Sometimes this song will come up on shuffle when I’m on the underground and I’ll be tempted to grab my phone right out of the pocket and press skip. I was in Year 7 when Panic Prevention came out, very much into my NME/British indie music stage. Jamie T doesn’t really make music like that any more. He has grown, as have I. So when the track starts immediately with him singing the song’s title with his prominent South London accent, it almost makes me wince a little. It just reminds me of that time in 2007 when I was young and doing stupid things.
That all changes when the bass comes in and the track’s groove gets going. It’s hard not to at least nod your head to it. It’s all about that rhythm. It’s at that point when I begin to remember what attracted me to the song in the first place. It’s a song that covers two things in each verse. The first concerning potential love and the loss of it on the dancefloor while on a night out, and the second detailing basic frustration with having a low-paying job and drinking your problems away. It’s very relatable. Very British in its delivery and execution too. Quite easy to see why he was described as a ‘one-man Arctic Monkeys’ during his first few years.
It’s a playful track, one that you can have a laugh to when listening but still appreciate what Jamie talks about and the great music that accompanies his thoughts.
George Harrison was listening to The Byrds’ take of the old folksong ‘The Bells of Rhymney’ one day and took particular interest in the track’s main guitar riff that starts it off and appears every now and again throughout. Liking it so much he decided to use it in one of his own songs that would appear on the next Beatles album. He did send the track to the Byrds thanking them; they were more than thrilled with the result. ‘If I Needed Someone’ was released alongside thirteen other tracks on Rubber Soul nearing Christmas 1965, and was another of Harrison’s compositions that showed his growing maturation as a songwriter.
The song’s prominent jangly guitars was further inspired by the sound The Byrds had pretty much created earlier in the year though the track has The Beatles’ stamp all over it, with soaring three-part harmony vocals and a strong rhythm section featuring a weaving bass guitar line courtesy of Paul McCartney. Harrison stated that the song was a simple love message to his then girlfriend Pattie Boyd who he’d met during the filming of A Hard Day’s Night. A lot of people think it’s about having a sidechick – to put it simply. There are a lot of valid reasons as to why by just reading the lyrics. It’s nothing to get too caught up about though. With the position they were in at the time, they could write about anything.
I assume that ‘If I Needed Someone’ was moderately popular within the group as it was the only Harrison song to be performed live by them before they stopped touring in 1966. George would obviously go on to write many more great songs but at that time… it was most definitely the best one he had put down on paper.
‘If I Fell’ from A Hard Day’s Night – the third album by The Beatles – is the song to show people if they were to ask what was so great about John Lennon and Paul McCartney as a pair of vocalists. Their voices and their melodies are what carry this track for its duration. That wasn’t meant to be a slight at George Harrison or Ringo Starr because they do their thing too. But with Lennon and McCartney’s vocals being the main attraction, there’s no reason for the other two to do anything too fancy.
Paul and John harmonise throughout the entire track bar some parts where they sing the exact same melody and John’s double tracked lead at the start. I usually sing John’s part if ever the song comes into my head. I’ve always seen it as Paul singing the higher harmony and John taking the lead rather than vice versa. It is John’s song after all. Although there is a demo recording of him trying to sing what would become Paul’s vocal, so it may be that that is the main melody. It’s no big deal to be honest.
It’s a love song, similar to a lot of other songs the two wrote during those years in the band, but sees Lennon practically begging this new love to treat him better than the one who came before. He would do this again only five years later in “Don’t Let Me Down“. But in 1964 he was a lot more sweeter about in his approach.
It took me a while to get into Kid A. I recall being very underwhelmed by it. I may have told this before, but I listened to the album for the first time in 2012 or so. I had read about how it was considered to be one of the best albums of all time, critically adored and praised by fans. I heard it through some very tiny, tinny earphones and was left thinking “was that it?”. I revisited a few years later – with proper headphones that time – and realised it was actually very good. Though on that initial listen seven years ago there were obvious highlights to me: “Everything in Its Right Place“, “Optimistic”, and today’s song “Idioteque”.
I had actually heard ‘Idioteque’ before though. Its promo video (see below) aired on MTV2 a few times. The music video was a live take with the track performed in a higher key and live drums, so, in my head, there was an idea of how the song on the album was going to go. Somehow the album version creeps me out a lot more.
It may not be for everyone. It takes about a minute for Yorke to start singing. In fact he only sings for just over two minutes in the time the song lasts for. The lyrics in the track are said to have been picked from some cut up phrases drawn from a hat but somehow fit together to conjure a message of impending doom. He uses his falsetto throughout but the verses and chorus have some of the most memorable melodies of the whole album. The track does a good job of building this anxious feeling despite it being a consisting of Thom Yorke’s vocal, some glitchy percussion, processed noises of what sounds like car keys and other various things. It sounds like the end of the world. Maybe the end of the world that’s shown on the album cover.
It’s been a a few day since the last post. Well, almost two weeks. Sorry about that. I went on holiday to Berlin for a few days and spent the last week just getting myself together. Also, I knew that this song was coming up next and it’s quite a big one. I wasn’t sure how to approach writing about it. Still not too sure now so I’m stalling for time through this paragraph. Though as you can tell from the video above, the track is ‘Idiot Wind’ by Bob Dylan. For a very long time his songs weren’t available on YouTube so I’m very lucky that I can do this now.
Blood on the Tracks is the album on which ‘Idiot Wind’ can be found. Recorded in September and December of 1974 and released in January 1975, it is said to have been influenced by the personal turmoil Dylan was going through at the time – particularly the dissolution of marriage from his then-wife Sara Dylan. Dylan maintained that none of the songs were confessional in any way. Still, it is widely recognised as one of his best efforts and the archetypal “break-up” album.
‘Idiot Wind’ is the arguable emotional centerpiece of the whole album. (I’ve always thought that the album name was taken from lyrics in this song, that’s neither here nor there.) Within it is one of Dylan’s wildest vocal performances – shouting, wailing, groans, they’re all there. So vivid, I can picture him spitting all over the microphone with the way he delivers some words. He’ll drag out a syllable to make it rhyme with one that’s come before, he’ll stuff a whole line of words into a few seconds in time to the rhythm before leaping to a soaring yell. It’s very dynamic, and definitely the most engaging vocal take out of all the Dylan songs I’ve come to like. Every line is evocative and visually descriptive in their own ways though compared to his surreal and cryptic lyricism of the 60s, his words here (and throughout the album) are honest and sincere which makes this track all the more brutal to take.
Dylan’s voice really carries the song’s momentum, but it is also aided by this loud Hammond organ (also played by Bob) that pops in and out of the track at various points. You can hear it in your left ear. There’s something about that organ that makes everything seem so much more poignant when listening to the lyrics and music. Without that organ, it would be another acoustic-based performance on the album. That instrument takes it to another level.
The track is one of frustration, anger, and regret spread out for almost eight minutes in eight striking verses and its cathartic, biting chorus. It all seems to capture Bob at this sort of breaking point which makes for a real enthralling listen. It’s not so much a song as it is a journey. A bit melodramatic, that statement, but that’s just how I feel.
Below is another version of the song that was made during the album sessions. Whereas the official version emphasises the song’s anger, this version emphasises its sadness.
The Music in My Ears 