Category Archives: Music

#1016: They Might Be Giants – Part of You Wants to Believe Me

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Just another They Might Be Giants song. There’s still a lot more to come in this thing. Maybe I might have said that they’re one of my favourite musical groups ever. If I haven’t, which I’m sure isn’t the case, I’m saying it again. ‘Part of You…’ was initially released as the fifth and final promotional track in advance of the band’s then-upcoming album BOOK in 2021. Slightly over a year has passed since the record’s release, and I’ve come to feel that it’s probably their best since Join Us arrived in 2011. Though it’s all subjective. You can’t go wrong with all the other releases that came in between.

What ‘Part of You…’ is is a delightful three-minute power pop ditty, primarily composed by John Linnell out of the two Johns. The opening descending/ascending melody of the keyboard in the introduction drew me right away, and that it’s also the same melody that Linnell sings in the opening verse really buried it in the brain. There’s no real discernible chorus, but more three sections that each have their own distinct melody. There’s the opening verse, the “Tiny voices” section, and the “Somewhere else” section which goes over the chord progression of the introductory verse. They make up the first half of the song in that order and are then switched around to make up its second. You’ll understand what I’m blabbering on about when you actually listen to the thing. What really matters is Linnell – Flansburgh too, but he’s not the song’s writer – is a master of melody and good hooks in a song and that’s all on display yet again in this one.

I haven’t been able to wrap my head around what the track is about, though. Like a few other Linnell songs, the lyrics are framed in this circular, elliptical manner that you have to take some time to think about. Not in the “Oh, you really have to think about this, man.” way, but more in the “That’s a funny way of wording a simple thing.” manner. There are double-negatives, maybe even a triple, so it kind of adds a bit more for the brain to process. But, from my general understanding of themes that can show up in TMBG songs, I think Linnell is writing from the perspective of a narrator who has either lied or said something straight up wrong to another person, and that person – who has to take medication for unknown reasons – is having an internal struggle on whether this person is telling the truth. Then I think the rest of the track is about what is happening in this person’s body as they try to process this potential lie the narrator’s telling them. Just my two cents, though. It’s known that TMBG just want you to enjoy their songs and not analyse them so much. But it’s hard not to have the urge when the lyrics are written in such a unique manner.

#1015: Nick Drake – Parasite

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Hmmm. Now I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to write three hefty paragraphs for this one. That’s usually the max I go for when I’m going into these if you haven’t noticed. Feel like that’s a reasonable amount for someone to read before going on to something else unrelated. But I’m not sure whether there’s a lot to pick apart from Nick Drake’s ‘Parasite’, unless you’re willing to go through a line-by-line analysis which I’m definitely not prepared for. Plus, I’m not too well-educated on music theory. The second-longest song on Drake’s Pink Moon, one of my personal favourites, ‘Parasite’ is a track of pure self-loathing set to cascading waltz time.

Pink Moon is already a stark listen up to the point of ‘Parasite”s introduction, but I feel like it’s the one track where Drake details the depths on how he was feeling around the time of the album’s recording. The song is something of a commentary. Drake lists situations and details he comes across while walking around London and being heavily depressed, and not really having a very bright outlook to anything he witnesses. He eavesdrops on people’s conversations, not really caring about the problems their having and whether or not things will work out well for them. He drinks in bars and feels terrible afterwards. He feels isolated from those who seem to be having harmless fun around him. His self-esteem is at his lowest, and he compares himself to a parasite, sucking the joy out of the life of the town and latching onto people who are merely going about their day.

What’s really left to talk about his Drake’s guitar playing, because that’s all there is, just like all the other songs on the album. Despite the very coldness of the subject matter, there’s a definite warmth to the tones that ring from Drake’s fingerpicking. I’ve always appreciated how he’s able to play two different melodies on the lower and higher strings that come together to become this encompassing thing, but it’s the descending melody on those higher strings that are the main melodic hook. The artist who designed the Pink Moon artwork must have got some ideas from this track too. There’s no way that the sad clown on the front and the shining shoe on the back were chosen by coincidence.

#1014: Radiohead – Paranoid Android

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So, from the list, it appears that Radiohead have quite a few songs beginning with the letter ‘P’. This one right here is a bona-fide classic. At this point, it’s no question how good of a track ‘Paranoid Android’, but I can only imagine how jaw-dropping it was to people who heard when it first dropped back in 1997 as the first single from OK Computer. Being only two years of age at that time, I wouldn’t know about the song for at least another eight/nine years, when the music video would play usually on MTV2 or even VH2. A lot of it was censored. The man’s head popping out of the guy’s stomach was blurred out, and the whole scene where the businessman chops off his arms and legs and the large-chested mermaids was replaced with hastily put together scenes from earlier in the video. Any first time listeners/watchers, you did read that sentence. The whole music video’s a trip.

This track is one of those made up of different sections from unrelated pieces à la ‘Bohemian Rhapsody‘ or ‘Happiness Is a Warm Gun‘ that are then brought together to make one composition. What I’ve always appreciated about ‘Paranoid…’ is just how seamlessly each sections transitions into the next. Even in the ‘…Warm Gun’, there are always these abrupt changes when one section changes into the other, and I’ve always felt it to be sometimes an awkward listen. Wikipedia says there are four sections in ‘Paranoid Android’, but I would say there’s three at the most with a little return to the second to close things out. But really the whole thing flows so well, and the whole performance by the band is off the charts.

I think it’s come to the point now where a Radiohead fan wouldn’t be impressed if you told them ‘Paranoid Android’ was your favourite track by the band’s. I’m a Radiohead fan myself, but I don’t even think I’m at the level of some other people that may be existing. They would understand, because they’d have to, but the track is essentially Radiohead encapsulated. Damn, there are just so many moments to pick out from this one as to what makes it so engaging to hear. From the wild guitar freak-outs to Thom Yorke’s vocals to those robotic “I may be paranoid, but no android” that are buried in the mix. To listen to this track for the first time again…

#1013: The Beatles – Paperback Writer

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Hey, look at that, it’s a Beatles song. So now comes the problem in how I can possibly approach this post without writing something that you can already find online… I think I just have to accept that when it comes to Beatles material, you can’t really write anything without regurgitating something that’s already been said or researched. But that’s why I have to put my own personal angle in there. Thinking about ‘Paperback Writer’, I don’t think it was one by the band where I heard it the first time and was instantly amazed. It’s only just over two minutes in length, but 14-year-old me needed those extra listens for it to all come together. It did. Thirteen years later, it feels just as good when those opening vocal harmonies come in.

Recorded during the sessions for what would become Revolver in 1966, Paul McCartney was inspired to write the track by his aunt, who suggested he write about something other than love for a change, and after he saw Ringo Starr reading in the backstage area of a venue. He and John Lennon got together, wrote the lyrics in the form of a letter from an aspiring writer who wants to get their book published and eventually worked on the track with George Harrison and Ringo Starr in the studio over two days in April ’66. Continuing their quest on experimenting in the studio, which properly started on sessions for the previous album, the group changed the line-up configuration to record the song’s backing track, with McCartney on lead guitar (he plays the riffs and the chugging lines during the verses), Harrison playing the rhythm, Starr on the usual drums and Lennon on tambourine. They did it in two takes, with the second being used for the final cut. That’s all they needed.

Got a lotta love for this power-pop number. With the Revolver Super Deluxe box set that came out a few months ago, some commenters were quick-witted to notice the huge similarity between the main guitar riff here and what would be used for the horns in ‘Got to Get You into My Life‘. Never would have put two and two together. Clearly, this was a melody McCartney had had in his head, so to make two songs out of it is quite something. Yeah, the riff’s cool, but there has to be huge props given to the bass guitar. Using a Rickenbacker bass instead of his signature Hofner and aided with some engineering know-how by Geoff Emerick, the low end has a fatter groove and provides a real drive to everything that’s happening. Plus, do like the Frère Jacques backing vocals by Lennon and Harrison in the final verses. Why they chose to sing that, I don’t know. But it just works. So, there you have it. Another Beatles post done. There’ll be more to come.

#1012: Modest Mouse – Paper Thin Walls

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As I’m typing this, it’s currently the 18th of January 2023 – which shows you just how much in advance I do these things – and just getting to almost three weeks after the passing of Modest Mouse drummer Jeremiah Green. That was some awful news to wake up to on New Year’s Day. It had only been made public that he had been diagnosed with stage IV cancer just a few days before, but I don’t think anyone could have expected things to go as they did, and so quickly too. It’s still sad in January, and now in March too – maybe in between the two months some update on Modest Mouse will happen. Will just have to wait and see.

It took me the longest time to listen to the band’s Moon & Antarctica in full and in good quality because, even though its Wikipedia page showed just how well-rated it was by critics, it wasn’t anywhere on streaming services for whatever reason. That was until December 2018 when it was suddenly on Spotify. Then I had to see what it was all about. It was an instant add to my personal library. Felt like an album I’d become so familiar with, even though it was my first time hearing the thing. ‘Paper Thin Walls’ is the 11th track on The Moon & Antarctica and was one of those on there that struck an immediate chord with me. Once that opening guitar lick kicked in, I think it was pretty much a guarantee, and what followed was an added bonus.

From what I’ve gathered in the four-and-a-bit years I’ve been listening to the song, ‘Paper Thin…’ is this musically upbeat track about a disturbing lack of privacy and a general sense of disappointment with things going on in the world, feelings and situations that usually come along with being in a band and having an expectation to please people wherever you go. Sounds like a let down in writing, but with the repetitive melody and call-and-response aspect between the vocals and the instruments during the verses, everything sounds a lot more lively and energetic than you would expect. I think that weariness shows more in the choruses, or is it a bridge – I’m not sure, in which things slow down a peg and Isaac Brock becomes a bit more introspective. But once that’s over, it’s a case of second verse, same as the first, and the energy props up again. Though it wasn’t until the band’s next album that something of mainstream success would come their way, I think ‘Paper Thin Walls’ could be considered an example of what was to come, just due to its sheer accessibility while still maintaining that unique Modest Mouse essence.