Five Best...Songs from David Bowie

#5. "Love You Till Tuesday"

Oh, beautiful baby
I was very lonely till I met you on Sunday
My passion's never-ending and I'll love you till Tuesday

#4. "Uncle Arthur"

Round and round goes Arthur's head, hasn't eaten well for days
Little Sally may be lovely, but cooking leaves her in a maze
Uncle Arthur packed his bags and fled
Back to mother, all's forgiven, serving in the family shop
He gets his pocket money, he's well fed

#3. "There Is a Happy Land"

Charlie Brown's got half a crown, he's gonna buy a kite
Jimmy's ill with chicken pox, and Tommy's learned to ride his bike
Tiny Tim sings prayers and hymns, he's so small we don't notice him
He gets in the way but we always let him play with us

#2. "Sell Me a Coat"

And when she smiles, the ice forgets to melt away
Not like before, her smile was warming yesterday
See the trees like silver candy, feel my icy hand

#1. "When I Live My Dream"

Tell them I will live my dream
Tell them they can laugh at me
But don't forget your date with me
When I live my dream

Five Best...Change Songs

#5. "Changes" by David Bowie

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Don't tell them to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-changes
Where's your shame?
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me,
But you can't trace time

#4. "Free Bird" by Lynard Skynard

...And this bird you cannot change.

#3. "Change Your Mind" by Neil Young

When you're confused and the world has got you down
When you feel used and you just can't play the clown
Protecting you from this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Don't let another day go by without the magic touch

Protecting you (change your mind)
Restoring you (change your mind)
Revealing you (change your mind)
Soothing you (change your mind)

#2. "The Times They Are A-Changin'" by Bob Dylan

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

#1. "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke

I was born by the river in a little tent
And just like the river, I've been running ever since
It's been a long time coming
But I know a change is gonna come

Five Best...Marlon Brando Songs

#5. "Close but No Cigar" by Weird Al Yankovic

And I loved her even more
Than Marlon Brando loved souffle
She was gorgeous, she was charming
Yeah, she was perfect in every way

#4. "Marlon Brando's Laundromat" by Pony Up!

Tonight, all my clothes are dirty
Tonight.
Tonight, Marlon help me wash my clothes
Tonight.
Tonight, I'm staying home and I'll sleep tight.

#3. "It's Hard to Be a Saint in the City" by Bruce Springsteen

I had skin like leather and the diamond-hard look of a cobra
I was born blue and weathered but I burst just like a supernova
I could walk like Brando right into the sun, then dance just like a Casanova

#2. "Pocahontas" by Neil Young

And maybe Marlon Brando
Will be there by the fire
We'll sit and talk of Hollywood
And the good things there for hire
And the Astrodome and the first tepee
Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me
Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me

#1. "China Girl" by David Bowie

I feel tragic like I'm Marlon Brando
When I look at my China Girl
I could pretend that nothing really meant too much
When I look at my China Girl

Early in the Morning, I'm Callin' YouTube, Vol. VIII

I've proclaimed my liking of the Jackson 5 on Five Best before, and I'm backing it up with evidence: "Lookin' Through the Window." It's one of their most mature songs, and sounds like it belongs on the Superfly soundtrack. This version is from the Sonny & Cher Show, and has some terribly awkward dialogue between Sonnny and Michael Jackson, but once the song begins, it sounds really good--even if they're clearly lip syncing.

Sometime next week, I'll post my Rock 'N' Roll Revisited about Sam Cooke's Live at the Harlem Square Club, which appears in the New School Free Press next Tuesday. There's a sad lack of Cooke videos on the Internet, but here's one of him singing "Everybody Loves to Cha Cha" to a bunch of white kids.

Want to see fantastically corny? Look no further than David Bowie dropping by his friend's house, only to find Bing Crosby is there! But, of course, Bowie doesn't know it's Bing, and for one reason or another, they're soon singing a duet to "Little Drummer Boy." 'Tis the season, indeed.

In my last "Early in the Morning," I posted a video of Billy Bragg singing "Superstar" by the Carpenters. This week, I'm posting one of Sonic Youth doing the same song--but, because it's Sonic Youth, it sounds like nothing else.

This is still one of the funniest videos I've ever seen on YouTube: it begins with Lawrence Welk talking about a song being "high on the popularity charts," and you expect to hear some schmaltzy piece of junk; instead, we hear "Sister Ray" by the Velvet Underground (maybe the least popular song ever) being "performed" by the band. It's hilarious and genius.

Five Best...David Bowie Looks

#5. Labyrinth Bowie


#4. Let's Dance-era


#3. Early Bowie


#2. Thin White Duke


#1. Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane

Five Best...Rock Operas

(Working off the Wikipedia page for "rock opera albums" because if you try hard enough, you can make nearly any album fall under the title of being a "rock opera.")

#10. Purple Rain by Prince and the Revolution

#9. American Idiot by Green Day

#8. Frank's Wild Years by Tom Waits

#7. Greendale by Neil Young

#6. Quadrophenia by The Who

#5. Joe's Garage by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

#4. Tommy by The Who

#3. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars by David Bowie

#2. Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) by The Kinks

#1. "A Quick One (While He's Away)" by The Who

Five Best...Songs Mentioning "Spiders"

#5. “Save Ginny Weasley” by Harry and the Potters

Are you scared to walk through the hallways?
Are you worried that the spiders run away?
Are you petrified of being petrified?
Are we going to have to save the school again?

#4. “Safe as Milk” by Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band

Well, my cigarette died when I washed my face
Dropped some drops in an ashtray, hit a wrong place
Woman at my blinds to see spider’s spinning lines
It’s a-safe as milk, it's a-safe as milk

#3. “Apeman” by The Kinks

I'm an apeman,
I'm an ape, apeman,
Oh I'm an apeman
I'm a King Kong man,
I'm a voodo man,
Oh, I'm an apeman
‘Cause compared to the sun that sits in the sky,
Compared to the clouds as they roll by,
Compared to the bugs and the spiders and flies, I am an apeman.

#2. “Ziggy Stardust” by David Bowie

Ziggy played guitar, jammin' good with Weird and Gilly,
The spiders from Mars, he played it left hand
But made it too far
Became the special man, then we were Ziggy's band

#1. “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” by Wilco

Spiders are singing in the salty breeze
Spiders are filling out tax returns
Spinning out webs of deductions and melodies
On a private beach in Michigan

Why can't they wish their kisses good
Why do they miss when their kisses should
Fly like winging birds fighting for the keys
On a private beach in MichiganD

Five Best...Songs on Station to Station by David Bowie

#5. "TVC 15"

#4. "Word on a Wing"

#3. "Golden Years"

#2. "Station to Station"

#1. "Wild is the Wind"

Early in the Morning, I'm Callin' YouTube, Vol. III

I'm going back upstate for the weekend, so I won't be posting again until Monday. Due to that, I'm making two posts today: the one I've already put up about the Wilco concert and this collection of interesting YouTube videos. But when I get back, I'll have reviews for both the Levon Helm Band in Albany and Bob Dylan and His Band in Bethel. Have a good weekend.

You had to know I was going to post some kind of Dylan video and this, a clip of "Visions of Johanna" from the '66 tour, might just be the greatest acoustic recording he's ever made.

As a huge David Bowie fan, I felt slightly aghast when I realized I had never seen Labyrinth when I was a child. When I finally did watch it about a week ago, I realize that a) it's not the greatest thing in the world but still pretty good and b) Bowie as a Goblin King is the most inspired casting call this side of making Marlon Brando Superman's daddy. Here's the video of a young Jennifer Connelly dancing around with creepy pink Muppets to "Chilly Down," a song with little rhytm, has a creature sound like Louis Armstrong and is just really good.

"Hoochie Coochie Man" performed by Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Junior Wells, Johnny Winter and Mike Bloomfield. All at once: Wow!

People rave about the version of "Caravan" on It's Too Late to Stop Now, but it never sounded better than it did with The Band at The Last Waltz. Plus, you gotta respect any man wearing that suit.

Speaking of Van the Man, here's a live performance of my favorite song of his, "Saint Dominic's Preview."

And lastly:

A great Simpsons scene.

Hangin' with the Spiders

I hadn't listened to Ziggy in quite some time, but when I visited Scranton, a friend and I put it into the CD player and I remembered why I loved it so much. The album is almost a musical cliche at this point, along with Sgt Pepper's, but when you've got a great album, why bother with worrying about cliches?

Five Best...Songs from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

#5. "Ziggy Stardust"

#4. "Starman"

#3. "Lady Stardust"

#2. "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide"

(I think this could be a perfect ballad if Bowie had made the song a bit longer, because it's a case in rock when a song is about to reach its peak and then inexplicably falls--much like The Velvet Underground's "I'm Sticking With You")

#1. "Suffragette City"