Art of the Song

a somewhat shorter partner of The Art of the Mixtape

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“Shoegaze”, Sound and Color, Alabama Shakes

It wasn’t too long ago when Alabama Shakes crashed onto the scene with their Stax Records sound that was perfectly pressed onto their EP like a diamond in the rough lost amongst some O.V. Wright 45s.  It was perfect timing, as the whole retro-rock movement was at its peak, running the gamut from acts like Mumford & Suns to Dr. Dog.  But, and thankfully so, that was never meant to be the full picture. Brittany Howard and company weren’t a band that could be considered a trope, they never wanted to be pigeonholed into the revivalist scene.  In that sense, Sound and Color is less of a jump forward, and more of a realization of what this band is capable of. That isn’t to say there aren’t touches of the retro sound that brought them to the fore, first single “Don’t Want To Fight” is chock full of reference, but this time the 60s soul has been traded in for an updated take on James Brown and Bee Gees falsetto hooks.   But, by and large, the production is the greatest difference here full of, well, sound and color.  There’s a lot to love here, but one of my favorite tracks of the moment is “Shoegaze” which bolsters the back end of the album.   Blake Mills helmed the production mantle on this record and the nooks on this song are full of nifty dynamic changes and deft instrumentation. Ben Tanner’s organ gets so much out of just a one note hook in this arrangement, enough to provide a highlight in a song that boasts some great guitar work.  Elsewhere Steve Johnson’s drumming weaves in and out of Howard’s vocal, going from classic soul snare build-up to CCR’s “Suzie Q”-esque tom fills with aplomb.  Shoegaze - Alabama Shakes You’re gonna want to listen to this song with a pair of headphones or good speakers, it’s worth the time.

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Snapshots: Anna (Go To Him), Please Please Me

It's often that The Beatles are given the label of saving rock and roll, and usually that's for overblown reasons. Yes, they were incredibly creative, fully embraced technical advancements and managed to propel popular music into a more advanced form.  However, it's perhaps most important that they always had their own particular identity.

Early rock and roll was largely "race music"-- gritty and visceral--often only a few steps removed from blues numbers that had traveled up the Delta.  While The Beatles were influenced by Elvis Presley and Eddie Cochran, they were just as much, if not more appreciative, of black artists like Chuck Berry, Arthur Alexander, and Barrett Strong.  

McCartney may have covered "That's Alright Momma," but The Beatles covered far more songs from black groups. In fact, all of the covers from Please Please Me ("Chains, "Boys", "Baby It's You", "A Taste of Honey", "Twist and Shout", and "Anna (Go To Him)") were done originally by black artists, and only "Til' There Was You" a number from the Broadway play The Music Man was an exception to the rule on With The Beatles. Lennon would later recall, "We didn't sing our own songs in the early days - they weren't good enough - the one thing we always did was to make it known that there were black originals, we loved the music and wanted to spread it in any way we could."

Of particular note is "Anna (Go To Him)" which stands as perhaps my favorite Lennon cover outside of "Twist and Shout". 

Originally written and recorded by Arthur Alexander, "Anna (Go To Him)" was released on September 17, 1962.

Alexander's version is maudlin, even slightly off-kilter, given the knee-jerk rhythm and the placid nature of Alexander's vocal. Though Lennon insisted "it was only natural that we tried to do it as near to the record as we could - i always wished we could have done them even closer to the original," The Beatles rendition of "Anna (Go To Him) has two distinct differences.

Perhaps most obvious is the piano's melodic hook being shifted to a very clean guitar hook, and more importantly, they shifted the key up a step to D major.

It was February 11th, 1963, and Lennon was battling a rather nasty case of pneumonia, but this was a time of 4-track tapes and no sure road to stardom.  What remains from this day's session of recording is probably some of the most passionate singing Lennon has on record.  

It should be noted here that most contemporaries who were doing what The Beatles were doing, e.g. The Rolling Stones, typically tried to emulate the exact vocal performance of the original. "Mercy, Mercy" is a fine example (and originally recorded by the criminally unknown Don Covay).

Already starting around the top of his vocal range, the emotional heft of the song and the strain on his vocal chords bring an additional resonance to Lennon's delivery--it crackles and wails, pleads and begs. And it's his own.   

"Twist and Shout" would be the last song Lennon sang that day after chugging a glass of milk to soothe his throat, but that's a story for another day. Other Notes:

Particularly great vocal harmony work on "Anna (Go To Him)" from the hauntingly sultry "Aaanna" call and response in the beginning to the more traditional backing vocals that try to steady Lennon's emotional waver in the refrain.

Don Covay's "Mercy, Mercy" would be one of the earliest appearances Jimi Hendrix ever made on a record (though uncredited)

Covay would also be responsible for this great hit

Most of Lennon's quotes here come from a quickly scribbled letter he had written on a plane in 1971 in response to a New York Times article titled 'So in the End, the Beatles Have Proved False Prophets'. While Lennon's memories were famously suspect, his "P.S. What about the 'B' side of Money?" line manages to both reference something he held dear and be relevant to the discussion at hand. The 'B' side in question? "Oh I Apologize".

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Sidetracks: "Until You Come Back To Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)

I've been going through a bit of an Aretha Franklin phase lately, so it seemed serendipitous when she popped up in social media for her latest album 'Aretha Sings The Great Diva Classics'.  It's both a remarkable testament to her talent, as well as a saddening realization, that this iteration of Aretha Franklin is by far her weakest. Her voice- though still far better than most- is a shell of what it once was, and it seems shameless that she should have to stoop to cover "Rolling In The Deep".  

Her career followed a remarkable path from child gospel piano prodigy, to Sam Cooke protege, Columbia Records cast-off, and then her tremendous run with Atlantic Records before trailing off in the seventies with a period rivaling the decades' own in a search for a new identity.  

That is not to say that Aretha isn't a masterful interpreter. "Respect" was an Otis Redding song, "Chain of Fools" was written by Don Covey, "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" was a Carol King number, "I Say A Little Prayer" was Hal David and Burt Bacharach. Still, "Until You Come Back To Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)" was an outlier in her catalogue.

It was originally a Stevie Wonder song, though he hadn't released a recording of it (and wouldn't until his 1977 'Anthology') before he showed it to Franklin. Listening to his original now only demonstrates just how much Franklin improves the bones of the original composition.  

The chord progression is pure Stevie Wonder, though he buried the melodic motif that becomes the centerpiece of Franklin's version.  The rhythm section is also mostly straightforward, and Stevie's singing conveys the material as almost naive heartbreak.

Truly, Aretha's version is superior, thanks in part due to her magnificent backing band. Franklin plays the piano, Donny Hathaway fills in on the bouncing (and almost hidden) Fender Rhodes, Hugh McCracken plays the only guitar, while Chuck Rainey (bass) and Bernard Purdie (drums) fill out the rhythm section.  

It's Rainey and Purdie who hold the key, playing with a hitched gait that elongates Franklin's vocal phrases and Franklin herself, who conveys that desperation as hopeful despair. The flute solo, in vogue at the time, is truly the only flaw.

Inner Grooves:

Songwriters: Morris Broadnax, Clarence Paul, Stevie Wonder

Personnel:

Aretha Franklin: Piano, Vocals Margaret Branch: Backing vocals Pat Smith: Backing vocals Donny Hathaway: Electric Piano (Rhodes) Richard Tee: Organ Kenneth Bichel: Synthesizer Hugh McCracken: Guitar Chuck Rainey: Bass Bernard Purdie: Drums

Further Connections:

Bonnie Raitt's album 'Nick of Time'. Similar vocal phrasing and dynamics.

Aretha Franklin - Until You Come Back To Me (That's What I'm Gonna Do)

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Classic Albums: My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello (1977)

Elvis Costello's debut LP occupies an intriguing space in the classic rock narrative, by many accounts, it's prototypical New Wave at the genre's finest, but such distinction also ameliorates Costello's defining portrait, sacrificing the teeth of Costello's anger as merely sign of the times, a succinct songwriter who championed a form.Yet Costello's educated social frustration is equally relevant today as it was in the turbulent 70s for British youth. 

Drugs, Fame, and Rock & Roll

 Then, The Beatles were relegated to ceremonial deities of a record store, their records sold but their relevance was limited to that of the old guard, their intrinsic parts had been revealed human; Lennon had turned his well earned clout into a social pariah, releasing few albums to limited success before becoming a "househusband" raising his son, McCartney had disowned his turbulent breakup (which had fueled his first two albums to a new band that was content to say nothing at all, Harrison's celebrated success had turned into myopic platitudes about God, and Ringo desperately clinged to being "the luckiest drummer alive"  while his career disintegrated in the excess of success.  The Rolling Stones had released Exile On Main Street in 1972 and seemed content to rest on their laurels of rock & roll debauchery without making another significant record until Some Girls some six years later.  

The radio seemed content with the new trope of singer-songwriters that played sweet sounding melodies that overwhelmed whatever societal message might have been present.  Rock had become old, and simply unable to keep up with social progressivism. Woodstock may be looked upon fondly now, but it's impact was limited by the time the mid 70's rolled around; Dylan was in hiding, Hendrix dead, the Dead firmly entrenched in their increasingly digressive celebration of 60's counter-culture.

From The Ashes, An Echo

Then, in the echoes of the sus law, which was facing more turbulence from a growing immigrant population in Great Britain, punk was born. British youth, disillusioned with the government, had formed a new kind of protest song; direct, simple, succinct, Punk became anthemic because it could be so quickly made and so easily played. Borrowing from the most basic of rock forms, three chords was often the only route needed for British youth to seethe at the societal oppression of the government (most famously in The Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen") The Clash released their debut in 1977, and while London Calling would be their definitive triumph (and a paradigm shift in punk rock form) their first LP captured punk rock in its rumbling youth, braggadocio with a call to arms with numbers like "I Fought The Law", "White Riot" and Junior Murvin cover "Police and Thieves". It would be a matter of time before Elvis Costello, then known as Declan Patrick MacManus, would transform a demo and a single into one of the greatest debut albums of all time. MacManus had begun his musical career in a folk duo, but soon moved onto a more pub rock vein with a band called Flip City where he adapted his stage name to D.P. Costello, the surname being his father's stage name. During the day, MacManus switched from rote job to rote job, working as a data entry clerk and a computer operator, only fueling his discontent with the meaningless work force and pushing him to find a record contract. Stiff Records, a label founded in 1976, would end up being his saving grace.

The demos that MacManus submitted to the label were bare acoustic numbers that nowadays would have been lauded as lo-fi and bedroom pop, but the truth of the matter was MacManus had no other venue with which to record his songs other than his bedroom armed with a tape recorder. (The remains of this can still be found on "Mystery Dance" but I'll get to that later) Still for an upcoming label, MacManus's name carried no sway and they initially wished him to be a songwriter for Dave Edmunds. Luck found that Edmunds wasn't pleased with Costello's style, a reaction that provoked the recording of the album in its present form in an effort to convince Edmunds to change his mind. Armed with six four-hour sessions, and no artist to reinterpret the material, Stiff Records decided to give MacManus his chance, but wished to promote a more marketable name.  Thus Elvis (from Elvis Presley) Costello (from his dad's stage name) was born.  

"Less Than Zero" was the first single released from the recordings, though it made no impact on the charts, it showcased the songwriting ability that Costello had to offer. Brash, compact guitar riffs and a scathing social commentary that center around Oswald Mosley, the former head of the British Union of Facists.  It's a thrilling attack on the powers of propaganda right from the get-go, "Calling Mr. Oswald with the swastika tattoo/there is a vacancy waiting with the English voodoo" that isn't afraid to call out society as well "Turn up the TV/ No one listening will suspect, even your mother won't detect it/so your father won't know" alluding to both teenage sex and governmental apathy.  

Still, Costello wasn't a star yet when "Alison" became the second single released and the sheer discrepancy in style between "Less Than Zero" and "Alison" gave a taste of the immense talent that was waiting to be recognized.  To this day, "Alison" remains one of Costello's definitive songs, and one of his most thought provoking lyrical narratives.  A mid-tempo ballad out of nowhere, the flourishing lead guitar lines belie the cynical and at times sinister story line. Costello's narrator is a man who time has passed by, whose love has gone unrequited, and whose fury is barely contained by surface commentary "From the way you look l understand that you are not impressed/But I heard you let that little friend of mine take off your party dress" it's conversational, yet the nature of how it unfolds gives the sense that the narrator is backed into a corner "Cause I don't know if you are loving somebody, I only know it isn't mine". Near the end when the narrator cries out "I think somebody better put out the big light/ cause I can't stand to see you this way" it can be equally interpreted that he's either thinking of killing her or himself, which makes "my aim is true" an even darker ending.

Stiff Records decided to release the full album in the summer of 1977, with My Aim Is True as the title. The first song, "Welcome to the Working Week"  is Costello at his most sarcastic and concise, coming in at a brisk 1:24 clip and directly addresses his distaste for jobs taken for the sake of having a wage.

With Nick Lowe behind the boards for production, the overall sound of My Aim Is True is frenetic, with caustic electric guitars, rollicking keyboards and booming drums, and clearly the work of a man energized by his shot to say what he believes to a greater audience, if he were JFK it would be called vigor, but really it's just rock & roll.  

One of the major themes of this album is social apathy; why work being one of the first questions Costello asks while remarking that "your family had to kill to survive", yet Costello is precocious in framing most of his work around traditional boy/girl love song narratives. In "Miracle Man", he comments on a girl who keeps wanting, nay, expecting her man to deliver anything she wants to which he quips "But don't you think that I know that walking on water won't make me a miracle man"  There's a dig at society's reliance and acceptance on Jesus/God as savior and only good.  He furthers the social/religious undertones on "Blame It On Cain", imploring the government to not blame their need for money on him, but on Cain, the Bible's ultimate example of the perils of man. Change the C to a B, and you might as well have the GOP campaign slogan "it's nobody's fault, but we need somebody to burn" with all their false niceties about Obama being a good guy but ineffective leader.  The trio of "No Dancing", "Sneaky Feelings" and "Mystery Dance" play into the mindset of a narrator who doesn't know how to handle love, the first being a Phil Spector send up, the second lays down a cynical groove that treats love as a "sneaky feeling" while "Mystery Dance" is a not so subtle tongue-in-cheek reference to sex.

It's telling of just how cynical the 22 year old Costello was when he juxtaposes songs of sex and lust with a Faustian deal with Angels in "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes".  In the song, Costello chooses to make a bargain with the angels for eternal youth in hopes of keeping the affection of a lover, while the angels want to live a mortal life.  The idea seems like a boon for Costello until his lover grows tired of him and tells him to drop dead when that's all but impossible.  So he's left disgusted with youth, forever trying to become bemused with his "deal with the devil".  

"Pay It Back" may just be the finest B-side on Costello's debut with a groove that nimbly switches between lock-step and swing and a lyrical message that finds Elvis at his most direct and personal. A kiss-off to record companies that turned him down from being a star while he worked nights as a computer operator.  The origin of this song dates back to his work with Flip City, including an early demo circa 1975 that shows some surprising Springsteen influence. The evolution both in the song's rhythm and Costello's cynical delivery is incredible.

Costello's songwriting at the time of My Aim Is True was not only polished, it was prolific, he had finished the majority of the songs for Next Year's Model by the time My Aim Is True hit the shelves.

It was "Watching The Detectives" that first introduced me to Costello, even though it wouldn't be included on the original UK version of the LP, being released a solid 3 months after.  Whereas "Alison" found Costello ever so slightly holding back, veering on a daggers edge of subtlety, "Watching The Detectives" throws more menace into the equation and begs the audience not only to notice the double meanings, but to actively seek out what the true story is.  Whether it's a woman just watching some creepy detective show on the television, or a woman being stalked and murdered is really up to you. Still, it would be a quirky but forgotten number in Costello's repertoire if not for the unforgettable melody with a drum line that would make Stewart Copeland jealous.  Not even The Clash's "Guns of Brixton" comes close to how apt this reggata de blanc fits the intent of the stuff from the islands.  

An Overnight Success After A Seven Year Delay

Costello's debut hasn't exactly faded into obscurity, it's properly lauded by critics and consumers alike and it launched Costello's career.  Still, listening to the album some 37 years after its release, you can't help but note how timeless it still sounds.  Perhaps that's because it was recorded on such a small budget that demonstrates a simple rock backing is all you need. 

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‘Song My Love Can Sing’ by Doug Paisley @Doug_Paisley coming out strong with "Song My Love Can Sing". An already timeless classic in early 2014.

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‘Charley's Girl’ by Lou Reed My knowledge of Lou Reed didn't extend far beyond "Walk On The Wild Side" or the bombastic cut of "Sweet Jane" from Rock N' Roll Animal but by some happenstance I stumbled on this gem, a thin,electric-heat guitar line was all I needed to fall in love. RIP Lou

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White Denim - "Come Back"

White Denim is an eclectic band out of Austin, TX that has managed to cross the prog/pop rock divide in a manner that's entirely unique, yet comforting at the same time.  I first found this band through their delightful Last Day of Summer, an album they released for free after Summer 2010 had come to an end. But what's truly delightful about this band is their marriage of pop song conventions into the otherwise obtuse prog-rock format. "New Coat", off Last Day of Summer was-and still is- a favorite song of mine.

On their upcoming LP, Corsicana Lemonade, produced with the help of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, "Come Back" is a relative stand-out track with a mind-whirling honky-tonk guitar riff and their relentless energy and drive on full display.  Check out the track below, and look for Corsicana Lemonade to hit stores on October 29th.

Come Back

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Side Tracked: "This Song" and "Pure Smokey", George Harrison, Thirty Three & 1/3

Even-- or perhaps especially-- if you're a huge Beatle fan, you could be forgiven for believing George Harrison simply just stopped making albums after his triple LP All Things Must Pass. Some may even remember that he released Living In The Material World shortly after, but the rest of Harrison's solo career seems to be blips, maybe a single here or there, "All Those Years Ago", "Got My Mind Set On You" (why did that ever, ever, get made?), and of course his time with The Traveling Wilburys.  There's a good reason that most of his 70s output gets glossed over like a sterilized re-write of history.  Most of it is terrible.

Now I don't mean terrible in the sense that McCartney was able to craft beautiful melodies centered around what in the world lyrics like "Someone's knocking at the door, somebody is ringin' a bell",  or that Lennon spent his whole mid 70s/ "Lost weekend" trying to rediscover what a good melody was. I mean Harrison tried to hard to be philosophical and inaccessible, and his music--and audience-- suffered.

He also had a tremendous bout of bad luck.  His wife left him (though his own behavior certainly had a hand in that), he tried to record an album, Dark Horse, before his first solo tour and was left with a crippling case of laryngitis that made itself comfortable throughout the album.  The tour was even worse, not only was his voice gone, he decided to replace the "she" of "Something" with God, and as many rock stars of the era, had been wooed by the cocaine habit that was exploding around the world.  His last album for EMI, Extra Texture, would also be a bust, avoided on radio play except for maybe its lead single "You".

More problems followed, Harrison was sued for plagiarizing The Chiffon's "He's So Fine" in his biggest hit to date, "My Sweet Lord". When he set about recording his first album off the EMI label, he came down with hepatitis.  However, Thirty Three & 1/3 would emerge as one of the best Harrison releases in years.  

"This Song" was written as a direct response to the whole "My Sweet Lord" lawsuit, and in a way Harrison predates the MTV craze by concocting a ridiculous video for the affair (you almost can't hear the song on it's own and get the same effect) . It's a meta-moment where he sings about writing the song because of the court, and saying what key the song is (E).  He also throws in a bunch of subtle tongue-in-cheek moments (like Eric Idle's psuedo-feminine declarations before the instrumental break.  More than anything, this song proved that the usually dour Harrison was at his best when he didn't take things too seriously.

"Pure Smokey"  on the other hand, was tucked away as the B-side to "True Love", a Cole Porter cover that is wholly out of place, even on a usual Harrison record.  Yet "Pure Smokey" is a delight, sounding more like Steely Dan's idea of slicked back R&B with some great horn and guitar parts.  Strange that it's supposed to be a dedication to Smokey Robinson when the music doesn't attempt to comply. It's an unusual--but well crafted-- unknown highlight of Harrison's catalog.

This Song

Pure Smokey

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"Mamunia", Paul McCartney & Wings, Band on the Run

Unlike Paul Simon, Paul McCartney never had a Graceland moment.  Perhaps there's some psycho-cultural reasoning behind it all, but perhaps the idea that McCartney always had a kaleidoscopic melange of musical influences suits it best.  Yet Band on the Run has a significant backstory as "the one McCartney recorded in Africa".  However the location of Lagos, Nigeria, was more on the aims of escaping traditions than highlighting old ones. 

There are two further anecdotes that obscure worldliness from Band on the Run's overall sound.  One was the oft-noted story of McCartney being mugged coming back from the ramshackle studio with all of the demo tapes in his possession. The other is even more curious; Fela Kuti, by then a well known Afrobeat prodigy, had taken it upon himself to publicly accuse the band of exploiting African music (a similar accusation would befall Paul Simon 13 years later).  In response, McCartney invited Kuti to listen to the songs being made at the studio and promised to not use any local session musicians. Still, either as an expression of gratitude, or prevailing influence, "Mamunia" would become the one McCartney foray into African music.

For a man whose lyrics have often been tossed aside as too simple or without meaning, "Mamunia" seems to disprove both.  An anglicized approximation of "Mamounia", the Arabic term for "safe haven", "Mamunia" is parts an ode to nature and humanity (a narrative that McCartney had approached before in "Mother Nature's Son").  The rain being both good for the earth, and in the metaphorical sense the harder times that everyone goes through in life. The realization of one's place, and to be able to embrace it, is what McCartney means by safe haven.

Musically, "Mamunia" is incredibly warm with tightly constructed harmonies, a  loping punchy bass line, and a brightly compressed acoustic guitar line, the likes of which could be traced back to "I Will".  McCartney also keeps things interesting by subtle key changes, altering between A major for the refrain and C major for the verses without sounding abrupt. 

Lost in the shuffle of McCartney's effortless melodicism, a term surprisingly used throughout McCartney's career as qualified detriment, is his ability with arranging harmonies.  Even with those less qualified than his former band members, his popular songs in the 70's would reflect ambitious group harmonies ("Silly Love Songs"  is a prime example), on "Mamunia" the harmonies glide between strong unison backing and vocal rounds without skipping a beat.

 Yes, it's an obvious choice for chronicling McCartney's signature optimism, but "Mamunia" is a singular treat in McCartney's catalogue, and a strong showing that the man was capable of whatever genre he put his mind to.

Mamunia

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"Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)", Paul McCartney & Wings, Band on the Run

There's a tremendous story behind Band on the Run, one I might try to tackle some other time, but it is one of the few classic albums where most only remember the obvious songs.  "Jet", "Let Me Roll It", and the title track are bonafide rock and roll staples, and from a historical stance, Band on the Run marks the time where Paul McCartney became post-Beatle. This isn't to say that the rest of the songs are maligned by bad quality ("Bluebird" notwithstanding) but rather they fit a templete of McCartney singularity rather than only the best whittled down byproducts of being in a group of four. 

While Band on the Run would cement McCartney's chops as a rocker, revisiting this album shows a surprising depth, there's the jaunty tongue in cheek "Mrs. Vanderbilt", a missive fired at both messieurs Lennon and Harrison, the vastly underrated and forgotten "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five", African-lite pop ode to nature "Mamunia", and then there's "Piccaso's Last Words (Drink To Me)".

McCartney chalked up the inspiration from a good natured challenge by Dustin Hoffman.  Hoffman had been fascinated by McCartney's innate ability, begging for insight or explanation as to how McCartney wrote a song. McCartney was at a loss for words to describe it other than jumping from a simple idea or phrase.  Hoffman then asked McCartney if he could write a song based on Pablo Picasso's last words, "Drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can't drink anymore", a fact he had picked out of a recent article.  In Hoffman's recollection, McCartney wrote the song's entirety that very night.

Yet it's not only the lyrics that make this song so unique and powerful in McCartney's catalogue. In an era that was a deluge of "pop symphonies", "Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me)" might well truly earn the title.  Starting out as a bare acoustic bar room elegy, the music elides through key changes, sound collages, and song callbacks; "Jet" and "Mrs. Vanderbilt", in a mode very similar to where the Bee Gees would mine success a few years later.   

It's one of those few songs where the changes are so exotic and without warning that it remains a constant pleasure to listen to.  It's not so much a medley as it is symphonic movements channeled through McCartney's pop vernacular.  It would be a disservice to say it's one of McCartney's finest, as he's written too many to narrow it down to a few, but it has all the touchstones of a McCartney masterpiece; a melody so catchy that you begin to hum along before the phrase is complete, the music ornately arranged yet deceivingly simple driven by McCartney's inimitable lead vocal.  

So next time you come across Band on the Run, make sure you don't miss the deeper cuts for the singles, especially "Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)". 

Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)

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Review: Modern Vampires Of The City, Vampire Weekend

I tried to hate Vampire Weekend. Like many, I found their twee/hyper-literate sensibilities a little too gratingly self-aware.  They would know of mansard roofs, kwassa-kwassa, and Oxford commas. Yet it's truly hard to absolutely fault a band for their background. So what if they had graduated from Columbia?  Certainly abstract ideas and world influenced rhythms had exploited pop music before, a la The Talking Heads.  Vampire Weekend's problem seemed to be more of an affectation; they weren't so much the snooty educated vanguard as they were beloved by the people that were.  Music thrives with identity after all, and those grammatical shindigs found at summer homes in Cape Cod had found a place on the radio. 

There was a temporal and spatial reasoning as well.  The Strokes had become New York City's musical darlings overnight but had faded just as quickly, their avoidance of emotion, their committal to being non-committal had caught up with them.   2008 was a long time to wait for a new buzz band, and NYC underwent a cultural renaissance. Gone was the romanticism of skeevy lounges and frenetic punk fantasy, in its place a more marketable youth heaven. Shows such as Sex in the City and Gossip Girl not only brought out the high society of NYC life, they made it acceptable, accessible, and lusted after.  Vampire Weekend perfectly fit the mold, thrust into the landscape of hipsterdom, Upper West Side obsession and the ever growing backlash.

Aside from a brief dash of an affair with "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa", "Oxford Comma", and "The Kids Don't Stand A Chance", my strong dislike was successful, they couldn't be songs that I could delve into, obsess over, rinse and repeat. Their follow-up album, Contra, was little more than a blip of my attention, and even then mostly due to the squabble over the album cover.

Vampire Weekend is almost incessantly tuneful-- you need only hear the opening guitar riff to CCKK once before you have it stuck in your head for life. Unfortunately, it infers something worse than a guilty pleasure because you don't want to be associated with the people (who, it should be said, are derided in the actual song) who are its main subject.  Even the most opined detractors can't akin Vampire Weekend to talentless hacks. However, on the wave of their debut they were easy to pigeonhole. Koenig recounted in a recent interview "we were essentially the preppy African guitar band." They've been trying to avoid the label ever since.

Vampire Weekend certainly knows their audience. The cheeky urbane types that would delight in showing their friends that Vampire Weekend announced their latest album through an ad in the New York Times, or that they teamed up with Steve Buscemi to venture on psuedo-awkward adventures across the GIF-able city. That's really the only thing that bothers me, but it is arguably no worse window dressing than many a pop album uses for promotion.  

Here's the thing, the music trumps all of it. Whereas their debut found them trying to sound different from the pack, Modern Vampires Of The City (horrible title and all) succeeds with pure ambition. 

"Obvious Bicycle" starts the album with spare instrumentation, a compressed piano and a shuffling drum beat that hints at unconventional ( A drum beat that comes from an obscure reggae artist Ras Michael's "Keep Cool Babylon"). Mortality has already been discussed at length as a theme for this album, but time is also important, as Koenig sarcastically chides his friend "You oughta spare your face the razor/ because no one's gonna spare the time for you." The chorus comes across as a soaring hymnal aimed at the reluctant Carpe Diem millennials, "Listen, don't wait." 

The second song on the album, "Unbelievers", reminds me of Billy Joel.  Not surprising given Koenig's proclivity for defending the man.  Especially the harmonizing on the refrain "We know the fire awaits unbelievers/ all of the sinners, the same." The droning organ and drum interplay also make nice bedfellows with the rising and falling vocals.

"Step" has been glowingly reviewed so far, and it's easy to see why, with its homespun yet ornate sound collage that could perfectly back a Wes Anderson film. Here, Koenig is perhaps at his most referential and reverential, quoting Souls of Mischief's "Step To My Girl" (in turn a quote of Grover Washington Jr's "Aubrey" which is a cover of Bread's original) The iterations of iterations are telling of the song's theme, music, and how each generation shapes it and believes their own to be better.  So too does Koenig relate the universality of music, from Dar es Salaam to Berkeley.

"Diane Young", an obvious homophone of dying young, is Modern Vampires Of The City at its most energetic. Koenig's vocal jumps like Buddy Holly on speed while the whiplash rhythm section whirls around him.  There's even a nice bit of vocal manipulation at play here on the chorus (Koenig explained this as an attempt to simulate vocal changes through aging) but the bridge, an apoplectic electronic approximation of a car crash, is a bit jarring. It's still a tremendously engaging song, even if the Kennedy reference is a little too macabre, considering two of them were assassinated.

The booming organ and drum combination is back on "Don't Lie", kissing cousins of J. Giels Band's "Love Stinks" . The descending bass line is a star here, with a catchy refrain to boot.  "Don't Lie" is a nice breather after the frenetic "Diane Young" and the build of the arrangement, dashes of harpsichord, strident string arrangements that compliment the cooing vocals, its all here.

"Hannah Hunt" finds Koenig at his most vulnerable, a tale of a relationship that was doomed to fail. The lyrics are heavy on double meanings here, particularly on the refrain where Koenig relates " Though we live on the US dollar/ you and me, we got our own sense of time." Time is money, but the homophone (sense, cents) is a nice choice of words as well.  Again, locations are littered, from Providence to Phoenix, Waverly/Lincoln, and Santa Barbara. In that framework, "Hannah tore the New York Times into pieces," could just as well be the time they spent in New York as the typical paper.  "Hannah Hunt" also features one of the prettier bridges on the album and is an easy favorite on the album.

"Everlasting Arms" might be Modern Vampires Of The City's most direct confrontation with religion.  Opening with the stark "I took your counsel and I came to ruin, leave me to myself, leave me to myself." Koenig quotes the "Dies Irae" a famous hymn of death and destruction, and even models the vocal melody after it in apposition to "Hallelujah".  It's a song of contradicting patterns, the sharp dark strings, the soothing vocals. The sense of being alone in the world and begging for a different explanation.

Strangely, I saw one reviewer liken "Worship You" to a hyperactive "I'm Looking Through You", but if I were to nail a Beatle reference to one song on the album, it would be "Finger Back" with an unholy amalgamation of "I Am The Walrus" and "Hello Goodbye." Koenig again puts human emotion and religious propriety at odds with the telling spoken bridge "Cuz this Orthodox girl fell in love with the guy at the falafel shop/ And why not? Should she have averted her eyes and/ Just stared at the laminated poster of The Dome of The Rock?" Just as Koenig was at odds with strict grammarians in "Oxford Comma", he feels the rules are meant to be bent in "Finger Back" too.

"Worship You" is an exercise in vocal calisthenics, not really my favorite on the album, but interesting nonetheless. In an interview, Koenig described it as an attempt at "some kind of celtic song (about 3:44 in)".  Given that "Worship You" has also been described as "arabesque", it's almost uncanny that Koenig had mentioned this nearly eight years ago. 

Many reviewers have also picked up on the fact that "Ya Hey" has managed to both reference God (Yahweh), and one of the most popular songs in the last ten years: Outkast's "Hey Ya". It's a neat parlor trick, and the song is indeed catchy, but the zealous railing against religion is starting to get a little tiresome by this point.

"Hudson" however, throws the album completely on its head: there's no song quite like it in Vampire Weekend's oeuvre. It's a city gone completely dark, apocalyptic, haunting choral arrangements, and intriguingly, a tale of human failures in light of all of the religious foreboding.  Koenig not so subtly implies that the time or place don't matter, conflicts will always be the same.

"Young Lion" emerges like the dawn after "Hudson"'s dark night, after a flourish of classically styled piano, Vampire Weekend's harmonies take over, repeating just one simple line "You take your time, young lion" over and over again. Backed only by an upright bass and choral harmonies, "Young Lion" is a sudden, and stunningly gorgeous end to the album.

Vampire Weekend have proven that they are more than just a one-trick pony, highly capable of melody and encompassing darker themes. I really did try to avoid listening to Vampire Weekend once, but with Modern Vampires Of The City, I may have finally stopped worrying and learned to love the music.

Top Songs:

Hannah Hunt

Finger Back

Find Modern Vampires Of The City on:

Amazon (LP)

iTunes

XL Recordings

If You Like Modern Vampires Of The City, try Big Echo by The Morning Benders