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Certain Songs

Certain Songs #16: The Bangles – “Hero Takes a Fall”

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Album: All Over The Place
Year: 1984

Emerging from the Paisley Underground via the pathway created by their girls-with-guitars predecessors, The Bangles were one of those “Next Big Things” that actually got big. Just not with this song. Or album.

More psychedelic than the Go-Gos and with better songs than the Runaways, on All Over The Place, The Bangles deployed a perfect synthesis of stinging alt-rock guitars and girl-group harmonies.  

And nowhere was it deployed better on the lead single, “Hero Takes a Fall,” in which those aformentioned  harmonies and stinging guitars pop in and out of the mix through the entire songs, creating an irresistible combination of melody and noise that topped every chart in the world.

Or at least fucking well should have. 

At the very least, this album turned Susanna Hoffs into a sex symbol for right-thinking college rock boys across the nation, some of whom had Bangles posters over their beds and others of whom melted whenever she did that thing where she looked away from the camera, and then back into our souls.

Anyways, check out this video of their performance of “Hero Takes A Fall” on Late Night With David Letterman, where, instead of just going directly into the final verse, Vicki Petersen tosses off a fuzzed-out garage rock guitar solo.  You have no idea how much I love that: instead of just playing the potential hit single as close to the record, they turn this version into something special and unique.

“Hero Takes a Fall”

“Hero Takes a Fall” performed live on Late Night w/ David Letterman, 1984

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Certain Songs: The Band – “The Weight”

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Album: Music From Big Pink.

Year: 1968.

“The Weight” is one of those great songs that has always been so in the ether, I didn’t even realize how much I loved it until one day I suddenly realized I did. And probably always have.

And yet it’s is impossible to write about. Where did it even come from? This ridiculous epic, with it’s shaggy-dog story lyrics and mournfully majestic sound. It’s brilliant, beautiful, titanic and nearly impossible to say anything coherent about. All I can do is ask questions.

Likely, these questions all have answers in various biographies, but I’ve never been desperately in love enough with The Band – I know, that’s on me (and in fact, I’m still not sure if I’ve ever really fully grokked them) – to find out.

For example, when they – possibly Robertson, but it’s so fucking organic-sounding, it feels like it just happened – decided to just make the chorus come to nearly a full stop, so that they could pile their voices on top of each other, did they just start laughing at how obviously awesome it was? 

At what point during the Basement Tapes sessions, did Robertson say to himself: “oh fuck it, I can do this” and then penned a song to prove that statement?

 And did he dismiss his immersion in Dylan’s songwriting process as an influence because “The Weight” sounds like nothing that Dylan ever wrote? Or anything anybody else wrote, for that matter?

“The Weight” performed live at Woodstock, 1969.

My Certain Songs Playlist on Spotify

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs: The Avett Brothers – “Ten Thousand Words”

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Album: I And Love And You.

Year: 2009.

I honestly don’t know that much about the Avett Brothers, but I’m gonna talk on them anyway. And like most of their best songs, “Ten Thousand Words” could have fallen off one of the Harry Smith Anthologies.

Somehow, the recent roots-music boomlet that somehow transported the perfectly competent Mumford & Sons into chart-topping, radio-dominating monsters left the Avett Brothers completely out in the cold.

And that’s a shame, because this song is timeless in a way that most roots-oriented folks can only approximate. You can have all of the fiddles and banjos you want, but that doesn’t mean you can come up with a tune that could have been anytime since 1850 or a chorus that applies equally to Facebook or sitting around a campfire.

“Ain’t it like most people – I’m no different – we love to talk on things we don’t know about.”

“Ten Thousand Words” performed live on the Farm

My Certain Songs Playlist on Spotify

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs: Archers of Loaf – “Greatest of All Time”

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Album: Vee Vee.

Year: 1995.

While “Greatest of All Time” isn’t the best indie rock song of all time, it much just be the most indie rock song of all time. Over a pair of clean-sounding but utterly skewed guitars, Eric Bachmann spins a fantasy that had crossed the mind of more than one indie rocker:

“They caught and drowned the front man
Of the world’s worst rock & roll band.
He was out of luck, because nobody gave a fuck.
The jury gathered all around the aqueduct.
Drinking and laughing and lighting up.
Reminiscing just how bad he sucked, singing

Throw him in the river.”

And who was it? Steve Perry? Lou Gramm? The guy from Loverboy? Eddie Vedder?

In 1995, the Our Band Could Be Your Life unity of indie rock had been shattered by a lethal combination of success, drugs, imitation, radio, the internet and – of course – death. 

It was replaced by endless sniping, posturing and arguing over indie bona fides. It was around this time that being an indie rocker went from being an necessity to a career choice. And “Greatest of All Time” captures this perfectly.

And the end of the song, after a flyover by the singer of the greatest band of all time – who is way too smart to be anywhere near these people – not knowing what else to do:  

“The people gathered all around the radio.
To hear the transmissions from the devil’s soul.
Locked and stunned and sick and cold.

Toasting their dead hero.”

Which is where they were eventually overcome by a surging river of guitars and remain to this day.

Fan-made video for “Greatest of All Time”

My Certain Songs Playlist on Spotify

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs: The Arcade Fire – “No Cars Go”

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Album: Neon Bible.

Year: 2007.

Quite possibly the biggest music this band has ever made and a rip-roaring highlight of their second album, More Songs About Children and Dreams – whoops, I’m sorry, I meant Neon Bible – “No Cars Go” had me singing “Us kids know!” the year I turned 45.

But here’s the thing, where is this place? Is it even a better place? Win Butler isn’t telling. Or at least, he isn’t telling me – far from a kid and getting ever further – what the kids know. Still, if the kids know where this place is, it will probably show up on the internet, like MySpace or Facebook or that new Twitter thingy.

“Between the click of the light and the start of the dream.”

What a second, is it sleep?

God damn it, has even Win Butler now been corrupted by the Sleeping-Industrial Complex?  It was probably that 10.0 that Pitchfork gave Funeral.

Oh well, it doesn’t even matter, cos I’ll follow that drumbeat anywhere, even to sleep, not that I could ever sleep while the Arcade Fire was playing this song.

“No Cars Go” Performed Live at the BBC, 2007

My Certain Songs Playlist on Spotify

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs: The Arcade Fire – “Rebellion (Lies)”

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Album: Funeral.

Year: 2004.

Funeral didn’t really change my life the way it did the lives of so many others, but this song is one of the greatest works of art of the 21st century.

I had no idea that I needed a synthesis of the Velvet Underground and Talking Heads as filtered through post-millennium Bruce Springsteen, but the moment that the snare drum and violin take over from the John Cale-ish piano, I’m all in, and the rest is just forward motion as they layer on (and off) the backing vocals, guitars and even handclaps!   

(Reminder of the Handclap Rule: Handlclaps automatically make a good song great and a great song immortal.)

And the words! As a life-long insomniac who resents the 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night he does get – and currently is having his sleep patterns fucked up by the time change – the opening salvo of “Sleeping is giving in / No matter what the time is” resonates in the deepest part of my soul.

Of course, I understand the reasons we need sleep, but gods damn it, I’d rather be awake and experiencing life than asleep and missing it.

There have been so many great songs celebrating sleeping, it was clearly about time we got a transcendent one calling bullshit on the whole Sleeping-Industrial Complex.

Official Video for “Rebellion (Lies)”

“Rebellion (Lies)” Performed Live in Paris, 2007

My Certain Songs Playlist on Spotify

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs: The Apples in Stereo – “Silver Chain”

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Album: Tone Soul Evolution.

Year: 1997.

Most of the time, when you say “Beach Boys influenced” to me, I nod my head wisely and assume that whatever you’re talking about is too damn baroque for me. But “Silver Chain” combines the “ba ba ba ba ba” backing vocals and swelling horns on the chorus with a jangly guitar counterpoint that would have never even crossed Brian Wilson’s mind.

Also: unlike the vast majority of songs in The Apples in Stereo’s catalog, “Silver Chain” wasn’t written by Elephant 6 mastermind Robert Schneider, but rather by drummer Hilary Sidney.

I can’t remember who it was, and Google was no help, but I saw The Apples in Stereo open for somebody in the mid-90s (really thinking it was Pavement, but I have no proof) and what I remember most about them was that Hilary Sidney was the most joyous person I’d ever seen on stage. 

There was no doubt whatsoever that she knew that she’d never have more fun doing anything in her life than getting on stage and playing those songs. And I think that this ridiculously gorgeous song captures that joy.

Fan-made video for “Silver Chain”

Certain Songs: Altered Images – “Don’t Talk to Me About Love”

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Album: Bite.

Year: 1983.

If there was one thing you could say for sure about me in 1983, it was that I didn’t like Eurodisco-influenced “new wave” songs. Or non-guitar riff oriented songs in general. And I especially didn’t like those types of songs sung by high-pitched female vocalists who had previously put out an annoying song called “Happy Birthday” that got requested on KFSR every single fucking day.

Except for the fact that I love this song, and always have. Even more so that the Blondie songs that it’s clearly influenced by.

It’s pretty obvious why: that soaring chorus, as full of counterpoint as any R.E.M. song, and carrying a melody that some bearded duded with an acoustic guitar would kill to have written. And yet, there is no doubt that the best place for that killer melody was floating on top of the long drawn-out spaces that the disco rhythm created.

And so, it dragged me towards something I thought I could never possibly like. Awesome! BTW, that’s one of the hallmarks of a universally great song: it should somehow fuck with the listener and/or make them think that anything is possible – including liking a song that on paper they wouldn’t even give a second shake to.

Official Video for “Don’t Talk to Me About Love”

My Certain Songs Playlist on Spotify

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs: Airborne Toxic Event – “Sometime Around Midnight”

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Album: Airborne Toxic Event.

Year: 2009.

Written in the second person in order to simultaneously minimize and universalize the pain, my first question when I first heard this song – probably on Kevin & Bean’s morning show on KROQ – was “holy shit, how did this guy get access to my journals from the 1980s?”

So, you’re sitting outside of the Oly Tavern writing “poetry” in your “journal” because you really don’t want to go inside because she’s in there. And she’s totally winning the break-up.

Because it literally seems like something that happened to me just about anytime between, oh, 1986 – 1992 at the Blue or the Oly Tavern or Livingstones or somewhere like that, after which I would write out my feelings about whatever was going on in excruciating detail before falling drunkenly to sleep.

But, of course, you’re going to cos you just have to see her, you just have to see her, you just have to see her, you just have to see her. Idiot.

Of course, what my journal entries lacked, and what this song has, is a guitar sound that reminds me of what would result of David Bowie would have made “Heroes” 10 years later with the Edge on guitar instead of Robert Fripp.

 No one is going to believe your official story: you’re going inside to check out the guitar player. But not because you’re interested in what he’s doing, but because you’re worried that’s why she’s inside as well: to check out the guitar player.

Official Video for “Sometime Around Midnight”

My Certain Songs Playlist on Spotify

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs: Al Green – “Take Me to The River”

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Album: Al Green Explores Your Mind.

Year: 1974.

In a weird bit of irony, what is probably Al Green’s best-known song (give or take a “Let’s Stay Together”) was never released as a single.Maybe because the lyrical conflation of a troubled love affair and spiritual redemption was not as straightforward as most of his great singles.

But obviously Al knew it was a major song, because it was covered almost instantly by several artists, including Foghat. Foghat!  While Foghat were one of my mid-70s jams, and the album it was on – Night Shift –  was in my life, probably via Craig, the hard-loving-dude who lived across the street from me, I have no memories if their version whatsoever.

Like most white teenagers of the 1970s, I became aware of the song after Talking Heads flattened it out, slowed it down and weirded it up while somehow also scoring a top 30 hit in the process, and didn’t even bother scaring up Al’s version for years.

Which is on me, as he was one of the major soul artists from my youth whose singles didn’t resonate at the time – unlike Stevie Wonder and War, who always killed me – so I really didn’t start exploring his catalog at all until the ‘90s.

At which point, his original version of “Take Me to The River” jumped out at me as the great song it had always been.

But check out this amazing live version – from “Soul Train” in 1975, that builds from the original song into a polyrhythmic workout that may also have influenced David Byrne …

“Take Me to The River” performed live on Soul Train, 1975

My Certain Songs Playlist on Spotify

Every “Certain Song” Ever