GMVW # 50: "Seasons Greetings"

Gem Music Video of the Week # 50: Seasons Greetings

Song: Father Christmas by The Kinks

(Songwriter: Ray Davies)

December 18, 2008

Season’s Greetings!

A few weeks ago, The Who were paid tribute to at the 31st Annual Kennedy Center Honors (the show will broadcast on CBS December 30th).  They were the first band to receive this prestigious award (several other recipients this year include Barbara Streisand and Morgan Freeman).  In an interview with the Washington Post prior to the event, Pete Townshend admitted that the prize was stirring up some complicated feelings:  “We’d never been heard,” he said, referring to his British working class roots.  “So we created our own language, which was rock ‘n’ roll.  And this honor is the establishment saying, ‘We hear you.’  And that’s a strange thing, because if they can hear us, maybe we don’t need to do this anymore.  It’s like somebody saying to Tupac Shakur, ‘Ah, I understand what you’re saying.’  Well, you’re not supposed to understand what he’s saying.  You’re supposed to be (expletive) scarred!”

OK….but since this week’s Gem is aimed at the spirit of the season, what does any of the above have to do with Christmas?

Well, despite many attempts, rock music has only produced a handful of great Christmas songs and Townshend’s recent comments pretty much explain the dilemma the genre has with writing them.  Sure rock singers can belt out a great cover version of an old standard: Elvis Presley singing ‘Blue Christmas’; Bob Seger’s version of ‘Little Drummer Boy’; Bruce Springsteen’s overplayed cover of ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’; The Pretenders with ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’; or David Bowie singing ‘Silent Night’ with Bing Crosby.  Yet, when it comes to orchestrating original compositions many rock musicians struggle to connect with the core meaning of Christmas, and as a result most of their efforts fail to gain an enthusiastic audience.  I believe this is actually a struggle for musicians of all music genres, but where many of the other genres can get away with writing songs that celebrate the pomp and circumstance that surround Christmas, rock music cannot. Tradition and mainstream acceptance are simply not in its genes.  If a Christmas rock song is going to make it, it has to: 1) Break establishment norms 2) Stay honest and true to the spirit of Christmas and 3) Get to the point.  For such a long-standing Christian celebration, this can be hard to pull off.

But it can occur. A year or two ago, in a family email exchange, Jen asked everyone what their favorite rock Christmas song was (in hindsight it may have been the seed that got me started with these weekly rantings/gems).  Several songs came to mind.  There was obviously John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s passionate Christmas song, ‘Happy Xmas War is Over’.  The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl’s ‘Fairytale of New York’ is a fantastic song, as is Band Aid with ‘Feed the World’.  But for me, there was no dispute.  The one song (this week’s Gem) that has been on the top of my list for some time now is ‘Father Christmas’ by The Kinks.  It succeeds at all 3 of the qualifications listed above with ease.  Part of what makes it so alluring is that it has a drive-home message (second to last stanza near the end of the song), when all music fades out (including the jingle bells), and Ray Davies is left to sing without accompaniment.  When a song has a good drive home message, it can find a way to rise to another level.  Even the Fools song ‘Life Sucks (then you die)’ pulls that off at the end (“People say that life is good, Give thanks for what you have, When all you have is nothin’, Nothin’ makes you glad”).  Another great thing about this week’s gem is how Davies appears to be portraying the antagonistic gang of kids as believing in Santa despite the anger they direct at him.  Well done.

Unfortunately the video quality is pretty poor, but the audio is just right (although a bit out of synch).  Below the ‘Father Christmas’ link are several other Christmas inspired links.  Below those are the lyrics to ‘Father Christmas’. 

Have a very Merry Christmas!

- Pete (and Nancy)

The Kinks ‘Father Christmas’ (lyrics way below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjaPXihbORk

Here are 2 links to the Christmas Carol movie which starred Albert Finny as Scrooge.  Both are of same song, ‘Thank You Very Much’ but at different parts of the movie.  The first is when Scrooge is still in hot water with the 3^rd Spirit.  In this version, Scrooge thinks the crowd is thanking him but not sure why.  He is oblivious to the fact that he has just died in the not-to-distant Christmas future (it’s his casket they dance on), but the reason the crowd is thanking him is because they all owed him money (with compound interest!).  Of course, the crowd does not see Scrooge in this first link.  The second link is at the end of the movie, when Scrooge absolves them all of their debt to him.  This song is a favorite of Mom, Dad, Charlotte, and I.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiNMz_745vQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_n-cf5YPHQ

The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl ‘Fairytale of New York’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff3aoSyYOVs

John Lennon and Yoko Ono ‘Happy Xmas War is Over’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb2YSAVHmIE

Bob Seger’s version of Little Drummer Boy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9egKDz0by44

Lyrics to The Kinks ‘Father Christmas’

When I was small I believed in santa claus

Though I knew it was my dad

And I would hang up my stocking at christmas

Open my presents and Id be glad

But the last time I played father christmas

I stood outside a department store

A gang of kids came over and mugged me

And knocked my reindeer to the floor

They said:

Father christmas, give us some money

Dont mess around with those silly toys.

Well beat you up if you dont hand it over

We want your bread so dont make us annoyed

Give all the toys to the little rich boys

Dont give my brother a steve austin outfit

Dont give my sister a cuddly toy

We dont want a jigsaw or monopoly money

We only want the real mccoy

Father christmas, give us some money

Well beat you up if you make us annoyed

Father christmas, give us some money

Dont mess around with those silly toys

But give my daddy a job cause he needs one

Hes got lots of mouths to feed

But if youve got one, Ill have a machine gun

So I can scare all the kids down the street

Father christmas, give us some money

We got no time for your silly toys

Well beat you up if you dont hand it over

Give all the toys to the little rich boys

Have yourself a merry merry Christmas

Have yourself a good time

But remember the kids who got nothin

While youre drinkin down your wine

Father christmas, give us some money

We got no time for your silly toys

Well beat you up if you dont hand it over

We want your bread, so dont make us annoyed

Give all the toys to the little rich boys

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About the Video: Made for MTV type video

Video Rating: 2 (if I great live version could ever be found)

GMVW # 49: "Luck of the Draw?"

Gem Music Video of the Week # 49:  Luck of the Draw?

Song: If I Had a Million Dollars by Bare Naked Ladies

(Songwriter: Ed Robertson)

December 11, 2008

A number of years ago, Mom asked me if I thought the Beatles success was mostly luck.  Great question, as I have since pondered it quite often.  If the Beatles were lucky though, was Mozart?  Al Jolson?  Judy Garland?  Billy Halliday? Ted Williams? Andrew Carnegie? Albert Einstein?  Why do some hit the big time where many others who try do not?  Is it simply hard work, ambition, and talent, or is there something else at play, like being in the right place at the right time?  For musicians in particular, does staying grounded help?  Can this be done by somehow avoiding as long as possible the pitfalls of fortune and fame? (Pete Townshend did a pretty good job of staying in the red much longer than he should have by smashing his guitars and amps on a nightly basis).  Does the lap of luxury come with a price?  Is this why there are so many one-hit wonders?

Regardless of how it happens, much of the reason for a musician’s long term success can be traced back to his/her roots.  Some of the best stories, photos or footage of great musicians, are the ones that precede fame.  This is where you can get insight into how the seeds were sown.   The stories can reveal lives filled with wanderlust, adversity and surely some luck, while the photos or footage can show a confidence or talent that is beginning to gel. The early years of the Beatles had its share of character-building struggles including:  Borderline poverty in Hamburg, Germany; deportation (Harrison); and death (Lennon’s Mom and the 5th Beatle, Stu Sutcliffe).  Neil Young left his home in North Ontario and landed in Los Angeles where one of his first acts was purchasing the only car he could afford:  A used hearse to port around his equipment (probably not that far out of place in mid-60’s L.A.).  Garth Hudson had to tell his mother he was a music instructor for the other members of the Hawks (later The Band) so he could leave home and school for a chance to make it in the blues-rich Deep South.  Johnny Cash lost his only brother. 

I’m not all that aware of the stories behind the original two guys that make up the Canadian band ‘Bare Naked Ladies’ (BNL for short):  Steven Page and Ed Robertson.  But I love this pre-fame video link (below), which shows them performing one of their first songs, this week’s Gem ‘If I Had a Million Dollars’, later to become a minor hit in the States.  In the years following the filming of this video, BNL would release a series of hit songs that would lead them to stardom. I was searching for this great song and found a number of big-stage live versions, but none compare to the spontaneity of this earliest of videos, which is a snippet from a talk show they appear on.  Part of what I like about this video is the ‘Wayne’s World’-like host.  He’s somewhat annoying (laughing at almost everything Page and Robertson say/sing), but he has that Mike Myers thing going for him… only in Canada!  One other thought on BNL: Were they aware of the implications of searching their full name on YouTube?

Back to Mom’s question:  Were the Beatles lucky?  I guess so, but I think there are degrees of luck for each individual member.  On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a mixture of skill and luck and 10 being pure luck:

John: 3

Paul: 4

George: 5

Ringo : 11 (actually, I change that to an ‘8’, now recalling Ringo shouting out “I’ve got blisters on my fingers!” at the end of Helter Skelter (after the 18th and final take) ).

- Pete

Gem Music Video: If I Had a Million Dollars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvQwIgmDRqI

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About the Video:  Early video of BNL on a Canadian Show that reminds me of Wayne’s World

Video Rating: 1

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Best Feedback:  Jen

Hi Pete,

Interesting write up. I like the part about Neil Young and his hearse, and I was curious to read what you'd rate Ringo on the luck scale...I took a guess at "9", before I scrolled down, to the 11. Funny. When my Joe was really little, like 1 or 2, he used to like to hear, "If I had a Million Dollars" come on the radio, in the car. I think he found it fun and easy to sing along to.

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And: John

Good video find, Pedro.  That clip must be 18 years old, and it shows what a gifted musician Robertson really is.  I saw them 3 years ago, and they interact and improvise just like that on stage, still.

GMVW # 48: "Role Playing"

Gem Music Video of the Week # 48:  Role Playing

Song: Lawyers Guns and Money by Warren Zevon

(Songwriter: Warren Zevon)

December 4, 2008

Last week’s Gem was about anger in music.  It’s one of many serious topics in songwriting that give great musicians a reputation.  However, if songwriters were constantly focused on serious topics, they might go stark raving mad!  Every so often, it’s good to let off some steam with a song that is humorous, laid back, fictitious, bizarre, or just plain fun.  If it’s a great song, than it works for everyone.  Several that come to mind include: ‘Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream’ (Dylan); ‘Happy Jack’ (The Who); ‘Old King’ (Neil Young); ‘Paranoia’ (The Kinks); ‘Martha My Dear’ (The Beatles); ‘Up on Cripple Creek’ (The Band); ‘Ice Cream for Crow’ (Captain Beefheart) and ‘Feeling Groovy’ (Simon and Garfunkel). 

REM may have taken things a bit too far with ‘Shiny Happy People’.

Only one serious musician I know of pulled this off with an entire album. The musician was Warren Zevon and the album was ‘Excitable Boy’.  Warren Zevon (who died of cancer in 2003) was a musician’s musician, which can be a nice way of saying he appealed more to his peers than he did the general public.  However, his music was diverse and deep, and most anyone who had a chance to see him at a nightclub came away impressed.  Several of his best contributions to rock music include the albums ‘Warren Zevon’ (1976) and ‘Sentimental Hygiene’ (1987), and songs ‘Poor Poor Pitiful Me’ and ‘The Envoy’, but the album ‘Excitable Boy’ was his one real commercial success.  It includes such classics as ‘Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner’, ‘Werewolves of London’, ‘Johnny Strikes up the Band’, ‘Excitable Boy’, and this week’s Gem ‘Lawyers Guns and Money’.

‘Lawyers, Guns and Money’ is a great song about the perils of being on the wrong side of the law in a foreign land.  The line ‘the shit has hit the fan’ may be one of the best one-liners in rock history, in this case succinctly summing up the gravity of the character’s situation.  The song is clearly fictional and over-the-top, which gives it a great story-tellers context.  However, the undertones resonate with desperation, allowing anyone who has been in a seemingly improbable situation to connect with the song/story. 

It’s pretty evident that when you are in another country, you try to take that extra step to avoid controversy.  When Bob and I traveled Europe in 1986, our trip came on the heels of several bombings overseas, most notably a Libyan affiliated bombing at a disco tech in Berlin.  The resort areas in Europe that year were devoid of Americans.  Most backpackers wore the flags of their countries (particularly Canadians) to signify they were not from the USA (which I resented).  On a sleeping train heading to Morocco thru Spain, we had a frightful midnight encounter with a Libyan who took offense with my nationality and refused to let us stay in the only cabin with sleeping space remaining on the train.  A red light went off in my head when the situation got heated (I would have had to take a bunk right above the guy and visions of the ‘Friday the 13th’ bunk bed scene danced in my head) so we headed to the end of the train and rolled our sleeping bags out in the hallway.  Another time, we were in the La Grand-Place in Brussels when the Belgians won a World Cup semifinal soccer match, advancing to the final four for the first time in many years.  Belgian hooligans hit the streets and I found myself next to a tipped over car with revelers on top.  Again, the red light went off and I shuffled away. 

Several years later, Nancy and I were entering pre-partitioned Yugoslavia through Trieste Italy, where heavily armed guards were checking passports at the border.  We were unaware that things were already heating up between ethnic groups there, which would soon break the country up into Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia and Skopje.  These guys were intense when they asked for our passports, but when they saw that we were from Boston one of them smiled and said ‘Larry Bird’.  In this hoop centric part of the world, basketball beat out high anxiety, and they nodded us on our way (the same thing happened at a tunnel thru a mountain pass later in the trip). 

OK, not quite Jean Roche’s escapades in Sub-Saharan Africa or Bob’s likely experiences everywhere in the world (I believe Bob’s been to every country but Outer Mongolia), but intriguing nonetheless (these also pale in comparison to my own experiences in Mobile Alabama, but that’s a story for another time).

The Gem video is an acoustic version of ‘Lawyers Guns and Money’ performed by Warren Zevon.  Below that is a still shot video put together by a fan with the original studio recording of the song.  Below that link are the lyrics to the ‘Lawyers Guns and Money’.

- Pete

Gem Music Video: Lawyers, Guns and Money

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5puAN1PGQw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPlMmwOq7U8

Well, I went home with the waitress

The way I always do

How was I to know

She was with the Russians, too

I was gambling in Havana

I took a little risk

Send lawyers, guns and money

Dad, get me out of this

I'm the innocent bystander

Somehow I got stuck

Between the rock and the hard place

And I'm down on my luck

And I'm down on my luck

And I'm down on my luck

Now I'm hiding in Honduras

I'm a desperate man

Send lawyers, guns and money

The shit has hit the fan

Send lawyers, guns and money...

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About the Video: Warren Zevon on ‘Words and Music’ BBC 1994

Video Rating: 2

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Best Feed back: Dad

PETE:    WHAT HAPPENED IN MOBILE ? KEEP THOSE GEMS COMING-LOVE DAD

GMVW # 47: "Stirring the Pot"

Gem Music Video of the Week # 47:  Stirring the Pot

Song: London Calling by The Clash

Covered Here By: Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, others

(Songwriter: Joe Strummer)

November 27, 2008

There’s nothing wrong with anger in music, as long as it’s aimed at injustice.  Musical historians point to the 40’s and 50’s beatnik/folk scene as the genre where modern American music got angry in a unified way.  A number of folk songs at the time were written about injustices in America during the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.  In the 60’s, the mantle shifted to Rock n Roll, which railed against Vietnam and all forms of dishonesty.  The commonality of many of these angry folk and rock songs was anti-establishment.

Nothing represented anger and anti-establishment quite like what came next however: Punk.  There was no mistaking the core emotions of Punk music.  Punk railed against everything the earlier genres did, and in an unprecedented way it also railed against its mentor: Rock n Roll itself.  To punk, the Rock n Roll gentry in the 70’s had come to represent everything rock music had rebelled against in the 60’s.  Punks saw rock stars as hypocritical fat cats living high on the hog, shuttled to concert venues in their private jets, wining and dining at lavish parties, being chauffeured in their Lamborghinis, and generally over indulging on all manner of high society from caviar to cigarettes (but well versed in etiquette).  They also saw this change in attitude reflected in the music.  Punk put a mirror right in the faces of these wayward souls.  The reaction was not immediate, but it did eventually play out, seeing as it’s hard to be a successful rock star today without a humanitarian cause and some form of sacrifice in lifestyle. You can look back at Punk as the jolt that brought these values back to center focus.

Punk may have started with the music of Patti Smith in the early 70’s, but it became a movement in Britain in the mid-70s. I recall Dad walking into the house one evening when I was still getting a leg up on this new ‘art’ form.  He looked over at Fred, Joe and I and said with a smile “Johnny Rotten!”  The Sex Pistols had just landed in the States for their first (and last) infamous (and aborted) American tour.  They caused quite a stir, making headlines much like the Beatles did when they landed here for the first time in 1963.  Dad was in the know.  Fred, Joe and I had some catching up to do. 

Fred and Joe did a faster job catching up than I.  It was not long before they were indoctrinating themselves in the music of The Clash.  The Clash were the heart and soul of Britain’s punk scene.  Unlike some other punk bands, they were articulate and very talented.  They have had a lasting impression.  Whenever someone asks me to mention concerts I’ve been to, the one show I usually get a ‘Wow!’ response is the Who/Clash concert I saw in Buffalo’s Rich Stadium 1982.  However, not everyone was caught up in the punk tide. I remember Fred talking Mom into staying up to watch The Clash on Saturday Night Live in the late 70’s.  The performance was a bit disjointed and Mom did her best to sit thru the short set.  She may have been thinking “I was just getting used to Creedence Clearwater Revival, and now this?” 

The lead singer and songwriter for The Clash was Joe Strummer.  His death in 2002 of an undiagnosed heart defect prompted the old and new guard to recognize his significant contribution to rock music at the Grammy awards several months later.  Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Steven Van Zandt and David Grohl covered The Clash song ‘London Calling’, this week’s Gem Video.  A ‘Gem Light’ is also included (if there is such a beast in Punk music): The Clash performing ‘Rock the Casbah’ in the well known made-for-MTV video.

Punk came along and shook things up a bit.  We all benefit from a little shaking up every so often.

-              Pete

“London calling, see we ain’t got no swing

 ‘Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing”

Gem Music Video: London Calling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1N27phf3ds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAkfHShATKY

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About the Video: Played at the 2003 Grammys

Video Rating: 1

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Best Feedback: Fred

Good one.  No, a great one.

One of the strangest feelings I have ever had was at a Clash Concert at Cape Cod Civic center in the summer of 1983/4.  I was with Joe, Chopper, and a few others I can't recall.  We had floor "seats", which essentially meant that we were allowed into the open area in front of the stage.  We started towards the back, maybe 50 feet away, but as the band played, we found ourselves moving up, although I can't ever remember moving my feet.  It was 100 degrees+ and getting hotter, and within any 10 square foot area there easily could have been 15 people scrunched together.

As we continued to get closer to the stage, I started to get claustrophobic, but I had no-where to go.  There was no way I could get out of the crowd, and fights began to break out.  My only saving grace was that I was taller than most and I had to extend my neck up high to catch any oxygen.  Girls that had been having fun were crying and screaming as the band played on.  The only way out for most of the girls was to move to the stage and beg to be taken up by stage hands so that they could then exit out.  I was torn between wanting to do that and being strong, but soon saw that even the guys were trying to rush the stage to get out of the pit.  You could see the Band was getting freaked out and as they broke into Magnificent 7, Strummer took off his guitar strap, grabbed the neck with two hands and began swinging his guitar indiscriminately at the surging crowd like a police billy club. It became a game of survival for the next 20 minutes or so, and quite a surreal experience.  I can still see faces within inches of mine, and no one was smiling.  A big dude was getting very violent nearby and expressing it by pushing his way out very aggressively in the process hurting several others.  Many others took his lead and I finally got out after about 40 minutes of hell.

After I got out, I had an odd feeling of exhilaration;  I felt an accomplishment of survival.  There was no way I was going back in, but was glad I spent the time, and most grateful for being taller than most.  Funny thing was I thought that The Clash loved the experience as well.

Thanks for the memories.  By the way, I distinctly remember telling Dad that Jonny Rotten had a sidekick named Sid Vicious.  He LOVED that name even better, and I think in a way he wished he could have gotten into this Punk thing a little more.

/F