Music Head Wrote:#414 - Carpenters - We've Only Just Begun - 1970

running recap for me - 3's=44, 2's=33, 1's=10
this one - ***
from the album: Close To You
Written by Paul Williams, Roger Nichols
Produced by Jack Daugherty
Chart action: #2 US #28 UK, #6 Australia, #1 Canada

the players:
Karen Carpenter - vocal
Richard Carpenter - backing vocal

Writer Paul Williams began as a writer for commercials, which is how Richard Carpenter heard this
song, in a commercial for a California bank with Paul singing. Richard gave Paul a call about
recording it for the Carpenters second album. The song became the follow up to their #1 hit
Close To You from the album of the same name. Tough call on which of those songs I prefer so
I'm looking for Close To You to show up later.

[video=youtube;__VQX2Xn7tI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__VQX2Xn7tI[/video]

Lyrics

We've only just begun to live,
White lace and promises
A kiss for luck and we're on our way.
We've just begun.

Before the rising sun we fly,
So many roads to choose
We start out walking and learn to run.
And yes, We've just begun.

Sharing horizons that are new to us,
Watching the signs along the way,
Talking it over just the two of us,
Working together day to day
Together.

And when the evening comes we smile,
So much of life ahead
We'll find a place where there's room to grow,
And yes, We've just begun

Music Head Wrote:#413 - Bob Dylan - Visions Of Johanna - 1966

running recap for me - 3's=45, 2's=33, 1's=10
this one - ***
from the album: Blonde On Blonde
Written by Bob Dylan
Produced by Bob Johnston
Chart action: non-single

the players:
Bob Dylan - vocal
Al Kooper - organ
Robbie Robertson - guitar
Joe South - bass
Charlie McCoy - guitar
Wayne Moss - guitar
Kenneth Buttrey - drums


The man in his prime from possibly his greatest album. Was afraid there would be no clip for
this but I was saved. Below is what lyrics should look like. Original title was Freeze Out.
Written while living in the Chelsea Hotel with pregnant wife Sara. At an early performance Joan
Baez thought the song was written for her. Funny reading all the interpretations of this song
out there. I would think after all this time the truth would be out there somewhere but I don't
know what it is. It's just a great song for me.

[video=youtube;louyKYQUR6k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=louyKYQUR6k[/video]

Lyrics

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet ?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handfull of rain, tempting you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing really nothing to turn of
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind.

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the D-train
We can hear the night watcman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise she's all right she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place.

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
Oh, how can I explain ?
It's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna they kept me up past the dawn.

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel.

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Saying, "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man "

As she, herself prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain.