Music is bound to the same realities as any other form of creative expression. In the end it comes down to the constants. Certain subjects and ideas will always find a place in the ideas and obsessions of the artists of the moment. Broken hearts, madness, friendship, coffee and cigarettes, booze and the strange world that exists just outside the front door are just a few of those unchanging topics. The immediate, however, never loses its place. We very rarely understand just how disposable some of these songs are. Things change, the world rises above or dips further into insanity, people live and die, fads change, opinions that almost put a serious dent in the collective consciousness seem absurd a week after the fact. People write songs about these things, of course, and some of them are great songs, but it's the music that covers those constants that has the best chance of enduring.
Bob Dylan undoubtedly knows a thing or two about stability. He is one of those rarities in music, indeed in all of entertainment. Not only has he has written and performed music that has survived numerous decades, but he is still in the business of writing and recording music meant to compete with the trends of the day. He's doing well at it, too. There is no question that his years as a musician and as a fan of music would qualify him to tell the rest of us about those constants. He has spent the last three years doing just this on his satellite radio show, Theme Time Radio Hour.
Exactly one hundred episodes of his hour-long program have been devoted to some of the most lasting thoughts in music. He has covered everything from Baseball, to madness, to New York, even the days of the week. Speaking in a low, engaging, Tom Waits-esque growl, Dylan effortlessly portrays the role of a late-night radio DJ. His persona steps back to the days when such characters were important to radio and even music itself. Although each episode has included Dylan sharing recipes, telling jokes, reading poetry or "fan mail" (likely created by the show itself) his show never loses sight of its most important aspect. Dylan uses his own decades of experience as an artist and a fan to share with us the musical culture and history of the modern world. He's obviously getting a little help from a very knowledgeable, talented production team, but there's no question that he's calling the final shots as to what gets played. He sheds light on influential artists who nonetheless languish in relative obscurity, but he also might play some universal favorites. Whatever he chooses, he succeeds brilliantly in bringing us some of the longest-lasting topics in music.
It makes sense then, that he would devote shows to coffee and alcohol. Some of his songs have dealt with them in great detail. They have added in their own way to a landscape of images and stories that have moved alongside not only musical trends, but the thoughts and opinions of America (and even the rest of the world) through years, though particularly from the last century, from which Dylan derives most of the material used on the show.
The "Drink" episode, for example features roughly sixty years worth of music. Originally airing May 17th, 2006, the show begins with a trademark introduction by actress Ellen Barkin. She describes a couple of images only potentially related to the subject matter of the show, before Dylan takes over to welcome us and bring out the first song. It's not exactly known when in the 1940's George Zimmerman and The Thrills recorded "Ain't Got no Money to Pay for this Drink", but it's a perfect, rambunctious tune to start things off. The song wears its age in the style and sound, but it remains timeless on the strength of its energy alone. It's easy to see the connection between drinking and jazz, and a song like this is a perfect lead-in for Electric Flag's 1967 "Wine, Wine, Wine." It's almost impossible to tell that both songs are some twenty years apart. One has a little more studio polish than the other, but both seek to capture the same tone. Both songs are perfect companions for any party where the drinks have just begun to flow and nothing worse than a good time is expected by all.
Not every song on Theme Time Radio Hour is meant to be a celebration or anything consistently upbeat. It's the task of the show to present as wide a range of opinions on a subject as possible, and that can certainly mean heading into some darker territory. The show follows up Flag by moving into the first of several country music classics about "Drink". Country music is obviously well-suited to any thoughts on drinking. Dylan throws two particularly strong country tracks together, Loretta Lynn's "Don't Come Home A Drinkin'", recorded in 1966 and "Daddy and The Wine", which was released by the iconic Porter Wagoner and The Wagonmasters just two years later. Both maintain a somewhat pleasing sound, but each song, mainly "Daddy and The Wine" hints at darker sides to the party. They set up a good place for Mary Gauthier's 2005 folk song "I Drink" to nearly steal the whole show. Gauthier, who has found a great deal of indie music success over the last decade and certainly has enough sad stories to fill a couple dozen albums, sings in a quiet, weary voice. Her song is one that's often written when the mistakes in life begin to outnumber the shots of whiskey that can make them disappear for a few hours. It's a devastating song, more so because it never once raises its voice.
That approach belongs to the next song, whose title has the same name as Gauthier's but goes about that same sadness in a wildly different way. Charles Aznavour is widely regarded as one of the greatest recording artists of the last one hundred years. He has spent the last seventy-plus years recording popular music in multiple languages, touring, acting in films and about a dozen other activities that have earned him the title of "The Frank Sinatra of France." On the show Dylan describes Aznavour's "I Drink" as one of the most devastating drinking songs of all time. He's not kidding. The song is a wild, dizzying assortment of vocal and musical highs and lows, feeling more like a manic tightrope act than a straightforward ballad about drinking as a means of living. If it's your introduction to Aznavour's nearly endless body of work you really couldn't ask for a better song. By the time it's finished, it's difficult to imagine anything being able to follow that up. The 1954 blues classic by Jimmy Rogers, "Sloppy Drunk" does a pretty good job of keeping up the show's momentum. It's not a particularly extraordinary track, but it's still awfully damn decent. Any film looking for a good drinking soundtrack could do much worse than to include "Sloppy Drunk" at around the middle point of an all-night bender montage. Rogers' vocals and guitar work have the fire of someone who still has a long way to go. It's a quality lacking in much of today's music.
The show continues with a brief story by late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on his lifelong affection for beer, which would make sense given his history on The Man Show. Kimmel doesn't really offer any real insight, but it's not unreasonable to imagine that the reasons behind his love for beer match most people's reasons. Kimmel explains in his own way that it's more about the memories than the actual act of drinking. That's true enough for most people, and it is a recurring motif in some of the songs selected for the episode.
Dylan takes a moment to keep up the show's image as an old-fashioned, late-night program with an old radio spot for a beer that has long since disappeared. It doesn't add anything greater than window dressing, but it's a nice touch. But of course, the show is full of nice touches like that.
After the "commercial" things continue with Lonnie the Cat's "I Ain't Drunk," released in the same year as "Sloppy Drunk." The song is of a different type than "Sloppy", but it goes about its humor and freewheeling style in a similar way. If you were going to use this in a movie, or at a party, it would make sense to include it somewhere around the middle. It's too raucous for the beginning, and it's too lively for the end. The fact that Dylan included both of these tracks near to the middle of the episode is probably not an accident. Nor is it an accident that he follows them up with the 1949 country-music drinking song "It Ain't Far to the Bar." Even in the post-war era, the definition of alcoholic was much broader than it is today. It's difficult to listen to the Johnny Tyler tune without applying today's standards of the point where it stops being a good time and crosses the line into abuse. Sixty years ago, "It Ain't Far" was just humorous. It can still be that today. Just not as easily.
It's worth noting that Dylan puts a break between "It Ain't Far" and Hank William Jr.'s humorous blend of modern country sound with an older-minded approach to the lyrics, the 2003 drink-a-thon "What's On The Bar?" with an audio sampling of Sean Connery. Of course, he's James Bond, and of course, he's ordering a dry martini. It's an obvious pop culture reference to how casual drinking is in some of our more lasting icons and heroes, but it's an effective one nonetheless.
Recipes from Dylan himself (on Wikipedia) and supposed emails from listeners usually work their way into the show. This one includes an email from a Lenore Pike of Cincinnati, Ohio requesting Dylan's recipe for a mint julep, Dylan graciously obliging with a full-recipe for the drink, which he ties to the music by playing the soulful 1952 Clover's hit "One Mint Julep." The recipes and emails almost always tie into a song. Virtually everything on the show inevitably comes back to the music itself. On any occasion when it's not directly about the songs it's still in some way an effort on Dylan's part to suggest the proper spirit for his show. Almost every song includes some trivia from Dylan on who the artists are, and what their career was (or even still is) all about. Remember, part of the whole point of the show is to shed some light on some of the most important artists you've never heard of.
Hopefully, you've heard of The Andrews Sisters, since they remain the best-selling female vocal group of all time. If you haven't, then don't worry. Dylan discusses them at length here before playing one of their more famous hits, the 1945 "Rum and Coca-Cola." It's a breezy, easy-going calypso standard, one of the longest-lasting in its genre. Although there are other tracks that might better precede John Lee Hooker's classic blues stomper "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer", the contrast between the two is clear and welcome. That's one of the nice things about the show. There's a pattern to each episode, a format, but that's almost never the case with songs themselves. A very engaging history of modern music is put together in each episode, but it rarely follows a straight line. Keep that in mind when you get to Charlie Walker and his 1966 country ballad "Who Will Buy That Wine." Despite being only six years older than the version of "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer" that Dylan plays, the two songs when played back-to-back may as well be from completely different centuries. They deal in the same basic premise, but approach that premise in fundamentally different ways, both musically, socially and even culturally. They are two distinct points of view, two entirely separate instincts, but they are still bound together under a common interest. It's fascinating to look at them like that, and it's unlikely that such a prospect could happen under any other guise but a radio show like this one.
The show closes under this thought. It's hard to imagine two songs being more different than Betty Hall Jones' 1949 "Buddy, Stay Off That Wine" and the 1962 version of The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem Irish drinking standard "Whiskey You're The Devil." Two completely different cultures, sets of backgrounds and musical interests. They just happen to be talking about the same basic idea. Jones doesn't have a problem with beer or spirits. She just wails against a big band background for her guy to stay off the wine. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem played for everyone from Ed Sullivan to John F. Kennedy at the White House. They performed countless songs about myriad subjects, and many of them were indeed about drinking. This one is quite possibly their most famous. When compared to the rest of the episode it's an almost surreal style of music, but a traditional sound like this has been associated with drinking for a lot longer than any of us have actually been drinking. It's a perfect ending to an entertaining, phenomenally informative show, although we don't get to leave before Dylan claims to be on his way out for a drink himself. He lists off a wide variety of choices but is unable to make up his mind as he bids us farewell.
This was one of the first episodes of Theme Time Radio Hour, and it remains one of the best. A thousand songs could have made up the playlist on a subject like drinking. Dylan trims those possibilities down to a mere sixteen, but he probably achieves the same effect with those sixteen as he would with a thousand.
He would repeat this effect with the episode dedicated to coffee. A few cups of coffee after a long night of drinking is old hat, so it's no surprise that "Coffee" premiered only two weeks after the "Drink" episode.
It's also not much of a surprise that of the fifteen songs included in the show, five of them include cigarettes in the title. Believe it or not there was a time when most of the serious coffee drinkers in America were also cigarette smokers as well. The five songs in question are certainly not cut from the exact same cloth. Jerry Irby's catchy, quick-witted 1947 tune "One Cup of Coffee and a Cigarette" is nothing like Otis Redding's brilliant, slow-burning soul hit "Cigarettes and Coffee." Curtis Gordon's 1954 rockabilly home run "Caffeine and Nicotine" isn't completely dissimilar to the leisurely honky-tonk found in the 1958 Lefty Frizzell song "Cigarettes and Coffee Blues", although Gordon's contribution to the episode certainly seems to have more of a swing to it.
In all of them, however, The Larks and their 1951 hit "Coffee Cigarettes and Tears" is probably the most distinctive. Music like this just isn't made anymore. You get a sense of that in the distant, cheery voices belting out some surprisingly dark lyrics. At times the song almost sounds like it's in the middle of disappearing forever. Perhaps that's why Dylan featured it on the show. The Larks had several hits over the course of their short career. That they are not appreciated today for their contributions is something of a minor crime. Dylan makes note of this without ever actually saying so. There's a subtle eagerness to his voice when he briefly surmises their history before playing the song. This is not uncommon of Dylan over the course of any given show. Every song is important, and it's not hard to catch the enthusiasm in Dylan's dry voice as he talks and seemingly hopes that someone will take his opinions and suggestions to heart.
Dylan himself has been a smoker for roughly forty-eight years, but it's doubtful that this was the reason as to why so many of the songs on "Coffee" also happen to include cigarettes. These two legal stimulants have until very recently enjoyed a relationship in which it often seemed that one simply could not exist without the other. Even some of the selections that don't mention cigarettes in the title itself still reference the concept of enjoying one in conjunction with a cup of coffee. Bobby Darrin was notorious for burning the candle at both ends. Mentioning cigarettes in his downbeat, battered-at-two a.m. ballad "Black Coffee" is almost a matter of course. Released at the height of his career in 1959, it furthers a link between coffee and cigarettes that survived until it was decided that cigarettes were an evil far outweighing most other casual demons. Popular opinion in no way influences Theme Time Radio Hour. That is yet another of the show's victories. The music is timeless for one motive or another, and one of the main reasons for that is its determination to include those songs regardless of trends. It all goes back to that idea of creating a musical history of a specific subject matter. In the case of coffee it would be almost impossible to do the subject justice without mentioning its black-sheep cousin, the cigarette. Dylan knows this and furthers the effect of the show by never once slowing down the music to give in to ranting or complaining. He introduces the songs, discusses the artist in question and keeps the regular format of the show intact with jokes, emails and everything else that leads back to the very particular image he projects. It is a minimalist approach, but there's no better kind if you really want people to take stock in your opinions.
Cigarettes aside, it's unlikely that the sixty-five years worth of music covered here are meant for the typical Starbucks consumer. These songs are about black coffee. Maybe some sugar, maybe some milk or cream. There was indeed a time when going out for a cup of coffee didn't require a basic understanding of high school chemistry. Even some of the more recent tracks, like Blur's 1999 "Coffee and TV" or the 2005 indie number "Raindrops in My Coffee" by Sexsmith and Kerr seem to be looking decades into the past, when a cup of coffee was just a cup of coffee.
Like "Drink", "Coffee" features a diverse range of artists, musical sensibilities and cultural backdrops to their stories that revolve around a cup of java. Frank Sinatra's timeless 1946 classic "The Coffee Song" is without question of a completely different breed than Lightin' Hopkins country-blues fueled "Coffee Blues", which came out just five years later. The variation found between songs in "Drink" is very much in place here. Still it's hard to escape the notion that every song is about the same kind of cup of coffee. The Ink Spots have an wholly different sound in the 1940 "Java Jive" than that of Ella Mae Morse and the 1953 "Forty Cups of Coffee", but it's hard to deny that they're talking about the same image that appears in the titles and lyrics of their songs. They all seem to come back to the basic premise of sitting back, watching the world go by and taking in a cup over some reflection, or even a good conversation.
This is still true in the era of cappuccinos and other science-fiction coffee drinks. It hasn't changed, but there's something about the basic cup of coffee ( "Coffee-flavored-coffee" as Denis Leary once put it) and drinking it over the counter of some random diner that retains a certain kind of magic lost in today's image of standing in line at a chain, ordering, then leaving as quickly as possible. All of the songs in the "Coffee" episode are unified under the same basic theme. They also come together when it details the circumstances around that basic cup of coffee. The lyrics and sound of Squeeze's 1982 "Black Coffee in Bed" is nothing like the closer of the show, "Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee", coming out the glory days of The Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1942. Neither one of them resembles Scatman Crothers (best known as an actor in such films as The Shining and The Twilight Zone: The Movie) demanding that you "Keep That Coffee Hot" in 1955. They are still able to coexist because they are both talking about and describing the exact same kind of coffee. This is true for every song on "Coffee". Yet at the same time each one is nothing like the other. It's a contradiction that could only exist on a show like Theme Time Radio Hour. Songs that are practically blood and yet couldn't disagree more on what they're really trying to say.
Coffee shops outside of the corporate empire of Starbucks exist today, but not in the same way. Even the most recent picks for "Coffee" describe a place that is probably no longer serving coffee. This is the sadness that comes through in Dylan's DJ persona and in the songs he plays. The end-result of the show is celebration, something upbeat, but it's impossible to escape the sense of loss that hides beneath every song, every one of Dylan's cheesy jokes and smooth introductions. It doesn't kill the enjoyment of the episode by any means, but it's too difficult to ignore.
Some episodes of Theme Time Radio Hour expressed a similar low-key sorrow, while others went on to be nothing but good times and brilliant jokes. A few shows were be a cross between the two, and others still would be something entirely different. Much like Dylan's own music the potential was astronomical. This is one of the joys in tuning into the show, and it's enough to hope that Dylan returns for a fourth season. Some might think that three seasons and a hundred shows of constants in music might be enough, or even too much, but they would be wrong. There are innumerable dreams, themes and schemes remaining. If Dylan and his show cannot return, then hopefully someone will come along to create the proper mood for us. We don't seem to be capable of doing it on our own.
