#1444: The Sheer – Understand

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FIFA 07 on the PlayStation 2. Think I played that game nearly every weekend, probably between October 2006 to whenever FIFA 08 came out the next year. The FIFA series as a whole introduced me to a lot of alternative music via the soundtracks on each annual iteration. ’07’s edition kept that train rolling. In 2006, I was already a full-blown indie kid, well in the depths of getting my music fix from places like MTV2, Kerrang! and so on. It was cool seeing Muse and Boy Kill Boy in FIFA 07’s soundtrack. But what was usually more satisfying were the songs playing in the background that would creep up on me, and to which I would eventually be singing along to ’cause I couldn’t help it. There were a lot of those on FIFA 07, might be one of the series’ best soundtracks actually. But there were only a small few where I thought, “I wouldn’t mind listening to these forever, thanks.” I’ve written about a couple of them before. The Sheer’s ‘Understand’ appears to be the last one to represent the game in this big list. But I’d shout out ‘Was in der Zeitung steht’ by d.o.c.h.! That song still rips today.

I didn’t know anything about The Sheer before FIFA 07 arrived. I still don’t really know anything about the band now. As soon as FIFA 08 came ’round, The Sheer kind of stopped existing to me. All I know is they’re a band from Holland that made this song, it’s on an album of theirs called Feel the Need, and it must have been released as a single because it has its own music video. The only reason I haven’t embedded it above is because it contains an edit of the song that fades out before its minute-long ending, which is arguably the best part. Yeah, ‘Understand’ was a big favourite of mine on the soundtrack. Can’t remember if it was one of those first-time-hit-me kind of deal, but it does only take one listen to understand its appeal. The opening chords, quite emphatic. The bluesy keyboards during the intro and very much throughout, you’ve got to appreciate. The call of a lyric met with the response of some classic “Hey, hey, hey”s, you can’t go wrong. The lyrics are very easy to decipher with a fine melody to go with them. Took me a second not to use the word ‘understand’ in that last sentence. But with all of those things together and a bit more which I’ll leave you to find, it resulted in a piece of pop-rock that I found I could get along with just fine.

‘Understand’ is a song about unity. A very positive song. You’ll find some cliché lines concerning helping hands, working [things] all out and making it to the end, rounded off with those “Hey, hey, hey”s. If this song was to annoy you, I could probably see where you were coming from. It feels like it could be a number in a musical or something. You could probably call it corny. And maybe it is. But I don’t know what to tell you, I really like the stuff. There’s enough sincerity in the lyrics, and everything’s delivered in a way that’s not overblown that I think prevents it from being over-the-top. What does push things further though is that ending. The song fakes you out with a faux-ending about three-and-a-half minutes in, before the guitar charges up and the band fall in together to play out the remainder of the tune in a blaze of glory. I do remember back in those days of ’06/’07 thinking that if ‘Understand’ was on an album, it would only make sense that it’s probably the last song. ‘Cause where can you go after that ending? And lo and behold, when I saw the tracklist for Feel the Need sometime later on, there was ‘Understand’ in its rightful place as the album closer. I was right. Hooray for me. Feel the Need appears to be AWOL online at the moment. When it comes back, I’ll link it at some point.

#1443: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Under the Bridge

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Hey, guys. It’s ‘Under the Bridge’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers. You know, one of the band’s most well-known songs. One of the most recognisable in the genre known as “alternative rock”. I like it. Again, I can’t pin down the first time I ever heard this one. But I’m willing to guess it was on one of the various music television channels that were included with the NTL box. Most likely MTV2. Anyone remember NTL? People in the UK will know. Even if the Chili Peppers didn’t have any new music out, videos by the band were always playing on those channels. They’d been a household name for more than a decade by the mid-2000s. A fond memory I do have of ‘Under the Bridge’ though, is that I was sort of humming it during class one day in, like, 2006 – the ending part where Flea and John Frusciante play the song out – I thought I was being quiet and to myself, but the teacher heard it. She asked, “Who’s humming?” And just as I was about to ‘fess up and apologise, a girl sitting across from me put the blame on a totally innocent classmate. I don’t think she knew it was me who was humming. I think she was just being mean. So I was in the clear, and life went on. Kids can be so cruel.

So, yeah, ‘Under the Bridge’. I don’t know what you could say about it that isn’t on its dedicated Wikipedia page. I guess if you’re reading this for the first time and you’ve never heard the track before, it’s good to start with the basics. Reflecting on a time when he felt he was at his lowest in terms of drug dependency, singer Anthony Kiedis originally wrote the words for ‘Under the Bridge’ as a poem. Not intended for use of any kind, especially not musically. Producer Rick Rubin saw the lyrics one day and pushed Kiedis into showing them to the rest of the band. Kiedis did so, begrudgingly, but John Frusciante, Flea and Chad Smith were all into it. The track was recorded during the sessions for what would become the band’s 1991 album, Blood Sugar Sex Magik. A classic, their best LP depending on who you ask, and the record that made the band an internationally recognised name. It was its inclusion on Blood Sugar… that stopped ‘Soul to Squeeze’ from being in the final tracklist too. “One soft song was enough” is what I remember someone saying about that in an interview. Think it was Frusciante.

‘Cause the band always felt a real importance to bring the funk on their work, ‘Under the Bridge’ was unlike anything they had done before. Less in-your-face and more subtlety. Frusciante’s guitar throughout sums that whole notion up, a big chef’s kiss. His mother and her friends provide the choir vocals over the climactic coda. Flea’s bassline is a whole other melody in itself when it comes in the first chorus. Kiedis’s singing ain’t too bad either. The song was released as the second single from Blood Sugar… and commercially shot them into another stratosphere. John Frusciante was not happy about this. The year was 1992, and whenever it came to playing this song live, he would do whatever it took to make sure ‘Under the Bridge’ did not go smoothly. This led to performances like the infamous one on Saturday Night Live or another awkward one in France’s Canal Studios. Generally, he did not enjoy being in the band at the time, citing that he hated how famous they’d become, and he would go off-course in every song they would do when they were out on tour. Being the most successful and well-known out of all the songs, ‘Under the Bridge’ suffered the most at his hands. He soon left the band and got into things that don’t need expanding on, it’s all heavily documented already. But he came back. Then left again. Then came back again. It’s been smooth sailing since.

#1442: Paul & Linda McCartney – Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

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The last couple times I’ve written about songs from Paul & Linda McCartney’s Ram album, I’ve made note about why it’s my favourite out of McCartney’s solo efforts. There’s no point in getting into the whys again, I think you all get the idea. But seeing that ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’ was next up in this list, it got me thinking about when I listened to Ram for the first time. That’s something I don’t think I’ve talked about in any prior posts concerning the album. So I went to the Vista computer sitting in the corner of the living room, opened ‘Downloads’, went to the ‘Ram’ folder and selected ‘Properties’. “22nd June 2011”. 4pm on the dot. Even before the 2012 remaster came along. Some other things I found, if you find them interesting, were that it was the last Beatles solo-related album I downloaded after really getting into things like Imagine and Band on the Run and All Things Must Pass… all the good ones, a few months before. And it was the third full album I downloaded post finishing my GCSE exams, after There Is a Way by Dananananaykroyd and the brand-new work by Arctic Monkeys called Suck It and See. It was a good time to be alive.

‘Uncle Albert…’ has been in my bones for so long now, I can’t lie and come up with the scenario where I heard the track the first time and was blown away, thinking “Wow, this song’s amazing”. I honestly can’t remember. It probably took a listen on one unremarkable day where everything clicked. And sometimes that’s enough. It left a mark though, like a big chunk of Ram has. This song charted at the top of the American charts when it was released back in 1971. I listen to it now and think this is a weird song to chart at number one anywhere, especially the US. Then again it was a former Beatle. But ‘Uncle Albert…’ is a strange one. McCartney dips into that Abbey Road medley bag, combining parts of separate compositions to make a whole. Does that on ‘The Back Seat of My Car’ as well. But he also runs away with the possibilities he has at his disposal, changing his voice to take roles of different characters within the song, mimicking the ringing of a telephone, and of course showing off that wide vocal range of his. Linda McCartney’s right there alongside him, pulling off some great harmonies, probably the best parts to look out for in the entire track, and the brilliant ‘butter pie?’ retort that comes along.

I called ‘Uncle Albert’ strange, but I don’t mean to make that sound disparaging. This song is a lot of fun. Like, a lot. The first ‘Uncle Albert’ half of the song is supposedly an apology to the older generation, represented by the Uncle Albert character based off McCartney’s real relative. The ‘Admiral Halsey’ section is meant to depict a snubbing of an authoritarian figure. Just looking at what Wikipedia says McCartney said about it. Never thought about that part that way, it’s kind of interesting. But anyway, “Haaaaaands across the water (water) / Heeeeeeeads across the skyyyyyyy”. For God’s sake, how was this guy so good with melodies? There’s so many alone in this song that can get stuck in the brain, sung and delivered in a manner of ways. Words bouncing off each other to and fro. My favourite melody / harmony is the additional one that’s added under the ‘Hands across…’ melody after the whole butter pie bit. But the whole track is a little masterpiece. It all ends with a bit of riding into the sunset kind of feel, harmonizing McCartneys oohing all over the place. Someone starts going crazy on the piano. But even then, it doesn’t let up as stray guitar plucks and tom-tom strikes enter the frame, leading right into the following song on the album. The excitement keeps rolling on. He’s never sang it live, so a performance video below is AWOL. It would take some doing now. But you never know.

#1441: Talking Heads – Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town

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Looks like I gave the whole spiel as to what other songs from Talking Heads: 77 would have their own posts here when I last wrote about another song from that album a few years back. Normally I reserve that whole bit for when I’m writing about the last representative from a specific LP. But I guess I couldn’t hold it in. What I’ve found out is that I listened to …77 in full for the first time in March 2014. I thought it was much later in the year. I have a memory that fueled that feeling, I’ll maybe note it in the final paragraph. But let’s see, March 2014. I was hosting a show on my uni’s radio station. I was stuffing my iTunes library with as much music as I could. I had ‘Tentative Decisions’ by itself in there. I’d heard it on an internet radio service in 2012 or so. I’m guessing I must have just thought, “May as well get the rest of the album in too.” It was a well-respected piece of work, according to Wikipedia. I had nothing to lose.

‘Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town’ is the first song on Talking Heads: 77. The one introducing the band to the masses, with …77 being their debut album and all. It begins with a crashing, ascending four-chord progression before falling straight into that shoulder-shimmying groove. The guitar line skips along, in unison with the bass guitar, and then David Byrne enters on the vocals for all to hear with that shrill but perky delivery of his. Steel drums enter the frame along the way, all a very upbeat affair. Guess it’s safe to say, ‘Uh-Oh…’ is a song about love. In the tune, David Byrne sings from the perspective of a self-proclaimed “know-it-all” who’s got his partner. They get along very well. But the song’s not so much about the couple. It’s more about the notion that being in love can make you do stupid things, make the world go topsy-turvy. Byrne sings about calling in sick to his workplace to be with the one [he] loves, even though he knows he’ll get in trouble for it. He’s misplaced his common sense. He goes out of his mind when his loved one’s around. Stockbrokers are making bad investments, jet pilots are losing control of their vehicles. And why? Because love has come to town. And the song ends as it begins, with that four-chord progression with Byrne wailing “Uh-oh” over the top of it. A strong album opener. A strong discography opener.

Why I thought I heard Talking Heads: 77 later in 2014 is because I once went to Manchester for a weekend or something in November that year, an event was going on. Warehouse Project, people out there will know. I returned to my uni house and found that I could no longer reach those high notes as David Byrne does at the end of ‘Uh-Oh…’ when I tried to sing the song like I had before that weekend happened. I honestly thought that was it, my voice was gone, my angelic tones were no more. Cut to a few weeks later, voice was fine. A lot of that weekend was spent talking loudly, obviously some cords were strained and they got better over time. But I got worried there. So the point was, I thought I had listened to …77 initially around November time of 2014. It was months earlier. But maybe it was during November time that I revisited it and officially got into ‘Uh-Oh’… I’m rambling on a bit, just some thought processes going on here. Whatever may be the case, I enjoy this song and its parent album a lot. I prefer it to More Buildings and Food. I would probably be more inclined to go through …77 on a whim than Remain in Light too. In my view, just the run from ‘The Book I Read’ to ‘Pulled Up’ might be one of my favourites on any album ever. And that does includes ‘First Week/Last Week…Carefree’ because that song is a jam.

#1440: Big Thief – UFOF

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I can tell you one thing AI’s good for on Spotify. It can tell me the exact date I listened to Adrianne Lenker’s Abysskiss the first time. 23rd January, 2019. Sounds about right. I liked it straight away. Of course I had to do some research of my own, and what always came up was that Lenker was the lead singer in this band called Big Thief. Sounded cool enough. But I don’t think I went ahead to listen to any of the group’s albums. Capacity would have been their latest one at the time, released a year and a few months earlier. Maybe I should have done. But Abysskiss kept me steady for a period of time. It was only about a month on from January 23rd – 26th February – that ‘UFOF’ was unveiled as the new song from the band’s forthcoming third album of the same name. Can’t remember where I found out about it. Maybe Pitchfork, maybe the Indieheads subreddit. But now there was no better time to listen to Adrianne Lenker in the context of “her” band. I listened to the song, thought it was interesting. I think I returned to it a few days later and realised its genius. Like Spotify says, it was “the song I kept circling back to” in March 2019.

The track’s only three minutes long, a suitable length most would agree. But it feels really busy in that runtime. James Krivchenia’s drumming never really sticks to one beat. It might do for a few seconds before he throws in a fill and a pitter-patter here and there. The rhythms always shuffling and evolving. Throughout Abyskiss, Lenker’s playing on the acoustic guitar reminded me of Nick Drake in that she also has this intricate fingerpicking style that somehow creates unique respective melodies, alternating between the lower and higher strings. That’s all over ‘UFOF’. Plus the overall chord progression is so mystifying, probably down to an alternate tuning of some kind. Then during the instrumental section before the final chorus, there are all the glitchy, stuttering vocal effects added just to add a little strangeness to everything. You can’t quite pin everything down, yet the whole track sounds so tightly constructed. Andrew Sarlo, the producer, once uploaded the song’s ProTools project onto YouTube for a video, showing all the layers and elements within. I saw it the one time. It was taken down at some point. It would be nice to see it again one day.

The extra ‘F’ after the ‘UFO’ in the title stands for ‘friend’. Any longtime readers may be aware of the fact that I’m more the “music first, lyrics later” kind of person. And before now, I never really thought about the words in this ’cause I enjoyed the melody so much. But looking at the words, it looks like the song’s another in the work of Lenker’s that concerns an admiration/fascination for a person that’s close to her. Only this time round, the person is unnamed – compared to a ‘Haley’ or ‘Mary’ or ‘Betsy’ – and they seem to take off and go on their own separate, wandering journey, much like an unidentified flying object. But Lenker sees the beauty in this being and dreams of the both of them going away on these journeys together. It’s beautiful stuff. A little aside, there’s a continuous ‘ting’ that occurs every few seconds in the track. I don’t know if it’s a triangle or a cymbal of some kind. Once you notice it, sometimes it’ll be the only thing you’ll be able to hear. I’ve been able to tune it out. But there are those days when the only thing in the song I can focus on is that ‘ting’. Apart from that, this track is one of the reasons why U.F.O.F. is my favourite Big Thief album. There are so many other songs on there apart from the other two that would have got posts on here. They exist in another universe somewhere.