It was another dry month in the music realm. I think I have’t been listening to music very much and it seems like when I do, the radio keeps playing the same old same old. I don’t even have a decent “Songs of Summer 2016” list started.
So I went with this. Mostly because it gets played a lot on the radio and I’m not sick of it and also because it’s got dude backup singers. I’m a fan of the backup singer.
Further, I appreciate how the lead singer manages to shove so many syllables in a small bit of music: How am I gonna be an optimist about this?
Here’s to next month having something new and exciting.
“Let me Roll It”
Paul McCartney
When Sir Paul visited in April, David Greenwald put together a list of 15 of McCartney’s best songs since the Beatles. I’d always thought of myself as a “Paul”, but as I listened my way through the list it became apparent that I’m actually a “John”. His counter-culture weirdness has always bugged me, but I think I like his music better.
The one Paul song on the list I felt compelled to buy, was described by Mr. Greenwald as “a very John Lennon song.” Huh.
“Unbelievers”
Vampire Weekend
I was thinking I didn’t have any songs for this month, and decided to go back to the unbought archive and add this one. Then I noticed I had already picked out the above song, but decided to buy this one anyway.
I love how this song came together. The hammond-style organ sound with the tom drum plus the lyrics are a winner. Also, I can play it on the piano!
Rolling around my head this month:
“Jamie All Over”
Mayday Parade
Years ago, someone who was briefly my friend on Facebook put up a post in June with a picture of evening sky and text that said, “Let’s put a 10 on the high card, and spend the summer on the West Coast.” Intrigued by the sentiment, I googled it to see just what it was. It turned out to be a line from this song. My wonderful library soon provided me with the album. It’s a great album, and the band has a habit of naming their songs not-obvious things. Sometimes they are funny, such as “I’d Hate to be You When People Find Out What This Song is About.”
But this song is my favorite on the album. I love that it’s a duet–which is rare in this genre–and that the band sounds like they are having an incredible time when they recorded it. I love that they lyrics aren’t entirely clear on first (or second, or even third) listen. I love that it captures that freedom of early adulthood and saves it for me, who has long left that stage behind me. It’s good I like it so much, because it’s terribly catchy and gets stuck in my head for days.
I watched November Rain last night for the first time in a couple of decades. And Man! The production values! I’m quite certain that Kevin Smith made Clerks for a fraction of what this nine-minute video cost.
It’s an Axl/Slash love-fest with hints of Duff and a couple of overhead shots of the drummer. Was Izzy even a part of the band at that point?
There’s a probably-not-intended bromance thing going on. Why does Slash leave the church mid-wedding? Is he sad to lose Axl? Don’t worry Slash, you will soon get to comfort your buddy while he mourns.
The sweeping helicopter shots of the guitar solo outside the church are amazing! And very fun to think of the steps of filming them. (We need a church in the middle of nowhere. Lots of–what’s that color? Not gold–gold’s too glitzy. We need contrast here. Amber! No, not the girl! Amber’s the color I’m looking for. And then we need to see Slash from all sides! Don’t neglect the back. And there should be movement! We’ve got the helicopter for five hours! Don’t waste it!)
With all the costumes and trappery, no one noticed that Axl is sporting a mustache equivalent to a consummation stalled by impotence.
Slash however, looks good. Slash always looks good. I just googled him. Both the jeans and flannel on top of the piano and the leather jacket and chaps totally work. Still.
The smoking! Do musicians smoke so much in their videos anymore?
I have always loved, and still love, that wedding dress. Probably because it was made for a model, not for a 5’3″ normal-looking female.
I had forgotten the wedding-to-death transition. So abrupt!
The color change of wedding bouquet to flowers on the casket. Amazing! So obvious and yet so effective!
Because if you do, you might get a front page cover story, that continues for another half-page inside. And also a reprint of a past concert review.
Here are my Prince memories:
The preview for Purple Rain played during at least one, and perhaps more, movies my family attended that summer. Maybe during Ghostbusters? At any rate, I have a strong memory of my dad reacting as if the movie was not for us to see. I was too young then, of course, but I’ve never actually gotten around to watching it.
I really liked the song “Little Red Corvette” and I think my mom did too. I have vague memories of watching the video, perhaps at the neighbor’s house as we didn’t have cable then.
“When Doves Cry” was one of those songs that imprinted on me, though I mostly associate it with Romeo+Juliet, where it was used effectively in the soundtrack.
The Batman album. That theme song was all over the radio that summer. “Did you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?/Batdance!” My brother may have even had the soundtrack on cassette tape. Funny that I haven’t heard mention of this album AT ALL in the millions of laudatory words written about Prince.
My brother and are watching the video music awards and Prince is singing in a bright yellow suit. It’s all par for the course. And then he spun. And we looked at each other, our jaws dropped. Because there was no butt in that suit!
(image from http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160421153519-03-prince-fashion-prince-get-off–restricted-super-169.jpg)
Two iconic Prince songs I associate more with white artists, which is interesting. “Kiss” was first introduced to me by Tom Jones. When Julia Roberts sang along to the song in the bathtub, in Pretty Woman, I was surprised to hear her say, “you gotta love Prince.” Watch that Tom Jones video at your peril. It’s heavy on the rad computer graphics. And of course, Nothing Compares 2 U, the video of which was on repeat ad infinitum, letting us all think that we’d look as good as Sinead O’Connor if we shaved our heads. I hated that song until I loved it.
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Prince and I don’t know if I could name a song of his after 1990, but an earlier-than-usual death is never a good thing.
I have a list in my head of things to do the next time I find myself unemployed and on that list is the item “Memorize all lyrics to every one of the Avett Brothers songs”*
I love the Avett Brothers. They play the kind of music I would write and play if I could either write or play music. Nice guitar stuff, some banjo, really good harmonies. It’s all there.
And this is quite the nice sentiment: We came for salvation We came for family We came for all that’s good that’s how we’ll walk away We came to break the bad We came to cheer the sad We came to leave behind the world a better way
This month’s song is also by Bleachers. Will I end up buying this album song by song? Time will tell.
I read somewhere that this album is inspired by 80s movies and this song really captures the feeling of some of those movies, like the ones John Hughes made.
I’ve just watched the video for the first time. It was very 80-esque. I found myself amused at the very WASP-y, classic ice queen beauty playing the object of Jack Antonoff’s affection. Mostly because in real life he’s with incredibly normal looking Lena Dunham. Anyway, I think the twist at the end is the “rollercoaster” part. Also, I think you could do some sort of physics assignment to figure out how fast the van was going when they were playing on top of it.
Also in the running: Adele’s “When We Were Young”, which I like much more than “Hello”, but don’t hear as often. I’m buying that song too. I think I first heard this on regular reader Kathleen’s blog.
Of note: for most of this month, the song on endless repeat in my head was Vance Joy’s “Riptide.” I have no idea why as it has been out for a long time. I don’t like or dislike that song, but I really didn’t need to be on endless loop in my head.
Nothing has popped out this month as a song I’m crazy about (except for Jan’s song*) so I’m going to play catch up.
This song will always remind me of two things: my 40th birthday and the resignation of Oregon’s governor. This was the song I wanted to sing at my big karaoke blowout, but Voicebox didn’t have it. I discovered this after I’d been practicing for a week, so that was a bummer.
This is a very loud song, and I love it for that. The back-beat that plays through most of it has a rhythm that is kind of claustrophobic, in a depressed sort of way. They lyrics are good too.
*But she already wrote a blog post. I’m totally going to buy that song though… And I just did.
My monthly pick for a song of the moment which I will then purchase.
Nothing new popped up this month, so I’m picking a song I was obsessed with before December: S.O.B. by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
This song is so much fun to sing along with. You can sing lead, you can sing backup, you get to swear, it would make an awesome karaoke song, you can clap along. It’s about the DTs! I love music with a horn section, and in my obsession with this song, I watched a live performance from a few years ago, and Mr. Rateliff looks to put on a good show. That version has a different arrangement too, which was interesting to hear.
New feature. Once per month, I will feature a song that is “of the moment” for me. Usually because I have discovered it and can’t stop playing it repeatedly on YouTube. Because I never buy any music, (and that is very wrong) I will then purchase that song.
This song popped up on Pandora the same night I watched the movie Brooklyn. Brooklyn is an incredible movie and perfect in many ways, but I left with the feeling of “I will never be that young ever again.” It’s a feeling I’ve had intermittently this year, especially this summer. I feel it deeply, while at the same time understanding its ridiculousness. My twenties were in many ways not that great and I would prefer not to return to them. But some part of me longs to be that age again. Overlaid with this internal struggle, is my future 80-year-old self saying, “You thought 40 was old? Try being an octogenarian!”
And then this song played and the chorus caught me:
Yeah, those will be the days that I’ll be missing
When I’m old and when I’m grey and when I stop working
I hope that I can say
When all my days are done
We were just having fun
It’s a good song, and one I’d like to work into my song repertoire. Because eventually I’m going to have a songbook of songs I can play and sing. You know. Someday.
The video is classic “band on the road”. The band seems to have an impossibly good looking lead singer–the kind of guy who spells trouble for the girls and trouble for the band. I wish all of them well.
Every summer I associate songs with the season. This doesn’t happen in spring, fall or winter, for whatever reason. Sometimes the songs I hear all summer are songs I hate, sometimes they are songs I love. Sometimes they are songs I grow tired of because they are played too much. Back when things changed all the time–say when summer was a passing point between two different grades, or I had a different job every summer–it was easy to link specific songs with specific summers. But now that one summer isn’t much different than any other they blur. The summer of “We are Young” by fun (loved it!) and “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye (hated it!)? Who knew when that was? (Yes, the internet could easily tell me.)
So here is my scrapbook of songs from the summer of 2015.
Note that I interacted with all of these songs through the radio when I was driving around. I’ve never watched any of the videos and until I was writing this post I had no idea who sang any of these songs, because radio stations rarely tell me, perhaps because the Shazam app can do that for them. And perhaps because even though there are still local (sometimes “local”) radio stations, most of them have cut back significantly on their on-air talent.
Walk the Moon’s “Shut up and Dance”
This song was all over the pop stations this summer. I find it vaguely rude and the slightest bit overly manufactured and obvious, but rarely changed the station when it was playing.
Elle King’s Ex’s & Oh’s
This was also all over pop stations and also 94.7, the alternative radio station. Plus KINK liked it. So basically every music station I listen to.
Vance Joy’s Mess is Mine
I think it was mostly KINK that loved this song. Maybe the alternative music station now and then.
The very wordy named Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness’s “Cecilia and the Satellite”
Another across-the-preset favorite. I liked singing along with this, while also finding it slightly cheesy.
It occurs to me I’m not really crazy about any of these, so I’ll add in one more that I adore, even though I started hearing it in the spring.
Vampire Weekend’s “Unbelievers”
I love the music, I love the words, I have watched this video and I like it also. I would like it to be longer, but songs seem to be very short right now. I think all of these are under four minutes.
This song is one that I also looked up the chords and figured out how to play on the piano. It involved figuring out some chord inversions, but I was successful in my inversions and I felt very smart.
