- "Picture yourself in a boat on a river, with tangerine trees and marmalade skies, somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes." Diamonds are forever. Throw ya diamonds in the sky. Oh wait, wrong song. This song is either inspired by a drawing John Lennon's son Julian made of a classmate or about LSD. Given that The Beatles were into "smoking drugs" it is hard to say. What we can say is that "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" is perhaps the height of psychedelia. While The Beatles music is timeless this song (and it's ludicrous imagery) are very much tied to the late 60s. In 1974 Elton John covered the song with a little help from his friend John Lennon who recorded the song under the name "Dr. Winston O'Boogie". As far as pseudonyms go it doesn't get much better.
2. Beginnings- Jimi Hendrix
- (instrumental) Prior to his death in 1970 Jimi Hendrix had been working on new material for his next album while his Electric Lady recording studio was being built. (The Electric Lady studio has hosted a "who's who" of musicians over the years including favorites of mine like The Dave Matthews Band, Kanye West and Ryan Adams) "First Rays of the New Rising Sun" collects 17 of these recordings an attempts to construct what would have been Hendrix's 4th studio album. The sound that dominates "First Rays of the New Rising Sun" is a bit funkier than the music on Jimi's first 3 studio albums. The standout song in the collection is "Angel", a song so gorgeous that Rod Stewart felt compelled to cover it and include it on his box set. "Beginnings" is made up of a handful of riffs the Hendrix crew would jam on from time to time. There is nothing life changing about "Beginnings" but I'm not going to complain about getting to hear Hendrix jam out for 4 minutes. I must not be alone as last year the "Valleys of Neptune" collection of unreleased Hendrix recordings (many of them in raw form) hit #4 on the album charts.
3. Sitting, Waiting, Wishing- Jack Johnson
- "Aww maybe you've been through this before, but it's my first time so please ignore, the next few lines cause they're directed at you, I can't always be waiting waiting on you, I can't always be playing playing your fool." I'll tell anyone who will listen that "In Between Dreams" is Jack Johnson's best work. "Better Together", "Breakdown", "Good People", "Banana Pancakes". They're all here- what else do you want? "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" starts with Jack strumming the song's basic chord progression on acoustic guitar. What's amazing is that 8 seconds into the song (before the vocal kicks in) it's already obvious that this is Jack Johnson. I can't think of too many guitarists who's strumming style is this recognizable. "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing" is a diss record, at least the acoustic singer/songwriter version of one. Jack is none to pleased with a special lady friend but the results are quite pleasing to this listener's ears.
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