“Here I Am” was the first single by American punk rock band The Explosion, and appeared as the third track on their second album Black Tape. Like the majority of tracks on that album it focuses on a theme of greed and corruption in our society, and here it is the police who are the subject matter. Though the narrator wonders on ‘the golden age’ of yesterday when things weren’t so bad, he soon realises that those times are gone and that the present is what he should really be focusing on.
Being a punk rock song there is nothing but guitars, bass and drums delivered to you, but it’s quite different in that the music is very melodic and addictive to listen to. The lead guitar riff catches your attention straight away – it is buried in the mix a bit on the album version but it is at the forefront of the mix in the video – and lead singer Matt Hock’s raspy vocals are a perfect fit to the song’s elating instrumentation.
This song sound familiar to you? Did you own Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, Burnout 3: Takedown, and Pixar’s Cars on the PlayStation 2? There’s your answer.
Skiving from a tedious Apple meeting on a sunny day in April, George decided to chill at good friend Eric Clapton’s house. The joy of being there and not at work inspired him to pick up an acoustic guitar and write “Here Comes the Sun”, a song that would become one of his, and the group’s, most beloved songs. Only he, Paul, and Ringo play on the song as John was in the hospital recovering from a motorcycle accident, but every Beatles fan will know that not all of them were needed to makesweetmusic.
As the listener ponders on what they’ve heard during the abrupt ending to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)“, George’s acoustic guitar peeks into the soundscape like a beam of light amidst the darkness and begins to deliver the song’s delightful introductory riff before being further joined by a soothing Moog synthesizer and orchestra when Harrison starts his vocal take. It is not long after that that Paul and Ringo give the track its driving rhythm and provide a solid backbone to the track’s cheerfulness and optimism. Filled to the brim with sweet melodies provided by almost instrument bar drums, “Here Comes the Sun” is a perfect example of a three-minute wonder. A great pop rock song if ever there was one.
It took much longer than it should have, but it was during the making of Abbey Road that John Lennon and Paul McCartney finally realised that George Harrison was not as below them in terms of songwriting as they had regarded him to be during the years they were together. At long last. The damage had already been done by that point, though it was fitting that on their last recorded material, George really showed what he was about.
Excuse the quality of the music video above; YouTube had only been existing for a year when the video was uploaded and couldn’t handle the same standards as it does today.
The Young Knives are a three-piece indie rock band consisting of brothers Henry and Thomas “The House of Lords” Dartnall on guitar and bass respectively, and Oliver Askew on the drums. They were quite the thing in 2006 (not as much as… say Arctic Monkeys were but were still a group that got people talking) releasing a string of enjoyable singles which led up to their debut album Voices of Animals and Men in August of the same year. Took me a while to find out who the band actually was. The original video for the band’s first single “The Decision” was played on MTV at sporadic times but the little animation that showed you the song’s name and artist never showed up. It also made me assume that The House of Lords was the band’s lead singer. Viewing the first video for “Weekends and Bleak Days” and “Here Comes the Rumour Mill” showed that he, in fact, was not.
And, if you didn’t see from the title, the second song is what I will be talking about today. “Here Comes the Rumour Mill” was The Young Knives’ second single released early 2006, and is about the paranoia and mistrust brought about by constant gossiping and rumours. The track is driven by a constantly moving guitar line that intertwines with Henry Dartnall’s vocals amidst a solid rhythm section before the power chords are brought out for a rip-roaring chorus in which Dartnall leaps an octave or so, shouting about the uncontrollable spread of the lies that are spouted by people. I think the track is another one of those that sound so much better when seen with its music video. It’s one that brilliant captures what the song is about visually, and what better way to exhibit it than through having the lead singer aggressively yell with huge bug-like eyes towards the camera, seeing hallucinations brought on by his mental condition? It’s a wild listen, much more so than compared to “The Decision”, and was the track that convinced me that the group was worth listening to. Most definitely my favourite song of theirs.
It’s a shame they gradually faded from the airwaves, but they’re still going strong. Their most recent album Sick Octave came out in late 2013. Still, it’s their first album that I feel most connected with. Takes me back to a simple times.
Although “Creepin’ Up the Backstairs” had its own music video made to promote the Fratellis EP in early 2006, “Henrietta” was released as the band’s first official single a few months later, and was later placed as the opener on their debut album Costello Music. And for good reason, the first word the listener hears is a welcoming “Hello!” said by singer Jon Lawler before the track leaps into a disco-style groove accompanied by the standard guitars, bass, drums, and some distorted horns to give the sound an extra ‘oomph’.
Henrietta is a lady who the three members have grown quite attached to, and the song is something of a letter or a notice to try and get her attention. They are not the most romantic of people, and the comic self-deprecation shows that they don’t think too highly of themselves either. But in the end they know that they’ll be able to give a better time than her ‘animal’ husband. The band wish for her to leave him behind, and live with them at Costello Music – a place which I haven’t been able to locate, but led me to believe the phrase would be the title of the then forthcoming album.
All in all, the track does a great job as an album opener. It has the exciting, and welcoming tone that gives you an idea of what the band is all about and leaves you wanting more in the process.
After reading a magazine in which Pete Townshend of The Who described the band’s most recent single “I Can See for Miles” as the ‘loudest, and dirtiest track [they’d] ever done’, Paul McCartney took it upon himself to listen to it and decide whether the track lived up to the adjectives. For him, it did not. Finding it too ‘straight’ and ‘sophisticated’, he wrote a song in response that would really get the people going and to also hush the critics who only saw him as the one who wrote the ballads and sillier songs in The Beatles. The result? “Helter Skelter”, possibly the most manic track the group committed to tape and found on the group’s self-titled album from 1968.
The four men from Liverpool give it to you raw for the four and a half minutes the song lasts for. Whilst Ringo pounds on the crash cymbals and provides regular drum fills here and there for the track’s duration, John provides an ugly, murky sounding but appropriate bassline with George and Paul play feedback-laden rhythm guitars present but which also take a backseat in the song’s mix. Really, the highlight of the track is McCartney’s wild vocals; he melodically shouts and howls throughout, falling into fits of laughter at some points as he fails to control himself. The production is that unpolished that subtle things that would be left out on any other track are left in, such as Paul’s random utterances (2:57-3:09) and John randomly shouting and chanting “Fanny Craddock” before baaing like a sheep (2:37-2:55). They’re very strange, but only add to its chaotic atmosphere.
The version you hear on the album was the last of a staggering eighteen takes, and even if they wanted to try it one more time the chance that they would get it as perfect as they did would be quite slim. Plus, the blisters on Ringo’s fingers would have hindered him from trying one more time anyway.
