The Dandy Warhols’ sleeping arrangements
The sleeping arrangements in the Dandy Warhols’ Bohemian Like You have troubled me since I bought it upon its release in 2001 following the relentless airtime it received courtesy of Vodafone. Specifically, the following extract from the lyrics causes consternation.
Wait, who’s that guy, just hanging at your pad.
Hes looking kinda blah, yeah, you broke up that’s too bad.
I guess it’s fair, if he always pays the rent, and he doesn’t get bent about sleeping on the couch when I’m there.
Here’s my question: where does "that guy" sleep when the singer isn’t there?
If he sleeps with the girl, then that’s very bohemian and accommodating of the singer—that’s where I’m leaning. If he sleeps in his own room, surely the singer staying over doesn’t mean that "that guy" vacates his bed for the singer (a) because the singer would likely sleep with the girl and (b) if he didn’t, what right has he of kicking "that guy" out of his own bed?
Anyone?
Top three children’s TV tunes
Admittedly I have a lot of experience of this subject. But the three examples below all have fabulous theme tunes, each with a link. So, in no specific order, the top three children’s TV tunes are:
Best moments in songs (part 3)
A couple of additions to the first and second posts detailing the best moments in songs:
- The opening piano notes in Take That’s Shine
- The syncopation of "I Can Fly" by the backing singers in R. Kelly’s I Can Fly. The one at 4m35s is fabulous, surpassed in beauty a mere 23 seconds later.
Best Christmas choon ever
Enjoy the Top of the Pops version or a live concert rendition. Equally fabulous, and both equally toothless.
Eagerly-awaited lines (part 2)
In addition to the three eagerly-awaited lines in Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson, I feel bound to give similar stature to the following line from Eartha Kitt’s Santa Baby, which attracts significant iPod playtime at this time of year.
- A ’54 convertible too, light blue.
The enunciation is sublime. Just lovely.
A sheltered upbringing
I had quite a sheltered existence as a teenager. I didn’t do drugs, didn’t drink that much before hitting 18, and sex was not quite as commonplace as were Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit singles.
Listening to Primal Scream’s Rocks yesterday, I wondered whether an element of this straightlacedness was a result of my ambivolence towards musical lyrics, making me less aware of the forbidden fruits on offer.
I loved music, and still do, but was way more aroused by the tune than by the underlying meaning of the lyrics therein. To me, the lyrics were merely there as something to mouth/sing to the song. Beyond that, they held little importance in my enjoyment of the work.
So lyricists that wrote about sex, drugs and all-night drinking sessions—or indeed all of the above—might as well have been writing about raspberry-ripple ice cream, spearmint mouthwash and Tesco’s deli counter as far as I was concerned. I genuinely wouldn’t have known which they were writing about, as the words were mere syllables to me.
In the main, I’m the same, arguably shallow self today. While my awareness of lyrics has indeed increased, it still and will always play second fiddle to the musical make-up of the song.
Incidentally, the Primal Scream lyrics that I chose to analyse on the bus yesterday read as follows:
Dealers keep dealin’
Thieves keep thievin’
Whores keep whorin’
Junkies keep scorin’
Trade is on the meat rack
Strip joints full of hunchbacks
Bitches keep bitchin’
Clap keeps itchin’
Back in high school
I had a friend, was a big baseball player
Back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool
Bruce Springsteen, Glory Days.
Back in high school: musical genius or arrogant laziness? I’d like to think the former. Either way, a fabulous track.
Glissando
I find it odd that the musical chromatic scale is made up of twelve notes, the thirteenth repeating the starting note an octave higher. And that the major and minor scales are made up of seven notes each. I’m not suggesting that any other numbers would be any more logical; merely that having any number higher than two play such a pivotal role in something as fundamental as music seems bizarre.
I wonder whether relative pitch resonates (in the mind sense of the word) with us as humans more than it does with other animals. And would we find it musically odd our scale were broken into any number other than twelve intervals? After all, pitch is a continuous scale (ask anyone who listened to me play the violin), so have we artificially manufactured the notes that we know and love? (I’m guessing that there is something inherently significant about two notes an octave apart, given the way they resonate with one another.)
Westwood in da field
The controversy should not be over Jay-Z headlining Glastonbury. The controversy should be over the fact that Westwood is there to represent him from a reporting perspective.
Musical gerunds
As far as I’m aware, there are few songs whose titles are a non-finite clause including a gerund. (Surprised no one else has writen about this very subject.) The only two I can think of are Squeeze’s Pulling Mussels from a Shell and Shed Seven’s Chasing Rainbows. The only such band is Counting Crows, although not sure whether this is acting as a present participle.
That is all.