Author: Graeme McMillan

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366 Songs 261: Why Not Your Baby

I found this song by accident, pretty much; Velvet Crush were an unknown quantity to me in the 1990s when this came out, and I picked it up as much for the title of the album (Teenage Symphonies To God, a Brian Wilson quote) and producer (Matthew Sweet, whom I was heavily into at the time) as anything else. The album itself was agreeable, but nothing too special beyond this cover of a Gene Clark song, which entirely won me over through the aching melody, simplicity of the lyrical plea “Come tell your friend what’s wrong with you?” and arrangement that reminded me, of all things, of Jimmy Webb and Glen Campbell doing “Wichita Lineman” or “Galveston” or something. Looking back, it’s pretty much the kind of thing that would entirely win over the twenty-year-old who was me at the time, but I still can’t hear it honestly now due to all the nostalgia attached to it.

Hearing the 43-year-old original for the first time, the song almost sounds comic with the finger-picking and seemingly rushed vocals. But, goodness and gracious, anyone who doesn’t find a lovely sadness in a chorus that goes “Why don’t you call me your baby anymore?/Am I so changed from some strange love that went before?” may need to check with a doctor to ensure that they still have a heart.

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366 Songs 260: Ain’t That Enough

If ever there was a song for the dying days of summer, it’s this 1997 Byrds-inspired song from Teenage Fanclub that celebrates apathy and accepting your meager lot in the prettiest fashion imaginable. “Here is a sunrise/Ain’t that enough?” But those harmonies! That most-jangly of all guitars! The way the entire thing feels like a pop song lullaby! This is almost irresistible to listen to, and when Gerard Love, Norman Blake et al sing “Who’s gonna argue?” you realize that sometimes it really does just feel good to surrender.

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366 Songs 259: He’d Be A Diamond

I love love songs that aren’t actually love songs. Does that make sense? Songs that are filled with affection and adoration and love but which don’t profess “I love you” or speak to traditional romantic relationships. “He’d Be A Diamond” is one of those for me, and one of my favorite songs of all time, a warning between friends about a boyfriend who may not be the best, with everything both intimate and ambiguous. Is the singer warning the listener away from getting back with an ex – “Is he lying/To get what he wants/Or does he mean it this time?” – or trying to persuade them to give it one more chance? “And though you feel like shit/He says you look beautiful,” after all.

The version I heard first was the Teenage Fanclub cover – It’s originally a Beavis Frond song, as heard at the top of the post – but my favorite version is probably Mary Lou Lord’s, who manages to make the intimacy and friendliness of the whole thing even more apparent. Plus, for some reason, the line about “Is he running/Low on affection/And beer and dope/And an ironing board/And an unpaid analyst who shags?” seems so much funnier coming from her.

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366 Songs 258: Periphery

Ignoring the wonderfully loose, rolling piano riff, the charm of “Periphery” is Fiona Apple’s heart once again on her sleeve with cutting humor. “Oh, the periphery/They throw good parties there,” she bemoans, hiding her hurt at a lost lover (“I lost another one there/He found a prettier girl than me”) with a shield (“You let me down/I don’t even like you anymore at all”) that seems all the more devastating when it slips. Anyone who doesn’t understand what it feels like to say “All that loving must have been lacking something” is a very lucky person at all, all things considered. On an album that’s filled with honesty and self-awareness, this is a stand-out track even as it pretends to adopt the opposite tack.

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366 Songs 257: Harlem Globetrotters Theme

I discovered this by accident, recently; I was looking for a video of the Globetrotters’ “Sweet Georgia Brown” theme song – the whistling version which, for some reason, I put together with the team very strongly in my mind – and instead found this opening title sequence from their 1970s cartoon, complete with a surprisingly funky theme from Jeff Barry. The basketball bounce beat and military-esque whistle, leading into the horns and harmonized vocals… Man. Did kids in the 1970s realize that they were listening to a zenith in cartoon music at the time, do you think?

(I’ve since found out that Barry released an album of the music he did for the show; if it was all as good as this, I have to admit that I’d eagerly pick up a copy if I ever found one.)

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366 Songs 256: Au Port

Continuing my history with Camille, this was the second song of her’s I discovered. It took just a couple of minutes Googling and comes from the same album as “Ta Douleur,” Le Fil – “the thread,” which in the album’s case is the vocal tone that continues throughout each song. It’s similar enough to see a connection with “Ta Douleur,” but different enough to continue to compel; chattier, more nervous and then flowering at the end into an operatic performance that feels like it came out of nowhere and provides an amazing, hilarious finale to the whole thing.

The version I actually heard first was a live one, with Camille and band performing the whole thing as performance art on Later with Jools Holland; there was something about watching the performance as a whole that left me smiling, curious and knowing that I had to buy the album, and discover more.

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366 Songs 255: Ta Douleur

I can still remember hearing this song for the first time, years ago, the first time I’d heard anything by Camille; the sense of discovery, of creativity unrestrained by good taste (The various vomiting noises as the song really kicks in), of having no idea what was being said, and just of falling in love with the noise of it all. I was smitten immediately by the way it sounded so unlike everything else I was listening to at the time, and so complete in and of itself. There were worlds within this song, an identity coherent and personal, and I had to know more. Can you blame me?

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Recently Read, Prose (9/17/12)

The plus of the quasi-vacations I’ve just had: A chance to catch up on reading (The Star Trek: New Frontier book, you’ll be unsurprised to know, was the book I read at home on the Monday I worked between trips to Washington and Southern Oregon. Decompression books are decompression books, dear reader). The much-discussed Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs book was a disappointment, in that it skipped over a lot of what I wanted to read about – His wilderness years – and made me almost immeasurably dislike Jobs even as the author fell in love with him, and the Jonathan Carroll collection of short stories that I’d been waiting so long to read also felt unsatisfying, in part because there’s such a similarity in themes and ideas that his words quickly become repetitious and dull, which should never be the case.

That Rick Bowers book about the Adventures of Superman radio show taking on the KKK, though. It’s a very quick read, but for some reason, it’s stuck in my head as something to use as a model for future projects. I just need to work out how.

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Do The Romp

As you might suspect, vacation has kicked my ass. Or, rather, trying to get back into things after vacation, considering the amount of work I had to juggle today to catch up and meet deadlines and the like (We only got back into town last night). Expect a weekend of trying to more calmly get my equilibrium, and then some catching up next week, I think. Sorry for the continued radio silence…