#1366: The Band – This Wheel’s on Fire

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Back in 2018, The Band’s 1968 debut album Music from Big Pink was reissued for its 50th anniversary with a whole new stereo mix, constructed by engineer and producer Bob Clearmountain. I liked The Band’s 1969 self-titled album by that point. I’d never listened through …Big Pink before. And I sort of knew it was meant to be an important album for the culture at the time of its release, ushering a movement of a return to straight rock-and-roll by bands in 1968 after the psychedelic times of 1967. There was no better time to discover what I was missing. And, you know, I thought ‘The Weight’ was cool, it’s like the centerpiece that also happens to be one of their best-known songs. ‘Chest Fever’ with those organ breaks. Mmm, it was good listening. But the two numbers that stood out to me, I can remember that first run-through so well, were ‘In a Station’ – the album’s third song – and ‘This Wheel’s on Fire’, which comes a little later near its end.

A thing about The Band is, before they became known as their own entity outright, they were known for being Bob Dylan’s backing band during the 1966 tour where people were chastising him for “going electric” and supposedly spitting in the face of the folk movement. Dylan then had a motorcycle accident, retreated back to his home in Woodstock and made a ton of music with The Band in 1967. The results were released in 1975 as The Basement Tapes. Dylan and The Band recorded ‘This Wheel’s on Fire’, which closes out that album with a slow, shuffling rhythm. As Band bass guitarist Rick Danko helped Dylan write the track, they more or less had the right to do their own version of the song. And they did, as you may have witnessed from the embedded YouTube video above. The Band take it much faster, with much more urgency. Danko provides the lead vocal, pianist Richard Manuel joins in on harmony in the second half of the verses, and then drummer Levon Helm joins in to complete the three-part for the culminating choruses.

I think it’s been said that this is the one track Dylan wrote that truly references his accident at any length, with the wheel rolling down the road obviously belonging to his motorcycle. But apart from that, it’s really anyone’s guess. The narrator in this song declares they and another person will meet again, but only if that other person is able to remember. This other person will request favours from the narrator, who doesn’t really want to do them. And “no man will come to [them] with another tale to tell”, maybe because either they’ll forget or share these tales with other people. Seems to me that this song is about someone untrustworthy and generally unreliable. It’s all a guess. When I first heard ‘This Wheel’s on Fire’ and the chorus came in and finished, I thought to myself, “So this is who originally made that song.” I’d heard it years before as the theme song to the BBC show Absolutely Fabulous, which itself was a re-recording of the notable 1968 cover by Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity. My sister liked that show, it’s the only reason I would have known about it.

#1365: Röyksopp – This Must Be It

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By the Autumn of 2009, Röyksopp’s third album, Junior, had been released and available to purchase for a few months. I was on a Beatles trip during that part of the year and can’t remember checking anything out that was new and current at the time. But I was aware of the goings-on of Röyksopp. Earlier in the year, ‘Happy Up Here’ had been released as the first single from Junior. I remember enjoying that one massively, think I played it on repeat a fair few times once I pirated it of a website. ‘The Girl and the Robot’ followed as the second single. Got a feeling its video played on MTV2 a few times. Being an avid FIFA series follower like I was back then, I got the most recent game – which would have been FIFA 10 – and lo and behold, Röyksopp was on the game’s soundtrack, with album closer ‘It’s What I Want’ chosen by the people at EA Sports to include. The duo just seemed to be within my peripheral vision in 2009, and I wasn’t complaining ’cause the songs were good.

Now, ‘This Must Be It’ was released as Junior‘s third and final single in that Autumn of 2009. I want to say I saw its music video actually on TV maybe once or twice around the time it was due to come out. But after that, until maybe 2018 or 2019, I had honestly forgotten the song existed. And not because it was bad or anything. I was too busy listening to the Beatles and probably working on the YouTube channel I had at the time. Why I revisited the track in either 2018 or 2019, I’m really not too sure. I know that’s what you guys read these for, to know the things I can’t remember. I think it was simply a matter of looking up Junior, seeing ‘This Must Be It’ was a single, thinking “I really can’t remember how this song goes at all” and taking a listen. It wasn’t really a special occasion. Whatever the spark behind my decision was, I’m glad it was there because I find it to be a very enjoyable track. A real bop. Once the beat gets going, I can’t help but nod my end along to it until the eventual end.

The song features the vocals of Karin Dreijer, you may know them as Fever Ray or one half of The Knife. I’ve never done a deep dive into either acts, but I honestly should. In the few songs I know sung by Dreijer, I’m always drawn toward their vocal delivery and melodies. There’s still time for a whole discography discovery. Anyway, ‘This Must Be It’ sees Dreijer, I think, write about waiting for a couple of people to arrive – I’m guessing friends rather than strangers – and getting bored in the process, but then feeling at peace once they finally do and have a good time together. That’s just this simple guy’s interpretation. The string of evocative lyrics make the whole situation sound much more ethereal and otherworldly. It’s like the whole thing’s taking place in space, the song sounds so wide and expansive. With the Dreijer’s reverb-drenched vocal and the spacey production, anchored by the entrancing four-on-the-floor rhythm, it all makes for a very mesmerising experience. How could I have forgotten about this one? Seems silly thinking about it now.

#1364: Billy Talent – This Is How It Goes

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Christmas Day 2006 was when I received both the first Billy Talent album and Billy Talent II as gifts. I was very happy. My experience with the band’s debut album was either through listening to 30-second samples of its songs on a site called artistdirect.com – which no longer exists – or hearing one of them on the rare occasion it played on the Launch.com radio service. But now I had the whole package in my hands. I think it might have been the enhanced CD, a video player that when on to show a little EPK came onto the screen when I popped the disc into the computer. There’s still a couple songs left to write about from Billy Talent, but I’ll say now that I still consider this one of my favourite albums ever, I know almost every word on it from front to back. Lot of angst and anger, a lot of screaming, it could easily be slotted as one of those “It’s not a phase, Mom” albums. But I can put it on today and just let it roll to its end. It goes in… so hard.

‘This Is How It Goes’ is the very first song. The band introduces themselves one-by-one, Ian D’Sa on the guitar, Aaron Solowoniuk with the hi-hats – being the drummer and all – and Jon Gallant’s bass line before leaping into the killer riff that leaps all over the guitar neck, which eventually goes on to play underneath the upcoming choruses. I’m a fan of Ben Kowalewicz’s vocals. A common complaint I’d usually witness from roaming around online back in the day was how grating some people found his voice to be. And to be fair, I could probably see where they’re coming from. But I couldn’t imagine any other tone than the high-pitched, bratty kind he has while delivering the lyrics on this track. He sings, with Ian D’Sa harmonising on certain phrases, before abruptly launching into the screaming tirade that makes up the chorus, everyone in the band comes in together, increasing the intensity with the aforementioned riff playing underneath. A freakin’ juggernaut of energy, such a great way to open up a whole discography, let alone one album.

One thing I found out as soon as I got into ‘…How It Goes’ was how it was written about drummer Aaron Solowoniuk and his battle with multiple sclerosis. He’s very rarely plays the drums with the band in a live setting now and didn’t on their last two albums due to MS relapse in 2016. While the track doesn’t specifically detail Solowoniuk’s experiences, it’s written to give a general sense of how much a burden it could be to live with the illness. Frustration, self-doubt, irritation. All captured in these three-and-a-half minutes. The band had the track in the works when they originally went under the name Pezz. I want to say I read some kind of interview or article where one bandmember said that once they had got this song down, it pretty much set the direction truly wanted to take their music – more toward a darker and brooding energy rather than the lighter and maybe less focused style they had exhibited on their Watoosh! album. I say “maybe” ’cause I like that album too and don’t see it as less focused at all. But it’s fair to say Pezz became Billy Talent when the four of them came up with this song right here.

#1363: Arctic Monkeys – This House Is a Circus

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I knew this one was coming, but I think I covered the bases concerning how I feel about Favourite Worst Nightmare in the last song I wrote about from the album. But without referring to it, I think I said it was my favourite – no pun meant – Arctic Monkeys record and that they sounded their coolest on it. I feel I’m pretty close with that guess. This’ll be the last track from there I’ll be writing about. If you look in the archives, you’ll see I’ve covered ten of its songs overall – this one included. But I’ll say now, three of them I haven’t listened to in years ’cause they don’t hit in the same way they once did. That goes for ‘505’ too, which some may not be very happy about. It’s just how I feel. And I was never the biggest fan of ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’, hence its absence. That’s near half the album that I don’t like so, so much. But it’s still my favourite of the band’s. You don’t see many other Arctic Monkeys songs from their other albums on here, do you? So there you go.

‘This House Is a Circus’ is the eighth song on …Worst Nightmare. To be quite honest, the thing that first wowed me about it – when I was 12 and the album was very much fresh off the shelf – was how its ending transitioned into ‘If You Were There, Beware’ with that sort of siren sound. The effect is messed up on streaming, there’s a second of silence for whatever reason between the two songs, which is why you should get a physical copy. I preferred ‘If You Were There…’ to ‘This House…’ for a long while, even though I enjoyed both. But somewhere along the way, ‘This House…’ crept up as one of my highlights from the album while ‘…Beware’ kind of got left behind. From the jump, the tempo’s set, and it never really lets up apart from a guitar break before its ending section. I think the key element of the track is the bass line provided by Nick O’Malley, he plays a lot of hummable runs throughout and they arrive in the forefront of the mix at various points. But Matt Helders plays his ass off on the drums too, to the point where I’m so sure he drops his sticks at about 1:44, but manages to strike some cymbals before swiftly keeping the rhythm going not too long after. It’s a song that shows the band firing on all cylinders. Definitely the heaviest thing they done at that point of their career.

I did use to think it was a song about the house on the album’s cover. If you get the album, the images in the booklet show the inside of the house covered in this psychedelic, sort of circus-y themed imagery. But I think it’s clearly about a general house party where anything goes. The drugs are around, people are getting off with each other, debauchery, debauchery, debauchery. The narrator sees all this going on and can tell this house isn’t a place to be in for too long, but his friends seem to be having a good time, even if whatever’s happening around them looks more like something you’d see in a movie rather than real life. Alex Turner rhymes ‘circus’ with ‘berserk as’ in the first line. I definitely thought he was made up a word in order to achieve the rhyme, singing “This house is a circus, berserkus, fuck.” It’s that Northern dialect that fooled me. That’s a personal aside. It’s songs like this that make me miss how Arctic Monkeys used to be. The latest loungey, orchestral rock route they’ve been going for relatively lately never won me over. I feel it’s unlikely they’d go back to this sort of music again. It’s just how these things go sometimes. But it’s not like this song’s gonna disappear from existence or something. So, Arctic Monkeys, do what you like, I’ll still have Favourite Worst Nightmare on my rotation.

#1362: The Beatles – This Boy

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Oh, look at that, another Beatles track. I don’t make up how these things go, I’m just following the list. When it comes to ‘This Boy’, I don’t think I heard the actual Beatles recording first, but rather the instrumental version of it known as ‘Ringo’s Theme’. That plays in the background during a scene in A Hard Day’s Night where Ringo Starr walks around London on his own. You see, back in 2009, you could watch an upload of A Hard Day’s Night on YouTube with no problem, except it was separated into a number of videos because of the 10-minute duration limit the site used to have. But I don’t think it would have been too long after that I did listen to the tune as The Beatles originally did it. Was in my Beatles phase, which if you’d like to know more about I did a whole post on that. Eventually I came round to the Past Masters compilation, where ‘This Boy’ can be found on the collection’s first disc.

That compilation is made up of the singles and B-sides The Beatles released in the eight years they were around for, the first disc containing those from 1962 to 1965 and the second, 1965 to 1970. ‘This Boy’ was a B-side, released as the companion piece to ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ – the track that got the band their first US number one and kicked off the years of Beatlemania hysteria. A smart move having the energetic rocket on side of the vinyl and the slower ballad on the other. I’m sure it was a calculated one. They get to show off their range with two very different songs. While ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ has a narrator that’s very much in a relationship, ‘This Boy’ contains a sadder one who wants to be in a relationship again, specifically with the girl they were once with who’s now with another man. ‘That Boy’. The narrator is in his feelings, singing the words he wants to say to the girl, but can’t, watching from afar as she goes about her business. He waits in the wings, ready to swoop in and take her back when ‘That Boy’ messes up, which ‘This Boy’ is convinced he will sooner or later.

The Beatles were usually a very good band on the vocal harmony front, and there’s probably no other song of theirs that showcases those better than this track right here. Well, actually, maybe ‘Because’. But ‘This Boy’ is up there too. John Lennon takes the lower range, singing the main melody. Paul McCartney provides the higher backing harmony, and George Harrison’s bridges the gap in the middle. You just have to listen and admire. Things ramp up a gear when Lennon forces his way to the front with the “Ohh, annnd this boy…” bridge, the big vocal serenade moment of the track, before an audible edit where two takes were spliced together takes us back to the quieter final verse like that moment never happened. The three vocalists repeat the song title alongside a swooning guitar line as it trails off into silence. A nice, little wistful number. George Harrison was a fan of it. John Lennon must have liked it himself, as he tried to rewrite it a couple years later resulting another B-side, ‘Yes It Is’. That’s something for another day. The band play it at the Washington Coliseum in 1964 below. The crowd go wild.