– From Brass Sun in 2000AD Prog 1809, by Ian Edginton and INJ Culbard.
“It’s An Impressive Sight, Isn’t It?”
366 Songs 318: I’m Only Sleeping
If only this song had been released post-White Album, I could make a joke about this being what John Lennon did after he was so tired, but sadly reality doesn’t want to play along. It’s tempting to use the lightness of this song as an argument for whatever drug the Beatles were on at the time (Revolver, so I guess it was either the end of pot or the start of LSD?) against the heroin that was beginning to creep into their lives around the time of “I’m So Tired,” considering the contrasting natures of both songs. The track as recorded definitely overdoes the sound effects – potentially as a way of livening up what is actually a pretty simple, throwaway track that doesn’t have a lot of “there” there, as the saying goes – but it’s pretty much the definition of “lightweight and agreeable,” for that. If the intent when writing this song was to come up with something that feels as insubstantial as air, Lennon did a pretty good job with this one, let’s be honest.
Something somewhat unusual: The song was speeded up during mastering, which is why Lennon’s voice sounds as high as it does in the version above. Because it’s the Beatles, of course there’s a bootleg of the original version at the original speed…
And yet, the original demo for the song…? It’s back at the faster speed. Perhaps the band ended up recording it slower than Lennon intended for some reason, with the intent that they’d just fix things later…?
366 Songs 317: I’m So Tired
Let’s just call this a thematic choice, considering my current state of mind.
We’re veering deeply towards self-indulgent John Lennon with this song – I don’t know why, but there’s something about the vocals that give it away for me, whenever he’s trying or not – but there’s still a lot to like about “I’m So Tired,” not least of which is the fact that it’s less a song than a feeling. After all, there really is a laziness and lethargy to the opening of the track, a sense of the exhaustion that’s so haunting Lennon (“I’m going insane,” remember). That the song builds from there into something… else. I love that the entire song feels monotonous even as it builds to the sudden end (There’s a thudding repetition to the “No joke/It’s doing me harm” section, as if it really wants to rock out but just can’t get the energy); listening to this, it’s hard to not feel an apathy setting into your head. It’s music as virus, in many ways.
The Hidden Reason Why I Was So Silent Yesterday
I’m not entirely sure whether it was a weekend that was fuller of stuff – Not even necessarily interesting stuff, but stuff nonetheless – than I’d intended or what, but yesterday was one of those days where my brain just wouldn’t work. I worked the entire day, but just wasn’t productive in the way that I wanted/needed to be (In the end, I finished work somewhere around 10pm, because deadlines are deadlines and don’t wait around for inspiration; I started closer to 7am, though, and only took off around three hours in between), and just the idea of actually concentrating on what needed to be done seemed exhausting in and of itself.
These days happen, sometimes; the days when you’re just done, through no fault of your own. You’re out of juice, and all you really want to do is stop, sit back and relax, maybe read some more of that Gene Wilder autobiography that you’ve surprised yourself by getting into. It’s normally a sign that overwork has taken its toll and a vacation is needed, which might be the first time that’s actually happened in a timely manner, considering that Thanksgiving is around the corner. The first hint should’ve been the disruption in sleep pattern last week, now that I think about it…
“Oh, Well. Anything For A Barrel of Laughs…”
366 Songs 316: Real Love
“Real Love” has a strange history. It started as an unfinished demo by John Lennon from a musical he planned to write that he never finished, and in that form, it always reminds me of something from the Plastic Ono Band album (Specifically, “Isolation,” which he steals from – the “I don’t expect you to understand” at 1:38 in “Real Love” is a lift from 1:28 in “Isolation”); it has a pretty melody, but it’s clearly something that unfinished and while the Lennon demos have an intimate quality to them, they’re too slight to really feel anything for, to be honest.
From there, though, the demos ended up in the hands of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and producer Jeff Lynne as part of the reunion the band had to promote the Anthology project of albums and TV series; they were “completed” by the remaining band members to make a “new” Beatles song, and… Well, it just didn’t work, for many reasons.
Shall we count the ways? Yes, let’s; the way that Lennon’s voice sounds ridiculously digitized and feeble – apparently, due to the technology used to scrub away the existing instruments on the demos – for one, or the terrible effects applied to Harrison’s guitar that makes him sound more like a member of ELO than one of the greatest guitarists in pop music (That said, I still like the solo at 2:15). Or, hey! Ringo’s plodding drums! Ye Gods, Beatles. Way to flatten a promising start into two dimensions.
That would be the end of it; an oddity of one type translated into an oddity of another, and neither one really feeling complete in any substantial way. Except… Regina Spektor covered the song for a charity album a few years back, and her version is everything that I could ever want from this song – and something that actually reveals how beautiful a song this actually is, underneath everything else:
It’s got the intimacy of the original demos, with Regina and her piano, but the performance – the lower notes on the piano, especially, which add a wonderful bassline and depth to it, but also her wonderful, cautious voice (recalling Bjork at times, as she does) – lifts it up to new heights, and by the time the multi-tracked backing vocals come in, swooping like angels, it’s just drop-dead beautiful.
I first heard this version of the song by accident, in a store in Paris when Kate and I were on vacation and I was too embarrassed (and too unable to speak French) to ask the store assistant what she was listening to. What with the rest of the trip, I soon forgot about it and only rediscovered it months later, again by accident, and had that moment of “Oh! It’s that!” Spektor rescues this song, and turns it into something magical with seeming ease, and it’s hard not to imagine that Lennon would’ve thanked her for doing so, if he had the chance.
366 Songs 315: Coast to Coast
“I’ve got no new act to amuse you.”
Constructed from partially-finished tapes left over after his suicide, it’s against all odds that From A Basement on The Hill would be my favorite Elliott Smith album, but it is; whether it’s the arrangements that Smith intended (Apparently unlikely, according to friends who worked on the recording) or something that was made by those assembling the recordings afterwards, the whole album has a great sound that’s surprisingly all the work of Smith himself on the different instruments. “Coast to Coast” is one of the best example of this, from the slow fade-in (Complete with half-hearted drum beats before the whole thing kicks into action) to the fade-out, with a piano – definitely originally intended for a different track, because that one’s been leaked – plays out, slowly, softly against a poet rambling in the background and a recording of Smith, satisfied with what’s just happened and defiant, says “That’s right.” It sounds not just like a full band, but like a great band, one who’ve been practicing together for years and want to sound like the great lost sixties garage band. When I say that I’m saddened for what we didn’t get from Smith because of his death, it’s stuff like this I mean. It’s one thing that he had an amazing gift for melody – and he really did – but the way he approached building song arrangements and picking and choosing from the past yet making it sound contemporary… That was something I truly found unique about him.
366 Songs 314: Waltz #2 (XO)
This was the first Elliott Smith song I ever heard, I think; definitely the first one I remember hearing, although I suspect that I might’ve seen Good Will Hunting before this and just not really noticed the music because I was too busy being bored by everything else. Nonetheless, I heard this at one of those times in your life when you need to hear someone say something that feels real to you, and you end up attaching almost mystical significance to it as a result. Here, it’s the chorus: “I’m never gonna know you now/But I’m gonna love you, anyhow.” It’s a surrender and declaration at once, of saying goodbye to someone special and yet holding onto them in your heart, something that was entirely what I was going through at the time in my own, melodramatic, way.
As much as the lyrics worked for me, though, the rest of the song more than piqued my interest. You can still hear a lot of what appealed in the live, stripped back version above, with the pretty, circular music in the verse and the raw, striving bridge – not just in the lyric (“I’m here today/And expected to stay on/And on, and on/I’m tired, I’m tired…”) but the performance, as the voice strains to hit the notes and sounds more fragile as a result (It helps that the lyrics almost immediately seek to comfort, as if embarrassed by what just happened: “XO, Mom/It’s okay, it’s alright/Nothing’s wrong”).
The recorded version, too, has an arrangement that pulled me in with echoes of Big Star and the Beatles – Ringo thudding out a waltz time beat on the drums, but a piano line that sounds straight out of Third/Sister Lovers:
The background vocals help the overall effect, as well; there was obviously a mind here that was more interested in music as a continuity, of a lengthy past instead of whatever was hip at the time – Listen to the backing “do do do“s during that bridge, or the multiple “on/And on, and on“s; the strings sneaking in at the end just added to that feeling.
It’s a beautiful song, and a beautifully complete one. When I heard it, I was hooked, and I knew I had to hear more.
“Truth Prevailed”
Every four years, the race for the White House ends in accusations of deceit. Each side says the other spent millions of dollars to lie and skew the outcome. This year’s post-election accounts of backstage calculations and fateful turning points continue that tradition. But if you read these accounts carefully, you’ll find a happy surprise beneath the spin and recriminations: Lies failed. Truth prevailed.
From here.
Something that I’m becoming surprised by, in the inevitable post-game analysis of the Republican’s losses in Tuesday’s elections, is the quickly apparent sense that not only were the Republicans lying to us, but that they were apparently lying to themselves, too. There’s a CBS piece that puts it into perspective, somewhat, but the short version is, the Republicans appear to have entirely bought into their own narrative wholeheartedly, to the point where any contradictory information was immediately dismissed as biased and false. Let’s be honest, here; that’s kind of terrifying, because it sounds like something that would make you really worried about a friend, if they started doing it. It sounds paranoid and, yes, kind of insane, or at least dangerously delusional.
The question is, I guess, whether the Republican Party en masse can move back to reality in the wake of the loss, or stay in their persecuted alternate world, plotting and scheming to “take back America” by any means necessary. I hope for the former, but fear for the latter.
This seems appropriate, at this point: