I Shit Music

Everybody can write a swinging ditty about the weekend, and it only takes a touch of the drags to pen a ballad about Mondays. But if you’re really a compositional master, then you write a hip track about Tuesdays. It’s the day of open-ended uncertainty – the day for drifting – the day for accepting the normal doldrums of reality and expanding one’s position of divine space in the universe. Why do you think Aimee Mann named her band ‘Til Tuesday? Because “Voices Carry” would have never struck so deep otherwise, that’s wise. Or perhaps she was just really hung up on the old wonky David Bowie song “Love You til Tuesday,” which is really too ridiculous to make this heavy list. It probably would have been #6. And no, Trey Anastasio’s “Tuesday” isn’t on here either – it might have squeezed in at #7. Neither of them go as deep as these, the top 5 songs about Tuesdays…

5) Badfinger – “Sweet Tuesday Morning ” - When they weren’t writing songs that sounded like Cubic Zirconia of Paul McCartney tracks, they were writing these massively melancholy early 70′s tracks. It’s a drag for sure, but not a cool drifter.

4) Stevie Wonder – “Tuesday Heartbreak” - If you don’t own Talking Book then do yourself a favor and go buy it right now. Little Stevie is straight-up fucking the clavinet with his fingers on this track.

3) The Rolling Stones – “Ruby Tuesday” – Yes, this is the track where they were just trying to cop The Beatles, and as a young kid this song gave me a rather skewed version of who the Stones really were. It’s a good friggin’ song though. Check out this live clip form 1967 where it sounds like girls are getting stabbed in the audience.

2) The Moody Blues – “Tuesday Afternoon” – What a spooky fuckin’ tune. This is the kind of song that makes you want to wear a faded yellow sweater and rip butts in the rain. This is possibly the best sonic tangent of what a Tuesday actually feels like – check out the guy front row who gets the hell out of there right as the song starts.

1) Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Tuesday’s Gone” – Easily, the best Skynyrd track of all time. No dumb reference to the South, no redneck shuffle beat – just a killer friggin’ song.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this video lately. I first recall watching it several years ago, and it’s gone rather viral since, but it’s still easily one of the greatest things of all time. I recommend it to people constantly, and decided I needed to formalize my love for it a little more. So…it’s 1973 and Stevie Wonder is in the heyday of his soul-funk era. Frank Oz and the genius folks over at Sesame Street decide that they should have Stevie on the show and that they should just let the motherfucker go off. And that he does. He has a little interview with Grover, plays a little ditty about counting, and then busts this massive “Superstition.” Have you ever paid attention to the lyrics of that song? They’re pretty friggin’ dark, and I always thought they served as kind of a jab against formalized religion. Heavy pick for the show. But anyway, long story short, with some fresh-ass Orange Amps in tow, and a ridiculously raw in-the-pocket band behind him, the soul-brother #2 busts out a 7 minute long take on the song. And as dope and killer as it sounds, the video is really highlighted by one defining factor – there’s a bunch of kids sitting on the steps having a good time, but up on the top fire escape there is a little dude who is straight up losing his shit. He looks to be about 6 years old, but he seems to be very aware that being on the set of Sesame Street for Stevie Wonder will essentially be the golden moment of his entire life. At times, it looks like he’s honestly trying to rip the guardrail off. I often wonder who and where this kid is now. He’s gotta be in his late 40′s, and hopefully the rest of his life has been just as epic as these 7 recorded minutes. I’d love to find him – I’m sure he still rants and raves about this. If you want to see his golden moments, they look at the top center 20 seconds in. 38 seconds in is when you realize he’s the freshest mother-fucker of all fucking time. At 2:12 you can find him in the upper right corner dropping some nasty knee lock moves. 4:08 is when you realize you’d probably be doing the exact same thing. Shit is magical. At 5:17 he’s stomping the metal like it’s his job. And then the capper is at 6:04 - the band has reprised the song, Stevie’s vamping some Sesame Street lyrics, and that little dude is getting low. Way low. Owning that shit. He’s one of my biggest heroes and inspirations in life. Seriously. That little 6 year old crushing the fuck out of Sesame Street in 1973.