Random Music For Your Enjoyment

 

Steely Dan, "Your Gold Teeth"

A deep cut from their second album, “Countdown to Ecstasy” in 1974. 

For non-Dan fans, I would suggest that the vocals are not really where you should focus your attention; listen for the instrumental fills, the percussion, the interplay between the musicians, the chord progression, the solos … very much like listening to jazz. 

Go one level deeper than usual.

The first solo break is at 2:44 — keyboard first, then guitar, nearly two minutes.

Speaking of jazz, I learned yesterday that the theme from the TV show “Taxi” … 

… is a shortened version of “Angela” by Bob James — and he just released a new video performance of it, live in studio, 3 weeks ago.

 

A palate cleanser — Linda Ronstadt, “Lose Again”. I could listen to this song every day, and lately, I have been doing just that. Amazing vocals.

Another classic from Linda, “The Tracks of My Tears”, originally by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.

More to come on Linda.

NFL Coaches Don’t Wear Suits Any More

And I am not a fan

Here’s a funny and entertaining video talking about it — the main reason is that the league wanted to optimize branding revenue and since Reebok didn’t offer suits 20 years ago, no suits allowed (video has a long and annoying ad up front, skip to 1:40 to avoid it).

 

It mentions both Mike Nolan of the 49ers and Jack Del Rio of the Jaguars as the last two guys to challenge this situation around 2005-6.

I’m old school about things like this. Coaches look more authoritative, grown up, and classy with suits on, because everyone does. It just sends a different and more serious message to have the leader of the team dressed like he means business, rather than wearing athletic gear adorned with logos. He stands there holding a clipboard — what does he need athletic gear for? 

Here’s Hank Stram (at right). How could you ever look more in charge than that? You can’t.

And we already get quite enough logos with the players and their uniforms, do we not? Is adding more of that — with coaches — clearing anything up for anyone, really? I find that hard to believe.

But the NFL, which is run by lawyers obsessed with two things, revenue and rules, may want to revisit this to counter several recent negative PR disasters, especially the disturbing and serious player criminality “thug” problem in the league over the last 25 years.

The league also turns itself into a cartoon show every October with the over-the-top display of pink gear everywhere you look, but fined Earl Bennett of the Bears for wearing orange shoes even though orange is one of the team’s colors: against The Rules. There’s a reason that people joke that NFL stands for No Fun League.

Against this onslaught of cultivating a poor image with bad decision making, they could help themselves in the image department by allowing coaches to dress like coaches again. 

Like this guy, Tom Landry of the  Dallas Cowboys.

This kind of thing is one of many many reasons that modern pro sports push me away, little by little, year by year: it just doesn’t speak to me like it used to.

Time on a Line?

We tend to think of time as a point that moves on a line forward into the future, with everything in the past backwards along that line. 

This becomes even more obvious when you think about how we talk about time, using words like forward and backward, long and short, but never narrow or wide, or deep or shallow.

Thinking about time in “forward and backward” terms makes it one dimensional, just like a line, by definition — but I would suggest time can have width and depth too. 

Instead of a line, picture a box, with “L”, “W”, and “H” dimensions. Of course, the narrow/wide and deep/shallow concepts would be the “W” and “H” dimensions of the box.

If time has all three of those dimensions, the “L” obviously represents the future vs. the past, the “W” could be the various possibilities for what you can do at each moment, and “H” could be engagement with and immersion in each moment as you travel through it. 

This idea occurred to me one day recently when I was having a crisis where time stands still, and you are only focused on the present moment and whatever feelings emotions are flowing through you, and nothing else matters for a little while.

We’ve all been through it, with both good and bad emotions.

Maybe this is stupid. Or maybe not. I just know that the “one dimensional” thing seems inadequate. 

Getting Older and Looking Back

A few days ago Gerard van der Leun at American Digest wrote about getting older and rather than quote a chunk of it, I suggest you go read it yourself. 

But here’s a quote I liked for the imagery:

... looking back, all the important events in my life seemed to just happen, seemed as if I was walking backward in a dark tunnel that every so often had an opening that looked out on the world.

Life is like that. As Forrest Gump famously said, “life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get”. I can vouch for that. We make plans and God laughs, which to me is another way of saying, work on your adaptability and resilience skills, because you will need them. 

He’s also linked two music videos, “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Once in a Lifetime” which he ties together in the meat of the post. 

Its pensive without being maudlin, and entertaining and thought provoking. So much of his content is like that, a calming influence in my life and the lives of so many of his readers, like a port in a storm. I strive to be half as good and usually fall short. 

Imagine that, an internet stop that actually lowers your blood pressure.

I’ve been reading his site daily for nearly its entire lifespan which is approaching 20 years. 

His post got me thinking about my own experiences with getting older — so I left this comment on his post.

I too have found that getting older sharpens my appreciation for being alive and fully present in the moment, for the random events that shape us and present opportunities for growth, and delineating between what is time well spent and what is not. All to the good. 

Time just “feels different” at 62 or 75 than at 45 or 52 — more urgency and also more relaxed at the same time, somehow. Trying to explain this to younger (but not “young”) people works as well as you would expect it to.

Happy Thanksgiving to him, and to you. 

This mornings sunrise from my front door letting the dog out at 6:30:

In Case You Were Wondering How I Spent My Three-Day Weekend

I started our Independence Day weekend the right way on Friday — accidentally — by happening upon 2,000 American flags at a local park in tribute to the individual memories of 2,000 who have perished serving our country in wartime. See video here: Happy Birthday America. 

Long holiday weekend here in the U.S. but now that’s over and real life intervenes. Fortunately family vacation time is not far off — July is meant for slow-rolling, right?

But it allowed me to spend some of it re-watching “Band of Brothers” which everyone should watch at least once, in part because you will learn a lot about pivotal battles in WWII like D-Day, Operation Market Garden, and the Battle of the Bulge, in part because nothing brings historical events to life like putting them on screen, and in part because it’s just very well done in every way, from performances to story-telling to the “you are there” realism. 

There are also unexpected poignant moments like after liberating Eindhoven (Netherlands) two soldiers discover a family that has been living in the cellar for 5 years. One of the soldiers gives the young son a chocolate bar which he starts to devour without saying a word — and then the father says his son has never tasted chocolate. 

This scene, whether strictly 100% factual or not, is true because it represents all of the sacrifices made by hundreds of millions of civilians around the world for years, things that people today cannot even conceive of. The show is worth watching for that scene alone, if one allows the power of that idea to penetrate one’s brain. 

This trailer includes a piece of that scene about 2/3 of the way through.

Wasted several hours watching the Cubs play, and lose, 3 more games in a row, with the losing streak up to 10 now. The pitching has been mostly okay, not great, but the offense has been horrific:  too many strikeouts, not enough contact, too many guys trying to hit 6-run homers with nobody on base. Whatever, I turned it off last night in the 5th inning after they fell behind again. I will not torture myself watching shitty baseball. This streak greatly increases the chances they will dump several potential free agents before the trade deadline July 31, marking the end of an era and saying goodbye to several key players from the 2016 championship team. It is what it is.

Watched the Austrian Grand Prix Sunday morning, won by — guess who — Max Verstappen for his third win in a row, and by a lot. The battles for position behind him were the only drama in the race. Here’s a really good video explaining why his racing technique is so solid.

Also watched a bit of UEFA soccer tournament play, it’s down to Italy vs. Spain (today) and England vs. Denmark (tomorrow) to go to the final.

Enjoy your Tuesday ... 

It’s Tuesday, Seems Like a Good Day to Go to the DMV and Wait in Several Lines for Several Hours

Wish me luck! 

As it turns out, when you as an Illinois resident buy out your leased vehicle, it creates this complicated and opaque logisitical process between you, your old bank, your new bank, and the state which of course wants its tax revenue.

1. You apply for bank loan fron new bank
2. New bank issues check for payoff amount
3. You mail check to old bank
4. Old bank sends confusing letter plus updated title to you, not to new bank, because now you — as a chump who still lives in Illinois for some inexplicable reason — have to hike your sorry self over to the DMV and wait in long lines with a bunch of sweaty disgusting losers for the privilege of writing some sizable check to the State of Illinois for purchasing the vehicle you have already been driving for 4 years

Why couldn’t this be a paper bill so you can mail the check somewhere, and then the state can send the title to the new bank?

You know, like normal, rational, non-insane people would do it? 

I don’t know but I suspect it has something to do with the state assuming you will ignore it or defraud them somehow. Which I still don’t get because this genius process:

• Requires me to go somewhere and wait in line, quite a disincentive in itself, *much* worse than just mailing some sizable check that I already don’t want to write, and 
• Actually sends *me* the title and while I am not in the business of defrauding the state and courting prison time, there are people who think that is a fine idea — maybe even a business model — and *those* people might view the idea of having the title in their possession as a good start

Like I said, wish me luck. Also: it’s raining. 

It’s Hot Outside So ...

Sly and the Family Stone, “Hot Fun in the Summertime”, 1969

The original. This was blasting from everyone’s AM radios in 1969, in the car, on portable radios, it was part of the fabric of popular culture. 

There are no words good enough to describe this incredible band. Simply in a league by themselves. 

Here’s a live version from some TV show, and it’s an actual performance, not lip-synced, believe it or not.

Pretty nice summer weather this weekend around these parts, highs around 90 Friday through Sunday but the humidity was fairly low — so while it was definitely warm it was not oppressive. At least your sweat has a chance to evaporate to cool your body. 

I took advantage of this opportunity and got out on the bike both weekend days. My goal every summer is to ride 3-4 days per week for a total of about 3 hours — this year I’m adding stadium stairs 2x per week, plus a 20-30 minute walk 2-3x per week for some variety and a mental break from high exertion activity. 

Sounds like a lot sweating and it is — but not doing it is even worse.

Most people think about only the physical and health benefits of exercise, but I find that my overall attitude and sense of “drive” are better with a consistent level of these kinds of activities, especially biking. 

Experience has taught me that it’s about emotional mood management almost as much as physical health:  something amazing goes on inside your body and brain with steady state aerobic activity, and it stays with you all day. Endorphins, increased oxygen in your blood, etc., it’s a miracle cure for a lot of ills.

When the weather gets really hot, say 90s and humid, everyone knows that the coolest time for biking and running is in the early morning, before 7am. However this involves way too much waking up at 4:30 and sweating by 5:15 — I’m more of a “wake up when I wake up and have some coffee and do some reading and writing” type of guy — but I can probably aim for 7:30 though on those really hot days.

Quick music notes: Late last week I discovered a good jazz/pop singer by the name of Laura Fygi — pronounced “fee-gee” — so over the weekend I listened to a lot of her music. The three albums that really caught my attention so far: “Introducing” her first album in 1991, “Change” from 2001, and “At Ronnie Scott’s” a live album from 2003. Her version of “Dream a Little Dream” is outstanding.

Link to this post 

Tribute to Billy Joe (B. J.) Thomas

Friday Music

Legendary singer B. J. Thomas passed away on May 29 at 78. 

“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” was of course a giant hit in 1969, when I was 10 years old, and I absolutely loved that song. I still like it today.

But for my money that is nowhere close to his best song. And most people had no idea that he also ranged into country, gospel, and even Latin Jazz in later years.

Here are my top 5 — your list is probably different, and that’s okay.

The Thinks You Definitely Should NOT Think at 2AM

Saturday night I fell asleep pretty quickly but then at 2AM I found myself awake, too warm, needing to go to the bathroom, etc.

Actually it might have been 1AM, or 12:32, or 3:15, I don’t really know, because I didn’t look at the time. In fact I *never* look at the time in the middle of the night. 

I stopped doing that years ago when I realized a) it does not matter what time it is and b) all it does is annoy me and get my brain going. 

Checking the time is a pretty silly idea, when you think about it. You got somewhere to go at 2:30? You got plans? Who cares whether it’s 12:28 or 4:45? What possible value does this have for you? 

Here’s what matters: you’re awake and you want to get back to sleep very soon. That’s it. 

Don’t do things that complicate that process like check the time and then now your brain gets all “oh, great, it’s 1:37, why am I awake, and I need to get up in ... (engage math brain) let’s see 4 hours would be 5:37 and my alarm is set for 6:15 so that’s ... 4 hours plus 30-something minutes, that’s just great, now I’m going to be tired tomorrow and I’ve got this thing I need to do and that’s going to be harder now, and then ... (blah blah blah your brain is completely awake now)”.

Will this help you get to sleep? No it will not.

It’s essential to find some mental trick to keep your brain from engaging on such craziness. I learned to focus on regulating my breathing — neither all the way in nor all the way out, and very steady — but anything calming could probably work, like counting sheep or saying the Lord’s Prayer several times or picturing your happy place such as waves rolling in on the beach or a green meadow with a deep blue sky or a snow-capped mountain range or flying in a hang glider. 

Sometimes if I feel physically restless I have even visualized some kind of invisible force — something like a gyroscope — moving around through my arms and legs actually releasing tension and causing me to relax. 

These tricks are especially important to avoid things like worry or anxiety about the future, or regret about the past. Been there, done that, it’s a terrible idea, pointless at any time of day, and doing it while you could be getting back to sleep is costing you in two different ways and compounding the sleep issue. 

But for some reason our brains like to torture us with these stupid games in the middle of the night, so you need to find some tricks to keep it from sabotaging your sleep and even sometimes your mental and physical health.

It’s your brain, and you have control over how you use it.

But when all else fails, one thing you should *not* do is keep lying there, awake for an hour or more, increasingly frustrated and annoyed. I like to get out of bed and go lay on the couch and watch some TV, especially a movie or a re-broadcast of some sports event. One of two things will happen, either you still won’t get to sleep but at least you distracted yourself and maybe even saw a decent movie at 3-4AM — this has happened for me more than once — or your eyes get tired and you fall asleep. Either way it’s better than lying in bed awake.

Summer has finally arrived

But not for long, I guess

Yesterday we hit 90 or thereabouts, although the humidity was not bad so it was not oppressive. 

However I see that the upcoming forecast is getting cooler again though. 83 today, 54 on Friday. 

Well, that’s May in Chicago for you. There will be time for sweating and discomfort later this summer, I’m pretty sure.

After getting out on the bike 3-4 times in March - April but not at all in the last 4 weeks I finally got out for a couple of hour long rides on Thursday and Saturday, and will do one this afternoon. 

Biking is my primary source of exercise in the warmer months — I aim for 3-4x per week, 45 minutes or more. This amount does a lot of good for my metabolism, cardiovascular system, leg strength, mood and emotional state, and sleep quality. 

About 20 years ago I had a job that was about 8 miles away and accessible by bike path, so I decided to start riding to work twice a week. This worked great, and kept me in pretty good shape. 

The only tricky parts were drying off at work and having dry clothes to wear, and making sure I had enough calories to handle the ride home during the hotter part of the day. I used powder and paper towels plus a change of clothes for the first challenge, and found that the best solution for the second was a small bag of vending machine potato chips right before I left. The salt, carbs and fat were perfect for energy.

Energy food looks like this sometimes. Don’t listen to “experts”. Your body knows different.

I did this bike to work twice a week from May - September for about 10 years at two different jobs that were pretty close to each other. Sadly that came to an end when I got one of those “work from home” jobs that everyone seems to love so much.

Working from home does not provide this opportunity. Keep that in mind.

Memorial Day is coming up

Did you know it’s literally one of the most important days on the calendar? I’ll post an essay about that on Thursday.

Enjoy your Tuesday friends. 

On the Outside Looking In

It’s Stanley Cup playoff time again and once again I have no rooting interest. The last time the Chicago Blackhawks made the playoffs they got their ass handed to them, swept 4-0 in the first round by Nashville, in 2017. It was embarrassing and painful to watch. The Hawks got shut out in both of the first two games, at home. The effort and the pride was simply not there. 

The year before that they lost to St Louis in 7 games, again in the first round — with the series-winning goal scored by Troy Brouwer, a member of the 2010 Blackhawks Cup-winning team — but at least that was a competitive series. Still, a first round exit, and they were the defending Cup champs, and very nearly the winner of 3 Cups in a row. More was expected. 

The last few years we have seen:

• All their core players getting older, with little help from younger players they have supposedly been “developing”
• A coaching change (the jury is still out on that one), Quenneville fired, Colliton hired
• A string of serious concussions suffered by two-time Cup winning goalie Corey Crawford, out for months at a time, and his eventual free agency in 2020 (signed by New Jersey right away but Crawford retierd right before the season started),  
• A GM (Stan Bowman) who did not acquire or draft any of the Hawks best players during their Cup years — those were all Dale Tallon players — and loves trading players and then re-acquiring them which seems on its face to indicate incompetence at one end or the other, at least, or perhaps it shows that other organizations get more out of any random player than the Hawks do.

I love Stanley Cup playoff hockey, and there is no greater trophy in sports. The playoff runs of 2010, 2013, and 2015 are etched in my mind —and so is the heartbreak of 2014 when they were on track to winning another one, but lost in OT of Game 7 to the Kings in the Conference Finals on a fluke goal, deflected off their D-man Nick Leddy (that series was the true Cup final).

Now the playoffs start wthout them yet again. Meanwhile Patrick Kane is another year older, Toews missed the entire season due to some mystery ailment that nobody will give details on which of course makes you fear for his life not just his hockey career, and they are still searching for an NHL goalie, having used 3 different goalies this year, and Seabrook is retired, Keith is nearing that point, and Marian Hossa is still missed (they have missed the playoffs every year since he retired), and the GM got a contract extension even though his record is mediocre. 

On the plus side there is Dominik Kubalik. 

It looks like it’s going to be “another one of those years decades”.

Friday Art and Music

Two songs — coincidentally both from 1973 — about young love but telling two very different stories ... 

Alabama Rain, Jim Croce

The lyrics are so visual and specific — you can easily picture yourself in that place and time.

Here are the verses only, all in a row:

Lazy days in mid July
Country Sunday mornin'
Dusty haze on summer highways
Sweet magnolia callin'

Drive in movies, Friday nights
Drinkin' beer and laughin'
Somehow things were always right
I just don't know what happened

On a dusty mid July
Country summer's evenin'
A weepin' willow sang its lullabies
And shared its secrets 

And because Croce is so good at pacing the lyrics, with his great singing voice, and the music is basic and spare and beautiful, all of that naturally highlights the imagery within the lyrics. 

His life story is full of the kind of lived experiences that make great songwriters and musicians, with odd jobs and traveling the world playing music. His Wikipedia entry is well worth reading.

Fun facts I learned today:

(1)

The Ventures pay tribute to Jim Croce the year after he died with “The Jim Croce Songbook”. All instrumental, as we would expect from The Ventures, and by highlighting just the music and melody with no lyrics, the strength of the great Jim Croce and Maury Muehleisen trademark twin acoustic fingerstyle guitar sound is brought to the foreground. These songs are quite strong even without any lyrics at all. 

(2)

He self-financed his first album “Facets’ in 1966 with a $500 cash wedding gift from his parents who insisted that he use it for that purpose, assuming it would fail spectacularly and force him to give up music and get a real job. However he not only sold out all 500 copies, he made a $2500 profit! 

Desperado, The Eagles

More great lyrics, visual and specific, but this time it’s giving advice to a friend who is always searching for the shiny object in the fish tank: 

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get 

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger 
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone 

When I was younger, lyrics like this went over my head. Wisdom is usually lost on the young.

“Your prison is walking through this world all alone” ... visual and specific. 

Another version of Desperado, from Linda Ronstadt and The Eagles on the legendary TV show Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert from 1974. 

Fun facts I learned today:

(1)

Desperado was the first song Henley and Frey ever wrote together as a team. The second was Tequila Sunrise, just a few days later. These are two of the best songs the Eagles ever did, written in the first week they teamed up. Seems they caught lighting in a bottle.

(2)

The famous back cover photo (by Henry Diltz, see more here) recreates the capture of the Dalton Gang.

Posing on the ground as the freshly killed gang are Jackson Browne, Bernie Leadon, Glenn Frey, Randy Meisner, Don Henley, and J.D. Souther.

These factoids and more can be found at the Desperado (the album) Wikipedia entry.

Friday Art

Short on time so no Art today. 

Enjoy your Friday, friends.

It’s Whirlybird Season

Whirlybirds on driveway, millions of ‘em

These things are literally everywhere right now.

We used to call them whirlybirds and they fall from maple trees I think. 

Which apparently we have a lot of around here.

This is what my driveway looks like as of yesterday. Every one of those whirlybirds is wet from the rain.

Could I clean them all up, in theory? Yes I could.

I could sweep and scrape and bag, and then do it all over again the next day.

Doesn’t sound all that appealing, frankly. 

Seems like a waste of time, where Mother Nature literally laughs out loud at your hubris and need to control her.

I’m thinking, “nah, I’d rather take a picture and blog about it”. 

You’re welcome. 

Enjoy your Thursday peeps. 

Random music link:

• Callin’ Baton Rouge, New Grass Revival (Spotify)
• Callin’ Baton Rouge, New Grass Revival (Youtube)

A Few Minutes with Geoge Benson

This very good podcast with guitar legend George Benson, about his family, youth and learning guitar, features a great story about the start of his performing career at seven years old: Interview with George Benson (Rhino podcast)

He’s almost 80 years old now, but you’d never know it from listening to him in the interview. He’s funny, warm, and endearing, as likeable a guy as you will ever encounter.  

He also tells a cool story about how he changed up the tempo of the R&B classic On Broadway to make it more upbeat. It became a big hit. Surprise! 

All of that inspired me to dive deeper into his catalog where I found this album Guitar Man with excellent covers of several classic pop, rock and jazz standards like “Tequila”, “Paper Moon”, and “My Cherie Amour”.

Other albums worth digging into:

• Breezin’ (1976) his breakout album with his first big hit “Breezin’” plus “This Masquerade” 
• Weekend in L.A. (1978) - with On Broadway
• The Shape of Things to Come (1968) - earlier work, jazz pop with little or no vocals

Image scraped from George’s official website. 

Tuesday is Photos Day

Tuesday (or “Tuesdy” as some call it) is an excellent day to show some Scenes From My Life, I just decided.

Or, photos from my phone if you prefer. An iPhone 8 Plus, for those who care about details. 

No promises on how spectacular or fascinating they will be from week to week, it’s more about documenting my life, partly — or mostly — for my own amusement. I will try when possible to get the best quality image each time, using various tricks I’ve learned from decades of photography. And I do have a digital SLR that I rarely use any more ... 

Scene 1

I was outside my office taking out the garbage or something one day last week and happened to look up at the sky and was amazed by the simple beauty of the sky with the Sun behind these clouds. Things to note: deep blue of the sky, the contrast in the clouds from the dark gray in the middle to the bright white at the edges, and the overall richness and brilliance of the colors — all of that was strictly due to the beauty of nature, not some amazing technique I applied, I can assure you.

Glance up at the sky sometimes, you may be surprised

Scene 2

Friday last week I decided to execute on our plans to get a fire table after we looked at them last Fall and again a month or two ago. Home Depot came through for me.

Our new fire table

Scene 3

This one is from last fall but I wanted to throw it in because 1) several of these were consumed by me around the fire table this weekend and 2) why not, it makes me happy.

Beer I like

Scene 4

This dog ... spotted yesterday on my way home ... he or she was very energetic in the back seat of that small-ish car ... 

Dog enjoys the fresh air, a LOT

Perfection and Its Opposite

A few days ago I was walking on a beautiful Spring day, sunny, dry and calm, about 60 degrees. 

Light jacket weather, but for me that is absolute perfection. 

Until the brigade of garbage trucks came down the street. 

Friday Art and Music

Camille Pissarro, Quay in Rouen Sunset, 1896

Eduoard Cortes, Flower Market at La Madeleine, year unknown

Explore more artworks at wikiart.org 

Sometimes a song you’ve heard hundreds of times grabs you and compels you to listen closer and deeper than ever before. Recently “Get Closer” by Seals and Crofts did that to me. 

The verse repeats the same basic line 4 times varying only the last few words each time, connected by nice piano fills. Where this song really shines is the pre-chorus and chorus, starting at 1:00, and especially the guest vocals by Carolyn Willis, who completely transforms the song.

Here is that section, about 45 seconds long.

They repeat everything again, but when a song is great, that’s exactly what you want. 

Simple music, great arrangement, even better execution. That’s a winning formula.

Take it from the top.

Carolyn Willis was in the vocal group Honey Cone which had a big hit in 1971 with Want Ads.

Always liked that song too. Here’s their wikipedia entry. 

The Creative Process with Paul Simon

Songfacts.com is a cool site for music geeks like me, and they have a section of interviews with songwriters that are worth reading. 

I find the creative process fascinating, especially the process of creating music and lyrics. You have to start with one or the other, first of all. Do you think up a chunk of melody and then some words to go with it, and then keep building on that? 

Or the opposite, start with some words that resonate and then build a melody for them? Each songwriter does things a little differently, and even from song to song they may change that process around. It’s about as pure a creative process as you will find. 

Or maybe you just do one or the other, like Elton John (music only) and Bernie Taupin (lyrics only) — Tapuin would hand fully formed lyrics to Elton who would then create the melody on piano.  

Then there’s this:  you sit down at the piano or with your guitar and then an hour later — or sometimes ten minutes later — you have this totally new thing that you created, with a tune and lyrics, and it’s destined to be part of history now. It did not exist until you created it. Now it’s forever. How cool is that? I’m not sure how non-creative people can even begin to understand what that feeling is like.

Here’s Paul Simon on music crtics and their weird obsession with lyrics:

Most of the time, what I'm writing is about music, not about lyrics, and critics pay scant attention to the music. I mean, if you're saying something with music and words - if you're saying one thing with words and the opposite with music and you're creating a sense of irony - that's lost. Or if the idea of a song is a musical idea, how to write a song in 7/4 time and make it feel natural, let's say, it's beyond them. I never heard anybody say, Now that was a clever way of doing 7/4 time. Instead, most critics are basically analyzing words. It's English Lit all over again.

My thoughts exactly. Analyzing and focusing on lyrics is okay up to a point, but pulling them out of the music they were explicitly created for, and intended to be consumed with, is just an attempt to call attention to yourself as a critic and the “English Lit” nerd inside you. I’ve got news for you:  hardly anyone cares.  Lyrics are meant to be heard backed by music, sung by singers, not recited at poetry slams populated by 4 people including your family. 

The music is the thing. The music is always the thing. Lyrics are usually just sounds that happen to be words that work with the meter and the tone of the song. You might be overthinking it.  

Before Simon & Garfunkel made it big, Paul Simon had already been semi-successful as a songwriter with Carole King. The two of them would write songs together, and create demo tapes with Carole playing drums and piano, and Paul playing guitar and bass, and both singing, obviously. Simon: 

The game was to make a demo at demo prices and then try to sell it to a record company. Maybe you'd wind up investing $300 for musicians and studio time, but if you did something really good, you could get as much as $1,000 for it. I never wanted to be in groups - I was only after that $700 profit. I always tried to get my money up front, because you were never sure of getting your royalties if they put the record out. You were dealing with a lot of thieves in those days.

Quite an array of talent on those demo tapes: Paul Simon and Carole King. The two of them had about 30-40 classic songs in their future, just waiting to come out.

Paul Simon really upped his songwriting game around 1969, and it’s obvious from listening to his work before and after that time. Here’s his take on that:

For me the significant change occurred around 1969, after I wrote 'The Boxer,'" he said. "At that point I stopped smoking grass and I never went back. I told a friend of mine, a really good musician, that I had writer's block. And he said, 'When are you going to stop playing this folkie stuff, all the time the same G to C chords? You could be a really good songwriter, but you don't know enough, you don't have enough tools. Forget about having hits - go learn your ax.' I started to study theory. I began listening to other kinds of music - gospel, Jamaican ska, Antonio Carlos Jobim. 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' was a gospel-influenced song. It was very easy for me to feel at home with gospel, because it sounded like the rock 'n' roll I grew up with in the early '50s.

He definitely took that advice to heart, because his 70s output has amazing breadth and depth. Start with “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon” (Spotify) which has heavy gospel, ska, and jazz influences, plus one of biggest (and best) hits “Kodachrome”. Gospel group the Dixie Hummingbirds appear on several songs and make an amazing difference in the tone and depth of those songs, starting with “Tenderness” and the other big hit “Loves Me Like a Rock”. Simply one of the best popular music albums of the 70s. 

Contact Hitters and Why We Need Them

Accepted wisdom in baseball has changed through the years — due to the ascension of advanced metrics like launch angle— causing many teams to demote the value of the contact hitter in their hierarchy of lineup needs. 

This was a mistake. 

I’ve written on this before, several times, and will do so again, but for now let’s just watch this hit to drive in the game-winning run in the 8th inning on Saturday by Matt Duffy:

Click here to watch if above does not work.

Here he is right after hitting the ball:

Note the orientation of his left foot and his entire left leg, his head, shoulders, and hips — to right field. Physics and common sense tell us this is the _only_ sensible orientation of your body with a pitch on the outer third of the plate, as this one is. Trying to hit such a pitch anywhere *but* right field is giving away an out, and in this case, would have stranded the go-ahead run at second base going into the ninth inning.

Look how far his hips — the center of rotation that creates most of the energy in the swing — are from the ball. Probably 5 feet or more? If he tries to hit that pitch to the left side of the diamond, he almost certainly strikes out, or hits a weak grounder to an infielder. The physics of swinging a bat to hit a ball hard won’t allow you to hit that pitch to the left side and hit it hard enough to get on base. Which is, after all, the whole point of swinging the bat.

The Cubs, along with many other teams I would guess, have in recent years typically had only one guy on the entire roster who can do this consistently. There’s an epidemic across the league of this — mostly due to over-measuring and over-analyzing whatever we decide to measure and anaylze, launch angle in particular — which causes an increase in 3 outcomes (strikeout, walk, home run) and a decrease in all others. 

What we called an “uppercut” swing — a decidedly bad thing because it made you strike out too much — has been re-branded as “launch angle”. See, you can “launch” the ball instead of just hitting it! Except when you strike out of course.

The list of ways that this changes the game is long and varied but a primary change is fewer baserunners with the aforementioned increase in walks, strikeouts, and home runs, and therefore far fewer exciting baserunning plays, because on those rarer occasions when there are baserunners, there are fewer hits like Duffy’s that advance (or drive in) those runners. 

The effect is exponential, not additive. There is also a huge increase in use of defensive shifts, overloading the zones on the field where hitters have shown they almost always hit the ball. 

Far, far less action in the game, in other words. It’s become boring, or more boring, depending on your patience. The league is tinkering with rules changes to increase excitement and shorten games, but it seems to me the simplest and most important change is the one they cannot mandate:  the way hitters swing the bat. 

This “hit it where it’s pitched” approach that Duffy employs — and most players used to employ, 20 or more years ago — is the main reason Duffy made the team out of spring trainng, and Cubs manager David Ross is quoted as saying that. 

Duffy delivering that hit in that spot is the key reason they won the game Saturday.