A lot of great songs are discovered as covers, but we usually become so accustomed to the cover that hearing the original can be jarring. In the case of this song, I had heard the cover first and instantly fell in love with the song and, yet, once I found the original, I was blown away that I hadn't already been deep into Lee Hazelwood's work with Nancy Sinatra. I knew her stuff, and had heard his name, but didn't really know anything beyond that. But I was deeply into The Last Shadow Puppets' first album, Age of the Understatement with it's dark, retro and vaguely cinematic feel. I was hunting for anything that had that sound, from them or anyone else - a sound I've since learned has been put under the genre Baroque Pop. So I dug into the b-sides of this side project from The Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner and Miles Kane, and found a live performance of a song called "Paris Summer" featuring The Kills' Allison Mosshart.
I mean, come on. That's just awesome. The mood, the narrative, the music, the twang, all of it. The back and forth vocals was something The Last Shadow Puppets were making their thing, but here, the way it supports the story of the song, painting a vivid picture of this forbidden, adulterous affair in the city of romance is just breathtaking. And who's better than Allison Mosshart? I had to find the original of this song and I was not disappointed when I did.
Lee Hazelwood's low droning voice can be a little hard to get into, I get that. But it's precisely what I think makes his work with Nancy Sinatra so great. Their voices compliment and contrast each other at the same time. While the original doesn't have the twangy guitar of the Shadow Puppets, the orchestration is deep and dynamic in a way that made me want to dig more into Hazlewood.
This originally appeared over ppcorn.com (formerly FDRMX) back in December of 2014. At the time, I was beyond thrilled because Tanya Donelly commented on it. A week later, my dog, Kane, died and I was devastated, but this song had laid some kind of groundwork for me to deal with it. Over there it was filed under Single Review, even though it wasn't a single. Here, I place it back in it's proper place as a Perfect Song. I got to see Ms. Donelly with Belly last year in Brooklyn, and while I didn't get to hear this song live, it was still moving to finally get to hear her live, in person and at close range after all the years of wanting to.
Emotional responses to music do not depend on having any understanding of what the song is supposed to be about. In many cases it can happen even if you don’t understand the language at all and there are instrumentals that can evoke very specific feelings. Sometimes we do understand the language but the lyrics are just cryptic enough to somehow put you in a very vivid, if mysterious frame of mind. You won’t know what the original intent of the song is, but it won’t matter, and really it hardly ever does. When art manages to connect with something universal, while doing something that is likely very specific, it’s breathtaking, but when it does this and maintains a certain air of mystery that allows you to make it wholly your own, we’re in a transcendent space altogether. For me, a clear example of this is Tanya Donelly’s “Manna” off her first solo album, Lovesongs for Underdogs.
I fell in love with this song the instant I heard it, 17 years ago. It opens with a quiet whistling wind like sound that leads to a simple acoustic guitar chord progression, complete with fret noise that seems to suggests weariness. The song instantly transports me to another room and though I’m not entirely sure what is in that room, I know it’s white and there is a large open window with white lace drapes, letting the light shine through. And although the room is comfortable and providing some sort of relief, there’s a sense of sadness in it, or perhaps just melancholy. It might be grief. But tt might not be. It might just be intense love that somehow makes one weep at the sheer beauty of life. Either way, Tanya says she is “here now and I’m staying put, for reasons, my reasons” and I’m moved by her voice and presence. And she never tells us her reasons, which only helps this song become yours as you fill in your own reasons. Is this a deathbed she’s sitting next to? If so, whose? I don’t know, but it affects me in a very deep way that I cannot explain.
Once the chorus kicked in that first time I heard this song, and every time since, I was blasted with nostalgia that I could not put my finger on but also could not deny or avoid in any way. That marching snare drum and cello and the melody of Tanya’s angelic voice reminded me of something from my childhood. Over the years I’ve determined that it somehow brings to mind an artist my parents used to play when I was a kid, Demis Roussos. But try as I might, there’s no one specific song that I can say directly connects. It could be several, from “Goodbye My Love, Goodbye” to “Morir Al Lado De Mi Amor” or even his cover of Edith Piaf’s “Hymne a L’amour.” Interestingly, each one of those could also relate to “Manna” thematically, but I would not have known that from hearing them as a child.
I’ve always leaned towards thinking this song was about someone who comes to visit a dying loved one. Perhaps that’s because I took the lyric “and when I hold you like tomorrow you might die, well, that’s because you might, but I’m here now and I’m staying put for reasons my heart knows” literally. But over the years, I’ve also come to appreciate the preciousness of life to the point that I think I understand that we are always dying and now I think that’s what the song is about. And while that may be morbid, it’s also quite beautiful and touching to accept it so that you can fully love someone in the moment. What’s truly amazing to me is that while that idea comes through so clearly, there are verses about a “milky whiteness” that leave me scratching my head. Could the song be about trying to conceive a child? It’s likely this song is about something very specific in Tanya’s life, but I couldn’t care less to pry into what’s behind it because It’s now about so much more than what she might have intended that I think she succeeded, regardless. It’s a perfect song.
In 2007, Rufus Wainwright released a song that I've always thought was the most complete in capturing the post 9/11 Bush era of sadness and impending doom. It would be one more year before we entered the supposed era of hope under Obama and while that hope was real no matter how imperfect, the stage had already been set and the racist backlash against Obama and the deeper entrenchment of the far right pulling everyone with them has proven to be unstoppable. Now, 11 years after its release, and particularly this week - the push to rob transgender people of their identity, the racist lies about an impending caravan of immigrants from South America, bombs sent to prominent Democrats, the right dismissing it as a hoax, and then today a shooting at a synagogue - "Going to a Town" is even more prescient than it was in 2007.
This song has always made me cry, but the other day, driving home after reading a few bits of information about the bomber (I won't use the cutesy, catchy name based on the president's shitty motto, fuck that) and other miscellaneous chaos, and thinking about how fucked the country is and the whole world because of it, it really got to me. I've never been a patriot by any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, imagination is good word because my guiding principal - if I even have one - when it comes to countries, religion and isms in general is John Lennon's "Imagine," no matter how much of a hypocrite he was. But even though I've never really felt "America" in the way that people do, I do know that I'm deeply "American." I've benefited from it and do enjoy the lofty idea of it. Where I've always drawn the line is in any sort of allegiance or deification of it and its principals. Or any one country's for that matter, because I'm also a Trekkie. That being said, its loss is still sad and that's what this song is about.
I'll leave it at that because going on any more of a depressive rant about the state of the world would just be too damn much. Over on Saint Audio, we posted 2 (so far) Halloween playlists that touch on how we're feeling as well. It's kind of hard to shake, really. It's either completely forget about it or be consumed with feelings of helplessness. My choice for now is to, symbolically at least, go to a town where I'm more present with my family and enjoy what we have now - NOW. And if the revolution does come (and that is it what it will take, don't kid yourselves), great, but I'm not optimistic. What does that mean for the day to day when human rights and lives are at stake? I don't know that either.
A few weeks ago, I was driving to work and on the side of the road there was a guy standing next to what I guess was some kind of Buddhist monk, in full robes - in Davie fucking FL of all places. The monk was calmly holding the man by the shoulders and seemed to be trying to ease his turmoil - whatever that might have been. The man seemed a little agitated, but glad to be listening, glad to be heard, glad for some kind of connection and understanding. There were no other pedestrians, and this is not an area where this sort of thing would ever happen. There is no Buddhist monastery anywhere near there. So it was way out of left field to see this. I don't know what it means or if I was reading way more into it because of my state of mind, but either way, it stayed with me. All I know is that if there is anything positive that has come out of the severe state of fuck the world is in it has been in how ordinary humans of certain mindsets have sort of stepped up their game in terms of every day kindness - whether it's too late or not. That's the town that I'm going to, because I am sick and fucking tired of "America."
I'm just going to get to the pretty obvious and well established point: Elvis Costello is one of the greatest songwriters of all time, period. The fact that one of his greatest songs comes from his very first album in a long and ridiculously productive career is a testament to this fact. "Alison" is one of those songs that is brilliantly original and yet, somehow, stupidly obvious in how it taps into musical and emotional ideas that just seem to be part of the fabric of existence. While there have been many covers, few come even close to the original's simple perfection. In fact, most covers are pretty bad, but there's one that I think finally matches the original, and comes close to surpassing it, but first let's hear from the man himself.
This early live version trades in some of the soulful polish for, maybe, even more soulful, raw emotional edge. The droning organ in this version really amps the moodiness where this could be a small bar with nobody in it and Elvis is some nobody who just lived this moment where he saw his long lost love after years and is now just laying it all out for whoever happens to be there to listen. While Elvis can certainly mine new feelings from this or any of his songs with every performance, along comes the one cover that has blown me away, from Lydia Loveless.
I've been listening more and more to Loveless the past couple of years and I'm always moved by how plaintively empathetic her delivery is on everything she does, but here it really stands out to me. Stripped down to just guitar and vocal, this can't get anymore raw and nobody right now does raw like her. It comes across as incredibly open and honest in just the way that Elvis's best work usually does, but her very distinct and natural twang adds both sweetness and edge in a unique combination that makes this hers. Lately, when I feel like listening to this song, this is the version I pull up. Although, occasionally, I go back to back with this and the original. To think this was just a b-side for her. Then there's a Linda Ronstadt version that was a minor hit for her. But, man, it's pretty horrible.
That sax is just completely out of place and it comes across as this light FM thing you'd hear in an elevator. But worse to me is that she changes the whole tone of the song for no reason by altering the best line in the song from "I don't know if you've been loving somebody, I only know it isn't mine" to "I don't know if you were loving somebody, I only hope he wasn't mine." Is Alison the other woman to Linda's husband in this scenario? I don't know, but the rest of the lyrics don't change, so it makes no damn sense at all. Yet, as bad as that is. . .
Bono is as insufferable as his worst caricatures on this cover and I actually like U2. Had he ever even heard the song before? Bono the Butcher they should call him. Fuck. I don't care that Elvis is there with him, this is a disaster. I mean, I know I celebrate rawness and this is certainly raw and unhinged, but damn, dude, there's a limit. This goes way beyond the guy at an empty bar singing out his heartache and right into drunken ex-boyfriend doing bad, heartfelt karaoke at Alison's wedding while everyone stares in horror - you know what, fuck it, this is actually kind of brilliant now that I think of it like that. The bizarre scatting at the end is the best part. This is now my new favorite version (not really).
I have a playlist I've put together I call Zoey Sleep, that we use for the shocking purpose of getting my 4 year old daughter to sleep. It's not your typical set of lullabies, but instead features songs from Juliana Hatfield, Tanya Donelly, Bon Iver, Alison Krauss and several others. I add to it once in a while and she likes the songs I've added. But there's one that not only works best, it has a whole other impact on me: Tori Amos' "Winter.," a perfect song.
This song has taken on new meanings for me over the past 8 or so years, since the birth of our first daughter. Most nights, it works like a charm, calming Zoey down quickly which is a big deal if you know Zoey. It used to do the same for Shayera. And that calmness comes with a lot of reflection on my part as well as it gives me a few minutes of just laying with my daughter, listening to the lyrics and having images run through my mind. Every single time, there are tears. Usually they come after the girl is asleep, and I can just lay there listening to the rest of it.
I've always thought of this song as a (better) companion to Fleetwood Mac's "Landslide," complete with the father daughter relationship and the images of snow. The whole concept of growing older and somehow colder, from the daughter's perspective, and how the father is still there for her, knowing what the future will bring as she faces her teenage years, etc. Look, the song speaks for itself. It's beautiful and multilayered and it was always one of, if not my very favorite of Tori's songs. To the point that we briefly toyed with naming our first born Winter. But my moments with the girls tend to turn the song around a bit, because I imagine the conversation in it slightly different than is perhaps intended.
In my version, the father (me) and the daughters are both sort of saying parts of the lyrics to each other. "You must learn to stand up for yourself cause I can't always be around" is the guiding principal and heartbreaking truth that guides every parent that gives a shit about their kids. And maybe even more so when it's daughters facing a world that continues to be shitty to women. "When you gonna love you as much as I do?" could easily be my daughters telling me that when they were first born and I was really overwhelmed by what the love felt like from them and for them. And I hope it's not something I ever have to say to them, but then the song also goes into the complexity of what our relationship may be like as she gets older, when she says she'll always want her father near and he responds with "things change." By the time the song swells with the last verse about grey hairs, dreams on a shelf and wanting each other to be proud of the other, I'm usually laying in a puddle of tears.
I've always said the most tragic thing you can give a child is a balloon. It's really just a metaphor for mortality and never ends in happiness. It's just this ball of impending sadness. Either you watch it slowly die as it floats less each day, withering like a senile relative before your eyes in a matter of days, or it floats away before you had a chance to truly get to know it, forever a memory of happiness that really could never have been. Sure you can suck the life out of it and speak in a funny voice for a few seconds, but then you're a murderer and empty inside (yeah, just go with it). Even with all this pain, it doesn't prepare you for the realities of parenting. The dread you feel at maybe not being able to be there for them, no matter what, leads to panic when you realize you obviously can't. And then you scramble, daily, to prepare them for EVERYTHING, as if anybody possibly could. But you know full well you can't. You've lived this life and you know what it's done to you. I remember every balloon I've lost both literal and figurative. And it sucks that I can't keep my kids from losing their share as well.
So, yeah, I get a little warm in my heart when I think of Winter.
Back in the year 2000, on a typical Florida summer day, it was pouring oceans worth of water from the skies to the point that I was potentially stuck at work due to flooding. The people on the next shift couldn't come in and we clearly couldn't leave. Roads were being closed all over town and we were on the verge of going to emergency mode at work. But there were two things that made me consider risking the dangerous drive home in my Chevy Cavalier through waters that went more than half way up the door. One, fuck that job. I really hated it. But more importantly, my wife and I had plans to drive up to Orlando early the next morning to see Juliana Hatfield. So off I went and although everyone at work had some version of "see you back here in a few minutes" I somehow made it, driving by all kinds of stalled and floating(?) cars on my way home. So what I'm saying is Juliana Hatfield is important to me and it's beyond overdue for me to put her in this stupid blog.
I wish I had a more original intro to her music, but I first heard her like I guess most people my age did, when "My Sister" and "Spin the Bottle" were out. I got her album with The Juliana Hatfield Three, Become What You Are based on those songs, but back then, it quickly wound up being one of my most played albums. There was just something about it that went well beyond most of what was being pushed as "Alternative" at the time. There was something very real behind it all even if I couldn't put my finger on it. I used to read a lot of Spin and Rolling Stone back then and although I can't remember much of what I read, I do remember a lot being made of her "little girl voice" which, ok, but so what? Her songwriting and her honest delivery more than made up for any incorrectly perceived lack of vocal power or range. Also, her voice was not a gimmick although I'm sure if we broke down many artists that came after, we couldn't say the same. She wasn't in some stupid made up box where young girls in the music business were "supposed to" be.
The more I read about her, from attending the Berklee College of Music to her criticisms of popular culture and her ways of describing how socially awkward she was, the more I wanted to hear. So, little by little (because I had no Spotify or money to go all in) I bought singles, her previous solo album and with albums with her previous band, The Blake Babies. I continued to buy and love her new albums, but still, I kept coming back to Become What You Are. To this day, if I think of the 90s, this album, this artist and her particular style, her very specific sense of melody (which if I knew more about music theory I could break down, but that I know I could identify in a blind test type situation) is probably what first comes to mind for me. Even before Nirvana, Pearl Jam, grunge in general or anything else, her dynamics, her honest pop sensibility, that somehow carries a subtext of sincere real life angst no matter how cheery the song might seem to be, are what I most connected with then and now.
Over the years, because no matter how much I am actively listening to music new and old, I did sort of lose track of her work at times. But, thanks to Spotify, this has changed and in the last few weeks in particular I've been revisiting and catching up. She put out an album this year, Pussycat, which is exactly the kind of thing I expected more artists to put out this year as it is a protest of the Alt President and all his bullshit. But more than that, it's about our culture of misogyny. It's an appropriately angry and bitingly sarcastic work. I still have to live with that album some more before I can break it down but I think it's a contender and recommend it.
But also, in the past few months, I've been going back to Become What You Are a lot more. One thing that stuck out to me recently is how beautifully produced this album is and my mission now is to get this on vinyl, which is going to cost me a bit since it's somewhat rare to find but I digress. It's balanced so damn well and has that atmosphere of the room thing I love in music. Todd Phillips' drums in particular sound crisp and clean, but overall it just has a sense of space that I don't think I ever realized was there before. Not consciously, anyway. And The Three, with Dean Fischer on bass are in perfect sync. One of the tightest bands of the 90s. The album was produced by Scott Litt who is most famous for producing R.E.M.s most famous albums. So, it all makes sense. But beyond the production, the song writing is just perfection. As a student of music, both academically and as a fan, Juliana Hatfield is also one of the best song writers of our generation and criminally underrated as such. I could go on forever about songs like "Little Pieces," "President Garfield," "Dame With a Rod" or even "My Sister," which no matter how much it was played, is a brilliant song. I could dig into the rest of her catalog and find countless perfect songs. Instead I'll focus on one song, the one song I think that I related to and continue to relate to most off this album, "For The Birds."
The brief bass intro and the chords that follow, with the swinging drum beat are exactly what I think of when I think of a Hatfield song. And then she tells this simple story in the first verse of finding a baby bird laying on the street, dying, and it clearly has an effect on her. The melody of the chorus somehow uplifts with melancholy, in perfect marriage to the lyrics, "I'm trying, I'm trying, I'm trying, but I can't get away from the thought, it's dying, it's dying, it's dying, and it's something that I couldn't stop, you're lying, you're lying, you're lying, if you say it's gonna make it cause I know that it's not." The "I'm trying" is desperate but affirming because she's not giving up, but she might. It's at the edge of hope and for me it was always about taking some comfort in being a human who is still able to care enough to feel this way as method to dealing with the feeling of hopelessness. As the song builds, each verse and each chorus makes what she's trying to deal with bigger than the bird, but somehow still relevant to the fact that this bird is dying, that we all are dying and that it's all inevitable. The weight of life, the shit that humans do, is draining and that's why seeing this innocent bird dying, with no recourse, is so overwhelming in that moment. It's not an "everything's gonna be ok" song, but it's cathartic. Anyway, that's where I was at the time when I first heard this song. That's where I was for a long time and played the fuck out of this song, taking comfort in it. And I'm not sure another artist really has ever captured this in a more simple direct way that lives as metaphor and literal at the same time. Her delivery is heartfelt and authentic, too. She has clearly been there and I am glad she is able to channel it this way. This is a perfect song.
Her lyrics, her musicianship, her outspokenness make Juliana Hatfield one of the artists that I can truly credit with reinforcing my feminist tendencies in my 20s. To the point that she reinforced my humanist tendencies overall as well. And Become What You Are is only the tip of that. Her EP Please Do Not Disturb and the album Bed were also things I played heavily. That concert I went to back in 2000 was in support of her albums Beautiful Creature and the heavier, Total System Failure, both released simultaneously. I actually found one tiny write up of that show, including a couple of pictures here. Sadly, she didn't play "For The Birds." Since then she's continued to work as a solo artist and with several bands, not all of which I have heard in depth. So, Spotify here I come. Maybe she'll play Florida again soon, hopefully not during another monsoon, but I'd drive through another flood to see her.
Today I'm going to talk about a cover song that manages to bring to life both sides of the story in a way that is breathtaking to say the least, forever changing the original for me. This cover really epitomizes what this blog was meant to be about, even though I have strayed away from that many times. When Rachel Fannan's cover of The Beach Boys' "Don't Worry Baby" dropped, back in May, I heard it about 12 times in a row, each time wishing it wouldn't end. Produced by The Ravonettes Sune Rose Wagner, this version is less doo wop-y and more twangy with a lot of bottom and reverb as you'd expect from The Ravonettes, but more subdued and even airy. It's nostalgic and retro but in a way that glues it to the meaning of the lyrics and gives the song a new purpose beyond just being a retread. Basically, it's a perfect cover.
It's important to note that this cover is part of a series from Instant Records called Instant Love, where every two weeks different artists, all female, record a famous love song keeping the gender between women. In their own words: "INSTANT LOVE supports feminism, girl power, and the LGBTQ community." So, go check that out.
I can't fault the Beach Boy's original. It was always one of my favorites of theirs, though not my number one. But in comparison to this version, their sweet song comes off somewhat rushed and typical of a teenage boy who doesn't quite know how to express himself, which actually kind of makes it brilliant in it's own way (yet another reason this cover is great is that it has actually made me reevaluate and find new appreciation for the original). After all, this is really just a hot rod song about a guy worried about a drag race and how his girl calms him down. This is all well and good, but Rachel Fannan's delivery here is more focused on how her lover makes her feel and it's absorbingly believable to the point that the same words Brian Wilson sang, now sung by Rachel, somehow make the lovers completely three dimensional and the emotion is palpable. Where the Beach Boys gave us a beautiful song, Fannan is giving us a blissful soliloquy wrapped in a breathless sigh of ecstasy. Every time I hear her sing "Oh what she does to me when she makes love to me and she says 'don't worry baby'" with the hint of a smile (remembering or emulating the way she said it?), I get chills. Every single time. I can see her eyes twinkle thinking of her girl and beyond that, I think I understand why, because the way she quotes her, the obvious reverence and awe in her delivery, brings her lover to life. This is not the sort of thing I can put my finger on, but I don't have to. Just listen and feel. It's perfect.
By the way, this is the first time I've written about the same artist twice as a perfect song. In this case, both the Beach Boys (for "God Only Knows") and Rachel Fannan (with Only You for "The Pressure") have made an appearance.
I'm not sure what I could possibly say about Chuck Berry that hasn't been said better. There's always dispute about the origins of rock n roll, but only if you get into splitting hairs about very specific elements of it or just don't know what the fuck your're talking about. But if you listen closely, all the most important pieces were laid out by Berry. Musically, lyrically and culturally, you can draw a line from Chuck Berry to just about any rock artist since the 50s. As a matter fact, I'll take a step further and say you can draw that line straight to hip hop as well. He was creating his own legend from the very beginning - "Johnny B. Goode" was all about him. He used hip lingo and even made up words. Several of his songs used a talking blues structure that can arguably be considered rapping. But I won't go into anymore and instead make this about what I think is his best song and covers just about everything I think he brought to the world - "Too Much Monkey Business."
As soon as this kicks off, you get that quintessential early rock sound with the guitar, upright bass, drums and piano, all bouncing hard. Then he goes right into what I believe may be the earliest example of recorded rhyme spitting, complete with the "ahh" at the end of each line. If you're not feeling his frustration, you're not listening. Just amazing. Lyrically he's basically had it with all the bullshit, which is not only rebellious, but it's the slacker call to inaction of the grunge era and beyond. And if that wasn't enough, that first guitar solo does something that is almost imperceptible and that I somehow didn't notice until I was listening to the song one day last year. There's a sudden increase in tempo that makes this thing bubble with nervous angst in a way that the 50s wasn't ready to explore fully, but would eventually be the bread and butter of rock. Then it all comes together with the line "I don't want your botheration, get away, leave me be." Perfect.
It's amazing how even though this man was revered and actually did get a lot of credit and respect, he somehow didn't get enough recognition. And I don't even mean in the sense of how so many black artists didn't get recognized for their contributions in favor of the white artists that followed. I mean as a musician and an artist in general. It's easy to overlook what Berry did as simplistic and maybe get lost in some nostalgic fantasy about "music back then" or whatever. But the reality is that his music is timeless. It's still alive in just about everything you hear, but beyond that, listen closely to his technique, his delivery, his lyrical poetry. The man was a master, full stop. And "Too Much Monkey Business" is only one of his perfect songs.
Last night, the country demonstrated just how divided and seemingly hopeless we are. At least half the country voted against their own self interests for a guy that cares about only himself. We can continue to tell our kids that hard work, empathy, respect and acceptance are values to live up to - that these are the true path to success - but now, more than ever, the opposite has been demonstrated on a large scale. This is not about disagreements in policy or anything so quaint. My feelings on this are way too complex to put into words. At least not my own words.
This is not just one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs, but over the last 10 or so years, whenever the shit's hit the fan on a global scale, "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" is the one I always go back to. This morning on the way to work, I played it on repeat the whole way. It's both cynical and hopeful and ultimately realistic. It's prophetic and comforting in it's acceptance of disillusion with, well, everything, while at the same time suggesting, ever so slightly, that the way forward is in the small, day to day living of life (and life, only). Anyway, here are the entire lyrics and may we all find something in it to tell our kids.
It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)
by Bob Dylan
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child’s balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool’s gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words, proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying
Temptation’s page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you’d just be one more
Person crying
So don’t fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It’s alright, Ma, I’m only sighing
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don’t hate nothing at all
Except hatred
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the president of the United States
Sometimes must have to stand naked
An’ though the rules of the road have been lodged
It’s only people’s games that you got to dodge
And it’s alright, Ma, I can make it
Advertising signs they con
You into thinking you’re the one
That can do what’s never been done
That can win what’s never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand with nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks they really found you
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit
To satisfy, insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something they invest in
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platform ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God bless him
While one who sings with his tongue on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society’s pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he’s in
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it’s alright, Ma, if I can’t please him
Old lady judges watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn’t talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony
While them that defend what they cannot see
With a killer’s pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death’s honesty
Won’t fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes must get lonely
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed
Graveyards, false gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough, what else can you show me?
I've written about Rachel Fannan several times here, and this was the first of her songs I heard and instantly loved, so it's time to make it official. Only You's "The Pressure" is not only one of my favorite songs of the last several years, it's fucking perfect.
That melancholy, twangy intro, that feels almost like something out of a Spaghetti Western romance with a sad ending, sets a mood that is only strengthened by the mix of things that come up in the rest of song. You can feel the hair stand up on your arms and neck when that moment of fuzzy distortion hits taking us from that lonely desert to whatever smokey chamber of despair Rachel is screaming inside of. There are elements of 80s new wave, more 60s guitar twang, and an overwhelming sense of haze that can't be denied, since the whole thing obviously "came from the smoke rings around your hair." The strange sound effects and distortions throughout add a perfect amount of psych instability that heightens the anxiety of Rachel's impassioned anguish over unrequited love, infidelity or just the general drama of love. I'm not even that concerned with the literal lyrics, because this is all about mood and atmosphere and energy that bubbles around this amazing voice, unleashed from within your deepest whatever to surprise you with a confession of some kind that the whole world will have to deal with. Listen to this anytime, but I particularly have enjoyed this when driving alone at night. It goes well with empty highways and wandering thoughts.
You learn something new every day. Maybe. I don't know, but I sure as shit learned something today that I'm surprised I didn't know, even though I kind of knew instinctively. See, I've always loved this song and this morning I was listening to it and decided it would be my next Perfect Song installment. Maybe even as a Perfect Cover Song, because in my head I somehow remembered an Otis Redding version. But low and behold, I couldn't find that version, because it turns out it exists only in some parallel universe. But, and this is the part I learned today, the song was actually written for Otis to record and he would have if he hadn't died before doing so. The song is, of course, "To Love Somebody" by The Bee Gees.
If you listen to the original, and know anything at all about Southern Soul in general and Otis specifically, then it's easy to see how much sense it would have made for him to sing it. This song drips with that heartfelt, on your knees, naked emotional proclamation and pleading that I love about Otis and all the other Southern Soul greats of the 60s. It's obvious to me that Barry and Robin Gibb were not only fans of Otis, but that they studied him and the genre enough to produce a song that is authentically of the genre. Their version only comes off a little more glossy than I would imagine Otis would have done it, but even without the grit, the feeling is there.
And of course, the song's been covered a whole hell of a lot. There are few which, while not exactly what I imagine Otis would have done, do bring some of the elements of what might have come from him. The first one is one of the first covers of the song ever done, by James Carr. This version has the soul, for sure. You can't argue with James Carr, but nobody's Otis. It's a different thing altogether, leaning a little more to Gospel than Otis did, but there is some extra grit on his take that gets us closer, I think. And on it's own merits, it still is a good cover.
Then there's a version that somehow brings even more heartache by going smoother than the original. Nina Simone's smokey velvet tone is pretty far from the raw outpouring I falsely remember hearing from Otis on this song in my head, but it's Nina fucking Simone, god damn it and this version is something else entirely. Her voice was always capable of bringing a certain level of pain to this type of song that I'm not sure can be compared to anyone else. Her performance is understated, but the heaviness of it all is undeniable. The word unique is thrown around a lot, but Nina truly embodies a unique performer and her take on this song, while not drastically different than other versions, becomes hers simply because it's her. It truly stands on it's own.
Finally, there's Janis Joplin doing the closest thing I can imagine to what Otis might have done. It's big and unbridled and sweaty. And kind of messy. Like love. Like Soul. The thing is, it's a perfect fucking song, bottom line. But lest we think that it's impossible to fuck up a perfect song, I leave you with this. Listen at your own peril.
There are several songs I could pick off of Van Morrison's 1970 album, Moondance and label them perfect. "And It Stoned Me" or "Into the Mystic" immediately come to mind. It's a great album, period. And it would certainly be simple enough to stick to the well known title track. I've always loved that song, no matter how overplayed it might be (at least it's not "Brown Eyed Girl," though). But recently, I was completely blown away by an outtake from this album. I don't have much to say about "Moondance (Take 22)," found on the deluxe version of the album, except maybe wow. It's slower, slinkier and mostly instrumental. The band just smokes through this thing. "Moondance" is jazzy, but this is pure jazz and something else. This is perfect in a way I wasn't sure I would have ever expected. Just listen for yourself and try not to get lost in it. Perfect.
There are as many ways to describe desire as there are desires. There are also many ways to describe smoothness. When those two things merge in a song and somehow combine to make you literally feel and taste desire and silk at the same time, then something otherworldly has just occurred. One such perfect collision happens in Suzanne Vega's "Caramel."
The sense of longing in this song drips slowly and sweetly from the smooth groove of the bass line and velvety guitar. Vega's voice is a lonely call of unhealthy, forbidden desire in a sea of melted caramel, restrained only by the stickiness of the whole affair. And by the way, I wonder if it is about an affair or what exactly makes this love forbidden to her, but at the end of the day, the details don't matter. I love how this evokes a slightly Parisian cafe sound, with the accordion, but several acoustic versions also make clear that there is a bolero foundation here as well, of the kind I grew up listening to, which might explain why I respond so much to the basic melody of this.
I think these combinations of exotic sounds at the heart of it give this a deeply soulful and almost archetypal sensuality that works beyond the lyric. But then the lyrics, this story of a love - a lust - that cannot be, should not be, told in minimal detail, but still rich in flavor, adds a bittersweet sadness that elevates every individual part of the song. It's just perfect.
You could play them together. You could play them apart. You could play them in reverse order or on an endless loop, forgetting which came first. No matter what you do, these songs are perfect, but they're even better together.
Neither of these songs are on this album by Eddie Vedder.
Water can be life. It can cleanse. It can be rebirth. Salvation. But it can also be a deluge. It can be slow and agonizing death. It can destroy with sublime power in all its beauty and as our sea levels rise those are the images that haunt me. All of these elements can lead to some of the most cliched metaphors in the history of art. But sometimes, artists hit on the perfect balance. Something about drowning in sorrow or love is just a natural universal idea and these two songs not only capture that directly and indirectly, but they somehow fit nicely together, subliminally completing two sides of some vague story. Let's begin with the one I think goes better first, "Buried in Water" by Dead Man's Bones.
This beautifully haunting song knocked me completely out the first time I heard it. Recorded with The Silverlake Conservatory Children's Choir the entire album consists of love songs about ghosts. This one is no exception, apparently telling the story of a town that was flooded so other towns could live. Honestly, I've read the lyrics and it's all very vague, but that's kind of what I like about it. Because it's the atmosphere and the melody that carry this thing in a way that feels like it's buried, not just in water, but in tears. That first time I heard it, I had no idea what I was hearing but I felt the wetness in my eyes and the lump in my throat by the time the chorus came up. And that creepy whistling in the verses somehow isn't creepy at all, even though it is. These aren't the ghosts that frighten you in the night. These are the ghosts that haunt you with the weight of human melancholy and the reality of mortality. And they don't float in midair, they float on the water, like reflections of something you might one day be. It's the inevitable tragedy of death, somehow made bearable. I picked this first in order to end on a more glorious tone, so let's move on.
We go from a story of a town literally buried in water to a more personal tale of a love affair where it feels as if they are drowning in "Beneath the Brine" by The Family Crest. And in order to capture the intensity of what that love affair must have been like, the song is gloriously exhausting in such a way that you can't help but soar with it's crashing waves before collapsing at the end, soaked, spent and sobbing. I can't make up my mind if I get emotional about the actual content of the song or the shear power of the performance. The entire band is amazing, but Liam McCormick's vocals are literally breathtaking. Seriously, I've tried to sing along and it's not possible. Interestingly enough, the first time I head this, on NPR's Tiny Desk, I saw the odd collection of instruments and the young hipster-ish looking musicians and I was sure I wasn't going to like it. I figured it would be pretentious and overbearing. It's the most wrong I've ever been about anything and I was immediately happy to admit that. And another reason these two songs fit somehow? Listen to the whistling from "Buried in Water" and the cello from "Beneath the Brine" and they're like echoes of each other. This is perfection that almost feels intentional.
If I tell you a song is about paranoia, hallucinations, loss of sleep, suicidal thoughts and general anxiety, you're probably going to think it's either metal, punk or some 90s emo grunge thing. And that is probably one of the reasons this particular song sticks out to me. As we know I'm not a connoisseur of the genre, so I can't say for sure whether or not any other hip hop song has covered this ground as well (aside from Eminem who clearly owes his entire career to the existence of Geto Boys as far as I can tell). Either way, "My Mind is Playing Tricks on Me" is a perfect song unlike any other.
This is one of only a few hip hop songs I can rap along to almost the whole way through, though only when I'm alone because I have no illusions of my abilities. The whole damn thing is brilliant, but of course you can't shake Bushwick Bill's whole "This year Halloween fell on a weekend" story. And that's a big part of what makes this thing work so well is that it's these 3 stories that are told to us, not as a way of glamorizing anything, but as confessions of these horrible events that these guys went through. It's all about how their lifestyles are weighing on them mentally to the point of actual insanity and yet it doesn't shy away from or condemn the reality of the lifestyle either. It's not preachy or condescending or any of that. It just is. That's huge when you consider this came out in 1991just as "Gangsta" rap was reaching a cultural peak. Or maybe these are just sort of like scary stories one would tell around a campfire if one were a gangsta and aren't meant to be taken literally at all. I don't know which it is, but they're evocative and effective in both instances.
Look, it would be real easy to try to go into a whole thing about race and politics with this, I'm sure. But it's not gonna happen here because I'm not the guy to do it. Instead I'll tell you how great the Isaac Hayes sample is in this and how much I love the way Willie D. says "I live by the sword," pronouncing the W like it's a sworn oath. I love how these stories that are so dark and distant from my own experience are somehow so relatable because they focus on the very human aspect of the mind itself. And that relatability of other experiences, usually from the street, is kind of the point of hip hop, isn't it? See, I wound up getting a little political about it anyway. Whatever, just go sit alone in a four cornered room, stare at some candles and play this shit. God damn, homie, this song is fucking perfect.
What happens when you mix garage rock, soul, a little swinging jazz and something vaguely tropical? Yeah, I don't know either, but a close approximation might be "A Uma Gina" by Sergio Borges and Conjunto Joao Paulo, from Portugal. I first heard this about 10 years ago and every time I hear it I love it more. It's a perfect pleading song where the singer is begging this girl to go out with him, or come back, I think, but I don't speak Portuguese so I can only guess it is. Whatever he's going on about, he's passionate, that's for sure.
Early on in the song, he mentions the Loch Ness Monster and Jane Birkin, two people I don't always think of together. That alone was enough to grab my attention. But then there's that driving beat and that organ that screams swinging 60s. This is worthy of any garage. As it builds the intensity of this guy talking about Gina (!!) and how much he needs her (?) or hates her, for all I know, it's hard not to start getting psyched. This is going somewhere good, you can just feel it. The horns get louder and the beat intensifies once and then stop for a somewhat crooning bridge before the beat comes back and eventually leads to one of the craziest endings to a song I've ever heard, with horns blaring as this whacked out Portuguese dude goes into a fit of wild animal calls, out of his fucking mind with lust. GINA!!! It fades out just after that insane falsetto jungle yelling making me wish it would go on and on, but I can only imagine they take him away in a straight jacket in a bizarre version of the James Brown cape routine. I would love to hear the raw tapes of this jam, which I'm sure don't exist anywhere. This song is fucking perfect. GIIINAA!!!!
Some time in '94 or '95, I saw Clapton live. It was during the From the Cradle tour so it was all blues, which is really the only time I really listen to him. I played the hell out of that album back then. But he played one song at the show that wasn't on that album of blues classics, that I hadn't heard before and it blew me away. To this day it's one of my all time favorite songs, period, in any genre. And back then, it wasn't that easy to just look up the song and instantly play it, but I hunted it down anyway. It was "Forty Four" as played by Howlin Wolf and although there are many versions and Wolf's isn't the original, it's my favorite and the one most people really cover because it's perfect.
The combination of sick and tired that comes through in this song is palpable. It's weary, threatening, angry and ultimately painful in a way that few songs manage to balance out this well. I've used the word catharsis quite a bit lately, talking about rock in general or metal in particular, but it applies to the blues before it ever applied to anything else and this is a prime example. Howlin Wolf's version differs immensely from the first recorded version by Roosevelt Sykes, though.
It was around well before Sykes, and it's known by several different versions of the title. There's "Forty Four," "44 Blues," "The Forty Fours" and "44 Pistols." But for the most part, everything after Wolf is in line with his additions because that beat is impossible to deny. There are a lot of songs about anger but man, if there's a better one that deals in that moment when the frustration is just boiling and you aren't sure "where in the world to go" with it, I've never heard it. And back in '94 or '95, when I first heard it, that feeling sort of always lived with me, so it's no accident that this song latched on to me the way it did. Anyway, here's a more recent version by Clapton, different than the more stripped down version I first heard, but the intro is more than appropriate.
Then there's RL Burnside's ".44 Pistol" which makes it more country, more groovy and has a different beat but amps up the sick and tired in a way only RL Burnside can. There's just something about his playing and his almost moaning voice that makes you just feel beat down. The simplicity of his style is easy to dismiss but you'd be a fool to do so.
And in closing, I leave you with The Kills, because The fucking Kills, that's why. This version is stripped down and closer to the first time I heard it from Clapton but what's turned up here is the badass. Only Alison Mosshart can make it this badass and painful at the same time though. Her menace is tempered by her cool but underneath is the pain that leads to anger (and ultimately to the Dark Side). But no matter what, the song remains perfect.
I've mentioned my love of swinging French pop, particularly from the 60's. Something about it is just synonymous with a certain retro futurism that I can only imagine at the time was the sort of thing only the hipsterist of hipsters were listening to. In the US, at least. I'm sure in France it was just pop music. The thing is, I don't speak French. I understand like 3 words at this point, but still, I just love this stuff. One song in particular has inspired many a day dream where I'm in some Parisian rock club in the 60s, drinking and watching the band walk a tightrope between swinging rock n roll and somehow predicting punk rock. That song is Jacques Dutronc's "Les Cactus" and it's putain parfaite.
This is a song I discovered and fell in love with twice. The first time was maybe 10 years ago when I first heard it. I immediately loved the jerky, frazzled energy of it, the beat, the passionately yelled vocals that I didn't understand. And then, about 2 years ago, I finally got around to looking up the lyrics and finding out what it was actually about. It was something I could have done at any time, but chose not to because I was afraid it might ruin the song for me. What if the song was about something really stupid? Would I hate it? Would I lose this song I loved? Well, I took a risk and it paid off because the lyrics were so spot on in a French way, that I wound up loving the song even more. It somehow captured an entire world view, hell, reality itself, in a simple metaphor that is at once poetic and silly and makes perfect sense in this rebellious raving rocker that I'm sure influenced at least some punk rockers and beyond. This weren't at all the lyrics I imagined, they were better. Here are the English lyrics in full.
The Cactus
The entire world is a cactus
It's impossible to sit down
In life, cactus are all there is
Knowing it stings me
Ow ow ow, ouch, ow ow ow
In their hearts, there are cactus
In their wallet, there are cactus
Under their feet, there are cactus
In their vests, there are cactus
Ow ow ow, ouch ouch ouch, ow
To protect myself from their cactus
I've put out cactus, too
In my bed, I've put cactus
In my underwear, I've put cactus
Ow ow ow, ouch, ow ow ow
In their smiles, there are cactus
In their bellies, there are cactus
In their hellos, there are cactus
In their cactus, there are cactus
Ow ow ow, ouch, ow.
What more can I say about this? If there's a better way to talk about angst, it hasn't been invented. "Here we are now, entertain us"? Not even close. This is exactly it. It captures the point of view of every awkward teenager and beyond. And ultimately, it's just true, period. The whole world is a fucking cactus. And the only defense is to put cactus in your underwear. Aïe aïe aïe, ouille, aïe aïe aïe! Parfaite!
I started this thing back in 2011. I've gone through periods of not posting too often, then in 2012, decided to move it all to Tumblr. That lasted 2 years and since the return, I've sort of rededicated myself to this thing, this writing thing. I've written semi-professionally for FDRMX (now called MusicSnake), an opportunity that came up because of this thing. I've relaunched, renamed and repurposed my old comic blog into a more general blog focusing on movies, TV, books, and whatever doesn't fit here. I've guested over at Cinesthesia. I started a proper Sound Affects Facebook page, go follow it. And overall, I've tried to be more consistent because it's the only way I'll develop. A weird thing to be doing at 42, but whatever.
So this is the 100th post on this blog, counting some flashback posts that I brought over from the Tumblr years. I'm counting it. I don't really have anything more meaningful to say about it that I haven't already covered in one post or another in a more specific way. But Carlos recently posted something that hits on a lot of what I try to get into and also happens to cover some of our journeys. Check it out.
For now, here's a Spotify playlist of most of the songs I've featured as Perfect Songs and maybe a couple I didn't specifically feature as perfect, but otherwise wrote about. That's all I got for now. Come back for post 101 and beyond.
There are some other good ones on their cover album.
I remember back in the 90s, seeing and hearing Selena all the time in Miami, but didn't realize how big she really was until her death and then the fact that a movie was made nailed it. I always assumed she was just known to pockets of Hispanic communities, but maybe she was bigger than that. I was never really a fan, but there were a couple of songs that sort of wound their way into my ears. So a couple years ago, when I heard this song, I knew it sounded familiar but had to dig to find out why. Sure enough, it was Selena. But Girl in a Coma's version of "Si Una Vez" is way more to my liking. It's a perfect cover.
Taking this Tejano fuck-off ballad and amping it up in every way, they really put the anger in your face. Not that the original didn't already have some of that bite, I mean, it's in the lyrics, "If once I said I loved you, I regret it," but this version's energy is undeniable. From that western guitar intro that announces this as a final stand off and makes sure to keep us in Texas this is oozing with moody disdain for this former lover. Once that punky beat kicks in, this song takes comfort in that hate, completely dismissing that old flame as nothing but a mistake. It's infectious and hard for me to listen to less than 3 times in a row.
From the first time I heard Nina Diaz's vocals, I was mesmerized. She has an odd style and a very unique type of vibrato, some strange pronunciations, and it all comes together to make her one of my favorite singers. She can go from sweet to angry or otherwise devastatingly dramatic on dime, which makes her perfect for this song. Of course I always find her vocals interesting, so it's not just this song. But something about this particular song, maybe because it's an unexpected cover from a band named for a Smith's song, just stands out to me. It's surprising and yet makes perfect sense. It's a perfect cover.
