#1308: Pavement – Summer Babe (Winter Version)

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Who knew there were so many Pavement songs beginning with the letter ‘S’? Feels like I’ve written about 20 of them. The number is probably much smaller than that. But it appears that this’ll be the last one in this section. And there’s an irony that the trend finishes off on an album opener, the first track on Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted, the band’s debut album, released in 1992. I’ve relayed my personal opinion of the record in a previous post. Though if you’re not up for reading that, it boils down to me not liking the lo-fi feel of the album and preferring the songs on there a lot more when I see them being played live. It took seeing a live performance of ‘Perfume-V’ to get me into that number, and the story’s very much the same for my eventual appreciation of ‘Summer Babe’.

After downloading Slanted… in 2013 or so and not caring so much for it, there would be times when I was online and navigating various music places that ‘Summer Babe’ would be recognised as “one of the best songs of the ’90s” or “the greatest indie rock song ever”. It left me wondering what I’d missed. There was once a performance of the song the band did at the Hollywood Bowl, during their first reunion shows in 2010, available on YouTube. Alas, it doesn’t seem to be up anymore. That would have been a nice one to link. In fact, I think you can see the person filming that video in this video of the same performance. That’s as close as we can get to it. And there’s this take of the track from 2014 when Stephen Malkmus was on tour with his Jicks entourage. Listening to those, and then listening to the official album track afterwards, it was like, “Yeah, I get it now.” Sometimes it takes that live context to understand where a song’s coming from.

In comparison to those live shows where the track is performed with more of an emphatic energy and a wider display in vocal range, similar to the sound of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain which would follow (and which I’m more a fan of), ‘Summer Babe’ as a studio recording is much drier, with Stephen Malkmus sounding nonchalant as anything. But despite the production, or lack of it, whatever you want to say, I can’t look past its catchiness. Three chords is all it needs, revolving around a chord progression of D-A-G, over which Malkmus potentially sings about relationships while referencing Vanilla Ice and evoking images of shiny robes and protein delta strips. I say “potentially sings” because, like I’ve mentioned many a time before, Stephen Malkmus doesn’t make things too obvious with his words. I feel like I had to be around at the time of the song’s initial release to truly understand why the song gets the accolades it does. But I do enjoy it a lot. If I’m not singing along to the ‘summer babe’s during the end, I’m probably having a bad day.

#1307: Radiohead – Sulk

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Now, I do know how Radiohead fans tend to feel about ‘Sulk’, which is that a large majority of them consider it to be one of the worst tracks on The Bends. Not because it’s bad. But when in an album including songs like ‘Fake Plastic Trees’, ‘Just’, ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)‘ and others that I would have covered on here, it seems to pale in comparison. A comment I can remember being agreed was that it sounded like a leftover from the band’s debut album Pablo Honey, or could have fit better on that album. It’s too normal. Sounds like any other ’90s alternative rock song that bands were making at the time. ‘Sulk’, in general, in my opinion, is much, much better than… probably 10 out of the 12 tracks that make up Pablo Honey, so I disagree with that particular take. And, yeah, it follows a pretty normal song structure for Radiohead song. Doesn’t stop it from being pretty darn good, I tell you.

I got The Bends as a Christmas gift in 2006, my request inspired by the number of times I’d seen Radiohead’s music videos on MTV2 up to that point. I might have said it was a birthday gift in a previous post, but my “xmas list” sent to my cousin in my Outlook email says otherwise. Back then I was 11 and merely asking for albums just for the singles, which is what I got from The Bends and sort of left it on the shelf. I may have listened through on my PlayStation 2 when I was 12 or something too. It wasn’t really until 2016 when a new Radiohead album was on the horizon, that I was at my desk at work and decided to listen through The Bends from front to back and really pay attention to it. It was honestly though that one playthrough that ‘Sulk’ seemed like an obvious track that I should have been liking for years up to that point. I extend that notion to fellow album tracks, ‘Bones’ and ‘Black Star’. If I could do all this again, they would have their own posts too.

‘Sulk’ was apparently written in response to the 1987 Hungerford massacre that happened in England. You never would have guessed it. I certainly didn’t. Listening to this earlier live version of the track does seem to reveal that origin of inspiration a lot more. The final lyric being “Just shoot your gun”. Clearly, some changes in the words happened along the way. In its final iteration, it seems to be about the universal feeling of depression, the hold it can have on a person and a wish for it to subside. Just so happens that the band provide a really upbeat performance behind it. There’s a key change and everything that occurs at the instrumental break and lasts through the final chorus, where Thom Yorke sings a high B note without falsetto. It’s a pretty magical moment. Unfortunately though, the song as a whole came to be the one the band themselves disliked the most. This probably also plays into fans’ opinions on the song as well. As a result, it hasn’t been played live since 1995. I’ll have a lot of love for it for a long time.

#1306: The War on Drugs – Suffering

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Welp, The War on Drugs are a band that I’ve dug very deep into at all. The reason I know of them is because, back in 2014, they released Lost in the Dream. Around that time I would have been in my first year university and was a bit of a Pitchfork nerd then. So when the album got a ‘Best New Music’ marking and a rating of 8.8, I was all in. “Let me see what this is all about”, and other thoughts of that degree. I wasn’t really into it all that much. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to it. But from what I can remember there was lot of music on there that wore a Bruce Springsteen influence on its sleeve. And I’m not all into the works of the Boss either. The one track on Lost in the Dream that got me on that first listen, and has stuck around in the saved songs pile ever since, was the one you see in the blog title for today.

‘Suffering’ is the third song on the album. I don’t have the knowledge to say what the general consensus is on it, whether it’s popular among War on Drugs fans or not so much. To me, it feels like one of those songs needed at a festival when it’s time to let whatever energy’s been built up before dissipate, so people can bring out their joints and have a smoke or just stand in their ongoing buzz and really let the music just wash over them. A proper mood-setter, one for the vibes. The chords alternate between, I think, F major and G major, for a good chunk of it with a lot of space in between the two to allow those notes to soak in. And then things properly open up for the smooth instrumental break when a grand piano is introduced alongside the established guitars and Fender Rhodes, alternating between C major and F major this time, before an echoing guitar solo then enters the frame. This is a track that’s very tasteful in its delivery.

I’ve been carrying out a practice of listening through a track and simultaneously reading through its lyrics before I go ahead and write about it on here. I’ve realised that in this case, I’ve never actually properly sung along to ‘Suffering’ all the way through. Only little phrases within, here and there. I’ve usually been more focused on the music around the words. But having read through them especially for this… I’m not gonna say the lyrics don’t make sense, but it does seem like they were definitely written to fit the music and evoke a sort of imagery and emotion rather than trying to lay out some sort of message or narrative. And I’ve got no problem with that because usually those are the songs I’m into. Probably makes sense as to why I like this one so much. If I was to hazard a guess, it’s probably about the end of a relationship of some kind But according to songwriter Adam Granduciel, he said the titular word during a scratch recording, and that alone influenced the sound of the end product. So whatever meaning people may want to have, possibly doesn’t go as deep as they’d like. All good with me though, I’ll say.

#1305: Billy Talent – Sudden Movements

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If you were to search for Billy Talent’s ‘Sudden Movements’ in Google and come across a few Reddit threads or something in the results, you might just find a common theme. Quite a number of people don’t hold the track in a very high regard. This thread asks what the worst song on the band’s third album is, someone answers ‘Sudden Movements’, and the replies are like, “Yep, couldn’t agree more. Thread finished.” The song is the top answer. It’s not even as if the replies go into detail as to why they think so. It’s stated like it’s a well-known fact. And people just agree like it’s nothing. I’m freaking out a little bit over here. It may not be my absolute preferred track from Billy Talent III, but it’s a favourite, for sure. A shame seeing it be dismissed so casually.

‘Sudden Movements’ is in the penultimate slot on the record, a placement where sometimes you’ll have an album’s dark horse or a bit of filler before the album’s proper closer. Slotted in between single ‘Turn Your Back’ and closer ‘Definition of Destiny’, it seems as if people see throw it into the latter category. I’ve never seen it as a dark horse, really. Simply thought it was a pretty cool song. The way all the guitars and cymbals come crashing in immediately to start things off gives the track a huge presence already. Ian D’Sa isn’t playing those signature finicky guitar riffs that are a staple in many a Billy Talent number, but rather blasts out these open chords which I think gives the track this expansive feel. I see an image of giants (or tall figures of that type) marching over buildings when this chord progression plays. All so very emphatic.

What’s the song about? I’ve never thought about it before. But for the purpose of this post, I can look at the lyrics and say I think the whole thing’s about a general feeling of paranoia. Laid out in the first line, “Well, I’m scared of my reflection / Is it mine or is it yours?”, this sense of having to look over your shoulder and keeping your guard up is further built upon as the track goes on. All summed up in the song’s chorus, “No sudden movements / Gonna give us all away / Or they’ll blow us all away”. The narrator asks the listener to not think they’re going crazy, which is something that deeply paranoid people say. Usually if this was some sort of TV show, the paranoid person turns out to be right and then the non-believers all looks stupid. We don’t get that kind of resolution here.

#1304: Red Hot Chili Peppers – Suck My Kiss

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Been a long, long time since I’ve covered a song from Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Blood Sugar Sex Magik album. I wouldn’t say it’s a personal Desert Island pick of mine. I’m rarely ever in the mood to want to listen to it the whole way through. But the couple times I have, it’s usually been a good time. I’m rambling on about my experiences with that particular record, just because it’s the one where you can find the subject of today’s post. Really, back in 2005 or something, my sister was loaned the Chili Peppers’ 2003 Greatest Hits compilation by a friend of hers. ‘Suck My Kiss’ was on there. But I don’t think I was into the band’s funkier tracks back then, compared to the sing-songier ones that were usually played on TV too. But I grew up a few years, revisited the song through BSSM and immediately saw it as one of the best songs on there.

It’s all about the bass line. Honestly, I’ve sung along to that more times than reciting Anthony Kiedis’s words when I’ve listened to the song. Flea on bass, along with John Frusciante on guitar, play this mainly two-note riff during the verses in unison, with Flea’s bass more forward in the mix. The groove is tighter than anything and infectious as anything. Gets stuck in the head very easily. Chad Smith on drums brings it all together. You can sort of tell this must of been the result of some sort of jam between the three instrumentalists. Have you ever noticed how those bass-guitar stabs after the “Is she talking dirty” / “Is she gonna curtsy” lines are played three times in the first chorus, two times in the second, and then for once only in the the last one? Once I did, I thought it was very clever stuff. The type of move that I can only assume a group of musicians really in tune with each other would come to think of.

But if I have to do some kind of analysis of Anthony Kiedis’s lyrics, I don’t think it would go any more in-depth than what you reading this would think about them. Typically of that era of the band, he’s rap-singing, delivering words which may not align with one another or have any narrative structure, but are more to fit with the music surrounding him. And fair play to him, it’s a formula that hasn’t let him down. Especially on Blood Sugar…, a lot of the lyrics concern Kiedis’s desire to seek out a beautiful woman and have a good time with them. To put it lightly. And that’s what ‘Suck My Kiss’ boils down to, funnily enough. There’s lyrics like “Little Bo Peep coming for my stun gun”, “Do me like a banshee”, “Do me now, do me here, I do allow”. These are the words of a very horny man. Nothing wrong with that, I don’t think.