Tag Archives: Gene Clark Songs

“If You Could Read My Mind” (Gordon Lightfoot Cover)

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By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to yet another all-new edition of everyone’s favorite acoustic cover song music blog! Today, I’m bringing you a song taken from Jim’s list of songs to record. He’s noticed that I’ve been having a hard time recently finding songs from new artists to cover — most of the songs I want (and I have quite the list) are either from artists I’ve recently covered or have difficult singing parts that I need more practice with. So, he suggested I do Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.” I have always loved this song, and my passion for it was renewed when I picked up a copy of Gene Clark’s album Firebyrd. The album includes a cover song version of this song that I love every bit as much as the original. So, in a way, this is the perfect track to choose for a Laptop Session — a song by a new artist that was once covered by an artist whose material we have often covered on this video blog. If that made sense to you, then you deserve extra points!…

Regular fans of the Sessions may notice that I’m standing up tonight instead of sitting, as I have been for many of my recent video blog entries. Well, the reason is simple — even though this is not an upbeat song, I felt that I just wasn’t doing well with it while sitting. I’m kind of like Robert Redford’s character in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in that way. In the film, Sundance (played by Redford) is asked to shoot a target in order to prove how good a shot he is. The man insists that he not draw from his holster; rather, he should simply take aim and shoot. He does so and misses. The man grins disappointedly and starts to walk away. Then, Sundance puts the gun back in his holster, draws, and rapidly shoots the rather small target repeatedly.

When the man looks at him, awe-struck, Sundance’s response is something like, “I’m better when I’m moving.”

While recording acoustic cover songs is obviously not anything like firing a weapon, I do often think about this comparison when I’m playing. When I’m on my feet, I tend to take what I’m playing more seriously and I truly feel more comfortable than if I were to sit and play.

Well, now that you have more information about my style of playing acoustic guitar music than you could ever have hoped for or desired to know, I’ll leave you with the actual session. I kind of wore myself down on this one, playing so many takes that, although it is technically solid, I feel that it lost some of the urgency of the earlier takes. Of course, it didn’t help that my computer lost battery power and shut down in the middle of my most perfect take. If only it had held out for two more minutes, I would have been done a half hour earlier than I was!

Okay, without further ado, here’s my version of Gordon Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind.” Don’t forget to hurry back tomorrow for an all-new and excellent session from Jeff!

See you next session!



“Here Without You” (The Byrds acoustic and 12-string electric cover song)

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By Jim Fusco:

Welcome, welcome to yet another Jim Fusco Tuesday here on the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog.  Actually, tonight, you get two for the price of one: I have Chris Moore with me to record this session!  And boy, did it come out great.  If your connection can handle it, click the “HQ” button and listen to the better audio feed of this one.  It’s in full stereo (I LOVE my microphone) and the levels are perfect!

And tonight debuts my brand new 12-string electric guitar!  And what a way to bring it in.  I knew I had to do a Byrds song.  No, it’s not a Rickenbacher.  Who can justify spending literally 8 times more for the same essential thing.  My version is from Dean and I love it.  It looks great and plays even better.  The sound is there, too- just like all my favorite 12-string songs.  Look for more in the future.  I can’t wait to bust out my new lap steel guitar, as well.  In a couple weeks, I’ll be getting an HD cam, so all my Laptop Sessions will be in high definition.  How cool is that?  At that point, I’ll be able to start my new mini-series entitled “Jim’s Guitars”- stay tuned.

Gene Clark wrote tonight’s song and it was off of the Byrds first album, “Mr. Tambourine Man.”  Now, this isn’t the greatest album, but it really could have been.  That is, if half the album weren’t Bob Dylan covers and other cover songs.  Not to knock cover songs, but the songwriting of Gene Clark (and in the future, the rest of the band) was so far ahead of its time and his songs are simply timeless.  This song takes me back to when I was at Wesleyan for 5 weeks in the summer of 2000.  I was at a program called “CCY”, the Center for Creative Youth.  Good fit, eh? 🙂

Anyway, those five weeks seemed like a whole lifetime at the time- everything that happened in one day seemed like a year.  So, even not seeing someone for two days made it seem like you were living “here without you”.  Needless to say, this song was all I listened to when I got back that summer.

I have to keep tonight’s post short because of my marathon video editing job last night.  I need to catch up and this is my only opportunity.  So, without further ado, I hope you enjoy the great effort put out by Chris and myself tonight on the Byrds’ classic song, “Here Without You”.  You won’t be here without us for too long, as Jeff will be back on Thursday for another great cover song music video.  Until next week!!

“You Showed Me” (The Turtles cover)

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By Jim Fusco:

Tuesday…what a day.  Not enough to be mid-week, and not far enough away from the past weekend to let you forget about it.  At least Chris got the day off today, so he texted me updates on his (nothing) day every half hour.  If only I didn’t only have 200 texts a month…and if only Chris were home every day.

Onto tonight’s video- actually posted before midnight for once!

I told you that you’d get a twin-spin with The Turtles, and here it is.  “You Showed Me” is a song I’ve known for most of my 24 years, hearing it on the oldies radio station 102.9 “Big D 103” here in Connecticut.  But I got to revisit the song after my family and I got into the Byrds.  We listened to every single released (and unreleased, for that matter) Byrds song and loved every minute…except for David Crosby’s “Mind Garden”, my vote for the ABSOLUTE worst song of all time.  Go ahead- go search for it and tell me it isn’t.  I dare you.

So, how do the Byrds fit in here?  Well, we came across this song again on the Byrds “Preflyte” sessions box set, which is awesome, by the way.  It’s a collection of all of their songs before they ever recorded their first album with Columbia Records.  It’s a great collection, especially because the band wrote most of the songs.  The lead singer and songwriter at that time was Gene Clark.  He wrote some of the world’s best songs and it’s been a pleasure to cover his songs on multiple occasions here on the best music video blog on the internet!

Gene Clark and Roger McGuinn (Jim at the time) of the Byrds wrote “You Showed Me”.  They recorded mutliple versions of this song with the Byrds during the “Preflyte” sessions, but the song never showed up on an official Byrds album.  Instead, they gave it (or maybe Columbia gave it- I’ll have to check that out) to The Turtles to turn into a HUGE hit.  Well, I’m glad it became a hit either way and it’s just another example of Gene Clark’s amazing songwriting abilities.  It makes it all the more sad that he barely ever got recognition for it.

I hope you enjoy tonight’s video, as I gear up for yet another “new” band to the Laptop Sessions on Friday.  Which one?  Well, let me give you a hint.  This man was (and I think may actually be getting back) with one of the most famous “stoner” bands of all time.  You know, ridiculously long concerts, etc.  Which band?  Which man?  You’ll just have to wait until Friday to find out!  Thankfully we have Chris and Jeff posting their great videos in between to tide us over!  See you then.

“Dark of My Moon” (Gene Clark Cover)

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Welcome to your Super Bowl Sunday edition of The Laptop Sessions acoustic cover songs music video blog! As a quick note on the Super Bowl, I’m a Jets “fan”, so even though this concerns two northeast teams, I really don’t care who wins. On top of that, I’m a baseball fan, so hearing that the Mets signed Johan Santana, it already feels like a win.

On to today’s acoustic cover song:

I’ve said it before, but Gene Clark is in the running for best songwriter of all time. Those know know Gene’s music share my admiration of it, and even though finding someone who’s even HEARD of him is few and far between, I know this acoustic cover version of “Dark of My Moon” will make a lot of fans very happy.

“Dark of My Moon” and is an “unreleased” song that was formally released only as an acoustic demo a few years ago (long after Gene passed away). This has been a favorite of everyone in my family since we first heard it and I’m proud to bring it to the Laptop Sessions music blog.

This literally took me 30 takes to do. This is a very powerful song and I needed to do it right. I found that the more I played it, the harder it became to sing. But, after plenty of loud obscenities, I finally got the perfect take, which I present to you today.

Listen to the words of this song and listen to how the music rises and falls with the emotions. Not all of Gene Clark’s songs were this slow and sad-sounding, but most of them had this hint of melancholy to them.  Even in a fast-paced song like “Feel A Whole Lot Better”, Gene would put this sad tinge on the lyrics.  But, what’s interesting about “Feel A Whole Lot Better” is how he says, “I’ll probably feel a whole lot better when you’re gone.”  He doesn’t even know for sure!  I think that extra dimension to Gene Clark’s lyrics is what made him so great.  He had a way with words and you could tell he looked up to guys like Bob Dylan.  For “Dark of My Moon”, you can tell it’s a very personal song.  Lines like, “That’s the tenth time that you went and then came back,” make the listener realize that he’s talking about something (and someone) very specific.  On songs like that, I usually choose not to do a cover version.  But, “Dark of My Moon” is such a great song, I just couldn’t help it.  The way Gene Clark sings in the rough demo version is just perfectly suited to the content of the song.  This is only the first of many solo Gene Clark cover songs to come here on the video blog (not to mention those he did with the Byrds), so I hope everyone enjoys it!

Stay tuned as the Laptop Session a day in 2008 “keeps burnin'”! (to quote another great Gene Clark song)