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February 09 Favourite SongsFavourite songs are the ones that hit you the very first time and that you want to play every time you think about them.
Three songs for girls....
Belle and Sebastian, "Lazy Line Painter Jane"
This was a blind buy, I recall: Hey, let's try out Belle and Sebastian, I thought. This was their second EP, and I guess I was sold as soon as that organ played. I've always loved slice-of-English-life pop ~ I have been a Stephen Duffy fan since he was TinTin and I was fifteen ~ and this was the real thing. Quirky, perky but sad and dirty too. Wordy and arch and ultimately true and genuinely effecting. I can be picky about duets, but the guest vocals by Monica Queen give the song wonderful bruises. There's a girl on a bus... making love? Having a baby?? It's all here: Jane's family and reputation, work and boredom, her ups-and-downs, her hopes and tragedy... And then the song unleashes one of the greatest old fashioned organ solos since... well, since Del Shannon, I say. It really has to be played as loud as possible, being such a huge, celebratory sound. Sublime.
Sonic Youth, "Little Trouble Girl"
And I've always loved slice-of-American-life grunge too. Being British, it's a bit of an imaginary place, and never more so when dressed up in the retro-feel of what I take to be a neverland of diners, drive-ins, Cold War comforts and paranoia, Space Race spookiness, conservative smiles and stripey tops, beanies and pigtails, lollipop girls and wholesome guys. And so on. "Little Trouble Girl" has gorgeous singing from the gorgeous Kim Deal and Kim Gordon, and it's dreamy; a beautiful ode to mother-and-daughter love, but tainted darkly by both feminine jealousy and maternal disappointment, and the moment when the daughter claims her own womanhood at the expense of her bond with her mom. "I'm sorry mother, I'd rather fight than have to lie", she says. That's truthful, painful and full of love.
Sonic Youth have always had romance songs with sexual identity-with-politics and Fifies-Sixties pop to the fore, and the album "Little Trouble Girl" is from - "Washing Machine" - is full of similar gems. Shalalala. There's a great Mark Romanek video for this too.
The Knife, "Pass This On"
From the opening of electronica-with-Carribbean leanings, I knew this was going to be something. And then when that opening line came in... Perhaps a lot of my introduction to "Pass This On" was influenced experiencing it first via the video. I suspect that that first line would have hooked me anyhow, but there is no doubting there was that extra surprise when sung by the transvestite in the video. The video looks like it took place in a place off of David Lynch drive. (Awesomely seductive video; the Karin Dreijer impersonator, looking through youtube comments, appears to be Rickard Engfors.)
By rights, this shouldn't be a "favourite", as I reckon favourites ought to be recognised over time. But when a song hits, sometimes you just know. I never doubted "Wicked Game", for example. "Pass This On" shouldn't necessarily be creepy, but there is something not quite right about it. An older woman falls for a friend's younger brother, giving us the killer line and Karin Dreijer's killer delivery, "Did he mention my age, love? Or is he more into young girls with dyed black hair? I'm in love with your brother." She reads it as one breathless line, and that Swedish accent helps no end. Dreijer is also unafraid to give some high-pitched weird backing-vocals, playing against her otherwise passionately flat key performance. The effect really is hard to describe... why does it sound spooky? You go back to it trying to unlock its mystery. The vocal melody aches and the synths zap, chime and limbo with the certainty that keyboards too can be the perfect foil for unrequited passion and strangeness. I bought the album "Deep Cuts" within the week and was soooo happy when it met all my expectations and then some. |
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