The Music Court

     On August 17^th  1969, threatening Sunday afternoon skies welcomed Joe Cocker’s incredibly spastic, but amazing, soul-searching set at the site of the Aquarian exposition in White Lake, NY at around 2:00 p.m. (Oh no! Another Woodstock post. Man, this kid is obsessed with something that he learned through documentaries and his parents. Stay with me guys you will see how it all makes sense. Well, there I go talking to myself again.) At the time I am writing this post he was most likely belting “Do I Still Figure into Your Life” or “Feelin Alright,” but I am not entirely sure, I am just going by the set-list. After Cocker’s set a torrential downpour shut down the event for around four hours. Who knows? Maybe, Cocker’s strained voice sent the clouds in frenzy and the rain a’pourin. Or, maybe it was just a normal August thunderstorm. After the rain delay a band whose name mixed both Joseph Stalin’s nickname (Country Joe) and Mao Tse-Tung’s statement about how the true revolutionary swims through the peasantry (The Fish) into a combination of protest songs and witty chants, opened the concert again. Their lead singer-songwriter, performing for the third time at the festival in three days. A record for sure for a man who stayed firm in his belief for peace and love and still does to this very day. The number 96^th greatest lyricist of all time, Country Joe McDonald.

            Four days ago I went to see a quasi-Woodstock reunion with a few original members of some of the better bands that performed at the Woodstock music festival. There was Big Brother and the Holding Company, lacking the pretty key Janis Joplin component, Canned Heat, lacking lead men Bob Hite and Alan Wilson, and even a twisted and odd version of Jefferson Starship (the band that was formed out of the original band from Woodstock, Jefferson Airplane. The music was fresh oldies though and the crowd was excited to see the originals pound away at their new drum sets and guitars (most likely purchased after the Woodstock festival), but nostalgia could only carry the sets so far. But, out on the stage after every act in a tie-die t-shirt was an older man with glasses, shaggy grey hair, and an acoustic guitar strapped to his neck like a weapon of peace. Yes, under all of the wrinkles and grey hair was the same young man that seemingly was out and about each day of Woodstock, on stage in front of hundreds of thousands. Performing in front of a crowd of One thousand and five hundred at best was Country Joe McDonald, still plucking that acoustic guitar and singing for peace after all of these years.

            After Woodstock ended forty years ago tomorrow, the spontaneous gathering of peace and love was gone. The endless line of muddy faces and bodies were cleaned, the butt-naked men and women were clothed, and the thousands who once roamed the field of Max Yasgur’s farm looking for some acid or pot or water or food (the basic necessities of late 60’s existance) were gone, only their mess left to clean up. As curly-haired concert promoter Michael Lang left the site by helicopter to visit bankers waiting to scorn him for losing so much money at the event he spotted out of the helicopter’s window a large crop-circle like peace sign made out of garbage. A beautiful site constructed out of dirty papers, bottles, and simple waste. The garbage peace sign could really be considered eerie and prophetic. It only took a few months later (December, 6^th) for peace and love to turn into pure hatred and fighting at The Altamont Speedway Free Festival, the Rolling Stones attempt at Woodstock. For some reason The Hell’s Angels, the rowdy motorcycle gang, were asked to provide security because the stage was only four feet high. Look, if members of The Hell’s Angels wanted to come to enjoy the show, sure, the more the merrier. But, hiring a motorcycle gang to provide any type of security is just asking for trouble and trouble they definitely received. The Vietnam war was still raging, the Kent State massacre came in May of 1970, less then a year after Woodstock, and the garbage peace sign, the odd symbol of both beauty and, well, trash, had been cleared away and the farm in upstate New York turned back into a farm. But, the one man that continues to keep trying for peace is Country Joe and his protest music is the reason why he is #96 on the list.

            People may inquire how a guy who profited on a comedic protest song could beat one Don McLean or Ray LaMontagne. A fantastic argument can be made against my case and I welcome the feedback (seriouly somebody talk to me, I am lonely in the blogosphere.) But, in my warped opinion, I feel as if Country Joe’s body of work is more significant then these other fantastic lyricists. His anti-war lyrics or not only comedic, some are rather serious, and his tireless efforts for peace are just incredibly honorable. He does not have to be Bono or Bob Geldof, who, while being noble in their goals, also have an ulterior motive in cash cow schemes to make exorbitant amounts of money through benefit concerts. He just can easily list off members of Sullivan County, the town that encompasses Bethel, NY (where Woodstock took place), who were killed in both the Vietnam War and Iraqi/Afghanistan war before and after his black comedy anti-war hit, “The Fish Cheer & I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag.” Subtle mentioning of the horrors of war. His staggering lines in his anti-war songs also are delicately placed in the music for effect. Check out these lyrics from “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin-To-Die,” off of the self-titled 1967 album by him and his Fish.

 “Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don’t hesitate,
Send ’em off before it’s too late.
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.”

 Be the first one on the block to have your boy come home in a box. It is just like, Woah. Did he really just say that? It is such a witty line and it is set to the backdrop of an old-time late 20’s rag song. But, it is and still is true. Now let us look at the lesser known, “Here I go Again,” off of the 1969 album “Here We Are Again.”

 “Father’s gone to fight the war,
He left us here alone.
I shiver in the lonesome night
Beside the telephone
But time brings no word,
I guess he’s not coming home,
It feels like the end,
It feels like the end, my friend.”

            This lacks any humor because there is no humor in war. Protest songs can be catchy and, in a sense, somewhat comical because war is obviously an incredibly dumb part of human existence, but when a father leaves for war and a child is left alone pondering whether he will ever see his father again the situation is certainly not comical. War is terror and peace may never possibly be able to exist in a world with so much violence, but Country Joe McDonald will for the rest of his peaceful life through attempt to bring a little peace with his lyric wherever he travels. This, in my opinion, is good enough for now.

The Crash Sight

A large post for #50. Enjoy!

Just after 1:00 a.m on February 3rd, 1959, a beechcraft bonanza B35 holding enough talent to fill up numerous stadiums, crashed due to pilot error and poor weather conditions near Clear Lake (miserable irony), Iowa, killing all four flyers, including the pilot.  The three musicians who were killed, none older than 30, were Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens (he was 18), and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. The story before the crash is riddled with upsetting coincidences and haunting decisions. After a show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa (which was not an intended spot on the tour), Buddy Holly became frustrated with the tour bus (which had already given drummer Carl Bunch frostbitten feat because the heating system on the bus had broken down) and told his bandmates his plan to hire a small plane to take them to the next stop. The plane could hold three flyers for 36 bucks a pop. The Big Bopper had developed a case of the flu (possibly because of the cold bus) and asked Buddy Holly’s band member Waylon Jennings for his seat. Jennings gave it to The Bopper and after Holly heard about the trade he proclaimed jokingly to Jennings, “I hope your ol’ bus freezes up. Jennings responded, “Well, I hope your ol’ plane crashes.” He has never been able to live down those words. Ritchie Valens won his first trip on an a small aircraft by route of a coin flip. Kind of reminds you of when Jack wins his ill-fated trip on the Titanic by winning a card game. Okay, probably should have kept that analogy to myself.

It is funny how people can look at events that happened prior to a miserable accident and blame themselves for the otherwise regular day-to-day things that had occured. If the plane did not go down maybe rockabilly music would have lived on into the 60’s competing with the British Invasion of Rock and Roll. But, who knows. Music did live on and the 60’s brought possibly the most impressive cultural explosion of Rock music, but, on February 3rd, 1959, momentarily on that cold night rock’s future looked noticeably bleak and 12 years later a man decided that he still could not get over the events of that dark morning. So, in October of 1971, the first track of Don McLean’s second album wrote of an abstract story about the day the music died in 1959. The album and the song were both titled, “American Pie.”

Similar to Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie (#98 on the lyricists list) many can make the claim that the only reason why Don McLean is considered one of the top lyricists is because “American Pie” was such an influential song. Hey, when someone can describe an entire music generation in a seven minute epic I do understand the reasoning. It sure is his hit and I will portray to you faithful readers what specific lyrics in the song I find to be fantastic. But, what many people seem to forget is that besides all of the understandable hooplah that surrounds “American Pie,” McLean recorded other tracks and one in particular that maintains comparable lyrics to “American Pie.”

Yes, for all of you who are going hey is that not Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” painting that is not music, it is indeed the Van Gogh masterpiece and it also ties in perfectly with Don McLean’s admiration and tribute to Van Gogh. “Vincent,” is a masterpiece itself, playing with lyrics that paint a picture of a Van Gogh landscape with words. McLean describes through luscious metaphors and pastoral imagery how many did not understand Van Gogh, but now, finally they all possibly can. Take a look at some lyrics

Now I understand
What you tried to say to me
How you suffered for your sanity
How you tried to set them free
They would not listen they did not know how
Perhaps they’ll listen now”

The first verse of the song that is written above is a wonderful explanation by McLean of an artists work. Their, sometimes hair-pulling attempt to portray that beautiful summer day on the “snowy linen land” that is the emptiness of a blank canvas on a painter’s easel. Most similar to a blank page’s glare on a lyricist. The chorus of the song holds so much beauty because McLean encaptures the struggle that Van Gogh had to go through. How he “suffered for your sanity.” How people during the time did not listen, did not understand, until he was dead. McLean ends his chorus proclaiming, “Perhaps they’ll listen now,” which is as touching as his lyric at the end of his masterpiece, “American Pie”.

The lyrics that I like the most.

“And the three men I admire most
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died”

Well doesn’t that describe it all. The song culminates into this ending statement. The only statement that makes any mention to the three men who died in the crash. The three men whose unfortunate demise was possibly the most shocking musical event in the 20th century. They did symbolically catch the last train for the coast on Februry 3rd, 1959. On the day that the music died.

Check out both songs:

“Vincent”- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipFMJckZOM

“American Pie”- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6uEjifqTaI&feature=related