5 posts tagged “seventies”

This is one of my favorite Elvis Costello songs, and I figured I may as well share it for everyone.  It's from the second album, and the first with the Attractions, This Year's Model, which may also be my favorite Elvis record.  Either that or Imperial Bedroom, probably.  Both of those are outstanding.  This has a lot more edges to it, though, and a really great drum part.  Some of it reminds me a bit of Drums & Wires-era XTC, though it adds the one thing that that era XTC lacked -- really awesome organ, played here by Steve Nieve.  Such a great song, really. 

I thought I'd post this song because it's actually the source of a song that made me really sad.  There's a new single out, by Monica, produced by Missy Elliott, which is called "A Dozen Roses (You Remind Me)" which uses this song as the base.  Of course -- it's not the sampling that bothers me.  I'm a Negativland fan, ferchrissake.  Sampling is A-OK by me, and encouraged!  The thing that bothers me is, after a bit of the hook from this song, the Monica lyrics come in, and the first lines are:

Boy you remind me, remind me of my Gucci shoes
Every time you walk past, all the girls be lookin' at you
You got style, just like a Bentley coupe
And I be losin' my mind every time I get next to you

And, well, it just basically keeps going from there.  It's basically a trite paean to the idiocy and materialism and, well, wallowing in negativity that Curtis Mayfield spent his life fighting through his music.  I'm sure that Curtis Mayfield would be at the very least irritated to know that one of his most romantic songs was being used for something so shallow.  I suppose the lyrics could be intended ironically, but I didn't really get that vibe from the song, nor the artwork of the single -- it really sounded like a celebration, rather than a condemnation.  Which is, well, just really fucking depressing.  Here, listen to the real song from the outstanding solo debut Curtis.

Here's a cut from Brian Eno's first solo record, Here Come The Warm Jets, which is a song I almost hesitate to post, just because you should all really, really have this record.  If you don't, the Amazon link's right there -- edjumacate yerself posthaste.  Because, OH MY GOD, this record is SO GOOD.  This isn't even the best track.  I'd say it's "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch", but apparently Eno hisself doesn't think much of that one.  I'm not sure why, though, it's mindblowingly cool.  But this one really is as well.

The cool thing with this is the way Eno wrote the lyrics -- his lyrics, particularly from this era, were more-or-less nonsensical and made up to go with the sounds.  Basically where most people will go "da da da dum dum" to do a melody, he'd do that and replace the "da da dum"s with words that SOUNDED like the "da da dum"s and whether or not they made sense was cool.  After all, the lyrics weren't important to what he was doing.  (Of course, he got some real corkers in, though, like "By this time I got to looking for a kind of substitute/I cant tell you who I found, except that it rhymes with dissolute" from the aforementioned "Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch".)  So, it was basically all just stream-of-consciousness.  The funny thing with this one is when he was playing the demo for people, people kept saying "My god, this is about Bryan Ferry, isn't it?  It's rather nasty, don't you think?" and Eno went "What?  No, it's just nonsense!" and then he went back and listened to it again, and realised that Yes, it WAS about Bryan Ferry, and yes it WAS rather nasty.  So, he changed some of the lyrics between that version and this one.  It's pretty much still about Bryan Ferry, but at least a little bit less so. 

Also, as promised, episode 2 of the Untitled TODCRA Productions Project is up at TODCRA@VOX, so go check that out!

I suppose I should probably be posting a cut by the Billy Nayer Show since Dale and I are gonna go see them tonight, but I'm listening to Voobaha right now again, and I'm really in a Barnes & Barnes mood today, so here you go.  (Though, of course, if you know me, I've probably preached the gospel of the awesomeness of the Billy Nayer Show to/at you before, so you probably don't need me to tell you here that you NEED to buy every record and DVD they ever put out.  Actually, same with Barnes & Barnes, but hey.)  This is just a really great rockin' stomper of a song, and it's always been one of my favorites.  Always wanted to form a band that would have this in its repertoire.  Just a great rock song all around.  Actually, today, at the Barnes & Barnes Yahoo Group, someone posted an ALTERNATE version that aired on the Dr. Demento show in 1979 -- this is the straight album version, though.  The Alternate's got a quite different vocal line, and a couple lyrical tweaks (in this one, "Down on the boulevard dey pumpin'/Dey pumpin' in Lumania too" is "Down in Mexico dey pumpin'/They pumpin' in Canada too" -- but I like the album lyrics better) -- it's definitely worth checking out, but this is by far the superior version.  After all, it IS the one they put on the record and all.  So, here goes -- dig this song.  I sure as hell do.

I actually had the idea to post this in a dream.  In the dream, I talked about the Magical Misery Tour piece from National Lampoon's Radio Hour (or, one of the records actually), where it's pieced together from John Lennon interviews.  One of the lines in there is "'Don't Worry Kyoko' was one of the best fucking rock 'n' roll records ever made!" and in the dream I argued that it in fact was.  After all, it's got a great, hummable riff, and the sheer emotion in the lyrics and vocal performance is as impassioned as, well, anything.  I think I had one other point w/r/t/ what people think of Rock 'n' Roll is that's exemplified by this recording, but I've forgotten it, now.  After all, it WAS a dream.  Anyway, though, this song really is great, and it's actually pretty sad -- it's about Yoko's daughter who was abducted by her ex-husband who got really deep into born-again Christianity and decided that Yoko was a Bad Influence or whatever.  Yoko recorded this song for her in hopes that she'd hear it and be comforted that her mother was still looking for her and loved her.  Yoko didn't see her for almost 30 years -- she was abducted in 1971, and they got back in touch in 1998.