Some Songs Considered

“Don’t Lie to Me” – Big Star 
(Words/music: Chris Bell and Alex Chilton, available on #1 Record, Ardent 1972) 

I didn’t plan on listening to Big Star this afternoon, but it happened anyway.  I was in a parking lot with a newly open afternoon and hit play on my iPod.  The Keep an Eye on the Sky box was the last thing I had queued up, so I let it play.  What should have become a ten minute drive home became an hour and a half of errands and scenic routes.  At every stop sign and traffic light the windows went down a little lower and the stereo went up a little louder until I provided enough outtakes from the #1 Record sessions for the entire town.  I’m not entirely surprised, as good records have a knack for seizing plans and hijacking them for their own good.

So driving around on the most productive and relaxing afternoon I’ve had in ages, I marveled at the sound of these songs.  If I can occasionally ponder a song’s composition without having heard it, I need to hear a record to gather thoughts about how it sounds.  This afternoon, I marveled at the way these songs sounded.  In particular, “Don’t Lie to Me,” a song I’d often overlook on #1 Record in favor of its better known counterparts, sounded nearly flawless.  Everything sounded crisper than I remembered – the hi-hat shuffles sharply, the bass resonates with a rich tone, and the rhythm guitar is bluesy enough.  Even the lead guitar that enters during the second half of each phrase stands out from its counterpart without being obnoxiously over-mixed.  The best part came after the breakdown; after this brief moment of controlled chaos, the band snaps right back in, sounding even tighter than before.  I’ll probably always think of Alex Chilton as a songwriter first, but damn could Big Star tear through a song.  

More on Big Star: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Vicious” - Lou Reed
(Words/music: Lou Reed, available on Transformer, RCA 1972)

When we talk about Lou Reed as an innovator, whether as a solo performer or as a part of the Velvet Underground, it’s in the context of rock music.  Rightfully so, as the Velvet Underground (and Reed’s subsequent solo material) helped to make rock music more than a louder version of the blues.  By integrating different artistic strains (free jazz, performance art, etc.), the Velvet Underground helped establish rock music as its own artistic medium.  I only mention this because of word choice – it’s usually “rock” music and not “pop” music (somewhat surprising since “pop” was a word associated with Andy Warhol) associated with the band, when these genre-blending experiments influenced many different genres in addition to rock.  Moreover, the Velvet Underground crafted pop songs – granted, they stretched, chopped, and scrambled them often beyond recognition.  Still, most of the great VU songs rely heavily on elements of pop music.  Perhaps the label escaped the band because they were not popular, but the band relied on the same conventions as pop music as their starting point.

Much of Reed’s solo material went away from the pop song, but many of his early solo compositions (“Walk on the Wild Side,” “Satellite of Love,” etc) masterfully combined pop song structure with experimental twists.  “Vicious” takes the standard verse-chorus structure of the pop song and adds in two distinctively non-pop elements.  First, Reed turns the lyrical content upside down – most pop songs   have heartbreakers as villains, but Reed’s narrator has a sinister and violent relationship with the other person in the song.  It might not sound as sensational in a post-Eminem music world, but I can’t think of any murder fantasies before “Vicious.”  Reed, ever the cool presence, delivers these lines about swallowing razor blades in his deadpan vocal style, suggesting either detachment from the narrator or another level of dementia in his narrator’s violent tendencies.  Reed’s narrator goes through his screed while harmonies, cowbell, and a familiar guitar riff (I can’t place it, it might just be from listening to “Vicious” six times today) build a compellingly catchy arrangement.  Then, just like the narrator’s id shining through, that wonderful distorted guitar comes in and plays that scrambled riff (and later, a wonderfully unhinged solo).  It’s the only musical hint at his narrator’s troubled personality, yet it strangely fits in with the rest of the arrangement; it calls attention to itself, but no more than a perfectly played lead part might do under other circumstances. Both the guitar song and the lyrical content seem to play off each other, turning this otherwise normal sounding pop song into something far more interesting.

More on Lou Reed: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Join Together” - The Who
(Words/music: Pete Townshend, available on Thirty Years of Maximum R&B, MCA 1994)

“Join Together” evokes mixed feelings in me as someone who things about music.  As a song, “Join Together” doesn’t belong among the Who’s best songs yet sits right at the top of their second tier.  The mouth harp and the penny whistle near the end makes it a little goofy, but overall it’s a fine rock single propelled along by Keith Moon’s start/stop drumming.  I’m talking about the ideas that the song presents about the role of music.  “Join Together,” released as a single in 1972, was part of Pete Townshend’s Lifehouse project – a rock opera (that later became the songs on Who’s Next) about a dystopian future where music was the only refuge from a large, internet-like “grid” that all of humanity was connected to (Wikipedia probably explains it a little better).  The song suggests that music, in particular live music, serves as a uniting force.  I wholeheartedly agree with this idea; concerts provide an opportunity to leave behind the stress of our everyday lives and join a bunch of strangers for a night of music we all love.  I’m a fairly friendly guy, but I’m much more likely to strike up a conversation with a stranger at a concert than I am in the supermarket.  Even if we have similarities in both instances (“oh, you like peanut butter too?”), there seems to be a more immediate and natural connection with strangers with music as a common ground.  Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy has compared live music to religious services in a number of interviews, and undoubtedly he’s talking about the communal aspect of these shows – how a group of people can put everything else aside for an evening to “join together” with everyone else.

So I’m on board with the song’s main idea, but I’m not as quick to buy the first line in the last verse - “It’s the singer not the song / that makes the music move along.”  In the context of Townshend’s Lifehouse, the band is the essential uniting force.  However, taking “Join Together” as a mission statement makes accepting this line a bit tougher for me.  Over the last six months, I’ve been looking at individual songs and tried to figure out what makes them tick (or, at least, why I like them).  Occasionally, I slip into a tangential story, but I try to return back to the song.  Yes, I’ve talked a lot about specific performances or interpretations, and I agree that sometimes a song becomes better with the right performer behind it – it’s hard to doubt that certain people “own” certain songs, whether they wrote them or they’re covering them.  I’d also like to think that the opposite is true – that certain songs (to a degree) transcend performance.  Of course, it’s possible to butcher even the best songs, but some songs don’t need a specific performer’s gift in order to fulfill it’s potential.  Perhaps it’s just the right chords or the right melody sequence.  Maybe it’s the song’s ability to tap into something about our shared human existence.  Regardless, just as there are performers that make certain songs sound better, there are certain songs that transcend their singers.  If the singer makes the music move along, the song is the essential roadmap – and without a set of directions, the singer’s going nowhere.

More on The Who: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” – Elton John
(Words/music: Elton John and Bernie Taupin, available on Honky Chateau, Uni / MCA 1972)

“Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” was always one of my favorite Elton John songs in part because it speaks to a very specific part of my personality.  Every so often – either when I have a deadline approaching and I’m woefully behind or just when I’m overloaded in general – I shutdown and ignore the outside world.  While this might be my body’s way of telling me to stay home and get caught up, I’m rarely productive when I’m in this mood.  Instead, I lose motivation for anything – getting work done, making plans, or doing anything generally active.  These are the moments that I feel very lonely, and because I’m stressed out, my brain shuts off the logical solution; I know that I need to get off the couch, but I lack any willpower to do it.  Eventually, I snap out of it and feel better and deal with whatever caused the stress in the first place, and often it’s spurred on by some innocuous act from someone else. I’m usually too tired to accept plans, so these are usually subtle, unintended acts or correspondences.  These are the moments where I simultaneously accept that I need these solitary moments, if for no other reason than to appreciate my friends.

Both musically and lyrically, “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” focuses on the necessary details.  John holds off on the sappy strings that make some of his other ballads a little too sentimental for my taste.  Instead, he relies on piano and electric bass for most of the song (and I’m surprised I haven’t heard more of this combination), only occasionally indulging in a couple excellent guitar fills and backing harmonies (and an amazing mandolin bit that Club Rob reminded me about and I was foolish to overlook).  With this minimal arrangement, Bernie Taupin’s lyrics seem scaled back as well, consisting of a few key descriptions of the protagonist’s experiences in the city, explicit thanks to his friends, and his description of the people he sees caught in the rat race.  We often think of John as a model of excess (specifically for his lavish stage costumes later in his career), but songs like “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” show how John achieves success with the bare essentials – relying on beautifully simple songs to connect with his audience.  Also, it’s a reminder of the balance many of us struggle with – we want to work hard and be successful, and sometimes it wears us down to exhaustion.  However, without our supporting core there to help bring perspective, we’re liable to lose entire days with our heads focused down.  Just as John and Taupin took a moment to step back and appreciate simplicity, we need to take time and appreciate those who keep us sane when the rest of the world feels like it’s moving too fast.

More on Elton John: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“All the Young Dudes” – Mott the Hoople
(Words/music: David Bowie, available on All the Young Dudes, Columbia 1972)

Mott the Hoople might have made “All the Young Dudes” famous, but David Bowie inhabits every part of the song.  Bowie wrote the song and produced their album, so the similarities make sense.  Still, every single part of the song, from the majestic guitar opening through the soaring choruses, bears Bowie’s trademark.  Sonically, it reminds me of some of Bowie’s other slower paced tracks like “Five Years” or “Life on Mars.”  All three songs move at a slow, almost half-time pace, and build to big, anthemic choruses.  To his credit, Ian Hunter delivers the song as well as Bowie (he sings it live from time to time), even adding his own stamp to the song.  Specifically, I like the way Hunter kind of cheers on the “crowd” during the chorus, addressing them in a series of jubilant spoken fragments.  Even if Bowie set him up to succeed, Hunter and his band made the most of their opportunity.

I’ve loved “All the Young Dudes” for years (even before I knew who David Bowie was!), but Juno changed my relationship with the song.  (Consider this your spoiler warning if you haven’t seen it). When I hear the opening notes begin, I now immediately think of Jason Bateman’s character making a move on Juno, and the same feelings of anger immediately return.  Ironically, a movie I loved took a song I loved and made me associate it with a grown man betraying an emotionally fragile teenager’s trust.  It’s not quite what About Today meant by a “curse song,” but it’s a song that I now have a hard time divorcing from its cinematic association.  I’m not put into a melancholy, introspective moment by the song, but I’m not sure how long it will take me to have the same relationship I once had with it.  Maybe I need to focus my energy elsewhere - away from the anger associated with the scene – and focus it back toward the things that made me love the song in the first place – the soaring arrangement and Hunter’s passionate and weird vocal delivery.

More on Mott the Hoople: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm