Tool -- "Sober" (1993)

I am just a worthless liar

I am just an imbecile

I will only complicate you

Trust in me and fall as well

I heard Tool's "Sober" on the second day of my recent trip to Cape Cod, thanks to the satellite radio on my rental Ford Escape.  (Have I mentioned that this rental only cost me $9.75 a day?)

SiriusXM's channel 34 is called "Lithium," in honor of the Nirvana song.  It features nineties grunge, alternative rock, and alternative metal music.

I started my second bike ride of the weekend at the same bike rental store when I started my first day's ride, but this time I rode the other direction -- to the west -- and continued until I reached the start of the Cape Cod Rail Trail in Dennis:

The Cape Cod Inflatable Park is just a hop, skip, and a jump from mile 0.0.  I'm so happy it wasn't around when my kids were young.  I have a feeling I would have had to spend many hours there.

Don't get me wrong.  The park is full of captivating inflatables, including this one depicting the legendary battle between King Kong and Godzilla:

(My money's on Godzilla.)

My route took me past a number of lovely Cape Cod ponds.  Here's Long Pond, the largest pond on Cape Cod:

Long Pond is on the Harwich-Brewster border.  Here's what you see when you are riding east to west and you cross that boundary:

Here's the view when you're riding west to east:

The trail also takes you past the Pleasant Lake General Store, whose owners have thoughtfully provided two benches so weary travelers can sit a spell.

One of benches (which is on the left side of the store's front door) is reserved for Democrats:

(Did you notice the Red Bull advertising sign in the window behind the Democrats' bench?)

The other bench (to the right of the door as you approach the store) is for Republicans:

Speaking of Democrats and Republicans, I am reminded of the first line from Tool's "Sober" -- "I am just a worthless liar."  For many years, I thought the line was "I am just a worthless lawyer."  I'm a lawyer myself, but I got a big kick out of the verse as I understood it.

One day I did a search for the lyrics to "Sober" and found out how wrong I had been.  It sort of spoiled the whole song for me.  C'est comme ça.

Have you seen the website about misheard pop-music lyrics?  For example, there was a guy who thought "Excuse me while I kiss the sky" (from "Purple Haze," by Jimi Hendrix) was really "Excuse me while I kiss this guy"?

I have a feeling that some of the examples on that website aren't genuine.  For example, did someone really think that Johnny Rivers was singing "Seasick Asian man" instead of "Secret agent man"?  And did someone really mistake Robert Palmer's "You might as well face it, you're addicted to love" for "You might as well fact it, you're a d*ckhead in love"?  Frankly, I doubt it.

"Sober" was written by Tool's frontman, Maynard James Keenan (born James Herbert Keenan), who was supposedly inspired by Bill Murray's performance in the movie Stripes to join the Army.

He later attended the U.S. Military Academy's prep school, and was eventually offered an appointment to West Point.  But he turned it down.  (Tool is known for its elaborate April Fools' Day pranks, so I'm a bit leery of some of the things that have been published about Keenan and the band.)  

One member of Tool told an interviewer that the song is about a friend of the band "who is at his artistic best when he is loaded."  This verse sure sounds like it was written by someone who was loaded:

Why can't we not be sober?

I just want to start this over

Why can't we drink forever

I just want to start things over 

"Sober" appears on Tool's 1993 debut album, Undertow.  I bought the CD used when I was working in Philadelphia, spending four nights a week in an apartment there and coming home for weekends with my family in our home in a Washington, DC, suburb.  It was a ridiculous way to live, and I didn't do it for long.

BTW, Keenan is a winemaker as well as a rock singer.  He owns Merkin Vineyards and Caduceus Cellars' located near Sedona, Arizona.  FYI, a "merkin" is a pubic wig, which was once commonly worn by prostitutes in an attempt to cover up signs of disease.  (TMI?)  Today, merkins are worn by actresses who are doing nude scenes to avoid inadvertent exposure of the genitalia and keep the film from being slapped with an X rating.  (OMG!)

Keenan bottling wine

Keenan's first wine made entirely from grapes he grew himself was named after his late mother, whose cremains he scattered over one of his vineyards after her death in 2003.  Click here to learn more about this wine.  Keenan's previous wines had been named after relatives of the famous Apache chief, Cochise.

Tool is an extremely talented but extremely weird group, so Keenan fits right in.  I could write a lot about how weird they are, but I just can't get cised to do so.  (Just read the Wikipedia entries on Tool, its various albums, and Keenan -- you'll find molto weirdness without really trying.)

Here's "Sober":

For some reason, you can't buy "Sober" from Amazon.  Here's a link to the Undertow album (which includes "Sober"):

Jawbox -- "Motorist" (1994)

When you examined the wreck

What did you see?

Glass everywhere

And wheels still spinning free

Marina Keegan

The Saturday before Memorial Day, I was driving to my favorite Cape Cod bike rental place.  As I crossed over Route 6 (which is the main east-west highway on the Cape), I noticed that traffic was stopped dead.

It seemed odd that there would be a traffic jam at that spot on a Saturday afternoon, and I was mildly curious about what had caused it.  But it didn't inconvenience me so I quickly forgot about the tie-up.

A few days latter, I found out what had caused the traffic jam.  From the May 26 Boston Globe:

A 22-year-old Wayland woman was killed when the car she was riding in rolled over on Route 6 in Dennis Saturday afternoon, the Massachusetts State Police said in a statement.

Marina Keegan was pronounced dead on the scene by Dennis emergency responders at about 2:30 p.m. The vehicle’s driver, Michael Gocksch, was transported to Cape Cod Hospital and was in stable condition Saturday night.

According to the statement, a preliminary investigation found that the 1997 Lexus ES300 was traveling east on Route 6 when it drifted off the road and into the right side guardrail. The vehicle then careened back across the road, crashed into the left side guardrail, and rolled over at least twice.

Traffic was backed up as much as a mile before authorities reopened Route 6 at about 5:45 p.m.

The incident remains under investigation, but both occupants reportedly were wearing their seatbelts, and speed did not appear to be a factor in the severity of the accident, the statement said.

*     *     *     *     *

Marina Keegan had graduated from Yale College the previous Monday.  According to all accounts, she was a well-liked and unusually talented young woman with strong convictions.  Here are some excerpts from her obituary in the Yale Daily News:

Marina Keegan ’12, a prolific writer, actress and activist, died Saturday afternoon in a car accident near Dennis, Mass.  She was 22.

At Yale, Keegan distinguished herself as a leader across disciplines: in addition to writing and starring in several campus plays, Keegan served as president of the Yale College Democrats, and last fall sparked a campus discussion on careers in finance and consulting that ultimately spread to other Ivy League campuses and the pages of the New York Times. . . .

“Marina was someone who looked at the world and knew it had to be changed, but at the same time saw there was beauty in it,” said Yael Zinkow ’12, Keegan’s close friend.

Keegan came to Yale from Wayland, Mass., in fall 2008.  An English major and member of Saybrook College, she completed the writing concentration and graduated magna cum laude five days before her death.

In her writing, Keegan captured the concerns of her generation, friends and writing professors said.  She drew national media attention in September 2011 with [a Yale Daily News story titled] “Even artichokes have doubts,” which critiqued the high number of recent Yale graduates pursuing careers in finance and consulting.  Her writing has appeared in The New York Times and on the New Yorker website, and one of her short stories aired in NPR’s “Selected Shorts” in 2011.

Keegan interned at the Paris Review in New York City this spring and was preparing to move to Brooklyn in June to start a position as assistant to the general counsel at The New Yorker.

“She was an exceptional person, wildly talented, and with the confidence and character (and personal modesty) to have done fine things,” English lecturer John Crowley, who advised Keegan on her writing concentration senior project, wrote in a Sunday email.  “Her loss can’t be expressed — to those who knew her, to her family, to her friends — but the loss also to the world that lay before her.  In what seems to me now the beautiful yet terribly small pile of writing she left, that’s clear.”

(You can click here to read Marina Keegan's story, "Reading Aloud."  And you can click here to read her story, "Challenger Deep.")

Writing professor Anne Fadiman described Keegan as a “self-starting cornucopia” who demonstrated her aptitude as a writer across several genres, never falling victim to writer’s block or needing the pressure of a good grade or impending deadline to write.

Fadiman first encountered Keegan at a Master’s Tea in fall 2010, when Keegan, then a junior, challenged author Mark Helprin after he told audience members not to pursue writing careers because of their low likelihood of success.

“I just remember this beautiful, articulate woman standing up and clearly not willing to be cowed by this famous writer, contradicting him, speaking up, declaring her determination to try, declaring her determination to ignore his discouraging words,” Fadiman said.

The same conviction was evident in her political and social advocacy on campus.

Keegan served as president of the Yale College Democrats in 2011 . . . In late 2011, she helped organize the Occupy Morgan Stanley movement, which urged Yalies to be more conscious of their career choices. . . .

“Marina was motivated by the same impulse that drove her to write, to act, to invest in friends, and to improve her community — the impulse that insisted that all of us were destined to do something tremendous, and it ought to be something tremendously good for the world,” Alexandra Brodsky ’12, who helped organize Occupy Morgan Stanley, said in a Sunday email. “Marina, I think, saw clearer than most just how privileged we were, and thus how little stood in our way to doing great things — and so she demanded that greatness of herself and those around her.”

As with her efforts in advocacy and writing, Keegan approached her work in theater boldly.

Charlie Polinger ’13, who directed Keegan’s musical, “Independents,” last fall and will direct it at the New York International Fringe Festival production in August, said Keegan pursued ambitious goals in her creative work. He recalled how Keegan insisted a 10-minute monologue at the end of “Independents” be left uncut, though the creative team worried the piece would not engage its audience. The monologue “ended up being one of the most powerful parts of the show,” Polinger said.

Keegan’s close friends said she considered friendships and relationships a vital part of her life, and maintained them in spite of her numerous other commitments. . . .

Marina Keegan with her brother, Pierce

Michael Blume ’12 and David Mogilner ’12 said Keegan was a prolific source of romantic advice for her friends. Blume said she “loved love,” while Mogilner described Keegan as the “first cheerleader” in her friends' lives. Brodsky noted that, while Keegan was ambitious about her future career, she "very much wanted to fall in love with one person for her whole life and raise a family."  

Her death Saturday reverberated throughout the University.  

Saybrook College Master Paul Hudak said all of his college is in shock, calling the event “an unbelievable tragedy.” Yale College Dean and former Saybrook College Master Mary Miller and her husband, Japanese literature professor and former interim Saybrook College Master Edward Kamens, said they were “devastated.”  

Marina Keegan with her parents

*     *     *     *     *

Marina Keegan wrote a piece for the special edition of the Yale newspaper that was distributed at the class of 2012's commencement exercises.  Click here if you'd like to read the entire essay, which described her feelings as she came to the end of her years at Yale:

We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. What I’m grateful and thankful to have found at Yale, and what I’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow and leave this place.

As her essay demonstrates, Marina Keegan was not following the Roman poet Horace's advice to "be wise, scale back your long hopes to a short period" and "seize the day" -- carpe diem -- "trusting as little as possible in the future."

We’re so young.  We’re so young.  We’re twenty-two years old.  We have so much time. . . .

What we have to remember is that we can still do anything.  We can change our minds.  We can start over.  Get a post-bac or try writing for the first time.  The notion that it’s too late to do anything is comical.  It’s hilarious.  We’re graduating college.  We’re so young.  We can’t, we MUST not lose this sense of possibility because in the end, it’s all we have.

The terrible accident that took place only days after Marina Keegan wrote these words proved that she was wrong and Horace was right.  Perhaps it was not wise for her or for anyone to trust too much in the future when we live in a world where a small mistake can have such horrific results.

But she was only 22 years old.  How could she not believe that the best years of her life were yet to come?

I turned 60 a few days after Marina Keegan's death.  It turned out that I'm the one (not Marina) who "can still do anything" -- I'm the one that has "so much time" -- I'm the one who is "so young."

How is that?  Why is that?

Much of the press coverage of Marina Keegan's death focused on the fact that she had just graduated from one of the elite universities in the world, and that she was an outspoken activist and talented writer who seemed destined to "make something happen to this world" (to quote her graduation-day essay).

I don't mean to minimize the significance of political activists or great writers -- I've been a voracious reader since I was a child, and I don't know of anyone who cares more about books or respects great writers more than I do.

But the fact that Marina Keegan had been published by the New York Times and was having her play produced isn't really the point.

Here's what Harold Bloom -- a brilliant literary critic who has been teaching the best and the brightest at Yale for over half a century -- had to say about Marina Keegan (who had worked for him as a research assistant):

“Marina was wise, almost beyond measure, and manifested immense good will towards everyone privileged to have known her,” Bloom wrote.  “It is 60 years since I first came to Yale. I can think of only a few other women and men I have taught whose presence always will be with me.”

Bloom went on to say that he had come to regard Keegan "as a granddaughter." He called her death “beyond human comprehension” -- words that are as true as they are sad.

*     *     *     *     *

The saddest line in Marina Keegan's obituary is this one:

Keegan is survived by her parents, Tracy and Kevin.

I guarantee you that as proud as her parents were of her accomplishments, those accomplishments ultimately meant very little to them.  Her father said as much at her memorial service:

The New York Times called her a journalist and a playwright.  But for me and most importantly, she was my daughter.

I can't help but think about Michael Gocksh, the driver of the car, and his parents.  They are suffering in a different manner, but no one can doubt that they are suffering terribly.

According to her mother, Marina "so loved and admired" Michael.  The Keegans told him that they had forgiven him, and are doing what they can to help him forgive himself.

"You can't go off course," Kevin Keegan told him. "To honor her, you need to live your life -- to make a difference for others, to embrace life as she did."  

*     *     *     *     *

On to our featured record, which has no real relevance to Marina Keegan's death.  But it's a rule at 2 or 3 lines (actually, it's the only rule) that every post has to have a featured record.

Jawbox was a post-punk band from Washington, DC, that was known for its "cerebral and inscrutable" lyrics (to quote AllMusic).  The singer of "Motorist," which appeared on the band's 1994 album, For Your Own Special Sweetheart, has just crashed his car -- he's in a bit of a daze, looking around at the wreckage that surrounds him and wondering if someone is going to stop and rescue him.

"Motorist" is just one of the dozens of rock, country, and rap songs about car crashes that have been recorded.  (In fact, a Wikipedia article lists over a hundred such songs.)

Of course, that's nothing compared to the number of fatalities that result from automobile accidents -- which is the leading cause of accidental death in this country.  Traffic deaths in the United States peaked at 54,589 in 1972.  There were only 32,885 in 2010, which was the lowest figure in 62 years.  That's 90 deaths per day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year -- in this country alone.

Here's "Motorist":

 

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

Chambers Brothers -- "Time Has Come Today" (1968)

I've been loved and put aside

I've been crushed by tumblin' tides

And my soul has been psychedelicized

My first bike ride on the Cape Cod Rail Trail this Memorial Day weekend started at mile 8 in Brewster:

I was on a brand-new 22.5" Trek 7300 hybrid -- which was a pretty nice bike for a rental, although not a bike I would buy for myself.  For one thing, the bike's big padded saddle made you feel like you were riding while wearing a fully-loaded diaper -- a little too squishy.  

And I don't really like this description of the 7300 on the Trek website: "Looking for comfortable, smooth-rolling recreation?  Prefer an upright ride, and would rather enjoy the scenery rather than rush past it?"  Not exactly a macho-sounding ride, n'est-ce pas?

Here the 7300 is at milepost 12, which is in Orleans.

The turnaround point was at mile 14.3 in Eastham:

Here are three little-known facts about these three Cape Cod towns.

1.  The NBC sitcom "Punky Brewster" (which aired from 1984 to 1986) was originally going to be called "Punky McGillicuddy" in honor of Lucille Ball's character on I Love Lucy (whose maiden name was Lucy McGillicuddy).  But the producer of the series, who had attended the famous Cape Cod Sea Camp in Brewster one summer, decided the name needed to be changed.

2.  Orleans was founded by French colonists who settled in the part of Canada once called Acadia (now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island), but who were expelled by the British in 1710.  Most of the Acadians who didn't return to France ended up in Louisiana, where they became known as "Cajuns."  But a small group landed on an uninhabited part of Cape Cod, which they named Orleans after Louis Philippe II, the Duke of Orleans.

3.  The family of one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Princeton classmates owned a summer house in Eastham.  Great Neck -- a town on the North Shore of Long Island -- was the inspiration for The Great Gatsby's West Egg, where Jay Gatsby lived, but Fitzgerald got the idea for the name from Eastham.  (West Egg and "East Ham" -- get it?)

(Actually, none of these statements is true.  Had you goin', didn't I?)

*     *     *     *     *

After my ride was over, I treated myself to a big-ass burrito as Guapo's -- the restaurant that brings a little taste of Baja California to Ye Olde Cape Codde.

There's big news at Guapo's this year:

I didn't take advantage of this new Guapo's attraction -- it was a chilly day, and 1:30 seemed a little early in the day for margaritas.  Maybe I'll give it a shot in August.

"Time Has Come Today" is another song I heard on my $7.95-a-day rental car's Sirius/XM radio.  (Channel 26 is the "Classic Vinyl" channel.)

The Chambers Brothers were four brothers from Mississippi who started out singing gospel and folk music.  After bringing down the house at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 -- both the Chambers Brothers and Bob Dylan switched from acoustic to electric music at that event -- the group signed with Columbia Records.

But Columbia's president, Clive Davis, wanted no part of "Time Has Come Today" when the Chambers originally recorded it in 1966.  The brothers recorded it again in 1967, and the song became a hit in 1968.

The album version of "Time" is over 11 minutes long, but the group recorded it in just one take.

Two shorter versions were released as singles.  The first is 3:05 long -- Columbia took the album track and simply faded it out after about three minutes.  The other version is 4:45 long.  It's basically the 3:05 version plus the last minute and a half of the album cut.

"Time Has Come Today" is a very powerful song that simply insists that you pay attention to it.  It's been used in over a dozen movies -- most notably in the award-winning antiwar movie, Coming Home, which starred Jane Fonda as a Marine officer's wife who falls in love with Jon Voight, a paraplegic Vietnam veteran.  (Fonda won the "Best Actress" Oscar that year, and Voight was named "Best Actor.")

Here's the 4:45 version of "Time Has Come Today":

Here's an extraordinary live performance of "Time Has Come Today" that runs almost 15 minutes long:

Click here to buy the 4:45 version of the song from Amazon:

Chesterfield Kings -- "Elevator Ride" (2007)

So long

I'll be gone

So long

Moving on

Elevator ride

The Chesterfield Kings were formed in 1979 in Rochester, New York.  Lead singer and founding member Greg Provost was an underground music journalist and record collector, and a lot of the band's early releases were covers of obscure garage/psychedelic songs from the sixties.

Andy Babiuk, the other original band member who is still around, is the author of a complete history of the musical instruments used by the Beatles, which is titled Beatles Gear.  He and Provost are currently working on a similar book called Stones Gear.  (Welcome to the OCD club, Greg and Andy!)

The group has something of an obsession with the Rolling Stones.  The cover of their 1994 album, Let's Go Get Stoned, looks just like the cover of the Stones' 1966 album, Aftermath.

Here's the original:

Here's the copy.  (Note how the Mirror Records logo in the lower left-hand corner of the cover mirrors the London Records logo on the Stones album.)

"Elevator Ride" is from the Chesterfield Kings' 2007 album, Psychedelic Sunrise.  It was released on Wicked Cool Records, which is owned by Steven Van Zandt, who is a longtime friend of Bruce Springsteen and member of the E Street Band.

If you were a Sopranos fan, you'll remember Van Zandt -- who had never acted before -- as Silvio Dante. 

Van Zandt has hosted "Little Steven's Underground Garage," a syndicated radio show, since 2002.  Van Zandt also programs the "Underground Garage" channel for Sirius/XM satellite radio.

Van Zandt as Silvio Conte (far right)

On a recent trip to Cape Cod, I had a rental car -- $9.75 a day, I kid you not -- that was equipped with Sirius/XM radio, and I listened to quite a bit of "Underground Garage" (channel 21).

Van Zandt programs everything from fifties songs (one of the songs I heard was "Charlie Brown," by the Coasters) to brand-new garage-band stuff -- he seems to use his show to promote the bands who have signed to his label.  

The "Underground Garage" has an eclectic group of on-air hosts, including Andrew Loog Oldham (the Rolling Stones' original manager/producer) and Handsome Dick Manitoba, the lead singer of The Dictators.  (Click here to read a 2 or 3 lines post about the Dictators' "The Next Big Thing.") 

Manitoba was hosting when I picked up my rental car (only $9.75  a day -- can you believe it?), and "Elevator Ride" was one of the first songs I heard him play. 

Satellite radio display on
my $9.75-per-day rental car

The next several installments of 2 or 3 lines will feature some other songs I heard on "Underground Garage" and other Sirius/XM channels, as well as photos from my Cape Cod bike rides.  (My Cape Cod posts are always wildly popular, you know.)

Here's "Elevator Ride":

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

Fools Face -- "Whatever" (1981)

The voice of authority

A four-year warranty

On a speech of unbreakable promises

Only five months until election day, boys and girls.  Five months of gassy speechifying, blowhardery by the TV pundits, and breathtakingly deceptive super-PAC ads . . . ooooohhh, I'm getting a little moist just thinking about it!

You could say that a new president does come with a four-year warranty.  If those unbreakable promises get broken before four years are up, the country can take the president back to the store and get a replacement.  That's really not such a bad deal.

Of course, if your new flat-screen goes on the fritz, or your new pick-up truck stalls out every time you give it the gas, you don't have to wait four years to do something about it -- you can return it to the place where you bought it and demand that they fix it toot sweet or give you a new one.

There's no warranty on a president's second term, of course.  All sales final -- caveat emptor and all that.  But if you can't figure out that the guy sucks until year five, you must not have been paying attention.  And you are guaranteed a brand-new model after eight years.  There's no way you can be stuck with a lemon longer than that.

(Speaking of the words "sucks," I'm reminded of a story about the late college basketball coach, Jim Valvano.  Valvano once asked a referee if he could be given a technical foul for what he was thinking.  The referee said no, after which Valvano said, "I think YOU SUCK!")

This year's election will take place on November 6.  (Save the date!)  To help everyone get ready for the big day, 2 or 3 lines is going to feature songs that are relevant to the presidential contest on the 6th of each month between now and Election Day.

Don't worry about partisanship sneaking into 2 or 3 lines.  No way, no how --  I would never use my wildly popular blog for political purposes!  Unless someone wants to pay me to do so.  

But you can prevent that from happening by supporting my wonderful sponsors.  (Go ahead -- click on an ad.  That didn't hurt a bit, did it?  Try it once more -- it's really kind of fun, isn't it?)  If enough of you do, 2 or 3 lines won't have to resort to running political ads to put food on the table.

Click here to read about Fools Face, a great but largely unknown power-pop band from Missouri that released "Whatever" over 30 years ago.  

This song is off that group's Tell America album.  For the next five months, the candidates will be telling America all kinds of stuff -- whether America wants to hear it or not.  If I were you, I'd turn off the TV and devote your evenings to exploring 2 or 3 lines -- you'll be glad you did.

Here's "Whatever":

Canned Heat -- "Time Was" (1969)

Time was when we could agree

That time is gone

Now you find fault with me

I was taught in school that the Japanese poems known as haiku were three lines long, and totalled 17 syllables.  (The first line had five syllables, the second had seven, and the last line had five.)

The Japanese would not agree.  Japanese haiku consist of 17 on -- but one on does not necessarily equate to one syllable.  (Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagasaki all contain four on, but have two, three, and four syllables, respectively.) 

There are quite a few English-speaking poets who have written haiku.  Haiku written in English do not always contain five-seven-five lines or a total of 17 syllables -- in fact, the length of most of the haiku that are currently being published in English is 10 to 14 syllables.

I was riding my bike at the Cape Cod National Seashore recently when this song came up on my sentient iPod.  For some reason -- perhaps the combination of my location and activity put me in a Zen-like frame of mind -- it hit me that the three verses of this Canned Heat song were really three related haiku. 

The first verse has 15 syllables (if you don't count the second line, which simply repeats the first line), the second one -- which is the one quoted above -- has 17, and the third one has 16.

The third verse may be the one that comes the closest to having the "feel" of a traditional haiku:

Trouble will not wreck my life

Someday you'll like

What I'm putting down

"Time Was" combines the Japanese poetic form of haiku with good ol' American 12-bar blues, which usually feature three-line verses (the first two lines are usually repeated).  East may be east, and west may be west, but sometimes the twain do meet.

"Time Was" uses words in an extremely economical fashion -- excluding the repeated initial line in each verse, the song has 41 words and only 48 syllables.

Alan Wilson, Bob Hite

Canned Heat was formed by blues aficionados Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson (Wilson was extremely nearsighted) and Bob "The Bear" Hite (who was big and hirsute) in 1965.  The group appeared at the two biggest outdoor music festivals of that era, the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock.

I bought several Canned Heat albums.  I think one reason classic blues music appealed to me was that its structure was quite transparent and predictable -- it was easy to anticipate where a song was going, and the musical structurer was simple enough that I could re-create blues songs myself.  The blues genre was also viewed as more serious and intellectually respectable than top-40 pop, Motown, psychedelic rock, and certain other styles of popular music.

I bought the Hallelujah album shortly after it was released in 1969.  One of my favorite songs on it was "Sic 'Em Pigs," a very snarky anti-police diatribe.  (I was very young back then, and my judgment left a lot to be desired.)

"Sic 'Em Pigs," which featured a lot of fake pig grunts, snorts, and squeals, ended with a pseudo-public service announcement that was spoken, not sung:

Are you looking for a way to serve God and country?  Your chance has come.  We are now recruiting trainees for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.   If you are big, strong and stupid, we want you!  

Alan Wilson died of a drug overdose (some believe he committed suicide) in 1970, when he was 27.  Bob Hite was found dead in his van after having a heart attack in 1981.  He was 38. 

Here's "Time Was":

Here's a link to use to order the song from Amazon:

Beach Boys -- "Caroline, No" (1966)

Could we ever bring 'em back 

Once they have gone?

Oh Caroline, no 

When I finished law school, I took a job in a city that was over 1000 miles away from my hometown (which is where my parents still live).  I never moved back.

When my daughter Caroline finished journalism school 18 months ago, she took a job near our home and moved back in with us.  I saw her almost every day, which was a treat after 5 1/2 years of college and graduate school.

Today, she loaded up her car and drove to Maine to take a new job.  (You can read all about that new job here.)  Maine's not quite 1000 miles away, but it might as well be.  I expect her to move back one day, but who knows?  She may follow my example instead.

Caroline watching a Cape Cod sunset

Karma's a bitch, as the saying goes.  I now know how my parents felt when I moved away.  But it's not really the same thing.  Any person in his or her right mind would rather have one Caroline than a hundred of me, so I feel like my loss is much greater than my parents' loss was.  

"Caroline, No" is without a doubt the most beautiful song on what is without a doubt the most beautiful pop-music album ever recorded, Pet Sounds.

And yes, I know that I featured "Caroline, No" in a 2 or 3 lines post in November 2010.  (Click here to read that post.)  Until now, I've never featured the same song twice on 2 or 3 lines.  But there's a first time for everything.  

Click here to listen to "Caroline, No."

Click here to buy "Caroline, No" from Amazon.