love songs

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: #83: The Wheel

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

Rosanne Cash from The Wheel (1993)

 

“Wow, a song for grownups,” Peggy said.

“I think there have been quite a few songs on this list that grownups can relate to.”

“Yes, but I think this is the first that only grownups can relate to.”

“I’m not convinced of that. I would have understood at least a chunk of this message when I was a teenager.”

Peggy laughed. “Yes, you were always very mature about relationships. To a fault, in my opinion.”

The sentiment threw me back a bit. I felt a little as though Peggy were attacking me, and my immediate response – as if to prove that I wasn’t ruled by maturity – was to think that Peggy was the exact opposite in that regard. She was always ridiculously impetuous about relationships. She’d even married a “bad boy,” though, to her credit, she’d stuck with him a long time at this point. I managed to avoid actually bringing this up, though.

“Kidding,” she said when I didn’t say anything right away.

She wasn’t, but I let it go.

“It isn’t just the message that’s mature in this song,” I said. “It’s the production as well. While this song would completely work on one instrument – and you know that’s one of my qualifiers for being on the list – the production takes it to another level. Those guitar arpeggios, the jittery drumming, the plaintiveness in her voice. There’s experience in that arrangement.”

“So you’re saying a more pop arrangement would have undermined the song?”

I wasn’t saying that, but it was a good point. “I think it would have. The way this song was produced compels you to listen to the lyrics – interestingly more than if the arrangement had been simpler.”

I could almost feel Peggy nodding on the other end. “Something you can only truly appreciate when you’re older.”

“Or if you’re mature to a fault.”

Peggy chuckled, but I could sense some discomfort in the chuckle, which I considered to be a good thing. “That bugged you, huh?”

“What gave you that impression?”

Sticky
Jun 30, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #86: I’ll Be There

By lousiteadmin

 

Lyrics

The Jackson 5 from Third Album (1970)

“You know what’s interesting?” Peggy said. “This is the second artist on your list already who had his first hits as an adolescent and continued deep into adulthood.”

“You find that interesting?”

“You don’t? How often does it ever happen? You have Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder. How many more can you name?”

“Okay, good point.”

Peggy paused. I noticed that she tended to pause when she said something I wouldn’t have observed myself. I wasn’t sure if this was to let me consider it or to have me stew in the fact that she was smarter than me.

“Do you think Michael Jackson had any idea what he was singing about when the Jackson 5 recorded this song?” she said.

“Given his public persona throughout his life, I’m guessing the answer to that question is ‘no.’”

“But even if that weren’t the case, how could any twelve-year-old sing a song this romantic convincingly?”

“And yet he did.”

“Yes. He absolutely did. How does that happen? This isn’t Justin Bieber singing ‘baby, baby, baby.’ This is a mature love song that sounds entirely believable coming from a middle-schooler.”

She had me there. What Jackson was doing wasn’t mimicry. It wasn’t a producer in a studio telling him to whisper here and get soulful there. It was a twelve-year-old singing like a man and making adults all over the planet believe it. “I’ll Be There” had been a massive hit across a wide demographic, and at this point it definitely wasn’t because little Michael looked cute fronting a band of his brothers. That might have been the case with “ABC,” but it certainly wasn’t the case with “I’ll Be There.”

“He was tapping into something,” I said. “Maybe he really was an alien. Maybe he’d lived multiple lifetimes on other planes before adopting this form. Maybe he’d loved and lost repeatedly in those other lifetimes.”

“I was going to say that he was a skilled student of human interaction, even if he didn’t turn out to be much of a participant.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a better theory.”

Sticky
Jun 09, 2015
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The 100 Greatest Songs of the Rock Era: #91: You and I

By lousiteadmin

Lyrics

Stevie Wonder from Talking Book (1972)

 

“Do you know this is the first truly romantic song on your list?” Peggy said.

“You don’t consider ‘Whole Lotta Love’ romantic? It even has ‘love’ in the title.”

“Yeah, I consider it romantic the way I consider the Big Mac to be food.”

I laughed. “‘You and I’ is a crazily romantic song, though, isn’t it?”

“You aren’t kidding. I listened to it this morning in advance of our call and I wouldn’t let my Stevie out of the bedroom.”

“I’ll skip the rest of the details, if you don’t mind.”

There was a moment of silence that felt odd to me. Then Peggy said, “Why do you think it’s so hard to write great love songs?”

I gave that a little bit of thought. Most of us have had at least some experience with love – maybe not as much experience as we’ve had with lust, or rage, or betrayal, but some. Why, then were there so few songs that captured the essence of love the way “You and I” did? I remembered a conversation I had a few years back with a music industry lawyer. He told me that after representing pop stars for so many years he became convinced that he was as capable of writing a hit as they were – until he tried. He figured the easiest kind of song to write was a love song and he spent a couple of days churning out one cliché after another until he went back to his day job.

“I think it comes down to there being a very fine line between banality and universality.”

“Translation, please.”

“I think it’s super easy to say the same thing that everyone else is saying, because there’s some level of truth to what everyone else is saying. To write a great love song, though – one that really gets through to people and lasts a long time – you need to find a way to capture the universals of love instead of stringing together a series of tired phrases. That’s what makes this song so brilliant.”

“That, and Stevie Wonder’s voice.”

“Well, yeah. And his mastery of melody.”

“So, really, all you need for a great love song is the ability to tap into universals, write gorgeous melodies, and sing like Stevie Wonder.”

“I think you just answered your question.”

Sticky
Apr 07, 2015
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