52 GIRLS

"Eleanor Put Your Boots On" / Franz Ferdinand

When my son first stuck this CD into our car's CD player -- Franz Ferdinand's 2005 album You Could Have It So Much Better -- it only took two or three tracks to convince me that these guys were brought up on the Kinks. Alex Kapranos' lead vocals have that same soft campy flutter that Ray Davies patented in the mid-1960s; their lyrics are similarly compact little short stories; and they pack their songs with addictive riffs and tuneful hooks. In interviews, Kapranos owns up to that Kinks influence, though he adds that their original goal was simply to write music for girls to dance to. Well, I for one am ready to dance.

"Eleanor Put Your Boots On" is a long-distance romance song, but don't expect a moaning mushy I'm-missing-you song.

Wait, these guys are from Scotland -- why are they singing about New York? The Brooklyn dirt, the Coney Island, Greenpoint, the Statue of Liberty (which I will forever from now on see as "the statue with the dictionary"). But that's where Eleanor is, apparently, and the narrator of this song is pleading with her to put on some sort of fairy-tale seven-league boots that will let her take a giant leap over the ocean back to him.

She needs to be coaxed a bit -- in verse one he reassures her "I know it isn't dignified to run / But if you run / You can run to the Coney Island roller coaster" (go Cyclone!). And in verse two, he tries flattery: "You know you look so elegant when you run." Whatever it takes.

I love how vividly he's imagined this. The ocean that separates them is "filthy water," and though it's daytime where he is, the sun is still "hidden" on her side of the Atlantic. He advises her to leap off the Statue of Liberty's fingernails, throwing in a take-off "yeah!" that is simply adorable.

It's a wistful, upbeat fantasy, the electric piano twiddling around almost like a harpsicord. The volume builds and then fades, the melody sighs up and down -- you can almost feel the gusts of the jetstream that'll carry her home. It shifts into a darker minor key in the instrumental bridges, with some harder-edged guitar and drums layered on, like the rougher seas in the middle of the ocean. But then the narrator straightens himself out and sweetly woos Eleanor again.

"I could be there when you land," he keeps offering, shyly -- "I could be there when you land." Well, if she doesn't take him up on it, she's a fool. I'm tempted to go buy me a pair of those boots myself.

12 DOWN, 40 TO GO

SATURDAY SHUFFLE

There is a light at the end of the tunnel -- spring vacation is here, and possibly, just possibly, I can get back to regular blogging very soon.  Until then . . .

1. Seeds and Stems (Again) / Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen
From Lost in the Ozone (1971)
Now here's a little time machine for you: This track effortlessly induces a contact high, every time.  It isn't just nostalgia -- I never had the pleasure of listening to this great stoner rockabilly stuff back in the day -- but thank god I found them since.   

2. More and More and More and Then Some / Nina Simone
From Pastel Blues (1965)
Here's a two for one -- Nina Simone working a Billie Holliday song, and adding her own extra throb of bluesy desire.  I certainly wasn't listening to this in 1965; I wouldn't have known what to make of it, anyway. But oh, what fine stuff this is, a shot of moaning late-night melancholy that's just about perfect.  

3. Bingo / Madness
From The Liberty of Norton Folgate (2009)
Ska-flavored music hall soft shoe, full of Cockney smart-arse patter -- all in the service of a downright Dickensian panorama of London low-life.  A seriously brilliant album, criminally unheralded this side of the Atlantic. I think I can safely say that anybody who loves the Kinks would totally dig this stuff.  

4. She Said / Collective Soul
From Dosage (2008)
Funked-up loungy rock, craftily laden with hooky riffs, and cue the strings and synths. I love how Collective Soul pitches to their female audience with sensitive-guy "I understand your pain" lyrics, meanwhile baring their chests and tossing their long hair... 

5. Live Alone / Franz Ferdinand
From Tonight (2009)
Talk about hooks -- these Scots rockers pump 'em out recklessly, along with charged-up tempos that sweeten the minor-key desperation of their songs. "I want to live alone / Because the greatest love is always ruined by the bickering / The argument of living..."  

6. Nobody Told Me / John Lennon
From Milk and Honey (1984)
What a amazing groove John hits here, loose and comical and reconciled.  "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange days indeed!" He's just sitting back shaking his head, amused by the absurdity of it all.  When I think that this was where he'd gotten, finally, and then to be shot down -- tragic. 

7. Rain Coloured Roses / The Beatstalkers
From The Beatstalkers (1968)
Serendipity!  Put together Franz Ferdinand and John Lennon and what do you get?  "Glasgow's Beatles" -- or so this band was touted at the time. Sorry I can't post a link, as I only got these tracks from my Glasgow connection (thanks, Davy!). But they were clearly the peers of most British Beat bands of the period (even recorded some early Bowie compositions) and really should be better known.    


8. Profoundly in Love With Pandora / Ian Dury and the Blockheads
From Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Best of Ian Dury (compilation)
Last week I finally watched Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll, the brilliant recent biopic of Ian Dury, so I'm very happy to have this 1985 gem shuffle up. "My mother's heart and soul have gone halfway up the pole / My father's on the dole / It's taking its toll..."   As if Dury's clever subversive lyrics weren't enough, this band was an incredibly tight jazz-ska ensemble.  Man, do I love them. 

9. Further On (Up the Road) / Johnny Cash
From American V: A Hundred Highways (2006)
Late Johnny Cash, gravel voice and all.  The fierce distilled intelligence of Johnny Cash at the end of his career is not to be rivaled -- talk about raging against the dying of the light!

10. Retrieval of You / Minus 5
From Down With Wilco (2003)
Scott McCaughey and Peter Buck's other other job, when they're not playing with Robyn Hitchcock.  I love the copacetic groove of this "pop collective," which this time round enlisted Wilco to jam with them. It's all good.

BONUS TRACK!!!  (Because I can't resist these guys...)


11. All Kinds of Time / Fountains of Wayne
From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003) 
Clever AND tender -- that's the special thing about Fountains of Wayne. They gently satirize the football hero in slo-mo exultation at the height of his achievement, and yet make us feel wistful about how fleeting this moment is.  It really is "all kinds" of time...

SECOND BONUS TRACK!!!  (Because...well, it's Johnny.)

12. Learning How To Love You / John Hiatt
From Bring the Family (1987)
My very first Hiatt post  -- loved it then, love it now.


And now I promise I'll stop -- even though Graham Parker's next...

"Eleanor Put Your Boots On" / Franz Ferdinand

I was driving around one night and my son stuck this CD into the player -- Franz Ferdinand's second album, You Could Have It So Much Better -- and two or three tracks into the thing I suddenly knew that these guys were brought up on the Kinks. Alex Kapranos' lead vocals have that same soft campy flutter that Ray Davies trademarked in the mid-1960s; their lyrics are similarly compact little short stories; and they pack their songs with addictive riffs and tuneful hooks that are nearly impossible to get out of your head. And sure enough, in interviews they've said they were influenced by the Kinks -- though their original goal was simply to write music for girls to dance to. Well, I for one am sure ready to dance.

"Eleanor Put Your Boots On" is one of my favorites. I think of it as a long-distance romance song, only not a moaning mushy I'm-missing-you song. Knowing that these guys are from Scotland, I was surprised to realize they were singing about New York -- the Brooklyn dirt, the Coney Island roller coaster, Greenpoint, and the Statue of Liberty (which they describe as "the statue with the dictionary"). But that's where Eleanor is, apparently, and the narrator of this song is urging her to put on some sort of fairy-tale seven-league boots that will let her take a giant leap over the ocean back to him.

It's a sweet, wistful fantasy, with an electric piano dithering around; the volume builds and then fades, the melody sighs up and down, and you can almost feel the gusts of the jetstream that'll carry her home. It shifts despairingly into a minor key in the instrumental bridges, with some harder-edged guitar and drums layered on, but then the narrator straightens himself out and sweetly woos Eleanor again. At one point, as he's advising her to leap off the Statue of Liberty's fingernails, he throws in a yearning "yeah!" that is simply adorable.

"I could be there when you land," he keeps offering, shyly -- "I could be there when you land." Well, if she doesn't take him up on it, she's a fool. I'm tempted to go buy me a pair of those boots myself.

www.franzferdinand.co.uk