Long Pauses

Category: Song of the Moment

  • South Side of the Sky

    South Side of the Sky

    At one point in my life — 1989 or thereabouts — I would have argued until blue in the face that Yes was the greatest rock band of all time. Not “Owner of a Lonely Heart” Yes; I’m talking about “20-minute Hammond organ solo, Jon Anderson falsetto-singing, Roger Dean album cover” Yes. It was one of my dorkier obsessions. Like, I still know most of the words to “Close to the Edge.” Thanks to iTunes and my dilligent digitizing of my CD collection, I heard “South Side of the Sky” the other day for the first time in probably ten years. My wife’s comments sum it up for me: “This is Yes? Huh. It doesn’t suck.” Actually, it’s a damn cool song. It’s certainly aged better than much of the early-70s prog rock.

    As an aside: when I was 19 I played piano in a big band. One night, during a break, I started playing part of “South Side of the Sky” and within a minute the rest of the rhythm section joined in. It was really sloppy, but we made it from the end of the piano solo (the 3 minute mark) through most of the “la la la la la la la la” part.

  • Glenn Tipton

    Glenn Tipton

    I’m pretty sure that this will be the last time I post a Song of the Moment that is named for one of Judas Priest’s guitarists. “Glenn Tipton” by Sun Kil Moon has been in constant rotation since I first heard it Saturday night. I was drawn to the album, Ghosts of the Great Highway, by its striking cover art; it wasn’t until 30 seconds into the first track that I realized that Sun Kil Moon is the new band from Mark Kozelek, formerly of Red House Painters (and Sweetwater, if you’re an Almost Famous fan). This song is what the inside of my head sounds like these days.

    Cassius Clay was hated more than Sonny Liston
    Some like KK Downing more than Glenn Tipton
    Some like Jim Neighbors, some Bobby Vinton
    I like ‘em all

    I put my feet up on the coffee table
    I stay up late watching cable
    I like old movies with Clarke Gable
    Just like my dad does

    Just like my dad did when he was home
    Staying up late, staying up alone
    Just like my dad did when he was thinking
    Oh, how fast the years fly

    I know an old woman ran a doughnut shop
    She worked late serving cops
    But then one morning, baby, her heart stopped
    Place ain’t the same no more

    Place ain’t the same no more
    Not without my friend, Eleanor
    Place ain’t the same no more
    Man, how things change

    I buried my first victim when I was nineteen
    Went through her bedroom and the pockets of her jeans
    And found her letters that said so many things
    That really hurt me bad

    I never breathed her name again
    But I liked to dream about what could have been
    I never heard her calls again
    But I like to dream

  • America

    America

    In December, just before Christmas, my wife and I met her parents in Atlanta for a Simon and Garfunkel concert. Afterwards, as we walked back to our hotel, my father-in-law and I talked about the highlights of the show. The Everly Brothers showed up for a song or two, which was a great surprise. And it’s tough to beat “Sounds of Silence” and “Mrs. Robinson.” But “America” will always be my favorite Paul Simon song. There’s something so beautifully melancholy about the chorus.

    On January 29th, my mother- and father-in-law passed away suddenly, and I miss them terribly.

  • Chain

    Chain

    “Chain” by The Fire Theft. Why? Because the world needs a good emo waltz, that’s why.

    Jeremy Enigk seems to be taking a good bit of crap for his lyrics on this album — perhaps justifiably so. ButI like this song, and especially this bit: “I’m amazed / I see the world in revolution / Within the darkness a solution”. Too simple for most tastes, I know. Too straight-forward, too lacking in ironic distance. But I like it. Of course, I’m also glad that Enigk found God, so what do I know.

    Chain, I feel the words falling in a rhythm
    I see the world bearing its decision to never give in
    I’m amazed
    I hear the words form some kind of silence
    When the world falls into violence
    We’ll never give in

    Chain, I see the world falling in a rhythm
    I feel the wind bearing its decision to never give in
    I’m afraid
    I hear the words form some kind of silence
    When the world falls into violence
    They’ll never give in

    Chained in silence
    The rhythm of violence
    Change all around us
    Change in everything you see

    I’m amazed
    I see the world in revolution
    Within the darkness a solution
    We’ll never give in

    Chained in silence
    The rhythm of violence
    Change all around us
    Change in everything you see

    According to Grandaddy’s Website, The Fire Theft, Saves the Day, and Grandaddy will be playing a show in Phoenix when I’m there in March. Anyone have an opinion about Saves the Day or Grandaddy? I’m not familiar with either.

  • Cross Bones Style

    Cross Bones Style

    The oft-repeated but still-juicy line from Godard: “The history of cinema is boys photographing girls. The history of history is boys burning girls at the stake.” You can confirm the second sentence by watching TV for three minutes. To confirm the first sentence, watch the Cat Power videos available here at the Matador website.

    I don’t know who Brett Vapnek is, but she’s internalized the not-very-hidden fact that Chan Marshall is beautiful like few people are ever beautiful. She does what director Patrick Daughters does in the “Maps” video for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs — lets the remarkable looking people provide remarkability. Each Cat Power video is better than the previous one because each song is better than the previous one and Marshall is more beautiful in each successive video. (At this rate, she will soon become a small dwarf star.) “He War,” a song that drives me bananas when I can’t see her, is almost unbearable as an actual sequence of moving images. The bronzed paeans to Jean Seberg and Anna Karina and Garbo tumble through my head, but they don’t stay long. There is little to say except “I was hoping to see somebody who looked like that one day.” And I have.
    — Sasha Frere-Jones

  • I’ll Be Gone

    I’ll Be Gone

    I have no idea why I’ve been listening to American Music Club’s San Francisco so much lately — I mean, other than because it’s a great album. “I’ll Be Gone” is a damn fine song.

    It was a long hot summer day
    We’re in the living room
    watching the light drain away
    Too tired to read what your cards foretold
    Inside of a yawn
    When she said,
    The first time you show me your true heart
    I’ll be gone.

    The numb ringing after the bell was rung
    Playing red light green light, such timeless fun
    There was no way to kickstart any conversation
    It was like the beginning of 2001
    When she said, I’ll be gone.

    The air isn’t moving and
    The women have nothing on their lips
    But the kind of breath that you keep
    for the hospital bed
    Pregnant with the timeless drop and the wind
    How the air leeches the gold out of everything
    elusive and stolen
    I’ll be gone

  • Quartet

    Quartet

    My wife surprised me yesterday afternoon with the Angels in America soundtrack. “Quartet” accompanies the scene that holds the rare honor of having made me cry two nights in a row. What can I say? Art is my refuge from a life of hardened cynicism. I can only imagine what condition I’ll be in on Sunday night when Louis delivers the Kaddish.

    But back to “Quartet” . . .

    Angels is so powerful in performance because Kushner understands juxtapositions. The best example is when Louis unleashes upon Belize a rambling diatribe about “the limits of liberal tolerance,” while, on the other side of the stage, Prior undresses for a medical examination, revealing his emaciated, lesion-pocked body to the audience. Or when Louis tells Prior that he’s leaving, while, on the other side of the stage, Joe finally owns up to the truth, reducing Harper to a broken shell. (And have I mentioned how good Mary-Louise Parker is?) That is the scene that got me both times I watched Millennium Approaches — Harper’s cry for Mr. Lies to take her away and Prior’s desperate scream from his hospital bed. I have minor complaints with the film, but Nichols got that scene just right.

    Thomas Newman’s score mines familiar ground, and “Quartet,” in particular, harkens to his work on American Beauty. But, all in all, the music serves the film quite well. I particularly like the main theme, which is carried by the strings and often placed in tension with a solo oboe line — a nice musical motif that echoes the ambiguous battle of angels and man.

  • Big Dipper

    Big Dipper

    “Big Dipper” is one more track from a mix CD that I received recently. I’ve never been a big fan of Cracker, but this song really works for me. I love the spare arrangement, especially the acoustic piano and steel guitar, but mostly I like this song because of the lyrics and because of David Lowery’s delivery of them.

    Cigarette and carrot juice
    And get yourself a new tattoo
    for those sleeveless days of June
    I’m sitting on the Cafe Xeno’s steps
    with a book I haven’t started yet
    watching all the girls walk by

    Could I take you out
    I’ll be yours without a doubt
    on that big dipper
    And if the sound of this it frightens you
    we could play it real cool
    and act somewhat indifferent

    And hey June why did you have to come,
    why did you have to come around so soon
    I wasn’t ready for all this nature
    The terrible green green grass,
    and violent blooms of flowered dresses
    and afternoons that make me sleepy

    But we could wait awhile
    before we push that dull turnstile
    into the passage
    The thousands they had tread
    and others sometimes fled
    before the turn came

    And we could wait our lives
    before a chance arrives
    before the passage
    From the top you can see Monterey
    or think about San Jose
    though I know it’s not that pleasant

    And hey Jim Kerouac
    brother of the famous Jack
    or so he likes to say “lucky bastard”
    He’s sitting on the cafe Xeno’s steps
    with a girl I’m not over yet
    watching all the world go by

    Boy you are looking bad
    Did I make you feel that sad
    I’m honestly flattered
    But if she asks me out
    I’ll be hers without a doubt
    on that big dipper

    Cigarettes and carrot juice
    and get yourself a new tattoo
    for those sleeveless days of June
    I’m sitting on the cafe Xeno’s steps
    I haven’t got the courage yet,
    I haven’t got the courage yet,
    I haven’t got the courage yet

  • Wayfaring Stranger

    Wayfaring Stranger

    16 Horsepower is a Gothic country-rock quartet from Denver, but their version of “Wayfaring Stranger” feels so fated, so instinctual, it spreads the South all over the American map, a dusting of damnation on wherever you might be as you listen. Edwards is a brilliant banjo player: His sense of rhythm is as irresistible as it is elusive. On “Wayfaring Stranger,” brilliance means the ability to play as if the player is learning the strings as he makes the notes. You can imagine the singer as the hero of Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, the soldier on his trek back to his North Carolina home as the Confederate Army falls apart at the end of the Civil War, stumbling over an abandoned, half-busted banjo on the road, picking it up and discovering it comes with a song, this one.

    Though nothing could be more prosaically American — a believer who has wandered through this land as a witness is ready to “cross over Jordan” — the uncertainty of the player’s touch makes you feel the man isn’t telling all he knows. Singing from inside the folk character, Edwards doesn’t tell you what he’s seen, but you can guess: “I’ll drop this cross of self-denial,” he says, and suddenly a mystical groaning, now pressed by guitar as well as banjo, comes out of the ground. . . . But after only one verse, in less than a minute, the old song stops. It seems to break down into a modern void, into abstract, disembodied sounds that don’t connect to each other; you wonder what happened. Then out of that suspension, the man returns, his scratchy, everyday voice insistent that death is the last promise he will keep: He will die with this song on his lips. He’ll sing it over and over for as long as it takes.

    — Greil Marcus, Interview magazine

  • The Wind

    The Wind

    A friend and I exchanged mix CDs this week, and apparently I now have to go buy PJ Harvey’s Is This Desire? You know you’re dangerously obsessed with a song when WinAmp is set to repeat and the playlist includes only one track. “The Wind” is totally that song.

  • Are You Awake?

    Are You Awake?

    “Are You Awake?” by Kevin Shields is almost literally a song of the moment. At 1 minute, 35 seconds, it’s my shortest selection yet. I grabbed it from the Lost in Translation soundtrack, which I’ve been listening to all day at work. There’s something beautifully hypnotic about it.

  • The Gloaming

    The Gloaming

    Radiohead broke with routine on Monday night by opening with “The Gloaming.” (The complete setlist can be found here.) “The Gloaming,” like so much of the material from Hail to the Thief, played better live than on the album. I especially like Colin Greenwood’s new walking bassline. The show was broadcast live on Atlanta’s 99X and will be re-aired on Sunday night from 10 – midnight. Because of the FM broadcast there are already some great bootlegs floating around. (Not that I would support such a thing. I mean, the Song of the Moment just happened to appear on my hard drive. Like magic. One of those happy coincidences, I guess.)

  • Mary

    Mary

    I just discovered that Supergrass will be opening for Radiohead Monday night. Very nice! I know that this opinion is terribly unhip, but I’ll say it anyway: More bands need keyboard players, and more songs need keyboard riffs like the one in “Mary.”

  • Sneakin’ Sally

    Sneakin’ Sally

    Robert Palmer has passed away. For years, I knew him only as the “Addicted to Love” guy, but then a friend with a killer CD collection moved into the dorm room across the hall from mine and fired up Sneakin’ Salley Through the Alley (1975). The first three songs on that album are as good as it gets. Of course, that might have more to do with his collaboration with Little Feat than with his own talent, but Palmer obviously had good taste.

  • Blood on My Hands

    Blood on My Hands

    I just didn’t get the whole groupie phenomenon until about ten years ago, when I caught The Sundays at a club called The Moon in Tallahassee. Looking up at Harriet Wheeler, my elbows resting on the raised stage, I fell instantly and deeply in love. Or maybe it was lust. Regardless, she was the most seductive beauty I had ever seen. Her hair up. A form-fitting black dress. Those impossibly large eyes. I totally would have humiliated myself at her expense. And I mean “humiliated” in the Def Leppard Behind The Music kinda way.

    As beautiful as she was, though, it was the music that got to me. All of that ridiculous talent. Wheeler’s voice is some kind of marvel. Calling it “angelic” would be a cliche, I guess. But it’s not smoky exactly either, or soulful or torch-songish. It’s mostly a breath, which is probably why, a decade later, “Blood on My Hands” still gives me chills. It exemplifies all that made The Sundays such a great band — that syncopated snare hit, David Gavurin’s chorus-heavy guitar, and that beautiful, beautiful voice.

  • Blinded by the Stars

    Blinded by the Stars

    If there were any justice in this world, Joe Pernice would be on the cover of Rolling Stone and John Mayer would be cleaning Jan Wenner’s pool. The Pernice Brothers made a quick stop at the Pilot Light last night, where they were greeted by a packed and enthusiastic house of Knoxville hipsters. And on a Monday night, no less. Joe is the quintessential reluctant rock star, a guy whose downward glances between songs betray something like embarrassment. When he thanked the crowd, he seemed genuinely surprised that we were there to see him and that we were having such a damn good time.

    Yours, Mine & Ours, the latest release from The Pernice Brothers, is a nearly perfect collection of pop songs, impeccably produced and just dripping with melodic melancholy. “Blinded by the Stars” earned Song of the Moment honors by winning a tight, three horse race, with “Water Ban” and “Baby in Two” tying for second. “Blinded” won thanks in large part to this particular lyric:

    I would tell the world that I love you,
    But the waiting game is as serious as statue.

  • Dream Brother

    Dream Brother

    Even before Jeff Buckley drowned at 30, his voice was thick with melancholy and tragedy. Grace is without question one of the finest albums of the 90s, and “Dream Brother,” the disc’s closer, is proof. Amazing.

  • Next to You

    Next to You

    These are dark days in K-town. On Saturday night, the Jack Astronauts played their farewell show at Manhattan’s in the Old City, and they will be missed. Along with their usual fare — loud, fast surf rock — they also threw in some great covers, including The Ramones’ version of “Happy Birthday” (for our friend’s 28th), “Ace of Spades” by Motorhead, and “Next to You” by The Police.

    Bon Voyage, Curt and Mike.

  • Exit Music (For a Film)

    Exit Music (For a Film)

    Brad Mehldau is such a ridiculously talented pianist, composer, and arranger. His cover of Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For a Film)” isn’t particularly representative of his work, which is often more improvisatory and freeform (check out his Elegiac Cycle album), but it seemed a timely choice. Mehldau’s also been known to cover Neil Young, Nick Drake, Van Morrison, and The Beatles. The liner notes of his album, Progressions, features an original essay on music and the discourse of democracy that floats fluently through Foucault and Faust, Kant and Kubrick. It’s well worth a read.

  • There There

    There There

    Yeah, so like everyone else of my general demographic, I’m listening to the new Radiohead. I mean, it’s, like, required, right? So far, “There There” is my favorite track. Especially at high volumes.

  • Cupid’s Trick

    Cupid’s Trick

    “Cupid’s Trick” is my favorite Elliot Smith song, and I’ve been listening to a good bit of Elliot Smith lately, for what it’s worth.

  • Resplendent

    Resplendent

    What to hear a perfect song? “Resplendent,” by Bill Mallonee and Vigilantes of Love, is as close as it gets. There’s the Bruce Cockburn-like guitar, that sweet snare drum shuffle, and Emmylou’s harmonies. And then there’s the lyrics. When Mallonee sings, “Honey, we’re all resplendent,” you just know that he’s right. (Thanks for this song, Candace.)

    I remember the dark clouds raining dust for days on end
    Blew all the Earth out to California
    Just left us here with the wind
    Desperate times, you know everbody’s part
    It’s your own lines you’d like to forget
    Till what you were meets what you’ve now become
    And grins and says, “Hey, haven’t we met?”

    Lost my first born that Winter
    My wife on the first day of Spring
    So I poured my sweat to the Earth
    To see what that harvest would bring
    And I remember how the fury
    Just like a plague of locusts
    Egypt’s punishment for sins of pride
    Is that now what has come over us?

    How much of this was meant to be?
    How much the work of the Devil?
    How far can one man’s eyes really see
    In these days of toil and trouble?

    Honey, we’re all resplendent,
    Yeah, Honey, we are all thrift store
    Like a wine-o with a $20 bill
    Yeah, forever and eternally yours
    And I can make you promises
    If you don’t expect too much,
    Yes, and I will run the distance
    If you’ll please, please excuse my crutch

    How much of this was meant to be?
    How much the work of the Devil?
    How far can one man’s eyes really see
    In these days of toil and trouble?

    How much of this is failing flesh?
    How much a course of retribution?
    My, my, how loudly we plead our innocence
    Long after we made our contribution

  • Bomb the World

    Bomb the World

    Given my general musical tastes, one of the oddest birds in my CD collection is Hypocrisy is the Greatest Luxury by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. Ten years later it still gets a good bit of play in my house, mainly because of Michael Franti’s voice and his witty, literate, progressive lyrics. “Television” and the title track are both classics. And “Satanic Reverses” (can’t find the lyrics online) is more appropriate now than in ’92. (How many hip-hop artists can say that?) In ’94, Franti formed Spearhead, one hell of a roots-based band, and has remained politically engaged. “Bomb the World” is his response to recent events.

  • Until the End of the World

    Until the End of the World

    I usually use the “Song of the Moment” to promote music that readers might not hear otherwise. So why U2? I’m just stuck on “Until the End of the World” right now, and I’m not sure why. It has nothing to do with politics (although I’ve certainly admired many of Bono’s recent statements). And I never even got around to buying Achtung Baby. I think it’s because I’ve had Angels in America on the brain lately, and the production we saw blared late-80s, early-90s U2 during the scene changes. Yep. That’s gotta be it. Enjoy.

  • Therefore, I Am

    Therefore, I Am

    The tunes have begun to roll in. A few weeks ago I offered to send copies of my mix CDs to anyone who returned the favor. The new Song of the Moment — Jim O’Rourke’s “Therefore, I Am” — is a surprise from disc 1 of a 2-disc set sent by David in Edmonton. This track is just so rock and roll. I love it. A little advice: the louder you play it, the more transcendent it becomes.

  • The Way We Get By

    The Way We Get By

    I caught a great episode of Austin City Limits last Saturday night. The first half featured Spoon, a band from Austin that reminds me quite a bit of early Elvis Costello with maybe some Husker Du thrown in for good measure. “That’s the Way We Get By” is just ridiculously catchy. I’ve been listening to a mix of about 40 songs at work this week, and this one never fails to shake me free of that awful day job trance.

  • Cosmik Debris

    Cosmik Debris

    Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe is required listening for me on road trips. It’s like a short vacation inside Robert Crumb’s head. You’ve got huskies whizzing in the snow, fur trappers beating up baby seals, St. Alphonzo serving up pancakes, and, well, Nanook. On one trip — I think I was driving from Destin to Tallahasee — I listened to it four times back-to-back, losing myself in a bizarre, cinematic reverie all the while. I really wanted to film the whole album — sort of a Cheech & Chong meets Terry Gilliam thing. Someday.

  • Death or Glory

    Death or Glory

    I have this strange memory of being ten years old, standing at the bus stop with my friends huddled around me as I told them about this song I’d heard on my little portable radio the night before. Part of my excitement came from my having misheard the lyrics. I could have sworn that the gravel voice was screaming, “Fuck the casbar! Fuck the casbar!”

    I was fairly hip for a ten-year-old. As I recall, for my birthday that year, friends gave me Led Zeppelin IV, Blizzard of Oz, and Rush’s Exit . . . Stage Left. But I wasn’t ready for The Clash, not even for Top 40 Clash. I thought I understood rock music, but Joe Strummer thought differently. I wasn’t ready.

    I backed into The Clash again a few years later, when I worked at a sandwich shop. There, especially during the slow night hours, we would pop in our favorite tapes and talk and laugh until it was finally time to lock the front door. I can’t remember now who brought in their Clash tapes, but I remember the songs. It was tough to choose just one for the Song of the Moment, but I knew that it had to be from London Calling. “Death or Glory,” I hope, isn’t too obvious a choice.

    The best coverage I’ve found of Strummer’s death is from The Guardian:

    And as the perfect tribute to Strummer, here’s an interesting piece from The Nation. In The Power of Music, Ann Powers (who seems to be everywhere these days, from MTV to NPR) sits down with Boots Powers, Eddie Vedder, Tom Morello, Amy Ray, and Carrie Brownstein to discuss the possibility of progressive political activism in popular music. Tom Morello, in particular, just fascinates me. Way too well-informed and articulate for a guitar player. When asked to boil down his opinions to a single message, he responded with:

    You are a historical agent. History is not something that has happened in the past and that is made up of names and dates and places of kings and generals, history is what you make in your home, in your place of work, in the streets, in your community and in the world and your actions–your actions or your inaction is directly affecting the fate of the world that you live in and should be treated with that gravity.

  • Already Dead

    Already Dead

    Further (anecdotal) evidence that the record companies are pointing their fingers in the wrong direction: Sea Change is the first Beck album I have purchased, and I never would have done so had I not first listened to it via a file-sharing service. (By the way, Tom Petty also has a beef or two with the major labels.) Sea Change is a fantastic disc — right now it’s running a close second to Beth Orton’s Daybreaker for my Best of 2002. Beck has simplified both his songwriting and production, creating some odd mix of Graham Parsons and ELO. At the moment “Already Dead” is my favorite track, but there really isn’t a weak spot here.

  • It’s Alright, Baby

    It’s Alright, Baby

    I have almost completely exorcised television from my daily diet. Aside from The Daily Show, That 70s Show reruns, and assorted documentary and news programs, I watch only one show: The Gilmore Girls. It’s a wonderfully written show — witty and sarcastic, but surprisingly free of cynicism. I’m also drawn to the show for personal reasons, most notably the strange resemblances between the Gilmores and the family that I married into. Don’t believe me?

    With Sam Phillips as its musical supervisor, The Gilmore Girls has always had impeachable music cred, and now it’s on display in a fantastic soundtrack album. I listened to it for the first time last night and am still reeling. The song of the moment, “It’s Alright, Baby” by Komeda, is Euro-retro-pop at its most infectious. Just a fantastic song.