I was talking to my sister earlier and she brought up “that song about it being a man’s world.” Well, I found my morning music! You just can’t start a day better than with a little James Brown. And “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” is one of the best. The lyrics of the song are about as sexist as can be, but it somehow isn’t surprising that they were written by Brown’s girlfriend at the time, Betty Jean Newsome. Nor is it surprising that on the original release of the song, only Brown got credit. No wonder the singer thinks that it is “man” who invented all those things in the song, it was because “man” forgot to give “woman” credit — just like always.

Still, it’s an unbelievably great song. I never listen to the lyrics anyway. Regardless, how ever the world is, “It wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.”

I seem to have surf music on my mind a lot these days. Perhaps I will get over it after this heat wave ends (assume it does end). But today, I bring you “Wipe Out” off The Surfaris’ first album, Wipe Out. Nominally written by the four original members of the band, it is almost exactly the same as Barrett Strong’s song “Money (That’s What I Want).” But that’s the way with blues, and you can’t copyright a chord structure.

What’s most notable about “Wipe Out” is the very energetic drumming by Ron Wilson. But I like the whole sound of it. Too often, music gets more boring the more complex it gets. But songs like “Wipe Out” and “Wild Thing” never lose the joyousness of their purity. Here is a video mashup of various live performance, with a single live track behind it. This band includes only one of the original members of the band, Bob Berryhill. That’s his wife on the bass. I’m not sure who the others are.

But see if you don’t find yourself singing, “The best things in life are free…”

Anti-Flag is a post-punk band out of Pittsburgh. They are a very tight outfit — great players, but pretty straightforward in what they do. I like them because of there very prominent leftist politics. Their first album was Die for the Government, and the title track contains the refrain, “You gotta die, gotta die, gotta die for the government. Die for your country? That’s shit!”

I come upon them all the time because I just can’t keep in my head the difference between the words “corps” and “corpse.” So I go to Google and search for “press corpse.” That that always brings me to the Anti-Flag song “Press Corpse” off their 2006 major label debut, For Blood and Empire. It’s a great song. And a good way to start a generic Thursday:

Let’s try something new today. My flu seems to be at its end, and I’m feeling more capable of engaging more than I have been. I got Arthur Honegger in my mind. Of all Les Six, he is probably the most difficult to listen to. But today, we will listen to something that I consider quite accessible: Pacific 231.

According to Honegger, the idea was create a piece of music that got more and more momentum as its pace slowed. But he named it after a train, and Honegger was known to have a thing about trains. So in 1949, the film theorist Jean Mitry created a film to go along with it. And that is what we listen to and watch this morning:

One of the most catchy tunes ever is “Sweet Georgia Brown,” which was written in 1925 by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard. I would think that after decades of having the song associated with the Harlem Globetrotters, I’d hate it. And in some ways, I do! I tend to rebel against it when I hear it in its most banal renditions.

But I came upon this really amazing performance of it by the Wynton Marsalis Quintet. Playing with them are Mark O’Connor on the violin and Frank Vignola on guitar. They are all playing off sheet music, which is pretty amazing when you consider that the whole thing sounds like these guys have been playing this song with each other for years. Of course, that’s what comes from not just being professionals, but great professionals.

One thing that really stood out to me was that Walter Blanding on sax uses circular breathing in what is apparently an improvisation. Of course, as a flutist, I’ve always been amazed by circular breathing. There is also an amazing drum solo by Ali Jackson at the end. And O’Connor and Vignola make the whole thing sound kind of like Grappelli and Reinhardt. This is a great way to start the day.

I walked through the mall yesterday, and The Youngbloods were singing “Get Together” off their second album, The Youngbloods. The song was written by Chet Powers of Quicksilver Messenger Service. But even if you are a fan of that band, you’ve probably never heard his name. That’s because he bizarrely played in the band under the name Dino Valenti; and he wrote songs under the name Jesse Oris Farrow. Curious fellow.

To be honest, all my life I’ve loved the song — but despite the flower power performance, not because of it. Powers’ performance of the song is far superior. For one thing, he just has an incredible voice. But here is a performance from 1986 under the name Dino Valenti on what looks like a cable access show called, On Stage. It’s beautiful music, performed really close to edge. After two folk songs accompanying himself on the 12-string guitar, he brings out the band and does some rock-n-roll. There is a second part to the video, if you are interested.

I’m all done with my paying work, yet I’m finding it very difficult to work. Part of this is because this flu continues on, but the cough seems to get worse. I’m wondering if I don’t also have a respiratory infection. But the other issue is that it is hot. Very hot — in the mid-90s today. I live and work in a room with two south facing windows. It gets like an oven in here. Saturday is supposed to be better, then next week, even worse. Maybe I will go down and visit my sister — it’s always ten to twenty degrees cooler down there.

Anyway, I thought I would offer up The Lovin’ Spoonful’s mega-hit “Summer in the City” off their third real album, Hums of the Lovin’ Spoonful. Now you might think that I would hate The Lovin’ Spoonful. But you would be wrong. For a couple of years, they were a very bright light in the business of popular music. It doesn’t get any better — just different. I think it is the influence of jug band music. It always helps for young musicians to have some form of music that they don’t quite do right but well enough to create something new. Other examples of this include Talking Heads’ hopeless attempts at funk and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s — I don’t know — Louisiana swamp music. (I always find it curious that people from my hometown think CCR is from way far away and not El Cerrito — a Bay Area suburb.)

There are many songs by The Lovin’ Spoonful that I like more, but for this day, it’s got to be “Summer in the City”:

I’m still sick, and this, rather than my other job, is really getting in the way of my work here. And one thing that really makes work hard when I’m sick is that I’m so unfocused. Normally, when I’m working I don’t notice anything going on around me. But earlier today, I heard an ice cream truck. It was playing the song “Pop Goes the Weasel.” And it got me thinking about the song.

It turns out that it started as a dance in England in the early 1850s. It had no lyrics except for the cadence, where I assume people would shout, “Pop goes the weasel!” I can just imagine the good cheer. But over time, people wrote lyrics for the whole song. And they have changed over time as these things will. It’s all nonsense; it doesn’t mean anything.

The phrase “pop goes the weasel” does, however, have some meaning. According to Wikipedia, a weasel is the clock reel on a spinning wheel. It is where the completed yarn is collected. The standard clock real has a two yard circumference. So 40 revolutions create 80 yards of yarn, or a skein. The clock reel (weasel) was designed to “pop” when the spinner had completed one skein. Hence: “pop goes the weasel.” Then again, this could all be made up afterward, given that when the song was first popular, no one knew what the phrase meant. But the spinning wheel explanation makes more sense than any others.

Here is a nice animated video of the song made for kids by Hooplakidz. It includes a very fetching weasel too:

I swear, there was a decade of my life that I’m not sure I would have gotten through if it hadn’t been for Mark Eitzel and American Music Club. His combination of wry despondency so matched where I was. It is often hard to hold onto the wry part. But if Eitzel could laugh at the fact that he was spending his nights crying into his beer, then there was hope.

Here he is all by himself performing the first track off Everclear, “Why Won’t You Stay.” Everclear is widely considered American Music Club’s masterpiece. I don’t agree, but it is unquestionably a great album. The thing is that the band has never produced an album that wasn’t good. But my favorite is probably United Kingdom because of its under-produced and dark sound. My friend Dave Luoto once gave me a cassette tap with California on one side and United Kingdom on the other. (I now own the import that has both albums on it.) It was one of the best gifts anyone had ever given to me. And I listened to it over and over again. I made a little fun of myself about this in my unfinished second novel:

Here we see Mark Eitzel singing at a radio station. And he seems like he’s actually, well, happy. I’m glad to see it. I feel a whole lot better these days too.

On Sunday, I was with my dad at a car show. And during it, I heard the old Sonny & Cher song, “I Got You Babe.” I grew up knowing the song. My parents always liked it. I don’t remember a time I didn’t know it, which makes sense given that it was released when I was one years old. But hearing it on Sunday was like hearing it fresh — for the first time. And it really is an awful song.

The melody is repetitious and the transition from verse to chorus is clunky. Without the vocal harmony, the chorus is almost repulsive: the same three notes repeated over and over. Sony’s voice is weak and the song rarely uses Cher’s few strengths. And the production is plodding with by far the most annoying use of an oboe ever. And to top it off, the lyrics are juvenile — slightly less mature than The Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice.”

Forget “(You’re) Having My Baby” and “A Horse With No Name” and “Muskrat Love.” “I Got You Babe” is a major contender for the worst song of all time. Even Justin Bieber’s “Baby” is better than it. Think about that.