“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot, with a pink hotel, a boutique, and a swinging hot spot. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
I was listening to the radio in my car because
- I drive a car made in 1999 that doesn’t have a CD player built in.
- The external CD player I have in the car, the kind that adapts with a cassette tape on a wire, doesn’t have great sound and the little buttons make it so I almost wreck whenever I get to fooling around with it. I’m already a bad enough driver. Did I mention I backed into a tree in my own driveway and crushed my rear tail light? Yeah, I did that.
- I like to flip through the stations and see what’s playing. Radio music is mostly crap, but sometime I like pop music. Kelly Clarkson has crazy range.
OK, so that admission out of the way, I’ll get to the point. Some songs need never be remade. Joni Mitchell wrote it and should be the only one to ever sing it. Big Yellow Taxi. She owns it. She even pwns it.
Artist who have mangled include Amy Grant, Counting Crows with and without Vanessa Carlton, Sandi Thom, Kaya, Pinhead Gunpowder, Paul Tillotson, Moya Brennan, Keb Mo, Chris Thomas King, Keren Ann, Toxic Audio, and Bob Dylan. Indigo Girls, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan and Meredith Brooks covered it at the Lilith Fair. Who care, right? I’m just dropping wiki knowledge here.
It’s the Counting Crows with Vanessa Carlton version that raised my ire. It’s the most popular version of the song ever. Grr. Oh, the dramatic irony that a great song, perfect the way it is, has gotten popular in this bastardized version. It is paradise paved and synthesized and “ooo bop bop bopped” then run through a production studio, spit out into a dumb movie, then played and overplayed. It’s making me want to scream. Someone is to blame!
I doubt it’s Adam Duritz or Vanessa Carlton, and yet I feel compelled to tell them that Big Yellow Taxi is a criticism of taking stuff that’s great and turning it into crap. It’s not advocating it! They might have missed that point. It’s Jive…Jive Talking, even (OK, I had to shoehorn that in because I wanted to post this guy dancing to the Bee Gees. He writes: “I can’t dance, I can’t talk, only thing about me is the way my jello gut jiggles under that apron.”:)
Gary said,
October 24, 2009 at 9:20 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0hTtsqiFCc
although for me, that is the definitive version of that song, the original is also quite good. And I’m not talking about The Byrds.
Gary said,
October 24, 2009 at 9:21 am
whoa – didn’t know it would embed
julieluongo said,
October 24, 2009 at 11:07 am
Yeah. Fancy. WordPress has grown up since we’ve been away. (My dog likes the Dylan better than the Shatner. She sat thru the whole thing and then ran into the kitchen when William started singing, er, talking.)
julieluongo said,
October 24, 2009 at 11:15 am
My favorite Dylan song was improved by Weird Al:
Gary said,
October 24, 2009 at 12:02 pm
Well Bill’s psychotic delivery isn’t every dog’s taste.
Oh yeah I hate that Vanessa Carlton song. I didn’t realize it had much of a lifespan. I thought it sort of came and went.
julieluongo said,
October 27, 2009 at 10:39 am
It’s hard keeping up with what’s on the radio when you’re spinning the Sleater-Kinney at WFZR.
Gary said,
October 27, 2009 at 12:33 pm
this is true – and when I’m in the car it’s usually non-stop Backyardigans, which is actually better than most stuff on the radio.
Gary said,
October 24, 2009 at 2:01 pm
That weird al one is great – that’s like most palindromes ever
julieluongo said,
October 27, 2009 at 12:38 pm
You should check out Ernie and Neal. My sister’s kids love them. Neal is Mama Peg’s brother.
http://www.ernieandneal.com/