Roxy Music – "All I Want Is You" (1974)

Somebody told me just the other day

That you're leaving me – we're through

Well, if you knew how it hurt me so

Then you'd change your mind, I’m sure

You’re wrong – that would not change her mind.  (You blew it, stupid.)

*     *     *     *     *

The fourth Roxy Music album, Country Life, was released in 1974, when I was a first-year law student.  I bought a copy at the “Coop” (the Harvard Cooperative Store) and proceeded to play it to death – especially “All I Want Is You” and the track that followed it, “Out of the Blue.”

I must have bought the album soon after it was released, because my copy has the original cover, which features two models (usually described as “scantily-clad,” which is accurate albeit a tad clichéd) who helped translate one verse of the song “Bitter-Sweet” into German:

The original cover was later replaced in the U.S., Spain, and there Netherlands with a more innocuous one:

The original album cover inspired dozens of parodies.  Here are just a few of them:

It was used on t-shirts and umbrellas:

*     *     *     *     *

The critics loved Country Life, which one reviewer said represented “the zenith of contemporary British art rock.”  

Robert Christgau described Roxy’s frontman and primary songwriter, Bryan Ferry, as an “oblique and ambitious” artist.  Ferry can be tiresome – his solo albums are too campy for my taste – but he’s rarely boring.

At heart, Ferry is a romantic  – or, at least, he plays one on Roxy Music’s records.  As he croons in today’s featured song, “L’amour, toujours l'amour.”

Here’s “All I Want Is You”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

System of a Down – "Lost in Hollywood" (2005)

They take you and make you,

They look at you in disgusting ways.

You should have never trusted Hollywood

The three Shubert brothers – Sam, Lee, and J.J. – moved from Syracuse to New York City at the turn of the 19th century.  “Driven by a seemingly unquenchable acquisitiveness,” writes Foster Hirsch in The Boys from Syracuse: The Shuberts’ Theatrical Empire, the brothers quickly became “the unchallenged rulers of Broadway.”  At the height of their power in the 1920s, they owned or controlled hundreds of theatres throughout the United States and were worth an estimated $400 million.

Lee Shubert is said to have been the man who invented the “casting couch.”  From The Boys from Syracuse:

Near his office, Lee had an elegantly furnished boudoir, reserved for leading ladies and promising ingenues, and a shabby, spartanly furnished room with a single couch where he met chorus girls and soubrettes.  

Lee Shubert in 1908

(What’s a “soubrette”?  I’m glad you asked.  From Wikipedia: “In theatre, a soubrette is a comedy character who is vain and girlish, mischievous, lighthearted, coquettish and gossipy – often a chambermaid or confidante of the ingenue, she often displays a flirtatious or even sexually aggressive nature.”  Lee Shubert seems to have believed that life imitated art.)

“Everybody knew about Mr. Lee’s five o’clock girls,” one Shubert employee told Hirsch. “On matinee days, one girl from the Shubert show downstairs would go up to Mr. Lee’s office, and there’d be one less chorus girl for the curtain call.”

*     *     *     *     *

Over time, the term “casting couch” became associated almost exclusively with Hollywood instead of Broadway.

A 1956 article about the casting couch

F. Scott Fitzgerald, who spent the last few alcohol-drenched years of his life as a hack screenwriter in Hollywood, referred to the casting couch in The Last Tycoon, the novel he failed to finish before dying in 1941.

In that book, a young woman tells a struggling writer that she plans to meet with a powerful producer.  She imagines a scenario where someone comes into the producer’s office and interrupts their meeting.  “And you jump up quickly off the casting couch, smoothing your skirts,” the writer says.  (Like many writers, he’s something of a smart-ass.)

Theresa Russell and Robert
DeNiro in The Last Tycoon

Speaking of life imitating art . . . the producer of the 1976 movie version of The Last Tycoon tried to persuade 18-year-old Theresa Russell to lie down on his casting couch when she auditioned for the role of that young woman.

*     *     *     *     *

Movie producers may not have actual casting couches in their offices any more, but the term is still a very valid metaphor for what happens between powerful males and not-so-powerful females in Hollywood. 

While Harvey Weinstein allegedly misbehaved in his office, in his various homes and apartments, in restaurants, and even on a yacht, the most dangerous place to be around him if you were an attractive female seems to have been a hotel room.

Women have accused Weinstein of assault or harassment in hotels in Los Angeles, New York City, Toronto, London, Dublin, Paris, Cannes, Rome, Venice, Hong Kong, and Park City, Utah.

His favorite hotel for engaging in monkey business seems to have been the $595-per-night Peninsula Beverly Hills. 

A room at the Peninsula Beverly Hills

Claire Forlani, Marisa Coughlan, Lina Esco, Dominique Huett, Jessica Barth, and Chelsea Skidmore have all claimed that Weinstein was guilty of groping them, exposing himself, or other inappropriate behavior at the Peninsula.  (The first of those reported incidents took place in the mid-1990s, and the most recent in 2013.)       

*     *     *     *     *

Some of you may recall that System of a Down’s “Lost in Hollywood” was one of the first ten songs ever featured on 2 or 3 lines – I first wrote about it way back in December 2009.

The members of System of a Down in 2005

“Lost in Hollywood” was written by SOAD guitarist and vocalist Daron Malakian, who says it was inspired by his memories of seeing the human flotsam and jetsam of Hollywood – like the teenaged runaways who came to L.A. seeking fame and fortune but ended up starring in porn movies or working as prostitutes – when he was a child living in an apartment about a mile from the corner of Hollywood and Vine.

Here’s “Lost in Hollywood,” a brilliant effort that Malakian says is the SOAD song that he’s most proud of:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:  

Styx – "Cold War" (1983)

You're duty-free

You're tax-exempt

You party with the President

It’s been exactly one year since the most surprising election of my lifetime.  

Actually, it’s been exactly 52 weeks since that election – which is one day short of a year.  (“Close enough for government work,” as we used to say back when I worked for the government.)

*     *     *     *     *

Tout le Washington is still chewing over what happened in the last election.  Hand-wringing and finger-pointing about the failure of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign abound.  

The cover of Donna Brazile's new book

Former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile says in her new book (which went on sale today) that she considered replacing Clinton with former Vice President Joe Biden after Clinton came down with pneumonia because her campaign had taken on “the odor of failure.”  

(By the way, Brazile recommended that Clinton see an acupuncturist for her pneumonia.  The quality of her medical advice was on a par with her performance as party chairwoman.)

Over a hundred senior Clinton campaign officials have disavowed Brazile’s account the campaign, saying “We do not recognize the campaign she portrays in the book.”

Brazile and Clinton

Donna Brazile, you’ll never eat lunch in this town again!

*     *     *     *     *

The political controversy du jour this week in Your Nation’s Capital relates to the Republican tax reform plan.  Predictably, opponents of the proposal claim it benefits the rich at the expense of the middle class.

A recent rally against the proposed tax plan at a suburban elementary school in the Luxmanor neighborhood in Montgomery County, Maryland – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was the star attraction at the rally – offers a textbook example of the hypocrisy that always rears its ugly head when there's a proposal to reform the tax laws.  

The Washington Post story about the rally could have been headlined “Affluent suburbanites cheer Pelosi’s support of tax breaks for the wealthy.”   

“Congress, Congress, don’t tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree” also would have been an appropriate headline.

*     *     *     *     *

The folks at that rally got all riled up because they fear that Congress may get rid of the current federal income tax deduction for state and local taxes.

A typical middle-class Luxmanor home

The congressional district where the rally took place has a higher percentage of residents who claim the state and local tax deduction than any other district in the country.

There are two reasons for that.  First, the income and property tax rates in Maryland and Montgomery County are very high.  Second, the people who came to the rally have very high incomes and live in very pricey homes.  Put it all together and it means that they pay a lot in state and local taxes.

*     *     *     *     *

The name of the school where the rally took place – Luxmanor – gives you a pretty good idea of what the neighborhood is like.  The median household income there is $157,532, which is about three times the median income of U.S. households as a whole.  And the median home value in Luxmanor ($485,100) is almost three times the median home value for the country as a whole.

Welcome to middle-class Luxmanor!

That means that the typical Luxmanor household is at the 90th percentile when it comes to income – meaning that 90% of all households in the U.S. make less money than the average Luxmanorite.  

*     *     *     *     *

I’d bet you dollars to donuts that virtually everyone at that rally would describe themselves as plain ol’ middle-class folks, and deny that they are wealthy.

If Luxmanor is a middle-class neighborhood, I’m a monkey’s uncle.   You can’t tell me that you’re middle-class if you make more money than 90% of Americans.  

 *     *     *     *     *

Let me make my point a different way.

If you’re 70 years old, you’re older than 90% of the population.

Would you call a 70-year-old “middle-aged”?  I wouldn’t.  

Likewise, I wouldn’t say you’re a middle-income household if you make more money than 90% of all American households.

"Save the middle class"?

*     *     *     *     *

“Cold War” was track two on Styx’s 11th and final studio album, Kilroy Was Here, which was released in 1983.

Track one of that album was “Mr. Roboto,” which is a silly song.

Here’s “Cold War”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Elvis Costello and the Attractions – "Chemistry Class" (1979)

You've got a chemistry class 

I want a piece of your mind

The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway’s Greenbrier Division – a 77-mile-long rail line that ran from North Caldwell to Cass, West Virginia – opened for business in 1900.  

It served farms, orchards, quarries, tanneries and especially sawmills, and was profitable until the 1930s.  But traffic fell off after that.  

The C&O abandoned the line in 1978 and donated the right of way to the state of West Virginia, which removed the rails and ties and opened the Greenbrier River Trail to hikers, bikers, horseback riders, and cross-country skiers in 1980.

*     *     *     *     *

I recently hopped on the trail at Marlinton and rode north to Sharps Tunnel and back – a total distance of about 22 miles.

I spent the night before my ride in one of the two apartments above Appalachian Sport, which sells hunting, fishing, and camping gear and rents canoes, kayaks, and bicycles:

(My room was up the stairs)

I stopped for breakfast at the Dirtbean, a café, art gallery, and bike shop in downtown Marlinton, which is home to barely a thousand souls:

The Dirtbean café, art gallery, and bike shop

Marlinton is over 2000 feet above sea level.  When I hit the trail at about 10:30 am, the sun had yet to get over the mountains that rise on both the east and west side of the Greenbrier River valley, and the temperature was only 39 degrees:  

The high was expected to reach 65 or so, but that didn’t help me when I started my ride.  I put on two bike jerseys, a fleece pullover, and a windbreaker, and was still chilly for the first several miles of my ride.  (On the way back, I shed the fleece and the windbreaker.) 

*     *     *     *     *

The Greenbrier River Trail – let’s call it the “GRT” for short – stays pretty close to the Greenbrier River (which flows south into the New River, which flows into the Kanawha, which flows into the Ohio, which flows into the Mississippi).

The Greenbrier River

The Greenbrier is the longest river in the eastern U.S. that has never been dammed.  It’s a good place to go canoeing or kayaking, and is popular with trout fishermen.

I saw a couple of dog walkers before I got clear of Marlinton, but didn’t see another soul on the trail  until I returned to the town two hours later.  

*     *     *     *     *

I started my ride at the old Marlinton train station:

A short distance north of the train station is a large water tank that was used to refill the boilers of the C&O’s steam locomotives:

The next noteworthy sight on the GRT is Sharps Tunnel, which is 511 feet long.

This is what you see as you approach the tunnel from the south.  The bridge that leads to the tunnel is about half as long as the tunnel is:

Here's a view of the bridge from the trail:

Here's what you see as you enter the tunnel from the south:

Here's the view of the north end of the tunnel from inside:

Sharps Tunnel curves in the middle, so there’s a point where you can’t see the light at either end.

There was an elevation gain of roughly 100 feet riding from Marlinton to the tunnel, which meant that the return trip was a little easier to do.

Here’s my new bike at milepost 60, which was the midpoint of the ride:

*     *     *     *     *

After the ride, I hit the local Dairy Queen for a chili cheese dog.  

I had originally planned to grab lunch at the Subway, but there were several people waiting in line and the woman making sandwiches reminded me of good ol’ Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction – she was movin’ kind of slow.  (Marlinton’s too small to have a McDonald’s, Arby’s, or Taco Bell, which are my go-to fast food franchises.)

I left town on WV 39, a winding two-lane highway that went up and down through the mountains.  The views were beautiful, but I would have enjoyed them more if I had been a passenger instead of the driver.

*     *     *     *     *

I spent a good part of my GRT ride listening to Armed Forces, Elvis Costello’s third album.

Writing in Rolling Stone, Janet Maslin thought the album’s lyrics were almost too clever for their own good:

There's an overload of cleverness on the LP – more smartly turned phrases than twelve songs ordinarily could bear. . . . Costello's songs are dense the way Bob Dylan's used to be, driven by the singer’s faith that if this line doesn't get you, the next one will, and compressed so tightly that they lend themselves to endless rediscovery.  He has something like the younger Dylan's rashness, too, being hotheaded enough to oversimplify anything for the sake of a good line, and being a good enough writer to get away with it.  His puns are so outrageous they're irresistible. 

The U.S. album cover

Matt LeMay of Pitchfork questioned whether the album was well-served by its “extravagantly layered” production – which was characterized by “dense instrumentation and rich, effusive textures,” and which “often serves to conceal, rather than reveal the nuances of Costello's songwriting”:

In the end, the greatest strength of Armed Forces may be the same thing that makes it less viscerally powerful than Costello's two prior records – its songs absolutely demand to be appreciated for their craftsmanship. 

I disagree.  Most pop records exhibit too little craftsmanship, not too much.  Some records benefit from bare-bones arrangements and heart-worn-on-the-sleeve vocals, but Armed Forces is the better for its smart (and smart-ass) lyrics and tour de force production.

Click here to listen to “Chemistry Class.”

Click here to order it from Amazon.

Chicago – "25 or 6 to 4" (1970)

Searching for something to say

Waiting for the break of day

25 or 6 to 4

I don't live that far from West Virginia, but I don't know the state well – much of it is terra incognita as far as I am concerned.

From what I can tell, I have a fair amount in common with West Virginians when it comes to having a sense of humor.  Here's a urinal I patronized last week while I was on my way to try out my new hybrid bike on a couple of West Virginia rail trails:

Here's a close-up of the drawing that's inside the red circle:

*     *     *     *     *

I rode more than 20 miles on both the Allegheny Highlands Trail and the Greenbrier River Trail, and saw exactly ZERO other bikers.  

I don’t get it.  The weather couldn’t have been more perfect, and the scenery was gorgeous.  Where were all the other bikers?

*     *     *     *     *

My destination on day one of my trip was Parsons, West Virginia, the county seat of Tucker County.

Parsons has fewer than 1500 residents but is much larger than any other town in Tucker County, which is home to just over 7000 souls.  (That makes it the second-least populous county in West Virginia.)

The trip to Parsons was much easier than I had anticipated.  Much of the drive was along US 48, which turned out to be an almost-new divided highway.  I was able to zip along at 65 miles per hour while enjoying the fall foliage and mountain views.

After parking in Parsons, I rode south and then west on the Allegheny Highlands Trail, which follows the route of a railroad that was built in 1884 and abandoned about 100 years later.

The first few miles of the trail are paved.  Once you get past Corricks Ford Battlefield Park (the site of a July 1861 Civil War battle) and a large Kingsford charcoal plant, the asphalt ends and you’re riding on dirt.

A country church near Parsons, WV

Unfortunately, highway construction has turned about a mile of the trail into a wet, sloppy mess. 

The trail was blocked at one point by a welder working on some road-building equipment:

Move out the way!

Would this guy have set up his welding gear in the middle of a street?  I don’t think so.  So why does he think it’s OK to block traffic on my trail?

About seven miles out of Parsons, I turned around and rode back into town, passing the Dugout Diner on the way:

I continued heading east a few miles past my starting point to Hendricks, where the Allegheny Highlands Trail ends.

According to my trusty odometer, I had ridden just over 21 miles:

Telephone and internet service were almost nonexistent in Parsons.  I parked between the courthouse and a McDonald’s and found enough of a Wifi signal to plot my route to Elkins, which was about half an hour’s drive to the southwest.

Elkins, a lively burg of some 7000 residents, is home to Davis and Elkins College and – more importantly – Big Timber Brewing.

I settled in at the bar for a pint of “Forestfest” – an Oktoberfest beer:

My ultimate destination that night was Marlinton, which was 60-odd miles further south.  That meant an hour-and-a-half’s drive on twisty, up-and-down U.S. 219.

I have a feeling that drive – which goes past the 11,000-acre Snowshoe Mountain ski resort – would have been quite beautiful if it hadn’t been dark.

I made my way into Marlinton – the county seat of Pocahantas County, which is even smaller than Parsons – at about 10 pm and located Appalachian Sport, a store that caters to hunters, fishermen, kayakers, and bikers, and which is located only a hop, skip, and a jump from the 78-mile-long Greenbrier River Trail  

Above the store are two rental units, one of which would be my home away from home for the evening:

My accommodations were plain but clean and comfortable – and a night’s lodging cost me only $44.95.

I hit the hay at about midnight, with visions of riding my bike along the Greenbrier River dancing in my head.

*     *     *     *     *

“25 or 6 to 4” has been a favorite of mine since it was released by Chicago on their second album in 1970 – the year I graduated from high school.  I’m featuring it today because it was one of the songs I loaded on to my iPod before heading to West Virginia for the bike ride described above.

According to Robert Lamm, who wrote the song, “25 or 6 to 4” is about trying to write a song in the middle of the night – not about an LSD trip.  

The title refers to the fact that the time is 25 or 26 minutes before 4 am – that is, 3:35 or 3:36 am.  It’s verbal shorthand to express “25 or 26” as “25 or 6.”

Click here if you don’t believe me.

It’s easy to understand why “25 or 6 to 4” is the last song that Chicago plays at its concerts: it’s a stick of dynamite.

Here’s “25 or 6 to 4”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Vogues – "Magic Town" (1966)

Where's the magic

To make all my big dreams come true? 

2 or 3 lines is eight years old today.

That’s correct – the first 2 or 3 lines post appeared eight years ago, on November 1, 2009.  It was a red-letter day.

As you listen to today’s featured song, I want you to think about everything that’s happened to you since 2009.

What's happened in my life over the last eight years?

Three of my children were married, and the fourth one graduated from high school and college.  

I now have two grandsons, with a third one on the way.  

My father died, and my 91-year-old mother moved from the city where I grew up to an assisted living place just a couple of miles from my house – instead of visiting her a few times a year, I now see her virtually every day.  

And I recently retired after practicing law for 40 years and two weeks.

But as momentous as those events were, they don’t begin to explain the difference between who I was eight years ago and who I am today.  What’s changed within is of much greater significance than what’s changed without.

*     *     *     *     *

Since I started doing 2 or 3 lines eight years ago, I’ve discovered quite a few great songs that I missed when they were first released.

I’ve also rediscovered quite a few great songs that I remember hearing when they were first released, but that I didn’t realize were great songs until many years later.

Today’s featured song is one of those rediscoveries.  I remember hearing it on the radio when it was released in 1966, but I didn’t think it was anything special – so it dropped off my radar for 50 years.  

I recently rediscovered it when I stumbled across a piece of clickbait titled “67 Lost Singles of the 60’s.”

That list includes a number of really good singles that didn’t sell – singles like”Living in the U.S.A.” by Steve Miller (which peaked at #94 on the Billboard “Hot 100”), “My World Fell Down” by Sagittarius (which reached only #70), and Bobbie Gentry’s “Okolona River Bottom Band” (the disappointing follow-up to the hugely popular “Ode to Billie Joe,” which climbed no higher than #54 on the “Hot 100”). 

It also includes a number of singles that were never really lost – singles like “Crystal Blue Persuasion” by Tommy James and the Shondells (which reached #2 on the Billboard “Hot 100”), “(We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet” by the Blues Magoos (a #5 hit), and “Different Drum” by Linda Ronstadt and the Stone Poneys (a #13 hit).

“Magic Town” made it to #21 on the “Hot 100” in 1966, which isn’t bad.  But it didn’t make much of an impression on me, and I’m guessing it didn’t make much of an impression on you – so maybe it’s fair to refer to it as a “lost” single.

*     *     *     *     *  

Records like “Magic Town” are collaborative efforts that involve specialized musical craftsmen who stick to what they do best – songwriters who stick to writing songs, arrangers who stick to arranging, singers who stick to singing, and so on.

The Vogues were a four-man vocal group from Turtle Creek, Pennsylvania (a Pittsburgh suburb) who didn’t write any of their hits.  Like the Lettermen and the Arbors, the Vogues were great close-harmony singers – nothing more, nothing less.

“Magic Town” was written by one of the best Brill Building songwriting teams that ever lived, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.  (Mann and Weil also wrote “On Broadway” for the Drifters, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” for the Righteous Brothers, “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” for the Animals, and “Kicks” for Paul Revere and the Raiders – to name only a few of their hits.)

I don’t know who arranged “Magic Town” or which studio musicians backed up the Vogues in the studio, but I’d bet the farm that they were old pros who spent years learning their craft.

The result is pop music perfection.  I can’t imagine how anyone could improve upon this record.

Here’s “Magic Town”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: