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.

#1213: Tom Waits – Singapore

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This here’s another of those songs with the backstory like those that I’ve written about in the past where I was properly getting into the practice of actively listening through albums from front to back and finding what was considered to be the best ones via this website called Best Ever Albums.com This was in, I’d say 2012/2013. There’s an actual “Best Ever Album” list on there. Tom Waits’s Rain Dogs was quite deep in, maybe in the 100s or something at the time, and before I found it I’d no clue that a Tom Waits existed or that he was making albums. So my first listen through Rain Dogs was very much a blind one.

‘Singapore’ is the first track on the album. To say it’s not the usual standard rock number is an understatement. Instead of the usual guitar, bass guitar and drums outfit, this was a song with a double bass, trombone, I’ll assume a wooden xylophone, and a guitar playing the most dissonant of lines. And then came in Waits’s vocal, a hushed delivery that varied from a spiky, biting tone to a deeper one that resembled the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street. With all that being said, I think I was instantly hooked once its “oompah” rhythm properly got underway. All of the elements together make for a very, very fun listen. The song reminds me of one of those types you’d hear those old ’30s-ish spooky cartoons where skeletons come out of their graves and start dancing around to the beat of whatever’s playing at the time. If only I had a specific example, but I think you may know what I mean.

Wikipedia labels Rain Dogs as “a loose concept album about ‘the urban dispossessed’ of New York City”, and it’s my view that ‘Singapore’ is the track that ‘welcomes’ the listener into this setting, introducing us to the unusual characters that dwell within. Waits and these strange people are heading off to Singapore, and he goes about listing the things can and can’t do on the journey as well as the things he’s done on his past travels. I stumbled upon a comment that said it was like ‘gothic vaudeville’, which I never could that thought of but is incredibly apt. And there’s more that where it came from as Rain Dogs goes on. Had things been different, there would have been posts for ‘Clap Hands‘ and ‘Cemetery Polka’ on here too. As it stands though, this’ll be the only Tom Waits entry that’ll ever be on here. Solid representative though.

#1212: Bob Dylan – Simple Twist of Fate

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Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks is the one album of his that has stuck with me for the longest time. I’ve heard a bunch of other Dylan LPs and like a bunch of the songs from them. But front to back, it’s always been Blood… for me. I remember it fully clicking when I was back in university. Second year, for me 2014/15, and it was during that time that the album had been out and about for 40 years – gonna be 50 in a few weeks – and I was a nerd about album anniversaries and that kind of thing. So I was alone in my room, listened through it for what was the second time in my life, and there it was. Was like hearing it in a new light. Alone in a room is the ideal setting for listening to it. And I could add it to the collection of sad albums in my mental space that I seemed to resonate with a lot.

‘Simple Twist of Fate’ is the second song on there. Opener ‘Tangled Up in Blue’ gets things off to a lively start. You wouldn’t be wrong to assume that at least the next one would carry on in the same manner. It does not. Instead, ‘Simple Twist…’ arrives as the solemn, reflective follow-up – still with a bit of a swing to it – with six verses detailing a gradual breakup between two people, seemingly unrelated to Dylan as he sings about them in third person, until he takes it into the first for the final verse where you realise he was singing about his own situation the whole time. Each verse depicts a different stage in the relationship captured. So evocative with the language Dylan incorporates, I think it would be difficult for any listener to be unable to picture their own scenes of what’s happening in their heads. And the simple twist of fate of the title is the one thing that weaves all of these stages together.

The chord progression throughout the song remains the same throughout its duration, so while Dylan’s acoustic guitar stays true to it, the bass guitar played by session musician Tony Brown is allowed to skip a few octaves and play around on the scales. Dylan’s vocal take is notable too, in that for the first few lines of each verse, he delivers his words very simply – there’s maybe a two note melody he utilises when doing so – before suddenly singing phrases that end with a howling wail for their penultimate lines and mentioning the song title in the final ones. Think those wails are meant to symbolize something. A kind of pain or yearning, I’d guess? The singing style is actually very similar to how he approaches the track that comes after ‘Simple Twist…’ on the album. That’s for another day. I imagine this track could be quite the brutal listen, especially if you’re feeling lovelorn or recovering from a past relationship. But then again, it’s good to hear a piece of music that somehow manages to put into words the things you couldn’t. Makes you feel you’re not so alone.

#1211: Beach House – Silver Soul

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Beach House’s Teen Dream probably goes down as the favourite of mine by the group. There are definitely bigger fans of the band than me, I can say that without exaggerating. But I’ll always find myself waiting for a new release if ever a new one is announced and on the horizon. Teen Dream was the first Beach House album I heard, during a period where I was finding critically-praised albums and finding out for myself whether they deserved the praise or not. It began with ‘Zebra’, and that track felt so familiar even though I’d never heard it before. And then ‘Silver Soul’ follows. While I can’t fully remember how I felt about it that first time, I tell you now, it’s up there in Beach House song preferences.

I think it’s been more than 10 years that I’ve known the track and listened through it. I couldn’t tell you what any of it means. Or at least I couldn’t give a solid interpretation. To me, it feels like one of those numbers where the music was laid out and the lyrics had to be done, so they were, and that’s what they are now. It all mainly revolves around “It’s happening again” lyrical refrain, which may or may not have been influenced by Twin Peaks. What I can say really matters to me is how Victoria Legrand sings throughout, her vocal’s just captivating. I don’t think Beach House usually go down as a “heavy” band, but I’ve always felt this track is incredibly so. The track starts off incredibly floaty, but when those crunching harmonising guitars come in around 20 seconds in, I can’t help but scrunch my face up and nod my head to the rhythm. A lot of times, I just hum the what-would-be bassline’s (left channel) melody throughout rather than the vocals themselves.

Other things you might want to know about this song… Hmm. Well, it was sampled in a Kendrick Lamar song. A very popular one by him, in fact. I’m very sure I heard the Lamar song before ‘Silver Soul’ too, but never made the connection. The sample was in a reversed state, so I feel I can forgive myself for that. During the closing moments while Legrand’s singing the refrain, guitarist Alex Scally starts singing other lyrics underneath. No one’s revealed what he is saying. I can make out, “If you want to stay inside…”, and “…and you will come and see, how could this be.” That’s about it from my side. It also seems that the music video contains the full proper version of the song. Whereas on the album the song slides right into the next one, the video has the last note of the song ringing out for almost a minute. It’s beautiful stuff.

#1210: Pavement – Silence Kit

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Now, hear me out. I know this song’s recognised to be officially called ‘Silence Kid‘. But for a long time, it was referred to as ‘Silence Kit’ because, on the original artwork, an accidental ink splodge caused the ‘d’ to look more like a ‘t’. I’ve seen that original artwork and, to me, it doesn’t even look like it was meant to resemble a ‘d’ in the first place. Even so, I’ve become so used to having ‘kit’ on my computer, phone, whatever for all this time, it doesn’t seem right to change it to what’s supposedly the correct title. And plus the band refer to it by the “wrong” title in their setlists sometimes. So when it comes down to it, I don’t think there’s any right way to refer to this tune. At least that’s what I’ll keep on telling myself.

The track is the opener on Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, the band’s second album, released in 1994. One of my personal favourite LPs flat out, I gotta say. Everything about Pavement is right up there to me. Why do I like the album so much? I can’t really say in much depth. It’s simply one good song after another, all of them takes on genres of the past that frontman Stephen Malkmus wasn’t so fond of, like some country rock by the Eagles or general classic rock, while also paying homage to others. Listening through is always a good time and, as I said, it all begins with ‘Silence Kit’. I’ve come to think of this track as a tribute to the quiet people out there who are just trying to get through their days, doing their own thing and having big plans for the future. Ambitions and all. But then things take a detour in the outro, where a drummer is introduced into the fold, they take ecstasy and end up masturbating after the show. And then the song ends. An unexpected shift in tone, for sure. But you gotta like it. Could be done a lot worse.

What initially starts with the band messing around for the first 20 seconds really bursts into life after, with that fuzzy guitar blasting out the song’s main riff. I’ve noticed that ‘Silence Kit’ almost has a very monoaural mix to it. The main guitar, drums and bass guitar are all in the centre, alongside Malkmus’s vocal of course. Kinda gives that ’60s vibe where mono was the way to go in terms of album recordings. Gives the track that extra punch. But there’s also a guitar overdub on the left that balances things out. I want to say I want to hear another Malkmus vocal underneath it all. It’s buried in the mix, but comes in clearer during the “Talk about your family” verse. The melody Malkmus sings with is slightly lifted from Buddy Holly’s ‘Everyday’. Whether this was intentional, no one really knows. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there was at least a little influence. On an album that’s kinda spoofing the classic rock of America, it wouldn’t be amiss to make a nod to one of the pioneers of rock and roll in the ’50s. A fine, fine opener introducing the world to what was then a new Pavement with Steve ‘Westie’ West now on the drums.

#1209: Big Boi ft. Cutty – Shutterbugg

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I wish I could say I was there and witnessed all the hype leading up to the release of Big Boi’s Lucious Left Foot album. I would have been 15 at the time, I was a functioning person then and aware of my surroundings to an extent. But, being a teenager, I was a lot more excited by Eminem’s new LP that had been released a couple weeks before. Back in school, Eminem was everyone’s favourite rapper. The music gave us something to talk and rave about. Yeah, Recovery hasn’t aged all that well. I was personally going through a real Beatles phase too. So I mention all of this to say I missed out on the obvious excitement there must have been, leading up to the first solo release by either of the members of OutKast.

But I did see the music video for ‘Shutterbugg’ one day around that time. Where it was, I couldn’t tell you. MTV Base, The Box. I want to say the latter channel. It might have actually been the day it premiered on Big Boi’s YouTube channel. Whatever it was, it was through the video that I heard the song for the first time, and the hyperbolic kid I was then thought, “Wow, we’re really living in the future now.” It was the start of the 2010s, it was an exciting time. The camera quality looked HD before HD was existing. Big Boi was looking clean. There’s a kaleidoscopic Cadillac in there at one point. In general, a wide variation of very cool imagery occurs in the video’s duration. It really holds up today. One of those prime examples where it somehow heightens the listening experience. And even without the video, ‘Shutterbugg’ has always been a hit. Not in the mainstream, commercial way (although if it wasn’t that, it shoulda been), but in the way that it immediately caught my attention ’cause of the musical elements and all.

The track’s an ode to the good times had by the ladies and gentlemen of the nightclubs, with Big Boi calling out to all them to get to dancing, “throw [their] deuces” (make peace signs) for the titular “shutterbuggs” (paparazzi). Big Boi delivers two great verses, the first in which he tells us how he’s the coolest person you know, with the second taking place from his point of view while in the club. Not sure if Cutty ever did anything after this song, but he has a nice little feature for the bridge. But what I always thought was the real highlight of the whole thing was the predominant use of the talkbox. In the 2000s, I don’t think anyone was using the talkbox anywhere in any kind of music. But suddenly here it was and used to great effect. The whole track is a sort of throwback in terms of the instruments used, and yet has always continued to sound so, so fresh.