Monthly Archives: May 2020

#709: Kevin Ayers – The Lady Rachel

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When I was interning at a music magazine in 2015, there was plenty of down time when there wasn’t much going on. If there wasn’t any down time, there was a lot of opportunity to put on a playlist while I was sorting through computer files or writing a blog of some sort. It was during those times that the song ‘Joy of a Toy Continued’ by Kevin Ayers appeared in my Discover Weekly playlist. It’s one of the happiest sounding songs I know. From that I went on to listen to Ayers’ album that the song takes its name from (or vice versa, I’m not sure, it’s also the name of a song by his former group Soft Machine). For a while Joy of a Toy was my go-to album. Ayers’ vocals reminded me of Nick Drake and the music sounded like everything was taking place at the circus. That feeling was probably aided by the cover art. It’s very fun, quick, wacky in places.’The Lady Rachel’ is one of its highlights.

The track has a very ominous sound to it. It’s backed by a majority of minor chords in its verses. There are no drums in there which adds to the song’s crawling and creepy feel, led by a very melodic bassline that jumps up and down and goes all over the place. Despite that, the track is about the titular character climbing up the stairs to her bedroom, going to sleep and having a surreal dream where she finds a castle in a box and heads into it after the castle’s moat speaks to her. The subject matter is quite innocent in a way. A girl goes to sleep and has a strange dream. Nothing wrong with that. But it’s the juxtaposition of that with the eerie music that makes it such a great listen.

Too bad I hadn’t heard the album sooner. I’m not able to speak at length about ‘The Clarietta Rag’ and ‘Eleanor’s Cake (Which Ate Her)’. I’m way past those letters. The former is another of my favourites from the album. The latter is a beautiful tribute to Eleanor Barooshian of 60s group The Cake who split up in 1968.

#708: The Beatles – Lady Madonna

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So I guess around 2009/2010 would have been the first time I heard ‘Lady Madonna’ by The Beatles. I may have written here and there in the past about how that period was when The Beatles entered my life and how they’ve remained a permanent fixture in my life since. There are plenty of other songs by them that I probably prefer to this one but that doesn’t take anything away from the obvious quality it possesses.

It was February 1968 and the four guys were about to partake in Transcendental Meditation in India, and so they wanted to release a single that would be available for the public for the time they were away. ‘Lady Madonna’ was made and chosen for the A-Side. It was mainly written by Paul McCartney, John Lennon helped with some of the lyrics, and was influenced by the voice of rock and roll legend Fats Domino, a blues instrumental by Humphrey Lyttleton and the Virgin Mary.

‘Lady Madonna’ is led by a fantastic piano hook mirrored by the lead vocal initially, then the fuzzy guitars from Lennon and George Harrison and then a saxophone, played by Ronnie Scott, that takes the centre stage for the solo in the middle of the track. It’s a pleasant composition. McCartney sings very well, as he usually did in those times, and Ringo Starr does his thing on the drums (both with brushes and the sticks). I feel like it foreshadows what was to come on the White Album months afterward. It almost feels like a McCartney solo song. Doesn’t stop it from being good though.

#707: They Might Be Giants – Lady Is a Tramp

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When I found out that They Might Be Giants’ ‘Lady Is a Tramp’ – found on their B-Side compilation Miscellaneous T – was a cover of a classic musical number, I went to listen to an earlier take of the track from long ago. It’s been performed by some true greats. Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, you name it. Once I did that, it really left me wondering how They Might Be Giants’ version resembled the song in any way.

The Johns’ cover is an instrumental of blaring synthesized trumpets and a bass guitar that gets louder and louder in the mix at various points. It’s only a minute and 20 seconds long. Someone, I assume it’s John Flansburgh, yells “Yeah!” twice and there’s a sample of Carla saying the word ‘tramp’ from her and Otis Redding’s song of the same name. After a few listens I realised that the trumpets loosely follow the original song’s melody in a very jumped up and hyper fashion. Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett coincidentally released their cover of the song the same year I heard TMBGs’ for the first time; the melodic similarity was right there. I think They Might Be Giants’ wild take just makes me appreciate their cover a lot more. It’s a very different way of taking on a Broadway musical number.

#706: Franz Ferdinand – L. Wells

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A month’s gone by already so I guess it’s time to start on these again. There are lot more songs beginning with the letter ‘L’ than the previous two letters – let’s get right into it.

‘L. Wells’ by Franz Ferdinand was released as a double A-side single with ‘The Fallen’ in 2006. I was very much alive back then. The band’s second album You Could Have It So Much Better had been out for months by that year. I got it for Christmas 2005. So when the video for ‘L. Wells’ started showing on MTV2, it begged the question why this song didn’t make it on the album. I assume that it was a song that they laid down way after sessions for the record had finished which is understandable. Still, no joke, ‘L. Wells’ may be my favourite Franz Ferdinand track – and for a while you could only listen to it if you bought the physical single.

So what’s it about? Well, I would say that it’s from the perspective of an admirer of the titular character (whose name is Lynsey/Lindsey, I don’t think the spelling matters hence the initial) who wants to be as carefree and just ‘good’ as her. There’s just something about her that the narrator must know, believing that she must have some sort of secret to her free spirit, and sings about situations where she lets things brush off her shoulder. It’s quite self-explanatory once you read the lyrics really. I couldn’t delve too deep without quoting some phrases from the track.

Described by drummer Paul Thomson as “a bit of a hoedown”, ‘L. Wells’ is an uplifting, very joyful number. I feel it’s one that not a lot of people know about. Hopefully by making this post I can stir a commotion that gets the word around.