music

From Jason Diamond in The Paris Review:

“Marquee Moon,” the fourth song, and last track on the first side, is all the proof you need to make a lot of overblown claims for the album’s legacy. Verlaine and Lloyd are unrelenting as they duel, leading up to a bridge whose huge solo is made even larger by the tiny twinkling of a piano key. And again, we have Verlaine spinning a decadent Lower East Side fairytale, filtered through the mind of somebody influenced by too much French poetry. This all goes on for a few minutes, and then there’s this gap where the band really does get into Grateful Dead territory, just messing around with their instruments, keeping the beat going, finally building it to a crescendo that leads them back to where they started, reciting the poetry I would rip off nearly twenty years later…

The Lord’s Prayer from Rachmaninov’s world-stopping Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, performed by the Cambridge King’s College Choir.

The Dying of thirst passage of this song is astonishing. Even more astounding is how important the skit at the end is to the song—and to the entire record. How is it that a blockbuster rap record climaxes with a baptism scene and the words, “Remember this day, the start of your new life, your real life…”?

good kid, m.A.A.d city might be my favorite record of the year. 

I loved Freaks and Geeks when it first aired. This pitch-perfect scene makes me want to revisit it. Bill alone making himself a grilled cheese. The mirroring shots between him and Garry Shandling (drinking, teeth, Bill pointing at himself). The laughing with food in his mouth. Comedy with this kind of pathos is, I think, one of the highest art forms.

Levon Helm died today. Here’s the Drive-By Truckers with a song about the deaths of two other members of The Band.

This shall be sung at Easter by the Trinity Reformed Church choir. Until that time, when the voices of my brothers and sisters are singing it, this recording shall have to do. If you listen to this, stop whatever else you’re doing to take it in.

The Drive-by Truckers: Carl Perkins' Cadillac

But damn, Mike Cooley can write some lyrics. This one’s on the towering The Dirty South.

Life ain’t nothing but a blending up of all the ups and downs
Dammit Elvis, don’t you know
You made your Mama so proud
Before you ever made that record, before there ever was a Sun
Before you ever lost that Cadillac that Carl Perkins won

Mr. Phillips found old Johnny Cash and he was high
High before he ever took those pills and he’s still too proud to die
Mr. Phillips never said anything behind nobody’s back
Like “Dammit Elvis, don’t he know, he ain’t no Johnny Cash”

If Mr. Phillips was the only man that Jerry Lee still would call sir
Then I guess Mr. Phillips did all of Y'all about as good as you deserve
He did just what he said he was gonna do and the money came in sacks
New contracts and Carl Perkins’ Cadillac

I got friends in Nashville, or at least they’re folks I know
Nashville is where you go to see if what they said is so
Carl drove his brand new Cadillac to Nashville and he went downtown
This time they promised him a Grammy
He turned his Cadillac around

Mr. Phillips never blew enough hot air to need a little gold plated paperweight
He promised him a Cadillac and put the wind in Carl’s face
He did just what he said he was gonna do and the money came in sacks
New contracts and Carl Perkins’ Cadillac

Dammit Elvis, I swear son I think it’s time you came around
Making money you can’t spend ain’t what being dead’s about
You gave me all but one good reason not to do all the things you did
Now Cadillacs are fiberglass, if you were me you’d call it quits

This song distills everything I remember from growing up with New York rock radio playing in the background—Dylan, The Boss, Tom Petty, a hundred other bands I never learned the names of. It’s from the upcoming—and really effin' terrific—Slave Ambient. You can nab this song here (and another SA track, “Come to the City”, here).