Under The Influence: Elliott Smith

At what age did you realise you wanted to become a musician?
Probably five, as soon as I heard The White Album. It was pretty much my inspiration, that and AC/DC.

Elliott Smith: NME (2000)

My friends and I were just starting to teach ourselves guitar in 1980. I was 11 and really into Beatles songs like Julia and Sexy Sadie— cool, kaleidoscopic chord changes. I was totally immersed in trying to figure it all out, and it was slowly happening when some madman gunned down the guide. At first, kids at school acted like it was a hoax. It didn’t seem real at the time, and to be honest, I rarely think of John Lennon as dead. There’s too much life in his music to think of him as gone. For some reason when I think of him now, I usually picture him the way he looked and sounded during the 'hairy and scary' phase, around the time of Abbey Road. Definitely on his own trip. It’s neat when you’re a kid to see people who aren’t scared to change.

My folks were Beatles fans and supposedly played Sgt. Pepper’s for me before I was born. In junior high I thought that A Day in the Life was probably my favourite song ever. Of course, now I have many, many favourite songs, but a lot of them are still Lennon songs. For example:

I’m Only Sleeping

Most songs that bring up wanting to be left alone in some way or another don’t do it as gracefully as this one. It’s cool to express and defend your own interior space without getting all hostile about it; this song makes it seem easy. I also like the way it feels as if it’s pulling itself along with its own momentum instead of being pushed forward heavily with the kick drum.

Tomorrow Never Knows

The first line kinda says it all, really. Again, it’s like he’s describing a solid internal state you can maintain without doing battle with the outside world. Sometimes the most amazing thing to me about Lennon is that he kept a positive identity despite such a cracked upbringing and crazy fame.

Cold Turkey and Jealous Guy

Being this honest can be risky, which, of course, is an excellent idea. It’ll either be sappy or brave. Or both. He chanced it and won. Other people have to write this way all the time. Lennon had access to all floors. Didn’t he also write:

I Am the Walrus

It’s dark, complicated, funny, and popular; it rocks; and it contains the phrase “goo goo g’joob.” Lyrics all over the place. I like songs like this because they activate my imagination. Coherence is fine and all, but it’s not the measure of interesting lyrics. Sonically, this song seems to be coming from a person who just busted out of incarceration somewhere.

Across the Universe

This song is fluid and musical in a way that, to me, overarches all the cultural and political commentary that surrounds his life. A really cool song can sometimes make a dream and reality trade places, maybe for the better.

Elliott Smith: SPIN (Jan 2001)

Five Beatles Cover Version by Elliott Smith

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Ray Davies Reviews Revolver

Paul McCartney was one of the most competitive people I've ever met. Lennon wasn't. He just thought everyone else was sh*t 

Ray Davies (The Kinks) in Revolver: How the Beatles Reimagined Rock 'n' Roll by Robert Rodriguez

As well as that gem, here's another I found via Rodriguez's book - Ray's review of Revolver for Disc and Music Echo Magazine in Aug '66

'Really, it's a load of RUBBISH'

Taxman - It sounds like a cross between the Who and Batman. It's a bit limited, but the Beatles get over this by the sexy double-tracking. It's surprising how sexy double-tracking makes a voice sound.

Eleanor Rigby - I bought a Haydn LP the other day and this sounds just like it. It's all sort of quartet stuff and it sounds like they're out to please music teachers in primary schools. I can imagine John saying: 'I'm going to write this for my old schoolmistress'.

I'm Only Sleeping - It's a most beautiful song, much prettier than 'Eleanor Rigby'. A jolly old thing, really, and definitely the best track on the album.

Love You Too - This sort of song I was doing two years ago--now I'm doing what the Beatles were doing two years ago. It's not a bad song--it's well performed which is always true of a Beatles track.

Yellow Submarine - This is a load of rubbish, really. I take the mickey out of myself on the piano and play stuff like this.

Good Day Sunshine - This'll be a giant. It doesn't force itself on you, but it stands out like I'm Only Sleeping. This is back to the real old Beatles. I just don't think the fans like the newer electronic stuff. The Beatles are supposed to be like the boy next door only better.

Got To Get You Into My Life - It just goes to prove that Britain's jazz musicians can't swing.

Tomorrow Never Knows - Listen to all those crazy sounds! It'll be popular in discotheques. I can imagine they had George Martin tied to a totem pole when they did this!

So, after listening to each track three or four times, the Ray Davies verdict: This is the first Beatles LP I've really listened to in it's entirety but I must say there are better songs on 'Rubber Soul'.

Go to KindaKinks.Net to read the whole review

Remembering Michael Hedges

Today is the anniversary of the death of Michael Hedges, a ground breaking guitarist and incredible composer, all round musician and a Beatles fan. I was going to try to post a few videos, but just about everyone has "embedding disabled by request".

Here's Michael performing

You've Got To Hide Your Love Away with a little help (hinderance?) from the audience
While My Guitar Gently Weeps in a weird hat, just before he died
Come Together from '87 with pigtails, singing McCartney's bassline
Mother's Nature Son with mandolin and violin
Come Together with and without shoes and Pierre Bensusan adding jazzy soloing
a medley of Michael's own tune Gospel and Tomorrow Never Knows from 1985
A Tomorrow Never Knows jam session with Montreux members Darol Anger, Mike Marshall and Todd Philips - Bass
and rocking out on his own composition
Ragamuffin

The Band Who...Stated Their Name Clearly For The Record

Pop Quiz! What do all the following songs have in common?

Unchained Melody - The Righteous Brothers
Space Oddity – David Bowie
Sympathy For The Devil – Rolling Stones
The Weight - The Band
Paranoid – Black Sabbath
Immigrant Song – Led Zeppelin
Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
Smells Like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
She Sells Sanctuary – The Cult
Song 2 – Blur
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Paranoid Android – Radiohead
The Scientist – Coldplay

Answer: None of the titles listed above appear anywhere in the lyrics.

Some bands are serial offenders, taking 'Title Avoidance Syndrome' to the extreme, like My Chemical Romance

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us In Prison
Honey, This Mirror Isn't Big Enough For The Two Of Us
It's Not A Fashion Statement, It's A F***ing Deathwish

or employing it in a tasteful minimalist way like U2

Bad
Wire
Gone
Exit

But these bands are exceptions. One of the most foundational principles for making a song memorable is combining the title with a hooky melody and repeating it enough times for it to worm it's way into your subconscious. Now perhaps if your chorus lyrics are

“I need your love, I need your love, God speed your love to me”

“Woo hoo, well I feel heavy metal”

or even

“Argh argh aaaaaaaaargh....ARGH”*

you might be wise to write something else on the label. But successful songs with obscure titles are a rarity, if for no other reason than people can't buy a record if they have no idea what it's called. The Beatles understood this principle.


Of 211 tracks released by the Beatles, 
199 feature the title prominently.


Of the 12 exceptions, 1 is an instrumental (Flying, the incidental music from Magical Mystery Tour). Five more feature fragments of the title, but not the whole -

Revolution 9 - Number 9, number 9
The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill - hey Bungalow Bill, what did you kill?
She Said She Said - She said, I know what it's like to be dead
Love You To - I'll make love to you, if you want me to
Wild Honey Pie - (the only title that's longer than the lyrics) Honey pie, honey pie

This leaves a grand total of 6 songs that never mention the title

For You Blue
The Inner Light
A Day In The Life
The Ballad Of John And Yoko
Tomorrow Never Knows
Yer Blues

They are almost all album tracks (apart from Ballad Of.., and b-side, The Inner Light). But what's most interesting about this list is that every one is a Lennon or Harrison song. There is not one genuine McCartney song among them**.

If you want to understand Paul's success as a commercial pop writer this is one small, but undeniable, key.

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*Unchained Melody (The Righteous Brothers), Song 2 (Blur) and Immigrant Song (Led Zeppelin) respectively.

**McCartney was a co-writer on Flying, and let's be honest Wild Honey Pie is a weird outtake rather than a song in any traditional understanding of the word.



Read more about the Band Who...

...Kept Expanding
...Lived Outside
...Needed No Introduction
...Were Men Of Few Words

11:14 Get Back (pt. 1)

Get Back is an ultra simple bluesy rocker than manages to transcend the basic raw materials. Saved from being a cheery racist rant by McCartney's characteristic vagueness (the original, allegedly satirical, lyrics about "too many Pakistanis living in a council flat" needing to “get back where they once belonged” were wisely scrapped) it ended up as a cool relentless song about nothing at all.

The simplicity is stunning. There are three chords and essentially one progression, with a few slight variations. The main progression (heard in the verse) is

A, A, D, A


The chorus adds in a G and a D on the last two beats

A, A, D, A (G D)


The final chorus and the chorus before the piano solo alters the progression to

A, A, A, D


The very loose jamming feel creates the illusion of more variations, as different band members miss the G D part at different times and McCartney consistently ignores it on bass.

Lyrically we have only two short verses and a chorus with seven words that repeats the title six times! How do McCartney manage to stop such a simple tune getting monotonous?

First, the melody is in the Mixolydian mode. Though this song is light years from the Beatles 'Indian songs' it does share this scale in common with many of those 'three/two/no chord wonders'. The Inner Light, Tomorrow Never Knows, She Said She Said, Within You Without You, Paperback Writer, Rain all share this scale as do parts of Ticket To Ride and Getting Better. So the unfamiliarity of the scale helps to balance the blandness of the chords.

Second, the vocal melody almost completely ignores the root note. The verse starts on a high E, climbing to a G, before walking down to a low E. The chorus starts on F# again moving up to G before descending to the A root note. So the only root notes in the whole melody are

But, he knew it COULDn't last...
For some CaliFORNia grass...
Get back to where you once belonGED

and the chorus is the only place you come to rest on the root note (and even then, the 2nd and 4th choruses retain an unsettled feeling by ending on a D major chord (the IV).

But that's not all. The 3rd (C#) doesn't appear in the melody AT ALL! It's only due to the occasional A or A7 chord (both of which contain C#) that we hear it as the major sounding mixolydian tonality at all. With the emphasis on E and G, and the passing C natural near the end of the chorus, the melody sounds more like E minor.

In fact the strongest note, apart from the E, is G natural - the b7th in the key of A, and the essential note in the mixolydian mode. (E's are bold and underlined, G's are bold and CAPS)

Jo Jo was a man who THOUGHT HE WAS A loner,
But, he knew it couldn't last.
Jo Jo left his home in TUCSON, ARIZONA,
For some California grass.
Get BACK! Get BACK! Get BACK to where you once belonged.

Melodically speaking this is so 'out there' that it might be better to say that, rather than the melody compensating for boring chords, we need the simple A5, A6 blues boogie part to ground such an unconventional melody.

Ticket 6 is 'stay off the root CHORD'. But now we have a new one - Ticket 50 - 'stay off the root NOTE'. This can produce a restless, 'driving ever onwards' feel.

Try it out.

Next time, we try to decipher the lyrics and find lots more tickets