Tag Archives: you could have it so much better

My iPod #357: Franz Ferdinand – The Fallen

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Don’t worry, I am still here. Just been very busy this weekend so I had to hold this off for a while. To make up for it, this is the first of four so here goes nothin’…

I can’t put the official video of “The Fallen” on here. Although the song is of a reasonable length – just under four minutes – the version in the video cuts out the second verse about ‘drinking to the devil and death to the doctors’. Quite strange. Is that supposed to be a censor or something because this is the twenty-first century and everything.

It is not that big of a deal, anyway. “The Fallen” starts Franz Ferdinand’s second album off, a long note in the key of C blares out for a few seconds before the guitar comes in and begins the main riff. The song contains many references to the New Testament of the Bible. The Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, the water into wine stuff. It’s all in there. Alex Kapranos likes that stuff. I have a feeling he has done that sort of writing in another Franz Ferdinand song, but what it is fails to come to me at this moment in time.

Anyway, “The Fallen” is alllright. Probably not my favourite from “You Could Have It…” only because I’ve heard it so many times due its single release. It has to be one of those times when it just randomly appears on the iPod when I really appreciate just how good it is.

My iPod #349: Franz Ferdinand – Fade Together

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Nearing the end of Franz Ferdinand’s second album comes “Fade Together”, a forlorn piano-led track about the end of a relationship. You regularly get the ’emotional’ track near the end of any album, and this song is definitely one of those.

A single-tracked Alex Kapranos in the verses sighs into the microphone about plans to ‘get away’ with somebody which all seemed so real, until something of a flash-forward in time in the next verse reveals that those dreams are long gone. Now Kapranos only wishes to get over this person, no matter how hard it actually is to do so. In hope of ending this feeling he, along with himself as the haunting double-tracked vocal comes in for the chorus, calls out to all to ‘fade together/forever’.

A very good album track. One where the time signature is quite weird during the verses (goes from 3/4 to 5/4 and then switches back to 3/4), and includes great use of a piano, which has its own little solo for the last 30 seconds when the singing finishes and the bass and acoustic guitars disappear and you may also hear the sounds of bird tweeting throughout, adding to the track’s lonely atmosphere.

It’s all a bit of a downer. But at least the next track ends the album on more of a confident note.

My iPod #285: Franz Ferdinand – Do You Want To

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After a year and a bit of waiting, “Do You Want To” was Franz Ferdinand’s ‘we’re back’ single in 2005, their first one from their then upcoming second album “You Could Have It So Much Better” with Franz Ferdinand. The band went on to shorten the name.

I remember the first time I watched the “Do You Want To” video well. And the second time…. and the third. And so on. That’s because (after, again, premiering the day before on Channel 4) it was repeated every hour on MTV2. The band pretend to be drunk, or just act really stupidly, at a casual gathering. It seemed that they were pleased that everybody’s favourite Scottish band had returned, after what seemed like a long, long… long year and a bit. It was very hard to hear the same thing over and over without getting a bit sick of it; fortunately it isn’t an annoying track.

The anticipation towards a night out is the subject of many songs. Take this one, for example. That is what “Do You Want To” is about too. But in this case, Alex has his eyes on someone that he wants to take out for a night in the town. That someone is the listener… and we are very lucky to be chosen. With the infectious “doo doo doos” and the memorable chorus, it’s very hard to refuse Alex’s offer.