I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: RODNEY CROWELL-Tiny Desk Concert #365 (June 16, 2014).

I’ve never heard of Rodney Crowell, although he’s apparently been writing country songs for nigh on 40 years.  And he looks like a rugged old country music star.

But his songs don’t feel all that country.  His first song “Famous Last Words Of A Fool In Love” is a delicate ballad with a pretty guitar melody.  The second song “Jesus Tell My Mama” is more of a blues song (especially when his female backing vocalists kick in and help out).  The final song “God I’m Missing You” (which is not about God) he does solo.  It’s another sad, simple ballad.

Crowell’s voice doesn’t really sound country, although I can see how it would be considered such.  It’s just a powerful voice and I enjoyed hearing him.

All told these three songs barely stretch to ten minutes.  But it’s an interesting snapshot of how an older singer can move out of the genre that he is known for.

Incidentally, NPR is putting up these Tiny Desk concerts so frequently I’m never going to be able to catch up.  Slow down guys!

[READ: June 11, 2014] “The Frog Prince”

I’m surprised to see a second Robert Coover story in the span of just a few months in The New Yorker.  Perhaps because these are only one page, he gets to have a second one.  Like “The Waitress” (which appeared in May), this story plays around with a fairy tale.

I enjoyed this one more than probably any fairy-tale-related story that Coover has done.  Because in this one he really explores the harsh reality behind falling in love with a frog prince.  For indeed a woman does–she kisses a frog and he turns into a prince.  Naturally, she has to divorce her current husband, but she does so willingly to be with this magical prince.

But the harsh reality is that a prince that comes from a frog is going to be very frog-like: bulging eyes, a whip-like tongue and a kind of constant slurp.  However, he also has the secretions that get her very very high.  She enjoyed licking him when he was an amphibian, but when he turned, there was only one place left that had those secretions, his nether regions: “he wasn’t the cleanest of princes, but the trip was worth it.”  She looks forward to spending more and more of her time high.

The Prince liked to go back to his mud bog for a soak.  She accompanies him there, but he clearly likes it more than she does.  There’s also a strange episode about once a month where he mounts her for several days–sticking to her with his feet.  It’s quite inconvenient.

What’s a woman or a frog prince to do?

Once again, Coover makes the fairy tales seem far less magical than we were led to believe.