I'm in a mood and I've been listening to the smiths all day, which is usually good music for working in Photoshop, but I can't get anything accomplished today due to my foul mood. I'm also working on another post for later, but for now — here are a few videos I don't believe I've put on the blog before. Y'all know I love my Morrissey.
"Shoplifters of the World Unite" is a great song. I picked this video because the smiths original vids where you actually see Johnny Marr playing guitar are few and far between and I do love the guitar in this song, although the audio is not the best. As always, Morrissey's lyrics are fantastic: "learn to love me and assemble the ways, now, today, tomorrow, and always."
Next up is "I Started Something I Couldn't Finish." Love this one, but you know — typical me, typical me, typical me.
Can we talk about how much I love a man in a velvet blazer? Don't judge me. I'm not having it.
There are minutes left in Sunday, so here's a fast post. Tomorrow is my oldest child's 9th birthday, so this is the birthday '80s Sunday Rewind. So, here's the upbeat Altered Images "Happy Birthday." Happy birthday, Molly Kathleen!
But just in case you want to wish someone an unhappy birthday (you know, if they're evil and they lie), here's a song to love — "Unhappy Birthday" by the smiths. Enjoy!
In my '80s iTunes playlist, my favorites are generally the British synthpop bands, which you've probably figured out by now if you've been reading the Sunday Rewind for any length of time. My favorite of the Brit synthpop bands being ABC, Thompson Twins, Human League, and Naked Eyes. Naked Eyes is probably the last of the ones I have yet to feature for one simple reason: I could not find their best song on video anywhere. Until today.
For this fan, Naked Eyes three singles from their 1983 album Burning Bridges, are their best. "When the Lights Go Out," "Promises Promises," and my favorite, "Always Something There to Remind Me" are the three songs from the band that you will remember. I simply love the last song. It is one of my favorite songs of all time. It was written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1963 and has been recorded by nearly everyone, including Dionne Warwick, The Carpenteres, and the wonderful Dusty Springfield. It's a beautiful song and has always reminded me of something that sounds like it belongs in The Beatles catalog, but isn't. It just sounds like a McCarney song. It's a song of desperation and longing, but it's upbeat and catchy — really a perfect little love song.
And so, I present to you today, a post over a year in the making, the '80s Sunday Rewind with Naked Eyes.
Regina Spektor is probably the most unique woman in music today. I can't get enough of her stuff. She is a talented songwriter and pianist I wrote about in a previous post, but here are a few more songs, just because.
"Field Below" is the reason I decided to do Spektor for the post today. It's melancholy, like my mood, and the lyric "I am awake and feel the ache" is quite appropriate, since it's 2:42 am and sleep eludes me once again for reasons beyond this post. Here's a good live performance.
This one is the jam. "The Consequence Of Sounds." Because white Jewish chicks should rap more. For some reason this isn't on iTunes, but it's fantastic. Listen.
Because I love this song, bought the entire album on iTunes because the song was one of those "album only" songs — from The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Soundtrack, "The Call." It's a great song about friendship.
Finally, it's "Music Box." I choose to believe this song is about the monotony of motherhood, but I'm sure I'm wrong. You tell me– "Life inside the musicbox ain't easy/The mallets hit/The gears are always turning/And everyone inside the mechanism/Is yearning to get out/And sing another melody completely/So different from the one they're always singing/I close my eyes and think that I have found me/But then I feel mortality surround me/I want to sing another melody/So different from the one I always sing." Anyway, it's sweet and silly and also has the line "the greatest voyage in the history of plastic," so you know that's fun.
The drive back from my hometown was '80s (of course) and since it is a four and a half hour drive, I listened to the all-purpose '80s playlist. Here for your reminiscing pleasure are two choice videos of said playlist.
First up, The Gap Band's "You Dropped A Bomb On Me." If you don't like this song, something's wrong witchu. Yes, I said "witchu." If Bush would have played this after 9/11, Bin Laden would have not only surrendered, he would have come out dancin'.
I like the camo combined with sequins. That works for me. The dancing and special effects are awesome.
I defy anyone to find a better '80s video than Cameo's "Word Up." Not only is "Word Up" one of my favorite phrases, it's one of the best songs evah. Oh yeah. Not only does the video feature Levar Burton (hell yeah!), unitards, fingerless gloves, stripping cops, handcuffs, cage dancing, and the spelling of the word WORD, you'll see that the lead singer is wearing a giant red codpiece. Fanfreakingtastic.
The music industry today needs more codpieces. If I'm sure of anything, that's it.
Ever eager to please, today's 80's Sunday Rewind fulfills the request for an Erasure post. Nothing like a little synth-pop for your Christmas weekend. I loved some Erasure back in the day, with the release of 1988's The Innocents. "Chains of Love" and ""A Little Respect" were fantastic songs, as was their rendition of "River Deep, Mountain High." I remember a mix tape I'd made with Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, and Electronic that would blow your synth-pop socks off.
Here's a little Erasure for your Sunday.
This is the video for "A Little Respect" with live audio — best I could do, folks.
And shut up — here's Erasure in drag doing Abba's "Take a Chance On Me." Love this.
If you have a request, put it in the comments. I'd love to hear it.
It's the last of the 80's Christmas songs and I found this mishmash video about the first two A Very Special Christmas albums on You Tube. It says from 1987, but they reference songs from the second album too (1992). The early A Very Special Christmas albums were pretty great. I honestly didn't realize the albums were still being produced. They're up to volume 7 and it's completely Disneyfied, which just goes to show you how far the Disneyfication of music has spread. Anyway, let's watch this video from back in the day.
I thought I'd end the 80's Christmas bonanza with my favorite Christmas song, which just happens to be on volume 1 of A Very Special Christmas, "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" by The Pretenders. I adore this version. Chrissie Hynde captures the original melancholy of the song perfectly and doesn't try to make it cute and sweet like other versions. "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" has been my favorite for years and I have several versions of it, but this one is really special. And no, I won't be getting the new Bob Dylan version.
If I had and actual plan for Tunes You Need Tuesday, I would have started with Murmur, then either Fables of the Reconstruction or Lifes Rich Pageant (haven't decided which), then Document, and end with Green.
But The Kerry Blog doesn't often follow a plan and the author often flies by the seat of her (capri) pants. If you've been reading for any length of time, you're probably aware of this.
So, let's take a look at Document, the last album R.E.M. released under the I.R.S. label. If you read last week's Tunes, you know that Green was the first album the band made under Warner Bros. and how different that album was from previous albums. Document is a great album for many reasons. It has more of a rock feel, more mainstream than the earlier albums that have that college rock sound they were known for previously.
And now for the "Page" side of Document, from back in the day when albums had sides.
The first song on the album is "Finest Worksong," a great song that I've always liked, particularly for the way Michael Stipe sings the word "rearranged." You'll find a fab different version of this song with horns on the compilation album Eponymous as well. I've always thought "Finest Worksong" to be the perfect first song because the energy is great and I find it hard to sit still while listening. Here's the only way to kick off our listening party, "Finest Worksong."
Next on Document is "Welcome To The Occupation," a darker song before the upbeat "Exhuming McCarthy." "Exhuming McCarthy" starts with the click-clack of typewriter keys, features fantastic horns, and the sound clip from the McCarthy hearings ("have you no sense of decency, sir?") which makes it sound unlike other R.E.M. songs. This song is enjoyable.
"Disturbance At The Heron House" is another good song in the upbeat vain of "Exhuming McCarthy." There's something I love about the line "the call came in to Party Central" that I love, as well as the refrain "to try to tell us something we don't know." I really like the beginning guitar part of this song. A real gem on Document is "Strange." I've always liked this little song, and after checking out Wikipedia, I found out "Strange" was first recorded by a band called Wire (who I've never heard of). It's a fun song and isn't found on any of R.E.M.'s compilations, so naturally I gravitate toward songs like that. Take a listen.
The last song on the "Page" side of Document is "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." I'm assuming everyone knows this song, it's a classic. I thought I'd throw in the video because I hadn't seen it in a while and thought maybe some of you haven't either. Fun stuff.
The "Leaf" side of the album begins with "The One I Love," which was R.E.M.'s first hit single. It reached #9 on Billboard and had a visually stunning video to accompany it. The song is an interesting one, it has three verses, nearly identical and the word "fire" as the chorus. Speaking of fire, on the original sleeve of the album, were the words "File Under Fire." The second part of the album has a lot of fire imagery with "The One I Love,""Fireplace," and "Oddfellows Local 151."
As I've said before, R.E.M. really doesn't do love songs and "The One I Love" isn't a love song, it's an admission that the person in the song was only a prop and has been replaced with another prop "to occupy my time." That's cold. Here's the video. By the way, the Director of Photography was Food Network's Alton Brown.
The remaining songs onDocument are kind of a mishmash of odd songs, but "King of Birds" really stands out. The video I've included is from Tour Film, a superfantastic tour video. I adore the percussion in this version.
So, that's more or less what I love about R.E.M.'s fifth album, Document. If you only have compilations of the earlier R.E.M. stuff, I highly recommend getting the album, it's quite special.
Most everyone knows I love the Christmas songs. My favorite Christmas music tends to be of the 50's Christmas Cocktails variety (Peggy Lee, Kay Starr), but I greatly enjoy the modern Christmas classics as well.
Technically it's from 1979, but it's one of my favorites, "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul McCartney.
I love my Pet Shop Boys. This video is from 2000, but the original is 80s. "It Doesn't Often Snow at Christmas" is not a classic, but you can dance to it.
Here's Bruce Springsteen doing "Merry Christmas, Baby." This was one of my favorites from A Very Special Christmas.
And what would Christmas be without The Ramones "Merry Chirstmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight)"?
I'm on an R.E.M. kick. I've been listening to them a lot lately and I'm thinking of doing an album every Tuesday this month because it has nothing to do with the holidays and there's only so much "Jingle Bell Rock" one can take.
One of my favorite albums is R.E.M.'s Green. It's one that I still own my original vinyl copy of (that has aged beautifully in the past 20 years) and I believe it's an album that is overshadowed by Out Of Time and Automatic For The People. Green was the first album recorded once the band left IRS and signed with Warner Bros and I think its serves as a fantastic and definite bridge between a different and more mainstream sound the band developed. It's also the first album guitarist Peter Buck used the mandolin on and that wacky Michael Stipe sang through a megapone on several songs. And so, this is a different kind of album, maybe that's why I've always liked it so much. Or it could just be that the album cover is orange and the title is Green and that's something my mother commented on when I bought it in 1989. No idea what the band sounded like or that I loved them so much, just "why would they call it Green, it's orange."
So, we have a band that was mostly considered college rock and had success with previous songs like "The One I Love" and "It's The End of The World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" and they come out with Green. R.E.M. had a hit with a very poppy pop song, "Stand," a song you all know and could most likely sing along to. The other big hit off the album, "Orange Crush," a song about the use of Agent Orange, the herbicide used in the Vietnam War, which led to the deaths and disabilities of more than 400,000 people, as well as the 500,000 babies born with birth defects in Vietnam. You didn't think it was about the soft drink, now did you?
The song "You Are The Everything" is haunting and beautiful and I love it. I love everything about it: the mandolin, the accordion, the line "you're drifting off to sleep with your teeth in your mouth," and the "say, say the light" refrain, just the whole song. Here it is for you.
Back in the day, I remember opening Green and seeing that there was only one song with printed lyrics. That song was "World Leader Pretend." That struck me as odd as a teenager and I hadn't thought about it until tonight when I decided to write about the album. Here's what I found out about the song from Wikipedia:
Michael Stipe said in a 2008 interview with Rolling Stone looking back on Green: "For me the big moment was 'World Leader Pretend'. It's a tribute to Leonard Cohen, using millitary terms to describe a battle within. I was so proud of my lyrics and my vocal take that I refused to sing it a second time. I did it once. That was it."
Here's "World Leader Pretend" from 1991 and part of an interview about the folk sound in the instruments.
That's good stuff.
After "Orange Crush" on the album comes a rockin' good song, "Turn You Inside Out." It's a good choice to follow a heavy song. It features a few things I love about R.E.M. — neat lyrics ("divide your cultured pearls in haste"), great guitar, Stipe's voice, and fun backing vocals.
Maybe one of the best things on Green is the last song on the album. It's one of my favorites, simply titled "eleventh" on the original album, as it was the 11th song. If you buy it on iTunes you'll see that it's just "Untitled." It's one of those songs I can't really put my finger on why I like it so much, but I adore this one. Here it is with the lyrics, because I think it's a special little song.
This world is big and so-awake I stayed up late to hear your voice This light is here to keep you warm This song is here to keep you strong
I made a list of things to say But all I really want to say All I really want to say is Hold her and keep him strong While I'm away from here Hold her and keep her strong While I'm away from here Hold her and keep him strong While I'm away from here
I've seen the world and so-awake And stay up late to hear me sing Just hold her I've seen the world and so-awake And stay up late to hear me sing Just hold him Hold her and keep her strong While I'm away from here Hold him and keep him strong While I'm away from here
So, that's the Green post. I hope you enjoyed it, that maybe it brought back some memories from'89, that you liked some of the lesser-known R.E.M. songs that I think are superfantastic, and that it gave you a break from a mundane Tuesday.
kerryfaler.blog 