Tag Archives: sun

#1358: Nick Drake – Things Behind the Sun

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It always comes back to Pink Moon. There have been a few “last songs from an album” posts around recently. After this, there’s only one more to come from Pink Moon. Any fan of it will be able to correctly guess what song that post will be for. But for now, this one’s for ‘Things Behind the Sun’. The track is the longest one on Nick Drake’s third and final studio album, positioned right in the middle of it, acting more as the closing number for the LP’s first half before you’d flip the vinyl around and listen to the second. Even back when I first heard the track in late, late 2012, it did feel like I was listening to what was meant to be considered the record’s most poignant moment. This and the preceding instrumental, ‘Horn’, together make up a one-two punch of poignancy. They both sounded so much sadder than anything else than the numbers that came before. But then again, I think ‘Horn’ acts as more of the tone setter, the moment of quiet reflection before the storm of ‘Things…’ begins soon after.

Not like ‘Things…’ is this wild, raucous rock number or anything. It’s just as acoustic as everything else the album delivers. It’s a storm in terms of the tone… there’s something uneasy, disquieting about it. It’s probably the minor key it’s in for the verses. That would do it. ‘Things Behind the Sun’ sees Drake detail his disillusionment with his musical endeavours. He goes out to perform, but he doesn’t trust the people who go and watch him. And as he goes about his way, observing people on his idle travels, he sees how they act and concludes that there’s no point in trying to win their hearts with his music – the likelihood is they won’t listen anyway. It seems to me that this is a track – another being ‘Harvest Breed’ – where he more or less implies that he won’t be around for much longer, or at least has thought about the end of his life, but doesn’t want to “name the day” on which it happens or reveal that he’s tried to end it before. So until then, where the more sprightly, happier chord progressions come in, he’ll take his time, find delight in the dark humour he appreciates that makes other people frown and generally keep to himself with his head down while he carries on feeling depressed. He’s comfortable in his state of dejection. It’s all very bittersweet.

And just like almost everything other song on Pink Moon. the track is provided to you solely by Nick Drake with his weary vocal and fingerpicked acoustic guitar. Goes to show how much you can do with so little. One thing I’ve always liked about this tune is how rhythmic Drake’s playing style is. He sort of skips around from one chord to the next throughout, playing a root note or two in between. It really shows during the guitar break halfway through when he jumps higher and higher with the progression before dipping back downwards again and repeating the process again. I’ve always thought this and ‘Which Will’ – which if you didn’t guess, will be the next song – both had a rhythm that could have been infused into a hip-hop track of some kind easily, which I guess would be sacrilege to some for weird reasons, but it’s just how I feel. Then Kendrick Lamar used a re-recorded sample of ‘Things…’ in one of his own songs – unreleased, mind you – and my point was proven. But overall, it’s disheartening to listen Drake’s track and hear how let down he was by the fact – and it was a fact at the time – that his music wasn’t going anywhere, not making him the big star that he wanted to be and that people told him he could be. It happened eventually, people love his music now. If only he’d stuck around.

#1311: Supergrass – Sun Hits the Sky

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“I know a place where the suuun hits the skkyyy!” A great, great opening line to a song, the song in question being Supergrass’s ‘Sun Hits the Sky’ from their second album, In It for the Money, released in 1997. I’ve made it known in many a post before that this is my favourite Supergrass album, and I want to stress again that while you all may get your Britpop fill from Oasis or Blur, Pulp or Suede, all very respectable choices, please, please don’t leave Supergrass out in the cold. You should all be listening to Supergrass. Not one dud exists in the band’s six-album discography. I’m sad that it’s more or less confirmed that they won’t make another one, even though they are kind of together at the moment to celebrate the 30th anniversary. In another way, sometimes it’s best to just let things be. I can understand that. So I’ll leave it at that too.

Anyway, ‘Sun Hits the Sky’ is the sixth song on In It for the Money, closing out the album’s first half if you were to listen to it on vinyl. I have a strong, strong feeling that I heard the song in an advert for a UK holiday resort of some kind. Maybe Butlin’s. Maybe Center Parcs. If any member of Supergrass happens to read this, could you possibly confirm whether this was the case? I would have been a small child when those “commercials” were going around. But come 2005/06 when I was a little older, and by that, I’m talking the age of 10, Supergrass videos were usually playing on the television – a whole lot of fun they’d be too – and the video for ‘Sun Hits the Sky’ showed up one day on one of those video channels. The song was immediately recognisable, but the main thing I got was that it was Supergrass who had made the song – I want to say I had gained a fair knowledge of the band by then – and that this thing called In It for the Money was something to get, because song that was shown on the TV from it was I enjoyed a heck of a lot.

So where is this place where the sun hits the sky? Well, we all know that the sky isn’t this kind of border that the sun reaches up to. It’s all really limitless. I know it’s not meant to be taken literally. In fact, I think this track is about wanting to get really, really high – more in a haze of marijuana smoke rather than a darker deal with heroin – a bit like Paul McCartney’s ode to pot with ‘Got to Get You into My Life’. When you’re in your 20s and in a band, you’re gonna be smoking joints at some point. Gaz Coombes about knowing a place where the sun hits the sky and things get all distorted and strange, and in the choruses he sings about being someone’s doctor and being on the way to prevent someone from coming down. I guess like how it’s a dealer’s job to deliver the goods to their clients. I think I’ve got this song down. Just can’t help but feel good when listening to this one, got such a driving momentum. Very, very hard not to sing along to once you’ve got the words down, and notable highlights are the keyboard solo by Rob Coombes and the psychedelic ending where tablas and bongos enter the mix and the song eventually fades out with Mick Quinn laying down some licks on the bass guitar. A big “Yes” from me for this tune.

#1278: Graffiti6 – Stare into the Sun

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The only reason I know of Graffiti6’s ‘Stare into the Sun’ is because of the song’s inclusion on the soundtrack for the 2011/12 iteration of EA Sports’ FIFA series of videogames. A roundabout way of saying FIFA 12. At that time, my GCSEs were over and done with. I was now onto studying for my A-Levels. It was quite the raise in difficulty. But instead of devoting more time into researching and putting more effort into my work at home, I carried on my usual tradition of buying the yearly FIFA game and dedicating time to that instead. My original YouTube account also got taken down around this period, so I think I was a little depressed. But the FIFA soundtrack wouldn’t let me down, it hadn’t since 2002. And ‘Stare into the Sun’ was a major, major highlight from there.

In ‘Stare into the Sun’, songwriter Jamie Scott sings about looking around at all the happy couples being together in the summer sun after having recently had his heart broken himself. He’s on his own, he’s feeling low. Feeling blue, as he says in the lyrics. But he also knows that this is how life goes, and after he’s done crying, he’ll be able to see the light and have brighter days coming his way. You see where the whole ‘staring into the sun’ metaphor comes into play. The music’s all upbeat and sprightly, got these whistles/xylophones that sort of heighten the positive energy. That descending piano riff at about 20 seconds in and what closes the song out too was enough to get me interested in the first place. Overall, what you’ve got in ‘Stare into the Sun’ is one of those happy-sounding songs about a sad situation. It’s a type that I’m usually into, and when it’s done well, it’s an instant like on my end. So here I am hopefully writing an engaging overview about it.

Hearing the track repeatedly through the TV speakers, I reckoned the track was sung by an American group potentially fronted by a Black vocalist. As you can see from the music video, it is not. And the group are from London. Just saying this ’cause it’s true, not to complain or anything. Doesn’t effect how I enjoy the track in any way. This was probably one of the last tracks I came to know from a FIFA soundtrack. I got FIFA 13 the next year, and that was the edition where I suddenly realized EA Sports were barely putting in any effort into the games anymore. Plus, the soundtrack was kind of unremarkable. That was the true sign that things weren’t right. The song can be found on the group’s Colours album, which then got re-released with new artwork and an extended tracklist. ‘Stare into the Sun’ probably got the re-release treatment too, as it then got another official music video made for it. Think I prefer the one above, though. It’s all the same song.

#588: The Beatles – I’ll Follow the Sun

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So it goes that ‘I’ll Follow the Sun’, the fifth track on the Beatles’ second album of 1964 Beatles for Sale, had been one that Paul McCartney had saved up since he was sixteen up to that point. That album was created during a time when the group were constantly touring and barely had any free time to themselves; when they did have that time, it would be used for working and going into the studio and recording more songs. McCartney and Lennon didn’t have as much time to write original material together too, so the former pulled this particular track out to get things moving forward.

‘I’ll Follow the Sun’ sees McCartney writing about the end of one relationship and looking on to the next one with a sense of optimism and wonder, whilst the lady who is left behind doesn’t know what she’s lost until it really hits. It’s a good tune with a great melody as is typical in a lot of McCartney songs. Very mellow with subtle knee-slapping percussion from Ringo Starr and a rhythm guitar in the right channel that has such a smooth tone to it, either played by Harrison or McCartney. In comparison to the ‘shake-it-up-baby-now’ good time music of their previous albums, ‘I’ll Follow the Sun’ – and Beatles for Sale as a whole – signified a change in musical style that would only continue to evolve as the group continued to work together.

Here’s Paul playing the song live with his band in 2005, ’cause why not.

My iPod #538: Sex Pistols – Holidays in the Sun

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“Holidays in the Sun” opens Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, the only album the punk rock band produced during its two year stint in the late seventies. Its title is a bit misleading. It looks and sounds pleasant, but it is really about the high sense of paranoia Johnny Rotten detected when standing next to the Berlin Wall whilst on holiday with his band-mates. Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground on the Nintendo DS had this track on its soundtrack, I gained a liking to it – I am able to talk to you about it today.

The opening guitar and drums beat in time with the sound of a soldier’s march before hastily rushing into the track’s introductory chord progression, blatantly taken from The Jam’s “In the City” which was released six months prior. And all whilst this progression plays Rotten, buried under the noise, sneaks in the first line “A cheap holiday in other people’s misery” – something the band had seemed to take underneath all the controversy the members had earned themselves before the album’s release.

I always thought Rotten’s vocals were the highlights of most Pistol tracks; he doesn’t disappoint here too. He seems to match his countless exaggerations and intensity in tandem with the performance with the music. He sounds somewhat subdued during the first verse before minutes later he turns into a blubbering mess before the track’s climactic solo. He’s not a great singer. To say he sings at all is a stretch. But his delivery makes the song all that more exhilarating to listen to.