Mike's Deserted Island Favorites - Part 4

We continue with my Favorites.  Someone once said they wondered why I didn't jump off the Bondi Building after learning my tastes ranging from sad to unforgettably sad in music.  No pussy pop here, no foot-stompin dance crap either.  This is stuff that touches your heart and elicits an emotional response.  Grab a beer, close your eyes and drift.  

• Meat Loaf

Heaven Can Wait




Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell album was released in '77 I think and continues to this day as one of the top sellers, ever.  This song is a tender evocation, simple, and non-bombastic.  This goes with me to the Island as well as the CD which, by the way is absolute perfection.  Not a clinker in the whole album.  Paradise by the Dashboard Light remains a teeny-bopper favorite, not to mention us old Boomers.

• Arlo Guthrie

City of New Orleans



I can remember sitting at West Side Tap in college and listening to this while with my buds.  I wasn't old enough to drink but the West Side was manned by fellow students and fraternity brothers, so that little legal distinction was side-stepped.   West Side and its denizens could fill a book, but not today.  Today we listen to an almost forgotten tune by Arlo Guthrie that was big in its day.  In Hollywood's obsession to tap into Boomer music I've never heard this one in any soundtrack.  The clicketty-clack of the rails evokes a sadness of travel, by desire or through misfortune.  What awaits us at the end of the trip?  Its means is a train that takes us to whatever is our destiny.

• Nilsson 

Without You



A heartbreakingly sad dirge by Nilsson was a hit back when I was in college.  Wrenching, suicidal - Without You plumbs the depths of a love gone bad.  Good thing Nilsson didn't live here in St. Pete, the Skyway Bridge would be far too tempting.  By the way, another fellow jumped it last week and died.  The Skyway remains one of the top 4 bridges in America to end ones misery.

• James Blunt

Goodbye My Lover

• Meat Loaf 

I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That) 

 

From the opening motorcycle staccato rumblings to the final explanation of "what he wouldn't do for love" this is Meat Loaf Opus is rock opera at its peak.  Meat tells a story imbued with a full symphonic backdrop and every conceivable throaty sound drips with the physical infection of love.  There is nothing small about this classic.  I could listen tot his stuff all night - but with a beer in my hand, eyes closed and thinking "...if only."

 
• Ed Sheeran

Kiss Me

 

 And you thought I only liked ancient stuff.  This ballad is only months old, but makes my list because of its classically timeless melody.  The thumping beat, the gentle voice, no pyrotechnics here, and the lyrics help, too.  Don't know a thing about this guy, but Kiss Me has the feel of something that will survive the decade and maybe beyond.

 
• Shinedown

A Simple Man

   

 This is the recent Shinedown version which, in my opinion is the BEST.  I may get an argument from more traditional Southern Rockers but this breathless, guttural, almost a cappella version far surpasses the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic.   More heartfelt, more desperate, more personal, this song is a keeper.

 
• Eric Clapton

Tears In Heaven

 

 Everyone knows by now that this was written for his dead son, Clapton's Tears In Heaven is the standard by which all other ballads are compared.  Heard round the clock, and perhaps too much, he recently said he wouldn't sing it anymore, then backed off when he realized how important it was to his fans.  Regardless, this anthem of loss - perhaps more than any other song, weeps for the human condition.

• Bon Jovi

I'll Be There For You

 

 Bon Jovi has some really good stuff, as I have said before.  Unlikely big hair rockers, this group puts out eclectic stuff that can appeal to any age group and steps lightly from ballad to good old rock and roll.  This power ballad, whatever that means, is at the top of my 'Vert tunes and is impervious to polite decorum - I yell the lyrics when the top is down -  except when I'm at a busy 4-way. 

•  Harry Chapin

Taxi/Sequel

 Harry had few big hits.  He had Cat's In the Cradle, which I despise, but he also had these two songs.  Like he said, they were #1 for 5 minutes.  Taxi is a song about hope for the future, and Sequel is sadness for what the future brought.  They are movies in 5 minutes and must be heard back to back to appreciate their musicality.  Turn up the sound and revel in now-forgotten magic of Harry Chapin.  Big John Wallace provides angelic background and he is still out there backing up leads.

Big John Wallace today.

And A Bonus Harry Song

• Harry Chapin

Mr. Tanner
 

 A song about a guy who has a dream, only to be dashed.  A sad song, a movie in 5, and one you won't soon forget.  Big John Wallace's back up in this song moves practically moves you to tears. 

• Elton John

Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

Cut out the cartoon songs and soundtracks, the sleazy up-tempo crap and Sir Elton had a few really dynamic songs.  This is one of them.  It is an almost perfect marriage between melody and lyrics, with an undercurrent of melancholy imbued with a sense of wonder and hope.  Maybe even his best.

  That's it.  My musical picks for that deserted island that would keep me musically healthy.  There are many that are not listed here that just didn't make the cut.  Suffice to say I would Meat Loaf Live, a great double album, Cat Steven's Tea For the Tillerman, Bob Seger's Gretest Hits, Harry Chapin's Greatest Hits double album and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

Music is so individual.  You can't harangue, argue, meticulously campaign for a certain musical milieu.  You have to feel it.  You may, perhaps, change perspectives, or grow in and out of certain tastes, but one may be able only to like a little Kid Rock, but never swoon with his stuff.  Guess that's why we are all different.  But I wonder what shapes our interests, and who we ultimately love?  Is it experience, is it the words, is it the linking to certain events?  Is it just an innate DNA kind of thing?  Regardless, it is so true that "music has charms to soothe the the savage breast".  

The phrase was coined by William Congreve, in The Mourning Bride, 1697:

Musick has Charms to sooth a savage Breast,
To soften Rocks, or bend a knotted Oak.
I've read, that things inanimate have mov'd,
And, as with living Souls, have been inform'd,
By Magick Numbers and persuasive Sound.
What then am I? Am I more senseless grown
Than Trees, or Flint? O force of constant Woe!
'Tis not in Harmony to calm my Griefs.
Anselmo sleeps, and is at Peace; last Night
The silent Tomb receiv'd the good Old King;
He and his Sorrows now are safely lodg'd
Within its cold, but hospitable Bosom.
Why am not I at Peace?

WE NOW RESUME OUR REGULAR FRIDAY PROGRAMMING