I Feel Alright

As previously noted, one of my favorite songs for this holiday is Valentine’s Day [LISTEN] by Steve Earle. I could not find a music link to it before, but now I have one. Here are the lyrics:

I come to you with empty hands
I guess I just forgot again
I only got my love to send
On Valentine’s Day

I ain’t got a card to sign
Roses have been hard to find
I only hope that you’ll be mine
On Valentine’s Day …

Also on that fine album, I Feel Alright, is the very Beatlesque More Than I Can Do [LISTEN], with lyrics.

Oh, just get ALL the lyrics to the album.
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For a more traditional piece, here’s newly-elected Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer Linda Ronstadt singing My Funny Valentine, with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra.

If I had a ballot for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

From CNN: “Grunge groundbreakers Nirvana, disco dynamos Chic and the costume-clad, Gene Simmons-led pop metal band KISS are among 16 nominees up for election in the museum’s Class of 2014. The deep selection also includes ’70s and ’80s hitmakers Hall and Oates; college radio heroes the Replacements; New Orleans funkmeisters the Meters; sweet-voiced Linda Ronstadt; and pioneering gangsta rappers N.W.A.

“Completing the list: the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Deep Purple, Peter Gabriel, LL Cool J, Cat Stevens, Link Wray, Yes and the Zombies.”

CBS News adds: “Nirvana, Linda Ronstadt, Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates and The Replacements are among first-time nominees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”

All eligible nominees released their first single or album at least 25 years before the year of nomination.

Linda Ronstadt for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

One of my friends, remembering her popularity in the late 1970s, both musically and visually – posters of her image were on more few dorm room walls – wrote: “Now that we know Linda Ronstadt is living with Parkinson’s, can we please finally put her in the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame?”

Not sure about whether induction there really matters; it certainly does not diminish her remarkable talent over decades. Still, I support the notion of her getting into the Hall, and if it takes a sympathy vote because she no longer can sing to achieve it, so be it. But I think she has enough bona fides to get there without pity.

She had tremendous commercial success in the folk-rock milieu in the 1970s, yet ventured off to do

Let's get physical music

I’m listening to the pre-show of the only musical podcast I listen to regularly, that being Coverville. Brian is setting up the show, realizes that some song is “protected,” so that we wouldn’t hear it if he played it, and decides to download a replacement song. He’s in Amazon when he discovers he can download the album but only if he also get the physical album.

Getting the actual CD may have been a hassle for him; he goes through a couple dozen songs a week, after all. Having moved a few times, I know that owning the tangible LP or CD is some work. Yet I still do.

I was at work, and we were talking about the death of the album in music.

1917

Some weeks ago, I was listening to the great 1999 album by Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris called Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions. The fifth track on the album was described by the respected website AllMusic.com in this way:

“The album’s best track, ‘1917,’ was written by folk singer David Olney. It’s impossible to imagine anyone else singing this haunting tale of soldiers and women in World War I. Fragile and breathtaking, Harris’ voice is buoyed by the angelic harmonies of Ronstadt and Kate and Anna McGarrigle.”

I always find it extraordinary haunting.

Valentine's Day

At my core, Valentine’s Day is one of those mixed blessings days. Why, for instance, do I so connect with a song written by lyricist Hal David and composer Burt Bacharach, Anyone Who Had A Heart? It was performed originally by Dionne Warwick, and covered by several others (Cilla Black, Luther Vandross, Wynonna Judd, Dusty Springfield, Shelby Lynne, among others).
Anyone who had a heart
Would take me in his arms and love me, too
You couldn’t really have a heart and hurt me,
Like you hurt me and be so untrue
What am I to do