Daily Archives: April 7, 2014

My iPod #273: They Might Be Giants – Dig My Grave

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This video is weird (bear in mind it isn’t the official one), but it’s the music we’re here for.

Opening They Might Be Giants’ fourth album “Apollo 18” is “Dig My Grave”, another typical rocker by John Flansburgh that lasts only for a minute and few seconds. Only They will know why it took four albums for Flansburgh to get an opening track, the first two were penned by Linnell and the previous one didn’t feature the Johns at all. This was Flansburgh’s time to shine. That time was used well. Even if it was very quick.

There is not a lot to say just because it is so short. Not even its page on the band’s dedicated fan Wikipedia site states a vast amount of information. Nevertheless, it is the perfect way to get things started. It’s a track that one doesn’t have to think about. The lyrics are from the perspective of a person who wants their grave to be dug when they see someone and when that same someone calls the person’s name. Whether it’s because the person hates that someone so much that they would rather die than be in contact with them or they’re simply too shy is the real question I have about ‘the meaning of the lyrics’. But I’m not so deep about that stuff.

I just like the song’s simplicity. The four chords accompanied with Flansburgh’s double tracked vocals and shrieks of the song title, the messed up ‘guitar solo’ which consists of the high guitar strings being plucked at a fast rate way up the fretboard and especially the last few seconds when the song speeds up and the cello and violin rise in volume before the song comes to a stop. Just a short and sweet way to start it all off.

I hold “Apollo 18” with very high regards; I feel as if it is a TMBG album that doesn’t get much love as it should do….. I love you “Apollo 18”. I think you’re better than “Flood”. I am not ashamed.

My iPod #272: The Beatles – Dig a Pony

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Time for a post methinks. I arrived back home for the Easter holidays, but as soon as I did I was out again to meet up with friends at Stratford. It was getting to eleven at night when eventually set foot in my house, and therefore there was no song to talk about yesterday.

Here is one now. It’s “Dig a Pony” by The Beatles, on their last album “Let It Be“, a weird love song written and sung by John Lennon.

The “Let It Be” film is a miserable one. That was the first one I watched when I began to avidly research The Beatles and listen to their songs, which is weird because it’s the last one they did. It used to be available in parts on YouTube, but apparently isn’t anymore. The majority of it focuses on the four guys improvising some tracks in studios at a time when relations between all of them weren’t so friendly anymore. This was a real day in the life of The Beatles – not the one that was dramatised and played up for “A Hard Day’s Night“. It is a much harder watch in comparison.

That is until the band go up onto the rooftop for a spur-of-the-moment performance, the one which would turn out to be their last live one as a group. They deliver the songs to almost perfection, one after the other with great enthusiasm and finish with a witty remark by Lennon, providing a heartwarming close to the film. One of the songs they did on the roof was “Dig a Pony”, and that live performance is the same thing you hear on the album itself.

I dug “Dig a Pony” (hehehe) as soon as I heard the chorus for the first time. I thought it was the best song in that film. The leaping guitar work of the riff is one that is hard to forget, and the licks that George Harrison throws in at various points are wonderful too. But that moment when Lennon belts out the poignant lyric “All I want is you” with all his might – you can see just how much power he gets into the phrase. And with the wind blowing in his hair….. Man…. what a guy.

Here it is if you wanna see it.