Ken Ficara

If you know me, you know that my musical taste is pathologically eclectic. Today, I’m listening to June Carter Cash and Will the Circle Be Unbroken and things like that. Yesterday I was listening to Brian Eno and John Cale.

I’m not the only one with strange tastes like this — that transition was not nearly as weird as it sounds, and was sparked by, among other things, the arrival of a rare 45RPM single that I won on ebay last week: a recording of Brian Eno singing June’s song, “Ring Of Fire.”Even though Eno is one of the founding fathers of electronica and ambient music, the music closest to his heart is much simpler, and I’ve written previously about his love for harmony singing and simple songs.

The arrival of the 45 coincided with a friend pointing out an episode of This American Life in which the lovely and snarky Sarah Vowell argues, convincingly, that Johnny and June were the great love story of the 20th century. There are other possibilities of course, even in music — Tammi dying in Marvin’s arms, for one — but the length and depth of their relationship, their tenderness and toughness, the challenges they overcame, the life they built together, was really amazing. And no one’s better suited to talk about that than Sarah Vowell.

Tomorrow is the first day of February, and you all know what that means. So, I thought I’d jump the gun a bit by posting a non-original song. This is a Bill Monroe tune, the Lonesome Moonlight Waltz. A great fiddler who comes to the jam I host almost every week plays it frequently, and I invariably screw it up. The chords are quite complicated for a fiddle tune, and the melody is somewhat tricky in that it deceives you into thinking you should use one harmonica position when in fact you should use another. So I finally sat down and learned it for real, and since I love the tune so much I recorded it. Not really for posterity so much as to remind myself of how to play it.

And, a very deliberately buried lede: After approximately four years of thinking “I really should” and a few months of sporadic work, I have finally updated my web site. Check out the new kenficara.com. I haven’t done a links page or credits page yet but mary_wroth deserves very special credit; the photo I’m using as the main icon on the site is one she took last year at the Good Coffeehouse.

I’ve been told that I am over-reacting to the Dylan album and not giving it a break. So I gave it another listen today, and watched the video (“Must Be Santa“) rubytramp linked to. Yes, it’s fun, and I liked that song best of those on the album, principally because of David Hidalgo’s accordion. And yes, the video is fun, but … never mind the Santa cap, what’s with the wig??? I really wonder if he’s just putting us on.

mikeskliar also pointed out that I was dismissing the album without having listened to all of it. To some extent that’s like saying I didn’t fully appreciate the hot stove because I yanked my hand away too quickly, but I did put it on again. I programmed out about half the album — songs that really turned me off or that I associate too closely with the Radio City / shopping mall / tv commercials / plastic lawn decoration Xma$ crap that I so hate about this time of year.

I skipped “Here Comes Santa Claus,” “Little Drummer Boy,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” because I pretty much hate them no matter who sings them. The first two are horribly trite and overplayed and have melodies that make most kid’s songs sound like Bach; the last is mawkish and about the last song in the world I’d want to hear Dylan sing. I also skipped a couple of songs he really just completely massacres (“Winter Wonderland,” “Do You Hear What I Hear,”) and a few that are too closely associated with bad church memories (“Hark the Herald Angels Sing,” “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”).

Song-by-song rundown of the remainder

“Hey, Bob, I bet your fans will buy anything. I bet you could release a godawful album that no sane person could listen to with a straight face, and people would still buy it. I bet you cannot come up with an album so bad and so ridiculous that people wouldn’t buy it.”

If someone made that bet, he or she won, but not for lack of trying on Dylan’s part.

I mean, come on. Dylan singing hoary old Christmas chestnuts? Songs you’re sick of hearing by people who sang them well? The album opens up with Dylan croaking away on “Here Comes Santa Claus.” Joined by a choir on the second verse. That’s as far as I made it through that song. Track two: “Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy / Do you hear what I hear?” Said the CD player, “If you don’t hit skip now, I’m going to!”

I couldn’t listen all the way through a single song. Best of all, this allegedly wholesome Christmas album has a Betti Page pinup on the inside cover. All the proceeds go to fighting hunger, but you’re better off buying some groceries and donating them to the local food pantry. You’ll end up wasting food if you listen to it right after eating.

Dylan has released some awful albums but never one that I couldn’t listen to even once. At least we no longer have to have long arguments about which is Dylan’s worst album.