Song of the Week: The Marvelettes "Please Mr. Postman"

I'm not tech-savvy. I'm slightly better with computers than my parents. I can (sometimes) set up a printer. I spend my first five minutes in Kinko's nodding at stationary, hoping to cajole an employee into tackling the copier. My phone receives calls, plays music, and occasionally wakes me up in the morning. If I tried to make it do more, I'd stumble into a technomatrix, get blinded by lasers, and wake up in 2080.

I'm no techspert, but I think about technology. A lot. I don't think about what the next gadget will be, or whether I should wait for the next-gen-whatever, or how anything will impact my life in the future; I assume that it will, and I roll with it. Instead, I think about how today's technology will affect yesterday's pop culture.

Do you ever re-watch a favorite movie from yesteryear and say to yourself, "my God, look at the size of that cell phone"? If you're like me, you do this constantly. You do it and wish you didn't. I love The Departed, but worry how its cell-centric plot will look in fifteen years. Will I be able to love this movie in the future? I hope so.

And all of this got me thinking about Motown and my mailman.

Song of the Week: The Marvelettes, "Please Mr. Postman"

One of my earliest pop music memories is hearing this song--my mom is a Motown junkie, and played the Girl Groups constantly in the car. I remember riding home in the rain from day-care while the Marvellettes filled the car, those tinny backgrounds, the eager handclaps, the campy "ahh-oooo's" making angst sound fun. It's a great pop song, but it's also tailor-made for a four-year-old: simple melody, literal lyrics, and a simple story anyone can follow. I knew what mail was, I knew what a postman was, and I understood that a girl wanted a letter from a boy. Music is easy!

I love hearing the song today because I remember hearing it then--it's chock full of nostalgic value and happy memories. But if I were four now, would I love it at all? We don't (really) get mail anymore. We don't write letters. As a child of the Eighties, this song's premise made sense to me, because getting mail was a universal, daily experience. Would this song resonate with a child of the Aughts? Or would they just shrug and say, "lady, write the dude on Facebook and ask what his dealio is. Then, check his relationship status."

Of course, the song's emotional foundation is universal and lasting: feeling estranged from a loved one, and feeling more anxious as time goes by. Heck, that feeling inspired half Lucero's catalog. But the subtext of "Please Mr. Postman" is relayed through an outdated plot. It's a great love song that didn't age well.

Can you think of any other songs or movies that are outdated or in danger of becoming outdated? Or does "Please Mr. Postman" resonate for you anyway? Do you write letters--in calligraphy--and resent my post? Are you a four-year-old writing a "I'm Begging, Gmail" love song as we speak?

Hit up the comments and let me know!

Three Hour Tour

Back on that desert island, I've gots my Petty, and I've gots my Motown, and I ain't looking back. Here's my explanation:

First, the Springsteen vs. Petty debate. When people talk about Bruce Springsteen's importance, I don't fight it, and probably couldn't. He means a great deal to a great many people, and has probably shaped American singer/songwriter-dom as much as anyone post-Dylan. His particular brand of Jersey-tough-but-poet-at-heart became a successful artistic formula. He's made liberalism sound pragmatic. Maybe more than anyone, he's struck the right chord post-9/11. He's done nothing but churn out hit, after hit, after meaningful record, after meaningful record, for the better part of thirty years. I get it.

My issue with Bruce is that I hardly ever listen to him. Maybe it's the vocal histrionics, or the cringe-inducing grandpaerobics of his current shows, or maybe it's the pomp, grandeur, and full-throated circumstance of his best-known records...maybe it's just that I'm not from Jersey. It's not that I question his sincerity. I know he's sincere. It's that I can't relate to it. At all.

(Side note: I relate to sincerity. Just not whatever world he talks about and musical backdrop he uses to desribe it. Born to Run is the classic example, and one I've written about. I know, on paper, it's a good record. But I can't listen to it for purely subjective aesthetic hangups. It sounds cheesy to me. Incredibly cheesy. So cheesy I don't know how people listen to it and don't laugh. Again, maybe it's just that I'm not from the same place; like someone not from SoCal might not get past the sonic goofiness of the Beach Boys.)

So, save the odd latenight car-ride or road-trip celebration or any other incidental occasion, I don't seek out Bruce. "Blood Brothers" is the exception. I love that song whenever it finds me, and seek it out when it doesn't.

Tom Petty, for me, occupies the exact opposite end of the spectrum. It's an uphill battle to make the case that Petty's the more important figure (though I would make the case that he's a drastically underrated lyricist), he's one of the most listenable artists I know. In his entire catalog, there are maybe 4 songs I actively dislike. Everything else occupies some position between "casually enjoy it" to "fervently love it." His genius is not that everyone loves him; it's that nobody hates him.

And why should they? His songs are dynamic, melodic, inclusive, generous. He's grown and successfully experimented at every stage of his career. He knows his strengths, and trusts them enough not to pridefully chase his weaknesses. He says, simply, "I don't care what coffeehouse poet you think you are, ain't nothing on Picaresque that says more than 'Free Falling.'" And, of course, he's right.

So on my desert island, I need listenability. It's just me, and I don't need to find myself deep or important. I need someone who can bring any type of song to the table and take nothing off it. I want someone whose catalog is many and varied enough to keep me guessing and stave off boredom. I wouldn't last three days with Bruce and the Saxhounds. But Wildflowers alone could buy me a few years.

For the same reason (though by a much, much slimmer margin) Motown's catalog edges out Stax. This one was much more difficult for me to answer, because Stax's catalog is incredibly listenable in its own right, and obviously more indicative of where I'm from. Stax sounds like Memphis. Folks from there will always recognize its music as something not just wonderful, but inherently familiar. It sounds great, but it also sounds like home.

The issue, essentially, is that I'm an unabashed tramp for a great pop song. If you want to join the Motown-was-artistically-dishonest-shucking-and-jiving-for-white-folks-everywhere bandwagon, I won't stop you. I also don't care. There's no question that Stax, as a label representitive of an artistic movement (soul) and one committed to the representation of that art, sounds more vital, and in a way more authentic. But there's nothing dishonest about Motown's music. If you have a beef, take it up with the marketers. You can't tell me that the Four Tops didn't mean it when they sang. Motown produced some of the truest pop America's ever heard. Also--arguably--they produced the most beautiful songs.

It is a catalog so beautiful, so true, and so dynamic, that I don't think there's anything I'd rather take to the desert island. So, you can have the academic debates and talk to yourself about cultural importance-with-a-capital-i. What good is cultural importance alone, for eternity, on a desert island? To me, the beauty of the question that it takes social pretension completely out of the equation. It's you, and only you, on an island until you die. Nobody to lie to. Nobody to intellectualized art with. No conversations where you convince yourself of an opinion you don't actually share. On the island, there is no room for bs. All that matters is what you want to hear.

Sometimes, that's all that should matter.

This leads me to another question, to close out the week:

What is your favorite guilty pleasure?

This shouldn't imply that Tom Petty or Motown are guilty pleasures for me, or that they should be for anyone. They're great. I'm just taking the issue a step further. What would you enjoy most on a desert island, because you could listen, dance, and singalong without guilt? You're the only person around, forever. You can't be a dork.

So, to put it another way, what guilty pleasure would you most want to guiltlessly enjoy on the island?

Here's my Winner:


And Runner-Up:


Deal with THAT.

Highway in the night,
CM

Hold On, I'm Coming

Happy Monday!

Today's like a Tri-Delt: full of fun. At noon I'll be posting the first YouTube Concert to this space for you to enjoy, so check back at 12PM (CST)!

Meantime, let's get warmed up with another poll. Some premise as last time: you are stranded on a desert island. You can only bring one musical catalog with you. There is no hope of leaving the island for the rest of your natural life. There is no hope of anyone else joining you on this island. It is just you, the island, and one musical catalog to keep you company. And probably some rum in a dingy jar. Sure, I'll throw that in.

Last week I gave you the option of either bringing Bruce Springsteen or Tom Petty. Most of you liked Bruce. This week...

Which musical catalogue would you rather bring to the desert island: Stax or Motown?

One quick caveat: Motown's been a label in flux since it's heyday in the 60's and early 70's. I'm counting the artists from that time, but not since. For example, they have rights to some Lionel Richie 80's stuff, but they were a different label/artistic entity at that point. Just so you're making an informed decision, here's a very short list of notable artists from each:

Motown:
The Miracles/Smokey Robinson
The Supremes/Diana Ross
Marvin Gaye
The Temptations
The Four Tops
Stevie Wonder
Martha & the Vandellas
The Isley Brothers
Gladys Knight & the Pips
Jackson 5
Bobby Darin
Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons
The Commodores
Rick James

Stax:
Rufus and Carla Thomas
Booker T & the MG's
Wilson Pickett
Sam & Dave
Otis Redding
The Mar-Keys
The Bar-Kays
Isaac Hayes
Johnnie Taylor
Albert King
Staple Singers
***Richard Pryor (comedy records)
***Big Star

***Catalogues available as subsidiaries of Stax

So, who you bringing to the desert island? Stax or Motown?

Hit up the comments and let me know--then check back at noon for the debut of a brand new Milam song!

Don't own a stetson,
CM