and from her lips she drew the hallelujah.”
The simple truth is, when it comes to music and spirituality, the message is important. That was true back when all music was religious in some capacity, and it’s still true today. The only difference is that not all music is religious today. Unlike other kinds of music, you can appreciate the song without agreeing with the message. But when religion is used to further a religious or spiritual message, the music becomes the message. Therefore, if the message is objectionable, it needs to be regarded as such.
And I have found, in my experience, that bad lyrics can bring down a song that is good, musically, faster than bad music can bring down a song with decent lyrics.
In anticipation of the shutdown of Apple’s MobileMe service, I am re-posting some of my old blog entries before they become harder to retrieve.
This entry was originally posted on January 8, 2006.
It’s that time of the year again, and I want to blog about the year 2005 in music. A lot of artists released albums in the year 2005 to substantial hype, most of whom fell far short of the hype. In fact, even though there was a lot of music released in 2005 that was very good and enjoyable, this may have been one of the most underwhelming years, musically, I’ve seen/heard in a while. So… here goes:
Best song: “Soul Meets Body,” by Death Cab for Cutie
runner up: “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Aaahhh!” by Sufjan Stevens
Worst song: “Get Your Way,” by Jamie Cullum
runner up: “All About the Wordplay,” by Jason Mraz
Best ‘Free Download of the Week’ on the iTunes Music Store: tie between “Over My Head (Cable Car)” by the Fray and “Don’t Push” by the Exit.
Worst ‘Free Download of the Week” on the iTunes Music Store: “Let Go,” by BarlowGirl
Best song from a soundtrack: (tie) “Breathe Me,” by Sia from Six Feet Under, and “Damsel in Distress,” by Idina Menzel from Desperate Housewives
Now for my list of the ten best albums of 2005:
10. Extraordinary Machine, by Fiona Apple. This album would have placed higher on my list if she had preserved some of her anger from her previous efforts
9. Small White Town, by Danielia Cotton. I really wasn’t that impressed with her work until I saw her live. She can really belt out a tune.
8. In Your Honor, by the Foo Fighters. This is their best album since their debut.
7. Aerial, by Kate Bush. Good to hear her back on the scene. And with a 2-disc set no less.
6. No Direction Home, by Bob Dylan. Great hearing the alternate versions of that stuff. And it goes perfectly with the PBS documentary.
5. Plans, by Death Cab for Cutie. As solid a rock album as came out in 2005.
4. Sufjan Stevens Invites You to Come on Feel the Illinoise! Easily the most pretentious album since Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness a decade ago, but since he clearly embraced the pretense (see the song title above as the runner up for the best song of the year), so did I. The ending just left me feeling empty.
3. If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry, by Marah. This album is doing what their album from a few years ago — Float Away with the Friday Night Gods — was intended to do.
2. Out Here at Sea, by Karen Kosowski. The only thing keeping this from being my number one pick was that it wasn’t long enough.
1. Picaresque, by the Decemberists. Fun and funny, energetic and basically flawless.
There were three reasonably well-established artists who released albums in 2005 to great fanfare, and the albums they put out were quite disappointing. I have never been much of a fan of Dave Matthews, but his latest album disappointed all but his most rabid fans. I have been a fan of Tori Amos for quite some time now, but her album, The Beekeeper, definitely is one of the worst of the year. For the first time in her career, she put out an album that is not challenging and, quite frankly, sounds like it’s full of outtakes from her previous effort, Scarlett’s Walk. And the worst album of the year has to be Coldplay’s X & Y. Apart from the song “Speed of Sound,” the album is a crawl through emotions that lead singer Chris Martin didn’t need to share with anyone other than his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, and their daughter, Apple.
In anticipation of the shutdown of Apple’s MobileMe service, I am re-posting some of my old blog entries before they become harder to retrieve.
This entry was originally posted on December 31, 2004.
I admit that, with the birth of my son, Harry , this past August, my actual purchases of new music have fallen a bit by the wayside, however that did not stop me from (1) listening to the radio, and (2) downloading music from the iTunes music store. I would therefore like to present the “awards” that I choose to present for new music this year.
Best song — “Every Time It Rains,” by Charlotte Martin
Worst song — “Come to Jesus,” by Mindy Smith
Most easily overplayed song — “Mad World,” as performed by Gary Jules. (It wouldn’t have been so bad if it had occasionally been tempered with the original version by Tears for Fears.)
Best song of seduction (female) — “Me Be Me,” by Jen Chapin
Best song of seduction (male) — “Come With Me Tonight,” by Bob Schneider
Best “free download of the week,” from the iTunes Music Store — “Everything Is Everything,” by Phoenix.
In terms of judging whole albums, it was somewhat more difficult to define the best and worst. Here is the list of my top ten albums of 2004. I will also provide a series of honorable mentions, and finally explain why certain albums clearly don’t belong on any “best of” lists.
Obviously, if there’s an album out there that I didn’t buy — or at least hear in its entirety, I won’t include it in my consideration, and there was a lot of new music out there. When it comes to established artists, I will try not to compare their releases this past year against other releases, however in the case of two particular artists, I don’t believe that’s possible.
1. Jen Chapin — Linger
2. Charlotte Martin — On Your Shore
3. Franz Ferdinand — Franz Ferdinand
4. Hungry Lucy — To Kill A King
5. Zero 7 — When It Falls
6. Modest Mouse — Good News for People Who Like Bad News
7. Polyphonic Spree — Together We’re Heavy
8. Green Day — American Idiot
9. Vanessa Carlton — Harmonium
10. Thornley — Come Again
Honorable mentions:
U2 — How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. I like the grinding, harder style, but in what was a very political year, it just feels out of place.
Marah — 20,000 Streets Under the Sky. This is one of the two albums I can’t help but compare with past efforts. Their previous album, Float Away with the Friday Night Gods, was criticized for being too different from their earlier efforts. Strangely, I saw that as a good thing (not that there was anything wrong with their earlier efforts; it just seems that they were growing as a group). Their new album won praise for “going back to their roots,” while I view it as pandering to the critics of their previous album. Musically, though, it deserves an honorable mention.
Bob Schneider — I’m Good Now. I don’t dislike a single song on this record. The only problem is, the album as a whole doesn’t seem to work for me. Kind of like The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour.
The following albums would be better if they weren’t brought down by individual tracks:
Various Artists — Enjoy Every Sandwich: a Tribute to Warren Zevon. Take off the Wallflowers’ insipid version of “Lawyers, Guns, and Money,” and you’ve got a winner.
Vienna Teng — Warm Strangers. “Shasta (Carrie’s Song” doesn’t sit right with me, and “Passage” feels too empty.
Air — Talkie Walkie. Half of the album kicks proverbial ass. The other half, well, sucks.
And the worst album of the year, in my opinion is R.E.M. — Around the Sun. I admit up front that I don’t know whether I’m saying this because it is nowhere near as great as past albums they’ve released, or if it’s because it’s a legitimately bad album. Either way, it feels like a contractual obligation album that has no merits other than to get the band out of a recording contract.
The year is 2004. That means that fifty years ago this year, the term “Rock ‘N’ Roll” was first coined. If a generation is generally considered to last 25 years, that means that two full generations have now been raised on rock music. Having been born in the year 1972, I have often said (only partially mindful of the accuracy of the statement) that I consider myself one of the “second generation children of rock ‘n’ roll.”
But I’m a fan, pure and simple. There has also been room for the children of rock-n-rollers to follow in their parents’ footsteps. And each child generally has room to alternately define him- or herself as a function of their parents’ music, or completely independently of it (even acknowledging that they might have a ready-made fan base among their parents’ music…)
That being said, I consider it unfair that the reviews of the children’s music often try to compare the child with the parent. The discriminating ear should not force one to enjoy the child and the parent as functions of one another, especially if the child is following a different artistic path from the parent. When we learn that the child is going into music, we should keep our ears, hearts, and minds open to any of the following possibilities:
– that we would like the music of both parent and child (which is how I feel about Pete Townsend and his daughter, Emma)
– that we would like the music of the parent but not the child (which is how I feel about Bob Dylan and his son, Jakob’s band The Wallflowers)
– that we would not like the music of the parent but would like the music of the child (which is how I feel about Ravi Shankar and his daughter, Norah Jones)
– that we would not like the music of the parent, nor would we like the music of the child (which is how I feel about Elvis Presley and his daughter, Lisa Marie)
I admit up front, that I like both the music of Jen Chapin, and that of her father, Harry. That’s the closest I will ever come to comparing the two of them, musically.
Jen has an edgy sensibility to her. She clearly benefits both from the sense that she can morph her style as she sees fit, and the reality that women in music today are capable of being more expressive than they could have, say, thirty years ago. She draws from a prestigious line of female songwriters ranging from Joni Mitchell and Janis Joplin to the more recent artists such as Tori Amos and Idina Menzel.
To date, she has released three albums and an EP. Her first album is a live album that was recorded in various sessions at the famous Bitter End coffeehouse in Greenwich Village, New York City. You can definitely tell that she is comfortable on the stage and with her presentation to the audience. There’s something to a live album that, if it’s produced properly, reveals more than just banter between artist and audience. You can almost picture the setup of the stage, how each performer contributes to the whole picture. Maybe even the lighting. A good concert album makes you want to go see the artist perform.
I will be seeing her perform at The Point, a local coffeehouse, at the end of this month. ‘Nuff said….
Her second album really shows her desire to experiment. I will not call Open Wide a concept album, however it might come as close to being one as it possibly can, without actually being one. If you were to think of it as a concept album, then the concept is simply that she likes to experiment and that she’s got the guts to follow through with her vision. Each of the album’s ten tracks is as simple as it is powerful: her only accompaniment is her bass-playing husband, Stephan Crump. The net result, I must say, works a lot better than I ever would have predicted: you have a complete album that, if you didn’t know better, sounds like a single experimental song not unlike Jethro Tull’s Thick as a Brick.
Her most recent album, Linger, is fun and sexy, with songs that can get stuck in your head and you’ll enjoy having them there. I have heard the song “Me Be Me” from this album played on the radio a couple of times now. Her music is genuinely playable and listenable.
Okay. I’m about to make one last comparison with her father. I predict that she will be a bigger star than her father ever was. (And considering that he had a song that reached number 1 on the billboard charts, that’s quite an accomplishment.)
If you find any of her albums in a record store, buy them…..
At some point after that, someone pointed out to me that, despite already having written two separate entries about songs inappropriate for children, I missed “Big Balls,” by AC/DC.
That got me to thinking. I remember when that song came out. If I was older than my older (7-year-old) son at the the time, it wasn’t by much. And I heard the song. I didn’t understand it, but I heard the song. It’s filled with double-entendres and is arguably written to push the boundaries of what could be deemed acceptable (not unlike, say, The Gong Show, and other staples of the late 70′s / early 80′s). But if anyone asks, a ball is nothing more than a fancy party, right? That’s what this song really is about and if someone too young to “get it” asks, that’s what you tell them.
The only real chance for my kids (in the here and now, anyway) to hear any of the 150 songs from my list of songs to hear before you die, is when they’re in my presence. That’s true without regard to how “appropriate” it is for them. What follows is a list of songs that I have no inherent problem with them hearing — although in a couple of these cases, there will be limitations. That said, there are some who might disagree with me completely about their propriety around children.
Close to the Borderline, by Billy Joel
Billy Joel, as a musician, has definitely had highs and lows in his career. Back in the late 80′s, a book came out about the worst rock and roll songs of all time. This book was published around about the time his song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” was getting a fair amount of airplay, and Joel got the dubious honor of being the worst musician of all time in that book. (I disagree. Sting gets that honor.) That said, I really think the highlight of his career was the pair of albums Glass Houses and The Nylon Curtain. This song is a fun song that has a tongue in cheek attitude. (“I’d start a revolution but I don’t have time.”) This song is included in this list because of the line “I shouldn’t bitch / I shouldn’t cry” which precedes the comment above about starting a revolution.
(Damn These) Hungry Times, by Cousteau
Cousteau is a jazzy band that released two albums in rapid succession shortly after the turn of the century. Most people who know them, know them because of the song “The Last Good Day of the Year,” which was sampled in a commercial for Nissan around about 2002 or 2003. That commercial is one of the few examples of advertising that co-opts a song I like, without making me start to dislike the song. Still, there are several songs of theirs that are even better, including this one. Some of the hyper-religious might object to the use of the word “damn.”
Big Balls, by AC/DC
I think I pretty much explained myself on this song in the introduction to this blog post. A few years ago, I was talking with a coworker who was listening to this song during downtime in a Catholic school when he was younger. The nuns confiscated it and he used the argument that “it’s about parties. What are you thinking if you hear something else in it?” I’m sure that didn’t curry a whole lot of favor with them, but there’s a truth to the observation that it can certainly be interpreted completely innocently.
Lost in the Flood, by Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen may be one of the greatest live performers out there today. He engages the audience, talks about how he came to write the songs he performs and generally gives the audience a real show. And he’s been doing it since the 70′s. I am a big fan of a lot of his earlier work, and am of the opinion that his Greetings from Asbury Park may be one of his most underrated albums. This song tells three separate stories (one from each of the three main verses) involving people who probably weren’t thinking as clearly as they should have been, when they made certain decisions, questioning whether or not the people involved were “lost in the flood”. I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song. I literally felt the hairs on my arms stand on end in the second verse, which tells the story of a race car driver who died spectacularly after driving directly into a powerful storm: “Junk all across the horizon, a real highwayman’s farewell.” This song makes this list because of the word “bitch,” to refer to the car being raced in that same verse.
Locomotive Breath, by Jethro Tull
I debated for a long time whether or not this song actually belongs in this sub-set of songs I feel as though you should hear before you die, or if I should defer it to another list in the future. There are two lines in this song that have the potential for having children raise uncomfortable questions: “His woman and his best friend in bed and having fun” and “And the all-time winner has got him by the balls.” Like the song “Big Balls,” these lines have a fair bit of innuendo to those who understand the lyrics, but if you don’t quite see the innuendo, what does it mean? (I envision his woman and best friend playing games on the Wii…) I have heard this song — completely unedited — on the radio. If it’s good enough for the radio, then it’s good enough for my kids.
Coma White, by Marilyn Manson
This song is a fascinating one on several levels. This song — off of his Mechanical Animals album — was written at least partially in response to any backlash Manson might have received because of his perceived influence over the two shooters in the Columbine High School Massacre. This song is undeniably powerful. In addition to the power of the song itself, the video that he released alongside of it generated more than a little bit of controversy in its own right: it was a re-enactment of the assassination of JFK, with him as JFK and Rose McGowan (his then-fiancee) as Jackie.
Although I will let my children hear the song (they don’t need to know the background of the song at this time), I will not let them watch the video yet.
Holiday / Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Before I get into my thoughts on these two songs I want to acknowledge that these two songs are unique in that they are separate songs and I included both of them in my listing of songs to hear before you die. The reason for this is simple: when I bought the album American Idiot from iTunes, it seemed that each unique track consisted of two songs. Unable to segregate them, I have no qualms about choosing both of these songs. Now that that’s out of the way, both of these songs are powerful statements of a disaffected youth and offer a degree of empowerment to those who might seek it out. Both songs have a single example of a word that I would just as soon not have my kids repeating (“Holday” uses the word “fag” and “Boulevard” uses the word “fuck”.) In the case of both words, though, you really need to listen in order to hear them. They’re both kind of swallowed up within the greater lyrics and the background music. If my kids start repeating the bad lines, I’ll have a little talk with them, but I don’t have a major problem with at least allowing them to hear the songs.
Get A Little, by Folk You Harder
If you feel as though this song is inappropriate for children, then you’re judging a book by its cover. Between the suggestive title and the almost-profane band name, you would be completely wrong for thinking that there’s anything wrong with this song. There is no profanity, no thinly veiled sexual innuendo, no nothing. (Although I suppose the line “it’s been hell of a long cold lonely night” might raise some objections from people who probably wouldn’t be reading this blog in the first place). It’s actually a kind of a sad song with a certain intensity of melody, about the ups and downs of a lot of relationships.
I was unable to find a YouTube video of this song, but you can download an mp3 of the song and read the lyrics here
I Want You, by Elvis Costello and the Attractions
I can think of quite a few songs whose titles are “I Want You”. The statement is an overt expression of interest in a potential lover and therefore has the potential to be unreciprocated even outside of the world of music. This song is simultaneously the most powerful and the most creepy way of handling this expression of this natural (and admittedly, not always welcome) emotion. Although there’s nothing overly objectionable to any specific lines of this song, the song as a whole could give a young, impressionable mind that it’s all right to say things like this. The joke about the line “I’m afraid I won’t know where to stop” is to respond by saying “About two verses ago.”
Away, by Athenaeum
This is a song of empowerment. Sung to and about people who might recognize themselves in a bad relationship in the hopes of giving them the chance to get out and not looking back and having regrets. At the purest level, this song is not appropriate for children due to the line “She’s always taking his shit but I swear it’s going to change.” But the way the word ‘shit’ is sung, you can barely tell that’s what the word is. It’s a beautiful song all the same.
I was unable to locate a video for this song, but here are the lyrics.
The Becoming, by Nine Inch Nails
I suspect that there are some people who would almost instinctively put any song by Nine Inch Nails on a list of songs that are inappropriate for children, and, in fairness, a significant percentage of songs off of the first three NIN albums use language that probably should not be played around young children. I consider The Downward Spiral to be the second best album of the 90′s (only behind Tori Amos’s Under the Pink). And this is an album with a song called “Me and My Fucking Gun.”
“The Becoming” is a song about trying to break out of our own heads and find a way of escape from pain, suffering, and distractions. It is intense, powerful, and sometimes overwhelming. And amazingly, the only profanity in the song is ‘Goddamn this noise inside my head!’ I am including this song in this post because of the “goddamn” line, for the same reasons as my inclusion of “(Damn These) Hungry Times” by Cousteau.
This is an error of omission on my part. Pure and simple; there is nothing more to read into their absence from yesterday’s post.
So here they are:
Shoe, by George Hrab George Hrab is one of those artists on my list of songs to hear before you die, who I knew that I’d include on my list even if I wasn’t sure which song I was going to choose. I first met him at the CD release party for his album Vitriol, and listened to the CD on the way home from Bethlehem, PA, to Horsham, PA. I had previously known him only as the drummer for the Philadelphia Funk Authority and went to the party with a couple of friends. By the time I got home, I was a fan. “Shoe” is one of many gems on this album. I don’t normally do this, but I actually played the song again as soon as it ended, I wanted to hear it again. It’s an indictment of sorts of the kind of journalism that’s always seeking scandals and revels in the schadenfreude of watching people fall. Watch the video below and you’ll see the reason why it belongs in the category of songs my kids are too young to hear.
Little Lion Man, by Mumford and Sons
Yesterday, I wrote that “Sing” by The Dresden Dolls was the only song in the group of “not in front of the kids” songs that had a safe-for-radio edit. That was based upon my omission of this song. Unlike the Dresden Dolls’ edit, though, the removal of the word “fuck” from the oft-repeated chorus line of “I really fucked it up this time” does not do the song any justice. This song and album made a lot of critics “best of 2010″ lists, and with good reason.
I have two young children. Harry is seven, and Greg will be five later this year. When I’m driving in my car and either or both of the kids is with me, and a song comes on the iPod with naughty lyrics, I will do one of two things, depending upon the song:
I might turn the volume down on the radio and make some kind of a noise to drown out the bad words, or
I might skip the song entirely.
To date, the only exception to this rule has been last year, on what would have been Phil Ochs’s 70th birthday. As the boys get older, I will have fewer reservations about letting the boys hear saucy language, so to speak, but for now, that’s my rule. Eventually, of course, all such reservations will go away.
Looking over my list of songs to hear before you die, there are eight songs that meet these criteria. One of those eight — “Working Class Hero,” by John Lennon — was covered when I wrote my blurbs on songs where the artist died too young.
This post is about the other seven songs.
La Vie Boheme, from Rent
I suspect that this song would go over the heads of a lot of young children, and, for that matter, anyone who might not be all that familiar with the immensely popular Broadway musical from the 90′s. This song is sung after the character Maureen’s performance art/protest. The song begins with the attendees going over to the Life Cafe, at which point one of the main antagonists of the show declares Bohemia to be dead. The song goes on to celebrate iconoclasm in all of its outrageous glory.
Go Fuck Yourself, by Sharon Groom
The title kind of speaks for itself. This is a fun, funny break-up song, if you couldn’t guess that by the title. This song is one of many on the list that I “found” in the 90′s back when mp3.com offered legal free downloads of uncopyrighted music from artists who just wanted to get the name out. And there was more than a few really good songs available there at the time. What makes this song stand out is the two very innocent sounding girls singing the titular phrase that is the reason for its inclusion in this particular subset of the songs you need to hear before you die.
I was unable to locate a video for this song.
Lose Yourself, by Eminem
Eminem (real name, Marshall Mathers) has been a polarizing figure for much of his career, primarily because of some of his stances have come off as either misogynistic, homophobic, or both. But there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s as talented a rapper as you’re going to find out there. The 2002 movie 8 Mile was a slightly fictionalized story of Eminem’s life. It was a compelling movie, and this song was the masterpiece from it, with a message that transcends both the genre and any aspects of his life that are less-than-praiseworthy: that taking a risk in the face of fear is usually a good thing.
Sing, by the Dresden Dolls
Of all of the songs I am mentioning in this particular post, this is the only one that has a safe-for-radio edit. And, in full fairness, I suppose the profanity in this song (“You motherfuckers, you’ll sing someday,” which is repeated more than once, all at the end) isn’t really necessary. Or, at least, it’s not as necessary as the profanity in other songs on this list. But this is such an amazing song, from a post-punk band like the Dresden Dolls, there’s no way I couldn’t include it.
Embedding on this video has been disabled, but here is a link to the song.
Get Your Shit Together, by Beth Hart
Beth Hart had a minor hit in the mid 90′s with the song “L.A. Song”. It came from her second album, Screaming for My Supper. Even if “L.A. Song” is better known, it doesn’t match the raw power, intensity, or passion of this song. I think it speaks for itself. Just watch this clip of her performing it live as proof:
Whore, by Anet
Like Sharon Groom (above), I found Annette Ducharme (also known as “Anet”) on mp3.com in the 90′s. This song is unique among the songs listed in this particular post, primarily because it doesn’t have any words (in and of themselves) that are objectionable. (And I don’t consider the title, in and of itself, a word worth censoring from children; if I did, then the song “Filthy / Gorgeous” by the Scissor Sisters would be in this posting.) But it’s the frank discussions of the use of sexuality in this song that make it less-than-suitable for my kids’ ears. I probably will let them hear this song first, of the songs I have listed here.
I was unable to locate a video for this song, but I was able to find a link to the lyrics of the song.
Love, Love, Love, by Teddy Goldstein
I admit that I wrestled with whether or not this song belongs in this grouping. It’s got a single verse in it that’s inappropriate by any stretch of the imagination. Ironically, that same line is the primary reason why I wanted to include it in the list of songs to hear before you die; it’s just such a powerful statement and one we can relate to on many levels: “Isn’t life just like this / A bunch of roses that smell like shit / And though you see the pricks, you still get pricked.”
