#2: Them - “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue”
I’m still figuring out what my “rules” for this blog project will be, in terms of where I hear songs. I’m on the fence about whether movies will count, but for now, I’m allowing songs from films.
I was watching Julian Schnabel’s 1996 film “Basquiat,” when I heard the lilting, twinkling guitar line that Beck looped in his song “Jack-Ass,” from his album from the same year, “Odelay” — it’s possibly the most recognizable part of that song. But the melody actually belonged to a different song entirely: “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” by Them. I had no idea that Beck sampled Them on “Jack-Ass” (although it’s stated right there on the Wikipedia page for the song). It’s a beautiful melody — fluttering and half-hearted guitar punctuated by xylophone pings, very 60s psychedelic-sounding.
Is it a guitar playing that part? It sounds like one to me, with a vibrato effect, though some Internet know-it-alls say it’s a Wurlitzer electric piano through a vibrato pedal or an organ. Van Morrison might know; he formed the garage rock band Them in 1964 in Belfast. Them’s career was a brief two years, but they did manage to pen two chart-topping songs in England (“Here Comes the Night” and “Baby Please Don’t Go”) before splitting up. (How many music mags headlined with “Them’s The Breaks!” following their demise? None?) And then there was this Dylan cover, with it’s genius guitar line, a gently plucking bass riff, and Van Morrison sounding very Mick Jagger-ish and more overtly emotional than Dylan ever did.
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” is a cover of the Bob Dylan song, of course, from his 1965 album “Bringing It All Back Home.” It’s a very loose iteration of the song, as Dylan covers tend to be — that “Jack-Ass” guitar part is not on Dylan’s version of the song. Dylan’s version is a sparse arrangement of vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica and electric bass. The actual guitar chords are similar to the Them/Beck melody, but none of the stylistic elements are there. (Interestingly, though, the way Dylan sings the verses feels similar to “Jack-Ass,” in terms of the rhythm and the downtrodden-ness.)
So “Jack-Ass” is a song that samples another song, and that song is a cover of another song. Musical evolution, before our eyes. And each song is important in its own right: Dylan’s is the inspiration, Them’s incorporates the stylistic hook, and (though this post is technically about the Them track) Beck’s is perhaps the most intriguing of the three, in terms of the arrangement. He borrows heavily from Dylan, with the harmonica and the playful lyrics, but he also adds a certain 90s-style apathetic tone to his singing style, particularly on the line “When I wake up/someone will sweep up my lazy bones” — the music seems correspondingly to tumble around him, bed-headed and wiping the sleep out of its eyes.
#1: はっぴいえんど (Happy End) - 風をあつめて (Collect the Wind)
I heard this folk song in a restaurant, and initially it caught my attention because I couldn’t figure out what language it was. I enjoy the song’s easygoing simplicity: the gentle guitar melody, the barely there organ meandering in the background, those ’70s-era pitter-pattering drums, the singer’s deadpan, off-key on purpose vocal style.
That style always makes songs sound a bit downtrodden (or, in certain Pavementy contexts, angsty), and through some stealth internet detective work and Google translating, I was able to cobble together a vague translation of the lyrics (which are in Japanese). It seems to be about taking an early morning walk around the city, pondering its history and past tragedies in contrast to the things that exist there now: skyscrapers, coffee shops. Perhaps he’s saying attempting to hold on to those historic tragedies is like trying to collect the wind? That’s my possibly completely incorrect analysis.
The song was on the “Lost in Translation” soundtrack, which might be where the restaurant DJ heard it. It’s by a Japanese folk rock band called Happy End, who recorded music in the early 1970s. Happy End’s career was short lived, though far-reaching. The foursome only recorded a few albums before heading in separate directions to find other successes in the music business, but they released a dozen or so live albums, singles compilations, and best ofs in the decades following their break-up. And, eventually, one of their songs reached Sofia Coppola’s ears.
In regard to the language, Happy End was revered for their decision to sing in their native language and not English, as most other Japanese rock bands were doing (and many foreign bands in general still do, in the hopes of getting an American record deal). And rock is the genre many of their other songs lean toward, sometimes to degree of psych-ness that’s over-the-top silly. Not this song, though. This one’s got hot summer afternoon written all over it.
Kaze Wo Atsumete
I’ve had this Tumblr for a bit, and have been using it as a catch-all, everything but the kitchen sink, rarely updated, totally unfocused-type thing. I’m changing directions, though. I’ve got a new idea, and the only reason I’m not starting a new blog for it is because I think the name — “The Noise Made By People” — fits my new concept perfectly. The name, by the way, is a reference to one of the greatest albums of all time, by one of my favorite bands of all time: Broadcast.
So here’s the concept: I will write about songs I hear in public places, or in taxis, or other places where I have no control over the musical selection. One song per blog post. They have to be songs I’ve never heard before (that I remember). They can be old songs or new ones, as long as there’s something interest-worthy about them.
That’s it! Here I go.
Found poem. (Taken with Instagram at 34th and 8th.)
I was skiing in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and I found a roll of film. I had the film developed and this is what I found. Please contact me if you recognize the people in the photos. brooklynfoundfilm@gmail.com
Beautiful cover art photo for the upcoming Wye Oak album.
Every single moment on the planet, from here on out, human beings are worth less. We are in a post-industrial age. We don’t need as many of us as we once did. So, if the first season was about devaluing the cops who knew their beats and the corner boys slinging drugs, then the second was about devaluing the longshoremen and their labor, the third about people who wanted to make changes in the city, and the fourth was about kids who were being prepared, badly, for an economy that no longer really needs them. And the fifth? It’s about the people who are supposed to be monitoring all this and sounding the alarm—the journalists. The newsroom I worked in had four hundred and fifty people. Now it’s got three hundred. Management says, ‘We have to do more with less.’ That’s the bullshit of bean counters who care only about the bottom line. You do less with less.~ Watching the Wire for the first time, so I looked up a 2007 profile of David Simon in the New Yorker, which includes this spectacularly depressing quote from the director.
I think if someone is writing continuously for 10 years and has not changed their mind about something — there’s something wrong with them. They’re not really thinking.~ Andrew Sullivan, in talking with NPR about his changed opinion on the Iraq war.
As editor of Analecta, the official literary and arts journal of the University of Texas at Austin, I am excited to welcome you to our new blog! At analectajournal.com you will find information about the journal, announcements regarding local literary goings-on, book reviews/ recommendations,…
(Source: analectablog)
Items on Evan Dando’s coffee table: a dingy stuffed tiger; an open bottle of Dr Pepper; a wad of cotton; several empty beer bottles; a flashlight; a Strokes CD; a melon-size chunk of rippled steel poached from ground zero; a charred tablespoon; a copy of Aleister Crowley’s Diary of a Drug Fiend; a Polaroid of Dando and his ethereally blonde estranged wife, Elizabeth Moses; a pile of plastic bags filled with substances; a crusty container of green sauce.~ 171 Minutes With Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield, NYMag
