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My iPod #466: The Offspring – Gotta Get Away

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Think it’s fair to say that “Gotta Get Away” is one of The Offspring’s most tracks in the band’s discography.* Found on what is considered to be their finest album Smash from 1994, the song was chosen to be released as the third and final single almost a year after Smash had been out. It wasn’t as commercially successful as the two preceding it, but it remains a popular song amongst many an Offspring fan. It’s just got this very intimidating and tough sound that you don’t find very often in other Offspring singles. The music video further emphasises this.

The introduction brings in each member one by one, firstly with Ron Welty’s hard-hitting tom-tom drum pattern followed by Greg K’s cool bassline and finally with Noodle’s high-end scratching guitar phrases. With a strike of the crash cymbals, all three members come together as one to really get things going and eventually lead into Dexter Holland’s trademark double-tracked vocals, singing about wanting to be anyone else but himself due to symptoms of strong paranoia.

Song’s mad. Despite its pessimistic subject matter there is something brutally confident about the music’s delivery…. It’s strange. But it does its job.

*26/08/20 – Clearly there’s an adjective missing from that sentence… I’ll let you fill that in.

My iPod #465: The Beatles – Got to Get You into My Life

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“Got to Get You into My Life” is the jubilant, horn-heavy, Motown influenced ode to marijuana written by Paul McCartney, appearing as the penultimate track on the Revolver album. Why do I say it’s an ‘ode to marijuana’, you may be thinking. Well because that’s what it is. McCartney said it himself; the statement can be read in this authorised biography. Sorry to all those who’ve thought it was a typical song about yearning for love. But the real influence behind it makes the track all the more clever, slick and a bit humourous.

But when the first note plays and the blaring horns play the memorable introductory phrase it doesn’t matter what it’s about, you just know that the song is gonna be a good one. It doesn’t disappoint. Paul pulls off yet another stunningly smooth vocal take amongst the aforementioned brass instruments, leaping from the tamest of notes to the other end of the spectrum in a matter of milliseconds. It’s may be a bit worthy to note that Paul is the sole Beatle to sing on here with no harmonies from John and George, something that’s eventually mirrored by the former’s sole vocal presence on the next track. Still the two are make their presence known in the music, particularly George who from out of nowhere brings out a stellar lead guitar solo at the song’s climax, cueing the celebratory coda.

A brilliant track. It’s the last song on the album that you can get up and sing your heart out to before things get a bit philosophical and spaced out for “Tomorrow Never Knows”. Really dig it.

My iPod #415: The Darkness – Get Your Hands off My Woman

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I was eight years old when I received “Permission to Land” as a gift from my cousin. Around the time I thought “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” was one of the best songs to exist, and is probably one of the reasons I started listening to rock music. Some people start with Nirvana; I start with The Darkness.

To this day, I remember my sister asking for the album’s booklet containing the liner notes and lyrics and so on. She then told me that I shouldn’t look in it. Straight up. I asked her, “Why not?” She replied, “Just don’t.” Of course I went on to when she wasn’t looking. I saw the swear words in “Black Shuck” and this song, and saw why she was so suddenly stern about it.

Even though I don’t think as highly of the track/album as I did then, it still brings a laugh whenever I hear it. This track as serious as hell though just like all of the others on “Permission to Land”, I just get the feeling that people wouldn’t have liked them because they were too much of a spoof or a mimic of dramatic heavy metal bands from the 70s or something. But when you have a track like this where the words “motherfucker” and “cunt” are shrieked at a frighteningly high pitch I can’t help but smile at it all. Justin Hawkins is a crazy singer with an astounding vocal range, and “Get Your Hands Off” is just one out of the many where it is shown to its full potential.

My iPod #414: Nine Black Alps – Get Your Guns

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I know mostly all of the lyrics…. I could hum every tune, note and screech the guitar feedback if you indeed wanted me to recite all of “Everything Is” to you. “Everything Is” being the first album by Nine Black Alps, which was released in 2005. I know that album like the back of my hand. IT’S TOO GOOD. Even today, I still feel the same excitement and thrill as I did when I opened that case, inserted the disc and heard that crunching guitar introduction for the very first time.

“Get Your Guns” is the track of which that introduction belongs to, and it is after a commanding cymbal count-in that the song erupts like a dog at the races with a bellowing atmosphere of bending guitar strings and a powerful rhythm section. From then on, the album never lets up. It is track after track of aggressive rock music. No momentum is lost. That is until you get to the first acoustic based track six songs in.

A song to punch a wall, scream in someone’s face, and generally get pumped to, “Get Your Guns” does the perfect job of establishing the tone which the rest of the album follows which any worthy album opener should do. Just because I like the song that much I’ve never pondered in depth about what it’s meaning is; if it’s good, I don’t see a reason too. Though there was a point that I did think “Everything Is” was a concept album about a war and various relationships between people while this war is happening. It probably isn’t. Though actually witnessing the lyrics might make you see why I got that idea.

So, yeah. Have a listen to it. Has a line from a Radiohead song in there too. That’s besides the point. If this doesn’t float your boat… you have no soul. But that’s just my opinion.

My iPod #413: The Rutles – Get Up and Go

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For those of you who see this and think this sounds a bit like the song I posted a few days ago….. you would be correct to do so. But it is intentional. The Rutles aren’t some band who appeared to replicate everything the Beatles did, like their Rooftop concert or whatever. It’s just a parody that was created by the minds of Neil Innes and Eric Idle of Monty Python. But it was the former who wrote all of the music.

So if you didn’t guess, “Get Up and Go” is a parody of “Get Back”. But unlike the all of the other tracks on The Rutles album which incorporate little riffs, chord progressions and instruments similar to Beatles tracks but created to make them sound unique in their own way, “Get Up and Go” is basically “Get Back”. Very similar. From the melodies to the drumbeat. John Lennon himself told Neil Innes this, even though he did love The Rutles. As a result, “Get Up and Go” was not released on the original soundtrack for “All You Need Is Lunch” in 1978. It was released on the 1990 CD re-release, so it turned out alright in the end.

If “Get Back” didn’t do it for you, then the likelihood of enjoying this track will be low. Though I think it’s juuusssst fiiiiine.