1979 via 1991: Paul Simon Late in the Evening

Here's actually a later version of the song, cause it really benefits from his later "world music" sound.

1979 Marianne Faithful

This song feels so early 80s, we've definitely transitioned into the keyboard base of the new decade. But I got this song from Thelma and Louise, but the kids these days seem to have got it from American Horror Story.

1978: Blondie and the double backbeats

Here's one I had on my computer and never noticed. How amazing is this? I think it's my favorite Blondie song now. (Well, it's a cover, but you know what I mean.)

1977: Meatloaf gives 'er

My mom had the Bat Out of Hell album when we wuz little. We loved it. Later I had it on tape, so I remember driving around in my put-put in the 90s, just loving and singing along to every track.

My political philosophy professor hugely admired authors who took a "give 'er" approach to their research and books. When I read Das Kapital I saw what he meant. I mean, Marx just keeps swinging that bat, the more melodramatic the better. Just throw everything you got at the reader.

That's Jim Steinman the writer...

Oh I know you belong inside my aching heart
And can't you see my faded Levis bursting apart
And don't you hear me crying:
"Oh Babe, don't go"
And don't you hear me screaming:
"How was I to know?"



...and Meatloaf the singer. Here he sings the song live, for the first time in decades, and tells the audience: I'll probably mess up, and you can either say "Screw you" or "God he gave it a good try." Love the attitude.

1973: E.L.O. is just awesome

One of my dad's albums that my brother and I *discovered.* This is the ELO take on Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King. I love the crisp sound of those guitars combined with violin, and I love the drums--what a cool cover. Jeff Lynne created such a great sound with this band.



Live version:

1971: Aretha doing Bridge Over Troubled Water

This performance might be later, but the original she did was in '71. Great video--runny eyeliner and all.

Must be the season of 2012!

Alright: 2012. I got it down to 886 songs.

Starting with Donovan. This song was being used in a movie trailer at the time, I think. Very cool sounding.

Ain't Nobody - by somebody

And that brings us to the end of 2011. A year, apparently, filled with 80s downloads.

Still one of my favorite videos

And probably why for a Halloween dance (grade 8?) I went drag in my grandfather's tux. Wish I had a photo. My bestie just wanted an excuse to dress slutty, so I called her my gangster moll.

Love me an 80s Robbie Robertson

“I was proud to rip open my chest and bare my soul,” Robertson said at the time. “I’m not embarrassed to talk about these things anymore. Do you know what a skin walker is? It’s a thing in Indian mythology. There are certain people born with this gift, and they’re able to actually get inside you and mess with your feelings and with your mind. And if a skin walker chooses to get a hold of you, there’s not much you can do. I want a song to get inside me, to feel it did the old skin walker on me. I was kind of discovering that on this album, and now I’m pursuing it.” (Robbie Robertson)

Ooh here's one of those ones I'd forgotten about and love! My brother had this record and it was the shit. Produced by Daniel Lanois.



Same album that brought us the indescribably beautiful "Broken Arrow."
I want to come when you call
I'll get to you if I have to crawl
They can't hold me with these iron walls


I even love the Rod Stewart version. Yes, yes the song is un-cheesable. Love the crescendo at 2:22. 


And of course "Somewhere Down the Crazy River" is sexy as all get out.


He put out this great song in 2011. Love it when an oldie manages to pull a rabbit out of their hat, one last time.


The 1994 compilation soundtrack also has some great songs:

"Jack Wilson claimed to have left the presence of God convinced that if every Indian in the West danced the new dance to "hasten the event", all evil in the world would be swept away, leaving a renewed Earth filled with food, love, and faith." (wiki) And then Wounded Knee happened. Meh.

"Long as you motherfuckers know"

Nicki Minaj has been going for *cred* lately, so putting out a lot of real rap. But I think when she raps she's Just Another Rapper. I mean, a strong one, but still. I think what she does better than anyone else is the rap+pop combo. I'm still hoping she'll get back to it... when she realizes I'm right.

I love the little Beyonce reference. Just a little pop of cross-hiphop-feminism.

I'm fighting for the girls that never thought they could win.
Cause before they could begin you told them it was the end
But I am here to reverse the curse that they live in.
Got two bones to pick I'm a only choose one,
You might get addressed on the second album
Which means you can breathe until I motherfucking say so.
To all my bad bitches: I can see your halo

Prince and Kate Bush mash it up

Here's one of my favorite Prince collaborations--with my other 80s hero, Kate Bush.

Bush asked Prince to contribute a few background vocals to a song called “Why Should I Love You”, which she had just recorded in full at Abbey Road Studios. But when Prince received the track, he ignored the intructions and dismantled the entire thing like a crazed mechanic taking apart old cars on his backyard. He wanted to inject himself into the very heart of it, weaving his sound amongst her sound, giving it a new soul entirely. As Koppelman explains, “We essentially created a new song on a new piece of tape and then flew all of Kate's tracks back on top of it… Prince stacked a bunch of keys, guitars, bass, etc, on it, and then went to sing background vocals.” Despite being the lovechild of two of humanity’s greatest music minds, the resulting track is not often mentioned on your average BBC3 pop retrospective presented by Lauren Laverne. It’s startlingly brilliant, with sometimes bizarre, musical depths. (noisey.voice.com)

Not to mention backup vocals by a Bulgarian trio. It's as weird as Kate and Prince. Love it.

Before


After

He liked women

When I told one coworker about Prince, she said "Oh I gues it was an overdose?" Um no. I mean, yes, it might have been an overdose issue with painkillers. But we're not talking cokehead here. Not only because he was a Jehova's Witness, but even in his 20s he didn't drink or smoke or do drugs. Everyone attests to that. Even hiring people for the band, he had rules about that stuff. He did extacy in the 90s, that's all I know of.

Another time, another coworker said: Isn't Prince gay? My French didn't feel up to the full explanation of "No, but he didn't mind if people thought he was, well at least before he was a Jehova's Witness, and he was very much about playing with gender conventions, and you know a man can dress like a woman because really what does that even mean?" I left it to: "No. He was married a couple times."

My third Prince surprise comes when I see some internet comment about him being sexist or a misogynist. No I'm sorry, Prince did not hate women. Yes, he loved to see them in lingerie... but this is a man who performed in bikini underwear and leggings. Who wore assless pants to the American Music Awards.

I couldn't even make a list of the women he's had in his bands, and whose careers he's promoted, and who he's admired, and worked with. It's SOOO LONG. Joni Mitchell used to see him at her concerts when he was 15, and he wrote her crazy fan mail. He adored Chaka Kahn and supported her later in her career. He randomly came across Diane Birch in a hotel and invited her to jam with him:

"I was young, insecure and just starting to sing and write and you saw the thing in me I wanted to be and that was reason enough to believe in myself and go for it. From that day on, my life changed forever. The respect and support you've given to so many female artists is incredible, especially in an industry which is often so crushing to young women. I can't fathom a world without you in it, and thanks to your music, we will never have to live in one."

"He stood for the weirdos"

"He stood for the weirdos. He stood for the unique and he stood for those who couldn't stand up for ourselves." - Janelle Monae on Prince.

My husband called me at work in the afternoon. He couldn't talk long, but thought I'd want to know right away: Prince is dead.

(What I love is that he added: It's from a credible source. How well he knows me.)

I felt cold run through my body. Not a shiver, just coldness. Then I was googling, and then talking about it with coworkers, and not yet sad because I was still in a state of "well huh."

I was surprised, but I think I was less surprised than others. I don't know why. Maybe because while others think vegan=healthy, I know you can be vegan and totally not healthy. And others think skinny=healthy, whereas there's evidence to the contrary. And his last tour was at a piano--in other words, no longer jumping and running around. And it looked like he was referencing lyrics on a tablet. Maybe not, but it did make me wonder how he was doing.

At the concert last month I said to the UBERFAN next to me--well, it's good we came, cause you never know when we'll lose him. And UBERFAN was all Oh no, he's so healthy, he'll be with us for years! ...I kept my less optimistic opinion to myself. People die all the time from random shit. Prince died at the exact same age as the ex-crack cocaine addict Vanity, who had killed her organs. This is life. This is what the Book of Ecclesiastes is all about. It's why I finally made the effort to start going to his concerts: He won't be touring forever.

Still. I didn't think Prince would die ONE month later.

I listened to the tributes on the radio as I drove home. I couldn't help thinking: When I was in Nanaimo, I heard Prince on the radio once every day. Not kidding. In Montreal? Twice per year. Do you know who I hear once per week? Platinum Blonde. So I did feel a bit "FUCK YOU" towards the sudden outpouring of love and playing of songs.

I felt sadder and sadder. Of course, while my right brain mourned, the left side of my brain wondered why. I won't miss his albums, cause he wasn't putting out good music anymore. A song or two per album, that was it. And I've seen four concerts now, and had decided I would probably not go to another. So in terms of my day to day life, what had changed?

Once my left brain caught up to what my right brain already knew, I was finally able to have a good cry, and I wrote this *eulogy* on my facebook page:

My eulogy, as best as I can describe my feelings: I was really upset about something yesterday, and was still feeling upset when the Prince news came in. But oddly enough, what I was feeling sad about created the context for me to understand why I became such a big Prince fan in grade 6.

Around grade 4 I realized I was weird. There were the cutesie “normal” girls, and there were me and my friends. I’ve always been socially aware enough to know when I’m not the norm, but there was never a question of changing. I wanted to be accepted, but not Boring. I paid the price throughout high school, and hardest in grade 9 when my group of friends collectively dumped me. (Weird people aren’t always ostensibly ostracized for being weird—but that’s what it is. Not having socially acceptable behavior.)

It seems shockingly non-coincidental that when I “met” Prince in grade 6, I clung to him as one of the ports in my preppy world. He was super short, he dressed like a lady, he had a female guitarist, he sang about incest, he had an ejaculating guitar but sang about God, he straddled R&B and rock & funk and racial lines, and he followed up the biggest album of his career with the weirdest album of his career. He just didn’t give a shit. He was my hero and my role model. 

That imprinted on me, emotionally. I feel sick to my stomach when I think of the pain & loneliness of weird people, of socially awkward people, of eccentric people, of mentally ill people. Humans require connection to survive. I’ve been cut off before, I know how it feels. And now I feel like the coach of my team just died. I’m crying like the Eccentric Supportive Uncle of my teen years just died.

RIP Prince. Thanks for being there for me when I needed you. I’ll try to keep paying it forward.

Prince always sang Purple Rain

[I had a couple other versions of Purple Rain up here, but The Keepers of Prince's Music are keeping his legacy alive by taking videos down as fast as they ever did in the past.]

For the people who were there to see him for the first time. Amazes me how he could emote at this level for all these decades. I think you have to know how to live in the present, to do something like that.

I'm sure I've mentioned before that it wasn't even a fave song of mine, until I saw him in concert in the midst of marriage troubles, and broke down as soon as he sang the first line. Dammit!

Have you heard the story by now? When the Superbowl people told Prince it was going to be pouring rain when he was to do his halftime show, he said: Can you make it rain harder?

My grade 7 shiznit

I'd probably heard some earlier stuff on the radio, but "What About Love" was my first consciousness raising of Heart. Of a band fronted by a woman and a female guitarist. Ann Wilson was one of my style icons. This video and song are just so immensely 80s.



I was similarly enamored of Toronto, who wrote the song.

Prince

Of course, it's hard to find Prince videos to post. But til I find something, here's something I had prepped for another week. A placeholder.

Nobody will ever love you as much as I do 
But that doesn't mean other people won't love you too



This gives me a chance to share Beyonce's cover of "The Beautiful Ones." It's fanTAStic. She's got the range for the high notes. She aces the "hurt you every time" line. She's got the theatrics for all the screamy-roll-around-stage bits. And she's not wearing pants.


* The full version morphs into "Sex On Fire". She was apparently pregnant and puking between sets.

From folk to Emineminem

I wanted to pick Bonnie Couchie's "Pretty Stories" but it's not on youtube. It's earnest, but not dumb sounding somehow.

So... on a completely other note: Eminem. Lyrically nothing amazing, but I like it when he raps in this rhythm.

Newer Pretenders stuff

2011

On to 2011. Luckily there are only 1522 songs to choose from, and I was better about tagging things that interested me as I went along. This time I'll try to just pick out songs I'd never noticed before, or forgot I had. That seems more interesting.