April 02, 2008 Earworm

I remember asking Wayne, as he was transitioning from someone who was my boss to someone who was my friend, "Quick! The first thing that comes to mind - what's your favorite song?"

He immediately said, "How can you such a decision?", which delighted me. "But off the top of my head: 'In My Life' by The Beatles."

I was surprised and he knew it. "Why is your face like that? Are you surprised that I'd pick something so sentimental?"

To be honest, I was. But I was also thinking what I always think when I hear "In My Life": why do the verses have to be so awkward? But I also couldn't help wondering how long it had been his favorite song because I've always been uncomfortable with it. I could never quite grasp why, but I always felt that its perspective - and its delivery - too old for Lennon's age of twenty-five.

As I woke up with it in my head this morning, I thought, "It is an ending masquerading as a love song." Although my perspective may be clouded by recent events, I suspect Wayne may have felt that way, too.

And now we begin the process of re-defining normal.

April 01, 2008 Earworm

The good news is that the new B-52's album doesn't suck. The bad news is that Fred Schneider's become that once loved goofy uncle you've outgrown. Every time he pops up on the album, I get agitated and afraid that he's going to ask me to pull his finger.

"Juliet of the Spirits" is my song of choice from "Funplex". Boiling down Fellini's flick to a four and a half minute dance groove with some nice guitar work, I can't help but but wonder what the film maker would make of all this shimmer and pop. Hey, it works for me.
Give it a spin and maybe take this chance to rise above the mundane and the sadness, you hands up in the air, waving like you just don't care. If anything, you'll feel a bit more, if not better.

No foolin'.

March 31, 2008 Earworm

March is over. Done. Kaput. My sour list of anti-Valentines will come to an end with "It's All Over But The Crying" by Garbage. A beautiful kiss off to drama with a smart nod to what was once only the theme to The Young and The Restless before Nadia ran off with it. It looked like it might be the song that brought the curtain down for the band but rumor has it that they're about to start work on a new album.

Not everything comes to an end - even when it seems like it's the end of the world.

March 28, 2008 Earworm

Madonna's "Crazy For You", a one-off licensing deal with Geffen Records was at number one the week of May 11th, 1985 but the folks at that label had high hopes for another single that was debuting that week: "Ways To Be Wicked" by Lone Justice. It may have been written for, and turned down by, Stevie Nicks but Tom Petty found the perfect voice for his song in what sounded like a combination of the daughter of Brenda Lee and little sister of Rachel Sweet.

An appearance on SNL where Maria McKee screamed and spun like a Tasmanian Diva left all that saw it speechless and sure that they'd just witnessed something miraculous but the band never made the leap to the big pop success their label envisioned. A second single, "Sweet, Sweet Baby (I'm Falling)" - one of this typer's favorite records of all time - fared even worse than "Ways" and when the time came to record a second album, "Shelter", the band was basically no more.

Maria McKee is still going and other than the label driven first solo album, she's not made a bad record yet.

Happy weekend!

March 27, 2007 Earworm

1964 was a good year for operatic pop. Roy Orbison's "It's Over" reached #9 in April and "I'm Gonna Be Strong" by Gene Pitney (the older and butcher brother of The Chipmunks) followed in October, also reaching #9. "It's Over" uses cinematic strings and the sort of back up vocals usually associated with a 1940's Paramount Pictures logo and closing credits to remind you that this is a serious matter, regardless of what those snappy little flamenco flourishes would like you to believe. Not that you really need reminding because Roy loses his mind on the chorus, his cries of "it's over" so vivid that you may find yourself wiping imaginary spittle and exclamation points off your face. A bizarre piece of work to be sure, and only Roy Orbison could pull it off.

Written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, "I'm Gonna Be Strong" is a much more understated affair. Originally recorded by Frankie Laine as the follow-up to his 1963 hit, "Don't Make My Baby Blue", hopes were high that it would not only surpass that tunes mid chart high, but keep him back on pop radio after a six year drought. It flopped despite a wonderfully complex Jack Nitzsche arrangement, a crisp Terry Melcher production, and brilliant double tracking on the vocal that made it impossible to believe that the singer was in his fifties at the time. Knowing a hit when he heard one, publisher Don Kirshner pitched it and "It Hurts To Be Love" to Pitney who ran with both of them.

Gene holds on to the grand gesture through much of his arrangement, letting the strings provide the drama throughout the verses, letting the tension build brilliantly on the chorus with a pumped up tympani, double tracking vocal, and big choir accompaniment that gets tucked way back in the mix. The money shot arrives as he takes the word "cry" to knew heights, literally, daring any element of the orchestra to feel his pain. Fin!

Neither Pitney nor Orbison would ever again be able to place such acts of high drama into the upper portion of the pop charts again as the times changed toward a Beatle-esque hysteria, which rendered that bands heroes obsolete. Although no one has had the brass to attempt a straight version of "It's Over", the Cyndi Lauper led Blue Angel recorded a version of "I'm Gonna Be Strong" that got enough attention to warrant Cyndi's solo attempt in 1994. No one was surprised when she nailed it.

March 26, 2008 Earworm

There has always been something about the sound of Brenda Lee's voice that I find comforting, something that my multiple viewings of the menacing "Joy Ride" still can't erase. As a youngster, I would watch my mother find that same comfort as she drifted off into her reveries whenever one of Brenda's songs would come on; singing along as though she, too, was on a stage somewhere and baring her soul in her own private drama.

"Johnny One Time" will always come to mind if I am asked to name a favorite, but I would probably argue with myself about it afterward because it sure is hard to pick just one. By 1969, Brenda was well passed her peak on the pop charts and "Johnny One Time" was an obvious attempt at recapturing some of that glory. With its Jim Webb-like strings recreating a casual wind blowing through her hair, she details the list of crap some wide eyed innocent will hear pouring out of Johnny's mouth as he angles for "that special love you're saving". The strings continue to calmly blow but you can feel a storm brewing and little acoustic ticks and tricks whiz by and still you listen, barely noticing that the storm is in our narrator's voice. Never yelling, always polite, but becoming harder with each chorus, "...did he tell you that the special love you're saving will disappear in flames of shame like mine...", wringing out the word "mine" until it resembles the exact emotion she needs to share.

For all of its beauty and power, "Johnny One Time" would stop just short of the top 40, and aside from three further singles that barely bothered the top 70, Brenda Lee's pop career was finished. However, she remains an icon of the more innocent days of rock 'n' roll when it was not yet too far from its country roots and for some of us, the voice of Little Miss Dynamite makes the world a better place.

March 27, 2007 Earworm