I blogged when Brewer died — last December — so I will blog the death of Shipley:
ADDED: From last December's post: "The singer was 'sitting downtown in a railway station" and "just waitin' for the train that goes home, sweet Mary.' Even if the song originated from an exclamation about smoking marijuana, it seems that the substance of the song is religious. The metaphor of the train is seen in other songs, such as 'People Get Ready (There's a train a-coming....') and 'This Train (Is Bound for Glory).'"
पोस्ट्स
२५ टिप्पण्या:
Turns out it was a dress code violation.
I love the Lawrence Welk version of One Toke. Saw it on B/W TV with my Grandma.
Music like that rots your brain irrespective of the subject matter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8tdmaEhMHE&list=RDt8tdmaEhMHE&start_radio=1 - You're welcome.
Boomer influencers were mostly war Babies. Fancy that.
Don’t be WAP, fruity.
The out of sync lip singing is disturbing. Hippie folk gospel was a successful niche of one hit wonders in that era. Sort of edgy at the time, seems very quaint and innocent today.
Now the two dudes have gone home to sweet Mary on time.
Hard to make out the meaning from reading those lyrics. A negative message about songwriter's life up to that point? Concealed in a hippie-dippie refrain to avoid sounding anything less than thrilled with the countercultural or youth world? Sweet Mary is much more likely to have the drug connotation than a religious one, but the latter can't quite be ruled out. There is the "death" theme right near the top. Songwriter is ready to die and see the avatars of the kingdom when he gets on the train to go home? Because he learned something, but doesn't say what?
Their Wichie-Tai-Tai is so vastly better and what I would rather remember them by. Not original to them but they sure captured it. Good video too.
When Brewer died, and I blogged it, the first comment was about that Lawrence Welk clip, complete with YouTube link.
Writing this post, I wanted to keep the conversation from getting diverted to that Welk thing again and considered bringing it up myself so it wouldn't happen again and I was sure it would.
I didn't, because I was in a rush for the sunrise, and the second comment here is about the Welk thing.
And then so is the 4th comment!
Out on the sunrise walk with Meade, I brought up the death of Shipley and wanted to discuss the phenomenon of their great recording which was everywhere in 1971, when I was 20 and Meade was 17. I thought there was great material for reminiscing about that golden era.
And HIS first response was to bring up Lawrence Welk!
Now, one reason this annoys me is that I had already blogged the Lawrence Welk thing in a post that was just about it and long before the death of Brewer and, in time, Shipley. That was here: https://althouse.blogspot.com/2008/12/one-toke-over-line.html
Yes, 2008 (after Orin Kerr had written about it over at Volokh Conspiracy). I feel like the subject had been covered on this blog, because there was a post back in 2008. Don't you remember?????!!!!!!!!!!!!
There are over 76,000 posts on this blog, going back more than 20 years. Somehow I remember them all or feel that I do. But my sense that YOU should remember them.... and remember them in a way that accounts for which repetitions annoy me and which cross-references I love... is admittedly absurd.
"... when I was 20 and Meade was 17..."
Half my age plus 7.
Althouse: Classic. Funny. Witty. Thanks for that math.
A post about trains in rock songs would be good material, too. One of my favorites is an obscure one from an early 80s band, Rank and File, "The Conductor Wore Black." A sample lyric:
He'll take your ticket and you're on his train
He don’t thank you and he don’t look back
Don’t act surprised when he tells you where you’re going
On this train conductor wears black
- My first thought when I saw this post at 6:00 was Who'll be the first to bring up Welk?
- The NYT labels this "a timeless cultural phenomenon". That seems a bit much. A catchy pop song, with the weed hook, a good record ... that's about it.
- I always thought the lyrics were a bad reading of "Sault St. Marie", instead of "home sweet Mary". One is never too old for learning and edification.
“A long time down away on East side, South side
Los Angeles, Detroit, America, U.S.A.
Sittin' right about here watchin' high heels
And sneakers tread concrete platform headin' straight
For who knows where and why and how come
Clack, clack, clack
Goin' down the rails and comin' back
Train a comin' goin'
Clack, clack, clack
Clack, clack, clack…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBqrqRDW1Ug
Either Lawrence Welk was so out of it on his own brand of Mary Jane or he was just plain out of it,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8tdmaEhMHE
Seven out of ten, if that. Not "timeless".
Bought their cassette. Beat it up good. Saw them on Dick Cavett, wanted my mom to make me a pair of pane velvet pants. Glad she didn't.
Cappy, the advertisement that came on for me before the Lawrence Welk video said, "This is what magnesium does to your bowels." It seemed somehow appropriate.
You know you're getting old when the people who made the songs of your youth are dying off. Sure, there are exceptions but when their ages are mentioned it's with surprise that they're still with us.
I was subjected to repeated plays of the Brewer and Shipley album on 8 track on a shared ride from Florida to NY. "One Toke Over the Line" and "Don't Want to Die in Georgia" are burned into my synapses.
“Driver 8” continues to be my favorite mystery train song. It’s open to interpretation, natch, but I always thought it had a psychedelic/spiritual vibe, as does the whole Fables of the Reconstruction album.
God works his wonders in mysterious ways. I can see this song putting Jesus and salvation in one's mind. The Lawrence Welk version is far more bouncy and upbeat, and the singers who present it are far more attractive. Maybe future generations will make the Welk version, the preferred version. It's not just God who works his wonders in mysterious ways.
I'm the same age as Althouse. I first heard Brewer & Shipley at the Kansas City Vanguard Coffee House at 43rd & Main the summer after high school, summer of 70. I thought they were great. They didn't perform " One toke ". Heard them again a year later at the KC Cow Palace and they performed it. They always said the song was a private joke for friends. The only reason they first performed in public was when they opened for Melanie in NYC they ran out of songs to play. A record exec was there and the rest was history.
I'm amazed how small rock venues were in the 1970s and cheap tickets were. Take the KC Cow Palace, it was a large converted roller rink, standing room only for maybe 1800 people. Four or five bucks to see the Byrds, Zapa, Black Oak, Poco, etc. Last time a saw the Eagles at a massive venue it cost $150 the get a seat close enough to actually see the band members' faces.
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