Lydia Likes It

Carolina Day

I fell in love with Livingston Taylor in 1970, when I was 17 and he came out with his very first album (pictured here). I loved every song, and learned all the words, and I remember them to this day. Last night, my husband Ted and I went to see Liv -- brother of James and Kate -- in a show at an intimate Boston club. He's 73 now, and has lost most of the hair in this photo, but his voice and guitar skills are pitch perfect. And this album -- yes, album -- his first, is still one I could listen to every day.

Carolina Day is one of my favorite songs on my favorite album. Have a listen, and sing along.

*Carolina Day gonna rise up sometime
Give me good align said a reason and rhyme
Jump and sing all the time
Work at a' easing my mind

Oh, it's a Carolina day
On a plane out of Logan, up pops a slogan
Talkin' only of easy times
Working at a bottle of ripple wine
Breathing that clean fine southern air
And we all start to laugh
And the people start to stare thinking
Them kids are in a funny way
But we're all in need
Lookin' to see the Carolina day

**And Carolina day don't rise in the morning
Don't set in the evenin'
It ain't that way
Look up in the morning
And you got a grin
And you're with a girl
And you want to stay
Then my friend you're in a Carolina day
Oh, oh, it's a Carolina day

Alec and Brent they're lovin' their child
And James is becoming a star
Sister Kate's laughin' all the time
And my brother Hugh's out wreckin' a car
And my mother smiles thinkin' isn't it fine
That the children are home again
And Louis, my best friend falls on by
And we're all together again.

** repeat
*Repeat

Oh, it's a Carolina day
Zippin' on down to the C.C. house
Thought I'd put my father on
Then smokes then booze then tokes then Herc
And my head were dead and gone
And Doctor Schein a lot of money and time
And a few friends stickin' around
While taking care of business I found my Carolina day
Didn't let me down.

What Makes It Great?

Ted and I first encountered Rob Kapilow's What Makes It Great?® programs through the B.U. Celebrity Series of Boston. If you love music, and if you love learning more about some of your favorite pieces of music, going to one of Rob's presentations will blow your eyes and your mind wide open. We've seen him twice, with A Far Cry, which is one of our favorite chamber music ensembles in the Boston area. The first performance we saw was Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring, a piece I have loved for many years. In the 2024/2025 season, we're booked to see Rob take on Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, and a medley of Simon & Garfunkel songs. "During each What Makes It Great?® program," Rob says, "we take a piece of great music, tear it apart, and put it back together again. We rewrite it, sing it, tap it, clap it: in short, we do everything in our power to get inside to see what makes it tick and what makes it great. Then on the second half of the program we hear the piece performed in its entirety—hopefully with a new pair of ears. If my art history class was about the difference between looking and seeing, What Makes It Great?® is about the difference between hearing and listening." Keep an eye out for What Makes It Great?® in your part of the world.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

From the first time I heard Canadian Gordon Lightfoot sing this song about the strength of spirit, I loved it, and I love it still. Sing with me.

 

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy

With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

 

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned

Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship's bell rang
Could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?

 

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
T'was the witch of November come stealin'
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin'
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind

 

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin'
"Fellas, it's too rough to feed ya"
At seven PM, a main hatchway caved in, he said
"Fellas, it's been good to know ya"
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

 

Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
If they'd put fifteen more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

 

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered

 

In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
In the maritime sailors' cathedral
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake they called Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early

 

Source: LyricFind

 

Get Up, Stand Up

Starting the new year ready to work hard to preserve our democracy? Me, too. The fabulous Jamaican singer Bob Marley, who left us in 1981, led Bob Marley & The Wailers in the most poignant, and commercially successful, reggae hits of the 1980s. The 1984 best-of album Legend contains all of the top reggae songs you'll recognize, and will be on my playlist until at least November 2024. Now, turn up the sound, and sing out with the Wailers, in concert here in Munich in 1980.

 

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right
Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right
Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right
Get up, stand up
Don't give up the fight

 

Preacher man don't tell me
Heaven is under the earth
I know you don't know
What life is really worth

He said all that glitters is gold
Half that story ain't never been told
So now you see the light, hey
You stand up for your right

Come on

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right
Get up, stand up
Don't give up the fight
Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right
Get up, stand up
Don't give up the fight

 

Most people think
Great God will come from the sky
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high

But if you know what life is worth
You would look for yours on earth
And now a you see the light
You stand up for your right
Jah!

 

Get up, stand up (Jah, Jah)
Stand up for your right (oh-hoo)
Get up, stand up (get up, stand up)
Don't give up the fight (life is your right)
Get up, stand up (so we can't give up the fight)
Stand up for your rights (Lord, Lord)
Get up, stand up (keep on struggling on)
Don't give up the fight (yeah)

 

We're sick and tired of your ism-schism game
Dy'n' and go to Heaven in-a Jesus' name, Lord
We know when we understand
Almighty God is a living man

You can fool some people sometimes
But you can't fool all the people all the time
So now we see the light (watch you gon' do?)
We gonna stand up for our rights (yeah, yeah)
So you'd better

 

Get up, stand up (in the morning) give it up
Stand up for your right (stand up right now)
Get up, stand up
Don't give up the fight (don't give it up, don't give it up)
Get up, stand up (get up, stand up)
Stand up for your rights (get up, stand up)
Get up, stand up
Don't give up the fight (get up, stand up)

Get up, stand up
Stand up for your right
Get up, stand up
Don't give up the fight
Get up, stand up

Martha, and Motown

Of all the girl groups Motown lifted up to the world, two resonated the most with me: The Supremes, of course, and Martha and the Vandellas. Martha Reeves, Annette Beard and Rosalind Ashford began singing together in 1957, and by 1963 the group hit it big with Motown. "Nowhere to Run" has always been my favorite. Go ahead, sing along!

Nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide
Got nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide.
It's not love, I'm a running from,
It's the heartbreak I know will come.
'Cause I know you're no good for me, but you've become a part of me.
Ev'rywhere I go, your face I see, ev'ry step I take, you take with me yeah

Nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide
Got nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide.
I know you're not good for me, but free of you I'll never be, no.
Each night as I sleep, into my heart you creep.
I wake up feelin' sorry I met you, hoping soon that I'll forget you.
When I look in the mirror to comb my hair
I see your face just a smiling there.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from you baby,
Got nowhere to run to, baby, nowhere to hide.
I know you're no good for me, but you've become a part of me,
How can I fight a lover, that shouldn't be, when it's so deep,
So deep, deep inside of me
My love reaches so high I can't get over it
It's so wide I can't get around it, no
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide from you baby
Just can't get away from you baby, no matter how I try to

I know you're no good for me, but free of you I'll never be,
Nowhere to run to baby, nowhere to hide, got nowhere to run to baby.