Hawaiian Baby by Buffalo Tom, er - the Spinanes

I've written about specific artists and albums - and every time I spend more time than I allot - and while I love it and know it's therapeutic - I always expect to condense everything down to a magical few paragraphs that people can click, give a quick look, and then maybe someone, somewhere, will end up spending a part of their day like I did, immersed (maybe not Air Supply, but you never know?).  And everyone else can smile and move on.

So I thought if I just do a single song the post could be more "soundbite grade" - pleasant and digestible to more people.  I blew that already today with this rambling preamble.  But a friend the other day said "I like your blog - but can't you do it more than once a year?" - and so this is also a reaction to that.  Can I commit less, produce more, and nail a "quick-hitter"?

Driving to work on Tuesday my phone randomly played "Hawaiian Baby" by Buffalo Tom.  I don't know why my phone randomly plays songs some days when it connects to my car but it's one of those things I just don't want to waste alive time trying to figure out.  Plus it often takes me somewhere good - and this happened with Hawaiian Baby....

OK, here's the point of this post: I just love this song.  It's mellow, earnest, melodic.  Maybe a bit haunting but in a good way.  It touches on several of my favorite things - Hawaii, cool-vibe-music, descriptive imagery, a Santa Claus reference - if they'd somehow integrated a peanut butter and jelly sandwich it might just have become my perfect song.  

I knew the song as a hidden Buffalo Tom gem (and there are many - sometime I will bore with a full-on post about one of my favorite bands - surprised I'm sure that they are a bit obscure).  This morning I spent time thinking about the specific lyrics and trying to learn what the song means.  I found out quickly that it was actually written by a woman named Rebecca Gates from The Spinanes - a 90's 2 piece from Oregon with a pretty cool story itself (check out the link and you will dive into the Spinanes if you're like me).  Hawaiian Baby has an intense, hopeful, and caring feel to it - and probably more meaning in the lyrics than I can interpret but that's not obvious and I don't really care.  Snippets that suggest depth - "it's my heart"... "dinner with your father"... "Letters sprawled across"...over muted guitar and a pronounced rhythm - someone please give it a listen and try to like it! 

OK I have to get off the computer because I want to get back to that first Spinanes album while I'm cleaning the garage... 

The Spinanes eventual release of their gem (it was a b-side, not on one of their primary albums):
Hawaiian Baby, by the Spinanes

Buffalo Tom's cover (also on their album "besides" - which was considered a collection of b-sides but would beat many bands' best albums head to head - check out Anchors Aweigh, Butterscotch, don't get me started down this path):
Hawaiian Baby, covered by Buffalo Tom

One woman’s “...tapestry of rich and royal hue...”

One of my biggest musical regrets has been understanding Carole King too late.  Like many, I've enjoyed her songs and always kind of have generally known who she is.  But it wasn't until Suzy and I saw the Broadway show "Beautiful" last year that I really had a sense for her broader place in music.  Such an amazing story, such an amazing person.  Not to mention amazing music.

Similar to many entertainment industry stories of the time - while Carole wrote James Taylor's biggest hit song "You've Got a Friend" (and though he is amazing and wrote and recorded many of his own songs) - she was content in his shadow gathering credit but for the most part remaining peripheral in many of our views as JT proceeded to define the American "singer-songwriter" genre as many of us know it.

Well, a new listen to the entirety of Tapestry, her so-appropriately-titled, definitive 1971 masterpiece tells you all you need to know about the "Singer-Songwriter" genre.  Timeless, hopeful, beautiful.  "You've Got a Friend" and the complete Tapestry album, for that matter, are mere slivers of the impact she has made in singing and songwriting through the history of modern American music.  For the most part she stopped playing live in 2010, after contributing substantial music to our world.  Wish I'd listened more closely earlier - I would have loved to hear and watch her in person.  I now think she defined this genre as much as anyone.

Rolling Stone has Tapestry at No. 36 of their 500 greatest albums of all time, but it's much higher on my list.  While only 3 of the top 36 has a woman as lead - a quick scan of the 33 men in front of her tells me why today's emphasis on giving women their due is so overdue.  I believe this album is not only be ahead of the two women above her (with all due respect to Stevie Nicks at No. 26 and Joni Mitchell at No. 30 who are also phenomenal) - but more significantly - I can only imagine that it not being in the top 10 overall and way above most of the 33 male-fronted albums rated ahead of her is a result of the bias that so many are consciously adjusting for today.  It's definitely in my top 5 overall and I appreciate a broad range of music created by both men and women.

Give it a fresh listen.  Here's a great article to lean yourself into it.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2020/02/carole-king-tapestry-anniversary.html

And on that “this is only a sliver” front - see this list of other artists she contributed her talents to:
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/10-songs-you-didnt-know-carole-king-wrote-108268/