Joe writes: One of my favourite tracks of the year, Song For Zula by Phosphorescent, owes a debt to Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen, which reminded me how remarkable it is that the film Philadelphia featured two wonderful original songs with Philadelphia in the title.
Here's Springsteen's:
And here's Neil Young's Philadelphia:
Thanks to Streets Of Philadelphia, Bruce Springsteen is on the short list of legendary artists who have written one of their biggest songs well into middle age (see also Bob Dylan - To Make You Feel My Love and Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah).
Joe writes: Tonight I went to see Laura Marling play Secret Music, the debut music event from the people behind Secret Cinema. I have been waiting for someone to take the Secret Cinema concept and apply it to a gig, but actually the most magical elements of the night were the musical performances. Laura and her guitarist popped up without warning and duetted on a cover of Springsteen's Dancing In The Dark (which Springsteen apparently wrote for The Ramones but ended up keeping for himself). The night ended with a full gig from Laura - incredible - she just gets better and better.
But before all that was Willy Mason.
Of course he did Oxygen, this generation's Imagine, the song that should have saved the world:
And he closed with a great song called Tic Tac Toe, written by his father. This is a hit song for someone (why not Willy?):
And finally, here's James Blake singing a song written by his father. Power to the dads:
Joe writes: I didn't go to SXSW this year but I did download a couple of compilations of bands playing the event and felt I wasn't missing much until I heard Song For Zula. Then I saw it on Xfm's playlist, then in Spotify's "most viral" chart, then I discovered it was on Grey's Anatomy, all in the past 24 hours. What a beautiful piece of music, with echoes of Bette Midler's The Rose, Streets Of Philadelphia, and I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.
Joe writes: I have been thinking about Deacon Blue recently. They
were my favourite band for a while, until Aztec Camera released Stray. Real Gone Kid features on a current
TV advert. I recently gave their classic debut album Raintown on vinyl to a
friend for his birthday then ended up discussing Deacon Blue versus The Blue Nile
with another party guest. While I know The Blue Nile are great, what I loved
about Deacon Blue is how ambitious they were. Ricky Ross was trying to be the
Scottish Bruce Springsteen. Personally I prefer artists who aim high and fall
short than those who aim lower and reach their target.
Dignity was Deacon Blue's anthem and fan favourite. It's
a nice story song that held a lot of appeal for me as a teenager. Maybe Dylan
or Tom Waits could have got away with it.
Here's The Blue Nile with The Downtown Lights:
Here's how Aztec Camera won my heart with the Stray album, from which came Notting Hill Blues:
When Will You (Make My Telephone Ring) was Ricky trying to
be the Scottish Harold Melvin. If he didn't quite get there in terms of
performance, I really think he did in terms of songwriting. I'd love to hear this
song covered by a true soul artist:
And for good measure and comparison, here's If You Don't
Know Me By Now by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes:
Deacon Blue also helped Bacharach & David get the
appreciation they deserve with the 1990 release of the Four Bacharach
& David Songs EP, which reached no. 2 in the UK chart. As well as The Look Of Love and I'll Never Fall In Love Again with Hal David's
wonderful couplet rhyming "pneumonia" with "phone ya", it
also brought to light a couple of lesser known B&D songs, including this Are You There (With Another Girl), as recorded by Dionne Warwick:
Finally, here's a recent live version of Dignity that I
found both heart-warming and a little sad:
Joe writes: Bruce Springsteen released two albums before Born To Run broke him. Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ was recorded in a hurry but features some of his best songwriting. Blinded By The Light is his only US Hot 100 no. 1 as a songwriter, when covered by Manfred Mann's Earth Band. For You, which Manfred Mann also covered, is a prototype Thunder Road. But best of all is Growin' Up, once covered by Alvin Stardust. Here's some live footage of Bruce playing it on acoustic guitar, from 1972:
You don't hear many covers of songs from Bruce's second album, The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle, which saw him move away from conventional songwriting, presumably influenced by Astral Weeks. Normally I'm a "conventional songwriting" kind of person, but this is probably my favourite Bruce album (just as Astral Weeks is my favourite Van Morrison album). The magic comes when the jams eventually coalesce into hooks, as on the chorus of 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy). Or on Incident On 57th Street, when he sings "Goodnight, it's alright Jane". This song could be a companion piece to the Scorcese film Mean Streets and like Scorcese, Bruce was just warming up for what was to come. Amazing live version here (Bruce is one of the few artists for whom the recordings of the live versions are worth a listen alongside the studio recordings):
Phil writes: I guess that there are plenty of other songs inspired by books, but it is surely unusual for two songs as good as these to have been inspired by the same book, 'The Grapes of Wrath' (a 'must read' BTW):
Joe writes: Always was a great David Bowie song. The line "and if you say run, I'll run with you" is so brilliant and unexpected, musically.
There are two cover versions around at the moment but I prefer this one by M Ward from a few years ago (it doesn't seem to be on iTunes, probably because the artist is precious about it).
Here's Hi-Fi, a really good M Ward original (iTunes).
And here's a little-known Bowie track, It's Gonna Be Me (Amazon).
I read somewhere that John Lennon came on board late for Bowie's cover of Across The Universe, so they had to lose something from the Young Americans album to make way for it, and this was the track they lost. You have to be a really great and prolific songwriter and artist to leave out tracks this good. See also Sad Eyes by Bruce Springsteen (iTunes).
