QL, Real men don't cry! We take it and deal with it- or drink it away.
Exactly! Except that big boys do cry--they just don't do it in front of anyone. Why do that when you can pull out some great vinyl, crank the volume, and drown your sorrows in a bottle of nice scotch (Johnny Walker black for me--red in a pinch) and lament over your fate in the world, how she's lost that lovin' feelin' and we just can't get it back. Some of my musical crutches:
Sinatra: ONLY THE LONELY and SEPTEMBER OF MY YEARS albums
Bobby Bland's TWO STEPS FROM THE BLUES
Miles: MY FUNNY VALENTINE..or Nico's version, for that matter
Anything by Robert Johnson
Anything sad from Buddy Holly
The quiet, more elegiac passages of Wagner or Morricone--the end titles for ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST really choke me up still
Maria Elena--Los Indios Tabajaras
I Can Never Go Home Anymore & Past, Present & Future--The Shangri-Las
Husbands and Wives and When Two Worlds Collide--Roger Miller
The Blizzard--Jim Reeves: an unusual tragedy ballad, for some reason it has always moved me deeply even though I know it's total BS
Nothing Takes the Place of You--Toussaint McCall
The Dark End of the Street--James Carr (also covered by the lovely lass below)
Long Long Time--Linda Ronstadt
The Weakness in Me--Joan Armatrading--a lost classic from the early '80s, where there's a real dearth of classic anything
Most of Tomita's SLOWFLAKES ARE DANCING
Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush: Don't Give Up
Wildfire--Michael Murphey yeah, I know it sux, can't help myself
The best of John Denver, not least "Back Home Again" which really knows how to pull my chain
If You Could Read My Mind--Gordon Lightfoot Almost been there, done that
Mama Liked the Roses--Elvis (after my mother's passing last year, I'm very afraid to even think about this one)
Most of Johnny Ace's catalog--the master for such things, but most of all the spooky "The Clock," a reminder NEVER TO BRING A GUN INTO THE SAME ROOM AS A BOTTLE OF REALLY GOOD SCOTCH
and records like these...
Verboten:
Crap like:
If You Go Away or Seasons in the Sun--by anybody!
Elvis--Old Shep or In the Ghetto (and several more atrocities I can't stand to list for fear of injuring myself)
Cat's in the Cradle--crybaby music for wimps who should be spending time with their children instead of traveling. Hey, there ARE jobs that allow you time to spend with family & friends. But then Harry was a marginally talented workaholic, so who gives a frig?
Any country cheatin' song without a bad attitude--who cares? Cheat on her, have some fun
Advance Guards--Seals & Crofts from SUMMER BREEZE...absolutely wretched but then, at their worst, so were they
Playground in My Mind--Clint Holmes
Honey and Autumn of My Life--Bobby Goldsboro A good argument for mutual suicide. She's gonna die anyway of some dreaded disease (we presume), might as well make it quick and painless for her, quick for you
ED