Folk

The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #82: Leaving on a Jet Plane

By lousiteadmin

 

Lyrics

Peter, Paul & Mary from Album 1700 (1967)

“The first cover song on the list,” Peggy said. “John Denver fans are going to have a bone to pick with you.”

“Actually, this is no more a cover than ‘I Heard it through the Grapevine’ was. John Denver wouldn’t release a commercial version of this song himself for six years. He was essentially an unknown songwriter when Peter, Paul & Mary had a hit with it. As far as his fans having a bone to pick with me, I don’t think his version holds a candle to the PPM version. His vocal is lovely, but Mary Travers’s vocal is transcendent. You’re right there in the room with these two people.”

“I get what you’re saying. He’s singing it out to the crowd, while she’s singing it to her lover.”

“Exactly.”

“John Denver fans are still gonna be pissed with you.”

“I’m ready for their ire.”

“Good to see your convictions are strong. So what exactly is going on in this song, anyway? Is she going on a business trip? Is this a long-distance relationship? Is she joining the Peace Corps?”

“I hadn’t considered the Peace Corps thing, but that makes as much sense as any other scenario. There’s a little too much pain here for a business trip, unless it’s a really long business trip, and I don’t think this is a long-distance relationship. If it were, she wouldn’t be talking about what happens when she comes back.”

Peggy was quiet for a few seconds, during which I conjured other scenarios for this couple’s separation.

“I was never good at long-distance relationships,” she said, which seemed like a bit of a non-sequitur to me.

“Or long-distance friendships,” I said, the words jumping from my mouth before I had a chance to consider them.

“Ouch.”

Now that we were back in touch on a regular basis, I hadn’t planned on bringing up how we’d lost communication or how I felt that Peggy had largely been to blame for this. I’d tried in multiple ways to stay connected to her after Stevie whisked her away, but I never felt as though she was trying as hard, and I finally let it go.

I thought about apologizing for being insensitive. Then I decided against it. Instead, I said, “Good thing one of us came up with an elaborate excuse for getting back in touch, huh?”

She hesitated a couple of seconds before saying, “Yeah, good thing.”

Sticky
Jul 17, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #84: Operator (That’s Not The Way It Feels)

By lousiteadmin

 

Lyrics

Jim Croce from You Don’t Mess Around With Jim (1972)

 

“I wouldn’t have let her keep the dime,” Peggy said.

“You wouldn’t have? You don’t think the therapy session – not to mention getting the number for him – was worth ten cents?”

“That’s not what I mean. They obviously had a connection, and he’d finally moved on from his old girlfriend. He should have stayed on the line and gotten to know the operator better.”

This surprised me. Peggy was as far from a romantic as anyone I knew who actually had a soul. “You wanted him and the person on the other end of the phone to hook up? We don’t know anything about her. She could have been someone’s grandmother.”

“She wasn’t someone’s grandmother. You could tell from her voice.”

“We never hear her voice.” I was beginning to wonder if Peggy knew about some alternate version of this track that I’d never discovered. “Besides, that’s not the point. He hadn’t moved on. He goes back to his request at the end of the song.”

Peggy didn’t say anything for several seconds. I wondered if she was playing the end of the song (you know, the one that everyone else knew) in her head. “What are you talking about?”

“The song goes back to the chorus after he tells her she can keep the dime. He still wants the number. He can’t get past it.”

“Are you saying that Croce wasn’t just repeating the chorus?”

“Well, of course he’s repeating the chorus. But he’s doing so for a reason. He’s doing so to show us that this guy is on an endless loop about this relationship. He’s desperate for closure, even though he’s afraid of what will happen if he actually talks to his ex.”

“I think you’re reading too much into it.”

“Said the person who hears the voice of the operator.”

“I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one.” Peggy made a sound on the other end that could have been tsk-ing me or could have been blowing me a kiss. Cell phone fidelity being what it is, I couldn’t be sure. “So what’s the deal with this song. I love it, too, but I can’t really tell why. The melody is very simple, Croce is hardly a remarkable singer, and, as we’ve already established, the lyrics are a bit vague.”

“I think it’s just very sincere. You know how basketball GMs will talk about going after unrefined big men because you can’t teach height? I think sincerity is one of those things you can’t teach singers. They either have it or they don’t. Jim Croce absolutely had it.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right about that. It allowed him to get away with songs like ‘I Got a Name.’ That song could have come off as hackneyed with a lot of other singers. So you really don’t think he should have spent more time on the phone with the operator? I thought you were a happy endings kind of guy.”

“You’ve always misunderstood me with that. I’m a right endings kind of guy. This is the right ending.”

“The operator was totally grooving on him.”

I laughed. “Maybe I should go listen to the song again.”

Sticky
Jun 16, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #85: Fall on Me

By lousiteadmin

 

Lyrics

R.E.M. from Life’s Rich Pageant (1986)

 

“You’ve had a disproportionate number of message songs on this list so far. Is that a theme?” Peggy said.

“I think that might be a sample size thing. I probably have a disproportionate number of songs that begin with the letter W on the list at this point, too. I can promise you it didn’t factor into my choices.”

“But you do like message songs. That was always one of your things.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right about that. I mean, songs are supposed to be about something, right?”

“Berry Gordy didn’t think so.”

“He wasn’t alone in that. There are plenty of music company heads – and artists for that matter – who feel the same way. I heard a song this morning that I swear came straight from an algorithm. Somebody punched in a few keywords like ‘horny man,’ ‘sex,’ and ‘clichéd come-on lines,’ and this song came out.”

She chuckled. “So if you punched in ‘acid rain’ and ‘environmental earnestness,’ ‘Fall on Me’ wouldn’t come out?”

“I don’t think so. This song might be earnest, but it’s genuinely earnest. I think you can call Michael Stipe and Mike Mills on a lot of things, but I think they truly felt what they were writing about.”

“Okay, I’ll give you this one.” Peggy paused, presumably to allow me a half-second to enjoy the fact that she’d conceded a point to me. “It’s actually pretty funny that we’re even talking about the lyrics to an R.E.M. song. How often did you have to listen to this song to figure out the words?”

“Well, the video helped on this one. The lyrics were superimposed over the images. But yes, Michael Stipe might be the greatest mumbler in the history of popular music.”

“It says something, then, that we all think so highly of his messages.”

I grinned. “Well, you think so highly of his messages. I just like the way the guitars sound. I never cared all that much for message songs.”

Sticky
Jun 11, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #87: Homeward Bound

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

Simon & Garfunkel from Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966)

 

“Do you know which word shows up most amongst the titles of the eight thousand songs I have on iTunes?” I said.

“Um, ‘the?’” Peggy said. “‘A?’”

“Other than articles and other super-common words.”

“‘Love?’”

“Okay, other than ‘love.’”

“Is there anything else you’d like to eliminate before I continue guessing?”

“You’re right; that was a stupid way to start this conversation. It’s – other than ‘love’ – ‘home.’”

Peggy laughed. “That is so you – in two ways.” She laughed again.

“Really?”

“Really. One, that you’re such a nerd that you would actually know this kind of thing, and two, that you’ve always had a home fixation.”

“I have?”

“You don’t know this about yourself? No question about it – marriage, family, food. You’re all about that stuff.”

“Food is about home? You know, there are these businesses called ‘restaurants’ –”

“– Food is definitely about home for you. Remember who you’re talking to.”

Since I’d reconnected with Peggy, it wasn’t always easy to remember who I was talking to. Because we were so close a long time ago, did she know me in a way that more recent friends and associates didn’t? Or did she only know who I once was? She had me on the home thing, though.

“So, you’re saying that we can define ourselves by the titles of the songs we have on our computers? I think the word that shows up fourth most often – other than the common stuff, again – is ‘better.’ Does that mean I’m an incurable optimist?”

“I think you’re making a good case for this as a new form of analysis.”

I decided to pursue a different course of conversation. “This song came very early in Paul Simon’s run. He kept writing memorable, influential songs for nearly a quarter of a century – right through The Rhythm of the Saints. That got me thinking about something else I want to explore soon: whether or not you could collect a good album from the songs an artist released after their peak-output period ended.”

“In other words, would an album of the best songs released by, say, Tom Petty after Into the Great Wide Open be considered a major release?”

“Exactly. The answer to that one would be no, by the way.”

“Agreed. We’re gonna have fun with this one. So what about Paul Simon?”

“I don’t think so. After Rhythm he just dropped off the table. Did you listen to that album he released a few years ago? Ouch. And we don’t even want to consider the Capeman stuff.”

“Maybe he just ran out of things to say. It’s amazing that he had so much to say to begin with.”

“And ‘Homeward Bound’ was one of the best of them.”

“One of the best? Does that mean there’s more Paul Simon to come?”

“You’re not going to get me to reveal anything before it’s time.”

She laughed again. “You already have.”

Sticky
May 05, 2015
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