OK, one more quick note
This is a pretty good rendition of a really fantastic song, but what the person who sent it to me said about the girl who goes up on stage is probably unprintable. Still, what an unbelievably slick move on Bono's part.
February 8, 2007
May 9, 2006
Song of the Day: Pink "Dear Mr. President"
One of my goals in life is to spend a lot of time on YouTube and Google Video when I get some free time. (Right, I know, the class schedule these days is rough.) In any event, I like seeing great stuff when I'm linked to it, and this Pink video is a great example. Now, sure, I've made fun of Pink before: she's only the most badass product of the Philly Main Line if you discount my mom, and a lot of her songs are, you know, terrible. (There are some good ones too; I confess to putting "Don't Let Me Get Me" on the mix CD to which I drove around Raleigh.) This one, the live version of a tune called "Dear Mr. President," is pretty solid. I normally hesitate to support politically oriented songs, since most have so little to offer in terms of honesty, insight, or, you know, a halfway decent melody, but this is a keeper. Not only does our friend Pink focus a lot more on character than policy, making the tune a lot more personal. Plus the level of political awareness rises way above the Lenny Kraviitzes of the world: note the theme at the end of "let me tell you about hard work." Now, you and I both know that's a reference to our fearless leader's remark during the first debate that cleaning up Iraq is "hard work," but I'm surprised Pink does. In any event, she's got some thoughts on what constitutes hard work, and she brings it with a halfway decent melody. Good performance.
January 25, 2006
Song of the Day: The Candy Butchers "What To Do With Michael"
I don't think I can go to a show in NYC without falling in love with the last song in the set. I went to the Baggot Inn on West 3rd St. a while back to see Galvin's brother's band (the Jellybricks) rock out at a power-pop festival. ("Festival" maybe inappropriate; this was at a bar.) The show ran late as usual, so we watched the conclusion of the previous band, which had a chick singing and playing guitar, another chick on keyboards, a guy on bass and a guy on drums. Power pop is a great form of music: you take a great melody, and you play it really fast and really loud. This band, which I would later discover was the Trouble Dolls, put on a pretty good act, closing with a song that was just unbelievable. After days of research (finding out the name of the band, emailing the band, actually hearing back) I discovered the song was a cover of a pre-rock 1960s French song called "Sacre Charlemagne." I have since found the original, which is slow, and some faster covers, which are awesome. I can't, alas, find a way to reproduce the fantastic experience of hearing the Trouble Dolls tear it up live: lots of vocals, lots of guitars, lots of keyboards, and the melodies all jumping back and forth between instrument and voice so quickly you had no idea what was going on. It was a thrill. I spent most of Thanksgiving break humming the melody, and I annoyed everyone.
See, then the Jellybricks did their part too. Their set was awesome, and they took their stuff down to walk off stage. The host of the event came out and begged them all to come on for one last song, they start playing, it's a great melody, it sounds like something I know, it's the kind of opening that you know is really going to go somewhere ... and oh shit, it's "Baba O'Riley." Is there any better song than "Baba O'Riley"? I submit there is not. That was the only song on which Galvin's brother sang lead, and it rocked. So, it looks like these bands know how to close a set.
That brings us to the instant case. Funny enough, currently the last band I've seen is also the first band I ever saw. In 1995 I went to see They Might Be Giants for the first time at Lupo's Heartbreak Hotel in Providence, with the Candy Butchers opening. TMBG is transcendent live, which merits its own discussion, but the Candy Butchers weren't bad either: they have Mike Viola on acoustic guitar, some other guy (sorry) playing on a single drum, and they played "Crazy Train." (Not as good as "Baba O'Riley" but close.) Monday night I was at the Living Room on Ludlow St. with future rock star Siobhan O'Malley, expecting to see only Mike Viola, but the other guy showed up too. The Candy Butchers were on!
As with the previous two shows in this discussion, they played an excellent show, with good songs and solid melodies, and for the third time the closing song was the highlight. This time might have been the best. As the show drew to a close, Mike decides he wants to play piano, and agrees with his partner to play a Beatles song. He starts banging on the keys, and again I think I recognize it, and soon enough I grasp that we've got on our hands a slightly faster-paced version of "Your Mother Should Know," which is awesome. It sounds much better with a just a little kick in the tempo, plus my own mommy and I were both fans of the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice" inr our respective teenage years. Despite that not being a hit before my mother was born, it's the same idea. Good times: as we will now see, I am a sucker for sweet songs.
It was three or four minutes in that I realized that Mike Viola had shifted songs. At first I thought he was just putting in his own variations on the lyrics (the Beatles song in question is not my most familiar), and soon enough I realized he wasn't going back to the Beatles at all. This song he played was fantastic: the piano melody sounds just like a McCartney song, and the lyrics are sweet and well said. Then I asked Siobhan after the show what the story was, and it turns out this song was called "What To Do With Michael," off Hang On Mike, the album Mike Viola wrote to himself after his wife died. This song is about how they met and got together, and it's beautiful, heart-wrenching and a classic. It's the story of the girl who got it right. I immediately went home and downloaded it off iTunes, and I've been listening to it ever since. I copied down the lyrics after the jump. The music has the bounce of true love, the words speak only of beauty, and yet it all had to end. This song just tears me apart.
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November 1, 2005
Song of the Day: Death Cab For Cutie "Soul Meets Body"
(AKA "Everyone congratulate me, I'm finally getting into Death Cab.")
I have had the chorus of "The Sound of Settling" stuck in my head since I started walking back from law school ten minutes ago. Not just the regular chorus, mind you, but a much more emphatically vocaled imaginary chorus: "ba BAA, ba BAA, this is the SOUND of settling." The less-screaming approach in the actual song is a little more subtle, to the point where I didn't relate to the melody until I heard it in some movie trailer. I get it now. The song rocks.
But that is not the song that hooked me into Death Cab For Cutie. Shout out to fellow first-year NYU law student and fellow resident of a politically extreme home state Tim Foster for suggesting several Death Cab songs for me to check out. See, Death Cab For Cutie, for me, for a long time, had been one of those bands that everyone really loves and I honestly completely 100% could not see it. Now, granted, there are plenty of songs that I just don't get, at all, and then literally years later I finally discover what's so great about it. That's why, when I want to see why I should be into a band like Death Cab For Cutie, I ask for the advice of experts, i.e. people who are really into the band themselves. You want to know the best They Might Be Giants songs? I can knock you out with "She's An Angel," "They'll Need A Crane," the lesser-known version of "Sensurround" or a hundred others. You want to know the best Death Cab For Cutie songs, you ask someone who knows.
I first listened to "Soul Meets Body" this morning before class. Actually, to put it more precisely, I listened to "Soul Meets Body" about ten times this morning before class. Over and over and over again. The whole thing is great, but my favorite part is the thumping guitar/bass line running through the end. See, the first few times around the chorus they have this beautiiful melody, but after a few more repetitions they start making it pound a little more, to rock out a little better and make everything sound a little more important. It becomes impossible to avoid rocking out to this song. My only regret is that it ends too soon. As everyone says, these guys know how to make finely crafted songs with the best of them, but they know how to hit you when the need arises. That's how I know I'm correct to imagine "The Sound of Settling" with a thumping chorus too, because of one simple truth: Death Cab rocks.
Here are the lyrics.
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September 28, 2005
Quote of the Day
"It's more fun to argue about sports, but it's more interesting to argue about music. When someone argues about music, you can usually get a remarkably clear portrait of their personality -- you can get an idea of how they view authority, or if they have an adversarial relationship with mainstream culture, or if they are extremely worried about being cool. You can deduce which subcultures they experienced in high school, and you can figure out how much they are engaged with modernity. Of course, the downside is that people who always want to talk about music tend to be profoundly annoying (and often unshaven). Which is probably why it's more fun to talk about sports." - Chuck Klosterman, from his chat with Bill Simmons.
September 26, 2005
Song of the Day: The Rembrandts "Making Plans For Nigel"
I want to talk about three topics here.
First, I hope you've had the fortune to experience a shared song between you and a friend that other people may know, but not the way the two of you do. My high-school chum Brant and I both loved to devour alt-rock back then, constantly recommending, disparaging, and ditching each other to spend nights at home listening. (If this reminds any of you of High Fidelity, note, I was there first.) The only thing better than having a shared song you both love is having a shared song that you're both trying to discover, because neither of you know where it is. I got XTC's Upsy Daisy Assortment (greatest hits) for Christmas one year, and when I was finally giving it a solid listen around April, I discovered, holy shit: that "one, two, three, four, five" song Brant and I were trying to find was XTC's "Senses Working Overtime." Now it's one of my favorites. So I like XTC. (The rest of that CD ain't bad either.)
Next, the way I finally got this song is worth note. I first heard of emusic.com in 1999, when They Might Be Giants released an mp3-only album way before that was considered appropriate. (Wait, actually it still isn't.) In any case, emusic.com is not only still around, it's much, much better: pretty much all the indie music I've ever heard of is available on emusic.com. Not only can you download all the tracks you want for 25 cents, plus you get something like 25 or 50 free downloads a month, with the final added bonus of 50 free songs when you sign up, even if you immediately cancel your subscription. I took the latter option to find an awesome CD I lost (Mono Puff's 1998 classic It's Fun To Steal, worth a lengthy discussion itself), and with 36 tracks to go, had to use some creative thinking to find more songs I wanted. (I did get a couple albums from those indie bands like Spoon and the Decembrists I'm supposed to be in love with, but devouring albums has not been my strong point in the mp3 era.) Anyway, eventually I came upon this song through means you'll probably be able to discern below, but the point stands: if you're into indie music, there are much, much worse places to get it than emusic.com. that's not a suggestion, that's an order.
Finally, there's just something about XTC covers, probably the fact that XTC writes flipping awesome songs to begin with. I overcame my, shall we say, strong dislike of Mandy Moore when I discovered her cover album led off with her actually awesome take on, that's right, "Senses Working Overtime," giving me a crush to this day that neither Zach Braff, that guy from Entourage, nor the cruel taunts of Galvin's brother can shake. One of Sarah MacLachlan's best songs is her cover of XTC's "Dear God," and They Might Be Giants, per usual, did a version of "25 O'Clock" (incidentally the creepiest song ever) that's actually better than the original. Most of these songs, admittedly, come from the 1995 tribute album A Testimonial Dinner, including our current Song of the Day from one of the all-time flashes in the pan. Do you have multiple Rembrandts mp3s? In fact, if you could tell me what Rembrandts vocals really sound like, you're one up on me, but fortunately they work well here. The Rembrandts bring their turns-out-to-be distinctive vocal style to the XTC classic "Making Plans For Nigel," adding thick drums and some deliberately plucked and heavily distorted electric guitar to a song that, to give you a vague impression here, would have done just fine as a quiet acoustic. It's basically the same song, with a slightly different style for playing the guitar in the verse and a couple different notes in the vocal here and there, but this song really takes off as a cover at the end. XTC went and repeated the final word "steel" a few times near the end and hit the chorus one last time; the Rembrandts repeat the word "steel" a lot, turn the final chorus into a tempo-slowing fadeout, and then spend the last thirty seconds turning it into a doo-wop song. Now that's a cover. All told, I can't say I entirely miss these guys (or that I've listened to the Friends theme in years), but they did know how to take an awesome song and make it rock. And since they make me think of XTC, emusic.com, and good friends, that's enough to make them Song of the Day.
September 24, 2005
The New York Times Confuses Me Too
No, not what the hell they were thinking with TimesSelect. From an article on the Spin Doctors:
The album went on to sell an astonishing five million copies, reaching triple platinum.
Uh, what? Really? Either there's something I didn't know about the music industry, or my "divide by one million" skills have really eroded since college. Any help?
August 18, 2005
Song of the Day: Jack Johnson "Good People"
The radio today (today's alt-rock, 95.5 WBRU) announced they were playing Jack Johnson, but, disappointingly, they forsook his eminently singable breakthrough "Flake" for some new song called "Good People." I know we have to learn these tunes somehow, but there's nothing worse than really wanting to sing along with the radio, and then they go and play something you've never even heard of.
Oddly enough, I initially thought this song was really good, almost to the point of concern. See, unless a song is clearly and blatantly the most beautiful hook you've ever heard, it usually takes me a few listens (and at least a few days) to find any good in it. Now, if I try really really hard, I can sometimes see what's so charming about a song the very first time I hear it, but then I'll only ever like it about 75% as much as I would have had I let the whole process happen naturally. And in my desperation to sing along on the drive home today, I started scraping for melody in Jack Johnson's new chorus here, thus running the risk that, should there be anything to appreciate here, I'd never hear it. Listening to the radio is a struggle sometimes.
But I needn't have worried: this song is awesome. You can see the lyrics for yourself, and I'll copy the chorus:
Where'd all the good people go?
I've been changin channels
I dont see them on the tv shows
Where'd all the good people go
We got heaps and heaps of what we sow
Good question. Very good question. The people who can succeed today on reality TV (and in politics, journalism, acting, the music industry, the abortion industry, competitive eating, and probably your job too) are more likely than not good-looking, aggressive, and not so easily distracted by the constant question of whether they're doing the right thing. Where did all those good people go?
In my earlier essay on Jim Wallis' God's Politics I neglected to note one of his more powerful ideas: politicians and those in power, as a rule, will not do what's right when it's unpopular. So, since we can't make them run against the wind, what we have to do is change the wind. I think he and Jack Johnson are onto something here: stop encouraging bad behavior, and where that's difficult to define, we can instead encourage good people. That kind of thing won't save the world today or tomorrow, but just as we somehow drove good people out of public life over the course of decades, someday they'll come back.
P.S.: I would be remiss in not mentioning that "Good People" does, in fact, have a really awesome melody too. I was singing along with the chorus the first time I heard it today, and I've been singing it ever since.
Major Song of the Day News
Today's song of the day is Elton John's 2001 single "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore," which I interpret as his apology for not making good music anymore. Here are the lyrics:
You may not believe it
But I don't believe in miracles anymore
And when I think about it
I don't believe I ever did for sure
All the things I've said in songs
All the purple prose you bought from me
Reality's just black and white
The sentimental things I'd write
Never meant that much to meI used to be the main express
All steam and whistles heading west
Picking up my pain from door to door
Riding on the storyline
Furnace burning overtime
But this train don't stop,
This train don't stop,
This train don't stop there anymoreYou don't need to hear it
But I'm dried up and sick to death of love
If you need to know it
I never really understood that stuff
All the stars and bleeding hearts
All the tears that welled up in my eyes
Never meant a thing to me
Read 'em as they say and weep
I've never felt enough to cryWhen I said that I don't care
It really means my engine's breaking down
The chisel chips my heart again
The granite cracks beneath my skin
I crumble into pieces on the ground
See what I mean? Good lyrics too, if slightly depressing, plus, the music's back in the 1970s Elton John style, so I support it wholeheartedly. Also, if I'm not mistaken, it was in 2001 when his set at the First Union Center in Philly opened with the awesome "Funeral For A Friend," the first track on my personal favorite, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. So good year for Elton John.
Rambling: for Song of the Day, that's how we do.
June 10, 2005
Hey, Wait A Minute
It turns out Ted Leo's "Me And Mia" (don't laugh, it's getting airplay on BRU) is about eating disorders. I had no idea; the lyrics sounded obtuse until I sat down and read them. But is the song pro or con? Like eating disorders itself, it's a tricky issue. I'd love insights; you can definitely write me privately if you want. (That's why I put my email address at the top of the screen.) I know there are certain blog readers who will have insights when they get back from Newport this weekend, for example. Great song too.
As I was walking through a life one morning
the sun was out, the air was warm, but
Oh, I was cold
And though I must have looked half a person,
to tell the tale, in my own version,
It was only then that I felt whole
But do you believe in something beautiful?
Then get up and be it
Fighting for the smallest goal: to get a little self-contol
I know how hard you try. I see it in your eyes
But call your friends, 'cause we've forgotten what it's like to eat what's rotten
And what's eating you alive might help you to survive.
We went on as we were on a mission, latest in a Grand Tradition
And oh, what did we find?
It was Ego who was flying the banner, and me and Mia, Ann and Ana
Oh, we'd been unkind
But do you believe in something beautiful?
Then get up and be it
Fighting for the smallest goal: to get a little self-control
I see it in your eyes, I see it in your spine.
But call your friends,
'cause we've forgotten what it's like to eat what's rotten
And what's eating you alive, might help you to survive.
And even the nights, they could get better
And even the days ain't all that bad
And after a week of fighting, as more and more it seems the right thing
But do you believe in something beautiful?
Then get up and be it
Fighting for the smallest goal: to gain a little self-control
Won't anybody here just let you disappear?
Not doctors, nor your mom nor dad, but me and Mia, Ann and Ana
Know how hard you try. Don't you see it in my eyes?
Sick to death of my dependence, fighting food to find transcendence
Fighting to survive, more dead but more alive
Cigarettes and speed to live, and sleeping pills to feel forgiven
All that you contrive, and all that you're deprived
All the bourgeois social angels telling you you've got to change
Don't have any idea. They'll never see so clear.
But don't forget what it really means to hunger strike
when you don't really need to
Some are dying for a cause, but that don't make it yours.
And even the nights, they can get better.
May 30, 2005
OK, so apparently you do bite the hand that feeds
Hey, so it turns out Trent Reznor is a liberal! Good for him. We discover this crucial fact because Nine Inch Nails wanted to perform "The Hand That Feeds" at the MTV Movie Awards in front of an image of George Bush. Given that the Los Angeles Times described the song as "a warning against blind acceptance of authority," MTV said thanks but no thanks.
So now the sparks fly: the band is upset, they're quitting the show, and woe to those who underestimate the online petition. While Trent did get off a good line, "Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me," he's either doing this for publicity or, amusingly enough, he's biting the hand that feeds.
In this politically charged climate, I think it's important to remember that politics is inherently divisive, and pretty much everything else in life seeks to bring us together. The MTV Music Awards are a great example: everyone loves music, everyone loves movies, everyone loves to have a good time. The minute you start telling people they're better or worse for supporting a candidate or ideology, you're splitting up your fanbase. Sorry Trent, you have Republican fans.
You could still argue that it's Nine Inch Nails' performance and they should be allowed to perform how they want anyway, but then again, it's an MTV-produced show on MTV programming. So given that it's a gray area, kudos to MTV for putting its foot down. Nine Inch Nails can attribute its success to a music industry so conditioned to help stars rise, and by attempting a with-us-or-against-us strategy among their own fans, they really are biting the hand that feeds. Didn't they pay attention to their own song? Lest anyone think I'm a closet conservative here, the same thing happened last year when Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon were planning to go up to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown for a 15th-anniversary celebration of Bull Durham. Unfortunately, Hall of Fame president and HoFer at life Dale Petrosky banned the two from showing up on account of how unbelievably liberal they both are. It's a dumb move no matter what party's being attacked. If you're in a public setting for apolitical reasons, give it some real good thought before you force your fans and observers to make unreasonable and unrelated choices if they want to be with you. Does anyone think that's really what America is about?