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Pop Rock Nation

Category: Videos

  • Silly love songs…

    “Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs… What’s wrong with that?”

    I had an interesting experience yesterday. I happened to run across a Facebook profile for a woman who is friends with a lot of my friends. She also happens to be married to a guy I used to have a big crush on. My crush went unrequited, of course. I looked at her pictures with her husband, a man who both charmed and tormented me when we were little kids and was immediately reminded of a silly love song by Garth Brooks. The song was “Unanswered Prayers”. I’d post it here, but apparently Garth Brooks is very protective of his copyrights and there aren’t any videos of him doing that song on YouTube. I suppose I could find a cover version, but instead I’ll just say the sentiment of that song fit the way I felt yesterday. I had a lot of crushes back in the day, but am actually kind of glad none of them panned out.

    As I gave my husband, Bill, a big kiss last night as a thank you for choosing me, another silly love song immediately popped into my head. That song was “The Last Worthless Evening” by Don Henley. I’d post that song here, but again, Don Henley is apparently protective of his copyright and I can’t find any suitable videos on YouTube. The point is, it’s a sweet song and sort of sums up how I feel about Bill. When I found Bill, I found a man who made the pain of all those unrequited crushes go away. I haven’t had a “worthless evening” since.

    This morning, as I sat in my office thinking about today’s post, I realized that both “Unanswered Prayers” and “The Last Worthless Evening” were recorded by guys with enormous egos. Shoot, Garth Brooks won’t even let you download his songs unless you visit Walmart’s official Web site. I guess he figures he gets more money if you buy them on CD, since you can’t just buy one song. It’s his right to do that, but I’m not enough of a fan to buy one of his CDs or download from Walmart’s site.

    I am a fan of Don Henley’s and actually own several of his studio albums and he does let you download from iTunes or Amazon, though he doesn’t want you using his music on YouTube. But I would buy a CD by Don Henley… or at least I would before he and the rest of the Eagles got into bed with Walmart. Garth Brooks also got into bed with Walmart back in 2005, when he signed a deal making Walmart the only place you can buy his music. Since I loathe Walmart, I refuse to buy anything there, so any artist who only sells music at Walmart will not have a place in my library.

    The Eagles have since made their 2007 album Long Road Out of Eden available elsewhere, but the damage is done. I found it very hypocritical that Don Henley was such an outspoken advocate for environmental causes and yet he got involved with a business that is responsible for so many trees losing their lives due to Walmart’s enormous stores. It’s not that I’m such a big environmentalist. I just don’t like hypocrisy and I don’t like not having a choice as to where I buy things.

    So then I started thinking about “Silly Love Songs”, a love song by Paul McCartney and Wings. And what do you know? I actually found a video for that song…

    And this song, while maybe as schmaltzy as “Unanswered Prayers” and “The Last Worthless Evening”, doesn’t take itself too seriously. God bless Paul McCartney for his lighthearted silly love songs. And thank God for “Unanswered Prayers” and “The Last Worthless Evening” because they make me appreciate “Silly Love Songs” all the more.

    Have a great weekend, y’all!

  • Linda Ronstadt’s voice…

    Linda Ronstadt’s voice…

    I will never forget the first time I heard Linda Ronstadt’s voice for the first time…

    I was six years old and my sister, Becky, had just purchased Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits Volume 1 on vinyl. I remember being enchanted as I listened to Linda sing songs like “You’re No Good” and “Heat Wave”. Those two songs were probably my early favorites on that album, which I loved to listen to. When I was finally old enough to buy my own music, I purchased Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits Volume 1 and Volume 2 on two different CDs. I remember wearing those discs out, enthralled by Linda Ronstadt’s powerful yet tremulous soprano. As a singer myself, I would try to emulate her voice, which was majestic to my ears.

    Linda Ronstadt has had quite an amazing career. She got her start in folk, then moved on to country tinged rock. In 1971, she had the guys who would eventually form The Eagles as her backing band. She made memorable music with wild guitar man Waddy Wachtel. And she has never been afraid to experiment.

    I remember in the early 1980s, when Linda went from singing powerful rock and roll anthems to dabbling in big band music. She made three well-received albums with Nelson Riddle and won a whole new legion of fans. Of course, since I was still a kid in the early 80s, I didn’t appreciate Linda’s elegant foray into big band the way I might have if I had been older. In fact, I was kind of disappointed when I heard her start singing standards like “What’s New”. I missed her soul piercing wailing on songs like “Blue Bayou” and “When Will I Be Loved”. “What’s New” sounded like easy listening music to me…


    Linda Ronstadt sings “What’s New”.

    At age 41, I can now appreciate the lush beauty of Ronstadt’s big band hits. In fact, having performed some of these songs myself, I can understand why they appeal to so many. These are songs that will never truly go out of style and Linda’s voice has a sweet girlishness that helps keep them timeless.


    Linda Ronstadt sings “I’ve Got A Crush On You”.

    I have to confess that although Linda Ronstadt’s 1989 album Cry Like A Rainstorm, Howl Like The Wind was a big hit, I was never really a fan of it. My sister, Betsy, gave me a copy of the album when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Republic of Armenia teaching English. I listened to the album a lot because I didn’t have that much music available to me, but it was a little too sedate for my tastes. Also, Aaron Neville, sang on it. I know a lot of people love Aaron Neville’s sensitive and nasal falsetto, but I never liked it that much. It’s only since I’ve gotten older that I’ve started to hear the beauty of Aaron Neville’s voice.

    Nevertheless, Linda and Aaron made some magic together and scored big in the adult contemporary genre with “All My Life” and “Don’t Know Much”. I remember making fun of “Don’t Know Much” quite a lot back in the day.

    I was really missing Linda Ronstadt’s huge rock voice, though, and would always go back to her earlier albums to hear that glorious voice belt out powerful, gut wrenching hits like “Hurt So Bad”. It’s hard to match the raw emotion of this cover and her voice takes on an other worldly quality that conjures up the searing pain of a breakup.


    “Hurt So Bad”

    And, of course, she made magic with Roy Orbison’s “Blue Bayou”. I much prefer her version to his.


    Linda Ronstadt in 1983, singing “Blue Bayou”.

    I was very sad the other day, when I read that Linda Ronstadt has Parkinson’s Disease and can no longer sing. The disease has affected the muscles that allow her to make music. Ronstadt, who was diagnosed eight months ago, says that no one with Parkinson’s Disease can sing. Because I am a singer myself, I felt particularly sad for Linda Ronstadt. I know how much joy I get from making music and how much it would devastate me if I couldn’t make music anymore.

    Next month, Ronstadt will release a new book about her life entitled Simple Dreams: A Musical Memoir. The book reportedly makes no mention of her Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis or the fact that she can’t sing anymore. I look forward to reading it, though, and hope that writing gives her an outlet for her formidable creative gifts.

  • Discovering Janis Ian

    I should probably be ashamed to be 41 years old and just now discovering Janis Ian…

    The song “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian is one of those songs that you’ll heard on an adult contemporary radio station from time to time. Or perhaps you’ll hear it in an informercial for a singer/songwriter music club. Seems to me that’s where I often caught snippets of old songs I had never been exposed to because of my age. Janis Ian’s plaintive song about growing up looking “weird” no doubt resonates with a lot of people, especially girls. I know if I had listened to this song as a teenager, it probably would have had a profound effect on me. I wasn’t particularly strange looking as a teen, but people thought I was odd. I was terminally dateless until I was 28 years old and I met my husband.


    Janis Ian sings “At Seventeen” live in 1976.

    Right before she sings in the above video, Janis Ian explains that she was “weird looking” as a teen and this song was born out of that experience. I can only imagine how teens of the mid 70s reacted to this song about the ultimate teen angst. How many young women sang along to this in the privacy of their bedrooms or while driving alone in their cars?

    I was inspired to listen to more of Janis Ian’s music after really listening to “At Seventeen” for the first time. Naturally, I discovered her song “Society’s Child”, which also demonstrated Ian’s remarkable ability to say so much with her song lyrics.


    Janis Ian sings “Society’s Child”

    “Society’s Child” is a song about interracial romance, which back in the 60s was very taboo. Janis Ian wrote it in 1965, when she was just 14. When it was released to the masses, a lot of radio stations refused to play it because it was too controversial Ian has said that she got a lot of hate mail for that song and one radio station in Atlanta that played it was actually burned down. It’s amazing to me that 1965 was just seven years before I was born and I grew up watching The Jeffersons and seeing Franklin Cover and Roxie Roker playing Tom and Helen Willis. As a child, I don’t think I realized how racially divided the world was… and still is. I recently read about a Cheerios commercial that got a lot of heat because it features a biracial couple and their child. This is still an issue even 48 years after Janis Ian wrote her song and yet Janis Ian was brave enough to bring up that subject in 1965.


    Really? This is controversial in 2013?

    I just purchased Janis Ian’s Grammy winning album Between The Lines and I feel pretty sure I will spend time getting to know it as intimately as I know other favorite albums by artists of Ian’s era. Maybe I was born in the wrong decade.


    Janis Ian sings the gorgeous ballad, “Tea and Sympathy”.

    Ian has done a lot with her talents, writing music, singing, being a columnist for the LGBT magazine The Advocate, and writing science fiction novels. She really seems like someone who has done a lot of good, using her gifts to make the world a better place. I’m delighted to meet her, even though it’s happening long after it should have.