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#930: They Might Be Giants – No One Knows My Plan

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They Might Be Giants’ 1994 album John Henry was the first where Johns Linnell and Flansburgh were accompanied by a live band rather than the drum machines and synth-instruments that had been their go-to method up to that point. Upon the album’s arrival, fans were greeted with guitar-prominent instrumentals, an actual bass guitar and live drums, and brass. There’s a lot of horns on this album. Today’s track, ‘No One Knows My Plan’, is one of those tracks to feature them. Brass can sometimes be one of those instrumental groups where, if heard too much in one sitting, they can be a bit overbearing. But you’ve got to appreciate the instrumental melody of the trumpet that triumphantly opens this song. Once you do that, it’s plain sailing from there.

The track arrives at the album’s midpoint, acting as something of an opener to its second half. With its conga-esque rhythms and ascending/descending scale riffs, it helps pick up the momentum after the contemplative turn the preceding song takes. In ‘No One Knows…’, the narrator is planning an escape from a prison cell, and the track is practically the tale of the narrator’s thoughts, feelings and experiences they’ve had while trying to fulfil this act. They tried to escape before, but have since realised that they’ve had to change their tactics. They’re always scheming, but they’ll never tell anyone the full angle. All this described under a skipping drum pattern, a horn group that undergo the role that a rhythm guitar would usually cover, and with a reference to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave put in for good measure.

This one’s been a favourite of mine for the longest time. Not just from John Henry, but out of the whole TMBG catalogue. The melody’s so infectious. Once you’ve got that in your head, it’s hard to get rid of it. I’ll go ahead and admit that the album in particular isn’t one of my favourites by They, but it’s not without its highlights. ‘No One Knows…’ is for sure one of them. Back in the day, someone at the Cartoon Network offices must have liked the track too. It was used as the intro music to Cartoon Planet for a while.

#929: Queens of the Stone Age – No One Knows

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I think just about anyone who’s into rock music likes this track, right? One of those songs you know without properly realising it. It’s Queens of the Stone Age’s signature track. The one with the riff that goes “duh-duh-nerner-duh-duh-nerner-vrrrm”. Close to that, anyway. The one with the video where a deer plays dead, beats up the band members and then hangs up their heads on the wall at the end. And, look, it’s everybody’s favourite person Dave Grohl on the drums. ‘No One Knows’ is the second song on the band’s Songs for the Deaf album from 2002, was the first single too, and I think it’s okay to say that in the 20 years that have passed it’s now come to be seen as one of the best 2000s-era songs of its genres.

I don’t think even I could tell you precisely when I first heard this one. ‘No One Knows’ is one of those tracks that always just seemed to be there, floating around in the ether, available on my computer or phone available to listen to. Though I’ll take a guess and say that its video would have been the main gateway toward knowing it. However old I was at the time, I’m sure I was amused by the video’s concept. Josh Homme, Nick Oliveri and Mark Lanegan run over a deer who unbeknownst to them is playing dead, once they get up close to it to see how it’s doing, the deer wakes up, knocks them out and ties them up, goes on a driving rampage and props their heads up on the wall of a house after he falls in love with one of those fake prop deers you’ll find in a a garden somewhere. It’s funny stuff, co-directed by Michel Gondry who’s been the man behind many an iconic music video.

Then there’s the other half of the video that shows the band “performing” the track. And I think as I’ve grown older, it’s that part of it that I appreciate more. Although they’re merely miming the track, it puts into perspective who’s playing what and the work they put into their instruments. Dave Grohl’s thrashing away at those tom-toms like an animal, Nick Oliveri pulls off those runs on the bass like it’s nothing, and Josh Homme’s doing his thing of being all ‘badass’ and playing these riffs and solos while staring deadly into the camera. But forgetting about the video for a moment, solely listening to this track does something to you. It’s a complete powerhouse that fires on all cylinders. Just an all-round solid rock-band performance. Once that riff gets going and the rhythm sets in, you can’t help but get caught in it. Guitars are good, drums – good, bass – gooood. It doesn’t disappoint.

#928: Weezer – No One Else

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Not sure if there’s a catchier power pop tune about a possessive and controlling boyfriend than Weezer’s ‘No One Else’, the second track on the band’s Blue Album from 1994. Seeing that title for the first time, your mind go to something like, “Oh, it’s one of those songs where the narrator doesn’t want to be with anyone else than the person they’re currently with.” But then you hear it and realise that a completely different angle is taken. Instead, the narrator doesn’t want his girl to have a life, go outside, or laugh at anyone else’s jokes. And if anyone sees her out in the town, the relationship’s as good as over. Some could say that a track like is a little problematic. I think Weezer fans realise this too. If only the musicality on display was bad, then I would be inclined to like it a lot less. As it stands now, I still see it as a favorite of mine.

Compared to the swaying feel of preceding track ‘My Name Is Jonas’, ‘No One Else’ ploughs on with your standard 4/4 rhythm, falling right into its first verse with a descending guitar riff. Those crunchy-toned guitars take up the soundscape. Rivers Cuomo sings the first verse, bassist Matt Sharp joins in on the chorus with that somewhat iconic falsetto, Brian Bell harmonises on the chorus’s final line and with the return of the opening riff we’re back to the second verse. This has all happened in just under a minute. The track goes under a ‘intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo-chorus’ structure, but it subtly adds these layers and changes as the track progresses. Cuomo, Sharp and Bell are all singing together during the second chorus instead of coming in one-by-one. There’s a tension-setting one-chord-playing guitar that comes in during the second verse. Cuomo never sings the chorus the exact same way each time it comes around. Just these little things that keep you engaged while the track goes on.

The track’s side-eye inducing take on relationships makes it something of a precursor to what Cuomo would make a full nose-dive into when it came to writing and recording Pinkerton. But while I think you can somewhat sympathise what Cuomo was going through with some of the lyricism on that record, at least after having read up on the context of what was going on during the making of that album, the narrator on ‘No One Else’ is a straight-up unlikable person. Everything’s just so easy to sing along to though, and it’s full of cathartic moments of tension and release. It’s a sleek three minute package.

#927: The Subways – No Goodbyes

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Shed a few tears listening to this track recently. It was released when I was in my final year of primary school, and the time was fast approaching that it would all be over and I’d have to move on to secondary school. The music video for it played regularly on MTV2 when it came to being released as a single. The whole sentiment of not wasting time, making the most of it, and the whole ‘no goodbyes’ bit was all very fitting at that period. Thinking about it, I think it’s just about having a summer love and being scared of it coming to an end. But listening to it now takes me back to being that 10-year-old kid who thought life was going too quickly. Doesn’t feel like that was 16 years ago. But in another way, it really does.

You may know The Subways for their track ‘Rock & Roll Queen‘. It’s appeared in a few movies, adverts. It was in the soundtrack of FIFA Street 2, a game I played many a time back in the day. My following of the band never really delved deeper than their singles, which got their airplay through MTV whenever they were due for release. ‘No Goodbyes’ was the final single released from the band’s debut album, Young for Eternity. In contrast to the more lively-rocker singles that preceded it, ‘No Goodbyes’ arrived as the sort of comedown. Lightly acoustic for the most part, with great harmonies from guitarist Billy Lunn and bassist Charlotte Cooper, before kicking off each time those choruses hit.

There are actually two versions of this track that you can find. There’s the radio edit, which was actually used for the above music video and presumably for radio airplay, and the track as it appears on the album. No major differences, it’s still the same song. Just a few things are changed structurally. Someone at the record label must have thought it took too long for the first chorus to arrive on the album, so it starts after the first chorus on the radio edit, whereas on the album it starts after the second. The radio edit also shortens the album version’s ending. Just a couple of changes as you can see. Both do the job, I don’t think I have a preference. But you might, so I’ll embed the album version below.

#926: Blur – No Distance Left to Run

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Damon Albarn and former Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann were sometimes labelled the ‘King and Queen of Britpop’ during that time in the ’90s when that whole movement was happening. They were a couple through and through until they broke up in 1998, leaving Albarn traumatised and incredibly bummed out by the ordeal. The fallout of that, plus a dependence on heroin and straining relationships within Blur resulted in 13, the group’s most experimental album, possibly their most sonically adventurous too. It truly goes off the deep end about four songs in and onward. So when ‘No Distance Left to Run’ comes in as the record’s penultimate track, it enforces a sound of band that really has nothing left to give.

The song has to go down as one of the saddest in Blur’s catalogue. It’s about the dreadful realisation that a relationship’s over, one that a lot of years went into with a lot of heart, and tearfully wishing the other person all the best with someone else while you’re all alone and left wanting to die. I may have exaggerated a little bit on that last point. But it’s clear that Albarn wasn’t in the greatest of places while recording this. His trembling vocal take alongside Graham Coxon’s weeping guitar are the highlights throughout. In the band’s 2010 documentary, named after this track as a matter of fact, Coxon mentions that Albarn never told the bandmates what was going on, but it was quite obvious that things weren’t good. So he tried to make a riff and some chord progressions that would match whatever words Albarn wrote down. Fair to say he does them justice. I do particularly like the spacey instrumental in the middle, with those twinkling keys that pan from left to right alongside those smooth ‘ooh’ vocals. I thought it was a choir doing them, but I upon further research it seems they are done by Albarn and Coxon, or Albarn double-tracked. Whatever way, it’s good listening.

I wasn’t properly living around the time of this album’s release or thereafter. Would have been very young at the time. But looking back as a Blur fan and reading up on stuff, ‘No Distance Left to Run’ could very much have been the band’s last track on an album. One on which there’s singing anyway. Going into the new century, it seemed that the group wasn’t sure where to go, releasing a ‘Best Of’ compilation. Then Damon Albarn put more focus on Gorillaz, and forged a whole other path of success. But thankfully that wasn’t the case, and two more Blur albums were made. Let’s hope there’s another soon.