Archives for March 2020

Certain Songs #1785: Ramones – “I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You”

March 31, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ramones
Year: 1976

I have a very controversial take on “I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You.” In my reading of it, it’s the epic story of a man who certain of one thing in an otherwise uncertain world: he doesn’t wanna walk around with you. And at the same time he also poses an existential question for the ages: why you wanna walk around with me?”

I know, I know, don’t @me about this, but I think if you listen to the lyrics really closely, it’s all right there.

Certain Songs #1784: Ramones – “Judy is a Punk”

March 30, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ramones
Year: 1976

. . .

How much cleverness can you cram into 92 seconds?

A whole universe worth, as it turns out, as Joey’s song about the potential fate of a bunch of kids hanging out and drinking set up characters who would reoccur in future Ramones songs.

Certain Songs #1783: Ramones – “Beat on the Brat”

March 27, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ramones
Year: 1976

. . .

And then there are the lyrics on Ramones: darkly funny; smartly stoopid and of course, just incredibly wrong, especially by today’s standards. And of course, looking at the guys on the cover, leather-jacketed, jeans ripped — and was that one guy giving us the finger? — you could only wonder what kind of depravity they were getting up to.

Which is all to say that I can’t imagine any band today even trying to write a song like “Beat on The Brat,” Joey’s response to what Dee Dee claims was a real-life incident.

Certain Songs #1782: Ramones – “Blitzkrieg Bop”

March 26, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Ramones
Year: 1976

Hey! Ho! Let’s Go!

Like other great opening tracks from world-changing debut albums — “Good Times, Bad Times,” “Just Like Honey” — it’s all there from the very beginning: that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

Certain Songs #1781: Rain Parade – “This Can’t Be Today”

March 25, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Emergency Third Rail Power Trip
Year: 1983

. . .

Outside of The Bangles, of course, no musician from the Paisley Underground had more commercial success that David Roback, when his most successful attempt to make music so slow and etherial, Mazzy Star, had a massive modern rock hit single with “Fade Into You.” But, of course, in Mazzy Star, Roback was overshadowed by Hope Sandoval, whom at the time, epitomized the word “dreamy” on just about every level.

Certain Songs #1780: Rage to Live – “My Heroine”

March 24, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Blame The Victims
Year: 1989

. . .

This, right here, was one of the reasons I started Certain Songs. Sure, it’s fun to go deep on my favorite artists, and we’ll be doing that soon enough once again, but right now, let’s talk about one of the most obscure songs I’ll ever post about, the utterly magnificent “My Heroine” from New Jersey’s Rage to Live.

Certain Songs #1779: Radiohead – “There There”

March 23, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Hail to the Thief
Year: 2003

It’s one of my favorite moments in any Radiohead song. For nearly two minutes, “There There” has been kinda floating around the room, driven by Phil Selway’s lighter-than-air toms and Thom Yorke and Ed O’Brien’s etherial vocals. And then, all of a sudden, completely out of nowhere, Selway does a couple of quick snare rolls:

Whack-it-a-duh!
Whack-it-a-duh!

So simple. So startling.

Certain Songs #1778: Radiohead – “Morning Bell/Amnesiac”

March 20, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Amnesiac
Year: 2001

. . .

98% of the time when an artist releases two entirely different versions of the same song, and one of those versions is uptempo and groovy and the other is sludgy and doom-filled, I’m going to pick the uptempo one.

This, right here, is the exception.

Certain Songs #1777: Radiohead – “Knives Out”

March 19, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Amnesiac
Year: 2001

The shortest turnaround between any two Radiohead albums occurred between the October 2000 release of Kid A and the June 2001 release of Amnesiac. Of course that — with the exception of Amnesiac’s “Life in a Glasshouse” — was because both albums were recorded at the same set of sessions in 1999 and 2000.

Certain Songs #1776: Radiohead – “Idioteque”

March 18, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Kid A
Year: 2000

. . .

So I’m currently sitting in a jury assembly room, which is a stressful situation during the best of times — I think it’s important to do my duty as a citizen, but I hate the uncertainty and the potential disruption to my daily routine — but of course, these are the polar opposite of the best of times.