The noble quest of Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter to be the keystone in the Senate’s archway may have ruined his chance to sing with Senator Orrin Hatch and the Osmonds. Switching parties was a drastic step, but I personally blame the EPA for years of inaction. For two decades, scientists have warned that the habitat which once allowed Moderatus Republicanus to spawn and thrive was in startling decline. A generation ago, mild-mannered moderates roaming the Americas could count on the opportunity, given the right connections, to support charities with Nelson Rockefeller, shop for V-neck sweaters with Eliot Richardson, build log cabins at the Log Cabin Club, and listen to Edward Brooke sing Marvin Gaye songs for Barbara Walters.

But those days are long gone. Although Moderatus Republicanus is occasionally still seen in the Maine wilderness and the Austrian parts of California, the species may already be doomed to suffer the same fate as the passenger pigeon and the Whig Party. Experts begged for action after Pat Buchanan’s 1992 convention speech, which the late Molly Ivins described as better in the original German, but little was done to reverse the tide, and we all know what missions were accomplished in the last eight years.

The extinction event for this troubled species quite likely came earlier this week. I speak not of Specter’s defection, but a television interview in which the delightfully perky Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann found it “interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter.” Ever the nuanced orator, she clarified that “I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence.” Another “interesting coincidence” she may have overlooked is that the swine flu epidemic occurred when Gerald Ford was president, as Chevy Chase would have gladly told her. Ouch.

Meanwhile, Senator Specter’s struggle for survival will require serious musical inspiration, and serious intestinal fortitude, as he shares metamucil with Joe Lieberman and finds his seat at the cafeteria table with Ben Campbell, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, and Evan Bayh. The survival of a species is always precarious. But only time will test zoologist Jim Hightower’s prediction that in the future, nothing will remain in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.

Stealers Wheel, “Stuck in the Middle with You”

M.I.A., “Bird Flu”

M.I.A. -
bird flu – M.I.A

Pretenders, “Middle of the Road”

Just shy of 23 years ago, when I shared a tiny apartment in D.C. with two music-obsessed buddies, a staggering collection of vinyl, and zero umbrellas, I walked a few miles in an insane rainstorm wearing a garbage bag to see the Feelies play the 9:30 Club, and it was worth every soggy step. On another grey day a month ago, I traveled 3000 miles on a redeye in time to see the Feelies play again in the 9:30 Club (now no longer at 930 F Street, but with more space, better ventilation and non-poisonous drinks). One of the least prolific great bands ever and one of the few that roll as much as they rock, the Feelies played as if they’d never skipped a single kinetic beat during their 17-year hiatus. Once the hyperactive teenage pride of Haledon, New Jersey, they’re holding their own as the quadragenarians with perpetual nervousness. “Reunion” doesn’t quite do justice to their recent shows, which come off more like an alternate history of popular music, as it might have sounded if smart people had ruled the world.

As a longtime fan who witnessed the show astutely observed, the Feelies played as if they were holding a clinic on how to be a rock band. This wouldn’t be their first academic adventure. Long ago, billed as the Willies (one of several alternate monikers used by their shifting alliances, along with the Trypes and Yung Wu), they played the high school reunion scene in Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild. If the Ramones were lifers in rock and roll high school, the Feelies are custom-built for graduate school, from their Aldous Huxley-inspired band name to their role in inspiring Rick Moody’s novel Garden State (not to be confused with the Zach Braff movie/ Shins vehicle).

If that pedigree sounds a shade uppity, rest assured that Feelies University is a place with little pretension and truckloads of rock and roll fun. Here’s a sample curriculum:

• Velvet Revolver (Professors Mercer and Million)
No, not that Velvet Revolver. In this class, the affably mysterious guitarist/ singer Glenn Mercer and perpetually grumpy rhythm guitarist Bill Million demonstrate how to mesh the shimmering legacies of the late Velvet Underground and the Beatles’ Revolver. While some contemporary lessons come from Mercer’s solo 2007 return to form, Wheels in Motion, this could not be a Feelies course without the participation of Million, newly returned from his lengthy, self-imposed Florida exile.

• More Cowbell (Professor Weckerman)
Feelies percussionist Dave Weckerman (not the drummer, the percussionist) shows how just the right amount of cowbell—or woodblock, or maracas, or triangle, or virtually anything you can bang—helps turn a song into an adventure.

• Crazy Rhythms (Professors Demeski and Sauter)
Rhythm masters Stanley Demeski and Brenda Sauter weren’t yet in the Feelies for their exhilarating and hard-to-find debut Crazy Rhythms, which featured Keith DiNunzio on bass and drummer Anton “Andy” Fier before he went downtown to work with the Lounge Lizards and Golden Palominos. But they’ve mastered the art, and were the anchors of the Feelies’ three remaining albums. While neither is flashy, together they create an unshakable pulse.

• Advanced Band Dynamics (Full Faculty)
There’s a time and place for bone-crunching 4/4 rhythms, but that’s in Professor Young’s AC/DC seminar. If you want a song to whisper and twist and turn and howl and pounce, slip into something like the Feelies’ “Slippping (Into Something).”

• Undercover Studies (Full Faculty)
Learn to cover the Velvets (“What Goes On,” “Real Good Time”), the Beatles (“She Said She Said”), Neil Young (“Barstool Blues”), the Modern Lovers (“I Wanna Sleep in Your Arms”), and Patti Smith (“Dancing Barefoot”) in a single show and add something fresh to each of them. Surprise final exam: cover “Boxcars (Carnival of Sorts)” from REM’s debut Chronic Town, which way back then came off like a rural southern take on the Feelies–that is, before the Feelies raised the ante with their own pastoral soundscape, The Good Earth.

The Feelies are reportedly working on long-anticipated reissues of Crazy Rhythms and The Good Earth. In the meantime, crawl through locusts, pestilence or whatever else stands in your path to see them if you get the chance.

Feelies, “The Boy with Perpetual Nervousness” (instrumental version)

Feelies, “Higher Ground”

Feelies, “Dancing Barefoot”

Feelies, “Crazy Rhythm”

Sometimes after seeing a movie with memorable music, I later discover that the best songs are missing from the soundtrack. This recently happened with my six-year old daughter Amelia’s favorite, Bridge to Terabithia, which moves from tween fantasy fare to thorny and honestly portrayed realist drama once the music starts to take hold.

An unlikely trio of covers, missing from the Disney-dominated official soundtrack, gives the movie its real spark. The music teacher, played by the almost-famous chanteuse Zooey Deschanel, leads the kids through “Someday” by Steve Earle, “Why Can’t We Be Friends” by War, and “Ooh Child” by the Five Stairsteps. War’s socially conscious low-riding funk and the Stairsteps’ wide-eyed Chicago soul can hold their own on any playlist. But “Someday,” Steve Earle’s early anthem of longing and escape, has acquired a magical power for my daughter and me. I pull out an acoustic guitar, stumble through a few clumsily played licks, and listen to my urban-dwelling, public transportation-loving little girl belt out the lyrics—“I’ve got a ’67 Chevy, it’s low and sleek and black/ someday I’ll put her on the Interstate and never look back”—like she has just discovered the missing link between Haggard and Springsteen. I have no idea how or why they make perfect sense to her, but I know it must be time for a really good road trip.

At this point, Zooey is better known for being ridiculously charming than for her singing and songwriting. But last year’s minor classic She and Him (she wrote most of the songs, with music by M. Ward’s “him”) resonates more than I expected. The music mixes Motown-inspired soul (right down to the Smokey Robinson cover) with the urbane country shuffle of George Jones and his duet partners. Not everything works, but the best of these, like the subtle “Black Hole” and the sparkling “This is Not a Test,” sound timeless rather than simply nostalgic. These songs won’t set the house on fire, but Zooey’s voice has a quiet power that reminds me ever so slightly of—dare I say it?—Karen Carpenter. There, I just said it.

For a video of Steve Earle’s “Someday,” click here.

For a video of War’s “Why Can’t We Be Friends,” click here.

Zooey Deschanel, “Someday” (from Bridge to Terabithia)

She and Him, “Black Hole”

Five Stairsteps, “Ooh Child”