God Loves You

God is love, apparently. You always hear this, and people tell you. Well, I've never felt God's love. It certainly never promoted itself through the dirge like hymns we were forced to sing in school assembly (if they'd managed to lure The Staple Singers to a Shropshire school in the mid 80's this might have worked, or possibly a country gospel outfit in matching cowboy shirts). I noticed in the U.S. that lots of cars have little fish shaped 'Jesus' stickers on their boot. I'm not sure why it is fish shaped, possibly in tribute to the time he turned fillet-o-fish sandwiches into enough wine for a decent get-together. Possibly the closest I've ever had to a religious experience was a goal by Ray 'Romford Pele' Parlour against Valencia a few years ago. I think it's possible that God is over-rated, just as Romford Ray was under-rated.

Anyway, here's a biblical three to be going on with. If there's any love I hope you feel it.

'Jesus Was a Capricorn' by the cooler than cool Kris Kristofferson



The biblical sounding Nazareth were actually from Scotland, and took their name from a lyric from The Band song 'The Weight' ("pulled into Nazareth, was feling 'bout half past dead"). This clip is notable for the complete disinterest of the audience, as the band mime their fantastic version of Joni Mitchell's This Flight Tonight, along with the gravity defying topiary of lead singer Dan McCafferty's hair.

'This Flight Tonight' by Nazareth



Make sense of this if you will, particularly the spoken introducion by Son House, here doing the much covered (Blues Brothers, White Stripes) John the Revelator, which is my second posting of this song, as I just can't stay away from it.

God's Bob Dylan & Waltzing Dirt Farmers

I don't know where my co-host gets the time to watch telly, listen to music, smash up fridges, berate Bob Dylan and rant about the envirnonment. I was struggling to see the link between Dylan and Gods Boyfriend, although I came to the conclusion that Bob gets so much good press for average albums that he must be Gods .......... Well, at least Gods gift. Didn't ramblin' Bob go christian in the eighties?

If you were to scroll through the d's in my music folder you won't find much Dylan. Partly because he's under B, but you get my drift. The only time I've seen him live he sounded like Fozzie Bear with pharyngitis. We were back at the car before you could say Froggy Went a Courtin' (if you can't recognise the song til the chorus you're in the wrong tent).

In the great give-away of my records, in order to reduce the amount to a box I could afford to ship to Chile, I gave away Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, and kept The Band's records. Their first album sports a cover featuring a Dylan painting, and they went on to tour and record with him.

Scorsese, a good friend of The Band's Robbie Robertson, directed their final hurrah, The Last Waltz.

Levon Helm, The Band's singing drummer recently released Dirt Farmer, a fine solo album, although the 1993 Band re-union (minus Robbie R) album Jericho features my favourite post real Band effort from him, in the shape of a cover of Springsteen's Atlantic City (click on the words Atlantic City to download it, nothing to do with me!).

Not only do you get The Band, you get The Staples too........

The Band with The Staple Singers, The Weight