Recently I discovered how to create mix tapes on my CD Player. This was a rather big step for me. Deemed as useless now, I still believe mixed tapes to be the most fantastic thing ever in music history, yes, mixed tapes to me are bigger than the Beatles. I know, slightly cruddy/ not useful/ past the times, but just think, you created that. You sat there going through your CD collection or waiting for a song to come on the radio. A bit better than dragging and dropping an MP3 file onto a disc, burning (burning, what is that anyway? I'm "burning" a disc man) and it being done in a jiffy. This is much more romantic, time consuming, your blood, sweat and tears went into that crappy piece of plastic, just think of that.
After reading the works of Nick Hornby I was particularly inspired to create a mixed tape but in a sense, I am going to analyze each song I placed upon the tape, 31 song style.
1. Only Lonely- The Divinyls
As a kid I always wanted to be some kind of music person, be it, with my bad taste considered, Ginger Spice or one of the BeWitched girls (I guess its the same thing really) but when I first listened to the Divinyls I realised that I really wanted to be someone. I didn't realise that music could enforce such power into people, women especially. Sure, Patti Smith is pure awe inspiring, a real women figure, but I just couldn't connect on that level, it wasn't clicking. There was something about Chirissie Amphlett inspired me.
I wanted to be her. And I still do.
Perhaps its because she is so completely different to myself. I couldn't strut on the stage like that and I know that. I can't put all that sexual energy into my words, I can barely flirt let alone prance and jump around, singing and squealing about being "Only Lonely". But thats okay, because in my room, in my head, with whatever assorted item that resembles a microphone, I can. So I can thank the Divinyls and Chrissie Amphlett for giving me that tiny bit of confidence for three minutes and nine seconds in which I sing into my powder soft deodrant.
2. Teardrop- Massive Attack
Theres always those bands you get who just come out and are a massive success, amazing, but you still never really hear about them that much. You can pick up on their tunes in a movie or in an outrageously popular teen TV show but they still aren't that well known. "Teardrop" is one of those songs. Its like the back score to depressing or emotional parts in TV shows/ ads or movies. Yet still no one really knows about Massive Attack and theres a lot of bands out there.
Take Supergrass and their song "Sun Hits the Sky". Ring a bell? Most likely no but when your all sitting around the set and the "visit Britain" ad comes on practically everyone knows the lyrics to the song, proclaiming it to be their favorite song. Thats the unfortunate thing with TV today, everything is over played and everyone knows the lyrics, the tune but no one really knows the song. Who cares? No one really does, unless your a cold hard music lover who goes out there and researches until you find that one song. To which you then play over and over again until you finally bore of it and when it eventually greets you again on the TV you are almost angry at the song, its all a bit pathetic. But don't think people don't, hundreds of people have commented the video for "Teardrop" on youtube after seeing it on an ad for, I think, House. Thats how music works these days.
3. Keen on Boys- The Radio Dept.
I often listen to music and think of each tune as a different scene in a movie. Yes, this song was used in "Marie Antoinette" but to me thats not the fit. To me, this song is played carefully behind a scene of someone in an aquarium or someone finally discovering something in their life they thought they'd forgotten, someone coming home. Someone playing with balloons or at a lake, any number of things where people open their eyes reallllllly big. To me, each song can be played behind a scene in my life or a scene in someone elses life. Thats how I interpret music. Life really isn't that exciting, hardly anyones going to have a backing track to someone making a cup of tea, but people hum during such activities, so everything has a backing track in the end. Every single activity can be played out to a piece of music. Every single piece of music creates the atmosphere. Every single thing in life works hand in hand.
4. Sea of Love - Cat Power
Your at the age where really you haven't had that many experiences in the genre of romance or love. Yet, there are still an amazing amount of girls my age who will sit there and weep to songs about heart break and I am happy to say I am one of them.
You can't say you really connect to the lyrics. You haven't had your hear broken, you haven't sat and really thought about any of that stuff, you can't exactly understand but does Cat Power? Originally this song was sung by a man, namely Phil Phillips in 1959. So does she connect to the lyrics, the song? She sounds like she does, even if its not her own experiences. So then I guess I can.
5. (In the) Pouring Rain- The Clash
I remember The Clash being the first heavy act I got into. I had always been rather mediocre in my music tastes but for some odd reason when I was about 12, I was really angry and The Clash filled that anger. I'm not saying that The Clash were an extremely angry band, although on the whole they're music wasn't exactly happy, but at least with The Clash you could spit the words out. You could spit the words out like Strummer, you could jump around and act like what you were saying was important, finally important. No, you not exactly fighting the rule of Thatcher but at least you could pretend you were, you were fighting your own little Thatchers and you got their core!
The thing was and still is that music resolves everything. It can't of course,really, it can't do miracles, well some may say, I tend to disagree, but music can make you feel something you need to feel. I needed that sort of out put and The Clash did it for me, I perhaps at the time didn't understand the lyrics or the references but I didn't really have to. I just jumped around like a maniac and shouted a lot about being "lost in the supermarket", thinking it was really about being lost in the supermarket, I guess I could connect on that level.
6. Message to My Girl- Split Enz
I get obsessions, not healthy obsessions mind you, not like the ones that will help you later in life but obsessions about certain things that won't really do anything for me. "Message to My Girl" was one of those songs that I played over and over again and I don't really know why. Its a good song, yes, its not their best but it is catchy. After awhile I had learnt all the lyrics, the movements that Neil Finn did in the video and when Tim Finn would eventually join in. I even wondered that perhaps was Tim angered by the fact Neil passes in front of him. I questioned that kind of thing. I asked my father do you think Tim was jealous of Neil, I questioned insane things that he couldn't probably answer. I would get my father to explain exactly what Split Enz wore in their concert and what movies did they exactly do and was the percussionist really that weird? Of course, he couldn't answer all my questions and after awhile the obsession faded but each time I hear this song I still wonder what happens between Tim and Neil and will I meet people like that in art school and do they consider themselves Australians? Of course, this will never help me but I can't help but think I really need to know.
7. Heroes- David Bowie
This song greets me every time I turn on my phone. A little message pops up stating "I can remember, standing by the wall" before deferring into "we can beat them forever and ever". Its meant to boost my morale or something, I typed it back when I first got the phone and now I just skim over it and go straight to my messages to see what mundane things seem truly exciting.
I can't exactly explain this song, everything about it intrigues me, the emotion and the lyrics, the strain in Bowie's voice. The opening line seems silly but sort of hits you powerfully, an unexpected blow. I first encountered Bowie via the song, "The Laughing Gnome", a track that Bowie was so embarrassed by he never released again, yet for some reason I own the CD. Five bucks from an assorted box in Myers, something I still love about music, finding a gem in a load of bile. Although some may disagree that it is a load of crap, i tend to disagree.The CD features the original Space Oddity plus another favorite of mine "When I'm Five" that at the odd occurrence makes me feel extremely depressed but, I guess, so does "Laughing Gnome".
I have found that Bowie has made a significant impact on many, many, many peoples lives. He is referenced throughout everything, the movie "C.R.A.Z.Y", the show, "The Flight of The Conchords" and even in "Run Fatboy Run", Peggs character wear a Bowie shirt. Despite all this, you always like to think that perhaps Bowie is talking to just you, its cliche, dumb and of course not true but its a nice little fantasy that I am sure many people like to indulge in. If not then why do so many people always use the word "connect" and thank the artist when writing fan letters for helping them through a tough time. The song may have been written ages before you were even born let alone actually heard it but still, some how, your mind thinks that that artists is in fact singing to you. Is that the power of music?
Next week i shall inform you all of the power of the B Side and why I believe I should be allowed to own bands in my house hold.
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