Alphabet Soup Week 18: The I Tracks

The joyful task of constructing another weekly playlist provides a brief respite from the stress of preparing for my upcoming retirement.

Welcome to week 18 of Alphabet Soup!

Those of you that tuned in for last week’s post will know that I recently tendered my resignation at work as the early retirement plan drafted a decade ago has finally come to fruition. It’s an extremely exciting time for me, but also one that brings with it some stress and anxiety, both on the work front and the home front.

At work it’s extremely important to me that I finish out my career on a high note, to wrap up all my outstanding tasks, to train the people that will be taking on some of my responsibilities, and to help recruit my successor (if time allows). This speaks to integrity, a character trait I’ve always valued and respected in myself and others, and bringing my career to a close in a manner of which I can be proud.

On the home front, we’re in the process of selling, donating, or otherwise disposing of many of the material possessions we’ve accumulated over our almost 25-year marriage. Much of the heavy purging was done when we downsized from a big old house to our current condo in 2018. But we remain burdened blessed with scads of clothing, dishes, technology, housewares, books, and art. We’ve made the decision to take very little in the way of material possessions when we relocate to the UK next year. The act of sorting and downsizing takes time and effort, especially with the distraction that comes with ADHD, and can feel a little overwhelming on top of a full-time job.

I’ve been plugging away fairly consistently over the last few weeks but also ensuring that I find the necessary balance by building some downtime into my weekends. At this point I remain committed to continuing with my weekly Alphabet Soup series as I find the writing deeply satisfying and it’s fulfilling a deep desire to create that surfaced last year and led to the launch of this Substack.

Unlike last week’s post which, given the dearth of I artists, was dominated by tracks that appeared on my compilation CDs, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming. This week’s playlist, composed of tracks that all appear on actual album releases, was a lot of fun to construct and sequence and was a welcome respite from some of the stress and anxiety I’ve been facing lately.

Hopefully you find something that appeals, whether a reminder of a forgotten-but- much-loved track or a new-to-you gem that just grabs your attention and won’t let go.

Happy listening!

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ALPHABET SOUP WEEK 18: The I Tracks

This week’s selections:

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TRACK: "I Found a Reason" from The Covers Album (2000)

ARTIST: Cat Power

Over the last couple decades, I’ve become quite a fan of Chan Marshall who performs as Cat Power. I can’t be sure when I first heard her music but it’s quite possible it was in the 2005 film V For Vendetta which featured this song, I Found a Reason, from her 2000 release The Covers Album. I’ve always enjoyed Marshall’s reinterpretations of the songs she chooses to cover. Some critics aren’t as upbeat, with Rachel Aroesti’s headline on her Guardian review of 2022’s Covers, a top 20 album for me, characterizing the album as “transforming majesty into adequacy”. Aroesti makes the case that, with many of the original songs being quite obscure and idiosyncratic or distinctive in their content or delivery, Marshall takes something away with her “atmospheric but breathily subtle vocals”. For the most part, I know little to nothing about the original material Marshall chooses to cover. As such, I have the freedom to enjoy the music unconstrained by prior expectations. More often than not I don’t even seek out the originals, content to enjoy the new-to-me music and move on.

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TRACK: "I Get Along Without You Very Well" from Chet Baker Sings (1956)

ARTIST: Chet Baker

Known primarily for his trumpet playing prior to this album, the 1954 album Chet Baker Sings remains one of only a handful of albums on which Chet Baker sings on most or all of the tracks. At some point in the late 90s I got my hands on a CD of the 1956 Pacific reissue, which included the six additional tracks recorded in July 1956 that round out what has become one of my favorite jazz vocal albums. I Get Along Without You Very Well, written by Hoagy Carmichael in 1938, became a smash hit in 1939 for Red Norvo and his orchestra (with vocals by Terry Allen). The song would go on to be recorded by over 250 artists and while I enjoy Frank Sinatra’s rendition from 1955’s In The Wee Small Hours of the Morning, Baker’s will always be my favorite.

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TRACK: "I and I" from Infidels (1983)

ARTIST: Bob Dylan

The mid-80s were somewhat of a desert for popular entertainment in Bermuda. In 1984 the lights went out at Rosebank Theatre, the island’s only film venue and the screens would be dark until Liberty Theatre opened in 1987 with The Color Purple (just a tad more meaningful than Rosebank’s closing film Mr. Mom). Later that year the only terrestrial television station was shuttered due to industrial action. We were left with no TV, no cable, no movie theaters, and very limited radio options while the local VHS rental company blossomed and rapidly grew into a behemoth. It was a challenging time for a music and film lover. Unless you were one of the lucky few to have a residential satellite dish, giving you access to MTV, you were shit-outta-luck in keeping up with a wide variety of current music.

At some point in 1984 an old family friend returned to Bermuda from Cayman where they had (gasp!) cable TV including paid channels. She brought with her a VHS tape of material recorded from HBO which included a handful of music videos including The Specials’ Free Nelson Mandela and Bob Dylan’s Jokerman from 1983’s Infidels, an album I fell in love with. I and I was the fifth single from the album and is generally well regarded. Rolling Stone and Spectrum Culture both include the song on a list of Dylan’s best songs of the 80s and The Guardian included it in their 2021 article “80 Bob Dylan songs everyone should know.”

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As you make your way through this week’s playlist, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do any of these tracks really stand out for you? What do you like? What don’t you like?

Please click the button below to leave a comment.

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TRACK: "I Walk The Earth" from No Style (2000)

ARTIST: King Biscuit Time

Volume 85 of the CMJ Music Monthly in September 2000 included this track, King Biscuit Time’s I Walk The Earth from their EP No Style. My wife and I loved this song and found much joy in dancing around and singing its chorus, which to us sounded like, “Hey Rajneesh, picking on your own reality” (turns out it was “Hey, knock me” but it’ll always be Rajneesh for us). The rest of the EP did very little for me, so it was a one-track-and-done purchase, albeit one that was worth the price of admission for this track alone.

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TRACK: "I Am the Black Gold of the Sun" from Nuyorican Soul (1997)

ARTIST: Nuyorican Soul

I Am The Black Gold Of The Sun originally appeared on American psychedelic soul band Rotary Connection’s 1971 album Hey, Love but only made its way to my ears with the 1997 remake included on Nuyorican Soul’s self-titled debut album. With guest appearances from the likes of George Benson, Roy Ayers, Tito Puente, and Jocelyn Brown (who provides the vocals on this track), AllMusic’s John Bush called it “one of the best all-star dance albums ever recorded”. I’m no connoisseur of dance music, but for my money the beats, grooves and vocals on this album are hard to top and keep me satisfied from start to finish.

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TRACK: "I'd Rather Go Blind" from Tell Mama (1968)

ARTIST: Etta James

For decades Etta James was criminally underrated and overlooked in the music industry, and it wasn’t until the 90s that she began to receive the acclaim and recognition she so richly deserved. After nine previous nominations, including four for Best R&B Solo Vocal Performance, in seven years between 1968 and 1975, James won her first Grammy in 1995 for Best Jazz Vocal Performance for Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday. She would go on to be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 2001 and received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award two years later.

Surprisingly, I’d Rather Go Blind from 1986’s Tell Mama, one of James’ best known and most loved songs, was never released as a single, instead appearing as the B-side to the album’s title track. The absolute heartbreak expressed in the lyrics combined with James’ delivery and powerful vocals packs a viscerally emotional punch.

The live performance I’ve chosen to include below, from her appearance at Montreaux in 1975, slows the tempo of the song considerably and sees James adding a series of vocal flourishes and spoken word, almost call-and-response, elements. The well of deep emotion she’s able to tap here, and her ability to manifest the heartache, and to pass that emotion on to her audience, is breathtaking.

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TRACK: "I Don't Want To Think About It" from Heroine (1995)

ARTIST: Wild Strawberries

This is the first appearance of Wild Strawberries, a gem of a Canadian band I found myself enamored with for a three-album stretch between 1994 and 1998. Heroine, released in 1995, was the band’s fourth effort and the first of two albums on Nettwerk Records. On the reworked version of I Don’t Want To Think About It, which originally appeared on their 1991 album Grace, Vocalist Roberta Carter and her husband, keyboardist Ken Harrison, are accompanied on guitar by their labelmate at the time Sarah McLachlan, who also appears in the music video.

While researching this week’s installment I discovered the band have continued to make music with five albums released since I last listened to them with 1998’s Quiver. I’ve been dipping into their more recent releases and have enjoyed what I’ve heard so I’ll be making some time for them in my rotation this year.

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TRACK: "I Want to Come Over" from Your Little Secret (1995)

ARTIST: Melissa Etheridge

Melissa Etheridge is another one of those artists whose career I only briefly dipped into, in this case for half of her 1990s output. The 1993 release Yes I Am was Etheridge’s breakout album, with I’m The Only One peaking at number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Come to My Window earning her the 1995 Grammy for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Although my brief fandom had started to wane by the time Etheridge released her follow up, 1995’s Your Little Secret, the album produced my favorite track of hers, I Want to Come Over.

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TRACK: "I Have Forgiven Jesus" from You Are The Quarry (2004)

ARTIST: Morrisey

Full disclosure here: I did struggle with whether or not to include Morrisey on this playlist because he’s somehow developed into a rather ghastly human being. But my ongoing love for The Smiths, and the fact that this track just seems to work so well at this spot in this playlist, overcame my misgivings. I only rarely listen to Morrisey’s solo releases as they simply aren’t imbued with the emotional weight of The Smiths’ catalog, interwoven as those songs are with some of my foundational teenage experiences. I Have Forgiven Jesus was the fourth and final single released from Morrissey’s seventh studio album, 2004’s I Am The Quarry.

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TRACK: "I Would Be Your Man" from Good Weird Feeling (1995)

ARTIST: Odds

Odds, the Canadian alternative rock band from Vancouver, had a pair of excellent albums in the mid 90s, my favorite of which was 1995’s Good Weird Feeling which produced five singles. While Eat My Brain and Truth Untold were the most successful of the bunch, the romantic in me has always preferred I Would Be Your Man (despite the somewhat bizarre music video). Once again, as with so many Canadian artists of this era, my relationship with their music fell off sharply after returning to Bermuda in 1996.

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Life in the key of I: Integrity

With the brief mention in my introduction of the importance I place on integrity, and after starting the playlist with Cat Power’s rendition of I Have a Reason, the film V For Vendetta was on my mind throughout the writing of this week’s post. The scene of Valerie’s early years, as shared with Evey on a serialized missive passed through a hole in the wall separating their cells, has stuck with me over the years, particularly the line that closes the excerpt above, “Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us, but within that inch we are free.”

The first six words of that line defined my years of active alcoholism and addiction, a period in which I willingly sacrificed my moral compass, including those character traits that would later become foundational to my definition of self. The recovery program I entered when I got sober introduced me to a manner of living characterized by honesty and integrity and underpinned by an attitude of humility, selflessness and gratitude. While those five characteristics have become integral to my very being, four of them continue to be a work in progress, their expression dependent on my spiritual condition, the size of my ego, and my level of selfishness and self-centeredness. Integrity remains the one trait I cling to dearly, that crystal vase that can never quite be put back together if I allow it to fall. It is the very last inch of me.

Wrapping up with the powerful conclusion of Valerie’s message:

“I shall die here. Every inch of me shall perish, every inch but one. An inch. It is small, and it is fragile, and it is the only thing in the world worth having. We must never lose it or give it away. We must never let them take it from us.

I hope that whoever you are, you escape this place. I hope that the world turns and that things get better. But what I hope most of all is that you understand what I mean when I tell you that, even though I do not know you, and even though I may never meet you, laugh with you, cry with you, or kiss you, I love you. With all my heart, I love you.

- Valerie”

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with me for another installment, I appreciate it. See you next week!

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Here’s the link to the running playlist which is updated on a weekly basis as each new installment is published:

ALPHABET SOUP RUNNING PLAYLIST

Tracks missing from the Spotify playlist:

• Allegory by Murray Attaway (Week 02)

• Face Me and Smile by The Lover Speaks (Week 12)

• From Your Mouth by God Lives Underwater (Week 13)

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Thank you for reading Joy in the Journey, I appreciate you being here! If there’s someone in your life you think may enjoy this post, feel free to share it.