Like Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven and Queen’s Bohemian Rapsody. I know what you mean.
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Finally getting around to checking out Horsegirl. I love everything I’ve heard from them so far. All things being equal, I look forward to catching them when they come to the Pinhook in Durham in July. Plenty of time to plan for that one…
https://youtu.be/4gj65udESGw
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Doesn’t this just make your heart melt 
From Hunkpapa, which I listened to for the first time today. I first heard of Throwing Muses when they opened some shows for R.E.M. on the Green World tour back when the album was new in 1989. I likely saw the video for this song on 120 Minutes back then. Prior to today, the only album I’d heard by them is The Real Ramona which was the follow up to Hunkpapa. Looking forward to checking out more of their records.
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Big Thief performing a brand new unreleased song a couple nights ago on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
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I have a whole list of “used to love it, now I switch stations”. Can’t stand “Hotel California” or “Sultans of swing” or “Born to be wild” or something like 20 others.
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I think they are good songs but are overkilled on radio unfortunately.
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It is even worse if you’re a DJ because you hear them more often. I spent time in the business (1982-1994) and heard tales of how some burned out completely on music and radio due to the overexposure. Thankfully, that didn’t happen to me. I still love some of the most played songs (even “Stairway” and “Freebird”) but don’t listen to them every time I hear them come on the radio. I also try to avoid listening to Classic Rock radio in general if at all possible.
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R.I.P., Mr. Dave who passed away yesterday at the age of 78. He first appeared on my radar thanks to Jackson Browne, which I’m sure is the case with many of his fans. He next appeared in 1981 when he released El Rayo-X, his debut solo album. It was around that time that I saw this performance on Solid Gold. For years, I searched high and low for it on the internet with no luck. Eventually, I began to wonder if I’d imagined it. Then, a few years back, it popped up on YouTube. So, I hadn’t imagined it at all. A few years later, I’d see R.E.M. on there as well. In much the same manner, it took a number of years before that clip showed up on YouTube as well.
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The title track to Steve Earle’s debut album Guitar Town which was released on this day in 1986. I was working in Country radio at the time where this sound was going against the grain of what was popular at the time. For a moment there, it seemed as though Earle and similar artists such as Dwight Yoakam, Southern Pacific, the Lonesome Strangers, Lone Justice, the Desert Rose Band, the O’Kanes, Nanci Griffith, Foster & Lloyd, etc. were on the verge of a breakthrough. That only ended up happening for Dwight.
As it turned out, Earle enjoyed more success on rock radio where he was joined by the likes of X, the Blasters, Del Fuegos, the Georgia Satellites, Lone Justice, the BoDeans, Los Lobos, the Smithereens, the Long Ryders, etc. Years later, Earle referred to this era as “The Great Roots Rock Credibility Scare of the Late 1980s.” The term “alt.country” had yet to be coined but this music, commonly referred to as “cowpunk,” “roots rocks,” “Americana,” etc. back then was the lead-in to it. By the late 1990s it informed much of what I listened to and still does today. I was weaned on Country Rock when I was growing up on the 70s so it was only natural that I’d also be a fan of these various permutations of it down the road.
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To me this sounds a bit like the early Eagles music- e.g. Peaceful Easy Feeling and Tequila Sunrise. We loved the Eagles. My sister sent me a postcard from her Route 66 road trip saying “ well I ‘m standing on the corner at Winslow Arizona” 
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I’m familiar with Steve Earle through his song “Copperhead Road” Heard it on rock radio back in the day. Apparently it’s turned into popular line dancing song. Look at these guys, they’re having a hell of a time. I love it.
https://youtu.be/8yJCQXJnZvo
That is soooo great! So American and such good exercise!
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This is a young Newcastle (pronounced “Newcassell” if you’re up there) lad of 24 who burst onto the music scene with this number which I instantly fell in love with- just look at the youngsters going wild. I have to say my take on the lyric differs from his- I hear it as “this isn’t high time for hypersonic missiles”
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I remember when I first heard “Copperhead Road” it wasn’t like the typical American country songs I know of, it was badass, back in the neck of the woods, and I kind of connected with it. I had an uncle (he wasn’t a Vietnam vet though), he distilled grappa from the pomace of homemade wine, he had a copper cauldren and piping, something he did with a few friends once year after wine making. Highly illegal in this country even if they didn’t sell it. It was a clandestine thing some Europeans did that goes back to their rural home lands in Europe. I had a Hungarian neighbour who also did the same thing. My uncle never got into weed growing though. However, there is an affulent suburb not far from where I live that once was all market gardens and glass houses, Overtime, the market gardens & glass houses were replaced with luxurious homes and mansions, in particular a road that goes through that area that we jokingly nicked named “Marijuana Drive” because of a suspicion that the affulency was from growing weed in the glass houses hidden between the tomato crops, so the local legend goes.
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Radio programmers already didn’t know what to do with folks like Earle because they couldn’t figure out what format he belonged in. The country stations thought he was “too rock” and the rock stations thought he was “too country.” I first heard him on Country radio but it was Rock radio where he broke through thanks to “Copperhead Road.” As I recall, a big deal was made about his electrified mandolin because it was considered unconventional.
As for folks I knew that lived their lives like the song, this person also wasn’t a Vietnam vet but he was an older person who grew up making moonshine in a rural part of NC near where I grew up. He ended up getting caught and had to do hard time in prison. When he got out, he used his farming skills (he grew tobacco) to grow weed. I’m not sure if he ever smoked it but he damn sure grew it.
Here’s an early live performance of “Copperhead Road” from Letterman in 1988 including a brief interview.
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As seen on R.E.M. HQ this week,12 years ago, R.E.M. released their final album Collapse Into Now (March 8, 2011). This track appears to be an inspiring song for many. Well it is. I couldn’t find a live version of R.E.M. performing the song, but I found this beautiful cover by youtuber Nitzan Smadja.
“Uberlin”
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As I sometimes do, I found myself in a deeply melancholy mood on Friday and into Saturday. I’ve listened to a few songs by Phoebe Bridgers here and there but thanks to a conversation with a friend where I brought her up, I finally took the deep dive. I started with her first album (she only has two and one EP), which stopped me in my tracks on more than one occasion. This song was one of them. That mood has lifted and the album this comes from (Stranger in the Alps) is solely responsible for that. It reinforced a recent article I read about Susan Cain’s new book, Bittersweet where she said sad music actually makes us happy. True, that. At least that was my experience here (and in the past with other sad music). It was exactly the balm I needed.
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I’ll have to look out that article.
It used to drive me nuts when I was younger when people would describe bands like Radiohead, and even R.E.M., as “depressing”. Sad/slow/melancholic/“depressing” music has always picked me up when I’m down.
I think the emotional response one has to music is a very personal thing. I like sad music. I also like happy music. At any given time, depending on what’s going on in my head, any kind of music can make me happy or sad or anxious or whatever. Describing sad music as depressing has always annoyed me.
Balm, is a great way to describe it. It almost doesn’t make sense, but sad songs can really pull you out of sadness.
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I might have already posted this on here, but I watch this regularly so I’m (possibly) posting it again. It might just be the greatest YouTube video I’ve ever seen…
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