52 GIRLS

"Rikki Don't Lose That Number" / Steely Dan

1974. I'm in college, no longer listening to my parents' car AM radio, thrown upon the mercies of college FM, which has its own weird orthodoxy. But every once in a while I tune into the local AM station and hear -- between "Time In a Bottle" and "You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" -- something strange and wonderful. Plenty of cheesy jazz-rock imitators came along later to muck up the waters, but these guys invented the sound -- the dense aural environment, underlaid with a slapping, commanding groove.

Calling Dr. Becker! Calling Dr. Fagen! Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, the two mad scientists behind Steely Dan, crafted that sound and welded to it oddball lyrics with a distinctly snarky take on modern life. And snarky was just exactly what I needed to hear in those days.  "Reeling In the Years," "Do It Again," "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" -- the music was compelling, the songs themselves rather disturbing. But hey, I was in college -- disturbing was what I ate for breakfast back then.

So what's the story here? To a spooky samba beat, the singer's pleading with a girl -- I don't even think a girlfriend, just someone he briefly dated. Or whatever. There's certainly a whiff of desperation in the way he reminds her of "our little wild time" and going "out driving on Slow Hand Row" (that's some evocative name for a lover's lane). Properly speaking, I'm not sure that Rikki even remembers this guy at first, not if he has to remind her of their connection.

Now, in college I assumed that the number she wasn't supposed to lose was his. I pictured something scrawled on a matchbook or a cocktail napkin; I actually had a few of those in those days. If they had been steadies, she'd have had his phone number on speed dial -- but instead he's pleading with her "Rikki don't lose that number."

It was a different era, that's for sure. You didn't text somebody, you couldn't email them -- if you wanted to communicate you had to use the telephone, and chances were they wouldn't even be home to pick up. (This is such a Neanderthal era, we didn't even have answering machines -- if you called when they weren't home you just had to try again later.) It took effort.

"You don't want to call nobody else," he adds, entreating her -- because if she doesn't call, he'll never hear from her again. "Send it off in a letter to yourself" (mnemonic tips from Dr. Becker!). Chords falter and diminish as he speculates, "You might use it if you feel better / When you get home . . . " He knows she won't, but a guy can hope, can't he?  ("And you might have a change of heart . . . " the line wanders upward, followed by a twiddle of piano).

But things are not well in Rikki's world. That ominous ticking bass line, the ambiguous lyrics, the faintly scolding call-and-response of the chorus, they all spell trouble. At one time she wouldn't have phoned him for anything . . . but now maybe she will. Because --

Now, all these years later, I see a different scenario. It has occurred to me that it could be some other phone number -- an abortion doctor's, maybe? He's trying to help her out of a jam, but also keep himself from being implicated in that jam. He wants her to have a change of heart and get rid of the thing. After all, he only knows her from Slow Hand Road, and the unwritten rule is, whatever happens on Slow Hand Road stays on Slow Hand Road. Unless there are complications....

Maybe this is the scenario. I don't know for sure. All we hear is the dialogue between the two of them, and they know things we don't. It's like being thrown into a Raymond Carver short story, and scrambling to figure out what's going on.

One thing I knew for sure: if I was Rikki, I'd keep that number.  

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52 GIRLS

"Belinda" / Ben Folds

I reckon Ben Folds could have his pick of writers to do his lyrics (not that Ben Folds even needs anybody else's lyrics). So whom did Ben pick to collaborate with on his 2011 album Lonely Avenue?  Why, the same guy I'd pick -- British novelist Nick Hornby.

Hornby is an innate storyteller, and each of the songs on this wonderful album come embedded with characters and plot. "Belinda," the last track on the album, in some ways brings Lonely Avenue full circle.

Our narrator here is a touring rock musician -- not Folds, though, at least not exactly. This singer is an oldies act, facing nostalgic audiences night after night, and every night they clamor for his showstopper, the one big hit of his career. (Clever line: "He always hears how much it means to people / There's a lot of fortysomethings wouldn't be in the world without it" -- which dates his audience as the 40-somethings' parents, well into their sixties.)

They came to hear "Belinda," and while he may save it to the very end -- hence track 11 -- they won't go home until they've heard it.  But here's the catch: He wrote it about his old sweetheart when they were still in love -- before he screwed around with a busty blond flight attendant and left Belinda. He knows he didn't do the right thing; how weak his excuse is -- "She gave me complimentary champagne." Years later, he is curdled with regret. 

And still, every night, he  has to get up on stage and sing this love song to the woman whose heart he broke.  

Now, being the geeky fangirl I am, I've actually pondered this before.  It's one thing for Paul McCartney to sing "My Love" and think about his late wife Linda, whom he loved till the day she died; it's another for Eric Clapton to sing "Layla" about his ex-wife Pattie Boyd Harrison Clapton, whom he divorced.  How does he feel, singing that song?  Does he picture Pattie to himself or does he just sing the notes?  Ray Davies can cut a song like "Property" out of his repertoire if the memories of his divorce sting too much (was that Yvonne he left for Chrissie Hynde?), but what if you only had a couple of recognizable hits?  Could Gerry Marsden have gone on singing "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" if the girl he wrote it for hadn't come back and married him?  And what about the Left Banke -- if they'd stayed together, would they be forever singing "Walk Away Renee" about the bassist's girlfriend, that girl who got away?  It makes you think.

So it's secretly thrilling to hear that Nick Hornby has been wondering this too. (Have you been reading my diary again, Nick?)  He's a talented wordsmith and all, but it's that understanding of the human heart that really makes Nick Hornby so wonderful to read.  And when you add in Ben Folds' plaintive melodic gifts -- well, it's a heartbreaking album. But in a good way.

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52 GIRLS

"Lalena" / Donovan

I meant to stay away from the oldies for a bit -- but this girl muscled her way forward, and for some reason my ears can hear nothing else today.

By the time this winsome single came along in hippie-dippy 1968 -- a follow-up to "Hurdy-Gurdy Man," one of the great psychedelic mind-trips -- we all knew the Donovan lexicon. The wobbly reverby vocals, the gentle acoustic strum, the background flutes and harps. Flower child music to the Nth degree.

Yet this one had something special -- instead of being just about love and meadows and sunshine it actually had a social message. Donovan has said that he was inspired to write this song by watching Lotte Lenya playing the streetwalker Jenny in G.W. Pabst's 1931 film of The Threepenny Opera, and learning that now for the first time, I see the song slightly differently. But not all that much -- even if you didn't know that provenance, you could feel the groundswell of sympathetic sorrow in "Lalena," a cry of commiseration for all the outcasts of society.

Donovan's trembly vocals come into their own here, the gentle melisma like a caress of concern. "When the sun goes to bed / That's the time you raise your head." In 1968 I thought this was just because Lalena was a cool countercultural chick who liked to sleep in -- but now that I know the Lotte Lenya inspiration, seeing as how she's a working girl, the pity in the next lines make more sense: "That's your lot in life, Lalena / Can't blame ya, Lalena." Anybody who wants to enact legislation against this trapped and desperate misfit will have to take it up with the esteemed member from Glasgow, Mr. Leitch.

Given Donovan's Scottish accent, I wasn't one-hundred-percent sure what he was saying in the next verse. Turns out it really was nonsense syllables: "Aw Tee Toft / La Dee Da." But I picture Donovan watching this German film with subtitles, and hey, who knows what he meant to convey. And the next line is certainly an armchair critic's cry of sympathy: "Can your part get much sadder?"

In the bridge, there's a hippie-dippy possibility, like an Herbal Essence shampoo commercial : "Run your hand / Through your hair" -- but no, it's just a prostitute's attention-getting hair-fluff. While my 1968 self saw the next line -- "Paint your face with despair" -- as a reference to a French street mime single-tear make-up, now I know that it's just the heavy mascara and rouge of any lady of the night. The despair part comes free.

Oh, and that tender bridge, full of strings and woodwinds -- maybe it seemed a little weird and retro in 1968, but I'll bet the 1931 movie had put those orchestrations in Donovan's mind, and they would not be denied. Seemed odd at the time, but now it makes the song.  

I imagine Donovan, the famous folkie, sitting in his living room watching this film and being overwhelmed with emotion. A song HAD to be written. The song in fact didn't even make it onto his Hurdy Gurdy Man LP and was only released as a single, but that single hit hard on the US charts. (Contractual disputes, no UK release, but hey, it's an old story to a Kinks fan.) All I know is that in 1968, this high school kid heard the song on the radio and fell in love with it.  Forever.

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52 GIRLS

"Joey" / Jill Sobule

Now let's hear from the ladies.

I remember watching Joey Heatherton on variety shows when I was a kid. In black tights, an oversized sweater, and that short tousled blonde hair -- well, even at age 9 I knew there wasn't a chance in hell I'd ever be able to pull off that particular sex kittenish look, but man, was it appealing. Put her right up there with Ann-Margret and Connie Stevens (a.k.a. Cricket on 77 Sunset Strip) and they defined the 1960s idea of a Sexpot. An impossible standard for us little girls to live up to.

Yet for all her tomboyish charm, you knew that Joey was fragile, and more than a bit needy. Ann-Margret seemed like a tiger compared to Joey, Connie Stevens like a scrappy toy poodle. But Joey? I worried about Joey.

Turns out I wasn't the only one . . . .

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Jill Sobule is one my favorite singer-songwriters. On Jill's delicious 2004 album Underdog Victorious there are a lot of personal songs about the various zigs and zags of her own coming of age, but this one character study fits right in.  Written with co-writer Bill Demain, the sensibility is seamlessly in line with the rest of the album. I can just picture little Jill or little Bill watching Joey go-going away on The Dean Martin Show or The Hollywood Palace and developing a kidlet crush on her.

The plush tones of that opening "Joey," sung with a Joey-like breathiness -- it lays down a cushion of retro 1960s movie music sound.  But then the song breaks into a perky bossa nova -- the other side of the 60s sound -- as Jill fills in the bio. The first part of the story is all glamour and success: "Joey was the It Girl at just fifteen," "Joey got a start in the night club scene / Even though she studied ballet under Balanchine." (That next line, "She could take a swan dive if you know what I mean" is a cool little in joke, since Bill Demain is one half of the wonderful duo Swan Dive.) She's on the Rat-Pack cool Dean Martin show, she's wowing the troops in Vietnam with Bob Hope and the USO, she's marrying Dallas Cowboys star receiver Lance Rentzel. She's the golden girl, to be worshipped from afar.

It's in the bridge where Jill starts to make it personal. The melody goes higher and more legato, as she wistfully reflects, "All she ever wanted was your love and respect / Isn't that the same thing that we all want, Joey, Joey?" Yes, and that human need -- that hunger to be loved -- can sometimes lead us into dark alleys.

And the second chapter of this American life is not so golden. "I remember Joey in a mattress ad/ I guess around this time was when things got bad / When her husband got arrested she looked so sad." Those Serta commercials played up Joey's sexpot image, as she seduced you into her bed -- nod, nod, wink, wink -- with an unbearable cheesiness. And then her all-star husband turned out to be a mess, arrested in 1970 for exposing himself to a 10-year-old girl. Stuck in her 60s go-go girl image, Joey saw the acting roles dry up, the variety shows disappear, the records stalling on the charts. Is it any wonder that she began to slide into substance abuse?

I love how every verse ends with a pair of dance steps, thrusting off-beat rhythms inviting us to dance like Joey, doing the frug, the monkey, the jerk, the Watusi, the pony. I regret to say that I know how to do every single one of those dances and can demonstrate them upon request.

Now Jill/Bill enters the picture. "Yesterday in line at the A&P / I saw Joey on the back of Star magazine / They said she's using again and she still won't de[tox]." That verse hits me with such poignancy. And the capping line: "She's got the jerk, she's got the monkey." I picture a jerking addict in the throes of withdrawal, I remember the slang term for addiction "got a monkey on his back." And my heart breaks for the It Girl at the end of the line.

 "You can stay at my place if you want to, Joey," Jill/Bill shyly offers in the final chorus. Because those childhood crushes? We never get over them, one way or another.

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52 GIRLS

"Sally Was a Legend" /
Robyn Hitchcock

Okay, now we're in the alternate universe that is Robyn Hitchcock Land. Don't look for or expect a clear-cut story, or anything logical, for that matter. The meaning of a Robyn Hitchcock song always lies between the cracks.

Ah, the magnificent Jewels for Sophia album, from 1999, which also includes such RH classics as "The Cheese Alarm," "Antwoman," and "Viva! Sea-Tac" ("You've got the best computers and coffee and smack" -- really, the Seattle visitors' bureau ought to base an entire ad campaign on that song).

With a sprightly, chugging guitar riff, Robyn lets us know that "Sally was a legend / Sally was a legend in my heart / Sally was a legend" -- legends are public figures, usually, but Robyn takes this one as his own private Idaho. Note: not just "in my mind" but "in my heart" -- like I said, this is not a world where logic rules. And having set her up as some kind of goddess, he then springs to the seemingly illogical conclusion: "So we had to keep ourselves apart." Hunh?

But it does have its own logic. We're talking here about passions too unruly to be played with. "Push the dream towards me / I can see a flower in the dark." It's right within reach, but he backs away, confused. "I can understand you / I don't understand the sacred heart." He's clueless when it comes to these emotions, and he'd rather opt out. The texture of this song is anything but steamy; the perky tempo, the flat sound, the plunky metallic guitar, all work against sexiness, lust, and desire. If this is a love song, it's also a mind game.

There's no physical description of the girl, no scene-setting, no episodes to recount. All that matters is the power of Sally's force field. There's certainly a dangerous edge to her. "The truth is evil," he warns, darkly; "It's an evil truth to you-know-whom." What truth? For whom? No, I don't know, Robyn, though I'm madly guessing. But he follows this up with the sublimely illogical "I can point to Norway / I can point to Norway with my fist." (The Scandinavian countries often pop up in Robyn Hitchcock songs.) When faced with having to decode that evil truth, he'd rather head for chillier climes. 

"Sally was a legend," he reiterates, "Sure as there are veins beneath her wrist." (I wonder which rhyme came first, the fist or the wrist -- they're both arresting, that's for sure.) I see the blue pulse beneath her skin, and for some reason think about drug abuse. A dangerous girl, indeed.

Sally may be trouble, but she's also uncannily perceptive and intuitive, as he tells us in verse three: "Even with her eyes shut / She could see the faces on her lids." (Leave it to Robyn to get a little trippy and Rimbaud-like in his imagery.) "She could see my crying / That was long before I ever did." Maybe it's just a Venus-and-Mars difference, but Sally seems to be light-years ahead of this guy; that's both her attraction and her alarm.

And maybe that's why he can't get her out of his mind. "And it's been a lifetime / And with you I celebrate my life." He has to accept her enduring, unforgettable presence, even if "now she's at the table with a knife." Well, he did need a rhyme for "life," and in point of fact I myself often sit at the table with a knife. (If that's all it takes, Robyn . . . .) But somehow Sally's knife seems a whole lot more ominous than mine.

What is he going to do about this Sally? Is he in or out? We don't know; he doesn't know either. The singer lost in a maze, both tantalized by Sally and scared to death.

Which is probably why she's still a legend in his mind -- and now in mine, too.

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52 GIRLS

"Sara Smile" /
Hall & Oates

I'll admit it: I have a fangirl crush on Daryl Hall. Had one in the 80s, still have one today. One of the great things about cable TV for me is that I can watch music jams on Daryl's House on VH1 and soon will be able to watch Daryl renovating his Sherman, CT, house on his new DIY series Daryl's Restoration Over-Hall. (And to think we were renting in Sherman only a few years ago...)

So in 1976, having already been a fan of Hall & Oates ever since their folk-tinged debut LP Whole Oats, I felt very ambiguous about "Sara Smile." On the one hand, yay, it finally broke Hall & Oates through to chart success (leading to a run of hits in the 80s, as Daryl and John married their native Philly soul to the 1980s disco-and-MTV formula). But on the other hand -- was my beloved Daryl two-timing me?

Well . . . yeah.

I'm just going to have to bite the bullet on this one. It's so clear that this is a man besotted. There was a real Sara: Sara Allen, Daryl's main squeeze for many years, who co-wrote songs with him as well as being his muse. Listening to this song, I cannot deny that this was a relationship that worked.  Every beat of this song tells you that.

With the wonder of love, he describes her, in a hip-shifting tempo that goes right to the core: "Baby hair / With a woman's eyes / I can feel you watching in the night / All alone with me and we're / Waiting for the sunlight." Unh-hunh. If they're watching the sunrise, it's because they spent the night together -- having sex, of course. But what sets this song apart from so many "doing it tonight" pop songs is that they've already "done it"; that languorous tempo is all about feeling satiated and satisfied. And he's in no hurry to leave -- he's happy to lie there, drowsily, having a cuddle. Guys, I gotta tell you, this is what ladies find sexy.    

One line jumps out at me: "All alone with me" -- there's pride of possession there, and amazement that he won this particular lottery. That has to make a girl feel good. You'd think that a guy as impossibly good-looking as tall, blond Daryl Hall would be an egomaniac, but I've never gotten that impression of him. (Another thing we ladies find sexy.)   

In the chorus, he stirs himself from the caressing phrase "Sara, smile" to hop (effortlessly, of course) into his upper register, scatting happily, as the soul/gospel/jazz protocol demands. It's as if his heart is bursting with joy.

The soulful tempo is one thing; then there's the oozy chord changes, from minor to major, sevenths and tonics, never quite resolving at the ends of lines. (You do need a pitch-perfect singer like Daryl to make this song work.) It's drowsy, a little aimless, ebbing and flowing -- and intentionally so. Because this isn't a storytelling song with a beginning, middle, and end, with tension and suspense and a crisis to resolve. It's about two lovers catching a moment of glorious equipoise, simple happiness.

Oh, there's change all around them -- in the first verse, night changing into day, in the second verse Sara's restless need to go. (A little 1976 feminism, and why not? I love that he's intrigued by her independent spirit.) We're aware of changes in the offing, aware that this relaxed moment in each other's arms can't last. But that just makes it feel all the more precious.

One nice touch: In the first verse he marvels, "When I feel cold you warm me / And when I feel I can't go on, / You come and hold me." (Love how the melody rises, anxiously, on that "feel I can't go on.")  But notice how he switches pronouns in the second verse, promising now to warm her, hold her, be the supporting actor if she needs it. Maybe that's a pop sleight-of-hand; I don't know. But I love it as an acceptance of the quid-pro-quo of love.

At the end of every verse, he carves their initials in this pop-song tree: "It's you and me forever, ahh aaahhhh." Unfortunately Daryl and Sara are not still together -- except they are, eternally, in this song.

And when I listen to it, I'm happy that someone made Daryl this happy. Though seriously, D? Now that Sara's out of the picture . . . .

5 DOWN, 47 TO GO

52 GIRLS

"Hey There Delilah" /
Plain White T's

[No, not Tom Jones' "Delilah." Please.]

Let's not get stuck in the past, now. Songs are still being written about girls in the 21st century, and here's one of them, from a young band out of Chicago. I saw them play live a couple of years ago, on a fun triple bill with Panic at the Disco! and the ever-wonderful Motion City Soundtrack. I had no idea who they were, but I instantly liked their melodic, upbeat music.

Then lo and behold, the next summer this number was all over the radio. As long-distance relationship songs go, it's winning indeed:

 

Acoustic strum, a breathy tenor -- we're in sincere territory from the first note. "Hey there Delilah /  What's it like in New York City? /  I'm a thousand miles away [love the voice break on thousand] /  But girl, tonight you look so pretty / Yes you do" -- shifting down to that earnest "yes you do," he breaks up the A-B-A-B simplicity. Time to sneak in a little flattery while he's at it, too: "Times Square can't shine as bright as you / I swear it's true." There's more words than melody here, the chord shifting simply from one major key to its relative minor. I can easily imagine this as a late-night internet conversation, a little drowsy and aimless.

It's definitely a post-modern pop song, angling to sound authentic and unclichéd. No hormone-raddled teenagers here, but young adults with things on their plate, who've accepted the discipline of long-distance relationship for practical reasons. Tortured longing has to be kept at bay somehow: "Hey there Delilah / Don't you worry about the distance /  I'm right there if you get lonely / Give this song another listen / Close your eyes." Okay, that lowered voice on "close your eyes" does get a little seductive, especially followed by "Listen to my voice, it's my disguise / I'm by your side." Gives me a warm feeling, I know that.

In the chorus, though, he permits himself to crank up the emotional temperature, heading into his upper register to wail: "Oh it's what you do to me." He repeats this four more times, alternating high and low, a riding a roller coaster of frustrated yearning. That "what you do to me" is intentionally vague -- you can hear it as "what your effect is upon me" -- totally innocent, right? But I can also catch a hungry hint of her doing something more specific to him, perhaps in bed. And as he sits there at the computer screen, he seems to be looping a re-run of it over and over in his head.

Yet he collects himself for the verses, commiserating with her struggles -- "I know times are getting hard" -- and promising "Someday I'll pay the bills with this guitar."  (It's a great exercise in delayed gratification.) For the moment, all they have is "ifs" -- if she could only hear the songs he's been writing to her, he declares, she'd fall even more in love with him.

In the bridge, he wrestles with logistics: "A thousand miles seems pretty far / But they've got planes and trains and cars / I'd walk to you if I had no other way." That's the kind of extravagant offer that's been sung in so many pop songs, even he realizes it doesn't sound authentic. He pulls back, acknowledging "Our friends would all make fun of us." But damn it, this IS the way he feels, and he reaches out to make sure she's on the same page: "And we'll just laugh along because we know / That none of them have felt this way." There they are, in that cocoon of two-ness that makes them feel so special, where "the world will never ever be the same" -- okay, another cliché, which he rescues with the teasing phrase, "And you're to blame."

The last verse, the sign-off, straps back on the blinders of reality: "Hey there Delilah / You be good and don't you miss me / Two more years and you'll be done with school / And I'll be making history / Like I do." Another ironic little wink there -- even he knows that he's not really "making history." But while she's smiling at his self-deprecating joke, maybe she'll accept his heartfelt pledge, "You'll know it's all because of you. . . . This one's for you."

There really is a Delilah, it turns out: track star Delilah DiCrescenzo, who met the Ts' songwriter and lead vocalist Tom Higgenson in the summer of 2002 at the House of Blues in Chicago. They kept in touch via instant messaging after she returned to New York City, where she was at Columbia University -- but here's the kicker: Delilah already had a boyfriend, whom in fact she's still with. (Aha -- that explains the reined-in emotions of this song.) In interviews, Delilah recalls being mortified when Tom gave her an advance copy of the Plain White Ts' 2005 CD All That We Needed and she first heard "her" song. She'd had no idea Tom had such a crush on her, while she'd had this other steady boyfriend the whole time. Well, these things happen -- and at least he got a #1 single out of it.

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