Last night, on David Letterman’s next-to-last Late Show With David Letterman, Bob Dylan appeared as the final regular musical guest for the show. Dylan performed the appropriately named “The Night We Called It a Day” from his latest album of jazz standards, Shadows In The Night.
Some reviewers have claimed Dylan’s performance was “bizarre,” noting the way Dylan stands distant when the retiring host greets him. Other reviewers have labeled the performance “beautiful” and “haunting.” Probably only Bob Dylan, who first appeared with Letterman in 1984, could provoke such a diverse reaction, but in my mind, it was a nice musical sendoff to one of the all-time greats of late night.
Interesting, after Letterman introduced Dylan as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan sang a cover song, as “The Night We Called It a Day” was written by Matt Dennis and Tom Adair in 1941. In 1942, Frank Sinatra released the song as his first solo recording.
What did you think of Dylan’s performance of “The Night We Called It a Day”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
This new video from SciShow explores the evolution and science of popular music. The researchers came to some interesting conclusions, like how rap has affected popular music in the last twenty-five years. Check it out.
The legendary B.B. King passed away on May 14, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada at age 89. As King’s website noted the next morning, “the thrill is gone.”
Much will continue to be written about King’s guitar playing and his influence on music. For me, he has always been there since I first discovered the blues, and he helped introduce me to many other blues musicians from the past and present. He left us many great songs and albums, such as one of the great live albums of all time, Live at the Regal (1965).
When I first picked up an electric guitar, I did not want to play “Stairway to Heaven.” I wanted to play B.B. King’s great memorable opening riff of “The Thrill is Gone.”
And when I think of the way that the blues is a music of comfort that brings joy through troubled times, I cannot help thinking of B.B. King’s performances of “Why I Sing the Blues.” As the singer recounts his troubles but keeps on singing, it somehow never fails to make me smile. Below he performs “Why I Sing the Blues” live in Africa.
RIP B.B. What is your favorite B.B. King performance? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Music can address societal issues in different ways. Sometimes a song will tackle a big issue head on. But more often than not, issues are addressed through personal stories or observations. One important societal issue that occasionally appears in popular song is the problem that so many of our fellow humans live without a home. Below are some examples of some songs that address homelessness to varying degrees.
In 2011, singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran released ‘The A Team’ as the lead single of his first album +. Sheeran wrote the song about a prostitute addicted to crack cocaine after he visited a homeless shelter.
“Ain’t Got No Home” is a folk song that was made popular by Woody Guthrie: “Just a wandrin’ worker, I go from town to town. / And the police make it hard wherever I may go / And I ain’t got no home in this world anymore.”
Among others, Rosanne Cash has also performed “I Ain’t Got No Home”.
Greg Trooper’s “They Call Me Hank” is about a homeless man named Bill. The song appeared on Trooper’s album Upside-Down Town.
Here Trooper performs the song at Music City Roots live from the Loveless Cafe in June 2014.
One of the more famous songs about homelessness is “Another Day in Paradise” by Phil Collins. The song appeared on his 1989 hit album But Seriously, where the singer sees a man avoiding a homeless person.
Collins asks us to think twice about living another day in paradise, but a lot of critics thought that the song seemed disingenuous coming from someone as rich as Collins.
The great songwriter Guy Clark recorded a song called “Homeless.” The song appears on Clark’s 2006 album The Dark.
Like several other songs by Clark, he talks us through much of the story with a memorable chorus.
Finally, another famous song that is about a homeless person is the Christmas song “Pretty Paper,” which was a hit in an excellent recording by Roy Orbison. The song about a person who in the midst of holiday shopping sees a homeless person was written by a young songwriter who would later go on to have a pretty successful career himself.
So here is that songwriter, Willie Nelson, singing his version of the song he wrote.
Other songs with homelessness themes include Jethro Tull’s “Aqualung,” Ralph McTell’s “Streets of London,” and “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)” by Crystal Waters.
Music, of course, cannot solve problems but it can help educate us. More than 60,000 people sleep in homeless shelters each night in New York City alone. Homelessness continues to be a problem across the U.S., and in particular, the number of homeless LGBT youth on the streets continues to rise due to a lack of support for them.
A number of organizations around the country work to help the homeless, and this website lists a number of ways that you can help the homeless (besides writing a song).
What other songs are there about homelessness? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Recently Jack Black and Jimmy Fallon put together a shot-for-shot remake of the classic video of Extreme’s song “More Than Words” for The Tonight Show. The creators of the new video did a great job with both the singing and the images, even including the shot of the band member holding up a lighter.
“More than Words” originally appeared on the 1990 album Extreme II: Pornograffiti. The ballad was a bit of a departure for the rock band, but it went to number one. While the Fallon-Black remake probably will not be a number one song, the video is already popular on YouTube. Check it out.
The Fallon-Black remake is not the first time the video has been copied. “Weird Al” Yankovic did his twist on the “More Than Words” video with his video for “You Don’t Love Me Anymore.” The song appeared on Yankovic’s 1992 album Off the Deep End.
While the original song by Yankovic was not a parody of “More Than Words,” some fans mistakenly thought it was. So when the record company insisted on a parody video to accompany the release of “You Don’t Love Me Anymore” as a single, Yankovic decided to use the “More Than Words” video as the basis for his video. Check it out (trivia: the piano player who gets the bow in the eye is singer Robert Goulet).
If the parody/tribute videos leaves you wanting to see the original Extreme video, see below. Or you can play it simultaneously with the Fallon-Black one above.
What do you think of the videos relating to “More Than Words”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
. Sheeran wrote the song about a prostitute addicted to crack cocaine after he visited a homeless shelter.
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, where the singer sees a man avoiding a homeless person.
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