“Bus Stop” / The Hollies
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
Naturally, I had to love these guys – a band named after me! (or so I imagined at the time). But really, considering how many British Invasion bands petered out in the late 1960s, or survived only on the revival circuit, you must give the Hollies respect.
Sure, they started out like so many other bands, covering Brill Building tunes like “Just One Look” and “Stay” and “Yes I Will,” drenched in gorgeous three-part harmonies. But powered by those early hits, this Manchester band swiftly evolved, bringing in homegrown songwriting talent like Graham Gouldman; his “Look Through Any Window” was a huge step forward, a refreshing bit of social commentary in a market still full of simple love songs. By the summer of 1966, their second Gouldman single, “Bus Stop,” reached the Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic. The Hollies had finally came into their own, and soon their own songwriting would take them even further. They're still in business, 40 years later.
For better or worse, I’ve always linked this song with “Doo Wah Diddy,” those two 45s sitting side-by-side in my little tan record case (I was too young to afford albums). After all, both songs prove that a casual street pick-up can lead to wedding bells, a formula I was happy to believe as an adolescent. But “Bus Stop” has much more literary texture; it’s in another class altogether.
I love the compressed language of that pivotal first scene -- “Bus stop, wet day, she's there, I say / Please share my umbrella / Bus stop, bus goes, she stays, love grows / Under my umbrella” – it plays like a scene out of an artsy movie, minimal dialogue but lots of meaningful glances and time-chop editing. Then our scope expands to a leisurely montage: “All that summer we enjoyed it / Wind and rain and shine / That umbrella we employed it / By August, she was mine.” Love doesn’t happen overnight, it has to grow -- much more credible than making out with a girl you just met because she was singing a catchy ditty.
Their budding intimacy develops in the bridge: “Every morning I would see her waiting at the stop / Sometimes she'd shop and she would show me what she'd bought / Other people stared as if we were both quite insane / Someday my name and hers are going to be the same.” Anybody who’s ever walked along a certain street hoping to see someone special knows how this feels. Is he interested in what she’s bought? No way – it’s just an excuse to lean close, maybe touch hands accidentally. And that special glow, how it sets them apart from the other passengers at the stop -- delicious.
In verse two, he’s become a narrator, commenting on the story, like he’s telling their kids How Your Mother And I Met: “That's the way the whole thing started / Silly, but it's true / Thinking of a sweet romance / Beginning in a queue.” (I had never heard the British word “queue” before this song; it totally charmed me.) “Came the sun, the ice was melting,” he remembers next (where did that ice come from?), and the harmonies hang wistfully on the next line: “No more sheltering now.” Declaring your love publicly is always scary, but they’re ready for it now.
Such a happy little love story – EXCEPT it’s in a minor key, a brilliant move to keep sappiness at bay. Notice those unresolved chords shimmering through the harmonies – the music itself expresses all the shyness and uncertainty of new love. I adore the jangly Spanish-style guitar here, its haunting quality inexplicably perfect.
The BBC banned this song – apparently “please share my umbrella” was a drug reference, though I’ve also heard it referred to a condom (“that umbrella we employed it”). Jeez, dirty-minded censors don’t know when to stop, do they? Listening to this song when I was 12 years old did not turn me into either a drug user or a slut. But forever after, it sure made waiting for buses a lot more thrilling.
Bus Stop sample
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
“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
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
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
“Groovy Kind of Love” / The Mindbenders
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
When I first heard Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders’ 1965 hit “Game of Love,” I thought they were Americans -- that name, Wayne Fontana, had such a New Jersey ring to it, and then there was the song’s doo-wop chorus, with its unforgettable low bass – “Love / [love] / Love / [love] / La-la-la-la-la-love”. But they were, in fact, from Manchester, England, and once Fontana split to launch a solo career, the remaining Mindbenders came into their own as a British band. Guitarist Eric Stewart was promoted to lead vocals, and he was no slouch either (he’d later form 10cc with Graham Gouldman). With cruel irony, in early 1966 the Mindbenders promptly scored a #2 hit on both sides of the Atlantic with “Groovy Kind of Love,” bigger than anything Fontana would do on his own.
Like a lot of British Beat material, this song was first recorded by an American girl group, in this case Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells. It was written by a very young pair of American songwriters, Toni Wine and Carole Bayer Sager, specifically trying to riff on the new slang word “groovy,” putting their lyrics to a melody stolen – or at least loosely borrowed – from a Clementi sonatina in G major. (I played that one for my piano lessons; you’d hardly recognize the theme once the Mindbenders were done with it.)
We were already moving into psychedelia by this point; the lazy shuffling rhythm of “Groovy Kind of Love” definitely sounds narcotized. (Quite different from LaBelle’s heart-flinging rendition.) The lyrics meander like stream of consciousness, or stoned babbling, with a woozy solipsistic logic: “When I'm feeling blue / All I have to do is / Take a look at you / Then I'm not so blue.” Well, duh. Or this verse: “Any time you want to / You can turn me on to / Anything you want to / Any time at all.” But given Stewart’s vague, sweet delivery (not to mention the coded association of the phrase “turn me on”), it works surprisingly well. Other patches of the lyrics pull you suddenly into physical close-ups: “When you're close to me / I can feel your heartbeat / I can hear you breathing in my ear,” or “When I kiss your lips / Ooh, I start to shiver / Can't control the quivering inside,” a carnal immediacy that's unsettlingly sexy. But everything is wound up happily at the end of every verse: “Wouldn't you agree / Baby you and me / Got a groovy kind of love / [Groovy kind of love] / We got a groovy kind of love / [Groovy kind of love].” That falsetto back-up echo, that’s the crowning touch; it’s damn near perfection.
The fuzzy guitar intro (nothing too fancy, but definitely groovy), repeated in the middle break, steers us in the direction of the new psychedelic sound, helping the Mindbenders at last to live up to their psychotropic name. Still, much about this song is standard Beat stuff – the earnest double-tracked vocals, the soft back-up ooh’s, the sibilant drums, a harmless touch of keyboards. It’s one of those songs that’s almost impossible to dislike, unpretentious and cheery, with a hook to die for. It was a nifty radio-ready hit -- the Mindbenders deserved to chart with it.
In the 80s, Phil Collins desecrated this song with his own hectic, strained rendition. If the Collins version is all you know, shame on you – and check out the Mindbenders’ version NOW.
Groovy Kind of Love sample
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
When I first heard Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders’ 1965 hit “Game of Love,” I thought they were Americans -- that name, Wayne Fontana, had such a New Jersey ring to it, and then there was the song’s doo-wop chorus, with its unforgettable low bass – “Love / [love] / Love / [love] / La-la-la-la-la-love”. But they were, in fact, from Manchester, England, and once Fontana split to launch a solo career, the remaining Mindbenders came into their own as a British band. Guitarist Eric Stewart was promoted to lead vocals, and he was no slouch either (he’d later form 10cc with Graham Gouldman). With cruel irony, in early 1966 the Mindbenders promptly scored a #2 hit on both sides of the Atlantic with “Groovy Kind of Love,” bigger than anything Fontana would do on his own.
Like a lot of British Beat material, this song was first recorded by an American girl group, in this case Patti LaBelle and the Bluebells. It was written by a very young pair of American songwriters, Toni Wine and Carole Bayer Sager, specifically trying to riff on the new slang word “groovy,” putting their lyrics to a melody stolen – or at least loosely borrowed – from a Clementi sonatina in G major. (I played that one for my piano lessons; you’d hardly recognize the theme once the Mindbenders were done with it.)
We were already moving into psychedelia by this point; the lazy shuffling rhythm of “Groovy Kind of Love” definitely sounds narcotized. (Quite different from LaBelle’s heart-flinging rendition.) The lyrics meander like stream of consciousness, or stoned babbling, with a woozy solipsistic logic: “When I'm feeling blue / All I have to do is / Take a look at you / Then I'm not so blue.” Well, duh. Or this verse: “Any time you want to / You can turn me on to / Anything you want to / Any time at all.” But given Stewart’s vague, sweet delivery (not to mention the coded association of the phrase “turn me on”), it works surprisingly well. Other patches of the lyrics pull you suddenly into physical close-ups: “When you're close to me / I can feel your heartbeat / I can hear you breathing in my ear,” or “When I kiss your lips / Ooh, I start to shiver / Can't control the quivering inside,” a carnal immediacy that's unsettlingly sexy. But everything is wound up happily at the end of every verse: “Wouldn't you agree / Baby you and me / Got a groovy kind of love / [Groovy kind of love] / We got a groovy kind of love / [Groovy kind of love].” That falsetto back-up echo, that’s the crowning touch; it’s damn near perfection.
The fuzzy guitar intro (nothing too fancy, but definitely groovy), repeated in the middle break, steers us in the direction of the new psychedelic sound, helping the Mindbenders at last to live up to their psychotropic name. Still, much about this song is standard Beat stuff – the earnest double-tracked vocals, the soft back-up ooh’s, the sibilant drums, a harmless touch of keyboards. It’s one of those songs that’s almost impossible to dislike, unpretentious and cheery, with a hook to die for. It was a nifty radio-ready hit -- the Mindbenders deserved to chart with it.
In the 80s, Phil Collins desecrated this song with his own hectic, strained rendition. If the Collins version is all you know, shame on you – and check out the Mindbenders’ version NOW.
Groovy Kind of Love sample
Friday, May 25, 2007
“Sunshine Superman” / Donovan
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
One thing the British Invasion rescued us from was folk music – relentlessly earnest coffee-house acts like Peter Paul & Mary and Judy Collins. There was Bob Dylan, too, but even though he came to the party dressed as a protest singer, we all knew he was going to have more up his sleeve. I adore the D. A. Pennebaker film Don’t Look Back which shows Dylan on his 1965 UK tour; in one of my favorite moments, Dylan enviously asks Alan Price (who’d just quit the Animals), “So who is this Donovan?” Price tells Dylan that Donovan is a Scottish folk singer and “he’s very good, actually.” Then Price adds (deadpan), “Better than you.” Dylan scowls.
Donovan -- the first singer I ever knew of who went by just one name -- started off as a traditional folkie, with “Catch the Wind” and “Universal Soldier,” but the Donovan I loved blossomed in 1966. Let the Mods drift into psychedelia; Donovan cornered the market on flower-child innocence. His song titles tell you all you need to know: “Mellow Yellow,” “Sunny South Kensington,” “Epistle to Dippy,” “There Is a Mountain,” “Wear Your Love Like Heaven.” Strictly speaking, I suppose this wasn’t British Invasion anymore, but Donovan never really belonged to any movement – he was just Donovan.
“Sunshine Superman” starts off intriguingly, with a muted plucked bass line, tiptoeing softly into the scene; then a harpsichord-like keyboard lays down a suspense-movie soundtrack. Guitar feedback flits through like a creaking floorboard. “Sunshine came softly through my /A-window today,” Donovan begins, in that velvety brogue of his. “Could’ve tripped out easy, but I / I’ve changed my ways.” Now that’s an arresting opening, even though it lapses next into love-song cliches: “It’ll take time I know it / But in a while / You’re gonna be mine I know it / We’ll do it in style / Cause I’ve made my mind up / You’re going to be mine.” But by now you’re hooked on that hypnotic melody – it’s almost like atonal plainsong, most lines being subtle variations of a basic pattern, with octave jumps bracketed by three-note chromatic sequences (except for that curling phrase, “I’ll tell you right now,” a jazzy dissonant touch that I love).
The lyrics go off in surreal, min-expanding directions. “Superman or Green Lantern ain’t got / A-nothing on me” – that’s the classic, but so many others stick in my mind. “You can just sit there thinking / On your velvet throne / About all the rainbows that you can / A-have for your own….” “Everybody’s hustlin’ baby / For a little scene…” “We stood on the beach at sunset / Do you remember when? / I know a beach where baby / It never ends….” “Pick up your hand and slowly / Blow your little mind.” What does it mean? Who cares? Logic is so 1965, man.
This track has so much texture, you can get lost in it. There’s Jimmy Page, moonlighting from the Yardbirds, on those twangy guitar accents; sexy Latin percussion lays down a sinuous cha-cha rhythm; and that plinging keyboard dances all around the vocal. How that jerky syncopation manages to feel so spacey, so blissed-out, I don’t know. It’s a wondrous thing.
Donovan started out in turtleneck sweaters and a seafarer’s cap; but by “Sunshine Superman,” he was wearing an embroidered Nehru jacket and visiting India with the Beatles and the Maharishi. It’s astonishing, how rapidly the scene evolved from 1964 to 1967, and Donovan was right there in the vanguard, floating serenely on his own magic carpet. Looking back at the 1960s, sometimes it’s hard to imagine how anybody took flower children seriously – but then I listen to Donovan and feel the love vibes all over again.
Sunshine Superman sample
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
One thing the British Invasion rescued us from was folk music – relentlessly earnest coffee-house acts like Peter Paul & Mary and Judy Collins. There was Bob Dylan, too, but even though he came to the party dressed as a protest singer, we all knew he was going to have more up his sleeve. I adore the D. A. Pennebaker film Don’t Look Back which shows Dylan on his 1965 UK tour; in one of my favorite moments, Dylan enviously asks Alan Price (who’d just quit the Animals), “So who is this Donovan?” Price tells Dylan that Donovan is a Scottish folk singer and “he’s very good, actually.” Then Price adds (deadpan), “Better than you.” Dylan scowls.
Donovan -- the first singer I ever knew of who went by just one name -- started off as a traditional folkie, with “Catch the Wind” and “Universal Soldier,” but the Donovan I loved blossomed in 1966. Let the Mods drift into psychedelia; Donovan cornered the market on flower-child innocence. His song titles tell you all you need to know: “Mellow Yellow,” “Sunny South Kensington,” “Epistle to Dippy,” “There Is a Mountain,” “Wear Your Love Like Heaven.” Strictly speaking, I suppose this wasn’t British Invasion anymore, but Donovan never really belonged to any movement – he was just Donovan.
“Sunshine Superman” starts off intriguingly, with a muted plucked bass line, tiptoeing softly into the scene; then a harpsichord-like keyboard lays down a suspense-movie soundtrack. Guitar feedback flits through like a creaking floorboard. “Sunshine came softly through my /A-window today,” Donovan begins, in that velvety brogue of his. “Could’ve tripped out easy, but I / I’ve changed my ways.” Now that’s an arresting opening, even though it lapses next into love-song cliches: “It’ll take time I know it / But in a while / You’re gonna be mine I know it / We’ll do it in style / Cause I’ve made my mind up / You’re going to be mine.” But by now you’re hooked on that hypnotic melody – it’s almost like atonal plainsong, most lines being subtle variations of a basic pattern, with octave jumps bracketed by three-note chromatic sequences (except for that curling phrase, “I’ll tell you right now,” a jazzy dissonant touch that I love).
The lyrics go off in surreal, min-expanding directions. “Superman or Green Lantern ain’t got / A-nothing on me” – that’s the classic, but so many others stick in my mind. “You can just sit there thinking / On your velvet throne / About all the rainbows that you can / A-have for your own….” “Everybody’s hustlin’ baby / For a little scene…” “We stood on the beach at sunset / Do you remember when? / I know a beach where baby / It never ends….” “Pick up your hand and slowly / Blow your little mind.” What does it mean? Who cares? Logic is so 1965, man.
This track has so much texture, you can get lost in it. There’s Jimmy Page, moonlighting from the Yardbirds, on those twangy guitar accents; sexy Latin percussion lays down a sinuous cha-cha rhythm; and that plinging keyboard dances all around the vocal. How that jerky syncopation manages to feel so spacey, so blissed-out, I don’t know. It’s a wondrous thing.
Donovan started out in turtleneck sweaters and a seafarer’s cap; but by “Sunshine Superman,” he was wearing an embroidered Nehru jacket and visiting India with the Beatles and the Maharishi. It’s astonishing, how rapidly the scene evolved from 1964 to 1967, and Donovan was right there in the vanguard, floating serenely on his own magic carpet. Looking back at the 1960s, sometimes it’s hard to imagine how anybody took flower children seriously – but then I listen to Donovan and feel the love vibes all over again.
Sunshine Superman sample
Thursday, May 24, 2007
"Heart Full of Soul" / The Yardbirds
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
I didn’t really connect to this Yardbirds song in 1965, even though it hit #9 in the States (#2 in the UK). I know I heard it on the radio -- it was part of my mid-Sixties mental soundtrack -- but it was WAY ahead of its time. It just plain scared little 11-year-old me.
Written by Graham Gouldman, the ubiquitous 60s Brit songwriter (his name’s on loads of Hollies and Herman’s Hermits tracks), it’s haunting and dark, set in a minor key and featuring spooky echoed vocals. The most arresting element of “Heart Full of Soul,” though, hits you right from the start: that spacey-sounding guitar. I’d never heard a sitar before – remember, this was five months before George Harrison’s sitar on “Norwegian Wood”; the Stones’ “Paint It Black” wouldn’t come out until the next year – but Jeff Beck didn't need a sitar; he got the same exotic effect just using a fuzz box on his guitar. It sounded creepy, and psychedelic, and I don’t know what else.
It’s a pretty damn tortured set of lyrics too: “Sick at heart and lonely, / Deep in dark despair/ [oh-oh-oh-oh oh] / Thinking one thought only / Where is she, tell me where / [oh-oh-oh-oh-oh].” I love that hypnotic vocal riff with those back-up oh’s, how they stagger up the minor scale and then seemingly spiral off into space. Keith Relf’s lead vocal sounds slightly haggard, as if he’s been up late smoking and drinking, nursing his wounded heart. He sounds as hung-up as the narrator of “You Really Got Me.” In 1965, most bands perpetuated the fiction that love would make us happy; quite the opposite here.
Apparently the girl’s lost interest in him, but he’s not giving up, as he tells us with tense determination in the chorus: “And I know / if she had me back again / Well I would never make her sad.” All those shifting uneasy chords, and then he lays out his most important credential: “I've got a heart full of soul.” The one phrase is more than a hook, it’s the very nexus of the song. I love how the back-up harmonies modulate through no less than six chords on “heart”; his heart is just full to bursting, isn’t it? In one stroke, he turns my pity into dizzy attraction. A guy who’s this full of passion deserves to get the girl.
But half a beat after “soul,” that hypnotic guitar line cuts in again, slicing through it all like a scimitar. It draws us into the next verse, and more pain: “She's been gone such a long time / Longer than I can bear / [oh-oh-oh-oh-oh] / But if she says she wants me / Tell her that I'll be there / [oh-oh-o] / And if she says to you / She don’t love me/ [oh-oh-oh-oh-oh] / Just give her my message / Tell her of my plea.” By the end of the song, nothing’s been resolved; he’s still aching, still miserable. But me, I’ve got shivers running up my spine. No wonder I avoided this when I was 11.
For better or worse, I always felt that the Yardbirds were a Guy Band, and not just because my older brother owned their albums – most guitar fetishists I know (and they’re almost exclusively men) get off on the pyrotechnics, endlessly debating which guitarist was best, Clapton v. Beck v. Page. I’m sure that’s an interesting debate, but I’m not going there. All I know is that this song -- just like “For Your Love” -- seems dark, and gritty, and urban, and totally sexy. Now that I’m grown up, I like it just fine.
Heart Full of Soul sample
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
I didn’t really connect to this Yardbirds song in 1965, even though it hit #9 in the States (#2 in the UK). I know I heard it on the radio -- it was part of my mid-Sixties mental soundtrack -- but it was WAY ahead of its time. It just plain scared little 11-year-old me.
Written by Graham Gouldman, the ubiquitous 60s Brit songwriter (his name’s on loads of Hollies and Herman’s Hermits tracks), it’s haunting and dark, set in a minor key and featuring spooky echoed vocals. The most arresting element of “Heart Full of Soul,” though, hits you right from the start: that spacey-sounding guitar. I’d never heard a sitar before – remember, this was five months before George Harrison’s sitar on “Norwegian Wood”; the Stones’ “Paint It Black” wouldn’t come out until the next year – but Jeff Beck didn't need a sitar; he got the same exotic effect just using a fuzz box on his guitar. It sounded creepy, and psychedelic, and I don’t know what else.
It’s a pretty damn tortured set of lyrics too: “Sick at heart and lonely, / Deep in dark despair/ [oh-oh-oh-oh oh] / Thinking one thought only / Where is she, tell me where / [oh-oh-oh-oh-oh].” I love that hypnotic vocal riff with those back-up oh’s, how they stagger up the minor scale and then seemingly spiral off into space. Keith Relf’s lead vocal sounds slightly haggard, as if he’s been up late smoking and drinking, nursing his wounded heart. He sounds as hung-up as the narrator of “You Really Got Me.” In 1965, most bands perpetuated the fiction that love would make us happy; quite the opposite here.
Apparently the girl’s lost interest in him, but he’s not giving up, as he tells us with tense determination in the chorus: “And I know / if she had me back again / Well I would never make her sad.” All those shifting uneasy chords, and then he lays out his most important credential: “I've got a heart full of soul.” The one phrase is more than a hook, it’s the very nexus of the song. I love how the back-up harmonies modulate through no less than six chords on “heart”; his heart is just full to bursting, isn’t it? In one stroke, he turns my pity into dizzy attraction. A guy who’s this full of passion deserves to get the girl.
But half a beat after “soul,” that hypnotic guitar line cuts in again, slicing through it all like a scimitar. It draws us into the next verse, and more pain: “She's been gone such a long time / Longer than I can bear / [oh-oh-oh-oh-oh] / But if she says she wants me / Tell her that I'll be there / [oh-oh-o] / And if she says to you / She don’t love me/ [oh-oh-oh-oh-oh] / Just give her my message / Tell her of my plea.” By the end of the song, nothing’s been resolved; he’s still aching, still miserable. But me, I’ve got shivers running up my spine. No wonder I avoided this when I was 11.
For better or worse, I always felt that the Yardbirds were a Guy Band, and not just because my older brother owned their albums – most guitar fetishists I know (and they’re almost exclusively men) get off on the pyrotechnics, endlessly debating which guitarist was best, Clapton v. Beck v. Page. I’m sure that’s an interesting debate, but I’m not going there. All I know is that this song -- just like “For Your Love” -- seems dark, and gritty, and urban, and totally sexy. Now that I’m grown up, I like it just fine.
Heart Full of Soul sample
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
“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
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
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
“Concrete and Clay” / Unit 4 + 2
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
Ever heard of this band? Possibly not, but you might recognize the track – it hit Number One in the UK for one week in 1965 (and a respectable #28 in the US). If not an underground hit, this was at least an offshore hit, championed by the pirate radio stations that proliferated in those days, defying the BBC’s stranglehold. For kids thirsty for new musical product in 1965, pirate radio added the thrill of the forbidden. Rescuing a dynamite single from obscurity was where pirate radio excelled.
Though Unit 4 + 2 never became a big name, their connections sprawl everywhere. Originally a quartet called Unit Four, they became Unit Four + 2 when two more guys joined the group. (Duh.) After their first two singles bombed, for this record they hired two ringers – guitarist Russ Ballard and drummer Bob Henrit, former bandmates of 4+2 founder Brian Parker (from Adam Faith’s back-up band The Roulettes) and also of 4+2 guitarist Buster Meikle (from The Daybreakers). Ballard and Henrit were the Zeligs of British rock; they were later in Argent, with Zombies organist Rod Argent, and Henrit was also in the mid-80s Kinks, alongside bassist Jim Rodford (another Zelig – he has at various times also been in the Animals and in the revived Zombies with Rod Argent, his cousin.) It makes England seem like a tiny village, where everybody knows everybody else.
Maybe Unit 4 + 2 wasn’t the great rock band of the 1960s – but on this one track, they got things gloriously right. It begins with just a cowbell and triangle, alternating in syncopated rhythm, like footsteps ringing along a pavement. That syncopation, a twitchy sort of bossa nova, is the key to the whole song. A deftly plucked guitar jumps in, skittering up and down the scale with Spanish-style fingering -- Russ Ballard’s contribution to this song is a HUGE part of its appeal, as is Bob Henrit’s; the percussion is essential to that charged-up Latin rhythm. Four measures and I’m dancing already.
The vocals have the syncopation bug, too, as the verse alternates between the lead singer and the back-ups, his sweet legato tenor punctuated by their punchy baritones: “You to me / Are sweet as roses in the morning / You to me / Are soft as summer rain at dawn / In love we share / That something rare.” How sappy that love poem imagery would sound, if it weren’t for that catchy beat.
The chorus is standard folk music stuff, with swelling Seekers-like harmonies and the usual imagery (urban v. nature, close-up v. panorama, the transient v. the eternal): “The sidewalk in the street / The concrete and the clay beneath my feet / Begins to crumble / But love will never die / Because we’ll see the mountains tumble / Before we say goodbye.” Then it morphs into a tender Bobby Vinton vein -- “My love and I will be / in love eternally” -- with the back-ups’ swooning ooohs. But that chunky rhythm saves it, yoking together all these different musical modes, infusing them with that happy, irresistible beat.
Maybe this was the problem with Unit 4 + 2 – they couldn’t settle on one sound. Their two first albums mixed traditional folk songs and R&B covers and boppy beat numbers; they're a completely different band on each track. Their follow-up single, “You’ve Never Been In Love Like This Before,” barely charted in the U.S.; the mountains are still standing, but Unit 4 + 2 vanished into the mists of time. They’ve left this footprint, though, and it’s a gem.
Concrete and Clay sample
MAY IS BRITISH INVASION MONTH!
Ever heard of this band? Possibly not, but you might recognize the track – it hit Number One in the UK for one week in 1965 (and a respectable #28 in the US). If not an underground hit, this was at least an offshore hit, championed by the pirate radio stations that proliferated in those days, defying the BBC’s stranglehold. For kids thirsty for new musical product in 1965, pirate radio added the thrill of the forbidden. Rescuing a dynamite single from obscurity was where pirate radio excelled.
Though Unit 4 + 2 never became a big name, their connections sprawl everywhere. Originally a quartet called Unit Four, they became Unit Four + 2 when two more guys joined the group. (Duh.) After their first two singles bombed, for this record they hired two ringers – guitarist Russ Ballard and drummer Bob Henrit, former bandmates of 4+2 founder Brian Parker (from Adam Faith’s back-up band The Roulettes) and also of 4+2 guitarist Buster Meikle (from The Daybreakers). Ballard and Henrit were the Zeligs of British rock; they were later in Argent, with Zombies organist Rod Argent, and Henrit was also in the mid-80s Kinks, alongside bassist Jim Rodford (another Zelig – he has at various times also been in the Animals and in the revived Zombies with Rod Argent, his cousin.) It makes England seem like a tiny village, where everybody knows everybody else.
Maybe Unit 4 + 2 wasn’t the great rock band of the 1960s – but on this one track, they got things gloriously right. It begins with just a cowbell and triangle, alternating in syncopated rhythm, like footsteps ringing along a pavement. That syncopation, a twitchy sort of bossa nova, is the key to the whole song. A deftly plucked guitar jumps in, skittering up and down the scale with Spanish-style fingering -- Russ Ballard’s contribution to this song is a HUGE part of its appeal, as is Bob Henrit’s; the percussion is essential to that charged-up Latin rhythm. Four measures and I’m dancing already.
The vocals have the syncopation bug, too, as the verse alternates between the lead singer and the back-ups, his sweet legato tenor punctuated by their punchy baritones: “You to me / Are sweet as roses in the morning / You to me / Are soft as summer rain at dawn / In love we share / That something rare.” How sappy that love poem imagery would sound, if it weren’t for that catchy beat.
The chorus is standard folk music stuff, with swelling Seekers-like harmonies and the usual imagery (urban v. nature, close-up v. panorama, the transient v. the eternal): “The sidewalk in the street / The concrete and the clay beneath my feet / Begins to crumble / But love will never die / Because we’ll see the mountains tumble / Before we say goodbye.” Then it morphs into a tender Bobby Vinton vein -- “My love and I will be / in love eternally” -- with the back-ups’ swooning ooohs. But that chunky rhythm saves it, yoking together all these different musical modes, infusing them with that happy, irresistible beat.
Maybe this was the problem with Unit 4 + 2 – they couldn’t settle on one sound. Their two first albums mixed traditional folk songs and R&B covers and boppy beat numbers; they're a completely different band on each track. Their follow-up single, “You’ve Never Been In Love Like This Before,” barely charted in the U.S.; the mountains are still standing, but Unit 4 + 2 vanished into the mists of time. They’ve left this footprint, though, and it’s a gem.
Concrete and Clay sample
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