One of my favorite singers doing one of my favorite songs. Susan Boyle may have conquered the world this past week, but my heart still belongs to Annie. As a songwriter, I couldn’t imagine a more wonderful fate for a song than to be given life by an artist of such amazing depth and passion. Of the thirty or so renditions of this song that I’ve listened to in my lifetime, this is certainly the most achingly beautiful and, without a doubt, the best.

The children in the Video are film maker Derek Jarman and his sister.  Jarman, who died of aids in 1994, was a friend of Annie’s. He directed her in the 1991 film, Edward II. More information on the life and work of Derek Jarman can be found here.

“And Solitaire’s the only game in town
And every road that takes him, takes him down.”

In setting out to chronicle the thirty-eight year history of the song, “Solitaire,” I thought it best to keep the chatter down to a minimum and just let the cover recordings tell the story. Missing from the play list is the Johnny Mathis version, which I have never heard and which seems to be missing from all the digital collections of Mathis’ material. I’ve tried to keep the play list in chronological order but placed the Neil Sedaka version ahead of Andy Williams, because I felt the original should take precedence.

Sedaka and I wrote “Solitaire” in 1971. It was one of the first tunes we wrote together and was not very well received by the folks at Don Kirshner Music, our publisher at the time. There seemed to be a general lack of faith in the song’s potential “earning power,” the feeling at the company being that we had written a “nice” song and that we should now devote our efforts to writing hits. Yet, here I am, four decades and a bazillion cover recordings later, talking about what is, essentially, the most covered song that Neil and I have ever written.

In 1972, Sedaka flew to London and, with the musical backing of the band, 10 c.c., recorded “Solitaire” as part of a British album entitled, strangely enough, “Solitaire.” The song appeared for the first time in the U.S., in 1973, on an album by Andy Williams called . . . get this . . . “Solitaire.” I wasn’t all that crazy about the Williams version. His producer, Richard Perry, had me rewrite the lyric in the first person and had me change some of the imagery to reflect Williams’ less edgy sensibilities. The first person thing didn’t work for me.

In 1974, Sedaka’s original version of the tune appeared on “Sedaka’s Back,” his first U.S. album on Rocket Records. Sedaka was back and I was getting my first taste of success.

Karen and Richard Carpenter cut the song for their 1975 album, “Horizon.” The Carpenters’ version incorporates some of the lyric changes made for the Andy Williams recording but keeps the song in the third person. I consider this the definitive version of the song and Karen Carpenter’s vocal and her interpretation of the lyric turns me into a weeping pile of mush, every time I hear it.

I received my first and only ASCAP Country Music Award in 1976 when Elvis Presley included his interpretation of  “Solitaire”  on his album,” Live From Elvis Presley Boulevard, Memphis Tennessee.”  Whatever else had gone before, I could now look at my songwriting career with the surety that I had “made it.” Elvis had done my song!

Eighteen years later, “Solitaire” made an appearance on the Carpenters tribute album, “If I Were A Carpenter.” Sheryl Crow’s cover is my all-time favorite. It’s such a radical departure from all the other versions of the tune. I call it the schlockless version and I love it.

In 2004, “Solitaire” was relased as a single for the first time and went to number one on the Billboard singles charts. Clay Aiken’s version of the song is very big and very gaudy and very appropriate.

At the beginning of this article I promised to keep the chattering down to a minimum and I’ve fudged on that promise considerably but, before closing, I would like to emphasize one fact:

There would be no history of “Solitaire” if not for the melodic virtuosity of Neil Sedaka. Regardless of what you may think of this particular style of music, he is a true genius of the genre and artists would not have lined up in droves to sing his wonderful melodies were it not so.

Thanks for listening.

PC

You can purchase any of the CDs, containing the tunes in this article by visiting the
Zookini Music Record Store

Correction: The Carpenters released Solitaire  as a single in 1975.  Aiken’s 2004 release was the second.

rock n Roll Dreams
By Philip Cody

I made my bones
At the wheel of a 58 Chevy
With a lid of marijuana
And a toxic blonde by my side
I was a long haired hippie freak
Looking for a stairway to heaven
I was wasted
I was strung out
I didn’t know what anything was all about
But I never let go
Of my rock n roll dreams
And the renegade romance I’m livin
Never said no
To the honky tonk queens
And all the free love I was given
Singin
Sha-na-na-na-na
Na-na
All night long

I fell to earth
In a blaze of love crazed confusion
I was a wide eyed wannabe
Working class hero cliché
I got my fifteen minutes
And a handful of half-hearted blow jobs
I got beat up
I was bummed out
I didn’t know what anything was all about
But I never let go
Of my rock n roll dreams
And the renegade romance I’m livin
Never said no
To the honky tonk queens
And all the free love I was given
Singin
Sha-na-na-na-na
Na-na
All night long

I came of age
In a time of remarkable changes
I got an education
In the fine art of rhythm and blues
Those days are gone
But the changes still play out inside me
I can stand up
I can sing out
And it doesn’t really matter what it’s all about
I never let go
Of my rock n roll dreams
And the renegade romance I’m livin
Never said no
To the honky tonk queens
And all the free love I was given
Singin
Sha-na-na-na-na
Na-na
All night long
Sha-na-na-na-na
Na-na
All night long

This jam is from a 1986 tribute to Fats Domino, recorded at the Storyville nightclub in N’awlins. Paul Shaffer assembled a cast of guest artists that include, Ray Charles, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ron Wood. This video has been in circulation for quite some time, so you may have seen it before. Stuff like this, however, never goes out of style. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go overdose on piano music . . .

When my sometimes writing partner, Ted Perlman, presented me with this title and the track to go with it, I thought, “I don’t want to write a song about a whore house.”

First of all, I’ve never been to a whore house and I didn’t want to write about a subject outside the scope of my experience. The very best song about a whore house, “House of the Rising Sun, ” was written years and years ago, and had pretty much locked up the song-about-whore-houses genre for all eternity.

Fortunately, Ted’s moody arrangement, provided plenty of clues as to what kind of house this would be.

It’s rare that I get a completed track to write to, especially one that has so many good, emotional details. It made my job easy, in that I didn’t really have to think about what I was going to write, I simply had to listen to the story the music was telling and then translate that story into English.

It always helps to have someone really good singing your words. Kellie Coffey is better than good. Her sweet, sorrowful vocal style was the perfect match for this song and helped tie all its elements together beautifully.

Of the many songs I’ve written over the course of my career, House of Love is one of my all-time favorites.

Click here to listen to House of Love

House of Love
Philip Cody and Ted Perlman

I wake up aching for your tender touches in the night
A reassuring smile to fill the world with light
But in this lonely place I find no comfort anywhere
Only the echoes of your footsteps on the stair

And I keep thinking about you
And I keep hurting for you
And I’ll learn to live without you

This used to be a house of love
We had a life here
This used to be a place
Where you and me could always be

Throughout these chilly rooms I struggle with the memory
Of all that might have been and all we used to be
There is a part of us in every nail and every board
Sentimental luxuries  I know I can’t afford

But I keep thinking about you
And I keep hurting for you
And I’ll learn to live without you

This used to be a house of love
We had a life here
This used to be a place
Where you and me could always

Fall apart and come together
And give each other the strength
To weather the stormy seas
That raged around you and me

This used to be a house of love
We had a life here
This used to be a place
Where you and me could always be
This used to be a house of love
We had a life here
This used to be a place
Where you and me could always be

In this story, which originally aired on NPR’s This American Life in August of 2007, Ms. Kine talks about what makes a great break up song and details her efforts to put her break up with her boy friend into song, seeking advice from break up song expert, Phil Collins.

Besides being heartbreakingly funny, this piece offers an  honest look at the way songs affect our lives and details, quite accurately, the progression from emotion to final recording, that is such an integral part of the songwriting process. It also played a large part in inspiring me to do this blog thingy. Did I mention it’s really funny? I did? Well, maybe it’s best if I just shut up and let Starlee have center stage for the next half hour. Enjoy!

Click here to listen to Starlee Kine’s “Break-Up Song”

“Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know”….Groucho

Let’s talk about songs. Songs are the background music of our lives. They are playing everywhere, all the time. They are captions to our memories and the sign posts that mark our individual time lines. They are playing when we fall in and out of love, when we get married, when our children are born and when loved ones die. They soothe us, commiserate with our predicaments and inspire us to action.

Songs are extremely accessible and portable. On the most elemental level, you need only to get naked and step into a shower to partake of their pleasures. You don’t need to hire an orchestra to sing your baby to sleep at night . . . you don’t even have to be very good at it. You just have to open your mouth and sing.

Another cool thing about songs is that they give us an excuse to dance. Imagine how stupid you would look bopping around to nothing but silence, but call up Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music” on your iPod and you become a one person dance party. Tired of dancing by yourself? No problem. Songs make it easy to find other people to dance with and all that dancing begets sex and sex begets the need for more sex and more dancing and more songs.

And the need for more songs begot the music business . . . but I don’t want to talk about that.

Instead, let’s talk about the people who create and perform the songs that have become such consequential threads in the fabric of our lives. Let’s talk about Joni Mitchel and Bob Dylan and Paul Simon and James Taylor and Lennon and McCartney and all the folks who raised the popular song to an art form.

While we’re at it, let’s not forget Leiber and Stoller, Goffin and King, Sedaka and Greenfield, Holland, Dozier and Holland, Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye and all the wonderful writers and performers who built upon the great, pop traditions of George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rogers and Hammerstein, Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg and on and on and on.

And therein lies the beauty of this endeavor. No matter where or when I reach into the well of possibilities that is the history of the American popular song, whether it’s Joni Mitchell’s “Judgement of the Moon and Stars,” “Hello Young Lovers” from The King and I, Big Momma Thornton singing “You Ain’t Nothin But A Hound Dog,” Paul Simon’s “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover,” Cole Porter’s “Every Time We Say Goodbye” . . . I always manage to retreive something wonderful.

So, let’s talk about songs!

Photo “Grand Piano” by suzi9mm@DeviantArt.com