...I'm wrapping presents for my Mom and spinning Kenny Rogers and the First Edition's Greatest Hits, bought at Value Village for the express purpose of having their version of "Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)" on vinyl. I mean, why not?
So I'm essentially passing up Abriosis to listen to Kenny Rogers. People who live in the suburbs do things like that; I wonder if Stephen Lyons would have anything to say about it? (My review of his new CD, with Limbs of the Stars, here).
PS. - Someone has finally posted the studio track for Mickey Newbury's recording of "Just Dropped In" on Youtube - he's the guy who wrote it for Jerry Lee Lewis, years ago. I kind of like his acoustic rendition better, it's more soul-scorched. Mind you, Kenny Rogers seems to take his cue from the Bettye Lavette version, which seems also to have inspired the Sharon Jones version... any other recordings of this out there?
5 comments:
"Just Dropped In" was the opening song we used to do in "NO FUN ON DRUGS" (a/k/a "Music Is Love: A Celebration Of Rock And Roll's Drug Heritage").
You know, No Fun On Drugs was always the vintage No Fun theme show I WANTED to see, but never got the chance. Don't know what the likelihood of a reprise of it is these days, but I would actually make the trek from the burbs - the very same trek that stopped me from seeing it in the day! - for No Fun On Drugs, or some variant thereof.
Did I ever share my fondest memory of No Fun back in the day? It was at the Town Pump, opening for Robyn Hitchcock circa 1990, at the peak of the Salman Rushdie/ Cat Stevens fatwa controversy, and you offered a rendition of "Moonshadow" that began with the line, "I'm being followed by an armed Muslim..." Just brilliant! (And then you whipped out a copy of The Satanic Verses to display a Playboy centrefold you had glued inside, commenting, "It really IS obscene" - skillfully adding weight to the OTHER side of the laughs-to-groans ratio...). And Pico performed and I got to give her a personalized little hand of applause where she was standing on the stairs between songs, kinda next to where I was sitting... I think that's actually the entirety of my memories of that show.
Anyhow, I'm glad I saw No Fun ONCE back in the day...
Nick cave and the bad seeds do a version that totally changed my mind on this song- i hated that fake hippy pose- like "green tambourine" or 'flower people'. I'm reminded of seeing Barbara Feldon(agent 99) dancing through fake fog on some variety show, singing 'Doors'people are strange' --I was may 9yrs old but i still cringed for her. Kenny Rogers existential freakout journey was never meant to be believed.
But its no trouble seeing Nick cave keeping his mind in a brown paper bag
And the music is Massively groovy, squirmy slabs of guitar.
Ha! Great pointer, thanks. It's online here, though I'm not sure if it's the same version - Die Haut are the backing band:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XLZp6vn4GA
Thats it- Ihad no idea it was Die Haute--Mp3 information shortfall there.
Another N Cave cover that completelytransformed the song was his 'froggy went a'courtin' . A, it rocked, and b, it revealed its subject as a surreal biker/totem animal spirit version of odyesseus returning and killing Penelope's suitors. Murdermurdermurder. A sword AND a pistol--good set up.
violence was so unfreighted with any other moral than triumph in pre-modern times. And, fair enough it is good to be alive at the end of the encounter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-2xYbKKeGk
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