Flamin' Groovies -- "Yes I Am" (1979)

Feeling like I'm ten feet tall

You know I'm not the same old man

As you may know, the month of January -- which begins tomorrow -- got its name from Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions.

Janus is always depicted as having two faces -- one looking backward into the past, and one looking forward into the future. 

Janus

Keep Janus in mind as you read the final 2 or 3 lines post of 2013 and the first post of 2014, which will appear in a few days. 

* * * * *

The starting point for 2 or 3 lines way back in 2009 was a local radio show called "The Mystic Eyes."

That show has been off the air for over 30 years, but it continues to play a major role in not only the life of 2 or 3 lines, but also in my life.  It's my personal equivalent of Charles Swann's madeleines.  

In fact, the most significant music-related event of 2013 for me took place as a direct result of my recording many hours of "The Mystic Eyes" program in 1980.  

One of the songs that was featured regularly on that program was "Washingtron," by Tru Fax and the Insaniacs, a local band that was at the height of its popularity then.  

"Washingtron" quickly became a favorite of mine thanks to the very clever lyrics, including these:

I used to work as a waitron

In the lounge of the Hiltron

Now I work for my Senatron

And I live in Arlingtron

I'm just a Washingtron

I featured "Washingtron" on this blog on May 9, 2010.  Here's a link to that post.

The day after that post appeared, Michael Mariotte -- the Tru Fax drummer -- posted a link to 2 or 3 lines on the band's Facebook page, and wrote this comment: "New blog posting on Tru Fax; not sure who these people are, but it's an entertaining blog."

That post attracted the attention of another blogger who arranged for a friend to digitize the dozens of "Mystics Eyes" cassette tapes I had recorded in 1980.

I also got an e-mail from Lynda Cokinos, whose "DC Rocks" blog is an invaluable resource for people who want to keep up with the Washington-area live music scene.  Lynda, who had also heard about my "Washingtron" post from Michael Mariotte, congratulated me on my "cool" blog and alerted me to the existence of hers.  Here's a link to "DC Rocks."

* * * * *

Fast forward to November 4, 2013.  The "DC Rocks" post that day was about an upcoming Washington appearance of the Flamin' Groovies, one of my favorite bands ever.

As you more dedicated readers of 2 or 3 lines will recall, I hold "Shake Some Action" by the Flamin' Groovies in such high regard that I chose it to be the 500th song featured on my wildly popular blog.  

Click here to read part one of that three-part post, which featured an interview with Groovies' frontman Chris Wilson and an appreciation by Joe Nolte of The Last (whose "She Don't Know Why I'm Here" was the very first song I ever wrote about for 2 or 3 lines).  Click here to read part two.  Click here to read part three.

Washington's 9:30 Club provided Lynda Cokinos with two free tickets to the Flamin' Groovies show, and Lynda's November 4 post offered to give those tickets away to a lucky reader of "DC Rocks."  All you had to do was submit an e-mail with the word "GROOVY" in the subject box, and hope that you were the lucky fan whose name was drawn out of a hat.

Imagine my surprise when I found an e-mail from Lynda informing me that I had won the free ducats.  Winner, winner, chicken dinner! 

My karma has been exceptionally good recently.  I would have gone to the show regardless, but winning free tickets made it seem like it was destined that I attend.

There was one slight complication.  I had won two tickets, and it seemed a shame to waste the second one.  

The only person in my family who would have any interest in the Flamin' Groovies was my oldest son, Nick.  I had taken him to see the Offspring and Sonic Youth when he was a teenager, and he had taken me to a Mission of Burma show a few years ago.  Unfortunately, he is a very busy young lawyer, and was going to be out of town on business the night of the Groovies' show.

Cyril Jordan (L) and Chris Wilson (R)
of the Flamin' Groovies

I thought about various friends and acquaintances who might have an interest in the Groovies, but there were no obvious choices.

Suddenly, I had a "Eureka!" moment.  I would invite the lead singer/guitarist of Tru Fax and the Insaniacs, Diana Quinn, to the concert. 

I honestly figured there was no way Diana would accept.  After all, I had never met her -- I had never even spoken to her via e-mail -- and I assumed that an invitation from a total stranger coming out of the blue like this would be turned down or even ignored.  (There I go assuming things again!)  

Rejection wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world: even if she did say "No," I would have made her acquaintance and hopefully paved the way for a future 2 or 3 lines interview.  (I go to incredible lengths for you, dear readers.)

However, Diana threw a big-ass spanner into the works by actually saying "Yes" to my invitation.  My best-laid scheme had gang aft agley big time!  

* * * * *

Fast forward once more -- this time to November 12, 2013.  

The Groovies took the stage at the U Street Music Hall at about 8 pm.  I came to the concert bearing gifts for Diana Quinn: a homemade CD with Flamin' Groovies music and a copy of the "Mystic Eyes Greatest Hits" cassette tape I had created 30 years previously -- which of course included "Washingtron."

Also in attendance at the concert that night was Steve Lorber, the "Mystic Eyes" DJ, and my benefactress -- Lynda Cokinos of "DC Rocks."  Mark Noone -- the lead singer of the legendary DC punk-garage band, the Slickee Boys -- was there as well, as was Kim Kane, the Slickee Boys' guitarist.

Diana Quinn, Mark Noone, and Lynda Cokinos

I was agog at this extraordinary collection of local celebrities.  But my excitement was offset by feelings of regret -- regret that I hadn't jumped into the Washington live music scene decades previously.

There was no excuse for my failure to launch.  I worked at the Federal Trade Commission in 1980, and my office was only a few blocks from the 9:30 Club, which was ground zero for alternative music in your nation's capital in the eighties and early nineties. 

I could have been there several nights a week, watching some truly great groups -- including touring bands like X, the Bangles, Hüsker Dü, the Butthole Surfers, the Go-Go's, and Black Flag, and local bands like Fugazi, Minor Threat, the Insect Surfers, the Urban Verbs, Tru Fax and the Insaniacs, and the Slickee Boys (who performed at the 9:30 no fewer than 81 times).

I would have shed a tear for my misspent youth, but I was having too good a time talking to Diana Quinn and all her musical friends and listening to the fabulous music of the Chris Wilson-era Flamin' Groovies -- which one reviewer has described as the only group other than the Beach Boys who were playing sixties-sounding pop music in the seventies.

After the Groovies closed the show with a spirited rendition of "Shake Some Action," we hung around until Cyril Jordan (the band's co-founder and guitarist) and Chris Wilson (the group's longtime lead singer) came out from their dressing room to sign autographs and greet their fans.

Flamin' Groovies frontman
Chris Wilson with yours truly

Chris greeted me enthusiastically, and said some very kind things about my interview with him.  

I then complimented him on the Groovies' cover of the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash."  Some know-it-all fan jumped in to our conversation and told Chris that he had heard that song had been inspired by a particular London street musician, but Chris corrected him -- prefacing his explanation with these words: "Actually, my buddy Keith Richards told me that . . . ."  

I stopped listening to his explanation at that point -- the realization that I was one degree of separation from Keith Richards was too overwhelming for me to handle.

All in all, the evening was great.  Diana was as much fun as a barrel of monkeys, which may have been due in large part to the fact that she pounded down at least five beers in about two hours.  (I only had three beers during the evening.  To be fair, I was drinking Belgian-style ales, which had a lot more alcohol than the light beers she favored.  On the other hand, I weighed twice as much as she did, so I should have been able to absorb a lot more beer than Diana without showing the effects.)

Diana Quinn with beer
 in hand (as usual)

All the beer was largely responsible for us getting completely lost going home on the Washington Metro after the show.  But there were factors other than alcohol contributing to our long and winding subway odyssey -- primarily my tendency to assume too much.  And as everyone knows, when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me.

One thing I assumed that evening was that Diana was a regular Metro rider, and that she would know what train to take to get home.  But I was sadly mistaken.  

You see, Diana performs regularly in three different bands, and is also a producer/writer for CBS News.  So she is kind of a big deal.

Diana is such a big deal, in fact, that she apparently never rides the subway like we hoi polloi do.  Perhaps she just keeps a big stack of fifties in her purse that she dispenses promiscuously to the Washington cab drivers who service her transportation needs.  Or maybe she has a limo, or a helicopter.

Whatever the reason, she followed me on to a subway train that was going in exactly the opposite direction from her destination with nary a protest.  And as my 8th-grade government teacher used to say, "When the blind lead the blind, we all go into the ditch together."

Eventually I managed to get Diana on the right train.  Sometime after that, I managed to get myself on the right subway line as well -- barely making the last Metro train of the evening.

As Shakespeare once said, all's well that ends well.  But all would have been even weller if it had ended a couple of hours earlier.

I subsequently interviewed Diana Quinn, and you'll be able to read that interview in the first 2 or 3 lines of 2014.  [NOTE: Due to circumstances beyond my control, the Diana Quinn interview actually appeared in the second 2 or 3 lines of 2014.]

"Yes I Am" was released on Jumpin' in the Night, the second of three Groovies albums that were released by Sire Records in the late 1970s.

Those albums contain a number of fabulous British invasion-style songs, and it wasn't easy to choose to feature in this post.  But "Yes I Am" is not only a great song but also was one of the songs the band performed live the night I saw them.  That sort of clinched the deal.

Here's "Yes I Am":

Click here if you'd like he song from Amazon:

Goldfinger -- "Here in Your Bedroom" (1996)

When I wake up tomorrow

Will you have changed?

'Cause I still feel the same

I would have featured this song on 2 or 3 lines long before now except that I was sure that I had already featured this song on 2 or 3 lines long before now.  Does that make sense?

Before you answer, let me rephrase that question.  Does that make sense according to the rather peculiar logic that applies on 2 or 3 lines?

OMG, this is such a fabulous song I don't know what to do with myself!

This blog is ostensibly about song lyrics -- the title is 2 or 3 lines, after all . . . not 2 or 3 notes, or 2 or 3 chords, or 2 or 3 hooks.  But I can deal with blah lyrics if the music is great -- vice versa, not so much.

There's not a lot to the lyrics of this song.  The singer is a guy who is lying in bed with a woman, wondering what she is thinking about and how she will feel about him tomorrow.  (In other words, is he going to get any more somethin'-somethin', or did he just drill a dry hole?)

He's not really sure what he thinks about it all either; in fact, he sings (twice), "I don't know what I'm thinking."  However, he is sure that he will feel the same tomorrow.  (Go figure.)

That's pretty much the whole song in terms of lyrics.  There's not much of a narrative to sink your teeth into, and no real poetry to deconstruct.

But the music is (in the words of Allmusic) "irresistibly catchy" and "hopelessly endearing."  (Hey, that sounds a lot like 2 or 3 lines!)

"Here in Your Bedroom" was released on Goldfinger's eponymous debut album in 1996.  (Appearing on an eponymous debut album is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for a song to be featured on 2 or 3 lines, but it sure as hell don't hurt.)  That album helped kick off a mini-ska/punk movement in the U.S.

I'm not a big fan of ska generally -- most ska musicians dress kind of stupid, and are very annoying with all their jumping and twitching.  (You'll see what I mean when you watch the music video for this song.)

But the ska elements of "Here in Your Bedroom" -- primarily the drumming style, but also the on-the-upbeat rhythm guitar -- makes this song much more appealing than it would have been without the ska feel.  

It's too early to end this post, but I don't really have anything more to say.  Let me check Wikipedia and see if I can find anything worth mentioning.

Goldfinger lead singer (and animal
rights activist) John Feldman

Hmmmmm . . . hey, here's something.  Lead singer John Feldmann and bass player Simon Williams, who founded the band in 1994, met when they were both working at the same shoe store.  That's pretty interesting, huh?

OK . . . I'm got a plane to catch early in the morning, so that's going to have to do it for now.

But if it will make you happier, I'll drop in this quote from philosopher George Santayana, which I had planned to use in the upcoming 2 or 3 lines, but then decided to cut because it was so pointless:

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness.  When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual.  Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Got that?  It will make more sense after you read the next 2 or 3 lines.

Let me rephrase that statement.  It will make more sense according to the rather peculiar logic that applies on 2 or 3 lines.

Here's "Here in Your Bedroom":

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

Only Ones -- "The Beast" (1978)

Out in the streets

The modern vampire prowls

He's been spreading disease

Edward FitzGerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám contains these famous lines:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

The same could be said of my humble second-generation iPod "Shuffle."  When it exercises its unfathomable logic to choose a song to play for me, neither my "Piety nor [my] Wit" (I don't have much of the former, and have much less of the latter than my vanity would have me believe) can cancel that song from my mind -- nor can all my tears (I do have more of those than you might think) wash out a word of its lyrics.

But there is one difference between Omar Khayyám's "Moving Finger" and my iPod.  Having played a song, my iPod does not necessarily move on.  If you hit the correct button, it will take you back to the beginning of that song -- over and over and over again . . . as many times as you wish.

When "The Beast" was served up to me by my iPod on one of my recent daily walks, I didn't move on at all.  In fact, I listened to it again and again -- eight or so times in a row.  If my walk hadn't ended when it did, I'm sure I would have kept listening.

My sentient iPod

This happens to me every so often.  When it does, I know what I need to do -- which is to get that bad boy up on 2 or 3 lines immediately.  Once I have done that, my "moving fingers" (I use two of them when I type) can move on -- more importantly, so can my little obsessive-compulsive brain.  

(Who am I kidding?  I don't really believe it's little at all.)

"The Beast" begins with a two-measure guitar figure, which is repeated eight times.  Lead singer Peter Perrett sort of comes out of nowhere to deliver the first verse:

Run from the beast

There's danger in his eyes

He's been looking for you

For a long time

You might think this is funny

But I'm not laughing

I'm not laughing either, and neither will you be laughing -- especially after you hear the second verse:

Out in the streets

The modern vampire prowls

He's been spreading disease

All around

There's an epidemic

If you don't believe me

You ought to take a look at the eyes of your friends

The image of the "modern vampire" prowling the streets and spreading disease is bad enough.  But what's most threatening is what you can see in the eyes of your friends.  If the epidemic is visible in the eyes of your friends, it's way too close to you for comfort.

The Only Ones (circa 1978)

The real problem is that the disease is not just dangerous but also seductive -- its victims open the door and invite the beast to come inside for a nice cuppa:

When someone tempts you, you can't refuse

It's getting colder and you know you got nothing to lose

You need it

Perrett then repeats the first verse (with a small variation), beseeching his audience once again to "run from the beast."  But his heart isn't really in it -- he knows that many will fail to heed his warnings:

You can lead a horse to water

But you can't make him drink

There's really nothing more to say, and the final line of the song -- which stands alone -- is a cry of despair uttered by a modern-day Cassandra whose prophecy is being ignored:

There's no cure!

That line is followed by an instrumental outro that features a searing guitar solo that always leaves me feeling a little drained, but nonetheless eager to go back to the beginning and the whole thing one more time.

Let's listen to the "The Beast" before discussing what it all means:

After hearing "The Beast" a couple of times, I jumped to the conclusion that it was about AIDS.  

That was undoubtedly influenced by the fact that I lived in San Francisco from November 1980 until March 1982.  The city had a large population of gay males, and many of them were about as "out" as "out" could be in those days.  (There were many lesbians in San Francisco then as well, but as a group they were much less vocal and flamboyant about their sexuality.)

The bus I took to my office traversed Polk Gulch, which had been the city's most visibly gay neighborhood for a number of years.  (The neighborhood gets its name from Polk Street, which was jokingly referred to as "Poke Street" in those days.)  I remember riding past packed gay bars on my way home from work, and I particularly remember one local fetishwear store: Hard On Leather.

There was plenty of promiscuity in San Francisco in 1980 -- not only among gay males, of course, although they got most of the attention.  

But attitudes began to change shortly thereafter.  The reason for that, obviously, was AIDS -- acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

In April 1980, the first recognized case of AIDS in the United States was reported to the Center for Disease Control.  The victim was a young gay man.

Shortly after I arrived in San Francisco later that year, gay males began to die from AIDS. 

At first, the numbers were quite small.  In 1981, 121 Americans died from the disease.  In 1982, there were 618 deaths from AIDS.

AIDS awareness marchers in San Francisco (1983)

But in 1986, the death toll was 24,559 -- which rose to 156,413 in 1991 and 410,800 in 1998.  In 2004, 529,113 Americans died from AIDS.

I subsequently found out that "The Beast" was released in 1978.  So it could not have been about AIDS.  In fact, Peter Parrett was singing about drugs.

The band recorded three albums in as many years, but broke up a few months after touring the U.S. with the Who in 1980.  The primary reason for the band's demise?  Frontman Perrett's heroin addiction had a lot to do with it.  (Perrett later became a crack addict.)

From the British newspaper, The Guardian:

Plenty of rock bands have taken drugs, but the Only Ones' story is utterly bound up with them.  Initially, the band were partly funded by Perrett's dealing: he was first spurred to commit their music to tape when he thought he was going to prison after his hash-selling operation was busted in 1976. . . . One book on the band claims John Perry's guitar sound was altered dramatically by his decision to hollow out the instrument to smuggle drugs through customs while on tour.  And drugs eventually brought about their demise, during a disastrous US tour during which, Perrett says, "lots of stupid things happened."

For once, his frankness slips into charming understatement: the "stupid things" involved Perrett contracting hepatitis, getting caught up in a drive-by shooting and deliberately running over a car park attendant and fleeing the country shortly before a warrant was issued for his arrest on charges of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon.

"Because I loved the music so much, I put up with the drugs for a long time," says [Only Ones bassist Alan] Mair, who remained the solitary rock of sobriety in the band.  "But towards the end of that tour, it became evident that everybody was taking the same drugs except me, and I just thought, that's enough. My future was in the hands of people who had lost the plot."

The band reformed in 2006, which surprised many given the level of acrimony among the group's members when they broke up.  I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder.  

Here's "The Beast" again:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Miley Cyrus -- "We Can't Stop" (2013)

We run things

Things don’t run we

I've decided that it is time for 2 or 3 lines to take a position on Miley Cyrus.  

(Hahahahaha, you're very funny -- yes, I did think about making that joke that you just thought of.)

Did you catch Miley's performance with Robin Thicke at the 2013 Video Music Awards?  (You'll definitely wanna go full-screen on this video.)

Get More: 2013 VMA, Artists.MTV, Music, Miley Cyrus

What do you think is the most appalling element of Miley's performance?  

Her hair?

Her Chuck E. Cheese outfit?

Her giant foam finger?

(By the way, what's with Miley's tongue?  It seems to have a mind of its own.)

Her touching Robin Thicke's crotch with that big foam finger?

Her enthusiastic twerking against said crotch?

Holy moly!  How did a mere 20-year-old -- and a 20-year-old who spent her formative teenage years on the Disney Channel -- become such a gynormous slut?  

XXL, a hip-hop magazine, called Miley's performance "a true trainwreck in the classic sense of the word as the audience reaction seemed to be a mix of confusion, dismay and horror in a cocktail of embarrassment."  

That wasn't my reaction -- not by a long shot.  I didn't experience one iota of confusion, dismay, or (especially) horror at her performance.

Instead, I experienced the kind of gleeful excitement that only a pop music blogger who is committed to write three posts a week and often has absolutely no idea where the next one is coming from can understand what I felt when this dropped into my lap like manna from heaven.  (If this post doesn't generate click numbers beyond my wildest dreams, I'll be surprised.)

If the Video Music Awards performance wasn't enough, there's the music video for Miley's #1 single, "Wrecking Ball," which currently has over 426 million views on Vevo.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about "Wrecking Ball":  

Upon its release, "Wrecking Ball" received generally mixed reviews from music critics who were ambivalent towards its lyrical content and overall production.

You have GOT to be kidding me.  Have these critics watched the "Wrecking Ball" video, which is divided pretty equally between shots of Miley licking the head of a sledgehammer and riding a wrecking ball in her birthday suit.

The former:

The latter:

Did you hear what I said?  She is swinging on a wrecking ball nekkid as a jaybird -- and music critics are worried about her song's "lyrical content" and "overall production"?

And then there's this outfit.  (Does this girl have parents?  A manager?  A super-ego?)

I feel sorry for the Kardashian/Jenner sisters in this photo.  Someone as megaslutty as Miley makes it tough for regular sluts to compete:

Not to mention these pictures.  (What the hell is going on here?)

Where is she getting her fashion advice?  From Larry Flynt?  Ike Turner?  (Ike's dead, you say?)

And then there's her famous "nipple tweet":

Click here to read a Los Angeles Times story about that tweet.  That story -- which is headlined "The real story behind Miley Cyrus's 'Free the Nipple' tweet" -- ends with this mind-boggling line:

Say what you will about Miley Cyrus, but she's starting to look like a feminist hero to me.

"Feminist hero"?  Really?  ("Dirty old man hero," maybe.)

Excuse me, but I need to lie down for a few moments with a cool washcloth on my forehead.

* * * * *

That's better.  My blood pressure did get just a tad high for a moment or two, but everything's back to normal now.  

Anywho . . . By the way, how's your blood pressure these days?  1o5 over 75?  Hey, that's very good!  But your blood pressure isn't what this post is all about, is it?

No, it's not.  Miley Cyrus is what this post is all about, and I'm betting her blood pressure is perfectly normal.  Miley's problem is not high blood pressure.

Miley's problem is that Satan is currently in residence in her brain, her heart, her soul, and  -- last but certainly not least -- her nether regions.

You don't have to take my word for it.  Just watch the "We Can't Stop" video.  As my mother would say, "It's . . . different."

Here's what Idolator -- a music website that sounds like it is well-acquainted with Satan, too -- had to say about that video:

Have you watched Miley Cyrus's "We Can't Stop" music video yet?  Of course you have!  Have you recovered from it yet?  Probably not!  And that’s OK — a french fry skull is not for the faint of heart.  But you have to admit, if art is supposed to elicit reactions, than this video did its job.  Our own Sam Lansky said the visual is “like a party at Terry Richardson‘s house as filmed by David Fincher that you’re watching after drinking an entire bottle of Robitussin.”  We think that’s just about the most accurate description out there.  Also, he meant that as a total compliment.  

So does 2 or 3 lines, Miley.  Honest!

Click here to join the 315 million people who have viewed the official music video for "We Can't Stop":

Click here to buy the song from Amazon:

Robin Thicke (ft. Black Thought) -- "Blurred Lines" (2013)

Good girlfriends, I've had a few

But the best girlfriend I ever had is you 

Let's start this post off with an inspirational quote from Edward Gibbon, author of the groundbreaking historical work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. 

Substitute "blog" for "book," and . . . welcome to 2 or 3 lines!

Robin Thicke recently performed "Blurred Lines" with Jimmy Fallon and his house band, the Roots, on Fallon's late-night show on NBC.  The  thing that makes that performance so charming is that the Roots and Fallon accompanied Thicke on toy instruments like those you might find in an elementary-school classroom:

Fallon is a total douche.  For one thing, he broke the heart of a young female lawyer at my law firm.  But much more importantly, he's a Red Sox fan, or at least he played a Red Sox fan in a movie, which is close enough for government work.  

However, he has a great house band in the Roots and he has a lot of cool musical guests.

Tariq Luqmaan Trotter -- who goes by the nom de hip-hop "Black Thought" -- is the lead MC and co-founder (with drummer Ahmir Thompson, a/k/a/ "Questlove") of the Roots.  The lines quoted above come from Black Thought's freestyle rap during Thicke's performance on Fallon's show.

Black Thought and Questlove

I'm using Black Thought's lines rather than lines form the rap verse of the original recording of "Blurred Lines," which was contributed by our old favorite, T.I.

T.I. usually doesn't pull any punches, and he certainly doesn't on his "Blurred Lines" verse, which starts off like this:

One thing I ask you

Let me be the one you back that ass into

Things go straight downhill from there, I'm afraid, so I used Black Thought's lines instead -- if they are clean enough for NBC's lawyers, they're clean enough for 2 or 3 lines.

Robin Thicke gets twerked

Here are the first four lines of Black Thought's freestyle rap for "Blurred Lines":

Good girlfriends, I had a few

But the best girlfriend I ever had is you

I thank God for my blessings, it began with you

So I put a ring on it and I married you

As you regular readers know, 2 or 3 lines has the utmost affection and respect for girlfriends.  Click here if you doubt me.  But girlfriends and wives are two very different things, and just because you can handle one of those roles well doesn't mean you can handle the other.

Former president Bill Clinton has this to say about girlfriends and wives:

I'm not saying that Black Thought will be sorry for putting a ring on it.  I'm just saying that the words below are just as true now as they were when English author John Heywood wrote them in 1546:

And though they seeme wives for you never so fit,
Yet let not harmfull haste so far out run your wit:
But that ye harke to heare all the whole summe
That may please or displease you in time to cumme.
Thus by these lessons ye may learne good cheape
In wedding and all things to looke ere ye leaped  

(They obviously didn't have spell checkers back in 1546.)

Here's the official music video for "Blurred Lines," which has attracted 237 million viewers on Youtube:

Here's a video of Thicke's performance of an excerpt from "Blurred Lines" at the Video Music Awards.  He got a little help from Miley Cyrus.  (The video begins with Miley performing "We Can't Stop" solo, and then segues into a "Blurred Lines" duet with Thicke about three minutes in.)

Get More: 2013 VMA, Artists.MTV, Music, Miley Cyrus

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Rolling Stones (ft. Merry Clayton) -- "Gimme Shelter" (1969)

Rape, murder!

It's just a shot away!

Great art often comes at a great cost.  But rarely does an artist pay a price as high as backup singer Merry Clayton paid the night she recorded the stunning vocal that made "Gimme Shelter" so extraordinary.

The great rock critic, Greil Marcus, once said that "the Stones have never done anything better" than "Gimme Shelter," which is the opening track – and the best track – on the Rolling Stones' best album, Let It Bleed.  

"Gimme Shelter" begins with a nervous, twitchy guitar solo by Keith Richards (who turned 70 two days ago), but then drummer Charlie Watts – always unsung, but perhaps the most essential of all the Stones – takes over, propelling the song down the tracks as only he can.  Mick Jagger's lead vocal is unusually strong, but the crucial element of "Gimme Shelter" – the one thing that lifts it above just about anything else the Stones ever recorded – is backup singer Merry Clayton.

Here's a photo of a portion of the inner sleeve of my copy of Let It Bleed.  Note the two misspellings:  "Gimmie Shelter" and "Mary Clayton":

You could say that "Gimme Shelter" and the Beatles' "Helter Skelter" are fraternal twins.  Their message is the message of William Butler Yeats' masterpiece, "The Second Coming":

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world

Musical anarchy is loosed upon the world when backup singer Merry Clayton tears "Gimme Shelter" a new you-know-what about 2:45 into the song.

Click here to listen to "Gimme Shelter."

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Merry Clayton got her start with Ray Charles, and later sang backing vocals for Joe Cocker, Tom Jones, and Lynyrd Skynyrd ("Sweet Home Alabama").  She is featured in 20 Feet From Stardom, a documentary I recently saw in an almost completely empty movie theater in Washington, DC.  (It was just me and one other person in the whole theater.) 

The movie focuses on a half-dozen or so female backup singers who made their names singing on soul and rock albums in the sixties and seventies – including not only Clayton, but also Darlene Love (who sang on dozens of Phil Spector records, often without being credited), Lisa Fischer (who has accompanied the Stones on every one of their tours since 1989), and Claudia Lennear (a former Ike and Tina Turner "Ikette" who also backed up Joe Cocker and Leon Russell, and was the inspiration for the Stones' "Brown Sugar").

Here's the trailer for the movie:

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Clayton and the Stones didn't know each other before she was picked to do the backing vocal that made her famous.  Years later, she told an interviewer about the night she was called and asked to sing on "Gimme Shelter":

Well, I’m at home at . . . almost 12 o’clock at night.  And I’m hunkered down in my bed with my husband, very pregnant, and we got a call from a dear friend of mine and producer named Jack Nitzsche.  Jack Nitzsche called and said you know, "Merry, are you busy?"  I said, "No, I’m in bed."  He says, well, you know, "There are some guys in town from England.  And they need someone to come and sing a duet with them, but I can’t get anybody to do it.  Could you come?" He said, "I really think this would be something good for you." 

Merry Clayton then

Clayton's husband talked her into going down to the studio – she claims she had no idea who the Stones were.  When she showed up, Keith Richards explained what they were looking for her to do:

I said, "Well, play the track. It’s late. I’d love to get back home." So they play the track and tell me that I’m going to sing – this is what you’re going to sing: "Oh, children, it’s just a shot away." . . . I said, "Well, that’s cool."  So I did the first part, and we got down to the rape, murder part.  And I said, "Why am I singing 'rape, murder'?" . . . They told me the gist of what the lyrics were, and I said, "Oh, okay, that’s cool." 

Merry Clayton now

So then I had to sit on a stool because I was a little heavy in my belly.  I mean, it was a sight to behold.  And we got through it.  And then we went in the booth to listen, and I saw them hooting and hollering while I was singing, but I didn’t know what they were hooting and hollering about.  And when I got back in the booth and listened, I said, "Ooh, that’s really nice."  They said, well, "You want to do another?"  I said, well, "I’ll do one more," I said, "and then I’m going to have to say thank you and good night."  I did one more, and then I did one more.  So it was three times I did it, and then I was gone.  The next thing I know, that’s history.

Click here to listen to Clayton's isolated vocal track from that recording session.  Listen to her voice crack – and listen to the reaction from the Stones.

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Shortly after leaving the studio that night, Merry Clayton suffered a miscarriage and lost her child.  

“That was a dark, dark period for me,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 1986, “but God gave me the strength to overcome it.  I turned it around.  I took it as life, love and energy and directed it in another direction, so it doesn’t really bother me to sing ‘Gimme Shelter’ now.”

Merry Clayton later recorded "Gimme Shelter" on her 1970 solo album of the same name.  Click here to listen to her version of the song.

Click here to watch a video of Lady Gaga doing "Gimme Shelter" with the Stones at a benefit concert in 2012.  I wouldn't say it's bad, but I wouldn't say it's good either.

Click on the link below to buy the original "Gimme Shelter" from Amazon: