It's Bob Dylan's birthday today so I thought I would feature the 31songlist of a friend of mine who is one of the biggest Dylanphiles I've ever known. His knowledge and love of music reaches far beyond Bob as well mind you, but when Hornby writes in Songbook about "a friend who stays logged on to the Dylan website Expecting Rain most of the day at work - as if the website were the Middle East -and who owns 130 Dylan albums, including a 14 CD boxed set of every single thing Dylan recorded during 1965 apart from -get this Highway 61 Revisited, the only thing he recorded during 1965 that sane people would want to own, he's pretty keen" it reminds me of him and myself too at times. He is a Chapel Hill based sound engineer and producer. He is
Jesse Olley :
I think I took the notion of this project a bit askew as I daydreamed about the luxury of writing about the songs you love. I thought if I were to make my own "Songbook" it would be made up of tunes that needed exploring. There are many great songs that I could never add to or detract from because they don't leave anything to be said - I left them off the list. So its not so much a greatest hits list, more a list of extreme interest. A testament to the power of song. These tunes are listed in the order they popped into my head on April 30th, 2003.
"This is the flat out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don't find it anywhere else. Songs like 'Let Me Rest on a Peaceful Mountain' or 'I Saw the Light'--that's my religion. I don't adhere to rabbis, preachers, evangelists, all of that. I've learned more from the songs than I've learned from any of this kind of entity. The songs are my lexicon. I believe the songs."
- Bob Dylan
1. Sonic Youth - "Expressway To Yr Skull" : I heard this was Neil Young's favorite rock guitar song - who can argue?
2. Percy Sledge - When A Man Loves A Woman : Mr. Sledge once suffered a heart attack on stage performing this song.
3. Janice Joplin, Big Brother & the Holding Company - "Ball & Chain" : I've known this one a long time. I used to wonder what exactly a ball and chain meant; now I see them everywhere I go.
4. Johnny Cash - "Don't Take Your Guns To Town" : I don't remember any songs before this one. My mother used to sing it to me.
5. Johnny Cash - "Folsom Prison Blues" : Listen to this song. Are you on the train?
6. Johnny Cash - "Train of Love" : A model for the simple, powerful song. 4 verses, no chorus. "Every so often everybody’s baby gets the urge to roam, but everybody's baby but mine's comin' home." What a train song.
7. Bob Dylan - "One Too Many Mornings" My favorite concise Dylan song.
8. Thelonious Monk - "This Is My Story, This Is My Song (trad.)" : The history books should be changed. No one but Monk could have written it. I would like this played at my funeral along with...
9. Bud Powell - "In The Mood For A Classic" : There is a French interview from a sanatorium in which Mr. Powell is asked if he's been writing any new material. He hums the parts perfectly that become this classic.
10. Woody Guthrie - "Pretty Boy Floyd - (trad)" :From the Library of Congress recordings. Woody says of the rumors about Pretty Boy, "He was worse than quintuplets, man, he's runnin' all directions at the same time, had three guns in each hand and a whole bunch more in his pocket." All just for laying a deputy down with a log chain. The archetypal scapegoat.
11. Willie Nelson - Three Days : I knew this from the album Teatro but recently it was released on an early demos collection. It doesn't have many words but the sentiment is clear.
12. Patsy Cline - Crazy Arms : Hard to choose one, but of all the Patsy Cline recordings the stereo mix of this has an incredible sound, that I can only imagine is on the great jukebox in the sky.
13. Elvis Costello - "Mystery Dance" : "I've tried and I've tried and I'm still mystified."
14. Doc Boggs - "Oh, Death" : The Doc Boggs story is a great one. A rising pre-depression country blues musician gains mythological status in the '60's folk resurgence. Mike Seeger decided to see if he was still living. Not only was he living but Seeger found him listed in the phone book, and discovered he had gotten his banjo out of hock the week prior! He had a full second career playing festivals and recording tunes for the ages like this.
15. Magnetic Fields - "Fear Of Trains" : Stephin Merritt writes some great lyrics.
16. Bob Dylan - "She’s Your Lover Now" : At one point this was to be a single. For some reason a complete version was never recorded and we must look at a demo to get the last verse or two. I love the words but it brings me great satisfaction to hear an angry song disintegrate, as if the emotion that was there at the beginning of the song has dissipated before the thought was even finished.
17. Iggy Pop & The Stooges - "Loose" : All recorded live and loud. My favorite high-energy tune.
18. Nick Lowe - "(What's So Funny 'bout) Peace Love and Understanding" - . This has been covered countless times and seems to have become a peace anthem. Elvis Costello did it on national TV the same week I saw Steve Earle do it in concert. It stands alone as a song, maybe on the sidewalk wearing a sandwich board that says, "open for interpretation."
19. Townes Van Zandt - "Waiting Around To Die" : A deserted island selection if there ever was one.
20. Sonic Youth - "Teen Age Riot" : "It takes a teenage riot to get me out of bed right now."
21. Bob Dylan & The Band - "One Single River"(trad) : "How come we can’t talk to each other anymore? Can’t you see I’m changing too?"
22. Bob Dylan & The Band - "Rock Salt & Nails"(trad) : "And if the ladies were squirrels with their long bushy tails, I'd fill up my shotgun with rock salt and nails."
23. Bob Dylan & The Band - "Clothesline Saga" : "Have you heard the news?" he said, with a grin, "The Vice-President's gone mad!" "Where?" "Downtown." "When?" "Last night." "Hmm, say, that's too bad!" "Well, there's nothin' we can do about it," said the neighbor, "It's just somethin' we're gonna have to forget."
There are many theories of the source of the angst-ridden apathy in this tune, here's one: "At the end of January 1966 President Lyndon Johnson resumed attacks on North Vietnam through air raids after a cease fire at the end of 1965. In Congress and the rest of the country, opinions were divided, but Vice President Hubert Humphrey, never a strong supporter for the war, from Bob Dylan's home state of Minnesota, gave a statement, according to Facts On File, standing behind President Johnson, supporting the renewed war on January 31, 1966 saying in part: The resumption of the raids was necessary "to restore military pressure on North Vietnam" because Hanoi had rejected all U.S. peace overtures." Hmmm.
24. B. B. King - "Chains & Things" : Knowing about the Ball and Chain, this was next in a logical progression. Imagery plus some killer '70s string arrangements.
25. B. B. King - "The Thrill Is Gone" : For all the times the thrill has gone, and this song has been played, I have to wonder, where does the new thrill come from to replace it?
26. Half Japanese - "U.S. Teens Are Spoiled Bums" : Know thyself.
27. Billy Holiday - "Strange Fruit": Books have been written and movies have been made about Strange Fruit. Often attributed to Holiday it was written by an older Jewish man after hearing stories of lynching in the south. Amazing that such a vivid picture could be painted without firsthand witness.
28. Guitar Welch - "Electric Chair Blues" : From the printed lyrics, "Wonder why they'll execute a man at the 3 o'clock hour at night? The current's much stronger, people turn out all their lights." But I have always heard it as, "Their courage is much stronger, people turn out all the lights."
29. Mosquito - "Time Was" : On the same album with their version of Rock Salt and Nails is this freak out masterpiece. Buy this and save money on acid.
30. Sonic Youth - "Confusion Is Next" : Almost prophetically Thurston rants, "I maintain that chaos is the future and beyond it is freedom." A great Reagan era crystal ball punk protest.
31. Gold Sparkle Band - "Earthmover Symphoni" : I'm so impressed with GSB's ability to resurrect the spirit of old Ornette Coleman that Ornette Coleman actually didn't make it on the list.
Today's entry comes from someone whose fluid omnipresence (did I really write that?) has infused Shallow Be Thy Name, Kingsbury Manx, and Goatthrower as well as other gorgeously quirky collaborations since he hit Chapel Hill in 1998. He is
Clarque A. Blomquist :
1. Bad Brains - "Right Brigade"
2. Unrest - "Cath Carroll"
3. Firehose - "Brave Captain"
4. Black Sabbath - "Children Of The Grave"
5. Elvis Costello And The Attractions - "Lip Service"
6. Lou Reed - "Satellite Of Love"
7. Black Flag - "The Process Of Weeding Out"
8. The Cure - "In Between Days"
9. Dinosaur Jr. - "Freak Scene"
10. Home - "Raising Tide"
11. Butthole Surfers - "To Parter"
12. Prince - "I Wanna Be Your Lover"
13. Squeeze - "Pulling Muscles From The Shell"
14. The Minutemen - "Fascist"
15. Belle And Sebastian - "It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career"
16. X - "White Girl"
17. The Smiths - "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now"
18. The Clash - "This Is Radio Clash"
19. The Beatles - "And Your Bird Can Sing"
20. R.E.M. - "Gardening At Night"
21. Slayer - "Post Mortem"
22. Rapeman - "Coition Ingnition Mission"
23. Neil Young - "Powderfinger"
24. Sonic Youth - "Schitzophrenia"
25. Minor Threat - "Filler"
26. Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 - "***"
27. The Rolling Stones - "Emotional Rescue"
28. The Ruins - "Grubandgo"
29. Polvo - "Lazy Comet"
30. My Bloody Valentine - "Only Shallow"
31. Meat Puppets - "Up On The Sun"
Mr. Blomquist will be playing with his wife Caroline in Shallow Be Thy Name at the Local 506 at a show also featuring The Man and Cardiff Giants on May 31st. Also Kingsbury Manx appears for their first local show in a year at Go Room.4 with Workclothes on July 26th.
