Tag Archives: my ipod

#764: Blur – Look Inside America

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Damon Albarn spent a good chunk of the 90s making music specially tailored to the British public. After having a not-so-great tour in the United States and seeing that the music from that country, especially grunge, dominated the UK charts he had a vision to remind people how great, and sometimes bad, it was to be from England with the ultimate aim of being part of the biggest band in their homeland. That vision came true to some degree, but the band found they had taken things too far with their 1995 album The Great Escape. They had also fallen hugely out of favour with the general British audience who had grown to prefer Oasis instead.

Their self-titled album that followed in 1997 was remarkably different, inspired by indie rock bands like Pavement and Sebadoh that guitarist Graham Coxon had been listening to. The music Blur was making in these sessions was a lot more aggresive and Albarn’s lyrics were more earnest and sincere. Noting the gratifying effect that this new American influence was having on the band, Albarn wrote ‘Look Inside America’ which is essentially an apology to the country and a song about learning not to care so much about things. In the track, Albarn sings about the better experiences he has while being in America. A good show was had the previous night, the band got an ad on the rock station KROQ, and he got a happier ending to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall by rewinding the videotape. He seems to have found pleasures in the smallest details and his lyrics, mixed with the uplifting music, result in what is probably the most optimistic track on the whole album.

Ironically, the song sounds the most similar to the material they were making on their Britpop trilogy. Only this time, the strings during the verses play more as a backdrop to Albarn’s vocal and Coxon’s guitar. The groove during the guitar solos nearing the end remind me to ‘Mr Robinson’s Quango’. I think it’s all in done in a tongue-in-cheek way though. Just a personal highlight for me is Alex James’ bass throughout the track, that’s very melodic in itself.

#763: John Lennon – Look at Me

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‘Look at Me’ comes at the perfect time in John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album. The last minute of preceding track ‘Well Well Well’ is him screaming the word ‘well’ until he physically can’t anymore. So when the acoustic guitar and soft electric that play throughout on this one come in, you’ve just got to admire the dynamics.

Lennon does a lot of soul-searching on this album. There’s a lot of pointing out how shit the world actually is on his part too. It’s on ‘Look at Me’ that he brings it all to himself though, asking the listener what they see and what they think of him as if he was standing right in front of them. Though giving it another listen, I think he’s singing to Yoko Ono. She is the only other person he believed in after all.

This is probably the only song that sounds remotely like a Beatles track, and there is good reason. He wrote the song at the same time he wrote many others when he was in India for the group’s meditation retreat. The same guitar picking technique he employed on ‘Dear Prudence’ and ‘Julia’, he uses here. The three note introduction is identical to the beginning of ‘I’m So Tired’. These don’t necessarily make the song better. Just thought some people may want to know. It’s a very meditative track, serene, and very easy to listen to. The melodies from both guitar and Lennon’s vocal never really change and repeat themselves so they’re never very hard to forget. I’m not sure it’s considered a highlight by many from this album, but it is to me.

#762: Green Day – Longview

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‘Longview’ by Green Day has been in my music library for a long time now. The band were probably one of the first that I had a proper phase for when I actually found out about music and started learning new things about it. That was around the time of that American Idiot was released… so that would have made me a nine year old. Kinda crazy. When I was on Green Day’s website back then and trying to listen to more of their stuff, the video for ‘Longview’ was up on there. And this wasn’t when videos would just show up and start playing automatically. Windows Media Player had to open up, and if your connection wasn’t good – a lot of the time would just be spent waiting for the video to stop buffering so it would play fluidly. The way I put it doesn’t make it sound too different from how videos work today. In 2004, it really was. Don’t mean to make this sound like a whole ‘back in my day’ thing. Just gotta state the facts sometimes.

So by repeated watches of the video and listens of the song as a result, ‘Longview’ ingrained itself into my head and the imagery of feathers raining down on Billie Joe Armstrong as he sits still on his sofa enters my thoughts on rare occasions. The track still gives me the same rush it did all those years ago, particularly when those roaring guitars enter during the choruses. And overall it’s just a song that’s filled with great melodies from the famous bassline Mike Dirnt created while high on LSD to the Billie Joe’s wearisome vocal delivery in the verses. The song is about being bored, jacking off and getting high until the days are no longer fun. And you’ll think well that’s a bit juvenile. Sure… but it sounds great.

‘Longview’ was released as the first single from the band’s breakthrough album Dookie. I own a physical copy of that album. Have done since 2005. Something I hold dear. And it’s got Ernie from Sesame Street on the back. Apparently lots of copies exist which don’t have him on there because the record label were afraid of getting sued. The main reason I wanted to get the album was because I had read on a Green Day fansite that another song called ‘Chump’ comes before ‘Longview’ and it transitions into it seamlessly on the album. That transition is a highlight for many a Green Day fan.

#761: The Beatles – Long, Long, Long

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Out of the four George Harrison songs that appear on The Beatles’ White Album, I would probably say that ‘Long, Long, Long’ is my favourite out of them. To that you’ll probably wonder, “Well, what about ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps?’“. And to that I’ll answer, I’ve never really enjoyed that track and I think that what ended up on the album pales in comparison to the demo that appeared on Anthology 3. ‘Piggies’, I like quite a bit, and ‘Savoy Truffle’ I feel neither here nor there about. Harrison wrote at least seven songs that could have been included on the double album, but as long as Lennon-McCartney were together he could never get a proper look in. Thankfully, ‘Long, Long, Long’ did make it considering it was one of the last songs the group made during the album sessions.

Coming in after the noisy ‘Helter Skelter’ on the tracklist, ‘Long, Long, Long’ has a much more dynamic approach, leading off with soothing acoustic verses backed by a ghostly organ played by Paul McCartney which are then followed by emphatic drum fills from Ringo Starr at occasional intervals. The song was written during the time the group were in India in the early part of 1968 for their Transcendental Meditation course and, according to Harrison, is about finding God, believing in him, wondering why did took so long to do so and never letting him go now that he has Him in his life. Though if you’re not into that sort of stuff, you can take it as a standard love song.

The band, excluding John Lennon who was doing God knows what somewhere else, pretty much pulled an all-nighter to get this song done. A session outtake that was made available on the 50th Anniversary issue of the album sees Harrison in somewhat high spirits but you can sense the tired atmosphere. He cracks jokes before the take and goes on a rambling monologue as the take leads to nowhere. He also messes up the intro, but gets right into it after a split second. I’ll link that below. It is certainly a song best suited for the night time or when it’s time to sleep, but the ending where every instrument rises to climactic roar is sure to wake you right up again.

#760: Small Faces – Long Agos and Worlds Apart

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‘Long Agos and Worlds Apart’ is the third track from Small Faces’ 1968 album Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake. For anyone who’s a fan of that album and regularly visits it, this track may not seem as important or substantial as the other tracks that appear alongside it on the record’s first half. Maybe seen as merely a link between predecessor ‘Afterglow of Your Love’ and following track ‘Rene’. It’s always stuck out to me as a highlight though. The track has a swinging rhythm, I get nothing but good feelings when it comes on, and it was written by keyboardist Ian McLagan who, on top of singing, also plays rhythm guitar and bass guitar here.

‘Long Agos’ is a track to do with time and relationships. McLagan sings that he doesn’t want to know about the distant past where this person wasn’t in his life, but if he had all the time in the world then he wouldn’t want to spend it with anyone else. It seems to me like a very earnest and sincere track, very optimistic from its perspective. In the final verse, McLagan then looks to the future where he’s certain that this person will still be in his life and they’ll be able to reminisce about the good old days when they were younger. And on that note, the drums come in and the band members join in with a chant of ‘hip-hip’ and ‘doowaddy-waddy’. There’s a lengthy fade-out to the track followed by a gradual surprise fade-in – which seemed to be a standard production trick in the 60s – where Steve Marriott closes out the track with a guitar solo and McLagan keeps things rolling with a chugging bassline. Sure, the main vocals in the track are finished about halfway through the track but a long instrumental outro is always good to have once in a while.

Unfortunately, this will be the last time I write about Small Faces on here. I have no other songs after this one to write about. If the times were aligned correctly, there would have been two more posts about ‘Afterglow’ and ‘The Hungry Intruder’. Do listen to the group though, they were one of the best of their kind in the 60s. Sadly, three of the members of their classic lineup have passed away. But their music goes on.