Tag Archives: hell

#1227: They Might Be Giants – Snowball in Hell

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They Might Be Giants’ ‘Snowball in Hell’ from Lincoln is a number that I remember liking almost immediately after listening through that album for the first time sometime in 2010. I had actually heard the track years before when I was an actual kid who had just got broadband in the house and was checking out this Internet radio station on a place called LAUNCH, owned by Yahoo!. Before YouTube existed, if you wanted to listen to music and watch music videos, that site was the place to go. It’s thanks to that site that I have any idea who They Might Be Giants are. ‘Snowball in Hell’ played on a station one day. Being the, I think, 8-year old I was, I promptly forgot about it. Short attention span.

But hearing it again all those years later, in context with the album and fully paying attention, it felt like a song I properly knew and had been listening to for years up to that point. There was a warmth and familiar feeling to it proceedings, it felt like a given that it would be one of my favourite songs on the album. The track revolves around this two-note doorbell “ding-dong” melody, over which John Flansburgh sings about being in a less than ideal situation spurred on financial troubles. He sings with much sincerity, backed by harmonies from John Linnell, incorporating wordplay and lyrical twists that result in a few of the band’s most memorable and devastating lyrics. “Money’s all broke and food’s going hungry”. That’s a good one. “If it wasn’t for disappointment, I wouldn’t have any appointments”. That’s a great one.

The song is also notable for the breakdown, over which dialogue taken from a how-to-organize-yourself cassette plays. Given to him by album producer Bill Krauss for his 25th birthday, Flansburgh went on to find that the tape didn’t contain much in the way of advice. But he, Krauss and Linnell all found it interesting enough to let it have its own little snippet in ‘Snowball’. Permission wasn’t asked to use it. No one’s threatened to sue. And its inclusion goes down as one of many memorable moments in TMBG’s discography. Back in June, a cassette of rough mixes from the Lincoln sessions was found in the archives of a university in Canada, and a work-in-progress ‘Snowball in Hell’ was found on it. As you can tell, the mix is a bit different. The acoustic guitar is given more prominence, a different model drum machine is present and more snippets from the self-help cassette are used. It’s the same song in essence, but sometimes I prefer this rough mix to what ended up on the album. It’s certainly a different approach. All the more happy to know it exists.

My iPod #527: AC/DC – Highway to Hell

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However tired out they were by life on the road over the years, guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young along with lead singer Bon Scott were inspired enough to write a song about the bane of endless touring that would become one of their most popular for years to come. “Highway to Hell” was the result, and was placed as the opener to the album of the same name in 1979.

Admittedly I’m not the greatest AC/DC fan; I think the first time I ever heard the song was when it was used on the credits of a Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode years ago. But listening to it over the years has made me appreciate it more immensely. The riff, the chugging rhythm, the rousing chorus…. just musically the thing is fantastic. What I enjoy the most about it is Bon Scott’s vocal performance. I can’t help but try and match his raspy voice and ad-libbed yelps and screams when singing along and I can end up going over the top a bit while doing so. It is the great karaoke song if ever there was one.

Sadly the album would be the band’s last to feature Scott before he died a few months later in 1980, but his charismatic presence and voice are still emulated by many to this day.

My iPod #510: Kanye West – Hell of a Life

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“Hell of a Life” is the tenth track on Kanye West’s arguable magnum opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, his fifth album released in November 2010. In it, Mr. West thinks he’s fallen in love with a porn star and raps to the listener about the various escapades and sexual shenanigans she and him would get up to.

I can remember it becoming one of my favourites straight away upon first listen. There’s a dark undertone to it that is maintained throughout despite the humorous but graphic lyrics Kanye provides, plus there are so many little things that made it so much more enjoyable for me – like the little arpeggio lick that plays after every chorus or the sudden appearance of the background vocals from “Dark Fantasy” during the final verse. It’s one of those songs where every time you listen to it again, you may always hear something new that you never paid attention to before.  It took a few more listens for me to realise the chorus takes its melody from “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath; that may sound strange because it’s very obvious that it does from the get-go, but I was into the melody that much that it went right over my head.

A song with lyrics with sexual imagery and a hard-hitting beat carried by a fuzzy bass line, “Hell of a Life” probably marks the peak of Kanye’s “fantasy” before reality finally hits him in “Blame Game“.