Digby posted the following video under the headline, Everybody Thinks They’re a Singing Star. It is Joe Scarborough singing a song called, “Reason to Believe.” It is not the great Tim Hardin song. It is rather a country song written by the ex-politician and current television pundit. It’s not a terrible song, but it is most clearly the sort of thing that is only released when the “artist” is already famous.

Huffington Post called it a powerful antiwar song, when it was first released. That’s what you get from the media when you are well connected: flattering lies. The song is not at all antiwar. It is sung from the perspective of a parent who has a child fighting in one of our recent post-9/11 wars. The parent doesn’t like that the child is in harm’s way, but still finds a “reason to believe.” Pretty much, the song comes down to this: it sure is sad that there are evil people in the world that require us to be constantly at war.

What’s sad about it is that there are so many sing-songwriters who are vastly superior to Scarborough. But they don’t even get their music produced, much less released by a major record company, much less get booked on The View. But the way to approach this sort of thing is most definitely not to claim that it is garbage. It isn’t. See that guy there playing the the mandolin? He’s great. See the woman singing backup? She’s great. Hear the invisible violin player? Great as well. But what this shows is the absurdity of meritocracy. Even if you think that Scarborough was great as a politician or a television host, he clearly isn’t great as a singer-songwriter. Yet there he is.

“We’ve got to live together!” So said Sly Stone and if you can’t trust him, who can you trust? Rarely has there been such a brilliant musician. And I always go to musicians to learn the basic lessons of life. That line is from the song “Everyday People” off the Sly and the Family Stone album, Stand! — one of the greatest musical accomplishments of the last century.

So it is really very simple. There is the long hair who doesn’t like the short hair. There is the yellow one who won’t accept the black one. There is even the fat one who is trying to be the skinny one — even though she shouldn’t (she should just try to get a bit more exercise). All of that’s made up people! As the great man said, “We’ve got to live together!”

Actually, “Everyday People” is just the start of this. It is followed by “Dance to the Music” and then “I Want To Take You Higher.” There is much wisdom throughout.

In 1972, the musical Pippin was produced on Broadway. It was Stephen Schwartz’s second hit in as many years, after Godspell, which ran for five straight years. When I was a kid, I loved Pippin. I saw it in 1979 at the SRJC Summer Repertory Theater. I’m not as sold on it now. “Corner of the Sky” struck me as near perfect then, but now it is almost unlistenable with its ponderous chorus. Still, many songs are quite good like “Magic to Do,” “No Time at All,” and “Spread a Little Sunshine.”

Another really strong song is, “I Guess I’ll Miss the Man.” What’s nice about it is that it is sweet while still maintaining a grasp on reality with its wry sense of humor. “Some men are heroes; Some men outshine the sun; Some men are simple, good men; This man wasn’t one.” The singer is far past the point of expecting perfection — or, it turns out, even one degree past adequacy.

I didn’t realize it, but the same year the musical appeared on Broadway, The Supremes released this song on their album, The Supremes Produced and Arranged by Jimmy Webb. In fact, they even had a minor hit with it. They manage to sap it of all its vitality and humor. But it’s still a pretty song — and highly attractive to men the world over!

When I was a wee teen, my friend Will bought Isle of Wight: Atlanta Pop Festival. It was a three LP collection, containing tracks by an eclectic mix of people from Johnny Winter to Sly & the Family Stone to Kris Kristofferson. As I recall, I didn’t especially care for anything on that album except for David Bromberg’s wonderful version of “Mr Bojangles.” But I especially hated a 17 minute jam by Miles Davis, “Call It Anything’.” It just sounded like noise to me.

One of the great joys of life has been to experience my gradual maturation of music appreciation. I’ve had the same experience with Frank Zappa. When I was young, I hated his guitar playing, but now I think it is marvelous (even if I’m not in the mood for it that often). And the same thing is true of Davis’ later work. This is the Bitches Brew period, and now I love it. In this live video from Isle of Wight in August of 1970, Davis is performing with quite a band. It includes the original Bitches Brew crew: Chick Corea on electric piano, Jack DeJohnette on drums, Dave Holland on bass with parts that seem designed to cause hand cramping, and Airto Moreira doing some unnatural things with percussion. In addition, there is Keith Jarrett on organ and Gary Bartz on soprano saxophone (Wayne Shorter was on the original album). This 35 minute set made up the majority (tracks 4 through 9) of Bitches Brew Live. It’s wonderful music.

Ann Sexton is a great soul singer from the 1970s, who had a fair amount of success but who never exactly broke out. She had a couple of songs that made it into the R&B top 100 — enough to get some attention, but not enough to make her rich. So after releasing two albums in the 1970s, she retired to what would generally be considered a normal life.

And then in 2003, Alejandro González Iñárritu used her song “I’m Losing You” in his film 21 Grams. This caused a bit of flurry of interest in Sexton on the internet. Eventually, she was tracked down and performed her first concert in three decades in 2007. The following video shows her at the Baltic Soul Weekender, back in 2008. Then there was a a lot of activity in her career, but after 2010, I don’t see much. Certainly, her website hasn’t changed since that time. But it is hard to say. Like a lot of great American musicians, Sexton is more popular in the UK. So maybe she’s over there performing nonstop. Or maybe she’s retired; she did turn 65 this last February.

Regardless, enjoy this song:

I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion over the weekend. One of the acts was a very compelling trio consisting of Sara Watkins, Sarah Jarosz, and Aoife O’Donovan. My ears perked up when I heard them say they were going to do a Jim Croce song. I figured that it wouldn’t be one of his hits. One thing that is a bit strange is that Croce’s songs have not been as widely covered as one would think. That’s probably because Croce had such an ability to make a song seem especially his (even when it he didn’t even write it). But the truth is that he was a fine songwriter, and it is always interesting to hear other people interpret his work.

In this case, the trio did, “Walkin’ Back to Georgia.” It is one of his genre tunes: trying to get back together, like “It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way.” But “Walkin'” is less sentimental than Croce often was when writing about this kind of stuff. It’s also a clever song in that he’s clearly referring to the state of Georgia, but at times, he implies that the girl’s name is Georgia as well.

The Watkins, Jarosz, and O’Donovan version of the song is just beautiful. Also, I like that they didn’t change the gender of the object of the song. You can think of this as being a lesbian love affair, but I think of it more simple than that. They are just performing the song the way it was meant. When Bob Dylan did “House of the Risin’ Sun” on his first album, he did it as a female prostitute. It’s always struck me as cowardly to do otherwise.

I’m not quite sure what we here in the west thought the godless commies were up to in the 1950s and 1960s. But what they were up to was the same things we were up to. They were just poorer. Romania is generally considered the most oppressive of the Soviet autocracies. But just like we were here in the states, the Romanians were having a folk revival in the early 1960s. I’ll have to mine that period in the future.

For now, I’ve discovered a much later artist from the same tradition, Ducu Bertzi. He’s a singer-songwriter from Sighetu Marmației in the northernmost of Romania. I don’t know much about him, other than that he performed a lot with the much more famous Florian Pittiș. You know us Americans: we don’t get out much. Anyway, here is a song, “Suflet Fără Chei” off (at least), Best Of ’06. The literal meaning of the title is “Soul Without Pier.” But Google Translate offers “Keyless Soul.” I think the idea is a soul without a point of access. It sounds very poetic and sad. Regardless, it is beautiful song:

Because of the hilarious video review, The Onion Looks Back At The Sound Of Music, I’ve been having various songs from that musical going through my head today. In truth, I’m not that fond of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s work. When I was a kid, I loved it. Now it just seems too overblown, even as it lacks for inspiration. Clearly, that has been the direction of Broadway musicals over the course of my life, but I don’t have to like it.

My favorite song from the film was not written by the dynamic duo, but rather just by Richard Rodgers himself, because Oscar Hammerstein had died five years earlier. That song is “I Have Confidence” — it was either that or “Something Good,” since those were the only two Rodgers wrote the lyrics for. Both those songs are musically more interesting. This adds weight to my argument that the Rodgers and Hart songs are better because Rodgers wrote the music first. It’s a thought.

Before getting to the song, let me note that one of my favorite film, Romantics Anonymous, with one of my favorite crushes, Isabelle Carré, uses “I Have Confidence.” In it, the debilitatingly shy Angélique uses the song to give her courage. It never works. Of course, I can’t share that with you because the company that owns the copyright can’t tell the difference between advertising and theft. I dare say no one on the planet has worked as hard as I have to get people to watch this charming film.

Where was I? Oh, that’s right: “I Have Confidence.” Here is Sierra Boggess singing it live on television:

I said before that I wanted to go back to Europe. And that usually means France. So I figured that we would highlight the French blues musician Bill Deraime. But I know how most of you are with songs in other languages, so I’ve made it easy on you. Here he is performing Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay,” which is on his album, Brailleur de Fond. He does it in French, of course — but you already know the lyrics.

But actually, you don’t. Deraime is from Senlis, France — very far away from any bays, with or without docks. So the refrain is, “Assis sur le bord de la route,” which means roughly, “Sitting on the side of the road.” Anyway, it’s a great performance with a great band:

I really want to get back to Europe for the Morning Music posts. But I seem to be having a hard time keeping up with the site these days, so I will do something easy. For whatever reason, Jane Siberry popped into my head. There was a time a couple of years ago where I was listening obsessively to her first ablum, Jane Siberry, and her last album, Meshach Dreams Back. It was quite an experience because that first album is almost folk. And the last album is about as complex as any pop music gets — dare I saw: jazz.

I first discovered her because of her second album, No Borders Here. And I saw her live three times. She put on a great show. The following song is more or less the title track off her third album, The Speckless Sky. The song is actually called “One More Colour.” It’s a beautiful song. But this video is from 1985. And videos sucked in 1985. Still, this one at least has a hand puppet:

For reasons that will become clear this evening, I’ve had the Blue Öyster Cult song “Godzilla” going through my head. When I was younger, I didn’t like the band. This was largely because I had this friend who was very obnoxious in his fandom for the band. On reflection, I don’t necessarily think he really liked the band. But he saw that certain people he admired like them. There are worse reasons to like a band. Not that I can think any.

But I rediscovered them when I was about 30, and I was impressed. There was one thing that had changed in me: I now understood that heavy metal was the silliest music known to man — the only kind of music even in competition with it was Disco, and it is nice enough to make the joke crystal clear. With heavy metal, it is not clear. And that’s especially true when you are a teenager and all the people you know take it so serious.

My friend Will once noted to me that a huge number of heavy metal songs are about monsters. At the time, I didn’t know what to make of that. Now I know: because it’s silly. Okay, so Rush sings about Ayn Rand philosophy. Very few bands can be that silly. The more serious heavy metal appears to be, the more silly it is. And that is where Blue Öyster Cult stands out for not taking themselves too seriously, even while embracing the faux seriousness of the genre. (Although “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” is an unforgivable sin.)

“Godzilla,” off their fifth album, Spectres, is perhaps the best example of explicit heavy metal silliness. It isn’t even a monster song; it’s really a film song. Is it as silly as Ayn Rand and the sign of the goat? Well, no. But it’ll do.

Our Midwest correspondent, JMF, turned us on to the incredible Charlie Parr. Parr is from Minnesota (Austin!) and according to JMF, he “lives in his car and cooks food in the engine block driving from gig to gig.” That may be, but he has a very polished online presence, and so it’s got to be a now-and-then thing. On the other hand, Parr clearly presents that kind of image in performance.

According to Wikipedia, he has been influenced by two of my favorite musicians: Mississippi John Hurt and (especially) Charley Patton. JMF offered up his song Cheap Wine. But that is just not enough Charlie Parr. So here he is on 30 Minute Music Hour on Wisconsin Public Television. It’s like a very small scale Austin City Limits. And if you must, you can jump to the 10 minute marker and hear him do “Cheap Wine.” Enjoy!