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All great songs, and so eclectic. As usual, mac, your taste is impeccable... And the Cocker song is the first one of his I ever heard that didn't have him rasping all the way thru it, showing he could actually sing with a clear tone in his voice..

They Had Voices Then Delta Lady by Joe Cocker Gasoline Alley by Rod Stewart Satellite of Love by Lou Reed The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) by Tom Waits

My all-time fav cult film...

In memoriam of Bud Cort who died February 11, 2026: my favorite vignette and favorite Cat Stevens song from Harold and Maude.

I knew there was something about you that I liked, BD!

Yet another example of my dark taste in music, as I used to sing this song at karaoke shows, and surprisingly, most audiences seemed to like and identify with the song.. Go figure...

For me, That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be has always had a horror movie vibe. When it was getting played on the radio, I watched a television broadcast of The Couch, a 1962 "psychological horror film" (screenplay by Robert Bloch, author of Psycho). The mélange of Carly Simon's (to me) eerie, mournful music and her haunted rendition of collaborator Jacob Brackman's bleak lyrics struck the right creepy note to accompany the late-night "fright flick." Particularly resonant with me is the song's ambivalent tone about marriage and the precariousness and soul-killing confinement of connubial commitment. "Till Death do us part"* can sound like a promise . . . or a threat. * Cue Milton Berle's gag: The bride and groom vow "Till Death do us part" and then eventually start thinking of ways to rapidly speed up the process.

Believe it or not, I used to sing that song at karaoke, and got lots of stares and head-scratching... Never heard this version before, thanks for sharing it mac. I actually like it better than his early 70s version, when he was still doing his Ziggy character, singing it in costume with his acoustic guitar and Garson on piano. In this later version, he is able to concentrate even more on his vocal and add more dramatic, theatrical stuff to it, same with Garson. And being much older than in '73, probably adds even more perspective and poignance to the song for Bowie..

Garson also played in Bowie's band, The Spiders From Mars. My fav memory of Garson's playing is his piano background to Bowie's singing and acoustic guitar playing, on his cover of Jacque Brel's song, My Death.... BTW, my brother used to have that Ronson album on vinyl..

Maybe more the latter than the former, but in the end, does it really matter? The bottom line is, I am part of a very small cultural minority in my state, even tho I'm a straight, white cis male. So in the end, I feel just as outnumbered and alienated, as I would if I were black or queer. BTW, Iowa is 97% white, racially, to give you an idea of how much of a minority I am, culturally rather than racially.. and that's without even getting into politics, where I am a socialist in a solid red state... In case you're wondering why I've stayed here my whole life, it's because it's where all my friends are and have been my whole adult life, and I'm not interested in moving somewhere else where I don't know a soul. It's not easy to make a whole new set of friends, even after you're retired, in a new state... and the cost of living is low.. I'm a music and cultural snob, and proud of it!

BD, Are you really an outcast in Iowa? Or are you a . . .

BD, All I know about Art Garfunkel's association with Jimmy Webb is -- coincidentally -- his recording of Webb's song, All I Know, which appears on Garfunkel's first solo album Angel Clare. I had that album and also Garfunkel's second solo effort Breakaway. The cover on that album was a photo of Garfunkel sandwiched between actresses Helena Kallianiotes and Laurie Bird. Kallianiotes was also a belly dancer; she is immortalized in the famous diner scene in Five Easy Pieces. Bird was romantically involved with Garfunkel. In 1979 she committed suicide in his apartment. My favorite track on Angel Clare is Traveling Boy, penned by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols who also composed my favorite Three Dog Night song, Out in the Country. I don't know what Garfunkel's voice sounds like these days. I'll take your word for it that it has deteriorated. As did Marianne Faithfull's. One recording artist who probably doesn't suffer that problem is Tom Waits.

Thanks for posting this addendum..

I followed up One to One: John & Yoko by watching The Lost Weekend: A Love Story. For the benefit of the clueless: John and Yoko separated during 1973. Enter May Pang, who was their employee . . . and more. In this 2022 documentary, Pang vaingloriously "spills the tea" about how she became Lennon's side chick -- at the behest and command of Ono -- and enjoyed a whirlwind 18-month romance with John in El Lay. Poor Yoko Ono. Forever damned as the woman who "broke up The Beatles" . . . . . . her tarnished image is further sullied in TLWALS by the much younger Pang, who crafts Ono into a cool, calculating, inscrutable manipulator-cum-distaff pimp. The whole truth behind the odd, quasi-ménage à trois relationship of Lennon, Ono, and Pang is perhaps not to be found in TLWAS -- which is Pang's truth. Lennon is dead (45 years today) and Ono, it seems, remains mum about the documentary. But if it is anybody else's business -- and it isn't! -- nosy busybodies and insatiable Beatles fans will clamor, in the words of John Lennon: "All I want is the truth! Just gimme some truth!"

Sounds like one I would really enjoy watching, thanks for telling us about it. Some of the parts of it you mentioned, such as the news clips and videos, reminds me of the doc film Summer Of Love, about the Black Woodstock in Harlem during the same time period of this. What really struck me about that film, were the on the street news interviews with concert attendees, regarding news of the day, and how unfiltered and honest those were allowed to be, compared to our current new coverage of events, where it's all very controlled, corporate filtered, and no ordinary people would ever get allowed to speak freely and uncensored about politics and how they felt our government was doing things. Corporate censorship these days is much stricter than any govt. censorship has ever been in the US.