Good Songs XXIV

Tomorrow Never Knows – The Beatles

The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) – The Doors

Battle of Who Could Care Less – Ben Folds Five

Six Underground – Sneaker Pimps

Celebration Day – Led Zeppelin

Manic Depression – Jimi Hendrix

The Distance – Cake

Devil’s Haircut – Beck

Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion – Grateful Dead

Fortunate Son – Credence Clearwater Revival

Fade Into You – Mazzy Star

Linger – The Cranberries

Run Like Hell – Pink Floyd

(Theme from) Shaft – Isaac Hayes

Red Mosquito – Pearl Jam

Supervixen – Garbage

Free Ride – Edgar Winters Group

Kids in America – The Muffs

Lump – Presidents of the United States of America

Seether – Veruca Salt

Nearly Lost You – Screaming Trees

Where Did You Go? – Mighty Mighty Bosstones

I created this mix in April of 1997 and this is my favorite one that I’ve ever done. When I finish with this blog series (only four more entries!) this is going to be the Good Songs playlist that I listen to the most. So instead of having one overarching theme, I’m going to write quick hits about each song/artist.

These quick hitters tend to be longer blog entries, so strap yourself in and get ready.

The Beatles – I like pretty much all of the Beatles music, as does most of the civilized world. But my favorite genre of Beatles music is their experimental, psychedelic stuff. I enjoy that the songs are a bit aggressive, unnerving and discombobulating all at once. There’s a mismatch of sound and lyrics that suggest drugs, but at the same time a lot of talent. I think that “Tomorrow Never Knows” is the best representation of that (though “I Am the Walrus” is right up there too). I can’t even imagine what a Beatles fan’s initial thoughts were when they heard this track for the first time. It must have been mind-blowing. To go from mop-topped pop singers to counter-culture revolutionaries in less than five years is amazing.

I think that the reason why I love the psychedelic era of the Beatles so much is because I was terrified of it when I was a kid. I remember watching "Yellow Submarine" is a very young boy (three or four) and almost crapping my pants. The colors were too bright, the Blue Meanies were too mean and the Beatles (who actually weren't voiced by the real Beatles) were strange looking with weird accents. When I was in seventh grade, my music teacher spent a month teaching us about the death of Paul McCartney. That scared the bejesus out of me too. More than it should have. When I read "Helter Skelter" there was a lot devoted to Charles Manson and his connection to acid-dripping Beatle albums. This was nerve wracking as well. I'm sure in my twisted brain, my new found love of the middle era of Beatledom was probably a middle finger to the wimp that was younger Byron. 

The Doors – I’m not going to apologize for like the Doors, I’ve done it enough. But whether you like the band or not, this is a really great track that’s a deep cut. You won’t find it on any Greatest Hits compilation and I think I’ve only heard it once on terrestrial radio (and I may be imagining that). I enjoy the imagery of the lyrics and I really like the way the guitar rises at the end of the song. This was from their last album and by this point in their careers, I think all of the Doors were tired. You can feel the weariness in this particular single (and the entirety of the album of “LA Woman”) however I think that weariness, that exhaustion added something special.

Ben Folds Five – I bought this CD (“Whatever and Ever, Amen” – such a late 90s title) with money from my first check from my first job out of college*. I finally had some money in my pocket and I remember thinking that I was going to buy a new CD every week and really get into music. That lasted two weeks. When I first played this CD it hit me that there was no guitar at all on any of the tracks and I immediately was pissed and put it away for a long time. But after rediscovering it a few years later, I realized that there are a lot of good songs here.

* Oh man, did I hate this job. I didn’t get a full-time position until ten months after I graduated, so I grabbed whatever I could. I did some stuff to make money in that time: delivered pizzas and substitute taught (the latter was a good gig). Becoming a fund accountant was not the path I was destined to go down. I didn’t last more than seven months.

Sneaker Pimps – this was the second CD (“Becoming X”) I bought after I got my first real job. This is the CD that my friend Ryan makes fun of me most for owning. And he’s not wrong to do so. Aside from this single, which I seem to remember was played a lot of WBCN in the spring of 1997, this is a dog of a CD. The only cool thing about this band is that their name comes from a Beastie Boys song.

Led Zeppelin – this is one of my favorite Zeppelin songs ever. You don’t hear it very much because it comes from a less ballyhooed* album (Led Zeppelin III) but man, is it ever a good song. The summer after I graduated college, my brother brought home an electric guitar and an amp. I don’t know how to play guitar, but I convinced myself that if I sat in a room and screwed around with a guitar long enough that I’d be able to play this guitar solo. It didn’t sound that complicated and really, how hard could it be. Apparently it was very hard. I don’t think I hit one note and gave up after 20 minutes.

* Ballyhoo is a great word. People should use it more.

Jimi Hendrix – speaking of 60s guitar gods, I haven’t said too much about Jimi Hendrix in these blog pieces. I think it’s because the way I feel about Hendrix is the way that one of the Gallagher brothers (Noel, I think) felt about the Beatles, “They’re just wallpaper.”* What he meant by this is that the Beatles were always around and he’s heard everything by them so much that the majesty of their songs just blended into the background. That’s how I feel about Hendrix. We’ve already established that I’m no guitarist, so his musical acumen is way above my head – though I know enough to be blown away by it. His music is everywhere, so I think I’ve heard most of it before. But he’s still awesome, he’s still Jimi fucking Hendrix. Out of all of his songs though, this is my favorite, bar none. I love the driving beat, the way it builds up and lets down. It’s a great tune. The worst CD I ever bought was a “bootleg” (and it wasn’t really a bootleg because I got it at Circuit City) where Jim Morrison “jammed” with Hendrix. It was awful. The sound quality was horrible, Morrison was completely bombed and Hendrix was messy. Maybe the 60s weren’t so great after all.

* Gallagher was full of crap by the way. I think he said this quote because he was sick of people saying that Oasis ripped off the Beatles. They kind of did, but so has everyone else. It’s not like they’re the first band to do so. People got bent out of shape over stupid things way too easily back in the 1990s.

Cake – The lyrics in this song capture some of my favorite imagery, “Assail him, impale him with monster-truck force.” With the staccato voice of lead singer John McCrea and the horns behind him, Cake had one of the more truly distinctive sounds of the 90s. Due in part to the opening theme song (a sped-up version of “Italian Leather Sofa”) of the criminally underrated animated series “Mission Hill” I went all-in with Cake and bought the entirety of their disc catalog in 2008. And I’m glad I did. They aren’t all gems, but there are more hits than misses. For some reason when I daydream about myself as an alternative comedian trying to make it in mid-90s Los Angeles, this is the band that I think that I’d be really into. I have very specific daydreams.

Beck – Early Beck is the best Beck and this is his greatest song. The screaming at the end is a nice contrast to today’s Beck, which is Sleepy Time Beck. This is a description I heard of him on a Jimmy Pardo’s podcast last week. The moniker is so appropriate that I’ve been dying for a chance to use it but no one really talks about Beck too much any more. Which probably has to do with the fact that he makes such boring music now – 2015 Grammy Award be damned.

Grateful Dead – My younger brother went to see the Dead when he was a sophomore in high school*, I should ask him if they played this song. The album version is just a few Jer-Bear hairs over two minutes. I wonder how long it would be live? I bet they’d stretch it out to 35 minutes. More on jam bands in the next entry, but spoiler alert: I hate them. A lot. Mostly because I’m not patient (or chill) enough to be in the music at that particular moment in time. Every time I go to a show, I wonder what’s the next song the band is going to play next. The Living Colour show that I went to two years ago was great because it was the 25^th anniversary of  “Vivid” and they played the entire album from front to back, in order. No wondering!

* My brother and I shared the same parents, who were the same people who wouldn’t let me go to a Public Enemy concert when I was a senior in high school (chaperoned by some college friends) because concerts are “too dangerous”. Okay, mommmmm. God.

CCR – I like John Fogerty mainly because of his song “Centerfield”. Then I started listening to his CCR stuff and that’s pretty great too, especially this song. There is so much anger against the man in “Fortunate Son”, that if it was sped up, some masturbatory guitar special effects were added and there was a rap, Rage Against the Machine could have released it in 1998. I’m not sure if that came off as a compliment, but I guess you don’t have to be loud to write a proper pissed-off protest song.

Mazzy Star – I think that this would have been a terrific wedding song but my wife did not agree. The song that we chose, “The Way You Look Tonight” was a better choice (easier to dance to and recognizable to all in attendance) albeit a safer one. I wonder whatever happened to Mazzy Star? According to Wikipedia, they went on hiatus in 1997 and reformed in 2010. They are on Facebook, so check ‘em out.

The Cranberries – I’ve already gone on and on about them. No need to do so again. BTW, did you notice the playlist’s pattern: two classic rock songs, two newer rock songs. It all goes to shit after Seether though.

Pink Floyd – they were never one of my favorite bands. I heard them a lot because they happened to be one of my friends’ favorite bands and terrestrial radio loved them, but I never bought any of their CDs. There is no discounting how good they are though and of their catalog, this is the song that I like the best. It’s a bit faster than most of their other stuff and it’s a great driving tune. One of these days I’m going to make a great driving song playlist, only now I don’t have anywhere to go. When I do have somewhere to go, it’s usually with my kids and they abhor my music. Hate it like poison, they do. They’re so uncool.

Isaac Hayes – on a tape with a bunch of good songs, this might be the best. How could you not love this song? The thumping grooved bass, the chicka-chicka-wah-wah guitar, the pounding rat-a-tat-tat drum beat, the string section that busts in like the Kool-Aid Man. Add that to Hayes’ voice and who he’s singing about? Holy cow. If you are listening to this song while you’re making your way down the street, you’re not walking, you ARE strutting. You are the baddest motherfucker on the planet when this song is playing, it doesn’t matter what your life’s lot is. You CAN dig it.

Editor’s note: we have reached 1900 words right now. I am going to speed it up.

Pearl Jam – they’re probably my favorite “new” group. I put new in quotes because they’ve been around for almost 25 years. In any event, this is an underratedly great song of an underratedly great album. I thought that PJ was following Zep’s album trajectory: first two are incredibly popular and awesome, third one is not as well-received and the band bounces back with an all-timer for their fourth album.* But that’s not really the way it went for Eddie and the boys, did it? This is a deep cut, but it’s an all-time favorite song of mine (not just in the Pearl Jam category either).

* I even thought that “Present Tense” would be PJ’s answer to “Stairway to Heaven”. I may have been the only person on Earth that really tried to make this work. Retroactively, I feel like the girl (Regina?) from “Mean Girls” who tried to make “Fetch” a thing. “Present Tense” was definitely not a thing.

Garbage – I wrote a bit about them last week and as much as I loved the three singles from this first album (“Queer”, “Only Happy When it Rains” and “Stupid Girl”) I felt that this was the best of the bunch. This was the first song off their first album and damn it if they didn’t lead off with their strongest piece. Good for them. Those guys definitely knew what they were doing.

Edgar Winters Group – if you are paying attention to the Good Songs playlists, you’ll notice that I haven’t added too many songs from the Dazed and Confused soundtrack. This is the only that survived my “I totally wished I lived in the 70s, man” era. That’s because this is probably the best song and reminds me of my favorite part of the movie, when they’re all getting ready to go to the party at the Moon Tower. D&C is such a tremendous movie, I should watch it again real soon.

The Muffs – one of the best parts of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” was the soundtrack. And the same could be said for another Amy Heckerling directed movie about high school kids, “Clueless”.  I know that “Kids in America” was in “Clueless” and I’m pretty sure that it was also in “Fast Times”, but I’m not 100% about this. If it isn’t, it should be. Anyway, I think that the Muff’s version is one of the rare exceptions where the remake is better than the original. Sorry Kim Wilde, but we’ll always have Good Times roller skating rink in Salisbury, MA*.

* This song and Shannon’s “Let the Music Play” always seemed to be playing while I was skating around on my Pac Man skates with my green-sleeved 3/4 ‘s t-shirt with “BYRON” on the back. I thought that I was pretty damn cool.  

POTUSA – Ho, ho what a clever acronym! This was a delightfully weird song from a delightfully weird band (that came out of Seattle, naturally) that achieved some modicum of fame back in the mid 1990s. Videos from the Presidents of the United States of America was featured a lot on MTV back in those days, either for this song or their other strange ode, “Peaches”. They seemed to be strange because they looked like they were having fun and were in on the joke. Most rock stars in the 1990s never seemed to be having any fun. This is probably the main reason they didn’t last too long.

Veruca Salt – Man, did I have a crush on the girls in Veruca Salt. I’ve already written ad nauseam about me having a thing for girls who played in a band when I was a lad, but these girls were the top of that mountain. Too bad Dave Grohl had sex with both of them (not at once) leading to the band’s breakup. In the last year or so, I’ve been having a bit of a Veruca Salt renaissance and realizing that they are pretty decent band (“Number One Blind” may be in my top ten list of all time greatest songs). Last year I attempted to see them at a small club in Boston—the girls put Grohls behind them and reunited—but the show was sold out! Apparently VS has some fans. Good for them.

Screaming Trees – sadly, my only exposure to the Screaming Trees is this song, which was included on the “Singles” soundtrack. Number one, the name is amazing. It’s probably the best one to come out of this era. Two, I like this song a lot. There have been times where I’d play this song three or four or five times in a row. I’m not sure why I didn’t explore the band further. I should have.

Mighty, Mighty Bosstones – I am a clever one, aren’t I? Putting “I Nearly Lost You” back-to-back with “Where Did You Go?”, such a scamp I am. This is another track from the “Clueless” soundtrack. When I was making this tape, MMB were supernova and while I liked them a lot (Boston pride, I guess. Plus I remember them from a 1991 Converse All-Stars commercial, this is when the band only wore plaid) I was getting sick of hearing the same songs over and over again. This was a nice change.

This is literally the longest entry I’ve ever done. If you made it to the end, congratulations.

Good Songs XVIII

Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles

Suck My Kiss – Red Hot Chili Peppers

Cut Your Hair – Pavement

Crush with Eyeliner – REM

Undone (the Sweater Song) – Weezer

Summer Breeze – Seals and Croft

Here and Now – Letters to Cleo

Rock N’ Roll All Nite – KISS

Down With Disease – Phish

Like a Rolling Stone – Bob Dylan

Run Like Hell – Pink Floyd

Would? – Alice in Chains

Do You Feel Like We Do – Peter Frampton

Head Like a Hole – Nine Inch Nails

When I Come Around – Green Day

Crazy – Seal

Type – Living Colour

If I Only Had a Brain – MC 900ft Jesus

For some reason, the theme of television, and to a lesser extent movies, weaves its way through this edition of Good Songs. And that makes sense because TV is awesome. 

When I was a kid—and I’m talking really little, like three or four-years-old—I loved television. I love television now, but when I was a kid, I really loved TV*. However there was one problem with television back when I was younger, at around 1:00 am a majority of TV stations would stop broadcasting--especially the UHF stations (which were the only stations that broadcasted cartoons during the week). At the end of the day, there would be an announcement letting watchers know that the TV station was done with its broadcasting for the day, the National Anthem would play and that was it. Sometimes there was static, other times there was a test pattern.

If you’re too young or woke up after 6:00, a test pattern looked like this:

I’d wake up really early (5:00 or 5:30 am) and run into my parents room and demand that they’d turn on the small TV that sat on a little table at the foot of their bed. Chances are I wanted to watch New Zoo Revue or Romper Room or Underdog, but it didn’t matter. I just wanted to watch TV, however there was no TV to watch. The only thing that was on was the test pattern. So I’d watch that for an hour (I thought that the test pattern was a show and I called it “The Wheel”) and wait for real shows to come on. The good thing was that WLVI was kind enough to simulcast an easy-listening AM radio station while their test pattern was running.

* My kids are just as obsessed with TV as I was, to the dismay of my wife. I understand their fascination and I do my best to stop them from watching so much TV, because I guess TV is bad for you (though I don't believe that at all). But it’s almost impossible to change something that is hard-coded into their DNA. Sorry about that Aly, at least they aren’t watching digital paint dry.

While watching The Wheel the one song that I most recall listening to was “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles. As a kid I loved this song and I thought that it was programmed specifically to coincide with the early morning when the sun rose. I can vaguely recall sitting at the end of my parents’ bed (they were asleep, or at least they had their eyes closed) staring at the tube and once this song came out, I’d look out the window to see if the sun was rising yet. The way I have it in my head, this song meant cartoons were coming on soon (after a message alerting us that the broadcasting day was beginning, the National Anthem and a daily prayer). But that's probably not 100% true.

This is one of my all-time favorite Beatles songs and I’m sure it has a lot to do about my initial exposure to the tune. I’m 40-years-old and I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t get a half second of excitement that cartoons are going to be on real soon when my brain recognizes that first guitar chord. But it’s not just that, at the same time I’m getting that cartoon anticipation, I also feel a warmth that I don’t get too much any more. The warmth one has when they’re three-years-old and they’re sitting cross-legged at the foot of their sleeping parents’ bed. I hope that my children get that feeling 20 or 30 years from now and they run across an old episode of “My Little Pony” or “Avengers Assemble” and remember watching TV together in mom and dad's bed.

Speaking of obsessions, as I was looking over this play list I noticed that there were three songs from the “Dazed and Confused” movie soundtrack. Like I said in my last entry, I was completely consumed by this movie, so it’s really no surprise that I included this many songs on one tape.

“Rock N’ Roll All Nite” is a defensible entry, I think at this point it’s beat out NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” or Public Enemy’s “Bring the Noise” as the song that’s been on the most Good Songs tapes. Although the live version is much better (Ace’s guitar solo is so awesome, I can’t believe they didn’t add it to the studio version) the studio version is fun too. I probably have listened to this song over 10,000 in my life and today was the first time I noticed that someone screams “Woo!” at the 1:53 mark. KISS, you always surprise!

When it comes to Peter Frampton, I was influenced by Janeanne Garofolo’s character in “Reality Bites” who said that everyone had that album. Also, it’s a pretty good song. It almost makes me want to see Frampton in concert. Again, defensible entry.

But “Summer Breeze”? I’m not sure what I was thinking here. I could say that I added as a mood changer, slow the tape down, in case I was with a lady and we were staring at my lava lamp and relaxing to some good songs. But that never happened. I could say that, like “Here Comes the Sun”, it harkened back to my days of watching the Wheel. And there’s some truth to that, I suppose. But I guess I really just liked this song, which is kind of embarrassing.

When it comes to finding the “next big thing”, I’m not that great. I was terrible at prospecting baseball cards*, a lot of the TV shows that I jump on early usually get cancelled and bands that I think have the whole package usually are one-hit wonders. Letters to Cleo was one of those bands that I thought were going to be gigantic and they never received any notoriety aside from this single. I remember seeing their video on MTV and just being blown away. 

* For those that don’t know, prospecting baseball cards involve finding a rookie at a low price, buying as many of the same cards as you possibly could and then when the rookie turns into a Hall of Famer, selling that stack of cards for a tidy profit. This never worked out for me and I’m stuck with dozens of Mike Greenwells, Wally Joyners and Todd Benzingers.

My take on LTC was that they had a really pretty vocalist (Kay Hanley) who sang well and looked great on camera, good musicianship and well-written songs. They came from Boston (always a plus in my book) and made a splash on MTV when women were making huge strides in the rock world. I bought their debut “Aurora Gory Alice” and was impressed with what I heard, unfortunately no one else was and they kind of faded into the ether of the 90s.

Hanley is a die-hard Red Sox fan, so she’s fun to follow on Twitter especially during baseball season. She’s a favorite of Peter Gammons and will perform at his annual Hot Stove Cool Music festival in Boston and Hanley writes the music for the kids’ show Doc McStuffins – which is where I hear her the most now. On the TV show “Parks and Recreation” one of the characters (Ben) wore a LTC t-shirt and they regrouped for a special Pawnee concert.

Oh well, like Todd Benzinger, Letters to Cleo had their moments too.

Quick hits:

There’s only one song on this playlist that I don’t particularly like any more and that’s Green Day’s “When I Come Around”. Like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I’m just sick of Green Day being ubiquitous. I don’t even care that they are “serious artists” now, that’s an inevitability. You can’t be a 40-year-old married dude with a couple of kids and still act like an irresponsible 23-year-old. People would see right through that and it’s a pretty pathetic mask. After the release of “American Idiot”, I needed a Green Day time-out. Ten years later I still do.

Is there a better name than MC 900ft Jesus? I wish that he was more popular. We need more 900ft Jesuses.

“Cut Your Hair” is still my favorite song on this tape—and did ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption ever admit that they stole that show’s opening theme from Pavement? It’s the same damn song and someone (probably Stephen Malkmus) needs reparations! One of my friends was a die-hard Pavement fan from the very beginning. I told him that I wanted to buy “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” because I liked CYH. He told me that I wouldn’t like the tape, everything else was way different. He wasn’t being a jerk about his assessment but I took it the wrong way and it only emboldened me to buy the tape and prove to him that I liked Pavement.

He was right, I didn’t like it that much. It’s weird how when you’re younger innocent remarks like what my friend said could get under your skin and how you need to prove to others that they were wrong. There are a lot of great things about being young, but things like this aren’t one of them.