From: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org (shindell-list-digest) To: shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Subject: shindell-list-digest V3 #239 Reply-To: shindell-list@smoe.org Sender: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-shindell-list-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk shindell-list-digest Saturday, July 28 2001 Volume 03 : Number 239 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [RS] Re: ABBA and RS [Tom926@aol.com] [RS] still not happy [Gwen Kern ] Re: [RS] still not happy [Rongrittz@aol.com] Re: [RS] you can really reel them in ["Julia A. Case" ] [RS] I'm So Happy Now Lyrics and Harry [William Grimley ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 07:15:32 EDT From: Tom926@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: ABBA and RS Well Carol, I for one would love it if RS covered ABBA. I love ABBA and I don't care what people think. I took a ton of sh** for it back in high school. Then again, I also took a ton of sh** for loving Patti Smith. Marshall Crenshaw, by the way, does a wonderful version of "Knowing Me Knowing You" on HIS live album. Now while "Fernando" IS probably the quintessential "textbook" ABBA song (four middleaged Swedes singing about teen love angst during the Mexican Revolution in transliterated English to a Eurobeat: it doesn't get better than that in Pop Music), I think it would be a real hoot if he covered "Dum Dum Diddle," which has some of the most insanely inane lyrics ever written: Dum dum diddle/To be your fiddle/To be so near ya/And not just hear ya Dum dum diddle/To be your fiddle/I think then maybe/You'd see me, baby You'd be mine/And we'd be together all the time Wish I was/Dum dum diddle/Your darling fiddle Of course if we could get Dar and Lucy to sing backup to that I for one could die a VERY happy man. Oh and Jim, I first heard RS when he opened for Dar at Town Hall here in Manhattan (my friend's brother worked at the time for Razor & Tie so we had comped box seats. We were both Very Very Sad when he quit.). The very first song he performed was "Next Best Western" and when he sang: "I am wretched, I am tired/But the preacher is on fire/And I wish I could believe" I knew I was going to be a lifelong fan. Grow up the gay son of a devout Irish Catholic Mom and Dad--I had to spend many years realizing that God is NOT the Church and that song just seemed to capture all my feelings about that whole mess in just three lines. Funny thing...my friend is Jewish and felt the same way (for different reasons of course). Needless to say, we went to Tower Records the very next day and bought the three RS cds that were out...I still prefer RH to SP (though I love SNP best of all). How about "Pass the Tender" for the live album title? Or "Now That I've Rerecorded Live Versions of My Previously Relesed On Another Label Songs, Tell My Old Record Company to Pass the Tender"? Or is that too Fiona Apple? LOL. Tom ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 06:05:11 -0700 (PDT) From: Gwen Kern Subject: [RS] still not happy > > But cereally, *I* still don't see what's wrong with "Are You Happy Now?". > > How many people here WOULDN'T be here if they hadn't caught that song on the > > radio or on Christine Lavin's "When October Goes"..... Let me see the > > hands..... I THOUGHT so. > > > > My hand is not raised. Mine either. In fact... I've still never heard AYHN. Don't shoot me. I just don't have that album. I found Richard because I'd been on the Dar-list for a few months and had heard him mentioned, and then I was in the music room of the radio station where I had just started volunteering and I saw a still-cellophaned copy of Reunion Hill sitting on the shelf, so I stuck it in the CD player. And that's my story. Gwen ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 09:15:02 EDT From: Rongrittz@aol.com Subject: Re: [RS] still not happy << Don't shoot me. I just don't have that album. I found Richard because I'd been on the Dar-list for a few months and had heard him mentioned, and then I was in the music room of the radio station where I had just started volunteering and I saw a still-cellophaned copy of Reunion Hill sitting on the shelf, so I stuck it in the CD player. >> Yeah, that was sort of a point I made to Carol about AYHN. While I'm sure that his EARLIEST fans may have gotten to know him through the version of "Are You Happy Now" on the "When October Goes" compilation, I'm betting that at THIS point, most of his audience found him either through Dar, or through Cry Cry Cry, and are probably working their way BACKWARDS through his catalog. On another subject, you sure can tell when it's Falcon Ridge weekend. All the lists get pretty quiet! RG ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 06:55:15 -0700 From: "Julia A. Case" Subject: Re: [RS] you can really reel them in Quoting Norman A. Johnson (njohnson@ent.umass.edu): > Well, it was "Fishing" that reeled me in.... (no pun intended). I had heard > Joan's version of it shortly before seeing Richard open for Dar & was > impressed with the song, even with the parts I couldn't understand what she > was singing. Then seeing Richard do it live convinced me (I think he closed > his set with that song). > Actually it was Fishing that got me too... Then I heard Ballad of Mary Magdaline (sp?) and that sealed the deal... Julia - -- [ Julia Anne Case ] [ Ships are safe inside the harbor, ] [Programmer at large] [ but is that what ships are really for. ] [ Admining Linux ] [ To thine own self be true. ] [ Windows/WindowsNT ] [ Fair is where you take your cows to be judged. ] [demime 0.97c removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature] ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 10:16:53 -0400 From: William Grimley Subject: [RS] I'm So Happy Now Lyrics and Harry Hi folks, I've just joined up, and was wondering if anybody has transcribed Hugh Blumenfeld's answer to Are You Happy Now? (I'm So Happy Now) I heard both of them do this at Ramapo Folk Festival about five years ago and been dying to find the lyrics ever since. Can anybody help? Also, I've been reading the letters that were archived about Harry Chapin and the anniversary of his death. I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Hecksher Park in Huntington Long Island on July 17th at noon for the dedication of a butterfly garden to Harry's memory. (Thank goodness I teach and being off during the summer allowed me to go.) If anyone is coming to Richard's free show there on August 16th at 8:30, maybe you couldcheck out the garden. It's behind the Rainbow Stage--which was also re-dedicated to Chapin later that evening when his brother Tom performed. The "Rainbow" having the significance of being from Flowers Are Red--"There are so many colors in the rainbow....so many colors in the morning sun....." Hope to see you there...and thanks! Bill Grimley ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 10:48:59 EDT From: Rongrittz@aol.com Subject: [RS] Re: I'm So Happy Now Lyrics >> I've just joined up, and was wondering if anybody has transcribed Hugh Blumenfeld's answer to Are You Happy Now? (I'm So Happy Now) I heard both of them do this at Ramapo Folk Festival about five years ago and been dying to find the lyrics ever since. Can anybody help? << You can actually find them on Hugh Blumenfeld's site . . . http://home.earthlink.net/~h2jukebox/unrecorded.html RG ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 23:34:03 -0400 From: Lisa Davis & family Subject: [RS] Bridgeport July 28 Richard played tonight at the Acoustic Cafe, two shows, both apparently well attended (to judge from the crowd chatting on the pavement outside when I left just before nine). This was a good show because of all Richard's talk tonight, and for personal reasons (he played a request for me), and because he seemed in good guitar-playing form, although I'm rather ignorant about such things. On the negative side, the house had too much mike for the guitar and not enough for the voice (or it was acoustics, or it was the ceiling fans, or something), and I think Richard has what I'm calling "the Connecticut cough": everyone I know seems to have some kind of throat problem, and his voice cracked quite often and was ragged, sounding strained. If indeed he *did* have a cold he managed very well, though! He still gave it his all and pumped a lot of power into the voice, but it wasn't up to his usual. Perhaps he was chatty in order to use up some of the time! Possibly in the right order: Courier (last verse in the 3rd person) Sparrow's Point Arrowhead Tune for Nowhere (carefully, since it was a bit unfamiliar -- my request) Are You Happy Now Reunion Hill (the very slow version, or inbetween anyway) You Stay Here (compelling as usual) Nora (exquisite; he said enigmatically that he doesn't play it often anymore becuase he doesn't believe it any more. WHICH PARTS? that there is no sin? in that context? in the world context? eh????) Sandy Waiting for the Storm (great guitar!) Mary Magdalene Transit Wisteria (the encore) What did I leave out? He said it was the Barry White version of "Sandy," which I took to mean, he pitched too low! Err.... you KNOW how I feel about Richard's music and performances generally, and I have just loved about 110% of his covers, and I adore Bruce Springsteen (well lots anyway), and I know this song by heart... but frankly, I would lose this one. A good number of Bruce's songs don't translate to acoustic (IMHO) becuase while lyrically compelling, they have very simple or monotonous tunes, that work well in a band because you get the sax solo, the piano, etc., that you don't have with just one man and a guitar. Then the lyrics. Bruce Springsteen lyrics are stunning urban poetry, BUT, they just don't come through as authentic (IMHO) from Richard. it's a different vision, or something. Or maybe it's just that Springsteen's voice is so indelibly engraved on my mind that I can't shake it when I listen! Anyway, at least with this performance it may have been homage, but it didn't seem like a good match to me. Sorry! That's gratitude for you! Good talk about Buenos Aires, and history, and politics. This man was once shy? (I enjoy comparing that evolution to my own -- we first met when I was a first-year attorney and pretty shy myself, now I, too, lecture to large audiences now and again -- not nearly as much fun and certainly creating a lot less beauty!) I liked the Acoustic Cafe with its tie-dyed fluorescent-starred backdrop and chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling. If you pay by credit card they reserve you a seat, in order of purchase, so next time, I'll buy earlier! Still even at row H the view was fine; I did wonder if the bowling-alley structure lost the vocals a bit. Note: this was "concert seating" but often it is tables instead. I asked Richard about new songs and he said he is writing *prose* instead -- articles he mentioned, perhaps a book? Apparently there are major protests and road-blocks scheduled for Tuesday in Buenos Aires, and he flies back Monday. Into the eye of the hurricane. Life stranger than fiction. Lisa Davis ------------------------------ End of shindell-list-digest V3 #239 ***********************************