My Kids’ Family

Every once in a while you get that song in your head. You know, the one that just wont leave you no matter what you do. You try thinking about something else, or even another song, but still you can’t get it out of your head. Sometimes the best thing to do is take the “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach and just go with the song. Sing it, hum it, listen to it.

That is what has happened to me today. Sometimes you can tell why you have the song in your head and sometimes you cannot. In this case I can.

Avi has graduated from wanting to listen to The Beatles all the time to now wanting to listen to Wings instead. He understands that Paul McCartney is in both, but does not get it yet that if a Beatles song is on the live Wings Album it is still a Beatles song.

We were listening to “Wings Over America” in the car and “I’ve Just Seen a Face” came on. It is a song from the album “Help” in the UK and “Rubber Soul” in the US. It is a fun song, very fast paced and makes us remember back to the early Beatles hits. The song is simple yet sophisticated at the same time.

Here are three youtubes of this song! The first is the original recording, the second is Paul singing this live in Russia and the third is the full scene of the cover from the movie “Across the Universe“.

Enjoy!

I’m back and it’s Friday, so it is time for some favorite lyrics.  I am going to be brief and next week hopefully I will be fully back in the blogging life.

Here are some of the most beautiful lyrics ever written.

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed,
Some forever, not for better,
Some have gone and some remain.
All these places had their moments,
With lovers and friends I still can recall,
Some are dead and some are living,
In my life I’ve loved them all.
But of all these friends and lovers,
There is no one compared with you,
And these mem’ries lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new.
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more.
Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before,
I know I’ll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more.
In my life I love you more.

Time for some silliness. I was listening to Sir Paul on the way to work this morning so I want to have a Paul McCartney (watch this!!!!!) tune today. But I also need a pick me up, so it calls for something silly.

Coming Up is a very fun song, mostly because of the creative video. In the Video, Paul plays all of the instruments dressed as different characters, some of whom are identifiable. Like Buddy Holly, Frank Zappa and Neil Young as well as a Beatlemania era Paul. The song is the ONLY billboard hit that is credited to Paul McCartney. Although he has had many hits since the Beatles broke up, they are either credited to wings or with other people.

Enjoy!

Let me start by saying that generally, I hate covers. When someone or some group records a song, that should be it. Leave it alone. I understand that there is some flattery in covering someone else’s song, but maybe spend more time on getting your own stuff together and we wont have to listen to Fran Sinatra singing “Yesterday.”

The Beatles may be the most covered group in history. For sure, “Yesterday” holds the record for the most covered song. There are only a handful of good covers of Beatles tunes, and a whole bunch of them can be found in the movie “Across The Universe.” I love this movie, and perhaps some day I will post something about it. In the meantime, my song today comes from the “Across The Universe” soundtrack.

There are a few songs on this album that I feel are as good as or even better to the Beatles version. One in particular that I would not say is better for as good is “Let it Be.” In the movie the song is sung by a gospel choir at a funeral in Detroit. After hearing the song as a gospel song, I thought to myself “why didn’t Paul think of that?” And that is saying something.

Anyway, here is the full scene from the movie.

Enjoy!

I am very late in writing and time is limited. I need to choose a song only because it is fun and a good beat. The Ballad of John and Yoko is a very interesting song and you can read about it at wikipedia.

Enjoy!

Yesterday I suggested that I wanted to talk about male singing voices. It seems to me that in much of popular/rock music there are just not that many “great” male voices. There are some great singers, some great musicians, etc, but when you get down to basics, they just don’t have the best voices.

Good examples are some of my favorite artists. Billy Joel, to me a music god, but not a great voice. Harry Chapin is another of my gods with perhaps one of the worst singing voices of recording artists (I know he is dead and I should not speak ill of the dead, but it is the truth, and if he were alive I don’t think he would disagree!). Even the holiest of holy, The Beatles did not have the greatest of voices (although they are not at all near the bottom of the list).

I have long given thought to what male artists have great voices. I have discussed two here so far. One is Art Garfunkel. Listen to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and you will not only be blown away by the amazing song, but by his powerful and clear voice. He has a remarkable range and can sing almost anything. The other singer I mentioned is Dennis De Young of Styx. A very different style than Garfunkel, but nonetheless a wonderful voice.

For my song of the day, I am going to add another name to my great male voices list. And please, no snickering! John Denver. I have always liked John Denver, probably because my mom listened to him so much. He had a remarkable way with words, and his voice can only be described as sweet sounding. He skillfully combined country/western music with pop music and he crossed over to the pop charts more than almost any other country singer (in fact, I don’t really consider him a country singer).

He had many great songs, but I think that my favorite is one called “Looking For Space.” Rather than speak about it, here is a link to the lyrics.  I would love comments with other candidates of best male voice!

This video contains two songs, and “Looking For Space” is at the 3:30 mark.