Arlo

This week Jim challenges us to “find songs by an artist or a group that was featured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.”

Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.

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Arlo Guthrie’s name was on the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine, but his face never was. But Woodstock was featured on the cover of issue 42 of the Rolling Stone magazine on 09/20/69 and Arlo Guthrie performed at Woodstock. So here we are.

Arlo Davy Guthrie is the son of folk singer Woody Guthrie and in true folk singer fashion, in addition to his original songs, he’s covered a myriad of other artist’s music, from his father to friend Pete Seeger, Steve Goodman, The Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. Most people probably know him best for 1967’s masterpiece, “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”.

“Arlo, folk songs are serious.” – Pete Seeger

The first time I saw Arlo in concert was 1969 at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and the last time was in 2004 at the Rochester Civic Theater. While every Arlo show is memorable for one reason or another, my best Arlo memory is from a show at the University of Minnesota’s Northrup Auditorium. I was walking around campus, and I approached the auditorium from the back and I saw Arlo sitting on the steps outside. I walked up and said hi and he smiled and held up an unlit cigarette and asked me if I had a light.

Sadly, back in 2020 Arlo announced his retirement from the road. He had suffered a mini stroke in 2016 and then two more in 2019. On October 23, 2020 Arlo announced his retirement on his website in a post titled “Gone Fishing”. He ended the post with, “A folksinger’s shelf life may be a lot longer than a dancer or an athlete, but at some point, unless you’re incredibly fortunate or just plain whacko (either one or both) it’s time to hang up the “Gone Fishing” sign. Going from town to town and doing stage shows, remaining on the road is no longer an option.”

Fortunately for all of us, Arlo announced this past Halloween that he’d be returning to the stage in April 2023 in a production titled “Arlo Guthrie – What’s Left Of Me – A Conversation with Bob Santelli “.

Love you, Arlo!

“No matter how strange you are, there’s something unique in you. Something that not only makes you happy, but makes the rest of us feel happy that we don’t have to be you and do what you are doing!” – Arlo Guthrie

The Arlo song I chose is titled Ocean Crossing from Arlo’s album Amigo. The song is open to interpretation. Is he singing to a lover who has died and the ocean is a metaphor for heaven? Or to a lover who left him and moved overseas? Or is he waiting for a lover to return from overseas? Or maybe there’s no interpretation necessary and it’s just nice rhymes framing a beautiful melody and a sensuous Waddy Wachtel guitar solo? If you listen to the song, let me know what you think. I’ll be sitting over there on the ‘Group W’ bench.

Ocean Crossing
Arlo Guthrie

Looked into your eyes this morning
You were far away
You must have known I was looking for you
You knew you couldn’t stay
All these winds blowin’ on me
Blowing in the nighttime lonely
Blew on over the ocean to you
Blew my words away

Put on your heavenly shoes babe
Walk around the clouds
You know that’s where I’m bound to be now
I’m coming with the crowds
All these faces looking at me
Looking through me I don’t mind
I just seen your face a-worrying
I loved you when you cried

Take my hand across the water
You won’t leave no tracks behind
Step all over the moon lit ocean
It’s only in your mind
All these thoughts just rip me open
Who can heal a heart that’s broken
Like the winds that blow unspoken
Blow my love away