Tag Archives: laptop sessions

“New Pony” (Bob Dylan / Dead Weather Cover)

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For Bob Dylan / Dead Weather chords & lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hello and welcome to yet another delay for the “double header” I promised last week or (technically) two weeks ago.  But I have a good reason for holding off!  Tonight, I’ve recorded “New Pony,” one of my least favorite Bob Dylan songs, because a brand new cover version was released on last week’s Dead Weather debut album.

First, I’ll give a little background on the original version of the song.  “New Pony” was first released on Bob Dylan’s 1978 album Street Legal.  To give you a little context here, Dylan had recently released Blood on the Tracks and Desire, arguably two of his best albums.  The year 1975 found him fully engaged in the Rolling Thunder Revue along with such artists as Joan Baez, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, poet Allen Ginsberg, and others.  Although he temporarily revived a different incarnation of the Revue in 1976, this phase of Dylan’s musical career was pretty much over by 1977.

This is not to say that life wasn’t busy for him.  This was right around the time that his marriage to Sara Dylan was breaking down and the divorce proceedings began.  A lot — perhaps too much — has been written about these personal aspects. 

Street Legal was the product of a few weeks of sessions involving a select group of musicians that Dylan had recently worked with.  Although his past two albums had met with critical success and his subsequent album, 1979’s Slow Train Coming, would earn him his first Grammy award, Street Legal has generally been lost in the valley between these two peaks.

Personally, I have always liked this album.  Sure, the female background singers come across as a bit cheesy at times (have you heard “Baby, Stop Crying”?) and the instrumentation can be a bit much at times, but there are some great songs.  “Changing of the Guards” is one of my favorite album openers and boasts a rare fade-in.  “Is Your Love in Vain?” and “True Love Tends to Forget” are fantastic Dylan deep cuts.  And “Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)” is a narrative wrapped in the best, darkest mood you’ve ever felt.  (Jerry Garcia recorded a great version of the latter.)

As for “New Pony”?  Well, it generally ranks as one of my least favorite Dylan recordings of all time, and certainly on this record.  In fact, it’s the very rare track that I may occasionally skip when listening to the album.  Why it was placed in the number 2 slot, I’ll never know.

That being said, let’s flash forward to 2009.  Last week, the Dead Weather released their debut album, Horehound.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this group, this is a side project band composed of the White Stripes’ Jack White (drums, some vocals, acoustic guitar on one track), the Kills’ Alison Mosshart (lead vocals), Queens of the Stone Age’s Dead Fertita (guitar, etc.), and Jack Lawrence (bass, etc.).  I really liked last year’s Raconteurs album (Jack White and Jack Lawrence’s other side project band), so I figured I would give this one a shot as well.

Long review short, I was not as impressed as I had hoped to be.  (My one-sentence review is coming shortly!)  That being said, the album certainly has its moments, and for me, one of the best moments is track seven when they cover Dylan’s “New Pony.”

This is an excellent example of a band you wouldn’t necessarily think of as being heavily influenced by Bob Dylan turning around and pulling off a stand-up interpretation of one of his songs.  After hearing it, I thought that this song fit better on this album than it did on Street Legal.  In that sense, I was happy to assign “New Pony” to a better place in my estimation of Dylan’s catalog of songs.

So, without further ado, I submit to you my acoustic rendition of the song as a send-up to the 1978 Dylan version and a tip of the hat to the brand-new 2009 version by the Dead Weather.  I found that I was psyched to learn this ridiculously easy (at least chord-wise) song.  Anyone who visits the Laptop Sessions on any regular basis knows that I’m no stranger to a Bob Dylan cover song, but I never thought I’d be recording this one.

Well, at least not until I ran out of all the other ones in 2045 or so…

I hope you enjoy this, and be sure to stop back tomorrow for Jim Fusco’s Tuesday post, a couple days later for Jeff Copperthite’s Thumpin’ Thursday, and later this week for at least one more post from your truly.  (I’ve got so much to say about other music and non-music related topics, but I think this is quite enough for one post!)

See you next session!

Where has the summer gone?

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By Jeff:

A couple of months ago, I was going into school to clean out the classroom. I had had the busiest of my 3 years at my school, being a coach, a moderator, and of course a teacher. Thankfully I didn’t have to move too many things, or take much down. I even arranged the desks in a configuration i’d like to try for the new school year.

But after that last day, I had a field trip to Boston with the Saturday Program students the next Monday. That was fun and busy, but exhausting.

Then a week later, it was off to UNH for 2 weeks of training. Training for a course it doesn’t look like i’ll be teaching this year. It really is a shame, though. This past year I taught a Saturday program at Fairfield University for high school freshmen. It was like a TAG program (Talented and Gifted). The students were very smart, with-it, and fast. The course was a lot of fun to teach, and the kids loved it. Attendance was exemplary for a saturday program that draws from the inner city.

But it looks like we are unable to continue the program this year because G.E., who was the source of our funds, decided to cut our grant – despite basically giving a 4 year commitment.

So these poor kids who had such a good time with the first year, cannot continue.

Despite this, if the program DOES continue at some point in the future, i’ll be ready to teach it.

So after that, I had a couple of weeks off which included a trip to the ever famous and heavily reported Jim Fusco’s wedding. And it lived up to expectations.

Then a nice week-long vacation at an all-inclusive resort (see my post last week for a couple of thoughts about that).

But I am realizing that, holy crap where has the summer gone? I go back to school in 2 weeks. It really goes by way to quickly.

It almost (emphasis on almost) makes me want to work all year so I don’t have an extended break to look forward too. I think I’d appreciate vacations a little more.

I didn’t get a chance to record a whole bunch of videos and I have not gotten any writing done. All my time spent playing guitar has been for the purpose of learning and recording songs for this site.

Unfortunately for me, while I feel relaxed and energized, I still feel like I’ve got nothing done. It’s a terrible feeling.

And my immediate future is going to be busy as well. This semester I’ve been asked to teach 4 classes instead of the usual 3 (for a nice pay boost), and at some point during this semester my life is going to change forever.

Yeah it’ll be a very exciting next few months.

But in conclusion, I really dislike the fact that time feels relative. The upcoming year, while it will be exciting, will move at a much slower pace, as opposed to the breakneck speed of summer I have experienced.

But at least you’ve got us for entertainment all 52 weeks of the year!

“Passing Friend” by the Beach Boys – Chords, Tabs, & How to Play

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To see how this cover song is played, CLICK HERE!

“Passing Friend”
Beach Boys – Written by Culture Club’s George O’Dowd & Roy Hay

Intro: Gm – F  (x4)

F                    Eb                             Bb
Well, there’s nothing worse than a passing friend
Bb          Eb                        Bb
Who will die on you till the bitter end.
Bb          Eb                            Bb
There’s nothing worse than a burning heart
Bb    Eb                          Bb                                             Gm – F (x2)
Or a past that tears the world apart.

F              Gm                             F
I’ve been thinking about my situation,
Nothing ventured, nothing left to lose.
When it’s easier to just say nothing,
I had thought about what I might lose.

F                        Cm7
But through the child’s eyes,
Cm7
There were feelings
Dm7
Touching my violet skin.
Dm7         Cm7
When the love games start appealing,
Dm7
You better get out and move on in…

‘Cause there’s nothing worse than a passing friend
Or a pioneer of a dying trend,
Nothing worse than a silent ghost
Or to lose your head at the starting post.

Ain’t it always just a short vacation?
When it’s love it always has to end.
Under the sheets of life it’s just frustration,
While the body goes in search again.

But through the child’s eyes,
There were feelings
Touching my violet skin.
When the love games start appealing,
You better get out and move on in…

‘Cause there’s nothing worse than a passing friend
Who will die on you till the bitter end.
There’s nothing worse than a burning heart
Or a past that tears the world apart.

Eb                Dm7                Cm7                               Bb
Why do you love someone who wants to break your heart?
Why do you need someone who wants to tear your world apart?
No; no, not again…

SOLO

I was packing up my life in cases
For a hundred years or maybe more.
I’ve been talking to a million people,
Don’t you think I should have known the score?

But in the child’s eyes,
There were feelings
Touching my violet skin.
When the love games start appealing,
You better get out and move on in…

‘Cause there’s nothing worse than a passing friend
Who will die on you till the bitter end.
There’s nothing worse than a burning heart
Or a past that tears the world apart.

‘Cause there’s nothing worse than a passing friend
Or a pioneer of a dying trend,
Nothing worse than a silent ghost
Or to lose your head at the starting post.

No; no, not again…

** These chords and lyrics are interpretations and transcriptions, respectively, and are the sole property of the copyright holder(s). They are posted on this website free of charge for no profit for the purpose of study and commentary, as allowed for under the “fair use” provision of U.S. copyright law, and should only be used for such personal and/or academic work. **

“Amnesia” (Toad the Wet Sprocket Cover)

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By Jeff:

Welcome to your late edition of Thumpin’ Thursday!  A day that is so awesome that it can only come once per week, otherwise the unexplained will occur.

No, I don’t understand it either, but I forget what I was going for there…

I must have Amnesia.

Wait!  I do!  It’s the song from Toad the Wet Sprocket’s final album “Coil” called “Amnesia!”

Excuse me while I walk to the door that you’ve inevitably sent me too…

Ok i’m back.  The song and band were one of my favorite “I seem to be the only one who has heard of this album” records from my childhood.  I’m glad that with my higher understanding of guitar and music, that I can finally play some of the songs from this album because they are among my favorites.

This song is well suited for guitar and really comes out nicely on the sessions format.  This is another take 1 as well, which is always a good thing.

I’m so excited that in about 36 hours, I will be at Jim’s wedding, which I know him and Becky are very excited and nervous about (well, at least I think so on the latter).  It should be a blast and I look forward to it.  I also can’t wait to hear what brother Mike will divulge about the Notorious J.I.M.

Ok that’s it for this evening.  See you next week where i’ll be bringing you a new session while Jim gets the old pasty-white sunburn in Hawaii.

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately, Jeff’s acoustic cover song music videos are no longer on YouTube, but we decided to keep his cover song blog posts up.  We figured these music blog entries would be good for posterity’s sake and because Jeff always gave such insightful posts each Session.  We hope to see Jeff’s impressive catalog of acoustic rock songs here on the Laptop Sessions cover songs and origianal music blog again in the future.  But, for now, please make sure to check-out hundreds of other acoustic cover songs from all of your favorite bands here on the Laptop Sessions music blog!