Monthly Archives: October 2024

#1171: They Might Be Giants – See the Constellation

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Apollo 18‘s one of my favourites out of the first four They Might Be Giants albums, which consisted of just John Flansburgh and John Linnell backed by a synthesized rhythm section while the two handled their respective guitar and accordion. It’s got a real rocking feel throughout, with the usual fake drums and bass sounding much less so than they did in albums before. Plus, the theme of space is very much reinforced by the packaging, the LP’s title and a few of the songs on there. Makes it feel quite complete in that regard.

‘See the Constellation’ is one of those numbers that lean into the whole space theme the album has going for itself and might just be one of the harder, pepped-up rockers the band have in their whole discography. Quite psychedelic too. Starting off with a guitar riff paying homage to The Monkees’ ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’, the track soldiers on with a smacking snare drum punctuated by chopped up samples of Dee Dee Ramone doing count-ins for Ramones songs. Tremolo’d guitars come in during instrumental breaks, there are these twangy synth sitar strums that arrive in the mix too. The psychedelia is laid on thick. But it works tremendously well.

Lyrically, there’s not a lot of fat to chew, but the imagery’s very nice. The first verse is directly inspired by a promotional photo of an artist who was on the same label as the Giants at the time. The second is a short snippet of a memory of the narrator trying to look up at the sky past the city lights. And the third and final verse seems to come from the constellation itself, the guy made of dots and lines, the figure to whom which the whole song is dedicated. John Flansburgh signs off with the psychedelic question, “Can you hear what I see in the sky?” And after a moment of calm, with Dee Dee Ramone still chirping at the back, the track blasts off with an explosive instrumental coda that trails off into the night. This is a very fun one. And there’s more to come from this album in the future.

#1170: Television – See No Evil

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Television’s Marquee Moon. A fine, fine album. If you want to hear an album that has good guitar performances in it, I’d say that this one should be an Exhibit A in a theoretical museum. I gave my personal backstory behind finding the record the last time I wrote about a song from it, so I admittedly I’m finding it hard to fill out this first paragraph. Really, all I have to say regarding how I feel about the album as a whole can be found in that link. But in short, heard it first time 2012/13 and proceeded to revisit in the years since. But even with that first listen, ‘See No Evil’ – the track that kicks things off – was one that stuck with me almost immediately.

Tom Verlaine’s guitar is the first thing you hear in the left ear, the bass guitar makes itself with a little fill accompanied by a crash cymbal, and the band properly come in together anchored by an earwormy, looping guitar riff on the right side, played by lead guitarist Richard Lloyd. Just that riff itself has enough of a melody that I can find myself singing it almost endlessly. All in all, it’s a strong performance. A strong performance for a song of immense optimism. You see, ‘See No Evil’ is written as a statement of intent and ambition by songwriter Verlaine. He wants to achieve impossible things, whether that be jumping over a mountain or having a boat made out of ocean, and wishes to leave the room and rid himself of any negative energy that someone or something might bring in his presence. He understands that there are bad people in this world, but in this state that he’s in now, he’s willing to give this evil a pass while filled with this fervent determination of his.

I don’t have much else to add here. I enjoy this one a lot. It makes for a great opener for the rest of the album to follow. Isolated from the context of the LP, it works just as well too. Great guitar tones, runs and fills are around every corner. Lloyd’s soaring solo at a minute and 50 seconds in is one that you have to bring out the air guitar for. I like the phrasing of the song title whenever it’s sung, building on itself bit by bit, before the ‘evil’ is yelled out with blistering screech. I, at least, get the sense that the four members of the band were having something of a good time during the make of this song. The music and the performance just exude the feeling. And it’s nice that during the song’s end, after Verlaine tells us he’s having good times with the person he loves in various, he turns it round to the listener to tell us that it’s possible for us to do the same thing.

#1169: The Who – See My Way

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Early 2010s I was discovering The Who. What started out as a small interest in watching their music videos on YouTube turned into me downloading a few of their albums and becoming a huge fan overall. Way I remember it, I started with The Who Sell Out onto Quadrophenia, Who’s Next, The Who by Numbers and then Who Are You. Must have been weary about Tommy for some reason, ’cause I didn’t listen to that till much later. But after finishing Who Are You and knowing that it was Keith Moon’s last album on drums and things were never the same after, it made sense to go back in their discography. This is all where the song ‘See My Way’ comes in.

‘See My Way’ is a song on the band’s second album, A Quick One, and is one of the rare, rare, rare occasions where lead singer Roger Daltrey is credited as a songwriter in the band’s list of albums. In fact, it might be the only one. At least with no help from anyone else. And you can sort of tell that it’s not the kind that Pete Townshend would write, or even John Entwistle. You’ll come across simple rhymes like way/day (“way” is rhymed with itself three times in the first verse alone), you/do/true, bad/mad. It goes on that way. Nothing too much to get you thinking like Townshend would usually aim to do with his pen game. Some may find it rather forgettable. But that’s not me. I’ve always got a kick from it.

The track’s message is a bit like The Beatle’s ‘We Can Work It Out’. Just without the “Life is very short for fussing and fighting bit.” Like Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey wants this other person to concede defeat, possibly in an argument or something, it’s not very specific, and as they’re too stubborn to do so, he’s not afraid to cut ties with them and to come back around until they finally admit that they were wrong in the first place. Bit of a selfish tone to it, but it’s set to this galloping rhythm, achieved by replacing some of Keith Moon’s drums with cardboard boxes and a returning melodic phrase (first by vocals, then by horns) that make it all very catchy, indeed. Sounds like Daltrey and Entwistle are singing together on this one too, and I think you hear the latter’s more in the ‘Tried so hard’ sections. So that’s nice too.

#1168: Pink Floyd – See Emily Play

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Sometime in the autumn of 2010, I decided to listen to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album for the first time. I’d always seen/heard good things about it up to that point, and after being familiar with The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall by then, it only made sense to check it out. It came to the album’s final track, and while simultaneously reading the Wiki article about it, there was a mention of how keyboardist Rick Wright performs a short musical nod to the band’s earlier song ‘See Emily Play’, as a tribute to Syd Barrett, right at the end as it fades to silence. So then it only made additional sense that I went to find that song and figure which part the article was talking about.

And that’s how I came to know the subject of today’s post. It was a roundabout way of making my point, but I got there in the end. And the melodic phrase Wright borrowed for the tribute was right there in the melody of ‘Emily”s first line. Released in the sweet summer of ’67, ‘See Emily Play’ was only the band’s second ever single. It became something of a hit for the group and they appeared on Top of the Pops to promote it, both of which Barrett was vehemently against. But I enjoy it, at least. Definitely a highlight from the Syd Barrett-era of Pink Floyd. I do think after the initial hearing I may have thought it was a little strange. It could only ever have been released in the ’60s, especially 1967. But the more listens I gave it, the more used to the whole thing I became, as one would usually do.

This track by Barrett sees him write about another thing that he seems to find rather odd and yet strangely fascinating. He did it with a scarecrow, a gnome, a bike. I’m sure there are others. ‘See Emily Play’ is supposedly written about a real person though, a girl Barrett saw while sleeping in the woods under the influence of a ‘psychedelic drug’. It’s not really clear in the lyric whether Barrett actually knows this lady or not, so as far as I know, he was just so captivated by her presence – the drugs may have reinforced this feeling – that he went ahead and wrote a song about this stranger. The minor-key verses hint at the sadness she may be feeling at times. Something to ponder until those jubilant choruses come in which end with a joyful calling of the song’s title, which also closes out the song overall. It’s always a fun listen when this one comes on.

#1167: Fleetwood Mac – Second Hand News

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Of the four Fleetwood Mac songs I have on my phone – I do have 13 on my ‘Liked Songs’ list on Spotify, which I look forward to using more often when I’m done with this – three of them are by everybody’s favourite, Lindsey Buckingham. I joke. I think it’s very clear, somehow, that Stevie Nicks runs miles clear as being something of the face of the band, even though the strength of the Mac was always based on the variety provided by the three main songwriters (Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie). But I don’t know what it is when it comes to Buckingham’s songs. They always seem to scratch an itch when it comes to my own taste. I like many more McVie songs than Nicks’ too, but I’m digressing. It’s a Buckingham song I’m on about today, and it opens up an album I know, you know, everybody knows. The one, the only, Rumours.

We know the story. The record was recorded at a time when no-one in the band was in each other’s good books to say the least, and so the songwriters started writing about each other in their respective numbers. ‘Second Hand News’ opens the LP up with the lyric that encapsulates the entire situation, ‘I know there’s nothing to say/Someone has taken my place’. In this case, Buckingham and Nicks had ended their relationship and were most likely seeing other people. But ‘Second Hand News’ isn’t so much of a put down. Not like ‘Go Your Own Way’, sheesh. Instead, it’s more of a note to Nicks, seemingly waving her off and wishing her well as she goes into another relationship while also cheekily laying down the option that, if things don’t work out with this other guy, he’ll be there to be the rebound.

First time I heard Rumours was sometime in 2012, around then, and I gotta say ‘Second Hand News’ was an immediate hit with me, solidifying itself as one just after Buckingham comes in with those wordless vocals that act as the chorus after the introductory verses. You always need a good opener on an album. Something to get you excited for what’s to come. And I’ve always thought ‘Second Hand News’ does a good job in that department. It possesses a real driving momentum from the moment that acoustic guitar strides into the frame in the opening seconds, and the goodness only continues to build from there. Elements slowly enter the soundscape bit by bit, like those harmonising “ahh-ahh” backing vocals that come in before the second ‘chorus’ or that droning organ that comes during the second half of it, all among the propelling direction of the music led by the chair percussion and propelling acoustic guitar chords. The song reaches its cathartic peak as Buckingham belts out the song’s title in the middle of more harmonies and a rocking guitar solo that eventually closes everything out. And bear in mind, this is just how the album starts. Thumbs up from me.