WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE
An eclectic bunch of tunes for the end of summer [sigh] . . . .
1. "When I Live My Dream" / David Bowie
From David Bowie (1967)
Before he was Ziggy Stardust, Bowie's first album featured a quirky mix of songs like this Anthony Newley knock-off. (Pizzicato strings! A triangle!) Insurance, just in case the rock-and-roll thing didn't pan out, you know...
2. "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" / The Walker Brothers
From Portrait (1966)
A trio from California, none of them really brothers, who found success by moving to the UK in 1965 -- payback for the British Invasion, I guess. Their first hit was Bacharach & David's "Make It Easy On Yourself" (remember the Jerry Butler version?); this single got a little more airplay in the States and cracked the top 20. I love how they copied that Righteous Brothers white-soul sound perfectly, all echo and back-up choirs and manly harmonies. "The sun ain't gonna shine anymore / The moon ain't gonna rise in the skies / The tears are always clouding your eyes" -- tear those heart-strings!
3. "You're Telling Me" / Alan Price
From Between Today and Yesterday (1974)
After O Lucky Man!, where could Alan Price go? Well, it took him a while -- the record company rejected his first try, Savaloy Dip (a long-lost album, until my friend Tony discovered a carton of 8-track tapes in a record warehouse's dumpster). But undaunted, Price bounced back with this masterpiece LP, perhaps best known for the UK hit "Jarrow Song." This song is the highlight of side 2, the "today" side, where Price finally unleashes the brooding, bluesy organ riffs we've been waiting for. "My friends all tell me, 'you should be happy, / You have more than many others in this town.' / But I can see now, just what they mean now, / They're my friends until my money lets them down." Yup, that's the cynical Alan Price we know and love.
4. "He's Evil" / The Kinks
From Preservation Act 2 (1974)
Another favorite album from 1974 -- totally different, of course, with Ray Davies leading the Kinks deep into campy musical theater. Dig the finger-wagging back-up choir in this snappy character sketch of dastardly Mr. Flash, the villain of this dystopian fable. Over and over, building to the finish, "He's evil (he's evil) / He's evil (he's evil) / He's evil, he's evil, he's evil." Get the picture? Yes, we see.
5. "What Good Am I Without You?" / Kim Weston & Marvin Gaye
From Take Two (1966)
Classic Motown duet -- what a groove these two hit together. . . .
6. "Am I Wrong" / Keb' Mo'
From Keb' Mo (1994)
Just Keb' and his steel guitar, with handclaps and a few grunts providing snappy percussion -- and it's divine. How can he be wrong, falling in love with her, when her other man was out there cheatin' and lyin' and steppin' all over her? Sexiest line: "Just want to make a home for you, baby / And all of your children too."
7. "You Are What You Love" / Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins
From Rabbit Fur Coat (2005)
Jenny's spunky, tuneful first solo album, her breakaway from Rilo Kiley, was so good. . . .what's happened since?
8. "Ain't That Loving You" / Sir Douglas Quintet
From Soul Jam (2000 -- compilation)
South Side Chicago blues, filtered through Texas. You may know this old chestnut by Deadric Malone -- alias Houston black record producer Don Robey -- from the Grateful Dead's version, or Buddy Guy's. (Elvis Presley's was a different song -- man, this stuff gets confusing.) But man oh man, did Doug Sahm have a great voice -- I could listen to him sing the Yellow Pages and I'd be happy.
9. "These Roads Don't Move" / Jay Farrar & Benjamin Gibbard
From Big Sur (2009)
Wonder what Kerouac would've thought of Jay and Ben turning his prose into Americana music?
10. "What Is Wrong, What Is Right?" / Herman's Hermits
From Very Best of Herman's Hermits (compilation)
This 1966 B-side proves that there was more to Herman's Hermits than the teen fan mags ever let us know -- just as I always suspected!
Showing posts with label Motown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Motown. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 01, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE
It's back! (Sorry for the week's lapse). And better than ever, I'm tempted to add -- except there's no way of knowing ahead of time.
1. "Heartbeat" / The Knack
From Get the Knack, 1979
Hard to resist a cheery power-pop gem like this one, on the same album as the classic "My Sharona." He's SO excited by his new lover -- "Heartbeat, why do you miss / When my baby kisses me?" One of the great philosophical questions...
2. "Broke My Heart" / Tim Easton
From Porcupine (2009)
Another bit of philosophy, delivered with alt-country twang, as Tim Easton hoarsely declaims: "There's only two things left in this world / Love / And the lack thereof." It's the flip side of love, after she's dumped him -- though it's quite a punchy rocker, with an insidious hook.
3. "Please Mr. Postman" / The Marvelettes
From Please Mr. Postman (1961)
All those early Beatles covers -- I still think of them as the originals. But there's a certain pleasure in hearing the classic girl group version, Motown's first #1 pop single back in 1961. I love the idea that the Beatles discovered all this American black music through records American sailors sold while in port in Liverpool. Most Americans weren't listening to it then!
4. "Flesh Cartoons" / Robyn Hitchcock
From Eye (1990)
Another whimsically surreal artifact from the master of folk-psych, Robyn Hitchcock, coolly distancing himself from a gallery of absurd characters. "I'm just watching on my own flesh cartoons" -- what the hell is going on in this song? Who cares?
5. "After Hours" / The 88
From The 88 (2010)
Hello -- you're not supposed to be hearing this song yet; it's from an unreleased album that I'm reviewing. Cute little indie-pop band from California, opened for Ray Davies last tour? Trust me, you'll like them.
6. "Business Time" / Flight of the Conchords
From Flight of the Conchords (2008)
Funniest Barry White send-up ever, from this New Zealand musical duo (you may have seen their HBO comedy show). "Next thing you know, we're in the bedroom . . . you're wearing that baggy old ugly teeshirt you got from your work several years ago . . . you know the one, baby, with the curry stain . . . You know when I'm down to my socks, it's time for business -- that's why they call them business socks!" Making love, making love for two, making love for two minutes!
7. "So Heavy" / Nick Lowe
From The Wilderness Years (compilation)
A deservedly obscure mid-70s Nick Lowe track, from those post-Brinsley Schwarz, pre-Rockpile years. Even Nick can't remember anything about this outtake.
8. "Drinkin'" / Reel Big Fish
From We're Not Happy 'Til You're Not Happy (2005)
An ebullient little bit of ska-punk -- "If I go out drinkin' / Then I can stop thinkin' / About how the world has done me wrong." Forget the usual lugubrious drunkard's anthem, this one staggers down the alley with a hectic tempo and a cheerful flourish of horns.
9. "Sing A Sad Song" / Merle Haggard
From Strangers (1965)
Complete change of pace here, slowing down to a spur-jangling country lilt, from Merle Haggard's debut album. Heartbreaks by the number, in true country style.
10. "The Right Place" / Monsters of Folk
From Monsters of Folk (2009)
More rootsy rambling, this time from the indie world, with Yim Yames (a.k.a. My Morning Jacket's Jim James) happily harmonizing with his fellow M.O.F.-ers M. Ward, Conor Oberst, and Mike Mogis. I loved this album so much more than I expected to -- whether you call it a side project or a super-group, it's still amazing. Hope it's not a one-time deal!
It's back! (Sorry for the week's lapse). And better than ever, I'm tempted to add -- except there's no way of knowing ahead of time.
1. "Heartbeat" / The Knack
From Get the Knack, 1979
Hard to resist a cheery power-pop gem like this one, on the same album as the classic "My Sharona." He's SO excited by his new lover -- "Heartbeat, why do you miss / When my baby kisses me?" One of the great philosophical questions...
2. "Broke My Heart" / Tim Easton
From Porcupine (2009)
Another bit of philosophy, delivered with alt-country twang, as Tim Easton hoarsely declaims: "There's only two things left in this world / Love / And the lack thereof." It's the flip side of love, after she's dumped him -- though it's quite a punchy rocker, with an insidious hook.
3. "Please Mr. Postman" / The Marvelettes
From Please Mr. Postman (1961)
All those early Beatles covers -- I still think of them as the originals. But there's a certain pleasure in hearing the classic girl group version, Motown's first #1 pop single back in 1961. I love the idea that the Beatles discovered all this American black music through records American sailors sold while in port in Liverpool. Most Americans weren't listening to it then!
4. "Flesh Cartoons" / Robyn Hitchcock
From Eye (1990)
Another whimsically surreal artifact from the master of folk-psych, Robyn Hitchcock, coolly distancing himself from a gallery of absurd characters. "I'm just watching on my own flesh cartoons" -- what the hell is going on in this song? Who cares?
5. "After Hours" / The 88
From The 88 (2010)
Hello -- you're not supposed to be hearing this song yet; it's from an unreleased album that I'm reviewing. Cute little indie-pop band from California, opened for Ray Davies last tour? Trust me, you'll like them.
6. "Business Time" / Flight of the Conchords
From Flight of the Conchords (2008)
Funniest Barry White send-up ever, from this New Zealand musical duo (you may have seen their HBO comedy show). "Next thing you know, we're in the bedroom . . . you're wearing that baggy old ugly teeshirt you got from your work several years ago . . . you know the one, baby, with the curry stain . . . You know when I'm down to my socks, it's time for business -- that's why they call them business socks!" Making love, making love for two, making love for two minutes!
7. "So Heavy" / Nick Lowe
From The Wilderness Years (compilation)
A deservedly obscure mid-70s Nick Lowe track, from those post-Brinsley Schwarz, pre-Rockpile years. Even Nick can't remember anything about this outtake.
8. "Drinkin'" / Reel Big Fish
From We're Not Happy 'Til You're Not Happy (2005)
An ebullient little bit of ska-punk -- "If I go out drinkin' / Then I can stop thinkin' / About how the world has done me wrong." Forget the usual lugubrious drunkard's anthem, this one staggers down the alley with a hectic tempo and a cheerful flourish of horns.
9. "Sing A Sad Song" / Merle Haggard
From Strangers (1965)
Complete change of pace here, slowing down to a spur-jangling country lilt, from Merle Haggard's debut album. Heartbreaks by the number, in true country style.
10. "The Right Place" / Monsters of Folk
From Monsters of Folk (2009)
More rootsy rambling, this time from the indie world, with Yim Yames (a.k.a. My Morning Jacket's Jim James) happily harmonizing with his fellow M.O.F.-ers M. Ward, Conor Oberst, and Mike Mogis. I loved this album so much more than I expected to -- whether you call it a side project or a super-group, it's still amazing. Hope it's not a one-time deal!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 71-75
I realize that most of these are "transition" songs -- singles that crept into my heart during down times when my big music manias (British Invasion, New Wave) had spent themselves. Indianapolis was more of a Motown city than you might expect, so it was inevitable that some soul classics would land here, as much a part of my musical DNA as the British beat stuff is. Jump from there to the 1980s to find an oddball pair of MTV-enhanced songs, among the last singles I ever owned in the Decade That Killed Rock Music.
[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]
71. "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" / Bill Withers (1971)
By 1971, Motown fare already felt too slick -- R&B and rock were moving closer and closer to each other, and they didn't need to be kept in separate boxes anymore. When I hear Bill Withers' debut hit, though, it still feels like a real sea change to me. I was a senior in high school, a founding member of our school's crunchy-granola Human Relations Forum; we thrilled to this song, believing that Sam Cooke's longed-for change was finally gonna come. Withers' voice had a creased and weathered quality so different from the mellifluencies of Marvin Gaye or Smokey Robinson; this song was produced by Stax mainstay Booker T (released on Sussex Records), but the personnel also included rockers like Steven Stills on guitar and Jim Keltner on drums. Even more important, "Ain't No Sunshine" had a restless, provocative bite -- those morose verses, with their glum plodding bassline (Donald "Duck" Dunn?) and repeated melody -- "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone / It's not warm when she's away / Ain't no sunshine when she's gone / And she's always gone too long, anytime she goes away." Who knows why she's away -- a quarrel? infidelity? or is she just a free spirit? He's so down in the dumps (hear the grief-stricken swell of those minor-key strings), he can't even tell us. And of course, the best part: "Well I know I know I know I know I know" repeated 27 times, sung with shifting syncopation on one loooooong breath that finally peters into a croak. We just had to sing along with the "I knows," every time, it was so damn cathartic. Apparently Withers -- who when he recorded this still had a day job in a toilet-seat factory -- sang it this way in the studio as a placekeeper, intending to write a "proper" chorus, Holland-Dozier-Holland-style. Thank god Booker T was there to stop him.
72. "Standing in the Shadows of Love" / The Four Tops (1966)
The Temptations may have been Motown's most reliable hitmakers, but I'm sorry, in a smackdown between the Temptations and the Four Tops, I'd always choose the Four Tops.
73. "Tears Of A Clown" / Smokey Robinson & the Miracles (1970)
(No, not "Death of a Clown" -- sorry, Dave Davies fans.)
So why "Tears of a Clown" and not "Tracks of My Tears" -- Smokey Robinson's 1965 mega-hit, one of the greatest soul recordings ever made? I really struggled with this one. Frankly, in my mind the two songs always run together -- "Tracks of My Tears" has basically the same theme (that great line "my smile is my make-up I wear since my break-up with you"). In fact this was originally conceived as a follow-up to "Tracks of My Tears," taking that laughing/crying dichotomy one step further -- working that clown imagery, even throwing in some strains of circus calliope and a reference to Pagliacci (for those few Motown fans who also listened to grand opera?). But while "Tracks" may be slower and more earnest, "Tears of a Clown" seems way more poignant to me. I was won over by that winsome melody, courtesy of co-writer Stevie Wonder (the only Motown artist I loved more than Smokey Robinson); it's perfect for Smokey's high breathy voice. "Now if there's a smile on my face / It's only there trying to fool the public / But when it comes down to fooling you / Now honey that's quite a different subject" (that "public/subject" rhyme kills me). Brisk and perky as the song seems, there's just enough creepy desperation in the arrangement -- listen to those shrill piccolos competing with a lagging bassoon -- because, I dunno, what's creepier and more haunting than a sad clown? I can just imagine this guy dancing as fast as he can, juggling all his balls in the air, even as his heart is breaking. I'll admit that "Track of My Tears" has been forever tainted for me by Linda Ronstadt's cover. But ultimately, as with so many songs on this list, it's all a question of timing. When "Tracks of My Tears" came out, I was lost in a British Invasion fog, but by 1970 my ears thirsted for Motown again. And of course, a year later Motown would leave Detroit and the whole soul thing would split wide open...
74. "Come On Eileen" / Dexy's Midnight Runners (1982)
Just listen to all the surprises in this song. That sappy Celtic folk fiddle opening ("Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms"!!), switching in a heartbeat to a chugging rock & roll jig that was yet somehow ska-flavored -- strange and wonderful. "C'mon Eye-leen!" Dexy yelps in the background -- love the Irish pronunciation -- and then he and his mates work their way up a scale singing "Too-ra-loo-rye-ay." It was just this side of a novelty number. But why shouldn't an Irish rock song sound like it came from Ireland? (It's no accident it lasted for 11 weeks as #1 on the Irish charts.) Dexy invokes the spirit of "Poor old Johnny Ray," whose music spoke to an earlier generation -- but how can modern kids relate to those elders, with their "beaten-down eyes / Sunk in smoke-dried faces, they're so resigned to what their fate is." He needs a new untarnished sound, something for his generation, and thank god New Wave music had expanded the available vocabulary. Naturally he's got an ulterior motive -- he wants Eileen to shrug off those old Catholic morals and sleep with him. ("At this moment / You mean everything," he pants; "With you in that dress / My thoughts I confess / Verge on dirty.") He's pulling out every trick he can think of. Keys change, tempos change; the syncopated jig gives way to a march, and then it crashes to a halt for that bridge -- "Come on [beat] / Eileen, too-rah-ay!" begun as a lumbering chant, then accelerating into absolute frenzy. I loved this song even before I saw the video, but the video sealed the deal -- a grainy black-and-white beauty directed by Julian Temple, with Dexy and Eileen wandering around gritty urban streets in sleeveless tanks and loose denim overalls. I guess I wasn't surprised that we never heard of Dexy's Midnight Runners again -- what were the odds they'd catch lightning in a bottle twice?
75. "Wrap It Up" / The Fabulous Thunderbirds (1986)
Kim and Jimmie helped me get through 1987 -- the year we lived through major apartment renovation with a colicky newborn baby. I'm sure our neighbors hated this song, though; we played it often, and loud.
Nos. 71-75
I realize that most of these are "transition" songs -- singles that crept into my heart during down times when my big music manias (British Invasion, New Wave) had spent themselves. Indianapolis was more of a Motown city than you might expect, so it was inevitable that some soul classics would land here, as much a part of my musical DNA as the British beat stuff is. Jump from there to the 1980s to find an oddball pair of MTV-enhanced songs, among the last singles I ever owned in the Decade That Killed Rock Music.
[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]
71. "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" / Bill Withers (1971)
By 1971, Motown fare already felt too slick -- R&B and rock were moving closer and closer to each other, and they didn't need to be kept in separate boxes anymore. When I hear Bill Withers' debut hit, though, it still feels like a real sea change to me. I was a senior in high school, a founding member of our school's crunchy-granola Human Relations Forum; we thrilled to this song, believing that Sam Cooke's longed-for change was finally gonna come. Withers' voice had a creased and weathered quality so different from the mellifluencies of Marvin Gaye or Smokey Robinson; this song was produced by Stax mainstay Booker T (released on Sussex Records), but the personnel also included rockers like Steven Stills on guitar and Jim Keltner on drums. Even more important, "Ain't No Sunshine" had a restless, provocative bite -- those morose verses, with their glum plodding bassline (Donald "Duck" Dunn?) and repeated melody -- "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone / It's not warm when she's away / Ain't no sunshine when she's gone / And she's always gone too long, anytime she goes away." Who knows why she's away -- a quarrel? infidelity? or is she just a free spirit? He's so down in the dumps (hear the grief-stricken swell of those minor-key strings), he can't even tell us. And of course, the best part: "Well I know I know I know I know I know" repeated 27 times, sung with shifting syncopation on one loooooong breath that finally peters into a croak. We just had to sing along with the "I knows," every time, it was so damn cathartic. Apparently Withers -- who when he recorded this still had a day job in a toilet-seat factory -- sang it this way in the studio as a placekeeper, intending to write a "proper" chorus, Holland-Dozier-Holland-style. Thank god Booker T was there to stop him.
72. "Standing in the Shadows of Love" / The Four Tops (1966)
The Temptations may have been Motown's most reliable hitmakers, but I'm sorry, in a smackdown between the Temptations and the Four Tops, I'd always choose the Four Tops.
73. "Tears Of A Clown" / Smokey Robinson & the Miracles (1970)
(No, not "Death of a Clown" -- sorry, Dave Davies fans.)
So why "Tears of a Clown" and not "Tracks of My Tears" -- Smokey Robinson's 1965 mega-hit, one of the greatest soul recordings ever made? I really struggled with this one. Frankly, in my mind the two songs always run together -- "Tracks of My Tears" has basically the same theme (that great line "my smile is my make-up I wear since my break-up with you"). In fact this was originally conceived as a follow-up to "Tracks of My Tears," taking that laughing/crying dichotomy one step further -- working that clown imagery, even throwing in some strains of circus calliope and a reference to Pagliacci (for those few Motown fans who also listened to grand opera?). But while "Tracks" may be slower and more earnest, "Tears of a Clown" seems way more poignant to me. I was won over by that winsome melody, courtesy of co-writer Stevie Wonder (the only Motown artist I loved more than Smokey Robinson); it's perfect for Smokey's high breathy voice. "Now if there's a smile on my face / It's only there trying to fool the public / But when it comes down to fooling you / Now honey that's quite a different subject" (that "public/subject" rhyme kills me). Brisk and perky as the song seems, there's just enough creepy desperation in the arrangement -- listen to those shrill piccolos competing with a lagging bassoon -- because, I dunno, what's creepier and more haunting than a sad clown? I can just imagine this guy dancing as fast as he can, juggling all his balls in the air, even as his heart is breaking. I'll admit that "Track of My Tears" has been forever tainted for me by Linda Ronstadt's cover. But ultimately, as with so many songs on this list, it's all a question of timing. When "Tracks of My Tears" came out, I was lost in a British Invasion fog, but by 1970 my ears thirsted for Motown again. And of course, a year later Motown would leave Detroit and the whole soul thing would split wide open...
74. "Come On Eileen" / Dexy's Midnight Runners (1982)
Just listen to all the surprises in this song. That sappy Celtic folk fiddle opening ("Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms"!!), switching in a heartbeat to a chugging rock & roll jig that was yet somehow ska-flavored -- strange and wonderful. "C'mon Eye-leen!" Dexy yelps in the background -- love the Irish pronunciation -- and then he and his mates work their way up a scale singing "Too-ra-loo-rye-ay." It was just this side of a novelty number. But why shouldn't an Irish rock song sound like it came from Ireland? (It's no accident it lasted for 11 weeks as #1 on the Irish charts.) Dexy invokes the spirit of "Poor old Johnny Ray," whose music spoke to an earlier generation -- but how can modern kids relate to those elders, with their "beaten-down eyes / Sunk in smoke-dried faces, they're so resigned to what their fate is." He needs a new untarnished sound, something for his generation, and thank god New Wave music had expanded the available vocabulary. Naturally he's got an ulterior motive -- he wants Eileen to shrug off those old Catholic morals and sleep with him. ("At this moment / You mean everything," he pants; "With you in that dress / My thoughts I confess / Verge on dirty.") He's pulling out every trick he can think of. Keys change, tempos change; the syncopated jig gives way to a march, and then it crashes to a halt for that bridge -- "Come on [beat] / Eileen, too-rah-ay!" begun as a lumbering chant, then accelerating into absolute frenzy. I loved this song even before I saw the video, but the video sealed the deal -- a grainy black-and-white beauty directed by Julian Temple, with Dexy and Eileen wandering around gritty urban streets in sleeveless tanks and loose denim overalls. I guess I wasn't surprised that we never heard of Dexy's Midnight Runners again -- what were the odds they'd catch lightning in a bottle twice?
75. "Wrap It Up" / The Fabulous Thunderbirds (1986)
Kim and Jimmie helped me get through 1987 -- the year we lived through major apartment renovation with a colicky newborn baby. I'm sure our neighbors hated this song, though; we played it often, and loud.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
"Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" / Michael Jackson
What can I add to the tsunami of commentary on the death of Michael Jackson? I wouldn't bother at all, except that everywhere I turn for the past couple of days there has been Michael Jackson music playing, and it is way too catchy not to get stuck in my head. Here I have been away from this blog for months, finishing a book (and then, for the past few days, officially on vacation -- see my other blog The Family Truckster) -- how ironic that it should be Michael Jackson to haul me back.
Sadly, however, I notice that the songs being played are mostly from the first half of his career, up through his hugely successful Thriller album. Did the man not record any music later? Of course he did, and a chart I saw in USA Today says that many of those later albums -- Bad, HIStory, et cetera -- sold in the range of 7 million copies each. Who was buying those records?
I loved all those early Jackson 5 Motown hits, of course -- who could fail to love those? -- but for me Michael Jackson's crowning achievement was Off The Wall, the album where he finally declared himself a grown-up artist. And of all the intoxicating dance songs on that album, "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" is my favorite. Those little shimmers of synthesized strings runnning through it, like shivers of desire; the insistent pulsating rhythm and the backbeat melody; Michael's wails and vocal spasms -- it's such a sexualized tapestry of sound.
Oh, yes, brothers and sister, listening to this track you could have no doubt that Michael Jackson had experienced sex. Exactly what kind of sex he had experienced was always up for speculation, but there is something so flesh-and-blood about this track, you couldn't deny it. And there's just enough melodic darkness to his riffs, just enough jerkiness to the rhythms, to give it an undertow of menace. Kinkiness, even.
I'm not going to analyze the lyrics, because they barely exist -- it's the disco-tized texture of this recording that's the real genius. Michael seems totally in thrall to animal desire on this track. He sounds hynotized, imprisoned, delirious, out of control. He doesn't sound happy, and yet he's ecstatic. The ambivalence of this song is simply mind-blowing. Who knew that Michael (not yet Jacko, the grotesque thing he would become) could be so complex?
What can I add to the tsunami of commentary on the death of Michael Jackson? I wouldn't bother at all, except that everywhere I turn for the past couple of days there has been Michael Jackson music playing, and it is way too catchy not to get stuck in my head. Here I have been away from this blog for months, finishing a book (and then, for the past few days, officially on vacation -- see my other blog The Family Truckster) -- how ironic that it should be Michael Jackson to haul me back.
Sadly, however, I notice that the songs being played are mostly from the first half of his career, up through his hugely successful Thriller album. Did the man not record any music later? Of course he did, and a chart I saw in USA Today says that many of those later albums -- Bad, HIStory, et cetera -- sold in the range of 7 million copies each. Who was buying those records?
I loved all those early Jackson 5 Motown hits, of course -- who could fail to love those? -- but for me Michael Jackson's crowning achievement was Off The Wall, the album where he finally declared himself a grown-up artist. And of all the intoxicating dance songs on that album, "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" is my favorite. Those little shimmers of synthesized strings runnning through it, like shivers of desire; the insistent pulsating rhythm and the backbeat melody; Michael's wails and vocal spasms -- it's such a sexualized tapestry of sound.
Oh, yes, brothers and sister, listening to this track you could have no doubt that Michael Jackson had experienced sex. Exactly what kind of sex he had experienced was always up for speculation, but there is something so flesh-and-blood about this track, you couldn't deny it. And there's just enough melodic darkness to his riffs, just enough jerkiness to the rhythms, to give it an undertow of menace. Kinkiness, even.
I'm not going to analyze the lyrics, because they barely exist -- it's the disco-tized texture of this recording that's the real genius. Michael seems totally in thrall to animal desire on this track. He sounds hynotized, imprisoned, delirious, out of control. He doesn't sound happy, and yet he's ecstatic. The ambivalence of this song is simply mind-blowing. Who knew that Michael (not yet Jacko, the grotesque thing he would become) could be so complex?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
“Standing in the Shadows of Love” / The Four Tops
28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS
Even if you’re happy in love, listening to this Holland-Dozier-Holland anthem to a love gone wrong could pitch you right into doubt and despair. It’s been covered by everybody, but the definitive version is, and always will be, the Four Tops’ 1966 original, with Levi Stubbs pouring out his soul on lead vocals and maestro James Jamerson administering a good spanking on bass guitar.
Along the time continuum of a love affair, this song sets its quivering needle on a very specific moment – after the first few setbacks, and just before the real shit hits the fan. He’s poised right on the brink, trembling apprehensively--it would be easier if he were blissfully unaware, but no, he knows what’s coming. The way that melody plods manfully up the minor scale, doggedly on the beat, you can guess he’s been through this sort of grief before; he’s sick at heart already.
“Standing in the shadows of love / I‘m getting ready for the heartaches to come” – there’s the where, who, and what of the story laid out; all we need to figure out now is the why. As the chorus proceeds, Levi struggles against the inevitable, erupting in spontaneous phrases like “Can’t you see me?” and “Now wait a minute!” In the verse, he trips wildly all over the beat, desperately testifying: “I wanna run / But there’s no place to go / For heartaches will find me, I know. / Without your love, a love I need / It’s the beginning of the end of me.” Levi’s heaves of emotion on “be-gin-ning of the end” are just priceless.
Thanks to superb Motown production, this song sounds like a traffic jam of warring noises--the commiserating oohs of the back-up vocals, the inexorable tick-tock of drums, the warning hiss of tambourine and shakers, the jittery scramble of electric guitars. (I'm surprised to discover that there are no horns in here.) There's nothing clean or crisp about it at all -- since when was love crisp or clean?
Forever and always, though, the best thing about this song – and one of the great moments ever in soul music – is this bridge: “Didn’t I always treat you right, now baby didn’t I? / Didn’t I do the best I could now didn’t I?” The rest of the instruments suddenly drop off, leaving just those wild congas going at it like a vein throbbing in his temple. It’s the same melodic line as the chorus, but jiggered up with frantic syncopation, like a Morse code of anxiety. Confusion, anger, and accusation swim together; he’s wagging a warning finger, and wringing his hands all at the same time. He repeats this three times in the song, each time with slightly different words, but the effect is always the same: a long slow boil of righteous indignation.
Sure, other times in the song he wails about being left alone “with misery my only company” and “I’ve got nothing but sorrow” and “I’m trying not to cry out loud” – but the mood of this song is not self-pity. If he’s standing in the shadows, he’s not moping there – he’s lurking, fists clenched, getting ready to make his move. At the beginning of the song, I feel like they still have a shot at making things up, but by the end? Not a chance in hell.
Standing in the Shadows of Love sample
28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS
Even if you’re happy in love, listening to this Holland-Dozier-Holland anthem to a love gone wrong could pitch you right into doubt and despair. It’s been covered by everybody, but the definitive version is, and always will be, the Four Tops’ 1966 original, with Levi Stubbs pouring out his soul on lead vocals and maestro James Jamerson administering a good spanking on bass guitar.
Along the time continuum of a love affair, this song sets its quivering needle on a very specific moment – after the first few setbacks, and just before the real shit hits the fan. He’s poised right on the brink, trembling apprehensively--it would be easier if he were blissfully unaware, but no, he knows what’s coming. The way that melody plods manfully up the minor scale, doggedly on the beat, you can guess he’s been through this sort of grief before; he’s sick at heart already.
“Standing in the shadows of love / I‘m getting ready for the heartaches to come” – there’s the where, who, and what of the story laid out; all we need to figure out now is the why. As the chorus proceeds, Levi struggles against the inevitable, erupting in spontaneous phrases like “Can’t you see me?” and “Now wait a minute!” In the verse, he trips wildly all over the beat, desperately testifying: “I wanna run / But there’s no place to go / For heartaches will find me, I know. / Without your love, a love I need / It’s the beginning of the end of me.” Levi’s heaves of emotion on “be-gin-ning of the end” are just priceless.
Thanks to superb Motown production, this song sounds like a traffic jam of warring noises--the commiserating oohs of the back-up vocals, the inexorable tick-tock of drums, the warning hiss of tambourine and shakers, the jittery scramble of electric guitars. (I'm surprised to discover that there are no horns in here.) There's nothing clean or crisp about it at all -- since when was love crisp or clean?
Forever and always, though, the best thing about this song – and one of the great moments ever in soul music – is this bridge: “Didn’t I always treat you right, now baby didn’t I? / Didn’t I do the best I could now didn’t I?” The rest of the instruments suddenly drop off, leaving just those wild congas going at it like a vein throbbing in his temple. It’s the same melodic line as the chorus, but jiggered up with frantic syncopation, like a Morse code of anxiety. Confusion, anger, and accusation swim together; he’s wagging a warning finger, and wringing his hands all at the same time. He repeats this three times in the song, each time with slightly different words, but the effect is always the same: a long slow boil of righteous indignation.
Sure, other times in the song he wails about being left alone “with misery my only company” and “I’ve got nothing but sorrow” and “I’m trying not to cry out loud” – but the mood of this song is not self-pity. If he’s standing in the shadows, he’s not moping there – he’s lurking, fists clenched, getting ready to make his move. At the beginning of the song, I feel like they still have a shot at making things up, but by the end? Not a chance in hell.
Standing in the Shadows of Love sample
Monday, February 02, 2009
“I Was Made to Love Her” / Stevie Wonder
28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS
I suppose I could have written about “I Just Called to Say I Love You” – but after Jack Black’s record-store tirade in High Fidelity, I’ll never again admit I like that song.
It’s still safe to like early Stevie Wonder, though, right? This one’s just a pure, clear soul beauty from 1967. It’s a perfect Happy In Love song, about two childhood sweethearts who are still together. Except for a little parental friction way in the past (“my papa disapproved it, / My mama boo-hooed it”), they’ve made it through and are still happy together.
He almost sounds out of breath, rushing enthusiastically through word-crammed lines. As Stevie flash-forwards through their lives, he tosses off glancing details – “I was born in Little Rock,” “I wore hightop shoes and shirt tails / Susie was in pigtails,” and my favorite, “I was knee-high to a chicken / When that love bug bit me.” Mountains are crumbling, trees are blossoming, and Stevie’s got the fever – there isn’t a love song cliché he doesn’t trot out. He strings it all together exultantly, reiterating “My baby loves me / My baby needs me / That’s why we made it through the years” and “Don’t you know I was made to love her / Build a world all around her / Yah! Hey, hey, hey.” It’s completely uncritical, but who cares? Maybe that is the secret to staying happy.
Besides, it’s all just an excuse for Stevie to style away over one of the best rhythm grooves Motown ever crafted -- a confident funk-laden bass line, brash steady drums, topped at the end of every verse with a sassy flourish of vibraphones (or is it some kind of synth?). As the song goes on, they layer on back-up yeah-yeah-yeahs and syncopated strings, and like the icing on the cake, a joyous harmonica solo by Stevie -- man, I'd forgotten what a harmonica prodigy the boy was. It builds and builds, till it's practically bursting through the roof with joy.
Sure, these lovers are still happy together -- and what's more, I'm happy, just listening to him sing about it. If anybody else did this, it would sound simple-minded; but somehow Stevie Wonder can pull off this sort of magic, over and over again.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
"Yesterday" / Marvin Gaye
Usually, Beatles covers are disappointing things to me -- the Beatles did those songs up right the first time, and they just can't be topped. True, I'm not very objective on this subject. Those were the songs I lived on throughout my formative musical years; every riff and drumbeat and vocal flutter is engraved on my heart.
Occasionally, however, I'm forced to make an exception--and this is one of them. I found it on an CD called Motown Meets the Beatles, most of which is just as embarrassing as you'd expect. Did the world really need to hear the Supremes murder "A Hard Day's Night," or Smokey Robinson over-emote his way through "And I Love Her"? But there are a couple revelations on there -- like when Gladys Knight frees the gospel that was always lurking inside "Let It Be," and Stevie Wonder takes "We Can Work It Out" all the way to Funkytown and back. Delicious.
The one that really surprised me, though, is this Marvin Gaye rendition of "Yesterday." Now you know I'm a tough audience for "Yesterday" -- my memory of watching Paul McCartney sit on a stool with an acoustic guitar and croon that on the Ed Sullivan Show is . . . ummmm . . . excuse me, what was I saying? Oh, yes. Well, Paulie stole my heart forever with that song, which was (little known fact) written just for me. It's OUR SONG, and nobody else is supposed to touch it. And yet here comes Marvin Gaye, whose outsized talent I've never quite been able to process, and he dug right down into that lovely little folk-rock ballad and re-invented it as a quintessential soul song. And you know what? It works.
First off, he slows down the tempo, gives it some slinky syncopation, and underlays it with a supremely laidback twangy guitar line. Suddenly there's room to slip in interstices of regret between the phrases -- I can just picture Marvin pausing to shake his head, bite his lip, still trying to sort out why today isn't the same as yesterday. At first his voice floats lightly over the lyrics -- " Yesterday / All my troubles seem so far away" -- it still hasn't sunk in. But by verse two, he's flinging his voice ahead of the tempo, and embellishing Paul's simple sincere lyrics: "Suddenly, people, / I ain't half the man I used to be, no, / There's a heavy, heavy shadow hanging over me-e / Yesterday came all too suddenly."
Self-pity? You bet. But it unleashes a falsetto wail on the bridge: "Oh-oh-oh why-y did she have to go? I don't know / I say I don't know, the little girl wouldn't say / I must, I must have said something wrong / Now I long, long, long for yesterday . . ." And in the same vein, on the third verse, he's writhing with pain, "Now I nee-eed, I need a place to hide away." I certainly believe him. This was given the full Motown Important Song treatment, with swelling strings and xylophones, but it never gets overdone, and the passion in Marvin's exquisite supple voice more than lives up to the production values.
Now, I'm not saying it's better than the McCartney version -- that would be sacrilege. But the point of being a great songwriter should be that your songs stand on their own, that other artists can find different depths in them. (Look at how many fantastic Kinks covers are out there, for example.) I guess the Beatles just cast too long a shadow over their songs, even the minor ones. It's hard for other artists to ignore that definitive Beatle rendition and make it their own. But Marvin Gaye was never short of confidence -- he must have known he had the voice to pull this one off. And oh, what a glorious thing it is.
Yesterday sample
Usually, Beatles covers are disappointing things to me -- the Beatles did those songs up right the first time, and they just can't be topped. True, I'm not very objective on this subject. Those were the songs I lived on throughout my formative musical years; every riff and drumbeat and vocal flutter is engraved on my heart.
Occasionally, however, I'm forced to make an exception--and this is one of them. I found it on an CD called Motown Meets the Beatles, most of which is just as embarrassing as you'd expect. Did the world really need to hear the Supremes murder "A Hard Day's Night," or Smokey Robinson over-emote his way through "And I Love Her"? But there are a couple revelations on there -- like when Gladys Knight frees the gospel that was always lurking inside "Let It Be," and Stevie Wonder takes "We Can Work It Out" all the way to Funkytown and back. Delicious.
The one that really surprised me, though, is this Marvin Gaye rendition of "Yesterday." Now you know I'm a tough audience for "Yesterday" -- my memory of watching Paul McCartney sit on a stool with an acoustic guitar and croon that on the Ed Sullivan Show is . . . ummmm . . . excuse me, what was I saying? Oh, yes. Well, Paulie stole my heart forever with that song, which was (little known fact) written just for me. It's OUR SONG, and nobody else is supposed to touch it. And yet here comes Marvin Gaye, whose outsized talent I've never quite been able to process, and he dug right down into that lovely little folk-rock ballad and re-invented it as a quintessential soul song. And you know what? It works.
First off, he slows down the tempo, gives it some slinky syncopation, and underlays it with a supremely laidback twangy guitar line. Suddenly there's room to slip in interstices of regret between the phrases -- I can just picture Marvin pausing to shake his head, bite his lip, still trying to sort out why today isn't the same as yesterday. At first his voice floats lightly over the lyrics -- " Yesterday / All my troubles seem so far away" -- it still hasn't sunk in. But by verse two, he's flinging his voice ahead of the tempo, and embellishing Paul's simple sincere lyrics: "Suddenly, people, / I ain't half the man I used to be, no, / There's a heavy, heavy shadow hanging over me-e / Yesterday came all too suddenly."
Self-pity? You bet. But it unleashes a falsetto wail on the bridge: "Oh-oh-oh why-y did she have to go? I don't know / I say I don't know, the little girl wouldn't say / I must, I must have said something wrong / Now I long, long, long for yesterday . . ." And in the same vein, on the third verse, he's writhing with pain, "Now I nee-eed, I need a place to hide away." I certainly believe him. This was given the full Motown Important Song treatment, with swelling strings and xylophones, but it never gets overdone, and the passion in Marvin's exquisite supple voice more than lives up to the production values.
Now, I'm not saying it's better than the McCartney version -- that would be sacrilege. But the point of being a great songwriter should be that your songs stand on their own, that other artists can find different depths in them. (Look at how many fantastic Kinks covers are out there, for example.) I guess the Beatles just cast too long a shadow over their songs, even the minor ones. It's hard for other artists to ignore that definitive Beatle rendition and make it their own. But Marvin Gaye was never short of confidence -- he must have known he had the voice to pull this one off. And oh, what a glorious thing it is.
Yesterday sample
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
"Thriller" / Michael Jackson
Juiced as I am over the 30th anniversary of Jesus of Cool, I know that in the real world, the big recent event was the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Nick Lowe only sold about fifty-leven copies of Jesus of Cool; Thriller sold 23 billion copies, or something in that neighborhood. Still, that's not why looking back at Thriller makes me feel depressed. It's because it marked the beginning of the end for me; that record album killed my interest in pop music for nearly 20 years.
I don't mean to get into any Michael-bashing here -- he's way too easy a target these days. I was brought up on Motown and I loved the Jackson 5; I'm not ashamed to admit I owned Off the Wall, either. Hey, there were some good dance tracks on there -- "Off the Wall," "Rock With Me," and especially "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," with their delirious marriage of funk and disco. Seamlessly slick, yes, but with such a propulsive joyful beat, you couldn't resist.
And the first singles to come off of Thriller were dyn-o-mite. It's hard to divorce them from the videos, of course; this was the heyday of MTV, and Michael Jackson was the king of music video. The first one I remember was "Billie Jean," which was absolutely superb. I was mesmerized by that menacing bassline, those zaps of synth, not to mention Michael's trademark gasps and chokes. Of course we all believed him when he protested "The kid is not my son!" (And that was before we knew anything of his personal life.)
Then came "Beat It", which was even better -- and, to my mind, the best music video ever. The choreography perfectly conveyed the waves of tension in this song, from the jittery verses to that howling chorus; it even managed to be about something -- a passionate inquiry in the nature of machismo. (Our first clue to Michael's troubled gender issues.)
And then, with an enormous amount of hype, MTV premiered the "Thriller" video. I remember watching it for the first time -- that bloated production, the jacked-up musical frenzy, the incoherence of the whole outing -- and thinking to myself, "I will never believe in MTV again." How could this piece of crap be the "masterpiece" they had promised? Music video used to be great short form moviemaking, kept to its taut 3 1/2-minute format, bing bang boom, get in and get out -- and now they were adding extraneous dramatic scenes, full sound-stage sets, Oscar-quality make-up effects, and a cast of thousands. And there was absolutely no dramatic pay-off. I actually shut off the television set, went into another room, and picked up a book. Henry James, probably.
The funk was completely gone, leaving only the most vacuous kind of disco in its place. Seamlessly slick, again, but this time coated with creamy plastic, a robotic rhythm, flabby riffs played in endless loops, and a wall of sound so dense I could never imagine a real band on stage performing it. It was the most soulless thing I had ever heard -- and from the Crown Prince of Soul, yet. It was a musical hunk of concrete, dropped on the unsuspecting heads of the record-buying public. And yet the record was simply flying out of the stores! Everybody had to own it! Clearly there was something wrong with me if I didn't like it.
Other tracks came and went. There was his duet "The Girl Is Mine" with Paul McCartney -- really a Paul McCartney song, though, and a sub-par one at that. (And you know me, I love nearly everything Macca does.") There was also a track called "Human Nature," which was particularly creepy -- "Tell 'em that it's human nature / Why -- why / Does he do me that way?" This song should have been admissible evidence in his trial; he'd have been convicted in a heartbeat.
I kept waiting to hear something that would redeem Thriller, that would make it worth buying -- but there was nothing. Instead, I got out my old Beatle records and decided that modern American music wasn't for me. I still listened to British pop for a while, but a steady diet of the Thompson Twins, Flock of Seagulls, and Tears and Fears just wasn't gonna suffice, and eventually even Elvis Costello started to go sour on me. I began going to the opera instead.
Thanks for nothing, Michael.
Thriller sample
Juiced as I am over the 30th anniversary of Jesus of Cool, I know that in the real world, the big recent event was the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Nick Lowe only sold about fifty-leven copies of Jesus of Cool; Thriller sold 23 billion copies, or something in that neighborhood. Still, that's not why looking back at Thriller makes me feel depressed. It's because it marked the beginning of the end for me; that record album killed my interest in pop music for nearly 20 years.
I don't mean to get into any Michael-bashing here -- he's way too easy a target these days. I was brought up on Motown and I loved the Jackson 5; I'm not ashamed to admit I owned Off the Wall, either. Hey, there were some good dance tracks on there -- "Off the Wall," "Rock With Me," and especially "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," with their delirious marriage of funk and disco. Seamlessly slick, yes, but with such a propulsive joyful beat, you couldn't resist.
And the first singles to come off of Thriller were dyn-o-mite. It's hard to divorce them from the videos, of course; this was the heyday of MTV, and Michael Jackson was the king of music video. The first one I remember was "Billie Jean," which was absolutely superb. I was mesmerized by that menacing bassline, those zaps of synth, not to mention Michael's trademark gasps and chokes. Of course we all believed him when he protested "The kid is not my son!" (And that was before we knew anything of his personal life.)
Then came "Beat It", which was even better -- and, to my mind, the best music video ever. The choreography perfectly conveyed the waves of tension in this song, from the jittery verses to that howling chorus; it even managed to be about something -- a passionate inquiry in the nature of machismo. (Our first clue to Michael's troubled gender issues.)
And then, with an enormous amount of hype, MTV premiered the "Thriller" video. I remember watching it for the first time -- that bloated production, the jacked-up musical frenzy, the incoherence of the whole outing -- and thinking to myself, "I will never believe in MTV again." How could this piece of crap be the "masterpiece" they had promised? Music video used to be great short form moviemaking, kept to its taut 3 1/2-minute format, bing bang boom, get in and get out -- and now they were adding extraneous dramatic scenes, full sound-stage sets, Oscar-quality make-up effects, and a cast of thousands. And there was absolutely no dramatic pay-off. I actually shut off the television set, went into another room, and picked up a book. Henry James, probably.
The funk was completely gone, leaving only the most vacuous kind of disco in its place. Seamlessly slick, again, but this time coated with creamy plastic, a robotic rhythm, flabby riffs played in endless loops, and a wall of sound so dense I could never imagine a real band on stage performing it. It was the most soulless thing I had ever heard -- and from the Crown Prince of Soul, yet. It was a musical hunk of concrete, dropped on the unsuspecting heads of the record-buying public. And yet the record was simply flying out of the stores! Everybody had to own it! Clearly there was something wrong with me if I didn't like it.
Other tracks came and went. There was his duet "The Girl Is Mine" with Paul McCartney -- really a Paul McCartney song, though, and a sub-par one at that. (And you know me, I love nearly everything Macca does.") There was also a track called "Human Nature," which was particularly creepy -- "Tell 'em that it's human nature / Why -- why / Does he do me that way?" This song should have been admissible evidence in his trial; he'd have been convicted in a heartbeat.
I kept waiting to hear something that would redeem Thriller, that would make it worth buying -- but there was nothing. Instead, I got out my old Beatle records and decided that modern American music wasn't for me. I still listened to British pop for a while, but a steady diet of the Thompson Twins, Flock of Seagulls, and Tears and Fears just wasn't gonna suffice, and eventually even Elvis Costello started to go sour on me. I began going to the opera instead.
Thanks for nothing, Michael.
Thriller sample
Sunday, September 23, 2007
“Sweetest Somebody I Know” / Stevie Wonder
One evening I was walking around Midtown, killing time before a show – and suddenly, a block away, I saw a scrum of flashbulbs and reporters, and in the middle of it all was STEVIE WONDER, his face all lit up with that iconic grin. My heart leapt up to see him again, after all these years.
That night I realized it had been years since I’d heard a new Stevie Wonder album. But hey, Stevie Wonder produced more brilliant music by age 30 than most artists can ever expect to do in a lifetime -- if he never sang another note, he’d still be way ahead of all his peers. “Superstition,” “Sunshine of My Life”, "For Once In My Life," "Part-Time Lover," the lush and haunting "Lately" -- most artists I know would kill to have written even one of these.
Then last summer, sitting in a paella restaurant in Barcelona, I finally heard a new Stevie Wonder song (from his 2005 album A Time To Love, actually, but still new to me.) I recognized him at once; not just the voice, but the phrasing, the melodic and rhythmic freeness, the whole marvelous flow. “Sweetest Somebody I Know” is simply drenched in Brazilian samba. Whatever cat is playing the guitar on this is suave as can be, and in the middle eight, Stevie cuts loose with perfect exuberance on the harmonica. I find myself grinning like a complete sap every time I hear it.
Stevie’s voice hasn’t changed one bit. Listen to that joyful quality, as if he just had to burst into song, his heart was so full. He plays cat-and-mouse with that syncopation, a man who lives so deep inside the rhythm that every hesitation or anticipation is meaningful. I hang breathlessly on every beat, even when he's dancing repeatedly on the same note, waiting for him to soar upwards with that boppy melody. It just makes me feel happy.
Stevie Wonder’s not a polished wordsmith; in fact his stuff reads like it’s from somebody who didn’t bother much with English class. (Given that Stevie Wonder was an established Motown star by age 12, that may well be the case.) This one’s got a couple tortured lines, like “And it would behoove me and my soul if I did state my case,” or “In a time when people are on with making sure that they're okay / You pour out your love every second, every minute, every hour of the day.” But somehow with Stevie, those stuffed-in extra syllables, the stilted grammar, don’t matter one bit. It's such a beautiful outpouring of love, I can’t quibble.
Being a star early turns some people into complete jerks. I get the idea that with Stevie, however, fame kept him innocent, buffered from the world by his own celebrity. His idealism, his pure musicality, have never been damaged. I don’t know this for sure; maybe he kicks his dog and cheats on his wife and screams at his assistant like any other hot shot. But just don’t tell me about it. Leave me with my faith in Stevie Wonder; it's one of the things that makes life worth living.
Sweetest Somebody I Know sample
One evening I was walking around Midtown, killing time before a show – and suddenly, a block away, I saw a scrum of flashbulbs and reporters, and in the middle of it all was STEVIE WONDER, his face all lit up with that iconic grin. My heart leapt up to see him again, after all these years.
That night I realized it had been years since I’d heard a new Stevie Wonder album. But hey, Stevie Wonder produced more brilliant music by age 30 than most artists can ever expect to do in a lifetime -- if he never sang another note, he’d still be way ahead of all his peers. “Superstition,” “Sunshine of My Life”, "For Once In My Life," "Part-Time Lover," the lush and haunting "Lately" -- most artists I know would kill to have written even one of these.
Then last summer, sitting in a paella restaurant in Barcelona, I finally heard a new Stevie Wonder song (from his 2005 album A Time To Love, actually, but still new to me.) I recognized him at once; not just the voice, but the phrasing, the melodic and rhythmic freeness, the whole marvelous flow. “Sweetest Somebody I Know” is simply drenched in Brazilian samba. Whatever cat is playing the guitar on this is suave as can be, and in the middle eight, Stevie cuts loose with perfect exuberance on the harmonica. I find myself grinning like a complete sap every time I hear it.
Stevie’s voice hasn’t changed one bit. Listen to that joyful quality, as if he just had to burst into song, his heart was so full. He plays cat-and-mouse with that syncopation, a man who lives so deep inside the rhythm that every hesitation or anticipation is meaningful. I hang breathlessly on every beat, even when he's dancing repeatedly on the same note, waiting for him to soar upwards with that boppy melody. It just makes me feel happy.
Stevie Wonder’s not a polished wordsmith; in fact his stuff reads like it’s from somebody who didn’t bother much with English class. (Given that Stevie Wonder was an established Motown star by age 12, that may well be the case.) This one’s got a couple tortured lines, like “And it would behoove me and my soul if I did state my case,” or “In a time when people are on with making sure that they're okay / You pour out your love every second, every minute, every hour of the day.” But somehow with Stevie, those stuffed-in extra syllables, the stilted grammar, don’t matter one bit. It's such a beautiful outpouring of love, I can’t quibble.
Being a star early turns some people into complete jerks. I get the idea that with Stevie, however, fame kept him innocent, buffered from the world by his own celebrity. His idealism, his pure musicality, have never been damaged. I don’t know this for sure; maybe he kicks his dog and cheats on his wife and screams at his assistant like any other hot shot. But just don’t tell me about it. Leave me with my faith in Stevie Wonder; it's one of the things that makes life worth living.
Sweetest Somebody I Know sample
Thursday, August 02, 2007
"I've Been Loving You Too Long" / Otis Redding
I saw a fabulous documentary on PBS last night about the history of Stax Records, which got me to thinking Otis Redding thoughts. Every shot of him in that film showed an exuberant smiling face glowing with life and love of the music; all over again I felt sad that he died so young, just when his big crossover success was about to happen.
The Stax sound was tougher, sweatier, and just plain funkier than the Motown I was raised on; the AM radio stations I listened to in Indianapolis were willing to play Stevie Wonder and the Supremes but I sincerely doubt I ever heard this track as a kid. We got nothing, really, until "Sitting On the Dock of the Bay," and by then Otis had already gone down in that tragic plane crash. Ah, well, I wouldn't have known what to do with this song then anyway. It's absolutely drenched with desire and pain and a whole lot of other things that Otis Redding's shivery grit-edged voice could express better than anybody else.
The title's a little misleading -- "I've been loving you too long" sounds like he's bored and ready to give it up, but in fact the full line says "I've been loving you too long / To stop now." This is guy hooked on his woman, hooked bad, and the way Otis's voice pauses, then trembles in agony, you know he's not simply amortizing his investment. There's something almost dreadful about that weary tempo, those hammering piano chords, the dogged shifts from major to minor keys. He CAN'T stop loving her; she's become a "habit" to him, and I'm guessing more like a drug addiction than a Henry Higgins "I've grown accustomed to her face" sort of habit.
And now comes the hard part: she's NOT in love the same way. "You are tired and you want to be free...You are tired and your love is growing cold" -- he can see it all too well. It's killing him. So he's here, putting EVERYTHING on the line to hold onto her. If this doesn't justify a crescendo of Memphis horns, I don't know what would.
I love how Otis backs off some of those lyrics, as if he's in too much pain to face it (even the guitar seems to flinch and get tentative). He wails full force on "My love is growing stronger" then chokes his way through "as our affair, affair, grows old." I absolutely believe him when he testifies "Don't make me stop now / No baby / I'm down on my knees / Please, don't make me stop now / I love you, I love you, I love you with all of my heart." This is not a song with tight clever lyrics; it's almost like improv, and I picture Otis Redding literally dropping onto his knees, swaying and swooning, getting all worked up the way Sam & Dave or James Brown used to do. God, I wish I'd been lucky enough to see this man perform live.
This song is simply the essence of soul -- an artist's heart and naked essence laid out on stage, no holding back. Even though Stax had a stable of excellent songwriters -- Isaac Hayes among them, before he made it as an artist -- Otis Redding was one of those rare soul artists who wrote his own material (this song he co-wrote with Jerry Butler) and I suspect that helped him pour that extra throb of passion into his songs. Who else could pull this off? I could never buy the Stones' cover, though Chris Farlowe's is suprisingly close to the mark.
It's an undeniably great track, and I'm VERY happy to have it in my head today.
I've Been Loving You Too Long sample
I saw a fabulous documentary on PBS last night about the history of Stax Records, which got me to thinking Otis Redding thoughts. Every shot of him in that film showed an exuberant smiling face glowing with life and love of the music; all over again I felt sad that he died so young, just when his big crossover success was about to happen.
The Stax sound was tougher, sweatier, and just plain funkier than the Motown I was raised on; the AM radio stations I listened to in Indianapolis were willing to play Stevie Wonder and the Supremes but I sincerely doubt I ever heard this track as a kid. We got nothing, really, until "Sitting On the Dock of the Bay," and by then Otis had already gone down in that tragic plane crash. Ah, well, I wouldn't have known what to do with this song then anyway. It's absolutely drenched with desire and pain and a whole lot of other things that Otis Redding's shivery grit-edged voice could express better than anybody else.
The title's a little misleading -- "I've been loving you too long" sounds like he's bored and ready to give it up, but in fact the full line says "I've been loving you too long / To stop now." This is guy hooked on his woman, hooked bad, and the way Otis's voice pauses, then trembles in agony, you know he's not simply amortizing his investment. There's something almost dreadful about that weary tempo, those hammering piano chords, the dogged shifts from major to minor keys. He CAN'T stop loving her; she's become a "habit" to him, and I'm guessing more like a drug addiction than a Henry Higgins "I've grown accustomed to her face" sort of habit.
And now comes the hard part: she's NOT in love the same way. "You are tired and you want to be free...You are tired and your love is growing cold" -- he can see it all too well. It's killing him. So he's here, putting EVERYTHING on the line to hold onto her. If this doesn't justify a crescendo of Memphis horns, I don't know what would.
I love how Otis backs off some of those lyrics, as if he's in too much pain to face it (even the guitar seems to flinch and get tentative). He wails full force on "My love is growing stronger" then chokes his way through "as our affair, affair, grows old." I absolutely believe him when he testifies "Don't make me stop now / No baby / I'm down on my knees / Please, don't make me stop now / I love you, I love you, I love you with all of my heart." This is not a song with tight clever lyrics; it's almost like improv, and I picture Otis Redding literally dropping onto his knees, swaying and swooning, getting all worked up the way Sam & Dave or James Brown used to do. God, I wish I'd been lucky enough to see this man perform live.
This song is simply the essence of soul -- an artist's heart and naked essence laid out on stage, no holding back. Even though Stax had a stable of excellent songwriters -- Isaac Hayes among them, before he made it as an artist -- Otis Redding was one of those rare soul artists who wrote his own material (this song he co-wrote with Jerry Butler) and I suspect that helped him pour that extra throb of passion into his songs. Who else could pull this off? I could never buy the Stones' cover, though Chris Farlowe's is suprisingly close to the mark.
It's an undeniably great track, and I'm VERY happy to have it in my head today.
I've Been Loving You Too Long sample
Friday, February 09, 2007
"What Good Am I Without You" / Marvin Gaye & Kim Weston
MOTOWN #5
In April 1984, when I heard Marvin Gaye had been shot by his father in the heat of an argument, I bet I hadn't thought about him for seven or eight years. But as soon as I began to, I realized I had to mourn at least three different Marvin Gayes. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is in some ways THE classic Motown track; his jazz-drenched 1970 hits "What's Going On" and "Mercy Mercy Me" shattered the Motown mold by actually being -- gasp! -- about something besides romantic love; then he practically invented the heavy-breathing song with "Let's Get It On" and "Sexual Healing," blatantly sexual tracks that mortified the teenage me when they first came out. (And now, of course, I love them...)
But the thing about Marvin Gaye I never focused on until recently was that so many of his hits were duets. Gaye was Berry Gordy's brother-in-law (talk about convenient), and I'm guessing that when his first few solo singles failed to chart, Berry looked for a way to hoist brother-in-law Marvin to bigger success. The solution? An album of duets with Motown's reigning girl star Mary Wells. Gaye's silky voice blended incredibly well with female vocals, and considering that he had come up through doo-wop, harmonizing was no doubt second nature to him.
Eventually he'd pair up, to enormous success, with Tammi Terrell and even cut a few tracks with Diana Ross, when she was the queen of Motown. (It's nice to be the girlfriend of the king.) In the mid-60s, though, Marvin Gaye's partner was Kim Weston, a Motown regular who never really got the success she deserved. Even stacked up against chart-topping Marvin&Tammi duets like "Precious Love" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," I'd have to say my favorite Marvin Gaye duet is this laid-back syncopated number with Kim.
The honky-tonk piano plinking away behind the vocals gives it a touch of roadhouse sloppiness that draws me in right away; I can almost picture a tiny bare stage with two singers leaning into the same microphone stand to blend their voices on those jazzy wo-oh-ohs. The horn section, the back-up ooohs, the drumming, are all kept back in the mix so you can focus on the voices, both Weston and Gaye playing with notes and rhythm as if they are actually live singers and not studio-polished automatons.
Duets only work when the two singers are in the same groove, and I really feel like Kim and Marvin are both having exactly the same amount of fun here, getting a kick out of each other's stylizings. Like many Motown lyrics, this one picks a single concept and runs it through several variations -- in this case objects that need something else to complete them (sounds like a category from The $25,000 Pyramid, doesn't it?). "What good is a telephone if there's no one to call?" "What good is a wedding if no one says 'I do?'" "What good is a doctor if he can't cure the pain?" "What good is the heavens without the stars above?" et cetera et cetera.
Kim takes the first verse, Marvin takes the second, and they do a call-and-answer on the third verse, but at the end of every verse, on the line "What good am I baby, without you" they get to improvise for a measure or two, and man, what they do with it makes this song sizzle -- Marvin pulls a gritty edge into his voice, and Kim drops down a chromatic scale that's so languid and elegant, it's like she's channeling Ella Fitzgerald.
This is one of those songs where finger-snapping is more or less compulsory (Marvin Gaye was also a drummer, after all).
I loved Marvin Gaye the social activist and Marvin Gaye the heavy-breather, but this other Marvin, the swinging jazz singer, may be my favorite Marvin of all. And now I'm curious to dig up some more Kim Weston numbers, too. Marvin I always knew about...but Kim...
MOTOWN #5
In April 1984, when I heard Marvin Gaye had been shot by his father in the heat of an argument, I bet I hadn't thought about him for seven or eight years. But as soon as I began to, I realized I had to mourn at least three different Marvin Gayes. "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is in some ways THE classic Motown track; his jazz-drenched 1970 hits "What's Going On" and "Mercy Mercy Me" shattered the Motown mold by actually being -- gasp! -- about something besides romantic love; then he practically invented the heavy-breathing song with "Let's Get It On" and "Sexual Healing," blatantly sexual tracks that mortified the teenage me when they first came out. (And now, of course, I love them...)
But the thing about Marvin Gaye I never focused on until recently was that so many of his hits were duets. Gaye was Berry Gordy's brother-in-law (talk about convenient), and I'm guessing that when his first few solo singles failed to chart, Berry looked for a way to hoist brother-in-law Marvin to bigger success. The solution? An album of duets with Motown's reigning girl star Mary Wells. Gaye's silky voice blended incredibly well with female vocals, and considering that he had come up through doo-wop, harmonizing was no doubt second nature to him.
Eventually he'd pair up, to enormous success, with Tammi Terrell and even cut a few tracks with Diana Ross, when she was the queen of Motown. (It's nice to be the girlfriend of the king.) In the mid-60s, though, Marvin Gaye's partner was Kim Weston, a Motown regular who never really got the success she deserved. Even stacked up against chart-topping Marvin&Tammi duets like "Precious Love" and "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," I'd have to say my favorite Marvin Gaye duet is this laid-back syncopated number with Kim.
The honky-tonk piano plinking away behind the vocals gives it a touch of roadhouse sloppiness that draws me in right away; I can almost picture a tiny bare stage with two singers leaning into the same microphone stand to blend their voices on those jazzy wo-oh-ohs. The horn section, the back-up ooohs, the drumming, are all kept back in the mix so you can focus on the voices, both Weston and Gaye playing with notes and rhythm as if they are actually live singers and not studio-polished automatons.
Duets only work when the two singers are in the same groove, and I really feel like Kim and Marvin are both having exactly the same amount of fun here, getting a kick out of each other's stylizings. Like many Motown lyrics, this one picks a single concept and runs it through several variations -- in this case objects that need something else to complete them (sounds like a category from The $25,000 Pyramid, doesn't it?). "What good is a telephone if there's no one to call?" "What good is a wedding if no one says 'I do?'" "What good is a doctor if he can't cure the pain?" "What good is the heavens without the stars above?" et cetera et cetera.
Kim takes the first verse, Marvin takes the second, and they do a call-and-answer on the third verse, but at the end of every verse, on the line "What good am I baby, without you" they get to improvise for a measure or two, and man, what they do with it makes this song sizzle -- Marvin pulls a gritty edge into his voice, and Kim drops down a chromatic scale that's so languid and elegant, it's like she's channeling Ella Fitzgerald.
This is one of those songs where finger-snapping is more or less compulsory (Marvin Gaye was also a drummer, after all).
I loved Marvin Gaye the social activist and Marvin Gaye the heavy-breather, but this other Marvin, the swinging jazz singer, may be my favorite Marvin of all. And now I'm curious to dig up some more Kim Weston numbers, too. Marvin I always knew about...but Kim...
Thursday, February 08, 2007
"The Love You Save" / The Jackson Five
MOTOWN WEEK #4
What in God’s name happened to Michael Jackson? I never hear any of his new music – I guess it’s only released overseas, where his “true” fans live. I dug Off the Wall and Thriller like everyone else, but that was 25 years ago, and to be honest, I’m not sure I would have liked them so much if it hadn’t been for those sensational videos, back when MTV actually mattered. Soon after that he jumped the shark, making every track Bigger!Badder!Better! without charting any new musical territory. Like most everybody, I’m horrified by the bizarre spectacle he has turned into – it’s like Thriller come to life, his face morphing into a creepy mask worthy of Lon Chaney.
But being in a Motown groove this week, I’m listening to those early Jackson Five songs and it breaks my heart. Yes, they were highly produced commercial funk-pop. Yes, Michael’s image was managed to the nth degree, I’m guessing because “Little” Stevie Wonder had left the fold and Berry Gordy needed another cute kid phenom to take his place. Whatever. The fact is, those Jackson Five hits were tight and spunky, with hooks that stay with you like a rhinovirus.
Michael sounded so sweet and earnest on ultra-smooth ballads like “I’ll Be There” and “Never Can Say Goodbye” – though, come to think of it, at Michael’s age most boys wouldn’t be caught dead in a room alone with a girl. (And they grew up to be sexually normal.) Still, there was a cunning genius at work behind hits like “ABC” that riffed on the idea that a kid was singing them. I defy you to sing this chorus just once: “Simple as do-re-mi / A B C/ One, two three / Baby you and me,” even if you mix up the order, like I do. Or even if somehow you segue right into “ABC” in the chorus of “I Want You Back.” It’s all the same song, really.
As soon as I hear “The Love You Save,” I think of those street safety filmstrips we had to watch in elementary school: “Stop the love you save may be your own / Darling look both ways before you cross me / You’re heading for a danger zone.” This song wipes the Supremes “Stop In the Name Of Love” off the map for me, it’s so much more lively, with funky staccato rhythms and a melody that bounces all over the place. Naturally it starts out with a childhood setting, as Michael innocently explains: “When we played tag in grade school / You wanted to be it / But chasing boys was just a fad / You crossed your heart you’d quit.” But now they're adults – “When we grew up you traded / Your promise for my ring” -- and she’s still chasing boys around the playground, and Michael’s getting worked up into a real tantrum.
Jermaine and Michael swap lines in the bridge, egging each other into a frenzy: Michael, “They’ll ruin your reputation! / They’ll label you a flirt!”; then Jermaine, “The way they talk about you / They’ll turn your name to dirt!” The second verse is even cleverer, as Michael names the boys she’s fooling around with, and after the second bridge they fall back on that time-honored middle-section spelling shtick ("ABC" all over again): “S is for save it / T is for take it slow / O is for oh, no! / P is for please, please, don’t go!”
The songwriter was having F-U-N here, and so did the studio band (I assume this was the Funk Brothers, with Joe Hunter throwing out those snazzy glissandos on the keyboards), and so did the other four Jacksons, doing vocal bass lines and percussion. I’m sure I saw them perform this on TV and they had a slick dance routine worked out as well. By the time it was over they weren’t the only ones who had to catch their breath.
So that's why I still care, in a sad little corner of my heart, about what's become of Michael Jackson. If you never saw the Jacksons in their prime, you might think he's just a freak show, a tabloid curiosity. But for those of us who did . . .
MOTOWN WEEK #4
What in God’s name happened to Michael Jackson? I never hear any of his new music – I guess it’s only released overseas, where his “true” fans live. I dug Off the Wall and Thriller like everyone else, but that was 25 years ago, and to be honest, I’m not sure I would have liked them so much if it hadn’t been for those sensational videos, back when MTV actually mattered. Soon after that he jumped the shark, making every track Bigger!Badder!Better! without charting any new musical territory. Like most everybody, I’m horrified by the bizarre spectacle he has turned into – it’s like Thriller come to life, his face morphing into a creepy mask worthy of Lon Chaney.
But being in a Motown groove this week, I’m listening to those early Jackson Five songs and it breaks my heart. Yes, they were highly produced commercial funk-pop. Yes, Michael’s image was managed to the nth degree, I’m guessing because “Little” Stevie Wonder had left the fold and Berry Gordy needed another cute kid phenom to take his place. Whatever. The fact is, those Jackson Five hits were tight and spunky, with hooks that stay with you like a rhinovirus.
Michael sounded so sweet and earnest on ultra-smooth ballads like “I’ll Be There” and “Never Can Say Goodbye” – though, come to think of it, at Michael’s age most boys wouldn’t be caught dead in a room alone with a girl. (And they grew up to be sexually normal.) Still, there was a cunning genius at work behind hits like “ABC” that riffed on the idea that a kid was singing them. I defy you to sing this chorus just once: “Simple as do-re-mi / A B C/ One, two three / Baby you and me,” even if you mix up the order, like I do. Or even if somehow you segue right into “ABC” in the chorus of “I Want You Back.” It’s all the same song, really.
As soon as I hear “The Love You Save,” I think of those street safety filmstrips we had to watch in elementary school: “Stop the love you save may be your own / Darling look both ways before you cross me / You’re heading for a danger zone.” This song wipes the Supremes “Stop In the Name Of Love” off the map for me, it’s so much more lively, with funky staccato rhythms and a melody that bounces all over the place. Naturally it starts out with a childhood setting, as Michael innocently explains: “When we played tag in grade school / You wanted to be it / But chasing boys was just a fad / You crossed your heart you’d quit.” But now they're adults – “When we grew up you traded / Your promise for my ring” -- and she’s still chasing boys around the playground, and Michael’s getting worked up into a real tantrum.
Jermaine and Michael swap lines in the bridge, egging each other into a frenzy: Michael, “They’ll ruin your reputation! / They’ll label you a flirt!”; then Jermaine, “The way they talk about you / They’ll turn your name to dirt!” The second verse is even cleverer, as Michael names the boys she’s fooling around with, and after the second bridge they fall back on that time-honored middle-section spelling shtick ("ABC" all over again): “S is for save it / T is for take it slow / O is for oh, no! / P is for please, please, don’t go!”
The songwriter was having F-U-N here, and so did the studio band (I assume this was the Funk Brothers, with Joe Hunter throwing out those snazzy glissandos on the keyboards), and so did the other four Jacksons, doing vocal bass lines and percussion. I’m sure I saw them perform this on TV and they had a slick dance routine worked out as well. By the time it was over they weren’t the only ones who had to catch their breath.
So that's why I still care, in a sad little corner of my heart, about what's become of Michael Jackson. If you never saw the Jacksons in their prime, you might think he's just a freak show, a tabloid curiosity. But for those of us who did . . .
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
“Living for the City” / Stevie Wonder
MOTOWN WEEK #3
I grew up with Stevie Wonder. First he was Little Stevie Wonder, Motown’s 12-year-old genius, doing “Fingertips” on TV (I just thought he wore those sunglasses to be cool, until my mother set me straight). A blind black child prodigy seemed just a novelty, though; it wasn’t until the later 60s, when his voice changed and he started that amazing run of hits (“”For Once in My Life,” “My Cherie Amour,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”) that I sat up and took notice, even in the midst of my Beatlemania. And then, just as I began to itch to leave the nest and go to college, Stevie turned 21 and struck out on his own, re-negotiating his Motown deal to obtain artistic control.
Artistic control – wasn’t that what we all wanted in 1971? Except what I did with it was a few not-half-bad English papers; what Stevie did with it was Talking Book. And then Innervisions. No one since the Beatles had written entire albums that scored so high on both social meaning and sing-along-ability. By the time Stevie hit Songs In the Key of Life, I felt like the kid down the street had just earned the Nobel Peace Prize.
By then I’d outgrown commercial Motown and discovered “real” blues, but Stevie’s politics earned him a free pass. Why a pampered child prodigy should be an authority on ghetto life I don’t know, but I believed it when Stevie sang it. This song in particular, which clocks in at 7:03, was an entire mini-opera. It begins at the beginning, naturally, with a hardscrabble childhood in the rural South (Stevie, by the way, was born in Saginaw, Michigan, far from Hardtime, Mississippi) – it’s like a Richard Wright novel, piling up the injustices, the father’s low-wage 14-hour days, his mother scrubbing floors for the white lady, his sister wearing secondhand clothes, his brother unemployed because “where he lives / They don’t use colored people.”
Oddly enough, coming from a tunesmith like Stevie Wonder, this song’s not much on melody – the verses are like talking blues, though the chorus is more catchy. The real hook is the repeated synthesizer riff, a jazzlike fanfare melting through several chord changes. Notice how Stevie’s voice gets a harder edge as his protagonist gets older and more frustrated with life. Eventually things slide into a long musical interlude, simmering synthesizers and counterpointed vocals, propelled by that same hard-driving beat that’s hustled us along from the start.
By all rights the song should be over now, but no – now our hero arrives in the city, the promised land. In an awed voice Stevie exclaims "Wow! New York, just like I pictured it -- skyscrapers and ev'rything" (a line that became my personal slogan for several years) as the track evolves into a cinema verite montage: sound effects of a bus pulling into Port Authority, a street hustler’s jive patter, sirens wailing, the echoing whack of a gavel, and the clang of a prison door (“Get into that cell, nigger!”) – boom boom boom, a swift and shocking series of events. By the time Stevie sings again, all that’s left is a gruff vocal wreck. But our hero's still singing, damn it. He’s still singing.
This one song telescopes 25 years of civil rights protests into one man’s story, and I have to say, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” never reached me the way “Living for the City” did. Here I was, a white college girl identifying with these characters in a Motown song – but then, that was the early 70s, when we still hoped we were all on the same side. Well, some of us still do, thanks to Stevie Wonder. Maybe they should have given him a Nobel Prize.
MOTOWN WEEK #3
I grew up with Stevie Wonder. First he was Little Stevie Wonder, Motown’s 12-year-old genius, doing “Fingertips” on TV (I just thought he wore those sunglasses to be cool, until my mother set me straight). A blind black child prodigy seemed just a novelty, though; it wasn’t until the later 60s, when his voice changed and he started that amazing run of hits (“”For Once in My Life,” “My Cherie Amour,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered”) that I sat up and took notice, even in the midst of my Beatlemania. And then, just as I began to itch to leave the nest and go to college, Stevie turned 21 and struck out on his own, re-negotiating his Motown deal to obtain artistic control.
Artistic control – wasn’t that what we all wanted in 1971? Except what I did with it was a few not-half-bad English papers; what Stevie did with it was Talking Book. And then Innervisions. No one since the Beatles had written entire albums that scored so high on both social meaning and sing-along-ability. By the time Stevie hit Songs In the Key of Life, I felt like the kid down the street had just earned the Nobel Peace Prize.
By then I’d outgrown commercial Motown and discovered “real” blues, but Stevie’s politics earned him a free pass. Why a pampered child prodigy should be an authority on ghetto life I don’t know, but I believed it when Stevie sang it. This song in particular, which clocks in at 7:03, was an entire mini-opera. It begins at the beginning, naturally, with a hardscrabble childhood in the rural South (Stevie, by the way, was born in Saginaw, Michigan, far from Hardtime, Mississippi) – it’s like a Richard Wright novel, piling up the injustices, the father’s low-wage 14-hour days, his mother scrubbing floors for the white lady, his sister wearing secondhand clothes, his brother unemployed because “where he lives / They don’t use colored people.”
Oddly enough, coming from a tunesmith like Stevie Wonder, this song’s not much on melody – the verses are like talking blues, though the chorus is more catchy. The real hook is the repeated synthesizer riff, a jazzlike fanfare melting through several chord changes. Notice how Stevie’s voice gets a harder edge as his protagonist gets older and more frustrated with life. Eventually things slide into a long musical interlude, simmering synthesizers and counterpointed vocals, propelled by that same hard-driving beat that’s hustled us along from the start.
By all rights the song should be over now, but no – now our hero arrives in the city, the promised land. In an awed voice Stevie exclaims "Wow! New York, just like I pictured it -- skyscrapers and ev'rything" (a line that became my personal slogan for several years) as the track evolves into a cinema verite montage: sound effects of a bus pulling into Port Authority, a street hustler’s jive patter, sirens wailing, the echoing whack of a gavel, and the clang of a prison door (“Get into that cell, nigger!”) – boom boom boom, a swift and shocking series of events. By the time Stevie sings again, all that’s left is a gruff vocal wreck. But our hero's still singing, damn it. He’s still singing.
This one song telescopes 25 years of civil rights protests into one man’s story, and I have to say, Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” never reached me the way “Living for the City” did. Here I was, a white college girl identifying with these characters in a Motown song – but then, that was the early 70s, when we still hoped we were all on the same side. Well, some of us still do, thanks to Stevie Wonder. Maybe they should have given him a Nobel Prize.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
“My Girl” / The Temptations
“My Guy” / Mary Wells
MOTOWN WEEK #2
One thing I didn’t mention yesterday about Smokey Robinson: He was also one of Motown’s most prolific songwriters, turning out hits for other artists as well -- including this pair, consciously written as a soul-music version of "he says/she says." Motown had a huge hit on its hands in 1964 with Mary Well's"My Guy," but in a brilliant stroke of cross-marketing, Berry Gordy used that to promote another act with the 1965 sequel, the Temptations' "My Girl."
Smokey wrote several songs for the Temptations, but this was their signature tune, and it’s easy to see why. It starts off with one of those openings you instantly recognize when it comes on the jukebox – that drawling guitar line, bomb ba-bah-da-ba-dah bomb ba-ba-dah-ba-dah, taking its sweet time to climb upward. Then in slips David Ruffin’s shimmering tenor, "I got sunshine / On a cloudy day" (the flutters on "sunshine" and "cloudy" are classic). He keeps working that weather metaphor, "And when it’s cold outside / I got the month of May." Then all four parts come in on stair-step chords: "Well, I guess you’ll say / What could make me feel this way" and then Ruffin sparkles in again on "My girl" (as the harmonies deliver another "My girl," here comes a lush suite of strings too), "talking ‘bout / My girl." "My girl" the back-ups repeat in a high staccato, zipping it up to take her away.
Next verse, new metaphor: "I've got so much honey / The bees envy me. / I've got a sweeter song / Than the birds in the trees," and Ruffin’s voice alone is proof how sweet that honey is. Imagine the choreography that went with this, some smart snapping slide step, maybe with a synchronized spin. The Temptations were so goddam elegant, you just KNOW they’d give a girl a good time.
But something about Mary Wells' song comes a little closer to my heart. The beat’s snappier, with a pack of horns punching it up; it starts off with a metaphor (Smokey couldn’t resist): “I'm stickin' to my guy / Like a stamp to a letter / Like the birds of a feather / We stick together,” but as Mary’s voice skips along, all kittenish and flirty and coy, she’s simply dealing out the emotional facts: “Nothing you can do could make me untrue / To my guy / Nothing you can buy could make me tell a lie / To my guy.” I picture her facing another man who IS trying to woo her away, shaking her head and laying her long-nailed fingers on his chest to push him away.
Mary knows she’s got alternatives, and as neat as the rhymes may be, she’s making her decision the way a woman does, on deeper qualities: “No muscle bound man could take my hand / From my guy / No handsome face could ever take the place / Of my guy / He may not be a movie star / But when it comes to being happy / We are.” (Remember that Smokey also wrote “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep” for his own group, the Miracles – handsome as he was (is), Smokey knew that looks aren’t everything.)
Where the Temptations are simply giddy with how the girl makes them feel, Mary shrewdly lays out a battle plan – “I gave my guy my word of honor / To be faithful and I'm gonna” (love that rhyme). While the guys wallow around in bliss, the girl is rolling up her sleeves, knowing that a relationship takes work. She’s not saying he’s perfect, she’s not saying there’s magic -- but she’s got material she can work with. So what if he’s off in the clouds right now, warbling “My Girl” about her? Of course a girl likes being appreciated. And when the hard times come – and they will -- she’ll do the heavy lifting. I bet they’ll make it.
“My Guy” / Mary Wells
MOTOWN WEEK #2
One thing I didn’t mention yesterday about Smokey Robinson: He was also one of Motown’s most prolific songwriters, turning out hits for other artists as well -- including this pair, consciously written as a soul-music version of "he says/she says." Motown had a huge hit on its hands in 1964 with Mary Well's"My Guy," but in a brilliant stroke of cross-marketing, Berry Gordy used that to promote another act with the 1965 sequel, the Temptations' "My Girl."
Smokey wrote several songs for the Temptations, but this was their signature tune, and it’s easy to see why. It starts off with one of those openings you instantly recognize when it comes on the jukebox – that drawling guitar line, bomb ba-bah-da-ba-dah bomb ba-ba-dah-ba-dah, taking its sweet time to climb upward. Then in slips David Ruffin’s shimmering tenor, "I got sunshine / On a cloudy day" (the flutters on "sunshine" and "cloudy" are classic). He keeps working that weather metaphor, "And when it’s cold outside / I got the month of May." Then all four parts come in on stair-step chords: "Well, I guess you’ll say / What could make me feel this way" and then Ruffin sparkles in again on "My girl" (as the harmonies deliver another "My girl," here comes a lush suite of strings too), "talking ‘bout / My girl." "My girl" the back-ups repeat in a high staccato, zipping it up to take her away.
Next verse, new metaphor: "I've got so much honey / The bees envy me. / I've got a sweeter song / Than the birds in the trees," and Ruffin’s voice alone is proof how sweet that honey is. Imagine the choreography that went with this, some smart snapping slide step, maybe with a synchronized spin. The Temptations were so goddam elegant, you just KNOW they’d give a girl a good time.
But something about Mary Wells' song comes a little closer to my heart. The beat’s snappier, with a pack of horns punching it up; it starts off with a metaphor (Smokey couldn’t resist): “I'm stickin' to my guy / Like a stamp to a letter / Like the birds of a feather / We stick together,” but as Mary’s voice skips along, all kittenish and flirty and coy, she’s simply dealing out the emotional facts: “Nothing you can do could make me untrue / To my guy / Nothing you can buy could make me tell a lie / To my guy.” I picture her facing another man who IS trying to woo her away, shaking her head and laying her long-nailed fingers on his chest to push him away.
Mary knows she’s got alternatives, and as neat as the rhymes may be, she’s making her decision the way a woman does, on deeper qualities: “No muscle bound man could take my hand / From my guy / No handsome face could ever take the place / Of my guy / He may not be a movie star / But when it comes to being happy / We are.” (Remember that Smokey also wrote “Beauty Is Only Skin Deep” for his own group, the Miracles – handsome as he was (is), Smokey knew that looks aren’t everything.)
Where the Temptations are simply giddy with how the girl makes them feel, Mary shrewdly lays out a battle plan – “I gave my guy my word of honor / To be faithful and I'm gonna” (love that rhyme). While the guys wallow around in bliss, the girl is rolling up her sleeves, knowing that a relationship takes work. She’s not saying he’s perfect, she’s not saying there’s magic -- but she’s got material she can work with. So what if he’s off in the clouds right now, warbling “My Girl” about her? Of course a girl likes being appreciated. And when the hard times come – and they will -- she’ll do the heavy lifting. I bet they’ll make it.
Monday, February 05, 2007
“Shop Around” / Smokey Robinson
MOTOWN WEEK #1
At the theater the other night, seeing Jersey Boys, our friends were raving about how the Four Seasons were the soundtrack of their childhoods in New Jersey and Queens. I had to stop and think; I mean, I liked the Four Seasons all right, but . . . well, I’m from Indiana and I never felt they were singing to me. Same deal with the Beach Boys – I figured I needed to be a sun-bleached blonde with a year-round tan to really get the Beach Boys. So what was the music of my youth, I wondered? Then it came to me: Motown.
And so, in honor of that epiphany, I hereby declare this MOTOWN WEEK.
The beauty part of Motown was that it wasn’t black music just for blacks – even we white kids could dance to that glossy soul-infused pop. And the guy who most epitomizes that Motown sound to me was William “Smokey” Robinson. Whether he got that name from his velvety tenor or those mesmerizing hazel eyes, Smokey was romance incarnate, tricked out with enough book-smart lyrics and polite manners that you could always bring him home to the folks. (Though we cannot ignore the fact that “Oooh Baby Baby” was the most intoxicating ladies-man seduction ever recorded – it makes Barry White’s sexy growl seem tepid).
Smokey could go in all sorts of directions, from house-party tracks like “Mickey the Monkey,” “I Second That Emotion,” or the infectious “Going to a Go-Go” to dreamy slow-dance ballads like “Tracks of My Tears.” Just where the self-pity classic “Tears of a Clown” fits in I don’t know, but it is one memorable tune (and the only dance hit I know that references the opera Pagliacci).
Smokey wrote “Shop Around” with his mentor Berry Gordy, and maybe that why it has a darker edge, or maybe it’s because it’s from 1960 (the label’s first #1 single) before the Motown commercial formula had been completely refined. This song is Smokey’s Some Like It Hot moment, with his high silky-smooth voice morphing into an female impersonation of his mother giving him advice: “Just because you've become a young man now / There's still some things that you don't understand now / Before you ask some girl for her hand now / Keep your freedom for as long as you can now’ / My mama told me:” The whole song jerks to a dramatic halt for a beat, then Smokey's voice swoops down dramatically low to deliver the punch line – “’You better shop around'.”
Is it just me, or is there something Oedipal about this? Sure, Mom’s just looking out for her baby boy’s best interests, urging him, “Make sure that her love is true now / I'd hate to see you feelin' sad and blue now.” Clearly this mother is in NO HURRY to see her son settle down with another woman, and she’s willing to sell out her own sex – “Pretty girls come a dime a dozen,” she says cynically, adding: “Try to get yourself a bargain son / Don't be sold on the very first one!” Caveat emptor and all that.
Now remember, this guy is just repeating what his mother said; it’s possible he’s using this as an excuse to deny a woman who’s pressuring him to settle down. But as the song swings into the coda, it builds to a frenzy of call-and-answer between back-up and lead vocal -- either his mom is picturing his love-making in incestuous detail, or he himself is quivering at the idea that girls are going to hold him tight and take his hand, et cetera. “Be a man, son,” he advises himself in his mother’s voice, as if playing the field is the only way to prove his manhood. And if mama told him to, he’s gotta do it, right?
Well, there are a lot of psychological layers here, more than usual for a pop song. But there’s also a boppy dance beat, a sizzling sax solo in the break, and those finger-wagging back-up “oohs” and “mmms” (listen and you'll hear Smokey’s future wife, Claudette Rogers). It comes flowing out in glorious monoaural -- a song made to be listened to on a transistor radio on a summer night, or blaring out of open car windows (who had AC in the car back then?). This is Motown, and I want more.
http://www.mp3raid.com/search/download-mp3/8/miracles/1.html
MOTOWN WEEK #1
At the theater the other night, seeing Jersey Boys, our friends were raving about how the Four Seasons were the soundtrack of their childhoods in New Jersey and Queens. I had to stop and think; I mean, I liked the Four Seasons all right, but . . . well, I’m from Indiana and I never felt they were singing to me. Same deal with the Beach Boys – I figured I needed to be a sun-bleached blonde with a year-round tan to really get the Beach Boys. So what was the music of my youth, I wondered? Then it came to me: Motown.
And so, in honor of that epiphany, I hereby declare this MOTOWN WEEK.
The beauty part of Motown was that it wasn’t black music just for blacks – even we white kids could dance to that glossy soul-infused pop. And the guy who most epitomizes that Motown sound to me was William “Smokey” Robinson. Whether he got that name from his velvety tenor or those mesmerizing hazel eyes, Smokey was romance incarnate, tricked out with enough book-smart lyrics and polite manners that you could always bring him home to the folks. (Though we cannot ignore the fact that “Oooh Baby Baby” was the most intoxicating ladies-man seduction ever recorded – it makes Barry White’s sexy growl seem tepid).
Smokey could go in all sorts of directions, from house-party tracks like “Mickey the Monkey,” “I Second That Emotion,” or the infectious “Going to a Go-Go” to dreamy slow-dance ballads like “Tracks of My Tears.” Just where the self-pity classic “Tears of a Clown” fits in I don’t know, but it is one memorable tune (and the only dance hit I know that references the opera Pagliacci).
Smokey wrote “Shop Around” with his mentor Berry Gordy, and maybe that why it has a darker edge, or maybe it’s because it’s from 1960 (the label’s first #1 single) before the Motown commercial formula had been completely refined. This song is Smokey’s Some Like It Hot moment, with his high silky-smooth voice morphing into an female impersonation of his mother giving him advice: “Just because you've become a young man now / There's still some things that you don't understand now / Before you ask some girl for her hand now / Keep your freedom for as long as you can now’ / My mama told me:” The whole song jerks to a dramatic halt for a beat, then Smokey's voice swoops down dramatically low to deliver the punch line – “’You better shop around'.”
Is it just me, or is there something Oedipal about this? Sure, Mom’s just looking out for her baby boy’s best interests, urging him, “Make sure that her love is true now / I'd hate to see you feelin' sad and blue now.” Clearly this mother is in NO HURRY to see her son settle down with another woman, and she’s willing to sell out her own sex – “Pretty girls come a dime a dozen,” she says cynically, adding: “Try to get yourself a bargain son / Don't be sold on the very first one!” Caveat emptor and all that.
Now remember, this guy is just repeating what his mother said; it’s possible he’s using this as an excuse to deny a woman who’s pressuring him to settle down. But as the song swings into the coda, it builds to a frenzy of call-and-answer between back-up and lead vocal -- either his mom is picturing his love-making in incestuous detail, or he himself is quivering at the idea that girls are going to hold him tight and take his hand, et cetera. “Be a man, son,” he advises himself in his mother’s voice, as if playing the field is the only way to prove his manhood. And if mama told him to, he’s gotta do it, right?
Well, there are a lot of psychological layers here, more than usual for a pop song. But there’s also a boppy dance beat, a sizzling sax solo in the break, and those finger-wagging back-up “oohs” and “mmms” (listen and you'll hear Smokey’s future wife, Claudette Rogers). It comes flowing out in glorious monoaural -- a song made to be listened to on a transistor radio on a summer night, or blaring out of open car windows (who had AC in the car back then?). This is Motown, and I want more.
http://www.mp3raid.com/search/download-mp3/8/miracles/1.html
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