SOMETHING OLD
The Choir - If These Are Men
1969
The Choir - If These Are Men
1969
Maybe you don’t know The Choir, the 60s garage rock band from Cleveland. But if you know The Raspberries, then this is mostly them without Eric Carmen.
Choir member Denny Carleton penned this one, and it’s sonically very fitting of its time while a little ahead lyrically.
The narrator quotes his friends, who tell him not only to avoid showing any of his feelings to his female partner in order to “be a man,” but to make her feel at fault even when HE is in the wrong!!!
Although they know I’m to blame, they say don’t give in. Just make her squirm and crawl. You’ve gotta show her her sins.
Talk about male manipulators... but this was a normal sentiment at the time. Carleton, however, flips it on its head, delivering the titular lyric that puts him above his friends:
But if these are men, then count me out.
But if these are men, then count me out.
Carleton wrote the song in high school when his “macho” friends gave him disagreeable advice about his breakup. It reminds me a bit of The Chi-Lites’ Oh Girl released a few years later, where the narrator knows how much he needs his woman but his friends call him a fool.
Musically, this song absolutely rocks with exhilarating organ and guitar solos, heavy drums, and a super fun fake-out ending at 2:30 that comes back with a key change finale. If this is The Choir, count me IN.
SOMETHING NEW
Lael Neale - Some Bright Morning
September 22nd, 2025
Lael Neale - Some Bright Morning
September 22nd, 2025
Lael Neale put out a brilliant record called Altogether Stranger this past spring, but kept this seriously great outtake in her back pocket.
Some Bright Morning features her soothing voice, signature omnichord, a vintage drum machine, and maybe one of my new favorite guitar solos ever at 1:56 (which I believe was manipulated to play backwards!).
I saw her and her musical partner Guy Blakeslee live last Sunday in the East Village. They put on an amazing show.
Neale has mastered slow, longing, mystical music like Every Star Shivers in the Dark and Tell Me How To Be Here just as well as she as upbeat lofi indie rock like this tune and Down On The Freeway.
I REALLY love this song. Her label, SubPop, compares it to the Loaded-era of The Velvet Underground, which I hear, but it also belongs in a league of its own.
SOMETHING BORROWED
Merry Clayton - Glad Tidings (Van Morrison)
1970
Merry Clayton - Glad Tidings (Van Morrison)
1970
Cameron Winter recently said that Van Morrison hates his sophomore album Astral Weeks “partially because he’s a d*ck and he’s stupid.” This song is not from Astral Weeks, it’s from Moondance... but it was a sentence that made me laugh and I felt like including it.
Anyway. Glad Tidings is, to me, sonically one of Morrison’s most feel-good tunes, though it’s got some lines likely about being a cog in the music industry machine. It appears in the fifth season finale of The Sopranos when someone (no spoilers) gets wacked. You can often count of mafia portrayals having music with a contrasting tone when something downright vicious is going on.
In the same year of 1970's Moondance, Merry Clayton released her debut record Gimme Shelter, named after the Stones tune she famously sang on. The album concludes with a cover of Glad Tidings, replacing the lyrics of we send you glad tidings from New York with her home of New Orleans.
Clayton brings the melody that already makes me want to skip through a field even more higher energy, with bigger band sounds and more soulful lyrical deliveries than Morrison could dream of.
SOMETHING... DEATHLY
HALLOWEEN-INSPIRED THEMES ALL OCTOBER
Sam Blasucci - Death
2024
HALLOWEEN-INSPIRED THEMES ALL OCTOBER
Sam Blasucci - Death
2024
It’s October, which means it’s time to bask in the Halloween spirit ALL MONTH LONG. So return every week for a different spooky theme.
If you thought my “death” theme was an excuse to return to Geese’s Getting Killed, give me a pat on the back for not doing that. Instead, it was an excuse to show you this other music I’ve been obsessed with.
Best for being one half of the California folk duo Mapache, Sam Blasucci has not yet gotten the flowers he deserves; but I sincerely believe he will. Last year’s record Real Life Thing has front-to-back hits, with Death standing out maybe most of all.
Ironically, the song is full of life, especially in the piano. In the second half of the song, Blasucci’s voice breaks and becomes fraught, particularly when he delivers the iconic line, You look like death, I know, but death has never looked so good to me.
The verses are sort of lyrically ominous and seemingly in support of some kind of female sexual liberation. What this song is truly about I do not know. But lord does it make me need to dance.