#1406: Big Thief – The Toy

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For some reason, my take on Big Thief’s ‘Shoulders’ is growing to be one of the more popular posts on the blog. I login to the account, check out the stats, and on a pretty regular occurrence the post will be there in the “Most Viewed” when the time range is set to ‘Last 7 Days’. I don’t know how or where it’s being shared. But I guess it’s striking a chord with people. Just like ‘Shoulders’, today’s subject, ‘The Toy’, can also be found on Big Thief’s fourth album Two Hands, the second of two LPs they released in 2019. I was heavily unemployed that year. Big Thief made things feel somewhat better. U.F.O.F. was out in May. Don’t know how anyone else feels, but that’s still my favourite Big Thief album now. To everyone’s surprise, Two Hands was then announced in August, for release on October 11. So I waited for that date, in between filling countless job applications and feeling pretty miserable.

The day came. Went to Spotify, played that thang through. ‘The Toy’ was an instant highlight, I really liked it. Coming after the single ‘Forgotten Eyes’, it brings the energy levels down tremendously, going more for a contemplative route with a cradling, waltz tempo. On Spotify, out of the album’s first five songs, ‘The Toy’ has the second least plays. Not one that the consensus goes back to. I do suppose once you’ve heard the first verse and the “Toy in my hand is real” chorus, you’ve more or less heard the rest of the song. But it’s the repetitive nature of the song that really attracted me, plus the chord changes and guitar lines that occur throughout behind Adrianne Lenker’s up-close-and-personal vocal and Buck Meek’s short harmonies. Also, the outro after the final chorus, just the icing on the cake. Feels good to just sit and bask in the instrumental until it sizzles out the way it does. I think I hear someone giggle on the right at about 4:08 as the guitars ring out. Don’t know what was going on in that studio to cause such a reaction. Maybe it was the fact they got the take they needed. I’m glad it was left in.

I wish I could find the interview/write-up/story where it was said, but I’m sure that on it I read that the ‘toy’ in the song’s lyrics was referring to a gun. And after writing that sentence, I have found it might have actually been this one. But I think the ‘toy’ changes with each reiteration of the chorus, from a sex toy in the first, to a gun in the second, to an actual child’s play toy in the third and then…. I don’t know, maybe the world in the president’s hands in the fourth? Maybe a reach. But you read between the lines, and you’ll get what I mean. So instead of thinking about Lenker singing about a weapon in her hand, which I very much did even while typing this post up, I’m now thinking each verse is written from a different perspective, separate characters with these physical and potentially metaphorical items in their possession. Whatever their state of being, these ‘toys’ are real, they have an affect on people’s lives. They’re important. I think that’s what Lenker’s getting at. Like the song, like it a lot.

#1405: System of a Down – Toxicity

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Last year, I had a bit of a System of a Down moment for a while. I was in Peru on holiday and decided to listen to Serj Tankian’s Down with the System memoir in audiobook format, made all the better ’cause he was “reading” it himself. Inspired by his stories of working on the band’s albums amidst his opinions on the political side of things, I listened to Toxicity from front to back for the first time in what must have been years when I got back home a few weeks later. It’s, uh… It’s a damn good album we have right here. In the time I hadn’t listened to Toxicity, I do think I had forgotten why it’s usually considered to be the band’s best album and a straight-up classic in the alternative metal genre. The performances are brutal. I think Tankian and Daron Malakian’s vocal interplay and dynamic was at its peak here, and I guess by association, Steal This Album! Neither here nor there. But more importantly, and I think this matters the most, the songs themselves, the vast majority of them… they’re quite great. And there is no other band who have come close to System since.

When it comes to ‘Toxicity’ the song, well, I’m sure I’ve known that since I was at least nine. Or ten, I’ll say ten. 2004/2005. I was having a problem remembering how I heard the song the first time before writing all this. It’s been in the psyche for so long, I’ve very much forgotten. I think have a scenario, though, and I don’t think I’ve made it up. So here goes. At the time, maybe ‘Chop Suey!’ was the only System song I knew. I was flicking through the music video channels, a usual practice of mine in those times, when I got round to Scuzz and the ending of the video of ‘Toxicity’ was playing, I think Tankian was singing the last line, the zoom out showing the galaxy happened and the song was over. So now I knew another System track, but I missed the display that showed its name, so I was still in the dark. When and where I heard the song next and in full, that’s something I really can’t recall. Either it was on the TV, it might have been on the Internet somewhere. It was an instance where it sort of appeared on a screen when I wasn’t trying to search for it. The song was great, I think the video made it even better – that scene with the crowd rising in the back while Malakian’s head-banging at double-speed, it’s good stuff even today – and that’s been my opinion of the two mediums ever since.

‘Toxicity’ might not be the System track that sums the band up as a whole. I think it’s missing a good Malakian harmony or something that would do the trick. But I honestly think it might/could be a 10/10 in their catalogue. Serj Tankian’s vocals, unmatched. His range is there to witness, from the smooth, almost-whispered delivery in the short verses that intensify in the pre-chorus before he’s full-out blasting his cords for the chorus. He does that melismatic run on the first “sleep” at 1:24. It all culminates in that final “disorder” scream before the outro. Honestly, he’s probably the best thing about the whole track. But all four members are delivering. Shavo Odadjian’s bass guitar kind of pulses in the verses, very subtle but it does the job. The whole track revolves around a riff that he created, so he’s important as anyone on there. Malakian’s riffage speaks for itself. And John Dolmayan’s drums are quite hypnotizing, especially in those verses, and otherwise they’re pummelling and erratic, they work so well for the movement of the music. Only thing I have with it is that I think they got the track so perfect in the studio, there’s no live performance that really matches it, even in the time when it was a new song. I think the one below will do.

#1404: Kevin Ayers – Town Feeling

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“Imagine if Nick Drake came out of his bout of depression, became a much happier person, started getting into circus music for whatever reason, and put those influences into his music. That’s kinda what I imagine. This is a great album. The first song appeared in my ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist on Spotify. I liked it. Checked the rest out. I wasn’t disappointed. Favourite track: The Lady Rachel” That’s what a 21-year-old me replied on a “What have you been listening to?” post on the Indieheads subreddit, on 6th May 2016, referring to Kevin Ayers’ 1969 album, Joy of a Toy, his debut solo after leaving Canterbury scene band Soft Machine the year before. It’s a pretty reductive way to write about Nick Drake and that album, to be honest. I guess I was trying to be funny. But I was also really enjoying the album at the time, and I think, in excitement, those were the instant thoughts that came to me. And the album really is a whole lot of fun. Its cover provides just a little glimpse of it.

After Joy of a Toy begins with its almost-title track, a literal invitation to a circus with jaunty music and “la-la-la / ha-ha-ha” vocalizations, ‘Town Feeling’ brings the cheerful tone down a little, bringing things to a more human, relatable sentiment. Ayers is walking around his local area, and ‘Town Feeling’ is the observational piece detailing the things he notices while he’s on his leisurely travels. Nothing too deep to read into when it comes to the words. The town is more quieter than usual. Whatever people are up to in their homes, it’s none of Ayers’s business. He doesn’t wish to know and he doesn’t think anyone should care. He sees a girl on a swing, who he dedicates a song to just a couple numbers later on the album. He grits his teeth as he listens to a person, one who I assume he doesn’t care too much for, talking about their problems when otherwise wouldn’t speak to Ayers all that much. And during the instrumental break, he drily sings the word ‘banana’ for no real reason, I think to just throw things out of kilter for a split second. It’s all very simply stated, easily sung. Almost five minutes, but it goes by quickly. A quaint song to settle you in to the album’s proceedings.

A lot of things I like about this tune. It’s the first one on the album where you really hear Ayers singing, and his deep baritone voice may throw you for a loop if you’re not expecting it. You can hear it on the intro track, but it’s rather buried in the mix, underneath the party atmosphere it’s got going. But on ‘Town Feeling’, his smooth, relaxed delivery effortlessly guides you through as he details his observations. Another aspect: The song doesn’t really have a chorus. If it does, I’d say it’s in the form of those harmonising guitars that come in after each verse. Those being the elements that provide the unifying melodic hook of the composition. And just in general, the instrumentation very different from the usual rock-band ensemble of the late ’60s, swapping out electric guitars for a piano, a cello, an oboe, acoustic guitars. It’s all a bit unusual, and that’s all throughout the album. Very intriguing, overall. So I hope you go on to listen to Joy of a Toy yourself. I’d like to shout out ‘The Clarietta Rag’ on there, because two other songs that would have been posts in another universe but don’t here have already been linked and I didn’t want that track to be left behind.

#1403: Nick Drake – Tow the Line

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In early 2017, I was on the Christmas break, in between the first and second semesters of my final year in university. I was preparing information for what would become my dissertation. I was doing some reading required for coursework of some kind. But it was also in that cold wintertime that I found out about Nick Drake’s ‘Tow the Line’. Drake’s three-studio-album discography had been firmly set in my iTunes library for years up to that point. Pink Moon, one of my favourite albums of all time, any longtime reader on here knows how I feel about it. I can’t remember what directed me to ‘Tow the Line’. I can only think that after knowing Drake’s three albums for so long, I was on the lookout for more material of his, preferably in the same vein as the work on Pink Moon. This led me in the direction of songs like ‘Black Eyed Dog’ and ‘Hanging on a Star’. But it’s ‘Tow the Line’ I’m here to talk about. So here goes.

‘Tow the Line’ is the last song on the Made to Love Magic compilation, a collection of Nick Drake outtakes, remixes and remasters, released in 2004. Before that year, ‘Tow the Line’ had never been heard by anyone. It was only found during the making of the compilation after producer John Wood had left the tape containing Drake’s other “final” recordings running and, to his surprise, the song started playing after a few moments of silence. ‘Tow the Line’ is reportedly the very final thing Nick Drake ever put to tape, recording it in July 1974, just four months before his untimely death. I don’t know if there’s a sense of finality in the song’s message, but the sound of him putting the guitar down in the very last second does feel like a kind of auditory full stop. I wanted my Pink Moon-ish fill of more Nick Drake material, and I got it with ‘Tow the Line’. It’s been a good near-decade knowing this song exists.

Out of the last five songs Nick Drake did, it’s ‘Black Eyed Dog’ and ‘Tow the Line’ that are the frontrunners for me. I like ‘Rider on the Wheel’ too, but its original (and better) mix seems to not be widely available. While ‘Black Eyed Dog’ is this real bleak, stark, looking-death-in-the-face kind of song, ‘Tow the Line’ has this charging sense of urgency about it. Drake strums away on his acoustic guitar, a G-note on the bottom string droning, makes things feels quite tense. And I think it’s a tense situation Drake is detailing in the lyrics. It’s all or nothing in this period of time he’s singing about, and it seems that the outcome – success or total failure – depends on the ‘you’ person he’s directing the song towards. It’s an ultimatum, is what it is. There’s definitely a finality to it all, what was I talking about? Either the person sticks around and shows Drake the way or they leave and things turn out for the worse. It’s up for them to decide. That’s the final decision. And that’s how Nick Drake capped off his recording career, with issues unresolved, left in no man’s land. We all know it, the guy deserved so much more in his time.

#1402: Radiohead – The Tourist

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Ah, well, here’s another “last song” type deal again. As we slowly but surely get to the end of this series, Z and the numerals really aren’t that far away, I shouldn’t be surprised that these kinds of posts will occur more frequently. I wasn’t expecting four of them to happen on the bounce. But it’s all good. Here’s ‘The Tourist’, the last song on Radiohead’s OK Computer, the last song from that album I’ll be writing about on here. I don’t think there’s much else on a critical level about that record that I could say that hasn’t been stated already. Is it my favourite Radiohead album? I mean, it’s up there. Despite its arguable flaws, I rally moreso for Hail to the Thief. But I enjoy OK Computer a lot. Who knew an album wrapped around a theme of paranoia concerning the rapid development of technology in the late ’90s could be so thrilling to listen to? I didn’t get round to hearing the full album until 2010, years removed from its original 1997 release. It didn’t sound dated then. It still doesn’t sound dated today.

From ‘Electioneering’ onwards, the second half of OK Computer decreases in tempo with each passing track. Everything is brought to a close with ‘The Tourist’, the slowest song, I’m sure, on the whole album, delivered in a steady 3/4 time. I had the same experience with it that I had with ‘Let Down’ on my first listen-through. The verses of ‘The Tourist’ were going along at their relaxed pace, Thom Yorke melodically wailing, harmonising with himself and elongating notes that reverberated into the distance. All was just fine. But then the “Hey, man, slow down” chorus came in, and I had a strong, strong feeling that I’d heard it somewhere years before. The chugging guitars then entered the frame, and I was certain this was a song I knew already. I’m very sure it was used in an advert for something in the very early 2000s. For what brand is long-forgotten. But here was that song from that advert, and I wasn’t even purposefully looking for it. It’s always nice when those kinds of instances happen.

Once I had the album, I obviously had to go look up some facts about the songs on there. Do my due research. When it comes to ‘The Tourist’, the big thing I remember finding out was that it was written by lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. I never knew if ‘written’ just referred to the music, but a quote from Thom Yorke recalls how Greenwood wrote it in disdain for American tourists who were frantically working around some spots in France. The “Hey, man/idiot, slow down” refrains were very literal. So I guess it was both music and lyrics. And in another way, it loops the album around with the chorus lyrics preceding the car crash that happens in first track ‘Airbag’. It was the last song to be included on the album, and it was after its inclusion that Thom Yorke stopped waking up early in the mornings a nervous wreck because OK Computer now had its resolution. What better way to finish it than with a ‘ding’ of a bell, like a microwave when the time’s run out. Got to give a lot of love for a very hot album.