No disrespect to “Free Bird” or “Sweet Home Alabama,” but THIS is the song Lynyrd Skynyrd should be most famous for. The premise is not original: artistic misfit not respected by his father leaves home, makes it big, returns home to get respect from his father only to discover his father is now dead. But it doesn’t mean it still doesn’t cut very deep. This is a demo version of the song that’s rawer and arguably more powerful:
“When I went home to show ’em they was wrong
All that I found was two tombstones
Somebody tell me please was I right or wrong
Oh, such a sad song
First I got lost, then I got found
But the ones that I love are in the ground
Somebody tell me please was I right or wrong.”
Out of the blue … and into the black. This is the most horrific song I’ve ever heard. The premise is not original: a young man with a wife and child can’t afford to support his family … so in desperation he murders them and commits suicide. The strange thing about this song is how little is expressed in the lyrics.
While your typical death metal band would go into graphic detail about the murders, “Frankie Teardrop” provides very minimal detail about what happens. The musical background is a monotonous synth riff played over and over again. What makes this song so painful to listen to is the twitchy way singer Alan Vega spits out the lyrics (which sound like he’s reading from a newspaper). Vega then expresses the most bloodcurdling screams you’ll ever hear. The screams are so frighteningly intense, they must come from a place that’s inconceivably dark.
It’s a song that forces you to question why anyone would subject themselves to the most horrific art. The fact that the lyrics and music are so minimal is a reduction of dark ideas into their evil essence.
Author Nick Hornby wrote an excellent essay about this song in his book “Songbook” where he advised: “Me, I need no convincing that life is scary. I’m forty-four and it has got quite scary enough already … Friends have started to die of incurable diseases, leaving loved ones, in some cases young children, behind. My son has been diagnosed with a severe disability, and I don’t know what the future holds for him … So … please forgive me if I don’t want to hear ‘Frankie Teardrop’ right now. He later concludes: “That’s the real con of shock art: It makes out that it’s democratic, but it’s actually only for those who can afford it. And some of us, as we get older, simply find that we don’t have that much courage to spare anymore. Good luck to you if you have, because it means that you have managed to avoid more or less everything that life has to throw at you, but don’t try to make me feel morally or intellectually inferior.”
Even though I am 100% in agreement with Hornby, I’m not quite ready to dismiss “Frankie Teardrop.” Let’s just say that it’s a song I greatly admire, but can only listen to every couple of years.
From the 1979 album “Bullshot,” here’s another nasty, disreputable slab of menace from the incredible Link Wray. Aside from the title spoken at the beginning, “Switchblade” has no words. However, trust me when I say that this track is far more volatile than even the crudest Marilyn Manson song. This is dangerous stuff, even more so considering Wray was around 50 years old when he recorded this.
From their 1996 album “Popular Favorites,” “Guitar Shop A–hole” is my favorite track from this particular Oblivians album. I’ve never been able to make out all the lyrics, but the title alone has always brought a smile to my face.
In a year of admittedly very strong films, it’s still a shame “Nebraska” didn’t walk off with a single Oscar at the 2013 Academy Awards. It’s one of the best American films of the last several years and one of the best films about the concept of family ever made.
As much as the film, its director, its writer and stars Bruce Dern and Jane Squibb have earned much-deserved accolades, sadly missing is recognition for Will Forte’s performance. It may be a straight-man performance, but arguably, Forte is the film’s heart-and-soul and what keeps “Nebraska” from being the heartless kick to the Heartland’s gut that some critics have accused it of.
The film’s premise is simple. Elderly Woody Grant (played by Bruce Dern) receives notification in the mail from a magazine subscription company that he may have won $1,000,000. However, Grant believes he’s actually won the million dollars and wants to go to Nebraska to claim his prize. Everyone tries to convince him it’s a scam, but Woody believes otherwise. His wife of several years, Kate (played by Jane Squibb), has written Woody off as a loser and a drunk and constantly berates him for how foolish he is. However, their well-meaning and long-suffering son David (played by Will Forte) decides to take his Dad to Lincoln, Nebraska to learn the truth about his prize, mainly because Woody won’t have it any other way.
What starts out in David’s mind as a chance to bond with a father who has been neglectful turns into a far different experience than he ever imagined. David is an unsuccessful home theater salesman who has just been given the axe by a girlfriend because he can’t commit to marriage. Given the toxicity of his own parents’ union, it’s easy to understand his trepidation over the idea of marriage. When he asks his father whether he ever wanted to have children, Woody’s response shocks him: “I liked to screw, and your mother’s a Catholic, so you figure it out.” They stay with Woody’s family in the town where Woody grew up and the family’s homespun charm turns venal when Woody carelessly tells them about his impending fortune and they start laying claim to past debts both real and imagined.
Despite a lot of funny moments, “Nebraska” is a profoundly sad film. However, it’s also a very moving tribute to Forte’s character David. David’s quest to bring his aging father one last shot at happiness and to bond with a severely flawed person who has done nothing to earn such efforts is heroic. David’s perseverance in giving his father his dignity may seem misguided, but it’s an affirmation of the humanity in even the most screwed-up individuals.
Forte plays a character trying to manage several volatile personalities that are important to him. Because it’s not a particularly showy role, it’s easy to dismiss it in the whirlwind kicked by Dern, Squibb, and Stacy Keach playing Woody’s embittered ex-business partner. When David finally explodes (similar to an earlier explosion by Kate), it is not a careless expression of emotion, but the only logical response to an escalating series of indignities. Despite what many people feel about their families, when someone is threatened, all past hostilities and grudges are quickly laid to rest to defend the slighted party.
“Nebraska” is a tremendously complex film that will stay with you a long time and is a genuine American classic.
I always thought this Irish version of 1970s Bruce Springsteen was pretty cool. The Boomtown Rats would never earn points for originality, but they did produce a lot of great singles during the mid-late 1970s / early 1980s, many of which were very popular in the UK and Ireland. Their greatest hits album released in the early 2000s has been one of my most played albums for the past 10 years.
David Byrne performs a clumsy and endearing impromptu cover of Biz Markie’s “Just a Friend.” I have to say … it’s almost as clumsy and endearing as the original.
According to Tony Russell’s book “The Blues – From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray,” Lewis was described as “the unluckiest man in New Orleans. He hit on a formula for slow-rocking, small-band numbers like ‘The Bells Are Ringing’ and ‘I Hear You Knocking’ only to have Fats Domino come up behind him with similar music more ingratiatingly delivered. Lewis was practically drowned in Domino’s backwash.” Ouch! I don’t want to dump on Domino, because I love his music dearly, but it’s a shame Lewis is not as famous.
To add insult to injury, Dave Edmunds’s 1970 cover of Lewis’s “I Hear You Knocking” is better known than the original. While the Edmunds song is justifiably considered a classic, Lewis’s original is so damn good. It’s a slightly edgier version of Domino’s New Orleans R&B and the song should be a staple on Oldies stations, but sadly isn’t. Raise a glass of fine bourbon in Lewis’s honor.
From 1973’s “Vagabonds of the Western World,” here’s one of Thin Lizzy’s best songs: “The Rocker.” Thin Lizzy is one of those bands I’ve grown increasingly fond of over the years. They’re a terrific, unpretentious hard rock band with soul. In America, I think they’re ridiculously underrated and aside from “The Boys are Back in Town,” “Jailbreak,” and maybe “Whiskey in the Jar,” you’d never know they’d ever recorded anything else.
“The Rocker” is a great balls-out 70s hard rock song. While it failed to chart in the US and Britain, it did get as high as #11 in Ireland. The extended guitar solo by Eric Bell on this song is one of the sickest solos in rock history. The song appeared last year in the critically acclaimed-Ron Howard film “Rush.”
Since the rise of punk / New Wave in the late 1970s made little commercial impact in the United States, most rock stars of the era just shrugged their shoulders and kept pumping out the same formulaic rock that got radio airplay and sold records. However, there were a few that attempted to understand the music and put their own spin on the new genre. Peter Gabriel is arguably the most commercially successful of these classic rock artists who dipped their toe into the New Wave pool. Alice Cooper? Not so much, but this is not due to the fact that the music was lacking.
Alice Cooper’s New Wave attempt from 1980, “Clones (We’re All),” from his “Flush the Fashion” album, is actually very good … not that far removed from Gary Numan or Peter Gabriel’s self-titled third album released that same year. “Clones” actually scraped into the Top 40 back then, but is pretty much forgotten these days. Some truly progressive 80s or New Wave radio programmer should seriously consider dropping this into their station mix.
Dave's Strange World 