A Patch Of Snow On The Ground

As I started looking into the song ‘A Hazy Shade Of Winter’ written by Paul Simon, I was surprised to find out that it is not about winter.  The song came out on the 1966 Simon and Garfunkel Bookends album and it charted #30 in the UK and reached #13 in the US.  This song ‘A Hazy Shade Of Winter’ is about reflecting on your journey up to that point that you are at in life and realizing that a stage of life that you have gone through is over.  This song utilizes seasons as a metaphor (the springtime of my life) and (the sky is a hazy shade of winter) for the cycle of life.  Paul Simon seems to be lamenting about how he was looking for something (or someone) perfect, but he never found it, and now time is running out on his dreams.

The singer is looking back on their life, or at least a significant stage of it, wondering what became of their life, maybe because he feels like it is ending soon, or a momentous birthday is approaching.  He realizes that he missed out on some things and probably should have looked around harder, he might have taken a different path which would have lead to different opportunities and then he could have been guaranteed something more substantial, than what he ended up with, if only he weren’t so hard to please.  The leaves turned brown, and the sky became a hazy shade of winter and suddenly it might be Christmas time, as he hears the Salvation Army band, probably playing that tune ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’.

He wonders if life might be better down by the riverside, than what was planned, and there he will be able to carry a cup in his hand to collect the important things that life has to offer and look around.  He asks his friend to hang on to their hopes, knowing that is easier said than done, but if their hopes should pass away, they can build them again.  Thus they shouldn’t give up when things go wrong, or even when the situation seem hopeless, as there is always an opportunity to start over, if only they can pretend to believe, than they can succeed.

Winter has passed, the grass is high, the fields are ripe, he is entering the springtime of his life.  The seasons change with the scenery, weaving time in a tapestry and he wants to be remembered.  He thinks that it is funny how his memory skips while looking over manuscripts of unpublished rhyme, especially while he is drinking his vodka and lime.  He feels that life must hold a lesson and he would like others to learn from his experiences, especially since time goes by so quickly that most people won’t even notice till it is over and gone.  He urges his friend to think about the things that he said and take his advice, so their life will hold more meaning.  They should always be asking themselves, if they were able to get what they hoped for out of life.  Your destiny is there for the taking, if you choose to seize it.

In 1987, the Bangles recorded this song, and it hit #11 in the UK and #2 in the US.  The Bangles rocked up the song, giving it a modern production and more urgent sound.  They used all four of their voices, giving the vocals a much richer sound as well.  As Bangles’ singles go, this one was only beaten for chart performance by ‘Walk Like An Egyptian’ and ‘Eternal Flame’.  Their version was used in the film Less Than Zero, in which Brad Pitt appears as an extra (Partygoer/Preppie Kid At Fight).

Time, time time, see what’s become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities

I was so hard to please
Don’t look around
The leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hear the Salvation Army band
Down by the riverside’s, there’s bound to be a better ride
Than what you’ve got planned

Carry your cup in your hand
And look around
Leaves are brown, now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That’s an easy thing to say
But if your hopes should pass away
Simply pretend that you can build them again
Look around
The grass is high
The fields are ripe
It’s the springtime of my life

Seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry
Won’t you stop and remember me
At any convenient time?
Funny how my memory skips while looking over manuscripts
Of unpublished rhyme
Drinking my vodka and lime
I look around
Leaves are brown, now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter
Look around
Leaves are brown
There’s a patch of snow on the ground
Look around
Leaves are brown
There’s a patch of snow on the ground
Look around
Leaves are brown
There’s a patch of snow on the ground

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is “Seasons/Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall”.

Easter Music

I took my first stab at hosting another challenge on Friday, which basically went unnoticed, except for the 17 bloggers that clicked the like button, a few that made comments and I had one blogger who became a participant in this challenge, thanks Li.  It was a rock and roll post titled Rocket 88 and it was supposed to generate interest for people to join in, but it was almost a complete flop.  It was my first post for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie MM Music Challenges, which is a bi-weekly post and I guess that I am mentioning it to try and drum up business for my next post which will be on Friday May 3rd.  I plan to cover the Bob Marley song ‘I Shot The Sheriff” which was made famous by Eric Clapton, in case you want to check it out.  I guess I could blame my poor showing on the A to Z challenge that is going on now, as I think it has frazzled more than a few bloggers and this being my fourth monthly challenge in a row, I will be happy when I get to Z.

One great thing about Song Lyric Sunday is that there is no need for me to make any “Let’s win this for the Gipper” emotional speeches, as this SLS community always seems to be raring to go and ready to share their music.  Getting down to business, today we have the prompt Seasons/Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall and here on Earth, and we have seasons because our Earth is tilted (wonky) as it makes its yearly journey around our Sun.  The Earth’s axis is tilted at an angle of 23.5 degrees.  This means that the Earth is always “pointing” to one side as it goes around the Sun, thus either the Northern Hemisphere, or the Southern Hemisphere is facing the Sun, that is unless the Earth is in equinox.  Earth’s orbit is not a circle, it is elliptical, so its distance from the Sun varies during the year.  During part of the year, Earth is closer to the Sun than at other times.  However, in the Northern Hemisphere, we are having winter when Earth is closest to the Sun and summer when it is farthest away, which seems pretty odd!  Thus seasons have more to do with what part of the Earth is facing the Sun, than the distance that the Earth is away from the Sun.  Seasons are reversed for the Southern Hemisphere, as to the what the Northern Hemisphere experiences.  Please be patient, and wait for me to approve your pingbacks, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Here are the “rules”:

• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it fits the theme or not.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post will eventually work, as long as you are being patient, but you can also place your link in the comments if you don’t like to wait.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

I am writing about the song ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’ by Simon and Garfunkel this week. Next week I will write about the Muddy Waters song ‘Rollin’ Stone’. The upcoming prompts will be:
April 28, 2019 – Boogie/Rock/Rolling Stone
May 5, 2019 – Hurt/Pain/Agony/Suffer
May 12, 2019 – Mom/Mother/Flowers
May 19, 2019 – Dawn/Noon/Dusk/Midnight/Nocturnal/Diurnal

Sometimes You Must Freeze

People say that the early bird gets the worm, but there are times when the early bird arrives too soon and it ends up freezing to death.  The Grateful Dead song ‘Built To Last’ is a pretty much an underrated Dead song, but it fit the prompt, so I am going with it.  This song came out on the 1989 album with the same name and the words were written by Robert Hunter and the music is by Jerry Garcia.  The Grateful Dead were not a studio band and Garcia said that getting the band into the studio was like pulling teeth for them.  The Built to Last album was the thirteenth and final studio album released by the Grateful Dead and the 21st Dead album overall and the LP reached No. 27 on the charts.  Built to Last was the band’s second attempt at recording a studio album on a theater stage with no audience.

This album features four songs by keyboard player Brent Mydland, all of which are in collaboration with Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow.  Due to the rash of deaths by keyboard players in the Grateful Dead, people often said that this was the most dangerous position in all of rock and roll.  This list features Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, Keith Godchaux, and finally Brent Mydland, who was a member of The Grateful Dead from 1979 to 1990, and he had a longer tenure than any other keyboardist in the band.  Mydland died at his home in 1990 of acute cocaine and narcotic intoxication.  Vince Welnick, keyboardist for the Tubes, joined the band and remained with the Dead for the final five years of their existence.  John Perry Barlow also died last year.

Jerry Garcia had a passion for SCUBA diving and he was fascinated with underwater sea creatures and plants.  He made over 300 dives and he enjoyed going up to strange looking eels and poking them with his fingers.  Jerry had a problem, as he could not stop injecting heroin intravenously and that lead to him dying of heart failure on August 9th, 1995, ending the long strange trip and causing the music to stop for the most viewed rock band in their time, who had played more than 2300 live concerts.  In the early 90s, the Grateful Dead went mainstream and they became the highest-grossing touring attraction in the music business.

This song reminds me that there is a time for everything as stated in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.”

The lyric, “Three blue stars” could be the three bright whitish blue stars that make up Orion’s Belt that are named Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka.  They are also known as the Three Kings or Three Sisters.  Mintaka , the westernmost star in the belt, comes from the Arabic word for belt.  Alnilam, the center star in the belt, means “a belt of pearls”, and Alnitak is the girdle.  When something is “built to last”, it is built well, but you never know if it is built well enough to transcend time.  The Grateful Dead created a legacy through their loyal fans and without Garcia, this band would not be called the Grateful Dead anymore.  They came to be known as the Dead, or Dead & Company, but the music was secondary, as being a Deadhead was all about bonding together to become part of something bigger, something that was built to last.  My lava lamp broke and my bellbottoms no longer fit me, but I will always be part of this group.

There are times that you can beckon
There are times when you must call
You can shake a ton of reckoning
But you can’t shake it all
There are times when I can help you out
And times that you must fall
There are times when you must live in doubt
And I can’t help at all

Three blue stars
Rise on the hill
Say no more, now
Just be still
All these trials
Soon be past
Look for something
Built to last

Wind held by the collar
Got a cloud held by the breeze
You can walk on coals of fire
But sometimes you must freeze
There are times when you offend me
And I do the same to you
If we can’t or won’t forget it,
then I guess we could be through

One blue star
Sets on the hill
Call it back
You never will
One more star
Sinks in the past
Show me something
Built to last.

Built to last till time itself
Falls tumbling from the wall
Built to last till sunshine fails
And darkness moves on all
Built to last while years roll past
Like cloudscapes in the sky
Show me something built to last
Or something built to try

There are times when you get hit upon
Try hard but you cannot give
Other times you’d gladly part
With what you need to live
Don’t waste the breath to save your face
When you have done your best
And even more is asked of you
Let fate decide the rest.

All the stars
Are gone but one
Morning breaks
Here comes the sun
Cross the sky now
Sinking fast
Show me something
Built to last

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is “Freeze/Cold/Ice”.

Palm Sunday

The bunnies are busy decorating their eggs and the sound of music is in the air, well at least it is here on Song Lyric Sunday. The Masters Tournament will culminate today, that is if you like watching golf and if there are no postponements.  Tiger is only two strokes off the lead.  I like to watch golf when I am tired, as after a few holes, I always seem to nod off, because it is such a peaceful sport.  All golf courses are not created equal and Augusta National Golf Course is really something special. Spring has sprung, well at least in Georgia where this tournament is played.

In the US, this Winter of 2018-2019 has been and still is a harsh one, as some people feel that this winter will just not quit, because of all the teeth-chattering cold along with plenty of snow fall accumulations.  There have been bomb cyclones, arctic outbreaks, abundant snowfall, flooding, and an unseasonably warm weather in Alaska.  We have that El Niño weather pattern to blame again, which works out fine for the skiers and snowboarders.  It is not so bad here in Florida, but we do have to deal with lizards.

That will have to be enough about the weather and seasons for now, as I don’t want to get ahead of myself as this will be the topic for next week’s challenge.  Last week the prompt was Burn/Fire/Flame and we had some real hot music, but this week the prompt is Freeze/Cold/Ice and I hope that we have some cool tunes.  Freeze can be described as the condition when liquid changes to the solid state because it lost heat.  There actually is no cold, as this is only the absence of heat, just as dark is the absence of light.  Ice may be thought of as water turning into a brittle transparent crystalline solid.  Please be patient, and wait for me to approve your pingbacks, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Here are the “rules”:

• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it fits the theme or not.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post will eventually work, as long as you are being patient, but you can also place your link in the comments if you don’t like to wait.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

I am writing about the song ‘Built To Last’ by the Grateful Dead this week. Next week I will write about the Simon and Garfunkel song ‘A Hazy Shade of Winter’. The upcoming prompts will be:
April 21, 2019 – Seasons/Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall
April 28, 2019 – Boogie/Rock/Rolling Stone
May 5, 2019 – Hurt/Pain/Agony/Suffer
May 12, 2019 – Mom/Mother/Flowers

The Place Is On Fire

The Spencer Davis Group was a mid-1960s British beat group from Birmingham, England.  In their heyday the group consisted of song writer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Spencer Davis, singer, keyboard player and guitar player Steve Winwood, Steve’s older brother five years his senior Muff (Mervyn) Winwood who played bass guitar and drummer Pete York.  Steve Winwood, Muff Winwood and Spencer Davies wrote the song ‘Gimmie Some Lovin’’ and it came out on their 1966 album The Best of the Spencer Davis Group, which charted #2 in the UK and went to #7 in the US.  Muff came up with the name of Spencer Davis Group because Spencer was the only one who enjoyed doing interviews and this allowed the others to stay in bed, or head down to the pub.

They had two #1 hits in the UK, ‘Keep On Running’ and ‘Somebody Help Me’, but their only song to make the US Top 10 was ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’.  Driven by Steve Winwood’s Hammond organ along with Muff’s powerful bass riff the song became an immediate blues classic, and it was covered by The Blues Brothers, Olivia Newton-John, Chicago, Queen, The Supremes, The Four Tops, Traffic, The Grateful Dead and many other groups.  It was ranked number 247 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.  ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’ appeared in over 20 Hollywood movies including Notting Hill, Good Morning Vietnam, Days of Thunder, The Big Chill and Sleepers.  It was one of the first songs that Winwood says he wrote which wasn’t derivative of something already recorded, although it does contain a groove from the Homer Banks song ‘(Ain’t That) A Lot of Love’ which was written by Banks and Willie Dean Parker.  In court it was later ruled that they could not have copied the bass riff from that song, because the British rockers did not have a reasonable possibility of accessing it.

In the early 1960s, Spencer Davis was a language scholar at University of Birmingham, England, when he decided he wanted to start a rock band.  As a child he had learned to play harmonica and piano accordion.  In 1960, 19 year old Spencer Davis made some duo appearances with future Fleetwood Mac member Christine McVie, (at the time, she was 17 and known as Christine Perfect).  Pete York started playing drums in Birmingham and when he was 18 and he joined a band with the jazz trumpeter Eddie Matthews.  Pete York saw Spencer Davis sing at Birmingham University and they got to know each other.

Steve was playing guitar with Muff and their multi-instrumentalist father in the Ron Atkinson Band at the age of eight, soon after he mastered drums and piano.  In 1959 while still at school, the Winwood brothers had their first group called Johnny Star and The Planets with 11 year old Steve on guitar, Muff on the drums and his class mate Dave Palmer on the bass guitar.  In 1963, they reorganized into the Muff Woody Jazz Band.  Someone told Spencer Davis to check out the Muff Woody Jazz Band with guitar-player Muff Winwood, who would later switch to bass, and this kid Steve Winwood playing piano at the Golden Eagle in Hill Street.  They joined forces to form the The Rhythm and Blues Quartet in 1963, but soon changed their name to the Spencer Davis Group.

Chris Blackwell visionary music promoter and founder of Island Records discovered the group and he became their producer signing them to Phillips owned Fontana.  Blackwell became interested in the American market for the group, and out of desperation, he rented a rehearsal room at the Marquee Club and told the group not to come out until they’d written an original song that would go over well in the US.  Under pressure to perform, The Spencer Davis Group began to jam while lead singer Stevie began singing, “Gimme some lovin”, by just yelling anything that came to mind.  After about half an hour they stumbled onto a riff that they liked, worked out the middle eight and a short while later they had written and arranged the whole song.  They went down to the pub on the corner for lunch and when Blackwell came to see how they were doing, he found their equipment set up and no one was there, so he stormed into the pub screaming, “How can you do this?”  They told him not to worry, because they were all confident that this new song that they finished was going to be a hit.

Blackwell had them record with producer Jimmy Miller and ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’ was the result of this effort.  Miller sped up the original track slightly to create a brighter sound, and adjusted it to get a live feel and he made the US release more appealing to American taste by adding percussion and gospel-inspired backing vocals provided by members of Winwood’s next band, Traffic.  The song sold over a million copies, eventually going gold, and became the first American hit for The Spencer Davis Group.

Steve Winwood left the group in 1967 to form his own band Traffic, and eventually became part of a short-lived supergroup Blind Faith.  Muff simultaneously staged his exit to work as an A&R agent at Island Records.  The Spencer Davis group went on without them, as Spencer and Pete brought guitarist Phil Sawyer (soon to be replaced by Ray Fenwick) and vocalist and keyboardist Eddie Hardin on board to cement the revised outfit.  York and Hardin also left to form their own group Hardin & York and the band never again enjoyed the acclaim that had defined their early years.

The single was released in America on United Artists but it was covered by a Philadelphia band called the Jordan Brothers before the Spencer Davis version was issued in America.  Dave Mason, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood wail away on background vocals for the American version of ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’, while the European version didn’t have background vocals.  Jimmy Miller contributed the opening cowbell on ‘Honky Tonk Women’ and he was the drummer on ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’, working with the Rolling Stones producing some of their best albums Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main St. and Goats Head Soup.  He also worked with Traffic, Blind Faith and several other rock groups and he produced around 100 gold records.

Well, my temperature is rising, got my feet on the floor
Crazy people rocking ‘cause they want to some more
Let me in baby, I don’t know what you got
But you better take it easy ‘cause this place is hot

And I’m so glad you made it, so glad you made it
You got to gimme some lovin’, gimme, gimme some lovin’
Gimme some lovin’, gimme, gimme some lovin’
Gimme some lovin’ everyday

Well, I feel so good, everything’s getting high
You better take it easy ‘cause the place is on fire
Been a hard day and I had no work to do
Wait a minute baby, let it happen to you

And I’m so glad we made it, so glad we made it
You got to gimme some lovin’, gimme, gimme some lovin’
Gimme some lovin’, gimme, gimme some lovin’
Gimme some lovin’ everyday, yeh

Well, I feel so good, everything’s getting high
You better take it easy ‘cause the place is on fire
Been a hard day nothing went too good
Now I’m gonna relax, buddy everybody should

And I’m so glad we made it, hey hey, so glad we made it
You got to gimme some lovin’, gimme, gimme some lovin’ woo ooo
Gimme some lovin’, gimme, gimme some lovin’

Gimme, gimme, gimme some of your lovin’, baby
You know I need it so bad woo ooo
Gimme some of your lovin’, baby

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is “Burn/Fire/Flame”.

Mick Jagger Will Never Stop

At least it seems that way, as the Rolling Stone is expected to make a full recovery after having a heart valve replacement procedure.  The 75 year old performer works out with an emphasis on stamina and balance, which explains his ability to sing and move continuously during a concert without becoming short of breath.  Jagger said that he is feeling much better and he thanked everyone for their messages of support.  People say that he covers 8 miles on stage dancing and strutting during an average concert and when he was younger this was said to be 12.  Mick is known for saying, “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing” and he once said, “I’d rather be dead than singing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m forty-five.”  I just watched The Rolling Stones Olé, Olé, Olé! Documentary on Netflix the other night and the ‘Satisfaction’ that they played in Havana was the best I ever heard.

This week the prompt is Burn/Fire/Flame, which are all related to heat, so let’s put together some smokin’ hot songs for this week.  To burn means to undergo rapid combustion or consume fuel in such a way as to give off heat, gases, and, usually, light.  Fire comes from a chemical reaction between oxygen in the atmosphere and some sort of fuel.  A flame is a hot glowing body of ignited gas that is generated by something that is on fire.  I ask again for you to be patient, and wait for me to approve your pingbacks, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Here are the “rules”:

• Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it fits the theme or not.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post will eventually work, as long as you are being patient, but you can also place your link in the comments if you don’t like to wait.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

I am writing about the song ‘Gimme Some Lovin’’ by the Spencer Davis Group this week.  Next week I will write about the Grateful Dead song ‘Built To Last’. The upcoming prompts will be:
April 14, 2019 – Freeze/Cold/Ice
April 21, 2019 – Seasons/Winter/Spring/Summer/Fall
April 28, 2019 – Boogie/Rock/Rolling Stone
May 5, 2019 – Hurt/Pain/Agony/Suffer

Ever Since They Tore The Juke Box Down

The Grateful Dead song ‘Row Jimmy’ was written by Garcia and Hunter and released on their 1973 album Wake Of The Flood.  This song can mean many things to different people, but I will give you my take on it and then you can make your own decision.  I think that this song carries a Dorian message (relating to the Blue Tang fish in the Nemo movies) and that is to just keep swimming, or for Jimmy it is to just keep rowing in the face of any adversity.  The song starts out with the lyrics, “Julie catch a rabbit by his hair”, which is sort of a homophone, or maybe it is a pun, as hares and rabbits are both in the family Leporidae, but they’re separate species, as hares have longer ears and bigger feet.  Why does Julie catch this rabbit?  I could be way off base here, but I wonder if Julie was pregnant and maybe the rabbit was needed for a pregnancy test.

I am going to go with Julie being a hooker as in the next line of this song it says, “Come back step, like to walk on air”, which would be a great trick defying the laws of Physics if a person could walk on air, so Julie does tricks.  The song is narrated by someone who is not Jimmy or Julie, but it might be a voice that is inside of Jimmy’s head.  It might be like that Seinfeld episode where Jimmy is this guy who always refers to himself in the third person.  Anyway the narrator says, “Get back home where you belong and don’t you run off no more Don’t hang your head let the two-time roll”, which means that they are a couple, and even though Julie ran off and cheated on Jimmy, he still wants her.  I think that Julie has returned pregnant, that she deceived Jimmy, having a sexual relationship with someone else, two timing him while they were a couple, but Jimmy is willing to forgive and he feels that she does not need to hang her head in shame.

Jimmy and Julie live in poverty inside a “Grass shack nailed to a pine wood floor”.  He says, “Ask the time? Baby I don’t know”, possibly he does not know this because he can’t afford a simple watch.  He has a laid back attitude, “Come back later, we’ll let it show And I say row, Jimmy row Gonna get there? I don’t know”, which makes me think that they get by perhaps living on the banks of the Mississippi, as I always get this Tom Sawyer feel from this song.  It might be possible that Jimmy has some sort of a rowboat and that he ferries people across the river.  Maybe the river current is very strong and one of his customers asks him “Gonna get there?” to which Jimmy says, “I don’t know”.  There is a good possibility that this customer really wants to reach his destination, so he gives Jimmy a tip saying, “Here’s my half a dollar if you dare?”  Jimmy is happy to get the extra money, so he does a “double twist when he hits the air”.  Then he “Looks at Julie down below”, with her big belly and he is proud that he can support his family.  He also notices that “the levee is doin the do-pas-o”, which is a dance step very similar to the better known do-si-do.

Jimmy and Julie are scraping by even in this time of hardship and he reminisces, “Broken heart don’t feel so bad Ain’t got half a what you thought you had Rock your baby to and fro Not too fast and not too slow.”  They will have their baby and that will make them happy.  Things are not going so well for the town where they live, “That’s the way it’s been in town ever since they tore the juke box down Two-bit piece don’t buy no more not so much as it done before.”  The juke box is a relic of a purer time in America, when nobody had smart phones to listen to their music.  Buck Owens wrote the song ‘Put A Quarter In The Jukebox’ and that is the same as a two-bit piece.  It has become more difficult for Jimmy and Julie to get by in this one horse town without any music (no juke box), except Jimmy continues his singing saying, “row, Jimmy, row
…Get down, row, row, row, row and his song helps them get by.  I probably missed the boat with my analysis on more than a few points, but anyway that is what I think this song is all about.

Bob Hunter said that the title of his song ‘Row Jimmy’ came from a line that was originally in a song that he wrote called ‘Fair To Even Odds’ around 1970.  Bob had no music to go with his song and years later Pete Sears who was was bassist and key­boardist with Jefferson Star­ship from 1974 to 1978 realized that the words to ‘Fair To Even Odds’ almost perfectly matched some music that he had written.  Pete called Bob and they collaborated on this song for Pete’s solo album, The Long Haul in 2000.

Julie catch a rabbit by his hair
Come back step, like to walk on air
Get back home where you belong
and don’t you run off no more

Don’t hang your head let the two-time roll
Grass shack nailed to a pine wood floor
Ask the time? Baby I don’t know
Come back later, we’ll let it show

And I say row, Jimmy row
Gonna get there?
I don’t know
Seems a common way to go
Get down, row, row, row
row, row

Here’s my half a dollar if you dare
double twist when you hit the air
Look at Julie down below
the levee doin the do-pas-o

And I say row, Jimmy, row
Gonna get there?
I don’t know
Seems a common way to go
Get down, row, row, row
row, row

Broken heart don’t feel so bad
Ain’t got half a what you thought you had
Rock your baby to and fro
Not too fast and not too slow

And I say row, Jimmy, row
Gonna get there?
I don’t know
Seems a common way to go
Get down, row, row, row
row, row

That’s the way it’s been in town
ever since they tore the juke box down
Two-bit piece don’t buy no more
not so much as it done before

And I say row, Jimmy, row
Gonna get there?
I don’t know
Seems a common way to go
Get down, row, row, row
row, row

Written for March 31, 2019 Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is Record/Juke Box/DJ/Radio.