DJ Allyn – The Soundtrack for my Life

Oh Very Young ~ Cat Stevens  

Cat Stevens, is a British musician of Greek Cypriot and Swedish ancestry. He is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist and prominent convert to Islam.  His birth name is Steven Demetre Georgiou, but now goes by his Islamic name, Yusuf Islam.

Steven Georgiou began to perform his songs in coffee houses and pubs. At first he tried forming a band, but soon realized he preferred performing solo. Thinking that his Greek name might not be memorable as a stage name, he sought a new one. He adoped the stage name Cat Stevens, in part, because a girlfriend said he had eyes like a cat, but mainly because he said, “I couldn’t imagine anyone going to the record store and asking for that Stephen Demetre Georgiou album. And in England, and I was sure in America, they loved animals.”

Oh Very Young

“Oh Very Young” is a song that was released on Cat Steven’s 1974 album Buddha and the Chocolate Box.  Its lyric is a gentle response to Don McLean’s hit American Pie released two years previously. Like McLean, he stops short of mentioning Buddy Holly directly, but questions the ill-fated songwriter’s “Not Fade Away” (the last song Holly performed) lyric “a love to last more than one day, a lover’s love, not fade away” with his own “denim blue, fading up to the sky, and though you want him to last forever you know he never will, and the patches make the goodbye harder still”. Stevens then mentions the young American’s mould-breaking work “Words Of Love” in the line “will you carry the words of love with you, will you ride the great white bird into heaven, and though you want to last forever you know you never will, and the goodbye makes the journey harder still”.

Oh very young
What will you leave us this time
You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while
And though your dreams may toss and turn you now
They will vanish away like your daddy’s best jeans
Denim Blue fading up to the sky
And though you want them (HIM)to last forever
You know they (HE) never will
You know they (HE) never will
And the patches make the goodbye harder still

Oh very young
What will you leave us this time
There’ll never be a better chance to change your mind
And if you want this world to see a better day
Will you carry the words of love with you
Will you ride the great white bird into heaven
And though you want to last forever
You know you never will
You know you never will
And the goodbye makes the journey harder still

Oh very young
What will you leave us this time
You’re only dancing on this earth for a short while
Oh very young
What will you leave us this time

• Audio from the 1974 album, Buddha and the Chocolate Box:

The Times They are a-Changin’ ~ Bob Dylan  

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, author, poet, and disc jockey who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. Much of Dylan’s most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became an informal chronicler and a reluctant figurehead of American unrest. A number of his songs, such as “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, became anthems of the anti-war and civil rights movements.

Dylan’s early lyrics incorporated politics, social commentary, philosophy and literary influences, defying existing pop music conventions and appealing widely to the counterculture. While expanding and personalizing musical styles, he has shown steadfast devotion to many traditions of American song, from folk and country/blues to gospel, rock and roll and rockabilly, to English, Scottish and Irish folk music, and even jazz and swing.

The Times They are a-Changin’

“The Times They Are a-Changin” is a song written by Bob Dylan and released on his 1964 album of the same name.

Dylan appears to have written the song in September and October 1963.  He recalled writing the song as a deliberate attempt to create an anthem of change for the moment.  He told Cameron Crowe in 1985:

“This was definitely a song with a purpose. It was influenced of course by the Irish and Scottish ballads …’Come All Ye Bold Highway Men’, ‘Come All Ye Tender Hearted Maidens’. I wanted to write a big song, with short concise verses that piled up on each other in a hypnotic way. The civil rights movement and the folk music movement were pretty close for a while and allied together at that time.”

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.

• Audio from the 1964 album, The Times They are a-changin’:

Breakfast in America ~ 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 super-stardom 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 includedRichard 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.

Breakfast in America

Take a look at my girlfriend
She’s the only one I got
Not much of a girlfriend
Never seem to get a lot

Take a jumbo cross the water
Like to see America
See the girls in California
I´m hoping it´s going to come true
But there´s not a lot I can do

Could we have kippers for breakfast
Mummy dear, Mummy dear
They got to have ´em in Texas
Cos everyone’s a millionaire

I´m a winner, I´m a sinner
Do you want my autograph
I´m a loser what a joker
I´m playing my jokes upon you
While there´s nothing better to do

Don´t you look at my girlfriend
She´s the only one I got
Not much of a girlfriend
Never seem to get a lot

Take a jumbo cross the water
Like to see America
See the girls in California
I´m hoping it´s going to come true
But there´s not a lot I can do.

• Audio from the 1979 album,  Breakfast in America:

Outside ~ Staind  

Staind formed on November 24, 1995 in Springfield, Massachusetts. After meeting through friends and covering KoRn, Rage Against the Machine, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains, among others, in smalltime clubs for a year and a half, Staind self-released their debut album, Tormented, in November 1996, citing influences Pantera and Sepultura. Until recently, the album was difficult to obtain, as only four thousand copies were originally sold. Since then, the band’s official website has released the album to meet the demand from fans.

During this time, Staind played a show with Limp Bizkit. When Fred Durst saw the controversial cover of the group’s debut album, he tried to have the band kicked off the bill, but when he saw the band’s live show, he changed his tone and befriended them, later singing backup on Aaron Lewis’s live, original version of the future Staind song “Outside.” Durst was one of the executive producers for Dysfunction and Break the Cycle. He also directed a few videos for the band later on.

Outside

“Outside” was originally performed live during the 1999 Family Values Tour in Biloxi, Mississippi, with Aaron Lewis on the stage by himself and Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst providing backing vocals. Lewis was asked to perform a song solo and he decided at the last moment to play a song he had been working on since the early days of Staind. He finished the lyrics to “Outside” on the spot while singing the song live.

“It’s really an accidental phenomenon,” Lewis explains. “I’ve been playing it for quite some time. In the early days of the band, any money we made went back into the band, so two or three times a week I played acoustically to make money to live off. ‘Outside’ was one of the songs I played, but it wasn’t really finished, so I made up different words every time. We almost put it on Dysfunction. Then, one night on the Family Values Tour, ten minutes before going onstage, we decided to do it. There was never any thought of releasing it this way.”

The following video is the actual first performance of this song at the 1999 Family Values1999 Family Values tour in Biloxi.

And you
bring me to my knees again
All this time,
that I can beg you please,
yeah

All the times
that I felt insecure, yeah
And I lift my burden out the door

I’m on the outside
I’m looking in
I can see through you
See your true colors
‘Cause inside you’re ugly
You’re ugly like me
I can see through you
See to the real you

All this time
that I felt like this won’t end
Was for you
And I taste what I could never have
It’s from you
All those times that I tried, my intention, full of pride
And I waste more time than anyone

But I’m on the outside
I’m looking in
I can see through you
See your true colors
‘Cause inside you’re ugly
You’re ugly like me
I can see through you
See to the real you

All the times that I’ve cried
All this wasted, it’s all inside
And I feel, all this pain, stuffed it down
It’s back again
And I lie here in bed, all alone, I can’t mend
And I feel tomorrow will be okay

But I know

That I’m on the outside
I’m looking in
I can see through you
See your true colors
‘Cause inside you’re ugly
You’re ugly like me
I can see through you
See to the real you

• Audio from the 2001 album, Break the Cycle: