Fields-good Rock ‘n Roll.

Today’s post is brought to you by convergences, namely those of the last several days:  a recently attended Dean Young lecture about Surrealism, the first literary artifact of which was The Magnetic Fields by Andre Breton & Philippe Soupault; listening to an episode of Ira Glass’s “This American Life” that discussed break ups, & featured Stephen Merritt’s The Magnetic Fields; my persistent love of all pop songs that reference SSRIs.

The Magnetic Fields – I Don’t Want to Get Over You

The Magnetic Fields are quirky, poppy, & like nothing else I can think of, & in true Magnetic Fields fashion, Stephen Merritt brings the strange home with “I Don’t Want to Get Over You.”  It’s a darkly comic break-up ballad, a few notches slower than a killer dance number, & a wryly tongue-in-cheek existentialist anthem.  “I could make a career out of being blue, / I could dress in black & read Camus, / Smoke clove cigarettes & drink Vermouth,” Merritt sings, sliding down to the lowest imaginable notes & the depths of dark irony all at once.

& maybe Merritt’s addressing a crisis of our generation: Everything meaningful’s been cared about, so we make fun of it all, instead.  “I Don’t Want to Get Over You” flips the irony back on itself.  It’s ultimately an ironic look at irony, which points us in the direction of giving a shit.  Tabboo, I know, but maybe we ought to think about it.

Or just watch the fabulous, Don Hertzfeldt-esque animation & diss anything & everyone who’s ever made us hurt.

Steady as she goes

Tonight’s post comes a bit late, but with a bit of evening left—somewhere between first sip and last gulp, first drink and last call. Between the space left of the dial, as The Replacements sang, and right off the dial altogether.

The Hold Steady – Stuck Between Stations

The Hold Steady hit their bar band stride on Separation Sunday, but 2006’s Boys and Girls in America was the album that broke the group’s capacity crowd and invited everyone in for a grin and a gin. The regular crowd is there, cats with names like Holly and Charlemagne, but there’s also John Berryman and the approximate, soused-and-shouted harmonies of The E Street Band. If you’re reading this, you should be in a bar with the regulars. Drink it up.

Reaching for the Tops

Two days after a funeral service for Levi Stubbs, the baritone and founding member of The Four Tops, I saw Billy Bragg perform in Charlottesville. Bragg’s sets have always been heavy on the directness of folk and punk—from the Woody Guthrie songs he finished with Jeff “Wilco-mmander” Tweedy to his endless stumping for The Clash—and the “Bard of Bark” stayed brassy and bare-bones for one of his final songs, “Levi Stubbs’ Tears”:

“She takes off the Four Tops tape and puts it back in its case./ When the world falls apart, something stays in place.”

And so I give you The Four Tops and “Reach Out (I’ll Be There).” Stubbs sang lead on “Reach Out,” a song written purposely in tenor so that the big man would rise up on his vocal toes. And before all of the minor-major jumps and the pleading, “Duke Ellington does a James Bond” theme horn lines, there’s simply Stubbs—well beyond his natural range, extending himself, reaching out with all the directness of Guthrie, Joe Strummer and Bragg.

“Reach Out” has all of the usual components of Motown hits—written by Holland-Dozier-Holland, horns by the Funk Brothers—but the tune itself is a struggle. There’s the foreboding horn noise of the intro, shot through with a single flute; those shaky shifts from minor to major during the chorus; and, my favorite, that irregular drum break right before Stubbs’ promise of promises.

To keep his word, Stubbs gruffly pushes through the bound muscles of the Tops’ harmonies. He stares down the cymbal clatter of the drum break, then snares his chorus with a “Ha!” He fights the song into a stalemate, a fadeout, and then goes down with it, hand and voice reaching upwards.

Must: Love Dog.

Today’s track brought to you by late-night Houston driving, 6/8 time, & the rare lyric that sinks your heart like a battleship.

TV on the Radio – Love Dog

From their 2008 release Dear Science, “Love Dog” is a subdued sound from the Brooklyn-based band that has run the gamut of sounds & styles since their self-released debut & clever nod to Radiohead OK Calculator in 2001.  It’s hard to pigeon-hole these guys, & as a late-comer to their sound, I won’t even try to ruffle those feathers.

Then, there’s “Love Dog,” a track packed with electronic, rock, trip-hop & experimental nods that, despite its complexity & genre-bending, is anything but pedantic musical/mental masturbation.  It’s unexpectedly beautiful, melodic, & contains some of the most well-wrought lyrics I’ve heard in 2008: “I know why you cry out / desperate & devout, / …timid little teether, / your eyes set on the ether, / you’re mooning Bella Luna / and howling Hallelujah.”  Eat your heart out, Leonard Cohen.

What are some of your favorite lyrical tracks, folks?  Drop us a lyrics-laden love-line.

It’s been a long time coming.

In honor of progressivism, of striving to move ever forward with nods to the honorable parts of our past, today’s a double-header.

Bob Dylan – The Times They Are A-Changin’

Sam Cooke – A Change Is Gonna Come

Sam Cooke’s answer to Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” this Sam Cooke track showcases the sweetness & pitch-perfection of the voice we know so well singing things like “You Send Me” & “Cupid,” with all of his soul in the right, necessary place.  When Cooke sings, he almost always sounds like he’s smiling, lithe, laid back; in this track, he’s on his knees, beautiful in his seriousness.  We were all a little like that last night.

& then, when the votes came in, we put these songs on back-to-back, two 1963 civil rights ballads that speak to each other &, over 40 years later, still speak to us.  We may just have begun to pick back up on the work the men & women of the 1960’s began for us.  As only one member of my generation, I still want to speak for us all when I say we’re honored to be part of it, we’re ready to work, & it’s about damn time.

Congratulations, America.  Change is coming, but we’ve got to bring it on home.

Someday, I’ll get that car to start.

Today’s track is brought to you by the Houston AAA and my ‘97 Hyundai Elantra, who will meet each other for the first time this morning, & bring me to my body shop-flavored destiny.  & that, frankly, is all you need to know.

The Cat Empire – The Car Song

Australian-bourne (get it?) multi-piece band The Cat Empire may have some better tracks than this one, but this is one of the better music videos I’ve seen in a long time.  The Cat Empire play Their Sordid Past in a game of basketball, & I don’t want to give away the score, but with a Coach named “S. Freud,” it’s a battle of the wits, for sure.

The song itself is fun, fast, & ultimately forgettable, unlike some other fabulous Cat Empire songs (“Hello Hello” and “Sly,” in particular) which make better use of the Latin-influenced syncopation they do so well.  But for the straight-up ska fan, “The Car Song” will do the trick.

& for me, well, let’s hope if it doesn’t get me there, the tow truck will.

Meeting Our Challenges: Head On.

Track Marks: One track, one post, one click.  Musings on single tracks, hot & hidden, just released or generally disregarded, brought to you by two folks who love music & love to write about it.

Our mission statement needs no real introduction, except to specify that we have about as much to do with tires & heroin as music does.  Which is to say, you decide.

Today’s offering: The Jesus & Mary Chain – Head On

A friend once told me that he thought Creedence Clearwater Revival was “stylistically narrow,” which was a nice way of saying all their songs sound the same.  & maybe they do.  But to both John Fogerty & the J&MC’s Reid brothers, I say this: Why change when you’ve got a good thing going?  Style ain’t the birth canal; who cares if it’s narrow?

“Head On” does what the best Jesus & Mary Chain songs do: Throws us predictable, predictably danceable drumbeats, hamfisted guitar playing, fuzzy production, & the inexplicable desire to sport leather & Edward Scissorhands haircuts.  Darkness meets dance pop, & the result is a room full of the emotionally agitated sweating it out on the dancefloor.

& isn’t that what music does to us?  These three-minute lifestyle changes, microwaveable fantasies, “make you wanna feel, make you wanna cry, make you wanna blow the stars from the sky.”

Rock on, Jesus & Mary Chain.  & welcome to Track Marks.