44. "Oranges and Lemons" by XTC (1989)

Press "play" and let me tell you about the most brilliant pop song ever written, "The Mayor of Simpleton".



"Why?" you say.

Because has outstanding qualities in three important areas: lyrics, arrangement and musicality. All of these contribute to an overall double-meaning that offers the listener something new on each spin.

Lyrics:
Each verse has 2 lines of self-effacement:
Never been near a university
Never took a paper or a learning degree

Two lines of self-affirmation:
Some of your friends say that's stupid of me
But it's nothing that I care about

Two more lines of self-effacement (which have an end rhyme that goes with "Simpleton")
Well I don't know how to tell the weight of the sun
And of mathematics well I want none

And two lines of the main idea:
And I may be the Mayor of Simpleton
But I know one thing and that's I love you.

The bridge is a straightforward, impassioned plea for love:
I'm not proud of the fact that I never learned much
Just feel I should say
What you get is all real, I can't put on an act
It takes brains to do that anyway

And the final thought of the song:
When all logic grows cold and all thinking is done
You'll be warm in the arms of the Mayor of Simpleton.

So lyrically, we have a complex, but structured, wordy plea for affection based on evidence that the singer is a "simpleton". Sounds manipulative if you ask me. Yet there is believability that the singer is sincere, at least in his final statement and his declaration of love.

Arrangement:
The brillance of this song is the arpeggiated bass line that rambles up and down througout the song, giving an "unsure" sense to the message, as if the singer has trouble believing the argument himself. It is in the "self-effacement" lines, like Never been near a university / Never took a paper or a learning degree that this unsurity really comes through, as if the singer is wondering whether this lame argument is going to work.

Suddenly, however, in the "self-affirmation" lines, the bass gives up its rambling, plays the root of the chord, and gives the song a firm footing: Some of your friends say that's stupid of me ... etc. Then it's back to the rambling for the next two "self-effacement" lines, and back to the solid root notes when he says Mayor of Simpleton, but reverting to the uncertain rambling when he says I know one thing and that's I love you. So arrangement-wise, the bass is alternating between this unsure, bumbling, kid-like shuffling and this strong, man-like affirmation, which really comes through on the bridge, especially on the line, It takes brains to do that anyway. So which one should we believe?

Musicality
By that I mean the way the song is performed and put together. You have a singable, upbeat melody with a stong back-beat snare drum at the same time that you have the arpeggiated bass line. The guitar is present but minimal throughout most of the song, mostly providing off-beat fill but also some very subtle licks at crucial times. Partridge's vocals and his inflections bring home the sure/unsure feelings througout the song, where he alternates between hopeful sincerity and desperation, with just the right hint of male bravado. The vocal harmonies add that extra element of showiness that borders on being too much but in reality make the song.

Message
The final message of the song hits home with the final chorus when Partridge finally declares, with the bass firmly in the root, You'll be warm in the arms of the Mayor of Simpleton. Final statement. But then the song ends with that rambling feeling that makes us feel that, now that he's played his trump card, he's unsure of the response.

What we are presented with is a double message because, as we have mentioned, the lyrics indicate that he is someone simple, but in reality we have a complex, crafted message. And the line What you get is all real I can't put on an act / it takes brains to do that anyway is just a bluff. Everyone knows plenty of stupid people who don't tell the truth. But this is more than just an act, it is a well thought-out, intriguing presentation, even a proposal, if you will.. So does he really love her or is he just trying to bluff her? If he is bluffing he certainly goes to a lot of trouble, so she must be worth it.

The only thing we can really trust, in the end, is his sincerity. He shows us that though he may be a complex person, he really has one, simple message: I love you. So why all the complicated gyrations? Because for whatever reason he feels the need to show off in order to get her validation. The song ends up delivering a universal theme: the eternal dance of the sexes, and the jumping around is not unlike some strutting peacock seeking his ladybird's reaction.

And that is why I believe this is the most brilliant pop song ever written.

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p.s. Happy Valentine's Day.

43. "I'm Good Now" by Bob Schneider (2004)

Look, ya'll. I found the coolest thing in the whole wide world. I can put links to songs on my blog now. Check it out:



Ok, so I'm kind of getting behind on my blogging. I certainly can listen to a CD a day, because I do that anyway, but it's awfully hard to find the time to blog about them all. So if I don't have anything earth-shattering to say I'm just going to put them up and say whether I liked them or not.

I'm digging Bob Schneider. All you 40-somethings (or over) out there who are stuck on the 70s, you should listen to Bob. I have to say that this album, when I first listened to it a couple of weeks ago, sounded kind of like he wasn't sure if he wanted to be "Texas Country" like Pat Green, etc., because there are a couple of songs on here like that (especially the title cut), but I have to say I have considerably warmed to this album. There's a kind of feel-good groove to this album, if you don't count the couple that seem out of place ("C'mon Baby" and "Bridge Builders"). But the more I listen to it the more I like it. It even has a nice pretty final song, "Getting Better", that is kind of lovey-dovey. Aw.

We should all like Bob Schneider. He is a hard-working Austin musician who deserves to hit it big because he's paid his dues and lord knows he's at least as good as a lot of the other crap out there.

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42. "Ghost in the Machine" by The Police (1981)

I don't like to get nostalgic in these posts but I just remember getting really excited when this album came out. I was a freshman in college and Grant, Dave and I blew off some rehearsal or another one weeknight to drive from Fort Worth to Dallas to see them at Reunion Arena (which was recently demolished). We all got yelled at the next day when we showed up in our Police t-shirts.

I like the Police because they resisted doing the "has-been" tour for a really long time, something like 25 years, then they did ONE tour and that was it. As far as this album goes I think it has some fine moments, but the first two albums to me have more of a raw feel which really makes this band memorable. It's like Sting took piano lessons and had to work keyboards into this album. "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" is the big hit off of this album (see the cheesy 80s video below) but I think my favorite cuts are the lesser known ones like "Too Much Information" and "One World (Not Three)".

Plus there is a lot of jumping around, which a lot of bands from that era seemed to do. Jumping around is cool. Oh yeah, we were also really excited when we figured out that the computer-looking pictures on the album cover were actually the three band members: Andy, Sting and Stewart. The "ghost in the machine" are humans, man.

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41. "Grave Dancer's Union" by Soul Asylum (1992)

I tried to get a good job
With honest pay
Might as well join the mob
The benefits are okay
Standing in the sun with a popsicle
Everything is possible
With a lot of luck and a pretty face
And some time to waste

You leave without a trace
Leave without a trace
Leave without a trace

I tried to dance at a funeral
New Orleans style
I joined the Grave Dancer's Union
I had to file
Trying to do the right thing, play it straight
The right thing changes from state to state
Don't forget to take your mace
If you're out working late

I liked to see your face
You left without a trace
Leave without a trace

Life is absurd and you have to make the best of it if you want to stay sane. Is David Pirner of Soul Asylum an "absurdist hero" because he is faced with an absurd situation and keeps on going anyway? Maybe. The other day I was watching a re-run of "The Office", when Michael Scott finally realized that his girlfriend was taking advantage of him and he was broke because she ran up all his credit cards. He walks out of the office, walks to the railroad tracks, sits in a boxcar, and sings a chorus of "Runaway Train":

I can go where no one else can go
I know what no one else knows
here I am just a-drownin' in the rain
With a ticket for a runaway train
An everything seems cut and dried
Day and night, earth and sky
Somehow I just don't believe it

Runaway train, never going back
Wrong way on a one-way track
Seems like I should be getting somewhere
Somehow I'm neither here nor there

The train never moves for Michael Scott, by the way; his girlfriend shows up and he has to face his problems after all.

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p.s. There is a short ad to start the video. The 90s were so cool.


Soul Asylum - Without A Trace (Official Music Video) - Watch more top selected videos about: Soul_Asylum

40. "Wormwood" by Moe. (2003)

The header to this blog suggests that a large majority of the CDs in my collection are actually the crappy ones that I am left with because my kids stole all the good ones. This CD is actually kind of a reverse of that: I have no idea where it came from or how it ended up in my collection.

Well, I have some idea. I mean I can't really say I have "no" idea, because I have an idea. I mean, it didn't come from Mars, nobody broke into my house and put it there, etc. The idea is that one of my kids got this CD, didn't like it, and forgot about it. Since no one, to my knowledge, has ever played it, it never got separated from its case and has therefore remained in fairly pristine condition in the "M" section. I have always known it was there because of its bright yellow cardboard packaging. Until this week I had never listened to it nor had any idea what kind of music was on it. Ok, well, I had some idea because, after all, I know what kind of music gets played around here.

Moe is a jam band, and I really am not much into jam band music. I gave this CD an honest two listens. I am still not a jam band fan, mainly because of this type of thought-deterring lyricism:

Back in the summer of 88
I didn't know how to rock and roll
I saw your face as i drove away
How could i know what you'd do to my soul?
Goodbye suzie goodbye UNH
Ive been down this road before
I said that right when i hit LA
Im feelin alright
Im feelin okay

Okay, Alright
Okay, Alright
Okay, Alright
Okay, Alright

Did you know that this is like Moe's eighth album? Neither did I. How about this one, "Kids":

Hey Michael
How are you my friend?
Hey Michael
How the hell have you been?

Do you remember that time
Way back when we were nine
You tried to be my good friend
And yet I turned you in

Kids will try to run you over
Kids will try to bring you down
Kids will never say they're sorry
Kids back then are older now

Jam bands are not my thing. I never understood the Grateful Dead either. I mean, I understood their lyrics just fine, but I never understood the appeal. Bands like this one, Widespread Panic, The String Cheese Incident and Phish are cool I guess. To each his own. Actually I kind of like Phish becuase they are such awesome musicians. But I will sell you "Moe" disk real cheap if you want it.

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p.s. I couldn't find a video of these guys that wasn't a cell phone upload.

39. "Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon" by James Taylor (1971)

So close your eyes,
you can close your eyes
it's alright
I don't know no love songs
And I can't sing the blues anymore
But I can sing this song
And you can sing this song when I'm gone

Now before you think I'm going all cheesy on you let me tell you that for me listening to James Taylor is going back to my musical roots, man. As a high school kid, JT is the first singer I really ever got, that really ever made sense to me in a poetic way. In a sense I can attribute all of this musical pontification to first being inspired by James Taylor. I'm serious. Well, JT and Jackson Browne, but we'll get to JB later.

It's a shame that James gets dissed by people thinking he's too vanilla and schmaltzy. His early stuff -- which is up through the album "JT" -- has that certain magical quality of being simple yet complex at the same time. Lyrically he's straightforward, but with that vein of melancholy that makes you consider some undefined pain or longing, especially when referring to traveling:

I had a little woman in Memphis
She wanted to be my bride
She said, settle on down, traveling man
You can stay right by my side
I tried so hard to please her
But I couldn't hold out too long
'Cause one Saturday night I was laying in bed
And I heard that highway song
Back on the highway, yeah, yeah, yeah
Back on the road again

There's just something about this early JT that goes with the fall of the year, when the sunlight is at a certain angle, that stirs up the restlessness oh so subtly in the soul. It's that part of you that is impelled to move out of that place of slumber, something disquieting, not like a clap of thunder, but like the wind changing directions:

Love is just a word I've heard when things are being said
Stories my poor head has told me cannot stand the cold
And in between what might have been and what has come to pass
A misbegotten guess alas and bits of broken glass

I think there is a certain poetic appeal to being a wandering seeker, someone who is hungry for truth and light; but I think in the end we all have to make some kind of choices. Still, it's in our nature to be restless -- in mine anyway -- and on certain days when the wind is blowing just right and the sky clouds over in that sort of uncertain way that you don't know if it's going to rain or just be drizzly and nasty, that life just seems like some sort of highway, and all you can do is get up, make a move, and don't let the grass grow under your feet:

I said all the dead head miles
And the insincere smiles
Sometimes I can laugh and cry
And I can't remember why
But I still love those
Good times gone by
Hold on to them close or let them go, oh no
I don't know
I just seem to sing these songs
And say I'm sorry for the friends I used to know

It's on those days, like this specific overcast pissing rain Monday, February 8, 2010, driving in my car up highway 77, that I get it:

Sweet misunderstanding, won't you leave a poor boy alone
I'm a one-eyed seed of a tumbleweed
In the valley of a rolling stone

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38. "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd (1973)

I don't know what to say about the greatest rock album ever recorded that hasn't already been said. Somehow or other my copy of it got lost so I bought another copy at Cheapo Disks when I was in Austin on Saturday. I listened to it on Sunday while I was cleaning up my home office. It sounds as good on my Polk Audio bookshelf speakers as the first time I played it in my 8-track Pioneer Super Tuner in my '68 Ford Fairlane when I was 17. I am looking forward to listening to it when I am 65 on the newly remastered octophonic version with on my full-body sound experience system. Some things are timeless, but the great thing about music is that it can always be experienced in new and different ways.

But I guess the thing that forever changed my appreciation of this album was when I heard about the "strange synchronicity" that the album has with the movie "The Wizard of Oz". "Balanced on the biggest wave / race towards an early grave", indeed. You don't have to believe me, check out these geeks and the following video clip:



"There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."

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37. Beethoven: The Final Piano Sonatas, Op. 109, 110, 111

(This recording: Analekta, 2004

Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111

Anton Kuerti, piano)



Emily and I went to see Anton Kuerti play Beethoven sonatas on Friday night and I bought this cd. This guy is a phenomenal virtuoso and is regarded as being one of the greatest living pianists, especially as an interpreter of Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann.

I had never heard these sonatas before and they are among the last that Beethoven wrote.

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36. "I Told You I Was Freaky" by Flight of the Conchords (2009)

I think the funniest thing about this disk isn't any particular song but the whole rap and hip-hop persona that these guys put on. And they are rappers. It hurts their feelings when you say they are not. "Rappers have feelings too", you know:

Have you ever been told that your ass is too big?
Have you ever been asked if your hair is a wig?
Have you ever been told you're mediocre in bed?
Have you ever been told you've got a weird-shaped head?
...
Tears of a rapper (tears of a rapper)
I'm cryin' tears of a rapper (tears of a rapper)

Wierdos and misfits unite! These guys are our heroes:

Let's take a photo of a goat in a boat
And then we can float in a moat and be freaky
Freak-ay

Let's take my body and we'll cover it with honey
Stick some money to the honey
Now I'm covered in money, honey

I go outside onto the ledge and push my ass against the glass
You can act like you don't know me

I'll take a cup and then I'll put it on my head
And I'll just stand there bein' freaky with a cup on my head

I told you I was freaky (I told you I was freaky, baby)
You didn't believe me (Don't look at me)
I told you I was freaky (Hey look at me)
Girl, let's get freaky

Then there is the reggae song from the episode where Jemaine decides the only way he can make money is to pimp himself out as a male prostitute. Its similarity to the song "Roxanne" by the Police is unmistakable:

You don't have to be a prostitute
No, no, no, no, no
You can say no to being a man ho
A male gigolo
You don't have to be a prostitute
No, no, no, no, no
You can say no to being a night looker
Boy hooker, rent boy, bro ho

The songs lose a little something without the visual, but most of them are strong enough to stand on their own. "Carol Brown" is my favorite:

Loretta broke my heart in a letter
She told me she was leaving and her life would better
Joan broke it off over the phone
After the tone she left me alone

Jen said she'd never ever see me again
When I saw her again she said it again
Jan met another man
Lisa got amnesia just forgot who I am

Felicity said there was no electricity
Emily, no chemistry
Fran ran, Bruce turned out to be a man
Flo had to go, I couldn't go with the flow

Carol Brown just took a bus out of town
But I'm hoping that you'll stick around

The disk even comes with a poster. Cool.

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35. "Smash" by the Offspring (1994)

It wasn't until Lady Sunshine suggested I listen to Bad Religion (see Jan. 14 post) that I gained a fuller appreciation for the punk genre and what is going on with it. The album opens with an in-your-face thrash with "Nitro" and rocks hard all the way through. There are some very strong punk elements on this disk, but also some "back-beat" rock and roll songs as well.

One of those songs, and the reason I bought this album, is what I consider to be the best song ever written about a dysfunctional relationship, "Self-Esteem":

I wrote her off for the tenth time today
And practiced all the things I would say
But she came over
I lost my nerve
I took her back and made her dessert

Now I know I'm being used
That's okay man cause I like the abuse
I know she's playing with me
That's okay cause I got no self esteem

The frustration really comes through in the instrumentality and Dexter Holland's vocals. The reason this song is such a psychological anthem is because of the following line, which I think pretty much sums up all the angst and denial in just about every relationship, good and bad:

Well I guess I should speak up for myself
But I really think it's better this way
The more you suffer
The more it shows you really care

There is no perfect relationship. There is no perfect marriage. This song makes you think, when is forgiveness healthy and when is it just rolling over? All "functional" relationships are dysfunctional to some extent.

Right? yeah yeah yeah

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34. "A Day at the Races" by Queen (1976)

I am a child of the 70s and I had the 45 of "Somebody to Love" but I never owned this album on vinyl. Freddie Mercury's incredible vocal performance here rates him, in my mind, as the best rock vocalist of all time. I am hard pressed to think of another with as much range, versatility, expression and control as him. Even more impressive, given the technology of the early 70s, are the overdubbed "choirs" on songs like "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" and "Somebody to Love" which are all Freddie. Coupled with Brian May's guitar work, which range from the grinding in "Tie Your Mother Down" to the symphonic in "Millionaire Waltz", the result is a production masterpiece.

I was a little late coming to like Queen and I bought this disk in the early 90s, when I was about 30. I appreciated their radio singles, but, frankly, coming from small-town Texas, I had a problem with their homosexuality. I say "had" because it was this album that literally changed thinking on the matter. As a wannabe singer I had always adored "Somebody to Love" for Mercury's incredible expressiveness, but always had a hangup that, ... well, I might as well just say it ... that he might be singing about a dude.

Then I bought this disk and heard the art and creativity in "Take My Breath Away", "Millionaire Waltz" and "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" and really had to re-consider: can I love these songs for their universal aspects, even though I may not be able to relate to the personal experience of the writer/performer?

And that, my friends, is the essence of artistic interpretation. Except for something labeled as autobiographical, when is the artist's life relevant to the interpretation of a work? Isn't the artist putting on the role of "narrator" and creating a persona who is not himself or herself? At the same time you have to consider the time and manner in which the work is produced, and Queen's flamboyancy in the mid 70s is legendary, not to mention the fact that later in his life Mercury became an outspoken advocate for gay rights and "We Are the Champions" became an anthem.

To get philosophical for a minute, Queen was instrumental in the evolution of the dialogue regarding gay awareness and gay rights. Probably they weren't thinking about it when they were recording, but by creating a work of art that appeals to those of us with a straight-laced country-boy background, they moved the dialogue from the fringe to the mainstream. Because if I can ignore the "gayness" and apply "Take My Breath Away" to my personal heterosexual experience then I can accept that someone else may have a totally different application of it. The key is realizing that each of our own interpretations is not universally "right", it's just personally "right". And that's OK.

Listen to this album. It is amazing.

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33. "Tribalistas" by Marisa Monte, Carlinhos Brown & Arnaldo Antunes (2003)

In 2000 and 2001 I made four trips to Brazil while working for a computer software company. It is a really lovely place and I met a lot of nice people and tried really hard to communicate by converting my Spanish knowledge to Portuguese, which is a little tricky but after a while I got to be where I was at least functional.

So I really got enamored with Brazilian music and acquired a few CDs. This is one I bought a couple of years later after I heard a couple of tracks on KUT (90.5), which is the public radio station in Austin. They have a show on Friday afternoons at 1:00 called Horizontes, which plays Brazilian and Latin American music for a couple of hours, which to me is a great way to spend a Friday afternoon if you're in the car or can listen at work. When I used to travel a lot it seemed like it was always on when I was in the car coming home from the Austin airport after being gone all week.

Anyway this album is a joint project by three very popular Brazilian artists, singer/producer Marisa Monte, percussionist Carlinhos Brown, and Arnaldo Antunes. Monte has a really lovely voice and I have another album of hers as well. From a straight-up musical perspective I think the album is a little lackluster--there are 3 or 4 pretty good songs and the rest sound a little like filler. Even not being really familiar with their work, the album still feels a little like this was a "lark" of a project that they threw together over a weekend, not something that they really planned and collaborated on.

Having said that, I really love the song "Passe em casa", which means, "come to my house".

Passam pássaros e aviões e no chão os caminhões
Passa o tempos as estações, passam andorinhas e verões

Passe em casa tô te esperando, tô te esperando (2x)

Estou esperando visita tão impaciente e aflita
Se você não passa no morro eu quase morro, eu quase morro
Estou implorando socorro, ou quase morro, ou quase morro
Vida sem graça se você não passa no morro

(Birds and planes go by and on the ground the trucks
Time passes and the seasons pretty and green

Pass by my house, I am waiting for you

I am waiting for a visit, so impatient and upset
If you don't come by the house to see me I almost die)

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32. "Summerteeth" by Wilco (1999)

OK, I made it to February and the blog is still going. If you're keeping up you'll notice that I sometimes write these entries a few days late then put a previous date on them, but so what.

"So what," I say, because that's the theme of today's album. I'm taking a class right now on 20th century Latin American literature and we are talking a lot about existentialiam. The problem with existentialism is that sometimes it seems like its only purpose is to bring us down and show us the hopelessness of the human condition. Kafka woke up as a roach; that has to suck. Now I think these guys are really great thinkers who have opened up some new realities and new ways of thinking, especially to the Western mind, but eventually you have to say, enough, what do we do about it?

"Summerteeth" to me is post-existential. It's kind of like you have the blackest, worst realization, of all the heaviness in your heart, and the first realization that you have the next morning is,

Our prayers will never be answered again
...
You know it's all beginning (it's all beginning)
To feel like it's ending (feels like it's ending)
No love's as random
As God's love
I can't stand it
I can't stand it

In other words, we are on our own.

This album has some pain and emptiness in it, for sure, but it comes out in these songs as kind of "processed" pain, if I can use that word. It's not, "things suck", but more like "things suck and here's what I did". Some of these songs are very straightforward:

How to fight loneliness?
Smile all the time
Shine you teeth 'til meaningless
And sharpen them with lies
...
And the first thing that you want
Will be the last thing you ever need
That's how you fight it
Just smile all the time

And some are a little self-destructive:

Maybe all I need is a shot in the arm
Something in my veins, bloodier than blood

And rash (from "Via Chicago")

I dreamed about killing you again last night
And it felt alright to me
Dying on the banks of Embarcadero skies
I sat and watched you bleed

Buried you alive in a fireworks display
Raining down on me
Your cold, dark blood
Ran away from me to the sea

The point of all this pain is the acceptance of our own mortality and smallness. We can't really do any good in the world until we realize that. And maybe along the way we can "make it back" to a "home" once in a while, even if it is "Via Chicago".

Tweedy gets it, and he says so in the song "Summerteeth", when he points out that his little songs really don't mean that much in the grand scheme of things, and that anyone listens to them at all is just some kind of dumb luck that seems unreal. I would submit that this realization is what makes him a great songwriter:

He feels lucky to have you here
In his kitchen, in your chair
Sometimes he forgets that you're even there

It's just a dream he keeps having
And it doesn't seem to mean anything
It's just a dream he keeps having

"In a Future Age" is probably the most poetic song Tweedy's ever written. It is a good way to close this thought, that we are only here for a while, which sucks, but we aren't the first and hopefully we won't be the last. Oh well. What are we going to do in the meantime?

Genuine
Day will come
When the wind
Decides to run
And shakes the stairs
That stab the wall
And turns the page
In a future age

Some trees will bend
And some will fall
But then again
So will us all

Lets turn our prayers
Into outrageous dares
And mark our page
In a future age

High above
The sea of cars
And barking dogs
In fenced-in yards

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