Tag Archives: name

#1166: Noisettes – Scratch Your Name

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This post may just mark the biggest amount of time between two posts by the same artist/band. The last time I wrote about Noisettes was in 2013, the year this blog started, when I was initially using Blogspot/Blogger. At that point, a year had already passed since the band had released their last album. It’s now been 12, and it doesn’t look like they’ll be returning anytime soon. But the initial trio-turned duo made a mark in the UK at least. In the aforementioned post for the last Noisettes song I wrote about, ‘Bridge to Canada’ (it’s a good one), I dedicate a whole paragraph to ‘Scratch Your Name’ – today’s song. A lot of points I make in that old paragraph still stand though. But if you could refrain from reading it there so I can sort of reuse it here, that’d be great.

‘Scratch Your Name’ was indeed the very first song I heard by the band, and yes, it was through seeing its music video (above) on MTV2 one day. Unlike the smart-aleck 18-year-old I was back then, I don’t think the video is rubbish at all and I was probably just exaggerating to try and get a laugh or something. They did re-release the song as a single some time after though and got a fancier video in the process (below). But I do remember thinking it was very cool to see a Black lady lead singer in a band on the channel for once. Shingai Shoniwa had some soul in that voice, and she rocked too. The video showing up was probably the first time a Black woman-fronted indie rock band appeared on my screen in my experience of watching MTV2, and I’d been frequently visiting that place for at least two years by that time. Was 2006, started watching MTV2 in 2004, so that would make sense.

Like I also said in that old post, and agree with too, the track is a ‘proper rocker’. It starts off with one riff, plays another under the verses before exploding into the power chords for the choruses. Rinse and repeat, it’s a thumbs-up performance. I really like the harmonies between Shoniwa and guitarist Dan Smith as they sing the hook, ‘Scratch your name into the fabric of this world before you go/The skin will tear under the pressure, make it deep so it always shows.’ That’s an encouraging message if ever there was one. Make a name for yourself, make an impact in this world, with your life, in other people’s. It’s something to take on board. The track can be found as the second song on the band’s debut album, What’s the Time Mr. Wolf?, from 2007. I once had a physical copy of that album, but gave it away. There’ll be another song from it that I’ll be revisiting on here.

#1002: Fall Out Boy – Our Lawyer Made Us Change the Name of This Song So We Wouldn’t Get Sued

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Another album opener, ‘Our Lawyer…’ is the first track on Fall Out Boy’s From Under the Cork Tree. It’s an album that many a fan of the band’s hold dear to their hearts. Has the well-loved classics like ‘Dance, Dance’, ‘A Little Less Sixteen Candles…’ and of course, ‘Sugar, We’re Goin’ Down’. Can’t say I hold the same regard. If there is a best Fall Out Boy, it’s clearly Folie à Deux. Cork Tree for me sounds a bit dated in comparison. A lot of the sentiments on there I just can’t vibe with anymore compared to when I was, let’s say, 13. But it sets off with a great start and a whole lot of self-deprecation and sarcasm, which I’m always all in for – especially when it’s done right.

“Brothers and sisters put this record down / Take my advice ’cause we are bad news” are the opening lines to this track, and for the rest of the track Patrick Stump sings bassist Pete Wentz’s lyrics which further go onto to tell the listeners the myriad ways in which the band will let them down and the superficial things that they’re good for – like celebrity status and fashion sense – that don’t really amount to anything properly meaningful. The track is set to a swinging tempo, but there’s an aggression and heaviness to the way the guitars are played that enables automatic headbanging among the instinctive swaying motion that you have to do with those types of tempos. Patrick Stump sounds like a kid, and he pretty much was – would have been 20 during the making of the album – but for a guy who supposedly wasn’t too confident about his singing, I’d say he does the job well. He’d only become better as the years went on, full embracing his inner soul-singer on Folie à Deux.

The song’s title is one of truth. Its original title was ‘My Name Is David Ruffin And These Are The Temptations’, but the band’s lawyers intervened and made them change the name. Either way, it’s another title of the band’s during that time that were very long, were usually never mentioned in the lyrics at all, and were probably named as such just to get some reaction from the listener. Funnily enough, I think one of the band’s shortest song title is on the same album too, with ‘XO’. That’ll be the next one from the record I do a post on. As I said earlier, not so much a fan of it now. But there’ll be more Fall Out Boy in between, for sure.

#892: Weezer – My Name Is Jonas

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One of the greatest album openers to ever exist? It might just be. I’ve had a physical copy of Weezer’s Blue Album for so long now, almost all of its lyrics and guitar parts and vocal embellishments… guitar feedback, you name it, are all embedded in that thick head of mine. And that album begins with this song, one that I want to say I can remember properly hearing for the first time in 2006 on proper quadrophonic computer speakers that my uncle installed because he was a nerd about that sort of stuff, pausing and rewinding at certain parts because I was so wowed that guitars were playing different things in each speaker.

The acoustic riff, written by the band’s original guitarist who left before the album was finished, that starts everything off is all jolly and unassuming. Then Rivers Cuomo comes in with the track’s first line alongside the band proper, and from then on it’s a whole different ball game. With its 6/8 timing, the track has this huge swaying momentum – heave-hoing back and forth with that wall of crunchy guitars. And the fact that this track doesn’t have a real chorus means that there isn’t a break or change of some sort. Sure there are those parts where the guitars fade and let the acoustic riff come in, but then they launch back into the frame again. Every section seamlessly rolls into the next, culminating with that final “Yeah, yeah, yeaaaargh”. Musically, it really throws you all over the place. Pulling and pushing, lifting you up and then gently placing you down.

Sometimes I kind of forget that there are words to this track that you have to follow. The lyrics aren’t necessarily about one thing. They touch upon nostalgia, childhood… memories in general. One main point in there is when Cuomo recollects a phone call he received from his little brother who had (then) recently been in an accident at work. But there’s such an towering confidence in the delivery of these words that it’s easy to let them just wash over you. Melody’s fantastic. I remember reading somewhere that after Kurt Cobain killed himself, kids found their next musical saviours in Weezer when the Blue Album arrived. And dammit if “My Name Is Jonas” didn’t get their hopes up when they popped the album into their computers, then I don’t know what more they could have wanted.

My iPod #386: Nine Black Alps – Forget My Name

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“Forget My Name” is one of my favourite songs from Nine Black Alps’ “Love/Hate” album. Though I’ve stated time and time again that it’s not my preferred album of the band’s, it does have this one. And it’s because of this track (and another one, but I won’t tell) that I think that I should really start to give it another try.

The track is about someone being fed up with people and life in general, that they wish to stop existing. Now there’s nothing about dying or committing suicide (there is that interpretation), but don’t get that idea. I think it’s more about wanting to disappear completely from the world and for it to exist like you were never born in the first place, because you feel like it’s the perfect place to be if you weren’t there at all.

“Love/Hate” was a lighter and softer approach the band had to their music after “Everything Is”, but “Forget My Name” brings a 90s indie rock feel to the album, with a sliding riff that repeats throughout (whether it be from the bass or the guitars) a snarling vocal performance topped off with a few growls near the end by Sam Forrest and a general crunchy and moody atmosphere purveyed by the group as a whole.

A small note, I also like how the song mirrors the guitar rundown introduction at the ending of the song, where instead the guitar notes slide up the neck climaxing with a few sparks of feedback. Think it’s quite cool.

My iPod #173: They Might Be Giants – Certain People I Could Name

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Today has been very unproductive. Had my breakfast about one, a shower at four…. apart from that I have just stayed in bed. All this because I was out last night for a very special event which I can barely remember going to now. What a shame.

That also meant I was could not type up my daily post. But it is all fine now, I am putting up another one later on.

It’s They Might Be Giants again, this time with the song “Certain People I Could Name” from their 1999 album “Long Tall Weekend”, the first full-length album to be released exclusively on the Internet if you didn’t know.

It was originally recorded for the previous album “Factory Showroom” but was left out.

The band’s website states this about the track: “A piano driven song with subtle charm from the Factory Showroom era. Don’t really know how this got put aside, but I suspect it was probably more due to its mid-tempo than its high quality.”

I cannot really add much to that. Listen for yourselves. 😀