We All Know Her Desire

“This Is The One,” The Stone Roses

The Stone Roses are back!  After forming in 1983, ushering in the Madchester scene of their hometown, and siring an entire generation of Britpoppers, the band split in 1996, having released only two albums—The Stone Roses and Second Coming.  In 2012, there is once again the opportunity to experience the Roses’ magic live on their world tour.  All four core members have agreed to participate: vocalist Ian Brown, guitarist John Squire, bassist Mani, and drummer Reni.  Lucky concert-goers will be sure to be treated to a version of “This Is The One” at next year’s Roses shows.

Released on the Stone Roses’ self-titled 1989 debut, “This Is The One” is a memorable treasure from the outstanding album.  This track is a remarkable lesson in restrained exhilaration.  It presents a tempered perspective on the ecstasy of finding love.  But this is not the usual romantic fluff of pop songs; it is a passionate reward hard-won after considerable wait.  The prolonged loving fixation which resists fulfillment drives the song’s ethereal longing.  This is the person yearned for and finally found.  The bittersweet journey to love underscores the delight of its triumph, amplifying the deliciousness of this moment.

A wide-ranging melody coupled with fast-moving guitar and bass lines lend this recording a nostalgic quality.  Nostalgia only lasts for so long, though, and the Roses are eager to unburden themselves of the past.  Brown dreamily declares: “I’d like to leave the country | For a month of Sundays | Burn the town where I was born!”  Reni’s drumming is just right; it mirrors the vocal lines and drives the ballad beyond the form’s standard metric confines.

The first half of this song feels like a secret.  But it’s one that can’t be kept.  Brown’s soft, whispery style engages the listener and intimates an immediate kinship.  As the track progresses, this confidence can no longer be kept, for the lyrical narrative is too joyful not to be shared.  Towards the end, Brown is joined by jangly backing vocals that tirelessly proclaim to all that “This is the one she’s waited for!”  Happily, the secret doesn’t falter and sound nauseatingly repetitive or garishly gossipy; it becomes more beautiful—and thrilling—each time it is intoned.  These vocals complete the tune, gradually fading to nothing yet everything at the same time.  Perhaps this is a love that has burned itself out, for it was born, as Brown tells, of “a girl consumed by fire.”

Question: I think “This Is The One” captures the guarded excitement of love’s beginnings perfectly.  What are your favourite songs that attempt to express love’s first ripple in time?

Oh What She Does To Me

“Don’t Worry Baby,” The Beach Boys

Brian Wilson penned this 1964 tune to answer last week’s girl-go-get-him cut for the ages, “Be My Baby.”  Strangely though, rich yet worried, “Don’t Worry Baby” has little of the simmering aggression that characterized the song for which it was inspired.  Instead, it is reticent and passive, reluctant and even humbled at times, all while tendering a provocative take on the expected sugary ballad.  

“Don’t Worry Baby” captures both the contents that haunted many teen boys’ thoughts—racing cars, the pressures of fitting in with the cool crowd, learning how to be a man in the 1960s—and the kind of love that can withstand it all.  With refreshing honesty, the boy confides: “I guess I should’ve kept my mouth shut when I started to brag about my car | But I can’t back down now because I pushed the other guys too far.”  This act of confessing to his girlfriend cleanses the boy of his fears.  For every pain the boy must endure, the antidote is his sweetheart.  With each problem he encounters, she is there; Wilson spills, “And she says don’t worry baby…Everything will turn out alright.” 

Mike Love often sang the high parts, but here Wilson’s own falsetto is lead, winding above the lush harmonies.  From the outset, even the most troubled lyrics are juxtaposed by a sunny surf-sound accompaniment.  This can serve to undermine the seriousness of the subject matter after the first listen.  However, after more dedicated plays of this track, the contrast between form and content is revealed to delectably heighten the tension within the song.

In the lyrics, a boy speaks plainly to his girlfriend.  In “Be My Baby” there was a girl (Ronnie Bennett) singing to a boy, and she wanted him to be hers.  Here, the gender of the singer changes, but not that of “Baby.”  Even though the male is the voice of the recording, the girl seems to be the one who is in control, the one who the song is about.  The title, “Don’t Worry Baby,” is reflexive, for it is the boy who is “Baby,” not the girl he is singing to—it is she in whom he seeks solace.  Significantly, though, the boy already has won the girl; he is not in the heat of pursuit as in “Be My Baby.”  Or, as was the case in “Be My Baby,” perhaps he was the one who was pursued?

Listen to the Girl as She Takes on Half the World

For the launch of Song and Why, a special double-post:


“Be My Baby,” The Ronettes

“Just Like Honey,” The Jesus And Mary Chain

Although the Ronettes were a trio, producer Phil Spector chose front girl, Ronnie Bennett, to sing both lead and backing vocals on the group’s biggest hit, 1963’s “Be My Baby.”  This made for a brilliant record that is, at times, almost arrestingly full.  When it seems as though there couldn’t be room for more sound, yet another instrument is introduced.  For once, too much is just enough, and the sonic overload does not overwhelm the lovingly simple wordplay—it attends to it beautifully.  One of the most precious aspects of “Be My Baby” is the innocence of love’s first blush that blooms through, something that was playing out during recording sessions in the studio as much as it was when the song was on the turntable at countless dances in local high schools.  Did I mention that Ronnie Bennett became Ronnie Spector?

Take that unforgettable “Be My Baby” beat, add a healthy dose of feedback, and it could become a mess, but with the guidance of the Jesus and Mary Chain, it is a rebirth.  From the opening thuds of (Primal Scream leader) Bobby Gillespie’s drum, everything old is new.  William Reid’s guitar fuzzes over the familiar rhythm, joined by his brother, Jim’s, wistful serenade.  “Just Like Honey” is from the Mary Chain’s must-own debut album, Psychocandy, released in 1985 when the band’s initial shows were legendary three-song sets that collapsed into violence—none of which is present on this pensive track.  Instead, the Jesus and Mary Chain are much wearier and wiser, acquiescing to “listen to the girl as she takes on half the world.”  For, achingly, Jim Reid confesses, “walking back to you is the hardest thing that I can do.”

Both songs are about love that is just beyond one’s reach.  However, in a very important way, “Be My Baby” is subversive and sly—this is bad-girl music that sounds like something far more pretty and sweet—whereas “Just Like Honey” deals with the same subject matter with even greater ambivalence and lyrical economy. “Be My Baby” begins conventionally regarding the man’s role: if the girl were able to land her new boy, she’d make him “so proud of me.”  As the Wall of Sound plows on, this woman’s entreaties grow, becoming more and more insistent; they, like the castanets that punctuate them, will not be ignored: “Be my baby now!”  In contrast, “Just Like Honey” features a guy who knows his music and is pining for a chick who is a real tall order.  The tune ends at a dreamy impasse, drifting into a world where there is only a guitar-drenched shimmer of hope for love fulfilled.