Continuing with my series of playlists of rock and pop songs featuring particular instruments, with past blogs highlighting the piano, keyboards, acoustic guitar intros, bass guitar, harmonica, accordion, saxophone, horns, and flute, today’s blog salutes the mandolin. The mandolin, a descendent of the mondola in 17th century Italy, is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family. It has 4 courses of double strings typically tuned in fifths, with the same tuning as a violin (G3, D4, A4, E5). The most common styles of mandolin are the Neopolitan or round-backed mandolin, the archtop mandolin, and the flat-backed mandolin.
Unless, of course, you are Jimmy Page, and you have your custom 3-necked mandolin-12 string guitar-6 string guitar combination 😂:
While most common in classical, bluegrass, and folk music, the mandolin has found a place in some great rock and pop songs. A few bands with regular inclusion of mandolin in their music included Led Zeppelin, the Grateful Dead, REM, and the Hooters. Some mandolin song greats included Zep’s Battle of Evermore and Going to California, Grateful Dead’s Friend of the Devil and Ripple, REM’s Losing My Religion, Hooters And We Danced, Steve Winwood’s Back In The High Life, Goo Goo Dolls Iris, Bruce Hornsby’s Mandolin Rain, the playlist title song, and Elton John’s Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters, perhaps my favorite song on the list. Even Billy Joel’s Piano Man, featured in my previous playlists/blogs for its piano, accordion and harmonica, also has a significant mandolin presence which you may have missed. Be sure to give it a listen.
Of interest, I incluced the Traveling Wilbury’s (remember the supergroup that included George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne), though the album credits do not list mandolin among intruments played, the guitar in End Of The Line sounds strikingly similar to Paul McCartney’s mandolin in Dance Tonight.
Some great videos from the playlist include:
Steve Winwood’s Back In The High Life
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adw772km7PQ
Led Zeppelin’s incomparable The Battle Of Evermore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCQiPXDZHcc
The Hooters’ Where Do The Children Go – here performing with Patty Smyth; I saw them in concert at Dartmouth College 1988
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN_7qH5RZx8
The Goo Goo Dolls’ Iris – props for playing in the pouring rain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HZM0QiuUS8
The Lumineers’ Ho Hey
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvCBSSwgtg4
REM’s You Are The Everything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2BCrByfZ74
Dropkick Murphy’s Rose Tattoo – quite the festival with lots of crowd surfing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VQ45V3fW00
Nickel Creek’s The Lighthouse’s Tale – filmed at Cape Neddick Light House, Nubble Island, York, ME, one of my favorite vacation spots when my children were young
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARIr6S_0lAQ
So give it a listen, and give attention to the mandolin, sometimes in the background, sometimes as a little solo or flourish. You might be surprised at some of the songs you’ve listened to many times without acknowledging its presence and its important contribution to the song.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0SoL0DmP3uCAKcxHWFoti9?si=7db78481f0ed4056
I hope that this music and my blog truly serve as a “revival: a new presentation of something old,” a springboard to return to the music of your youth, or perhaps to find artists you want to discover anew. Rediscover the passion of music in your life.
Live in the moment.
Enjoy the moment.
Love the moment.
Listen to the MUSIC!