DJ Allyn – The Soundtrack for my Life

Leaving on a Jet Plane ~ Peter Paul and Mary  

Peter, Paul and Mary (often PP&M) are a musical group from the United States, and were one of the most successful folk-singing groups of the 1960s. The trio is composed of Peter Yarrow, Noel “Paul” Stookey and Mary Travers.

The group was created and managed by Albert Grossman, who sought to create a folk “supergroup” by bringing together “a tall blonde (Travers), a funny guy (Stookey) and a good looking guy (Yarrow)”. He launched the group in 1961, booking them into the The Bitter End, a coffee house and popular folk venue in New York City’s Greenwich Village. They recorded their first album, Peter, Paul and Mary, the following year. It included “500 Miles“, “Lemon Tree” and the Pete Seeger hit tunes “If I Had a Hammer” (subtitled “(The Hammer Song)”) and “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?“.

Leaving on a jet Plane

All my bags are packed I’m ready to go
I’m standin’ here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin’ it’s early morn
The taxi’s waitin’ he’s blowin’ his horn
Already I’m so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go
Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh baby, I hate to go

There’s so many times I’ve let you down
So many times I’ve played around
I tell you now, they don’t mean a thing
Every place I go, I’ll think of you
Every song I sing, I’ll sing for you
When I come back, I’ll bring your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go
Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time let me kiss you
Close your eyes I’ll be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I won’t have to leave alone
About the times, I won’t have to say

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you’ll wait for me
Hold me like you’ll never let me go
Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh baby, I hate to go

Cause I’m leavin’ on a jet plane
Don’t know when I’ll be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Taxi ~ Harry Chapin  

Harry Chapin was an American singer, songwriter, and humanitarian. He recorded several hit records, campaigned to end hunger, was an Academy Award nominated film maker and was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.

Chapin’s first formal introduction to music was while singing in the Brooklyn Boys Choir. It was here that Harry met Big John Wallace, a tenor with a five-octave range, who would later become his bass player and background singer. He began performing with his brothers while a teenager, with their father occasionally joining them on drums.

He originally intended to be a documentary film-maker, and directed Legendary Champions in 1968, which was nominated for a documentary Academy Award. In 1971, he decided to focus on music. With Big John Wallace, Tim Scott and Ron Palmer, Chapin started playing in various local nightclubs in New York City.

On Thursday, July 16, 1981, just after noon, Chapin was driving on the Long Island Expressway, in the left hand fast lane, at about 65 miles (105 km) an hour on the way to his concert. For some reason, either because of engine failure or some physical problem (thought to be a possible heart attack) he put on his emergency flashers near Exit 40 in Jericho, NY. He then slowed to about 15 miles (24 km) an hour and veered into the center lane nearly colliding with another car. He swerved left, then to the right again, ending up directly in front of a tractor-trailer truck. The truck could not brake in time and rammed the rear of Harry’s blue 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit, rupturing the gas tank and causing it to burst into flames.

The driver of the truck, and another passer-by were able to get Harry out of the burning car through the window and by cutting the seat belts, before the car was completely engulfed in flames. He was taken by police helicopter to the hospital where ten doctors tried for 30 minutes to revive him. A spokesman for the Nassau County Medical Center said Chapin had suffered a heart attack and “died of cardiac arrest” but there was no way of knowing whether it occurred before or after the accident. In an interview years after his death, Chapin’s daughter said “My dad didn’t really sleep, and he ate badly and had a totally insane schedule.” ^[3]

Even though Harry’s driver’s license had been revoked at the time of the accident, for a long string of traffic violations, his wife Sandy did win a $12 million decision in a negligence lawsuit against the truck’s owners.

Chapin was interred in the Huntington Rural Cemetery, Huntington, New York. His epitaph is taken from his song “I Wonder What Would Happen to this World.” It is:

Oh if a man tried
To take his time on Earth
And prove before he died
What one man’s life could be worth
I wonder what would happen
to this world

Taxi

The song, at 6 minutes, 44 seconds, tells the story of a cab driver in San Francisco (also named ‘Harry’) who encounters his last fare for the night in the rain, and discovers she is his ex-lover, ‘Sue’. She in turn recognises him:

She said, ‘How are you, Harry?’
I said, ‘How are you, Sue?
Through the too many miles and the too little smiles,
I still remember you.’

Sue had wanted to be an actress, while Harry was going to learn to fly: “She took off to find the footlights / I took off to find the sky.” The reunion, however, does not result in a happy ending. Harry drives her back to her home, where “[S]he’s acting happy, inside her handsome home”. Harry, meanwhile, says that “…I’m flying in my taxi, taking tips and getting stoned. I go flyin’ so high, when I’m stoned”

The middle section of the song features the bass player, John Wallace, in falsetto, singing a few lines from a Sylvia Plath poem:

Baby’s so high, that she’s skying
Yes she’s flying, afraid to fall
I’ll tell you why baby’s crying
Cause she’s dying, aren’t we all…

Also, the line, “Harry, keep the change”, became a catchphrase.

According to the liner notes in The Essentials: Harry Chapin, Chapin was inspired to write the song when he happened upon an old lover, as the cabbie in the song does. Chapin, however, was merely on his way to a taxi license examination.

It was raining hard in ‘Frisco,
I needed one more fare to make my night.
A lady up ahead waved to flag me down,
She got in at the light.
Oh, where you going to, my lady blue,
It’s a shame you ruined your gown in the rain.
She just looked out the window, and said
“Sixteen Parkside Lane”.

Something about her was familiar
I could swear I’d seen her face before,
But she said, “I’m sure you’re mistaken”
And she didn’t say anything more.

It took a while, but she looked in the mirror,
And she glanced at the license for my name.
A smile seemed to come to her slowly,
It was a sad smile, just the same.
And she said, “How are you Harry?”
I said, “How are you Sue?
Through the too many miles
And the too little smiles
I still remember you.”

It was somewhere in a fairy tale,
I used to take her home in my car.
We learned about love in the back of the Dodge,
The lesson hadn’t gone too far.
You see, she was gonna be an actress,
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off to find the sky.

Oh, I’ve got something inside me,
To drive a princess blind.
There’s a wild man, wizard,
He’s hiding in me, illuminating my mind.
Oh, I’ve got something inside me,
Not what my life’s about,
Cause I’ve been letting my outside tide me,
Over ’till my time, runs out.

Baby’s so high that she’s skying,
Yes she’s flying, afraid to fall.
I’ll tell you why baby’s crying,
Cause she’s dying, aren’t we all.

There was not much more for us to talk about,
Whatever we had once was gone.
So I turned my cab into the driveway,
Past the gate and the fine trimmed lawns.
And she said we must get together,
But I knew it’d never be arranged.
And she handed me twenty dollars,
For a two fifty fare, she said
“Harry, keep the change.”
Well another man might have been angry,
And another man might have been hurt,
But another man never would have let her go…
I stashed the bill in my shirt.

And she walked away in silence,
It’s strange, how you never know,
But we’d both gotten what we’d asked for,
Such a long, long time ago.

You see, she was gonna be an actress
And I was gonna learn to fly.
She took off to find the footlights,
And I took off for the sky.
And here, she’s acting happy,
Inside her handsome home.
And me, I’m flying in my taxi,
Taking tips, and getting stoned,
I go flying so high, when I’m stoned.

• Audio from the 1972 album, Heads & Tales:

You Can Call Me Al ~ Paul Simon  

Paul Simon is an American singer-songwriter and musician, perhaps best known for his partnership with Art Garfunkel in the duo Simon & Garfunkel. In 2006, Time magazine called him one of the 100 “people who shape our world.”

You can call me Al

A man walks down the street
He says why am I soft in the middle now
Why am I soft in the middle
The rest of my life is so hard
I need a photo-opportunity
I want a shot at redemption
Don’t want to end up a cartoon
In a cartoon graveyard
Bonedigger Bonedigger
Dogs in the moonlight
Far away my well-lit door
Mr. Beerbelly Beerbelly
Get these mutts away from me
You know I don’t find this stuff amusing anymore
If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al

A man walks down the street
He says why am I short of attention
Got a short little span of attention
And wo my nights are so long
Where’s my wife and family
What if I die here
Who’ll be my role-model
Now that my role-model is
Gone Gone
He ducked back down the alley
With some roly-poly little bat-faced girl
All alone alone
There were incidents and accidents
There were hints and allegations

If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al
Call me Al

A man walks down the street
It’s a street in a strange world
Maybe it’s the Third World
Maybe it’s his first time around
He doesn’t speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
He is surrounded by the sound
The sound
Cattle in the marketplace
Scatterlings and orphanages
He looks around, around
He sees angels in the architecture
Spinning in infinity
He says Amen! and Hallelujah!

If you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal
I can call you Betty
And Betty when you call me
You can call me Al
Call me Al

• Audio from the 1986 Graceland album:

Logical Song — Supertramp  

Supertramp is a British progressive rock band that had a series of top-selling albums in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Their early music included ambitious concept albums, but they are best known for their later hits including “Dreamer”, “Goodbye Stranger”, “Give a Little Bit” and “The Logical Song”. Supertramp attained superstardom in the United States, Canada, and most of Europe. However, they were not quite as popular in the UK (where most of the band members are actually from).

Backed by a Dutch millionaire named Stanley August Miesegaes, vocalist, pianist and ex-drummer Rick Davies used newspaper advertising in Melody Maker to recruit an early version of the band in August 1969, an effort which recruited vocalist/guitarist and keyboardist Roger Hodgson.  Other members of this proto-Supertramp included Richard Palmer (guitar, balalaika, vocals)  and Robert Millar (percussion, harmonica) . Initially, Roger Hodgson sang and played bass guitar (and, on the side, guitar, cello and flageolet). The band was called Daddy from August 1969 to January 1970, at which time this was changed to Supertramp, a name taken from W.H. Davies‘ book, The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, published in 1908.

The first album, Supertramp, was released in July 14th, 1970 in the UK only (it was first issued in the US in 1977). Although it was very intense and lyrical, it proved not to attract the audience and little of critics paid any attention to this first effort. However, Supertramp was able to earn a slot on the bill of the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, which was headlined by the likes of The Doors, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix. Richard Palmer abruptly quit six months after the album’s release. Robert Millar suffered a nervous breakdown shortly afterwards. For the next album, Indelibly Stamped, released in June 1971 (in both UK and US), Frank Farrell (bass) , Kevin Currie (percussion)  and Dave Winthrop (flute and saxophone)  replaced Millar and Palmer, while Roger Hodgson switched to guitar. “Indelibly Stamped” featured rocking Beatlesque tunes, with vocal harmonies similar to Simon and Garfunkel songs (Davies now serving as the band’s second lead singer, alongside Hodgson, who suggested that the band should have two lead vocalists), a more commercial approach and eye-catching cover artwork. Supertramp had established themselves as a “cult” band. Sales, however, failed to improve and sold even less than their debut. In early 1972, Miesegaes withdrew his support from the band after paying off debts. All members gradually quit except Hodgson and Davies.

These two first albums were later reissued during Supertramp’s popularity peak and have maintained a certain appeal with die-hard fans. The first album is melancholic and quieter and the songs are spread out more than they were later on. Roger Hodgson once called it his favourite Supertramp album (which later became Crime of the Century). The second album is their most traditionally rock album, and certainly their heaviest sound.

In late 1972, after being persuaded to carry on, Davies and Hodgson went on an extensive search for replacements, which first brought aboard Dougie Thomson  (bass), who played with the band almost a year before auditions resumed to complete the line-up. In 1973, auditions restarted and brought in Bob Siebenberg , (drums), (credited for several years as Bob C. Benberg,  to stay under the radar of British Immigration), and John Helliwell  (saxophone, other woodwinds, occasional keyboards, backing vocals), joining original members Davies and Hodgson and the newly brought in Thomson, completing the line-up that would create the group’s defining albums. Hodgson would also begin playing keyboards in the band in addition to guitar, usually acoustic and electric pianos on his own compositions. The classic Supertramp keyboard is a Wurlitzer electric piano (model 200A) with its unmistakable bright sound and biting distortion when played hard.

Crime of the Century, released in September 1974, began the group’s run of critical and commercial successes, hitting number four in Britain, supported by the iconic countercultural opening track “School“, and the top-10 single “Dreamer”. Its B-side “Bloody Well Right” hit the US Top 40 in May 1975. Siebenberg would later comment that he thought the band hit its artistic peak on this, their third album, though their greatest commercial success would come later.

The band continued with Crisis? What Crisis? released in November 1975. It achieved good though not overwhelming commercial success. The following album, Even in the Quietest Moments, released in April 1977 spawned their hit single Give a Little Bit, and the FM radio staple Fool’s Overture. During this period, the band eventually relocated to the United States and moved steadily from the progressive styles of their early albums towards a more song-oriented pop sound.

This trend reached its zenith on their most popular album, Breakfast in America in March 1979, which reached Number 3 in the UK and Number 1 in the United States and spawned four successful singles, “The Logical Song“, “Take the Long Way Home”, “Goodbye Stranger” and “Breakfast in America”. The album has since sold over 18 million copies worldwide.

The run of successes was capped with 1980s Paris, a 2-LP live album, in which the band stated its goal of improving on the studio versions of their songs. Instead of focusing on songs from the hugely successful Breakfast in America, it included nearly every song from Crime of the Century, another testament to the importance of that album in the group’s development.

In 1982 Supertramp released its eighth and final album Famous Last Words was the studio follow-up to 1979s Breakfast in America and was the last with original guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Roger Hodgson. Relations between Hodgson and Rick Davies were becoming more strained. They fought over musical, creative and personal directions daily during the recording sessions for Famous Last Words. One instance saw Hodgson wanting to dismiss the other band members whilst Davies defended their right to stay in the band. The album was mainly recorded and mixed at Hodgsons house dubbed Unicorn Studios in Nevada City, California as he didnt want to leave his wife, his then 2-year old daughter Heidi and newborn son Andrew behind.

In 1983 Roger Hodgson finally had enough, and one night in a concert, as the last song of that concert, when he finished singing the song, Don’t Leave Me Now, he just walked off the stage and quit the band.  He has never been in contact with  any of the other band members since.

It is said that when he left Supertramp, he took Supertramp with him.  He still performs all of the Supertramp songs that he penned in solo concerts.

Logical Song

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily,
oh joyfully, oh playfully watching me.
But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, oh responsible, practical.
And then they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
oh clinical, oh intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am
I said now watch what you say they’ll be calling you a radical,
a liberal, oh fanatical, criminal.
Won’t you sign up your name, we’d like to feel you’re
acceptable, respectable, oh presentable, a vegetable!
Oh Take it take it yeah!

But at night, when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run so deep
for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am,
Who I am

Barracuda ~ Alice in Chains with Gretchen Wilson  

This was the VH1 tribute to Heart, performed by Alice in Chains and country singer, Gretchen Wilson. Nancy Wilson actually played in this tribute.

Barracuda

So this ain’t the end – I saw you again today
I had to turn my heart away
Smiled like the Sun – kisses for everyone
And tales – it never fails!

You lying so low in the weeds
I bet you gonna ambush me
You’d have me down on my knees
Now wouldn’t you, Barracuda?

Back over Time we were all trying for free
Met up with porpoise and me
No right no wrong you’re selling a Song – a name
Whisper game

If the real thing don’t do the trick
You better make up something quick
You gonna burn into the wick
Aren’t you, Barracuda?

“Sell me sell you” the porpoise said
Dive down deep now save my head
You… I think you got the blues too.

All that night and all the next
Swam without looking back
Made for the western pools -silly fools

If the real thing don’t do the trick No!
You better make up something quick
You gonna burn into the wack
Barra-Barracuda