It took me a while to fully appreciate “Fixing a Hole”. It didn’t grab me the way that other tracks on “Sgt. Pepper” did. Its stereo mix with the rhythm section and harpsichord in the left channel and George’s sole lead guitar in the right leaves the track feeling very empty, especially compared with every other track on the album. Obviously, I’ve grown to like it more in time otherwise there would be no point to this post.
Being a track that isn’t about anything else than what it says in the title, there’s nothing emotional for the listener to dwell upon. It’s a track to just chill and relax to. I like that kind of music. Reminds me of something played at some late-night jazz/blues lounge-type place, it is that calm of a track.
This may be a short post. I’m not really a fan of Soundgarden, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to say a lot about them. I did download “Superunknown” last year though, thought that was awesome and listened to a few songs of theirs afterwards. But I’ll try and fill the void.
“Black Hole Sun” was actually the third single from “Superunknown”. Huh. I always assumed it was the first, only because it’s considered to be the band’s most popular song. Grunge was still the big thing in America at the time the song was released, but Kurt Cobain was dead too. So the grunge followers needed a song that would reflect the feelings. This eventually became that song.
I watched Kerrang! one day, and the video for “Black Hole Sun” came on. I was pretty weirded out by the whole thing. The whole apocalypse theme, the weird stretching faces… pure nightmare fuel for anybody. ‘Cause of that, I didn’t really like the song. I didn’t want to see the video again for quite some time either. I realised the song wasn’t bad though. I can’t make my mind up on whether the song has a positive mood or a negative one. Stereotypically, grunge never has a positive message. There’s no negative theme in the song, it’s just about who observes problems around them, and yearns for something to ‘wash the rain away’. Maybe it’s the drop D tuning that does it. Makes the track sound dark and moody.
Well, I never thought that I would ever be locked out of my own house. And yet, I’m typing this to you from my aunt’s house because that is exactly what has happened. My sister has my mum’s key – I didn’t know, my mum didn’t know, my sister didn’t tell my mum, mum and I went out shopping and now I’m here.
It’s fine though. It’s fine. Sometimes you just have to laugh about these things. It’s just another day, that we’ll laugh about in the future. Maybe just me, I don’t know about Mum.
So, the song. “Black Hole” is the second song from be your own PET’s sophomore and final album “Get Awkward” in 2008. During the time between then and their first album, the band’s original drummer left and was eventually replaced by another. I never thought such a small change could affect a band’s sound so much, but it apparently did. The songs on the album had clearer melodies, Jemina Pearl drops her singing-talking-wailing delivery that she used for most tracks on the band’s debut, only using it for some on “Get Awkward”. The band still had the same energy, but there was a clear maturation in their sound.
“Black Hole” is the song for someone who loves violence, hates being bored and loathes the town they reside in because there’s nothing to do. When there is something to do, they always end up repeating the same routine. And this sucks for the person in question. The song’s not on the international release (it’s only found on the UK version) due to ‘controversial lyrics’ and was instead released separately alongside 2 other songs on the “Get Damaged EP”. That’s pretty dumb, if you ask me. Sure, ‘wanna choke myself on a telephone cord’ is a bit rough, but people know that it’s not a cool thing to do. Don’t they?
The Music in My Ears 