Songs about Lawyers #2: "This Song."

George Harrison in the video for "This Song."

  

     "Songs about Lawyers" week continues. If you missed the first installment, you can find it here.

     I hesitated to include George Harrison's "This Song" in my week of tunes related to attorneys, since it never mentions lawyers or the law, specifically. You have to know the backstory. In February, 1976, a trial began against the former Beatle,, accusing him of stealing the tune for "My Sweet Lord" from the Chiffon's 1963 hit of Ronnie Mack's "He's So Fine." 

    The song is an upbeat, joyous, piano-driven middle finger waved at the lawsuit, which had just begun.
    "This song, as far as I know, don't infringe on anyone's copyright, so..." Harrison sings. 

    Harrison had recently found himself in court, on the stand, guitar in hand, demonstrating the process by which he allegedly wrote "My Sweet Lord" and trying to point out the musical differences between it and "He's So Fine." 

    Had Harrison waited until the case concluded, in 1998, 22 years later, "This Song" probably would have been far slower, darker and more melancholy. It has a certain buoyancy that would be ground out of him.

    After I watched the proudly cheesy and amateurish video (which Harrison directed), shot in a Los Angeles courtroom, and was glad I included the song. Besides, it's got that great sax solo. 

     There's a lot going on in the video, including the Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood, in drag, mouthing Monty Python's Eric Idle's screech, "Could be 'Sugar Pie Honey Bunch'? Naw! Sounds more like 'Rescue Me!'" (indeed, both classic Motown songs echo the introduction of "This Song" as well as each other, a reminder that there is a lot of borrowing in music). 

     The song is larded with such sly winks at the case, including "This song has nothing 'Bright' about it"—Bright Music owned the copyright to "She's So Fine," and in turn was owned by Allen Klein, who until recently had been Harrison's manager, putting him in the unique position of profiting from both the release of "My Sweet Lord" and, potentially, from its copyright infringement settlement. Their animosity also helps explain what should have been handled with the quiet cutting of a check ended up a legal "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," a case that has been described as "without question, one of the longest running legal battles ever to be litigated."

     Harrison released the song Dec. 3, 1970, and it became a huge international hit—the first by a former Beatle, and his biggest solo single. That is highly salient to the lawsuit, equal to the two songs' similarity. Without that pot of gold, the parallels would have been a bit of music trivia, like Mick Jagger singing backup on Carly Simon's "You're So Vain." Indeed, honorary Beatle Billy Preston released his version of "My Sweet Lord" three months before Harrison did, and nobody sued anybody.

    The similarities were obvious. Radio stations would start playing "He's So Fine" then segue into "My Sweet Lord." In 1971, country music star Jody Miller put out her version of "He's So Fine," designed, rather maliciously, to highlight the two songs mirroring each other, complete with weeping slide guitar. Harrison said it "really putting the screws in."

    Harrison might have been proud, and creative, but he wasn't an idiot. He first felt chagrined when the resemblance was pointed out, and remembered thinking, "Why didn't I realize?" Later, as the legal noose tightened, he tried to downplay his gaffe, blustering, "Well, it's not exactly the same." 

     In his autobiography, "I, Me, Mine," Harrison does his best to feign outrage, dismissing the merits of the suit with, "It's a joke ... just greed and jealousy and all that."

    Despite the clear borrowing—it's the same tune—the case itself was maddeningly complex. Since it defied belief to suggest that a talent like Harrison, fresh from the Beatles, merely copied the music, the judge suggested it was a case of "subconscious" plagiarism. 

     Harrison said he tried to give the plaintiff the rights to the song, just to be done with it. But his lawyers (boo, hiss) wouldn't permit it.  Judge Richard Owen ruled that it was "perfectly obvious" that "the two songs are virtually identical."  Which they are. During the trial, a keyboardist was recalled pointing that out when they were recording "My Sweet Lord" in May, 1970. Which didn't help. Maybe he wasn't forceful enough. In September, 1976, Harrison was found to have inadvertently copied the song. Which is when the years began to really clock by, determining the judgment. Harrison was eventually stuck with a $1.6 million penalty,  which observers felt was excessive, ignoring the role his fame as a Beatle and the artistry he brought to "My Sweet Lord" played in its success in favor of the tune, which is not exactly hummable. 

     Eventually, factoring in Klein's double-dealing—he used information he knew from producing the song in suing Harrison—in 1981, the judgment was cut to $600,000, which included Harrison gaining rights to "He's So Fine." He did not, however, cut his own version.

     Instead he left us with, "This Song." Written, Harrison notes, at "the end of a nightmarish week in court." 

    One noteworthy thing about "This Song" is, it isn't the only mainstream rock song about copyright infringement. There's also Weird Al Yankovic's "Don't Download This Song." (Set to the tune of "We Are the World," with a plot development borrowed from the end of "White Heat") It's worth seeing for the whimsical animation, and of course Weird Al's spot-on satire: "'Cause You start out stealing songs, then you're robbing liquor stores, and selling crack and running over school kids with your car."
     That always reminds me of that cultural moment, an eternity ago, when the Napster free music sharing website first appeared, and I took the plunge and downloaded the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction," while my wife, an officer of the court, remember, stood over me, remonstrating, "You're committing a crime!"
     "So I'll send Mick Jagger a check," I said. 

     I never did. I hope he doesn't sue me.  

   

Songs about Lawyers #1: "Alas for You."

     My hometown of Berea, Ohio isn't known for much. There is sandstone: large quarries that left picturesque lakes, in my youth, that eventually filled up into silty, not-quite-so picturesque bogs. There is a university, Baldwin-Wallace, with a modest reputation for its music program.
     And "Godspell," written by John-Michael Tebelak, who graduated from Berea High School in 1966, a dozen years before I did.
     That put the joyous musical on my radar more than would be typical for a 1970s suburban Jewish kid. The show didn't have the dark, dramatic swoop of "Jesus Christ Superstar," which came one year later, but still managed to upset some Christians, who didn't like to see their faith rendered into show tunes.
     And "Godspell" is fun, bouncy, with the campy, Rudy Vallee-esque "All for the Best," and an actual minor hit, "Day by Day," covered by the Fifth Dimension, Judy Collins and Cher.

     Not music I choose to revisit much, to be honest. Lately though, I've been listening to the show's "Alas for You," simply for the dig at lawyers (You can also watch the video version from the movie, but it's cringingly awful). The song begins:

Alas alas for you
Lawyers and pharisees
Hypocrites that you are
Sure that the kingdom of heaven awaits you
You will not venture half so far.
Other men who might enter the gates
You keep from passing through.
Drag them down with you.

     Why do I like this? I'm not sure. The law is interesting and important. I respect the legal profession, in the main, being the husband of one lawyer and the father of two more. Not to forget my many friends who are lawyers or judges. So I'm not slagging them personally. There's just something funny about tweaking lawyers, even in their absence. Even if they don't perceive the tweak and wouldn't care if they did. A sort of private joke, I suppose.
     Anyway, this week my oldest boy is having the graduation ceremony from New York University Law School that got scrubbed last year, due to COVID. Not coincidentally, I'm taking this week off, so as not to be left with a big mass of vacation at year's end, to do some gardening around the house, and attend to other duties. So in honor of his belated commencement, and so as to not leave you with nothing, I've come up with the next best thing: A week of posts on songs about lawyers. Enjoy. Or don't. Up to you. Either way, see you next Monday.

 

"I swear on GoD."

 

     We are hit by such a barrage of scams, come-ons, grifts, ploys and frauds of all kinds, you'd think we'd be more discerning by now. Yet those who bat away the pleas of Nigerian princes fall 100 percent and forever to the oily entreaties of lying leaders. It's very worrisome.
     While I have no problem ignoring the hammering of crooks, commercial or political, at my various electronic doors, there is my playful side, and sometimes I just can't help screwing with them a little bit. Yes, I know I'm not matching wits with Lex Luthor, but merely causing a flash of puzzlement of someone in a basement boiler room in Burkina Faso. If that. But I occasionally do it anyway, for my own amusement.

     I don't owe anything to the grifters, and they approached me, so I'm free to respond as I please. There is no rule that I must stay on script. Besides, I figure every second they parley with me, who is never sending them a dime, is a second they can't use to squeeze the retirement fund out of some gullible elderly couple in Idaho. So I am actually doing some small amount of good. Besides, I can be bored sometimes, and it's interesting to see how they handle it. Usually by fading away.
      Although it was a little disconcerting to see Facebook friends this week posting the amounts they received back from their Facebook settlements, because those of course were real, I think, although they followed the scam pattern. I do wonder what the fraudsters I respond to make of our exchanges.

         But eventually I get bored, and move on. An important skill in social media, one that many never seem to master.

Northshore notes: Alive to the Dead

     I never know what Caren is writing about until I read it on Friday, and sometimes odd synchronicities present themselves. Next week, I'm planning a five day run featuring songs about lawyers, for reasons which will be made plain. And I too never much liked the Grateful Dead, or their unwashed legions of fans, though I was extraordinary fond of "Friend of the Devil." Enough prelude. Here is Caren Jeskey's Saturday report:

By Caren Jeskey

              Shall we go, you and I while we can
              Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?
                                 — Grateful Dead

     In the Rogers Park neighborhood where I grew up, music-loving hippyish intellects abounded; there were many Jerry Garcia fans around during my formative years. Yet the Grateful Dead never made sense to me. I thought of them as a mediocre band with a boring cult following. When people identified as Deadheads, I’d quickly write them off as potential friends — what could we possibly talk about? Tie-dye? 
     When groups of my peers packed up to go camping at Alpine Valley to “follow the Dead” I never had FOMO. I’d rather be clubbing it up at Kaboom right here in the city.
     Dead & Company is coming to Cubs Park soon and there’s a lot of buzz about it. I decided to pop the song "Truckin’" onto Apple Music to see what all the fuss is about. I was surprised to discover that, not only was I familiar with many of the other songs, I knew quite a few well enough to sing along with at least the chorus. I felt uplifted by the simple, bright, plucky sounds of the band as Apple fed me more. 

     It seems I was subconsciously indoctrinated into the world of the Dead by many years of listening to WLS, The LOOP, and accidentally catching the Grateful Dead Hour on WXRT. I also lived with a bunch of people from Barrington for a year or two in the late 80s and our 6-CD multi disc player was always loaded up with their music. The Dead occupied one of those slots on many a Saturday night as we danced around and pregamed before going to Hamilton’s on Broadway. I didn’t pay much attention, but the songs have stuck in my craw.
     Thanks to my roommates and their crew, I finally got to know Ian Anderson, CCR, Van Morrison, the less well-known Americana of David and David, and a band that became one of my all time favorites, The Silos. My new friend group was apparently full of Deadheads and I even made out with one of them once— he had long blond hair and wore pastel colored tie-dyed shirts— outside of a dive bar on Sheffield.
     Before I had taken the time to listen this week, I rudely said to a self-proclaimed Deadhead (I promise I did know know about this identification when our friendship organically sprouted up) “They’re not good,” and I laughed when I noticed dancing bears embroidered into his clothing. He’s a very pleasant person so just smiled and commented “you’re right. The band isn’t that good.” Looks like I owe that person an apology.

     I learned that the band played songs differently each and every time, in their live shows. The audience was watching art in action; a canvas that was freshly painted based on how they were feeling at the time, I'm guessing often with the use of mood altering substances. “Fortunately we had a chance to play [Estimated Prophet and Terrapin Part I] three times onstage and it made a huge difference," Bob Weir once said. "Then we came back and we knew what the songs were about.”
     I found the song "Estimated Prophet" worth more than one listen, and Bob Weir’s voice compelling. I wanted to listen with over the ear headphones to catch the trippy nuances of sound and composition more clearly but I broke my pair. This has inspired me to replace them soon.
     While I’m writing this I’ve had the album Terrapin Station playing in the background, and I’m soothed by the cheerful sounds of Donna Jean Thatcher Godchaux-MacKay’s "Sunrise" and the sweet harmonies between her and Weir in "Passenger."
     MacKay wrote the 2007 song "Passenger," which is sadly apropos today. “I hear the sounds of war. And they say, we are not to blame Today, let the anger take aim. Piercing to the heart and to the soul.”
     This trip I’ve taken with the marching bears (which I did not place under my tongue, by the way) has helped me with humility. The Dead don’t suck. I need all of the reasons I can find to stay connected to others these days, not more reasons to establish an us and them delineation. The next time I see someone with one of Jerry’s bears subtly incorporated into the cuff of a shirt, instead of scoffing I’ll see if they know some kind of Zen secret I’d be better off embracing.

          “Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be there.” 

                   —Grateful Dead, "Box of Rain"

Flat-bottomed bags make the eating world go ’round

      Sharise Stamborski packs newly-made bags at Fischer Paper Products in Antioch

     When 7-Eleven stores in Texas suddenly needed to put their hot chicken legs in some kind of bag — thank you, COVID! — they had to find the right little bags to put them in. ASAP. So they made a desperate call to Fischer Paper Products in Antioch, 50 miles north of Chicago
     Typically, it takes 10 to 12 weeks for Fischer to get a new type of bag to a customer, assuming it isn’t one of the thousand varieties they stock. There is design, then creating prototypes, then testing them. Fischer keeps half a dozen fast-food warmers in their break room for product testing.
     “If the food is going to be sitting in this package in a warming oven for an hour, the materials have to hold up to heat or grease,” said Joshua Fischer, company president and grandson of the founder.
     In this case, they got the bag designed, tested and shipped to Texas in three weeks.
     Restaurants, in a two-year-plus state of continual emergency during the society-jarring disruptions of the pandemic — customers staying home, supply chains tied in knots — will gather to blink at each other, celebrate their survival and plot out a future at McCormick Place starting Saturday, for the National Restaurant Association Show, the first in three years.

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We need the eggs

     Social media likes to serve up scary robots. You know what I mean. Those Boston Dynamics Atlas robots doing parkour, like some kind of mechanical stormtroopers come from the future to show us what kind of nightmare will be kicking our asses someday soon. Or, even creepier, the company's headless robot dogs, dubbed "Spot," perfect for exploring the poisonous dead zone half our planet is sure to become. (No need to wait for the dystopian future; you can buy one now for $75,000). Then there are the realistic robots we increasingly see blinking and turning their heads, smiling and chatting, our closest companions in a world I am glad I'll never live to see.
     Me, I take comfort in how short the attempt to ape human behavior fails, as represented in the 16 photos above. Hopping on a box is one thing; discernment something else entirely. Turns out, it's harder to think than dance. The photos are from my iPhoto account. Long ago I learned to plug a location in the search bar, so if I want to use a shot snapped at the Smithsonian Institution, I plug "Washington D.C." in. It can be very precise, down to streets and even buildings.
     But I did not realize, until recently, that you could also plug in nouns—horse, house, train—and the search engine would round up candidates. Or try to.
     The blog's Saturday star, Caren Jeskey, turned in an essay keyed around robin's eggs. She usually offers a photo or two, but this time she hadn't yet. I knew I had photos of the nest that sat on our porch railing one spring. So I plugged "eggs" into the iPhoto search bar, generating the above dozen and a third photos.
     Take a look at the results. Starting at the upper left, we have: my son eating a sunny side up egg topped burger at the old Joe's Diner in San Francisco. A melon patch. A Peter Max poster of Saturn that the artist sent my son. Six glasses of non-alcoholic beer from a taste test at Harry Carry's, viewed from above. A Jeff Koons sculpture at The Broad in Los Angeles. A Murakami painting of flowers. Five images of orange juice balls served as an amuse bouche at Alinea. Three fried eggs, the last two being at one of the best meals I've ever eaten, in Santiago, Chile. And a jack-o-lantern from the Chicago Botanic Garden.  

     Let me show you what the algorithm did NOT find. This:     

     I bet you pegged them as eggs right away, didn't you? God bless Apple, wonderful company. But based entirely on their inability to tag the image at right as containing "eggs" I would say that the robot rebellion is still a work in progress.
    Being human is hard. That should not be an epiphany. Even with our sophisticated wetware, perfected over the past 100,000 years, with software de-bugged over the past 10,000, half the people can't seem to regularly pull off all the high-functioning tasks required of them. Given how consistently humans fail at being human, I don't think we have to worry about machines quite yet. They can do some tasks better some times in some places. But they also have their spectacular failures as well. I'm still clinging to hope. Let's see a computer do that.

Picking over GOP idiocy

Peter Lorre as Joel Cairo in "The Maltese Falcon" (Image courtesy of Warner Bros.)

     “What they shake out of you?” Sam Spade asks a disheveled Joel Cairo in “The Maltese Falcon” after the slimy little crook had been grilled all night by police.
     “Shake out? Not one thing. I adhered to the course you indicated earlier in your rooms,” Cairo protests. “But I certainly wish you have invented a more reasonable story. I felt distinctly like an idiot repeating it.”
     I know the feeling. In that dim, cat-leaving-something-disgusting-on-your-pillow way the media sometimes has, we are batting around the “Replacement Theory” supposedly spouted by the alleged murderer of 10 Black shoppers and staff at a supermarket in Buffalo on Saturday.
     I really wish they’d craft a less stupid worldview for us to pick over. Show some pride. But we must play the hand we are dealt. So here goes.
     The term itself has been spreading in public discourse for almost five years, since August 2017, when hundreds of white supremacists marched through Charlottesville, Virginia, bearing tiki torches, chanting “Jews will not replace us.”
     Yeah, like Jews want to go live in your mother’s basement with the Nazi flag thumb-tacked over the washing machine.

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