Category: 366 Songs

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366 Songs 202/203/204: Grow Your Own/Own Up Time/Almost Grown

It’s been a non-stop day; I went from feeling ahead of the crowd by lunch to feeling crushed by deadlines now, and I’m not entirely sure why. So, in order to get my energy and lust for life back, it’s time to listen to some Small Faces instrumentals. I don’t know why, but there’s something spectacularly energizing about these tracks for me, the relentless nature of them, the balancing of all the ingredients, and way they all desperately make me want to dance…

My favorite of the three posted here is easily this last one, “Almost Grown,” which has a perfect push-and-pull momentum going on that, at the very least, should have you bobbing your head as you listen along. Add to that, a particularly crunchy guitar and equally grumbly hammond organ, and you’ve got my love happily sewn up even before you get to Steve Marriott improvising towards the end “Oh, don’t talk that way…!”

Seriously. It doesn’t get much better than this, as far as I’m concerned; just listening to these three and I find myself ready and raring to go, no matter what lies ahead. Now that, dear readers, is the power of music.

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366 Songs 201: The Intro And The Outro

There is almost nothing anyone can say to this song that compares with just listening to it. One of the few comedy songs that is just as much fun after multiple listens as it is the very first time, not least of all because it’s weirdly catchy despite not really being a song at all.

And, yes; that really is Eric Clapton on banjo.

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366 Songs 200: Cool Britannia

This song is, of course, just a detournment of the more familiar British standard, “Rule Britannia,” but it’s all in the way the joke is told; the jazzy horns, the louche delivery of the vocals (The offhand “take a trip!” just kills me, every time) and the way that the whole thing just skewers the idea of “hip” Britain as a brand or a meme, decades before Britpop revived the notion entirely devoid of irony. There are many reasons to love the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, but I’m not sure any of them are stronger than this one.

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366 Songs 199: Galveston

There was a period, awhile back, when I got really into Jimmy Webb as a songwriter – He’s the one who wrote this song for Glen Campbell – and this was probably the song that convinced me that, when he was good, he was really good; to be fair, there’s a lot in the production of the Glen Campbell version that wins me over (Those strings, for one, but also the start, the bass falling down and drawing you into it), but the version I first heard – an R.E.M. cover of sorts, from the Rough Cut documentary – was this stripped down version that just makes you want to hear more… Or, it did me, at least…

I admit it, I’m also a sucker for any song that goes – as this one does – “I am so afraid of dying” so bluntly.

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366 Songs 198: Half A World Away

The standout song from R.E.M.’s Out of Time, back when I first bought the album as a painfully sincere 16-year-old, and still my favorite. While the instrumentation fulfills the role of almost all of the other songs on the album – mostly acoustic, mid-tempo, restrained and utterly pleasant – what always appealed to me about the song was the aching longing in Michael Stipe’s singing, the vibration and voice cracking that lends it some kind of weird emotional authenticity that really appealed to me back then. It was “Losing My Religion” as a single than made me buy the album, but it was this song that made me into an R.E.M. fanatic for years, excitedly watching for their television appearances and hoping that they’d do this one.

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366 Songs 197: After Hours

I won’t lie; the shooting in Aurora, Colorado at the end of last week flattened me in a way I wouldn’t have expected. Not just emotionally, although it did that – I felt exhausted by it, just saddened that such a thing could happen and that someone could do it, if that doesn’t sound too pathetic and naive – but practically, too, as it meant an immediate rewrite for some things I had written ahead of deadline that would suddenly seem crass and in poor taste when they eventually appeared (Two things had to be replaced altogether) on a day when I already had too much to do. The reason I tell you that is to explain why the blog essentially went dark of the weekend; I just needed to get offline and get my head straight again.

So, have this song, as I return and begin again. One of my favorites, because Maureen Tucker’s vocals are so artless and honest, you can’t help but be drawn in, and find yourself smiling despite yourself. Such beautifully vulnerable lyrics, too (“Someday I know/Someone will look into my eyes/And say hello/You’re my very special one” always gets me, I admit).

I first heard this song in a significantly different version, years before I heard the Velvet Underground original:

For some reason, Michael Stipe’s performance in this version from the end of R.E.M.’s Tourfilm made me wonder if this was actually a “real song” at all, or just some joke song the band had made up to finish off shows. I remember finding the original and being both surprised and happy that it had an authenticity that the version I knew so well lacked.

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366 Songs 196: Fender Roads

It’s one of those days when David Holmes’ Oceans soundtracks seem like the best thing to listen to; the retro funk, the seeming ease of the whole thing as it swings along, the almost architectural balance between all of the different instruments, all suggesting a world where we’re all more stylish, with more swagger and more likelihood of getting through the day not only in one piece, but with everyone else looking at us in jealousy and barely-contained lust. Oh, to dream of such a life…

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366 Songs 195: Cheese and Onions

Aside from the fact that this is a perfect parody of the Beatles’ psychedelic period output – Seriously, the arrangement and production on this are ideal; if you took off the vocal, you could probably convince many that this was some unfinished Beatles track with George Martin working on it behind the scenes – what makes me love this song above all other Rutles tracks is the horrendous pun at the center of it: “Do I have to spell it out?” Neil Innes sings, before going on to spell out the words “cheese and onions.” That he ends that spelling bee recitation with “Oh no” (Making it finish “Oh En Eye Oh En Ess Oh No”) is just the icing on a particularly enjoyable cake.

In another world, Oasis would’ve grabbed Innes to produce one of their albums.

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366 Songs 194: Every Single Night

If ever a song made me want to give the artist a hug, this would be a strong contender for the that title. There’s such a vulnerability here, not only in the obvious moments (The fluttering “I just want to feel everything,” sung in such weightless tones, you worry that Fiona Apple is about to disappear before you), but the force behind the “Every single night is a fight with my brain,” with that last word drawn out with aggression and restrained anger. Add in the visualization of creativity as not only pregnancy (“These ideas of mine/Percolate the mind/Trickle down the spine/Swarm the belly, swelling to a blaze”) but a painful, difficult birth (“Brother, get back/Cause my breast’s gonna bust open/The rib is the shell and the heart is the yolk yoke/And I just made a meal for us both to choke on”), and there’re layers to pick through here, and all of this something to recognize with, empathize with and wish you could make it easier for her.

(That the instrumentation in the opening and closing so closely resembles something like a music box or child’s toy just underscores the intent of vulnerability; it’s sentimental and cheap, but it definitely works…)

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366 Songs 193: Werewolf

There’s something consistently alluring about the way in which Fiona Apple’s vocals throw themselves around in a similar way to her lyrics. Listen to the swoop and the dive of her here, as she condemns a former lover and takes responsibility for her own culpability all at once (“I could liken you to a werewolf/The way you left me for dead/But I admit/That I provided a full moon”), or the sweep of her voice as she reaches “One thing leads to another…” and the note changes, weirdly comfortably as the piano drives beneath her. In many ways, this feels like the archetypal Apple song, smart, blunt, complex and just a little scattered. It’s honest, and yet disguised enough to keep the innocent unnamed. If only more confessional artists had such skill.