Music Project: Sunday

Ugly Sunday (Mark Lanegan) lyrics:

I feel your blood run cold
And it’s a rainy Sunday morning
I count the million miles I’m driftin’
From here, to hell
Today

Behind their windows people stare
Can’t recognize the kindness there
Just prayers for drownin’ ships at sea
None for me
And you

It’ll take a hard rain to wash your taste away
Still I wish there was a reason left to stay

I’m drunk half blind
And it’s an ugly Sunday morning
The wind arrives with the clouds refusing to break
Apart, like me
Why if all the world’s stopped turnin’
How can all this rain keep fallin’
Washin’ me a million miles away
From you

Why if I’m so alone now
Is it getting hard, to say goodbye now
Goodbye now

Few voices can equal Mark Lanegan’s. From the Screaming Trees cds to his solo work, and lately his duets with Isobel Campbell (unfortunately no good videos of them together but the album Ballad of the Broken Seas is worth seeking out) all maintain a very high quality. Isobel’s myspace has available one of their best numbers together, the simple but deeply moving Do You Wanna Come Walk With Me. He even managed to impart a little class whenever he fronted Queens of the Stone Age.

Here’s a taste of him back in the old days doing All I Know. The voice is the same. For some reason this sounds to me like a cross between Steppenwolf and the Guess Who. Though around at the same time and in the same area, its a crime that they never achieved the status of Nirvana or Soundgarden.

Other Sunday songs under consideration were Pleasant Valley Sunday by The Monkees, Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2 (a group who I only liked from Joshua Tree to Zoolook; though I like the fact that you can tell that they read), Sunday by Bowie, and Sunday Morning by the Velvet Underground.

I never did quite understand or I guess its more accurate to say I never agreed with the status accorded this band. I liked some of the later efforts of John Cale. He has a fascinating version of Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel.

I think what I disliked the most about the band was Lou Reed. Sure I loved a lot of Transformer but he was one of those performers who didn’t seem to have much actual musical talent. It was mystifying to me that no matter how bad the lp he released was, if he released one that year it would feature in the top ten of the Village Pazz and Jop Poll. Probably because he is one of the souls of New York City.

And just ran across Sunday by Sonic Youth. Let’s end with some proto-thrash with 100% from Dirty. I’ve always thought that this was Donovan’s Sunshine Superman on steroids and played backwards. Compare and consider.

Okay, doesn’t quite have the feeling of the ending so here we go: