Posts Tagged ‘oldsongs’

Bob Dylan “Soon After Midnight”

I saw Bob Dylan live for the first time on the night before Thanksgiving. It was just one of those things where I knew I had to see him at least once, and the opportunity came up. I’m glad I did, it was as good as a show can be while also not quite being the thing I’d ideally want it to be. I did my research and knew exactly what I was getting into, so I couldn’t be disappointed that he no longer plays guitar, his voice is shot, and while he’ll play “Tangled Up In Blue,” it won’t really sound like “Tangled Up In Blue.” I don’t mean to damn with faint praise here: It’s a show that finds its own unique path to being good and fulfilling that doesn’t have a lot to do with familiarity.

I got to know the newer songs in Dylan’s set in advance of the show, and in doing that, fell in love with “Soon After Midnight” from his 2012 record Tempest. It’s a gentle ballad with touches of doo-wop and country music, and sounds like a scene lit with Hollywood moonlight. It starts off rather romantic – “I’m searching for phrases to sing your praises / I need to tell someone” – but as the song moves along, his words become increasingly sinister. I didn’t notice this at first. It’s so easy to get caught up in the enchanting effect of this song that even a phrase like “they’re lying there dying in their blood” seems lovely in context. The irony is intentional, of course: Dylan’s selling the earnest sentimentality and soft side of a brutal man. So even if it’s preceded by a cruel and dismissive line, the concluding phrase “it’s soon after midnight and I don’t want nobody but you” still comes off as a moment of genuine tenderness.

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George Michael “I Want Your Sex (Part One)”

If you’re in your late 30s or early 40s, you almost certainly heard this song on the radio or MTV as a kid around your parents and felt super awkward about it, even if you didn’t really know what sex was. I remember it being an “after hours” thing on pop radio at some point in the late ‘80s, but then, if I was listening to “after hours” pop radio when I was, like, 8 years old and it was probably around 9:00 at night, then what exactly was the point?

“I Want Your Sex” is one of the most musically and lyrically radical major pop hits of the 1980s; a sex-positive funk tune that shifts seamlessly between minimalism and maximalism, and effortlessly conveys a supremely horny vibe on a purely musical level. George Michael was running with ideas that Prince had introduced circa 1999 and refined with “Kiss,” which was a hit a little bit before this track was recorded, but his feeling is very different – confident and unabashedly sexual, but considerably more frustrated. The entire song is George Michael laying out a very persuasive and respectful case for why you should have sex with him. He’s basically saying “Hey, I’m so HORNY I’m gonna BURST but no pressure, OK, sex is a beautiful thing and I respect you and need your consent and want you to have a great time.” The miracle of this song is that it’s kind and generous and loving, but also makes you feel the urgency of George Michael’s raging boner. The sweet-talking is totally sincere, but so is this guy’s powerful urge to fuck, and so you get this song that’s seductive, sweet, and comical all at the same time.

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Depeche Mode “Condemnation”

“Condemnation” is Depeche Mode playing against type, at least on a surface level. It’s essentially a gospel ballad, and the synthesizers and drum machines that define most of their work are either sidelined or minimized in the arrangement. Whereas most of their work is programmed and produced in a way that doesn’t attempt to simulate the notion of a “live” performance, “Condemnation” very much sounds like music played in a physical space. You can hear the room, and the reverberations of the snare hits. Dave Gahan’s vocal performance seems very physical too, with his inflections and stresses suggesting a strained, grimacing face.

As much as “Condemnation” is an atypical Depeche Mode song, it’s representative of Martin Gore’s strengths as a songwriter. Lyrically, it’s a good example of his obsession with guilt and shame. There’s two ways of reading this one: It’s either a song from the perspective of someone who’s literally been put on trial for a crime he says he hasn’t committed but is resigning himself to condemnation, or it’s from the perspective of someone who is hyperbolically imagining themselves as being persecuted in this way. Either way, it’s about making yourself a martyr, and it’s a very Martin Gore sort of pessimistic melodramatic fantasy.

It’s also a fine example of Gore’s intriguing way around a melody. Gore’s melodies are strong and accessible, but always veer slightly out of expected paths. I wonder how much of this is just his natural instincts, or if he writes a more expected melody first and revises it a bit to make it more interesting and distinctive. It’s all rather subtle, but it’s a key part of what makes his songs work, particularly when he’s venturing into the realm of genre pastiche as he is here.

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Sun Ra and His Intergalactic Myth Science Solar Arkestra “Sleeping Beauty”

“Sleeping Beauty” isn’t quite like any other piece of music I’ve ever encountered. It sounds like moonlight, and feels like floating outside of yourself. It moves at a very languid pace over the course of 12 minutes between sections led by Sun Ra’s electric piano that feel weightless and serene and other parts focused on the horn section that suggest a sort of spacey grandeur that has somehow manifested itself on earth. The recording sounds as though it was largely improvised in the middle of the night, and I love how some parts can feel a bit tentative while others, like a lot of the vocal parts led by June Tyson, are like moments of genuine inspiration. This is an extraordinarily calm piece of music, and even in the context of Sun Ra’s larger discography of music aiming for transcendental cosmic experiences, it stands out as a window to some better, more beautiful world. Its existence feels like a miracle to me.

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Toadies “Possum Kingdom”

I’m with Arianna on this one. “Possum Kingdom” is also my favorite song from the perspective of a vampire, my favorite song that makes the phrase “do you wanna die?” sound like a flirt, and my favorite song about seducing someone with the promise of immortality. And look, “Possum Kingdom” doesn’t have much or any competition in any of those categories, but even if it did it would almost certainly still be the best.

On a surface level, “Possum Kingdom” is a generic alt-rock song, but as much as it is a very representative example of the form, it also feels like an outlier. Alt-rock rarely had this sort of seedy swagger, and generally stayed closer to vaguely morose grandiosity or a stoned, vaguely ironic or shrugged-off version of “rocking out.” The Toadies’ sound isn’t quite ~sexy~ but it’s definitely sexual, and the song is one of very few notable mid-‘90s alt-rock hits to be sung from the perspective of a person who believes they are sexy. (Low self-esteem was very big back then.) There’s a heavy touch of black comedy to the lyrics, but the music doesn’t totally undermine the character’s predatory horniness, and the result is a bit like a ‘90s version of Twilight with Trent from Daria cast as the hunky teen vampire.

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Bush “Swallowed”

Gavin Rossdale has had an extremely charmed life, but it’s still a bit unfortunate for him that his band arrived in exactly the window of time when they would get the least respect. Worse still that those biases have carried on long after people stopped caring about whether or not they were another corporate rock Nirvana rip-off fronted by a guy who looked like a male model, but more handsome. I am certain that if Razorblade Suitcase came out today, it would be warmly received, and the people most likely to have dismissed it back in the day would be the first to welcome a record so full of dynamics cribbed from Nirvana, Pixies, and PJ Harvey records that they just went ahead and had Steve Albini record it for them. In 1996, this type of music was in surplus and we could shrug off the uncool stuff. In 2016, there’s a lot more of it than there was for a long time, but it was a loooong draught.

Rossdale was great with dynamics and hooks, but pretty iffy when it came to lyrics. It’s hard to imagine that the bizarre syntax and mangled phrases of Sixteen Stone were written by someone for whom English is their first language, but it was the ‘90s and it didn’t take much for a hot dude to make a word salad like “Glycerine” seem deep to teenagers. With this in mind, “Swallowed” is notable for two reasons: 1) The lyrics are actually pretty good for the most part 2) they’re direct and vulnerable in a way that Rossdale habitually deflected up until that point. He’s singing about feeling alone in a crowd, and just wanting to be with the one person he can’t be with. When he sings “I’m with everyone and yet not,” he sounds a bit guilty for not appreciating the good times he’s supposed to be having. Ignore the biographical details about him feeling shitty on a tour for a massively successful album, and this is an incredibly easy song to relate to, especially if you’ve ever endured a long distance relationship. At the end of the song, he’s done being oblique and just says exactly what he means: “I miss the one that I love a lot.” It’s a very real moment from a guy everyone assumed was just a hunky poseur.

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Everclear “Electra Made Me Blind”

There are so many reasons Everclear do not get the respect they deserve, and some of them are maybe fair: Art Alexakis has a reputation for being an abrasive dick, and they really threw themselves into the deep end of the corporate rock market with gusto at a time when naked careerism was reviled. Then there are unfair reasons, like weird ageism about Alexakis being noticeably older than everyone else in the scene, and a bias against their subject matter focusing almost exclusively on lower middle class people who’d proudly claim to be “white trash.”

Everclear arrived at the beginning of a major class divide in rock music that’s essentially torn the genre apart and made it less relevant over time – there’s the indie-derived music on one side for the educated and well-off, and the aggressive, unapologetically hedonistic, or unambiguously uplifting rock aimed at the radio and working class people. As you move into the 00s, the yuppie side of rock music starts to disown “rock,” and move away from its signifiers. Kid A is ground zero for that, and we haven’t seen the end of it. For a great many people, rock music – along with mainstream country – is kinda embarrassing because it’s the music of the uncool poor and working class. But classism is a thing we rarely talk about in the United States, so people rarely have the self-awareness to notice they have this bias in the first place. Sure, people will be all about Bruce Springsteen’s working class boosterism, but almost anything speaking for that audience since the early ‘90s is somehow beneath contempt.

“Electra Made Me Blind” sets the stage for Sparkle & Fade, a record full of songs about broke losers and recovering junkies trying to make it the world. Alexakis’ character is leaving a small town and heading for a “new life in old L.A.,” and he’s fighting through reflexive pessimism just enough to feel good about things. It’s not a complicated song but the dynamics are very impressive – the band makes every moment feel as urgent and physical as possible, and the refrain of “I KNOW! I KNOW! I KNOW!” sounds like Alexakis banging his head against a wall in frustration. The main feeling of this song is the thrill of escape, and listening to it on its own feels like freezing yourself in a moment of high hopes and ambition before having to find out what all the obstacles ahead of you are going to be.

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The Tragically Hip “Ahead By A Century”

Like pretty much all other Americans, I had ignored The Tragically Hip through their entire career. I knew about them. I knew they were hugely popular in Canada, but were at best a cult act in the United States. I was dimly aware of a song of theirs called “Butts Wigglin’” in the ‘90s, and must have decided they were basically another Barenaked Ladies and did not give them any thought at all until just recently, when they played their final run of shows after their frontman Gord Downie was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor. After reading a few rather heartfelt tributes to the band, I decided to actually listen to them. As it turns out, they’re…not like the Barenaked Ladies. Their music generally falls into this post R.E.M./U2 aesthetic – really, more like Live than either of those two bands – but even the most blah songs are lifted up by Downie’s words, which are genuinely poetic and thoughtful, and uniquely obsessed with Canadian culture and life. The song that really grabbed me and got under my skin was “Ahead By A Century,” which turns out to be their biggest chart hit. It’s a little like encountering R.E.M. for the first time in 2016 and being like “wow, you guys, this ‘Losing My Religion’ song is just terrific!” But that’s how it happened.

“Ahead By A Century” has a peculiar emotional resonance, mainly because the band is mixing overt sentimentality with this sort of oblique tone. The main guitar part is lovely but would be extremely cloying if it weren’t played in an open tuning that brightens the first half of the riff but darkens the hammered notes at the end. Downie’s words fall in an intriguing gap between the universal – small moments in our youth that in retrospect are crucial to our development into adulthood – and the enigmatic in their strange specificity. You relate to the broader experience of having had experiences, but it’s hard to say what these particular vignettes are supposed to add up to. But then, if someone pushed you to explain why odd little moments from your own life have stuck with you, you’d probably have a hard time explaining them too.

The most ambiguous thing about “Ahead By A Century” is the chorus, and the question of who Downie is addressing, and what “you are ahead by a century” actually means. It’s such an evocative phrase – self-effacing and guilt-ridden, but also full of awe for whoever it is he’s singing about. This is never resolved in the song, but he adds “and disappointing you is getting me down” at the end of the last chorus, which at least clarifies that the phrase is intended to communicate a feeling of inadequacy. It’s such a potent feeling, but Downie doesn’t oversell it. He’s presenting a complicated set of feelings but refuses to connect the dots, just trusting the listener to recognize this pattern of thoughts and emotions.

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Belinda Carlisle “Circle in the Sand”

Did you know that the same guy who co-wrote this song and other Belinda Carlisle hits like “Heaven Is A Place On Earth” is also responsible for co-authoring the majority of the Lana Del Rey catalog (including “Shades of Cool,” “Summertime Sadness,” “West Coast,” “Young & Beautiful,” and all of Honeymoon), plus “You Get What You Give” by New Radicals, “Falling Into You” by Celine Dion, “I Follow Rivers” by Lykke Li, “White Flag” by Dido, “Loud Places” by Jamie xx, and “Good to Love” by FKA Twigs? His name is Rick Nowels, and it’s shocking that he’s not more well known, particularly as he’s become this go-to collaborator for indie-identified artists who want to have crossover hits.

“Circle in the Sand,” co-written by Nowels with Ellen Shipley, was one of his earliest hits, and song that cast Carlisle in a new light. Carlisle’s work in the Go-Go’s traded on youthful exuberance and a punk/new wave approach to bubblegum pop, but her solo work – and this song in particular – took the sort of broad, romantic yearning she did so well and nudged it in a darker, witchier direction. There’s a massive Stevie Nicks influence on this song, from the melody and arrangement on down to Carlisle’s voice, which gets a bit raspier than usual. Nowels had actually worked with Nicks prior to writing for Carlisle, so it makes sense that this influence would carry over, and this music came out around the same time as Fleetwood Mac’s Tango in the Night, which has a very similar aesthetic mixing rock mysticism with high-gloss late ‘80s production.

I love the way the melodies in “Circle in the Sand” seem to move in circles, so much that if the song gets stuck in my head – which it does very often – it sorta loops around without moving into a bridge. This motif works really well in songs about romantic love, gently suggesting a one-track mind, or endless devotion. Carlisle’s vocal performance is so earnest that it’d be hard to read this as any kind of dark obsession. The longing in this song is so pure; the only negative feeling is the drag of being separated for any length of time.

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Pavement “Old to Begin”

I took art classes at Pratt on weekends in my senior year of high school, and took the train down to Manhattan from where I grew up in the suburbs. Not long after Brighten the Corners came out, I developed a routine upon arriving at Grand Central. As soon as the door of the Metro North train opened, I’d start the album on “Stereo,” with its wobbling intro shifting into a mellow strut. I’d play the album through on my way to Bleecker Street, and like clockwork, “Old to Begin” would start up as I got out of the subway train and walked up to the street. I heavily associate “Old to Begin” with that visual, and the feeling of being a teenager so hyped up about New York City and art and music. (Still my three favorite things!) I don’t think I felt ~cool~, but I definitely felt cooler than I’d ever been, and just wanted to soak up as much of Stephen Malkmus’ casual genius and effortlessly chill in the hope that I could be even a little more like that. (Still a thing I’m trying to do!)

Malkmus was 30 when Brighten the Corners was recorded, and it’s pretty clear from the lyrics that he was thinking a lot about aging, and what aspects of adulthood and domesticity were appealing to him, and what just seemed like an empty ritual. He’s thinking about a lot of things that inspire a lot of anxiety and tension in other people, but at most, there’s only traces of those feelings on Brighten. It’s not about the fear of growing older, but rather what happens when you’re old enough to feel comfortable being yourself, and relax and go with the flow a bit. Everything on the record sounds sunny and nonchalant, even when he drifts into moments of doubt or regret. Music is rarely so well-adjusted, with every note, thought, image, and feeling given weight, but also a sense of appropriate perspective.

“Old to Begin” is loosely about a young person’s idea of feeling old, which is usually melodramatic self-deprecation, or reaching for a status that hasn’t been attained just yet. There’s a nice sturdy sway to the rhythm of this song – it doesn’t quite convey swagger, but it does get across a playful confidence. There’s a litany of minor complaints in the lyrics, but the sound shrugs it all off, and nudges in the direction of some bolder, brighter feeling.

And underneath all that, “Old to Begin” is a very low-key breakup song. He’s telling you that he’ll “set you back” in the chorus, and proposes a mutually beneficial end to a relationship: “Time came that we drifted apart and found an unidentical twin.” I’ve always liked that line because there’s no ill will in it at all, just this acknowledgment that a relationship has run its course, and that it doesn’t have to be a sad thing. From his perspective, they both need something challenging and new, and he doesn’t want to get in the way. I can see how being told this could be infuriating, but I think it’s ultimately very thoughtful and kind.

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Belly “Puberty”

I have long associated the sound of this sound with the beginning of spring, and the first warmish, sunny days after weeks of winter greyness. The days when you see a lot of people willing the day into actual summer, and running around dressed like it’s the middle of July. There’s a sunny sound to “Puberty,” particularly in the chords and wordless vocal melodies, but there’s a slight chill to it too, and the rhythm at the start sounds slightly tentative, like the song is peeking out and looking for permission to gallop and strut.

Tanya Donnelly’s voice is what really makes this song, though. I love the way she sounds hopeful and a little coy on the verses, like she’s heading into some unknown situation with cautious optimism. I suppose that’s why it’s called “Puberty” – it’s the cusp of adulthood, and that all seems great except for everything that’s awkward and weird, which is a majority of it. The lyrics on the chorus and bridge are cryptic but lovely, with Donnelly imagines having deliberate control over some magical light. The contrast is clever – the rest of the song is about feeling uncertain, and the part that’s most emphatic is about imagining agency, power, and meaning.

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Enon “Conjugate the Verbs”

The structure of “Conjugate the Verbs” is so dynamic that it feels volatile, as though the song is a building that’s collapsing one floor at a time. Every time the chorus kicks in it seems like the bottom drops out of the song, and the plunging sensation is both thrilling and terrifying. The song is all about that moment, and as cryptic as the lyrics get, the feeling of them is keyed into a sense of relief that something is being – or has been – destroyed.

It’s probably the latter, since most of these lyrics are written in the past tense. (The provocative opening line – “she’s on an unconscious mission to destroy you” – could be an ongoing concern.) The line that always lingers in my head is the chorus, “when we were 12 or 22,” partly because I like the way that disparity in age undermines its nostalgia. It’s so specific yet entirely vague, just random times in a past that’s not worth holding on to.

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Helium “What Institution Are You From?”

If you pressed me at any point in the past 20 years or so to name the sexiest songs I know, this Helium track is one of the first things that would come to mind. A lot of it is in the bass groove and the thick, strange atmosphere of the recording. Some of it is in Mary Timony’s voice, which switches between this disaffected “cool girl” tone and a breathy, angelic tone. And I’d be lying to you if I didn’t admit that a bit of it had to do with the weird mix of anxiety and desperation in it, and the implication that this song could be coming from someone in a literal mental institution. There’s something very damaged and sordid and intense about this song, and that bleakness is kinda sexy to me.

The way Timony says the title phrase sounds very glib, very “whatever.” It could just be mean-spirited flirtation, a cruel parody of pick-up line. I love the way the verses are kinda aimless and dead-eyed, but the emotions become more urgent when the chorus clicks in. She’s basically singing about having a crush on someone you don’t really like and makes you feel bad, but you feel powerless around them and that is calming in some way. She’s indecisive, and unsure about how much agency she has in anything. “Everything that I do makes me want you,” she sings. “Aren’t I supposed to?” It’s not surprising to me now that I connected with this song so much as a teenager – it’s such a great evocation of having no idea what to make of your attraction to other people, and just figuring that all sorts of shitty feelings are just how it’s meant to be.

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10,000 Maniacs “Candy Everybody Wants”

“Candy Everybody Wants” is an essentially condescending song, but when I was a teenager, I slightly misheard some key lyrics in a way that made it much more so. Each time Natalie Merchant sang “so their minds” I heard “southern minds,” so it turned into this song about how everyone in the south is a hateful rube, and being a New Yorker listening to a band of New Yorkers, I just rolled with that. Thankfully, I was wrong about that.

The song is, in fact, a cheerful parody of cynicism, in which Natalie Merchant sings about a culture that thrives on indulging vice. The main hook is a shrug: “Hey! Give ‘em what they want.” The quasi-Motown arrangement makes it all sound fun and breezy, like the song could literally just be about candy. To further hammer it home, “Candy Everybody Wants” is structured so that it’s basically three different chorus hooks in rotation, because people like hooks, and hey, give ‘em what they want, right?

It’s hard to imagine a song like this being a hit now, or anyone even a little bit like Natalie Merchant being a pop star in this era. Even in a period when the internet media is full of think pieces informed by social justice rhetoric, anyone as Pollyanna-ish, prim, and politically didactic as 10,000 Maniacs-era Merchant would have trouble catching on in the indie world, much less crossing over to the mainstream. (The intro to the video of this song actually includes the phrases “marginalized member of a spectator democracy” and “manufactured consent.”) But I think this song is very relevant right now, as this “hey, let’s shamelessly indulge the worst in people” has become the guiding principle of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy, and if we’re being honest, most of the internet economy. Merchant is asking the listener to consider who benefits from vice, and everyone being distracted from the incredibly boring important things in society. But asking is all she’s doing. Everything else is just giving you what you want.

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Steely Dan “Black Cow”

Music is an abstract medium, but “Black Cow” sounds unmistakably like midtown Manhattan, or at least a somewhat romantic notion of it. There’s just something in the sway of it, the architecture of the chords, the way the tones evoke chrome, neon, and concrete. It insinuates classiness and grime in equal measures. It just matches.

The lyrics of “Black Cow” are firmly rooted in Manhattan, and are just as vivid as the sounds. Donald Fagen’s character in this song is a put-upon guy who’s trying to get out of a toxic relationship with some party girl with ambiguous addictions and a lot of other dudes on the side. Or so he says – Fagen’s men are unreliable narrators, and I think we should take it as a given that this dude is insecure and upset. The song is asking you to give him the benefit of the doubt, so let’s just roll with that.

Fagen’s lyrics draw a lot out of his characters with only a few careful details. The song starts out with the guy noticing her at Rudy’s, a dive bar in Hell’s Kitchen that actually still exists. She’s high again, and he’s disappointed in her, but he quickly ends up back at her place, where his issues with her are right there on the counter – her little black book, and her “remedies.” I think he’s jealous, sure, but I think the main frustration comes out later in the song: “I’m the one who must make everything right / talk it out till daylight.” He’s exhausted by having to take care of her, and the benefits of that – the sex, really – isn’t the draw that it used to be.

In the chorus, he takes her to a diner and breaks up with her, admitting that he doesn’t care anymore why she’s doing any of this. He’s not angry, just tired and bored. I like that there’s so little contempt for the woman in this song – the worst you get is just weary condescension. I get the impression that even if he thinks she’s being weak or self-destructive, he respects her and kinda wishes he was like her. The whole song is like that shrug older people have to do around the youngish: “Yeah, that all sounds like fun, but I’ve got to be responsible and go to work.” He knows it’s time to call it off when the vicarious thrill of being around a hot young trainwreck is gone.

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Straitjacket Fits “Brittle”

“Brittle” comes the perspective of someone knows they’re being selfish and petty and have decided to really lean into it, mostly because it’s emotionally honest but partly because they know it’s kinda funny to be so pathetic. A lot of Elvis Costello songs are written with this point of view, and Shayne Carter even kinda sounds like him here. It’s amazing how long it took me to realize that, actually – I’ve known this song well for over 20 years and that only hit me a few weeks ago.

Carter is singing to an ex, and making a dubious case for why they ought to get back together, or something like that. I’m not even sure if this guy even wants that, so much as he wants to make it clear that no one needs it more than him. That’s the exact word he uses – it. The love, the spark, the sex, the feeling of being wanted? Maybe all of it, who can say. He’s ambiguous in the details, but adamant about wanting it, and is off-handedly spiteful about his competition: “Just because another’s words can touch you better / don’t make ‘em measure up to mine.” I love that bit of ego there, because it’s what you do when you’re grasping for any reason to feel better than your rival. Evidence is unnecessary, you just need to believe that you’re better because, well, you’re biased.

The bridge is where the song reveals what’s really going on in this dude’s head, and wrings a bit of soulfulness of it: “Buried deep, there’s a hope that I remain so endless and boundless, you spin when you dream.” All he really wants is to matter to this other person, and he doesn’t care whether it’s good or bad. It’s just to leave a mark, because he doesn’t want to be alone in thinking this was a significant connection. It’s “an eye for an eye,” but for romantic jealousy. And of course this ends on a coy, passive-aggressive note: “Anyway, could be something you’d be best off to consider.”

Yeah, I love this song. And I hate that I see some version of myself in it.

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Björk “5 Years”

I’ve only seen Björk perform once, at the Capitol Ballroom in Washington, D.C. in 1998 on the Homogenic tour. I still have some very clear memories of this show, and one of them surfaces every time I hear this song: When she got to the chorus and sang “you can’t handle love,” she would wave her hands, as if to say to the audience – “no no no, YOU can handle love, I’m singing about this other lame dude.” It has always struck me as a very charming and generous gesture.

“5 Years” is about feeling totally exasperated by someone’s fear of commitment, and pitying them for it. I like that as contemptuous as this song gets, it’s rooted in genuine concern for this man: “You’re the one who’s missing out / but you won’t notice til after 5 years / if you live that long! / you will wake up all loveless.” There are a lot of songs, particularly over the past decade and a half, that are brutal and petulant in how they address rejection, and a lot of the time I just think “Well, I can see why that didn’t work out.” But “5 Years” comes from a place of emotional maturity, and it’s less about telling someone how awful they are, and more about being completely disappointed by a person you actually love.

Björk’s performance on this track is so wonderfully expressive, especially as it goes along and she puts this guttural growl into emphasis words: “I’m so BORRRRRED with COWAAAARRRDS!!!” I love the way she refuses to blame herself for this guy’s fears and flaws, and how the song is just her impatiently waiting for someone to get on her level. Like most of the songs on Homogenic, the track juxtaposes lovely strings with deliberately ugly electronic noise that sounds jagged and violent, and this mirrors the feeling of lyrics and vocal perfectly – simultaneously gracefully serene and furious. By the end of the song, she’s demanding to know what’s so scary about love, and daring him to give it a shot. It’s so emotionally raw, but it’s also as self-possessed and self-respecting as a “baby, come back!” sentiment can get in a pop song.

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Siouxsie and the Banshees “Kiss Them for Me”

“Kiss Them for Me” is a song about the life and death of Jayne Mansfield, full of specific references to her career and public persona. But more than that, it’s a song about glamor that can give the listener a contact high sensation of glamorousness. The music, which pulls in elements of bhangra, hip-hop, dance music, and orchestral pop, has a slick, trebly tone that feels like being sucked into a fantasy world where everything is gleaming and perfect. It’s like every beat and note is coated in glitter.

A lot of Siouxsie’s music and art is in some way about embracing forms of glamor, and creating an alternate reality for yourself. I’ve never felt like this was an option for me, given the circumstances of my body and life, but when I listen to “Kiss Them for Me,” I am grateful to feel it vicariously. Which is funny, because the song itself is doing the same thing, about a woman who willed herself into this glamorous life. Maybe glamor is really just some idea of a life that’s more beautiful than your own, and claiming a part of it for yourself. You need to be defiant. I’m too willing to accept my lot, but people like Jayne and Siouxsie aren’t, so they remake themselves and the world around them. Even Jayne’s gruesome car crash death, which Siouxsie sings about in the fourth verse, becomes lovely and romantic.

“Kiss Them for Me” is one of those songs in which the best hook is not the chorus itself, but rather the pre-chorus – “nothing or no one will ever make me let you down.” The melody on this part is just glorious, and I love the way it seems to ascend dramatically up to the proper chorus, as if that’s some other physical plane. I imagine that it’s like walking up a staircase to a terrace overlooking some incredible view of a city, and looking down at everything, feeling like you’re truly someone special.

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Daryl Hall “Something In 4/4 Time”

This is a track from Daryl Hall’s Sacred Songs, which he made in collaboration with Robert Fripp in 1977 shortly after Fripp worked with David Bowie on ”Heroes”, but was shelved by Hall’s label RCA until 1980 because they figured it was too uncommercial. That last bit is confusing to me because even with Fripp’s atmospheric guitar parts, it’s a fairly straightforward pop-soul record, and the late ‘70s is clearly the time when it would’ve had the greatest commercial impact. At this point in Hall’s career, he’d only had a few hits with John Oates – “Rich Girl” in 1976, “Sara Smile” in 1975, and “She’s Gone” in 1973. He wasn’t quite as defined as he would be in the ‘80s, when the duo had a string of major hits between 1980 and 1982. “Something In 4/4 Time” sounds like a hit to me, so I wonder what RCA didn’t like about it. Was it too rock for an artist who had been previously sold as a soul singer? Was it too meta?

It’s definitely meta. Hall’s lyrics are specifically about trying to appease a record label while holding on to his identity. “You’re selling yourself and it’s a matter of fact,” he sings. “Your love is your life and your life is your act.” He’s being very transparent and self-aware here, but also quite idealistic. The verses start out rather cynical and pragmatic, but he always come to the conclusion that he can only succeed by being himself, and by being truly passionate. Hall’s vocal sounds very confident and optimistic, and you only really get a sense of his doubt on the breakdown, when Fripp plays a solo that contrasts Hall by seeming a bit cold and distant. Fripp makes his guitar seem analytical somehow, like something taking in all of Hall’s data and figuring out what it all means. When it snaps back to the soulful, cheerful hook about knowing you’ve got to make something people can relate to, it’s like Fripp’s guitar has decided that it agrees.

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Eurythmics “Love Is A Stranger”

Annie Lennox is doing her best to warn people off of love in this song, hard-selling the addictive and destructive side-effects of falling in love the way you might advise someone to stay away from crack or heroin. She is so insistent and specific about what it does to you that at some point it feels like a reverse psychology ploy – why yes, I would like to be distorted and deranged and wrenched up and left like a zombie! It sounds a lot more interesting than this totally blah life I’ve got going at the moment.

Dave Stewart’s track is built around this steady pulse that feels overtly sexual, but also paranoid and anxious. It sounds like the obsession Lennox is singing about, suggesting a one track mind that’s plagued by doubt and guilt. There’s flashes of delicacy and loveliness, and Lennox’s voice is often totally gorgeous, but it mostly sounds dark and lurid, like getting inside the mind of someone kinda gross and scary. And I think that’s the point here – you’re supposed to see yourself in this feeling, and recognize how icky and damaged it is. This isn’t really about “love,” of course – love isn’t like this at all – but it’s a very accurate depiction of something it’s often confused with.

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