I don't know why "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" keeps coming up. You may remember my long rant back in 2008 about Eric Clapton's autobiography, a book which, to my amazement, scants the one thing I wanted to read about most: the music. His lame passage on "WMGGW," George Harrison's Beatles classic on which Clapton played lead guitar, was the focus of my ire, and that rant was probably the last time I said much about music writing. So here comes the song - and the topic - again. Odd.
Anyway...I must have stopped in at Boston rocker Bill Janovitz's "Cover A Week" project at some point since he started it in late 2008. I'd write more about it, but you should really check it out for yourself, and anyway it's Janovitz the writer I'm here to praise. One of my Facebook or Twitter pals reminded me of the covers project again recently, so I stopped by again to scarf down Janovitz's versions of a few '70s faves. "Rocket Man" and "The Losing End" for starters.
Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity" was also on offer, as the November 27, 2009, selection, so I clicked to take that too, and WTF ... Janovitz's post about the song starts with a YouTube video of a 2004 memorial Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame performance of "WMGGW," featuring Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood and Dhani Harrison and...wait, is that Prince?
I started reading Janovitz's 1,900-WORD DECONSTRUCTION OF THIS SIX MINUTE VIDEO and couldn't stop. (Yes, I pasted the text into Word and did a count.) For those of us who still care about such things, it's a closely observed and loving and caustic examination of the all-star ensemble's perfectly serviceable version of the late Beatle's song, which morphs into something else entirely when Prince steps forward and unleashes a brilliant shitstorm of a guitar solo that goes on and on and clearly delights Dhani while Petty et al remain stonefaced.
I could embed the video here, but screw that. I want you to go read the piece.
I knew Janovitz is a good writer - I asked for his "33 1/3" series book about "Exile on Main Street" a few Christmases ago. There is in fact a ton o' good writing involved in the covers project. And maybe I'm just sick to death of my own prose by this point in the week. But this piece seems to say more about Prince, and about the rock hall, and about what makes good music, that anything else I've read lately. And it does so mainly by listening and looking. I really, really hope someone will have the good sense to nominate this for the Best Music Writing 2009 collection. In fact I just may go see how to do that, as soon as I finish downloading "Isn't It A Pity."
Update: Here's where you can nominate. I'm doing it now. But I may be too late.
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