Some Songs Considered

“Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” – Mike Ness
(Words/music: Bob Dylan, available on Cheating at Solitaire, Time Bomb / Epitaph 1999)

We’re very quick to declare sacrilege when discussing music, but we forget that we all started somewhere.  I try my best not to get angry about ignorance (now ignorance that tries to pass itself off as wisdom, that’s another story) when talking about music, but it’s hard not to think of Jack Black in that scene in High Fidelity where he’s laying into a customer for gaps in his record collection (“that is perverse – don’t tell anyone you don’t own fucking Blonde on Blonde”).  Still, I remember times as a teenager eager to explore the entire history of recorded music and not knowing where to start.  Thus, a familiar scenario: I knew who Bob Dylan was, I knew a few of his songs from the radio, but I didn’t own a Bob Dylan album.  It’s hard to imagine this in the instant gratification internet age, where almost any song is a Youtube link or Bit Torrent download away, but I felt kind of overwhelmed and didn’t really know where to start.  Sure, Allmusic was an incredible resource, but I still couldn’t find an album worth putting down $15 of money from watching my neighbors or squirreled away from a holiday.  With plenty of other records in my expanding catalog, I let Dylan fall through the cracks.

I can summarize my early years as a music fan fairly well by noting that Social Distortion was on my radar more than Bob Dylan.  When Mike Ness covered “Don’t Think Twice” on his solo album, it was one of the first times I came across one of the non-classic rock radio Dylan songs.  Naturally, I took to it almost immediately – it’s an excellent song and even to this day (I rediscovered Cheating at Solitaire a little while ago and immediately went to this track) Ness’ take on it makes sense.  He turns Dylan’s subdued fingerpicking into a rockabilly romp, but it still stays true to the seething undercurrent in Dylan’s song – one where he wants an amicable split yet the wounds still feel a little too fresh.  Maybe because this was my first experience of falling in love with a Bob Dylan song, I’m naturally drawn to the more pointed pieces in his catalog (“Positively 4th Street” perhaps being my favorite), and until tonight I never really considered Ness’ cover the reason why.  At least it’s a fairly tangible thread in his catalog (especially after he “went electric”), and even if it took me a little while to come around to all of the different sides of his personality, I had to start somewhere.  Without Mike Ness’ album, it would have happened a lot later.

More on Mike Ness: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Johnny Appleseed” - Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros
(Words/music: Pablo Cook, Tymon Dogg, Scott Shields, Martin Stattery, and Joe Strummer, available on Global a Go-Go, Epitaph 2001)

In many ways, it makes sense for Joe Strummer to reference Johnny Appleseed in a song.  Like Appleseed, Strummer is a sort of folk hero whose legend expanded over time.  With the Clash, Strummer started with punk rock and wandered through different musical styles, including reggae, soul, and arguably hip hop (specifically with the vocal inflection on “The Magnificent Seven.”  Even if the Clash didn’t originate any of these styles, they served as master curators who excelled at all of these different styles.  Even though his bandmates deserve more credit than they might normally garner (Mick Jones specifically), Strummer seemed like the one with musical wanderlust.  I’m too young to have experienced the Clash during their time and I never got the chance to see Strummer perform during his lifetime, and in a way this makes him a little more mythical.  As Appleseed’s reputation grew with stories told, Strummer’s part of our own aural tradition – one that Strummer and his band helped to spurn along.

“Johnny Appleseed” continues Strummer’s musical wandering, blurring the lines between a number of different genres.  It alternates between a quietly plucked verse and a rollicking chorus section.  Strummer tells his story in a delivery that seems somewhere between a rant and a folk singer’s story.  A simple melody runs through his words and gives them an almost chant-like quality; the melody remains consistent even when Strummer’s focused on describing something else.  However, like the melody, theme remains the same – one that champions those who speak for and represent the common man.  Strummer doesn’t place himself along side these men (and both Appleseed and Martin Luther King dwarf him in any comparison), but in the musical world, Strummer served the same purpose.  He always struck me as one who made music for the bees rather than for the honey, and someone who worked hard not to lose sight of the big picture.

More on Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm