Song 96: Jessica

Remembering this song has given me pause for thought.

It's by Adam Green, who was one half of Moldy Peaches. It's a crooned, scornful ballad about the TV star Jessica Simpson. I rather liked it for a while.

I remember playing it once to Juliette and she said "that's a really cruel horrible song", and it is. I'd had a bit of a blindspot to its cruelty.

I was generally quite good on post-millennial cruelty, whether it was The X Factor or the tabloid treatment of Britney Spears and Amy Winehouse. Obvious, mainstream, punch-down cruelty, I was pretty good at disdaining and steering clear of.

This seemed like indie, impersonal, cruelty. An irony-laden critique on the vacuity of celebrity. So I was ok with it, I guess. But the words are pretty horrible really. And it turns out Jessica Simpson was one of the many early 2000s female celebrities who, just below the surface, was having a pretty horrendous time of it.

Nowadays, Adam Green would be vilified on the twitter for the cruelty of a song like this. And the circle would keep turning.

Twitter is funny for the cruelty. Obviously, there are the many many vindictive shitheads and the poisonous mobs etc, but there's a real brand of good guy cruelty too, which can trip you up, where people who seem generally funny, good-natured and well-intentioned will direct their banter at someone who isn't necessarily a lord of a darkness, but maybe just a quite annoying person, and it will escalate and escalate and you'll suddenly think "god, this is all just cruelty" and that's how maybe I feel about the Jessica Simpson song, but also, in a weird way, maybe it's just ok to be cruel in an impersonal way after all. Maybe Adam Green no more thought, nor was required to think, about Jessica Simpson as an actual human being than the funny tweeters do about the target of their satire, and really that's fine, and it's better to treat the world as if it's not connected at all rather than completely connected, otherwise most of our actions and utterances are carelessly cruel.

B90: Mysteries

I have another London memory. A nice, strange one. I already wrote a little post about the South Bank, but not specifically about the National Theatre. 

Mostly, when I went to the National Theatre, it was to the Olivier and the Lyttelton. But around, I think, Easter 2000, a group of us went to see The Mysteries at the Cottesloe (now Dorfman), which is much more of a ruddy bloody brave space than the more traditional and grand Olivier and Lyttelton.

I was not entirely a willing attendee, had been a little dragooned into it. It was the story of the Bible. It was three plays in one day - morning, afternoon and evening. For the story of the Bible.

But it was a version of the medieval plays adapted by Tony Harrison, who I was already a fan of. The first play began, I guess at around 10.30am, with a stark naked Adam and Eve (played by Joanna Page, I've just looked up, years before Gavin and Stacey). I guess that woke everybody up.

The cast was distinguished, some still there from the acclaimed, original, 1985 production. Jack Shepherd, David Bradley, Don Warrington, Sue Johnston, Trevor Laird, William Gaunt - all faces you'd recognise if you saw them.

And it was musical, and the music was folk. John Tams, a folk musician/actor perhaps best known for being the folk singer in 'Sharpe', was the co-ordinator.

So, actually, I found myself hugely enjoying it. But it was hard work, and there was a lot of standing and sitting on the floor. And I'm very bad at sitting on a floor. 

I was in the middle of my biggest period of musical discovery, only having started buying CDs rather than tapes (there was a much bigger selection of CDs available by the late 90s) a year or so earlier, I was soaking up the history of rock and folk which didn't go straight down the middle.

So, that was a big Nick Drake time for me, and going from that, a big Fairport Convention, Richard and Linda Thompson time.

'I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight' and, particularly, 'Walking on a Wire' from 'Shoot out the Lights' were massive for me that year - Linda Thompson's stunning, clear voice. I'd read about them all a lot too - Linda Thompson who'd had a relationship of sorts with Drake himself (he might as well have been a mix of Greta Garbo and Elvis as far as I was concerned). She'd been married to Richard, and I knew about the legendary misery of their last tour, and how she'd pretty much disappeared from music after that, indeed, she'd had a condition which meant she couldn't sing. I knew all that.

And yet, here she was, unmistakeably, singing, accompanied by John Tams at this mystery play.

I think we must have had a pint at lunch after the first play. A big mistake for me at that time, not yet in control of my rapid nauseating headaches. So, during the second one, especially with all the sitting on the floor, I began to take a turn. Yet, at one point, out of nowhere, Linda Thompson, who'd just sang a song, was sitting next to me on the floor.

That's it really. It was just so surreal - a person, who, at that moment where I was learning so much about music history and treating it as almost mythical, and not yet understanding that people are just people who get on with their lives, could not have been more iconic to me, just sitting on the floor next to me.

Sadly, I couldn't last the pace. I remember the second play ended with the crucifixion, and the band played the magnificent Richard and Linda Thompson song 'Calvary Cross' and I was able to enjoy that, but then, in the second break, it was clear I needed to go home. So I never found out how the Bible ends.

2021, will you think about us?

Each year, despite my better judgement, I write a little about the music I've listened to in the year. Some years, there are many songs and albums that reach out and grab me, and I write enthusiastically and at length, while some years, for whatever reason, there is very little that quite takes me there. This has been one of those years.

I've still been listening to 'Song For Our Daughter' by Laura Marling and 'St Cloud' by Waxahatchee, both from 2020, more than almost anything from this year - particularly the latter, which I would simply say is one of my three favourite albums of the century, and an endlessly rewarding, involving masterpiece of perfect songwriting.

I still have listened  to a lot of new music, I always do, but often not with my full attention, or sometimes asking myself questions like "do I like this?", "what pat phrase would i use to describe this if I was asked?" and "am I feeling anything?"

Looking at the year end aggregator on albumoftheyear.com, their consolidated Number 1, by some distance, is 'Sometimes I Might Be Introvert' by Little Simz, which is very pleasing and extremely good on her. The singles 'Introvert' and 'Woman' were among the few songs that were genuinely thrilling this year, and the first few times I listened to the album, I certainly thought "yes, this is it, this is the universal masterpiece the year's needed" and I don't, per se, disagree with that now, I just haven't kept on listening to the album as much as I thought I would.

Still, it's a wonderful-sounding, beautiful, skilled and heartfelt record, and deserves all the praise it's getting.

There've been significant, well-reviewed albums by several of the artists who've been the bedrock of my listening for the best part of thirty years, like Damon Albarn, Gruff Rhys, Paul Weller, Manic Street Preachers, James Yorkston and Nick Cave, but again, none of them, as whole albums, quite did it for me for more than a couple of weeks. Not a slight on any of it, more just a reflection on my listening. Saying that, I do love the song 'Albuquerque' by Cave and Warren Ellis, and I love the chorus line of Gruff's 'Loan Your Loneliness' where he sings "Loan me your unholy lowly loneliness" and it's just such a classic piece of Gruff Rhys silly-brilliant lyricism set to a a good tune that it is, in and of itself, one of my favourite things of the year.

The Mercury Prize was won by Arlo Parks' 'Collapsed in Sunbeams', one of the few albums I did have a strong opinion on, if, "no, really, that's a bit meh, that's interesting-debut-EP quality, not award-winning-debut-album quality" counts as a strong opinion.

I really like the album 'Jubilee' by Japanese Breakfast, and have gradually warmed to 'Ignorance' by The Weather Station, but more through perseverance than inspiration.

I didn't listen to Sheeran, didn't listen to Adele, but I did listen to ABBA, and I've never been anywhere near an ABBA fan, but I found something so endearingly true to itself, in all its naffness and knack for the tune, about the album that I've actually ended up listening to it more than most others.

My favourite song, one of the songs that really felt like it had a sense of occasion, was the one-off 'Like I Used To' by Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen. Felt like a hit. Probably wasn't, in the scheme of things, a hit.

And my favourite album definitely wasn't a hit. I can, for once, fairly proudly say that I'm going to be out on my own on this one. I've not seen this album going around the lists at all, but it really deserves to.

Stephen Fretwell, a Scunthorpe-born songwriter who briefly looked like he was going to be the next big thing in the sad white boy boom of the early 2000s that was reduced to a husk by Blunt then eaten alive by Sheeran, who is only known to most folk for being the forlorn voice of the theme music to 'Gavin and Stacey', who released a couple of albums then disappeared for a decade, came back into my consciousness this year with a couple of somewhat heartrending interviews, then put out, to a small handful of gently supportive reviews, an album ironically called 'Busy Guy' which was, whilst sounding like he'd been hermetically sealed since this spare, sad, solipsistic stuff was all the rage, a giant leap from his previous work, a full, mysterious expression of a real, adult life by someone with that rare ability where the song, the simple song itself, is enough, and the rest, all the other stuff they do these days, is irrelevant. 

I know, I sound like a proper old man music bore, but sometimes someone hasn't thought about anything else but the songs, and the songs are memorable and intriguing and actually make you, someone who used to feel something all the time when listening to music, feel something.

So, that's my album of the year, and I'm actually right, despite what anyone else might say.

I listened to loads of other albums, but I don't think I've anything interesting to say about any of them, so, without further ado, before I start telling you my favourite artists of the year were actually The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel, here are the songs and albums.

SONGS

1. Like I Used To - Angel Olsen and Sharon Van Etten

2. The Long Water - Stephen Fretwell

3. Albuquerque - Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

4. Introvert - Little Simz

5. Loan Your Loneliness - Gruff Rhys

6. Got Me - Laura Mvula

7. I Have a Love - For Those I Love

8. White Dress - Lana Del Rey

9. Hard Drive - Cassandra Jenkins

10. Thumbs - Lucy Dacus

ALBUMS

1. Busy Guy - Stephen Fretwell

2. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert - Little Simz

3. Jubilee - Japanese Breakfast

4. An Overview on Phenomenal Nature - Cassandra Jenkins

5. Voyage - ABBA

6. We're All Alone in This Together - Dave

7. Ignorance - Weather Station

8. Pink Noise - Laura Mvula

9. They're Calling Me Home - Rhiannon Giddens and Francesco Turrisi

10. The Wide Wide River - James Yorkston and the Second Hand Orchestra

Song 95: This Feeling

I heard this song again recently and I thought it juxtapozes pretty well with 'She's a Jar' by Wilco, the last song I wrote about, which came out in 1999. 'This Feeling' by Puressence was a single from mid-98. They were a Manchester band, and this was their most successful single, peaking at Number 33 in the UK charts. It had some, though not a vast amount of, airplay.

This Feeling

I remember hearing it on the radio a few times and I suspect maybe a flatmate owned the single, though I never did. The album received ok reviews but, back when money was scarcer and decisions on music were more weighted, not enough to tempt me to buy it.

I didn't hear the song again, I don't think, for close to decade but then, as often happened, in the age of downloads, you could suddenly go, oh yeah, I liked that song, that'll do for 79p. And I've listened to it now and then since then.

It's one of my favourite post-Britpop singles. I read a little interview with James Walsh, the lead singer of the much-maligned Starsailor, recently, and he good-naturedly pointed out that journalists now like to make out that it was all such a wasteland in those few years and everyone was just waiting around for the Strokes, but it wasn't like that at all. Whatever the legacy of the indie music of that time, a lot of it did do well and people were genuinely excited by it.

For my own part, though I see the likes of 'Deserter's Songs' and 'Summerteeth' (from 98 and 99) as major and lasting shifts in my music taste from Britpop to Americana, it's not like I wasn't listening to Ooberman, Ultrasound, Idlewild and whatever else.

Defining next-big-thing thinking in British music at that time, I reckon there was a sense of mashing together Oasis and Jeff Buckley. There were lots of attempts at epic ballads, there were big emotions. Travis and David Gray were the first things, then the apotheosis came with Coldplay, and the reckoning came with the aforementioned Starsailor.

And, in all of that, I reckon Puressence's 'This Feeling' was a very superior shot. It's formulaic, but it shakes and soars in all the right places. The voice is very good. It's a choirboy voice like Tom Chaplin from Keane but with far more oomph. In fact, it strikes me that I can imagine this being a Keane song - which I imagine is rightly offputting to most, but, still, in a way, is true.

I realise I haven't really sold this song, but it really defines an era for me, a messy student era when there was more going on than the history books tell us.

Song 94: She's a Jar

I'm not sure I've ever written about this song before, though it's a significant song for me. This is the second track on Wilco's 1999 album 'Summerteeth' and so, in fact, the second Wilco song I heard, since 'Summerteeth' was the first Wilco album I listened to, though my interest had been piqued by a 1997 review of 'Being There'.

Mercury Rev's 'Deserter's Songs', from late 1998, saw the start of my shift from Britrock to Americana, but Wilco turned out to be the one I would hold on to longer. They remain one of my favourite bands and I would say that they are a) one of the two best live bands I've seen, and b) the band with the strongest catalogue of the last 25 years.

I think I'd heard 'Can't Stand It', the single and opening track, before I'd bought the album. It's quite sharp and poppy, good enough, tacked on the album because the label needed a single. Otherwise, 'She's a Jar' would have been Track 1, and that would have been quite a start.

She's a Jar

I'd never really heard anything like it before, strange as that sounds in retrospect. There's a great darkness to Wilco between 97 and 2004 (some would say in their recording prime) which hasn't been there since, however much they've continued to make fine records and put on glorious live shows. On 'Summerteeth', that darkness is allied to a musical sweetness that is unnerving, and 'She's a Jar' is the epitome of that.

Jeff Tweedy sings these short, associative, phrases, strumming on an acoustic, while all manner of sweet keyboard orchestrations and mellotron wobbles go on behind him. There are a lot of Dave Fridmann productions around that time (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Delgados etc) and this is the nearest Wilco get to joining that, woozy and rich and beguiling. That's the Jay Bennett influence - this could be Bennett's finest moment.

Lyrically, it's a mix of obscure and brutally straightforward, in a way that is involving and moving. I'd go so far as to say it's one of the greatest lyrics ever written. The most notorious moment is the "twist" ending when Tweedy turns the refrain "she begs me not to miss her" to "she begs me not to hit her", one of the few genuinely shocking moments in a song you'll hear.

I remember once playing it somewhere on a boombox (it's one of the last albums I ever bought on tape) and someone came into the room and told me to turn it off cos it was shit and depressing, which is just the reaction you want from certain people sometimes.

Anyway, I've seen Wilco a few times and they've played this a couple of times, and the live versions have been phenomenal. There are a handful of truly beautiful Wilco songs, and 'She's a Jar' is the darkest of them, and still, just about, my favourite. 

I'd say it's alongside Like a Rolling Stone, More Adventurous and a handful of others as one of the most seminal (in the correct sense of the word) songs in my music taste, one of those moments of "this is it, this is how I want a song to make me feel", and I've never really got tired of it.

B89: the last verse

I've been pretty obsessed with Simon and Garfunkel lately - with them together, and individually, apart. As much as I've always liked S&G and not been averse to Simon's solo work (we had 'Me and Julio...' as our wedding dance, after all) some greater admiration and fascination has embedded this year which hasn't been there before.

I wonder when the last time they spoke was, when the last time they thought about recording together was, how it went sour each time it went sour.

I don't know what precisely has prompted it. There were a few cool TV programmes about them, Simon's doing this audiobook thing with Malcolm Gladwell, I probably felt sufficiently incensed by the sentiment of that sour as fuck article saying Simon would only be a footnote to the Beatles and Dylan.

He's sure written a lot of great songs, Paul Simon, and yes, there's that funny thing which he himself has acknowledged astutely enough that he's never been and can never be cool, and, somehow, though probably there's no difference to most people, there'll always be something that means Simon and his fans are seen as ... prissy ... compared to others, rightly or wrongly.

That's long since stopped mattering, of course. Simon's solo career is as much of a triumph as his fabled group work. He has kept on making good albums - I enjoyed 2016's 'Stranger to Stranger' a great deal (indeed, it may well be that it was that album, late in the day as it was, that made me appreciate Simon the solo artist).

Still, the funny truth lingers. His mother said it herself - "You have a nice voice. Arthur Garfunkel has a fine voice". So Simon sang lead, or they harmonised, sang top and bottom, and it all worked beautifully, and there were many wonderful, occasionally prissy, songs.

Then he wrote this song that he knew was better than what he usually wrote, and he also knew that it was one for his friend to sing. So he gave it to his friend, and his friend and their producer, Roy Halee, persuaded him, against his better judgement, that it needed to be bigger, that it needed to have a third verse which soared, so it is that the most famous, most beloved thing Paul Simon's ever written is "LIKE A BRIDGE OHVER TROU-U-BLED WATER, I WILL EASE YOUR MI-I-I-I-IND" and really that bit belongs mainly to Art Garfunkel, and that must be a little bit annoying.

There are intriguing clips on youtube - them together being interviewed on Letterman in about 1983 talking about their new tour and album together which of course never got made, because they got sick of each other. Them on stage for a successful tour in the early 2000s, before they got sick of each other again in the early 2010s. Garfunkel lost his voice then, though it's come back in some form. Simon has retired from touring.

Perhaps, who knows, they're friends once more, safe in the knowledge they won't have to be Simon and Garfunkel again.

Anyway, I made a Paul Simon playlist once before, but this will be a better one:

Song for the Asking - S&G

American Tune - PS

America - S&G

My Little Town - PS&AG

Old Friends/Bookends - S&G

Still Crazy After All These Years - PS

Kodachrome - PS

The Only Living Boy in New York - S&G

Stranger to Stranger - PS

Leaves that are Green - S&G

St Judy Comet - PS

The Sound of Silence - S&G

The Boxer - S&G

Kathy's Song - S&G

You Can Call Me Al - PS

Graceland - PS

Slip Slidin' Away - PS

Homeward Bound - PS

The Late Great Johnny Ace - PS

Something So Right - PS

Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard - PS

Mrs Robinson - S&G

B88: Tucson is in Arizona

I've watched all of Get Back now. It's been quite an overwhelming experience, & I can only say it's one of the best things I've ever seen. There isn't room for much more critical analysis than that. I was taken aback by some of my emotional responses. The Beatles are not, after all, the band of my generation, though my generation is, perhaps, by virtue of Anthology, Free as a Bird, Britpop etc, the last to wholeheartedly embrace them en masse. I don't know if that's true, but it doesn't feel like the Beatles have been anywhere near as connected to this decade as to the 90s and turn of the century - till now. [I mean, it's still the Beatles, it's not like the Beatles industry has gone quiet, but maybe you know what I mean ...]

Anyway, I'm already blathering more than I intended. I'm here to make a list, primarily. I'll, for once, let other people make the points. Just two things:

1) holy shit, McCartney and Lennon could sing. I guess we've seen McCartney very impressively still able to sing all his songs deep into his late 70s and got used to it being a slight struggle, but, back then, it was no struggle. His voice was immense and limitless. Likewise Lennon - even though he's messing about so often, disinterested sometimes, when he goes for it, it's magnificent. Obviously, George is a fine singer too. I think the fact that the Beatles were incredible singers is something I've slightly taken for granted.

2) Yeah, the songs. Their last couple of years is not my favourite Beatles period, but they're all concocting songs which are standards 50 years later. Even Ringo. Sometimes, I wonder, are these songs particularly memorable because they're the Beatles and they've just had more chance to be memorable than other people's songs? And I suppose there is that, but hearing John tinkering away at "On the Road to Marrakesh" which will later become 'Jealous Guy', I'm reminded that I didn't realise 'Jealous Guy' and 'Instant Karma' were by John Lennon until I was about 19. I'd heard them on the radio growing up and just thought "wow, those are powerful". I mean, those guys just wrote and sang powerful songs powerfully. And it's Lennon that's the one that's visibly struggling for inspiration, yet he's still got 'Don't Let Me Down', 'Across the Universe', with 'Come Together' and 'The Ballad of John and Yoko' on the way, not to mention 'God', Instant Karma', 'Working Class Hero' and 'Imagine'.

So I'm just going to make a big old Beatles song list, and I'll stop when I run out of songs I love. I'll include solo work, though I am not an aficianado beyond pretty basic hits and classics when it comes to solo material.

The numbering's all over the place really, and I've missed plenty. I'm actually not that great on the earliest albums ... We Can Work It Out being my favourite is a real point of principle for me.

1. We Can Work It Out
2. Penny Lane
3. Instant Karma
4. And Your Bird Can Sing
5. For No One
6. Happiness is a Warm Gun
7. In My Life
8. Revolution
9. A Day in the Life
10. All Things Must Pass
11. Here There and Everywhere
12. Live and Let Die
13. Yesterday
14. Got to Get You Into My Life
15. Ticket to Ride
16. You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
17. Jealous Guy
18. Come and Get It
19. Drive My Car
20. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
21. Strawberry Fields Forever
22. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
23. Watching the Wheels
24. I Am the Walrus
25. Maxwell's Silver Hammer
26. Band on the Run
27. She's Leaving Home
28. Oh Darling
29. The Long and Winding Road
30. God
31. Helter Skelter
32. I Feel Fine
33. Girl
34. Across the Universe
35. Let it Be
36. I Want to Hold Your Hand
37. Get Back
38. My Brave Face
39. Eleanor Rigby
40. Please Please Me
41. Something
42. Why Don't We Do it in the Road
43. Woman
44. When I'm 64
45. Sexy Sadie
46. Tomorrow Never Knows
47. She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
48. The Ballad of John and Yoko
49. Hey Jude
50. Two of Us
51. Magical Mystery Tour
52. Hey Bulldog!
53. I've Got a Feeling
54. Come Together
55. Yellow Submarine
56. Here Comes the Sun
57. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
58. And I Love her
59. Blackbird
60. She Loves You
61. A Hard Day's Night
62. She Said She Said
63. Michelle
64. Maybe I'm Amazed
65. The Fool on the Hill
66. Good Day Sunshine
67. From Me To You
68. I'm Looking Through You
69. Free as a Bird
70. Imagine
71. Baby You're a Rich Man
72. Nowhere Man
73. Bungalow Bill
74. Paperback Writer
75. Martha My Dear
76. Pipes of Peace
77. Nobody Told Me
78. Hello Goodbye
79. My Sweet Lord
80. Golden Slumbers
81. Carry that Weight
82. Don't Let Me Down
83. Everybody' Got Something to Hide Except Me and y Monkey
84. Help!
85. Norwegian Wood
86. You Never Give Me Your Money
87. Coming Up
88. What is Love
89. Old Brown Shoe
90. Polythene Pam
91. Within You Without You
92. Day Tripper
93. With a Little Help from My Friends
94. Mull of Kintyre
95. All My Loving
96. Isn't it a Pity
97. Octopus's Garden
98. All You Need Is Love
99. Lady Madonna
100. Jet
101. Taxman
102. Gimme Some Truth
103. We All Stand Together
104. Can't Buy Me Love
105. Love You To
106. Ob La Di Ob La Da
107. Ebony and Ivory
108. Dance Tonight
109. Give Peace a Chance
110. Dear Prudence
111. Happy Xmas
112. Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite
113. If I Fell
114. Dig a Pony
115. Rocky Raccoon
116. Mother Nature's Son
117. If I Needed Someone
118. Fixing a Hole
119. Rain
120. Julia
121. Eight Days a Week
122. The End
123. I'm So Tired
124. I Want to Tell You
125. Real Love
126. Because
127. Getting Better
128. Here Today
129. Let Me Roll It
130. Wah-Wah
131. I'm Down
132. The Word
133. Lovely Rita
134. Jenny Wren
135. I'd Have you Anytime
136. Birthday
137. Photograph
138. Misery
139. Just Like Starting Over
140. Love Me Do