Tag Archives: love

#991: Neil Young – Only Love Can Break Your Heart

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After discovering Nick Drake’s Pink Moon when I was about 17 years old, I went on a bit of a folk trip and tried to find albums that had sort of the same vibe. Some good came out of it. Some not so much. But through that journey I stumbled upon Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush. That album’s the first of his that I ever listened to. I don’t think I’d ever sat down and listened to a single one of Young’s songs before. Upon research, it seemed the album would be a good place to get a feel of what he was about. And upon listening through, I picked up on two basic things. He could write some great songs, and he had a really high singing voice.

‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ is the third song on After the Gold Rush. Whoever sorted out the tracklist knew what they were doing, I’ve come to conclude. ‘Tell Me Why’ starts it all off with its inviting acoustic tone, then the title track arrives as the slow contemplative statement of the ’70s. So it’s only right that ‘Only Love…’ comes as the first track on there that sounds like it’s meant to be the obvious single. And it was, released a month after the album had been available. The song’s a sweet one, bit melancholy too. One about how innocent life when you’re young, naive and single before you fall in love and have a relationship with someone, and how when that relationship ends it’ll probably be the most painful experience you’ve had in your life up to that point. Nicely emphasised by the change from major key to a minor key during the transitions from verses to choruses, signifying the bright, optimistic youthful outlook before heartbreak comes and ruins it all.

I feel like if I was to tell someone that ‘Only Love Can Break Your Heart’ was my favourite Neil Young to someone who’d been listening to the guy for years, I’d probably be met with a scoff and a “Yeah, it’s all right, but really?” kind of answer. “Everyone knows that.” I’m sure they wouldn’t be that judgemental, but every artist/band has those type of people. Even so, I don’t think I’ve listened to enough Neil Young to really confirm what that favourite track is. Going through the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die book has helped introduce me to more of his albums. Young taking them off Spotify has hindered that process. Still very much a beginner here 10 years later. But if it turns out that ‘Only Love…’ and ‘Cripple Creek Ferry’ are the only Neil Young tracks I discuss on here, then you’ll probably be able to guess how much of a fan I am of his.

#780: Coldplay – Lovers in Japan/Reign of Love

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A trick that Coldplay utilised on their 2008 album Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends was merging two completely different songs together to make one long track. Two of them, ‘Chinese Sleep Chant’ and ‘The Escapist’, were hidden as they weren’t shown on the tracklist. For whatever reason though, the band decided to show that ‘Reign of Love’ was a song that was meant to be shown to all; it enters the frame as the long fade out of ‘Lovers in Japan’ is still happening. The two songs were then placed together, slap bang in the middle of the album.

‘Lovers in Japan’ is the upbeat, optimistic, us against the world type track. The sort of theme that’s been a constant in the band’s discography from about X&Y onwards. Chris Martin sings to lovers, runners, and soldiers telling them to carry on doing their thing in this crazy world we’re living in. Then he turns it round into a first person narrative in the second verse, telling his baby that they’re going to run away from all of their troubles with dreams of getting to Japan. Chris Martin’s lead vocal is probably one of his best performances, containing great melodies throughout. The track also possesses one of Coldplay’s best choruses. That’s just my opinion, though. ‘Reign of Love’ is the comedown. A beautiful, piano-led track with these twinkling loops and a subtle bass that lay the comforting backdrop to Martin’s restrained vocal. Looking briefly at the lyrics, I think the track captures a narrator who has fallen in love so hard that they’re like a prisoner in its grasp. I’ve gotta say I’ve never paid too much to what the lyrics are because the matching of the melody with the production is 10/10.

‘Lovers’ was released as a single in late 2008, a few weeks before the Prospekt’s March EP came out. In this format, it was unveiled with a new mix known as the ‘Osaka Sun Mix’ and this was what was also used in its music video (below). For a long time, that the version of the song I listened to. Upon rediscovering ‘Reign of Love’ it had to go. There are some minor differences between the ‘Osaka Sun Mix’ of ‘Lovers’ and its original album version. I’ll let you listen and find them out.

#778: The Beatles – Love You To

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The Beatles’ Revolver is an album that I’ve admired for so long now, it’s hard to recall when I had that ‘eureka!’ moment where I suddenly enjoyed each of its fourteen songs or even how I felt when I listened to the album for the first time. I know that I did go through it initially in 2009/10 when I was on my Beatles discovery phase, but I don’t think it was an album that struck me as a special one on the first listen. Through subsequent listens each track slowly became a lot clearer in terms of rhythm and melody and all that good stuff, but I have the feeling that George Harrison’s second song on the album ‘Love You To’ was one that I had to get my head around.

When listening to Revolver for any new Beatles follower, ‘Love You To’ will stick out immediately. Well, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ too, but definitely ‘Love’ because the band aren’t playing as a group. It’s more George Harrison and a lot of Indian musicians with Paul McCartney on backing vocal and Ringo Starr on the tambourine. It’s a real trip, but it’s merely a sign of the musical headspace Harrison was in at the time. He had fallen in love with the sitar and the music of India in general, and wrote this song in order to showcase his new interests. Experimentation with LSD may also have played a part in his new influences. It’s a song in the key of C and I’m sure that’s the only chord the song stays on throughout. That is known as a drone, for anyone who may be getting into music theory or something.

The song is of the the existential/philosophical type judging by its lyrics. Harrison, who was only 22 going on 23 when he wrote it, goes on to sing about how time’s going too quickly, how life is short and how people can be quick to take advantage of you if they get the chance. But while this is all going on, he just wants to make love as much as he can with the time he has. I’ve sometimes wondered why the track is titled ‘Love You To’; the phrasing doesn’t make sense and even so, the phrase doesn’t appear in the lyrics. If it was called ‘Love to You’ it would be a different story. Though I’ve realised now that it may be a play on the words ‘Love Me Do’, the very first Beatles single out only four years earlier. So strange but commendable how much the group changed it that time.

#777: Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart

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Surely, this is a song that everyone knows. I was tempted to just write ‘classic’ on this post and call it a day, leaving some sort of poignant message by doing so. Then I realised that would be a bit lame. A bit pretentious too. This’ll probably be a short one, though. As much as I like ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’, it is a fantastic song and gone through the ages as one of the best of all time, I don’t think it’s had the greatest effect on me personally than it probably has for millions of people out there. I do appreciate it a lot, though. There’s a lot of greatness in its subtlety and weariness.

The track was released as a single in June 1980, a month after Joy Division’s frontman Ian Curtis committed suicide. The music video is the only official one they did, and was filmed just a few weeks before the tragic event. This song is the first of the band’s I’d ever heard; its music video played on a channel somewhere (maybe Q TV, most likely MTV2), and for a while was the only one I listened to. Maybe it was because Curtis looked so despondent on the microphone. I also didn’t know that Joy Division were held in such high regard. I was a young boy at that time.

I think the only major point in my enjoyment of the track is that the ‘Permanent Mix’ that was released on a compilation in 1995 is my go-to version. That’s just the one I’ve been accustomed to for all this time. It’s the version that’s played in the video above. A lot of people prefer the original 1980 release. That’s fine. The main difference between the two is that the mix is a lot fuller in the 90s reissue. There’s also a nice acoustic guitar outro added in there too. It’s the same song at the end of the day.

#776: Wolfmother – Love Train

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Every time I hear ‘Love Train’ by Wolfmother I’m reminded of the times when it was the band’s new single and its video was making the rounds for the first time on MTV2 in the UK. 2006 was the year. Wolfmother seemed to come out of nowhere when the group’s video for ‘Dimension’ was also played endlessly on that channel. That was the first ever song of theirs I heard/watched and I guess its fair to say that became a bit of a fan. They wore their 70s hard rock influences on their sleeves but the music was amazing. I got their album as a result; I haven’t gone through it in a while.

After ‘Dimension’ and ‘Woman’ were released as singles, ‘Love Train’ followed. It wasn’t as commercially successful as its two predecessors but showed, at least to me, that they could be just a bit versatile and could lay on the funk on their music if they wanted. ‘Train’ is carried by this groove and riff that I’m sure probably came from some jam the band were doing in their spare time. The lyrics aren’t very substantive and I’m sure the music is meant to be the main thing to focus on, but from what I can hear the narrator hasn’t been in the game for a while and is looking to get back to it some time soon.

There are a load of copies of Wolfmother’s first album which have a totally different tracklist to the one I own, and that don’t have this song on there. The record was initially released only in Australia in late 2005; I guess either the band didn’t finish the song in time for it to be included, or they hadn’t even thought of it in between the time they released the album in their home country and its international release. Whatever happened, ‘Love Train’ exists, I’m glad it does, the music video you can see up there.