Jake Holmes And His Music

Jake Holmes is a folk singer whose first album was released in 1963, as the male half of a comedy duo with his then-wife. By 1967, though, he had moved into serious folk music. His first album as a soloist with backup band, The "Above-Ground Sound" Of Jake Holmes, didn’t sell very well but it gained an underground fame for one of its songs inspiring one of Led Zeppelin's. Another album followed in the same year, entitled A Letter to Katherine December. These two are the only ones available in CD, even though his later albums sold more than they when released on vinyl. After his fifth, How Much Time (1972,) he hung up his guitar and moved into writing advertising jingles. He came up with quite a few memorable ones, such as “Be All That You Can Be” for the United States Army recruiters and “I’m A Pepper” for Dr. Pepper. (The latter, he co-wrote with Randy Newman.) In 2004, he cut and released a CD single called Mission Accomplished – The Return Of The Protest Song.

For more information on Jake Holmes, see this Wikipedia entry.


NOTE: Any updates will be called attention to in this entry, but they will not be forward-dated. That's because I want to keep the order of these entries intact.

A Note On Psychedelic Music

It’s common to peg a certain genre of ‘60s music, arising out of the first British Invasion and modern American folk rock, as “psychedelic music” or “drug music.” Like most charged terms, they do obscure artistic merit or demerit. To put the point in a nutshell, Louis Armstrong’s “What A Wonderful World” and the Beatles’ “I Need You” were both marijuana-influenced songs, but they are quite different otherwise. After all, Louis Armstrong was Louis Armstrong before smoking his first reefer, and so were the Beatles. (This realization does staunch any potentiality for such songs to be credible “drug ads.”)

There’s another aspect to this issue. It is possible to have a pseudo-psychedelic experience through certain stressful activities, most notably through sensory deprivation. Thus, it is possible to get grist for a full psychedelic song through using no drugs at all. Similarly, it’s possible for a drug experience to be grist for a song that has no psychedelic elements at all. With art, you never quite know.

Formally, Jakes Holmes’ early music is considered to be part psychedelic, even if his and his band’s forays into the genre were confined to “raga rock” and were not influenced by the then-prestigious atonal music movement. (Other, more technique-oriented bands like Jefferson Airplane were; John Cage also had an influence on them.) The bulk of it, though, is straight folk, of the small-town kind. Holmes’ uses of psychedelic melodies in his songs, when used at all, tend to be used for one of three atmospheric effects: fear, morosity or mockery. Occasionally, they're used to connote pain.

THE "ABOVE-GROUND SOUND" OF JAKE HOLMES (1967)

This album is made up of folk songs, from a fellow who's at home in a small town where people’s roles tend to be fixed – everyone knows everyone else – but whose activities vary. In the accomplaying ethos, the use of poses imply weakness; a genuine person is a stalwart person. The "Above-Ground Sound" Of Jake Holmes includes bittersweet music, folk’s answer to country’s “hurtin’ songs,” that inculcate an anti-illusionistic, level-headed mindset. Also part of this ethos is self-tolerance of certain frailties, provided they’re kept in bounds. Jake Holmes is quite melodic, and he has a habit of playing with clichés. This album uses Holmes on acoustic guitar with a lead guitarist and bassist; there are no drums, nor any other additional instrument in any of the songs. Like other folk singers, he has an idiosyncratic style. The one protest song is Rousseauian, with an anti-artifice theme.


A special note on “Dazed and Confused:” Anyone who takes the ripped-off-by-Led-Zeppelin claim too seriously, and expects to hear “proof” when listening to the original, will be disappointed. Other than the title, opening melody, the verse structure, and a guitar-with-tapping solo starting at 1 minute 36 seconds and ending at 2:06, the two are different. If you’re interested, a snippet of the opening melody, played on acoustic guitar, is evocative of the earlier Yardbirds song “Still I’m Sad.” This may have attracted Jimmy Page’s attention in the first place, even though Jeff Beck was the guitarist at the time that "Sad" was cut.


You can download all 10 songs off this album here. All of them, plus 15 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Lonely”

This song is best described as a psychedelic lament. Ragesque lead guitar work is used as Jake Holmes sings about his imaginary ‘friend’ named Lonely, and what ‘they’ do together. Buried in it is a tale-of-woe about what loneliness can make a man do that are not exactly in his best interest.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Did You Know”

This song is a straight ballad about a shy guy finally letting his guard down to a woman. After asking if the gal in question had already picked up on it, and expressing surprise that she hadn’t, the song ends with a bittersweet parting and an acceptance of one of life’s major disappointments.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“She Belongs To Me”

Rustic and old-fashioned this song may be, but there’s an honest pride in it. It's a more melodic, if less smooth, (pre-)answer to Tom Jones’ “She’s A Lady.” (Before tongues start wagging, the songs are entirely different except for the subject.) The song's noticeable for a dig at “little girls” early on in it. (Back in the old days, these kinds of digs kept the jailbait in line.)


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Too Long”

Another bittersweet song, about meeting up with an old chum after many years’ passing only to find that each have grown too far apart to reconnect. There’s a hint of psychedelia in the otherwise sad lead-guitar part of the melody.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Genuine Imitation Life”

This one is the only protest song in The "Above-Ground Sound" Of Jake Holmes. It reflects Jake Holmes’ roots in a place where artifice and false faces are used as covers for weakness. The places where a ‘genuine imitation life’ is the accepted lifestyle are occupied by people that tolerate the use of artifices as normal means of social intercourse, or as weapons. The images used in the opening part of the lyrics connote both. Part of the recoil from this lifestyle is due to its routinization of socializing, and part of it is against the self-absorption, inconsistency, and opportunism that grow in the places where said lifestyle flourishes. (The lyrics in this song seem to have been marijuana-influenced.)


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Dazed And Confused”

The other all-but-explicit psychedelic song on The "Above-Ground Sound" of Jake Holmes, it has a raga riff played by the lead guitar, one backed up by the other guitars. The perspective is of a young man, who was raised to follow formalities in courting, encountering a woman (on the make) who has no use for those formalities. His fear and pain come from having no way of knowing where he stands with her. This song is the most ragaesque in the entire album.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Penny’s”

A playful song, evidently set in a small town in which there’s only one woman named Penny. It contains a more old-fashioned, perhaps more wholesome, use of the “trip” metaphor to describe a dreamer. It also provides a metaphorical picture of how a dreamer is kidded back to the external world. It’s a quasi-ballad, made so by a fast tempo that gives it a doo-wop flavour.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Hard To Keep My Mind On You”

This is a playful song of a different sort, about a married man trying to keep his mind off other women. (Johnny Cash, this is far from.) There’s not much that can be said nowadays about a song that refers, repeatedly, to “girl on the high-heel” except that it carries a certain rustic charm, as communicated by the instrumental part of it. The fella’s heart is in the right place, as he acknowledges in certain places in the lyrics.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Wish I Was Anywhere Else”

This song, in the form of a degraded ballad, is a lament about boredom at a social gathering where both talkers are trying to make nice. Even complaining would be a relief from the resultant inanity. At times, the lead guitar sounds like an organ.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Signs Of Age”

This song’s lyrics are mostly spoken; only the chorus, and one repeated verse, is sung. It’s about Jake Holmes coming to terms with reaching twenty-five, and the fact of him becoming a young adult and seeing his age-peers shouldering adult responsibilities. His reconciliation with the fact of his aging is characteristically bittersweet.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

A LETTER TO KATHERINE DECEMBER (1967)

This is Jake Holmes’ second album, done at a career stage when recorded artists tend to let their hair down somewhat. Unlike his début album as a serious folk singer, A Letter To Katherine December has drums and occasional back instrumentation - strings or brass. There are three social-protest songs in this album. Two are mocking: ostensibly, they’re righteous, but they’re really anti-opportunistic. There’s an undertone of 'I’m gonna be blamed by these people for something not my fault' in those two. The third is commiserative. Happier songs focus on the same small-town theme: variety in scenery and activities; fundamental inner constancy in people. Certain places are reserved, by custom, for certain activities. There’s also the same folk focus: playing roles and assuming guises means covering up inner weakness. Some of these songs are picturesque, and there are occasional hints of jazz added in the instrumental harmonies. There’s also the occasional use of a “sing-from the-hilltops” voice. Katherine December has two live songs at the end: both are versions of songs whose lyrics are not always easy to hear in their studio cuts. The second has a psychedelic hint that’s removed from the studio version of the song.


You can download all 12 songs off this album here. All of them, plus 13 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Saturday Night”

This is a protest song, with a more deliberate use of psychedelic techniques in the second half of it to connote tawdriness. Its theme is the runaround opportunism in the teenaged social scene; what sticks in the craw about their looseness is revealed near the end when Jake Holmes hints at what the male version will grow up into. He uses a faux-stadium-announcer voice when singing it.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Late Sleeping Day”

This song is about the relaxation that comes with a day off, when the clock need not be heeded. Jake Holmes sings of the pleasures than come with doing ordinary things for their own sake, unconstrained by any need to hurry though them. This includes conversation that’s unprompted by an obligation to talk.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Chase Your Eyes”

A folk ballad, sung in a hill-top voice, with lots of metaphorization in the first part of the lyrics. The next part recounts a journey though the countryside towards the woman in question. The sights along the way don’t shift attention away from the memory of “your eyes.” The song ends with the profound feeling of belonging that comes with reaching her.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“The Diner Song”

This song is about a hang-out that seems best to avoid once you’ve been in there. The regulars seem to be morose and guilt-ridden. It starts off sprightily, but fades into sadness, and later combines the two moods with a jazz riff from the lead guitar.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“High-School Hero”

This is a satiric song, about an Al Bundy-ish Big Man of the Schoolyard and his fate long after high school’s over for he and his age-peers. The big fella’s jeered at as someone who needs to stay stuck in the past because he has nothing to look forward to in the future, except for beer and gadgets as a consolation prize. It opens up with a mawkish pseudo-psychedelic hook, but some genuine psychedelic riffs (with jazz overtones) are used in the middle’s instrumental part. The overall melody is faux-celebratory, with a punch line that explains the reason for this “High-School Hero”’s fate.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Moving Day”

Based upon Jake Holmes’ divorce from his first wide Katherine, it’s a lamentful song about the break-up of a home, and the painful detachment from the meaning of the objects being moved out. As is customary for folk songs, the self-detachment is bittersweet.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Leaves Never Break”

This song is intended to be in the spirit of “Dazed and Confused,” although it’s less fear-driven and more morbid than "Dazed." The ragaesque element is there, but it’s more hard-edged than in the earlier song. It opens with a jazzy hook, and there are hints of jazz in the instrumental section. At times, anger burst through. This song is the most psychedelic one in A Letter To Katherine December. 3 minutes and 26 seconds in, there’s a false ending. The punch line says that people who have lost their loves “die when they’re told.”


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“It’s Always Somewhere Else”

This song has a largely joyous melody, which begins with a hook that resembles an oncoming train. Juxtaposed are commiserative lyrics about missing the boat, as symbolized by chasing a woman that’s hard to get, to the point that the chaser begins to resemble a dog. It ends with a reminder that whatever the chaser’s taking for granted, right in front of him, is fine enough.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Sleeping Woman”

A soft song that begins with a minimal acoustic hook, it veers into a retooled quasi-lullaby with the lyrics sung by Jake Holmes in an echoy way through double-tracking his voice. Strings, as well as guitars, bass and drums, back Holmes up.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Houston Street”

This song is a plaint for the benefit of a vacant, speechless, despairing homeless man who’s shunned by the passers-by. Jake Holmes makes the point that it’s not mere stinginess that keeps the walkers walking by – it’s fear of being lumped in with the poor fellow, a point made cynically by Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. The instrumentation is sparer than the other songs in this album. It ends by connoting that the poor fellow is still a human being, with an inner humanity still left in him.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Genuine Imitation Life (Live)”

This version is performed using the same instrumentation that appeared in The Above-Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes: lead, acoustic and bass guitars. It's centered more on Jake Holmes’ acoustic guitar work, which gives it a more trad-folk flavour.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Sleeping Woman (Live)”

This is the same song that's on A Letter To Katherine December, but Jake Holmes announces at its beginning that it was as yet untitled. As with the previous song, the instrumentation is only guitars. Because of this, the lyrics are easier to hear when he sings them.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

JAKE HOLMES (self-titled - 1969)

Jake Holmes’ third album opens with a shift to a more country-rock Nashville sound, while keeping some folk in. One mockery song is without psychedelic elements; the other has them at its end. There’s a shift to an all-out Nashville sound in the latter mock song. The former has a standard Rousseauian attitude: genuine people sell goods, but never themselves. Jake Holmes contains the standard Holmes theme: genuineness, including genuine personality, is found in the inhabitants of small towns, which make them a better (or at least more restful) place to be. The last song, though, is about sameness without personality. Once again, the ethos that recommends certain places be reserved for certain activities pops up. This album tends to be singled out for Holmes moving from a spare sound to layered songs, even though the added sounds were first introduced in his second album. Evidently, those who criticize this album on those grounds are folkies that dislike country music.


You can download all 11 songs off this album here. All of them, plus 14 more, are free for new downloaders.

“How Are You”

This song is good-time country rock, with a hat tip to Nashville at its end. It’s joyous with softer intermittencies; the opening lyrics indulge in a bit of word-play whose point is ‘we don’t care who you are; we’re just glad you’re here.’


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“The Very First Time”

A softer song, with some yearns in the lyrics, sung by Jake Holmes in a from-the-hilltops voice. It’s a loving paean to his significant other. There’s a hint of the Nashville sound in it, but it’s largely folky.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Emily’s Vacation”

This satiric song, in waltzish ¾ time, is about a vacationing woman on the make at the resort she’s staying at. As is characteristic for Jake Holmes, the object of his fun-making is a market-oriented personality – and the punch line is some advice that would make his mockery go away. It ends with the use of a psychedelic riff, sounding somewhat like a motorcycle at times, used to empahize the mockery therein.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“There’s A Place”

This is a balladesque ‘Homeville’ song, about a town where everyone is rooted, easygoing, honest, genuine, happy and sure of themselves. People trust each other, and there’s no need to settle scores. Given the state of the culture today, it’s part encomium. In its instrumental part, there are some flamencoesque riffs from the acoustic guitar.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“A Little Later”

Despite what its title indicates, this song's about a girl who Jake Holmes wants to get rid of. The title is the monicker he’s pinned on her. The song itself begins with a train-sound hook. The girl at the heart of it is not dissimilar to the one that’s the antagonist in “Dazed and Confused,” but this song is about him getting rid of her with jeers. She’s evidently a faux-hippie type of user. The song has a Nashville backbone, but as country rock it’s more rock than country. There’s an electric piano in the backup instrumentation.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Suitcase Room”

A Nashville-style lament, this song is about life in small rooming houses whose freedom in living is beginning to grow stale because the solo life is beginning to grate. The room is evidently occupied by a lonely bachelor, who only uses it as a rest stop; it's far from being a home.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Beautiful Girl Goodbye”

This song is both sad and soft. The lyrics are lamentful, as are the Nashville riffs that recur in it. There’s little or no hint of bittersweet in this hurtin’ song.


You can download it here. This song, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“The 11th Tune”

This is a bucolic come-to-the-countryside song, aimed at the harried and worn-out city-dweller. The out-of-city country is portrayed as being full of places to relax and let the pressure of city life ease away. Despite the likely interpretation that the target audience would put on it, there are hints that Jake Holmes is urging that they move there, not just visit.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Hello You”

This is a slow, happy love song, with a domestic background. There’s a role and plot reversal from Jake Holmes’ earlier song, “Did You Know.” This time, it’s the woman who’s shy, and this time, they got together. The latter part features him planning their happy life together.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Ask Virginia”

Another satire song, with a Nashville/faux-revivalist melody. This one's about a church that is clearly, though not explicitly, the Episcopal Church. Jake Holmes knocks that church for being both too intellectual and too sheltering. Its gag is: God is very much alive, but organized religion is dying out. He hints that organized religion is choking on its self-imposed social duties to other houses of worship. At the end, though, a hint of respect for the object of Jake Holmes’ mockery slips through.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

“Always The Same”

This song is slow and piano-centered, as well as lamentful. It’s about the monotony underneath the surface differences of different places, and the impracticability of changing one’s inner fibre through playing different social games. It ends with a discordant slam-down on the keys.


You can download this song here. It, plus 24 more, are free for new downloaders.

SO CLOSE, SO VERY FAR TO GO (1970)

This album tend to be ignored by Holmes critics, mentioned (often in passing) as one of his post-folk albums. I’ve focused on three songs from it, as chosen from the samplers from each of the songs in this album: “Her Song” (#5), “The Paris Song” (#8) and “Population” (#10.) “Her Song” uses a piano along with guitar for its melody; its a metaphor-rich love song about finding a compatible woman, with a fun-house musical image that represents the world of strangers. It's a straight soft-rock song, though definitely a Jake Holmes work. “The Paris Song” is a country song about a visit to Paris; only the good times from the visit are remembered. There’s interesting Nashville-style guitar work in this song. “Population” is less of a protest song than a complaint song, with an admission in the middle that the cause of the population explosion is the natural love a father feels for his family and a pride in seeing it grow. It’s a folk-rock song, though more medium-soft rock than straight folk.


You can download all 10 songs off this album here. All of them, plus 15 more, are free for new downloaders.

HOW MUCH TIME (1972)

Like So Close, So Very Far To Go (1970), this album also tends to get the mere-mention treatment from Jake Holmes appreciators. I’ve focused upon three songs in it: “Trust Me” (#1), “WASP” (#2), and “Silence” (#10). Despite the first impression that the title “Trust Me” may connote, this is a love song, and the title carries no irony. It's straight rock with a Nashville flavor added occasionally, and its theme is that love flickers and fades without mutual trust, provided that the fellow is ready to settle down. “WASP” is a mockery song, country-style. The humor connotes an attitude that snooters are bantam roosters, who think they’re bigger than they are. (This is the flipside to “Houston Street.”) “Silence” is a song about shriveling love. It's more of a soft-rock song, with Jake Holmes using his sing-from-the-hilltops voice in it. The song itself implies that complications in relationships, as well as disappearing talk, is a sign that the two lovers are growing apart.


You can download all 10 songs off this album here. All of them, plus 15 more, are free for new downloaders.

Recent Works By Jake Holmes

Jake Holmes has cut and released two albums this millenium: Dangerous Times (2001) and Mission Accomplished – The Return Of The Protest Song (2004). The latter is a 3-song CD single. The first song in it is an anti-Iraq War song; the second is an anti-Bush song; the third is a jingly pro-Havana song.


You'll find downloads of all of Jake Holmes' repertoire here. The first 25 songs downloaded are free for new downloaders.