Alright, Smartypantses!
Which one of the following Oak Ridge Boys has the incredibly-low “Oom-bapa oom-bapa oom-bapa maow maow” voice? Make your choice, then find out if you are correct in the video below.
GOOD LUCK.
So, there’s a relatively new feature at The AV Club called HateSong, where people (often musicians, but not always) pick one song to soak in their dripping bile and contempt. The songs range from classic Christmas tunes to recent-ish hits, from hard rock to sacred cows. Many of these hate songs are usually beloved by at least some segment of the population.
I like the feature just fine. Some people give long, entertaining arguments, while others are just boringly pissy for a few paragraphs about a piece of music they don’t like.
The overall tone of the feature is (surprise, surprise) negative.
I thought it might be nice to invert the feature, and ask people to talk about a song they love that might not be popular with a lot of folks — take the hate for a song, and replace it with love, I suppose.
And so, we come to the first installment of LoveSong!
The lover:
Eli Braden is a writer, musician, and comedian living in Los Angeles, California. He is a frequent contributor to The Howard Stern Show. He has written for Jimmy Kimmel Live, Upload With Shaquille O’Neal, and Fashion Police With Joan Rivers. He frequently posts jokes to Twitter at @elibraden. His most recent album, Elevator in the Brain Hotel, is available on iTunes.
I was never a Led Zeppelin fan growing up. I was caught up in the new wave and post-new wave world of The Smiths, The Cure and Depeche Mode, and “classic rock” of any kind (other than my always-beloved Beatles) was useless dinosaur dung in my book.
That of course changed in my late teens, when I started smoking pot.
I don’t remember how or why I acquired it, but ‘Houses of the Holy’ was the first Zep album I got into – and to this day I maintain it’s their best (other than the execrable ‘D’yer Mak’er’, which despite an exceptionally clever title is my least favorite song in LZ’s catalog).
‘The Crunge’ is the oddest song on an already odd album, and it actually stands out as possibly the oddest song in Led Zeppelin’s entire oeuvre. It is, essentially, The World’s Greatest Rock Band at the height of their powers taking a psychedelic stab at writing a James Brown funk jam (and if THAT description doesn’t make you want to listen, I don’t know what will!). And – on top of it all – IT ROCKS – incomprehensible time-signature changes and all!
What else? Um, how about big, beef-n-cheesy 1970s synthesizer lead lines (totally incongruous!) courtesy of Mr. John Paul Jones? And beneath that, John Bonham and Jimmy Page sounding like they’re playing 2 completely different songs … HOW DOES IT WORK? I dunno, but I guess somehow it does!
Best of all is the ending. Echoing James Brown’s tradition of calling out mid-song when the band should go to the bridge section, Robert Plant attempts a similar trick. However, the bridge never comes, despite Plant’s pleas. Suddenly, the band seemingly falls apart, and the last thing we hear is someone (presumably a recording engineer) saying sternly “WHERE IS THAT CONFOUNDED BRIDGE??” I friggin’ love it.
FREE BIRD
If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be traveling on, now,
‘Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldn’t be the same.
‘Cause I’m as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Oh… oh… oh… oh… oh…
And the bird you cannot change.
And this bird you cannot change.
Lord knows I can’t change.
Bye, bye, baby it’s been a sweet love.
Yea, yea
Though this feeling I can’t change.
But please don’t take it so badly,
‘Cause the lord knows I’m to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldn’t be the same.
Cause I’m as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Oh… oh… oh… oh… oh…
And this bird you cannot change.
And this bird you cannot change.
Lord knows, I can’t change.
Lord help me, I can’t change.
Lord I can’t change,
Won’t you fly high free bird yea.
I’m going to start off saying I misheard these lyrics up until today. Well, it’s a little odder than that. Sometimes I’ll hear lyrics a certain way, and even when confronted with the actual lyrics, I’ll still use my lyrics. Time will pass and I will eventually forget they are my lyrics, and think they are the actual song lyrics again. I think that is the case with “Free Bird”.
I always thought a line in the song was “And this bird you cannot chain“. This post actually arose from my misunderstanding. I thought to myself, why not “cage”? I mean, you don’t chain a bird. Maybe you can chain Prometheus to a rock and have an eagle eat his liver, but you don’t chain down the eagle.
Okay, so it’s not chain. But can you really change a bird? How would you change a bird? That makes less sense than chaining a bird.
Before the events of this song, the protagonist was settled, at least in some manner, into a relationship with the girl he is addressing. But he has to go! He realizes there’s lots of places he wants to see! Did he understand this was a desire within himself from the beginning? If so, he should not have started to get into a relationship serious enough that it needs to be addressed in a song.
There’s another possibility, of course. Perhaps he was content in this relationship, and then realized something about himself he was previously unaware of. What was once okay for him was no longer okay. He thought he knew what he wanted in life, but his frame of reference shifted to reveal something deeper and more fulfilling to him. In other words, he CHANGED. The free bird who cannot be changed had changed.
So, either the narrator is a duplicitous creep who hoodwinked a perfectly-nice girl into a relationship he had no intention of honoring, or he’s a stupid liar that changed his outlook on life while at the same time insisting that he can’t be “changed”.
Is there a subtext I’m missing? Is the protagonist saying he can’t be changed by external forces, that change only arises from within? That’s possible, but I don’t know that he has that level of introspection.
Look at the first two lines of the song, for example. That’s something a self-involved teenager would say. He’s the one doing the leaving, hurting his girl in the process, and the first thing that pops into his head to say is that hey, after I ditch you, you won’t forget about me, right? What a DICK.
Why has this song made such a mark on our culture? Is it the two-guitar solo at the end? Is it the idea of America being a frontier, of a place of freedom to be/do what you want, that any song or product with the word “free” has virulent appeal?
I don’t know.
I hope that girl found someone nicer, though.
I have a hard time remembering which New Order song is which. Which is the one that goes “I used to think the day would never come / Dah dah dah dah dah dah dah the morning sun”?
How does “Bizarre Love Triangle” go?
Hmmm. Well, I know how that song “Situation” goes. Oh wait, that’s by Yaz. Yaz, you are very considerate in your song-naming conventions!
So, you see what I mean? Many of New Order’s songs have titles that are never mentioned in the song itself.
I was so sure they never used song titles in their lyrics (having heard AT LEAST 20 of their songs, how could I be wrong?!!), I challenged people on Twitter.
Shortly after my challenge, several people told me about some New Order songs with titles in the lyrics. Here are a few of them.
State Of The Nation (1986) suggested by @noiseAnnoys83
Title mentioned at 1m24s.
“I saw his face and shook my head
Can you see where we can’t be
We’re losing our blood in the sea
‘Cause it’s the state of the nation <———-
That’s holding our salvation”
Touched By The Hand Of God (1987) – suggested by @Wearentnormal
Title mentioned at 2m06s.
“And now I’m down here all alone with every feeling that I own you can’t take that away
And with every breath we take and the illusions we create will come to you someday
Will come to you someday
And I was touched by the hand of god <——–
Never knew it but I killed someone”
World In Motion (1990) suggested by @AnthonyDuffy
Title mentioned at 1m.
“Express yourself
You can’t be wrong
When something’s good
It’s never gone
Love’s got the world in motion <———
And I know what we can do”
Regret (1993) – suggested by @Wearentnormal
Title mentioned at 0m54s.
“Maybe I’ve forgotten the name and the address
Of everyone I’ve ever known
It’s nothing I regret <———–
Save it for another day
It’s the school exam and the kids have run away”
Crystal (2001) – suggested by @ChicoFC
Title mentioned at 0m57s.
“We’re like crystal <——- !!!
We break easy
I’m a poor man, if you leave me
I’m applauded, then forgotten
It was summer, now it’s autumn”
Here To Stay (2002) – suggested by @ChicoFC
Title mentioned at 2m55s.
“Like a bright light on the horizon
Shining so bright, He’ll get you flying
He’ll get you flying, He’ll get you flying
He’ll get you flying, flying, flying
We’re here to stay <———
We’re here to stay
We’re here to stay”
Please note that this is not a comprehensive list. I just finished going through four paper boxes of baseball and football cards tonight. I am not the guy to come up with a comprehensive list. I am the guy who is going to have pizza in about 20 minutes and watch some Battlestar Galactica.
By the way, @Wearentnormal says that “basically everything from Waiting for the Sirens Call” has the song title mentioned in lyrics.
Good Hunting!
I don’t know why, but I am fascinated by the dancing of Leo Sayer. First of all, I have loved the song “You Make Feel Like Dancing” for a lonnnng time. Some might not like it, and that’s fine. Hell, I’m a little tired of it at this point after viewing all the videos below.
I watched a couple videos, and was struck by the actual awkward-yet-exuberant dancing of Leo Sayer. It was jerky, odd, sweet, all of those. Anyways, that’s the reason behind this post.
Countdown, an Australian music show (1976)
This video starts out with an impressive giant “LEO” backdrop. But then Leo does this silly pantomime of bewilderedly hearing his backup singers. It deflates the grandeur of the moment. And besides, it’s not your backup singers, Leo! It’s a tape you are lip-synching to!
He starts with a little strut down a lit walkway, which is kind of nice. Then he does more pantomime. He checks his watch when he sings “quarter to 4 in the morning”. He’s checking his watch! He hugs himself when he says “hold me tight”. Pantomiming, the most ancient form of dance.
He’s pretty full into the dancing. He commits to it. You’ll find that in most of the videos, around the 2 minute mark, there’s just backup singers singing, and Leo doesn’t have anything to do BUT dance. This is when he usually pulls out the stops.
The Midnight Special (1976)
Introduced by none other than Lou Rawls! Mr. Rawls seems somewhat confused by the identity of the artist, giving the very awkward lead-in, “the one and only Leo… Sayer?”
But the music kicks in! And this time it’s live, with a large backup band! And there is a white vest involved!
Sayer is a little more reserved here during the first half, rooted to a single spot, mostly because it appears that space is limited on the stage. He does a less demonstrative checking of his watch, but his holding himself tight is a little stronger than the previous video.
Around 2 minutes in, things kick into high gear. He grabs the mic and shows it who’s boss. Leo Sayer is who the boss is! However, the dance break shortly thereafter is somewhat subdued.
The song ends with Sayer doing a mimed freeze-frame which is worth checking out. Well, I checked it out, at least. You have something better to do?
The Captain & Tennille Show
Captain & Tennille present “one of the really great musical artists of our time”.
This is a lip-synched rendition.
There are backup dancers in this, on pedestals uneven with Mr. Sayer. It’s difficult to tell, but it appears Leo Sayer is rather short, and the backup singers are rather tall. My feeling is that the pedestals were included to maybe obscure this fact? Well, either way it makes the whole thing a little more visually interesting.
The focus is predominantly on the dancers, and as a result, Leo seems to be not working as hard. Except for a seemingly improvised pop-up he briefly does on one of the dancer’s pedestals, he’s pretty sedate.
TopPop (1976)
Leo seems a little unsure of himself here. He seems to be thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?” Maybe it’s due to all those menacing phallic props pointing at him.
He’s dressed quite conservatively, in a white button-up shirt and a navy blue blazer. Perhaps this is another reason why he seems a little subdued.
He does do some pantomime — he “snaps” his fingers when he sings “snap your fingers”. He checks his watch again at 3:45am. He holds himself tight. Also, he does this weird finger flutter when he is “shaking on a string, you know”. I have no idea what the hell that’s supposed to mean.
He starts loosening up around 2 minutes, doing this kind of monkey-like, goofy drumming with his microphone. It’s inspired, in a way.
Top of the Pops (1976)
Okay, you think he’s going to be still for this one. It’s a medium close-up of him singing straight into the camera, magnificent hair backlit, accompanied by two more Leos Sayer (that’s the proper pluralization, I believe) singing to each other in profile.
But HOLD ON. 1m20s in things start getting dance-funky. There WILL be dancing.
He skips checking his watch, but holds himself tight. It’s so odd, looking at all these videos. He’s got dance tools in his toolbox, but one never knows if a tool will be utilized.
Supersonic (1977)
THIS ONE HAS BALLOONS!
They are dropped shortly after the song begins. Hey, who doesn’t love balloons? An asshole, that’s who.
He seems to be enjoying himself. He’s lip-synching, but so what. There’s a live audience, which he seems to bring some genuine happiness into his dancing.
And did I mention there are balloons?!
Music Video
Ouch. Sleeveless white t-shirt! That piece of fashion looked good on Freddie Mercury and no one else.
Now dig this… He doesn’t do the pantomime to checking his watch, but right after delivering that line, he appears to be CHEWING GUM. Is this pantomime chewing gum, or real chewing gum? I hope it’s not real.
The video stays pretty tight on him, so he doesn’t really get too crazy or animated in his dancing here.
Musica de los 70s (2004)
This is a live version, and Leo Sayer is much older. He’s not spry as his 70’s self, but he looks great and seems to be enjoying himself.
He does some pantomime that I haven’t seen before. When he says “you’ve got a cute way of talking” he talks with his hand. Shortly after, he pretends to have a dog on a leash.
Oh! He does a different finger thing for the “shaking on a string” line! He does a circular motion with his index finger. You know, if you were to insensitively gesticulate that someone was crazy in the head. But he’s not doing it to indicate someone his crazy — he’s winding or unwinding some form of string. I think.
Okay, so every time the Neil Diamond song “Sweet Caroline” is on, and Neil Diamond sings the words “Sweet Caroline”, you pretty much *have* to sing along with the horns going “BUM! BUM! BUM!” It’s a compulsion. I can’t explain it.
I was wondering how slowing down the song would affect one’s desire to sing along. Here are my findings.
(NOTE: The following are snippets of the song, not the entire song.)
Normal Speed – Completely Irresistible. Don’t bother fighting it.
26% Slower Than Normal – Mostly Irresistible. Oddly stately, regal.
42% Slower Than Normal – Still Pretty Damned Irresistible. A stoner anthem.
57% Slower Than Normal – Not Very Irresistible. I think the pain meds are kicking in.
88% Slower Than Normal – Resistibility Accomplished. That being said, this is a very nice moody piece. And the horns have the gravitas of a tragic Shakespearean death.
Thanks for listening. BUM! BUM! BUM!
So, I saw the Atlanta, GA band The Back Pockets a few months ago at The Hideout. They were the opening band. There were two other bands, their names being Bland Indie Rock and Some People Who Think Singing California Über Alles A Capella Is Amusing. It didn’t matter. I loved The Back Pockets. I had no prior knowledge of them, no expectations, and they blew me away.
I Googled them afterwards and found their blog. I also found their MySpace page, which listed tour dates. I would periodically visit it to see if they were returning to Chicago. Hey, they were coming back here on May 16th. Yes!
I didn’t recognize the bar they were playing at. It was in Logan Square. The bar had a MySpace page, but it didn’t have a proper website. I had never seen a music venue that didn’t have its own website. Hmm.
It turns out it wasn’t a bar. It was this.
It was someone’s house. I hadn’t seen a band play at a house since college. I got to the house and stared at it for a couple minutes. There was a minivan parked on the street that I recognized from the Hideout — it belonged to the Pockets, so I figured I was in the right place. A guy came out and started talking on his cellphone. I politely interrupted him after a couple minutes. I thought I remembered him being in the band. He was! He went in and got one of the people that lived at the house.
She came out and told me yes, the show was at the house, and to come back at 9pm. I went and got a burrito, took a picture of some Sidewalk Liquor, walked for a bit, had a beer, returned.
I didn’t know anyone at the house. They were tattooed and smoked a lot. I sat down in the corner of the basement and waited. For about 45 minutes. Until the show actually started.
The first band was actually a solitary woman who played some organ, but mostly played guitar. She had a pretty voice. The second band I did not dig. By this time I was sweating and overheated. The windows were covered with soundproofing and the small basement room was filled with people.
The Back Pockets were the last to play, but once they started to play, I was glad I had come. They are what I would call artsy-fartsy. They are theatrical. I am being completely complimentary when I say this. They had drawn on a whole bunch of cardboard boxes, and had arranged them around the room. Some of the bandmembers wandered through the audience during the set, sometimes crawling, sometimes dancing erotically, sometimes in costume (for one song, an eerie ostrich with glowing yellow eyes pecked at the crowd), sometimes just knocking into people.
They were brimming with creativity, and passion, and earnestness for good music. I liked them a lot. I hope they can make a living at doing this, because they deserve to.
I bought a CD of theirs after the show for $7. They had hand-painted each CD sleeve. I think mine is very pretty.
Their MySpace page has some music you can stream, but I had trouble playing it. I have uploaded a few tracks for you to hear. I hope you like them.
Support Interesting Music! Support The Back Pockets!
I was all hush-hush and stuff about why I stopped doing the Green Monkey Music Project, which in retrospect I guess was a little silly.
If you care to read why I stopped, here’s a great post about a former, wonderful community and its sad demise.
I’m *still* bummed out about it. It was a wonderful thing, and revived my interest in new music, old music, everything. It actually motivated me to purchase music, something I hadn’t done since my eldest kids were born.
There was a lot of negative press about this site after its owner/admin was busted, but I think it was a shining example of what the Internet can accomplish — feel free to argue with me, there are many valid arguments to the contrary, I know.
Whatever more I could say about it is already said more eloquently in the linked post.
We got a piano a few months ago. My sister-in-law had a friend in Oak Park who was looking to unload a piano. Our living room isn’t large, but there was room enough for an upright.
In my youth, I took piano lessons for about ten years (starting around when I was five). After my piano lessons ended I taught myself how to play guitar, had a brief stint at the drums, etc., but still played keyboards in a couple of rock bands.
Since my lessons stopped, I never have really taken the time to keep up my chops on the piano (honestly, it was hard enough for me to practice while I was taking lessons, being the lazy cad that I am). After we got our house, my folks offered to give us the piano that I had practiced on in my youth, but the cost of transporting it from Springfield up to our house discouraged us from taking it.
My sister-in-law’s friend was gracious enough to give us the piano for free, knowing that it was going to a loving home. We ended up just paying the moving costs, then paid to have it tuned and have some sticky keys fixed. The last time we visited my folks, I hauled back a large box of my old sheet music.
I really hadn’t felt posting about the piano until recently. I have recently started digging through some easier pieces that I used to play, and am slowly feeling the cobwebs fall away from my fingers a bit.
I have been practicing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sonatina in F, and these practices have been some of the most pleasurable I have ever had.
I’m so excited about playing piano now. I’m so excited about having children, and seeing if they get bitten by the music bug. Our house is echoing with music-playing, and that’s a good thing.
Thank you to my sister-in-law, thank you to her friend, thank you to Mom and Dad.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
The 3000th visitor to “I, Splotchy” was only here briefly, only stopping for 0 (zero) seconds.
Here are the details regarding their location:
Continent: Europe
Country : United Kingdom
State/Region: Slough
City: Perivale
Lat/Long: 51.5333, -0.3167
Here’s that location on Google Maps (click on the image to see something more humanly readable):
I could be wrong, but I believe Slough is the same Slough where the UK version of The Office was supposedly set. Another useless fact from me (someone who has zero concept of geography in England), you’ll see “Hammersmith” near the bottom of the map, which is referenced in a song lyric I posted here.
The thing I found most interesting was where the user was hitting my site from:
A Head Full Of Wishes is a fansite for the bands Galaxie 500, Luna and their offshoots. It’s run by a very nice guy in the UK, Andy Aldrige. Andy (or someone at his site) apparently found my description of a Luna show I saw in St. Louis. They posted a link to this posting of mine, and a few people have clicked through it to see what I have to say about Luna.
The strange thing is, that it was this very same website through which I first made an attempt to interact with people over the Internet whom I did not already know. In the mid-90’s, I signed up for Andy’s Galaxie 500 mailing list, and carried on the geeky kind of conversations one does when obsessed with a subject.
Tonight, I did a bit of research, and was able to dig up messages from me in the alt.music.galaxie-500 newsgroup from 1997, ten(!) years ago.
Some really positive things happened as a result of reaching out to these people. I was able to share in something that I cared about with others — and it so happened that many of these people were pretty damned wonderful.
Andy was gracious, funny, and a fan I would imagine any band would kill for. He worked it out with Luna that he issued a vinyl single for the band, with money out of his own pocket. I think I bought 6 or 7 copies out of the 1000 copies he made, just to give him the support he richly deserved.
Andy’s “Dear Paulina” single:
I don’t doubt that if my wife and I made it out to London that Andy would play the gracious host. I could just sense his goodness and decency from reading his thoughts and observations, and reactions to my own observations.
Through Andy’s Galaxie 500 list, I also met the drummer for Wild Carnation, the band of Brenda Sauter (ex-bass player for The Feelies). He was also a really sweet, good-hearted person. My wife and I went to New York City for the first time in the late 90’s, and he and his wife met us and gave us a whirlwind tour of the city. They took us out to eat at a favorite Mexican restaurant of theirs in Greenwich Village. I still can’t get over how it’s possible to make a connection with people through webpages and email. It’s pretty amazing. Humbling, even.
I sort of lost interest in Luna late in their career, and eventually unsubscribed from Andy’s list, but I still remember the people I met there. It’s so odd that now I am meeting a whole host of new people, whom I’m never met, but on occasion there is still some sort of profound connection when sharing my thoughts with them, and reading the thoughts they share with me.
And now it seems to have come full circle.
Crazy.