Some Songs Considered

“Billie Jean” – Michael Jackson
(Words/music: Michael Jackson, available on Thriller, Epic 1982 / “Billie Jean” Single, Epic 1983)

The “Billie Jean” single came out about a month before I was born (and Thriller about a month before that).  A few months later at the Motown 25th Anniversary Special, Jackson effortlessly unleashed his signature Moonwalk during a performance of the song.  As I entered this world, Michael Jackson seized control of popular culture.  He remains the biggest pop star of my lifetime, for both the positive and negative reasons.   I say “pop star” because I only thought of him as a musician later on.  For most of my youth, I knew Jackson through his videos – ones that seemed more like mini-musicals or really short movies to a young kid.  These powerful visuals (and let’s be honest, Jackson’s shifting visage) only made Jackson seem more supernatural – more like an otherworldly character in these films rather than a real person. 

Maybe it was the larger-than-life presence behind the songs, but many of Jackson’s singles had this otherworldly feeling to them.  “Billie Jean” in particular still sounds eerie – not in the same prosthetic-creepiness of the “Thriller” video, but from all of the odd sounds in the recording.  The synthesizer hums at an eerie pitch (in the unconventional key of F# minor) while multi-tracked vocals echo in alternating speakers.  These oddities come out under this close scrutiny, yet from far away “Billie Jean” rides a flawless groove and near-perfect melody.  It’s this combination of perfect pop and tortured psyche that Jackson bounced between during my lifetime – often treading too deep in either glossiness or the grotesque – that made him compelling.  Let’s face it – at his highest moments as well as his lowest, it always felt like he was from some completely different realm. 

(Also, I don’t usually do this, but if you’re interested in some of the more interesting trivia regarding “Billie Jean,” such as Jackson recording his backing vocals through a cardboard tube or Quincy Jones’ aversion to including it on Thriller, the Wikipedia entry on the song is a great read)

More on Michael Jackson: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Precious” – The Jam
(Words/music: Paul Weller, available on The Gift, Polydor 1982) 

By the end of the Jam’s run as a band, Paul Weller expanded his songwriting chops past the mod-punk of their first few albums.  “Precious” is neither the best nor the most progressive of the Jam’s late period singles, but it’s perhaps the most immediately startling.  The wah-wah drenched guitar dominates the early part of the track, and its slight delay seems strange from a band that usually draws on crispness and rhythmic intensity.  Instead, “Precious” creates a funky haze using repetition to an almost trance-like effect.  If other singles felt like they were moving quickly, this one feels like it’s settling in to a comfortable groove.

That being said, “Precious” isn’t an amorphous fog of guitar effects.  Instead, it builds on top of the funky guitar with layers of defined rhythm.  The fast hi-hats and snare on the fourth beat foil the seemingly free-floating guitar line and anchor it to the song’s pulse.  However, the most rhythmically sound elements come from unlikely sources – the horn section and the vocals.  The horns hit with the clipped precision of a big band by adding rhythmically interesting figures.  Rather than provide harmony or melody, the horn section changes up the pace with a clearly defined line on top of the hazier guitars.  Weller takes a cue from these horns by marrying his vocals to the beat as well.  He gives his lyrics the same sort of clipped turns in phrasing that the horn players give their notes, and while the melody is nothing to dismiss, my ears key in on how Weller sings it rather than what notes he sings. 

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

“Soldier of Love” – Marshall Crenshaw
(Words/music: Buzz Cason and Tony Moon, available on Marshall Crenshaw, Rhino / Warner Brothers 1982) 

There isn’t too much going on in “Soldier of Love,” but Marshall Crenshaw maximizes every last bit of it.  It helps that he begins with strong source material.  Originally recorded by soul singer Arthur Alexander and later covered by the Beatles during a session at the BBC, Crenshaw’s treatment builds on the Beatles’ version, adding a little more edge to the guitar’s tone and moving the tempo up a couple clicks.  Still, it retains the same elements that make all of these versions work – a strong lead vocal with some even stronger harmonies underneath it.

My favorite part of the song’s composition comes in the way that Cason and Moon frontloaded it.  The song’s best line – both lyrically and melodically – comes in immediately.  Where many songs build up to a hook, “Soldier of Love” starts with it and uses it numerous times throughout the song.  It works especially well because the whole song, hook included, stays simple.  Rather than flutter all over one’s vocal register, “Solder of Love” stays in that golden zone that gives the singer the best opportunity to make it sound great.  The best part with a song like “Soldier of Love” is that it doesn’t need a diva-like performance.  In fact, aside from the very ending, over-singing would be counterproductive.  Instead, smart performers like Crenshaw let the song turn in a star performance, transferring the spotlight naturally rather than seizing it dramatically. 

More on Marshall Crenshaw: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Save it For Later” – The (English) Beat
(Words/music: The Beat, available on Special Beat Service, IRS 1982)

Too often, the phrase “less is more” comes across as a euphemism for being incomplete when the author intends it as a complement.  It’s the kind of oxymoron that make stand-up comedians seem brilliant.  Instead, if someone is to defend against embellishment (or against a more ornate object), it makes more sense to praise the “less” for efficiency (where “more” is unnecessary since the minimum pieces accomplish the task) or for potency (meaning that adding “more” would dilute the mixture).  Of course, efficiency and potency aren’t as tidy as that cliché, so too many of us are trained to look at something bare bones, praise it for being unfinished, and exacerbate my pet peeve.

Anyway, I digress; the reason I bring up this phrase is that some might be tempted to apply it to “Save It for Later.”  However, rather than feel incomplete, “Save It For Later” works well because of it’s efficiency and potency.  Built around a single I-V-IV chord progression (which, if I’m hearing Dave Wakeling correctly, is played with a specific open tuning), “Save It For Later” makes the most of these three chords, whether strummed, arpeggiated, or augmented by strings.  The persistent riff gives the rest of the song room to embellish, sometimes with horns, sometimes with a drum lick, and sometimes with a variation on the guitar figure.  Wakeling understands the power of his chord progression and milks every last bit out of these three chords, using repetition of both lyrics and melody to achieve his purpose.  In this sense, he doesn’t waste a single word or note; instead, he wrings out a variety of chording styles out of his progression and repeats phrases (sometimes sticking on a word or two for a few seconds) rather than invent something new (even twisting phrases to get double meanings out of a few lines).  It’s not that he’s working with the minimal pieces – rather, he knows how to maximize the ones he selects.

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

“Suburban Home” – The Descendents
(Words/music: Tommy Lombardo, available on Milo Goes to College, SST 1982)

For me, the key line in the Descendents’ “Suburban Home” is the one where  Milo Aukerman sings “I wanna be masochistic.”  It’s too self-aware to suggest that “Suburban Home” is anything but tongue-in-cheek for anyone who doesn’t pick up the sarcasm from the opening “I wanna be stereotyped / I wanna be classified” line.  Ultimately, this is the suburban dilemma – assimilate into the white picket fence lifestyle or resist and stand out from your neighbors.  On an oversimplified level, it’s comfort versus individuality, and this struggle is the one that the Descendents thrash against.

Subtlety isn’t one of the Descendents’ strong points, but “Suburban Home” stomps for most of its 1:43 seconds.  The opening and closing spoken word reciting of the opening couplet helps to reinforce the song’s main point – the assimilation that suburbia thrusts upon many – and in the middle turns it into one big slamdance.  Ironically, the Descendents did anything but fade into suburbia; vocalist Milo Aukerman earned a PhD in biochemistry in between stints fronting the band.  While punk rock (in some ways) fell into blandness in the early part of this decade, the Descendents’ thrash went against the grain in 1982.

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

“Gypsy” – Fleetwood Mac
(Words/music: Stevie Nicks, available on Mirage, Reprise 1982)

At some point, whether it was when they covered “Dreams” on their live album or in a review somewhere, I started thinking about the similarities between the New Pornographers and Fleetwood Mac.  Aside from the obvious touchstone – both groups feature both male and female vocalists – these two groups represent a rock band as a collective.  Both groups combined singers and songwriters with distinctive styles coming together as a pro-pop coalition.  Their eccentricities – whether Lindsey Buckingham’s distinctive fingerpicking or Dan Bejar’s off-kilter narrative perspective – slot in right next to their knack for melody and their often expansive stage presences.  It’s also a mutually complementary association to me.  While Fleetwood Mac wrote some schlocky singles, they composed some modern classics as well.  Similarly, mentioning them in the same breath as the New Pornographers might encourage some to go deeper into their catalog (Rumors and Tusk to start, if you ask me) while serving as a coronation for the NPs as the new pop torchbearers.

“Gypsy,” a rare bright spot in the band’s diminishing 1980s work, only solidified my connection.  It might not have the same energy or edge as something like “All for Swinging You Around,” but it contains the same sort of melodic density as those songs by tying together several different melodic strands simultaneously.  The harmonies – both in the vocals and the strings – shine like a shimmering reflecting curtain behind Stevie Nicks.  On “Gypsy,” Nicks sings with just enough emphasis and vibrato to seize the spotlight without overpowering the rest of the song.  Ironically, Nicks sounds a lot like Neko Case (or, perhaps, Neko Case’s best vocal performances with the New Pornographers remind me of this specific Nicks vocal performance).  While Case’s solo material often treads in darker, more nuanced waters, her vocals with the New Pornographers give her a chance to use the brightest, most powerful parts of her voice.  Finally, it’s the new wrinkles tossed in at the end, whether it’s the glockenspiel doubling the melody or Buckingham’s spirited guitar line, that make the song so compelling to me.  “Gypsy” ends up in the same category as my favorite New Pornographers’ songs: tracks that I have to resist the urge to press “repeat” on when I hear them.

More on Fleetwood Mac: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“I Melt With You” – Modern English
(Words/music: Modern English, available on After the Snow, 4AD 1982)

In my junior year of high school, I had to write a Shakespearian sonnet.  The assignment required us to hit all of the key points – rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter, theme of love, etc.  I only remember the assignment because I insisted on trying to work in the line “I’ll stop the world and melt with you” into my poem.  For whatever reason (but probably because I have this way of making things more difficult for myself), I became mildly obsessed with having this line in my sonnet even though it was two syllables short for iambic pentameter.  I don’t remember why this was necessary to me or how I accomplished it, but I remember working it in.  I’d like to think that somehow, in the back of my mind or wherever we silently work these things out before sending them off to our brain to process, that I insisted on using it because it encapsulated the kind of love I wanted and not just to have a song quote in my poem.

Even if I jokingly take issue with the titular line (if one stopped time –stopping the world from spinning – wouldn’t that prevent melting?), it nails the sentiment of enduring love.  It goes beyond attraction and lust into the period where love becomes wanting to share time together.  That’s not to say these things don’t exist in long relationships, but they fall into a different context.  Rather, after a while, lust isn’t enough and needs something else.  For me, it’s this idea that someone else’s presence in my life could make me happy, whether it’s as small as a text message, as elaborate as a trip together, or anywhere in between.  Love isn’t boring, but rather makes the common moments uncommonly special, and that’s what I hear in this song.  It’s a sentiment worth glorifying in a sonnet or, in this case, a lovely synth-pop song.

More on Modern English: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“More Than This” – Roxy Music
(Words/music: Bryan Ferry, available on Avalon, Virgin Records 1982)

“More Than This” will always remind me of the karaoke scene from Lost in Translation.  At the end of the sequence, a subdued, slightly uncomfortable Bill Murray sings the song in a mix of deadpan and exhaustion.  Coming from his character, Murray makes the song sound reluctant, in particular when he delivers the chorus while looking at Scarlett Johansson.  In the context of the movie, “More Than This” underscores the fleeting nature of their connection – a pair of lonely insomniacs who met halfway across the world and grow close enough only to make their separation uncomfortable.  Even in his overtly fatigued voice, Murray’s character recognizes his situation yet falls short of embracing the uncertainty.

Buoyed by beautifully shimmering synthesizers, Bryan Ferry sings “More Than This” sweetly, contrasting with the acceptance of nothingness.  It creates a sense of cognitive dissonance – a beautifully sung and arranged song that laments the impermanent nature of the human existence.  The common interpretation (at least that I’ve come across) reads “More Than This” as a sort of “live in the moment” song, but lyrically it seems more focused on endings and nothingness than opportunity.  This makes me think that its Ferry’s vocal performance (and the arrangement) that turn the song from nothingness to carpe diem.    It raises a couple questions.  First, can the meaning of the song bend based on the performance.  This seems obvious with sarcasm and irony factored in, and even with “stripped down” arrangements that often make a sad song seem a little darker, but can a song shift significantly just from a single vocal performance?  If so, doesn’t that render the music (and/or personality) more important than the words in a “it’s not what you say but how it’s said” sense?  I’m even willing to suspend this thought for the sake of covers and re-interpretations; however, in a case like this where Ferry sings his words differently than they’re read off the page, I’m torn by it.  Ferry knows the motivation behind the song better than anyone else, so I’m inclined to think that his bittersweet interpretation brings out a silver lining I can’t see in the lyrics alone.

More on Roxy Music: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Somebody’s Baby” - Jackson Browne
(Words/music: Jackson Browne, available on Fast Times at Ridgemont High OST, Elektra 1982)

My dog Jack is named after Jackson Browne, somewhat in jest.  While brainstorming names for him, “Jackson” was suggested with the stipulation that his full name would be Jackson and he would colloquially be Jack.  I, of course, remarked that it was just like Jackson Browne, one of the more underrated songwriters of his era.  It stuck and three years later, Jackson is stealing my socks like there’s no tomorrow.

But back to that point about Jackson Browne being overlooked – he’s had a reasonable amount of commercial success and plenty of critical acclaim, but he doesn’t seem to be cannonized the same way as many of his peers.  It’s a shame because Browne’s written some of the finest songs of his era in a number of different styles.  He wrote one of my favorite classic rock radio ballads (“The Load Out”), Nico’s signature song (“These Days”), and even co-wrote my favorite (read: one of the few I enjoy) Eagles songs (“Take it Easy”).  In addition to many of his witty folk songs, Browne also composed “Somebody’s Baby,” one of my favorite pop songs.  The arrangement flows flawlessly from one part of the song into the next; while some songs load up the chorus and settle for verses that seem like afterthoughts, Browne interlaces the hook throughout the whole song.  Every bit of the song – the keyboard at the beginning, the tiny fills between lines, and the way Browne tosses off the details about this dream girl almost effortlessly – gets embedded in my brain for hours.  Like the best pop arrangements of the 60s, every note is necessary and useful and works toward the common goal.  It’s perhaps even a little too slick – without one single flawless line, it’s hard for the song to have a “calling card” - that one moment that makes it timeless.  Instead, it has to settle for being that song that you’ll hum for the rest of the night.  It’s this sort of understated genius that makes Browne a compelling musician and songwriter, even if you’ll rarely find yourself itching to put on one of his records.

More on Jackson Browne: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Let’s Make This Precious (BBC Version)” – Dexys Midnight Runners
(Words/music: Jim Patterson and Kevin Rowland, available on Let’s Make this Precious, EMI 2003 – originally on Too-Rye-Ay, Mercury 1982)

I don’t know if it’s a byproduct of listening to so much music, or from growing older, or just a high personal standard, but I find it a very rare occurrence when a song immediately grabs my attention and keeps me transfixed on it for its entire length.  This happened on multiple occasions when I first got the Let’s Make this Precious compilation a few years ago.

Yes, I was as skeptical as you might be right now – I knew Dexys (which, I’m told doesn’t have an apostrophe – can anyone verify this?) from “Come on Eileen” – a song that was a hit when I was a baby.  It was that really catchy song with the video where they all wore overall and looked like they hadn’t showered in days.  

I was not prepared for what I heard.  Sure, there were fiddles and banjos and celtic folk songs (“Because of You” comes highly recommended for that), but there’s also horns and organ and, god forbid, touches of soul music.  Each of the singles on the collection unveiled a new wrinkle – some are midtempo, 60s soul inspired pop songs, some sound like folk songs run through a Memphis soul section, and others came across like Van Morrison with the horns turned up louder.  Still, even with all the genre hopping, these sounds sound fresh and exciting rather than like parody or weak genre experiments; it gives the impression that Kevin Rowland and company listened to and loved a wide variety of music and took inspiration from all of these different sources.

“Let’s Make This Precious” captures all of these elements. The tempo pushes just enough that the song feels lively without feeling urgent, the horns punctuate the melody perfectly without overtaking the arrangement, and Rowland’s vocals are soulful enough to do the song justice and rough and quirky enough to keep it from sounding like he’s imitating his soul idols.  Sure, my brain melts just a little bit at the thought of a verifiable soul singer with these songs (perhaps yesterday’s subject Jackie Wilson – referenced in the Van Morrison song Dexys covers on this same album), but Rowland’s Engligh affectations are his trademark.  When he stops singing in the bridge and speaks the last few lines, declaring “that if it’s pure, I’ll feel it from here,” he brings as much charm and character to “Let’s Make it Precious” as Wilson did on “Higher and Higher.”  Still, to this day, I can’t skip a Dexys song when it comes up on shuffle.

More on Dexys Midnight Runners: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm