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#889: Mac DeMarco – My Kind of Woman

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Upon hearing Salad Days and loving it pretty much instantly when it was first released in March/April 2014, my next objective was to find more music of Mac DeMarco. Luckily 2 had been existing as his first proper album for two years by that point, so I got straight to listening. To this day I’ve held the opinion that 2 isn’t as great as Salad Days. I don’t think it’s as consistent. But it’s highlights are some of DeMarco’s best songs. ‘Cooking Up Something Good’ and ‘Dreamin” are tracks I hold dear to my soul. And then there’s ‘My Kind of Woman’ which admittedly I wasn’t really into those first few times, but with more listens I had to welcome it with open arms.

Like all of his other songs, DeMarco sings with that easygoing tone that so many listeners love ‘im for. So welcoming in its delivery with a relaxing melody, and when that first “Oh, baby” comes in, I mean, you just gotta carry on listening to see how it all unfolds. What happens is a song detailing a person who’s too overcome by how much they like a woman and how she actually reciprocates those feelings and sticks around. It’s a song about this unbelievable wonder when a relationship seems too good to be true. And it’s all provided in two verses and two choruses, something that’s another threaded throughout a lot of Mac’s songs. He hardly ever writes a bridge, but when he writes music like this he doesn’t really have to.

What other things could I talk about… I guess, apart from those guitars with that jangling tone that was a signature of 2/Salad Days era Mac, that organ/keyboard on the left that mimics the lead guitar on the right is quite cool. There’s something that sounds a bit off about it. Like it’s sort of detuning but still managing to stay in key. Kinda gives the track a sort of unsettling feel. Don’t ask me what’s going on in that video though; your guess is as good as mine.

#888: Red Hot Chili Peppers – My Friends

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Though Red Hot Chili Peppers are sometimes known as that group with the guy who kinda raps nonsense and sings about California all the time, you can’t deny that Anthony Kiedis comes up with some good melodies to his lyrics. He may have some assistance from his bandmates. I could see John Frusciante being heavily involved in that front. But even when Frusciante wasn’t there for that period in the ’90s where he left the band and became a full-on junkie, the band still delivered – albeit with a new guitarist in Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction, and a new heavy rock/less funk change in sound that arrived as a result.

‘My Friends’ is a track from One Hot Minute, the only album of the group’s to feature Navarro as a guitarist, released in 1995. It was also released as a single from there, hence its music video above. That is the original video, but upon seeing it Anthony Kiedis decided he didn’t like it, so another one was made. I’ll embed that below. The original though is how I came across the song in the first place. Was probably 10 or something and it showed on MTV2. I mean, there was that time that Stadium Arcadium was coming soon, so it only made sense that everyone prepared by showing Red Hot Chili Pepper videos throughout the day. Even though the video may have been a bit strange to me, the song sounded good. Kiedis sings about being there for his friends, present and past, whenever they’re at their lowest, loving them, and letting them know that he’s been in their place.

I listened through One Hot Minute once a while ago. From looking around I’ve gathered that it’s a bit of an outsider in the discography of RHCP in terms of appreciation. Mainly ’cause of the lack of Frusciante and the whole change in sound and everything. I probably couldn’t judge with that much merit, but I remember feeling like it went on for ages. Though the singles from there are up there with some of the band’s best songs, I feel. ‘My Friends’ is definitely a dark horse. Just how I feel, you know.

#887: They Might Be Giants – My Evil Twin

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A lot of times when I’ve posted about They Might Be Giants, I state which out of the two Johns (Flansburgh and Linnell) wrote the track I’m discussing at that particular moment. “Oh, this was written by Linnell”, “Flansburgh wrote this one”, etcetera, etcetera. Well, ‘My Evil Twin’ – the fourth track on the band’s fourth album – stands out from many other songs of They as an actual sort of collaboration between the two. John Linnell came up with a bunch of music, made it all MIDI, and then gave the disc to John Flansburgh who provided the melody and lyrics on top. The result was a peppy, quite hard-rocking number about the misadventures with an ‘evil twin’ who may or may not exist.

This track’s a confusing one. Who is the evil twin that Flansburgh sings about? The lyrics describe the good times that he and this twin have, playing hangman until the early hours of the morning, vandalizing their neighbour’s property. Just a couple of examples. Then they sleep through the day and carry on their mischief in the evenings. This closeness between the two scares Flansburgh because it almost seems like they’re one person, but then at the end it’s revealed he’s never actually met the twin. Maybe it’s an imaginary friend, and it isn’t meant to be that difficult to figure out. I listened to a podcast the other day that suggested that the track is possibly about John Linnell in a secretive, puzzling way. Linnell does harmonise throughout, and then he takes the lead vocal for a short moment on the ‘My Twin’ bridge… maybe Linnell is the twin and he’s been existing all along. It’s all a bit up in the air.

Produced at a time when the duo were possibly thinking of ditching their synthetic rhythm section and getting a proper backing band to play with them live, the track sounds like it’s performed by an a four-piece band even though that’s not the case. The drums sound like an actual drum kit. The bass sounds like a proper bass guitar. But then you listen to some off the rhythms those drums pull off and realise it would be incredibly difficult for a real person to replicate. If they did, they would need a lot of stamina. But I would say it’s that combination of the real-sounding rhythm section with the TMBG approach that makes the song stand out just a bit. Same goes for many other songs from that album. Though that’s for another time.

#886: The White Stripes – My Doorbell

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I can kind of remember The White Stripes bringing out Get Behind Me Satan in 2005. Kind of. ‘Blue Orchid’ was the first single. Its video was something of the big exclusive on MTV2. It was freaky looking, the track had a disgusting riff. It was like, “Yeah, The White Stripes are back. And Jesus, this track is something else.” Of course, I wasn’t really thinking along those specific lines at the time. I was 10. And because I didn’t listen to albums like that back then, once the ‘Orchid’ single was released and it charted in the UK, I didn’t hear much from The White Stripes for a few months maybe. Then the video for ‘My Doorbell’ started showing, and I was left wondering how they had made such a U-turn in sound for their next single. In fact, when I saw the video I thought it was a special song written for a children’s show or something. But no, this was also on the album.

It’s only quite recently that I got into properly got into this one, but its hook and those piano vamps have stuck with me for years. Jack White’s been thinking about his doorbell and is wondering when you’re gonna ring it. Sing that with a good melody, and people will sing it back to you at festivals. But now I’ve come to appreciate it for its general bluesy feel, and that thumping rhythm section courtesy of Meg White. The lyrics I’ve never paid much attention to – may annoy some, others may not care – but I’ve come to really like how Jack White just delivers his words. He doesn’t really enunciate his words, but sings them in such a way that they sort of make themselves clearer after repeated listens. Apparently, he said in concert that the track is about an old man waiting for death, and so when’s he asking when his doorbell is going to be rang he’s actually asking when is death gonna come knocking so I can join other friends who have passed on. Kinda sad. But quite humorous when you think about that and then watch the music video.

It appears that this’ll be the last White Stripes song in this whole series thing that I write about. I’ve known a lot of White Stripes tracks, though I’ve never been that huge of a fan. I do appreciate them quite a bit though. I wrote about another of their tracks in the past. Two of them actually, one is quite hidden. But here is a list of other White Stripes tracks that I think are crackers: ‘Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground’, ‘I Think I Smell a Rat’, ‘Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine’, and ‘The Denial Twist’. That’s all she wrote.

#885: Eminem ft. Hailie Jade – My Dad’s Gone Crazy

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I didn’t get to listening to The Eminem Show in full until I was 14. ‘Course I knew who Eminem was. You couldn’t miss him in the ’00s. Except for that time where he didn’t make music for a while. But I didn’t appreciate albums so much then as I did as time went on. And when I saw the tracklist on Wikipedia, I want to say I had the same reaction to those who bought the CD when it came out in stores in 2002. “My Dad’s Gone Crazy… featuring Hailie Jade? Nah, he didn’t get Hailie on a track with him?” Well, he did. The Hailie. His daughter who he shouted out, referred to in so many of his tracks, the apple of his eye was appearing alongside her father on a song. And it wasn’t as eyeroll-inducing as I thought it would be. Eminem is his (back then) usual comical, cursing, witty self. It just so happens that his daughter’s on there too.

Inspired by an out of the blue moment where Hailie said the title phrase one time when she was in the studio with her father, the track, I think, encapsulates all of Eminem’s alter egos/rapping styles, whatever you want to call them, into this track. In three verses, Em makes some not so subtle references to 9/11 – which at that time had only happened a few months prior – raps about hurting people with chainsaws, having sex with Dr. Dre with no protection, how much his mother talked nonsense, and, generally, how he wouldn’t have to rile the public up with the things he raps about if people just left him alone. Hailie comes in at times with some adlibbing and suitable sound effects. Whenever she appears, she’s upfront in the mix just to make it clear that, yes, she is on this. That may annoy some people. I’ve become used to it myself. I’m always glad though that it was never this schmaltzy daddy-daughter song. It’s one where Em asks for Hailie as he seems to be going on a downward spiral, which is kind of hilarious.

I think the last verse on here must be one of Em’s most underrated. As the last song on the final album of that classic trilogy, all of those lines truly summarise why Eminem had an effect on all of those who were listening to his songs/albums/anything that he was coming out with up to that point. Through it all there was the one person who he was doing it for, which was his daughter, and now here she was on a song with him at the peak of his powers. It’s beautiful stuff when you think about it. It really never was the same for Em after this particular album, as has been well-documented. Looking back, there’s something a bit bittersweet about it all. It is what it is.