Tag Archives: better

#582: The Beatles – I Should Have Known Better

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Back again after a while. So sorry to anyone who usually reads these. I’m always feeling tired on the weekends now…. Work is fun. My ear that’s been clogged for the past two months cleared up and I can hear again which is great. That’s just a bit of catch up material for those who are wondering what’s going on. This has always been at the back of my mind, and I’ve been thinking about possible different features I could put on here to change things up a bit. Though sticking with what I’ve got going now still doesn’t seem too bad an option for the moment.

With the personal stuff out the way, I can talk about today’s song. Another one by The Beatles, ‘I Should Have Known Better’ is the second track on the band’s third album A Hard Day’s Night. Because YouTube won’t allow Beatles songs on its site, I’ve had to embed the whole Hard Day’s Night film (which is a good watch and very funny) above, though it conveniently starts at the point where the track begins.*

Great tune. Not much I really feel about it. Like most of their early Beatlemania stuff it’s about love and girls and getting girls to love you and thinking about the future when you and the girl are still together. I think what draws me in is John Lennon’s voice. Paul McCartney doesn’t come in and harmonise at any point during the whole thing; it’s all a double tracked Lennon belting out the lines with gusto. In what is a mostly acoustic affair with a bit of harmonica and George Harrison’s guitar solo in the middle, John’s raspy voice carries the whole thing – especially when he breaks into that falsetto in the ‘ask you to be miiii-hi-hi-hiiiiiiine’ part’. Very glorious. A very innocent track with good intentions, I think.

*That video was removed from YouTube.

My iPod #489: Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

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Daft Punk know how to make a track out of the smallest things. By sampling the first seven seconds of an 80s funk song, speeding it up, making the pitch a few tones higher, looping it and throwing in their own lyrics – a total of nineteen words used altogether – they created “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, the fourth track from the duo’s 2001 sophomore album Discovery and one of their most popular too.

Took me a while to find this song. Initially hearing it when I was quite young, a brief few seconds of it played on an advert on the Disney Channel. The robotic vocal sounded like nothing I’d heard before but the trouble was I had no idea what it was saying – it may not have been saying anything at all. But it remained in my head for a long time. I can’t even remember listening to the full track for the first time because it’s just been one of my favourites for a while now, but I’m glad I found it.

It’s groovy, it’s funky, it’s repetitive, but not in the way that it will bore you after many listens. It always remains fresh.

Kanye West sampled it for his own use too, but it’s not the same.

My iPod #417: The Beatles – Getting Better

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My favourite “Sgt. Pepper” song. No doubt. It’s so cheerful and upbeat. Everything about it sounds so happy. The bouncy, walking bassline. The skipping drum pattern in the verses. The playful switching between Paul’s lead vocal and the child-like backing vocals. Despite the obvious lyrical references to domestic abuse in the bridge, it’s all switched around in the next few lines where the narrator reveals that they’re not that type of person anymore and they are changing their ways. In general it’s a very enjoyable song with a very positive message, and there’s nothing wrong with having tunes like that in your life.

The first time I heard the song, it was not actually The Beatles’ original but a cover by the band Kaiser Chiefs which was done for the album’s 40th anniversary back in 2007. It’s okay. It can’t compare to how The Beatles did it though.

So if you want to be in a good mood, put this track on. You’ll have a smile on your face in no time.

My iPod #92: Lostprophets – A Better Nothing

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This was originally going to be the fourth single from “The Betrayed”, but “For He’s a Jolly Good Felon” didn’t do very well commercially. That’s a shame; for me this song is a lot more satisfying and probably would have been a good single.

Unlike “Felon”, there’s no story to tell in “A Better Nothing”. It’s much more introspective, and sure to affect many a person who probably feel like Ian did when he wrote the song. I will take lyrics like “My chest tightens, it brightens the light of the stars, revealing the scars, all the times that were ours,” over “Mikey, where’d you get the Nikes?” any day.

I don’t what to make it a song vs. song post though. It’s all about what’s in the title. “A Better Nothing” is a highlight from “The Betrayed”. It’s not a happy song, and yet it’s not a sad song either. It’s one that’s about determination and finding yourself. I’m no lyrical analyst, so I can’t provide you with anything more than that and, like other songs on the album, the track is full with shrieking guitars and a vocal delivery to admire by Ian Watkins. Even the backing vocals, which I believe are done by him, are good too. Too bad he’s not so good when singing live. That’s always something that’s puzzled me.

The song also seems right into the next song on the album “Streets of Nowhere”, which is more of a Liberation Transmission outtake than anything. Too poppy and cheerful for this album.

Until tomorrow.

Jamie.

Ooh, and also congratulations to the Royal Family. Whatever the baby turns out to be.