Tag Archives: my ipod

#798: Supergrass – Mama & Papa

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Quite surprising to me that this is the first song from this album that I’m to do a post on. I’ve shared my interest in Supergrass a lot of times before, I thought I surely must have covered at least one track. But I haven’t, so here it is for you today. Supergrass’ self-titled album, their third, often referred to as the ‘X-Ray album’ because of its cover was released in the autumn/fall of 1999. I got it as a gift in… 2006, I wanna say. I’m really big on Supergrass. I don’t think there’s one dud in the band’s discography. X-Ray’s probably the one that I enjoy the least. Not because it’s bad. It doesn’t have the immediacy and the hooks like I Should Coco or In It for the Money. It’s a slow burner. A bit more experimental too. Though it does have some great songs on there, ‘Mama & Papa’ being one that I only really started appreciating a few months ago.

The track is the final one on the album, bringing things to a calm and kind of sad ending. Quite funny that after using a variety of instruments apart from your usual rock ensemble throughout the album, they close it out with an short and sweet acoustic number. After two false starts, it gets under way with a twinkling arpeggiated guitar chord and a misty ‘ooh’ backing vocal. Bassist Mick Quinn takes the lead vocal on here, singing about being alone in the park, looking up at the sky and missing his mum and dad. We’ve all been there. Usual singer and guitarist Gaz Coombes provides the harmonies and that aforementioned ‘ooh’ in the breaks.

On a live listening party for the album last year, Quinn guided Supergrass fans through the tracklist with quips and anecdotes about how each song was made. He didn’t say much about this one. Coombes was playing the track’s riff in the practice room and Quinn sung over the top. I was also listening during that ‘event’, and it was there that ‘Mama’ got to me. Only took 14 years.

#797: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks – Mama

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Eight years. Eight years I’ve been doing this series and the beat goes on. Have a read of the first one. Back to the scheduled post.

I haven’t known ‘Mama’ for as long a time as a lot of the other songs on here. I listened to Face the Truth initially in 2018 when I was at my first job at uni, and I could get away with being on Spotify for the whole day and go home without really achieving anything. It was a strange place to work at. Then as Stephen Malkmus was to release his electronic Groove Denied album in 2019, I revisited Truth again and ‘Mama’ stood out as a highlight.

Face the Truth was listed as a proper solo studio album by Stephen Malkmus, much like the 2001 album. The Jicks are still credited on the back though, and feature on many of the tracks. It’s more or less a Jicks album. I do think though, that Malkmus plays all the instruments on ‘Mama’. He did so on the Pavement song ‘AT&T’ and there’s something about both tracks bring off the same vibe. Maybe it’s the drums, I’m not sure.

In ‘Mama’, Malkmus sings about the good times of his youth. Just being a kid in the house while mum and dad were doing mum and dad stuff. It’s easygoing, very laidback. Very sunny and relaxed. It’s a nice tune. Things pick up a pace in the middle for the guitar solo and middle instrumental before slowing right down into the last verse and chorus. I also think that this was his take on Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Proud Mary’. The tracks are too close in tone for it to be a coincidence. Pavement played some CCR back in the day; I think it’s fair to say he’s a fan.

#795: Pavement – Major Leagues

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No kidding around here. I think Pavement’s ‘Major Leagues’ might be one of my favourite songs of all time. Every time that first kick drum comes in with that blanket of reverberated piano, guitar and all the rest, I’m just taken to another place. Terror Twilight is one of my favourite albums; ‘Major Leagues’ comes near the midway point of it, and it continues the mellow and very chilled vibes that the album establishes from track one. I’ve written a whole post dedicated to that record. Have a read when you have the time.

Like many other Pavement songs, it’s one where no one but Stephen Malkmus could explain what it truly means. For me, I think it’s a track about relationships, taking them seriously or not taking them seriously at all. Not being afraid to take things on to the next step and looking at the bigger picture, which I think the whole ‘bring on the major leagues’ refrain refers to. But then there are lyrics about magic Christians and kissing wine that can leave you clueless. It’s typical Pavement/Malkmus stuff, and it always works so well. “Lip balm on watery clay/Relationships, hey hey hey” is one of the best opening lyrics to a song too. Just want to say.

Its music video, directed by Lance Bangs, is also up there on the list in my head of favourite music videos. It features Stephen Malkmus miming to the song, and is intercut with footage of the band playing mini-golf and practising in the studio during the making of Terror Twilight. I had to know more about the making of it, so I contacted Bangs on Twitter. He told me that the scenes with Malkmus were filmed in the Mima Mounds Natural Preserve in Washington State, while the mini-golf scenes were filmed in Portland on 82nd Street, at a place that “closed/went out of business”. So there you go. You want to travel to places associated with Pavement, there are two for you. Whenever we are able to travel again. There is another official video for ‘Major Leagues’ which has a boxing theme; I don’t think that one is as good.

#794: John Linnell – Maine

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Another great one from John Linnell’s State Songs. ‘Maine’ seems like an obvious choice for single if it were placed in the hands of any other artist/band/whatever. It wasn’t in this case, and ‘Montana’ was. But ‘Maine’ is a definite ear-pleaser from the second it starts, and something of an ode to bands from the 60s like The Monkees and The Beatles.

I’ve always enjoyed ‘Maine’ just for the way it sounds. Linnell delivers his vocal very calmly over the top of it, and relaxed while these cascading piano lines support the track in 12/8 time. It’s all in triplets. But I’ll try and consider the lyrical content just for you people. It’s something of a love song, but it’s not, and it seems that the main subject is duality (‘the heaven below’, ‘the hell from above’)…. a bit like ‘Hello, Goodbye’ by the Beatles. You see, 60s. There’s also a reference to ‘Daydream Believer’ in there too.

‘Maine’ was released on State Songs in 1999, but had already been recorded five years prior. It was released in a different mix on an EP, and that version is below. It’s all the same goodness. I’ll even put the demo on here too because I like the song so much.

#793: Blur – Magpie

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Originally, ‘Magpie’ by Blur was released as a B-side on their ‘Girls & Boys’ single in 1994. Years and years later in 2012, the band released their whole discography and a few other discs of bonus stuff in a boxset commemorating the 21st anniversary of their first album, Leisure. Each of their albums received a second disc of B-side material. Parklife, the album that ‘Girls & Boys’ can be found on, included ‘Magpie’ in this new form. Just like its A-side counterpart is the main album opener, ‘Magpie’ is the introductory track to the B-side disc.

The song goes back to the days of late 1992, when the band were in the midst of recording their second album Modern Life Is Rubbish. It was worked on again during the Parklife sessions, but Damon Albarn couldn’t get some great lyrics down. In the end, he sang the words of a poem by William Blake called ‘The Poison Tree’. The chorus is made of only one original line, in which the title is sung. If you hear this track and really like, you may think, “Well, why was this left of Parklife?” I don’t have an certain answer that would please you. I would say that it would have probably sounded a bit out of place. If the song had been completed in time for Modern Life though, I think it would have been a shoo-in for the final tracklist.

There was a point in 2013/14 where I was constantly listening to this track. Dave Rowntree’s Bonham-esque drumming performance always got me hyped up. The cymbals and snare sound much louder than everything else in the mix. Plus, it’s almost a monoaural track where the instruments and vocals are all bunched up in the middle. It makes the track sound just a lot busier and messy which I’m into. The rhythm stops and starts in the verses, Alex James plays a very groovy bassline in those. Graham Coxon introduces it all with a soaring guitar riff that plays throughout. And with a minute to go, there’s this huge freakout where Rowntree just goes mad on the drums and Coxon closes things out with a wandering chord progression. It’s a definite ride. It, along with many others, showed me that Blur weren’t too bad on the B-sides either.