Tag Archives: Song Blog

25. I’m lookin’ for one thing real tonight

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Otter asked me what my favorite Dan Bern song was. I still don’t really know, but for a while I considered One Thing Real to be it. He seemed to play it every time I saw him live the first couple of years. The one time I really remember was the time I worried about him most.

He’d been promised the Music Hall at the Birchmere. This is the same Birchmere that launched Mary Chapin Carpenter among others. The new Birchmere has a large room with a stage and seating for hundreds of people. Birchmere has a policy that if you don’t sell a certain number of tickets before the show day, they don’t put you in the Music Hall. My friend’s boyfriend worked there at the time and told me the bad news.

I worried that Dan would be upset that he’d been denied the Music Hall. I got there early to get a good seat in the Bandstand – Pretty much just an extension of the bar. I didn’t have to worry. There were a handful of people there. I sat front and center. I could put my feet on the stage if I’d dared. (for those of you thinking of ever seeing Dan Bern live – I’d suggest you not sit that close. See, he gets really into his songs and sometimes saliva is involved. If you like that kind of thing, then go for it. Otherwise, sit a couple of rows back).

So anyway, he got on stage and seemed out of it as I’d worried. He’d plugged his guitar in and sang a couple of songs. Then he sang my favorite, One Thing Real.

When he got to this part:

I’m up here singin’ these songs every night
Sometimes I wanna just make ’em all up on the spot
Maybe they wouldn’t rhyme too good, they might not make sense
But then at least I wouldn’t be repeating myself
I’m lookin’ for one thing real tonight

He stopped singing but still strummed his his guitar and he looked at the small audience. Then told us that if we wanted to we could crowd around the stage and he’d sing unplugged – since it was such a small audience. In retrospect, perhaps he was not angry – maybe disappointed, but wanted to give us a good performance as possible. And that meant intimate.

Although I was worried for him at the time and didn’t really like the show, a friend gave me a CD he’d burned from a recording he’d made of the show. All-in-all, it was a good show and the intimacy made it all the better. If he had been on the big stage in the Music Hall it would have been so different.

13. I Like Olives

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There are a few songs called Jerusalem. The first song I’d heard with that title was the one they sing in England – the hymn – which Wikipedia tells me was originally a William Blake poem. I probably initially heard it on Masterpiece Theatre, but was amused to discover, on my first visit there, that they actually do sing it in England.

The second song I heard called Jerusalem was by Dan Bern. It is not a hymn. Probably the opposite. If Dan has a signature song, Jerusalem is it. It is also another song of his that gave me belly laughs the first few times I heard it – and it is always received well at his shows. People used to bring him jars of olives when he toured after releasing this song on his first two albums.

Sometimes Steve Earle is compared to Dan Bern (or visa versa) and I think I knew before today that Earle had a Jerusalem too, but didn’t realize how much his voice was like Dan’s until just now. Here it is on YouTube too. Hmm, I like this.

It would be interesting to be able to hear all the different songs called Jerusalem by the various artists, but I’m getting a little Internet search weary this afternoon.

11. Smells like a car full of boys

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I’d heard of the band Nirvana and knew who Kurt Cobain was, even before Dan Bern sang about Cobain and before I heard Dan sing Pennyroyal Tea. But I didn’t care. I still don’t necessarily like Nirvana’s music, but one song brings back a not-so-distant memory.

A few summers ago my kids and I visited friends in Lake Tahoe. It was my first time there and driving from Oakland to Tahoe was more experience than I’d expected. I was content to hang out at our friend’s home and drive around the lake a bit.

One day the hosts decided we’d all visit Virginia City and my car was necessary to carry passengers there. I was nervous, but figured it would be good for me – to drive though the mountains once again before I had to drive back to San Francisco later that week. The kids were allowed to choose the cars they wanted to ride in. The two girls (my daughter and her friend) chose to ride in the van with the experienced mountain driver leaving me to ferry the boys to Virginia City. (What did they think? If I got too scared to drive the boys would push the car?)

They were all excited – after all, the airport had upgraded me to a bright blue PT Cruiser and it was a novelty car at the time. “The boys” included David and his friend – both 16, Artie – 15 and my son – 11. We started out and as long as I didn’t look off the side of the road I was okay. The one thing I soon became aware of was the odor in the car. Three teenage and one preteen boy in a closed-up car in Nevada summertime made for a nose scrinching aroma.

To take my mind off the smell and mountain roads, I turned on the radio, but David handed me a CD. Artie, who was in the front seat, slid it into the CD player and as we sailed over the Nevada mountain roads the perfect song came over the speakers: Smells like Teen Spirit. Not only did I forget where I was, I let the boys roll down the windows and we played the song loudly several times. No fear and no smell…

Yeah, so the song is not about stinky boys, but I always think of that car ride when I hear it.