Entertainment For Lively Minds
Every time it comes around I just can't help myself...
I'm the sort of person that skims around new (or not-heard-before older) music for a while until I hone in one artist/album that really knocks me off my socks (or in the literal world makes me listen to the iPod track playing in my ears instead of having it as incidental music for my own thoughts).
More and more often it's also become a particular song that catches me, and sometimes not even a particular song but a particular moment. A great example has been the second track of M83's album 'Saturdays = Youth'. It's called Kim & Jessie and has a sort of My Bloody Valentine-shoegazer sound to it mixed with eighties pop. There's a drum fill that takes you from the bridge to the chorus (first heard at 0:51) that everytime I hear, no matter where I am or who is around me I have to mimic the drummer's imagined actions.
I'm reminded of that moment in Amadeus when Salieri recalls first reading Mozart's Serenade No. 10 and points a finger to Heaven at the entry of the oboe.
Thought this could be the start of a fun list of particular moments in a song that you can't help, or barely stop yourself, reacting to in a public place by either crying, mimicing, smiling or otherwise making a fool of yourself.
Some of my examples:
Jumpin' Jack Flash - Mick yells "one-two" and the funkiest riff you can imagine pumps through your ears straight into your veins.
Black Star - Thom Yorke almost cries "I keep falling over/I keep passing out when I see a face like you."
Debaser - Frank Black yells "CHEIN!"
Paper Planes - The gunshots (I always have to make a gun hand and jerk gesture even if I'm hiding my fingers in my pockets)
Sweet Child 'o' Mine - The bass line enters to balance the infamous opening riff.
So What - The trumpet blast after every bass line and the final blare taking the song to the next movement.
Wake Up - The mass cry from the band. It seems to be made specifically to be sung in a field with thousands but can be replicated in your head whenever it comes up.
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That M83 album is rather wonderful
As you were.
Burn it Down
Fantastic call to arms, following the radio searching thru the past of rock (Purple),punk (Pistols) and ska (Specials), then with Kevin Rowland shouting: Big Jimmy! (massed yeahs), Al! (massed yeahs), For God's sake, burn it down!
God, it's good. And only 29 years old..............
B*Witched....
At the end of pop-tastic C'est La Vie...
There's the little spoken line "Some people say I fight like me Da as well"
Never fails to induce a grin
Also Townshend's "I saw yer" at the end of Happy Jack
Well, since the Who came up....
Who could resist joining Roger for a bloody good yell in Won't Get Fooled Again? I've only attempted to give voice once, while walking through an industrial area at night, but even miming with it is enough to fire me up. I swagger all the way through "...meet the old boss..." until the end, when I collapse, a breathy and exalted wreck.
And for sheer instrumental mimickry, the beginning of My Bloody Valentine's Only Shallow not only provokes a quick burst of air drumming, but is immediately (and invariably) followed by an enthusiastic show of air guitar prowess, complete with pedal work. Bliss.
Now if only I didn't do this so often in public....
DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH.......
I hear that brother! Only problem with My Bloody Valentine is, its hard to tell how Kevin Shields is making his sounds with the guitar. Doesn't stop me trying to mimic him though!
The teeny weeny feedbackie 'wee'
that heralds the arrival of the solo in Comfortably Numb.
Crass and obvious, I now, but it lifts me onto my toes every time.
A pedant writes...
...it's a pinched or artifical harmonic - or a way of making your guitar "squee" on cue - works best at the usual harmonic locations (frets 4,5,7,12 etc) - crank up the distortion and when you pick the string, immediately touch it with your (pick holding) thumb. See also the solo to "Young Lust". Also see pretty much any poodle haired '80s shredder.
Disclaimer
I am not a U2 fan, all right? But the last minute of the song "the unforgettable fire" makes me throw some kerrazee shapes, if I'm not careful.
OMD's Maid of Orleans has an astonishingly clever drum track that is slightly out of sync with the main tune - I need to make sure that I've "still got it" using fingers, spoons, pens, childrens heads, anything that comes to hand.
Van's final shout of...
"It's too late to stop now!" before the band take it home makes me want to punch the air every time.
False starts....
Do they count....
Listening to the false intro to the Manics "PCP" has me tensed and expectant at the deluge that follows
I have heard it thousands of times
but the drum fill at the end of Paul Kossoffs guitar solo on Alright now.
Also, the ukelele intro to Elvis Costellos The Scarlet Tide.
The first 50 seconds
of "Another Girl, Another Planet" gets me right going.
Velvet Underground - Heard her Call My name
the pause & swift squeal of feedback just after the second chorus
(similar to the Comfortably Numbe comment above, which I fully agree with).
Also, the guitar solo on the BBC Sessions version of Led Zep's Thank You - utterly glorious.
Little Feat - Long Distance Love
The little glissando between the lines
"I wonder, do you know
Do you know you hurt me so"
sends a shiver down my spine every time
"I'm reminded of that moment
"I'm reminded of that moment in Amadeus when Salieri recalls first reading Mozart's Serenade No. 10 and points a finger to Heaven at the entry of the oboe."
Similarly for me, the onset of crippling pretentiousness is provoked by the second verse of ‘Sweaty Betty’ by the Macc Lads.
“I knew that she wanted me to sh*g her, so I stabbed her c*nt wiv me mutton dagger” drawled in a Macclesfield accent brings to mind Wagner’s late stage operas. Like the Lads’ classics which redefined the whole genre of punk, the German’s final masterpieces caused an irreversible change in the course of his chosen form of expression.
Many an idle moment...
has been passed, idly tapping out the thudding drum intro to 'Young Americans'
or, in my case, the drum intro to 'Watcher Of The Skies'
'A howling wind
blows the litter as the rain flows/As street lamps pour orange-coloured shapes through your windows'
Makes me pull my coat tighter around me as the shivers run down my spine