Some Songs Considered

“Who Are You (Single Edit)” – The Who
(Words/music: Pete Townshend, available on Thirty Years of Maximum R&B, MCA 1994) 

The Who sounded fine last night at the Super Bowl – not quite revelatory yet not quite embarrassing – and provided enough overly-obvious age-related fuel for people who think that they are funny.  The band’s medley of CSI theme songs sidestepped the question I wondered going into the weekend – would Roger Daltrey still sing the “who the fuck are you” line in “Who Are You?”

In reality, I knew it wouldn’t happen; I imagine that Super Bowl producers have snipers waiting for anyone who might go off script.  I only raise this question because this is an obscenity that frequently makes its way onto the radio.  It doesn’t happen every time, but it happens regularly enough for me to stop noticing it as something out of the ordinary.  I don’t mention this because I’m offended, but rather that I’m curious.  Sure, Daltrey runs through the line quickly, but it’s not exactly a subtle obscenity either.  If nothing else, I’m fascinated by it – do radio programmers not notice it, or did someone sign off on it? In any case, I found this far more interesting than commenting on the band’s age this weekend.

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

“Across the Universe” – David Bowie
(Words/music: John Lennon & Paul McCartney, available on Young Americans, Virgin 1975) 

The Beatles’ recording of “Across the Universe,” recorded primarily on February 4, 1968, gradually unfolds itself and lets subtle layers of strings and harmonies roll out as the song progresses.  It’s appropriate, given both the song’s famous opening line and the way John Lennon described the song “flowing” into him one night in bed.  With its Sanskrit mantra mixed in, “Across the Universe” thrives on this circular interconnectivity on both the lyrical and musical level.

All this makes David Bowie’s version a little stranger.  Where Lennon’s performance flows effortlessly, Bowie’s version lags.  Anchored by a strong backbeat, the rest of the song feels like it’s moving in slow motion – the harmonies are strained and stretched out and the guitar melodies expand past their original length.  This isn’t a bad thing, either.  In fact, a straight-ahead cover from Bowie would be boring and out of character.  Instead, as it appears with the rest of the “plastic soul” Young Americans, Bowie’s universe feels slightly melted and warped and just slightly more irregular than Lennon’s perfect circle.  However, even with slightly disjointed parts, Bowie’s version reaches a moment of connectivity as well when Lennon shows up and trades off vocals at the end.  If Lennon’s original is a meditation, Bowie and Lennon’s trade off feels like resolution in the face of hardship.  With disjointed pieces and all, it’s a reminder that sometimes inner peace comes from ourselves rather than our surroundings.

More on David Bowie: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Gloria (In Excelsis Deo / Gloria (Version))” – Patti Smith
(Words/music: Patti Smith and Van Morrison, available on Horses, Arista 1975)

Someone reading about “Gloria” without ever hearing it would imagine that Patti Smith delivers the opening line to the song through clenched teeth.  Instead, one of the first recorded artifacts of the New York punk rock scene begins closer to a whisper than a scream.  Smith lets out her signature line with a measured pace and restrained tone.  It’s not as angst-ridden or sensationalist as it is a statement of the facts.  After all, she’s not denying religion – she’s just saying that it’s not her thing.

Even if this is the most famous line in her song (only rivaled by the hook in “Because the Night”), it’s not her thesis statement.  That comes late on in the verse when she goes a step further, declaring that her sins “belong to me.”  Until this point, Smith continues with the restrained tone of her first few lines until she reaches this declaration.  When she repeats the word “me,” she lingers and sneers at it, letting the note bend slightly.  This is the moment where Smith picks up, letting the swagger in her voice take over as the song crescendos head-on into Van Morrison’s “Gloria.” As the song progresses, Smith’s narrator takes the ownership of her sins as empowerment, fusing a sense of action and control with the sexual energy in Morrison’s original.   By the end of the song (and the return of that infamous first line), Smith’s persona becomes fully formed.  The measured pace of the opening gives way to Smith’s surrealist, self-empowered narrator.  Rather than take her cues from anyone else (the Divine included), Smith’s persona acts on her own accord, bending the will of others (or others’ songs) to fit her own vision.

More on Patti Smith: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“St. Elmo’s Fire” – Brian Eno
(Words/music: Brian Eno, available on Another Green World, Island 1975)

I love “St. Elmo’s Fire” because it sounds like a beautiful, other-worldly creature.   The title references a specific weather phenomenon that I’ll link to rather than trying to explain.  It kind of looks like purplish, static generated lightning coming off of a metal rod.  Brian Eno took this as a musical direction, trying to recreate this visual sensation in his song.  In an interview with Lester Bangs in Musician magazine, Eno recounted his directions to his frequent collaborator (and King Crimson guitarist) Robert Fripp

“…on ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ I had this idea and said to Fripp, ‘Do you know what a Wimshurst machine is?’ It’s a device for generating very high voltages which then leap between the two poles, and it has a certain erratic contour, and I said, ‘You have to imagine a guitar line that has that, very fast and unpredictable.’ And he played that part which to me was very Wimshurst indeed.”

Fripp’s solo accomplishes this by contrasting with the repetitive piano chords.  In a way, it’s the energized plasma that springs out of nowhere to beautifully light up the night’s sky.  However, I hear a story within the music.  “St. Elmo’s Fire,” to me, sounds like a UFO landing.  The song starts quietly and gently like a peaceful night, and the clicking percussion reminds me of crickets chirping peacefully in the distance.  The steady piano vamp sets the pace and feels like a quickening pulse, making the listener an eager “first person” observer of this strange sight.  The ship shimmers beautifully, gracefully moving to earth the same way the “oooohs” accompany Eno’s vocals.  When the ship lands (near the end of the second refrain, or right at the beginning of the third verse), another, lower sounding synth starts; this is where the doors open, revealing this strange visitor.  He opens his mouth when Fripp’s solo begins, speaking in a beautiful, completely foreign tongue.  It doesn’t match the same cadence or syntax as our language, yet it fills us with distinctly beautiful emotions.  It’s clearly outside of our comprehension, yet we’re compelled to think of it as a peaceful, beautiful welcome from this otherworldly creature.

Or maybe I’ve just had one too many cups of coffee tonight.  Regardless, if there is intelligent life out there (and I’m not sure what I believe), I hope it’s as beautiful as “St. Elmo’s Fire.”

More on Brian Eno: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Young Americans” – David Bowie
(Words/music: David Bowie, available on Young Americans, Virgin 1975)

In completely isolated circumstances – never having heard the song before nor knowing that it is a David Bowie song – “Young Americans” requires a slight leap of faith to get into it.  Knowing the song, the opening drum notes are enough to guarantee that I will do nothing but listen to this song for the next five minutes.  However, I understand how the unfamiliar might be put off by the opening; the cascading piano keys and the absurdly prominent honking saxophone makes the song sound like the type of soft-rock fare heard while shopping in a drug store.  Bowie eventually rewards the listener’s patience as slowly all of the different layers come in, starting with the moment the backing vocals enter during the first chorus. Featuring future star Luther Vandross, Bowie’s backing singers push his own vocal performance as he tries to keep up with them.  Slowly, he settles into the song and works himself up into a soulful fervor.  Maybe it’s his background singers pushing him to compete with them, perhaps Bowie gets more worked up as he goes deeper into his cynical look at life in the 70s, or maybe it’s just a superb arrangement with an excellent bridge leading into the final climax.  Regardless, Bowie turns in perhaps his finest vocal performance, especially in the last minute and a half as he sounds like a man possessed, tossing off line after line until his band stops and Bowie puts his cracking falsetto squarely into the spotlight.  Bowie’s vocal performance alone makes this an essential song, but it’s the flawless arrangement that catapults “Young Americans” into the stratosphere.   I even kind of like that damn saxophone even though it’s a little too loud for my taste.

To me, the most interesting line is the borrowed line from the opening of “A Day in the Life” in that final stretch run.  My friend Mike and I discussed it a while back and we agreed that the single line fits only because it’s the perfect length – any more and it would derail the song.  I see a few different reasons for the line (“I heard the news today, oh boy”).  First, it could be a hat tip to John Lennon, who guests on two other songs on Young Americans.  It also fits the thematic content of the song – Bowie fills his song with details of racism, economic depression, and social injustice (among other bummers) and his backing singers offer the line almost like a Greek chorus commenting on the plot.  It’s important that the backing singers and not Bowie get this line as well, letting it work as a bit of call-and-response, as the line triggers Bowie’s most impassioned segment of the song.  It also creates this sort of dialogue between Bowie’s sketch of American life in the 1970s with Lennon’s depiction of youthful boredom in 1960’s England.  Mike summarizes the conversation as “Life in England is full of tedium and repetition… Yeah, well America’s just as bad, it’s just more hedonistic.”  I’m inclined to agree with his interpretation.

More on David Bowie: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow (Single Version)” – Frank Zappa
(Words/music: Frank Zappa, available on Strictly Commercial: The Best of Frank Zappa, Rykodisc 1995)

Outside of guitar aficionados (and largely overlapping circle of jam band fans), Frank Zappa’s music garners little attention.  We know him as the guy who wrote those weird songs, or maybe as the guy who gave his kids those odd names, or perhaps as one of the loudest voices opposing censorship in popular music in the 1980s, or as a brilliantly creative mind prematurely silenced by cancer.  I’m guilty of this too, as my knowledge of his music comes filtered through the recommendations and praise of others.

One thing I do find with each listen, whether it’s of a song I already knew or something new to me, is that Zappa’s legacy should be primarily as a musical genius.  The single edit of “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow” condenses the original four song suite into three and a half minutes, and rather than sounding like a hastily stitched together recording cutting and pasting the best parts of the four individual songs, the single moves adeptly from one phrase into the next.  Yes, the song features Zappa’s goofy, half-spoken singing voice and the scatological humor implied in the title, but underneath this layer Zappa weaves a complex musical arrangement.  Zappa’s band shifts time signatures, styles, and tempos with immeasurable grace and skill; there’s little doubt that Zappa’s arrangements reflect the exact musical concept in his head, and the song turns out like the musical equivalent of a wandering mind, complete with all the sharp turns, bizarre imagery, and lightning flashes of brilliance.  Each musical choice – the soulful backup singers, the sinister guitar, or the momentary stutter in a steady drum beat – fits as well as a carefully chosen staccato phrase in a classical piece, the mode Zappa composed in before his death.  While this may be a low-cultural work lyrically, it’s a work of high creativity and complexity and a brief glimpse into the workings of a weird and brilliant mind.

(And for those of us getting blasted by the snow in the Northeast US today, hopefully Zappa’s advice isn’t a new revelation.)

More on Frank Zappa: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm