Mr. Smith cites the Beatles as an influence, but then so does nearly everyone who has written a popular song within the last 50 years. Nick Drake is also near the top of the list …that’s interesting.

Other influences? Jimi Hendrix, Thin Lizzy, Buzzcocks and Joy Division.  Perhaps you think you know where this is going, especially when he throws in Ziggy Stardust himself, David Bowie and Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd who…“shine on you crazy diamond”…succumbed to psychedelics and mental illness early on.

But then he rounds out his list with the doo-wopping (pre-War) Ink Spots and the Country n’ Gospel Statler Brothers.  So what musical genre do you suppose our Mr. Smith is best known for?  Would you believe Goth Rock?

Born in Blackpool in 1959, Robert James Smith has served as lead singer, guitar player, principal songwriter and sole constant for The Cure since it’s formation in West Sussex in 1976.  That was a time when he also (concurrently and energetically) played his flanging guitar for the punk/post-punk Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Still touring with The Cure to this day and (at age 53) still sporting the trademark “look” that he pioneered, with black eyeliner, teased hair, black clothes, pale skin and smudged red lipstick, Robert Smith has shepherded his band through the post-Punk and New Wave eras of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, and has held a lantern through the valley of the dark and tormented Goth scene, prior to helping The Cure to find a slightly more upbeat sound as an Alternative Rock Band with songs like “Lovesong”, “Just Like Heaven” and today’s approbation of one of the finest days of the week.

Surely the journey has been worth it as the group has sold nearly 30 million copies of their releases, including thirteen studio albums, ten EPs and more than 20 singles, of which “Friday I’m in Love” tops the list, peaking at Number 18 on the Billboard Charts and Number 6 on the UK Chart in 1992.

Having written the song, Smith was convinced that he had inadvertently stolen the chord progression from somewhere else, very much echoing what happened when Paul McCartney first came up with “Yesterday”.  And like McCartney, Smith grew downright paranoid, asking all and sundry if they had ever played or even heard the song before.  Happily in both cases no one had, and in both cases the mysterious melody became (arguably) the artist’s best song.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Friday 11 May

Friday I’m in Love

 I don’t care if Monday’s blue

Tuesday’s gray and Wednesday too

Thursday I don’t care about you

It’s Friday, I’m in love

 Monday you can fall apart

Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart

Oh, Thursday doesn’t even start

It’s Friday I’m in love

 Saturday, wait

And Sunday always comes too late

But Friday, never hesitate…

 I don’t care if Mondays black

Tuesday, Wednesday – heart attack

Thursday, never looking back

It’s Friday, I’m in love

Monday, you can hold your head

Tuesday, Wednesday stay in bed

Or Thursday – watch the walls instead

It’s Friday, I’m in love

Saturday, wait

And Sunday always comes too late

But Friday, never hesitate…

Dressed up to the eyes

It’s a wonderful surprise

To see your shoes and your spirits rise

Throwing out your frown

And just smiling at the sound

And as sleek as a sheik

Spinning round and round

Always take a big bite

It’s such a gorgeous sight

To see you eat in the middle of the night

You can never get enough

Enough of this stuff

It’s Friday, I’m in love

 I don’t care if Monday’s blue

Tuesday’s gray and Wednesday too

Thursday I don’t care about you

It’s Friday, I’m in love

 Monday you can fall apart

Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart

Thursday doesn’t even start

It’s Friday I’m in love

When asked about the rumor, John Power, bassist for the English band, The La’s, said “I don’t know. Truth is, I don’t wanna’ know. Drugs and madness go hand in hand. People who you’ve known all your life… they’re steady, then they’re not. But you can’t ponder, ’cause it kills you, la.”

Conversely, lead-guitarist John Byrne, vigorously denied the rumor and added “It’s just a love song about a girl that you like but never talk to.”

That’s a whole lot of ruminating over a song so simple that it contains no verses and has only a single chorus, repeated four times with a bridge…“There She Goes”  That it borrows heavily from The Velvet Underground’s “There She Goes Again” is certainly no surprise, nor is the speculation that it’s a short deliberation on heroin intoxication.

I prefer to hold with the “love song about a girl” camp but the “drugs and madness” crowd do have a compelling point about the connotations that leap to mind with lyrics like “racing through my brain” and “pulsing through my veins.”

Written by La’s front man, Lee Mavers, an initial version of There She Goes was released as a single in 1988 and failed to chart, but a remix was included on the group’s eponymous debut album, The La’s, in 1990, reaching Number 13 on the UK charts and Number 49 on the U.S. Billboard charts.

Today’s selection is a cover by Sixpence None the Richer, that was included on their eponymous (love that word) third album, Sixpence None the Richer in 1997, peaking at Number 7 on the U.S. Billboard charts.

Formed in the early 1990s and with clear Christian leanings, Six Pence None the Richer is a Texas band whose name is derived from a story found in C.S. Lewis’ theological tome, Mere Christianity.  I’m sure you’ll agree that when lead singer, Leigh Nash sings it at least, “There She Goes” is all about the girl.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Thursday 10 May

There She Goes

There she goes

There she goes again

Racing through my brain

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes

There she goes again

Pulsing through my veins

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes (there she goes again)

There she goes again (there she goes again)

Racing through my brain (there she goes again)

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes

There she goes again

She calls my name

Pulls my train

No one else could heal my pain

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes (she calls my name)

There she goes again (she calls my name)

Chasing down my lane (she calls my name)

And I just can’t contain

This feeling that remains

There she goes (there she goes again)

There she goes (there she goes again)

There she goes

As a radio format, Easy Listening first emerged in the post-Big Band Era ’50s and is now a rather broad category that can include anything from Lounge and “Light” Music to Soft-Rock, “Nu-Jazz” and Space Age Pop (look for an Esquivel selection, coming soon, straight from a bachelor pad near you).

Although it has its detractors and, let’s face it, too much of anything is too much, there are times when a little dab of the easy stuff is just the thing, and with his mellow baritone and trademark (Andy Griffith-like) whistle, you don’t get much easier than Roger Whittaker.

A true Anglo-Kenyan Colonialist (born in 1936 when Kenya was still a Crown Colony), my own favorite memory of the man was in 1982, when he was “victim” on the British version of “This is Your Life,” where every week Eamonn Andrews, the presenter, would surprise a featured subject and revisit his/her life in pictures and with stories and testimonials from old friends and family members, some of whom would be flown in from afar. The show stopped live broadcasting the following year, by the way, when another of the “victims,” a retired professional boxer, couldn’t stop swearing.

What was memorable about the Roger Whittaker episode was that one of the surprise “friends” was a London Bobby who had once stopped him for speeding around Trafalgar Square.  When Whittaker tried to pretend he didn’t speak English by answering in Swahili, he soon realized that he was speaking to the only policeman on the entire London Police Department who spoke Swahili. The cop gave him a ticket that day and now here he was,with Eamonn Andrews pronouncing,  “Roger Whittaker, this is your life!”

Of course, old Eamonn had already covered some of the other basics, observing how Roger was born in Nairobi to Edward and Viola Whitaker, who had moved from England to a farm in Kenya for the warmer climate.   How he’d spent two years in the Kenya Regiment after being drafted into National Service and how he ultimately landed in Britain where he hoped to pursue a teaching career, while (where have we heard this before?) singing in local pubs and clubs, eventually being discovered and landing a record deal in 1962.

Written, recorded and released by Whittaker in 1969, “Durham Town (The Leavin’)” was his first big hit in the UK, reaching Number 12 on the charts.  It was quickly followed by (the slightly more saccharine)“The Last Farewell” and “New World in the Morning,” which would hit it big on the U.S. Billboard Easy Listening charts and help to provide the mellow (except when behind the wheel) Roger Whittaker with the easygoing worldwide audience he has enjoyed ever since.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Wednesday 9 May

Durham Town (The Leavin’)

 I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me down

 Back in nineteen forty-four

I remember Daddy walking out the door

Mama told me he was going to war

He was leaving

Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving…me

 Now, I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me down

 When I was a boy, I spent my time

Sitting on the banks of the River Tyne

Watching all the ships going down the line

They were leaving

Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving…me

Now, I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me down

Last week Mama passed away

Good-bye, son, was all she’d say

There’s no cause for me to stay,

So I’m leaving

Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving…free

Now, I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me…

 I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

I’ve got to leave old Durham town

And that leaving’s gonna’ get me…

It’s easy to imagine that Levon Helm, drummer and frequent lead vocalist for ‘The Band’ has served as a huge inspiration to many a musician.  Take for example Max Weinberg, Bruce Springsteen’s long-standing drummer who displayed his percussion and vocal versatility with “The Weight” (made famous by Helm) when auditioning for the E Street Band.

Arkansas born and bred, Helm, who died recently at the age of 71, was also the inspiration for today’s selection, composed by one Reginald Kenneth Dwight, just past his days with Bluesology, the late ‘60s supporting band for blues singer, Long John Baldry.

As the story goes, Dwight (based in Middlesex, England) was an exceptional composer who needed help with the words if he was going to find any success with his own melodies. When a recording studio manager handed him a stack of lyrics that had been submitted through the mail by an unknown writer, he quickly turned each of them into a creditable song. And so began a partnership that still continues.

The next step was for Dwight to adopt a new stage name, which he did by taking Baldry’s given name as a surname and combining it with ex-band mate, Elton Dean’s given name as…well, a given name, to form a pleasing new moniker. And in 1969, with a new pile of songs written with his new lyricist, Bernie Taupin, Elton John recorded his debut album, Empty Sky.

‘The Band’ was known to be a huge favorite of both men and you can see the group’s influences in Elton John’s third studio album, Tumbleweed Connection in 1970.  Not many musical acts strike the kinds of heights Elton and Bernie hit that year, with three consecutive gold records in three consecutive months (Elton John, Tumbleweed Connection and the soundtrack album, Friends), followed by the release of a live album (17-11-70) the month after that.

With a title track that had been slated for release on Tumbleweed Connection, the fourth studio album, Madman Across the Water served as a natural “next step” when it was recorded a leisurely six months later and (by far) the album’s best track had a natural tie-in to Levon Helm.  That’s because the song was named after him, although “Levon” (the song’s main character) is entirely fictional, as is the main character’s son (named “Jesus”) and his father, “Alvin Tosig.”

“Levon” peaked at Number 24 on the Billboard charts in early 1971 and Madman Across the Water became Elton John’s lowest charting album in the UK since his debut album, reaching a “lowly” Number 41 on the UK Charts.  It did hit Number 8 on the Billboard Charts in the U.S. however, thereby becoming Elton John’s fourth gold record in the space of a year.

Meanwhile, Levon lives on…on record and in person, as Elton John and his civil partner, David Furnish had a son, who (‘though hardly a “pauper to a pawn”) was born on Christmas Day 2010; his name, Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John.  To the rest of us, quite simply, he shall be Levon.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Tuesday 8 May

Levon

Levon wears his war wound like a crown

He calls his child Jesus

‘Cause he likes the name

And he sends him to the finest school in town

 Levon, Levon likes his money

He makes a lot they say

Spends his days counting

In a garage by the motorway

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day

When the New York Times said, “God is dead

And the war’s begun, Alvin Tostig has a son today”

 And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

And he shall be Levon

In tradition with the family plan

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

He shall be Levon

 Levon sells cartoon balloons in town

His family business thrives

Jesus blows up balloons all day

Sits on the porch swing watching them fly

 And Jesus, he wants to go to Venus

Leaving Levon far behind

Take a balloon and go sailing

While Levon, Levon slowly dies

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day

When the New York Times said, “God is dead

And the war’s begun, Alvin Tostig has a son today”

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

And he shall be Levon

In tradition with the family plan

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

He shall be Levon

And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

And he shall be Levon

In tradition with the family plan

 And he shall be Levon

And he shall be a good man

He shall be Levon

In Old English it’s “Mōnandæg” (similar to the name used in other Germanic languages) and by the time we reach Middle English it’s more recognizable as ‘Monenday” …that’s right, “moon day” or as many love to grumble, “Monday” that goldmine of antipathy for generations of songwriters wishing to dive right in to the start of the work week, oft-noted for its melancholia, anxiety and (sigh) depression.

For example, there’s today’s selection, written in 1979 after Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof (or just “Sir Bob” in light of the honorary knighthood for his later Band-Aid work), happened to read a telex report about a shooting spree involving 16-year-old, Brenda Ann Spencer in San Diego, California.

On the first school day after Christmas Vacation, Spencer took a Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle, pushed open a window in her home and began shooting at the elementary schoolyard across the street.  After firing thirty rounds, Spencer barricaded herself for nearly seven hours before finally surrendering to police. In the end the school’s principal and custodian were killed, and eight kids and a policeman were seriously wounded

When later asked why she showed no remorse, she replied, “I just did it for the fun of it. I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.”

Geldof, the lead singer of the Irish punk rock band, The Boomtown Rats, included the resulting song, “I Don’t Like Mondays” on the group’s third album, “The Fine Art of Surfacing” later in ’79 and it led the UK charts for four straight weeks.  However, it only reached Number 73 on the US Billboard Hot 100. Perhaps a bit too close to home, or perhaps like the day itself, not everyone likes “I Don’t Like Mondays”

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Monday 7 May

I Don’t Like Mondays

”Music is my life and every day I live it, and it’s a good life to everything I want to say through music it gets to you. I may not be the best around but I’m surely not the worst. I learned to play and sing since the age of three, you don’t know how glad I am God laid his hands on me.” ~ Billy Preston, from the liner notes of That’s The Way God Planned It

Well, “He” certainly did lay his hands on William Everett Preston, who was born in Houston, Texas in 1946 and raised mainly in Los Angeles.  Little Billy began playing piano while sitting on his mother’s lap and was a noted child prodigy by the age of ten, when he was onstage backing Mahalia Jackson and several other noted gospel singers.  At eleven he appeared on Nat King Cole’s national TV show and by age twelve he played the young W.C. Handy in the biopic, St. Louis Blues.

In the years that followed he would play with a wide array of incredible acts including: Eric Clapton, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Little Richard, Fats Domino, The Band, Sly and the Family Stone, Neil Diamond, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Joe Cocker, Herb Alpert…among others.  But Preston left his mark on two bands in particular.

He first met the Beatles, while playing organ for Little Richard in Hamburg in 1962 and first met the Rolling Stones years later, while performing with Ray Charles.  Not only did he join the Stones on a number of their tours, but his keyboard playing can be heard on a number of their albums, including: Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, Goats Head Soup, It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll and Black and Blue.

In 1969, when the Beatles, on the verge of breakup, were working on their album, Let It Be, George Harrison walked out during one of the sessions and ended up at a Ray Charles where Preston was playing organ. The following day Harrison showed up back at the Abbey Road Studios with Preston in tow, and Preston’s sociable personality helped to calm the tension.  So did his keyboard playing.

Billy Preston played for several of the Let It Be sessions (he was there for the rooftop concert) and is the only person ever to be officially credited (i.e. “The Beatles with Billy Preston”) on a Beatles single, reflecting his prominence on “Get Back”.  Sometimes referred to as the ‘Fifth Beatle” as others have been, in this case John Lennon actually proposed the idea (to which McCartney countered, “It’s bad enough with four”).

Later on Preston would compose Joe Cocker’s biggest hit, “You Are So Beautiful” and, along with Janis Ian, would serve as musical guest on Saturday Night Live’s first episode,    but in 1969 he signed to Apple Records to record his his fourth studio album, “That’s the Way God Planned It”  (today’s selection is a live version of the title song) with George Harrison serving as producer.

Preston and Harrison would remain close friends for the rest of Harrison’s life and in addition to playing on several of Harrison’s solo albums, Billy Preston made a most notable appearance at Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh. Here’s a YouTube version of today’s selection.  No matter your religious leanings, it’s well worth sticking around for the finale:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYxzPdv67yA

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Sunday 6 MAY

That’s the Way God Planned It

 Why can’t we be humble

Like the good lord said

He promised to exault us

And show us the way.

Why are we so greedy

When there’s so much left?

All things are God given

And they all have been blessed

That’s the way God planned it

That’s the way God wants it to be, be

That’s the way God planned it

That’s the way God wants it to be, be

Let not your heart be troubled

Let all your suffering cease

Just learn how to help one another

And live in perfect peace

If we’d just be humbler

Like the good lord said

He promised to exault us

And show us the way

That’s the way God planned it

That’s the way God wants it to be, be

You better believe me

That’s the way God planned it

That’s the way God wants it to be, be

I hope you get this message

Where you won’t others will

You don’t understand me

But I’ll love you still

That’s the way God planned it

That’s the way God wants it to be, be

I am convinced. Even now.  If you’re artistically inclined and spend a little time in Paris with the “right” person, your muse will come a’ calling. Penned by English writer, entertainer and Head of Variety at the BBC, Eric Maschwitz (using the ambitious nom de plume, Holt Marvell), today’s selection came to light after a fine romance with Hollywood actress Anna May Wong, who had recently departed for America.

Along with “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square” (another Holt Marvell wonder) “These Foolish Things” is known as a “Mayfair Song” although many of the lyrics clearly evoke the City of Light.

Written one Sunday morning in Maschwitz’s London flat, with three choruses and a verse, the lyrics were dictated over the telephone to composer Jack Strachey, who quickly wrote the music.  The song was first used in a 1936 late-evening “live review” broadcast, and seemed like such a clunker that Maschwitz’s agent refused to publish it, allowing Maschwitz to keep the copyright. A stroke of luck because soon-after, popular pianist Leslie Hutchinson discovered the sheet music on a piano in Maschwitz’s office and asked if he could record it.

This time it was a huge success and Maschwitz later claimed to have earned in excess of £40,000 (a tidy sum in the ‘30s and ‘40s) from the soon-to-be standard, which has since been covered by the likes of Billie Holiday, Bing Crosby (who omitted the line, “The song that Crosby sings”), Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughn, James Brown, Aaron Neville, Sammy Davis Jr and many others, with instrumental jazz arrangements covered by Stan Getz, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, Chet Baker, Count Basie and Lester Young.

Today’s version (with lyrics that vary slightly from the original) was the title track for a debut solo album in 1973, although the singer was already a well-known recording artist.  Born and raised on a farm in County Durham, Bryan Ferry was a pottery teacher by day and a musician by night when he and some friends (including the eccentric, talented Brian Eno) formed the art-rock group, Roxy Music in 1971.

Remembered today for its musical sophistication and fascinating experimentation, as well as for its racy album covers, Ferry, who had gained renown for his sartorial elegance, managed to become involved with a heroic number of those racy cover models (most famously, Jerry Hall).  Yes, he looked good, but anyone who begins his solo career singing about the ‘sigh of midnight trains in empty stations’ has a few of the (not so foolish but) fundamental things…figured out

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Saturday 5 May

 These Foolish Things

 Oh will you never let me be?

Oh will you never set me free?

The ties that bound us are still around us

There’s no escape that I can see.

And still those little things remain

That bring me happiness or pain.

 A cigarette that bears a lipstick’s traces

An airline ticket to romantic places,

And still my heart has wings

These foolish things

Remind me of you.

 A tinkling piano in the next apartment

Those stumbling words that told you what my heart meant,

A fairground’s painted swings,

These foolish things

Remind me of you.

 You came, you saw, you conquered me,

When you did that to me, I somehow knew that this had to be.

 The winds of March that make my heart a dancer.

A telephone that rings – but who’s to answer?

Oh, how the ghost of you clings

These foolish things

Remind me of you

 Gardenia perfume lingering on a pillow,

Wild strawberries only seven francs a kilo.

And still my heart has wings

These foolish things

Remind me of you.

The park at evening when the bell has sounded,

The Isle de France with all the girls around it.

The beauty that is spring

These foolish things

Remind me of you.

I know that this was bound to be

These things have haunted me

For you’ve entirely enchanted me

 The sigh of midnight trains in empty stations

Silk stockings thrown aside, dance invitations.

Oh, how the ghost of you clings

These foolish things

Remind me of you.

 First daffodils and long excited cables

And candlelight on little corner tables,

And still my heart has wings

These foolish things

Remind me of you.

 The smile of Garbo and the scent of roses

The waiters whistling as the last bar closes,

The song that Crosby sings,

These foolish things

Remind me of you.

How strange, how sweet to find you still

These things are dear to me

That seem to bring you so near to me

 The scent of smouldering leaves, the wail of steamers,

Two lovers on the street who walk like dreamers,

Oh, how the ghost of you clings

These foolish things

Remind me of you, just you.

“I have a relative who is involved in one of those kinds of government jobs where they can’t say what they do,” Bruce Cockburn once explained.  “The part you can say involves monitoring other people’s radio transmissions and breaking codes. At that time China and the Soviet Union were almost at war on their mutual border. And both of them had nuclear capabilities. (My relative) said, ‘We could wake up tomorrow to a nuclear war.’ Coming from him, it was a serious statement.”

“So I woke up the next morning and it wasn’t a nuclear war. It was a real nice day and there was all this good stuff going on and I had a dream that night which is the dream that is referred to in the first verse of the song, where there were lions at the door, but they weren’t threatening, it was kind of a peaceful thing.”

Born in 1945 in Ottawa, Ontario, Bruce Douglas Cockburn’s first guitar was one he found in his grandmother’s attic, which he adorned with golden stars and used to play along to radio hits….”Hopes to become a musician,” stated the caption under his high school photo. “He has a guitar.”

After graduation Cockburn became a busker in Paris for a while, then he enrolled at Boston’s Berklee College of Music. But as occasionally happens, his passion to create and perform conflicted with the rigors of academia. He returned to Ottawa and eventually signed with a small, local record label. Wondering Where the Lions Are from his 1979 album, Dancing in the Dragon’s Jaws gained wide exposure outside of Canada and ushered in an international career for Cockburn.

Beyond its messages of hope and spiritually there has long been speculation about references made in the song, many of them ostensibly specific to Vancouver (“The Lions” are a pair of pointed peaks overlooking the city for example and there are always “freighters on the nod” in Vancouver Harbor and English Bay) as well as Vancouver Island (where orange Mars Water Bombers, used to fight forest fires, float on Sproat Lake). In the end, however Cockburn is more than happy to allow them to remain slightly oblique.

Today’s selection was Bruce Cockburn’s only Top 40 hit in the United States, peaking at Number 21 on the Billboard charts.  While also a significant hit in Canada, seven of his subsequent singles were far bigger hits there.  Still, Wondering Where the Lions Are was named the “29th Greatest Canadian Song of All Time” by CBC Radio… “All time” …we’re talking about eternity here.

 LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Friday 4 May

Wondering Where the Lions Are

 Sun’s up, uuh huh, looks okay

The world survives into another day

And I’m thinking about eternity

Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me.

 I had another dream about lions at the door

They weren’t half as frightening as they were before

But I’m thinking about eternity

Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me.

Walls, windows, trees, waves coming through

You be in me and I’ll be in you

Together in eternity

Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

Up among the firs where it smells so sweet

Or down in the valley where the river used to be

I got my mind on eternity

Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

And I’m wondering where the lions are…

I’m wondering where the lions are…

Huge orange flying boat rises off a lake,

Thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take,

Pointing a finger at eternity

I’m sitting in the middle of this ecstasy

Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun,

Polished and precise like the brain behind the gun

(Should be!) They got me thinking about eternity

Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

 And I’m wondering where the lions are…

I’m wondering where the lions are…

 Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay

One of these days we’re going to sail away,

Going to sail into eternity

Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me

 And I’m wondering where the lions are…

I’m wondering where the lions are

Here’s a case where “what you see” is not necessarily “what you get.”  A few months ago (6 March) we featured the song, Fields of Gold, sung by one of the most mellifluous folk voices ever recorded, that of Eva Cassidy.

If you knew nothing about today’s selection beyond the fact that it’s a traditional American folk/spiritual that has been covered by the likes of Dolly Parton; Tennessee Ernie Ford; Alison Krauss; Peter, Paul and Mary; Emmylou Harris; Pete Seeger and Johnny Cash (among many others)… you’d no-doubt arrive at certain assumptions about the listening experience you’re in for. The fact that Wayfaring Stranger is especially associated with Burl Ives (so much so that he became known as “The Wayfaring Stranger”) would surely seal it for you.

And having heard her rendition of Fields of Gold you’d be correct in thinking that the shy, waif-like Cassidy could do wonderful things with such a song.  But what might surprise you is the kinds of wonderful things she actually did.  Unfortunately they’re a key reason why she lived her entire life in near obscurity.

Eva Cassidy’s singing had astonishing range and versatility and regardless of genre she could effortlessly out-perform many of the world’s great jazz, folk, soul, gospel, pop, country and blues singers.  But her unwillingness to narrow her stylistic focus to one genre prohibited her from securing any kind of record deal.  Artistically, she was compelled to “sing it” her way, which record executives saw as anathema to immediate marketability.

In the case of today’s selection, Cassidy opted to eschew the tried-and-true folk and country influences and bounce the song into a new “spiritual” universe.  Listen to her splendid vocal phrasing and note how she is able to float that prhasing along the bar lines of the melody. Then compare the second chorus with the first, and notice how she increasingly wears that poor wayfaring stranger’s sentiments on her sleeve.  Lastly, be sure to listen closely to the poignant conclusion, sadly portentous of her own life’s story… “I’m going back to see my savior; oh, I’m going back, no more to roam.”

The fair-skinned/fair-haired Cassidy was dead within a year from malignant melanoma and today’s selection was first released on her posthumous debut album in 1997, ‘Eva by Heart’ and then included on the break-through compilation album, “Songbird,” the following year. Word has it that this track was nearly lost to the cutting room floor (deemed too rough) and that it was only through her father’s intervention that we are able to appreciate what the woman who redefined “Fields of Gold” could do with a “Wayfaring Stranger.”

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Thursday 3 May

Wayfaring Stranger

 I am a poor wayfaring stranger

While journeying through this world of woe

And there’s no sickness, toil nor danger

In that bright land to which I go

 I’m going there to see my Father

I’m going there no more to roam

I’m only going over Jordan

I’m only going over home

I know dark clouds will gather around me

I know my way is rough and steep

And beautiful fields lie just before me

Where God’s redeemed there vigils keep

I’m going there to see my Father

I’m going there no more to roam

I’m only going over Jordan

I’m only going over home

 I’m going there to see my Mother

I’m going there no more to roam

I’m only going over Jordan

I’m only going over home

 I want to wear that crown of glory

When I get home to that good land

Well I want to shout salvation’s story

In concert with the blood-washed band

 I’m going there to see my Savior

I’m going there no more to roam

I’m only going over Jordan

I’m only going over home

Born in Dallas and raised in San Antonio, Bette Claire McMurray married Warren Audrey Nesmith just before he shipped off to War in the Spring of ’42. Nine months later their son was born in Houston.  Unfortunately the Nesmiths divorced soon after Warren’s return and Bette and her son, Robert Michael returned to Dallas where she still had family.

To support herself, Bette took on a number of temp jobs, learning invaluable skills along the way, including shorthand, graphic design and touch-typing.  Finally she was offered a permanent secretarial position at Texas Bank and Trust and such was her proficiency that she eventually became an executive secretary, pretty much the top rung of the ladder for a woman in that time and that place.

In the 1960s IBM’s Selecectric typewriter, with its groundbreaking typeball design, would prove to be a typing pool marvel, but here in the ‘50s electric typewriters featured key-baskets and typing ribbons that were notorious for their typographical errors.  With her graphics experience it occurred to Bette that artists don’t erase their mistakes, they simply paint over them.  “So,” she once recounted, “I decided to use what artists use. I put some tempera water-based paint in a bottle and took my watercolor brush to the office.  I used that to correct my mistakes.”

For the next few years she used it in secrecy and continued to improve upon this white correction paint, even incorporating the help of her son’s high school chemistry teacher.  While some executives admonished her when they discovered that she’d been using it, Bette’s “paint out” was in high demand among her co-workers.  In 1956 she began to market the correction fluid as “Mistake Out” and when it started to catch on, she changed the product’s name to “Liquid Paper” and launched her own company.

Over the next quarter century Bette Graham (she remarried in 1962) built the company into an international, multimillion-dollar business and by the time she sold the Liquid Paper Corporation to Gillette in 1979 (for $48 million), it employed 200 people and made 25 million bottles of correction fluid per year.  When Bette died at the age of 56, just a few months after selling her company, a considerable portion of her estate went to the Gihon Foundation so that it could establish its Council of Ideas, a think tank (active between 1990 and 2000) that was devoted to exploring world problems.

The remainder of Graham’s estate went to her son, Michael, who had already made somewhat of a name for himself as an actor and musician, and would go on to become a music video pioneer (winning the first Grammy Award ever given for a Video of the Year,in 1982) and with the $25 million he inherited, an eminent philanthropist.

To many, of course, Michael Nesmith will best be remembered for the wool hat he wore as Mike in the NBC comedy, The Monkees, which ran from 1966 to 1968. But Nesmith was also a celebrated songwriter who, prior to joining The Monkees, had written the hit, “Different Drum” made famous by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys.

In 1969 he formed the collaborative First National Band, writing much of the group’s music himself, including today’s selection. Released in 1970 on his debut album, “Magnetic South” it rose to Number 21 on the Billboard Charts.  And although it would be Michael Nesmith’s only “solo” top 40 single, when it hit the charts Bette Graham herself was still years away from topping her 40s, and as any proud mother would be, she was surely very pleased with “Joanne”.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – 2 May 2012

 Joanne

 Her name was Joanne

And she lived near a meadow

By a pond

And she touched me for a moment

With a look that spoke to me

Of her sweet long

 Then the woman that she was

Drove her on with desperation

And I saw, as she went

A most hopeless situation

For Joanne and the man

And the time that made them both run

 She was only a girl

I know that well, but still I could not see

That the hold that she had

Was much stronger than the love

She felt for me

But staying with her

And my little bit of wisdom

Broke down her desires

Like a light through a prism

Into yellows and blues

And the tune that I could not have sung

Though the essence is gone

I have no tears to cry for her

And my only thoughts of her

Are kind

 Her name was Joanne

And she lived near a meadow by a pond

And she touched me for a moment

With a look that spoke to me

Of her sweet long

Then the woman that she was

Drove her on with desperation

And I saw as she went

A most hopeless situation

For Joanne and the man

And the time that made them both run

 For Joanne and the man

And the time that made them both run