Can you indulge me, Spillers, by taking a detour from our very satisfying literary wanderings in iPod land for a moment?
The anniversary of the day the music died was earlier in the month (3rd February), but as Fuel noted on RR today, the music Buddy Holly made had a timeless quality. It would be interesting to imagine where Buddy Holly’s musical interests might have developed, had he lived, and possibly to speculate whether he would have continued to make music, to produce it, or whether he would have retired and opened a barbeque and beer joint.
What would he have on his iPod?
Your thoughts?
(PS This is especially for you TFD to cheer you up while you have your rotten cold)
He’d be a member of the Wilburys.
Damn good song! Would he be listening to his own stuff though?
dunno, pedant!
Thanks! This always cheers me up and I’m sure Buddy would recognise it as a fitting tribute…
Keeping Me Alive by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
I am sure he’d like it. Could someone suffering from survivor’s guilt misconstrue these lyrics, though?
Damn, I’m asking too many questions. I’m off to make an apple and blackberry crumble.
What, you mean if he’d given his seat to Waylon Jennings? No. You surely have to posit that there was no plane ride at all. The weather was lovely, the bus was heated, everyone got their washing done.
And Ritchie Valens hadn’t had a cold.
If he was not playing with Mitch in his band then this would definitely be on his iPod ! ! !
dond!
Dond from me too.
Thanks for the compliments, folks!
I’ve always thought this sounded very Buddy-like
I’m sure he’d have had a soft spot for la Winehouse:
Incidentally, I’m not about to wade in and escalate matters even further, but what the f*** is going on over on the Mothership?! That must be the most persistent troll ever… How deeply unpleasant.
Bish, I think this is such a great choice. I think he would have very much appreciated her music.
How about some chirping crickets? very soothing.
Even more soothing with a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGmZeQAdIVA&feature=related
Cute! That sounds much nicer than the cicadas that plague Texas.
Ooh, I love the cicadas, me. The first time I ever went to San Antonio, for Matt’s wedding, all us British wedding guests were sitting round Jess’ mother’s pool when the cicadas started up and someone said “Hey, who turned on the wildlife?”
Frogs are also good in San Antonio…
This is a very nice clip and it reminds me of summer ! ! !
In our tradition cicadas are a symbol of reincarnation
There is a famous poem in Haiku style written by the Buddhist monk Matsuo Basho many hundreds of years ago, when he was at Risshaku-ji temple in Yamadera.
I know Haiku can sound very funny to non Japanese, but. . . . . . . . .
This is the haiku:
静けさや岩に滲み入る蝉の声
Shizukesa ya iwa ni nijimi hairu semi no koe
In English:
Stillness
penetrating the rock
sound of cicada
(i copied the translation)
Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694)
I love Basho.
WOW ! ! !
I did not think anyone would know him at all ! ! !
He is great and I love his poems. Actually the Risshaku-ji temple in Yamadera is a very beautiful and spiritual place and important in Buddhism in Japan as the eternal flame was brought there from Kyoto 1,000 years ago and has been burning there continuously since then.
It is quite near Mount Zao where I normally go ski-ing and so I go there to pray once a year, but this year I have not been able to arrange a ski-ing trip unfortunately but maybe I will visit in the summer.
I only know very few UK poets. Just really Shakespeare, and Blake as my middle school English teacher was a fan of him. I love his poem The Tiger ! ! !
Actually when I was a kid I thought lions and tigers were the same, but lions were the boys and tigers the girls – and it was learning about this poem that taught me they were different ! ! !
Basho’s work is available in translation over here. I have “Of love and barley” ( a poem compilation) and “The narrow road to the deep North”.
He’s known over here as “MC Bashmeister”, probably.
One of my favourite ( translated) Haiku is
“The ears of me are deaf to the voices of crickets”
Which sounds a bit dumb until you start thinking about it.
I love haiku…
Some species of cicada remain underground in their nymph stage for many years and then pop up when nobody’s looking, hence the connection with reincarnation.
Sakura -
Too bad you missed our “Songs Based on Poems” topic. I (and a few others) tried to shoehorn in some songs based on Haiku. Don’t remember what, as in my case they were probably fairly desperate shoehorns.
The Haiku masters are fairly well known here in the west.
Here’s another, also Basho:
In the cicada’s cry
There is no sign that can foretell
How soon it must die.
I am totally amazed that so many people know Haiku, I really did not think anyone would as I thought it was just such a Japanese thing and they are like impossible to translate (at least for me)
I feel ashamed I do not know more UK poetry now and I am motivated to read some and learn more ! ! !
Can’t find it online right now, but one of my favorites is by Issa and goes something like:
A pheasant cries
How I long
For my dead parents
That just breaks my heart.
I love this one by Issa too -
Don’t worry, spiders
I keep house
casually.
Hi Amylee
That is a lovely one also, but like you say really very sad. . . .
I know I’ve said this before, but Buddy and Maria Elena had moved to a flat in Greenwich Village just before the Winter Dance Party tour; and Bob Dylan attended the WDP gig in Duluth Michigan on January 31 1959. Dylan, of course, turned up in the Village in 1961 so I’m as certain as it’s possible to be that, had Buddy still been with us, he and Bob would’ve teamed up and made music together long before the Wilburys.
Would’ve been good.
That is a really interesting thought ! ! ! I wonder what would have happened . . . . . .
This is bringing it home how terribly sad it was. I shall attempt to lighten the mood and suggest something from his home state:
The Girls From Texas – Flaco Jimenez featuring Ry Cooder (The actual Ry Cooder version isn’t popping up on a search or on Spotify).
This would be great at a family 4th July picnic wouldn’t it?
B**tles aside, artist with the biggest Buddy influence would probably be this lot.
Because of the Texas associations, the rock/country/folk influences, I think Buddy Holly might have liked this one.
After the Winter Dance Party, Buddy had plans to record with Ray Charles, so I guess he would be listening to some of his tracks. On this one, “What’d I Say”, Ray played the Fender Rhodes electric piano and it was one of the first times that instrument was recorded.
He had also set up his own record label and one of the first artists he signed and recorded was Waylon Jennings who had been playing bass for Buddy on the fatal tour. Here is Waylon’s début recording, the old Louisiana traditional tune “Jole Blon” with Buddy on guitar and King Curtis playing sax. Buddy also produced.
He would have been a wonderful producer ! ! !
The Waylon Jennings track is great ! ! !
He’d probably have a lot of rockabilly like this
Good choice, SHA! I think he may have covered it himself – there are some possibilities for this song that Rocky Burnette may have overlooked.
And I believe that ol’ Buddy would be wiling to slip into a silver shiny jumpsuit too.
A completely different song but he might have downloaded this out of curiosity
Ha!
Some of Buddy’s last works were thinks like Raining in my heart and It doesn’t matter any more which were much more “sophisticated” and orchestrated than his earlier stuff.
There was a danger, sadly, that he might have drifted into “Bobby” territory and embraced the rather bland, over egged “pop” sound of the early 60s.
On the other hand he might, like Arcesia, have reached 1966, dropped out, dropped acid and flown his freak flag higher than the highest in which case he might have ended out sounding ( and looking) not unlike fellow Texan Roky Erickson who, to this day, still “channels” a bit of Buddy at times.
Freaked out Buddy. Wow! How awesome!
No no no. Buddy would never have been a Bobby. His name was Charles, for a start.
Of course, at the top of his playlist:
And he’d probably enjoy bands who sounded like him with the vocal hiccups and all.
Though he’d probably wonder what nuclear boots and drip-dry gloves are.
What ARE nuclear boots? Who puts gloves in the dryer? Would anyone iron them?
Nuclear Boots are like just below the knee high, biker chick boots with straps at the side and metal buckles.
Drying gloves I suppose depends what they are made with of course, but maybe the white cotton gloves that taxi drivers wear you would wash in a machine and then dry and iron. But of course not wool or leather ! ! !
But regarding drip dry glove. Lace gloves you need to wash by hand and then hang them wet (no spinning or hot air) to dry. So maybe he means lace gloves when he says drip dry ? ? ?
Oh shoot ! ! ! Anonymous was me – I was logged out ! ! !
Knew it was you. How? The punctuation, possibly?
Great info, Sakura. You know so much about clothes and stuff. You might need to do a post about songs and clothes when you’ve exhausted Pairubu with He said/She Said (unless he’s up on the fashions, too – which he might well be.)
It would be fun to do a post on clothes and songs, but maybe the guys would not be so interested ! ! !
Duh-oh dond for Weezer.
He would (predictably) be totally enamoured by the Beach Boys.
Just a guess
Fairly obvious when you listen to the song.
That’s a sad, angry song
Well if Buddy Holly was still around, I guess the Alvin Stardust song about him might never have been written. In which case Ted Chippington wouild never have got to cover it (I’m only writing this drivel because I can’t find Ted’s version on youtube).
Anyway, I just know that Buddy would have loved Ted. Especially when he covered a song by Buddy’s Liverpudlian acolytes.
I can’t get Oliver’s Army off my mind when I think about what Buddy Holly would have liked if he’d lived.
Stretching the ‘crickets’ connection perhaps a tad too far, I’d expect this on the iPod:
And talking about Buddy Holly and irritating lyrics, Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’ always has me reaching for the bucket:
Bye bye Miss American Pie,
I drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry, Them good ol’ boys were drinkin’ whiskey and rye Singing “This’ll be the day that I die, This’ll be the day that I die.”
Gruesome. I hope Buddy wouldn’t have any time for this.
Well, it wouldn’t have existed, would it, in this alternative universe we’re in?
Please everybody, don’t forget that Matt and I put a plectrum on Buddy’s grave to show that the music didn’t die…
I like it, especially when I’ve had a few…
Of course, his i-pod may also contain this by the first band to be called The Crickets
Never knew this…wikimitch. Good one.
I was reading my favourite book (Conversations with Tom Petty) when I found:
Interviewer: “Like many of your songs, it shows you don’t need lots of chords. The chord progression repeats, and then the melody will rise and shift above the repeated chords. Waiting For Tonight is in F# minor, and has such a good feel.”
TP: “Yeah. I learned that from listening to Buddy Holly. He could take the simplest chord structure, where it never really moved, and find these incredible melodies. I really think Buddy, from what I’ve read and from what I’ve listened to, really got hooked on this song Love Is Strange, by Mickey and Sylvia… Because he wrote every derivation of Love Is Strange that you can write. He turned those chords inside out, around, backwards…”
Sounds as though Buddy and TP might’ve been a fruitful collaboration…Here’s Love Is Strange by Mickey and Sylvia…
…and here’s the Buddy Holly version:
And here (for all you Bangles fans) is the track TP and the interviewer were discussing at the beginning of the extract I quoted, Waiting For Tonight by Tom Petty with backing vocals by the Bangles.
The Everly Brothers also made a pretty good job of the song.
With extra Everly appeal..
Hey, Donald?
What, Phil?
How would you call your baby home?
Well, if I needed her real bad, guess I would call her like this…
My, I thought that was mighty sexy when I was 12. (And I was right…)
Excellent stuff. Really like the Everlys but, Buddy Holly’s version of Love Is Strange is amazing!