While this song’s lyric wouldn’t pass the political correctness test today, its story of a young man and the Indian maiden he wishes to marry hits on a familiar pop music theme: young, determined love. The suitor in this case can’t afford the ten hides and twenty horses that tribal law has set as the price for marrying the girl he loves, so he’s asking her to run off with him instead.
“Indian Girl” was the non-LP B-side to the Hollies’ 1972 “Magic Woman Touch” single.
Josh Ritter: “Love is Making its Way Back Home” (2012)
By somewhat fluky circumstances related to touring Ireland with the Frames, Idaho-born Josh Ritter broke through on radio and as a sold-out touring act in that country while still pretty much an unknown here at home. In fact at one point there was a tribute band there named Cork who played only Josh Ritter songs.
Years later his following is still a modest one, but devoted.
The hopeful sentiment of “Love is Making its Way Back Home” is an appropriate one for Valentines everywhere. And the video, produced by Prominent Figures, took a grueling two months to complete and used 12,000 pieces of construction paper–and zero special effects.
Moody, brooding, haunting, lush, rich, gorgeous…it’s easy to apply adjectives to the music of Steven Wilson and Aviv Geffen. What’s difficult is pinning down the precise nature of the magic in the music they make together–what makes it so singular.
This is the song “Blackfield” from the album of the same name, by the duo of the same name. If you’re looking for a comparison, all I can come up with is Dark Side of the Moon. Though it’s an imperfect match, if you like that album there’s a good chance you’ll hear the beauty in what these guys do as well. This would sit atop my list of contemporary rock to recommend to fans of classic rock.
Drink Me, a Brooklyn duo who produced two albums in the first half of the 90’s, were quite simply genius. With a degree of musical economy to match the great Roger Miller or the early Beach Boys, their concise songs could nevertheless pack a lyrical wallop.
One of the problems I’ve always had with the nebulous label of “Alternative Music”, which has been applied to everyone from R.E.M. to Jason Mraz, is that it mostly describes mainstream music. If your albums sell gold and platinum and chart in the top 5, what are you the alternative to?
Just as the word “awesome”, applied to double cheeseburger, leaves one little verbal ammunition for describing the birth of a child, the term “Alternative” leaves us lacking a useful label for music that is truly unlike any you’ve heard before. I would call Brave Combo and King Missile and the early work of They Might Be Giants “Alternative”. And I’d put Drink Me in that category–if the category didn’t include Oasis.
Imagine if Simon & Garfunkel had a sense of humor. And maybe a drinking problem–or possibly bipolar disorder. And a tendency to experiment with hallucinogenics. On second thought: don’t imagine, just listen. Really, there’s nothing like these guys.
The world’s a waterbed
A swaying plastic field of yielding limbs and idleness
A troubled bubble pipe of love but I can’t deny
The pie-eyed piper’s cry
The marriage bed’s a boat
Of sound design and lines beyond reproach
And lashed to the Missus’ mast one could defy
The siren’s sultry sighs
And if youth is a bathtub
Filled with bubbles and toys
Then the water gets cold as you start getting old
And my skin’s getting wrinkled but I’m still lingering
In Time’s untiring car
We sat in back with a flask and clasped beneath the stars
And watched out loose and useless youth go rolling by
Every Moment Has A Song 