John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins were a songwriting team in the late 1960s. Sadly, I don’t know much about them. John Hurley released three albums in the early 1970s. The two are known primarily for two songs that have been widely covered: “Love of the Common People” and “Son of a Preacher Man.” The former song was a big hit for Paul Young in 1982, but it was first recorded by Hurley off his first album, Sings About People.

In early 1968, Hurley and Wilkins were shopping around “Son of a Preacher Man.” They tried to get Aretha Franklin to record it, but she wasn’t interested. Dusty Springfield did not make that mistake. It was released late in 1968, and then the following year on her album, Dusty in Memphis. The song became an international hit — reaching number 10 in the United States.

One of my all time favorite bands is Jules and the Polar Bears. I remember when I heard their first album, Got No Breeding — it blew me away. I loved the straightforward rock music mixed with the exceptional songwriting of Jules Shear — who remains one of my favorite songwriters. They never took off because, you know, they were good.

But it was often claimed that one of the reasons that the band never “broke” was that they were not very good live — or at least that they didn’t take live performance all that seriously. Actually, they didn’t take their later studio efforts very seriously, but that’s another story. Until now, I had never had the opportunity to hear them play live. But late last year, Rock on MV put on a 35 minute set by the band. And they are great!

Check it out:

I will probably write about Orson Welles’ The Immortal Story this evening. It uses a lot of music by the great minimalist Erik Satie. I tell you, there was something in the water there in France in the decades surrounding the turn of the 20th century — such beautiful music! One of the pieces used is the first of the Gymnopédies. It’s interesting in that it has its own idiosyncratic sense of rhythm. It makes sense but it is frustrating if you try to find a constant beat to it. You’ll hear a clear four beat measure and think, “I’ve got it.” And then suddenly: you’re lost. You just have to go with it and it is lovely. It won’t lead you astray.

The other major piece is the first of the Gymnopédies. It was written a few years earlier and is in strict 3/4 time. But it is so delicate — so tenderly beautiful — that it is impossible not to love. You doubtless know it because it has been used in a zillion films. Here it is performed by Swedish pianist Lars Anders Roos at the St Nicholas Church on 13 April 2008:

My first real introduction to jazz was probably listening to theme shows in the early 1970s. One of my favorites was the theme from The Bob Newhart Show called, “Home to Emily.” It was nominally written by the series co-creator Lorenzo Music. It’s a pretty enough tune. But it is actually what film composer Patrick Williams did with it in terms of arranging and producing the song. I just love the sound of it.

When I was in college, I really wanted to start a band that could play like this. But even if I had those kind of organizational skills, I would have had no business playing in it.

I just watched The Exorcist — which I assume I will write about later today. The film is unrelentingly serious and bleak. So I think I owe myself the treat of something of ultimate beauty and happiness. And nothing makes me happier than listening to Édith Piaf — even if there is a current in her work that soon the music will stop and we will all die.

Here is “L’Accordeoniste,” which, admittedly is not a happy song. But it is beautiful and poignant. If you prefer, you can listen to “La Vie en Rose” or “Non, Je ne Regrette Rien.” Otherwise enjoy this song about a prostitute who forgets her troubles while listening to your accordionist husband play — until he is sent off to war and killed.

In a recent article (probably not published yet), I made reference to Winnie the Pooh. So I put The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh on and saw that there was a performance of “Winnie The Pooh” by Carly Simon. I’m not much of a fan of hers, but she’s certainly talented. And she put up with James Taylor during some very trying times, so I give her a lot of credit. But here is a pro tip for a successful marriage: don’t marry a junkie.

The song itself was written by the legendary Sherman Brothers. But Simon went on to write a number of songs for later Winnie the Pooh cartoons. But I’m not going to present those. Here is the original theme song, “Winnie the Pooh.” The guitar work is particularly nice.

All last night, I had the song “Blue Velvet” going through my head. So I thought I would find a little Bobby Vinton singing the song. My mother — like most white women of her age — loved him. So I went looking for the song and I listened to it and it hit me immediately, “I can’t present this!” It’s just awful. So I happened upon “Mr Lonely” off his 1962 album Roses Are Red. It is one of the few Vinton songs that he co-wrote.

The song was co-written by Gene Allan — famous for writing songs for The Archies. He is not (as Wikipedia would have you believe) the art director and three term president of Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, Gene Allen. Anyway, it is a listenable song. Mom would like it.

I can never stay away from France for long. The country calls to me. And today, it calls to me in the form of Léo Ferré — even if he isn’t technically French. He was a chanson singer who was very popular after World War II for several decades. Of course, he is hardly known in the United States. And I mean that in the sense that Jacques Brel is popular in the United States, even though almost no one I know has ever heard of him. (It’s always annoying to have to say, “He wrote ‘Seasons in the Sun.'”)

Whereas Brel was more of a storyteller, Ferré is more expressionistic. But it is difficult to nail him down. He produced a lot of music. Here is his song “Avec Le Temps” — which means “With Time.” It starts off, “With time, they go away, everything goes away.” And it ends with, “With time we don’t love any more.” But it isn’t bitter — just resigned, the way that we all are when we get into the later years of our life. I think it’s called wisdom.

I’m not a big fan of Jean Sibelius. In fact, he is just the kind of Romantic composer that I’m thinking of when I say that I don’t like Romantic music. But that isn’t to say that he wasn’t a great composer. And he certainly didn’t commit any of the truly vile sins of the period like mindless chromaticism. And there are some times when you really want Romantic music. It is still very much alive in many film scores.

Not surprisingly, Sibelius wrote a lot of incidental music for the theater of his time. One such piece is Valse Triste — the sad waltz. It was part of the incidental music for the play Kuolema (“Death”), written by Arvid Järnefelt, who was apparently Sibelius’ brother-in-law. It sounds like a very expressionistic affair. It starts with the protagonist as a young man and Death comes for his mother. And it ends with him a man with his own family. Their home is burned down and Death comes for him in the form of his mother. You know the Finns: they know how to have a good time!

I thought the burned down house was interesting, because that is the centerpiece of the animation created by Bruno Bozzetto for the song in his film, Allegro Non Troppo. In this short film, we see a cat wandering around a burned house. It gets lost in its pleasant memories of the past. The implication is that all the humans have perished. The cat’s memories are brutally destroyed by the intrusion of the current reality. This is a rather negative take on the theme of Kuolema, which is about the way that the past is kept alive in our memories. Bozzetto seems to be saying that maybe that isn’t such a great thing.

This is a beautiful fusion of sound and image. I’ve introduced it to many people over the years. They never forget it. Nor do many of them ever forgive me. It is, as a commenter on the video put it, “heart-rending.”

As you may have heard, Ornette Coleman died yesterday. I’ve enjoyed him at times, but I’ve never been a fan. And the reason doesn’t speak well of me: his work is too difficult — too demanding. His earliest work was fundamentally bebop, but even then with his trademark micro-tunings it is difficult — it’s really are an acquired taste.

My first introduction to him was Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation. Like most jazz that I heard when I was a kid, it sounded like noise to me. I just couldn’t hear it. Even today, it is hard to listen to. But at least now I experience the shape of the it and I appreciate how the musicians interact.

But I like his more constrained work. Here is a relatively recent performance of his best known tune, “Lonely Woman,” from his unquestionably great album, The Shape of Jazz to Come:

This morning, I had wanted to bring you the Paul Simon song “Allergies.” But I can’t find a live version of it. So what the hell? Let’s do “Still Crazy After All These Years.” I love the song and I thought I would tell you what it means. Because it doesn’t mean anything at all. It was released in 1976 — when Simon was 35 years old. It is a reflection on what it means to mature. Our fundamental engagement with life doesn’t change — we are indeed, still crazy after all these years. But the way we perceive that engagement is different. It isn’t as intense.

As with most songs, the real meaning comes out in the bridge. In it, Simon comes right out and says it, “I never worry; why should I? It’s all gonna fade.” But the great thing about aging is that it tends to universalize you. When you are young, you fear that everyone has it together and you alone are the seething bundle of anxieties. But when you are old, you realize that everyone is like you: a complete basket case.

Of course, in America anyway, you would be convicted by a jury of your peers. That’s because we hold others to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. It’s because we secretly hate ourselves. Because in America, growing up is something only a minority of people do. But it doesn’t change the fact that we are all still crazy after all these years.