Magic Jewball

I’m backdating this because I meant to post it before I left. It is simply the only thing I’m listening to right now. Luckily, it’s eight minutes and change, so play it twice and that’s my commute to work. There’s a short version. It’s nice. The long one is simply fantabulous. It starts with the sound an LP makes when you pick up the needle too fast and the intro is extended and meandering and has a melody line that answers itself back.

The lyrics are trite, don’t worry about them. Somehow the deadpan way they are sung underlines them more than any emotion could.

I never liked this band. I owned nothing by them until this song. Soul Meets Body kind of makes me hurk. But this is IT.

Listen and just groove. Oh, you can watch, I guess that’s the point of posting the video. The visuals remind me of the way I listen to music: by myself and observing the world, both traveling and still. The “band plays in the cold” thing is kind of like U2’s New Year’s Day only a bit less snowy. But I don’t think it gets old.

If you are interested, this album comes out Tuesday and the band appear on Letterman the same night.

I know that classic rock is woefully underrepresented in iSotW’s so let’s help put a bit more on this side of the scale, shall we? Because classic rock is still my first love, the style of music that first made me realize that this what I loved best in the world and that, in fact, my whole future would be based on it.

There are several reasons I’m choosing this song and it being my favorite song by Yes isn’t even one of them. Because it’s not. My favorite Yes song is And You And I which may be the one song with the most other songs contained within it. Part of that is because it’s 11 minutes long (this is one of the shorter ones at five and a half minutes). But mostly it’s because, although AYAI is really a beautiful and haunting song(s), it’s not the mood I’m in at the moment, and that mood would be happiness. See, I think if I had to attach one track to the feeling of joy and hope and bubbling optimism, it would be this one. Like most Yes songs, I have no idea at all what it’s about, I just go on mood and tone. And it just feels like “great things are happening!” and it always has, ever since childhood. And that’s how I’m feeling just now at this juncture.

The other reason to pick a Yes song is because I’ve recently (shut up!) put up a real and actual Facebook profile under my childhood nickname in order to connect with old friends. It has been awesome! One person I could not find, though, was my freshman roommate from college and I’m sorry about that because I just saw that Yes is getting it back together and taking it on the road. I know I’ve mentioned this before but I turned her on to Yes and she turned me onto the Beatles. Since we had to agree on a CD to play as we went to sleep, I heard a lot of Classic Yes and Revolver that year. I guess I wonder if her love for Yes has lasted as long as mine for the Fab Four. And now I’ll never know because she’s not on FB. Damn.

Lastly but not leastly, I picked this song because its title encapsulates what I have been feeling as I enter the last two weeks of training for my first 5k, the Philly Race for the Cure. Too bad it has no beat or I’d run to it.

Still, I assume I’ll be doing the same thing at that race as I am every time I listen to this song: grinning like an idiot.

Streaming audio:

Napster:
Yes - Going For The One

OK, so for the first time, I’m choosing a song that isn’t actually on my iPod. It’s on a CD! While I was doing my marathon baking session last weekend, I pulled out a few CD’s that I hadn’t heard in ages and cranked up the sound. I know the point of having a 30GB iPod (or more, but that’s the one I have) is to stick every single thing you have on there so that you’re carrying around your whole library wherever you go. But it didn’t really work that way for me. I never saw the point in ripping and transferring CD’s that I only wanted to listen to once every five years. Thus, I sometimes find myself staring at my huge CD tower (I know, that sounds like a spam you received today about satisfying your woman) and finding some gem from the past. And I found a few! Chief amongst them was the CD this comes from.

If you’re not from New York, you may never have heard of Quicksand but I always loved them and thought they should have been more successful. Not to mention that they shouldn’t have broken up after two records. They had a kind of raw, dark, hard-rock sound, not unlike early U2, I always thought. People seem to think the first album is better but I always liked the second one, Manic Compression. And if I recall correctly (and who knows… 1995 was a long time ago), this was the song that actually got some radio airplay. Or at least it did here. Of course, we had a good rock radio station back then. And I had to walk eight miles through the snow to hear it.

Quicksand songs are so full of power and energy, I often don’t even notice that they’re mostly like two and a half minutes. This one is exactly that: short and kickass.

Streaming audio:

Napster:
Quicksand - Thorn In My Side

Who was the first New Wave artist? Was it Talking Heads? Blondie? Gary Numan? The Human League? Devo? As you can probably tell from the title of this post, I disagree with all those choices. Yes, I would argue that it was The Cars. The Cars are kind of an odd thing. As I’ve mentioned, I listened to the premiere New Wave radio station east of the Mississippi and they never played The Cars. In fact, the only station playing them in the late 70’s were the rock stations (WPLJ and WNEW, boy am I dating myself). But I never thought of The Cars as a rock band and in fact I have proof to back this statement up. When I was in 6th Grade (that’s when I was 10), we had to do a presentation in front of the class on our favorite hobby. I (duh!) did mine on music. I used a cassette recorder to play various kinds of rock music and label them helpfully for the class. I remember little of it except that I used Baba O’Riley to illustrate rock and that I used The Cars to represent New Wave.

See, all the things I consider hallmarks of the New Wave sound are present in The Cars’ music: cool synth lines, chilly and distant vocals, a certain phrasing. Their 1978 self-titled debut album is what I believe to be one of the greatest first albums in rock history. Arguably, they never topped it. But personally, I loved the second record best for this one song, which, through all the Joy Division and Depeche Mode I adore, is still the quintessential New Wave song to me. When I dug it up this week to listen to for the first time in many years, I still knew every single word. No, it isn’t the one from the Circuit City commercial or the one that will forever remind you of Phoebe Cates taking off her bathing suit top in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, although those are good too. No, it’s this one, the one where the late Benjamin Orr sounds like he’s in a freezer and the synth sounds like a snake flicking its tongue at you.

Streaming music:

Napster:
The Cars - Candy-0

I think I can just sneak one in under the Sunday wire! I’ve been in a great mood lately, lots of fun things happening, and adding to this has been the recent snowfall. I don’t know about car people, but when I walk out the door in the morning, I try to match the song I start with on my iPod to my mood. Or failing that, the weather. I often listen to Disintegration when it’s raining and not because it makes me sad - it doesn’t. It just feels like rain.

But so the other day, there was snow on the ground, snow falling from the sky, and I was happy in general. As you may have noticed, there aren’t a lot of happy songs in my Depeche Mode/Cure/Smiths/New Order heavy world. So I had to think for a moment. And then I had to scroll for a few more moments. But finally I found it. A happy, fun tune, and it even mentions “there’s a world to explore” which is handy when the landscape is covered with white fluffy stuff.

Unlike most songs where I say “I think it’s about….” or “I interpret it as…” this song is indisputably about one thing: explorers making their way to the “new world” of New Zealand. Or Aotearoa as the Maori call it. And besides, I give Neil Finn a lot of love here. It’s time for some attention to Tim.

I think this song is so peppy because it’s supposed to reflect the optimism of the sailors. Also, because Split Enz excelled at this kind of zany tune. Either way, dare you not to be happy during this song! That’s because you’re not spending….

Napster:
Split Enz - Six Months In A Leaky Boat

Streaming audio available on the iPod Song of the Week page.