― duke verv, Sunday, 11 April 2004 07:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Johnney B (Johnney B), Sunday, 11 April 2004 11:18 (twenty years ago) link
The Bats also did a good version of this song for their "Live at WFMU" EP. I'm not sure what the lyric meant to them, though.
― mike a, Sunday, 11 April 2004 14:28 (twenty years ago) link
― eddie hurt (ddduncan), Sunday, 11 April 2004 17:30 (twenty years ago) link
the tragedy is written into the song no? not that parsons doesn't do very nice things with it.
― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 11 April 2004 18:58 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 11 April 2004 19:02 (twenty years ago) link
Love this tune and this version, especially when you can hear Emmylou, also the Charley Pride and Bobby Bare versions. Authorship seems to be Tompall Glaser AND Harlan Howard, who I didn’t see mentioned upthread. It’s kind of perfect and precise, lyrically and arrangement-wise, little details and rhymes that really stick out like “machine” and “neighborhood serene,” the guitar intro figure, which seems to vary from version to version, doesn’t quite seem to have a traditional verse chorus structure, just a repetitive thing where it swells up with a line that rhymes before the title is recapped, keeps inching forward as the protagonist’s state of mind keeps changing.
― Lipstick Traces (on a Cigarette Alone) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 March 2020 05:06 (four years ago) link
Actually the two other versions DO have the same intro lick, which is not used here but I (Bobby) barely mind.
― Lipstick Traces (on a Cigarette Alone) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 March 2020 05:07 (four years ago) link
It rivals some of those Jimmy Webb/Glen Campbell classics in its machine-tooled precision mixed with deep feeling
― Lipstick Traces (on a Cigarette Alone) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 March 2020 05:12 (four years ago) link
I kind of like the streets of Baltimore
― velko, Thursday, 19 March 2020 05:25 (four years ago) link
Exactly!
― Lipstick Traces (on a Cigarette Alone) (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 19 March 2020 05:28 (four years ago) link
(x-post)well, the woman proclaiming that baltimore is the prettiest place on earth is a woman who comes from baltimore and quite possibly has never seen any other city. it might mean loving the city life in general (or, conversely, hating the country life). or it might just mean loving the place you came from, no matter what it's actually like.also, don't underestimate how easily baltimore fits into the meter and rhyming scheme of the song. it's a very musical name.
― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, 20 March 2020 14:15 (four years ago) link
Interesting. Please elaborate.
― Robbie Shakespeare’s Sister Lovers (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 20 March 2020 14:55 (four years ago) link
Well, I was joking, but it's kind of an interesting other-side-of-the-proverbial-coin if you dwell on their conceits. Where "Sail Away" is about a trader enticing an African to come to America so he can be sold into slavery, "Streets of Baltimore" about a guy bringing his (white) lady from rural Tennessee to the bright lights of the city, which she ends up loving so much she ditches the guy.
― Naive Teen Idol, Friday, 20 March 2020 15:07 (four years ago) link
Wait, she ditches him for the guy in "Sail Away"?
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Friday, 20 March 2020 15:46 (four years ago) link
Then Randy Newman writes "Baltimore" in response to Gram Parsons' response to "Sail Away".
― God gave toilets rolls to you, gave toilet rolls to you (Tom D.), Friday, 20 March 2020 15:53 (four years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjAMoU6es-8
― A Stop at Quilloughby (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 4 May 2021 01:14 (two years ago) link
Willie Nelson just released an album of Harlan Howard songs and this is on it.
― Wile E. Galore (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 7 March 2023 01:23 (one year ago) link