Tag Archives: pretty

#1061: Soundgarden – Pretty Noose

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Wrote a post about how much I was enjoying Soundgarden’s Down on the Upside once upon a time. That came in 2018 when the whole record really caught the headspace I was in during that year. It’d been on my iTunes library for I think a couple years up until then though, a decision that stemmed from stumbling upon its opening track ‘Pretty Noose’ on YouTube one day. What year it was, I can’t remember. Why I decided to watch its music video (above), I don’t know. Was probably on a Soundgarden/Chris Cornell-related binge or something. But I’m very sure that it was from that first watch of it that I might have just struck some gold.

Chris Cornell songs are notoriously hard to sing for anyone. I’ve tried many a time. There are actual professional singers who’ll cover his written material and never come close to the original. But here on ‘Pretty Noose’, Cornell seems to take things to another level. He sings really high here. Not in a high-pitch/falsetto kind of way, but he’s delivering each word at the uppermost part of his chest and with great power too. It can even look like he finds it difficult to go through himself if you were to search live performances of the track, even from 1996. But still, he sounds too damn good while doing it on the studio version, as you probably would expect. Everything starts off with what I can only describe as this slimy guitar line that, with a string bend, collides with the introduction of the full band really coming together to start the first verse. Matt Cameron sounds like he has eight arms on the drums throughout, while the guitars and bass all follow these falling/ascending chord progressions that make up the melodic centre of the track.

When Cornell passed away in 2017, I remember seeing comments in YouTube under this video along the lines of “Oof, these lyrics, yeesh, hit so hard now” etc. etc., which sort of irked me a little because suicide really isn’t what the song is about. Clearly, the imagery is there. But the lyrics more concern a huge attraction to something that isn’t good for you and having a huge sense of regret upon obtaining that thing that seduced you so much. At least that’s what I’ve always got from it. In Cornell’s words, it’s about “an attractively packaged bad idea … something that seems great at first and then comes back to bite you.” So I guess I was never that far off.

#966: David Bowie – Oh! You Pretty Things

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It was a sad day when David Bowie died. I remember it well. If you’re into hearing about that experience, I covered it in my post about ‘Life on Mars?’ some time ago. The story’s all there. His passing was something that came out of nowhere, and something of a trigger that set off the strange year that 2016 turned out to be. Bowie was gone, but the music remained, and the most logical thing to do was listen to his music just to feel good and listen to his voice. I most certainly did that. The Hunky Dory album had been in there ever since I got my laptop in 2013. However, ‘Changes’ and ‘Mars’ up to 2016 had been my favorites from that record, and I was sure that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. But Bowie died, and then I came across a 1972 live performance of Bowie singing ‘Oh! You Pretty Things’ on the BBC. It was watching that that made it properly set in that the man was gone. Also made me appreciate the song a lot more than I did before.

Well, I think the main thing to take note of is Bowie’s vocals throughout. The track is about a master race of some kind taking over the world, based on the ideals of Nietzche and Aleister Crowley. Quite dark origins. But Bowie turns it into something positive and relatable by basing the lyrics on the kids – the pretty things – of the ’70s who were into these strange new things that parents just weren’t able to understand. And Bowie sings about all of this right from the heart with the most sincerity. That delivery ‘put another log on the fire for me’ in the first verse, that hits the sweet spot. If the whole track had been just Bowie and the piano, I wouldn’t even mind, but it’s a very cathartic moment when the rest of the band enter on the first beat of the chorus. That sense of tension is all released in that burst of energy. And still, Bowie continues to blow the track away with his vocal. Joined along with Mick Ronson on the backing vocals, the chorus is the greatest opportunity for a singalong if ever there was one.

I don’t know what else to tell you, readers. Between the quieter contemplative verses with Bowie and the piano and the rousing choruses where the rest of the band joins in, I can’t find much fault with this song. Makes me wonder why it had to take Bowie’s passing to make me listen to it again. It was right there that whole time. But it’s nothing to work myself up about, I know. Same thing applies to a lot of people in that situation. I do wish I knew how to play the piano though. If I learned it enough, I could wow people by playing the intro/outro to this track. Not a lot of people did it better than Bowie though. What a wonder he was.