One album i've been listening to quite a bit in the recent past is Blur's The Great Escape. Apart from being easy to listen to and with one or two songs ridiculously catchy, some of Alburn's lyrics are pretty intelligent.
I don't think there's a single love song on the album, they're all satires on various people, and very smart ones too. And it starts with the very first lines of the first song, Stereotypes, that are so tongue in cheek that you just laugh at its silliness. They go:
The suburbs they are dreaming they're a twinkle in her eye
She's been feeling frisky since her husband said goodbye
She wears a low cut T-shirt, runs a little B&B
She's most accomodating when she's in her lingerie
I'm not sure I quite like the subjects the man chooses to satirise. Country House, for example, is about a guy who buys a house in the country to get away from the rat race of urban existence. Seems like a bit of a non-issue for me, not really worth a whole song, but still, parts of this song are pretty funny - I love the lines "I'm a professional cynic/ But my heart's not in it/ I'm paying the price of living life at the limit". (On a digression, anyone knows what the connection between the lines from the song "He's got morning glory but that's a different story" and the Oasis album? They were both released at the same time, so is that a coincidence?)
The album isn't as exuberant as Parklife before it, but it's a lot less intense than the self titled album after it - but it does have a few dark moments..
Fade Away is about a couple who "stumbled into their lives/ In a vague way became man and wife," and "One got the other/ They deserved one another." It goes on to say "He noticed he had visible lines/ She worried about her behind". Not shakespeare, but pretty funny all the same - and then
"They're not making plans
Cos now they understand
All you ever do is fade away"
Which i think actually kind of goes beyond being funny and gets a bit depressing.
But as far as lyrics go, Mr Robinson's Quango is just brilliant, especially THIS stanza:
He just sits in his leather chair and twiddles his thumb
Gets his secretary in and pinches her bum
He ran into the toilets in the town hall
He got his biro out and wrote on the wall
"I'm wearing black French knickers under my suit
I've got stocking and suspenders on
I'm feeling rather loose"
Ooh, I'm a naughty boy
Ooh, I'm a naughty, naughty boy
Ernold Same - Amazon.com says the song is "a weird spoken word piece set to a harpsichord, strings, horns, etc".. The lyrics are something like "Ernold Same awoke from the same dream in the same bed at the same time looked in the same mirror made the same frown and felt the same way as he did every day"... and more like that.. But a pretty neat effect is that the words are spoken by two people, one slightly delayed, so it sounds like the word 'same' is being said again and again, which is a nice effect.
I think the band, in laughing at society, found themselves laughing at themselves in the end, and decided to go with something a little more serious and intense with the next album. But this album is great to listen to when you're a little bored with life, or going through a bit of a slump workwise and socially. I am, so I should know.
Anyways, will round this post off with a great lyric from the earlier album Parklife... One of my favourites, cos I sure have been there!
Jubilee slouches in the settee
He losing all will to move
He gone divy... too much telly
He watching 24 hours of rubbish!
He got butane he got plastic bags
His eyes are going square... oh yeah!
He no raver just anti social
He no going to cut his hair
He dresses incorrectly... no-one told him at seventeen,
He not mean enough
He dresses incorrectly... no-one told him seventeen,
He not keen on being like anyone else
Jubilee's dad, Billy Banker
He thinks his son is a slob
He should get out more - stop scabbing
He really should go and get a job
He dresses incorrectly... no-one told him where to go
But he just don't get out enough
He dresses incorrectly... no-one told him talk to girls
But he's just too spotty
He dresses incorrectly... no-one told him seventeen
He not keen on being liked by anyone else
So he just plays on his computer game
He not keen on being liked
By anyone he's not being like
Anyone jubilee's not like
Anyone else
27 comments:
Abhinav,
A lovely cofeetable piece - if you will - after a couple of pieces, which set the hells loose as it were. Though not a great listener of music, I guess there are times - as you have suggested - when music combined with the lyric can make us see sense we might otherwise have missed. Indeed why then is music considered booth soothing as well as jarring?
Great going Abhinav. Do visit mine when you find time: a couple of posts you might have something to say about. Cheerio!
haha tell me about it, there are so many lyrics that tickle, queen and the beatles kept doing that repeatedly, something like i am a walrus or bohemian rhapsody, those songs linger forever dont they!!
wow, i cant believe i actually have comments for this one.. it was such a ridiculous post.. anyways:
@srini,
if you look at all the really big hits - the really really big ones that have stood the test of time, they all have good lyrics. hotel california, money for nothing, winds of change, and even another brick in the wall!
so while pop tracks with cheesy lyrics might break the charts for the moment, ultimately people aren't fools.
@yogi,
bohemian rhapsody especially, pure poetry, especially "thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me!" lol just kidding, but it really is a beautiful song.. depresses the crap out of me everytime i listen to it.
other than some individual songs, the only album of theirs iv given an album-listen to, is the self-titled... worth it... love em... kick ass band... but they sacked the guitarist before they made thinktank... a most disaterous album,, really sux ass...
btw... i dunno if this helps, but "whats the story morningglory" is lifted from a piece by langston hughes... the next line which is "shake yer tail, nightingale"
and hey!!! its i am THE fuckin walrus!!! yer gonna get yerself killed man!!
you didnt like think tank? i mean, true blur-minus-coxon is not as cool, but the best two songs on the album are titled 'good song' and 'sweet song' which i think is bloody hilarious... good song i think is one of their best.
BUT you're right about the self titled album. beetlebum and song 2... what a way to open any album..
have you ever tried beetlebum on the acoustic (i know you do play the guitar) cos the chords are really really super.
yay..blur!
as varma said..kick ass band.
but he didn't like think tank? i thought it was awesome..sure, was a bit more moody..but a couple of my favourite blur songs are from that album..'out of time' and 'jets'. every blur album has a couple of songs that are amazing..me thinks.
antickpix,
jets??? but thats not even a song! it's just some wierd stuff looped over and over...
but out of time, gorgeous... i really really like ambulance tho - it somehow reminds me of smoking up in the screaming afternoon heat during college hours and wondering what the hell life is all about..
Ah, Blur!
Does anyone else here remember By Demand with Trey and Muriel on Channel V, and how they ended each episode by jumping up and down and all around the studio to Song 2? Those were the happy days, man...
i heard muriel died of heart attack when he found out he was the only one of his kind left....
i wish everything i said was funny.... i'd be blogger perfect!!
eyefry,
boy those guys were really really funny.. i DO remember them jumping around to song 2 - cos thats how i started listening to blur! i think channel v tried to replicate it with that canadian chick kim, and a similar doll... it was rubbish! 'king louis' my ass!
eternal flunky,
everything you say IS funny.. tho prob not in the way you intend. ok thats not very complimentary, i fear..
That was my favourite show ever...sigh...
It's not a bad post at all dude...in fact I want to listen to blur now...I have never given them a try so far. I love posts on music.
eyefry,
well my favourite was charles in charge but this ran a close second :)
reflextion,
yayyy i've converted someone... but u kind of have to be in a mood, i think, to like blur.
thanks anyways.
oasis and blur hate each other...or oasis hates blur(come to think of it i don't think liam gallagher can get along with anybody)...personally i like oasis better...and hey lets see u analyse song 2!
lakshmi,
i think the hatred is mutual.. albarn has had a few choice things to say about oasis sure.
as for which band is better - i think the morning glory album beats anything blur have ever done, but overall, blur for me are the better band. they have so much more to offer, so much variety, and lyrics are def. ahead. oasis just went steadily downhill after the dyou know what i mean album (forget the title).. standing on the shoulder was horrible i thought.
anyways, fully expecting a scathing reply to this comment!
Hey nice post! Not a blur fan but now I'm interested. But I thought u said it was "average brit teeny-bopper" kinda music ;)
As for oasis, I like them but was kind of shocked when I read somewhere that they think they're better than the Beatles! :O
the album was 'be here now'and it was a pretty good album (it's got stand ny me on it)and yeah standing on the shoulder of giants wasn't that great...but i still think they're better than blur...
compare this
Slip inside the eye of your mind
Don't you know you might find
A better place to play
You said that you'd once never been
All the things that you've seen
Will slowly fade away
So I'll start the revolution from my bed
Cos you said the brains I had went to my head
Step outside the summertime's in bloom
Stand up beside the fireplace
Take that look from off your face
You ain't ever gonna burn my heart out
So Sally can wait, she knows its too late as we're walking on by
Her soul slides away, but don't look back in anger I hear you say
Take me to the place where you go
Where nobody knows if it's night or day
Please don't put your life in the hands
Of a Rock n Roll band
Who'll throw it all away.....
TO...
I got my head checked
By a jumbo jet
It wasn't easy but nothing is
No
When I feel heavy metal
And I'm pins and I'm needles
Well I lie and I'm easy
All of the time I am never sure
Why I need you
Pleased to meet you
I got my head done
When I was young ....
and i'm still waiting for the analysis of the above song!
to jump in on the blur-oasis debate, while lakshmi quoted Don't look back in anger (from Morning GLory), their lyrical output over the last 3 albums has been abysmal. Little James? The Hindu Times?
actually, though Oasis-Blur raged on, i think the best band of that period was....Radiohead.
antickpix- i actually like the hindu times! but yeah lyrics like calling all the stars to fall to catch the silver sunlight in your hands is a lil weird...still like the song tho! oh and speaking of radiohead...saw the scott tenerman must die episode for the billionth time yesterday and almost died laughing!
@jan,
yes they are
but then again they aren't!
come on, you've read enough literature to know this stuff isnt that easy.
and well, if oasis think they're better than the beatles... well, john lennon once said, "we're more popular than jesus"... everyone loves a loudmouth in the end, dont they?
@lakshmi,
well - dont look back in anger. thats the first song i learnt on the guitar u know.. its beautiful.
also, the song is a take on john osborne's look back in anger, which is one of my favourite plays - if you've read the play, then the lines 'gonna start a revolution from my bed' would make sense.
but its unfair to compare it to song 2, because... well, im putting up a new post. the analysis of song 2... soon!
leaving that aside, as antickpix puts it, there's absolutely no consistency in oasis, both in terms of music and in terms of lyrics. i mean:
"i thank you for the sun
the one that shines on everyone"
i mean, come on.
@antickpix,
yes, but i think after the initial blur-oasis furor everyone switched over to saying that radiohead are the greatest... so i think your band got its due recognition :)
and i do like their stuff ESP ok computer. super album.
kid a... as my friend sunny put it, you have to decide the album is brilliant before listening to it.
i thought your friend said that about amnesiac. ah well. almost all their output is good/great.
ok i shouldn't have compared it with song 2....i didn't know it was inspired by a play...must read it some time....but i think oasis are pretty consistent....even though some ppl think liam's a whiner....love noel...have u heard his version of live forever??
cheating, cheating
huh....was that for me?!?
no that was just generally... well, i havent heard live forever but will put it down on my download list.
the song 2 analysis seems to have hit a rut. im really booooooooooooored!
no no!! u have to!! u can't 'escape'...get it?? ESCAPE....ok i'll stop now...
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