[As with most songs on youtube, just ignore the video.]
I was driving and this came on. I was immediately captured by the story and, to some extent, the nice 80s groove.
I won't go into the details, but even in the age of AI, finding a song you heard on the radio is still a test of will power.
Aside from belonging to the "Song with a Story" category, I find I love songs like this one that have a driving, constant, almost monotonous, perhaps droning rhythm.
If that kind of thing interests you, here are two other examples.
Miracle Legion - All For The Best
Radiohead - Cuttooth
If this is an existing genre, let me know the name.
Bone Thugs-n-Harmony released "Tha Crossroads" in 1996 and it's been stuck in my head on-and-off pretty much since that time. But in those thirty years, I never bothered to look up the lyrics... not even once... not until now.
So I thought we'd formalize it - comparing my version of various snippets with the actual lyrics to see how close I was.
It should be noted that I found different sites have different lyrics. I'm just going to go with SongFacts. I'm also going to be changing around some of the formatting to make things easier to follow.
First off, the song starts with them singing "Bone, bone, bone..." as in the name of the group. That's the first surprise - I never knew that's what they were saying. Then later...
Me: Now tell me what you gonna do (when there ain't no where to run)
when judgement comes for you
when judgement comes for you?
Now tell me what you gonna do (when there ain't no where to hide)
when judgement comes for you, 'cause it's gonna come for you.
Actual: Now tell me whatcha gonna do (When there ain't no where to run)
When judgment comes for you,
when judgment comes for you
And whatcha gonna do? (When there ain't no where to hide)
When judgment comes for you ('cause it's gonna come for you)
This is a pretty easy one. It's pretty clear and obvious.
A little later...
Me: Fool, what can I do?
It's all about offending, and how we rule.
Can I get a witness, lighting the fool,
We living our lives we turn in our soul.
Actual:
Ooh, what could I do?
It's all about a family and how we roll
Can I get a witness? Let it unfold
We livin' our lives to eternal our souls...
Well, that last line doesn't make grammatical sense but whatever.
Me: Now follow me roll Stu. Weather is still savvy. So think of the people that's on their Ritz...
Actual: Now follow me, roll stroll Whether it's Hell or it's Heaven Come, let's go take a visit to the people that's long gone...
Man, this is hard.
Me: Instead of people with their family, exactly how many days we got lasting, why you laughing? We're passing- passing away.
Actual: And still keepin' up with they family Exactly how many days we got lastin'? While you laughin', we're passin', passin' away.
Not optimal but ok.
Me: He was long gone, all he did was come home but when he gotta die, gotta go bye-bye all the little thug could do was cry cry.
Actual: Now Eazy's long gone Really wish he would come home But when it's time to die, gotta go, bye-bye All a lil' thug could do was cry, cry
Fair.
Me: Why they killed my dog and man I miss my Uncle Charles, ya'll. He shouldn't be gone. In front of his home. What they did to boo was wrong. Mooo wrong.
Actual: Why'd they kill my dawg? Damn, man, I miss my Uncle Charles, y'all And he shouldn't be gone In front of his home, what they did to Boo was wrong Oh, so wrong...
The subtle difference between "dog" and "dawg" makes a lot of sense now. They didn't kill the guy's pet. For years I thought his pet dog was killed.
But on the other hand, you're never going to convince me that "Oh, so wrong" is said anywhere. The lyric is very clearly "moo wrong" - the song clearly has a bovine element that they've been trying to cover up for years. Listening again, it sounds like maybe "Hewww wrong."
Back to another easy one:
Me:
And I'm gonna miss everybody
And I'm gonna miss everyloddy
And I'm gonna miss everyloddy
And I'm gonna miss everyloddy
And I'm gonna miss everyloddy
And I'm gonna miss everybody
Actual:
And I'm gonna miss everybody (x6)
Nope. You lost me, Bone Thugs. I have ears, and that's not what you're singing.
Me: Livin' in a hateful world, sending me straight to Hell. That's how we roll.
Actual: Livin' in a hateful world sendin' me straight to heaven That's how we roll.
Oh, interesting. Slightly off, so close, but it's ok, I think I can nail the next one. Let's see...
Me: On libbin, on sibbin, on gebben nintendo, on wibbenese. When we come again, again and again. Now tell me what you gonna do?
Actual: You know while we sinnin' He intendin' on endin' it when it ends He comin' again and again and again Now tell me, what you're gonna do?
Man, I really thought I had that one. I'll take the "L," it's just surprising.
Me: Can somebody, anybody, tell me why we die, we die. I don't want to die. Moo wrong, moo wrong, moo wrong.
Actual: Hey, can somebody, anybody tell me why we die, we die? I don't wanna die (oh, wrong) Oh, so wrong Oh, wrong
We covered "moo wrong" already, I don't want to beat a dead cow.
So that's it. I can make no guarantees that the next time the song comes to me I'll be singing the right lyrics but a few mysteries were solved. I want to make it clear that the phrase "Moo wrong" is said multiple times and RIP Uncle Charles, ya'll.
For no particular reason, other than that this popped up on my feed and it's smooth, here's Michael McDonald playing "I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)" on Soul Train.
My impression of Soul Train is that the "performances" were lip-syncs, which would make this post mostly pointless. I think this is the record track, but I'm not totally sure. I got nothin'.
I'm at the grocery store and they have the store music playing on the loudspeaker - it's not a local radio station, it's clearly just in the store - and "Born Under Punches" by Talking Heads comes on. I recognize it immediately and I'm somewhat befuddled - is "Born Under Punches" grocery store music?
I'm not complaining - I love the song, I love the album, it was a big influence for Radiohead making "Kid A" - but it just seems like the opposite of the kind of music you'd play at a grocery store.
Decide for yourself above.
Don't you miss it, don't you miss it! Some of you people just about missed it.
It's a tale as old as time. In the mid-70's, a man with access to a Moog synthesizer made an album for plants and didn't actually sell it, but rather gave it away with the purchase of plants. But then 40 years later it was rediscovered and released for sale. The above video tells that story, the story of Plantasia.
A youtuber, David Hartley, tells the tale of how The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" came to be.
You can see more footage of the night of the orchestral recording in the official music video:
Mick Jagger was there but that's not as interesting as the fact that Mike Nesmith was too (2:34, 3:33). The Monkees were a huge influence on The Beatles.
One thing I've heard that isn't covered is that at the end of the song, while the piano is vibrating, you can hear the air conditioning of the Abbey Road Studios kick in. But that may be a myth, I don't know.
I was quite sure that I posted this in 2020 and I was quite sure that the video was taken down and that the link on my blog needed to be corrected, once a substitute was found. So here is the substitute, even though I now see no evidence that I ever posted it in the first place. Having memories of false posts is an annoying problem.
This is The Hu, a Mongolian metal band who are no longer new but put your mind back to 2020 and they were pretty new. The mixture of Mongolian throat singing with metal rhythms, plus the utilization of the Morin Khuur (horsehead fiddle) within a rock context is, if nothing else, extremely unique, you have to admit. What a tremendous and unexpected East-meets-West mash-up.
Of the songs of theirs that I've heard this is the only one that really hit me hard. It rocks.
Now let's all agree this post is real and definitely exists now.
An artist that performs songs written by others is just as talented as an artist that writes their own songs.
This is an impossible argument. It is an argument that I would never agree to. There is no way that Beyonce is on the same artistic level as Billy Joel.
And yet, Polyphonic probably makes as good an argument in the affirmative as anyone can make. It's actually impressive... and certainly worth considering.
You might find this useful: "Christmas Music From Another Room - Relaxing Christmas Ambience with Muffled Christmas Music." I suggest putting it on in the background as you wrap gifts or cook or generally go about your day. I'm loving it.
Obviously this AI, but Radiohead did perform "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" which you can find here. This was part of a livestream before there were livestreams. I was listening live, which is to say, I was in a buffering loop and getting 1 second of video every minute or so.
In considering posting "King Harvest" (the alternate version) for this day, I thought, "Can I really post that video again?" I thought I had reposted it a million times, I felt I had. But a cursory search shows I've somehow never posted it. I don't get it.
It surely deserved to be posted every Fall.
What sets the alternate version apart is the guitar solo. The high note goes up to the line that separates music and noise and possibly crosses it. The puncturing ringing in the ears underscores the feeling of the song: pain, suffering, hopelessness. The playing is on the edge just as the man in the song is on the edge.
