Some Songs Considered - Posts Tagged 'nirvana'

February 20, 2010

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“Love Buzz” – Shocking Blue
(Words/music: Robbie van Leeuwen, available on At Home, Pink Elephant 1969)

If I may go out on a limb to begin, most people would know Shocking Blue for their song “Venus,” a number one single in 1969 and a staple of TV commercials in recent years. Admittedly, I knew the song but not the band for the longest time. I say this because I knew song “Love Buzz” for years before I ever heard of the band. “Love Buzz” was the A-side to the first Nirvana single in 1988, the first in the Sub Pop Singles’ Club series that helped fund the label during lean years. A decade later, “Love Buzz” was among the Nirvana songs I extracted from CDs for use in mix tapes. I loved the agile bass line underneath the wall of distortion. In particular, I loved “Love Buzz” because it was one of the popier songs on Bleach (an album I never fully loved the way I loved the band’s later output). Of course, this was still “pop” run through a distortion pedal, sung with a slightly deranged vocal tone. In short, this was pop that I could co-sign at fifteen.

So at some point (one of the unsung tragedies of the digital era is that acquiring albums don’t leave imprints as much), I heard the original “Love Buzz.” I knew it was a cover, but some of the more high profile Nirvana covers (The Man Who Sold the World was the first Bowie album I owned). I knew that Kurt Cobain (born today) loved some offbeat pop songs, but “Love Buzz” still took me by surprise. Despite adding a far more aggressive guitar tone, Nirvana streamlined the song somewhat. The original version moves at a slower, deliberate pace with Mariska Veres’ deep vocals flanked by a sitar. If the Nirvana song churned along at the same pace as much of their early material, Shocking Blue’s version sounds eerier at its slower tempo. Then, there’s a double-time section where the drums, measured and restrained to this point, pound away. The whole thing, whether it’s Veres’ tone or the sitar or just all the open space, sounds slightly creepy yet still entrancing. I understand why Cobain was fascinated with a song like this.

More on Shocking Blue: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

June 13, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Lake of Fire” – The Meat Puppets
(Words/music: Curt Kirkwood, available on Meat Puppets II, SST 1984)

In many ways, Nirvana shaped my musical taste. In addition to being my first love, they introduced me to the idea that pop songs could also be “outside the box.” Nevermind was my first taste of songs that were loud and abrasive yet still melodic, but it was the Unplugged in New York performance that led me down the rabbit hole toward the stranger (and often more rewarding) pop music that wasn’t wildly popular. As with The Vaselines, I first heard of the Meat Puppets through Kurt Cobain’s interpretation of their songs. These songs (including the Bowie cover) are peculiar and a little rough around the edges, and I was a little surprised when I sought them out and found the original recordings a little stranger. Thinking about it now, it makes sense that the Unplugged performance was a little more polished due to the circumstances – a mostly acoustic, made-for-TV performance. Regardless, this was the perfect scenario for someone like me at that time – a teenager curious to learn more about music – to experience these songs. By hearing polished interpretations by an iconic performer, I heard the beauty of these songs without having to look for it buried in a recording. It also gave me a running start when exploring some of these bands later on.

The Meat Puppets’ version of “Lake of Fire” feels more like Hell than the Nirvana performance. Curt Kirkwood’s vocals sound like a tortured soul enduring an eternity’s worth of torture. In particular, I love the guitar sound in this version; it sounds like a bubbling, curdling pool of lava flowing through the song, filling every crack with its watery distortion. The whole thing sounds equal parts foreboding biblical sermon and shambolic sound collage. When put together, the song sounds a little less serious, as both the music and the narrative sound like they’re having fun rather than waiting for the Rapture. Strangely enough, the chorus implants itself right in your head, making you sound a little strange walking through the store singing about tortured souls. Still, it’s a lot more fun than I imagine hell would be (maybe?)

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

March 25, 2009

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“Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” – The Vaselines
(Words/music: Eugene Kelly and Frances McKee, available on The Way of the Vaselines: A Complete History, Sub Pop 1992)

I feel guilty starting this entry with a reference to Nirvana, but without Kurt Cobain’s repeated championing of the Vaselines, most of the world would not know them. It makes sense that Cobain would be a fan, as the Vaselines shared the same love of wry, sometimes noisy pop music that Cobain rode to fame. Throughout The Way of the Vaselines (which is being rereleased as Enter the Vaselines in May), Kelly and McKee explore some strange sounds (the bike horn on “Molly’s Lips” being one of my favorites) yet always retain a sense of song structure. It made sense that Nirvana would cover some of these songs on early singles and perform them faithfully (although, they played them a bit louder). Still, it’s “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam” from the MTV Unplugged in New York that pays the most loving homage to the band. The Unplugged performance contained a lot of off beat covers (including a mini Meat Puppets’ set with actual members of the band performing with Nirvana), but it’s the Vaselines song and Cobain’s matter-of-fact introduction that stands out as a moment of pure reverence to a song (and band) that he admired.

The Nirvana version does the original (which the Vaselines would later rename to add in the “doesn’t” from the song’s first line), especially the string melody recreated by Krist Novoselic’s accordion. The song, a parody of a children’s hymn, skillfully toes the line between poking fun at the original and standing on its own. Even without knowing the original hymn, the song stands as an ode to being imperfect. The narrator accepts his shortcomings and acknowledges that he’s not “sunbeam” material, yet he refuses pity. While the song feels a little sad, I’ve always heard the chorus as a frank acceptance of the narrators’ imperfections, preferring to be taken as is rather than pitied for being flawed. It’s the kind of song, one composed by a couple of melodically inclined outsiders, that Cobain, the quintessential outsider, would be drawn to, and it probably explains why he produces such a stirring performance.

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

February 4, 2009

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

“Lithium” – Nirvana
(Words/music: Kurt Cobain, available on Nevermind, DGC 1991)

If you really want to know, I have two “first albums” because I bought two at the same time. If given fifteen minutes and a calendar, I could probably pinpoint the exact day I bought them as well. October 1997, I was a freshman in high school and had been listening to the radio for the better part of a year. I’d make tapes off the radio, sitting with my boom box in my room with my finger ready on the red record button, ready to commit the next song to one of my Maxell 90 minute tapes (which I have shoeboxes of). I consumed radio (and MTV, and to a lesser extent VH-1) as much as I could until waiting to hear songs on the radio simply wasn’t enough. So while on the way home from a family get together and a stop at a Borders’ Books, I bought an old record and a current record. The “current” album was Oasis’ Be Here Now, a record that’s unfairly maligned even if it’s not as good as the first two, and the “old” record was Nevermind. Looking back, 1996-1997 wasn’t that far removed from the whole grunge thing, so Nirvana still received regular play on modern rock stations (hell, they still get their fair share these days), so it makes sense that I’d buy an album that had been on my radar for years (I remember where I was when Kurt Cobain died, even if I only had a casual understanding of who he was).

Today I own an embarrassing amount of music (I measure my iTunes by months now), but back then when my money came from birthdays and babysitting my neighbors, new music never came frequently enough. This, along with the obsessiveness of my teenage years, led to me living with albums for a prolonged period of time, and Nevermind is one that I did a considerable amount of living with. I probably listened to it on an average of three or four times a week for the first two years I owned it. I taught myself how to play the drums with the first half of Nevermind, and to this day I instinctively start moving my hands and feet along to certain phrases in the album (not to mention a collection of broken drum sticks from trying to play like Dave Grohl). I haven’t listened to some of these songs in ages, but I probably know them better than songs I’ve heard multiple times in the last month as they trigger something – emotional memories, muscle memory, who knows – in me when I hear them. This is probably one of the reasons I rarely listen to Nevermind anymore – it’s so loaded with personal associations of those painfully awkward years that’s it’s hard to hear the songs without my own personal context rising back up.

Listening to “Lithium” now, it strikes me as the perfect example of the “Nirvana sound.” Sure it has the soft/loud/soft dynamic that everyone points out (and yes, that the Pixies did first and probably better), but there’s so much more that makes this song work. The slinky guitar line through the verse stands out immediately as it snakes through Dave Grohl’s bright sounding ride cymbal and Krist Novoselic’s minimal yet perfect bass line. Cobain sings in a clean and (relatively) bright sounding tone (at least compared with some of the other songs on Nevermind). Then, with a quick click of the distortion pedal, Cobain’s guitar becomes a wave of distortion, Grohl starts bashing at his ride cymbal (the only way to get those deep, violent crash sounds), and Novoselic’s bass becomes instantly more melodic. Meanwhile, Cobain switches from his bleak poetry to a sea of “yeahs” – content to let his melody alone ride the cresting waves of sound without words. Some might think it’s a copout to have a lyric-less chorus, but it takes a tremendous amount of faith that the melody will keep things interesting (and it does), but it also continues with the contrast in the dynamics; the verses are subdued and somewhat morose, but when the chorus hits the mood shifts to joyous and sing-songy (almost like, uh, taking lithium as an antidepressant?). Cobain comes out of the chorus declaring his conflicted moods – he likes it, misses it, loves you, kills you, all while declaring that he’s “not going to crack.” After his suicide, it’s convenient to declare “Lithium” as a portrayal of Cobain’s own fragile mental state, but it’s really a case in excellent songwriting where the music and the words work together to tell a story and convey emotion. No wonder a teenager would latch on to this.

More on Nirvana: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

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