First of all, I'm freaked out that it's 2016. But I'm moving past that, truly. And offering a panoply of tunes to make your June celebratory to the nth degree.
1. I'm On an Island / The Kinks
From Kink Kontroversy (1965)
Oh, my man Ray Davies, the presiding genius behind the Kinks. And here, even as early as 1965, he was sectioning off the experiences. I've heard that he will only ever sing this song on Iceland, the island for which he wrote this tune. Damn, I have a whole cabinet of Icelandic experiences, but Lord if I don't want to go to Iceland ONLY to hear Ray sing it.
2. Wake Up / Alan Price
From Rising Sun (1980)
Alan, you'll never know how much of my life was devoted to chasing you down, But here's a taste -- and a pretty good tune to connect to your iPhone alarm.
3. Man in the Bottom of the Well / Bill Kirchen with Elvis Costello
From Word to the Wise (2010)
Elvis, Nick, Bill. Need I say more? I cannot help but dig those majestic riffs, climbing out of the depths of whatevs..
4. Mondays / Killer Tuesday / Black Uhuru
From Liberation: The Island Anthology (1993)
I do love the random logic of the shuffle. Because how else would we get this exTREMEly copasetic track, which does go on and on, but hey, what else did you have to do with your time?
5. I Swear I Saw Christopher Reeve / Jill Sobule
From Dottie's Charms (2014)
A Midwestern interlude, courtesy of my girl Jill. Who seriously I just. I've never been there but I know the place like the back of my hand. Check it out.
6. Staten Island Baby / Black 47
How much do we love Larry Kirwan's celebration of the Irish-American experience?
7. Islands in the Stream /Bonnie Raitt and Nick Lowe
Oh, Bonnie my girl. I so love you. And yet -- you sang this with Nick? I can't even.
8. Birds in Perspex Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
Quirky -- yeah, that's the RH thing.
9. Fire Island / Fountains of Wayne
How much do I love this deeply resonant, yet laidback track? This sums up summer to me.
10. House of the Rising Sun / The Animals
Lord. So much began here. Honor paid to Eric Burdon's iconic voice, but also to the rest of the Animals (including oh yes my hero Alan Price.)
Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animals. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Sunday, August 17, 2014
I Love This Song!
5 Favorite Opening Riffs -- Jazzing It Up
Next installment of 5 in my 25 Favorite Opening Riffs. The parameters: 1. One riff per band. 2. No vocals. 3. Must occur right at the beginning of the record. This is all totally subjective, folks, and they're in no particular order. Enjoy!
So far we've been talking rock riffs, mostly, but here are a few that venture into jazz territory -- and announce those intentions right off the bat.
Moondance / Van Morrison
Two backbeat piano chords, repeated. A few light brushes on the drums. And then That Voice, slipping in like butter. "Oh, it's a marvelous night for a moon dance...." Talk about Less Is More. Eventually we'll get a divine jazz solo, plus Van's jazz-freak vocal swoops and scats (it's as if he becomes the saxophone himself); pianist Jeff Labes really gets to fly with his piano improv in the middle eight. But it's those first chords -- cool, laidback, effortlessly syncopated -- that set the whole swinging thing in motion. Sometimes you only need two measures....
Undun / The Guess Who
What? No Canadians so far? I'm sure that violates broadcasting protocols north of the border, so let's slip in this 1969 gem. It's like "Moondance"'s minor-key cousin, with a little more Latino beat. Guitarist Randy Bachman, later of Bachman-Turner Overdrive (a best riff runner-up for "Taking Care of Business") has said he based this song around some new jazz guitar chords he'd just learned; it sure doesn't sound like any other Guess Who song. That opener is quick and crafty: Three guitar chords, syncopated, with a few smacks of offbeat drums, and a percussive vocal choo-pah! on the backbeat. (We'll soon see where they got THAT idea...)
Build Me Up Buttercup / The Foundations
Stairstep guitar strums, underlaid with tambourine -- and yes, bongos! -- it's so simple, and it's all about the syncopation. (Do you sense a theme here?) Soon enough we get the second motif, layered on in counterpoint by a percussive electric piano; it's upbeat, happy pop, and just jazzy enough to make you snap your fingers and bounce in your chair. Oh, give in to it; just get up and dance, folks; you know you want to. And the singer hasn't even started yet!
Time of the Season / The Zombies
Start to finish, this is one magnificent song (read here my full take).
But today, let's focus on that brilliantly crafted intro. Like the opening of "Under Pressure," it's pure percussion, but put together like a Swiss cuckoo clock. As I dissect it, it's two beats on a tom-tom, one thump on the bass drum, then a hand clap, then a block, then a vocal gasp. All in rapid succession, intricately syncopated; it takes a downbeat plus two beats, no time at all. Repeat three more times, and it's what, eight seconds? But by the time Colin Blunstone starts singing, we're already spooked out. Brilliant.
House of the Rising Sun / The Animals
Hilton Valentine's unspooling guitar lick, hung on stairstep notes from Chas Chandler's bass, sets the whole song up, as if he's casting a fishing line and deftly reeling us in. Minor-key glissandos, rising ominously upwards, will soon be handed over to Alan Price's prophesying organ. (Which will eventually blow things into another stratosphere in the middle eight.) I suppose this isn't technically jazz: It's more like mission revival meets the blues. But oh, is it dark, and OH is it compelling. Still sends shivers up my spine, every time.
Next installment of 5 in my 25 Favorite Opening Riffs. The parameters: 1. One riff per band. 2. No vocals. 3. Must occur right at the beginning of the record. This is all totally subjective, folks, and they're in no particular order. Enjoy!
So far we've been talking rock riffs, mostly, but here are a few that venture into jazz territory -- and announce those intentions right off the bat.
Moondance / Van Morrison
Two backbeat piano chords, repeated. A few light brushes on the drums. And then That Voice, slipping in like butter. "Oh, it's a marvelous night for a moon dance...." Talk about Less Is More. Eventually we'll get a divine jazz solo, plus Van's jazz-freak vocal swoops and scats (it's as if he becomes the saxophone himself); pianist Jeff Labes really gets to fly with his piano improv in the middle eight. But it's those first chords -- cool, laidback, effortlessly syncopated -- that set the whole swinging thing in motion. Sometimes you only need two measures....
Undun / The Guess Who
What? No Canadians so far? I'm sure that violates broadcasting protocols north of the border, so let's slip in this 1969 gem. It's like "Moondance"'s minor-key cousin, with a little more Latino beat. Guitarist Randy Bachman, later of Bachman-Turner Overdrive (a best riff runner-up for "Taking Care of Business") has said he based this song around some new jazz guitar chords he'd just learned; it sure doesn't sound like any other Guess Who song. That opener is quick and crafty: Three guitar chords, syncopated, with a few smacks of offbeat drums, and a percussive vocal choo-pah! on the backbeat. (We'll soon see where they got THAT idea...)
Build Me Up Buttercup / The Foundations
Stairstep guitar strums, underlaid with tambourine -- and yes, bongos! -- it's so simple, and it's all about the syncopation. (Do you sense a theme here?) Soon enough we get the second motif, layered on in counterpoint by a percussive electric piano; it's upbeat, happy pop, and just jazzy enough to make you snap your fingers and bounce in your chair. Oh, give in to it; just get up and dance, folks; you know you want to. And the singer hasn't even started yet!
Time of the Season / The Zombies
Start to finish, this is one magnificent song (read here my full take).
But today, let's focus on that brilliantly crafted intro. Like the opening of "Under Pressure," it's pure percussion, but put together like a Swiss cuckoo clock. As I dissect it, it's two beats on a tom-tom, one thump on the bass drum, then a hand clap, then a block, then a vocal gasp. All in rapid succession, intricately syncopated; it takes a downbeat plus two beats, no time at all. Repeat three more times, and it's what, eight seconds? But by the time Colin Blunstone starts singing, we're already spooked out. Brilliant.
House of the Rising Sun / The Animals
Hilton Valentine's unspooling guitar lick, hung on stairstep notes from Chas Chandler's bass, sets the whole song up, as if he's casting a fishing line and deftly reeling us in. Minor-key glissandos, rising ominously upwards, will soon be handed over to Alan Price's prophesying organ. (Which will eventually blow things into another stratosphere in the middle eight.) I suppose this isn't technically jazz: It's more like mission revival meets the blues. But oh, is it dark, and OH is it compelling. Still sends shivers up my spine, every time.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
SATURDAY SHUFFLE
I actually did a shuffle on Wednesday, but it turned out lousy -- somehow the gremlins in my computer picked out every third-rate song I'd downloaded for reasons I can't even remember. So here, instead, is a twist on the shuffle idea -- ten songs in a row that I heard on Sirius/XM's Sixties on Six channel.
1. "Sweet Blindness
" / The Fifth Dimension
From Stoned Soul Picnic (1968)
Mister Pleasant has recently reawakened my interest in these guys, especially when they do Laura Nyro songs (I'm a confirmed Nyro-phyte). They swing, but they don't lose the song's edgy, racy spirit. "Don't let Daddy hear it / He don't believe in the gin mill spirit" -- up with teenage alcoholism! And the drunkest refrain ever: "Come on baby do a slow float / You're a good-looking riverboat." Yassss.
2. "The House of the Rising Sun" / The Animals
Single 1964; included on The Best of the Animals
Of course, next to this classic song about the road to perdition, the kids in "Sweet Blindness" are model citizens...
3. "Listen People
" / Herman's Hermits
From When the Boys Meet the Girls (1966)
The link here is Mickie Most, who -- hard to believe -- produced both the Animals and Herman's Hermits. In the height of their American fame, Peter Noone and the boys didn't even release this as a single in the UK, but in the US it hit #3. This nifty little Graham Gouldman tune redeems its soppy earnest verse ("Listen, people / To what I say") with a snappy backbeat chorus ("Everybody's got to love somebody sometime.")
4. "Build Me Up Buttercup" / The Foundations
From The Foundations
(1968)
One of the greatest Motown singles ever to be released outside of Motown -- in England, yet!
5. "I Say A Little Prayer
" / Aretha Franklin
From Aretha Now (1968)
And now the Queen of Motown gives a master class. A Bacharach-David standard, mellow as Malibu ("The moment I wake up / Before I put on my make-up . . . At work I just take time ./ And all through my coffee break time") -- until Aretha unleashes her gospel pipes and starts to testify. Well, it is about praying, isn't it? By the end, she's scatting all over the place, laying down five layers of syncopation, transforming it into free-form jazz. And that, folks, is how it's done.
6. "Windy"
/ The Association
From Insight Out (1967)
Not my favorite Association tune -- I greatly prefer "Along Comes Mary" -- this track has great harmonies, but such dopey lyrics. I mean, come on -- "Who's tripping down the streets of the city / Smilin' at everybody she sees / Who's reaching out to capture a moment / Everyone knows it's Windy" -- even by Flower Power standards, that's way too cutesy. And I hate the way I have to chair dance with that syncopation in the chorus...
7. "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town
" / Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
From Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town (1969)
Now, this is where I'd normally just change channels. Not just because it's country -- I like some country -- but because Kenny Rogers' gravelly croon infuriates me. I have so successfully avoided this song, it wasn't until today -- compelled by the Shuffle to stick it out -- that I finally listened enough to realize it's about a disabled Vietnam vet whose wife is stepping out on him. "It wasn't me that started that old crazy Asian war" -- well, boohoo. Opportunistic songwriting at its worst.
8. "Catch A Wave
" / The Beach Boys
From Surfer Girl (1963)
Classic classic classic. That tripping beat, the passed-around vocals, the explosion of harmonies in the chorus -- divine. Okay, so Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy who ever surfed; so much for "So take a lesson from a top-notch surfer boy." And yes, these too are dopey lyrics -- like "You paddle out turn around and raise / And baby that's all there is to the coastline craze" or "They'll eat their words with a fork and spoon / And watch 'em, they'll hit the road and all be surfin' soon." But you don't come to Brian Wilson for the lyrics. He rises above them every time.
9. "Magic Carpet Ride" / Steppenwolf
From Steppenwolf the Second (1968)
Whoa. The jump from "Catch a Wave" to "Magic Carpet Ride" epitomizes how much music changed in the Sixties, from jangly rock-pop to churning psychedelia. As sun-kissed and clean as the Beach Boys' sound is, Steppenwolf's is just as smoky and dirty. But it's an insanely good track, full of tempo changes and texture shifts. Dig that wicked minor-key organ progression on the bridge -- "Close your eyes, girl / Look inside, girl / Let the sound take you away" -- a contact high. Yes, this song is about drugs. Was there ever a doubt?
10. "Undun
" / Guess Who
From Canned Wheat (1969)
This one blew me away -- sure, I'd heard it a million times on the radio or in movie soundtracks, but I had no idea this song was by Guess Who. The same guys who strut their macho way through "American Woman"? The same guys who croon the Bread-like "These Eyes"? A pack of Canadians -- not only that, but Manitobans? But for this song -- originally the B-side to something called "Laughing" -- they went tripping, pulling out the spooky reverb and a psychedelic organ part worthy of the Zombies. Burton Cummings' vocal is unforgettable on this. You learn something new every day.
I actually did a shuffle on Wednesday, but it turned out lousy -- somehow the gremlins in my computer picked out every third-rate song I'd downloaded for reasons I can't even remember. So here, instead, is a twist on the shuffle idea -- ten songs in a row that I heard on Sirius/XM's Sixties on Six channel.
1. "Sweet Blindness
" / The Fifth DimensionFrom Stoned Soul Picnic (1968)
Mister Pleasant has recently reawakened my interest in these guys, especially when they do Laura Nyro songs (I'm a confirmed Nyro-phyte). They swing, but they don't lose the song's edgy, racy spirit. "Don't let Daddy hear it / He don't believe in the gin mill spirit" -- up with teenage alcoholism! And the drunkest refrain ever: "Come on baby do a slow float / You're a good-looking riverboat." Yassss.
2. "The House of the Rising Sun" / The Animals
Single 1964; included on The Best of the Animals
Of course, next to this classic song about the road to perdition, the kids in "Sweet Blindness" are model citizens...
3. "Listen People
" / Herman's HermitsFrom When the Boys Meet the Girls (1966)
The link here is Mickie Most, who -- hard to believe -- produced both the Animals and Herman's Hermits. In the height of their American fame, Peter Noone and the boys didn't even release this as a single in the UK, but in the US it hit #3. This nifty little Graham Gouldman tune redeems its soppy earnest verse ("Listen, people / To what I say") with a snappy backbeat chorus ("Everybody's got to love somebody sometime.")
4. "Build Me Up Buttercup" / The Foundations
From The Foundations
(1968)One of the greatest Motown singles ever to be released outside of Motown -- in England, yet!
5. "I Say A Little Prayer
" / Aretha FranklinFrom Aretha Now (1968)
And now the Queen of Motown gives a master class. A Bacharach-David standard, mellow as Malibu ("The moment I wake up / Before I put on my make-up . . . At work I just take time ./ And all through my coffee break time") -- until Aretha unleashes her gospel pipes and starts to testify. Well, it is about praying, isn't it? By the end, she's scatting all over the place, laying down five layers of syncopation, transforming it into free-form jazz. And that, folks, is how it's done.
6. "Windy"
/ The AssociationFrom Insight Out (1967)
Not my favorite Association tune -- I greatly prefer "Along Comes Mary" -- this track has great harmonies, but such dopey lyrics. I mean, come on -- "Who's tripping down the streets of the city / Smilin' at everybody she sees / Who's reaching out to capture a moment / Everyone knows it's Windy" -- even by Flower Power standards, that's way too cutesy. And I hate the way I have to chair dance with that syncopation in the chorus...
7. "Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town
" / Kenny Rogers and the First EditionFrom Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town (1969)
Now, this is where I'd normally just change channels. Not just because it's country -- I like some country -- but because Kenny Rogers' gravelly croon infuriates me. I have so successfully avoided this song, it wasn't until today -- compelled by the Shuffle to stick it out -- that I finally listened enough to realize it's about a disabled Vietnam vet whose wife is stepping out on him. "It wasn't me that started that old crazy Asian war" -- well, boohoo. Opportunistic songwriting at its worst.
8. "Catch A Wave
" / The Beach BoysFrom Surfer Girl (1963)
Classic classic classic. That tripping beat, the passed-around vocals, the explosion of harmonies in the chorus -- divine. Okay, so Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy who ever surfed; so much for "So take a lesson from a top-notch surfer boy." And yes, these too are dopey lyrics -- like "You paddle out turn around and raise / And baby that's all there is to the coastline craze" or "They'll eat their words with a fork and spoon / And watch 'em, they'll hit the road and all be surfin' soon." But you don't come to Brian Wilson for the lyrics. He rises above them every time.
9. "Magic Carpet Ride" / Steppenwolf
From Steppenwolf the Second (1968)
Whoa. The jump from "Catch a Wave" to "Magic Carpet Ride" epitomizes how much music changed in the Sixties, from jangly rock-pop to churning psychedelia. As sun-kissed and clean as the Beach Boys' sound is, Steppenwolf's is just as smoky and dirty. But it's an insanely good track, full of tempo changes and texture shifts. Dig that wicked minor-key organ progression on the bridge -- "Close your eyes, girl / Look inside, girl / Let the sound take you away" -- a contact high. Yes, this song is about drugs. Was there ever a doubt?
10. "Undun
" / Guess WhoFrom Canned Wheat (1969)
This one blew me away -- sure, I'd heard it a million times on the radio or in movie soundtracks, but I had no idea this song was by Guess Who. The same guys who strut their macho way through "American Woman"? The same guys who croon the Bread-like "These Eyes"? A pack of Canadians -- not only that, but Manitobans? But for this song -- originally the B-side to something called "Laughing" -- they went tripping, pulling out the spooky reverb and a psychedelic organ part worthy of the Zombies. Burton Cummings' vocal is unforgettable on this. You learn something new every day.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE
Hoping for a little summer serendipity on today's shuffle...
1. "The Islands" / Black 47
From Bankers and Gangsters (2010)
Which reminds me -- I owe blogritics.org a review of this new album by Celtic rock stalwarts Black 47. Dig this nostalgic horn-filled ode to the auld country -- sweet and soulful and just a tad sad.
2. "Flying High" / Jem
From Finally Woken (2004)
I know nothing about this singer; I barely know how this got on my iTunes. But it's such a wistfully sexy number, I never can quite bring myself to delete it. High breathy vocals, with just a touch of synths underlying the delicate acoustic guitar -- so girlish, but just LOADED with desire.
3. "Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes" / Elvis Costello
From My Aim Is True (1977)
"Oh, I used to be disgusted, / Now I try to be amused / But since their wings have got rusted / You know, the angels want to wear my red shoes." And didn't we all want to wear Elvis's red shoes back then? Jangly punk-pop with more than a touch of snarky attitude -- this guy was this good from the very start.
4. "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" / The Animals
From Animal Tracks (1965)
I'd have run off with him, wouldn't you?
5. "Inch By Inch" / Elvis Costello
From Goodbye Cruel World (1984)
I wonder how much Style Council music Elvis Costello had been listening to when he put out this wickedly tasty album. Goodbye Cruel World certainly added a heaping helping of soul to the by-then-getting-stale EC formula (remember the lead-off hit "Only Flame in Town"?). Didn't care for it at the time; adore it now.
6. "You Got My Number" / Dr. Feelgood
From Brilleaux (1986)
Throw together soul, punk, and old-fashioned rock 'n' roll, and you have the recipe for Dr. Feelgood. Even on this later album, when the band had moved to the Stiff label and adopted a more radio-ready sound, their stuff just sizzles. Churning automotive guitar riffs, the punctuations of horns, and Lee Brilleaux's savagely sexy voice -- that's a number I'm definitely dialing.
7. "Right Place, Wrong Time" / Dr. John
From In the Right Place (1973)
And now here comes a second opinion from the Other Doctor -- Dr. John, a.k.a.Mac Rebennack, that mighty practitioner of soul pumped up with New Orleans funk. This is one of those radio hits I always turned up louder when it came on, but it took 30-plus years for me to finally buy it, just last week, in anticipation of a trip to New Orleans at the end of the summer. Swampy, and just a little bit nasty. Whoo-hah!
8. "Back To You" / Bill Jerram Band
From Bill Jerram Band (2005)
Bill Jerram -- a.k.a. Billo from the Ray Davies fan forum -- surprised us all with this sprightly album, full of melody and bop and crunchy guitar. Reminds me a lot of Steve Miller -- which reminds me, I've been meaning to do a Steve Miller for a few days now...
9. "Love Is An Outlaw" / Tom Gallagher
From Age of the Wheel (unreleased)
Talk about talented friends from the Ray forum -- Tom Gallagher was one of the great undiscovered rockers. I was lucky enough to get a copy of Tom's magnificent unreleased album shortly before his untimely death in 2007. This track really shows off his lazy drawling vocals and his plangent guitar work. Peace on you, Tom.
10. "I Believed You" / The Kinks (then called the Ravens)
From The Kinks (1964)
Inevitably, it all comes back to the Kinks. This early unreleased Ray Davies demo -- Beatle-sweet and teen-pop perky -- was appended as an extra track on the reissue of this debut Kinks album. Slight, yes, derivative, yes -- but Ray Davies' songwriting talent was clearly already in gear.
Well, I'm on to "Have A Cuppa Tea" from Muswell Hillbillies -- the official shuffle stops here, but if I'm on a Kinks roll, I'm not turning off my computer!
Hoping for a little summer serendipity on today's shuffle...
1. "The Islands" / Black 47
From Bankers and Gangsters (2010)
Which reminds me -- I owe blogritics.org a review of this new album by Celtic rock stalwarts Black 47. Dig this nostalgic horn-filled ode to the auld country -- sweet and soulful and just a tad sad.
2. "Flying High" / Jem
From Finally Woken (2004)
I know nothing about this singer; I barely know how this got on my iTunes. But it's such a wistfully sexy number, I never can quite bring myself to delete it. High breathy vocals, with just a touch of synths underlying the delicate acoustic guitar -- so girlish, but just LOADED with desire.
3. "Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes" / Elvis Costello
From My Aim Is True (1977)
"Oh, I used to be disgusted, / Now I try to be amused / But since their wings have got rusted / You know, the angels want to wear my red shoes." And didn't we all want to wear Elvis's red shoes back then? Jangly punk-pop with more than a touch of snarky attitude -- this guy was this good from the very start.
4. "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" / The Animals
From Animal Tracks (1965)
I'd have run off with him, wouldn't you?
5. "Inch By Inch" / Elvis Costello
From Goodbye Cruel World (1984)
I wonder how much Style Council music Elvis Costello had been listening to when he put out this wickedly tasty album. Goodbye Cruel World certainly added a heaping helping of soul to the by-then-getting-stale EC formula (remember the lead-off hit "Only Flame in Town"?). Didn't care for it at the time; adore it now.
6. "You Got My Number" / Dr. Feelgood
From Brilleaux (1986)
Throw together soul, punk, and old-fashioned rock 'n' roll, and you have the recipe for Dr. Feelgood. Even on this later album, when the band had moved to the Stiff label and adopted a more radio-ready sound, their stuff just sizzles. Churning automotive guitar riffs, the punctuations of horns, and Lee Brilleaux's savagely sexy voice -- that's a number I'm definitely dialing.
7. "Right Place, Wrong Time" / Dr. John
From In the Right Place (1973)
And now here comes a second opinion from the Other Doctor -- Dr. John, a.k.a.Mac Rebennack, that mighty practitioner of soul pumped up with New Orleans funk. This is one of those radio hits I always turned up louder when it came on, but it took 30-plus years for me to finally buy it, just last week, in anticipation of a trip to New Orleans at the end of the summer. Swampy, and just a little bit nasty. Whoo-hah!
8. "Back To You" / Bill Jerram Band
From Bill Jerram Band (2005)
Bill Jerram -- a.k.a. Billo from the Ray Davies fan forum -- surprised us all with this sprightly album, full of melody and bop and crunchy guitar. Reminds me a lot of Steve Miller -- which reminds me, I've been meaning to do a Steve Miller for a few days now...
9. "Love Is An Outlaw" / Tom Gallagher
From Age of the Wheel (unreleased)
Talk about talented friends from the Ray forum -- Tom Gallagher was one of the great undiscovered rockers. I was lucky enough to get a copy of Tom's magnificent unreleased album shortly before his untimely death in 2007. This track really shows off his lazy drawling vocals and his plangent guitar work. Peace on you, Tom.
10. "I Believed You" / The Kinks (then called the Ravens)
From The Kinks (1964)
Inevitably, it all comes back to the Kinks. This early unreleased Ray Davies demo -- Beatle-sweet and teen-pop perky -- was appended as an extra track on the reissue of this debut Kinks album. Slight, yes, derivative, yes -- but Ray Davies' songwriting talent was clearly already in gear.
Well, I'm on to "Have A Cuppa Tea" from Muswell Hillbillies -- the official shuffle stops here, but if I'm on a Kinks roll, I'm not turning off my computer!
Friday, March 05, 2010
The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 6-10
Still stuck in the 60s -- not that I'm complaining. Looking over today's list, I realize that these songs all tend towards the dark-and-brooding end of the spectrum. When I first heard them, I had no idea why they moved me so. But over the years, as I learned more of life, these are songs that have continually deepened for me. They have more than stood the test of time.
[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]
6. "The House of the Rising Sun" / The Animals (1964)
I'll admit it, in 1964 I wasn't ready to appreciate this haunting, dangerous bit of music. Hey, I was only a grade-school kid, what would you expect? But even then I made a mental note to store it away for later. I must have known someday it would all make deep, dark, sinful sense.
7. "Tired of Waiting For You" / The Kinks (1965)
Why, what a surprise! Again I have room to expound at large on a Kinks song -- this primitive early track, my personal favorite of all those 1964-65 breakthrough Kinks singles. Of course "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were astonishing and new -- I remember hearing them on the radio and being deeply disturbed. But personally? This February 1965 hit was the one that stole my heart. (It wasn't just me -- this song is tied with "Come Dancing" as the Kinks' highest-charting US single ever.) No other song, except maybe the Beatles' "I'm So Tired," has so perfectly captured the feeling of being bone-weary and fed up to here. When "I'm So Tired" came out, however, we were all hip to the knowledge that it referred to drugs. "Tired of Waiting" belongs to an earlier, more innocent era -- it's all about emotional exhaustion, with just a hint of post-masturbatory letdown. Not that I would have known that in 1965, but -- well, I have to assume something in its oozing chord changes subliminally warned me there was (shhhhh) S-E-X involved. Listen to the groaning edge of Ray Davies' vocal as he complains, "I'm so tired / Tired of waiting / Tired of waiting for you!" I love the lapidary effect of that, how each line builds on the previous one, dazedly adding the next word or phrase to that long sinuous melodic line, while the rhythm moves fitfully in starts and stops. We back up for a little character establishment: "I was a lonely soul / I had nobody till I met you" (the woefulness of Ray's vocal here cracks me up.) The rhythm seems aimless, relaxed, like freeform jazz -- until he ups the ante with a key change: "But you / Keep-a me waiting / All of the time / What can I do?" You can just hear the frustration underlying those surging short phrases, like a ticking time bomb. Now comes the genius part: a swift-kick major key change for the bridge, and the mellow assertion, "It's your life / And you can do what you want." (Note how the key darkens into minor on "life." Do we really believe that he's just going to step aside?) A quick scuffle of drums and guitar, and then Ray -- such a feminist, so enlightened! -- loftily repeats, "Do what you want," before diving fiercely back into his own agony: "But please don't keep-a me waiting!" The guitar churns, drums whack, volume builds, chords shift, and he urgently repeats, "Please don't keep me waiting, 'cos I'm / So tired," and we relapse into his listless cycle of fatigue. All of those early Kinks signature songs were about being run ragged by obsession: the inescapable clutches of "You Really Got Me," the 24/7 lust of "All Day and All of the Night," the begging for release of "Set Me Free." By the time he'd got to "Tired of Waiting," however, I sense that Ray Davies himself was feeling strung out and worn out. He's not even beginning for release anymore, just staggering through a limbo of unslaked desire. Because there's no question about it: We all knew what the singer was waiting for. I was only twelve years old and I knew. It terrified me. And yet -- god help me -- I wanted more.
8. "Summer in the City" (1967)
The antithesis to everything I loved about the Spoonful's rollicking jug band sound, "Summer in the City" was like a gritty slap upside the head. Admit it: whenever this track comes on, don't you brace yourself for the blackout?
9. "Walk Away Renee" / The Left Banke (1966)
This is what pop does best -- distill love into two-and-a-half minutes of longing and heartache.
10. "Along Comes Mary" / The Association (1968)
Edgy, wordy, and faintly mysterious, this quintessentially West Coast track teased me with its coded references to a much cooler lifestyle than anything this junior-high kid had ever known.
Nos. 6-10
Still stuck in the 60s -- not that I'm complaining. Looking over today's list, I realize that these songs all tend towards the dark-and-brooding end of the spectrum. When I first heard them, I had no idea why they moved me so. But over the years, as I learned more of life, these are songs that have continually deepened for me. They have more than stood the test of time.
[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]
6. "The House of the Rising Sun" / The Animals (1964)
I'll admit it, in 1964 I wasn't ready to appreciate this haunting, dangerous bit of music. Hey, I was only a grade-school kid, what would you expect? But even then I made a mental note to store it away for later. I must have known someday it would all make deep, dark, sinful sense.
7. "Tired of Waiting For You" / The Kinks (1965)
Why, what a surprise! Again I have room to expound at large on a Kinks song -- this primitive early track, my personal favorite of all those 1964-65 breakthrough Kinks singles. Of course "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night" were astonishing and new -- I remember hearing them on the radio and being deeply disturbed. But personally? This February 1965 hit was the one that stole my heart. (It wasn't just me -- this song is tied with "Come Dancing" as the Kinks' highest-charting US single ever.) No other song, except maybe the Beatles' "I'm So Tired," has so perfectly captured the feeling of being bone-weary and fed up to here. When "I'm So Tired" came out, however, we were all hip to the knowledge that it referred to drugs. "Tired of Waiting" belongs to an earlier, more innocent era -- it's all about emotional exhaustion, with just a hint of post-masturbatory letdown. Not that I would have known that in 1965, but -- well, I have to assume something in its oozing chord changes subliminally warned me there was (shhhhh) S-E-X involved. Listen to the groaning edge of Ray Davies' vocal as he complains, "I'm so tired / Tired of waiting / Tired of waiting for you!" I love the lapidary effect of that, how each line builds on the previous one, dazedly adding the next word or phrase to that long sinuous melodic line, while the rhythm moves fitfully in starts and stops. We back up for a little character establishment: "I was a lonely soul / I had nobody till I met you" (the woefulness of Ray's vocal here cracks me up.) The rhythm seems aimless, relaxed, like freeform jazz -- until he ups the ante with a key change: "But you / Keep-a me waiting / All of the time / What can I do?" You can just hear the frustration underlying those surging short phrases, like a ticking time bomb. Now comes the genius part: a swift-kick major key change for the bridge, and the mellow assertion, "It's your life / And you can do what you want." (Note how the key darkens into minor on "life." Do we really believe that he's just going to step aside?) A quick scuffle of drums and guitar, and then Ray -- such a feminist, so enlightened! -- loftily repeats, "Do what you want," before diving fiercely back into his own agony: "But please don't keep-a me waiting!" The guitar churns, drums whack, volume builds, chords shift, and he urgently repeats, "Please don't keep me waiting, 'cos I'm / So tired," and we relapse into his listless cycle of fatigue. All of those early Kinks signature songs were about being run ragged by obsession: the inescapable clutches of "You Really Got Me," the 24/7 lust of "All Day and All of the Night," the begging for release of "Set Me Free." By the time he'd got to "Tired of Waiting," however, I sense that Ray Davies himself was feeling strung out and worn out. He's not even beginning for release anymore, just staggering through a limbo of unslaked desire. Because there's no question about it: We all knew what the singer was waiting for. I was only twelve years old and I knew. It terrified me. And yet -- god help me -- I wanted more.
8. "Summer in the City" (1967)
The antithesis to everything I loved about the Spoonful's rollicking jug band sound, "Summer in the City" was like a gritty slap upside the head. Admit it: whenever this track comes on, don't you brace yourself for the blackout?
9. "Walk Away Renee" / The Left Banke (1966)
This is what pop does best -- distill love into two-and-a-half minutes of longing and heartache.
10. "Along Comes Mary" / The Association (1968)
Edgy, wordy, and faintly mysterious, this quintessentially West Coast track teased me with its coded references to a much cooler lifestyle than anything this junior-high kid had ever known.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 56-60
For better or worse, my musical tastes were born out of the British Invasion, so it's no surprise I'm hitting a run of mid-60s English rock in the heart of my list -- and no surprise that I've already written about so many of today's songs. Some of these bands belong to that elite group of artists who've nabbed more than one spot on my list (guess which); others are more in the category of one-hit wonders, but as my write-ups explain, don't dismiss them so quickly.
[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]
56. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" / The Animals (1965)
The last great Animals single to be recorded with Alan Price on organ -- and oh, it's a sizzler.
57. "Sunshine Superman" / Donovan (1966)
So many great Donovan tracks, it was hard to choose just one. (I'm prepared now for the onslaught of comments telling me which Donovan tracks you thought were better.) But in the end I had to go for "Sunshine Superman" because it encompasses everything we loved him for -- folkie innocence, hippie psychedelia, and a nifty world music groove.
58. "Time of the Season" / The Zombies (1969)
Thank goodness I've got links for the rest of today's songs -- that leaves me plenty of room to write about this song. As many of you know, I go weak in the knees whenever I think about the Zombies. They weren't around very long -- in fact they broke up a full year before this single was released. Fun facts to know and tell: Wikipedia tells me that it was rock & roll zelig Al Kooper, who'd recently become an A&R exec at Columbia Records, that pushed to lift this track from their 1968 farewell album Odessey and Oracle and put it out as a 45. How cruelly ironic, then, that it turned out to be their best-selling single ever, at least in the U.S. (The Zombies were one British Invasion band that didn't really catch on over here, though I can say I was a Zombies fan from the get-go.)
Talk about the Spookiness Quotient -- this song is simply drenched with it. Some songs just deserve to be heard in the dark, late at night, and this is one of them. That mysterously tip-toeing bass line, the descending triplet on the organ, strange little percussion accents like bumps in the night -- dig that one repeated tic, a lightning-swift combo of block clap, cymbal, and gasp (sounds like somebody's being whipped down in the dungeon). Above all, it's Colin Blunstone's other-worldly voice, doubled and echoed until it sounds like it's coming from some parallel dimension. And on the second verse, all those overlapping voices, falsettos and booming baritones, coming out of the woodwork like a spirits at a seance: "What's your name? (What's your name?) / Who's your daddy? (Who's your daddy?)/ (HE RICH) Is he rich like me-ee? / Has he taken (Has he taken) / any time (any time) / (TO SHOW) To show you what you need to live?" It's like an allusive, coded conversation, something heard through a wall maybe; we have no idea what they're talking about. In the bridge, the imaginary voices take the lead: "(Tell it to me slowly!) / Tell you what?/ (I really want to know). . . " Then they all chime in together in thick clotted sacral harmonies for the refrain: "It's the time / For the see-ea-son for loving," ending on a VERY disturbing chord. After which, off goes Rod Argent's lunatic, inspired organ solo -- I've got to think that Al Kooper was grooving on that. The baroque textures of this song tap into so many dark psychological states -- it makes me think of time travel, of drug trips, of haunted houses, of black magic, of kinky sex, of mad wives locked in the attic, of evil clowns and malevolent ventriloquist's dummies coming to life. You know, like The Twilight Zone on acid, with a script by Ray Bradbury, directed by David Lynch, starring Jeremy Irons and Amanda Plummer. Gothic and stylish, a pure class act.
59. "Concrete and Clay" / Unit 4 + 2 (1966)
Ah, just listen to that cowbell intro. A fluky hit, catapulted from obscurity by pirate radio stations (raise your hand if you saw the film Pirate Radio, a.k.a. The Boat That Rocked), this irresistible little swinger was best listened to on a transistor radio snuggled underneath your pillow. Few songs transport me back as totally as this one does.
60. "A World Without Love" / Peter & Gordon (1964)
The fact that this song was written by Paul McCartney is one-hundred-percent beside the point. I adored Peter Asher, and the heavenly harmonies on this record were pop perfection.
Nos. 56-60
For better or worse, my musical tastes were born out of the British Invasion, so it's no surprise I'm hitting a run of mid-60s English rock in the heart of my list -- and no surprise that I've already written about so many of today's songs. Some of these bands belong to that elite group of artists who've nabbed more than one spot on my list (guess which); others are more in the category of one-hit wonders, but as my write-ups explain, don't dismiss them so quickly.
[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]
56. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" / The Animals (1965)
The last great Animals single to be recorded with Alan Price on organ -- and oh, it's a sizzler.
57. "Sunshine Superman" / Donovan (1966)
So many great Donovan tracks, it was hard to choose just one. (I'm prepared now for the onslaught of comments telling me which Donovan tracks you thought were better.) But in the end I had to go for "Sunshine Superman" because it encompasses everything we loved him for -- folkie innocence, hippie psychedelia, and a nifty world music groove.
58. "Time of the Season" / The Zombies (1969)
Thank goodness I've got links for the rest of today's songs -- that leaves me plenty of room to write about this song. As many of you know, I go weak in the knees whenever I think about the Zombies. They weren't around very long -- in fact they broke up a full year before this single was released. Fun facts to know and tell: Wikipedia tells me that it was rock & roll zelig Al Kooper, who'd recently become an A&R exec at Columbia Records, that pushed to lift this track from their 1968 farewell album Odessey and Oracle and put it out as a 45. How cruelly ironic, then, that it turned out to be their best-selling single ever, at least in the U.S. (The Zombies were one British Invasion band that didn't really catch on over here, though I can say I was a Zombies fan from the get-go.)
Talk about the Spookiness Quotient -- this song is simply drenched with it. Some songs just deserve to be heard in the dark, late at night, and this is one of them. That mysterously tip-toeing bass line, the descending triplet on the organ, strange little percussion accents like bumps in the night -- dig that one repeated tic, a lightning-swift combo of block clap, cymbal, and gasp (sounds like somebody's being whipped down in the dungeon). Above all, it's Colin Blunstone's other-worldly voice, doubled and echoed until it sounds like it's coming from some parallel dimension. And on the second verse, all those overlapping voices, falsettos and booming baritones, coming out of the woodwork like a spirits at a seance: "What's your name? (What's your name?) / Who's your daddy? (Who's your daddy?)/ (HE RICH) Is he rich like me-ee? / Has he taken (Has he taken) / any time (any time) / (TO SHOW) To show you what you need to live?" It's like an allusive, coded conversation, something heard through a wall maybe; we have no idea what they're talking about. In the bridge, the imaginary voices take the lead: "(Tell it to me slowly!) / Tell you what?/ (I really want to know). . . " Then they all chime in together in thick clotted sacral harmonies for the refrain: "It's the time / For the see-ea-son for loving," ending on a VERY disturbing chord. After which, off goes Rod Argent's lunatic, inspired organ solo -- I've got to think that Al Kooper was grooving on that. The baroque textures of this song tap into so many dark psychological states -- it makes me think of time travel, of drug trips, of haunted houses, of black magic, of kinky sex, of mad wives locked in the attic, of evil clowns and malevolent ventriloquist's dummies coming to life. You know, like The Twilight Zone on acid, with a script by Ray Bradbury, directed by David Lynch, starring Jeremy Irons and Amanda Plummer. Gothic and stylish, a pure class act.
59. "Concrete and Clay" / Unit 4 + 2 (1966)
Ah, just listen to that cowbell intro. A fluky hit, catapulted from obscurity by pirate radio stations (raise your hand if you saw the film Pirate Radio, a.k.a. The Boat That Rocked), this irresistible little swinger was best listened to on a transistor radio snuggled underneath your pillow. Few songs transport me back as totally as this one does.
60. "A World Without Love" / Peter & Gordon (1964)
The fact that this song was written by Paul McCartney is one-hundred-percent beside the point. I adored Peter Asher, and the heavenly harmonies on this record were pop perfection.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
"Please Send Me Someone To Love" / The Animals
For Christmas I got one of those turntables that's supposed to convert vinyl to digital tracks (yeah, I know, I got one of those last Christmas, but they swear the technology's different now and it will really work this time). But before I opened that snazzy present, I'd already caved in and ordered a CD version of my old Animals LP Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted, mostly because I just had to have this track.
Now, when I say "old" Animals LP, I don't mean dating back to their first appearance in the early 1960s (I don't count Eric Burdon and the Animals as the same band -- in fact, I only consider them the Animals if Alan Price is on board, and he was the first member of the original band to bail). No, this LP popped up in 1977, when for some reason the original band decided to re-unite. I guess that reunion fizzled, but they tried it again in 1983, when they not only released another album, Ark, but even supported it with a tour. That's when I finally saw them live, here in New York at the Beacon Theater. I remember that night very well; Eric Burdon's singing was awesome, but there wasn't enough of Alan Price in the show for me -- they let him sing a couple songs from O Lucky Man! but otherwise wanted to keep him confined to the keyboards, which had been the problem in the first place. I guess that second reunion was doomed to fail too.
The Animals may have gotten bogged down in ego and politics, but there's no question they were a brilliant band, and this reunion album has some brilliant stuff on it. Now that they weren't anymore hungry young kids being manipulated by cynical pop producers, they could indulge themselves with all the bluesy stuff they'd always loved to perform. This old Percy Mayfield standard dates back to 1950 and has been covered by everyone from Pat Boone and Peggy Lee to the Grateful Dead, but this is the version I know and love the best. I love the drawling tempo they take it at, taking its own sweet time, much lazier than Mayfield's original (Count Basie's version, with Joe Williams on vocals, sounds a lot closer) ; I love how Eric Burdon's voice climbs gradually from growl to howl.
The song starts out almost like a gospel number, some sort of blues benediction -- "Heaven please send to all mankind / Understanding and peace of mind / But if it's not asking too much / Please send me someone to love." Talk about restraint -- almost all of the song follows this same disciplined pattern, nattering on about world peace and harmony, but the singer can't help it, at the end of every chorus he just has to sneak in his own selfish plea. He's trying to focus on the big picture, he really is, and he doesn't want to feel sorry for himself . . . but there's only so much self-restraint a guy can take. "Just because I am in misery / Well I don't beg for no sympathy," he claims, the chords shifting doggedly upward, but eventually he gets carried away; the notes crest over the top, underlaid with an uneasy diminished chord, as he blurts out, "Well if it's not asking too much / Please send me someone to love." It's subtle, but that underlying tension between his high-minded pretense and his real motives charges up this whole song.
Of course Alan Price's electric piano riffs are wonderful; to my ear they make the song. (That middle eight solo is so lovely and laidback -- it's great to see the mature Animals letting themselves be so mellow). But even I will admit that this is a superb Burdon vocal. His confident phrasing just makes you beg for the lyrical pay-off, and he has the guts to lets himself go flat and slide dirtily into those low notes, then do a bravura glissando up to the top of his range. It's the voice of experience, all weathered and assured.
It took ages for this record to be re-issued on CD; even now it's hard to find, and I couldn't even dredge up an on-line sample to link to. Sorry, but you'll just have to take my word for it. Even better, get your own hands on this record -- it's a bittersweet reminder of how good the Animals might have been if their prickly personalities hadn't gotten in the way. Well, at least we've got this latter day bonus -- and now I've got it on CD, I'm a happy camper.
For Christmas I got one of those turntables that's supposed to convert vinyl to digital tracks (yeah, I know, I got one of those last Christmas, but they swear the technology's different now and it will really work this time). But before I opened that snazzy present, I'd already caved in and ordered a CD version of my old Animals LP Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted, mostly because I just had to have this track.
Now, when I say "old" Animals LP, I don't mean dating back to their first appearance in the early 1960s (I don't count Eric Burdon and the Animals as the same band -- in fact, I only consider them the Animals if Alan Price is on board, and he was the first member of the original band to bail). No, this LP popped up in 1977, when for some reason the original band decided to re-unite. I guess that reunion fizzled, but they tried it again in 1983, when they not only released another album, Ark, but even supported it with a tour. That's when I finally saw them live, here in New York at the Beacon Theater. I remember that night very well; Eric Burdon's singing was awesome, but there wasn't enough of Alan Price in the show for me -- they let him sing a couple songs from O Lucky Man! but otherwise wanted to keep him confined to the keyboards, which had been the problem in the first place. I guess that second reunion was doomed to fail too.
The Animals may have gotten bogged down in ego and politics, but there's no question they were a brilliant band, and this reunion album has some brilliant stuff on it. Now that they weren't anymore hungry young kids being manipulated by cynical pop producers, they could indulge themselves with all the bluesy stuff they'd always loved to perform. This old Percy Mayfield standard dates back to 1950 and has been covered by everyone from Pat Boone and Peggy Lee to the Grateful Dead, but this is the version I know and love the best. I love the drawling tempo they take it at, taking its own sweet time, much lazier than Mayfield's original (Count Basie's version, with Joe Williams on vocals, sounds a lot closer) ; I love how Eric Burdon's voice climbs gradually from growl to howl.
The song starts out almost like a gospel number, some sort of blues benediction -- "Heaven please send to all mankind / Understanding and peace of mind / But if it's not asking too much / Please send me someone to love." Talk about restraint -- almost all of the song follows this same disciplined pattern, nattering on about world peace and harmony, but the singer can't help it, at the end of every chorus he just has to sneak in his own selfish plea. He's trying to focus on the big picture, he really is, and he doesn't want to feel sorry for himself . . . but there's only so much self-restraint a guy can take. "Just because I am in misery / Well I don't beg for no sympathy," he claims, the chords shifting doggedly upward, but eventually he gets carried away; the notes crest over the top, underlaid with an uneasy diminished chord, as he blurts out, "Well if it's not asking too much / Please send me someone to love." It's subtle, but that underlying tension between his high-minded pretense and his real motives charges up this whole song.
Of course Alan Price's electric piano riffs are wonderful; to my ear they make the song. (That middle eight solo is so lovely and laidback -- it's great to see the mature Animals letting themselves be so mellow). But even I will admit that this is a superb Burdon vocal. His confident phrasing just makes you beg for the lyrical pay-off, and he has the guts to lets himself go flat and slide dirtily into those low notes, then do a bravura glissando up to the top of his range. It's the voice of experience, all weathered and assured.
It took ages for this record to be re-issued on CD; even now it's hard to find, and I couldn't even dredge up an on-line sample to link to. Sorry, but you'll just have to take my word for it. Even better, get your own hands on this record -- it's a bittersweet reminder of how good the Animals might have been if their prickly personalities hadn't gotten in the way. Well, at least we've got this latter day bonus -- and now I've got it on CD, I'm a happy camper.
Friday, June 06, 2008
"The Story of Bo Diddley" / The Animals
Like way too many Americans, I only discovered Bo Diddley through the music of British white guys in shaggy haircuts and drainpipe jeans-- that bomp bomp-bomp da-bomp beat still makes me think more of Newcastle than Chicago. Sad but true. And apparently I'm not the only one: Links to the youtube clip of the Animals doing this song have popped up everywhere since Bo Diddley died last Monday.
I suppose I knew the Yardbirds' cranked-up version of "I'm a Man" first -- this song was hard to miss in 1965, though in my musical memory it tends to morph into the Spencer Davis Group song of the same name. (Oh, young Stevie Winwood...) A snappy little number, but it completely missed the laidback sexy confidence of Bo's original. Then there was the Kinks' cover of "Cadillac," but it wasn't until much later that I heard that -- in the early Kinks days I was strictly a singles customer -- and let's be honest, like most of the blues covers on their debut album, it's not all that good. You all know how I love Ray Davies, but a blues singer he wasn't.
The Animals, though, were a different story. Eric Burdon's obsession with American blues leaked into every release the early Animals did, and this song is a crazy fan-worshipping take-off on Bo's first hit, "Bo Diddley," as well as his later song "Hey, Bo Diddley." (The songwriting credit goes to Burdon and Ellis McDaniel, which was Diddley's real name.) That trademark Bo Diddley beat runs through the whole song, pounded out relentlessly by Alan Price on the organ, while Eric -- using his best fake Delta accent, in a sort of talking blues that's damn close to rap -- delineates "the story of Bo Diddley / and the rock 'n roll scene in general." He gives a mini-bio of Diddley; discusses how the payola scandal caused the "death of the rock 'n roll scene" in America; describes the rise of the Beatles, the Stones, the Merseybeats et cetera. It's the best six-minute recap any cultural historian could want.
Then he describes the night he and the band finally met their hero at their home base, the Club a Go Go in Newcastle. I have to believe the evening happened just as Eric tells it: "And the doors opened one night and to our surprise / Walked in the man himself, Bo Diddley / Along with him was Jerome Green, his maraca man, / And the Duchess, his gorgeous sister." The Animals start performing their Bo Diddley material, and Eric says "I overheard Bo Diddley talkin' / He turned around to Jerome Green / And he said, 'Hey, Jerome? What do you think of these guys doin' our material?" [dig Eric's drawling impression of Bo] . . .
"Jerome said, Uh, where's the bar, man? Please show me to the bar...' / He turned around to the Duchess and said, / 'Hey Duch...what do you think of these young guys doin' our material?" / She said, [this time a silly high-pitched voice] 'I don't know. I only came across here / To see the changin' of the guards and all that jazz.'" Priceless.
So now we're holding our breath for the denouement -- and here it comes: "Well, Bo Diddley looked up at me and he said, / With half closed eyes and a smile, / He said "Man," / Took off his glasses," -- it's a gas how Eric draws it out, relishing the suspense -- "He said, "Man, / That sure is . . . the biggest load of rubbish I ever heard in my life!" Only I'm guessing "rubbish" wasn't the word Bo Diddley used.
This song makes me love Bo Diddley, a man with a gift for telling it like it is. It makes me love Eric Burdon, too, with all that genuine enthusiasm just gushing out of him. These Geordies loved Bo Diddley as he deserved to be loved.
Like way too many Americans, I only discovered Bo Diddley through the music of British white guys in shaggy haircuts and drainpipe jeans-- that bomp bomp-bomp da-bomp beat still makes me think more of Newcastle than Chicago. Sad but true. And apparently I'm not the only one: Links to the youtube clip of the Animals doing this song have popped up everywhere since Bo Diddley died last Monday.
I suppose I knew the Yardbirds' cranked-up version of "I'm a Man" first -- this song was hard to miss in 1965, though in my musical memory it tends to morph into the Spencer Davis Group song of the same name. (Oh, young Stevie Winwood...) A snappy little number, but it completely missed the laidback sexy confidence of Bo's original. Then there was the Kinks' cover of "Cadillac," but it wasn't until much later that I heard that -- in the early Kinks days I was strictly a singles customer -- and let's be honest, like most of the blues covers on their debut album, it's not all that good. You all know how I love Ray Davies, but a blues singer he wasn't.
The Animals, though, were a different story. Eric Burdon's obsession with American blues leaked into every release the early Animals did, and this song is a crazy fan-worshipping take-off on Bo's first hit, "Bo Diddley," as well as his later song "Hey, Bo Diddley." (The songwriting credit goes to Burdon and Ellis McDaniel, which was Diddley's real name.) That trademark Bo Diddley beat runs through the whole song, pounded out relentlessly by Alan Price on the organ, while Eric -- using his best fake Delta accent, in a sort of talking blues that's damn close to rap -- delineates "the story of Bo Diddley / and the rock 'n roll scene in general." He gives a mini-bio of Diddley; discusses how the payola scandal caused the "death of the rock 'n roll scene" in America; describes the rise of the Beatles, the Stones, the Merseybeats et cetera. It's the best six-minute recap any cultural historian could want.
Then he describes the night he and the band finally met their hero at their home base, the Club a Go Go in Newcastle. I have to believe the evening happened just as Eric tells it: "And the doors opened one night and to our surprise / Walked in the man himself, Bo Diddley / Along with him was Jerome Green, his maraca man, / And the Duchess, his gorgeous sister." The Animals start performing their Bo Diddley material, and Eric says "I overheard Bo Diddley talkin' / He turned around to Jerome Green / And he said, 'Hey, Jerome? What do you think of these guys doin' our material?" [dig Eric's drawling impression of Bo] . . .
"Jerome said, Uh, where's the bar, man? Please show me to the bar...' / He turned around to the Duchess and said, / 'Hey Duch...what do you think of these young guys doin' our material?" / She said, [this time a silly high-pitched voice] 'I don't know. I only came across here / To see the changin' of the guards and all that jazz.'" Priceless.
So now we're holding our breath for the denouement -- and here it comes: "Well, Bo Diddley looked up at me and he said, / With half closed eyes and a smile, / He said "Man," / Took off his glasses," -- it's a gas how Eric draws it out, relishing the suspense -- "He said, "Man, / That sure is . . . the biggest load of rubbish I ever heard in my life!" Only I'm guessing "rubbish" wasn't the word Bo Diddley used.
This song makes me love Bo Diddley, a man with a gift for telling it like it is. It makes me love Eric Burdon, too, with all that genuine enthusiasm just gushing out of him. These Geordies loved Bo Diddley as he deserved to be loved.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
"What Am I Living For?" /
Alan Price
My iTunes has been scolding me lately, reminding me that I have been ignoring Alan Price. That simply will not do. I still owe Alan Price for the approximately ten years, 1973-83, when he was my top fangirl obsession; I also owe him for February 23, 2005 (remember, Alan?). And so my shuffle has been taunting me today, pulling out all the most devastatingly bluesy Alan Price tracks, things that still make me catch my breath and feel faint.
After pulling off one of the most notorious switcheroos in the history of rock music -- getting his name down as arranger on the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun," thus snagging all the songwriting royalties (I reckon he's still living on those) -- Alan for years wrote all the songs on his albums. Some of that material, particularly the brilliant soundtrack for O Lucky Man! and the autobiographical LP Between Today and Yesterday, still ranks among my favorite music in the world. But -- let's face it -- Alan wasn't above padding his albums out with some dreck (I refer to this as the McCartney Syndrome), especially during the Disco Era. I mean, only a truly obsessed fangirl like myself could really like "Don't Stop" or "Let Yourself Go" (which still make me pant, by the way -- I've never claimed that my critical faculties were infallible).
Later in his career, though, when he'd lost any hope of being considered a Major Contender, Alan reverted to doing what he probably should have done all along: Covering old blues songs. That's what made albums like A Gigster's Life For Me, Covers, and Travellin' Man worth all the time it took me to find them on eBay. (Based On A True Story is another story altogether -- who knew Alan had that vein of jazzy genius still waiting to be tapped?)
Which leads us to "What Am I Living For?" This appears on both A Gigster's Life and Covers, though the Amazon mp3 link I'm providing leads you to an anthology album called I Put A Spell On You -- not a bad place to start if you don't know who the hell this guy is.
This blues standard, written by Fred Jay and Art Harris, was recorded by tons of people -- Wanda Jackson, Chuck Wills, Solomon Burke -- I reckon it was in the Animals' repertoire early on, considering what a blues maniac Eric Burdon was. So here's Alan Price pulling it out 30 years later, which is kinda cool. I haven't listened to many of the other versions; this one is the one I know and love. I sink happily into the smoky texture of Alan's vocals, those scatting organ solos, the lazy syncopation of the arrangement (let's give a shout out to the beautiful Bobby Tench on guitar, and Martin Wild's emphatic drumming). I love how Alan caresses the lyrics, from the husky quaver on "I want your lips on mine" to the wail of "I wanna ho-old you tight." Let's face it, this is a slow dancin' make-out song; it has absolutely NO OTHER PURPOSE IN THE WORLD. But I could sit here all night, visualizing Alan's fingers flying over that keyboard, imagining...
Where was I?
You know what? I like being a fangirl. It adds a certain dimension to music that you male fans may never entirely understand. I don't have to prattle on about what guitar strings or mixing boards were used on this album; I don't have to parse the music industry circa 1992, or discuss how Alan's keyboard technique was derived from his boyhood playing the church organ in Jarrow. I can just say this: his voice makes me quiver and shiver. Always has, always will. I'm sorry I've neglected you, Alan; you know I still love you. And we'll always have Cheltenham.
What Am I Living For? sample
Alan Price
My iTunes has been scolding me lately, reminding me that I have been ignoring Alan Price. That simply will not do. I still owe Alan Price for the approximately ten years, 1973-83, when he was my top fangirl obsession; I also owe him for February 23, 2005 (remember, Alan?). And so my shuffle has been taunting me today, pulling out all the most devastatingly bluesy Alan Price tracks, things that still make me catch my breath and feel faint.
After pulling off one of the most notorious switcheroos in the history of rock music -- getting his name down as arranger on the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun," thus snagging all the songwriting royalties (I reckon he's still living on those) -- Alan for years wrote all the songs on his albums. Some of that material, particularly the brilliant soundtrack for O Lucky Man! and the autobiographical LP Between Today and Yesterday, still ranks among my favorite music in the world. But -- let's face it -- Alan wasn't above padding his albums out with some dreck (I refer to this as the McCartney Syndrome), especially during the Disco Era. I mean, only a truly obsessed fangirl like myself could really like "Don't Stop" or "Let Yourself Go" (which still make me pant, by the way -- I've never claimed that my critical faculties were infallible).
Later in his career, though, when he'd lost any hope of being considered a Major Contender, Alan reverted to doing what he probably should have done all along: Covering old blues songs. That's what made albums like A Gigster's Life For Me, Covers, and Travellin' Man worth all the time it took me to find them on eBay. (Based On A True Story is another story altogether -- who knew Alan had that vein of jazzy genius still waiting to be tapped?)
Which leads us to "What Am I Living For?" This appears on both A Gigster's Life and Covers, though the Amazon mp3 link I'm providing leads you to an anthology album called I Put A Spell On You -- not a bad place to start if you don't know who the hell this guy is.
This blues standard, written by Fred Jay and Art Harris, was recorded by tons of people -- Wanda Jackson, Chuck Wills, Solomon Burke -- I reckon it was in the Animals' repertoire early on, considering what a blues maniac Eric Burdon was. So here's Alan Price pulling it out 30 years later, which is kinda cool. I haven't listened to many of the other versions; this one is the one I know and love. I sink happily into the smoky texture of Alan's vocals, those scatting organ solos, the lazy syncopation of the arrangement (let's give a shout out to the beautiful Bobby Tench on guitar, and Martin Wild's emphatic drumming). I love how Alan caresses the lyrics, from the husky quaver on "I want your lips on mine" to the wail of "I wanna ho-old you tight." Let's face it, this is a slow dancin' make-out song; it has absolutely NO OTHER PURPOSE IN THE WORLD. But I could sit here all night, visualizing Alan's fingers flying over that keyboard, imagining...
Where was I?
You know what? I like being a fangirl. It adds a certain dimension to music that you male fans may never entirely understand. I don't have to prattle on about what guitar strings or mixing boards were used on this album; I don't have to parse the music industry circa 1992, or discuss how Alan's keyboard technique was derived from his boyhood playing the church organ in Jarrow. I can just say this: his voice makes me quiver and shiver. Always has, always will. I'm sorry I've neglected you, Alan; you know I still love you. And we'll always have Cheltenham.
What Am I Living For? sample
Saturday, May 05, 2007
“We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” / The Animals
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
I know I’ve written about the Animals a few times already – they were, after all, the band that gave Alan Price his start – but I couldn’t really do a British Invasion month without writing about the Animals, could I?
This was the first track they recorded in June 1965 after Alan Price left the band (so see, I’m not writing about Alan Price again), but he was replaced by another Newcastle lad, Dave Rowberry, so this second incarnation of the Animals still had a lot of Geordie soul. Their producer, Mickie Most, was driving them continually in a more pop-oriented direction, urging them to record this song by Brill Building songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, but the Animals still were able to turn it into another gritty song about urban rebellion. (Can you imagine what the Monkees would’ve done with a song like this?)
It starts off with an ominous deep bass line, played like thrumming machinery by Chas Chandler (who’d become Jimi Hendrix’s manager in his post-Animals life); next John Steel gives us a warning ting! on the cymbals, like a factory gate clanging shut. Then Eric Burdon starts, in his bluesiest low register, “In this dirty old part of the city / Where the sun refuse to shine / People tell me there ain’t no use in tryin’.” Add the guitar and full drums as Eric warms up to his subject, his voice shivering with pity: “Now my girl you’re so young and pretty / And one thing I know is true / You’ll be dead before your time is due.” Those clotted Newcastle vowels (despite all his attempts to sound like a Deep South bluesman) and his smoky timbre bring all the darkness and sorrow they can into that lyric. The metallic cymbals and guitar, the wheeze of the organ, the echoing vocals, all read heavy industry to me. Forget Swingin’ London; this was a different United Kingdom, a place of sooty brick walls and smokestacks and pubfuls of men on the dole. A dirty old part of the city, indeed.
Eric goes up an octave for the next verse, getting worked up, yelping on the high notes: “Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin’ / Watch his hair been turnin’ gray / He’s been working and slavin’ his life away.” Sure, he’s sorry for his dad – but what really scares him is imagining himself going down the same road. “We gotta get out of this place,” the whole band agrees in the chorus, the voices behind the frontman shouting sloppily, desperately, “if it’s the last thing we ever do / We gotta get out of this place.” Things screech to a halt so Eric can sing a cappella – “Girl, there’s a better life / For me and you.” On the “you,” all the instruments come jerking back in, playing convulsive chord progressions against a relentless hammering drumbeat. I can’t help but feel that their escape is doomed, whatever Mann and Weil intended.
Eric Burdon’s always had a gift for phrasing – see how he pauses for dramatic emphasis before “dirty old,” lags meaningfully on “refuse to shine,” bounces off the beat on “for me and you.” All the extra “oh yeses” and “you knows” he throws in, testifying like he’s at a tent revival –and yet that dream of a better life shimmers just out of reach. Sure, there’s a love song in here – that brave young couple, like Romeo and Juliet, trying to escape their parents’ fate. (Cue up West Side Story and “There’s a place for us…”) But what really hit me about this song in 1965 was that image of the industrial city, like a trap from which the young can only dream of escaping. British bands were already reaching for something a little meatier. And where they would go next was anybody’s guess.
We Gotta Get Out Of This Place sample
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
I know I’ve written about the Animals a few times already – they were, after all, the band that gave Alan Price his start – but I couldn’t really do a British Invasion month without writing about the Animals, could I?
This was the first track they recorded in June 1965 after Alan Price left the band (so see, I’m not writing about Alan Price again), but he was replaced by another Newcastle lad, Dave Rowberry, so this second incarnation of the Animals still had a lot of Geordie soul. Their producer, Mickie Most, was driving them continually in a more pop-oriented direction, urging them to record this song by Brill Building songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, but the Animals still were able to turn it into another gritty song about urban rebellion. (Can you imagine what the Monkees would’ve done with a song like this?)
It starts off with an ominous deep bass line, played like thrumming machinery by Chas Chandler (who’d become Jimi Hendrix’s manager in his post-Animals life); next John Steel gives us a warning ting! on the cymbals, like a factory gate clanging shut. Then Eric Burdon starts, in his bluesiest low register, “In this dirty old part of the city / Where the sun refuse to shine / People tell me there ain’t no use in tryin’.” Add the guitar and full drums as Eric warms up to his subject, his voice shivering with pity: “Now my girl you’re so young and pretty / And one thing I know is true / You’ll be dead before your time is due.” Those clotted Newcastle vowels (despite all his attempts to sound like a Deep South bluesman) and his smoky timbre bring all the darkness and sorrow they can into that lyric. The metallic cymbals and guitar, the wheeze of the organ, the echoing vocals, all read heavy industry to me. Forget Swingin’ London; this was a different United Kingdom, a place of sooty brick walls and smokestacks and pubfuls of men on the dole. A dirty old part of the city, indeed.
Eric goes up an octave for the next verse, getting worked up, yelping on the high notes: “Watch my daddy in bed a-dyin’ / Watch his hair been turnin’ gray / He’s been working and slavin’ his life away.” Sure, he’s sorry for his dad – but what really scares him is imagining himself going down the same road. “We gotta get out of this place,” the whole band agrees in the chorus, the voices behind the frontman shouting sloppily, desperately, “if it’s the last thing we ever do / We gotta get out of this place.” Things screech to a halt so Eric can sing a cappella – “Girl, there’s a better life / For me and you.” On the “you,” all the instruments come jerking back in, playing convulsive chord progressions against a relentless hammering drumbeat. I can’t help but feel that their escape is doomed, whatever Mann and Weil intended.
Eric Burdon’s always had a gift for phrasing – see how he pauses for dramatic emphasis before “dirty old,” lags meaningfully on “refuse to shine,” bounces off the beat on “for me and you.” All the extra “oh yeses” and “you knows” he throws in, testifying like he’s at a tent revival –and yet that dream of a better life shimmers just out of reach. Sure, there’s a love song in here – that brave young couple, like Romeo and Juliet, trying to escape their parents’ fate. (Cue up West Side Story and “There’s a place for us…”) But what really hit me about this song in 1965 was that image of the industrial city, like a trap from which the young can only dream of escaping. British bands were already reaching for something a little meatier. And where they would go next was anybody’s guess.
We Gotta Get Out Of This Place sample
Monday, April 16, 2007
“The House of the Rising Sun” / The Animals
ALAN PRICE WEEK
In 1964, I was too young to be a rock ‘n’ roll fan, but once the Beatles hit America there was no escaping it. Here I’d just gotten my first Barbie doll (blond ponytail, black-and-white striped swimsuit), and I was pulled away from it to obsess over John and Paul and George and Ringo. (I did get a set of Beatle dolls. They’d be worth a fortune today if my mother hadn’t sold them in a yard sale.) The Beatles dominated the charts in 1964 -- in April they held the top 5 spots on the Billboard charts, with "Can't Buy Me Love", "Twist and Shout", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", and "Please Please Me". The remaining spots were nabbed by Merseybeat bands like Gerry & the Pacemakers (“Ferry Cross the Mersey”), the Swinging Blue Jeans (“You’re No Good”), Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas (“Little Children”), and the Fourmost (“A Little Loving”), or by other Brian Epstein clients like Cilla Black (“Anyone Who Had a Heart”) and Peter & Gordon (“World Without Love”), most of them recording discarded Lennon-McCartney songs. If you were alive at the time, if you had ears at all, you must remember: The world changed overnight.
But I remember very distinctly riding in our family car that summer – at the intersection of Kessler and Washington Boulevard, I can picture it now -- and hearing this new song come on the radio. It didn’t sound anything like the bright pop Merseybeat songs. I heard a haunting
minor-key guitar riff, a raw bluesy singing voice, and dark warning lyrics about gamblers and trains and ruined girls; it was set in New Orleans, not Liverpool, though the singer’s broad vowels told me he was English too, imitating Delta bluesmen even better than Mick Jagger. I leaned forward over the seat and asked my brother to turn it up. “Who is this band?” I demanded.
“The Animals,” my brother said. (He was thirteen. He knew everything.)
“Animals,” my mother snorted. “What kind of a name is that for a musical group?”
Just then came the bridge, that long furious organ solo, full of desperation and sorrow and guilt and longing. I had never heard anybody play the organ that fast or with that much power. My heart ached, physically ached.
My next question should have been, “Who is that playing that organ?” I doubt my brother knew the band members’ names yet (this was the first Animals single to break onto U.S. radio), but anyway I didn’t ask. Instinctively I knew that I wasn’t ready yet for this music -- the Beatles and Peter & Gordon and Herman’s Hermits, yes, but nothing this dark and compelling.
It would be nine years before I found out that that organist was Alan Price. But the song remained filed in my memory, seared on my brain. And when I finally learned who Alan Price was . . . well, that’s tomorrow’s story.
House of the Rising Sun video
P.S. I have to mention the controversy over “House”s authorship. Dave VanRonk’s arrangement of this old folk ballad, which Bob Dylan adapted for his 1962 debut album, was influential, but the songwriting credit on the Animals’ version reads “Traditional, arr. By Alan Price” -- so Alan Price got all the royalties. The other Animals claimed that was an accidental misprint, that it was a group effort and they deserved money too. Price left the band abruptly less than a year later, citing the pressures of touring (he’s phobic about flying), but there was bitterness on both sides -- though not enough to prevent the Animals from doing two reunion tours in the 1980s.
ALAN PRICE WEEK
In 1964, I was too young to be a rock ‘n’ roll fan, but once the Beatles hit America there was no escaping it. Here I’d just gotten my first Barbie doll (blond ponytail, black-and-white striped swimsuit), and I was pulled away from it to obsess over John and Paul and George and Ringo. (I did get a set of Beatle dolls. They’d be worth a fortune today if my mother hadn’t sold them in a yard sale.) The Beatles dominated the charts in 1964 -- in April they held the top 5 spots on the Billboard charts, with "Can't Buy Me Love", "Twist and Shout", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand", and "Please Please Me". The remaining spots were nabbed by Merseybeat bands like Gerry & the Pacemakers (“Ferry Cross the Mersey”), the Swinging Blue Jeans (“You’re No Good”), Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas (“Little Children”), and the Fourmost (“A Little Loving”), or by other Brian Epstein clients like Cilla Black (“Anyone Who Had a Heart”) and Peter & Gordon (“World Without Love”), most of them recording discarded Lennon-McCartney songs. If you were alive at the time, if you had ears at all, you must remember: The world changed overnight.
But I remember very distinctly riding in our family car that summer – at the intersection of Kessler and Washington Boulevard, I can picture it now -- and hearing this new song come on the radio. It didn’t sound anything like the bright pop Merseybeat songs. I heard a haunting
minor-key guitar riff, a raw bluesy singing voice, and dark warning lyrics about gamblers and trains and ruined girls; it was set in New Orleans, not Liverpool, though the singer’s broad vowels told me he was English too, imitating Delta bluesmen even better than Mick Jagger. I leaned forward over the seat and asked my brother to turn it up. “Who is this band?” I demanded.“The Animals,” my brother said. (He was thirteen. He knew everything.)
“Animals,” my mother snorted. “What kind of a name is that for a musical group?”
Just then came the bridge, that long furious organ solo, full of desperation and sorrow and guilt and longing. I had never heard anybody play the organ that fast or with that much power. My heart ached, physically ached.
My next question should have been, “Who is that playing that organ?” I doubt my brother knew the band members’ names yet (this was the first Animals single to break onto U.S. radio), but anyway I didn’t ask. Instinctively I knew that I wasn’t ready yet for this music -- the Beatles and Peter & Gordon and Herman’s Hermits, yes, but nothing this dark and compelling.
It would be nine years before I found out that that organist was Alan Price. But the song remained filed in my memory, seared on my brain. And when I finally learned who Alan Price was . . . well, that’s tomorrow’s story.
House of the Rising Sun video
P.S. I have to mention the controversy over “House”s authorship. Dave VanRonk’s arrangement of this old folk ballad, which Bob Dylan adapted for his 1962 debut album, was influential, but the songwriting credit on the Animals’ version reads “Traditional, arr. By Alan Price” -- so Alan Price got all the royalties. The other Animals claimed that was an accidental misprint, that it was a group effort and they deserved money too. Price left the band abruptly less than a year later, citing the pressures of touring (he’s phobic about flying), but there was bitterness on both sides -- though not enough to prevent the Animals from doing two reunion tours in the 1980s.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
"Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" / The Animals
When I first heard this Animals track in 1965 I had no idea who Nina Simone was, or where the Animals had found this tune. Not that it would've mattered; I was too young, and too white, to figure out why Nina Simone was so woeful and angry. I didn't really know what the Animals were singing about, either, despite all the uneasy chord shifts and the ominous nagging sigh of that organ -- I figured it was just a boy telling his girlfriend she didn't understand him. But it became so familiar to me that when I finally heard Nina's version, it seemed too torchy and histrionic. It's a perfect example of a cover version completely stealing the original's thunder -- something the Animals did on a regular basis.
Of course, the darkness of the Animals' version completely escaped me, until I started listening to their music again in college -- at which point the threatening edge to Eric Burdon's street-tough voice registered loud and clear.
"Baby, do you understand me now?" he starts off, as if shaking a warning finger under her nose (or more likely a fist). When Nina sings "Sometimes I feel a little mad," you feel sorry for her; when Eric sings it you get ready to run for cover, because it's clear he's a ticking time bomb. "Don't you know that no one alive can always be an angel?" he declares, with a sarcastic trill on the "always." I would NOT want to be that woman who's accusing him of misbehaving.
When Eric (with his mates right behind him, backing him up) declares in the chorus, "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good," notice how he flings his voice nastily into the final "good." "Oh lord!" -- a single hard drum slap slams the exclamation point in place -- "please don't let me be misunderstood," Eric protests, biting off his syllables, his voice shivering with self-pity and barely suppressed rage. And yeah, that rage may have less to do with his girlfriend than with living in a slum and working at the docks (I always think here of that raw desperation of another Animals track, "We Gotta Get Get Out Of This Place"), but it's real rage all the same.
He goes on, "If I seem edgy, I want you to know / That I never mean to take it out on you," and my heart sinks, realizing he probably slaps this girl around. But then his voice turns hoarse and earnest, cracking a little as he tells her he loves her, and he's only human; I can't help it, I begin to forgive him as he pouts and pleads, "Sometimes I find myself alone regretting / Some foolish things, some little sinful thing I've done." Awww, gee -- until just in time I notice how he rushes over that word "sinful." He has been cheating on her, hasn't he? He may blame it on everything else -- the stresses of his life, the inherent weakness of human nature -- but he's admitted it.
Now it's up to her to forgive him, though he's a Geordie and too proud to beg; instead he'll gruffly accuse her of not understanding him. And the weird thing is, I already know she's going to forgive him. Just because the timbre of Eric Burdon's voice is so rich and rough and goddam sexy -- he's going to get away with it. I feel my own knees buckle as I listen to him. Okay, Eric, just this one more time. Only...don't hit me, please?
Here's a video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY7ZBhLXoQg&mode=related&search== Don't be fooled by the suits.
When I first heard this Animals track in 1965 I had no idea who Nina Simone was, or where the Animals had found this tune. Not that it would've mattered; I was too young, and too white, to figure out why Nina Simone was so woeful and angry. I didn't really know what the Animals were singing about, either, despite all the uneasy chord shifts and the ominous nagging sigh of that organ -- I figured it was just a boy telling his girlfriend she didn't understand him. But it became so familiar to me that when I finally heard Nina's version, it seemed too torchy and histrionic. It's a perfect example of a cover version completely stealing the original's thunder -- something the Animals did on a regular basis.
Of course, the darkness of the Animals' version completely escaped me, until I started listening to their music again in college -- at which point the threatening edge to Eric Burdon's street-tough voice registered loud and clear.
"Baby, do you understand me now?" he starts off, as if shaking a warning finger under her nose (or more likely a fist). When Nina sings "Sometimes I feel a little mad," you feel sorry for her; when Eric sings it you get ready to run for cover, because it's clear he's a ticking time bomb. "Don't you know that no one alive can always be an angel?" he declares, with a sarcastic trill on the "always." I would NOT want to be that woman who's accusing him of misbehaving.
When Eric (with his mates right behind him, backing him up) declares in the chorus, "I'm just a soul whose intentions are good," notice how he flings his voice nastily into the final "good." "Oh lord!" -- a single hard drum slap slams the exclamation point in place -- "please don't let me be misunderstood," Eric protests, biting off his syllables, his voice shivering with self-pity and barely suppressed rage. And yeah, that rage may have less to do with his girlfriend than with living in a slum and working at the docks (I always think here of that raw desperation of another Animals track, "We Gotta Get Get Out Of This Place"), but it's real rage all the same.
He goes on, "If I seem edgy, I want you to know / That I never mean to take it out on you," and my heart sinks, realizing he probably slaps this girl around. But then his voice turns hoarse and earnest, cracking a little as he tells her he loves her, and he's only human; I can't help it, I begin to forgive him as he pouts and pleads, "Sometimes I find myself alone regretting / Some foolish things, some little sinful thing I've done." Awww, gee -- until just in time I notice how he rushes over that word "sinful." He has been cheating on her, hasn't he? He may blame it on everything else -- the stresses of his life, the inherent weakness of human nature -- but he's admitted it.
Now it's up to her to forgive him, though he's a Geordie and too proud to beg; instead he'll gruffly accuse her of not understanding him. And the weird thing is, I already know she's going to forgive him. Just because the timbre of Eric Burdon's voice is so rich and rough and goddam sexy -- he's going to get away with it. I feel my own knees buckle as I listen to him. Okay, Eric, just this one more time. Only...don't hit me, please?
Here's a video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY7ZBhLXoQg&mode=related&search== Don't be fooled by the suits.
Friday, December 01, 2006
"Living Without You" / The Alan Price Set
Every fan girl needs a melancholy break-up song to moon over, and this is mine. It's from the 1967 album A Price On His Head, and if you look at the vinyl LP you can see how often I knelt on my dorm room floor beside my pack-n-play stereo to set the needle down on this particular track and no other. (Ah, you youngsters with your CDs and iPods will never know the sweet joy of finding that hiss and groove.) For about a year, it was the first song I played every morning upon waking up; I'd sigh deeply, swipe away a few tears, swallow the lump in my throat, and then drag myself off to another morose day of being a college student.
I can't remember what boyfriend I was longing for at the time; most likely it was Alan Price himself. After I saw him in the 1973 film O Lucky Man! -- he not only wrote and performed the brilliant soundtrack, he had a sizeable role in the film -- I was a Fan Obsessed: I spent the next two years tracking down every album I could find to fill in the gap since he was the original Animals' organist. Every record store I went into required two ritual stops -- one at the K bin for the Kinks, then one at the P bin for Alan Price, hoping I'd find him somewhere in between Alan Parsons and John Prine. Ah, life had a purpose in those days.
Randy Newman wrote this song; Alan covered several early Newman songs -- often the definitive versions, if you ask me. I've heard Randy sing this one: nice try but no cigar. Though the Alan Price Set had a killer horn section, this track is just piano and vocals, and Alan's piano playing is as deft as Randy's -- but it's his vocals that really knock this one out of the park. Like his old bandmate Eric Burdon, Alan Price has a searing voice, velvety and warm as Scotch whiskey, with a rough edge like fog hanging over the Newcastle docks; the fact that Eric got all the lead vocals in the Animals was a crying shame.
The first lines paint you into the scene: "The milk truck pulls the sun up / And the paper hits the door / And the subway shakes my floor / And I think about you," and the way his voice falls miserably on that last line is just perfect; here's another day, and you wake up happy for a moment -- until you remember, and it's all downhill from there. A little snarl of self-pity and resentment creeps in after that: "Everyone's got something / They're out trying to get some more / They got something to get up for-- / Well, I ain't about to."
Then you get to the chorus, where the lyrics numbly rehearse over and over "It's soo hard / It's so-o-o hard / Yes, it's so hard / Living without you," and every repeated "hard" quavers with a little more anger and pain and loss and hurt. By the time Alan's voice rasps on the final "you" -- jeez, Alan, stop moping; I'm right here, and you can have me.
I still have the odd day when I want to wallow in melancholy. Today is one of those days. And, hey, this song still works like a charm -- I heartily recommend it.
Every fan girl needs a melancholy break-up song to moon over, and this is mine. It's from the 1967 album A Price On His Head, and if you look at the vinyl LP you can see how often I knelt on my dorm room floor beside my pack-n-play stereo to set the needle down on this particular track and no other. (Ah, you youngsters with your CDs and iPods will never know the sweet joy of finding that hiss and groove.) For about a year, it was the first song I played every morning upon waking up; I'd sigh deeply, swipe away a few tears, swallow the lump in my throat, and then drag myself off to another morose day of being a college student.
I can't remember what boyfriend I was longing for at the time; most likely it was Alan Price himself. After I saw him in the 1973 film O Lucky Man! -- he not only wrote and performed the brilliant soundtrack, he had a sizeable role in the film -- I was a Fan Obsessed: I spent the next two years tracking down every album I could find to fill in the gap since he was the original Animals' organist. Every record store I went into required two ritual stops -- one at the K bin for the Kinks, then one at the P bin for Alan Price, hoping I'd find him somewhere in between Alan Parsons and John Prine. Ah, life had a purpose in those days.
Randy Newman wrote this song; Alan covered several early Newman songs -- often the definitive versions, if you ask me. I've heard Randy sing this one: nice try but no cigar. Though the Alan Price Set had a killer horn section, this track is just piano and vocals, and Alan's piano playing is as deft as Randy's -- but it's his vocals that really knock this one out of the park. Like his old bandmate Eric Burdon, Alan Price has a searing voice, velvety and warm as Scotch whiskey, with a rough edge like fog hanging over the Newcastle docks; the fact that Eric got all the lead vocals in the Animals was a crying shame.
The first lines paint you into the scene: "The milk truck pulls the sun up / And the paper hits the door / And the subway shakes my floor / And I think about you," and the way his voice falls miserably on that last line is just perfect; here's another day, and you wake up happy for a moment -- until you remember, and it's all downhill from there. A little snarl of self-pity and resentment creeps in after that: "Everyone's got something / They're out trying to get some more / They got something to get up for-- / Well, I ain't about to."
Then you get to the chorus, where the lyrics numbly rehearse over and over "It's soo hard / It's so-o-o hard / Yes, it's so hard / Living without you," and every repeated "hard" quavers with a little more anger and pain and loss and hurt. By the time Alan's voice rasps on the final "you" -- jeez, Alan, stop moping; I'm right here, and you can have me.
I still have the odd day when I want to wallow in melancholy. Today is one of those days. And, hey, this song still works like a charm -- I heartily recommend it.
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