Category Archives: Music

#1071: Talking Heads – Pulled Up

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A lot of Talking Heads songs I’ve written about on here tend to come from Fear of Music. There’s one other one post on here for a track from Remain in Light. There would be so many more songs on here, had the timing been different. Like in the case of tracks from the band’s debut album Talking Heads:77, I’ll only be able to cover ‘Uh-Oh Love Comes to Town’ and the closer ‘Pulled Up’. I’m a huge advocate for ‘The Book I Read’, ‘Don’t Worry About the Government’ and ‘First Week/Last Week… Carefree’. Alas, there time wasn’t ever to come on here. That might leave you asking, “Well, where’s the post for ‘Psycho Killer’, eh?” And the answer is, I rather prefer this live version to the one that you can listen to all the time on say, Spotify, for example.

But speaking of ‘Psycho Killer’, it comes before ‘Pulled Up’ on the record and, as a result, provides probably the most notable mood whiplash in the band’s discography. After a creepy-creep song with French lyrics and hectic breakdown ending about comes this great mood boosting, uplifting track about a person who’s been feeling low and down but has now gained a new lease of life via the help of an undisclosed presence. David Byrne sings from the perspective of a man, could even be himself – I don’t see why not, who’s now living a life of success and basically wants everyone to know how good he’s feeling. With a little help from friends/family/unrevealed sources, he’s found the strength to overcome his adversities and come out the other side with a brighter outlook on life. Seems too good to be true if we’re discussing a Talking Heads song here, but I think the track’s as genuine as it gets.

Tracks filled with those usual Talking Heads quirks. Byrne is as eccentric as ever in his vocal delivery, covering a range from restrained yelping melodies to wild, barbaric howls. He’s anything but inhibited when it comes to recording vocal takes. He even chuckles a little on the “There’s really no hurry, I’ll eat in a while” lyric, something which I always thought was because it doesn’t even attempt to rhyme with the line that comes before it. Only he’ll know what’s so funny about it, I guess. But in general, the whole track from its music to the tempo to all the ascending scales (a typical characteristic of songs about going up) make for such a relieving burst of energy, something that builds and builds until it finally releases with the strike of the song’s final chord and thus the album’s. Talking Heads album endings never disappointed, and they set the bar high on the first go.

#1070: The Raconteurs – Pull This Blanket Off

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Feels like it’s been ages since I last wrote about a Raconteurs song. Actually, it was only a few months ago. But I was thinking that it was even before they had released their most recent album, which is already almost four years old. I listened through Help Us Stranger once. I think once was all I needed, it didn’t leave much of an impression. Nah, Consolers of the Lonely is still the greatest album Brendan Benson, Jack White and co ever did. I’d go ahead even further and say that I think it’s one of the last and best big guitar-centric rock albums to come from the 00s before the whole indie explosion that seemed to erupt from about 2009 onwards. That’s right, this nobody has made this exaggerated statement that anyone will take with a pinch of salt.

I do thoroughly enjoy this album though. A lot of things Jack White’s involved in, I’m not too much a fan of. I like White Stripes songs here and there. Never bothered with his solo stuff. Too much of him is too much for me. But when he’s combined with Benson, I don’t know, something just changes. ‘Pull This Blanket Off’ is yet another example from Consolers… where the dynamic between the two brings the musical touches up a notch. It’s the album’s shortest track, clocking in at just under two minutes. You could consider it to be nothing more than a bit of an interlude moment. But there’s such a dramatic, yearning quality within that I think makes it deserve as much attention as the more “substantive” songs that are alongside it.

White sings the first verse, Benson sings the second, and after an ‘ah-ah’ refrain and short instrumental break, the two harmonise in the next two verses accompanied by the introduction of a warm, thick bass guitar, a patient kick drum and a steady tambourine. What the track is about, I don’t think anyone’s really cared to fully get into. Not from what I can see on the Internet anyway. But I feel like there’s something that’s meant to be very American/patriotic about it. Like the narrator’s trying to believe in this American Dream ideal and trying to stick by their morals, but is disillusioned by their community or things they’ve experienced in their lifetime. It doesn’t get too deep into the message because before you know it, the track comes to an early albeit resolving conclusion with Benson seeing the listener off with a comic “All right, good night.” ‘Rich Kid Blues’, the track that follows, is a bit of a continuation of the theme here though, at least I’d say it is, and that’s 4 and a half minutes in length. I’d suggest you listen to them both in quick succession.

#1069: Test Icicles – Pull the Lever

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Rory Attwell, or ‘Raary Decichells’ as he went by as a member of Test Icicles, would usually change his voice entirely whenever it came to delivering vocals for tracks he had written for the band. You’ll hear his normal speaking voice and probably think what he’s trying to achieve when listening to ‘Pull the Lever’ or ‘Dancing on Pegs’ for example. Think it’s fair that any first time listener would be thrown off. It’s only properly dawned on me how strange it may sound. But funnily enough, the three songs he contributed to Test Icicles’ For Screening Purposes Only album, and a B-side that was left off, are among my favourites to listen to generally. They’ll get their posts someday. I’ve covered one already, which has been linked. And today’s is ‘Pull the Lever’ the second track from that record.

There’s not much of a long-winded, melodramatic story about how much this song means to me that I can give you. I listened to that Test Icicles album in 2010 after sort of forgetting about them for a while after the band split in 2006. ‘Pull the Lever’ came on, and when that harmonised vocal came in on the first chorus I recall it becoming a favourite almost instantly. It sounded so nice in contrast to the busier verses. Those are led by this busy, quirky punk guitar riff (played by Sam Mehran) and blaring keyboard stabs (courtesy of Dev Hynes) while Attwell exclaims about nothing much in particular, but then suddenly transition into the more melodic choruses where Attwell calmly sings the refrain. The post-chorus occurs with Attwell returning to that barking-like vocal before an instrumental breaks takes us back to the second verse to repeat the rounds again.

When I talk about Attwell ranting about ‘nothing in particular’, I don’t mean to give the idea that you shouldn’t pay any attention to the words in the song. But even the band admit that they were an afterthought, and were very much so for the majority of the album. They do sound good alongside the music though. Sometimes it’s those kinds of lyrics (where not much thought has been put into them, but not so much that it doesn’t look like they’re not trying at all) that somehow work out the best in songs. I tend to be attracted to those types, anyway. I don’t think I have anything of value to add anymore, so below’s a video of the band performing the track live for the BBC. If you like what you hear, it’s good to see the band in action.

#1068: Pavement – Pueblo

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For a while in 2018/19, I was into buying 33 1/3 books that had been written and dedicated to albums that I greatly appreciated myself. Off the top of my head, I own the ones written for R.E.M.’s Murmur, The Village Green Preservation Society by The Kinks, Talking Heads’ Fear of Music and Television’s Marquee Moon. I’m sure there are a few others too. Being the Pavement fan I am, it only made sense to get the edition dedicated to Wowee Zowee. Now, at this moment in time, I can’t really remember anything much from it. I read it the one time and felt that I didn’t really need to again. But I did learn a few things that I would have never thought about before. Like how Malkmus recorded the guitar solo for ‘Rattled by the Rush’. Or how he played all the instruments on ‘AT&T’.

A large amount of the book is taken from an interview with Stephen Malkmus in which he reveals all this stuff. While mentioning the things noted in the paragraph before, he also stated that when time came to record the vocals, the majority of them were made on the spot with a mix of also having some stuff written down to help guide him along. I have a clear memory of reading this, anyone can correct me. But I do recall him mentioning that ‘Pueblo’ was one of the songs to receive this treatment. You can probably tell by looking at the lyrics anyway. What Malkmus is singing about here is anyone’s guess, but the melody mirrors that of the guitar during the verses so at least that gets into your head during the initial listen.

The track consists of a verse and a chorus and another verse and chorus, separated by a chill instrumental break with a few guitar freak outs. Probably the most notable part of the whole song is when Stephen Malkmus amps up the intensity of his vocal from the second verse into the final chorus, in which he’s more yelling at the listener rather than singing. After all this, the song funnily ends on a bit of a damp squib – like the band had no idea to properly end everything, so they sort of just stop playing. But in the context of Wowee Zowee, its oddities should come as no surprise. If any reader out there is a big, big fan of the song, it’ll be worth to check out the work-in-progress versions of the song that were released on the Crooked Rain deluxe edition from 2004. The ‘Beach Boys’ take makes sense when you hear it, and the ‘Domain’ version is something that sounds like it could have fit on Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain itself.

#1067: Television – Prove It

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Looks like this’ll be the first time I’ve ever written about a Television song on this website. That’s something to note, I guess. My own history/knowledge of the band doesn’t go that far. I believe I listened to Marquee Moon in full, I want to say in late 2012/13, just ’cause it was regarded to be a classic and the whole thing about the New York CBGBs punk scene of the mid-’70s. ‘Course I’ve listened to it over and over again as the years have gone by. Only recently did I go through it again because of its inclusion in the 1001 Albums You Must Hear book, and then not too long after the band’s songwriter Tom Verlaine passed away. I read a comment somewhere that suggested that the album’s first half supersedes its second by a large margin, but I would like to go ahead and respectfully disagree with the statement.

‘Prove It’ is the album’s penultimate track and has for a long time been one of my favourites from Marquee Moon. The record as a whole should be considered any budding guitarist’s dream, filled with memorable riffs, scales, solos, breaks and all sorts, a glowing interplay between rhythm guitarist Verlaine and the lead guitarist Richard Lloyd, present on every single track. It’s mainly the use of those that drew me towards eventually properly appreciating this particular song. Then everything else seemed to follow. Verlaine’s lyricism on the album tends to concern nighttime scenery, nature and the human condition. That’s no different in ‘Prove It’. It’s just that in the chorus, Verlaine appears to take on the perspective of a detective who’s trying desperately to solve their case. What that case is isn’t obviously made within the verses, but I would like to say that’s something that adds to its appeal.

I also appreciate the musical parts that mirror what is being stated in the lyrics at various points. Take when drummer Billy Ficca executes a fast drum roll and cymbal crash after Verlaine sings about leaping about 100 feet in the air, or when he also messes with the track tempo again after Verlaine sings about a rose that slows. Verlaine also whistles after singing about birds chirping. I don’t know, I take delight in those small moments anyway. They add a bit of a quirky element while still remaining effortlessly cool. I don’t think I have much to add past this point. If you’ve read up to here, thank you for your time. Songs from Marquee Moon came quite late to the game on my phone. Had it been different, ‘Elevation’ would have got its own post, for sure. There are a couple more Television tracks to come in this series.