In the early '70s there was this skinny guy who wrote these epic story songs about really fantastic characters. You never knew where the songs would go or which of his huge, wild band was going to play the next solo. They blasted out of your stereo speakers and played long, unpredictable jams in concert.
From 1979 until now there's been this guy who writes these wordy folk songs about people who seem all too real. They're mostly people struggling in hard economic times or broken relationships or both. Once in a while they are happy. They're just like you and me. There's a highly predictable verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo or bridge, verse, chorus structure.
Since summer 2011 I have had a CD player in my car. What I've been doing is putting one CD in and leaving it for weeks, really listening to the music. It's been great and I highly recommend it. Bob Dylan's John Wesley Harding, They Might Be Giants' John Henry (just a coincidence - didn't see that 'til just now), R.E.M.'s Reveal, and the Minnesota Orchestra's Beethoven Symphonies 1-8 (not ready for 9 yet) have been the heretofore neglected pieces of music I've really enjoyed getting to know in more depth. Recently I've been listening to Bruce Springsteen's Lucky Town.
Turns out there are also two of me. Here's how one part of me hears Lucky Town.
- Ugh. Why is every single melody 3-3-3-3-2-1-2-1-1-1-1-(down to)-6-5-5? (These are scale degrees. If you don't know what I'm talking about listen to my very sincere tribute to Bruce Springsteen.)
-These chord changes are the same in every song just in a different key.
-The drummer must have gotten really sick of playing that same medium rock beat on 7 out of the 10 tracks. I wonder how he got up the energy and enthusiasm. Maybe the huge amount of dollars per thump?
-The quiet songs are inaudible and if I turn up for them the next loud song blasts me away. Ah, early CD mastering. Still preferable to current CD mastering though.
-He might should have kept the E Street Band on hand for this one.
-Why is he trying so hard to become Bruce Cockburn? He was BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN!?!?!?!
-Boring, boring, boring. I can't take another repetition of this whole album.
Here's how another part of me hears Lucky Town.
(Weeping) "Yes, Bruce, I too treasure the beauty, mystery, terror, and joy that comes with being an adult and being in a loving marriage and raising a family! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh-ha-ha-ha!" (Further laughing and crying)
I don't know how that works, but there it is.
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Check it out yourself for a penny plus shipping at amazon. It's super cheap used because it was one of those "artist does something slightly different after a huge hit album so the public buys it right away then sells it when it doesn't sustain popularity because the public doesn't really care about music as music only about music as a cultural signifier for part of their fickle, shallow, hollow, insubstantial identity" albums. (See also: R.E.M.'s Monster, which, if they were really super environmentally friendly, they would just take out of print since there are four or five copies in every single used record store and they could save the petroleum used to manufacture new copies.)
Showing posts with label Bruce Springsteen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bruce Springsteen. Show all posts
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Saturday, September 24, 2011
The Ten Greatest Guitar Solos Ever Recorded
1. "Let It Be" (album version), George Harrison
Perfect tone. A melody you can whistle. Versatility: I have learned and used this solo verbatim - in other songs. A transcendent overall form, building slowly to its highest notes, then relaxing back down to make way for McCartney. The perfect blend of repetition and freshness from one phrase to the next. The guitar comes raging back and is a soulful co-lead singer on the outro.
Honestly I could have made this whole list out of George Harrison solos. Hearing this song recently inspired me to write this list.
2. "Sympathy For The Devil", Keith Richards
The guitar solo that channels everything people who think Satan is cool think is cool about Satan. Violent, brusque, screaming insanity. The solo tells the story just as much as the lyrics do. And that last ripped chord before Jagger comes back in? A frustrated Satan vanishing in a burst of hellfire.
3. "Candy's Room", Bruce Sprinsteen
The fastest, most intense song on Darkness on the Edge of Town comes to a literally screeching halt then gradually speeds up and loses its mind to become even more intense than before. It seems he's tried to become this sort of this folky, songwritery guy now but here Bruce just freaking wails.
4. "The Wind Cries Mary", Jimi Hendrix
More eloquent than any words could be, this solo makes an initial powerful statement and then sings about the variations the statement suggests. Then it goes veering off into places that appear nowhere else in the song. Finally, a return and resolution of the early statements. This solo is like a satisfying mathematical proof if a mathematical proof was translated into a heroic fanfare.
5. "Sunshine Of Your Love", Eric Clapton
I once created a piece of art with construction paper, two corks, and a wire that tried to depict how this electric solo blazed and flew above a sea of color. This made me realize the necessity of getting my first wah pedal.
6. "Sweet Child O' Mine", Slash
The awkward fourth note of the scale has been involved in a lot of poignant moments over the years, usually yielding to the sweetness of the third, never more so than in the indelible first two lines of the solo over the verse chords. The more violent, minor solo later on and of course the intro that kicks the whole thing off are possibly the best guitar moments of the entire 1980s.
7. "Bell Bottom Blues", Eric Clapton
Like Coltrane he sort of plays the melody but with embellishments. Also like Coltrane (come to think of it) he uses harmonics. This song taught me to use the edge of my picking thumb to make the guitar cry a little bit.
8. "The Crane", Matt Wilson
From Trip Shakespeare's Across The Universe album. It's an entire melody to itself, climbing up in bent fits, then falling down into the lowest notes the guitar has to offer. Once I finally figured out how he was articulating some of the climbing parts, this solo taught me to bend a note on one string to match a note on a higher string, something I later found in Hendrix as well.
9. "Way Out West", Alex Chilton
From Big Star's Radio City album, a melodic distillation of everything good and chimey Roger McGuinn ever played. Hearing this taught me how to solo using chord shapes and to mix open strings with fretted strings where possible.
10. "Octopus' Garden", George Harrison
In a demo session in the now unavailable Let It Be film Ringo is plonking out this silly little number on the piano. Months later, with a fellow underrated Beatle leading the way it exploded into a 3-D rock masterwork. I used to quote bits of this during Honigman shows. The guitar intro, verse arpeggios, solo, and outro are justification for the song's existence and inclusion on the greatest rock masterpiece of all time, Abbey Road.
Also essential learning:
"Johnny B. Goode", Chuck Berry
"Patience", Slash
"Eruption", Eddie Van Halen
"Bohemian Rhapsody", Brian May
"Let's Dance", Stevie Ray Vaughan
"Dear Prudence", George Harrison
All right, what did I forget?
Perfect tone. A melody you can whistle. Versatility: I have learned and used this solo verbatim - in other songs. A transcendent overall form, building slowly to its highest notes, then relaxing back down to make way for McCartney. The perfect blend of repetition and freshness from one phrase to the next. The guitar comes raging back and is a soulful co-lead singer on the outro.
Honestly I could have made this whole list out of George Harrison solos. Hearing this song recently inspired me to write this list.
2. "Sympathy For The Devil", Keith Richards
The guitar solo that channels everything people who think Satan is cool think is cool about Satan. Violent, brusque, screaming insanity. The solo tells the story just as much as the lyrics do. And that last ripped chord before Jagger comes back in? A frustrated Satan vanishing in a burst of hellfire.
3. "Candy's Room", Bruce Sprinsteen
The fastest, most intense song on Darkness on the Edge of Town comes to a literally screeching halt then gradually speeds up and loses its mind to become even more intense than before. It seems he's tried to become this sort of this folky, songwritery guy now but here Bruce just freaking wails.
4. "The Wind Cries Mary", Jimi Hendrix
More eloquent than any words could be, this solo makes an initial powerful statement and then sings about the variations the statement suggests. Then it goes veering off into places that appear nowhere else in the song. Finally, a return and resolution of the early statements. This solo is like a satisfying mathematical proof if a mathematical proof was translated into a heroic fanfare.
5. "Sunshine Of Your Love", Eric Clapton
I once created a piece of art with construction paper, two corks, and a wire that tried to depict how this electric solo blazed and flew above a sea of color. This made me realize the necessity of getting my first wah pedal.
6. "Sweet Child O' Mine", Slash
The awkward fourth note of the scale has been involved in a lot of poignant moments over the years, usually yielding to the sweetness of the third, never more so than in the indelible first two lines of the solo over the verse chords. The more violent, minor solo later on and of course the intro that kicks the whole thing off are possibly the best guitar moments of the entire 1980s.
7. "Bell Bottom Blues", Eric Clapton
Like Coltrane he sort of plays the melody but with embellishments. Also like Coltrane (come to think of it) he uses harmonics. This song taught me to use the edge of my picking thumb to make the guitar cry a little bit.
8. "The Crane", Matt Wilson
From Trip Shakespeare's Across The Universe album. It's an entire melody to itself, climbing up in bent fits, then falling down into the lowest notes the guitar has to offer. Once I finally figured out how he was articulating some of the climbing parts, this solo taught me to bend a note on one string to match a note on a higher string, something I later found in Hendrix as well.
9. "Way Out West", Alex Chilton
From Big Star's Radio City album, a melodic distillation of everything good and chimey Roger McGuinn ever played. Hearing this taught me how to solo using chord shapes and to mix open strings with fretted strings where possible.
10. "Octopus' Garden", George Harrison
In a demo session in the now unavailable Let It Be film Ringo is plonking out this silly little number on the piano. Months later, with a fellow underrated Beatle leading the way it exploded into a 3-D rock masterwork. I used to quote bits of this during Honigman shows. The guitar intro, verse arpeggios, solo, and outro are justification for the song's existence and inclusion on the greatest rock masterpiece of all time, Abbey Road.
Also essential learning:
"Johnny B. Goode", Chuck Berry
"Patience", Slash
"Eruption", Eddie Van Halen
"Bohemian Rhapsody", Brian May
"Let's Dance", Stevie Ray Vaughan
"Dear Prudence", George Harrison
All right, what did I forget?
Monday, May 19, 2008
Miss Ellaneous
I have listened to Kaptain Karl's album The Chicago Tapes all the way through twice today. Man, that is good! It has these moments and performances that are indescribable and inimitable. I think I had to listen twice to some of it to confirm that yes, it really sounded like that. And it is Karl's strongest, most focused batch of songs yet. The sequence is good. I considered remixing it though, knowing what I know now ten years later. It's kind of quiet overall and my copy of it starts to get static-y toward the end, which I think is a function of the sticker applied to the disc.
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I have cleaned up cat poop in three locations today. (Four if you count the litter box.) I have also cleaned up a hearty dose of cat puke. I am forced to conclude that cats' reputation for fastidious cleanliness is just like Republicans' reputation for restraint in government and government spending - a ludicrous lie that those of us faced with the harsh reality of these groups' messes can only wish was truth.
-------------------------------------------
Here are some other entries from TPWK that I really liked:
Confessions of a Female College Student
Have you considered buying something?
What you've been missing
Rock TV
-------------------------------------------
I read something the other day that made me sad. It said Hillary Clinton's win in the West Virginia Democratic Primary was "meaningless". Really, Star Tribune? Tell that to the hardworking West Virginian who woke up early, kissed his cousinwife, got out of bed, took a shower in the backyard with the goat, and voted on his way to work at the coal mine!
No, just kidding, West Virginia! You're great. One of my friends in high school was from there. Really! Plus I love the Bruce Springsteen bootleg Oh, Boy! recorded in your majestic city of Charleston! Also I love the song named for you on John Linnell's brilliant State Songs album. I'm just yanking your chain. The chain you use to keep your dog tethered to the giant tractor tire in the backyard near the woods, that is. Ha ha! Just kidding!
-------------------------------------------
Man! Yahoo! news has become more and more pathetic. The main headline is usually about some lame reality tv show. I used to rely on it as my primary news source that was not the Sunday Star Trib. Now I can rely on it only for a brief mental hit of disgust with the hideous slop being forced on my imperiled country.
-------------------------------------------
I have cleaned up cat poop in three locations today. (Four if you count the litter box.) I have also cleaned up a hearty dose of cat puke. I am forced to conclude that cats' reputation for fastidious cleanliness is just like Republicans' reputation for restraint in government and government spending - a ludicrous lie that those of us faced with the harsh reality of these groups' messes can only wish was truth.
-------------------------------------------
Here are some other entries from TPWK that I really liked:
Confessions of a Female College Student
Have you considered buying something?
What you've been missing
Rock TV
-------------------------------------------
I read something the other day that made me sad. It said Hillary Clinton's win in the West Virginia Democratic Primary was "meaningless". Really, Star Tribune? Tell that to the hardworking West Virginian who woke up early, kissed his cousinwife, got out of bed, took a shower in the backyard with the goat, and voted on his way to work at the coal mine!
No, just kidding, West Virginia! You're great. One of my friends in high school was from there. Really! Plus I love the Bruce Springsteen bootleg Oh, Boy! recorded in your majestic city of Charleston! Also I love the song named for you on John Linnell's brilliant State Songs album. I'm just yanking your chain. The chain you use to keep your dog tethered to the giant tractor tire in the backyard near the woods, that is. Ha ha! Just kidding!
-------------------------------------------
Man! Yahoo! news has become more and more pathetic. The main headline is usually about some lame reality tv show. I used to rely on it as my primary news source that was not the Sunday Star Trib. Now I can rely on it only for a brief mental hit of disgust with the hideous slop being forced on my imperiled country.
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