This Took Me Back

Roy Clark came up on one of my Pandora stations the other day and I said to Jen, "Roy Clark ... I have this image of him on an old TV show with another guy ... what was the name of that show?"

Then today she happened to be looking around on YouTube (completely independent of that) and ran across it.

HEE HAW!

It had almost slipped my memory entirely!

Do any of the rest of you remember this show?

For Old Timey's Sake, the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet

Steve Goodman's "City of New Orleans"

One of the reasons I love to hear the original songwriter sing. This is "City of New Orleans" in the original, back behind Willie's interpretation (as much as I like it) and back behind even Arlo Guthrie's (as much as I like it). Johnny Cash did it pretty well, probably because he understood trains.As much as I like all the others, I feel like I'm getting the real thing when Goodman sings it.

The Dutchman

Easy Rider Soundtrack

This has to be one of the greatest original movie soundtracks ever.

I've Got to Go to Memphis

... but right now I'm in South Bend.

"Ellis Unit One" -- Steve Earle

lyrics here

Discovered this song listening to Pandora tonight while I was grading papers.

It brought tears to my eyes and I really wanted to say, "Yes. Yes. Jesus does live on Ellis Unit One" -- not as a contradiction to the song, but simply in hope.

OK, I'll just put up the song

"Romance in Durango"

OK, I love Dylan's new album. It may be one of his top ten and is certainly one of his most listenable - just make sure you listen to the lyrics as well.

I think the closest analog from his past work is this gem from the Rolling Thunder Review days.

For a challenge, listen for the New Covenant - New Creation language in the midst of the south-of-the-border rock. Then check out the lyrics here.

Together Through Life

It's a great album.

I've only had time to give it one listen, but it's got some exceptional tracks and a really nice sound overall. Hand clappin' music, most of it. An evening down on the border somewhere in a seedy little hole in the wall.

Furthermore, the deluxe set is really worth it for the second CD, which is an edition of Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour called "Friends and Neighbors" -- for those of us who don't get XM radio.

John Prine - Paradise

Feel a Change Comin' On

Newsweek is previewing "Feel A Change Comin' On," one of Dylan's songs from the new album, Together Through Life.

Definitely read his excellent interview with Bill Flanagan as well. Parts One and Two are here and part three is temporarily at the Newsweek site here.

Quote of the Day 2/09/09

Time is an ocean but it ends at the shore
You may not see me tomorrow.

in Bob Dylan's "Oh, Sister"

Has a song ever hit you at just the right moment?

This morning I was driving into work for my 6:30 meeting and decided to start listening straight through Dylan's concert album, Hard Rain.

As the disk flipped over from "Maggie's Farm" to "One Too Many Mornings" I knew the song was hitting me at just the right moment, catching me at a point of profound sympathy with the artist.


"One too many mornings and a thousand miles behind ..."

Can anyone give an existential-Amen to that? At least some days? Certainly today began as a "one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind" day for me.

Then I realized moving from "One Too Many Mornings" to "Stuck Inside of Mobile, with the Memphis Blues Again" how carefully crafted the song-list for Hard Rain really is! Not only was the song that first grabbed me a perfect expression of my state of mind, the whole album is a careful working out of that state of mind: its reasons, roots, unfoldings and implications.

And ... maybe this is one of the real powers of art, something that Aristotle understood and tried to explain as "catharsis" ... listening to these songs, I no longer feel "one too many mornings and a thousand miles behind."

Everything a Song Should Be

Townes Van Zandt, "She Came and She Touched Me"

The song is well composed, the voice is fit to it and the lyrics are fabulous.

Illusions projected
On walls made of tiffany
Mad minuets to
A sad satin song

And harlequin mandolins
Harmonize helplessly
Hoping that endlessly
Won’t last for long

For My Sister

For my middlest sister on her 30th birthday! Happy Birthday Janine! We love you.

Every Day is Like Sunday

It is interesting to hear the way Sunday is used metaphorically in this Morrissey song. There are those for whom Sunday is very different than for the practicing Christian - mere silence and loneliness, silent and grey, "a costal town that they forgot to close down."

There is a lot that could be said about the simple fact that this metaphor works for people -- a lot about the empty shell of Christendom that is the quasi-secular West, the true Christian calendar and "Christian time," even the Church's mission in the world.

[The video I had here was taken down at YouTube. Here's a link to a live version.]

(click here for lyrics)

(Or here for 10,000 Maniacs' version)

Best Of 2008 - Movies, Books, Albums, Photographs

Time for a little end of the year best of!

Movie of the Year

Federico Fellini's 8½

This movie absolutely stunned me. A brilliant meditation on one man's struggle with his art, his relationships and his own ego.

The film drifts seamlessly between the present (such as it exists), reverie, dream and fantasy. Now I know how much something like Todd Hayes's I'm Not There (last year's movie of the year and soundtrack of the year) owes to 8½. In fact, the scene where Cate Blanchett's Dylan is flying like a balloon on a string (you catch a glimpse of it in the trailer)and the opening scene in the car seems to be taken directly from the opening dream sequence of 8½.

Runner Up: Craig Gillespie's Lars and the Real Girl



Book of the Year

Peter Leithart, Against Christianity

A fabulous "theological bricolage" (Leithart's description) that asks us to re-examine where the faith is at in the twenty first century. Leithart definitely owes a debt to others like Bishop N.T. Wright and Stanley Hauerwas, but brings his own spin as a Reformed (CRE) thinker who really is willing to engage history, theology and other traditions.

Leithart has helped further my thinking about the intimate relationships between cosmology, theology, Scripture, history, politics, culture and literacy.

Furthermore, he puts his thoughts into easy to digest small nuggets. This is also true of his excellent blog.

Runner-up: Walker Percy's Lost in the Cosmos



Album of the Year

Bob Dylan's Tell Tale Signs: Bootleg Series Vol. VIII

A fabulous collection of rare, unreleased or live versions, including my favorite on the album, "Across the Green Mountain" from the soundtrack to Gods and Generals.

As Dylan ages his voice becomes increasingly pleasing matched with the roots music to which he has returned.

The only irritating thing about this release was the 3CD set that was released at the same time. The third CD even includes an alternate version of one of my all time favorite songs, "Ring Them Bells" from Oh Mercy!. You just can't have too many versions of this song.

Alas, It almost tempts one to really bootleg.

Runner Up: All the other Bob Dylan albums I listened to this year.



Photograph of the Year

Multnomah Falls
Columbia Gorge, Oregon

Runner Up:

Bamboo Stand, Huntington Botanical Gardens
San Marino, CA

Merry Christmas

Thinking about ...

... those for whom the Christmas is no cheerier or better than the rest of the miserable, depressing, chest-clinching year.

Honestly, I think we run into them more often than we think. People in line at Target, the barista at Starbucks, the father resting on the bench at the mall while his wife shops.

Just yesterday, I smiled at a Macy's cashier yesterday and asked her how she was doing and got way more than I expected.

When our family was out caroling last night (I had to stay home with Charis), the elderly man across the street shut the door on them. Then this morning he found the cookies we left in a bag on his porch and wrapped up one of his wife's cherry nut bread loaves and brought it over to apologize.

Be kind.

Say "Hi."

Smile and mean it.

And if you're the sort of person who can find it in themselves, or who can do so by the power of the Holy Spirit, really reach out. Some people are going through what this song describes, perhaps especially so at the holidays. You may be their angel before it's too late.

Yankee Bayonet

I couldn't find a decent version of the Decemberists doing this, so I found a really good cover.

(lyrics here)