Top 5 of All Time
Via Anarchangel23
Comment with a request, and I'll give you a letter. You post five favorite songs/music videos that start with that letter.
My process was a bit different from his... I started to think about songs not performances. Artists performing their own work are always looking to display a total mastery of their craft: writing and producing. But I read somewhere once that a good artist borrows, a great artist steals outright. One of my favourite movies is The Good Thief and one of my favourite lines is the master burglar describing Pablo Picasso as the greatest thief who ever lived. When an artist covers another's work, they are at once paying homage but also they are taking ownership of that material: I am more you than you could, would or should be.
So I present five songs which have a particular significance to me, by their original artist and by covers. Obviously music is outside of my usual competence as a thinker. Seeing as how I'm lazy, I've just gone ahead and explained things as I understand them: there is no fact checking here. :) Let me know if I got anything too terribly wrong.
Next, by Mort Shuman
Mort Shuman was one of those background figures in the music scene in the 60s and 70s. He composed some pretty big music for the likes of Elvis. Most of this is now forgotten: how ephemeral the works of art are in the age of digital reproduction.
However, my main contact with him came via Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris - which was an English-language career retrospective of Jacques Brel, a very famous Frenchie, who like the next most famous Frenchie, Poirot, is really Belgian.
Brel was my first political education. He had a piercing eye for human weakness and frailty. Brel's work has been appropriated into English by Rod McKuen, and Mort Shuman. McKuen "adapts" Brel, but Shuman is apparently a more faithful translator, hitting closer to the French-language intent. However, having listened to Brel in my patchy French, even there it's pretty clear to me that literal translation of music is impossible.
"Next" is the English language title of "Au Suivant" which literally means "the following". The glimmer of my understanding is that this actually places a slightly different emphasis. Following implies leadership, being next more powerfully implies a dehumanized queue.
First, the Shuman version, although I couldn't find a YouTube video of him performing it, this version is very close to my LP:
And now, the Brel original:
It's clear to me that Shuman's version is resigned, dejected. Brel is still alive with the fire of his anger. Shuman's pain is a ghost, Brel's a constant companion, clawing at his life.
And just for fun, a third version that I hadn't seen before today, but which I think bridges somewhat between these two versions.
For me, this song is not reflective of a personal pain; but it is perhaps one of the earliest glimmerings I had of what real tragedy was, what expression could be given to human experience through music. For me, Brel transcends and exceeds entertainment: this is art.
Norwegian Wood by the Beatles
Perhaps because they've been around my whole life, and then some, I've never had much love for the Beatles. They wrote some catchy jingles, but to my uneducated ear their music sounds simple, their lyrics generally unchallenging daydreams and wish-fulfilment. Pick a beat, write a couple of bars of tune, record. Voila. Their musical genius is undisputed by history, obviously, but their music doesn't speak to me much, if at all.
However, "Norwegian Wood" has crept into my iTunes top 200 playlist through the Cornershop cover. When Shuman translated "Next" into English, that was attended by some musical amendments; the beat is slightly different, the tune has to be gently stretched to fit English rather than French words. It's clearly and unmistakably the same song, but it is also notably different.
See if you can spot any musical difference between the English and Punjabi; I've listened to both a number of times and the differences seem trivial.
After deciding to include this song, I browsed a number of other versions on YouTube, and found that generally they were musically similar. I didn't find any radical reinventions at all. By-and-large, people have even striven to retain the Sitar! While I think this works perfectly for the song, it's so distinctive that if I were trying to steal this song, it's the first thing I'd change.
I presume there are Death Metal covers out there. At least, I hope so.
A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
One musical genre where you'd expect to see a lot of variations and interpretations is in Jazz - the home of "improvisation". Yet, it ain't necessarily so. Jazz works in part on improvisation/extemporization, but it also uses a repertoire of standard variations and flourishes.
I suppose that, broadly, there are two streams of Jazz, which combine in some way in the modern understanding of the genre. The first is from the American South, from New Orleans and elsewhere, which around the 1920s and 1930s gave us Scott Joplin, whose rags contain a lot of Jazz DNA, and the great standards by "Fats" Waller, "Duke" Ellington and others. The second is from show-tunes and white pop music, interpreted by most everyone into the 1920s and 30s: the Jazz age. Rhythmically simpler and slower, lyrically more complete, being essentially songs rather than music without words.
After the 1930s, the sub-types multiplied and recombined, until now I think Jazz is pretty amorphous as a term. But two of my favourite Jazz musicians emerged from that early period. Fats Waller, whose "drag" style of piano playing is unmistakable, and another Frenchman (actually French this time): Stephane Grappelli.
Grappelli was one of the most famous inter-war Jazz musicians, though admittedly ultimately less influential than his partner in crime, Django Reinhardt. His music is far more cohered than a lot of Jazz - he tends not to lose sight of the original melody, making his variations and improvisations accessible, without reducing their virtuosity; something that can't always be said of my other favourite Jazzman, Dave Brubeck. Grappelli was one of the artists I discovered at that precious time, around the end of school.
In the 70s, he recorded five records with the great classical violinist, Yehudi Menuhin; which I have both on vinyl and re-organized on CD. They consciously set out to interpret the Jazz standards that had stood the test of time, and amongst their recordings is one of my very favourite jazz pieces, "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square". It's a bit later than the early period which created Grappelli's style, but still fantastic. I wasn't able to find the collaborative recording, but I did find one by Grappelli.
Now, I was talking about "variations" - and I think that most common ways of re-treating these classic show-tunes is as high-art a cappella versions. There are versions of most standards kicking round by the likes of Manhattan Transfer, and other choirs/choruses. After some browsing, the best one I could find is below:
And just for reference, performed as it was originally intended:
If you now listen to the Grappelli again, you can heard him drifting around the melody from the chorus. To my ear, Grappelli's version has more coherence and feels more lyrical. It feels like more of a piece, and I think the variations make it far more interesting.
No Surprises, by Radiohead
As implied in my off-hand comments about Sitars above, taking ownership of things can mean a radical reinvention. I love Marylin Manson for this. I can't listen to the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" without his cover residing in the background of my mind, and his reinvention of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" just blows the original out of the water. And of course, even Bob Dylan reportedly prefers Jimi Hendrix' version of "All Along the Watchtower" - can you blame him?
But there are some times when ownership can come from doing the same thing better. Amanda Palmer's recent covering of "No Surprises" by Radiohead fits in this category.
I've had a soft spot for Radiohead for about 15 years - since the release of OK Computer. That album is definitional for my generation. I think everyone who's, give-or-take, 30 to 35, owns a copy of this album and loved it when it came out. It was the soundtrack of that summer, and for me personally, it broke and rewrote all the rules about what music should or could be. Dramatic statement perhaps, but I really think that my music wasn't the same afterwards.
The musical motif of the album is Yorke's vocals stretched out over the hugely complex music going on in the background. Listen to the album again, the number of tracks used to make up the sound is staggering in places. I doubt it could be done live, not properly. The whole album feels haunted and somehow empty, despite the layering and complexity. It is an album about loss and emptiness.
The video absolutely drives that point home.
"No Surprises" is one of the simplest tracks on the album, with an almost cheery background to the lyrics, which are haunting and affecting... even if they make little to no sense.
Amanda Palmer's version strips out all of the complexity: just her and her Ukalele. It should destroy it, but instead it rips out everything that could distract you from the emptiness hiding in the centre of the song. You can buy it here.
Nookie by Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit is a band that passed more-or-less under my radar. I was aware of them, but had no love for them - still don't. But I couldn't think about my concept of "song, not performance" without giving a nod to Richard Cheese, taking music and recycling it as Lounge:
Comment with a request, and I'll give you a letter. You post five favorite songs/music videos that start with that letter.
My process was a bit different from his... I started to think about songs not performances. Artists performing their own work are always looking to display a total mastery of their craft: writing and producing. But I read somewhere once that a good artist borrows, a great artist steals outright. One of my favourite movies is The Good Thief and one of my favourite lines is the master burglar describing Pablo Picasso as the greatest thief who ever lived. When an artist covers another's work, they are at once paying homage but also they are taking ownership of that material: I am more you than you could, would or should be.
So I present five songs which have a particular significance to me, by their original artist and by covers. Obviously music is outside of my usual competence as a thinker. Seeing as how I'm lazy, I've just gone ahead and explained things as I understand them: there is no fact checking here. :) Let me know if I got anything too terribly wrong.
Next, by Mort Shuman
Mort Shuman was one of those background figures in the music scene in the 60s and 70s. He composed some pretty big music for the likes of Elvis. Most of this is now forgotten: how ephemeral the works of art are in the age of digital reproduction.
However, my main contact with him came via Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris - which was an English-language career retrospective of Jacques Brel, a very famous Frenchie, who like the next most famous Frenchie, Poirot, is really Belgian.
Brel was my first political education. He had a piercing eye for human weakness and frailty. Brel's work has been appropriated into English by Rod McKuen, and Mort Shuman. McKuen "adapts" Brel, but Shuman is apparently a more faithful translator, hitting closer to the French-language intent. However, having listened to Brel in my patchy French, even there it's pretty clear to me that literal translation of music is impossible.
"Next" is the English language title of "Au Suivant" which literally means "the following". The glimmer of my understanding is that this actually places a slightly different emphasis. Following implies leadership, being next more powerfully implies a dehumanized queue.
First, the Shuman version, although I couldn't find a YouTube video of him performing it, this version is very close to my LP:
Click to viewAnd now, the Brel original:
It's clear to me that Shuman's version is resigned, dejected. Brel is still alive with the fire of his anger. Shuman's pain is a ghost, Brel's a constant companion, clawing at his life.
And just for fun, a third version that I hadn't seen before today, but which I think bridges somewhat between these two versions.
For me, this song is not reflective of a personal pain; but it is perhaps one of the earliest glimmerings I had of what real tragedy was, what expression could be given to human experience through music. For me, Brel transcends and exceeds entertainment: this is art.
Norwegian Wood by the Beatles
Perhaps because they've been around my whole life, and then some, I've never had much love for the Beatles. They wrote some catchy jingles, but to my uneducated ear their music sounds simple, their lyrics generally unchallenging daydreams and wish-fulfilment. Pick a beat, write a couple of bars of tune, record. Voila. Their musical genius is undisputed by history, obviously, but their music doesn't speak to me much, if at all.
However, "Norwegian Wood" has crept into my iTunes top 200 playlist through the Cornershop cover. When Shuman translated "Next" into English, that was attended by some musical amendments; the beat is slightly different, the tune has to be gently stretched to fit English rather than French words. It's clearly and unmistakably the same song, but it is also notably different.
See if you can spot any musical difference between the English and Punjabi; I've listened to both a number of times and the differences seem trivial.
After deciding to include this song, I browsed a number of other versions on YouTube, and found that generally they were musically similar. I didn't find any radical reinventions at all. By-and-large, people have even striven to retain the Sitar! While I think this works perfectly for the song, it's so distinctive that if I were trying to steal this song, it's the first thing I'd change.
I presume there are Death Metal covers out there. At least, I hope so.
A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square
One musical genre where you'd expect to see a lot of variations and interpretations is in Jazz - the home of "improvisation". Yet, it ain't necessarily so. Jazz works in part on improvisation/extemporization, but it also uses a repertoire of standard variations and flourishes.
I suppose that, broadly, there are two streams of Jazz, which combine in some way in the modern understanding of the genre. The first is from the American South, from New Orleans and elsewhere, which around the 1920s and 1930s gave us Scott Joplin, whose rags contain a lot of Jazz DNA, and the great standards by "Fats" Waller, "Duke" Ellington and others. The second is from show-tunes and white pop music, interpreted by most everyone into the 1920s and 30s: the Jazz age. Rhythmically simpler and slower, lyrically more complete, being essentially songs rather than music without words.
After the 1930s, the sub-types multiplied and recombined, until now I think Jazz is pretty amorphous as a term. But two of my favourite Jazz musicians emerged from that early period. Fats Waller, whose "drag" style of piano playing is unmistakable, and another Frenchman (actually French this time): Stephane Grappelli.
Grappelli was one of the most famous inter-war Jazz musicians, though admittedly ultimately less influential than his partner in crime, Django Reinhardt. His music is far more cohered than a lot of Jazz - he tends not to lose sight of the original melody, making his variations and improvisations accessible, without reducing their virtuosity; something that can't always be said of my other favourite Jazzman, Dave Brubeck. Grappelli was one of the artists I discovered at that precious time, around the end of school.
In the 70s, he recorded five records with the great classical violinist, Yehudi Menuhin; which I have both on vinyl and re-organized on CD. They consciously set out to interpret the Jazz standards that had stood the test of time, and amongst their recordings is one of my very favourite jazz pieces, "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square". It's a bit later than the early period which created Grappelli's style, but still fantastic. I wasn't able to find the collaborative recording, but I did find one by Grappelli.
Now, I was talking about "variations" - and I think that most common ways of re-treating these classic show-tunes is as high-art a cappella versions. There are versions of most standards kicking round by the likes of Manhattan Transfer, and other choirs/choruses. After some browsing, the best one I could find is below:
And just for reference, performed as it was originally intended:
If you now listen to the Grappelli again, you can heard him drifting around the melody from the chorus. To my ear, Grappelli's version has more coherence and feels more lyrical. It feels like more of a piece, and I think the variations make it far more interesting.
No Surprises, by Radiohead
As implied in my off-hand comments about Sitars above, taking ownership of things can mean a radical reinvention. I love Marylin Manson for this. I can't listen to the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams" without his cover residing in the background of my mind, and his reinvention of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" just blows the original out of the water. And of course, even Bob Dylan reportedly prefers Jimi Hendrix' version of "All Along the Watchtower" - can you blame him?
But there are some times when ownership can come from doing the same thing better. Amanda Palmer's recent covering of "No Surprises" by Radiohead fits in this category.
I've had a soft spot for Radiohead for about 15 years - since the release of OK Computer. That album is definitional for my generation. I think everyone who's, give-or-take, 30 to 35, owns a copy of this album and loved it when it came out. It was the soundtrack of that summer, and for me personally, it broke and rewrote all the rules about what music should or could be. Dramatic statement perhaps, but I really think that my music wasn't the same afterwards.
The musical motif of the album is Yorke's vocals stretched out over the hugely complex music going on in the background. Listen to the album again, the number of tracks used to make up the sound is staggering in places. I doubt it could be done live, not properly. The whole album feels haunted and somehow empty, despite the layering and complexity. It is an album about loss and emptiness.
The video absolutely drives that point home.
"No Surprises" is one of the simplest tracks on the album, with an almost cheery background to the lyrics, which are haunting and affecting... even if they make little to no sense.
Amanda Palmer's version strips out all of the complexity: just her and her Ukalele. It should destroy it, but instead it rips out everything that could distract you from the emptiness hiding in the centre of the song. You can buy it here.
Nookie by Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit is a band that passed more-or-less under my radar. I was aware of them, but had no love for them - still don't. But I couldn't think about my concept of "song, not performance" without giving a nod to Richard Cheese, taking music and recycling it as Lounge: