Keep On Rocking… Over Christmas

Hey folks, first off Merry Christmas to you all! Big hugs and all that It’s actually Christmas day as I write this but I realised 2008 was drawing to an end and I wanted to post another track before that happened. It was last Christmas I started this blog in the hope of posting a new song every couple of weeks, I also hoped it would spur me to do more music and make time for it in general but to be honest I’ve fallen a little short. I’ve managed to post about an average of one track a month which isn’t too bad and I’m still hopelessly in love with music no matter what else I might do, writing, podcasting, programming or picking my nose. It dominates my thoughts.

Neil Young back in the 60's

So here it is, my final track of the year for you. It’s actually a little live acoustic cover of “Rocking In A Free World” by Neil Young. I’ve mentioned my love of Neil Young on this blog before but this song has always stuck out to me, the lyrics are amazing I think, political and hard hitting in some parts but ultimately uplifting. “Just one more kid that’ll never go to school, never get to fall in love, never get to be cool!” is a refrain that always lodged itself in my brain. To be honest with you this isn’t a polished recording, it’s just a live jam thrown together off the cuff with one mic and my trusty acoustic guitar. I recorded it one day when I set up to record a session of demos for new songs I had, I think this came out by accident just as a warm up. I certainly never intended to release it but as I listen back now through those recordings again, this is the track I always come back to. It has something, I dunno what, I don’t even know if it’s good. It is what it is.

You can hear as I sing it I can’t help doing a bit of a Neil Young impression with the accent and all, this wasn’t deliberate but it kind of works. I also love the live version of the song Pearl Jam always do, another one of my favourite bands. So at times you can hear I’m veering unconsciously between Neil Young and Eddie Vedder impressions in the same verse I even saw Neil Young play this at Reading Festival back in 95 with Pearl Jam as his backing band, Eddie wasn’t with them that day but man it still rocked. The ultimate performance of that tune for me I’d have to say. This is just my little attempt at that, I hope you enjoy it.

Have a great holiday season and I wish you all the best for 2009 as well, I’ll be back with more music, more stupid master plans I’ll only get halfway through and plenty of other stuff. So I’ll see you on the other side. Take care of yourselves now.

All the best

Dan

Sonic Real Estate - Rocking In A Free World (acoustic jam) [2:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

9 Responses so far »

Papa Chango said,

December 26, 2008 @ 9:14 pm

Trains just played on one of my Amarok playlists….
Great song.

How come you dont have a british accent when you sing?

Everyone who learns the guitar loves Neil Young because he plays everything in E and G, so its the first songs they want to learn!
Downloading….

Merry Xmas.

PS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCAM3C3dpIA nothing like hearing hillbillies (the Gourds are actually a great/weird Austin, TX band) play Snoop Dogg’s Gin and Juice bluegrass style… the homestyle video is really helpful too if you need a translation…

Dan said,

December 26, 2008 @ 10:21 pm

Oh thanks, glad you liked it. I dunno about the accent thing, a lot of people ask me that. I grew up and learnt by singing blues music which doesn’t sound quite right in a Liverpool accent. I find if I’m singing a song by someone like Neil Young then I’ll unconsciously sing it like him cos I’m quite good at impressions. You should hear me singing Billy Bragg songs, it’s instant cockney

Cheers for the link mate, I used to have a copy of that version ages ago but I lost it. I love it! I always thought it was by Les Claypool and Phish though, haven’t heard of the Gourds. That’s definitely Les Claypool from Primus singing the “mind on my money and money on my mind” bit on this version I’m sure.

Dan said,

December 27, 2008 @ 2:29 pm

Ok I was totally wrong, I have to hold my hands up :O After lots of research around the Internet it seems a lot of people have wrongly labeled this song as Phish & Les Claypool, it does sound like Les Claypool singing in one part but it’s definitely The Gourds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gourds

Seems there’s been some big flame wars over this. All because someone wrongly labeled it years ago and uploaded it to a file sharing network. Thought I’d best correct that ASAP so credit to The Gourds, amazing version. I’m off to see if I can find any more of their stuff now

Gordon said,

January 1, 2009 @ 2:31 am

I enjoyed that, keep the good stuff coming Dan!

Dan said,

January 1, 2009 @ 12:56 pm

Thanks Gordon, glad you enjoyed it

Kevan said,

February 12, 2009 @ 6:49 am

Happy New year! I’m a bit slow getting to read this blog, but you have your other blogs too.

I enjoyed the music and think I’ll play pearl jam later

Kevan

Dan said,

February 12, 2009 @ 11:57 am

Thanks Kevan glad you enjoyed it. I have got a few blogs as you say, perhaps too many, I’m wondering if I should roll everything into my danlynch.org site and be done with it. I’m in the process of transferring the music files over and importing to the Drupal install on there at the moment. More news on that soon. I love Pearl Jam as you know so enjoy it!