Asymmetric Music

Crime against humanity.

I love coffee. My first-ever drink from a cup was coffee. I drank cafe on leche every morning (how's that for parenting?)

After eating, I always ask for a coffee to go. It keeps me busy in between texting and browsing the internet while I'm driving (just kidding- very dangerous- don't do it).

Anyways, about half the restaurants don't have the kind of lid that you can keep on as you sip your coffee. I really dislike having to take out my Leatherman to open a slit in the plastic containers designed for soda.

This rule doesn't discriminate, from the most expensive restaurants to the mom and pop meat loaf dives, it's always 50%. Considering that many people probably finish their meal with coffee and a large percentage of them probably like to do as I do, and that coffee lids are available at Sam's Club or Costco for about 40 cents a ton; there's really no excuse not to have them. Please, coffee addicts, forward this post to your favorite restaurant:

Restaurants: Do this for us. Please. It's a small thing that brings many of your customers great joy.

Anyways, I decided to do a search through my massive mp3 collection for coffee songs. Here's what I came up with:

First, always, when possible, is Bach. His Coffee Cantata- BWV 211 is one of his best. I don't know German, but I'd probably laugh if I could understand it, as the lyrics are one of those wonderful Enlightenment topics, the silly peccadilloes of the modern and wealthy (Rape of the Lock by Bach's contemporary, Alexander Pope, is another one). Here, a young girl is addicted to coffee. I like to watch Classical performances, don't you?

The next song is by Otis Redding who alternates with Sam Cooke, Al Green, and maybe one or two others as my favorite Soul singer and is one of my favorite singers of any genre. He lays down his naturally gruff, yet expressive and melismatic voice to the service of "Cigarettes and Coffee." Otis Redding passed away (RIP) before health studies. It's the podcast.

This one was tough. Both the Andrew Sisters and Frank Sinatra sang what is probably the greatest musical indictment of nations relying on one resource for its income, "The Coffee Song." Addendum: First Bach, then Frank.

Probably the greatest R&B compilation is the 15-disc set, The Chess Story. It has the Muddy, Chuck, Bo, and Willie you're all familiar with plus some of the most marvelous music you've never heard, like this song from a Mr. Danny Overbea, "Forty Cups of Coffee."

The Putumayo collections are hit or miss. Many of the songs are middling, if unusual and fresh, but the collections often have one or two songs that make their purchases worthwhile. Such is "Soltarlo" by Claudia Gomez, recompiled by Putumayo on Music from the Coffee Lands.

I'll do Caribbean/Cuban cafe songs tomorrow.

Most of the Veterans Day tributes on youtube have music that I don't like as much as the standards or oldies. The new ones seem a little melodramatic. Vaughn Monroe sings "Old Soldiers Never Die" here. He takes service in stride, as part of a man's nature, not as some extraordinary feat. That's probably because service was more universal back then and people had more of a sense of duty. Countries, too, saw war as part of the human experience, to be avoided, sure, but not unthinkable.

Vaughn Monroe had other male classics in "Sound Off" and the truly great "Ghost Riders in the Sky."

"Sound Off"

"Ghost Riders in the Sky"

A version by Johnny Cash is the podcast.

Being a big music fan, I sometimes associate major events or people in the news with certain songs.

So it happened that as the country briefly became entranced with the phony flight of the Falcon, I wondered what music would accompany such an occasion.

I fired up my Media Center and searched for "Balloon," which took me for a nice ride lasting a couple of hours (the search).

I started with Al Bowlly, a British singer popular in the thirties who sang many Latin-themed songs including "Balloon," based on the Cuban song "Manisero." It's the podcast.

The other balloon song I found in my collection was "Up, Up, and Away" by the Fifth Dimension.

Marilyn McCoo was certainly one of the most attractive singers of the era.

"Hey! Wasn't she on that music-dance show"?

I have a distinct memory of watching Solid Gold 79, although I can't remember exactly what year it was- late seventies or early eighties, I guess. (That program, along with Soul Train is where I learned about the facts of life.) I dug up this video of the Solid Gold Dancers:

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Lou Albano, RIP.

Cindi Lauper was definitely one of the most talented singers from the eighties. She had a much stronger, more "unusual" voice than Madonna and some very fine songs including one of the best, most original upbeat songs of the decade, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun"; and one of the prettiest ballads, "Time After Time" (podcast). The videos for each one are very good as well.

She constructed for herself a rule-breaking girly-girl image that appealed to rule-following girly-girls who wanted to break the rules.

I remember thinking at the time how strange it was for Cindi Lauper to latch onto what she must have known to not be a respectable entertainment, pro wrestling. I think it hurt her career.

Below is "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" video. The only objectionable part of that phrase is "just."