It's like a Sims Beatles video! (See Feb 10 entry also)
Shoot me...A fairly stripped-down blues, it has a bunch of nonsense lyrics (some ripped from a Chuck Berry tune, eventually leading to a lawsuit), and a great sudden electric guitar pronouncement as verse changes to chorus on 'together'. This is the Beatles as cool blues rock band. Nice guitar work from George. Paul plays his typically great bass lines. Electric piano (and handclaps) from John, rolling toms from Ringo. The final minute outro is a murky stroll down to the crossroads. Hard to believe it's the same band that recorded She Loves You.
You feelin alright? I'm not feelin too good myself. There's a cool moment in the beginning, not sure but sounds like a harmonic cowbell, probably it's Chris Wood's flute?, at 0:06. Dave Mason composed and sings on this early Traffic tune. Starts off with acoustic guitar, light drums and piano. It's built around two chords, C and F, along with their corresponding 7ths. Steve Winwood fills it up with bouncy jazz piano, Jim Capaldi plays swinging unobtrusive drums, Chris Wood gets in a great sax solo starting at 1:43 or so.
Joe Cocker famously covered this song. There have been covers by Three Dog Night, Lulu, Lou Rawls, Grand Funk Railroad, and the Jackson 5.
The memorable bass line is played by Herbie Flowers - he played both upright and electric bass, producing this amazing woody elastic sound. Lou Reed strums a relaxed guitar, the drums are played with quietly swinging brushes. It feels like both an intimate after hours gathering on an empty, graffiti-covered subway car, and bedtime story hour at an 'adults only' bookstore. A lullaby for artistic freaks, fiends and friends living in a depraved and dirty, yet stimulating and inspiring city where anything goes. An ode to the characters who came to New York and became part of Andy Warhol's factory crowd. Top it all off with that fantastic saxophone from Ronnie Ross, and the train clickety clacks away down the tracks with dawn just showing in the east.
I love this song for mostly humorous reasons. It comes across as a 60s exploitation song a la Scott McKenzie's San Francisco, or the Flower Pot Men's Let's Go to San Francisco. Terrible stuff. The breezy 60s horns, the awful electric sitar a la the Box Tops' Cry Like a Baby.
So, the song is all about the Monterey Pop Festival. Beautiful people, religion, musicians, music fans, flower children, young gods playing 'music born of love.' (yeah, free love, groovy). Then, dig the roll call and the musical tributes:
1) The Byrds and the (Jefferson) Airplane did fly.
2) Ravi Shankar's music made Eric cry...Waaah! there there, Eric. Here are some love beads for you.
3) The Who exploded into fire and light...
4) Hugh Masekela's music was black as night (he's still alive and making great music!)
5) The Grateful Dead (noodling around music)
6) Jimi Hendrix set the world on fire...wow, he sure did!
7) His majesty Prince (Brian) Jones, wearing appropriate renaissance fair garb, smiled benevolently at all his loyal tripped-out hippie subjects. Hear ye hear ye!
10,000 electric guitars...hmmm, I don't remember that from the movie, was that during the Association's set? haha.
Even the cops grooved with us! I used to think the line was 'even the cops drew quivers.' As though they were dressed up like Robin Hood's merry men, with toy bows and arrows. Hey, you know Eric would not lie. He's a magic love guy...at least during 1967, when that's what you were supposed to be. He probably adopted that revolutionary look in '68 like everyone else.
aka Not Waving But Drowning, as it was printed like this on the CD track listing by Island Records, and inspired by the haunting Stevie Smith poem of the same title. It shows as Raving in the booklet, which is how Julian Cope, clever person that he is, certainly intended it to be. The song is about a young raver who was tripping on LSD when he fell off a ship and drowned. 'Now I'm the man of importance.' Whoa.
The groovy intro lasts a whopping 1:20 before Julian starts singing. The hypnotic main riff is a ringing Dsus2 chord, with a little D-D#-E run.
This is from the incredible Peggy Suicide album. Based on a review by David Fricke in Rolling Stone I bought this album, having no idea who Julian Cope was. It became one of my favorite albums ever, and Julian became my musical guru.
That opening moment is like a punch in the gut. What an intense song! A dramatic first 15 seconds, very intense and focused, then hurricane Janis roars in with the 'come on' vocals before taking it down into the first verse. But soon her intensity is back up and she is screaming out pain and suffering at the hands of the man she loves with abandon, but he treats her like crap. She's like, 'fine, keep crushing my heart if it makes you feel better', but she still can't bring herself to leave him. It's like an anti-torch song, or more like a flame thrower song. I like when Sam Andrew comes in with his vocals on the chorus. His guitar solos are awesome too.
Here's a performance I always enjoyed seeing on Night Flight or MTV back in the day.
Out of Control is one of my favorite U2 songs, although it seems like it doesn't get much acclaim from critics or fans. It's liked well enough, but treated more like album filler. It is the last song on the impressive side one of Boy, so I think it gets overlooked. I love the Edge's guitar tone, lots of harmonics and near-harmonics, cool slashing chords. Plus he plays an excellent solo. Adam Clayton's bass is also pretty sweet, I love the descending runs on the chorus. Where's the love for this song?
A simple three note progression runs through the verses on Mind Games, as John sings all kinds of trippy lyrics: 'some kind of druid dude lifting the veil', 'absolute elsewhere in the stones of your mind'. I always imagined 'mind gorillas', I didn't know what guerillas were when I was little. As wikipedia points out: "Guerrilla" and "Guerrilla War" redirect here; they are not to be confused with Gorilla. John also adds lots of positive messages: 'Love is the answer', 'chanting the mantra, peace on earth', 'love is a flower' etc.
My favorite part is the guitar riff at 2:54, after John finishes singing the 'yes is surrender' line. The song structure is very rigid, things kind of stay the same throughout, so that riff stands out when you hear it. Jim Keltner's drums are also great, they really punctuate certain lines, like 'putting their soul power to the karmic wheel' and right before 'millions of mind guerillas' at 3:10.
This is classic David Lee Roth as buffoonish hard rock lounge lizard. Reminds me of Bill Murray as Nick the Lounge Singer on SNL or one of the Rat Pack. Listen to the end of certain lines like 'they sent the sheriff down to try and drive us awayyyy-uh' and 'dead or alivevvvv-uh', the guy should be draped across a piano in a feathered boa, winking at the gals sitting at the tables in front of the stage with a drink in his hand. No one like him.
But, hey, this is also a Van Halen song, so we get Eddie cranking out a great heavy rock riff and some awesome guitar pyrotechnics. Check out 1:52 til 2:15 or so.
Let's go explore the solar system with Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd, shall we? This song is from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the only full PF album with Syd. His guitar shines like the sun, floating out there in between the second scene in the icy waters.
Astronomy Domine is a trippy ride through space, around Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania. Miranda is a moon orbiting Uranus...hahaha. So is Titania - that sure sounds like something massive revolving around Uranus. I don't think I want to explore Uranus. (pause for everyone to stop laughing).
I wonder if Syd would have laughed at that joke or if he would have just stared at me and asked me to leave him alone? :( Syd.
Oh yeah, groove is in the heart...this is a fond fun funky look back at childhood by the beautiful Stevie Wonder. The verses of I Wish are memories of carefree times, harmless naughtiness, and rites of passage that kids experience. You look back on it all as an adult, having learned to follow the rules but laughing inside because, even though you got in trouble, those activities were often pretty fun at the time.
The music says don't even bother trying to remain still, you have no choice but to get down and boogie. Listen to Stevie, he is really enjoying himself. Listen to that walking bass line, the horns, the drums pounding away. Cool middle part at 1:30, do do do do....break it down.
The extremely funky outro lasts for the final minute plus. The horn riff repeats over and over, as Stevie makes little shouts here and there, and Nathan Watts careens all over the bass with little spasms of funky joy. The horns rise up a couple times, Stevie plays a great drum roll at 4:03. And I guess we have to fade it out so Stevie has room for his other Songs in the Key of Life.
Any colour is bad...Outside My Door is an uneasy negative paranoid trip...words like fear, bad, blind, dying stand out. Also, there is this bizarre moment at the very beginning of the song, like between 0 and 1 seconds. It sounds like a short quiet meow or cry, it is in the left speaker, and it lasts for a split second. I don't always hear it unless I'm really paying attention. You can hear it in the youtube clip. It's a strange phenomenon, like the ghost kid in Three Men and a Baby (debunked).
Outside My Door is a garage rock monster. The awesome Malcolm Mooney was Can's first vocalist, and he starts of like a confused person talking to himself. He slowly builds himself into a rabid manic frenzy by the end. Then he gets the other passengers yelling too...outside the door!!!
The music is a doomed train whistling down the track. Malcolm is slowly losing his mind. Makes me think of the William Shatner Twilight Zone episode with the ugly wookie on the plane wing. Things are falling apart. The guitar solo is burning metal and screeching wheels. I'm sorry to take you there, but after all, it's only a song. Remember, you can always go back and listen to Ripple if you feel scared. Or watch Three Men and a Baby...awwwww.
Just another band from East L.A., here's a nice Los Lobos tune to shake you up a bit. Co-written by Cesar Rosas and T-Bone Burnett, Shakin Shakin Shakes is a rocker. It features a couple of dueling solos, guitar vs harmonica in the middle, and guitar vs guitar at the end. The rhythm during the verses is similar but slower to that made by my washing machine...when it gets the shakes. The lyrics are all about things that shake: leaves on a tree, the ground during an earthquake, a woman dancing...and, of course, my washing machine.
Los Lobos means The Wolves in Spanish. So in the old TV show BJ and the Bear, Sheriff Lobo would be Sheriff Wolf. Maybe his full name could be Sheriff Oso Lobo, since oso is bear in Spanish. And Omar Sharif would be Omar Sheriff. Or Omar Oso. And now I have a headache. Nice.
Anyone thirsty for some Baby Lemonade? Me!! No, me!! Hey, you can each have some! I'll hold up the baby and you can each put your cup underneath him. Ew, gross!!! I changed my mind, no lemonade for me, please.
The opening 0:40 is just Syd warming up on the guitar. Then we're off on a seemingly random series of chords that lead up to the first verse. The chorus is 'Please, please, Baby Lemonade.' What does it mean? Your guess is as good as mine. Syd plays a cool guitar solo. I was always impressed by Jerry Shirley's ability to keep up on the drums, to stay the course so to speak. A wandering little forty-five second outro and we're done. Thanks, Syd!
I was 13 and in 8th grade when Carl Sagan's Cosmos documentary series aired on PBS in 1980. I watched each episode for extra credit in Mr Hollingshead's science class. I loved it. Carl Sagan in his dandelion Spaceship of the Imagination, pushing control buttons as if he really were out there flying around the universe.
I loved the music used on the program, especially the opening theme, a section of Heaven and Hell, Part 1, by Vangelis, called 'Movement 3'. This recording represented our amazing universe in all its mystery, beauty, vastness and isolation, and our triumphant history of exploring and understanding it.
The opening minute is beautiful. A delicate piano travels through space searching for companionship. It meets a single synth voice that accompanies it from 0:40 - 1:00, exquisitely warm but also plaintively longing, as if to say 'hey out there in space, can anyone hear us?' The part after that is like some monks chanting quietly while the piano plays and the synths build. These last few minutes were usually faded out on Cosmos, as the episode would begin, the handsomely geeky-cool Carl Sagan would start tripping out on the billions and billions of stars in the cosmic stuff, and my little brain would struggle to make sense of it all.
There are so many great songs in existence, and if I had to pick one as my all time favorite, it would be Strawberry Fields Forever. It encompasses everything I love about pop music: dreamy lyrical imagery, moments of transcendent creative beauty, emotional impact, and of course certain intangibles that exist on a purely personal level. This is among the peaks of the creative union between the Beatles and
George Martin. John Lennon wrote the song, but Martin added all the orchestration, spliced the tapes, mixed it all into a finished work of art.
There are a number of particular moments I love:
1) Guitar from 0:18-0:22
2) Guitar during second verse from 0:40-0:54
3) Drums from left speaker 1:00-1:10+, 1:44-2:00+, and 3:00+
4) Horn riff from 1:10-1:13, etc.
5) backward percussion after 1:26
6) double-tracked vocals from 2:27-2:32
7) Guitar from 2:58-3:00 and 3:10-3:12
8) starting at 3:35, the somewhat jarring cocktail party atmosphere with the scary siren thing that creeps back in after the initial fade out. I have a love hate deal with that part. I suppose it wouldn't be SFF without it. It contains that lethargic 'Cranberry Sauce'/'I buried Paul' voice.
As usual, the Beatles copyright owners are very stingy with allowing their songs on youtube. Too bad, I guess you get what you get. That sucks. Well, perhaps you have your own version you can listen to, or obtain from somewhere. Maybe you already know the song well enough. Sorry.
Such a special magical song, Ripple can make me smile and cry at the same time. It's happy and sweet, but it's sad in an introspective and esoteric way. It is a gift, something to cherish, a pick me up, a candle in the darkness. I can imagine Frodo humming this tune in the Shire or in the darkest depths of Mordor. It has healing powers. I remember it being used in the movie Mask during an emotionally heavy scene. That's the happy sad effect of the tune, it gets right there between the emotions like a see saw.
Lyrics by Robert Hunter, music by Jerry Garcia. David Grisman plays the sweet little mandolin parts. My favorite line is the last one: 'If I knew the way I would take you home.' It ends with a happy la da da da singalong.
The things I most love about I'm Set Free:
The way the double tracked vocals on 'free' in the chorus create this sudden dissonance, as one voice rises slightly.
The slow surfy guitar solo...I think the Pixies took this and stuck it on 'Havalina'.
And, finally, the line 'The prince of stories who walks right by me.'
From the Velvet Underground self-titled 1969 album.
The Eiffel Tower and the Taj Mahal are mine to see on clear days
You thought that I would need a crystal ball to see right through the haze.
Keith Moon's drumming is off the charts amazing, I mean naturally the whole ensemble is great, but I really love Keith on this one. Check it out during the solo, from around 2:14 - 2:32. Whoa.
123456! Roadrunner is all about the joy of driving around, cranking the radio, going past familiar places in Boston, Massachusetts, speeding down the highway, experiencing the freedom spirit of cars and rock n roll, loving the place and time, the moment. The music cruises along, organ and guitars, drum and bass, Jonathan Richman's nasally stuffed up vocals.
Former bandmate John Felice recalled that as teenagers he and Richman "used to get in the car and just drive up and down Route 128 and the Turnpike.
We'd come up over a hill and he’d see the radio towers, the beacons
flashing, and he would get almost teary-eyed. He'd see all this beauty
in things where other people just wouldn’t see it." Sweet.
Skip Spence was one of the founders of Moby Grape, and he also played with Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. His story is tragic, and as mentioned in the article in The Hangar, he "neither died young nor had a chance to find his way out. Unlike
the advice in the Neil Young song, he both burned out and faded
away." His only solo album is the excellent Oar, and it is a very sparse, raw, and isolated document. War In Peace is my favorite track. Skip's voice sounds like he's floating in a cloud of ether, so dreamy and lethargic. The guitar is so spidery, spindly, trebly, shimmering. The best moment is at 1:20, just that slight little one second riff. It's magical. Then a sweet solo goes from 1:35 - 2:30, all spiky and reverbed. If you isolate the right speaker, the bass is pretty amazing too. The outro is Cream's Sunshine of Your Love riff, cruising down into a gulf of confusion.
The classic line from Roadhouse Blues is 'Well I woke up this morning, I got myself a beer.' The middle section with all the nonsense Morrison words is great too:
You gotta beep a gunk a chucha
Honk konk konk
You gotta each you puna
Each ya bop a luba
Each yall bump a kechonk
Ease sum konk
Ya, ride
It's a rockin from the get go tune. Lonnie Mack plays bass on it, that's pretty cool. The opening guitar is just what I'd expect to hear at a roadhouse. Bikers and chains. Then I'd expect the beer drinkin, the sweat, the hollerin, the name callin, the fightin, but I don't know. I've never been to a roadhouse and I've never seen the Patrick Swayze film. Speaking of which, it has Sam Elliott and Ben Gazzara? How have I not seen this movie?! Is it really that bad?
'Houses of the Holy', from the legendary Physical Graffiti album. Don't you wish there was a song called 'Physical Graffiti' on the Houses of the Holy album? I never had Physical Graffiti on vinyl, thus I never had to flip the record. Having the CD means this song can surprise you if you aren't paying attention. 'In My Time of Dying' has a few moments of quiet talk before it completely finishes. Then, bam, the metallic 'Houses of the Holy' guitar jumps right out of your speakers, and if you're playing the album loudly, which of course you should be doing, the effect can be even more dramatic. It has happened to me many times, and I am always amazed. Surprisingly, Led Zeppelin never played this song in concert. Perhaps the opening riff would have shocked the audience. Or the monkey?
Jimmy Page with another incredible guitar riff, he sure had loads of them.
Wow, Summertime has been covered more than 33,000 times!!! Janis Joplin's 'Summertime' begins like someone is lazily stretching out after an afternoon nap, curtain blowing lightly, sunshine and a cool breeze. Janis sings with such laid-back soul, her voice rising and falling with the music. The interplay of guitarists Sam Andrew and James Gurley is the classic Haight Ashbury sound of the 60s.
An energetic tune about the British working class shaking loose the chains and going off on a relaxing seaside holiday. The pulling mussels part is the young narrator getting lucky with a girl, making his holiday 'complete'.
In addition to the memorable lyrics, there are great slashing guitar chords, and from 1:45 - 2:36 we get a wonderful middle instrumental section. Guitar kicks it off, then at 2:00 it gets into this cool dueling one note groove, and at 2:14 Jools Holland begins a boogie woogie piano bop that hits the sweet spot at 2:31, reining it all in prior to the start of the next verse.
Squeeze were a band I never liked until after the fact. In retrospect. That whole hindsight is 20/20 thing. I think my friend Leslie liked them and I probably gave her grief for that. Well, I don't like everything they did, and the compilation CD I have, Singles - 45's and Under, is probably enough.'Tempted', 'If I didn't Love You', those are a couple of other tunes I like.
Jimi Hendrix took this Bob Dylan tune and turned it into his own monumentally panoramically spaghetti westernly classic. Brian Jones on the vibraslap at the end of each opening bar, makes me think of Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef calmly sizing each other up in some dusty lawless town. I never knew Brian Jones played on this, what a bittersweet discovery. Wow, Dave Mason too? Argghhh, can't believe I didn't know this...well, glad to know it now.
The story unfolds....the joker speaks to the thief about his troubles. The blues. Life is a drag. He finishes his words at 0:52 and Jimi cranks out a nice solo in solidarity. At 1:09, the thief 'kindly' speaks. He can sympathize and says there are 'many here among us who feel that life is but a joke.' But he says, let's not talk about this tonight, it's getting late.
1:43 - so the joker and thief wander off into the night, Jimi blazing a trail for them to follow. At 2:00 they fall asleep and are swept off into some sort of dream land (my favorite part). At 2:17 they wake from their slumber and realize they aren't quite sure where they are. A wah wah chaos of tumbleweeds and dust encircles them as they attempt to get their situation in order. 2:33 - back on some trail, with a growing sense of urgency.
2:50 - The joker and the thief have traveled over distance and time, and now out of nowhere they approach a fortress of princes, damsels, servants, possibly various other court attendants, who may have been aware of them for awhile, observing them from the watchtower. But they are not there yet. They must deal with growling wildcats and howling winds. I've always preferred a happy ending - they finally make it to the castle and are welcomed with hearty meals and bowls of mead.
Love the video! Look at those little Gary Numans cruising along the keyboard at 2:47. One of the ultimate examples of new wave music, Cars was built in a garage full of Super Synthesizers! Electronic drum explosions, bubbling cauldrons, the siren that blares fire! fire! get out!, drum explosions become more intense....and one of my favorite outros. It just keeps going with those drum fills and piled on synth harmonics. Ear candy.
Ah, back to the trippy magical psychedelic night light. Feedback opening. This is your basic two chord masterpiece, from the excellent Nuggets II box set. Do I want to take this Path Through the Forest? I don't think so. But for now I'll enjoy it vicariously through this song. The idea of insanity does not appeal to me, no matter how wild the trip might be. But you might. If something goes wrong, I hope I can visit you in one psych ward or another.
The vocals have that eerie hidden among the trees quality. Where are you, voice? All around me, but nowhere in particular. Hey, Mark! I am singing to you through the pay phone over there. Oh, yes, I see it. Thanks. But what's a pay phone doing here in the forest? It's not. You're at a 7-11, idiot. Don't you remember? You were all scared to take the path, waaah waah, I might end up in a psych ward. Waah I'm so scared. Oh yeah, I remember now...I just wrote that. So...you don't know what you're talking about with the vocals, do you? No, sir.
Anyhow, I've decided the guitar is the vehicle that's gonna get me safely through the forest. It is so amazingly cool. Yes, now I will take the path. I am confident that the guitar is there to protect me. Besides, The Factory were, like, a bunch of teenagers or something! Mustn't show fear. Must be brave. Nice teenagers. Shshsure I will take the path. What, you think I'm scared or something?
If You Leave Me Now is a nostalgic trip to my childhood. It was released in 1976, when I was nine years old. I have vivid memories of hearing it during that summer, driving around in the VW Beetle with my Mom, hanging out at Deerspring Pool as it played over the loudspeakers. In a way, it is a kind of security blanket. In my mind's catalogue of songs, it shares a drawer with 'If you could read my mind.' Maybe I like soft songs with 'if' in the title? Nah...'If'' by Bread would never be allowed past security. Kick that one to the curb. That's the song that starts out with that 'wawawawawa...wawawawawa...'sound. 'If a man could throw up on a song, then why can't I throw up on it too...' hahaha.
But......I digress. IYLMN was a global smash for Chicago, hitting #1 in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, The Netherlands. I think it inspired every song in Air Supply's catalogue. It starts out all soft and gentle, light horns and strings, a finger cymbal. Peter Cetera busts out his high-pitched Beach Boy vocals. Nice harmonies, a soft Terry Kath acoustic guitar solo, joined by strings. The only part I don't like is around 2:00, those rising strings are totally over the top and unnecessary. And I can always do without frickin James Pankow and his trombone, ughhh. I especially love the layered string buildup on the outro. And how about Cetera's 'Oooh, girl, just got to have you by my side' scat. OK, this is not the kind of music I typically listen to, but it's like being a Cubs fan...I can't not like this song, no matter how I try. Now, 'Hard to say I'm sorry?' OMG, Yuck.
'Everything is everything.' I love the friendly chatter that opens this sweet tune. What's Going On was co-written by Renaldo 'Obie' Benson, a member of the Four Tops, Motown songwriter Al Cleveland, and Marvin Gaye. Benson had witnessed police brutality in Berkeley and was really shook up by it. He began to ask himself all sorts of questions, like why were kids being sent off to Vietnam? and why were kids being beaten at home? Marvin Gaye was asking himself, with all the problems going on in my country, how am I supposed to keep singing love songs? The song is a plea for people to talk with each other and explore alternatives to war and violence. 'For only love can conquer hate.' It's amazing to me that this song is still relevant all these years later. Will our world ever evolve to the kind of existence that everyone can enjoy?
Musically, I've always loved the drums. Marvin Gaye played a box drum accompaniment to the regular drums, producing this oversized ping pong ball quality. The saxophone opening is a classic. The legendary James Jamerson played the bass while laying on the floor. Excellent string arrangement.
I will always think of this song as the one with the video that had all the animals in it. Plus the guy hanging around the zoo with his mouth shut.
Here we are, in the high season of mid-80s synth pop. The early days of cable. MTV, Friday Night Videos, Night Flight, Night Tracks on superstation WTBS. Fun times. 1984.
The best part of this song for me are the synth chords during the lead in to the chorus, after 'one half won't do.' They are deliciously warm and brilliant.
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