John Petrie’s LifeBlag

At some point on this public, personal web page, I suppose I should admit I’m not as big of a Jimmy Fallon detractor as most people. I got annoyed at his giggling and breaking of character on SNL in every single skit he was in, but whether people realize it or not, his impersonations are all very good, and the Jimmy Fallon/Tina Fey Weekend Update was, too.

So I have liked most of the clips of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon that I’ve seen online, but nothing prepared me for the blinding white light of brilliance that emanates from this clip. I first saw it posted on my friend’s Facebook page and have watched it about 10 times since.

John’s new favorite video of the month (possibly of the year, after some more contemplation) is this mashup of clips from dozens of TV shows and movies edited into a catchy electro-pop music video.

The Shirelles were, along with the Supremes, probably one of the two best girl groups of all time. Their song “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?” is beautiful, sad, forlorn, and longing all at the same time. It seems to me that for the girl to even ask that question of her lover implies that she already suspects the answer is “no,” but she clings to the love they shared that night and hopes that he feels the same way.

The Shirelles’ version is by far the best and will always be considered the definitive version. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised to find the song was co-written by Carole King, who wrote or co-wrote “Locomotion”, “You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman”, “One Fine Day”, “You’ve Got a Friend”, and “Jazzman”.

Tonight, you’re mine completely.
You give your love so sweetly.
Tonight the light
of love is in your eyes,
but will you love me tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure?
Or just a moment’s pleasure?
Can I believe
the magic of your sighs?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Tonight with words unspoken
you said that I’m the only one.
But will my heart be broken
when the night
meets the morning sun?

I’d like to know that your love
is a love I can be sure of.
So tell me now
and I won’t ask again:
Will you still love me tomorrow?

So tell me now
and I won’t ask again:
Will you still love me tomorrow?
Will you still love me tomorrow?…

Harry Chapin was a great storyteller, as he wrote many narrative-type songs, the most famous of which is “Cat’s In the Cradle.” Maybe I’ll do that one next time.

It was raining hard in ‘Frisco.
I needed one more fare to make my night.
A lady up ahead waved to flag me down.
She got in at the light.

“Oh, where you going to, my lady blue?
It’s a shame you ruined your gown in the rain.”
She just looked out the window,
she said, “16 Parkside Lane.”

Something about her was familiar.
I could swear I’d seen her face before.
But she said, “I’m sure you’re mistaken,”
and she didn’t say anything more.

It took a while, but she looked in the mirror,
and she glanced at the license for my name.
A smile seemed to come to her slowly—
it was a sad smile, just the same.

And she said, “How are you, Harry?”
I said, “How are you, Sue?
Through the too many miles and the too little smiles
I still remember you.”

It was somewhere in a fairy tale,
I used to take her home in my car.
We learned about love in the back of a Dodge.
The lesson hadn’t gone too far.

You see, she was gonna be an actress
and I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights
and I took off to find the sky.

Oh, I’ve got something inside me
to drive a princess blind
There’s a wild man, wizard,
he’s hiding in me, illuminating my mind.

Oh, I’ve got something inside me,
but it’s not what my life’s about
’cause I’ve been letting my outside tide me
over ’till my time, runs out.

Baby’s so high that she’s skying.
Yes, she’s flying, afraid to fall.
I’ll tell you why baby’s crying:
’cause she’s dying—aren’t we all?

There was not much more for us to talk about.
Whatever we had once was gone.
So I turned my cab into the driveway
past the gate and the fine-trimmed lawns.

And she said we must get together,
but I knew it’d never be arranged.
And she handed me twenty dollars for a $2.50 fare.
She said, “Harry, keep the change.”

Well, another man might have been angry
and another man might have been hurt.
But another man never would have let her go.
I stashed the bill in my shirt.

And she walked away in silence.
It’s strange how you never know.
But we’d both gotten what we’d asked for
such a long, long time ago

You see, she was gonna be an actress
and I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights
and I took off for the sky.

And here, she’s acting happy
inside her handsome home
And me, I’m flying in my taxi,
taking tips and getting stoned

I go flying so high, when I’m stoned…

This is so funny and corny that it’s cool. This is a great old-school rap song from Sir Mix-a-Lot’s album Mack Daddy, which contained “Baby Got Back.” I don’t know of any other albums he ever recorded, but it doesn’t matter because that was the only noteworthy one. My little brother had (probably still has) that CD and I borrowed it once when I was younger. I found “Swap Meet Louie” to be a fun and very early-90′s type of rap song, so I kind of liked it and remembered it; years later when I had my own computer, ripped it to my hard drive and I’ve had the mp3 file of it ever since. And how could you not like a rap song that included the immortal line, “I’m sockin’ more fools than Patrick Swayze”?

Urban Dictionary tells me a swap meet is a place where people come to buy, sell, and/or trade various goods. You can find all kinds of goods at these types of places including electronics, clothes, furniture and so on. Similar to a flea market.

*SPOKEN*

“Hey, homeys!”
“Who me?”
“Yeah, that’s right. You the fly hustler.”
“Ah, y’all still sellin’ that fake Louie, huh?”
“Hey! Don’t be tryin’ to highside up in here. You don’t even got the dope.”
“Oh, baby, I don’t need to highside, just give me some khakis and I’m straight.”
“Tryin’ dis me, old raggy, rooty-poot, runned-up gangsta? Who you think you are, M.C. Hammer? You can’t afford this Louis Vuitton!”
“What do you mean I can’t afford it? Why I wanna try to afford some old fake Louie? Baby, if that’s real Louie, I’m Tom Cruise.”
“Excuse me, I’d like to buy something.”
“You don’t know jack about this Louie. Take your sorry self over booth number 2 for the crack pipe.”
“Yeah, alright. I got your crack pipe right here, baby. Get off my tail…”

*RAP*

Woah, Louis Vuitton never made a sweatsuit
But you’re swearin’ up and down that you got the Louie boot
So you roll to the swap meet, girlfriend buttless
Rip phantom top on your ’76 Cutlass.
In the shop Louis V is what you seek
Black Knight Cortez slippin’ on your feet
You’re saggin’, drooped like a bawla
Your girl starts walkin’ towards the counter, so you call her.
“Oooh, this is on. Why don’t you get this for me?”
Every time you hit the swap meet, it’s “gimme, gimme, gimme.”
A little old lady in the back starts to creep, she’s deep
Through Kazellis she peeks
Her name is Mary Pong and she’s got it goin’ on
Swap meet weed, with the swap meet thongs
Leather miniskirt with the oriental draw
Little Mary Pong is raw.
She said, “I wanna make your girlfriend look good.”
Start buying all your Louie in the hood
And your sprung, on the two-for-one
Fake Louie at the swap meet, son.
Now, you know brown Louie is played
But you’re drunk and you just got paid
So you bought the gear, and little Mary said, “See ya.”
Little did you know it was “Made in Korea?!”

Swap Meet Louie, Swap Meet Louie
That’s right, tell em homeys
Swap Meet Louie, Swap Meet Louie
Right here, baby
Swap Meet Louie, Swap Meet Louie
What you need?
Swap Meet Louie, Swap Meet Louie
You don’t know jack about this Louie

Victim number two: a rich young couple from Bellevue.
Welcome to the swap meet, another dumb couple ’bout to get beat.
Out came little Mary Pong, she had the big Louie V gear on.
The couple got sprung and the wife wants some
Louie V hat with the diamonds.
Shes thinkin’ she got that deal, two-for-one is a steal
The hat mighta had a LV on the back
But at the swap meet that ain’t jack.
But she bought it, cost about three hun’
Mary Pong said, “You’re the one.”
But when the girl’s Louie got wet she started complainin’
Baby girl’s Louie start fadin’.
Now she’s tryin’ to take it back
But the swap meet don’t play that
‘Cause when a customer tries to intimidate,
Mary Pong pulls a .38.
She ain’t about to get bum-rushed
She’s strapped and she’s ready to bust.
But at the swap meet you don’t pay tax
They’re movin’ out fake Louie by the batch.

Swap Meet Louie, clockin’ lotsa dollas
Swap Meet Louie, we all got gold
Swap Meet Louie, black silk jackets
Swap Meet Louie, rich flaunt clout
Swap Meet Louie, Swap Meet Louie
Swap Meet Louie, Swap Meet Louie

Me and Attitude Adjuster step smooth in a swap meet
Buying much gear for the feet
When we spot Mary Pong with a blank face
Selling bootleg Mix-a-Lot tapes
The brother bought the tape and kept steppin’
And Mary Pong starts lookin’ for a weapon.
I got a plan and I’m about to use it
What’s up with the bootleg music?
Mary Pong is about to get jacked
She had a stack of big bootleg racks.
Me and Attitude creep like snakes
Grab the tapes and the Louie and break.
The whole swap meet went crazy,
I’m sockin’ more fools than Patrick Swayze
Toss a mess of fake Louie in the trunk
Hit the gas and the tach just sunk.
Like that, I’m outta there
Swift brothers like to roll in pairs
So we jet to the boulevard fast
Slingin’ swap meet Louie for cash.

Swap Meet Louie
That’s right, tell ‘em, homeys
Swap Meet Louie
Right here, baby
Swap Meet Louie
What you need?
Swap Meet Louie
You don’t got money?
Swap Meet Louie
Start steppin’, Leroy

Have you seen commercials for Fathom Events at the movie theater before the previews start? I think they are a pretty good idea for affordable entertainment that’s a substitute for seeing the real show live and in person, but I haven’t been to one yet. I only thought about going to two of them, which I saw advertisements for before Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. They were operas: The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville. But then a day or two later I realized: I don’t particularly like the opera itself, though there are very good parts of many of them; what I like about going to the opera is the whole event, the experience of going out to the concert hall and dressing up and seeing everyone else dressed up and seeing the orchestra pit down in front of the audience and the singers right there on stage, singing with no electrical amplification whatsoever. I wouldn’t get any of that going to a movie theater, so it would have to be pretty cheap and I’d have to really be in the mood for it in order to enjoy it, so I’m almost certainly going to pass.

Another Fathom Event that I saw advertised several times was Glenn Beck’s comedy show. Now, first, I have a hard time imagining this being very funny. Second, what kind of political-news commentator thinks his career will be helped by doing stand-up comedy? I imagine it’s mostly news/politics comedy, but I still don’t think his image or his credentials as a news/politics TV and radio show host can be improved by doing a comedy show.

On a related note, here are the most famous parts of The Magic Flute and The Barber of Seville. You’ll probably recognize the evil queen’s aria from the former, and will recognize the overture to The Barber of Seville at exactly 2:10.

I’m not gay, but I do apparently like this Coldplay song. I heard it on Ann Arbor’s local pop/rock station, the same one where I first heard “Alive and Kicking” (twice, now) and “Dreaming” by OMD. The middle of “Violet Hill” sounds quite atypical of the Coldplay that I’m familiar with, but the beginning and end sound much more like them to me. That must be why I kind of liked this one. Most of the song has an awesome sound.

I could promise you I’d start posting some narrative songs that aren’t totally corny, but we both know that would be just silly.

Little did you know (possibly), the “Piña Colada Song” is actually a song that tells a story with a three-verse plot.

I was tired of my lady,
we’d been together too long.
Like a worn-out recording
of a favorite song.
So while she lay there sleepin’,
I read the paper in bed,
and in the personal columns,
there was this letter I read:

“If you like piña coladas
and getting caught in the rain.
If you’re not into yoga,
if you have half a brain.
If you like making love at midnight
in the dunes of the cape,
then I’m the love that you’ve looked for,
write to me and escape.”

I didn’t think about my lady.
I know that sounds kind of mean.
But me and my old lady
had fallen into the same, old dull routine.
So I wrote to the paper,
took out a personal ad.
And though I’m nobody’s poet,
I thought it wasn’t half bad:

“Yes I like piña coladas
and getting caught in the rain.
I’m not much into health food,
I am into champagne.
I’ve got to meet you by tomorrow noon
and cut through all this red tape
at a bar called O’Malley’s,
where we’ll plan our escape.”

So I waited with high hopes,
and she walked in the place.
I knew her smile in an instant,
I knew the curve of her face.
It was my own lovely lady,
and she said, “Aw, it’s you.”
Then we laughed for a moment,
and I said, “I never knew…

“That you like piña coladas
and getting caught in the rain
and the feel of the ocean
and the taste of champagne.
If you’d like making love at midnight
in the dunes on the cape,
you’re the lady I’ve looked for,
come with me and escape.”

So says Steven Hyden of the Milwaukee Decider, and he’s totally right, isn’t he? I don’t just agree because I hate most music made after the ’80s; late-’90s music was incredibly obnoxious, soulless, talentless, and bland.

Now, it’s true that the inclusion of Third-Eye Blind’s worthless, sickening, offensive shit-fest “Semi-Charmed Life” and that inexplicable pile of dreck “If You Could Only See” by Tonic would make any period of music one of the worst in history. You could add those two songs to the mid-’60s glory of Dylan, Beatles, and Rolling Stones or to the timeless 1970s classic rock of the Eagles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Bruce Springsteen, and they would singlehandedly (doublehandedly?) bring those eras down a few notches.

Still, he has a point.

Is there anything worse than music from the late ’90s? Setting aside the unimpeachable classics of this time period—Radiohead’s OK Computer, Beck’s Odelay, DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing, Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, Wilco’s Summerteeth, insert your favorite record here—late-’90s music is pretty much the most disreputable pap to ever be forced on the music-buying populace.

Every truly horrible subgenre from the past decade—rap-rock, Creed/Nickelback-style butt-rock, über-simple, overly materialistic hip-hop—has its roots in this period. The late ’90s also spawned the most annoying pop hits in the history of annoying pop hits. It’s hard to believe now, but people willingly subjected themselves to the likes of Los del Rio’s “Macarena,” OMC’s “How Bizarre,” Vengaboys’ “We Like To Party,” and Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”—fucking ad nauseum [sic], back then. No wonder consumers started stealing music online by the end of the decade. Music sounded worthless in the late ’90s, so it was inevitable that it would actually become worthless.

I’ve heard of exactly one of the albums he mentions in the first paragraph, Odelay. I guess “Loser” is from it, but I just know it by name, not because I’ve heard the whole album, or own any more Beck songs than “Loser,” or have even seen the CD cover in the store. I had no idea Wilco had been around since the 1990s.

Everything surrounding Bob Dylan seems to have a good story behind it. I think the story of the Traveling Wilburys and their song “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” is pretty interesting. You can get most of what you need to know about the band and this song from their Wikipedia entries. The formation of the band is easily the most amusing, not to mention coincidental, of all time:

Starting at a meal between Roy Orbison, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne, the group came together at Bob Dylan’s home studio in Malibu, California, to record an additional track as a B-side for the single release of Harrison’s “This Is Love”. Tom Petty’s involvement came by chance as Harrison had left his guitar at Petty’s house. The band, however, decided that the song that resulted, “Handle with Care”, was too good to be released as a “single filler”.

The members enjoyed working together so much that they decided to create a full album together. Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1, written by all the members, was recorded over a ten-day period in May 1988, and released on October 18.

They released a second album in 1990 after Orbison’s death, which wasn’t as good as the first one. The first album contains all three songs that the band is known for, “Handle With Care”, “End of the Line”, and “Tweeter and the Monkey Man”. George Harrison and Roy Orbison sing lead on “Handle With Care”; Harrison, Petty, and Orbison all sing lead on “End of the Line”; and Bob Dylan is the sole lead singer of “Tweeter and the Monkey Man”.

Given that they let Dylan sing lead at all at that point in his life, you can bet he wrote that song almost in its entirety. Wikipedia states:

“Tweeter and The Monkey Man” is sometimes regarded as a playful homage to Bruce Springsteen’s songs. The lyrics include the titles of many Springsteen songs, and the song borrows many of Springsteen’s themes and settings. For instance, the setting of the song itself is New Jersey, Springsteen’s home state, and places like Rahway Prison and Jersey City are mentioned by name. Springsteen song title references include: “Stolen Car”, “Mansion On The Hill”, “Thunder Road”, “State Trooper”, “Factory”, “The River”, and the song made popular by Springsteen but written by Tom Waits, “Jersey Girl”. Additionally, “Lion’s Den” and “Paradise” are each mentioned and prominently enunciated in the song, each being the title of a Springsteen song released after the Traveling Wilburys album.

Despite being a “playful” homage that “pokes fun” at Springsteen and his stories, there is nothing fun or playful about the story. It is grim and violent, like a Tarantino movie or something.

Tweeter and the Monkey Man were hard up for cash.
They stayed up all night selling cocaine and hash
to an undercover cop who had a sister named Jan.
For reasons unexplained, she loved the Monkey Man.

Tweeter was a boy scout ’fore she went to Vietnam
and found out the hard way nobody gives a damn.
They knew that they’d find freedom just across the Jersey line
so they hopped into a stolen car, took Highway 99.

CHORUS:
And the walls came down
all the way to hell.
Never saw them when they’re standing,
never saw them when they fell.

The undercover cop never liked the Monkey Man.
Even back in childhood he wanted to see him in the can.
Jan got married at fourteen to a racketeer named Bill.
She made secret calls to the Monkey Man from a mansion on the hill.

It was out on Thunder Road, Tweeter at the wheel,
they crashed into paradise, they could hear them tires squeal.
The undercover cop pulled up and said, “Everyone of you’s a liar.
If you don’t surrender now, it’s gonna go down to the wire.”

CHORUS

An ambulance rolled up, a state trooper close behind.
Tweeter took his gun away and messed up his mind.
The undercover cop was left tied up to a tree
near the souvenir stand by the old abandoned factory.

Next day the undercover cop was hot in pursuit.
He was taking the whole thing personal, he didn’t care about the loot.
Jan had told him many times, “It was you to me who taught:
In Jersey anything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught.”

CHORUS

Someplace by Rahway Prison they ran out of gas.
The undercover cop had cornered them, said, “Huh, you didn’t think that this could last?”
Jan jumped out of the bed, said, “There’s someplace I gotta go.”
She took a gun out of the drawer and said, “It’s best if you don’t know.”

The undercover cop was found face-down in a field.
The Monkey Man was on the river bridge using Tweeter as a shield.
Jan said to the Monkey Man, “I’m not fooled by Tweeter’s curl.
I knew him long before he ever became a Jersey girl.”

CHORUS

Now the town of Jersey City is quieting down again.
I’m sitting in a gambling club called the Lion’s Den.
The TV set was blown up, every bit of it was gone
ever since the nightly news show that the Monkey Man was on.

I guess I’ll go to Florida and get myself some sun.
There ain’t no more opportunity here, everything been done.
Sometimes I think of Tweeter, sometimes I think of Jan,
sometimes I don’t think about nothing but the Monkey Man…

I like songs that tell stories. Songs that have an actual plot with characters and a beginning, middle, and end. I’ll write a series of posts about these narrative songs that I like, with a link to the audio/video of the song and the lyrics transcribed for you. I’ll start with a really corny one: “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” by Vicki Lawrence.

I first heard of this song in a commercial for some lame collection of old country hits on Hotlanta 34, a local TV station that existed for a couple years during college that played a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation reruns. This commercial ran pretty frequently on that station. One of the other songs on the CD was “Convoy.” I’ll have to post that one in the future. :)

“The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia” is about a man who was hanged for a crime he didn’t commit, told from the perspective of his sister. It’s totally corny but it’s a pretty good story:

He was on his way home from Candletop.
Been two weeks gone and he thought he’d stop
at Webb’s and have him a drink ’fore he went home to her.
Andy Warlow said, “Hello.”
And he said, “Hi, what’s doin’?”
“Whoa,” he said, “sit down, I got some bad news, it’s gonna hurt.”

Said, “I’m your best friend and you know that’s right,
but your young bride ain’t home tonight—
since you’ve been gone, she’s been seeing that Amos boy, Seth.”
Well, he got mad and he saw red,
and Andy said, “Boy, don’t you lose your head
’cause to tell you the truth, I’ve been with her myself.”

CHORUS:
That’s the night that the lights went out in Georgia.
That’s the night that they hung an innocent man.
Well, don’t trust a soul to no backwoods Southern lawyer.
’Cause the judge in the town’s got blood stains on his hands.

Andy got scared and he left the bar,
walking on home ’cause he didn’t live far.
See, Andy didn’t have many friends and he’d just lost him one.
My brother thought his wife must have left town
so he went home and finally found
the only thing Papa had left him and that was a gun.

Then he went off to Andy’s house,
slipping through the back woods quiet as a mouse,
came upon some tracks too small for Andy to make.
He looked through the screen at the back porch door
and he saw Andy lying on the floor
in a puddle of blood, and he started to shake.

Well, the Georgia patrol was a-makin’ their rounds,
so he fired a shot just to flag ’em down,
and a big-bellied sheriff grabbed his gun and said, “Why’d you do it?”
The judge said, “Guilty,” in a make-believe trial,
slapped the sheriff on the back with a smile,
said, “Supper’s waiting at home and I gotta get to it.”

CHORUS

Well, they hung my brother before I could say
the tracks he saw while on his way
to Andy’s house and back that night were mine.
And his cheatin’ wife had never left town,
and that’s one body that’ll never be found,
see, Little Sister don’t miss when she aims her gun.

CHORUS