Planted and Enchanted: Vol. 10 - November '20

Planted and Enchanted
Written By Evan Hammonds
 
“I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school
Or steal my daddy’s cue and make a living out of playin’ pool
Or find myself a rock and roll band that needs a helpin’ hand
Oh, Maggie, I wished I’d never seen your face”
— Maggie May, Rod Stewart
 

You can enjoy the Planted and Enchanted: Vol. 10 playlist in its entirety on Spotify. Just click on the included Spotify plugin.

Playlist Highlight: Maggie May, Rod Stewart

Sometimes I wonder about “coolness” and where it goes. Sure, most folks probably haven’t thought about it since they attempted to navigate the treacherous social waters of their high school lunchroom, but I suppose what I’m referring to is broader than that. I find “what’s in” or “what’s important” from a cultural perspective fascinating. That’s the essence of Pop Culture, I suppose.

A few months ago, Rolling Stone Magazine released a heavily revised “Top 500 Records of All Time” list. It had been eight years since the last update, and as I’ve mentioned before, was the specific guide that informed my record collection goals and as a byproduct, shaped my taste in music.

I toted that tattered magazine around with me and each time I added a new entry to my collection, I made a checkmark with a sharpie on the corresponding record’s page. Later, I transposed each of those entries into an Excel spreadsheet so that I could better track my collection statistics. If there’s one thing I love more than music, it’s data.

This new list introduced 154 new records to the tally, or conversely, booted 154 old ones. As Hip-hop and R&B went mainstream, their representation naturally grew. According to RS, the amount of Rap records grew by three times.

The biggest casualty of this new wave (don’t you love a genre joke?) was Rock, and it didn’t take a magazine feature to notice that this musical style was fading from the zeitgeist. Ask anyone you know who the biggest modern artists are, and after a few seconds of consideration, you’re likely to hear the likes of Beyonce, Drake, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott, Harry Styles, Blake Shelton, or Billie Eilish. Ask those same people to name the biggest Rock group in the world right now, and I’ll bet they will look at like you’ve asked them for the square root of 47,894 .

Rod Stewart did not escape Rolling Stone’s purge. His 1971 masterpiece “Every Picture Tells a Story” was pushed down the charts five slots before resting at number 177. It’s a real shame because it hosted one of the best songs of the decade and this month’s playlist spotlight: “Maggie May.”

Give it a listen, and the first thing you’ll notice is the distinctive instrumental guitar opening. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s what I imagine would be played just prior to a medieval joust. From there we take a left turn and hear the song’s signature: a delectable mandolin strummed in line with Stewart’s notoriously raspy vocals.

Up until this song’s release, the mandolin was really only heard on Folk records. So what you’re hearing (and from what I’ve deduced from my research) is the first major Rock track to feature the instrument.

(Quick sidebar, here are my favorite songs that feature the mandolin, in no particular order:

The early 1970’s are often considered the “Singer-Songwriter” era, and lyrically, I think this song stands just as tall as anything from the period. As a story, it’s a song about a young man who is having a love affair (perhaps his first) with an older woman.

Throughout the song, you get a smattering of evidence suggesting this wasn’t the most pleasant experience for our narrator:

“I know I keep you amused, but I feel I'm being used”

and

“You stole my soul, and that's a pain I can do without”

and

“All you did was wreck my bed, and in the morning, kick me in the head”

and

“Maggie, I wished I'd never seen your face”

At the same time, you get the following lines, all but suggesting the relationship was better characterized as capricious than woeful:

“But that don't worry me none, in my eyes, you're everything”

and

“You stole my heart, I couldn't leave you if I tried”

and

“You stole my heart, but I love you anyway”

You can’t help but get the feeling that this person was left with some serious emotional scar tissue, but if given the chance, wouldn’t go back and change a thing.

As the song enters its coda, it’s already established its excellence, but what makes it a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer is its mandolin solo outro. Seriously, give it a listen. I think we’ve all (involuntary or not) played some air-guitar at some point in our life. This is the only song I can think of that mandates an air-mandolin.

On a personal note, this song evokes a particular memory I have from when I was a boy. My family was driving up I-75 to attend a family Christmas party in north Georgia. It was dark and cold and late and I was bundled in one of those oversized “you’ll grow into it” jackets when this song came on. I remember my Dad turning it up and making a point to emphasize his (and now my) favorite lines:

I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school

Or steal my daddy's cue and make a living out of playin' pool

He theorized that the word “cue” could be a double entendre, that this particular word could be explicitly referring to a “pool cue” or might mean to “take a cue” in a broader sense. It was a little bit of wordplay hidden in the middle of a song. Details like that matter.

So maybe Rock isn’t really that cool anymore. It certainly isn’t as popular, and it stands to reason that Rolling Stone’s next “Best Of” iteration will have fewer Rock records still. Then again, maybe I’m not cool either, but this song won’t be forgotten by me, if only because mandolin solos and little moments with my Dad will never go out of style.

What is Planted and Enchanted?

If you’re anything like me, you surely have a “junk drawer” somewhere in your home. It probably consists of an old flashlight with dead batteries in it, a handful of rubber bands alongside some pens running low on ink, enough loose keys for you to qualify as a middle school janitor, some birthday cards given to you years ago (how quickly can I throw these away without it being rude? Better wait another decade just to be safe.), the box to your old iPhone simply because it’s a pretty darn cool box, and a small library of service manuals for among other things: your refrigerator, hot water heater, and that Instant Pot you used just the one time.

I don’t consider my junk drawer “worthless” mind you, but rather see it a collection of delightful discoveries (Hey! I didn’t know I had a yo-yo!), and delightful rediscoveries (So that’s where my playing cards were!).

That’s my aim for this playlist series: Planted and Enchanted. A monthly track list consisting of songs that likely won’t fit perfectly together in a classic album sense, but are useful in planting the seeds of discovery of new genres, artists, and songs as well as the unearthing of music you loved but had long since forgotten about. Who knows, there may even be a hidden theme or two that the savvy listener can piece together. The best part about this playlist? If you don’t like it, that’s okay. We’re talking about junk after all.

If you have a specific song that you’ve recently discovered or come to love, we’d love to hear from you. Just email us at freshcutfinds@gmail.com. We’re planning to roll out more content and a new playlist series in the coming months. Stay tuned!

Each month, we put together a playlist of our favorite discoveries new & old. Each playlist will be about the length of a mix CD (80 mins) and will be sent around the 15th of each month. Subscribe with your email address to receive the monthly Planted and Enchanted playlist, plus other occasional speciaty playlists.

Evan Hammonds
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Planted and Enchanted: Vol. 11 - December '20
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Planted and Enchanted: Vol. 9 - October '20