#1436: Taking Back Sunday – Twenty-Twenty Surgery

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Exactly 600 posts later, I’m writing about another Taking Back Sunday song from the same album. Funny how this thing works out sometimes. You go to that write-up on ‘Miami’ and I more or less give the context behind my personal association with the band’s Louder Now. ‘Twenty-Twenty Surgery’ is the sixth song on the record. It closes out the first side if you were to purchase the album on vinyl. My sister borrowed Louder Now from a friend of hers, I think mainly so she could have a copy of ‘MakeDamnSure’ for herself. If another song happened to be good, there was no complaining. I must have heard ‘Twenty-Twenty Surgery’ at a time when the album was playing out of the computer speakers, in the background while I was probably doing something else. But I really became familiar with the track when its music video (as seen above) began its circulation on MTV2 in the middle of 2006. For some reason, the track was released as a single only in the UK and Europe. It got to number 60 in the former’s singles chart.

The video is a nod to Johnny Cash’s prison concerts, particularly those of San Quentin and Folsom. It’s also one of those videos where I’m certain it has nothing to do with what’s going on in the lyrics. And what is going on in the lyrics? I’m not sure myself, I’ve never thought too deeply into them. I just enjoyed hearing the song every time it arrived on the TV screen. I liked the swapping-in-and-out of vocals between lead singer Adam Lazzara and guitarist Fred Mascherino, something that happens all throughout Louder Now. And in general, the track is one that can get itself stuck in the brain, if it’s pop-punk inclined. But looking into it, the title was initially inspired by the LASIK surgery a guy Lazzara was living with had at the time. Lazzara then looked to turning this in-joke ‘Twenty-Twenty Surgery’ phrase into something concerning hindsight. Then I look at the words, and I think it’s safe to assume there’s a relationship of some kind being depicted in it. It’s most likely at its end. So I concluding it’s an “In hindsight, this person wasn’t what I thought they were,” type deal. I didn’t need to know the meaning of it all to know I liked it. But I guess it’s good to have some sort of bearing of where the song’s coming from.

So, yeah, Louder Now. Twenty years old this year. This was the era of Taking Back Sunday I remember very clearly. To me they just sort of popped up from out of nowhere when ‘MakeDamnSure’ was making the rounds. Unbeknownst to me they had already released two albums prior. But I really got into the band during that time. Doing some searches for this post, I’ve just found out that Fred Mascherino has been playing with the band at live shows for just under a year now. And that’s great. I know that Mascherino’s presence in the lineup when he was an official member marks a time of what fans regard peak Taking Back Sunday. I also remember there was a lot of drama behind his initial departure back in the day. Very cool to see that differences between he and Lazzara were made up and they’re able to play these songs together again. I guess it would be too much to ask to get the other three members who were in the band during the Louder Now times to join them as well. You’ve got to start with baby steps, I guess.

#1435: Joy Division – Twenty Four Hours

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My appreciation for Joy Division’s ‘Twenty Four Hours’ really set in during my blank year of 2019 when I was unemployed, looking for jobs and sort of wallowing in my own misery. I think I’ve referenced this time of my life before. And whenever I wasn’t applying for vacancies and sending receipts of these applications to my sister at her request so she could judge how I was doing, I was listening to albums. My old ASUS laptop, which I used throughout uni, was at the time running low on storage because of all the music I had downloaded onto it. So I created my own task of listening through the albums I had in my iTunes library and deleting the songs I felt I wasn’t returning to all that much. Joy Division’s Closer had been in there for some time. Wish I could tell you exactly when, but that laptop is on the fritz as I also may have said before. It’s at least after 2013. But in 2019, it was the first time I’d properly gone through it in years. It’s not the kind of album I think of turning to when I spontaneously decide to listen through one. But I did, on whatever day it was, and got to thinking, “Hmm… ‘Twenty Four Hours’. I like that one,” once that song was done.

Why isn’t Closer the sort of album to go to for a casual listen? Well, for anyone not in the know, the LP was the last of Joy Division’s to be worked on before lyricist and singer Ian Curtis died by suicide. Officially the band’s final statement, or at the very least Curtis’s, and the songs within are nine different windows providing a view of how much he was suffering internally at the time. Or I won’t sensationalize it and instead say it’s from the POV of narrators who are clearly going through a trying ordeal. ‘Twenty Four Hours’, in my view, is from the perspective of “someone” who senses they are running out of time in this world. The hope they once had is now gone, only darkness looms. A search for salvation is the main objective. If it’s not found, there’s a big chance the narrator won’t be around for much longer. And I like to think the song’s title is the amount of time they’ve given themselves before their final decision. The urgency of the situation is apparent, symbolised by the sections with the rushing guitar and pounding snare drum, echoing with each strike. The drum fills during those parts never quite fall precistly on the downbeat too. Near claustrophobic, quite anxiety-inducing.

And ’cause there’s no chorus to sort of connect everything together, the track relies on the dynamic set between the quieter, rolling sections, led by Peter Hook’s melodic bass guitar, and the aforementioned propulsive sections. They say the quiet/loud contrast was firmly established by Pixies, but Joy Division seemed to be doing it just over a decade before. I’ve got to say, a lot of times, I find myself humming along to Hook’s bass line all the way throughout, missing Curtis’s words altogether. To be fair, it is a very memorable bass line. That’s nothing new when it comes to the bass lines in Joy Division songs. It’s also the very first thing in the song you hear. When it does come to Curtis’s lyrics, though, all I can say is they make up five verses based on sheer resigned acceptance. “Just for one moment, thought I’d found my way / Destiny unfolded, I watched it slip away.” That’s just half of one. Hard not to associate anything that’s depicted in the song with what would tragically follow in reality. Feels a bit trite to just say rest in peace. Even though that’s the thing you do say when someone’s died / been dead for a while, I didn’t know Ian Curtis at all. As if that had to be said. It would have been nice if he got the help he needed.

#1434: The Byrds – Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season)

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Went back to the Vista computer sitting in the corner of the living room to get to the source for this track. According to the file’s properties, I downloaded The Byrds’ ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ at 12:30 in the morning, on Sunday 1st of May 2011. Just a few minutes after doing the same for their cover of ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’. It was a wild period of my life that I was behind a desktop on a Saturday night downloading music. Really, I was in the lead-up to my actual GCSE exams and going out wasn’t an option. Around that time, both songs had appeared on a radio service provided by the website we7.com, which I’ve referred to on a few occasions. I liked the two of ’em straight off the bat. When it came to ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’, I got that all-to-familiar feeling that I’d heard the song somewhere before. It’s in Forrest Gump, which I’m sure I’d seen by that point, but it was like my knowledge of the tune went much further back. This is something I’ll come back to at the end of this post.

Just over two months after completing their first album in April 1965, The Byrds were back in the studio to start work on what would become their second. Only made sense. They’d virtually created the folk rock genre, and their take on ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ had taken the world by storm. It was time to capitalise. During the sessions for this new album, they recorded an adaptation of ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ by Pete Seeger, which itself was heavily reliant on the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible. The Byrds did their thing. Applied the three-way harmonies of Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Gene Clark. Utlilised the chiming 12-string guitars. Unlike ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ where McGuinn was the only Byrd playing his instrument alongside the world-class Wrecking Crew session musicians, all five Byrds were present, correct and performing on ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ this time ’round. They completed the song. It was released as the first single from their forthcoming album, also entitled Turn! Turn! Turn!. While maybe not as much as the worldwide smash ‘Tambourine’ was, the people of America got it to number one in their country and the folk rock train of 1965 kept rolling.

I mean, I think it’s a bit of a classic, right? The Byrds would evolve in terms of the music they’d make as the ’60s went on. But in terms of establishing that folk rock sound, ‘Tambourine Man’ and ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ solidly set the template and influenced anything like it that followed. I already mentioned them in the previous paragraph, but it’s all about the vocal melodies and the jangly guitars. The combination of those result in some good aural bliss. But I also like how the song picks up in rhythm as its outro sets in and Michael Clarke becomes a little bit more busier on the drums, pulling off some fills and triplet patterns in the process. One thing I would wish for is that The Byrds did a whole Beatles discography remix thing, though. Instruments in the right ear and just vocals in the left… It’s not a stereo mix for today’s society. Oh, and, uh, years after getting to know ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ proper in 2011, I found myself watching that Simpsons episode where Bart and Lisa become newsreaders for a children’s programme. In it, Bart seeks inspiration from Kent Brockman. Brockman assists. ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ showed up, and that unlocked a memory of sitting in front of the small TV in my grandma’s room when I was maybe eight, watching the same episode while trying not to wake her up. So there you go.

#1433: The Streets – Turn the Page

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Leading up to Christmastime 2008, I sent my cousin the yearly list of things that I wanted for the holiday. These lists would usually consist of albums and maybe a couple video games on the side. On that particular edition, among other potentials, I asked for both Original Pirate Material and A Grand Don’t Come for Free by The Streets. Earlier on in the year, Mike Skinner released his fourth album under the name in Everything Is Borrowed. But his music had been in my life for a good long while by then. I was alive and kicking when A Grand… was the new album, recognising ‘Fit But You Know It’ when it appeared on the FIFA 2005 soundtrack. I was in Year 6 when the brand-new video for ‘When You Wasn’t Famous’ was being repeated regularly on MTV2. And the singles’ videos from Original Pirate Material were a usual occurrence on the same channel. I was all-in for The Streets in that first decade of the 2000s. But I must have found out that Original… and A Grand… were considered to be the best out of the four, hence the request. And I did get them, conveniently packaged in a 2-in-1 CD jewel case, which I still have to this day.

Original Pirate Material was Skinner’s first album, released back in 2002, only made sense to start with it. It begins with ‘Turn the Page’. You ask me today to relay Skinner’s words on this track back to you, I wouldn’t be able to do it even after knowing it all this time. Not because I don’t know them, but I know for sure the words are better coming out of his mouth rather than mine. The lyrics are very much Skinner’s message to the listener to get in the zone for the album to come, and in a way for those that were to follow, ’cause he’s the phoenix rising out of the UK garage scene – which was doing its thing commercially in those early, early years of the 2000s – and looking to push it in a new direction. I can’t relate to that. I was in the last days of my sixth year on this planet when Original Pirate… was originally released. It’s not like it’s something you start reciting in the shower, either. So I’m fine to only listen to the lyrics. Skinner has such a commanding presence anyway, and those strings add the dramatic tone that takes everything to another level.

I think I need to watch the film Gladiator ’cause the track contains references to it that I am completely missing out on. Mike Skinner saw it and was inspired to write something that captured its essence. I’m sure he succeeded, but without knowing the film, it’s not in my place to firmly say. Admittedly, I’m not too cultured when it comes to movies. But even with the absence in Gladiator knowledge, there is a definite movie-scene vibe to ‘Turn the Page’. Like, it’d be perfect as the background music to a training montage of this determined character who wakes up early in the morning to get shit done. The movie would have to take place in the UK though and rely on less of a budget than your standard blockbuster Warner Bros. box office sellout. But anyway, yes, ‘Turn the Page’, a strong start to anyone’s discography, let alone one sole album. Begins everything with a cinematic tone, urges you to strap yourself in and get ready. If you listen ‘Turn the Page’ on its own, you’ll find it ends quite suddenly, on an unresolved note, and it’s because on the album, it slides right into the following track ‘Has It Come to This?’, in which the curtain’s lifted, and you’re properly invited into Skinner’s world. So listen to both songs in succession, is what I’m trying to say. Well worth the seven minutes of your time.

#1432: Blur – Turn It Up

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Here it is, one of the worst Blur songs the band ever did. Or so you may have been led to believe. Allegedly, when it comes to ‘Turn It Up’, the second-last song on Modern Life Is Rubbish, the one thing agreed amongst Damon Albarn, Graham Coxon, Alex James and Dave Rowntree is the hate they have for it. There’s no interview confirming this consensus (that I can find). But you can at least find an one with Albarn in which he says, “[Young and Lovely] should have been on the LP. But it didn’t get on there and fucking ‘Turn It Up’ did.” I’ve got a good grasp of the English language to know that any noun prefaced by an intensifier of ‘fucking’ is not being referred to in a good way. ‘Turn It Up’ is a bit of an odd one on Modern Life… It doesn’t fit with the British social commentary theme that runs through the LP. It does feel a little like something that would have been a shoo-in on the previous, debut album Leisure. Judging by the following linked performance, it was one of the first new songs written after that album’s release. But I want to assure you, as a fan of music of all kinds, but predominantly rock as you could tell from everything else on this blog, ‘Turn It Up’ is a great, great time.

In terms of the lyrical content, ‘Turn It Up’ doesn’t really go anywhere and it doesn’t mean anything. “Kazoo, kazoo, you are mine / Kazoo, kazoo, every time”, “Kazoo, kazoo, your reply / Why do you turn your back on me?”. All a bunch of nonsense. Probably an added reason as to why Albarn in particular does not care for the track in any way. Despite this, he sings every lyric within very nicely, alongside Coxon on the higher harmonies. There are great melodies throughout. And the production behind it all is absolutely massive. Mega. There’s an explosiveness to the band’s performance than there has any right to be on a song like this. I’d had Modern Life Is Rubbish in the iTunes library since 2013, but it was a revisit a couple years later that really turned me on to ‘Turn It Up’. The revisit made me pay more attention to the chord changes, the track’s different sections and the various guitar licks Graham Coxon was pulling off throughout. It pricked my ear towards the thunderous drum work by Dave Rowntree, he’s going all over the place, rapid-fire snare rolls and tom-tom strikes abound. Just made me gain a general appreciation for the track I didn’t have before. Even as a “lesser” track, it’s one of the reasons Modern Life… is my favourite of the three “Life” albums Blur did in the mid-’90s.

Graham Coxon once broke down Modern Life…, listening to each individual track and picking out elements a little harder to hear than the average listener may want to. The flickering guitar at the beginning was created by Coxon leaning his guitar against an amp and feeding it through a tremolo pedal. There’s a rattling triangle somewhere in the mix. I think it’s the high frequency of that which adds the trance-inducing quality in the “Kazoo, kazoo” pre-choruses. And the little guitar run he executes before the first pre-chorus is filtered through a wah-wah pedal. The breakdown is a good watch. I’ve kind of run out of things to say here. Sure, ‘Turn It Up’ doesn’t have anything of huge consequence in terms of a narrative, nor in terms of its placement on the album. It’s stuck in that slot in the track list when you’re gearing up for the ending and waiting in anticipation to see how the package finishes. It feels like it’s one of those “we wrote this and our label really likes it, but we don’t” kind of songs. A lot of side-eyeing in this track’s direction. But what it lacks for in importance, it more than makes up for in its intense energy and forceful performance.