DJ Allyn – The Soundtrack for my Life

What Its Like ~ Everlast  

Erik Schrody (born August 18, 1969, in Valley Stream, New York), better known by his stage name Everlast, is a Muslim Irish-American rapper and singer-songwriter, best known for his hit “What It’s Like”, and for his genre-crossing mix of hip-hop and acoustic-based rock music. He was the frontman for rap group House of Pain until 1996. In 2000, he won a Grammy for best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal with latin rock musician Carlos Santana performing Put Your Lights On on Santana’s 1999 album Supernatural

What it’s Like

The song is typical of the style Everlast embraced after accepting Islam and leaving hip-hop trio House of Pain, being a combination of rock, hip-hop and blues incorporating characterization and empathy towards working-class protagonists.

Structurally, the song consists of three verses, a chorus and a bridge. The last line of the chorus varies in accordance with the particular situation faced by the character in the preceding verse. The characters are:

• A beggar (an old man at the liquor store beggin’ for your change)
• Mary, a pregnant girl considering an abortion (Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom who said he was in love)
• Max, a young man with violent friends and a drug problem (He liked to hang out late, he liked to get shit-faced and keep the pace with thugs)

Each character is presented in a sympathetic light as a victim of circumstance and as being an object of derision. Each verse ends with the line God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his/her shoes and Cause then you really might know what it’s like to, with the action varying depending on what the character has to do (sing the blues, have to choose, and have to lose, respectively).

At the end of the music video for the song, all of the characters (along with other people) are crowded around a window. Behind the window, an idyllic family is having an enjoyable dinner, oblivious to the less fortunate who are outside.

We’ve all seen the man at the liquor store beggin’ for your change
The hair on his face is dirty, dreadlocked and full of mange
He ask the man for what he can spare with shame in his eyes
Get a job you fuckin’ slob is all he replied.

God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in his shoes
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to sing the blues
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like

Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom who said he was in love
He said don’t worry about a thing baby doll I’m the man you’ve been dreamin’ of
But three months later he said he won’t date her or return her call
And she sweared god damn if I find that man I’m cuttin’ off his balls
And she heads for the clinic and she gets some static walkin’ through the door
They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner, and they call her a whore

God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to choose
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like

I’ve seen a rich man beg
I’ve seen a good man sin
I’ve seen a tough man cry
I’ve seen a loser win
And a sad man grin
I heard an honest man lie
I’ve seen the good side of bad
And the down side of up
And everything between
I licked the silver spoon
Drank from the golden cup
Smoked the finest green
I stroked the daddy’s dimes at least a couple of times
Before I broke their heart
You know where it ends
Yo, it usually depends on where you start

I knew this kid named Max
He used to get fat stacks on the corner with drugs
He liked to hang out late He liked to get shit faced
And keep pace with thugs
Until late one night there was a big gun fight &
Max lost his head
He pulled out his chrome .45
Talked some shit
And wound up dead
Now his wife and his kids are caught in the midst of all of his pain
You know it crumbles that way
At least that’s what they say, when you play the game

God forbid you ever had to wake up to hear the news
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to lose
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like
To have to lose…

• Audio from 1998 Whitey Ford Sings the Blues album:

Stardog Champion ~ Mother Love Bone  

Mother Love Bone was an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington in 1988. The band was active from 1988 to 1990. Frontman Andrew Wood’s personality and compositions helped to catapult the group to the top of the burgeoning late 1980s/early 1990s Seattle music scene. Tragically, Wood died only days before the release of the band’s debut album, Apple, thus ending the group’s hopes of success. Although Mother Love Bone is to this day remembered by many as a very talented band in its own right, its legacy, for some, is overshadowed by Wood’s death and the bands that its former members would later form.

Mother Love Bone was established in 1988 by ex-Green River members Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament and Bruce Fairweather, ex-Malfunkshun frontman Andrew Wood and ex-Ten Minute Warning and Skin Yard drummer Greg Gilmore. Initially the group was formed in 1987 out of covers outfit Lords of the Wasteland which featured Wood, Gossard, Ament and Malfunkshun drummer Regan Hagar. By early 1988 the band had added Fairweather, replaced Hagar with drummer Greg Gilmore and changed its name to Mother Love Bone. This new lineup quickly set about recording and playing area shows and by late 1988 had become one of Seattle’s more promising bands.

In early 1989 the band signed to PolyGram subsidiary Mercury Records. As part of its contract PolyGram also created the Stardog Records imprint exclusively for the band. In March of that year the group issued its debut EP, Shine, becoming the first of the new crop of Seattle bands to have a release on a major label. The record sold well and rapidly increased the hype surrounding the band.

In late 1989 the group returned to the studio (this time in San Francisco, California) to record its debut album, Apple. Despite some initial difficulties, the record was on-time for its projected March 1990 release. By this point interest in the band had hit a fever pitch and it seemed destined that the band were going to make it big. Only days before the release of Apple, however, frontman Andrew Wood, who had a long history with drug problems, overdosed on heroin. After spending a few days in the hospital in a coma, Wood died, effectively bringing the group to an end. The album would see release later that year in July.

In the months following Wood’s death, Gossard and Ament would be approached by Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell (who was Andrew Wood’s roommate), and asked if they would be interested in recording a single containing two songs he had written in tribute to Andrew Wood. The project turned into an entire album and the group took the name Temple of the Dog, a reference to a line in the lyrics of a song penned by Wood. After Temple of the Dog, Gossard and Ament founded Pearl Jam along with Mike McCready of Shadow, Eddie Vedder of Bad Radio, and Dave Krusen. Pearl Jam rocketed to fame with its debut album Ten and is still active today. Pearl Jam has released eight albums in total and continues to tour.

Fairweather initially remained inactive but later surfaced in the Seattle based psychedelic rock band Love Battery, replacing Tommy Simpson on bass in 1992. He played on two of the band’s albums and many of its tours before leaving that band as well and dropping off the radar. In 2006, he resurfaced in The Press Corps, with Garret Shavlik (The Fluid) and Dan Peters (Mudhoney).

Gilmore’s profile also dropped significantly following Mother Love Bone’s demise although he did participate in the reunion of his former band Ten Minute Warning in 1998, and was credited with providing ‘inspiration’ for the song “Never the Machine Forever” (credited as being written by Kim Thayil) on Soundgarden’s final studio album, 1996’s Down on the Upside. The song initially came out of a jamming session Thayil had with Gilmore.

The Alice in Chains song Would? was written about Andrew Wood.

Stardog Champion

San Francisco, where the flowers bloom in spring
I said, fade to winter – and see what disease brings
Augustino, with his eyes once a shining sea
I said he’s half a shadow – God don’t let that be me
I’m a Stardog Champion

West Virginia, that’s where my father lies
He was a wartime hero, the kind that money buys
It’s a diamond bracelet, for my mommy’s memory
That’s all she wrote boy – that’s all she wrote for me

I’m a Stardog Champion
I’m a Stardog
That’s right

And the children
They used to sing of love
With Grace
From the Lord above
I said the children they used to sing out loud
Sing it loud

Black ~ Pearl Jam  

Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington in 1990. Since its inception, the band’s line-up has included Eddie Vedder (lead vocals, guitar), Jeff Ament (bass guitar), Stone Gossard (rhythm guitar), and Mike McCready (lead guitar). The band’s current drummer is Matt Cameron, formerly of Soundgarden, who has been with the band since 1998.

Formed after the demise of Ament and Gossard’s previous band Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam broke into the mainstream with its debut album, Ten. One of the key bands of the grunge movement in the early 1990s, Pearl Jam was criticized early on—most notably by Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain—as being a corporate cash-in on the alternative rock explosion. However, over the course of the band’s career its members became noted for their refusal to adhere to traditional music industry practices, including refusing to make music videos and engaging in a much-publicized boycott of Ticketmaster. In 2006, Rolling Stone described the band as having “spent much of the past decade deliberately tearing apart their own fame.”

Black

The song originated as an instrumental demo under the name “E Ballad” that was written by guitarist Stone Gossard in 1990. It was one of five songs compiled onto a tape called Stone Gossard Demos ‘91 that was circulated in the hopes of finding a singer and drummer for Pearl Jam. The tape made its way into the hands of vocalist Eddie Vedder, who was working as a San Diego gas station attendant at the time. Vedder recorded vocals for three of the songs on the demo tape (“Alive”, “Once”, and “Footsteps”), and mailed the tape back to Seattle. Upon hearing the tape, the band invited Vedder to come to Seattle. On his way to Seattle, Vedder wrote lyrics for “E Ballad”, which he called “Black”.

Guitarist Mike McCready on the song’s lead guitar work:

“That’s more of a Stevie Ray Vaghn rip-off, with me playing little flowing things. I was way into that trip – I still am, actually, but it was probably more obvious back then. I really thought the song was beautiful. Stone wrote it and he just let me do what I wanted.”

“Black” became one of Pearl Jam’s best known songs and is a central emotional piece on the album Ten. Despite pressure from Epic Records, the band refused to make it into a single, feeling that it was too personal and the feeling of it would be lost by a video or a single release. Vedder stated that “fragile songs get crushed by the business. I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t think the band wants to be part of it.” Vedder personally called radio station managers to make sure Epic had not released the song as a single against his wishes. In spite of this, the song charted at number three on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and number 20 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart in 1993.

This performance was live at PinkPop , 1992

Hey…oooh…
Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets are clean
Her things spread out before me as her body once did
All five horizons revolved around her soul
As the earth does the sun
Now the air I’ve tasted and breathed has taken a turn
Ooh, and all I taught her was everything
Ooh, I know she gave me all that she wore
And now my bitter hands shake beneath the clouds
Of what was everything
Oh, all pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything…

I take a walk outside
I’m surrounded by some kids at play
I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear
Oh, and twistin’ thoughts that spin round my head
I’m spinning, oh, I’m spinning
How quick the sun can drop away
And now my bitter hands cradle the broken glass
Of what was everything
All the pictures have all been washed in black, tattooed everything…

All the love gone bad turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I will be…yeah…
Uh huh…uh huh…ooh…

I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, I know you’ll be a star
In somebody else’s sky, but why, why, why
Can’t it be, can’t it be mine

(During live performances)
We, we belong, we belong together, together

Clocks ~ Coldplay  

Coldplay are an alternative rock band formed in London, England in 1998. The group comprises vocalist/pianist/guitarist Chris Martin, lead guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Will Champion.

Clocks

Lights go out and I can’t be saved
Tides that I tried to swim against
You’ve put me down upon my knees
Oh I beg, I beg and plead (singing)
Come out of things unsaid, shoot an apple off my head (and a)
Trouble that can’t be named, a tiger’s waiting to be tamed (singing)
You are, you are

Confusion never stops, closing walls and ticking clocks (gonna)
Come back and take you home, I could not stop that you now know (singing)
Come out upon my seas, curse missed opportunities (am I)
A part of the cure, or am I part of the disease (singing)

You are
You are
You are
You are
And nothing else compares
Oh no nothing else compares
Oh and nothing else compares

Home, home, where I wanted to go
Home, home, where I wanted to go
Home, home, where I wanted to go