i’m coming home, baby.

That last post about the Cisco 7960 wore me out. I needed a couple of days away from the blog. Whew!

Tonight as I was putting our son to bed, I was listening on to some music on my iPod. I’ve made some pretty extensive use of the Smartplaylists and have a list that rotates out 50 songs at a time of five stars. Lately, I’ve been enjoying the music I’ve been hearing, but it wasn’t grabbing me by my throat. But tonight, I was hearing some songs I hadn’t heard in a long time and it was good.

The first time I had ever heard of Mel Tormé was on Night Court. Harry Anderson had a thing for ol’ Mel and I remember that Mel had a few cameos on the show. I liked Harry Anderson and therefore I might like Mel Tormé. Or so the saying goes…

Mel Tormé

I heard a song Mel did at some point. It was unbelievable how good this song was. The title was “Coming Home, Baby” and was recorded in 1962. This was a great song and the complexity of it is amazing. Mel singing the narrative and the backup singers singing the second voice… hoo boy, it’s hot. I think I got this song on one of those “Cocktail Lounge” Cd’s. I love it. The song is basically Mel saying that he’ll be home soon, and the backup singers saying they/she want him home as soon as possible, but then Mel says that he’ll be home later than he planned. I had heard this song on a Herbie Mann record, (yes, record, I have have the vinyl LP), and I liked the song a lot when I first heard it, but as you may know… Herbie Mann plays the flute, so there is no vocals. When I first heard Mel’s version, I thought that this was one of the best songs I had ever heard. It is really quite good and I highly recommend it.

Next, a familiar artist came up, Nick Cave. When I was in college, one of my first jobs was in a record shop. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds was the first CD promo I got to take home. No one else knew who he was and since then I was hooked, (I think that must have been 1990). His songs have moved away from the dark and scary to the place where he’s speaking from the heart. The song was “What can I give you.” It is a very moving song and I think of my wife every time I hear it.

After that, I heard “The Wanderer” by Johnny Cash and U2. A great song. I’ve always like Johnny Cash and I think the Rick Rubin stuff in Johnny’s later years is outstanding. If memory serves me correctly, I think this song was in the Wim Wenders film, Far Away, So Close which was the sequel to Wings of Desire. Wings of Desire was a movie I saw a very long time ago when I was in college. I still love that movie and get irritable whenever anyone compares it to “City of Angels.”

Man, I’ve had Firefox crash twice while I was posting this, (granted, I was doing quite a bit of other stuff on my PC), so I think I might follow up to this post tomorrow. Good night!