A Playlist Series

American Crisis Playlist #32

The hits just keep on coming

The state of South Carolina has the first two reported cases of the South African variant of Covid-19. No one knows how it got here, or if they do, they’re keeping mum. Of course, our governor, Henry McMaster, continues to allow restaurants to serve indoors, with “restrictions.” This state is very sick with Covid, one of the two hottest spots in the country. Unemployment rates have gone down, and so the state is reluctant to restrict businesses.

I realize that take out isn’t the same as relaxing in your favorite cafe or bistro and partaking of a several course meal. I’m not sure how anyone totally relaxes these days anyway, but I’d rather go ahead and double mask, walk to the take out window and head on home. I’d also rather cook, too, as my blog over at One Table, One World attests.

So I can wait out this aspect of the crisis, and also, while waiting, I get to sample and play more music.

I found some gems and old faves this week, as I was trying, and usually failing not to pay attention to the other craziness plaguing our land. Just because the Op has headed to gaudy Mar-A-Lago doesn’t mean his pin-headed minions aren’t still spreading good cheer and conspiracy theories out there. Someone, for instance, believes that former California Governor Jerry Brown used lasers from space to cause the California wildfires, with what end in mind, I leave up to you. That’s a new member of Congress from Georgia spreading this insane idiocy, and I’m not going to repeat the racist and anti-Semitic and traitorous words she’s also been spewing, because that would give her even more room here and further distract me and then I’d have to list some rage rock, which I’ll do some day.

But not today.

So while I’m waiting for one of our favorite local eateries — Fork & Plough — to post their take out supper menu, here are those promised tunes, from a land whose promise is wearing too thin these days.

AMERICAN CRISIS PLAYLIST #32

1. “Jive Talkin’,” The Bee Gees, from Main Course (1975). Have you seen the HBO documentary, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?” I can’t say that the Gibb brothers were favorites of mine, though I appreciated many of their hits and their songwriting prowess. My brother and I bought some of their singles, and I had to get Saturday Night Fever when it exploded into our world. I was a college guy then, and had plenty of friends that had been frequenting discos in Birmingham at least twice a week. So there’s a moment in this film where a NY DJ explains the anti-Disco movement, and I won’t give anything away, but that anti-movement’s most strident adherents would find themselves extremely comfortable at a MAGA or QAnon rally. Not that you have to love Disco, but publicly burning records usually leads to other forms of hatred. Not a disco song, but to be kind, there’s been a lot of jive bullshit emanating from those OP pinheads. And now, I love the Gibbs.
2. “Leave Me Alone,” I Don’t Know How But They Found Me, from 2020’s Razzmatazz. Giving Jimmy Kimmel credit again, he had this band on the show a week ago. I had never heard of them. The name alone makes me happy, and listening to this one last night as I made breakfast for supper almost caused me to scorch the hash browns. My dog wondered why I seemed so high, and so he grabbed his football because, why not? Of course I didn’t want him to leave me alone, but getting that ball away from him defies my wavering strength. Anyway, there’s more to hear on the record, so be ready to go clubbing in your mind at least.
3. “Here Comes the Night, Them (featuring Van Morrison) from 2015’s The Essential Van Morrison. It’s a sacrilege, I know, but I can take Van only in medium-sized doses, but I’ll put this song up against most of its era’s peers, whatever they may be. I remember too often longing for the night because that was the time we could all go a bit crazy, seemingly unworried about the trouble we’d find. You know, those days when, if you were living at home or home from school and you’d get ready and head out the door around ten, one or both of your parents would wonder who had spawned you. I’d usually tell mine where I’d been the next day. usually.
4. “Oblivion,” Grimes from 2012’s Visions. Nine years is a long time in a person’s life, and I won’t attempt to chronicle where I was back when I first heard this tune, or all that’s happened since. I think of my daughters, though, who in that span, graduated from college, and one form grad school, got well-paying jobs, got married (one of them again), and now the one who isn’t married is about to buy her first house. So much for oblivion, but my other thought is my friend Owen who called this to my attention back then. So so so love it.
5. “Sleepyhead,” Passion Pit on their album Manners from 2009. And this one is even older, which makes me crazy because I’m looking at the spot where I was sitting with my younger daughter and her high school friends when I asked if they knew this band, and they all said, “Oh yeah…’Sleepyhead!’” Then we listened, and it felt like we had all turned a corner, and we had. So that daughter loves 70’s music now, and I’m trying to get her to listen to the crazy stuff I’m finding, and then we bond over Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and Hot Chocolate. Life is sure funny.
6. “Reflektor,” Arcade Fire from 2013’s Reflektor. Are you still dancing, or dancing yet? Please explain. My daughters don’t seem to connect with this band, but you can’t have everything, musically speaking. We’re connected in so many ways, and besides, Arcade Fire makes certain demands. I like to think that The Bee Gees could appreciate what’s going on here, as would anyone who wants to get lost outside of K-Tel’s party hits. Time for another record from these guys, I say.
7. “Spirit in the Dark,” Aretha Franklin from the 1970 album of the same name. Did you see Aretha on CNN’s documentary of Jimmy Carter (Rock and Roll Presidency)? It made me remember how Aretha blew other singers away just as easily as butter melts in a hot biscuit. What spirit is holding us these days? I love how this song so slowly builds, always controlled by that voice. I can’t wait to see the new Aretha film coming soon. We should be remembering all of her records, and the times she captured.
8. “Since I Met You Baby,” Sam Cooke from 1961’s My Kind of Blues. Back to my cooking last night. I had this one going and my wife, who was listening to a book on tape while standing next to the fire, began swaying and moving, and I wish I had been videoing her. Some music just penetrates your soul, and Cooke has the way of making us stop everything and wondering how his voice does it and why can’t we have some more, please. Which we can if we want it.
9. “Stay Gold,” The Black Pumas from 2020’s Black Pumas. A good bridge between the eras of Cooke, Franklin, and so much that we often overlook today. I so hope that when I do feel like I can go to a club again that I’ll be able to spend an evening with these guys. Soul, and heart, and a band that has no inhibitions about bringing us home. And the falsetto — something else linking so many singers, black and white, and reminding me again of The Bee Gees and those who inspired them.
10. “Don’t Play With Guns,” The Black Angels from Indigo Meadow (2013). So that same Georgia Rep plagued one of the survivors of a school shooting, calling him a coward for advocating gun control. Her message was that if more teachers carried guns, this wouldn’t have happened. Would I have learned more about verb conjugation had Mrs. Norton been wearing a gun strapped to her waist? Would I have mastered binomials, whatever they are, had Mr. Hicks been packing a Glock? What we’re told in one generation gets obliterated in another. Saw these Angels in Asheville a few years back, with my wife and Owen. We got it.

The Riff keeps growing, and so thanks to Noah Levy and all the other fab writers like If Ever You’re Listening, Rob Janicke, Steven Hale, Jessica Lee McMillan, Mike Marolla, Drew Wardle, Frank Mastropolo, and Kevin Alexander.

Last week’s playlist is here: https://readmedium.com/american-crisis-playlist-31-7e3288ba2b13