All You Fascists Bound to Lose (Woody Guthrie cover)

I first heard this song isn 2020, when WDST played it. "What the hell was that," I said. Took a while to find it on YouTube. That version was  covered by the Resistance Revival Chorus. I had never heard this song before and discovered it was written by Woody Guthrie, the great folk singer. The Guthrie version is at this link.

Here's my version. That's me on vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, and bass guitar. Drum machine is keeping the beat. 

Who's Next and Ram on vinyl

I am fortunate to live in a town that still has a record store. I picked up two LP's today: Who's Next, by The Who, of course, and Ram, by Paul McCartney. Each under $20.00, used and in good shape. Having picked up a turntable last year, I am slowly building a vinyl collection, more than 20 years after I dumped off my remaining records for lack of space in our old house, using the money to buy CD's. This was before the Internet, before iTunes, and before Spotify.

There is still value in owning music. You don't own the music on Spotify. You pay to access the streaming service. I already have these albums on CD. The vinyl copies have now re-entered my life. 

It occurs to me that these albums have something in common. If you are a fan of classic rock, you know these albums. It was not by design, but my purchases today were both released in 1971. They are both arguably the best albums these artists ever released. And they were both important in the careers of these artists.

For The Who, it was not their first classic album; that would be Tommy, released in 1969. Tommy featured a different band than the one that had given us My Generation, Substitute, and Magic Bus from their early period. Those were good songs, pop songs, but Tommy was a much more serious effort, a rock opera with newly-confident vocals from Roger Daltrey. Maybe people in 1969 thought Tommy was a novelty, a double-album where songwriter Peter Townsend had exhausted his creativity in writing about a pinball messiah who overcomes childhood trauma whose followers turn against him. Who's Next proved any such suspicions wrong. Song for song, Who's Next is one of the great classic rock albums of all time, with every song receiving airplay on FM radio, including Baba O'Reilly and Won't Get Fooled Again, the granddaddy of all-time rock songs. Plus Bargain, Song is Over, and Behind Blue Eyes. And maybe the greatest rock drumming we've ever heard. Who's Next told us The Who were here to stay. This is the second album of a three-album hat trick, finalized with Quadrophenia in 1973, a double-album bonanza with more FM radio classics.

Ram was an important album for Paul McCartney. As an ex-Beatle, Paul had nothing to prove, but he needed to release a great album in 1971. His first solo record, McCartney, issued in 1970, right after the break-up. By early 1970, Paul had run out of songs, having carried the songwriting workload for the Beatles in 1969. So McCartney included some leftovers from 1968-1969 and a new one, Maybe I'm Amazed. McCartney also had a few instrumentals, and the album was only around 30 minutes long, mostly recorded in secret at his farm in Scotland as he began picking up the pieces following the breakup. Paul also played all the instruments on the album. The critics did not like Ram, and while the album had some pleasant melodies, it did not seem serious like the initial John Lennon and George Harrison solo records; Lennon gave us the "primal scream" album, a musical therapy session. None of this would have mattered had the Plastic Ono Band been a lousy album. It was not; it would be Lennon's greatest solo record. George broke out with a double-album, All Things Must Pass, that showcased his spiritual songwriting, shocking everyone who saw him as the third-fiddle in the Beatles. So when Paul dropped Ram on us, with lush production but no "serious" songwriting themes, critics attacked it as the music of a content family man and inferior to the early John and George albums. This criticism was motivated in part by the rock and roll community's having blamed Paul for the Beatles breakup. 

Time has been good to the Ram album. No one places it in the context of 1971, and no one compares it to the early Lennon and Harrison solo albums. People hear Ram on its own merits. It is now regarded as Paul's best solo album. You know some of the tracks, like Uncle Albert, but there's all sorts of creativity on Ram. It's good natured and serious in its own way.

Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones cover)

I've been doing home recordings with assistance from Apple's GarageBand app, which provides drum templates. This is my version of Sympathy for the Devil, a Rolling Stones classic from 1968. What you hear on this recording is my singing, guitar playing, and bass playing. The drumming comes from the GarageBand app.

The version of this song you probably know is from the Beggars Banquet album, released in 1968. It is more piano-centric with ample use of the bongos. But when the Stones hit the road in 1969, they turned this into a guitar extravaganza, thanks to their new guitarist, Mick Taylor, who had recently replaced Brian Jones, who was kicked out of the band in spring 1969. Taylor was a whiz-kid, only in his early 20's. He and Keith Richard trade licks on the live version, which you can year on the 1970 live album, Get Your Ya-Ya's Out.

A few notes about this song. Through the end of 1967, the Rolling Stones were probably the second-best band in music, behind the Beatles. Critics had noticed that the Stones seemed to be copying the Beatles. While the Stones had their own style, they were not trendsetting like the Beatles. This became most apparent when the Stones released Their Satanic Majesty's Request in late 1967, a Sgt. Pepper copycat album. The Stones were not big into psychedelia. I know there are contrarians who live Satanic Majesty's Request, but other than She's A Rainbow, there is nothing there quite like Satisfaction, 19th Nervous Breakdown, and Paint if Black. The Stones were losing their way.

They must have regrouped in early 1968 and determined to return to their R&B roots. Hence, Jumping Jack Flash, a single from spring 1968. That year, the band for the first time began writing topical lyrics. That brings us to Sympathy For the Devil.

Sympathy was written in response to the social unrest and riots of 1967-1968. The lyrics were changed after Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June 1968 while running for U.S. president. "I shouted out 'who killed the Kennedys,' when after all it was you and me." My favorite line in Sympathy: "I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made."

John Lennon & Plastic Ono Band - Live at Toronto - 1969 [Full Concert]

When is it time to call it quits? It was 50 years ago this month that the world learned that the Beatles had broken up. Paul McCartney released a solo album that included a press release that said the Beatles were basically over and done with. Ever since, scholars and fans have tried to assign blame for the break up. In the 1970s into the 1980s, everyone blamed Paul. But the consensus has changed. Most people now pin the blame on John.

What we've learned is that the Beatles held a band meeting right after they completed their final album, Abbey Road. It was September 1969. The Beatles were wondering what to do next. Paul thought they should return to the road and become a touring band again. But Lennon and George Harrison nixed that idea. Touring was a pain in the ass.

Paul really wanted to keep things moving. John had had enough. He told the band he wanted a divorce, like the one he'd had with Cynthia, the nice Liverpool girl that John had married before the Beatles became famous. He left Cynthia for Yoko Ono. When Paul came up with touring ideas, John said, "I think you're daft." He then announced he was leaving the band.

There was a problem, though. The Beatles' new manager, Allen Klein, reminded the band that they were about to sign a new contract with EMI Records, and that their higher royalty rate would be jeopardized if the Beatles announced the breakup. Klein was right. He was a bulldog accountant if there ever was one, and he ended up driving a wedge between the band because Paul did not want Klein to take charge. But you don't jeopardize a new contract. And besides, the others thought John was going through one of his phases. John had been acting out lately, and his drug problem was affecting his judgment and his productivity. At around this time, he actually told the Beatles entourage that he believed he was Jesus Christ and he wanted to tell the world. As it was, John actually looked like Jesus Christ at the time, with the long hair and beard and all. But, no, he was not Jesus Christ, and the others told John to hold off on the announcement because the world was not ready for this kind of news. John agreed and moved onto some other obsession.

It wasn't like the band was getting along at this time. Ringo had quit the band for a few weeks in 1968 as they recorded the White Album. He was sick of the arguing. And George Harrison quit for a brief period during the Let it Be sessions in early 1969. Their engineer, Geoff Emerick, only a few years after taking on the dream job of working with the Beatles, begged off the assignment by then because he could not handle the tension. And except for some mop-up work on the Let it Be album (recorded prior to Abbey Road) in January 1970, the Beatles never worked together again. And that mop-up did not include John. He was off on a new tangent at the time, doing his peace stuff with Yoko.

Beatles scholars think the band had not closed off the future by this point. There was always tomorrow. Bands did not really break up in the late 1960s, and those that did usually did so with fanfare, like Cream. Other bands forged ahead without key members if they had to. The Beatles had done it all by 1969, and they were approaching their peak as musicians and songwriters. Last year, a tape recording surfaced of another band meeting in which the Beatles talked about ways to record a follow-up to Abbey Road, giving each member four songs per album. So the September 1969 meeting may not have been the end.

But other Beatles scholars think John made up his mind to leave the band when he recorded Cold Turkey, his first solo single. The Beatles had rejected that song, so John created the Plastic Ono Band and found other musicians to work with him on the song. And still other scholars think John got ideas about going solo when he did a concert in Toronto in late 1969 on his own.

Let's go with that theory for a minute. The Beatles had not played before a live audience since August 1966. They stopped touring because the concerts were crazy. The girls were screaming, the band could not hear itself play, they wanted to spend more time in the studio, and their first album following that decision was Sgt. Pepper. So who needs concerts? Yet, the rest of the rock and roll world was performing all over the place. The Rolling Stones hit the road again in 1969 after taking three years off. And don''t forget Woodstock and the other rock festivals that year.

The Toronto show was one of those festivals. It featured the old timers, like Chuck Berry, who were not even that old yet. Lennon was asked to play, and he accepted, bringing along Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann and Alan White as his pick-up band. Clapton was an obvious choice, a friend of the Beatles who played on the White Album. The Beatles knew Voormann from their Hamburg days of the early 1960s. He went on to play bass for Manfred Mann and guested on some of the Beatles' solo albums of the early 1970s. White became the drummer for Yes. Since the band did not have much time to rehearse, they played the songs they all knew, including Money and Blue Suede Shoes. And that's what you got in this video below. Plus some pyrotechnics from Yoko.

John is really enjoying himself during this performance. Maybe he realized he did not need the Beatles anymore. Time to break out with other musicians. Maybe breaking up the band he had started was not such a bad thing. This concert was about 10 days before John told Paul he was daft. The Beatles never worked together again. All things must pass.

Led Zeppelin - Kashmir (Madison Square Garden) 1975

I often think about the 20/20 hindsight that pinpoints when a band reached the peak of its career. Sometimes it happens when the band does not realize it. You only appreciate the peak after-the-fact. When did Led Zeppelin peak? I would say it began 47 minutes and 55 minutes into this show at Madison Square Garden in February 1975. That is when the band played Kashmir to 20,000 people who were hearing the song for the first time.

By 1975, Led Zeppelin were the biggest rock band in music. The band was in it eighth year, having released one blockbuster album after another. The fourth album, released in 1971, was their greatest record, wall-to-wall hard rock and folk, climaxing with Stairway to Heaven. The band toured the United States in 1972, 1973 and again in 1975. They toured the U.S. again in 1977. The 1977 tour (their last in the U.S.) was not considered a good one. It got off to a late start because singer Robert Plant had laryngitis. The tour ended early because Plant's young son died from natural causes. From what I have read, the band's performances during the 1977 tour were not stellar. There were drug problems, for starters. One year earlier, Led Zeppelin released Presence, a good album, but few fans place it in their top three Led Zeppelin albums. The band did not break new ground with Presence, and the album was recorded after Robert Plant was seriously injured in a car accident in August 1975. He sang most of the tracks sitting down. And after 1977, the band only released one more album, a good one but not great, and they broke up in 1980 after the drummer died from alcohol poisoning.

Prior to Plant's auto accident, 1975 was their last great year, when Led Zeppelin released their only double album, Physical Graffiti. When a great band issues a two-record set, that album becomes their defining moment. This one included tracks that were rejected from prior albums. No matter. Physical Graffiti was four album sides of stellar music of varying styles. The standout track is Kashmir. If you have listened to the radio over the last 40 years, you know Kashmir, one of the two contenders for LZ's "greatest song of all time," along with Stairway to Heaven.

Here is what interests me. Imagine you're a Led Zeppelin fan. It's 1975. Scoring a ticket to their Madison Square Garden concerts that year made you the king of your high school. You know the band's back catalogue and hope to hear Stairway and other classics. You'll get that at the Garden. But what you don't know is that Led Zeppelin will be playing stuff from their new, yet-unreleased album, including Kashmir. Remember what it felt like to hear Kashmir for the first time? Imagine hearing it for the first time at the Garden.

Now imagine you're Led Zeppelin. You are on top of the world. The band had its own airplane, Physical Graffiti was going to debut at number 3 on the charts, a rare occurrence back then. The Garden was the showcase for the most popular bands in music. Plant was in a good mood. He mentioned during the show that the snowfall in NYC gave the city a nice "vibe." Good observation. The band was about to debut one of its greatest songs. At this precise moment, LZ was on top of the world. They had it all. Things would never be the same. The song starts at 47:55.

This is what 2020 sounds like

I knew a lawyer who used to talk with me about music, literature and related matters whenever we saw each other. In one of our last conversations before he died suddenly a few years ago, he told me that he was getting into Van Morrison's Astral Weeks album for the first time even though it was released in 1968, when he was in his late teens. He said Astral Weeks sounded exactly what 1968 felt like. I told him I was surprised to hear that. Astral Weeks is a laid-back, jazzy album with a spiritual side. It was not the Van Morrison that most people have come to associate with that artist, i.e., Brown Eyed Girl and Moondance. I reminded my friend that 1968 was a violent year: riots, the Vietnam War, assassinations, etc. My friend was politically-minded, so I thought he might agree with me. He did not. He insisted that Astral Weeks captured what 1968 felt like.


What does 2020 feel like? It's a very discordant year, and we are all watching it unravel. In the past, I would read about pandemics in passing. It was always a threat lurking in the background, but the newspaper and public officials did not dwell on the topic for long. I did not know anything about pandemics except that they involve a virus that is spread easily. We all know about pandemics now.


In 2019, I was reading some commentary on a music discussion board about a musician, Mark Hollis, who died at the early age of 64. Hollis was the bandleader for Talk Talk, a band I had heard of but knew nothing about. They had a hit in the early 1980s "It's My Life" that sounded like a sophisticated Duran Duran. After that, nothing, at least not for me. I did not know until Hollis's death that Talk Talk went on to release an album in 1988 that many music fans worship as a moody, meditative, and emotional record, the crown jewel of Talk Talk's recording career. I gave it a listen and read some reviews of the album. The album apparently was the start of something called "post rock," which for the 1980s meant it was no longer the usual loud-drums-and-power-ballads that we'd grown accustomed to 35 years ago. I hear some Pink Floyd in this album, and now I know where Radiohead must have gotten some of its ideas. The highlight for me is I Believe in You, the penultimate track. It moves slowly, but the melody is there, and the bass line picks up midway through the track, giving the song a special intensity.


One fan review of this album said this is the sound of the Earth crying. I agree. Little did that reviewer know the Earth would be crying in 2020. You may not make it all the way through this album; it takes some getting used to. If you give it a few listens, it may grow on you. It grew on me last year. I did not know it would foreshadow this year. 

Green River (Creedence Clearwater Revival cover)

This is my home recording of Green River, the title track from the 1969 album by Creedence Clearwater Revival. I am playing all guitars and bass on this track, and handling all vocals. A drum machine is keeping the beat.



CCR was not known for its instrumental pyrotechnics. The rhythm section was solid, the songs were short, there were no extended solos, and the lyrics for the most part did not reflect the times (except for Fortunate Son, about the Vietnam draft). This makes their songs timeless, especially this one, the lyrics of which could have been written by Stephen Foster. John Fogerty looks back to the carefree days of swimming holes, tire swings and skipping-a-rock across Green River.

The final verse has the narrator telling us that the guys who ran the campgrounds told him that the world will be-a-smouldering when he gets older, but he's always free to come back to Green River.