Tag Archives: touch

#1401: Ween – Touch My Tooter

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Here’s the last song from Ween’s Pure Guava that I’ll be writing about. ‘Touch My Tooter’. ‘Don’t Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)’ would have had a post of its own, for sure, but I wasn’t listening to Ween like that in 2014 or whenever I was covering songs on my phone that began with the letter ‘D’. So that leaves just three Pure Guava songs on this blog. It’s not my favourite Ween album. It and The Pod were more or less recorded at the same time, and really all of …Guava sounds like it’d fit on its predecessor. There’s a ‘Pod Part 2’ feeling I can’t help but associate with it. The drum-machine rhythms on …Guava are beefier and busier, I appreciate it for that at the least. I’ve just never been able to really get into it. And that’s okay, I don’t think I need to force these kinds of things. The four songs on there I like, I like a lot. When it comes to ‘…Tooter’, I dig the music, but I can’t help but smile when listening to it. Its delivery is funny as hell.

A lot of Ween fans will agree that the band’s three albums are top, top stuff. But whenever material from those albums are performed live, they’re usually taken to another level in terms of sound and performance. ‘Touch My Tooter’ was a number the band would do on the road quite regularly back in the day, the performance of it (below) in their iconic Live in Chicago 2003 shows being a notable exhibit of how it was done. And I’m sure I saw that before I got to the rawer studio version. Live, it’s got this rocking, stomping feel. A lot of edge. I think helped by the backing of an actual rhythm section. The initial album version is much different. It’s quicker in tempo. The drum machine couldn’t sound more synthetic. Dean Ween’s guitar’s got this crunch in tone, in a real lo-fi kind of way. Gene Ween is singing in a way that I find hard to describe, but you can tell he’s really feeling it. I like both live and studio versions just ’cause they’re so much on other ends of the spectrum.

I did use to think that this song was about Gener having an extreme crush on a lady. She walks into the room, he gets all giddy and wishes to have some kind of sexual relation with her. I think it’s dawned on me that it may be the complete opposite in sentiment. Gener addresses his ‘buggy’, a affectionate nickname for Deaner if you’re into your Ween lore, pretty much ‘buddy’, asking him why the arrival of this girl makes him feel like shit inside. Gener doesn’t like this girl, he doesn’t like the way she dances, he doesn’t like the way she thinks everything is cool between the two of them. So in telling her to ‘touch [his] tooter’, he’s really telling her to kiss his ass. More of a ‘fuck you’ song than a ‘want to fuck you’ song. A lot of Ween songs are based on personal experiences, I don’t think ‘Touch My Tooter’ is separate from that category. This realization’s got me thinking about the song a little differently now. There’s much more behind it than meets the eye. I’ll take it all day. A big album highlight for me.

My iPod #455: Razorlight – Golden Touch

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I quite liked Razorlight back in the day. We can all agree that Up All Night, the album today’s track can be found on is their best work to date. Their self-titled follow up weren’t that bad either. Never listened to Slipway Fires because “Wire to Wire” made me wince every time. That was in 2008. And as the years have gone on the group’s faded into obscurity. A shame. But wouldn’t really excited by a sudden announcement of a new album any time soon. Just my opinion.

But enough on that. We’re going back to 2004. “Golden Touch” was released just a week before the band’s full debut album hit the shelves in stores nationwide. It became quite popular too. The song was the band’s first top-ten hit at the fourth time of trying, becoming one of their signature tunes and one of the British indie anthems of the year in the process.

Johnny Borrell talks/wails in tune about a girl, who unbeknownst to her, is the subject of many conversations behind her back. Borrell thinks this lady is special, she has the ‘golden touch’, and the song is a basic message to her to take no notice of the haters. Never really liked the way the lead vocals are delivered on here, though they’re made up for by the track’s loose feel established by the arpeggiated guitar licks and its overall groovy rhythm. There are some background ‘ha-ha-haaaaaaaa’ vocals at near two minutes in that are just perfect too.