DB shared some bad news with me today: Madam Marie, the fortune teller made famous by Bruce Springteen on his Album “Greetings From Asbury Park” has died.

ASBURY PARK, N.J. - Fortune teller Madam Marie, a figure of rock ’n’ roll mythology thanks to Bruce Springsteen, has died. She was in her mid-90s.

Sally Castello tells the Asbury Park Press that her great-grandmother, Marie Castello, died Friday. The psychic reader and adviser began telling fortunes on the Asbury Park Boardwalk in New Jersey in the 1930s.

Madam Marie became famous in 1973 when Springsteen paid homage to her in the song “4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy).”

His lyric, “Did you hear, the cops finally busted Madam Marie for tellin’ fortunes better than they do,” cemented her fame.

Naturally, I don’t put any stock at all in psychics but Madam Marie almost made me want to believe in them.

That’s me back in my chubbier days behind Madam Marie’s “office” on the Boardwalk in Asbury Park.

The story goes that Groucho Marx once asked a woman if she would spend the night with him for $1 million.

Her reply was, “Oh, Groucho… you know I would”. He then asked if she would do it for $10.

When she answered, “Oh course not… what kind of woman do you think I am?” Groucho said, “We’ve already established that… now we’re just haggling over the price”.

That pretty much explains why good actors make bad movies: Somebody shows them a bad script and a stack of money bigger than a house and they forget all about artistic standards and make a bad movie that they’ll hope nobody will ever see.

The same goes for musical sellouts, specifically when a good musician allows a good song to be used to sell something totally unrelated to the work of art he’s created.

I recently learned that there is both a name a formula for this phenomenon:

The Moby Quotient… determines the degree to which artists besmirch their reputations when they lend their music to hawk products or companies. (The name salutes the techno artist Moby, who took the practice to new extremes with his 1999 album “Play.” The Moby Quotient is designated by the Greek letter mu.) Each factor is ranked on a scale of 1 to 10; the number assignments can be subjective, but the formula is useful in gauging the relative outrage fans should feel with each instance of this continuing cultural blight. The higher the result, the greater the degree of selling out.

These are my nominees for musical sell-outs with (imho) the highest Moby Quotient. I’ve singled these out because I used to like these songs and now I can’t listen to them without thinking about the product they’re hawking.

• Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas” selling Viagra
• Simon & Garfunkle’s “Bye Bye Love” selling Seabond Denture Adhesive
• Devo’s “Whip It” selling Swifter Dusters
• The Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” selling Luvs diapers
• Bachman Turner Overdrive’s (BTO) “Takin’ Care of Business” selling everything at Office Depot
• Led Zepelin’s “Rock n’ Roll” selling Cadillacs
• J. Giles’ “Freeze Frame” selling Papa John’s cheese sticks
• Heart’s “Barracuda” selling Honda mini vans
• Franz Ferdinand’s “Do You Want To” selling L’Oreal’s Vive Pro shampoo

I realize that when it comes right down to it, what the musician decides to do with her music is her own business. But I also think there has to be some way to hold someone accountable for making me think of denture adhesive whenever I hear “Bye Bye Love”.

Naturally, the ballot box is open to your own nominations.

My guess is that Coco Tea doesn’t vote in Kentucky.

h/t: gino

Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid. - Frank Zappa

I just learned tonight that Danny Federici died yesterday after a three-year battle with melanoma.

Federici was Bruce Springsteen’s organist and keyboard player and was an original member of the E-Street band.

I guess I’ve been listening to Danny Federici for as long as I’ve been listening to Springsteen. He was a backbone of Springsteen’s sound and even managed to make rock music work on the accordion.

He was a talented musician and entertainer in his own right - I’ll miss him.

Crooks and Liars has a tribute up tonight.

Carmen: Satan Bites the Dust.

h/t: tj

I think we had around fifty entries in the “Most Politically Subversive Song in American History Contest”.

Thanks to everyone who submitted an entry and your comments. Personally, I think the best thing about this contest has been the addition of several new songs to my iTunes music catalog.

I asked six judges to look at the entries and select the three songs they liked the best in order. All of them agreed that it was a tough decision to narrow it down to one song.

As you can see, there was a wide range of opinion on the entries, which was why I selected them as judges in the first place. Two of the judges chose “Blowin’ in the Wind” (Bob Dylan) and two others chose “Masters of War” (Dylan, again) as their top songs. So that made ME the tiebreaker.

Because “Masters of War” was higher on my list, mfelker is our winner — he wins the Bruce Springsteen CD (send me a mailing address when you get a chance). Congratulations!

You can listen to Bob Dylan’s recording of “Masters of War” here and the Pearl Jam cover here.

Judges comments:

• Judge #1: The decision was a difficult one, but it ended up between these three strong candidates: Born in the U.S.A., Masters of War and Blowin’ in the Wind. Ultimately, I choose Blowin’ in the Wind, because it is the anthem for subversiveness. Masters of War may be more subversive, but it did not get the attention, nor the reaction that Blowin’ did. I will admit, Dylan is one of my all time favs and I tried not to let this dictate my decision. I don’t think it did, and hopefully others will agree that this is a fair choice.
• Judge #2: Based on irony (required to qualify as subversive rather than merely angry) and universality of appeal: Blowin’ in the Wind, Born in the USA, Rainbow Stew, Masters of War
• Judge #3: I think I’m going to muddy the water a bit, but that’s what your blog is all about; discussion. Technically, of the songs nominated, I go with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” But the one who nominated it was apparently referring to the original Francis Scott Key version. But I would be referring to Jimi Hendrix’s performance of it at Woodstock. That had all the subversion of the original PLUS what he did to it musically. It was at the time totally outrageous. If you do not want to allow this change of appropriation, I would go with MacGuire’s “Eve of Destruction.”
• Judge #4: My number one is going to have to go to Masters of War by Bob Dylan. There’s nothing like dissent mixed with religious references. To be fair I think that you could do a top five subversive songs and give them all to Dylan. Still, I like a good anti-war song, and I really like it when you use Christianity to hit it home. On a side note I’m gonna give runner up to Born In The U.S.A. by Bruce himself. I don’t know which I prefer, the actual song or the fact that Reagan tried to use it as a campaign anthem. I’ll give an honorary third to This Land Is Your Land.
• Judge #5: Holiday (Green Day) is a pretty straight forward choice for me.
• Judge #6: Masters of War, Let’s Impeach the President, Born in the USA - I chose Masters of War as my number one because of the words and the tone of the whole song. The tone puts an exclamation point at the end of every single line dylan sings. When I close my eyes I see a politician walking out of the capital building and dylan is right in his face screaming his words, in the politicians, face all the way to his car. And if we are going for political subversiveness then I think this has to be your song. He attacks the man (the government) and can’t wait for him to die, it doesn’t get much more to the point than that.

And now (drum roll)… my own Top Ten:

1. This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie)
2. Fortunate Son (John Fogerty)
3. Masters Of War (Bob Dylan)
4. The Revolution Starts Now (Steve Earle)
5. Blowin’ In The Wind (Bob Dylan)
6. Born In The U.S.A. (Bruce Springsteen) (Actually not one of my favorite Springsteen songs)
7. The Star Spangled Banner (Jimi Hendrix)
8. Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
9. We Shall Overcome
10. Rainbow Stew (Merle Haggard)

Honorable mention (by non-American artists):

1. Rockin’ in the Free World (Neil Young)
2. Imagine (John Lennon)
3. Won’t Get Fooled Again (The Who)

Just a reminder that the ballot box will be closing at 5:00 CST today in my “Most Subversive Song in American History” contest.

The winning entry, selected by a panel of judges, gets a copy of Bruce Springsteen’s Magic from ME.

I’ll announce the winner tomorrow morning as well as my own personal top-ten. I’ve already created the playlist on my iPod.

It’s the perfect thing to listen to while riding your bike on cold November mornings in Arkansas.

You may have heard that Clear Channel Communications has found a new threat to the Republic: Bruce Springsteen.

In a effort to save American from listening to Springsteen’s songs and lyrics, Clear Channel Stations are refusing to play songs from the Boss’s new album, Magic.

Stations can still spin the oldies but new songs like Last to Die are out.

Good for them. That’s the free marketplace of ideas working at its best. The corporate power of Clear Channel over the American music industry could very well result in Springsteen’s career going south and his fans abandoning him for the likes of Toby Keith.

Sort of like the Dixie Chicks but I doubt it.

I wish I had said this publicly but I saw this coming as soon as I bought the new album. It’s “edgy” even for Springsteen.

As some of you know, I am a huge Bruce Springsteen fan — I own every album he has ever recorded and a few he didn’t. I’ve been to five Springsteen concerts including my first show in Nashville on February 26, 1981. To get tickets for that event, I slept on a sidewalk across from Centennial Park in the middle of December and woke up in the morning with snow all over me.

For Springsteen fans, concerts are like religious experiences. He probably gives his fans more in one show than most performers half his age can give in an entire tour. Bruce is a member of the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame, a multiple Grammy award winner and he really doesn’t need the money he’ll earn from the Magic tour — he just likes performing.

Despite his fame and success, I want to do my part to help Bruce Springsteen survive this threat to his career. He’s been so good to me over the years — I feel as if I need to give something back.

So, between now and Monday, you may submit your entry completing the following sentence:

The most politically subversive song in American history is ________________.

Embellish your answer with passionate arguments. One entry per registered user, please

On Friday, my panel of judges will chose a winner who will receive a copy of the Magic CD from ME. The deadline for entries is Monday, November 5, 2007 at 5:00 pm CST.

Offer void in Asbury Park, Atlantic City and the Streets of Philadelphia.

Update: In my original post, I said that Springsteen was a charter member of the RRHOF. I missed it by a few years — the hall of fame opened in 1986 and Springsteen was inducted in 1999. My bad.

It looks like the folks at foracceppella.org cleaned up their site over the weekend and early this morning.

Because of the abuse of a loophole in the system they were using to collect signatures for the statement in support of a cappella music in the Churches of Christ, they are no long taking new names and it looks like they have removed duplicate names from the list (like mine).

But there’s good news and bad news about the appearance of my name on the foracappella.org list of people supporting a cappella music in the Churches of Christ.

The bad news is that my name is still on the list along with about fifty names of dubious accuracy.

The good news is that I am now 32 and not 51 as previously posted (I’m actually 49).

I can live with this mistake — I even felt a little stronger on my bike ride this morning.

I just hope that Tish notices the difference.

Update to the update: It’s 11:07 CST, 10/9/07 and my name has been removed from the list at foracappella.org. The universe is back in balance.