Hi Ted. Love the substack and have benefited so much from your music writing over the years. Listened to the Havels the other night—divine!
You might want to check out a book I wrote, The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse, for translations of Sappho, Pindar, and many others. Here’s my version of Sappho 31:
Thanks—your book could be a good resource for readers pursuing this humanities immersion program. Because we are also tackling part of the Odyssey in week two, we can only fit in around a hundred pages of lyric poetry—so I was steering students to Lattimore's collectionof Greek lyrics. But it's very useful for students to have a larger collection that covers both Greek and Latin.
I’d happily ask Penguin to send you a review copy if you think you might consider commending it to them! Alicia Stallings did a very positive review in The Telegraph, if that is of interest.
Thanks for sharing this—all of it. From Sappho to vulnerability. “It’s almost painful to open myself up that much to total strangers.” Yes…you put into words what it feels like as an introvert wanting to share a gift, but then realizing the authentic connections with other music lovers are worth it. Lately, I’ve been spinning my perspective on it this way:
the aMCC, aka brain’s "network convergence zone" needs me to do something I don't want to do - something hard, this brain area gets bigger. I know I’ll get there—I feel it in my bones. So I keep going, albeit slowly…
I will read this post again when the shame & pain comes back to haunt me. Wrestling with resistance and sharing my imperfect work has been equal parts terrifying and exciting. Ramble over😊
Your comments on vulnerability reminded me of Ethel Waters' description of singing "Stormy Weather": "When I got out there in the middle of the Cotton Club floor I was telling the things I couldn't frame in words. I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, of the misunderstandings in my life I couldn't straighten out, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted. Your imagination can carry you just so far. Only those who have been hurt deeply can understand what pain is, or humiliation."
"I sang Stormy Weather from the depths of a private hell in which I was being crushed and suffocated."
I do so love your writings Ted. Thank you for transporting us to another time and for your intellectual introspection on the beauty of life through music, art and song.
What if we sent this sort of content to everyone and they totally absorbed and got it? Maybe we would all be in a different place now.
My favorite love song by far is Wichita Lineman. The love in the song doesn't seem to be unrequited, but in this song, love doesn't solve everything; the song recognizes that real love can still be a very lonely thing.
The engineer Leo De Gar Kulka had worked with Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, etc., and had these amazing Neumann microphones from the old days. He had to exercise great ingenuity here because I sing so softly (the same is true of my piano touch). Leo deserves a lot of credit for how natural everything sounds in the finished track.
When I read the title of this article, my first thought was I Fall in Love Too Easily. When I want to listen to love songs. I listen to Johnny Harman with John Coltrane.
I'm a songwriter that doesn't write many love songs due to a lack of interest. I've always found other subjects more artistic and engaging, more important even. But the last few years have changed me. The violence and antagonism in the world is overwhelming and I've been reminded that music's central role is to bring people together, it's not just art for art's sake. I'm starting to confront my own bitterness toward humanity and am starting to write more about love.
Listen to Motown records of the 60s,70s,80s even,just. If you really listen to the words of "pop songs" and I suspect as many people really study the words of pop songs as read The Bible! I mean it's the overall sound,most people "know" The Bible says this,says that,when it doesn't...anyway those Detroit sings written and performed by black persons (sorry whatever the current proper term) are not only very MORAL and POSITIVE true words about REAL LOVE,tough not soppy love,but they also very much align and reflect old time Christian values,the good ones I mean,and that is probably due to most of those folk coming from a church going childhood and often in the choir too. I don't think LOVE has to mean boy/girl kissy kissy stuff,there is a love that can infuse our lives even if so sex,lol,is involved.
A close friend wrote She’s Out of My Life, by MJ about one of his tougher breakups. He sang it to me when freshly finished and I wondered how he could, if so devastated, get to such a clear expression. All my love gone bad moments were a circus of rage and whimper and little clarity. Always an inspiring subject to think back on; love is even more precious when it’s out of reach.
My kids are having an ABBA summer so that's all we've been listening to and I swear The Winner Takes it All is one of the mainstreamiest middlebrowiest genius utter heartbreak songs I've ever heard.
(Oh, and He's Fine by the Secret Sisters. It makes me cry every time.)
Anybody who says love songs are wimpy isn't doing it right. Saw Thomas Parker's mention of Wichita Lineman, a Glenn Campbell classic, certainly. But have you ever heard Barry White's version of By the Time I Get to Phoenix? OMG--of course, Barry White should be on any Mt. Rushmore of Pop Love Song Singers. Love Songs get a bad name, I suggest--and I'm asking for trouble, I realize--because of the bad pop love songs that 10-12-year-old girls like, and then the boys think that's what they're supposed to like. (I'm old enough to have been a victim of David Cassidy's I Think I Love You in elementary school--but also old enough to have heard lots of Motown--and knew to put Marvin Gaye on the 8-track when driving around town on dates (after elementary school) when that's what you did on dates. Not sure whether to hijack the comments by asking how old one should be to really understand love stongs, or just to ask for a few favorite, maybe obscure, love songs that you only appreciated with some experience. As to the former, Douglas Adams is not too far off: 42. As to latter, impossble (but it's still whatever my high school girlfriend, now wife after a 15-year interregnum, likes--but that's another story). I'm going with Drunken Poet's Dream (RW Hubbard, H. Carll), just because ... you know. But if you want to cry, Guy Clark's My Favorite Picture of You will do the trick (as will several of his). Then on and on and on (if you insist on pop hits, Midnight Train to Georgia). Best anti-Love Song: Third Rate Romance. Too many to mention, or even remember, at this point. Help me out here, folks. Let's give Ted the HB Love Song Playlist for Grownups.
David Cassidy needs reclaiming. He had a great voice,he was cool,and Alice Cooper was his best friend! And no,back then I wasn't a fan( or of the lovely Donny Osmond either,he can knock on my door to Evangelize any time)I was a terribly serious pretentious minded 17 year old who only liked "serious" stuff. Little did I know how life trips you up. But like Einsteins brilliant first wife ended up doing the laundry.
Okay, I'm out after this: Love Songs Where Someone Dies: Richard Thompson's 1952 Vincent Black Lightning; Pearl Jam version of Last Kiss; Dave Alvin's King of California. Oh, and any version Long Black Veil. And since she's now sitting here, aformentioned high school girlfriend says 99 Problems. Rap version NSFW, but even the counrty-fried version might offend. I'm more concerned about whether she thinks it's a love song or an anti-love song.
Hi Ted - New reader here, having drifted in along a random Substack eddy. Very happy to have found you, and looking forward to following along with the 12-month Immersive Course in Humanities. Thank you for the time and effort posting this to the Substack world, and thank you for pairing the readings with music suggestions!
Hi Ted. Love the substack and have benefited so much from your music writing over the years. Listened to the Havels the other night—divine!
You might want to check out a book I wrote, The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse, for translations of Sappho, Pindar, and many others. Here’s my version of Sappho 31:
https://www.literarymatters.org/1-1-sappho-31/
C
Thanks—your book could be a good resource for readers pursuing this humanities immersion program. Because we are also tackling part of the Odyssey in week two, we can only fit in around a hundred pages of lyric poetry—so I was steering students to Lattimore's collectionof Greek lyrics. But it's very useful for students to have a larger collection that covers both Greek and Latin.
I’d happily ask Penguin to send you a review copy if you think you might consider commending it to them! Alicia Stallings did a very positive review in The Telegraph, if that is of interest.
Great work Christopher. Just bought this now in Melbourne. The shop had it displayed prominently as I entered.
Hope you like the book!
Thanks for sharing this—all of it. From Sappho to vulnerability. “It’s almost painful to open myself up that much to total strangers.” Yes…you put into words what it feels like as an introvert wanting to share a gift, but then realizing the authentic connections with other music lovers are worth it. Lately, I’ve been spinning my perspective on it this way:
the aMCC, aka brain’s "network convergence zone" needs me to do something I don't want to do - something hard, this brain area gets bigger. I know I’ll get there—I feel it in my bones. So I keep going, albeit slowly…
I will read this post again when the shame & pain comes back to haunt me. Wrestling with resistance and sharing my imperfect work has been equal parts terrifying and exciting. Ramble over😊
Your comments on vulnerability reminded me of Ethel Waters' description of singing "Stormy Weather": "When I got out there in the middle of the Cotton Club floor I was telling the things I couldn't frame in words. I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, of the misunderstandings in my life I couldn't straighten out, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted. Your imagination can carry you just so far. Only those who have been hurt deeply can understand what pain is, or humiliation."
"I sang Stormy Weather from the depths of a private hell in which I was being crushed and suffocated."
I do so love your writings Ted. Thank you for transporting us to another time and for your intellectual introspection on the beauty of life through music, art and song.
What if we sent this sort of content to everyone and they totally absorbed and got it? Maybe we would all be in a different place now.
Selah
I proudly advocate love songs. Couldn't care less what people think. Great article. Thank you, Ted
My favorite love song by far is Wichita Lineman. The love in the song doesn't seem to be unrequited, but in this song, love doesn't solve everything; the song recognizes that real love can still be a very lonely thing.
Perfect match of words and voice,Glenn Campbell,an emotionally intelligent voice.
I like your version of I Fall in Love Too Easily, and I love the very close, intimate miking. It reminds me of Kenny Rankin.
The engineer Leo De Gar Kulka had worked with Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, etc., and had these amazing Neumann microphones from the old days. He had to exercise great ingenuity here because I sing so softly (the same is true of my piano touch). Leo deserves a lot of credit for how natural everything sounds in the finished track.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_De_Gar_Kulka
When I read the title of this article, my first thought was I Fall in Love Too Easily. When I want to listen to love songs. I listen to Johnny Harman with John Coltrane.
Here’s a great Sappho translation:
Sappho, fragment 16 (Lobel-Page 16)
Warriors on rearing chargers,
columns of infantry,
fleets of warships:
some say these are the dark earth's redeeming visions.
But I say—
the one I desire.
And this makes sense
because she who so vastly surpassed all mortals in beauty
—Helen—
seduced by Aphrodite, led astray by desire,
set sail for distant Troy,
abandoning her celebrated husband,
leaving behind her parents and child!
Her story reminds me of Anactoria,
who has also departed,
and whose lively dancing and lovely face
I would rather see than all the horsemen and war-chariots of the Lydians,
or all their infantry parading in flashing armor.
Translator: Michael Burch
I'm a songwriter that doesn't write many love songs due to a lack of interest. I've always found other subjects more artistic and engaging, more important even. But the last few years have changed me. The violence and antagonism in the world is overwhelming and I've been reminded that music's central role is to bring people together, it's not just art for art's sake. I'm starting to confront my own bitterness toward humanity and am starting to write more about love.
Listen to Motown records of the 60s,70s,80s even,just. If you really listen to the words of "pop songs" and I suspect as many people really study the words of pop songs as read The Bible! I mean it's the overall sound,most people "know" The Bible says this,says that,when it doesn't...anyway those Detroit sings written and performed by black persons (sorry whatever the current proper term) are not only very MORAL and POSITIVE true words about REAL LOVE,tough not soppy love,but they also very much align and reflect old time Christian values,the good ones I mean,and that is probably due to most of those folk coming from a church going childhood and often in the choir too. I don't think LOVE has to mean boy/girl kissy kissy stuff,there is a love that can infuse our lives even if so sex,lol,is involved.
A close friend wrote She’s Out of My Life, by MJ about one of his tougher breakups. He sang it to me when freshly finished and I wondered how he could, if so devastated, get to such a clear expression. All my love gone bad moments were a circus of rage and whimper and little clarity. Always an inspiring subject to think back on; love is even more precious when it’s out of reach.
My kids are having an ABBA summer so that's all we've been listening to and I swear The Winner Takes it All is one of the mainstreamiest middlebrowiest genius utter heartbreak songs I've ever heard.
(Oh, and He's Fine by the Secret Sisters. It makes me cry every time.)
That was the first album I bought with my own money!!
... I'm sure you've seen Mama Mia???
That Abba song says exactly what divorce is.
If songs aren't about unrequited love or doomed rebellions they might as well be instrumentals.
Anybody who says love songs are wimpy isn't doing it right. Saw Thomas Parker's mention of Wichita Lineman, a Glenn Campbell classic, certainly. But have you ever heard Barry White's version of By the Time I Get to Phoenix? OMG--of course, Barry White should be on any Mt. Rushmore of Pop Love Song Singers. Love Songs get a bad name, I suggest--and I'm asking for trouble, I realize--because of the bad pop love songs that 10-12-year-old girls like, and then the boys think that's what they're supposed to like. (I'm old enough to have been a victim of David Cassidy's I Think I Love You in elementary school--but also old enough to have heard lots of Motown--and knew to put Marvin Gaye on the 8-track when driving around town on dates (after elementary school) when that's what you did on dates. Not sure whether to hijack the comments by asking how old one should be to really understand love stongs, or just to ask for a few favorite, maybe obscure, love songs that you only appreciated with some experience. As to the former, Douglas Adams is not too far off: 42. As to latter, impossble (but it's still whatever my high school girlfriend, now wife after a 15-year interregnum, likes--but that's another story). I'm going with Drunken Poet's Dream (RW Hubbard, H. Carll), just because ... you know. But if you want to cry, Guy Clark's My Favorite Picture of You will do the trick (as will several of his). Then on and on and on (if you insist on pop hits, Midnight Train to Georgia). Best anti-Love Song: Third Rate Romance. Too many to mention, or even remember, at this point. Help me out here, folks. Let's give Ted the HB Love Song Playlist for Grownups.
Cassandra Wilson's cover of Neil's Harvest Moon can do it.
David Cassidy needs reclaiming. He had a great voice,he was cool,and Alice Cooper was his best friend! And no,back then I wasn't a fan( or of the lovely Donny Osmond either,he can knock on my door to Evangelize any time)I was a terribly serious pretentious minded 17 year old who only liked "serious" stuff. Little did I know how life trips you up. But like Einsteins brilliant first wife ended up doing the laundry.
Dang it, replying to own comment after pausing 5 secs. Anti-Love Song and flip side to Midnight Train: Dock of the Bay.
Okay, I'm out after this: Love Songs Where Someone Dies: Richard Thompson's 1952 Vincent Black Lightning; Pearl Jam version of Last Kiss; Dave Alvin's King of California. Oh, and any version Long Black Veil. And since she's now sitting here, aformentioned high school girlfriend says 99 Problems. Rap version NSFW, but even the counrty-fried version might offend. I'm more concerned about whether she thinks it's a love song or an anti-love song.
Very interesting take!
Is the Song of Solomon (the one in the Bible) a love song? How does it fit into the history of love songs?
Maybe I should just read your book :)
I write about the Song of Solomon in my Love Songs book. It’s a complicated story, but it all goes back to the Sumerian sacred marriage ritual.
It is. Naughty Bishop got it included!
Hi Ted - New reader here, having drifted in along a random Substack eddy. Very happy to have found you, and looking forward to following along with the 12-month Immersive Course in Humanities. Thank you for the time and effort posting this to the Substack world, and thank you for pairing the readings with music suggestions!
The World is full of silly love songs - what's wrong with that.