Heh ... I went to hit the "Like" button, then realized I wasn't on Facebook! :-)

Really interesting thoughts on Teix:
http://riveraveblues.com/2010/06/mark-teixeira-and-the-changeup-29954/
(And William will love the love for Maddon!)

no way! i'm listening to solo robert plant right friggin' now!!!!

i taught D'yer Mak-er Tuesday evening to a student and am playing "Good Times, Bad Times" on a gig tonight!

Led Zep RULE!!!

3) That they do. But I will be perfectly happy if I never hear "Stairway to Heaven" again. And you can add "Freebird" and "Sweet Home Alabama" to that list too.

Is "Sweet Home Alabama" the only pop song that has a pop song about it?

[2] interesting indeed, and maybe even worth trying -- but what *might* be working for Maddon wouldn't necessarily work for Girardi.

Maddon has the flexibility of juggling younger, less-established players around the order. I don't think it's easy to move future Hall of Famers, and proven veterans like ARod, Tex, Jeter, and Posada up and down the order. No matter how they're performing, guys like them get very comfortable at their positions. They like knowing who hits immediately before and after them. Their egos also have a say.

I'm not saying what Maddon's doing isn't worth a shot, but I suspect it's not as easy for Girardi to tinker with the lineup.

[4] no question those tunes are played out.. but if I come across them on the radio, I'll only stick around if they're in the final guitar driven minutes. Those solos are worth hearing a thousand times, even if you've heard 'em 987 times.

[4] ugh. just imagine if you lived in the south - freebird and sweet home...all the friggin' time. : /

i've made good money playing both though! : )

in [7] I'm referring to Freebird and Stairway. Sweet Home I can't hang with anymore. I like what Kid Rock did with it though.

[5] other way around. Sweet Home is the response to Southern Man. So Neil's tune is the one that has a song written about it.

but you raise a good question..

Well, American Pie is about Buddy Holly but not a song, exactly...

[5]

Well, it ain't pop, but rap is full of them ... with this the most famous

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roxanne,_Roxanne

okay, check this out...

i used to play w/ this piano player. he's an asshole, but an *amazing* musician and terrific performer. certain gigs were for crowds that would tip and were in town on business conventions.

people - esp the drunk ones - love to scream for freebird, but also hate it. after flipping off the crowd (!), he'd get someone to put $20 bucks in the bucket. so, we'd play the shit outta 'freebird'. someone else would want the epic tune to stop, so he'd say over the mic: "we got 20 bucks to play it, $25 to stop". and we'd get $25 to stop. then $50 to start it again. this would go on and on. and on. not what i signed up for when i devoted my life to studying music, but i'd walk out of those gigs with 3x the amount in tip money than my gig guarantee!

he'd sing: "sweet home alabama... where my cousin's my girlfriend, too". it was pretty hilarious.

the songs i hated playing the most were 'brown eyed girl' (except when we'd do it in a reggae style - that was fun) and 'sweet caroline' (on the 'bom bom bom' part, he'd sing "this song sucks!")

he pulled the aforementioned tip trick w/ college fight songs when the SEC basketball championship games were in atlanta and we'd make a killing...

[10] No, I meant this Kid Rock pablum. That sounds vaguely familiar, about Neil Young's song and "SHA", but I can't say I actually knew that. Dang, so that Kid Rock tune is a pop song about a pop song response to a pop song. Too convoluted. Like a Fellini movie.

[12] Interesting. Are those songs really about each other though?

[13] You live in a whole different world.

[11] Yeah, that's about Buddy Holly, and also about a genre, an era. Of course it refers to several songs ("Jumpin' Jack Flash", "Eight Miles High", probably others I'm not remembering).

[13] You live in a whole different world.

you're just figuring this out?! ; )

i didn't enjoy those gigs. but they were "money gigs". he had a 10-piece band, complete w/ horn section & backup singers. we'd play 30 or more of his incredible original songs and that was FUN!!!

[15] "(Who Wrote the) Book of Love", "That'll Be the Day", "Helter Skelter". I had to look. Did I miss any?

A product of my times and neighborhood, when people refer to "Stairway to Heaven" I think of the OJays and not Led Zeppelin. Didn't know about that other version until later in life.