Category Archives: Music

My iPod #169: Pavement – Carrot Rope

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This song has been in the back of my mind since I started “My iPod”. Ever since I started from ‘A’, the thought of doing the article for this track has been stirring in the brain. It is one of my favourites, by my other most liked band apart from They Might Be Giants. I could chat so much rubbish about it. This may be a long post.

I can remember watching the video for the first time like it was yesterday. But it was in June 2010, when my sister was preparing to come back from her first year of university. I could not be bothered to join my mum on the ride there; she went with my aunt instead. But I went onto YouTube to watch some Pavement videos, and I realised that I had never heard any other singles by the band that weren’t “Cut Your Hair”, “Shady Lane” and “Stereo”. “Carrot Rope” appeared on the side, I clicked on it and the rest is history.

The video begins with a shot of the band in bright yellow raincoats, and then skips to the band dancing along to the song in front of blue tarpaulin. That is the whole video. But it is so enjoyable to watch them goofing off.

When watching it for the first time, I got the idea that this must have been their last single before they broke up in 1999. That is not just because Stephen Malkmus is joined by, not only Spiral Stairs, but the bassist Mark Ibold on vocals in the first verse, but the sound of the song itself gave off a real ‘we’ve been Pavement, it has been fun’ feeling. It is very heartwarming.

What is the song about? No one knows. The lyrics are quite surreal and confusing at times, but it is not to think over them so much.

“Carrot Rope” is the last song on the band’s last album “Terror Twilight”.

Jamie.

My iPod #168: The Futureheads – Carnival Kids

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There is an official music video for this song somewhere. It’s just not on the internet. I remember watching it on the television too. That’s a shame*.

“Carnival Kids” is a track on The Futureheads’ debut album and is sung by rhythm/lead guitarist Ross Millard. It is fast-paced with a lot of vocal harmonies occurring during the verses and sudden stops and starts which make the song very hard to keep up with sometimes.

That’s all fine though. It is the sheer force that all of this is delivered to your eardrums that make the song so infectious and sharp. Plus it has a coda that you will eventually find yourself singing randomly. It is one of those songs that you should really make most of the time of when listening to it, because it is finished before you know it.

Jamie.

*18/8/20 – The video is down there.

My iPod #167: The Zombies – Care of Cell 44

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When I should have been revising for my A2 exams, I found myself listening to random albums on Spotify. “Odessey and Oracle” was an album I stumbled across thanks to this site, and “Care for Cell 44” is the song that starts everything off.

“Care…” is one of the happiest songs I have ever listened to in my eighteen and a bit years of living. Following on from the dainty piano that plays in the opening seconds is an upbeat, bouncy rhythm helped along by a melodic bass-line and almost child-like vocals of Colin Blunstone.

For a band named “The Zombies” I was expecting their sound to be a lot more ‘noisy’, to put it in a weird way. But I was pleasantly surprised to hear such an uplifting track, especially one to begin such an enjoyable album.

Jamie.

My iPod #166: They Might Be Giants – The Cap’m

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“The Cap’m” is the second most popular They Might Be Giants song from “The Else” according to TMBW, coming in at #40 on the overall song rating chart. Why is this? Well, I can’t speak for all of the fans who rated it. What I can tell you is why I like it though. That is probably what you expect, as that is what I have done for every song on my iPod since February.

What is probably the most interesting aspect of the song is the incongruous relationship between the lyrics and everything about the music. The music itself sounds very uplifting, from the chord progressions to the vocals. But the lyrics are from the point of view of a pretentious and egoistic narrator. Almost like “And Your Bird Can Sing” by The Beatles…. That’s another song I like. Maybe, more bands should go with that formula, because the two songs I know of that use it have done no wrong.

Jamie.

My iPod #165: They Might Be Giants – Canajoharie

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“Canajoharie” was one of the first songs from “Join Us” to be performed live by the band. The first time being in September 2010, months before the album was actually released.

This performance at the Kennedy Center in Washington was the first time I’d ever heard the song. Not because I was there, but because it was the first option that came up when I searched “They Might Be Giants – Canajoharie” on YouTube. Thinking about it now, I remember not being to overwhelmed by it. The verses were carried along by a steady boom-boom-clap back-beat and Linnell started blaring out the song title in the chorus. But back then, the lyrics had still not been deciphered yet. So I didn’t know what else to make of the song.

That all changed when the album actually came out in 2011. I was on holiday in the US after finishing my GCSEs, and listened to the album in full. There was just something about the studio version of “Canajoharie” that made me like it a lot more. Now I could understand what Linnell was singing about, and everything just sounded a lot tighter. “Canajoharie” is a real place too, which surprised me a bit. The band have a tendency to sing about weird things so I just thought it would be a made up word. It’s not.

Jamie.