Tag Archives: me

#1330: Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out

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It’s tea time. That’s right. Back at it again for the ‘T’ section on a random Saturday evening (where I am, it could be morning for you somewhere or late night somewhere else). And it starts off strongly, I’d say. ‘Take Me Out’, I think, was the first song I ever heard by Franz Ferdinand. I think that might be the same for a lot of people. I have a memory of being slumped in a chair, guess I must have been either eight or nine, watching MTV2, and the “I know I won’t be leaving here’ section of the song was playing alongside the repeating visuals of the music video near its end. It left an impression. The band name showed up, ‘Franz Ferdinand’. Thought it sounded pretty cool. ‘Matinée’, the next single, was where I really became interested in them. ‘Darts of Pleasure’ was the band’s first single officially. But with ‘Take Me Out’, the band became a household name in that British post-punk revival scene in the ’00s and the track became one of the biggest indie dancefloor anthems.

And, I think again like many others, when I heard the song in full for the first time, I was wondering how its beginning worked its way into sounding like it did at the end. Because the track begins in a totally different direction. Well, according to singer Alex Kapranos, he and fellow guitarist/bandmember/songwriter Nick McCarthy, who isn’t in the band anymore, were working on the song for sometime. They were trying to work out the structure and found that the verse/chorus/verse type structure wasn’t working. They would have to change tempos when going from one section to the next, which just didn’t sound right. Eventually they decided to lump all the faster verses at the beginning and put the slower choruses at the end, transitioning them together with that gradual slowing down in tempo around 50 seconds in. Or rallentando for you music theorists out there. That’s probably the best part of the song there. That tempo decrease marks that build in anticipation for what comes next.

What comes next is hook after hook after hook, as I sort of said earlier, usually accompanied by that widely recognisable guitar riff. They play it live, everyone sings the riff. It’s just how it goes. As to the lyrics and what it’s about, well, there’s a nice little podcast where Kapranos and bass guitarist Bob Hardy discuss these topics. I listened to it a while back, so I can’t remember exactly what was said. But I seem to remember Kapranos saying he took inspiration from a film of some kind, or a certain type of film made by a certain director. You’d better listen to the thing yourself. But just on the surface, without going too deep, you hear the words ‘Take Me Out’, I’d say you’d either there’s a romantic sentiment or a violent one. Like an assassination or something. And that would be neat with the band being called Franz Ferdinand and everything. I think it’s a little bit of both.

#1300: Green Day – Stuck with Me

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Green Day’s Insomniac will be out for 30 years this coming October. Not like I can say its initial release was something I was aware of at the time, being that I would have only been six months old. But having been a fan of the band since 2005 and followed their work up until the Uno! Dos! Tré days, becoming familiar with the majority of their discography in the process, I can firmly state that Insomniac is my favourite album. I don’t think this should be any kind of breaking news to anyone reading, ’cause I’m fairly sure I’ve said the same thing in a previous Green Day-Insomniac post. But if you are a first-time reader, then, hey, my favourite album of Green Day’s is Insomniac. It’s still their most in-your-face straight-out punk record they’ve done, filled with self-deprecation. That attitude strikes a chord with me. And ‘Stuck with Me’ is a highlight from there.

Me and ‘Stuck with Me’ go way, way back. Most likely back to those days of ’05 when I was really getting into Green Day at the time. Their official website allowed you to watch all of the music videos for their singles through Windows Media Player. The track, being a single from Insomniac – second after ‘Geek Stink Breath’ – got a music video of its own. One that I can only describe as the artwork for Insomniac come to life contrasted with a monochrome performance of the band playing the track in a small room. I didn’t have the greatest of Internet connections back in those days. When it came to watching music videos on Windows Media Player, a lot of the time was spent waiting on buffering so maybe an additional few seconds could play before it would stop again. I want to say ‘Stuck with Me’ was one of the rare, rare moments when the video played the whole way through without stopping. But that might be my mind playing tricks on me. But simple and plain, it was those repeated views/listens that got me into the track, and it’s stuck around in the mental plane ever since.

All this time, I’ve never sat down and pondered on what this song could be about. A quick skim through the lyrics, I get a sense of someone who feels comfort in being something of an outsider. Or someone who spits in the faces of the upper classes or phonies and takes great pride in it. They’re all right being the “scrub” they might be perceived to be. But at the same time, they’re also not all right. Perhaps mentally, physically, it’s not really stated. Most likely the former, when considering the subject matter of other songs on the record. Whatever lyrically is going on, it goes hand in hand with the constant rush of energy the music provides. The opening downward riff is an instant hook. And if you’re looking for some good bass guitar work, it just so happens that Insomniac is arguably the record on which bassist Mike Dirnt played a lot of his best lines. Before the last chorus on ‘Stuck with Me’, Dirnt gets his own almost-solo on his instrument accompanied by an appropriate thrashing on the drums by Tré Cool. Like a lot of good punk songs, it’s over before you probably want to get a little more into it. I think it gives more than enough in the time it lasts for. I could listen to it all the time.

#1283: They Might Be Giants – The Statue Got Me High

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I could probably say that ‘The Statue Got Me High’ goes down as one of my favourite songs by They Might Be Giants. There was a short, very brief time when I didn’t get it that much. And that was when I was about 10 and watching the music video for the first time, on the Internet, on Yahoo’s old music service website. I don’t know what it was, there’s a lot of stuff happening in the music video and the song itself is quite busy in its structure and momentum too. I think it was all too much my little, tiny head to take in. But fast forward about five years to late 2010 when I was downloading the band’s albums and got to Apollo 18, ‘Statue’ started playing and I was into it almost immediately. I think it was the first time I’d heard the track since the attempt those years prior, but it felt like it should have been a certified favourite for all of that time.

Another TMBG track mainly written by John Linnell, ‘Statue’ is about a man who stares at a monument until his head explodes. And that’s pretty much the gist of it. There’s something about the wording of the song title that seems kinda clumsy about it. A sentence like “it got me” isn’t one you hear in everyday situations. But how Linnell sings it is where it becomes very convincing as a phrase. It’s like he’s shouting it from the highest rooftop and wants everyone to know about the situation he’s in. Or the narrator, whatever. It’s a song where I very much enjoy Linnell’s vocal performance. It’s one where he’s belting out the notes from his chest one moment and then singing in a standard baritone, sort of mirror the intensity/moments of relaxation in the music, all while maintaining these glorious melodies and recording these harmonies and backing vocals that add these layers of substance. As much as I like all the instruments behind them all, I think this song’s massive strength is in that vocal work. All so jubilant and earwormy, in general.

I want to say that I read somewhere that Linnell had a daydream depicting this scene and was inspired enough to write a song about it. Though, I may be making that up. I guess that’s how most songwriters fulfill their craft. They make up scenarios and write songs about them. But sometimes I think about how John Linnell can write songs like ‘Four of Two’ or ‘My Man’. And it’s like, yeah, maybe he just has daydreams about a person strangling themselves to death while looking at a clock, or another person suffering from spinal paralysis, and has an urge to write about them. Even the song ‘Unrelated Thing’ is about a woman daydreaming in the middle of a tremendously boring date. They’re not your typical song topics, but that’s what sets the Giants apart from nearly everyone else. And a large majority songs usually turn out good too. I just don’t know how they do it.

#1282: The Rolling Stones – Start Me Up

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In 2009, I stumbled upon the YouTube account of StSanders. If you’re aware of the whole ‘Band Shreds’ gimmick where people overdub themselves playing badly over a video to make it look like the artist/band can’t sing or play their instruments properly, I’m very sure StSanders started that whole thing. The main difference with his videos though was that he made completely new music and lyrics, somehow still syncing with the actions and lip-syncing of the original footage, ending up with some amazingly hilarious results. His one for the Beatles was the first I ever saw, and I remember my jaw dropping and my brain sort of rewiring itself when I realized what was happening. And once I got into it, I went onto his YouTube channel to see what else he’d worked on, saw the one he did using the video for The Rolling Stones’ ‘Start Me Up’ and fell about laughing some more. I’ll go ahead and embed that one below. It seems stupid at first. But just follow through with it, it’s worth the watch.

Safe to say, the actual ‘Start Me Up’ song is nothing like the Frankenstein’s monster StSanders made of it. Because I’d seen the Shreds video first, I couldn’t help but try and match it with the actual words Mick Jagger is miming to in the proper music video. Once those lines became less blurred, I came to appreciate both in their own respective ways. ‘Start Me Up’ opens The Rolling Stones’ 1981 album, Tattoo You, one that mostly consists of studio outtakes recorded in the 1970s. The song started out as a reggae tune in ’75 when the band were working on Black and Blue. They re-recorded it during some sessions for Some Girls in ’78. The group just couldn’t get the music right. But when 1981 came around, the album engineer found a take where the band performed a straighter rock version rather than the reggae vibe they’d mostly been sticking too. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood laid down some vocals over the top, a few overdubs were done, and the version of ‘Start Me Up’ we all know was completed.

‘Start Me Up’ is one long metaphor for sex. Sex and arousal, and there’s not much else to it. Jagger sings about seeing a beautiful woman and getting turned on, likening it to revving up a motorcyle and going for a long, long ride. Except at the end when the song’s fading out and Jagger then starts to go on about a dead man “coming”. A whole wink, wink, nudge, nudge moment this song is. But I can’t be mad at it. Keith Richards’s guitar’s the first thing you hear, followed by an thwack on the snare by Charlie Watts, and when the rhythm truly gets going, it’s pretty much a wrap. You’re under the song’s spell. At least that’s the way it ended up for me. I’m usually listening to the interplay between the guitars of Richards and Ronnie Wood. Whose guitar is in which channel, I’m still not sure, but they’re both never playing the exact same thing. It’s cool to see where they differentiate and then maybe play something in unison at points. And the rhythm section of Bill Wyman on the bass with Watts on the sticks is strong as ever. That snare really has a rich tone to it, slices through the mix. And despite all the innuendos being thrown at you, Jagger doesn’t sound bad either. Like those “mean, mean machiiiiiine” growls that transition into those alluring ‘start it up”s at the end of the choruses, which are usually followed by the perkier ‘Start it up”s that begin the verses. A strong performance by all involved.

#1274: R.E.M. – Star Me Kitten

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Uh, R.E.M. again? You might be feeling that way if you saw this popping up in your email. Just how the cookie crumbles, I’m sorry. And it’s not as if the song today is a widely-known favourite of the band’s, even though it’s from arguably their best album. I look at the number of plays for ‘Star Me Kitten’ on Spotify, and the cold hard truth is it’s the least played out of the total 12 tracks that make up Automatic for the People. It’s definitely the one that brings about a left turn in the album’s proceedings. But it’s the difference it brings that makes me enjoy it a whole lot more, more than a couple other tracks on there, to be honest.

I’d had Automatic… sitting in my iTunes library for years and had maybe gone through it a few times, but nothing really registered. But bring around 2018, I was at work, brought the album up on Spotify, let it play on the loudspeakers and it was a totally different experience. I’ll leave it to general youth and foolishness as to why I couldn’t get into it before then. I gained a whole new appreciation for the record by the end of ‘Find the River’, which would have had its own post too if I’d got my act together, and the individual tracks within. When it came to ‘Star Me Kitten’, I just remember feeling entranced by it. Those layered Mike Mill vocals in the back alongside the organ? Hypnotizing stuff. And the guitar melody by Peter Buck which Michael Stipe mirrors from front to back with his vocal is all slinky and almost seductive in a way. What really got me though was that descending three-note scale that happens at points during the track. You’ll know what I mean when you hear it. But it was really those parts that got stuck in my head and made me listen to the whole thing over and over.

Why the song’s called ‘Star Me Kitten’ has a pretty simple story. We all know the lyric is ‘Fuck Me Kitten’, and it was originally going to be listed as such on physical copies. But doing so would mean that a Parental Advisory label would have to be slapped onto the album covers. The word ‘fuck’ is said a few times in fellow album track ‘Ignoreland’. The band didn’t want this to happen, so they censored themselves using inspiration from The Rolling Stones’ ‘Star Star’. And as to what the song’s about, well, I’ve never come up with anything myself. But seeing the lyrics, it appears to be from the perspective of a narrator lamenting the end of a relationship, but still being enchanted by the other person that they want to have a casual get together every once in a while. That’s my deduced take for you.