For Record Store Day, Bruce Springsteen has released a four-song EP called American Beauty. Two of the songs — “American Beauty” and “Hurry Up Sundown” — were extra tracks not used on his most recent album, High Hopes (2014). Another song, “Mary Mary,” was recorded at the time of Magic (2007), while “Hey Blue Eyes” was left over from the Working on a Dream (2009) recordings.
You may listen to the rocking “Hurry Up Sundown” over at NPR. The title track is “American Beauty.” The softer “Hey Blue Eyes” is a song which Tom Morello reportedly plans to cover.
American Beauty, on sale in vinyl form in record stores today, will be available for people without turntables on April 22. Meanwhile, Blogness on the Edge of Town reports on other Record Store Day releases, including a reissue of Billy Joel’s song “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” recorded by Ronnie Spector and the E Street Band.
What do you think of the “new” Springsteen tracks? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Neil Young is releasing A Letter Home, an album of cover songs from artists like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen, and Gordon Lightfoot. For Record Store Day, Young’s album in vinyl form is already available for order from Third Man Records. The independent record label was founded by musician-singer-songwriter Jack White, who helps out on Young’s new album.
Rolling Stone reports that the songs on the new album are: 1. “Changes” (Phil Ochs); 2. “Girl From The North Country” (Bob Dylan); 3. “Needle of Death” (Bert Jansch); 4. “Early Morning Rain” (Gordon Lightfoot); 5. “Crazy” (Willie Nelson); 6. “Reason To Believe” (Tim Hardin); 7. “On The Road Again” (Willie Nelson); 8. “If You Could Only Read My Mind” (Gordon Lightfoot); 9. “Since I Met You Baby” (Ivory Joe Hunter); 10. “My Hometown” (Bruce Springsteen); 11. “I Wonder If I Care As Much” (Everly Brothers).
Young has played several of these songs in concert, but many of them have yet to appear live. One of the songs I am most excited about is Young’s interpretation of “Changes,” by the great Phil Ochs. The classic song is one that Young has performed live, and below is his performance of the song at Farm Aid in 2013 in Saratoga Springs, New York. The video starts at the point Young starts playing the song, but you can back it up a little if you want to hear him talk more about Ochs and then get angry at the audience for trying to rush him.
Which Neil Young cover do you most want to hear? Leave your two cents in the comments.
One of my favorite episodes of the U.S. series The Office is the season four episode entitled “The Dinner Party.” In the show, Michael Scott (Steve Carrell) and Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin) invite some guests from the Dunder Mifflin office for dinner, and the tension in their relationship plays out to make the most awkward party since the Donners.
In the episode, Jim notes to the camera, “Michael and Jan seem to be playing their own separate game, and it’s called ‘let’s see how uncomfortable we can make our guests.’ And they’re both winning.” One of the most uncomfortable moments comes from a wonderful song, “That One Night,” by The Hunted.
The Hunted
The Hunted is the fictional band led by Hunter Raymond, the young man who had worked as Jan’s assistant. As Jan plays the CD on the stereo in “The Dinner Party” episode, the awkwardness ramps up when we realize that Hunter is apparently singing about losing his virginity to Jan (“You took me by the hand/ And made me a man.”).
Below is the cringe-worthy clip of when Jan first plays the song.
The song appears again at the end of the episode when Jim reveals to Pam that he stole the CD, a sweet gesture to make Pam laugh. Jim’s act is also a sympathetic theft so that Michael no longer has to hear the song. Jim plays the CD in their car as the song then plays over an epilogue showing the dinner guests after the party.
Who Created “That One Night”?
Unfortunately, there is no real album by The Hunted, but the song works perfectly in the episode of The Office. When a comedy uses an original song for comic effect, it is a challenge for the song to sound believably real while being funny too. “That One Night” hits it out of the park on all counts.
Who are the geniuses behind “That One Night”? In the series, actor Nicholas D’Agosto (born April 17, 1980) portrayed Hunter Raymond. D’Agosto appeared in two episodes during the third season, his voice appeared in another episode, and his image graced the CD cover for “That One Night” in “The Dinner Party” episode.
The actual singer on “That One Night,” though, is Todd Fancey, a singer-songwriter who is the guitarist for The New Pornographers. Fancey also wrote the catchy music for “That One Night,” while writing and producing team Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg wrote the lyrics.
The Lyrics?
There are no “official” lyrics for the song posted on the web. So, there seems to be a disagreement about the words Fancey sings.
Some say that part of the chorus says “so raw, so right,” while others claim he sings “so wrong, so right.” Another source claims the words are “so rock the ride all night all right.”
I have always thought the disputed words were “so wrong,” not “so raw.” That interpretation makes the most sense, but I understand how one may also hear it as “so raw.”
While we never got a tour or a full album from The Hunted, we loved the band’s music for that one night. Oh yeah.
Update and Alternate Version of “That One Night”
In April 2017, Rolling Stone featured an interesting oral history about the episode. One of the revealing facts was that Fancey also put together a more polished longer version of “That One Night” with alternate lyrics. While it is interesting to hear, one can see why The Office went with the version they did. Below is the alternate version.
What is your favorite episode of The Office? If you also love “The Dinner Party,” check out these deleted scenes. Leave your two cents in the comments.
John Steinbeck‘s novel The Grapes of Wrath was published on April 14, 1939. The book, which recounts the struggles of the tenant farmers Joad family moving from Oklahoma to California, went on to win the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. It also helped Steinbeck win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962. Steinbeck’s book seeped into popular culture, aided by a great John Ford movie as well as songs.
Less than a year after the novel’s publication, 20th Century Fox released John Ford’s vision of The Grapes of Wrath in January 1940. The film starred Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, and John Carradine, and it contained some differences from the book, and in particular the ending.
While the book was written as an indictment of the greed that led to the Great Depression, the conservative Ford maintained some elements of that vision while also giving the story a somewhat more optimistic ending. The Grapes of Wrath thus became one of those instances where a novel and its movie version both attained greatness even with some significant differences.
The film would go on to inspire others. In particular, the speech by Tom Joad (Fonda) would inspire both Woody Guthrie and Bruce Springsteen to write songs. Check out our post about the story behind Guthrie’s “Tom Joad,” a song written at the request of a record company during an all-night session after Pete Seeger helped Guthrie find a typewriter.
Bruce Springsteen used his stark “The Ghost of Tom Joad” as the title track of his somber 1995 album. In 2014, though, he released a new version of the song on High Hopes that features the raging angry guitar of Tom Morello, highlighting the defiance in Tom Joad’s speech. While Springsteen’s original acoustic version captures the sadness of the novel, his rock version of the song might be more comparable to John Ford’s vision. Check out this performance featuring Springsteen, Morello, and the E Street Band from Allphones Area in Sydney, Australia from March 2013.
What is your favorite version of “The Grapes of Wrath”? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester passed away on April 11, 2014 at his home in Charlottesville, Virginia. The 69-year-old artist had been suffering from esophageal cancer.
Winchester, who had moved to Canada in 1967 in protest of the Vietnam War, had some chart success with his own recordings of his folk-country-blues sound. While he may not be remembered by a large number of the population, he is well-respected and admired by a number of talented artists. And many of them covered his songs. If you are not familiar with his work, check out these videos.
Here is Winchester with a moving performance of his song “Sham-A-Ling-Dong-Ding” on season two (2009-2010) of Elvis Costello’s Spectacle show. In the song, the singer is an old man looking back on being a teenager in love.
So after years and after tears, And after summers past, The old folks tried to warn us, How our love would never last; And all we’d get was soaking wet, From walking in the rain, And singing sham-a-shing-a-ling again.
In the video below, that’s Neko Case, Sheryl Crow, and Ron Sexsmith on stage with Costello and Winchester. You can see near the end around the 3:12 mark where Case has tears in her eyes from Winchester’s touching song. Wow.
Here is a young Winchester in 1977, singing with Bonnie Raitt and Emmylou Harris.
Finally, here is one of my favorite covers of a Jesse Winchester song. In this video, Buddy Miller sings Winchester’s “A Showman’s Life,” which appeared on Miller’s 2002 album Midnight and Lonesome.
Winchester’s “A Showman’s Life” has been covered in excellent versions by the likes of George Strait and Gary Allan. But check out Miller’s version.
Thanks for the music Mr. Winchester. RIP. What is your favorite Jesse Winchester song? Leave your two cents in the comments.
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