AL GREEN / “Funny How Time Slips Away”

I was working in Houston in fact, living over in Pasadena—driving all the way from Hempstead Highway back over to Pasadena every night. I wrote songs on the way, back and forth. In one week over there, I wrote “Crazy,” “Funny How Time Slips Away” and “Night Life.” So, when I went to Nashville, I had those ready to go. It was a good week. —Willie Nelson http://www.digitalinterviews.com/digitalinterviews/views/nelsonw.shtml
Ani DiFranco’s “I Know This Bar” is an homage to Ani’s favorite watering hole: a dimly-lit, perennially half-empty dive in a rundown, working-class area of Buffalo, New York. It’s the sort of place, Ani tells us, where “Christmas lights blink around a clouded mirror.” In July. At the beginning of the second verse, Ani sings: “I know this song with this one really killer line / I can’t remember it exactly but it slays me every time.” The only thing Ani does remember about the song is that it’s #5403 on the jukebox at the bar. Now, I’m not from Buffalo and I never did hang out in bars, but earlier this morning, iTunes on random, Al Green’s version of “Funny How Time Slips Away” came on back-to-back with “I Know This Bar”; I had to smile because the moment Al sang this one line I like, I knew exactly what Ani meant.  al green 06.jpg I doubt that most Al Green fan’s know (or care), but many of Al’s best-known hits—e.g., “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” (the Bee Gees), “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” (Hank Williams), “For The Good Times” (Kris Kristofferson) and the current selection “Funny How Time Slips Away” (Willie Nelson)—are remakes of tunes originally made famous by and written by country or pop musicians. It’s hard to blame people for not knowing: you can listen to Al’s versions back-to-back with the originals and not realize you’re hearing the same song. As one website put it: “It's always been Green’s ability to completely transmogrify a song from any source and create a soulful new paradigm in the process.” al green04.jpg   One of the reasons Al is able to accomplish these transformations is the way he slows down the tempo. He typically chooses mid-tempo tunes with lyrics speaking (often in an understated manner) of love and loss; when he remakes the songs, Al sings so slowly and intensely that each lyric is emphasized, probably beyond the intentions of the original lyricist. Willie Mitchell and the Hi band match Al in both intensity and pace: they play chords and rhythms at so deliberate a pace that the music seems almost motionless. Many of the tunes Al chose to remake were originally recorded at the standard three-minute length. Because of Al’s slowed-down pace and pulpit-like repetition, the remakes extend to five and six minutes long without sacrificing any of the intensity or expressiveness of the originals. So, despite all the accolades Al has received, and he’s received plenty, I still consider him underrated because he’s not recognized often enough as the consummate interpreter that he is. And as for that killer line, it’s what Al says after he finds out that his ex told some new guy that she was going to "love him until the end of time." "But that’s the same thing that you told me," Al says. "Seems like just the other day. Ain’t it funny how time just slips away?” It gets me every time. —Mtume ya Salaam Quote from Lycos.com’s review of Al Green’s Cover Me Green. Click here to purchase Call Me              Ain’t it funny how times change          I’m laughing because when I first heard this song it was Joe Hinton’s strong-as-steel high notes at the end of his version that were our teenage reference for what it meant to hoop and holler. Joe was a gospel-turned-R&B singer, a former lead singer in the Spirit of Memphis gospel quartet before crossing over in the mid-Sixties. Born in 1929, he died of cancer in 1968. His 1964 rendition of the Country & Western classic was definitive as far as we were concerned, and you, Mtume, had never heard or heard of that version. But the ironies don’t end there. You know and love the late-1972 Call Me version, but Al Green won a Grammy for his 1994 duet with Lyle Lovett on the multi-platinum-selling concept-album Rhythm, Country & Blues, which paired country singers with soul singers. The Green/Lovett duet version is about as smooth as a South Louisiana Cadillac (i.e. a pick-up truck) barreling down a copiously pot-holed, never-been-repaired-since-the-day-it-was-dug, back-country dirt road (after a hard rain). With it’s hip-hop drum and bass opening, I half expected Ice T or somebody from that era to come out rapping. But the rocky start notwithstanding, after a bit, the band locks into a groove and they hang on and ride that bad boy on off into the sunset. Al is in an aggressive mood to match the funky groove and while it won’t go down as one of Reverend Green’s most memorable performances, by the end you can’t help but rock with it. al green05.jpg Of course, I kind of agree with you, Mtume, the version from Call Me is better...maybe. The duet version is not about loss or nostalgia but joyous celebration (or more precisely re-celebration) of some particularly joy-filled, long-gone but never to be forgotten moment of bliss, and as such, the duet is a happy drunk, the kind of drunk that’s not on that Buffalo jukebox. But see, that Call Me version, that’s #4067 and it gets played a lot by that cat at the end of the bar talking to the foam frothing atop his sixteenth glass of beer. And Joe Hinton, he’s neither celebrating nor sad. He’s gloating. Showing up just to show her he’s over it, done moved on and is doing just great, which is why he showboats on the end of the song. It’s just so damn funny how this one song so ably serves so many different muses and masters. If I look hard enough in the box of CDs I don’t bother to file away (I don’t have room in the cabinets for them but they are still just barely valuable enough to round out my collection and thereby avoid being chucked in the trash), I’m sure I might even find a version by the composer—that long-haired hombre from the ‘high’ country. Why y’all laughing? Yes, I do own me a couple of Willie Nelson CDs. See what you got me owning up to, Mtume? Not to mention I have a long, long, autobiographical poem that’s called “Ain’t It Funny,” which, when I recite it, I use the Joe Hinton version as background & ending—but that’s another story, for another time. —Kalamu ya Salaam For those who are interested, click here to hear Joe Hinton’s lead vocals in a gospel setting. http://www.group-harmony.com/lost_sin.htm   willie nelson.jpg  Click here to read a very informative interview with Willie Nelson, the composer of “Funny How Time Slips Away.” http://www.digitalinterviews.com/digitalinterviews/views/nelsonw.shtml  
 
 
 
          Just wait          I've never heard either of those other versions before, but I like them both. The Joe Hinton version—really, what can I say? When he got to the end of the song, my man hit that first high note, reached way up for that second one and (as I was already thinking 'DAAAAAMN!") he closed it out by going even higher. I mean, the brother was Minnie Riperton-high on that last one. (Well, maybe not, but still....) Yeah, I'd have to say Joe is definitely over ol' girl. He showed up at Ani's bar just to brag about how fine his new girl is. Like you said, Al & Lyle sound like they showed up at the bar for a reunion with some of their old bandmates or something. Weren't even thinking about women. Until, a few beers in, Lyle says: "Remember that girl you used to like, Al?" Al says, "Like? I was crazy about that girl." You know they're both married now—wives, grown kids, the whole nine. But every once in a while, it's still nice to sit with an old friend and wax nostalgic. That's the Al & Lyle version. As for the Call Me version, that was cut not long after she left. Wounds still fresh. Heart still bleeding. The drinking. The crying....  
  Al: "Wait a second. She told him she'd love him until the end of time?  
    Lyle: [Nods in sympathy.] green05.jpg  
    Al: "What the—?! But...but that's the same thing she told me."  
    LyleLovett01.jpg  Lyle: "That was seven months ago, Al. You gotta get over it."  
    Al: "But it seems like just the other day!"  
    Lyle: "I know, Al." [Pays the bartender for the beers.] "Come on, let's get outta here."        Anyway, Baba, it was funny sitting with you listening to the Al & Lyle version. Ten seconds in, I mentioned how strange it was to hear older artists singing over ‘tracks.’ (Meaning, drum machines and synthesizers as opposed to traditional instruments.) I wasn’t digging it. “Just wait,” you told me. As it turns out, the longer the song goes on, the more the musicians (yes, it’s individual instrumentalists—not a track) start catching that feeling. By the end, the organ is pumping, the electric bass is grooving hard, the guitar player is swinging and the song has gone from stale to stellar. By the time the last drum crash fades out, you can hear the musicians and singers talking excitedly to each other and laughing out loud. They knew they killed it. Take a listen and you’ll know too. Just don’t let the slow start fool you. —Mtume ya Salaam  
 
 
 

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 21st, 2005 at 12:03 am and is filed under Cover. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.


One Response to “AL GREEN / “Funny How Time Slips Away””

Daryl Says:
August 26th, 2005 at 11:54 am

Check out Dorothy (Misty Blue) Moore`s version,real soulful , enough to move a grown man to tears.


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