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#1467: Billy Talent – Voices of Violence

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Fittingly, the last song on Billy Talent’s first album is also the last one I cover from it on the blog. Makes it another full LP of tracks that I’ve covered. We’re getting to that time where this may be happening more than usual. I think I covered why I liked the band’s debut so much the last time I wrote about a number from it. Straight-up lightning in a bottle captured on the record, the band were never that furious again. And the songs still hold up today just as much as they did when I played the CD through once I got it for a gift in December 2006. I had been obsessed with the band for more than a year up to that point, though and was already familiar with almost all the tracks on the album. The singles had their music videos up on the band’s website. ‘Line & Sinker’ and ‘Standing in the Rain’ were able to be heard in full on their website. Some I heard in full on the LAUNCHcast radio service. Others I had to make do with 30-second samples on artistdirect.com that I’d listen to on repeat. No matter how much I waited for a sudden appearance on the radio station, ‘Voices of Violence’ never showed up. Except for one time when I was on the toilet. It was tragic hearing the song play through the computer speakers while I was doing business of some kind. And of course the song was done just as I finished.

The 30-sec sample I heard from ‘Voices of Violence’ always got me excited. Left me really wanting to know how the full thing went. From what I recall, it faded in at the guitar riff before the “Go rake the leaves off your grass” lyric and got the whole first chorus in, before fading just as the second verse began. It was such a tease. I’ve said all I’ve had to say about Ian D’Sa’s guitar playing in nearly every Billy Talent post. I’m thinking in particular the aforementioned riff requires some dexterity on the fretboard hand to pull off. I liked how in between the guitar stabs during the verse, bass guitarist Jon Gallant plays an extra note that filled in what would be the silences. Then there was the chorus, a back and forth where D’Sa sings “We’ll take it back”, Ben Kowalewicz retorts, screaming “Broken dagger, Southern swagger”, finishing with both of them singing the track’s title, Kowalewicz elongating the ‘ence’ syllable in ‘violence’. Months were spent listening to that sample. It felt so good to have the track in my heads officially on a physical copy after all that time. The track caps the album off with a fiery end. Plus, it comes as a surely intentional pick-me-up after ‘Nothing to Lose’. Couldn’t have ended things that way, it would have just been too sad.

To put it in simply, the track’s anti-George Bush and telling the listener to do something to change how things are in the society they were in, not to procrastinate, to be active, to stand up and fight what what they believe in. The US were in a war, a lot of people didn’t want it to be happening. It was a very trying time in those early 2000s. Things are made clear from the very start, “Don’t wait for a knight in shining armour / Your savior’s reflected in the mirror.” Like, you’re the hero in this story, no one’s going to save you. “These flowers have grown from blood stains on the ground”. Graves, death. “We’ll take it back / Voices of violence”. A reference to protestors, I’m thinking. And “Even after I’m dead and buried, I’ll still remember”, I guess is saying “The things you’ve done are so abhorrent that I’ll never be able to forget about it even when I’m dead.” A big “you suck” song calling for vengeance, retribution, vengeance. Other synonyms. Kowalewicz’s “come back fighting” scream into the last chorus, goosebumps every time. An angry, angry song, but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

And that’s ‘U’ & ‘V’ done. Went by relatively quickly. Stay tuned for the ‘W’ series. It will go on longer than these two combined.

#1395: The Who – Too Much of Anything

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You remember how I wrote about another track by The Who maybe a couple weeks ago? ‘Time Is Passing’, that was the one. Well, copy and paste the first paragraph from that post and replace that song’s title with today’s, and the facts almost remain the same. ‘Too Much of Anything’ was another tune written by Pete Townshend, in his Lifehouse mode, 1970 to 1971. He went a bit barmy. Lifehouse was abandoned. Who’s Next was made out of its remains. Odds & Sods was released in 1974, prepared by bass guitarist John Entwistle while the other three members were preparing for work on the Tommy film. Unlike ‘Time Is Passing’, ‘Too Much…’ was available to hear on the original ’74 edition. The above video is the version from the ’98 reissue. It’s meant to be a remix too, but I don’t hear too much difference between it and what was released in the ’70s. Maybe you can.

By the time Pete Townshend was writing ‘Too Much…’, The Who’s newest album out for the public to consume was this little rock opera thing called Tommy. The band were shot into another stratosphere in its wake. Being the main songwriter and guitarist in one of the biggest rock bands in the world, I think it’s fair to say Pete Townshend could have anything handed to him on a plate without even asking. Really, anything. And clearly today’s subject was written during a time when it was all a bit overwhelming. There’s not much explanation that needs to be done when it comes to the lyrics, meaning what you read is all that’s being said. The words are very autobiographical, even if they were meant to be from the perspective of a character in the Lifehouse story. And the overall result is a somewhat upbeat-sounding track that ponders upon the effects of overexposure, with a great singalong chorus to string it all together too.

Apparently, the only reason ‘Too Much…’ wasn’t on Who’s Next or released as a standalone single was because Townshend found it hypocritical for a bunch of hedonists to be delivering a song, with the subject matter it has, to the masses. But I’ve only recently figured out how sort of similar, musically, it is to ‘Getting in Tune’, which did make it onto Who’s Next. Both songs have moments where they go into double time. Both end in a key higher than how they initially start. Perhaps someone in the band or the producer noticed this and a decision was made. To be honest, if it were up to me, ‘Too Much…’ would have taken the spot, for sure. But ‘Getting in Tune’ is all right. Also, maybe they didn’t like how the track turned out when they recorded it in 1971, ’cause it sounded like this at first, but a few years later there it was on Odds & Sods with a new/alternate Daltrey vocal and an edit that cut out a few extra measures near the end. Just throwing out theories here. But at the end of the day, it’s a song I like. All that counts.

#1385: Weezer – Tired of Sex

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In my Hotmail/Outlook account, I have a sent email dated 5th December 2007 titled ‘christmas list’. Weezer’s Pinkerton was one of the things I asked for that year, among other items including The Simpsons Game on the PS2, Colour It In by The Maccabees and the Blink-182 Greatest Hits compilation. There are other requests, but I won’t waste writing space listing them all. Ah, to be 12 again. I have a big memory of discovering ‘El Scorcho’ one day, finding its video online, and it became a favourite song of mine instantly. Was insane how hooked on it I was. I’d had a physical copy of the Blue Album for a year by 2007. I loved it, then. Here was this “new” Weezer song in ‘El Scorcho’. I didn’t know where to download music without paying, didn’t know about Limewire and those things. So I guess I had to get this other Weezer album, just so I could listen to ‘El Scorcho’ whenever I wanted. Gotta thank my cousin for coming in clutch on the list. I did get nearly everything I asked for that year.

‘Tired of Sex’ is the first song on Pinkerton. I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t like the track when I heard it the first time. I didn’t like the opening keyboard / guitar riff. I didn’t like the bass line. I didn’t like the vocal melodies. I didn’t like Rivers Cuomo’s screaming. Everything sounded like a bunch of noise. I thought it was a weird subject to be writing a song about. At the age of 12, I couldn’t go around singing it out loud. It definitely wasn’t ‘My Name Is Jonas’. And that’s what I thought of Pinkerton, initially. Nine tracks of noise, only one of them I really liked, ending with a quiet-as-hell acoustic number, and it was nothing like the Blue Album. It wasn’t too long into 2008 that I was singing along to almost every song on Pinkerton. Almost. ‘Tired of Sex’ and ‘Across the Sea’, I could just not get into. There’s no post for ‘Across the Sea’ on here, so I guess in 2013, I still wasn’t into it. But I eventually grew to appreciate it. ‘Tired of Sex’ was the outlier. I think that first impression really left a mark on me. It might have been something like 2018 or ’19, when I heard it again, probably found myself singing it out of the blue at various times, and realized that if I was doing that, then it probably meant I finally liked the song now.

Rivers Cuomo was a desperate man. He just wanted some love. The real kind. He wasn’t getting any satisfaction from the numerous fleeting encounters he was having, which is usually made fun of ’cause he looked like this in the ’90s, but he was the frontman of a pretty big alternative rock band, so it probably wasn’t very difficult for him on that front. The manly men out there would maybe tell him to suck it up. Most likely wouldn’t care. But Cuomo was really feeling it, and ‘Tired of Sex’ lays the desperation flat-out for all to witness. The screaming, all the noise that I said I didn’t like earlier, it wasn’t for show. This was all made with intention. This was catharsis. Patrick Wilson is pummeling those drums. Matt Sharp rolls out that the thick bass line. Cuomo lets everything out, from his vocals to the shredding on the crazy guitar solo. ‘Tired of Sex’ is Pinkerton‘s opening salvo, and it’s probably the most important song on the album ’cause the rest that follow hinge on the issues raised in it. It’s a damn powerhouse.

#1352: Radiohead – There there. (The Boney King of Nowhere.)

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Now, I got Hail to the Thief in about 2010, I think for my fifteenth birthday. But I’d been knowing of the album’s existence since at least 2004. ‘Myxomatosis’ was the first Radiohead song I ever heard. A good little story, that one. You can read it if you want. But when it comes to ‘There there.’, things become a little more unclear. I’d definitely heard the song before I got the physical CD, but I can’t remember that one time when the song truly clicked. I have a vague memory of listening to it on the old, old family Windows XP computer and getting into it. I have another of watching its music video somewhere and getting into it. Which event came first, I can’t recall, I’m sorry. I have clearer memories of singing it in the shower alongside ‘Paranoid Android’ in my teenage days, seeing if I could get myself cleaned before I finished both songs. The track’s just always been around at this point, and I’m thankful ’cause I’ve got a deep appreciation for it.

Thinking about it, it would make sense that I saw the music video first before going ahead and probably pirating it to listen to on the computer. To sum it up bluntly and needlessly crudely, Thom Yorke fucks around in a forest and finds out. It’s better if you watch the thing. It’s one of those rare, rare occasions of a music video (that I’ve come across in my days) where the visual goes so well with the music that the combination of the two creates this overall heightened experience. But the song by itself is pretty great too. Starts off all ominous with those tom-toms and rim clicks and Colin Greenwood’s bass guitar. The feedback of Yorke’s guitar kicks into gear before he properly starts playing. “In pitch dark, I go walking in your landscape / Broken branches trip me as I speak”. Strong beginning lines to a track, for sure. Vivid and evocative from the jump. But it’s all about that A major chord that introduces the chorus where I always get hit with that warm feeling, and then Yorke hits you with “Just ’cause you feel it doesn’t mean it’s there.” Ain’t that the truth, usually? Such a universal sentiment delivered so earnestly. If the track isn’t an instant like for you at that point, it never will be.

The song continues to chug along. The second verse and chorus come round, now with added backing vocals both sung by Yorke – I think – in the left and right channels. Meant to represent that symbolism of an angel and devil on your shoulder, I’ve always felt, which I think is reinforced by that “Someone on your shoulder” line. Thom Yorke wails the song’s title, marking the point where the music takes a turn. Jonny Greenwood’s guitar comes in on the left-hand side, the energy ramps up, Thom Yorke turns into a tree, and you’re left wondering how you got to this point from where it all initially started. It’s not unusual for a Radiohead song to begin in one direction before seamlessly changing to another. But with ‘There there.’, you get a very notable example. There’s a reason the crowd goes wild when those tom-tom stands are propped up in front of Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood at their live shows. They know shit’s about to go down.

#1348: The Velvet Underground – That’s the Story of My Life

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‘That’s the Story of My Life’ is a tune from The Velvet Underground’s self-titled album from 1969, one I heard when I came across that particular record… I think some time in 2013. I was going through a best ever albums list on a site called besteveralbums.com. That’s a place I’ve shouted-out many a time on here, it’s never done me wrong. The Velvet Underground was placed relatively high on that list, and through listening 18- or 19-year-old me was exposed to tracks like ‘Pale Blue Eyes’, ‘Beginning to See the Light’, ‘Jesus’… There’s a lot of good stuff on there. ‘That’s the Story…’ is the album’s shortest song. Some may even argue it a little inconsequential, more a palate cleanser for the huge experimental track that follows. I’m sure I probably felt the same way, initially. But at this point it’s more or less one of my favourites on the LP. Once you’ve got the lyrics down, it’s hard to get the whole track out of your head.

And it’s very easy to memorise those words because there’s only one verse, one that’s repeated a couple more times before the song finishes with a flourish. “That’s the story of my life / That’s the difference between wrong and right / But Billy said that both those words are dead / That’s the story of my life”. Very concise, very simple, great little melody alongside a swinging acoustic feel. It does the job as a song. What it all means is something that’s passed me by. Even with the limited number of words used, I’ve always kind of felt there was a lot being said. But what it is, I couldn’t tell. Thankfully, this YouTuber did a video essay all about the album – I’m linking to where they talk about ‘Story’, but the whole thing’s worth a viewing – covering the track in some depth. In a way, they highlight ‘That’s the Story…’ as being one of the most important songs on the LP as it sums up the paradox at the core of it. The difference between wrong and right, good love and bad love. I’m just typing out what they say. It would be much better if you saw it for yourself.

So yeah, that’s the story of my story with this song. Why aren’t there more songs from The Velvet Underground on this blog, you might ask. I made the decision to stop adding songs to my phone in about 2021, and it seems between 2013 and then ‘Jesus’ and this one were the only two on the album that I really, really enjoyed. I’ve got a few more from there on my Liked Songs playlist on Spotify, a streaming service that I know very few people like anymore for very understandable reasons. I’ve come to appreciate the album a lot in the past few years. Not ’cause of the whole context of the band doing a whole 180 in sound after founding member John Cale left and seemingly took the abrasive, freakier side of the music with him. I think I’ve just matured enough as a person that I can listen to each song on there and realise how good each one is. Plus, it must have influenced so many people. Anyone else hear Julian Casablancas or Stephen Malkmus throughout it all? Sounds like they got their whole style from this one project. I’m glad it exists.