Brilliant. I'm starting to feel like Eeyore here, but I feel compelled to point out that McLean is an abuser of women, so his (past?) affinity for the gun cult is not surprising. Domestic violence and gun violence go together like soup and sandwich.
Good for Don, pulling himself back from the Ted Nugent septic pit his career has taken him to. Don was an asshole in high school - a talented asshole but an asshole none the less - and apparently stayed that way. It doesn’t help that I hated Bye Bye American Pie the first time I heard it and it has followed me around my whole life, like a rabid raccoon. Roy’s parody is the only good thing about that song I’ve ever encountered, but it brought that god-awful tune back into my head. Please, bring back Lothar and the Hand People if you want to resurrect the local music of my youth (at least Waddy Wachtel still gets work with Keith).
Ted Nugent was slated to appear at a local concert venue a couple of years ago. Show was postponed two years in a row for covid. It's on again for this season. After two years, Half of the tickets are still available. Not a big place - 4200 seats. Ha ha fuck you loser . Charlie Daniels was due to appear a couple of years ago. He died before he could appear. I've had my fingers crossed about Ted.
Billy Strings sold out in two hours btw. Restored a little faith in humanity for me.
In addition to being a horrible human being, Ted Nugent was always just a lousy rock musician. "Cat Scratch Fever" was just a lousy song -- and that was the high point of his career about 45 years ago.
It is amazing what I have missed. I mean, now just listening in my head to McLean's songs and the way he sings them, I realize it's right there what a no-talent jerk he really is. But then again, there are many out there even more famous and admired. There is so much in a lifetime to avoid, and it usually takes a lifetime to learn that.
I had not read Donnie's dufus response. It is even more startling to me I never perceived how weak he was. I guess I just didn't think too much about it. But now when the evidence is right there, I guess I always thought he was just another run-of-the-mill popular music guy. I have always been a bit of snob when it comes to these matters. I am not overly impressed by other people's views of what constitutes "great achievement." In some ways I know that makes me a bit of a jerk or spoilsport. I am not sure what the right word is. I guess I just think everyone is good enough just being an ordinary human, and it seems to me that some people get more attention and real advantages for doing little things a lot of people frankly can do as well or even better but they, those others who are not famous, just lack the will and to some extent shamelessness to trot out their little talent, that seems ridiculous in the end. Who were famous performers in the 19th century of popular music? Actors used to be on a par with prostitutes. I am not saying we need to go back to being medieval, or even Renaissance or just after, when cross dressers were also the deadliest and most celebrated men. Values change and they have for the most part improved for the great good. I just don't get why everyone gets all bent out of shape by certain things to the point they set aside their own dignity. Thank you, SteveB, for bringing all this to my attention, and far more succinctly than my response here! You, sir, are my hero!
Somehow it seems strange that Don McLean is still alive. He was famous for about a year more than a half-century ago because of that one song, and a few others, and now he's basically the answer to a trivia question. I remember that song being played a lot on the radio when I was 15 years old, but even then the song just seemed to go on interminably without making a real point. (Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. Yes, we get it.) It seemed like a one-minute comedy sketch that had been padded out to eight minutes. It's kind of sad that he was reduced to being a performing monkey at NRA conventions -- but perhaps he could have found something useful to do with his life.
Ohio is one of those constitutional carry states now which means any asshole can get a gun and carry it around, concealed. . And the assholes seem to have gone for it in a big way.
The lead story on the local news is about the shooting at a Walmart north of Cincinnati . Some guy was shoplifting, store employees intervened and, as was evidently his right, the suspected shoplifter pulled out his gun and shot two people. One was the greeter. You think the Greeter got a big bump in his pension for his family since he was shot "In the Line of Duty"? Ha Ha fuck me no! Not like he's a cop who got Covid for refusing to wear a mask or get a shot and died or something.
Of the other 8 stories on news, 4 more involved shootings. It's becoming epidemic and pretty soon everybody's going to notice. I wonder what happens then? We've shit the bed so hard about this, I don't think we can unshit it.
First time I kissed a girl "American Pie" was playing on the radio. I am fond of that song.
"It's becoming epidemic and pretty soon everybody's going to notice." Hasn't it been an epidemic for a while? And there are people whose jobs and/or ideology depend on them not just failing to notice, but making all sorts of bullshit excuses. We've heard many of them this week. Is it too much to hope that between Uvalde and Buffalo, the anti-gun majority has finally had enough?
"Don't you tell me 'it's hopeless'! That's all you've ever given me, words of hopelessness! Don't you ever run out of them? Do you have a perpetual supply of hopeless words in that tomb of yours?!"
--Richard Bellero Jr., from the Outer Limits episode "The Bellero Shield"
No. What I’m saying is don’t trust the DNC to save us. Instead of hoping, gotta start planning for what comes next. It’s not a matter of no hope but to direct it in a productive direction.
Can only criticize a Cassandra for being maybe too early but their correct.
Too, there’s the fixing the world thing. Gotta learn that the federal government will be the problem, in no way a solution. So other ways to make things better have to be figured out.
Bruce Abbot is just another pol, he's not King of Texas, and he could be easily replaced come November. Beto O'Rourke is right there on the ballot and he's made his differences from Abbott on the gun issue clear enough, people just have to vote for him. If the good people of Texas don't, you can't say they didn't have a choice.
Beto gets elected. But before that, SCOTUS has ruled that the 2nd amendment is absolute and states can’t restrict in any way whatsoever. So as governor, Beto does what to advance gun control what with absolutely no authority?
And on the federal level even if a majority of elected officials were willing to act, what can they do that SCOTUS won’t shoot down?
Look, if you put in enough effort here, you might be able to convince me it's hopeless, but why put in the effort? Is there such a shortage of people who think it's hopeless that we need to seek out the few people who don't think that and argue them into hopelessness?
Beto O'Rourke would be better than Bruce Abbott in about a million ways (I think you probably agree about that) and as Governor at the very least he could veto bills that would make things even worse (which you can be sure are in the works right now.) Plus, an out n' proud gun control advocate winning election to Governor of FREAKING TEXAS would be a political earthquake that shake this country to its racist, gun-lovin' core.
But my main point is you can bitch about "the system" all you want, and I'll be happy to bitch along with you, but sometimes the people of this country really are given real choices and it is on them if they make the wrong choice.
Oh, sure, he’ll be triage as long as the arms don’t have too much control of the lege. The GOP has obviously been slowed at times but they’ve been moving closer to their goals for the last forty-odd years nonetheless.
What kind be done is limited and we’re not going to be getting what we need from an actual opposition party. Dems won’t be our saviors because they don’t want to be.
And it’s not hopelessness so much as a belief that we should be clear eyed about what’s coming and plan how to deal with it.
Roy is old enough to remember that not long before American Pie came out, America was in the middle of an epidemic of gun violence that involved a specific type of firearm--the Saturday night special. These were cheap handguns; small revolvers that were mass produced and flooded the streets. Lyndon Johnson pushed for, and got, legislation banning the manufacture and sale of Saturday night specials.
That was then, this is now. A Saturday night special could kill two or maybe three people if the shooter was really lucky, while a modern assault rifle can kill dozens. We banned one because the death toll was unacceptable; we're now told that no amount of death is reason enough to ban the other. I'm sure it's no small coincidence that Saturday night specials were flooding ghettoes (and thus a weapon "those people" could easily access), which made them easy to outlaw. Just as I'm sure it's no coincidence at all that assault rifles are the death-toys of choice for White men, and thus cannot be outlawed or even meaningfully regulated.
I'll drop this here because you brought up the assault rifle/white guy nexus.
In Good Ol' YYOOSSAA there are only a few freedoms that matter. Firstmost: whiteness. All else: Absolute unfettered gunflaunting, unlimited money hoarding, exclusive property uplocking. So, white people and their things.
Didn't Reagan, as Governor of California, sign a bunch of gun-control legislation about that time? Think it had something to do with the Panthers exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, just like they was White folks and actually HAD rights. How uppity of them.
Gotta unlock it so I can tweet and spread the brilliance.
Or maybe I’m an old who remembers the song.
Also need to add that we’re one following the tabloid media, one would know McLean is exactly the kind of person whom you shouldn’t be surprise seeing entertaining the NRA.
Roy, it’s such a pleasure to read a piece like this where the rhyme works and the meter scans, and the words are chosen for meaning, not just to fit. Kudos.
I can't credit the douchebag's decision much -- why did he agree to perform in the first place? "Oh! The R stands for 'Rifle'!??? No, no, no... that won't do at all!"
My apologies to all boomers -- "American Pie" is absolute garbage. My solace is that no good karaoke DJ will allow singers to do it.
Well Grouchy, there was "Alone Again, Naturally," "Ben" " Baby , Don't Get Hooked on Me" Wayne Newton's classic "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" and of course Sammy Davis's
number one hit "Candy Man" (which may have been cool if actually about drugs as rumored) on the radio that year. Even the good stuff, "Maggie May" , " Heart of Gold" Nights in White Satin" weren't very good. This was the Year of the Osmond Family. Bobby Vinton had a big hit with "Sealed with a Kiss"
The really good stuff, "I'll Take You There", "Slippin' into Darkness"
"Clean-up Woman" "Family Affair" "Good Foot" were from the Black music groups and iirc a little hard to find. Unless it was tween Micheal Jackson singing "Ben" and "Rockin' Robin" or Sammy Davis.
I'll be honest - considering the circumstances, American Pie sounded pretty good .
I'm with you on some, not on others ("Sylvia's Mother" is a great song, as is "Nights in White Satin" and "Heart of Gold", I'll take a pass on "Happiest Girl", and I hated "Candyman" whenever it came on the radio, which was way too often).
I second that oof. There are so many times I've wanted to smack people who sang Maggie May at me. (It's a mean song!) I had to content myself with telling them to get back to work on my farm.
"Best of a bad crop" is a lousy excuse for becoming a Timeless Klassic. Those were the years when mainstream labels & radio were trying to steer the charts away from the counter-culture, and back to the saccharine & anodyne (which always existed). But also harness styles that seemed dangerous into safety [sort of like how the fervor over Nirvana ultimately leads labels to produce Marcy Playground].
And yes, the Black music of that time was much much better (because it always is & was) — that's why it was difficult to find.
I suppose I should point out that levees are supposed to be dry. It's the soil embankment that holds the water in. If the levee is wet you're in some shit.
Yup. (As a side note I remember having beignets and cafe-au-lait at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter, right next to the levee, and looking *up* at ships going by on the Mississippi.)
When I traveled there 50 years ago I looked forward to looking over the Mighty Mississipp® but discovered the only way I could see it was to look up. New Orleans is weird.
But then what's the meaning of the "but" in "but the levee was dry"? Dude was hoping for wet and left disappointed? On second thought, it's not worth thinking about.
Following on the notions of 'one a week', 'epidemic', etc. Yesterday we heard that the Texas unpleasantness was the 27th(!) mass casualty incident in a school so far this year. That's roughly one mass shooting in a school EVERY 4TH SCHOOL DAY.
I got more to say about people and their things, but too scattered to write yet.
Finalement, the poetry strikes me in a way maybe none of you would recognize, but only because I have a poetic friend whose word choices, rhythms and tone all are similar to this from Roy. Almost eerie to me. Anyway, I'll forward to my friend and let them ponder it themselves...
Full disclosure: I never minded American Pie. Yes, it was sort of Bob-Dylan-for-Kids, but it wasn't overtly stupid (high praise indeed) and had that Sunshine/Stuck in the Middle With You groove. I was shocked to see McClean advertised for the NRA performance, though. Roy's take, vis a vis McClean's career maintenance, is just cynical enough to be exactly right.
That's high praise from you. And yeah, I don't mind American Pie either -- but I was in high school when AM stations played the short single version and FM stations played the long album version incessantly. How could I not like it?
Suggest Googling Don McLean and his right wing views. He plead out 6 domestic assault charges, his daughter says he abused her mentally and emotionally (he calls both of them evil liars); he thinks homeless people just aren't motivated and he's an NRA card carrying member.
Eeeyikes! Whatta psycho.
Ohhhh... so that's why he likes the NRA... <shaking my head in not-surprise>
I've learned so much about him from this thread. My god, what a wanker. Was never really a big fan of his, but now I hate his guts.
Brilliant. I'm starting to feel like Eeyore here, but I feel compelled to point out that McLean is an abuser of women, so his (past?) affinity for the gun cult is not surprising. Domestic violence and gun violence go together like soup and sandwich.
Wife-abusing gun enthusiast? My only question is why this guy isn't running for Congress.
What I was alluding to.
Roy, make this column public. Also, call upon your punk rock past and make an actual song out of it. Post it here or on YouTube or wherever.
It *is* public. Thanks!
Excellent!
Good for Don, pulling himself back from the Ted Nugent septic pit his career has taken him to. Don was an asshole in high school - a talented asshole but an asshole none the less - and apparently stayed that way. It doesn’t help that I hated Bye Bye American Pie the first time I heard it and it has followed me around my whole life, like a rabid raccoon. Roy’s parody is the only good thing about that song I’ve ever encountered, but it brought that god-awful tune back into my head. Please, bring back Lothar and the Hand People if you want to resurrect the local music of my youth (at least Waddy Wachtel still gets work with Keith).
Ted Nugent was slated to appear at a local concert venue a couple of years ago. Show was postponed two years in a row for covid. It's on again for this season. After two years, Half of the tickets are still available. Not a big place - 4200 seats. Ha ha fuck you loser . Charlie Daniels was due to appear a couple of years ago. He died before he could appear. I've had my fingers crossed about Ted.
Billy Strings sold out in two hours btw. Restored a little faith in humanity for me.
To be fair, half of Ted's fans died in the intervening two years.
By what means? Let me guess...
It's a race between Covid and gun suicide. No matter which one wins, it's a win-win for the rest of us
In addition to being a horrible human being, Ted Nugent was always just a lousy rock musician. "Cat Scratch Fever" was just a lousy song -- and that was the high point of his career about 45 years ago.
If you hate Don McLean, you'll love this. https://wfmu.org/LCD/andy/americanpie.html
It is amazing what I have missed. I mean, now just listening in my head to McLean's songs and the way he sings them, I realize it's right there what a no-talent jerk he really is. But then again, there are many out there even more famous and admired. There is so much in a lifetime to avoid, and it usually takes a lifetime to learn that.
What I especially love is how he gave Don McLean the space to reply and McLean's reply says "asshole" even more strongly than the original post.
I had not read Donnie's dufus response. It is even more startling to me I never perceived how weak he was. I guess I just didn't think too much about it. But now when the evidence is right there, I guess I always thought he was just another run-of-the-mill popular music guy. I have always been a bit of snob when it comes to these matters. I am not overly impressed by other people's views of what constitutes "great achievement." In some ways I know that makes me a bit of a jerk or spoilsport. I am not sure what the right word is. I guess I just think everyone is good enough just being an ordinary human, and it seems to me that some people get more attention and real advantages for doing little things a lot of people frankly can do as well or even better but they, those others who are not famous, just lack the will and to some extent shamelessness to trot out their little talent, that seems ridiculous in the end. Who were famous performers in the 19th century of popular music? Actors used to be on a par with prostitutes. I am not saying we need to go back to being medieval, or even Renaissance or just after, when cross dressers were also the deadliest and most celebrated men. Values change and they have for the most part improved for the great good. I just don't get why everyone gets all bent out of shape by certain things to the point they set aside their own dignity. Thank you, SteveB, for bringing all this to my attention, and far more succinctly than my response here! You, sir, are my hero!
A factor — not an excuse, certainly no justification for being a POS — is being a one hit wonder.
Speaking of awful Don McLean, let's not forget this gem:
Starry starry night,
Have yourself another beer,
Please don't send another ear,
Have something to say?
A note will be okay.
Now that one really sucked..
Somehow it seems strange that Don McLean is still alive. He was famous for about a year more than a half-century ago because of that one song, and a few others, and now he's basically the answer to a trivia question. I remember that song being played a lot on the radio when I was 15 years old, but even then the song just seemed to go on interminably without making a real point. (Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. Yes, we get it.) It seemed like a one-minute comedy sketch that had been padded out to eight minutes. It's kind of sad that he was reduced to being a performing monkey at NRA conventions -- but perhaps he could have found something useful to do with his life.
Nice! Not "nice" nice, But well done.
Ohio is one of those constitutional carry states now which means any asshole can get a gun and carry it around, concealed. . And the assholes seem to have gone for it in a big way.
The lead story on the local news is about the shooting at a Walmart north of Cincinnati . Some guy was shoplifting, store employees intervened and, as was evidently his right, the suspected shoplifter pulled out his gun and shot two people. One was the greeter. You think the Greeter got a big bump in his pension for his family since he was shot "In the Line of Duty"? Ha Ha fuck me no! Not like he's a cop who got Covid for refusing to wear a mask or get a shot and died or something.
Of the other 8 stories on news, 4 more involved shootings. It's becoming epidemic and pretty soon everybody's going to notice. I wonder what happens then? We've shit the bed so hard about this, I don't think we can unshit it.
First time I kissed a girl "American Pie" was playing on the radio. I am fond of that song.
"It's becoming epidemic and pretty soon everybody's going to notice." Hasn't it been an epidemic for a while? And there are people whose jobs and/or ideology depend on them not just failing to notice, but making all sorts of bullshit excuses. We've heard many of them this week. Is it too much to hope that between Uvalde and Buffalo, the anti-gun majority has finally had enough?
Unfortunately, the answer to your question is Sadly, Yes.
Doesn’t matter what the majority wants. The political system that has to respond is fully captured by pro-gun interests.
"Don't you tell me 'it's hopeless'! That's all you've ever given me, words of hopelessness! Don't you ever run out of them? Do you have a perpetual supply of hopeless words in that tomb of yours?!"
--Richard Bellero Jr., from the Outer Limits episode "The Bellero Shield"
No. What I’m saying is don’t trust the DNC to save us. Instead of hoping, gotta start planning for what comes next. It’s not a matter of no hope but to direct it in a productive direction.
Can only criticize a Cassandra for being maybe too early but their correct.
Too, there’s the fixing the world thing. Gotta learn that the federal government will be the problem, in no way a solution. So other ways to make things better have to be figured out.
Any suggestions?
Suggestions for what exactly?
Bruce Abbot is just another pol, he's not King of Texas, and he could be easily replaced come November. Beto O'Rourke is right there on the ballot and he's made his differences from Abbott on the gun issue clear enough, people just have to vote for him. If the good people of Texas don't, you can't say they didn't have a choice.
Beto gets elected. But before that, SCOTUS has ruled that the 2nd amendment is absolute and states can’t restrict in any way whatsoever. So as governor, Beto does what to advance gun control what with absolutely no authority?
And on the federal level even if a majority of elected officials were willing to act, what can they do that SCOTUS won’t shoot down?
Look, if you put in enough effort here, you might be able to convince me it's hopeless, but why put in the effort? Is there such a shortage of people who think it's hopeless that we need to seek out the few people who don't think that and argue them into hopelessness?
Beto O'Rourke would be better than Bruce Abbott in about a million ways (I think you probably agree about that) and as Governor at the very least he could veto bills that would make things even worse (which you can be sure are in the works right now.) Plus, an out n' proud gun control advocate winning election to Governor of FREAKING TEXAS would be a political earthquake that shake this country to its racist, gun-lovin' core.
But my main point is you can bitch about "the system" all you want, and I'll be happy to bitch along with you, but sometimes the people of this country really are given real choices and it is on them if they make the wrong choice.
Oh, sure, he’ll be triage as long as the arms don’t have too much control of the lege. The GOP has obviously been slowed at times but they’ve been moving closer to their goals for the last forty-odd years nonetheless.
What kind be done is limited and we’re not going to be getting what we need from an actual opposition party. Dems won’t be our saviors because they don’t want to be.
And it’s not hopelessness so much as a belief that we should be clear eyed about what’s coming and plan how to deal with it.
So how should we deal with it? Please be as detailed and specific as possible.
Hey, dude was just standing his ground, right there in the Boost and Depends aisle.
Roy is old enough to remember that not long before American Pie came out, America was in the middle of an epidemic of gun violence that involved a specific type of firearm--the Saturday night special. These were cheap handguns; small revolvers that were mass produced and flooded the streets. Lyndon Johnson pushed for, and got, legislation banning the manufacture and sale of Saturday night specials.
That was then, this is now. A Saturday night special could kill two or maybe three people if the shooter was really lucky, while a modern assault rifle can kill dozens. We banned one because the death toll was unacceptable; we're now told that no amount of death is reason enough to ban the other. I'm sure it's no small coincidence that Saturday night specials were flooding ghettoes (and thus a weapon "those people" could easily access), which made them easy to outlaw. Just as I'm sure it's no coincidence at all that assault rifles are the death-toys of choice for White men, and thus cannot be outlawed or even meaningfully regulated.
I'll drop this here because you brought up the assault rifle/white guy nexus.
In Good Ol' YYOOSSAA there are only a few freedoms that matter. Firstmost: whiteness. All else: Absolute unfettered gunflaunting, unlimited money hoarding, exclusive property uplocking. So, white people and their things.
Nothing else matters, capisce?
Oh I remember: "we can all feel special on a Saturday night" https://youtu.be/8vGKPE3CGaw
WTF was that? Right-wing ska? (didn't listen to the end)
Don't be dissing Ian Hunter, my man. Gotta listen to the lyrics a little more closely: "Hey, and ain't it a shame we ain't got a war,
We'll just have to practice on the sick and the poor.
Assassinate presidents, and they ain't the only ones,
We can get them all, young and old, if we stick to our guns.
So stick to your guns, boys, fight for your life.
We'll all feel special on a Saturday night."
Ah, see, that's why I need to listen past the first chorus. Apologies to Mr. Hunter.
Carry the news... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNHdPPJGowY
Didn't Reagan, as Governor of California, sign a bunch of gun-control legislation about that time? Think it had something to do with the Panthers exercising their 2nd Amendment rights, just like they was White folks and actually HAD rights. How uppity of them.
Whatever happened to Saturday night?
It's dead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur1Ozf5glmU
Alternately, end of the season...
Saturday night special
Got a barrel that's blue and cold
Ain't good for nothing
But put a man six feet in a hole
My breath is taken by this brilliance.
Gotta unlock it so I can tweet and spread the brilliance.
Or maybe I’m an old who remembers the song.
Also need to add that we’re one following the tabloid media, one would know McLean is exactly the kind of person whom you shouldn’t be surprise seeing entertaining the NRA.
It's unlocked, share away!
Done!
Huzzah!
Roy, it’s such a pleasure to read a piece like this where the rhyme works and the meter scans, and the words are chosen for meaning, not just to fit. Kudos.
Agreed. All you need is a note before the slow part that says "[25 meandering verses omitted]"
When performed, in that spot you can have Andy Rooney read thirty pages from Finnegan’s Wake, or maybe Byron’s “Don Juan” (which I like, but c’mon).
Thanks. Had to cheat a little in places but his style in singing the verses is to sometimes cram, sometimes not, so I think it plays.
Exactly. The correct word asserts itself and we just figure out a way to accommodate it so it sounds like it belongs.
I can't credit the douchebag's decision much -- why did he agree to perform in the first place? "Oh! The R stands for 'Rifle'!??? No, no, no... that won't do at all!"
My apologies to all boomers -- "American Pie" is absolute garbage. My solace is that no good karaoke DJ will allow singers to do it.
Well Grouchy, there was "Alone Again, Naturally," "Ben" " Baby , Don't Get Hooked on Me" Wayne Newton's classic "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" and of course Sammy Davis's
number one hit "Candy Man" (which may have been cool if actually about drugs as rumored) on the radio that year. Even the good stuff, "Maggie May" , " Heart of Gold" Nights in White Satin" weren't very good. This was the Year of the Osmond Family. Bobby Vinton had a big hit with "Sealed with a Kiss"
The really good stuff, "I'll Take You There", "Slippin' into Darkness"
"Clean-up Woman" "Family Affair" "Good Foot" were from the Black music groups and iirc a little hard to find. Unless it was tween Micheal Jackson singing "Ben" and "Rockin' Robin" or Sammy Davis.
I'll be honest - considering the circumstances, American Pie sounded pretty good .
“Theme From Shaft”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlMT-oEIQuo
You will thank me.
Oof. Just oof.
But yeah, I'll Take You There...
"Happiest Girl in the Whole USA"' "Sylvia's Mother," "Song Sung Blue" and worst of all "Rocket Man" Fuck I hate "Rocket Man" .
What's wrong with you guys, these are all good songs. I love pop music!
Funny, I really , really like the Easy Listening music from my parents day -
The good stuff. Paul Weston. Robert Farnon, Stanley Black, the people doing the Jackie Gleason albums. There is a ton of artistry there.
Montavanni, 101 Strings , Bert Kaempfert, no.
Living strings! And their cousins, living guitars!
I'm with you on some, not on others ("Sylvia's Mother" is a great song, as is "Nights in White Satin" and "Heart of Gold", I'll take a pass on "Happiest Girl", and I hated "Candyman" whenever it came on the radio, which was way too often).
This is the best version of "Nights in White Satin":
https://youtu.be/G5TdVoQFegQ
Giorgio Moroder (1976) -- I have no idea why the LP cover looks like Moroder is holding a band meeting in a bathhouse...
I second that oof. There are so many times I've wanted to smack people who sang Maggie May at me. (It's a mean song!) I had to content myself with telling them to get back to work on my farm.
Sympathies. And kudos.
I like ALL those songs.
Daddy don't you walk so fast -
Daddy don't you walk so fast -
Slow down some,
Cause you're making me run -
I hated Shane too.
So were Reverb Motherfuckers actually a pop band and only sounded punk due to limited musical skills?
Wait! You forgot "Billy Don't Be A Hero". Dreck of epic proportions...
very apropos for the Uvalde police
"Best of a bad crop" is a lousy excuse for becoming a Timeless Klassic. Those were the years when mainstream labels & radio were trying to steer the charts away from the counter-culture, and back to the saccharine & anodyne (which always existed). But also harness styles that seemed dangerous into safety [sort of like how the fervor over Nirvana ultimately leads labels to produce Marcy Playground].
And yes, the Black music of that time was much much better (because it always is & was) — that's why it was difficult to find.
Ultimate White Guy Nostalgia. (A Black man who "drove his Chevy to the levee" was likely being chased by the Klan.)
I suppose I should point out that levees are supposed to be dry. It's the soil embankment that holds the water in. If the levee is wet you're in some shit.
Yup. (As a side note I remember having beignets and cafe-au-lait at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter, right next to the levee, and looking *up* at ships going by on the Mississippi.)
When I traveled there 50 years ago I looked forward to looking over the Mighty Mississipp® but discovered the only way I could see it was to look up. New Orleans is weird.
But then what's the meaning of the "but" in "but the levee was dry"? Dude was hoping for wet and left disappointed? On second thought, it's not worth thinking about.
"Wet Ass Levee"
No apology needed, you young punk.
Brilliant.
Fabulously, exquisitely swell. Molto bravo muchississimo.
Following on the notions of 'one a week', 'epidemic', etc. Yesterday we heard that the Texas unpleasantness was the 27th(!) mass casualty incident in a school so far this year. That's roughly one mass shooting in a school EVERY 4TH SCHOOL DAY.
I got more to say about people and their things, but too scattered to write yet.
Finalement, the poetry strikes me in a way maybe none of you would recognize, but only because I have a poetic friend whose word choices, rhythms and tone all are similar to this from Roy. Almost eerie to me. Anyway, I'll forward to my friend and let them ponder it themselves...
Fantastic, Roy. I have no notes!
Full disclosure: I never minded American Pie. Yes, it was sort of Bob-Dylan-for-Kids, but it wasn't overtly stupid (high praise indeed) and had that Sunshine/Stuck in the Middle With You groove. I was shocked to see McClean advertised for the NRA performance, though. Roy's take, vis a vis McClean's career maintenance, is just cynical enough to be exactly right.
That's high praise from you. And yeah, I don't mind American Pie either -- but I was in high school when AM stations played the short single version and FM stations played the long album version incessantly. How could I not like it?
How could I not like it?
You got sick of hearing it every hour or so
Clowns to the left of me!
Jokers to the right!
Don McLean is a Republican. He's not a leftist.
No argument from me...my comment was in re Ellis's reference to Stuck in the Middle With You...
Suggest Googling Don McLean and his right wing views. He plead out 6 domestic assault charges, his daughter says he abused her mentally and emotionally (he calls both of them evil liars); he thinks homeless people just aren't motivated and he's an NRA card carrying member.
’Cause the people just have a vote —
NRA bought Joe Manchin a boat!
Oh, that's gonna stick with me.