Category Archives: Music

#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.

#1066: They Might Be Giants – Protagonist

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Every once in a while, it comes to a point where I have to write about yet another song from They Might Be Giants’ Join Us album from 2011. I think that album’s just swell and, if any of you readers have been with me on here for a long time, you’ll probably know my positive opinions on it. I think I may have just mentioned them on every post from Join Us that I’ve done The last post I did for a song on here was a number of months ago for ‘Old Pine Box’, the album’s third track and one that’s also written and sung by John Flansburgh. And coincidentally today’s song ‘Protagonist’ was also written by the man, this time arriving as the tenth number and opening the record’s second half.

Thinking to back to my initial reaction when I first heard it as a 16-year-old, I recall making fun of Flansburgh’s abrupt change in vocal delivery between his soft, gentle tone for the first two lines and the somewhat sterner, almost robotic tone for the lines that follow. He alternates between those two styles for the majority of the song. But it wasn’t too long before realizing that the changes were meant to reflect a switch in the narrative voice. You see, ‘Protagonist’ tells the story of someone who’s girlfriend has left them for another man, but that whole situation in itself appears to be the subject of a script, with locations and characters involved in the break-up being noted in… I guess what would be called the script notes. If any screenwriters could assist with the jargon. So Flansburgh captures these two voices by changing up his vocal style, taking on the roles of both the brokenhearted man and the detached script. Also a brief moment during the bridge where he takes on another voice as a sort of passive narrator who passes on some wisdom onto the listener, even poking fun at the unusual manner that the lyrics have been set out in the process.

Musically, it doesn’t sound too far off from something that you would find in one of those old-school musical films or Broadway shows. Considering the whole purpose of the song’s lyricism, I’d have to think that the choices must have been intentional. Instead of the familiar sound of drum sticks hitting the snare, finger clicks keep the rhythm swinging alongside sweeping brushes on the snare. Smooth ‘ooh’ harmonising backing vocals arrive at points to add some more melodic hooks Keyboard-manufactured strings are performed pizzicato style, arriving into the mix during the bridge, and are then followed by the inclusion of some trumpets that make their welcome for only a brief moment before never being heard from again. Elements are added bit by bit as the track goes along, subtly but very much effective. When it comes down to it, ‘Protagonist’ is a sweet, sweet song about heartbreak though with a little twist in its setup, which I can only give props to John Flansburgh for trying out. Moves like that only show why TMBG are as great as they are in my books.

#1065: The Cooper Temple Clause – Promises, Promises

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Just like Duels’ ‘Potential Futures’ from a couple weeks back, ‘Promises, Promises’, a track by The Cooper Temple Clause is one that I came to know via its inclusion on a FIFA video game soundtrack. This time it was the series’ 2004 edition that introduced me to the song, a game that also opened my nine-year-old mind to Kasabian, The Stone Roses, Radiohead and, uh, lostprophets… (yeesh). I owe a debt of gratitude to all the FIFA games I owned growing up. A lot of the music you read about on this blog wouldn’t be on here if it weren’t for those soundtracks from 2003 up to about 2012. From the latter year onward, it truly dawned on me that EA Sports weren’t really changing the game up all that much, and I took myself out of that cycle of wanting the new issue every year. But man, some of the happiest times of my life were playing those earlier releases and just singing along to all this cool music that played in the menus.

However, unlike that whole story with ‘Potential Futures’ where I had to get the same game again to appreciate how good it was, ‘Promises, Promises’ was one that I grew to really enjoy through repeated listens on that first FIFA 2004 disc that I want to say I got for my ninth birthday. And through those repeated listens, I was able to absorb every element of the track inside-out, from those little guitar noises that open up the track before its killer riff to that screeching feedback that closes it out after it comes to an abrupt end. Looking up the lyrics in order to prepare myself for writing, I telling you that I was able to sing almost exactly what vocalist Ben Gautrey was delivering. What he was singing about, I had no idea and didn’t care about too much. I was having a good time playing games and being a dumb child. Family probably wondered what I was going on about though. To this day, I’m not even sure what this song’s deal is about other than the narrator’s disappointed that promises made to them by another party are usually broken. There must be something more to it. I haven’t made any large attempt to figure what it is. It’s the sinister tone of the music that keeps me returning to it after all these years.

Though this song is where my interest started with the Cooper Temple Clause, it’s always where it sort of ended too. FIFA 2005 was released the next year and, while I never forgot about the song, life in general just carried on – going from nine to 10 years old, starting a new year in primary school and all that jazz. The next time I would hear anything else by the band was in 2007 with a new single ‘Waiting Game’. Few things arose when I saw the music video for that song. I realised that it was the first time I’d actually seen what the band looked like. The person singing here definitely wasn’t the same as the one who sang ‘Promises…’, and I had no clue who else it would have been ’cause of the preceding statement I just made. I also didn’t like the song very much either. It turned out to be their last ever single, as the band broke up a few months after its release. Don’t want to end the note on such a disregarding note though. Am very thankful that they made this song and that it still resonates within me almost 20 years later. It’s not even a nostalgia thing when it comes to this one, it’s just a massive tune. I’ll give a Temple Clause album a listen one of these days.

#1064: Billy Talent – Prisoners of Today

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When I got the first Billy Talent album as a Christmas gift in ’06, or somewhere around that time, I was already well-acquainted with the majority of it. After having rediscovered the group after a chance encounter online, that’s a story for another post, I spent what I assume would have been almost a year listening to 30-second samples of the tracks on there on this website called Artistdirect.com. Back in 2004/05, YouTube wasn’t existing and sites like this were the things I had to resort to to hear just a glimpse of the music I wanted to own without having to pay for it. Songs like ‘Cut the Curtains’ and ‘Lies’ for example, I remember vividly listening to those clips, wishing I could hear the full thing. The band had the music videos for their singles on their own website. ‘Line & Sinker’ and ‘Standing in the Rain’ were able to be played in full on there too.

But when it comes to ‘Prisoners of Today’… well, I can’t remember this track ever being one of those tracks that I sought out to hear the sample for. And to this day, I’m not sure why that is. So it was really like hearing a brand new song when it came ’round for its time to be played when I popped that CD into my computer for the first instance. ‘Course now it’s like water off a duck’s back whenever it arrives on shuffle in the playlist. But it was a bit of an outlier to me for quite a while. That’s enough for the me, me, personal angle. I’m trying to get you to want to listen to these songs at the end of the day. If you’re familiar with Billy Talent’s earlier work, then the song’s not so much different from what you’d expect. Overall a pummeling punk rock performance, propelled by the driving rhythm section of Jon Gallant (bass guitar) and Aaron Solonwoniuk (drums) and heightened by the fantastic guitar work of Ian D’Sa, whose playing I’ve made sure to comment on every time I’ve written a post about a song from this album. Still amazes me to this down how he’s able to play those lines so smoothly and yet with such energy and urgency.

The track concerns being unhappy with the 9 to 5, five day of work/two days of play routine that the majority of the world has to go through for all of our lives, and acts as a reminder to use our initiative and conjure up the motivation to change our ways of living and not feel like we’re being held captive by the seemingly restrictive layout of everyday life. The two verses appear to be from the points of view of two people, or maybe it’s one in both, who have these wishes they want to fulfill but are let down by their own lack of courage or general bleak outlook on life, so much so that they just don’t bother in taking the steps to pursue what they truly want. This track I believe is in a minor key, so you know automatically that there’s sort of something sad about it, but with the furious pace that everything’s delivered, I also think it gives a feeling of ‘Well, if you feel sad, then stop feeling sorry for yourself and do something, ya bum.’ Ben Kowalewicz builds up into a full-throttle scream alongside D’Sa and Gallant’s backing vocals at the rushing finish, really signifying that pent-up frustration the song suggests, and it’s a moment like that which makes me wonder why it took me so long to warm up to this one.

#1063: System of a Down – Prison Song

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Whoa. The last time I wrote about a song of System of a Down’s was eight years ago, one which marked the beginning of a bit of an hiatus on here while I interned at a music magazine for a year and completed my degree at university for another. According to my links, I’ve written about four (including ‘Hypnotize’) other songs of the band’s on here. While pre-hiatus me was very much into them, the person writing to you now isn’t as much. As much as SOAD songs can be some of the most twisting/turning, zany and intriguing pieces of music you’ll ever hear, they can tire you out hearing them over and over again. Well, at least that’s my case. There’ll be millions of you who’ll completely disagree with that statement. And that’s fine. Not to say that my musical tastes have evolved or matured ’cause there will be times when those four songs pop into my head and I’ll just start singing/vocalizing them out loud. Let’s just say if I was to start this whole thing all over again, those four songs probably wouldn’t be featured.

But. But, but, but. I’ve got a lot of love for ‘Prison Song’ right here, the opener to SOAD’s classic Toxicity album from 2001. A monster of a record. I once heard ‘Prison Song’ many, many years ago on the Yahoo! Launch internet radio service. Wanna say that was around 2005 or something. But I never got ’round to listening to Toxicity in full until about 2014, better later than never. And when I did, it was pretty much like hearing the song virtually for the first time. I, maybe like you, was also left wondering whether that very first short, sharp stab of a chord was my computer freezing right at the beginning of the song. But no, it was most likely the band messing with us into thinking that’s what happened. The band start and stop, cymbals crashing with each stomp of a guitar chord, after which each rest is filled with Serj Tankian creepily whispering “They trying to build a prison” into our ears. The song proper gets underway after the teases, and what follows is a critique of, well, the prison system of the United States. Its high incarceration rate, the war on drugs… two subjects touched upon here via a well-executed mix of strong melody and face-screwing inhale growls and screaming.

What I really appreciate on the track, and throughout the album really, is the back and forth going on between Serj Tankian and guitarist/songwriter Daron Malakian. The verses have the former delivering motor-mouth couplets for the first four measures before handing over to Malakian to deliver the “My crack, my smack, my bitch…” line (not “I smack my bitch”, by the way), alternating again to Tankian who again delivers a straight fact about the prison system of the country and finishing with Malakian growling “They tryna build a prison”, which again transitions into the chorus where Tankian repeats that phrase but powerfully yelling it at the top of his lungs. It’s a dynamic that’s not so much push and pull, but more turns you to face one person with the other waiting for their turn to grab you by the shoulders forcefully to make you face their direction. That never really lets up until the breakdown where the rhythm’s allowed to ride for a bit and I think the moment written for the audience in mind to jump to the beat before the fast pace kicks in again for the final pre-chorus and chorus. What a way to get an album started. I don’t know what it was like for a SOAD fan to wait for those three years between the band’s debut and Toxicity, but with the way ‘Prison Song’ starts the proceedings, it must have felt like they never left.