#11 A bit of inspiration Part III
Magic - Mick Smiley - Ghostbusters (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Follow Me - Muse - The 2nd Law
Duchess - Genesis - Duke
Blame it On Bad Luck - Bayside - Bayside
Jaws Theme Swimming - Brand New - Deja Entendu
Lava Reef Zone Act 2 - Masayuki Nagao - Sonic & Knuckles
Touch - Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
Do Me a Favor (1988 version) - Dean Pitchford and Michael Gore - Carrie
So Real - Jeff Buckley - Grace
Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns - Mother Love Bone - Shine EP
The Rhythm of the Heat - Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel 4: Security
Special Needs - Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts -
Humans Being - Van Halen - Twister Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The Chain - Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
When a Man Loves a Woman - Percy Sledge - When a Man Loves a Woman
And the finale of my little trilogy here. 11-15. Again I say…come see Vincent @ 54 Below Tickets available here! So here we go…the final five…
The Rhythm of the Heat - Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel 4: Security
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
Peter Gabriel fascinates me. In his stint with Genesis, Peter would compensate for the stoic-ness of the rest of the band. Peter would wear costumes and act out each number as if it was its own small play. In between songs the band generally had some complex tunings and keyboard settings to shift to…so Peter would tell stories that would SOMETIMES lead into the title of the next song. Sometimes they’d just be weird stories. When Peter finally split from the band (in a mostly amicable way), his music somehow got odder. It became more sparse. More rhythmic. Instead of composing through melody as the members of Genesis had…a lot of his work started as rhythm. He found a lot of inspiration in world music. Lots of African rhythms. In 198 co-founded the WOMAD (World of Music, Arts and Dance) festival to showcase some artists who didn’t have as much of a grasp in Europe. The first year was a substantial financial loss and to help out Peter and Genesis reunited for a single show titled “Six of the Best” in which they performed some classic Genesis tunes the band hadn’t played in a while with Peter singing lead. He even jumped on drums for their latest song, “Turn it On Again.” Peter, wanting to keep the spirit of WOMAD alive, invited the Ekome National Dance Company to perform “The Rhythm of the Heat” with live African drumming. The show ultimately rescued the funds for WOMAD and allowed it to continue on. This performance was not filmed and the only recording of it are bootlegs from the audience. This was also the last time Peter Gabriel performed with Genesis. Did you need all that info? No. But maybe it gave you some sense of how much I’m invested in this man’s career. The Rhythm of the Heat is about Carl Jung’s experience in Africa. After meeting some African drummers and dancers…he became so entranced he worried it would consume his mind. The driving pulse at the beginning of this song is infectious. After spending the entire verse and pre-chorus in Em…the cry of “the rhythm has my soul” outlines the chord to make it E major chord finally. Like triumph. But since it’s about being consumed…the juxtaposition feels creepy. It reminds me of a line in Hellraiser II when the doctor is finally taken, tortured and made into a cenobite (a demonic being living in constant excruciating pain). “And to think…I hesitated.”
Special Needs - Placebo - Sleeping With Ghosts
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
Brian Molko described this song as “the tale of a celebrity has-been told from a wheelchair.” I always saw the wheelchair as more of a metaphorical thing. That the person’s lost love is just doing really well and the person is feeling like they can’t even walk. It’s a feeling many people have during a breakup. It can even just be a friendship breakup. You see someone from a distance…maybe they’ve moved on. Maybe they’ve got a new career that’s starting to take off. The song uses extensive delay effects on both the guitars and piano. It gives the entire song this washy effect. It feels like a dream. Or…more appropriately…it feels like being very plastered and laying hot tub while thoughts of your life pass through. The lyrics in this song are pretty minimal, deciding that two small vague verses and then a repeating chorus. There’s something beautiful about the lyrics almost passing by you and letting the music just paint the picture of the feeling.
Humans Being - Van Halen - Twister (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
Eddie Van Halen is one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Let’s be real. It’s a cliché statement…but the cliché exists because of the truth. I’m not a huge Van Halen fan per se…so I couldn’t tell you the level of blaspheme this statement might be…but I think his tone in the mid 90s was his best. There’s something so incredible about the sound of those opening chords. Then the overdrive kicks in and it’s deep, warm, and blistering. The pinch harmonics are ungodly. Van Halen was supposed to write a few songs for the Twister movie. But there was drama between Eddie and Sammy Hagar at the time…so they recorded this song and then Eddie & Alex recorded an instrumental piece called “Respect the Wind.” God I love how melodramatic that is. This song, was melded into the score by Marc Mancina via some heavy string tracks. The drop into the Van Halen from the score is so awesome…it makes storm chasing seem so damned cool. I legitimately studied meteorology for a while when I was younger thinking this was the field I’d go in eventually. This movie is 100% the reason. My friend and I use to run around and pretend we were chasing tornadoes and would drop like some random bucket like it was Dorothy in the path and run away. Kids, man. I love this song. I love the vibes. I love the lyrics. I love the guitar work. I can’t think of twisters without hearing this song. In fact whenever there’s just a thunderstorm rolling in…this blasts in my head. This song has this dark, trudging vibe for most of it. The lyrics are…odd.
“There is just enough Christ in me
To make me feel almost guilty
Is that why God made us bleed?
To make us see we're humans being?”
It sounds like someone who did something wrong. But doesn’t feel bad about it. They’re taunting the victim of whatever their crime is. They blame on just being a human.
“You break this, I'll break all that
You break my balls with all your crap
Spread your disease like lemmings breeding
That's what makes us humans being”
Perhaps they’re saying “you do bad things to…and all the guff you give me about it…I just take it. We all do it…we’re all spreading this disease of bitterness and anger. Again that’s what makes us human.”
But then…we break into the chorus…a shift to major chords. And we’re in this gratifying moment of celebration. The lyrics drop into a simple refrain:
“Shine on, shine on.”
And with those simple words it all comes together. We’re human. These flaws…these mistakes…that’s what makes us humans being. It’s beautiful. It’s fascinating.
It’s fascinating to me…cause…truly what the fuck does any of this have to do with tornadoes?
The Chain - Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
Diss tracks are often (read 99.9999999999% of the time) attributed to rap and hiphop. But in Fleetwood Mac…they were writing diss tracks and making the subject of said track perform it. Fuckin’ brutal. The four on the floor drum beat makes it feel like a protest march. “And if you don’t love me now, you will never love me again. I can still hear you saying you will never break the chain.” The hook of this song…has no rhyme. It’s just raw emotion. It’s fact. The YouTube video above is a performance from 1982. The daggers being thrown between Stevie and Lindsay are so violent you feel like you need to duck. The vocals are not always on pitch, they’re not always cutting off together. All you feel is emotion. Personally this is what it feels like is missing from contemporary musical theater. Things feel so sterile and perfect. And there’s nothing wrong with a vocalist who can nail a pitch like Robin Hood shootin’ an arrow…but it’s the idea that if that’s not what happens then it’s wrong that I can’t stand. Don’t be afraid to sound gross. To sound truly distraught. To sound like a human.
When a Man Loves a Woman - Percy Sledge - When a Man Loves a Woman
- Spotify - Apple Music - Youtube
The (possibly apocryphal) origin of this song has it born of pure emotion. Percy was brutally upset over a broken relationship. Calvin Lewis and Andrew Wright were playing a gig and Percy asked them to just play a slow blues to which he improvised lyrics on the spot. Bits of the melody add credence to this story, as there are moments when scansion falls away and it feels like a rant. This song has been covered a number of times…by better singers. But never is the raw emotion of Percy Sledge’s original matched. Musically this song is as cliché as it gets. I - vi - IV - V. Super simple and super effective. Leaving it at the top of his range so every verse starts with a real strained wail. I say again…if you haven’t picked up on the running theme…I wish more musicals would take this chance…and let people’s voices break. (Obviously keeping their health in mind.). But that raw strain just broadcasts to the listener the depths of distress. I don’t really know what else to say here…just listen to it. It’s perfect.
You took this journey with me. Thanks for that. I do love ranting about stuff I love. Each of these songs
was a seed planted in the garden of my mind. (what a cheesy and awful analogy)
Now…see what kind of fruits these seeds bore. August 9th, 9:30pm.
`