For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday Jim is inviting us to play a song about enjoying the outdoors, as he tells us in his post Spend More Time Outdoors, which marks one of those days so beloved by the Americans – the Great American Campout, which is today, and is a great theme for a special day.

I went through quite a few possibilities for this, and in the end have settled on three which I’m playing. Two are long time favourites and the other is a rare cover version of a song made popular in the US by Three Dog Night, though as they achieved the square root of diddly squat over here I didn’t know of it until one of my favourite bands played it. Jim is going to be writing about their version, and no doubt will do his usual superb job with it, but I hope he doesn’t mind me playing this cover version, as my comments will only be about that so I’m not stealing his thunder!

I played this first song two months ago when I featured the album it was on in my occasional A Classic Album series. But you can never have too much of a good thing, and this is a different video, just for a change:

Though that was a lyric video I’m sharing my usual link to genius.com in case you need another look. Elton John released Country Comfort on his third album, Tumbleweed Connection, which is still my favourite of all of his records. As with most of Reg’s songs this was co-written with Bernie Taupin, and I have always loved its feel of reminiscence about growing up in the country, which I did so I can relate to this. Not so much the American feel, but you know what I mean, I hope! This was a concept album, around themes that would today be known as ‘Americana,’ and it is full of great tracks. Ironically, perhaps, my favourite is one which the Taupin/John connection didn’t write, but that one is no good for today’s theme.

My second choice for today is the cover version rarity. This is R.E.M:

You can find the lyrics here, on genius.com of course.

Out In The Country was written by Paul Williams and Roger Nichols and was, as I said, a US hit for Three Dog Night, also making the Canadian chart. R.E.M. released their version as one of the B-sides to their Bad Day single in September 2003, and it subsequently appeared on a compilation, Complete Rarities: Warner Bros. 1988–2011, which was released in May 2014 in a digital-only format, taking account of the fact that it was arranged as a 45-disc set, which might have been a bit too much for the typical record shop to stock in physical form! The full set comes in at more than eight hours long, and whilst I have it in my Apple Music library I have to admit that I have never taken it in as part of a single session! I rather like the song, but it has never tempted me to revisit the music of Three Dog Night: Jeremiah the bullfrog was more than enough for me. But maybe Jim can persuade me to try again?

I’m closing today with another from a classic album, also a long-time favourite of mine – both the band and the album. You may well know this one:

The Beatles, of course, with a slightly different arrangement of Mother Nature’s Son, the lyrics for which can be found – where else – at genius.com. 

Credited, as with all of their songs, to the Lennon/McCartney partnership, though as we all know this one was written by Paul McCartney. It was a track on the double album The Beatles, aka The White Album, which came out in November 1968. Paul has said about the song;

There’s a song I always used to love when I was growing up. It was called Nature Boy, and it was about a nature lover. When I wanted to write a song along the same kind of lines, I chose the title, Mother Nature’s Son. And, I wrote this — I think — up in Liverpool, when I was visiting my dad one time, and it was just about my love of nature, my love of the countryside. And one of the things that Linda and I found we had in common […] was our love of nature.

He might also have added that he was prompted to write this after a lecture given by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi during the band’s retreat with him. Indeed, Wikipedia says that the song was written in India, so maybe Paul’s memory is duff? After all, Wikipedia never makes mistakes, does it? I think we should be told!

That’s all for today, and I hope you have enjoyed them. I give my usual thanks to Jim for hosting the show, and will see you again for some more Tuesday Tunes. I’m having a restful day, having stayed up to watch England destroy the mighty Panama in the World Cup. Honestly, we were crap! Have a lovely day 👍