Good music is good stuff

Thursday appears clear and dark this morning, with stars clearly visible all across the visible expanse of sky. The forecast calls for a sunny day in the mid 60's (17-18 C).  Yesterday's mid and upper 70's broke records for this time of year, some of those records going back 40 years.  No complaints here, these late fall bursts of summer are a delightful event.  Top-down afternoons, to be sure!

Having spent most of two posts this week on pre- and post- election ramblings, and having missed Monday altogether, it's time to revert back to the drive-in music and thoughts this blog was really started to capture, and this morning's random shuffle-generated playlist is a worthy one to draw my attention back to.

The music this morning was wonderfully varied, ranging from classical to jazz, country to hip-hop, Kentucky to Spain and France.  Terence Blanchard kicked things off with The source, a track from his powerful lament for post-Katrina New Orleans, A Tale of God's Will (A Requiem for Katrina), (and the soundtrack for Spike Lee's documentary of the disaster). This is a great headphones-in-a-contemplative-space album.

Later in the mix, Skeeter Davis pipped in with Bus Fare to Kentucky. An addictively hummable tune with cheesy cautionary moral-tale lyrics, even by late sixties/early seventies standards.  Apparently an autobiographical song, it places the vocalist as a young naive country girl who hops a bus to the Big City and finds everything there is a violation of what she was raised to hold sacred. She then can't afford to come home ("I didn't have the bus fare to Kentucky, and that old gray dog won't let me ride for free."), shacks up with a Kentucky boy who loves her and leaves her, and she ends up the song with her thumb out, suitcase at her side, wondering, "won't anybody give this poor country girl a ride?"  Worst ever don't-take-advantage-of-me line in a song.  For a song that sets up the moral superiority of the simple country over the big evil city, the author doesn't explain why she went in the first place, what she did to allow the money to run out, what she did after the money ran out, or why nobody back home was willing to help her get back home.  But the tune, like everything Skeeter recorded, is fun to sing along with, so I'll stop over-analyzing the lyrics of this short catchy and kitschy pop tune.

Macaco, a Barcelona band, riffs Mama Tierra. The linked YouTube video of the song is worth a few minutes to listen through.  The vocal work is amazing and the instrumental work is tight.

The playlist wrapped up my commute with a beautiful selection from pianist Jacques Loussier's Impressions of Chopin recording.  Every track is a take on one of Chopin's compositions, with a nicely blended classical and jazz improvisation flavor.

 - Terrence Blanchard: The source
 - Bruce Cockburn: Child of the Wind (Live)
 - B-Negão & Macaco: Mama Tierra
 - Skeeter Davis: Bus Fare to Kentucky
 - Jacques Loussier: Nocturne No. 18 in E Major, Op. 62, No. 2

As I wrap up this post, Gerry Garcia and band give his take on Positively 4th Street, one of the best things he ever recorded (my opinion, mind you), especially the live  jam version he recorded with Merl Saunders.  Good music is good stuff.