Salubrious Saturday

Salubrious Saturday: “Ghostwriter,” RJD2

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I’m going to go out on a limb here with you good readers and suggest a hypothetical.  Press play on that video and come with me for a mental walk.

Your week was, shall we say, lame.  You didn’t get a whole ton of stuff done at work a) because your boss gave you weird tasks with non-deadline deadlines, and b) people kept stopping by your office every ten minutes to talk.  Because of the non-deadline deadlines (or NDDs), and the convivial bonhomie of your colleagues’ interruptions, you were in a good enough mood that you didn’t really fire up the ol’ engine but coasted in neutral, taking advantage of a rare bit of calm.  You got to work at a reasonable time, you left at a reasonable time.  It was all very…reasonable.

What did you do with your free time?  Well, in this rare moment of calm (or RMOC), you decided to indulge in your favorite suite of activities: a blended purée of Buzzfeed personality quizzes, reading a few more chapters of the six-pound historical fiction novel you (for some reason) decided to buy at one point, more Buzzfeed personality quizzes, an amusing animal meme or two that you dutifully posted to a friend’s Facebook page, looking at colors to paint your bedroom, and puttering around the kitchen considering why you have so many cookbooks when really all you eat is butternut squash ravioli and BabyBel cheese rounds.

Did you see friends?  Yeah, more or less, when you weren’t looking at photos of cats with melon rinds on their heads.  Did you exercise?  Well, you took the stairs and walked a lot.

So, to summarize: you worked an average amount, accomplished average tasks in an average way, and did average things in your average amount of free time.

And now, it’s Saturday, and what’s your overwhelming feeling?  “Aw the hell with this – average is the enemy of awesome.  I need to do something.”  And that, my friend, is what Saturday was made for.

If you pressed play when you started reading this then right…about……now those horns at 1:30 should have kicked in.  So kick yourself in the ass and get outside.  I’ll meet you there.

REMIX WEEK! Salubrious Saturday: “Ain’t That Good News,” Sam Cooke meets Les Paul and Jeff Beck

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I absolutely like the original better than this version, but I have to testify to Paul’s and Beck’s smokin’ guitar work.  (And as my baby is in fact coming home tomorrow, I really had no choice but to post this song).  It gives an already rocking song a spicy southern, bluesy, rockabilly twang.  It also has a nice build-up.  But tinkering with Sam Cooke is the textbook example of gilding the lily.  The original is pure uncomplicated happiness – probably because the instrumentation doesn’t rely on so many dominant seventh chords (not sure what that means?  It’s the horn’s chord at 1:01 and 1:50, among other places.  More on this here) but allows Sam to go there with his own voice.  And those horns.  I mean, come on.  Without further ado, here is the man himself.

Salubrious Saturday: “Perpetuum Mobile,” Penguin Cafe Orchestra

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This is one of my top twenty all-time favorite songs of any genre.  It’s got a wacky time-signature (7/8 – to 8/8? Is that right?), an upbeat and focused sound, and it sparks my imagination and lets it run riot.  I’ll be running riot around D.C. crossing errands off my to-do list today, so you can bet I’ll have this in the ‘phones.

Salubrious Saturday: “Roadrunner,” Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers

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A Daily Tune-Up Haiku: “It’s 65 Degrees and Sunny So I’m Going For A Really Long Run”

The Modern Lovers

Wrote this song.  …Ok, good talk. 

It’sniceoutsidebye!

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PS: To all my friends running the Rock n’ Roll Half Marathon today, including the inimitable K-Smash: crush some pavement!

Salubrious Saturday: “Old Friend,” Alexander

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This song feels like an appropriate one with which to conclude Ukraine Week on The Daily Tune-Up.  We will return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow, but please keep an eye trained on Ukraine.  Equally important: if you are fortunate enough to live in a country where you have freedoms of speech and assembly, exercise that right every day.  Vote.  Organize.  Protest.  Speak out.  Educate yourself.  Be an active citizen.  We insult those who don’t have these rights when we take them for granted.

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Mr. Magoo, he took off with Betty,
And I’m on the porch carrying wood.
My heart is confetti.
I’m having a party,
I’m feeling good.

You say you’re comin’ to crush my skull,
To bash in my face, and shatter my frown,
To mingle my blood in with the ground,
All this as the sun was setting down.

Old friend, trying to hunt me down again
Old friend this is your exit, you’re no, no no friend

Who is this man, who’s afraid of death?
Who fears it so that death’s all he brings?
I s’pose he wage war till nothing is left,
With a mouth full of teeth and nothing to sing.

Well he put his hands around my neck,
And I s’pose I let him from natural respect.
As he frothed at the mouth, I twinkled my eye,
And gave him this vision just before I died.

He saw his lines drawn in the sand,
Upon a land of beauty and wind,
And he in the distance dragging a flag pole
Across a desert that never will end.

Old friend, trying to hunt me down again
Old friend this is your exit, you’re no no no friend

Salubrious Saturday: “Mountain Dew,” The Stanley Brothers

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If I had to pick just one style of music to listen for the rest of my life, bluegrass would make the short list, and the Stanley Brothers would definitely be one of the groups I’d pick.  I particularly love this song a) because the lyrics are a riot (below), and Ralph’s voice is so smooth.

Ralph and Carter Stanley were born in the Clinch Mountains of Virginia in the 1920s (if the name Clinch Mountains means anything to you like it did to me, it’s probably because there’s a bluegrass song called Clinch Mountain Backstep that the the Holy Modal Rounders covered.  But I digress.).  They were a pretty popular bluegrass group for their time up to Carter’s death in 1966.  Ralph continued to play and got a prominent spot in the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.  You know that a cappella song, “O Death?”  That, my friend, is Ralph Carter.  He won a Grammy for that song – Best Male Country Performance – in 2002, and, I’m happy to report, is still picking his banjo today.

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Down the road here from me there’s an old holler tree
Where you lay down a dollar or two.
Go on around the bend, when you come back again,
There’s a jug full of that good old mountain dew

They call it that good old mountan dew,
And them that refuse it are few.
I’ll hush up my mug if you’ll fill up my jug
With that good old mountain dew.

Now Mr. [Franklin] Roosevelt told ’em just how he felt
When he heard that the dry law’d gone through:
If your liquor’s too red, it will swell up your head.
Better stick to that good old mountain dew

They call it that good old mountan dew,
And them that refuse it are few.
I’ll hush up my mug if you’ll fill up my jug
With that good old mountain dew.

The preacher rode by with head high, stood high,
Said that his wife had been down with the flu
He thought that I ought to sell him a quart
Of my good old mountain dew.

They call it that good old mountan dew,
And them that refuse it are few.
I’ll hush up my mug if you’ll fill up my jug
With that good old mountain dew.

Well my uncle Snort, he is sawed off and short,
He measures four feet two,
But he thinks he’s a giant when you give him a pint
Of that good old mountain dew.

They call it that good old mountan dew,
And them that refuse it are few.
I’ll hush up my mug if you’ll fill up my jug
With that good old mountain dew.

Salubrious Saturday: “Washington At Valley Forge,” Jim Kweskin and The Jug Band

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Happy Washington’s Birthday!  …Or is it Merry Washington’s Birthday?  I can never remember.  Anyway.  Here are some interesting trivia facts about our first President, according to our friends at The Internet.

  • George Washington was 6’3″ tall, 200 pounds, and wore size 13 boots.  (No word on what size boat shoes he wore.  That’s pretty shoddy research, Internet.)
  • George Washington lent his name to 121 post offices, 33 counties, nine colleges, and seven mountains.
  • George Washington’s favorite foods included string beans with mushrooms, cream of peanut soup, and mashed sweet potatoes with coconut.  That can’t possibly be right, but…OK, Internet, I guess.
  • George Washington liked to breed hound dogs.  One of those dogs he named Sweet Lips.  …Dude.  Internet.  Seriously I think you’re just making this up now.
  • George Washington often was incapable of saying anything other than, “voh-doh-dee-oh-doh.”  …Dammit, Jim!

I think I first heard this song when I was four.  Seventeen years later, I majored in international relations.  Coincidence?  Well, yeah – what are you, into voodoo? – but I just thought I’d mention it.  I’d also like to mention that the weather in Washington, D.C., our nation’s capital, is practically spring-like, so if you need me, I’ll be frolicking on the Mall, much like Washington himself used to do.  …According to the Internet.

PS: My excellent friend Ryan White over at The Wheelhouse Review has begun a haiku series celebrating our presidents.  I highly recommend you check it out.  Oh, and you can feel really awesome about yourself since you can say, “yeah – that ‘friend’ he references on the blog, the one who gave him that idea?  Yeah, I totally know her.'”  

Salubrious Saturday: “Unexplainable Stories,” Cloud Cult

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Cloud Cult is a fantastic band from Minnesota (doncha know).  This song has a pretty different vibe than some of their other work – this one is much more down-tempo and a little more synthesizer-y.  But I still love the message of the song (“Activate your force fields and just keep going”), and the long brass intro is absolutely gorgeous.  This is a good, calm song for a quiet Saturday after a long, long week.  I hope you enjoy.

Salubrious Saturday: “Living in Colour,” Frightened Rabbit

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Ach, the Scots are the greatest.  Frightened Rabbit is an indie rock band from Selkirk, Scotland, but based mainly these days in Glasgow.  (My sources tell me that the name of the band came from the lead singer’s mother, who called him a frightened rabbit when he was a kid because he was so shy.  I know.)  It’s so hard to pick a song from them to highlight, but this song fits my mentality the best.  This past week was pretty tops, for a whole variety of reasons, and the week sounded like this song: fast-paced, joyous, with shifting tectonic plates producing new, exciting formations.  And now it’s Saturday!  Hooray, weekend!

Salubrious Saturday: “Walking in the Sun,” Fink

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You ever have those moments where you feel like you can look at yourself from a removed vantage point?  I had one of those moments not too long ago.  I was sitting in my office at work, and, all of a sudden and out of absolutely nowhere, I was able to look behind me (in my mind, of course) and see the path I’d walked on to get to where I was in that exact moment – doing what I was doing, wearing what I was wearing, all of it.  It was the strangest and most wonderful feeling.  I could see the places I had made an active decision, the places where an outside force had cleared a few feet of the path ahead, the places where I’d stumbled and made a slight course correction.  There were It made my life today seem both inevitable and accidental at the same time, in that everyone is a product of their own decisions but no one exists in a vacuum.  It was a beautiful moment.

That is what this song reminds me of.