Most songs
that get into historical stuff tend to be somewhat lacking in musical and/or
lyrical quality, no matter how well-intentioned they are. This Mason-Dixon duet
with James Taylor is a happy exception. (I’ll leave any questions about
historical accuracy to the experts.)
Monday, June 9, 2014
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Shuffle #9 (June 8, 2014)
Bombay
Calling – It’s A Beautiful Day
Motownphilly
– Boyz II Men
Lovers
Never Say Goodbye – The Flamingos
There She
Goes Again – The Beat Farmers
Out Of
Sight – James Brown
Lovin’
Sound – Ian & Sylvia
Rain King –
Counting Crows
Gentle On
My Mind – Glen Campbell
I Ain’t
Got No Home – Bruce Springsteen
Think
Nothing About It – Gene Chandler
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Shuffle #8 (June 7, 2014)
All Good
Things (Come to an End) – Nelly Furtado
Kiss –
Prince
Wandering
Boy – Rodney Crowell
You’d Be
So Nice To Come Home To – Jim Hall
California
Love – 2Pac
Take On Me
– a-ha
Easy – The
Sweet Remains
Cleo’s
Back – Junior Walker & The All-Stars
Thursday, June 5, 2014
#53 If I Had A Boat -- Lyle Lovett (1987)
Bringing
in Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, the Lone Ranger, and Tonto, Lovett’s quirky tune
about “me upon my pony on my boat” could almost double as a great children’s
song, were it not for Tonto’s parting shot near the end.
#54 I Can't Make You Love Me -- Bonnie Raitt (1992)
I haven’t
checked, but it’s probably safe to assume that this is the only song on this
list co-written by a former college and professional football star. Mike Reid was
an all-American defensive tackle for Penn State, winning the Outland Trophy for
top defensive lineman in 1969 and finishing fifth in that year’s Heisman Trophy
voting. After being the 7th overall pick in the 1970 NFL draft by
the Cincinnati Bengals, Reid went on to play in two Pro Bowls before retiring
after the 1974 season to turn his attention to music. He was equally successful
there, winning a Grammy in 1984 for Best Country Song with “Stranger In My
House”, hitting the top of the country charts himself in 1990 with “Walk on
Faith”, and winding up in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He has also
composed the music for several musicals and operas.
“I Can’t
Make You Love Me” is probably the greatest ballad Bonnie Raitt has ever
recorded, and it continues to be a show-stopper whenever she performs.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Postie #4
Every day
during the major league baseball season, the Washington Post, like most other
daily U.S. newspapers, publishes the expected starting pitchers for that day's
games. For each pitcher, the Post's listing includes name, handedness, won-lost
record, ERA, and the team's record in games the pitcher started. All very nice,
except that apparently no one at the Post ever actually looks at the
(presumably computer-generated) final product.
Dating
back to last season at least, the listing has been garbled when there's a
pitcher with embedded blanks in his name, as illustrated by this example from
this morning's paper:
CARDINALS AT ROYALS, 7:10
Wainwright
(R) 8-3 2.32
9-3
Vargas,
J J 8:10p 5-2
3.39
Sometimes
the output is even more perplexing, with negative numbers floating around.
Seems to obviously be a computer glitch, but you’d think that someone could fix
it by now.
Another
systematic problem occurs when a team is unsure of its likely pitcher and
provides two possibilities, in which case the entire game is listed twice, once
with each pitcher’s name. It really appears to be a double-header unless you’re
paying close attention.
This past
Saturday, I was glancing through the listing and was surprised by the number of
day games – although there are plenty of exceptions, teams usually play their
Saturday games at night. I finally realized that the listing of games and
pitchers was not for Saturday, but rather for Sunday.
They also
can’t seem to quite decide the order of the groupings. Typically National
League games are listed first (with the Nats game first in that group),
followed by American League games, with interleague games as the final group.
When the Nats are playing an AL foe, however, sometimes they keep the standard
order of the groups, meaning that the Nats game is buried near the bottom, and
sometimes they move the interleague group up to the top.
OK, these
are not exactly life-and-death issues. But you’d think that some sentient being
in the Post’s sports department would be on the ball enough to get all of this
straightened out.
Monday, June 2, 2014
Serendipity #13
Don’t Look Any Further – The Kane Gang (1988)
Heard 6/2/2014 around 6:00 at Chipotle in Rockville
(Fallsgrove)
#55 Driving With The Brakes On -- Del Amitri (1995)
Del Amitri
– most underappreciated rock band ever?
The
exposure and chart success of this Scottish band in the U.S. was modest – they had
one big hit (“Roll To Me” in 1995), preceded by a couple of other tracks that
edged into the top 40 (“Kiss This Thing Goodbye” and “Always The Last To Know”)
and accompanied by a couple other songs (“Move Away Jimmy Blue” and “Nothing
Ever Happens”) that got some airplay on more adventurous radio stations. They
did have considerably more success in the UK, with 4 albums that hit the top 10
and 17 songs that cracked the top 50.
At some
point in the late 90s or early 00s I came across a 17-track “Best Of” compilation
(Hatful of Rain: Best of Del Amitri) and
decided to buy it, although I’d only heard 5 or 6 of the songs. Happily, unlike
other experiences I’ve had where the unfamiliar material turns out to basically
be filler, the songs I hadn’t heard were easily as good as the ones with which
I was familiar. The tongue-in-cheek nature of the band’s summary of the
contents didn’t hurt either.
These seventeen tracks happen to be
the album tracks released on British A-Sides between 1989 and 1998 and when asked
to attend a greatest hits party turned up in this order and in the present
form. We hope that they enjoy each other’s company and if not that they become
rapidly inebriated, commence bickering and finally expire in a massive punch
up.
With liner
notes like that, you know that Justin Currie can come up with great song lyrics
as well. Musically, despite the “alt-rock” label they’re pretty traditional
(guitar, bass, drums, keyboard), although they do bring a variety of stringed
instruments in for variety now and again. Although “Stone Cold Sober” and “Just
Like A Man” are a little more aggressive musically, most of their stuff is
mid-tempo to up-tempo, rock with a pop sense and sensibility. The user reviews on Amazon are well worth reading – best single description I could find was “quality,
well-written, intelligent pop/rock music” (written by a self-described “24 year
old black dude from brooklyn”).
It’s
really tough to pick one favorite from their body of work. “Driving With The
Brakes On” is probably the slowest, moodiest piece they’ve ever done, certainly
not typical for them but perfect for late-night listening.
Speaking
of the band’s quirkiness, how many people name a compilation album after one of
their songs that doesn’t actually appear on the record? Fortunately, the song “Hatful
of Rain” does appear on an equally great 2007 compilation (Collection), which only duplicates 4 songs from the earlier greatest
hits album.
June 1, 2014 – Rangers 2, Nationals 0 – Nationals Park
Umpires:
HP: Clint Fagan. 1B: Jeff Nelson. 2B: Scott Barry. 3B: Laz Diaz.
Weather:
75 degrees, sunny.
Wind: 1
mph, In from RF.
T: 3:06.
Att:
32,813.
The Nats
broke out of their offensive doldrums in a big way in the first two games of
the Texas series, scoring 9 runs on Friday night and 10 on Saturday afternoon.
It was certainly too much to expect them to keep up that pace, and Rangers ace
Yu Darvish shut them down emphatically on Sunday afternoon, pitching 8 shutout
innings with 12 strikeouts in the visitors’ victory.
The Nats
got off to a good offensive start with a leadoff double by Denard Span, who
went to third on a grounder by Rendon. With the infield in (!) – the Rangers
were obviously anticipating a low-scoring affair -- Darvish responded by
getting a shallow pop from Jayson Werth, and then fanning Ramos after working
around LaRoche. He then proceeded to strike out the next 4 batters, prior to a
one-out single by Span in the third. Span stole second base with two out and
Werth up, but Darvish struck out Werth to retire the side. Singles by Werth and
LaRoche put Nats on first and third with one out in the bottom of the sixth,
but Darvish again pitched out of trouble, featuring another strikeout of Ramos.
Tanner
Roark matched Darvish in results if not dominance for six innings, helped out
by an attempted double-steal with two outs in the first inning on which both
managers used replay challenges. Matt Williams argued that Elvis Andrus had not
in fact crossed home plate before Alex Rios was retired at second, while
Rangers manager Ron Washington claimed that Rios should actually have been
called safe. Both rulings went the Nats’ way, and an important run was taken
off the board.
The
Rangers finally put a run up against Roark in the seventh. Donnie Murphy led
off with a single, but things looked good for the Nats when he was caught
attempting to steal second. Leonys Martin, however, promptly deposited a Roark
changeup into the Nats bullpen for the first run of the game. The Rangers added
an insurance run off Drew Storen in the top of the eighth – not really needed
as it turned out, as the Nats went quietly against Darvish and Texas closer
Joakim Soria in the bottom of the eighth and ninth.
Traffic
was pretty reasonable on the way down (slightly longer backup to get onto the
14th Street Bridge than usual), but the mysterious late afternoon
backups on the Legion Bridge continued, with slow traffic for the last couple
miles of the GW Parkway. Went with tacos again (they remembered the salsa this
time), and lemonade given the perfect weather. (Would have also picked up some
ice cream, but there was an extremely long line, and the promised express line
for us eCash users wasn’t in operation.)
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