The Pleonastic Hussalonian

Fantastic: Will.i.Am (2007)

I have no idea what makes one song really popular and leaves another virtually unheard. I don’t listen to a lot of Top 40 radio, but then, I’m no stranger to it either. I borrowed a copy of Will.i.Am’s Songs About Girls from the public library when it first came out. I can’t say that I was wild about “I Got it From My Mama,” but his production work on Nas’s Hip Hop is Dead was interesting enough that I wanted to hear a full album of his work (sans Fergie). Two years later, I don’t remember anything about Songs About Girls except for this song. And what a great song! At the time, I was so convinced that it was going to blow up. I would have bet money on it. And then, nothing happened.

I suspect that “Fantastic” revolves around a sample from the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back.” I hear a tiny snippet taken from the major pentatonic guitar part, found in the left channel of the original song, best heard at the 1:25 and the 1:55 mark.

Ah, but what the hell do I know?

Pretty Lady: Lighthouse (1973)

What? You’re telling me that you won’t listen to a band with nine long-haired members on a matter of principle? But the singer sounds like a cleaned up Lou Reed fronting the Raspberries! With a horn section! In Vegas!

I heard this song for the first time yesterday. In a record store, of course. I think it’s a perfect record store song because it embodies so many things that record geeks are into: Lou Reed, power pop, pretty ladies, complete obscurity. And yet, the odds of even your most fervent record geek having actually heard it before are pretty slim. I think this is because any reasonable shopper would pass on this album based on the cover image alone. Sorry, dudes. I can’t feel it.

Doesn’t it remind you a little of Sloan’s “Everything You’ve Done Wrong”? (Both bands are Canadian!)

Cum On Feel the Noize: Slade (1973)

If you’re an American, you’re probably more familiar with Quiet Riot’s 1983 cover version. It peaked at #5 on our Billboard charts, while, a full decade earlier in 1973, Slade’s original version barely cracked the top 100. I’ve always been vaguely aware that it was a Slade song, but up until this week, I have (believe it or not) never heard the original.

Now, like many American boys in the 80s, I grew my hair out and pumped my fist in the air. I wore patches on my jean jacket. I was a good kid unwittingly listening to astonishingly offensive anthems of misogyny, substance abuse, and demon worship – all in the name of rock. Quiet Riot’s “Cum On Feel the Noize” ranked high, and remains high, on my chart of Rock-dom. It’s the “Let’s Get It On” of heavy metal – one of those songs that everyone in a room can usually agree on. 

Listen to the two versions back to back, and the first thing you’ll notice is that Quiet Riot’s version is far more menacing. It’s in the canon-fire drums and Kevin DuBrow’s vocal that manages to out-banshee Noddy Holder. Ah, but so what? When I first heard Slade’s version a few days ago, I was bowled over by how incredibly fun it sounded – the huge chorus of people singing along, the hand claps, the major key intro, the never-ending maraca shaking, the feel-good Chuck Berry guitar work. But more than anything else, it’s the shifting downbeat of the snare drum that gives Slade’s version its playful wiggle.

It may be because the two versions exist an exact decade apart, or perhaps it’s because one is English and one is American, but the two versions reveal two distinctly different attitudes towards teenage sex and rebellion. Slade’s version is about social outcasts finding solace and a good time in sexual experimentation and rock and roll. Quiet Riot’s version is about those same kids using sex and rock and roll as a weapon. Rather than celebrating the good times, it feels like a threatening message directed at parents, teachers, and anyone else who just doesn’t understand.

Having now heard them both – hands down – I prefer Slade’s version. But then, I just don’t understand.

Running Scared: Roy Orbison (1961)

I’ve been reading Chronicles, Volume One and was especially delighted to read Dylan’s musings on Roy Orbison:

He was now singing his compositions in three or four octaves that made you want to drive your car over a cliff. He sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he’d start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttering to yourself something like, “Man, I don’t believe it. (33)

Well said, Bob. But while his voice is crucial to the effect, I’ve always felt that it was the structure of Orbison’s ballads that made one feel so self-destructive. They are pop operas that drive themselves off of cliffs. They are short stories with no denouement. A slow and steady climb to nowhere.

“Running Scared” begins as a march, the anxiety of being left for a former lover a mere seed. One man and his guitar. But as the thought develops, so does the march, reigning in along the way pianos and drums and brass and strings and singers that sing like angels. An army! It is not until the final section (“Then all at once, he was standing there.”) that the spark finally ignites – private anxieties become a nightmarish reality, and the march becomes a full-on trot as if imbued with fight or flight adrenaline. But what of it? The girl chooses him. The hero wins. All that worrying for naught. The final pulses of the march are rich with brass and strings, matrimonial perhaps. We stand on the sidelines, not sure if what we witnessed was love or war, shaking our heads in disbelief and (yes, Bob) muttering, “Man, I don’t believe it.”

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Shake, Rattle and Roll: Santo and Johnny (196?)

Meaning ruins everything.

Take today, for instance. I was in a camera shop and heard the song “Shake, Rattle and Roll” on the radio. I guess I didn’t even notice it until I was back in the car. I had that line, “I’m like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store” endlessly repeating in my head. How absurd, I thought. A one-eyed cat. Peeping in a seafood store. And I’m like that cat. Strange!

I said it aloud and my wife looked at me like I was insane. She, too, had heard the song a million times and never once thought about the weirdness of that sentence. I used it throughout the day. If I was accused of being cranky, I’d say, “Yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.” If the dog was doing something funny, I’d say, “Look at him; he’s like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.” If I needed a metaphor for national healthcare, I’d say, “It’s complicated… like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.”

I vowed to use the sentence whenever possible. I saw myself saying it to the mayor as he handed over a key to the city. Sir, to be bestowed this honor is privilege beyond words. I feel like a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.  

But then I Googled it. And I’ll say only this: it’s a double entendre. Yuck!