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…)