I Love This Song!

5 Favorite Opening Riffs --
Keyboards and Bass

Next up in our 25 Favorite Opening Riffs. Remember the rules: 1. One riff per band. 2. No slow fade-in's or drum fills -- hit that riff from the get-go. 3. No vocals. (Sorry, Little Richard.). 

Blondes DO NOT have more fun, and the guitarists DO NOT get all the good intro riffs. Cases in point....

Whiter Shade of Pale / Procol Harum

In the Progressive Rock Hall of Fame -- a hall of fame that, by the way, I am never going to visit -- this 1967 track still stands as the opening salvo that first defined prog rock. I would maintain that there IS no "Whiter Shade of Pale" besides this Bach-Lite motif played on the Hammond organ by Matthew Fisher. In 2009, Fisher won a lawsuit to get equal songwriting credit with the two original co-authors, claiming that the riff he created was an essential part of the song's enormous success. Duh -- ya think?

Baba O'Riley / The Who

The Who had so many great opening riffs, it was hard to pick just one -- but this 1971 classic can't be denied. True, the Who's opening riffs didn't always connect to the songs that followed. (I spent years trying to find their song "Teenage Wasteland," only to discover -- so recently, it's really embarrassing -- that this song IS "Teenage Wasteland.") Pete Townshend claims he wrote this to deplore the number of kids stoned out of their gourd at Woodstock, conveniently forgetting that the Who themselves were stoned out of their gourds at Woodstock. Hmmm.  He also invented the name Baba O'Riley as an amalgam of mystic Meher Baba and minimalist composer Terry Riley, both of whom inspired him at the time. And that weird space-frequency organ riff that starts it all?  Townshend says he generated it electronically by feeding Meher Baba's life information into a synthesizer, then played the resulting melodic phrase on a Lowrey organ, using a marimba repeat function.

Oh, Pete, you art school poser. Not one whit of that information improves my appreciation of this riff.  I prefer to believe that it dropped from outer space into Keith Moon's garden. Because, man, it's really cool, isn't it?


Super Freak / Rick James

It all starts with the bass, the Great Instrument of Funk. Messing around in the studio, trying to cook up one more track for his 1981 Street Songs LP, Rick James doodled this bass lick first, then layered on guitar, keyboards, and campy vocals, hoping to give it a little "new wave texture." Presto: One of the most fun and outrageous funk-soul songs ever. Interesting Footnote #1: After MC Hammer "sampled" (or, um, STOLE) this lick for "U Can't Touch This," Rick James sued him for co-writing credit -- and won, garnering his first Grammy award in the process. (Raise your hand if you think "Super Freak" was ten times more deserving of a Grammy than "U Can't Touch This.") Interesting Footnote #2:  With MTV swiftly becoming THE way to market pop music in the US in 1981, Rick James filmed this video -- but MTV wouldn't air it because they didn't play black artists. And to think that just a few years later, Michael Jackson would soar to the top of the charts due to his MTV ubiquity....almost makes you feel sorry for Rick James.


Sweet Dreams / The Eurythmics

Ah, the 1980s -- the decade that almost killed rock music (hi there, Uncle E!). So many earworm synth riffs, so little time. I was tempted to go with Hall & Oates's "You Make My Dreams" just because, you know, my long-standing fangirl crush on Daryl Hall. But then I remembered what it felt like in the 1980s when this Eurythmics song dropped at a party, and . . . well, it's no contest. To plagiarize from my own previous blog post: "It was mechanized, soulless, and yet it functioned perfectly as a bass line (Dave Stewart in fact invented the riff by playing a bass line backwards), stalking the underbelly of the song....a scenario of hope and aspiration, turned to despair by that relentless automaton beat. I picture robots on an assembly line, hustled heartlessly along. But it was a killer dance track, and in the Eighties, that was what mattered."


Under Pressure / David Bowie & Queen

Surely one of the weirdest and most divine pop collaborations ever.



Two masters of the Opening Riff, battling it out for diva top honors. This well may be the best percussion opener ever: one cymbal brush, then those handclaps, punctuated with stabs of electric piano (the piano is a percussion instrument, may I remind you), all strung along by that exquisite two-note bass line.  Fun facts to know and tell: Queen bassist John Deacon improvised this riff in the Montreux studio where they threw this song together, and then they all went out for pizza. When they came back from the break, Deacon had forgotten the riff.  Luckily drummer Roger Taylor remembered it -- and the rest, as they say, was rock history.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

I've got no excuse.  Well, I do -- but I hate making excuses.  So sorry, and at least I got around to it this week!

1. Love Train / Keb' Mo'
From Big Wide Grin (1998)
One thing I love about Keb' Mo': his creative covers, always total reinterpretations of the original. Take this old O'Jays classic, subtract the sexy soul groove (sacrilege, right?), and add a ticking bluegrass tempo and some banjo picking -- and voila, you've got a surprisingly persuasive peace-and-love anthem. Suddenly I hear afresh lines like, "All of your brothers over in Africa / Tell all the folks in Egypt and Israel too" -- it's totally topical.

2. Hello? Oh... /  The Cribs
From The New Fellas (2005)
I like everything I've heard from this trio of brothers from Yorkshire. Crunchy guitars, loping beat, a casually raucous upbeat vibe -- addictively fun. 

3. Monday Monday / The Mamas and the Papas
From 16 Greatest Hits (compilation)
Bah dah, bah da-dah dah... Those dense a capella harmonies are just heavenly. And when Denny and Cass start to weave and overlap in the bridge -- "Every other day (every other day) every other day (every other day of) the week is /  Fine, (Fine) yeah!!)"  How could you not sing along?

4. Poor Little Fool / Ricky Nelson
From A Ricky Nelson Anthology (compilation)
I can just picture him singing this on Ozzie and Harriet:  One blink of those sincere blue eyes, one pout from that lower lip, and Elvis Presley was wiped off the planet for me. This smooth-as-buttermilk rockabilly stroll is quintessential Ricky, absolutely divine.

5. Happy Jack / The Who
From Happy Jack (1966)
Though my feelings about the Who are conflicted, I do love a good Pete Townshend comic turn -- and there's none better than this ditty about a simpleton vagrant on the Isle of Man. (In 1966, when this was all over the radio, I had no idea that was a real place.)  I love those chanting childlike harmonies, that stellar bass line, and -- best of all -- Moonie's absolutely insane bursts of drumming.

6. To the River / John Mellencamp
From Human Wheels (1993)
Would you buy a Chevy from this man?  I would. 

7.  Rollin' Like a Pebble in the Sand  / Alan Price & the Electric Blues Orchestra
From A Gigster's Life for Me (1995)
So what was Alan Price doing all those years when I'd lost track of him?  Enjoying himself, getting back into the blues and R&B idiom that the Animals first bonded over. This whole album is full of great covers, like this old Rudy Toombs song, sung with just the right weary creak in Alan's voice -- and wait for the barrelhouse piano in the middle eight!  

8. Where's My Everything? / Nick Lowe
From The Impossible Bird (1994)
From Nick Lowe's "lovable loser" category, a gently comic rockabilly plaint. He's ticking off a laundry list of things society "owes" him -- home and family, fame and happiness -- cluelessly wondering why they haven't just magically appeared.  But as always with Nick, it's got just enough of an edge, filtering all the bafflement and pain of a disappointed life.  The man's craft still astounds me.
  
9. Switchboard Susan / Nick Lowe
From Labour of Lust (1979)
Yeah, I know Mickey Jupp wrote this one -- but it might as well have been Nick himself, in his punning lyric prime. "When I'm with you, girl, I get an extension / And I don't mean Alexander Bell's invention" -- who else could pull off something that juvenile?  But this gives me a perfect opportunity to inform you (if you don't already know) that YepRoc is finally reissuing this classic album, Nick's second solo effort, which has for years been inexplicably out of print (I know!).


10. Heat Dies Down / The Kaiser Chiefs
From Yours Truly, Angry Mob (2007)
It's loud, it's fast, it's angry -- and that rollercoaster tempo is pretty hard to resist.

Bonus track (couldn't resist):
11. Up to Our Nex / Robyn Hitchcock & the Venus 3
From Goodnight Oslo (2009)
Featured on the soundtrack to the Jonathan Demme film Rachel Getting Married. (Robyn's even in the film, reason enough to Netflix the thing.)  The loose-limbed groove of this track is so seductive, you're drawn into its hazy, unfocused spell. "We're up to our necks in love / So bad / We're up to our necks in love / Blame Dad."  (Except Dad was played by Bill Irwin, and who could blame him?)  "Forgive yourself / And maybe / You'll forgive me" -- well, there's the movie for you in a nutshell.  Now go watch it.

WEDNESDAY SHUFFLE

Is it Wednesday again already?  Where did the time go?  See what you miss when you spend three days fighting off a computer virus...

1. Somebody Stole My Car / The Kinks
From Phobia (1993)
I always get a kick out of Kinks car songs -- "Drivin'," "A Gallon of Gas," "Motorway" -- even this speedy little punk-flavored number about urban street crime.  Well, I've never seen Ray Davies drive a car but I'm told he's quite the, er, dashing motorist...


2. Don't Think Twice, It's Alright / Bob Dylan
From The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963)
A classic bit of talkin' blues from Bobby D., heavy on the harmonica wheeze.  Indeed, he does seem like a freewheelin' chap from this song, back when he still sorta had a voice; it's tracks like this that remind me why he is a songwriting god. But, really, there ain't no use in turning on your light, gal.  

3. "You Shouldn't Be Sad" / The Kinks
From Kinda Kinks (1965)
Ray Davies trying to be the Beatles.  This never worked out for Ray, I don't know why he even tried.  A charming track, nevertheless.

4. Tell Me More And More And Then Some / Nina Simone
From After Hours (compilation)
Now here's the goods. Is it jazz?  Is it blues? Is it protest folk?  All of that and more, from the incomparable Nina Simone.  This is what cool intellectuals were listening to when I was in kindergarten; I can just imagine the superior snickers when they heard bands like the Animals record Nina songs like "Don't Let Me Misunderstood." The lady is untouchable. 

5. The Good's Gone / The Who
From The Who Sings My Generation (1965)
And again from 1965, the Who trying to sound like the Kinks, slowed down and draggy (different drugs).  

6.  Circles / Ten Years After
From Cricklewood Green (1970)
The last great gasp of sincere folk rock, before prog rock spoiled the whole deal. Or maybe it already had by then -- how should I know?  I remember seeing this album in people's record collections in college, but I don't think I EVER listened to it before last year.  And even then it was only because Inaki told me to. But it's a dreamy number, with that hazy Alvin Lee guitar -- an instant fave.

7. Love Train / Keb' Mo'
From Big Wide Grin (1998)
I love Keb's Delta-blues spin on this old Gamble & Huff Philly soul classic (the O'Jays, if I recall correctly).  Keb's original material is so good, we tend to forget how superb his covers are, too.  When he sings this song, it's peace-and-love he's talking about, a real populist anthem -- and believe it or not, it works.

8. 22 Miles To Bristol  / Greg Trooper
From Popular Demons (1998)
More banjo!  Troop drops into folk-ballad mode a lot on this album; there's a restless insistence to this plaintive road song that hooks me in every time.  Is the singer a touring musician?  A trucker? A bank robber on the lam?  Whatever you want.


9. Pink Bedroom / John Hiatt
From Two Bit Monsters (1980)
Early Hiatt, in his Costello wannabe days, but still a hoot -- a jittery, jangly ode to a teenage princess ensconced in her girly-girl bedchamber. 

10. Kamera / Wilco
From Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
Might as well give in to the Americana groove.  Wilco's sellout album -- at least if you listen to some message boards -- is still my favorite, I have to confess.  I  love the loungey beat of this song, its numb dazed groove, those sneaky little hooks.  So sue me.
 

The 100 Best Singles In My Head
Nos. 91-95

Quite a mixed bag in today's installment -- most of these artists are here for their general importance in my musical life, not because of these specific singles. But for various reasons, each of them simply HAS to be on the list somewhere, so here they are . . .

[Click on the highlighted links to read my earlier posts on those songs]

91. "Cruel to Be Kind" / Nick Lowe (1979) Ah, c'mon, you KNOW I love Nick. But he was never very lucky when it came to singles; this was his only hit, a power-pop gem that still never tempted me to buy his albums. It would be years before I saw the light.

92. "Hungry" / Paul Revere and the Raiders (1966)
Throughout the mid-60s, I was a stubborn Anglophile, watching the nighttime music revues Shingdig! and Hullaballoo only to catch the latest British bands. But I had a secret. Every day when I came home from school, I'd turn on Where the Action Is to watch Paul Revere and the Raiders cavort on a SoCal beach in their full trademark regalia of ponytails, breeches, and tricorn hats. My crush on lead singer Mark Lindsay was a deep dark secret (secret, that is, from my true love Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits). Only years later did I realize that the Raiders were in fact a tight, energetic dance band, with songs that were hardly inane fluff. The costumes, the gimmick, were just the price of fame. "Hungry" -- which, like their other big hit "Kicks," was by veteran songwriters Barry Mann and Cynthia Weill -- simply seethes with sexual appetite, underlaid with Revere's thrusting keyboards and a prowling deep bassline. Lindsay's bluesy voice was like America's answer to Eric Burdon -- those cajoling, intimate verses just exploded into the frenzied chant of the chorus: "Hungry for those good things, baby / Hungry through and through." The segue into verse two is devastating, as Lindsay sucks in his breath, then groans, "I can almost taste it, babe . . . " And me on the sofa with my 6th grade homework, the little fangirl storing it all up.

93. "For Your Love" / The Yardbirds (1965) I say I was infatuated with the British Invasion -- and yet of its Big Six bands (Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Animals, Who, Yardbirds) I only liked the first four. I was way too young to "get" the heady guitar-driven sound of the Yardbirds back in 1965. My loss . . .

94. "I Can See For Miles" / The Who (1967)
The other major British Invasion band I couldn't quite love at first. I didn't like the Who because they'd copied their sound from the Kinks. I didn't like the Who because they busted up their instruments. I didn't like the Who because somehow, instinctively, I felt they were perves. (Come on, Tommy was just creepy.) But for a little period there, just as British rock headed into psychedelia, the Who won me over. Ostensibly a song about catching his girlfriend cheating, to me "I Can See For Miles" was always really about getting high, about the illusion of expanded consciousness. The spookiness of this track haunted me, with those clanging windmill guitar strums, Daltrey's echo-chambered vocals ("I know you deceived me, now here's the surprise / I know that you did 'cos there's magic in my eyes"), and best of all, the slow-mo progression of dissonant chords on "miles and miles and miles and MILES and MILES and m i l e s." The Who's lyrics never really held up, and they weren't much for melody, but for hooks and riffs they couldn't be beat. With this song, they added texture, playing metal against muffle, dark against glitter, and showmanship against sincerity; it was like they'd gone 3-D. The rest of this album, The Who Sell Out, baffled me, but this song? It made me forgive the Who. It's their Get Out of Jail Free card as far as I'm concerned.

95. "Heart of Glass" / Blondie (1979)
I moved to New York City in 1979 and immediately plunged into the New Wave scene, along with all the other recent college grads with nice entry jobs and tiny Manhattan apartments, privileged kids who didn't dare be associated with the punk scene down on St. Mark's Place. Blondie -- or more precisely, Blondie's lead singer, Debbie Harry -- reigned as Queen of that New Wave scene, but as I recall it, her power was not unquestioned. All the men I knew were infatuated with her ex-Playboy Bunny pout and fishnet-covered legs; most women I knew resented her for exactly the same qualities. Compared to the other New Wave ladies -- Kate and Cindy of the B-52s, Tina of the Talking Heads -- why did we need a vamp like Debbie Harry, even if she did have a killer singing voice? Nevertheless, Blondie's slightly edgy but catchy power-pop was deliriously fun to dance to, with great singalong hooks, and it'll always remind me of those glory days, when the downtown music clubs hadn't yet given way to disco. "Heart of Glass" was already heading in that direction -- just listen to that metronomic rhythm track, the syncopated synths, the robotic high flutter of Debbie's voice on "Once I had a love, it was a blast." It was Blondie's 3rd hit single from their breakout album Parallel Lines; when "Heart of Glass" hit #1, I remember finally dismissing Blondie as a mainstream sellout band. Now, of course, when this song comes on the radio I'm hit by waves of fond nostalgia. Go figure.

"Going Mobile" / The Who

I'll admit that I have a love-hate thing going with the Who. I remember watching them on some groovy 60s TV show -- Shindig or Hullabaloo or, sheesh, The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour -- and seeing Pete Townshend trash his guitar, and being totally perplexed. Tommy? Let's face it, album or movie, it was a great big pretentious sloppy mess. I completely missed the point of toothy Roger Daltrey being a sex symbol -- just because he had blond curls and wore his shirts unbuttoned? Puh-leeze. So obvious.

And yet I always got a kick out of Keith Moon -- when he exploded his drum set, it looked like a particularly delicious mad lark. And an awful lot of Who songs remain deeply imprinted on my song memory. The weird thing is, I can't always listen to those songs all the way through. Take "Baba O'Reilly," for example -- it starts off with that iconic synth riff and then a fantastic bass line, but when you get to the song itself it's not really distinctive at all. "The Song Is Over" starts with such a lovely wistful melodic line, but then they drive it into something pompous and anthemic that makes me yawn.

But I'm just going to have to get over it. I may not like the Who as much as the Kinks or the Beatles, or even -- oh, how it pains me to admit this -- the Rolling Stones, but they were a damn fine band. In a world where Coldplay and Jay-Z are considered major artists, I have to stop resenting that the Who made it bigger than the Kinks (or that the remaining half-Who can still book arenas when Ray Davies is playing mid-sized venues).

And so, even though the opening guitar riff of "Going Mobile" is CLEARLY ripped off from the Kinks' "Victoria," I have to confess I dig this song. What's it about? Uh, not much -- it's about liking to drive around in a car (apparently Pete Townshend was into driving aimlessly around). Somehow Townshend manages to give this an anti-establishment twist ("I'm going home / And when I say home / I'm going mobile"), although it's a little trite ("I can stop in any street / And talk with people that we meet"). But that rhythm section -- and the Who had hands-down the best rhythm section of any band ever -- just keeps that motor gunning, rollicking on and on until you don't really care where the ride takes you.

Is this Daltrey singing? The hard yelp of Daltrey's voice doesn't always work for me, but here he adds a good-humored swoop that sounds just fine. I can't help but picture a big-ass RV when he sings "Play the tape machine / Make the toast and tea / When I'm mobile / Well, I can lay in bed with only highway ahead" (but mind your usage, Pete -- it should be "lie" in bed). He may describe himself as a hippie gypsy" but he kinda blows it when he adds in a later verse "I don't care about pollution / I'm an air-conditioned gypsy." I have no idea whether he's being ironic -- but like I said, that propulsive rhythm line keeps us shifting gears too fast to care. It's about driving, for chrissake. I can't get hung up on whether he's making a social statement. It's a flippin' rock song, that's all.

Has anybody picked this up for a cellphone commercial yet? It's so perfect, someone must have. Even though it was written in 1971, way before cellphones, it sounds as fresh as if it had been written yesterday. Well, I'm cranking it up to eleven and enjoying it, anyhoo. Might as well give into it and get in touch with my inner Who fan.

Going Mobile sample

“Can’t Explain” / The Who

MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!

I don’t really consider The Who part of the British invasion – they only surfaced at the tail end, when “I Can See For Miles” and “Magic Bus” became psychedelic standards on US radio. They made an indelible impression on me in 1967 on the Smothers Brothers’ TV show, dressed in full Mod regalia -- Daltrey swinging his mike by the cord, Pete Townsend attacking his guitar with windmill arm strokes, Keith Moon demolishing his drumkit at the end of the set. I sat stunned – as my fellow Hoosier John Hiatt would sum it up a couple decades later, “Oh it breaks my heart to see those stars / Smashing a perfectly good guitar.”

It was that live act, though, that made The Who famous. I’ve read that they patterned their on-stage antics after the Kinks, with whom they’d performed in 1964, when they were called the High Numbers. From mid-1965 through mid-1969, with the Kinks banned from performing in America, the Who finally got a foothold in the States, establishing themselves as pop music’s top hooligans (thus setting the Kinks’ Ray Davies free to explore his own village green). But eventually the shtick seemed to take over The Who, making the music less important than the image. I’m bored by big, overblown arena-rock spectacle; the more The Who went in that direction, the less interested I was. (Don’t even talk to me about the movie version of Tommy.) It was only after I saw The Kids Are Alright that I realized the Who had a sense of humor about themselves, and I could like them after all.

Their early stuff, the Mod Beat stuff – it’s still delicious. On this 1965 track, their first hit single, the Kinks influence is obvious: Those brash opening chords – where else did they get those if not from “You Really Got Me”? And where did Roger Daltrey get that fey vocal inflection if not from Ray Davies? To his credit, Pete Townsend freely admits The Who’s debt to the Kinks. Let’s just say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and enjoy “Can’t Explain” for what it is.

As he’d do again in “My Generation,” Daltrey adopts the role of inarticulate youth, singing an almost tuneless call-and-response with the falsetto backup vocals – “Got a feeling inside (Can't explain) / It's a certain kind (Can't explain) / I feel hot and cold (Can't explain) / Yeah, down in my soul, yeah (Can't explain).” It’s the hormones running through his brain that screw him up, of course, but let him think love’s to blame -- most of his audience is hormone-crazed too; they’ll never notice.

All this confusion makes him physically ill (dig the woozy chromatics, the meandering melody): “Dizzy in the head and I'm feeling blue/ The things you've said, well, maybe they're true / I'm gettin' funny dreams again and again / I know what it means, but …” I get dizzy just listening to it, and the furious drum fill that follows is like blood pounding through my cerebral cortex. Sure, Keith Moon ripped that off from the Surfaris’ “Wipeout,” but it FITS. Daltrey tries again, now with harmonies: “Can't explain / I think it's love / Try to say it to you / When I feel blue.” Those short, stammered lines are underlaid with pulsing drums and a driving bass line -- was there ever a rhythm section as rock-solid as the Who’s?

The Who will never be my favorite band, but I’m fond of them -- the way you’re fond of a rascal cousin, the kid with the genius IQ who’s flunking seventh grade. I grin whenever I hear “Can’t Explain” or “My Generation” or “Happy Jack.” The kids ARE alright.

Can't Explain sample