Saturday, 18 October 2025

The Sound of Silence

 Sounds of Silence is the second studio album by the American folk rock duo Simon & Garfunkel, released on January 17, 1966. The album's title is a slight modification of the title of the duo's first major hit, "The Sound of Silence", which originally was released as "The Sounds of Silence". The song had earlier been released in an acoustic version on the album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., and later on the soundtrack to the movie The Graduate. Without the knowledge of Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel, electric guitars, bass and drums were overdubbed under the direction of Columbia Records staff producer Tom Wilson on June 15, 1965. This new version was released as a single in September 1965, and opens the album.

"Homeward Bound" was released on the album in the UK, placed at the beginning of Side 2 before "Richard Cory". It was later released in the US on the following album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme. It was also released as part of the box set Simon & Garfunkel Collected Works, on both LP and CD. Many of the songs in the album had been written by Paul Simon while he lived in London during 1965.

Solo acoustic versions of "I Am a Rock", "Leaves That Are Green", "April Come She Will", "A Most Peculiar Man", and "Kathy's Song" had appeared on The Paul Simon Songbook, released in August 1965 in England as had another version of the title track. "Richard Cory" was based on the poem "Richard Cory" by Edwin Arlington Robinson, "Somewhere They Can't Find Me" was essentially a rewrite of the previous album's "Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.", "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'" had appeared on the b-side of "The Sound of Silence" a few months before and "Anji" was a cover of an instrumental piece by guitarist Davey Graham whom Simon had met in England. Hence the only brand new Paul Simon composition on the album was "Blessed".

The album is also included in its entirety as part of the Simon & Garfunkel box sets Collected Works and The Columbia Studio Recordings (1964–1970). On March 22, 2013, it was announced that the album will be preserved by the Library of Congress in the National Recording Registry, calling it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." 

The album cover photo features the duo on a trail looking back towards the camera. It was shot at Franklin Canyon Park in Los AngelesCalifornia. The secondary school scarves they are wearing were from The Campion SchoolHornchurch, UK. This school was attended by the boys of the Brentwood family, where Paul lodged during his time in the UK.[citation needed] The back of the LP has candid shots of the duo and quotes a few lyrics from each song.

There are three variations of the original LP's artwork. The first issue lists the duo's names' fully capitalized on one line, the album title fully capitalized on another, and no song titles. The second issue capitalizes only the first letter of each word, and features the tracklist. The third has the same front cover as the second, but the back cover airbrushes out the copies of Tiger Beat magazine Garfunkel is holding in the photos.

The original LP label mistakenly spells "Anji" as "Angie" and credits it to Bert Jansch, who had recorded it for his 1965 debut album. The back cover of the original LP sleeve properly credits Davey Graham as composer but retains the "Angie" misspelling. Both errors were corrected for subsequent reissues.

On older LP and CD issues of the album, "The Sound of Silence" is titled as "The Sounds of Silence" on both the cover and label, and "We've Got a Groovy Thing Goin'" is titled "We've Got a Groovey Thing Goin'".

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!










Saturday, 11 October 2025

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962 and released the following year on his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and as the B-side of the single "Blowin' in the Wind". The song has been covered by several other artists, including Waylon Jennings in 1964, Susan TedeschiMelanie SafkaGerard Quintana and Jordi Batiste in CatalanEmilie-Claire Barlow in her 2010 album The Beat Goes On and Peter, Paul and Mary, who released it as a single, which reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.

In the liner notes to the original release, Nat Hentoff calls the song "a statement that maybe you can say to make yourself feel better ... as if you were talking to yourself". It was written around the time that Suze Rotolo indefinitely prolonged her stay in Italy. The beginning of the melody is based on the public domain traditional song "Who's Gonna Buy Your Chickens When I'm Gone", which was taught to Dylan by folksinger Paul Clayton, who had used it in his song "Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons When I'm Gone?"

As well as the beginning of the melody, a couple of lines of lyrics were taken from Clayton's "Who's Gonna Buy You Ribbons When I'm Gone?", which was recorded in 1960, two years before Dylan wrote "Don't Think Twice". Lines taken word-for-word or slightly altered from the Clayton song are, "T'ain't no use to sit and wonder why, darlin'" and "So I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road." On the first release of the song, instead of "So I'm walkin' down that long, lonesome road babe, where I'm bound, I can't tell" Dylan sings "So long, honey babe, where I'm bound, I can't tell". The lyrics were changed when Dylan performed live versions of the song and on cover versions recorded by other artists. 

In addition to its original release, the song has appeared on several of Dylan's greatest hits compilations, including Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II (1971), The Best of Bob Dylan (1997), and The Essential Bob Dylan (2000). Another version of the song, recorded as a demo for Dylan's music publisher M. Witmark & Sons in 1963, was included on two releases in Columbia's Bootleg SeriesVol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack (2005) and Vol. 9 – The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964 (2010). In addition, live versions have been released on Before the Flood (1974; recorded February 14, 1974), as a reggae rock version on Bob Dylan at Budokan (1978; recorded February 28, 1978), The Bootleg Series Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall (2004; recorded October 31, 1964), Live at The Gaslight 1962 (2005; recorded October 15, 1962), and Live 1962-1966: Rare Performances from the Copyright Collections (2018; recorded April 12, 1963). 

In 1963, the popular folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary recorded the song. Dylan's manager Albert Grossman also managed Peter, Paul and Mary and started offering Dylan's songs to other artists to record. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" was one of three Dylan songs Peter, Paul and Mary picked up that way for their third album In the Wind, "Blowin' in the Wind" and "Quit Your Lowdown Ways" being the others. Released as a single, it reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on its Easy Listening charts. It was this version that popularized the song. Cash Box described it as "an infectious medium-paced country-styled folk item with a haunting, extremely pretty melody" that seemed destined to replicate the success the trio had with "Blowin' in the Wind". AllMusic critic William Ruhlman described the Peter, Paul and Mary version as an "understated rendition" of the song. Radio personality Bob Leszczak describes this version as being done "in typical fashion".

The Four Seasons released a cover of the song as a single in 1965 (with the title "Don't Think Twice") under the pseudonym the Wonder Who? Their "joke" version reached number 12 on the Hot 100, and eventually sold one million copies.

In 1968, Burl Ives covered the song on his album The Times They Are a-Changin'. Billy Strings has also done an acoustic cover.

Several country music artists have also covered this song. In 1965, Johnny Cash recorded a version of this song on his Orange Blossom Special album. In 1970, Waylon Jennings released his Don't Think Twice album with this song as the first track on the album. Elvis Presley recorded the song as an in-studio jam with his band in Nashville in May 1971, and a shortened version first appeared on his self-titled 1973 album. The full version remained unreleased until the 1995 release of the box set Walk a Mile in My Shoes: The Essential '70s Masters. In 1971, Jerry Reed released an up-tempo version on his album, When You're Hot, You're Hot. In 1978, Doc & Merle Watson covered this song on their album Look Away! Dolly Parton covered this song on her 44th studio album Blue Smoke in 2014 and has since been a popular bluegrass song during her concerts. Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard covered this song in their sixth and final recorded collaboration Django and Jimmie in 2016. In 1965 Australian folk/pop outfit The Seekers also recorded a version of "Don't Think Twice" and released it on their album A World Of Our Own.

Before he became famous, Post Malone uploaded a cover version to YouTube in 2013 under his birth name, performed in an earnest folk style unlike his later work. The video was widely viewed in 2015 after his "White Iverson" video went viral on SoundCloud. Lana Del Rey performed the song on her Norman Fucking Rockwell! tour in 2019, joined by Walkmen singer Hamilton Leithauser in Nashville, Tennessee. 

The song was used on the television series Mad MenFriday Night Lights, and Men of a Certain Age. It was used in Nancy Savoca's 1991 film Dogfight, starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor; the 2011 film The Help; the October 30, 2016 episode of the AMC television series The Walking Dead; the January 22, 2019 episode of the NBC television series This Is Us (season 3) (episode 11, "Songbird Road Part 1"); the 2019 film The Kitchen (during a funeral scene, the cover version is sung by the artist Melanie); the January 7, 2020 episode of the series Emergence (season 1, episode 10, "15 Years"); and the February 16, 2021 episode of the NBC television series This Is Us (season 5) (episode 8, "In The Room"), which featured a cover version sung by John Martyn. It was also featured in the BBC Scottish sitcom series, Still Game in the final episode, "Over the Hill" which was played in the final scenes of the show. The song is also heard over the end scenes of the December 16, 2021 episode of the HBO MAX miniseries Station Eleven (season 1, episode 1, "Wheel of Fire"). A cover version by Peter, Paul & Mary played over the end credits of the April 5, 2023 episode of the AppleTV+ series Ted Lasso (season 3, episode 4, "Big Week".). A Burl Ives' cover was used in the final episode ("The Hook") of season one of Poker Face. 

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!











Saturday, 4 October 2025

Both Sides Now

 Both Sides, Now is a song by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell. One of the first recordings is by Judy Collins, whose version appeared on the US singles chart during the fall of 1968. (The earliest commercial release was by Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters, under the title "Clouds", released in June 1967.) The next year it was included on Mitchell's album Clouds, and became one of her best-known songs. It has since been recorded by dozens of artists, including Dion in 1968, Clannad with Paul Young in 1991, and Mitchell herself, who re-recorded the song with an orchestral arrangement on her 2000 album Both Sides Now.

In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked "Both Sides, Now" at number 170 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs

Mitchell has said that "Both Sides, Now" was inspired by a passage in Henderson the Rain King, a 1959 novel by Saul Bellow.

I was reading ... Henderson the Rain King on a plane and early in the book Henderson ... is also up in a plane. He's on his way to Africa and he looks down and sees these clouds. I put down the book, looked out the window and saw clouds too, and I immediately started writing the song. I had no idea that the song would become as popular as it did.

"Both Sides, Now" appears in the album Joni Mitchell: Live at the Second Fret 1966 (2014, All Access Records, AACD0120), a live performance on November 17, 1966, from The Second Fret in Philadelphia, PA, which was broadcast live by WRTI, Temple University's radio station. This suggests that Mitchell wrote the song before 1967 (the year of composition cited in the Los Angeles Times article above) and precedes the first Judy Collins release in 1967.

"Both Sides, Now" is written in F-sharp major. Mitchell used a guitar tuning of D-A-D-F#-A-D with a capo at the fourth fret. The song uses a modified I–IV–V chord progression. 

Mitchell re-recorded the song in a lush, orchestrated fashion for her 2000 album Both Sides Now. The recording won arranger Vince Mendoza a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s).

In April 2000, two months after the album's release, Mitchell sang the song with a 70-piece orchestra at the end of an all-star celebration for her at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City.

The 2000 version is played during an emotional scene featuring Emma Thompson in the 2003 film Love Actually. It was featured in the 2001 film Life as a House. It was also played during the 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremony. 

The song inspired the title of Hillary Clinton's 2024 memoir, Something Lost, Something Gained.

Joni Mitchell performed the song on January 30, 2025 at Kia Forum in Inglewood, California for FireAid to help with relief efforts for the January 2025 Southern California wildfires

Shortly after Mitchell wrote the song, Judy Collins recorded the first commercially released version for her 1967 Wildflowers album. In October 1968 the same version was released as a single, reaching number 8 on the U.S pop singles charts by December. It reached number 6 in Canada. In early 1969 it won a Grammy Award for Best Folk Performance. The record peaked at number 3 on Billboard's Easy Listening survey and "Both Sides, Now" has become one of Collins' signature songs. Mitchell disliked Collins' recording of the song, despite the publicity that its success generated for Mitchell's own career. The Collins version is featured as the opening title music of the 2014 romantic comedy And So It Goes, and as the end title music of the 2018 supernatural horror film Hereditary. It also features in the first teaser trailer for Toy Story 4. The song features prominently in the season 6 finale of the TV show Mad Men, and signals a moment of anagnorisis between Don Draper and his daughter Sally. 

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

Rows and floes of angel hairAnd ice cream castles in the airAnd feather canyons everywhereLooked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sunThey rain and they snow on everyoneSo many things I would have doneBut clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides nowFrom up and down and still somehowIt's cloud illusions I recallI really don't know clouds at all
Moons and Junes and Ferris wheelsThe dizzy dancing way that you feelAs every fairy tale comes realI've looked at love that way
But now it's just another showAnd you leave 'em laughing when you goAnd if you care, don't let them knowDon't give yourself away
I've looked at love from both sides nowFrom give and take and still somehowIt's love's illusions that I recallI really don't know loveI really don't know love at all
Tears and fears and feeling proudTo say, "I love you, " right out loudDreams and schemes and circus crowdsI've looked at life that way
Oh, but now old friends, they're acting strangeAnd they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changedWell, something's lost, but something's gainedIn living every day
I've looked at life from both sides nowFrom win and lose and still somehowIt's life's illusions I recallI really don't know life at all
It's life's illusions that I recallI really don't know lifeI really don't know life at all










Saturday, 27 September 2025

Tom Dooley

 "Tom Dooley" (Roud 4192) is a traditional North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County, North Carolina by Tom Dula (whose name in the local dialect was pronounced "Dooley"). One of the more famous murder ballads, a popular hit version recorded in 1958 by The Kingston Trio reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, was in the top 10 on the Billboard R&B chart, and appeared in the Cashbox Country Music Top 20.

The song was selected as one of the American Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.

"Tom Dooley" fits within the wider genre of Appalachian murder ballads. A local poet named Thomas Land wrote a song about the tragedy, titled "Tom Dooley", shortly after Dula was hanged. In the documentary Appalachian Journey (1991), folklorist Alan Lomax describes Frank Proffitt as the "original source" for the song, which was misleading in that he did not write it. There are several earlier known recordings, notably one that G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter made in 1929, approximately 10 years before Proffitt cut his own recording.

The Kingston Trio took their version from Frank Warner's singing. Warner had learned the song from Proffitt, who learned it from his aunt, Nancy Prather, whose parents had known both Laura Foster and Tom Dula.[5] In a 1967 interview, Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio recounted first hearing the song from another performer and then being criticized and sued for taking credit for the song. Supported by the testimony of Anne and Frank Warner, Frank Proffitt was eventually acknowledged by the courts as the preserver of the original version of the song, and the Kingston Trio were ordered to pay royalties to him for their uncredited use of it. 

In 1866, Laura Foster was murdered. Confederate veteran Tom Dula, Foster's lover and the father of her unborn child, was convicted of her murder and hanged May 1, 1868. Foster had been stabbed to death with a large knife, and the brutality of the attack partly accounted for the widespread publicity the murder and subsequent trial received.

Anne Foster Melton, Laura's cousin, had been Dula's lover from the time he was twelve and until he left for the Civil War – even after Anne married an older man named James Melton. When Dula returned, he became a lover again to Anne, then Laura, then their cousin Pauline Foster. Pauline's comments led to the discovery of Laura's body and accusations against both Tom and Anne. Anne was subsequently acquitted in a separate trial, based on Dula's word that she had nothing to do with the killing. Dula's enigmatic statement on the gallows that he had not harmed Foster but still deserved his punishment led to press speculation that Melton was the actual killer and that Dula simply covered for her. (Melton, who had once expressed jealousy of Dula's purported plans to marry Foster, died either in a carting accident or by going insane a few years after the homicide, depending on the version.)

Thanks to the efforts of newspapers such as The New York Times and to the fact that former North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance represented Dula pro bono, Dula's murder trial and hanging were given widespread national publicity. A local poet, Thomas C. Land, wrote a song titled "Tom Dooley" about Dula's tragedy soon after the hanging. Combined with the widespread publicity the trial received, Land's song further cemented Dula's place in North Carolina legend and is still sung today throughout North Carolina.

A man named "Grayson", mentioned in the song as pivotal in Dula's downfall, has sometimes been characterized as a romantic rival of Dula's or a vengeful sheriff who captured him and presided over his hanging. Some variant lyrics of the song portray Grayson in that light, and the spoken introduction to the Kingston Trio version did the same. Col. James Grayson was actually a Tennessee politician who had hired Dula on his farm when the young man fled North Carolina under suspicion and was using a false name. Grayson did help North Carolinians capture Dula and was involved in returning him to North Carolina but otherwise played no role in the case.

Dula was tried in Statesville, North Carolina because it was believed he could not get a fair trial in Wilkes County. He was given a new trial on appeal but he was again convicted and hanged on May 1, 1868. On the gallows, Dula reportedly stated, "Gentlemen, do you see this hand? I didn't harm a hair on the girl's head."

Dula's last name was pronounced "Dooley", leading to some confusion in spelling over the years. The pronunciation of a final "a" like "y" (or "ee") is an old feature in Appalachian speech, as in the term "Grand Ole Opry". The confusion was compounded by the fact that Dr. Tom Dooley, an American physician known for international humanitarian work, was at the height of his fame in 1958 when the Kingston Trio version became a major hit.

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

This one next tells a story of a lot of different peopleWe would like to have a sing along, this one if you're through with your dinnerIf you're not through just spray along, folks it's alrightEverybody, sing good and clearWe'll be all on air on the Andy Williams show next year
Hang down your head, Tom DooleyHang down your head and cryHang down your head, Tom DooleyPoor boy, you're bound to die
I met her on the mountainThere I took her lifeMet her on the mountainStabbed her with my knife
Hang down your head, Tom DooleyHang down your head and cry (poor boy)Hang down your head, Tom DooleyPoor boy, you're bound to die
This time tomorrowReckon where I'll beHadn't been for GraysonI'd-a been in TennesseeWell now, boy
Hang down your head, Tom DooleyHang down your head and cry (oh, boy)Hang down your head, Tom DooleyPoor boy, you're bound to dieWell now, boy
Hang down your head, Tom DooleyHang down your head and cry (poor boy)Hang down your head, Tom DooleyPoor boy, you're bound to die
This time tomorrowReckon where I'll beDown in some lonesome valleyHangin' from a white oak tree
Hang down your head, Tom DooleyHang down your head and cry (poor boy)Hang down your head, Tom DooleyPoor boy, you're bound to dieWell now, boy
Hang down your head, Tom DooleyHang down your head and cry (poor boy)Hang down your head, Tom DooleyPoor boy, you're bound to die
Poor boy, you're bound to diePoor boy, you're bound to diePoor boy, you're bound to die