Today, Shel Silverstein would have turned 95 years old had he not passed away in 1999. I think it's the right time to remember an ever-active contemporary. Many will know his songs, which became famous through other performers. Few are likely to know that, in addition to being a songwriter and composer, he was also a cartoonist and children's book author.
During the Korea war in the early 50's he worked there as correspondent and cartoonist for an American magazine until Hugh Hefner hired him for Playboy. In addition to his work as a cartoonist, Playboy sent him on trips around the world, which he commented on in his own style. Alongside Hunter S. Thompson, he wrote some of the most exciting stories, some of which were published in the German magazine Sounds in the early 1970's.
From 1964/65 onward, he wrote A Boy Named Sue, a song that became a huge hit for Johnny Cash. Silverstein's sarcasm is rarely better expressed than in 25 Minutes To Go, which deals with the last 25 minutes in the life of a delinquent before his execution.
In 1971 he co-wrote The Taker together with Kris Kristofferson, one of the many highlights from his second album and forced his collaboration with Bobby Bare
In his next step he found Dr. Hook and his Medicine Show, a freaky country band who were able to translate his lyrics into music in a congenial way. I could take any song by them but I decided to feature this because it was filmed on Shel's houseboat and Mr. Silverstein appears on harp.
And at least one of his early songs interpreted by one of the best voices in country.
On yesterday's post I mentioned Shel Silverstein, an American author, poet and songwriter. He got known by writing the lyrics of some songs by Dr. Hook but also for his work for children's books and poems. Silverstein's poems and stories were often characterised by a mixture of fantasy, humour, irony and a certain melancholy. He had the ability to pack profound messages into simple words while stimulating the imagination and creativity of his readers. In my younger days I liked to translate his lyrics that brought me closer to another language.
The Devil walked into Linebaugh's on a rainy Nashville night While the lost souls sat and sipped their soup in the sickly yellow neon light. And the Devil, he looked around the room, then got down on his knees. He says, "Is there one among you scum who'll roll the dice with me?" Red, he just strums his guitar, pretending not to hear. And Eddie, he just looks away and takes another sip of beer.
Vince, he says, "Not me, I'll pass, I've had my share of Hell," And kept scribbling on a napkin, some song he was sure would sell. Ronnie just kept whisperin' low to the snuff queen who clutched at his sleeve, And somebody coughed -- and the Devil scoffed -- and turned on his heel to leave. "Hold on," says a voice from the back of the room. "'fore you walk out that door. If you're lookin' for some action, friend, well, I've rolled some dice before."
And there stood Billy Markham, he'd been on the scene for years, Singin' all them raunchy songs that the town didn't want to hear. He'd been cut and bled a thousand times, and his eyes were wise and sad, And all his songs were the songs of the street, and all his luck was bad. "I know you," says Billy Markhan, "from many a dark and funky place, But you always spoke in a different voice and wore a different face. While me, I've gambled here on Music Row with hustlers and with whores, And, Hell, I ain't afraid to roll them devilish dice of yours."
"Well, then, get down," says the Devil, "just as if you was gonna pray, And take these dice in your luckless hand and I'll tell you how this game is played. You get one roll -- and you bet your soul -- and if you roll thirteen you win, And all the joys of flesh and gold are yours to touch and spend. But if that thirteen don't come up, then kiss your ass goodbye And will your useless bones to God, 'cause your goddamn soul is mine!"
"Thirteen?" says Billy Markham. "Hell, I've played in tougher games. I've loved ambitious women and I've rode on wheelless trains. So gimme room, you stinkin' fiend, and let it all unwind. Nobody's ever rolled a thirteen yet, but this just might be the time."
Then Billy Markham, he takes the dice, and the dice feel as heavy as stones. "They should, they should," the Devil says, "'cause they're carved from Jesus' bones." And Billy Markham turns the dice and the dice, they have no spots. "I'm sorry," says the Devil, "but they're the only dice I got."
"Well, shit," says Billy Markham. "Now, I really don't mean to bitch, But I never thought I'd stake my roll in a sucker's game like this."
"Well, then, walk off," says the Devil. "Nobody's tied you down."
"Walk off where?" says Billy Markham. "It's the only game in town. But I just wanna say 'fore I make my play, that if I should chance to lose, I will this guitar to some would-be star who'll play some honest blues, Who ain't afraid to sing the words like damn or shit or fuck And who ain't afraid to put his ass on the stage where he makes his bucks. But if he plays this guitar safe, and sings some sugary lies, I'll haunt him till we meet in Hell -- now, gimme them fuckin' dice."
And Billy Markham shakes the dice and yells, "Come on, thirteen!" And the dice, they roll -- and they come up blank. "You lose!" the Devil screams.
"But I really must say 'fore we go our way that I really do like your style. Of all the fools I've played and beat, you're the first one who lost with a smile."
"Well, I'll tell you somethin'," Billy Markham says. "Those odds weren't too damn bad. In fourteen years on Music Row, that's the best damn chance I've had."
Then, arm in arm, Billy Markham and the Devil walk out through Linebaugh's door, Leavin' Billy's old beat-up guitar there on the floor. And if you go into Linebaugh's now, you can see it there today Hangin' from a nail on the wall of peelin' gray Billy Markham's old guitar . . .
That nobodydaresto play.
Silversteen wrote also the lyrics for Johnny Cash's classic A Boy Named Sue and years later he wrote a sequel to that song called The Father Of A Boy Named Sue which is the same story but from the point of the view of the father. Another example of his humor.
I found a version of this song but I couldn't find out who sung and recorded this. Anyway, this is how it could sound.
I am not the one that was close to country music during my lifetime but there is one band, except Gram Parson and Emmylyou Harris, that opened my ears for this kind of music. Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show appeared at a time, when casual music of the big bands turned me into boredom. With their soulful rock, pop, folk and country sound were my little heroes in the mid 70s before punk happened and pub rock wasn't gone. I loved their sound and songs, especially because of the lyrics. Sylvia's Mother is probably the most emotional song about a love gone by. Shel Silverstein wrote the lyrics for a guy who tried helpless to convince his former girlfriend not to part. This music is surely not for everyone but for me a place to come back and enjoy. In particular that I was lucky enough to see them live in 1976 on a festival in Roskilde, Denmark when they returned after a fabulous gig to encore with no clothes on. Ace.
I was out at the pub with my oldest friend last evening when we meet once a month having a great time talking about everything what happened to us during the last weeks. And as every time we fall back to music that we used to listen decades before. He is still a favourite to jazz-fusion and funk but we both have a covered fondness to country music. We could agree to Shel Silverstein's song he wrote and often was released by Dr. Hook. He wrote superb lyrics and poems that made him a place in musical history. It is not the music I listen to every time but every time I hear this song I feel save and warm to it.
It is 44 years ago when country music was presented in German TV (a few years ago they showed us a 45 minutes live performance by Johnny Cash). Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show were a band a lot of folks could agree to. Not only because of the music - the lyrics often written by Shel Silversteen was also worth to listen to. Mostly humorous, satirical or just pure love songs but always funny to listen. I fell in love to this band in the early 70's when I went for the first time to Roskilde festival. The band played their set and the came back for encore totally naked and played two more songs. Dr. Hook was a band that changed between classic country and country influenced rock. And I still believe that they didn't played without booze and/or drugs and alcohol. But the audience still enjoyed what these freaks did. They are one of these reasons I turned into country music.
I still like their first album but the best one for was Bankrupt from 1975 (probably one before they turned into mainstream).
One of the reasons I like them still are verses like this:
He was a short order cook, and not too much to look at
And he traded in his foot, for a medal in the war
He loved a girl named Lila, in a bar across the highway
And you ought to see him smilin' at her comin' through the door
Lila always knew, she wasn't no ravin' beauty
She traded in her virtue to a trucker at sixteen
But she forgets to remember how he left her off in Denver
When she sees her Cooky smilin' as she opens up the screen
And he says
"Hi Lila, how about a cup of coffee?
Take a load off, take your shoes off, here's the sugar and the cream"
Cooky's been to war and Lila's been to Denver
And both of them are casualties of someone else's dream
A Boy Named Sue it is probably the best known song by Johnny Cash. Lyrics (and the song) was written by Shel Silversteen, an American composer, musician, writer and poet who had his big times in the late 70's/early 80's. He wrote this song for Johnny Cash and others for Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. All of them are weird and funny as well. He was an acrobat on words. But the funniest moments was when he wrote a sequel about A Boy Named Sue. Not in that kind most of us though about. He showed us another way of Sue could have been. I don't mind if it is good or not - it is just another way to finish the story about Sue. I think I should give him a feature in this way because he always told stories about mostly hidden places in the US and all of them were great to listen after long long times.
This is the German version of A Boy Named Sue by an forgotten artist that was a little big in the 80's.
Sadly the news arrived that Harry Rowohlt died last night after a long and painful illness. Looking like the young brother of Karl Marx he was a German writer and tranlater. He also played the role of a derelict in famous German weakly-soap Lindenstrasse. Rowohlt is known for his insightful and humorous translation of Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh. He also published German translations of works by Leonard Cohen, Robert Crumb, Ernest Hemmingway, Gilbert Sheldon, Shel Silverstein, James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut and Ken Bruen. He was the one who gave me an understanding for the works of Flann O'Brien. I remember ten years ago we went to a reading by him. Only he on the stage sitting at a table, a glass of single malt on the left and a cigarette on his right side (in 1996 he was designated to the ambassador of Irish Whiskey). Telling stories in his own and very unique way. It was fantastic to listen to him for more than two hours.
Slainte and RIP, Harry
No post without music. A song written by Shel Silverstein and sung by Marianne Faithful that's always worth to be played.
I think it's time to start a new little series. If I think exactly about it, there are many songs in their telephone calls are led or in those the phone plays an important role. Whether it is a matter now of confessing the love on the phone or whether the phone appears only as small accessories in the song - it is a matter maybe only of appreciating the medium without which there would not be this protestation at all (we exclude once the written letter from it). So be surprised what songs will appear in this series.
Let's start with maybe one of the best heartbreaking phone calls ever. There's a guy trying to call his former girlfriend before she Leaves with her new boyfriend to marry far away. Almost every time I hear Ray Sawyer still begging Sylvia's mother to pass the phone a last time to her I get goose skin because I never heard someone begging the way he did. Years later I recognized that this was an autobiographical song by Shel Silverstein another artist I should feature in the near future.
Hello comrades, I started a little break the week before because there were so many other things to do and to arrange that I wasn't able to write my daily posts. I would like to thank you all for your warm words and be sure it means a lot to me. In the last ten days I worked on our divorce, fixed the selling of our apartment, supported my former wife because she can't control and direct our son any more, had some guests in our apartment and, in addition I had a difficult and extensive job to do. Sometimes I haven't know what things should be first done or arranged. Now I hope you understand that I needed some time for a break.
Anyway, for God's sake there are some things that fetched me back on the ground again. First was watching the games of the FIFA World Championship in Brazil, playing pool with my mates and music of course. So I try to keep running this blog as you might know it. I still have some ideas for the upcoming weeks and to continue my series.
Normally my co-worker arrives almost three hours later in the office as I usually do. So I have plenty of time to play my music alongside. Last week happened that within half an hour three songs appeared by the random list with one subject. All songs trade of the fact that a man calls the person or to call tries he loves to persuade them of it as importantly it is to him that he can meet them once again.
The first one is Sylvia's Mother by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show.The song is an autobiographical song in which the author Shel Silverstein to his own unsuccessful love. Always I have loved the suffering voice of Ray Sawyer trying to get Silvia on the phone again and her mother blocked telling him him that his love moves away with an other man. I remember my hairs stood up when I first heard him begging 'Please Mrs. Avery, I got to talk to her only for a while'. I can feel the sadness when her mother said 'And Sir, won't you call back again'. And always the operator cuts in to ask for more money throughout the conversation.
Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show - Silvia's Mother
The singer doesn't really suffer but he tries to get a date over the telephone. It's the 1959 hit single from J.P. Richardson better known as The Big Bopper. He was on of the other guys who died in an airplane crash together with Buddy Holly and Richie Valance. I started reading about rock music in the early 1970s with Nic Cohn's Pop History. I will never forget what he wrote about this song: He stands in a telephone box, calls a girl and must create like mad to move them to an engagement. He sweats, he giggles, he babbles and dribbles. One feels how his fat shoulders twitch like in the delirium. His stupid suit wraps up him wei a tent, his eyes overflow and his lower lip hangs down limpy. 'Chantilly lace and a pretty face, pony tail hanging down, wiggle in her walk, giggle in her talk. Lord makes the world go round ... Makes him feel real loose, like a long-necked goose'. And all the time he melts away. And if nothing reaches, of course not, but he does not surrender, nevertheless, and roars and shouts like a democrat from the south with an election rally. The result makes no difference anyway, but the acting achievement counts. 'Ohh Baby' he howls 'You know what I like, You know'. And at this moment he explodes, resolves.
The last one is from a band that was famous during the German New Wave. I hate it if they are called in the same breath with bands, they've basically have produced musical garbage which achieved unfortunately commercial success. Trio aren't that way - they were more punk and radical then a lot of others. Anyway, they adapted this theme with spoken words on a simple melody. A guy calls his former girlfriend late at night (probably drunk) to get in contact again with her while he listen to their former song. I've to admit that I listened to a song that was recorded by Dombrowski as the girl speaking in this telephone call and I wasn't in the mood to convert my vinyl. So enjoy the video from German TV.
