#1413: Pavement – Transport Is Arranged

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I sort of remember hearing Pavement’s ‘Transport Is Arranged’ the first time. Think it was sometime in early to mid-2013. Makes me either 17 or 18 years of age. I thought it was a weird one initially. In fact, I’m not entirely sure I liked it all that much. The track’s the third to start playing on the band’s Brighten the Corners album from 1997. The one-two punch of ‘Stereo’ and ‘Shady Lane’ was something I was already very familiar with by 2013. The two numbers were the third and second Pavement songs I’d ever heard respectively, having seen their videos on MTV2 in the mid-2000s. So fast-forward, I’m going through Brighten the Corners. The ‘J vs. S’ instrumental section of ‘Shady Lane’ finishes. Now I’m officially in unfamiliar territory. I was not in Kansas anymore. And ‘Transport…’ begins with Malkmus and his guitar alongside… a Mellotron? It wasn’t what I was expecting, that’s for sure.

To the 17/18-year-old me, ‘Transport…’ was the song where I thought Malkmus was really trying to actually sing, but he was failing. He was bad. That was my snobby attitude toward his vocals. Particularly, how he sang ‘Set me up with your nIeEce’, but generally how he was just pitchy all over the place. It put me off. But there were still little moments that stuck in my head, the line “I know, you’re my lady” did for some reason, just the melody of it. And after a few more listens over a period of time, I put the snobbery to the side, enjoyed the track for what it was and got to the point where I was humming it to myself on the train. At this point in time, it seems so silly I was uptight about those kinds of things back in those days ’cause it’s really Malkmus’s vocals that are usually the most endearing parts of any Pavement song. ‘Transport…’ is still a weirder one, though. ‘Least on the musical side. It’s made up of three verses, two of which end with an utterance of the song title, and no chorus, separated by ascending / descending guitar runs with a wandering instrumental jam falling into a hard-rock breakdown in the middle. It’s like a little trip, a little journey. Which I think ties into what the song’s about, from the little I can personally make out from the lyrics, anyway.

Well, let’s first begin with the title. ‘Transport Is Arranged’. Well, I guess transport is usually arranged for musicians who need to travel around various countries to get to the venues they’re playing in, the accommodation where they’re staying for a night, etc. And I think the song is another of those “life on the road” songs that Malkmus sometimes does, but there’s the added angle of trying to build and maintain a relationship while also living the life of a touring musician. The narrator’s good at his craft. But when it comes to romance, there’s something lacking. “A voice coach taught me to sing / He couldn’t teach me to love”. The first two verses appear to tackle the situation. But by the third verse, it seems that the narrator’s comfortable in the solitary state they’re in, navigating their way through life effortlessly, sometimes with the assistance of a tour bus or other provided transportation. Maybe I’m just looking into it too much, and it’s all just a word exercise. You never really know when it comes to Stephen Malkmus, and I think that’s what gets me wanting more whenever a Malkmus things comes around.

#1412: Ween – Transdermal Celebration

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Only the second song from Ween’s Quebec I’ll be writing about on here. I tell you, in another time, there’d be many more Ween songs covered on this blog in general. But when it comes to Quebec, there are about five others on that album that would have definitely had their own posts, had I been aware of the album’s existence before 2013. The band’s eighth album, released in August 2003, is my favourite of the band’s. For a while, it was firmly The Mollusk, which I think is a common feeling among the people. But as I’ve got older and had my moments of sadness and reflection, settling into the person I am, Quebec is at that point where it resonates with me a lot more than it initially did. The album deals with issues, so much so that the album was jokingly referred to as “Aaron Freeman’s Issues” during its making. One of those issues covered on the album is that of drugs, and that is all over its third track, ‘Transdermal Celebration’.

After the Motorhead-esque opener in ‘It’s Gonna Be a Long Night’ and elevator muzak take of ‘Zoloft’, ‘Transdermal…’ comes in as the big “alt-rock” number to push the album along further. I did think it was a rip on Foo Fighters in the first few months of knowing it. It probably isn’t. But I still think Gene Ween’s vocals sound like Dave Grohl’s in ‘Learn to Fly’. All that’s neither here nor there. Webster’s definition of ‘transdermal’ is as follows: “relating to, being, or supplying a medication in a form for absorption through the skin into the bloodstream”. A lot of other things, not so much ‘medication’, can be taken in the same way. But we’ll say it’s about medication just for this, with the verses depicting the various visions and metaphorical effects on the body the narrator experiences while on it. The storming verses then come down into the swaying, calmer choruses, which change the perspective, looking on at the narrator who lies comatose on their lawn while all these hallucinations are happening in their head. Not to reduce the song to “It’s just about drugs, man”, but knowing Ween… it’s very likely that it is.

I think people who know ‘Transdermal…’ all have an aligned understanding that it’s pretty much amazing. If it is about drug visions and out-of-this-world hallucinations that sound great on the surface, I also appreciate the depiction of the scary point-of-no-return moment in the final line of the last verse, “But where is the mutation that once told me it was safe? / I can’t find him” – which also sounds like “Fucking find him”, and I don’t think that’s unintentional. While on the front acting as a celebration, there’s a warning inside too, which goes hand-in-hand with the “Everything’s okay on the outside, but inside there’s insecurity” theme (or something better-worded but along those lines) that shows up throughout the album. There’s a great story about how the fantastic guitar solo was recorded. It involves Dean Ween and the gear and equipment of the legendary guitarist Carlos Santana. It’s better to read it from Dean Ween’s point of view. And here’s Santana playing live the morning after.

#1411: The Killers – Tranquilize

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Now, if I remember correctly, the video for The Killers’ ‘Tranquilize’ was initially available on NME’s website as an exclusive. A little research goes to show I’m right on this. This was the new song / single to promote the band’s Sawdust compilation, a collection of B-sides, covers and rarities made during the sessions for Sam’s Town. But when I went to watch it, the video’s quality was quite shitty. I don’t think I made it past the first few seconds of the song either. The XP computer we had back in those days was on its last circuits. It definitely wasn’t too long after that the video was making its rounds on MTV2 however, in good CRT TV-screen quality. ‘Tranquilize’ features Lou Reed. For a long time, I thought he only sung the ending section of the song and Brandon Flowers was somehow putting on a pretty good old man voice for the most part. Reed’s not lip-syncing his parts in the video, except for the ending, and Flowers was – both his and Reed’s vocals usually. So that’s how I saw the song when I was 12. Turns out, from the second verse on, Reed is always there. Their voices blend very well together.

In the back of my mind, I’ve felt that there’s something really strange about ‘Tranquilize’ that shouldn’t work. I think it’s just the fact it was a single. Out of all the singles The Killers had released up to that point, ‘Tranquilize’ was definitely the strangest one. I do think it might just be one of their best songs. But it wouldn’t get people up on their feet like a Hot Fuss number or ‘When You Were Young’. ‘Tranquilize’ is a little spooky and sinister. The droning synths at the beginning sets, leading into the thick bass line by Mark Stoermer. You’ve got those ghost kids singing alongside Reed after the first chorus. There’s that rising progression during those “Got this feeling…” sections that are a rush, uh, giving a feeling… that something bad’s about to happen, as Flowers sings during those parts. But then those give way to the lighter, “string”-led choruses where he and Reed sing in unison. And then just when you feel we’re getting deeper and deeper into the dread as the song nears its end, Reed comes in for the optimistic, stand-up-and-hand-on-heart ending to end things on a hopeful note. Takes you in different directions, this song.

The problem is, I can’t pinpoint what ‘Tranquilize’ is about. There’s something of a love song within. There’s something of a political commentary. Got some religious imagery, paranoia, scenes of haunted playgrounds. A real mixture going on. Maybe that’s what it is, a love story in the midst of a turbulent society. All I know is, this track comes from a time when less effects were being put on Brandon Flowers’s voice. There’s pitch correction all over Hot Fuss. And I think the songs made in the Sam’s Town times only prevail from this change. His natural voice had much more character. He sounded more expressive, and ‘Tranquilize’ was another gem that show his vocals off during that period. The fact that Lou Reed’s also singing alongside him is an added bonus. From what I can find, they don’t seem to have ever performed it live together before Reed’s passing in 2013. It’s a shame. Flowers sings it all in the live videos I see, and there’s definitely something missing. It’s the collaboration that makes ‘Tranquilize’ what it is. I’m glad it exists.

#1410: Big Boi ft. Sam Chris – The Train, Pt. 2 (Sir Lucious Left Foot Saves the Day)

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Well, André 3000 eventually gave us his real debut solo album we were waiting for a few years back. It most likely didn’t turn out the way everyone wanted it to. But it’s now something that exists in the world. I haven’t listened to New Blue Sun, but I’m sure it’s interesting at least. I think I’d have to be in a certain kind of mood or physical space to listen to the whole thing. In the world of respective individual releases by he and Big Boi after the splitting of OutKast in 2006, even though the latter has three albums to his name, I think it’s still Big Boi’s 2010 Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty that’s the best out of the lot of them. I was looking back on some posts for blog maintenance’s sake and saw I gave a whole backstory on my experience with that album in the first Big Boi post I did on here. I did have a good time with it back in those early 2010s. I haven’t listened to it fully in a while. But I have my favourite tracks from there, a few of them I’ve already covered, and ‘The Train, Pt. 2’ is another one.

In name only, the track’s a sequel to “Part One”, which appeared on OutKast’s swansong Idlewild. That saw Big Boi reminiscing on his career up to that point, potentially hinting on leaving the rap game. On ‘Pt. 2’, the ‘train’ theme continues, but here the artist provides a bit of commentary on the music industry, progression in technology, and on rappers constantly faking their wealth on the TV and getting the naive youth to believe in it. “Got them bay-bays believing that bullshit”, is how he puts it. On the choruses, Sam Chris expands on the notion of lying and exaggerating events, singing that these kinds of things happen on a daily basis – a never-ending cycle presumably in the music business – but if no one’s hurts by them and it’s all for a good laugh, then it’s all fine at the day, right? The answer should be no. But it is yes in a way too. A kind of negative action causing a positive reaction? I think it’s the ambivalence about it all that’s the main issue here.

I don’t know who came up with the repeating rhythm guitar line that plays almost throughout, but it’s essentially that element which acts as the foundation beneath everything else that happens in ‘The Train, Pt.2’. Sam Chris delivers the chorus impeccably, I remember being instantly hooked to his vocals, and Big Boi rides the beat with his flows as well as ever, even if it took a little longer to fully digest what he was talking about. What I feel I enjoy most is how Big Boi bounces off Sam Chris during the chorus, I think from the second one onward. “Lying to yourself like it really happened (Really happened)”, “Riding on a never-ending train (Choo choo)”, “Pick a stop (Pick a stop), pick a lie (pick a lie)”. You get the idea. These vocal echoes that create this sense of endless motion on the vocal front. “I think I (I think I, He said, he said, he said) Sometimes I think I love it…” A great part there. Could have ended the album with this song, to be honest, but ‘Back Up Plan’ does do the job in bringing things home. Also, the track’s really 4:43 in length with the remaining time taken by an unrelated samba(?)-inspired interlude, ’cause what’s a hip-hop album without a skit or two?

#1409: Blur – Trailerpark

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Ah, nice, a Blur double-header. You know I was talking about wanting odd moments in music in the last post? Well, it’s nice that another song of the band’s, especially from 13, arrives right after, because that album’s filled with them. One day in either 2015 or ’16, I decided to listen through 13 from front to back, no distractions. I was interning at a music magazine at the time, I could get away with it. And it was there that I had the proper awakening moment. I found… that I actually really enjoyed the whole thing. The first time, a couple years before, I was left confused, feeling that it was a little too long with those random extra interludes, really only liking the singles I knew. The second, I got into a few other deeper cuts. But it was the thorough listen behind the iMac in the office that did the trick. The way I looked at it was, after ‘Coffee & TV’, the album just goes off the deep end, gets stranger as it goes on. If there’s anything that could be labelled as the weirdest song on 13, ‘Trailerpark’ might be the frontrunner.

The song was the first of the 13 songs to be recorded, but wasn’t originally intended to be on the track listing. It was in fact written for the South Park Chef Aid album. It was called ‘South Park’ before the name was changed. But someone on the other end said no to it. Presumably, Rick Rubin. So the band kept it for themselves. As a result, it’s the only song on 13 to be produced by the band without William Orbit. You’d never really know it without searching it up, ’cause it contains the same kind of cut-and-pasting production style Orbit would use to piece almost all the other tracks on the album. The rhythm section during the verses are an obvious loop that you can sort of hear resetting after a few measures. The punk-riff ending, the best part, sounds like it’s been added on from a completely different session. It’s such a left-turn from the rest of the song before, it caught me offguard when I was going through that relisten. Feels like everything’s been constructed piece by piece, and there is a little monster of a number that comes out of the work.

I think we all know 13 for being Damon Albarn’s breakup album and the one where he alludes to drug use a lot. ‘Trailerpark’ combines the two. In a bit of a melodic rambling mantra, the song’s main lines are “I’m a country boy, I got no soul / Don’t sleep at night, the world’s growing old / I lost my girl to the Rolling Stones”. Some exclamations of “Freestyle 45” and angular, woozy guitar breaks by Graham Coxon come in between. He also provides a “solo”, which is essentially fucking around with feedback, during the instrumental break. Oh, and that bluesy keyboard melody throughout that sounds like it’s coming from a tannoy speaker is very cool too. From what I’ve researched, ‘Rolling Stones’ is code for drugs. What kind? Up to your interpretation, I guess. And the rest is self-explanatory, I feel. For lack of a better word, the whole track is a vibe. Comments I’ve seen about it range from it being ‘lo-fi trip hop’, to sounding ‘like a precursor to Gorillaz’, to feeling like ‘walking through a dark empty mall that closed’. They’re all very valid points.