Here's the "Hey Jude," with — of all people — Tiny Tim singing the lead. Here's Brave Combo doing my favorite Doors song.
And here's the place in Bob Dylan's book "Chronicles" where he's eating french fries with Tiny Tim and they're listening to Ricky Nelson on the radio:
At some point during the day, Tiny Tim and I would go in the kitchen and hang around..."Tonation," like "potate," discussed earlier today, is, in the opinion of the (unlinkable) Oxford English Dictionary, an obsolete and rare word. It means: "The action of toning or producing musical tones; the tones or notes so produced." As long as we're talking about french fries, "potate" can be slang for act like a potato, but the OED's obsolete and rare meaning is liquid or liquefied.
One afternoon I was in there pouring Coke into a glass from a milk pitcher when I heard a voice coming cool through the screen of the radio speaker. Ricky Nelson was singing his new song, "Travelin' Man." Ricky had a smooth touch, the way he crooned in fast rhythm, the tonation of his voice....
Ricky's song ended and I gave the rest of my French fries to Tiny Tim....
Only one Bob Dylan song mentions potatoes. If you know it before clicking, you get points in this game.
Well, I looked at my watch
I looked at my wrist
Punched myself in the face
With my fist
I took my potatoes
Down to be mashed
Then I made it over
To that million dollar bash
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19 comments:
Let's see, Travelin' Man was new in 1961, right about the time Bob got to NYC from all the different places in the West and Southwest that he'd come from. Bob Dylan is the greatest deadpan in entertainment history.
That's some awful shit right there.
Check out Scott Bradlee & Postmodern Jukebox and their covers of songs in other styles.
The most popular: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmCJEehYtU
I was hoping to hear something like Vanilla Fudge, but it was a weirder weird Al Yankovic without Yankovic's talent.
"Sittin' on the Dock of the Storm"
Otis and the Doors mashup. Excellent
The best cover of Hey Jude is by Wilson Pickett, the only man who can scream on key.
Buzzfeed collects 14 "Hey Jude" covers.
I haven't listened to them all, but I checked out what Shirley Bassey (famous for "Goldfinger") did with it. It was surprisingly entertaining, including her dress, which looks like it came out of an episode of "Project Runway" where maybe the challenge was using fabric from an upholsters.
Yeah. Sure, Bob. In 1961, Tiny Tim was still Herbert Khaury.
According to Bill Bryson, the only known mention of tuffet comes in the nursery rhyme "lLittle Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey." No one since has used tuffet in a sentence. Curds and whey are making a comeback at Whole Foods. Curds are especially good with kale.
Curds are huge in Wisconsin. Whole Foods here puts out fresh curds on Thursday, which we call "Curdsday."
Post Modern Jukebox - love their Snoop Dog.
The best cover of Hey Jude is by Wilson Pickett
And that's Duane Allman on guitar.
The Wilson Pickett version is great. Also the Don Ellis version, according to the liner notes, was done to give his his audience a window into how he and his orchestra approached original material. Don Ellis is an under-appreciated artist
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That should be WAS an under-appreciated artist.
With all the discussion of 'potate' and 'potato' I'm surprised you didn't post the very first B-52's song I ever heard - "Private Idaho".
"underground like a wild potato, don't go on the patio"
ganderson,
I think the under-appreciation carries on to today, so really the present tense *is* appropriate.
1) I always thought that the wonderful Christmas polka "Must Be Santa" -- recorded by Dylan, who made a charming video for it -- was written by Brave Combo. (Dylan played their version on his radio show.) But after reading that Bill Flanagan interview, I discover that it was originally recorded by Mitch Miller.
2) Buzzfeed might have included George Shearing's lavish, neoclassical version of "Hey Jude."
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