#sundays are for pickin stones!

[dollarbin]

Shakey Sundays #11:

Ragged Glory Part 2: Smell the Horse

Judging by the impending release of Fu##in' Up (a live version of Ragged Glory recorded live last November by Neil and Crazy Horse) it seems likely that Young will focus on songs from that much storied LP when I see him and the boys play live next month in San Diego.

That sounds pretty damn good to me. I'm more than ready to hear Neil rip through everything from Over and Over to Country Home (I see that, in true Shakey style, every song has been needlessly retitled for the new record by cherry picking lyrics from the songs; Country Home is hopefully now called Pickin' Someone Else's Potatoes; Over and Over should hereafter be named Ha! Ha! Ha! after the background vocals that follow the line "time was just a joke").

But if I had my druthers... well, that would be weird. What the heck are druthers? Where would I keep them if I had them?

Anyway, says I, Neil should shelve both Love and Only Love and Love to Burn for those upcoming shows; he should keep them safe at home with his own druthers while on tour. What he should bring is his giant wind machines. I want to see those things at full blast.

As I wrote a few weeks back in my first post about Ragged Glory, Young's epics on the attributes and flammability of love are great, sure, but compared with everything else from that era I find them a tad dull and definitely overplayed. Stephen Stills is probably planning reggaelishious versions of each track for his next record, the working title for which is I Suck Up The Dollar Bin. What's more, Neil has an entirely alternative version of Ragged Glory to consider for his set list: the aptly titled Smell the Horse.

Neil puts out about 16 new things a month, all of them on 480.6 kilogram clear audiofile vinyl, or whatever, so you are forgiven if you missed this one. Smell the Horse is an extended version of Ragged Glory which features four additional tracks. That doesn't sound too impressive, but I'm here to argue that it's a pretty big deal: hear about Smell the Horse is definitely worth a few minutes of your fine Sunday and I'd love to see it take up a healthy chunk of Neil's upcoming tour.

Let's start with the song that serves as inspiration for the extended version's title, a song which I think should been chosen to end the original record instead of the plodding and overly earnest Mother Earth.

We're talking about about Don't Spook the Horse:

I love how slow everyone plays here, holding onto their sonic and vocal notes alike for as long as they damn well please. Neil, Frank, Pancho and Lefty (that would be Billy Talbot) had plenty of reasons to slow down and savor everything at that point: Neil's wacko 80's were finally over, they already had a great album in the can and everyone was clearly stoned out of their minds in Neil's barn.

Saying "barn" here isn't quite right; we should say "one of Neil's barns." Apparently he had a bunch of them. On was filled head to toe with about 65 million dollars worth of toy trains. Seriously. Neil had employees dedicated to maintaining those trains, and he'd invented cordless and accessibly adapted remotes for running them all with his wheelchair bound son. Neil was clearly the richest, best and wackiest dad on the planet. I've got kids of my own and a shed behind my house too. Guess what I keep in it? Rusted and broken nonsense, of course, plus a few remaining battered and original Hoth-era plastic Star Wars toys that I simply can't justify throwing away; suffice to say that my kids would prefer Neil Young as a dad when it comes to finding pleasures in a barn.

Anyway, Neil and the boys play this song at a glacial pace because where the hell else have they got to be? "Let's play it even slower next time," I picture Neil telling them. "This one's never gonna be on the record anyway. Plus, if we play it slow enough, I can make up some lyrics as we go."

And how about the collage Neil assembles of those throw away lyrics at 3:20 mark. He's already introduced the characters and repeated their attributes for us: there's a horse who spooks, a dog who tends to roll in its own feces and a pretty little girl worth courting. But then Neil puts all of them in his homebrew lyric blender:

If you're gonna mess around with that chick,

Be sure to close the barn door;

Try to not spook the horse,

Make sure she ain't rolled in shit.

Just who exactly are we concerned about the smell of here Neil, your dog, your horse or the pretty little girl? I sincerely hope he means the little girl, 'cuz that's the silliest thing I've ever heard.

Next up in the song, Neil references "the valley of hearts", a rather boring image he plucks nonsensically from the aforementioned Love to Burn. If not for that song's somber, dull lyrics and the preachy Mother Earth, we'd include the word preface the word"gnarly" with "hilariously" when describing Ragged Glory. After all this album opens with Neil telling us that his car only starts if it's pointed downhill and then he goes on to make this song the record's only cover:

I had no idea until this moment that there was yet another silly, never seen by anyone at the time, video for this song. This one's even dumber and more ridiculous than the other videos from the record Neil made, which we spent time with a few weeks back. The visuals here, including Pancho's pants, basically prove my argument that this whole album can easily be taken as a joyful joke. Is that lady dancing with corn on the cob? And watch for when Farmer John himself shows up, first with a pitchfork, then with a shotgun. Neil was clearly cracking himself up.

And how about the fact that Neil passed over every song in the Western popular catalog from Sister Ray to Respect and chose instead to cover what is perhaps the least poetic and simplest song in history, a song which asks the Horse to hold down the beat and go "Whoa-o-o" over and over again while Young makes the least compelling case anyone has ever made for dating another human being and freaks out on his guitar. (So it's in writing: Neil, if you ever want to date one of my daughters, or, for that matter have one of them appear in one of his videos, the answer is hell no.)

But back to the whole "valley of hearts" thing: by referencing that dull valley in the delightfully sloppy Don't Spook the Horse, Neil effectively makes fun of his overly earnest writing at spots on the record and puts us even more at ease. Somebody, we think, ought to get me some of that stuff they're smoking while I check my dog for suspicious scents.

So are you with me? Isn't this whole thing a big, wonderful joke if you set aside Love to Bun, Mother Earth and Love and Only Love? I'm telling you, Neil could have completed the record's fantastically silly leap to unbridled joy by including Don't Spook the Horse from the get go.

But Smell the Horse does a lot more than add levity to the original record. It also adds some big deal beauty. Check out one of the most tender, spacious and shimmering album outtakes from Shakey's entire 60 year career:

Man, I just love this. Name another song that makes such loud and lovely use of the squeak fingers can make across the fretboard; name another song where Neil sings with this much care.

Interstate shows the vast breath of what Young was doing during the Ragged Glory sessions. Sure he could have made a comedy record. But if Interstate were on the original record instead of Farmer John we might call the whole thing introspectively soulful. Bob Dylan, it turns out, isn't the only genius who tended to cut the very best songs off his records in this era.

It initially makes sense that Young recorded Interstate a few weeks after the brilliant, hillbilly toss-off that is Don't Speak the Horse. Surely, he couldn't have achieved such disparate tones on the same day, right?

Well, don't be so sure about that: after all, 15 years earlier Young recorded one of the most hopeless songs of his entire career, Borrowed Tune, on the very same day he recorded one of his most hopeful, Traces.

That's Neil Young: from heartbreak to hope in sixty seconds flat.

The third outtake featured on Smell the Horse is Boxcar, a bouncy, strident track with some pretty questionable lyrics about Young's skin color (he says he's like a white man, which is a pretty obvious metaphor. Hey Neil, I'm a lot like a white man too. That because I'm a white male. But then Young goes on to tell us he's like a black man too, and a red man, whatever that is. Um, okay Neil...) that he wrestled with on and off for 20+ years before finally releasing on Chrome Dreams 2. The song could have added a much needed tasty note to the nothing-burger that is Old Ways; but it has no real business on the plate of swordfish, greens and hominy that is Ragged Glory. Sometimes Neil leaves the right songs off his records.

And finally, there's one of the weirdest songs in Young's entire, wonderfully weird catalog: Born to Run. No, this isn't Neil covering the Springsteen track. Young wrote his song first, supposedly, and initially recorded it in the summer of 1975 during the Zuma sessions, which just so happens to be the same summer Bruuuuuce released his own anthem by that name.

This all reminds me of my own summer of 89. I was 13 year old and about to get world famous through a song I'd just penned and recorded with my band, The Thurmanistic Paul Barrs, entitled Freefallin'. But then, bad luck came my way: Tom Petty beat me to it and put out his own, vastly worse, song with that very same name. My own Freefallin' was a stirring account of the time I fell off my bike and straight into the arms of a stunning middle school lady, but it remains on the shelf to this day because I didn't want to deal with persistent questions from the press about the possibly Pettyish origins of my own hit record; I'd seen my good friend, the incomparably talented Vanilla Ice, get unfairly pummeled by that very same media for the bass line he most certainly did not steal from Under Pressure in any way whatsoever, and I did not want to go through all that myself.

(Okay, you got me. Obviously, none of that is true. But I really was in a middle school band with that name. I sang lead.)

Anyway, I'm not accusing Neil of any plagiarism here; his song and the Boss's have nothing in common beyond their title, and Young surely would have left his own Born To Run off Zuma regardless because, well, it's a bit of a mess. Here, take a listen:

Don't get me wrong, this song still rocks. There's a fun, boneheaded hook, and everything recorded for Zuma is freakin' awesome. But I think we all get why, in addition to the Springsteen issue, the song went unheard until Archives 2.

But just listen to where Neil and the boys take that same song on Smell the Horse. The riff has new texture and less clunk. Plus there are about 16 different tempo shifts and about 48 different instrumental sections, and Neil breaks out some serious wailing in the vocal department during the chorus alongside his trademark snarl in the verses.

This track is a total and glorious mess. Clearly the plan was to have Neil's coked-up genius of a producer, David Briggs, edit the hell out of this, patching together the best 5-7 minutes of their 12 minutes of wandering through variations of the chorus and primary verse. Briggs would have definitely used the guitar work in the 7th and 8th minutes as the song's centerpiece: listen to Neil discover sounds in the neck of his Les Paul that he, and everyone else on the planet, has never heard before or since, while Billy Talbot thumps away (12345, 12345 goes the bass...) doggedly underneath him; my guess is someone had to punch Billy in the arm and tell him to stop already long after Neil was ready to wrap things up.

I'd argue that Neil made the right call again here: this song doesn't belong on Ragged Glory. Its tempo and mood swings are too symphonic, too complex and bizarre. Rather, Neil should have figured out how to play Born to Run with this much energy and ambition for either of his 80's Crazy Horse records, Re-ac-tor or Life, instead. Both of those records are filled with equally complex, ambitious and boneheaded songs, most of which somehow fail to miss their mark. Had Neil told us that he was born to run during either of those records Ragged Glory might not be viewed today as the renaissance for the band that it truly was.

So start running, or get out on the interstate, or, better yet, mess around with someone you love in your barn on this Shakey Sunday. Just remember to check the dog, or the person your fooling around with, for foul odors.

[cbjustmusic]

The #1 song on the country charts 50 years was Johnny Cash’s recording of Kris Kristofferson‘s song “Sunday Morning Coming Down”.  In this video the two men perform the song together. _____________________________ Sunday Morning Coming Down Songwriter: Kris Kristofferson

Well I woke up Sunday mornin', with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, so I had one more, for dessert Then I fumbled through my closet, for my clothes and found my cleanest dirty shirt And I washed my face and combed my hair and, stumbled down the stairs to meet the day I'd smoked my brain the night before on, cigarettes and songs that I'd been pickin' But I lit my first and watched a small kid cussin' at a can, that he was kickin' Then I crossed the empty street and caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken And it took me back to somethin', that I'd lost somehow somewhere along the way On the Sunday morning sidewalks, wishin' Lord, that I was stoned 'Cause there's something in a Sunday, makes a body feel alone And there's nothin' short of dyin', half as lonesome as the sound On the sleepin' city side walks, Sunday mornin' comin' down In the park I saw a daddy, with a laughing little girl who he was swingin' And I stopped beside a Sunday school and listened to the song that they were singin' Then I headed back for home and somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin' And it echoed through the canyons like the disappearing dreams of yesterday On the Sunday morning sidewalks, wishin' Lord, that I was stoned 'Cause there's something in a Sunday, makes a body feel alone And there's nothin' short of dyin', half as lonesome as the sound On the sleepin' city side walks, Sunday mornin' comin' down

[sweetheartofsecondlife]

The Hoban 7/5/2020

My playlist from the Washtown Sunday Shindig. This was the first Shindig since the Hoban was rebuilt, and it was such an emotional experience for me: like coming home. 

The Beach Boys - Misirlou (Stereo) Sonny Rhodes - Firefly - Main Title Dorothy - Missile Vixy & Tony - Dawson's Christian Dick Dale - Bandito The Beatles - Cry Baby Cry - Remastered 2009 Love Canon - Danger Zone Vixy & Tony - Mal's Song - Medley Oh The Larceny - Can't Stop Me Now Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey Vixy & Tony - Missing Part The Bongolian - Londinium Calling Aerosmith - Sweet Emotion Quincy Jones - Superstition Queens of the Stone Age - Burn The Witch Trinix - Cantina Bedlam Bards - Hero of Canton Marc Gunn - Good to Have Jayne on Your Side Arctic Monkeys - Red Right Hand Neil Patrick Harris - A Man's Gotta Do Aerosmith - Dude (Looks Like A Lady) The Fallen Stars - Big Damn Hero Jed Whedon - Bad Horse Chorus Jed Whedon - Bad Horse Chorus (Reprise) Survay Says! - I Aim to Misbehave The HillBenders - Pinball Wizard Gorillaz - Double Bass Mark the Hammer - Star Wars - Darth Vader Theme (Metal) The Persephone Pickers - Mudders Milk Rock Heroes - Thunderstruck REO Speedwagon - Ridin' the Storm Out Mark the Hammer - Stranger Things (From "Stranger Things") [Metal Version] The Shadows - Apache The Fallen Stars - The True Story of the Hero of Canton Fatboy Slim - Weapon Of Choice Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend Muse - Supermassive Black Hole Marc Gunn - Wear the Brown with Pride Drowning Pool - Rebel Yell Sallymacs - The Drunken Scotsman Kenny Rogers - You Can't Make Old Friends - Duet with Dolly Parton Affiance - The Final Countdown Echo & the Bunnymen - Lips Like Sugar Vixy & Tony - Uplift The Showdown - Carry On My Wayward Son Aerosmith - Back In the Saddle Diane Warren - Where My Heart Will Take Me (Theme From "Enterprise") Pickin' On Series - Love Shack The Dead South - House of the Rising Sun The PDX Broadsides - Aim to Misbehave John Butler Trio - Devil Woman Mikey Mason - Good Night Kiss The Dead South - In Hell I'll Be in Good Company The Black Keys - I Got Mine Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - Somewhere Over The Rainbow_What A Wonderful World David Newman - End Credits - From "Serenity" Louis Durra - Code Monkey Red Hot Chilli Pipers - Don't Stop Believing Absolute5 - Dance Monkey Audiot Savant - Code Monkey Lament Red Hot Chilli Pipers and Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill and Frank Beard and Dougie McCance - La Grange: La Grange / The Green Room

[kvetchlandia]

Kris Kristofferson     Uncredited and Undated Photograph

Well, I woke up Sunday morning With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad So I had one more for dessert

Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes And found my cleanest dirty shirt An' I washed my face, combed my hair An' stumbled down the stairs to meet the day

I'd smoked my brain the night before On cigarettes and songs that I'd been pickin' But I lit my first and watched a small kid Cussin' at a can that he was kicking

Then I crossed the empty street An' caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken And it took me back to somethin' That I'd lost somehow, somewhere along the way

On the Sunday morning sidewalk Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned 'Cause there's something in a Sunday Makes a body feel alone

There ain't nothin' short of dyin' Half as lonesome as the sound On the sleepin' city sidewalks Sunday mornin' comin' down

In the park I saw a daddy With a laughin' little girl who he was swingin' And I stopped beside a Sunday school Listened to the song they were singin'

Then I headed back for home And somewhere far away a lonesome bell was ringin' And it echoed through the canyons Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday

On the Sunday morning sidewalk Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned 'Cause there's something in a Sunday Makes a body feel alone

There ain't nothin' short of dyin' Half as lonesome as the sound On the sleepin' city sidewalks Sunday mornin' comin' down

On the Sunday morning sidewalk Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned 'Cause there's something in a Sunday Makes your body feel alone

There ain't nothin' short of dyin' Half as lonesome as the sound On the sleepin' city sidewalks Sunday mornin' comin' down

--Kris Kristofferson, “Sunday Morning Coming Down” 1969

[breezingby]

Kris Kristofferson ~ Sunday Morning Coming Down (1970)

Well I woke up Sunday morning With no way to hold my head, that didn't hurt And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad So I had one more for dessert Then I fumbled in my closet through my clothes And found my cleanest dirty shirt Then I washed my face and combed my hair And stumbled down the stairs to meet the day

I'd smoked my mind the night before With cigarettes and the songs I'd been pickin' But I lit my first and watched a small kid Playin' with a can that he was kicking Then I walked across the street And caught the Sunday smell of someone's fryin' chicken And Lord, it took me back to somethin' That I'd lost somewhere, somehow along the way

On a Sunday morning sidewalk I'm wishing Lord that I was stoned 'Cause there's something in a Sunday That makes a body feel alone And there's nothin' short of dyin' That's half as lonesome as the sound Of the sleepin' city sidewalk And Sunday mornin' comin' down

In the park I saw a daddy With a laughin' little girl that he was swingin' And I stopped beside a Sunday school And listened to the songs they were singin' Then I headed down the street And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin' And it echoed through the canyon Like the disappearin' dreams of yesterday

On a Sunday morning sidewalk I'm wishing Lord that I was stoned 'Cause there's something in a Sunday That makes a body feel alone And there's nothin' short of dyin' That's half as lonesome as the sound Of a sleepin' city sidewalk And Sunday mornin' comin' down

[rcox808]

Well I woke up Sunday morning, With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt. And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad, So I had one more for dessert. Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes, And found my cleanest dirty shirt. An' I shaved my face and combed my hair, An' stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.

I'd smoked my brain the night before, On cigarettes and songs I'd been pickin'. But I lit my first and watched a small kid, Cussin' at a can that he was kicking. Then I crossed the empty street, 'n caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin' chicken. And it took me back to somethin', That I'd lost somehow, somewhere along the way.

On the Sunday morning sidewalk, Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned. 'Cos there's something in a Sunday, Makes a body feel alone. And there's nothin' short of dyin', Half as lonesome as the sound, On the sleepin' city sidewalks: Sunday mornin' comin' down.

In the park I saw a daddy, With a laughin' little girl who he was swingin'. And I stopped beside a Sunday school, And listened to the song they were singin'. Then I headed back for home, And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin'. And it echoed through the canyons, Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.

On the Sunday morning sidewalk, Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned. 'Cos there's something in a Sunday, Makes a body feel alone. And there's nothin' short of dyin', Half as lonesome as the sound, On the sleepin' city sidewalks: Sunday mornin' comin' down.

Kris Krisofferson

I always loved this song ...

[cullmansense]

Today at 11 a.m. at the Cullman County Fairgrounds 3rd Annual Live 95.5 Battle of the Bands Tickets are $15 at the gate if you didn't purchase them ahead of time. Saturday, April 29, 2017 11:30 am - Brick Avenue 1:00 pm - Julie Ann Ray & The Gold Diggers 2:30 pm - Wes Brown 4:00 pm - Gary Sanders 5:30 pm - Stone Floor Theory 7:00 pm - Inclination of Direction 8:30 pm - Down South 10:00 pm - Dark Before Dawn Sunday, April 30, 2017 1:30 pm - Ben Mosley & The Contraband 3:00 pm - Round 2 4:30 pm - Crushing Atlas 6:00 pm - The Cotton Pickin' Kids This year in addition to expanding the event to two full days we are also adding food trucks, an arts and crafts area, a car show and an area for the kids.