"Beechwood Park" / The Zombies

What a great concert I went to Friday night!

One of the most underrated bands of the British Invasion, the Zombies long ago forged a distinctive brand of jazz-inflected backbeat pop. Yes, the first single I ever bought was their haunting 1964 debut hit "She's Not There, but ever since seeing their modern-day incarnation in 2005 (led by keyboard genius Rod Argent and the amazing singer Colin Blunstone), I've delved much deeper into their rich catalog, and I've gone back again and again to see them in concert. I have yet to exhaust their charms.

Friday night promised to be something special:  They would be performing live their entire 1968 album Odessey & Oracle. Not only that, the other two surviving members of the original fivesome -- bassist/songwriter Christ White and drummer Hugh Grundy -- would be brought out of retirement to perform it with Argent and Blunstone. Finally.

Because, you see, the Zombies actually broke up right after they finished recording Odessey & Oracle. Their career had been on the slide for several months and half the band was too discouraged (and too broke) to keep on. And at first, the album's sluggish sales did nothing to change their minds. Rod Argent formed a new band, Argent, Chris White went into producing, and the others basically quit the biz. With no band left to support it, Odessey & Oracle didn't get much promotion.

But Odessey & Oracle slowly began to climb the charts, especially in the U.S. By 1969, the record company belatedly decided to release a single from the album, the trippy and mysterious "Time of the Season" -- and it eventually became the Zombies' biggest hit.

Over time, the album has become regarded as a classic: a masterpiece of psychedelia filtered through the lush romantic sound that was always the Zombies' hallmark. But the Zombies had never performed it -- until one U.K. show in 2013, and now at last a handful of shows here in the States.

And hearing it live, it sounded fresh and exciting all over again.  Just listen to them do "Beechwood Park."

The sinuous melody and slightly woozy beat float along, as Blunstone's ethereal tenor interweaves with Argent's minor-key baroque organ arpeggios. The lyrics paint a romantic picture of a guy and a girl cavorting through a leafy suburban park -- or rather (important distinction) his memories of them cavorting in the park. The wistful haze of nostalgia is the perfect final touch.

"All roads in my mind / Take me back in my mind / And I can't forget you / Won't forget you / Won't forget those days / And Beechwood Park." A subtext of loss haunts this song -- you've gotta figure he's lost her and has been regretting it ever since.

You could get away with that soft-focus stuff in the late 60s, talking about the breeze in a girl's hair and counting evening stars. (Poet Rod McKuen made a fortune peddling this line of hooey.) But somehow, the still-youthful urgency of Blunstone's voice makes me buy this one-hundred percent. No other band of that era had such a romantic, earnest aura. 

The cool thing about "Beechwood Park" is that it doesn't sound dated -- it simply transports you back to 1968. Everybody had a Beechwood Park, didn't they? (Mine was Holiday Park in Indianapolis -- I can still summon up the sound and smell of that place.)

All I know is that for three minutes or so, on that cold rainy October Friday night, we were all going back in our minds to that summer world.  Ah, what a trip.

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Yours and Mine"

#10

"Yours and Mine" / Fountains of Wayne

If you've been paying attention, you should be a Fountains of Wayne fan by now.  But just to seal the deal . . .    

 

 

From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003)

 

Wistful, plangent, bittersweet -- here's a Fountains of Wayne song that hits all those notes at once. 

 

It's a wisp of a song, only 1:02 minutes, a simple acoustic strum.  It's not telling a story, it's not sketching in characters.  It feels personal, and true. The setting is cocktail hour: "In about an hour the sunlight's gonna fade / And you and me will divvy up the wine / Like everything else here / Yours and mine." I picture white fluffy towels with those cutesy titles embroidered on them, a 1960s cliché of just-wedded domestic bliss.

 

 The other verse switches to Sunday morning, and another cozy scene: "Picking up the paper /  Coffee's been made / It's Book Review and Face the Nation time / Like everything else here / Yours and mine." I'm guessing these aren't suburbanites, but Manhattanites (picking up the Sunday Times from a newsstand, a Manhattan ritual). 

Still . . . is it just me, or do I detect a shadow here?  All this divvying up, the parceling out of whose stuff is whose, taking their separate sections of the paper.  I'm flashing to one of the saddest songs ever written, the Kinks' "Property," in which a divorcing couple splits up their household goods. (I know that the FOW guys know this song; they're longtime Kinks fans.) Maybe this couple isn't there yet, but if their names are still chalked on everything in the apartment -- well, things could go south. 

The song does start with a fading sunset, and listen to how Collingwood's vocal curls sadly downward on "yours and mine." (And spikes upward anxiously on "everything".)

I'd think I was reading too much into this if I didn't know that Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood are such subtle songwriters, and such insightful storytellers. Would they really be content with a simple ditty about a happy couple?  I'd love to know what you think, because I'm still up in the air.

And whichever way you read it -- it's a beautiful little song to close out the weekend. Shall we all pour a glass of wine and toast Fountains of Wayne? 

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "I-95" and "A Road Song"

#8 and #9

"I-95" / "A Road Song" /
Fountains of Wayne

What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

You know how rock stars, one they've made it big, love to write self-pitying songs about how hard life is on the road? (Not to mention self-pitying songs about groupies.) 

 

That's not Fountains of Wayne's turf. But these guys have been touring and making music since the early 90s -- they've done their time on the road.  As you'd expect, though, their take on it is somewhat different. 

 

 

 



From Traffic and Weather (2007)

 

Take "I-95," for example. Never once in this song do we hear anything about why the singer is driving on this highway.  All we hear is a numbing litany of things he notices at the anonymous rest stops along it.  You know the stuff -- Guns 'n' Rose CDs, Virginia Is For Lovers t-shirts, and (my favorite detail) Barney DVDs. Ah, the detritus of modern culture, "gifts" that nobody wants, in a place nobody wants to stop. The lagging tempo, the chromatic melody line -- it perfectly captures the boredom of a long-distance drive.

 

In verse two he's back on the road, fiddling with the radio knobs, trying to get a station. (What?  No Sirius/XM?  No iPod port?) For a minute, stars fill the sky and "it feels so cinematic" -- but, you know highway driving: Someone cuts in front of him and the mood is destroyed. 

 

But the melody lifts in the chorus, as we learn why he's doing it: "It's a nine-hour drive from me to you . . . And I'll do it 'til the day that I die / Just to see you." That's so wistful, so sweet, it gets me every time. And there's the coup de grace, that funny little guitar fill between the two "just to see you's," as if he's imagining her reply.  

 

Okay, okay, he could be a traveling salesman, or a long-haul trucker. But in this next song, he outs himself as a musician on the road. 

 

 

From Sky Full of Holes (2011)

 

He even calls it "A Road Song," and admits, "it may be a cliché." But not the way FOW tells it.  

 

They're been on the road so long, he's got no idea where they are (Wisconsin? Chicago?). In one brilliant rhyme -- "In between the stops at Crackerbarrel / And forty movies with Will Ferrell" -- he condenses all the crappy interstate travel tedium. 

 

In the later verses, though, he gives up the Everyman persona to give us backstage glimpses. "Some kid threw a bottle on stage / He had an arm like a pro" -- it's the little stuff that makes it real. Being a rock star isn't all glamorous -- in fact, he wouldn't even call himself a rock star. "I know it's not what you call necessary / And I know I'm no Steve Perry..." (the lead singer for Journey -- although, I'll admit, I had to Google that, which makes the disclaimer even funnier). 

 

It's not a lonesome song. The tempo clicks along, the melody skips around brightly.  He's working, it's all routine, it's fine. He just -- well, he just wanted to call her. He was thinking of her. No big deal.

 

Even when Fountains of Wayne try to act like rock stars, they end up making it about real people. In this case, them.  

 

  

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Hackensack"

#7

"Hackensack" / Fountains of Wayne

What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

 

 

From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003).

Probably the only pop song ever written about Hackensack, New Jersey -- but since FOW itself is named after a New Jersey garden center, it makes sense. 

Here's the set-up: The singer is sending this song out to an old friend/classmate who is now a celebrity of some kind -- actress/model/singer -- reminding her that "If you ever get back to / Hackensack / I'll be here for you." Sounds like she wasn't even his girlfriend; they had a class together in high school, that's all. But even then, "you were in all my dreams." Ah, the torches we carry!

He's following her career, wistfully, from afar: "I saw you talkin' / To Christopher Walken / On my TV screen." (Score points just for the Christopher Walken name check.) Then he shyly catches her up on what he's been up to: "I used to work in a record store / Now I work for my dad / Scraping the paint off of hardwood floors / Hours are pretty bad." That's how life slowly closes in on you, isn't it?

This guy is just so sweet, gradually sliding into his middle-class mid-American dead-end life. The one thing that keeps him going is the thought of that girl out in L.A. She might still remember him now, but odds are, in five years she won't. And that's why the refrain is so poignant: "But I will wait for you / As long as I need to / If you ever get back to Hackensack / I'll be here for you."

We kinda know she'll never come back; hey, he kinda knows it too. But a guy can hope, can't he?

This isn't a love song, really -- it's a song about modern American discontent, in a culture that teaches us that celebrity is all that matters. And this guy can't be happy in Hackensack so long as he's still yearning after The Girl Who Made It Big.

Suburban angst?  You bet, even though there's no drama or despair.  The track's sound is bouncy, light -- a soft drum track ticking along, the hooky guitar line, Collingwood's slightly flat boyish vocals, those dreamy falsetto back-ups on "I will wait for you." Our pal's life is tripping gently along just like this song. It's not horrible, it's just not . . . Special. And we were all promised Special, dammit.

Now if only the myriad 20-somethings whose life this song describes even knew this song existed . . .

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Hey Julie"

#6

"Hey Julie" / Fountains of Wayne

What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

 

From Welcome Interstate Managers (2003)

Considering how many music listeners hold, or will someday hold, an office job, you'd think there would be more songs about the nine-to-five cubicle grind. (Notable exceptions: the Beatles' "Hard Days' Night" and the Kinks' "Nine to Five.") Fist-bumps to Fountains of Wayne for crafting this perky cha-cha-cha earworm around this underserved topic.

That opening verse sets the gruesome scene: "Working all day for a mean little man / With a clip-on tie and a rub-on tan / He's got me running round the office like a dog around a track / When I get back home you're always there to rub my back." The lyrics clip along at a relentless pace, a two-chord seesaw stuck in a melodic rut. In verse two, it's like a scene out of the movie Office Space. "Hours on the phone making pointless calls / I got a desk full of paper that means nothing at all." And in verse three -- he really hates that boss -- another skewering vignette: "Working all day for a mean little guy / With a bad toupee and a soup-stained tie / He's got me running around the office like a gerbil in a wheel / He can tell me what to do but he can't tell me how to feel." Those deft details completely nail this horrible boss.

I always assumed that Julie's the loyal girlfriend who greets him when he gets home and helps him shake off the stresses of the day. (Does she open the door with a martini ready? Dressed in inviting lingerie?)  But when I saw this video, I realized that it was entirely possible that Julie is in fact his dog. (And a very cute dog, I must say.) Man's best friend, lying on the rug (though really on the off-limits couch), waiting for him to open the door, or to open the next can of dog food. But hey, that's love too, and I can with all honesty that my dog DOES make it all better when I get home.

I have to giggle when I listen to this song, but behind the giggle lies the pathos of an unsung life. Maybe there aren't more pop songs about photocopying and bookkeeping because most rock stars wouldn't be caught dead doing those things. All the more reason why we need Fountains of Wayne to come along and sing our songs, too.


Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Planet of Weed"

#5

"Planet of Weed" / Fountains of Wayne

What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

v

 

From Traffic and Weather (2007)

 

Fountains of Wayne doesn't generally go for the stoner audience. But, let's be honest -- American suburbia is full of marijuana smokers. I think of my neighbors in Arlington, Virginia -- long-time civil servants, in a federal agency I won't name here -- who lived for their evening toke.

 

That fuzztone guitar, the clink of glasses, voices murmuring in the background: It's a ready-made party, in two minutes and 46 seconds.

 

What a lovely hippie utopia! "There's no hatred and no greed / Here on the planet of weed / Everyone gets along / It's quite pleasant indeed." He's urging his girlfriend to subscribe, and why wouldn't she?  Except for the little matter of how his weed habit just might be hampering his ability to move on with life. (Love how light-fingered FOW is with this satire -- you're free to check in or check out, no aspersions cast....)

 

And after all, it's such a lovely ambiance. "We've got magazines to read / We've got Doritos to eat / So lay back on the couch / And kick up your feet" -- why, yes, I think I will.

 

"There's a movie on TV/ I've been meaning to see / It's by Oliver Stone -- "  And instead of completing the verse, the guitars kick in.  Because -- wow. Oliver Stone. Heavy, man. 

Ten from Fountains of Wayne: "Hat and Feet"

#4

"Hat and Feet" / Fountains of Wayne


What?  The only Fountains of Wayne song you know is their one pop hit, "Stacy's Mom"?  Now that's a shame.  Permit me to widen your horizons, with not one but ten FOW tracks that prove their genius...   

 

 

From Utopia Parkway (1999)

 

It's the old, old story here -- Boy meets Girl, Boy gets Girl, Girl breaks up with Boy, Boy licks his wounds and feels sorry for himself.  Cue up Gene Pitney or Bobby Vinton, bewailing their lonesome fate. 

 

But, being Fountains of Wayne, these guys have to give it their own effervescent twist.

 

There's no way this is going to be a self-pity party -- not with that perky beat, that bouncy melody. When this track dials up on my iPod while I'm out walking, I can hardly keep myself from strutting.

 

Whatever pain and heartbreak our singer is feeling, he's already holding at arm's length, ruefully describing himself:  "I'm just a hat and feet / That's all that left of me / A spot on the sidewalk / A mark on the street / I'm just a hat and feet."

 

Sure, he's been "gutted," to use the Brit slang term. But that image -- the collapsed hat (I picture a straw boater) and feet (picture white bucks) -- is so delightfully cartoony, we can't feel too sorry for him. And neither can he, now.  

 

Cartoony?  It's better than that; it's a classic scene out of silent comedies. something by Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd.  In the second verse, her rejection is "A falling piano / From out of a window." And in the bridge, he laments, "I'm just a sitting duck / That ran out of luck / I'm the unhappy guy / That didn't look up high / I started running when I saw it coming / It got faster and louder till I took a powder. . . . "  KaBLAM!!  When he stands up, there'll be stars circling around his head and a criss-cross of bandaids appearing magically on his forehead.

 

But you know what?  Somehow I think he's going to be just fine.