Taylor Hicks ~ "Somehow"

“Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.”
Taylor Hicks via Twitter.

“Somehow”
by Taylor Rueben Hicks

There’s too many things
Left to be unsaid
Some live in a dark hole
Sometimes in my head

But I’m all right
I’ll get by
Somehow

You want to feel their emotion
Sometimes even hold their hand
But they’re giving nothing in return
To suit their own demands

But I’m tired
And I’ll get by
Somehow

Look at the people around you
Stabbing at your heart
But you still smile in kindness
For not knowing who they are

And their stories have ended
And they’ve lit up the town
And it’s time to go home
As they go and lay their bodies back down

There’s too many things
Left to be unsaid
So I live in a dark hole
Sometimes in my head

But I’m all right
I’ll get by
Somehow

“I’ll get by…somehow.”

Classic country lyrics—cryin’ words. The first time I heard this I thought this is the country connection in Taylor’s music. This must have been written during Taylor’s Nashville stay…a Nashville sound.

When I look at Taylor’s music and try to “get inside” it, I don’t try to “get it right”—what he meant, what he was thinking, or what the situation was as he wrote it. That would seem like an intrusion. I look for what it means to me and how it may foster a dialogue.

I don’t think “Somehow” is a country song. I can hear Ray Charles singing this song, and I know he did country crossover. Taylor’s signature delivery is more soulful than country in spite of an easy rhythm and instruments that says country.

Beyond the deceivingly, simple lyrics of “I’ll Get by… somehow,” this is about that complicated place of hurt inside us all and about the resolve to survive and “get by.” The straightforward words are deceptive of their depth.

There’s too many things
Left to be unsaid
Some live in a dark hole
Sometimes in my head

There’s no country twang or room for it in Taylor’s performance of this. Because of the chorus lyrics, we want to give it a country vibe. But I hear a lament that is pure soul—Taylor Hicks channeling Ray Charles.

You want to feel their emotion
Sometimes even hold their hand
But they’re giving nothing in return
To suit their own demands

Taylor has sung this song in the rain. He sang it in New Orleans. I haven’t seen a stage version of it that I feel captures its essence. To me, it is a listen to stick in your ears—the recorded version from In Your Time or Early Works. It is an easy rhythm that takes you along on a pensive journey inside the mind.

Until a cryin’ saxophone breaks out with a wail that suggests getting by is not acceptable forever. Maybe there’s more. And with his signature growling passion, Taylor’s voice matches the emotion of the words:

Look at the people around you
Stabbing at your heart
But you will smile in kindness
For not knowing who they are

In the end, Taylor’s voice fades to almost a whisper. It is as if that moment of “living in a dark hole sometimes in my head” is over and he returns to a peaceful resolve:

But I’m all right
I’ll get by
Somehow

I see “Somehow” on stage like “The Fall”—pure Taylor voice and minimum production with the beautiful lyrics of resolve and resiliency that come when we have no where to go but up. We know of the black hole sometimes in our head and we determine to go on in spite of all that we hold there.

This song leaves us with challenges. Our lives are full of too many things left that will remain unsaid and undone—what we should have said, what we never had a chance to say or what we couldn’t say—when there are no words.

Music not written, songs not sung, places not seen, lives not touched.

I heard a line recently that inspired me:

“I want to leave this life exhausted.”

Leave as little as possible unsaid and undone.

It also leaves us with the challenge of getting by, no matter how tired or how beaten down.

But I’m all right
I’ll get by
Somehow

We can’t help but take this chorus out of context and make it an anthem for our times. Tough times have come to everyone even those with good jobs still making their mortgage payments. These times have forestalled retirements, cancelled or cut back on college plans, forced families to fight for just the basics.

Today is all about getting by.

It isn’t about waiting for a bailout. It’s not about what others can do for you. It’s about what you must do for yourself.

Most of us have experienced the failing economy; it is so far reaching now. I recently found out most of the value in my home from the last ten years is gone. And I am so lucky. I am not underwater, and I have a job. So many people have suffered far greater losses than equity in a home.

So we carpool, collect coupons, and carefully calculate consumer spending. We refinance, rethink priorities, and restructure resumes. We do what we must.

I return so often to a staunch belief that we are stronger than we know.

“Tough times don’t last. Tough people do.”

We are tougher than we think. It starts with believing in ourselves and never giving up.

A favorite passage of mine from Taylor’s autobiography, Heart Full of Soul, is just after he leaves Nashville after no success there and returns to Birmingham, not beaten, but as reenergized as he is every time he takes the stage. He writes:

“Anyone expecting Taylor Hicks to return to Birmingham from Nashville as a broken man with a cowboy hat in hand would have been sorely disappointed. I’ve never been one to remain flat on the canvas for long, so I returned with my head still held high, a little bloodied but unbowed, ready to get right down to work.”

Tough times will not keep us on the canvas for very long.


Yes, tough times are that. But the human spirit will always prevail. It always has.

So, I will see you on the other side of these tough times.

Meanwhile,

We WILL get by…

Somehow.

~~~
"Taylor Hicks - Somehow" 2007 Montage by rugratnat14 on YouTube:


"Somehow" by Taylor Hicks was originally recorded on his first album, In Your Time, and in 2008 on Early Works:


~~~
Blogger’s Note: This piece has been in the works for some time. I have always wanted to take a look at this song and its country connection…or not.

Yesterday, @TaylorRHicks tweeted the quote at the beginning and I was writing about this tough economy and “getting by.” We find ourselves in a “dark hole” sometimes especially now, and it may become a “deep hole.” It doesn’t help to dwell in that place. It does help to work at getting out of it, especially mentally and emotionally.

When I saw Taylor’s quote and a tweet shortly after that which said, “That reminds me of your song, ‘Somehow,’” its time had come.

~~~ Photo: From @TaylorRHicks via Twitter; Taylor Hicks, Lake Mission Viejo, CA, August, 2011; edited by San.


Quote: Heart Full of Soul, by Taylor Hicks for Random House, 2007.

Taylor Hicks ~~ Americana Music

Some time ago, a friend sent me music by Irma Thomas including a beautiful version of “Loving Arms,” one of my all time favorite songs. I had not heard her music—Miss Irma, New Orleans’ Soul Queen. I liked her rich, soulful sound. “Break Away” is one of her own songs, and “I Wish Someone Would Care” is a soulful jewel.

She is representative of the great artists out there who aren’t charting hit makers or mainstream pop culture icons. But they have a loyal following because they are good.

Music blogger, Bob Lefsetz, has said that he’s not a fan of hits, but a fan of music and that we need a “filter” to find the good music out there—there is so much of the other kind. He thought someone could make money by presenting really good music and artists, not just performers with deep pockets.

Musical talent was discovered in a somewhat unusual way in the 1930s.

It was the Thirties’ version of a government stimulus package—part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal.

This is from an intriguing history, “Highway 61 Revisited The Tangled Roots of American Jazz, Blues, Rock, & Country Music,” by the master sax musician, Gene Santoro.

“Under the New Deal, the government sent out squadrons of researchers, writers, artists, and collators to document and disseminate local American folkways and history. This was part of the broader push to put to work the armies of unemployed, but it also reflected a country awakening from the social elite’s Eurocentric cultural dominance, partly thanks to emerging mass media…”

John and Alan Lomax were part of this unique effort.

“Alan Lomax worked with his ex-banker father, John A. Lomax, from age 17, crisscrossing the South making irreplaceable field recordings… adding oral histories and interviews that nest among the jewels of the Library of Congress.

“The biggest prize the Lomaxes snared on their 1933 Library of Congress trip to Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary was Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter. …
He carried in his head a fathomless bag of Americana.”

The Lomaxes were enthralled by Lead Belly and were able to get his release. He was turned over to Moses Asch, an independent label head with a small studio just off New York’s Time Square.

“Asch is one of those independent label heads who played vital roles in postwar American music. At Folkways, Asch recorded culture that was vanishing beneath urbanization and the growing mass media. He ran his several labels on love and a shoestring.”

“Lead Belly was the first folk artist Asch recorded, and his songs fed a powerful underground stream into folk and rock music of the 1950s and 1960s: songs he claimed to write…include 'Goodnight Irene' and 'Cottonfields,' which were covered by everyone from [Pete] Seeger to Creedence Clearwater Revival, and defined others like 'House of the Rising Sun.'"

I was fascinated by an “under the radar” DVD, “Deep Blues, a Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads,” by Robert Palmer and others, captured much in the same way as the Lomaxes did—recorded in tucked away roadhouses, bars, and front porches in the Deep South. It is “real” blues and soul music that is about as far away from mainstream as one could get.

It made me realize that there are live music places, much like the ones where Taylor Hicks “cut his musical teeth” all over the country in out of the way byways and housed in old buildings on busy city streets where good music is humming. Raw talent is performing on Wednesday night hoping just to get a Friday or Saturday night gig.

It makes you want to go out to the local bar or club and check out the talent. Support live music!

If you are lucky enough to be in or around New Orleans, one of the most fascinating cities I’ve ever had the privilege to visit (yes, to see Taylor Hicks), Irma Thomas has an impressive musical resume and is appearing there in December.

And she is good.



From Rounder Records: "She remains one of America’s most distinctive and classic singers, a treasure from the golden age of soul music who remains as compelling and powerful as ever..."

Check out Miss Irma, New Orleans’ Soul Queen:

http://www.irmathomas.com/

If music is your passion or your diversion, Gene Santoro’s comprehensive history of 20th century Americana music is outstanding. As a non-musician, I didn’t understand much of the music lingo, but the histories of great musical legends from Woody Guthrie to Bruce Springsteen were fascinating. It is an in-depth study of the people and influences that create the basis for our Americana music scene today. It is not just about Southern roots, but also the legacies of the West Coast, New York City, and Detroit.

All of these musical treasures are available on Amazon!

Miss Irma’s soulful albums
“Deep Blues, A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads” by Robert Palmer and others “Highway 61 Revisited The Tangled Roots of American Jazz, Blues, Rock, & Country Music,” by Gene Santoro, Oxford University Press
Taylor Hicks’s music, “Taylor Hicks,” “Early Works,” “The Distance,” and “Whomp at the Warfield,” live performance DVD.

And all are wonderful presents for the music lover on your holiday gift list!

Final Reflection:
The music I have discovered in the past few years, not only from Taylor Hicks, but from friends and online communities has enriched my life anew. I have always loved music—sang in church choirs as a teenager, studied a little bit of it in college, and then I got busy with life. Except for an occasional concert, popular vinyl album, or a radio in the background, I missed a few decades of music.

The last four years has been a reconnecting with music from the past and good music of today.


I am forever grateful to Taylor Hicks for that!

~~~

To subscribe to The Lefsetz Letter, visit: www.lefsetz.com

Photos: Miss Irma Thomas from www.irmathomas.com; Taylor Hicks at Museum of Tolerance International Film Festival.

Taylor Hicks ~~ Music -- What is it, really?

Have we perfected ourselves right out of the music game?

I was intrigued with an article sent to me about the latest recording by Michael Buble, who is stepping away from “perfection” and going for the “groove” in an “old fashioned” way of recording.

Imagine the concept—musicians all playing on the floor in the same room and recording it LIVE! And he admits that the idea was not well received by the “experts,” and that it is risky, and may not be “commercially” successful!

There was something more important to Michael Buble—the music—real and moving.

“Despite the massive success of his first three albums, the Vancouver crooner had fallen out of love -- not with the music he was making, but with the way he was making it.”

Although he says he was very proud of his first three albums that sold 21 million copies, “there was something missing.”

“They sound really good; sonically, they're beautiful. They're all about perfection -- everything is recorded onto ProTools, and if something isn't perfect, you pull it out and fix it. There are no mistakes.”

And so, to “rekindle” an old flame, he listened to recording of Frank Sinatra, Elvis and the Beatles.

“And I would feel something -- I can't really explain it, but there was a great presence in some of those records. I kept wondering why they had this great presence and why I didn't always feel that when I was listening to myself, or to other records that are made today. And one of the first things I realized was that we live in a ProTools, American Idol generation. We've become used to listening to this absolutely perfect music, but the heart and the soul are gone. It's so antiseptic.

“At the same time, he admits, he was getting slightly tired of hearing an eternal refrain from fans and critics: That his live shows are more enjoyable than his studio albums. Putting the two ideas together led to his eureka moment. ‘I realized that maybe I could meet somewhere in the middle and capture the energy and the raw excitement that comes from doing it in a live setting.’”

The old fashioned way.

His fans were not the only ones saying live shows were better. Prolific music blogger, Bob Lefsetz, has said many times that he is blown away by live performances of artists whose recorded music he would not buy and listen to. He recently “discovered” Taylor Swift live at the Ryman and was moved to tears by the “real” music.

“Music done right is life itself,” Lefsetz said.

Have we ProTooled ourselves right out of music itself? If it no longer speaks to us, is it music? Or is it engineered sound…beautiful, yes, and listenable, and commercial.

Is it music?

Michael told his producer, David Foster:

“'I need to do this in a different way. It has to be far more organic. I don't want to record to a click track. I don't want to tape everything separately. I want to shove those microphones in the room and I want the band just to go in there and play. I don't care if the tempo speeds up or slows down. I just want it to feel great. I want those drums to be bleeding into the bass, and the bass bleeding into the strings, and them bleeding into my vocals. I want this to have some real edge.' "

He took a chance:

"I got my 18-piece big band, threw them in a room, chucked up the microphones, set up a little vocal booth, and we did Stardust with (a cappella septet) Naturally 7. My rhythm section was 10 feet away, and nobody wore (headphone) cans, and we played. We played the song three times and we ended up using the first take. It was so satisfying."

Who knew what the commercial success of “Crazy Love” would be?

We recently witnessed the “real” music of Taylor Hicks at WorkPlay and much has been written about it.

Could the “music” of WorkPlay have been produced on ProTools? Can you imagine Billy Earl McClelland in one room, Taylor in another, and Brian Less in another with the keyboards…making music like that?

What is music? Is it perfect sound? Or, are heart and soul essential ingredients for “music.”

How far can we go electronically and call something “real.” Call it “music.”

What is it? Really?

Engineered sounds, or a human experience?

Michael admits that he possibly erred:

“But I erred on the side of integrity. I tried to make a record that really moved me. And I hoped that if it moved me it would move other people.”

Music moving people—an old fashioned idea? Was that the magic of Sinatra, Elvis, the Beatles? Not the voices, nor perfect sounds.

Here is the uniqueness of Taylor Hicks and his music. Listen to recordings of “The Distance,” and “Early Works.” The music moves you. Taylor so lives his music that the recorded sounds capture the intensity of that human experience. Add the ProTools environment. The heart and soul—the real music—still comes through.

It just gets better on the live stage.

The live concert is the artist’s recorded music kicked up a big notch. Why artists tour. Why Taylor has said touring is where it’s at. Why Bob Lefsetz says give away the recorded music—live music is where it’s at. Recorded is the enticement to see it live?

OR, record it live?

Anyone for “Taylor Hicks—Live at the Fillmore!”


Sources: The Lefsetz Letter, http://www.lefsetz.com/lists/?p=subscribe&id=1
“Buble is Crazy” by Darryl Sterdan, http://www.thewhig.com/

Taking a chance paid off commercially too for Michael Buble. “Crazy Love” is Number 1 on the charts in Canada.

~Thanks to KarinP for sending me this article on Michael Buble. It started the wheels turning.

Thanks to Wonder for the photo above: "Taylor at WorkPlay"