Music for Pottery Making

Ear Candy 🍭 | 6

Tom Waits…

…has kept a strong grip on my imagination since my days in theatre school, which is fitting given Waits’ leanings. His two lyrical concept albums, Blood Money and Alice were both written for theatrical adaptations created by avant-garde director Robert Wilson. They are currently being reissued on vinyl for their 20th Anniversary.

Here are two archival interviews from NPR’s Fresh Air that I loved listening to. It reminded me why I am drawn to Waits. I love his lens on the world—while it might appear to be smeared with grease, it is through those slippery refractions that we get a more crystalline view of the world.

Songs

1. Last Leaf on the Tree

2. Alice

During wedding season…

…I am often called upon to play the ceremony music for the happy couple. This counts as one of the more nerve-wracking fields in which I perform as a musician but more on that another time.

Every once in a while you are blessed with learning song requests in this line of work that inspire a new way of thinking about song form, singing, arrangement, bass lines, etc. Recently I learned a few that I loved both shedding and performing.

Songs

1. Baby - Donnie and Joe Emerson

I love the fade in on this song. It makes it seem as if the melody was always on the air and we just needed to find the right dial setting to pick it up.

2. Unchained Melody - Righteous Brothers

A masterclass in writing, arranging, and most of all, singing. The gift of learning a song in the canon of modern American songwriting, a song so ubiquitous and even satirized in modern culture, is that you no longer get to take it for granted. In sitting with it, and trying to understand it from the roots up, all of its brilliance begins to bloom before you. The choices that were made (unconsciously or subconsciously) in structure and stylization, in pacing and intention, begin to form a map—a map you can use (or reject completely) as a guide for your own journey in songwriting.

The magic of a great song is, when you stop your analysis and drop the needle down to listen again, the landmarks of the map once again blend into the mystery of the single spell a great work casts over its listener.

Thom Yorke…

…has a radio show on Sonos called In the Absence Thereof. Here are a couple of songs I loved from his last mix.

Songs

1. The Harmonizing 4 - Go Down Moses

2. Bobby Hutcherson - Procession

Bonus Recommendations…

Let me Live in your City (work in progress) - Paul Simon

Let It Be Me - Joy Oladokun

Moonlight Mile - The Rolling Stones

I was reminded of this last one on a road trip I took to play the very wedding that included the songs mentioned above. It ties in nicely here. You might find you recognize a special guest appearance on the first song recommended here, Last Leaf on the Tree by Tom Waits, from this very band. Any guesses?