Saul Williams -- "List of Demands" (2004)

I got a list of demands

Written on the palm of my hands

I ball my fist and you gonna know where I stand

Let's take a short break from my series of posts featuring songs from the albums that everyone owned when I was in college.  (Don't worry, fellow boomers -- we'll get back to 1970 shortly.)

This post is the first in another series, which we can call "Songs That Were Featured in Great Nike Commercials."  I hope my jumping around like this doesn't annoy you.  But my habit of suddenly detouring from one topic to another is one of things that keeps "2 or 3 lines" fresh.  You see, I have a short attention span.  I get bored easily.   

Apparently I got bored easily in grade school as well.  I dug out all my old report cards when I visited my parents recently.  This was one of the comments on my 2nd-grade report card:  "Gary is making excellent progress in all areas except self-control."  The next quarter's comment was "Gary seems to be having difficulty in settling down after the Christmas excitement."

Things didn't change all that much over the next few years.  From my 5th-grade report card:  "Gary's biggest problem is lack of self-discipline."

(Those dried-up old bit . . . oh, never mind.)

Before we watch the 2008 Nike-SPARQ TV commercial featuring "List of Demands," allow me to brag just a little.  This post is the 16th I've done in September, a new record for "2 or 3 lines."  (Inspired by my upcoming high school reunion, I produced 15 in July.)  And "2 or 3 lines" also shattered all previous records for hits and page views, with 695 and 1139 respectively.  (July's marks were 534 and 963.)  Now if you people would start clicking on some ads, "2 or 3 lines" would be livin' the dream!

Without further ado, here's the commercial:

Saul Williams and the other members of his "poetry slam" team were featured in SlamNation, a documentary about the 1996 National Poetry Slam.  In 1998, Williams starred in a feature film about poetry slams titled Slam.

Here's the trailer for SlamNation:  

Williams released his first LP in 2001 (Rick Rubin produced it).  He toured with Nine Inch Nails in 2005, and NIN's Trent Reznor produced his next CD, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust.  (A song from David Bowie's 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars will be featured in a future "2 or 3 lines.")

Enough for now about Saul Williams -- you're probably wondering what SPARQ is.

The "SPARQ Rating" -- SPARQ is an acronym for speed, power, agility, reaction, and quickness -- is a standardized test of athleticism created in 2004.  It has been called "The SAT of Athleticism." 

The general SPARQ test has five components: 40-yard dash, kneeling power ball (a/k/a medicine ball) toss, agility shuttle run, vertical jump, and "Yo-Yo intermittent recovery test," or "beep test."  

In the beep test, an athlete runs 20 meters when a "beep" is sounded, and then runs back to the starting line when a second beep is sounded.  After a short rest period, another beep sounds and the athlete does the back-and-forth sprint all over again.  The recovery time allowed between each pair of sprints is gradually shortened.  The test ends when the athlete is unable to make it back to the starting line before the beep signalling that it's time to start again sounds.

There are also sport-specific assessments for baseball, fast-pitch softball, football, boys' and girls' soccer, and boys' and girls' basketball.  Tim Tebow outscored Reggie Bush on the football test, but 2008 decathlon gold-medalist Bryan Clay poned both of them.

Nike partnered with SPARQ, Inc., to promote cross-training shoes, apparel, and training equipment designed for SPARQ training -- most famously, a really cool parachute you wear while running to create drag when you run.  And it works just as well for dogs as for people: 

The Nike SPARQ commercial features NFL stars (Adrian Peterson and LaDainian Tomlinson),  NBA and WNBA stars (Kevin Durant, Brandon Roy, Steve Nash, and Diana Taurasi), soccer players (Landon Donovan, Abby Wambach, and Hope Solo), lacrosse players (Ryan Powell and Kyle Harrison), and a baseball player (Matt Holiday).

The line that Tomlinson delivers to get things started -- "My better is better than your better" -- is pretty good, and the shot of Peterson running with no fewer than FIVE of those parachutes strapped around his waist is very cool. 

But it's Saul Williams and "List of Demands" that makes this one of the all-time great Nike commercials.   This song starts off loud and fast and never changes -- if you have high blood pressure, it might not be a good idea for you to listen to it.

Click here to buy "List of Demands" from iTunes:

Click here if you prefer Amazon:

James Gang -- "The Bomber" (1970)

When I became of age, my mama sat me down

Said, "Son, you're growin' up, it's time you looked around"

So I began to notice some things I hadn't seen before

That's what brought me here, knockin' on your back door

There were some great rock bands with only three members in the 1960's and 1970's:  Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were probably the best of the power trios of the era, and Grand Funk Railroad may have been the most popular.  Led Zeppelin, the Who, and others weren't pure power trios because they had four members, but they were really power trios in terms of instrumentation -- guitar, bass, and drums.  

The James Gang was right up there with the best of them.  A great power trio had to have a very good drummer and a very good bass player, but what it needed most of all was a great guitarist.  Cream had Eric Clapton, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had you know who.  The James Gang had Joe Walsh, who was never as well-known as Clapton and Hendrix and is largely forgotten today, but he was really, really, really good, boys and girls.

The "James Gang Rides Again" album cover

The first James Gang album, titled Yer' Album, was solid.  But their second album -- James Gang Rides Again -- was outstanding.  "Funk #49" and "Woman" are classics, but I've chosen a  cut off that album that you never heard much on the radio:  "The Bomber," or "The Bomber: Closet Queen/Bolero/Cast Your Fate to the Wind" as the title is sometimes rendered.

"The Bomber" didn't get much airplay because it's about seven minutes long.  It's seven minutes long because it's really three songs in one.  

If you put the first and last parts of "The Bomber" together, you'd have a good, three-verse, three-minute rock song.  But instead of doing that, the band took a sudden detour after the first two verses and played abbreviated versions of two very different instrumental works.

First, we get a couple of minutes of Maurice Ravel's famous orchestral piece, Bolero, which was composed in 1928 and originally intended as a ballet.  Bolero was always popular, but became familiar to millions when it was later used in the soundtrack of the movie 10, which starred Bo Derek.



It turned out that the copyright on Ravel's composition was still valid in 1970, and the composer's estate threatened to sue the James Gang and its record company for their unauthorized use of Bolero.  "The Bomber" was edited for subsequent pressings of the LP, but the original version was eventually restored.

Next, the band gives us a couple of minutes of a well-known jazz composition, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind," composed and originally recorded by jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi.  After a TV producer heard this song, Guaraldi was hired to write and record the score for the Peanuts Christmas special.  He eventually composed the scores for 16 Peanuts television specials, plus the movie A Boy Named Charlie Brown.

Everyone has heard Guaraldi's "Linus and Lucy" theme song about a million times.  I remember Jim Matthews becoming quite frustrated back in the heyday of "The Rogues" when I had trouble playing it by ear.



Here's Guaraldi performing "Cast Your Fate to the Wind":

After that, the James Gang circles back and wraps up "The Bomber" (your guess is as good as mine as to where that title came from) by playing the final verse of the "Closet Queen" song.  It sounds crazy but it works.  In fact, it does more than just work -- it's genius, a tour de force.  

Here's "The Bomber":

Click here to order the song from Amazon:

Blue Öyster Cult -- "I'm On The Lamb, But I Ain't No Sheep" (1972)

Canadian Mounted, baby, police force that works
Red and black, it's their color scheme
Get their man in the end,
It's all right . . .

Frontenac Chateau, baby,
I cross the frontier at ten
Got a whip in my hand, baby,
And a girl or a husky at leather's end,
It's all right . . .

I discovered Blue Öyster Cult 37 or 38 years ago when I picked up a Columbia Records 3-record sampler album titled "Music People" at a record store in Houston, Texas.

Record companies issued sampler albums like this one to publicize new bands or give a bit of a goose to more well-known musicians whose forthcoming albums weren't expected to do very well. The most famous of these sampler albums were the "Loss Leaders" series of mostly double albums produced by Warner Brothers/Reprise records and sold by mail order for $2. The musicians represented on "The Big Ball," "Schlagers," and others of that ilk included some very mainstream artists (like Petula Clark and Peter, Paul and Mary), but were dominated by crazies like the Fugs, Captain Beefheart, and Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

Columbia Records also issued several samplers, and "Music People" included cuts by superstars (Bob Dylan, the Byrds), cult favorites (Spirit, It's a Beautiful Day, Mahavishnu Orchestra), and some utterly forgotten never-wases (Sweathog, Compost, Grootna, and Mylon with Holy Smoke).

The fourth cut on side one of "Music People" was "I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep" by Blue Öyster Cult (or "BOC," as I will hereinafter abbreviate it) -- and it impressed me sufficiently that I immediately ran out and bought BOC's eponymous first album, which led off with this song. (That's right, Columbia Records sucked me right in – I did EXACTLY what they hoped I would do.)

BOC's first album cover – the artist was a guy named Bill Gawlik – got your attention. It looked like it definitely meant something serious and important, but who the hell knew what?

The cover featured the band's logo – that funny thingie right in the middle – like a cross with an upside-down question mark. Here's the flag featuring the logo that was displayed at some BOC concerts:

Blue Öyster Cult is generally credited with being the first band to use the so-called heavy metal umlaut – that's the two dots over the "O" in "Oyster" – which was later copied by Mötley Crüe, Motörhead, Queensrÿche, and others.  Since umlauts are used in Germanic languages but not in English, its usage by such bands is presumably intended to add an element of menace and general nastiness. 

Of course, umlauts should be distinguished from diaereses, a diacritical mark graphically similar to the umlaut. If you want to know more about this topic, be my guest – just don't expect me to accompany you on your little side trip to Minutiaeville.

The titles of the songs on the first BOC album were attention-getting, to put it mildly: "Transmaniacon MC," "Before the Kiss, A Redcap," "She's as Beautiful as a Foot," etc.

Click here to listen to our featured song.

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I'm featuring "I'm On The Lamb" because it was the first BOC song I ever heard, but I also have to talk about the last song on side one of that LP – "Before the Kiss, A Redcap." Here are a few lines from that song, the lyrics are which are obscure even by BOC standards:

And underneath the black light

Underneath it all

4 and 40 redheads meet

Come to doom, doom the dawn

With threats of gas and rose motifs

Their lips apart like swollen rose

Their tongues extend and then retract

A Red Cap, a Red Cap

Before the kiss

Before the kiss

I guess you're asking yourself "What's a 'Red Cap'?" (If you're letting that stuff about tongues extending and retracting distract you, SNAP OUT OF IT AND PAY ATTENTION!)

According to Wikipedia, a "Red Cap" is "a type of malevolent murderous dwarf, goblin, elf, or fairy. . . said to inhabit ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland [who] are said to murder travelers who stray into their homes and dye their hats with their victims' blood (from which they get their name). Redcaps must kill regularly, for if the blood staining their hats dries out, they die. Redcaps are very fast in spite of the heavy iron pikes they wield and the iron-shod boots they wear. Outrunning a redcap is supposedly impossible." (As Count Floyd would have said, that's some scary stuff, boys and girls.)

But that was not the meaning BOC intended here. So put those nasty little goblins out of your mind and think beer instead. That's right, beer -- or at least ale.

Given that this song is takes place in a bar, I think it's safe to assume that "Red Cap" ale what BOC is talking about here. "Red Cap" ale was a product of Carling Breweries, a Canadian brewer that expanded to the United States after the end of Prohibition, and which was best-known for its "Black Label" lager. With snappy ads like the one below, it's hard to believe that Carling's U.S. sales went down the toilet in the 1970's.  [NOTE: see the comments at the end of this post for other explanations of the meaning of "redcap."]

Moving on . . .

*     *     *     *     *

The second BOC album, which was released a year or so later, featured an equally portentous (I didn't say pretentious) Bill Gawlik cover.

It was titled "Tyranny and Mutation" (the cover actually said "Tyranny and Mvtation" by "Blve Öyster Cvlt" – not sure it was supposed to make you think of ancient Rome or something else entirely) – and the song titles were equally odd: "7 Screaming Diz-Busters," "Mistress of the Salmon Salt (Quicklime Girl)," etc. (For an explanation of what a "diz-buster" is, read this unintentionally hilarious interview with lead vocalist Eric Bloom from about 10 years ago, as BOC was slouching into Pensacola, Florida.)

The first cut on this album is titled "The Red & the Black." It's a live version of "I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep." (No, little boy, I don't know why they changed the title.)

The inner sleeve of the second album said you could write in and get a copy of the lyrics, which I promptly did. I received printouts of the lyrics for the songs in both albums on old-fashioned 11" x 14 7/8" continuous-feed computer paper.

I already knew that BOC lyrics were generally enigmatic and just plain odd, and these printouts certainly confirmed that. Adding to the general bewilderment concerning what the songs meant is the fact that whoever transcribed the lyrics was careless, or high, or dyslexic, or had a very curious sense of humor – the lines were often out of order, and there were a number of other discrepancies.

For example, the lyrics for "Before the Kiss, A Redcap" took "4 and 40 redheads meet/Come to doom, doom the dawn" and rendered it as "4 and 40 redheads meet/Bold with soup and then the corn/Meet to doom, to doom the dawn." (Bold with soup and then the corn?)

*     *     *     *     *

The third BOC album was released a year after the second one – I was a senior in college by then – and it was a worthy successor to the first two. Instead of the brooding, geometric Gawlik covers, "Secret Treaties" featured a drawing of the band's members posed around a German World War II-vintage fighter plane – except it had the BOC insignia instead of a swastika on its tail.

The album's song titles included "Cagey Cretins," "Harvester of Eyes," "Flaming Telepaths," and "ME 262" – a reference to the Nazi jet fighter (the first jet fighter to fly in combat) depicted on the cover. Here are a few representative examples of this album's lyrics:

From "Career of Evil" (co-written by Patti Smith):

I'd like your blue eyed horseshoe,

I'd like your emerald horny toad,
I'd like to do it to your daughter on a dirt road
And then I'd spend your ransom money,

But still I'd keep your sheep
I'd peel the mask your wearing,

And then rob you of your sleep
Rob you of your sleep

I choose to steal what you chose to show
And you know I will not apologize
Your mine for the taking
I'm making a career of evil . . .

From "Astronomy" (later covered by Metallica):

The clock strikes twelve and moondrops burst
Out at you from their hiding place
Miss Carrie Nurse and Susie dear
Would find themselves at Four Winds Bar
It’s the nexus of the crisis
And the origin of storms
Just the place to hopelessly
Encounter time and then came me
Call me Desdenova, eternal light
These gravely digs of mine, will surely prove a sight
And don’t forget my dog, fixed and consequent
Astronomy . . . a star

From "ME 262":

Get me through these radars, no I cannot fail
When my great silver slugs are eager to feed
I can't fail -- no, not now
When twenty-five bombers wait ripe
ME 262, prince of turbojet

Junkers Jumo 004
Blasts from clustered R4M quartets in my snout
And see these English planes go burn
Now you be my witness how red were the skies
When the Fortresses flew for the very last time
It was dark over Westphalia

In April of '45

As a special treat for all of you who experience a strange yet exciting tingling when you see Nazi stuff, click here to watch a YouTube video that features "ME 262" as the soundtrack to a lot of German WWII film footage.

But first you should know the following:

1. The "Junkers Jumo 004" was the turbojet engine used in the ME 262.

2. The "R4M" was an unguided air-to-air missile that was added to the ME 262 late in the war.

3. "Fortresses" refers to the B-17 "Flying Fortress," which was the primary Allied heavy bomber in the European theatre.

4. "Westphalia" is a region in west-central Germany.

*     *     *     *     *

I think I took BOC's lyrics pretty seriously at the time – it appeared that they were intended to be taken seriously, and God knows I was being assigned readings in some of my classes in those days that I know my professors took seriously, although they often made less sense to me than BOC lyrics. Later I heard that the band members were a bunch of nerdy Jewish guys from Long Island who did the whole thing as a big joke, but I don't think that's really true. (I've skipped over the band's origins, personnel, etc., but you can get into all that by visiting the BOC official website, which has a fairly detailed historical section, as well as Wikipedia, etc.

I saw BOC on August 7, 1974 in Little Rock, Arkansas (along with the Guess Who). That was the summer before I went to law school, and after quitting my summer job (which was driving a water truck for a company that was widening US Highway 71 south of my hometown of Joplin, Missouri), I decided to go visit a high-school friend who had moved to Alexandria, Louisiana, and then say good-bye to my college girlfriend, who was spending the summer in Houston before heading off to Stanford Business School.

On the way, I stopped to visit a cousin of mine who lived in Little Rock, where her boyfriend (now husband) played baseball for the Arkansas Travelers, who were the Double-A minor-league affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals.

The reason I know I saw that concert took place on August 7 is that Richard Nixon went on television to resign from office at 9:01 pm on August 8, and I was at the Travelers game with my cousin that night. I had no idea he had resigned until the next morning, when I was driving through the wilds of southern Arkansas on my way to Alexandria.

Today, BOC is best remembered for several relatively formulaic radio hits – like "Don't Fear the Reaper" and "Burnin' for You" – which came later. ("Don't Fear the Reaper" was the song featured in the famous Christopher Walken-Will Ferrell "More Cowbell" bit on Saturday Night Live.

"Godzilla" wasn't too bad – or maybe it's just because I loved singing it whenever Hideki Matsui had a big hit for the Yankees. I have a couple of their later records, but the first three stand head and shoulders above anything else they did.

I must admit that BOC did not always bring out my nobler side.  I left my copy of the first album on the back deck of my 1970 Olds Cutlass Supreme (the smallest engine this two-door coupe came with was a 350 V-8) and the hot Houston sun warped it a bit. I went to the local record and bought a new copy of the album. 

I then returned a few hours later with my warped album and my receipt, claiming that the store had sold me a defective record and demanding a refund. The store manager wouldn't give me a refund, but did allow me to exchange it for a fresh copy of the record. Curses – foiled again. I still have both copies.

The summer after my first year of law school, I worked at a large Houston law firm. I got chummy with one of the secretaries in the department I was assigned to and socialized with her a bit outside of the office. ("Dating," unfortunately, would not be an accurate description of our relationship – much to my chagrin.) Sherry told me that M&Ms went very well with beer – I was skeptical at first, but she turned out to be right – and I responded to that kind gesture with a lie, hoping to impress this fair lady. To be exact, I showed her the computer printouts of the Blue Öyster Cult lyrics, and claimed I had written them.

She probably saw through this pathetic falsehood, but even if she had believed me, did I really think that lines like "Lecherous, invisible/Beware the limping cat" or "Didn't believe it when he bit into her face/It tasted just like a fallen arch" would win her heart? I guess I must have. And that, kind reader, goes a long way to explaining my limited success those days with the fairer sex – even though I was super cute (and have pictures to prove it).

Actually, Sherry did take a liking to "oyster boys," a term used in "Subhuman" – "Oyster boys are swimming now/Hear 'em chatter on the tide/We understand, we understand/But fear is real and so do I." (Say what?)

For some reason, I never bought CD versions of the BOC albums, so I hadn't listened to these songs for years until I got on YouTube in preparation for writing this entry. Whether the band was being serious or just having some fun with the teenaged heavy-metal fans who were too dumb or drug-addled to know it, I think that most of these songs hold up very well.

One final BOC story and then adieu. (I know you wish this post would never end, but my well of BOC material is about to run dry, I fear.)

My favorite author, George Pelecanos, often mentions the names of song titles in his books. "Then Came the Last Days of May," a song from the first BOC album (it's about three friends who are murdered by the confederate who is driving them to the Mexican border to consummate a drug transaction) is mentioned a couple of times in his 2008 novel, The Turnaround.

The key event in The Turnaround (which takes place in 1972) is an ugly confrontation that takes place when three white teenagers insult three black teenagers who are standing on a street corner in a working-class black neighborhood in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC. The driver of the car (a Ford Gran Torino) is the one who precipitates the fight, and he is shot and killed. One of his friends – who tries to prevent the trouble – is badly beaten.

Prior to the incident, there's a scene where the character who is later beaten was listening to the first BOC album in his bedroom, waiting for his girlfriend to call:

He was looking at the Blue Öyster Cult art now, while "Then Came the Last Days of May" played in the room. The song was about the end of something, its tone both ominous and mysterious, and it troubled Alex and excited him. The cover of the record was a black-and-white drawing of a building that stretched out to infinity, stars and a sliver of moon in a black sky above it, and, hovering over the building, a symbol that looked like a hooked cross. The images were unsettling, in keeping with the music, which was heavy, dark, dangerous, and beautiful. This was Alex's favorite new group.

After the incident, Alex goes home to recuperate after a long hospitalization and several reconstructive surgeries.

[H]e listened to his Blue Oyster Cult album incessantly, returning to the song "Then Came the Last Days of May" over and over again. "Three good buddies were laughin' and smokin'/In the back of a rented Ford./They couldn't know they weren't going far." It seemed to have been written for him and his friends.

A couple of years ago, Pelecanos edited an anthology of noir stories set in Washington titled DC Noir 2, and he a couple of the other authors featured in that anthology did a reading at a local bookstore/restaurant.

I bought a copy of the anthology for my older son, who is also a Pelecanos fan, and got all three authors to autograph it after the reading was over. But I also got Pelecanos to autograph the jacket of one of my two copies of the first BOC album, which includes "Then Came the Last Days of May." I'm not sure if it was the one I paid for or the one I exchanged the old warped record for.

To wrap this up, let's go back to the "I'm On The Lamb, But I Ain't No Sheep" lyrics quoted at the very beginning of this hot mess. What is the "Frontenac Chateau" mentioned in that song?

I assume that it's a reference to the Chateau Frontenac, a famous old hotel that dominates the skyline of Quebec City, Canada, and is listed in The Guinness Book of Records as being the most photographed hotel in the world. What this hotel has to do with the song – other than the fact that it is located in Canada – is anybody's guess.

The Chateau Frontenac hotel

Click on the link below to buy "I'm On The Lamb But I Ain't No Sheep":

Led Zeppelin -- "Gallows Pole" (1970)

Oh, yes, you got a fine sister
She warmed my blood from cold, 

Brought my blood to boiling hot 
To keep you from the gallows pole, 

Your brother brought me silver
Your sister warmed my soul, 

But now I laugh and pull so hard
And see you swinging on the gallows pole 

The first two Led Zeppelin albums were monsters, and I played them to death in high school.  Led Zeppelin III was released only a few weeks after I started college, and expectations for it were very high.  

Advance orders for the record were high, and was Billboard's #1-ranked album for four weeks.  But the critics didn't love it, and neither did the fans.  I would guess that you hear its songs on the radio much less frequently than you hear songs from previous and subsequent Led Zeppelin albums.

I guess you could call it the red-headed stepchild of Led Zeppelin albums -- it doesn't get as much love as the band's other albums.  For example, Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums ever places the first Led Zeppelin album at #29, and lists others by the group at #66, #70, #75, and #149.  But Led Zeppelin III doesn't crack the top 500.

(My apologies to those who have red-headed stepchildren and love them very much, or those who are red-headed stepchildren.  But as far as you in the latter group are concerned, I wonder if you're being honest -- are you really loved as much as the cute little blonde your father and stepmother had together?)

(If you think that is a politically incorrect statement, you should know that the original version of this is "beat them like a red-headed stepchild" -- a reference to a lopsided sports victory.  That goes a little far for my taste, so I preferred to say "beat them like a rented mule," which I think is much less offensive.) 

Why does the third Led Zeppelin album get no respect?  Led Zeppelin is sometimes characterized as a heavy metal or hard rock band, but  their music is quite diverse.  They recorded quite a few traditional folk songs, often with acoustic instrumentation.  Led Zeppelin III is viewed as an acoustic album, and it is true that it leaves a very different overall impression than the first two albums.  

The first two Led Zeppelin records also had some acoustic songs, and the third album had several "heavier" electric tracks as well.  What is didn't have was anything like "Whole Lotta Love."  As Robert Plant later said, 

Led Zeppelin III was not one of the best sellers in the catalogue because the audience turned round and said "What are we supposed to do with this?  Where is our 'Whole Lotta Love Part 2'?" They wanted something like "Paranoid" by Black Sabbath!  But we wanted to go acoustic and a piece like "Gallows Pole" still had all the power of "Whole Lotta Love" because it allowed us to be dynamic. 

Bron-Yr-Aur cottage

Many of the songs on the album were created at an 18th-century cottage in Wales called "Bron-Yr-Aur," where Jimmy Page and Robert Plant spent much of the summer of 1970, resting up from a North American concert tour.  The cottage did not have electricity, so Page broke out his acoustic guitar.   

"Gallows Pole" may be largely acoustic -- it uses not only a mandolin but also a banjo (I believe this was the only time Led Zeppelin used a banjo) -- but it sure doesn't sound acoustic.  Like a lot of Led Zeppelin songs, it isn't easy to classify.  I never considered Led Zeppelin one of my particular favorites, and I didn't buy any of their albums after the third one -- but they put out a phenomenal amount of very good and very distinctive music.  

It's not always easy to categorize a Led Zeppelin song -- is it blues? metal? hard rock? folk? -- but it's always easy to recognize a Led Zeppelin song.  They rarely sound like anyone else.  

One more thing before we get to "Gallows Pole."  Do you remember the cover for this album?  It featured a volvelle -- a rotatable paper disc covered with images that showed through the holes on the album cover (which was a gatefold cover -- one that opened up like a book) as you turned the disc.  For example, if you rotated the disc so Jimmy Page's face showed through one of the holes in the cover, you'd see the other band members' faces through the other holes in the cover.  If you turned it a little further, you'd see a whole different set of images.  

"Led Zeppelin III" volvelle

"Gallows Pole" is based on a very old folk song -- there are versions from many different countries (including a reported 50 versions from Finland alone) -- which is commonly referred to as "The Maid Freed from the Gallows."  In the monumental five-volume collection of English and Scottish ballads compiled by 19th-century folklorist Frances James Child, "The Maid Freed from the Gallows" is number 95 -- its variants are numbers 95A through 95K.

The song is generally sung by a young woman who is about to be hanged.  In the English versions, we're not told why.  Child thought the English versions were "defective" on this account.  (European variants usually do explain the reason for the imminent hanging -- often, the woman is being held for ransom by pirates.)  

She begs her executioner to hold off, promising that someone bringing a bribe is about to arrive.  The woman's father, mother, sister, and brother show up one by one, but none bring the gold or silver needed to bribe the hangman.

Eventually, however, the young woman's true love arrives just in the nick of time, bringing enough gold to save her from the gallows pole.  

Legendary folksinger Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter recorded a song titled "Gallis Pole" in the 1930s, and Judy Collins and Bob Dylan also recorded songs based on the folktale.  But the Led Zeppelin version was adapted from the song written by Fred Gerlach, although the credit on the record read "Traditional: arranged by Page and Plant." 

Click here to listen Gerlach performing the song. 

(Led Zeppelin has been accused of plagiarism on numerous occasions.  A few months ago, songwriter Jake Holmes -- who later got into writing jingles, including "Be A Pepper" for Dr. Pepper -- sued Page for copyright infringement, claiming that he wrote "Dazed and Confused" and recorded it two years before it appeared on the first Led Zeppelin album.  Here's a link to Holmes's federal court complaint.)  

In Led Zeppelin's "Gallows Pole," a man (not a woman) is about to be executed.  He is disappointed when his friends arrive without any gold or silver for the hangman -- one explains "We're too damn poor to keep you from the gallows pole."

By the way, here's a photo of a primitive gallows, which may explain why it was known as a gallows pole:

Gallows pole

But the would-be victim's brother and sister come through for him big time.  The brother has some silver and he has some gold.  The sister takes the hangman to a "shady bower" and gives him something that many men rate higher than silver or gold.  (Personally, I rate silver at about 5 and gold at 8.  But being taken to a shady bower by the right sister can sometimes hit 9 or even 10.)

The hangman admits that the sister "warmed his blood to boiling hot" to save her brother from the gallows pole.  But he goes ahead and hangs the poor narrator -- seemingly just for grins.  Or because he can.  He's the hangman, after all. 

Bummer, dude.  MAJOR bummer!     

Here's Led Zeppelin's "Gallows Pole":

Here's Jake Holmes's "Dazed and Confused":

Here's a link you can use to buy the song from iTunes:

Here's a link to use for Amazon:

Rod Stewart -- "Every Picture Tells a Story" (1971)

My body stunk but I kept my funk

At a time when I was right out of luck

If I was ever called on to debate whether the words or the music was the more important element in a rock song, I would choose "music," play this song, and simply declare victory – I wouldn't need to say a thing.  

"Every Picture Tells a Story" – the first track on Rod Stewart's album of the same name – is a great song.  But it has some of the least thoughtful lyrics you will ever want to hear. 

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Every Picture Tells a Story was Rod Stewart's third album, and it was hugely popular, making it to #1 on the Billboard LP chart.  "Maggie May" was on the radio constantly in 1971, and still is.  

I'm pretty sure I got my copy of this record by joining a record club.  Remember when you could get 12 records for a penny (plus about twenty bucks in S&H) as long as you agreed to buy another dozen at full price over the next year?

Hey, when you're a college student, you're usually somewhere else when the next year rolls around.  I didn't know anyone who actually fulfilled his or her obligations to a record club.   I can't imagine how the clubs didn't go bankrupt.  (Maybe they did.)

(I remember joining a record club when I was in high school -- I only got two free records, so the obligations must have been pretty minimal.  The two records were the truly remarkable Surrealistic Pillow, by the Jefferson Airplane, and a record with music from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. television show, which i was crazy about.)

*     *     *     *     *

Rod Stewart put out some appallingly bad records over the course of his career, but even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.

Not surprisingly, this record is uneven and consists of a real grab-bag of songs that have nothing in common.   There are three Stewart originals (the title cut, "Maggie May," and "Mandolin Wind") and a bunch of covers.

The covers include an old blues song ("That's All Right," the first song Elvis Presley ever recorded), an obscure Bob Dylan song, a Tim Hardin song ("Reason to Believe," which was released as a single with "Maggie May" as the B side – who was the clueless dope who made that decision?), and a surprisingly good version of the Temptations' classic, "(I Know) I'm Losing You."  Oh, I almost forgot -- there's a version of "Amazing Grace" as well.  Go figure.

"Every Picture Tells a Story" tells the story of a young man who takes his father's advice to see the world before he gets old, and travels to Paris, Rome, and Peking.  Here's the verse about the Rome part of the trip:

Down in Rome I wasn't getting enough

Of the things that keeps a young man alive

My body stunk but I kept my funk

At a time when I was right out of luck

Getting desperate, indeed I was

Looking like a tourist attraction

Oh, my dear, I better get out of here
For the Vatican don't give no sanction

The double negative doesn't really bother me, but I don't know what to make of lines like "My body stunk but I kept my funk" – especially when you rhyme "funk" with "luck."  

I see only three possible explanations for lyrics like this:

1.  Rod was drinking when he wrote this song.

2.  Rod was up against a tight deadline, and had to write the song in 15 minutes or less.

3.  Rod is taking the piss at our expense.

Believe it or not, the lyrics get even worse as the song progresses.  Here's the next verse:

On the Peking ferry I was feeling merry

Sailing on my way back here

I fell in love with a slit-eyed lady

By the light of an eastern moon

Shanghai Lil never used the pill

She claimed that it just ain't natural

She took me up on deck and bit my neck

Oh people, I was glad I found her 

I suppose we can overlook the oh-so-politically-incorrect "slit-eyed lady" (a term he repeats in the next verse just in case we didn't catch it the first time), but the line about said lady eschewing the use of the birth-control pill because "it just ain't natural" is a real headscratcher.

*     *     *     *     *

Believe it or not, some people think that Rod's lyrics are just Jim Dandy.  

One Rolling Stone reviewer said Stewart's lyrics "are just about the finest lyrics currently being written, lyrics constructed solidly of strong, straightforward images that convey intense emotions."  (Say what?) 

Speaking about this song in particular, that reviewer went on to say, "Where [Stewart's] momentarily intent on rhyme things get a trifle forced here and there (as when he mates Rome and none), but such objections evaporate instantly in the face of such delightful lines as: 'Shanghai Lil never used the pill/She said, "It just ain't natural!"'"  You have GOT to be kidding me.  (Sorry about all those quotation marks, by the way – very confusing.)

Another Rolling Stone writer (Greil Marcus, a scholarly sort who is widely considered to be one of the most thoughtful rock music critics to ever put pen to paper) was even more enthusiastic:

Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story" is the greatest rock & roll recording of the last ten years.  It is a mature tale of adolescence, full of revelatory detail (Rod combing his hair a thousand different ways in front of the mirror), and it contains the only reference to the Dreyfus case in the history of rock.  It is also hilarious, and one of the friendliest pieces of music ever recorded.  It is rock & roll of utterly unbelievable power, and for most of its five minutes and fifty-eight seconds that power is supplied by nothing more than drums, bass, acoustic guitar and Rod's voice.  [Drummer] Mick Waller should have received the Nobel Prize – in physics, of course – for his demolition work at the end of the first verse; Martin Quittenton's acoustic guitar playing is well beyond any human award – for that matter, it is beyond human ken.

An editor should have dumped a bucket of Gatorade on Professor Marcus and told him to tone down his overheated prose.  I certainly agree with him with regard to the drumming and the acoustic guitar work on this record.  But "the only reference to the Dreyfus case"?  I have no clue.

  

Finally, we get to these lines, which bring the song to a close:

I couldn't quote you no Dickens, Shelley or Keats

'Cause it's all been said before

Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off

You didn't have to come here anyway

I hate to sound pedantic, but no one who knows anything about literature would write a line like "I couldn't quote you no Dickens, Shelley, or Keats," and I ain't talking about no double negative neither.  

John Keats (1795-1821)

The line is like one of those which-thing-doesn't-belong questions on the SAT.  Having said that, I have to admit that I haven't really come up with a very good alternative to Stewart's line.  I think you have to get Shakespeare in there, and maybe a poet – say, Wordsworth – and a novelist.  Maybe Mark Twain?  "I couldn't quote you no Shakespeare, Wordsworth, or Twain"?  It's an odd threesome, I admit, but they are each very quotable – and their names have the right number of syllables.

Click here to listen to "Every Picture Tells a Story."

Click below if you'd like to buy the record from Amazon: