Tune Tag #12 with Nick S: Bowie, Blue Öyster Cult, Jen Chapin, Roches, Corb Lund & More
Curious covers merge into a family affair of sorts, as writer and reader swap tunes that span the genres from country to metal to folk!
Tag! You’re it, Nick!
Nick, while not a writer on Substack, is a voracious reader on the site, and a valued friend of FR&B who reads everything we publish, and eagerly adds his valuable contributions to our comment sections! Catch Nick’s second Tune Tag (#20) here:
Welcome, Nick! Let’s Tag Tunes!
Nick: “My primary goal is to share music that I like. I’m looking forward to the Tune Tag process, but my measure of success is hoping to find some new listeners for some favorite songs. So, I want to pick things that are fun, accessible, and things that might not be familiar to everyone (without trying to be obscure).
“I know that my bread and butter is singer-songwriters of various styles. I also know that, when I'm trying to catch people’s attention, I have a tendency to reach for things that are emotionally intimate and intense. To temper that I want to start with something funny”:
Nick’s Song #1 sent to Brad: Corb Lund, “Hard On Equipment (Tool For the Job),” 2007
Nick’s rationale: I was introduced to Canadian, Corb Lund, years ago by a friend who listened to a lot of CBC/Radio-Canada, and he completely clicked for me. I like his writing, his performance style and his sense of humor. I know that country music can be divisive, so I’ve picked a song that should be relatable.
My favorite Corb Lund album is Hair In My Eyes Like A Highland Steer (2005), but this song (“Hard On Equipment” from his 2007 Horse Soldier! Horse Soldier! album) shows off many of his strengths.
Brad’s Song #1 sent to Nick: Blue Öyster Cult, “Hammer Back,” 1998
Nick’s response: Hmmm. I haven’t listened to Blue Öyster Cult before. I assume that Brad is connecting the lyrics by selecting another song with “hammer” in the chorus. I’m not quite sure what I want to do with this.
Brad’s rationale: Even though Nick’s song spoke of a hammer as a standard carpentry tool, this song’s hammer is referring to the hammer on a gun: “Keep your hammer back, don’t leave the safety on.”
Back to Nick: I hear the word “carjack” and think about, “Gimme A Ride To Heaven (Boy)” by Terry Allen, but I don't want to choose a second country song, so instead I bring a fork to a gun fight. . . .
Nick’s Song #2: Hamell On Trial, "Blood of the Wolf," 1994 (Explicit Lyrics)
Brad’s response: A band/person I’m unfamiliar with, I notice the singer not only mentions Bon Scott and AC/DC in his lyrics (and an apparently oddly-menacing fork), but he doesn’t sing, he talks….and, in a rapid-fire cadence like he’s delivering a 6 o’clock news account of a corner robbery….with equally fast guitar accompaniment. On trial or not, I don’t think I’m Hamell’s newest fan. We’ll have to settle for hoping the grand jury doesn’t indict.
Sure enough, a little research unearths the fact that Hamell on Trial is one Edward James “Ed” Hamell, an American punk rock, anti-folk, spoken word musician, described by Righteous Babe Records (Ed’s former record label founded by Ani DiFranco) as “loud, fast music informed by politics, passion, energy and intelligence, played by a guy with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of humor.”
As it happens, Ed is playing Austin, TX (my current city of residence…in fact, native New Yorker Ed’s current hometown, as well!) November 18, but he’ll be playing a club in S. Austin, and darn the luck, I live in N. Austin.
Nick’s rationale: Here’s a song that inverts the sense of threat in BÖC’s “Hammer Back” with a story of a robbery in which the violence is muted. I feel good about this selection as soon as I think of it. I like the thematic fit, and I’m glad to include the song.
I feel a little bit protective of this album. It’s a rare CD that I bought not having heard anything about it (either online or from friends). I don’t know why it caught my attention, but what a find. It’s a gem of an album with 2-3 standout songs, and this is one of them.
The next day other connections occur to me. The story in the Hammer on Trial song is set in NYC, where Blue Öyster Cult is from, and Corb Lund’s first hit was about being stuck in a truck -- on the other side of the Canadian border.
Brad’s Song #2: Hybrid Children, “Hungry Like the Wolf,” 1995 cover of the Duran Duran song
Nick’s response: I’m almost the right age to have heard [the original] “Hungry Like the Wolf” growing up, but I didn’t, and it never made much of an impression on me. I’m a little worried at this point. I feel like Brad and I may be pulling in different directions, and I’m not sure how to respond (spoiler alert: I feel much better after the next song).
I assume Brad is again matching on the words -- both songs have “Wolf” in the title, and this cover is only one year removed from my selection. I enjoy the cover (by a Finnish band, that’s surprising), which appreciates the catchiness of the original while taking the piss a little bit.
I don’t know whether Brad was inspired to pick a cover because of the reference, in my Hamill on Trial song, with the lyrical Frank imitating Bon Scott, but that gives me a direction.
Brad’s rationale: Again, I’m going no deeper than simply matching one title word with another. One of the first “wolf” songs that hit my brain was the Duran Duran 1982 original, written by the band members, and produced by Colin Thurston.
In fact, so self-absorbed was this single (with its attendant heavy-MTV-rotation music video) that it was released in three different lengths: 3:23 single version, the 4:11 U.S. album remix, and for some reason, the 5:14 Night version. Why there was no 3 1/2-day live version is a mystery to me.
Nick’s Song #3: Jen Chapin “Into The Mystic,” 2008
Hybrid Children of Stars Lead to a Legacy Meeting
Brad’s response: It’s unclear whether Harry Chapin and Van Morrison ever played or recorded together during their respective careers spanning from the 1950s through July 1981, when Chapin died at 38 in a horrible Long Island Expressway accident. The Irish native, Morrison, is 78. I can’t imagine the two didn’t meet, though, at some point in the ‘70s…on Midnight Special, if nowhere else!
Making sure that base is covered, to some degree anyway, Harry’s daughter recorded Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” (from his classic 1970 Moondance album) for her 2008 popular-covers album, Light of Mine (on Purple Chair Music Records), with the Rosetta Trio.
In February 2022, Jen Chapin and Shana Morrison shared the stage in Wisconsin for a Parkinson’s benefit. Singer/songwriter Harry Chapin’s daughter, Jen, is a Brooklyn high school history teacher when she’s not following in Dad’s musical footsteps. Married, she’s the mother of two teenage boys, and is the sixth cousin to country singer/songwriter, Mary Chapin Carpenter.
Shana is noted singer/songwriter, Van Morrison’s daughter. Shana’s dad has won two Grammys, and is a member of both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Nick’s rationale: So far most of the matches have been based on lyrics or theme, and I want to try linking the songs in a different way. So I’m happy to pick another cover.
In my mind, a good cover should demonstrate affection for the original and an understanding of what makes it work, without trying to copy it exactly. I like Jen Chapin’s covers [by Bowie, Springsteen, Radiohead, Lennon, Joni, Sly Stone, and others] on this album. The interactions between her and the musicians feel very alive and collaborative. You really have a sense of them playing off each other.
Brad’s Song #3: The Chapin Sisters, “Cathy’s Clown,” 2013
Nick’s response: I love it. This is a fun Tune Tag connection. I pick a cover by a not particularly well-known performer, and Brad comes back with a track by her cousins! I hadn’t heard of The Chapin Sisters. I like the Everly Brothers, but hadn’t heard that specific song. It feels like a really nice return volley that leaves me plenty to work with.
Brad’s rationale: We go from Harry Chapin’s daughter, Jen, to sisters Abigail and Lily Chapin (Harry is their uncle; singer/songwriter, Tom Chapin, was the girls’ father, and Jen is their cousin), and formerly their half-sister, Jessica Craven, before they carried on as a duo.
Here, The Chapin Sisters tackle The Everly Brothers’ classic “Cathy’s Clown” (written by Don Everly), recorded on my 5th birthday, March 18, 1960, and released the following month. The single was their first of many for Warner Bros. Records, from their debut Warners album, A Date with the Everly Brothers:
The song was a worldwide success and the best-selling single of the Everly Brothers’ career (reaching #1 both in the U.S. and UK). Because of its enduring influence on popular music, the song was added to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2013.
The musicians included the Everlys on guitars, Floyd Cramer on piano, Floyd Chance on bass and Buddy Harman on drums. The distinctive drum sound was achieved by recording them with a tape loop, making it sound as if there were two drummers. “Cathy’s Clown” was recorded live in a single take, with Don and Phil sharing one microphone!
According to Ian MacCormick’s 2005 Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties, the song was a major influence on the Beatles, who — having “once toyed with calling themselves The Foreverly Brothers” — three years later copied the Everlys’ harmonies on their first UK #1 single, “Please Please Me.”
Nick’s Song #4: The Roches, “Clothes Line Saga,” 2001
Brad’s response: One good sibling act deserves another: Here, The Roches (Maggie, who died in 2017, and Suzzy…rhymes with “fuzzy”) perform Bob Dylan’s “Clothes Line Saga” from his 1975 The Basement Tapes. That same year, and on the same label (Columbia Records), Maggie and Terre Roche released the sisters’ debut album, Seductive Reasoning.
In 1979, and now a trio, Maggie, Terre (and adding Suzzy), released their debut trio album, The Roches, for Warner Bros. Records. Their label relationship continued for four albums into the mid-’80s.
Suzzy and Maggie’s “Clothes Line Saga” appeared on the 2001 multi-artist Dylan compilation, A Nod to Bob on Red House Records.
Nick’s rationale: I consider a couple possibilities, and decide based on which song I’d most likely recommend to people. We have another set of sisters covering a sixties song with Suzzy and Maggie Roche singing “Clothes Line Saga.”
When I picked up that collection of Dylan covers, I knew some of the names and was most curious about the Greg Brown track (“Pledging My Time”). I hadn’t heard The Roches before, but it quickly became my favorite on the CD. A lot of fun, and they get the tone absolutely right -- a mix of normalcy, absurdity, and a little bit of dread at a world going crazy.
There’s also a slight connection to my original selection: Corb Lund [above, on right] recorded “The Truck Got Stuck Talkin’ Blues” with Ramblin’ Jack Elliott [now 92, above, on left, with fellow singer/songwriter, Ned LeDoux, center], who was a major influence on Bob Dylan [Elliott also appears on A Nod to Bob, covering “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”].
Brad’s Song #4: David Bowie, “Song For Bob Dylan,” 1971
Nick’s response: The first of Brad’s selections that I’d heard before: Another “nod to Bob,” this time from David Bowie [and his 1971 Hunky Dory album]. No argument there; a nice close to the exchange.
I wonder how many people have written songs about Bob Dylan (thinking of the Rodney Crowell track which opens with, “Beautiful despair is hearing Dylan / When you’re drunk at 3 a.m. / Knowing that the chances are /No matter what, you’ll never write like him”).
Thanks for the opportunity. It was fun! Nick
"As it happens, Ed is playing Austin, TX (my current city of residence…in fact, native New Yorker Ed’s current hometown, as well!) November 18, but he’ll be playing a club in S. Austin, and darn the luck, I live in N. Austin."
C'mon, Brad, you make it sound as if South Austin is on the other side of the moon.
It is, admittedly, a different state of mind once you cross over Town Lake... 😂
After two of the busiest and most stressful weeks of work in years, I’m a little late to the party, but this was another fantastic journey, thanks guys!!
I never realized the Chapin musical family tree was so prolific! Really enjoyed the Jen Chaplin song. I’d heard the name, but never listened to her music.