Category: Music

Suede – The Drowners

By , April 2, 2004

I have covered but two of my three favorite songs in previous blogs, even though I’ve been writing for more than a year. As I promised long ago to introduce you to all three of them, I think it is high time I finished the job.

So slow down, slow down,
You’re taking me over

And so we drown, sir we drown,
Stop taking me over

Currently Playing: Suede – The Drowners

The opening drum hits are hypnotic. It’s rare for a drummer to do anything terribly melodic, or memorable, or even at all original, but Simon Gilbert managed to accomplish all three of those feats in the initial four bars of this, the band’s first single. And then comes Bernard Butler’s guitar. He is hands down my favorite of all the Brit pop/ indie rock era guitar heroes, ranking above even Jack White, and his solo in “The Drowners”, which you can hear beginning at about 2:25 if you click the above link, is my favorite thing he ever recorded.

Suede - The Drowners

I can’t listen to Suede without feeling at least a little bit melancholy. In many ways, my “grown-up” musical life began with my discovery of Suede. I was utterly bored with modern music. Rap had begun to suck, and American rock was all about grunge. Nirvana achieved something amazing, and I was definitely into that sound for awhile, but a year or so had passed, and the music industry had begun to find ways to again co-opt something brilliant, and in the process ruin it. Then I heard “The Drowners” and my life changed. Everyone has that one band, or song, or moment, where music altered their perception of the world, and Suede was it for me. Theirs was the perfect combination: in lead singer Brett Anderson, Suede had the perfect mixture of the sexual mystery of Bowie and the literate swagger of Morrissey (though perhaps more importantly, a singer who realized that a truly great pop star is often a provocatively ridiculous character; but the band had the ability to kick ass, thanks to aforementioned guitar hero Bernard Butler.

Suede was my band. They soared to great heights almost immediately– they were named Britain’s band of the year before they even released a single– their debut album won the Mercury Prize (Britain’s top musical honor), released hit song after hit song, and then, they imploded. Butler left the band, and the release of their second full-length album, Dog Man Star, was in doubt. Its release was among the most bittersweet moments of my life; it was better, much better, than their already-amazing debut– perhaps the best record I’d ever heard. But that was it. No more Suede. Or was there? I’m getting off-topic. I’ll continue this narrative someday in a future blog.

Enjoy “The Drowners,” and try to see if you can figure out what the lyrics mean. Hint– they are hella gay.

Won’t someone give me a gun?

Oh well it’s for my brother

Well he writes the line wrote down my spine

It says “Oh, do you believe in love there?”

If you write a line down someone’s spine, where do you end up? Exactly.

Today’s Question: Do YOU believe in love, there?

My favorite part is towards the end, when Anderson is repeating the line “you’re taking me over,” and then shifts to “stop taking me over” as the music opens up one last time. Good stuff.

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Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out

By , March 20, 2004

It is not often that a new song is released that I instantly decide is one of my all-time favorite songs, but since I first heard this song in January I’ve not been able to stop playing it. Now, with but a click of the mouse, you can experience my new favorite song:

Currently Playing: Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out

Here’s the amazing part– even though probably no one in the room besides me had heard this song, when I played it at a party the other night, it FILLED THE DANCE FLOOR. I mean to say, people who were already dancing kept dancing, and people who weren’t dancing began doing so. I have never, ever, not even once, seen that response to a song that was unknown. It was not as if I had played a Michael Jackson record, mind you– people didn’t flood onto the dance floor and go bananas– but there were definitely more dancers by the end of the song than there had been at the beginning.

I attribute the attraction mainly to the main guitar riff; in part because it sounds vaguely reminiscent of something from the 1980s, though what I cannot say, and I’m pretty sure it has no direct antecedent but rather is crafted to sound as though it does, and in part because it is so utterly infectious. After the third listen one feels morally compelled to crank one’s air guitar up to eleven and rock out.

Then there is the unrelenting stomp of the beat. This is not uptempo electronica, this is good old-fashioned rock ‘n roll, with a heavy beat thumping along at a tempo designed for head-banging and body-moving, but it subsumes the ethic of the dance track. It’s New Order masquerading as AC/DC… it’s the Black Sabbath work ethic applied to the Duran Duran sensibility… it’s… it’s…. it’s in a category all its own, and its unwaveringly awesome. Alternative/ Indie rock has at last produced a legitimate floor-stomper. It remains to be seen if the song can cross-over and win mainstream appeal, but the fact that 30-something preppy-yuppie types were willing to dance to it, sight unseen, is encouraging.

Franz Ferdinand - Take Me Out

The lyrical conceit of the song is a clever one, seeming to liken rejection to being shot:

So if you’re lonely
You know I’m here waiting for you
I’m just a crosshair
I’m just a shot away from you
And if you leave here
You leave me broken, shattered I lie
I’m just a crosshair
I’m just a shot then we can die.

As painful as a gunshot, or a breakup, can be, it’s better to experience the quick and unambiguous sting of one than to linger in a confused limbo. If you have to die, better by gunshot than a slower method; if the one you adore is not interested in you, better to find out sooner than later.

An alternative interpretation of the song is hinted at by the band’s very name– Franz Ferdinand. If you were paying attention during history class, you know that it was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that precipitated World War I. When he was shot, his wife Sophie was shot, too, and they died side-by-side. Perhaps this song is Ferdinand’s plea for release into the afterlife; he’s already been shot, and is on the verge of death, his beloved wife has been murdered in front of him, or is also on death’s door, knocking loudly, and he knows his life is over, figuratively if not literally. Now he is begging for that literal end to come quickly.

I know I won’t be leaving here with you
I say don’t you know?
You say you don’t know
I say take me out.

Or maybe it’s just likening a breakup to a bullet in the head. Either way it’s a damn catchy song, and is already firmly entrenched amongst my all-time favorite tracks.

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Bunny Berigan – I Can’t Get Started

By , March 2, 2004

I was happily surprised that so many of you enjoyed the story last time, and as such I shall now tell you the rest of it. As before, I will tell the tale in the context of a song that is relevant to the story.

Currently Playing: Bunny Berigan – I Can’t Get Started

When we left off, Daddy and Mommy were back together in L.A., except they weren’t Daddy and Mommy yet. They were just two people who liked to hang out together. At that time, she worked at a soda fountain and he drove a taxi. On her breaks, she’d sometimes sit in his cab and they’d listen to the radio. Their favorite thing to hear was the now-legendary Joe Hernandez calling the horse races at Santa Anita.

Naturally, my mom had a fiancee at the time, but she apparently wasn’t too serious about him, for when my dad asked her to go on a date, she agreed. On their date, he took her to the racetrack at Santa Anita to see the horse races they’d previously only heard on the radio. According to my mom, the combination of the day at the races and a hot roast beef sandwich he bought her at the track (a big deal to her as she was very poor) was enough to win her over, so when soon thereafter he asked her to elope to Las Vegas with him soon thereafter, she said “yes.”

Bunny Berigan - I Can't Get Started 78

They each brought a friend along to act as a witness for the wedding, and drove to Las Vegas to tie the knot. However, this story does not have the happy ending you may be expecting. My mom got cold feet at the altar and said “no.” It worked out sort of okay, because the two friends they’d brought to act as witnesses decided to get married instead, so the chaplain still had someone to marry. In the meantime, while the newlyweds stayed to honeymoon, my parents had to make the awkward drive back to Los Angeles.

I’ve flown around the world in a plane
I’ve settled revolutions in Spain
And the North Pole I have charted
Still I can’t get started with you

While driving her home, my dad sang “I Can’t Get Started” to my mom. She said it was the first time she’d ever heard it, and to this day it is one of her favorite songs. Meanwhile, back in Los Angeles, they kept seeing one another, and eventually, they tried again and eloped (successfully) to Tijuana, and they lived happily ever after. Until Peasprout was born and behaved very brattily. The end.

I’ve been consulted by Franklin D.
Greta Garbo has had me to tea
Still, I’m broken-hearted
‘Cause I can’t get started with you.

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Frankie Laine – That’s My Desire

By , March 1, 2004

My father’s parents both emigrated from Sicily, independently of one another. They met in New York, fell in love, and got married. I think they hoped/ expected their children would also marry Sicilians. Their eldest, my uncle, married a Sicilian girl, and the youngest, my aunt, was set to marry that girl’s younger brother in an arranged marriage. Did that make sense? Anyway, you’d think that two out of three ain’t bad, but when my father began dating my mom, who was Mexican, they were not very happy. They went as far as to send my dad back to Detroit (they’d moved from New York to Detroit before coming to Los Angeles) to meet the nice Sicilian girl they had arranged for him to marry. It was all for naught. He pretended to go along with the plan, and arranged to return to Los Angeles to purchase a ring or some such thing, but it was all trickeration and chicanery, and once he got back to California he stayed for good.

Currently Playing: Frankie Laine – That’s My Desire

Meanwhile, Frankie Laine was all the rage in the world of music. The song that made him famous was “That’s My Desire,” which had made it as far as number four on the charts back in 1946. You can click the above link to hear the song, if that is your desire. Haw haw. Get it?

When my dad got back to Los Angeles he learned that Frankie Laine was scheduled to perform in Hollywood that night, and immediately asked my mom out on a date. She said she would go out with him, but there was a show she really wanted to see. He told her that he also had something in mind he wanted to do, but maybe they could do both. They didn’t need to, as she had the Frankie Laine concert in Hollywood in mind too. So they went, and lived happily ever after. Later that year they were married, and after some time my grandparents finally accepted Mom into the family, and turned her into an honorary Sicilian.

Frankie Laine - That Lucky Old Sun

The song came on the radio the other night as I was driving my Mom home from her weekly chemotherapy appointment. My father passed away a little over two years ago, but he and my mother had more than 50 happy years of marriage before they did, and he’s still missed. My mother shared the story with me, and I liked it so much that I am now sharing it with you.

I am realizing that as you age, your life becomes more and more memories of the past, and less about the present or the future. I hope I’m making the most of my youth while I have it, and creating lasting memories to one day share with my offspring. Today’s Question: Are you?

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Link Wray and his Ray Men – Rumble

By , January 9, 2004

Turn the dials with your hand

Till you find the short wave band

Electronic music sounds from Radioland

The new trend in online content is streaming radio stations. It’s a relatively new development, and every day more and more stations are popping up; as of today I can number myself among the broadcasters. If you have iTunes or Quicktime or anything that can play streaming audio, go check out Radio Peasprout. I only broadcast sporadically, as I am hosting the station on my computer, but from time to time I sign in and play songs. Such as this one:

Currently Playing: Link Wray – Rumble

(Odds are I’m not streaming Link Wray right now, so you will have to click the “currently playing” link to open the mp3 in your browser.)

This is one of my favorite songs, ever. It was regularly heard blaring from the stereo of my Thunderbird as I cruised the moonlit streets of turn-of-the-century Oakland. Wow, it feels weird to write that. In fact, everything about this post seems out of time. The epigraph is from Kraftwerk, and reads like an archaic document, though it was vastly futuristic sounding when released. The song, from 1958, playing in a 1962 vehicle, is utterly incongruous with the streets of Oakland in the year 2000. Even the concept of radio– that medium which predates even television, now being ushered into the digital age– makes for an even greater temporal jumble.

Link Wray - Jack the Ripper

This is widely considered to be the song that invented the heavy metal sound. You can certainly hear the roots of the genre in the trembling, distorted guitar riffs, and heavy has to be one of the first words that comes to mind when trying to describe the sound. The song was written to emulate the feel of a gang fight, hence the title. It made it to #16 on Billboard’s pop music chart, and would likely have gone higher, but was banned in some markets for being “too suggestive.” It is the only instrumental song to have ever been banned for that reason. Go impress your friends with that interesting bit of trivia.

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The Flamingos – I Only Have Eyes for You

By , November 18, 2003

Currently Playing: The Flamingos – I Only Have Eyes for You

I think this is a lovely sounding song, and it’s definitely “up there” on my mental list of favorite love songs; probably on the list of favorite songs in general. Beautiful though it is, there is a spooky element to the song. Part of it is the music– there is a ghostly quality to it that is hard to capture in words. Maybe this is something only I take away from this song, but my ear definitely hears some other-worldly overtones going on in there someplace.

Le Tigre - Le Tigre

Possibly eerie music aside, the message of the song is unquestionably heart-meltingly adoring:

My love must be a kind of blind love
I can’t see anyone but you.

Are the stars out tonight?
I don’t know if it’s cloudy or bright
I only have eyes for you, dear.

The moon may be high
But I can’t see a thing in the sky,
I only have eyes for you.

I don’t know if we’re in a garden,
Or on a crowded avenue.

You are here and so am I
Maybe millions of people go by,
But they all disappear from view.
And I only have eyes for you.

When you lose track of all around you, and can only focus on the object of your affection in front of you, you know you have found true love. In my experience, moments like the above while rare and wonderful, do happen. You find yourself staring starry-eyed at a certain someone, oblivious to all else around you, utterly overpowered by emotion.

I have no doubt in my mind that love is the most powerful emotion known to man, and the guiding force behind nearly all actions we undertake as a race.

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Nick Drake – Pink Moon

By , November 10, 2003

I discovered Nick Drake quite by accident. I’m a huge fan of The Smiths, and I when I watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off I recognized one of my favorite of their songs, “Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want,” being covered in spectacular fashion during the scene in the Art Institute Museum. I found out the band covering the song was The Dream Academy, and I looked for their music the next time I was in a record store. The Dream Academy had recorded a hit single, “Life in a Northern Town,” which I quickly grew to adore. At some point, I noticed the song was dedicated to someone named Nick Drake, and set about finding some of his music.

It wasn’t easy to find his albums. He only recorded three, and none sold very well. They were out of print for a while, then reissued, but not in vast quantities. Eventually, I tracked down a copy of Pink Moon and fell in love with it upon my first listen.

Currently Playing: Nick Drake – Pink Moon

Nick Drake’s story is a tragic one, and I won’t delve too deeply into it. He was a near recluse who seldom performed, was interviewed in print but once, and was never captured on film other than in childhood home movies. Pink Moon, his final, and in my opinion best, album clocks in at less than 30 minutes long. When asked why it was so short, he is said to have replied, “that’s all I had to say.” Sadly, his words were too true– he never recorded another album, and within less than three years, Drake was dead from an overdose of antidepressants. His death was ruled a suicide, though his family disputes that finding.

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna’ get you all

So simple, and yet if you hear it sung, and the accompanying music, you can’t help but feel your soul overwhelmed by anguish mixed with beauty. More so than any other singer I know, Drake’s music encompasses heartache and sorrow in a way vague enough to allow you to apply it to your own life, and yet in a manner that appears deeply personal at the same time. Many bands accomplish the first half of that equation; Radiohead comes to mind. Myriad others capture the latter half; Morrissey anyone? Who but Nick Drake successfully juggled both elements at once?

Le Tigre - Le Tigre

In the opening paragraph I traced my meandering journey to discovering Drake’s music, because in many ways it mirrors the equally rambling path his music took from unknown to popular. For nearly 30 years after his death, Drake and his music languished in obscurity, only surfacing occasionally, as in the dedication that helped me discover him. In another blip on the radar, Robert Smith once stated that his band The Cure was named after a Nick Drake lyric, taken from “Time Has Told Me,” another one of my favorite Drake songs.

Time has told me
You’re a rare rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind.

Then, nearly overnight, Nick Drake became a posthumous celebrity. “Pink Moon” was used as the backing track for a car commercial, and within a few days, the improbable had happened– Nick Drake knocked N*Sync out of the Top 5. When I read the headline I was dumbfounded. I hadn’t seen the commercial, and my mind could not comprehend what I was reading. “Obscure English Folk Singer Nick Drake Nudges Pop Superstars N*Sync from Chart” made as much sense to me as would have “Jimmy Hoffa Found Living on Venus.” Once I read the article and learned about the commercial, of course it all became clear, but that may have been the only moment in my life where I was awake and honestly wondered if I were dreaming.

I’ll close with an excerpt from “Life in a Northern Town,” the tribute to Nick Drake that led me to discover his beautiful, yet pained, songs.

The evening had turned to rain
Watch the water roll down the drain,
As we followed him down
To the station
And though he never would wave goodbye,
You could see it written in his eyes
As the train rolled out of sight
Bye-bye.

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Pulp – Disco 2000

By , October 28, 2003

My recent song blogs have digressed into personal anecdotes, musings on love, or commentaries on the gap between the always fantastic life one hopes to lead and the often mundane life one actually does lead. In short, I’ve strayed away from the original concept behind the posts, namely dissecting a song I find to be especially well-written. In what I hope will be harbinger of song-related song posts to come, today I will share with you the second of my triumvirate of favorite songs; I already wrote about one in a previous post.

Currently Playing: Pulp – Disco 2000

Well we were born within an hour of each other
Our mothers said we could be sister and brother
Your name is Deborah, Deborah,
It never suited ya.
Oh they said that when we grew up,
we’d get married, and never split up.
We never did it, although often I thought of it.

“Disco 2000” is another example of an uptempo, danceable song that sounds happy from a musical standpoint, but is lyrically a fairly somber and serious song.

I said let’s all meet up in the year 2000

Won’t it be strange when we’re all fully grown?

Be there 2 o’clock by the fountain down the road.

I never knew that you’d get married

I would be living down here on my own

On that damp and lonely
Thursday years ago.

Really, what more need I say? Jarvis Cocker, Pulp’s lead singer and songwriter, pretty much said it all right there. He continues the tale, recalling his unspoken crush on Deborah throughout their school years together:

You were the first girl at school to get breasts.

Martin said that you were the best.

The boys all loved you but I was a mess
I had to watch them try to get you undressed

We were friends that was as far as it went

I used to walk you home sometimes but it meant,

Oh it meant nothing to you.

’Cause you were so popular.

Pulp - Disco 2000 part 1

Deborah do you recall?
Your house was very small,
with wood chip on the wall.
When I came around to call,
you didn’t notice me at all.

For whatever reason, while this song is a positive dance floor anthem in most parts of the world, it never climbed the American pop charts. Unless you found yourself at some niche Britpop club back in the ’90s, á la San Francisco’s Pop Scene, you have probably never heard this song, which is a pity, for it is, at least in my opinion, one of the greatest pop songs of all time. I hope you’ve clicked the above link and heard it. Even if you don’t share my opinion, you can’t deny that it is danceable to the extreme.

It’s also enigmatic in its finale:

What are you doing Sunday baby?

Would you like to come and meet me maybe?

You can even bring your baby.

Will Deborah meet the protagonist on Sunday? Is her baby her husband, or is it her child? Has she divorced, and is she at last ready to embark on romance with the boy who has adored her since childhood?

Pulp - Disco 2000 part 2

A final note, and a personal one (I can’t escape it, can I?), this is the song that made Fizzy and I, well, Fizzy and I. We met in an elevator five years ago, almost to the day, and in the time it took the elevator to rise eight floors, we ascertained that this was both of our favorite songs. And then we fell in love. Okay, more stuff happened in between, but seriously– thank you Jarvis Cocker! I knew Pulp could do nearly anything, but I never knew Pulp could do anything like that…

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Frank Sinatra – The Way You Look Tonight

By , October 7, 2003

In the comments section of my last post I promised a commenter that I would write about a Frank Sinatra song today. Choosing one Sinatra song about which to write took some time. My initial thought was to go with Summer Wind, as that was the song I’d traditionally play for my roadies and security agents before the start of a fraternity party. We all knew the rest of the night would be upbeat pop and rock music, so something a bit more mellow from Ol’ Blue Eyes made for a nice buffer before the onslaught of drunken revelers came charging into the venue. While Summer Wind is certainly a fine song, and would have made for an interesting blog, I’ve instead opted to go with:

Currently Playing: Frank Sinatra – The Way You Look Tonight

Now, after a few years together, I imagine most couples start bandying about the idea of a wedding, and this is by no means any sort of official announcement, but yeah, Sue (Fizzy) and I have whiled away some of childhood’s happy hour by imagining what our wedding may be like, were we ever to have one. The Way You Look Tonight has been mentioned more than once as a potential “first dance” song. I don’t think I’ve ever DJ’ed a wedding at which this was the first dance, which is something of a surprise to me; I think it makes for a great one. It’s fast enough to avoid having to stand doing the rotating-hug-dance in front of all one’s friends and relatives, but it isn’t so fast as to leave one breathless by the end. It’s also romantic, and evocative of many ideas associated with one’s wedding day– looking one’s best, a memorable night, being in love, and so forth.

Frank Sinatra - The Way You Look Tonight

One evening not long ago, Fizzy and I were sauntering through San Francisco’s Union Square after a romantic dinner at some cozy eatery, and this song began playing through the park’s loudspeakers; it completed the evening. We danced to it right there in the park, amidst a mixture of stares of both incredulity and admiration from what few people were out and about at that hour, but we felt anonymous enough and didn’t mind. A few people clapped when we finished, and it definitely made for a grand topper to an already wonderful evening. Moreover, it cemented this song in our minds– we finally had an “our song.”

Today’s Question: What will/ did you dance to first at your wedding?

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Guy Lombardo – Auld Lang Syne

By , September 27, 2003

Some songs are linked inextricably to a holiday. In many cases it’s a legitimate connection, for example “White Christmas” and Christmas, but in other cases, it’s an association that came to be after the song was released.

Currently Playing: Guy Lombardo – Auld Lang Syne

We all sing it, or at least hear it, as the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve and the new year begins, but it wasn’t originally a holiday song. It is, however, one of my favorite songs, so while 2004 is still several months away, I’m playing it anyway. Plus, it’s recorded by an Italian-American, the great Guy Lombardo, so I’m even *more* partial to it.

Guy Lombardo - Auld Lang Syne

It’s not so much the case anymore, but a LOT of the big-name singers of the big band era were Italian-Americans. I wonder why that was the case? Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Louis Prima, Lou Monte, Al Martino, Tony Bennett, Jack Leonard, Vic Damone, Jimmy Durante, Jerry Vale– I could go on forever it seems, except I’m not sure where I am going with this. I could continue by listing all the great Italian-American athletes, but that would be an even longer list. Let’s just all agree that Rocky Marciano, Joe DiMaggio, and Joe Montana were the greatest in their respective fields (no pun intended), and leave it at that.

As you may have surmised, I am in fact an Italian-American, though I’m not sure what that really means. My grandfather came to America from Sicily, so my father was raised in a traditional Sicilian/Italian household, but by the time I was born, we had assimilated, and were just another American family.

My older brothers grew up with at least some sense of the immigrant experience, at least in terms of being surrounded by family from the old country, but by the time I was born most of my Sicilian-born relatives had passed away, and the remaining relatives had left crime-ridden Hawthorne for greener pastures. Said brothers were exposed to the sort of neighborhood and lifestyle that I can only experience second-hand by watching Goodfellas or The Godfather.

America is the melting pot after all, and I suppose I’m another example of that phenomenon at work. Though I may identify as Sicilian-American, realistically I’m no more Sicilian then I am black, white, Chinese, or Lithuanian. I’m just American. To an extent I’ve inherited my father’s love and loyalty for all things Italian, but I can’t exactly say that I’m any different then any other American person due to my lineage.

Today’s Question: Do you feel you belong to any non-American ethnic group, or are you just a melted-in American?

For the record, I’m only half Sicilian. I’m also 1/4 Mexican, 1/8 Native American (Cheyenne, I believe) and 1/8 Swedish. But really, I’m 100% American, for what do I know of those other cultures?

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