Tag Archives: only

#775: The Darkness – Love Is Only a Feeling

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The Darkness was probably the first rock band I ever got into. I believe this is a statement I’ve said a few times before along this long road I’ve chosen to go down, but I haven’t looked back to see exactly where. As an eight-year-old going on nine, I can still remember the group being one of the most popular in the UK during 2003-04. ‘I Believe in a Thing Called Love’ was massive. Initially, I thought it was a joke song because… just watch the damn music video. But I actually sat down and fully took it in one day and it suddenly clicked. And I still don’t think the tag of a band you shouldn’t take seriously had gone even when they released ‘Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)’ later that year, a song that I wanted to be number 1 in the charts but was beaten by the ‘Mad World’ cover by Gary Jules.

‘Love Is Only a Feeling’ was released as the final single from Permission to Land in March 2004, and I think it was this song and its great video that convinced me to ask my older cousin to get the album for me as a birthday gift. The track is an emotional power ballad. Not so much the chugging rocker of ‘Thing Called Love’, ‘Feeling’ is led by these emphatic guitar downstrokes and dueling/harmonising guitar solos that appear throughout. The track’s meaning is very much clear in the title. Singer Justin Hawkins says it’s about how wonderful love can make you feel, but how it can also be a danger too. It’s a song that’s really from the heart, and I think that’s what really attracted me to it all that time ago. Any reservations I had about the band not being very serious about their stuff was gone. This song was really good. Still is almost 20 years later.

#654: The Beatles – It’s Only Love

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‘It’s Only Love’ was written by John Lennon sometime during 1965 and ended up on the Beatles’ first album to be released that year – Help!. He went on to claim that he thoroughly disliked this song calling it ‘lousy’ and particularly taking umbrage with its ‘abysmal’ lyrics. Lennon said he hated a lot of Beatles songs during his lifetime…. though it can be agreed that he definitely wrote a better set of lyrics than those on display here.

“I get high when I see you go by, my oh my, when you sigh my my inside just flies, butterflies” are the words of the first verse. Laughable to those who take lyricism very seriously. But I don’t think ‘It’s Only Love’ is supposed to be a totally serious song. That’s probably what saves it from being disgraceful in the end. Plus Lennon delivers them with such a wilting energy to them that they pale in comparison when that fantastic chorus comes in.

There’s not much to say here. It’s a short, mainly acoustic number that lasts for just under two minutes. Due to the retro mixing of the 60s, it’s quite hard to pick out what each instrument is doing. The emphasis is on George Harrison’s descending guitar riff at the beginning and end of the track. So, to recap, Lennon’s vocal performance and that guitar are the best parts of it all. I still like this song quite a bit though. Not the best track on the album but it does the job.

#600: The Beatles – I’m Only Sleeping

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It has been said and verified by many that John Lennon liked to sleep. When the Beatles took their rare breaks during their constant touring schedule, Lennon would take the time reading, writing, and sleeping – usually whilst under the influence of drugs. Paul McCartney would have to wake him up so they could get their songwriting sessions started. ‘I’m Only Sleeping’ is his dreamy ode to the activity…. and the lack of physical activity in general.

The song is the third on the band’s 1966 album Revolver. My personal favourite. Considered their best work by some. The track is driven by hazy acoustic guitars played by both Lennon and George Harrison, McCartney does his thing on the bass as usual, and a great emphasis is placed on the cymbals of Ringo Starr’s drum to further enhance the misty soundscape. One notable highlight is the backward electric guitar part that Harrison reportedly wrote and then recorded in an intense five hour session. Now it’s standard practice to put backwards music in a song to jazz things up, I can only imagine that in the 60s it must have really blown some people’s minds. Or at least made them question what was going on.

It’s a very cliché thing to say, but I seem to hear new things almost every time this song comes on. Lennon does a little hum just as the guitar solo is ending, John tells Paul to yawn before he does so in the little break, there’s a little guitar whine during the ‘lying there and staring at the ceiling line’…. there’s a lot of stuff to uncover! Makes it the more interesting to listen to.

#578: My Bloody Valentine – I Only Said

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Who d’ya think of when you see/hear the word ‘shoegaze’? ‘My Bloody Valentine’, right? ‘Loveless‘, eh? Yeah, I think that’s pretty much how it goes. The 1991 album by the Irish band has been universally loved by many for almost thirty years for essentially laying down the shoegaze genre foundation, influencing thousands of bands that have formed under its wake.

I didn’t listen to it until about four years ago, I guess. Clearly it didn’t leave so much of a mark on me at the time, but I kept it on my iTunes library so I must have thought something was cool about it. It was a few months back that I decided to listen to it in full again and I can confirm that it’s definitely a 10 outta 10. First time listeners will probably categorise it as a bunch of noise. And it is. That’s very much true. But there are some brilliant melodies under that noise. Melodies that repeat and repeat endlessly until they remain in the subconscious and you start humming them in the shower unexpectedly on some days. This applies to today’s song, ‘I Only Said’, the sixth track on Loveless.

Now another thing about the tracks on the album is that a lot of the lyrics are indecipherable. There are a lot of lyrics site which provide an approximate estimation of what might be said in the music, though the band have never confirmed anything. I don’t know what’s being sung in this track; I normally just make sounds that are in tune with the vocals. To me, it’s all about the instrumentation. The wailing stream-train whistle like guitars are at the forefront of the mix, relentlessly blaring throughout the track and covering the vocals before that zippy (guitar/keyboard/wtf?) riff comes in. There are probably about three verses in this whole thing, and then the track just goes on and on and on and on….. I’ve been in a shower with this song on and wondered just how long the outro goes on for. It goes on for a long time. You just get lost in it. It’s glorious stuff.