Music

Speaks Art

Chill Gutter Philosophy, Music

By the way, The Castellows have one of my favorite lines of any song in “Freeway.”

And it is: “Don’t know what you’re feelin’ til you hear it in a song.” Those girls understand art and its use. Yeah, it’s just a throwaway lyric in a pop country piece, but it hints at why so much leftist art fails and apolitical but now right-coded art like The Castellows’ succeeds: what matters (to also steal from Bo Diddly) is how it makes you feel.

Nearly all good art, by the way, is apolitical even if the person creating it is extremely politicized. And by this I don’t mean that art cannot or should not contain political content. Not at all. I mean that the work must treat whatever side it is portraying as fully human, fully realized, with actual motivations and not just as some cackling evil caricature.

Good artists can’t help but do that, even if in their everyday lives they are raving lunatics.

I said more than I intended, but so does that line in The Castellows’ little song. Which is exactly what good art does.

Frisson

Chill Music

Sam Bagenstos (@sbagen.bsky.social) โ€” Bluesky

Oh, I have so many of these, though I’m thinking mostly of a slightly longer time slice. But still, in the spirit:

1) When Phoebe Bridgers says, “I turned around, there was nothing there / Yeah, I guess the end is here” in “I Know the End.” That whole third verse is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant but that part is nonpareil.

2) The second time in Rick Ross’s “100 Black Coffins” when he raps the lines, “I need a hundred black preachers / With a black sermon to tell /ย  From a hundred black Bibles / While we send them all to hell.”

3) In ZZ Top’s “Jesus Just Left Chicago” the first part of the initial dirty guitar solo after the first verse.

4) In Yelle’s “Qui Est Cette Fille” after the bridge when she starts off with, “Faisons un petit jeu que tu ne connais pas….”

5) The very first part of Ministry’s “Dream Song” when the woman says, “When you’re dreaming, you feel alive.”

6) The start of Stereolab’s “Lo Boob Oscillator” when Laetitia sings “La / La lune est libre je crois / Qui rayonne au-dessus.”

7) The bass lead-in in Lucinda William’s “Righteously.” What a set-up for a perfect song.

8) Speaking of bass, the bass figures Blu DeTiger starts playing at 0:44 in “Figure It Out.”

9) In First to Eleven’s cover of Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” when Audra sings, “Pickin’ up whatever is mine.” It’s better than the original, and I love the original.

10) The first seven words of Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog.” It is infinitely superior to the Elvis version.

11) In Julie Driscoll’s cover of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch,” the first time Julie sings the chorus. That might just be the best cover of all time and hardly anyone knows it.

12) The initial keyboard chord and melody in the first seven seconds of Van Halen’s “Jump” before the drums kick in. That Oberheim OB-X sounds so fucking good oh my god.

13) In Clou’s “La tempรชte” in the outro when they are layering her voice and the drum-like bass kicks in.

14) The Cranberries’ “Ode To My Family” when Dolores sings, “My father, my father, he liked me….” Heartbreaking.

15) The part in Sleigh Bells’ “Rill Rill” when most of the backing music goes away and Alexis sings the third verse against only electronic finger snaps and a drum.

16) In Kate Rusby’s “Planets” when the bass kicks in for the first time as Kate sings, “You said, turn around so I cannot see your tears falling….”

17) Dead Sara’s “Weatherman” when Emily screams, “So go for the kill!” the second time.

18) MXMS’s “Death Row” when Ariel starts off with, “Lies on my lips, crucify the sun / Ties on my wrists, executioner’s drum….” That entire song is more gangsta than 99.9999% of all gangsta rap.

19) Jane’s Addiction “Been Caught Stealin’,” the “Well, it’s just a simple fact….” part. The whole song is great, but the syncopation in that section really hits. I remember in 1990 when this video came out, how big a scandal it was and how I thought the goth pole-dancing girl in it was the hottest woman I’d ever seen. Ha.

20) The chord, drum hit and “Stars….” in Hum’s “Stars” at 0:33.

21) In Kitten’s “Memphis” when Chloe sings for the second time, “Plane ride 5 AM / How’d we end up at a dirty hotel down in Memphis?”

22) Muireann Bradley’s cover of Kansas Joe McCoy’s and Memphis Minnie’s “When The Levee Breaks” when she starts to play the solo finger-pickin’ part the first time. So, so good and honors the original.

23) In MoloKali’s “Butterfly Milk” when the slightly-more melodic part starts and the woman sings, “Vue Tech….”

24) Ninajirachi’s “Sing Good” when Nina says, “‘Cause I can’t really sing good, but I’m still gonna try it.”

25) In Baby Queen’s “Obvious” when Bella sings, “But then she would die / Before I said goodbye.” Oh no, Bella, take it back. Take it all back.

I could list thousands. Thousands. But I should stop. I have other things I should do. Music is such a gift, though. I do not get along with people who do not like music.

Song Times

Chill Music, Music Video, Video

Tonight, I was trying to think of which song I had listened to the most times in my life all the way through. And that’s difficult, as I listened to quite a few songs in high school over and over again in a way that I just do not tend to now.

A solid guess is “Bells Ring” by Mazzy Star. Damn, I must’ve queued that song up dozens of times in a row for a few years; it felt like its own tiny world to explore.

Incidentally, I saw that performance above the first and only time it aired. I even recorded it on VHS. Not sure why that version is cut off at the end, but that’s a great one despite the poor audio. In most ways, it betters the album version. I think Hope’s performance in particular is superior in the live edition. She sounds more pouty, somehow more depressedly impassioned, and more mysterious there. The album version is more sterile and more restrained despite using electric instruments.

The album version, though, does have a damn fine outro.

Shudder

Chill Music

Someone said that The Sundays’ bandmembers provided a canvas for Harriet Wheeler to paint her voice on. That’s the most beautiful and accurate phrasing I’ve ever heard about one of the most exquisitely transcendent voices in music.

That song still holds up and is an all-time great.

When “Goodbye” comes out of its very long bridge (really, it’s two bridges mashed together1) and Harriet breaks in at 3:58 with that “Oh, as the heavens shudder….” — that is pure frickin’ music magic there.

  1. Most longer songs have something like intro then verse/chorus/verse/chorus/bridge then chorus/verse/chorus/chorus then outro or something like that. “Goodbye” is an atypical song because it doesn’t have a chorus and the middle is either a really long bridge, two bridges mashed together, or an interlude and a bridge, depending on your inclinations. The outro is short and inconclusive — which of course is deliberate. It is intended to leave you unsettled and unsatisfied, while the rest of the structure of the song is also supposed to sonically mirror a lack of conclusion and unfocused frustration, anger and questioning. The repeating interrogative-like bass figures and the interspersed musically-disconnected guitar lines mimic unfocused thoughts in the wake of a betrayal. The declaration near the end of the song that “I belong to you” is manifestly untrue, and this is why it’s asserted so forcefully. It’s a wish framed as a romantic declaration, a lament posing as a confirmation.

1995

Chill Culture, Music

This line from Molly Nilsson’s “1995” is probably the single best encapsulation of what it felt like to live then: “Back in ’95, we thought we were standing on the threshold to the end of time.”

Nailed it in one line. I wish I had Molly’s succinctness, but that is as close as one can get in words to the feeling of living in the era after the Berlin Wall fell and before the Oklahoma City Bombing, before 9/11, before the world turned.

Yes, we were wrong and in retrospect delusional that it was the end of history. That there was a brighter future in store. That we’d solve racism and hatred and blood feuds and war. But it sure as fuck felt like that. That optimism perfused everything. Those who claim it did not were too young to remember or are just lying. Most of them have some agenda, as well.

But I was there. I know what happened and what it was like.

Con CPR

Chill Music

For many years, I lived my days through and by music. It was the continuous CPR that kept air in my lungs during the worst stretches of my life.

As I’ve said before, without Hope, Harriet, Tanya, Billy, Tori and others, I would not have made it. They showed me the better world that awaited me if I could find a way to turn the curse that was my existence. And I got there, barely. But I did. I’ll ever be thankful to them no matter the artistic merit their works do or do not possess. They kept me on this side of the dirt.

Sonic Del

Chill Music

Today, I listened to all or part of 468 new (to me) songs. I liked 22 of those. That’s a hit rate of 4.7%. About average I think.

I also caused two browser crashes. Also about average.

Early Hope

Chill Music

This is worth watching the first part of for a brief glimpse of Hope Sandoval when she was very young. In the video she’s 21 and though she doesn’t say anything or sing, she has the affect and mannerisms of someone much younger.

Just looking at that brief clip, if I had to guess her age I’d say she was 15-16. She also looks vastly different than her later much more goth-y look.

Strange seeing her like that, really. You almost get to hear her laugh.