Tag Archives: my

#1272: Graham Coxon – Standing on My Own Again

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I know for sure that an official music video exists for this track. It’s just that it’s nowhere to be found on YouTube and seems to be wiped off the face of the internet. By seeing it what felt like every day for a period in 2006 on MTV2, I became very familiar with Graham Coxon’s ‘Standing on My Own Again’ very quickly. It was released as the first single from his then forthcoming album Love Travels at Illegal Speeds. As I write to you, I’m starting to wonder whether this was the first song by him that I had ever heard, or if it was ‘Freakin’ Out’. Maybe I answer that question in the post for that track. To keep things mysterious, I won’t go and find out. But I do know for sure that I didn’t know who Blur was, and so for a bit I just recognised Coxon as this solo artist who was just doing his thing. Doing it well too.

In Coxon’s words, the song builds a scene where the narrator’s standing on a grey and muddy beach looking out at a ship that’s sinking and likening its situation to a relationship where neither person involved are enjoying themselves anymore. You think of that and hear the lyrics, or read ’em, and it all makes perfect sense. It’s much better watching Coxon explain it all himself. Combine that with a charging performance led by striding guitars and a wailing vocal performance, it makes for some very cathartic listening. Coxon performs with what was his usual live band in the music video, but I didn’t find out until quite recently that in the studio he played all the instruments himself. I always knew him to be a great guitarist. He ain’t to shabby on the bass guitar and drums as well.

Yeah, listening to this song will always take me back to those days in 2006 when I was pretty much sitting in front of the TV all day watching music videos and seeing this song on a regular basis. I seem to remember this and ‘All These Things I Hate’ by Bullet for My Valentine were usually played within a video or two of each other. And looking at the Wiki pages for both songs, they were both released in February of that year. At least my memory’s still somewhat kicking. Love Travels at Illegal Speeds will be out for 20 years in 2026, so hopefully the videos for ‘Standing…’ and fellow single ‘You & I’ show their faces for the anniversary. Until then, here’s the making of the video for the former, just to show you I’m not going crazy about a magical video that may or may not be real.

#1241: They Might Be Giants – Someone Keeps Moving My Chair

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‘Someone Keeps Moving My Chair’ opens up the second half of They Might Be Giants’ album Flood, their brand-new record for 1990. My honest opinion, out of the first four LPs by the band featuring just the two Johns playing everything bar the rhythm section, Flood is maybe my least favourite. But it’s still really, really good. I just happen to like fewer songs from there compared to those from the other three. But when the songs are great on Flood, they’re instantaneous likes. At least they were to me, as was the case for today’s song in the hot seat.

‘…My Chair’ is a John Linnell-led TMBG composition and, in his words, “notes the exaggerated importance of petty concerns when everything else is going haywire.” And to lay this notion out, the song is a tale about a Mr. Horrible who seems to be idly going about his day while unnamed characters are desperately trying to get him to talk to ‘the ugliness men’ who are the phone. These no-names are intentionally attempting to annoy Mr. Horrible, being all up in his face, asking him a bunch of inane questions. But their antics are of no matter to Mr. Horrible, because the thing that’s really on his mind and taking up his time is that somebody insists on moving his chair behind his back. And there’s the ‘petty concern’ Linnell refers to.

The tune’s a lively, upbeat number, featuring one of John Linnell’s more nasally vocal performances which add so much character to the proceedings. The words and delivery wouldn’t hit as hard without that aspect of his voice. Same for all the others songs he takes the lead on. There’s something about those opening keyboard chords that make the track sound fixed in its time. Reminds me of some backing music to a ’90s shopping mall advert or montage in a TV show. I’m convinced that the guitar rundown during the “Mr. Horrible says I don’t mind…” part is lifted from Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Thunder Road’. But that doesn’t affect my enthusiasm for the song. You get the melody and the quality, all in a matter of 2-and-a-half minutes. It’s a good time.

#1196: Fall Out Boy – She’s My Winona

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Fall Out Boy have been together longer now since reforming in 2013, than they were after initially forming in 2001 and breaking up sort of acrimoniously eight years later. I can’t say any of the albums released in this second stint have had quite the lasting effect for me as those, I guess, “iconic” ones they did in the first. Mainly I’m referring to that trilogy (you could call it that) of 2005’s From Under the Cork Tree, 2007’s Infinity on High and 2008’s Folie à Deux. It’s the latter of the three where today’s track can be found. Fall Out Boy aren’t the band who are considered to have classics in the canon of pop-punk, alternative rock, whatever you want to name the genre. But if they were to, Folie… would be my nomination. Out of those three “best” albums, it’s definitely the one that holds up. Still strong after almost 16 years.

And I can sort of remember listening through the record for that first time. I think I would have been 14, Folie… would have been out for a few months at the time Popped the disc into the computer, got quite hyped after the celebratory opener which abruptly but effectively transitioned into ‘I Don’t Care’, the “comeback” single that everyone knew by that point. ‘She’s My Winona’ begins right after that, flowing with the same tempo and starting on the pickup of what would be the next measure of ‘I Don’t Care’. So there, something was established. This was an album filled with transitions where songs would start while the previous one was still ending, or the beginning of track would actually begin in the one that preceded it etc. And I was a sucker for those kinds of things even then. ‘She’s My Winona’ carries on the pumping, upbeat energy of the album’s opening moments, filled to the brim with vocal adlibs where there would maybe usually be empty spaces in the music. Patrick Stump really wanted to let you know that he had some singing chops on this album.

On the Genius page for the track, Pete Wentz actually added in personal annotations behind his thinking for a number of its lyrics. So if you want to get the verified, solidified meanings behind those, go right ahead and check it out. My work here’s done pretty much. But if you want to get my take, I’ve come to think of ‘Winona’ as Wentz’s general take on life, at the time of writing, and also something of a mission statement. He explains it in his annotations, so there’s not much reason to get into much depth here. The reason He he gives as to why the song is named the way it is can be found on there too. The explanation kind of opened my eyes a little while also leaving me a bit confused. ‘Winona’ can be anything you want it to be, and to him ‘Winona’ is reality, but he’s his own Winona. That’s what he said. I want to say I understand. Must be a lyricist thing. Their minds work in ways that I’ll never get.

#1169: The Who – See My Way

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Early 2010s I was discovering The Who. What started out as a small interest in watching their music videos on YouTube turned into me downloading a few of their albums and becoming a huge fan overall. Way I remember it, I started with The Who Sell Out onto Quadrophenia, Who’s Next, The Who by Numbers and then Who Are You. Must have been weary about Tommy for some reason, ’cause I didn’t listen to that till much later. But after finishing Who Are You and knowing that it was Keith Moon’s last album on drums and things were never the same after, it made sense to go back in their discography. This is all where the song ‘See My Way’ comes in.

‘See My Way’ is a song on the band’s second album, A Quick One, and is one of the rare, rare, rare occasions where lead singer Roger Daltrey is credited as a songwriter in the band’s list of albums. In fact, it might be the only one. At least with no help from anyone else. And you can sort of tell that it’s not the kind that Pete Townshend would write, or even John Entwistle. You’ll come across simple rhymes like way/day (“way” is rhymed with itself three times in the first verse alone), you/do/true, bad/mad. It goes on that way. Nothing too much to get you thinking like Townshend would usually aim to do with his pen game. Some may find it rather forgettable. But that’s not me. I’ve always got a kick from it.

The track’s message is a bit like The Beatle’s ‘We Can Work It Out’. Just without the “Life is very short for fussing and fighting bit.” Like Paul McCartney, Roger Daltrey wants this other person to concede defeat, possibly in an argument or something, it’s not very specific, and as they’re too stubborn to do so, he’s not afraid to cut ties with them and to come back around until they finally admit that they were wrong in the first place. Bit of a selfish tone to it, but it’s set to this galloping rhythm, achieved by replacing some of Keith Moon’s drums with cardboard boxes and a returning melodic phrase (first by vocals, then by horns) that make it all very catchy, indeed. Sounds like Daltrey and Entwistle are singing together on this one too, and I think you hear the latter’s more in the ‘Tried so hard’ sections. So that’s nice too.

#1156: Simon & Garfunkel – Save the Life of My Child

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A pre-Spotify/streaming service website used to exist back in the day. We7.com it was called. It allowed you to play a bunch of music in full, for free, without registration. And I came across it in early 2009, I think because Green Day’s 21st Century Breakdown had just been released and there it was, available to listen to, out in the open. The website doesn’t exist anymore, but when it did I got to hear a lot of the music I listen to now for the first time. And that’s where Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Save the Life of My Child’ comes in. The track played on the site’s internet radio feature one day. Though I’m sure I would have heard ‘The Sound of Silence’ way before then, or ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’, I do believe it’s ‘Save…’ that was properly the first S&G track I’d fully paid attention with headphones at hand.

And the fat synthesizer that opens the song up is not what I was expecting on that initial hearing. I wonder how listeners back in 1968 would have felt too. It’s such a contrast compared to the usual acoustic numbers the duo did, and especially coming right after the light introduction that opens Bookends, the album on which ‘Save the Life…’ can be found. The track is one of the very first ever to utilise the Moog synthesizer, used predominantly for the bassline, and Paul Simon chugs away on the acoustic guitar while singing from the different perspectives of different people witnessing a boy sitting on the ledge of a high building, contemplating suicide. It’s a busy, busy scene. Passersby speculate, newspapers are rolling out with the story, the cops are called, and when one does arrive, they offer no considerable help in the slightest. Spotlights are put on the kid who, in that moment, decides to fall. That’s how the song ends.

I’ve always felt that the song is in some way providing a wider commentary than what’s being portrayed within. I wasn’t around in the ’60s, but from what I’ve gleaned by just reading around, things were much different in the America of 1968 than it was in ’67. The summer of love had long gone, and people wanted politicians to answer for poor decisions. Looking to musicians to provide some solidarity in their art. It was a general time of unrest. And that unrest is very much captured in the performance and general feel of ‘Save the Life…’. The song’s bridge includes an unsettling use of the duo’s aforementioned ‘Sound of Silence’ which, in context, I think symbolises a kind of momentary yearning for those young and innocent days before being abruptly brought back into reality, with the state of affairs of the then-current days being summed up in the final lines as the boy falls to the ground: “Oh, my grace, I got no hiding place.”