Driftless Pony Club's "Maps of Low Fidelity"

Last time I listened to Driftless Pony Club's Expert, a line in "Maps of Low Fidelity" sounded sort of familiar to me:  "Streets and signs have abandoned their roles."

While it doesn't bear much resemblance lyrically, the same sort of idea is in the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" - "Signs in the street that say where you’re going / Are somewhere just being their own."

However, I don't know if this similarity was intentional.  There really isn't anything else in "Maps of Low Fidelity" - lyrically or musically - that would indicate any influence by the Byrds.  The first line is "You swallow birds," but if anything, that's a very tenuous connection, so I think the mention of birds (and the part about street signs) is just coincidental.

Cold War Kids' "We Used to Vacation"

A few months ago, I happened to hear most of Cold War Kids' Robbers & Cowards in my sister's car, and the phrase "tax-deductible charity organization" in "We Used to Vacation" sounded familiar to me.

I’m just an honest man
Provide for me and mine
I give a check to tax-deductible charity organization
Two weeks paid vacation won’t heal the damage done
I need another one

I eventually placed it; it's from Bob Dylan's "Ballad of a Thin Man" from Highway 61 Revisited.

You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts when someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway, they already expect you
To all give a check
To tax-deductible charity organization 

It's not a phrase that's particularly lyrical, so I don't think it's just coincidental that it appears in both songs.  It might just be my mishearing it in both cases, but I didn't hear an S in either song ("tax-deductible charity organization" not "organizations").

Dylan's song is not very readily coherent, so I can't really tell if the songs have anything more in common beyond that phrase.  The figures in each seem to exhibit some kind of desperation, but I can't be much more specific than that.  Still, I felt the common phrase worth mentioning.

The Beatles' Sunday Driving

A few months ago, I realized that the Beatles' "Day Tripper" and "Two of Us" both contain the phrase "Sunday driver" (or, as it appears in "Two of Us," "Sunday driving").  Recently, I transcribed and compared the lyrics.  There isn't much that would indicate that "Two of Us" is supposed to a sequel of sorts to "Day Tripper," but they are rather like two sides of a coin.

The lyrics of "Day Tripper" aren't super clear, but it seems to be about a relationship that the speaker/singer isn't going to continue, as the girl is flighty.  One repeated section starts with "She was a day tripper."  The third repetition includes the "Sunday driver" phrase:

She was a day tripper
Sunday driver, yeah
It took me so long
To find out
And I found out

On the other hand, the speaker/singer of "Two of Us" seems to mention only himself and his companion (each verse and chorus contains either "Two of us," "You and me," or "You and I") and their impending domestic return ("We're on our way home").  "Sunday driving" occurs in the first verse:

Two of us riding nowhere
Spending someone’s hard-earned pay
You and me Sunday driving
Not arriving
On our way back home
We’re on our way home
We’re on our way home
We’re goin’ home

"Day Tripper" is all about how there isn't a relationship, and "Two of Us" is about how there is.  Both contain "Sunday driving," but I think it's more significant that the girl in "Day Tripper" goes alone where the couple in "Two of Us" is together.

Apparently, "Day Tripper" is mostly a John Lennon song, and "Two of Us" was written entirely by Paul McCartney, but I don't know how/if that affects that common phrase.

Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd"

A few months ago, I got to thinking about Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd."  I should add a disclaimer that I don't know Guthrie's version (I think I heard it once, but that was years ago); I know only the Byrds' version from Sweetheart of the Rodeo.  I have Guthrie's version on CD, but I can't get the disc to work.

In transcribing the lyrics of the Byrds' version, I found multiple instances of parallel structure:

• "Then Pretty Boy grabbed a log chain; the deputy grabbed a gun"
• "And he ran through the trees and bushes; he lived a life of shame" parallels with "He ran through the trees and bushes on the Canadian river shore"
• "Was in Oklahoma city; it was on a Christmas day,"
• "'You say that I’m an outlaw; you say that I’m a thief'"
• three instances between "As through this life you travel, you’ll meet some funny men" and "As through this life you ramble, as through this life you roam" (along with alliteration between "ramble" and "roam")
• "Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen."

The first line also struck me as significant.  In the Byrds' version, it's "Well, gather ‘round near, children, a story I will tell."  I think it's pretty likely that this is where Bob Dylan got the idea for the first line of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" - "Come, gather 'round, people."  Both directly address the audience.

Those two lines by themselves aren't very convincing, but Dylan mentions Guthrie in two other songs, both on his debut album Bob Dylan.  One is obvious - "Song to Woody."  The other is more subtle.  In "Talkin' New York," there're the lines "Now, a very great man once said / That some people rob you with a fountain pen."  The "very great man" is Woody Guthrie, and "Pretty Boy Floyd" is the song Dylan is referencing.  The first two lines of the last verse (in the Byrds' version, at least) are "As through this life you travel, you’ll meet some funny men / Some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen."  Granted Bob Dylan and The Times They Are A-Changin' are two years apart, but I think Guthrie's influence on Dylan was great enough that the connection between "Pretty Boy Floyd" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'" is valid.

Incidentally, I've covered both "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and "Pretty Boy Floyd," although both are based on other versions - Peter, Paul, & Mary's version of "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and the Byrds' version of "Pretty Boy Floyd."