Always on the Sunny Side

This is a mini playlist, perhaps to be expanded, of songs that are so happy that they are actually sad. This could mean that they are masking some kind of desperation. It could also mean that they are rally songs sung from a place of pain or trial.

June Carter Cash, "Keep on the Sunny Side"

I’ve been obsessed with this song since it came out last year, on June’s final album. I love how it sounds like an old person, unabashedly. You can hear her struggling with the unavoidable limitations of her voice, missing notes. But, of course, she persists. Her voice has a quality I don’t recall hearing anywhere, except maybe on some old folk records—but this is crystal clear. I just love that it doesn’t mask the reality of being really old. I also love when Johnny comes in for the harmonies on the choruses; they seem like two elderly soldiers to me.


Darlene Love, "Chapel of Love"

“And we’ll never be lonely anymore.” Good luck with that.

This version has a slower tempo than the more famous one by the Dixie Cups, which enriches the sad undertone. I like this one better.


Barbara Harris, "It Don't Worry Me"

The climactic song in one of my favorite films, Robert Altman’s Nashville, and it was written by actor Keith Carradine. It’s a song that comes from a place of political trauma, very much of the Watergate era. But it could have applied equally well or better in the GWB era. “You may say that I ain’t free, but it don't worry me. . . "

Here are the songs.

Singing lesson from Bob Dylan

I'm fascinated by the art of vocal intepretation. I love imagining what a singer is hearing as s/he re-casts a melody familiar to her audience. It's often said of Bob Dylan that what makes his singing interesting, in lieu of a voice that is innately pleasing tonally, is his phrasing, his interpretation of his own lyrics. I've seen Dylan live twice, both in the last three years. I've liked both shows, mostly because he seems so into it, and is aging gracefully. But interpretation for him now means the rhythm at which he spits out the lyrics, pretty much.

This version of I Want You is from a rather reknown bootleg, from a show in New Orleans in October, 1980. He was just coming out of his Christian period, just starting to sing his old songs again. And in this version, he is intepreting by really singing. He has an alternate melody in his head, one that nonetheless fits the song perfectly, and it undergirds a beautiful, rather desperate sounding performance. I think desperation is a good affective tone for this song.

There are some other gems from this show--particularly an awesome version of "Simple Twist of Fate"--that I may post at a later date.

Oh!

I realized right after the posting the last post that the best song to re-start with would be the song that inspired the name of this blog. It's "Major to Minor" by the Settlers, a mid-sixties English pop band. The song is from the volume two of the excellent "Ripples" series of obscure Brit sixties pop singles, I think drawn from the Pye Records catalog. This is the best volume of seven--they're out of print but worth seeking out.

But also, from Cole Porter:

There's no love song finer;
but how strange the change
from major to minor

Back

I'm back. In a stripped down, very minimal form. I'm actually just planning on posting individual songs every day or two or seven, with a little blurb about the song. I guess I've entered the Twitter age. And I'm not even on Twitter!

So my first post is "Things You'll Keep" by the Apartments. They are an Australian band from the 80s. I had never heard of them until I read an interview with Dan Bejar, in which he referred to them as an influence. I really like the atmosphere of this song, especially the way it "kicks in" by going from melancholia to a slightly less lethargic melancholia. I also like the lyrical hook of "Some things you were never meant to lose."

Test

passover

I'm Coming Back

Soon.