Elvis… what can I say? I grew up in Memphis, TN…
C G Am F C G G7
wise men say only ...
F G Am Dm C G C
but i can't help falling ...
shall i stay would it ....
[Bridge]
Em Am
like a ...
Em Am
surely to ...
Em Am
darling ...
Em A7 Dm G7
some things were ....
Great Radiohead song… The Bends has to be one of the best sophomore albums, ever. I certainly had no idea so many great songs were to come, based on their debut disc (which is decent, but nothing like the quality of their later releases).
This is my favorite Bob Dylan song (at the moment), from Highway 61 Revisited. Unfortunately, Bob is kind-of a slacker in live performance, and I couldn’t find any of his that I thought did the song justice. Here is a live version by Neil Young, though, that’s pretty good, and faithful to the original.
Of all the folksy artists I listen to, I’ve been enjoying Ani Difranco most lately. Especially her Educated Guess and Knuckle Down CDs. I think a lot of people didn’t like Educated Guess for some reason… too “experimental” they say on amazon.com reviews. I thought the change was nice… but I’m an unusual fan because I don’t like the early discs that most people think are her best.
Here’s a pretty good live version of “Manhole” and “Studying Stones” from her Knuckle Down CD (although the camera occasionally veers off toward the ceiling… I think a person with a camera-phone was either not paying attention or trying not to get caught):
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One of the neat things about seeing Tori Amos live are the improvisational parts. And, they can be especially amusing when they come out of flubbed songs. Here’s a performance of Professional Widow I found on youtube with a new “Things F*ck Up Sometimes” middle section 
Most bands I’ve seen, when they mess up, just keep going and finish the song. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a band that mess up so badly they couldn’t finish the song. But, Tori seems averse to just playing through errors. She usually stops and calls herself on it. It’s funny and the fans love it.
A concert from their Death Cult Armaggedon tour. I thought that disc was pretty good. The makeup+costumes aren’t all that scary… I wonder why these bands still do that? I guess I just don’t understand that part of the black metal culture. But, the important thing is the music, and Dimmu Borgir are one of my favorites in this style.
The video quality is a bit grainy, but the audio quality is pretty good. They duplicate the symphonic parts on the disc pretty well live (without an actual orchestra, obviously).
From a Simpsons episode, when Billy Corgan introduces himself to Homer:
Corgan: Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins.
Homer: Homer Simpson, smiling politely. You know, my kids think you’re the greatest, and thanks to your gloomy music, they’ve finally stopped dreaming of a future I can’t possibly provide.
In chronological order, some of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins songs that have videos:
Rhinocerous, from Gish. So many people today don’t realize that Billy used to have hair….
Gish was not my favorite disc, to be honest, but some of the songs are alright. Siamese Dream, on the other hand, was really strong from start to finish. Here’s the opening track, Cherub Rock:
And my favorite SP song…. Today:
On youtube you can also find videos for: Disarm and Rocket. The whole disc is good.
Next up we have (I think) the last video before the appearance of “Uncle Fester” Billy. It’s Bullet with Butterfly Wings which is a simple but pretty effective song, I think. I like the bridge with the long bend that leads to the “tell me I’m the only …” section.
Bullet with Butterfly Wings was from their double album, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I loved those discs, but my favorite songs on it were not made into videos, so … that was all you get.
I’m afraid, after this point, the pumpkins were much more hit-and-miss with me. Especially if I’m trying to pick from their videos, which is obviously just a small subset of their total output. Let’s see…
Remember that terrible Batman and Robin movie? Well, the pumpkins did one of the songs on the soundtrack, which I actually liked quite a bit:
Here is the video for Ava Adore, from the
I don’t have Zeitgeist yet, so I don’t have on opinion on it.
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This song has some great lyrics (you can read them amid the chords below). I think the best songs are like short stories, where they allude to enough extra detail that you can fill in a lot of backstory however you see fit. In the same way, I think that’s how the best songs manage to mean so much to so many different people… they are so wide open to interpretation that the listeners do all the work to mold it into something they can feel deeply. The song itself just nudges them in the direction they already want to go.
Here’s a clip from some movie, set to the music from Leonard Cohen. This is actually the first time I’ve heard the original version of the song… I have a live performance by Regina Spektor which has a different flow to it. I like the Spektor version better, frankly.
Someone put a fair amount of effort into this.