F Is For...

Songs A to Z

My 26-day challenge to myself -- write about a different band every day, working from A to Z. And just to prove that I do sometimes listen to 21st-century music...

The Fratellis / "Babydoll"

Three reasons to love this band:

1. Their 2006 debut album was called Costello Music, which they say was named after a studio they used to rent in Glasgow, but I stubbornly persist in believing is a tribute to Elvis Costello.

2. All three band members claim that their last name is Fratelli, just like the Ramones claimed that they were all named Ramone.

3.  They're from Glasgow, and every person I've ever met from Glasgow is cool as s**t.

.
So herewith, this adorable track's from 2007's Here We Stand. (That was the year that they won the Brit Award for Best British Breakthrough Act.) Since then they've followed that up with We Need Medicine (2013) and Eyes Wide, Tongue Tied (2016).

The big single hits off this album were the infectious "Mistress Mabel" and "Look Out Sunshine," but something about the earnest backbeat groove of this peppy little track appeals to me more.

With self-deprecating charm, front man Jon Fratelli said in 2008, "I'ts not the strongest thing I ever wrote lyrically, but the melody sticks. I had it in my head for a long time, so finally gave into it. I thought it must be good if I can't shake it."

Well, he's not wrong about that. Sometimes it IS all about the hooks. 

On the other hand, the lyrics do have a poignant quality. For me, the title is drenched in references to Elia Kazan's Southern Gothic 1956 film Baby Doll, starring Carroll Baker, Karl Malden, and Eli Wallach. (Jon Fratelli slips a similar old movie reference into another track on this album, "Stragglers Moon," with the refrain "can't help it / The girl can't help it.") This girl's innocence, too, is quite clearly up for grabs: "Baby doll / Do you believe they'll catch you when you fall . . . Don't forget / Your minor keys, your half-lit / Cigarette." (I won't bore you now with English-majory things about line breaks and enjambment, but trust me, it's got 'em.) 

The yearning melodic lift of the chorus begs us to believe in her virtue, but the chromatic snarls of the verses point instead to her, um, shall we say pliant nature ("Well, they said you was long gone / I just laughed and said alright/ Bring her home tonight / And I heard you was graciously put on / I just laughed and said good night / Guess it's alright.") What I love is how he keeps on loyally believing in her. "Well they said you burned out, I just laughed / And said come on / She's not burned / She's just gone."

Up until the very end, when he admits: "Everybody knows you well / Except for me, can't you tell." A loss of innocence. 

But how wrong is that, to love and believe? Especially when it's got a good beat and you can dance to it...

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

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...

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Sure, the Memorial Day long weekend threw us all off -- it still feels only like Tuesday. But it isn't! It's Wednesday! So let's shuffle!!!

1. "For the Girl" / The Fratellis
From Costello Music (2007)
High-energy beat, crunchy guitars, rapid-crammed lyrics, and cheery la-la-la la-la-la's -- a bracing jolt of Brit Pop indeed. I love the shifting minor and major keys in this track. "She was into the Stones when / I was into the Roses" -- whoever this girl is, he's sure ambivalent about their never-quite-meshing relationship.

2. "Pontiac" / Fred Eaglesmith
From Lipstick, Lies & Gasoline (1997)
Fred who? One of America's best-kept secrets, a true grass-roots music treasure, with an unwavering connection to real American music fans. I won't give away the story this track tells -- it's a heartbreaker -- find it online and listen for yourself.

3. "What Is Wrong, What Is Right" / Herman's Hermits (1966)
From The Very Best of Herman's Hermits
A deft satiric character sketch that even Ray Davies could appreciate. It was only on the B-sides that Hermits Derek Lekenby and Keith Hopwood got to feature their own compositions, but while the band's radio hits sound trite today, those original numbers are a revelation.

4. "Michelle" / David and Jonathan (1967)
Yes, that "Michelle" -- but it's not Paul McCartney singing. Not a bad cover, though, all things considered.

5. "End of the Party" / The English Beat
From Special Beat Service (1982)
Ska-flavored jazzy pop from Dave Wakeling and company. There's always a soap opera embedded in these English Beat songs, a series of betrayals and frustrated love affairs played out in dingy flats and grubby streets. It seems the girl here is keeping our singer on tenterhooks, making him wait to sleep with her -- the tension is palpable in every word-crammed line, the yelp of every leaping, offbeat interval.

6. "The Crush" / John Hiatt
From Warming Up to the Ice Age (1985)
Having shed his proto-New Wave punk pose, Johnny Hiatt went into neo-soul mode on this album, recorded at the tail-end of his boozy California years. Oh, sure, I know that Hiatt's seriously great work would come later, once he got his life together -- but I hafta admit, his voice is in spectacular shape here, and his guitar licks sizzle. For a flop album, this is a neglected gem, 80s synths and all.

7. "Sinister But She Was Happy" / Robyn Hitchcock
From Moss Elixir (1996)
Neurotic rhythms, non sequitur lyrics, and a frenzied sawing of fiddle and cello -- ah, Robyn Hitchcock lets his English eccentric freak flag fly. There's something baroque about this track, with surreal lines like "Sinister but she was happy / Like a chandelier festooned with leeches," but it's also a totally nifty acoustic rocker, with an addictive loose-limbed beat. I can just imagine Robyn, in a loose flowered print shirt and jeans, gray hair flopping across his forehead, strumming madly away. Imagine? I've seen him sing this, with a wicked glint in his mad dark eyes. Delicious.

8. "I Am Your Singer" / Wings
From Wild Life (1971)
I know I'm supposed to look down on this stoned mishmash of an LP. The songs make no sense, they go on too long, the rhymes are infantile, and Linda is encouraged to sing way too much. (Any Linda vocals are too much in my book.) Well, sorry, folks, I love Wild Life. IMO Paul McCartney is at his best when he isn't trying to score radio hits or prove a critical point; he's just reveling in melody, rhythmic patterns, and musical textures. Wings would become a hit machine soon enough -- let's enjoy this freeform debut album for what it is.

9. "No Other Baby" / Paul McCartney
From Run Devil Run (1999)
And then Linda died and a grief-numbed Paul was spinning his wheels, unable to write new material for the first time in his fertile career. For some reason I think it was Elvis Costello who suggested that Paul try his hand at a covers album, paying tribute to the early rock 'n' roll numbers that first inspired him; this one is an old 1957 Dickie Bishop hit. You can pretty much hear Paul healing his heart on every track of this CD.

10. "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" / Death Cab for Cutie
From Maybe This Christmas (2004)
Death Cab's winsome cover of the classic Darlene Love Xmas tune, this has just enough tinsel shimmer (dig Ben Gibbard's reverbed vocals!) to put the frost on your holiday listening. It's from one of those me-too all-star charity Christmas albums (god forbid any hipsters should record a Christmas album without the air quotes of a do-gooder objective). It's weird to hear a Christmas tune in June -- but hey, that's what the shuffle's all about!

“For the Girl” / The Fratellis

I see it as a horse race – the Arctic Monkeys have the lead going into the turn, and the Kaiser Chiefs are coming up hard on the inside . . . but still, I wouldn’t count out this lovable Glaswegian trio. Something’s working right in the UK music scene if they’ve got three young bands turning out stuff this fine.

Like the Ramones, the Fratellis pretend to be brothers by adopting the same last name – Fratelli even sounds like Italian for “brothers.” It’s not clear why they named their debut 2006 album Costello Music – I’d like to believe it’s because they’re fans of Elvis Costello (which they are, but who isn’t?) – but they also claim it refers to a character in the severely underrated film Still Crazy. (If you love rock ‘n’ roll GO RENT THIS MOVIE NOW.) It almost doesn’t matter where the name came from; the point is that these guys are having a blast, dishing up rock ‘n’ roll with all the irreverence it deserves.

I know music isn’t all about catchy tunes, but the catchiness of a tune DOES matter, and the Fratellis’ songs imprinted on my memory immediately -- I felt like I was meeting old friends on the second listen. I hear strains of 60s pop, sea chanties, punk anthems, folk ballads, probably a little Gilbert and Sullivan as well. The sheer melodic invention on this album is amazing.

“For the Girl” sounds deceptively perky, starting off with an upbeat, dancing guitar riff that’s then repeated by a bouncy chorus of “La la la’s.” But as the song’s story unfolds, it’s not perky at all – it’s a portrait of a murky relationship with a pretty nasty female. In some dark, loud, confusing club, our so-called heroine first appears: “No one could hear a word, or tell what the girl was singing / She just must’ve been 16 or 18, or just past caring.” The singer’s sucked into her sphere, almost against his will. “She was into the Stones when I was into the Roses,” he remarks, in vague astonishment (note the wordplay on the Stone Roses, a band I never listened to but were probably HUGE for British kids of this generation).

Our singer and his, er, love interest are tangled up in a neo-punk vibe full of violence (“She was breaking my bones when I was busting her noses” and “Kickings for my sweetheart / Bruises that I just don’t miss”) with drugs involved, and way-too-casual sex (“She was getting me pills when I was into her best friend”). He knows she’s not going to deliver what he needs – as the chorus ominously reminds him, “And she said "I can't love you any more than this!" He knows what kind of a bitch she is; that doesn’t make it any easier to extricate himself.

He knows he’s in over his head, and falling apart – “I was dead by Sunday, half-dead skint just trying to please her” – but that hopped-up tempo and the mocking chirpiness of the “la-la-la’s” give me the idea that he’s on a funhouse ride he can’t escape. He sums it all up in the line, “Young love pleases you easy / Makes you sick in a bad way.” Well, at least he’s got perspective.

The whole album’s full of energetic pop tracks like this, all with a dark underside that sneaks up on you. Give them a listen. Simply put, the Fratellis rock.

For The Girl sample