Musical Musings: Mark Lanegan "Down in the Dark" featuring Kurt Cobain

You gotta love the Internet for its ability to humble you. No matter how much you think you know, it reminds you that you can’t ever know everything.

There was a record store at the far end of my hometown that became kind of a mecca to me when I was in Junior High and High School. They sold used CDs and records, but they also sold bootleg CDs, which even at a young age I was sort of cautious about.

My favorite band at the time was Nirvana and I had to have every song they ever did, so I bought at least four of their bootlegs. The one that I liked the most is called “Nirvana the Ultimate Collection vol. 1.” I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It had all these songs that weren’t on their albums, like “Even in His Youth,” and “Do You Love Me.”

While I was in High School suddenly “Marigold” was “discovered” my the local radio stations and they played it about 20 times a day for a month or two, I had it on my CD so it was old news to me.

But the song that this article is about is called “Down in the Dark,” but I didn’t know that’s what it was called until I started thinking about this article and did some research. You see on the back of my CD case it lists the track as “Unknown Demo” so the song had always been a mystery.

So I was going to write an article about the mystery Nirvana demo track, but as soon as I looked into this bootleg, I found a site devoted to Nirvana bootlegs and they taught me a lot about my prized bootleg CD. Here is their summation of the album, “Out of 23 tracks 15 are officially released. Not very promising for a commercial bootleg. This disc isn't even suitable for beginning collectors, filled with easy to get and not very exciting material.”  

I knew that some of the tracks were the B-Sides from Nirvana’s singles, but in my opinion buying one CD that has all the B-sides was easier than trying to find all the singles. And other than the singles there are 9 other CDs I would have had to track down in order to get all the songs that were conveniently found on my one CD. So I still disagree with the website’s assessment, but it did knock me down a few pegs and make me think.

But, the part that was most interesting was that the site revealed that, “20 and 21 are from Mark Lanegan's solo album "The Winding Sheet"” And that track 21 “‘Down In The Dark’ labeled as ‘Unknown Demo.’”

This was tremendous news! I mean I’ve been wondering about this for about 15 years.

It’s disappointing to learn that these two tracks aren’t Nirvana tracks. I thought “Down in the Dark” was interesting because it was such a departure from Kurt Cobain’s typical sound. The reason being, it wasn’t his sound! He was just guesting on Lanegan’s album.

Mark Lanegan was the lead singer of Screaming Trees and was the lead singer of Queens of the Stone Age for one album. And he’s done a number of solo albums and I’m just starting to explore his music. But, I’ve listened to his song “Down in the Dark” for 15 years and didn’t know he was responsible for it until now.

Musical Musings: Harry Chapin- "30,000 Pounds of Bananas"

When I was a kid car trips from Queen’s New York to Grandma’s house in Rhode Island during the summer meant listening to albums on the tape deck in my dad’s car. And the album I remember best was Harry Chapin Anthology. We must have listened to that album on every trip we took, or at least that’s the way I remember it. I probably know every line by heart and I remember singing along to the songs with my mom.

Not everyone in the family was a fan. I remember my brother didn’t think much of “Cat’s in the Cradle,” he wanted my dad to skip it because “it didn’t make any sense.”  After all the narrator says that his “boy was just like him,” but at the end of the song the son won’t make time for his father because he is taking care of his sick kid so he isn’t falling into the same pattern as the father. Indeed the son may have been able to break the pattern by being more present for his own child’s life. And my brother felt like that deserved mentioning. I love the song and feel like I know what Harry meant, that the song is about the relationship between a father and his son and “the boy was just like him” because the son was unwilling to make time for the relationship when he was an adult just like the father was unwilling when the son was younger.

When I became a teenager and started listening to my own music on my walkman during family car trips, Harry was left behind and I didn’t really think much about his music until I was in college. During that time I sometimes had fun downloading songs with peer-to-peer programs like Kazaa and trying to make complete albums that way. One of the albums I assembled was Harry Chapin Anthology and the CD has been a staple on my car trips as an adult ever since. And, I sing all the songs to my 4-month-old Henry. And Harry Chapin himself ended up as a character in a time travel story I wrote last year and hope to get published one of these days. My wife and I went to a tribute concert Harry’s brother Steve gave along with two of Harry’s other band mates Howard Fields and Big John Wallace. My wife and I were the youngest people there. I’ll never forget a woman turning to us when we walked in the theater and saying, “What are you doing here you’re both too young to like this music.” Yes, I’ve even made my wife a fan too. We put the CD in sing along. One of her favorites is “30,000 Pounds of Bananas” and for obvious reasons we always play the song when we’re anywhere near Scranton, Pennsylvania.     

And it’s 30,000 Pounds of Bananas that I want to talk about in this post. You see one of Harry’s great talents, which I have realized since I started to listen to his other albums, was that at his concerts he liked to switch his songs up a little bit. Whether it was changing the opening lines of “I Want to Learn a Love Song” or having the road crew and the cello player each sing a verse of “Circle.” The point is his concerts were a different experience than the albums; there was an element of not knowing what to expect.

And the live version of 30,000 Pounds of Banana’s was no exception. On the Greatest Stories Live album there is a 12 minute version of the normally 6 minute song. What is the extra 6 minutes all about? Well, Harry starts to tell the audience that when he wrote the song he didn’t know how to end it so he’d come up with an ending and he’d play it for his band and they’d say, “Harry, it Sucks!” and he’d try a different style and they’d say the same thing. And he plays all the different alternate endings and yes, they all suck. But it’s a lot of fun to hear them and yes I know it’s all just for fun, I don’t believe for a second any of them were ever real endings. But, this extended track is very famous in its own right. It was so popular that at Harry’s concerts they started selling tee-shirts that said “Harry, it Sucks!”

Unfortunately Harry’s story has a tragic ending he was killed in a car crash on the Long Island Expressway in 1981. He was taken long before his time. Rest in peace Harry!

Musical Musings: Poe- "Hey Pretty"

New Year's 2001-2002, I was down in Baltimore and went to a huge bonfire celebration out in the middle of nowhere. You can guess what kind of a night I had; I woke up on Jan.1 after spending a couple of hours curled up under a blanket on the floor of my friends Jaeger and Anthony’s apartment.

I always wake up kind of slowly, getting a feel for what’s going on before really reaching full consciousness and that day was no exception. As fate would have it, what woke me up was Jaeger listening to Poe’s second album “Haunted.” I remember hearing the sound of a phone dialing and ringing and Poe singing, “I thought you should know that he died today he closed his eyes and he left us at 12:03. He wanted you to know he isn’t holding a grudge and if you are you should let it go.” And then the somewhat eerie-gothic-pop-rock-techno music began in all its glory. I’d never heard anything like it, I stayed there on the floor completely memorized and I think I listen to the whole album. At least that’s how I want to remember it.     

To say that Haunted is a great album is kind of an understatement. It’s a work of art and easily in my top ten albums of all time.

Haunted is a concept album; it’s a tribute to Poe’s father who passed away in 1993. Poe found recording of lectures he’d given and used them as a sort of found art in her songs. She also may have used recordings from her mother’s answering machine. I’ve never been sure if those parts are found art too, I tend to think they’re just playful fabrications.

But Poe’s relationship with her parents isn’t the only thread in the album. The other main theme is the dovetailing of her music with her brother, Mark Z. Danielewski’s book “House of Leaves.” The novel is about, among other things, a mysterious closet in an old house, a closet that doesn’t exist in our reality, a closet, which begins to grow! The book isn’t required reading to enjoy the album but a familiarity with both definitely enhances the experience.

So, what’s the point of this post, other than reminiscing about old times and giving a little valentine to one of my favorite albums?

One of the tracks on this album is “Hey Pretty.” You can find it here:

Now, when I got back to college (New Paltz in upstate New York). I bought “Haunted” and “House of Leaves” as quickly as I could and started playing the heck out of the album and reading the novel. One day I was listening to the album and someone said, “Does this one have the hidden track on it?”

Sometime after I bought the album another edition of the album came out. This one had an additional hidden track at the end of it. A remix of “Hey Pretty” that features Mark Danielewski reading a passage from “House of Leaves.” Well, needless to say I had to go out and buy the album a second time in order to have the additional song. Here is the remix. (I couldn't embed this video for whatever reason)

Which version do you like better? To me they are practically different songs and I like each of them for different reasons. I think as a song the original is a better song. It doesn’t really need the spoken word. But the passage fits so well on the remix that it really is a great piece of art. I definitely remember reading the novel before I heard this remix and the passage was memorable even before I heard it set to music.    

Musical Musings: The Beatles- "I'm Down"

This is the first post in a new segment Musical Musings. I'm not sure how it will evolve, but the idea that started it was to explore alternate versions of songs. When you know a song well and you hear a different version for the first time, it always makes you really take notice. I want to look at demos, at alternate takes in the studio as well as outtakes, at live versions, and at remixes. Sometimes it's gonna ask which version you think is better, so we'll have a bit of a battle and other times it will be more about just getting neat information out there and listening to great music.

The first song I want to look at is "I'm Down" by the Beatles. This is a song I probably heard on the oldies station when I was growing up, but for whatever reason it didn’t stick.

So, years later, I'm in High School, it's the late 90s, and I'm really getting into the Beatles and I'm playing all their albums and listening to all their songs. And I got this book for Christmas from my dad, "A Hard Day's Write" by Steve Turner. This is a really cool book, it has the story behind all the Beatles songs. So you can find out what inspired everything from "Paperback Writer" to "Lovely Rita." But, one of the entries that really stuck with me was a caption that appeared under a picture on the entry for Helter Skelter, "Although Paul was regarded as the ballad writer of the Beatles, he was responsible for three of the group's dirtiest rock numbers- 'I'm Down,' 'Why Don't We Do It In the Road' and 'Helter Skelter.'"

 I remember reading that and thinking, "Whoa! there's another Beatles song that rocks as hard as 'Helter Skelter' and 'Why Don't We Do It In the Road?'” And I raided my dad's collection of Beatles CDs even more than I already had, but he didn't have it. So it wasn't until I got my hands on the Past Masters that I actually heard the track. And here it is: (Isn’t life so much easier with Youtube?)

Now what do you think? Does that rock as hard as “Helter Skelter”? (Would that track drive Charles Mason insane?) I know it’s practically sacrilegious to criticize the Beatles, it's not a bad song, really the only part that kills it is John and George doing an impression of girl back-up singers. Hard rock doesn’t have back-up singers.

But fortunately there is redemption for “I’m Down” via the Beatles Anthology 2, because on it there is a version of “I’m Down” without the back up singing. When I first heard this I thought, “this is the version of the song I’ve always wanted.” I like this version much better, but you can decide for yourself:

So which version do you prefer? And why?