Sing For The Day - Tom Petty "Refugee"

Happy Halloween! To celebrate the day, is there anything scarier than Tom Petty? Just joking, though when I was in High School I would have been scared because I did not like Tom Petty's music. Didn't get it one bit. Petty's music wasn't commercial enough or polished enough or excessive enough to get me going. He was one of those artists Rolling Stone magazine would insist you had to like if you had any "taste".

Fast forward to the late 90s, after having a copy of his first Greatest Hits album I became a fan. I like his music a lot now. After watching a Classic Albums program about the making of the Damn The Torpedoes album including an extensive breakdown (baby baby Breakdooowwwn)on the making of "Refugee" it's been on my mind. What a great song.

One last note, until Melissa Etheridge covered "Refugee" I didn't know Petty was saying the word "Have" in the chorus. I thought it went "You don't, hey hey, like a refugee". The word "Have" came across like a Buddy Holly vocal hiccup thing. Though I admit the song makes more sense with the word "have" in it.

"Refugee" was from 1980.



And since it was so educational the Melissa Etheridge version too

Sing For The Day - Foo Fighters "I Should Have Known"

While on the treadmill tonight I was walking off the pound this song came up on my Foo Fighters playlist. It's funny, even though the quality of the treadmill speakers wasn't as good as what's in my car the bass line popped more there which reminded me of ex-Nirvana bassist Krist Noveselic playing on that song.

Despite the obvious meaning to "I Should Have Known" due to it's dark mood and mournful/rueful lyrics Foo leader Dave Grohl insists it's not about Kurt Cobain. But with Noveselic and Nevermind producer Butch Vig involved it's hard not to take it that way. Even as a general song without the Nirvana ambiance it is an emotional stand out moment on the Foo Fighter's recent Wasting Light album.

Sing For The Day - AC/DC "Big Jack"

At times I hear a song or think about a song...anyway, a song comes to mind and stays in my head for whatever reason. So when this happens I'm gonna start just writing about that song and in honor of the almighty Styx I'll call this Sing For The Day.

The other day I ran into this guy who is a huge Ac/DC fan. While talking we found we both agreed that one of the best songs off the last album (Black Ice) was "Big Jack". The guy plays guitar and told me a bunch of musical stuff about 5 chords and pletcorums and pull offs that I barely understood, but I still enjoyed the conversation. Later the same day I met another guy wearing an AC/DC shirt, it was just an AC/DC kinda day.

So what does "Big Jack" mean? Is it related to their earlier song "The Jack" which was about some sexual disease? Not a lot of interpretations on the internet, KGB Agent website says it's about a tough guy who plays pool. Okay, I've read the lyrics now. The great thing about AC/DC is it seems to me 99.99999% of their lyrics are cheap sex metaphors and it's no different here. I think the song is about the big O if you know what I mean. I can see why the KGB guy thought it is about pool since there's a brief part about racking balls and stuff. But the chorus talks about how "it's only natural" and that "he's the only one with a full sack". Ac/Dc, always so raunchy it's funny. If these guys didn't make it as musicians they'd probably be the only fifty somethings in Australia still writing dirty limericks on Men's room walls.

But hey, with Ac/DC it's always really about the monster groove. So enough words, here comes "Big Jack".