Some Songs Considered

“The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” – The Magnetic Fields 
(Words/music: Stephin Meritt, available on 69 Love Songs, Merge Records 1999) 

Music Diary Project – Wednesday 4/6 and Thursday 4/7 (Context Here) 

I haven’t had a chance to update this since Tuesday night (and probably won’t again until Sunday). Here’s what I best remember.

“Perfect Way” – Scritti Politti, “Secret” – O.M.D., and “The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” – Magnetic Fields

I have XM in my car, and I find that while I really enjoy the service, I seem to listen in shifts. I’ll listen to a couple stations for a while and then will go weeks without listening to them. Right now, I’ve been listening to a lot of the talk shows on the MLB baseball channel. Combined with a short commute to work and not a lot of errands to run this week, I haven’t listened to a lot of music in the car. Most notably, I heard the Scritti Politti and O.M.D. songs on their “First Wave” channel (one of my favorite things to flip to during a commercial break on the talk stations). I heard the Magnetic Fields song on their “college radio” station (“Sirius XMU”) on Wednesday afternoon just before their “old school” show. For two hours on Wednesday afternoons, they play what they dub “vintage indie rock,” and when I can I make a point to listen, if for no other reason than it reminds me of a lot of the stuff I used to play on my college radio show. 

“The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” is indicative of my relationship with 69 Love Songs as a whole. I’ve largely approached Meritt’s three disc work in pieces, and each time I listen to a different chunk, I appreciate a new song. It had been a while since I heard “The Luckiest Guy…” and I forgot that Stephin Merritt didn’t sing it (Dudley Klute sings it, as with about half a dozen others of the sixty nine). So Klute’s smoother voice kind of took me for a loop, particularly the way he glides toward some of the higher notes (like the way he sings “astronomer”). It’s especially strange because I seem to be comparing it to a version of the song that doesn’t exist (I don’t think I’ve ever heard Meritt sing it live), and I can’t think of another time I’ve done this (maybe with a version I wish  it sounded like, but not one I errantly remembered hearing). Anyway, this might be an interesting idea to explore another time. (Related: my favorite song on 69 Love Songs)

Smoke Ring for My Halo – Kurt Vile, Side A of Wide Awake in America EP – U2, Record 1, Sides A and B of The Blueprint – Jay-Z 

The other afternoon, I treated myself to a couple games of NBA2k11 while listening to records. I stared with Kurt Vile’s new album after picking it up a couple weeks ago and never getting around to it. I grew to like it more as the album went along, and what began as being unimpressed grew into a respect for some of the understated qualities of his songs. I’m going to want to listen to this record a few more times, particularly the stretch in the middle that bridged the album’s two sides. 

At the end of Vile’s album, I dug into one of my crates of records I hadn’t explored in a while. I have a bunch of bins of records in my living room (my roommate graciously puts up with what amounts to a disproportionate number of records taking up space) and found this EP from U2’s The Unforgettable Fire era. Side B is two outtakes from the record (which I wasn’t in the mood to hear), but side A features two excellent live performances of “Bad” and “A Sort of Homecoming.” The former is one of my favorite U2 songs (particularly for this version, which is excellently recorded) and the latter I always end up enjoying a lot more than I remembered.

I honestly forgot that I bought The Blueprint on LP, and that was the driving force behind listening to it. I got through the first half of the album (split over four sides) before I had to stop listening. 

The last thing I remember listening to was this cover of “Bizarre Love Triangle” by Sarah Records band Even As We Speak. It was yet another reminder that I should probably look into more of these late ‘80s/ early ‘90s indie pop bands. Any specific bands/records as starting points?

That’s it for now. I’ll try to keep track of the next couple days for a Sunday afternoon/night update.

What have you been listening to?

“MLK” – U2 
(Words: Bono, Music: U2, available on The Unforgettable Fire, Island Records 1984) 

“Pride (In the Name of Love)” salutes Martin Luther King, Jr. with one of U2’s biggest anthems.  Sure enough, in the ten minutes I was in the car today I caught the end of it on the radio.  Tucked away at the end of the same album sits “MLK,” a more somber and subdued tribute to the same man.  While “Pride” uses Dr. King’s life as a rallying cry, “MLK” meditates on his spirit.  Aside from the title and an overt allusion to his “dream,” “MLK” could be a generic plea for peace in a troubling time.  Of course, the spirit of Dr. King’s legacy (and the same one Bono wants to mobilize around in “Pride”) calls for the continued struggle to bring peace to those who need it; “MLK” reflects the opposite side of the struggle – those trying to find the strength to endure rather than to liberate.

“MLK” sonically foils “Pride” as well.  Where “Pride” rides a soaring chorus and The Edge’s guitar (and foreshadows the formula that would make them mega-stars on the next album), “MLK” bears Brian Eno’s influence.  Bono sings over a droning synthesizer that hums gently and warmly, leading from one chord to the next.  The synth is primarily atmospheric, serving as a backdrop for Bono’s echoed vocals (the 2009 remastered version brings out this echo in the left channel particularly well).  On the final note (“me” in the lyrics), Bono’s voice and the synthesizer resolve the chord, giving the song the harmonic peace that it lyrically desires.   It’s little more than a sketch of a song (most often used as an introduction for some of U2’s requiems (“Unforgettable Fire” and “One Tree Hill” primarily) but ironically never for “Pride”), but it’s a lovely piece to end The Unforgettable Fire.

More on U2: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Running to Stand Still” – U2 
(Words: Bono, Music: U2, available on The Joshua Tree, Island Records 1987)

I understand why some people are turned off by U2.  Bono himself would probably think he’s a little too smug, and even though he means well, he often comes off as pompous and self-aggrandizing.  U2’s music, at least since reaching mega-stardom with The Joshua Tree, strives to be as important as the humanitarian causes the band champions.  Part of the reason these songs resonate with so many (aside from being incredible music compositions, and I think the three non-Bono members don’t always get the credit they deserve) is that these sounds take in the world with a wide lens.  Most of the massive hits draw on these broad, universal themes of the shared human experience – the pains and joys of love, struggles with faith, the search for something greater, and yes, even the quest for justice in a few songs.  Bono is not a poetic genius in the conventional sense at least (meaning you won’t see a book of “poetry,” or I really hope we won’t), but in his best moments he takes an event of any size and stretches it out to find the shared human experience in it.  Still, I see how some people prefer to approach life on a smaller level by listening to songs that focus on smaller, more individual stories and do the connecting and relating on their own level.  For better or worse, U2 songs have little lyric subtlety, but I’m not sure we always need our messages subtle and nuanced.  Sometimes, we’re best served to confront life at face value.

While Bono uses “I” almost as a universal “we” (think of “Where the Streets Have No Name,” for one example), he has a few moments of narrative brilliance where his lyrics serve as a detached observer.  The “I” in “Running to Stand Still” is not Bono, but rather the character he’s describing.  On one level, it’s a story about a woman in the thrall of heroin addiction.  He describes her helplessness and despair as her alternatives fade away, leaving only the needle and the looming cloud of death out in the horizon.  In particular, I’ve always loved how the song starts mid-thought with the word “and.”  Rather than try to tell her entire story – how she came to heroin, etc. – we enter the picture in media res and fill in the details on our own. Musically, “Running to Stand Still” flows like a body of water in the middle of the night.  The bending notes on the guitar and the building toms on Larry Mullen, Jr.’s drums create a somber mood.  Appropriately, the song ends without a true climax (a rarity for a U2 song, and a remarkable sign of restraint); at the moment near the end where it might build to something, the music turns the other way and fades down to just the main guitar riff.  Both musically and lyrically, it captures the hopelessly endless feeling of addiction and being trapped in the beginning of the story without a true middle or ending.  Even as a song about heroin addiction, Bono paints it in a way (save for the penultimate “needle’s chill” line) that casts it as addiction and obsession in general.  Most of us, hopefully to a lesser degree, have these single-minded moments that drive us nuts – perhaps with our jobs, or families, or anything else – where we feel that no matter how hard we try, we’re always standing in the same place.  The hope is that we can make our way out of this song and into one that reaches soaring heights and better places.

More on U2: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm