{"id":1120,"date":"2008-01-06T16:14:19","date_gmt":"2008-01-06T21:14:19","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-08-25T15:31:21","modified_gmt":"2009-08-25T15:31:21","slug":"the-hare-and-the-turtle-it-s-a-bitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-hare-and-the-turtle-it-s-a-bitch\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hare and the Turtle: It&#8217;s a Bitch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OjyD52EO6xo?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe riff in The Rolling Stones&#8217; <strong>&#8220;Bitch&#8221;<\/strong> promises so much, yet the song never really goes anywhere. It&#8217;s like Otis Redding&#8217;s <strong>&#8220;I Can&#8217;t Turn You Loose&#8221;<\/strong> minus the repeating crescendo and the supercharged finale (go to the 1:35 mark of the following clip, if you don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;m talking about).<br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pOXq_vLCjco?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>After a while, &#8220;Bitch&#8221;, as great <em>as that riff is<\/em>, just sits there. The band tries to crank it up to a new level, but they&#8217;ve got no firm gimmick, like Otis&#8217; repeating climb. &#8220;Bitch&#8221; just dies at the finish line. It&#8217;s not a bad song &#8211; don&#8217;t get me wrong &#8211; but it&#8217;s nohwere near as great as it initially promises. I think even our <strong>most ardent Stones fans<\/strong> will give me that much.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, there are songs that don&#8217;t start out like much but then pick it up and become something special. The following song is one that comes to mind for me.<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K9Idn4WpZYc?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nTruth be told, I don&#8217;t even like this song a lot &#8211; and on a visceral level I like it less than I do &#8220;Bitch&#8221; &#8211; but it builds to something that I find worthwhile and, when I have the patience to listen through the end, more satisfying than the Stones&#8217; 1-riff romp. Hear me out.<\/p>\n<p>From the beginning of XTC&#8217;s <strong>&#8220;No Language in Their Lungs&#8221;<\/strong> I quickly understand all the things that some folks don&#8217;t like about this band that I hold dearly: the forced off-kilter riffs and strangled phrasing, the complete lack of blues and other pre-rock traditions, that hideous <em>blouse<\/em> that Partridge wore for 85% of the band&#8217;s filmed live performances&#8230; For years I usually lifted the needle over this track and just jumped ahead to side 2. (Pince Nez me if you must, but it is an end-of-side-1 number, right? It&#8217;s been a while since I&#8217;ve listened to B<em>lack Sea<\/em> on anything but my Japanese import CD, which replicated the original packaging of the album &#8211; in miniature, as only the Japanese would take the time to do.) Until the little instrumental break\/subtle guitar solo that precedes the middle eighth, this song is painful for me to sit through. Then the lyrics of the middle eighth start to pile up and capture my attention more than they had during the opening verses, but even then I&#8217;m not <em>sold<\/em> on the song. Finally, coming out of the middle eighth there&#8217;s that climbing part (at <strong>2:50<\/strong> in the YouTube clip), at which point all the song has been working toward starts to gel for me. There&#8217;s not much more to the song after that, which is a good thing.<\/p>\n<p>My point here, believe it or not, is not to ask you to agree or disagree with my feelings about these songs and the shortcomings and strengths that I&#8217;ve outlined. If you care to agree or disagree, that&#8217;s fine, but I&#8217;m hoping to hear from you on your own &#8220;turtle&#8221; and &#8220;hare&#8221; songs. FOR ME, &#8220;Bitch&#8221; is the hare and &#8220;No Language in Our Lungs&#8221; is the turtle. I&#8217;m curious to hear if <strong>you<\/strong> ever think of songs &#8211; and songs &#8211; in these terms and how you might relate these feelings.<\/p>\n<p>I look forward to your tales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The riff in The Rolling Stones&#8217; &#8220;Bitch&#8221; promises so much, yet the song never really goes anywhere. It&#8217;s like Otis Redding&#8217;s &#8220;I Can&#8217;t Turn You Loose&#8221; minus the repeating crescendo and the supercharged finale (go to the 1:35 mark of the following clip, if you don&#8217;t know what I&#8217;m talking about). After a while, &#8220;Bitch&#8221;, <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/the-hare-and-the-turtle-it-s-a-bitch\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[188,45],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}