Trying to get to you

Just can't resist going back to the well of classix. Of course, the Pixies are one of those bands whose weaker tracks are far beyond what most bands could ever aspire to. Last time I dug them up, I got all sentimental. And damned if it isn't happening again right now. This one goes back to some high school delirium that I suspect will get neither hazier nor clearer with time.

Pixies - Letter To Memphis

I got a bad desire

Another one near and dear to me. Everyone likes the Springsteen fist-pumpers, but this one has a quiet intensity that can burn holes through iron. Talk about anguish. And a bit creepy — exactly how little is this little girl? Are we talking "daddy" as in actual father? The warm keys can't soften these questions. But I'm gonna have to drop a curveball version, approaching dance mix territory, which works better than you'd think.

Bruce Springsteen - I'm On Fire (Cousin Cole's Bad Desire Mix)

And for a screwball, the Chromatics version, working the "Every Breath You Take" style guitar. It's blank and ghostly, almost dubby. Points for not changing gender in the lyrics.

The Chromatics - I'm On Fire

Nowhere to be

This has got to be one of my favorite song titles. I love either image it suggests. If it's planes, what a beautiful image as they lift into the air. If it's narrow rushes of water, what a sweet assault. Motors hum, and the drums start unruly but eventually fall in line. Eno sings something mostly incomprehensible, yet profound-sounding, and we're all in watery flight to some amazing place.

Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets

Chestnuts

Yesterday's post reminded me that most bands that have been pillars of my musical history have not made their way onto the 'blague (click the tag below for some special exceptions). It probably has something to do with an old, useless desire to not misrepresent an entire oeuvre with a single song, a wish for objective encapsulation. Which is contrary to the whole idea of this blog. Plus, in a very real sense, representation is always misrepresentation. Why worry about what you think you're leaving out?

So in the holiday spirit, here's a classic chestnut from a band that defies the idea of a summary that doesn't diminish. This one reminds me of a goofy crush from long ago. And it's got a cool theremin.

Pixies - Velouria

Black cell abrasion

I don't know what it says about me that a track I couldn't get enough of at 13 is a track I still can't get enough of. Such is Depeche Mode's mysterious hold on me. I know, I know, the lyrics are beyond hokey. And the music is like an intro workshop on melody and arrangement. Dangerously saccharine. But its roots are deep and tangled in my brain. Like the song says, it feels like home.

Depeche Mode - Here Is The House

Sadder than bombs

It says something about music's strange alchemy that some songs stop you dead in your tracks even after a million and a half listens, when you think you've squeezed out every last drop of emotional impact. Here's one of those for me. I'm not even sure why. The lyrics are pretty plain by the Mozzer's standards, straight-up maudlin, without the sly black humor. It doesn't even bother with narrative arc.

But I guess it's the little things that do it for me—Johnny Marr being all wizardly with layered guitar parts, the understated complimentary bassline, the quiet synth doubling that comes in at the outro. Among the ranks of objective Smiths classics, this is sorta B-list. And yet...it kills me every time.

The Smiths - Back To The Old House

How has it taken this long to get a Smiths jam up on the 'blague?! Here's the stripped-down Peel Sessions version. Even sadder, ghostlier. Do you have a favorite?

The Smiths - Back To The Old House

Knock the little jockeys off the rich people's lawns

Well now I've got Zappa on the brain. So here's some more for yez. This one comes from the 'commercial' period, when Frank enlisted top flight musicians to play raunchy rock with fancy zigzags. This one's actually a little somber, obliquely riffing on the ebb of the civil rights tide in the mid-'70s, and with barely a hint of smirk or snark. Props to that, but really this track is all about the gosel funk of Sir George Duke's piano.

Frank Zappa - Uncle Remus

Be a jerk and go to work

Frank Zappa is so deeply woven into Songblague's DNA that it's easy to lose sight of the man himself. And then there's sheer scope of the his work, which you'd be well-advised to go research if you're not already familiar. Having spent some time plumbing the depths of the Zappa cult and the span of his cosmology, I'd be foolish to try to summarize the layers of appeal.

Of course, some tracks are more essential than others, and "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" is an early masterpiece, far beyond just about anyone in the rock idiom circa 1967. Not that this is even rock music at all, what with reference points ranging from R&B to Varese-ian dissonance. The track lays bare the suppressed depravity of straight-laced, post-war America, ripped loose from the dark desk drawers of its elites, without enacting the caricature of middle-class, hippie pseudo-rebellion (Frank's stance on that was pretty brutal too, as we know). From a musical and technical standpoint, it's a stunner. Totally controlled and surreal. And yet, there's something of the bootstrap, lo-budget charm that he'd lose in later years.

Zappa would go to many fascinating places after this, but I don't think he was ever a more astute cultural observer or keen satirist. Oh, did I mention the music is effing sick too.

Frank Zappa - Brown Shoes Don't Make It

There's a splinter in your eye

Well alright then, here's that R.E.M. payoff that's been percolating. However misshapen their career arc has become, with its slow descent into middling albums after their string of '80s greats, you go back and just love the classics as much ever. How do you pick one to feature? For me, "Harborcoat" is a sentimental fave. It was the first song I heard after enough radio and MTV exposure had convinced me that the early stuff was worth checking into. ("Stand" notwithstanding, Green totally underwhelms in retrospect.)

You know the story, you get attached to the tunes that feel like discovery. You start getting that weird mix of thrill and accomplishment that comes with opening new doors and tracing new webs of musical connections. And in defiance of the Top 40 regime, no less. How quaint now to envision an oppressive, monolithic media! Kinda sad actually. Anyway, this track reminds me of those young, heady days. And braces. And a quasi-mullet that haunts me to this day.

R.E.M. - Harborcoat