Tag Archives: my ipod

#853: Foo Fighters – Monkey Wrench

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All right, so I was about 10 when I heard Foo Fighters’ ‘Monkey Wrench’ for the first time. Saw its video on MTV2. And for a while, I thought it was the greatest song ever. Very energetic, fast, the aforementioned video was a bit funny and had an edge to it. All those characteristics had an impression on younger self. Though that self didn’t grow up to be the greatest Foo Fighters fan, I’ve realised that they usually knock it out of the park when it comes to their singles. And it’s understandable why this was chosen to be the first one when promoting their album The Colour and the Shape back in 1997.

The song is about the crumbling and total end of a relationship from the point of Dave Grohl, who had at the time gone through a divorce. He’s quite mad and maybe, just maybe, seems to be quite fed up with the whole experience. The track is essentially telling his ex-wife that now he’s ‘free’ he won’t be able to be that person that she could just use and throw away like some kind of tool. Or ‘monkey wrench’ in this case. Until I started listening to this track with headphones, I never realized just how heavy this song is. I guess One by One is usually seen as the heavy Foo Fighters album, but some sections in ‘Wrench’, particularly those ‘one in ten’ parts and especially the bridge where Dave Grohl screams a syllable at a time without taking a breath, probably match up to anything that’s on that record. I think it’s up there as one of Foo Fighters’ best songs, honestly.

I think I appreciate it more than perhaps I did in the past. If Dave Grohl went back to making faster, heavier, punk-influenced stuff like this, I would probably look forward to a new Foo Fighters album. I think the possibilities of a change in style happening are slim though. The band are really going for that classic American rock style nowadays. But the old music still goes on and on.

#852: The Kinks – Monica

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On an album that displays themes of nostalgia, sentimentality – basically the ‘good old days’, I think it’s fair to say that ‘Monica’ stick out on the tracklisting of The Kinks’ Village Green Preservation Society. New listeners will ask why. Then they’ll see the lyrics and realise. This is a track about the local prostitute. The term isn’t explicitly stated during the track itself, but when you hear phrases like “Monica stands at midnight” and “Money can’t buy sweet love from Monica”, you start to put two and two together.

The song’s delivered in this kind of offbeat calypso style, with what sounds like layers of acoustic guitars in the background and I guess bongos in the mix, and Ray Davies plays up the vocals a bit by putting an exaggerated inflection in his voice. Davies’ performance is probably the best thing about the whole track. The way he sings “I-I shall die, I-I shall die” in time with the crashing drums, and then backs that up with a wailing “Oh Monicaaaa, my love”. It’s good stuff. There’s something quite dramatic about his singing, but not so much that they sound too forced or over the top. There’s a subtlety in the drama, which works best a lot of the time.

Yeah, it’s a nice and short one. That’s also another thing about Village Green. All of its songs, bar one, are under three minutes and yet there’s just hook after hook and melodies abound in each packet. Coming nears its end, ‘Monica’ may seem like a bit of an inconsequential offering. But hell, this has always been one of my favourites on there. Even if the narrator’s in love with a lady of the night.

#851: They Might Be Giants – Money for Dope

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They Might Be Giants’ album Join Us turns 10 years old this July. Those years have flown by, and yet at the same time I can nod my head and say, “Yep, it’s definitely felt like 10 years have passed”. Either way, the LP’s up there as one of my favourites by the band. Not just because I’m reminded of that day in 2011 when the album was out after months of anticipation, but because a lot of the songs are pretty great too. Some songs didn’t make it on there, and months later those tracks appeared on a cutting floor/rarities compilation titled, Album Raises New and Troubling Questions. ‘Money for Dope’ was one of those songs left off Join Us. A shame ’cause… it wouldn’t have been too out of place on there.

Now, there’s not much of a narrative thread or story in this track. What ‘Money for Dope’ is is essentially a sort of shopping list for very oddly specific things set to a rhythm and a climbing/descending melody, from both John Linnell vocal and Danny Weinkauf’s bass line. From the first second, Linnell throws items from a walking stick to rubber gloves to needle-nose pliers and much much more. What matters the most though is that money for dope for some reason. Why Linnell wrote this song isn’t really known, the same can be stated for many other They tracks. What I do know is that the phrase ‘money for dope’ was sung by John Lennon in his own track ‘Gimme Some Truth’, so I’d like to think that John Linnell was listening to that song one day, heard the phrase in it and was just inspired to write his own track revolving around it.

There’s not much else I can say about this one. The band have never played it live, I guess they don’t care about it that much. Hopefully my insight can provide some sort of entertainment while you listen to it. I can think of one or two tracks on Join Us that this one could have replaced, but that’s neither here nor there. I do like the way John Linnell sings the last ‘dope’ on the track. He elongates the word, raises his pitch and then ends on a really low note. Quite cool. At least that’s what I thought when I properly noticed it for the first time all that time ago. Now I just appreciate it as a fine way to end the track. Underappreciated one right here.

#850: Kings of Leon – Molly’s Chambers

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“Molly’s chambers, oh, the chambers of Molly” is how I used to sing the chorus to this track when I first became aware of it many moons ago. The video played quite frequently on TV, and this would have been years after Youth & Young Manhood was available to the public. Then I found out that that wasn’t what Caleb Followill was singing. But really, the way he mumbles his vocals throughout you wouldn’t be able to really know until you looked it up.

So, ‘Molly’s Chambers’ is a track from Kings of Leons’ first album. It was released as the second single from there, way back in 2003. My personal experience, I don’t think I knew this song existed until maybe after the release of Aha Shake Heartbreak a year later. All I knew was ‘Red Morning Light’ and that was because it was the opening track on FIFA 2004. But as I explained I saw the ‘Chambers’ video, thought that was all right, and as a result came to like the song by association.

It’s one of those songs about mysterious girls who make men want to drop to their knees and be close to them just because of how cool they seem to be. I think there’s a gun reference in the song title too. Like the chamber in a gun? Maybe the effect this Molly has is like a bullet to the brain. Or maybe it’s chambers as in a bedroom. I’ve never thought about all this until now. Maybe it’s deeper than I ever thought it was. Best to not think about it too much though. Might start a run of sleepless nights.

#849: Ween – The Mollusk

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Beautiful, beautiful stuff right here. ‘The Mollusk’ is the title track from the 1997 album by Ween, and after intro track ‘I’m Dancing in the Show Tonight’ is where the records themes of the sea and other things related to it truly begins. Mollusks aren’t the nicest creatures to look at. Mollusks are things like, snails, squids, octopuses. Things you usually go ‘ew’ or ‘whoa, cool’ at. Quite polarizing emotions. But Ween’s dedication to these animals make them sound like some of the most out there, mystical creatures to exist.

It starts straight away with the hypnotizing acoustic riff that is backed by that bubbling, whistling keyboard note that fritters and echoes into the distance. I don’t know where else in you could be placed in your mind other than a beach next to a calming wave within those opening seconds. The instrumental properly sets this calming momentum that lulls you into the track’s opening line, one where Gene Ween asks a little boy what he has and in response the backing vocals as the boy answer “Kind sir, it’s a mollusk I’ve found”. The whole song follows this sort of call and response tactic in the verses, they work well. And then they come together during the chorus to I guess symbolize this new interest in this mollusk that this man and the boy share. Describing it, it does sound quite strange. But listening to it really takes you to another place.

One question that’s usually asked about this song arises from its closing lyrics. Gene Ween proclaims to the listener that ‘there are three things that spur the mollusk from the sand’. Yet people are confused as he seems to list only one of those. I do think he lists them in plain sight. The waking of all creatures etc etc., one faint glance back into the sea, and its wandering eye. It’s obvious, isn’t it? It did take me a while to figure out too, gotta say. Oh, yeah, there’s also an episode of SpongeBob where he literally says “Mind your wandering eye, you little mollusk”. Reference to this song. It’s not breaking news.