For J.J. Cale / Eric Clapton chords and lyrics, CLICK HERE!
By Chris Moore:
Okay, so before I explain my song choice tonight, I have to briefly address the music video I just watched. I really do love music videos, and it seems a lost art. Interestingly enough, it seems that the MTV show “Total Request Live,” or TRL for short, both furthered the popularity of music videos… and led to their demise. I mean, what’s better than a show devoted to showing music videos? Oh, wait — TRL, not unlike commercial radio, ended up circulating only about ten popular videos on any given day. Oh yeah, and the show only aired clips of those ten music videos! What?! Who decided on this format? No wonder they finally took it off the air!
To be fair, I heard that the show had recently adopted a more progressive format, utilizing online resources to poll viewers, etc. But I stopped watching the show loooong before that.
Anyway, back to the music video I just watched. I was on Yahoo and saw a link to Coldplay’s new music video for “Life in Technicolor II” — it’s a great one! I was impressed with the overall progression of the video, as it documents a children’s puppet show that turns into an all-out rock’n roll concert that includes the puppet versions of Chris Martin and company playing their instruments, and Martin not only jumping around (hanging as though suspended in the air as he sings “Now my feet won’t touch the ground”) and crowd surfing. It ends with them being picked up, in true rock star style, by a helicopter that exits the room by smashing through a window. Which begs the question… how did it get in in the first place?
And this is wonderful…
…except for the fact that the Barenaked Ladies already did this! Certainly, Coldplay’s video is not a plagiarism of BnL’s music video for “Pollywog in a Bog” last year (I wonder if they even saw it), but it seems odd that they did a puppet show so soon after BnL. I guess that just goes to show how ahead of the curve they are. If you haven’t seen these videos, you should definitely go watch them. BOTH of them — it’ll be worth the six minutes of your life it will take! (Just search on YouTube for “Barenaked Ladies Pollywog” and “Coldplay puppets”). The BnL video is especially worthwhile, if only for the really cute animal puppets that look creepily similar to the respective band members. Such a fun and funny video!!
Okay, so back to my video for tonight…
Those of you who regularly frequent the blog will already know that my goal this year is to tie every “Chris Moore Monday” in somehow with the following New Music Tuesday. So, you may be wondering what a J.J. Cale song that is over four decades old has to do with new music… Well, J.J. Cale is releasing a new album tomorrow entitled Roll On, his first solo album since 2004. His most recent success was The Road to Escondido, an album recorded in 2006 in conjunction with Eric Clapton. This was certainly not their first interaction, as Cale wrote the songs “After Midnight” and “Cocaine,” both of which Clapton popularized. When I was growing up, my dad would often play his “Cream of Clapton” greatest hits, which included both of these songs.
Thus, it is my honor to bring you an old Cale track in honor of his new release, which (again) comes out tomorrow. This song may have been written in 1966, but he’s still writing and recording in 2009 at the age of 70, and that is nothing short of amazing!
See you next session!