It’s this master of the American song’s 71st today. Meant to post earlier, but Prine’s good for a couple of lullabyes too.
I’ve seen him live only once, decades ago. A great time then. His music has only grown on me. His songs appear simple, and some of them actually are; they’re all reach deep.
Here are a couple of favorites; add your own below.
And, of course:
I could go on, but no need. Fill in the many gaps I’ve left…
I wish we lived in a better led, better spirited time and place. Listening to this helps me believe that might yet come to us all.
I’m reading M Train right now — my way to push back on the news by diving into someone else’s struggle to live in the act of making work that cuts. Just now, with the luck of the ‘net, my YouTube bot popped this into my recommend list:
I am much moved by Smith’s break on stage and more so by her return.
The song is obviously on point, the setting is surreal, and Smith herself is a walking, talking, ain’t-bragging-if-you-can-do-it lesson on turning a life into its own artform — as that same life spins its art into the world through all the moil and misery (and those flashes of joy!) that go into walking this earth.
It’s not all Trump and evil out there. I strain to remember that every day, and some days are harder than others. (Yesterday! Worse than the chicken at Tresky’s.)
But it’s true, and I thank Patti Smith for the reminder.
Top of the evening to all here — with a thick layer of improbable acts with oxidized farm implements to our enemies!
Contemplating the pain Trump’s going to lay on the most vulnerable among us (and yeah, some of them voted for him, but hurt is hurt), I found this song, imagined as being addressed directly to the Shitgibbon, a perfect expression of my mood:
Buried deep in the lyrics Reed talks of the Trumps being ordained. But the real tell is when he sings “They say the President’s dead/But no one can find his head.” That last line is truer than he ever knew. Man was a prophet.
There are some people who become type specimens. They’re the folks who define the characteristics of the category of folks to whom they belong. Guy Clark was — or rather, given what remains — continues to be the type specimen of the singer-songwriter.
Charles Pierce has already written his remembrance of this artist, who died today of what sounds like complications of a hard-lived, powerfully felt life:
He was a craftsman in all the best senses of the word–in the way he created his songs, and in the way he told his stories, and in the places the music took you…
That’s exactly right. And yeah, go read the rest, and listen to Charlie’s picks of the Guy Clark songs that resonate for him.
For me? Well, the first number I recall was his biggest mainstream hit, “L. A. Freeway” — which holds up OK, but isn’t what drew me back to Clark when I started listening to him with intent a few years ago. This is the one that got me started, at a time (as I face again this year, dammit) when too many people that mattered in my life were dying on me:
This one got me next, and still does:*
And this is the one I think of on the day Guy Clark left us; he’s taken his place in the room he’s singing us into:
All of which is to say that Clark couldn’t have a good time. He loved a party** — just ask him:
The list goes on. The Hon. Pierce has it right: Clark was a meticulous song writer and a brilliant one (the two modifiers don’t describe the same quality). Dive in anywhere, and the worst you’ll get is fine fun. At his best….
Dammit — it’s been a crap year for musicians here in these United States.
I’ll leave you with one more favorite, one that captures the heart of what I love most about Clark — the way his music inhabits a story and vice versa:
Rest in peace, Guy Clark.
*And here’s a lagniappe. Check out this tune, the one Clark sends us to in an homage and something of a statement — a recognition of the league in which Guy himself could play.
That’s one incarnation of a classic — and here’s another, with a lovely story to frame it.
So, to channel my inner President Obama, talking to Senator Sanders last night “this is the time and place” in which I wish all my comrades a happy, peaceful, easeful international labor day. We may all Tikkun Olam again tomorrow.
Here’s some tunes I reached for this afternoon, all to get the texture of Kasich’s narishkeit in Brooklyn out of my brain.
First up: Itzhak Perlman’s got some swing:
Next, for a bit of joyous culture mixing, check out the Barcelona Gypsy Klezmer Orchestra, here doing a killer take on Djelem Djelem:
And last, because where would we be without people with too much time on their hands constructing glorious improbabilities, enjoy this (h/t @joi_the_artist):
First — thanks again to everyone around the social-media-verse for all the kind thoughts thrown my way on my Guggenheim news. I’ll post on the sweet/bittersweet backstory to that when I get back to the computer that has the photograph I need. Here, I’ll just say that yup, it’s been a good week, the more so because there is no gift I value more right now than that of time.
That said, on to the fun stuff: cheering the discomfiture of our foes (while regretting any collateral damage) — and hoping against hope that this kind of news will, in not-too-long-a-time, have the right effect.
Bruce Springsteen on Friday canceled a scheduled North Carolina concert over the recent passage of a sweeping anti-LGBT law by the Republican legislature.
The Boss took no prisoners in explaining his decision:
To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress. Right now, there are many groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and overcome these negative developments. Taking all of this into account, I feel that this is a time for me and the band to show solidarity for those freedom fighters. As a result, and with deepest apologies to our dedicated fans in Greensboro, we have canceled our show scheduled for Sunday, April 10th. Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them.
It does suck for NC Springsteen fans — many-t0-most of whom I’d bet loathe this law as much as Bruuuuuuuuce does. But public and bitter consequences are the only way I see of driving the point home. The legislative assault on civil rights led by Republicans all over the country is exactly the kind of crap up with which we will not put.
So, to celebrate Mr. Springsteen — and to give just a little salve to our North Carolina pro-E-Street-anti-bigotry cohort, here’s a little something from 1978:
Kevin Sylvester says that when most people see a 6-foot-2-inch, 260-pound black man, they don’t expect him to also be a classically trained violinist. A recent exchange with a woman in an elevator, when he happened to have his instrument with him in its case, drove that point home.
“She’s like, ‘What do you play?’ ” he recalls. “I’m like, ‘I’m a violinist.’ And she was like, ‘Well, obviously you don’t play classical, so what kind of style do you play?’ ”
Sylvester says he explained that while he does have a degree in classical music, he plays all kinds of styles. “She didn’t mean it maliciously,” he says, “but I hope she gets to see us in concert and we can change her perception.”
A not altogether non sequitur. As I watched this video, I was reminded why I’m a member of the Democratic party. It’s got a lot of problems, lot of positions espoused by leaders at every level of government at which I wince. But the party that nominated and elected Barack Hussein Obama is one that can envision an America that looks like the country Sylvester and his co-conspirator in gut and horsehair, Wilner Baptiste, want to help create. I’ll leave the “and the other party….” half of the duology unmentioned…its would-be leaders said all that was necessary last night.
Plus, and for your early evening pleasure — these guys can play.
Working on a bunch of stuff, so almost no time to blog, but in eavesdropping on a Twitter conversation about the various awesomenesses of the Scots, combined with the lethal power of bagpipes, I came across this:
It seems to me we could use — certainlly I can — a daily leaven of the absurd to help confront the weight of all the stupid/evil that so dominates the rap, Jack, these days.
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