My Top Ten Eleven Albums of 2012

All in one place . . . like a  Christmas list. I'm not numbering them 1 to 10 because they're too good -- and too different -- to rank absolutely. Click on each title for a link to my original post.

Graham Parker & The Rumour:
Three Chords Good
Even I, a confirmed Graham Parker fanatic, didn't predict just HOW good this reunion album would be. I'm gobsmacked by its brilliance.

The Shins: Port of Morrow
A combination of gorgeous melody, striking lyrics, and a sweetly melancholy worldview -- it's almost drunkenly beautiful.

Corb Lund: Cabin Fever
Ranging from honky-tonk to rockabilly to bluegrass to Western swing, Lund doesn't approach country music like an artifact or an ironic affectation; he approaches it like a cowboy..

Rhett Miller: Dreamer
From the Old 97s front man, an entire alt-country album about love, lost and found, sour and sweet.

Paul Weller: Sonik Kicks
Ever the restless risk-taker, Weller loads up this album with studio effects and sonic experiments, while his insane commitment to melody and to syncopation shines gloriously through.

The Ben Folds Five:
The Sound of the Life of the Mind
I adore Ben Folds' solo work as well, but the driving energy and impish wit of the Ben Folds Five is something else.

The dBs: Falling Off the Sky
Reuniting this beloved late 70s band so many years down the road seems like a joyful and natural thing, judging from the copasetic energy of Falling Off the Sky.

John Hiatt: Mystic Pinball
Start to finish, that raspy voice, the visceral rhythms, the crunchy guitarwork, all come together to craft a sound so authentic and idiosyncratic, it fits like a glove.

The Avett Brothers: The Carpenter
Scott and Seth Avett have never shed the upbeat sweetness of their southern folk roots, even as they steer it into rock territory.

Mumford & Sons: Babel
Hipster indie Brits forge their own peculiar Americana sound, like O Brother Where Art Thou? meets Martin Amis, full of post-modern angst and old-time religion.

M. Ward: A Wasteland Companion
OOF!! Released way back last April, I forgot at first to put this on my 2012 top ten list. But I adore its acoustic reverbed charm, a retro-flavored meditation on love, loss, and resilience.

My Top Ten Albums of 2012
And now for something completely different.

Paul Weller: Sonik Kicks
"By the Waters"

Even I am surprised by this choice. I'm not a die-hard Paul Weller fan; I feel no close personal connection to him. Twice now I've bought tickets to see him in concert and ended up not going. And yet, curiously enough, I find I own most of his albums, from The Jam through Style Council and on into his often-baffling solo work. Sometimes they disappoint me (last year's Wake Up the Nation left me cold). But when I see there's a new one, I'm always tempted.

I sampled Sonik Kicks before buying it. My finger hovered over the Buy Now key for a minute or so. Did I really want an entire album of electronic experiments?  That title, with its cheesy misspelling of "sonic" and the freighted word "kicks," kept blinking at me like a red warning light.

But I clicked on Buy, and I'm glad I did.

It's clear that Weller's dabbling with a lot of studio tools, layering the music with weird effects, building a wall of sound that's not always pretty. He's fallen under the spell of some DJ named Simon Dine, and he's apparently been listening to loads of buzzy Krautrock. This is the sort of stuff that's usually anathema to me. Yet beneath it all, Weller's insane commitment to melody and to syncopation shines gloriously through.  I actually find myself humming these tunes in the shower; when they're playing, I feel compelled to get up and dance. It's an astonishing feat indeed.

And that's why I remain loyal to Paul Weller. He's one of the biggest risk-takers out there, restless for new musical ideas, completely bored by the idea of replicating his previous sound. There are of course fans who still feel betrayed that he left the Jam to form Style Council (personally I prefer Style Council) and who believe that his new stuff is self-indulgent crap. Yes, it is self-indulgent, but that's just another way of saying that he marches to his own drummer. When you're this innately talented, indulging yourself can be a good thing.

As strange as the sound may be to some ears, Weller actually finds a lot of range within it. I suggest you listen to more than one track: the aggressive punch of "Kling I Klang," the snappy hipster satire of "When Your Garden's Overgrown," the soulful pop sweetness of "Study in Blue."

But given the sorrow in my heart over the tragic news of yesterday's school shooting, I'm taking solace in this tender track:

The moral is simple -- we're all going at such a speed, working, racing around, hyped up with information, we need to grant ourselves the right to take a breather. Nothing more than that, nothing less. He offers nature as the source of renewal, water and sky and stars and sun -- an unexpected message on an album so full of speed, noise, and cryptic social commentary. (None of the lyrics on this album tell a conventional story.)

By the time this track drops -- it's #5 on the album -- it provides exactly what the lyrics promote: a place of refuge, healing, and rest.  I could feel my muscles relax, my pores open, my heartbeat slow back down. It was a totally unexpected experience from an album called Sonik Kicks.

That's when I knew this album was a keeper.

FRIDAY (or maybe Saturday now) SHUFFLE

Oy, it's been a while.  I have to admit that my Saturday evenings have been devoted lately not to blogging but to listening to the radio -- specifically Marshall Crenshaw's Bottomless Pit show on WFUV-FM (which you can listen to on the internet, either via live stream or in an archived version -- so now you've got no excuse for not checking it out.)  But if I can get the blog done before Marsh's show starts at 10pm Eastern time...

1. Monday Morning / Death Cab for Cutie
From Codes and Keys (2011)
Wow. I was just listening to this new Death Cab CD on a car drive today, trying to decide if I really needed all the tracks in my iTunes library. (Some of those long sonic collages I could do without.)  This song made the cut, though; it's tuneful and has a good beat.  Plus I like to imagine that it's about Zooey Dechanel.  "She may be young but she only likes old things..."  Then again, it does have that line about the vultures surrounding you -- ah, Ben Gibbard, you depressive little scamp.


2. I Love That Girl / John Hiatt
From Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns (2011)
What is this, New Release Weekend?  Now I really feel guilty that I haven't blogged yet about this brilliant new CD.  Because you know I loves me some Johnny Hiatt -- I even saw him live last weekend at City Winery -- well, there's just no excuse. And this jubilant song of love, so simple, so infectious, is a side I like to see him letting loose with. 

3. Wild Thing  / The Troggs
From From Nowhere (1966)
Did someone say simple and infectious?  A true British invasion classic.  "Wild thing, I think you move me..."

4. Got To Get Out Of Here /  Badfinger
From Wish You Were Here (1974)
Some day I really have to get down to business and listen to ALL of Badfinger's work, beyond the few big irresistible hit singles.  There's something sweet and sensitive and sincere about them, and so melodic -- no wonder Paul McCartney wanted to get them onto the Apple label -- and yet a dark underside that makes them really interesting.  This song is just draggy enough to make you wonder whether he is ever going to get out of here; compare this to the energy of the Animals' "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" -- it's an entirely different thing going on.

5. First Day of Spring / Graham Parker
From 12 Haunted Episodes (1995)
If all you know of Graham Parker is Squeezing Out Sparks -- in other words, if you're like I was a year or so ago -- then you'll be amazed to see that GP also has this tender acoustic side.  He's got an astonishingly literary gift for metaphor -- but don't let me explicate this one for you, listen for yourself. The guy's a freaking genius, honestly. 


6. Woodcutter's Son  / Paul Weller
From Stanley Road (1995)
Probably Weller's best post-Jam album, although I have a sneaking fondness for all his Style Council experiments too. Weller's never shy about genre-crossing; here he lets his rocking-out get plenty funky, wandering off into jazzy backwaters and losing all pretense of being a "song." And yet it works.

7. The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys  / Traffic
From The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys  (1971)
Now there's a brilliant segue.  This extended Stevie Winwood/Jim Capaldi jam works pretty much as pure music too. Remember when a song could be 11:02 minutes long and it still wasn't pretentious?  They melded rock and jazz so effortlessly, we thought it must be easy.  Ha.

8. Modern Nature / Sondre Lerche
From Faces Down (2002)
The movie Dan in Real Life first introduced me to this quirky Norwegian singer-songwriter, with a fondness for the retro show-tunesy side of indie pop.  You could practically do a soft shoe dance to this track, but it's sweet as hell.

9. Tip of My Tongue  / Graham Parker
From From a Window: The Lost Songs of Lennon & McCartney (2003)
Hooray!  Another chance for me to badger you to buy this must-have album, wherein Graham Parker, Kate Pierson, and Bill Janovitz re-interpret various tunes that John & Paul wrote for other artists. As if we needed any more proof that they were brilliant songwriters.

10. Rooftops (A Liberation Broadcast) / Lostprophets
From Liberation Transmission (2006)
Thus proving that shuffles are embarrassingly random.  Nevertheless, this is a fun top-of-your-lungs singalong, upbeat and pulsing with punk energy; these Welsh rockers have me preaching revolution without a moment's thought.  Makes me nostalgic for 2006 -- ah, yes, a simpler time.

SATURDAY SHUFFLE


Huge work project, apartment renovation, crappy weather -- I've got a dozen reasons why the daily blogs just aren't happening.  But when all else fails, we've always got the shuffle!

1. Hot Potatoes / The Kinks
From Everybody's In Show-Biz (1972)
Though everybody thinks of Muswell Hillbillies as the Kinks' "country album," plenty of twang was still hanging around for their next album, Show-Biz. If there's a theme on this album, it's about the hassles of life on the road:  Here he longs for home cooking, specifically potatoes -- "boiled, french-fried, any old way that you want to decide."  And whatever else she's serving...

2. Yolanda Hayes / Fountains of Wayne
From Traffic and Weather (2007)
Did you know that Fountains of Wayne re-united after recording the Kinks "Better Things" for a tribute album? To me, these guys carry on the Kinks spirit in so many ways. Somewhere in New Jersey there probably really is a drivers' license bureau clerk named Yolanda Hayes. I wonder if she knows that Adam Schlesinger (or was it Chris Collingwood?) read her nametag and wrote this utterly charming song while waiting in line...

3. Fluorescent Adolescent / Arctic Monkeys
From Favourite Worst Nightmare (2007)
Is this band officially defunct?  I liked the whomp and jangle of their first two albums, and Alex Turner's guttural Sheffield vocals -- not that I ever thought they were the second coming, like some folks did. ("Bigger than the Beatles" . . . yeah, right.) 

4. Selfless Cold and Composed / Ben Folds Five
From Whatever and Ever Amen (1997)
Don't be deceived by the smooth jazz grooviness of this tune -- Ben is telling this bitch off, in a storm of piano arpeggios and riffs and a few of his trademark vulgarities.  Yes, the fine art of sarcasm is alive and well.

5. Twisted / Richard Thompson
From Henry the Human Fly (1972)
Jumping back in time -- same year as the Kinks' Show-Biz, as it happens -- another sarcastic kiss-off, this time dressed up like a robust English folk song.
 
6.  In A Space / The Kinks
From Low Budget (1979)
The Davies brothers again -- with the album that re-launched their American popularity (for the third time).  I've never quite gotten this song. It's like a mash-up of Dave's cosmic perspectives with Ray's neurotic desire to escape, cranked up like a punk anthem (listen to Ray's growled vocals).  Enter the arena rock years...

7. Sure Pinocchio / John Hiatt
From Little Head (1997)
Word in the Hiatt camp is, this is his worst album.  Doesn't mean it hasn't got some good songs on it, though, and I love this one, which was actually written by bassist Davey Faragher (now part of Elvis Costello's Imposters). Another spiteful kiss-off song.

8. Town Called Malice / The Jam
From The Gift (1982)
Paul Weller puts on his soul shoes, channeling his inner Supremes. Yeah, the satiric edge is still there, but the tunefulness of this track totally leaves punk behind.

9. Paper Sun / Traffic
From Mr. Fantasy (1967)
Ah, when psychedelia was young, and all that sitar and tabla and reverb seemed fresh and new. But if you want a hazy lush sound, turn loose Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi. Their first single, seemingly out of nowhere -- you could get a contact high from this one.

10. Didn't Want To Have To Do It / The Lovin' Spoonful
From Daydream (1966)
And only a year before, this was the sound of the moment: gentle jug-band music, filtered through a mellow Southern California high. (Different drugs.)  The opposite of a sarcastic kiss-off, John B. is sending that girl out the door so tenderly -- "I didn't want to have be the one to say 'the end' (the end, the end...)"

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Wait, it's December already? Wait, it's Wednesday already?

1.  "Changed the Locks" / Lucinda Williams  
From Lucinda Williams (1998)
I think I'd like Lucinda Williams more if all you male music fans weren't always slobbering over her brassy-babe act.  Okay, yes, the rootsy squawk and drawl of this song is appealing, and yes, it should be satisfying to hear a sister wash that man right out of her hair.  It's just that I wouldn't trust her with my man for five seconds.   

2. "This Empty Place" / The Searchers
From It's the Searchers (1965)
British Invasion bands sure did like to cover Burt Bacharach-Hal David songs.  This was a hit for Cilla Black and Dionne Warwick, and the lyrics are really better for a girl singer -- borderline dopey Brill Building sentiments.  But that cha-cha beat is beguiling, and I love the octave swoops in the lead vocal (either Frank Allen or Chris Curtis, in the Searchers' revolving door of personnel). The Searchers never quite got their due, IMHO -- they never had a compelling enough image or a distinctive enough sound to compete in that very crowded field -- yet they turned out a surprising number of great tracks, and this is one of my faves.       

3. "One Bright Star" / Paul Weller
From 22 Dreams (2008)
A tango -- a tango! -- from the former Jam front man, whose music gets more eccentrically eclectic with every album. 

4. "Hollywood Bed" / The Blasters
From Testament: The Complete Blasters Collection (compilation)
Back to classic rock and roll sound, though the track dates only to 1981.  I came late to the Blasters, via Dave Alvin (Nick Lowe's Yep Roc label mate), who long ago played in this band with his brother Phil.  That revved-up tempo, the hectic joy of this song -- this was SO not the sound of the 80s for me, but I'm glad I eventually found it.

5. "Whistle for the Choir" / The Fratellis
From Costello Music (2007)
A charming little shuffle of a song by one of my favorite young BritIndie bands. Melody is alive and well and living in Scotland.

6. "Don't Let Me Down" / The Beatles
From Past Masters Vol. 2 (compilation)
1969, and we knew the Beatles were pretty much kaput --for the first time, John Lennon was taking full songwriting credit for a song. And -- ouch! -- he's singing to Yoko, "I'm in love for the first time / Don't you know it's gonna last / It's a love that last forever / It's a love that has no past."  Well, I knew what he was getting at, but I cringed for Cynthia's sake.  Am I the only one who hears a veiled threat in this song, shades of "Run For Your Life"?  Johnny, we hardly knew ye.... 

7. "My Blue Angels" / Jon Lindsay
From Escape from Plaza-Midwood (2010)
Hello, what have we here?  Yesterday's brand-new find. Honest, I didn't rig this; I am NOT being paid to promote this kid, I swear.  But seriously, you should check him out.

8. "Blank Expression" / The Specials
From The Specials (1980)
Aw, what a great album. It wasn't just ska, it was political ska with a low-fi punk edge.  I love how the voices are just slightly out of synch as they sing, "Where did you get that / [blank] Blank expression on your face?"  This lyric runs through my mind whenever I walk through hipster Williamsburg.

9. "Making Whoopie" / Ben Sidran
From Old Songs for the New Depression (2002)
Jazz -- because sometimes you've just got to.  Ben Sidran sneaks on here as an acolyte of the divine Mose Allison, who slipped onto my radar courtesy of Georgie Fame and Van Morrison.  It's just Ben and a piano, taking this silly old show tune through all its changes.  Dee-lish. 

10. "Beautiful Night" / Paul McCartney
From Flaming Pie (1997)
That searing solo John, and now some throwaway solo Paul. (Don't worry, I'll never switch allegiances.) Well, it is a beautiful night -- as Paul tells us (I've counted) thirty-nine times.  A charming simple little tune which Paul then runs into the ground for the last minute and a half.  Man oh man, this dude so needs me to help him edit his music . . . along with any other services I'd be happy to provide...

"Quiet Life" / Ray Davies

I'm shocked to realize that I left one essential film out of our recent discussion of movie soundtracks: the Julian Temple film Absolute Beginners, a musical adaptation of Colin McInnes' novel (itself well worth reading) about 1950s London and the birth of British rock 'n' roll. If you haven't seen it, check it out -- it's one of my special little guilty pleasures. The story rambles more than a bit, but it's visually stunning, and it's appropriately packed with musical guest stars: David Bowie, Sade, Sandie Shaw, Zoot Money, Tenpole Tudor, and -- my primary reason for seeing the film in the first place -- the ever delicious Mr. Ray Davies.

I was reminded of this because, in my role as house historian for the Kinks Fan Club forum, I just posted that the Absolute Beginners soundtrack album was released 24 years ago today. Here's a clip of Ray's scene in the movie (hang in there, there's a minute or so of dialog before you get to the song itself).



Unfortunately this is only part of the movie in which Ray appears, but it's beyond wonderful. Playing the much-put-upon father of the main character, young photographer Colin, Ray doesn't exactly look glamorous in his undershirt and braces, his hair slicked back and grayed at the temples. (In contrast, Bowie is glam-tastic in his big scene). But Ray's bit is much more entertaining, and his dancing is simply to die for.

Anybody who was ever in doubt about Ray Davies' fondness for English music hall tunes only has to listen to "Quiet Life." Underlaid with Dixieland horns and jazzy percussion, it's a classic softshoe, tripping lightly along. Yet while the sound of the song is like Noel Coward champagne, the storyline is more Ealing comedy slapstick, with a Monty Python nudge-nudge wink-wink thrown in for good measure.

"Something's happening, but I'm just gonna turn a blind eye," Ray begins the patter, in his breathy, earnest innocent-bystander voice. "If I see no evil, I ask no questions and I hear no lies" -- his whole existence is a masterwork of self-protective denial. In low, confiding tones, Ray keeps suavely declaring that he's not such a fool as everyone thinks -- "Confidentially between these walls / I'm on top of it all." And indeed, he does see all the salacious shenanigans in his household -- it's like a saucy seaside postcard come to life. But he shows no intention of doing a bloody thing about it, so what's the point of knowing?

Listen to how Ray's voice trembles and squawks on the high-pitched refrain -- "All I need is a QUIET life!", like a blowsy trombone wail. Keeping his head in the sand takes every ounce of energy this hapless bloke has. It's a lovely little comic portrait, and Ray hits every mark. Oh, the rest of the soundtrack has some other gems -- I particularly love Bowie's rendition of the theme song, Style Council's "Have You Ever Had It Blue?", and Sade's "Killer Blow." But in the end, there's one reason I go back to this film again and again. Ray.

"The Whole Point of No Return" /
The Style Council

Imagine standing on the rim of a swimming pool, knowing full well the water's cold --do you ease yourself in slowly, or just dive in? That's how I am about Style Council. I've been listening to a lot of Paul Weller's solo work the last couple of weeks, and completely grooving on it -- but I'm still mystified by how he got from the Jam to where his sound is today. I know Style Council lay in between; it must hold the answer. But jeez, that's cold water to dive into.

Why do so many people snigger when they mention Style Council? I was off in some other universe in 1982, when Weller broke up the Jam to launch this new project, but it must have seemed like heresy at time, one of punk's seminal voices jettisoning punk for a groovy soul/jazz hybrid. Apparently some people have never forgiven him. I say, GET OVER IT. From what I've listened to -- mostly those annoying 30-second iTunes teasers -- some of this is pretty delicious stuff. Okay, so it's slickly produced, as opposed to the raw energy of the Jam; and apparently the lyrics got more and more leftist as time went on, which was a lose-lose thing -- he irritated lefties with his Europop glossiness, and he irritated jazz fans with his political whinges. I can imagine the whole scenario. But still.

Well, now here's a riddle. I tried to Google the lyrics to this song, and absolutely every lyrics site offers the same set of lyrics -- completely different words from what I hear on the track I've downloaded from Our Favourite Shop. Here I'm listening to this lovely jazz samba with Paul Weller musing existentially about life, and instead the lyrics sites insist it's a bitter political rant against class oppression. Was there some later version Weller did? I did notice that a couple sites also list the song as recorded by Robert Wyatt, and from a quick Wikipedia research, I gather that Wyatt -- an eccentric wheelchair-bound English rock-jazz maverick -- sometimes records cover versions of other artists' songs with lyrics changed to convey his own Communist beliefs. Are these other lyrics something Wyatt imposed on the song? Obviously all the sites just picked it up from each other, without anyone actually listening to the records (which just proves what I've always suspected about those sites).

But deciphering the lyrics for myself, I get something romantic and not at all pretentious. It hits a sweet samba groove, underlaid with Latin percussion, a delicately plucked Spanish guitar, and Mick Talbot playing some shimmery vibraphones. The scene he sets is all carioca coolness, with shining harbor lights, soft breezes, and a "beckoning sea." The seaside scene sends him into an introspective mood, brooding about "the rushing winds of age and time" and "the promise that all could be mine." Seduced by that samba beat, he admits to feel tempted "to close my eyes and feel the fall / To not resist them to the fore / Oh it's easy, so so easy."

But he's not going gentle into that good night, as he declares in the end of the second verse: "I'm not prepared to live the lie / To shut my mouth and just say yes / To make a vow and then confess / It's too easy, much too easy." It's not clear to me what he's resisting -- could be marriage, could be political selling-out -- but in the last verse, he declares "With all the power that I possess / A faith alone shall stand the test / To live my life as I see best." I guess if some honey-throated Brazilian were singing this song, the defiant up-yours ending wouldn't work, but Weller's peculiarly husky, ever-so-slightly strangled-sounding voice makes it seem perfectly natural.

And in the end, the lyrics don't matter so much -- it's that syncopated Latin beat, the fantastical vibes, and the knife-like Weller croon cutting through it all. I'm still on the edge of the pool, but I have a feeling I'm diving in any day now -- I'll just have to buy all those Style Council albums, and give into the dark side.

"I Wanna Make It Alright" / Paul Weller

I've been feeling in desperate need of a pick-me-up song -- so thanks, Paul Weller, for tap-dancing into town with this one, from his marvelous mature 2005 album As Is Now. (Man, I sure do dig rock stars who know how to age gracefully.) What a simple confection this is, a perfect example of less being more. It's just one musical phrase -- two notes, repeated in different keys, varied only occasionally by a seventh jump upward at the end -- but oh, how that dogged repetition gets his point across.

What's the plot here? I'm guessing it's one massive apology song, a clear-the-boards-and-start-fresh thing -- that soft husky vocal of the beginning sounds pretty humble to me. Patiently he repeats, "I want to make it alright / Alright between us two / I want to put things right on this ground / Before our time is through." Whatever he's done, he knows it came damn close to killing the whole affair. But, he protests, his intentions are thoroughly honorable --"I want to be the kind / You want to come home to" (what woman doesn't want to hear that?) -- though, oh yes by the way, there's a healthy dose of lust as well: "I want to be the one who gets to / Make it with you" (just a bit of gasp and shiver there.) Because we need both.

On the whole, Weller insists, he's a stand-up guy: "Try to love you better than / I ever done before / I wanna stand up and say / I'll always love you this way." How sweet is that? It's clear he's hurt her somehow, but he's sorry sorry sorry: "I don't want you feeling blue / At the end of the day / Try to put some goodness back / Before this good thing goes." Jeez, the fact that he knows it's a good thing puts him well ahead of most guys I know.

I love the comforting spirit of this song; it gives me the same warm vibe as Stevie Wonder's "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing." Those sibilant brushstrokes on the drums, the lilting little piano glissandos, keep the whole thing bright and good-hearted; the laid-back syncopation is sexy and yet reassuring, especially with that pleading quiver in his slightly gritty voice. (In the bridge, he sounds almost like Joe Cocker's long-lost brother.) It's amazing how physical this song is; I can almost feel his strong arms circling me, can almost smell the starch in his shirt. How does he pull this off?

I'm still not sure why this song lifts my spirits so -- after all, how does an apology from Paul Weller sort my life out? Who knows? All I know is that this track is one big easy chair I can snuggle up in for the afternoon. Some days that's the most we can hope for.

I Wanna Make It Alright sample

"Have You Ever Had It Blue" / Style Council

I've got a playlist on my iPod called simply blue; this song's the second track, and today when it came on it took me by surprise, the way a song sometimes does when you least expect it. I've been humming it ever since, and snapping my fingers too, because it's the sort of groovefest you must snap your fingers to.

I picked up "Have You Ever Had It Blue" up off the soundtrack for Absolute Beginners, that quirky 1986 Julien Temple film about the birth of teen culture in Britain. I have to admit, the main reason I own this soundtrack is because of its one delicious Ray Davies track, "Quiet Life," but I soon grew intrigued by this Style Council thing too.

I had no idea when I first heard it that Style Council was a Paul Weller project. Frankly, listening to this, who'd ever think this was the same guy who was in the Jam? It's chock-full of jazzy horns and samba rhythms and back-up singers, a total Big Production Number that fit the movie's 1950s time frame perfectly. (Can anybody tell me if this single was written for the movie?) But I guess I should have suspected something; after all, didn't the Jam do a song called "Absolute Beginners" in 1981?

Those image-laden lyrics are a fair indicator of what an evocative lyricist Weller can be: "Have you ever chased the night / That sailed in front of you / On a boat that's bound for hope / But left you in the queue / With your shouting waving / Taunting flaunting friends as crew." That's what I call developing an line of imagery, the mark of a true pro. I love that string of gerunds describing the friends -- "taunting flaunting" in particular is a nifty phrase. "Have you stood upon that dock / Have you ever had it blue ooh?" he wails urgently, with those percolating rhythms desperately popping away behind him. Time waits for no one.

The next verse is equally well crafted: "Have you ever woke to find / The morning didn't come / Undelivered with the papers / Stolen by someone / Found the milkman bound and gagged / And the shackles round the sun." It's a wonderful sustained metaphor, full of urban glints and hungover grogginess. And it pays off splendidly: "And the holder of the keys / Turns out to be the one / The girl you had your heart set on." Oof -- yeah, that's blue all right.

The soundtrack version is over five minutes, with a long dissonant jazz intro (a bit disorienting when it's piped into your ears on an iPod). I gather that the single version was more compact; the single didn't make much of an impression over here, though. I never heard of it, at any rate, outside of the movie. Not knowing who Style Council were, I assumed it was a period jazz piece when I first saw the film -- that's how effectively Weller switched genres.

And now I've Googled up this tasty black-and-white video to go with it: Have You Ever Had It Blue video. Enjoy!

"David Watts" / The Jam

I read that the Jam are reuniting for a tour and album, which got me very excited until I read in the next paragraph that it would be most of the Jam -- everyone except Paul Weller. Now, that leaves just Rick Buckler and Bruce Foxton . . . and Weller's the one who wrote most of their songs and did the lead vocals. Pardon me, Rick and Bruce, but no matter how talented your newly-recuited bandmates may be, I just don't see how you can call this The Jam.

There is at least one Jam song Paul Weller didn't write -- it's called "David Watts" and it was written by Ray Davies for the 1967 album Something Else By The Kinks. Thanks in large part to this cover by the Jam (1978 -- it's on their superb album All Mod Cons), Ray Davies began to be called "the godfather of BritPop," which I find nearly as funny as calling Nick Lowe the "godfather of punk". But that's a whole other discussion.

The main thing is, Paul Weller was influenced by the Kinks (so who wasn't?) and had the good grace to pay public tribute to them by recording this track. Most of the Kinks fans I know agree that this is a great Kinks cover, possibly even better than the Kinks' original recording. The Jam didn't just reproduce the song as the Kinks sang it, they added flavor of their own, giving it a smart slap of punk aggression. They take it just a tick faster, introduce some dissonance to the harmonies here and there, lay down a thrumming guitar line, and punch out the last line of the verse with a loud shouted "Oy!" (the Kinks merely shouted "hey!"). I love that "Oy!" The class division that was implicit in the original comes out so much stronger with the Jam's yob accents.

This song is the ultimate expression of adolescent male envy. The singer -- who describes himself right up front, "I am a dull and simple lad," almost painfully insecure -- recites a litany of all the advantages his schoolmate David Watts possesses: He's met the Queen, has tasted champagne, leads the school team to victory, passes all his exams, is the head boy at the school -- and of course, all the girls compete for him, which is probably the cruelest and most inevitable advantage of all.

The singer watches wistfully from afar, and isn't there a flicker of homoerotic attraction mingled with the envy ("And when I lie on my pillow at night / I dream I could fight like David Watts")? He doesn't hate David Watts, mind you -- it's just that (as he tells us over and over, at the end of every verse) "I wish I could be like David Watts." He says David Watt's name eight times in the course of this song, almost obsessively, like a mantra, and winds up saying admiringly, "For he is a pure and noble breed," the kind of phrase you'd use to describe some Shakespearean prince.

The tune I could easily imagine as a prep school anthem, with those madrigal-like "fa-fa-fa fa fa fa-fa-fa's" at the beginning of every verse. (Although I suspect it's also a sneaky allusion to Roger Daltrey's stuttered line, "Why don't you just f-f-f-f-fade away?" in "My Generation" -- the f's seem so ready to morph into words that are a little less polite).

This song doesn't go anywhere, doesn't reach any conclusion. It's just an expression of the dull agony of being an ordinary kid, continually taking a back seat to the golden boy. But as we have all learned in life, those golden boys tend to peak early -- while the teenage misfits like Ray Davies and Paul Weller end up scoring the real successes in life.
Anyway, that's who I'm pulling for.

Check out a sample: http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,108340,00.html