incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

I spent my morning having a lot of feelings about "Fast Car," because social media was full of videos of Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs performing it as a duet at the Grammys. Here's my Tumblr reblog of the full performance.

As I said in the tags over there, I had been very "huh?" the first time I heard Combs' cover, because the original's perfect as is and his cover doesn't really reinterpret it or anything. But then I learned that he just wanted to introduce the song to new audiences because he loves it so much, and I think that admiration and respect really shows in the performance, which I found charming. And Chapman is just radiant, so happy and assured, and sounding absolutely wonderful. (The NYT (gift link) had a nice article about the performance, including how "welcoming and expansive" it felt.)

The other interesting thing about the duet is that it's Chapman's version except for a single word. Combs's cover is indeed quite faithful, but it's not 100%. First, he reduces the number of instrumental refrains between verses. The Grammys duet uses the original instrumentals, except slowed down just a tad and with an added violin (which I really like). Second, Combs's cover changes the two critical question verses.

lyrics comparisons

The first of these comes after the narrator recounts dropping out of school to take care of her alcoholic father after her mother leaves. Copied from Genius:

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way

Combs's cover:

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
Still gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way

Which is fine. However, the second question verse comes after the narrator realizes that her (edit:) partner also drinks too much:

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so you can fly away?
You gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way

Whereas Combs makes no changes to his first iteration:

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
Still gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way

And that's the end of the song, and it's SO important that the narrator is choosing differently than her mother! She's made her decision, she knows what she's doing; the "you" can take it or leave it.

The duet sort-of splits the difference.

Combs: You got a fast car
Chapman: Is it fast enough so you can fly away?
Combs: We gotta make a decision
Chapman: Leave tonight or live and die this way

I wish that he'd gone with "you" instead of "we," of course; actually, "still" might have made more sense there than in his cover. All the same, it's otherwise such a beautiful performance that I'll forgive it.

But really, thinking about that lyrics change mostly reminded me of how affecting I've always found the deep sadness, hope, and determination in the song. It's so beautiful, and I'm delighted by its second life.

Anyway. Here's the remastered original.

Here is a wonderful Steven Universe vid by skygiants, which is about loving and being together even if the world might end. Disclaimer: I introduced this song to her as part of a "cheerful apocalypses" playlist called "(and I feel fine)", which you can listen to via YouTube, and I am unreasonably pleased by that. But it's still an amazing vid, it packs so many character arcs and has such great bouncy movement to match the bouncy song. If you're up through . . . I think the latest thing I recognized was S04E16, "The New Crystal Gems", you should definitely watch it.

Clean Light_ from skygiants on Vimeo.

If you like, here are links for feedback: skygiants' DW, AO3, or click through for Vimeo.

Also, I can't remember if I've recced this already, but I made the playlist before I knew about "Dance Apocalyptic", so here is another fabulous vid, this one multi-fandom, by eruthros and thingswithwings:



Comment at thingswithwings' DW or click through for YouTube.

Several months ago, I dumped a bunch of songs into a shuffle playlist and called it "Transformative Weather": things that reminded me of Welcome to Night Vale in some way, things I'd just been listening to then, a couple Dylan covers that I really like and that had come up on shuffle again recently, and some other things that just seemed to fit.

I later refined it into an actual listen-in-this-order playlist, and in celebration of catching up on my episode reactions, I've put it on YouTube, because that is a thing one can do these days. As usual, I have only watched snippets of most of the videos, though I have optimized the start and end times for music-in-background as opposed to video-watching purposes. If you like the songs, support the artists, please.

1. "Hard To Make It," by Tracy Grammer (could only find a live version; volume is very low)
2. "Bad Luck," by Langhorne Slim & The Law
3. "Tallulah," by Company Of Thieves
4. "Fire In the Canyon," by Fountains Of Wayne
5. "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go," by Miley Cyrus
6. "Calamity Song," by The Decemberists (Infinite Jest fans, you need to watch this video; volume is very low)
7. "Call Me Up," by World Party
8. "Radioactive," by Imagine Dragons (yes, I used the WtNV trailer version for the YouTube playlist, because the official video does weird things to the song)
9. "That Old Black Hole," by Dr. Dog
10. "Long Time Coming," by Delays
11. "Gimme Sympathy (live)," by Metric
12. "Chloe," by Grouplove
13. "With God On Our Side," by K'naan
14. "Sleep All Summer," by Crooked Fingers
15. "Love Will Save Your Soul," by Grouplove
16. "Anna Sun," by Walk the Moon
17. "Bottled In Cork," by Ted Leo and the Pharmacists
18. "Living in Colour," by Frightened Rabbit
19. "Graceless," by The National
20. "Make It Always Be Too Late," by Del Amitri

(The last song is (a) the one I would pick in a heartbeat if the Night Vale folks showed up on my doorstep and asked me to introduce the weather; and (b) so obscure that last time I looked I couldn't find it on YouTube, only live covers that lacked the instrumentation that gives it the full feel. So yay it being up now.)

Hello, DW. I had a very busy weekend, all of it lovely, which is nice since Thursday was, oh, let's say top three in worst courtroom experiences ever.

Friday: the kids went off to Chad's parents, and we went to see the Hold Steady in a little tiny restaurant/bar in Albany. I was still really tired from the week and recovering from this cold, but I found a bar stool to perch on at the side of the room, which both kept me from having to stand and elevated me slightly so I could see somewhat. Unfortunately, this meant I had a really good view of the singer from the opening act, who ( cut for minor grossness )

Anyway. Chad has been a huge fan of the Hold Steady since the days of "Your Little Hoodrat Friend"; I like a few of their songs and can take or leave the rest, but I had a very good time anyway, because it's the kind of music that sounds best when played loud, live, and to an audience who knows all the words. Their lead singer has the weirdest version of rock star . . . stardom, I guess, though. I can't call it charisma, because I have seen rock star charisma, I have been to a Yes I Am-era Melissa Etheridge concert and two Bruce Springsteen concerts, okay, that is charisma, which (if you swing that way, and maybe even if you don't) obliterates the "or" in "everyone wants to do me or be me" (TM Tom and Lorenzo). What Craig Finn, the Hold Steady's vocalist, has, is neither do me or be me, but is kind of an infectious dorky joy at being there in the first place to have fun with everyone else (the last part is key). I just spent way too long looking for decent live videos of my favorite songs, without luck, so have a semi-random video of "Chips Ahoy" (the racing wagers song) from several years ago, to give you a sense of the idea. For more details, see Chad's post and the set list.

Then Saturday I had a routine endoscopy, just to make sure a decade of acid reflux hasn't caused significant damage; this was actually why we'd sent the kids off in the first place, since it involved anesthesia and someone else driving me home. The procedure was fine and I spent the afternoon asleep on the couch, just a little soreness that has passed. Even not eating after midnight or drinking after eight was perfectly tolerable when I didn't have to get up at five with a toddler, so hey, no complaints. Plus that night we got to watch the college where Chad works, Union College, win their first-ever NCAA championship in men's hockey, which was pretty great. (The NYT story does a good job of putting the game in context.)

Today I drove out to Massachusetts to have lunch with friends from high school and a selection of their kids, including an eleven-week-old that my friend was kind enough to let various of us snuggle. I do not want another baby, but there's just nothing like a tiny baby asleep on your shoulder, and that was a really lovely full-body trip down nostalgia lane. Plus I got to have a conversation with another kid who is a bit older than SteelyKid, and catch up with all the adults, and it was all very restorative, despite the drive.

And then tonight Chad and I went to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier, because he skipped it opening weekend to take SteelyKid to movie night at her school (he was much less interested than me, and SteelyKid was super-hyped to go to movie night). More on that (inevitably) in a moment.

I wasn't planning to make this post for a while, because I haven't finished listening to some of the albums these are from (the perils of shuffle and a really big backlog), but I figured I ought to make a substantive post after the last post at LJ (and a locked post after that), just to demonstrate. So here's a bunch of new-to-me music that I've been liking lately.

• Metric, Fantasies: a number of songs, particularly "Blindness," which is nicely creepy and rich with narrative (Google [*], YouTube) and "Satellite Mind," which is catchy and mildly NSFW (Google, YouTube). Alt rock (and with a female singer).
• Muse, "Uprising" (Google, YouTube): bass line, baby. More alt rock.
• Mary Chapin Carpenter, "Why Walk When You Can Fly" (YouTube): and now for something completely different, a gorgeous pop song. I first heard it without the piano intro and I like it better that way.
• Tracy Grammer, "Gypsy Rose" (YouTube, live): more gorgeous vocals, this time further on the folk side of things. Also, a song that would be very different if you gender-reversed it; I keep meaning to do a post about cover songs that are interesting that way.
• Band of Horses, Infinite Arms, particularly "Laredo" (Stereogum): pop rock, nice harmonies.
• Josh Ritter, "Long Shadows" (YouTube). Simple (for Ritter, who seems to specialize in songs with eight million words) but lovely. Chad also likes "Lantern" from that album (YouTube), which is growing on me.
• The Gaslight Anthem, "The Diamond Street Church Choir" (YouTube, live acoustic): reminds me of 80s rock, in a good way.
• The New Pornographers, "A Bite Out of My Bed" (YouTube): I have no idea how to describe this other than catchy.
• The National, "Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks" (Google, YouTube): I seem to be on a run of "songs whose titles or meanings I don't really understand, but like anyway." Slow, pretty alt rock.
• Sara Bareilles, "King of Anything" (YouTube): I think this is going to be the best-known song on this list. Upbeat pop rock with piano.

[*] I think the Google links ought to give you, at the top of the page, a music-only option for listening in full for the first time through.

Finally, Chad has an Ode to a Rubber Dinosaur.

Answers behind the cut to last week's post, with links and suchlike.

( six songs )

Clearly I should have had this as a question, I don't know what I was thinking:

[Poll #1435602]

(If the answer is "no," you want the prior post.)

An extremely mixed bag, today:

Of the recent attempts at suppressing discussions of racism that I'm aware of, I think literally and repeatedly ripping down an entire protest display takes the cake. The poison-filled cake of racism, privilege, and oppression, that is. (This was a student protest at the University of Minnesota Twin-Cities Dance Program, ripped down by other students, and the university administration's response was to call the destruction "the changes made by another group of individuals." And . . . nothing else. That would be the icing on this particular cake.)

(Edit: okay, my metaphor got away from me. The protest is actually about pervasive institutional problems, in which context the administration's non-response is more than just icing. But the ripping down (because it will help the discussion! Um, wtf, over?) just infuriates me.)

sparkymonster has a helpful summary with more. Support the students through their petition, passing the word about the protest, or joining this Facebook group.

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Baby sloth!

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tool_of_satan has an interesting thought on what gives LotR its quasi-mythic feel in this thread on the non-European epic fantasy post:

This is a complicated question, but I think part of the answer is Tolkien's use of deep time. Things that happened thousands of years ago have direct consequences that the characters need to deal with, and there are people around who were actually alive back then, mixing with the mortals. Furthermore, we (and the hobbits) are told much less than everything about the ancient people and events - the critical bits, of course, and there are allusions to many other things, but one ends up feeling there are many other stories that could be told, which I think helps make the ones that are told feel more real. (I haven't read the Silmarillion or any of the other posthumous volumes, I should note.)

(Underlined emphasis mine.)

For me, I suspect this may be a matter of the golden age being twelve: it's certainly de rigueur these days for epic fantasies to build or at least suggest elaborate historical and mythological backstories for their worlds, and I mostly feel like they're, well, there because they're de rigueur, and I'm not sure the underlined detail of the execution is enough to make the difference. But I'm also not very interested in epic fantasies now, so my reactions might have been different, back in the day.

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There's a reboot of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime and you can watch it free and legally, with official subtitles, at Funimation. (I recommend a downloader like Orbit, because the streaming is very rocky.) I've been watching but don't really have an opinion yet; it's based closely on the manga which I've been reading, so it's familiar enough that I don't know how it'd look to a new person or in comparison to the first anime. Well, okay, the first episode was filler and kinda dumb, but the manga rocks so I have hopes.

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Songs that make me happy lately: "Toe Jam," by the BPA featuring Dizzee Rascal & David Byrne (ETA: YouTube video of version we actually like; NSFW (but rather clever) for happy dancing naked people with black bars over women's breasts & people's pubic areas); and "Say Hey (I Love You)" by Michael Franti and Spearhead (choose song title in sidebar).

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I've also watched the pilot of Leverage and enjoyed it. I am morally certain that it was pitched as "Ocean's Eleven meets Robin Hood," and indeed the wish-fulfillment is blatant, but my love for capers is fierce, and I suspect that these lawless elites aren't going to be violent, which makes it easier for me to take. Note that the aired order is not the intended order; see this blog post from the creator for the proper order ('ware spoilers after that in the post).

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Two Dreamwidth invite codes; comment if you want one; if necessary, will pick at random and ask for e-mail.

(Decided against crossposting (and asking people to comment only there) until a few more wrinkles are ironed out. Am filtering out people here who are fully cross-posting, and have adjusted LJ "friends" list to try and match DW access/subscribe lists. Now going to look for missing subject pronouns. Goodnight, everybody.)

Probably everyone but me knows this already, but bestofyoutube.com's podcast is great fun. After watching a couple, I told iTunes to download everything it had for the feed (over a hundred videos), and I've been working my way through them in reverse chronological order. So far my favorites are the very brief and self-explanatory bunny letter opener and the longer roots of breakdance (the Soviet army dances to Run DMC), but there's an excellent variety.

Also, Slacktivist embedded a video of Springsteen performing "Mary's Place", which reminded me that I have never been able to listen to that song without at least wanting to tear up, and yet I still always want to hear it when it comes on. Which I think is a decent argument for its being Springsteen's best song, or at least the best song on The Rising. Discuss. (Actually, three wonderful things, since Slacktivist is a consistently excellent and sadly under-recognized blog.)

Only one of my very short lyrics hasn't been guessed, and it was in retrospect not a good one, so I've updated the post with a full line.

Chad's posted a two-word lyrics quiz.

And today's candidate for Best Thing Ever: the iTunes Lyrics Importer automatically imports lyrics into iTunes from Lyricwiki (Windows). It's like magic.

(Oooh, and then I can use the script here to see what songs didn't get lyrics automatically imported, and do them by hand if I want! The Internet is awesome.)