Another outing for the word nonchalant in a lyric; except here its inclusion is a little more forced.

The harmonies on the verse of this are sublime.

Clifford T Ward was an unusual pop star. Who else would have based a popular song around a Robert Browning poem in Home Thoughts from Abroad? (See here track 7.)

Not only did Ward use the word wherewithal in this song, he made it the title.

And I doubt you’ll find non-pareil in any other song lyric. (Granted, nonchalant is less rare.)

Dennis Edwards died earlier this week. He replaced David Ruffin in the line-up of The Temptations and was an important part of the new grittier sound which had more chart success in the UK than the band’s earlier incarnation.

An example of one of those less romance-leaning songs is Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone from 1972.

Dennis Edwards: 3/2/1943 – 1/2/2018. So it goes

Master musical arranger Paul Buckmaster died last month. I only got to know about it when his obituary appeared in the Guardian. I first knowingly encountered Buckmaster’s work on Elton John’s second album Elton John but I had heard it before on David Bowie’s Space Oddity.

Buckmaster’s importance to the overall sound of that eponymous album is most to the fore on Sixty Years On. I hadn’t heard anything like that on a pop record before (not even from The Beatles) except possibly for the orchestral backing to Simon and Garfunkel’s Old Friends on the Bookends album.

Elton’s next two studio albums Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across the Water also used Buckmaster’s arrangements to great effect as did his film score for Friends but his presence was missing on Honky Chateau. Elton turned to Buckmaster again with the stunning Have Mercy on the Criminal from Don’t Shoot me I’m Only the Piano Player.

Paul John Buckmaster: 13/6/1946 – 7/11/2017. So it goes.

By complete contrast with AC/DC (previous “Reelin’ in the Years” post,) a more bubblegum sound.

Before embarking on his solo career David Cassidy, the 70s teen idol (many of the good lady’s schoolfriends were fans) who died this week, was a member of the TV singing group The Partridge Family. The show wasn’t that much of a success in the UK but still made a star – and heart-throb – of Cassidy.

I prefer this Partridge Family hit to his solo stuff.

David Bruce Cassidy: 12/4/1950-21/11/2017. So it goes.

I had of course heard of AC/DC but their oeuvre wasn’t really my bag (as people used to say in the long ago.) The group’s driving force seems to have been Malcolm Young who died during the week.

I chose this song as representative because one of the entertainers on the cruise to Norway we were on earlier this year played the song as part of his (eclectic) set – along with Nessun Dorma no less.

It was only when the “Highway to Hell” chorus was belted out by a large proportion of the people in the room I realised how much it had penetrated the consciousness.

Malcolm Mitchell Young: 6/1/1953-18/11/2017. So it goes.

It turns out that while I was away one of the authors of the song which gives this category its title died.

Steely Dan was one of those acts which seem to stand apart from the general run of their musical contemporaries. In their time but not of their time.

I’ve already posted Reelin’ In the Years of course, but also Do it Again, Rikki Don’t Lose That Number and Daddy Don’t Live In That New York City No More.

This is one of their UK hits from 1976 that doesn’t seem to have charted in the US, perhaps not released as a single there.

Walter Carl Becker: 20/2/1950 – 3/9/2017. So it goes.

I’ve still not caught up with happenings while I was away.

However, following on from yesterday’s post.

For the Lancashire coast’s heritage.

Originally from the Life’s a Long Song extended player then on the compilation Living in the Past.

You know I have a soft spot for rhyming. (See for example here and here.) There is an art to it when it’s done well and inventively, the rhymes woven into the overall story the song tells.

In this song Jackson Browne manages to find at seven rhymes for pretender. Some are reasonably obvious – legal tender, his fender, the spender, contender, surrender – but one is inspired; ice cream vendor. I must say though that “end there” is a bit iffy.

I just love the rhyming in this song’s lyric.

The only slight blemishes in its perfection are the lack of any assonance (rather than rhyme) in song/fill at the end of the first refrain – though song/dawn and song/all in the second and third are fine in that regard – and that in the last line of the first verse fret doesn’t rhyme with fear and cheer.

When you’re falling awake and you take stock of the new day,
And you hear your voice croak as you choke on what you need to say,
Well, don’t you fret, don’t you fear, I will give you good cheer.

Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. If you wait then your plate I will fill.

As the verses unfold and your soul suffers the long day,
And the twelve o’clock gloom spins the room, you struggle on your way.
Well, don’t you sigh, don’t you cry, lick the dust from your eye.

Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. We will meet in the sweet light of dawn.

As the Baker Street train spills your pain all over your new dress,
And the symphony sounds underground put you under duress,
Well don’t you squeal as the heel grinds you under the wheels.

Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. Life’s a long song. But the tune ends too soon for us all.

But the tune ends too soon for us all.