Memory Lane Music

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:Halo guitar.jpg — Public domain (released by W4D at English Wikipedia; Halo Guitars permission noted on file page) Some songs start as B-sides and stay there. Let It Rain started as a B-side and became one of Clapton’s most beloved live numbers, a song about release that still feels like … Read more

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:Halo guitar.jpg — Public domain (released by W4D at English Wikipedia; Halo Guitars permission noted on file page) Layla gets the headlines, but Bell Bottom Blues is the album’s other great love song, and in some ways its more heartbreaking one. The story behind the song Written by Clapton about … Read more

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:Halo guitar.jpg — Public domain (released by W4D at English Wikipedia; Halo Guitars permission noted on file page) J.J. Cale wrote a song about the hours after midnight, and Eric Clapton turned it into a passport back to the American charts. The story behind the song After Midnight was originally … Read more

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:Ibanez JTK1 Jet King 1 & Mesa Bookie Lonestar 2×12 Combo — CC0 1.0 Universal It starts with a cough, and that cough tells you everything you need to know about the song that follows. The story behind the song Sweet Leaf opens Master of Reality with a recorded cough, … Read more

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:Ibanez JTK1 Jet King 1 & Mesa Bookie Lonestar 2×12 Combo — CC0 1.0 Universal The title is a joke, the bass introduction is a masterpiece, and the song itself is one of the most misread in Sabbath’s catalogue. The story behind the song N.I.B. opens with a bass solo … Read more

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:Ibanez JTK1 Jet King 1 & Mesa Bookie Lonestar 2×12 Combo — CC0 1.0 Universal By 1973 Sabbath was exhausted, famous, and creatively stuck, and then a riff arrived that sounded like a new beginning. The story behind the song Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the title track of the band’s fifth … Read more

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:Ibanez JTK1 Jet King 1 & Mesa Bookie Lonestar 2×12 Combo — CC0 1.0 Universal For a band accused of celebrating darkness, Children of the Grave is a surprisingly hopeful song, a call to young people to build a better world than the one they inherited. The story behind the … Read more

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:Ibanez JTK1 Jet King 1 & Mesa Bookie Lonestar 2×12 Combo — CC0 1.0 Universal It begins with rain, a bell, and a riff that sounds like a door opening onto something you should not have entered. It is still frightening. The story behind the song The title track of … Read more

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:1985 Ibanez Electric Guitar Destroyer Model DT380 BarbedWire.JPG — Public domain (copyright holder release) Machine Head ends not with a hit but with a blast-off, a song that takes the album’s hard rock into orbit and refuses to come back down. The story behind the song Space Truckin’ is the … Read more

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons — File:1985 Ibanez Electric Guitar Destroyer Model DT380 BarbedWire.JPG — Public domain (copyright holder release) A reunion album needs a single that says: we are back, we are still dangerous, and we still know how to write a riff. This one did all three, with a wink. The story behind the … Read more