Author Archives: ERM

78th Favorite: Good Old Boys, by Randy Newman

Posted on May 30, 2015 | 4 comments

Good Old Boys. Randy Newman.
1974, Reprise. Producer: Lenny Waronker and Russ Titelman
Purchased: circa 1992.

IN A NUTSHELL – Piano tunes with Broadway-esque orchestrations about characters from the American South. The lyrics are funny and sad and always pack a punch, and if you’ve got mixed feelings about your own hometown, this record will likely connect with you.
WOULD BE HIGHER IF – It had more guitar, more rock. It’s sort of like listening to a Broadway cast recording or soundtrack – which isn’t surprising, since Newman has written songs for almost every movie ever made since 1992.
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We all have to come from somewhere. Whether we are born in a location and stay there forever, or we move with our family every year, or if we have no family and nowhere to go, there is a feeling inside us that we have come from somewhere – even if we don’t know where that is.

For those of us who know where we came from, and who stayed there a while, our hometown helps define us. For some it states exactly who we are. Others work hard to prove it never can. Your hometown sets boundaries. It is the meter and rhyme scheme of rest of your life. You can say whatever you want to with your life, but you’ll always say it Iambic pentameter and AABBCC when you do. If you come from nowhere in particular, you’ll live your life in free verse.

A hometown can be the source of anxiety and stress in adults. At times you’ll find yourself reflecting on the good things about where you grew up, and proudly state “That place made me what I am today!” But then you’ll see the negatives and sheepishly murmur, “but I’m not like those people …” while wondering, “Or am I?”

I have written about my hometown extensively over the course of this blog. The history of its industry, the hard-working people who lived there (and the types of graffiti they created), and even what they did for entertainment. And like many grownups, in some ways I love the place I come from, and in some ways I can’t stand it.

Lebanon, PA,[ref]Perhaps you remember it as the location of David Letterman’s fictional “Home Office” in the early 1990s?[/ref] my hometown, is in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country. This fact often evokes the question from others, “Are you Amish?”
I’m not Amish, but I grew up in “Amish Country.” This means it was not unusual to see a horse and buggy driving on the roads near my house, although it would have been unusual to see one out my front window.[ref]Although I seem to recall it did happen once or twice.[/ref] Amish people were just other people in the community. My doctor, Dr. Eiceman (who was not, as his name suggests, an amalgam of 70s NBA greats Julius Erving and George Gervin) had a hitching post at his office for his Amish patients. Learning to drive as a teenager included instructions on sharing the road with horse and buggies.

However, far more common than the Amish were people from other Anabaptist sects. These other sects were mainly Mennonites and Brethren with a sprinkling of Moravians[ref]Who might not really be Anabaptist, depending on who’s telling the story.[/ref], too. Some of these people dressed a little differently than most other folks – wearing bonnets and hats very similar to those worn by Amish women and men – some drove cars that had no chrome, a good deal of them worked in local Farmers’ Markets.

When I was a kid, in the 70s and 80s, the area was mostly farmland. Corn was the biggest crop, and it seemed to grow everywhere – plentiful and common enough that while driving to the pool or baseball games, my sisters and I could easily distinguish the “baby corn” at the beginning of summer from the “teenage corn” mid-summer (“knee high by the fourth of July!”) The Anabaptist religions of the region were evident in the cornfields by the multitude of Bible verse signs displayed in them, mostly warning others to shape up now or be judged later by an angry god.

My family is “Pennsylvania Dutch,” which is a culture, not a religion. One didn’t have to be Amish or Mennonite to understand what “Schmeis de gaul nibbe der fens fennig hoy!“[ref]Throw the horse over the fence some hay.[/ref] meant. This is a sentence from the Pennsylvania Dutch language, my dad’s parents’ mother tongue. His mother – who I only remember as a thick, round, gray-haired woman wearing cat’s eye spectacles and long, plain dresses, sitting in her stuffed chair, watching Lawrence Welk on a Saturday night – was clearly more comfortable speaking “Dutch,”[ref]My mom’s sister would be very upset if I didn’t mention here that the language “Pennsylvania Dutch” should really be called “Pennsylvania German,” as the term “Dutch” is a mispronunciation of the word “Deitcsh,” which means “German.” She’s quite vigilant about this.[/ref] than English. The happiest I remember seeing her was when her brother “Bench” – short for “Bench-a-min,” which is how one pronounces “Benjamin” with a thick Pennsylvania Dutch (German) accent – would visit and the two would sit in the living room or front porch and carry on zestful conversations in a dying language that sounded like the bad guys in a World War II movie.
[captionpix imgsrc=”https://100favealbums.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/gramma.jpg” captiontext=”My dad (right) with his mom and dad, 1958. They likely offered their congratulations to him on high school graduation in a language I don’t understand.”]

The Pennsylvania Dutch culture, by the 1970s, was mostly residual, evidenced only in the hex signs on barns, the rich, egg-anchored foods and “Dutchified” phrases[ref]”Rutch over, I need a seat!” meaning move over. “Kids, don’t be so schuschlich,” meaning stop rutching around.[/ref] spoken in a sing-song accent that sounds like a combination of German, Yiddish and Irish accents – but nothing like that at all. But there remained a fierce pride in the heritage, and a desire to retain as much of it as possible.

The Pennsylvania Dutch people are, generally speaking, disinclined to get to know strangers. We are brought up to be skeptical of differences and resistant to change. (You might ask my wife – who grew up near Boston – about how difficult it can be to find a place among the insular PA Dutch.) But we are also taught loyalty, and the value of hard work. A self-deprecating sense of humor is endemic among us, and we like to have fun. (And my wife can also tell you about how much we like to laugh, as well!)

But it is this insularity, rigidity, and extreme resistance to change that I find to be the source of most of my anxiety about my hometown. There was a thick coat of racial prejudice over the region when I lived there. I don’t think of it as extreme – I rarely heard the “N word,” for example. But then again, there weren’t many African-Americans around. However, the Puerto Rican population in the city of Lebanon was quite sizable, and I heard the term “Spick” thrown around all the time. So maybe it’s just easy for a white guy to call this “not extreme;” maybe the fact that there were no lynchings doesn’t mean the bigotry wasn’t extreme.

But the point is that anyone who was a little different – whether by skin color, dress, actions, or looks – was viewed with great skepticism. As I got older and started to understand who I was, and what I valued, it became increasingly difficult to stick around that place.

When I was 23, I joined a band, The April Skies, that performed in big cities on the East Coast, and I found myself regularly interacting with musicians, artists, and other creative types – exactly the types of people that my hometown might frown upon. I was hanging out with The Gays, The Lesbians, The Blacks, The Tattooed, The Drug Users, The Green-Haired. Some were funny, some were douchebags. Some were smart, some were idiots. But they were all just people, and after getting to know so many different ones, it became even harder to hear the comments, and feel the hostility, directed by so many people from my small town – small people with small minds who had never ventured more than a few feet away from their small houses – toward people they had never met from groups they had only conjured in their minds. (i.e. “The Gays.” “The Blacks.”)

When the band broke up a couple years later, the first thing I thought was “I’m getting the fuck outta Dodge.” I moved to San Francisco, and for years I was embarrassed about my hometown. It came out in my creative pursuits, evident in the play I wrote, and had produced, “Tofu Water,” about my town and my difficulties with it. But then again, I loved identifying with the Pennsylvania Dutch culture, and even spoke some Pennsylvania Dutch in my stand up comedy act, and proudly enjoyed the laughs.

In my personal life, my feelings were equally conflicted. I couldn’t wait to go back to visit my hometown, but I’d be there two days and couldn’t wait to go home. I looked forward to introducing my own kids to the region, and showing off places and people and memories from my childhood, but then always felt relieved that my own kids wouldn’t be raised in such a place. My hometown became a difficult conundrum. A source of equal parts pride and embarrassment. I found I both admired and disdained the people. I both extolled and mocked its values. I wanted to hold it in me forever, but forget it ever existed.

And I think it’s because of the opposing force of these feelings that I connect at such a deep level with Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys.

I had heard of Randy Newman since I was a kid. When his breakthrough song “Short People” hit the airwaves in 1977, I thought he was a comedy singer, like Jim Stafford or Ray Stevens. I thought the song was mean[ref]However, as with many Newman songs, a closer listen reveals the opposite.[/ref] and so I decided I didn’t like him. I saw him at some point as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live (likely in December, 1979, although it could have been a rerun of the October 18, 1975, episode) and realized he wasn’t a comedian, and that I still didn’t like him. In the 80s he surfaced in my world again when he had a minor hit with “It’s Money That Matters,” featuring a signature Mark Knopfler (of Dire Straits) lead guitar. I liked the sound of the song, but its smug, clever lyrics annoyed me. I was a fan of irony for sure – David Letterman was my idol at the time, after all – but there was something about Newman that rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like David Letterman was with me, and we were mocking others. But Randy Newman seemed to be mocking me, and I didn’t like it.

I’ve written before about my old friend, A., who I’d like to call a former girlfriend, but who was really just … well, someone I chauffeured to the airport to meet her new boyfriend, I guess. But anyway, she introduced me to many artists, and – hippy chick that she was – even though it was 1992 at the time, most of those artists were from the 70s. At that time, being in a band and all, I was trying my hand at writing songs – even though I could just BARELY play guitar. I wrote a song called “All You Can Eat Night at the Local Woodchuck Lodge and Men’s Club” which I played for her. I don’t remember much more of it than the title, but it was a song making fun of the Small Town attitudes of many folks from my home town. It featured a first-person narrator who was aggressively bigoted, and used his bigoted language in the lyrics.

I played the song for A. who immediately said, “Do you know the song ‘Rednecks,’ by Randy Newman?” I didn’t, so the next time we got together, she brought Good Old Boys with her and we listened. The album immediately struck a nerve. I soon went out and bought it.

Randy Newman was born in Los Angeles, but spent a great deal of time in New Orleans as a kid – living there and returning for summers until he was almost a teen-ager. Good Old Boys is both a celebration and a condemnation of the US South, written and sung by someone who clearly understands the people there, who genuinely admires a good deal about them, but who is also deeply conflicted about it all.

The first track sets the tone for the entire album. “Rednecks” is a simple song with deceptively simple lyrics[ref]Sensitivity warning: the “N-word” is used throughout.[/ref] that seem to be directly condemning rampant Southern racism.

It tells the story of a Southern white man watching former segregationalist governor of Georgia Lester Maddox interviewed on The Dick Cavett Show[ref]An event that really happened on December 18, 1970.[/ref], and getting so angry at Maddox’s treatment by the host that he writes a song about the joys of being a redneck. At first, the joke seems to be that all the joys he mentions are not admirable – being dumb, drinking too much, being a racist. The casual listener (particularly a snooty Northern liberal who feels nothing but derision toward the South – which is a decent description of me as a 25 year old) finds himself laughing at the disgusting man. Then the narrator compares the South’s African-Americans to the North’s, pointing out that the Northern blacks are free … “Free to be put in a cage in Harlem in New York City, and he’s free to be put in a cage in the South Side of Chicago …” It’s a remarkable song. In a brief three minutes it attacks both prejudice and hypocrisy, and forces the listener (well, this listener, at least) to consider his relationship to both. Musically, it’s got a catchy, sing-along melody with instrumentation befitting a song by a man who would go on to write loads of music for films. The blatant, repeated use of the “N-word” is likely offensive to many people, and I certainly understand why. To my ears, he’s writing from the point of view of someone who would speak the word in this manner, so it makes sense he’d use it – and informs the listener about the character of the man. But that’s my perspective – everyone will have their own personal view.

The next song, “Birmingham,” is one of the songs on the album that truly captures the dual, opposing feelings I have toward my hometown.

This entire album will be challenging for me to write about. It’s one of the few records on my list whose lyrics are the main reason I love it. A perfect record, to me, will have music I love paired with lyrics I love. Good Old Boys has music that I can appreciate, but what really brings me back to it are the lyrics. And I’m not sure how to write about them without just saying, “Look, read the lyrics,” and leaving it at that!

In the case of “Birmingham,” the lyrics paint a simple picture of a simple man who loves his hometown, set to a catchy melody with another sing-along chorus. He works in the steel mill, like most of the men I knew as a kid, and doesn’t have much to complain about. There doesn’t seem to be much objectionable about him – except he reminds me of the many closed-minded jackasses I knew in my youth, as I was asking myself “Is this really all my hometown has to offer?” People who – when I mentioned I was moving to California – would scoff and say things like, “My cousin moved out there and moved back in 6 months. Said it’s expensive and full of assholes.” I hear the narrator, and I think, “Ha, another song about a dumb redneck!”

But really, this reaction is all about me. The guy seems like a good person, going to work and enjoying his life. He’s a simple man, content, and good for him! But I sure do feel superior to him. Does that make me a bad person?[ref]Why do I like this record? Two songs in, and both have made me feel like a dick![/ref] But part of my reaction is also because the music has a hint of sadness to it. The lyrics are “Rah! Rah! Birmingham!” but the slow pace of the song and the horns and orchestra behind it seem to say, “Is this really all Birmingham has to offer?” Newman does a terrific job throughout this record of having the music enhance and comment on the lyrics. It’s a characteristic that makes him a natural to write all those Disney songs.

In the case of “Louisiana, 1927,” the music – a simple melody played by strings – immediately conjures images of Dixieland, with a tune that sounds straight out of Ken Burns’s Civil War documentary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gOuf05m8jg

It is a sad song about the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927. The narrator (every song has a narrator) tells of watching the rains come and water rise, “six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.” President Coolidge comes to visit, but doesn’t offer much more than words. It seems nature and the world outside are conspiring against the state, leading to the refrain, “Louisiana/Louisiana/They’re trying to wash us away/They’re trying to wash us away.”

All hometowns have an “us against the world” component to their collective consciousness. People want to belong to a group, and they want that group to thrive and be respected for it. “Louisiana, 1927” puts you on the “us” side whether you’re from the state or not. The song also became the unofficial anthem of the New Orleans flood of 2005.

Newman is not what one would call an excellent singer in the traditional sense. He sounds like he needs to blow his nose, for one thing, and he tends to speak his words as much as sing them. But because his songs are always sung from the point of view of a character, a commenter who has a story to tell, it often works perfectly. He uses it to great effect on the romantic ballad “Marie.”

In “Marie” the narrator is a drunken man who’s finally expressing his love to his long-suffering wife/girlfriend, Marie. Newman sounds a bit tipsy as he sings, and his voice almost cracks and nearly misses notes. He’s as much an actor in this song as a singer. The melody is slow and sad. The narrator tells Marie how beautiful she is, and how long he’s loved her, but between these statements of love he admits he doesn’t listen, he hurts her, he has to be drunk to tell her of his love … It’s a sad love song because he obviously knows he can’t give her what she deserves, and she has clearly stayed with him despite this, and as much as that can be portrayed in stories as a romantic situation (basically, every Rom-Com that’s ever been made …) to me it sounds like a life of daily misery. As with “Birmingham,” it’s the pace and instrumentation of the song that add to the sadness. Also – this couple reminds me of so many couples from my hometown, people who settled for a situation out of convenience or low self-esteem. This record keeps connecting with me.

This type of relationship is revisited on the album in “Guilty,” featuring another couple (the same couple?) who sound better off without each other. The couple finally marry in “Wedding in Cherokee County.” And they sound like they are doomed to a long marriage of mutual torment. After all, on their wedding night she laughs at his mighty sword!

But how much is too much? Can an artist really record 12 songs about the mixed feelings engendered by one’s hometown? Well, it’s really 10, as “Naked Man” is sort of a novelty song that might take place anywhere people typically wear clothes.

It’s catchy and fun, and its story of a little old lady who’s purse is snatched by a man in the buff was actually based on a true story Newman heard from a friend. It’s a favorite of mine because it’s so upbeat and bouncy. And it may actually be commenting on a stereotype of the deep south and it’s ways, as a close reading of the lyrics reveals there may be something going on between the naked man and his sister.

Another character with a story to tell about his sister appears on “Back on My Feet Again,” one of a few songs on Good Old Boys featuring The Eagles’ Don Henley, Glenn Frey and Bernie Leadon on background vocals.

The narrator sounds completely unreliable right off the bat, and the story he tells of his sister and “a negro from the Eastern Shore” of Maryland, and the lyric “open the door and set me free,” makes it pretty clear that the doctor he’s speaking with is a psychiatrist at a hospital. This song is my favorite on the record because it finally features[ref]That is, if the word “features” can mean an instrument plays quietly in the background[/ref] a guitar. If you’ve read many of these posts, you’ll know that I like to discuss what the instruments are playing throughout a song, and that I love guitar and drums. But this record is all about the piano and the orchestration, the lyrics and the feelings a melody can carry. So when a guitar appears, a slide guitar soloing in the background throughout the verses and the chorus, my ears perk up and pay attention.

Politics are covered on the songs “Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man),” a terrific song about the working poor, and “Kingfish,” about the populist 1930s governor and senator from Louisiana, Huey P. Long[ref]Newman also includes a version of Long’s campaign theme written by Long himself[/ref]. Both songs are great, and I particularly like “Kingfish” because when the chorus, “Here come the Kingfish, the Kingfish,” comes around the music takes a sinister turn away from the upbeat tales of all the good things the governor has done. Once again, the music helps inform the listener about the lyrics.

The album closes with “Rollin’.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBux4AlGQzM

It sounds like another look at the character from “Birmingham,” again proclaiming that life is good, and he ain’t gonna worry no more. But the source of his comfort is the whiskey he pours. The song connects with me, as does the whole album, because it offers a look at people you can’t help but feel sorry for. In this case, a guy who doesn’t seem like a bad guy, but who just seems lost, or maybe extremely limited, stating that life is good while his condition indicates otherwise.

But again – maybe that’s just my perception. Taken at face value, the character’s words make him sound content, if not downright happy. I associate these songs with my hometown and the people I knew there, and how sad it all seemed to me. But that perception is my own. The people where I grew up might not be sad, they might not be limited – in fact, they might even be happy to be there! It’s condescending of me to assume that because it’s not where I wanted to stay there’s no reason anyone would want to stay.

“You can’t go home again,” the saying goes. But that has nothing to do with home. It’s because of you. Good Old Boys always reminds me that I can’t go home again, and that makes me both happy and sad. I’ll let the Birmingham-born southern writer Walker Percy sum it up:

“It’s one thing to develop a nostalgia for home while you’re boozing with Yankee writers in Martha’s Vineyard or being chased by the bulls in Pamplona. It’s something else to go home and visit with the folks in Reed’s drugstore on the square and actually listen to them. The reason you can’t go home again is not because the down-home folks are mad at you–they’re not, don’t flatter yourself, they couldn’t care less–but because once you’re in orbit and you return to Reed’s drugstore on the square, you can stand no more than fifteen minutes of the conversation before you head for the woods, head for the liquor store, or head back to Martha’s Vineyard, where at least you can put a tolerable and saving distance between you and home. Home may be where the heart is but it’s no place to spend Wednesday afternoon.”

TRACK LISTING
Rednecks
Birmingham
Marie
Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)
Guilty
Louisiana 1927
Every Man a King
Kingfish
Naked Man
Wedding in Cherokee County
Back on My Feet Again
Rollin’

4 Comments

Posted in Albums 80-71

Tagged 1974, Bigotry, Birmingham, Excellent Lyrics, Good Old Boys, Piano, Randy Newman, Rednecks, Singer-Songwriters, US South

79th Favorite: Zenyatta Mondatta, by The Police

Posted on May 10, 2015 | 3 comments

Zenyatta Mondatta. The Police.
1980, A&M. Producer: The Police and Nigel Gray
Purchased: circa 1981.

IN A NUTSHELL – Ska/Reggae/Punk rock played by guys who really know how to play! Catchy melodies and bouncy rhythms are laid on top of performances that get more impressive the more you listen.
WOULD BE HIGHER IF – The songs were more diverse. I like that “Police Sound,” but it can get repetitive.
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In 1974 the TV program Happy Days hit the American airwaves. Happy Days was a situation comedy set in 1950s, dawn of rock n’ roll Milwaukee, about a teenager, Richie Cunningham, and his family and friends. It was a typical sit-com of the day, featuring gentle humor and everyday story lines that made it popular with both kids and adults. It rarely, if ever, pushed boundaries or courted controversy, and until it “jumped the shark,” in an episode that spawned the phrase “jumping the shark,” it was a funny family TV program of the type rarely seen these days on network TV.[ref]However, The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon have continued to churn out mostly weak versions of these types of sitcoms.[/ref]

According to wikipedia, the program began as a mid-season replacement show. I was in first grade, and I don’t remember watching it then. But by 4th grade it was my favorite show. My favorite character was the cool tough guy, Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli, aka “The Fonz.” On my bedroom wall I had a Fonzie poster that I selected as a prize for selling boxes of PTA fundraiser candy. [ref]A poster that, as of April, 2015, is selling for $150 on e-bay![/ref] My favorite t-shirt stated “I’m the Fonz.”

I begged for a Happy Days lunch box, prominently featuring The Fonz, but I already had a “Yankee Doodles” lunchbox that celebrated the Bicentennial with clever cartoons, so I couldn’t get one. Like most of America at the time, I was battling a huge case of Fonzie Fever. How bad were the national symptoms of this malady? Consider that in the 1976 US Presidential race, incumbent Gerald Ford’s campaign included a picture of an uncomfortable-because-my-undershirt-is-showing Ford dressed as a leather-jacketed “Fordzie” character. (Try to imagine the 2012 Obama campaign doing something similar. “Barack-y Stinson,” from How I Met Your Mother? Eew.)

The Fonz introduced to me, and to most Americans, a concrete version of the concept of “Cool.” The Fonz proclaimed himself cool, and he did “cool” things – like choose to not comb his hair because he was already perfect, or start broken juke boxes with a simple punch (or a snap of the fingers, when necessary[ref]Post-shark jump only.[/ref]), or show up to parties with a bevy of women with a group name (e.g. The Aloha Pussycats, The Hooper Triplets.)

He changed how we talked, as well. Fonzie established the term “cool” in its current usage. Before The Fonz, there were “Cool Cats” playing jazz, or tightrope walkers who were “Cool as a Cucumber.” But after The Fonz appeared, your new jeans could be “cool,” your plans to go to the mall could be “cool,” you kid’s art project could be “cool.” Fonzie made “Cool” so very cool.

Of course, Happy Days and The Fonz didn’t invent the concept of “Cool.” According to the interwebs, “cool” originated in the 1930s with jazz musicians, and was popularized in the 40s and 50s. The excellent Miles Davis album Birth of the Cool featured recordings of the Miles Davis Nonet from 1949 and 1950. The title refers to “Cool Jazz,” a style of music that sounded relaxed and in control, as opposed to the furious pace and excess displayed in Bebop. In 60s sit-coms, “cool” was usually among the terms used in dialogue to quickly identify characters as beatniks or jazz enthusiasts.

In popular culture, the term gradually moved away from shorthand for jazz into a concept that non-beatniks could embody, as well. The Peanuts comic strip introduced Snoopy as the character “Joe Cool” in the early 70s. But there remained a negative association to the term, a sense that anyone who was “cool” was arrogant or a fool. The humor of Snoopy’s Joe Cool character comes from the fact that he’s unaware of how wrong-headed his “cool” choices are. (Asked by Linus how his chemistry test went, Snoopy replies “Joe Cool can’t worry about chemistry when he’s busy hanging around the student union.”)

But Fonzie was the first pop culture figure to present “Cool” as a positive characteristic, as something to aspire to. Sure, he was a goofy caricature – with his thumbs-up salute, his “Aaayyy” and his “Whoa,” his leather jacket and superhuman abilities[ref]Again, post-shark jump only[/ref]. But there was something about being Fonzie that connected with people. He revealed an underlying desire among people to be “The Man,” or “The Woman.” To be – in a word – cool.

But being “Cool” is very hard to accomplish in real life. The words “Cool” and “Fool” share 75% of their letters, but there is certainly a better than 95% chance that any individual trying to be “Cool” will instead look like a Fool. And this is why the concept of “Cool” – as embodied by The Fonz – is so elusive. What feels “Cool” to you, on the inside, while you’re “in the moment,” can easily appear silly (or worse) to those around you; and so you make sure you’re not discovered trying to be cool. This self-censoring creates a cool-restrictive feedback loop. You spend time monitoring yourself, and how you’ll look, and now you’ve ensured you’ll never be cool. No one so self-conscious ever can be. The fictional world of Happy Days solved this problem by telling you Fonzie was cool, and having the characters all go along with it, finding his silly phrases and hair and superheroic thumb cool, too. We were allowed to watch a cool guy be cool – with no one giggling behind his back – and we loved it. Milwaukee loved it so much, they erected a statue of The Fonz.[ref]Although it looks more like Captain Kangaroo than Fonzie.[/ref]

Personally, I believe we should stop monitoring ourselves and gauging our cool against potential goofiness. It feels good to feel cool, despite what others think. Here are a few instances in my life where I felt cool – even when those around me disagreed.

The time in first grade when I folded a paper airplane and tossed it repeatedly into the air, coolly reflecting on how I’d finally made it out of the kindergarten wing, and was now in all-day school and riding the bus both ways with kids as old as ten and eleven. (Mrs. Hower did not seem to care about my inner reflections, and yelled and made me stand up and throw away my airplane, and my tearful walk to and from the wastebasket did not feel cool.)

The time in 8th grade when I got the part in the school play I wanted, a sidekick character who got a lot of laughs. I felt so cool to be recognized for my Bill Murray-esque talent. (Even though my friend, C., pointed out before the first show that the casting notes at the beginning of the script called for the role’s ideal actor to be “overweight and loud.”)

The time the coach of my son’s 7th grade basketball team asked me if I wanted to help coach the team – a role I’d served in for some of his other teams. However, this team was a “select” team, so I felt very cool to be asked to help in a way that would mean more than babysitting and yelling at kids to stop playing on the pile of mats. (An invitation my son insisted I turn down, lest he have to deal, once again, with the sight of me wearing “those BLUE SWEATPANTS!!”)

The time in 11th grade when I got a knockoff version of a SONY walkman and I blasted my eardrums with Zenyatta Mondatta in the backseat of the car while my parents got lost in Philadelphia driving to visit a prospective college. (Causing my dad to eventually scream, “Take those stupid things off your head!!!”)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
There is something about The Police that I have always found extremely cool. It probably sounds ludicrous today to think of The Police as “Cool,” (as this Onion.com spoof points out) but in my world they still are. Maybe it’s because of my age when they emerged on the scene (about 12 years old). I was aware enough of the world in 1979 to know what “punk rock” was. Punk was supposed to be the new, cool music. However depictions of the genre – such as the MAD Magazine send up of punk rock[ref]Featuring the classic band Johnny Turd and the Commodes.[/ref], or news pieces about crazy punk rock teen-agers which were frequently on TV – frightened me, and kept me from buying albums I saw by bands like The Sex Pistols and The Clash and The Ramones. However, The Police – who were often lumped in with the punks – were different. They seemed safer, somehow. They were odd and British and snotty enough to mildly annoy and worry my parents, but they weren’t going to start a war in my household.

When their first US single “Roxanne” hit the airwaves in 1979, it sounded like nothing else I’d ever heard. Sting’s voice was whiny and high pitched, and the way he sang the word “Roxanne” didn’t really sound like singing at all. It was a repetitive song, but super catchy. I liked it because I thought it sounded cool. And I thought I was really cool for liking it. Of course, when I told the coolest kid in our neighborhood, Dominic, how cool I thought the song was, he mocked me for days.

But I remained a secret fan. And when I was finally able to convince my mom, during my freshman year of high school, to let me join the Columbia House Record Club (a pretty cool club for music loving teens in the 70s and 80s that didn’t rip me off because I ALWAYS sent back my monthly selection on time!) one of the first 12 cassettes I ordered for a penny was Zenyatta Mondatta.

The Police Sound is a sound of contradictions – perhaps borne of the band’s notorious intraband discord. It sounds punk-y and basic at first, but closer listening reveals it’s full of excellent musicianship. It sounds spare and open, but those spaces are filled with complex playing. It sounds bouncy and fun, but the lyrics can be very serious. Zenyatta Mondatta is the band’s third album, and it follows the template of the first two, Outlandos d’Amour and Regatta de Blanc, with reggae-influenced, driving rock songs featuring Sting’s multi-tracked vocals and close harmonies, and the jazzy guitar and intricate drumming of Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, respectively.

The album opens with one of the most famous rock tracks of all time, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.”

It may be hard to believe now, but when this song came out I had no idea it was about a teacher and a student having a … thing. I was thirteen, not really aware of song lyrics other than the chorus, and not really paying attention to what the words were saying. I was on a baseball team with some older kids – 14 and 15 year olds – and at practice, during a discussion of contemporary music (at which time the song “Funky Town” was officially declared excellent) some 15 year old (Joey Smetana? Mark Allwein?) mentioned, casually (as 15 year olds will) “‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ is about some teacher fucking his student.” I felt a little queasy hearing this, but also happy to be part of the club who knew this (apparently) hidden detail. The song also enhanced my knowledge of literature, as I eventually read “that book by Nabokov.”

The song opens with a low, held bass note and some distant, simple guitar notes. Then that bass note just hangs there for several seconds – it’s a very compelling, spooky opening – until it modulates, and the cymbals and kick drum begin. When the lyrics begin, it’s hard to believe I hadn’t noticed the story being told, but let’s just say I wasn’t the most “with it” thirteen year old. The song displays all the standard Police bits that define their unique style, particularly in the chorus (first at ~0:57). Stewart Copeland’s syncopated drumming (check out what the cymbal is doing) and Andy Summers’s sparse, moody guitar behind Sting’s high pitched shout. One of the things I like most about the song is the countermelody that the bass plays during the “Don’t stand so, Don’t stand so …” It’s a bouncing line that goes up in pitch when the vocal pitch drops – the type of little choice that makes songs interesting. After the first chorus (about 1:13), Sting’s bass line and Copeland’s drums become frantically syncopated and it’s really Summers’s guitar[ref]Okay, and the snare drum.[/ref] that holds the song together rhythmically through the verse.

It’s a really great song that has been played so much over the years, it’s easy to forget how great it is. It’s famous for having been illegally used in a UK deodorant commercial and for a video[ref]A video played nearly hourly, if my 1981 memories of the first few months of MTV are accurate.[/ref] featuring the beautiful young men of the band jumping around in a school.

That video also got me, and many American youths, interested in the British band The Beat (known as “The English Beat” in the US).

What “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” demonstrates in The Police sound is that there is always a lot more happening in their songs than what you hear the first time through. Sting writes such catchy melodies, and the band’s arrangements sound so good, that the details are often lost on first listen.

An excellent example is the second song on the album, and my favorite, “Driven to Tears.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSShauY8D3w

The song opens with a snare drum, which is perfect for this song because the drumming on it is amazing. Stewart Copeland is widely recognized as one of the top drummers in the rock era and his work on “Driven to Tears” exemplifies why. Pay attention to the drums, and imagine your own hands trying to hit all those drums and (especially) cymbals with sticks the same way. Sting’s bass line is simple and – once again – bouncy, and Summers is as ethereal as ever in the spaces. The lyrics consider the responsibilities of Western, wealthy people towards Earth’s less-fortunate people, and is one of Sting’s first directly socially conscious songs, presaging his later extensive work with social action charities. Andy Summers also plays one of the weirdest guitar solos in pop music on this song, as well. It starts behind the vocals, at around 1:35, and only takes another 15 – 18 seconds, but it’s as memorable a 15 second guitar solo as I’ve heard. “Driven to Tears” is repetitive, which is usually a characteristic that causes me to skip a song, but The Police do so much within the repetitive framework they build that I never get tired of the song. Here’s them playing it live, back in the day.

The Police are clearly influenced by reggae, which can be a somewhat repetitive, meditative musical style. The song “When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around” is one of the more repetitive songs you’ll hear on my list of 100 favorite albums[ref]I’m desperately trying not to repetitively say “repetitive.”[/ref], but it just sounds so cool to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt0-KelIjrU

I often complain to my teenage son that much of the hip-hop music he likes sounds too repetitive to me. He tells me my music is the same way. Maybe he’s right. In this song, Sting’s melody saves the day. It makes the chorus a sing-along favorite. The lyrics explain to a sweetheart (or friend) how they brighten an otherwise tiresome, worn-out world. The verses cram lots of words into a little bit of space, which is another facet of the typical Police sound.

This wordiness is also on display in “Canary In a Coalmine”

It’s another short, punchy song about a person extremely faint of heart. The rhymes are funny, and Summers plays a nice lead guitar line throughout the song. I think of this song and “When the World is Running Down …” as two halves of the same song, maybe because they are next to each other on the record.

Sting has been pilloried in the press over the years for his lyrics. And certainly publishing them in a collection called Lyrics by Sting[ref]Available on Amazon for $2.06 (hardcover) or $0.02 (paperback). Yes that’s TWO CENTS![/ref] might not have been a good way to tamp down this derision. Further, it couldn’t have helped his case to include statements like the following in the book’s foreword:

“Publishing my lyrics separately from their musical accompaniment is something that I’ve studiously avoided until now. The two, lyrics and music, have always been mutually dependent, in much the same way as a mannequin and a set of clothes are dependent on each other; separate them, and what remains is a naked dummy and a pile of cloth.”

Or even worse, this:

“My wares have neither been sorted nor dressed in clothes that do not belong to them; indeed, they have been shorn of the very garments that gave them their shape in the first place. No doubt some of them will perish in the cold cruelty of this new environment, and yet others may prove more resilient and become perhaps more beautiful in their naked state.”

(Wait … doesn’t the mannequin give shape to the clothes, not vice versa? Oh well.) And it probably doesn’t help my case for being considered “cool” to acknowledge that I’ve always sort of liked many of Sting’s lyrics.[ref]For The Police, anyway. I don’t know a lot of his solo work.[/ref] For example, I thought mentioning Nabokov in a pop song was kind of cool. And as someone who often finds himself tongue-tied in conversation, with thoughts in my head finding no clear path to my voice box and mouth, a song of Sting’s that has long been a favorite is “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.”

It’s all about how hard it is to find the right words. The bass, guitar and drums are all sounding good in this one, and the soft, gauzy verse coupled with the percussive chorus fit together nicely. The band’s two-note “Ba-Ba” before the (vocal) “De do do do …” are an example of how a tiny bit of music can become a signature of a song. I recall my sister, Liz, and I banging our heads to these two notes – just to gently antagonize my mom, who by 1980 was finding popular music far, far too crazy to even comment on any more. The song was also ripped off in a commercial for a classic turn-of-the-decade Designer Jeans brand, Baronelli.[ref]Designer Jeans commercials in 1979-80 were very strange, and even a young Boston Celtics Legend might turn up on one.[/ref]

But if you aren’t a fan of Sting’s lyrics, the band includes some other songs for you to appreciate. There’s Andy Summers’s grammy award-winning instrumental “Behind My Camel.” According to Summers’s excellent autobiography, One Train Later, Sting hated this song and refused to play on it, and went so far as to bury the recording in the garden outside the studio in hopes of keeping it off the album. (Sting has confirmed the story.) It’s a vaguely Middle Eastern-sounding guitar solo that I like well enough, but that to my ears doesn’t really show off the best of Summers’s technique. There’s another instrumental, this one drummer Copeland’s composition, “The Other Way of Stopping.” Another near-instrumental is “Voices Inside My Head,” which features words written by Sting, but only 10 of them, so probably not enough to be hated. I actually like Summers’s guitar on this song more than on “Behind My Camel.”

If you want a non-instrumental, non-Sting-lyrics song, Zenyatta Mondatta has one of those, too, in the excellent Copeland piece “Bombs Away.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnSX-KBnfFA

This song has everything great about the band, and album, in one song. Sting’s bass line is funky, tricky and propels the song forward, as usual. He typically plays a fretless bass, which as an amateur electric bass player myself, I find pretty incredible. Copeland’s drumming, from his kick drum to his cymbals, is excellent and as melodic as a few drums can be. Summers again shows off his subtle genius by nicely doubling the chorus melody, and in his deft background picking, and in another weird, Middle Eastern solo (~1:34), this one stretching out for more than 15 seconds. He also stretches further on the outro solo, starting about 2:17. The Police weren’t a typical “guitar hero band,” like Van Halen or Queen or AC/DC, but Summers states his case here, playing this last solo like he’s finally been allowed off the leash.[ref]In an admittedly Police fashion.[/ref]

The remaining two songs are “Man in a Suitcase,” another frantic, sing-along ska song featuring cool double tracked harmony vocals by Sting, and more tight, intricate drumming. And “Shadows in the Rain,” a slow groove of a Police song. This one is very meditative and sparse.

The album doesn’t have a lot of diversity of sound – something that I typically look for in my favorite albums. But it does have a sound of its own … a cool sound. A sound that takes me back, makes me feel good, and makes me happy. For me, it’s a celebration of feeling “cool.”

And we SHOULD celebrate feeling cool! It’s a great feeling! Go ahead and toss a paper airplane, or act in a play. Go wear your blue sweatpants. Or listen to Zenyatta Mondatta. Who cares if you look like a doofus to others. You’re allowed to be Fonzie in your world. You must cherish your own version of a supernatural thumb.

TRACK LISTING
Don’t Stand So Close To Me
Driven to Tears
When the World Is Running Down You Make the Best of What’s Still Around
Canary in a Coalmine
Voices Inside My Head
Bombs Away
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
Behind My Camel
Man in a Suitcase
Shadows in the Rain
The Other Way of Stopping

3 Comments

Posted in Albums 80-71

Tagged 1980, Andy Summers, Cool, Fonzie, New Wave, Punk, Stewart Copeland, Sting, The Police, Zenyatta Mondatta

80th Favorite: Freedom, by Neil Young

Posted on April 21, 2015 | 4 comments

Freedom. Neil Young.
1989 Reprise. Producer: Neil Young and Niko Bolas
Purchased: 1990.

IN A NUTSHELL – Rock chameleon Neil Young explores the meaning of America’s favorite word – Freedom – in a diverse set of songs full of strange sounds, unexpected choices and musical structures that help elucidate meaning from the lyrics. He is a man free do do anything, and he makes the most of his opportunity.
WOULD BE HIGHER IF – The melodies were a bit stronger, and a couple acoustic songs went electric.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“You can do anything you want,” my parents often told me, “if you put your mind to it.”

To be honest, I don’t remember those exact words being spoken – it wasn’t like a parenting mantra for them. But it was definitely a belief system that they tried to instill – the idea that I shouldn’t be limited in my pursuits by anything (other than my own lack of interest.) However, I’m not sure they actually believed in that belief system. Or rather, it wasn’t a belief system they acted upon.

There are many folks on Earth who claim to believe in a god, but when challenged to put that faith into action – even basic action – choose to defer. “If you’re a Christian, why don’t you go to church?” “If you’re a Jew, why do you work on Yom Kippur?” “If you’re a Pastafarian, how come you don’t drink beer?”

These are the types who show up for church only on Christmas and (maybe) Easter; or the aunt and uncle who sometimes come to a Seder, but who don’t even belong to a Temple. When asked if they believe, they’re sure to say “Yes, of course!” But when probed on the subject, they’re sure to say, “Mind your own business.”

My folks took this approach with the religion of You Can Do Anything You Want. They instructed my sisters and me in its creed, and never dared come out and say it was bullshit … but they didn’t actively assist in any life pursuits, either. As kind, loving parents, they naturally knew there was no reason to tell a 12 year old boy, “You’ll never play baseball in the big leagues.” But when told by that same 12 year old, “I want to be a doctor,” neither did they say, “Well, make sure you take college-track courses in high school.”

In fact, they didn’t have many examples from their own lives of people who did Anything They Wanted. People they knew got jobs as steel workers, or in some other industry related to steel. Since the turn of the 20th century Lebanon had been a big Steel Town, a little brother between Pennsylvania’s twin steel cities Bethelehem and Pittsburgh. The old Bethlehem Steel Plant (pronounced “Beth’-lum Steel”) was central – both geographically and economically – to the City of Lebanon.

It was a sprawling, military-base-looking series of redbrick buildings that spanned a good two to three city blocks in length and a city block or more in width. The plant straddled Lincoln Avenue, and there was an MP-like guard in a hard-hat standing in a little guard box near where the street crossed the railroad tracks. The guard would direct the flow of traffic as needed, ensuring no cars would crash into any of the forklifts, light trucks, or men that were busy loading up railcars to ship steel around the globe. There was an inspiring, martial urgency that I could feel humming around me whenever my family drove down Lincoln Ave. Even on Saturday nights, when my family took this route home from visiting my Grandma’s house, hurrying to make it back by 10 pm for The Carol Burnett Show, that guard and the hustle and bustle surrounding him were evidence of the round-the-clock importance of whatever it was that was happening inside those brick buildings.

Most kids’ dads worked at The Beth’-lum Steel. Many other dads worked at the Lebanon Steel Foundry or Cleaver Brooks, a manufacturer of industrial boilers, or Alcoa, an aluminum manufacturer. Still others – like my dad, and my uncles, and their friends, and most of the grown men I knew – worked inside the dozens of machine shops, tool and die shops, pattern shops, and other associated metal working businesses situated within the county.

Lebanon was a Steel Town, and this didn’t necessarily mean that everyone traipsed into and out of the Big Factory every 8 hours, like a scene from The Deer Hunter or All the Right Moves.

But it did mean that almost everyone worked in a job that owed its existence to Big Steel.

So in this context, what would it really mean to my parents that “You can do anything you want”? Theoretically speaking, sure, you could go be a doctor or a lawyer. But practically speaking, why would you do anything else except for Steel? You’re really going to spend $8,000 a year to go to college for four years[ref]More years, and more money, if you’re really serious about this “Doctor” or “Lawyer” thing …[/ref] when you could make almost twice that much right now with just a high school diploma?

There was a perceived safety in steel, and there were enough people inside those brick buildings whose steel paycheck was paying off a few costly semesters of college they’d dropped out of to make it seem like college was the risky path to choose. The religion of You Can Do Anything, when put into actual practice, sounded like a choice for suckers. Like asking a Christian to be good and go to church each Sunday when he can just ask Jesus to forgive his sins on his deathbed and wind up in the same place.

From WWII up until about 1981, the American Dream was really at its height for families in my hometown. Most families were single-income, and that income earner likely only had a high school diploma, yet he[ref]Despite the burgeoning Women’s Lib movement, those single earners were overwhelmingly male.[/ref] earned enough to buy a house with a yard in a safe neighborhood.

So there wasn’t an enormous financial motivation to following one’s dreams. No one was getting rich, but very few were mired in the dire straits that can sometimes force a person to dream big and do everything possible to attain those dreams. No one thought that this hard-earned American Dream of Middle Class comfort could evaporate so quickly. It seemed like Steel had always been there, providing jobs and glory, and that it would remain so forever. No one expected that by 1984 it would end.

My own dreams didn’t necessarily include going to college. I wasn’t exactly sure whether Bill Murray, John Belushi or Dan Aykroyd had gone to college, and they were what I dreamed of becoming.

I took all the college prep courses in high school, mainly because the Guidance Counselor (such as he was) had told me it was the best choice for me. Still, my mom remained unsure. Before my sophomore year of high school, she had a lengthy discussion with me about whether I should take general ed courses instead, and start attending Vo-Tech. She suggested plumbing might be a good trade for me to look into.

I didn’t know if the Vo-Tech offered Saturday Night Live training courses, but I knew for a fact that the Vo-Tech kids mostly scared the shit out of me, and there was no way I was going to get on a bus with them each day and risk getting beaten up just so I could learn how to pipe poop. I convinced her that college was my dream path, but didn’t mention Saturday Night Live.

I kept that dream inside my head, where it more resembled a nighttime, sleeping dream than what one would call an “aspiration.” I had vague notions of making people laugh and performing, but actually doing so seemed about as real as dunking a basketball against a team of giant penguins in capes. It never occurred to me to investigate a path to attain it. One time I did discuss my dream briefly with my parents, but their angry response ensured I never asked again. It seemed more productive to just write a letter to SNL to see if they’d bring a 16 year old from rural PA, with no stage experience[ref]Except for playing trombone solos in church, which I did emphasize in my letter.[/ref] in for an audition. I still await their reply, and assume that no formal decision has yet been reached.

My parents’ response was evidence that while You Can Do Anything You Want was the theory, in actual practice it was When We Said “Anything” We Didn’t Really Mean to Imply “Anything.”

These circumstances left me with a lifelong fascination with those who did go on to follow their dreams and Do Anything They Wanted. And perhaps the strongest example in rock music of a person who not only does what he wants, but also does what he wants regardless of trends, expectations, common sense or record company threats, is Neil Young.

The late 80s were a tough time for my lifelong love affair with music. Having grown accustomed to the Classic Rock sound of AOR radio, and falling particularly hard for the 70s prog rock shenanigans of Rush and Yes and the like, but being disgusted by the pseudo-heavy-metal Hair Bands that proliferated and too timid to give a chance to most anything that didn’t feature the guitar front and center, or that wasn’t heard on any radio stations I could get, I waded chest-deep into the murky waters of Eighties Records from Sixties and Seventies Bands. In doing so, I missed out on lots of excellent bands while they were at their creative peak, and paid lots of money to listen to a lot of crap.[ref]Some of which, admittedly I still have a taste for.[/ref]

Raise your hand if you rushed out to buy that Emerson, Lake and Powell record in 1986! (You know, the band formed when Carl Palmer – the “P” in 70s prog rockers ELP – was replaced by Cozy Powell after a quick search through the likely small stack of applications received that met the requirements of a) 70s Rock Drummer Still Alive in 1986 and b) Last Name Begins with “P.”)

And raise your other hand if you ALSO had no idea who Husker Du was in 1986!

Great! You are now in perfect position to be kneed in the solar plexus, which is how I feel when I realize what the fuck I was listening to in the 80s, and what I COULD HAVE BEEN listening to instead![ref]Although I should point out that this time was also spent getting DEEPLY into The Beatles, so it wasn’t all wasted.[/ref] I’m sure I’ll dive more deeply into this topic in future posts, as it’s a sad, desperate era in my musical timeline soothed only by the balm of the flagellant-like spectacle of writing about it in embarrassing, humorous detail for public consumption. But suffice it to say that when you realize you spent money on an album like the 1987 Jethro Tull release Crest of a Knave but didn’t know The Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me (also from 1987) was even a thing until sometime in the mid-90s, you get the same mortified feeling you have waking up in your underpants on a stranger’s couch, vague memories of tequila shots and police cars swimming below the surface of your mind, suddenly aware that you’ll never again get a chance to NOT barf into that guy’s washing machine.

But during this dark time in my life of music appreciation, Neil Young’s 1989 gem Freedom appeared.[ref]Most likely prolonging my stay in the chilly, but unpleasantly-warm-in-spots 80s Classic Rock pool.[/ref] I was in the best cover band ever at the time, J.B. and The So-Called Cells, playing bass next to Dr. Dave and his guitar, and we immediately learned a couple songs from the album to add to our repertoire.

For long-time Neil Young fans, the album opener is quite exciting. It’s a live recording of just Neil and his acoustic guitar, the sounds of an enthusiastic audience cheering along as he belts out a new song, “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfgC2Ph9VNE

It’s something Young also did 10 years earlier on the excellent album Rust Never Sleeps.

On Freedom, this choice sets up the entire work. It is an opening plea: you have been given a gift, listeners in the Western world. Don’t blow it, like others have, using it to proliferate environmental destruction, machine guns, wasted lives. Create something good. Then he goes on to show us what one man can do with this freedom.

His use of that freedom is displayed on the very next song, the epic slice of life narrative “Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero Part I)”:

It’s an acoustic guitar driven riff rocker, but it immediately signals it will be unusual with the loud organ and vaguely out-of-tune guitar notes that begin the song, then fade out in the first 5 seconds. It’s a musical choice that is reminiscent of the opening chord of The Beatles’ “Her Majesty.”[ref]The song was famously intended to be placed between two other tracks on Abbey Road, but was spliced out, leaving it with an introductory note that was actually the final chord from the previous song.[/ref] The lyrics tell several tales from the gritty city, almost like a darker, less goofy version of the film Slacker set to music. Each of the vignettes describes a crime, or a lost person, or both, evoking sadness and hopelessness. Except for a verse about a music artist and a record producer who conspire to build a hit song by hiring an outside songwriter. I find it wonderful to know that Neil lumps these two in with corrupt cops, drug dealers and arsonists. It’s evidence of his commitment to Anything He Wants to Do, his faith in following his muse, that he considers hiring folks to touch up his work just more Crime in the City.

To my ears, what really makes this song a Neil song, as opposed to just another acoustic guitar ballad you might hear on Sirius/XM’s The Coffeehouse, are the recurrence of that initial organ note and out of tune guitar after each verse (for example, around 1:25 and 2:56), and the way those organ/guitar notes turn into very brief waltz interludes after the third (~4:25) and fourth (~6:03) verses. This is a strange song. There isn’t a chorus, but horns enter in the middle, helping to build the energy and keeping it from ever becoming boring. Plus there’s Neil’s subtle acoustic soloing throughout. This is a song by a man who can do whatever he wants on a record, and his artistic vision hits the jackpot here.

The Latin-flavored “Eldorado” is similar in structure and sound to “Crime.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBPCTaEwaeA

It begins with a gentle Spanish guitar sound and grows more electric. Neil’s always interesting, signature electric guitar soloing is featured throughout. His electric guitar solos, throughout his career, remind me of Thelonious Monk piano solos. At first they can sound out of tune or mistake-filled or simply weird, until the music continues forward and your brain catches up, and you realize what the instrument has been saying fits perfectly. It’s a definite kind of genius. “Eldorado’s” lyrics are once again dark tales of a dangerous life. And this time the strange interjections of sound aren’t waltzes, but thunderous claps of pegged guitar noise (~4:48) that appear from nowhere, like sudden summer storms.

Young’s fascination with strange blasts of sound, even in otherwise un-blastful songs, shows up repeatedly on Freedom, a preview of what would come on his next few records with his band Crazy Horse – 1990’s Ragged Glory and the live albums Arc and Weld. The noisiest two are “Don’t Cry” and his remake of the 60s hit “On Broadway.”

“Don’t Cry” features an anvil and more cloudbursts of sound from Young’s guitar, including a shotgun sound that reappears throughout (for example ~1:01).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDPeKrWqjj8

The guitar solos are ugly noise, but they fit a song with lyrics about an ugly breakup. It ends with Young’s always edgy voice and a final shotgun crash of electric tumult. His version of “On Broadway” also uses the ugly sounds of his guitar as a comment on the ugly sights on Broadway ca. 1989.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Yyx_8EdY0

Times Square in 1989 was a far different scene than that of today – a rundown fortress of seedy porn theaters and seedier people. And Young’s version – with his caterwauling vocals and the band’s sloppy playing and more solo guitar that sounds like jet aircraft falling from the sky – reflects that seediness, doing away with the “If I Can Make It Here …” wonder featured in other popular versions of the song. The whole thing devolves into Neil screaming over the din for someone to “Gimme some crack!” It is a brilliant mess.

Proving that he can Do Whatever He Wants, Young also places some extraordinarily romantic and moving soft numbers on the record as well. Two are duets with Linda Ronstadt, her full, gorgeous voice sounding extra beautiful when paired with Neil’s thin tenor. “Hangin’ on a Limb” is the first of the two.

It’s a song about a traveling musician’s love for a woman, written as only a traveling musician can. “There was something about freedom/he thought he didn’t know,” they sing, reflecting the pull the road must have on some performers. The song offers a different perspective on what it means to be free, a path that isn’t without sacrifice or negatives. It also includes much sweet acoustic soloing from Young.

The other Linda Ronstadt performance comes on “The Ways of Love,” written from the perspective of two people in a new love, aware of the fact that this new love – wonderful though it is – is crushing others who now have been displaced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XO3V69tijkQ

It starts with one of those rolling acoustic riffs that Young features in many songs (e.g. “Needle and the Damage Done“) and that sound so inviting. A nice lap pedal steel guitar fills in, as the drum alternates a snare and a tom, giving the song a Western feel. As in “Broadway” and “Don’t Cry,” Young uses the music and arrangement to support the meaning of the song, this time falling into a regal march during the chorus (~0:46), as the vocals sing “Oh! The Ways of Love,” implying that this love is so grand, so important, that the feelings of others who’ve been left behind – sad though they may be – are simply insignificant. As with “Hangin’ On a Limb,” the lyrics here show a different, negative aspect of freedom that is often unconsidered.

Two other romantic songs, balancing out the noisiness, are “Wrecking Ball” a soft piano-driven piece about a desire to meet a woman at a dive bar and spend the night dancing, and “Too Far Gone,” which seems to describe the morning after the evening spent dancing at The Wrecking Ball.

The song “Someday” has some of Neil’s most poetic lyrics, poetic in the sense that I don’t always know what they mean (Rommel’s ring?) but they speak to me nonetheless, especially when put to music like Neil produces. “We all have to fly/Someday.”

My favorite song on the album is “No More,” one of the tracks J.B. and The So-Called Cells played back in the day.[ref]And still do, when we get the chance![/ref]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgmgVslPLxY

It has a bouncy bass line from bassist Tony Marsico. But the bounciness doesn’t indicate a happy song. In fact, this is an anti-drug song in a minor key, describing the downward spiral of drug abuse. That bounciness just serves to outline the false happiness that drugs can bring. Neil’s electric guitar throughout the song is inspired, grungy wonder.

Freedom closes with an electric version of the acoustic opener, “Rockin’ in the Free World,”[ref]Again, just as he did on Rust Never Sleeps.[/ref] a hit for Young on MTV back in the day, and another prominent song in the J.B. and The So-Called Cells’ setlist.

Neil Young is a wild man in this video, crazy hair, crazy pants, crazy guitar. He bashes and jumps around, putting everything he has into a little movie for a TV network. He is free. He’s free to rock, to create, and he just did it over the course of 12 different songs, and he thinks you can, too. Young is free both politically and creatively – he can’t really be censored by anyone but himself, and he makes the most of the opportunity by making record that no one else would make, that sounds like no one else would sound. He is a Bodhisattva in the religion of You Can Do Anything You Want, guiding us lesser travelers toward what each of us truly can be.

“We all have to fly/Someday,” he sang. Maybe that Someday is soon for me. While I await that reply from SNL, I’ll do what I can to keep Doing Anything I Want.

TRACK LISTING
Rockin’ in the Free World (Live Acoustic)
Crime in the City (Sixty to Zero Part I)
Don’t Cry
Hangin’ on a Limb
El Dorado
The Ways of Love
Someday
On Broadway
Wrecking Ball
No More
Too Far Gone
Rockin’ in the Free World (Electric)

4 Comments

Posted in Albums 80-71

Tagged 1989, 80s Rock, Acoustic, Classic Rock, Electric Guitar, Freedom, Lebanon Steel, Linda Ronstadt, Neil Young, You Can Do Anything You Want

81st Favorite: The Wall, by Pink Floyd

Posted on April 2, 2015 | 11 comments

The Wall. Pink Floyd.
1979 Harvest/EMI. Producer: Bob Ezrin, David Gilmour, James Guthrie and Roger Waters
Gift ca. 1984.

IN A NUTSHELL – Audacious Rock Opera describing a sad descent into madness, but with terrific songs and absolutely amazing guitar by David Gilmour. It’s as iconic an album as there is in the rock era, with several songs still played on the radio today.
WOULD BE HIGHER IF – This record honestly could fall anywhere between Top Ten and 150. My feelings about it are SO dependent on my mood and how much time I have to spend and what’s going on in my life. So I guess it would be higher if I’d written the list another day!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My dad has always been a hard worker.

He was a tool and die maker back when he was still working – a profession that seems easy to learn, but is difficult to master, and that certainly has never paid a wage proportional to the knowledge and skill required to perform the duties. He spent forty hours a week, 50 weeks a year, for almost 50 years, standing on concrete floors in poorly ventilated machine shops whose temperature was controlled by opening or closing a garage door at one end; hunched over drafting tables and hot, loud machines, grinding and cutting metal to ludicrously exact specifications – tasks that most days sent him home covered with little curls of metal embedded in his clothes and balding head, like he’d been sitting all day petting a steel poodle.

Evenings and weekends he worked some more – fixing our cars, redoing rooms in the house, making repairs, maintaining our yard. For “fun”, he did more work: building engines, crafting muzzle loading rifles, making fishing lures… He most certainly identified with the diligent Ant in that Aesop’s Fable about the ant and the grasshopper. My mom has always been an Ant, too. She was a housewife, and she didn’t delegate her “responsibilities” very much at all. She cooked, cleaned, did laundry (at a Laundromat in winter, or using a big old wringer washer and galvanized steel tubs in the summer), made beds, shopped, banked, paid bills, registered kids for school and community groups[ref]Which meant – back in ancient times before the internet – driving to a school or firehouse in the evening and waiting in line to put your kids’ names on a list.[/ref], made appointments, chauffeured kids … Later she got a few part-time jobs – cafeteria lady, waitress, bologna factory worker – and STILL did all the other stuff she’d already been doing.

[captionpix imgsrc=”https://100favealbums.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/sue-in-bologna.jpg” captiontext=”This photo of my mom and her two colleagues hung in the lobby of the Weaver’s Lebanon Bologna Factory store (on Weavertown Rd.) for years! It might still be there.”]

My folks would watch a little TV in the evening, and go for drives in the country on a Sunday afternoon, but that was about the extent of their R&R. They were ants, and the work had to get done – whether it had to get done or not.

Yet somehow, they ended up with a big Grasshopper for a son.

I wouldn’t say I’m lazy, but those around me probably would. I’ve been known, at times, to do some hard work, but like that grasshopper, I’d much prefer to be singing and dancing.

I always thought that my aversion to hard work was a problem, a blight on social order. I seemed to lack some sort of gene, and I felt second-class because of it. But then I read a book that changed my perception of myself. When my kids were little, I read them the best book in the world – much, much better than that stupid ant and grasshopper fable. Frederick, by Leo Lionni.

In this book – which was deviously hidden from me as a child[ref]Although I sort of remember the cover. It could be that we had it, but that it looked too lame and un-sports-related for me to have taken an interest.[/ref] – all the mice work really, really hard to prepare for winter, just like the ants in Aesop’s fable. Meanwhile, Frederick just sits on his ass and watches the weather. The other mice get annoyed, and ask why he isn’t helping, and he keeps saying “Don’t worry, I’m helping, I’m getting … words and colors and warmth!” All the other mice are pissed. But they don’t lock him out of the den – like the mean old ants did with that fun-lovin’ grasshopper. Instead, when the winter gets desperate and dark, they ask, “Hey, slacker, where’s that warmth and color you were gathering?” And Frederick responds. He tells them wonderful stories and keeps them all amused and happy while supplies grow thin. And then all the other mice are like, “That Frederick don’t work for shit, but he sure can tell a story! He’s all right!”

[captionpix imgsrc=”https://100favealbums.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/frederick-talking.jpg” captiontext=”Frederick is the perfect role model for young, lazy goofballs.”]

Frederick is a celebration of The Charming, Lazy Bullshitter. This sounds like a knock but I mean it in a positive way! Charming, Lazy Bullshitters (CLBs) get a bad rap, but that’s because there are so many folks who TRY to be the CLB, but who just really don’t do it very well at all. But if you’re fortunate enough to have a GOOD CLB in your midst, you’re happy to know him or her.

To be the good kind of CLB, you have to be friendly and inconspicuous. This is where the Grasshopper went wrong. He danced and sang and told the ants they were saps for working. Of course they thought he was a dick – he WAS BEING a dick! But Frederick was quiet, contemplative. When the other mice challenged him, he didn’t say “Suckers!” He convinced them that he was actually doing work – and he did so nicely.

The good CLB doesn’t take much away from the group, either. Once winter came, Frederick didn’t cut to the front of the line, or eat more food than anyone else, or say dumb stuff like, “Hey, who ate the last kernel of white corn? I was saving that!!” In fact I think he probably took even a little less than his share. He clearly knew how to work his angle, so I guarantee he played it cool in the chow line.

The most important aspect of Frederick’s CLB act – and the most difficult part to master, and probably the point where most lousy CLBs fall down – is in the payoff: the stories he shares. He clearly has some skills with words, and the mice around him love the tales he tells. He’s like Richard Pryor or Joan Rivers or even Aesop, back in the day.[ref]I’m dating myself. How about Aziz Ansari or Amy Schumer?[/ref]The stuff he comes up with is so good that the other mice shake their heads and wonder, “Where does he come up with this stuff!!??” He keeps those mice so enthralled that they even forget they’re all starving together!!

Good CLBs don’t always end up as professional performers. Many workplaces have the guy who doesn’t do Jack Squat and who everyone else complains about – the bad CLB. Equally common – but far more difficult to spot – is the good CLB. The guy who asks you about your weekend, and spends fifteen minutes discussing the awesome Pentatonix concert you went to; the woman who remembers everyone’s birthday and talks about the celebration you had; the senior director who comes over to the cubicles and tells funny stories about things that happened at the company before you were hired. These are the people who you enjoy around the office, but don’t know what it is they actually do all day. They are the workplace lubricants, making it easier to accomplish your tasks, even though they aren’t really helping you do any actual work.[ref]Frederick does play a little loose with reality, however. In real life, the Good CLB does just enough work so that others don’t feel they’re making up for his slack.[/ref]

An example of Charming Lazy Bullshitting just occurred here, in this blog post, as I spent the last several paragraphs blabbing about some unrelated topic instead of actually typing up some stuff about Pink Floyd’s The Wall. “But wait,” you say. “You do that with every album write up!” To which I say, “Indeed! But this time I don’t have a point! I’m just trying to avoid hard work.”

Because, you see, writing about The Wall is going to be hard work, and I find hard work to be … hard. Considering The Wall and describing its place among all the records in my collection creates a challenge that is unique to Rock Operas: whether to judge the work as a musical story, or as a collection of songs. Or figure out something else.

You may think it’s not such a big deal, but that’s most likely because you’ve never decided to sit down and ~~waste~~ spend years of your life considering which 100 albums are your favorites, and how to rank them from 100 to 1, and then writing about your endeavors for a few dozen folks to ~~not~~ read. If you’ve ever attempted such a task, you know what I’m talking about.

To most readers, it probably seems that The Wall should simply be judged for what it is: a rock opera – a singular narrative told through a collection of rock songs.[ref]This is different from a “concept album.” A concept album may or may not tell a single story. It may be a bunch of songs about, or inspired by, a single idea or character, but it’s not necessarily a singular narrative.[/ref]But if judged as a Rock Opera, then I have to consider the story. My appreciation of a story is greatly affected by my mood – much more so than it affects most collections of songs. There are times I listen to The Wall and find it almost overpowering in its emotion and depth, and other times that I get to “Goodbye Cruel World” and I think, “Man, I hope he finally ends it all here and just moves on to the good songs.”

So if it’s a record I can’t appreciate any old time, and there are other records I COULD listen to any old time, then I can’t rank The Wall as highly as those others – even though when I’m in the mood, it may be among my favorites.

“Okay, okay, enough already,” you say. “So big deal, then, just judge it on its songs, what’s the big whoop?”

The Big Whoop is this: some of the songs on the album – on most ANY Rock Opera album – are pretty lousy as simply songs. Works on The Wall such as “Stop” and “Vera” are very short fragments, rather unlistenable to me outside the context of the album. So if I judge it as just a collection of songs, the record will be too harshly judged.

I discussed this dilemma with the famous Dr. Dave. He made a very wise point (as he nearly always does) – stating that surely the fact that a band attempted such a work of artistry should merit some consideration. This was, I think, Dave’s cut-the-bullshit-and-admit-the-record’s-fucking-awesome way of guiding me in my thoughts.

It’s hard to overstate how HUGE a record The Wall was when it was released in late 1979. I was a 12 year old 7th grader, listening to AM radio and curating my Village People cassette collection when The Wall arrived, and even I could feel its presence everywhere. I remember B., a friend at both school and Sunday school – one of the rare crossover friends – who had older brothers and was therefore always a step or five ahead of me in musical awareness. He proclaimed the album a masterpiece in 7th grade, and I was excited to tell him I had seen a commercial on TV for it. He asked me what song was on the commercial and I replied, “Something about a wall.” He was unimpressed.

My oldest sister – a high school senior that year – purchased the record on vinyl soon after it came out. I remember my other sister and I being perplexed by the fact that The Wall contained sounds such as people talking, and a baby crying and a plane crashing – evidence to us that a) it was some kind of strange music (crying babies? Crashing Planes??!!) and b) maybe our big sister wasn’t the same girl anymore who used to play Barbies with us on snow days.[ref]Of course, I played “GI Joes,” but as the youngest, and a boy, used the term “Barbies” simply to ease communication between the genders, not because I played with Barbies! (Except for maybe a Ken here and there.)[/ref]

There was a mobile home park near my house across the street from Lions Lake (now “Ebenezer Lake”), and it sat on land about 8 feet higher than the road, Jay St. That eight feet of earth was held back from the roadway by a retaining wall made of white cinder blocks. Soon after the release of The Wall, a well-rendered, spray-painted graffito showed up on this wall stating “Pink Floyd The Wall” in an approximation of the script on the album cover. It looked really cool![ref]Except for the fact that someone had also painted “REO Speedwagon” nearby, as well(!!)[/ref] So cool that it seemed to be repainted every so often, enough that it was legible a good 15 or 20 years after its first application.

[captionpix imgsrc=”https://100favealbums.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/the-wall-lebanon.jpg” captiontext=”The most important and memorable graffito of my life appeared on this wall ca. 1980.”]

So before I had ever even listened closely to the album – I’m counting neither my aural glimpses through my sister’s bedroom door, nor the time I listened to “Program One” of the 8-track tape repeatedly on a malfunctioning Mego 2-XL Talking Robot toy that my cousin had[ref]It played the song “Mother” again and again, and the very-troubling-to-a-12-year-old-boy lyrics “Mother do you think they’ll try and break my balls?” was burned into my brain to, I think, detrimental effect.[/ref] – I was well-aware of the album’s existence as a cultural marker.

The album was an enormous hit, and several of the songs frequented AOR radio stations in the 80s and 90s, and are still played today on ~~rock~~ oldies radio. “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II” even spent four weeks at Number One on the Hot Singles chart in 1980, surrounded by such fare as “Working My Way Back to You/Forgive Me Girl,” by The Spinners, and “Desire,” by Andy Gibb.

It wasn’t until sometime in my senior year of high school that my good friend Rick, appalled that I had never listened to The Wall, recorded it on cassette tape for me and I finally listened to it for the first time. I recall being blown away. I listened to that cassette a lot, and I finally went out and purchased the CD as part of my First Grand Conversion of Musical Formats in the early 90s.

It’s difficult to describe The Wall briefly and do it justice. It is a double album length rock opera about a rock star, named “Pink” (aka “Mr. Floyd”), and his descent into madness, as told through flashbacks to his childhood and deep dives into his troubled psyche.[ref]If you want more details, the Wikipedia page is a good place to start, with links to stories with much more information.[/ref] It’s quite an audacious undertaking by the band, and a testament to Roger Waters, Pink Floyd’s founder, bassist, main songwriter and guiding creative force for The Wall, that the end result succeeds so well.

There is much to love about the album – its songs are cool and interesting, they’re diverse, and the musicianship is terrific. But what I think I love most about the record are two things: the interplay between Roger Waters’s and David Gilmour’s voices, and Gilmour’s amazing guitar work. Waters and Gilmour have had their differences over the years, but their singing voices always seem to get along.

A song that features both aspects is the aforementioned “Mother,” where Waters sings Pink’s lines, and Gilmour sings the title role:

The song has other characteristics that I love. For one thing, the “Pink” lines are in 4/4 meter, but the “Mother” lines are in 3/4. This subtle shift makes the song more interesting, but also works extremely well as an storytelling device, juxtaposing the two characters and rendering musically the distance between them (one of the first “Bricks” in Pink’s “Wall”). Also, I like how the Mother’s lyrics slowly turn from loving to creepy. Gilmour’s wonderful, evocative lead guitar work is featured in “Mother.” At about 2:52, the band snaps out of Mother’s 3/4 and Gilmour plays a typically understated yet direct solo – saying so much in so few notes. Gilmour is one of those rock guitarists – like Dire Straits’s Mark Knopfler, Eddie Van Halen, or Mike Campbell, of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – whose sound is immediately recognizable. His guitar work connects with me on some level that is hard to describe; it’s like I know what he means when he plays.

One of the most famous songs on the album also features the shared vocals and stunning Gilmour guitar: the scary description of Pink’s debilitating drug use – which nonetheless immediately became an anthem for recreational drug users upon its release – “Comfortably Numb.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC86ZCtV6tI

Waters sings the verses and Gilmour sings the chorus. The music feels a bit dreamy and floating, and sounds like I imagine having “hands just like two balloons” might feel. But Gilmour’s hands are definitely nimble enough in the solos. He plays two this time, (2:04 – 2:34 and 4:31 – end) and the sound and feel of both amaze me with every listen – even 35 years later. When asked what effects he uses to get that “Gilmour sound” on “Comfortably Numb,” Phil Taylor, Gilmour’s guitar technician of more than 40 years, said this: “It think it’s just pretty much him. He is obviously using a couple of effects, like a Big Muff and a delay, but it really is just his fingers, his vibrato, his choice of notes … I find it extraordinary when people think they can copy his sound by duplicating his gear. In reality, no matter how well you duplicate the equipment, you will never be able to duplicate the personality.”

A third song featuring my two favorite components is “Hey You,” with the boys sharing vocal duties, and Gilmour being Gilmour, and also playing some wonderful fretless bass.

“Hey You” is a sad song and since The Wall tells a sad story, all of the songs have varying degrees of sadness to them. Many are slow songs. I’m not typically a fan of collections of slow, sad songs, but they work here as a part of the larger story.[ref]This is a case where having a story helps bump up my rating of the album. Although, if I’m not in a mood for sad songs, I probably won’t pull out The Wall to listen to.[/ref] But there are a couple of rockers on the album, and even with their tinges of sadness, I could listen to them any time.

“Young Lust” is a reflection of Pink’s desires as he makes his way in the world.

But with it’s reference to needing a “dirty woman” – just the type of woman “Mother” said she’d never let get through to him – it sounds more sadly desperate than sexy. It has (again) fabulous guitar playing, showing that Gilmour can evoke anything with that axe. Also worth mentioning is Roger Waters’s’ bass playing on this track. He is the main visionary, songwriter and singer in the band (and particularly on The Wall) and sometimes it seems like “bass player” is indeed the fourth item on his To Do list. But on this song he plays a sort of funky, bouncy, 70s-sounding bass line that helps give the song a feeling of fun. The song ends with Pink calling his girlfriend and hearing a man answer – the type of non-musical addition that challenged my sister’s and my view of music back in 1980.

Non-musical additions such as this certainly add some emotion and context to the songs, helping to place them squarely into the narrative of the piece as a whole. But such additions – to my taste – can sometimes takes away from the songs. There are times when I’d rather hear more of the actual song, and perhaps have another verse help carry the narrative. For example, the very good “One of My Turns” uses TV clips and the sounds of a room being destroyed.

However, the song is rather short, and ends before I want it to end. It makes sense as a narrative piece (Pink wigs out (one of his ‘turns’), his lady friend leaves, he suddenly finds himself alone) but I’m a music fan, and I want to hear more music. I want another Gilmour solo, I want more vitriolic lyrics spat with gusto through Waters’s snarl. I think the narrative could’ve been achieved with another verse instead of the added sounds.

Similarly “Goodbye Blue Sky,” is excellent, and deserves to be a lengthier song, but instead has been whacked down to a measly 2 min 48 seconds, with two verses and a single chorus, in order that it fit into the structure of the record.

I understand that not all songs can be “Hey Jude” length – no matter how good they are – but several songs on The Wall sound – to my ears – incomplete.

And then there are the final six songs, Side Four of the vinyl double album. It contains the songs “The Show Must Go On,” “Run Like Hell, “Waiting for the Worms,” “Stop,” “The Trial,” and “Outside the Wall.” This is where the album really gets too theatrical for my tastes. Now, as I’ve said before, I grew up listening to my mom’s Broadway musical cast recordings – Annie, Fiddler on the Roof, My Fair Lady – and I appreciate the craft and musicality of good show tunes. However, I’m really a rock music fan, and Side Four sounds too much to me like show tunes. Again, the songs fit nicely into the story of Pink, and the Beach Boys-esque backing vocals throughout the songs (featuring none other than Toni Tennille, of The Captain and Tennille fame)[ref]Although I’ve also heard that her parts were not used on the album.[/ref] are really cool. But in terms of songs, the only one that connects strongly with me is “Run Like Hell.”

Ah, David Gilmour. I know, I know, again with the guitar. But he is a genius, you gotta admit. I should mention drummer Nick Mason here, who seems like a solid drummer, but who I never think about much. This song lets him play a nice, fat disco beat. While I’m at it, I’ll mention keyboardist Rick Wright, who was fired from the band soon after the recording of The Wall. There isn’t a lot of standout keyboards on The Wall – it’s mostly supporting instrumentation. Which, given my love of Gilmour, is okay with me.

Of course, the biggest song on the record, the one that struck a chord with listeners worldwide, even in the midst of a global, near-debilitating case of Disco Fever, was that ode to the terrors of elementary school, “Another Brick in The Wall, Part II.” (Here it is paired with the introductory song, actually called “The Happiest Days of Our Lives.”)

There’s a little something for everyone here. Even the sunniest, most well-adjusted folks on Earth probably had a few miserable moments in elementary school. So this is the song where we all get to tell the teachers, “Hey, teacher! Leave them kids alone!”[ref]Using poor grammar, as well, just to really piss them off![/ref] It actually conveyed a punk rock sentiment that was somewhat controversial even as late as 1980. It’s a really cool song, with Mason and Waters providing a rhythm that sounds just funky enough (of course, not really funky) to attract the era’s disco-infected masses. Need I even mention that it also has amazing guitar work by David Gilmour? Probably not, but it does.

The Wall was clearly a massive creative undertaking that took substantial work, patience and sustained attention to detail to create. It is exactly the sort of thing a Lazy, Charming Bullshitter such as myself could never do. It tires me out just thinking about it. But I think Frederick would agree with me that us Lazy, Charming Bullshitters are forever grateful for the hard workers around us, such as Pink Floyd. As long as they keep doing the heavy lifting, I’ll do my best to stay out of their way and blab about it afterwards.

TRACK LISTING
In the Flesh?
The Thin Ice
Another Brick in the Wall (Part I)
The Happiest Days of Our Lives
Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)
Mother
Goodbye Blue Sky
Empty Spaces
Young Lust
One of My Turns
Don’t Leave Me Now
Another Brick in the Wall (Part III)
Goodbye Cruel World
Hey You
Is There Anybody Out There?
Nobody Home
Vera
Bring the Boys Back Home
Comfortably Numb
The Show Must Go On
Run Like Hell
Waiting for the Worms
Stop
The Trial
Outside the Wall

11 Comments

Posted in Albums 90-81

Tagged 1979, David Gilmour, Excellent Guitar, Nick Mason, Pink Floyd, Rick Wright, Rock Operas, Roger Waters, Sad Songs, the wall

82nd Favorite: The Joshua Tree, by U2

Posted on March 15, 2015 | 2 comments

The Joshua Tree. U2.
1987 Island Records. Producer: Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno
Purchased ca. 1989

IN A NUTSHELL – All of the sonic characteristics you’ve come to expect from U2 – weird ringing guitars, thumping drums, Bono in full-on Bono-mode. It’s a collection of so many great songs and cool sounds that it’s hard to believe they’re all on one record.
WOULD BE HIGHER IF – There was a bit more diversity of sound – and if the last two songs were placed differently on the record.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When I was a kid in the 70s, my sisters and I loved to read Mad Magazine. Mad in the 70s was The Simpsons or South Park of its day – irreverent satire that was equal parts childish and intelligent. It introduced Real World concerns to my 9 year old mind – like war, sex, racism, abortion – and did so with humor and wit and real intelligence. Mad Magazine made me want to learn more about the world even while I was laughing at the funny drawings of naked people and politicians.

Mad artists, like Don Martin, Dave Berg and Al Jaffee are still well-remembered by my sisters and me, and even today many conversations among us include the words, “It’s like that Mad Magazine bit, where …” The magazine is a touchstone.

One of the best-remembered pieces from our childhood is a two-page spread written by Tom Koch entitled “Rewriting Your Way to a PhD.” The piece brilliantly shows the progression of a boy’s story about visiting his uncle’s pig farm, beginning as a “What I Did Last Summer” essay by an eight year old, through secondary school refinements, and on into college and grad school, where that same story becomes a PhD thesis on pig farming.

It cleverly reincorporates a second-grader’s perceptions – the pigs’ tiny eyes, his uncle’s aroma – into increasingly complex essays. I have a memory of my sister reading it aloud to the rest of my family, and us laughing and laughing, ultimately reaching the highest goal possible for Family Laughter – the point at which my dad’s entire head turned bright pink and tears flowed from his eyes, forcing the removal of his glasses. When we reached that point, we knew that whatever the topic, it was destined to become a part of family lore.

We’d all been in the familiar circumstance of “improving upon” past school projects and handing them in to unwitting new teachers. The piece is particularly close to my heart because in three years of middle school I wrote a total of 8 book reports on the same two books – The Yogi Berra Story and The Don Drysdale Story. (I had two different English classes in 8th grade, providing me an extra go-around with both!)

My sisters and I still use the expression “Pigging it” when referencing a project at work in which we blatantly pull ideas from previous projects. As in “I didn’t have this year’s report ready, so I just took last year’s and Pigged it!”

As funny as I find the Pig piece, it also demonstrates an obvious (it would seem) truth: people improve as they age and gain experience. When you’re a second grader writing about your uncle’s pig farm, you have neither the skills nor brainpower to put together a decent essay. But with just a few years of growth and learning and experience, you can write a college level essay!

Think of all the things you like to do: woodworking, cooking, banjo playing, crosswords. Whether you are an expert, a novice, or somewhere in between, you can look back on the progress you’ve made from a year ago and most likely see marked improvement. And the more experience you have, the better-developed you expect your talents to be. As you tie off that last suture on your latest kidney transplant, you aren’t thinking to yourself, “Man, I was so much better at this when I did it the first time.” (If you are, keep it to yourself.)

And your patient is likewise happy to know this isn’t your first. In people’s minds, Age + experience = improvement.

Except when it comes to rock bands.

To many people, the worst thing any rock act can do is make a second record. The only thing worse than a second record is a third record.

I remember going into a record store in 1994 in San Francisco, a store on 16th St. in The Mission District called “16th Note.” A cool song was playing, and I asked the (hipster, naturally) clerk what it was.

“It’s the new record by Guided by Voices,” he said, almost making eye contact, but straining to remain aloof in the empty store.

“I never heard of them,” I said. “Are they local?”

The clerk suddenly looked at me, like a drill sergeant eyeing a new recruit. “They’re from Ohio,” he said with a dollop of disdain.

“I like this song.” I smiled.

He scoffed, audibly. “It’s okay. But their old stuff was so much better.”

Twenty-one years later, it’s hard to take that guy at his word. By 1994, it’s true, the band had recorded about half a dozen records. But only one of them was released on an actual record label, and all the others had pressings of a few hundred. Okay, maybe this guy had been their neighbor and was acquainted with their catalog.

Or maybe he was just some record store douche who enjoyed lording his (supposedly) exceptional musical tastes over everyone else.[ref]He also, at one point in our conversation, apologized with false modesty for his “jazz breath” when he complained that Thelonious Monk was never properly recorded live. So really, all signs point to him just being a douche.[/ref]

A statement along the lines of “Their early stuff was much better” can say so much more about the person speaking than it does about the band itself. In the case of the record store guy, it said, “I think I’m better than you at listening to music.”[ref]An odd “skill set” to boast about, reminiscent of the time an asthma doctor told me, “You’re a really good breather.”[/ref]

“The early stuff was much better” can mean that a listener wants you to know they’ve been at it for the long haul. They may state it as a way of welcoming you into the club (“Let me play the good stuff for you!!”) or they may mean it as a way of stating you’ll never truly be part of the club (“Even if I play the good stuff, you’ll never really understand.”) Either way – welcoming or hostile – it’s evidence of a listener’s “Artist Clubhouse” mentality.

Many listeners form a deep emotional attachment to particular musical artists. This attachment can be particularly strong when the artist is new and not widely known. Fans of new acts have to work hard to listen to their music. This was particularly true before the dawn of digital music, long before services such as SoundCloud and Bandcamp allowed anyone with a mobile device to hear all the music from any band anywhere.

It used to be that if the radio didn’t play it, you had to find it in a record store big enough to carry obscure artists, because you sure wouldn’t find it in the record bin at Woolworth’s or JC Penney’s. And it was especially, triply difficult before MTV started playing weird, foreign bands in the early 80s, giving access to acts that just a year earlier would’ve faded quickly into obscurity.[ref]And who instead faded a little less quickly.[/ref] Before MTV (and for MTV era bands who didn’t look cool) non-radio bands were only accessible through word-of-mouth and extensive touring.

As a listener, having to work to find a band (whether by going to a concert or clicking on a “Suggestions For You” button on your music app) makes them a little more special to you. You’ve paid your dues, so to speak. Just like when you join a club. But the Artist Clubhouse feelings are tricky to manage. Because whether the year is 1973 or 2014, when you catch an artist that few people know about (yet?), when you experience a new band who excites you and moves you, you feel tingly and giggly and want to share the band with everyone you know. (Well … most everyone …)

You have power. A power borne of knowledge. Knowledge that few others hold, but that everyone will eventually HAVE TO know. You are like the first kid on the playground who knows – for real – how babies are made, and you get to decide which of the other kids can be trusted with the knowledge.

And which ones will just ruin it by telling everyone.

Because you don’t want EVERYONE to know since once EVERYONE knows, two things will happen: 1) It will no longer seem all that cool[ref]Okay, true, sex will always be cool, but it won’t SEEM as cool. Until you actually do it, then it will be very cool.[/ref] and 2) You will no longer be held in esteem for bringing the knowledge – you’ll just be one more kid who knows how it’s done.

That’s the inherent conundrum in liking an Unknown Band: you want everyone to know how great your New Favorite Band is, as their continued success likely depends on more and more people knowing about them. BUT – you don’t want EVERYONE knowing about them because then they won’t seem as cool. And neither will you, as you won’t be one of a couple hundred, you’ll be one of millions.

The old clubhouse can’t hold that many people. And in such a big club you’ll certainly have trouble continuing your duties as Club doorman AND password-creator AND Keeper of the Member List.

Once the club is that big, you’ll find yourself wistfully thinking back to a time when You Alone Held the Key. This may influence your opinion of the band’s new songs, and make you wish for the old days. “Their old stuff was better,” you’ll say.

However, it isn’t ALWAYS the Artist Clubhouse mentality that causes folks to lament a band’s newest work. Sometimes a band does change significantly in ways that you, the listener, just can’t appreciate.

I think most music fans are willing to give their favorite artists a break when they try new things. We humans are always changing, so it’s natural that a musician would reflect it in their art. Some musicians are constantly changing, and this change itself excites the fan base. A good example of this is Neil Young. His releases have included many genres: rock, country, new wave, 50’s rock and roll, blues, folk, whatever it was that Trans was … and his fans either love them or hate them, but either way can’t wait to see what Crazy Ol’ Neil will put out next.

But what about a band like, say, Genesis? If you only know Genesis as the purveyor of a string of Big 80s pop hits, with seemingly good-natured elf Phil Collins goofing his way through the videos, you may be surprised to learn that just ten years earlier they weren’t a Three-Suburban-Dads-Looking synth rock band, but were a full on Five-Hippies-Multiplexing-Drugs-Looking prog rock band!

If you’re a huge fan of “Throwing it All Away” or “Follow You, Follow Me,” it may trouble you to click this link.

And if you were a huge Genesis fan in 1974, going out to watch their crazy stage show, with front man Peter Gabriel dressed up as a flower or a transvestite fox or a lymph node thing or just a plain old weirdo, altering your mind on whatever psychotropic substance you liked in preparation for their 16-minute songs featuring intricate guitar/keyboard/drum/bass interplay, then certainly when you heard “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight” in 1986, it would be understandable to hear you say, “Well … their old stuff was better.”[ref]Just as it would be understandable that fans of the new stuff would say “Their new stuff is better.” A popular novel was written about just such a fan.[/ref]

I myself don’t like to think of art in terms of “Better” or “Worse.” I try to think of it as “stuff I like” and “stuff I don’t like.” And the fact is – better, worse, whatever – some bands just leave some listeners behind as they grow. For me, the band Radiohead comes to mind. They went from Rock to Not Rock over the course of 15 years[ref]Much more quickly than that, actually.[/ref], and more power to them. But I couldn’t stay on that carnival ride. ~~Their old stuff was better~~. I liked their old stuff.

Thoughts of music fans, and their interest in a band’s “old stuff” will – for me – forever be attached to U2’s The Joshua Tree. This record came out in 1987, my second year in college. I had gotten into U2 in high school, and they were one of three contemporary bands (R.E.M. and Van Halen being the other two) whose new records I looked forward to. Most of my other favorite bands‘ best days were behind them.[ref]Of course, Van Halen’s were as well, but in 1987 I was still trying to pretend it wasn’t true, and that Diamond Dave would be back soon.[/ref]I had loved U2’s album War, and most of The Unforgettable Fire, and I was hoping – as was rumored – that the next record would be a return to the helicopter guitars and anthemic vocals that I loved so much about the band.

I can still recall the Spring of ’87, leaving the PCPS gym and crossing Woodland Ave. with my girlfriend, having heard “With or Without You” for the first time on the gym’s PA system, and asking “What was that song?” And her replying, “U2’s new one. It’s really bad.” And me saying, “I’ll say. Man. Their old stuff was so much better!” That’s the opinion I held about The Joshua Tree for a long time. “Their old stuff was better.”

As I said, I was waiting for “Sunday Bloody Sunday, Part II,” and – let’s be honest: “With or Without You” is not that!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmSdTa9kaiQ

Of course, the song became a huge hit, their first Number 1. But to a guy waiting for something different, the song sounded like some crappy ballad. Maybe it still does. But to my ear, the song has improved greatly with age. (Maybe because I turned it off the first million times I heard it in the 80s and 90s!) The song has a lot of what most U2 songs offer – cool sounds and an impressive build-up to a sonic release point. I find a lot of U2 music sounds very similar, and usually that’s a bad thing for me. But with U2 I find it easier to take.

Many of their songs – fast or slow – have a march beat to them, as if John Phillip Sousa were whispering in drummer Larry Mullen’s ears; and chiming guitars from Edge that often don’t sound all that much like guitars; and a simple Adam Clayton bass line that finds the right notes underneath it all to support what’s happening up top.

And then there’s Bono. He sings with an earnestness, with a commitment to the lyrics (whatever they may be) that is, obviously, ripe for mocking. But there are far worse things to be than earnest in this world. Bono’s a conduit between Bruce Springsteen in the 70s and Eddie Vedder in the 90s – the wailing white guys who are gonna belt it out, and believe the shit out of it, regardless of what you or I might think.

“With or Without You” has all of these characteristic U2 features, and also that classic U2 build, this time finding the apex at about 3:01, with Bono’s wailing “Oh-oh-oh-oh.” I’ve gotten over the fact that it doesn’t sound like an outtake from War. And after I heard four or five more songs from the record – The Joshua Tree was a HUGE HIT on rock radio – I decided that maybe it was as good as the old stuff after all!

The track that really caught my ear was the opening track, “Where the Streets Have No Name.” There’s a scene in the movie (and book) High Fidelity in which the record store geeks select their Top Five “Track 1, Side 1” songs. “Where the Streets Have No Name” would definitely make my Top Five.

It seems a little silly now, but I remember my friends and I LOVING that video, feeling inspired by it, somehow empowered by it. We didn’t know what the lyrics were about – and it seems theories still abound – but something about the band on a roof, with throngs of Los Angelinos tying up traffic, and police not sure what to make of the whole thing, Bono singing “burning down love, burning down love” … just trust me, it meant something to us in 1987. The coolest thing about the song, to me, is The Edge’s intro and outro guitar riff. It’s just six notes played over and over, but with delay and effects it ends up sounding like he’s playing four guitars at once. Once the lyrics begin, Edge switches to his typical “Chukka-chukka-chukka” guitar strum[ref]A sound that once caused a friend to comment, “he’s gotta figure out something else to do with that damn guitar of his.”[/ref] that is unmistakably the U2 Sound. This song also has a familiar build and release, to about the 4:54 mark.

The Chukka-chukka-chukka of The Edge is also prominent on the excellent “In God’s Country.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkbaRJuZ3A8

I love Adam Clayton’s bass line in this song. As all his lines are, this one is simple (I count four distinct notes), but it provides a nice counter-melody to the vocals – it’s usually the melody going through my head when I think about this song. There is also a noise at the end of the line, a percussive clunking – like someone with a sinus problem making glottal noises. I don’t know if it’s a bass noise – I don’t know what it is, but it’s always interested me. The song is propelled forever onward by the guitar, bass and drums, a particular kind of energy that I associate with U2 songs.

I’ve always found Bono’s lyrics somewhat perplexing, sometimes amusing.[ref]For example, from “The Unforgettable Fire:” “Face to face/In a dry and waterless place.” Ok, so then it’s dry AND waterless? Got it.[/ref] They’re often political, and frequently deeper than I guess I can go. I figure the depth has to do with him being Irish, as Ireland has a long history of symbolic verse and allusive poets. In the case of “In God’s Country,” the lyrics are really pretty, with lots of desert imagery. Although for years I thought he was singing “Sleep comes/Like a Drum” and I wondered how drumming and sleep could ever be related – or if the point was that they WEREN’T related, and therein lay the point! I was quite relieved to learn the actual lyric is “Sleep comes/Like a drug.” It makes much more sense.

A different type of song on the record, and probably my favorite, is the bluesy (for U2) style of “Trip Through Your Wires.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePUvdJC5xs4

A word should be said here about The Edge’s singing. He’s sung lead on a few U2 songs over the years (most memorably “Numb,” from 1993’s Zooropa) but I really like his work as a harmony vocalist. For me, he’s up there with The Stones’ Keith Richards and Van Halen’s Michael Anthony as all-time great rock harmony singers.[ref]As always, The Beatles are ineligible for this category.[/ref] These skills are on display throughout “Trip Through Your Wires.” It’s a simple song, a love song (I think) and also features Bono playing harmonica. There’s not a lot to the song, yet I find it irresistible. It’s a slow song, with lots of space, and features a cool break filled by Mullen’s bass drum triplets. In addition to sounding different from typical U2, the song also does NOT have the typical “U2 buildup.” It’s one of their least flamboyant songs.

Another great, simple slow song, which includes my favorite vocal performance on the record, is “Red Hill Mining Town.”

It’s a song about the plight of miners during the UK coal mining strikes in the 80s. It’s got Bono’s earnest vocals and Edge’s chiming guitars and Clayton’s understated bass and Mullen’s Sousa drums and that patented build and release (4:00). It’s got the whole U2 package.

There are so many great songs on The Joshua Tree. One that I often forget about, but then hear and think, “I love this song!!” is Bono’s ode to a dead friend and his New Zealand home, “One Tree Hill.”

This song features The Edge’s guitar trickery, but it’s more subtle this time, and holds up really well on repeated listens. In fact, I find I hear something different in his guitar each time I listen.

Of course, the album’s biggest song was the worldwide super-smash hit “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”

I worked in a Hershey’s Chocolate warehouse (it wasn’t a warehouse made of chocolate, but it was where chocolate was warehoused) in the summer of 1987, third shift – 11 pm to 7:00 am – for three months. A diverse group of people worked there, with diverse musical tastes – including Contemporary Christian, Country, R&B, Heavy Metal and College Rock – and there was only one radio. So – of course – the radio station that was least offensive to the most number of people was selected to accompany the drudgery of chocolate factory work: Top Forty. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” was making its climb that summer, all the way to the Number One spot in August, which means Top Forty radio played the song about twice every hour, every day. That means I heard it about 16 times a night. It was like being inside a bunker under siege by US forces.

To this day, when I hear the song’s quiet opening notes and that gentle tambourine I flash back to the smell of cardboard boxes, old chocolate and hot forklift engines; to the uneasy feeling of sleep deprivation and forced chit-chat with people whose names and faces I knew I’d forget when the summer ended. I can’t really hear the song objectively anymore, but I feel like I should at least mention that it’s on this record.

So, The Joshua Tree was not exactly like what had come before from U2. And time has shown that the band had a lot more changes up its collective sleeve in the 25-plus years since its release. One song that hinted at where the band would go next, sonically, was the intense and noisy (and INCREDIBLE-to-see-them-play-live) “Bullet the Blue Sky.”

I’ve seen U2 play this live several times, and it’s always intense and excellent. In some ways, this song is the one I was looking for in 1987 when I was hoping for a return to War. It has a million guitars, sounding like jets and devastation. The lyrics, about the US’s role in El Salvador’s civil war, echo the sounds. The song is driving and powerful, and Mullen and Clayton’s rhythm section nails down a musical feeling of unsettling dread. But the song’s sound has a fuller quality to it than was heard on previous records. It has a depth of sound – whether from more overdubs or more synthesizer use, or just better production methods – that had been missing from previous albums. In the band’s next album, 1991’s Achtung, Baby, this fuller sound was built upon, with more synths and overdubs coming into play. I see “Bullet the Blue Sky” as the transition song – a bridge between the 80s U2 and the 90s U2.

It’s clear that in The Joshua Tree, U2 was not simply “Pigging It.” True, they built on what came before, but it was different and new. But maybe – come to think of it – they were, because maybe all development is “Pigging It.” We tweak and change, we hope we’re improving, but it’s the perspective of the reader/listener that decides what’s good. I’m sure that second grader’s mom MUCH preferred the essay about his uncle’s farm to his windy blabberfest about swine. In 1987 I thought “new” U2 meant “bad” U2. But at some point it became “the old (good) stuff.” And nowadays, I don’t think it’s Bad or Good. It’s just what I like!

TRACK LISTING
Where the Streets Have No Name
I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
With or Without You
Bullet the Blue Sky
Running to Stand Still
Red Hill Mining Town
In God’s Country
Trip Through Your Wires
One Tree Hill
Exit
Mothers of the Disappeared

2 Comments

Posted in Albums 90-81

Tagged 80s Rock, Adam Clayton, Bono, Irish Bands, Larry Mullen Jr., Mad Magazine, The Edge, The Joshua Tree, The Old Stuff Was Better, U2

83rd Favorite: News of the World, by Queen

Posted on February 26, 2015 | 6 comments

News of the World. Queen.
1977 Elektra. Producer: Queen
Purchased ca. 1997

IN A NUTSHELL – A 70s Rock record with much more on display than “70s Rock.” The band shares songwriting and musical duties, taking on a number of musical styles, and it tackles them all while displaying the characteristic “Queen Sound.” WOULD BE HIGHER IF – “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions” weren’t on the album.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve been a sports fan since I was a little kid. My dad was somewhat of a high school sports star in the late 50s, excelling in both football and baseball for the Lebanon High Cedars. This was an era when local newspapers abounded, and since the digital age was a few decades away, you had to see the stories in print or miss them forever.[ref]Of course, you could always go the library to look at Microfiche, but boy that was time-consuming.[/ref] So, my mom kept a shoebox of newspaper clippings of my dad’s athletic feats, chronicled in the Lebanon Daily News, and my sisters and I loved looking through that box to read all about a guy who seemed much cooler and more confident than the guy who lived with us. The clippings helped inspire me to play sports, as did my dad’s continued role in the community as a Teener Baseball coach, which also provided me the opportunity to be a batboy surrounded by men of 13, 14 and 15 years old.

My family was a family of sports fans.[ref]For the most part, anyway. There was a definite scale of rabidity among us.[/ref] We loved the Philadelphia Phillies, a passion that originated with my mom’s mom, Gram Bender, who watched and listened to games religiously until her death in 1991. We were huge Penn State Football fans, as well, watching the games on TV on autumn Saturdays, and reliving them again on The Penn State Football Highlight Show, with Ray Scott and George Paterno, the next morning before church. And while my sisters weren’t encouraged to play sports (after all, this was real-life 70s in rural PA – not an American Girl story set in 70s San Francisco) it was expected that I would play.

So I played football, basketball and baseball, and enjoyed (nearly) every second of it. [ref]I didn’t, however, like that – since I was “big for a nine year old” – I had to practice against the scary 12 year old football players. When I told my dad I was going to quit over it, he quickly told the coaches to put me back with the 9 year olds, so I didn’t quit. I don’t remember seeing the look of terror in my dad’s face when I said I wanted to quit football until it reappeared 8 years later when I told him I wanted to be a stand up comic.[/ref]

Here’s a picture of me in my Ebenezer Midget Football practice uniform, ca. 1976. Note that the uniform appears to have originally been bought by the organization ca. 1956, at the Dawn of the Facemask. [captionpix imgsrc=”https://100favealbums.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/img031-297×300.jpg” captiontext=”The fabric of these pants was likely carcinogenic. Luckily I only wore them for one season, after which the team bought new ones.”]

Here I am after I made the Ebenezer Midget Baseball team, also in 1976.
[captionpix imgsrc=”https://100favealbums.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/img030-287×300.jpg” captiontext=”Believe it or not, this is how infielders were instructed to field grounders in 1976. I guess that Disco Dancing style affected everything.”]

Here’s a shot my mom took to “show off my number,” but which I’ve always thought of as the “pee on the tree” shot.

But I hear you, dear reader. “So yeah, yeah. You liked sports, big deal. What’s the point? And will you ever write about the album?”

The point is, as deeply as I loved sports, I had several other interests as well. (And yes, this will tie into the album. I swear.) School, TV, making model cars, comedians … I also liked music – both listening to it and making it. My sisters and I were encouraged to play instruments, and we all took piano lessons and at least a little bit of a second instrument. I myself played the trombone from fourth through twelfth grade – played the concerts, marched in the parades, and performed at the football halftimes and the marching band competitions.

I had lots of interests, and it never occurred to me that some people would believe that certain interests were incompatible with others.

For example, music and sports.

Where I grew up – and there’s really no other way to say it – playing an instrument was thought of as “gay” for a boy, and being an athlete was thought of as “not gay.” And while I think the term “gay” in this case meant simply “effeminate” or “weak,” and didn’t imply discernable sexual activities or appetites, I also believe that many struggling, closeted, self-loathing (and married) gay men in positions of authority existed (and probably still do) who looked to stamp out any perceived evidence of residual homosexuality in others in a pathetic attempt to crush some recurring seedlings of humanity within themselves, a humanity they couldn’t bear to allow to sprout, let alone flourish and thrive. In other words, lots of male coaches who should’ve just gone and blown some dude [ref]Lovingly and happily, I mean, with self-permission granted – not just with random truckers at I-78 truck stops – which I’ll bet was happening – thus exacerbating his inner strife[/ref] instead of inflicting their internal dramas on kids who just wanted to both play music and play sports.

One such example may have been my freshman high school basketball coach, Coach Spike, a wee little man who – like many men in the early 1980s – attempted to pull off that Patented John Oates Look. As with many tiny men, he deflected attention from his small stature by trying to look and act both cool and tough. A youthful history teacher in his late 20s, he relished the fact that several people had at times mistaken him for a student at the school – mustache notwithstanding – but connected these misapprehensions only to his arch coolness, not to his schoolboy height.

As a fourteen year old freshman, I myself hadn’t played a lot of organized basketball. Back then, there weren’t today’s numbers of attempts by parents to amplify a child’s limited evidence of intrinsic athleticism into a modest leg-up on the competition for future University admissions by spending thousands of dollars to form “travel” youth sports leagues. I just played in the driveway with neighborhood friends, and a little bit at the YMCA. In both cases the fact that I was a bit taller than most of the other kids seemed to obviate any need for actual coaching.[ref]Although I’d like to take a moment to mention Delmar Cook, my YMCA coach in 6th and 7th grade, a hunchbacked, crew-cut man in his 60s whose only coaching in basketball shooting technique was to shout, “Bing-Bing! Just get that feeling! Bing-Bing!” as he sank repeated left-handed set shots from twenty-five feet away with the consistency of a windshield wiper.[/ref]

So at basketball tryouts my freshman year, I lacked a lot of the polish of some of my teammates. However, I was rather tall, pretty athletic, and displayed a nerd’s gift for dutifully following instruction, so it wasn’t a surprise that I made the team. (My disdain for Coach Spike aside, he did know his sports and he was adept at coaching technique and skills.)

I didn’t play a whole lot in games, which was okay with me. I knew that others on the team were much better than me, and it was actually a relief to not have many opportunities to make a fool of myself during games. But I loved practices, and being part of a team, and I could tell that I was improving. Feeling pretty proud of my progress, I looked forward to being a part of next season’s JV team. After the last game of the season, the last of several blowout losses, a long-faced Coach Spike – weary from the losses and clearly not comprehending how his brilliant coaching could have been so mishandled by us sorry bunch of 14 year olds – gave a rambling speech about us boys as a team and as individuals, and what to expect in the years ahead.

I doubt if anyone else on the team remembers much of the speech, but I still remember one particular line. “Some of you guys really have a lot of high school basketball ahead of you. And some of you guys … well, you should just stick to the band …”

Let me state clearly here that out of 14 boys on the team, there was precisely ONE of us who was also in the band. I understood. He clearly meant to single me out to the team as both a) a lousy basketball player and b) a sissy musician probably lacking What It Takes to ever succeed. [ref]Wee Little Spike apparently forgot his early assessment of my game, as several years later we played together in a pickup game, and some guy mentioned that I was a good player, to which Spikelet replied, “Oh yeah, I know he’s good. I coached him.” What a dick.[/ref]

This theme of sports and music as incompatible was repeated the following basketball season when, as a sophomore on the JV team (having ignored Spike’s directive) I was told by my coach that the varsity football coach, a doofus called “Beef,” had asked him about me and my interest in playing football. I found this extremely exciting, being scouted for my athletic ability! Beef was also a (universally recognized awful excuse for a) Guidance Counselor at the school, and sure enough I was soon called to his office to “discuss my academic plans for eleventh grade.” {cough cough} We discussed no such topic. He immediately began quizzing me about my experience playing football. I don’t think I mentioned my carcinogenic pants, but I told him I’d played before. Beef also mentioned my JV coach’s strong assessment of my attitude and effort. “We’d love to have you play next season,” he said with a beefy smile.

“I’d like to,” I said. “Would I be able to also stay in the band?” I asked.

Beef immediately frowned, as if he’d just bitten into mealy apple. “Maybe for one year,” he said. “Maybe.” Then he chuckled, trying to invite me into a little joke of his. “I mean, you’d have you choose between band and football, though, right? Right?” I knew my parents really wanted me to stay in the band, and more than this I realized Beef was a jerk – a grown up version of all the teen-age jerks I knew. I decided to stick with the band.

So why bring this up in the context of Queen?

Well, it confuses me that so many people would find incompatibilities where they clearly do not exist. Musician and athlete are clearly compatible skills, as evidenced by NBA Champion/Tuba player Malik Rose; deceased NBA Forward/jazz bassist Wayman Tisdale; Guided by Voices genius/high school athletic hall of fame member Robert Pollard; or MLB Center Fielder/jazz guitarist Bernie Williams. Heck, Super Bowl kicker Steven Hauschka and former NCAA basketball hero (and Celtics bust) Pervis Ellison even played the trombone, just like yours truly did!!

But my frustration isn’t really with the single example of music and sports. It’s with people limiting themselves or (worse yet) others based on ideas not founded in reality. It’s with people carrying preconceived notions around with them and using them to randomly set boundaries. It’s with people choosing to never allow possibilities, to never say “Let’s see what happens,” or “Let’s give it a try” because they are halted by their own limited attitudes. I think people should widen their experiences and interests as much as possible. You’re a human being, with a brain with more computing power than it can ever use, that can comprehend and appreciate limitless sensory inputs. Why not push those limits and see what happens?

On the album News of the World, Queen explores their limits and succeeds in producing a record full of different song styles, with members taking on tasks outside the norm, allowing themselves to see what happens when, say, the drummer plays all the instruments and sings, or the lead singer sits out a song, or this Arena Rock Behemoth of a band takes on the blues or jazz or lite rock. And it works. Nobody said, “But you’re Queen. You can’t do that!” Or if they did, they were ignored. And that’s what I love about this album.

In the late nineties, I began to consider my CD collection, and I started to grow concerned that I had no albums from many Classic Rock acts I’d loved from radio play. Acts like The Rolling Stones, Elton John, Eric Clapton, The Eagles, Queen. So I went on a little purchasing spree of AOR staple acts. I had read an interview with Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash in which he expressed his appreciation of News of the World. So, seeing a copy at my favorite local record store, I decided this would be the place for me to start on my Queen shopping list.

Queen is one of the few acts in rock and roll, the few artists in any medium, probably, for whom the descriptor “bombastic” seems to be an understatement, yet who are brilliant precisely because of this grandiosity. It is a difficult perch on which to balance, and songs like the operatic “Bohemian Rhapsody” or the artsy, studio enhanced romp “Bicycle Race” likely cause some listeners to lose interest quickly. But News of the World demonstrates that there was a lot more to this band than over-the-top arena rock. Many think of the band as pretentious, over-produced 70s dinosaur rock.

To those people, I offer this selection from News of the World: “Sleeping on the Sidewalk.”

I’ve enjoyed playing the “Name the Artist” game on this one with friends over the years, and none have yet guessed correctly. While one-of-a-kind superstar Freddie Mercury doesn’t appear on the song at all, making it hard to guess the group, the piece does offer lots of what I really love about this record: the sound! I’m not an expert in sound engineering by any stretch of the imagination, but there is something about the way this record was recorded that seems to make each instrument ring out clearly, hyper-distinguishable.

Guitarist Brian May (who sings the song, about the trials and tribulations of a professional musician, in an unruffled, blasé style) plays very crisply, even in this bluesy, raw recording, and his guitar has that crunchy hint of distortion that is easily identifiable. This guitar sound is heard throughout the record, and always draws me in. Another key aspect heard here, and throughout the album, is John Deacon’s bass. He has a very clear, neat sound that I can instantly recognize as the “John Deacon sound.” It’s not just the tone of the bass, but it’s also his style of throwing in extra notes and the percussive sounds of his fingers on the strings. For a song that doesn’t really sound like Queen, it sure sounds like Queen!

But maybe the bluesy stuff isn’t drawing you in, maybe you’re more of a punk rocker. You might enjoy this track, penned by drummer Roger Taylor (who also played rhythm guitar and bass on the song): “Sheer Heart Attack.”

It’s a punk-styled song, but the sound is certainly less raw than the contemporaneous punk music in 1977. The lyrics seem like they’re actually making fun of punk rockers. And the flanged drum fill at 2:55 is nothing you’d ever hear on a Sex Pistols song. So it’s not really punk. But as an aggressive, driving rave-up, I think the song works. And it’s different from anything you might expect to hear on a Queen record.[ref]Curiously, Queen has an album titled Sheer Heart Attack, but this song isn’t on it.[/ref]

“But no,” you might say, “blues and punk doesn’t do it for me right now. I’m in more of a mellow, 70s light-rock mood, but with a Latin feel. I doubt there’s anything like that on the record.” And you would be wrong. How about “Who Needs You.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ddGrM2QVnM

This mellow song, written by bassist John Deacon, has great vocals from Mercury – using his “indoor voice” this time, not the operatic flash typical of many familiar Queen songs. He sounds just the right level of hurt for Deacon’s “I Will Survive“-esque lyrics. Both Deacon and May play Spanish guitar on the song, throwing nice Latin runs into the background. May’s electric guitar, again featuring the distinctive “May sound,” adds wonderful color to the bridge, behind Mercury’s vocals. And his nylon-string acoustic solo is beautiful. Of course, the backing harmonies are tight and choir-like – a hallmark of the “Queen Sound” throughout their career.

But maybe 70s soft rock is still too modern-sounding for you. Maybe you prefer pop standards from the mid-twentieth century, crooned with a simple piano and bass arrangement. For you the band offers “My Melancholy Blues,” a Freddie Mercury solo number about, well, The Blues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB6VaIPZSkE

I don’t know a great detail about the inner workings of Queen, how the members got along, or how they created their songs. But the fact that the members switched instruments and shared roles says to me that they were a band who – at least for this one album – put their egos aside and let the music guide them. Many bands I admire had this same flexibility, with members switching roles easily: The Beatles, R.E.M. It demonstrates an openness, a lack of false boundaries.

They seem like people who wouldn’t have a problem with a trombone player being on the football or basketball team.

Queen sure didn’t have a problem with members’ multiple roles. Check out the song “Fight From the Inside,” written and performed entirely by drummer Taylor (with some lead guitar work by May, and backing vocals from May and Mercury.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4msm8np7tY

Taylor’s lyrics are, I think, meant to sort of inspire young people to stick up for themselves. It’s a straight ahead rocker, and demonstrates there’s a lot more to Taylor than simply drums and a pretty face.

As much as Queen is most identified with Freddie Mercury, and perhaps Brian May, all members shared quite equally on the songwriting duties on News of the World. Bassist Deacon contributed one of my favorite tracks – a song about sticking up for yourself and chasing your dreams – “Spread Your Wings.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dmrs2eY7PAo

It features everything I love about the Queen sound. Deacon’s bass, May’s guitar, Taylor’s cool drum fills, Mercury’s belting. May’s guitar solo in the final minute is subdued yet powerful. And by the way – how cool is it that Deacon wore a Chicago Blackhawks jacket for the video?[ref]Not that I’m a fan of the team, but still …[/ref]

Guitarist Brian May wrote my two favorite songs on the album. The first is another rocker whose lyrics compress the ups and downs of romance into two verses, “It’s Late.”

Queen’s sonic bombast is on display here – Freddie’s flash, the multi-layered backing vocals, crushing drums, howling guitar – but it seems a bit muted somehow, reigned in, making the song seem more powerful to me. Deacon’s bass work is up and down the fret, but never ostentatious. May’s sound is May’s sound, and he plays a variety of solos throughout. The buildup to, and execution of, the “It’s late, it’s late, it’s late” chorus (for example, just around 2:55) can give me chills. And I love the middle jamming section from about 3:20 to 4:30. The song teeters on that sonic rock edge between Big and Too Big, and for me it leans the right way.

My co-favorite song is “All Dead, All Dead,” a sad song sung by May, and all the more touching given Mercury’s early death in 1991, at age 45.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSG_mZaogsc

(The fact that its lyrics are actually about Brian May’s boyhood cat doesn’t lessen the emotional impact of the song.)

May’s vocals are heartfelt, and his guitar work is subtle and interesting. As usual, Deacon’s bass support offers more than simply support, but features prominently in the composition.

News of the World – it must be said – features the smash hits “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions,” two of May and Mercury’s most famous songs, both of which certainly make the Jock Rock Hall Of Fame. I’ve heard these songs so much in my life that I’m now done with them. But they’re there if you’re interested!

This record makes me happy. It makes me happy to know that no “Coach Spike” ever told drummer Roger Taylor, “maybe you should stick to drums;” or told bassist John Deacon, “maybe you should stick to writing rock songs.” There was no “Beef” to tell Freddie Mercury and Brian May they’d have to make a choice between rock or jazz and blues. And the band rewarded all of us with songs for everyone – even songs that meathead coaches like Spike and Beef can forever appreciate.

TRACK LISTING
We Will Rock You
We Are the Champions
Sheer Heart Attack
All Dead, All Dead
Spread Your Wings
Fight From the Inside
Get Down, Make Love
Sleeping on the Sidewalk
Who Needs You
It’s Late
My Melancholy Blues

6 Comments

Posted in Albums 90-81

Tagged 1977, 70s Arena Rock, Brian May, Eclectic Albums, Freddie Mercury, John Deacon, News of the World, Roger Taylor, We Are The Champions, We Will Rock You

84th Favorite: Moondance, by Van Morrison

Posted on January 26, 2015 | 8 comments

Moondance. Van Morrison.
1970 Warner Bros. Producer: Van Morrison
Purchased ca. 1992

IN A NUTSHELL – Excellent songs with exceptional singing. Morrison is a true master of his instrument – his voice. The songs range from poppy and bouncy to mellow and romantic, and Van performs them all phenomenally. WOULD BE HIGHER IF – It was more rockin’, but it’s not that style of music.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mrs. Meyer taught me US History in tenth grade, and she was the inspiring type of teacher that kids remember 32 years after leaving her class and include in their little-read blogs about albums they like. She was a heavy-set woman with short reddish hair and she wore those owlish 80s eyeglasses with lenses large enough that folks used to personalize them with tiny monogram stickers. (Placing monograms on items was a big fad in the 80s, believe it or not – very preppy). She loved Teddy Roosevelt and the idea – frustrating as it was – that if people would just learn a little bit more about history, the depth of peace and love and understanding in the world would grow exponentially. She wasn’t a Dates and Names type of history teacher, she was a Big Picture type. And as she wiped tears from her face while teaching difficult lessons revealing the perpetual continuum of human brutality toward other humans, she would frequently ask us to remember her personal axiom that “there is always at least one good thing about every person.”

Considering the multitude of evil deeds and horrible carnage that a history teacher must learn, master, describe and contextualize for students, this statement is quite astounding. It probably says more about Mrs. Meyer – that she held out hope for humanity to build on small goods even in the face of huge evils; that she was a warm, optimistic teacher – than it says about history. This woman could teach about The Inquisition, European Colonialism and Western slavery, the genocide of Native Americans, the Holocaust … and yet find it within herself to pronounce, for example, “But remember! Everyone had at least one good thing about them … even Hitler helped establish the Volkswagen.”

Many people may be appalled by this statement, finding it reprehensible to throw a dumb car brand into the equation of the deeds of a man responsible for so much death and misery. But Mrs. Meyer wasn’t trying to balance historical scales or diminish horrific acts. She was just using a historical fact to provide some perspective to history and some insight into the complexity of human beings. And – I think – it made the lessons more bearable for her to teach. It also – whether intended or not – provided some of her students with insight into dealing with difficult facts in their own lives: find something good.

The Buddha, in his wisdom, stated that life is suffering, and while the meaning of this statement has been misinterpreted over time to make it sound like words from a depressed misanthrope, the truth remains that much of life is difficult – there can be no doubt. And it can be helpful to navigate the difficulty by looking for positives among the many negatives. This is especially true from adolescence to young-adulthood, when negatives seem to abound. And while it may be difficult, in the moment, to seek the One Good Thing about, for example, being a high school sophomore and getting an attack of diarrhea on the high school basketball team bus filled with juniors and seniors, while traveling to a game 21 miles away (by the way, let’s call that a hypothetical example) … 32 years later one may be able to mitigate the (again, hypothetical) humiliation and embarrassment of such a situation by asserting that at least it provided evidence of certain teammates’ thoughtfulness – people who unexpectedly could be trusted with secret information, like where soiled underwear might be hidden among teenage boys in a visiting (i.e. girls’) locker room. (If this were a true story, perhaps that place would be the small feminine hygiene product disposal trash can under the sinks.)

Some may call this One Good Thing technique pure rationalization. I call it looking on the bright side of life.

Looking back on one’s life, there can be a temptation to ask – over and over again – “why did I do that?” Or “why did that happen to me?” The shoulda-coulda-wouldas grab hold and invariably present one’s imagination with only the greatest of all possible outcomes from regretful moments in life. For example: “I shoulda stayed in my old band, and we coulda gotten that record deal and then woulda had a bunch of hit songs and been millionaires!” Rarely does the imagination present the situation as: “I shoulda stayed in my old band, and we coulda kept playing dive bars for another 8 years and I woulda been an alcoholic 33 year old still living with my parents.” Even less likely: “I shoulda stayed in my old band, and we coulda driven into a lake in the middle of the night and woulda all died.” All three scenarios are equally as likely in the deep, dark forest of Whatmighthavebeen. But our minds like to torture us, so we only imagine the best.

A better way of reviewing such regrets (for we all have regrets, even Mrs. Meyer, I’m sure; like those big owl glasses, for example) may be to consider The Past as simply The Past, and tease out The Good from all that really did happen. For example: I played bass in a band in which I made friends for life, played songs I helped write to appreciative people, and now have fun memories and stories to tell.

Many people tend to beat themselves up particularly over past romantic relationships. “I shoulda stayed with X, I coulda gotten married, I woulda been happy,” or “I shoulda left X years earlier, I coulda spent the time more productively, I woulda gotten that MBA.” My own romantic regrets are not so grand, but are more along the lines of “I shoulda put a different song on that mix tape,” or “I coulda caught something from her,” or “I woulda broken up if I thought I coulda gotten another girlfriend.”

I myself have reconsidered my regrets over the few girlfriends I have had, and replaced the Shouldacouldawouldas with One Good Thing.[ref]In reality there are several regrets and Several (well, maybe A Few) Good Things, but I’m trying to keep this as brief as possible (and stick to things folks might actually be interested in) so I’ve scaled it back significantly. You’re welcome.[/ref] Here are a few examples …

V. – first girlfriend. High school. I was a senior, V. was a sophomore. Both of us Marching Band members, our relationship consisted mostly of sitting together at football games, walking in the halls together and speaking on the phone. Regret I’ve Left Behind – I should’ve told her sooner that I was getting bored with sitting together, walking the halls and talking on the phone. Instead I just sort of blurted out one day that I was breaking up with her – and didn’t give a reason. Based on this, I can see why she may have thought that I broke up with her because “things weren’t physical enough” (which – much to her credit – she called me to ask me about directly a couple weeks afterwards). But honestly – I was actually terrified of things getting more “physical;” the goodnight kisses we shared were scary enough to a dork like me!! One Good Thing – V.’s house was the first place I ever tried microwave popcorn, and it was awesome.

M. – described somewhat in a previous post. Longest relationship ever (~18 months) apart from the 21+ year relationship with current [ref]This is a joke! I think she’ll laugh at it. If not, the next wife will.[/ref] wife. Regret I’ve Left Behind – That’s tough to whittle down. I guess that I should’ve been thinking more rationally during those ~18 months?

However, she was really very attractive (very attractive) and that made it hard for a dork like me to think rationally. One Good Thing – Introduced me to Woody Allen movie Manhattan and the music of Todd Rundgren. (For 18 months’ worth of distress [ref]Distress I’m sure I provided in equal measure back to her – neither of us were saints[/ref] all I could come up with was a movie I’ve seen twice and a guy whose songs I don’t turn off when they come on the radio.)

A. – So, I had known A. for many years. She had been my buddy Rick’s girlfriend (and as such caused me to miss most of Cheap Trick opening for REO Speedwagon at Hershey Stadium because she was late, and then I had to sit through REO’s entire set because somehow a foreign exchange student was with us and she was interested in them, thus ruining my first concert experience ever because I MISSED Cheap Trick and WATCHED REO Speedwagon) and she was very good friends with my buddy Josh. (Rick and Josh being two of the three previously-described “coolest members of the CCHS graduating class of 1985.”) At some point in my early twenties, while my confidence was at a high point, I thought, “I haven’t seen A. in a while. I always liked her. I wonder if she’d go out with me?” So I called her up, and sure enough we made a date to go see Batman Returns.

For the next three months or so we were kind of dating, but not really. It was very strange. We’d spend lots of time together, and stay at each other’s apartment sometimes, but then we wouldn’t speak for several days. At a certain point, I wished to better define our relationship (i.e. be a couple) and she wished to keep it as-is (i.e. not be a couple). So, that was the end of that. Regret I’ve Left Behind – I should’ve said “No,” when, months after we “broke up,” and having not spoken together in weeks, A. sweet-talked dorky me into driving her to the Philadelphia airport (1.5 hours away) to pick up her “friend,” who turned out to be pretty obviously her soon-to-be-new-boyfriend. One Good Thing – Moondance, by Van Morrison.

A. may have been the biggest music fan I ever dated (if that’s what you call what we did), and even though she was a bit too enamored of The Grateful Dead for my tastes, and I was too much into Nirvana and Pearl Jam for her, we did have a great deal of musical interests that overlapped. We played records for each other, which was lots of fun – except for the time I played her John Lennon’s album Plastic Ono Band, which closes with the song “My Mummy’s Dead,” Lennon’s childlike lament for his dead mother, only to find out that A.’s freaky reaction to the song and quick departure from my apartment afterwards was due to the fact that she’d tragically lost her own mother as a teen …

But anyway … A. was a BIG big fan of Van Morrison. She used to play many of his records, but the one that really stuck with me, the one that – even after that memorable 3 hours in the car spent a) hearing about how interesting her “friend” was (“Environmental Law! Portland, Oregon! Box of Rain!!”); and b) listening to this interesting fellow ignore me while flirting and giggling with A. in the back seat (“We haven’t seen each other in so long, do you mind if I sit back here with him??” “Uh … no! Of course not!”) – even after this, the album that I went out and bought so I could listen by myself, was Moondance.

After 16 albums on this list, I think its clear that a pattern is emerging in my favorite albums. They’re mostly bands, mostly guitar oriented, mostly rocking. I’ve also shown a proclivity for disregarding vocal ability, as many acts with acquired-taste singers, like Rush, The Hold Steady, and Sleater-Kinney, dot the list. Moondance completely obliterates this pattern.

It’s a solo record, with some guitar, but very understated and mostly acoustic, containing songs that have some bounce and pop, but that never really rock. And as for singing … Van Morrison is among the best singers I’ve heard. The sound of his voice is striking. Have you ever been to a wedding reception or other large party, and in the midst of enjoying yourself had a friend come by and introduce you to someone? And has that person ever been an incredibly beautiful woman or incredibly handsome man? I don’t mean just pretty or cute, I mean the type that – regardless if you are male or female, gay or straight – makes you fumble a bit for words as you ask, “How do you know Mary and John?” The type that after he or she walks away, you and your date look at each other and – again, regardless if you are male or female, gay or straight – say to each other, “Holy shit!” It’s happened once or twice to me. This is what Van’s voice is like. Just a few words at the beginning of any song, and I find myself thinking, “Whoa. Now this is singing.”

It’s not the technicality of the singing, or the perfection of the notes, and it’s not as if he’s performing vocal feats like covering multiple octaves or flying through difficult cadenzas. It’s that I feel what he’s singing, and it conveys to me what he’s feeling. It sounds weird to say it, but there’s a truth to it, an openness that allows the listener into Van’s world. But it’s never embarrassingly emotional, or burdensome to the listener – he somehow pulls off the emotion with a touch of restraint that leaves me wanting to hear more, not less. There are few artists whose voice I want to hear more of – I often think of the vocals as just a means to carry melody while I focus on guitar, bass and drums. But I feel like I could listen to simply the vocal tracks of Morrison’s and be perfectly happy with it. That being said, the backing band on Moondance is phenomenal.

The album opens with “And It Stoned Me,” a childhood slice-of-life subtly delivering a message on the wonderful joys of everyday life, and how the simple things can be divine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQh19AbHE3Y

The horns are pleasant, and the band sounds good, but I can tell I’m a fan of the singer because during the acoustic guitar and piano solos, which are very nice and light, (2:14 to 2:54) I find myself thinking, “okay, let’s get back to the vocals!” which is something I almost never think during an instrumental section! The structure of the song is basic, but I love how at the end of the pre-chorus (“Oh, the water … Oh, the water”) during the “hope it don’t rain all day” part, the song slows a bit, creating a tension that echoes the lyrics. The lyrics of the pre-chorus are different each time through, recalling the part of the story that has just been sung, and each time through Van’s evocative delivery, coupled with the slight change of pace, enhance the feeling of the lyrics and place you right in the boy’s mind. You can feel the story unfolding as if Billy was your friend, and you spent that day with him, fishing in the rain, swimming, drinking the water … and you can understand why such mundane activities were all so special. Through Morrison’s singing, magic is created out of something simple – and when you think about it, that’s the whole point of “And It Stoned Me.”

Another magical track, in which everything comes together to create something bigger than the sum of the parts, is the song “Into the Mystic.”

The lyrics conjure a romance as lasting as the sea, and as in “And It Stoned Me,” the music references and reflects the imagery perfectly. Supporting the magic this time is John Klingberg’s gentle-waves-lapping-the-shore bass line, rolling as insistently as the waves. Van’s voice starts softly and builds throughout first verses. Then the musical stakes are raised by the minor chord struck as Van sings of the fog horn blowing, and the payoff comes stunningly as he pounces on the “rock your Gypsy soul” line. This rarely fails to bring me chills. “Into the Mystic” is a song whose meaning I can’t express well in words, but that I understand when I listen to it. It’s about love, but it’s more than that. I suppose this inexpressible quality is what makes it sound magical to me.

Another sum-greater-than-the-parts song is “Everyone,” which has a simple, Elizabethan-sounding melody and so-inscrutable-they’re-almost-pointless lyrics

But somehow, held together by Van’s singing, a vision of hope and friendship and a happy future emerges in the song. It sounds downright jolly. It’s a song I find running through my head frequently even though I don’t think of it as a favorite on the record. It’s got too much flute, for one thing, and I’ve never been much for the flute as rock instrument. (Maybe okay for jazz, in certain settings.) But it’s catchy, and the words of the chorus are certainly easy to remember! (The title track, maybe the most famous of all of Morrison’s tunes, also uses the flute effectively. It’s also not a particular favorite of mine.)

My favorite song on the record is definitely “Caravan.”

The acoustic guitar behind the chorus, through the “turn up the radio/switch on the electric light” section, is my favorite guitar on the record. I love parts of songs that are easy to miss, that you might only catch on the third or fourth trip through the song. As always, Van’s singing is masterly, evocative. It brings so much clarity to a song whose lyrics’ meanings are obtuse, as usual, even wringing meaning out of the tune’s many “La la las”. And when the horns punctuate the bridge, and Van calls out “Turn it up! Turn it up!” my heart feels just what he’s saying – it knows exactly why we gotta turn up the radio, why this caravan is so special, and why I want that electric light on when I’m with Emma Rose – even if my head’s not really sure. I could listen to this song on a loop all day.

Although it’s a vocal record, the band behind Van is excellent. I’m not sure who all played what on every song, but two songs that feature the band nicely are the bouncy, bluesy “These Dreams of You” and “Come Running.”

It seems natural that someone who uses dreamlike imagery in most of his songs would write a song like “Dreams of You,” whose lyrics describe odd dreams of Canada and Ray Charles and a lover who’s let him down. There’s a nice sax solo, and the band sounds like it’s having fun playing the song. “Come Running” is almost a companion piece, it’s lyrics describing the hope for a lost love returning – in fact, running back. Again, the band sounds like it’s enjoying the poppy bounce.

Of course, Van Morrison’s voice lends itself beautifully to love songs and romance. That voice is always deeply suggestive of any subject matter, and easily bears the full weight of words’ meanings. This makes a love song like “Crazy Love” extra special.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vS8GKcl9KQ

If you listen closely, you can hear Van breathing and bumping the mike as he sings. It’s an intimate song, and he sings it that way. Morrison has a definite Motown sound that’s very evident on popular numbers of his like “Jackie Wilson Said” and “Domino.” And like these songs, “Crazy Love” – in the Quiet Storm vein of R&B – is a song one could imagine Smoky Robinson singing. The song and its performance make a guy like me think, “man, I’ll bet Van Morrison never had to worry about being a dork around girls. They were probably crawling all over him.” (Which isn’t to say he hasn’t had any relationship regrets of his own.)

The album closes with one of the best album closers ever, “Glad Tidings.”

Another bouncy tune, a fun and uplifting song that seems to be about staying positive, and having an optimistic outlook. There’s nice electric guitar work beneath the vocals, and the horn section and rhythm section sound great. But like the entire album, this song is all about Van’s incredible vocal ability. Once again, lyrics that are indirect are given clarity through his voice.

“But meet them halfway with love, peace and persuasion
And expect them to rise for the occasion
Don’t it gratify when you see it materialize
Right in front of your eyes
That surprise”

He asks the listener to look on the bright side, to not just find the good in others, but to expect it, and you’ll be surprised by the payoff when you do. It sounds like a sentiment Mrs. Meyer herself would have loved to hear.

TRACKS:
“And It Stoned Me”
“Moondance”
“Crazy Love”
“Caravan”
“Into the Mystic”
“Come Running”
“These Dreams of You”
“Brand New Day”
“Everyone”
“Glad Tidings”

8 Comments

Posted in Albums 90-81

Tagged 1970, And It Stoned Me, Caravan, Glad Tidings, Into the Mystic, Irish, Moondance, singing, Van Morrison, vocalist

85th Favorite: 90125, by Yes

Posted on January 11, 2015 | 16 comments

90125. Yes.
1983, ATCO. Producer: Trevor Horne
Gift, 1983.

IN A NUTSHELL – Quintessential glossy 80s rock from 70s Prog Rock kings who somehow manage to cram all the characteristics of Prog (weird song structures, harmonies, virtuosity, bizarre lyrics) into 4 minute pop songs. If I hadn’t played it every day in 1984, it probably wouldn’t make the list! WOULD BE HIGHER IF – I had played it four times a day. Or if it had fewer sound effects, samples and Casio-esque keyboards.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Parts of this post were originally posted in March, 2013)

First, let’s hear Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters’ front man, Dave Grohl, on the concept of GUILTY PLEASURES:

“I don’t believe in guilty pleasures. If you like something, like it. That’s what’s wrong with our generation: that residual punk rock guilt, like, “You’re not supposed to like that. [It’s] not cool.” Don’t think it’s not cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic.” It is cool to like Britney Spears’ “Toxic”! Why not? Fuck you! That’s who I am, goddamn it! That whole guilty pleasure thing is full of fucking shit.”

Amen.

I recall a discussion from early in my senior year of high school, in the fall of (gasp) 1984 (!!),with friends Rick and Josh about a report we had recently heard.

The word from the radio, or maybe MTV, was that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page (of Led Zeppelin! Duh!!) had reunited to cut an EP. This was Earth-shattering good news. I myself was giddy with excitement.

Neither Rick nor (especially) Josh would ever be described as “giddy,” but they were both interested, though also cautioned (especially Josh, as he has always been wise beyond his years) that there was a decent chance the EP would suck.

I was incredulous at the suggestion. “How could anyone imagine this EP could suck!!???” I wondered. “Weren’t Robert and Jimmy half of the greatest hard rock band in the history of this world and Middle Earth?? Weren’t they such a kickass band that even their slow songs fuckin’ rocked?” I chuckled at the suggestion that anything produced by such a collaboration could suck. Sure, based on their post-Zeppelin output, I didn’t expect the EP to be as good as Led Zeppelin. But clearly, there was no way it would suck. Even the new band’s name, “The Honeydrippers,” boded well, as in my adolescent mind it was somewhat reminiscent of the vaguely raunchy lyrics from Zep’s “The Lemon Song.”

I chuckled to myself. “You’ll see,” I thought. “This will blow your walkman right off your belt clip!”

I have a memory of watching MTV when the channel unveiled the World Premiere of the video for The Honeydrippers’ new song. Maybe it’s a purely conjured memory, but in my mind I can see Mark Goodman welcoming viewers to the unveiling of “the first single from the new EP titled The Honeydrippers, Volume 1” (which indicated to me that more great volumes could be on the way!!), “Sea of Love!”

This was it!! Page and Plant, together again!! YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!” my 17 year old brain screamed, “ROCK AND ROLL!!!!!!!!!!! Hey, Hey, My, My, Rock and Roll Will Never Die!!! Long Live Rock!! I need it every night!!!”

And I settled myself down to watch Glorious Rock Majesty unfold:

Okay, I don’t expect you to watch every second of every video I post. But just watch the first minute. Twenty seconds is enough to realize that this is NOT going to be another “Immigrant Song.” And by the 42 second mark, when a coiffed, mustachioed and generally hairy dude in a Speedo appears, waving beaters over – but never actually playing – a xylophone, it was clear to my teenage self that everything I thought I knew about Plant and Page was completely wrong. This was not Hard Rock. This was not Rock and Roll. For Christ’s sake, this wasn’t even Soft Rock. This was not any kind of Rock that I could even imagine. This was music that my PARENTS would appreciate, and if there’s one thing I know that my parents DO NOT appreciate, it is ROCK MUSIC.

This was … this was … THIS WAS BULLSHIT!! My wiser friends were right – there had been a chance the music could suck. And suck it did.

At the time I claimed to like the song, out of some sense of loyalty to Plant and Page, or maybe a kind of faith in Led Zeppelin. I claimed to like it, but I knew … It Sucked.

It took me a long time to realize that it didn’t really suck all THAT bad, [ref]Even though it was certainly not rock[/ref] and an even longer time to realize why such (apparently) debauched Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll guys like Plant and Page would make an entire EP of songs like this one.

It’s because it’s always high school in your brain. “Sea of Love” might have sounded schmaltzy and lame to me, it may be light years away from “Out on the Tiles” and “Achilles Last Stand,” but it’s a song Plant grew up to, a song that must have stirred something in him as a youth that continued stirring throughout the intervening 25 years. What the song continued to bring to him was something my 17 year old, mostly-id brain couldn’t understand. But for Plant, the connection was still strong.

Your youth just stays with you, and you can’t really explain why.

One part of youth that has stayed with me (without me even realizing it until recently!) is the Yes album 90125.

It is an album that I hadn’t listened to in at least 25 years when I started this project. In fact, I had forgotten about it entirely, until I was trying to put together a list of albums that I figured would have been Top Ten for me back in 1984-85. I remembered I used to play the cassette, which one of my sisters got me for Christmas in 1983, regularly. For a long stretch I played it daily. I loved that cassette – every song.

I stopped listening to it sometime in college. During and after college, my musical interests began to change. I had grown to love The Beatles, but became less interested in other classic rock – especially acts that stressed virtuosity – and more interested in college-radio acts.

I became obsessed with melodic, punkier music by bands like REM and XTC, or Elvis Costello and the Attractions. By the time a friend loaned me a box set of The Clash (a band I’d heard before, but never really took seriously [after all, they had no intricate, 5 minute guitar solos, no confusing time signature changes, and their singer didn’t sound like his nuts were in a vise]) my entire perspective on music had been altered radically.

So I never thought much again about 90125 – or if I did, I scoffed and mocked my younger self for ever being so silly as to listen to it. I reached a point where I couldn’t remember whether 90210 was the TV show and 90125 the Yes album, or vice versa. I also held a bit of a grudge against the album, actually, as it had been my entree into the bizarre, bombastic and rather ridiculous world of Progressive Rock, or “Prog Rock.” For a while I was quite embarrassed by a two-year deep dive I had taken into Prog Rock’s multi-chambered, cavernous world of Moogs, Mustaches and Music School Maiar. But in the interest of being as thorough as possible in documenting my musical tastes, I bought a used copy of the disc ($1.99!!). And when I put it into the CD player in my car, and the songs began to play, a wave of good feelings returned.

Obviously, not everything about adolescence is memorable, fun or positive, but I found myself enjoying the music, and thinking about old friends and old times that I hadn’t thought of in years. I sang all the lyrics to songs I hadn’t heard in 25 years or more. It all came back to me, including what it was I liked about the album. (Which isn’t always the case for me, when listening to favorites from my youth.) I felt like Plant and Page must have felt when they heard music from their teenage years, my parents’ teenage years. It stirred up that youthful excitement with just one play. Just as the younger me couldn’t understand why they’d play crap like “Sea of Love,” I don’t expect most readers to understand why I love this record. But I’ll try to explain it.

90125 is very much, extremely, entirely and in totality a Time-Capsule-1983 work.

On grand display are synthesizers, multi-tracked and hyper-compressed guitars, flanging drums, and computer-generated sounds and effects of the type that today are easily embedded in everyday items such as greeting cards and bottle openers, but at the time seemed to have been created by a DARPA-funded team on loan from NASA. The music at times sounds entirely created by robots playing instruments that have been loaded with Artificial Intelligence.

There’s a sterile quality to the album, apparent even in the album artwork. It has a sound that, were I to first hear the record today, I would find unappealing. I’ve become more devoted than ever to the sounds of instruments I can identify, with minimal effects placed between the artist and the listener. But I’m also a fan of songs and melody, regardless of how they are produced, and the great songs and melodies on 90125, coupled with the punch of memories and reminiscence, make the record a favorite – even though I’d forgotten about it for years!

The record opens with one of the most iconic 80s songs of all time, “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” I feel confident calling it iconic (even though it didn’t make VH1’s Top 100 Songs of the 80s) because it is a song that exemplifies the 1983 rock sound, just as “Great Balls of Fire” says 1957, and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” says 1967. “Owner of a Lonely Heart,” like Styx’s “Mr. Roboto” is a song that sounds like it could only have ever been a hit during one particular 10 -month stretch in history, from Spring of ’83 through Winter of ’84.

It also has one of the more “artsy” [ref]By that I mean pretentious and weird[/ref] videos of the era:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsx3nGoKIN8

What the song really has going for it, beneath all the gunshot sound effects, synthesized string section blasts and drum samples from the band Funk, Inc., is Chris Squire’s super catchy bass hook (the same riff that’s played on guitar to open the song.) Probably the last adjective one would ever use to describe the band Yes would be “funky,” but in fact, this song does have a bit of funk to it. Enough for it to have been sampled by a few different hip hop acts, going back to 1985. As strange as it feels to write this, it’s a Yes song to which one might dance. (And in fact, a dance remix version of the song hit #9 in the UK a few years back.) It’s strange to write it because most Yes songs recorded in the 15 years prior to 90125 were … well, let’s just say NOT conducive to (non-interpretive) dancing.

There are many places for you to read about the varied history of the band Yes, but – befitting an act whose album artwork and musical stylings conjure images of multi-part Fantasy Novel sagas – it would take up the equivalent of two-thirds of The Lord of the Rings trilogy to completely tell the story. (There is a lengthy Wikipedia page devoted solely to band members present and past! It even has a chart showing the timeline of all 19 members!!) Suffice it to say that the 90125 edition of the band had an 80s pop sensibility, but tried to keep the Yes sound (distinct vocals, inscrutable lyrics, excellent musicianship) intact. “Owner of a Lonely Heart” was proof that the concept could work … for about 10 months. It has a catchy melody over the bass line, and if you don’t mind nut-in-vise male singers, then Jon Anderson’s vocals sound good, too. Trevor Rabin’s guitar work is mostly buried under all that computerese, but he is a great player and his solo on the song is weird and cool.

The next song on the album is “Hold On,” which caught enough of the tail end of that 10-month stretch of history to reach number 27 on the singles chart.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4HZ8LwCgRA

The main feature of this song is the vocal work among Anderson, Rabin and Squire (who, if you checked out that earlier chart, you’ll see is the only consistent member through all versions of the band). Its lyrics are a simple yet uplifting message about strength in hard times. (Although – as with all Jon Anderson lyrics – don’t look too closely at the lyrics because even seemingly direct meanings can be derailed by passages like this:

“Talk the simple smile
Such platonic eye
How they drown in incomplete capacity
Strangest of them all
When the feeling calls
How we drown in stylistic audacity
Charge the common ground
Round and round and round
We living in gravity”

When you’re a Yes fan, you learn to just deal with these types of lyrics, like a fan of Woody Allen movies just deals with the fact that he married his step daughter.) But another cool feature of the song is the bass and guitar work of Squire and Rabin. The song sounds like a basic 80s pop song, but if you are a fan of 70s bombastic Yes (as I am) you can pick out the musicianship on display beneath the 80s gloss and (frankly) fruity keyboards. Both players mix in some interesting fills and complex runs, and while I’ve never been a big fan of drummer Alan White (I much prefer the jazzy Bill Bruford in my Yes music) he also produces some rhythmic moments that aren’t your typical Madonna/Michael Jackson 1983 sound.

(Side Note: If you’re interested in Awesome 80s Style – including the strange hybird look of Olivia Newton John’s “Physical” video crossed with the Mad Max movies, check out this clip of Yes playing “Hold On” live in 1984!)

Continuing with the uplifting theme, the next song is “It Can Happen.”

(It’s TOTALLY worth watching a little bit of that video, too, just to see the haircuts and outfits. This is classic 10-months-in-’83-’84 fashion.) I want to dislike this song, with its multiple sections of varying tempos, repetitious, nonsensical it-can-happen lyrics and background-keyboard whirr, but I can’t. The melody is catchy, there’s enough guitar and bass to keep me interested (especially the repeating high end bass flourish Squire adds), and the song builds nicely throughout. When it finally reaches the last chorus after the guitar solo (about 3:27) I find myself fighting the urge to pump my fist and shout along, as I probably did every day for that 10 month stretch. [ref]But why fight the urge? If the song moves me, the song moves me, right? I should be happy to hear something I like![/ref] It shouldn’t be surprising that Yes crammed about 12 different melodies into a 4 minute song, as previous Yes albums included songs that lasted the entire side of an album, with multiple, named sections. But the fact that they were able to do this and produce hit pop songs with the formula is pretty astounding.

Another characteristic of the “classic Yes” sound from all those 70s albums is the vocal harmonies. Part of the reason people like me begin to get obsessed with a band like Yes is the virtuosity. Yes displayed incredible instrumental abilities throughout its run (all 19 members, I suppose … although I only know about a dozen of them …) and on top of that, sang tight harmonies on difficult melodies WHILE THEY WERE PLAYING! It was like Crosby, Stills and Nash singing “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” while playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” on their guitars. (And I’ll admit, some of their songs [ref]Listen from 12:00 – 13:30 if (when) you get impatient[/ref] sounded about as deranged as this description. But it was impressive.) This type of musical wizardry causes some people (the nerds, like me) to bow down and worship and causes other people (the punks) to want to hock a loogie at the band (and not in appreciation.) Anyway, this prog-rock staple of vocal harmonies was placed into a pop song format on the song “Leave It.”

(Another time-capsule video worth watching a bit of. The editing on this video was CUTTING-FRIGGIN-EDGE in 1984). It’s a song about being on the road, I guess, but once again, we’re dealing with Yes and sometimes the lyrics are best left un-read. Regarding the vocals, even though they are enhanced with studio effects, the singing on the song is pretty cool. So cool, in fact, that the band later released an a capella version of the song, which inspired a capella groups from every high school, college and community choir to record their own versions. Here are six of the millions.

Songs like this bring up the point that most of the cuts on this album – whether played by robots, or by guys with their nuts in a vise – just sound cool. Were I to hear them today for the first time, I may not appreciate the sound, but the 17 year old me found them really cool, and for some reason that sense is still with me today.

This is why these a capella groups cover this song in particular, and why the album itself was so popular. According to Wikipedia the album sold around 6 million copies worldwide. It didn’t sound much like anything else out at the time (I can’t think of any other pop records that might have had a song like “Changes,” with its shifting 4/4, 6/8, 4/4, 12/8 time signature) but then again it sounded EXACTLY like everything else. The Yes sound was made palatable to the masses, and they liked what they heard.

“Our Song” is what passes for a Yes barn-burner – the closest the band ever gets to real Rock and Roll.

I keep saying one should ignore the band’s lyrics, but I can’t stop harping on them. They’re so amusing! [ref]Dr. Dave and I have spent hours laughing about the band’s lyrics throughout their history.[/ref] I think this song is about the city of Toledo, and that the song is in the key of C. I know the lyrics rhyme “Britannia” with “grabs ya.” But whatever the lyrics, I sing along to this song all the time, and I don’t give a fuck what it really means. The guitar and bass work are really great, playing together like co-leads, like dueling guitars in a Southern Rock band. It’s a rocker and probably my favorite song on the record.

“City of Love” and “Hearts” close out the album. “City of Love” is a dark, throbbing guitar workout, with all the components I’ve already discussed on full display: excellent guitar and bass, tight harmonies, fruity keyboards, silly lyrics (“Justice/Body smooth takeover”), great melodies, and shiny production.

“Hearts” is a sort of Yes 80s power ballad, in the same way that “Our Song” is a Yes rock and roller. That is to say – it’s not REALLY a power ballad. It’s slow and has some seemingly romantic lyrics (although: “Be ready now/Be ye circle” ??? I don’t envision many teenage girls in 1984 writing that on the back of their notebooks.) And it has a really great sing-along chorus, and multiple rocking guitar solos – all staples of the 80s power ballad. But it’s not exactly a song a couple could dance to, with its plodding, hiccuppy drums and strange keyboard interlude. But still, it’s a song that sounds really cool. As the entire album does.

90125 sounds like nothing else. As I wrote at the beginning of this post, upon listening again after so many years, I don’t know if I’d love it so much if I didn’t have such a strong, almost Pavlovian, response to it. But there’s no denying that it is a unique record, a melding of styles that shouldn’t fit together, but that somehow do. It’s the Centaur of rock records – a combination that sounds ridiculous, and is ridiculous, but somehow seems to fit.

TRACKS:
“Owner of a Lonely Heart”
“Hold On”
“It Can Happen”
“Changes”
“Cinema”
“Leave It”
“Our Song”
“City of Love”
“Hearts”

16 Comments

Posted in Albums 90-81

Tagged 1983, 1984, 80s Rock, 90125, Awesome 80s, Chris Squire, Jon Anderson, Prog Rock, Trevor Rabin, yes

86th Favorite: Made in USA, by Pizzicato Five

Posted on December 27, 2014 | 4 comments

Made in USA. Pizzicato Five.
1994, Matador. Producers: Maki Nomiya, Yasuharu Konishi, K-taro Takanami
Purchased 1995.

IN A NUTSHELL – 90s Japanese dance pop that sounds like the soundtrack to an Austin Powers movie if it starred Hello Kitty instead of Mike Myers. But I mean in a really, really good way! It’s fun and energetic and full of happiness. WOULD BE HIGHER IF – I can’t imagine a scenario in which it would be higher than 86, but I do love it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Hold on to sixteen as long as you can/ changes come around real soon make us women and men.” – John Cougar (nee Mellencamp)

“Bullshit.” – Me.

At a certain point in life, you have to grow up. That point will be different for everyone. Some folks – the FBLA types, who attend high school wearing business attire – are ready to move to grown-up-hood by the time they’re 14. Others find themselves in their twenties beginning to tire of their mom continually putting their good sweaters in the dryer, and realize that maybe the problem isn’t really with their mother.

But regardless of the actual age it happens, eventually, your best bet is going to be to embrace the reality that a) you’re going to have bills due each month; b) you’re going to have to work a job(s) that pays you enough to cover those expenses; and c) you’re going to enjoy (a) and (b) more if you find a close friend or friends to spend your time with.[ref]As with everything, this isn’t true for everyone. Some people do well without (a), (b) and (c), or with only certain parts of them. Others will find themselves just happy to know how to use the new footnoting tool they’ve discovered in their blogging software.[/ref]

As a forty-seven year old, I am aware of several people around my age who are still desperately clinging to some winnowing thread of adolescence. In men, this usually manifests as a compulsory need to find someone/anyone to go out drinking with, who also has a connection to a coke dealer, and who especially won’t mind if you crash on his TV room floor a couple nights a week. This “adult-escent” is the guy who stopped hanging out with you and your friends twenty years ago – right around the time you all got real jobs and steady partners – but who you still see around town occasionally, when you’re out for a drink with friends, and who invariably wobbles up to you and says “it’s been too long, man!” and asks, “how’s your kid?” – followed by, “oh, you have two now? I just never had time for a wife and kids – too busy,” and then introduces “my buddy, Chase,” who is 20 to 25 years younger than you, and who has been standing there touching his goatee repeatedly, twitchier than a nervous squirrel.

Obviously, such a guy has more issues than simple Peter Pan Syndrome. But any urge to grow up has been blunted, whether by drugs and alcohol, or over-parenting, or simply genetics, and the end result is a character who conjures more of the bad memories of adolescence than the good ones.

In popular American culture, growing up is often seen as a negative. Pop songs have long advised listeners to stay young and die before you get old. To relish one’s youth. Movies, television, advertising, books … all have celebrated the creativity, humor, beauty and innate wisdom of childhood.

Many of these celebrations of youth are an expression that the childlike characteristics of wonder, joy, honesty and friendship should be held onto in one’s adult heart. This idea can be the germ of a really good movie (or a really bad one.) And we all could probably use a little childlike grace in our adult lives.

But such pop culture endeavors miss a huge, important fact about children. You see, children aren’t simply beatific, golden vessels of kindhearted love and altruistic intent. Children are actually selfish, irrational, shortsighted assholes, too.

They are just like every awful boss you’ve ever had – demanding, inflexible, prone to obnoxious outbursts, and masters of manipulation and emotional blackmail.

These negative traits aren’t a result of poor parenting, no. They are wired into every normal human that is born, and the purpose of parenting is to rid the little person of them as thoroughly as possible so that he or she can reasonably function in a society with others who may or may not continue to exhibit these traits as adults. Parents wring these negatives out, they gently wipe the negatives off, they trick them into going away, they hassle them out so they’re not inclined to return. They frighten the negatives into hidden corners and shame them into dark, locked closets. They embrace the negatives until the negatives are no longer fun, they facilitate open dialogues about the negatives until they are too bored to stay. In short, they do everything they can to remove the childish from the child. This is what parents do. They have to do it because if they didn’t, the world would have even more selfish pricks than it already does – truly a shocking thought.

What I’m saying is that children are overrated. Childhood is overrated. Don’t get me wrong, there are some positive things to be said about both, but the Cult of Children sometimes obscures the reality that being a grown up is pretty fuckin’ kickass, too.

Ask any child. Go ahead, ask them what they want to be. They want to be GROWN UPS. They pretend to be grown ups. They try to act like grown ups. They make their Barbies and Lego guys be grown ups. Has anyone ever heard 7 year olds playing with Legos say, “Okay, this green guy is Tommy, and he and Danny are going to have their moms call Dylan’s mom to see about a play-date.” NO! Tommy and Danny and Dylan are always full-grown MEN, working together as full-grown men, doing full-grown manly stuff, like building space stations and surviving slow-motion 1000 mph crashes as their winged motorcycles smash into dinosaurs and Patrick Star, causing a debris field of small animals, bent Yu-Gi-Oh cards and a Spiderman leg.

Maybe people tend to discount the joys of adulthood because childhood dreams – like crashing winged bikes into dinosaurs, or running a clothing shop/veterinary clinic for pop stars and their pet bunnies – rarely come true. This may cause a young adult to feel lied to. But when you get past the fact that most kids have an impractical (to say the least) comprehension of what adult life is like (which, by the way, is another negative about kids – a warped view of life), and really think about life as an adult, you realize that it’s actually usually a pretty fun time.

Pizzicato Five’s Made in USA is on my list of Favorite 100 albums because – as goofy and lighthearted and carefree as the music may sound – it reminds me of being an adult. More precisely, it reminds me of coming to the realization that I AM an adult. I listened to this record a lot at a time in my life when it struck me: “This Is It. I am a grown up. This right here is my dinosaur wing-bike crash.”

In January 1995, a few weeks before the 49ers beat the Chargers in Superbowl XXIX my girlfriend, Julia, and I moved in together in a cool 2 bedroom apartment in a house in the Bernal Heights section of San Francisco.

I had been living on my own for several years, in various places, with roommates and without roommates, so it wasn’t simply being away from my parents that caused the Grown Up feelings. I think it was a sense of permanence, that I had met a person with whom I’d probably spend many years, and that together we’d decided to merge our lives.

There was a large kitchen/dining room area in the very center of the apartment, and it was the perfect place to put our stereo and collection of vinyl albums and CDs. Anything playing on the stereo was easily heard throughout our home.

Now, Julia likes music and knows what she does and doesn’t like, however she’s not what one would call a “music enthusiast.” She likes funky soul and punky rock, and though she isn’t one to go out and buy herself music or follow bands, if she was, the act that I think would best describe the type of artist she’d follow would be Fishbone. Fun, melodic, energetic music. That’s what she likes. She’s a big fan of most anything by Prince, whose music usually falls into this category.

Some of the music that I liked to play wasn’t especially appealing to Julia, so I started widening my sphere of record-buying to include music I though she’d like to hear, too. Our good friend Ximena, who somehow always knew about new music first (and was particularly savvy about cool female Japanese acts, for some reason) told me about Pizzicato Five, and I went and bought Made in USA on her recommendation. I liked it a lot, and Julia did too. That CD spent a lot of time in our player while we went about the ordinary tasks, and spent extraordinary times, being grown-ups together.

It turns out that Made in USA breaks one of the rules I established for my Favorite Albums list: it is a compilation album. However, I didn’t know that until I started writing this post and reading up on the album! According to the extensive research I did, Pizzicato Five was a popular Japanese band who were part of a new wave of Japanese music called Shibuya-kei, which ”is known for eclectic and energetic compositions that often pay homage to late 1960s English-language Pop Music.” The American label, Matador, took some songs from each of their earlier Japanese records, put them together and called it Made in USA, a reference to the Japanese town of Usa, which was rumored in the 1960s to have been renamed so that cheap items for export to America could carry the meant-to-confuse label of “Made in USA Japan.”

Because I didn’t know the album was a compilation album until earlier this month, I have asked the judges to allow it into the list despite it being against the rules. After careful consideration they have agreed by a vote of 1 to 0. I’m glad they did, although this is the type of record that demonstrates perfectly why I would make a lousy music critic (and, in fact, why I think music critics – maybe all criticism? – is 99% horse shit). I can’t listen to the record “objectively,” whatever that means, as it is so wrapped up in so many memories from my life. I think it’s a great record – but if you’re not me, you won’t like it for the same reasons I do.

San Francisco in the 1990s was very exciting, and the neighborhood Julia and I lived in was particularly so. We were there as the World Wide Web grew from a opalescent puddle in Silicon Valley into a gigantic bubble surrounding the globe, and many of our neighbors were the people doing the huffing and puffing to keep the thing inflated and growing. We left just before it burst, kicking ourselves over not buying that $165,000 modest home near 22nd St. in 1994 (which didn’t have parking!), the one that would have been worth about $1,000,000 by 2000, when we left.

But while we were there, we had a blast together, and with our friends. That’s what Made in USA reminds me of – having a blast with Julia and our friends, and it made the list because of the great memories it conjures.

The first song on the album is “I”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48ygfZf1TzU

This swingin’ accordion-driven number (and you’ll hear that “swingin” and “accordion-driven” turn out NOT to be mutually exclusive) sets the tone for the record. If you, the listener, can get into the charm of Maki Nomiya’s sweet voice, and ignore the fact that the words are in a foreign language; if you can appreciate the light jazz-combo, 60’s bounce of the song, and don’t find it too cutesy; if you can appreciate an accordion, and not immediately discount it … if you can do all these things you’ll likely appreciate the record. If you can’t, there might not be much for you here.

This song reminds me of going out to amazing restaurants in San Francisco, like Farallon, The Liberty Cafe and Cafe Jacqueline.

The feeling of dressing up, going out and enjoying a meal with someone you love is definitely a grown-up feeling. Contrast that with the nasty food kids enjoy, like Kraft mac n cheese, frozen pizzas and a squirt of ketchup on warmed, breaded nuggets of “chicken.” One point for adult-hood.

Next up on the album is a number that continues to make its way onto any playlist I create that requires an invitation to dancing: “Sweet Soul Revue.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPzp1_155aI

It’s got a funky Motown-sounding bass line, and nifty TSOP-sounding horns and violins, and a backbeat that doesn’t quit. The melody is catchy, but – as with most of the songs on the album – it’s difficult for me to sing along to. But Nomiya does throw a hearty “Bay-bee!!” into the chorus a few times, allowing non-Japanese speakers such as myself to shout along a little bit.

This song reminds me of throwing parties at our house, and trying out recipes for cocktails, main dishes, desserts, at a time when we still had time and money to subscribe to – AND READ – Bon Appetit, Saveur and Cook’s Illustrated.

We’d have friends to the house and talk and laugh and eat and drink, then clean it all up and plan the next one. Parties like that are a reminder that kids have to go to bed way too early, and if they don’t they turn into insufferable whiners. Staying up til 3 am, and remaining well-mannered and fun (except for the occasional over-indulgence, which in itself is an adult thing) is very grown-up.

Another great dance song on the album the oddly-yet-perfectly named, “Twiggy Twiggy/Twiggy vs. James Bond.” Listen, and you’ll see what I mean:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z22nzBVLCto

It’s the sound of 60s supermodel sensation Twiggy leaving a Carnaby St. boutique to meet Sean Connery’s tuxedoed 007 at a Soho club for drinks. Right? But if they spoke Japanese? And did the Watusi to sample-filled 90s dance music? Well, anyway, that’s how it sounds to me. It has violin samples and rolling tympanis – a lively dance song that’s fun and adventurous. It’s a movie song, and Julia and I saw a lot of movies back in the day.

Artsy-fartsy movies, like Jeffrey, Suture and Secrets and Lies. Funny movies, like Flirting With Disaster Grosse Pointe Blank and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Or dramas, like Elizabeth, Boogie Nights or Shine.

Basically, the kinds of movies children don’t like. And that’s another thing about kids – all the lousy movies. For each gem, like The Lego Movie, there are fifteen turds, like Planes. (Actually, that’s probably a better ratio than you get with grown-up movies, but most grown ups are smart enough to know that NOT EVERY movie will be good. Kids think they’ll all be awesome.)

Pizzicato Five doesn’t just do catchy, funky dance numbers, it can also throw in a slow love song, as well. Take, for example, “Baby Love Child.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFV1JNgJA7s

Even a slow groove is made interesting by this group. They include samples of horns and voices, some turntable scratches, and keep the drums and bass as funky as ever. And as always, Nomiya’s vocals and interesting vocal style draw the listener in. She may be too cutesy for some, but I find the cutesiness fits with the style of the songs. The lyrics on this song (in English!) are unusual. Instead of the typical love song pronouncements of “I love you, I want you,” the subject and object are reversed, becoming “You love me, you want me.” It’s either an interesting lyrical device, or a result of poor translation. (Probably the former.)

The song conjures memories of just spending time with J. Our neighborhood, Bernal Heights, had a beautiful path up the side of the hill, with stairs built in, and also slides, to make the trip back down faster! We would hike up to the top of the hill and walk around the top – a bit of open space in the middle of the city (or, “The City,” as SF is known by locals.) This was a favorite activity of ours. We would also go to farmers’ markets on weekends, or spend a morning reading the paper at one of The City’s seemingly thousands of pre-Starbucks independent cafes. (Muddy’s, Muddy Waters, Common Ground, Java Source, Martha and Bros. …) We would visit cool SF places, like the Musee Mecanique, and Camera Obscura or go to Fort Funston to watch the hang gliders or to The Golden Gate Bridge to walk and enjoy the sunshine (although it is MUCH LONGER than I ever imagined, so I never walked across the entire span. Plus the cars go really fast and are really close to the walkers. And on the opposite side of the speeding traffic is a 220 foot drop.)

Or we’d ride our bikes across The City to Golden Gate Park, and then on to Ocean Beach, on a circuitous path called “The Wiggle,”designed to miss the 43 or so hills in San Francisco. Or we’d just go to Noe Valley or Hayes Valley or Market St. or North Beach or The Haight or The Mission, or any other neighborhood in The City, shopping, planning, spending time.

Another mellow song is the swirling, vaguely Middle Eastern sounding “Magic Carpet Ride.”

Despite the mishmash of sounds on Made in USA, the band definitely has a way with a dance beat and song structure. The build into the “Magic Carpet Ride” chorus swells in a satisfying way. This song is one of the few sung in English, and the lyrics have a typical “we’re in love, life’s a magic ride, let’s take it together” sensibility. But honestly, you don’t listen to Japanese pop music for the lyrics. You listen for the spirit of the music, because it’s joyful and fun, and it might remind you of all the time you spent with a loved one in the great outdoors, visiting exciting areas around the Bay Area. Muir Woods, Point Reyes National Seashore, Mt. Tamalpais, Big Sur, Lake Tahoe, the Pacific Coast Highway, Half Moon Bay, the Berkeley Hills, Napa Valley, Sonoma County, the Sierra Nevada … San Francisco is a place where you could wake up and go to the beach, then drive an hour for a hike in the woods, then drive two more hours and go downhill skiing. Opportunities for outdoor activities abound, and Julia and I enjoyed spending it outdoors as much as we could.

We had time to spend, if not much money to spend, and it was wonderful to spend it together. It was the kind of time that kids HATE. Which is one more thing that The Cult of Children forgets: kids are always BORED. “I’m bored! This is boring!” Few kids appreciate the value of time well-spent with a friend, or friends. And NONE appreciate spending it with someone of the opposite gender! Kids are so weird. Who wants to return to that lifestyle?

San Francisco had an exciting nightlife, as well, and we’d spend evenings out on the town. The Mission District alone had so many fun, cool bars that we didn’t even have to drive to spend a fun night out. Blondie’s, The Lone Palm, Bruno’s, Dalva, the Albion, Casanova Lounge, Radio Valencia, the Latin American Club, the 500 Club, the 3300 Club, the Elbo Room, the Make Out Room, and the bar where Julia and I first hung out together, the El Rio. It’s the kind of nightlife that one might be reminded of when hearing a song like “Go Go Dancer,” a raucous, goofy mix of sounds with a heavy dance beat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db-H0Stf19Q

It’s worth pointing out here that kids can’t legally drink alcohol – another strike against them. How “wonderful” could childhood really be if no booze is allowed? Ever been invited to a friend’s wedding, then find out the reception will be dry? That quickly waning smile on your face – corners of your mouth receding to form a tight little line between your lips – as you consider the prospect of three people on the dance floor doing the Electric Slide, while everyone else shovels food as quickly as they can so they can leave and hit a bar somewhere – it’s the same fading smile you get when you stop to consider whether childhood was really as great as everyone makes it out to be.

Of course, adulthood isn’t all wonderful. There is the drudgery of going to work every day, the anxiety of having to get something repaired but not being able to just have your parents do it, the pressure of having to prepare food EVERY SINGLE DAY. Similarly, Made in USA isn’t entirely wonderful. Pizzicato Five seems to have a childish streak of their own that keeps them from knowing when enough is enough. The songs “This Year’s Girl #2” and “Catchy” start fun, but both seem interminable by the end – repetitive silliness reminiscent of some kid telling you the “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?” knock-knock joke over and over. It’s cute at first, but wears thin real damn quick.

But the record closes with a joyous song that ties up everything nicely. In the same way “I” set the table for the album, “Peace Music” provides the perfect close:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taP81OA1pfE

It’s a catchy, happy 60s pop song with 90s samples that makes me wish I knew Japanese so I could sing along. There’s also a slight wistfulness in the melody – the sound of something good coming to an end.

Obviously, I find myself doing some heavy cataloging of memories when I listen to Made in USA. And the memories are all golden, perfect. The music sounds like nothing had ever gone wrong. But of course, that’s just a trick of memory – one of the downsides of adulthood. So I’ll say one final good thing about kids and childhood: at least kids are too young to have any memories older than, say, four years. So they can’t look back at the past and distort it in their minds. They are capable only of living in the present – the place we should all try to stay. Listening to Made in USA makes living in the moment difficult for me. But that’s what makes it so great.

Track Listing
I
Sweet Soul Revue
Magic Carpet Ride
Readymade FM
Baby Love Child
Twiggy Twiggy / Twiggy vs. James Bond
This Year’s Girl #2
I Wanna Be Like You
Go Go Dancer
Catchy
Peace Music

4 Comments

Posted in Albums 90-81

Tagged 1994, 90s Dance Pop, Bay Area, Dot Com Bubble, Japanese Pop, Made in USA, Maki Nomiya, Pizzicato Five, San Francisco

87th Favorite: Blunderbuss, by Jack White

Posted on December 2, 2014 | 3 comments

Blunderbuss. Jack White.
2012, Third Man. Producer: Jack White
Purchased 2012.

IN A NUTSHELL – Eclectic, multi-genre-spanning debut from The White Stripes’ front man combines odd lyrics, cool guitar and a grab-bag of instruments into a rock and roll stew, with only a few rock songs included. Very impressive musicians and songs. WOULD BE HIGHER IF – it was even more rockin’, with even more guitar.

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“I don’t care what people say, Rock and Roll is here to stay!” – Danny and the Juniors, 1958.

Has there ever been an art form so obsessed with its longevity as rock music? In 1958 Danny and the Juniors proudly proclaimed in song that Rock and Roll would never die, and since then countless acts – from The Who to Neil Young to AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne – have repeated the claim.

Can you imagine this happening in another art form, this obsession with lifespan?

“Señor Picasso – your new masterpiece for 1909, what is its title?”

“I call it, ‘I Don’t Care What People Say, Cubism is Here to Stay.’ And if you don’t think it is, you can kiss my indistinguishable, stylized, angular ass!”

It’s been part of the snarling, adolescent, anti-authoritarian bent of rock and roll since the beginning to tell the listener, “Screw you!! We ain’t goin’ nowhere!” The message sounded like it was directed to every parent, teacher, cop or judge who dared to listen. But in reality it was mostly other teen-agers listening, so instead of the message being about defiance, it was actually about community, an us-against-the-world rallying cry.

It’s understandable why this message was included in 50s rock and roll. Since the days of ragtime piano white kids had always been warned about the dangers of black music – just as they would be all the way through hip hop – but they were listening to it anyway, and now they were making it (!) and getting it played on the radio (!!).

Imagine the shock on Officer Farnsworth’s face as you not only sing a rock and roll song, but sing a rock and roll song ABOUT how you’ll never stop singing rock and roll songs!! True, Officer Farnsworth wasn’t really listening, but all the kids at the Record Hop could just feel the look on his face as they rocked and rolled, and somehow that feeling made the music sound even better.

“Rock is dead, they say. Long live rock!!” The Who, 1974.

By the early 70s, fifteen years or so into the rock era, a message asserting rock and roll’s longevity probably sounded misplaced to the casual music fan. The Who invoked the nebulous “they,” as purveyors of this strange notion that the most popular music form of the day is “dead.” And maybe Village Voice critics and a few angry teenagers and a moody art student or two were saying it, but to most people it probably sounded like a lark.

But once again, this view ignores the intended listener – the rock music fan. Rock and Roll had morphed into “Rock,” and the Rock Music fan in the early 70s probably wasn’t reading The Village Voice and probably wasn’t all that interested in shaking up the music establishment. The rock music fan was drinking beer, smoking “grass” and souping up a ’57 Chevy in his driveway. He (not to be sexist, but the message was directed mostly to males … but that will have to be a different blog post) was tired of hearing bullshit, fruity songs about fathers and sons sung by sensitive assholes strumming acoustic guitars or by cheesy assholes wearing leisure suits and tuxedoes. He just wanted some tunes that kicked some ass, and he wanted to feel secure that just because the world seemed to be going down the toilet, the music he loved wasn’t going to be flushed away any time soon. “Long Live Rock!!” Roger Daltrey screamed, and The Fan pumped his fist right along and felt that old burst of heat and light rising up from his midsection that he’d felt since the first time he heard The Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night.” Roger and Pete and John and Keith didn’t think rock music was going anywhere, and this made The Fan feel better than ever.

“Hey hey. My my. Rock and roll will never die.” – Neil Young, 1979.

By 1979, the sentiment was sounding desperate. Neil Young cut two versions of the song, a rocking version called “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” and an acoustic version called “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue).” The rocking version – with its references to punk rock – may have ensured some old time rock and roll fans that everything was in good hands, but the acoustic version, in Young’s distinctive, plaintive voice, is reminiscent of a Sympathy Card, reminding one that even though a loved one is no longer with us, the memories will live on. Certainly a nice thought … but also confirmation that, indeed, rock and roll was dead.

As with the teens in 1958, and the rockin’ dude in 1974, listeners in 1979 were moved by the feelings the songs (particularly “Out of the Blue”) conjured. “Okay – I acknowledge that the music has changed, but the feeling it gives me, that Rock and Roll spirit that I hear, that’s still alive inside me.” It was still a message of longevity, but the message had previously been about the music, and how it was bigger than the listener. Now the message was about the listener, and how the music would always be there for him/her.

“Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution. Rock and roll ain’t gonna die.” – AC/DC, 1980.

“You can’t kill rock and roll. It’s here to stay.” -Ozzy Osbourne, 1981.

Within a few years, both AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne were reiterating what had been repeated over the past 25 years. But at the time both acts were considered “Heavy Metal,” fringe acts from a genre nowhere to be found in the popular singles of the day (1980, 1981, 1982).

Heavy Metal was/is “identity rock,” like punk or straight-edge, and identity rock makes no apologies in stating that the music is bigger than the listener. Saying that the music was never going to die was what metal listeners wanted to hear, and it raised all the feelings in the listeners that they had come to expect from the music. But considering what the popular music charts looked like at the time, their affirmations felt like the lyrical equivalent of a young soap opera doctor losing his first patient, futilely attempting resuscitation by pounding on the body’s chest.

“They say the heart of rock and roll is still beating.” -Huey Lewis and The News, 1983.

If AC/DC and Ozzy’s songs were the equivalent of pounding on a dead body’s chest, Huey Lewis’s earnest – yet sadly oxymoronic – effort was the equivalent of dressing the body in a tuxedo and performing a ventriloquism act with it.

“Hey, Rocky, what’s this I hear that you’re dead?”
“Whert? Nee dead? I dern’t know whert yr talking a-doubt. I’n nert dead! I’n alai-zh, shee?” [Stiff arm awkwardly waves.]

It was Weekend at Bernie’s on the radio, but true rock fans weren’t listening to Top 40 radio all that much anyway by 1984 so – gratefully – this desecration of the corpse of rock and roll was perpetrated away from the consideration of most of its fans. (And this isn’t to say Huey and the boys didn’t believe what they were singing – I mean, people do respond to grief in any number of ways, but … anyway … let’s just move on, shall we?)

“He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, and he likes to shoot his guns, but he knows not what it means.” – Nirvana, 1991.

By the early 90s, popular rock acts were no longer preaching an “us-against-the-world” message to listeners – ensuring them that the spirit would live forever – but were instead making fun of them for listening in the first place. The deal was that if you were cool (and for the life of me, I somehow believed I was) you understood the irony that Nirvana was singing a catchy, sing-along song mocking the Frat-boy/Jock types who sang along, and who (probably) still believed that the heart of Rock and Roll was still beating, and who therefore banged their heads along to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” one minute, Winger’s “(She’s Only) Seventeen” the next, and EMF’s “Unbelieveable” the next. The message was still about community, but now it was an exclusive community: not “us-against-the-world” but “some-of-us-(and you know who you are)-against-the-world-(which includes some of you).”

It was an acknowledgement that rock was dead, but that its smirking spirit was still around, giving the finger. And that those feelings the music brings – the old light and heat from the midsection – feelings a listener could still get from a few bands out there, were different from the sensations that other music brings, or that other people feel. Others might recognize it, sure, but they “know not what it means.”

“Party like a rockstar. Totally, dude!” – Shop Boyz, 2007.

By the 2000s, rock and roll was just another form of old-timey music, like jazz or swing or tin pan alley or hymns. The Shop Boyz rapped about rock stars in the same way The Eagles sang about a cowboy, in ‘Desperado,’ as an archetypal metaphor (or simile, in this case) to whom the listener can relate. Rock and roll had become a thing of the past, and even though a rock song, with actual guitars and drums and singing, might appear on the pop charts once in a while, the songs tended to be by acts like Train or Nickelback or Magic!, and they sounded like imitations of the real thing.

I imagine it’s similar to how Chuck Mangione or Kenny G. – when they hit the pop charts in the 70s, 80s and 90s, with what was called “jazz” – must have sounded to fans of jazz from the 40s and 50s.

Rock and roll was now just a history lesson. And those of us who had felt those old feelings it could bring were left, mostly, with our oldies stations and our old CDs, doing shit like making up lists and spending (wasting?) time reminiscing through blogs about them while new art forms (apparently) expressed those feelings for the next generations.

As a fan of rock music, it’s been difficult to see the genre move out of the public’s daily consciousness. After all, the music always meant so much to so many people and was far more than just something to listen to. Rock music was politics, rock music was art, rock music was identity, rock music was community, rock music was theater, emotion, anarchy, religion. Rock music was life. And as ridiculous as Huey Lewis sounded, I am still trying to keep that heart of rock and roll beating as long as I can.

I’ve written before about trying to stay up-to-date with the now-sounds of rock, even after its death. One of the acts in recent years that caught my ear – that caught millions of listeners’ ears – was The White Stripes, the guitar and drum duo of Jack and Meg White, a divorced couple who pretended to be siblings, and who played blues-based rock in a loud, shambling, raucous style. I bought a bunch of their albums, and was immediately impressed with Jack White’s guitar playing and singing.

The songs were aggressive and clamorous, but sometimes sweet, and almost always catchy as hell.

But too often, the songs sounded to me like demos – unfinished ideas that would’ve been incredible with a little more work. I suppose this “low-fi” aspect was some of their charm, and what attracted many listeners – a sort of immediate, unfiltered sound that was in direct opposition to much of the hyper-produced music popular at the time. But when I listened, I wanted something more. Just as many rock fans seek out early demo versions of their favorite artists’ popular songs, I wished I could find full-instrumentation, produced versions of The White Stripes’ drum-and-guitar-only gems. As the band progressed, they moved toward this direction, but they broke up after 2007’s Icky Thump. I remained a fan, and looked forward to hearing what would come from Jack and Meg.

Jack recorded a few records as part of the supergroup The Raconteurs, and I became a fan of their records immediately. (He also formed The Dead Weather, who sound good, but who I don’t know much about.) And when I heard he’d release a solo album in 2012, I was ready to buy it.

I love Blunderbuss because of its diversity of styles, catchy songs, interesting instrumentation and outstanding performances. White assembled an all-female band to play on most of the tracks, and they are in fine form throughout, particularly the rhythm section of drummer Carla Azar and bassist Bryn Davies. Together, the band moves easily through the blues, rock, pop, americana, etc, handling the songs in such a way that makes them sound … familiar.

I don’t mean familiar in a bad way, as in phony or derivative. I suppose “timeless” describes the sound better, although that word sounds a little pretentious. The album sounds like a record that would have been considered great had it been released any time between 1965 and today. It’s a record that makes me think a lot about my long-dead buddy, Rock Music.

The record is interesting right off the bat, starting with the lead song “Missing Pieces.” A simple six-note electric piano riff is built up to full instrumentation, an introduction that is compelling, but leaves the listener unsure what could be coming next. There’s a lot of space, and as Jack begins singing the song turns into a slow groove. I’ve always loved Jack’s voice – it has (dare I say?!) a touch of Robert Plant to it. He can both howl and croon. And his guitar playing is always excellent. “Missing Pieces” features a terrific guitar solo, followed by an equally excellent electric piano solo, also played by White. The lyrics of the song speak of the dangers of people who will take too much from you, and contain the cool lines to end the song “And when they tell you that they just can’t live without you/ They ain’t lyin’, they’ll take pieces of you.” The song has a 70’s R&B feel to it, and that’s the first of many genres found here.

White’s lyrics can be very good, but they can be very strange, as well. (Which I don’t mind!) The next song on the album is the straight-ahead rock number “Sixteen Saltines.”

I have no idea what it’s about, and the video doesn’t help with interpreting the lyrics – unless the song is about disturbed youth doing disturbing things. It does sound like it might be set in a school (“She’s got stickers on her locker/ And the boys’ numbers there in magic marker”), but then spiked heels in a lifeboat are mentioned as well. Wikipedia says (without reference) that the song is meant to be reflections by some dying guy eating saltines in a life raft. But – as with many of the songs – despite the strange lyrics, the song is really strong. It has a nice keyboard riff that breaks up the verses, and the guitar is once again excellent, including a dueling guitar solo that White plays with himself that is reminiscent of two-guitar attacks from a variety of older bands, from the Allman Brothers to Judas Priest. It’s raucous fun, especially performed live!

White’s guitar work is on display throughout the album, and it’s one of the things that keeps me listening again and again. He seems to never play the expected lick, or a cookie-cutter solo. The song “Freedom at 21” – a riff-rock number with modern production, sounding like the 1970s and 2010s at the same time – features a fine example. The solo – at 1:44 – is squawky noise and flash and sounds very cool. (The song also features a video that appears to have been directed by a horny 16 year old boy.)

But the record isn’t all guitar. The song “Weep Themselves to Sleep” is piano driven, grand and important-sounding, like a Freddy Mercury demo of an Arena Rock monster – the kind of song that one can imagine being played twenty years from now, on some kind of PBS fund-raiser special, by Jack White accompanied by a symphony orchestra, violinists and cellists sawing away mindlessly, thinking of the paycheck they’re earning. But even on a song like this, White throws in a terrific guitar solo that, to me, makes the song interesting. Also interesting, as always, are the lyrics, running together here like a Hubert Selby, Jr., novel and sung-spoken in a style reminiscent of early hip hop.

Another “non-guitar” song – and still another style, as well – is the song “Blunderbuss” – a tale of two sides of a love triangle set to a waltz. White’s band, including pedal steel guitarist Fats Kaplin, are a single unit, dancing together on the 3/4 beat.

And White’s voice – which I’ve always loved for its variety and expressiveness – is terrific here. It sounds great, as well, on the popular duet “Love Interruption,” sung with Ruby Amanfu.

The lyrics describe a desire for a love that can change a life, yet also state a desire to remain unchanged by love – an inner conflict that is the basis of many great songs, not to mention many desperate lives. White also pens songs about external conflicts, as well, as in the harsh and angry “Hypocritical Kiss.”

So, we’ve heard guitar rock, arena rock, a waltz, some piano ballads … what about some blues, you ask? How about this version of “I’m Shakin’,” a song by Rudy Toombs. [ref]Toombs also wrote “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” covered in the 80s by George Thorogood.[/ref]

How about some McCartney-esque pop/rock songs? White offers “Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy,” my favorite song on the album (which sounds like it might be a lament about how hard it’s been to be Jack White of The White Stripes?) and “Trash Tongue Talker,” a raucous rave-up with some lyrics about monkeys jumping on the bed. How about a little Western-Swing, sort of Americana-ish-type song? Try “Take Me With You When You Go.”

Listening to Blunderbuss takes a listener to all kinds of musical places. One nifty place is what sounds to me like an 1880s San Francisco saloon. The song “I Guess I Should Go To Sleep” sounds nothing like my long dead friend Rock Music, but it sounds great nonetheless.

And it makes me feel happy and makes me want to have a fun time and sing along really loudly, all feelings I associate with first hearing – or, more accurately, first CARING about – Led Zeppelin or The Beatles. Feelings I associate with Rock Music. But if this song isn’t a rock song, and if rock is dead, anyway … then maybe the spirit IS inside me, and maybe it never was about the music after all. Maybe music felt this way to everyone ever since some Neanderthal banged a rock way back when.

Blunderbuss shows me that whether rock is dead or not doesn’t really matter. This album could have been a hit at any time over the past 40 years, so who cares what we call it? It still conjures that light and heat inside me.

“Long Live Rock! (Be it dead or alive.)”

TRACK LISTING
Missing Pieces
Sixteen Saltines
Freedom at 21
Love Interruption
Blunderbuss
Hypocritical Kiss
Weep Themselves to Sleep
I’m Shakin
Trash Tongue Talker
Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy
I Guess I Should Go to Sleep
On and On and On
Take Me With You When You Go

3 Comments

Posted in Albums 90-81

Tagged 2012 Rock, Blunderbuss, Dead Weather, History of Rock, Jack White, Long Live Rock, Raconteurs, Rock and Roll, Rock is Dead, White Stripes

Author Archives: ERM

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