Category: Tunes

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Best tunes of 2011: #30 Dawes “A little bit of everything”

#29 >>

We kickstart off this new series on my favourite tunes of 2011 with a song for those who like their songs with a side of sentimental. Yes. As much as I like my alt-rock and shoegaze, I do have my sappy side, obviously to a point. I enjoy sunsets and walks by the river and romantic comedies. But let’s not carried away.

This particular song stuck out to me when I was listening to Dawes’ sophomore album, “Nothing is wrong”, in preparation for catching them live at the 2011 edition of Ottawa Bluesfest. In fact, I distinctly remember taking the bus home after one of the earlier nights during the festival and “A little bit of everything” begged repeat listens, over and over, right up to the moment I stepped on to my front porch. Indeed, I really liked their sound from the moment I first heard them, despite it not being something I typically invest a lot of time in. They’ve been described as “Laurel Canyon” folk rock, whatever that means. I just recognized a lot of classic rock bands in their songs, some CSNY here, some The Band there. The music is welcoming and inclusive.

“A little bit of everything” is a ballad that starts off with Tay Strathairn’s quiet piano accompanying Taylor Goldsmith’s vocals and slowly the rest of the instruments join in. There are three verses, each laying out a different scenario: a man explaining to a police officer why he’s decided to jump off a bridge, an old man at a buffet line suddenly reexamining his life, and a bride-to-be explaining to her fiancé why she is stressing herself out planning their upcoming nuptials. (It might have been this last that struck a chord with me, since my wife and I had just been married two years prior.) Each of these tales isn’t really a definite explanation, more of a reproach and an embrace of life. It’s a little bit of everything.

“Oh, it’s a little bit of everything,
It’s the matador and the bull,
It’s the suggested daily dosage,
It is the red moon when it’s full.
All these psychics and these doctors,
They’re all right and they’re all wrong,
It’s like trying to make out every word,
When they should simply hum along,
It’s not some message written in the dark,
Or some truth that no one’s seen,
It’s a little bit of everything.”

By the time Goldsmith gets to this final verse, the song quiets right back down to him and the keys just before the drums come back in for that fist-punching, anthemic exclamation mark. Yeah, I know. I just can’t help myself.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.

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100 best covers: #88 Iggy Pop “Real wild child (wild one)”

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I’m not going to lie. This post was supposed to be published a month ago. I created the skeleton and saved it as a draft, meaning to write some words on the song the next day. But well, it didn’t happen and the draft has kept getting pushed further and further out of sight as other posts somehow take precedence. It might’ve been lost forever (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating here) had my wife and I not gone out to Prime Burger Bar for dinner last Saturday night.

At some point during the typical twenty or so minute wait for our burgers to come up, I realized my right foot was tapping under the table and then, I recognized the song. “Do you know who this is?” I asked Victoria. She listened, pretended to think on it for a moment, and shook her head in the negative. I explained that it was Iggy Pop. She just shrugged and changed the topic.

From this innocuous conversation, I was reminded about the song, its energy, and that I still had words to write on it. Originally performed in the late 1950s by Johnny O’Keefe, Australia’s first rock n’ roll star, the song was purportedly inspired by a fight that broke out at one of his concerts between his rock fans and guests at a wedding happening downstairs. The fights morphed into riots which required intervention by the law and of course, a legend was born. The song’s title, “Wild one”, is also one of the nicknames bestowed upon O’Keefe, whom it appears to me was like a cross between Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis (someone who has also covered this song). His original version sounds like typical rock n roll today but I’m sure it was considered as dangerous to the youth and parents of the day as punk was in the seventies.

Which brings me back to James Newell Osterberg jr. (aka Iggy Pop). Indeed, this song could have just as easily been mistaken to be based upon him. Pop’s live performances with the Stooges and then solo throughout the seventies were definitely wild. He performed half naked, rarely sober, rolled around in broken glass, and pretty much invented the stage dive. Interesting, then, that his cover of this tune is relatively tame.

Recorded for his New Wave-influenced, 1986 album “Blah-blah-blah”, it almost doesn’t sound like him and you could be forgiven for mistaking it for Christopher Otcasek’s cover (which appeared on the “Pretty Woman” soundtrack). It’s got a danceable beat, sliding synths and riffing guitars, and meanwhile, sweat is flung everywhere while Pop sing/speaks, dripping cool. Yeah, it’s fun. Just listen to it and watch your feet start to move.

The cover:

The original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 1991: #24 Crash Test Dummies “Superman’s song”

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For some reason, I don’t remember the moment I discovered “Superman’s song”, though I definitely remember it being a big part of my musical experience back in 1991. It probably started with the music video that gained a lot of traction on MuchMusic and became impossible to avoid for a while, the funeral for the man of steel seeming utterly bleak and impressionable, given its low attendance and guests including almost unrecognizable and aged superheroes. I most certainly purchased the album, Crash Test Dummies’ debut, “The ghosts that haunt me”, on cassette tape on the back of this song and it accompanied me, care of my yellow Sony Sports Walkman on many walks and on the bus rides to and from high school. I have very vivid memories of trying to explain their sound to a girl in our high school library one afternoon during spare period. She had told me that she found the cover art, a turquoise rendering of a Doré print, interesting after noting it on the table I was sitting at, though I later discovered she had a crush on me and couldn’t have cared less about the band. I loved that tape to pieces and would have worn it out had it not been stolen first. It’s also one that I’d love to own on vinyl if it ever gets a reissue.

Crash Test Dummies were a folk rock band that formed in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. I’m pretty sure I’ve read somewhere that the group got their start at an open mike night, varying musicians surrounding songwriter Brad Roberts that eventually solidified into a consistent group. Their original sound was lively folk, featuring traditional instruments, but as the albums started to churn out, became more electric and straightforward rock. What really set them apart, though, was the deep deep bass-baritone of Roberts, especially when blended with Ellen Reid’s angelic backing vocals. The dichotomy was jarring but beautiful.

“Superman’s song” was the group’s very first single and was huge in Canada. And I could be wrong but I thought I heard it said that it was one of the first songs Roberts had ever written. It certainly sounds like it could have been written by a child. There’s something very simple and innocent about it, though dark at the same time, taking for its theme the death of a superhero and imagining what sort of eulogy he would have gotten. It trudges along with the funeral procession, a piano keeping pace and a cello crying in the wings, while Robert’s voice rumbles deep to the bottom of all of our hearts. Yup.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1991 list, click here.