So on the day that couples are loving it up, surely to go on a date somewhere or other to look in each other’s eyes and display how much they care with an act of affection, the song that follows the last post is The Beatles’ “I’m a Loser”. Mainly written by John Lennon, the track is about the end of a relationship and maintaining a happy appearance whilst feeling like you’re dying inside. This one is for the lonely people. The irony hasn’t been lost here.
Appearing as the second number on Beatles for Sale, an album where the band started incorporating more introspective elements into their repertoire, “I’m a Loser” is just one of the tracks that were to be influenced by Lennon’s meeting with Bob Dylan in the summer of 1964. The track is carried by its prominent acoustic rhythm and folk elements that The Beatles were to further develop down the line.
Recovering from the emotional exhaustion caused by bandmate Kurt Cobain’s death in 1994, Dave Grohl decided to go into the studio and record some songs that he had written and kept on the down low whilst still performing with Nirvana. It took him about a week to do so in October of the same year, recording all the instrumental parts himself (bar one guitar track) and singing every word from the heart.
The debut album by Foo Fighters has always been my favourite of the band’s….. it’s the most raw and possibly impulsive that Dave Grohl has been in the entirety of the group’s active years. He’s admitted that a lot of the lyrics don’t make sense, and his vocals are double-tracked and lathered with effects in some places because he was insecure about his vocal abilities. But that all adds to its charm.
‘I’ll Stick Around’ was the second single released from the album but was the first Foo Fighters track to get the music video treatment (as can be seen above), allowing everyone to see the drummer from Nirvana’s new band. In it, he, Pat Smear (guitar), Nate Mendel (bass) and William Goldsmith (drums) are confronted by a massive 3D HIV virus. The track itself is meant to be a ferocious scathing attack on Cobain’s widow Courtney Love, who Grohl hadn’t felt the greatest of ‘love’ for up to that point. In fact the HIV virus in the video was initially conceived to be a ‘bloated, charred, inflated girl representing Courtney’ before management got in the way.
The track is a powerful one. From its pummeling opening drum roll, it hardly lets up. Even in the “calmer” verses, there’s a sinister tone to the surrounding guitar and menacing groove before it all builds up into the raucous refrains. I can barely make out what Grohl is singing in those verses, though the message of the track is really summed up in its two most clear lines: “I don’t owe you anything” and “I’ll stick around, and learn that all that came from it”. The latter arriving in the song’s cathartic last minute and repeated to oblivion before it comes to a dramatic close. It’s a great tune.
So it goes that ‘I’ll Follow the Sun’, the fifth track on the Beatles’ second album of 1964 Beatles for Sale, had been one that Paul McCartney had saved up since he was sixteen up to that point. That album was created during a time when the group were constantly touring and barely had any free time to themselves; when they did have that time, it would be used for working and going into the studio and recording more songs. McCartney and Lennon didn’t have as much time to write original material together too, so the former pulled this particular track out to get things moving forward.
‘I’ll Follow the Sun’ sees McCartney writing about the end of one relationship and looking on to the next one with a sense of optimism and wonder, whilst the lady who is left behind doesn’t know what she’s lost until it really hits. It’s a good tune with a great melody as is typical in a lot of McCartney songs. Very mellow with subtle knee-slapping percussion from Ringo Starr and a rhythm guitar in the right channel that has such a smooth tone to it, either played by Harrison or McCartney. In comparison to the ‘shake-it-up-baby-now’ good time music of their previous albums, ‘I’ll Follow the Sun’ – and Beatles for Sale as a whole – signified a change in musical style that would only continue to evolve as the group continued to work together.
Here’s Paul playing the song live with his band in 2005, ’cause why not.
‘I Will Dare’ is the first track on The Replacements’ third album Let It Be, released in 1984. The album itself was a departure from the straight-up two-minute three-chords punk the band had been making up to that point since forming in ’79, and featured significantly more ambitious musical arrangements and lyrical themes explored by main lyricist and guitar man Paul Westerberg. First time I heard Let It Be I will say I was 18 (may have been 17) and looking for new albums to hear. Not new as as in what was recent, but new things to stop me listening to the same old same old. It was okay. Five years have passed and I still hold this opinion. It’s cool, though a lot of the songs never really stuck with me.
‘I Will Dare’ though is one of the best album openers ever. Got slick melodies from the get-go and throughout, starting with Westerberg’s jangly two-chord rhythm guitar pattern that leads into the track’s main riff provided by lead guitarist Bob Stinson. Chris Mars’ drums pound throughout, particularly on the verses, and Tommy Stinson does his thing on the bass with that little climbing and falling line he does in the choruses. It’s a strong band performance throughout this whole thing, everyone is on point. Even R.E.M.’s Peter Buck provides a frilly guitar solo which caps it all off. A perfect start, man.
I also think that the music is the perfect backdrop to the song’s lyrics – a older man has a hush-hush relationship with a younger woman and is ready to take on anything if she’s willing to do the same. I can always visualize some sort of music video set in nighttime 80s New York with two people acting as the couple and the band singing somewhere unrelated. The lyrics aren’t even that descriptive, kind of repetitive too, but conjures up a lot of imagery.
Even if Let It Be as an album didn’t do so much for me, I still went through a small ‘Replacements’ phase….. It was around the time that the band was to play live on American television in the same studio where they had been banned from playing since 1986, after that ‘infamous’ appearance on Saturday Night Live. Came to realise that in their prime, they were a force to be reckoned with. I prefer a lot of their live performances to their studio cuts though. Below are some of my favourites, including the aforementioned SNL show if you’ve never seen it*. Take care.
*20/05/2020 – Those videos aren’t on YouTube anymore.
Out of all the love songs The Beatles ever did – and they wrote a lot of those – there’s something about ‘I Will’ that strikes home more than any other. No loud electric guitars are present, nor can any drums by Ringo Starr be heard in the sub-two minutes the tack lasts for. Instead, it’s an acoustic jam with bongos and cymbals and Paul performing the song’s ‘bass’ with his mouth.
It’s all very cutesy, But it comes from a pure place. John and Paul could always write a good song about love out the wazoo during the Beatle years – at least when they properly wrote songs together – though here it seems that Paul has really found the one, assuming that the song is about a lady, and that’s cool.
Initially I don’t think I really cared for this track that much when I first heard it. Must have been about seven/getting to eight years ago now. It comes near the end of the first CD of The Beatlesand there are so many memorable tracks that precede it…. it just didn’t make too much of an impression. Couldn’t tell you when/where/how it happened, though I must have heard it one day and it all clicked. It’s a good melody, you can’t deny it.
The Music in My Ears 