Greatest Song Evah 6/21/24
Wild Horses
For quite a long time one of the biggest must-own albums was the Rolling Stones’ Hot Rocks anthology. An ideal sampling of the first 7 years of their recording career, it traced their evolution from a band recording blues & R&B covers to one that started writing their own material to one that perfected a unique sound of their own. Wild Horses was the closing track on that collection and it seemed like a perfect end point. I can’t quite put my finger on why that it is, but there’s something about this song’s inherent sadness that makes it feel as if it’s closing an era.
Wild Horses was one of the highlights of the Sticky Fingers album, which was itself one of the high points in their entire career. The lyrics were supposedly inspired by the first words Marianne Faithfull uttered after awakening from a drug induced coma - wild horses couldn’t drag me away. Mick Jagger later claimed in the liner notes of one of their later greatest hits albums that the song has nothing to do with her. Whatever the real story might be, there is an undeniable tinge of melancholy to both the lyrics and the musical arrangement.
This is one of several songs on Sticky Fingers with a clear country music influence. There is that sense of longing that is often found in a great country song. It also contains some of the finest work from Mick Taylor’s tenure as a Stone. His acoustic work is lovely, and once Keith Richards’ solo kicks in the interplay between the two is absolutely sublime.
One consistent characteristic of a great song is an opening line or opening riff that immediately hits you. This one is a little different; in Wild Horses the closing line “we’ll ride them someday” is what brings the song to a whole different level. It’s obviously not the case - in case you’re not aware, the Stones are still around - but that final line almost feels like a goodbye. At one time I thought to myself that if I were somehow a good enough musician to have a recording career that this would be the perfect song to make the last track on my final album. Maybe some day.
Say Hey
It’s all but impossible to put the greatness of Willie Mays into proper perspective. He is one of the select few men for whom you can make a reasonable argument to be the single greatest to have ever played the game. The phrase “five-tool player” is often used; not only is that an accurate description of Mays but it practically undersells him. He did not merely have all 5 classic baseball tools, he mastered each one. Look no further than his most famous moment, The Catch in the 1954 World Series. Not only did he need exceptional speed to track that ball down, but what made that moment even more special was the way he immediately whirled & fired the ball back to the infield to prevent a run from scoring.
His own description of the play was amazing as well. He says there was never any doubt in his mind that he was going to get to the ball, his only thought as he was chasing it down was that he needed to place himself in a position to make the throw. There are teammates & opponents who insist that wasn’t even his best defensive play; there are stories of random regular season games in which he had made a play even more implausible. Sadly, he largely played in an era in which few games were televised and even fewer were preserved for posterity. We have to rely on the legend.
There is enough existing footage to prove just how special he was. He was more than just great, his flair brought such immense joy to the game. Whether it was his signature basket catch or the way in which his cap flew off his head as he reached full speed, there was a beautiful aesthetic to his game. Here’s a serious question - despite all those accolades, was he actually underrated?
He was easily elected into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility, with what was then one of the highest percentages in voting history - 94.7%. But think about that. That meant there were actually 23 voters who looked at his record and thought, “nope!” I’m not naive: I would bet that among those 23 naysayers were at least a few old time bigots, but still. There was also this - he only won 2 MVP awards. Part of that can be explained by the fact that the Giants rarely won pennants during his career; these days MVP voters are less likely to punish a candidate because of the quality of their teammates.
How many awards did he actually deserve? One long term project I have been working on is to try to answer questions such as how many Cy Young awards would the actual Cy Young have won? It’s a work in progress, but I did have the Willie Mays portion of that question complete. By my count he should have won 9 (this also means that other legends should have won fewer than they did):
1954 - was the actual winner
1955 - finished 4th, Roy Campanella won
1957 - finished 4th, Henry Aaron won
1958 - finished 2nd, Ernie Banks won
1960 - finished 3rd, Dick Groat won
1962 - finished 2nd, Maury Wills won
1963 - finished 5th, Sandy Koufax won
1964 - finished 6th, Ken Boyer won
1965 - was the actual winner
It’s not as if there’s ever a good time to lose someone so important, but this was a particularly rough time for it to happen. The Giants & Cardinals played a game last night at historic Rickwood Field in Birmingham, the oldest baseball park in the country, and the stadium where he made his professional debut with the Birmingham Black Barons. A tribute to Mays was always intended to be part of the festivities, his death made the evening even more poignant. Mays had been one of only 3 living men who had played in the Negro Leagues before 1948. Ron Teasley and Bill Greason are now the last 2 remaining. Greason threw out the ceremonial first pitch last night, and several other former Negro League players - who played in the leagues post-1948 so they are not technically former major leaguers - also took part in the ceremony.
I would also urge everyone to take a few minutes to watch Reggie Jackson talk about his experiences playing minor league ball in Birmingham. Powerful stuff, the scars run deep. He had to deal with racist BS that no one should have to.
Well, Looky Here!
One of the TV shows I’ve written about in my ongoing Streaming Orphans feature is Homicide: Life On the Street, which is arguably the most disappointing show which falls in that category. Until now.
Needless to say, I’m stoked by this news. Not that I’m likely to rewatch it myself; the backlog in my queue of current series that I need to catch up on is enormous. I am extremely pleased, however, that it will soon be available for a new generation to experience its greatness. It’s reassuring to know that such a vital piece of our culture will once again be a simple click away. It is easily one of the greatest police dramas ever made, and I am fairly confident that it will still hold up well.
Long Live Grimace
The Mets finally lost a game on Wednesday, ending a winning streak which coincidentally began on the day that Grimace threw out the first pitch. We all had a lot of fun with it, but there was no McDonald’s magic there. It was a matter of the team finally regressing to the mean. The star players all got hot at the same time & the team now finds itself essentially where we all assumed they would be; hovering around .500 and in the middle of the wild card scramble. The route was unexpectedly circuitous, but if you had told me back in April that this is where they would be today, I would say that it makes total sense,
This is a copycat league, however. Team owners throughout the sport are certainly ordering their PR teams to recruit commercial mascots to bring the same vibes. “Parker! Get Cap’n Crunch, stat!”
Donald Sutherland 1935-2024
The breadth of Donald Sutherland’s filmography is staggering. Just take a look at a partial list of his movies from the 1970’s alone. M*A*S*H. Kelly’s Heroes. Klute. Don’t Look Now. The Day Of the Locust. Animal House. Invasion Of the Body Snatchers. Hell, I’ll even add his cameo in The Kentucky Fried Movie. That’s only a small sample of an isolated ten year stretch in a career that lasted decades. I could easily add more than a dozen movies both before and after this time period that are just as strong. Equally skilled in movies both highbrow and lowbrow as well as everything in between, the dude had range.
Sutherland was equally adept playing kind hearted characters as well as blue blood aristocrats. More significantly, with his very distinctive cadence and intense eyes, he often had an inscrutable vibe about him. He gave the impression that there was something just a bit off about his character; you do NOT want to turn your back on him. It is precisely that quality which made the famous final shot of the Invasion Of the Body Snatchers remake so effective; I don’t know how many actors would have been able to play that scene so effectively. Same deal with his role in JFK. A shadowy government official who claims to know all the secrets, but he may or may not be telling the truth? Sounds like Donald Sutherland.
Donald Sutherland died yesterday at the age of 88. Chances are very good that he was in several of your favorite movies. He will be missed.
50 Years Ago - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
This is technically a 1974 release, but it could belong to several subsequent years as well. It was rereleased into theaters on an annual basis, which helped make it a cult classic. That helped inspire one of the two common misperceptions about the movie. It has a reputation for leading to a constant series of sequels/remakes/reboots, which is true, but that took a long time to develop. The initial sequel did not come out until a dozen years following the release of the original, but once that dam broke we have seen the constant churn of content - one of the later movies featured Matthew McConaughey & Renee Zellweger!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is about as low budget as it gets; between the graininess of the footage and the acting from a largely nonprofessional cast, it practically has a documentary feel. That’s helped by the opening narration, which (falsely) states that it is a true story. TCM was one of several horror classics loosely inspired by the story of Ed Gein, but that’s as far as it goes. There was no actual massacre in Texas that involved chainsaws.
The low budget created the other major misconception about this movie. People seem to believe that it’s a violent gore fest, but that’s not the case. There is almost no blood to be seen, nor is there much in the way of graphic violence. True, one of the hapless victims gets hung on a meat hook (without any accompanying fake blood,) but otherwise the scares largely come through the audio or the terror of unknown darkness. One victim gets conked on the head, & that sound is visceral. In addition, another victim is wandering in pitch darkness, and then in a classic jump scare we hear the roar of the chainsaw followed by the shocking appearance of Leatherface.
Most horror aficionados revere this movie, but I’m not quite there. I admire the way director Tobe Hooper was able to generate genuine scares on such a limited budget, but he loses me in the third act. The final girl is captured by the family of cannibals, and they proceed to torment her before she escapes. To me, that entire sequence felt too sadistic and it lasted much too long.
That wasn’t enough to completely ruin the movie for me, only enough for me to not rank it as highly as others do. It was a highly influential film, introducing one of the most iconic characters in horror history. The final shot of Leatherface in a rear view mirror is a classic; the heroine may have escaped with her life, but the threat is still there. Oh, and when I mentioned the cast is filled with unknowns? There is one big exception. The movie begins with ominous narration. The deep voiced narrator heard here? John Larroquette!
Closing Laughs
That wraps up another day and another week. Thanks again for subscribing; be sure to tell 2 friends about Tending the Herd, so that they can tell 2 friends, & so on & so on & so on. Have a great weekend, friends. See you on Monday.
