365 Days of Song Recommendations: May 18
Something On Your Mind — Karen Dalton
You know those conversations, usually later in an evening after too much of whatever you consume, when you start imagining your life in different ways. One such conversation that I’ve had countless times centers around what era you’d live in if you could do this whole life all over again. I always choose the late ’60s, but I go back and forth on where. Sometimes I crave the chaos of San Francisco, other times the Greenwich Village scene. I suppose it depends on my mood, or what substance I have been consuming.
Today, let’s go to Greenwich Village. Late ’60s. A half-Cherokee, half-Irish folk blues singer catches the eyes of several future legends. A hard-partying, banjo-loving, 12-string guitar-playing woman named Karen Dalton. Like many of her contemporaries, she lived big and paid the price. She died in the early ’90s, at age 55, but left a mighty mark on other legendary musicians. Bob Dylan, who supported her with some vintage harmonica, called her his favorite folk singer of the era. Not a bad compliment.
Karen Dalton is another great example of a musician’s musician. Never mainstream, not known by enough people, but deeply influential even today. In 2015, a group of modern musicians including Lucinda Williams and Sharon Van Etten paid homage and introduced her to a new generation by releasing a compilation of previously unheard tracks.
Read reviews from back in the day and you’ll hear, over and over again, comparisons to Billie Holiday. It’s in the soulful blues tenor of her voice, the world-beaten weariness, the tortured melancholic and woeful way of seeing the darker parts of the world. I’m here for it, every single time I rediscover this great voice.
Dalton only released two albums, and even then she often refused to play her own songs in live settings. Despite not being prolific, she certainly left her mark. Her most famous song, Something on Your Mind, has all the elements — not quite as bluesy as some of her other music, but every bit as impactful.
Yesterday, any way you made it was just fine
So you turned your days into night-time
Didn’t you know, you can’t make it without ever even trying?
And something’s on your mind, isn’t it?
Let these times show you that you’re breaking up the lines
Leaving all your dreams too far behind
Didn’t you see, you can’t make it without ever even trying?
And something’s on your mind
Maybe another day you’ll want to feel another way, you can’t stop crying
You haven’t got a thing to say, you feel you want to run away
There’s no use trying, anyway
I’ve seen the writing on the wall
Who cannot maintain will always fall
Well, you know, you can’t make it without ever even trying
Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?
Tell the truth now, isn’t it?
Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?
Something’s on your mind
“Something on Your Mind” is the 138th song on the exclusive #365Songs playlist! Listen and follow today:
