Tag Archives: cowboy

#1256: Sly & the Family Stone – Spaced Cowboy

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A personal practice of mine is to have my phone playing music while I’m getting changed after having a shower in the morning. Feels strange to get ready in silence, or not to have at least some noise in the background for that kind of thing. A strange way to start this post you’d think, but it’s relevant, I swear. One time, I opened Spotify and left my Discover Weekly playlist running while I was sorting out my business when my ears pricked up at the sound of a singer yodelling over what was seemingly a straight-up soul/funk song. And that was a combination I don’t think I’d ever experienced in my years of living. This was back in 2020, very sure lockdown was well underway at the time, and I needed something to be excited about. This thing came in the form of this unusual song.

I wanna say the first time I heard it, I sort of let it slide and forgot to check what the song was called. But then it appeared in the playlist again not too long after, so I took it as a sign. The song was ‘Spaced Cowboy’ by Sly & the Family Stone, from the 1971 album There’s a Riot Goin’ On. Some would say a classic. I liked it a lot when I heard it fully some years ago. But when it came to ‘Spaced Cowboy’ by itself, I became addicted to it for a while. Think there was a timespan during 2020 where I was listening to it every day, and it probably would have racked up more “official” listens if I didn’t sometimes switch my status to private on the streaming service. I wouldn’t blame you if you listened and thought maybe it’s all a bit much on my part. I still enjoy the track a lot, I don’t know what to say.

There’s a Riot… is an album that bandleader Sly Stone recorded mostly by himself, either in the studio he built for himself at the Record Plant in New York City or in his home studio, in the loft of his Bel Air mansion. He used drum machines that he would then record real drums on top of, and a lot of the instrumental work is his own too. And there’s no other track on the record that represents that whole aesthetic than ‘Spaced Cowboy’. What the song is also about is anyone’s guess. If anything, I think the words were more or less written to fit around the yodelling, which really shouldn’t work in a genre like this but somehow sound perfect all the same. The bass line provides a fantastic groove. Stone’s vocal performance is effortlessly laidback, so much so that he stumbles on a word for a brief moment and corpses during another. The harmonica solo is also a very nice touch. A smooth blend of sounds that are good for the ears. I’ll take whatever’s going.

#1121: Madvillain – Rhinestone Cowboy

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Well, look at that. I’m 29. Hooray? Such an ugly number. May as well be 30, am I right? Time just keeps going on. Same as it ever was. When I started this whole thing in 2013, I never really thought I’d be doing this blog 11 years later. Don’t think I ever put any sort of timing reference onto it. I’m too deep into the alphabet now, there’d be no point in stopping. Still so many good songs to write about. Writing on here keeps me focused. So thanks to anyone who reads these.

Anyway, today’s song is ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ – the final song on the Madlib and MF DOOM collaboration album Madvillainy. The album is one that I initially heard years and years ago, say 2012 or ’13, but it was probably only a couple of years ago after revisiting it again that the track stood out. I tell you, listening to music at ages 17/18 compared to ages 26/27 is a totally different ball game. My focus went straight to the instrumental, a sped-up sample of ‘Mariana Mariana’ by Brazilian singer-songwriter Maria Bethânia, which became an earworm almost instantly. I’d be singing that at random points during the day, including the sweeping string part that abruptly comes in before the vocal. And you readers out there might be thinking, “What are you talking about the sample for? The rapping’s the best part, ya dummy.” It’s true. ‘Rhinestone’ acts as a kind of victory lap for the album, or an encore, suitably represented by the sampled applause that persists throughout the song’s entirety.

With his trademark hefty vocal, DOOM delivers two fantastic verses. Lines roll into the next with effortless ease, brimming with humour, internal rhyme schemes, braggadocio, and niche references that when pieced all together make for the most engaging of listens. “Got more soul than a sock with a hole.” How’d that rhyme not been made at any point before then? The track is something of an account into the making of the Madvillainy album too. The first verse mentions his and Madlib’s goal of setting the hip-hop game on fire with their collaboration. The former would wake up, write his lines in a few hours, deliver them and sleep again. Like the track’s first verse, an unfinished version of the album was leaked, much to the duo’s frustration. And like the second, they came back to properly complete it in a form that left people standing on their feet in appreciation. By subtly bringing the listener in to the lore of the ‘Villains’, it’s such a slick way to close out the entire project.