https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOyM7l4NJso
Reportedly, Ramones frontman Joey Ramone chose to listen to this song on his deathbed.
When I was young, I used to listen to the radio with my parents. They would play standards and motown and golden oldies, 50s and 60s and 70s, and all the songs were love songs. All of them. Every Beatles song from A Hard Day's Night, and Help!, and Rubber Soul, and Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with, like maybe seven exceptions are about girls, love, heartbreak, romance, longing. All of them. Beach Boys, Rolling Stones, all of them. I understood perfectly at the time.
I think the two might be connected: why, out of all the great swathes of music, a dying musician would choose to listen to a pop song about love, and why the radio plays love songs. It made sense when I was ten.
Showing posts with label u2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label u2. Show all posts
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Friday, March 15, 2013
Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of — U2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSoNWE4j36U
There's something about music that gets stuck. Maybe it's a certain riff, or a melody, or just how something sounds, but I've never gotten movies or books stuck in my head the same way I've gotten music stuck. Earworms, they're called. I don't know why — but would I want to?
I was at a sleepover, many, many years ago. I must've been ten or eleven, and I hadn't been to too many sleepovers before. It was a new house and it rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't get comfortable, and I kept using the bathroom, and I just couldn't fall asleep. And this song — Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of, by U2 — which I'd just heard off a mixtape was somehow... just there, simmering, under the surface, waiting for all the other activity in my brain to stop so it could play.
And it did. For eight straight hours, I lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to this one song by U2 in my head on repeat. I didn't get any sleep that night.
And the song got stuck, permanently. Whenever I can't sleep, whenever I have even a half-hour's extra wakefulness, I start to get nervous: what if this is one of those nights where I just can't get to sleep? And the opening drum riff begins.
Perhaps it is a testament to U2 as a band that I can still listen to them. It is a damn good song.
There's something about music that gets stuck. Maybe it's a certain riff, or a melody, or just how something sounds, but I've never gotten movies or books stuck in my head the same way I've gotten music stuck. Earworms, they're called. I don't know why — but would I want to?
I was at a sleepover, many, many years ago. I must've been ten or eleven, and I hadn't been to too many sleepovers before. It was a new house and it rubbed me the wrong way. I couldn't get comfortable, and I kept using the bathroom, and I just couldn't fall asleep. And this song — Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of, by U2 — which I'd just heard off a mixtape was somehow... just there, simmering, under the surface, waiting for all the other activity in my brain to stop so it could play.
And it did. For eight straight hours, I lay there, staring at the ceiling, listening to this one song by U2 in my head on repeat. I didn't get any sleep that night.
And the song got stuck, permanently. Whenever I can't sleep, whenever I have even a half-hour's extra wakefulness, I start to get nervous: what if this is one of those nights where I just can't get to sleep? And the opening drum riff begins.
Perhaps it is a testament to U2 as a band that I can still listen to them. It is a damn good song.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
I Put A Spell On You — Alan Price Set
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yxZ1F093Us
The build of a song is very important; whether performing a song, writing a story, or even meeting someone for the first time, the softer you begin, the more you wow. Often we get a sense of the sublime from this build: when we turn a corner and emerge into a large, unexpected space; when we discover a secret garden in the Mechanical Engineering Building only accessible through the basement; when we meet someone and discover we already knew them. These are things where the content matters, but the initial perception matters more.
I don't know much about Alan Price Set, but I do know about the British Invasion, and that's where I first heard I Put A Spell On You. It... builds. It starts with organ and ends with screaming, and it's so slow and splendid that the final cacophony is not only acceptable but welcome as a natural progression. Songs that do this are songs we remember. They click. Ben Frost does this a lot. So does U2. These songs become more theatrical, more memorable, more impressive. They build slowly and take their time, and they're worth it.
The build of a song is very important; whether performing a song, writing a story, or even meeting someone for the first time, the softer you begin, the more you wow. Often we get a sense of the sublime from this build: when we turn a corner and emerge into a large, unexpected space; when we discover a secret garden in the Mechanical Engineering Building only accessible through the basement; when we meet someone and discover we already knew them. These are things where the content matters, but the initial perception matters more.
I don't know much about Alan Price Set, but I do know about the British Invasion, and that's where I first heard I Put A Spell On You. It... builds. It starts with organ and ends with screaming, and it's so slow and splendid that the final cacophony is not only acceptable but welcome as a natural progression. Songs that do this are songs we remember. They click. Ben Frost does this a lot. So does U2. These songs become more theatrical, more memorable, more impressive. They build slowly and take their time, and they're worth it.
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