Please identify the song that contains the following lyrics:
Nobody does not feel this evening
it imports which pain
since me m’ nell’ within of the Ev’ rain;
to find;
everybody it knows this baby
to obtained the new dresses
but to see its tapes
and its arches of its circuits
have fallen recently
The tricky part is that I “translated” the lyrics from English to Dutch, then Dutch to French, then French to Italian, then Italian back to English, using the online translation site Bablefish.
Let me know if you want any hints.
Feel free to stump us with re-translated lyrics of your own choosing.
A couple of weeks ago I attempted to help a friend work through his difficulty with buying individual songs vs full albums. In this digital age he has struggled with buying only the tracks he thinks he’s going to like off iTunes or eMusic. I told him it’s all right, that he should buy what he wants to listen to, save space on his hard drive for more of the good stuff. But he holds deep, sincere feelings that doing so does not respect integrity of artist’s work. He’s as true a believer in the album format as any rock nerd I’ve ever encountered.
“I’ve got to buy the whole album and listen to the whole album in the sequence the artist intended,” he told me. “I want to respect the integrity of the artist’s work.”
“When you go to an artist’s exhibit,” he continued, “do you walk into a room and immediately skip half the paintings?”
“I look at them all in some order, as they’re presented,” I said, “but I don’t spend 3 minutes and 30 seconds on each painting. I first glance at them, the way I listen to the 30-second sample of each song on an album I’m checking out on eMusic.”
“How do you know a song’s not going to get better after the 30-second clip you hear?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I replied, “but there are certain devices that usually suggest I’m not going to like a song, like a long, slow, finger-picked minor chord intro.”
My friend was incredulous. “When you buy a new album do you skip right to Track 3, or do you listen to the entire album?”
“The first time through I listen to the entire album, but the second and third time I listen I may start lifting the needle over the songs with long, slow, finger-picked minor chord intros. Life’s too short for that shit!” Then I assured him that I eventually give these songs another chance and sometimes learn that I do like one of them.
This went back and forth until I learned a key detail in my friend’s Rock Nerd Profile: my friend had never bought a single (ie, a 7-inch, 45 RPM slab of vinyl), not even as a little kid. Now it all made sense.
I was compelled to restart our debate, which was now growing quite heated.Continue reading »
This week’s Mystery Date is courtesy of a Townsperson in good standing.
Let’s review the ground rules here. The Mystery Date song is not necessarily something I believe to be good. So feel free to rip it or praise it. Rather the song is something of interest due to the artist, influences, time period… Your job is to decipher as much as you can about the artist without research. Who do you think it is? Or, Who do you think it sounds like? When do you think it was recorded? Etc…
If you know who it is, don’t spoil it for the rest. Anyone who knows it can play the “mockcarr option.” (And I’ve got a hunch at least one of you know this one.) This option is for those of you who just can’t hold your tongue and must let everyone know just how in-the-know you are by calling it. So if you know who it is and want everyone else to know that you know, email Mr. Moderator at mrmoderator [at] rocktownhall [dot] com. If correct we will post how brilliant you are in the Comments section.
The real test of strength though is to guess as close as possible without knowing. Ready, steady, go!
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In this week’s edition of Saturday Night Shut-InMr. Moderator reflects on a possibly musical life-changing event. He asks that you attempt to listen through his newfound ears.
[audio:https://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/RTH-Saturday-Night-Shut-In-74.mp3|titles=RTH Saturday Night Shut-In, episode 74]
A fair amount of time here is spent ripping performers. But let’s face it: sometimes someone you like a lot gets ripped, and that pisses you off. So I got to thinking: there must be someone who everyone here can rip, who we can all agree is completely loathsome, nauseating, run-from-the-room-screaming horrible. A benchmark of badness. Has to be more or less recognizable as rock and roll: so that rules out someone like Barry Manilow. My first thought went to Styx, but sometimes their awfulness actually cracks me up. Journey comes pretty close to covering all the bases for me, but I am sure someone out there has warm feeling for them.
As bad as it gets?
Which brings me to Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show. When I was a kid I knew they were terrible. “Sylvia’s Mother,” “Cover of the Rolling Stone”? Gag. “Only Sixteen,” “Sexy Eyes,” “When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman,” “Baby Makes Her Blue Jeans Talk”? Double gag. Time has passed, and they are still bloody horrendous, and in a variety of ways. They get bonus points for sucking at country-ish tunes, ballads, rock, and disco. Also, their Look is as bad as their sound.
What’s hard to square with all of this is that the rather talented Shel Silverstein (Where the Sidewalk Ends) wrote some of their songs, including the truly execrable “Sylvia’s Mother.”
So, with near total confidence, I offer Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. No one could like them. It can get no worse. (Right?)
I’ve been listening to Before and After Sciencethis week and got to wondering: Has Brian Eno ever given a clear answer on why he stopped making “pop” albums? If he did, do you buy his answer?
If he didn’t want to repeat himself, why did Eno follow his 4 song-based albums with all those ambient albums and even more albums that not even diehard fans can bear listening to more than a couple of times? After a certain point, don’t those albums sound like he’s on cruise control?
Think about his main production jobs after Talking Heads. as he gravitated toward the lyrical, spiritual bands U2 and Coldplay. There’s no reason to think he was only in it for the money. As the songs on Before and After Science mellow out I get the sense Eno is making his first and only efforts at writing lyrics that possibly mean something more personal than the outcomes of his random draws from a deck of Oblique Strategies cards or whatever it is one does with the I Ching. Is it possible Eno stopped making song-oriented “pop” records because he realized he didn’t have it in himself to express some deep inner yearning and universal messages, the way Bono and Chris Martin so readily do? (Not to mention his old partner in crime, Bryan Ferry.) Is his production work with those artists an indication of what Eno wished he could have done himself but felt himself lacking?
In a way similar to how sammymaudlin once speculated that David Bowie‘s “balls envy” was at the root of his producing Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, I wonder if the second half of Eno’s career was motivated by a sense that he lacked soul, or whatever you want to call it. Just a thought.
