Sounds of Sanity Part IV

 I don't even remember this week. My emotions were like a mixture of alcohol being cooked out of a rum cake or chicken marsala. The hints of liquor or mood are  still there, but the buzz, the actual feeling, or meaning has gone. What I am left with, is much like the color of a rum cake or a cooked piece of chicken; pale. I feel a bit numb even writing this. Maybe it's dehydration or maybe it's my own homeostasis and I'm just uncomfortable in being comfortable - or vice versa? 

I listened to music this week, but I couldn't tell you what. I couldn't tell you when, except for a few.  So this weeks Sounds of Sanity feels almost like an insanity, as I try to pull from memories that already feel faded, or memories that feel foreseen. 

It is also to be noted that I took time off from writing this, two weeks, due to pressures from classwork. But now class is over. Now we continue to trudge forward and I hope you continue to leave your thoughts below. 

This weeks Picks

1. Orphan Of The Storm - Mudcrutch
2. Something You Got  - B.B King and Koko Taylor version
3. Little Sister - Ry Cooder version
4. Romeo Is Dead  - Peter Wolf
5. Don't Stop The Music - The Bay City Rollers
6. There Is Something On Your Mind - Big Jay McNeely
7. Bad - Billie Ellish version
8. Teach Me How to Stay- Stephen Burton
9. City Of New Orleans  -Arlo Guthrie
10. I’m your Captain/ Closer to Home- Grand Funk Railroad 
11. Bonus Track: Flip, Flop and Fry -Joe Turner

Orphan of The Storm

    For those who know me, I bet you were waiting for a Tom Petty song to make one of these lists. I bet you're still waiting for a Bob Dylan track.

    I was feeling real depressed this morning. A blended mess of feeling misheard, misunderstood, by both those surrounding me and myself. As I sat down to work for class, my Spotify shuffle only played Tom Petty collaborations. A slew of Heartbreakers, Mudcrutch, Wilbury's and solo. They lifted my fog a little, they were my high beams in hazey weather.

    The song I chose to represent all of this is "Orphan of The Storm", a song that was released on Mudcrutch's debut album, Mudcrutch in 2008

I got asked a few months ago to record a show for Tom Petty Radio on SiriusXM for their Last DJ installments. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to record it yet, but I have picked the five songs to play during my short, little slot- this song was one of them. To me it's a story of the pitfalls, of recovery.  

I ain't the kind who gives up

but I'm so tired of rain.

Lord, I'm just an orphan of the storm

  I read the title "Orphan of The Storm" as a metaphor for feeling abandoned or alone while dealing with the struggles of an addiction or a damaged mental state. This doesn't necessarily mean physically alone, but feeling alone in your thoughts. Feeling as if no-one understands or feeling abandoned by those around you for failing, for struggling. 

    The story line is a girl whom moved from Louisiana to Houston only to mourn the loss of her home. This is found out during Verse 1, it is then alluded to in Verse 2 that she had lived there before. 

She'd lived there before 

when she was using.

Now she's standing on 

the same old street again

Reading this far one might interpret it at face value - okay, she lived in Houston before. Key words give us the idea that she was addicted to something, drugs? Alcohol? Just in the term "using". 

 More detail follows in the verse; 

Yeah, that hurricane

it blew her back to Houston

Had to give into

The devil's howling wind. 

The imagery of devil tells us she's using harmful substances. So is that "same old street" an actual location or is it a state of mind? She moved back to Houston to move in with her addiction. 

More of addiction is add in the last verse;

Now somewhere down the line

There Must be Salvation

She thought it through 

20 years ago

But sin spoke

a constant invitation

It was in her veins 

and wouldn't let her go. 

The representation of veins, and the tantalizing invitations that those whom have recovered from anything or those whom may not be recovered but coping with an addiction. It was in her veins" for those whom have dealt with whatever addiction they have, they know the substance is always going to be with them. Veins also remind me of needles and injection. 

Perhaps thats why they need fallen Angel. Another term used is "sin", cluing that she's adapted to the attraction of bad decisions. 

I like the concept of a "fallen angel". For me it's an idea of an imperfect. An angel who doesn't float down from heaven, rather one that has stumbled, one that has grace but also flaws. It's almost praying for help by saying, "I don't need the best angel you have, I just need someone".

In some concept, I think of Lucifer, who fell from Heaven and created hell. If this song was to explore into the deeper depths of what it may mean or what it could mean, one could even take this "Fallen Angel" idea as bargaining, "Lord, send me down a fallen angel." send me down Lucifer, a devil, one who understands sins and temptations; addiction. Or in a lighter sense, it's simply asking for an imperfect angel, one who won't repent them as harsh as an upright angel would.

Something You Got 

    I believe my first time hearing this song was in aisle 47 of Home Depot. If it wasn't then than for some odd reason it's what I think of when I hear it. I also think of a llama, black and furry, in Carlise, MA I had seen once. The song was rattling in my head as I said hello to it. This is A song I often advise my friends to listen. 

    "You're The Boss" preformed by B.B King and Ruth Brown. Ruth Brown, I know I listened to in Aisle 47. Ruth Brown provided her heavy, seductive vocals on B.B King's thirty-third studio album, Blues Summit. The album is filled with duets with vocals just as alluring as Brown's, including "Something You Got" sung with Koko Taylor. 

    “Something You Got” is a song written and released by Chris Kenner in 1961. Other versions range from Fats Domino to The Moody Blues (but early Moody Blues, with Denny Laine. The Moody Blues I fell in love with). The versions best known were recorded by Alvin Robinson, Ramsey Lewis True, and Chuck Jackson and Maxine Brown, whom showcases the song used as a duet like King and Taylor. 

    The songwriter, Kenner, is legendary for his hit making success - to name one, "Land of 1000 Dances", which supposedly was influenced by an old spiritual!

    "Something You Got" is just a love song. Almost puppy love, you know the phase where you can't imagine your life without the other person. The time where you'd do anything for them, you need them. 

Something you got, baby

makes me bring home my pay

It's a song about submitting yourself to your lover. Doing whatever they say, allowing yourself to sacrifice yourself for a temptation or lust that you've been feeling or chasing. Dragging your feet to keep up with your heart rate.

Little Sister

    I might have been alone, I often was this pandemic when I'd go walking in Newburyport. My reason for being in Newburyport was for multiple reasons; To get out of the house, to walk Maudslay State Park, and to visit Dyno Records. There are very few Record stores in my area, there are even fewer records stores that I like. Dyno Records is one of the few. It is located in downtown Newburyport, I suppose that's what I'll call it but I'm not quite sure if it's the actual "downtown" area. The building is crammed, its small, but thousands of faces fit in there as their selection is wide in both Vinyls, CDs, and Cassettes.  I bought a Ry Cooder Vinyl, and it opened with this track.

    My first time hearing this song was by Elvis, I hope this doesn't shock many. It's a song about someone going from one girl to another, but not just any couple of girls - sisters. The message is clear in the lyrics, it's not a song to read into;

Well, I dated your big sister
And I took her to a show
I went for some candy
Along came Jim Dandy
And they snuck right out of the door

Little sister, don't you
Little sister, don't you
Little sister, don't you kiss me once or twice
And say it's very nice
And then you run
Little sister, don't you
Do what your big sister does

"Little Sister" was written by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman. It later tells how the protagonist in the song has known this little sister since she was in pigtails and has watch her grown into a woman,  now is seeking her out. The song was released in 1961 for Presley. It was an answer to Lavern Baker's "Jim Dandy" from 1956, maybe? Think about. Lavern Baker, "Jim Dandy To The Rescue", rescues the older sister from the date, who in “Little Sister” recognizes it with "Along Came Jim Dandy".

 Lavern Baker then released "Hey Memphis" and just take a listen to that song compared to "Little Sister".  Memphis, Elvis? 

Back to Ry Cooder though. Ry Cooder released his version, a much more soulful rendition, on his 1979 album, Bop til You Drop. The album consists of mainly Rhythm and Blues covers reimagined, peaking No. 62 in Billboard charts, and reaching No. 7 on Australia's Kent Music Report. 

A few weeks ago, I was lending albums to a coworker a great friend, Stephen. He's practicing guitar, with that in mind I gave him  Bop til You Drop, some Eric Clapton, a B.B King and others. Right now this album is fresh on my mind and missed in my collection as I give it a new temporary vacation at Stephens. 

Romeo Is Dead

Yeah, Yeah, Peter Wolf again. I like what I like. Shut up, and continue reading. 

This song came on my playlist religiously the past two weeks and I grew to appreciate it. I even posted a video of my feet dangling out of my car window in a Home Depot Parking lot with the song in the background - a friend commented "This is so Lindsey" and it was.  

The song, from my reading, is about crushing and being crushed by it. 

I use to follow wanting

Wanting being desires. Which writer Will Jennings and Peter Wolf paired with 

A lot of lovers had me 

when they really didn't need me.

High lighting the difference between wants and needs. 

The chorus then focuses on the Shakespeare characters Romeo and Juliet. Characters whom are most often thought of when asked about "love". This song is repeats that Romeo is dead and Juliet is dying. We must remember Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. 

Part of a tragedy is spoken in the song with the idea of aging, of time leaving, and "flying". It's about being lost in love and as Romeo and Juliet are an oximoron for love, it's about triumphantly failing at love.

it's a track co-written by Will Jennings and can be found on Wolf's fourth studio album, Long Line. 

Don't Stop The Music

 We lost Les McKeown during my break from these post. I grew up making fun of the Bay City Rollers until I grew to actually appreciate them. My mom was and still is a crier over them, though her plaid fashion has worn off during the passing years. 

    In April 2019 I had the chance to see Woody from the band as he played with a few younger,  boyband type lookers of todays era, or maybe a past? Slightly Backstreet Boy looking. I remember sitting at The Blue Ocean in Sailsbury, MA with my mom and her friend, experiencing a height of show mania for essentially a cover band.  We'll bring Peter Wolf back into this. When I see Peter Wolf, I am not seeing The J. Geils Band. When I am just seeing Woody, I am not seeing The Bay City Rollers. But damn, these women, most whose hair is dyed with some kind of box dye to hide their grey roots, scream and applaud like their carrying fake IDs signifying their youth and younger glories.

    This song, "Don't Stop The Music", reminds me a lot of a BeeGees kind of thing, especially the instrumental at the beginning. I almost want to spring into "Jive Talking'". When the lyrics kick in, however, I'm not feeling the Gibb grip. 

    There are two lenses I view this song in. One the innocent, a boy dancing with a girl and if the music stops they have to part ways. Simply, don't stop the music because I don't want this moment to end. I want to keep dancing all night long.  It is stated that the two had just met this night, but he already loves her.

    This leads me to the second lens, it's not a middle school dance situation here, no no. They just met tonight as in they just had a close connection, finally. They have known each other, but tonight, right now they are on the same page. This is more figured out in, 

I don't ever wanna say goodbye.
I'd never thought
That I could hold her
Though many times I tried
I never thought
I would see that look in her eyes

     "Though many times I tried", hunny, if you just met you didn't try very many times, now did ya? That's just an assumption though. Then "That look in her eyes", not so innocent.

    The song is on the Bay City Rollers 1975 album, Wouldn't You Like It? It's also the first album for the band that features all songs written by band members. This song was written by Les.

There Is Something On Your Mind

Big Jay McNeely. Ladies and Gentleman, you're welcome. If you don't know. Big Jay McNeely, get to know him. He's a honking saxophonist from Los Angeles, who made himself known through the area for his talents and comfort, in himself it seemed, and providing comfort for listeners. However, McNeely had quit the music seen in the 1960s as rock'n'roll and psychedelics began storming the globe. During this time he became a Postman, which makes me think of Mr. McFeely's Speedy Deliver from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood - just Mr. McNeely.    In the 80s, Big Jay returned to  music and was inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame. 

This song is one that, well, there's no other way to put it, it woos me.  I love everything about it, even the end with the humorous, "What are we gonna call this one?" It's the lulling of the saxophone and the crying, dying, crushing 

No, no, please don't try to tell me, 'cause I may not understand

the begging, the soul. James Brown? yeah, I think so. 
The song, I believe is from 1957, but I can't be for sure because there’s not much written on him or the track. What a shame. 

Bad (cover)

I've never listened to Billie Ellish, or Michael Jackson. They're both artists I appreciate and can admire for their work  and progressions in music history but never plug into. Over the course of my break from this post I had begun talking to a guy, a really sweet and wonderful friend named Dante. He's a big Billie Ellish fan who recommended this cover. 

    Michael Jackson released the song originally in 1987 on his seventh studio album, Bad. The album would be the last one Jackson would work on with legendary producer and writer, Quincy Jones. It was released after a five year hiatus of putting out albums, which allowed Jackson to come back to the seen  without his high pitched vocals and rather enter a world of R&B and pop fusion. The song reached #1 in Billboard charts. 

    Ellish and her brother Finneas recorded an acoustic version in 2018 on Like A Version, an Australian radio station. The version brings down a much more slowed down and enticing. It's a version that if you didn't know the lyrics you wouldn't have known it was Michael Jackson due to the transformation. Their recording is both a transformation and transportation taking a meaning out of a deep rooted, threat and into something almost seductive- and I'm now using that word a  lot. 

How I interpret the song though, lyrics itself, structural point of view, I see it as a song about being labeled as something or trying to fit but not and that makes you "bad". Looking at Jackson now, post-structural view, during this time music was getting bolder and more furious, rap was becoming a thing and this is Jackson writing saying he won't change and shouldn't have to. He can be just as bad or hardcore as other sing about themselves. Here's a reminder that I sing pop, good light hearted music, but that doesn't mean I'm good. I'm bad. 

Teach me How To Stay

Stephen Burton came into my life at the same time as Ray Bonneville. It was 2018, fall, and I was studying at my second college Northern Essex Community College. I had spent my first year of college at Merrimack, studying Health Sciences in hopes to become some kind of doctor. Occupational therapy was in my peripheral. Then I quickly realized how little passion I had for understanding science and math. I took a gap semester, lived on Cape Cod with Oz my dog and a family of raccoons, and returned to school after a wild bout of depression knocked me off of my feet, but I wouldn't let it paralyze me. At Northern Essex I was talking a research writing Course with a woman named Barb. Her room was on the third floor at 8 a.m. My tired feet, heavy from exhaustion and dragging from depression would limp up these steps every other morning to listen to stories of the Mirabal sisters. I have a distinct memory of listening to this song hiding in the bathroom across the hall to catch my breath.   This week, I was swirled with emotions I had never felt before, and usually when something is good I fly. I leave. I ignore it. This song came on as I was sitting in my car, napping to rejuvenate myself for the twelve hour work day a head of me and contemplate on a current situation I want to stay in. 

    The song is about a protagonist asking their significant other to not allow him to easily leave and give up on them. Saying I may not be able to express it, but this is scaring me but I don't want to leave. Please "Teach Me how To Stay", let’s not give up. 

https://open.spotify.com/track/4ZxpEn9SZYl3lr0XOqCRPl?si=8zAOe5qVRNay7E6OMqTm9g

City Of New Orleans

    Arlo Guthrie is best known to me for "Alice’s Restaurant". Every Thanksgiving it plays in our local radio station, so the voice of Arlo drifts into my memories like wafts of gravy and turkey. It’s communal and a familiarity like gathering with family for dinner and watching balloons float below New York City skylines. 
    This week a coworker, Ryan and I were talking about music. He has been getting into record collecting and sending me a few links of songs he’s been listening too. I recommended City if New Oreleans  to him. We then got into a short discussion of musicians and their children. Arlo being the son of fascist slayer, Woody Guthrie.  
    The song was originally debuted on Steve Goodman’s debut album in 1971. Goodman wrote the song during a trip to his wife’s family on the Illinois Central Line.  It’s a song that’s autobiographical to the trip. 

For historical context City of New Orleans is the name of a train that ran from Chicago to New Orleans. The train started as a day time passenger train, running alongside its successor the Panama Limited. Forty years ago this month (May 1, 1971) Amtrak took over the inner-city rail roads and switched the City of New Orleans to an overnight schedule. This song being written and released in 1971 could at face value be either about the day time train or the new overnight schedule. Context clues in the song hint that Goodman wrote this piece about the day time commuter. The introduction;

Riding on the City of New Orleans
Illinois Central Monday morning rail

It doesn't get any clearer than that when it comes to, "what time of day was the protagonist on this train?". Without that one line, hints at the daytime commuter is riddled within the song, making it clear Goodman wrote this while on a day train. 

The City Of New Orleans was created using pullcarts;

And the sons of Pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steam

Also the changing of cars, meaning the train had stopped along the way, something the overnight rail didn't do. The song even ends with "Goodnight, America" instead of "Good Morning" signifying time throughout day passing. 

The song is vivid, descriptive as the protagonist travels on a 17 hours journey. 

All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields
Passin' trains that have no names
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles

 A year later Guthrie recorded the track after agreeing to hear Goodman play for him only if Goodman bought him a beer. Guthrie liked the song so much he recorded it for his -1972 album Hobo Lullaby. The song for Guthrie became his only Top 40, reaching No. 4 on Billboards Easy Listening Chart and No.18 on Billboards Top 100.  The song fit the albums story of hoboing and take a listen, it fits Guthrie’s voice too. 

I’m Your Captain/ Closer To Home

    Bare with me on this one folks. I relate this song a lot to memories. My first time hearing the song was while I was Dog walking for my favorite neighbor, Bella. She’s is covered in a blonde, wavy coat and is fascinated by sticks, rocks, and drains. The song would come back into my life while I was on a walk and really needed to pee, and the refrain “almost home” was what I was telling myself and bladder.  Then the sings reminds me of Pip from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.  It reminds me of his insanity after jumping into the ocean and seeing drifting a swirling, being the innocent little cabin boy to now experiencing how big the world is, the ocean and how little he was. 

I can feel the hand of a stranger
And it's tightening around my throat
Heaven help me, heaven help me
Take this stranger from my boat

I'm your captain, I'm your captain
Though I'm feeling mighty sick
Everybody, listen to me
And return me my ship

Followed by 

I’m getting closer to my home 

    It’s those verses and the continued “closer to home” That makes me think of Pip and perhaps what was swirling in his mind as he was swirling and swallowed by the sea, a sea that created insanity, till finally, insanity leads him to home. To heaven. 

    But I would be shocked if the band wrote this song off of Herman Melville.  Instead the song is often interpreted as one of Vietnam, The Ofyssey it even I Captain, My Captian by Walt Whitman. 

    The track is the bands longest recorded track reaching nearly ten minutes. It was released in 1970 on the bands “closer to home” album and became an anti-war song during the Vietnam war. Some hear "Captain" and his cries to regain control of his ship as Richard Nixon during the war. 

Everybody listen to me
And return me my ship
I'm your captain, I'm your captain
Though I'm feeling mighty sick

I've been lost now for days uncounted
And it's months since I've seen home
Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
Or am I all alone?

Some hear "I'm Closer To Home" and the repeated lines of 'Home" fading away but never ending impressions on the mind as being in Vietnam and realizing America is still so far away. However, Mark Farner, song writer and lead signer and guitarist of Grand Funk Railroad, says the refrain came to him in a dream and the song should be interpreted by the listeners own imagination. 

Bonus Track;

This is the first Bonus track I have featured on this blog. These are song that either one of my friends or readers introduced me to or told me they had discovered. 

This week the track was inspired by my Aunt and number one supporter, whom texted me Friday April 23; "Flip Flop and Fry by Joe Turner.... just heard it for first time. I only knew the Blues Brothers version. I'm dancing at my desk!!!" 

So now we talk about Flip, Flop and Fry. 

The song very much sounds like "Shake, Rattle, and Roll", another early rock'n'roll song that reached No. 1 in R&B charts for Turner in 1954.  "Flip, Flop and Fry" came out a year later, reaching No. 2 in charts. 

Elvis Presley is one of the many artist whom lead their vocals to their own version of the song. A song that music critic, Cub Koda (who wrote "Smokin' In The Boys Room" that was recorded by Brownsville Station)  said the song sounds like it's composed of left over pieces from "Shake, Rattle, and Roll". 

It's a song about being blue and lonely. To ease this pain the protagonist calls up his lover, his girl alluding to the story that his time apart from her makes him want to die and when they're with her, he could die then too- but happily.