Daily Download: "A Taste of You," Lee Hazlewood, from "For Every Solution There's a Problem"

A deep, somehow noble sense of melancholy.

Published March 11, 2005 8:01AM (EST)

Aside from an album of standards titled "Farmish, Flatulence, Origami, ARF!!! and Me ...," released in 1999, the great Lee Hazlewood (who, yes, has a very strange sense of humor) hasn't made a record since the '70s. But thanks largely to reissues of his classic solo albums by Steve Shelley's Smells Like Records, there's been a surge of interest in his work in recent years. For all its occasional goofiness, there's a deep, somehow noble sense of melancholy to much of Hazlewood's music that few other artists have accessed (Nick Cave's last decade of work comes closest), and I'm not sure there's ever been another songwriter who could write songs simultaneously so hokey and so powerful. In 2002 the German label City Slang put out "For Every Solution There's a Problem" (that aphorism is typical of Hazlewood's lyrics), a collection of Hazlewood's previously unreleased demos, including "A Taste of You," which the label has made available for free download. This is a far cry from Hazlewood's best work, but it's still definitely worth a listen. If you want more, go buy "Cowboy in Sweden."


By Salon Staff

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