Monthly Archives: May 2014

My iPod #303: The Who – Drowned

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For me, “Quadrophenia” was very difficult to absorb initally. At an hour and twenty minutes fit to burst with long instrumental passages on some songs and the whole concept made the listening process very complicated. Or maybe it was me thinking about it too much. Upon further listens I realised that everything you hear is essential to the story throughout the album. You are taken on a journey with the tragic lead character of Jimmy. In “Drowned”, we find him in a desperate state as he contemplates…. drowning himself in the sea. Although, out of the album’s context it is a tribute to Meher Baba who Townshend admired for his spiritual teachings.

“Drowned” is a great track. A roaring vocal take by Daltrey, that rolling piano phrase throughout, that slick musical reference to 5:15 in the middle…… the final jam at the end which seems to carry on forever before fading into a clip of Townshend singing “Sea and Sand” on the beach…. Those are just the little things I can pick out from memory at the moment. But they are the little things that add to the album’s cohesion. I’m blabbering on a bit; I will leave it there.

All in all, another wall of melodious noise and relentless rhythm provided by The Who.

My iPod #302: They Might Be Giants – Drinkin’

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This may be the first instrumental out of all the songs I’ve talked about so far. Huh. This is “Drinkin'”, a short track that introduces They Might Be Giants’ album “Long Tall Weekend“, the album that was released only for the Internet back in 1999. You can listen to 14 of its 15 tracks right here.

As it is only a minute and a half long, I can’t really go into depth about it. I listened to the album in 2011 when I really started to get into They Might Be Giants’ albums. “Drinkin'” has a pretty decent guitar phrase that leaps from one note to another and stuff. That got stuck in my head after listening to it, after a few days of listening to it I was able to hum the whole thing. Still can’t quite get the hang of it on the guitar, but I think a lot of people would be able to get it straight away.

It changes to 3/4 time in the middle with brief silences, switches back to regular time and the guitar and saxophone play the opening melody in unison until coming to a stop.

It’s an enjoyable little ditty to start off the album. That’s really all there is to it.

Here’s a link to a performance of it 6 years prior to official release. Apparently written just a week before that performance too.

My iPod #301: Super Furry Animals – (Drawing) Rings Around the World

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 I’ve never listened to the “Rings Around the World” album; I should get to doing that sometime soon. I started listening to Super Furry Animals’ discography a few weeks ago, starting with “Fuzzy Logic” and then “Radiator“. Their albums seem to be the only ones from a band where all of them have been acclaimed by critics and stuff, so I wanted to see if they were actually that good. Those first two are. “Guerrilla” too. I’ll carry on listening to the others later.

“(Drawing) Rings Around the World” is the title track from Super Furry Animals’ 2001 album, the Welsh group’s first one on a major label. I’ve known this one for many years now. I saw the video on the television one time, and then completely forgot how the song actually sounded because I never saw it again until a few years later. It’s a cool one. The introduction builds up from a lone synthesizer, which is then gradually accompanied by the guitars, drums and eventually lead singer Gruff Rhys about communication and rings of TVs and satellites around the Earth.

Two minutes of the song is a coda which may be repetitive for some; I enjoy just ’cause the melody’s brilliant. Reminds me of that “Rockin’ All Over the World” song. Don’t really like Status Quo though.

My iPod #300: The Wombats – Dr Suzanne Mattox PhD

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I’m not really into The Wombats anymore. I was never a huge fan of the band but I thought their singles from the first album were catchy. I think I got it for a birthday or something eventually. I think it was those “aaaahh-ooh-wah-wah” vocals that made the first album that bit more enjoyable. I’m sure the band decided to focus more on the singing than on the scatting, and that didn’t work out so well. They’re a bit boring now. Sorry.

“Dr Suzanne Mattox PhD” wasn’t released as a single from “The Wombats Proudly Present: A Guide to Love, Loss & Desperation“. I think it could have been, in my eyes. There’s a whole bunch of scat singing occurring in this one. But also it’s got a memorable chorus, a fuzzy guitar line which plays before that chorus begins, and a vocal melody, particularly during the verses, that reminds me of a song from a children’s school play for some reason. I do like that final D7 chord which ends the track too. Just like the way it sounds.

It’s about a guy falling for his GP, and gets upset whenever he sees her because she thinks he’s lying about his injuries/illness just to see her more. If you have been in that situation before, this is the song for you.

My iPod #299: Larrikin Love – Downing Street Kindling

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This is the first of two posts today. This track should have gone on yesterday, but I was not feeling good… at all. So I only had time to do one. Now that’s out the way, let’s get to the song.

“Downing Street Kindling” is a song by the band Larrikin Love. The group split up years ago in 2007, and only a few months after releasing their album “The Freedom Spark“. Larrikin Love were alright. They made some real energetic folk-y type songs about life, love, and English society and whatnot. It’s a shame they broke up so soon.

“Downing Street” has lead singer Edward Leeson lamenting about living in England. He doesn’t like the government, the weather…. it has nothing more to offer him. It’s a funny one though, especially his dramatic vocal delivery when he announces that he can’t carry on in the country for he thinks.. that it is… HELL.

Even though Leeson obviously hated the country, people like the song enough that it got into the top 40 in the charts. Maybe people felt the same way.