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Amazon Kindle Commercial

I love this commercial especially since I love my Kindle. By the way, the song featured is “Fly Me Away” by Annie Little, who is also the woman in the commercial. You can download the song for free here.

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Art Tatum, Forgotten Genius of the Piano

Art Tatum was born a century ago last month and remains the most admired jazz pianist who ever lived. Tatum’s virtuoso technique left his colleagues speechless. As Fats Waller said, “When that man turns on the powerhouse, don’t no one play him down.” Even the classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz so loved Tatum’s playing that he made his own arrangement of one of Tatum’s specialties, Tea for Two. Yet outside of his home town of Toledo, Ohio, the centennial of his birth on Oct. 13 went virtually unnoticed and unremarked upon. Today reverence of his talent is universal among jazz pianists, yet he is essentially unknown to musical audiences.

Below is a rare 1954 TV performance of “Yesterdays” by Jerome Kern.

Al Green – “I Want to Hold Your Hand”

Al Green, who sang the best Beatles cover ever.

Al Green: I Want To Hold Your Hand
From 7″ (Hi, 1969)
This is a very obscure song, at least this version of it, which originally came out on 7″. I’ve spoken to several soul fans about this song, but no one I met ever heard it. Suffice it to say this is what the old folks call “fly.”

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Soul for The Beatles

With the release this week of the remastered Beatles catalog on 09/09/09, Your English Class is celebrating the Beatles by picking some of my favorite Beatles tunes as covered by soul artists. Not everyone likes covers (especially The Beatles), but writing songs with universal appeal was a large part of why they were successful. So this week I’ll be presenting some of the heavy hitters of soul and their takes on the Fab Four.

Smokey Robinson And The Miracles: And I Love Her
From What Love Has…Joined Together, (Motown, 1970)
We begin with one of the earliest songs ever covered, “And I Love Her.” This song is beautiful in its own right, and here we find Smokey Robinson and The Miracles dosing out heartbreaking background harmonizing. The backup singing is the glue that holds this rendition together. Great song!

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John York playing “Mr. Tambourine Man”

Today Sandy and I had the pleasure of seeing our friend John York, formerly of The Byrds, give a free concert at Rhino Records in Claremont. What’s great about John is that he still has a tremendous amount of creative energy.

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Across the Universe

Listen to the Song

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John Lennon

Philip Norman. Ecco 2008, Hardcover, 864 pages, $3.99

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup, They slither while they pass they slip away across the universe Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind, Possessing and caressing me Jai guru de va om Nothing’s gonna change my world Nothing’s gonna change my world Nothing’s gonna change my world Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
They call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box they
Tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Sounds of laughter, shades of earth are ringing
Through my open ears inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me like a
Million suns and calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Jai guru deva [Repeat to fade]

Background

The following is mostly lifted from a great Beatles page called The Beatles Bible. Check it out for more information.

Some interpretations of Across the Universe can be found here.

This song’s lyrics came to John Lennon in the early hours one morning at his home in Kenwood.

I was lying next to my first wife in bed and I was thinking. It started off as a negative song and she must have been going on and on about something. She’d gone to sleep and I kept hearing, ‘Words are flowing out like endless streams…’ I was a bit irritated and I went downstairs and it turned into a sort of cosmic song rather than, ‘Why are you always mouthing off at me?…The words are purely inspirational and were given to me – except for maybe one or two where I had to resolve a line or something like that. I don’t own it; it came through like that.

Part of the song’s chorus – ‘Jai guru deva, om’ – is a Sanskrit phrase which roughly translates as ‘Victory to God divine’. It was likely inspired by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom The Beatles had met in August 1967. The Maharishi’s spiritual master was called Guru Dev. ‘Jai’ is a Hindi word meaning ‘long live’ or ‘victory’, and ‘om’ is a sacred syllable in the Hindu, Jain and Buddhist religions.

In 1970 John Lennon was quoted in Rolling Stone:

It’s one of the best lyrics I’ve written. In fact, it could be the best. It’s good poetry, or whatever you call it, without chewin’ it. See, the ones I like are the ones that stand as words, without melody. They don’t have to have any melody, like a poem, you can read them.

Watch a Session Video

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Waiting on a Friend

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Single by Rolling Stones
from the album Tattoo You

Watching girls go passing by
It aint the latest thing
Im just standing in a doorway
Im just trying to make some sense
Out of these girls go passing by
The tales they tell of men
Im not waiting on a lady
Im just waiting on a friend

A smile relieves a heart that grieves
Remember what I said
Im not waiting on a lady
Im just waiting on a friend
Im just waiting on a friend

Dont need a whore
I dont need no booze
Dont need a virgin priest
But I need someone I can cry to
I need someone to protect
Making love and breaking hearts
It is a game for youth
But Im not waiting on a lady
Im just waiting on a friend

Dixie Chicks and Transcendentalism

I love this song, especially the stuff about striking out on your own, chasing a dream, and finding your place in the sun – pure transcendentalism.

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“Wide Open Spaces”

Who doesn’t know what I’m talking about
Who’s never left home, who’s never struck out
To find a dream and a life of their own
A place in the clouds, a foundation of stone

Many precede and many will follow
A young girl’s dream no longer hollow
It takes the shape of a place out west
But what it holds for her, she hasn’t yet guessed

[Chorus:]
She needs wide open spaces
Room to make her big mistakes
She needs new faces
She knows the high stakes

She traveled this road as a child
Wide eyed and grinning, she never tired
But now she won’t be coming back with the rest
If these are life’s lessons, she’ll take this test

[Repeat Chorus]
She knows the high stakes

As her folks drive away, her dad yells, “Check the oil!”
Mom stares out the window and says, “I’m leaving my girl”
She said, “It didn’t seem like that long ago”
When she stood there and let her own folks know

[Repeat Chorus]
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes
She knows the highest stakes