5 Songs Friday, Feb. 14
It didn't occur to me until now that I could have chosen more songs about love for Valentine's Day
Steeleye Span – “London” 1976 from Roicket Cottage. I don’t normally talk about the videos I use here – I usually don’t care about them. But the official promo video for this song is so dang charming, with the live lip-synching footage interspersed with various silent movie clips showing us scenes from English history. Steeleye Span, the ever-changing group of English folk rockers, was always enamored of English history but was also interested in making their own. The shorter version of this song used for the promo gets all the charm but the longer version has a lot more to love, with cool instrumental (including trumpets) build-up and even more of the Maddy Prior singing lead and the boys harmonizing a round behind her. Prior is an essential part of great Steeleye Span records, as is guitarist Tim Hart. The rest of the line-up here includes Bob Johnson on guitar, Rick Kemp on bass, Peter Knight on violin, and Nigel Pegrum on drums. “London is a dainty place / A great and gallant city!” This is an original song which mocks the hoi polloi of London’s past. Just try to resist this one – somehow it was the least successful single of the band’s then-rising career. I think it’s a masterpiece.
Link Wray – “The Rumble Man” unknown date available on Rumble Man. I can’t find any background info on this track. It’s obviously building on the template of Wray’s classic “Rumble,” but without the hook generated by the “Dow-dow-dowwwwwnnnnnn” played on the original’s guitar. So here we just have the power chords, with the reverb and tremelo pushed to the max. The drums sound like a cheap drum machine, but I’m perfectly willing to believe this could have been recorded long before such things were invented. This cut is twice as long as “Rumble,” too, giving us plenty of time to experience the tension which is only barely released when Wray goes apeshit on the upper strings for thirty seconds around the three minute mark. I saw Wray a couple of times – the man was a focused machine generating these thick slabs of concretized rock’n’roll.
Bo Diddley – “The Story of Bo Diddley” 1963 single available on Gold (and most other Bo Diddley hits compilations). Honestly, I knew the Animals interpretation of this much better. They add a lot of context to the story which Bo told on this record. Diddley doesn’t need to add detail – the impeccable groove, his chugging guitar and the maracas of Jerome Green, the verbal asides and that infectious laugh are all he needs to let us know he’s a star. “The Story of Bo Diddley” is meant to tell how he became a star, though it inadvertently shows us how record companies can exploit the desires of young musicians. “He said “Sign this line, I can make you a star” / I said, “What’s in it man, what’s in it for me?” / He said “Play your guitar man, and wait and see.”” After that, Bo Diddley tells us girls like him more and the people in the audience love him. I’m pretty sure he never got the money he deserved for making records this great.
The Band – “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” 1974 live version from Before the Flood. I first encountered this song when Joan Baez had a minor hit with it a couple years before Before the Flood. The melody combined with her earnest delivery affected me, but not enough to lead me to inquire what the song was about. Once I heard Levon Helm sing it, I never went back to Baez’s version, and once I heard this live performance, I almost never went back to the original studio take. Really, for a little while there, the Band were an astounding performing unit. Levon Helm is singing passionately, connected to the pain and suffering of being on the losing side of a war, while playing the syncopated drums at the same time! How the heck does he pull that off? Rick Danko shadows him on harmonies on the chorus. Robbie Robertson on guitar and Richard Manuel pound the chords while Danko bounces on bass. And the great Garth Hudson washes it all with a mellotron. The song nods at the Lost Cause theory of Southern history, but while it doesn’t blanch at the pride of those who fought, it is really more sympathetic for those caught up in forces they didn’t understand. “Like my brother before me we took a rebel stand.” It’s problematic, to be sure, but I can understand if you feel differently, I don’t ever feel this recording (or any other version of the song) supports with the reasons the South fought so much as empathizes with the people who were driven down.
Prince – “Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad” 1979 from Prince. Prince and I turned 21 years old in 1979, but he released his second album just a month before I began my music writing career by interviewing the Ramones. He was a few years away from being a superstar but he already was showing the kind of confidence and panache that would serve him well for decades. This song is a rocker with arpeggiated keyboard lines running in between the crunching guitars, bass, and drums. Prince sings it in his highest falsetto, trying to figure out why from his point of view he does everything right but he’s still losing his lover. “You used to love it when I’d do you / You used to say I was the best you’d ever had.” That’s as close as Prince was willing to come to vulnerability in this song. He’s mystified, and can’t imagine that she might have been lying or she may have since found somebody better or she might just have gotten tired of some other aspect. That’s alright – petulant Prince makes for an entertaining record.