Music Sunday: The Pink Edition

Today is Pink's birthday, so what could be more appropriate than to share a few of her songs?

I'll be honest. I am so not in Pink's demographic, having graduated high school five years before she was born in 1979. Despite that generational difference, I really like her music. I only own one of her CDs ("I'm Not Dead", from 2006), but I can't think of any of her work that I haven't liked.

The first of her work that I was really aware of was "Lady Marmalade", which she recorded with Lil' Kim, Christina Aguilera, Mya, and, joining in the video, Missy Elliot, in association with the film "Moulin Rouge!". Of course, I knew the song from its 1974 version by Labelle, and quite liked this newer version from the first time I heard it:



In the same year as "Lady Marmalade" was released (2001), Pink also recorded "Get the Party Started". If you listen to the song, you get the impression that this is a woman who is serious about having a good time. Watch the video, however, and you get what might be the first hint that Pink has a huge sense of humor and does not really take the whole idea of being a party girl all that seriously:



So, Pink showed early on that she can be sexy and funny. In 2003's "Trouble", she showed that while she is those things she is also not prepared to take any shit from anybody. If you've seen the video for the song, that is made even more obvious there. Oh, also, you also get bonus Jeremy Renner, who plays the sheriff in the video:



By 2005, on the CD "I'm Not Dead Yet", Pink demonstrates another side to herself, her social and political consciousness. "Stupid Girls" is probably my favorite of her songs. Sort of a logical extension of the video for "Get the Party Started", Pink makes the case that the party/celebrity lifestyle is really a trap for women, and that they should be looking for something more:



On the same album, "Dear Mr. President" is a departure for Pink, showing her political consciousness. It is a folk song she wrote to express some of her concerns about the presidency of George W. Bush. It was and is a controversial song, but it shows in its content that it isn't something she just dashed off to be politically correct or to jump on the anti-Bush bandwagon. Instead, the lyrics make it clear that she is aware of the policies he held on specific issues and the ways in which he expressed himself while he was president, especially in the lyrics about "hard work" near the end of the song. Here is a clip of her singing the song live in New York City:

Doing the right thing...

I was going to write about something else today, but I came across this video, and I had to share it. This is Pink, being awesome:



Some of you might have read about this, or maybe you've even already seen the video. But honestly? I think it bears sharing again, and again, and again. She didn't have to stop the concert to make sure that the girl who was crying was okay. She could have just gone on with the song. But she didn't. She did the right thing, which was to defuse the situation. Be a better world if more people would do that rather than just going about their business.

I saw this yesterday when it was making the rounds, and then someone shared it over on Ravelry. The best comment over there was someone wondering if we can send Pink to Congress now, and tell them they're "grown-ass" people and make them behave. If anyone can do it, she would be the one.

Music Sunday: The "Women Rock" Edition

I found a book at the library the other day, Rock Chronicles (Firefly Books, 2012; 576 pages), edited by David Roberts. Interesting book, and a valuable reference, as far as it goes. It's title, though, points up its limited nature: it includes what its editor and contributors consider rock acts. Purely pop acts are mostly missing, which serves to leave out most female acts. In a way, this makes sense. Of the 22 contributors to the volume, only one is a woman.

Well, rock has traditionally been a male stronghold. The men make the music, and the women are mostly relegated to minor roles when they have any role at all. There are exceptions, of course, which is the point I aim to make here today.

Looking through the book, I realized that I've been emphasizing male acts here on Music Sundays. That is difficult not to do, considering that the vast majority of acts, especially in the rock era, are made up predominantly of men. But, having noted the lack, I decided that today is a good day to highlight women in music.

I have to start with Janis Joplin, simply because she was so remarkable a singer. Probably best known for her recordings of "Me and Bobby McGee" and "Piece of My Heart", I really love her cover of "Summertime", here in a live performance in Stockholm in 1969:



Another remarkable performer, from another generation, is Pink. Pink can rock with the best of them and make on-point social comment at the same time, as here, in "Stupid Girls":



On occasion, women have taken a prominent place in bands. For example, who thinks about Fleetwood Mac without thinking about Stevie Nicks? Here, Nicks takes the lead on "Rhiannon" in a 1976 live performance on "The Midnight Special":



I might actually be sharing this next clip because I want to have ready access to it without having to hunt around for it on YouTube. However, I think it is a wonderful example of women, in this case Ann and Nancy Wilson, from Heart, taking a song written by men, for men to perform, and doing as good a job of performing it as anyone ever has and probably ever will. This is the performance of "Stairway to Heaven" from the recent Kennedy Center Honors tribute to Led Zeppelin:



Earlier, in the 1960s and 70s, women were active in the folk music scene, although, as always, the men got most of the recognition. Meanwhile, women like Joni Mitchell were writing and performing songs like "Both Sides Now" (which was a hit for Judy Collins) and "The Circle Game". Here is Mitchell performing both songs on Canadian television in 1968:



Of course, I've just scratched the surface here with examples of women in rock and folk and blues. I haven't even gotten to Motown yet, or to women in country music. I think I'll leave that for another Music Sunday. Goodness knows, the men have gotten and will get enough time in the spotlight here, as sthey do in the music industry generally.

Music Sunday: Musical Birthdays Edition

Having celebrated my own birthday recently, I've got birthdays on the brain I guess. So, after seeing a post on one of my favorite forums mentioning that today was Otis Redding's birthday, I decided to see who else in the music world has birthdays this weekend. Several, as it turns out.

First of all, there is the late, great Patsy Cline, who was born on September 8, 1932. Primarily a country singer, Cline's music transcends all genre boundaries. One of her best known recordings is of Willie Nelson's "Crazy", here in a performance from 1962:



Another favorite from Cline was "I Fall to Pieces". This performance is from just out 10 days before she died in a plane crash in 1963:



Otis Redding, who was born on September 9, 1941, also ended his life in a plane crash, before, before "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" could even be released. In fact, he recorded it just a couple of weeks before his death in 1967 and added overdubs just a day or two before the crash, and the song was not released until January 1968:



Before this turns into the "Singers Who Died in Plane Crashes" edition of Music Sunday, I think we should move on.

Yesterday was also Pink's birthday. Pink was born Alecia Beth Moore in 1979, and has had a string of hit records. My favorite of all the songs she's released is this one, "Stupid Girl", which asks a question that is probably one of the most important questions we can ask in today's celebrity-mad/paparazzi-fed culture: "Where, oh where, have the smart people gone?" With it's parody, both in lyrics and in the video for the song, she makes the point that fitting in with the dominant pop culture is not the only path for girls, or for anyone else, today:



And then there was "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida". The fact that today is Doug Ingle's birthday is basically just an excuse to share this song, the title of which is said to be a slightly mangled version of the phrase "In The Garden Of Eden". I loved when it came out in 1968, when I was 11 years old, and which I still love in all it's 1960s-psychedelia-laced excess today. Ingle was the organ player and vocalist and one of the founding members of Iron Butterfly, although he left the band in 1971. The song took up the entire second side of the album, and was longer than just about anything rock'n'roll fans had heard up until then:



I want to give a hat-tip to Nina809 over at Ravelry, for posting "Dock of the Bay" over there and giving me the idea for today's edition of Music Sunday.