Country legend. Feminist icon. Very tough, very funny, very smart lady.
The news of Loretta Lynn's passing came through late yesterday afternoon, but I wanted to pay tribute as quickly as I could. Off the top of my head then, here are ten of her best. I'm sure I've missed some classics, but how am I supposed to compress seven decades of music making into just one post?
Also recorded last year, the title track of her 46th solo album, guest starring Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood, just two of the many, many contemporary country stars who owe their careers to Loretta.
Another unanimous victory last week, with 70s Romeos Mr. Big trouncing the 90s big hair lot. This week, I will try my best to remain unbiased... but it's going to be hard.
What is an Oasis?
Various dictionaries define the word thus…
1. a fertile or green area in an arid region (such as a
desert… but not Manchester, where it rains all the time)
2. something that provides refuge, relief, or pleasant
contrast (pleasant contrast from what? Blackboard fingernails? Root canal?)
3. a type of rigid foam into which the stems of flowers can
be secured in flower arranging (Don’t tempt me.)
There are only two bands that I will go out of my way to avoid
featuring on My Top Ten. One is that Irish band, for obvious reasons. The other
is Oasis: everything that was wrong with Britpop.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved Britpop. That era in the
mid-late 90s was my gig-going heyday and I have many happy memories of all the
bands I saw live during that time. And then there was Oasis, whom I also saw
live, and still bear the scars. The scars of boredom. The scars of watching an
hour and a half of leaden lad-rock performed by a knuckle-dragging, monobrowed
troglodyte with a nasal monodrone and his dullard brother, a man who’d listened to every Beatles record but failed to understand any of them, interpreting their appeal as meaningless gibberish nailed to
unimaginative tunes and boorish swagger. The most exciting thing about the
whole set was the fact that this bunch of Manc Muppets came on-stage through a huge, wonky red telephone
box, recreating that early Doctor Who episode
wherein cavemen take over the TARDIS. That, and the fact that the support band
blew them off the stage. And the support band was Travis, for Bonehead’s sake!
Still, in the interests of equal opportunities, and until I
find a bunch of alternative bands that have used the name U2, let’s grasp the
nettle, shall we?
OASIS #1
Psychedelic folk-rockers from Marin County, San Francisco,
favoured by David Crosby, managed by David Geffen and signed by Atlantic
president Ahmet Ertegun. All seemed to be on track for success until their
debut album was shelved due to “management malfunction”, never to be released.
Two members of the group then formed a spin-off band with the same name,
releasing one self-titled album in 1973… which then sank without a trace. They
also recorded under the name RJ Fox, but nothing came of that either. Some
Might Say they gave it their best shot. Whatever.
OASIS #2
Peter Skellern, Julian Lloyd Webber, Mitch Dalton, Bill
Lovelady and Mary Hopkin joined forces to unleash another Oasis on the world in
1984. They also recorded one self-titled album, but Julian couldn’t be arsed
going on tour, so another cellist was drafted in. Then Mary got the sniffles
and they packed it all in as a bad job. If only Noel & Liam had followed in
their footsteps… D’You Know What I Mean?
OASIS #3
There are many things that I would like to say to you, but I
don't know how…
I cannot make an unbiased choice this week, so I'm turning it over to you guys in the hope that sanity will prevail...
As an English teacher, I'm often called upon to pretend I know more about famous writers than I actual do. So what do I know about Henry Miller? Erm... he wrote some mucky books? Oh, wait, no, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared him of obscenity and declared his novels "literature" in 1964, so he wasn't just another sex-obsessed scribe. He did get through five wives though, and spent most of his 80s writing pen pal letters to a Playboy model called Brenda Venus. Make of that what you will. On his death in 1980, the Grauniad declared, "As chief literary anarchist of his day, Miller was a kind of low priest celebrating the last rites of what he regarded as a doomed civilisation"... which might almost persuade me to give his books a go, if someone would be willing to cover my eyes when I got to the mucky bits.
In truth, most of what I know about Henry Miller has been garnered from these songs. Then again, most rock 'n' rolls stars are a bunch of sex-obsessed narcissists too, so no wonder they dig this "low priest of a doomed civilisation".
I'd love it if Doris Day was singing about our Henry Miller in The Deadwood Stage, but as that's set some time before the author was born, it's unlikely. Still, the Henry Miller in question is the owner of The Golden Garter saloon, so he was probably a bit of a perv too...
Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller were, of course, lovers. Nin financed the publication of Miller's first book, Tropic of Cancer, in 1934. You might be surprised to learn that I have read some Anaïs Nin. There was a copy on a bookshelf I used to frequent as a boy. E knows what I'm talking about...
She hides in the library reading Henry Miller books
'Til they flash the lights, it's time to go
When she was a little kid she said
"Dad, I don't know why I feel so penniless inside"
For an actual Canadian band, look no further than The Lowest of the Low. This is from an album called Shakespeare My Butt, which apparently is one of "the ten greatest albums in Canadian music history". I'm not sure what Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have to say about that.
Back to the literary criticism with Jason Gots, who I know nothing about. I mean, he might be Canadian, but the internet has let me down on that. I like his song though...
The city's sleeping, I can't sleep, it feels like I won't ever sleep again
A sense of urgency so keen, unknown to science and to medicine
I thought that this was settled, that I'd settled into some kind of routine
That I gave up all that Henry Miller bullshit for Joseph Goldstein
But now something's happening to me
Oh, something new is happening
I guess I'm not a novelist I never could sit still for very long
And I guess there's supposed to be a verse, a chorus and a bridge in every song
And I only ever had one thing to say but you get bored so easily F
I said it fifteen hundred ways in hopes that one would make it through eventually
Meanwhile, here's another artist I'm hearing for the first time, even though he's made a shedload of records and has at one time or another collaborated with Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, David Johansen and the Violent Femmes.
I was in Sicily reading Henry Miller
You were in New York City you were getting thinner
I was in discos I was listening to Madonna
You were in sweat clothes looking like Jane Fonda
If you're wondering why I do such long posts for this feature (and you're really not, because nobody reads this far), it's because I get to unearth gems like these...
Some say my songs are long and over complicated
But they're very personal I say they're underrated
And in the "even less surprising" category, here's Jane Birkin...
Amour pervers
Me susurre Henry Miller
Dans son Tropique du Cancer
Du Cancer
In case you're wondering, "Amour pervers" means exactly what you think. That clip's worth watching just to hear the way Jane pronounces "'Enri Millay" though.
If you're interested, Henry Miller gets name-dropped in a bunch of other Kozelek rambles. Email me and I'll send a list.
Speaking of lists, I'm going to have to stop there... but the list of songs that name-check Mr. Miller certainly doesn't stop there. I just picked out a bunch of the ones I liked.
To be honest, when I chose him for the 39th edition of this feature, there was only one song I had in mind, so here it is.
Dan Bern has a fantasy that if Marilyn Monroe had married Henry Miller rather than Arthur Miller, she'd have lived a happier life. I'll let him explain in detail why he believe this to be the case. He is, however, at pains to point out that...
This is not a knock against Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman is my favorite play
But Marilyn Monroe
Should have married Henry Miller
And if she did
She might be alive
This is taken from Dan Bern's 1997 debut album, which I'd really recommend checking out, especially for the song Jerusalem in which he proclaims himself the second coming of Jesus Christ. (He's right about Death of a Salesman too.)
This is Michael Fassbender, who once appeared in the movie Shame, in which he was addicted to sex. How preposterous is that? Now if he was addicted to Saturday Snapshots, that I could understand...
10. Obsessive-compulsive detectives.
I used to love Monk, the TV show starring Tony Shalhoub as an OCD detective.
"The Mendoza Line is baseball jargon for a sub-.200 batting average, the supposed minimum threshold for competence at the Major League level." As I'm sure all you baseball fans will know.
Saturday morning is the time to get Far From The Madding Crowd and enjoy a little Me Time with some Snapshots. Stamp your name in history by working out who are the ten artists below and what connect their songs. I promise it's a lot easier than last week's...
10. Obsessive-compulsive detectives.
9. Billie Jean is not a bubbly Brideshead Revisitor.
8. Not fit for the major leagues.
7. Roland takes more tea.
6. Spencer, Geller, tastes like chicken.
5. Derbyshire cigarettes.
4. Like O, in a forest.
3. Yarn twisters, not Liverpudlian.
2. Some like it hot above their shoulders.
1. Otis fandom.
"Kneel Before Zod!"
Or just wait till tomorrow morning for the answers...
