The Saddest Rock Songs of All Time, Part I

The greatest ability of a musical performer (musician, singer, composer, etc.) is to make you feel something even when you feel nothing at all. A song will capture you at unawares and unexpectedly steal your senses - sometimes even your heart and soul - and change your whole perspective. You may consider yourself a hard person, as tough as nails, but even so, at one time or another your eyes have watered or perhaps you've even shed a tear when a certain song is playing. That is when music is at its most powerful, and it takes a special gift to render sadness into a musical statement.

Loss, regret, remorse - the things you can't take back but wish you could, even for a moment - are what touch us the most. Sorrow can make you stronger or drag you down to the bitter dregs, but there is a beauty in sorrow, particularly when a musician composes a song about his or her own inner demons - their vulnerabilities, their fears, their loss - and shares it with the world. Sure, some songs are simply manipulative, intended to twist your emotions, but at the heart of most great sad songs is a personal experience, a mournful message that needs to be made to gain closure for the individual.

Oh, for crying out loud! Would you listen to me? I've spent far too long listening to these damn songs and now I am talking like I am a patient for Robert Burton's 1621 classic book The Anatomy of Melancholy, or the full title: The Anatomy of Melancholy, What it is: With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it. In Three Maine Partitions with their several Sections, Members, and Subsections. Philosophically, Medicinally, Historically, Opened and Cut Up (and no,I am not making this up!). In any case, before I start blubbering and get my keyboard wet, here are, in my estimation, fifty of the saddest songs in rock history (with another fifty coming in a future installement - I can only take so many sad songs at once).

The interesting thing about sad rock songs is that they may not have been originally composed to generate tears, but they become sad by association, by melancholy memories or by ironic twists of fate, as is the case of John Lennon's "Imagine" or Nick Drake's "Fruit Tree". Although some of these songs may reflect a personal troubling period in my past, I believe there are enough folks who have been miserable at one time or another that can identify with the songs I've listed.

I could have ventured further and given you Mozart's Requiem Mass in D minor, or a song or two from Frank Sinatra or Billie Holliday, maybe Johnny Cash (whose version of Trent Reznor's "Hurt" is phenomenal) or other country stars boozily wallowing in their pick-up trucks, but the task at hand then becomes too convoluted and the list far too extensive for my patience. Because, as I have mentioned previously, patience is not one of my virtues. In fact, I am not even sure I have any patience. So let's just stick with rock songs. Sad ones. Listed below for your listening edification. Better get yourselves a box or two of Kleenex. And maybe a couple of beers. And call your mom.

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
Written in separate rooms by Gilmour and Waters, the lyrics deal with alienation, the death of Water's grandmother and the loss to drugs and mental disorder of band member Syd Barrett. Perhaps the best song Floyd ever composed.

Time - Alan Parsons Project
The album The Turn of a Friendly Card tells the story of a middle-aged gambler who loses it all. The wistful and whispery ballad of time lost, "Time", marks the first single Eric Woolfson, Alan Parson Project co-founder, sang lead on (and this was their fifth album!).

Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles
A technical and compositional triumph for The Beatles. This McCartney song was shocking at the time of its release due to its unflinching look at loneliness and despair. It also has no semblance of a traditional rock tune, foregoing drums, keyboards and guitar for a double string quartet.

Without You - Harry Nilsson
Originally recorded by the band Badfinger for their album No Dice, Harry Nilsson took the song and brought it to another dimension. The heart-wrenching vocals by Nilsson are a high point in pop-rock balladry.

The Needle and the Damage Done - Neil Young
A song about the evils of heroin addiction that took two of Young's close friends, guitarist Danny Whitten and roadie Bruce Berry. Young recalled, "I am not a preacher, but drugs killed a lot of great men."

Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton
This about the death of Clapton's four year-old son. It doesn't get anymore poignant than this.

Cats in the Cradle - Harry Chapin
A tale of parental neglect in song form, relating a father's need to succeed in business to the detriment of his growing son. The tragedy comes home when the father realizes his now adult son has turned out to be just like him.

Layla - Derek and the Dominos
The celebrated song of the anguish of unrequited love. "Layla" is in fact Patty Harrison, Beatle George Harrison's wife (George being Clapton's best friend). Patty and George eventually divorced, and Patty married Eric. They also eventually divorced. Such are the strange ways of love.

Time in a Bottle - Jim Croce
"Time in a Bottle" was written by Croce for his infant son, A.J.; unfortunately, Jim Croce died in a plane crash within a year of writing this beautiful tune, making it all the more sad. It did not become a hit until after his death.

Vincent - Don McLean
I don't think any song better encapsulates the artistic triumphs, personal tragedies and tortured mind of an artist better than McLean's ode to Vincent Van Gogh. The lyrics are a beautifully rendered aural painting reflecting Vincent's work.

Landslide - Fleetwood Mac
Stevie Nicks anguished plaint to lost love recorded during her breakup with bandmate Lindsey Buckingham.

Don't Give Up - Peter Gabriel
A great duet between Gabriel and Kate Bush about a despairing man and the attempts of loved ones to save him.

Dust in the Wind - Kansas
One of the most depressing top ten hit songs ever written. The title says it all.

Can't You See - Marshall Tucker Band
One of the greatest country blues tunes ever written.

Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
There are so many songs sung by Joplin that mirrored the insecurity and sadness of her own life. When she sang, you knew the sentiment was real and window to her personal plight.

Fire and Rain - James Taylor
Taylor fights personal demons and tragedies, the suicide of a childhood friend, drug addiction, the breakup of his band "Flying Machines" and the shock therapy he received while in a mental istitution.

Castles Made of Sand - Jimi Hendrix
A series of sad and ironic stories intertwined in a stream-of-consciousness style with Hendrix's fluid and unmistakable guitar work.

Imagine - John Lennon
I cannot help but getting misty-eyed every time I hear this. That such beautiful and timely sentiment should be silenced by the actions of a crazed fan is the height of irony.

Yesterday - The Beatles
It's hard to imagine Paul being sad about anything at that time in his life. But even from a cynical standpoint, McCartney's ability to pull at our heartstrings is amazing.

I’m Not in Love - 10CC
A song about a man who is pretending not to be miserable. He is not very convincing in that regard.

Mother - John Lennon
Lennon's anguish over the loss of his mother and the abandonment by his father are palpable. The screaming at the end is part of Lennon's "primal therapy" that he underwent previous to recording this song.

Ticking - Elton John
One of the greatest studies of a troubled mind ever recorded. The subject matter is intense but still moving and brilliant.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps - The Beatles
The Love album acoustic version of this George Harrison song is given greater pathos with strings added by George Martin and an extra stanza of verse by Harrison that didn't make it onto the original White Album recording.

Tempted - Squeeze
Infidelity is infectious with the Motown groove of this Squeeze song. One of the best songs recorded in the misbegotten 80s.

Operator - Jim Croce
Some of you younger folks may not have ever used a pay telephone, but you may have seen a phone booth or two in the movies. The line "you can keep the dime" refers to the cost of a phone call back in the dark ages.

Candle in the Wind - Elton John
A poignant homage to Marilyn Monroe which Sir Elton eventually rewrote to cover Princess Diana's death as well. Who knows how many deaths Elton can cover with this song.

The Sounds of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel
Here's the original version without the electric guitar. Great song of societal upheaval and the silent howl of the voiceless masses.

Behind Blue Eyes - The Who
A song of anger and unfulfilled hopes. And no, Limp Bizkit didn't write this goddamned song! They couldn't even sing it.

Time - Pink Floyd
A great song of regret over time wasted and youth frittered away. Of work never done and objectives never accomplished.

Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
I used this version of this song rather than the original Leonard Cohen recording because Buckley's beautiful rendition is poignant and moreso since he died so young.

With or Without You - U2
The paradox of love gone bad, where you can't stand to be with a person, but can't stand to be apart. What a crappy feeling.

Thorn Tree in the Garden - Derek and the Dominos
While Eric Clapton and Duane Allman got most of the adulation for their contributions to Derek and the Dominos, Bobby Whitlock's rueful song and plaintive vocals are one of the highlights of the album.

How Can I Tell You - Cat Stevens
Unrequited love, or love unspoken: one of the most endearing subjects for lovelorn poets. Like Cat, for instance.

Leaving on a Jet Plane - Peter, Paul & Mary
Leaving is the hardest part, isn't it?

The River - Bruce Springsteen
More powerful than the trite "Born in the USA". Bruce's populist appeal goes beyond simple patriotic sentiment to real dreams and hopes crushed by life in this song.

America - Simon & Garfunkel
A wistful and remorseful visit to the disillusionment that filled many of the generation that grew to adulthood during the Vietnam War.

Alone Again, Naturally - Gilbert O. Sullivan
A pure piece of pop that reaches beyond pretense for actual heart-rending reflection.

To The Last Whale (Critical Mass and Wind on the Water) - Crosby & Nash
A powerful song of Man's inhumanity and the senseless waste of beautiful and intelligent creatures for our petty pleasures. That's James Taylor singing background at the end of the song.

Jeremy - Pearl Jam
One of the few MTV videos that actually affected me when I first saw it (I didn't include the video here, just the lyrics). A reflection of many of the lost teens who kill themselves or others and appear with alarming regularity on the evening news.

Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
I like the guitar, 5 of 6 strings tuned to D. Oh yeah, the song is certainly sad as well.

Who Wants to Live Forever - Queen
A very moving song from Queen that I recall fondly from the great cult classic The Highlander, and a reminder that many Queen songs may be immortal, but not so Freddie Mercury.

My Immortal - Evanescence
An infinitely sad song Amy Lee wrote to her dead sister. That's all I have to say about that.

One and Only - The Young Dubliners
One of the greatest songs you never heard. This troubling song deals with incest and the dysfunction of parents that refuse to listen or help a daughter in anguish.

Don't Let It Bring You Down - Neil Young
Okay, I can offer up whole albums of sad Neil Young songs, but this one is a particular favorite. I love the stark lyrics.

Crash-Barrier Waltzer - Jethro Tull
A regretful man tries to aid an old drunk to ease his own conscience, but harsh reality in the form of a cynical policeman gets in the way.

Daylight Again/Find the Cost of Freedom - Crosby, Stills & Nash
A stunning anti-war protest from CS&N that deals more with the dead than the living.

Fruit Tree - Nick Drake
Death hung from Nick like the moss on old oak. And he was old when he was very young, and he was too soon gone and his fame came just as this song predicted.

There's Always Something There to Remind Me - Naked Eyes
Yes, this song is hopelessly lost in the 80s with its drum machines and synths, but millions mourned their loves lost over this tune by a band no one remembers.

4 + 20 - Stephen Stills
A song of utter desperation found on CSN&Y's Déjà Vu album, but which is completely a Stephen Stills production and composition.

Irene Wilde - Ian Hunter
A true story according to Ian Hunter, documenting the bittersweet teenage angst and unrequited love that we all go through. Well, at least I did. Thanks for that one, Ian.

The Greatest Rock Album Covers of All Time, Part I

In this era of digitization and clouds, minimization and dollar downloads, the clarion call has sounded for the inevitable death of the album format, and I shall blow what Dylan termed the "futile horn" for a dying art now compressed into the narrow and near-illegible confines of a CD jewel case - the grave in which to bury the dearly departed.

Album art, that once ubiquitous mainstay of graphic design in the recording industry, has been reduced to a mere 12 cm x 12 cm (4.75 inches x 4.75 inches) from a more generous 12 inch x 12 inch size in ye olde days of vinyl last century. Much of the album art from the 1960s, 70s and 80s does not translate well into smaller packaging, and the clever nature of the designs has been transmuted into little pamphlets with images and liner notes condensed into small squares, the original artwork hacked into minute bits and pieces. It's rather like getting your exposure to an artistic medium from a paperback-sized art book, instead of going to a museum and seeing the works up close and in context.

So nowadays I don't buy albums for the sound fidelity (I am not an audiophile touting the gram-weight of a specific vinyl release), but for the great album covers themselves, replacing the old and damaged ones in my collection (those used as impromptu drink coasters or double albums opened wide as convenient rolling trays back in the day) with equally old but more pristine copies. It is my intention - eventually and whenever I get around to it - to have an entire wall of album covers, pending approval from my wife and depending on where I am allowed to erect such a wall (most likely in a place far from feminine habitation).

It is unfortunate to see these symbols of rock and roll slip into such a sad demise, but let us not mourn in maudlin mewling, but instead celebrate the death of album art like we were at an Irish wake. The first batch of twenty-five albums are here for your artsy-fartsy edification, and I'll add another twenty-five in a future article. These covers are in no particular order because each is arresting or interesting in their own particular way. I have tended to concentrate more on graphics than photography in this first go-round, unless the photo is in some way more intriguing or shocking than the usual picture of a band or performer schmoozing for the camera. In addition, I have tried to find covers with strange stories of their own. Enjoy.

In the Court of the Crimson King - King Crimson

Painted by Barry Godber (purportedly the only painting he ever attempted), the fearful face on the front cover is, according to Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp, the 'Schizoid Man' from the first song on the album, "21st Century Schizoid Man", while the happier character on the inner jacket is that of the 'Crimson King', whose court is described in colorful poetics on the the composition that ends the album, the progressive masterwork "The Court of the Crimson King". Both faces are said to mirror the mood of the album, and this is certainly true. In any case, the look of manic paranoia on the Schizoid Man is utterly disturbing and an iconic symbol of the trouble and unrest of the late 1960s.

Brain Salad Surgery - Emerson, Lake & Palmer                         

Long before Ridley Scott directed the classic science fiction film Alien with its nightmarish acid-dripping creature prowling the Nostromo, the biomechanical horror images of H. R. Giger could be found on ELP's Brain Salad Surgery. The original album cover featured the skeletal remains of a netherworldy woman, her skull skewered by a metallic torture device. Open the sleeves and the sphinx-like woman (said to be an image of Giger's wife) with tattoo scarring and snaky, alien hair is revealed on the inner cover. The "ELP" logo Giger devised for the album has been used ever since by the band.

Abraxas - Santana

The cover of Santana's Abraxas album is a 1961 painting "The Annunciation" (wherein the angel Gabriel announces the divine conception to the Virgin Mary) by the artist Mati Klarwein, whose family fled from Nazi Germany when he was two years old to escape the persecution of Jews. Influenced by Ernst Fuchs and the Viennese School of Fantastic Realism, Klarwein's surreal imagery (with nods to Fuchs and also Gustav Klimt) meshed well with the psychedelic 1960s, and Carlos Santana, upon having seen a reproduction of the painting in a magazine and loving the Latin and African imagery, secured permission from the artist to use it as an album cover image. Klarwein's art has graced many albums, most notably the striking cover of Mile Davis' Bitches Brew.

Thick as a Brick - Jethro Tull

What does a band do when releasing a prog masterpiece composed of a single 44 minute-long song stretched across two sides of a record? Why, they design a cover masterpiece as well! The album cover for Thick as a Brick is a several page foldout of a newspaper, in this case the mythical St. Cleve Chronicle, a biting satire of shallow small town journalism that reports on the trials and tribulations of a local nine year-old prodigy Gerald "Little Milton" Bostock, whose award-winning (and subsequently disqualified) epic poem has been used by Jethro Tull as the lyrics for their latest album. The newspaper contains various articles about the scandals surrounding Gerald, band notes (and the lyrics), and newsworthy items on assorted residents of St. Cleve. In addition, there are snarky classified ads, wholly inappropriate children's puzzles and a host of inside jokes and puns.

School's Out - Alice Cooper

Speaking of wholly inappropriate, my original copy of this album was confiscated in 7th grade. Obviously, the nuns did not appreciate the pair of girl's panties that accompanied the album and acted as a record sleeve. But Alice Cooper's School's Out had more than the shock value of feminine undergarments, the cover itself was genuinely clever. Designed by Craig Braun of Wilks & Braun Inc. (who created other covers such as on George Harrison's Living in the Material World and the Stone's Sticky Fingers), the cover looked like an old wooden school desk, complete with ink well, pen slot, and the band member's names or initials carved into the wood. And just as an old school desk, the top opened upward to reveal a storage compartment which housed (in addition to the record and lingerie sleeve) such early 70's school essentials as a comic book, switchblade, coffee-stained liner notes and a picture of the boozy, bedraggled group taped at the top.

London Calling - The Clash

Using the same lettering and graphical style as Elvis's debut album, designer Ray Lowry borrowed imagery from a rock icon as well as redefined the meaning of rock and roll rebellion on The Clash's London Calling. Elvis' swiveling hips were once banned from television (he was shown on the Ed Sullivan Show from the waist up), but The Clash emphasized just how far the "devil's music" had come from the early days. The photo of Paul Simonon smashing his bass guitar was taken by Pennie Smith and is considered on the greatest rock and roll photographs of all time. Which is fitting, because the album is great as well.

Sticky Fingers - The Rolling Stones

What can one say about an album cover featuring the crotch of a clearly aroused man clad in a pair of jeans...with an actual metal zipper! Of course, everyone wanted to pull the zipper down to see what was there (white briefs!). The photo for Sticky Fingers (an apt title if ever there was one) was taken by Andy Warhol (who had suggested the idea to Mick Jagger), but the crotch is not Mick's but supposedly one of Warhol's friends, a street hustler named Joe Dallesandro (and one wonders if Andy did the fluffing). The album itself was designed by Craig Braun, who got into all sorts of trouble with the record label because the zipper scratched the song "Sister Morphine" when the albums were stacked during shipping. Braun's ingenious idea? Ship the albums with the zippers pulled down. And so they were.

Trout Mask Replica - Captain Beefheart

No, that is not a trout Don Van Vliet (otherwise known as Captain Beefheart) is holding in his hand. It is a catfish purchased from a farmer's market by album designer Cal Schenkel for the Trout Mask Replica photo shoot. But the bizarre image suits the bizarre album to a tee, and Captain Beefheart's green smoking jacket, matted fur wrap and absurd hat sets off the ensemble quite well. One of the most weirdly striking album images you'll ever see, and one that will remain, like the retching memory of bad smoked salmon at a dinner party, wedged in your cranium forever.

Strange Days - The Doors

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of this carnivalesque image for Strange Days is that it is the only Doors album cover from their original studio releases that does not feature a photo of the band as the main image (here, there are only concert posters of the band plastered on the alley walls to the far left and right of the shot). The album image strikes the perfect pose for Jim Morrison's Theatre of the Damned Rimbaudian/Baudelairean poetics. You can almost hear the song "When You're Strange" being piped into the photo shoot. The photo was taken in an alley in Manhattan by Joel Brodsky, and due to a lack of carnie-types in the area, a cab driver was hired for $5 to pretend to play the trumpet. And yes, those indeed are twin midgets. 

Weasels Ripped My Flesh - The Mothers of Invention

 "RZZZZZ!" I couldn't have said it any better. The retro 1950s artwork found on the album Weasels Ripped My Flesh had its genesis when Frank Zappa saw the kitschy cover of a September, 1956 issue of Man's Life magazine (above). Zappa absolutely adored the picture, and enlisted the aid of artist Neon Park. Zappa showed Park the magazine cover and asked him if he could top it. Park said he could design a parody of a similarly silly add for Schick electric razors using the "weasels ripped my flesh" theme from the magazine cover. Frank approved but, of course, the record label hated the cover.

Nothing's Shocking - Jane's Addiction

What's more shocking than a naked woman with her head on fire? Naked twins with their heads on fire, of course! Upon its release, nine out of 11 major U.S. retailers refused to sell the album because of the cover. As of 2011, Facebook has banned the cover. The irony, I guess, is there are still things that are too shocking. The conjoined twins are actually a sculpture created by Jane's Addiction's resident maniac Perry Farrell (supposedly a molded and then duplicated representation of his girlfriend, who I am sure walks about the house with her head ablaze in an effort to reduce energy costs).

Peter Gabriel III (Melt) - Peter Gabriel

Never mind that this was Peter Gabriel's third straight solo effort titled simply Peter Gabriel. He would release a fourth self-titled album, but the U.S. distributor of the album demanded that it have a proper title, and thus released the record as Security in the States. Yet Gabriel was never one for lengthy titles, as later releases with such monosyllabic monikers as So and Us seem to imply. But let us forget about semantic gymnastics, it is the Dorian Gray-like dissolving portrait of Gabriel, an altered photo taken with a simple Polaroid instant camera, that is most striking. And so the album later received by unanimous accolade the title Melt, for obvious reasons. Storm Thorgeson of Hipgnosis (the album designer) can't recall whether it was he or Gabriel that altered the photo. Perhaps Peter should ask for his money back.

Diamond Dogs - David Bowie

Guy Peellaert, a Belgian artist, painted this depiction of Canis Bowieum Argenti, David Bowie as a golden sideshow dog-man for the sinfully underrated Diamond Dogs album (Peelaert also did the cover for the Stone's It's Only Rock and Roll and the poster for the film Taxi Driver). Missing from the original painting are Bowie's genitals, which were blacked-out prior to the album's release. Obviously, doggy dongs were demented in the mid-70s (perhaps, like many uninhibited dogs, Bowie might perform the hind-lick maneuver). So, here's the original painting sans the shadow hiding Bowie's censorious canine crotch:

 

The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys - Traffic

One of the most cleverly shaped album covers ever created, this reversing cube figure taken from a book on optical illusions was also voted the most difficult album cover to put a record away in while in an inebriated state (well, no one actually voted on it, but I certainly felt that way on a number of occasions). The faux three-dimensional album design was created by Tony Wright, who has designed dozens of other covers (like Bob Marley's Natty Dread, for instance). In regards to making the cover, Wright recalled, "The image for Low Spark of High Heeled Boys was made in typical 1970s fashion, from first idea to finished art in one day. There were no meetings or marketing managers, just the band, a visual artist and an inspired record company owner with his own particular genius."  

Who's Next - The Who

One of the most iconic images of 1970s rock and roll rebellion is a fraud! Yes, members of The Who may look like they've just taken a piss on a giant concrete piling (thus thumbing their noses - or other body parts - at the establishment, allegorically speaking), but that aint piss! According to Ethan A. Russell, the photographer of the shoot, most of the band members couldn't urinate on demand, so they filled a film canister with rainwater and poured it down the concrete to get the desired...ummm...trails. The photo was taken at the Easington Colliery in County Durham, England, and the piling on a slag heap has more than a passing resemblance to the monolith in Stanley Kubrick's 2001, a film released only a few years prior to Who's Next (naturally meaning "who's next for a good pisser!").

ZoSo (Volume IV) - Led Zeppelin

It's not what is on the cover of Led Zeppelin's fourth album that makes it interesting and important, it's what is missing. Oh, the framed painting of the grizzled old geezer carrying a bundle of fags hanging on a demolished wall with decrepit wallpaper has its homely charm. No, what's different is, as Jimmy Page said, "We decided that on the fourth album, we would deliberately play down the group name, and there wouldn't be any information whatsoever on the outer jacket. Names, titles and things like that do not mean a thing." Zeppelin's press agent lost his mind! The record company called it "professional suicide"! No band had ever released an album with absolutely no identification on the album cover! Naturally, the album has sold over 32 million albums worldwide. The gatefold opened to reveal a recreation of the Rider-Waite tarot card "The Hermit", and the inner record sleeve had the four famous symbols that defined each member of the band...

And one for Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny for her stellar vocal contribution on "The Battle of Evermore"...

Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles

Photographed by Sir Peter Blake (I guess Queen Elizabeth knights just about anybody these days), this often imitated album image (see the next cover) is the holy grail of rock covers. The garishly psychedelic '67 Beatles stand front and center, and next to them are their alter-egos the "Fab Four" (made of wax - appropriate), as if to say their former selves are now museum pieces. Surrounding the band are various touchstones images of historic, literary and entertainment significance, but it is who was left off the list that may be even more interesting: Jesus Christ, because Lennon felt there may be lingering resentment to his statement that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus; Adolf Hitler, who remained in the photo but was eventually obscured by Johnny Weismuller (Tarzan); Leo Gorcey of the Bowery Boys, who wanted a $400 fee for his image (The Beatles declined, but his partner Huntz Hall was included without charge); Mohandas K. Gandhi, due to record company concerns that the album might be banned in India; and Mexican actor Germán Valdés (known as Tin-Tan), who was replaced by a piece of Mexican art.

We're Only in It For the Money - The Mothers of Invention

The greatest rock and roll parody required a satiric album cover as biting as its lyrics, and so Frank Zappa and the Mother decided to lampoon Sgt. Peppers in their savage indictment of Flower Power, hippies, suburbia and what Zappa viewed as the vacant culture of the late 1960s. Fearing a law suit, concerned record execs at Verve bowed to pressure from Capitol Records (The Beatles' label), and The Mothers' cover mocking Sgt. Peppers was forced onto the inner sleeves of the gatefold album. The outer cover features the band members dressed in drag. Of the Sgt. Pepperesque cover, Zappa had designer Cal Schenkel and photographer Jerry Schatzberg create the image as "a direct negative" of The Beatles' album. The Beatles had a blue sky background, while The Mothers had storm clouds, and as Schatzberg said, "Instead of flowers and wonderful dreams, Frank wanted garbage and old food and what you see around on the floor." As an added bonus to the mudshark in your mythology, Zappa's buddy Jimi Hendrix came by for the photo shoot (he's on the right hand side of the band).

Cheap Thrills - Big Brother & the Holding Company

Featuring the artwork of R. Crumb, the subversive founder of the Underground Comix movement (including his pornographic adventures of Fritz the Cat), the album cover for Cheap Thrills is vintage 1960s pop art. The members of the band originally conceived the album cover to be a mock high school yearbook, with Crumb's contribution on the back of the album (hence, all the band information in the separate comics panels); however, Crumb's artwork made the front cover when none of the band's ideas could top his. In such ways are masterpieces created.

The Magician's Birthday - Uriah Heep

So many album covers designed by Roger Dean! At one time, it seemed he was in the permanent employ of the band Yes (creating over 30 album covers between Yes and various solo projects by the band members). But I think this cover Dean did for Uriah Heep's The Magician's Birthday is the most arresting and vivid (he did another famous cover for Heep's Demons and Wizards, and a few more for some regrettable reunion albums in the 80s). Spoiler: I also liked Dean's design for Gentle Giant's Octopus, which will be appearing in the follow-up to this article.

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

The first image from Wish You Were Here is not a touched-up photo, the guy was actually on fire. He was a stunt man on Warner Brother's studio lot, and the wind changed direction and burnt off his moustache (the two stunt men changed positions and the shot was retaken). This image of two businessmen shaking hands indicates one of them is "getting burned" (and musicians always felt they got raw deals from record companies). The second image from the album is the black plastic wrapper with the sticker of a mechanical handshake that covered the artwork on the original releases. Designer Storm Thorgerson believed the lyrics of the album contained elements of absence, deception and concealment, and so hid the album cover. Continuing this concept, the back cover once again shows the figure of a salesman in a suit, but this businessman is faceless and without a body - an "empty suit" - who more than likely mirrors the empty-headed record sales exec so ruthlessly satirized in the song "Have a Cigar".

The Slider - T. Rex

If anything says spaced-out 1970s rock star more than this hazy photo of Marc Bolan wearing an over sized stovepipe hat, then I'd like to see it. Depending on who you believe, the photo was either taken by Ringo Starr (who received photo credits in the liner notes) or Tony Visconti, the producer of the album, who claims he snapped the iconic photo of the T. Rex frontman during a documentary Ringo Starr was doing for the band. The battle for picture credits rages to this very day, with septuagenarians Starr and Visconti beating each other with canes and walkers. I'm joking.

Nevermind - Nirvana

In the U.S., we start 'em out early chasing the almighty dollar! Actually, the dollar on the fishing hook was added later by the art department. The Kirk Weddle photo of the circumcised swimming infant (the baby must be ready for AARP benefits by now) was seen by Curt Cobain and Nirvana, who wanted it for the album cover when their record company denied in no uncertain terms their first request - a graphic photo of an underwater birth. When the record company wanted to censor the baby's penis, Curt Cobain was happy to comply, on one condition: a sticker must be placed over the offending infant projectile that read "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile." The record company changed their minds.

The Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

One of the most recognized graphic design symbols in history - right up there with the Nike swoosh and the men and women symbols on public restrooms. It's as if Dr. Pink Floyd did the original treatise on prisms and optics (who said rock music was anti-intellectual?). Once again, it was Storm Thorgeson and Aubrey Powell of the Hipgnosis team (previously roommates of Syd Barrett, no less), who came up with the concept. "The prism was a way to talk about the fact that this band, preeminently among all bands, would do light. Light and sound," Thorgeson recalled, and Floyd truly did have one of the greatest laser light shows of all time (light, also being the antithesis of the "Dark Side of the Moon"). Also, the series of waves on the inner gatefold represents a human heartbeat. As Thorgeson said, "They had people discussing these mad little bits about their lives, and they used the heartbeat as a rhythm underneath it."

War - U2

The photograph is of Peter Rowen (the brother of one of Bono's friends), whose likeness appears at various ages on the U2 albums Boy, Three and this one on War. The photo is striking and coupled with the theme of the album "war", is an indictment of violence and the incidental casualties of strife, such as children. As Bono said, "Instead of putting tanks and guns on the cover, we've put a child's face. War can also be a mental thing, an emotional thing between loves. It doesn't have to be a physical thing." By the way, Peter Rowen is now 38 years old, and probably uses this album cover as a great way to melt the ice with women. An album cover is a lot easier to get into a bar than a puppy.

Progressive Blues: The Greatest Twists of an Old Musical Form, Part I

Progressive blues. Yes, I know the term seems almost contrary to the progressive music movement most prominent in the late 60s and early 70s, wherein bands like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, King Crimson and Jethro Tull (following preliminary attempts by Procol Harum, The Moody Blues and The Nice) first wedded elements of classical music into rock and roll; or such stellar performers as Carlos Santana, John McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock and groups like Return to Forever and Soft Machine (and literally anyone ever associated with Miles Davis) integrated rock and jazz forms into what became known as "fusion"; or in the rise of funk, incorporating elements of soul, R & B and jazz as propagated by James Brown, Sly Stone and George Clinton (and, again, Miles Davis). And then there is Frank Zappa, who pretty much broke down every musical style into component pieces, plopped them into a mixing bowl, and offered up a stew of snarky abstraction. But I digress.

How can one denote the blues notes in progressive music? There was an extended debate over on ProgArchives.com that veered off into semantics about bands that were deemed of the "progressive" genre playing blues progressions in their songs, but there were quite a few responses from folks who got the idea and came up with some excellent examples of the concept. Granted, progressive blues would not necessarily be an entirely separate musical form or genre; however, on a song by song basis I think it has been done, and to magnificent effect.

So what would a "progressive blues" song sound like? Obviously, the terms innovative, genre-bending and inspired come to mind, as when the old acoustic blues players of the Mississippi Delta and other regions of the South moved to the Midwest, leaving sharecropping and Jim Crow laws behind to find decent-paying manufacturing jobs in the first half of the 20th century, and in places like Kansas City, Chicago and Detroit they strapped on electric guitars for the first time. Electrifying the blues was the first great innovation, but the basic 12-bar composition of the blues remained. Even rock and roll in its infancy (and its countrified offshoot rock-a-billy) contained a basic blues element from Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis, all the way up to the  early 60s with Brit Invasion bands such as The Beatles, The Stones, The Yardbirds and The Animals carrying on in amplified imitation of their blues forefathers.

It was not really until the mid-1960s that noticeable deviations in blues playing begins (aside from regional variations like Delta blues, New Orleans/Dixieland blues, Chicago blues, etc.), due in part to a massive amount of drug ingestion. Okay, I am kidding, partially, but with the advent of psychedelia and innovations in guitar technique and effects (wah-wahs, flanges, distortion, etc.) and stereo sound, one notices a definite ramping up of musical experimentation that led to prog, funk and fusion. The same can be said of the blues.

I am not speaking of hard rock bands merely amping up the volume and distortion yet essentially playing the same song with the same chord progressions as their blues predecessors from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, I am instead referring to a completely different take on those older songs, or of new songs which stretch the boundaries of blues music while remaining within the genre; therefore, a progressive blues tune should maintain a consistent blues feeling, and not merely be a few blues progressions that a band or performer grafted to a different compositional form.

Here are the first sixty-six progressive blues tunes in the series. I shall come up with more (and more modern variations) as the mood strikes me:

Lyrical Asides and Twisted Visions

Bob Dylan -
Dylan did not merely electrify folk music, he brought an entirely different sensibility to the blues as well, welding the social conscious of folk and the avant-garde metaphors of modern poetry into a synthesized blues-hybrid found on such essential albums as Bringing It All back Home and Highway 61 Revisited.
Subterranean Homesick Blues
It's All Right Mama, I'm Only Bleeding
Highway 61 Revisited

Frank Zappa/The Mothers of Invention -
The adage "necessity is the mother of invention" has been used at least back to 1658, but Frank Zappa co-opted the phrase in the 60s and gave it an entirely new meaning, just as he reworked the blues. From the album Freak Out with the scathing social commentary of "Trouble Everyday", to Weasels Ripped My Flesh with the absolutely wicked violin of Don "Sugarcane" Harris on "Directly from My Heart to You", to the outrageous "Cosmik Debris" from his solo album Apostrophe, Zappa had an ongoing (albeit twisted) love affair with the blues. For an added treat, I offer you Zappa's version of the Allman Brother's "Whipping Post" (and if you know anything about the mudshark in your mythology, you'll know why Zappa is playing this song).
Trouble Everyday
Directly from My Heart to You
Cosmik Debris
Whippin' Post

Captain Beefheart -
What can one say about the good Captain? Other than he followed the beat of his own drummer and then set the snare on fire, not much. But the blues form was a mainstay in his music, and went wherever he did. Wherever that was.
Electricity
Dachau Blues
Pachuco Cadaver

The Beatles -
The Beatles had their hands in just about everything in the 1960s, including the blues ("Yer Blues" is quite basic, so I didn't include it), commenting on social ills and politics in "Revolution #1" from The White Album, and then turning the blues into a titanic overture on Abbey Road with "I Want You (She's so Heavy)".
Revolution #1
I Want You (She's So Heavy)

The Doors -
The Doors played a bit of the blues on nearly every one of their albums. Some blues tunes followed the original formulas like on Willie Dixon's "Back Door Man", the rousing "Roadhouse Blues" and "Been Down So Long", but when Jim Morrison got on a lyrical roll, the blues went to unexpected places, like on the fierce call to revolution "Five to One", the eerie "Shaman's Blues", and the downright sinister "The Spy".
Five to One
Shaman's Blues
The Spy

Guitar Innovations and Virtuosity

Jimi Hendrix -
At one time, there was Hendrix, and then there was everybody else. Perhaps that is still the case. But one listen to "Little Wing" reveals what can happen when a guitar master reworks the blues. Check out the baroque blues stylings and lights-out wah-wah of "Burning of the Midnight Lamp", and the utterly violent mayhem of "Voodoo Chile", which takes the tall-tale storytelling of traditional blues to another level completely. The last selection, "Message to Love" is from the live Band of Gypsies concerts in New York. If you find the same version of this song from Woodstock, you can see the evolution of this song from a straighter blues tune to what here is more of blues/funk variation.
Little Wing
Burning of the Midnight Lamp
Voodoo Child (Slight Return)
Message to Love

Jeff Beck -
Some rock gods started expanding their repertoires from aping the great bluesmasters on their early albums to actually creating a sound of their own as they matured. This can be discerned in Jeff Beck's music (he broke the rigid adherence to straight blues at a much earlier point than Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page). Beck's 1968 wah-wah extravaganza "Aint Superstitious" offers an entirely different take on the Howlin' Wolf original. This was followed by other notable excursions into the blues form like the frantic "Going Down".
I Aint Superstitious
Going Down

Fleetwood Mac -
Peter Green and Jeremy Spencer were huge Elmore James fans; in fact, they spent much of the first few Mac albums emulating him. Not a bad thing, really, because they were damned good (perhaps my favorite British blues band). But Jeremy Spencer eventually spaced out and joined a commune, and Danny Kirwan joined Peter Green on guitar. The 1969 release Then Play On, the last Mac studio album Peter Green played on (before he too drifted into the ozone of heavy drug usage and paranoia), is their most adventurous and progressive. The acoustic blues/hard rock/spaghetti western epic "Oh Well" comes from that set, as does "Searching for Madge", the Beatlesque montage of rip-roaring blues, fade-outs, fade-ins and classical music drop-ins. And then there is "Green Manalishi" recorded just before Green left Mac for good in mid-1970. As a blues-rock tune there is no rival for the evil incarnate in the song. Like Robert Johnson's hellhound on his trail, Peter Green had a green dog-demon haunting his dreams. Another casualty of drug use. God knows what music we'd hear if he kept it together while he was still young.
Oh Well
Searching for Madge
Green Manalishi

Led Zeppelin -
After three albums of playing traditional blues tunes mostly very loud (save for some exquisite but still traditional acoustic blues on Vol. III), Zeppelin made a radical departure on Volume IV. Using Memphis Minnie's "when the Levee Breaks" as the bare bones structure of their version, Jimmy Page and Zeppelin created a phase-shifting, backward looping, bass drum booming blues montage that is, by any definition, progressive blues. Of the albums that followed, Physical Graffiti and Presence are the most blues-based, the extended "In My Time of Dying" and the brutal funk-blues "Trampled Underfoot" are on Grafitti and "Nobody's Fault" is from the woefully underappreciated Presence.
When the Levee Breaks
In My Time of Dying
Trampled Underfoot
Nobody's Fault But Mine

Johnny Winter -
The Dylan song "Highway 61", already a lyrically progressive blues anthem, becomes an advanced slide guitar class in Johnny Winter's hands. Winter also turns a simple blues tune, "Rock Me Baby", into a behemoth jam, with more blues riffs per meter than can be found in whole albums elsewhere.
Highway 61 
Rock Me Baby

Robin Trower -
Trower has entire albums of progressive blues. Here are two of the most notable. Oh, what that man can do with a Strat!
Bridge of Sighs
Too Rolling Stoned

Santana -
Santana's greatest hit "Black Magic Woman" is a stellar blues tune originally recorded by Peter Green and Fleetwood Mac, and given a Cuban Hendrix outro by Carlos Santana. Suffused with a seductive Latin rhythm, the song is a classic. The slinky "Evil Ways" and the even more evil "No One to Depend On" also represent Latin blues at its best.
Evil Ways
Black Magic Woman
No One to Depend On

Ten Years After -
Alvin Lee rips into jazz arpeggios and octaves in one of the greatest extended blues experimentations of all time, Al Kooper's "I Can't Keep from Crying". Sonny Boy Williamson's "Help Me" is a more traditional blues tune, but since my favorite Ten Years After version has finally appeared on YouTube (from the 1973 Recorded Live - one of the great blues-rock albums of all time), I can't help but sharing it. Talk about blowing the roof off! And at 10+ minutes, it certainly qualifies as a progressive blues jam.
I Can't Keep From Crying
Help Me

Rory Gallagher -
Hey, it's Rory Fucking Gallagher. That's all you need to know.
Country Mile

Eclectic and Avant-Garde

John Mayall -
Of all John Mayall's decades of performances with Clapton, the Bluesbreakers and solo, the most progressive and free form blues tune Mayall ever composed was "Room to Move". One of my all time favorites.
Room to Move

Edgar Winter's White Trash -
You've never heard the song "Tobacco Road" unless you've heard Edgar Winter's big band version. The vocals are astounding. I've never heard anyone scream like that this side of Ian Gillan. Top it off with the fact the song is in excess of 17 minutes long. Progressive blues to the core.
Tobacco Road, Part I
Tobacco Road, Part II

The Grateful Dead -
I've never been enamored of Grateful Dead and their hours of mindless noodling. You want great extended jams? Listen to the Allman Brothers. But when The Dead laid off the LSD and endless trills and arpeggios, they could be a damn good country blues band, blending traditional themes with progressive improvisation.
Truckin'
Casey Jones
Cumberland Blues

Pink Floyd - 
David Gilmour is a frustrated blues guitarist forced to play in a psychedelic/prog band. I'm only half joking, but it's clear that many of Gilmour's greatest leads are blues riffs. On "Fat Old Sun" a simple folk tune morphs into a 15 minute long blues tune with definite overtones of Hendrix. The first section of "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" is, for all intents and purposes, a blues tune. And just for the hell of it, I've included a bootleg from a concert in Germany in 1971, called simply "Pink Blues". Hey, Pink Floyd aint named after Pink Anderson and Floyd Council for nothin'!
Fat Old Sun
Shine on You Crazy Diamond
Pink Blues

Jethro Tull -
Before Ian Anderson started writing album-long songs, Elizabethan ballads and odes to field and stream, Tull was a jazz/blues/rock variant as eclectic as they were talented. "Song for Jeffrey" is from their first album This Was (and like John Mayall offered flute and blues harp - an odd combination - in one song), their second album Stand Up featured the Eastern Indian-infused blues of "Fat Man" and the jazzy blues-rock extravaganza "Nothing Is Easy", and "Too Cry You a Song" from Benefit is a completely anglicized version of the blues, both lyrically and in the classical chording (like pirates playing blues). Each song in its own way sheds light on Tull as eminent blues innovators.
Song for Jeffrey
Fat Man
Nothing Is Easy
To Cry You a Song

The Groundhogs -
The Groundhogs were an underground "Heavy-Psyche-Progressive-Blues" band (thanks to Dean at ProgArchives for that nifty definor, and for reminding me of The Mighty Groundhogs, a band I haven't heard since the mid-70s) that had some success in Britain, but never really made it over in the States. Their earlier stuff is reminiscent of Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac, but they steadily edged further afield with a more abstracted blues style. Definitely worth a listen if you've never heard of them.
Mistreated
Groundhog Blues
Split, Part 2

Peter Gabriel -
Normally, one wouldn't think of eccentric Peter Gabriel as bluesy, but with Robert Fripp on guitar, one never knows what musical form will be taken apart and reassembled.
Waiting for the Big One

Mad Dogs & Englishmen/Joe Cocker/Leon Russell -
The extraordinary thing about Joe Cocker was that he could steal a song, even from The Beatles, and you completely forget about the original version. Likewise, he could take a pop song and turn it into a blues tune. In addition, Leon Russell is one creepy looking dude, but he's a great arranger (both for Mad Dog & Englishmen and The Concert for Bangladesh) . Leon also puts The Rolling Stones to shame while lifitng one of their signature songs.
With A Little Help From My Friends
The Letter
Jumpin' Jack Flash/Youngblood

Dr. John -
Here's a couple songs from the ever innovative Dr. John. The first comes from the great psychedelic voodoo New Orleans blues album Gris-Gris, and the second the funkified blues of Dr. John in 70s, "Right Place Wrong Time".
I Walk on Guilded Splinters
Right Place Wrong Time

Dixie Dregs -
Not necessarily known for the blues, Steve Morse and Dixie Dregs experimented with the form on occasion. What one gets is glimpses of blues in their jazzy fusion. Except of course on the appropriately titles "12 Bar Blues" when Dregs met up with bassist extraordinaire Jaco Pastorius for an impromptu blues tune. Amazing results.
12 Bar Blues

Southern Epic Blues

A curious Southern institution is the Country Blues-Rock Epic. Such songs in this particular blues epic mode MUST include two or more lead guitars, a lot of long hair, requisite cowboy hats, two drummers (if space allows), and at least ten minutes of jamming time during a concert. The Allman Brothers were the progenitors of the Mason-Dixon Music Monolith, followed most ably by the boys from Jacksonville, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and a host of others.

Allman Brothers -
Whippin' Post
In Memory of Elizabeth Reed

Blackfoot -
Highway Song

The Outlaws -
Green Grass and High Tides

Lynyrd Skynyrd -

Free Bird