Seeing as I was somewhat dismissive about Ride’s version of “How Does It Feel To Feel” yesterday, it seemed only fair to share what I remain convinced was their one shining moment of greatness: The loud, sloppy, grinding “Black Nite Crash,” released after the band had split and pretty much ignored by most of the world. It’s never going to win any awards for originality or poise, but there’s something enjoyably grimy about this song, the way it sounds as if everyone involved was pissing off as they recorded it and just put their heads down until it was done. For once in their entire career, even though they still sound out of it, at least this was out of it on the right drugs for rock and roll noise.
366 Songs 265: How Does It Feel To Feel
One of the classic ’60s garage songs, there’s something so magnificently sludgy about “How Does It Feel,” in either of its versions (There are two, the UK and US mixes; I’m not entirely sure how that happened, nor why the US mix is the more feedback-laden and psych-rocky of the two). Of the two, I by far prefer the UK version – the one above – which is more tuneful, for me at least; there’s a strange focus on monotone in the American version that I can’t quite get my head around, even though I love the feedback and distortion on the lead guitar.
Lyric-wise, this is a mess of a song, the kind of sloppy psychedelia that people make fun of, but to complain about the words feels like missing the point. As the title suggests, this is a song that you feel; it’s the entire thing that you have to experience in one, and then make decisions based on that – the sludge, the simple “Woah, man, like the world” of the lyrics, the thuggish harmonies. It’s a song that literally asks you to not separate it into component parts, but let the whole just wash over you.
(Worth remembering: 1990s shoegazing band Ride did a cover of this, and managed to make the whole thing sound depressingly bland:
It’s so close, and yet so far…)
366 Songs 264: Good Intentions Paving Company
The title took me some time to get, I shamefully admit.
Perhaps I was confused by the sprawling epicness of the song, which spirals all over the place both aurally and emotionally, which is one of the things I kind of love about it. When I first heard the song, I was put off by Joanna Newsom’s nasal vocals, which sounded to me like someone doing a weird, cruel impression of Joni Mitchell, but was compelled by the song nonetheless; even if I didn’t like the vocals, I liked everything else, I thought. And yet, the more I listened to the song – I found myself playing it over and over again – the more the vocals grew on me, and the more I realized that I just liked everything about it. This sounds like something very much out of time, and yet timeless, something that should’ve been released decades earlier when its shapechanging and sense of humor would’ve been more in tune with the times but influential and adored ever since. And then I kept on listening.
366 Songs 263: Lava
A favorite band from 1996, where their very American Radio-friendly sound (they’re British) stood out amongst all the Britpop debris still flying around. I remember loving their harmonies – which, yes, they could easily reproduce live – and being amused to discover that the opening line to the song is apparently “And I/Fucking/Give/Up” stretched to avoid getting edited for the radio. There’s a joy in this, and a defiant lack of cool, that there was no way that I could fail to listen when it first came on the radio. Power Pop with ridiculous lyrics and violent choppy guitars? I’m in.
366 Songs 262: I’m Dreaming
I was thinking about Mitt Romney’s latest, jaw-dropping, gaffe this morning when I found Randy Newman’s contribution to the 2012 political season, and… Well, it fits, somehow. Musically, it’s later-period Newman, definitely (Listen to the way he starts to rip himself off in terms of melody on the piano in the bridge), but lyrically, it’s spot-on in terms of parodying the mindset of voters who’d rather have any President as long as he’s not black: “I’m dreaming of a white President/Just like the ones we’ve always had/A real live white man/Who knows the score/How to handle money or start a war/Wouldn’t even have to tell me what we were fighting for.”
I like it when musicians take advantage of technology to rush-release music as social commentary. More big-name musicians should do this more often, if you ask me.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)