The Thursday Shuffle

The stack of new CDs on my desk is making me feel very guilty, but sorry -- coming off a few days of mild flu, I need to flex my blogging muscles first with a Shuffle. Herewith, the first Shuffle of 2013!

1. "To Be Someone (Didn't We Have A Nice Time?)" / The Jam
From All Mod Cons (1978)
All neurotic guitar strums, power chords, and rat-tat drums, the Jam gave punk rock a snappy urban flair that should have warned us Paul Weller wouldn't be happy for long in a rock straitjacket.  I love how the song evolves from the coaxing first verse ("To be someone must be a wonderful thing" ) through the punchy second verse ("No more swimming in a guitar-shaped pool") to the defiant chorus ("But didn't we have a nice time?"). How does a punk reconcile worldly success with his rebel outsider image?  

2. "She" / Gram Parsons
From Gp (1973)
Ah, so the new music shows up anyway! After years of thumbing past Gram Parsons LPs in record bins while looking for Graham Parker albums, a great article in the recent Uncut (which I only bought for the Ray Davies interview) persuaded me I've been missing something special all these years. And dang, they were right! Plangent and laid-back and oh, so country soulful.

3. "Build Me Up, Buttercup" / The Foundations
From Build Me Up Buttercup (1968)
An all-time feel-good favorite -- everybody knows those opening beats couldn't be anything else.

4. "She Comes Around" / The Fortunate Sons
From The Fortunate Sons (2008)
No, not a Creedence Clearwater tribute band -- these Fortunate Sons happen to be Scotland's answer to the Black Keys, a surprisingly persuasive Delta-blues band from Glasgow that  I fear may have broken up since this debut album was released. "She comes a-rround / To ease my pain, ease my pain" -- whoa, that vocal is just d r i p p i n g with lust.

5. "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" / The Alan Price Set
From The House That Jack Built; The Complete 60s Sessions (2005)
In this BBC recording with his new band, Alan Price couldn't resist reinterpreting this Nina Simone song that had been such a hit for his former band, the Animals. (And gave it yet another spin in 2008.) Add some horns, slow down the tempo to a jazzy lope -- though still not as mournfully slow as Nina's -- a perfect declaration of independence. Sadly, this album is an out-of-print import -- grab it if you ever can.

6. "Over the Rainbow" / Israel Kamakawiwoole
From Facing Future (1993)
Yes, the song you've heard in countless movie soundtrack, just a simple ukelele and one heavenly voice singing two old standards that cannot fail to bring a lump to the throat. Call it schmaltz if you will, but it still provides an instant mood lift when it dials up on my shuffle.

7. "I Like It Like That" / Brinsley Schwarz
From Nervous on the Road (1972)
The kings of pub rock, inviting us to a party we don't want to miss. Don't know which of the Brinsleys is singing on this delicious old chestnut, but you can't mistake that roadhouse piano -- that's pure Bob Andrews. I only knew this as a Dave Clarke Five song; who knew it had been co-written by Chris Kenner and Allen Toussaint? How fitting that Bob Andrews now hangs with Toussaint's circle in New Orleans -- serendipity indeed.

8. "You Ain't A Cowboy (If You Ain't Been Bucked Off)" / Corb Lund
From Cabin Fever (2012)
A new favorite, from my end-of-year round-up. Definitely check this guy out!

9. "The Informer" / The Kinks
From Phobia (1993)
Maybe Ray Davies wrote this after seeing the old John Ford movie on late-night TV, but somewhere in there I believe he's also singing it to his brother Dave, as their forever-fraught relationship was on the verge of bringing the band crashing to an end. Poignant, poignant indeed....

10. "Blue Condition" / Alan Price and Georgie Fame
From Fame and Price, Price and Fame Together (1971)
What a lovely, if all too brief, collaboration this was. Georgie's innate jazz chops and Alan's R&B-pop instincts melted into each other like a dream. "I'm in a blue condition, and it's not too good for me / I'm in a strange position, I need you to set me free" -- oh, but there's nothing blue about Price's boppy, syncopated tune. They're having way too much fun here for anybody to feel blue.... 

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...)"

"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