Manworthy Ballads

Every art has its aesthetic moments. Even rock music. Every great rock act has the ability to grab you with a down-tempo song. If not then they are not a great act. It’s that simple. Think about all the superstars of rock, and you won’t find one that doesn’t have a soft number with artful lyrics.

James Taylor has many of those and with this one grabs onto every man’s boyhood sense of place. We all had those places our mothers would have fainted if they knew about. Our fathers would have understood. For us in South Philly it was hunting rats at the Pipelines or swimming in the greasy abandoned industrial canal called the Highlines, walking the tracks down past the Jungles or diving into the Delaware off the Coal Pier. For James Taylor it was a spot that “no one knew why they called like they do.”

A later incarnation of Lynyrd Skynrd puts forth their 1973 hit with all the simplicity and power of the song’s advice, to be a “Simple Man.” There’s no telling how many men this song could have diverted from some more complex path.

The sentiments of Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Someday Never Comes” are so universal that they easily cross borders, or oceans. So since there’s no Credence You Tube of the song at the moment, the most sincere cover of this great song is about a 65 percent effective try by a coupla dudes at something called Fogerty Fest in Finland last year. Swamp Duo’s version may not be the best and they may have used their shoe money to buy Credence CDs, but this only proves the strength of the song.