"Driving Around (Radio Storm)" /
Robyn Hitchcock & the Egyptians
Do I write about Robyn Hitchcock too much here? Looking back, I see that I don't, not really. But I sure do think about Robyn Hitchcock all the time. Considering what an oddball he is (the words "eccentric," "quirky," and "cult favorite" appear in almost every article about this guy), I wonder what that says about me.
This one shows up on my "On the Radio" playlist, which also has songs by John Hiatt ("Radio Girl"), The Kinks ("Around the Dial"), the Replacements "(Left of the Dial"), and of course our man Elvis ("Radio, Radio"). Most of those are about programming, and how important radio could be to a lonely misunderstood adolescent (and future rock star); there's something romantic and lovely about that. But Robyn's is just about, well, driving -- or is it? Really, like a lot of Robyn Hitchcock songs, it isn't about anything.
Maybe the point is just playing with sound. Its motor is a propulsive samba-like beat, laid down with crisp guitar strums, stabbing keyboard chords, and some clacking sort of percussion. On top of that, he layers various musical motifs; it's almost like a mosaic, getting really dense by the end (I guess that's the psychedelic side of his psychedelic-folk-punk, or whatever you want to call the signature Robyn Hitchcock mode.)
What I love about it, though, is the koan-like snatches of lyrics -- first the hypnotic chant "Take a breath, take a breath, take a breath," then something about "And I hand you a tape of my song / Which you always mislay" and some nonsense about a Harrison Ford poster rolled up in his desk, sitting in a bar in Sacramento cutting up paper napkins, and introducing somebody to his dead friend Seth. It's so random.
I love the moment when it morphs into earnest early 60s pop mode -- "What am I going to do with myself if I lose you?" only to complete the couplet with "What am I going to do with myself if you stay?" That's not just word play; it's the essence of how frustrating love can be.
So maybe the secret's in that chorus, which changes gears abruptly with a wall of sound: "Radio / Forecast intermittent storms / Tidal waves that change their forms / Ahhhh." As that wall of sound hits, it reminds me of how, when you're changing channels on a radio, suddenly a new channel comes blasting on full strength. The whole song keeps changing channels, shape-shifting just like the storms and the tidal waves.
He really shouldn't get away with this free-form stuff, should he? But he does.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
"When I Write the Book" / Nick Lowe
"Every Day I Write the Book" / Elvis Costello
Someone had to be copying someone else on this one. Nick's "When I Write the Book" appears on Rockpile's 1980 album Seconds of Pleasure, while Elvis's didn't come along until 1983's Punch the Clock -- you do the math. I suppose it's possible that Elvis wasn't thinking about his buddy's song when he penned this slick little pop song, but I sincerely doubt it. (For once, it wasn't Nick doing the stealing!)
I'm sure Nick thought he was working that metaphor for all it was worth, with lines like "when I write the book about my love / It’ll be a heartbreaking story about love and luck / When I get down on the pages all I felt / It will make the hardest-hearted of critics’ hearts melt" -- but really, this genial little number is just another way to self-dramatize a lover's pain and suffering. (I do love that bridge, though, as he describes himself "When I was young love was fun and I was so happy /I looked so good and I dressed so snap-py" -- umm, yes I bet you did, Nick!)
But then here comes Elvis, swooping in on his intro with a swelling power-pop sound and rabid howl of fury, then blasting away with lyrics like
When your dreamboat
Turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission
In two or three editions
and the absolutely priceless couplet
Even in a perfect world
Where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights
and be working on the sequel.
He breaks down their whole jejune relationship into trite little chapters; he dismisses everything about her into his quotation marks. There's nothing boppy or bright about this song, with all its unsettling chord changes and sneering melodic phrases, and the harpy chorus singing back-up. No, he's intent on revenge, and fairly bursting with paranoia and contempt. That book he's writing is a poison-pen hack job, and he's feeding on the chance to hurt her -- it's more important than the relationship at this point.
Sorry, Nick, but Elvis wins this round, hands down.
When I Write the Book sample
Every Day I Write the Book sample
"Every Day I Write the Book" / Elvis Costello
Someone had to be copying someone else on this one. Nick's "When I Write the Book" appears on Rockpile's 1980 album Seconds of Pleasure, while Elvis's didn't come along until 1983's Punch the Clock -- you do the math. I suppose it's possible that Elvis wasn't thinking about his buddy's song when he penned this slick little pop song, but I sincerely doubt it. (For once, it wasn't Nick doing the stealing!)
I'm sure Nick thought he was working that metaphor for all it was worth, with lines like "when I write the book about my love / It’ll be a heartbreaking story about love and luck / When I get down on the pages all I felt / It will make the hardest-hearted of critics’ hearts melt" -- but really, this genial little number is just another way to self-dramatize a lover's pain and suffering. (I do love that bridge, though, as he describes himself "When I was young love was fun and I was so happy /I looked so good and I dressed so snap-py" -- umm, yes I bet you did, Nick!)
But then here comes Elvis, swooping in on his intro with a swelling power-pop sound and rabid howl of fury, then blasting away with lyrics like
When your dreamboat
Turns out to be a footnote
I'm a man with a mission
In two or three editions
and the absolutely priceless couplet
Even in a perfect world
Where everyone was equal
I'd still own the film rights
and be working on the sequel.
He breaks down their whole jejune relationship into trite little chapters; he dismisses everything about her into his quotation marks. There's nothing boppy or bright about this song, with all its unsettling chord changes and sneering melodic phrases, and the harpy chorus singing back-up. No, he's intent on revenge, and fairly bursting with paranoia and contempt. That book he's writing is a poison-pen hack job, and he's feeding on the chance to hurt her -- it's more important than the relationship at this point.
Sorry, Nick, but Elvis wins this round, hands down.
When I Write the Book sample
Every Day I Write the Book sample
Saturday, September 20, 2008
"Please Stay" -- Elvis Costello
And while we're on the topic of affectionate covers of cheesy old songs . . . our boy Elvis did an entire album of these unearthed treasures, Kojak Variety (a title which, I'm sorry, always makes me envision Telly Savalas in a tux in front of a brocade curtain introducing Senor Wences). I hasten to point out that they're not all ancient obscurities, since one of them -- my favorite on the album -- is an absolutely brilliant cover of the Kinks' "Days." But otherwise, they're a pretty mossy bunch of chestnuts.
"Please Stay" is a Bacharach-David pop tune (Elvis is such a sucker for Bacharach), the sort you could imagine Dionne Warwick or Dusty Springfield doing. With its passionate pleading, this one in particular -- which apparently was a big hit for the Drifters, though I've never heard it (Aaron Neville does a version too) -- would have been so great for Dusty; nobody could abase themselves for love quite like Dusty could. But Elvis is a close runner-up with this song, unleashing all his considerable vibrato in an absolute gush of emotion.
The heart of it is this verse: "If I got on my knees / And I pleaded with you / Not to go but to stay / In my arms," a series of anxious triplets tentatively seesawing from one unresolved chord to another. I can just picture him on his knees -- though somehow my picture of Elvis on his knees seems dangerous and hostile, like he'd be trying to wrestle her to the floor. As the verse goes on, you find out they've got a complicated history: "Would you walk out the door / like you did once before? / Or would this time / Be different, / Would you sta-a-ay." Ah, that accounts for the edge of desperation in his voice. Desperation? More like panic, or hysteria.
Elvis takes it at a slightly plodding, weary tempo, underlaid with some wonderful electric piano diddling, I assume (hope) by Steve Nieve. Between those triplets and the jangly quality of the guitar and piano, it's strung up with tension; it sounds like he's so beaten up with love, he can't stand it any more. Just below the surface, he's still angry about her leaving the time before, and yet he wants her too much to let her go, and then he hates himself for wanting her that much . . .
Nobody plumbs the vicious side of love like Elvis does, that's for sure. Dusty would have done this like she was throwing herself under a train; Elvis IS the train.
And while we're on the topic of affectionate covers of cheesy old songs . . . our boy Elvis did an entire album of these unearthed treasures, Kojak Variety (a title which, I'm sorry, always makes me envision Telly Savalas in a tux in front of a brocade curtain introducing Senor Wences). I hasten to point out that they're not all ancient obscurities, since one of them -- my favorite on the album -- is an absolutely brilliant cover of the Kinks' "Days." But otherwise, they're a pretty mossy bunch of chestnuts.
"Please Stay" is a Bacharach-David pop tune (Elvis is such a sucker for Bacharach), the sort you could imagine Dionne Warwick or Dusty Springfield doing. With its passionate pleading, this one in particular -- which apparently was a big hit for the Drifters, though I've never heard it (Aaron Neville does a version too) -- would have been so great for Dusty; nobody could abase themselves for love quite like Dusty could. But Elvis is a close runner-up with this song, unleashing all his considerable vibrato in an absolute gush of emotion.
The heart of it is this verse: "If I got on my knees / And I pleaded with you / Not to go but to stay / In my arms," a series of anxious triplets tentatively seesawing from one unresolved chord to another. I can just picture him on his knees -- though somehow my picture of Elvis on his knees seems dangerous and hostile, like he'd be trying to wrestle her to the floor. As the verse goes on, you find out they've got a complicated history: "Would you walk out the door / like you did once before? / Or would this time / Be different, / Would you sta-a-ay." Ah, that accounts for the edge of desperation in his voice. Desperation? More like panic, or hysteria.
Elvis takes it at a slightly plodding, weary tempo, underlaid with some wonderful electric piano diddling, I assume (hope) by Steve Nieve. Between those triplets and the jangly quality of the guitar and piano, it's strung up with tension; it sounds like he's so beaten up with love, he can't stand it any more. Just below the surface, he's still angry about her leaving the time before, and yet he wants her too much to let her go, and then he hates himself for wanting her that much . . .
Nobody plumbs the vicious side of love like Elvis does, that's for sure. Dusty would have done this like she was throwing herself under a train; Elvis IS the train.
Friday, September 19, 2008
"Cold Grey Light of Dawn" /
Nick Lowe
No, Nick didn't write this -- it's one of those covers he tends to do, of obscure old country-soul numbers no one has ever heard of. Well, at least I haven't. This one's by Ivory Joe Hunter, a black guy out of Texas who had a few R&B hits in the 1950s (he wrote "Ain't That Loving You, Baby" for Elvis Presley), and came back as a country singer in the late 60s. And now you know as much as I do about Ivory Joe Hunter (thanks, Wikipedia!)
But Nick loves to dig up these old chestnuts, and so he unearthed this one for 1998's Dig My Mood, an album that finds Nick in prime genre-hopping mode. I don't know the original, but I can imagine it's a good deal smoother than Nick's twangy version. I almost put it on my Break-Ups playlist, but even though this song is all about a break-up -- sung from the perspective of a guy waking up to realize afresh that he's alone now -- it's way too cheerful to make anybody feel sorry for him.
And yet I love it. It's a series of slidey little phrases, jerking up gradually up the scale, and Nick delivers it in a cornball drawl that really cracks me up. It's the opening lines that are stuck in my head today: "That old alarm clock / Gives a yell / Starting another / Day in hell." That yell/hell rhyme is priceless, isn't it? There are a few other good couplets here, too, like "In the mirror / I see / Someone who used to / Be me", and of course that irresistible title couplet "And I turn blue / In the cold grey light of dawn." That alone was reason for Nick to sing this.
My other favorite effect on this track is the string arrangement -- what I always think of as "Ray Charles strings" after of the orchestral arrangements on things like "Georgia" and "Crying Time". Corny corny corny, and absolutely delicious. The first time they slip in is on the line "The neon light / And the jukebox / Help to ease me / Through the night," and the echoing flourish of strings after "neon light" is so witty I can't stand it.
It's hardly a great song -- it's pretty Tin Pan Alley, in fact, or whatever the LA equivalent of that was. And it's not exactly one of Nick's greatest performances (truth to tell, it barely even sounds like him singing). But I heard it a couple of days ago on my shuffle and I haven't been able to get rid of it since.
Not that I'm trying to, mind you. The days I get Nick stuck in my head are generally my best days.
Nick Lowe
No, Nick didn't write this -- it's one of those covers he tends to do, of obscure old country-soul numbers no one has ever heard of. Well, at least I haven't. This one's by Ivory Joe Hunter, a black guy out of Texas who had a few R&B hits in the 1950s (he wrote "Ain't That Loving You, Baby" for Elvis Presley), and came back as a country singer in the late 60s. And now you know as much as I do about Ivory Joe Hunter (thanks, Wikipedia!)
But Nick loves to dig up these old chestnuts, and so he unearthed this one for 1998's Dig My Mood, an album that finds Nick in prime genre-hopping mode. I don't know the original, but I can imagine it's a good deal smoother than Nick's twangy version. I almost put it on my Break-Ups playlist, but even though this song is all about a break-up -- sung from the perspective of a guy waking up to realize afresh that he's alone now -- it's way too cheerful to make anybody feel sorry for him.
And yet I love it. It's a series of slidey little phrases, jerking up gradually up the scale, and Nick delivers it in a cornball drawl that really cracks me up. It's the opening lines that are stuck in my head today: "That old alarm clock / Gives a yell / Starting another / Day in hell." That yell/hell rhyme is priceless, isn't it? There are a few other good couplets here, too, like "In the mirror / I see / Someone who used to / Be me", and of course that irresistible title couplet "And I turn blue / In the cold grey light of dawn." That alone was reason for Nick to sing this.
My other favorite effect on this track is the string arrangement -- what I always think of as "Ray Charles strings" after of the orchestral arrangements on things like "Georgia" and "Crying Time". Corny corny corny, and absolutely delicious. The first time they slip in is on the line "The neon light / And the jukebox / Help to ease me / Through the night," and the echoing flourish of strings after "neon light" is so witty I can't stand it.
It's hardly a great song -- it's pretty Tin Pan Alley, in fact, or whatever the LA equivalent of that was. And it's not exactly one of Nick's greatest performances (truth to tell, it barely even sounds like him singing). But I heard it a couple of days ago on my shuffle and I haven't been able to get rid of it since.
Not that I'm trying to, mind you. The days I get Nick stuck in my head are generally my best days.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
"Tell Me Right Now" / Elvis Costello
Well, thanks to Crafty, I've now gone mining for Elvis Costello songs to add to yesterday's playlist -- call it Break-Ups Vol. II, the Declan MacManus Edition. And I have to say, it's just as fruitful a vein of research as I thought it would be.
Let's start with Tell Me Right Now (Blood and Chocolate bonus track)-- which must win the prize for the most pre-emptive break-up song ever; the guy has just met this girl, but he wants to know RIGHT NOW if she's gonna break his heart so that he doesn't even begin to get involved. (Shades of the Beatles' "If I Fell" -- "'cause I've been in love before / and I know that love is more / than just holding hands..") This seems to be a theme with Elvis; he does it again in Still Too Soon to Know (Brutal Youth) and Heart-Shaped Bruise (Delivery Man). Does this man have trust issues or what?
If you're talking about songs reflecting doomed relationships, Elvis Costello is your man. Here's just a few: You Belong To Me (This Year's Model), Accidents Will Happen and Two Little Hitlers (Armed Forces), High Fidelity (Get Happy!), and the stunningly pessimistic Beyond Belief (Imperial Bedroom), an incredibly impressionistic catalog of all the things that can go wrong with a relationship -- and nothing that could possibly go right. Adultery? Par for the course, if you just listen to Motel Matches (Get Happy!).
I like these two because they're the flip side of each other -- Long Honeymoon (Imperial Bedroom) is about a woman waiting for her philandering husband to come home, while Baby Plays Around (Spike) has the man waiting miserably at home -- "She walks those shiny streets / I walk the worn-out floor..." These are both absolute emotional killers.
Elvis' best moment-of-the-break-up song? It has to be the majestic Almost Blue (Imperial Bedroom), which on certain days seems to me to be Elvis's greatest song ever. But running a close second is the full-out melodrama of Riot Act (from the surely ironically titled Get Happy!), which contains some of my very favorite Elvis lyrics, including "when the heat gets sub-tropical /and the talk gets so topical" and "why do you talk such stupid nonsense / when my mind could rest much easier / instead of all this god damned insolence / I would be happier with amnesia." I can't even tell how often those phrases spring to mind in my daily life.
Way early in Elvis' career, he was already dealing with the corrosive jealousy of the ex-lover in Alison (My Aim Is True), with its devastating line "'Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking / when I hear the silly things that you say / I think somebody better put out the big light / Cos I can't stand to see you this way." I often wonder why this misogynistic rant doesn't thoroughly alienate me -- I think it's because it's really about the singer's thwarted passion. At heart he's just a miserable romantic, who only hates Alison because she left him. How dare she? (I'm sorry, but I find this incredibly sexy. Any of you ladies care to weigh in on this?)
And here's one of the most excruciating post-break-up songs ever: Either Side of the Same Town (Delivery Man), where the busted-up couple practically has to divide up their town so they won't see each other ("Now it's hard to keep ignoring someone you recognize /And if they seem contented, it's only by disguise") . It's the hurt that keeps on hurting.
Elvis is on his third marriage by now, and I sincerely hope he and Diana Krall are happy. But please, Elvis, don't ever let matrimonial bliss dull that nasty edge you've got. The rest of us need it.
Well, thanks to Crafty, I've now gone mining for Elvis Costello songs to add to yesterday's playlist -- call it Break-Ups Vol. II, the Declan MacManus Edition. And I have to say, it's just as fruitful a vein of research as I thought it would be.
Let's start with Tell Me Right Now (Blood and Chocolate bonus track)-- which must win the prize for the most pre-emptive break-up song ever; the guy has just met this girl, but he wants to know RIGHT NOW if she's gonna break his heart so that he doesn't even begin to get involved. (Shades of the Beatles' "If I Fell" -- "'cause I've been in love before / and I know that love is more / than just holding hands..") This seems to be a theme with Elvis; he does it again in Still Too Soon to Know (Brutal Youth) and Heart-Shaped Bruise (Delivery Man). Does this man have trust issues or what?
If you're talking about songs reflecting doomed relationships, Elvis Costello is your man. Here's just a few: You Belong To Me (This Year's Model), Accidents Will Happen and Two Little Hitlers (Armed Forces), High Fidelity (Get Happy!), and the stunningly pessimistic Beyond Belief (Imperial Bedroom), an incredibly impressionistic catalog of all the things that can go wrong with a relationship -- and nothing that could possibly go right. Adultery? Par for the course, if you just listen to Motel Matches (Get Happy!).
I like these two because they're the flip side of each other -- Long Honeymoon (Imperial Bedroom) is about a woman waiting for her philandering husband to come home, while Baby Plays Around (Spike) has the man waiting miserably at home -- "She walks those shiny streets / I walk the worn-out floor..." These are both absolute emotional killers.
Elvis' best moment-of-the-break-up song? It has to be the majestic Almost Blue (Imperial Bedroom), which on certain days seems to me to be Elvis's greatest song ever. But running a close second is the full-out melodrama of Riot Act (from the surely ironically titled Get Happy!), which contains some of my very favorite Elvis lyrics, including "when the heat gets sub-tropical /and the talk gets so topical" and "why do you talk such stupid nonsense / when my mind could rest much easier / instead of all this god damned insolence / I would be happier with amnesia." I can't even tell how often those phrases spring to mind in my daily life.
Way early in Elvis' career, he was already dealing with the corrosive jealousy of the ex-lover in Alison (My Aim Is True), with its devastating line "'Sometimes I wish that I could stop you from talking / when I hear the silly things that you say / I think somebody better put out the big light / Cos I can't stand to see you this way." I often wonder why this misogynistic rant doesn't thoroughly alienate me -- I think it's because it's really about the singer's thwarted passion. At heart he's just a miserable romantic, who only hates Alison because she left him. How dare she? (I'm sorry, but I find this incredibly sexy. Any of you ladies care to weigh in on this?)
And here's one of the most excruciating post-break-up songs ever: Either Side of the Same Town (Delivery Man), where the busted-up couple practically has to divide up their town so they won't see each other ("Now it's hard to keep ignoring someone you recognize /And if they seem contented, it's only by disguise") . It's the hurt that keeps on hurting.
Elvis is on his third marriage by now, and I sincerely hope he and Diana Krall are happy. But please, Elvis, don't ever let matrimonial bliss dull that nasty edge you've got. The rest of us need it.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
"All She Wrote" / Ray Davies
Finally, the Great Music Transfer is finished!
But now, alas, I still have to redo my playlists. If you're a little OCD like I am, you know how important it is to get those playlists just right. I had 130 of them, and they were good. I may not replicate all of them, though, because making them up is half the fun -- why not do some new ones while I'm at it?
So here's the first new playlist I've invented. A lot of these songs I've written about on here already; they're all about break-ups of one sort or another, each one capturing its own sliver of heart-wrenching pain. The first three are all snide little dialogues taken from the last stages of a crumbling relationship:
1. Is That Love -- Squeeze
2. Don't Wait Up -- Dr. Feelgood
3. Remain Silent -- Keb' Mo'
Then here come three that represent that bitter moment when you realize you've given up on saving things:
4. Angel/Asshole -- Jill Sobule
5. Crawl Back (Under My Stone) -- Richard Thompson
6. She's Already Made Up Her Mind -- Lyle Lovett
followed by the moment of truth, the actual confrontation -- or in these two cases, cowardly break-ups by letter:
7. All She Wrote -- Ray Davies
8. Hold Me Down -- Motion City Soundtrack
Ray's is bad enough, the reaction of the stunned recipient of such a letter -- but MCS's is even more squirm-inducing, being from the standpoint of the person who wrote the letter, and knows how despicable he is for doing so.
At the middle is the depths of self-pity and pain, the gloriously miserable
9. Solo (So Low) -- Joe Jackson
a song which absolutely shatters me every time I hear it. It's followed by three morose little mini-dramas, describing the last moments of packing to go:
10. Things We Never Said -- Thea Gilmore
11. Really Glad You Came -- Ian Dury & the Blockheads
12. Property -- The Kinks
Jeez, those three, one after the other, are like, whew! And then comes a melancholy drive past the old house, from someone's who's not healed yet:
13. Where Home Used to Be -- Marshall Crenshaw
And finally, to emerge from all this pain and misery, three brilliant comic mopes from two masters of the Lovable Loser song:
14. I'm a Mess -- Nick Lowe
15. I Don't Even Try -- John Hiatt
16. Lately I've Let Things Slide -- Nick Lowe
BTW, I've always wondered if Nick got the idea for his song from John's , which was written earlier, I think. Not that Nick Lowe ever stole any ideas from anybody, ever!
Well, there it is. Anybody out there know enough of those songs to tell me if this playlist works for you?
Finally, the Great Music Transfer is finished!
But now, alas, I still have to redo my playlists. If you're a little OCD like I am, you know how important it is to get those playlists just right. I had 130 of them, and they were good. I may not replicate all of them, though, because making them up is half the fun -- why not do some new ones while I'm at it?
So here's the first new playlist I've invented. A lot of these songs I've written about on here already; they're all about break-ups of one sort or another, each one capturing its own sliver of heart-wrenching pain. The first three are all snide little dialogues taken from the last stages of a crumbling relationship:
1. Is That Love -- Squeeze
2. Don't Wait Up -- Dr. Feelgood
3. Remain Silent -- Keb' Mo'
Then here come three that represent that bitter moment when you realize you've given up on saving things:
4. Angel/Asshole -- Jill Sobule
5. Crawl Back (Under My Stone) -- Richard Thompson
6. She's Already Made Up Her Mind -- Lyle Lovett
followed by the moment of truth, the actual confrontation -- or in these two cases, cowardly break-ups by letter:
7. All She Wrote -- Ray Davies
8. Hold Me Down -- Motion City Soundtrack
Ray's is bad enough, the reaction of the stunned recipient of such a letter -- but MCS's is even more squirm-inducing, being from the standpoint of the person who wrote the letter, and knows how despicable he is for doing so.
At the middle is the depths of self-pity and pain, the gloriously miserable
9. Solo (So Low) -- Joe Jackson
a song which absolutely shatters me every time I hear it. It's followed by three morose little mini-dramas, describing the last moments of packing to go:
10. Things We Never Said -- Thea Gilmore
11. Really Glad You Came -- Ian Dury & the Blockheads
12. Property -- The Kinks
Jeez, those three, one after the other, are like, whew! And then comes a melancholy drive past the old house, from someone's who's not healed yet:
13. Where Home Used to Be -- Marshall Crenshaw
And finally, to emerge from all this pain and misery, three brilliant comic mopes from two masters of the Lovable Loser song:
14. I'm a Mess -- Nick Lowe
15. I Don't Even Try -- John Hiatt
16. Lately I've Let Things Slide -- Nick Lowe
BTW, I've always wondered if Nick got the idea for his song from John's , which was written earlier, I think. Not that Nick Lowe ever stole any ideas from anybody, ever!
Well, there it is. Anybody out there know enough of those songs to tell me if this playlist works for you?
Friday, September 12, 2008
"(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" /
The Monkees
Another forgotten gem resurrected during the Great Music Transfer. What a great Boyce and Hart bit of snarky satire; it ranks right up there with the Kinks' "Starstruck" and Paul Revere and the Raiders' "Kicks" (I'm sure the Stones did something in this vein too, I just can't think of it right now) as a nasty putdown of some ambitious climber of a girlfriend. This goes way beyond a simple break-up song, doesn't it? There's actually a bit of weariness and menace in Mickey Dolenz's voice as he sings this -- not that the Monkees ever got credit for their dark side. And those minor-key background "ahhs," echoing across the room, they almost sound like the Yardbirds. Davy's tambourine sounds almost sinister here.
Now, I was a Davy girl; I still have to stifle a sigh when I hear "I Wanna Be Free." Yes, it's true, I did betray Peter Noone for Davy Jones back in the dark ages of 1967. I have nothing to say in my own defense. Perhaps this song was written about me....
I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone sample
The Monkees
Another forgotten gem resurrected during the Great Music Transfer. What a great Boyce and Hart bit of snarky satire; it ranks right up there with the Kinks' "Starstruck" and Paul Revere and the Raiders' "Kicks" (I'm sure the Stones did something in this vein too, I just can't think of it right now) as a nasty putdown of some ambitious climber of a girlfriend. This goes way beyond a simple break-up song, doesn't it? There's actually a bit of weariness and menace in Mickey Dolenz's voice as he sings this -- not that the Monkees ever got credit for their dark side. And those minor-key background "ahhs," echoing across the room, they almost sound like the Yardbirds. Davy's tambourine sounds almost sinister here.
Now, I was a Davy girl; I still have to stifle a sigh when I hear "I Wanna Be Free." Yes, it's true, I did betray Peter Noone for Davy Jones back in the dark ages of 1967. I have nothing to say in my own defense. Perhaps this song was written about me....
I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone sample
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