Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay
I cannot deny it any longer: I am homesick. Terribly heartbroken at the very thought of the city I consider "home" and the idea that I will not be there again any time soon. I miss the smells, the views, the food, the art, THE LIGHT. I miss how it feels to be there, how I feel when I'm there. In honor of my homesickness, I've got my 3rd Otis Redding song for you all, because I love Otis and he knows how it feels to be stuck in San Francisco, a city that so many people love and would give everything to be a part of, and really miss home. Otis started to write this song in 1967, while on tour with the Bar-Kays and staying on a houseboat in Sausalito, CA. Over the next few months he and Steve Cropper finished the lyrics and recorded the short but poignant track. To add an even more bitter twist to my post today, Redding died shortly after the track was completed, and it was only released postmortem. I bring up this deadly theme not just because we're in the throws of Halloween, but because we have just lost another musician who I'm sure is near and dear to many of you: Lou Reed. I'll dedicate a post to Lou Reed in just a moment, but for now, here's Otis: Otis Redding (1968)
vs. T. Rex feat. Gloria Jones (1975)
I searched long and hard for a cover good enough to prop up against Redding's, and...there just isn't one. Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings don't got it: Sammy Hagar had the decency to get Steve Cropper to play with him, but wow what a completely beige, meaningless version of the song they came up with. Bob Dylan's and Pearl Jam's covers are only live versions, which is too bad because this might be the only time I can say I like a Pearl Jam song, and there's some Pearl Jam fans I'm missing deeply right now. Definitely couldn't go with Sergio Mendes and Brazil '66 (also, yikes what a terrible interpretation), and I'll be damned if I ever post a Michael Bolton or Widespread Panic song here for anything other than a good laugh. T. Rex was the only band I felt put their own spin on it without totally missing the point and turning the track into some watered-down, empty ghost of the original, similar in form but not in function. Sadly, the singer of T. Rex, Marc Bolan, also died to early, in a fatal car accident. So, here's to you Bolan, Redding and Reed, we miss you like we miss home.