Elephant's Memory – "Jungle Gym at the Zoo" (1969)

Baby, you’re an animal

And I guess I’m just a cannibal

“Old Man Willow” by Elephant’s Memory was featured on the soundtrack of the Academy Award-winning movie Midnight Cowboy, which was the subject of the last 2 or 3 lines.  

After re-watching that movie recently, I realized that I had the entire Elephant’s Memory album that included “Old Man Willow” on my computer – and that I used to listen to that album on my iPod years ago.  

I had a silver one and a green one

I still don’t understand why Apple stopped selling iPods.  (I LOVED my iPod Shuffle – it was perfect for bike rides.). As late as 2008, the iPod was Apple’s best-selling product.  It was responsible for 42% of Apple’s revenue in the first quarter of that year – more than Apple realized from computer sales. 

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No one remembers Elephant’s Memory today, but their eponymous debut album – which was released in 1969 – is GREAT!

Here’s what rock music critic Richie Unterberger had to say about that album:

An elephant’s memory is legendarily large, and so was the size and scope of the New York band that went by the same name.  Unlike some other horn-rock ensembles of the late-‘60s that took advantage of the freedom to expand rock’s size and sound, however, Elephant’s Memory weren’t merely a rock band with jazz overtones.  

There was plenty of pile-driving rock’n’roll, and a good deal of jazz of both the free and big band varieties.  But there was also soul, spaced-out psychedelia, and pop – not just over the course of the entire album, but sometimes within the space of a single song – and what can only be described as downright strange lyrics about hot dog men, yogurt, love as a jungle gym, and “Old Man Willow.”  [NOTE: I don’t think “The Yogurt Song’ was really about yogurt.]  

Some of it was written by [Tony Visconti,] who’d go on to produce David Bowie, some of it would end up on the soundtrack to the classic movie Midnight Cowboy, and the whole shebang was produced by [Wes Farrell,] who’d go on to produce the Partridge Family.  

If Elephant’s Memory were a strange band, they were certainly no stranger than their surroundings, with second-degree-separations between the careers of not only Bowie, Midnight Cowboy star Dustin Hoffman, and the Partridge Family, but also the Beatles and Carly Simon.  [NOTE: Simon was the group’s original lead vocalist, but left before their debut album was recorded.]

Even by the standards of the late 1960’s, which saw some of the strangest and most genre-bending rock albums ever, Elephant’s Memory is a strange animal. . . .

Even the relatively straightforward R&B-soaked tunes were apt to take weird left turns, like the guttural nonsense chanting and siren-like scatting that interrupt “Don’t Put Me on Trial No More”; the “Baby, you’re an animal/And I guess I’m just a cannibal” refrain of “Jungle Gym at the Zoo”; the low moans on “Takin’ a Walk” that sounded like the mating of a vacuum cleaner with an actual elephant; and the hippie marching-band anthem ethos of “Band of Love.”  

And there was “Hot Dog Man,” where actual street conversations between the band and hot dog vendors were interlaced with hot funk licks and cheerleading-like chants from the band mimicking the hot dog men's sales pitch.

The music on Elephant’s Memory is weird, but it’s also very listenable.  If my iPod hadn’t given up the ghost a decade or so ago, I’d strap it on and listen to it right now.

[NOTE:  It is much easier to quote a lot of sh*t someone else wrote than it is to write sh*t yourself.]

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Click here to listen to “Jungle Gym at the Zoo,” which is featured on the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack.

Click here to buy the recording from Amazon.

Elephant's Memory – "Old Man Willow" (1969)

He just wants to get out of the sun

And find a place where he can go to sleep

Fun fact about the 1969 movie, Midnight Cowboy: it’s the only X-rated film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.  (Coincidentally, Oliver! – which was released the previous year – is the only G-rated movie to win a Best Picture Oscar.)

Actually, Midnight Cowboy wasn’t really an X-rated movie.  The head of the studio that produced it assumed it would be rated X, so he didn’t bother submitting it to the Motion Picture Association of America for an official rating – he simply put an X rating on it himself.  Two years later, the MPAA gave the movie an R rating without even being asked.

If you’d like to learn more about the making of Midnight Cowboy, I highly recommend Glenn Frankel’s 2021 book, Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation and the Making of a Dark Classic.

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The old X rating (which was renamed NC-17 in 1990) eventually became exclusively associated with porn movies.  But before that happened, several well-respected directors made X-rated movies, including Nicholas Roeg (Performance), Stanley Kubrick  (Clockwork Orange), and Bernardo Bertolucci (Last Tango in Paris).

Sam Peckinpah’s greatest movie, The Wild Bunch, was originally rated R when it was released in 1969.  Warner Bros. decided to do a 25th anniversary re-release in 1994, and resubmitted the movie to the MPAA – which rated it NC-17 for some reason.  After a year of bitching and moaning by the studio, the MPAA agreed to give the movie an R rating – clearing the way for the 26th anniversary re-release of The Wild Bunch.

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Midnight Cowboy and The Wild Bunch weren’t the only notable movies to be released in 1969 – Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Easy Rider, Goodbye Columbus, Marlowe, Medium Cool, and Once Upon a Time in the West are among the others.

1969 marked the beginning of the greatest decade in American film history.  Five Easy Pieces, The French Connection, The Last Picture Show, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, The Godfather, Mean Streets, The Long Goodbye, American Graffiti, Badlands, The Godfather Part II, Chinatown, The Conversation, Nashville, Taxi Driver, Star Wars, An Unmarried Woman, Days of Heaven, Apocalypse Now, and Breaking Away were all released between 1969 and 1979.

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Harry Nilsson’s recording of “Everybody’s Talkin’” is the song from the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack that everyone knows.

But let’s not forget “Old Man Willow” by Elephant’s Memory, which you hear during the Midnight Cowboy scene when Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) go to a party whose attendees include several of Andy Warhol’s better-known pals. 

Several years after Midnight Cowboy was released, Elephant’s Memory became John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s backup band.  But I’ll forgive them for that because “Old Man Willow” is a seriously groovy track.

Click here to listen to “Old Man Willow.”  (The song is named for a character in The Lord of the Rings.)

Click here to buy the recording from Amazon.

Deadletter – "Fit for Work" (2020)

Johnny’s missing two arms

But his legs look dandy

Fit for work! Fit for work!

“Who the hell is Deadletter?” you may be asking yourself.  

Good question!  

Here’s the answer, from Jordan Carrigan’s article about the group in Yuck magazine:

I have spent more time than I care to admit knee-deep in the streams of Spotify, panning for gold.  [I wade] through the never-ending network of related artists in a bid to find the next big thing and secure the associated clout that comes from having heard them first.  More often than not, these extended listening sessions end in little more than avant-garde noise records blasting into my ears at two o'clock in the morning, stuck in an existential spiral of my own thoughts. . . . However, every now and then my efforts are rewarded.

(That one dude is TALL!)

I can recall with great clarity my first encounter with Deadletter.  In the midst of a lockdown evening, already hours down the rabbit hole, I stumbled across the band and was immediately grabbed by the skipping chug of the opening refrain in “Fit For Work.”  That infectious bass line paired with the track’s priceless opening line – “Johnny’s missing two arms but his legs look dandy/Fit for work!” – set the tone for what is perhaps one of the best political songs of recent times with its scathing annihilation of the quickly deteriorating British benefits system.  After multiple listens I concluded that the search was up, I’d found the new band. My new band. 

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Carrigan could have saved a lot of time and effort by listening to Drew Carey’s “Friday Night Freakout” show on Sirius/XM.  That’s where I heard our featured record for the first time.

Click here to listen to “Fit for Work.”

Click here to buy that record from Amazon.

Eddie Cochran – "Somethin' Else" (1959)

My car's out front and it's all mine

Just a ’41 Ford, not a ’59

Eddie Cochran died in a 1960 Ford – a Ford Consul Mark II, to be precise.  

Cochran was being driven to London to catch a flight back to the United States after touring England with fellow rock ’n’ roller Gene Vincent.  Vincent, the tour manager, and Cochran’s girlfriend were in the car with him when the driver lost control and crashed into a concrete lamppost.  Cochran was thrown from the car and suffered severe head injuries 

Cochran was ejected from the left rear
door when this car his a lamppost.

Cochran died the next day in a Bath hospital.  He was only 21 years old.

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Cochran – who for my money was much cooler than Elvis – is best known for his recording of “Summertime Blues.”  But I think “Somethin’ Else” (which absolutely drips with insouciance) is just as good a record.  

In the first two verses of that song, the singer expresses his admiration for a fine-lookin’ girl and an equally fine-lookin’ convertible – both of which seem utterly unattainable.  (The girl doesn’t notice him when they pass on the street, and he can’t even afford the price of a tank of gas, much less a new car.)

But the song has a happy ending.  In the last verse, we learn that the singer is in possession of both the girl and a car – albeit an old ’41 Ford, not a brand-new ’59 model.

The girl and the car are both somethin’ else – but what’s even more somethin’ else is livin’ the dream!

Click here to listen to Eddie Cochran’s “Something’ Else.”

Click here to buy the song from Amazon.

Rolling Stones – "Little Red Rooster" (1964)

Watch out, straying kinpeople

'Cause the little red rooster’s on the prowl

Most online song lyric websites render the line from today’s featured record that is quoted above as “Watch out, strange kin people.”  Click here to read an article that makes a persuasive case that the line is actually “Watch out, straying kinpeople” – in other words, “Watch out, straying kinfolk.”  (In this case, the kinfolk are the hens, of course.)

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As I told you in the last 2 or 3 lines, I was so emotionally drained after I finished watching the last episode of Succession a couple of days ago that I immediately laid myself down on my sofa and told Alexa to play Sirius/XM’s “Underground Garage” channel, hoping that the music would lull me to sleep.

The very first record I heard after doing that was today’s featured record – the Rolling Stones’ cover of Howlin’ Wolf’s blues classic, “Little Red Rooster.”

The next record on the “Underground Garage” playlist was “Search and Destroy,” by Iggy Pop and the Stooges – not the ideal record to induce sleepiness.

“Search and Destroy” was followed by several other winners – Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited,” “I Can’t Get Next to You” by the Temptations, “It Won’t Be Wrong” by the Byrds, “Itchycoo Park” by the Small Faces,” and Mick Jagger’s “Memo from Turner.”

My mind was racing after finishing Succession – I was writing yesterday’s review of the show in my head as I lay on the sofa and listened to those records.  I probably wouldn’t have fallen asleep even if a less exciting group of records had been programmed, but you’d best believe there’s no way I’m dozing off to “Itchycoo Park” and “Memo from Turner.”  

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Click here to listen to The Rolling Stones’ cover of “Little Red Rooster,” which is the only true blues record to ever top the British pop charts.

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.

Nicholas Britell – Main Title Theme of "Succession" (2018)

I watched the last episode of the HBO television series, Succession, earlier today.  

I can’t tell you how sad I was to finish that show, WHICH IS NOT ONLY THE GREATEST TV SERIES IN HISTORY BUT ALSO THE ULTIMATE ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION.

I was so emotionally drained when that final episode ended that all I could do was lie down on my sofa and take a nap.  But unfortunately, I found myself unable to fall asleep – my brain was too busy thinking about what I could say in this post that would communicate the beauty, the splendor, the wonder of Succession. 

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Wikipedia calls Succession a “satirical black comedy-drama television series.”  That description couldn’t be wronger.  (Someone doesn’t know what in the hell black comedy is.)

The principal cast members of “Succession”

The show’s creator has characterized it as a tragedy, and that’s exactly correct.  It has many comic moments, but ultimately there’s nothing funny about Succession – the main characters are all deeply troubled and wounded people who can’t trust anyone, especially their closest family members.  (The classic tragedy that Succession makes me think of is King Lear, Shakespeare’s play about parent-child relationships gone very, very wrong.) 

Succession also has some things in common with The Godfather, another great work of art about families and betrayal.  

Just imagine if The Godfather was forty hours long instead of merely six-plus hours long.  (I’m only including the first two Godfather movies – you can have Part III.). Then you might have something as great as Succession.

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Every aspect of Succession is just about perfect.

The writing is probably the strongest element of the show – there are literally hundreds of memorable lines in Succession, but the whole of the script is much greater than the sums of its individual lines because the characters talk exactly like you would expect them to talk.  (No one makes speeches in Succession – they just talk.)  

I didn’t like all of the actors right off the bat, buy by the end of the series I found the portrayal of each major character to be utterly convincing.

Succession is breathtakingly beautiful show.  HBO spared no expense – it was filmed at a stunning modern mansion in Pacific Palisades, an English castle, the Plaza Hotel in New York City, a rustic Adirondacks resort, a Tuscan palazzo, a villa on Lake Como, a Long Island estate that is the second-largest private home ever built in the United States, a 279-foot-long yacht, and some Norwegian locations that have to be seen to be believed.   (You can click here to learn more about those locations.)

Even the show’s soundtrack is remarkable.  I found Nicholas Britell’s score infinitely more effective than any original movie or TV series score that I can remember.  (The show’s main theme draws from Beethoven’s Pathétique sonata – and while I would never compare Britell’s music to Beethoven’s, I could easily see myself listening to the Succession score on its own merits.)

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There have been many, many great television series in the last decade – including Breaking Bad, Deadwood, Fargo, Homeland, Orange Is the New Black, The Sopranos, The Bridge, and The Killing (to name a few).  One of the reasons I rank  Succession ahead of all of them is that its final season is even stronger than the seasons that preceded it.  (All too often, a series starts strong but limps to the finish.)

The soundtrack composer saved his best for last as well.  Click here to hear half an hour of musical excerpts from Succession’s fourth season – the music is more than a match for the almost unbearable dramatic intensity of that season’s episodes.

Click here to listen to the main title theme of Succession.

Click here to buy that theme music from Amazon.