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Crenshaw's Bottomless Pit show on WFUV-FM (which you can listen to on the internet, either via live stream or in an archived version -- so now you've got no excuse for not checking it out.)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.

“Love Is All Around” / The Troggs

28 DAYS OF LOVE SONGS

Love, indeed, is all around us this time of year. But in 1967– the hippy-dippy flower-child aura of groovy love must have been impossible to escape. Hence this hit single, written by Reg Presley (great rock & roll name, eh?), lead singer of the Troggs – yes, the same Troggs who did “Wild Thing.” Hearing this song out of context – like for example, with Bill Nighy’s Christmas-ized parody in Love Actually -- I’d never have said it was the same band. “Love Is All Around” goes for a much more conventional pop sound, right down to a schmaltzy overlay of strings; to me it sounds much more West Coast (think the Association) than BritBeat.

But when all is said and done, it’s basically a seduction song, just like “Wild Thing.” Maybe it’s a different sort of girl he’s seducing this time, but hey, whatever works. He starts off all dreamy-- “I feel it in my fingers / I feel it in my toes” – and then drifts off on the trendy love vibes of the era (“love is all around me / And so the feeling grows / It is written on the wind / That’s everywhere I go”). But pretty soon he gets down to the bottom line: “So if you really love me / Come on and let it show.” In other words, put out or get out.

Smooth operator that he is, he slips his challenge in, oh so casually, and then deftly adds a layer of goo: “You know I love you, I always will / My mind's made up by the way that I feel / There's no beginning, there’ll be no end / ‘Cause on my love you can depend.” Right down to the rhyme-chasing inverted word order, this is complete poetic cliché. He’s regurgitating last week’s stale Valentine candy -- and he’s got an ulterior motive for sure.

Listen to the deliberate pace, those sidling chord shifts, that tick-tock percussion – it’s full of underlying tension, a.k.a. sexual frustration. It’s like he’s circling around her; in verse three he edges closer: “I see your face before me / As I lay on my bed” (Clue #1: He’s in bed). Look at how coy the next lines are: “I kinda get to thinkin’ / Of all the things we said.” (Clue #2: Promises were made.) He waves the contract in her face -- “You gave your promise to me / And I gave mine to you” – before making his demand: “I need someone beside me / In everything I do.” Sure, it’s not totally explicit (“everything” could be innocent), but those hip-shifting chord changes are totally suggestive. Especially in the song’s long fade, as he doggedly repeats “Come on and let it show” over and over-- this isn’t a plea, it’s a command.

I’m sure love was all around in 1967. It was the dawn of the era of free love; the air in London must have reeked of sex, and this guy wants his piece of it. He’s willing to shovel on whatever romantic platitudes she requires—but he won’t be put off for long. Ah, Valentine’s Day – ain’t love grand?

Love Is All Around sample

“Wild Thing” / The Troggs

MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!

Come on, it wouldn’t be British Invasion Month without giving a little time to this classic, beloved of garage bands everywhere. By 1966, British music had evolved so swiftly, some rockers already felt the need to strip down the sound and get back to basics. That’s where the Troggs came in. The name itself was short for Troglodytes (not a word in my vocabulary back then, but hey, that’s what life is about, learning new words as you need them), and that caveman image fit perfectly with their raw, primitive sound. These guys made the Kinks look like Mod sophisticates. The Troggs sounded so crude, at first I thought they must be a parody.

For ever and always, this would be their defining song, at least in America. Only four chords, and easy ones at that -- A, D, E, with a few chugging G’s thrown in on the chorus – but they’re played with mindless ferocity, matched by thuggish drum-whacking. There are only two even remotely fancy effects: the spooky ocarina solo in the middle, and that downward sliding guitar note at the beginning, which sounds like an airplane plummeting from the sky. Reg Presley’s vocals sound like he’s just gotten out of bed, and still isn’t sure whether he’s going to crawl back in or not.

This song is the handiwork of an American songwriter named Chip Taylor (trivia fact: he is Jon Voight’s younger brother, which makes him also Angelina Jolie’s uncle), who no doubt made a pile of money on a song that doesn’t even bother to rhyme after the first couplet. You all know the lyrics; they only take five seconds to learn. “Wild thing/ You make my heart sing / You make everything . . . groovy / Wild thing.” “Groovy” is such perfect Sixties slang – we all knew the word already from the Mindbenders’ “Groovy Kind of Love” -- and Presley tosses it in so absent-mindedly, as if he just can’t be bothered to find a synonym. But hey, “groovy” was a very high compliment in 1966.

And then, of course, there’s the chorus, which alternates a few grating chords with silence, as Presley seems to lose his train of thought mid-sentence: “Wild thing, I . . . think I ... love you / But I wanna know for sure / Come on and . . . hold me tight / [pregnant pause] / I love you.” Oh, wait, the second time through the chorus changes lyrics: “Wild thing, I think you . . . move me / But I wanna know for sure / Come on and hold me tight / [pregnant pause] / You move me.” Yes, that develops the theme significantly.

And yet, be honest: You love this song. A song like this doesn’t need specific details about why she’s a wild thing, or where he met her, or what they plan to do the rest of their lives. Sure, his lovemaking seems awfully casual, but there is plenty of insistence there too (just listen to the impatient howl busting out on “I wanna know for sure”). Just feel the heated intimacy in all those silences, that bedroom whisper on “You move me.” Crude, sexy, completely in the moment.

This is the sound of class systems falling apart, of sexual liberation breaking out, of drugs being taken, of authority being flouted. Sure, the Troggs were going back to basics. But they were also the first punk band, years ahead of their time. They just didn’t know it yet.

Wild Thing sample