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#650: …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – It Was There That I Saw You

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‘It Was There That I Saw You’, the (almost) opener of Trail of Dead’s 2002 album Source Tags & Codes still gets me pumped today. I listened to the full album for the first time about five years ago and ended up pleasantly surprised by the entire thing. There’s this grand mystical vibe that the music and lyrics give out throughout which some may find pretentious but I found bearable at least.

But ‘I Was There’ starts it all off with this calming introduction that suddenly explodes into a ball of energy with crashing drums and exhilarating guitar work. It is during this moment that singer Conrad Keely comes into frame singing about the time he became enamoured by someone (I’ll assume a lady) and had some great times with her before eventually losing touch. He is left wondering what he has been up to in the time that have been apart.

It’s endearing stuff. But then the fast music suddenly stops and transitions into this slow breakdown – with a melody taken from the preceding track ‘Invocation’ – that builds and builds in intensity, repeating that melody endlessly before transitioning back into the fast music you were hearing almost two minutes ago. Ahhh… it feels so good when that happens. You can experience it too!

It’s a dynamic track that pulls and pushes and takes a few turns here and there. It’s an exciting listen. It’s a great album, I say.

#612: The Beatles – If I Needed Someone

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George Harrison was listening to The Byrds’ take of the old folksong ‘The Bells of Rhymney’ one day and took particular interest in the track’s main guitar riff that starts it off and appears every now and again throughout. Liking it so much he decided to use it in one of his own songs that would appear on the next Beatles album. He did send the track to the Byrds thanking them; they were more than thrilled with the result. ‘If I Needed Someone’ was released alongside thirteen other tracks on Rubber Soul nearing Christmas 1965, and was another of Harrison’s compositions that showed his growing maturation as a songwriter.

The song’s prominent jangly guitars was further inspired by the sound The Byrds had pretty much created earlier in the year though the track has The Beatles’ stamp all over it, with soaring three-part harmony vocals and a strong rhythm section featuring a weaving bass guitar line courtesy of Paul McCartney. Harrison stated that the song was a simple love message to his then girlfriend Pattie Boyd who he’d met during the filming of A Hard Day’s Night. A lot of people think it’s about having a sidechick – to put it simply. There are a lot of valid reasons as to why by just reading the lyrics. It’s nothing to get too caught up about though. With the position they were in at the time, they could write about anything.

I assume that ‘If I Needed Someone’ was moderately popular within the group as it was the only Harrison song to be performed live by them before they stopped touring in 1966. George would obviously go on to write many more great songs but at that time… it was most definitely the best one he had put down on paper.

#611: The Beatles – If I Fell

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‘If I Fell’ from A Hard Day’s Night – the third album by The Beatles – is the song to show people if they were to ask what was so great about John Lennon and Paul McCartney as a pair of vocalists. Their voices and their melodies are what carry this track for its duration. That wasn’t meant to be a slight at George Harrison or Ringo Starr because they do their thing too. But with Lennon and McCartney’s vocals being the main attraction, there’s no reason for the other two to do anything too fancy.

Paul and John harmonise throughout the entire track bar some parts where they sing the exact same melody and John’s double tracked lead at the start. I usually sing John’s part if ever the song comes into my head. I’ve always seen it as Paul singing the higher harmony and John taking the lead rather than vice versa. It is John’s song after all. Although there is a demo recording of him trying to sing what would become Paul’s vocal, so it may be that that is the main melody. It’s no big deal to be honest.

It’s a love song, similar to a lot of other songs the two wrote during those years in the band, but sees Lennon practically begging this new love to treat him better than the one who came before. He would do this again only five years later in “Don’t Let Me Down“. But in 1964 he was a lot more sweeter about in his approach.

#587: The Replacements – I Will Dare

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‘I Will Dare’ is the first track on The Replacements’ third album Let It Be, released in 1984. The album itself was a departure from the straight-up two-minute three-chords punk the band had been making up to that point since forming in ’79, and featured significantly more ambitious musical arrangements and lyrical themes explored by main lyricist and guitar man Paul Westerberg. First time I heard Let It Be I will say I was 18 (may have been 17) and  looking for new albums to hear. Not new as as in what was recent, but new things to stop me listening to the same old same old. It was okay. Five years have passed and I still hold this opinion. It’s cool, though a lot of the songs never really stuck with me.

‘I Will Dare’ though is one of the best album openers ever. Got slick melodies from the get-go and throughout, starting with Westerberg’s jangly two-chord rhythm guitar pattern that leads into the track’s main riff provided by lead guitarist Bob Stinson. Chris Mars’ drums pound throughout, particularly on the verses, and Tommy Stinson does his thing on the bass with that little climbing and falling line he does in the choruses. It’s a strong band performance throughout this whole thing, everyone is on point. Even R.E.M.’s Peter Buck provides a frilly guitar solo which caps it all off. A perfect start, man.

I also think that the music is the perfect backdrop to the song’s lyrics – a older man has a hush-hush relationship with a younger woman and is ready to take on anything if she’s willing to do the same. I can always visualize some sort of music video set in nighttime 80s New York with two people acting as the couple and the band singing somewhere unrelated. The lyrics aren’t even that descriptive, kind of repetitive too, but conjures up a lot of imagery.

Even if Let It Be as an album didn’t do so much for me, I still went through a small ‘Replacements’ phase….. It was around the time that the band was to play live on American television in the same studio where they had been banned from playing since 1986, after that ‘infamous’ appearance on Saturday Night Live. Came to realise that in their prime, they were a force to be reckoned with. I prefer a lot of their live performances to their studio cuts though. Below are some of my favourites, including the aforementioned SNL show if you’ve never seen it*. Take care.

*20/05/2020 – Those videos aren’t on YouTube anymore.

#586: The Beatles – I Will

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Out of all the love songs The Beatles ever did – and they wrote a lot of those – there’s something about ‘I Will’ that strikes home more than any other. No loud electric guitars are present, nor can any drums by Ringo Starr be heard in the sub-two minutes the tack lasts for. Instead, it’s an acoustic jam with bongos and cymbals and Paul performing the song’s ‘bass’ with his mouth.

It’s all very cutesy, But it comes from a pure place. John and Paul could always write a good song about love out the wazoo during the Beatle years – at least when they properly wrote songs together – though here it seems that Paul has really found the one, assuming that the song is about a lady, and that’s cool.

Initially I don’t think I really cared for this track that much when I first heard it. Must have been about seven/getting to eight years ago now. It comes near the end of the first CD of The Beatles and there are so many memorable tracks that precede it…. it just didn’t make too much of an impression. Couldn’t tell you when/where/how it happened, though I must have heard it one day and it all clicked. It’s a good melody, you can’t deny it.