I Don't Know Why You Say "Goodbye," I Say "Hello"

I will be on a bit of an hiatus until July 10, when hopefully my health is in check and school is under control.  So, please check back Tuesday, July 10 for one more song and why it's great.

Phone Is Ringing—Oh My God

“Get It Together,” Beastie Boys feat. Q-Tip

MCA’s passing shocked away the latent aspect of my devotion to one of the most approachably cool groups ever.  The Beastie Boys started off as jokey punkers in the early ’80s and now enjoy a place as one of hip-hop’s most formative and aspirational acts.  Working in a genre that often seems fueled by bravado, MCA, Mike D, and Ad-Rock came to temper their boasts with game-changing humility.  They exhibited a growth in both form and content that I can’t really say I’ve seen in another artist.  With an impressive capacity for innovation, the trio shrewdly mined the past to shape the future.  Their sound evolved to resist career-spanning definition, but is perhaps best characterized by an enduring playfulness that made irreverence weighty.  Who else has managed to be ever the same, yet continuously progress?

“Get It Together” is off the Beasties’ 1994 essential, Ill Communication, and will always be the track that is my fave of so many faves.  What other hip-hop joint references an antitrust lawsuit in such a cleverly impish way—“Ma Bell | Who’s that”?  The cut features A Tribe Called Quest legend Q-Tip, whose swaggery baritone is a satisfying counterpoint to the Boys’ cartoonish spitting.  

The splicing and dicing that created this song is so skillful that none of the samples slap you in the face.  Rather, they are integrated with a subtlety that makes you feel like you’re part of an inside joke.  James Brown and Biz Markie are along for the ride with cough-and-you’ll-miss-them snippets.  A two-line lift from Eugene McDaniel’s “Headless Heroes” is deftly transformed into an unlikely chorus.  Tip’s guttural harmonics frame the track, leading in and out of the beat that loops a taste of The Moog Machine’s “Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In”.

I love this song because it has a little bit of everything that is best about the Beasties.  There are inspired borrows from other records.  There is a driving beat that propels, but doesn’t force, the heavy sonic layers.  There are memorable quips like Ad-Rock’s take on his then-wife (“She’s the cheese and I’m the macaroni”).  The raps snap.  And, of course, there is MCA.

Question:  My all-time favourite Beastie Boys lyric is probably “Educated—no, stupid—yes | And when I say stupid I mean really fresh”.  What’s yours?

And I Want To Shout Out Our Love To The World

“My Valuable Hunting Knife, ” Guided By Voices

“My Valuable Hunting Knife” is a standout from Guided By Voices’ 1995 release, Alien Lanes, a 52-track marathon of magic.  This compact gem opens with an unforgettable lyric: “I want to start a new life | With my valuable hunting knife.”  In creating on the cusp of violently destroying, this shedding of identity structures an intriguing relationship between person and object.  The narrator views the hunting knife as a romantic partner, for, “She will shine like a new girl | And I want to shout out our love to the world.”  In this new life, romance is enduring; the knife will not become rusty, nor “lose its appeal over years”.

Why might anyone want to start a new life?  Disappointment.  Failure.  Loss.  Beginning anew, armed only with a hunting knife conjures the familiar fantasy of placing oneself into some self-sufficient existence where potentially painful attachments to others are avoided.  Some people cut their hair, some people want to try something a little more extreme.  The impetus is the same remains the same—distancing oneself from what went wrong; reinventing oneself as someone new, someone improved, someone who won’t be on the losing end again.

Robert Pollard’s vocals aren’t particularly commanding, in fact they are secondary to the instrumentals. The song begins with drums and a guitar, then, halfway through, another guitar is added to further obscure the vox.  It is almost a struggle to pick out the vocal line—perhaps the words Pollard sings are intentionally underpowered because they are private and personal; a secret to be intimated, not bellowed.  The inertia of the competing instruments adds to the chaotic, disordered sentiment of the track.

This is a breakup song, but the narrator still thinks of the knife as his girl.  It sounds as though he’s getting over love lost, so he’s transferring his feelings to another—something else to go through life with.  It almost alternates between the past relationship and what he’s looking for in the future: “Everything I think about think about | Everything I talk about talk about with you | But you don’t know | I don’t know | You don’t know | I’ll never know.”  The dissolution of a relationship is difficult to process—after resentment and longing pass, confusion lingers.  This song is an attempt to come to an elegiac understanding of what once was.  This occupation of two perspectives is fragmented, as if trying to have moments of conversation with someone who is no longer listening.


Question: “My Valuable Hunting Knife” feels less a greeting to a new life than a farewell to the old one.  What songs do you love that are more of a “goodbye” than an “hello”?

And As We Sit Here Alone

“Since Yesterday,” Strawberry Switchblade

It is rumored that when Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall formed as a duo, they called themselves Strawberry Switchblade after a song that their friend, James Kirk of Orange Juice, may have written.  This ambiguity feeds nicely into the flourishing mythos of rock music—details aren’t often exciting, but they can be when they’re not quite true.  Either way, Strawberry Switchblade is a killer name, and such a great identity for a girl group.

“Since Yesterday” was included on 1985’s Strawberry Switchblade, the only album the group ever released.  The single charted well in the UK, but was really the only big hit for the duo.  The song starts off with heavy horns (a Sibelius sample), but quickly settles into a new wave groove with a prominent band machine playing along to Bryson and McDowall’s very young-sounding voices.

Despite the generally upbeat accompaniment, there is something off-kilter about the melodic lines.  The lyrics tell of an almost static existence; yesterday is depicted with tempered fondness, but today is flat: “And as we sit here alone | Looking for a reason to go on | It’s so clear that all we have now | Are our thoughts of yesterday.”  Nothing really happens in the course of the track; it is a tribute to the mundane.  Stagnancy is the rule, but the lyrics do not explore this as a burden.  Rather, being stuck in this state is not something to rail against, for it provides the impetus to write a pop song about relishing those moments, because, “When tomorrow comes you’ll wish | You had today.”

A couple of days ago, my sister told me to turn on BBC Radio 6 because Jim Reid, front man for The Jesus and Mary Chain, was hosting 6 Music Playlist.  The programme is a forum for artists to share the music they enjoy and find inspiring.  One of Reid’s picks came from a fellow Glaswegian band of the early 1980s, Strawberry Switchblade.  Recalling how he used to teasingly be referred to as a “Strawberry Switchblade groupie” because he was such an avid fan, Reid proudly declared that, even after all these years, “I love their music.”  Me too.

Question: “Since Yesterday” feels a bit like a daydream—a pleasant departure from the present.  What other songs do you think capture the fleeting quality of day-to-day life?

All Things Pass Into the Night

“Goodbye Horses,” Q Lazzarus

This track is often referred to as “The Buffalo Bill Song,” as it was featured in The Silence of the Lambs during the infamous “butterfly scene.”  Despite its association with the film, it also ranks well as a stand-alone song.  Listening to it induces a trance-like state.  The vocals beckon one to fall under the song’s siren spell.

Although Q Lazzarus is a woman, her voice is so throaty and deep that it would be easy to mistake her singing for a performance by a man.  This ambiguity serves the song well, for it widens its outlook from one that is gendered to one that is less finite in addressing its universal themes.

The lyrics of “Goodbye Horses” are extremely descriptive.  Like the best poetry, what’s not said is just as important as what is, and this recording’s real power exists in the allusions it conveys.  Longing and loss, acceptance and redemption are all thematically present, but not in the usual way.  Here, the struggle is internal rather than external.  Although there are two voices in conflict in the lyrics, the “He” and “I” are really two parts of the same person, connecting the stagnant past and its disappointments to the fluid present’s hope for the future.  With the lyric, “I must disagree, oh no sir, I must say you’re wrong | Won’t you listen to me?” the genderless present responds to the past’s omniscient claim that he has “seen it all before.”

The song is not joyous or uplifting, but it is not particularly brooding, either.  Rather, it is meditative.  The track examines the changes that occur when problems and worries cease to be constraints when viewed from another perspective.  Deeply-held beliefs can be just as helpful as they can be stifling, and searching the self for how these beliefs actually function can be both comforting and liberating.  Letting go of one’s mental and emotional chains is transformative in the song’s closing line: “Goodbye horses, I’m flying over you.”  Repeated multiple times, it is almost as if the repetition is out of disbelief and awe that this transcendent feat has finally been achieved.

Question: “Goobye Horses” is interesting because it depicts the conflict between two parts of the self, rather than between two people.  What other good songs are there that address this problem of being of two minds about an issue?

I’m in Distress, I Need a Caress

“What Do I Get?,” The Buzzcocks

After last week’s idealistic stroll down lover’s lane, it seems appropriate—particularly today—to present the exasperating side of romance.  “What Do I Get?” is strikingly upbeat for a track that is a depiction of failure.  This about someone who is down, but not out.  Instead of feeling hopeless, the voice of this song is more bewildered by a lack of romantic success.  The tone is almost playfully self-deprecating rather than resolutely bitter.

“What Do I Get?” can be found on the Buzzcocks’ must-have compilation, Singles Going Steady.  The sparse melodic line feels spontaneous and lends an authenticity to the confessional quality of the track.  The guitars are kinetic—a heart that is racing, but has no one to make it pound.  The energy of the record drives straight to the end, with a final cadence that is a punky, du-wop surprise. This song is an influential part of English punk, and presents a refreshing take on the dilemma of a lover with no one to love.

Question: This song is critical of love, but doesn’t dismiss it.  What are your favourite tracks about unsatisfied desire?

A Love for All My Life to Have and to Hold

“A Sunday Kind Of Love,” Etta James

On January 20^th we lost one of the best friends a song ever had.  Etta James had an unmistakable capacity for expression that made the songs she sang her own.  Although “A Sunday Kind Of Love” is considered a standard, the 1961 James recording represents the pinnacle of its possibility.

The opening line of this song is bewitching.  The way James’ voice draws you in is captivating—you can’t not listen to the rest of the story.  The sweeping string accompaniment provides a romantic setting that James matches with enthralling conviction.  James’ instrument has a richness that is befitting such a beautiful piece of music—the composition itself gives her a lot to work with, but she really makes everything come together.  There is something that is just so warm and comforting about her voice; it’s like an intimate embrace.

There are so many tired or trite ways to approach the subject of love, but calling it “a Sunday kind of love” is such an effective metaphor to communicate the elation of a settled match.  The song speaks of longing, but the tone is optimistic: “I’m hoping to discover | A certain kind of lover | Who will show me the way!”  This song is about all of your life finally coming together around that one person—that Sunday kind of love.

Question: This song has been recorded by many different artists.  What other standards are your favourites?