Tag: music

Blog, Song Lyric Sunday

Song Lyric Sunday – I Am A Rock

by  •  • 19 Comments

This week I found myself torn with regard to song choice. The prompts for Song Lyric Sunday are Atoll, Island, Key, Lagoon, Peninsula, Reef and Tropical, suggested by Kristian, from Tales From The Mind of Kristian. As Paul Simon is one of my favorite artists I wanted to feature ‘I Am A Rock’. The lyrics to me are pure poetry. At the same time I like the upbeat Sammy Hagar song, ‘All We Need Is An Island’, so I decided to go with both. I hope you enjoy them.

The Song

Simon was going solo at this time because the Simon & Garfunkel 1964 debut album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M. had stiffed, and the duo split up. Late in 1965, the producer Tom Wilson overdubbed and remixed a track from that album, “The Sound Of Silence,” and it became a huge hit. Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel were summoned back to the studio, where they recorded the singles “I Am A Rock” and “Homeward Bound,” which were included on their Sound of Silence album. These songs were recorded with producer Bob Johnston at one of the Columbia Records studios in New York City, and now released with a more contemporary sound, “I Am A Rock” became a hit for the duo.
In the UK, this was released three times in a one year span: first as the original Paul Simon single in 1965, then in the summer of 1966 it was released as an EP and again as a single. The song was very popular there in 1966, but the chart position suffered because the sales of the single were diluted by multiple releases.
The guitarist on the Simon & Garfunkel hit version of this song was Ralph Casale, who was a top session player in the ’60s. He remembers organist Al Kooper and drummer Bobby Gregg – both associated with Bob Dylan – also performing on the song. Describing the sessions, Ralph told us: “The band was booked from 7:00 p.m. into the wee hours of the morning. I was given a lead sheet for ‘I Am A Rock’ with just chords and asked to play the electric twelve string guitar. The producer wanted a sound similar to the Byrds. It was important that session players became familiar with the current hits because many times producers describe the style they want by referring to well known groups. Paul Simon sang the figure he wanted me to play between verses and asked me to play it in thirds. The rest was left to me. ‘Homeward Bound’ was on that same date.”

The Lyrics

A winter's day, in a deep and dark December
I am alone
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow
I am a rock, I am an island

I've built walls
A fortress deep and mighty 
That none may penetrate
I have no need of friendship
Friendship causes pain
It's laughter and it's loving I disdain
I am a rock, I am an island

Don't talk of love
But I've heard the words before
It's sleeping in my memory
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died
If I never loved I never would have cried

I am a rock, I am an island
I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
I am shielded in my armor
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb
I touch no one and no one touches me

I am a rock, I am an island
And a rock feels no pain 
And an island never cries

Writer:  Paul Simon

The Song

There was a suggestion that 65-year-old Hagar record this song with 23-year-old country-pop superstar Taylor Swift, but he was concerned about the age difference. Instead he laid it down it with Heart’s Nancy Wilson. “She did the best duet on the record,” Hagar told Jam! Music of Wilson. “She brought more to that song than everyone else did … It’s beautiful. She took my idea and just made it from a girl’s perspective. I wanted to do it with someone real young and hip and popular and my manager and everyone around me was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah! Let’s get Taylor Swift! Yeah, her guitar player is a big Sammy fan! All he does is play your music on the bus.’ And then I thought, ‘Well, gee, what if someone wants us to do a video, then people are going to be going, ‘Is that her grandpa?’ I’m okay with being a grandpa but not Taylor Swift’s grandpa.”
Hagar also considered recording this with the lead singer of Grace Potter & the Nocturnals. “I met Grace Potter, and I wanted to do a duet with her,” he told Rolling Stone, “but I didn’t have the song. I thought ‘All We Need Is an Island,’ but I ended up doing that with Nancy [Wilson], and Nancy killed it.”

The Lyrics

Well, all we need is an island
Big ol' sandy beach
Palm tree for some shade
Sweet sugar cane

All we need is an island (all we need is an island)
A hammock that swings
A tall cool one, a whole lotta sun
A belly full of rum

All we need is an island
Ooh, all we need is an island
All we need is an island

Get the cold ass winter gone
So cold and so long
Feel it in my bones
All we need is an island (all we need is an island)

A little time alone
A feeling in me, you and me
A little ecstasy
All we need is an island

Ooh, all we need is an island
(All we need is an island)
All we need is an island

Sea, sun, salt and sex
A line and a pole
Put a pig in a hole
All we need is an island

Work, work, work away
Honey, take me to this paradise
With a miracle kiss
All we need is an island

Ooh, all we need is an island
(All we need is an island)
All we need is an island

(All we need is an island)
Ooh, all we need is an island
(All we need is an island)
All we need is an island

Writer: Sammy Hagar
Blog, Quadrille

The Music Plays On – A Quadrille

by  •  • 15 Comments

The Music Plays On

Our music plays
I hear it, always 
But it falls
on your deaf ears
You no longer smile
remembering where it
once took you
Now you march to 
a different tune
and I stand here
wondering
Is this the end
of our love song?


Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Lisa from Tao Talk is hosting D'Verse Poets Quadrille
She has prompted us with the word 'Stand'
A Quadrille is a poem of exactly 44 words excluding the title

Image by Martyn Cook from Pixabay
Blog, Song Lyric Sunday

Song Lyric Sunday – Breakfast at Tiffany’s

by  •  • 13 Comments

Our friend Paula of Light Motifs II has given us this week’s prompts for Song Lyric Sunday, hosted by Jim Adams. Her suggestions are Breakfast, Brunch, Dinner, Lunch, Snack and Supper.

I have chosen Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Deep Blue Something. A cute song and video that I remember from the 90s. but the band was really a one hit wonder. The good thing about Song Lyric Sunday is that when you start researching these songs you sometimes find a really interesting backstory. In this case it was Truman Capote’s connection to Rock Music!.

Songfacts

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is a 1995 song recorded by American alternative rock band Deep Blue Something. Originally appearing on the album 11th Song, it was later re-recorded and released on their album Home. It was the band’s only hit,  peaking at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100. Outside the United States, “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” topped the UK Singles Chart and peaked within the top ten on the charts of Australia, Flanders, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, the Republic of Ireland and Sweden.

Follow-up singles failed to match the success of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, hence the reason for the band’s classification as a one-hit wonder.

Deep Blue Something lead singer Todd Pipes was inspired to write this song after seeing Audrey Hepburn in the film Roman Holiday, but he thought “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” would be a better title.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a 1961 movie based on a book by Truman Capote. It starred Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, a high-priced escort looking for a rich man to marry. The movie made the song “Moon River” famous.

The song is a humorous and optimistic look at a failing relationship. One partner focuses on how different the two people are and how they aren’t going to last as a couple:

You say that we’ve got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And we’re falling apart

The other partner, however, focuses on one small detail they have in common which is that they both like the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The speaker clings to this one detail and repeats it five times as the chorus in the song:

And I said, “What about Breakfast at Tiffany’s”
She said, “I think I remember the film”
and as I recall, I think, we both kinda liked it
And I said, “Well, that’s one thing we got”

Deep Blue Something was formed by four college students from the University of North Texas. This was their only hit, and they did not release another album until Byzantium in 1998.
Todd Pipes recalled to Q magazine November 2008 that promoting this song got to be pretty tiresome. He explained: “As the song had Breakfast in the title, radio stations thought it would be genius to have us on at breakfast time. We’d be up till 3 a.m. and they’d wonder why we were pissed off playing at 6am.”

Truman Capote (1924 – 1984) was an American author, many of whose short stories, novels, plays and non-fiction are recognized literary classics. He was born in Louisiana and his early works, including The Glass Harp, are about the South. He then moved to New York, where he wrote scripts for plays and films plus further novels including his 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s. In the early 1960s, Capote’s career flagged until In Cold Blood (1965), his journalistic work about the murder of a Kansas farm family in their home, made Capote a celebrity.

Capote was 5 feet 3 inches tall and openly homosexual. His distinctive, high-pitched voice and odd vocal mannerisms were bought to life in Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar-winning portrayal of him in the 2005 movie, Capote.
Apart from this song, Capote has several other connections to rock music. They include:

1) In 1972 Capote was commissioned by Rolling Stone to cover the Rolling Stones’ tour of North America. And though he set out on the tour and began taking copious notes, he quickly fell out with Mick Jagger and refused to write the article. “Mick Jagger is about as sexy as a pissing toad,” he later cattily averred.

2) Capote posthumously appeared on the sleeve of The Smiths’ 1985 single, The Boy with the Thorn in His Side. English fashion and portrait photographer Cecil Beaton took the picture in 1949.

3) Capote was name-checked along with a number of other famous people in the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ 1991 track, “Mellowship Slinky In B Major.”

Courtes of Wiki and Songfacts

Lyrics

You'll say we've got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And we're falling apart
You say the world has come between us
Our lives have come between us
Still I know you just don't care

And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"

I see you, the only one who knew me
But now your eyes see through me
I guess I was wrong
So what now? It's plain to see we're over
And I hate when things are over
When so much is left undone

And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"

You say that we've got nothing in common
No common ground to start from
And we're falling apart
You say the world has come between us
Our lives have come between us
Still I know you just don't care

And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"

Ooh, and I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"

And I said, "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"
She said, "I think I remember the film
And as I recall, I think we both kinda liked it"
And I said, "Well, that's the one thing we've got"

Writer/s: Todd David Pipes 
Publisher: Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
Blog, Song Lyric Sunday

Song Lyric Sunday – Smooth

by  •  • 19 Comments

We have been prompted with one word titles this week for Song Lyric Sunday challenge, hosted by our good friend Jim Adams. I have to go with the perennial Santana and “Smooth” featuring Rob Thomas. It’s hard for me to believe that this song is over 20 years old already! I hope you enjoy it. I know I never get tired of listening to it.

Rob Thomas from Matchbox Twenty wrote this with Itaal Shur, a songwriter and producer who has worked with Jewel, Robi Rosa and Maxwell (co-writing his first hit, “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder).” Shur said in a Songfacts interview: “I was already active in the music business. I had some hit records with Maxwell and I was already touring the world with Groove Collective, so people knew me more in the underground scene, but I wasn’t as big as Rob Thomas, of course. My manager at the time told me that Pete Ganbarg, who was working at the time at Arista, he was looking for music for the new Santana record. At the time, I had my own band and was performing a lot around the city. I jumped at it because I grew up with an older brother who hipped me up to classic rock and I always loved Santana.

I went up to the office and I wanted to hear what they had first to see what kind of direction they were going for, and when I went up there I heard the Wyclef track, I heard the Dave Matthews track, I heard a couple of other tracks, and I realized there wasn’t the kind of track that was, in my opinion, a standard Santana groove like ‘Black Magic Woman,’ ‘Oye Como Va,’ ‘Evil Ways.’ So I went home and wrote this track on guitar with all the arrangements called ‘Room One Seven.’ It was about this couple that meet after a long time and have a little tryst in the hotel room.

I brought it to Arista and they loved the instrumental and they liked parts of the melodies, but they didn’t like the lyrics – they thought it was a little too sexual for Santana – so they asked me if I wanted to work with Rob Thomas. I didn’t know him; I’d heard a little bit about Matchbox Twenty. He happened to live at the time in Soho very close to me. He came over and he had already written the verses to the instrumental that Arista gave him. I had a chorus that had the same melody: ‘Room One Seven on the seventeenth floor. Take the elevator and I’ll meet you at the door.’ He didn’t have a chorus, so before he came, I changed the words around to, ‘Give me the ocean, give me the moon, give me something hot to make my body move,’ and this turned into the chorus that we all know.”

Thomas sang lead on this, but that wasn’t the plan. He had never written a song for someone else before, so he jumped at the chance to write a song with Shur for Santana, figuring it would boost his songwriting bona fides. When they finished the song, Thomas suggested George Michael, one of his musical heroes, as the vocalist. Arista Records ended up asking Thomas to do the vocals, and when he did, it was in Michael’s style. “If you listen to the melody and the cadence, it’s an attempt to emulate his style in so many ways,” he told Billboard.

When Thomas launched his solo career a few years later, he once again emulated Michael, who also made the transition from a group (Wham!) to a solo artist.

Many of the lyrics are Thomas’ ode to his wife, the former Marisol Maldonado, who is Puerto Rican. “My Mu Equita” translates to “My Little Doll” in Spanish; Thomas also calls her his “Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa.” Marisol appears in the video.

GQ published an “oral history” satire of this song in 2016, which is filled with confabulations like this quote from Rob Thomas: “I didn’t even know who Carlos Santana was at this point. I actually thought he was the guy that who was in charge of Libya.”

The song’s co-writer Itaal Shur told us: “The guitar solo from my demo, Santana copied that solo, which was a huge compliment and all the breaks were also on my demo. It was really weird, my demo was kind of like a template for the live band to play. They sped up the song two beats: it was like at 1/13 and went to 1/15 and it went from A Flat Minor to A Minor. They played it as a band and recorded it all live, pretty much. Me and Rob, when we were writing the song, the verses were fine, but we went through about four or five changes with the record company; from like, ‘Give me the ocean, give me the moon,’ ‘You’re just like the ocean…’ Pete Ganbarg, who if it wasn’t for him this song wouldn’t have come together because he put me and Rob together, he said some really good comments about the lyrics – he was an English major and really picky about lyrics. It was a really good collaboration.”

This won Song Of The Year and Record Of The Year at the 2000 Grammys. Supernatural also won for Best Rock Album and Album Of The Year. >>

Clive Davis is a legendary record executive who was the mastermind behind this album. Santana had not had a hit since “Hold On” in 1982, so Davis teamed him up with contemporary musicians like Wyclef Jean, Everlast and Lauryn Hill to make sure the younger generation took notice. The result was a wildly successful album that went over well with Santana’s old fans and created a legion of new ones. This was the first single, and it spent 12 weeks at #1 in the US.

Santana has the distinction of waiting the longest between his first charting single and first #1 hit. In 1969, “Tango” hit #56 in the US, and 30 years later this was #1.

The trend of aging rockers calling in hot young artists to give them contemporary appeal became known in the music press as “The Carlos Santana Effect,” thanks to his Supernatural success.

Marcus Raboy directed the music video. He also did the video for the Supernatural track “Maria Maria.”

Looking back on the song in 2020, Thomas told Songfacts: “I believe the best part of the whole process is that Carlos and I have become so close that we communicate just about every day. Always sending silly messages or song ideas or pics from our day. He’s been a great mentor but an even greater friend.”

Thomas found out this had been released as a single when he was standing on a street corner in Manhattan. A convertible full of girls pulled up with the song blasting on the car radio. He knew it was really big when he went to Los Angeles a short time later and encountered Jason Newsted of Metallica coming out of an elevator. Thomas told CBC Radio: “He came out of an elevator and was like, ‘Hey Rob’ – and I’d never met him – ‘Hey Rob, man, love that Carlos song.’ And I was like, ‘Alright, this has gone from New York hot girls to Metallica. There’s something happening here.”

LYRICS

Man, it's a hot one
Like seven inches from the midday sun
Well, I hear you whispering in the words, to melt everyone
But you stay so cool
My muñequita, my Spanish Harlem, Mona Lisa
You're my reason for reason
The step in my groove

And if you said this life ain't good enough
I would give my world to lift you up
I could change my life to better suit your mood
Because you're so smooth

And it's just like the ocean under the moon
Oh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from you
You got the kind of lovin' that can be so smooth, yeah
Give me your heart, make it real or else forget about it

But I'll tell you one thing
If you would leave it would be a crying shame
In every breath and every word
I hear your name calling me out
Out from the barrio
You hear my rhythm on your radio
You feel the turning of the world, so soft and slow
It's turning you round and round

And if you said this life ain't good enough
I would give my world to lift you up
I could change my life to better suit your mood
Because you're so smooth

And it's just like the ocean under the moon
Oh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from you
You got the kind of lovin' that can be so smooth, yeah
Give me your heart, make it real or else forget about it

And it's just like the ocean under the moon
Oh, it's the same as the emotion that I get from you
You got the kind of lovin' that can be so smooth, yeah
Give me your heart, make it real or else forget about it

Or else forget about it
Or else forget about it
Let's not forget about it
Give me your heart, make it real
Let's not forget about it
Let's not forget about it
Let's not forget about it
Let's not forget about it
Let's not forget about it

Courtesy of Songfacts

Blog, Discovery

The Music in Me

by  •  • 34 Comments

The Music in Me

I hear an old song
as if for the first time
Words beautiful
Resonating deeply
Taking up residence
in my head
Playing over and over
taking me to places
I have never gone
The music hypnotic
and lyrics
touching my soul
Inspiring my own
poetry in motion
Compelled to write
of the visions that dance
in my head
Round and round
in circles spinning
Spherical objects
floating in air
Lifting me 
Taking me
away
 
 
Copyright © 2021 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Merril is hosting D'Verse Poets tonight
and has prompted us with 'Connections'

'For this prompt, I want you to think about
connecting or connections—in any sense.
It could be connecting ideas, connecting
historical moments, or your own connections
with people, places, nature, or art'

I recently participated in a music prompt of
'Circles' from another blog and chose the song
Windmills of your Mind. It is from the movie
remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.  For some
reason I could not get it out of my head, so
I guess I connected with it. I'm sharing it below.

Image by freeillustrated from Pixabay

Blog, Fantasy, Poem of the Month

Music of Madness – Poem of the Month – December 2020

by  •  • 38 Comments

Music of Madness

Hypnotic sounds
calling in silver
from sitar strings
Following though 
forests of jade jewels 
Arms stretched wide
clutching as rainbows
slip through hands 
Crimson-pink quavers
trail from fingertips
Words of grey
float on clouds 
scratched into 
purple sky
The rusty refuge
sunken deep
into monotone
memories
as a finale of
spinning cymbals
of gold crash land on
symphony’s saffron strands

 
Copyright © 2020 Christine Bolton - Poetry for Healing
All Rights Reserved

Grace is hosting D'Verse Poets tonight
and has prompted us with part two of
Synesthesia.
Today we will incorporate music in our poem
from the perspectiveof a synesthete.
Create your own Symphony.
Infuse your musical experience when listening
to a band, artist or musical genre, with colors,
sounds & textures.
Write a song filled with colors.

I was inspired by "Tomorrow Never Knows"
by the Beatles from their Revolver album.
It is 'trippy' and easy to conjure up
colors and movement.

Word Prompts

Refuge - FOWC
Jade - RDP



Image by Raheel Shakeel from Pixabay 

%d bloggers like this: