52 GIRLS

Two Glasgow Girls

Heading for the finish line -- so near and yet so far. Time to slip in a few more recent numbers, from two of my favorite indie bands with brains and storytelling heart. 

"String Bean Jean" / Belle & Sebastian

On their 2005 album Push Barman to Open New Wounds, this cool bunch of Scots -- led by the gifted and quirky Stuart Murdoch -- tell tales of the modern age, one misfit at a time. The lyrics are conversational, cryptic, and allusive, but there's always a musical hook to pull you in. Listen to that commanding guitar riff, all spaghetti western swagger. . . .

 

 

Our hero may or not be a musician -- "I got my fingers dirty at the school of rock," he tells us, but it's hardly as if he's a star. Aimlessly he takes a walk, he goes to the park, he's killing time -- "until the girls got home." Now I'm curious -- who are these girls?

 

Wasting no time, he zooms in on the one he's really interested in. She's a free spirit, a bit of a character -- when she's "on the rag [menstruating, in case you don't know the slang] / She spent the summer day inside her sleeping bag." But we do learn that she works at night, which makes me wonder -- is she like Monica, a "working girl"? Even if she isn't, a night job is usually something you take only because you're broke.

You can see why he's drawn to the girls' house -- it's "like a caravan" and "like your holidays." They're living communally, scrimping on the electric bill (in verse three he lends her money to pay the bill, because for once he's got a bit extra). It almost makes me feel nostalgic for the roommate era of my life. And in the bridge, he gets up early the next morning to catch his bus and go to work (my favorite line in the song: "I left the keys down in the caf" -- because of course the girls are chummy enough with the café down the street to use it as their personal concierge service.) There's something about being young and living on the edge that makes you treat the world as an opportunity to improv. And that restless foot-jiggling tempo, the skittering melody, convey how ready they all are to go off on any tangent they please.

Last verse, a lovely little scene: "She asked me, 'Do I need to lose a bit of weight?' / And I told her, 'Don't be stupid, because you're looking great' / And I call her String Bean Jean because the label on her jeans / Says seven to eight years old / Well that's pretty small." Because of course kids' clothes are cheaper, so if you can wear 'em, why not? I see the petite girl, I see the jeans, I imagine their a-little-more-than friends relationship. And is it just me, or does the youthful tremor in his tenor suggest that he'd like even more?

 

"Mistress Mabel" / The Fratellis

From 2008 (because I know you're keeping the timeline, Nick), this is the first single released from Here We Stand, the sophomore album from yet another Scottish indie pop band -- though these guys are a little more inclined to rock out.

 

So here's another free spirit, though a little less Bohemian glamorous. "Mistress Mabel / Seriously wrong / Clears my table / Badly then she's gone" -- she's not just a bad waitress, she's a waitress with whom he has a history, and he's still not sure whether or not he's still hooked. (My take? If he's not sure, then he's still into her.) The seesawing notes, the whiplash tempo, all tell us he's conflicted.

In verse two, dig how he describes her reputation" "Mistress Mabel / All the kids agree / You're unstable / Curious and free." That felicitous "Mabel / unstable" rhyme pins her down. She still flirts with the customers, but it doesn't always get her where she wants to be: "Hemline rat bag so they told her / Last night's nametag across her shoulder" -- has she pushed this brassy waitress act too far?

 

Like Maggie May, she's the Older Woman ("And tell me where all the days have gone / When you robbed my cradle / Tell me Mabel"). But he's far enough down the road to see it as a "filthy fable."  (These guys do love their rhymes.)  In verse three, he offers "Mistress Mabel, won't you marry me?" But the very next line, he admits "I'm unable / To take it seriously." So where does songwriter-front man Jon Fratelli (like the Ramones, all the band members go by this made-up last name) stand vis-a-vis Mabel? 

 

I realize that it is entirely possible that this song was just written to take advantage of all the rhymes for Mabel. Yet there's something to its impatient energy and ziggurat melody, the pinball rhythms of those short lines, that makes me feel our hero's push-pull attraction. Written from his point of view, it's all about resisting commitment. But I can't help wondering what it looks like from Mabel's side of the table.  





44 DOWN, 8 TO GO

Wednesday Shuffle

It's that day again -- so hold onto your hats and see where my shuffle takes me . I've put in links to take you to some of my earlier posts as well, so you can get a little more background on these artists. Just one of the many services I provide!

1. "As Far As I Know" / Paul Westerberg
From Folker
I really backed into being a Replacements fan -- I started out with Paul Westerberg's solo stuff, thanks to Nick Hornby's Songbook, this album being my starting point. In some ways it's still my favorite side of Westerberg. "I'm in love with a girl that doesn't exist . . ." I love the jangly pop bounce of this song.

2. "Tom Courtenay" / Yo La TengoFrom Prisoners of Love Anybody see the movie Billy Liar? One of my favorite early 60s British black-and-white movies, starring Tom Courtenay as a nebbishy dreamer and Julie Christie as his fantasy girl. (Another "girl who doesn't exist" -- really, I think the hamsters in my computer who choose the shuffle have a great sense of humor). I dig Yo La Tengo for their quirky smarts anyway, but anybody who'd write a song about an actor as eccentric as Tom Courtenay totally has my vote.

3. "Has She Got a Friend?" / Nick Lowe
From a 2001 BBC recording of a London Palladium concert
Me and my Nick Lowe bootlegs. What can I say? Classic Nick Lowe humor, with a country twang. By the way, guys, if you're ever in a bar with Nick Lowe and he's looking to get fixed up -- you know my number.

4. "Leave" / Glen Hansard and Marketa IrglovaFrom Once
Wonderful, wonderful, WONDERFUL little movie about a Dublin street busker and the Czech house cleaner who jumpstarts his music career. Hasard sings with such fierce passion, it's almost scary. In the movie, he's always toting around the most scarred-up acoustic guitar you've ever seen; I could just imagine the wild strumming that guitar had endured. After the movie came out, these two became "an item" and started recording as The Swell Season. I was quite a fan until Nick Lowe appeared on Austin City Limits, and the producers edited his performance down to a half hour so they could stuff in The Swell Season as the other half of the show. Not Glen and Marketa's fault, but still.

5. "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" / Georgie Fame
From Somebody Stole My Thunder
One of the many Bob Dylan songs I prefer when somebody else sings it. My old flame Georgie Fame gives it a boogie-woogie groove it was sorely missing. Dig those sweet Memphis horns!

6. "The State I Am In" / Belle and Sebastian
From Push Barman to Open Old Wounds
Stuart Murdoch doesn't always sound this much like Donovan, does he? A great marriage of folk and pop, with the sort of fey lyrics that the skinny-tie set (including my college freshman son) simply eats up.

7. "I Know (You Don't Love Me No More)" / The Alan Price Set
From a bootleg tape of Top of the Pops appearances
Funny to have one of Alan's songs cycle up right after his old performing partner Georgie Fame. Not technically Alan's song, though -- the original was a 1961 hit for Barbara George. Though this appearance dates from the mid-60s, Alan Price has always had a penchant for pulling out these R&B standards, just so he could layer on some amazing keyboards and pour his husky Geordie vocals into it.

8. "Chocolate on My Tongue" / The Wood Brothers
From Ways Not To Lose
Oooh, I do love these boys. Real brothers, one of them the bassist for the jazz trio Medeski Martin and Wood, the other the guitarist for the southern rock band King Johnson. This record was their first collaboration, and it's an extraordinary thing, one of my favorite new discoveries of the past couple of years.

9. "We Were Both Wrong" / Dave Edmunds
From Repeat When Necessary
Basically, this was a Rockpile record, though Dave and Nick Lowe were signed to different labels so they just had to play on each other's records. Great old rockabilly number by Bill Murray (no, not that Bill Murray). I love that slouchy rhythm, with the twangy guitar and loping bassline.

10. "You Don't Know Me" / Ben Folds and Regina Spektor
From Way To Normal
When this album came out last summer, this catchy little duet got tons of airplay. But it's only the tip of the iceberg -- the rest of the album is full of snarky satire and aching emotion, a winsome mix that only a songwriter as talented as Ben Folds could pull out. Anybody see him hosting that TV reality competition with the a capella groups? (I think it was called Sing Out America.) He was so smart, so focused, so kind, the complete antithesis of those tacky American Idol judges. He always seemed like a guy it would be fun to hang out with. So guys, if you're ever in a bar with Ben Folds -- well, you know the drill.

“Seeing Other People” / Belle & Sebastian

Back in the 60s, pop songs raved about loving someone forever. Not any more. Alt rock is full of quizzical songs about infidelity, or the joyless pursuit of multiple sexual partners. It may not be progress, but you’ve got to admit, those are much more complex frames of mind to explore.

Exhibit A: Belle & Sebastian, that arty folk-tinged combo from Glasgow, and this nifty track I've been listening to from their 1998 album If You’re Feeling Sinister. On the surface it’s a bright, uptempo number about “friends with privileges,” but I hear something dark and disappointed woven in too. Stuart Murdoch’s breathy, slightly fey tenor clips heartlessly through the song’s word-crammed lyrics, melody swooping up and down, accents falling in odd places. That piano line ripples briskly along, all jazzy key shifts, uncertain and unreliable – I don’t know, but it feels like nobody’s happy here, not really.

We start with a fumbling love scene – “We lay on the bed there / Kissing just for practice / Could we please be objective? / Cause the other boys are queuing up behind us,” which reminds me of way too many junior-high parties. And for all its innocence – “Well if I remain passive and you just want to cuddle / Then we should be okay” – the main thing is to look like you’re having hot sex. Actual desire is beside the point.

Of course, as the shrinks warn us, detachment is often just a pose: “Cause we're seeing other people / At least that's what we say we are doing.” Awkwardly, he probes his partner’s state of mind: “How are you feeling? / I don't think you can be dealing / With the situation very well,” with a lack of connection that’s pathetic. For all the talk of lovers and dirty weekends, he winds up feeling sleazy, like some kind of gigolo, instead.

It’s a riddling song about self-absorption (“You're kissing your elbow / You're kissing your reflection”) and watching your back (twice he mentions the “other boys” who are crowding in). It’s also rife with sexual confusion (“You're going to have to change / Or you're going to have to go with girls / You might be better off / At least they know what they're doing.”) But let’s face it, the boys aren’t the only ones who don’t know what they’re doing. Everybody’s lost.

I’m reminded of a much older song, an 80s number by Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” that pulled off a similar trick, layering regret and melancholy under a funky, strutting disco pose. This song may profess to be celebrating casual sex, but it’s saturated with a crying need for plain old love. Hunh. Human nature hasn’t changed since the 60s -- we’re just telling ourselves different lies, that’s all.

Seeing Other People sample