From time to time, I'm inviting other voices to contribute to Every Day I Write The Blog, to speak on their area of expertise. So without further ado, here's the All Time Top 5 Songs Mentioning Coffee, written by Guest Blogger Alex Scofield of Coffee Hero . . .
I began with the obvious (“Black Coffee in Bed” by Squeeze), so I’ll end with the dubious – or at least the ambiguous. Is a cup of coffee part of the working man’s daily ritual in this song?
Woke up, fell out of bed Dragged a comb across my head Found a way downstairs and drank a cup And looking up, I noticed I was late
A cup of … what? All my life, I’ve assumed it was coffee, but upon further reflection, this is England, so we can’t dismiss the possibility that it’s tea. But I’ll stick to my original assumption. All the working man’s daily rituals are here – the wakeup, the daily news, the commute, and the cup. I think it all requires more caffeine than a cup of coffee can deliver.
Post-Starbucks invasion (yes, there are quite a few in London, too), he might have drank the cup after making the bus in seconds flat … and he may never have gone into a dream. … Maybe it’s just as well that this day in the life unfolded exactly as it did.
From time to time, I'm inviting other voices to contribute to Every Day I Write The Blog, to speak on their area of expertise. So without further ado, here's the All Time Top 5 Songs Mentioning Coffee, written by Guest Blogger Alex Scofield of Coffee Hero . . .
I like my sugar with coffee and cream.
The best line of what is currently (in my judgment) the Beastie Boys’ last pantheon-caliber song. I’ll forgive them for loading up perfectly good coffee with tons of sugar – besides, I have a hunch that this line, like many other Beastie Boys lyrics, is not to be taken at face value.
I was one of many who had major expectations of the Beastie Boys. By the time “Check Your Head” came out in 1992, I though they were The Ones – the band that was going to age gracefully as the musical standard-bearers for Gen X-ers, always cutting-edge, relevant, and several steps ahead of the rest of us. Now, I just hope for MCA’s/Adam Yauch’s success in battling cancer.
From time to time, I'm inviting other voices to contribute to Every Day I Write The Blog, to speak on their area of expertise. So without further ado, here's the All Time Top 5 Songs Mentioning Coffee, written by Guest Blogger Alex Scofield of Coffee Hero . . .
The first two lines of my favorite Robert Cray song:
Coffee for my breakfast Shot of whiskey on the side
Abject desperation conveyed in 10 words. These lines set the tone for a song that’s funny, grim, and moving – and the title’s great, too. A relationship is about to go south, and Cray is going to start the day with a jolt of caffeine and alcohol, and an otherwise empty stomach. Nothing good is going to come of this.
“The Forecast” kicks off Cray’s “Midnight Stroll” album, in which doomed relationships are a recurring theme. In this song, signs point to an empty future; in “Consequences,” the relationship is doomed in the present tense; on “Bouncing Back,” he’s recovering from a doomed love that ran its course sometime in the past. But it’s the empty-stomach coffee that launches “Forecast” that provides the most visceral sensation of the whole album. Don’t try it at home, kids.
From time to time, I'm inviting other voices to contribute to Every Day I Write The Blog, to speak on their area of expertise. Here's the All Time Top 5 Songs Mentioning Coffee, written by Guest Blogger Alex Scofield of Coffee Hero . . .
Bob Dylan wrote and performed “One More Cup of Coffee,” but I still consider “On a Night Like This” to be his quintessential coffee song:
On a night like this I’m so glad you came around Hold on to me so tight And heat up some coffee grounds
This is some true love for coffee. Dylan is going to spend the night with someone he loves. There’s much to talk about, and they’re going to brew up coffee for the long night ahead. Later on in the song, he says:
On a night like this I can’t get any sleep
Further proof that Dylan was serious about getting caffeinated.
On a week like this, when the New Orleans Saints reached the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history, I would be remiss if I didn’t make the following confession – my introduction to this song was not the original, but rather Buckwheat Zydeco’s awesome cover. And, with all due respect for the original, and all due apologies to extreme Dylan fanatics, I kinda prefer Buckwheat’s version.
From time to time, I'm inviting other voices to contribute to Every Day I Write The Blog, to speak on their area of expertise. So without further ado, here's the All Time Top 5 Songs Mentioning Coffee, written by Guest Blogger Alex Scofield of Coffee Hero . . .
Let’s begin with the obvious. This is the Alpha and the Omega of coffee songs, probably the first one that comes to mind for rock fans who think of “coffee tunes.” The title alone seems to speak volumes. Someone is clearly a serious coffee drinker – no cream, no sugar, and hard-up enough to drink it in bed.
Oddly enough, I’ve never been a huge fan of this song. Running down the checklist, this is the type of tune I should like; everything is there:
* ‘80s new-wave/Brit-pop song? Check * Beloved by several friends with rock-solid musical taste? Check. * Revered, but not overplayed? Check. * Top-notch cameos? Check – Elvis Costello and Paul Young sing backup vocals on the studio version. * Unquestionable coffee bona fides? Check.
Instrumentally, though, “Black Coffee in Bed” doesn’t sound like the work of a coffee fiend. The song is leisurely-paced, and just a bit too perky and bright – the kind of stuff that’s tough for me to stomach until after having downed a morning coffee cup or seven.
After scrutinizing the lyrics, I figured something out: This isn’t a song about somebody who drinks coffee in bed; it’s a song about somebody who used to drink coffee in bed – or, merely someone whose ex used to drink black coffee in bed.
There’s nothing of your love That I’ll ever miss The stain on my notebook Remains all that’s left Of the memory of late nights And coffee in bed
So that’s why this song wields neither pre-caffeine grumpiness, nor post-caffeine wired-ness. Black coffee is drunk only in a memory, not in the present. The song essentially tells an ex, “I’m over you, and I’ve moved on,” although the truth of this is debatable. If coffee stains on a notebook dredge up such strong memories, is he really over this relationship? Alex Scofield is a freelance writer who lives in Bourne, Mass. He is a contributor to CoffeeHero.com
The gist of this blog is that I pick a song at random, or sometimes not at random, and write about what it makes me think of, be it a friend or a time in my life, a question it poses or a truth it speaks to.
Unfortunately, living such a visual age, the thing that springs to mind isn’t particularly personal at all. And horrifyingly, it’s often completely commercial.
I can remember when Eric Clapton offered one of his songs for a beer commercial, some time in the 1980s. I was horrified.
I was horrified that he would take a song I liked, and attach it forever in my mind, to a product.
Even more insidious, is the now ubiquitous use of unknown songs for commercials.
I know, had I heard this elsewhere, I would have been all over this punchy little slice of kitschy pop-punk, but the first place I heard this version of "Woo Hoo" it was in a commercial. And that commercial pops to mind every time I hear the song.
It’s so depressing that I just want to drink me a Michelob.
It’s easy to dismiss Ringo. But give him some credit. Can you name another non-songwriting musician, who, in the wake of his band’s breakup, has put out 15 solo records?
He only wrote 2 Beatles songs. He was not a composer. He certainly doesn’t need the money. But he presses on, writing songs, making records and touring.
I’m not saying that you should consider that he’s this amazing songwriter that we’re all over-looking. I’m just saying, Give The Man Credit For Trying, especially since he doesn’t have to.
Check out his new song, with Paul McCartney guesting.
Aging, and realizing you are aging, is a process of crossing thresholds and passing landmarks. I crossed a threshold this winter.
I was in conversation with an unnamed co-worker. Our music tastes have plenty of overlap, though I am slightly older. I felt we were peers on many levels, until she read a concert listing and asked:
“Who is J. Geils?” And she mispronounced Geils, so it rhymed with “miles.”
She’d never heard of them. Yikes.
Growing up, The J. Geils Band was one of my favorites, so a part of my life I could not imagine that a music fan who had even the tiniest bit in common with me, wouldn’t know who they were.
Then I realized: The last time The J. Geils Band had a Top 40 hit was when “I Do” came out in 1982.
My co-worker is a college graduate, but wasn’t even born in 1982!
While I have some pretty mixed personal feelings about Award Shows (too much emphatic attention paid to something so trifling), professionally, I do feel some need to pay attention. I mean, my job as a DJ, is to live between the songs on the air, and provide some context, to make the radio listening experience a level above that of just listening to your iTunes list.
So I do make an effort to watch the Award Shows that have a music category featuring mvy-related artists. And this year’s Golden Globe nominees had a few favorite faces involved, including Paul McCartney and U2.
When I watch the shows, I’m watching them both as a fan, and as a professional.
As a fan, I was very happy to see young Ryan Bingham win the Golden Globe for Best Original Song. He is a great up-and-coming talent. The song was produced by T Bone Burnett, who’s work I love and respect enormously. And it features the underappreciated guitarist Stephen Bruton, who was dying of cancer as he worked on this song and the Soundtrack on which it appears.
But professionally, I felt a deep pain for my good friends at Lost Highway Records.
Lost Highway Records is a really wonderful label that features (mostly) Americana artists of the highest caliber---folks like Ryan Adams, Lucinda Williams and Lyle Lovett, and even Van Morrison. All of whom are enormously talented, but also famously difficult, known for being either for being picky, particular or prickly.
And the folks at Lost Highway are fully aware of who they are working with. I’d had a bad experience (minor) with one of their artists and was relaying my dismay. Assuring me he understood how I felt, my label friend joked, “Believe me, no one hates our artists as much as we do.”
So Ryan Bingham’s name is called as the winner at the Golden Globes. This is exactly the kind of spontaneous “who’s that kid who bested Paul McCartney and Bono” TV moment that can catapult an artist to a whole new audience.
T Bone Burnett ambles to the stage, looking lost. He stalls. He says a few words. He looks into the lights.
No Ryan Bingham.
I don’t know if Ryan was in the bathroom, or smoking a cigarette, or running scared, but I know that he was not on that stage, and that millions and millions of people were not watching this young talent.
And my professional self thought of my poor friends at Lost Highway, who, I’m sure, had gone from a tremendous high to a crushing low, in a matter of seconds.
I remember thinking this record was super-cool when it came out in 1996. Cute and clever and grooving and hip.
A dozen years later, I kinda think I was acting like a hipster jerk. The phrase that popped to mind as I was listening to this, was “off-key caterwauling” which I believe Mr. Burns used to describe the Beatles.
It’s harmless, but it’s silly to pretend that this is really, really listenable, and more than just a novelty.
I hope to God that when I hit 50, I don’t look back at what I like today and say “Ugh, I had such ‘forty-something’ hipster taste back in 2009”
I'm the Program and Music Director of mvyradio, a broadcast and internet station on the Island of Martha's Vineyard. You can hear it here.
I've been in radio since the early 90s, programming shows. As Music Director, I receive dozens of CDs and songs every week, from Record Labels, Promotion People and Independent Artists. I try to listen to everything anyone asks me to.
So the old iTunes list is pretty long.
The idea of this blog is to go to that list, grab one (usually at random, but not always) and write about it. Every song has a story. How it fits into the artists oeuvre. What it meant to me when I first heard it.
I'll try to post the song in full, whenever possible, and I invite you to listen and tell me what it makes you think of.
And for more great music, you can stream mvyradio from anywhere in the world, here.
