Comments on: Learn from us, very much...

Learn from us, very much...

Artw — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:51:53 -0800

Some Velvet Morning When I'm Straight - the "Cowboy Psychedelia" of Lee Hazlewood in duet with Nancy Sinatra, and its many, many, covers.

By: Artw

Artw — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:02:59 -0800

Previous discussion of Hazelwood.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:47:34 -0800

The Lydia Lunch cover, FTW.

By: psychoticreaction

psychoticreaction — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 19:48:55 -0800

also

By: mattoxic

mattoxic — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:28:23 -0800

I love the violin break in Lightning's Town. I listen to an oldies AM radio station purely for the chance of catching songs like these. Thanks for the post.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:17:21 -0800

Nice cover of Hazlewood/Sinatra tune Marriage Made In Heaven, from the Tindersticks/Isabella Rossellini.

By: Heretic

Heretic — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:33:20 -0800

Thanks very much for this. This song has puzzled and delighted me for years.

By: Xoebe

Xoebe — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:54:35 -0800

This is kinda weird. Hazlewood apparently moved to Sweden to save his son from the draft.

By: sloe

sloe — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:19:09 -0800

Lee motherfucking Hazlewood

By: louche mustachio

louche mustachio — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:07:25 -0800

Wow, the Lydia Lunch cover knocks me back to when I was 18 and didn't know what the fuck. My roommate had that album, and I found that song very disorienting and strange, though not unpleasant. I do remember having the distinct impression that the velvet morning in question was probably a long way off if straightness of any sort was required.

By: sourwookie

sourwookie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:04:05 -0800

Aw man, there goes one of the best 'staches since Sunny Bono.

By: bjrn

bjrn — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:25:02 -0800

There's also a version performed by Eedie & Eddie And The Reggaebots (created by Peter Langston).

By: mediocre

mediocre — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 04:54:37 -0800

I've always said you can tell a lot about a person by which version of Some Velvet Morning they prefer. Lydia Lunch? Closeted goth (coffin'd?) Vanilla Fudge? Recovering hippie. Slowdive? Want a hug, man? You look down. I prefer the original personally, I probably listen to my vinyl copy of that album at least twice a month. Yes, Some Velvet Morning is my favorite track, but "Sand" is also a very creepy song, and their version of Jackson defeats Cash in my book.

By: spartacusroosevelt

spartacusroosevelt — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 05:21:14 -0800

Xoebe: Cowboy in Sweden has got to be my favorite Lee solo record. Just a crazy, drugged up country/hippie record with some Nancy surrogates who have strong Swedish accents.

By: ersatz

ersatz — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 06:42:11 -0800

My Dying Bride also had a cover version of this. I do remember having the distinct impression that the velvet morning in question was probably a long way off if straightness of any sort was required. Heh.

By: rongorongo

rongorongo — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:02:26 -0800

I love the video you linked to above spartacusroosevelt - that can only have been a huge amount of fun to have made.

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:23:55 -0800

their version of Jackson defeats Cash in my book I agree. You really believe Lee is gonna go whereas Cash sounds too pussywhipped to really follow through.

By: Artw

Artw — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:37:49 -0800

Me, I lean towards the first Primal Scream version, but I like their Swastika Eyes sound. Of course, I hadn't heard the original until yesterday evening, and it has the Primal Scream version beat hands down.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:58:21 -0800

The Rowland S Howard & Lydia Lunch cover, FTW. There's no way that was going unfixed.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:00:55 -0800

Slowdive? [...] You look down. Well, where else would you expect a shoegazer to look?!??

By: spartacusroosevelt

spartacusroosevelt — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 17:12:33 -0800

Here is Lee trying to recapture the horse on a beach motif by himself. Also from Cowboy in Sweden.

By: joaquim

joaquim — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 20:10:11 -0800

When I first heard the Hazlewood/Sinatra duets, I got it fixed in my mind that the three hits -- Summer Wine, Some Velvet Morning, and Jackson -- were a trilogy. In Summer Wine, it's Phaedra who seduces him and steals his spurs. In Velvet Morning, he's promising to tell a new woman about Phaedra (as soon as he gets over his addiction to Summer Wine, i.e., when he's straight), and in Jackson, his marriage to that new woman (the wedding was in a fever -- maybe on a velvet morning) is dissolving. I don't know where I came up with that, probably from the same place I got my explanations of Macarthur Park and American Pie.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:53:29 -0800

Almost forgot! My second pet rat was named Phaedra, after this song (the Rowland & Lydia version, naturally)

By: desuetude

desuetude — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:49:22 -0800

Lee's original is still my favorite. I don't really love the covers, for one reason or another. On Cake or Death, there's a verse of Some Velvet Morning sung by his eight-year-old granddaughter. Phaedra. Who assumed that this song was written for her, of course. "I love you, grandpa! Peace out!"

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:36:36 -0800

The Rowland S Howard & Lydia Lunch cover, FTW. Thanks! I thought she'd just pitched her voice down!

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:13:08 -0800

Were you being sarcastic? That was from the Berlin period, when there were all kinds of crossovers & collaborations around the ex-Birthday Party / Bad Seeds, These Immortal Souls, Crime & the City Solution, Die Haut, Lydia Lunch etc, not to mention Wim Wenders. Rowland's got such a great gravelly rock voice, to go with his jarring guitar work. Marry Me (lie! lie!) is another big fave of mine from those times.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:52:16 -0800

Were you being sarcastic? Actually, no, Ubu, that wasn't sarcasm. Fact is, I have huge, gaping, galaxy-sized holes in my knowledge of 80's rock. By the time the 80s rolled around, I was really deep into African stuff (pop and traditional) and lots of other styles and genres from around the world. Add to that the intense focus on the "experimental" or "avant garde" (mainly improvised) music that I was involved in myself, plus a sort of self-imposed exile from "rock", and the end result is, well, what must seem to some folks to be a surprising ignorance concerning certain very famous musicians of that period. I'm not especially proud of that, BTW, it's not some badge of honor, as far as I'm concerned, and little by little I'm discovering the jewels of that era that I'd ignored. You mentioned the Birthday Party, which I only just discovered a couple of years ago... great band.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 18:59:29 -0800

Ah, so connecting the dots in case you didn't know this already, Rowland was the Birthday Party's guitarist.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:23:52 -0800

Nope, didn't know that either, Ubu. Hadn't gotten to that point of finding out about individual band members. Sigh... so many things to learn, so little time.

By: desuetude

desuetude — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:27:16 -0800

Hadn't gotten to that point of finding out about individual band members. It is a reliable thing to say that pretty much anyone who has played any instrument on stage with Nick Cave ever = has an awesome musical thing going on in their own right.

By: UbuRoivas

UbuRoivas — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:47:43 -0800

Next time I see Nick perform, I'm going to perch my ass on stage & tootle out a few notes on a kazoo.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 22:17:00 -0800

I'm going to perch my ass on stage & tootle out a few notes on a kazoo. Well, then, study up on your kazoo history, then, so Nick'll be doubly impressed! Then again, this might impress him the most, but I don't think you've got the right equipment for doing it that way...