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Certain Songs

Certain Songs #138: Bruce Springsteen – “Candy’s Room”

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Album: Darkness on the Edge of Town.

Year: 1978.

It seems ridiculous nowadays since bands like The Arcade Fire waste their youth and influence by taking three years between albums, but the three-year gap between Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town felt like a big deal. So much time! Especially as the scruffy bohemian dude grinning holding his guitar on the former album was replaced by the clean-shaven dude staring you down.

When I first saw the magazine ads for Darkness, I couldn’t even believe it was the same guy. Which made thematic sense: if: Born to Run often felt like a huge party, then Darkness on the Edge of Town felt like the reason that people needed that party. And as such, it took a long time for me – a couple of decades, really – to fully grok how great it was.

The one Darkness song that I loved unreservedly from the start is easily the most unconventional song on the entire album. Neither a straight-out anthemic rocker nor a slowly-burning ballad, “Candy’s Room” starts quietly, and then suddenly explodes into a big Max Weinberg snare drum hook. Just when you think you’ve got a handle on it, it gets ripped in half by one of Bruce’s most out-front guitar solos, stopping the whole thing dead.

After that, everybody’s jostling each other trying to get to Candy’s room first. In the end,  Max Weinberg wins by virtue of sliding on his snare drum hook while Bruce slows himself down by bouncing back-and-forth between the speakers.

“Candy’s Room” performed live circa 2010

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #137: Bruce Springsteen – “She’s The One”

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Album: Born to Run.

Year: 1975.

Wiih its killer organ and secret basslines and big-ass drum fills, the Phil Spector-by-way-of Bo Diddley “She’s The One” packs a universe of epic grandness into just four-and-a-half minutes. And if the Born to Run version was all that we ever got, dayneu. 

But it was just a fucking trailer compared to the live version. On that 1978 tour, over Max Weinberg’s kick drum, Bruce would reference other classic songs with the Bo Diddley beat: “Not Fade Away,” “Mona,” “Gloria” – whatever came to mind – setting up what was always an absolutely monster version of “She’s The One”

The the density of the sound of the E Street Band is absolutely breathtaking: how Roy Bittan’s piano & Danny Federici’s organ intertwine, how Garry Tallent’s bass and Max Weinberg’s drums drive everything, and oh yeah, here comes Clarence Clemons kicking out a  sax solo while everybody is joyfully shouting “Whoa, she’s the one!”

And after that, they’re off to the races, pretty much leaving every other band ever in the dust. 

The last two minutes of any live 1978 version of “She’s The One,” with all of the building and building and stopping and starting and crashing and moving ever forward with ever single member of the band playing within an inch of their lives, ranks with the greatest rock ‘n’ roll music by anybody in any context. It’s utterly thrilling every single time.

“She’s the One” performed live in Landover, MD, 1978

“She’s The One” performed live in Passiac, NJ, 1978

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #136: Bruce Springsteen – “Born to Run”

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Album: Born to Run.

Year: 1975.

Back in the mid-1980s, when Bruce Springsteen was the biggest music artist in the world not named “Michael Jackson,” I used to give a post-closing-shift ride home to one of my Video Zone co-workers, Mindy. She lived at the edge of Clovis, near where Tollhouse made its weird diagonal run towards the Sierra Nevadas.

That was, you know, 30 years ago, before suburban sprawl brought the mountains ever closer, and way before they built the 168 to help formalize that closeness. So Tollhouse past midnight – seemingly lit only by the lights of three radio towers – was one of those roads that represented “getting the hell out of Fresno.” 

Many nights after dropping Mindy off at the house where she was staying, I would linger at the stop sign at Tollhouse and Fowler, and look up Tollhouse and those radio towers, thinking “man, if my life was a Bruce Springsteen song,  I could just get on this road and never come back. I could escape everything and everyone.”

1,2,3,4!

Of course, my life wasn’t a Bruce Springsteen song. And it especially wasn’t “Born to Run.” My youthful wildness didn’t manifest itself in screaming down boulevards in hemi-powered drones. My youthful wildness manifested itself in drinking too much and not graduating college in a timely manner. But man, did riding through mansions of glory in suicide machines seem like it was way more fun that ditching class to go see a movie with Jay.

Right? Discovering if love was wild or real by dying on the street in an everlasting kiss with a girl named Wendy sounded like the most exciting thing that could ever possibly happen. Let’s go! But, of course, it wasn’t ever going to happen. Not to me, not to anyone, probably. But, man, who could hear this song and not want to live it, even for a little while? 

In concert – because with Bruce, the phrase “in concert” always seems to come up – they would turn on the house lights for “Born to Run.” That way you could sing along with thousands of other strangers who were also – for a few minutes – escaping their perfectly unexciting normal lives because we gotta get out while we’re young because tramps like us baby we were born to run!

“Born to Run” performed live in the mid-1980s

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #135: Bruce Springsteen – “Backstreets”

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Album: Born to Run.

Year: 1975.

I know that Bruce posed with Clarence Clemons for the famous cover of what is probably the greatest transition record ever made, but it shoulda been Roy Bittan. I mean, of course it wouldn’t have worked visually in a nice gatefold cover, but let’s face it: Roy Bittan owns Born to Run. 

There isn’t a single song on this record without a perfect, memorable piano part. Roy’s piano is practically the first thing you hear in “Thunder Road” and the last thing you hear on “Jungleland.”  

And of course, Bittan is all over “Backstreets,” which may not be the greatest Bruce Springsteen song, but is definitely the most Bruce Springsteen song. 

One soft infested summer
Me and Terry became friends
Trying in vain to breathe
The fire we born in
Catching rides to the outskirts
Tying faith between our teeth
Sleeping in that old abandoned beach house
Getting wasted in the heat 
And hiding on the backstreets 
Hiding on the backstreets

It may not profound, but you can see it in your mind’s eye. More than that, you want to live it: that summer where everything changes. That summer which has since become so mythologized in your mind that you replay it for the rest of your life. You know, your glory days. 

And, besides, over the hard-rocking Blonde on Blonde sound of of the E Street Band, it becomes profound, because they make hiding on the backstreets sound like simultaneously the beginning and end of the world.

So in the end, when Bruce sings:

Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets
Hiding on the backstreets

approximately 568,921,364 times, it becomes a catharsis, a cry for help, and a prayer to a god that had long since abandoned him and Terry. In the end, it feels like a cleansing, and everybody involved is pretty much exhausted. Which means it’s time to flip the album over and get reinvigorated all over again.

“Backstreets” performed live in Passiac, New Jersey, 1978

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #134: Bruce Springsteen – “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)”

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Album: The Wild, The Innocent & The E Street Shuffle.

Year: 1973.

I honestly don’t even know what to do about Bruce Springsteen. I’m positive that all my favorite Bruce songs are the ones that you’re all sick of, and given that he’s been one of the most over-analyzed artists in history, I’m not sure I’ve got a whole lot to say about him. So I’ve been looking at these next few songs with more than a little bet of dread.

That said: for decades I’ve known where I want to be if World War III ever broke out – wherever it is that Bruce Springsteen is performing “Rosalita.” There may not be a song in recorded history with more forward momentum, especially live. Check any of the bootlegs from 1978, where the song just builds and builds and builds, where even the band introductions (often during the section where they dropped into an lightspeed instrumental of “I Can’t Turn You Loose”) somehow kept the momentum going.

Back in 1979, ABC ran a “Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll" special (narrated by Jeff Bridges!), and they showed just a couple of minutes from the below clip of Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band playing “Rosalita” live in Phoenix in 1978. It just killed me.  Eventually, the whole thing showed up on MTV. It killed me even more.

During this clip – from that insanely great 1978 tour – you get the impression that they’re not only the tightest rock ‘n’ roll band that anyone’s ever seen, but that anything could happen at any time. Usually it’s one or the other, but almost never both. It’s a perfect combination of rock and roll spirit, musicianly chops and masterful showmanship. It remains in the top 5 live performances I’ve ever seen on video.

“Rosalita” performed liver than you’ll ever be in Phoenix, 1978

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #133: Broken Social Scene – “Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl”

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Album: You Forgot It in People
Year: 2002.

First off, let me say that  "Broken Social Scene"  is one of my all-time favorite names for any band ever. Or, “musical collective,” I guess, though I have a helluva time envisioning BSS founder Kevin Drew sneering Lydonesquely to a late-night talk show host: “We’re not a band, we’re a collective.”

And while I recognize that their 2002 breakthrough You Forgot It In People is utterly beloved by indie fans a generation younger than me, I’ve always found it to be a very good record with two tremendous songs – “Cause = Time” & “Almost Crimes,” – and a contender for the Prettiest Song Ever Recorded (Brian Eno Division): “Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl.”

At first, with singer Emily Haines’ voice altered into a pitch so high the words she is singing are almost totally unintelligible, “Anthems For a Seventeen Year-Old Girl,” is a bit off-putting. They’re so alien, you don’t even notice that she’s not singing over a synth, but rather a slowly picked banjo, strummed guitar and bowed violin.

Then, when the song gets to about 1:10, she sings:

Bleaching your teeth, smiling flash, talking trash, under my window 

And right then, the whole world changes.

Suddenly, the banjo and violin take center stage, along with one of the most simply perfect guitar leads I’ve ever heard. It’s sheer elegance in its simplicity. 

Then, and over a slow build with the banjo, guitar & violin getting more powerful as it goes on and on the part that makes this song one of my Top 10 – hell, maybe even Top 5 – of the new millennium, Hanes chants over and over again:

Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me

Now I know that some people get driven crazy by this kind of repetition, but to me, this is like Doug Yule’s organ solo in the live “What Goes On” or Pete Shelley’s screams of “There is no love in this world anymore” in “I Believe,” No matter how long it goes on, it isn’t long enough. 

“Anthems For a Seventeen-Year-Old Girl”

Certain Songs #132: Brian Eno – “You Don’t Miss Your Water”

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Album: Married to the Mob Soundtrack
Year: 1988

If I’m not mistaken, Eno’s surprise version of “You Don’t Miss Your Water” was his first lead vocal in over a decade. Sure, you could hear him singing on various Talking Heads and U2 tracks (especially the “Pride” b-side “Boomerang II,” which is clearly an Eno track in all by name), but the fact that he decided to cover an old soul classic for a film soundtrack was pretty mind-blowing.

Even more mind-blowing: just how gorgeous it was.

Featuring a rhythm guitar sound that wouldn’t sound out of place on Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) or Before and After Science and a ghostly some-might-say-“ambient” keyboard underneath, a heavenly chorus of Brian Enos slowly sing William Bell’s near perfect lyrics about losing a love through your own jackassery.

In the beginning you really loved me
But I was blind and I could not see
But when you left me, oh, how I cried
You don’t miss your water, till your well runs dry

There are some songs – “Indian Summer,” “Train From Kansas City” come to mind – for which it is impossible to record a bad version. Something about the song renders it impervious to destruction. “You Don’t Miss Your Water” is one of those songs. And though it’s been covered countless times – including by Otis Redding and The Byrds – since it was written in 1961, Eno’s is my favorite.

Maybe because the summer of 1988 was a weird and terrible time for me in the girl department, and I hadn’t really heard this song before this version, something about it completely resonated with me.

“You Don’t Miss Your Water”

The Certain Songs Database
A filterable, searchable & sortable somewhat up to date database with links to every “Certain Song” post I’ve ever written.

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Certain Songs Spotify playlist
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Certain Songs #131: Brian Eno – “The True Wheel”

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Album: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy).

Year: 1974.

With Eno’s synths buzzing all around some serious John Cale-style (though not John Cale) piano, the opening section of “The True Wheel” sounds like it could have been recorded yesterday, instead of over 40 years ago. When the eerie Randi & The Pyramids group vocals come in to announce “We are the 801, we are the central shaft,” it sounds like it could have been recorded 40 years from now. By aliens.

(We are the 801, we are the central shaft)
And thus throughout two years
We’ve crossed the ocean in our little craft, (row, row, row!)
Now we’re on the telephone
Making final arrangements, ding ding!

This is followed by a crunchy guitar fueled call-and-response “chorus,” which has my favorite Eno lyric ever (not a large category, I know, but still):

(Looking for a certain ratio)
Someone must have left it underneath the carpet
(Looking up and down the radio)
Uh oh, nothing there this time

You guys, Brian Eno is having so much fun on this song!  Sure, he lets Randi & The Pyramids sing “row row row,” but the “ding! ding!” is all his. And his singing on “Uh oh, nothing there this time” is hilariously knowing. And, of course, still true.

Nevertheless, as fun as the opening section of “The True Wheel” is, it’s all just set up.

Suddenly, as Eno gleefully cackles “Oh oh oh oh, oh oh, oh oh, here we go!" Phil Manzanera swoops in with his guitar sounding just like that ratio they’ve been looking for, and we suddenly know what that true wheel really sounds like. It sounds like forever.

After a while – guessing that both Eno and Manaznera figured that they needed to let that guitar part angle towards the infinity that it suggested – Eno starts singing again, and doubles down obliquely on the John Cale connection:

We saw the lovers The Modern Lovers
And they looked very good
They looked as if they could

Cale, of course, had already produced the majority the still unreleased Modern Lovers debut album, and Eno and Manzanera were playing on Cale’s mid-1970s records as well, so this just seems like a huge inside joke that has only gotten funnier over the years.

Video for "The True Wheel”

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #130: Brian Eno – “Burning Airlines Give You So Much More”

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Album: Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy).

Year: 1974.

There is a subcategory of “Certain Songs” that I’m going to call “The Prettiest Songs Ever Recorded” and I’m of the firm belief that this lead track from Brian Eno’s masterpiece Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy) is among those songs.

Eno? Really?

With Phil Manzanera playing a ghostly rhythm guitar while haunting and lovely keyboards frame a background chorus of Enos, I swear on all that’s true and holy that the second half of every verse of “Burning Airlines Give You So Much More” is as beautiful as anything that Brian Wilson ever put together. And ten times as weird.

When I got back home I found a message on the door
Sweet Regina’s gone to China cross legged on the floor
Of a burning jet that’s smoothly flying
Burning airlines give you so much more

Of course, there is almost no universe where a song like this would become a hit single, but I’ve loved it from the first time I heard it in the early 80s. Like nearly all of Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), “Burning Airlines Give You So Much More”  has been massively influential to just about anybody who wanted to make unconventional pop that is clearly both.

Video for “Burning Airlines Give You So Much More”

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #129: The Breeders – “Divine Hammer”

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Album: Last Splash 
Year: 1993

Sure, “Cannonball” is the one that (deservedly) gets all of the love, but “Divine Hammer” has always been my favorite song on Last Splash, and one of my favorite fucksongs ever. 

When Kim and Kelley Deal sing (in unison): 

I’m just looking for one divine hammer
I’d bang it all day 
The carpenter goes bang 
Bang bang 
I’m just looking for one divine hammer

It’s clearly not home repair to which they’re referring.

It’s also got one of my favorite guitar breaks ever, Kelly’s looking-down-at-the-frets solo, which is so perfect in how it contrasts with the freneticism of the rest of the song – which consists mostly of shimmering rhythm guitar and the usual Jim MacPherson drumroll momentum – that they toss it in twice!

But like another famous siblings band “same solo twice in the same song” – Eddie Van Halen’s solo in “Running With The Devil” – Kelley Deal’s solo is indicative of a much larger musical philosophy.

With Van Halen, it was to show off Eddie’s ground-breaking technique, signifying how technique and chops became increasingly important to metal fans in the late 70s and early 80s. It was very important at that time to sort out who the best and fastest guitar player was, and in lieu of starting Van Halen off with “Eruption” (which I’m guessing tempted everyone), throwing in that utterly startling solo twice against the relative lumberingness of the rest of “Running With the Devil” was the next best choice.

The point being: you’re never gonna be as good as Eddie Van Halen, so why even try?

With Kelley Deal, it was the exact opposite. The point they were trying to make was that indie wasn’t about chops, it was about inclusion. Anyone can do it, just so long as they had the balls to try! So who cared if she flubbed the solo live, that wasn’t the point. 

The point being: it isn’t about musicianship, it’s about musical expression. Anyone can do it!  In fact, you should start your own band right now! 

For the record, a couple of years ago when I saw The Breeders in Nashville play Last Splash in its entirety, Kelley nailed the solo both times.

“Divine Hammer” performed live on Conan, 1993

“Divine Hammer” official video (different version than the album)

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever