Tag Archives: and

#1325: The Raconteurs – The Switch and the Spur

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Looks like I got some memories muddles up when recalling my experiences with The Raconteurs’ Consolers of the Lonely album. In the first post I wrote for a song on there, I specifically mention that I bought the CD myself. Then a few years later, I say I got it as a gift. “So which one is it?” I think I hear you ask. Well, I’m gonna go ahead and say it was probably the first one. The mind was fresher at 18 than it was at 27. And if that was the case, I want to say I bought it from a Woolworth’s store when those were still around. This all would have happened in 2008, very close to when the album was released. But it’s all a bit of a blur. That period in time when I was turning 13 is one that I have huge blanks on for some reason. Must have been all the hormonal changes that were happening. But I made a decision to get that album in that state, and it turned out to be a good one.

‘The Switch and the Spur’ is the fifth song on the album. When you get Consolers… up on Spotify, the first thing you’ll notice is that the number of listeners takes a considerable dip when compared to the track that comes before it. I guess the fact that ‘Old Enough’ was a single would play a part in that. But I can at least assure, ‘Switch and Spur’ is a cool track. I don’t think I’ve let you down so far with my musical recommendations. Brendan Benson takes lead vocals on the song, telling the story of an outlaw, on the run after breaking out of jail, in the setting of a Spaghetti Western. The man rides his horse through the desert, in the blistering heat, gets bitten by a snake and begins to hallucinate before eventually dying with his hands still on the reins of his four-legged companion. Then the narrative perspective changes from the third-person narrator telling the story to the first-person of, I think, the spirits of those who’ve also died in the area as they warn that whoever follows the path of the outlaw will face the same outcome. Or something along those lines. Dramatic stuff.

But the music of it all, man. Really helps in setting that tone of an old Western film of some kind. Starts off with that jubilant piano melody, that’s then mirrored by the shrill trumpet. A definite Mariachi feel that’s given off by the horns, I see a Mariachi band just playing in the desert when I hear it. Then the music gets all sneaky with the unified guitar and piano line during Benson’s verses, as he describes the scene as this outlaw rides the plains. The sections move between these two movements before, halfway through, the track suddenly doubles in tempo and the rhythms start to get a little busier. Jack White busts out a screeching solo on his guitar. There are a lot of things happening. It feels like everything’s constantly moving, pushing and pulling, you never quite know which direction the song will go. I think that’s what gets it going for me. So to stop myself from poorly describing what happens in the song from beginning to end, I’m gonna finish things here and let you listen for yourself.

#1309: Weezer – Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori

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Weezer had us going for a little moment there in the mid-2010s. After releasing Everything Will Be Alright in the End in 2014, an album that was immediately regarded as a return to form, they then provided their fourth self-titled album – commonly referred to as the White Album – a couple years later. These two records here suggested that the band were on a bit of a roll. Here they were making solid rock music like they did in those halcyon days of the ’90s, something that everyone was praying for when it seemed like all was lost between 2005 and 2010. Then Pacific Daydream arrived in 2017, which felt like a move saying “Don’t get those hopes up too quickly now.” Rivers Cuomo had returned to his mission of writing the perfect pop song. But those two rock albums showed that the band could still do it. They probably could now too. I’m waiting for that day to come.

‘Summer Elaine and Drunk Dori’ is the seventh song on Weezer (2016), one that sees the narrator reminiscing on the two titular characters and wondering, “What they could they both be up to now?” One of those types of songs. It’s boosted by a glorious chorus, another one on an album that’s filled with them, and includes references to Radiohead and Paul Simon. The former of which felt out of place initially, but as time’s gone on I’ve just accepted it for what it is. Luckily Rivers Cuomo provided an interview on the Song Exploder podcast on an episode that was dedicated to the entire song. Really, you could just listen to that, and I wouldn’t have to write anymore. It’s been a while since I listened to that specific episode, but I do remember a mention of Excel spreadsheets when it came to creating the lyrics. Genuinely fascinating stuff. It’s usually better hearing the backstory of a song from its actual songwriter rather than a guy who just listens and provides his own interpretations.

So it looks like this’ll be the only entry from Weezer’s White Album. A shame really, ’cause there’s a number of good songs on there. Opener ‘California Kids’ is one I remember humming spontaneously to myself when I was grocery shopping around the time of the album’s release. ‘L.A. Girlz’, the track ‘Summer Elaine…’ transitions into on the album, was an instantaneous like for me, and I think the band shouldn’t try and make anymore pop songs because they already made their best one with ‘Jacked Up’. It surprised me how much I came to enjoy that one. Had the timing aligned, those three songs would’ve had their own posts too. Not saying the album’s perfect by any means. I was never into ‘Thank God for Girls’ when it was released months in advance, and ‘Do You Wanna Get High?’ I sort of fell out of favour with even after initially being really excited by it and playing repeatedly when it was first unveiled on YouTube. But I still have a lot of love for the whole package and still think it’s the best post-’90s Weezer album to this day.

#1125: Ween – Right to the ways and the rules of the world

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Maybe the best way to listen to The Pod is through the way its broken up on its vinyl releases. Split up into four sides, having the time to digest one of those at a time with some breaks in between would probably allow a new listener to at least digest the 15-20 minutes that each side of vinyl provides. I didn’t do this. When I was fully on my Ween exploration in 2015, I dove headfirst into the album on Spotify and listened to it the whole way through. All 76 minutes. That first time was a slog. I don’t know if you know, but the album is known for having extremely shitty production, even though a lot of the songs are classics. At least to us Ween fans, anyway. ‘Right to the ways and the rules of the world’ is only the seventh track on there. On that first listen, it felt like I’d been listening to the album for much longer than when the song arrived. And it also felt like it went on for a lot more than the mere five minutes it lasts for.

Now of course I’m used to it all. The track is a slow, slow one though. Coming after the little non-song of ‘Pollo Asado’ (a very popular one for Ween people), ‘Right…’ is what I believe to be a mimic of those old, melodramatic ’70s progressive rock songs by bands who would write about things like folklore or traditions of the past… myths and legends and the like. Gene and Dean Ween take on this melodramatic route, singing about nothing but a bunch of silliness – brilliant imagery though, gotta be said – all of which is crowned by the aloof harmonies that recite the song’s title phrase. “Monsters that trinkle like cats in the night/The cosmic conceiver continues his plight.” Those are just the first couple of lines.

The screeching organ that blares throughout is the melodic linchpin throughout the song, really hammering home that sort of medieval type of sound that I think the song’s going for. Something of a vocal chameleon, Gene Ween puts in another captivating performance. Increasing in intensity throughout, it culminates in the final verse where he lets out a shriek and then falls into a fit of laughter as the instrumental continues. Some people may argue that the song takes some momentum out of the album’s proceedings. Whatever “momentum” that may be, going through this album can feel like being in a state of purgatory sometimes. It’s just as essential as any other track on there, I feel. The production is so murky, you could almost choke on it. But the song at the core of it stands strong.

#1075: The Who – Pure and Easy

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Look at that. Another Who song. So, the consensual opinion is that Who’s Next is their best album, right? I mean, I’d agree it’s an outstanding piece of work. I think Quadrophenia‘s better, but we’ve been through all of this already. But did you know that Who’s Next started off as a completely different monster altogether? There’s a whole Wikipedia section dedicated to the Lifehouse project, envisioned by Pete Townshend to be another rock opera, following on from Tommy, this time with a more science-fiction take to it and accompanied with this thought-out live show performance experience. At least I think it was something along those lines. But no one apart from him could understand the opera’s plot line, and so the whole thing was laid to the wayside except for eight of the nine songs that became the album we know today.

‘Pure and Easy’ was one of the tracks recorded during the Lifehouse/Who’s Next sessions. As part of the Lifehouse story, it was meant to act as something of the theme song for the opera’s protagonist and also introduced the concept of music/rock and roll being able to save the world – or something along that effect – that the opera’s plot was based on. Townshend has gone on record to state his great disappointment that the song wasn’t included on the final cut. It did however make a small appearance on there, with Daltrey singing a different take of the song’s first lines during the ending of ‘The Song Is Over’. Two versions of ‘Pure’ have been commercially released. There’s the take of the track that appeared on a Who’s Next reissue. It’s faster, and a lot of people like it for that reason alone. But the version that trumps that by many a mile in my eyes is the one that appeared in the band’s Odds & Sods compilation. It’s the one you can see up there. It’s slower, but the performance sounds massive in comparison.

Think it’s saying something about Townshend’s writing at the time that the band decided to leave this song in storage for so long. ‘Cause a track like this could be any other band’s greatest ever achievement. Lyrics aren’t my thing usually, but even here when I hear the words and read them, there’s a definite beauty and poetic feeling to them. “I listened and I heard music in a word/And words when you played your guitar/The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering/And a child flew past me riding in a star”. I mean, that’s a pretty cool set of lines, I think. And Daltrey sings ’em really nicely too. Track’s filled with these uplifting key changes and guitar hooks, there’s a massive change to a minor for the bridge, before switching back and finishing off with a rocking finale as Pete Townshend takes over the microphone, telling the listener to listen out for the note. Poorly typed out words can only do this one so much justice. Would suggest taking the time to hear it, really.

#1074: The Who – The Punk and the Godfather

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Been a long time since I’ve written about a track from Quadrophenia. Looking at my phone, it appears the previous song from it would have come in the ‘I’ series. Couldn’t even begin to remember what year I was doing that in. I’m sure I would have discussed how much the album means to me (for lack of any less melodramatic phrase) in at least one post out of the eight songs I’ve covered from there in the past. But I’ll sum it up here by saying simply it’s my favourite Who album by miles, came across it when I was 15 and feeling a bit lost and it seemed like the perfect soundtrack for the whole time. Plus, the four band members are firing on all cylinders on every cut. I’m a big fan of By Numbers too, but there is a reason why many a person including Pete Townshend himself regards Quadrophenia as the last great Who album.

The big point about Quadrophenia is that it’s a rock opera. One about a kid named Jimmy who’s a Mod, trying to find where he belongs in the Mod scene, all while having a sort of split personality disorder, separated into four different characters based on the four individuals of The Who. These four personalities also have their own individual musical motifs that will appear in one song, become the main refrain in another, before then appearing again as maybe a little melodic hook somewhere else. It’s a whole thing. You really should hear the record in its entirety. In the album’s fifth track, ‘The Punk and/meets the Godfather’, Jimmy goes to see a band to find some kind of inspiration in the dull life. The track takes on the narrative perspectives of who I think are the security letting the people into the venue, or the punks, and the performers onstage who try to possess the audience in the palms of their hands.

This might just be my favourite Who song. It’s definitely up there. Like I said earlier, every instrument strum/strike/finger pick is delivered with a ferocious urge. Those slamming beginning power chords set the scene, Keith Moon amps it up with his hectic drum fills. John Entwistle enters the frame by mimicking the strum pattern of the guitar chords on his bass guitar and they all fall together to allow Roger Daltrey to begin his vocal. Daltrey knocks it out the park here too. Upon the initial listen years ago, I thought another person began singing when it came to the “I’m the guy in the sky…” choruses. But it’s just him putting on a voice, I guess to just help him reach those notes. Townshend offers his own vocal during the song, coming in during the gentler, introspective bridge – one where he harmonises with himself too. After the final chorus, the dust settles with the melodic stuttering of ‘My generation’ among a twinkling acoustic guitar, a fantastic bass riff and the sound of an audience cheering. It’s like they’re applauding the song that’s just happened. In the story though, Jimmy’s left disappointed and disillusioned by it all. It’s a beautiful track. Might just listen to it right now.