Tune In Friday.... Some Eagles

Enjoy my favorite tune of all time from the Eagles (its the perfect harmonies....)

New Kid In Town -- old song, more recent version from the band's live tour.

Plagiarizing my own stuff

Eagles.............................Plagiarized from my Yahoo Blog

I'm getting to the point where I can sing almost all the words in the car to the Eagles "Long Road Out of Eden". I'm focused on the lyrical poetry of Don Henley's "Waiting in the "Weeds" right now. I like it again now, because it's the end of August, just like the song. It's a love-gone-wrong song, something that the Eagles are so good at. And man, that harmony. But the word poetry is stunning; and so, here it is for you, too:


WAITING IN THE WEEDS

It's comin' on the end of August

Another Summer's promise almost gone

And though I heard some wise man say

That every dog will have his day

He never mentioned that these dog days get so long.

~~~~

I don't know when I realized the dream was over

There was no particular hour, no given day

You know, it didn't go down in flame

There was no final scene, no frozen frame

I just watched it slowly fade away.

~~~~

And I've been waiting in the weeds --waiting for my time to come around again

Hope is floating on the breeze, carrying my soul high up above the ground

I've been keepin' to myself,

Knowing that the seasons are slowly changing you

And though you're with somebody else

He'll never love you like I do.

~~~~~

I've been biding time with crows and sparrows while peacocks prance and strut upon the stage

If finding love is just a dance -- proximity and chance

You will excuse me if I skip the masquerade.

~~~~

And I've been waiting in the weeds -- waiting for the dust to settle down along the backroads

Running through the fields, lying on the outskirts of this lonesome town

And I imagine sunlight in your hair

You're at the county fair -- you're holding hands and laughing

And now, the ferris wheel has stopped

You're swinging on the top, suspended there with him

And he's the darling of the chic

The flavor of the week is melting down your pretty summer dress

Baby, what a mess you're making.

I've been stumbling through some dark places, but I'm following the plow

I know I've fallen out of your good graces, but it's all right now.

~~~~

I've been waiting in the weeds -- waiting for the summer rain to fall

Upon the wild birds scattering the seeds

Answering the calling of the tide's eternal tune

The phases of the moon, the chambers of the heart, the egg and dart

A small, gray spider spinning in the dark

In spite of all the times the web is torn apart.

~~~~

And I've been waiting in the weeds --waiting for my time to come around again

Hope is floating on the breeze, carrying my soul high up above the ground

I've been keepin' to myself,

Knowing that the seasons are slowly changing you

And though you're with somebody else

align="center">He'll never love you like I do

align="center">~~~~~~~~

I'm not sure which I treasure more, the visuals of the ferris wheel and melting ice cream, or the allusions to the types of birds and animals and how they relate to types of people. When I get the the last lines "the egg and dart", "a small gray spider spinning in the dark".... I'm nearly beside myself, wishing that my writing could be so metaphorical, and so telling.

It's a beautiful song. Download it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1nqDrYcDg&feature=related

Folk Music & Me

Wikipedia: Folk songs are commonly seen as songs that express something about a way of life that exists now or existed in the past or is about to disappear (or in some cases, to be preserved or somehow revived). However, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music (or folklore, or the folk) is.

It started for me some 45 years ago. I was able to distinguish a difference between my parents music (they loved their crooners: Martin, Martino, Sinatra, Bennett, Connie Francis, Andy Williams) and my Aunt Alice's influence... she was a guitar picker, and she encouraged us to listen to the Kingston Trio, the Weavers, Peter Paul and Mary. It was easy to go from those groups to the folk-protest songs of the late 60's from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. And so many years ago today, all the songs of that time still resonate with me....lost a little in the glitz of the 70's and '80's and recovered with some more current artists in the '90's.

Although I've branched out some, I still have a natural affinity for what I'll call folk music for lack of a better term. Probably the most successful artists affiliated with it today are Allison Kraus & Union Station, Jewel, and Emmylou Harris. In many ways, folk music is more keenly idenitified with female voices and harmony than with males in our current society. Bleeding into country, gospel, the blues, and sometimes pop, folk music is probably, for some, a strange antiquity.

For 20 years now, since 1988, I've been following the folkie duo called "The Indigo Girls"... they started in the Atlanta area... truly identified with anti-war and gay and lesbian causes, the girls are pictured above when they were starting out. I saw them recently on a talk show appearance and marveled at how old they look. Then I compared the picture of them above to one of me in 1988, and took a good look in the mirror. Same infusion of wrinkles and wisdom.

The chief appeal of Emily Saliers (the redhead) and Amy Ray as a duo is the magnificent harmony, the use of many acoustic instruments, and the lyrics, the lyrics, the lyrics. It is these lyrics... tributes to the way things were in America, songs of love and loss...cynical ballads whose theme is war and bigotry -- that keep their music alive for me. In this week's blog I'm going to try and give the readers something of the best of Emily and Amy.

No better way than to start with my favorite Indigo song, from my favorite LP, 1994's "Swamp Ophelia".... "Least Complicated". The video is a masterful compilation of E & A setting up for a concert on a darkened stage, with black and white images and the lyrics of the song playing out on the curtain. There has always been debate about what drove this kind of a love song...was it their own complicated relationship?