Sallright

Don't Need a Watch To Waste Your Time

This is the beauty of the internet.

Just when you think you've seen everything -- or at least you've seen everything from 35-plus years ago, you stumble across something old/new.

So here's a video (which I'd never seen before today) that animates some John Lennon drawings (yes, including the copulating rabbits) to his 1974 single "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" (with the fantastic saxophone work of the great Bobby Keys):



By the way, is it just me or does the theme from Saturday Night Live want to be this song (or at least the sax parts of this song) when it grows up?


And speaking of "official" videos I'd never seen before today, here's one for "Slippin' and Sliding" from the Rock 'n' Roll album, which came out in 1975:

I Believe I'm Gonna Rain

Haven't Done A Bloody Thing All Day

The sleepy/druggy music fits in well with the sleepy/druggy video, which gives up about halfway through in favor of a bunch of still pictures.

This is kind of like the little brother of the Abbey Road medley -- great on its own, but always worried it's just a shadow of what might have been.

Gotta Keep My Head Down Low

My foolish error was to care too much...

The delusional girl made a record.

Years ago, that would have been amazing. It would have required hundreds of thousands of dollars, hiring studios, paying musicians.

Now, you can do it with a laptop. And a few hundred bucks of hardware and software.

These days, essentially, anyone can make a record.

So she did.

But then she thought the world owed her something. Even though her songs sucked. Even though her singing was horrible.

But she looked good.

And she'd seen the shows on TV. And she thought that she was better than some of the people on those shows. (Not even better than all of them, just better than some.)

No one would listen.

So she signed up for something online. Paid a lot of money. Got someone allegedly in the music industry to listen to what she'd recorded.

And they sent back word to her: Can you even hear how bad this record is? Because it's just horrible. Erase it from your hard drive. Destroy all copies.

She blamed them. They couldn't hear her genius.

So she stalked the people who'd listened. She threatened them. She pulled a knife.

And one of them laughed. "Go ahead and stab me," he said. "Your music still sucks."

Shocked, she dropped the knife. And started to cry.

And ran away.

The World Spins On Regardless

Best Mick Jagger Impression Ever

Lots of people have been talking this week about how great Mick Jagger was on the season finale of Saturday Night Live last weekend.

Which reminded me of when Mick put out his first solo album. And I heard "Private Revolution" by World Party and was convinced it was Mick Jagger.

These days, no one remembers Mick's solo work.

But I'm still listening to World Party.

(And yeah, that's Sinead O'Connor singing backup in the video. But most everything else on the record came from Karl Wallinger -- despite the stop-motion photography and the "band" playing under the tree...)

Double Kick Drum By the River In the Summer

Playing Kiss Covers

The railroad bridge wasn't in use anymore.

But there was a small park.

And a friend of mine had rented a room on the top floor of an apartment building on a hill.

It looked over the park. And a river. Or maybe an inlet. Or an isthmus. Or a channel.

In any case, it overlooked the water.

And one weekend there was a block party. With loud bands playing songs everyone knew.

The bands weren't good.

But they were okay.

And one by one, the neighbors came out into the street.

It wasn't officially closed, but someone had traffic cones. And someone else had a sawhorse.

And they blocked off two blocks. By the water.

Hibachis followed. And small charcoal barbecues. And coolers with beer.

And we wondered around for hours. Everyone wanted to feed us. Everyone wanted to drink with us.

All the immigrant girls with the home-dyed blonde hair wanted to talk to us.

It was fantastic.

And then, as if on cue, everything shut down. People cleaned up. Families took away the sawhorse and the cones.

The bands packed their gear.

10 minutes later, the cops arrived. Said they were investigating a report of an illegally closed street. A block party with no permits.

And the blonde girls flirted. The cops could smell barbecue but could see nothing.

So they left.

And the street seemed normal again.

Except the neighbors all smiled at each other. As if they shared a secret.

Which, I guess, they did.

Searching for Some Kind of Elusive Truth

I Guess No One Can Imagine A Future Anymore

The moon-faced girl with the imaginary friends glided through the hotel lobby.

She was on her way somewhere, imagining her life. I caught her eye for a second.

And that was all it took. She had it all planned.

The who, what, where, and when.

But it didn't lead anywhere. It wasn't any fun. It wouldn't help her. Or anyone.

And later, when I met her through a friend and we went to the see the fireworks on the Fourth of July, she couldn't remember the hotel. Or the plans she made. Or the places she wanted to go.

But I knew.

And that knowledge wasn't something that came lightly. Or something I could forget about easily.

And that made all the difference.

Bonus World Groove

God's Gonna Love Ya... 'Cause God's Pretty Funky

The B-side of World Party's hit song "Ship of Fools" (in the U.S. anyway) was a great 60s-style organ groove track called "World Groove (Do the Mind Guerilla)." It wasn't on their first record and wasn't a bonus track when the album came out on CD.

It wasn't available on CD until about a month ago, when it surfaced on Arkeology, a 70-track collection of unreleased tracks, B-sides, demos, and live recordings.

And now it's on YouTube, ripped from vinyl.

So enjoy:



And I've always liked to think that the lyrics here are a nod to John Lennon's "Mind Games" song, which talks about "playing the mind guerilla, chanting the mantra peace on Earth."