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"Words(Between The Lines Of Age"

Neil Young

Written by Neil Young.

Released as a track in his fourth solo album "Harvest" in February 1972. It wasn't released as a single.

The song was recorded with The Stray Gators as backing band. Tim Drummon on bass, Kenny Buttrey on drums, Ben Keith on pedal steel guitar and Jack Nietsche on piano. Graham Nash and Stephen Stills did the backing vocals and Neil Young plays electric guitar.

From Wikipedia:

"Words (Between the Lines of Age)", the last song on the album, featured a lengthy guitar workout with the band. It has a typical Neil Young structure consisting of four chords during the multiple improvised solos. The song is notable for alternating between a standard 4/4 time signature for verses and choruses and an unusual 11(3+3+3+2)/8 for interludes.

allmusic:

The closing track on the finely crafted Harvest album breaks the mode of the album, being a loose live-in-the-studio folk/rocker. The lyrical statement is surely multi-leveled, but should be left up to the listener for judgement. The passage of time and being a " rock spokesman" seem to be what Neil Young is trying to convey here, and he does it in a surreal and effective fashion. An excellent (although beautifully slightly out-of-focus) band performance by the Stray Gators and harmony vocals by Stephen Stills and Graham Nash highlight the recording. Live versions on Journey Through the Past and especially 2000's Road Rock are worth exploring.

Some facts about "Harvest" from Allmusic:

Neil Young's most popular album, Harvest benefited from the delay in its release (it took 18 months to complete due to Young's back injury), which whetted his audience's appetite, the disintegration of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (Young's three erstwhile partners sang on the album, along with Linda Ronstadt and James Taylor), and most of all, a hit single. "Heart of Gold," released a month before Harvest, was already in the Top 40 when the LP hit the stores, and it soon topped the charts.

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The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #208

This week there are three songs needing facts.

Straight On - Heart (1978)

I'm Sorry - Brenda Lee (1960)

Heaven Is in Your Mind - Traffic (1967)

If you have any info on any of the songs mentioned anywhere in this thread, please feel free to post your knowledge here. Submissions on songs will be collated and sent to the main site and you will receive credit for your contribution.

As always the Songfish thanks you. :guitar:

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The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #208

This week there are three songs needing facts.

Straight On - Heart (1978)

"Straight On" is a song recorded by the rock band Heart. It was released as the first single from the band's 1978 album Dog & Butterfly. In the U.S., "Straight On" became Heart's third single to crack the top twenty, peaking at number fifteen on the Billboard Hot 100.
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I'm Sorry - Brenda Lee (1960)

"I'm Sorry" is a 1960 hit song for then-15-year-old American country pop singer Brenda Lee. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in July 1960. Allmusic guide wrote that it is the pop star's "definitive song", and one of the "finest teen pop songs of its era". It was written by Dub Albritton and Ronnie Self.[1] On the UK Singles Chart, the song peaked at number twelve.

According to the Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson, Brenda Lee recorded the song early in 1960 but her label, Decca Records, held it from release for several months out of concern that a 15-year-old girl was not mature enough to sing about unrequited love. When the song finally was released, it was considered to be the flip side of the more uptempo "That's All You Gotta Do." Although "That's All You Gotta Do" was a chart success in its own right, reaching number six on the Hot 100, it was "I'm Sorry" that became the smash hit and the standard [2]. On other charts, "I'm Sorry" peaked at number four on the R&B chart and "That's All You Gotta Do" peaked at number nineteen on the R&B charts [3].

Although it was never released to country radio as a single, "I'm Sorry" would in time become accepted by country fans as a standard of the genre. The song — a fixture on many "country oldies" programs — was an early example of the then-new "Nashville Sound," a style which emphasized a stringed-instrumental sound and background vocals.[citation needed]

Ben Vaughn referenced it in his song "I'm Sorry (But So Is Brenda Lee)".

Following on the heels of Brenda Lee's first big hit, "Sweet Nothin's," "I'm Sorry" reached the top of the charts in the summer of 1960 on its way to becoming her definitive song. Calling the song definitive is no stretch of the imagination, either -- Ben Vaughn wrote a song called "I'm Sorry (But So Is Brenda Lee)," which just illustrates how the tune grabbed the public's imagination. Though it might seem a little dated to some modern ears, it deserves its acclaims, since it is among the finest teen pop songs of its era. Written by Ronnie Self, the song blends elements of teenage rock & roll with a sweeping Nashville-styled production, resulting in a melancholy sigh of regret, delivered with adolescent urgency by Lee. The tune is catchy enough and the production is terrific, but Lee's performance is what brings the song to life, elevating beyond typical teenage melodrama. Since the emotions are fairly adolescent and its style is firmly rooted in its era, the song hasn't been covered much, but it would have been hard to top Lee's original recording, simply because it captures the moment so well.

It was written by Dub Albritton and Ronnie Self (Ronnie Self was a rockabilly performer and songwriter but he never recorded his song)

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"Heaven Is in Your Mind"

Traffic

The first track from their 1967 debut album "Mr Fantasy".

It was written by Jim Capaldi, Steve Winwood and Chris Wood.

Celebrating the bucolic, communal lifestyle that the band had at their Berkshire cottage (where Traffic initially wrote and rehearsed their debut), "Heaven Is in Your Mind" is a wonderful piece of existential advice. A psychedelic take on keeping one's natural priorities straight, its appeal hasn't aged at all, unlike similar statements by other bands of the period. Built around an infectious , funky jazz-swing base on the verses, the bridge is a lovely, waltz-time section, and it showed the songwriters as real craftsmen. Although Traffic's version is definitive, Three Dog Night did an excellent cover on their debut album.
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The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #209

This week there is one song needing facts.

Pale Blue Eyes - The Velvet Underground (1969)

If you have any info on any of the songs mentioned anywhere in this thread, please feel free to post your knowledge here. Submissions on songs will be collated and sent to the main site and you will receive credit for your contribution.

As always the Songfish thanks you. :drummer:

Edited by Guest
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The Songfactors' Choice Top Ten #209

This week there is one song needing facts.

Pale Blue Eyes - The Velvet Underground (1969)

"Pale Blue Eyes" is a song written by Lou Reed and performed by The Velvet Underground. It was included on the band's eponymous 1969 album The Velvet Underground.

"Pale Blue Eyes" - along with a number of Reed's other songs - was inspired by his college sweetheart and muse, Shelly Albin, who indeed had pale blue eyes.

The original song has five verses. First verse starts: "Sometimes I feel so happy, sometimes I feel so sad." The refrain goes: "Linger on your pale blue eyes".

When deciding on a song to play for the first reunion of The Velvet Underground at the Fondation Cartier in 1990, Lou Reed initially said he wanted to play "Pale Blue Eyes", but when someone reminded him that the song was from after John Cale's tenure with the band, Reed declared "then it will have to be Heroin".[citation needed]

"Pale Blue Eyes" has later been adopted by several bands/artist.[1] In addition to Lou Reed and Maureen Tucker from Velvet Underground, also Eric Andersen, Alejandro Escovedo, Crowded House, Neil Finn, Counting Crows, Hole, Marisa Monte, R.E.M., Tom McRae and Patti Smith have their own versions of this song.

An instrumental version of the song was used in Julian Schnabel's 2007 film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.[2] The song was also used in a scene of the 2008 film August[citation needed], as well as 2009's "Adventureland."

The original song was featured during the final scenes of the January 25, 2009 episode of Cold Case (CBS) entitled "The Brush Man". This program regularly features music popular during the time when the cold case being investigated had occurred. Although the murder in this episode occurred in 1967, "Pale Blue Eyes" was on the album entitled "The Velvet Underground" that was released in 1969. The song was also featured in an episode of Crossing Jordan. The song is featured twice in the 2009 film Adventureland.

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A bit more of info on "Pale Blue Eyes" - Velvet Underground

Allmusic says:

Lou Reed wrote "Pale Blue Eyes" -- widely regarded as his greatest-ever ballad -- for a girl he'd been seeing during his time at Syracuse University in the early '60s. Deeply touching, it is almost frighteningly personal; indeed, the first time Reed played it to Sterling Morrison, the guitarist protested, "if I wrote a song like that, I wouldn't make you play it." Hauntingly slow, its stark accompaniment a duet for warm guitar and almost religious tambourine, "Pale Blue Eyes" documents a love that many people have experienced, but few have ever been able to voice so effectively. Even more affecting is what amounts to the punch line, the half-regretful "the fact that you are married only proves you're my best friend." Years later, incidentally, Reed admitted that the song's original inspiration did, in fact, have hazel eyes.
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Songs are only listed under their original performer. After that the cover is just mentioned in the comments usually. Maybe I'm wrong though, but somebody else could verify this.

I think it depends on how popular each version is:

Mr. Tambourine Man (cover, original doesn't have an entry)

With a Little Help From My Friends (original)

With a Little Help From My Friends (cover)

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"Blinded By the Light"

Manfredd Mann's Earth Band

A song written by Bruce Springsteen.

Manfred Mann's Earth Band recorded it for their 1976 album, "The Roaring Silence" and it was also relased as the second single from the LP, reaching #1 in the US charts in 1977. Its B-side was "Starbird No. 2". The album track was 7.08 minutes long while the single lasted 3.48 minutes.

According Wikipedia,

The song is notable for lead vocalist Chris Thompson's garbled enunciation, especially of the phrase "revved up like a deuce" which has led many fans to interpret it as "wrapped up like a douche". The original Springsteen lyric is neither of the above, instead being "cut loose like a deuce". Springsteen once attributed the popularity of the Manfred Mann version partially to Thompson's enunciation.

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Thats what I was thinking. I've been busy so haven't looked yet, but as long as Mann is mentioned in the Springfield facts, that might be all thats required.

But like I said, if anyone wants to post some facts I will send them to Carl and he can decide whether to use them or not :content:

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