My favorite thing about “Flick of The Finger,” I think, is that it’s the first track of the second Beady Eye album, BE. Everything about it says that it’s a classic opening track to an album, after all; it has the right mix of excitement – provided here, almost entirely, by the horns, although I find myself weirdly drawn to Liam Gallagher’s half-assed “come on” at 2:00 – and claustrophobia, as if you get the feeling that this is the start of something, instead of a full experience in and of itself. It’s a song that, despite the musical build throughout the entire thing (and it does have an almost classic structure in that way), never quite peaks, but just teases something that remains out of reach.
(Also, again with the musical thievery – There’s Iggy and the Stooges in there, and the spoken word finale is, of course, straight out of “I Am The Walrus” by the Beatles. My favorite reference is the one to the band’s old band, though: “I see the wonder of life and look for the wall,” Liam sings at one point. Ah, was “Wonderwall” really that long ago…?)