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Certain Songs #52: Big Star – “Kangaroo”

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Album: Third.

Year: 1978.

When people talk about the madness and disintegration of Big Star’s Third, they’re really mostly talking about this song and “Holocaust,” twin sisters of desolation and despair, and – at least in the version of this album I originally had – back to back near the end of the record, sealing it in people’s minds for all time as a masterpiece of sadness and weirdness.

And they have a point: “Kangaroo” is a meandering soundscape chalk full of acoustic guitar feedback, ghostly strings, and drums that sound like a distant battlefield getting ever closer.

It’s really more of a mood than a song, and that mood is “Holy mother of god, am I depressed!”  And while it’s arguably not as depressed as the piano-based “Holocaust,” I like it more because it’s less on-the-nose lyrically, and it’s constantly changing – like the cowbells that come in near the end of the song, just for the sheer fuck of it.

Fan-made video for “Kangaroo”

My Certain Songs Spotify Playlist:

Every “Certain Song” Ever

Certain Songs #51: Big Star – “Stroke It Noel”

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Album: Third.

Year: 1978.

While the first two Big Star albums were basically unheard mysteries when I first encountered them, by the time I bought the 1985 PVC reissue of Third, I was well aware of the tales of madness and disintegration that surrounded its recording. So it’s kinda ironic that side one, track one of this record that is supposed to experimental and off-putting is this perfectly composed, meticulously arranged pop nugget.

Not much more than Alex Chilton, Jody Stephens and a simple string arrangement, “Stroke It Noel” might be the least raucous song in rock history that features a chorus of “Do you wanna dance?”

Of course, it was a feint: there was plenty of madness and disintegration on Third, so “Stroke It Noel” served as the same kind of palate cleanser / misdirection as “Sunday Morning” did on The Velvet Underground & Nico.  

It was also an indicator of one of the types of songs on the record, which I would roughly classify as Acoustic with Strings (“Stroke it Noel,” “For You” “Nighttime); Big Offbeat Rock ("You Can’t Have Me,” “Thank You Friends,”  "Jesus Christ" and, of course, Madness and Disintegration (“Holocaust,”  "Kangaroo").

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When I saw the Big Star’s Third concert in Los Angeles earlier this year, not only did they have Ken Stringfellow do the lead vocals on “Stroke It Noel,” (which made sense, as it would have fit in on any Posies album)  they had the legendary Van Dyke Parks do the string arrangements.  Like so much of the rest of that evening, it was equal parts sad, joyous and sublime.

Fan-made video for “Stroke It Noel)

My Certain Songs Playlist on Spotify

Every "Certain Song” Ever