No commentary for this one, because this is one of those songs that shouldn’t be overthought, just listened to and adored:
Okay. Let’s get this week done, shall we?
366 Songs 177: I Saw Her Again (Last Night)
If any musical act did any more to promote having four singers in the band than the Mamas and the Papas, I’d like to find out more about them. “I Saw Her Again (Last Night)” has this great complexity in its vocals that goes beyond simple harmonizing, or even call-and-response, although both are in there. There’s an architectural quality to the way they’re used, with voices building voices, adding up to this amazing thing, this cathedral of sounds.
It’s helped by a string arrangement that’s just the right side of syruppy; listen to the slide they start at 1:46 as the vocals do their “And it makes me feel.” There’s something in the way everything goes together than just works, even though it likely shouldn’t.
Everytime I listen to the Mamas and the Papas, I always feel like I should listen to them more, and I never ever get around to doing that properly. There’s always so much other stuff to take care of, instead. One day, one day…
366 Songs 176: People Are Strange
What’s strange – appropriately, considering the song – about the Doors is the obsessive quality that fans of the band have, the idea that there’s something special and unique about the band. They’re talking about Jim Morrison, of course, because as “People Are Strange” demonstrates, the music that accompanied him is close to the kinds of things that bands like the Loving Spoonful, the Zombies and even the Monkees were putting out at the same time.
I don’t mean that as an insult; I love that kind of music, and actually find more interest in it than in Morrison’s louche vocals. But it’s funny that Doors devotees are the kinds of people who’d make a case for the band being different from their contemporaries when they’re so amazingly similar. Listen to the plinky-plonk piano here, or the guitar solo at 0:58 that could’ve easily come from John Sebastian or someone similar; there’s a genericism in American rock and pop from this time, a similarity in form and sound, and the Doors don’t come anywhere close to escaping that in this song.
Of course, the Doors’ version is still superior to the Echo and the Bunnymen version that came from the soundtrack to The Lost Boys, which takes the original and somehow makes it sound like the Stray Cats have had their way with it, even with the hilarious instrumental break that tries to insert the psych break that the Doors were so beloved for:
This may have been the version of the song I first heard at age 12, but still. Could do better, Mr. Echo.
366 Songs 175: That’s The Way God Planned It
I’m not the most religious person – Is it agnostic, to believe in something, but not necessarily have any love for the organized religions as such? If so, then, yeah; that’s me – but this has long been one of my favorite songs, and it’s all because of the performance. Billy Preston was, for awhile, not just a spectacular keyboard player (Seriously, just listen to him here) but an amazing vocalist and one working in a style that put him somewhere in the middle of an imaginary spectrum between the Beatles and Sly and The Family Stone… which is to say, pretty much my ideal kind of music. The That’s The Way God Planned It and Encouraging Words albums that he released through Apple, both produced by (and featuring guitar from) George Harrison, are two of my favorite albums of all time, and “That’s The Way God Planned It” shows why. There’s something so effortless about the way this song sounds, but so insistent and irresistible, with Preston sounding so… happy, I guess?
There’s joy in Preston’s music; the joy of performance, the joy of life, the joy of God, maybe…? But it’s contagious. There may be bands and performers who are closer to my heart than Billy Preston, but I’m not sure that there are any who make me happier.
366 Songs 174: Are You Blue Or Are You Blind
There’s something so amazingly “Britpop”-py to the sound of this song, the particular sound of the jangly guitars and the barely present bassline (Poor Paul McCartney, whose bass was so present in the Beatles’ music and so ignored when it came to the 1990s movement so inspired by that band) and the somewhat whiny vocal. But despite all of that, it’s one of those songs that gets damned with faint praise; it’s a “agreeable” and “nice enough” song, you know?
That was always a problem for the Bluetones, in a way; their charms were gentle and you had to be open to them. They were never a band who would force themselves into your heart, but if you were in the right mood and willing to fall for a new old sound, they’d be there with reliable if unspectacular music that felt cosy and comfortable. Listen; this song even has a “ba ba ba ba” bit that anyone can sing along to.
366 Songs 173: Apple Carts
Still tired, still ready to disappear for the weekend and enjoy my invisibility from the Internet and work for a couple of days (Not that there aren’t songs lying ahead for your enjoyment tomorrow and Sunday, because there are; I really am trying to catch up, I swear), but I thought that this song made for both a nice contrast to “The Puritan” earlier and also an aural description of my state of mind after this weird week of work. Damon Albarn, you’ve definitely had an odd and varied year in terms of releases…
366 Songs 172: The Puritan
No time to write today, because I’ve made the (selfish?) promise to myself that I’d rather wrap up work in as timely a manner as possible and there’s still a bunch of work left to do. But this song has been going around in my head with increasing regularity over the week, like a slow burn earworm, and so I thought I’d share it with you so it can burrow inside your brains, as well:
“Are we institutionalized by the demands of today?/In our regalia, are we okay?” feels curiously like something John Lydon would have written, decades ago, if he were more humanistic and less angry, don’t you think?
On A Melancholy Sea
I lose track of people, sometimes. I mean, I knew that already. It’s a result of going to two elementary schools, four middle schools, and three high schools: you lose track of people and you find new people. You know someone for eight months at the most, or however long a school year is, then you make new friends for the summer, and then you make new friends in the fall, and you keep it moving.
I’m good at making friends. I should be better at keeping them.
That’s David Brothers, who remains one of my favorite writers on- or offline; he’s a friend, and so I can’t say that sort of thing to him (I have all manner of talented friends, and I find it really difficult to be sincere in my praise of their talents and work, which is frustrating to me; I’ll gush about them to other people, behind their backs, but in person, my sense of awkwardness gets in the way), but still. He’s writing about the ease of losing friends through no real intent to dump them; just losing track, by accident, and suddenly it’s too late to get back in touch without it being weird. I read that, and I thought, yes, that’s me, I do that all too easily and always feel bad about it. There are some wonderful people out there in the world whom I love dearly, and have let disappear from my life.
366 Songs 171: I Want To Vanish
Again, a curiously busy day has left me tired, and without the words that I want to write here (Really, just without the time to write those words; the spirit is willing, the flesh would like to not be in front of the computer for a little while today, sadly). No wonder this song comes to mind, especially given the last Elvis Costello song. I found this on a Best Of that I’d received one Christmas, and amidst the usual colors and melancholy of that period, this song stood out in particular, with the lovely strings backing Costello trying his best to make his voice soar. Listening to it again, more than a decade later and almost that long since I’d last thought of it if I were honest, it’s just as resonant, if for entirely different reasons. After all, on a day when your brain is filled with the emptiness that comes from writing stuff for an ever-demanding, never-thankful internet, few things sum up a mindset better than “I’ve given you the awful truth/Now give me my rest.”
366 Songs 170: The Other Side Of Summer
There’s a running joke here in Portland that the good weather only really gets started after Independence Day. Judging by today’s glorious weather – there’s not a cloud in the sky – I’m tempted to believe them, and so this song has been in my head all day; I may be misremembering, but I’m pretty sure that it’s the first Elvis Costello song that I really knew, as opposed to just hearing and not paying attention to, and it led me to my first Elvis Costello purchase. Looking back, that feels like I was suckered in by some ill-tempered gateway drug, the faux-Beach Boys stylings covering up a happily grumpy song about the downside of showbiz glamor. I still love the bitterness of lines like “Was it a millionaire who said ‘Imagine no possessions’?/A poor little schoolboy who said ‘We don’t need no lessons’?” heading after some traditional sacred cows.
Goodnight, God bless and kiss goodbye to the Earth, indeed.