Lady Came from Baltimore - Scott Walker

Scott Walker interprets Tim Hardin's folk romance as a country torch song and lachrymose chocolate box pop opera.

I was there to steal the money. Take her rings and run. Then I fell in love with the lady. Got away with none.

Lady Came From Baltimore's owes it's outlaw narrative to the English folk tradtion, most notably the Robin Hood ballads from the 14th and 15th centuries; tales of thigh-slapping prince of thievery, sung by jolly strolling minstrels with lutes, lyres, feathered caps and early symptons of the plague... yet significantly better skin than Bryan Adams.

Alas, the narrative focus that pop inherited from the oral folk tradition has become less pervasive in the rock era. Maybe it's decline is down to the rise of the novel or motion picture. But maybe it's because life is no longer hard enough...

Lady worked in a scented candle shop. That English degree wasn't much use. She had a thyroid condition and was planning a move to Brighton. She dressed like Stevie Nicks. Purple suited her, she thought.

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Niki Hoeky - P. J. Proby

A country soul stomper from trouser-splitting crooner P.J. Proby and songwriter Jim Ford, sometime solo artist and specialist in chicken shack, hickory-flavoured, southern fried tales of hardship beneath the Mason-Dixon line in the dark days of Dixie, before regional menu options and the spicy salsa Zinger.

Niki, Niki, Niki Hoeky. Your pappy's doing time in the pokey.

As with narative outlaw tunes, modern popular songs about working class toil are a rarity. Even modern country music has rejected tales of penury, drunken patriarchs, saintly mothers and sons calling another man 'Daddy' in favour of the anodyne balladry and catchy hooks of chart pop. Maybe it's because life is no longer hard enough...

Nearly out of credit on pay-as-you-go. Daddy worked flexi-time for a regional utility company. Blockbuster were out of Eddie Murphy films - the later family sequels not the early funny ones with lots of creative swearing.

Now, if that made any sense, get hip to the consultation of the boolawee...

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Manifesto & Book News

If it's ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it's in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, toothy teen idols, candy-based metaphors for carnal acts or lyrics about hugging, squeezing and rocking all night long, it's in.

New York Car Waxing Disaster 1941



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