Spotify playlist: https://spoti.fi/3O7SZtK

LETTING GO

I was going to do this in order, but then I thought it best to start with the McCartney solo track I play most, “Letting Go.”

It was the summer of ’75, the summer of “Captain Fantastic” and “One of These Nights.” The year before had been all about “Band on the Run,” the song and the album. It was a huge, unexpected comeback, a return to form. But “Venus And Mars” was not as highly anticipated, not as fervently embraced, probably because of its initial single, “Listen to What the Man Said,” which was a ditty made for AM radio, too light for FM, where “Band on the Run” had triumphed. But I had to buy the album immediately, and it’s one of my favorites.

McCartney is thought to be lightweight, but he can be quite heavy, ergo the Little Richard workouts early in the Beatles’ career, but they were about exuberance as opposed to bottom, kicking the audience in the gut, like with “Letting Go.”

“Ah, she looks like snow

I want to put her in a Broadway show”

LETTING GO

Up until this time the biggest tour, the most anticipated, the one with the most press, was the Stones’ trek in ’72. But McCartney in ’76, it seemed impossible to be able to get tickets to see what was then called “Wings,” and I didn’t. But I did purchase the triple album collection “Wings Over America” when it was released just before Christmas. It’s the only triple album live set I found playable, even though I owned “Leon Live” and “Yessongs.” By this date live albums were polished in the studio, they were not live, but not “Wings Over America,” the imperfections were left in, making the experience more immediate, more powerful.

BIG BARN BED

I lied, this is the McCartney track I play most, “Letting Go” speaks to my head whereas “Big Barn Bed” speaks to my heart. I’d given up on Paul’s solo career, not being able to afford everything and not expecting much after the execrable, utterly disappointing “Wild Life,” the first post-Beatles LP billed as Wings. But “Big Barn Bed”…

Ahmet Ertegun said that a hit record was something that you heard lying in bed listening to late night radio that caused you to immediately jump up, get dressed and go to the all night record store to buy. If “Big Barn Bed” was ever a single, I didn’t know, but I’d long given up the 45 RPM 7″ disc, I was an albums-only guy, and you didn’t hear “Big Barn Bed” often on the radio, but when you did… I remember hearing it on the drive up to Watkins Glen.

I didn’t buy “Red Rose Speedway” until the eighties. I didn’t even know it had braille on the cover, like “Talking Book,” but even a vinyl record is difficult to play ad infinitum. But once we went to the digital world, once we went to streaming, I’m constantly calling out…”Alexa, play BIG BARN BED!”

Oh yeah, Linda’s harmonies add texture, help make the record even greater.

COMING UP

Backstage after Paul’s appearance at Musicares I told him his performance of a song that evening reminded me of the live version of “Junior’s Farm” that was a hit. He was walking past me with Nancy, he turned around and told me “No, that’s “Coming Up.” AND IT WAS! You’d be stunned how many legendary musicians are students of the game, know every detail of their careers.

There was a studio version of “Coming Up,” it opened “McCartney II,” and it’s good, but it was the live version, live in Glasgow in 1979, that was the hit. One of the very few songs where the live as opposed to the studio version was the hit. Can you imagine this today?

JUNIOR’S FARM

I was working at Star Sporting Goods on Highland in Hollywood, just south of the Boulevard. I’d graduated from college the spring before, I was planning to quit to go work my job at the Goldminer’s Daughter in Alta on November 15th, I ended up breaking my leg before that, but that’s another story. There was a radio that played throughout the store, and it was quite large with many rooms. And it was either KMET or KLOS, at the time KMET was hipper, but KLOS was more palatable to the customers so that’s what we listened to most. “Junior’s Farm” was a hit then, a splash of brilliance after “Band on the Run” that felt so good, when records could still have excitement without melisma, without hitting you in the face, that’s the power of rock and roll.

EVERY NIGHT

“McCartney,” Paul’s solo debut, does not get enough recognition, enough respect, it’s an understated masterpiece. The problem was “Let It Be” came out at the same time and Paul was perceived as having broken up the Beatles.

This is the song I liked most, first. I used to play it on the guitar.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED

A masterpiece, its own pocket symphony, could have fit on a Beatles’ album, undeniable. Period.

MAYBE I’M AMAZED

I was a huge Rod Stewart fan, which meant I bought the Faces albums too, and i had to go see him live at the Capitol Theatre in the fall of ’71. The band started playing and then Rod strutted out from the wings and I’ve never seen a better stage entrance. And instead of singing right into the mic, he came up to the stand, kicked out a leg, let the stand fall back and then he popped back up and started to sing. Rod was gonna get away with “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?,” but it’s the Clive classics albums that eviscerated his credibility, that ruined his career, but before that he sat atop the rock throne, and was one of the best performers extant.

They played “Maybe I’m Amazed” that night.

THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING

It’s the sound. And the vocal. Only Paul McCartney can do this, it’s unmistakably him, whew!

TEDDY BOY

My favorite song on the album back in 1970. I played this one on the guitar too.

JUNK

Dreamy.

KREEN-AKRORE

You don’t get it the first time through, you might not get it until ten times through, but when you do! It’s otherworldly and powerful.

TOO MANY PEOPLE

The opening cut on “Ram.” A clear step away from the debut, with more production. You’ve got Paul’s growl and you’ve got to place yourself back in 1971 when we were still licking our wounds from the sixties, but still thought we could execute change, we were worried about the problems in society but we believed we could overcome them.

HEART OF THE COUNTRY

Jaunty, simple and countrified, it could exist on the White Album with no problem.

MONKBERRY MOON DELIGHT

At first you might want to skip it, but the more you listen to it the more you like it, the key is when Paul sings “monkberry moon delight,” it’s more than a throwaway, even though it seems like one at first.

LONG HAIRED LADY

A hidden gem. There are so many changes, different movements, but being buried deep in the second side on an album that was viewed as an artistic disappointment, not being as good as a Beatles LP nor as intimate as the solo debut, most people were and still are unaware of it.

THE BACK SEAT OF MY CAR

Just the other day a famous musician said this was one his favorite tracks. It’s the album closer, and it sounds like it. The twists and turns, everything thrown in, all the elements previously exhibited on the LP, and then it becomes so majestic. This was not a hit, you hear it and you can own it, personally.

HI, HI, HI

A single, not on any album, but all over the radio. Was he really singing about getting high? That’s not how he spelled it, that was a debate back then. “Hi, Hi, Hi” is a tear, this is a rock band, firing on all cylinders.

LIVE AND LET DIE

The first Bond film starring Roger Moore, it was a must-see back in ’73. And it’s funny, the theme song has survived more than the flick. At first take it seemed like a sell-out, but the track was so infectious and such a smash it superseded any questioning of its motives. Now the flash pots are an almost tired staple of the live show, but back in the seventies they were quite a surprise.

HELEN WHEELS

Just a single, it was not supposed to be on “Band on the Run,” but it was so successful that they decided to strip it in. It’s a road song, starting in Glasgow and going down through Liverpool…it’s so fast you can’t think, you just go along for the ride.

BAND ON THE RUN

The single was “Jet.” And that never made it to number one and took a long time to peak to boot. But when the end of the year polls came in “Band on the Run” was on all of ’em as one of the best albums of ’73. Huh? Hadn’t everybody written McCartney off as lightweight? So even though I’d sworn off his solo projects, I had to buy the LP and see for myself. I vividly remember standing in my dorm room at Middlebury after dropping the needle and hearing “Band on the Run” for the very first time, I’m actually tingling as I write this, holy crap, this is FANTASTIC! And nobody was talking about it, nobody seemed to know about it. It took months for the album to gain traction, and then you ended up hearing the title track on the radio all summer, suddenly everybody knew it, McCartney had reclaimed the throne as the biggest rock star in the world.

LET ME ROLL IT

It’s funny, this is the second most streamed track from the album after the title number on Spotify, I never would have expected that. The song seems to stutter. To be holding back, delivering just a smidge too late, it’s like being sexually stimulated sans climax, which you’re waiting for, which never really comes, you’ve got to provide that yourself, you’re left hanging. “Let Me Roll It” is long and heavy, it makes your body move involuntarily, so simple, yet so right, and that jerky guitar part that wakes you up just as you’re drifting away.

MAMUNIA

“The next time you see L.A. rain clouds

Don’t complain it rains for you and me”

This is my go-to rain song, not the Doors’ “Riders on the Storm,” whenever it rains this song goes through my head. As for complaining, if only it would rain today!

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIVE

That’s thirty seven years ago, but far off back in ’73, when this album was released. What would happen after 1984, would life go on? Turns out it did, as it also did after 2000, but we thought about this, it was in the back of our minds.

In truth “Band on the Run” was a dark album, “Helen Wheels” didn’t fit, but it didn’t ruin it. “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five” is not playing to the audience, it’s otherworldly, you feel like you’re on the outside looking in, far from home.

MEDLEY: HOLD ME TIGHT/LAZY DYNAMITE/HANDS OF LOVE/POWER CUT

“My Love” made many not buy “Red Rose Speedway,” who wanted more of that? Certainly not me. Therefore they missed out on this analogue to the second side of “Abbey Road” at the end of the album, it delivers.

YOU GAVE ME THE ANSWER

The music hall sound that McCartney exhibited with the Beatles, like on “When I’m Sixty-Four.” I think this sound is completely unknown to youngsters but boomers were exposed to it, before rock and roll eviscerated it. Takes you away without being sappy like “Winchester Cathedral,” then again that’s a great song too.

MAGNETO AND TITANIUM MAN

Completely left field, an entire sci-fi crime story. If you bought in it was so satisfying. McCartney may have been the biggest star in the world, but he was willing to experiment, do something outside, which resonated even more with the listener.

VENUS AND MARS (REPRISE)

“Standing in the hall of the great cathedral”

It sounds like it’s emanating from a cathedral.

VENUS AND MARS

I prefer the reprise, but the opening instrumental version is worth listening to.

MEDICINE JAR

A Jimmy McCulloch song smack dab in the middle of the second side of “Venus and Mars.” McCulloch had crawled from the wreckage of Thunderclap Newman to Wings.

“There’s more to life than blues and reds

I said I know how you feel

Now your friends are dead”

And a couple of years later McCulloch was too, from morphine and alcohol, making listening to this song eerie.

CALL ME BACK AGAIN

A new “Let Me Roll It,” not a remake but the same feel, slow and bluesy, stuttery, but not as famous because “Venus and Mars” was not embraced like its predecessor.

SHE’S MY BABY

“Speed of Sound” was written off because of “Silly Love Songs,” which was quite catchy but the lyrics doth protest too much, and Linda’s vocal on “Cook of the House,” but although the LP is light, there’s some notable stuff on it. Like this music hall number with a change in the middle that youngsters seem unable to replicate.

BEWARE MY LOVE

Play it a couple of times and you won’t be able to take it off. The chorus is so catchy, and then the song goes off on a long hejira, it becomes intense just when you were afraid it would be wimpy, it’s a great ride.

TIME TO HIDE

A Denny Laine song, probably his best work after “Go Now.” Catchy. Gets your head knockin’.

WARM AND BEAUTIFUL

Like floating in a sensory deprivation tank. You feel embraced and safe. This closes “At the Speed of Sound” on a note that makes you feel so good.

LONDON TOWN

“Silver rain was falling down

Upon the dirty ground of London town”

The magic of some songs is hard to articulate, you just feel it, and this is one of those numbers. It was 1978 but you were brought back to the mid-sixties when London was still swingin’, when it was all happening there and you wanted to go there. McCartney was plugged in there, he was our conduit to that feeling.

NO MORE LONELY NIGHTS

The hit original from the greatest hits package that was released as the soundtrack to the film “Give My Regards to Broad Street.” When the song goes to the pre-chorus it starts to get good, and the chorus is memorable, especially when Paul sings with more and more emotion.

DRIVE MY CAR (LIVE AT AMOEBA)

Paul was launching his album “Memory Almost Full” with an appearance at Amoeba Records in Hollywood. These gigs never start on time and the band punches the clock. But in this case, Paul took the stage not long after the appointed time and immediately launched into this and heads were exploding all over the store, as if everybody had been gifted a Lamborghini. This was him, the Beatle, the man. And he hadn’t lost a step. He hit the ground running. He had the best band, he still has the best band, and he knows how great he is, the music will speak for itself if they just plug in and play, and that’s what they did and I was standing about twelve or fifteen feet away and had to pinch myself, was this real?

It was and Paul is. Some day he’s gonna be gone, but so far he still keeps on choogling. And the funny thing is he’s not jaded. Yet he doesn’t suffer fools, doesn’t have endless time for interrupting fans, he’s trying to just live the life of a person on the planet, even taking the bus in New York City, he’s living amongst us, most won’t know how privileged they are, they won’t until he’s gone. He seems forever young, and as long as he’s here and doing it we feel that way about ourselves too. It’s not that Paul McCartney is 80 and old, we were transfixed when he hit 64, this is really about an opportunity to acknowledge his greatness and cherish his presence. It’s just a day in the life.

“The Best of Buffalo Springfield: Retrospective”: https://spoti.fi/3baFhYG

1

It comes after “Rock & Roll Woman” on “Retrospective.”

Funny, “Rock & Roll Woman” was why I bought the Buffalo Springfield greatest hits compilation, it was the song that sounded most like the Stephen Stills material that generated such success, that was so satisfying on the first Crosby, Stills & Nash album, and now it’s been lost to the sands of time, “Bluebird” remains, never mind “For What It’s Worth,” but not “Rock & Roll Woman.”

It was all about “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.” Sure, you could hear “Marrakesh Express” on AM radio, but that’s not what converted listeners overnight, that was “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.”

“It’s getting to the point…”

That guitar intro, if you could play that you were a superstar. We all had guitars, we all sat in front of the turntable, dropping the needle over and over again to learn the songs. But it’s one thing to know how to play the chords, quite another to be able to replicate whatever Stephen Stills was doing in this track.

“I am yours, you are mine

You are what you are

You make it hard”

It was Judy Collins’s birthday. Stephen insisted she stop by so he could give her a gift. Which turned out to be a guitar. And then he proceeded to play “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” and Judy told him she liked the song, but they still weren’t getting back together.

Still… Those of us playing the home game saw “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” as upbeat, a source of elation. A stripping down of what came before so all that was left was the essence.

“Friday evening, Sunday in the afternoon”

Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles, it’s the light. Especially in the fall. It’s still warm, but the light is golden, it both warms you and sets your mind adrift, gets you reflecting. It’s this change that makes the song so great. And then the whole thing revs up again.

You could drop the needle on “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” over and over again and never get to “Marrakesh Express,” the second song on the LP.

As for my favorites on the album, after “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” came “Long Time Gone.” The oozy bass, the bottom covering the landscape like Mississippi mud… It was 1969, the country was in turmoil, it certainly seemed like a long time before the dawn.

After that… It was the Stills songs, “You Don’t Have to Cry” and “Helplessly Hoping” most especially. I came to “Helplessly Hoping” late. Oh, I’d heard it a zillion times, but it only resonated about a decade or two later, when I realized despite the harmonizing voices the song was really quite intimate, quite inside.

You have to understand, David Crosby was not known as a frontman at this point. In the Byrds it was Jim/Roger McGuinn. Oh, you knew him from the album covers, but not everybody bought the albums, we’d blown all our cash on the British Invasion bands.

As for Graham Nash… So, he was in the Hollies. Seen as a Top Forty band by me, I didn’t know a soul who owned an album. In an era of credibility they did not appear to have any, despite having infectious hits that you sang along with, that you could not get out of your head, and I guess Graham Nash realized this and he decamped to Southern California to create something more meaningful. But having said that, to this day I still don’t like “Marrakesh Express,” it’s just too lightweight. And “Lady of the Island” was intimate, but not in the league of other tracks on the album. Yet at the time I thought Nash put out the best initial solo album of the three, “Songs for Beginners.” The album hasn’t aged that well, but “I Used to Be a King” is a stone cold smash, as in something you can not forget, it’s a perfect melding of vocal, music, changes and lyrics.

“Someone is going to take my heart

But no one is going to break my heart again”

“I Used to Be a King” should be a standard, alas it’s not, although many still do remember “Simple Man.”

But Crosby, it wasn’t like today, he hadn’t been in jail, he hadn’t been pontificating everywhere, his songs on the CSN debut were infectious. “Guinnevere”…it’s the opposite if today’s in-your-face music. It’s like you’re invited to a song circle in someone’s house in Laurel Canyon.

And “Wooden Ships”… Incalculably great. And the Jefferson Airplane version from “Volunteers,” released in the fall of 1969, was different but just as good in its own way. And did you have the pressing of the CSN album where “Say, can I have some of your purple berries” was barely audible? I certainly did.

But I did like Nash’s first side closer “Pre-Road Downs,” it had a healthy energy that was undeniable. And then you flipped the album over and got “Wooden Ships,” bringing you back into the maelstrom once again, far from an easily seen exit.

The second side ended with Stills’s “49 Bye-Byes,” which started slowly, but then gained energy and finished out the second side just like “Pre-Road Downs” did the first, with energy, leaving you in the quietude, wondering what adventure you’d just been on. If you didn’t want to move to Southern California after listening to the Beach Boys, you certainly did after listening to the CSN debut. And they seemed to know how damn good they were. The only show-off track was the opener, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” everything else was understated as opposed to overblown, the band didn’t need to convince you, if you were exposed to the music you were closed. And the CSN debut was not an instant hit, it took a long time to build, just like its contemporary, the first Led Zeppelin album, but by time their follow-ups were released word had spread and they were instant smashes, first “Led Zeppelin II” and then “Deja Vu.”

2

I’m listening to the album right now in Ultra HD via Amazon Music and I’m positively stunned, these harmonies seem to be a lost art, and this was long before auto-tune, and in truth the Woodstock movie informed us they were hard to replicate live. But you listen to these three voices together and harmony seems like a lost art. Then again, sitting around with acoustics singing songs together is a lost art. You can’t do this with beats, and although there’s plenty of wooden music out there, none is in the league of Crosby, Stills & Nash, nobody can write the songs and they don’t have such exquisite voices to boot.

Now I know some people a bit older than I am who bought Buffalo Springfield albums, but I did not. But “For What It’s Worth”???

“There’s something happening here

But what it is ain’t exactly clear”

Pandora’s Box is long gone, but now the Sunset Strip riots have faded in the rearview mirror too, almost completely disappeared. This was the American youthquake, this was when the west coast came back to grab the torch from the British. Sure, it started with the Byrds and “Mr. Tambourine Man,” hell, even the Turtles with “It Ain’t Me Babe,” but those were Dylan songs, however good, “For What It’s Worth” was an original.

“What a field day for the heat”

Do youngsters know what “heat” refers to here? Do they know that Joni Mitchell was singing about metaphorical swine when she said she was going to kiss a Sunset pig in “California”? The police were the enemy. They were the heat, that’s what they brought down on a situation. And they were the pigs. Today the police are heroes. Sure, they seem to randomly kill Black people, and white people will come out and protest when the behavior gets too egregious, but in truth they don’t see police brutality as their problem.

“We better stop

Hey what’s that sound

Everybody look what’s going down”

But today people have no interest in looking. I saw a tweet that said Ann Coulter had written a Substack piece condemning Donald Trump for January 6th and when I clicked through and read the piece I learned this was true, but mostly she hated Trump for not fulfilling campaign promises like the erection of the wall. And I never used to read the comments, but David Krebs told me he did so now I check them out. And what did they say? Coulter was dead wrong, there was fraud in the election, the presidency was stolen, they’re still solid in their belief, even if the 1/6 hearings are more of a hit movie than “Top Gun: Maverick” or the latest “Jurassic Park,” and with more staying power too, assuming you’re paying attention. I went on the Fox News site earlier today and I kept scrolling and I still did not find anything about yesterday’s 1/6 hearings.

So “For What It’s Worth” is out of time, but incredibly still accurate. They tell us not to draw battle lines but in truth you either stand up for the truth or you don’t. History isn’t kind to those who don’t, even short term history. If everybody else jumps off a bridge should you? Beware of the crowd, think for yourself, at least that’s what George Harrison said.

3

Now at this point Buffalo Springfield has more cred than the various incarnations of Crosby, Stills, Nash and sometimes Young. Maybe because except for a brief live reunion almost a decade ago there’s never been a Buffalo Springfield get-together, whereas CSNY have soldiered on, at least until David Crosby pissed everybody else off.

People say it’s all about the second LP, “Buffalo Springfield Again.” But like I said I started with “Retrospective.”

You only had to hear “Rock & Roll Woman” once. At least I only had to hear it once. Which occurred in the light of the afternoon at my friend Marc Goloff’s house, I needed to own this. “Rock & Roll Woman” had the Stills guitars and the harmonies of “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” it was an antecedent, and so satisfying, a Dead Sea Scroll.

“Retrospective” opened with “For What It’s Worth.” And then came Neil Young’s “Mr. Soul,” which was the only song of Mr. Young’s that had gotten any airplay on underground FM rock radio in New York, I knew it, it wasn’t new to me, and it’s so satisfying, it’s that chorus and stinging guitar.

Next came “Sit Down I Think I Love You,” which sounded dated, from the first album. Written by Stills, it was sung by Stephen and Richie. But, it was more 1966 than 1969.

Next came Richie Furay’s signature song, “Kind Woman.”

But the true killer came thereafter. I may not have bought any Buffalo Springfield albums, but it appeared all the musicians were intimately familiar with the band’s material. The James Gang did a great version of “Bluebird” on their debut “Yer’ Album,” check it out. And almost as obscure is the Bonnie Raitt version that opens her initial LP. The James Gang make the song heavier and Bonnie Raitt makes it acoustic from the mountains and both versions are far from rote renditions, these two acts put their own spin on this song, and end up owning it themselves.

“On the Way Home” is a Neil Young song sung by Richie Furay, theoretically making it more ear-pleasing, more commercial, but it didn’t have much of an impact. But if you listen to the lyrics and especially the changes in the pre-chorus and chorus you know quite definitely this is Neil’s work.

The side two opener, “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing” is a Neil song, more dark than light, but the edge is removed by having Stephen, Richie and Neil all sing.

But next came the secret killer, “Broken Arrow,” this was the Neil Young of the first solo album, from here you get to “Last Trip to Tulsa.” It came before “Rock & Roll Woman” and these are the two cuts people talked about most back then, especially after Neil was added to CSN.

The 11th track on the album, the second to last on side two, was the band’s opener from the very first album, at least until “For What It’s Worth” became a hit and it was stripped in atop, it’s entitled “Go and Say Goodbye.” It’s a lighthearted romp that is once again a period piece. A compact ditty. Far beyond what is released today, but not up to hit standards in the mid-sixties.

The final song on the album is Neil Young’s “Expecting to Fly,” it’s got a majesty from back when, when we were only slightly disillusioned, as opposed to today when we’re about to give up, if we haven’t already. “Expecting to Fly” was a bit foreign to the sunniness of the work of Stephen Stills and Richie Furay, but that’s probably one of the reasons Neil left the band, he didn’t really fit in. And in my mind he never really fit in with Crosby, Stills & Nash.

4

So when you love a track you drop the needle and play it over and over again, like I said above. The CD was such a breakthrough, with programmability, and you’ve got no idea how good you’ve got it in the streaming era, hell you can just call out to Alexa and Siri and hear any track you want to, have the machine play it ad infinitum.

But you had to be right in front of the turntable to do this. Or even worse, you had to get up. I don’t understand why everyone wants a manual turntable, it’s such a pain in the ass to get up and lift the tonearm up at the end of the record.

So it got to the point where I just dropped the needle at the beginning of the second side, I’d hear “Rock & Roll Woman” only once, but I wouldn’t have to get up constantly.

So that’s why I know “Broken Arrow.” I never really loved “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing,” the second side really began for me with “Broken Arrow.” And then came “Rock & Roll Woman.”

And then came “I Am a Child.”

“I am a child, I’ll last a while

You can’t conceive of the pleasure in my smile”

We were all children, we were delaying growing up. Going to work for the bank? We didn’t even want a career!

The verses of “I Am a Child” are reminiscent of “Long May You Run,” then again the latter came over half a decade later.

And there’s a country feel that was ultimately present in the Byrds and the Burritos, “I Am a Child” is a product of 1968, just like “Sweetheart of the Rodeo.”

“You are a man, you understand

You pick me up and you lay me down again

You  make the rules, you say what’s fair

It’s lots of fun to have you there”

NO IT’S NOT! Neil’s being sarcastic. The man is messing with his music, the man is manipulating him, using him as his toy, not respecting him, the cash cow, where all the money comes from.

“I Am a Child” is jaunty, and almost optimistic before you dig into the lyrics. Then again, so many Neil Young songs are like this. more glass half empty than half full. Today everybody’s a winner. You can’t show weakness. You’ve got to be upbeat all the time. But truly, that’s not the life of an artist.

Now the funny thing about getting older is you get younger. All the trappings of being an adult, making your way in the world, fade away. You desire the sensations of your youth. You long for the feelings of yore. You desire to be taken away from the everyday grind. Which is one of the reasons the dinosaurs do such good business on the road. Oldsters don’t want to shoot selfies, they want to revel in the sound.

And all these songs are inside our brains, they’re part of us, they helped get us through. And they pop up at strange times. They may not have even been your favorites, but you know them by heart. They’re in your brain when you wake up, you’re singing them to yourself, you never know when a song will grab you. Just now “I Am a Child” was playing in my brain.

I’m listening to it now.

1

It was not a hit in America.

One of the thrills of going to London in 1972, besides going to the Chelsea Drugstore and the record stores, like Virgin, before there was a label, was the music press. Three weekly tabloids. A cornucopia of information. Nothing was that up-to-date in the U.S. “Rolling Stone” came out every two weeks, and read like it.

So I immediately purchased the three rags and what were they talking about? T. Rex and David Bowie.

Now T. Rex I was aware of, from previously being Tyrannosaurus Rex. I’d see them in the bins, not that I ever heard the music. Supposedly it was arty, reviews were not bad, but one could only afford so much music.

And then came “Get It On.” BANG A GONG, GET IT ON! That was a song you only had to hear once. But you didn’t hear it too often. FM didn’t embrace it and it got spotty airplay on AM but whenever it came on the radio I smiled. I remember driving down the Taconic hearing it on the radio on a drive from Middlebury to a show in New York. Yes, one play can make these incredible memories.

Now in the U.K., T. Rex was having hit after hit. “Telegram Sam,” “Metal Guru,” but what I heard I didn’t quite get. Although eventually I purchased “The Slider” and loved the title track, but not a whole hell of a lot more.

As for David Bowie? Why now? There’s not a hit single. But reviews were effusive. This guy had been around for years and had finally thrown down the gauntlet. Hosannas were everywhere. This I had to hear.

And this was back when you had to buy an album to hear it. They certainly were not playing Ziggy Stardust on the radio in the U.S. at the end of August ’72 when I purchased it.

Actually, it was called “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.” Yes, Bowie employed an alter-ego, even though we never knew of him to begin with. And we also were unaware of Mick Ronson and…

The cover was dark. Remember when rock was the antithesis to the daytime, to light? Back before everybody bragged about how early they got up in the morning? It was all about staying up late, when the straights were asleep, when we owned the town, when anything could happen. As for Bowie’s look? Didn’t look that outside, after all we’d never seen what he’d been before.

So I’m back from the record store, I’ve broken the shrink wrap, and I drop the needle. I don’t know what I’m going to hear, but it’s “Five Years.”

Now “Five Years” is slow, back when you wanted to hit the audience over the head with your opener. It was a dystopian tale. That one couldn’t really relate to back in ’72, which wasn’t quite like the sixties, but even though Nixon was re-elected in November everything was pretty good, especially compared to today.

But what was impressive about “Five Years” was the vocal, its intensity. Bowie was shouting, singing as if he were a star, even though he was not. He was not self-conscious, he was a self-declared seer. And you could understand every word when so much was incomprehensible on records decades before the internet revealed all the lyrics.

But the follow-up, “Soul Love”? I didn’t dig that all. The chorus was much better than the verse, but it seemed like an excuse for Bowie to play the saxophone, to demonstrate his dexterity.

And then came “Moonage Daydream.”

2

“Keep your ‘lectric eye on me babe

Put your ray gun to my head

Press your space face close to mine love

Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah”

It was that sound at the beginning, that buzzsaw guitar cutting through the atmosphere, demanding attention. And then this descending chorus. Now wait a second, this is good, this I’ve got to hear again, this is GREAT!

And although it is rock it’s the opposite of the southern rock dominating the FM airwaves, even much of the English stuff. “Ray gun”? This was before “Star Wars” and the unending fascination with science fiction. Sure, we remembered ray guns from Saturday morning television, but we outgrew them, right?

And “Moonage Daydream” flowed into “Starman,” which was easily accessible in a way that “Soul Love,” even “Five Years,” was not. With a traditional structure, a catchy chorus and then the incongruous lyrics:

“Let the children lose it

Le the children use it

Let all the children boogie”

Boogie? I didn’t think an English act could utter the word, which already had a bad connotation amongst the hipsters who would attach themselves to David Bowie first. We’re in full sci-fi mode here now, the rocket ship has blasted from the launching pad, you were either on it or not, on the bus of off as the Pranksters would say, you forgot what you were attached to previously, you went along for the ride.

3

“When you climb to the top of the mountain

Look out over the sea

Think about the places perhaps, where a young man could be”

Huh? Ron Davies’s “It Ain’t Easy”? That track is so obscure that it’s not on streaming services today, it’s not worth it to conquer the rights issues and get it posted.

I mean I knew it, because it was on the free A&M sampler that the label sent to compete with Warner/Reprise’s two dollar two disc loss leaders. “Friends” was only one disc, but it exhibited a cornucopia of talent, and there were only two acts I’d never heard of before, Lambert & Nuttycombe and Ron Davies.

You can see the track listing here: https://bit.ly/3xYEwuL

Even better you can hear Ron Davies’s original take on YouTube here: https://bit.ly/3zE1k49 There’s a lengthy acoustic intro, and then the track settles into the familiar groove that grabs you. The same one Bowie employs, it’s essentially the same arrangement, but how did Bowie know it? Nobody else seemed to. But Bowie’s vocal makes all the difference, lifts it from a Mad Dogs and Englishmen chorus-type track and brings it right up to 1972. The song has a deeper meaning. Or should I say Bowie MEANS it. This is a voice Bowie completely discarded as the years went by. But when you’re breaking rules, why not break all of them? Although the verses are acoustic, there’s a stinging electric guitar in the chorus as well as a whole neighborhood of voices. The song is taken out of the backwoods and deposited right into the grit of the dirty city.

4

As for “Lady Stardust”… Bowie’s now singing to the back row, it’s not the intimate sound of the opening of the record. And the changes are familiar, it’s easily understood.

“Star” was a romp. Seemingly out of place on this album, more akin to “Uncle Ernie” on “Tommy.” Tony went to Belfast, and the album was otherworldly if you were in America, Bowie was not playing to us, but a cadre of insiders who were definitely English.

“Hang on to Yourself”… Bowie’s talk-singing, it’s got the speed and the guitars of the soon to arrive Ramones and the rest of the punkers.

As for “Ziggy Stardust”… This was the analogue to “Moonage Daydream,” the one listen smash. It was that innovative riff. And the entire story. Akin to Bad Company’s “Shooting Star,” but that wouldn’t come out for three more years. “Ziggy Stardust” was the story of the band, it brought the whole album, the whole concept together.

“Suffragette City” was built from parts from the rock canon, but the guitar was a bit more crunchy and you had the attitude of the vocals, and then… WHAM BAM THANK YOU MA’AM? This seemed a misstep, out of character, would a guy this sophisticated sing this? I guess yes, but this still bugs me today. Like I said, “Suffragette City” was not innovative, but it pushed the faders to ten on all the parts, brought out all the clichés and the end result was better than the usual tripe.

As for “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” this closing track was like “Five Years, the opener, it starts quietly instead of noisy and builds in amplitude and intensity. And it was quite obviously the capper of the story. And in truth, Ziggy Stardust did not live for that much longer, but…

The record ended, there was quietude, and my only option was to start over, I played it again and again, it was revealing itself to me more with each play. Nobody else I knew even owned it. So, it was private, and you treasure records like that. And the more I played it the more I liked it, loved it.

5

“Ziggy Stardust” was followed by “Aladdin Sane,” Bowie had made inroads in America, but “Aladdin Sane” was a disappointment, after “Ziggy Stardust” we expected something more, at least I did. One step beyond. We got “Jean Genie,” but a cover of “Let’s Spend the Night Together”? I mean “Panic in Detroit” was a killer, but you couldn’t give someone “Aladdin Sane” and tell them to play it a few times and they’d emerge converted.

I bought “Pin Ups,” because I’m a completist, I have to have everything, I was not going to abandon ship. But I can’t say that I played it much. It’s just that Bowie’s versions of the classics…didn’t add anything to the classics themselves. The originals superseded them by a large margin. This is a record that really didn’t need to be released.

And then came “Diamond Dogs.”

Critics said it was the worst Bowie album yet, that it was pandering to the masses. But now AOR radio was in every hamlet and burg. And it was a meat and potatoes audience. And the album had “Rebel Rebel.” An almost stupid single. It was all over the airwaves during the summer of 1974, at least the FM airwaves. I went to see the show at Madison Square Garden, Bowie’s rep could sell out an arena at this point, and the staging was a take-off on the Guy Peellaert cover, with the backup singers running around in dog suits, the entire thing was overblown, this wasn’t what I signed up for.

6

And then Bowie disappeared. Gone. But when he came back…

It was a completely different sound. It was “Young Americans” that started to cement the David Bowie legend, he could have been a footnote, just another rocker employing glam elements to success, but how to explain this R&B album without the affected vocals?

It was a revelation.

Ultimately the hit was “Fame.” I didn’t love it then and I can still barely listen to it today. But I remember the first time I heard “Somebody Up There Likes Me.”

I’d slept in my 2002 behind the Hart ski warehouse in Reno. The sun came up, shined brightly, there was no way I was gonna get any more shut-eye, I shimmied out of my sleeping bag, turned the key and cruised the stations on the Blaupunkt. And that’s when I heard “Somebody Up There Likes Me.”

There’s the exuberance, the tension and the release. The intro is a minute of David Sanborn blowing, he’s got no particular place to go, he’s not worried about playing too long, and “Deacon Blues” wasn’t even in the mind of Steely Dan. It’s like Bowie’s on stage knowing that he’s gonna blow the audience away, they’re going to come running like lemmings to the sound. This is not the Bowie of yore, who needs it, who needs to convince you. In this case the sound is enough, one listen infects you.

And I feel the same way about “Fascination.”

And then came version two, “Station to Station.” “Golden Years” was superior to “Fame,” and “TVC15” was infectious, the whole album was solid, but sans the peaks of “Young Americans.”

But then Bowie PIVOTED!

7

You couldn’t get away with this today. Fans are not that dedicated. Well, maybe some hard core fans are but not the casual listeners keeping superstars in business.

It was now 1977. The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac were cementing their legends with “Hotel California” and “Rumours,” extensions on what had come before, but “Low”? It had no precedent. Except the ascendant electronic music scene, whose only breakthrough had been Kraftwerk’s “Autobahn,” seen as a novelty record at this point.

But there was a power in “Speed of Life.”

As for the sound of “Breaking Glass,” it was even less easily digested, but you were either in or out at this point, on the Bowie train or not, he was on his own artistic hejira, this was not “Diamond Dogs” and “Rebel Rebel,” giving people what they wanted.

Who knew the title track of “Heroes” would go on to become a standard, it certainly wasn’t back in 1977, when it was released. The album was seen as a more obvious exploration in the “Low”lands, and it wasn’t until Bowie came back with the MTV staple “Let’s Dance” in 1983 that he was front and center, atop the hit parade once again. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the theme song to “Cat People,” the movie which broke Nastassja Kinski, we all talked about putting out fire with gasoline, back when a record could truly be ubiquitous and infect the entire public, far beyond the reach of Drake, never mind Kendrick Lamar or Kanye.

8

Bowie kept experimenting to his death. He didn’t want a victory lap, he just wanted to complete his new album.

Bowie is a legend because he kept evolving whereas most of our heroes stopped, are still frozen in amber, playing the hits of yore.

And it all started with “Ziggy Stardust.”

Which was followed by the years old nonstarter “Space Oddity,” which finally became a hit in America, helping drive ticket buyers to the Garden and the rest of the big venues, but at this late date, I have to say the best, and my favorite David Bowie album, is “Hunky Dory.”

It was “Life on Mars” that got played when he shockingly died.

And “Changes” is now a staple, even though you never heard it in America back in 1971 when the album came out.

And it’s songs like “Oh! You Pretty Things” that make an act a legend, because true stars are always embraced first by the outsiders, those who don’t fit in.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention “Andy Warhol” and “Kooks.” This was back before it was about becoming a worldwide sensation, when everything was still local, when you felt your own life meant something, you didn’t feel overburdened by the harsh community and people telling you how to live and act.

But that brings us back to “Ziggy Stardust.”

9

When you’re enamored of an act, when they’re your new favorite, you’ve got to go see them live, before everybody finds out and you can still get close. So we drove down from Middlebury to see Bowie at the Music Hall in Boston on October 1st 1972. Through the magic of the internet you can see the set list: https://bit.ly/3QrmhVW But it won’t come close to giving you an inkling of the experience.

The Music Hall was not sold out, word was not out, I was what they call in tech an “early adopter.” But I was not prepared for the opening of the show.

The strobes started to flash, “Ode to Joy” from “A Clockwork Orange” started to play over the speakers and Bowie and the Spiders from Mars took the stage and began to play. It was almost as dramatic as that Apple TV commercial Steve Jobs dropped on us in 1984. It was completely unexpected. It referenced a cultural landmark. That’s right, the hit movies back then weren’t fantastical cartoons but brain twisters.

The band came out blasting. 

And that suit that looked green on the cover of “Ziggy Stardust”? Turned out it was silver.

I mean my jaw dropped, everybody was shocked.

And when the band finished their set with “Suffragette City” the audience clapped and clapped for an encore, and eventually Bowie and the band returned.

Although this time the house lights were up. There were no effects. And we’d come right down front, like I said the gig was not sold out, not close, and Bowie spreads his legs, plants his feet and starts singing “Around and Around.” You know, the Chuck Berry song which opened the Rolling Stones’ album “12×5.”

But Bowie’s performance had more intensity, more guts, than either of the famous renditions. Bowie was showing his roots, linking Ziggy Stardust to the beginnings of rock and roll, winking at us, telling us he didn’t just drop out of the sky fully-formed, he had history. We were on an adventure together, and at this point the deal was sealed, you could never get off the train, it’s why I kept buying every single Bowie album thereafter. 

You see Ziggy played guitar…

Mr. Grand Funk Railroad. Need I say more?

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-farner/id1316200737?i=1000566622187

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/ea0dd616-0347-48af-bc89-a9403febe7d6/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-mark-farner

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/mark-farner-204120667