DJ Allyn – The Soundtrack for my Life

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Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight in 1947, is a five-time Grammy Award winner, and has been one of the more dominating forces in rock and popular music for over forty years. He has sold over a quarter billion albums, and 100 million singles, making him one of the most successful artists of all time.

He is a composer, singer, and pianist who collaborates with songwriter partner Bernie Taupin to write some of the most recognizable music of the 20th century.

Known for some of his most flamboyant fashions and on-stage showmanship.

Your Song

“Your Song” is a ballad composed and performed by English musician Elton John with lyrics by his longtime collaborator Bernie Taupin. It originally appeared on John’s self-titled second album in 1970.

The instrumental focus is on John’s Leon Russell-influenced piano work, along with acoustic guitar, Paul Buckmaster’s string accompaniment, and a shuffling rhythm section.

The lyrics express the romantic thoughts of an innocent. Taupin offers a straightforward love-song lyric at the beginning: “It’s a little bit funny this feeling inside / I’m not one of those who can easily hide / I don’t have much money but boy if I did / I’d buy a big house where we both could live.” At times the self-deprecating narrator stumbles to get out his feelings, which despite being a melodramatic device, Allmusic calls “effective and sweet”: ”So excuse me forgetting but these things I do / You see I’ve forgotten if they’re green or they’re blue / Anyway the thing is what I really mean / Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen / And you can tell everybody this is your song / It may be quite simple but now that it’s done…”

The song was part of a stockpile of songs John and Taupin wrote while living together. John pinpoints his composition of the music to 27 October 1969. It took him only ten minutes. Taupin had penned the lyrics earlier that day over breakfast. John cites the song as one of his favorites, and plays it at most of his concerts. In an interview, he commented, “I don’t think I have written a love song as good since”.

“Your Song” was itself the inspiration for the song “We All Fall in Love Sometimes” on John’s 1975 album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. The original framed handwritten lyric, complete with egg and coffee stains from breakfast, can be seen in the lyrics booklet that is included with various editions of Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.

Elton John had said in an interview with The Actor’s Studio that he had only taken 30 minutes to compose the entire song.

–

It’s a little bit funny this feeling inside
I’m not one of those who can easily hide
I don’t have much money but if I did
I’d buy a big house where we both could live

If I was a sculptor, but then again, no
Or a man who makes potions in a travelling show
I know it’s not much but it’s the best I can do
My gift is my song and this one’s for you

And you can tell everybody this is your song
It may be quite simple but now that it’s done
I hope you don’t mind
I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you’re in the world

I sat on the roof and kicked off the moss
Well a few of the verses well they’ve got me quite cross
But the sun’s been quite kind while I wrote this song
It’s for people like you that keep it turned on

So excuse me forgetting but these things I do
You see I’ve forgotten if they’re green or they’re blue
Anyway the thing is what I really mean
Yours are the sweetest eyes I’ve ever seen

And you can tell everybody this is your song
It may be quite simple but now that it’s done
I hope you don’t mind
I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you’re in the world

I hope you don’t mind
I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words
How wonderful life is while you’re in the world

–

Audio from the 1970 album, Elton John:

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Dark As The Night, Blue As The Day ~ Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper

Posted on April 7, 2013 by DJ Allyn

Michael Cleveland is a blind American bluegrass Fiddle player.

Cleveland was born in Henryville, Indiana. His skill was recognised at an early age, with appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, A Prairie Home Companion and before the United States Congress in his early teens.

After graduating from the Kentucky School for the Blind he performed with various musicians including Dale Ann Bradley and Rhonda Vincent.

His first solo project on Rounder Records, Flame Keeper, won the International Bluegrass Music Association Instrumental Album of the Year in 2002, and he shared the same award with Tom Adams in 2004 for Tom Adams and Michael Cleveland Live at the Ragged Edge. His third award came for his 2006 album Let ‘Er Go, Boys!.

Dark As The Night, Blue As The Day

Originally a song written and performed by American Bluegrass musician Bill Monroe in 1959, Micheal Cleveland and Flamekeeper recorded it in 2006 on their Let ‘Er Go Boys! album.

–

Dark as the night and blue as the day
I’m lonesome, my darling, since you went away
Sometimes I wonder, what made you strangely
Dark as the night and blue as the day

Blue as the sky, there is blues in my heart
It’s dark outside since we’ve been apart
Oh, tell me, please, tell me, why you betrayed?
Dark as the night, I’m blue as the day

–

Audio from the 2006 album, Let ‘Er Go Boys!:

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Polly ~ Nirvana

Posted on April 5, 2013 by DJ Allyn

Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987. Nirvana went through a succession of drummers, the longest-lasting being Dave Grohl, who joined the band in 1990.

With the lead single “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from the band’s second album Nevermind (1991), Nirvana entered into the mainstream, bringing along with it a subgenre of alternative rock called grunge. Other Seattle grunge bands such as Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden had also gained popularity, and as a result, alternative rock in general became a dominant genre on radio and music television in the United States during the early-to-mid-1990s. As Nirvana’s frontman, Kurt Cobain found himself referred to in the media as the “spokesman of a generation,” with Nirvana being considered the “flagship band” of Generation X. Cobain was uncomfortable with the attention and placed his focus on the band’s music, believing the band’s message and artistic vision to have been misinterpreted by the public, challenging the band’s audience with its third studio album In Utero (1993).

Nirvana’s brief run ended with Cobain’s death in April 1994, but the band’s popularity continued in the years that followed. In 2002, “You Know You’re Right,” an unfinished demo from the band’s final recording session, topped radio playlists around the world. Since their debut, the band has sold over twenty-five million albums in the US alone, and over fifty million worldwide.

Polly

“Polly” is a song by the American grunge band Nirvana.

Dating back to at least 1988, “Polly” stands alongside “About a Girl” as one of singer/guitaristKurt Cobain’s earliest forays into unfiltered pop songwriting. It was originally titled “Hitchhiker”, and later “Cracker”, but was renamed “Polly” sometime in 1989. It was left off Nirvana’s 1989 debut album, Bleach, because Cobain believed it was not consistent with the band’s heavygrunge sound of the time. However, it found its way onto the band’s second album, Nevermind, two years later, and remained a part of the band’s regular setlist until Cobain’s death (and Nirvana’s dissolution) in April 1994.

It also stands as drummer Chad Channing’s only contribution to Nevermind, having been asked to leave the band before the recording of the album in Los Angeles. Channing’s cymbal crashes remained on the final Nevermind version of the song as it was recorded at producer Butch Vig’s Wisconsin studios before Channing was replaced by Dave Grohl. The tracks from those Wisconsin sessions, which included soon to be Nirvana classics “In Bloom” and “Lithium”, would be used by the band as a demo in effort to attract major label attention. Those sessions also served to make the band comfortable enough with Vig’s production style that they would select him to produce Nevermind. “Polly” is a distinct song in that it is entirely acoustic (as originally recorded for Nevermind), which contrasts the more “clean-guitar-for-verses, distorted-guitar-for-choruses, quiet-loud-quiet” pattern Nirvana is famous for employing. The song has the least significant drum part of all of Nirvana’s catalogue of songs; all the song has are cymbals at the start of each chorus section.

Bass player Krist Novoselic remembers Cobain writing “Polly” after reading a newspaper article about the abduction, torture and rape in June 1987 of a 14-year-old girl by Gerald Arthur Friend; Friend had picked her up near the Tacoma Dome in his car after she had attended a rock concert.

The story really moved Kurt, and he wrote the song from the perspective of Gerald Friend.

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Polly wants a cracker

I think I should get off her first
I think she wants some water
To put out the blow torch

Isn’t me
Have a seed
Let me clip
Dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Cut yourself
Want some help
Help myself
Got some rope
Have been told
I promise you
Have been true
Let me take a ride
I cut yourself
Want some help
Please myself
Polly wants a cracker
Maybe she would like moore food
Ask me to untie her
A chase would be nice for a few

Isn’t me
Have a seed
Let me clip
Dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Cut yourself
Want some help
Please myself
Got some rope
Have been told
I promise you
Have been true
Let me take a ride
I cut yourself
Want some help
Please myself

Polly said

Polly says her back hurts
She’s just as bored as me
She caught me off my guard
It amazes me, the will of instinct

Isn’t me
Have a seed
Let me clip
Dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Cut yourself
Want some my help
Please myself
I’ve got some rope
Have been told
I promise you
Have been true
Let me take a ride
Hurt yourself
Want some my help
Please myself

–

Audio from the 1991 album, Nevermind:

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