Music DOES make the world a better place, Rita. | Thanks for sharing your love of it with us, and thanks for the music.
Paul Cavalconte: Playlist for Rita
With the wonderful and comforting outpouring from WFUV listeners on the passing of Rita Houston, I feel that a little backstory on our preparation as a station, and as as loving friends, can be shared in return.
We knew that when we got the word, we would want to air music and simple messaging that attended to the needs of the moment: being clear about what had transpired, and allowing music to speak most eloquently in a circumstance where anyone would be at a loss for words. I was asked to prepare three hours of continuous music mixes that anticipated these needs, and would give us a buffer of reaction time to prepare the personal and spontaneous words and selections that followed on Dennis, Eric and Darren’s programs, and from Corny and Alisa on the following morning.
So when we did get the word, at noon on Tuesday, December 15, the three hours of music were rolled out, with simple, dignified messaging, and without the usual song-title announcing that hosts normally do. Many people have inquired about those songs, and it’s my honor to share them now as a Spotify list, and with a few notes.
To compile thematic programming about the loss of a colleague and dear friend was a somber and surreal experience. The choices had to be unequivocally sad, but not maudlin. They needed to make the moment clear without ambivalence, and be familiar and universal enough to resonate in a setting where the heavy news may or may not have been broken to a listener yet. For me personally, the songs needed to be big cogs in the Rita musical wheelhouse, things that she loved and would want to be remembered by.
That’s why the disco diva anthem “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” the soaring “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” and the conciliatory “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” would share a stage with the Flaming Lips‘ trippy “Do You Realize,” Lou Reed‘s allegorical rocker, “What’s Good,” and Jane Siberry and k.d. lang‘s eerily comforting “Calling All Angels,” which was a deep standard from Rita’s early 1990s radio show, “Starlight Express.”
I wanted Rita’s heroes to all be present and supportive, so Willie Nelson got to sing Pearl Jam‘s “Just Breathe;” Elvis Presley handled Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is A Long Time;” and Frank Sinatra weighed in with Harold Arlen’s heartbroken “Don’t Like Goodbyes,” featuring words by Truman Capote.
Dylan himself, Leonard Cohen, Joni, Mavis, Johnny and Rosanne Cash, Emmylou, and Lucinda all needed to lend their support. And artists that Rita was a hero to: Brandi Carlile, Mumford & Sons, and Norah Jones were all on board.
My only regret is that this list could not be shared with Rita, but I sense that it reached her spirit, which always dwelled within the grooves of these wonderful records that now speak for everyone at a time when words fail. Save and share this tender journey through songs that we’ll never hear the same way again, and thank you.
https://embed.spotify.com/?uri=spotify%3Auser%3Awfuv%3Aplaylist%3A1LtAwWl6H9c0eFA1SL28hp&theme=white
1. Willie Nelson, “Just Breathe”
2. Norah Jones with Mavis Staples, “I’ll Be Gone”
3. The Flaming Lips, “Do You Realize??”
4. Joni Mitchell, “Urge for Going”
5. Brandi Carlile, “The Story”
6. Thelma Houston, “Don’t Leave Me This Way”
7. Bette Midler, “Hello In There”
8. John Prine, “Summer’s End”
9. Jason Ibell & The 400 Unit, “If We Were Vampires”
10. Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch, “I’ll Fly Away”
11. Lucinda Williams, “2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten”
12. Stevie Wonder, “Joy Inside My Tears”
13. George Harrison, “All Things Must Pass”
14. David Bowie, “I Can’t Give Everything Away”
15. Diana Ross, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”
16. Sting, “Fragile”
17. Toni Childs, “Many Rivers to Cross”
18. The Rolling Stones, “Waiting on a Friend”
19. Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, “Call on God”
20. Jeff Buckley, “Corpus Christi Carol”
21. Yusuf/Cat Stevens, “The Wind”
22. Mumford & Sons, “Winter Winds”
23. Rod Stewart, “Mandolin Wind”
24. Rickie Lee Jones, “On Saturday Afternoons in 1963”
25. Dawes, “When My Time Comes”
26. Elvis Costello, “Days”
27. Bob Dylan, “Buckets of Rain”
28. Frank Sinatra, “Don’t Like Goodbyes”
29. St. Vincent, “New York”
30. Natalie Merchant, “Kind and Generous”
31. The Staple Singers, “I Want To Thank You”
32. k.d. lang and Roy Orbison, “Crying”
33. Al Green, “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?”
34. Rosanne and Johnny Cash, “September When It Comes”
35. Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris, “If This Is Goodbye”
36. Leonard Cohen, “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”
37. Adele, “When We Were Young”
38. Elton John, “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”
39. Lou Reed, “What’s Good”
40. Elvis Presley, “Tomorrow Is a Long Time”
41. Jane Siberry and k.d. lang, “Calling All Angels”
42. Bruce Springsteen, “I’ll See You In My Dreams”
43. Joe Brown, “I’ll See You In My Dreams” (live from Concert for George)
And from the Final Rita Houston Whole Wide World Broadcast, 18 December 2020
Time Stands – Nathaniel Rateliff
For a moment I could wait
To see it fall apart
Every empty bed in every
City I’ve been
I sit and contemplate
All the moments you said
Time stands in a duel
And I stand for you
What’s that you used to say?
Find a love that you can wait for
Or do you feast upon the weak and
Weary of heart?
I can take the pain
But I can’t take all the hatred
Laziness of mind and
Simplest of thoughts
Are you just too old
Or too young to carry?
Time stands in a duel
And I stand for you
Now you’re pouring out your hate
At every difference you found
You won’t even listen
To reason at all
Not questioning your faith
Far be it from me
But you would speak of love while
Tying ones hands
Are you just too old
Or too young to carry?
Time stands in a duel
And I stand for you
Are you just too old
Or too young to carry?
Time stands in a duel
And I stand for you
Now lean and use your weight
That’s what a shoulder’s made for
Carry all the dead and
Children from here
Curses on the men
And the greed that seems to plague them
I can’t raise my hand so I’m
Raising my voice
Are you just too old
Or too young to carry?
Time stands in a duel
And I stand for you
Are you just too old
Or too young to carry?
Time stands in a duel
And I stand for you
Time stands in a duel
And I stand for you
Time stands in a duel
And I stand for you
My Time On Earth – The Waterboys
Do you see that young pretender
With the tear marks on his face
His dark eyes burning when he talks
I knew him in his splendour
I’ve known him in disgrace
Who’ll cut him down from this rock
He says bring me my horses
My symbols and my wheels
And we’ll speak with our souls for a while
‘Cause I’m sick and I’m torn
And I long to be healed
And the truth’s been too long out of style
In my time on this earth
I will speak the secret
In my time on earth
I will tell what is true
In my time on earth
I will say what the heart knows
In my time on earth
I will say I am you
I’m so tired of the sound
My old fingers make
As they tease and torment my guitar
And the man on my screen
Is an actor and a fake
Yet he preens like a golden superstar
I cried in her arms
When the darkening day was done
And I smelt the burning city in her hair
And the word on the tips
Of a thousand million tongues
Went unspoken
While a lie sped everywhere
In my time on this earth
I will speak the secret
In my time on earth
I will tell what is true
In my time on earth
I will say what the heart knows
In my time on earth
I will say I am you
Now November is here
With its carpet of leaves
And the songs of the dead fill my ears
All the champions are fallen
All the heroes are deceived
And the world they made has disappeared
So let’s tell it like is, man
Let’s nail it on the line
Let’s be clean with our tongues from here on in
For we’re deep in the heart
Of the enemy’s design
Just waiting for the breakout to begin
In my time on this earth
I will speak the secret
In my time on earth
I will tell what is true
In my time on earth
I will say what the heart knows
In my time on earth
I will say I am you
In my time on earth
I will say I am you
In my time on earth
I will say I am you
