With Star Wars flying high, Wayback Wednesday revisits Paul Simon’s tale of his time spent with Princess Leia err – Carrie Fisher.
Hearts and Bones is a song from the album of the same name which was the sixth solo studio album by Paul Simon. It was released in 1983.
The album was originally intended to be called Think Too Much, but Mo Ostin, president of Warner Bros. Records, persuaded Simon to change it to Hearts and Bones. The album was written and recorded following the Simon and Garfunkel Concert in Central Park in 1981, and the world tour of 1982-1983.
The title track is about Simon and his then-girlfriend and future wife (and future ex-wife) :), Carrie Fisher, traveling through New Mexico.
One and one-half wandering Jews Free to wander wherever they choose Are travelling together In the Sangre de Cristo The Blood of Christ Mountains Of New Mexico On the last leg of the journey They started a long time ago The arc of a love affair Rainbows in the high desert air Mountain passes slipping into stones Hearts and bones Hearts and bones Hearts and bones Thinking back to the season before Looking back through the cracks in the door Two people were married The act was outrageous The bride was contagious She burned like a bride These events may have had some effect On the man with the girl by his side The arc of a love affair His hands rolling down her hair Love like lightning shaking till it moans Hearts and bones Hearts and bones Hearts and bones And whoa whoa whoa She said: Why? Why don’t we drive through the night We’ll wake up down in Mexico Oh I I don’t know nothin’ about nothin’ about No Mexico And tell me why Why won’t you love me For who I am Where I am He said: ‘Cause that’s not the way the world is baby This is how I love you, baby This is how I love you, baby One and one-half wandering Jews Return to their natural coasts To resume old acquaintances Step out occasionally And speculate who had been damaged the most Easy time will determine if these consolations Will be their reward The arc of a love affair Waiting to be restored You take two bodies and you twirl them into one Their hearts and their bones And they won’t come undone Hearts and bones Hearts and bones Hearts and bones Hearts and bones
As Fogelberg said on his official website, the song was autobiographical. He was visiting family back home in Peoria, Illinois in the mid-1970s when he ran into an old girlfriend at a convenience store.
After Fogelberg’s death from prostate cancer in 2007, the woman about whom he wrote the song came forward with her story. Her name is Jill Greulich, and she and Fogelberg dated in high school when she was Jill Anderson. As she explained to the Peoria Journal Star in a December 22, 2007 article, they were part of the Woodruff High School class of 1969, but went to different colleges. After college, Jill got married and moved to Chicago, and Dan went to Colorado to pursue music. On December 24, 1975, they were each back in Peoria with their families for Christmas when Jill went out for eggnog and Dan looked for whipping cream for Irish coffee. The only place open was a convenience store at the top of Abington Hill where they had their encounter, located at 1302 East Frye Avenue. Today, the store is still in business and named Short Stop Food Mart. They bought a six pack of beer and drank it in her car for two hours while they talked.
When Fogelberg was alive he had trouble recalling whether the meeting with his ex-girlfriend was in 1975 or 1976, though he was leaning toward 1975, the year confirmed by his ex-girlfriend after his passing.
Five years later, Greulich heard “Same Old Lang Syne” on the radio while driving to work, but she kept quiet about it, as Fogelberg also refused to disclose her identity. Her main fear was that coming forward would disrupt Fogelberg’s marriage.
Looking at the lyrics, Greulich cites two inaccuracies: her eyes are green, not blue, and her husband was a physical education teacher, not an architect, and Fogelberg was unlikely to know his profession anyway. On the line, “She would have liked to say she loved the man, but she didn’t like to lie,” Greulich will not talk about it, but by the time of the song’s release, she had divorced her husband.
Met my old lover in the grocery store The snow was falling, Christmas Eve I stole behind her in the frozen foods And I touched her on the sleeve
She didn’t recognize the face at first But then her eyes flew open wide She went to hug me and she spilled her purse And we laughed until we cried
We took her groceries to the checkout stand The food was totaled up and bagged We stood there lost in our embarrassment As the conversation dragged
We went to have ourselves a drink or two But couldn’t find an open bar We bought a six-pack at the liquor store And we drank it in her car
We drank a toast to innocence We drank a toast to now And tried to reach beyond the emptiness But neither one knew how
She said she’d married her an architect Who kept her warm and safe and dry She would have liked to say she loved the man But she didn’t like to lie
I said the years had been a friend to her And that her eyes were still as blue But in those eyes I wasn’t sure If I saw doubt or gratitude
She said she saw me in the record stores And that I must be doing well I said the audience was heavenly But the traveling was hell
We drank a toast to innocence We drank a toast to now And tried to reach beyond the emptiness But neither one knew how
We drank a toast to innocence We drank a toast to time Reliving in our eloquence Another ‘Auld Lang Syne’
The beer was empty and our tongues were tired And running out of things to say She gave a kiss to me as I got out And I watched her drive away
Just for a moment I was back at school And felt that old familiar pain And as I turned to make my way back home The snow turned into rain
Wayback Wednesday with John Sebastian – Darling Be Home Soon – 7/21/1970 – Tanglewood, MA, USA.
John Benson Sebastian (born March 17, 1944) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, harmonicist, and autoharpist. He is best known as a founder of The Lovin’ Spoonful, a band inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000; for his impromptu appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969, and for his #1 hit in 1976, “Welcome Back”. Sebastian was joined by Zal Yanovsky, Steve Boone, and Joe Butler in the Spoonful, which was named after “The Coffee Blues,” a Mississippi John Hurt song. The Lovin’ Spoonful, which blended folk-rock and pop with elements of blues, country, and jug band music, became part of the American response to the British Invasion, and was noted for such hits as “Do You Believe in Magic”, “Summer in the City”, “Daydream”, “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?”, “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice”, “Darling Be Home Soon”, “Jug Band Music”, “Rain on the Roof”, “Nashville Cats”, and “Six O’Clock”. Sebastian left The Lovin’ Spoonful in 1968.
In August 1969, Sebastian made a memorable, albeit unscheduled appearance at Woodstock. He was not on the performance bill and traveled to the festival as a spectator, but was asked to appear when the organizers suddenly needed another acoustic performer, either because equipment for amplified bands was not yet set up or because rain prevented amplified band performances. Sources that have tried to reconstruct the Woodstock running order differ on the exact time and position of Sebastian’s unplanned set, with some stating that he played on Saturday, August 16, immediately after Country Joe McDonald’s set; others saying that on that Saturday, Santana followed McDonald and Sebastian appeared after Santana; and still others, including McDonald, recalling that Sebastian actually played on Friday, August 15, at some point after Richie Havens opened the festival.
Sebastian’s Woodstock set consisted of three songs from his recorded but not yet released John B. Sebastian album, “How Have You Been,” “I Had A Dream,” and “Rainbows All Over Your Blues,” and two Lovin’ Spoonful songs, “Darling Be Home Soon” and “Younger Generation,” which he dedicated to a newborn baby at the festival. Documentary remarks by festival organizers indicated that Sebastian was under the influence of marijuana or other psychedelic drugs at the time, hence his spontaneity and casual, unplanned set. Sebastian has confirmed in later interviews that he was a regular marijuana user at the time and had taken acid at Woodstock because he was originally not scheduled to perform. However, he has also noted that “there was a natural high there [at Woodstock],” and that “[i]n an interview it is the easy thing to say ‘yeah, I was really high,’ but it was actually a very small part of the event. In fact, I had a small part of some pill that someone gave me before I went onstage, but it wasn’t a real acid feeling.” Sebastian appeared on the original Woodstock album and in the documentary film. Twenty-five years later, he returned for Woodstock ’94, playing harmonica for Crosby, Stills and Nash and appearing with his own band, the J-Band.
In September 1969, a month after Woodstock, Sebastian performed a similar set of solo and Spoonful material at the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival and was featured in the subsequent documentary Celebration at Big Sur (1971). -Wikipedia
Come And talk of all the things we did today Here And laugh about our funny little ways While we have a few minutes to breathe Then I know that it’s time you must leave
But darling be home soon I couldn’t bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled My darling be home soon It’s not just these few hours but I’ve been waiting since I toddled For the great relief of having you to talk to
And now A quarter of my life is almost past I think I’ve come to see myself at last And I see that the time spent confused Was the time that I spent without you And I feel myself in bloom
So darling be home soon I couldn’t bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled My darling be home soon It’s not just these few hours but I’ve been waiting since I toddled For the great relief of having you to talk to
Darling be home soon I couldn’t bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled My darling be home soon It’s not just these few hours but I’ve been waiting since I toddled For the great relief of having you to talk to
Go And beat your crazy head against the sky Try And see beyond the houses and your eyes It’s ok to shoot the moon
So darling My darling be home soon I couldn’t bear to wait an extra minute if you dawdled My darling be home soon It’s not just these few hours but I’ve been waiting since I toddled
Wayback Wednesday – I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home’ – Steve Winwood plays an acoustic version of Blind Faith’s “Can’t Find My Way Home”
“Can’t Find My Way Home” is a song written by Steve Winwood, that was first released by Blind Faith on their 1969 album Blind Faith. Rolling Stone, in a review of the album, noted that the song featured “Ginger Baker’s highly innovative percussion” and judged the lyric “And I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home” to be “delightful”
Steve Winwood performs a solo acoustic version of Traffic’s John Barleycorn (Must Die). Perfect, just perfect! Steve is a richly talented artist.
John Barleycorn is a British folksong. The character of John Barleycorn in the song is a personification of the important cereal crop barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky. In the song, John Barleycorn is represented as suffering attacks, death and indignities that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting.
John Barleycorn Must Die is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Traffic, released in 1970, on Island Records in the United Kingdom, and United Artists in the United States, catalogue UAS 5504. It peaked at number 5 on the Billboard 200, their highest charting album in the US, and has been certified a gold record by the RIAA. In addition, the single “Empty Pages” spent eight weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 74. The album was marginally less successful in the UK, reaching number 11 on the UK Albums Chart.
In late 1968, Traffic disbanded, guitarist Dave Mason having left the group for the second time prior to the completion of the Traffic album. In 1969, Steve Winwood joined the supergroup Blind Faith, while drummer/lyricist Jim Capaldi and woodwinds player Chris Wood turned to session work. Wood and Winwood also joined Blind Faith’s drummer Ginger Baker in his post-Blind Faith group Ginger Baker’s Air Force for their first album.
In the beginning of 1970, after the demise of Blind Faith, the band having lasted barely six months, Winwood returned to the studio ostensibly to make his first solo album, originally to be titled Mad Shadows. He recorded two tracks with producer Guy Stevens, “Stranger to Himself” and “Every Mother’s Son”, but yearned for like-minded musicians to accompany. Inviting Wood and Capaldi to join him, Winwood’s solo album became the reunion of Traffic, and a re-launch of the band’s career.
As did most of their albums, it featured influences from jazz and blues, but the version of the traditional English folk tune “John Barleycorn” also showed the musicians attending to the same strains of folk baroque and electric folk as contemporary British bands Pentangle and Fairport Convention.
It was reissued for compact disc in the UK on 1 November 1999, with five bonus tracks, including three recorded in concert from the Fillmore East in New York City. In the US, the remastered reissue of 27 February 2001 included only the two studio bonus tracks.
Steve Winwood oversaw a deluxe edition version that was released on 15 March 2011, featuring the original studio album, digitally remastered on disc one, plus a second disc of bonus material including more of the Fillmore East concert with alternate mixes and versions of album tracks.
Wayback Wednesday and a cut from “HEIGHTY HI: THE BEST OF LEE MICHAELS’’. Recorded in 1969, here we have Hammond B-3 maestro’s take on Stormy Monday.
REVIEW Mark Deming In the late ‘60s and early ’70s, an era of guitar heroes, Lee Michaels stood out as a monster keyboard man, gigging with a souped-up Hammond B-3 organ and an amp setup that would deafen the first five rows in most venues, and just a drummer (the mammoth Barry "Frosty” Smith) to keep him company. Michaels was also a man of many moods as a songwriter, willing to go from prog-anticipating psychedelia and longhaired blues to blue-eyed soul and straightforward hard rock at the snap of a finger. Michaels’ cross-genre shape-shifting may be why the man didn’t achieve lasting stardom, despite scoring a number six single with 1971’s “Do You Know What I Mean” – he was a tough man to pigeonhole, though he earned a loyal following through touring and underground FM radio play. Between 1968 and 1972, Michaels cut seven albums for A&M Records that represented his best and best-known work, and Heighty Hi: The Best of Lee Michaels collects 20 tunes from this period. The album leads off with Michaels’ two best-known songs, the title cut (a playful boogie singalong with not-so-subtle references to marijuana that was an FM radio favorite) and the rock ‘n’ soul stomp of “Do You Know What I Mean,” and if this set goes off in a number of different directions musically and thematically, the graceful and muscular report of Michaels’ keyboards (he also played piano and harpsichord and often overdubbed several keyboard lines on a single track) is consistent throughout, and Michaels had a powerful, soulful voice that was a solid match for his many tales of women who’d done him wrong (though “The War” and “What Now America” remind us he was capable of heavier stuff). Michaels aimed big, but he wasn’t bombastic or overbearing, and the best music here is subtly artful while showing off plenty of swing, some meaty rock & roll stomp, and Michaels’ uncompromising creative vision. Heighty Hi: The Best of Lee Michaels is a fine sampler that covers the high points of his most fertile period; especially zealous fans might want to go with the seven-disc box set The Complete A&M Albums Collection, but for anyone else this will deliver an excellent (and portable) sampling of a gifted and often underappreciated artist.
Wayback Wednesday with Harry Chapin. RIP Harry, you sure could write em A Better Place to Be. She said “I wish that I was beautiful, or that you were halfway blind. And I wish I weren’t so dog-gone fat, I wish that you were mine. – indeed
"It was an early morning bar room, And the place just opened up. And the little man come in so fast and Started at his cup. And the broad who served the whisky She was a big old friendly girl. And she tried to fight her empty nights By smilin’ at the world.
And she said "Hey Bub, It’s been awhile Since you been around. Where the hell you been hidin’ ? And why you look so down ?”
But the little man just sat there like he’d never heard a sound.
The waitress she gave out with a cough, And acting not the least put off, She spoke once again.
She said, “I don’t want to bother you, Consider it’s understood. I know I’m not no beauty queen, But I sure can listen good.”
And the little man took his drink in his hand And he raised it to his lips. He took a couple of sips. And he told the waitress this story.
“I am the midnight watchman down at Miller’s Tool and Die. And I watch the metal rusting, and I watch the time go by. A week ago at the diner I stopped to get a bite. And this here lovely lady she sat two seats from my right. And Lord, Lord, Lord she was alright.
"Oh she was so damned beautiful that she’d warm a winter’s frost. But she was long past lonely, and well nigh unto lost. Now I’m not much of a mover, or a pick-em-up easy guy, But I decided to glide on over, and give her one good try. And Lord, Lord, Lord she was worth a try.
"Tongued-tied like a school boy, I stammered out some words. But it did not really matter much, ‘cause I don’t think she heard. She just looked clear on through me to a space back in my head. And it shamed me into silence, as quietly she said, ‘If you want me to come with you, then that’s all right with me. Cause I know I’m going nowhere, and anywhere’s a better place to be. Anywhere’s a better place to be.’
"I drove her to my boarding house, and I took her up to my room. And I went to turn on the only light to brighten up the gloom. But she said, ‘Please leave the light off, Oh I don’t mind the dark.’ And as her clothes all tumbled ’round her, I could hear my heart. The moonlight shown upon her as she lay back in my bed. It was the kind of scene I only had imagined in my head. I just could not believe it, to think that she was real. And as I tried to tell her she said ‘Shhh.. I know just how you feel. And if you want to come here with me, then that’s all right with me. ‘Cause I’ve been oh so lonely, lovin’ someone is a better way to be. anywhere’s a better way to be.’
"The morning come so swiftly but I held her in my arms. But she slept like a baby, snug and safe from harm. I did not want to share her with the world or break the mood, So before she woke I went out and brought us both some food.
"I came back with my paper bag, to find out she was gone. She’d left a six word letter saying ‘It’s time that I moved on.’”
The waitress took a bar rag, and she wiped it across her eyes. And as she spoke her voice came out as something like a sigh. She said “I wish that I was beautiful, or that you were halfway blind. And I wish I weren’t so dog-gone fat, I wish that you were mine. And I wish that you’d come with me, when I leave for home. For we both know all about loneliness, and livin’ all alone.”
And the little man, Looked at the empty glass in his hand. And he smiled a crooked grin, He said, “ I guess I’m out of gin. And know we both have been so lonely. And if you want me to come with you, then that’s all right with me. ‘Cause I know I’m goin’ nowhere and anywhere’s a better place to be.” “
/Lyrics from The Harry Chapin Archive at Harrychapin.com
David Gilmour, who—as some of you might know—used to be a member of Pink Floyd, has premiered his new cover of the Beatles’ “Here, There and Everywhere.“
The guitarist’s faithful cover of this Revolver track will appear—exclusively—in the new issue of Mojo magazine, which happens to feature Gilmour on its cover.
Although credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, “Here, There and Everywhere” was written entirely by McCartney, who even recorded a second version of the tune on 1984’s Give My Regards to Broad Street.
Although McCartney has nothing to do with Gilmour’s new cover, the pair have worked together several times over the years. Gilmour plays lead guitar on McCartney’s “No More Lonely Nights,” which is also from Give My Regards to Broad Street; “We Got Married” from 1989’s Flowers in the Dirt; and on McCartney’s 1999 album of rock and roll covers, Run Devil Run.
Wayback Wednesday. Yes, Yes, I love you from the bottom of my pencil case… 🙂 you’re welcome
Following the disbandment of the British indie pop group the Housemartins in 1989, vocalist Paul Heaton and drummer David Hemmingway formed the Beautiful South. Where their previous group relied on jazzy guitars and witty, wry lyrics, the Beautiful South boasted a more sophisticated, jazzy pop sound, layered with keyboards, R&B-inflected female backing vocals and, occasionally, light orchestrations. Often, the group’s relaxed, catchy songs contradicted the sarcastic, cynical thrust of the lyrics.
Wayback Wednesday More than 20 years after Rod Stewart achieved superstardom, he took to the stage at Universal Studios in Los Angeles for a performance filmed for MTV’s Unplugged series. The stellar concert featured a reunion with guitarist Ron Wood—with whom Stewart played in the Jeff Beck Group and the Faces—and resulted in a hit album that peaked at #2 on the Billboard album charts and contained a Top 10 cover of Van Morrison’s “Have I Told You Lately.”
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