Cover Lay Down

Yes, it’s Veterans Day, a “bank holiday”, as the brits like to say; like so many other bloggers, I should be posting songs on the topic. But a recent bout of the dreaded H1N1 flu has left me late for end-of-term grading, perhaps one of the biggest sins a teacher can commit. As such, instead of taking advantage of the fine fall day outside, I find myself hunkered down over the dining room table, slowly making my way through a huge pile of previously-unseen papers and midterm exams.

The post below was originally featured in May of 2008, in honor of National Teacher Appreciation Week, though I’ve modified it a bit to reflect a relatively recent move back to a high school environment. Folks interested in taking a moment to recognize the men and women who serve our countries in other, more dangerous ways are encouraged to head back in time for a still-live set of Soldier Songs, just as relevant on Veterans Day as it was on Memorial Day.




In my other life, I’m a teacher in an inner city high school; I spend most of my days surrounded by fourteen year olds, trying to balance entertainment with mentorship, and curriculum with life lessons. I spent three years in a suburban middle school to get there, alternating teacher instructional support with classroom teaching; before that, I taught in a boarding high school, tutored gifted and talented kids in a tiny rural elementary school, ran a before-school program, and did public demonstrations at a science museum.

And before that, I was a dropout. And before that, I was a goofball, who needed a little good advice now and then, but couldn’t really sit still long enough in the classroom to make any teacher want to defend me.

But Mrs. Carter liked me, though I don’t know why. The way she looked at me - like I had something worth watching for - made up for the fact that I was always the understudy when we were picked for the school play, always the alternate for work with the poet in residence. I learned to rise to the occasion, and to focus on doing things well, instead of doing things best; I gained confidence in my abilities. And though after that year, I turned back into the goofball for a good long time, I never forgot Mrs. Carter. And I never forgot that look.

It’s a well-kept secret in educational circles that it isn’t just the good kids, or the smart kids who get voted “most likely to be a teacher”, who come back to school to sit on the other side of the desk (or in my case, to stand atop the desk and gesticulate wildly to make a point). We come from all the cliques, from the woodshop wannabes to the cheerleading squad, from the lit mag proto-hipsters to the band geeks. But I can’t think of any teacher I have ever spoken with who is not honored and thrilled and genuinely surprised when that rare student comes out of the woodwork to say “you mattered, and now I matter.”

A few years back, at a five year reunion, this kid came up to me, and thanked me. He said I was the one who changed his life; that now he was doing what I had taught him to do, and hardly a week went by where he didn’t think about what I had taught him.

And I looked at him, and smiled, and was secretly joyous. But all I could think about was that this kid was the goofball. The one who was always pushing the envelope. The one who messed around in film class, though he always came through with something pretty cool when the work was due. The one who spliced thirty second of a shower scene from a Penthouse video into his remade music video for Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher. And showed it on the day the Academic Dean came to observe me in my first year of teaching.

And then I remembered Mrs. Carter. And I thought about calling her up, and thanking her. But Mrs. Carter isn’t around anymore.


There are surprisingly few songs about the teaching profession which portray it in a positive light (though there are a couple of other memorable songs out there about teachers as sex objects, such as Police classic Don’t Stand So Close To Me and Rufus Wainwright’s The Art Teacher); of these, fewer still have been covered by folk artists. More common are songs about school as a part of adolescent or childhood experience — songs where the teachers are there, unmentioned, just hovering in the background. But as a teacher myself, I know that no classroom feels safe unless the teacher has set a tone that makes it safe. Even without mention, as long as curriculum and classroom exist, a teacher is always there.

Today, then, in celebration of teachers, we bring you a set of quirky covers of teachersongs, and some schoolsongs which touch lightly and broadly on our experience of the classroom, that childhood stew of fear and freedom where our personalities were transformed.

Together, the songs make a perfect soundtrack to a google search for that one special teacher who reached out and changed your life. Write the letter, send the email, make the call: let them know they made a difference today. You don’t even have to say thanks — just letting them know that you remember them, and that you turned out okay, is a rare and precious reward.

• Petty Booka, Teacher’s Pet (orig. Doris Day)
  (from Ukelele Lady; more Petty Booka here)

• Matt Nathanson, Starfish and Coffee (orig. Prince)
  (from For The Kids, Too; more Matt Nathanson here)

• Fionn Regan, Getting Better (orig. Beatles)
  (live on BBC Radio 1; more Fionn Regan here)

• Mark Erelli, Lonestar (orig. Lori McKenna)
  (Mp3 of the Month web release; more Mark Erelli here)

• David Wilcox, The Kid (orig. Buddy Mondlock)
  (from How Did You Find Me Here; more David Wilcox here)
• Cry Cry Cry, The Kid (ibid.)
  (from Cry Cry Cry; more here, here, and here)

• Bree Sharp, We’re Going To Be Friends (orig. White Stripes)
  (website release; more Bree Sharp here)
• Jack Johnson, We’re Going To Be Friends (ibid.)
  (from the Curious George soundtrack; more Jack Johnson here)

• Art Garfunkel w/ Paul Simon and James Taylor, (What A) Wonderful World (orig. Sam Cooke)
  (from Watermark; more Art Garfunkel here)

• Luther Wright and the Wrongs, Another Brick in the Wall (orig. Pink Floyd)
  (from Rebuild the Wall; more Luther Wright here)

• Kate and Anna McGarrigle ft. Loudon Wainwright III: Schooldays (orig. Loudon Wainwright III)
  (from The McGarrigle Hour; more McGarrigles here)

Cover Lay Down posts new coverfolk features every Sunday and Wednesday, and the occasional otherday. Coming soon: features on new and (re)covered artists, plus an interview with Cover Lay Down fave Caroline Herring, whose new cover-laden disk Golden Apples of the Sun continues to garner high praise.

It’s been a long week, and I’m up against deadline on several fronts, trying to balance a professional review, impending midterms, and the creation of a virtual school tour with the usual package of parenting, teaching, school committee policymaking and the occasional nap.

There’s plenty of coverfolk in the hopper, and I’m aiming for a compendium this weekend to clear the decks a bit. But to tide us over, here’s a repost from our very first month on the web, featuring Lucy Kaplansky, a singer-songwriter whose longing vocals and way with confessional metaphor I still turn to to keep me sane in the midst of chaos.

You almost never got to hear of Lucy Kaplansky: An 18 year old member of the early 80s new folk movement, she made it as far as plans for a recording venture with Shawn Colvin, only to change her mind at the last moment. For the next decade, Kaplansky continued to do light session work, most notably as a backup singer on early Suzanne Vega albums, but spent most of her time plying her newly minted PhD in Psychology as a therapist in New York. It was a hard loss for the folk community: her voice had been a sweet standout in the crowd even then, as evidenced by Fast Folk recordings from the era.

Thankfully, in the mid 90s Lucy came back to the folk fold. Since then, though she still supposedly sees patients, she’s produced six absolutely incredible albums, chock-full of masterful songwriting. It’s tempting to see her therapist’s eye in her lyrical tendency towards storysongs of family, the lifestruggle of generational difference and the passage of time, the closing of distances metaphoric and real. But regardless of the source, there’s nothing like her ability to find the right pace for a song, the right tone for a line, the right note of etherial melody for a story.

Kaplansky remains in high demand as a backup vocalist for fellow folkies on the road or in the studios; her pure voice and New York accent can be heard on almost every Shawn Colvin, Richard Shindell, Nancy Griffith, and John Gorka album. Her ear is incredible — I’ve seen her on stage with a good half dozen performers, and she seems to be arranging her harmonies on the spot, making good songs great with a subtle yet powerful touch.

But though in concert she tends to focus on her own stunning songwriting, Dr. Kaplansky’s cheerful delight at singing and arranging the tunes of others translates to her own recordings, too: her albums tend to come in at about one-third covers, and her taste is impeccable. Over the last thirteen years, she has come to be known as much for her sterling interpretations of the songs of others as she is for her own material.

In fact, Lucy Kaplansky is such a prolific and powerful cover artist, I had real trouble narrowing down the choices, so today we’re offering a cover or two from each of her six major albums, presented in chronological order.


Lucy Kaplansky covers…

• Secret Journey (orig. The Police)
• I’ve Just Seen A Face (orig. The Beatles)
  (from The Tide, 1994)

• (What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding (orig. Nick Lowe)
• Return of the Grievous Angel (orig. Gram Parsons)
  (from Flesh and Bone, 1996)

• Somewhere Out There (orig. Steve Earle)
  (from Ten Year Night, 1999)

• The Angels Rejoiced Last Night (orig. Louvin Brothers)
• Broken Things (orig. Julie Miller)
  (from Every Single Day, 2001)

• Cowboy Singer (orig. Dave Carter)
• Off and Running (orig. James McMurtry)
  (from The Red Thread, 2004)

• More Than This (orig. Roxy Music)
• Somewhere Trouble Won’t Go (orig. Buddy Miller)
  (from Over the Hills, 2007)

You can hear more Lucy tracks streaming at her website, but every single Lucy Kaplansky album from 1994 release The Tide to 2007 release Over The Hills belongs in your collection, and you can buy them all direct from Red House Records. So do it. Period.


Today’s bonus coversongs come from compilations and other projects:

• Lucy nails Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe
• Lucy takes on Greg Brown’s Small Dark Movie
• Lucy covers Billy Joel’s Goodnight My Angel
• Lucy leads folk supergroup Cry Cry Cry in Ron Sexsmith’s Speaking with the Angel

Cover Lay Down will return Sunday with a collection of sweet coversongs from new and upcoming artists and self-promoters.

I’m down in the Outer Banks region of North Carolina once again, just like last year, on the cusp of a whole week of for what is fast becoming an annual gathering of extended family and friends.

We left just after school on Friday, and I did the lion’s share of the driving, just over twelve hours of overnight while the kids and spouse napped in the car; since we hit the sandy soil of Kitty Hawk just before sunup this morning, we’ve hit up sand and surf, sucked down breakfast barbecue and beer, eaten sweet frozen custard and bought new floppy hats on the tourist walkways, and stared at enough ocean to resalinate a nation’s saltcellars.

Unfortunately, what with the overnight drive and a wee bit too much time in the sun this afternoon, I’m feeling far too loopy to cope with anything new. So here’s last year’s set — a host of coverfolk which celebrates the Carolinas, heavy on the southern appalachian sound — with the promise of something slightly more original when my brain recovers. Hope no one minds the reposted material. After all, this is a vacation.

• Red Molly: Oh My Sweet Carolina (orig. Ryan Adams)
  Previously-featured sweet-voiced femme folk trio Red Molly covers this bittersweet tribute from North Carolina native son Ryan Adams with dobro, guitar, and harmony on their first full-length album, the live Never Been To Vegas.

• Mud Acres: Carolina in My Mind (orig. James Taylor)
  Another song by a native son, this one reinvented as a ragged hootenanny by Happy Traum, banjoist Bill Keith, bass player Roly Salley (who penned the oft-covered Killin’ The Blues) and others from the mid-seventies Woodstock, NY Mud Acres music collective.

• Cris Williamson and Tret Fure: Carolina Pines (orig. Kate Wolf)
  A languid, mournful country ballad of loss and emptiness from Treasures Left Behind: Remembering Kate Wolf. One of Kate’s best, and the harmonica and slide on this powerful cut from Cris Williamson and Tret Fure make it that much better.

• Mike Seeger and Paul Brown: Way Down in North Carolina (trad.)
  The title cut from Way Down in North Carolina, lovingly gathered and performed by collector of traditional song Mike Seeger and pal Paul Brown, is a fiddle tune at heart, true appalachian music from the old school. Timeless, true, and perfect for the back porch or the back country.

• Steve Forbert: My Carolina Sunshine Girl (orig. Jimmie Rodgers)
  Singer-songwriter Steve Forbert swings this short but sweet old tune with a wry touch and his signature vocal strangle. Off Any Old Time, Forbert’s tribute to Jimmie Rodgers, king of the cowboy yodel.

Cover Lay Down publishes every Sunday, Wednesday, and the occasional otherday, regardless of stress or relaxation. Stay tuned later this week for a feature on at least one regionally-relevant folk band…plus more tales of sunburn and surf!