The Prisonaires: Just Walkin' in the Rain

SONG Just Walkin' in the Rain

WRITTEN BY Johnny Bragg and Robert Riley

PERFORMED BY The Prisonaires

APPEARS ON Sun Records single (1953, #2 U. S.); Just Walkin' in the Rain (1991 and 1994); many general doo wop and 50s R&B anthologies.

NOTE Thanks to Peter Tibbles, who writes a Sunday music column on the blog Time Goes By, for calling my attention to this song in his 2/21/10 entry about Sun Records.

Of all the popular songs with underlying stories of sadness and loss, perhaps none is as steeped in personal tragedy and vanished promise as the Prisonaires "Just Walkin' in the Rain." As the story goes, convicted multiple rapist Johnny Bragg walked across the Tennessee State Prison yard one afternoon with fellow inmate Robert Riley when it began to rain. "Here we are," Bragg is supposed to have said, "Just walking in the rain and wondering what the girls are doing." Riley suggested that Bragg's apothegm had the potential for a song; as Bragg was illiterate, he dictated the words to Riley, who wrote them down in exchange for a songwriting credit.

Bragg joined forces with four other prisoners convicted of murder, involuntary manslaughter, and larceny. I don't know whether these men were guilty or not. The record says that they were, but the chances of a black male receiving due process in the Jim Crow South of the 1950s were slim. In any case, radio host Joe Calloway heard the Prisonaires singing while preparing a broadcast from the Tennessee State Prison.

Calloway persuaded the prison's relatively progressive warden to let the quartet perform on the air. These performances came to the attention of legendary Sun Records producer Sam Phillips, who arranged the recording session, under heavy armed guard, that produced "Just Walkin' in the Rain." The single sold 50,000 copies, a not insignificant amount in 1953.

It would be the group's only hit. The unusual use of an acoustic guitar behind the doo wop vocals creates a haunting effect as lonely and forlorn as a Hank Williams song. (Indeed, I would like to have heard Hank sing this one.) Although the song may be about girls, the perhaps unintentional imagery of incarceration is striking and remarkable. The rain itself seems like prison bars, a heart is tortured, people stare at the singer through a window that separates him from the outside world as if he were a freak. Indeed, they wonder "who can that fool be." By the end of the song, rain and torture have become inextricably linked.

The Prisonaires were a favorite of Tennessee's powerful governor Frank Clements, a relative moderate by southern standards. Clements often had the band perform at the governor's mansion, and was likely responsible for the commutation of Bragg's sentence in 1959. Once out of prison, Bragg continued an undistinguished recording career. He died of cancer in 2004.

LYRICS
Just walkin' in the rain
Getting soaking wet
Torturing my heart
By trying to forget

Just walkin' in the rain
So alone and blue
And all because my heart
Still remembers you

People come to windows
They always stare at me
Shaking their heads in sorrow
Saying, who can that fool be?

Just walkin' in the rain
Thinkin' how we met
Knowing things could change
Somehow I can't forget

(Just walkin' in the rain)
(Walkin' in the rain)
(Walkin' in the rain)
(Just walkin' in the rain)
(All day I...)

People come to their windows
They always stare at me
Shaking their heads in sorrow
Saying, who can that fool be?

Just walkin' in the rain
(Walkin' in the rain)
Getting soaking wet
(Walkin' in the rain)
Torturing my heart
(Walkin' in the rain)
By trying to forget
(Walkin' in the rain)

It was typical in the 50s and early 60s for white singers to sing homogenized versions of songs originated by black performers. Pat Boone was particularly famous (or infamous, depending on your perspective) for this. Here, white singer Johnnie Ray performs "Walkin' in the Rain," a version that I think is fair to say does not hold a candle to the original in terms of emotional impact. Supposedly, that's Ray Coniff whistling.

B.B. King : Sweet Sixteen

SONG: Sweet Sixteen

WRITTEN BY: Some sites say the song was written by B.B. King and Joe Josea. Others say it was written by “Ertegun and Ahmet”.

PERFORMED BY: B.B. King

APPEARS ON: From the Beginning (1956). Other references say it was recorded in 1960 but doesn’t list an album. It’s on numerous other compilations and live recordings.



Since K. introduced me to this blog I have seen many posts about blues songs. Most of them I hadn’t heard of before reading about them. At the risk of having my posting access revoked I will admit to the readers that I am not the biggest blues fan in the world. I like it in certain spots but if I have a choice I would rather listen to A Tribe Called Quest over John Lee Hooker. It’s a personal preference. There are a handful of blues songs that can get the nod over just about anything. One of those is Sweet Sixteen by B.B King. I like the blues but I love B.B. King. He’s one of the reasons I am tortured by the fact I have no musical talent and can’t play an instrument if my life depended on it.

When I was a kid one of the highlights of my weekend was when my dad would pull out the reel to reel music player he brought back from Vietnam and play music on it. The sound quality sucked and it seemed to take him an hour to set the thing up but whenever he pulled it out I knew the big man was in a good mood. He probably made some extra money that week or something and for a person that hardly ever spent money on himself, the reel to reel was one of his few man toys. Unfortunately for him there was only two reels survived the trip from Vietnam back to New Orleans. One was Aretha Franklin and the other was B.B. King live in concert. I was a B.B. King fan at the age of ten even though I didn’t understand what he was singing about.

The lyrics are pretty cut and dry. The song is about a troubled man that has been in love with this woman since she was 16 years old and she’s not treating him right. Before you think B.B. King is talking about something risque, keep in mind this song was recorded back in 1960 and women got married young especially down south. If he made it in today’s time it would have to be Sweet Twenty Six (I hope everyone got that joke). People who haven’t been through the feeling of wanting someone to feel a certain way about them may not get the emotion B.B. is showing when he sings this song. If you can’t get with the singing then just listen to how Lucille cries right along with him. It's a duet featuring the singer and their instrument which are the best performances. I suggest finding as many different live versions as you can find. They are all slightly different but great. The live version I am posting below makes me feel like sharing a cigar and a drink with my dad. Even I didn’t like the song I would watch the performance anyway because it’s always fun to watch someone great at what they do when they are doing it at the top of their game.

Clifton.

Lyrics:

When I first met you baby
baby you were just sweet sixteen
When I first met you baby
baby you was just sweet sixteen
Just left your home then baby
the sweetest thing I'd ever seen

But you wouldn't do nothing for me baby
You wouldn't do anything I asked you to
You wouldn't do nothing for me baby
You wouldn't do anything I asked you to
You know you ran away from your home baby
And now you wanna run away from old me too

You know I love you baby
I love you before I could call your name
You know, you know I loved you baby
Baby I loved you, I love you before I could call your name
It seems like everything I do now baby
Everything I do is in vain

Treat me mean baby
But I'll keep on loving you just the same
Treat me mean baby
I'll keep on loving you just the same
But one of these days baby
You're gonna give a lot of money
Just to hear someone call my name

Yes sweet sixteen baby... sweet sixteen... oh yes
The sweetest thing baby
Oh yes, the sweetest thing I ever seen
You know I'm having so much trouble woman
Baby I wonder
Yes I wonder
Baby I wonder
Oh, I wonder what in the world's gonna happen to me

Elvis Presley: Can't Help Falling in Love

SONG Can't Help Falling in Love

WRITTEN BY George David Weiss, Hugo Peretti, and Luigi Creatore

PERFORMED BY Elvis Presley

APPEARS ON Blue Hawaii (1961); numerous anthologies

NOTE 1 "Can't Help Falling in Love" is an essential Elvis Presley song. Avoid any anthology of Elvis film soundtracks or of Elvis material from the 60s that does not include it. 2 There's an interesting analysis of Blue Hawaii here, in which the writer points out that the film features a sexless Elvis who, far from representing the underclass from which he arose, is a member of Hawaii's upper crust.


"I sing all kinds," a callow Elvis famously claimed, and added that "I don't sound like nobody." He spent the next twenty years proving those points in one of the most remarkable and important careers in popular music. It's received wisdom that the five years from 1953-58 were a still inconceivable outpouring of groundbreaking innovation and hit singles, but that after Elvis joined the Army in a mismatch as ill-conceived as deep fried peanut butter and mashed bananas, his career became a barren wasteland of uninspired music marked by mediocre films.

But that's too pat. In fact, Elvis recorded brilliant music throughout his life, especially 1969's From Elvis in Memphis and From Memphis to Vegas/From Vegas to Memphis (collected, along with alternate versions, on 1999's excellent Suspicious Minds). The great music was admittedly harder to uncover, which gave credibility to the notion that military service drained his creativity. But even the much (and often justly) maligned movie soundtracks usually featured a gem or two: Given good material, Elvis invariably sang it with with typical brio. Blue Hawaii, lame by even the relaxed standards of Elvis movies, is no exception. It includes the classic "Can't Help Falling in Love," in which the man famous for loving his mother sings movingly and touchingly to the 60-year old Wahila (Hilo Hattie).

That's right: Elvis found the inspiration for one of the most memorable love songs of the 60s not in lissome co-star Joan Blackman, but in a sexagenarian stand-in for his beloved mother who had died three years earlier in 1958. Elvis fans often claim that this scene was a mistake (see article linked above), that he should have sung the song to Blackman. But Blue Hawaii was going to be weak under any circumstances; Elvis crooning to a 22-year old ingenue in a Beach Blanket Bingo setting wouldn't have improved the film and might well have weakened his performance of the song. And it's the song, not the movie, that we remember.

"Can't Help Falling in Love" has an unusual background. Adapted from an 18th Century French love song (arranged by Hector Berlioz!), it was written by a collaborative of three songwriters with over a hundred years of experience between them. George David Weiss' credits included the Gidget movies and such forgotten Broadway musicals as First Impressions (with Sammy Davis, Jr. and based on, of all things, Pride and Prejudice), while Luigi Creatore and Hugo Peretti wrote songs for Valerie Carr and produced artists from Perry Como to Sam Cooke to Jimmie Rodgers. Together, they composed a simple two-minute love song that Elvis Presley interpreted for the ages.

Elvis almost always sang to someone. He never peered down from on high like, say, Pete Townshend did (albeit precariously). He never disguised his message in oblique symbols and images a la Dylan, and he was anything but a confessional singer seeking isolate himself and his sins in a cocoon with an individual listener. Nor, in his recordings, was there a marked distance between him and his audience. Whether he rocked or crooned, Elvis at his best sang to us as individuals and as a community of which he was a member.

At the end of the day, Elvis was one of us, the commoner as king, except that he had an unparalleled gift and an unequaled taste in and feel for songs. One hopes that, as he embarked on what he must have guessed would be an gantlet of uninspired movies, he smiled when he saw the score for "Can't Help Falling In Love" and thought of his beloved mother.

LYRICS
Wise men say only fools rush in
But I can't help falling in love with you
Shall I stay
Would it be a sin
If I can't help falling in love with you

Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I can't help falling in love with you

Like a river flows surely to the sea
Darling so it goes
Some things are meant to be
Take my hand, take my whole life too
For I can't help falling in love with you
For I can't help falling in love with you

They didn't call him The King for nothing:


Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger show that "Can't Help Falling in Love" is a folk song, too:


UB40 reached #1 in 1993:

Let X=X

SONG: Let X=X

BY: Laurie Anderson

PERFORMED BY: Laurie Anderson

APPEARS ON: Big Science (Nonesuch); United States Live (Warner Brothers); Live in New York (Nonesuch)

I remember my first encounter with Laurie Anderson’s music quite vividly. I was in a “Religion & Art” seminar at the University of Vermont, a class co-taught by two excellent professors. One of them said he was going to play a song that he believed was relevant to themes we’d been discussing: the song was “O Superman” from Anderson’s Big Science album—the lines "Cause when love is gone, there's always justice / And when justice is gone, there's always force / And when force is gone, there's always Mom,” as well as the eerie lines about “Here come the planes/They’re American planes/Made in America” moved me in a way few songs have; & within hours if not minutes of that class ending, I had purchased the Big Science album.

Those who’ve read any of my previous posts here, which have all sprung from my keen interest in old blues & old-time country, may be surprised me to see me write about an artist who relies so heavily on electronics & who—despite what I see as very considerable music talent—tends to be identified primarily with performance art. This isn’t just a case, however, of me reviving musical tastes from earlier in my life for nostalgia’s sake. I listened to most of the first three discs of United States Live this week & found them just as compelling as ever.

The song “Let X=X” is a great introduction to Anderson. Probably more accessible than a number of her pieces, it still contains a number of characteristic gestures: the exploration of language & signification in lyrics presented with deadpan & absurdist humor, the minimalist music, the use of the vocoder to distort her voice.

As a poet myself, I’ve long since rebelled against the poetic theory in which X=Y—that X is not real in itself, but only a stand-in for Y; I don’t care for “symbolic” reading. On the other hand, as we know from Magritte, a painting of a pipe is not a pipe, nor for that matter is the word “pipe” the thing itself. They are pointers—they direct our attention, whether in imagination or in tangible reality to the thing they signify. This is rather heady theory for a song with such deceptively simple lyrics. But we should direct our attention to the equivalencies in the lyrics: the “guy” looks like he “might have been a hat check clerk at an ice rink”—a rather absurd description, except for the fact that, according to the song, it’s a fact—or at least an equivalency. The “sky” is “sky-blue”; again, an equivalency in descriptive language; the “future” is a place “about 70 miles east of here.”

How does this relate to the long string of small-talk banter? For one thing, it makes this sort of typically meaningless chatter—such as “Thanks for putting on the feed-bag” gain a more direct equivalency to the literal. Yes, it seems vacuous, but it also signifies—it points beyond itself. The same can be said for the final image of the burning building. To “feel like” one is in a burning building is one thing—a feeling of urgency & panic, of course—but it is not the same as being in a burning building—there is a displacement thru the simile—the use of “like”; still, the entrance of the horns at this point build a musical climax from the earlier tranquil background that in some sense contradicts the distance of the “like” in the figure of speech.

There is real depth in Anderson's music & lyrics—combined with musical effects that to my ear sound as fresh & revolutionary today as they did in the 1980s; & you can dance to lots of her songs! Hope you enjoy this truly amazing piece of music.


Let X=X

I met this guy -
and he looked like might have been a hat check clerk at an ice rink.
Which, in fact, he turned out to be.
And I said: Oh boy. Right again.

Let X=X. You know, it could be you.
It's a sky-blue sky. Satellites are out tonight.
Let X=X.

You know, I could write a book.
And this book would be thick enough to stun an ox.
Cause I can see the future and it's a place - about 70 miles east of here.
Where it's lighter. Linger on over here.
Got the time?
Let X=X.

I got this postcard. And it read, it said:
Dear Amigo - Dear Partner.
Listen, now - I just want to say thanks. So...thanks.
Thanks for all the presents.
Thanks for introducing me to the Chief.
Thanks for putting on the feedbag.
Thanks for going all out.
Thanks for showing me your Swiss Army knife.
Oh and uh -
Thanks for letting me autograph your cast.
Hug and kisses. XXXXOOOO.
Oh yeah, P.S.
I - I feel - feel like - I am - in a
burning building - and I gotta go.
Cause I - I feel - feel like - I am -
in a burning building - and I gotta go.

The Knack: My Sharona

SONG My Sharona

WRITTEN BY Doug Fieger and Berton Averre

PERFORMED BY The Knack

APPEARS ON Get The Knack (1979)

This is "The Song That Killed Disco", and for that reason alone I love, worship, and adore it (yes, if you haven't guessed yet, I hate disco). The Knack came at just the right time, with music that gave what people wanted. After about 5 years of disco domination of the commercial airwaves, The Knack provided straight-ahead Rock & Roll - no glitz, no stack heels, no over-production, no metronome beat. The music hearkened back to the Beatles, the Stones, The Kinks, and other early British groups of the 1960s. And as the song's principle composer and Knack frontman Doug Fieger died yesterday after a long battle with cancer, I thought this would be the ideal time to feature "My Sharona".

"My Sharona" was on their debut album, Get The Knack, released in 1979. Fieger claims that the song was based on his infatuation with girlfriend Sharona Alperin (that's her on the record sleeve photo). Like most Knack songs, the lyrics are pretty much all about teenage male hormonal lust. The content of the lyrics is the least important thing about them; what's more important is that they form, along with that great bass line, a vital part of the rhythmic drive of the song. Doug Fieger's quirky delivery of the lyrics adds to the stop-start quality of the song, which comes across as an almost tribal ritual performance. No wonder it hit #1 on the charts for 6 weeks in 1979!

Lyrics

Oo my little pretty one, pretty one
When you gonna give me some time, Sharona?
Oo you make my motor run, my motor run
Gun it coming off of the line, Sharona
Never gonna stop, give it up, such a dirty mind
I always get it up with a touch of the younger kind
My-ee my-ee my-ee ahee ah woo!
Ma ma ma my Sharona

Come a little closer, over here
Close enough to look in my eyes, Sharona
Keep a little mystery, kissin' me
Runnin' down the length of my thigh, Sharona
Never gonna stop, give it up, such a dirty mind
I always get it up from a touch of the younger kind
My-ee my-ee my-ee ahee ah woo!
Ma ma ma my Sharona
Ma ma ma my Sharona

(1st guitar solo)

When ya gonna get to me, get to me
Is it just a matter of time, Sharona
Is it a destiny, a destiny
Or is it just a game in my mind, Sharona
Never gonna stop, give it up, such a dirty mind
I always get it up from a touch of the younger kind
My-ee my-ee my-ee ahee ah woo!
Ma ma ma ma ma ma ma ma
Myee my-ee my-ee ahee ah woo!
Ma ma ma my Sharona
Ma ma ma my Sharona
Ma ma ma my Sharona
Ma ma ma my Sharona

(2nd guitar solo)

Ooooh ah my Sharona
Ooooh ah my Sharona
Ooooh ah my Sharona

As I said, Doug Fieger passed away yesterday - February 14, 2010 - at the age of 57 after a long battle with brain and lung cancer. What better way to say good-bye than to play the song that made him and his reputation. Here's a live version of "My Sharona" from what looks to be the mid '80s. Good-bye, Doug; you're gonna be missed!

R.E.M.: Find the River

SONG Find the River

WRITTEN BY Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe

PERFORMED BY R.E.M.

APPEARS ON Automatic for the People (1992)

NOTE Michael Stipe invented "rose of hay" because he needed a rhyme for "way" and "naivete."

The best R.E.M. songs typically feature oblique, apparently indecipherable lyrics supported by hook-ridden melodies and meticulous production. "Find the River" is no exception, a soaring ballad with lush harmonies augmented by simple, less-is-more instrumentation. But the very simplicity of of the instrumentation lends an uncomplicated eloquence to the proceedings and forms an organic whole vital to the song's theme.

In literature, rivers have long represented both a life force and, because of their eternal movement to the sea through an immobile landscape, questing and searching. T. S. Eliot wrote of the novel Huckleberry Finn that

A river, a very big and powerful river, is the only natural force that can wholly determine the course of human peregrination.

Eliot thought Mark Twain's vision of the Mississippi River transformed Huckleberry Finn from an adventure story into a great book. Thus, the river is life-giving artistically ("river poet search") as well as thematically.

"Find the River" is best understood as a mystical tapestry of imagery and symbolism about a lifelong quest for meaning not found in "...the city/Where people drown and people serve." The accumulation of varying spices infuses the song like incense, lending a sort of holiness to the journey. The nearly poetic imagery supplies the same sense of transcendence:

Me, my thoughts are flowers strewn
Ocean storm, bayberry moon

At the same time, the drive to light out ahead of the rest (as Huck Finn put it) --

I have got to leave to find my way

--is as quintessentially and stolidly American as a town hall.

In "Find a River," the journey must be the reward. The uncertainties and disappointments of life ("Nothing is going my way") guarantee no destination other than the finality of the ocean. After the long trek charted in the song, the only promise is that someday

All of this is coming your way

It may be a harbinger of hope, but it's just as likely a prediction that the same striving awaits -- who? a lover? a child? a listener? But at least this striving is a search for something transcendent, an escape from the daily grind of "task in the city." That's why we have "got to find the river," for it is there that our humanity awaits.

LYRICS
Hey now, little speedy head
The meter on the speedmeter says
You have to go to task in the city
Where people drown and people serve
Don't be shy. Your just dessert
Is only just light years to go

Me, my thoughts are flowers strewn
Ocean storm, bayberry moon
I have got to leave to find my way
Watch the road and memorize
This life that pass before my eyes
Nothing is going my way

The ocean is the river's goal
A need to leave the water knows
We're closer now than light years to go

I have got to find the river,
Bergamot and vetiver
Run through my head and fall away
Leave the road and memorize
This life that pass before my eyes
Nothing is going my way

There's no one left to take the lead,
But I tell you and you can see
We're closer now that light years to go
Pick up here and chase the ride
The river empties to the tide
Fall into the ocean

The river to the ocean goes
A fortune for the undertow
None of this is going my way
There is nothing left to throw
Of ginger, lemon, indigo
Coriander stem and rose of hay
Strength and courage overrides
The privileged and weary eyes
Of river poet search naivete
Pick up here and chase the ride
The river empties to the tide
All of this is coming your way

Click here for the official R.E.M. video.

Until a few years ago, R.E.M. rarely performed "Find the River." I met Peter Buck at party back in the early Aughts and asked why, since it is such a beautiful song. He agreed, and then told me that while "River" was challenging to play live, they were considering working it up for the next tour. "Find the River" has been on their playlist ever since, so maybe he listened to me!

Tommy James: Draggin' the Line

SONG Draggin' the Line

WRITTEN BY Tommy James and Bob King

PERFORMED BY Tommy James

APPEARS ON Tommy James (1970); Tommy James and the Shondells Anthology (1989); other anthologies

NOTE "Draggin' the Line" reached #4 on the Billboard pop charts in August 1971 and stayed in the Top 40 for eleven weeks.

"Draggin' the Line" appeared originally on Tommy James' eponymous album, his first release after leaving the Shondells. (allmusic.com says that "Draggin' the Line" first appeared on James' album Christian of the World, but all other sources, including James himself, say otherwise.) James was a hit machine in the late 60s, with fifteen Top 40 hits (including three #1's) from 1966-69. These featured classic pop arrangements with dabs of white soul faintly reminiscent of The Rascals. As the decade wore on, touches of psychedelia appeared here and there; one song, "Crystal Blue Persuasion," is a barely concealed account of drug use.

Musically, "Draggin' the Line" is pure psychedelia. Its dreamy tempo, loping bass, and echoing chorus create a stoned ambiance augmented by puncturing horns. The use of brass is unusual in psychedelic music, but James recorded with horns for most of his career and deploys them to good effect here.

Lyrically, the song is a paean to the simple joys of life and the way that they alleviate the struggle of "Makin' a living the old hard way." For James, the pleasures of living are found in "snow and rain and bright sunshine" and even -- believe it or not "huggin' a tree." This, he sings, leads to "peace of mind" in a way that "the old hard way" cannot.

What, then, to make of the cryptic title? What does "draggin' the line" mean? James has never explained it, and passed on the opportunity to do in the liner notes to Anthology. Speculation ranges from an allusion to cocaine ("the line") to "draggin'" a cross. I suspect that it refers back to the opening lyric, with James' ominous delivery juxtaposed against the upbeat chorus singing of "peace of mind." It's as if draggin' the line and peace of mind are in eternal opposition, with the individual forced to do what he must to survive, a striving made worthwhile by appreciation and enjoyment of the natural world.

(For information on the origin of the phrase "tree hugger," click here.)

LYRICS
Makin' a living the old hard way
Takin' and giving day by day
I dig snow and rain and bright sunshine
Draggin' the line (draggin' the line)

My dog Sam eats purple flowers
We ain't got much but what we got's ours
We dig snow and rain and bright sunshine
Draggin' the line (draggin' the line)
Draggin' the line (draggin' the line)

I feel fine, I'm talkin' about peace of mind
I'm takin' my time, I'm gettin' the good sign
Draggin' the line (draggin' the line)
Draggin' the line (draggin' the line)

Lovin' the free and feelin' spirit
Of huggin' a tree when you get near it
Diggin' the snow and rain and bright sunshine
Draggin' the line (draggin' the line)

I feel fine, I'm talkin' about peace of mind
I'm takin' my time, I'm gettin' the good sign
Draggin' the line (draggin' the line)
Draggin' the line (draggin' the line)
Draggin' the line (draggin' the line)



Live, in 2005:


R.E.M.'s cover, featuring a rare lead vocal by Mike Mills: