Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Unrequited love provides us with a rich mine of heartbreaking songs. So following from the first part on love that is unreciprocated, here are eight more takes of chances missed, emotions deferred, affections unexpressed and love rejected. And, fans of nagging pains in the guts rejoice, there”ll be a third instalment soon.

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Scott Walker – Joanna.mp3
Scott had summer romance, and now the eponymous girl is gone and he is pining, living on memories “” “You made the man a child again, so sweetly. He breathed your smile, lived in your eyes completely. And on his heart there”s still a trace of you” “” and vain hope that they will be together again. She clearly has forgotten him, or wants to forget him. She might even have told him so (perhaps by the passive-aggressive method of ignoring his communications). Yet our lovelorn crooner is not ready to give up: “I love you, but nothing in this world could make you mine. Yet still in time”¦you may remember me and change your mind.”

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The Cardigans – For What It”s Worth (acoustic version).mp3
Oh shit, she had a casual fling (the so-called “fuck buddy” or “friends with privileges” phenomenon) and fell in unreciprocated love. And then she let it slip: “A four-letter word got stuck in my head; the dirtiest word that I”ve ever said”. And it doesn”t start with F. More than that, “it”s making me feel alright.” Well, transiently perhaps, as she acknowledges in the qualifier to her confession of love: “For what it”s worth, I love you. And what is worse, I really do.” Evidently, the guy freaks out. So, having pledged (to herself) patience that he”ll come around, she later tries to entice him back into bed (“The four-letter word is out of my head”). And here”s where her confusion really sets in. Follow it: “For what it”s worth, I like you. And what is worse, I really do. Things have been worse, and we had fun, fun, fun till I said I love you. And what is worse, I really do.” No point resisting it; from here on in she repeats that great line: “For what it”s worth, I love you. And what is worse, I really do.”

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Frank Sinatra – I Get A Kick Out Of You.mp3
Rarely has unrequited love been as jaunty as in Cole Porter”s I Get A Kick Out Of You. Frank “” and let”s not call him by the affectation “Francis”; our man was baptised Frank “” goes to great lengths to tell us about the things that mean nothing to him. Champagne? Pah! Airborne sex? His idea of nothing to do. Cocaine? “I”m sure that if I took even one sniff it would bore me terrifically too” (as do Be Bop and, oddly, Spanish perfume). The only thing that gives him a kick is, to use Sinatra lingo, a “broad” who ob-vious-ly does not adore him. This is the swinging 1962 version; his 1953 take will run next Friday.

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Matthew Sweet – Farther Down.mp3
“Into you so far the words go, so much clearer than you hear. Into you goes everything I know, no one else knows how I feel.” Without her, our man is in pain (happily, then, the sound is not of the emo variety). “Farther down, I”m desperate for you, where you never have to know. Farther down, I”m still without a clue; till something”¦takes my pain away.” Matthew doesn”t let us in on his pain-relief programme, but we can presume that it involves either alcohol and drugs. The trouble is, does she really want to hook up with a pissed junkie?

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Vertical Horizon – Everything That You Want.mp3
Frienditis is the psoriasis of unrequited love. Here we have a guy who is in love with a girl who won”t stop blabbering on about the guy she is unrequited love with and how that dude is everything she wants and needs. Well, our man here (who in the movie version of the song would be played by Michael Cera) knows what she needs and should want. With a self-pitying flourish at the end, he echoes her prattle as he observes: “I am everything you want. I am everything you need. I am everything inside of you that you wish you could be [whatever that means]. I say all the right things at exactly the right time. But I mean nothing to you, and I don”t know why.” Hmmm, lack of self-confidence, perhaps?

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Linda Ronstadt – Long, Long Time.mp3
And frienditis from the female perspective. It seems that the guy is going away (relocating, or perhaps getting married), and Linda, on this song from 1970, is trying to get to grips with the door slamming shut on perennial hope. “I”ve done everything I know to try and make you mine, and I think I”m gonna love you for a long, long time.” Oh, she tried to show him how she felt as he was whoring around “” making Linda blink back the tears “” and he never noticed. So now she”ll be “living in the memory of a love that never was”.

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Bright Eyes – Make A Plan To Love Me.mp3
Being in love is rubbish when the recipient of your affection is in love with the career. “You said you had your foot in the door; you buy and then you sell, you buy some more,” Oberst observes before bluntly requesting: “Make a plan to love me sometime soon”. He points out, quite reasonably, that life is shirt and success and money don”˜t compensate for love. “Some things you lose you don”t get back, so just know what you have.” Because the love deal is on the table only for a limited time. “Life is too short to be a fool; I don”t owe you that.” So she”ll have to close the love deal, or “” and he might be bluffing here “” he”ll take his romantic trade elsewhere: “Do what you feel, whatever is cool. But I just have to ask [repeatedly!]: Will you make a plan to love me sometime soon?

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Kenny Nolan – I Keep Dreamin’.mp3
In his 1976 hit, Kenny had the relationship all mapped out: barefoot walks on the beach, kids with “little smiles so warm and tender, looking up at us” et cetera. In absence of all that, he daydreams , presumably as one does in TV comedies where these fantasies are introduced by a harp riff (present here, of course) and soft edges. The kicker here is that Kenny is not in love with anybody other than the idea of romantic and domestic bliss. He is in unrequited love with love.

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In this series so far:
Unrequited love
Love hurts
Being in love
Longing for love
Heartbreak
Adultery
Death
Impossible Love
Love Songs Mix
Somebody Done Somebody Wrong
Dumped & defiant

Everly Brothers – Love Hurts.mp3
Roy Orbison – Love Hurts.mp3
Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris – Love Hurts.mp3
Nazareth – Love Hurts.mp3
Don McLean – Love Hurts.mp3
Paul Young & the Q-Tips – Love Hurts.mp3
Monsieur Mono & Mara Tremblay – Love Hurts (direct DL)
It is possibly the greatest songs ever written from the perspective of heartbreak, with some gloriously bitter metaphors, and yet it took a long time to become a proper hit ““ and then in one of its worse incarnations. Love Hurts was written by Boudleaux Bryant who co-wrote several Everly Brothers hits. Love Hurts, however, was only an album track on the siblings” 1960 LP A Date With The Everly Brothers. In 1965, they recorded a more upbeat version, but their mid-tempo 1960 rendition was sufficiently mournful for Roy Orbison to cover it tremulously the following year, releasing it as a b-side. Thereafter, the song remained dormant for 13 years, until Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris delivered the definitive version. Their sweet harmonies are drenched in the hot blood of a broken heart, Parsons perfecting the art of spitting his bile with tender vulnerability.

A year later, the song finally became a hit, in the misplaced hands of hard rockers Nazareth whose singer sounds mortified at having to sing these intimate lyrics. It sounds like he lost a bet at karaoke night. More covers followed soon after, but it was Don McLean in 1981 who returned the song the sensibilities of the Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison, probably aware that an imitation of Gram Parsons” take was impossible. One of the more interesting propositions, the same year, was Paul Young recording the song with the Q-Tips before going solo. One can imagine how well this underrated singer (who did much to feed the dim views of his artistry) might have interpreted the song. In the event, it is a rendition of curious interest rather than a competitor, sounding more like an Ultravox arrangement than a soulful lament. He apparently re-recorded it in 1993, hopefully nailing it the second time around”¦
A late addition, thanks to L’Homme Scalp, is a rather lovely 2005 French version of the song.
Also recorded by: Cher, Jim Capaldi, Jennifer Warnes, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Bad Romance, Kim Deal and Bob Pollard, Corey Hart, Barbara Dickson, Little Milton and Lucinda Williams, Robin Gibb, Pat Boone, Emmylou Harris, Stina Nordenstam, Sinéad O’Connor, Rod Stewart, Paul Noonan & Lisa Hannigan, Clare Teal a.o.
Best version: Parsons” version is one of my all-time favourite song”¦

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Jacques Brel – Le Moribond.mp3
Rod McKuen – Seasons In The Sun.mp3
Terry Jacks – Seasons In The Sun.mp3
I might do my reputation no good at all when I confess that I can”t understand the vitriol levelled against Terry Jacks” 1974 hit. Yes, it”s sentimental and drenched in syrup, but it hardly is the only offender among its contemporaries in that respect. Cheesy though it may be, it is difficult to denounce a song that originated in the mighty catalogue of the unassailable Jacques Brel. The Belgian king of the vivant recorded the song as Le Moribund in 1961. In Brel”s version, and in poet Rod McKuen”s translation, the cause of the impending death could be natural but well might be a suicide note (there are strong hints that the singer”s wife had an extramarital affair). The English version was soon recorded by the Kingston Singers, and later by the Beach Boys. The latter”s version was not completed or released, but featured among its session musicians Terry Jacks (who, some accounts suggest, introduced the Beach Boys to the song). The Canadian-born singer changed the lyrics, introducing Michelle, his little one, into the proceedings and lightened the tone of the song considerably. The comparative cheerfulness of his version seems to eliminate the notion of suicide; unlike Brel or McKuen, Jacks sounds like a man who has made peace with his mortality.
Also recorded by: The Fortunes, Nana Mouskouri, Nirvana (you won’t see that sequence too often), Bad Religion, Black Box Recorder, Pearls Before Swine, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Westlife a.o.
Best version: I really like McKuen”s version, which I received from our friend RH

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Dee Dee Warwick – You’re No Good.mp3
Linda Ronstadt – You’re No Good.mp3
Linda Ronstadt”s big country-rock hit of 1974 started life as a “60s soul number. Written by the British songwriter Clint Ballard Jr, it was first recorded by Dee Dee Warwick, Dionne”s younger sister, in 1963. The same year Betty Everett (of Shoop Shoop Song fame) scored a minor hit with it. Ronstadt took the song out of its R&B context altogether, creating a new template on which future covers would be based. That is probably a sign of a really good cover artist: the ability of appropriating a song, changing it so much that it really will feel like a different song. These two versions are a great example of that attribute.
Also recorded by: Swinging Blue Jeans, José Feliciano, Van Halen, Elvis Costello, Wilson Phillips, Lulu, Jill Johnson a.o.
Best version: Ronstadt”s, probably.

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The McCoys – Sorrow.mp3
David Bowie – Sorrow.mp3
Speaking of covers, it is a vaguely amusing coincidence that albums of cover versions by David Bowie and Bryan Ferry ““ icons of cool both at the time ““ entered the British charts on the same day in November 1973. Proof, if any was needed, that the covers project is not a recent phenomenon in pop music. David Bowie scored only one hit from the Pin Ups album, Sorrow, which had been made popular in the UK seven years earlier by the Merseys. The original version of it, however, was by the McCoys, the US group better known for their big hit Hang On Sloopy, which also provided the title for the 1965 album which featured Sorrow.
Also recorded by: Status Quo, Tribal Underground, Powderfinger
Best version: Bowie’s shades it.

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Sting – I Hung My Head
Johnny Cash – I Hung My Head.mp3
Who would have thought that Sting could write a really excellent country song. Of course, Sting”s original of I Hung My Head is only notionally country ““ the arrangement could be by somebody like Tim McGraw, whose country music often is infused with rock music. It”s not a bad version at all, and I say so as somebody who generally holds old Gordon in less than high esteem. But it took Johnny Cash on his landmark 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around to give the song the country spin it really requires. Where in Sting”s version, the spine-tingling story drowns in overproduction, Cash slows it down and delivers it as if he had sung it as a bluegrass number since he was a little boy.
Also recorded by: Blue Highway
Best version: Cash, of course

And more songs from the middle of the road, West Coast, yacht club and so on. Hold on before cutting your AOR Mix CD-R “” the final installment of the series (for the time being) will run next week.

Average White Band – Atlantic Avenue.mp3
It has always tickled me that the Average White Band is known by the acronym AWB, which it shares with the South African white supremacist Nazi movement, the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging “” which doubtlessly would not approve of the band’s multi-racialism or black music influence. “Atlantic Avenue”, from 1979’s excellent Feel No Fret, is a great driving song (preferable over a member of the racist AWB), with its fantastic bassline, horn section, percussions and whistles. The vocals are great for singing along, especially the ad libbed “Oh-ooh-woah-oh-woh-woh-wouooh” before the backing singers repeat the sing title in falsetto.

Michael McDonald – I Keep Forgetting.mp3
Jens Lekman might remember Warren G and the sweet summer of 1993 (though I think it was in ’94); I remember Michael McDonald and the slightly crappy summer of 1982. Warren G and Nate Dogg pulled a masterstroke by sampling “I Keep Forgetting” on their “Regulate”, but the McDonald song remains superior, thanks to the man’s distinctive voice. The song is a cover of a Leiber & Stoller R&B composition, but McDonald very much makes it his own. The highpoint is his impassioned interpretation of the line “everytime you’re near”, which to me sounds influenced by the vocal stylings of the Four Tops’ Levy Stubbs.

Bob Seger – Against The Wind.mp3
Bob is one of the AOR gods, and “Against The Wind” shows why. The lovely keyboard solo at 2:45 with those great guitar chords, the lyrics about lost time”¦it’s quite perfect. And that line, “wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then” is simply fantastic. To me, this song is a companion piece to Springsteen’s “The River”.

Dan Fogelberg – Longer.mp3
Every AOR collection needs a couple of ballads. It might be Loggins & Messina’s “Danny’s Song” (perhaps next week). Or it could be “Longer” by the man with the rock ‘n rollest of names (there must be colleges where “fogelberging” was a euphemism for acts possibly banned in 23 states). Oh, but “Longer” is a very pretty song, with the little horn solo (is it a flugelhorn?) and the promise of everlasting love. Awwww!

Kansas – Carry On Wayward Son.mp3
I’ll be honest, I have no idea what the good gentlemen of Kansas looked like back in their day, but I should be very disappointed should I find out that there was even just a hint of hirsute deficiency. This is hair rock v1.0 “” and much better than the coked up gimps in spandex tights who peddled their comedian music in v2.0 (yes, New Jersey hairspray goon, I mean you). “Carry On Wayward Son” has it all: the West Coast country-rock, the CocRock which anticipated the advent of Journey and Boston, folkish harmonies, the prog guitar solo which just demands that the listener go seriously crazy on that air guitar’s sorry ass”¦

America – Lonely People.mp3
America’s SoCal country rock is essential for the road (or the yacht, if one seeks to perpetuate the useless cliché). “Lonely People” has that wonderful moment just before the harmonica solo kicks as one the Americans issues the instruction: “Hit it”. I’ve uploaded it before. If you missed it the first time around, there’s more America here.

Linda Ronstadt – It’s So Easy.mp3
The queen of AOR returns with an upbeat country-rock number to offset the heaviness of our possibly very hirsute friends from Kansas. Ronstadt succeeded in translating her country roots into rock (as did the likes of the Eagles and Gram Parsons), thus helping diminish the stereotypes of country being by definition uncool “” a definition informed by the caricature of yee-hawing good ole boys who bang their big-haired cousins on pooltables and cry when their doggy gone died. For that, thank you, Ms Ronstadt. Trivia fact: with “It’s So Easy” and “Blue Bayou”, Ronstadt was the first artist since the Beatles to have two simultaneous US top 5 hits.

Fleetwood Mac – Go Your Own Way.mp3
The song for when “Longer” has run its course and you want to go folgelberging elsewhere. Apparently written by Lindsey Buckingham to Stevie Nicks (whom I’d have joyfully fogelberged back in the day) as a break-up song. His guitar solo and the harmonies are quite brilliant. The whole Rumours album is brilliant, in fact.

More Middle of the Road

More music for long drives and such things.

Ace – How Long.mp3
I love the way this song begins. A bassline, then a discreet percussive beat, enter the guitar and launch straight into the chorus with its West Coast rock harmonies. Like Rupert Holmes in “Him”, the good woman at home has been cheating, and like Holmes, our man isn’t “as dumb as [he] seems”. He figured it out even without give-away cigarettes on the window sill. Except… “How Long” is actually about their former bassplayer who played with other bands, apparently. Maybe the callous-fingered cheat left his Marlboros on the wrong amplifier.

England Dan & John Ford Coley – I’d Really Like To See You Tonight.mp3
One of the definitive AOR driving tracks, thanks to its great chorus. It’s quite a sad song about a guy trying to hook up with an ex (or object of unrequited love, perhaps) whom he really misses. He just wants to meet her as a friend, and then proceeds to suggest a whole lot of romantic things to do. Sounds a bit pathetic, but it isn’t. England Dan (Seals) is the bother of Jim Seals in the next act.

Seals & Croft – Summer Breeze.mp3
Jim Seals and Dash Croft started their career as members of the Champs, a group that also included Glenn Campbell, and had a hit in 1958 with “Tequila” (yes, that “Tequila” song). By the time they recorded under their surnames Jim and Dash had dropped the faux-Latin novelty hits in favour of evocative country-rock. Fantastic as their original version of “Summer Breeze” is, the cover by the Isley Brothers a year later, with Ernie Isley’s superb guitar solo, is even better. Lyrics about metereological phenomena don’t get much better than this: “Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind.”

Rickie Lee Jones – Chuck E’s In Love.mp3
I think Rickie Lee Jones had one of the sexiest voices in pop, in a cute way. Rickie Lee Jones’ vocal performance, especially the way she toys with the vowels, is hugely appealing. I fall in love with her whenever I hear the “Look in the poolhall, is he there?” part. The lyrics of this song are quite wonderful, with that lovely denouement.

King Harvest – Dancing In The Moonlight.mp3
When singing along to this, can one do so without copying the singer’s accent? Uvraborday is executing rhythmic movements outdoors at night, apparently. Even the shortlived British outfit Toploader replicated the accent on their inferior cover version a few years ago. Unlike the cover, King Harvest’s 1973 version exudes joy and visions of a hippie party where nurborday’s wearing clothes.

Bob Seger – Night Moves.mp3
Poor man’s Springsteen, they called him. And, hey, he’s singing about riding in a “60 Chevy. Seger has always been a bit underestimated. The man had some great tunes, especially his mid-tempo tracks and the occasional ballad. I can do without his rocking out stuff . “Night Moves” is a fine summer sex song, which really gets good when he goes all emotional with sexual nostalgia, then goes quietly reflective with just some soft acoustic guitar strumming, before the whole thing picks up to the great extended climax with the female backing singers urging the Night Moves and Bob riffing about memories and thunder and such things (yup, another metereological theme). Glorious.

Linda Ronstadt – You’re No Good.mp3
A couple of years ago, Linda Ronstadt performed at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas when she praised Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. A shitstorm broke loose, with members of the audience exercising their right to free expression by booing the singer, throwing stuff at her and vandalising promotional material. Aladdin Hotel’s management then threw Ronstadt out of the hotel. Which isn’t very nice. She possibly sang “You’re No Good” at that concert (how’s that for a link?). It’s a very interesting song. Originally recorded by soul singer Betty Everett, it is heavily R&B-influenced (especially the backing vocals) yet still in the country-rock genre with guitars that sound like George Harrison’s on the White Album and Abbey Road, and strings which, during the long outro, borrow from Philly soul-disco. And it all comes together (geddit?) admirably.

Christopher Cross – Sailing.mp3
I suspect that having had a hit with the theme for the Dudley Moore rom-com Arthur killed Cross” career. As fine a song as it was (it’s the one about the moon and New York City), it was hardly fashionable. Indeed, “Sailing” and the equally good “Ride Like The Wind” were not exactly hip either even when they came out. They were big hits, but they were not hip. I’m not sure whether the Taste Police would approve of “Sailing” even now. Well, it does have a great chorus, and the piano interlude at 2:44 is rather lovely. And, yes, the song actually is about sailing.

Boz Scaggs – Lowdown.mp3
A song to groove to. Try sitting still when “Lowdown” comes on, and try not to sing along when Scaggs goes “Low low low low loooow down” and then play the old air guitar with the solo that follows. A strange hybrid of a song that did well on pop, adult contemporary and black radio. The story goes that Scaggs declined to have “Lowdown” included on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack: a triumph for artistic integrity, a Decca moment for Boz’s bank balance.

Peter Frampton – Baby, I Love Your Way.mp3
In 1976/77, Frampton was one of the biggest stars in the world. A couple of years later, our curly-haired pal was as unfashionable as John Travolta. Unlike the cardinal in the “Church” of Scientology, Frampton never became cool again. Frampton Comes Alive (in its time the best-selling live album of all time) is better than collective memory suggests. Recorded in San Francisco, it captures a great atmosphere. It is strange that rational people will claim to hate this song when they secretly love it. A scene in Hi Fidelity captures that attitude nicely: John Cusack’s character “” doubtlessly a high-ranking member of the Taste Police, a colonel probably “” professes to despise the song, until he hears a girl he likes sing it. He then loves it. Just cut out the middlewoman, dude.

Little River Band – The Night Owls.mp3
Earlier I uploaded an incorrectly filenamed track under this title. The tune is in fact Pablo Cruise’s “Whatcha Gonna Do” (1977). I’ve uploaded the correct file now. So, to avoid confusion, if you DLed Little River Band – The Night Owls.mp3, change the file name to the Pablo Cruise song. The real “Night Owls” is filenamed Little River Band – The Night Owls (halfhearteddude.blogspot.com).mp3 Sorry about the confusion…
Pablo Cruise – Whatcha Gonna Do.mp3 (rename incorrectly slugged file)