Category Archives: night music

Night Music: The Perfectly Violent Dream, “Do We? Yes We Do”

by

Beck released a record last year that wasn’t recorded. It was sheet music for 20 songs that others could play based on the notes on the page, rather than what some rock artist and rock producer imagined. It was called Song Reader, and was sold like a book by the McSweeney’s people.

An excellent idea.

I have to admit that I haven’t spent a lot of time trying to find the best versions of each song, as I should have, but with the release of an actual new Beck album this week, I followed some links to Song Reader covers. Lots of nice music out there, but this somewhat gypsy tune stands out. It sounds a little like Brecht-Weill, but it also features a slicing and dicing guitar solo. Plus animated stills of folks in night clubs and burlesque shows.

Beck gets credit for ceding the credit to the performers. Nicely done.

Night Music: The Beatles, “I Want To Hold Your Hand”

by

One of the problems of the Beatles is that the music has been heard so often for so long that it’s hard to bring fresh ears to it. Gene’s comment about the innovations of this great hit brought me back to try to listen as if I haven’t heard it 10,000 times before.

Another issue is what mix one is actually listening to. I’m not enough of a student to talk about innovations. What I can say for sure listening to this clip is that it is a marvelously appealing concoction, that each of the instrumental lines and each of the vocal harmonies is utterly distinct and greater for being a part of the whole than notable on its own. Plus the song, as seemingly simple as it is, is really three songs in one lovely shell.

One can imagine any band taking one of the three sections and turning it into a hit pop song, but it is perhaps the schizo genius of Lennon-McCartney filtered through George Martin, with other important voices at hand, that makes this music not only simple pop but appealingly and enduringly complex.

This curiosity, with the German version of the song laid over the English lipsynch, shows that singing in one’s native tongue brings more passion (but the German version was a big hit with Germans). So there is that.

Night Music: The Rolling Stones, “Gimme Shelter”

by

This may be the most iconic Stones song. But in a recent concert in Newark they invited Lady Gaga to join in.

I like Lady Gaga as an artist. Her songs and performances are often powerful.

And I think she sings great in this clip. But she isn’t Merry Clayton and these Stones aren’t those Stones. All things considered, Lady Gaga is a plus. And so was Taylor Swift.

Crazy.

(Morning Music: Reading this in the light of day, I realize I didn’t make my point. What I said I meant, but what I didn’t say (except by using the Bad Music category) I also meant. This is terrible.)

Night Music: Tom Robinson Band, “2-4-6-8 Motorway”

by

This song and the album it was on came out in the height of the punk fervor, and TRB made their name and street cred by being vocal advocates in the Rock Against Racism concerts in the UK in 1977 and 78. I played it a lot, loved the beats and the politics, but their tendency to agitprop gave their anthems extra power, especially the theatrical (Sing If You’re) Glad to Be Gay, and also wreathed them in the wafting odor of political rectitude. But not their first single, which is a car song.

Night Music: The Specials, “Friday Night, Saturday Morning”

by

I was a great fan of Karel Reisz’s film, Friday Night, Saturday Morning, a prime example of English kitchen-sink drama. The movie was based on a novel by a writer named Alan Sillitoe, who also wrote the excellent Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.

I was also a great fan of the Specials, who in this case do a fine job echoing Sillitoe’s themes, with a song that makes my mouth feel cottony every time I hear it. With no regrets.

 

Night Music: The Cure, “Friday I’m In Love”

by

I was on a long drive on Monday and this song came up on the radio. I felt for sure I knew the band, if not the song, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Elizabeth suggested it might be those guys who did I’ll Melt With You. I knew their name, Modern English, but a quick search showed it wasn’t them. Try Googling “Friday I’m in love” and you end up with a lot of other references that have nothing to do with this song.

Searching YouTube later, once back in wifi land, the mystery was quickly answered. The Cure. Robert Smith’s unforgettable voice hadn’t rung a bell, at least in part because this usually morose singer and writer is singing a song that seems so happy. It has a Mersey Beat jangle and does sound like the best of the poppy 80s English pop bands, like Modern English.

It’s certainly a good song for a Friday.