Tag Archives: Song Blog

9. Faaaaaaar Out!

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I tend to be a one musician at time person. I don’t know if that is normal or not, but there you have it. After my fleeting interest in Jack Wild and before I discovered Kate Bush I was a huge John Denver fan. Like with Kate Bush, it was the lyrics that caught and held me. Except for hearing songs on the radio, practically the only music I listened to during that time was John Denver’s music – the fact that I only had two of his albums meant that I listened to the same songs over and over and over…

One of my favorite songs on his Greatest Hits album was For Baby (For Bobbie). I pictured a man walking with his young son and showing him the wonders of nature. It was simple, and sweet and I liked it and made me think of what life would be like with a child of my own.

I remember seeing John Denver on a couple of TV specials, but the show that I remember the most was when he was on the Tonight Show – probably in 1973 or 1974. He may or may not have been wearing his signature glasses, but I suspect not. He was changing. When Johnny Carson (or Ed McMahon) urged him to say “Faaaaaaar Out!” he refused, saying, in essence, he was beyond that. I lost a little respect for him that night, and it was not much later that I put his albums away.

I never told too many people about my John Denver obsession – the ones I did, laughed at me. Still, when I hear a song that was on one of those two albums that I particularly liked, I usually smile and even tap my foot a little.

8. Marilyn – finally, a Dan Bern post

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Friday May 23, 1997 was a major turning point in my musical as well as personal life, and I owe it all to an NPR broadcast. Normally I listened to books on tape on the long commute from Alexandria to Bethesda. This Friday, however, I either was tired of the book or just didn’t have one.

I was not paying attention to the first part of the broadcast, so missed the introduction, but when I heard a few lines from Marilyn, I was a changed woman. By the time they played Cure for AIDS I nearly had to pull off to the shoulder of the beltway because I was laughing at some of the lyrics. I don’t know what it was about these songs – did I need them on this particular day? Or were they genuinely so good that I was sold on this new singer/songwriter?

I listened carefully at the end of the interview and dangerously wrote down his name on a scrap of paper: Dan Burn.

That weekend I ran out and looked in the record stores for an album by Dan Burn. No luck. I assumed he was not popular enough to have an album in Tower Records or Borders Books and Music. I didn’t give up, though and turned to the Internet to find out what I could. Somehow I found out that I’d misspelled his name – it was Bern, not Burn and ran back to Tower Records and found his second album: Dan Bern.

I played it in the car, and nearly peed my pants laughing at some of the songs.

I was hooked. I became a rabid fan, joining email lists, traveling out of state to see him – the day after I saw him locally, buying all of his albums the day they were released, trading blank cds for upwards of 50 bootlegs, downloading mp3’s by the gigabyte.

I’ve tried to interest most of my friends in his music, but so far no one has really taken to him. I’ve learned that obsessions are not transferable. So I made friends of some already converted folks through the years.

Consider yourself warned. This is not the last you’ll see a post on Dan Bern in this blog. Not by a long shot.

5. Everything’s Coming up Woses

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I’d forgotten this brief obsession until, while watching the Academy Awards the other night, saw Jack Wild’s name and face in the montage of the people who’d died during the year. That I’d not heard about it shouldn’t have been surprising, but it was. And sad. After all, since I’d not seen him in anything since Oliver! (and maybe H.R. Pufnstuff), I expected him to still be the cute freckle-faced adolescent I had a minor crush on after David Henesy from Dark Shadows and before I’d discovered real guys were more fun than imaginary ones.

I don’t remember where or when I bought his album, Everything’s Coming up Roses, but I remember playing it a lot. I’d sing along with Jack, to the point of saying “woses” instead of “roses”. I wasn’t making fun of his missing R as much as delighting in that small idiosyncrasy of his.

I’ve kept this album, although when I transferred many of my vinyl albums to cd & mp3 format, I purposely set this one aside. I didn’t think I’d want to waste computer space, a cd or my time digitizing it. Not until now, a day about halfway between the academy awards ceremony and the first anniversary of his death.

He didn’t seem to do much in the way of entertainment between H. R. Pufnstuff, his few albums and his death. He was a heavy smoker and a heavy drinker and it is fairly certain that combination caused his eventual tongue and throat cancer. He had his larynx and tongue removed in 2002. This all certainly makes me reconsider having a second glass of wine with dinner these days.

Sorry for bringing our music discussion down a notch or three. I never said I had good taste in music.