Month: November 2012

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366 Songs 325: New Orleans Wins The War

Viewed from the cynic’s point of view, “New Orleans Wins The War” is everything Randy Newman cliche in one place; listen to that plinky-plonk piano and the ragtime band, after all. But, for me, this is a song that’s all about Newman’s ability to tell stories in song. The lyrics of “New Orleans” are so evocative, whether its in painting the setting of his autobio tale (“Momma used to wheel me past an ice cream wagon/One side for White and one side for Colored,” with its casual racism dating the period and explaining the fucked-up world that was Louisiana – and America – at the time) or the wonderful way that Newman explains his father’s rejection of the New Orleans party and religion dichotomy culture that the family moved from:

Daddy said, “I’m gonna get this boy out of this place
Bound to sap his strength
People have fun here, and I think that they should
But nobody from here every come to no good
They’re gonna pickle him in brandy and tell him he’s saved
Then throw fireworks all ’round his grave”

Add to that, the odd coda that feels somewhat out of place, both in terms of subject and prettiness (“You got someone to love you/Who could ask for more?”), and what you have is a song that’s one of my favorites, despite the numerous ways it just underscores the cliche of Newman’s output.

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366 Songs 324: Le Festin

I’ve written before about my love for Camille, and this song – written by Michael Giacchino for the soundtrack of the Pixar movie Ratatouille – is a wonderful example of what she brings to the table as a singer without all her spectacular songwriting quirks. Just listen to the way she swings from note to note, fearless as she swoops up and down the song with such pleasure and enjoyment that it’s infectious. As nice as the song itself is, with a fun arrangement that allows for an accordion solo that doesn’t sound as cliched as it really should, considering the Parisian tone they’re going for, Camille’s voice is the star of this particular show, bringing it to life in a way that other singers wouldn’t even have the first clue how to manage. How can you hear this and not smile…?

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Random Thought

One of those ideas that comes to you when you’re half-asleep, and then by the time you’re awake, you realize you have neither the time nor the financial wherewithal to make it happen: I imagined a pop-culture digital magazine (As in, Kindle single or Apple Bookstore thing, or both) anthology called It Can’t Be…! But It Is! that I would curate, with each issue featuring, say, five longform essays by writers I love centered around one particular subject.

File Under: One Day, Maybe.

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366 Songs 323: Hazy Shade of Winter

Those first six seconds. Those first six seconds. I could just listen to those on a loop forever, even though it’s a coiled spring preparing you for the dual harmonied “Time, time, time/See what’s become of me” that follows. That’s the story of this song, in short: The tension between the vocals and the arrangement they’re on top of; one is calming and beautiful, the other tetchy and tense (with such a great riff). That neither side wins, as such – The song just stops, wonderfully – makes it even more compelling.

Amusingly, when I tweeted this song the other day, someone (Hi, Adam) responded by saying that he felt guilty for preferring the Bangles version of the song:

Considering the Bangles take that riff and make it work as hard as it can, I don’t think there’s anything to feel guilty about at all. This is a great version, if one that forgoes the tension of the Simon & Garfunkel original for something more immediate and glossy. Wish they’d worked in that final “HA!” at the end, though…

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366 Songs 322: Magic Doors

I still remember the first time I heard “Magic Doors,” and realized that Portishead had somehow managed to refine its sound from the cliche of Trip Hop, and yet remain emotionally consistent with everything that had come before. There is such sorrow and melancholy in this track; it’s not just Beth Gibbons’ voice, or the words she’s singing (“I can’t deny or hide from me/I don’t know who I’m meant to be”). Is it the constantly-downward synthetic strings, or the finality of the piano when it appears? I don’t know; whereas earlier Portishead had a retro cool to it, this song – and a lot of Third, the album it comes from – is purposefully dissonant and awkward in its beauty. The opening tone that crashes into the drums… It’s utterly compelling, but somehow difficult to listen to at the same time. You struggle through this song, in a way, but in such a way that the entire thing feels curiously enriching nonetheless.

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366 Songs 321: Melody

Say what you like about Serge Gainsbourg, but L’histoire de Melody Nelson is one of those albums that is likely to just leave you reeling from greatness, and “Melody,” the lead track, something in particular that can’t be denied. Just listen to what really can be best described as a “groove,” with the bass guitar and shambling drums and spiraling guitar line, even before the strings sweep in and the whole thing becomes casually, breathtakingly epic.

(I also love spoken word tracks, if done well, and as far as I’m concerned, they don’t get any more well done than this, even if I can’t tell what Serge is actually saying.)

I first heard “Melody” when it was called “Don’t Die Just Yet,” from the David Holmes album Let’s Get Killed; he did a (very faithful) instrumental version of the track, re-titled after some graffiti he saw in New York. It’s a great track, albeit one that seems a little less impressive when you hear Gainsbourg’s original, but one that makes arguably more from that wonderful, wonderful bass line:

Those who haven’t tracked down either album, you should really go and fix that right now…

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366 Songs 320: Don’t Fence Me In

When in doubt of which version of a particular song is “definitive,” it’s always worth remembering that Bing beats most everyone, especially when backed by the Andrews Sisters.

Cole Porter, who wrote “Don’t Fence Me In,” is of course widely-recognized as a genius, and this song – while slight – is a fine example of that; there’s just such an ease to it, such a humor and relaxation to the lyrics and melody that it becomes irresistible surprisingly quickly.

It’s a wonderfully playful song, whether in the rhymes (“I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences/Gaze at the moon until I lose my senses/I can’t look at hovels and I can’t stand fences”) or the tune, which practically defines the term “jaunty.” It something that so clearly evokes a particular mood, but in such a way that doesn’t feel invasive or manipulative. Instead, you just feel yourself echoing the sentiment expressed, and feeling as if such freedom is a wonderful thing.

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The Story That Never Ended

Somehow, I forgot today was Wednesday, which means I almost didn’t link you to my Time Entertainment piece for the week: High (Concept) Anxiety: Are Big Ideas Bad for TV?

This was the piece I was complaining about yesterday, the one that just felt as if it coming together on Monday; ironically, this ended up being a weird week for my editor at Time, leading to the rewrite process going all the way up to 8pm last night, which is unusually late for this kind of thing (There actually weren’t a lot of rewrites, it was just all happening later than usual), giving me a feeling of the whole thing just never, ever ending. Normally, I try to finish writing by 6 or 7pm at the latest (Hey, I start at 7am or so, don’t look at me that way) but this piece had ended up running past that two nights in a row, with me doing drafts and rewrites while on the couch in the living room with my laptop just because I couldn’t bear to be in my office any longer that day. I’m not sure if something you end up creating yourself can actually feel oppressive, but this definitely came close.

(For those curious: It was written with all the “fuck”s in there, and then had to be edited because that’s apparently a verboten word on Time.com. I can never quite understand language restrictions and what’s cool and what’s not; I don’t get why “shit” is allowed, but “fuck” isn’t, for example, but these are just the ways of the Internet world…)

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366 Songs 319: The Ballad of El Goodo

“The Ballad of El Goodo” is one of those songs that almost dares you to listen to it, with a title that bad (I’ve never quite worked out whether or not “El Goodo” is meant to be a pun on the British “Good-o!” saying), but within seconds of it beginning, the title – which has nothing to do with the song at all, thankfully – is forgotten. Have guitars ever chimed as beautifully as they do at the start of this song? Is there a more wistful opening lyric than “Years ago, my heart was set to live/I’ve been trying hard against unbelievable odds”?

Even with the strength of Alex Chilton’s back catalog, it’s tempting to announce “Ballad” as his best work, or at least his most complete pop song; there’s something so simultaneously personal about the lyrics and so universal about them, too (Really, they’re so generic as to be almost meaningless, but somehow they work here), and the melody of the music hits that ideal note of sing-a-longable and surprising, familiar even on a first listen, yet in such a way that you want to stop listening. Add to that, the arrangement – the bloom of harmonies at 1:01, or acoustic guitar overlaid on top of electric to make the notes particularly crisp to the ear (Jody Stephens’ pretty fucking great on the drums on this one, too). Plus, you know, any song that ends with the band exhorting listeners to “hold on” over and over again… I may swoon.

(It’s been covered many times, but surprisingly, the covers are hard to find on YouTube. I did discover this, however, which is rather lovely:

Again, man: Those harmonies.)

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“Oh… So You’re Also a Student Then?”

It’s tempting to point to this and just say “This,” but that’s a little too reductive. Instead, I’ll say that that strip is a wonderful summation of the weirdness of not only being a freelancer, but being a freelancer who works for online outlets. In particular, this bit –

– rings all too true in my brain.

Reading it was oddly comforting, and made me think that Internet freelancers should start a support group, or something.