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.

#1345: Queens of the Stone Age – Tension Head

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For the longest I wondered, “What does ‘tension head’ mean?” The phrase is the title of the ninth song on Queens of the Stone Age’s 2000 album, Rated R, and the third and final one where former bass guitarist Nick Oliveri takes the role of lead vocalist. ‘Tension Head’, the words by themselves, just sounded cool. One of those occasions where the song title doesn’t appear in the lyrics and appears to have no association to them, but somehow suits the music like a glove. But I listened to it one day, years after getting to know it initially, and had that “Ohhh” realization feeling when considering the lyric, “I strike a match”. That’s what the title refers to, the part at the end of a match that’s used to make the flame. Apparently, that’s simply called the ‘head’ of the match. It should probably be called ‘tension head’, though. That would stick with the kids for as long as they live.

I guess you get the three sides of Nick Oliveri on Rated R. First up he delivers the melodic, alt-rock, double entendre of ‘Auto Pilot’, another favourite of mine from the record. The second arrives on the sub-two minute, hit-and-quit ‘Quick and to the Pointless’ where you can tell Oliveri may be a little crazy through his vocal delivery and the subject matter. But ‘Tension Head’ is the one that showcases the full-blown maniac in full force. He kind of “sings” the very first lines of the two verses, otherwise he’s about to burst a blood vessel or two due to how powerfully he screams almost every other line. I guess, the ‘tension head’ of the title mainly refers to the match lyric, but the whole track feels very tense itself. The track does have an undeniable groove going on in the verses, which is then swiftly discarded for the pummeling rhythm for the choruses with that quirky guitar line in the right channel. The only moment I can think of where you’re able to breathe a little while is when the guitars ring out at the end of the breakdown two minutes in, before falling right into the hectic ending. Song’s borderline frightening, it’s awesome. Like it a lot.

I think the song is about a character who knows they are currently situated within the pits of their own existence, on a downward spiral of some kind, but insists on trying to maintain that high by going out in the town to ‘get right’ by ‘hustling little girls’ and ‘cheating little boys’. Not the first time Oliveri mentions ‘little girls’ on this album either, must have been something going on in his life he needed to sort out. What the cause is for the narrator ‘feeling so fucking sick on the bathroom floor’ is never stated outright, but with the mentions of ‘cooking it up’ and ‘feeling so sick on the bathroom floor’, I would say, heavily implies the intake of a drug or two. The contradictory nature of the narrator’s behaviour is summed up in the “highlife, lowlife” lyric that’s whispered underneath all the choruses. The last note in the guitar solo is left ringing out on its own, only alleviated by the beginning of the following instrumental song. What happens to the narrator of ‘Tension Head’? We don’t know. It doesn’t look good. But what a way for Oliveri to peace out from the album with only two songs left to go. Also, the song is just a re-recording of a tune Oliveri did with his own band a few years earlier. I feel like I knew this already, but I must have forgotten. So it’s nice to find out again. ‘Tension Head’ owns it.

#1344: Blur – Tender

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My first impression of the studio version of ‘Tender’ wasn’t one of a positive note. After seeing music videos for Blur on the television quite regularly in the mid-2000s and liking nearly every song that came along with them, I was brainwashed into requesting Blur: The Best Of, I think, for my 11th birthday in 2006. On it was all the good stuff. ‘Beetlebum’, ‘The Universal’, ‘Girls & Boys’. You know, the singles. But there was ‘Tender’, a song that was almost eight minutes, right in the middle of it all. Eight minutes more or less feel like 30 when you’re 11, especially if you’re trying to focus on one thing for that amount of time. I was bored. Might have even fast-forwarded through it. But it might have been the music video for it (below) that made me come around to the song. It’s a live performance. The band play the track with a lot more gusto, the London Community Choir really make their presence known when it’s their time to sing, That, I could work with. It took me a long time to come round on the tune as it appears on 13 as a result.

13. The Blur album heavily influenced by Damon Albarn’s breakdown after his breakup with longtime girlfriend Justine Frischmann. It’s the band at the most experimental and downright insane at times, and it’s my favourite of Blur’s. ‘Tender’ starts it all. I think it and ‘No Distance Left to Run’ are the two tracks on there that tackle the breakup subject head-on. While the latter captures Albarn probably at the point where the split has just happened and left him devastated, ‘Tender’ seems to depict him where enough time has passed but he’s still left waiting for love to come his way again. A lot of sadness links the two tracks together, they’re almost like sister songs, but that tone of determination and optimism from ‘Tender’ allows it to seem much more upbeat than it really us. Plus it’s played in a higher tempo, so that would obviously help too. The proceedings are aided by Graham Coxon’s lyrical section, a chorus in itself, “Oh my baby, oh my baby, oh why, oh my”, that is usually repeated by thousands of concert-goers for minutes on end after the band finish playing it live. It’s like a national anthem, almost.

So, yeah, almost eight minutes this song goes on for and it starts the album off. I see comments online that openly admit to beginning 13 with ‘Bugman’, feeling that ‘Tender’ is out of place and gets things underway too slowly and preferring the song under any instance it’s done in a live setting in comparison. I’ve come to appreciate the studio ‘Tender’ and the live ‘Tender’ in their own respective ways. But honestly, I can understand those people’s sentiments. You can hear edits in the studio track where a verse is cut off to make way for the guitar solo (about four minutes in). At 5:17, the percussion cuts out quite sharply to make way for Albarn’s arriving vocal. For the meditative, contemplative track ‘Tender’ is, it can get quite messy production wise. But then again, 13 is a very messy album in a great, great way. So in the context of it, I think ‘Tender’ is a fine opener. Plus, it’s all the more better being followed by ‘Bugman’, because its buzzing guitar hitting your ears right after ‘Tender’ fades out is the big sign that the album won’t be quite what you’re expecting.

#1343: The Beatles – Tell Me What You See

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Hey, everybody. Merry Christmas. Hope you all get what you want and have people around you for this time of year. This blog keeps rolling on, and today’s featured track is ‘Tell Me What You See’ by The Beatles. Not a very festive one in itself, but I don’t think there ever has been one whenever a post for this is up on this day. This and George Harrison’s ‘You Like Me Too Much’, both on the Help! album, are two songs that I honestly think are deemed as forgettable by a lot of Beatles fans with no sort of pushback to the opinion. The latter I’ve always thought was just okay too, personally. But I do remember hearing ‘Tell Me What You See’ and thinking it was really, really nice the first time I heard it. Paul McCartney himself described it as ‘not one of the better songs’, more or less saying it was good because it was needed to fill up the side of an album. And I get it, the guy’s done a lot of other stuff that you can unanimously agree trumps this one. But, I mean… it’s got less plays than ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ on Spotify, and I know people hate that one. Make it all make sense to me.

I like the overall vocal dynamic that happens throughout the song. John Lennon sings the first line with McCartney’s harmony over the top. McCartney responds with the second line. This call-response occurs for the next two lines, and then they both sing the melody in unison for what Genius labels as the bridge, where the song’s title is mentioned. This is done again for the next verse, which then culminates in the “Telll meee whaaaat yoou see” refrain – very cathartic – which is followed by the resolving electric piano that brings everything back around and, eventually, closes out the entire song itself. What’s the song about? Another love one, no doubt. Looking deeper into it, I think it captures a relationship that’s just about starting and is a reassurance from the narrator that, no matter what happens, they will be there for the other person involved. There’s no need for them to be afraid and keep their eyes shut, because the narrator will be there to make them happy and take those doubts away when they open their eyes. It’s an uplifting sentiment. And I don’t think there’s an act behind it. So that’s a thumbs-up from me.

Well, uh, I guess that’s all I have to say about it, really. The track was mainly written by McCartney, both he and Lennon said so once upon a time, and we all know how good he is at getting a memorable melody down. ‘Tell Me What You See’ is filled with a lot of those. At least, I think it is. The people who don’t care for it as much would think otherwise. But I think people should start caring for it. There’s this video for a remix of the song done by the user who uploaded it. Says there’s a lost George Harrison harmony that’s revealed in it, referring to the middle “tell me what you see” vocal during the refrains. You can hear it pretty clearly in the original recording anyway. It also might not be George Harrison. So, you know, just think about that before going into that link. So those are my thoughts on this tune. This is probably the most anyone’s thought to written about it for a long time, so I hope this does some justice.

#1342: Arctic Monkeys – Teddy Picker

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Imagine it. It’s 2007, you’re a young 12-year-old picking up the new Arctic Monkeys album from Woolworths after a day in school. Then you spin around a few times and 18 damn years have passed. It’s maddening putting a number to that amount of time. Woolworths is long gone. World has changed, for the better or worse is up for argument. But Favourite Worst Nightmare is still that 12-song packaged burst of energy created by that young band from Sheffield who made it big only a year prior and were now the indie kings in the country. That album is still my favourite by them. A large, large majority will do a 21-gun salute for Whatever People Say I Am… for understandable reasons. But I’ve always thought Favourite Worst Nightmare is where the band sounded their most tight, in the pocket, and slickest without the carry on they’d incorporate from about AM onwards. Plus, the songs are damn good too.

‘Teddy Picker’ is the second song on Favourite Worst… To tell the truth, I can’t remember how I felt about the song the first time I heard it. It’s sandwiched between opener ‘Brianstorm’, which was released as the exciting, anticipation build-up single and played on the television constantly. Knew it like the back of my hand before I had the CD in my hand. And with third song ‘D Is for Dangerous’ I have a very clear memory of thinking the CD was skipping during a particular moment. I’m sure I thought ‘Teddy Picker’ was just all right initially. But it wouldn’t have been until I’d listened a few more times to really appreciate it. And once you do, it’s pretty hard to forget. It’s got even more listens on ‘Brianstorm’ on Spotify, which I find surprising. But I can I guess why, and I’ll suggest it’s because it sounds pretty damn cool. The riff, Alex Turner in general with that kind of speakerphone effect on his vocal. I think it has some of his best lyrics. The overall tone of it all. I don’t know what producers James Ford and Mike Crossey did to make the track sound so good, but they got the job done.

What’s the song about? It’s about people wanting fame, getting that fame, and not having a great time once that fame’s obtained. A ‘teddy picker’ is a crane game/claw machine, that being the metaphor for grabbing what you want in order to get that success. So there you go. Hope you can listen to the track with new ears if you’d never considered that before. The track was released as the third and final single from the album in December 2007. The music video is of them performing the song live at RAK Studios in Northwest London. As I usually try to put live performances at the end of these, so I that can count in this case. By that time, I’m sure I’d grown to like the song a lot, but I don’t think I ever considered it as a single. But there the video was playing on MTV2. I wasn’t complaining. The single didn’t do as well in the charts as the two that came before it. Hype for the album had certainly died down as 2007 was getting to 2008. The band were doing just fine. It would take a little while for the next album to come, though.

#1341: Super Furry Animals – The Teacher

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Guerilla was the first Super Furry Animals album I ever checked out. One time, when I was about ten or something, I was watching MTV2 when the video for ‘Do or Die’ came on. That is the second song on Guerrilla and was released as its final single. And I thought it sounded cool. That was in 2005 or something. But life happened, and it wasn’t until seven years later that I remembered the song existed. I revisited it, it sounded as good as I remembered, and I went on to listen to the rest of the album as a result. I have this headcanon that, with the new millennium fast approaching and a little uncertainty in the wind, some artists were compelled to just do some of their most out-there work in the last couple years of the ’90s to leave a mark before the world possibly ended. You check out what albums were coming out around ’98 – ’99 and you might see what I’m saying. Well, Guerrilla always gave me that kind of feeling in that, up to that point, it was certainly their most experimental effort.

On the album, you’ll get a song in the style of calypso (‘Northern Lites’), another made to be one of those novelty hits in the charts that are a little annoying but can’t help but love (‘Wherever I Lay My Phone’), a little dip into electronic, downtempo music (‘Some Things Come from Nothing’). There’s a whole lot of variety. So when ‘The Teacher’ comes along in the album’s final legs, it kind of throws you off just because, since ‘Do or Die’ many tracks earlier, the album hasn’t offered a lot of straight rock and roll, but here it is again with ‘The Teacher’ just in case you forgot that the band could still rock out from time to time. And how well they do it too. With a melody that’s sounds very much like one you’d hear in the school playground back in the day, Gruff Rhys and co take on the perspective of a teacher who wants to quit their job, run away from home and just write songs and be in a band. Until now, I thought it was from the point of view of a young student. It could still very well be both.

Now, this track is a lot of undisputable fun. Gruff Rhys starts the track off by screaming alongside the keyboard, screaming that continues underneath the song while it’s going on, and that energy is matched and never lets up as soon as the rest of the band join in for the first verse. Someone, I think Rhys himself, sings along the main melody an octave higher. There’s generally a lot of high-pitched harmonies and vocal deliveries all around, adding to the manic hyperactivity of the proceedings, which I think is summed up in the “La-la-la-la” refrains. Slotted in between the trippy ‘Door to This House Remains Open’ and the balladry of ‘Fire in My Heart’, ‘The Teacher’ continues the eclectic mixture of styles the entire album builds its ground on. It is a straight rock-n-roller, but in the context of the album it arrives as a sort of refreshing moment. I’m all for it. Listen to Guerrilla, everybody.