Information provided courtesy of the Bob Dylan Fan Club's annotated Theme Time project at http://www.thebobdylanfanclub.com/themetime/ where you'll find even more info/links than included here Spring Cleaning It’s night time in the big city You can smell rain in the air I really gotta get those boxes out of the basement The Singers and The Songs (Fran Landesman and Tommy Wolf – Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most) Betty Carter – Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most “Crazy man, crazy!” Fats Domino – Be My Guest “A lot of music historians point to this song and say it’s one of the big influences on ska… I listen to it and I can hear that, but even more important it’s just a great record.” Memphis Minnie – You Need A Friend “That was the smooth tongued Memphis Minnie, sleek and slick, rippleless, slyly loquacious and harsh and rugged as they come.” Roy Orbison – Crying “Here’s a classic, a nail bitin’ mini-drama, sung by…one of the sweetest, strongest voices in popular music.” Cookie & The Cupcakes – I Cried Garnett Mimms & the Enchanters l – Cry Baby “You can hear it in his voice, he started off as a gospel singer.” Ruth Brown – Teardrops From My Eyes “Frankie Laine gave our next artist her nickname, Miss Rhythm” Joe South – Rose Garden (Igor Stravinsky – Rite of Spring) “The premier was scandalous. Never mind that the ballet was a bizarre story of pagan sacrifice, Stravinsky’s musical innovations tested the patience of the audience to the fullest. Stravinsky had a bassoon player play higher in range than anyone had ever done; it was unrecognizable as a bassoon. People walked out. When the curtain came up and the dancing began, a musical theme without a melody began. It was a loud pulsating and dissonant chord, with jarring irregular accents. The audience responded to the ballet with hisses and catcalls. Nowadays the Rite of Spring is recognized as a groundbreaking work. Igor Stravinsky: madman with a fountain pen.” Elvis Costello – Angels Want to Wear My Red Shoes “Let’s open up this closet and get rid of some of these shoes. We got a bunch of them left over from a few weeks ago, when we did our shoes show. I think this first pair is a size nine.” Vernon Oxford – Little Sister, Throw Your Red Shoes Away “…singin’ about the red shoes that tell everyone your business!” Elmore James– Dust My Broom “Speaking of brooms, here we have Elmore James with a song that’ll drive you round the bend.” Roy Milton – Fools Are Getting Scarcer The Main Ingredient – Everybody Plays the Fool Fats Waller – Spring Cleaning (Getting Ready For Love) Bobby Bare – Detroit City Buck Owens – Waitin’ In Your Welfare Line Dinah Washington – Richest Guy In The Graveyard Porter Wagoner – Skid Row Joe “Next up, a very sad song. A recitation a sermon. A speechifyin’ testification…telling a tale of a sad man, down on his luck in the dirty part of town.” (Eric Dolphy – Spring Is Here) Howlin’ Wolf – I Ain’t Superstitious George Jones – Take The Devil Out of Me “Nothing less than a reinterpretation of one of the great myths.” The Producers – Springtime for Hitler The Mississippi Sheiks – Sales Tax Faron Young – Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young Tex Williams – Brother Drop Dead “Some people die too soon, others you’re kind of hopin.’ Tex Williams has a song for just such a situation.” Buster Brown – Fannie Mae Rockpile – Heart Hank Williams – Crazy Heart “A song of sadness born of desperation” Jackie DeShannon – Put A Little Love in Your Heart The Spaniels – House Cleaning Tom Waits – You Can Never Hold Back Spring Poets and Poems T.S. Eliot The Wasteland Sylvia Plath Alfred Austin Edna St. Vincent Millay – Spring Dorothy Parker Locksley Hall Alfred Lord Tennyson “A poet with a spring in his step” Jack Kerouac On The Road Stephen Crane “Crimson Poet” The Red Badge of Courage Movies, TV and other Entertainment Ajax laundry detergent commercial Moulin Rouge Club Fibber McGee and Molly (clip) (characters) Mayor LaTrivia Doc Gamble Abigail Uppington Horatio K. Boomer Wallace Wimple Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve Wizard of Oz MGM Studios Smithsonian Museum Johnson’s Wax commercial The Producers Monty Python The House In The Middle Singers, Players, and Others Phil Phillips Jerry Ragavoy Janis Joplin Irma Thomas Rolling Stones The Evening Stars The Harmonizing Four The Norfolk Four Joe Simon Frankie Laine Rudy Toombs Charles Dickens Billie Joe Royal Deep Purple Elvis Presley Simon and Garfunkel Gilbert Adrian Cuba Gooding, Sr. Cuba Gooding, Jr. Amos Milburn Martha Raye The Farmer Boys Luke the Drifter Red Sovine Rodgers and Hart Willie Dixon Henry Gray Hubert Sumlin Sam Lay Jimmie Rodgers Mel Brooks Denzel Best Thelonius Monk Red Norvo George Shearing William Gottlieb Deek Dickerson St. Francis of Assisi Eric Idle The Pretenders Audrey May Shepherd Lucretia and Bocephus Williams Billie Jean Jones Eddie Cochran Randy Myers Places Lake Charles, LA New York City Philadelphia Nashville Songwriters’ Hall Of Fame England Hazel, KY Other Songs and Albums Matilda Piece Of My Heart Bye, Bye Baby Get It While You Can Try Just a Little Bit Harder Sea of Love Time Is On My Side “…which the Rolling Stones took from Irma Thomas” Games People Play Down In The Boondocks Hush Walk a Mile In My Shoes The Sound of Silence Bad, Bad Whiskey I’ve Got To Get Peter Off Your Mind Field of Flowers Thinkin’ and Drinkin’ Let Me Go Home, Whiskey One Bourbon, One scotch, One beer Good, Good Whiskey Confessions of A Broken Man Big Joe Phantom 309 Move D.D.s Dance Bemsha Swing Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! (That Cigarette) Needles and Pins When You Walk in the Room Orphans Record Labels Atlantic Records Duotone Records Aladdin Records