Music Tuesday: Shame Shame Shame by The Rolling Stones

I haven’t had a “Music Tuesday’ post in quite a while.  If you have followed my blog you might remember that one of my guilty pleasures is my love of the music by The Rolling Stones.  Of course The Rolling Stones are not going to get an imprimatur from any Catholic bishop, and perhaps one could make an argument that some of their themes contributed to the decadence of our contemporary culture.  Nonetheless as artists of rock and popular music, they are among the greatest.

On November 14^th, the Stones will be releasing a remastered and expanded version of their 1976 album, Black and Blue.  Remastering is an enhancement of the audio sound using more modern technology so that the track on the medium sounds closer to the studio recording.  You can read about remastering here.  But this new release is also an expanded version of the original album which will include six tracks that did not make the final album.  The Stones like to say they have a vault full of gems that never made the final cut, and so, as with other new remastered albums, they have provided outtakes from the original recording sessions as additional material.  These outtakes aren’t necessarily finished, and so sometimes they will go into the studio and “finish” the song or even add to it.  But the finished song still should retain the aesthetics of that original session.

The remastered release will have six outtakes as new songs and depending on which version of the album (two disk studio songs, four disk includes live show, and five disk includes a Blu-ray video of the show) will have a recording of a live show from the 1976 tour, “Live at Earl’s Court.”  Of the six new songs, the Stones have released a single, “Shame Shame Shame.”  This is the song I want to share in this Music Tuesday.  First the song, and then I’ll talk about it.

 

It’s too bad this song did not make the original album because this song is fantastic!  Black and Blue was not one of the Stones’ great albums.  It probably would come in low on my ranking of Stones’ albums.  This is just a great cover of a song and would have most certainly improved the album.  The original song was written Sylvia Robinson and originally released by Shirley & Company in 1974.  The lead singer of Shirley & Company was the Shirley Goodman of the 1950s group Shirley and Lee, and who had a big hit in 1956, “Let the Good Times Roll.” Her “Shame Shame Shame” also hit number one on the charts. 

Shirley Goodman’s work is mostly in the Rhythm and Blues and Soul vein, but “Shame Shame Shame” has more of a disco dance feel of the 1970s.  It also uses a Bo Diddley beat that has been widely used in R&B and rock and is perfect for dance music.  Shirley has a naturally high pitched voice and in her original she does it as a duet between her falsetto female voice complimented with the male tenor voice of Jason Alvarez.  The original version uses a saxophone for the solo interlude played by Seldon Powel.  Here is the original “Shame Shame Shame.”

 

It’s a dance song with the first person narrator expressing her need to go out dancing and it’s a shame if her interlocutor, who I take is a male friend, can’t dance or doesn’t want to go.

 

Shame shame shame on you

If you can't dance too

 

Can't stop me now hear what I say

My feet wanna move so get out my way

I'm gonna have my say

I'm going to every discotheque

I'm gonna dance dance dance dance ooh

Till the break of day I say

 

CHORUS

Shame shame shame hey shame on you

If you can't dance too

I say shame shame shame

Shame shame shame

Shame shame on you

If you can't dance too

 

Don't stop the motion

If you get the notion

You can't stop the groove

'Cos you just won't move

Got my sun-roof down

Got my diamonds in the back

So put on your shaky wig baby

If you don't I ain't comin' back

 

REPEAT CHORUS

 

If you don't want to go

Remember one monkey don't stop no show

My body needs action ain't gonna blow

Yes I'm going out I'm going to find a dancin' man

If you really think you're fast

Try to catch me if you can

I say shame shame shame yeah (aah) shame on you

If you can't dance too

 

It's a shame shame shame

Shame shame shame

Shame shame on you

If you can't dance too

If you can't dance

 

This is an incredibly catchy song.  There is something that coordinates so well between the predominant lyric “Shame shame shame/Shame on you” with the Bo Diddley beat.  If you don’t know what is referred to as a Bo Diddley beat, listen to Matt Dwyer who provides blues guitar lessons on YouTube.

 

The catchy lyric has the meter of four stressed accents followed by two unstressed: / / / / u u.  The four stress words (“Shame Shame Shame/Shame”) mirror the first part of the Bo Diddley beat and the two unstressed words (“on you”) mirror the last two beats.   Now that you have seen the Matt Dwyer explanation and my metrical insight, go back to the Shirely version and listen to it again.  I think I’m correct there.

Now go back to the Stones version.  They just don’t copy the music, they enhance it.  First off, the Stones version weaves multiple guitars that overlay over the Bo Diddley beat.  It’s a much more complex sound.  The original song is joyous but the interplay by the guitars in the Stones version make it so much more joyous.  It’s as if the guitars are in a state of ecstasy.

Another difference is that the Stones version eliminates the sax and uses an electric guitar for the solo.  It fits so much better with the interweaving guitars.  It’s as if one of the weaving guitars stepped up and provided the solo and then steps back into the interweaving web of sound. 

Another difference between the two versions is in the vocals.  On the original version, Shirley is mostly the lead matched with a duet of Jason Alvarez, but they do alternate stanzas.  Her high pitched voice is near falsetto and Alvarez is clearly tenor.  The image is clearly of two separate people interacting.  In the Stones version, Mick Jagger is singing in two voices, roughly a falsetto voice for the Shirley parts and in his natural tenor in the Alvarez parts.  While the voices are two separate vocal ranges, they still have the timber of the same natural voice, and it comes across much more naturally as one person.  Jagger has used the falsetto voice in quite a few songs, so this isn’t new for him.  On that very Black and Blue album, arguably the best song on the album is “Fool to Cry,” which alternates between falsetto and tenor.  The Shirley duet is not truly a duet.  The two voices aren’t replying to each other.  They are saying the same message.  The lyrics of the song don’t call for two separate statements.  Jagger’s one voice in two ranges makes it true to the lyrics.

Another difference is in the backup vocals.  When Shirley and Alvarez come together they come to a harmony where the two voices are blended into one.  In the Stones version, the backup vocals are descant (“a voice (cantus) above or removed from others”) from the lead to give it a sense of separation.  Just like there is a weave of guitars there is also a weave of voices.  As one listens deeper into the song there seems to be an ever so slight difference in timing (a 32^nd of a note perhaps?) between the lead singer and the backup vocals.  This gives the feel that the lead voice is running away, emphasizing the opening lines, “Can't stop me now hear what I say/My feet wanna move so get out my way.” 

The Rolling Stones released a clip of the song being overdubbed to the recording.  It features Mick, backup singer Chanel, and Ronnie Wood on electric guitar.

 

Mick is 82 years old, and he still delivers!  Amazing.

I love the Shirley & Company version of the song, but the Stones cover is an aesthetic masterpiece.  On the surface it appears they are just copying the original, but, when you look closer, they have put their stamp on the song and taken it to a higher level.  Too bad it didn’t make the Black and Blue album, but I can see how with the original being out just two years before it would not have given the original artist their due respect.

Finally I should mention that Shirley & Company put out a “Disco” version of the song that doubles the length to just over seven and half minutes.  The length is extended partly by repeating the verses but more importantly by giving Seldon Powell a second tenor sax solo.  That second solo is exquisite.  I can see that Powell was a jazz saxophonist.  I’m not going to embed that longer version, but you can easily find it on YouTube.

Sunday Meditation: The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day)

There is no Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time this year.  When All Souls Day falls on a Sunday, the current rule—it has not always been this way—is to drop the Sunday in Ordinary Time and switch to a feast day.  The readings of Year C that would have been scheduled will have to come up another year.  There are special readings for All Souls Day.

 

Readings for All Souls Day vary.  There are options pastors may choose from.  I was to lector today and I studied what I thought were the readings.  When I got to Mass early to practice, I realized I had studied in vein.  Luckily I managed it. 

For the Gospel reading, we shift over to John’s Gospel, chapter six.

Here is the Gospel passage.

 

Jesus said to the crowds:

“Everything that the Father gives me will come to me,

and I will not reject anyone who comes to me,

because I came down from heaven not to do my own will

but the will of the one who sent me.

And this is the will of the one who sent me,

that I should not lose anything of what he gave me,

but that I should raise it on the last day.

For this is the will of my Father,

that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him

may have eternal life,

and I shall raise him on the last day.”

~Jn 6:37-40

 

 

Fr. Terence Chartier gives the theological homily, and he really explains it all.

 

Praying for the dead is a spiritual work of mercy, so that it benefits the deceased and the one praying!

Here is a new homilist to my blog for the pastoral homily, Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport Connecticut.  He came recommended.  He has a podcast called “Let’s Be Frank.”  His Wikipedia entry say  he grew up in Brooklyn from the neighborhood one over from where I grew up.  He was a pastor at St. Athanasius parish, and that’s about half mile from where I lived growing up.  He’s only two years older than me, so it’s possible we crossed paths as youths.  His accent is pure Brooklyn Italian-American.  This is a wonderful homily he delivered celebrating Mass at a cemetery.

 

 

How appropriate he quotes Frank Sinatra!  So this is not just an exercise in remembrance but a prayer in hope of a future reunion.

 

All Saints Day Meditation: "I will not reject anyone who comes to me.”

 

Instead of a hymn today, I wish to give another homily, but this one is transcendent.  It comes from Fr. Brice Higginbotham.  He is from the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux in south Louisiana.  I have never seen or heard him before but this sermon he delivers while walking through a graveyard is as pious as any hymn.

 

“Because it is a holy and pious thing to pray for the dead.”  That was poetic! 

All Saints Day Meditation: Solemnity of All Saints

Tomorrow is the Solemnity of All Saints, commonly called All Saints Day.  It is normally a holy day of obligation but in my neck of the world, since it falls on a Saturday this year, we are excused from the obligation.  Still we are having a special Mass at my parish for those who wish to attend.  Last year we had Cardinal Dolan come in to celebrate the display of relics our pastor, a great collector of relics, placed in cabinets situated about the Church.  https://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/2024/11/faith-filled-friday-all-saints-day-at.html  There will not be a special celebrant this year, but we will celebrate All Saints through those same relics.  It will be special. 

The Gospel passage for All Saints Day is the same every year, the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel.

 

Here is the Gospel passage.

 

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain,

and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him.

He began to teach them, saying:

 

"Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are they who mourn,

for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek,

for they will inherit the land.

Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they will be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the clean of heart,

for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,

for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you

and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me.

Rejoice and be glad,

for your reward will be great in heaven."

~Mt 5:1-12

 

This is a beautiful explanation of what All Saints Day is and why we celebrate it, put together by the YouTube channel, Catholic Saints and Feasts.

The one homily I will embed will come from Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington DC speaking on the heroic virtues of St. Dominic de Guzmán.

 

To pray, to bless, to preach!

 

All Saints Day Meditation: "The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint."  (French Catholic novelist Leon Bloy)

 

Let us honor one of the new saints recently canonized in the last few months, one that is ideal with today’s Gospel, the “Man of the Beatitudes.”

“Jesus comes to me every morning in Holy Communion, and I return the visit in the poor.”  -St. Pier Giorgio Frassati.

Sunday Meditation: What God Most Values

Once again Jesus in the Gospel of Luke teaches us about prayer.  We had learned about prayer in Chapter 11 where Jesus tells the disciples how to pray the Lord’s Prayer.  In the same chapter He then teaches on persistence in praying by the parable of the man urging his friend for bread in the middle of the night.  Last Sunday we were given the parable of the persistent widow pleading with the unjust judge.  Again Jesus taught on persistence in prayer.  Today, on the Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year C, Jesus, by comparing the prayers of the Pharisee and tax collector, teaches us on what He values most in prayer.

 

Here is the Gospel passage.

 

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.

"Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee and the other was a tax collector.

The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself, 'O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity -- greedy, dishonest, adulterous -- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.'

But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed,

'O God, be merciful to me a sinner.'

I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former; for whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

~Lk 18:9-14

 

Fr. Joseph Mary shines again this week with a homily explaining the passage.

 

“Who do we look down on?  Who do we judge?  Who do we raise ourselves above?  People with hair dyed red and body piercings?  Gamblers and junkies, pregnant teenagers and lapsed Catholics, those who only attend on Easter and Christmas.  On whose broken backs have we climbed to enshrine our own piety?  We are often not too different than the Pharisee.”  -Fr. Joseph Mary at his most convicting.

The pastoral homily from Archbishop Edward Wiesenberger is equally penetrating.

We can also add St. Catherine of Siena’s quote to the Archbishop’s list of humility where God tells Catherine, "I am the one who is and you are the one who is not."  What Jesus values most is humility. 

 

Sunday Meditation: "Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.”

 

Let us be conscious to whom Jesus addressed this parable, lest it be you.

This is a good Sunday for “Amazing Grace.”  Here’s a lovely version by someone named Rosemary Siemens.

 

I have never heard of her, but lovely.

Sunday Meditation: The Unrighteous Judge

The Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year C brings us to another teaching of Jesus.  Today He will teach through another parable the need for persistent prayer.  Three years ago I meditated on the last line https://ashesfromburntroses.blogspot.com/2022/10/sunday-meditation-will-he-find-faith-on.html of Jesus finding faith on earth.  Today I want to focus on the dishonest judge.  Why is Jesus brining up a dishonest judge and why does the judge fear the widow will strike him?  Yes, strike him physically.

 

Here is the Gospel passage.

 

Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.

He said, "There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being.

And a widow in that town used to come to him and say,

'Render a just decision for me against my adversary.'

For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought,

'While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me

I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.'"

The Lord said, "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.

Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them?

I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.

But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

~Lk 18:1-8

 

Let’s let Fr. Terrance Chartier of the Franciscan Immaculate explain the passage through his homily.

So if the dishonest judge relents through nagging persistence and threat of a punch, how will the Righteous Judge of heaven react through simple prayer? 

 

I’ll let one of my favorites, Fr. Joseph Mary of the Franciscan Capuchins give his pastoral homily. 

Goodness, two Franciscans in one day?  I may receive a call from my Dominican hierarchy…lol.  Just kidding.  Fr. Joseph and Fr. Terrance are among my favorite homilists.

 

Sunday Meditation: "Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.”

 

Prayer is putting one’s life in the Lord.  Here is one of my favorite John Michael Talbot hymns, “Father I Put My Life in Your Hands.”

 

“In you, O Lord, I take refuge.”

 

Personal Note: My New Backyard Family

We had unexpected guests this summer that have stayed around.  We have graciously fed them.  They are treating our home as if it’s their own.  They don’t really repay us in our kindness.  They just hang around thinking their cuteness is enough of a gesture to offset our generosity.  You know what, they are right!

The unexpected guests are a mother cat with five kittens.  I have a one-step platform deck in my back yard, and sometime around mid-July a mother cat took possession of underneath the deck and is raising her five kittens there.  I don’t know if she was pregnant and gave birth there or she brought her kittens over after birth.  I suspect she gave birth there but we only saw the kittens when they were small.  Tiger, our house cat, was estimated by the veterinarian to be five weeks old when we took him in.  When we first noticed the kittens, they seemed to be around the same size as Tiger back then, or maybe a shade smaller.

The mother cat is a black cat, and all five kittens are predominantly black.  Mama has a small white patch on her chest, so she is not all black.  Three of the kittens are completely black and we can’t tell them apart.  One kitten has a white patch on his chest like his mother.  Perhaps the white patch on the kitten is a shade bigger and from a distance looks like a star.  I call him Star.  The fifth kitten, the biggest one and perhaps the most skittish, is a tuxedo pattern.  He or she, I can’t tell the difference with cats, has a black overcoat with a white chest and belly.  He has white paws as well.  I call him Tux.  (Gender pronouns are a generic male because I can’t tell the difference.)

Rochelle started feeding them almost immediately. 

Let me share some pictures.  These are some of the early pictures when the kittens were really small.

Look at how tiny they are.  We have a couple of stairs from the deck to the backdoor and they love to scramble under there when we come out. 

 

I think that’s the mother all the way in the back, and that looks like Star up front.  I think I see the little white patch on his chest.

Here is a full view of Mama.

 

She hisses every time we take a step toward her or the kittens.  Here’s a little video clip of two of the kits munching away while Rochelle sits in the chair a couple of feet beside.

 

Matthew took that video.  Matthew and I want to take one of the kittens into the house for keeps but Rochelle won’t let us.  We have two pets already and she doesn’t want to take care of another.  Even though she has been feeding them twice a day regularly now for almost three months.  Plus I worry about how Tiger will react to another cat, especially a kitten.  Cats I understand don’t always like other cats.

Here’s a little one on the lounge chair.

 

One day from the deck above overlooking the deck below I saw the Mama nursing two of the cats in that lounge chair.  I did not get a picture unfortunately. 

Here’s a video clip of me intruding on them in the yard and the three or four of the kits scrambling to hide.

 

They are so cute.  You can see how much they’ve grown in that video, which must be around early September.  One of them is Star.  Here is a good photo of Star.

 

Here’s another video of two rough housing.

 

I think that’s Star and Tux.

We take a lot of pictures of them.  Here are a bunch.  Hope you don't get bored but I'm a proud daddy.

 

 

You can kind of get a view of my garden in some of these pictures and clips.  Most of my gardening is done in pots.  It’s been a magnificent year overall for my garden but especially for tomatoes and eggplant.

One of the all black cats has become the friendliest.  He might even be the smallest.  He comes close to me as I work in the garden.  I call him Shadow because he’s all black and because he sticks by me like my shadow.  Here are a couple of pictures of Shadow.

 

Here is Shadow playing with a toy with Rochelle.

 

 

Finally, they are getting big.  Here they are like a pack of lions feasting.

 

I must admit, they eat rather kindly with each other.  The mother has done a nice job of raising them with manners.  Finally all six in one shot.

 

Bless them.  I think they have blessed us.  I hope they stay in my backyard for a while.