Monthly Archives: May 2022

#960: Interpol – NYC

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Turn on the Bright Lights has always been considered to be Interpol’s best album. At least that’s the consensus I’ve witnessed from lurking around on various websites here and there. I’ve never been able to get into it as a whole. They have great, great songs. The band’s instrumentals can be out of this world sometimes. But in some cases it’s either the chosen melody, lyrics, or Paul Banks’ singing style that irks me. But when everything comes together, Interpol can produce some perfect moments. Case in point, today’s track ‘NYC’. Even then, it took me a while to really get into this one too. But one day – relatively recent – it appeared on my ‘Discover Weekly’ playlist on Spotify and it made sense then and there.

I’ve also gathered that ‘NYC’ is a personal highlight for many a fan from this album. At its time of release, the indifferent yet sincere dedication within the song’s lyrics to New York City after the 9/11 attacks struck a chord with a lot of listeners. Paul Banks likens the subway to a porno scene, and the pavements are a mess, but New York’s still the backdrop of his life and many others and will always be there for everybody no matter what goes down within.. More than 20 years on and as a guy from the UK, it’s very easy to feel a bit removed from that whole situation. I guess I’m more engaged with the music than with the lyrics. When those opening misty guitars set the tone, it’s hard to get some feelings inside. Banks’ lone vocal quivers in the foreground amidst a great drum pattern that repeats itself. Those drums sound great too, the tone of that ride cymbal is perfect. And with the first chorus, Carlos Dengler enters with a travelling bassline. The track is really one of those looking-out-the-window-on-the-train kind of tunes.

I think the moment that gets people goosebumps up is when Banks calls out the album title during the album’s last few choruses. I do agree, that’s a pretty sweet moment. A great way to close things out too. Maybe it comes a little too early in the album though, just an opinion of mine that I’ve thought of at this time of writing. ‘PDA’ comes right after this track. And while ‘NYC’ does tug at the heart a bit, ‘PDA’ kinda pushes it out the way and kinda sucks away at that climactic moment. If ‘NYC’ was, say, the penultimate song on the album, think it could have been even greater. But it is what it is. And what it is now, and always has been, is a beautiful track.

And that’s the end of the Ns. I’ll be right back.

#959: Brakes – NY Pie

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Brighton band Brakes’ (or BrakesBrakesBrakes in the US) debut album Give Blood gets off to a very fine start. The four beginning tracks I’ve come to like so much that I’ve added ’em to my personal playlist for continuous repeats. I’ve written about two of them already. ‘NY Pie’ is the second track on there. After a short shock of some good indie rock on opener ‘Ring a Ding Ding’, ‘NY’ takes a bit of a turn. Not in the unsettling kind of way, more the pleasantly surprised type. That country-tinged opening riff certainly brightens things up just a bit more.

That is until you follow the story that goes on in the lyrics. Not to say that they really bring that good feeling down, but they do tell a definitely relatable tale of those situations where things that are meant to be going so well take a 180 degree turn. Here, our narrator’s fallen in love with a lady, or is in the least infatuated with her under the bright lights of New York City. He invites her out for a night, but then proceeds to get a bit too drunk and falls down the stairs of a bar. He wakes up some time later, policemen are all in his case. He gets out of that ordeal. And if the final verse is anything to go by, it’s clear that the lady from earlier wasn’t impressed by what she saw and got out of there before things could get worse. It’s a bit comical, but would probably hit home a bit too hard for some. But with the bouncy rhythm, sprightly guitars and sweet melody, it’s very easy for the message to just fly over.

Personal note on my end, I really dig Eamon Hamilton’s vocal style. It certainly makes Brakes songs stand out from other bands that were making the same kind of music back in the 2000s. That and their knack of making some powerful melodic songs that were only ever about two minutes in length. Hamilton’s vocals stick out here too. He’s possesses a Western twang in his delivery, and not like Wild Wild West of the US, more like the Somerset/Cornwall west of the UK. Only makes sense ’cause that’s where he was raised. But with that and its gravelly tone which is prone to breaking here and there and reaching some strange pitches, it’s always the go-to audible element to go to when hearing a Brakes song.

#958: They Might Be Giants – Number Three

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‘Number Three’ is a ‘number’ by They Might Be Giants from the point of view of a budding songwriter who’s feeling quite pleased with themselves now that they’ve just finishing writing their third ever song. They don’t know how they came up with the lyrics or where the inspiration came from, and they’ve spent a while trying to make it, but it’s here and they want to tell the listener all about the experience. Appropriately, it’s the third song on They Might Be Giants’ debut album from 1986.

Sandwiched between two of the most popular songs of TMBG’s whole career, ‘Number Three’ is probably nothing more than an a bit of an interlude for some people. A track that doesn’t amount to too much, but keeps the flow of the album going quite smoothly. I may have gone under that category when being first acquainted to the record. But in the years since, I’ve only come to appreciate it more. It may be one and a half minutes in length, though it contains all the elements that make a Giants song enjoyable. And maybe even more. Three- way vocal harmonies in the choruses, a very catchy melody, a bouncy bass and a bustling acoustic guitar, and also a looped sample of a baritone saxophone taken from an obscure 50s Italian song.

The song goes way back in TMBG origins, and according to both Johns Flasburgh and Linnell, it was the third song they ever learned to play. We’ll have to take their word for it. It may be that somewhat sentimental reason that they’ve performed the song live over 200 times. That stats taken from the band’s dedicated wiki site, it could be even more than that. It’s guaranteed to bring a smile to many a fan’s face though. Below’s the song’s alternative mix when it was released on the band’s 1985 demo tape. Apart from a different introduction and a quieter guitar, it’s very similar to how it ended on the album.

#957: The Beatles – Nowhere Man

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Hey, it’s ‘Nowhere Man’. The track written by a 24-year-old John Lennon, who in 1865 was one of the most famous people in the world, but still felt like a bit of a bum who didn’t have a purpose or set direction in life. This wasn’t the usual “I love you/I wish you loved me/I’m thankful you love me/My friend loves you, you know” type track that the group had become known for up to that point. ‘Nowhere’ was much different in its theme. This was a song about, what we call nowadays, the existential crisis. Lennon once recalled that he wrote it very quickly after properly wracking his brain in trying to write another song for Rubber Soul. His remarks make it sound like he barely put any thought behind it, but there’s definitely a hint of sadness that maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to admit to. In the end, it ended up being one of the highlights from the album. Probably my favourite on there.

Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison open the track a capella, harmonising on the song’s first line before all the instruments jump in. It’s pretty much smooth sailing from then on. No momentum is ever lost. McCartney really keeps things busy with a hopping and striding bassline that keeps its groove, but also carries out its own melody. On top, Ringo Starr keeps a steady rhythm alongside Lennon’s acoustic guitar, and the three vocalists consistently harmonise right up to the song’s end. Even when they aren’t singing the same words, Harrison and McCartney harmonise some wordless vocals while Lennon sings another verse/chorus/bridge. It’s hard to tell. There’s no distinctive section in this track. Every part just rolls into the next so smoothly, it’s a hook with another hook lined up next to another one, most of the time linked together by a descending five-note guitar riff that is also so memorable in its own way.

I’m not sure how to heap more praise or talk about this track without inadvertently ripping from other places. I certainly do admire it still. It’s a greatly upbeat track about the worries of wondering what you’re doing with your life, and I’m sure that’s something we’ve all felt at least once when you get to that mid-20 age range. It never really stops after that either. So the ability of the band to somehow capture that feeling and at least turn it into something positive and relatable ticks all the boxes for me. A very miniscule highlight for me, which you probably wouldn’t notice unless you’re really listening, is when the three sing the last “Making all his nowhere plans for nobody” lyric and Lennon kinda slows the way he sings it, while McCartney and Harrison rush it. It’s very subtle. I can assume it wasn’t on purpose. But it always sticks out to me.

#956: They Might Be Giants – Now That I Have Everything

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‘Now That I Have Everything’ was the first song on They Might Be Giants’ very first demo tape released in 1983. There may be only a few people out there who own that. Unless the track then hadn’t been officially released on Then: The Earlier Years in ’97, the track would most definitely have become one of the many TMBG songs that you could only find in a lower audio quality on a bootleg somewhere. If ‘Everything Right Is Wrong Again’ hadn’t been considered as the album opener to the band’s first album, ‘Now That I Have Everything’ could have taken its spot. Coincidentally, they both have the word ‘everything’ in their titles, but they also have an upbeat inviting tone to them while also sharing a theme of situations not being as great as they seem/used to be.

The track actually goes way back before They Might Be Giants were even a band. Prior to their formation, John Linnell was the keyboard player in a band called The Mundanes and had written the track while in that position. They tried to rehearse the track, but he was too shy to sing out loud. It can only be assumed that he kept it in his locker and was more than ready to do something with it when John Flansburgh came around. To my knowledge, there’s no reason as to why Flansburgh takes the lead vocal on the track instead of Linnell, but I’m not complaining because he does such a fine job. At this point it would feel strange to hear Linnell on the vocal, even though it’s his song. Maybe Flansburgh could pull off the ‘man who has everything’ persona that the track is based on. Who knows, it’s all suggestions. Those are my ramblings on the vocals over.

Like a lot of other They Might Be Giants songs, the melody is all there instantly. I don’t know how they do it, but they possess a abundant knack for that stuff that’s difficult to find. Unlike other TMBG songs, there’s a distinct absence of guitar. Instead the keyboards provide the rhythm chords and lead riffs, noticeably during the track’s outro and a little part about 45 seconds in that borrows the melody from a 1963 song called ‘On Broadway’. While the Johns perform in standard 4/4 time, the programmed drums are playing in 5/4, which provide this chaotic feel as these fills and cymbal hits come in at seemingly random points. You’re never quite sure where the downbeat is. Funnily enough, the drum track was taken directly from a drumbeat CD, and you can listen to that exact beat here. So yes, a good mix of musically interesting and melodic accessibility. That’s really all you ever need from a song. It’s on show here. It’s on show a lot of the time with TMBG.