Friday Jukebox

15 thoughts on “Friday Jukebox”

1. I would have gone with Rapture by Blondie.Report

   1. Next time one of these comes around I will.Report

      1. I also really wanted to post The End of the World by Skeeter Davis because it’s one of my all-time favorite songs anyway. It didn’t seem like the right tone though since it’s a breakup song.Report

         1. Don’t forget REM.Report

2. From http://www.abhota.info/end1.htm

   According to Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts (1979), an Assyrian clay tablet dating to approximately 2800 BC was unearthed bearing the words “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days. There are signs that the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common.”

   I have that written on my wall. It makes me feel better.Report

   1. Thanks, I needed that.Report

   2. Hesiod ‘Works and Days’ has a whole lot about how everything has gone to hell and how much better things were once upon a time. It makes me wish we had more documents surviving from the time he’s talking about.Report

3. Can you pen a f0llow-up to a song written by someone else?Report

   1. Oh, I never noticed that before. To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fan of Eve of Destruction. I like the Dickies cover of it, but the original is a bit too repetitive for me.

      I actually do think you can pen a follow up if the songwriter gives you permission. The closest I can think of is an old soul song entitled “You Cheated” and I think another singer recorded basically the same song as “I Cheated”, but she might have gotten the same band playing back up.Report

      1. Space Oddity ==> Major Tom (I’m Coming Home).Report

         1. I’ve always thought that Steely Dan’s Only a Fool Would Say That was a response to John Lennon’s Imagine.Report

            1. Huh. Now that you say it, I’ll never listen to that tune the same way again. I thought the first album was more a response to Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited, which is where the title’s lifted from.

               Heady times, when Dylan released Highway 61 Revisited. By 72 or 73 when Steely Dan emerged, the Kent State shootings had punctured the hippies’ earnest nonsense with 67 rounds of .30 cal ammunition and the British Army had done pretty much the same on Bloody Sunday in 72. Steely Dan had emulated the Beatniks but instead of some blissful Eden found themselves in the hellish Interzone, pressed up against the dilating sphincter of the Muzik Biz as it really was (and continues to be), fucked over by all and sundry.

               Everything on Can’t Buy a Thrill reflects the grim musings of the ex-Beatniks and their silly hangers-on, the Hippies. The tune Changing of the Guard echoes the same gun-oriented sentiments of Only a Fool Would Say That

               All the cowboys and your neighbors
               Can you swallow up your pride
               Take your guns off it you’re willin’
               And you know we’re on your side
               If you wanna get thru the years
               It’s high time you played your card
               If you live in this world
               You’re feelin’ the change of the guard Report

      2. Mark has answered the question perfectly above… but that’s no reason that I can’t talk about remix culture and how One eskimO did a spectacular take on Candi Staton’s cover of “He Called Me Baby”.

         He Called Me Baby is a lovely enough little country song in the vein of “he called me baby all night long, he called me baby now he’s gone, now nobody calls me baby” A nice little cry into your beer number, right?

         Well, One eskimO took the sample of “he called me baby all night long” from that song and turned it into a song where the girlfriend confesses her infidelity to the boyfriend.

         Candi Staton’s song does a good, if not great, job of communicating loss… but One eskimO does a spectacular job of communicating the roil of je ne sais quoi in one of those confession conversations.

         Listen to Candi Staton here and listen to One eskimO here.Report

         1. Yeah, those are good examples. Another really obvious one would be Neil Young’s Alabama (and Southern Man) => Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama”.Report

            1. Switching to rap is probably cheating but there are a number of examples of people with beef making songs (or album interludes) about each other… most famously Biggie and Tupac.Report

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