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

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.

#730: Mac DeMarco – Let Her Go

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I think I’m now older than Mac DeMarco was when he released Salad Days in 2014. I was in my first year of university, 18 but very close to 19, looking for new music to hear and DeMarco appeared with a Best New Music tag on Pitchfork. This is a story I’ve told many times before on this blog. To cut it short, I liked the album pretty much instantly. I still think it’s his best one to this day. This blog was well under way by the time he released the record, so songs like ‘Blue Boy’ and ‘Brother’ I wasn’t able to write about. I did do one for ‘Go Easy’ though, that could be a fun one to read (I don’t know I’ve never really looked back). There will be more to come from this album in the future. But today’s post looks at ‘Let Her Go’, a track that further proved to an eighteen year old me that this was some really good music.

It was the shining guitar tone that grabbed my attention initially when hearing the album for the first time. It was a constant throughout the album, and comes into play especially on this song. ‘Let Her Go’ is the obvious ‘hit’ from Salad Days, carried by a summery ringing descending guitar riff that interplays with the hopping bassline throughout its verses. Despite its upbeat rhythm, DeMarco sings about the hardships of unrequited love. It’s a classic song trope, happy-sounding music with sad lyrics, and I have to say that when carried out well it’s always an add to the music library. I don’t even think back then I realised how sad the song was until I read the lyrics, even though I was ‘singing’ along to them very freely.

Six years on and ‘Let Her Go’ resonates with me just as much as it did back then. I would be lying if I said I haven’t gone through what’s described in the track. Because of that, it probably resonates with me more. I always be a fan of Mac DeMarco, but that Salad Days/Another One era will always be the one I regard as his best.

#729: The Chemical Brothers – Let Forever Be

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‘Let Forever Be’ was released as the second single from The Chemical Brothers’ 1999 album Surrender. After taking inspiration from the Beatles’ track ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ and collaborating with Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher on their previous track ‘Setting Sun’, a song that got to number one in the UK in ’96, the ‘brothers’ decided to do the same thing again here. It didn’t gained the same amount of commercial success but I believe it’s still one of the duo’s best singles.

While ‘Setting Sun’ relies on its pummeling drums to drive the track’s momentum ‘Let Forever Be’ relies on its bassline which mirrors Paul McCartney’s original bass from the aforementioned Beatles song, starting on the lower strings before reaching for those higher notes and carrying out some licks. Noel Gallagher continues his ‘faux-philosophical/actual nonsense’ lyricism style which, in that period of the 90s, was in its prime and worked tremendously well. His voice sounds great on here and, mixed with the psychedelic backdrop from Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons (The Chemical Brothers), it makes from some very easygoing listening.

Its music video (above), directed by Michel Gondry, gained a lot of media attention. I don’t think it’s too bad myself. I did see it a lot back in the day on the television screen though you can’t go wrong by listening to the song on its own.

#728: Radiohead – Let Down

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Ah, ‘Let Down’. A firm fan favourite from OK Computer for many a Radiohead follower. A running joke on the band’s subreddit is calling the track ‘underrated’ even though there are so many posts that declare a huge love for it. It’s a sad song with really uplifting music, which brings many listeners to wonder whether it’s meant to be happy or truly depressing. Truly, it is a track that conveys conflicting emotions. For many years, the band didn’t play it live because they found it difficult to play and then suddenly around the time A Moon Shaped Pool was out in 2016, they played it for the first time in ten years at Madison Square Garden.

I was convinced that I had heard ‘Let Down’ somewhere at some time when listening to the album for the very first time…. Was it used in an advert/commercial for something? That’s a question I’ve been wondering for ten years now. If not it’s probably just a testament to how great the melodies within the song are, because it was like I’d known that song for years I was already singing the chorus before the track fully ended. Thom Yorke, double tracked with the two vocals in your left and right ear, sings about feeling distant and despondent in a world that is failing to impress him. When he dreams of growing wings and being able to fly away from it all, he realises that that too is just a large fantasy, becoming disappointed in the process. But this is all surrounded by a twinkling glockenspiel and a wall of arpeggiated guitars – one of those which play in 5/4 time for the majority of the track.

The track also contains one of the most beloved moments in the Radiohead discography where one of Yorke’s vocals overlap one another during the climactic part of the track. I, myself, think that part is very nice – I’ve never given it much thought even if I always at least try and sing along with it. I’ve actually found Colin Greenwood’s bass on here the most overlooked component of the whole ordeal. If you pay attention to it, you’ll see it’s the melodic ground that anchors everything together.

#727: Wings – Let ’em In

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So I’d got through The Beatles catalogue very quickly around 2009/10; the only logical way was to explore the band member’s solo material. I’m not on my house computer so I’m not able to tell you which albums I went to first and who out the four I listened to the most. As if you would want to know that anyway. From what I remember, Imagine and Band on the Run were instant downloads because I’d always heard just from television that they were must-hears. All Things Must Pass followed along the way. Other songs arrived here and there, including ‘Let ’em In’, which I either heard for the first time via a live Paul McCartney performance or on we7.com where the track played randomly. It was 10 years ago; the mind’s going.

‘Let ’em In’ begins Wings at the Speed of Sound, Paul McCartney’s fifth album with his band Wings from 1976. It’s a comforting track, made to welcome the listener to the record and what’s to follow. McCartney hears people knocking on his door and ringing the doorbell, including his brother and aunt, the Everly Brothers and German professor Martin Luther, and implores everyone to let them into the house to have some good times with some glorious harmonies courtesy of himself, Linda McCartney and other members of the group. All this done with a military-style drum beat that takes over at some points of the track and some tasteful horns during the instrumental break. I enjoy how the verses are basically anchored by one note on McCartney’s piano and Jimmy McCulloch’s bass. Builds a sense of tension that way. And as you think it’s going to fade out to silence, the final two notes of the whole track suddenly jump back to normal volume to properly close it out.

It’s a real song for the family, you know? Just one saying “Hey, good to see you, come inside, we’ve been waiting for ages.” Very sweet.

#726: The Maccabees – Lego

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‘Lego’ is the penultimate track on The Maccabees’ debut album Colour It In. From what I remember, I don’t think this song was very immediate to me upon first hearing the whole album. Around that time I mostly got albums just to listen to the singles, and ‘Colour It In’ had plenty of them that were shown on MTV2 back in those days. Funnily enough, I don’t listen to those singles that much anymore.

So when did ‘Lego’ really hit? I wish I could say. But I’ve been listening to it for a long time now so it’s safe to say I think it’s still good. There’s a frantic vibe I get from it straight from the beginning with its sudden fade-in and descending guitar riffs by brothers Hugo and Felix White. I’ve always liked that Colour It In is a proper band album. There aren’t many production tricks that are incorporated into a track’s mix; it’s always about the group’s performance – two guitars, bass, drums and Orlando Weeks’ vocals (with occasional guitar from him too). It’s about as raw as the band would get before exploring different avenues in their later releases, and I’m sure it wasn’t by chance that they chose ‘Lego’ as the final ‘band’ track on their debut. (Of course ‘Toothpaste Kisses’ really closes out the album but it doesn’t rock as much).

Until now, I’ve never thought too much about what the song could mean. Someone on Genius thinks it’s about suicide. I think it’s more of a goodbye to those little moments in childhood that one can stick out when one gets a bit sentimental, like remembering to look left and right before crossing the road and screaming ‘are we there yet?’ in the car when driving to a destination. Weeks’ then trademark wailing vocals provide a tone of vulnerability to the song, keeping to a lower register during the verses before raising it in the chorus and then reaching a climactic point during the outro. That and the two guitars are my highlights of the track. It has a standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-finish structure to it; it feels like the track goes quite quickly. Still well worth a listen to me.