Tag Archives: your

My iPod #469: Fall Out Boy – Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy

Leave a reply

I haven’t listened to this song in a long time. Doesn’t feel the same as it did when I was younger. Maybe because I’ve heard it too many times. The bite it used to have isn’t as sharp anymore. I can still write about it though, even if my heart won’t be into it so much.

So “Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy” was Fall Out Boy’s second ever single, released in 2003 on the group’s first album Take This to Your Grave. It may as well just be called “Where Is Your Boy” because that’s the main line of the chorus. Not sure what the “Grand Theft Autumn” part means. Possibly the song was recorded during the season, or it’s inspired by the rapid guitar introduction. Whatever it is….. it just sounds good for some reason, even if it doesn’t relate to anything in the song.

A lot of people will know the track. For those of you who don’t, it’s about wanting to be in a relationship where you feel you would treat the girl better than the guy she’s already with. It is also possibly the poppiest-punk track the band have done to this day. Not that that’s bad. Its relatable subject matter in the lyrics matched with its upbeat tempo and nice melodies make it very accessible. Probably why it’s one of the band’s most popular songs. Just sounds a bit dated to me, I’m just saying.

My iPod #449: Eels – Going to Your Funeral Part I

Leave a reply

Going to Your Funeral Part I is the second track on Electro-Shock Blues, the second album by the alternative band Eels. Recorded during a period in which several friends and members of frontman E’s family passed away, the album is regarded to be the band’s best work because of the brutal honesty and sincerity within each of the sixteen tracks on it.

Preceding this song is “Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor“, a lullaby-like track with lyrics taken from E’s sister’s personal journal before she unfortunately ended her own life some time after. “Going to Your Funeral Part I” depicts the scene bluntly stated in the title after the tragic event. You’d think that coming right after it, it would only concern the funeral of his sister and that’s what we’re made to believe for the first and second verses, but it is only until the final verse which has E almost screaming into a megaphone about remembering an old friend he used to hang out with behind their old school.

Beginning with an ominous drone that pans from left to right and quickly fades out, the track then gets to a crawling start carried by an unsettling groove led by an intense but very slack bass line that oozes from one note to the other. E comes in with a light falsetto vocal after, but over the dark bass line and overall atmosphere still isn’t able to to make the track less dissonant than it already is. The style changes during the choruses where cute xylophones and backwards slide guitars enter the mix; those only appear for a short time before returning to the grungy sound again.

Only five minutes into the album, the listener is already provided with two tracks that sound the complete opposite to one another. Though the first hints at the unsettling feel with light music and heavy lyrics, “Going to Your Funeral Part I” really hits it home.

If you want to know why it’s specifically labelled as “Part I”, here is “Part II”.

My iPod #442: Coldplay – God Put a Smile upon Your Face

Leave a reply

“God Put a Smile upon Your Face” is a track from Coldplay’s 2003 album A Rush of Blood to the Head, one which built upon the sound that the group had established with their preceding debut Parachutes. The former album contains some of Coldplay’s highly rated songs from “The Scientist” to “In My Place”. But I feel “God Put a Smile” doesn’t get much love as those, or any of the other tracks in Coldplay’s vast catalogue. Releasing it as a proper single in only a few regions may have something to do with that.

Starting off with Chris Martin singing the first verse with an sinister acoustic riff to set the ball rolling, the track picks up with a cool bass groove and steady beat with little guitar licks added by Jonny Buckland for effect. There’s something about this track that I think makes it have an edge over a few others. I think it’s quite a dark song. I know that ‘dark’ isn’t an adjective that you would normally associate with a band such as Coldplay. It just has that dissonant tone about it. The music video maybe reinforces this idea.

Honestly can’t say much about it. Nothing personal; it is a good track that fits in with that killer first half of the album.

My iPod #415: The Darkness – Get Your Hands off My Woman

Leave a reply

I was eight years old when I received “Permission to Land” as a gift from my cousin. Around the time I thought “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” was one of the best songs to exist, and is probably one of the reasons I started listening to rock music. Some people start with Nirvana; I start with The Darkness.

To this day, I remember my sister asking for the album’s booklet containing the liner notes and lyrics and so on. She then told me that I shouldn’t look in it. Straight up. I asked her, “Why not?” She replied, “Just don’t.” Of course I went on to when she wasn’t looking. I saw the swear words in “Black Shuck” and this song, and saw why she was so suddenly stern about it.

Even though I don’t think as highly of the track/album as I did then, it still brings a laugh whenever I hear it. This track as serious as hell though just like all of the others on “Permission to Land”, I just get the feeling that people wouldn’t have liked them because they were too much of a spoof or a mimic of dramatic heavy metal bands from the 70s or something. But when you have a track like this where the words “motherfucker” and “cunt” are shrieked at a frighteningly high pitch I can’t help but smile at it all. Justin Hawkins is a crazy singer with an astounding vocal range, and “Get Your Hands Off” is just one out of the many where it is shown to its full potential.

My iPod #414: Nine Black Alps – Get Your Guns

1 Reply

I know mostly all of the lyrics…. I could hum every tune, note and screech the guitar feedback if you indeed wanted me to recite all of “Everything Is” to you. “Everything Is” being the first album by Nine Black Alps, which was released in 2005. I know that album like the back of my hand. IT’S TOO GOOD. Even today, I still feel the same excitement and thrill as I did when I opened that case, inserted the disc and heard that crunching guitar introduction for the very first time.

“Get Your Guns” is the track of which that introduction belongs to, and it is after a commanding cymbal count-in that the song erupts like a dog at the races with a bellowing atmosphere of bending guitar strings and a powerful rhythm section. From then on, the album never lets up. It is track after track of aggressive rock music. No momentum is lost. That is until you get to the first acoustic based track six songs in.

A song to punch a wall, scream in someone’s face, and generally get pumped to, “Get Your Guns” does the perfect job of establishing the tone which the rest of the album follows which any worthy album opener should do. Just because I like the song that much I’ve never pondered in depth about what it’s meaning is; if it’s good, I don’t see a reason too. Though there was a point that I did think “Everything Is” was a concept album about a war and various relationships between people while this war is happening. It probably isn’t. Though actually witnessing the lyrics might make you see why I got that idea.

So, yeah. Have a listen to it. Has a line from a Radiohead song in there too. That’s besides the point. If this doesn’t float your boat… you have no soul. But that’s just my opinion.