Category: Writing

Watching Morrissey’s “Suedehead”

Posted on by kristen

You know you’re an Anglophile when your strongest association with the state of Indiana is Morrissey’s music video for “Suedehead.” In this video, Morrissey travels to James Dean’s hometown of Fairmont, IN, visits various Dean-related sites, and does a bunch of weird stuff that he possibly considers to be indicative of small town America. Or maybe it has something specific to do with James Dean. I really have no idea.

I’m actually here in Indiana this week for work, and I seriously considered traveling to Fairmont to see some of the sights featured in this video.  (Talk about meta: visiting a place to pay homage to a famous person who visited that place to pay homage to another famous person.) I might have done too, it if my husband could have come with me. Sadly he couldn’t get away from work. But if we do ever get to travel to Indiana together, our short list of things to do in Fairmont includes:

Read a book in a really cold barn

Drive a tractor

Morrissey drives a tractor

Play the bongoes in a field with some cows

Morrissey plays the bongoes in a field with some cows

And carry a dog around

Morrissey carries a dog around

I was also delighted to find that Morrissey covered the making of this video briefly in his book, Autobiography. He mentions that he got permission from James Dean’s cousin to shoot it on the family’s property.  Morrissey managed to get in a fight with the cousin before the day was out, and he and his crew got kicked off the farm. If you’ve read Morrissey’s book, you will realize that was not unexpected. Luckily for the world, enough footage had already been shot to make the masterpiece that is “Suedehead” a reality.

Listening to “Different Drum”

Posted on by kristen

I feel like I have a special intuition for when a song is written by a famous songwriter. I’ll be thinking about a song and suddenly overcome by a desire to know who wrote it — and it always turns out to be Carol King or Jim Steinman or Max Martin or some other classic writer. A few days ago I was thinking about “Different Drum,” having recently heard The Lemonheads’ version for the first time, and I was convinced I would find that it had been written by someone famous. So I looked it up on Wikipedia and sure enough it was written my Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. One of the song’s first appearances was actually as a gag on The Monkees, as Mike pretends to be an inept folk singer:

(An aside: I know YouTube comments are the scourge of the internet and whatnot, but I find that one of the benefits of looking at more obscure material is that the comments are often quite good. One commenter here astutely points out here that Mike’s performance is particularly brilliant, given the difficulty of performing your own song so badly.)

So I admit that Mike Nesmith does not meet the criteria of “great songwriter,” but he is famous, and he did write “Mary, Mary,” and “The Girl I Knew Somewhere,” two minor Monkees classics. So I think this counts as an example of my songwriter intuition. And there’s no real argument that “Different Drum” isn’t Nesmith’s best song. It’s endured and spawned tons of great renditions. So I thought I’d go down the rabbit hole and highlight some of the versions I’ve loved over the years.

The Stone Poneys had the most famous version of “Different Drum” in 1967, with a young Linda Rondstadt on lead vocal. It hit number 13 on the Hot 100. The Stone Poneys’ version is textbook baroque ’n’ roll, full of lush strings and jaunty harpsichord. It’s super catchy, and the melody sticks with you’d despite the lack of a traditional verse-chorus structure. Linda’s got a good voice, and her her vocal, while not life changing, has a appealing, slightly vulnerable quality to it. She’s also amazingly pretty, which I’m sure didn’t hurt.

“Different Drum” is particularly memorable because of the quirky lyrics, full of odd colloquialisms (“make eyes at me,” “it’s not that I knock it,” “honey child”) and a jumble of metaphors (“travel to the beat of a different drum,” “can’t see the forest for the trees,” “pull the reins in on me”). The song is about not wanting to make a commitment to a serious relationship, and it really works so much better when delivered from a female perspective — here’s a woman who wants to enjoy her freedom and avoid a bad decision, rather than just another dude who just doesn’t want to get tied down. Linda’s version is also brilliant in that she switches the genders on the all the pronouns, but still keeps the line “I ain’t saying you ain’t pretty.” This line would be fairly unremarkable in a song addressed to a woman, when when directed at a male, it’s attention-grabbing and conjures a nuanced image of what this guy might be like — attractive but slight, not someone who really understands the full responsibility of commitment.

On the Lemonheads’ 1990 version, Evan Dando keeps the the pronouns exactly as they are on the Stone Poneys’ version. I like when singers do this. It doesn’t come off like Evan is deliberately singing the song to a man — it’s more like he’s just singing a song he likes, the way he’s always heard it on the radio, and the effect is charming. The Lemonheads’ version is also pretty raucous, with some unlikely squalls of feedback toward the end. That noisy approach isn’t usually my thing, but when someone is singing the melody to “Different Drum” over top, it suddenly becomes a lot more appealing. I should mention that Evan Dando was also very pretty, which probably didn’t hurt either.

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes included a version of “Different Drum” on their ‘60s-themed covers album Blow in the Wind. I hadn’t listened to this in years and couldn’t really remember if it was good. Turns out I’m impressed. The Gimme Gimmes play it a little extra fast, as befits a pop-punk cover, and the singer (who is awesomely named Spike Slawson) attacks the song with loose, sloppy gusto. There’s also a nice whistling bit at the end.

Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs tackle it on their ‘60s-themed covers album, Under the Covers Vol. 1. While their version is closest to the original in terms of tone and tempo, they add some unique touches. Susanna’s voice is more weathered and mature than Linda Ronstadt’s, which recasts the song from the perspective of someone whose reluctance to commit stems from experience. Matthew contributes some stellar backing vocals, completely different from any I’ve heard on other versions. The two harmonize together wonderfully, and “Different Drum” is one of the standout tracks on their album.

Finally, I saw Paul Westerberg perform “Different Drum” live at the TLA in Philly in 2005. At the same show, he also covered “If I Had a Hammer” and “I Think I Love You,” and I was pretty much beside myself with excitement at these song choices. Unfortunately, there don’t appear to be any easily accessed recordings of the performance. As I was searching for one, I was reading some Westerberg fan message boards and was surprised to find that reaction to Paul’s choice of covers on that tour was mostly negative. I forget that “Different Drum” might be considered a little poppy for the too-cool-for-school crowd. But if you look at the caliber of the artists who have covered this song and the variety of approaches that have worked, I think you’ll find it’s a keeper.

Pop manifesto

Posted on by kristen

Authenticity has NOTHING to do with pop music. That’s a belief system propagated by German music writers and humorless teenage assholes. — John Roderick, Seattle Weekly

Years ago when my husband and I had only been dating for a little while, we were watching a TV show called VH1 Classic One Hit Wonders. The episode theme was “prom songs,” and the first video that came on was “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. (I guess it was an ’80s prom.) I turned to Josh and said — completely sincerely and in an excited tone of voice — “This episode is going to be great, because it’s going to be all crowdpleasers!” He stared at me for a beat or two and then said, “Oh that’s right, you like crowdpleasers.”

This anecdote basically sums up my attitude toward pop and the reaction that attitude often elicits. I like crowdpleasers. More specifically, I like songs that have a catchy hook, a compelling melody, and reasonably good production. Songs with those qualities tend to be likable. Many of them are in fact crowdpleasers, and even hits. And that doesn’t make me like them any less. Maybe that seems obvious, but in my peer group — somewhere along the hipster-yuppie spectrum — I’m constantly surprised by the number of people who dismiss music because it’s popular or accessible.

On the other side of the coin you have people who believe that non-mainstream music is weird, pretentious, or boring. And some of it is, of course. But some of it also has catchy hooks, compelling melodies, and reasonably good production. And I like those songs too.

So here’s my manifesto: I love pop music. I love hooks and melodies. I love a well-produced record. And there are plenty of other non-mandatory qualities I love as well: handclaps, vocal harmonies, horn and string arrangements, duets, clever lyrics, depth of feeling, storytelling, a danceable beat. And perhaps unusually, I love these things regardless of whether they are popular or esoteric, cool or uncool.

I believe the only way to judge the quality of a song is by the song itself. It doesn’t matter if the song was written by the 19-year-old who sings it or a 40-year-old Swedish guy. It doesn’t matter if the band formed organically or was put together by a PR mastermind. It doesn’t matter if the artist looks like a model or someone’s dad. (Notice all of these distinctions are about bands, not songs.) A good song stands on its own and is authentic regardless of whether its by the Monkees or the Beatles, the Arctic Monkeys or Ed Sheehan.

I intend for this blog to function as a musical diary where I can explore my devotion to melodic, catchy pop music. I want to write about the songs, albums, and artists I love. And I want to help reclaim the kinds of songs and artists who might be easily dismissed as lightweight or mainstream. For anyone who ends up reading this site, I hope you discover (and rediscover) the glory of pop.

Formative teenage albums meme

Posted on by kristen

People have been posting a list of ten formative teenage albums to Facebook. I decided to flesh out my list with a little anecdote about each one.

The Beatles — Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

In sixth grade, I watched the Beatles Anthology television series with my parents and was immediately obsessed. Even though I had been listening to the Beatles since the womb, it had been mostly the early stuff and oldies station fare. Digging out my parents’ vinyl copy of Sgt. Pepper was a revelation: the colors, the enormous gatefold sleeve, the lyrics printed on the back like a personal message. I was floored, and I hadn’t even listened to it yet. I remember seriously wondering if anyone else was aware that such a treasure existed. It felt like it had been waiting there just for me.

Oasis — (What’s the Story) Morning Glory

Following on the footsteps of my Beatles obsession, I naturally latched on to the latest British group who sounded kind of like them. There was a lot about Oasis that I was really too young to understand, but Noel’s melodies made my heart want to burst even then. Aside from picking up a copy of Definitely Maybe a few years later, I mostly relegated Oasis to the pleasant 90s nostalgia bin of my mind. But a few years ago — nearly twenty years after buying Morning Glory — I experienced a profound Oasis renaissance, and they are now possibly my favorite band. Good job 12-year-old self!

Pink Floyd — Dark Side of the Moon

Early high school marked a move from oldies to classic rock. I can remember listening to Dark Side for the first time alone in my room at night. When I got to Brain Damage with its crazy laughter, I was legitimately creeped out. I had a real feeling that I was discovering something bizarre and dangerous. It’s strange to think how solitary music listening was for me at that time. Other kids didn’t necessarily share my interests (or I was too shy to know that they did), and there was no internet to calibrate my feelings and reactions against. Listening to some of the most famous albums of all time felt like an exploration.

Barry Manilow — Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits

Yes, really. My sister and I would fire up Super Mario Kart on SNES, mute the TV, and listen to our parents’ records on their old turntable while we raced. (I was Toad, she was Koopa. We made up elaborate stories about a love triangle with the Princess.) This Barry record was our favorite. We kind of laughed at it, but we kind of loved it too. Nancy said that it was one of her life goals to see Barry live in concert, and in 2008 we made it happen. Barry was a true showman and a class act.

The Old 97s — Fight Songs

Perhaps more so than any one album, a formative influence on my music listening was radio. I grew up on the edge of the New York metro area, and my dad often listened to WNEW. It was long past its prime and had settled into a “classic rock, classic jocks” format. But on Sunday nights, some ghost of its freeform past still haunted the airwaves. I got turned on to Idiot’s Delight with Vin Scelsa and was amazed to learn that a whole world of music existed beyond the mainstream. This Old 97s record, particularly the track “What We Talk About,” was a Scelsa favorite and one of the first albums I bought that no else I knew had even heard of.

Aimee Mann — Bachelor No. 2 or, The Last Remains of the Dodo

I spent the second half of high school working at the local big box music store. It was the best job I’ve ever had for a lot of reasons, including access to music and people who loved music. We had a lot of regulars, and one of them, who we called the Iceman, was obsessed with Aimee Mann. Ice was in his 30s, allegedly worked as an embalmer, and loved to prosthelytize for his favorite artists. He made me an Aimee Mann/Michael Penn mixtape (that I still have). Aimee’s music was the perfect synthesis of the great pop melodies that I had always loved with super smart and cutting lyrics. Ice was a strange guy, but I have always been grateful for the music he shared with me.

The Velvet Underground — The Velvet Underground and Nico

It’s hard to imagine there was a time when the only ways to hear music were to hear it on the radio or to buy it. I was so intrigued by this album that I purchased the complete Velvets box set from BMJ Music Club just so I could find out what it was all about. Of all the albums I’ve listed here, this is the one that I like least as an adult. (Though I still think the Nico tracks are the best.) And if I’m being honest, I kept listening mostly out of a sense of obligation and a desire to be cool. These days, I much prefer Loaded.

Belle and Sebastian — If You’re Feeling Sinister

I bought the first four Belle and Sebastian albums as part of one glorious find in the used CD bin at my job. I was firmly into the phase where I was just buying stuff I had heard was cool, without even knowing what it sounded like first. (This was one of the perks of being 17 and cashing your paycheck at the grocery store.) I got lucky this time. B&S sounded a bit like the 60s groups I adored, but they sang about weirdos and sex. And who would have guessed that their best days were yet to come?

Dire Straits — Making Movies

Jeff was my boss at the store where I worked, and he was the first adult I had a relationship with who wasn’t a family member or teacher. He was working retail while pursuing a teaching degree. And while I’m sure supervising a bunch of teenagers at a retail store was not his dream job, he managed to both laugh at the absurdities he had to deal with and treat everyone with kindness. Jeff mentioned that he loved this album, so I bought it. It’s got beautiful guitar work and the lyrics (especially on side 1) have a wonderful cinematic grandeur.

Weezer — Weezer (Green Album)

I was a little young for first-wave Weezer, but I hopped on the bandwagon when Green came out. I was in love with a guy who loved Weezer, so what else was I going to do? Luckily this is a fantastic pop album, and it probably helped not having the baggage of early Weezer fandom to overcome. My most visceral memory of this album is listening during the summer before I left for college. I was playing Final Fantasy 3 on my by now hopelessly out-of-date SNES, again with the volume down, listening to this CD on repeat. Oh, to have that kind of free time again!