2020 Year In Review

 This year sucked. 

Yes, I'll Let This Come Between Us

Everyone always talks about how you shouldn't let politics come between you and your friends and family. I totally agree. Politics is an important topic, and what you believe politically definitely matters. But relationships should take priority over political differences. 

I've embodied this my whole life. Throughout my adulthood, most of my closest friends have held different political opinions from my own. The vast majority are registered Republicans or Independents. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one that is a blue-blood Democrat.

I believe whole-heartedly that the Trump administration represents an unprecedented danger to American society and politics. Because of that, I would certainly not seek out a new relationship with someone I knew was an ardent Trump supporter. But I would not, and have not, let support for Trump get in between me and any of my existing relationships. Thankfully, I don't have very many Trump-supporting friends and family (but I do have a few!). 

Be that as it may, I've finally found something that I will, in fact, let interfere in my relationships. And that's the pandemic. Like everything else in this deeply fractured country, the pandemic has been politicized. But it's not political. It's about science and medicine. It's about the health and well-being of society. 

We can differ on whether shut-downs are effective, or about the balancing of physical health against mental and economic health. Those are legitimate debates. But what's not debatable is the seriousness of this disease, or wearing a mask when you're in public. 

Having now spent 9 months (and counting) working the front lines of this pandemic, I have seen what this disease can do. I've seen people die. I've seen people sicker than they've ever been in their lives. I've witnessed the long-term effects on the heart and lungs. I've seen people on ventilators for weeks, turned face-down in their hospital bed as part of a therapeutic, gravity-based protocol. I've seen an ER overrun with Covid-positive patients who are short of breath and having chest pain. 

If you refuse to acknowledge the severity of this disease; if you act like this disease is just another flu; if you refuse to wear a mask in public; if you support retailers and restaurants that flaunt mandates; if you argue that this is all just unnecessary hysterics... 

If you do and say these things, then no, we can't be friends. Yes, I will let this come between us. 

This is a deal-breaker.  

Clair de Lune

Two of the most famous classical piano pieces are named after the moon. Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven was one of the first classical pieces I ever learned, back in high school. The other is Clair de Lune by Debussy, which literally means Moonlight. Beethoven didn't name his piece - he called it "Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia" - meaning simply "Sonata almost like a fantasy." (A fantasy was a type of semi-improvisational solo piano piece.) 

Debussy, on the other hand, did name his piece Clair de Lune, although that wasn't his original name for it. Written early in his career, around 1890, he originally called it Promenade Sentimentale - "A sentimental walk." It was the third movement of a 4-movement piece. But he didn't publish it at the time.

Fifteen years later, in 1905, a publisher convinced him to publish it. He agreed, but only after making significant changes to the music. He also decided to rename the third movement Clair de Lune, after a poem that he liked. 

I can remember my Dad playing the opening of Clair de Lune when I was a kid. He'd learned it when HE was a kid, and still remembered the first few bars. He did the same thing with Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. It was his tinkering with Moonlight Sonata that first inspired me to learn that piece when I was a teenager. But I never played Clair de Lune back then. 

So this year, I decided to learn Dad's old favorite. I don't think he ever learned the difficult middle part, so I've managed to outdo him on this one. (I outdid him on Moonlight Sonata too, learning the more difficult second and third movements, as well as the first.) 

Two New Songs

My uncle is an old Buddy Holly fan, and he asked me to do a Buddy Holly song. I decided to do Oh Boy, because it's always been my favorite Holly tune. 

When I was in high school, M and I spent a lot of time talking on the phone. For some bizarre reason, her phone picked up a local oldies radio station. Anytime she was on her bedroom phone, you could hear the oldies station in the background. So old 1950s rock n' roll hits were frequently the background music to our hours-long conversations in high school. Oh Boy was played frequently and I loved the background vocals - they were so emblematic to me of 50s pop music. 

Anyway, this is my rendition of Oh Boy (without any backing vocals of course). I created the backing track online by writing out the drum and bass lines and then playing it in the background as I played and sang guitar live. 

And the next song is Goodbye, by Elton John. This is the last track on his 1971 Madman Across the Water album. I have no idea what it's about - like a lot of his songs from the early 70s, it doesn't really make any sense. But I love its melancholy beauty. 

Fixing Our Political Party Problem

As of this writing, the 2020 election still hangs in the balance two days after Election Day as states finish counting ballots. In the interim, I've been thinking about how we could solve our little problem of massive, widespread political unrest and division. 

The first step, of course, would be to have a normal, non-divisive human being in the White House, someone who actually seeks to unite rather than divide. But that's not actually what I want to talk about. 

Instead, I want to talk about fixing our existing political parties. There are a million things that should happen - chief among them would be extensive changes to campaign finance, including a complete ban on television, internet, and print advertising. I would also argue that campaigns should be 100% publicly-funded - no private donations, and definitely no Super PACs. 

But as for the parties themselves, they should be each be split in two. Mainstream Republicans get hurt in elections by their association with right wing extremists. Similarly for mainstream Democrats. 

Biden's failure to secure a resounding victory on Election Day was partly due to the Trump campaign successfully tying him to the left wing and its outrages. For instance, many reports have argued that Biden lost numerous Cuban and Venezuelan voters in Florida because attack ads painted him in league with socialists and communists - something that is very close to those particular voters' hearts. 

This could be avoided by splitting the parties. The left wing should break away from the Democratic Party and form its own organization. AOC or some other firebrand could be its leader. Similarly with Trump and his right wing supporters. That would then leave the traditional Democratic and Republican parties to the moderates who don't want to be associated with the fringe. 

Obviously, in Congress, the left wing party would largely vote with the Democrats, and the right wing party with the Republicans, but in major elections, Democrats and Republicans wouldn't have to suffer because of the outrages of their extreme elements. It would be much harder for an attack ad to tie Biden to AOC and socialism if all those socialists weren't actually members of, and influencers of, the Democratic Party. The same would be true for Republicans. 

Four parties would, of course, solve one set of problems only to create different ones. What happens when the candidate is a Democrat and the left wing party refuses to support him/her? Conservatives then run away with the election. Beyond that, it could create headaches in Congress. 

But I can't personally see how more parties would be a bad thing for American democracy. I've argued elsewhere that the U.S. is the only major democratic country on earth with only two political parties, and that's despite having the third highest population. Canada has 5 parties currently represented in its legislature, despite having only a fraction of the U.S. population. India literally has dozens. 

So when I become king of America, this is the first change I'm going to make. The second will be to ban guns. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. 

Quitting Social Media

So, I wrote a seven- or eight-paragraph post about why I'm quitting social media, but I just deleted it all. 

Rather than ramble about how social media is destroying society and how I don't want to be part of that anymore, I'm just going to say that I'm getting off social media after the election. I don't know yet if I'm going to delete my accounts, or just log out and remove the apps from my phone. But my intention is for this to be a permanent state of affairs. 

Some of you know that I keep a Twitter account called Scenes of the Bluegrass where I post pictures of Kentucky that people submit to me. It has about 8,000 followers. I will probably keep running that account. 

I will continue to update this blog with occasional posts, and I intend to keep my YouTube channel where I post my music. You can follow me there if you're interested in seeing my videos. You can also sign up to get my new blog posts by email. It's right there on the right side of this screen under SUBSCRIBE VIA EMAIL. 

Washington's Nightmare Comes To Life

So I wrote a book on the history of American political parties a few years ago called Washington's Nightmare - so-named because at the end of his presidency, George Washington warned Americans about forming and supporting political parties. He called political coalitions "truly our worst enemy" and noted that they represented a "frightful despotism." 

I think it's fair to say we're currently living Washington's nightmare in real-time, every day. 

More relevant now than ever, if you haven't picked up a copy of my book, maybe now is the time to do it. It's a brief survey of the history of party politics in America, covering all the major parties that have come and gone throughout American history. It includes chronological looks at the Democratic and Republican parties and how they have changed through the years.  

You can buy Washington's Nightmare here. It's available in both Kindle e-book and paperback formats. If you like podcasts, I also wrote a six-part series based on the book for American History Tellers and Wondery. They're currently (as of Fall 2020) re-airing the series, which originally ran in 2018. 

George Floyd's Arrest and Cause of Death

Sometimes during slow nights at work, I like to pass the time by watching YouTube videos. One type of video I like watching are police-related vids - high speed chases, dash cam videos, officer involved shootings, etc. It's like watching a cop show, but for realzies. 

Anyway, I've watched hundreds of videos of officers arresting people, getting involved in shoot-outs and foot chases, perps resisting arrest, etc. 

So my first thought on seeing the video of George Floyd was that he probably violently resisted arrest, so the cops were holding him down firmly. Cops do this all the time with violent offenders. Since he was talking, it was clear that the knee on his neck wasn't actually choking him, despite that being the widely-accepted narrative. This is also something that suspects do all the time - resist arrest, then cry and complain when the cops take them to the ground. I typically don't have a lot of sympathy in those cases (of course, normally, they aren't actually dying). 

But there are more videos out there of the Floyd arrest that give a bit more context than the one that has been most widely circulated (the one with the knee on the neck). These include surveillance videos and another cell phone video, both of which actually show part of the initial arrest. 

So here are my thoughts after watching all these videos, and applying what I know from working in hospitals and from watching lots of these kinds of videos.

1) There's nothing in any of these videos to suggest that Floyd died because of anything the cops did. Pressing a knee to the back of someone's neck doesn't choke them. And the fact that he was speaking proves beyond any reasonable doubt that he could breathe. 

2) The arrest videos show that he was not violently resisting arrest, as I had initially assumed. However, he does appear to be giving trouble to the officers, because it takes two of them to get him out of the car and handcuff him. It's impossible from the videos to say why or what kind of trouble he was giving them. But it wasn't a simple arrest situation. 

3) He appears to already be in some kind of physical distress while being arrested. This may be why he was giving them trouble. After handcuffing him, he staggers to the sidewalk before collapsing against a wall for several minutes while a cop talks to him. Then the cop helps him to his feet and escorts him across the street to his squad car. There, he collapses a second time and multiple cops help lift him and take him around to the other side. Once there, he collapses for the third and final time. Unfortunately, you can't see on the videos what happens after that. The next video available shows him with the knee already in his neck. Perhaps body worn cameras will clear that up, but none have been released yet. 

4) Initial reports said cops thought he was drunk. Based on the arrest videos, I can see why. Instead of being drunk (or maybe in addition to being drunk), he was probably already having whatever medical emergency caused his death. Based on his age and size, he may have been having a heart attack. He may have already been in the middle of it before the arrest even started. 

5) None of this explains why the cops were pinning him down or why the one cop kept his knee on the man's neck for so long. Again, hopefully body cams can clear that up. What's clear is that they shouldn't have laid on top of him as long as they did. The cop with the knee almost seems to be defying the crowd. You get the impression he didn't want to look weak by moving after they demanded it, so he just stayed in place for no good reason. Despite that, I don't believe his knee caused Mr. Floyd's death. There's certainly nothing in the available videos to suggest that.  

An inability on the part of the public for calm, rational analysis of things like this is why we have riots and looting afterward. And unfortunately, the press, politicians, voices on social media - all these people make matters worse by instantly starting a bandwagon on one side or the other, and everyone seems to just fall in line. In the end, people like me are left wondering if anyone on either side of the political aisle has the ability to think sensibly or impartially anymore. 

A Lesson from Fred Flintstone

When I was a kid, I LOVED cartoons. I would wake up at 6:30 on Saturday morning JUST to watch cartoons. In fact, my whole Saturday morning was arranged around a strict cartoon schedule that ran from 7 to 11 and culminated with a glorious 90-minute binge of the Smurfs.   

During the mid-1980s, TBS aired old Flintstones reruns in the afternoon. My daily routine during those years was to get home, get a snack (usually microwaved hot dogs), and head in to the family room to watch the Flintstones - two thirty minute episodes (that is, unless a Cubs game was on WGN, in which case I chose baseball over cartoons).  

I can say with fair certainty that I've seen every Flintstones episode multiple times. 

There's one in particular that I am constantly reminded of these days. In this episode, Pebbles has recently been born to Fred and Wilma. Fred, being a doting father, has fallen head over heels for his new baby. Intent on documenting her childhood, he immediately runs out to a store and buys a fancy new video camera. 

He proceeds to become obsessive about making home movies and showing them to everyone he can find. At first, it's all great. Barney and Betty and the others really enjoy coming over, hanging out with Fred and Wilma, and watching videos of cute little Pebbles. 

But, as usual, Fred doesn't know when to stop. The behavior continues, day in and day out. Barney and Betty begin to grow fed up with the non-stop barrage of Pebbles vids, even as Fred's obsession grows stronger. They begin avoiding him to keep from getting corralled into another home movie session. 

Then Fred really goes overboard and secretly plans to show Pebbles videos to all the members of the Water Buffalo Lodge. Telling them it's a "bathing beauty" video, the lodgers are naturally put out when it turns out to be videos of Pebbles in her baby pool. 

More zany cartoon drama ensues, before Fred finally learns his lesson and hangs up his video camera for good.  

Believe it or not, there is a point to retelling this plot from a 1960s cartoon. You probably already have an idea of where I'm going. I am constantly reminded of this episode by certain people on social media who don't seem to realize that no one wants to see a constant barrage of pictures of their kids/daily lives/vacations/dinners, etc. If the writers of this episode could see where society has gone, they'd turn over in their graves. We've got 100 million Fred Flintstones running around the country now, posting every photo and video in their camera roll to Instagram and Facebook. 

I'm obviously not gonna name names, but I've got several followers on Instagram who I swear to God post dozens of pictures of their kids every week. One of these people is worse than all the others. Since Friday, she has made 15 posts on Instagram (as of this hour), with a total of 29 pictures and 1 video. Among these are 3 pictures of wine glasses, two pictures of legs laying out in the sun, pictures of fire pits and backyard pools, and two dozen pictures of her kids and husband.

This is pretty much a normal three-day stretch for her. Not everyone is quite that bad, of course, but several others come pretty close. I've got one follower who I swear must post every picture in her camera roll when she goes on vacation. Each day it will be multiple posts of dozens of photos, including some that aren't even good pictures. It's obvious she's just going through her camera roll picture by picture and posting them all, so that we can enjoy her Disney or beach trip right alongside her. 

What, precisely, is going on in the minds of these Fred Flintstone wannabes? Why do they think their hundreds of Instagram contacts want to see ALL of those pictures? I get that maybe your mom might want to see the pics of her grandchildren, or your best girlfriend might want to see what you did on vacation. But you've got 700 followers! Why IN THE WORLD would you post all these pictures or think that ANYBODY wanted to see them? 

I realize the answer here is to just unfollow them. Like Barney and Betty, avoidance is the key. But these are friends and acquaintances of mine, and I like to see SOME pictures of them. I mean, that's why we follow people on Instagram in the first place, right? 

I guess I see this sort of thing as breaking the unwritten rules of society. Like Fred, who couldn't see that no one was as interested in his own kid and his own life as he was, some people just don't seem to realize that they and their kids aren't the center of everyone else's lives. Yes, there's such a thing as too much. 

Elegy for the Victims of the Pandemic

I never intended, planned, or expected to be working on the front lines of a global pandemic. If you had told 25-year-old Scott that he'd be doing this at age 45, he'd have probably fainted.

But the winding, hilly, curvy, tortuous path I've followed in life has led me to be in this place, at this time. I am an X-ray tech at a hospital in downtown Cincinnati. I work at night and spend the vast majority of my 12-hour shifts X-raying patients in the Emergency Room and on the various floor units of the hospital.

My hospital has spent the last few weeks preparing for a surge of COVID-19 patients. They've placed zippered, air-tight curtains over all the ED rooms that don't have doors; they've cleared out a whole wing to accommodate COVID-19 patients; they've banned all visitors from the hospital; and they have ceased all elective procedures and surgeries. We've seen a steady increase over the last week or two in patients with respiratory symptoms and expect the numbers to continue to increase.

As my friends and family know all too well, my religious beliefs these days wax and wane depending on my mood. As this blog testifies, I have long ago given up the traditional beliefs of my youth. But in these last few weeks, I've found myself continually thinking of the countless sermons and Sunday School lessons I heard growing up about great biblical characters who were faced with circumstances they didn't exactly ask for. 

I think of Abraham and the famous story of God asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac, only to stop him at the last second after Abraham proved his faithfulness. I think of David, the shepherd boy, facing off with Goliath, the warrior champion of the Philistines. And I think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, begging God not to make him "drink this cup." 

I don't want to drink this cup. I don't want to be on the front lines of a global pandemic. But this is where my life's path has brought me. I don't normally talk about things like this, but I have always felt that I was built/made/designed for something important. Maybe that's just my white, privileged, upper middle class, male ego talking. But it's how I've always felt. 

To use words I might have used in my youth but wouldn't normally dream of using now ... being on the front line of this pandemic is what God has called me to do, whether I like it or not. I'm here, and I have to do it. It's important. And I'm made for important work.  

I realize that, as an X-ray tech, I'm not exactly saving lives or even risking my own health as much as others. Nurses, doctors, and respiratory therapists are putting themselves at far greater risks than I am, if for no other reason than because they spend more time with the patients than I do. But I'm part of the team that is fighting this battle, and I've accepted the cup that I've been given. I intend to do the best job I can with it.   

All of this is sort of a long introduction to a piano piece that I have written to honor and remember those who have lost their lives in this pandemic. I originally intended to write a really sad lament, but it turned out a little different than I expected. Though I began it in a minor key, I very quickly transitioned into the relative major. Those of you who aren't musicians won't understand what I mean by that, but minor keys are usually associated with sad or dark music, while major keys are typically associated with happy or upbeat music. 

Writing a sad song in a minor key is easy. It's been done a million times. But I've always appreciated and enjoyed sad songs written in major keys, because it's harder and less common. Maybe you'll think this song is sad, and maybe you won't. But whether it's sad or not, it's my tribute to those who have lost their lives in this pandemic - a pandemic that I have been called to risk my health and devote my services to. 

Ranking Elton John Albums - Part 1, Nos. 31 through 21

I've been an Elton John fan for just about as long as I can remember. From the age of 9 or 10, I began listening to my own music and generally gravitated towards guitar-driven rock (Van Halen, Dire Straits, eventually Guns n' Roses, etc.). But before all of that, there was Elton John.

His first Greatest Hits album, from 1974, was basically a family playlist. I guess my earliest family music memories are of Amy Grant and other Christian singers, but once my parents decided it was okay to introduce their precious children to secular devil music, it was basically Elton John, and maybe some Alabama.

On vacations and other long trips, this album would also get played through a least a couple of times. I knew all the songs on it by heart. As I got older, more compilations were put out and I eventually had his Greatest Hits volumes 1, 2, and 3.

For a long time those were the only Elton John albums I had, and the songs on those albums were basically the only Elton John songs I knew. Then, in college, I got a book with note-for-note transcripts of a bunch of Elton John songs. Many of them were songs I wasn't familiar with. There was one in particular - Indian Sunset - that I really enjoyed playing and I was dying to hear the real, actual song. (Children, this was back before Al Gore invented the Internet.)

So I figured out which album that song was on (it was Madman Across the Water) and I bought the CD. I ended up liking every song on the album, which didn't surprise me, since I'd always liked every other Elton John song I'd ever heard.

Still, after that, I never bought another Elton John album. Up until a few years ago, I was okay with only knowing the same 35 or so songs I'd had on my greatest hits albums and my one studio album.

But then I got a subscription to Amazon Music and discovered they had every single one of his past albums available. So I created a playlist with 372 songs on it. I've been listening to it very regularly now for the past few years.

And now I've decided I'm qualified to make a list ranking his albums from worst to best.

I am ranking the 31 studio albums that Elton John has released as of 2019. I have not included any live albums, compilations, or collaboration albums he's done with other people. I also am not including the five or six movie soundtracks he's done over the years. These are just the 31 solo studio albums that he has put out since 1969.

I didn't actually intend for this introduction to be so long, but hey, shit happens. Anyway, here's the first part of the list. Let me know what you think, although be aware that if you disagree, you'll be wrong.

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31. VICTIM OF LOVE

If you've ever heard this album, then you are like me: a victim of Victim of Love. This is a no-brainer. I can't imagine a ranking of Elton John studio albums that didn't put this album as the very worst. It's not just Elton's worst album, it has to be one of the worst albums that's ever been recorded by a major act. It's remarkably bad. It is absolutely unbelievable that a star of Elton's caliber agreed to do an album this awful.

Here's the thing: It's a freaking disco album. The first song is an 8-minute disco version of Johnny B. Goode, if you want an idea of how awful it is. I think all the other songs are originals, but they are just terrible. And it's not just because disco is terrible. Even by disco standards, these songs suck. I guess if you were high as a kite in orange bell bottoms on a disco dance floor in Germany in 1979, maybe it would've been fine, but I can't imagine any other setting where this album isn't just fucking terrible.

I don't know the background of the album, but it seems to have been a record company gimmick to cash in on the disco fad of the late 70s. Released in 1979, Elton basically only participated by singing the songs. He didn't write any of the music or play keyboards (or any other instrument) on any of the songs. And he's never performed any of them live. The record company seems to have wanted something, Elton was too fucked up on coke to produce anything, so they brought in studio musicians and songwriters to write and record a disco album, and then just brought Elton in to sing the lyrics and put his name on the cover. That's what it appears to be, anyway.

Regardless, it's terrible. I skip the songs when they come on.

30. THE THOM BELL SESSIONS

I haven't seen the Elton biopic, so I don't know if it addresses this, but the late 70s seem to have been a bad time in Elton's life. This is another terrible album from that time.

Thom Bell was a famous producer who had developed a sound called Philadelphia Soul. Elton had written a stand-alone single called Philadelphia Freedom in 1975 that tapped into this sound. After that, he apparently wanted to work with Bell for a whole album. Evidently the two didn't get along well and they ended up only recording 6 songs before calling it quits. Even though the recording sessions took place in 1977, the album wasn't released until 1979, and then it was only a 3-song EP. One of those songs (Mama Can't Buy You Love) did end up going to #9 on the charts.

In 1989, the album was re-released, this time with all 6 songs.

With the exception of Mama Can't Buy You Love (which is a decent song), both incarnations of this album suck. Maybe if I was into 1970s Philadelphia Soul music, I would like it. But I'm not. The background music is heavy on brassy orchestration and apparently one of the gimmicks of this sound is to repeat a catchy chorus about 435 times at the end of the song. I mean these songs just go on and on and on, and it's not NEW music, it's the same hook, over and over and over again. If you're familiar with Mama Can't Buy You Love, you'll know what I'm talking about.

With the exception of Mama, I skip all these songs when they come on.

29. WONDERFUL CRAZY NIGHT

This is Elton's most recent album, released in 2016. It was a tough decision to put it here, because there are no "bad" songs on it. And I don't want to be one of those "all his new music sucks" guys.

But the problem is that there are no really good songs on it. It's basically just 10 very average, forgettable tracks. A few of the songs have a catchy beat or a catchy hook, but all in all the music is just not great. It feels very much like what it is ... an album by a 70-year-old former pop/rock star who has long since graduated into the low end of the Adult Contemporary arena.

I also can't stand the cover of this album. In my opinion, Elton John is remarkably bad at album covers. He's got some really, really awful ones in his catalogue. This is one of them. The expression on his face and his body language on the cover reminds me disturbingly of my mother-in-law. And the music can probably also be described as Music Your Mother-In-Law Would Like.

28. ICE ON FIRE

This album is from 1985 and it's like he wasn't even trying at this point. There is one gem on this album in the song Nikita, but that's about it. Wrap Her Up is catchy, but it's ultimately just bubble-gum pop by two gay guys (George Michael sings back-up) pretending to be straight.

And besides those two songs, the others are all "meh." Some are basically skippers, but even those you don't skip are basically songs you never need to hear again.

27. A SINGLE MAN

Back to that bad period in the late 70s again, and another album that's just not that good. This was the second album Elton did after "breaking up" with his longtime writing partner, Bernie Taupin. The first was the aforementioned Thom Bell Sessions and the third was Victim of Love. This one, at least, was a straightforward studio album with Elton writing the songs and performing them, albeit with a different lyricist.

I put this album above Ice on Fire simply because A Single Man has the song Georgia on it. I absolutely love this song. It's probably in my top 10.  Elton had made his fame playing a style of music I like to call piano-driven Gospel Rock, and in the late 70s, he moved away from that sound, pretty much permanently. But Georgia was like one last hurrah of that classic Elton, piano-driven Gospel Rock sound. I just love this song.

There are a few other decent songs to be found here, but all in all it's not a good album. Elton just wasn't the same during the 5 or 6 years that he and Bernie Taupin weren't writing together.

As a bit of trivia, Elton frequently recorded songs during his recording sessions that didn't make the final cut for the album. They were sometimes used as "B-sides" for singles, and other times just stuck into the vault unreleased. Years later, they would frequently make it onto compilation albums of "rare" songs or included with re-releases of the studio albums they were recorded with.

One of those songs for this album was called Flintstone Boy. It was originally the B-side to a single. It's now included on the reissue of A Single Man. It's the only song I know of where Elton John wrote the music and the lyrics. Elton is famous for his playing and songwriting, but lyrics are not his forte, which is why he's always used a lyricist to write with him.

I guess maybe in the wake of breaking up with Bernie Taupin he decided to try his hand at writing some lyrics. The result is this song. And it is absolutely awful. It seriously must be the most inane, asinine set of lyrics I have ever heard. And I guess because the lyrics were so uninspiring, the music he wrote for them was also pretty terrible. It's just a bad song. Definitely a skipper.

26. THE ONE

This is an album from 1992. It reminds me a bit of Wonderful Crazy Night in that it doesn't have any bad songs, but it also doesn't have anything really all that great on it. I need an album to have at least a few gems, and this one doesn't deliver. The songs are all okay, but there's just nothing here that I would ever intentionally go and play. The title track was a top 10 hit and it's probably the best song on the album.

25. THE DIVING BOARD

This is another recent album, having been put out in 2013. If you like albums that sound like basic jazzy piano bar music, then this is an album for you. As a pianist, I like the piano-driven aspects of the album, which includes 3 brief piano solo instrumentals scattered among the regular songs (called Dream #1, Dream #2, and Dream #3).

The Ballad of Blind Tom is a good one that tells the story of a real-life pianist in the late 19th century. He was a black man born into slavery who was a blind piano prodigy. He could also apparently mimic any voice he ever heard and repeat long speeches and soliloquies from memory. He was diagnosed as mentally handicapped during his life, but he was likely an autistic savant. Someone could play him a song he'd never heard before, and he could immediately play it back to them, note-for-note.

If there's any problem with this album, it's just that it's a little too piano-lounge for me. You need to have a glass of brandy, a book of philosophy, and a tweed jacket on when you listen to this album.

24. THE FOX

We're beginning now to reach the stage where the albums are more good than bad. This album comes from 1981 and Elton had begun to write with Bernie Taupin again, although Taupin only wrote the lyrics for about half the songs.

Just Like Belgium is probably the best song on this album. There aren't any bad songs here, although a couple of them are just sort of boring. Carla/Etude/Fanfare are three songs that all run together on the original B side of the album, comprising about 6 minutes of instrumental music. Why there are three different titles to what is basically a single 6-minute instrumental is anyone's guess. The music then runs directly into the next track, called Chloe, which is the only one of the four that actually has lyrics.

But all in all, this is a decent record with some good hooks and laid back grooves that make for a decent 80s soft rock album.

23. EMPTY SKY

This was Elton John's first album, released in the UK in 1969. It was not released in the U.S. at the time, which is why his second, self-title album, is frequently named as his "first" album. Empty Sky didn't get released until 1975 in the U.S., at the height of his fame.

This album's main strengths lie in its hints of the greatness that was to come, and in its novelty value. If you're familiar with "classic" Elton John, you notice immediate differences when you listen to this album. His voice sounds different, and many of the songs have a very 60s, psychedelic sound to them. He bizarrely opted to play harpsichord instead of piano on a number of the songs, which gives them a very foreign, artsy kind of feel.

The best song on the album actually wasn't even on the original album released in 1969. It's Me That You Need was one of several singles released independently at that time. The song has since been included on reissues of the album.

Another song from the album, Skyline Pigeon, is easily one Elton's best songs, but not the early version found on Empty Sky. On this version, he plays harpsichord, and it totally ruins the song. A few years later had the sense to re-record and re-release it, and that second version is one of my favorite Elton John songs.

22. TOO LOW FOR ZERO

This is actually Elton's best-selling album of the 1980s, but as a whole, I think it's actually among his worst. But that doesn't mean it's a bad album.

To begin with, it has I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues on it, and that's one of his best songs (maybe his very best song) of the 1980s. It also produced several other hits that are decent, including I'm Still Standing, Kiss the Bride, and the title track. Kiss the Bride is another one of those bubble-gum pop songs that Elton did so well in the 80s and which sound funny today because OF COURSE he didn't want to kiss the bride.

In any case, the reason this album is lower than most of his other 80s albums is because besides those hits, the rest of the songs on the album are pretty weak. A set of pretty much forgettable songs.

21. THE BIG PICTURE

According to the Wikipedia article, lyricist Bernie Taupin lists this album as his least favorite, because he apparently thinks his lyrics weren't very good. Considering how bizarre and sometimes even silly his lyrics can be, I don't necessarily understand what his problem with this particular album is.

In any case, this album is from 1997 and its very heavy on orchestration. Some of the songs give a sense of elevator music. It's definitely strongly in the Adult Contemporary camp. But over time, this album has grown on me.

A lot of the songs are very dramatic and theatrical (he wrote a number of movie soundtracks in the 90s, including The Lion King and several others, so he must have just been in that mode when he went into the studio to do this one). If you let yourself, you can kind of get swept away in the drama of a few of the songs, with their big, sweeping orchestrations and their booming climaxes.

Something About the Way You Look Tonight is probably the last truly great song Elton John wrote. It got a lot of attention and airplay because it was the B-side to his standalone single Candle in the Wind 1997, the tribute to Princess Diana, which is to this day the best-selling single of all time.

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Keep watching for my next post, which will continue the countdown from 20 to 11. We're going to start getting into some really, really good Elton John albums. 

Bohemian Rhapsody

So in the early spring, I bought a book of Queen songs arranged for piano. I started learning Bohemian Rhapsody and very quickly decided the arrangement was lacking. So I decided to make my own arrangement.

Between the time I took creating the arrangement and the time it took me to learn it, I've been working on this piece for most of the year.

I finally got a version of it recorded that is at least halfway decent.

Here it is.

Christmas Music Playlist

I know it's early in the season for this, but I figured I would announce this now. I've spent the fall arranging a set of my favorite Christmas songs for piano. And I've recorded those songs and put them into a playlist on YouTube that anyone can access.

So this Christmas, if you're looking for traditional Christmas music, and you like piano music, you can put this playlist on in the background. Also, just in case anyone is interested, you can also buy the sheet music for any of these arrangements by CLICKING HERE.

The YouTube playlist is HERE.

Here's one of the videos from the playlist, to give you a taste:

Notes from the Cave

Thank you to everyone who responded to my last blog post. I didn't respond individually to anyone, but I read all your responses and appreciate them.

I've decided to keep the blog going. With 13 years of posts, some of which I am still pretty proud of, there's not really any good reason to delete the blog. Even if I wasn't going to update it anymore, I probably wouldn't delete the blog outright. 

But I think I probably will continue to post now and then. I think one of the main reasons why my production has waned so much is because I'm writing podcast scripts now on a regular basis and have very little time to do things like blogging. Also, my writing fix gets satisfied by the script writing, so I don't necessary "need" to blog. 

Anyway, speaking of podcast scripts, in my last Notes from the Cave in February, I promised to keep you abreast of what was going on with all that. I failed in that promise, although I still like saying the word "abreast."

I did start writing for the new podcast company in the early spring. They are called Parcast and they were actually bought by Spotify not long after I started writing for them. They have about 15 or 20 weekly scripted podcasts that they produce. I signed a contract with them and wrote two shows for them. The first was for a podcast called Assassinations and it was a 2-episode series on the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which set off World War I.

The second was another 2-episode series for a show called Kingpins. It was about a marijuana smuggling operation in the Miami in the 1970s.

After that, I signed a new contract with Parcast (for more money, yay!) to write 10 more episodes. I am currently working on the 5th episode in that contract. The first was a 2-episode series for the show Cults about a Satanic cult in Massachusetts in the late 70s that was implicated in a string of prostitute murders. (I wasn't allowed to actually use the word "prostitute" in these scripts where all the characters were pimps and prostitutes. "Prostitute" is not PC, apparently. You have to call them "sex workers." #Hollywood, amiright?)

Then I wrote two stand-alone episodes for a show called Historical Figures. Neither of these has come out yet, so I'll refrain from giving away the subject matter. Both were people I had never heard of before beginning my research.

I'm currently working on another stand-along episode for a show called Gone, which discusses people and objects that have disappeared. I'm going to be writing two stand-alone episodes for this show as well.

The remaining four scripts in the contract have not been assigned yet, so I don't know what they'll be about.

Switching gears, let's talk about music. I'm still practicing the piano on a regular basis, about 4-5 days per week. I'm currently working on 4 songs, 3 of which are ALMOST finished. (Finished, for me, means a relatively clean take recorded on video.)  Those three songs are the third movement of Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata (once learned, this will make 2 complete Beethoven sonatas that I have learned), a fantasia by Mozart, and my own arrangement of the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody (you're REALLY gonna like that one). The fourth song that still needs some work is my own original classical-style composition called Rondo in A Minor: The Midnight Hour.

As for my composing, I have recently been putting a lot of time into arranging Christmas songs for solo piano. This is something I've been wanting to do since I first started playing again in 2016, but every year it gets to be Christmas time and I realize I've failed to do it. So this year, I started in September arranging Christmas songs. I'm about 75% done with the 19 songs that I've chosen to make arrangements for.

I'm not sure that I'll ever learn every single one of them, although that will remain to be seen. I wish I was good enough to be able to just sight-read all of them. Some of them are easy enough that I can almost do that. But regardless, the software I use will play back anything you write, with electronic versions of the instruments. And in this day and age, the software playback is pretty damn realistic. So after I'm done arranging this set of songs, I'm going to record the playback and then upload each song to YouTube. Then I'll put them all in a Christmas playlist that anyone can access if they want to turn on some solo piano music for Christmas this year. I'll post a link once it's done.

I should point out that the songs I've chosen are all traditional Christmas songs - I'm not a big fan of modern Christmas music, so don't expect any Mariah Carey or Amy Grant Christmas songs. Instead of Josh Groban, think Bing Crosby or Andy Williams.

If you are interested in listening to my compositions, both original compositions as well as numerous arrangements I've done, you can click here and hear them all. The one caveat is that you do have to create an account. But that's free to do. I have piano pieces as well as chamber music (small ensembles) and full orchestral works. I currently have about 70 public pieces. You can also buy some of my sheet music here.

Anyway, thanks as always for reading (and listening!). 

Time for a Change

I'm thinking about shutting this blog down. No one really reads blogs anymore, do they? Unless you're famous, they're kind of pointless in this day and age.

I never finished the series I started earlier this year about a new U.S. constitution. The second post got basically no attention so I kind of lost interest in continuing to write about it.

What do you think? Should I shut this 13-year-old blog down?

A New United States Constitution, Part II

The United States needs a new constitution. We have the oldest constitution on earth (and it's not even close), and while some might see that as something to celebrate, I see it as a big part of the reason why our nation and our government is increasingly useless and ineffective.

In Part I of this series we looked at changes to the First Amendment that I would like to see occur. In Part II, we're gonna dive headlong into the Second Amendment. This actually won't take long because my idea for how to fix the second amendment is pretty simple.

THE SECOND AMENDMENT

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Let's ignore the fact that the Second Amendment is so strangely worded (I mean, it was written by 18th century British people, after all). To fully understand what they meant, it's helpful to add some implied modifiers, remove some commas, and reword things a bit: "Since an efficient militia is necessary to the security of a state, the citizens have the right to own and carry guns." 

Second Amendment Background

I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince you that the Second Amendment never meant what it's typically interpreted to mean. I'll simply say there are very good and convincing arguments that it was never about individual rights, but always and only about the need for state militias. This was an era when there was no permanent, professional U.S. military. States were expected to protect themselves from Indians or anyone else. Since states and towns frequently couldn't afford to arm their militias, men joining a militia were expected to provide their own guns. This remained true for many decades after the founding the of the country. It was only in the first part of the 19th century that permanent, federally-funded, professional standing armies began to be formed. In the 1780s, the same people who insisted on the Second Amendment thought that such standing armies were the tools of tyrants. 

So it really never had anything to do with your personal, individual right to have a gun. But none of that really matters for my purposes here, because I frankly don't care what the Supreme Court has said or what you think the amendment means. 

Nor does it matter what I think it means, because in our imaginary constitutional convention, we're  gonna abolish the Second Amendment altogether. If there's no Second Amendment, then there can be no disagreement about what it means!  

Taking Away Your Guns

Gun rights activists often accuse liberals of wanting to "take away your guns." As an independent liberal, I plead guilty as charged. I totally want to take away your guns. If I was King Byron of the Kingdom of America, I would absolutely ban all guns forever for all time for any reason. And I'd put your ass in jail if you were caught with one.  

But I recognize that not everyone agrees that guns should be outlawed across the board. So that's actually NOT the reason I want to get rid of the Second Amendment. After all, this is a democracy and I'm just one person.  

I want to get rid of the Second Amendment because it's fucking asinine for a nation to have the right to own guns enshrined in its very constitution. It's no wonder this country is so obsessed with firearms that we have almost half of all the firearms on earth and literally have more than one gun per person. When it's included in our basic Bill of Rights, its not hard to figure out why we've developed a gun-obsessed culture. Only two other countries on earth have gun ownership in their constitution - Mexico and Guatemala. Now there's two countries you want to be aligned with.  

Abolishing the Second Amendment would get rid of any constitutional arguments for gun regulation. Local, state, and federal governments could regulate guns within reason, and there'd be no appealing to the constitutionality of the laws. Just like you can't make a constitutional argument about whether it's okay to pass speed limit laws, you wouldn't be able to make a constitutional argument about a town, city, or state that wanted to limit guns in whatever way its elected officials saw fit. It would also allow the federal government to develop standards and regulations - like blanket assault weapons bans or high capacity magazine bans or whatever.  

Don't like your town or state's gun laws? Elect new leaders! But you don't get to cry about constitutionality. 

CONCLUSION

I hate guns and I want to take away your guns. But since I don't get to make that call, I think we should abolish the Second Amendment in order to allow the government to sensibly regulate guns without appeals to a constitutional right that someone thinks they should have. 

In our next article, we're going to move away from the Bill of Rights and talk about terms limits on federal offices. 

A New United States Constitution, Part I

In recent years, a number of people and groups from across the political spectrum have called for amendments to the constitution on a variety of topics. This is nothing new. There have always been calls for amendments to the constitution. Sometimes (though not often), they even get passed.

But I think it's time for a whole new constitution. I mean completely rewriting our constitution to reflect the modern issues affecting 21st century America. I've been thinking along these lines for several years now. We need to call a constitutional convention.

Trying to fit 21st century problems into an 18th century legal document is a bit like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn't work, and if you force it, it's all stupid-looking and probably won't last very long.

Our constitution is hopelessly outdated. But we treat it as though it's just one very, very small level below sacred scripture. Like the Bible, we treat the constitution as somehow inviolate and sacrosanct, the final and inerrant Word of the Founding Fathers, who themselves are frequently treated as mini-Christs. I've written about this before. It's the Doctrine of Constitutional Infallibility, and it's deeply ingrained in the American psyche.

The Constitution was written in the 18th century, addressing 18th century problems that were unique to a small, rural, coastal nation that was just starting out.  It's woefully inadequate to address the issues of a massive country that is the world's largest economy and superpower.

But I'm really not here to convince you we need a new constitution. I actually want to talk about what a new constitution would look like.

Now, I'm no political philosopher. I'm not a lawyer, a legal expert, or trained in constitutional law. And I'm not pretending to be. But I do have some ideas for a few changes we need to make. In this series of articles, I intend to outline a number of proposals that I think would make for a better constitution and, subsequently, a better society to live in.

In Part I, we're going to look at the First Amendment. 

THE FIRST AMENDMENT

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Freedom of Speech

Everybody loves the First Amendment, right? Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion. It's all hunky-dory, cum-ba-ya, American Pie stuff.

But there has long been one acknowledged problem with freedom of speech in particular: it protects hate speech too. As recently as 2017, in an unanimous Supreme Court decision affirming that hate speech is constitutionally-protected, Justice Samuel Alito wrote: 

[The notion that the government can restrict] speech expressing ideas that offend ... strikes at the heart of the First Amendment. Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech ... is that we protect the freedom to express "the thought that we hate."

Most people agree: in order to have freedom of speech, you have to allow people to say offensive stuff too.

My question is this: Has anyone ever stopped to ask if this is ACTUALLY true? Is there some philosophical, legal, or social reason why we can't outlaw hate speech while still having freedom of every other kind of speech?

The first change we need to make in our new constitutional convention is to rewrite the First Amendment to specifically and categorically ban hate speech and, especially, hate groups, including the rights of those groups to assemble.

The typical argument against this is that it would create some sort of slippery slope - that if we started banning offensive speech, then we might somehow slide slowly and surely into tyranny. Justice Anthony Kennedy made this point in the same 2017 case mentioned above: 

A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.

I'm not suggesting that we ban "offensive" speech. Instead, I'm specifically talking about speech that is intentionally and specifically used for the purpose of spreading hatred against other people or groups of people. 

I'm also not talking about what you do or say in private. I'm not suggesting that if you use the n-word in your own home, someone should be able to report you to authorities and have you fined. I'm not even saying that if you go out in public and call someone the n-word, you should be able to be fined for that. 

I'm talking more specifically about hate groups that seek to spread a message of intolerance and hatred towards other people. Think of white nationalists/supremacists, certain Christian, Muslim, and Jewish separatist groups, Neo-Nazis, the KKK, etc. Basically, any group recognized as a hate group by reputable organizations that track such things. 

Is there any reason on earth why freedom of speech has to mean these sorts of groups can exist? Why would banning their right to meet, march, protest, advertise, put up signs, hand out pamphlets, have a website, or use social media mean that somehow our society was going to devolve into tyranny? That's abject nonsense. 

And it's proven by the fact that numerous other democratic, industrialized nations have such bans on hate speech and hate groups and somehow they've managed to not descend into chaos. In Germany, for instance, Nazism is illegal. You can't wear a swastika, you can't promote Nazi ideology, and you can't even deny the Holocaust. Yet, magically, Germany is still a free democracy! Furthermore, virtually every country in Europe, plus a bunch of others around the world, ban hate speech outright. Guess what? Their citizens are still free!  

It's part of the Doctrine of Constitutional Infallibility that somehow you can't have freedom of speech and also ban hate groups and hate speech. It's American mythology. It's an American lie. 

We already ban some forms of speech. Walk into a crowded theater and yell "ACTIVE SHOOTER!" if you'd like to test those bans. Slander and libel laws are also examples of how speech is limited in this country. Outlawing hate speech and hate groups would go a long way towards solving some of the problems in this country, and there is not a shred of evidence to suggest it would lead us into a loss of our free democratic principles.

Separation of Church and State

Freedom of religion is also enshrined in the First Amendment, and legal precedent based on that freedom has led to the notion of separation of church and state. That phrase, however, is not actually in the constitution or the text of the First Amendment. I think it would be beneficial to alter the wording of the religion clause to specifically note that there is a firm and unbreachable divide between church and state, between government and religion. 

Government can not touch religion (unless it's a hate group or doing other illegal things) and religion can not touch government (meaning you can't legislate your religious beliefs). 

I would also like to see a clause expressly forbidding churches from having any sort of involvement whatsoever in politics, including especially political lobbying. Religious political lobbying has had an enormously detrimental effect on American society in the last 40 years, and should be completely outlawed. Religious groups don't pay taxes. They therefore should have absolutely no right to directly influence public policy through lobbyists.

CONCLUSION

Thoughts? Opinions? Agree or disagree? Would you change anything else in the First Amendment?

In Part II, we'll look at changes I'd like to see to the Second Amendment. That should be a fun discussion.

Notes from the Cave

I've had a few days off of work and it's a good thing because I've been sick with sinus crap. It started as primarily a fever and body aches over the weekend and now it's morphed into straight sinus issues. I'm pretty annoyed about the whole thing, honestly.

I was supposed to have breakfast with my parents and my aunt and uncle this morning, and I ended up sleeping right through my alarm because I was up really, really late because I couldn't fall back to sleep after waking up at 230 in the morning with a stomach ache.

On the plus side, I got my birthday presents this week. I only asked for Amazon gift cards for my birthday, so I was able to go on a big shopping spree and clear out some of my wish list, which consists largely of instruments and accessories. I got a banjo, a mandolin, and another harmonica, along with a tuner, some straps and extra strings, stands for the instruments, and a sheet music stand for my violin playing. Now I just have to learn how to play all this new stuff. I'm already planning my first song - a multi-track recording of Oh Susanna, with piano, guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, and fiddle, alternating the melody line among the various instruments. We'll see how that goes.

In any case, Nile River Studios is really beginning to shape up. The only major thing I have left to get is a decent drum set. I have no plans currently to buy a bass guitar, although that might change in the future, just depending on how much recording I decide to do. I've got a MIDI controller I can use to play bass lines so it seems kind of silly to get a bass guitar that I'm otherwise not all that interested in playing for its own sake. All the other things I've bought are instruments I actually want to play as an end in themselves, whether or not I ever record anything with them.

I recently finished recording my latest piano piece which was actually a composition by Erik Satie, one of the French Impressionist musicians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I haven't traditionally played much music of this style, but this one is a particularly pretty piece.




I've cut back the number of new songs I'm learning at any given time on the piano, simply because I'm needing more time for playing my other instruments these days. I'm currently only working on 3 new songs, down from the 5 that I've traditionally done in the past. As I've been adding more and more songs to my permanent repertoire, I also need more time to play those songs during my practice sessions to keep them sharp.

Additionally, I MIGHT have a new writing opportunity coming. You all know I wrote a podcast series for Wondery last fall. That all turned out really well and was a great professional writing experience. A few weeks ago, I contacted another podcast company and asked if they were in need of any writers. I ended up talking to one of their producers and sent some writing samples. We're currently working out the details of me maybe writing for one of their shows. So that's all still up in the air, but it looks like a real possibility. So with the potential ahead for more writing work, I figured I should keep my piano practice time as short as possible - I just won't have 3 hours a day if I'm working on a writing project.

Obviously, I'll keep you all abreast (lol, I said "breast") of how that all goes.

American History Tellers Podcast

So I've gotten the opportunity to write a series for a podcast company called Wondery. 

I'll be honest: before this opportunity came up, I'd never listened to a podcast before. I actually recorded a podcast once, but I never heard the finished product. (That was when I was working for a friend's English language learning company as the resident writing expert and we did a podcast for the website on English writing tips.) 

Anyhoo, I am finishing up a series of scripts for a Wondery podcast called American History Tellers. 

This podcast tells stories of American history in a sort of documentary format, including lots of sound effects and re-enactments of historical events. I keep telling people it's sort of like a history documentary you'd see on TV, except it's for audio. It's also similar to an audio book - although unlike printed books, it's actually written for listening. 

The series I'm writing is on the history of party politics in the United States. It starts in the 1790s and goes up through the present day. It's a 6-part series. Each episode is about 40-45 minutes. 

Please understand, I'm writing the script for the series, I'm not narrating it. It's narrated by a podcaster named Lindsay Graham (no, not the douchey senator from South Carolina). It's not in the format of a lot of podcasts where you hear a couple of people talking back and forth or doing an interview. It's a narrative podcast - you're basically listening to a story. It's immersive in style, attempting to put you as the listener right down into the action as it takes place. 

For anyone who doesn't know how podcasts work, it's free. You just listen. There are commercials, like on TV. There are a number of ways to listen. You can go to the Wondery website and stream the shows from your computer. You can listen through smart devices like the Amazon echo (I read somewhere that you can just ask Alexa to play American History Tellers and she'll take care of it for you). You can subscribe to it on whatever app you use to listen to podcasts...Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, NPR-One, etc. 

The first episode drops on Wednesday, November 21, 2018. That's the day before Thanksgiving. The remainder drop each Wednesday thereafter. Of course, you can listen anytime, even if it's a year from now. 

I would be really, really happy if you listened. I'd be even happier if you'd leave a review saying how much you loved it. 

American History Tellers

The 10 Best Songs of Willie Nelson

So, in years past, I've done various "10 Best" posts about music. Today, I decided it was time to do another one. It took me approximately 2.73 seconds to determine whose catalog to feature.

While intently studying this list for future reference, please keep in mind that I have given exactly zero consideration to whether a song is famous or well-known. These songs are the Willie Nelson songs that I think are his best, regardless of whether you ever heard Paw-Paw play them.  Also, I have limited this list to Willie's solo efforts - which means I'm ignoring several hundred duets he's done.

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10. I Gotta Get Drunk

The title pretty much says it all. Willie recorded this song in 1970 for his Both Sides Now album. If you like Willie, and you like to drink, I highly recommend this song while drinking. Or when sober.



9. Sad Songs and Waltzes

This classic is from 1973's Shotgun Willie album. After 15 years in Nashville and 15 prior albums, it was his first really successful effort. It was the album that really set him on the path to super-stardom. When you listen to his albums chronologically, you can definitely hear a change on this one. As the title implies, this is a sad song in 3/4 time about a broken-hearted singer who tells his ex not to worry about becoming famous in a country music song, because no one's currently buying sad songs or waltzes anyway.



8. When I've Sung My Last Hillbilly Song

From what I've read, this was literally Willie's first song. He was working as a DJ in Texas in the mid-50s when he recorded it on a reel-to-reel tape at the radio station. He later added a few more verses and included it on a boxed set in the early 2000s. The song is about a country singer contemplating the end of his life and career. Very ironic to listen to now, knowing it's his earliest recording and he's now 65 years older and there can't possibly be many more songs left.

(Couldn't find a YouTube version of the 2000's version of this song...only the original version from the 50s, which is really, really low quality...if you've got a streaming service, look it up there.)

7. Red Headed Stranger

This is the title track to Willie's signature album. The Red Headed Stranger album made Willie one of the biggest names in country music in 1975 upon its release. It's biggest single was Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain. It's actually a concept album, telling the story of a cowboy who kills his wife and her lover and then flees and attempts to put his life back together. The title song was written in the 50s by a duo of professional songwriters. Willie built his album around it 20 years later. The song tells the story of a cowboy whose wife has died (on Willie's album, it's explained in other songs that he actually killed her for cheating on him). While still in mourning, he goes ahead and shoots a prostitute who dares to lay a hand on his dead wife's horse. It's pretty violent and non-PC to be honest. But this is 'merican country music, so that makes it okay.



6. Help Me Make it Through the Night

This song was written by Kris Kristofferson and Willie recorded it twice. The most famous version of the song is by a female country singer named Sammi Smith. Willie first recorded it in 1972 on his The Willie Way album. He then recorded it again in 1979 for his Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson album. It's that second version that I'm referencing here. Just a perfectly written and perfectly sung country music song.



5. My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys

It's really hard to put this song at #5, because I freaking LOVE this song. But that just goes to show you how good Willie is. This is another song that was written by someone else, but Willie made it famous. This is probably the earliest Willie song that I can actually remember. I recall my mother playing this song when I was a kid. It made me want to be a cowboy.



4. It's Not Supposed to be That Way

This song comes from 1974's Phases and Stages album. It was the album that came after Shotgun Willie and before Red Headed Stranger. Like Red Headed Stranger, it's a concept album, telling the story of a break-up. The front side of the record tells the woman's story, and the back side tells the man's story. It's Not Supposed to be That Way is part of the man's story and it's just a really freaking good country music song. Love it. It's Willie at his best.



3. Healing Hands of Time 

Basically, the top five could probably be in any order, depending on the day. Healing Hands of Time is an absolutely incredible Willie Nelson song. It was released on his third album in 1965, Country Willie: His Own Songs. With a great little acoustic riff that backs up the song, this is one I can just listen to over and over again.



2. Are You Sure

How did Country Willie: His Own Songs not make Willie Nelson famous? Both this song and the last one are from that album. Neither was released as a single at the time. And yet they just have some kind of magic about them that I can't really put into words. When either of these songs comes on, everybody has to shut up to let me listen and sing.



1. Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground 

This is Willie's signature song in The World of B. Scott Christmas. It's a song that he wrote and recorded for the movie Honeysuckle Rose in 1981. He also starred in the movie. It's a live recording, taken straight from the film. He also recorded a version in the studio, but that version was only included on compilation albums and it's not the one I'm referring to here. The Honeysuckle Rose version is the one you need to listen to. This song never fails to give me chills and it's absolutely one of my favorite songs of all time.



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EXTRA SPECIAL BONUS! 

Of course no normal person could come up with just ten songs on a Willie Nelson best songs list, so here's a bonus song that could probably go just about anywhere in the list above.

The Pilgrim: Chapter 33

This is another song written by Kris Kristofferson and included on the Willie Nelson Sings Kristofferson album. I guess Kristofferson probably recorded it at some point too, but I've never heard his version. Willie's version is excellent. It's a song that reminds me a bit of myself. It's a self-reflective song of a person who (presumably) has just turned 33 and is looking at his life and who he is. 

He's a poet, he's a picker
He's a prophet, he's a pusherHe's a pilgrim and a preacher, and a problem when he's stonedHe's a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction,Taking every wrong direction on his lonely way back home.