Lexicon of Song

An Appreciation for the song "New Speedway Boogie"

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 16:00 PST

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this Grateful Dead song, written by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia.

The lyrics were famously penned by Hunter in the wake of the fateful Altamont Concert in 1969, and in response to a column by influential music critic Ralph J. Gleason suggesting that the Dead had some significant responsibility for the violence that occurred there.

But although Hunter acknowledged that he was expressing his disagreement with Gleason through the words of this song, he was never one to write with a narrow focus, and for me the heft of his work endures long beyond our interest in these events that now happened over half a century ago.

An Appreciation for the song "Pay It No Mind"

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 17:00 PDT

“Pay It No Mind” is a lovely little song from Sarah Jarosz, and seems like a perfect accompaniment for the times we find ourselves in.

Here’s the way it starts.

Up by the window of the seventh floor,
There’s a little bird stretching her wings.
She’s looking down at the world far below her:
I can hear the little tune that she sings.

This first verse introduces us to the little bird who becomes the song’s narrator, precariously perched seven stories above the ground. And now, let’s see what she has to tell us.

She says, "We all have our notions, baby,
We all laugh and sigh.
And when the world on the ground
Is gonna swallow you down,
Sometimes you’ve got to pay it no mind."

The first two lines are quite simple, but also quite extraordinary, telling us that we all have different ideas about what’s happening now, and what might happen in the future, and that we all have a variety of emotions that we feel about all of this.

An Appreciation for the song "My Ride's Here"

Sun, 04 May 2025 17:00 PDT

This is a great song written and recorded by Warren Zevon, and co-written by Paul Muldoon. It appeared on Zevon’s 2002 album of the same name.

The song explores varying attitudes towards death, and towards the prospect of dying. Zevon himself died in 2003, at the age of only 56.

Bruce Springsteen also recorded a great, live version of the song, performed only a few days after Zevon had died. This rendition appears on the Zevon tribute album, Enjoy Every Sandwich.

Of course the words “death” and “dying” appear nowhere in the song. That would be too easy, too obvious.

You’ll notice that various hotel chains are mentioned in the song. At one level, this is probably a literal reference to Zevon’s own life, on the road, and moving from one hotel to another in LA, as described in Desperados Under The Eaves.

An Appreciation for the song "1952 Vincent Black Lightning"

Sun, 09 Mar 2025 17:00 PDT

This is a song by English singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson. It was first released on his album Rumor and Sigh in 1991, but has since because a staple of his live shows — and I actually prefer some of the live renditions to the original studio version. The song was never released as a single, and so was never a hit for the general public, but it’s an easy song to appreciate, and I’ve never seen anyone give it a listen without at least liking it quite a bit. And many — including this author — believe it to be a classic.

It helps to understand that the Vincent Black Lightning was a real motorcycle, and a very special machine. It was produced in England from 1948 – 1952, and was designed to be as fast as possible. It broke the motorcycle land speed record of the time, going over 150 miles per hour.

An Appreciation for the song "Desperados Under the Eaves"

Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:00 PST

I’ve been wondering lately why I’ve never written an appreciation for any of Warren Zevon’s songs. It’s certainly not that he didn’t give us many great tracks to choose from. Upon reflection, perhaps it’s because he wrote so many compact little gems that it’s hard to pick just one.

Whatever the reason, this song of his has been haunting me lately, so it’s time to correct the omission.

Part of Zevon’s genius as a lyricist was his ability to invest ordinary material objects with such deep feelings.

This song is an outstanding example. It’s so simple, so short, and yet the words and images resonate like stones skipped onto the water, with meaning spreading out in expanding ripples.

I’m going to share the lyrics in their entirety before commenting — and, of course, I encourage you to listen to Zevon’s recording as well.

I was sitting in the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel;
I was staring in my empty coffee cup.
I was thinking that the gypsy wasn’t lying:

An Appreciation for the song "Step by Step"

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 17:00 PDT

I’ve been a Jesse Winchester fan ever since I slipped his first album onto my turntable in my dorm room back in Ann Arbor, but somehow I don’t think I’d paid much attention to this gem until I stumbled across it yesterday.

This fits neatly into Winchester’s small but accomplished set of songs about god and religion — songs like “Quiet About It” and “Isn’t That So?”.

One of the things I love about this group of Winchester songs is that he displays obvious familiarity with, and even sympathy for, the Christian tradition, but manages to bring an entirely fresh approach to his questioning of these sacred topics.

This song seems to start with the picture painted by the spiritual “When The Saints Go Marching In,” and then picks up from there.

Give a listen to the Winchester recording, then stroll with me through the lyrics.

Step by step,

An Appreciation for the song "Ring Them Bells"

Tue, 16 Jul 2024 17:00 PDT

This is a gem of a Dylan song: not a big, gaudy rock, but a modest yet finely wrought masterpiece.

It was released in 1989 on his album Oh Mercy, so it’s not from any of his early years, during which his work was more consistently revered. The album was produced by Daniel Lanois, and critics are somewhat divided over the success of his efforts in rendering Dylan’s voice and compositions.

I find the original version by Dylan to be pretty underwhelming, but the song came alive for me when I heard it performed by Sarah Jarosz. She recorded it on her second album, Follow Me Down, from 2011, and she’s included it consistently in the several live shows of hers that I’ve seen.

For me the Dylan version seems a bit slow and somnolent, while the Jarosz version feels much more spirited. Partly, I suppose, it’s the difference between the performance of a world-weary man approaching the half-century mark, working on his 26th album, versus a youthful 20-year old working on her second.

An Appreciation for the song "Pancho and Lefty"

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 17:00 PDT

I’ve already written about “Long Black Veil,” which was one one of my father’s favorite songs.

So I’m probably overdue to write about “Pancho and Lefty,” which was one of my father-in-law’s favorites – and one of mine as well.

A bit like “Hallelujah,” by Leonard Cohen, this song seems to have had an interesting life of its own.

It was written by Townes Van Zandt, a legendary Texan singer/songwriter, and first released on his album The Late Great Townes Van Zandt back in 1972.

Neither the song nor the album received a whole lot of attention at the time, let alone any accolades.

Then Emmylou Harris recorded it on her album Luxury Liner in 1977, giving the song a bit more exposure.

And then, finally, Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard recorded it in 1983, and released it as a single, which promptly became a huge hit for the pair. As the story goes, Willie Nelson’s daughter introduced the song to them.

An Appreciation for the song "They All Laughed"

Mon, 30 Oct 2023 17:00 PDT

I first heard this song as part of the soundtrack to a movie with the same name, made by Peter Bogdanovich in 1981. The movie is worth watching, if you like quirky (as I generally do), but it was the song that stuck with me.

This was really my introduction to the songs of George and Ira Gershwin, with George supplying the music, and brother Ira providing the lyrics.

Many of their songs have become recognized as part of the Great American Songbook, but Ira’s lyrics are often too subtle and offbeat to fit cleanly into that mold.

This song, in particular, is one that is less frequently sung. Supposedly playwright and producer George S. Kaufman heard an early rehearsal of the number and wondered whether it was, in fact, a love song at all, before the brothers finally got to the lyric “They laughed at me wanting you,” at which point Kaufman threw up his hands and said, “Oh, well.

An Appreciation for the song "When I Paint My Masterpiece"

Sat, 15 Jul 2023 17:00 PDT

I’ve been reading Rick Rubin’s book The Creative Act: A Way of Being lately – not all at once, mind you, but sipping it slowly, like a rare old whiskey – and it’s put me in mind of this song by Bob Dylan, from 1971.

This composition has been performed and recorded by Dylan himself on multiple occasions, but the first released recording was by The Band, and their original studio recording is still the version I’m partial to.

Let’s just review the lyrics, shall we? Ideally, of course, along with the music.

Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble.
Ancient footprints are everywhere.
You can almost think that you’re seein’ double,

An Appreciation for the song "Train to Birmingham"

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 16:00 PST

Southerner Thomas Wolfe, in his book You Can’t Go Home Again, had his main character speak these words:

You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood … back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame … back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting, but which are changing all the time – back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.

John Hiatt seemed to have had much the same sentiments in mind when he penned his song “Train to Birmingham.”

Several others have recorded this composition, but Hiatt’s own version seems to me to be the definitive rendition.

As the eighth track from the album Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns starts up, note how the rhythm of the drums gives you a seat on the train before Hiatt even opens his mouth.

I’ve been riding on this train,

An Appreciation for the song "Whenever Kindness Fails"

Thu, 17 Nov 2022 16:00 PST

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this song by Robert Earl Keen, first recorded by Joe Ely for his Love and Danger album, released in 1992.

It is – be advised – a difficult song, in that the narrator talks about shooting and killing people, and tries to justify his actions.

So before I start sharing my thoughts, perhaps it is best to issue a clarification that no one here is advocating for any kind of gun violence. Heck, I don’t even own a gun.

But it is a great song.

I consider both Joe Ely’s version and the later recording by the songwriter himself to be excellent renditions, so feel free to listen to either, or both.

And now, let’s dive into the words.

I crossed the desert in a dining car,
In the spring of ninety-one.
I met some people drinking at the bar,
They were laughing, having fun.
I told 'em that I hadn’t heard the joke
That was so hilarious.

An Appreciation for the song "Shady Grove"

Tue, 04 Oct 2022 17:00 PDT

This is a traditional Appalachian folk song believed to have originated in eastern Kentucky around the beginning of the 20th century.

The melody seems to have come from the ballad “Matty Groves,” and probably started out in England or Scotland.

If you’re a child of the sixties like me, then your introduction to the song may have come though the electrified adaptation by Quicksilver Messenger Service, but it is more typically performed in acoustic folk, country or bluegrass styles.

One of the features that draws me to this song is its elusive, shape-shifting nature. As in a dream, very specific, concrete images appear and then are replaced with others, leaving the singer/listener/dreamer free to choose the meanings they associate with these word pictures.

This elusive quality begins with the title itself, which sounds like the name or description of a place, and yet is often used in the song as if it were the name of a woman.

An Appreciation for the song "I Don't Like Half The Folks I Love"

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 17:00 PDT

I’ve spent some time lately working my way through The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by Davids Graeber and Wengrow. It’s a fascinating book, and a really rewarding read, but it’s also a serious tome, clocking in at over 500 pages of text dense with facts and ideas, so it’s not something I’ve been attempting all at one go.

Anyway, as I was reading the latest chapter last night I came across this surprising observation:

There is an obvious objection to evolutionary models which assume that our strongest social ties are based on close biological kinship: many humans just don’t like their families very much. And this appears to be just as true of present-day hunter-gatherers as anybody else. Many seem to find the prospect of living their entire lives surrounded by close relatives so unpleasant that they will travel very long distances just to get away from them.

An Appreciation for the song "The Last Trip to Tulsa"

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 17:00 PDT

This song has been on my mind a lot lately, so I decided to research and write about it.

It’s certainly an outlier in the Neil Young songbook. It closed out Young’s first, self-titled, solo album, with a running time of close to ten minutes. This was an album my friends and I pretty much wore out in our dorm rooms, listening to it when it first came out, so I’ve been familiar with it for a long time.

A live recording of the song was released in 2008 as part of the Sugar Mountain: Live at Canterbury House 1968 album, and I actually prefer this version. For one, it includes a couple of lines that add to the song, that were missing from the earlier studio recording; for another, Young’s vocals seem purer and less strained in the intimate coffee house setting.

An Appreciation for the song "Come On Up to the House"

Sat, 20 Aug 2022 17:00 PDT

This song was written by Tom Waits, and his performance of the song on his 1999 album Mule Variations is certainly worth hearing. His delivery sounds like that of a down-at-the-heels preacher delivering the holy message at a revival meeting, or perhaps on a street corner, with a Salvation Army style brass band playing in the background. He delivers his sermon with an unarguable power and authority.

My introduction to the song, however, came during the encore performance by Sarah Jarosz at the Tractor Tavern a couple of years ago. I can still remember the looks on the faces of Sarah and her band as they delivered the song to the standing, swaying crowd, seemingly amazed at the depth of feeling and the bond between performer and audience being wrought within the house that night, as all present returned again and again to the chorus with increasing emotional commitment.

An Appreciation for the song "Angel from Montgomery"

Tue, 16 Aug 2022 17:00 PDT

This song was released on John Prine’s first, self-titled, album, when the singer-songwriter was just twenty-five years of age. Prine grew up near Chicago, and studied at that city’s Old Town School of Folk Music (a fine establishment I’ve visited several times, and one that is still delivering concerts and classes today).

Prine was working as a mailman before turning to music as a full-time career. He remembers delivering newspapers to a Baptist old peoples home where he had to go room-to-room, and there developed something of an affinity for our aging population.

These memories and observations led him to write a song called “Hello In There” for that first album. A friend liked that song so much that he suggested Prine write “another song about old people.” And that suggestion led Prine to pen “Angel from Montgomery,” pulling the song’s words and images from some deeper reservoir.

An Appreciation for the song "Long Black Veil"

Tue, 09 Aug 2022 17:00 PDT

My earliest memory of this song is hearing it on the first album by The Band, Music from Big Pink, back in 1968. I understood then that this was the one song on the album that was written neither by members of The Band nor by Bob Dylan, but didn’t know much else about it at the time.

Then, a few years later, I discovered that it was one of the few songs that my father and I both knew, and could play together on our guitars. Turned out he had probably heard it as recorded by The Country Gentlemen on their 1960 album, Country Songs Old & New, or had simply heard this same group perform the song at one of their many shows at the Crossroads, outside of DC, a venue my dad was known to have frequented.

And then, I found the song included on the Rosanne Cash album The List, the title referring to a list of essential American songs as identified by her father, Johnny Cash.

But then, later, it just started to turn up everywhere.

An Appreciation for the song "Settin' the Woods on Fire"

Sun, 22 May 2022 17:00 PDT

A couple of things that happened recently got me cogitating on the idea of language as playground.

First, I had a chance to hear Anne Curzan speak. Curzan is the talented and engaging dean of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at the University of Michigan (my alma mater), and is also a linguist who studies the history of the English language. Her bio states that she “aims to promote a culture based in purpose and contributing to the common good, the power of learning, the value of play [emphasis mine], and the importance of well-being.”

Well, I’m here to tell you: any time you stir together the value of play and the study of the English language in the same pitcher, you’re mixing up a cocktail that I will happily imbibe.

An Appreciation for the song "And When I Die"

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 17:00 PDT

As children, our thoughts about death are stuff of dreams and fairy tales. As adults we learn to suppress these thoughts because we are busy getting on with things. But as teenagers, in this transition between nursery rhymes and real life, we tend to approach this topic with a frankness and curiosity that can be somewhat startling.

Laura Nyro wrote her song “And When I Die” at the age of 17, and her refreshing treatment of the subject shows none of the reverence or piety that we learn to adopt as adults.

Let’s look over her lyrics.

And when I die and when I’m dead, dead and gone,
There’ll be one child born and a world to carry on, to carry on.

I’m not scared of dying and I don’t really care.
If it’s peace you find in dying, well, then let the time be near.
If it’s peace you find in dying, when dying time is here,
Just bundle up my coffin cause it’s cold way down there,