Monthly Archives: January 2014

My iPod #216: George Harrison – Crackerbox Palace

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2011 marked ten years without George Harrison on this Earth and as a dedication, the BBC showed a new documentary detailing the musician’s life. It is very good, I recommend you see it if you haven’t.

The reason I talk about that is that there were these clips of Harrison, not during his days with The Beatles but what looked like in a time way after, joking around and goofing off with a lot of people in the gardens of his mansion.

What I thought were clips from a never-seen before film of George at his home, turned out to be clips taken from the music video for “Crackerbox Palace”, a song from his fifth solo album “Thirty-Three & 1/3“.

It took me a long time to find out where those video clips were from. Originally I saw the documentary in 2011, but didn’t see the “Palace” video until the summer of last year. I don’t know.

With a thunderous drum intro, the song suddenly starts with a Calypso-Carribean groove accompanied with a joyful slide guitar and fitful drums. Most of what you hear in the lyrics are based on actual events too, which may or may not be interesting to you.

Only feelings of happiness and loving life arise when I hear this song, and those are further increased when I see the video for it featuring cameos from Eric Idle, Neil Innes, and his wife who he had not yet married at that point.

All in all, fun tune.

My iPod #215: They Might Be Giants – Cowtown

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“Cowtown” is the second song from They Might Be Giants’ second album “Lincoln”. I first heard the track on the old LaunchCast radio/website that Yahoo used to own. I won’t go on about that; I’ve talked about it before in many posts that I can’t be bothered to link into this sentence.

I was probably about nine/ten and what instantly struck me, apart from the galloping clarinet introduction, was the overall tone and mood of the song when John Flansburgh starts singing the chorus and the rest of the instruments come in. There is something very warm, inviting, and full of pride about it. Almost got me thinking Cowtown was an actual place that existed somewhere, and if it didn’t could someone think of a plan to construct it right away.

Although primarily written by Linnell, both Johns sing the track which is great because their voices work of each other so well. And with so many rhymes in the lines and lyrical wordplay, it is a shoe in with the many They Might Be Giants tunes that rely on those kinds of things on… well, almost all of their albums. But the first four especially.

My iPod #214: Billy Talent – Covered in Cowardice

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Ah, Billy Talent II. Almost eight years old now, my god. I know Billy Talent’s debut album turned ten in September last year, but I actually remember the lead up towards this album. I was eleven, the “Red Flag” demo was on the band’s MySpace as well as Burnout Revenge, the band’s website design had changed from the glowing red and yellow design to the simple yet powerful white . I can see it all. Where does the time go?

For a while, before it was actually released, the band uploaded the album onto their official website. Now I don’t know whether it was my computer, but for some reason the track lengths that appeared were much longer than the actual duration of the song. I would be waiting there for a minute and a half through silence until it changed to the next. Sometimes it wouldn’t play at all.

Nevertheless it was on the band’s site, their MySpace profile or some other website that I was able to listen to the album in full. “Covered in Cowardice” was a track that I really liked when I first owned the physical copy. Ian’s guitar playing is as flawless as ever, and it still baffles me how he can do the work of two separate guitarists on one lone guitar. He’ll be playing a lick on the three high strings before pulling off a riff on the lower three, it’s very difficult to tell where you’ll end up next. There is plenty of that on this song. That’s one reason why I like it so much.

Essentially, it’s a song about Internet trolls/cyber-bullying. Ben doesn’t stand for that shit, calling them ‘bitter pricks’ and… cowards, obviously. There’s also screaming in the track, which is a thing the lead singer seems to have left in the past for now. I miss screaming in Billy Talent songs.

My iPod #213: Blur – Country Sad Ballad Man

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I’m back in uni! Yaaaaaaaaaay.

The three weeks back at home were good, well they were okay. It was nice being with the family but it did get very dull within a few days. Home just doesn’t compare to university. I am sorry, sis.

“Country Sad Ballad Man” is the third track from Blur’s self-titled album from 1997. Blur decided that they were done with the whole ‘Britpop’ scene by this time, and instead wanted to make some standard indie rock, Pavement influenced material instead of the character narratives that Damon Albarn had written for the last three albums.

I listened to “Blur” the whole way through during the late summer last year. I was lying in bed and was starting to fall asleep but I do remember hearing this tune. Coming after “Beetlebum” and “Song 2”, the first and second singles which I knew inside and out, “Country Sad” was the first that left me in the place where I had no idea what was going to come next.

It takes quite some time to start. A steady, ticking drum beat along with an mouth harp start things off sluggishly, and then the deep bass and almost mono-aural guitar comes in. It all sounds very enclosed and compact. Damon alternates his pitch going from high to sounding weary and tired, whilst singing about self-pity and isolating himself from society. Entertaining stuff.

Weary and tired is very much the atmosphere that “Country Sad” achieves; that is until Graham suddenly brings in the guitars for the last minute or so which raises spirits for a bit but in the end, this song is not one to listen to if you want to make yourself feel better about something.

If you’re disappointed with my ‘thesis’ on the song, here are some funny arrangements that you can change title too:

“Country Bad Salad Man”
“Country Mad Ballad-San”
“Country Mad Salad Ban”

………Those aren’t funny.

My iPod #212: Blur – Country House

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“Country House” by Blur was the first single from the band’s fourth album “The Great Escape”. Released at the height of ‘Britpop’ in 1995, the single went head-to-head with Oasis’ song “Roll with It” for the number one spot. “Country House” won, and stayed number one for two weeks before Michael Jackson knocked it off.

The song is about a man who buys a house in the country (no….. really?) to get away from the city but still isn’t very happy with his life. You wouldn’t be able to tell though. It reminds me of one of those songs that, when you’re really drunk, you grab your mate and put your arm around their shoulder and start yelling the words along to it. Then the brass coda kicks in near the end and you start doing the can-can and stuff.

It never fails to cheer me up, even though it can become a bit grating if you were to repeat it over and over again. Just because of the over emphasised English accent and the cheery music. It just shouts out, “Hey! We’re soooo British, look at us!” and that could annoy some people.