She Still Comes Around (To Love What's Left Of Me) (1969)
In Loving Memories: The Jerry Lee Lewis Gospel Album (1971)
Mean Old Man (2010)
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Dave Alvin and John Prine |
Well, ain't it a shame, but there ain't no one to blame
when love just slips away and only the lovers remain
So the names have all been changed to protect Wanda and Duane
In spite of ourselves we'll end up a-sittin' on a rainbow
Against all odds, honey we're the big door-prize
We're gonna spite our noses right off of our faces
There won't be nothin' but big ol' hearts dancin' in our eyes
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Redd Kross |
but old fans, if they’re anything like me, can’t help noticing how cunningly our game replicates the larger schedule, with its beguiling April optimism; the cheerful roughhouse of June; the grinding, serious, unending (surely) business of midsummer; the September settling of accounts, when hopes must be traded in for philosophies or brave smiles; and then the abrupt running-down of autumn, when we wish for—almost demand—a prolonged and glittering final adventure just before the curtain.I made certain to give Roger the last word in my book, No Place I Would Rather Be: Roger Angell and Life in Baseball Writing:
I’m not retired, which is good. So I’ll keep at it. There will always be obituaries. At my age you write a lot of farewells.
Time is the one thing everybody feels
It just expires with no regards to years
They say time can bring about a change—listen!
But I ain't see a doggone thing
"It's in the answer," that's what people say"Together we stand, and divided we fall / But we are still divided by that unseen wall" is one of the great lyric couplets of the late 60s/early 70s, a devastating comment on both the potential that time offers and the speed at which time is wasted, the unseen wall created by the spin of the earth and the bigotry and short-sightedness of the folks spinning upon it. This is a seriously pissed-off song, Starr's ferocity echoed in the relentless tambourine and the fiery backing vocals, clamoring for their own attention. Starr reaches for some measure of optimism in the last verse, but it burns to a crisp, really, under the white-hot heat of his performance. Like so many great songs, the content can't bear the form, which consumes it with its own urgency. ("How much time will it take?" the song pleads.) It's amazing that the musicians cut something this combustible without burning down the studio. A positively stirring recording, it will stand as one of the most powerful songs of its era. We can't solve time, but I'm tempted to give a victory of sorts to Starr.
But it looks like peace is getting further away