(Sad Songs & Waltzes is a recurring feature on Muzzle of Bees, where artists share their favorite sad songs. Previous contributors include Megafaun, Delta Spirit, Damien Jurado, Conrad Plymouth, Frontier Ruckus, and Roadside Graves.)

By Ben Weaver:

One morning my son said to me, “Dad, when you are sleeping you can see your dreams.” Sad things make me happy, and happy things make me cry, and crying does not always mean I am sad. So what is a sad song? When I was working in the restaurant, every Wednesday these inner city kids would come in and sell us produce from their garden. They grew beautiful stuff and I always got choked up when they came in. Their interest in growing food instead of playing xbox overwhelmed me. I prefer the notion that things can be beautiful without being pretty, and I can’t understand how a beautiful thing could be made up of anything less than equal parts of good and bad, pretty and ugly, happy and sad. In trying to think of what songs make me cry I realized that it is not always a sad song that makes me cry as much as it is a true song. So hear is my list of sad-true songs that have the potential to make me scream from the bridge as I ride my bike over the river in the middle of the night.

Chris Bell – “I Am The Cosmos” (listen)
I remember listening to this song driving around the neighborhood when I was growing up. We had this tree that we would hang out under especially in the fall. Smoking cigarettes and being tragic. Something about the idea, particularly in the fall, of telling ourselves stories and watching them go up in smoke while singing the line, “Every night I tell myself, I am the Cosmos,” compounded the invincibility into to perfect melancholy.

Doris Duke – “I Don’t Care Anymore” (listen)
“I met a man who treated me like he bought me by the pound.” From what I know she has disappeared and I heard something about her being a maid in a Toronto hotel. This song is from a record called, I’m a Loser and is by far one of my most treasured finds. Personally I think she puts Aretha to shame.

The Replacements – “Sadly Beautiful” (listen)
Again this takes me back to high school. Growing up in Minneapolis. Feeling like an adult in a teenager’s body. Swearing to god you had it all figured out. That the answer was somewhere out there in the dark and even though no one else believed it, at least Paul Westerberg did.

Jeff Mitchell – “Let’s Leave Her Here” (listen)
This is one of my favorite songs. In my mind its brilliance lies in the fact that he could be singing about a million different things and every one of them would be what the song was about. Each line has an individual story. I miss Jeff.

Neil Young – “On The Beach” (listen)
“I need a crowd of people, but I can’t face them day to day.” No one could sum it up better.

Randy Newman – “I Miss You” (listen)
Halfway through this song, when the drums come in I always start to loose my shit. I know the production leaves a lot to be desired and it’s a bit of a cliché to write someone a love song 20 years too late, but still something gets me every time. Maybe it’s that you can always hear New Orleans in every dam note he plays.

Roscoe Holcomb – “The Hills of Mexico” (listen)
When I hear his voice and banjo I have to stop doing whatever I’m doing. I don’t know what it is exactly, some ultimate truth, every needle in every haystack, the high and the low. It’s all there in his playing and singing.

Townes Van Zandt – “Marie” (listen)
“I got to get Marie some kind of coat, were heading down into fall.” This time of year that line enters my brain on a daily basis. The song speaks for itself.

Blaze Foley – “Clay Pigeons” (listen)
“Smoking cigarettes in the last seat, try and hide my sorrow from the people I meet and get along with it all.” I put these two back to back because Townes once said that Marie was not inspired directly by Blaze but that he did put a lot of Blaze’s derelict nature into the song. I guess Blaze favored sleeping under pool tables to a bed.

MP3: Ben Weaver – “East Jefferson”
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Buy: Ben Weaver – Mirepoix & Smoke

You’ve had plenty of opportunities to catch Dawes on the road recently. They just wrapped up a string of dates on the second Daytrotter Barnstorming tour, and are currently on the road with Langhorne Slim that just played Madison last weekend. Their new album North Hills is one of the best albums of the year and I look forward to seeing these guys grow their fan base as a result. We caught up with Dawes who gave us a collection of 5 albums that they enjoy and wanted to share with our readers.

Taylor Goldsmith:

Sail Away – Randy Newman
This record is one of the best examples of a record depending on itself that I’ve ever heard. While every song is essential, no song stands out more than others. Each gives another quick example of Randy’s range and his consciousness of how to keep fresh his perspective as a writer. And yet he only gives you just enough to merely show what he’s capable of, rather than exhaust any of those talents by the end. This way, the record becomes yet another example of how much command he has over his craft, and also how much he likes fucking with his listeners. Along these lines, in every song, you find yourself doubting his honesty as a narrator. Each time you sense any sort of sentimentality or vulnerability, he makes sure to turn it on its head and make you feel like a fool for entertaining any of these loftier thoughts that Randy Newman only intends to play with and accept for their trivial nature.

From The Mars Hotel – Grateful Dead
Whenever I bring up how much I love the Grateful Dead, I tend to get laughed at. To a small extent, it’s starting to feel like ‘American Beauty‘ and ‘Workingman’s Dead,’ are finally being recognized as classic records by all these young roots-rock-loving-indie-kids, but even then, they treat it like it’s some kind of fluke in an otherwise typical tie-dyed psychedelic jam band’s career. It can be really frustrating for a fan like me. Despite the reputation that precedes them, they have a respect for the ‘song’ that equals any of the greats, in my opinion. While this is particularly clear on ‘American Beauty’ and ‘Workingman’s Dead,’ I’ve been listening a lot to ‘From The Mars Hotel’ recently and have been so blown away that even after 7 years after their first release, they’re still able to write some of their best material and stay true to their sound. A common criticism of the dead is that they tend to play a little too loose or a little too sloppy, and yet have one the greatest reputations as a live band in music. My theory on this contradiction is that their focus as a band (maybe consciously, maybe a product of the drug use) has been on simply the enjoyment and the expressive capacity of playing their instruments. And a phenomenon like that can be infectious. Rather than treating each song as an opportunity to prove to the listener how good he is at his instrument, each performance on ‘from the mars hotel’ seems to be a means for each member to explore his relationship with the rest of the band and how all together they can make the whole thing get up and go.

Griffin Goldsmith:

Drum Suite – Art Blakey
I have been thoroughly enjoying an album by Art Blakey called Drum Suite. You don’t have to be an avid jazz listener to enjoy this album. It is full of sick drumming and memorable melodies. His heartfelt intuitive groove is heavy in every track. His technique is lopsided which in my opinion is responsible for his unique charisma. It’s a good album to put on if you’re trying to groove, which is always a top priority.

Alex Casnoff:

Graceland – Paul Simon
Paul Simon’s album Graceland is cemented to my memory of childhood. I am an Alexander by birth; and while my name since has been shortened to its current state of Alex by my friends and most of my family, it is not uncommon for my Mother and Father to call me Al. I remember being slung over my Dad’s shoulder in the living room of our New York apartment and my Mom and him shouting the chorus to “You Can Call Me Al” at the top of their lungs. This usually continued until someone above or below us had had enough and stomped on the floor or hit the ceiling to let us know. I didn’t really understand the meaning of the song when I was Four, but I could feel its energy. Not a lot makes me feel as happy as that song does. Now at Twenty Two, I still don’t really understand what the song means, but I’m not sure that Paul does either, and I am sure that it doesn’t make a difference. In essence the song is nonsensical. He’s asking “Betty” if she’ll be his body guard, telling her she can call him Al, all while the verse is being narrated by some man seemingly concerned with growing old, getting a “beer belly”, losing his role models, and afraid of ending up a “dead cartoon”. While the song still makes me smile, it gives me a sort of sweet melancholy nostalgia now. Whether or not Simon meant it, I relate to the “Man walking down the street” and his fear of growing old, his lost innocence, and his desire for a protector. The album is no doubt a product of the Eighties. 1986 to be exact. “Dated” might be the word, but I think both the quality of the songs and the addition of all of the South African influences transcend the decade. The Synths and the South African musician’s poly-rhythms and instrumentation add a lightness and sense of whimsy to it. I think the “cheesyness” actually adds to my nostalgia, and that feeling of childishness.

As with any great record my favorite songs have often shifted. “You Can Call Me Al” to “Diamond’s on the Soles of Her Shoes“, Simon’s account of an affair he had with a the Daughter of a Diamond Mine Owner, and the way she pretended to be normal when there was really no escaping the enormity of her wealth. Recently, my favorite song has been the title track, “Graceland“, which was inspired by a visit he made to Elvis’ Memphis Mansion. I think I just recently moved on to this track because it doesn’t really remind me of my childhood. It reminds me of right now. It reminds me of being Twenty Two. It reminds me of wishing I was child again. It reminds me of Women, losing them, having them, wanting them. It makes me think about my entire life. I’ve been travelling a lot recently. It seems to be part of the deal, when you decide to join a band. “Graceland” reminds me of that too; like a day when your driving in the middle of the country which sometimes seems so Alien and you see a lake or something as simple as that and it makes you feel comfortable again. “There is a girl in New York City, who calls herself a human trampoline, and sometimes when I’m falling flying tumbling in turmoil I say ‘whoa’ so this is what she means, she means were bouncing into graceland”. This line always gets me, there’s something I’ve experienced in it. The song itself is like the gospel for an atheist like me. A cry for fulfillment. Whether you’ve never heard this album, threw it aside because of its “Eightiesness”, or just thought “You Can Call Me Al” was a fun but insubstantial jam, I strongly recommend that you pick it up and give it a second chance.

Wylie Gelber:

“Donny Hathaway Live” (1972) – Donny Hathaway
This record is one of the most insane records I’ve ever got my hands on, and definitely THE greatest live record I’ve ever heard. Side 1 recorded in Los Angeles (the Troubadour) and side 2 in Manhattan (the Bitter End). When you throw it on you’re reminded of what it means to be a bad ass. The level of musicianship is other-worldly. Bass player Willie Weeks sits so deep in the cut it’s overwhelming. A perfect performance. “Voices Inside (everything is everything)” is a 13 minute masterpiece. With the freshest bass solo ever put to tape. Fred White holds it down on the drums like the beast he is. Hathaway has never come more correct, the vocals, piano, arrangements and re-arrangements couldn’t be better. Since the first time I heard it, Track 7 is the only “Jealous Guy” I’ll ever listen to. Cornell Dupree, Phil Upchurch, and Mike Howard on guitar. Earl DeRouen on congas. This record is one of the main reasons I need a new car stereo. Listen to it loud or not at all.

Buy: Dawes – North Hills
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MP3: Dawes – “Love Is All I Am”