Album: The Sound of Music
Year: 1987
1987 was a helluva year for music. To this day, it remains one of my all-time favorites. R.E.M. broke through into the mainstream while U2 broke through into the stratosphere.
Prince reminded everybody why he’s the greatest musician of our generation while Bruce Springsteen scaled down beautifully. The Replacements and Hüsker Dü made the last of their great records while Public Enemy, Guns n’ Roses & Sonic Youth made the first of theirs.
On the somewhat more obscure tip, The Cat Heads came out of nowhere to kill me with their debut, and my close personal friends The Miss Alans released their scene-defining cassette. On top of it all, I started teaching myself to play drums and started playing in a band.
And with all of that, very little music that year gave me more pleasure than The dB’s power-pop masterpiece, The Sound of Music. Not only is The Sound of Music my favorite dB’s album, I think it’s the best power pop album of the 1980s, and — except for Big Star’s #1 Record and The Who’s My Generation — quite possibly the greatest power pop album of all time.
I realize fully that I’m overrating it, and I also fully realize that it showed up in my life when I needed an album full of songs that sounded like this, as Peter Holsapple totally obliterated whatever was blocking his songwriting during Like This, and instead gave us songs like “Change With The Changing Times.”
Starting off with a riff that doubles back upon itself, and featuring the great Benmont Tench on the organ, “Change With The Changing Times” shows Holsapple worrying that if he doesn’t keep up with his latest love interest, she’s not going to enjoy him anymore.
You say you’re growin’ and I think it’s showin’ and
I only want the chance to see you through
So if I start to cling, I’ll let you go sure thing
It’s just my way of sayin’ that I love you
You’re in need of greater sensation
I’m standing here in Grand Central StationChange with the changing times
I gotta change with the changing times
Change with the changing times
I gotta change with the changing times
You see, he’s getting a bit older, and not so sure that he can make the changes he needs to make. It seems insanely silly now, but as I neared 25, this made sense to me, especially given how accelerated my life suddenly felt. It felt like the whole world was getting away from me. Could I keep up? I had no idea, but I knew I needed to try, which is just one of the reasons I loved this song.
The rest are musical: an utterly irresistible chorus, a quick near-psychedelic guitar break and the rest of the band joining in at the end to chant “change with the, change with the” as Holsapple details a long list of things he realizes he needs to change.
Video for “Change With The Changing Times”