Category Archives: Music

#1347: James Dean Bradfield – That’s No Way to Tell a Lie

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After finishing what was to be their last tour for a couple years in 2005, the members of Manic Street Preachers took a little break from each other. During that time, drummer Sean Moore… well, no one really knows, but I’m sure he had a good one. Bass guitarist and lyricist Nicky Wire went and recorded a solo album, released in 2006, called I Killed the Zeitgeist. And in the same year came The Great Western, James Dean Bradfield’s first solo project. Bradfield, as many may know, is the lead singer of the Manics, taking great pride in writing the music of the band’s songs alongside Moore. It wasn’t until 2001 that fans got a completely penned Bradfield song, covering music and lyrics, in the form of ‘Ocean Spray’. So how would a whole album of Bradfield-written tracks turn out? I can’t say myself, I’ve never listened to the whole thing. But the one track I know from there, the album’s opener and selected first single, I’ve enjoyed for a very long time. I guess almost 20 years now, ain’t that something?

I saw the video for ‘That’s No Way to Tell a Lie’ once on TV, and it feels like it was never played again. It most likely was. But if that’s the case, I didn’t see it. The video showed up, not on MTV2 but VH2 when that was a channel in the UK. I was sitting on the floor chilling, as you do when you’re 11 years old, watching Bradfield getting dunked into a lake while another Bradfield in shades watches on accompanied by some Asian mobsters while the song played over the top. I didn’t know what was going on. The song sounded all right, though. The chorus where the title’s sung a couple times left a mark. The visual of the mobsters lip-syncing the “Sha-la-la-la” vocals in the break were funny. The video finished, life happened. I’m sure I kept the song in the back of my mind for a while. But then it got to a point where I couldn’t get away from it later on in 2006, because someone at the BBC decided the track would make good backing music for the Goal of the Month competition on Match of the Day. It was like that for a good two seasons of football. Was singing along to it probably every time. So there you go. I was locked in.

I’ve been singing along to the lyrics and enjoying the music to this for so long now, I’ve never thought to go and really dig deep into what the song’s about. I did always like the “I hear you’ve got something to say / But first you need some people to say it to / Just before you rise from the dead” lines. I don’t know just something to the sound of them. But in Bradfield’s words, the song’s about “the push and pull of your head and your heart telling you different, conflicting things about the way you should feel about religion”. Your head saying, “No,” but your heart saying “Yes”. He says so here. I never would have thought that. But I guess mentions of ‘lost souls on a pilgrimage’ and the ‘rise from the dead’ does give way to that context, with the whole ‘that’s no way to tell a lie’ idea being a flat-out rejection of the religious imagery that sways people to believe in it. Or something? Honestly, I don’t know. I just like the song. Knowing what it’s about doesn’t make me like it any less.

#1346: Fleetwood Mac – That’s All for Everyone

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In January 2014, it was officially announced Christine McVie would be rejoining Fleetwood Mac after leaving the group 15 years earlier to pursue this nice little thing called retirement. I was working as the host on my radio show back in university and used that news to slide in a Fleetwood Mac song into its playlist, specifically ‘Think About Me’ which McVie wrote and took lead vocals on. I write all this to say I must have listened through Tusk in order to get to know that song and the one that’s the subject of today’s post. When exactly I downloaded the band’s 1979 double album is something I can’t tell. All the info is on my old, very, very slow laptop whose monitor doesn’t turn on and that I have to connect to the TV in order to see what’s going on. I’ll get back to you on that one. I do have a hazy memory of being sat at my desk in my room and hearing ‘That’s All for Everyone’ and liking it then and there. But I need those dates to be sure.*

Of the first 10 tracks of Tusk, half of them were written by guitarist and vocalist Lindsey Buckingham. It’s no secret the guy took the reins after the band’s success with Rumours, insisting the band go in a different direction to avoid creating a virtual sequel. He cut his hair. He was reportedly lying down on the ground in strange positions while laying down vocals. He was certainly inspired. ‘That’s All for Everyone’ got me because… man, I could just sink into a bed while listening to it. The whole production behind it is so light and tasteful. Gentle charango strumming, a kind of lute that I never knew was used in this song until writing this. John McVie’s bass guitar working those lines. The kalimba playing those downward scales at various points. And of course the harmonies by all three songwriters. My favourite part of the entire track comes in the form of those wordless vocalizations that come in at 1:42, where you’d probably expect something like a guitar solo. An absolute moment of euphoria right there.

The song was inspired by that universal moment when the house lights come on at the end of an event and it’s time for everyone to go home. But there’s also a very human feeling about the song that I think everyone can relate to. That feeling of ‘that’s enough’ / ‘I’m done’… that feeling of just letting it all go and having a solid inner peace that comes along with it. At least that’s what I get when I hear this specific combination of words and music. It’s very mantra-like. Something to recite to yourself when trying to find that state of relaxation. Meditative is the word, it’s a very meditative track. I appreciate it a lot. It’s sort of undercut by the rocking, in-your-face number – also by Buckingham – that follows it on the album, but I’m sure that’s done very purposely. But that point is neither here nor there. ‘That’s All for Everyone’ is a fine track. Tame Impala did a cover of it a while back. I guess that’s all right. It’s all about the original for me.

*So I looked, and I downloaded the album on the 30th December 2013. That means I would have been home for the holidays. I certainly listened to it at uni, though.

#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.