Author Archives: The Music in My Ears (by Jamie Kyei)

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About The Music in My Ears (by Jamie Kyei)

Just one man who's making his way through life one day at a time writing about the songs he has on his phone. And other things at some points.

#837: Franz Ferdinand – Michael

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Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Michael’ is a song about a guy wanting to make out with the titular character. The chorus gets quite descriptive about how he wants to do so. I could see why people could get turned off by it, because some people are just like that. They don’t like the gay. I’ve always enjoyed just because… I mean, it’s just a good song. It’s hard not to sing along to even knowing what it’s about. A lot of times for me the subject of the song is irrelevant initially, but the delivery always matters. And the delivery here is killer.

Those guitar lines that start the track straight away will grab anyone’s attention.Hook’s good, those verses are sweet. Great vocal take by Alex Kapranos, he’s got that sensual thing going at some points with a more direct approach during the choruses. And former guitarist Nick McCarthy sings this countermelody during those; I can’t tell what he’s singing. “Hey yooou/Heyy ???”. Still trying to figure it out to this day. More often than not, I sing along to that more than Kapranos’ bit.

Some time last year I found myself repeatedly watching its music video. I went on a little Franz Ferdinand binge for a bit after the band had a Twitter listening party for their first album. Now, I was alive and kicking when this track was released as a single back in 2004 and its video was being shown on MTV2 and stuff. But I was never as creeped out by it as I am now having properly watched it. Why does Michael have his arm yanked off near the end? Why do the band grow all these extra limbs? Which head of Nick McCarthy’s am I meant to be looking at? The one on the left looks lifeless, but for split seconds it raises its eyebrows and mimes the lyrics. A really random ending to a video that seemed quite harmless for the majority. It still manages to capture the manic delivery of the song’s ending itself, which is probably my favorite part. Kapranos goes crazy in that last minute.

#836: Taking Back Sunday – Miami

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Well, well. Taking Back Sunday. Maybe you were expecting it, maybe you weren’t. Maybe you didn’t really care. But here’s the first post I’ve done for the band. Back in 2006, ‘MakeDamnSure’ was a song that I always had to listen to/see when its video came on the television. My sister really liked that song too. So much so that I think she borrowed the Louder Now album from a friend when it was released in April of that year. As time went on, my own enjoyment of that song faded. It just reminds me of being a dumb 11-year old. But there are a few songs on there that get me going each time. ‘Miami’ is one of them.

Now I can’t front. I have no idea what this song is about. Fifteen years, I’ve never cared to take the time and find any interpretations. I don’t think I even liked the track that much when I first heard it. Guess it was a random day I heard it and it suddenly clicked. But the melodies are abundant. If a song has a great melody, it’s likely I’ll be into it – I’m not much of a lyrical person. And the guitar tones during the ‘Miami’ chorus stuck out just because of how unique they sounded compared to every other track on the album. So sleek and with a sheen. My own intepretation based on listening to it for so long… Well, I think it’s about a collection of things. Relationships. Being unable to capture a moment in the past when you were at your best. That’s just looking at the lyrics though.

I guess I would say Louder Now is my favourite Taking Back Sunday album. I’m not much of a TBS fan, but the album made me one for a bit. The back and forth between singer Adam Lazzara and then lead-guitarist Fred Mascherino on backing vocals made for some good listening. Each track on there had some sort of interplay between the two. Then Mascherino left to do his own thing. It took three years for another album by the band to see the light of day. Then I didn’t care that much anymore. Will still always have this album for the good old days.

#835: They Might Be Giants – Metal Detector

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Here’s ‘Metal Detector’. Another song by They Might Be Giants, so soon after the last one. It’s found on their 1996 album Factory Showroom, their last on the Elektra label before they left and have sort of been an independent band ever since. I like Factory Showroom. I’ve always thought it was kind of a reaction to John Henry. That album’s almost an hour long and there’s a lot of horns and brass on it. I feel like Showroom put more of a focus on the band, and they dialled back the run time from 57 minutes to an easygoing 42. Only 13 songs on there too, which was peanuts compared to the number of songs They had on albums prior.

What I like most about ‘Metal Detector’ is that it’s essentially a song of choruses. There are only about two verses, even one and a half if you think about it. The rest is chorus, pre-chorus, kinda bridge over and over again. And it works, I don’t know what to tell you. The approach makes the song all the more memorable to me. It’s an easy one to sing along to, and the overall tone to its makes it seem like there’s some sort of mystery behind it. But it’s just a song about having a good time with a metal detector and going to the beach to find things under the sand. The group always have a knack for writing great songs about the most menial tasks. Or passionate hobbies, whichever way you want to look at it.

According to This Might Be a Wiki, this is quite a popular one among TMBG fans. It’s their 37th best song. The band haven’t ever played it live that much though. My guess would be that maybe the repetitive nature of the song just isn’t to the band’s liking, though that’s just a shot in the dark. Could have been a single for me. It’s nothing to think about too much.

#834: Teenage Fanclub – Metal Baby

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Looking at my laptop’s folders, it appears that I downloaded Teenage Fanclub’s 1991 album Bandwagonesque in 2014, which seems so strange to me. I remember it being one of those albums that I got switched on to from that first listen. The first half has hit after hit. ‘The Concept’, ‘December’, ‘What You Do to Me’, ‘Star Sign’… all 10/10’s. The first two I wish I could have written about, but you can just hear them for yourselves. The latter will have their posts some day. But today’s song, ‘Metal Baby’, starts off the album’s second half, carrying on the run of good tunes.

The track is about a girl who is into her metal music, has the track’s narrator around her little finger and eventually leaves him to be a groupie with a metal band. A simple song of love and loss, I suppose. But it’s delivered with such an ease that makes it comfortable to listen to. All these interesting chords and progressions. Guitarist Norman Blake sings well over it, accompanied by some nice harmonies too. The band have made it clear that one of their biggest influences was Alex Chilton and his work with Big Star from the 70s, and you can clearly hear that here if you’re familiar with that stuff. I guess if you want to be cynical about it, it’s one track of Fanclub where they really where that influence on their sleeve. But man if they don’t do it well.

One thing I’ve noticed which you don’t have to really care about but what I thought was interesting, is that ‘Metal Baby’ kind of mirrors ‘The Concept’ in a way. Musically, that is. If you sing the ‘I didn’t want to hurt you’ chorus from the latter with the ‘I’m not the sort of person’ chorus/bridge from the former, you’ll notice how similar they are. They are in different keys, so you’d have to adjust for that. I don’t know, thought that was worth saying. But happy listening, you can’t go wrong listening to their other albums too.

#833: They Might Be Giants – The Mesopotamians

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I’ve gone on about They Might Be Giants being a great band on here many a time. You don’t have to hear that again. I guess I’ll say, to stray away from the praise, that the album The Else is maybe one of my least favourites of theirs. Weren’t expecting that were you? Any TMBG fans reading who really like The Else, don’t want to grind ya gears. There are just a lot of songs on there that I don’t feel very strongly about. The ones that I do though, I have a great love for and written about. Except ‘Feign Amnesia’, I started liking that one a bit too late to make a post about it. But today’s post is dedicated to the album’s closer, ‘The Mesopotamians’.

Another song of They that only John Flansburgh and John Linnell could write. Gonna go on a limb and say that it’s mainly written by Linnell. He sings the lead vocal on here. This may be the only song in existence that even touches upon ancient Mesopotamian mythology. I did learn a bit about a Mesopotamian tale with Gilgamesh in my first year of university. But I’ve forgotten about that, and I’ll continue to pretend that Mesopotamia was led by the four characters as described in the Giants song. Within the track, Mesopotamia is described as this barren place that is ruled by the heroes of Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashiburnipal and Gilgamesh as they go around the place as a travelling band. They drive around in their van and play shows to no one, but they etch their lyrics into the ground with hope that anybody in the far-distant future stumbles upon them. There’s a reference to the whole Beatles ‘Paul Is Dead’ conspiracy theory in there too.

It’s a cheery number. It’s not a track that shouts ‘album closer’ to me. I saw the tracklist, saw it was the last song on the album, and when it ended I was still surprised that nothing came afterwards. There’s not that sense of finality to it. But that doesn’t stop the track itself from being an enjoyable one. It’s a playful take on these ancient figures from years and years ago which I assume are meant to be taken seriously. Nothing bad about that.