Tag: The Lemonheads

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Tunes

100 best covers: #41 The Lemonheads “Mrs. Robinson”

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By all accounts, the Lemonheads’ frontman and driving force, Evan Dando, hated the original version of the song “Mrs. Robinson”, almost as much as he disliked its author. You got the feeling he was heavily leaned on by the ‘powers that be’ to record the cover to go along with the 25th anniversary release of “The Graduate” on home video cassette. He must’ve really blown a gasket when it was tacked on to the end of the track listing on later rereleases of his band’s now classic 1992 album, “It’s a shame about Ray”.

So it’s amusing that this was likely many listeners gateway to the band. It certainly was mine. I distinctly remember recording the video during one of my Friday night CityLimits viewing sessions and falling for the update of a song I knew from my parents’ oldie radio station listening in the car. From there, I recorded the video for the aforementioned album’s title track based on name recognition and of course, I’ve already told the story on these pages on how showing these two videos to my aunt landed me a copy of the CD for Christmas. So yeah, I’ve got a history with the song.

I later developed an appreciation for NYC-based folk rock duo, Simon & Garfunkel who wrote and performed the original. Parts of it were written before the filming of “The graduate”, were shared with its filmmaker, and these appeared in the final film cut. Versions of these snippets appeared on the soundtrack but the actual full-fledged song wasn’t released until a year later as a single and appeared on the band’s fourth album, “Bookends”.

The Lemonheads’ cover has got raunchier guitars than the original acoustic finger picking and instead of the lilting harmonizing on the iconic do-de-do-do-do-do-do intro, it is Evan Dando’s solo, half hearted mimicry. Theirs is about twenty seconds shorter than the orginal but that’s probably more due to its sped up pacing. Indeed, the song is all there but the tone is very different. It rocks and rolls more and yet, it has been often criticized for being a lazy cover. And that may be so, but I couldn’t help myself but to fall hard for it, and that love hasn’t waned in the least in the 30+ years since its release.

(If you hadn’t guessed, I prefer the cover to the original here.)

Cover:

Original:

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

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: “1993 mix vol. I” (a mixed tape)

Much like the last time I posted one of these playlists based on an old mixed tape, I was downstairs in my basement recently, this time cleaning rather than looking for something, and I came across the same shoebox full of old cassette tapes. Of course, I stopped what I was doing for a good twenty minutes or so and went through said box to remind myself what was in there and to allow the memories of each to come flooding over me. I haven’t played any of these tapes in decades because I have long since dispensed with the last sound system that I had that could play cassette tapes and so I have no idea of any of them even play. I suppose I could get rid of some of the tapes I bought when I was a teenager because I likely now have it digitally or on vinyl format but I’m not certain I’d ever want to throw out any of the mixed tapes. They are as much a document of my own personal history as the photos, yearbooks, letters, and other random bric-a-brac I have stashed away.

Going through these cassettes, I decided it was time to do another of these playlists and opted to replicate one that I created myself, rather than one that was made for me, like the “Raging retro” playlist I previously shared. I chose “1993 mix vol. I” this time around because, as an artifact from 30 years ago, there’s a few fun things you can glean about it’s creator.

Who was 1993 JP Robichaud?

Well, he wasn’t yet inventing creative titles for his mixes, that’s for sure. For a tape called “1993 mix vol. I”, he wasn’t necessarily as concerned with putting together music from the year, indeed, given that it was the first volume, it was likely too early in the year for a mixed tape’s worth of music. Instead, the tape includes music to which I was listening at the time and going through the playlist, it’s obvious to me that I started with songs from the handful of CDs I had in my still new collection and then, moved into the purchased cassettes before finishing off the second side with songs from albums or mixes that had been recorded for me. I can also tell that it was still early on in my mixed tape making career because I hadn’t started strictly following my own self-imposed rule of one song per artist. Indeed, the two appearances by The Wonder Stuff on the tape’s first side betrays how big a fan I was of the band in the early days of 1993.

Some of the photos I’ve included here of the cassette and its J-card sleeve hint that I had a lot of spare time on my hands. I cut out letters from magazines to cobble together a cover and used stickers from old VHS cassette tapes to decorate the cassette. It reminds me that I would later get even more inventive in decorating these things, especially when I made them for others. And finally, the volume one in the title suggests that I fully intended to make more mixes before the year was up but memory does not serve at all as to whether there ever was a second volume created. There definitely isn’t one in the box.

Now before I get right into the playlist itself, here are some highlights that you definitely should check out:

      • The opening song, “Take 5” by Northside is the first song I’d ever heard by the lesser-known Factory Records product and the song that goaded me into purchasing my first CD, given that I was never able to find the band’s only album on cassette
      • I discovered the second edition of Mick Jones’ second band, Big Audio Dynamite II, before I ever really became familiar with his first band and the words to “Rush” were rarely far from my mind after I committed them to memory
      • As I mentioned above, The Wonder Stuff appears here twice, with two very different sounds: “No, for the 13th time” from their debut and “Welcome to the cheap seats” from their third album
      • The version of Spirit of the West’s “Political” here is the re-recorded rocked up version from “Go figure” because at the time, I was blissfully unaware of the far superior folkier original
      • The Barenaked Ladies were a few years from massive world status but they were already pretty big in Southern Ontario and “Hello city” was just one of the excellent tracks that graced their now classic debut album, “Gordon”
      • The Smiths’ “Please please please let me get what I want” closes things off as it did on many a mixed tape because its short length was often a perfect way to fill up the last bit of remaining tape

For those who don’t use Apple Music, here is the entire playlist as it appeared on the original mixed tape:

Side A:
1. Northside “Take 5”
2. Teenage Fanclub “Is this music?”
3. The Wonder Stuff “No, for the 13th time”
4. The Lemonheads “Alison’s starting to happen”
5. The Cure “High”
6. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin “Suave & suffocation”
7. Depeche Mode “World in my eyes”
8. Big Audio Dynamite II “Rush”
9. The Charlatans “Weirdo”
10. The Wonder Stuff “Welcome to the cheap seats”
11. R.E.M. “Stand”
12. The Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack “Time warp”
13. Spirit of the West “Political”

Side B:
14. The Housemartins “I smell winter”
15. The Farm “Love see no colour” (unavailable on Apple Music)
16. Buffalo Tom “Velvet roof”
17. 808 State “Lift”
18. The Sisters of Mercy “More”
19. UB40 “Red red wine”
20. Barenaked Ladies “Hello city”
21. Primal Scream “Movin’ on up”
22. Suzanne Vega “Blood makes noise”
23. Morrissey “Tomorrow”
24. The Smiths “Please, please, please let me get what I want”

And here is the promised link to the Apple Music playlist.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: Be my valentine

Okay. So here’s something that’s never been done before, at least not on this blog, or really, during any of my years of blogging. It’s true. I have never done a post observing this somewhat suspect ‘holiday’, a day that has been over-commercialized and become more about selling chocolates and flowers and overpriced dinners than spending time with the one you love. Still, as I’ve alluded to in previous posts, I do have a sappy side, a side that gets totally wrapped up in rom-coms and even the odd Hallmark Christmas film. And yeah, my wife and I typically do observe February 14th, usually in our own quiet way, but the odd time we have gone out for a nice dinner and paid exorbitant prices for roses.

It just so happened a few weeks ago that I realized I was due for a new playlist and the idea occurred to me to create one of ‘love songs’. Then, I quelled the idea, remembering the struggle Victoria and I had looking for appropriate songs in my collection that we could dance to on our wedding day. “Do none of your bands write songs about love?” she asked, frustrated and tired at one point during our search. Apparently not, was the answer, at least not in the conventional sense, the sense in which hair bands managed it in the 80s and out of which some R&B singers have made a career. Often the alternative and indie bands to whom I listen wrote beautiful lyrics that touched on love but did so looking at it not as a pure thing but one to be feared and revered, a bringer of both pain and joy. In short, not your typical love songs.

In the end, we found a handful to use, of which a few of them can be found in the playlist below. Of course, I had Victoria in mind while putting this one together, though I know she wouldn’t appreciate many of the tracks, still, there’s a little something for everyone. I’ve got some iconic tunes by influential alt-rock bands like The Cure and The Smiths, lesser known acts from the 90s like The Lowest of the Low and My Drug Hell, and of course, highlights from the indie kids of this new century, like Bloc Party and The Decemberists. I’ve got the whole list below, in case the Spotify doesn’t work for you, and included a lyrical gem from each song, just to give a glimpse of what you can be listening for as you peruse the list.

1. The Cure “Lovesong”
“Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again. Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am whole again.”

2. Elbow “An audience with the pope”
“I have an audience with the Pope, and I’m saving the world at eight, but if she says she needs me, she says she needs me, everybody’s gonna have to wait.”

3. Blur “To the end”
“You and I collapsed in love. And it looks like we might have made it.”

4. The Rural Alberta Advantage “In the summertime”
“Once in a while, I know our hearts beat out of time. And once in a while, I know they’ll fall back in line.”

5. Teenage Fanclub “What you do to me”
“There’s something about you, got me down on my knees.”

6. The Cranberries “Dreams”
“Now I tell you openly, you have my heart so don’t hurt me. You’re what I couldn’t find, totally amazing mind, so understanding and so kind, you’re everything to me.”

7. The Postal Service “Such great heights”
“I am thinking it’s a sign that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images, and when we kiss they’re perfectly aligned.”

8. Coldplay “Yellow”
“Look at the stars, look how they shine for you.”

9. Depeche Mode “One caress”
“Just one caress from you and I’m blessed.”

10. James “Just like Fred Astaire”
“Meteors may strike the earth. Nations live and die. I’m the boy who got the girl who showed me how to fly.”

11. The Beautiful South “Song for whoever”
“I love you from the bottom of my pencil case. I love you in the songs I write and sing.”

12. Death Cab For Cutie “I will follow you into the dark”
“Love of mine, someday you will die, but I’ll be close behind, and I’ll follow you into the dark. No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white, just our hands clasped so tight, waiting for the hint of a spark.”

13. Oasis “Wonderwall”
“I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.”

14. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “Do you love me?”
“I knew from that moment on that I’d love her till the day that I died.”

15. The Lowest of the Low “Subversives”
“There’s something subversive about you and me, ’cause there’s a market-value on love and we’re getting something for free.”

16. The Smiths “There is a light that never goes out”
“And if a double-decker bus crashes into us, to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die.”

17. The Lemonheads “Alison’s starting to happen”
“I never looked at her this way before, but now she’s all I see.”

18. Bloc Party “This modern love”
“Do you want to come over and kill some time? Throw your arms around me.”

19. The Verve “Sonnet”
“Yes, there’s love if you want it, don’t sound like no sonnet, my lord.”

20. Chairlift “Bruises”
“I tried to do handstands for you, but every time I fell for you. I’m permanently black and blue, permanently blue for you.”

21. The Decemberists “We both go down together”
“And my parents will never consent to this love. But I hold your hand.”

22. Black Box Recorder “Andrew Ridgley”
“I came alive to the smouldering fire in your eyes. I love you now and I will ’til the day that I die.”

23. The Stone Roses “Ten storey love song”
“When your heart is black and broken and you need a helping hand. When you’re so much in love, you don’t know just how much you can stand.”

24. First Aid Kit “Emmylou”
“I’ll be your Emmylou and I’ll be your June, if you’ll be my Gram and my Johnny too. No, I’m not asking much of you, just sing little darling, sing with me.”

25. Björk “Violently happy”
“Since I met you, this small town hasn’t got room for my big feelings. Violently happy, ’cause I love you.”

26. Longpigs “On and on”
“All the songs that I’ve sung you, more often than you know. You’re the love that I’ve clung to more often than I’ve let it show.”

27. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros “Home”
“Ah, home, let me come home, home is wherever I’m with you.”

28. My Drug Hell “Girl at the bus stop”
“Girl at the bus stop, I wished for once that the bus would never come. She sat downstairs, I sat behind I couldn’t get her off my mind.”

29. Pulp “Babies”
“Oh I want to take you home. I want to give you children. You might be my girlfriend, yeah.”

30. Nine Inch Nails “Closer”
“I want to f*ck you. I want to taste you. I want to feel you.”

Enjoy. Happy (Saint) Valentine’s Day.

And of course, I’d be up for hearing what your own favourite ‘love’ songs are from the alternative and indie rock realms.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.