#983: Modest Mouse – One Chance

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December 2014, I had finished the first semester of my second year of university. In one of my modules, there was a coursework assignment in which you could either create a graphic novel or carry out a creative project that you then had to write a commentary about. I chose the latter, and for that project I decided to make a music video. That’s right. And it was the holiday period, it was a time to appreciate friends and family. I knew I’d be seeing them a lot in that time. It just so happened that Modest Mouse’s ‘One Chance’ contained a sentiment that I thought was appropriate for it. So that’s the song I chose. That music video is on my YouTube channel, under a private setting, and no one else will ever be able to see it except me. But I got the highest grade you could get for it and the commentary too, so it was well worth it.

‘One Chance’ is the penultimate track on Good News for People Who Love Bad News, the band’s album released in 2004, and is another case of frontman Isaac Brock’s ponderings on life as a whole and the existential dread that can come along with it. However, he doesn’t appear to be as abstract or sharply witty in his lyrics as he is usually known to be. Nope, in this track he bluntly states that all we have is this one lifetime to do what we have to do and get it done right. He mentions his deep appreciation for his friends and family, juxtaposing it with the sadness felt when some of his loved ones pass away prematurely. And then there’s that whole added pressure of feeling small and insignificant when you consider that we’re all living on this ball floating in space. It’s something that weighs on Brock’s mind. But musically it’s delivered in a tight three minute band performance, quite the change from the experimental and sometimes brash route that the band had established in the previous records.

There are times when Brock’s yowling and hollering down the microphone like it’s no one’s business, but for the majority ‘One Chance’ is very much accessible and pleasantly melodic, very much like every other song on the album. I’d like to highlight bassist Eric Judy’s bass parts during the verse, playing the same pattern while slowly making its way up the fretboard. Very fluid and memorable too. I have a feeling this track’s a little overlooked. Coming in that second to last spot on the album, it’s at a position where listeners are usually waiting to hear how the record closes. But there’s a hidden gem in ‘One Chance’; it’s probably one of my favourite songs by the group.

#982: Blur – One Born Every Minute

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‘One Born Every Minute’ was officially released as a B-Side on Blur’s ‘Country House’ single in August ’95. There’s not much online about it, so I wouldn’t be able to relay many concrete facts about it. I want to say that its drums and percussion were actually recorded during the making of Modern Life Is Rubbish and are virtually the same as they appear in that recording. I also listened to drummer Dave Rowntree’s podcast a fair time ago, and when this track’s name popped up in conversation, he advised for the people who hadn’t heard it to, “Just don’t. Just don’t bother.” Said jokingly, but with sincerity. To any first listeners here, don’t be frightened. Now, there are some kazoos and a glaring use of those old-timey bike horns. I don’t mind those too much. You readers just might. If you get those out of your psyche, you’ll find there is a fine song underneath to be found. Still, you’ll see why it was just a B-Side and not alongside the stronger material that made it onto The Great Escape.

The track carries on the “We’re oh-so British” theme that the band had cultivated for themselves in ’93, but had taken to another level by 1995. With a musical, Cockney knees-up element to it, the song’s another observational take on Saturday nights out and Sunday roasts, talking to elders who gone through the war and commenting on how, when it comes to sex, everyone seems to be doing it with reckless abandon. At least that’s how I’ve taken it. When it comes to the chorus, I’m not sure whether the lyrics are meant to be sarcastic or earnest. There’s something within them that doesn’t totally match the tone of those berses. When Damon sings, “Oh, well, see how we’ve grown/One gets born every minute” is that somehow saying that we haven’t grown at all and are just carrying out the same routine, only for the next generation to repeat? Or is the chorus merely just a assortment of phrases that seemed to work together for the music. Maybe it’s a bit of both. Maybe I’m thinking too much about it.

Overall, it’s a very catchy tune with plenty of melodies and musical oddities that will catch your ear over repeated listens. Some of those highlights for me are: those climbing “ooh-ooh” harmonies by Graham Coxon in the choruses, his higher “EVERY MINUTE” alongside Damon’s lower vocal when he sings the same phrase, those harmonies on the “gin” before the second chorus that go all over the place but somehow work, and that piano that’s turned right up in the mix during the instrumental break before the final chorus. Some may find it all rather silly. But there’s always a time for that sort of thing.

#981: Mac DeMarco – One Another

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Hey, it’s another song by Mac DeMarco. Never realised how many of his tracks began with the letter ‘O’. Also never took into account how close they were alphabetically. These things just work out that way. But it’s another good one, at least in my books, though I have to admit it passed me by on that initial listen. Really, it wasn’t until the music video (above) for ‘One Another’ was released that replayed it a few times and found that it was indeed a fine piece of music. This Old Dog had already been out for exactly a month at that point. But you know how they say better late than never and all that. The video played its part too, containing clips of DeMarco and his band goofing around and barely making any attempt to mime correctly to the track.

Like many others on the record, ‘One Another’ maintains a predominantly acoustic soundscape, containing easygoing guitar chord progressions that are pleasant to the ears with these feathery keyboard presses in between. Carrying on his usual go-to lyrical subject matter of relationships, DeMarco takes on the perspective of someone providing advice to another who has just gone through a breakup. This narrator hopes to cheer this poor soul up, telling them they it’s worth to have loved and lost then never to have loved at all, and that by going through this sad situation they’ll know what and what not to do the next time they’ve found someone. Although it may hurt now, there will be a time when they understand it wasn’t all pointless and better days are to come.

Yeah, it’s another relaxing one courtesy of Mac DeMarco. Fans of his were quick to jokingly make quips on the track was similarly titled to another of his called ‘Another One’. These tracks are not the same. Though I would say that that song is even more smoother than this. Can’t go wrong listening to both though. This’ll be the last DeMarco song I write about in this section, I swear.

#980: Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime

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One of the greatest memories I have associated with this track is when I was at Glastonbury in 2016 vibing at a silent disco really late in the night. ‘Once in a Lifetime’ came on, and it was clear that this stranger close to me was listening to it too. We were both high as anything, miming along to the words, mimicking David Byrne’s dance moves from the music video. A lot of shaking hands and laughing occurred; it was a good time. I sometimes get the slightest feeling that he was mostly surprised that here was this Black dude who was into Talking Heads. Gotta face it sometimes. But that slight negativity has always been overshadowed by that memory of acting like a fool and bonding through a fantastic song.

I have to tip my metaphorical hat to the music video. I’m sure that’s how I came across the song in the first place. It’s an example of those videos that somehow manage to enhance the music, or at least provide the perfect visual experience to accompany the music. Byrne is a lanky, jerky, sweating machine by the end of it and for good reason. Those are some moves he’s got going there, alongside some actions where he looks like he’s going through some severe muscle spasms, mainly conjured up by himself with some streamlining advised by choreographer Toni Basil.

So, no beating around the bush here, I think ‘Once in a Lifetime’ is one of the best songs of all time. Every time I hear it, a sense of wonderment always arises within me. This was recorded just over 40 years ago, but it transcends through time. Could be released this Friday or two years from now and would still turn heads and puzzle people like I’m sure it did all that time ago. In so many ways, it shouldn’t work. Amidst this bustling groove established by a two-note bassline, off-kilter drums and a bubbling keyboard soundscape, David Byrne preaches to the listener, telling us things that we might say to ourselves, places we may end up living in, marital situations that may puzzle us as we go through our lives only to then burst out into one of the most memorable singalong choruses ever, a move which I think is meant to symbolise that it’s fine to have all these moments of existential dread as it’s something that has gone on through generations. Just like water flowing underground or the days going into the next. Like Byrne says in its closing moments, time isn’t slowing down or something to be feared, it’s just this thing that remains constant, so the best thing we can all do is let it happen. Coming from someone as neurotic as David Byrne was in those days, I’d say that’s a lesson to be learned.

#979: Blur – On Your Own

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Similarly to, I think, all of the singles Blur released up to their initial split in 2003, ‘On Your Own’ was a track I came across when its music video played on the TV. Large chance it was probably on MTV2. That channel had a knack for just randomly showing Blur music videos out of the blue for no particular reason. Not that it’s anything to complain about. I’ve known ‘On Your Own’ for so long now that I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I felt when I first heard/saw it. Would have been about 10 years old or around that age. But I can at least describe what about it has endeared it to me for all this time.

As the third single released from the band’s self-titled album in 1997, ‘On Your Own’ was unlike the crunching band-in-a-room performances of its two predecessors. This track included strange phasing synthesizers and a drum machine, comically performed by drummer Dave Rowntree in what is essentially a hole in the ground in the music video. On top of that steady rhythm comes Graham Coxon on the guitar, pulling off these jagged guitar lines and noises using his pedals which sound like those you hear when your video game freezes, but even more absurdly brutal in its tone. It’s like he’s trying to completely throw the song in the wrong direction, but ends up adding a whole other dimension to it. Then eventually comes Damon Albarn over the top, spouting these surreal lyrics that are provide some interesting imagery. The first verse may or may not be about ordering drugs while the second describes a bad trip/overwhelming reaction someone has to these drugs while on a night out. The chorus doesn’t make much sense at all, but the band sound like they’re having a great time when they’re belting it out. With all this though, the song still manages to pull off this existential bit, reminding us that in the end (death), we’ll all be alone – presumably in our coffins.

The quote most attributed to this track is Albarn’s who considered the track to be “one of the first ever Gorillaz tunes.” Now, I always took that quote to mean that it was an archetype for what would follow on the first Gorillaz album, rather than it being an actual track that he had with Gorillaz in mind but performing it with Blur instead. But I think a lot of people actually think that it was meant to be for Gorillaz just because of that quote. I don’t really see it myself. Albarn sounds too lucid on this track. The lyrics on here seem like they have no meaning to them, but they really do. Well, except for maybe part of the chorus. A lot of lyrics on that first Gorillaz album don’t make much sense at all. You really have to read those ones to try and get something. You want a proto-Gorillaz song? Check out ‘I’m Just a Killer for Your Love’.