stoney end

Last night we celebrated Charlie's birthday at his and Roxane's new pad (which they've decorated beautifully, by the way). After cake and ice cream, many of us headed down to Tokyo Garden for karaoke. TG is the first place I ever sang karaoke some few years ago: my stab was at Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," and then I warbled what has apparently become my signature karaoke number, Laura Nyro's "Stoney End." I don't think I've ever actually heard Nyro sing the song, but growing up, our family collected and listened to many of Barbra Streisand's albums (now aren't a great number of things about me beginning to become clear?), and one of these was her 1971 release, Stoney End. This is the only version I know.

The album art is terrific: La Streisand sits atop a bordello-red antique sofa in the bed of a decrepit red pickup, which appears to have broken down at--you guessed it--road's stoney end. Streisand looks both pissed off and forlorn, huddled in some black gauzy wrap and staring at the viewer, whom she appears to blame for her predicament.

Stoney Endmay be Streisand's best album. Her earlier efforts established her formidable vocal stylings, and she proved more than capable to subdue broadway numbers and torch songs to her to her signature belt. She ahd turned "Happy Days Are Here Again" into a slow, haunting melody that evoked almost every emotion but happiness, and wowed audiences with her powerhouse performances of numbers like "Don't Rain on My Parade." Later efforts include disco dabllings and a slough of ill-advised duets. (Remember that one with Don Johnson?) But with Stoney End, she proved herself capable of taking on singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, Gordon Lightfoot, and Carole King, who were then dominating the early seventies airwaves. Although not a songwriter herself, Streisand made these songs her own, and as you listen to Stoney End, you can easily forget that these were anything other than Streisand standards. In any case, the album is a collection of beautifully arranged and executed songs, with only a couple of poor choices toward the end.

But the highlight is the title track. Streisand isn't particularly convincing as a young woman "born from love," whose "poor mother worked the mines." Not does she sound like the type "raised on the good book Jesus." But she embodies a spirit of female liberation as well as any early seventies chanteuses, as she describes how "the fury and the broken thunder's come to match my raging soul." And when she sings the last instance of the chorus--"Mama let me start all over / Cradle Me Mama / Cradle Me Again"--she evokes both ferocity and helplessness. But as the chorus fades, you can imagine her jumping out of the bed of her truck and working her way across the desert expanse that begins at the road's stoney end.

The song is rife with camp value, and perhaps that is one of the reasons I find it so appropriate for karaoke. But even more importantly, I think that my vocal range encompasses most of it, and so it works as well as any karaoke number could for someone as tuneless as myself. So, on that dimly lit stage at Tokyo Garden last night, I did my best to go follow Ms. Streisand down the stoney end (the bar--with only three denizens beside ourselves--was itself a sort of stoney end). Given the rotten day I'd had up to that point, it seemed like the right road to take. Thanks to those of you who suffered through my rendition. Thanks for going down the stoney end with me, even though you never wanted to go, Mama. You never wanted to go.