#1089: Beck – Ramshackle

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Beck’s Odelay is a trip of an album. With the help of the Dust Brothers production team, Beck puts forward 13 tracks, the majority of which are layered, sort of off-kilter with a hip-hop influence, propelled by loops and samples and other audible oddities that keep its momentum going and at the very least make every song on there interesting to listen to. Some would consider it a 10/10. A classic. I wouldn’t argue with them. However, Odelay initially started out a totally different project, one where the songs within took a more acoustic and subdued route. ‘Ramshackle’ was one of those numbers recorded in those beginning sessions and chosen to close out the final LP, acting as the slow, sobering comedown after the album’s party has ended.

I myself didn’t really appreciate ‘Ramshackle’ until revisiting Odelay again sometime in 2017. It had been in my iTunes library for years up to that point. ‘Devils Haircut’, ‘Hotwax’ and ‘The New Pollution’ were already firm favourites of mine. But the album was just sitting there, and it had been a while since I’d listened to it in full. When ‘Ramshackle’ arrives, 47 or so minutes in after a conveyor belt of one upbeat track after another, the sudden appearance of upright bass and slowly strummed acoustic guitars are a total mood shifter. So slow, you feel like you might just start sinking into whatever you’re sitting in as the music continues. But it makes the dynamic that much more emphatic. Also helps that the melody Beck chooses to sing the lyrics inserts itself almost immediately. Wouldn’t be wrong to say it’s nearly nursery rhyme-like in its simplicity.

I have no solid idea what this song is about. What I see when hearing the music and listening to the lyrics is this sort of lone ranger type going through this shell of a town, looking at the waste around him and just going on his way because he’s meant to roam. There’s a western, cowboy theme here that I get, which I don’t know is felt by anyone else. That’s what I’ve been going with anyway. I think it may be about the weariness of life in general, how the big and small things can get us down. Our possessions, relationships, living our days until we pass away and go on to another plane of existence. Or not. Like all the other songs on Odelay, the meanings within lyrics aren’t all that obvious. The focus is more on how the words sound together and the imagery they convey. Whatever the meaning is here, it’s nothing to get pent up on. The track calms me down, and sometimes that’s what we all need.

#1088: Coldplay – Rainy Day

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Carrying on this theme of rain on here, and ending it too, comes Coldplay’s song ‘Rainy Day’. I’d assume it’s one that a lot of people don’t know about except those who are really into the group. I’ve got to admit that I was around the time of Viva la Vida‘s release. I’m sure that every time I’ve written about a song from that era of the band, I’ve gone on to mention that it’s my favourite out of everything the band’s ever done. That album actually got me excited for what they would do next. Excited for a new Coldplay album, never thought it would happen to me. Then ‘Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall’ arrived with Mylo Xyloto and they lost me. They dove headfirst into pop territory with that album and have dropped deeper into it ever since. Not the direction I was hoping for, I tell you.

Anyway, I’m digressing, sorry, sorry. ‘Rainy Day’ didn’t actually appear on Viva la Vida, but was released on the Prospekt’s March EP that was released a few months after. This EP was a collection of some tracks that were recorded during the sessions for Viva and were close to being included, but either weren’t finished or just didn’t fit. Even with the status of being a collection of leftovers, Prospekt reinforces this experimental route that Coldplay seemed to be taking during the making of the LP. ‘Rainy Day’ is based on a loop that establishes itself in its opening moments and plays throughout the track. The band play over the top with a notable bass line from Guy Berryman and a delicate guitar lick by Jonny Buckland. I want to say there’s more emphasis on the lyrical imagery rather than the meaning of the words. Chris Martin sings about the scenery and strange things happening when it suddenly begins to rain one day. At a couple of points during the track, these short little breaks of plucked strings and piano runs appear, each of them preceding the most glorious choruses in all of Coldplay’s discography, lifted to the heavens by a backdrop of sensational violins.

Before being included as a section within the song, those breaks and violin instrumentation behind the choruses were originally intended to act as the ending to an instrumental named ‘School’. The composition plays a key part in the making of the album it appears, because its opening was taken to form the first section of ‘Death and All His Friends’, the song, that closes out Viva la Vida. Makes me wonder if they had the two songs first and made the instrumental after, after seeing how well the two pieces fit together, or if the two songs came from that one instrumental. Whichever way you look at it, everything seemed to work out very well. It’s all good music in the end.

#1087: The Beatles – Rain

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The story of how I came to know ‘Rain’ by the Beatles is short and very, very simple. Back in 2009, I downloaded the 2006 LOVE remix album – one that introduced me to a lot of Beatles tracks before I went ahead and sought out most of their proper discography. On the version of ‘All You Need Is Love’ that closes that album out, little splices of other Beatles songs come in during the repeated ‘Love is all you need’ mantra. A harmonised ‘Rain, I don’t mind’ came in at about 2:53 seconds in. I liked the little refrain. I typed in ‘rain i don’t mind’ into Google, ‘rain i don’t mind beatles’ came up as the autocomplete option. The music video was the first search result. And that was that. I was already on a Beatles kick as it was, and now another hit was added to the collection.

‘Rain’ was written by John Lennon and recorded by the band during the sessions out of which came Revolver in the summer of 1966. As any Beatles fan will know, the track didn’t appear on that LP. It had already been released as the B-side to ‘Paperback Writer’ months earlier. Now, you hear the term ‘B-side’ and you automatically think, “Well, it’s probably not that good than all the other songs that made the album, or the track on the flip side.” But every Beatles fan will tell you you’re wrong and that ‘Rain’ is actually one of the band’s best and one of their most underappreciated because of the ‘B-side’ status. There’s nothing to deep about it, Lennon sings about how the weather shouldn’t affect the way we think, particularly when it rains, and that it’s our minds that bring us up or down no matter how things are when you look at the sky in the morning. If there is something deep there, I’ve yet to see it. Seems to be a what you see is what you get situation. But Lennon was doing a lot of drugs in that time, so anything’s possible.

Apart from the fact that is just an outright solid tune, melody and the rhythm working together perfectly, there’s a bunch of other aspects about it that separate from those other songs that you’ll hear from day-to-day. Like how the band actually recorded the backing track (guitars and drums) at a much faster speed before it was slowed for the vocals and bass guitar to record over it. Lennon also took great pride in being the first person to incorporate backwards vocals into a song, something he was motivated to do after getting high one night and mistakenly putting a reel of tape on the wrong way round and being astounded by what he heard. Even though Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr didn’t necessarily play together on the song, the former overdubbed his bass guitar later as I said, the two are still locked in unison, providing one of the best rhythm section performances in the Beatles catalogue. Starr was particularly proud of his drumming. When you witness the speed at which he did it, you can see why. I think this song’s great. Gotta say I prefer this version of the video though.

#1086: Madvillain – Raid

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Trying to cast my mind back to that first time I listened to MF DOOM and Madlib’s Madvillainy album. Like a lot of other songs/albums I’ve mentioned in passing on this place, I think there’s a strong likelihood that I came across it via going through the ‘best albums in history’ list on besteveralbums.com. This was all happening sometime around 2012/13, sure to have been 18 at the time, naive as anything and still requiring a lot of growing up to do. The album’s always been considered to be a classic, pretty much since its release in 2004. I heard it and thought it was just all right. Pretty much feel the same way now. But even though I may underplay it, the album’s a prime showcase of DOOM’s wordplay and vocal presence and Madlib’s knack for making the most absurd yet captivating beats.

‘Raid’ is the fifth song on the record and is the one that I distinctly remember being the first on there, in my opinion, to be the most immediate and instantly memorable, when going through the album on the premiere listen all those years. Leading in from the previous track ‘Bistro’, a sort of interlude track where DOOM welcomes the listener to “Madvillain Bistro Bed and Breakfast Bar and Grill Cafe Lounge on the Water” and introduces his and Madlib’s various aliases that are to come throughout the album, ‘Raid’ seems to come from the perspective of the various people waiting in this place (or somewhere else, I’ve always imagined it as some sort of town hall) and are waiting for DOOM to arrive on stage to deliver his statement. The whole first verse, though delivered by DOOM, is made up of lines from different individuals wondering about the mystique of this DOOM character who note that people leave his shows “feeling truly enlightened.” But DOOM doesn’t show up, and instead we are greeted with a killer verse from guest rapper M.E.D. who drops the mic and closes out the meeting much to this audience’s excitement. DOOM may not have shown up, but the crowd are pleased nonetheless. This is all just my head canon, by the way. Always imagined a music video for this would end up that way.

Madlib’s sample flips here are fantastic too. There’s a bit of Bill Evans Trio here, George Clinton there. To create the main instrumental underneath the verses, he took the 6/4 timed ‘América Latina’ by Osmar Milito e Quarteta Forma and added another two beats to make it 4/4. I type this like I know these things off by heart, but I’d have no idea what any of the songs used here would be without their usage here. With some added jumpy, erratic, pulsing bass hits, you have yourself a head-bopping backdrop of instrumentation. The creation of the instrumental is deconstructed in the video below. Yeah, ‘Raid’ has always been a big highlight from Madvillainy for me. Some unforgettable lines, the flows are immaculate, the production – as I’ve said – is top-notch. This is some good hip-hop.

#1085: Eels – Rags to Rags

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I’m not sure if this is something I’ve ever talked about on here. For now, let’s say I haven’t. I had a YouTube account from 2008 – 2011 where I uploaded full albums and other various musical related stuff on there. This was back when you could actually get away with that stuff. But one day I went a bit too far, got my final strike and the account was shut down. Terminated. I was devastated. Three years of my life sorta gone just like that. My own fault, I know. Looking back on it, I think it caused slight bout of depression that coincided with my final two years in secondary school. It wasn’t a fun time. I was still going through that when listening to Eels’ Beautiful Freak album in September 2012. How am I so specific with the month? Well, ’cause it was a year on from when YouTube took my channel down. ‘Novocaine for the Soul’ I’d known prior to that first full listen to the album, but it was ‘Rags to Rags’ that seemed to capture how I was feeling at the time.

The track is written from the perspective of a guy who looks in the mirror, doesn’t think much of what he sees and has something of an existential crisis despite having gone through the ideal American Dream of coming from nothing to suddenly having everything he could ever want. All this is spurred on by the sight of a lone spider crawling on the reflection of the narrator’s eye. Singer/guitarist E might just be singing about himself on this one, correct me if I’m wrong. He’s fulfilled his dream, but still feels worthless like a bunch of rags and rust, coming to the conclusion that this ‘dream’ was ultimately pointless. The only time he gets some solace is in his dreams when he thinks of his hometown, reminiscing about the railroad tracks (something he’d sing about again later in the band’s material) and the pussy willow (something I didn’t know existed until I heard this song).

It’s been 11 years now since that first listen. Some ways it really feels like that amount of time has passed, in others it feels like it was just last week. Either way, the song still provides that feeling-down comfort, even if its lyrical subject matter is a bit of a downer. Some good alternative rock music right here. ‘Rags’ was released as a single in 1996, and from what it looks like a music video was made for it, but the complete version of it seems to be wiped off the face of the earth. You can see a good portion of it, but its beginning and end are missing. Funnily enough, the video finishes before E delivers the line about the American Dream not meaning ‘a fucking thing’. Surely that’s just coincidental, right? If anyone from Eels is reading, let’s get the video back.