I took three photographs today, each one less useful than the last. First, two big wheel cars came down Indiana Avenue. I have seen them both before. You see a lot of cars over and over in your daily routine, of course. Most sensible mid-sized sedans and the ubiquitous SUVs don’t stand out, but when you see the classic land yacht on oversized rims, it stands out. When one of them is purple and gold and celebrates the Los Angeles Lakers, you make a mental note. I saw that car today. He was in front of this guy.
They generate a lot of interest and, it turns out, they have annoyingly interesting horns. I only looked out of the window because it sounded like an animal was dying, over and over. And, thus, the from-the-hip photo.
The next picture was of a daisy someone brought into the building. It seems there was someone outside handing out flowers. If you’ve seen one thoughtless composition of an oversized flower, you’ve seen them all.
Also, this little guy. I’ll let you figure out what it does. I know, but do you? Here’s your hint, we have four of them in the studio.
And, if you cheat and look up those letters, you’ll quickly learn what it is. But it is more fun if you guess.
We have some catching up to do on the Re-Listening project, and so we should dive in while I can still remember the order of things. So two quick ones today, both of which I picked up from a radio station I worked at, probably in early 1997, or the very very end of 1996. I know that because this first one had a stamp in the liner notes. Not for promotional use.
It was The Lemonheads, their last record on the Atlantic Records label. Band members were coming and going around lead singer Evan Dando, including a lot of talented session musicians, and for whatever reason — promotion interest, most likely — it was not as successful as the previous alt rock records from the Massachusetts group. But it has developed a cult following, and that’s the least we can do. This is a great record.
The first track is one of my favorites.
But then there’s the next song, which was the one that got a fair amount of air play.
But you see pretty quickly, I think, how The Lemonheads’ style was being outpaced by what was being offered on radio and MTV. The mid-third of the record gets a bit eclectically moody.
Then, and I still don’t understand why, though I’ve certainly burned brain cells on it, there’s an Appalachian murder ballad in the eighth spot. I knew this song right away.
Let’s take a little detour. This is worth it. This is why I knew that song.
The Louvin Brothers’ version was published in 1956. And in the Tennessee Valley, in the Highland Rim, I heard that around a kitchen table or in a garage, or both. Charlie Louvin, who was born on the other side of the mountains, in the Sequatchie Valley, in the Cumberland Plateau, did a haunting version of it again, 51 years later.
It’s deep in the marrow, is what we’re left with. Knoxville Girl dates to the 1920s, but it’s all borrowed, a version of “The Wexford Girl,” a 19th-century Irish ballad, which owes its origin to a 17th century English ballad, “The Bloody Miller or Hanged I Shall Be.” (Samuel Pepys wrote that one down for all of history.) It may go back even further. I wonder if the three dozen or so bands that have recorded the song in the last several decades knew all of that.
For some reason, and maybe this is why this record has a cult following now, there’s an ode to the movie Se7en. Then another ballad and, finally, more glorious noise rock.
I wish I could give you a count of the number of country roads I sped down listening to that song, or, indeed, the whole record. It would be a substantial amount.
I could not say about this next record, which was another radio station freebie. It had a little airplay. It was not for me, the guy who is referring you to the history of an Appalachian murder ballad, but a girl I liked at the time loved ska, so I picked up Goldfinger’s eponymous, debut, record.
I remember one sunny day, one curve in a particular road, where I caught the punchline in one of these songs. Which, hey, if anyone remembers a joke I’ve done 20-some years on, I’d be pleased, but other than that …
On this listen, this is the only one that I find interesting at all.
I know what is coming up in the next few CDs, I’m going to like those much better. Maybe there will be some stories to tell. Maybe you’ll like them too. The stories, or the music, either one.
