The best song hastily rewritten around a misheard/misspoken lyric ever (“Dare” coming from Shaun Ryder’s pronounciation of “It’s there,” said while setting recording levels in the studio). There’s something so joyful and effortless in the finished song that it shows how necessary accident is, sometimes.
Offered Without Comment
366 Songs 115: Summer Holiday
Quite why this song has been in my head for the last week or so, I have no idea, but that riff keeps returning when I least expect it.
It’s a riff that I want to be stolen by something else, to be used in a way it deserves instead of this treacley, over-produced tweefest with the syrup vocal and trite lyrics, not to mention the light entertainment strings, but… Man. That riff. Somebody, sample it and save it. Please.
(The riff comes from Cliff Richards’ then-backing band, the Shadows, who also did stuff like this:
The Shadows had their moments of awesomeness, as you may be able to tell.)
366 Songs 114: Fitta Happier
I’m tempted to just say “This” and leave it as that, as if no other kind of explanation is necessary, but… More than the rap from Guilty Simpson or MED (Although, man: rhyming “humorous” with “A lot of MCs got one style/Me? I got numerous” is awesome), this track from Quakers is all about finding a purpose for the great riff that was Radiohead’s “The National Anthem” from Kid A (the riff is great, the rest of the original song less so), especially when it’s translated into the marching band arrangement. Horns, you sound so good like that.
(Another plus: This is a short track! Less than three minutes, just enough time to get in, be great, and get out before you get bored. More pop songs need to do this.)
366 Songs 113: Bachelorette
Bjork is one of those artists that I listen to in waves; there are times when I am very much not in the mood for her vocal stylings or song constructions (She’s definitely someone who doesn’t believe in the traditional verse-chorus-verse as tradition, if that makes sense, and I sense that she’s more of a fan of her vocal tics than most), but other times, very few things in the world sound as necessary or beautiful to me. “Bachelorette” is definitely one of my go-tos for when the latter takes me, filled with everything I find appealing about her music: Amazing arrangements (Those sweeping strings! Especially when they shift key towards the end of the song, at 4:27), a fearless vocal performance and lyrics that offer up phrases that stick in the brain and feel heavier and deeper than they were perhaps intended (“I’m a tree that grows hearts/One for each that you take” is a lovely couplet, in this one, as is the opening “I’m a fountain of blood/In the shape of a girl”). That the song fades, but Bjork’s vocal remains until the accordian brings her out, is just an added plus. This is a lovely, lovely song that makes me feel things I still don’t know what to call.
366 Songs 112: Kickin’
Here’s an odd one: This was a favorite song of mine way back in the mid-90s, albeit one that I possibly only heard… what, maybe three times at most? I didn’t own it, because it wasn’t a single and I didn’t want to buy the entire album for one song; I knew it because it was a Tricky collaboration and happening at the time when I was very, very into all of the Tricky stuff. There’s something somewhat forced about it, listening to it now, something trying too hard to be quirky and off-center (The lyrics, in particular, are countless moments of “What…?” after another) with the random noises and lazy, loutish attempts at off-kilter harmonies as the song finishes, but I’ll admit it: I’m still sucked in by the simplicity of the chorus. “I can’t help it, I think you’re really kickin'” is the kind of lyric that can only be created by someone with English as a second language (Whale were Swedish, as far as I remember), but it has the goofy grin and appeal of one newly smitten, and for that alone, I’ll always have a soft spot for it. I can’t help it.
366 Songs 111: Baby Blue
I can remember seeing Tricky at some festival – T-in-the-Park, probably – back in the ’90s, just after the first album had come out and being just completely transfixed by Martina Topley-Bird, her stage presence and voice and the fact that there seemed something unworldly about her. She was, in many ways, the heart of Tricky 1.0, and as that act/performer/group/whatever fell apart (Seriously, that third album? Not so good), she was what I found myself missing the most. Cut to years later, and this song from her second solo album: There’s a lightness on it that betrays the touch of producer Danger Mouse, but the retro girlband sound works here – There’s something suitably dreamy about the way it shimmies around Topley-Bird’s vocal, all handclaps and tinkling synthetic ivories, disguising the sadness at the heart of the lyrics (“Baby blue/I don’t know what you do when you call to me,” she sings, apparently about a boy who’s oblivious to what’s really going on in her heart and her mind).
Topley-Bird’s solo stuff is disappointing in its unevenness, but when it’s like this, I find myself wanting more.
366 Songs 110: Stayin’ Alive
I was reading an obituary for Robin Gibb yesterday that talked about his sense of humor, and that came as little surprise; I’ve long considered “Staying Alive” home to one of the funniest – and, let’s be honest, one of the downright greatest – opening lines in popular music: “Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I’m a woman’s man, no time to talk.”
There’s so much to unpack there, whether it’s the weird (unintentional?) double entendre of being “a woman’s man” (Sure, a man who likes women, obviously, but if a “man’s man” denotes masculinity and machoness in society, what does a woman’s man denote – especially when you’re singing in such a falsetto?), the idea that you can tell that from the way he walks (Bowlegged from so much sex? Is it a particular wiggle in his butt? Is he just walking fast to go please more women? WHAT?), or the spectacular “No time to talk.” Why not? Maybe he is walking fast and that’s how you can tell that he’s a woman’s man. Maybe being a woman’s man is all about not having any time to hang around. It’s just such a wonderful opening that makes you want to know more, find out what he’s going to say next. Put it up against the spectacular guitar riff and hi-hat-crazy beat and it literally becomes an irresistible piece of pop. Stardom was guaranteed – and well deserved – for the Bee Gees as soon as they’d come up with this, let’s face it.
366 Songs 109: I Feel Love
The death of Donna Summer last week was something that was sad in the abstract; a “Oh, I never paid so much attention to her, but she’s dead and that’s a shame for her friends and family” kind of thing, but nothing beyond that, really. And then, the other day, I was in a store and “I Feel Love” was playing and… It sounded like music from now. It sounded contemporary, or – no, it sounded like something a few months from now, if that makes sense. Maybe it’s the snake-eating-its-own-tail nature of pop’s retro sound, but the thirty-plus year disco hit genuinely sounds more modern than half of the pop music that’s been created in the last couple of years.
It’s so good, it’s so good, it’s so good, indeed.
Ebony and Ivory, Live Together In Perfect Har-Mon-Eeee
I’ve been thinking about Jaime Hernandez’ art a lot, lately. Like all good-thinking people, I’m a massive fan of his work, especially the way his cartoon simplicity is mixed with the naturalness of his character acting, but lately I’ve been hooked on the design of his panels, and the smart way he balances solid blacks and whites on the page. Hernandez is a master.