American Songwriter » Behind the Song

Behind the Song: “The Gambler”

Rick Moore — Mon, 02 May 2011 10:00:44 +0000

Johnny Cash cut it. Bobby Bare cut it. Under the name “Charlie Tango,” Conway Twitty’s son, Michael Twitty, cut it. Even the songwriter himself, Don Schlitz, cut it, as well as other people whose names are a distant Music Row memory. But when Kenny Rogers and producer Larry Butler finally recorded “The Gambler,” Schlitz was able to quit walking to his graveyard shift computer operator job and start driving to work as a professional songwriter. Rogers was already on a roll from the success of “Lucille” and his work with Dottie West. But some on Music Row in late 1978 felt that, at 40, Rogers was on his way out. No one could have predicted that Rogers’ recording of “The Gambler” would create, essentially, an entire industry based on one song by an unknown songwriter from North Carolina. Schlitz had been in Nashville for only a couple years when he wrote “The Gambler.” “I wrote it in August of ’76,” he says, “walking home from a meeting with my mentor, Bob McDill [writer of songs by Waylon Jennings, Anne Murray and others]. I walked from his office over on Music Row to my apartment, and in that 20 minutes I wrote most of it in my head. I didn’t write a last verse, had no idea what was gonna happen, thought it was an interesting story but it was a throwaway. I spent about six weeks trying to figure out what was gonna happen after the chorus.” “I finally settled on the eight lines of the last verse,” Schlitz continues, “what I now call my [French short story writer] ‘Guy de Maupassant’ ending [no real conclusion, as it’s assumed the gambler dies but isn’t so stated]. And nobody would touch it.” The song had its old-guard champions on Music Row, though, and they believed in Schlitz and his quirky, too-long, no-love-story song. It made its way into the hands of Butler and Rogers, and when Rogers recorded it, it rose to No. 1 on the country charts and appeared on charts around the world. Rogers won a Grammy for Best Male Country Vocal Performance, and Schlitz won a Grammy for Best Country Song. The album The Gambler has since sold more than 30 million units worldwide, and the song spawned a series of five Emmy-winning television specials featuring Rogers as gambler Brady Hawkes. He even performed the song on The Muppet Show. And, in perhaps the greatest sign of success in a capitalistic marketplace, International Game Technology’s “The Gambler” slot machine continues to be revamped for major casinos and private owners alike. Bobby Fischer was an established Nashville record promoter and songwriter when Rogers hit with “The Gambler.” He still remembers the first time he heard the song, but doesn’t even know whose version it was. “When I heard it in ’77 or whenever, I don’t know who it was by, but it wasn’t Cash or Bare,” Fischer said. “I remember thinking that, frankly, it wasn’t much of a song. Until Kenny did it. Then I remember thinking how wrong I was.” Josh Thompson is a new country star, a guy from the Wisconsin woods who wears his cap backwards and actually sings about John Wayne. Even though he wasn’t even a year old when “The Gambler” went to radio, the fact that someone his age is influenced by the song is a testament to its power. “The first time I heard ‘The Gambler,’ it floored me!” Thompson said. “I’ve never heard a song that painted a picture so clearly. It’s like you’re in the train with them...pure classic.” When asked if Rogers sang the melody exactly as he had written it, Schlitz hedges, but probably isn’t really sure. “Well, how many times have I heard his version and heard my version? I do know that, over 30 years, I’ve started singing it slightly different myself. If I don’t it’s almost as if I’m singing karaoke. It’s almost like a folk song now.” Country singer David Ball, whose song “Riding With Private Malone” was another hit that was supposedly too long and didn’t have a love story, remembers “The Gambler” vividly. “I was a big fan of that song,” he said. “Such a creative lyric, such a great story. And when it went into TV, it was like, How big can it go? It was huge.” Warner Bros. recording artist Jason Jones said that he grew up with “The Gambler.” “My mom was Kenny Rogers’ biggest fan,” he said.” She had a huge framed velvet portrait of him hanging in the stairwell, so just like the song, Kenny’s face was ingrained in my mind at an early age. Anytime ‘The Gambler’ came on the radio, the volume got cranked and it was a three-minute party. Don Schlitz has the most natural way of writing a conversational song. It’s like you get to be a fly on the wall as it’s all happening.” Dirt Drifters’ Jeff Middleton agrees. “To me, ‘The Gambler’ is a classic because it’s about more than a couple strangers on a train. It’s about how we live our lives, the chances and risks we take every day, and not getting so caught up in where you have been or where you are going to miss what’s in front of you right now.” Adds budding country star Frankie Ballard, “It was written in a way that hits a man’s man right between the eyes.” An obviously grateful Schlitz said that Rogers still performs the song live. “Kenny gave me the freedom to do what I wanted to,” Schlitz said. “Without Kenny Rogers there wouldn’t have been (Schlitz compositions) ‘When You Say Nothing At All’ (Keith Whitley, Alison Krauss) or ‘Forever and Ever, Amen’ (Randy Travis).” The lyrics of “The Gambler” are now part of the collective consciousness. Some might not know that Kenny Rogers sang it, and hardly anyone outside of Nashville could tell you Don Schlitz wrote it. But you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who can’t recite at least part of it.

Behind The Song: “Not Fade Away”

Steven Rosen — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:11:35 +0000

At this year’s Grammys, 67-year-old Mick Jagger was out from the get-go to tell the audience how it was gonna be. He wasn’t ceding anything to age. He still had the musical spirit and the stamina – and the physique – of a much younger Rolling Stone. And he sure didn’t act in what many would consider an age-appropriate way when he performed the late Solomon Burke’s “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love” on the telecast. Wiry and hyper-animated, rail-thin and acrobatic, the brown-haired, blue-jeaned Jagger pranced, danced and promenaded his way through this rave-up of a soul stomper, urging the adoring audience to join in. He came out wearing a gold cape, which he doffed to reveal a resplendently glittery turquoise jacket. The band, fronted by younger guitarist Raphael Saadiq, kept the pace fast – once or twice Jagger even chased around or pushed off of Saadiq. The performance, more than just a tribute to Burke, was a reminder – a revisiting – of the Rolling Stones’ 1964 appearance on The T.A.M.I. Show, when Jagger fronted his young band through a set of R&B/rock tunes. Now here he was, 46+ years later, still making the same kind of vital and exciting music. When I say “didn’t act in what many would consider an age-appropriate way,” I mean he’s still performing rock ‘n’ roll like he means it. He hasn’t adopted an ironic or self-amused tone, churning out rote sentimental nostalgia for the oldies circuit. He hasn’t let the fury and power of his music – the connection to roots and authenticity – fade away with time. And that brings up the enduring power of a song the Stones helped define – “Not Fade Away.” When they released their cover of a 1957 Buddy Holly B-side in the U.S. in early 1964, the Stones were trying to push into a market the bright-sounding Beatles (and the Dave Clark Five) were taking by storm. Their choice was to revamp the Holly song with a rough-hewn and scruffy percussive Bo Diddley beat, powered by Keith Richards’ opening guitar chords, eerily perched between minor and major key and a precursor of “Street Fightin’ Man.” But the song was too bluesy with Brian Jones’ harmonica, too churning and guttural and too dangerous, to hit big on the U.S. charts, although the momentum of the British Invasion pushed it up Billboard’s Top 100 chart to No. 48. The B-side, a version of the Beatles’ “I Wanna Be Your Man,” accounted for a lot of the sales. (In England, “Man” and “Not Fade Away” had been released separately and both were big hits.) It took the Stones a couple more tries to get a big U.S. hit (“Time is On My Side”) and a full year for a single, “(I Get No) Satisfaction,” to rival the Beatles’ biggest songs. Yet more and more, “Not Fade Away” has come to be one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most prophetic songs – for Jagger and the Stones, the other rockers of their age group, for rock-loving Boomers. It’s one of the Stones’ key recordings. As the years pass it sounds like the defiant shout of someone who has punched through the fear and loathing of “Gimme Shelter” and is still standing. Still performing with artistic commitment intact. If you doubt that, look at the impressive list of iconic Boomer artists who perform it – like a badge of honor. Bob Dylan. Bruce Springsteen. Patti Smith. The Byrds. Tom Petty. James Taylor. Sheryl Crow. Tanya Tucker. You can see a powerful 1964 version by the Stones on YouTube, with Jones on harmonica and Jagger playing maracas. Perhaps the band after the Stones to do the most to establish the song in the rock canon was the Grateful Dead. According to Wikipedia, they performed “Not Fade Away” 530 times in their career; it was their seventh most-performed song. (It says something about the importance of the band to their fans that this is so well-documented.) Back in the era when the Stones first recorded “Not Fade Away,” during the initial stages of the British Invasion, a rival band – The Who – recorded (it hit U.S. charts in early 1966) “My Generation.” It caused a huge sensation in the way a sputtering, stuttering Roger Daltrey made the famous line “Why don’t you all f-fade away,” a reference to older squares who didn’t get the Invasion, sound like he was going to say “fuck.” But even more striking was the line “Hope I die before I get old.” For a long time, that seemed like the slogan of the rebellious, counter-cultural rock generation. It appeared that “My Generation” would become an immortal rock anthem. But time marches on. Now, when the song is performed, it’s as a period piece, a wink at the illusions of youth, especially the romantic attitude toward death. It has become post-modernist ironic. But “Not Fade Away” has not. “Not Fade Away’s” release history begins when singer-songwriter-guitarist Holly and his band, the Crickets (Joe Mauldin on bass, Jerry Allison on drums, Niki Sullivan on rhythm guitar), were just finding their rock groove in autumn, 1957. They were putting some tracks just as the Crickets on the Brunswick label, and some just under Holly’s name on Coral. (Both labels were owned by Decca.) The Crickets’ “That’ll Be the Day” was the first breakthrough and “Not Fade Away” was the B-side of their second Top 10 single, “Oh, Boy!” It hit airwaves just a month after the release of Holly’s first “solo” hit, “Peggy Sue.” (“Peggy Sue” was the bigger record) The flip side of “Peggy Sue” – “Everyday” – was recorded at the same session as “Not Fade Away,” on May 27th. So “Not Fade Away” both got lost in the onslaught of Holly product and was a part of Holly’s breakthrough season. Although on a smaller scale, Holly’s breakthrough was a harbinger of 1960s rock bands – a self-contained, unaffected rock band scored with simultaneous singles of its own material. That’s one reason Holly’s music became so treasured by later rockers. Holly’s “Not Fade Away” has some of the dense, involving rhythm guitar work typical of his superb band, but it’s also a little, excuse the pun, chirpy. He and the others contribute now-dated, prominent back-up vocals, “Ooh bop wop bop-bop,” that sort of sound the way a kid from the wide open plains of Lubbock, Texas, might interpret urban doo-wop music. The lyrics, credited to Holly (as Charles Hardin) and his producer in Clovis, N.M., Norman Petty, were demanding about chasing an object of affection. The song’s subject is almost a stalker, chasing a girl who’s not interested: “I’m a-gonna tell you how it’s gonna be/A-you gonna give-a your love to me” is the opening line. And then, “My love a-bigger than the Cadillac/I try to show it ‘n you drive-a me back.” (The Stones took the hiccupy accentuations out of the vocal delivery, helping to modernize it.) You can imagine Holly, born before the Baby Boom but just barely past his teen years at the time, imaging the Cadillac as the biggest, best, most powerful, most important object in the world. But not bigger than his love for…”you.” In its adamant insistence about winning the love of another, underscored by driving rhythm, the song feels influenced by Diddley’s 1956 “Who Do You Love.” Lyrically, it isn’t as weird – how can you match Diddley’s “Got a brand new house on the roadside/made out of rattlesnake hide.” But it has one absolute masterstroke: That title phrase. It’s grammatically awkward, not even completely coherent. I think it implies “My love for you is so important I’ll never, ever let it fade away.” But that would be a confession. Repeating “not fade away” raises the term to a command, a chant, an incantation. It gives it almost spiritual meaning, which is why the song continues to mean so much. Does anyone really care about the rest of the lyric? There may be another reason, too, for the song’s ongoing popularity. Holly died in a shocking plane crash on Feb. 3, 1959, in the middle of a cold Midwest concert tour known as Winter Dance Party. It’s been memorialized time and again in pop culture, in film, literature and song (“American Pie”). In a way, the Stones’ “Not Fade Away” was an early memorial – a cri de coeur to not let Holly’s legacy ever be forgotten. And now, when the musicians with 1960s (and later) roots continue to play it as they begin to consider their mortality, it’s a promise they won’t let that happen to their own, either. My guess is younger musicians – and future ones – will be doing the same.

Behind The Song: R.E.M., “Losing My Religion”

Evan Schlansky — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 16:56:24 +0000

“Losing My Religion” - Written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe “That’s me in the corner. That’s me in the spotlight.” If you had the radio on in 1991, you probably bobbed your head to one of the most unlikely Top 40 singles of all time. In between spins of “Right Here, Right Now” by Jesus Jones and C&C Music Factory’s “Gonna Make You Sweat,” lay R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion,” the track that turned the former kings of college rock into international superstars. There had been hits before: “Stand,” “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” and “The One I Love” all raised R.E.M.’s profile, marking them as quirky alt-rock tastemakers. But the morose, mandolin-fueled “Losing My Religion” was the fulcrum for the most unlikely star turn in pop music history. “There’ve been very few life-changing events in our career because our career has been so gradual,” said bassist Mike Mills. “If you want to talk about life changing, ‘Losing My Religion’ is the closest it gets.” Warner Bros., the band’s label, was initially opposed to using the song, which has no chorus, as the lead single for their watershed album, Out Of Time. For one thing, it was in a minor key, which is rarely the recipe for a hit song, “Hotel California” excepted. (Although R.E.M. are exceptionally skilled at it: see “Driver 8,” “Firehouse,” “Drive,” “Country Feedback.” “You can’t really say anything bad about E minor, A minor, D, and G,” said guitarist Peter Buck. “I mean, they’re just good chords.”) For another, it courted controversy with it’s questioning of faith (although ironically, that would probably be a bigger deal today.) As the story goes, Buck came up with the song’s signature lick while watching TV with the tape recorder on, while in the midst of fiddling around with the instrument he had just bought. “When I listened back to it the next day, there was a bunch of stuff that was really just me learning how to play mandolin, and then there’s what became ‘Losing My Religion,’ and then a whole bunch more of me learning to play mandolin,” he told author Johnny Black. It was recorded in Bearsville Studios in Woodstock, New York, where Michael Stipe nailed his vocals in a single pass. Unlike early R.E.M. songs, “Losing My Religion” features lyrics you can understand. And yet, they were largely misunderstood anyway. Was it sacrilegious? A kiss off to the establishment? Were R.E.M. advocating that you reject the church and stop celebrating Christmas? In fact, this was not the case. “Losing my religion” is actually an old southern expression for being at the end of one’s rope, and the moment when politeness gives way to anger. But if you were missing that key detail, you’d think that Stipe’s vague imagery was clearly a comment on the Judeo-Christian tradition. Stipe, who comes from a long line of Methodist ministers and is an admirer of Buddhism, was merely giving a little known southern saying a poetic facelift, by building a wall of evocative words around it. The gravity he conjures with his hurt, reedy keen is immense. “I thought that I heard you laughing, I though that I heard you sing.” When he gets to the line “oh no, I’ve said too much,” it sounds devastating. The single was accompanied by a moody art house video, which MTV spun constantly. Inspired by a short story from 1,000 Years Of Solitude author Gabriel García Márquez, it was the first to feature Stipe (looking as despondent as possible, in need of a back rub) lip syncing, a practice he had studiously avoided. Stocked with androgynous angels, it begins with a pitcher of spilt milk. Thanks in part to its ambiguous imagery (“I’ve always felt the best kinds of songs are the ones where anybody can listen to it, put themselves in it and say, ‘Yeah, that’s me,’” said Stipe) the song would penetrate the global consciousness, from Dubai to Des Moines, and became R.E.M.’s biggest hit. The love from MTV, and the fact that alternative rock bands were supposed to remain as such, created an inevitable backlash. Some said the band had grown too big, prompting Buck to retort: “The people that changed their mind because of ‘Losing My Religion’ can just kiss my ass.” In many ways, they’ve been struggling with their success, and their image, ever since. R.E.M. never had another hit quite like “Losing My Religion,” though they’d rule the radio for a heady few years, with modern classics like “Man in the Moon” and “Everybody Hurts.” Then, like all bands, they got older. Drummer Bill Berry left and went back to the farm, spinning them in new artistic directions; their subsequent attempts to make radio friendly singles, instead of making singles that were radio friendly, ended up putting them at odds with a large chunk of their audience. But as R.E.M., Pearl Jam, and countless others have proven, bands don’t really need an audience outside of their hardcore fans. And of that, there are many... and they’re quite religious about it.

Patti Smith, “Free Money”

americansongwriter — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 16:15:50 +0000

Patti Smith's debut album, 1975's Horses, is often considered a masterpiece for fusing poetry and rock and roll, but lyrics didn't come easily for the 29-year-old songwriter. "I find, in the past decade, I don’t struggle with lyrics as much as I did in the ‘70s," says Smith in our Jan/Feb issue's Legends interview with Paul Zollo. "I think that’s partially because, you know, I came out of nowhere. I wasn’t a songwriter. A lot of Horses was based on poems that I had written." Smith found plenty of musical partners who were willing to help the young songwriter flesh her poetry out into songs. Tom Verlaine, of the New Wave band Television, co-wrote Horses' "Break It Up," and also played on the album, while Blue Öyster Cult's Allen Lanier also helped co-write and played on the album. Horses was brought to life by John Cale, the former-Velvet Underground founding member, who felt equally comfortable playing celesta, viola, and harmonium on Nick Drake's Bryter Layter as he did exploring musical boundaries with John Cage. Patti Smith must have sparked both creative sides of Cale - and the combination of her beginner musical instincts and natural feel for lyricism would prove a powerful mix. Smith's band members like guitarist Lenny Kaye and bassist Ivan Kral were also tapped to help Smith develop a song from it's rough, poetic state. "'Free Money' came to me walking down St. Mark’s at three in the morning," Smith says in our interview. "It was pre-dawn, but it was so light in New York City, and it came to me and I sang it to Lenny. He structured it and found the proper chords, and we made a song. It was one of our earliest songs." The song, and lines like "Scoop the pearls up from the sea/ Cash them in and buy you all the things you need," could be a reference to her lover and roommate in New York at the time, Robert Mapplethorpe, though many songs on Horses also reflect on family members and Smith's childhood in New Jersey, such as "Kimberly," written for her youngest sister. At a lecture in New Orleans last April to discuss a series of photographs that Smith donated to the New Orleans Museum Of Art, Smith talked about how she supported Mapplethorpe with her meager earnings working at bookstore, which is also recounted in Smith's book, Just Kids. In the song, Smith portrays herself as a dreamer - "We'll dream it, dream it for free, free money" - and the song is especially poignant for anyone who's been broke in New York. "Free Money" Every night before I go to sleep Find a ticket, win a lottery, Scoop the pearls up from the sea Cash them in and buy you all the things you need. Every night before I rest my head See those dollar bills go swirling 'round my bed. I know they're stolen, but I don't feel bad. I take that money, buy you things you never had. Oh, baby, it would mean so much to me, Oh, baby, to buy you all the things you need for free. I'll buy you a jet plane, baby, Get you on a higher plane to a jet stream And take you through the stratosphere And check out the planets there and then take you down Deep where it's hot, hot in Arabia, babia, then cool, cold fields of snow And we'll roll, dream, roll, dream, roll, roll, dream, dream. When we dream it, when we dream it, when we dream it, We'll dream it, dream it for free, free money, Free money, free money, free money, free money, free money, free money. Every night before I go to sleep Find a ticket, win a lottery. Every night before I rest my head See those dollar bills go swirling 'round my bed. Oh, baby, it would mean so much to me, Baby, I know our troubles will be gone. Oh, I know our troubles will be gone, goin' gone If we dream, dream, dream for free. And when we dream it, when we dream it, when we dream it, Let's dream it, we'll dream it for free, free money, Free money, free money, free money, Free money, free money, free money, Free money, free money, free money, Free money, free money, free money, Free money, free money, free money, Free money, free money, free money, Free money, free money, free money, Free money, free money, free money, free.

Behind The Lyric: Led Zeppelin, “Battle Of Evermore”

americansongwriter — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 16:57:24 +0000

On the third song from Led Zeppelin's epic IV, Robert Plant introduces his Queen of Light character, who will become so central for the album's pièce de résistance, "Stairway To Heaven." (Read the recent Behind The Song for "Stairway" and our Legends profile of Robert Plant, both from the Jan/Feb 2011 issue.) Like "Stairway" and so much of Zeppelin's imagery, "Evermore" is influenced by Celtic mythology and, according to Stephen Davis' biography Hammer Of The Gods, also by works like Robert Graves' White Goddess and Lewis Spence's Magic Arts In Celtic Britain. "Evermore" is even more directly inspired by the fifteenth and sixteenth century Anglo-Scottish wars, mostly fought along the border of the two countries, which Plant had been reading about prior to writing the lyrics. While the lyrics can today seem a tad cliché, they very much recreate the stark space of a battle song. Most Zep enthusiasts already know the story of the song's creation -- a chance incident of guitarist Jimmy Page picking up bassist John Paul Jones' mandolin at the band's rented country house-cum-studio, Headley Grange, in East Hampshire, England, during the recording sessions for what would become the band's fourth album. Sandy Denny, the one-time singer of Newport Convention, was invited to play the role of the Queen of Light. The archetype re-emerges in "Stairway" as the May Queen and seems to also pervade "Going to California" (itself an homage to Joni Mitchell). In the Continuum book series 33 1/3 on Led Zeppelin IV, author Erik Davis says gender also plays a role in the song. Davis sees Plant's Prince of Peace and Denny's Queen of Light as a real masculine/feminine dynamic, whereas the rock and roll archetype of Page and Plant and the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards represented androgyny and gender blurring. Denny, on the other hand, balances the masculine warrior Plant. She tells of the coming battle and urges the prince to action with lines like "Dance in the dark night, sing to the morning light" and "throw down your plow and hoe, race now to my bow." Significantly for her involvement, Denny broke into Zep's male 'division-of-four' that was the band's trademark - literally. She was awarded a symbol of three pyramids by her name in the credits of the album sleeve. Denny also cements the band to the contemporary '60s English folk scene, by which Zeppelin, and Page especially, were very much influenced. Groups like Fairport, Incredible String Band, and Pentangle - with it's dual guitarists Bert Jansch and John Renbourn - provided much early inspiration for Page's conception of Zeppelin. - DAVIS INMAN "Battle Of Evermore" The Queen of Light took her bow and then she turned to go The Prince of Peace embraced the gloom and walked the night alone Oh, dance in the dark night, sing to the morning light The Dark Lord rides in force tonight, and time will tell us all Oh, throw down your plow and hoe, race now to my bow Side by side we wait the might, of the darkest of them all I hear the horses thunder down in the valley below I'm waiting for the angels of Avalon, waiting for the eastern glow The apples of the valley hold the seeds of happiness The ground is rich from tender care, which they do not forget, no, no Dance in the dark night, sing to the morning light The apples turn to brown and black, the tyrant's face is red Oh, war is the common cry, pick up your swords and fly The sky is filled with good and bad, mortals never know Oh well, the night is long, the beads of time pass slow Tired eyes on the sunrise, waiting for the eastern glow The pain of war cannot exceed the woe of aftermath The drums will shake the castle wall, the Ringwraiths ride in black, ride on Sing as you raise your bow, shoot straighter than before No comfort has the fire at night that lights the face so cold Oh, dance in the dark night, sing to the morning light The magic runes are writ in gold to bring the balance back, bring it back At last the sun is shining, the clouds of blue roll by With flames from the dragon of darkness, the sunlight blinds his eyes Written by Jimmy Page and Robert Plant

Behind The Song: “Stairway To Heaven”

Adam Gold — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 12:00:22 +0000

“Stairway To Heaven” Written by Robert Plant And Jimmy Page There’s a reason why Robert Plant refuses to reunite with his surviving Led Zeppelin bandmates for a lucrative world tour: no amount of money is worth having to sing “Stairway To Heaven” like you mean it, night after night, after night, after night…. It’s a sentiment he’s expressed time and again for more than 30 years. If you ask a ’70s disc jockey, he’ll tell you rock and roll crypto-mythology determines that each performance of “Stairway To Heaven” takes years off a rock musician’s life. This is actually addressed directly in Led Zep’s legendary concert film The Song Remains The Same. In it, Jimmy Page climbs a misty, mystic mountain in search of a mythical hermit only to find he is the hermit. He then stares in horror and disbelief as his doppelganger ages into an elderly wizard before his own eyes and he realizes his shadow’s taller than his soul. Every legendary artist has that one track that’s bigger than themselves – a song as influential a rock cornerstone as it is an albatross around their legacy. For Led Zeppelin, it’s “Stairway to Heaven” – a cut that was to FM radio what The Godfather was to cinema: an epic unrivaled in its grandeur and incalculable in its influence. Released on their 1971 LP, Led Zeppelin IV, “Stairway” isn’t necessarily the greatest song the band ever wrote, but it’s unequivocally the most significant – a signature staple that plays like a trailer for their entire discography. In seven minutes and 55 seconds, “Stairway” traversed all the sonic hallmarks that defined Led Zeppelin’s sound – from fairytale acoustic folk, to sex-laden swampy grooves, and, ultimately, braying, blues-based hard rock – and delivers them with dire, Tolkien-worthy, medieval urgency. In those same eight minutes it set the stage for just about every stadium-sized cliché since, taking the genre to new, unprecedented levels of ridiculous rock and roll audacity. Before there was yelling “Freebird” at a concert, there was playing “Stairway” at the guitar shop. Before Pentecostal parents accused Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest of pulling Kevorkians on their kids with back-masked subliminal messages, they cited “Stairway” – in reverse, of course – as the smoking gun. For generations of teens, “Stairway” has been the soundtrack to countless bong rips, slides into second base and roadside fatalities. It popularized the double-neck guitar, yielding lifetimes of back problems for shredders worldwide. Every time you flick your Bic to illuminate a dark arena into a rock and roll galaxy, you’re praising “Stairway’”s legacy. And while the hackneyed jokes and Wayne’s World references that punctuate that legacy are more than earned by its overwrought cadence of foggy mysticism, loose social commentary, feigned depth and interminable live performances, at the time of its release, the song was no laughing matter. Never officially released as a single, “Stairway” prevailed as rock radio’s most requested song of the ’70s, thus priming the airwaves for every subsequent torch-cuing opus, from “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “War Pigs” to “The Wall” and “Freebird.” “Stairway” ushered in the era of album-oriented rock and, for better or worse, paved the way for prog. It’s probably singularly responsible for Rush’s entire oeuvre, as well as every eye-rolling Iron Maiden lyric, to boot. While history and hindsight handily frame “Stairway” as one big, bloated, sonic platitude, it’s important to remember that it does indeed rock, and listening to it is a visceral experience. It begins with an atmosphere of stark serenity, nestling Jimmy Page’s finger-picked acoustic arpeggios in a comforting chorus of mellotron recorders (courtesy of John Paul Jones) as Plant solemnly sings the plight of a God-fearing, miserly old woman. As the minor-tinged tranquility marking “Stairway’”s first half turns to a foreboding tension, a simple quarter-note drum fill brings John Bonham into the mix and Led Zeppelin settle into a steady, mid-tempo groove… but not for long. A royally triumphant interlude strips the song of its moody subtleties, and shifts the track into fourth gear. From there on out it metastasizes into a hard rock tour de force that rocks harder with increasingly less restraint as it careens and crescendos through monstrous heavy metal movements. By the song’s seventh minute they’ve lost all control; Bonham is flailing and filling with thunderous bombast, driving the band in double time as Page delivers, arguably, his most show-stopping guitar solo in a catalogue replete with show-stopping, gutsy guitar solos. When Plant reenters for his final verse, he’s seething, possessed, fighting a battle for his very soul. Once they’ve left all they’ve got on the floor, “Stairway” simmers down to a placid lull and Plant reprises its opening lyric, sounding as if he’s aged a hundred years in the eight minutes that have elapsed. As the song itself notes, “Sometimes words have two meanings.” The meaning behind “Stairway’”s words seem, if nothing else, infinite. Lyrically, the tune has dazed and confused many a mind-altered listener with its vague take on duality for the better part of a half-century. But, more often than not, lyrics say more with how they feel than what they really mean, and while “Stairway” is seemingly a song about the inevitability of death that’s really a song about fear but actually a song about greed… or something... Plant communicates its sweeping vagaries with a passionate, pensive and ultimately primal delivery that convinces the listener he knows exactly what he’s singing about. And, really, that’s enough.

The Band Perry, “If I Die Young”

americansongwriter — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:42:44 +0000

2010 has been a whirlwind year for Kimberly Perry and her two siblings in The Band Perry. The group’s current hit, “If I Die Young,” just reached Number 1 at US country radio and the band was in Canada playing a special show for a Calgary radio station when they found out they’d also been nominated for a Grammy. “ ‘If I Die Young’ is a song about contentment. I wrote it on a cloudy day in East Tennessee where I do my best thinking,” Kimberly tells American Songwriter. “It was a moment in time when I looked around and said – even though I'm only 27, I've gotten to live and love so completely. I've made the most of my minutes and as long as I continue to, whatever time I spend on the planet will be just enough. It's a song about life more than death. A contemplation. A lullaby." Jimmy Harnen, the president of The Band Perry’s record label, Republic Nashville, says he knew the song was special when he first heard it. "I have always been a person that is first attracted to the voice and the melody of a song. The first time I heard ‘If I Die Young,’ Kimberly's voice just stopped me in my tracks. It was country with a touch of rock…and so full of soul and honesty. I was instantly drawn in. I was also just blown away by the melody. Especially the "oh oh" part. The song was so fresh…so cutting edge and yet it felt so instantly familiar. Lyrically, well there was nothing like it. ‘Funny when you're dead how people start listen.’ How sadly true is that. It is a spectacular song…hands down." “If I Die Young” If I die young bury me in satin Lay me down on a bed of roses Sink me in the river at dawn Send me away with the words of a love song Uh oh, Uh oh Lord make me a rainbow I'll shine down on my mother She'll know I'm safe with you when she stands under my colors Oh and life ain't always what you think it ought to be No it ain't even gray but she buries her baby The sharp knife of a short life Well I've had just enough time If I die young bury me in satin Lay me down on a bed of roses Sink me in the river at dawn Send me away with the words of a love song The sharp knife of a short life Well I've had just enough time And I'll be wearing white when I come into your kingdom I'm as green as the ring on my little cold finger I've never known the lovin’ of a man But it sure felt nice when he was holdin’ my hand There's a boy here in town who says he'll love me forever Who would have thought forever could be severed by The sharp knife of a short life Well I've had just enough time So put on your best boys and I'll wear my pearls What I never did is done A penny for my thoughts Oh no, I'll sell ‘em for a dollar They're worth so much more after I'm a goner And maybe then you'll hear the words I've been singing Funny when you're dead how people start a-listenin’ If I die young bury me in satin Lay me down on a bed of roses Sink me in the river at dawn Send me away with the words of a love song Uh oh The ballad of the dove Uh oh Go with peace and love Gather up your tears, keep ‘em in your pocket Save them for a time when you're really gonna need ‘em Oh the sharp knife of a short life Well I've had just enough time So put on your best boys and I'll wear my pearls’ Written by Kimberly Perry © 2010 Pearlfeather Publishing (BMI) (Administered by Rio Bravo Music, Inc.). All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.

Behind the Song: “Suzanne”

David Freeland — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:00:08 +0000

"Suzanne" Written by Leonard Cohen Once created, a great song can exist independently of its creators, taking on a life of its own as it rises to iconic status within the cultural landscape. Such is the case with “Suzanne,” the haunting composition that has become one of Canadian singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen’s best-known works. A look into “Suzannes”’s history reveals how, in the making of art, the real people who serve as inspiration, unfortunately, though perhaps inevitably, get left behind. Leonard Cohen was already well-known by the time of the song’s ascendance, but not as a performer. Born to a Jewish family in Montreal in 1934, Cohen published his first book of poetry at the age of 22. His experimental novel, Beautiful Losers (which one critic described as “the most revolting book ever written in Canada”), was published in 1966 and soon gained a reputation as a benchmark of countercultural expression. According to writer Judith Skelton Grant, who published an article on Cohen in the journal Studies in Canadian Literature, “Suzanne” began life as a poem. It was given substantial revisions by the time of its first presentation as a song, by Judy Collins on her 1966 album, In My Life. Since then it has been recorded by dozens of artists, becoming as much of a 1960s standard as “Respect” or “Yesterday”—a masterwork that defines one era and continues to inspire our own. Artistically, the song’s brilliance lies in its pairing of a spare, hypnotic melody with evocative lyrics: “Now Suzanne takes you down/To her place near the river/You can hear the boats go by/You can spend the night beside her/And you know she’s half crazy.” In Cohen’s version, first recorded on his 1968 album, Songs of Leonard Cohen, the mood is underscored by a lilting female chorus and Cohen’s own subtle, insistent guitar playing. Cohen delineates his enigmatic title figure, who wears “rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters,” so sharply that we seem to know everything we need to about her. Within the context of the song, she is a complete and satisfying creation. Still, the question demands asking: Is there any benefit, for us as listeners, in knowing something about the “real” Suzanne? As has been explained by a number of music scholars, “Suzanne” is Suzanne Verdal, the beautiful, free-spirited wife of an artist Cohen knew in Montreal during the early 1960s, a time when that city was an epicenter of bohemian culture in North America. Like the song’s character, Verdal did indeed feed Cohen “oranges that come all the way from China”; together, the pair savored the dazzlingly beautiful view, offered by Verdal’s waterfront apartment, of the St. Lawrence River. Other details proffered within the song speak to a romantic longing that, seemingly, remained unfulfilled: “And you want to travel with her/and you want to travel blind… for you’ve touched her perfect body/with your mind.” “I was the one that put the boundaries on that,” Verdal told CBC reporter Paul Kennedy in 2006, adding, “Somehow, I didn’t want to spoil that preciousness, that infinite respect that I had for him… I felt that a sexual encounter might demean it somehow.” The hunger two gifted and beautiful people have for one another illuminates the lyrics, giving them a spark that seems to resonate from the inside. On a human level, the song is about the mysterious forces that bring people together and, then, just as inexplicably, move them apart. Undoubtedly, “Suzanne,” as a work of art, must be taken on its own terms, but Verdal’s own story demands attention as well; it is, in effect, the story behind the story, the real-life experience that can be found, if we are willing to peel back the song’s layers. Retaining her bohemian identity, Verdal went on to travel the world, going from Montreal to France to Texas, and, finally, by the early 1990s, to Los Angeles, where she worked as a choreographer. A nasty fall and subsequent injury ended her career as a dancer; by the time of the CBC interview, Verdal was living in a converted truck in Venice Beach, California. Photographs reveal her as older, but beautiful, still dressed in the kinds of “rags…from Salvation Army counters” that, long ago, she began transforming into a personal fashion statement. “You know,” she said, “what’s kind of bittersweet and poignant is I came here with high goals and I didn’t achieve much of those goals.” Perhaps, because it has survived so fully—as a lasting, unimpeachable entity—“Suzanne” can be appreciated as a statement of human frailty as moving as any song ever written. It represents a special moment in time, created by two people whose mutual attraction was not fulfilled in a physical sense, but in an emotional, and, perhaps, deeper, way. The human figures who gave birth to that moment have moved on, underscoring how the artistic works we create will, if they are to enjoy a deep and long-lasting appreciation, outlive us. Unlike people, great songs do not age.

Chicken Soup For The Soul –The Story Behind The Song: John Legend’s “Ordinary People”

americansongwriter — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:00:54 +0000

In the coming weeks, we'll be bringing you excerpts from the new book Chicken Soup For The Soul: Behind The Song. Read the previous entries here. JOHN LEGEND ORDINARY PEOPLE co-written with will.i.am In Spring 2004, I was going to work with will.i.am at the Hit Factory, a studio on the west side of Manhattan. We’d been writing together for the next Black Eyed Peas record. He would play me beats, see if I could come up with hooks and I’d help him write the song. We’d done it before with some success. He started playing and eventually the chorus emerged. We had a small brainstorming session but that’s all the song remained for awhile -- the beat and the chorus. I liked it, but the more I thought about it, I didn’t think it would be a good Black Eyed Peas song. It seemed more like something for my repertoire. I had just gotten a record deal and was on my way to finishing my first album. I decided to keep “Ordinary People” and worked on the piano to develop and mold it for myself rather than for a rap group. I was on tour in Europe with Kanye West to help him perform his new album. We were playing clubs and small theaters there and, at sound check each day, I worked on the song, writing the lyrics and tweaking it. People around me heard me singing it and everyone seemed to feel that it was a great song. You never know. I worked on the lyrics and verses throughout the tour. I then worked on the bridge and it was pretty much finished by the time I got home. When we decided that I would record the song., I had promised Will that I would let him produce it. I made a demo in Los Angeles at the Record Plant, just me and the piano. I sent it to Will and we, and everyone else who heard it, loved it the way it was. The demo was essentially the way it was when it was released. The idea for the song is that relationships are difficult and the outcome uncertain. If a relationship is going to work, it will require compromise and, even then, it is not always going to end the way you want it to. No specific experience in my life led me to the lyrics for this song, although my parents were married twice to each other and divorced twice from each other. Their relationship is, of course, one of my reference points, but I didn’t write this to be autobiographical or biographical. It is just a statement about relationships and my view on them. - John Legend

BEHIND THE SONG: “The Man I Love”

David Freeland — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:19:04 +0000

Certain songs, it seems, are destined to become hits, even if everything possible is done in advance to help them fail. Undoubtedly, few songs have been given more opportunities not to succeed than “The Man I Love,” the Gershwin brothers’ now-classic portrayal of romantic longing.

“The Man I Love” Written by George and Ira Gershwin Certain songs, it seems, are destined to become hits, even if everything possible is done in advance to help them fail. Undoubtedly, few songs have been given more opportunities not to succeed than “The Man I Love,” the Gershwin brothers’ now-classic portrayal of romantic longing. Through its many incarnations over the decades, “The Man I Love” is one of those time-honored pieces that always seems to have been there, but, in truth, its early chances for long-term survival were anything but guaranteed. The song was originally slated for inclusion in the Gershwins’ 1924 production, Lady Be Good, with music by George and lyrics by Ira; indeed, when the first version of the soon-to-be-hit show opened “out of town” in Philadelphia during the fall of 1924, “The Man I Love” was included. But according to Charles Schwartz in his expansive 1973 biography of George Gershwin, “The Man I Love” was soon dropped from the production. The show was already a bit too lengthy, a yearning ballad number undercut the speedy effervescence of the pacing, and producers—always jittery when a show is in its tryout period—evidently decided cuts needed to be made. Or perhaps the song was removed at the suggestion of Ira Gershwin himself, who (according to another biographer, William Hyland), wrote in a letter that the Philadelphia version of the show needed a “lot of fixing.” In any case, by the time Lady Be Good opened at New York’s Liberty Theater on 42^nd Street in December of 1924, “The Man I Love” had been scrapped altogether. Later, George Gershwin decided to earmark it for inclusion in his 1927 show, Strike Up the Band, but, unfortunately, the production closed out of town, never making it to Broadway (a new version arrived there, to much success but without “The Man I Love,” in 1930). By 1928 Gershwin had determined that it might be an ideal vehicle for Marilyn Miller, one of the era’s reigning musical stage stars, but for whatever reason the capricious Miller turned it down. Rosalie, a revue starring Miller with music by Gershwin, opened at Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theater in January 1928; it featured a great song in “How Long Has This Been Going On,” but, alas, not “The Man I Love.” But then things started to turn around for the song. Lady Mountbatten, the English heiress who glittered during the Roaring Twenties’ era of high society and glamour, had already become a fan, encouraging its performance by one of her favorite dance orchestras in England. In this way “The Man I Love” began to pick up momentum, as more bands in Europe and the U.S. added it to their repertoires. Discerning the number’s potential, Max Dreyfus (Gershwin’s publisher) initiated in 1928 a far-reaching promotional campaign, defraying costs for the venture with the assistance of the Gershwins themselves, who agreed to cut their sheet-music royalties for “The Man I Love” from three to two cents. Within six months of the plan’s inception, according to biographer Schwartz, 100,000 copies had been sold. Helen Morgan, born into a rural Illinois family in 1900, grew into one of the most romanticized artistic figures of the 1920s; her trademark performance style—she would often sing atop a piano—epitomized “torch singing” in all its tearful dramatics. Arguably it is she, more than any other singer, who popularized “The Man I Love,” ushering it into the American musical canon by making it a staple of her act. Although Morgan died young (at the age of 41), she inspired many vocalists; as a result, by the middle of the 20^th century, “The Man I Love” had become a standard of emotive balladry, performed by everyone from Lena Horne to Dorothy Lamour. In 2004 it was even recorded, in a brilliant rendition, by Brazilian music legend Caetano Veloso—a transformation proving that, despite its initial failure, “The Man I Love” has become truly inextinguishable.