Silly Sundays - Free At Last!

My legal and tax-filing status has been changed. And that's all I'm gonna say here, except that (despite what you may think if you don't listen to The Beatles all the way to the end) I'm a happy, happy boy.

Gabriel Mann and Maxayn Lewis - Free At Last
mirror 1 -- mirror 2
The Beatles - Oh! Darling (early take)
mirror 1 -- mirror 2

Eddie Izzard - Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!

So I saw Eddie Izzard twice in Atlanta last week. And here is a musical track from him, his cover of a classic Beatles song from Sgt. Pepper.

You should really click on that first link if you're not familiar with the song, so you can hear just how much Eddie is improvising lyrically here. The original lyrics are based on an old 1843 circus poster that John Lennon became enamored with, and the song incorporates some interesting chord changes and an incredible use of tape loops.

This performance is from Eddie's cameo in Across The Universe, a film I have yet to see (I feel a little leery that it'll be that Bee Gees/George Burns movie all over again). You can see the movie clip here. I should point out that the soundtrack isn't bad, for what it is (which is a collection of covers of classic songs, most of which I consider perfect, with slight musical and production updates presumably undertaken to make the songs more palatable for today's tastes). It certainly doesn't make me cringe and leave the room, like I do with the Bee Gees/Frampton soundtrack.

This song is certainly my personal favorite from the album, but then I'm a sucker for anything Izzard.

Eddie Izzard - Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!
Buy from Amazon -- Buy from Deep Discount

Happy birthday Meredith Willson!

And now, the introduction of yet another new feature here at She'll Grow Back: Birthday greetings, complete with a selection of related songs currently on my hard drive (no ripping or downloading allowed, just to keep it interesting).

Meredith Willson would've been 106 today. He's best known for writing The Music Man and The Unsinkable Molly Brown, though he started performing music professionally in 1921 with John Phillip Sousa. (He also wrote "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.")

These are the three songs my computer was holding before I found out today is Willson's birthday. First, an odd little record from 1961. John F. Kennedy's Presidential Council on Physical Fitness asked Willson to write a song to promote daily exercise to schoolchildren. Willson wrote it, and it was then recorded by Robert Preston, star of The Music Man. It was played every single day in schools across the country for literally decades. Many people have childhood memories of this song and its earwig qualities. (Caution: second link autoplays song!) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... "Chicken Fat"!

Next, a band you may have heard of covers the sweetest song from The Music Man.

Finally, a Simpsons classic, "Monorail," inspired by "Ya Got Trouble (Right Here In River City)," from The Music Man.

Zip file
Buy The Music Man from Amazon

Qu'est-ce Que C'est? -- It Don't Look Like Anything.

So I'm currently rereading (this is my third time through) Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr. Ripley. It's a lot darker and more complex than the movie (which I don't particularly care for -- watch John Malkovich play Tom Ripley in Ripley's Game for a much closer portrayal). The novel is disturbing the freaking hell out of me.

And then, this week, I went to see Okkervil River live, and their song "Westfall" is a disturbingly danceable portrayal of insane murder. So you all get to hear this. (I've been holding onto some of these songs since I put together the Crazy? Probably mix, since I thought I might do something like this.) If you didn't already do so, remember to download yesterday's post too, since only the original version of "Psycho Killer" is in this mix, and there are five more covers there.

01 - Talking Heads - Psycho Killer
02 - Johnny Cash - Delia's Gone
03 - Neko Case - Make Your Bed
04 - Violent Femmes - Country Death Song
05 - The Byrds - Pretty Polly
06 - Springtime Is Wartime - Psycho Killer
07 - C. W. McCall - Comin' Back for More
08 - Jason Isbell - Psycho Killer
09 - Okkervil River - Westfall
10 - Bishop Allen - Psycho Killer
11 - Sufjan Stevens - John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
12 - The Faint - Psycho Killer
13 - Lou Reed - The Gun
14 - The Beatles - Maxwell's Silver Hammer
15 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Curse Of Millhaven
16 - Wyclef Jean - Delia's Gone

Zip file 1 -- Zip file 2

Whoot! Bill Cosby - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

So here's my first blogpost inspired by a news story. That story being that Bill Cosby is finally releasing another musical album. (This new one will be his fifth by my count, and the first in over twenty years.)

Let's get something straight. I love Bill Cosby, as a standup. When I was a child, our family owned two of his albums, and my brother and I practically memorized them. (That's nutrition!)

And from what I can tell, the man has excellent musical taste, with an eclectic love for funk and soul and jazz and blues. But he can't sing worth a damn.

Exhibit number one: this travesty of a Beatles cover. (By no means even among the ten or twenty worst Beatles covers, either. But one of the funniest, certainly.)

Bill Cosby - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Buy from GEMM -- Buy from eBay