Posts mit dem Label Bruce Springsteen werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label Bruce Springsteen werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen

Samstag, 28. März 2026

Harmonica Day

 


Over the past few days, I’ve had trouble connecting to the internet and posting the articles I’d prepared. The issues on the provider’s end seem to have been resolved, and there’s nothing standing in the way of further posts.

This way, I can continue the series I recently started, featuring songs that more or less include a harmonica, without committing to a specific day.

Let's start with a song by Tom Petty from his last great album Wildflower from 1994. One of my favorite songs on this album is You Don't Know How It Feels, in which he reflects on his work and his future in a slow, unsentimental way.

My old man was born to rock

He's still trying to beat the clock

Think of me what you will

Ive got a little space to fill



In 1982, I spent six weeks traveling through the western United States in a motorhome with some friends. At a gas station, I bought a few music cassettes because I didn’t care for what the radio stations were playing. Among them was Bruce Springsteen’s newly released LP at the time, which I listened to more than once. At the moment, I can’t imagine visiting that country again.


In the early 1990s, INXS was at the height of its popularity, with several songs climbing high in the charts. One of them was Suicide Blonde. The song’s title comes from the night Hutchence and his then-girlfriend Kylie Minogue attended the premiere of the 1989 romantic drama “The Delinquents,” in which Minogue plays the lead role. For the premiere, she wore a blonde wig, the color of which she described as “Suicide Blonde.” The fact that he committed suicide four years later is a tragic footnote, but it has no connection to the song.



Freitag, 2. Januar 2026

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 


Happy New Year, happiness and joy to all who follow this blog, which will continue to provide you with music and thoughts in its 14th year. To start with, I will continue a series that I launched in the middle of last year. Songs that have been in the charts in recent decades or that the writer simply likes will be presented as usual in a completely subjective selection and without comments for your enjoyment. Enjoy.

1966: Sonny and Cher


194: Otis Redding


1967: Cat Stevens

1968: Creedence Clearwater Revival

1976: Al Stewart

1974: Terry Jacks (the first song I had to translate when I was in school)

1987: Bruce Springsteen

1989: Fine Young Cannibals

1976: Paul Simon

1981: David Bowie

1964: The Marketts

1979: Blondie

1983: Huey Lewis & The News

1984: Talk Talk




Mittwoch, 27. August 2025

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 


This week are less songs to remember but those who appear today are still worth a listen.

1975: Bruce Springsteen


1979: The Jam


1986: Bruce Hornsby T The Range


1968: Mary Hopkin


1967: The Who


1969: Elvis Presley


1996: Sublime


1959: Buddy Holly


1975: Aerosmith (I prefer the version by Run DMC)


1964: The Supremes


1990: Cocteau Twins


1964: Roy Orbison



Mittwoch, 16. Juli 2025

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 




This week's look back mainly takes us back to the time before punk changed everything, but also includes a Bruce Springsteen track that is one of my favorites of his.

1972: The Hollies


1960: The Shadows


1971: Paul Revere and the Raiders


1973: Elton John


1973: Paul Simon


1978: Bruce Springsteen


1966: The Beach Boys


1975: David Bowie


1979: Talking Heads


1976: Todd Rundgren



Mittwoch, 19. Februar 2025

Singles Released This Week Years Ago

 


Another journey through releases of songs that made me fun listening again.

1970: Detroit rock and blues band Rare Earth released a cover version of Temptations hit Get Ready. Although the single is pretty good I prefer their long version.


1981: Vince Clarke prepared the sound of electronic pop music with Depeche Mode. I Just Can't Enough was the first of many upcoming melodic hymns.


1987: Prince released his best album for me with a statement of what was going on these days.


1991: REM release Losing My Religion, not their best song but the one that made them super stars.


1984: Bananarama was probably the first British girl band that brought us in the 80'sna lot of classic pop songs like this.


1980: Squeeze should be named if someone asks for a band formed in the post-punk days and later turned into pop-rock hymns.


1973: Bruce Springsteen released his debut and Blinded By The Light was one of his early highlights of the great storyteller.


1979: From the ashes of the latest pub-rock band The Motors Bram Tchaikovsky showed how great power-pop could be.


1979: It takes a lot of chutzpah to record cover versions of soul classics at a time when music was in upheaval. But the two comedians Aykroyd and Belushi did it very well.


1980: Atomic by Blondie is too good to remain unmentioned here.



Mittwoch, 11. September 2024

The Wild, The Innocent And The E-Street Shuffle

 


I bought my first long-playing records around 1974, after I had earned some money with my first holiday job. To be honest, I bought three albums on recommendation. Yessongs and Dylan's Before The Flood because at the time I thought live albums showed the artists unvarnished and with a double or triple album I would have got more for the money I spent. I also bought Bruce Springsteen's second album.

Springsteen wasn't the boss back then and was largely unknown. I actually only bought the album on the recommendation of the salesman in the record shop, but I have never regretted it. The album is now over 50 years old and I still listen to it from time to time. It has none of Yes's overblown organ sound but a lot of Dylan, especially the gift of telling stories in the songs. 

For me, his quieter and atmospherically dense songs have always been in the foreground and here he has collected many of his best and most melancholic songs. With Rosalita he laid the foundation for his later status. A record that has stayed with me throughout Springsteen's career and shows what he was all about. A poet from New Jersey who dreamed his dream of rock ‘n’ roll.





Donnerstag, 28. April 2022

Willi Resetarits 1969 - 2022

 


For his dialect blues and rock, the Austrian singer Willi Resetarits was known as "Ostbahn-Kurti" - now the musician has died at the age of 73. He died on Sunday by an accident in his home. He started his career in the late 60's as a member of Schmetterlinge a political agitating band. They got country-wide known as they represented Austria in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1977 where less people understood the irony in their song about commercial mass compatible songs. Since the eighties Resetarits, switched to lead vocals and harmonica, portrayed the rock'n "roll art figure Ostbahn Kurti. He invented the fictional biography of the forgotten Viennese suburban rock'n' roller with proletarian pride, slippery street-smart Viennese wordplay and earthy interpretations of great post-sixties blues and rock classics in the Viennese dialect, including his versions of several songs by Bruce Fire ("Feia"), Townes Van Zandt's "At my Window" (Liagn and lochn) and songs by Dave Edmunds, ZZ Top, Steve Miller or Frank Zappa. In recent years he has been very committed to social projects and became one of the most humorous and therefore most credible and vocal speakers for integration and dignified dealings with refugees and minorities of the republic. He was not a phenomenal musician or songwriter but beyond doubt a very good live artist and I can bear witness when I saw him several times live with his band during the last decades. 

Rest easy Willi





Mittwoch, 3. November 2021

Thunder Road

 


No, this is not about one of Bruce Springsteen's greatest songs. This Thunder Road is by Martinou, a Swedish DJ and producer and taken from his latest album Rift. His music is stamped by conventions of house and techno but he reduced speed and create a flow and groove of something sublime. One of the best in this genre this year.

I can't resist to feature the great storyteller with Thunder Road right now.



Montag, 2. November 2020

Monday's Long Song

 


A few days ago I was looking for an old album I suddenly found The Wild, the Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle, Springsteen's second album from 1973 again. One of the earliest records I bought from my own earned money and still an album I like to return. Filled with great songs showing his view of New York. In times before punk appeared he was named as the future of rock and roll. A liability he couldn't confirm. But with his first two albums one of the greatest storytellers and musician appeared to the scene. Even at the age of 71 he has more to tell than many others.

Bruce Springsteen - Incident on 57th Street

Samstag, 7. Dezember 2019

2019 Songs

Bildergebnis für vinyl

Yesterday was the last day working in my office. When you will read this words I am on the way to Sri Lanka again like every year to recreate from all the horrible stress I had during the last months. Before I left I took a look back what happened in music during the last year and I have to say that very good music came to my ears this year. It is difficult to order the songs I listened often in a row so here are this songs that enjoyed me several times I listened to them. And if I will find the time and the mood in the next weeks probably I will write about the albums that inspired me this year. I wish  all of you joyful days, a great Christmas time and a wonderful start into the new year. Take care all. See you next year.























Freitag, 29. Juni 2018

Another Great Re-Release

Bildergebnis für Crooked Fingers – Red Devil Dawn

Now, finally, it is a fact that Germany is not the unbeatable team during a tournament which all the same as badly they play, they will get into the next round. This team didn't show me everything I expect from them: playing a fast and inspired football and the will to win. Too many players that won most of the titles they could win and not able and willing to give all to succeed. Anyway, this World Cup is over and I am glad that better teams can show what they are able to play. Now I am looking forward what the English and Belgium teams will show in this tournament.

Sometimes it happens that I read the news that an old album was released a long time after it's first release and I ask myself why I had forgotten this record. This happened by the re-release of Red Devil Dawn by Crooked Fingers. It was first  released back in 2003 as the third record by the North Carolina based indie-rock band. It was a record that was played often at my place almost 15 years ago and I remember that I was fascinated by their very unique sound. This crude mixture of Americana, combined with bluesy and melancholy mood made this record worth listening. Sometimes between Springsteen and Waits they create their own kind of music. Listening to this album makes me think that this could be a forgotten classic.

Crooked Fingers - Big Darkness
Crooked Fingers - You Can Never Leave
Crooked Fingers - Bad Man Coming
Crooked Fingers - You Through A Spark


Dienstag, 8. Mai 2018

One Song Sung By Many

Bildergebnis für deportees

I was listening to Deporotee an old song by Woodie Guthrie the recent days and I was astonished how many artistes covered this song. Every version is great by itself and it makes me thinking that a good song cannot be destroyed by everyone. A story about underpaid workers brought back to their native country and died by an aircrash. Just another story about no named people died for working for our own prosperity. And when we listen to this song we have to watch what happens to borrowed workers from Eastern Europe. This song is as important as it was when it was released ages ago. This are the results of my investigations about this song. It is for your pleasure and enjoyment.







Donnerstag, 12. Oktober 2017

American Storyteller

Bildergebnis für bruce springsteen 1978

Can't believe but it is true that is 44 years ago when I first heard from Bruce Springsteen as one of the best new artists around. I bought his first two records and really enjoyed them because they were new, fresh and different to all the other stuff from across the ocean. There was one person telling me stories from the unknown places in NYC and I absorbed it to me. At these days I never left Germany for longer times, except for little trips to Austria with my parents. In times were music was boring and I waited for something new to come Springsteen appeared on the scene with great songs and pure enthusiasm. At this time he was rough, pure and full of energy. Far beyond the things he did later with the overproduced things on Born To Run. Not that they are bad, but he lost the ground on his feet. I still love some of his later songs until now and I saw him a several times live during the last decades and every concert astonished me about acting live on stage. To be frankly I will always return to him and his songs from the early days.




Sonntag, 10. September 2017

Strangers's Kiss

Bildergebnis für alex cameron

Another new artist to me was Alex Cameron when a friend recommended this latest video to me. Cameron is a Sydney based musician and his music can is based on classic rock, the epic Bruce Springsteen and Nick Cave's haunting melodies. Together with Angel Olsen he made a remarkable song and one of the finest videos this year.