Bob Dylan "It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry"

I remember this line from Mike Mills of R.E.M.

He was asked in an interview to respond to a somewhat lurid rumor, surrounding a former associate of the band. He declined to comment, citing his desire to remain in good taste:

"Y’know, I may not be a gentleman of whatever, but I know how a gentleman would act, and I’m not going to say anything about it."

I thought of that line while I was thinking about how I would (or if I should) present today’s entry. Because clearly it crosses a line of good taste. But I'm not a gentleman, and I really can't resist . . .

So if you are easily offended, you should bail on this post, now.

For the rest of you, I’m not sure where your line in the sand is, where you mark that something has gone too far, so I’m going to just guess and hope for the best.

The final scenes of an old Bob Dylan video I wrote about last week, posed the idea of a Bob Dylan sex scene, which led me to consider Mr. Dylan in an adult movie.

What would it be called?

Well I asked this question to a few friends---friends who don’t mind occasionally driving their 4-wheel vehicles over the line in the sand---and Yikes! We came up with literally dozens of Bob Dylan song titles and album titles that could be converted to great Porn titles.

There were the obvious and not-too-too-offensive ones like:

“Lay Lady Lay”

“Blonde On Blonde”

“Hard Rain”

The slightly ruder, but obvious:

“Highway 69 Revisited”

“Poker-man”

And the hilariously conceptual:

“In Fidel”

“When I Paint My Master’s Piece”

But there were A LOT that were just too graphic to repost here. You’ll have to use your own dark mind to figure out how to twist “It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry.”

I’ll share my two favorites, neither written by me (but names withheld, to protect the guilty).

One of the guys came up with a brilliant title, aimed at women who love women:

“Brainy Gay Women #12 & 35"

And my other favorite, is just beautiful in its simplicity:

“John Wesley Hard-on”

I think that one wins, for sounding most like an actual title of a porno.

Bob Dylan turned 70, and we wanted a classy, fun way to commemorate the occasion.

This wasn’t it.

Instead, we asked listeners to vote for their favorite Dylan tunes, and we made a list of the Top 70, to mark his birth.

Check out the list at mvyradio’s website, and listen to the songs on our Dylan Channel.


See the video on Youtube.

Eddie Vedder "Longing To Belong"

I was at a Potluck dinner at my daughter's preschool last week, watching the kids tumble around, and chatting with some of the other Moms and Dads.

One of the best things in a social situation about having a job like mine, is that people feel comfortable talking about my work. If I worked in aerospace or taught Greek classics, small talk at a potluck wouldn't likely ever be about my job.

One of the Mom's told me:

"I just got tickets to see Eddie Vedder!"

"Cool," I said. "Wait. Is this the Ukulele album tour?"

"Uh, Yes." she said.

There was a pause. Then she laughed.

"Hey! Did you just dis my Eddie Vedder show!?!"

Huh. I guess I did.

I try really, really hard not to be a music snob. When you spend nearly 20 years talking to people about music they love as your job, you come to accept that everybody likes something different, and that's okay.

But something about Eddie Vedder, powerful frontman for one of the great live rock bands of the last 2 decades, doing a little ukulele album hit me in the smart-ass-bone, and I couldn't resist the tweak (which was really aimed at Vedder, not her).

But really, isn't the definition of cool the ability to do something that you love and believe in, even if it is completely antithetical to what you are known for, and to do it without a trace of shame or irony?

I told her I was sorry. Hey, Eddie Vedder with a Uke is still Eddie Vedder with that amazing voice. That isn't mockable, it should be celebrated (or at least, not looked down upon).

C'mon, this tune is actually pretty good.


See the video on Youtube.

Tom Petty "Even The Losers"

"PJ, look out for the cop!"

"I see him," I said, calmly. Not really understanding what the big deal was. I wasn't speeding or screwing around. I was a pretty cautious driver at age 17.

"The COP, PJ, The COP!" he was shouting.

There was a police car, parked, on the way far side of the intersection of Salisbury Center.

"I SEE him."

But there wasn't even anyone in it. What was the big deal?

"LOOK OUT!!!"

I turned my gaze from the cruiser far across the intersection, to the Traffic Cop standing in the middle of the road, inches away from where I had screeched to a stop, his hand outstretched, yelling "STOPSTOPSTOP!"

"PULL OVER THERE," he barked.

This was not good.

I was 17. Four of us were skipping school to go to the beach. There was a case of beer in the car. And I had just nearly run over a man with a badge.

I do not have, what you would call, a Poker Face.

Never having a real taste for trouble, I had never skipped school before. And I'm not sure I'd ever had a beer during the light of day. And definitely, most definitely, I was not the kind to absently run down a Traffic Cop.

"License and registration."

I'm sure I was shaking as I handed my papers to him, nervously shifting my eyes in a way that said, "Don't look under that towel in the back seat, because there is nothing there. Certainly not beer."

While he ran my plates, my friends and I had a brief, going-nowhere conversation about what the hell we should do to get out of this.

"Mr. Finn?" he said, returning to my window. "You're from across the river, huh?"

"Yes sir."

"Tell me. Are you Newburyport boys in the habit of running over Police Officers?"

"No. Sir."

"Alright then. Pay attention to what you're doing. Get out of here."

We stayed pretty quiet for the next few minutes as we rolled down the long road that opens up to Salt Marshes, with the beach homes of Salisbury then Seabrook on the horizon.

At some point, among the beer and the frisbee and the sun and sand, we heard, "Even The Losers Get Lucky Sometimes," and knew that, yeah, that song was ours for the day.


See the video on Youtube.

Paul McCartney "Waterfalls"

Wait a minute . . . TLC ripped off Paul McCartney? I had no idea.

How was there not a lawsuit? And how come I'm just hearing about this now?

(Well, the answer to the 2nd question is that the 1980 album "McCartney II" is about to be reissued)


See the video on Youtube.


See the video on Youtube.

Sheryl Crow "If It Makes You Happy"

Not every DJ can love every song that the station plays. And that’s alright.

Not every server in a restaurant loves every dish that gets ordered, right?

You realize that playing the song (serving the meal) isn’t about YOU the DJ, it’s about the person who wants to hear (or eat) it.

But every once and a while, you do go a bit crazy.

I’m going to leave the DJ in this story unnamed, and will only tell you that this story takes place many years ago, and the DJ stopped working for mvyradio not long after.

Not every DJ loves Sheryl Crow. I mean, she’s enormously popular (especially so, when this story takes place), but she does rub some people the wrong way, including this DJ.

The DJ would dutifully play “If It Makes You Happy” as part of mvyradio’s regular rotation, but at some point, comment could not be withheld.

Reserving this prank for times when the DJ was sure that the bosses weren’t listening, 2 things would get cued up.

One was “If It Makes You Happy.” The other was a sound effects CD.

When Sheryl would get to the chorus, and start reaching for that slightly screechy note, the DJ would bring up the sound effects disc, very low in the mix.

If you were listening to mvyradio at the time, you might have asked yourself:

“Is there a cat in that song?”

Yes, just under the surface of the song, faintly, but noticeably, would be the sound effect of a cat, mewling.

It’s a little shocking, how appropriate it sounds.

“IF IT MAKES YOU HAPPPYYYYYYYYY!”
“mmmmrrrreeeeeoooowwwwwwwwwwwww!”

You can try it yourself.

Start the Sheryl Crow video, and when it gets to the 1:08 mark, start the cat video.

And enjoy being a rebel DJ.



See the video on Youtube.


See the video on Youtube.

The Farm "Groovy Train"

Here's another Weekend Post:

In the early 90s, bands like this were being foisted on America on a weekly basis. You'd read all these breathless Melody Maker reviews of how they were dominating the U.K. charts, and were coming to conquer the USA.

And inevitably, they'd get a nice bit of MTV "Buzz Bin" action . . . and that would be that. You'd never hear from them again.

20 years later, I still won't read a review of a band, if it was written by the British press.

I like this song, though.


See the video on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show. They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

Seahorses "Love Is The Law"

Here's another Weekend Post:

Here's a forgotten Brit-nugget of the 90s. These guys were a spinoff of the beloved Stone Roses. I think they only put out one album . . .


See the video on Youtube.

Weekend posts are a chance to revisit songs that have happy memories, not of anything in particular, other than just hearing the tunes.

Many of these songs were tracks that I played during my 90s stint as an Alternative/Modern Rock radio show. They're tunes that I hardly hear these days, but are wonderful to revisit.

Click on the "Weekend Posts" label below, to see other posts like this.

The Who "Boris The Spider"

What do you tell your kids about spiders?

Do you have no qualms about squashing a spider?

Or, if you find one in the bathroom, do you capture it and take it outside?

Are you afraid of them? Or even a little skeeved out by them?

I don’t know what the deal is---the weather, the humidity, ancient arachnid curse---but suddenly there are all kinds of spiders in my house.

Most of them are small and harmless and I don’t really think twice about them.

But a few on them have been HUGE. And a little hairy.

What to do in front of the kids?

You don’t want to freak out, and encourage a lifelong fear. So you try to explain that spiders are really helpful creatures, protecting us by eating other bugs.

You strike this friendly tone, that doesn’t quite drown out the creep-factor, kind of like the John Entwistle song. It’s almost a kids song, but has a lingering element of menace.

It makes me long for the days of Paul and Ringo.


See the video on Youtube.

U2 "The Sweetest Thing"

For young single guys who live on the Vineyard, it’s a common rite of passage that you date a summer girl.

You know, she’s here from somewhere, spending the summer working in a restaurant, here to have fun and then leave come August. Or maybe she’s come to the Island with her family, in a seasonal home 10 times as nice as the “room” (actually walk-in closet, fitted with a mattress) that is your summer shuffle rental. And you’re the doesn’t-like-to-be-tied-down type who’s happy to be in a relationship that has a fixed expiration date.

And there’s a special sub-set of this phenomenon, which itself is a rite of passage:

Dating a nanny.

It's a slightly different experience than just dating a summer girl. It opens up a different world of the Vineyard.

Yes if someone can afford to have a second home that they only visit a few weeks a year . . . a second home worth a million (or millions of) dollars . . . then they can afford to hire someone to keep an eye on their kids.

I dated a nanny one summer. Nice girl. She was my age and she was in charge of a young teen and a pre-teen. So a date might be her picking me up in one of the SUVs the family had rented for the summer, with kids in tow, and going out for dinner. It was strange for me coming from a family that did not really believe in taking children to restaurants, to be with some very poised, self-assured youngsters who didn’t think twice about ordering the lobster tails. The nanny was always given a nice handful of cash to take care of the tab. Then maybe we’d drop the kids at the arcade while we'd hang in the car.

I got to see parts of the Vineyard I’d never been to. I’d tag along as the family got invited to private beaches, some of the most beautiful on the Island, where, yeah, I ran into a celebrity or two. And beyond celebrities, I met the kind of folks who aren’t famous, but are incredibly interesting---people who’d made their fortunes in computers or retail or science and discovery. A class of people who populated the island for a few months, but rarely co-mingled with the electricians and bartenders and boat builders that I knew so well from my local pub.

Being a little older than the average summer-flingers, my nanny and I did try to make a go of it when she returned to California, stretching our summer relationship from coast to coast until just past the new year. But summer is summer, and as we experience here every year, summer has to end.

A good friend of mine tried the same thing---met a nanny on the island, tried to continue the relationship, long distance. But she was from Sweden, and yeah, despite their best efforts, summer has to end.

But when we'd swap dating-a-nanny-on-the-Vineyard stories, he'd sing this song, because, you know, "Oh oh-whoa, The Swedish thing."

I like hearing this song, at this time of year. I smile, thinking about the year-round boys (and girls) who've been looking at the same faces for months on end, who's long winter has finally ended. And I think about the summer girls (and boys, and nannies) who are unpacking their bags in a room that will be their home for the next ten weeks. Each group wondering if they'll find the other, wondering if summer romance is in the Vineyard stars.

The Head And The Heart "Lost In My Mind"

A really great pop songwriter’s gift, is creating a piece of instantly memorable ear candy. Something that lodges in your brain after one listen, and remains a pleasure to hear to over and over.

I’m thinking of songs like “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” or “Mamma Mia” or “Mmm Bop” or “Hey Ya.”

A song that can sound simple, and sometimes even stupid, is actually incredibly hard to make. Or at least to make well.

There’s a deeper, less celebrated kind of great pop songwriting that I think is even harder to achieve, but is sometimes more rewarding.

Neil Finn of Crowded House does it. So does Glen Phillips of Toad The Wet Sprocket. Aimee Mann too.

They have this gift of being able to create these beautiful, wonderful, sturdy melodies, that don’t necessarily reveal their power on the first listen, but in the end are as (or are more) durable than the Ear Candy songs.

20 years later, you can still hear “Don’t Dream It’s Over” or “Walk On The Ocean” or “That’s Just What You Are” and the songs feel fresh and they even seem to (politely) beg you to sing along.

Their power is subtler. It doesn’t hit you over the head with its own cleverness.

That’s what I like about this song from The Head And The Heart.

I heard it a bunch of times and liked it well enough, but I can’t say the song immediately distinguished itself among the 100 or so songs I was listening to for possible adds to mvyradio.

But I liked it, and when I found out that they were on the bill for Newport Folk this year, I decided to get behind the tune, knowing that we’d likely be airing their set and/or interviewing the band.

Now that I’ve heard it on mvyradio a bunch of times, it has suddenly become one of my favorite new songs on the station.

It’s such a strong song, with a memorable melody and a nice steady build.

If you’re not familiar with the song, check it out. And if it doesn’t knock your socks off on the first listen, that’s okay. Enjoy the fact that it will reveal its beauty and power, over time.


See the video on Youtube.