Tag Archives: lane

#1180: Pavement – Shady Lane

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Ah, the second song I ever heard by Pavement. I can sort of remember hearing it for the first time. I may have been flicking through the channels as I was wont to do in the day, found myself going back to MTV2, and when the channel popped up on the screen, there was the video for ‘Shady Lane’ playing. The chyron came up near the song’s end showing the band and song name, “PAVEMENT”, “SHADY LANE”, just like that, and I immediately recognised them as the people that did that ‘Cut Your Hair’ song, which I also saw on MTV2 sometime before and immediately took a shine towards. So now I knew two Pavement songs, and both of them sounded pretty cool.

A couple more times I saw that video on the same channel, and after those instances it was a guaranteed ‘liked’ song in my head. Seeing the video didn’t answer the question as to who the lead singer in the band was. No one visibly lip-syncs in the ‘Cut Your Hair’ video, and Stephen Malkmus’s head is missing in the shot where the band’s performing in ‘Shady Lane’. So I was still puzzled on that front. ‘Stereo’ fixed that, but that’s a story for another day. I got an iPod Nano from an “uncle” of mine when I was 12, “uncle” as in “male family friend”, and ‘Shady Lane’ was an instant add on there. Been a mainstay in any music library of mine ever since.

‘Shady Lane’ is the second song on Pavement’s Brighten the Corners album from 1997. Also released as the second single from it too, hence the video. That album is very much about turning 30 years of age, a point I’ve said before in another post for a song from that album, and the pressures that come along with it. ‘Shady Lane’ handles the topic of getting into a steady relationship, settling down and having the kids, the pets, the white picket fences. That’s the ‘shady lane’ in question. Malkmus wants that going for him, he straight up says so. And he brings it round to us all, saying that everybody wants one. And needs one too. But of course, Malkmus doesn’t spell those things out, writing about them in the quasi-cryptic but earnest manner that only he can. There are some brilliant lyrics in this tune. Possesses a fine riff. There’s a fake-out ending halfway through. It’s a great singalong. I much prefer the album version to the single edit, which was sped up a bit and has a higher pitch as a result, but I edited it so it ends before the ‘J vs. S’ instrumental. Always thought it took the momentum out of things.

#1024: The Beatles – Penny Lane

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I’m sure I’ve told this anecdote before, but it was seeing the videos for ‘Penny Lane’ along a few Beatle promos (‘Hey Bulldog’, ‘The Night Before’) that fully changed my mind about seeing what all this hype about the Beatles was. In fact, I am certain I have, because I dedicated a whole post to it in about 2014. To summarise that post, I wasn’t really sure about the Beatles before 2009, but then the Rock Band game came out alongside the remasters. VH1 had a timeslot dedicated to Beatles videos. ‘Penny Lane’ was one of them, and upon hearing the music and seeing the jovial chemistry between these four people on-screen – plus, the supposed agreement that this was the best band of all time – I sent myself into the void and ended up researching everything there was to know about the group.

‘Penny Lane’ is one of my favourite Beatles songs. Years after humming the track to myself on the way to school when I was 14, it still brings a happy feeling when those ringing bass notes mark the sudden introduction. But it’s not just for nostalgia’s sake that I appear to be clinging onto this one for some sort of support. Just in general, the track is executed to perfection. Paul McCartney wrote a song about a street in Liverpool he would frequently pass through as a kid, mirroring the same approach John Lennon took on for ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’. While that track became the experimental psychedelic exhibition, ‘Penny Lane’ was much straighter in approach whilst still maintaining a regal air about it with all the woodwinds and trumpets and other instrumentation that were more typical of an orchestra than a rock band.

As I said earlier, the music video played a big part in me wanting to find out more Beatles stuff. In the context of their careers, it was made at the point where the Beatles made it clear they weren’t going on tour anymore. The videos for ‘Strawberry Fields’ and ‘Penny Lane’ were also revealed after an extended break, in which people were wondering if the Beatles bubble had burst and they were heading for a split. They came back with moustaches and promo videos where they weren’t lipsyncing to the words or ‘playing’ their instruments. They make it most clear in this one in a very obvious manner. They ride past their instruments on their horses as if they are above them, to say ‘we’re not doing that stuff anymore’. When John Lennon starts saying “In Penny Lane” at 1:46, the camera switches to another scene as if to say ‘Nope. We don’t do that here.’ And when they are actually handed their instruments at the end, they pretend they have no idea what they are and start fiddling about with them, while Lennon flips a table over because he didn’t get his guitar. It’s a funny, little anti-music video, signifying that these boys were now men. Men with funny looking moustaches.