The Wednesday Shuffle

Back to Wednesdays, and it feels so right. (Anything rather than go outdoors in this weather...)

1.  "The Bad Thing" / Arctic Monkeys
From Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007)
Are the Arctic Monkeys over?  I hope not. Here's what I wrote about this scrappy track a couple years ago when the album first came out...

2. "Isn't That the Thing To Do?" / Maria Muldaur
From Love Wants to Dance (2004)
Nice little palate cleanser, with Maria letting out her jazz side on this Gershwin standard.

3. "How Can I Sing Like a Girl?" / They Might Be Giants
From Factory Showroom (1996)
"I want to raise my freak flag / And never be alone" -- yes, it's another off-kilter nerd anthem from the Johns.  That nasal whine of John Linnell is perfect for this song.


4. "There Ain't Half Been Some Clever Bastards" / Ian Dury and the Blockheads
From Reasons to Be Cheerful (1978)
Speaking of raising freak flags....here's my favorite Ian Dury tune ever (here's why). Which reminds me -- I've just got the new biopic Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll from Netflix -- must watch!

5. "Sleepwalker" / The Kinks
From Sleepwalker (1977)
Or, "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Insomnia," by Ray Davies. Another freak flag raised!  This bouncy track IMHO isn't one of the Kinks' best -- odd it should be the title track of an album. But there are Kinks fans who love it, so what do I know?

6. "Money Talks" / The Kinks
From Preservation Act 2 (1974)
Now this is more my Kinks -- savage satire with histrionic flair.  Being deep into Keith Richards' Life at the moment, I realize what a pitch-perfect Stones impression this is.  I'm noticing the dirty slide guitar and lovin' it.

7. "New Slang" / The Shins
From Oh, Inverted World (2001)
Charming folk-pop jangle from James Mercer and Co., spiked with stream-of-consciousness absurdity.  Yes, I'll admit it, this song on the Garden State soundtrack was my back-door introduction to these indie darlings.  There is an art to a great soundtrack, though.  Must blog about that sometime... 

8.  "Don't Bug Me When I'm Working" / Little Village
From Little Village (1992)

Talk about dirty guitar -- Ry Cooder gets just plain nasty on this one. Oh, and Johnny Hiatt's snarling lead vocals, with Ry and Nick Lowe each insinuating a verse. ("I can't even work with my baby at night -- Lord have mercy!") Tell me again why Little Village didn't work out?

9. "Full Moon in My Soul" / Robyn Hitchcock
From Spooked (2004)
More folk-pop jangle, with Robyn out-absurding even the Shins -- "I'm out of here, I'm taking off / You can have my cigarettes and, mister, you can have my cough." The loungy rhythm of this number is simply too delicious, and dig that lazy slide guitar in the bridge. 

10. "This Is A Low" / Blur 
From Parklife (1994)
Mmm, what a lovely sonic haze enfolds this modern bit of BritPop psychedelia -- I sink right into it. My sentimental favorite Blur album.  Should have known Damon Albarn would be a Kinks fan... 

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Well, here we are again. Or rather, here you are again, since I am somewhere else, remotely blogging from some rocky New England beach. (Lobster dinner, anyone?) But so long as I don't get my iPod waterlogged...

1. "The Colour of Your Eyes" / Dusty Springfield
From Dusty . . . Definitely (1968)
Written by Dusty's partner Norma Tanega, this shimmering tone poem may not rank up there with Dusty's great soul numbers, but for pure late 60s schmaltz -- turn on the strings! hear that quivering flute! -- it's pretty darn lovely.

2. "Be My Love" / Geraint Watkins
From Dial W for Watkins (2004)
Maybe I first discovered this guy's work because he plays keyboards for Nick Lowe. So what? That's Watkins' dilemma --he's so in demand as a session man, somehow he never got around to the solo career he deserves. "Come on, little darlin' / Be my love" -- Geraint trips pleadingly down the scale, dropping into a throaty coax. There's just a whiff of zydeco in the rhythm, and a touch of twang in the chugging chorus -- pitch-perfect Americana, served up by a Brit.

3. "I Want to Break Free" / Queen
From The Works (1984)
Of course I listen to Queen -- what are you, some kind of rock snob? I love the over-the-top drama, Freddie Mercury's histrionic vocals, the synthesizers, even the arena-rock guitars. (Only when Queen is doing it, that is -- they're just having so much fun.)

4. "Pieces of What" / MGMT
From Oracular Spectacular (2007)
Reverbs, synths, the whole electronica package, mixed up with yelping vocals that sound just amateur enough to make this endearing. In fact, I sometimes mistake this for a Minus 5 song when it first comes up -- that's how loose and genial it is. I enjoyed this debut album so much more than I expected.

5. "Wine Do Yer Stuff" / Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen
From Lost in the Ozone (1971)
Why, oh why, oh why didn't I discover these guys back in the 70s? I would have had SO much fun listening to this in college. Laidback country-rock, topped off with a little psychedelic druggie culture -- Americana begins here.

6. "Solar Sex Panel" / Little Village
From Little Village (1990)
I amuse myself, when listening to Little Village tracks, by imagining which one of the talents in this all-star project contributed what. The piled-on puns have to be Nick Lowe, but I'm betting John Hiatt was right there, throwing in all those car puns. Yes, it's ultimately a stupid song, hardly worthy of their talents. But Hiatt sings it as if it mattered.

7. "Six-Fingered Man" / Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint
From The River In Reverse (2006)
Elvis gets funky -- as who wouldn't, with Allen Toussaint sitting over there at the piano, tossing off those elegant little riffs? It's a wonderful swampy stew.

8. "I Think We're Alone Now" / Tommy James and the Shondells
From I Think We're Alone Now (1967)
THE perfect groping teen make-out song.

9. "Ten Girls Ago" / Graham Parker
From Struck By Lightning (1991)
Resurrecting a perky New Wave beat, my (new) idol Graham Parker trotted out this endearing track on Struck By Lightning, one of the best albums I've ever heard. He's not slamming that old romance, more poking fun at himself (and grateful that now he's in a better place). The sound, though, takes me back to my own crazy 80s. "It was just a crazy thing / Flying an airplane made of string / Sweet pain of a needle's sting / Ten girls ago...."

10. "Woman In a Bar" / Lloyd Cole
From Antidepressant (2007)
Here you go, Uncle E -- I am listening to Lloyd Cole. And I like it. Witty, articulate lyrics and a sweetly rocking beat.

“Big Love” / Little Village

28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS

Talk about a dude on the prowl – this whole song is just saturated with horniness. The singer of this song hasn’t got any particular woman in mind, although -- as he mentions in verse two -- he needs a fifty-foot woman to wrap his love around; that’s how big his “love” is. I’m laughing, but oh, I’m feeling the love, too.

This was the Super Group that never really made it—John Hiatt and Ry Cooder on guitar, Nick Lowe playing bass, and Jim Keltner on the drums, with everyone trading off on vocals and sharing songwriting duties. (You who know my proclivities can see already where this is going.) They should have been EPIC, but somehow it never quite gelled and they all went back to their solo careers. Their one record, though, is a classic early-90s roots-rock gem, shot through with witty double-entendres. (Have there ever been more car/sex metaphors crammed into one song than in “She Runs Hot”?) So when I hear “Big Love,” I can’t help but picture just how big the singer’s, erm, love really is. “I’m a full-grown man / Looking for a real love,” John Hiatt declares, in his most urgent soulful groan, in the refrain. Look out, ladies.

Take that deliciously retarded tempo, the whomping drums and thrusting bass line, and Cooder’s plangent Dobro whining like power lines vibrating in the wind—well, it’s a pretty sexy track indeed. It’s all about superlatives – “I need love as big as an ocean / I need love that can't be crossed / A love in perpetual motion / I need a love that won't get lost” – he’s just bursting with it, isn’t he?

The line that really gets me is this: “I need a love gonna lift me up to that drinking fountain / Just like my Daddy did in my younger days.” There’s something surprisingly tender there, which somehow I ascribe to John Hiatt. (Me and Hiatt and Hiatt’s daddy – oh, we go way back.) Suddenly this guy is interesting.

“Now is this love / Gonna get up off the ground / Is this love gonna get up off the ground,” Hiatt wails and moans. Really, ladies, we ought to help this poor schmuck with his burden of desire. After all, he’s, well, big, and girls, isn’t that what we want?

And dig how he humanizes himself in the third verse: “I never did just a little drinking / I could drink the Milky Way.” This line plunges deep for me -- knowing as I do that both Hiatt and Lowe are reformed alcoholics who bonded in the making of Hiatt’s Bring the Family (dig the cover image of John drinking coffee, the AA beverage of choice). “Think small and your heart starts shrinking,” Hiatt bravely declaims, and with one fell swoop, I am seduced. Who cares how “big” this guy is; his heart is big, and for a woman, that’s what really matters.

Big Love sample

"Don't Think About Her" / Nick Lowe

"Don't Think About Her When You're Trying To Drive" / Little Village

Little Village was such a great idea -- a supergroup comprised of Nick Lowe, John Hiatt, Ry Cooder, and Jim Keltner, who'd worked before on Hiatt's brilliant 1987 album Bring the Family. Unfortunately, something inexplicably weird happened as they were recording their one and only album and the group never went any further. And at the time, I was living in some alternate universe and had no idea all this was going on.

This is the sort of thing I can spend hours thinking about. Who pissed off whom, and who was to blame? Though I'm tempted to side with Nick and John and assume it was all Ry Cooder's fault, I suspect there's no real answer.

"Don't Think About Her When You're Trying To Drive" is my favorite track from this album, with Hiatt ripping into some of his most soulful vocals ever. Yeah, I know, the song sounds like a goof, but the guy who's singing it isn't laughing -- he's barreling down a highway half-blinded with tears. There's something crazy and all-out romantic about it, and with Hiatt's full throated rendition on that chorus -- "Don't think about her / Move on, you're lucky just to be alive / You'll live without her / Just don't you think about her / When you're trying to drive" -- you really get the sense of a guy just barely holding it together.

So imagine my delight and surprise to find an early version of this song in the Nick Lowe box set The Doings (it's on disc four, the rarities disc). It's an 1989 demo, just Nick on an acoustic guitar, and except for that refrain it's a whole different song. The tempo's faster, and the tune's got a retro feel that wouldn't be out of place in a 1950s movie theme song. "It's just a heartache that soon will pass / Given time there will be a light at last / It's a beating you'll survive / But till that day arrives / Don't think about her when you drive." He's trying to make light of it, but he's just as heart-broken and obsessed as Hiatt's singer -- he's just deeper in denial. Only in the bridge do you really begin to realize how fixated he's become: "Think about her while you're leaving here / Think about her while you're selecting gear / Think about her before you cross the tracks / But don't think about her when you're driving back."

Okay, I know Nick's song is a throwaway. Once Little Village got hold of it, all the images were reworked and tightened up to make it a driving song from start to finish. "She don't know who you're missing / Driving down that lonesome road tonight / Looking for one starlight glowing / Or her face, shining in the dashlight." Hiatt sings of Natchez and Memphis; his tires squeal, the clutch misses; he stops to phone her and then hangs up. It's a classic country-tinged song, and it deserved to be a big hit -- if only anybody could've figured out in 1991 what genre to file this under.

But you know what? I'm totally besotted with Nick's version. Now that it's been rewritten, it'll never get trotted out again; those few, erm, awkward turns of phrase won't ever get fixed. Nick's so self-critical, he can throw things like this away and never look back. (Completely the opposite of his buddy Robyn Hitchcock, who'd happily release an album of his lawn clippings.)

Well, I'd have loved to be a fly on the wall watching the drama of this song being rewritten. I could write a whole novel about that.

Don't Think About Her sample
Don't Think About Her When You're Trying to Drive sample