A new interactive video brings to life Jeff Buckley‘s cover of Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman.” The song appears on Buckley’s recent compilation You and I, an album of songs that the late singer recorded in 1993.
The interactive video allows you to choose different story lines that result in different music too, reportedly featuring 73 story cells with more than 16,000 possible combinations.
The interactive video was created by the design studios of Interlude and Blind. While you watch, click on various blocks to follow the “story,” and you periodically get chances to add instrumentation to the track too. Note that you may repeatedly click on the same blocks to see the different possibilities too.
[UPDATE: Unfortunately, the video is no longer available]
The new album from Jeff Buckley, who died in 1997, features eight cover songs and two originals. You And I was released March 11, 2016.
What was your favorite part of the video’s story? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Roberta Flack had a number one song with “Killing Me Softly with His Song” in 1973. Two decades later, The Fugees brought the song to a new generation when they covered it on the album The Score (1996) with lead vocals by Lauryn Hill. A song being recorded two decades apart is not that unusual, but there are some other interesting aspects about the origins of “Killing Me Softly with His Song.”
One relatively unique feature of “Killing Me Softly with His Song” is that it is a song about a song. But that underlying song is unnamed as the singer recounts hearing another singer that deeply affects her.
Another unique aspect of “Killing Me Softly with His Song” is that the story is somewhat true. It reportedly was inspired by another song by singer-songwriter Don McLean. But before we get to McLean’s song, below is Roberta Flack’s hit version of “Killing Me Softly with His Song.”
Songwriter Lori Lieberman
Although there is some debate about the origins of “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” the song was written by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel. Most agree, though, that Gimbel collaborated in some way with Lori Lieberman in writing the lyrics.
Lieberman maintains that many of the lyrics were inspired by her reaction to hearing Don McLean perform one of his songs. In “Killing Me Softly,” the singer recounts an unnamed man singing a revealing song: “I felt all flushed with fever / Embarrassed by the crowd / I felt he had found my letters / And read each one out loud.” Strumming my pain with his fingers, Singing my life with his words, Killing me softly with his song, Killing me softly with his song, Telling my whole life with his words, Killing me softly with his song.
Lori Lieberman recorded “Killing Me Softly with His Song” in 1971. Subsequently, Roberta Flack heard Lieberman’s recording while flying between New York and Los Angeles. When Flack heard the song, she was so moved that she immediately wanted to record it herself.
Below, Lieberman performs “Killing Me Softly” on The Mike Douglas Show in 1973.
Don McLean’s “Empty Chairs”
What was the song that a singer sang as if knew the listener “in all my dark despair”? As Lieberman explains in the above video starting at around the 3:30 mark while actor Tony Curtis holds her guitar, “Killing Me Softly with His Song” was inspired by her reaction to hearing Don McLean’s song, “Empty Chairs.”
Lieberman first heard McLean singing “Empty Chairs” at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, and it affected her deeply. McClean’s song is about a person remembering a lover who left the singer alone.
And I wonder if you know, That I never understood That although you said you’d go, Until you did, I never thought you would
Here is Don McLean performing “Empty Chairs.”
Lieberman states that after attending a Don McLean concert, she discussed her feelings in response to the singer’s performance of “Empty Chairs.” She explained, ” I felt exposed – as though he were singing about me and my life.”
According to Lieberman, she then wrote a poem about her feelings and shared it with songwriter Norman Gimbel, who worked it into a song by making a variation on a title he already had, “Killing Me Softly with the Blues.” Gimbel and Lieberman discussed more about Lieberman’s experience and the lyrics. Then, Gimbel went to the home of Charles Fox, who worked on the music for the song.
On Don McLean’s website, the man most famous for songs like “American Pie” and “Vincent” features a 1973 Daily News article about his connection to “Killing Me Softly with His Song.” McLean is quoted about being “amazed” and “humbled” when he learned that he had inspired “Killing Me Softly with his Song.”
Other Variations On the Story
One of the writers of “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” however, recalls the story behind the song a little differently. Charles Fox, who also wrote a large number of popular TV theme songs with Norman Gimbel, explains that he and Norman Gimbel wrote “Killing Me Softly with His Song” for Lori Lieberman.
Gimbel had a book of possible song titles, and one was “Killing Me Softly with the Blues.” Gimbel reportedly had seen the phrase in Julio Cortázar’s novel Hopscotch.
Fox liked the first part of the suggested title, but then they came up with “Killing Me Softly with His Song” as a better title. From there, Norman came up with the rest of the lyrics and Fox provided the music.
When Fox and Gimbel played the song for Lieberman, according to Fox, Lieberman responded that the words reminded her of a Don McLean concert. Thus, according to Fox, the Don McLean connection came after the song was written.
Gimbel’s version of the creation of the song seems somewhere in the middle between Fox and Lieberman. While like Fox he has downplayed Lieberman’s role, in an April 5, 1973 Daily News story, Gimbel recalled that Lieberman told him about the experience she had at a Don McLean concert. He explained, “I had a notion this might make a good song so the three of us discussed it. We talked it over several times, just as we did with the rest of the numbers we wrote for the album and we all felt it had possibilities.”
The Impact of “Killing Me Softly with His Song”
No matter how “Killing Me Softly with His Song” was created, that song touched many listeners. While McLean’s song “Empty Chairs” deeply affected Lieberman, it was the later song “Killing Me Softly with His Song” that resonated with a larger audience.
Lieberman, who apparently was feeling heartbreak when she first heard McLean’s song, helped create a mysterious song indirectly about heartbreak that focused instead on her reaction to the power of music. And that mystery behind her song resonates with listeners today as it did in the 1970s and 1990s.
In 1973, “Killing Me Softly with His Song” won Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards, where Roberta Flack also won Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Female. And Rolling Stone now lists Roberta Flack’s version as one of the top 500 songs of all time at #369. Lauryn Hill’s version is pretty cool too.
Recently, while playing in Seattle’s Key Arena on The River Tour, Bruce Springsteen brought Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder onstage. Backed by the E Street Band, Springsteen and Vedder let loose on “Bobby Jean” from Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. (1984) album.
There are few songs that sound as joyous as “Bobby Jean,” as the singer recounts a long-lost love and the peace he has found with the separation. Vedder seems to be having a blast too as he dances around the stage. Check out the March 24, 2016 performance.
One person who does not look happy onstage is Steven Van Zandt. Look at his face. Is he jealous that someone else is taking his place on the song that Springsteen supposedly wrote for him when he left the band for a period in the 1980s? I suspect he is just concentrating on the music or thinking about his recent appearance on American Idol as a mentor and wondering how Jennifer Lopez could forget his name. Or maybe he is just taking an emotional break while Springsteen, Vedder, and saxophonist Jake Clemons bring the joy on this song.
In Born to Be Blue, Ethan Hawke portrays jazz trumpeter and singer Chet Baker in a “re-imagining” of Baker’s mid-career struggles in the 1960s as he worked for a comeback after spending time in prison on drug charges. In the film, director Robert Budreau attempts to reveal the real Baker through a fictionalized romance with actress Jane Azuka, played by Carmen Ejogo.
It is always risky fictionalizing a biopic about a real person, although it can work in the right hands as it did for Todd Haynes’s treatment of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There (2007). From the trailer for Born to Be Blue, Budreau’s version of Baker seems more like a typical biopic with the exception that it is not completely true. But much of jazz music is about improvisation and variations, so perhaps the best way to understand Baker’s brilliance and demons is through a movie that riffs on his life.
Born to Be Blue opens in limited release starting on March 25, 2016.
In real life, Baker — who was born on December 23, 1929 — followed his brilliant success in the 1950s with struggles with heroin and other drugs throughout the rest of his life. After a difficult period in the 1960s, he began a comeback with his rediscovery fueling performances in Europe. In the early 1980s, he toured with Stan Getz and played on Elvis Costello’s album Punch the Clock (1983). On May 13, 1988, Baker was found dead on the sidewalk beneath his hotel room in Amsterdam, Netherlands, a death that was ruled an accident.
Baker’s death had previously inspired the Born to Be Blue director Budreau to speculate about how the death occurred. In 2009, he wrote and directed a short film about Baker’s death called The Deaths of Chet Baker. You may watch that short film, starring Stephen McHattie below.
Finally, if you are curious about why Budreau is so fascinated with Chet Baker, check out some of Baker’s performances and recordings, starting with this full performance live in Tokyo in 1987.
What is your favorite musical biopic? Leave your two cents in the comments.
On March 22, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the Beer and Wine Revenue Act. The Eighteenth Amendment prohibiting the sale and transport of alcohol was still in effect. But the new act, signed into law less than three weeks after Roosevelt took office on March 4, amended the Volstead Act enforcing Prohibition.
The Beer and Wine Revenue Act provided for a tax on alcoholic beverages. And it also allowed states to further regulate the sale of beer and wine. After its passage, people could once again legally buy beer and wine with an alcohol content of less than 3.2% by volume.
The change in law started after Roosevelt had called for a special session of Congress five days after his election to begin the work on legalizing beer. There were a number of reasons Roosevelt made efforts to end Prohibition part of his campaign. Those reasons included an appeal to thirsty working-class Americans and also allowing sales of a product to stimulate the economy during the Depression.
There are a number of good songs about alcohol, and in particular about wine. For example, there is “Little Ole Wine Drinker Me,” made famous by Dean Martin and recorded by others such as actor Robert Mitchum. But I suspect that if you asked people to name a song about wine, the most popular reaction would be “Red Red Wine.”
Neil Diamond’s “Red Red Wine”
Neil Diamond wrote “Red Red Wine.” The song appeared on his 1967 album Just For You. The label, Bang Records, released the song in 1968 as a single with some small alterations, including an added choir, after Diamond had already left the label.
I probably first heard the song from my sister repeatedly playing Diamond’s 1972 amazing live album Hot August Night.
UB40’s “Red Red Wine”
Many folks probably do not know that Neil Diamond wrote “Red Red Wine.” Most probably know the more popular version of the song — the 1983 reggae hit cover version by UB40. Heck, at the time UB40 put the song on their covers album, Labour of Love, even they did not know it was by Neil Diamond.
According to Wikipedia, UB40 were only aware of a version by Tony Tribe. The did not realize that the writer credit on their album, “Diamond,” was Neil.
But UB40 were able to turn the song into something new when they found the reggae rhythm that fits the song perfectly. Reportedly, Diamond loves the UB40 cover and has even performed their version in concert.
A Song for the Heartbroken
Of course, like most great songs about alcohol, “Red Red Wine” is not really about a beverage. It is a heartbreak song. The singer and his blue blue heart uses the wine to get through his pain. Although I like the different versions of the song, it is in Diamond’s original version where you most sense the aching in the lyrics, “Don’t let me be alone.”
As for the Beer and Wine Revenue Act, it was an important step toward ending Prohibition. By the end of the year, on December 5, 1933, the Twenty-First Amendment was ratified, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment’s ban. Americans were once again free to to drink all types of alcohol. The failures of Prohibition are still cited today as states struggle with issues surrounding the legality of marijuana.
But thinking about “Red Red Wine” in the context of Prohibition, I see that perhaps the great tragedy was not that people could not celebrate and laugh with a drink. Instead, I wonder how in the world the heartbroken survived from 1920 to 1933 without being able to drink some red red wine.
What is your favorite drinking song? Leave your two cents in the comments. Prohibition photo via public domain.
(1984) album.
In Born to Be Blue, Ethan Hawke portrays jazz trumpeter and singer 
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, even they did not know it was by Neil Diamond.
