Album: Skywatching
This selection represents many different lessons when it comes to discovering music. On one front, it's a perfect example of how sometimes an album turns you onto a certain song, while sometimes a certain song turns you onto a whole album. On another front, it's a prime example of how much greater a song can become by simply how it's used in a movie or TV show. Finally, it's a perfect encapsulation of an album that has one song so great, the remaining tracks really didn't have a chance.
Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" ranks as collectively high on the list of our group of friends as probably any other movie out there. It came out during a time when most all of us could dabble with at least three chords on the guitar and during a time when knowing all the words to Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" wasn't as mainstream/borderline douchey as knowing all the words to Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" is today. We all wanted to be somebody in that movie, from the lead singer of Stillwater to Penny Lane to even Lester freakin' Bangs.
I'm not going to try and summarize the true greatness of the film, but the moment it truly takes off for me is at the hotel when all the different bands rendezvous at "The Riot House" and proceed to do exactly what you would expect rock bands to do back then. To this day, whenever I hear the chords to "Melissa" by The Allman Brothers, I always start out singing the words to Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air" that plays at the beginning of the hotel room scene. Check it out for yourself and notice some of the pre-superstar talent this movie possessed: Sookie with her vampire hymen still intact; Kate Hudson prior to completely ruining Chris Robinson; and Jason Lee just being awesome:
Around the time of this same scene in the movie, the main character is shown walking through the hallway and stumbles upon what, based on what I have always read, is supposed to be Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons simply sitting across from each other singing. The song they duet on is beautiful and I spent many countless Google searches my first few years in the accounting industry trying to figure out what the hell the name of that song was. They all came up empty. For a taste of how great the scene actually is, click here to see a DVD extra from the director's cut of the movie that actually stays in the scene for much longer than the actual film does.
Finally, in the last year, I was able to track down that the song was not a duet by the two back in the early 70's, but was actually a song called "Small Time Blues" by Pete Droge and was probably written in the late-nineties. To say I was disappointed would most likely be an understatement, but I found the strength to break through and appreciate it for what it was. The album referenced tonight contains both a normal and acoustic version of the song, and trust me when I say the acoustic version kills it. It's like the acoustic version was pulled from a completely different artist. Accompanying songs on the album have a lot of promise but some, such as "She Got the Potion," sound like they could be playing during a scene of Dawson's Creek in which Pacey practices looking cool in front of a mirror before a date with an older woman. Yes, I can actually be that specific in my placement of the song on Dawson's Creek.
This will probably be the first of many times over the next year where a single song lands an entire album on the countdown, but sometimes it's truly worth it. We now live in a world where singles carry an assumed "worth" of 99 cents, but that doesn't mean a lot of us wouldn't still pay full album price for access to one song.
Year Released: 2003
# of Tracks: 12
Label: Puzzle Tree Records
Best Lyric: "You count it off and we start; We know this number by heart" - Small Time Blues
Best Track: "Small Time Blues"
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