Thursday, January 29, 2009

Read Instructions Before Assembling

One of my favorite things in music are meta-instructions to the band in a song or descriptions of what the band is doing or about to do. . . Especially when it is on a studio recording and thus has to be a very self-conscious (and unnecessary) thing - as compared to a recording of a live performance where it might actually be serving to instruct/direct the band. I am talking about when the singer/bandleader just announces "bridge!" and the band breaks to the bridge (like James Brown might). Prince does this a lot (like on "Mountains" when he says, "Guitars and drums on the one," or "Superfunkycalifragisexy" when he says, "In seven measures I want somebody to scream," and then someone does. . . him), but I have written a lot about Prince lately so I won't focus on him.

Another common example is a lot of the older salsa I listen to (my taste in salsas and rhumbas ends in the 70s somewhere, basically the music my mom exposed me to growing up). There are a lot of call outs to particular instrumentalists in the recordings, giving them instructions or announcing their solos. This might be jazz influencing the music.

On Taj Mahal's song (or his version of it anyway) "Cluck Old Hen" he says, "And this is what the cluckin' sound like on the banjo. . ." And then he plays it. The whole song has the banjo sounding like a bunch of clucking chickens.

This reminds me that sometimes these instructions or explanations are for the audience, as he says later "Now listen to them hens!"

Dance songs of course are the most common example of instructions for the listeners, often describing the dance that goes along with the song. But still, that is not quite what I meant when I started writing this. Live recordings are also a very common example of this, with the band imploring the crowd to clap or sing along or to cheer out or scream. I remember many years ago a friend of mine admitting that he felt a little embarrassed when he heard recordings of crowds acting that way, but I scoffed. "They are at a concert. They are just really into it. . ." I guess I am empathetic since I can get that into it just listening to my ipod waiting for the train to go home from work. Once at a Flaming Lips show, Wayne Coyne implored us to pump our fists as they played "The Gash," saying "Yeah, I know it's cheesy, and you feel like just some follower - but that is what we come to concerts for. Forget yourself! Play along!" I appreciated that moment of awareness of audience participation and his jab at the too-school-for-school alt-rockers who would never be caught dead pumping their fists in time to the music along with everyone else.

I guess, the most common example of instructions or guides in a song is just counting off to begin a song, "1. . 2. . 3. . 4. ." Or I guess sometimes in the middle when there is about to be a change or some new instrumentation is about to come in.

Boogie Down Productions' song "Nervous" off of By All Means Necessary is a particular cool example. Hip-hop is full of self-reflective instructions/descriptions, but on this particular track KRS-ONE actually explains the things he is doing "on the 48-track board" while he doing it. For example, "There's two ways to do this, you see what I'm sayin? / If you feel the board, you feel around / We got tracks one to track 48 / We find track seven, and break it down!" And of course, the beat breaks down at the moment. . . This is an example of a song I used to not like and would skip, but over the years of listening to album that meta aspect began to appeal to me.

Another variation is when little snippets of instruction or conversation are kept on a cut and becomes just part of how you think of the song. For example, the version of "Revolution" on The Beatles (aka "The White Album") has a little flub at the beginning and Paul McCartney saying "Take two" with John's response "Okay!" And then there is the infamous "I'VE GOT BLISTERS ON MY FINGERS!" at the end of "Helter Skelter," a song that proves the Beatles could rock when they wanted to - though I guess there is plenty of evidence of that in their earlier stuff that is more influenced by early American rock n'roll music. . . But anyway, that lamentation is more of a tangential outburst referring to the playing/recording of the song, rather than the song itself or some detail about how it is played. Who knows how many takes it took? Those blisters probably really hurt! One of the things I liked about the Beatles Anthologies that came out in the 90s were the alternate takes with the flubs and mess ups which included a lot of those tidbits - like Paul chuckling through to the end of a fucked up version of "Rocky Racoon." ("Sminking of gin")

So, now I am giving you instructions for listening to music, listen for these instructions and try to decide what they add to the song, or perhaps you think they diminish the recording in some cases? What does it acommplish to make the seams of a song transparent?

Friday, January 16, 2009

I Only Want You To Have Some Fun. . .

1999. "Don't worry. I won't hurt you. I only want you to have some fun. . ."

So opens an underrated classic, underscoring the sense of menace that is so often present in Prince's music, but that can be easily overlooked. Even if you don't want to characterize it as menace, there was an underlying tone in those early Prince records of the forbidden, of the taboo - like you are saying or doing something that might get you hurt - and that is appealing to me.


It must have always been appealing, because as I wrote once before, I first heard "1999" when I was about 11 years old over the Christmas break, and I think it is for that reason I always associate it with winter and the new year. I guess the title track is playing on millennial fear, even if it was 18 years before the threat of Y2K appeared to make people stress out about apparently nothing.

(Note that throughout this essay when I refer to "1999" (in quotes) I mean the song by that name, and when I use 1999 (in italics) I mean the album as a whole).

1999 is a different kind of record and a culmination of some of the new-wavey keyboard and drum machine stuff Prince had been experimenting with on Dirty Mind and Controversy, and while Purple Rain (which followed 1999) still has some of that keyboard-y stuff, the live drums and guitar rock gives it a totally different feel. There is an interesting contradiction in this collection of songs because while he certainly has a pop sensibility to his use of these electronic elements (in some cases riffing off Kraftwerk and in others pre-figuring Timbaland) and there some hooky-ass hooktidity hooks ("Delirious," "Little Red Corvette"), at the same time the songs are long - while "Delirious" clocks in at exactly four minutes, most of the songs are six or more minutes long with "Automatic" passing the nine-minute mark. The thing is that these were also dance songs, so that explains the length - but Prince has always been an artist that is unafraid to be self-indulgent (with varying levels of success) - so he is willing to spend two minutes of a song softly cooing over the drumbeat, or just groaning and moaning and making those Prince sounds that he manages to make. The dance music aspect also explains the melange of styles, because popular dance music often alludes to and plays with different styles and makes allusions to fragments of melody of other songs. So "Delirious" swings a bit, and both "Little Red Corvette" and "Let's Pretend We're Married" have a blues-rock base - and live versions of these songs I have heard sometimes emphasize these influences. In fact, despite the heavy synths throughout the record, almost all of it (save perhaps on "Automatic" and "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)" could easily be arranged for horns, and most of the live versions I have heard of these songs do exactly that.

The title track evokes a common Prince theme, the idea that the world is in bad shape and his only reaction to it is to experience as much pleasure as possible before he goes on to the next life. "War is all around us, my mind says prepare to fight / So if I gotta die I'm gonna listen to my body tonight". Simultaneously, however, it does seem to ask questions from a particular (perhaps pacifist) political point of view. I mean, when the song closes "Mommy? Why does everybody have a bomb?" with a vocal effect that makes Prince voice seem child-like, the ghost of war and reality of imminent self-destruction rises up out of a danceable party hit.

Lyrically, like a lot of Prince records, 1999 is uneven. Prince has never been what I consider a master lyricist, but as time went on he seemed to feel more comfortable being playful with language and using certain reversals and purposeful mispronunciation of words that really work. And sometimes his incredibly explicit lyrics are delivered with more success than others. But I have to admire someone who can sing "Girl's got an ass like I've never seen / And the ride. . . I said, the ride is so smooth, you must be a limousine!"

In "Let's Pretend We're Married" he displays total willingness to disrupt his own rhyme schemes and the meter of his lyrics to cram in what he wants, how he wants (something that will become a signature of his songs to those with more than a passing familiarity with them - in that sense I think the occasional Dylan comparisons I have heard are accurate, but only in that very specific sense). For example, one repeated lyric is "My girl's gone and she don't care at all / And if she did, so what? Come on baby let's ball. . ." But before that is even established, he doesn't sing it that way, instead of "let's ball" he says "let's fuck, aw!" pronouncing that "fuck" with three squeezed syllables that take some kind of verbal gymnastics to make work. In the same song he dares to say, "I'm not saying this just to be nasty / But I sincerely want to fuck the taste out of your mouth." I never thought of this before, but the opening lyric to this song is "Excuse me, but I need a mouth like yours / To help forget the girl just walked out my door." Maybe there is even more of an oral sex theme in this song than I thought (though not like Dirty Mind's "Head" - great fucking song).

"Let's Pretend We're Married" ends with a spoken tangent, which these long songs allow for, total drifting away from the song's theme. (Perhaps this is the "going astray" mentioned in the title track), and sometimes become really weird and kind of stream of consciousness. All of "All the Critics Love U In New York" is like this - just strange lyrics that make little sense over an electro-funk groove. "Look out all you hippies, you ain't as sharp as me / It ain't about the tripping, but the sexuality / Turn it up!"

Speaking of funk, "D.M.S.R" (which was omitted from the original CD release of 1999) has a great groove that is reminiscent of the afore-mentioned "Head." It is a total party funk song with call and response and with the bass, drums and shakers pumping along to the hooky refrain that you can imagine a packed dance floor calling back to. The backing vocals are brushed liberally with chorus in the mix to give that crowd feel. And like most funk songs, the lyrics don't have to be great, they just have to be fun. But don't get too comfortable, when he asks for "All the white people clap your hands on the four," he counts it out for them, mockingly. Also, the song ends with a distressed woman's voice begging, "Somebody call the police! Somebody help me please! Somebody help me!" There is that menace, that discomfort I was talking about.

As I mentioned before, Prince's guitar is not as present on this record as we would come to expect from his post-Purple Rain period. In fact, "Little Red Corvette" is the only song on the album that has any real guitar solo to speak of (though "Lady Cab Driver" does have a synth and guitar trading off a lead at one point). Rather, in most of these tunes the guitar is light and rhythmic with little funk flares and tinkling progressions. We also get the mechanistic groove of "Automatic" - another dark dance tune that goes on and on, allowing Prince to play with computer sounds (including what sounds like a sampled staccato airplane engine on take-off that punctuates the song's development towards the end) and for some murmured call and response between him and the girls (Wendy and Lisa) "I pray that when U dream / U dream of how we kiss / Not with our lips, but with our souls."

"Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)" takes up the mechanistic feel, but at a much more frenetic pace in a way (like I said) that seems to channel Kraftwerk by pre-figuring Timbaland. This is a tune I didn't feel as much back in the day. While some of the soundss and words of the other songs are discomforting, the jerking rhythm of this song is not exactly "pop" friendly - at least not for that time period. It is one of those bad lover songs. "Some people tell me I got great legs / Can't figure out why you make me beg."

One of the things I love about Prince is his (seemingly) casual use of gender-specific words or sayings. I mean, is it all that common to compliment a man on his legs? Saying someone has "great legs" is usually reserved for women, but in this case it doesn't matter (Similar to how on Parade's "Do You Lie?" he talks about lying awake in his "boudoir," he seems to not know or not care that by definition a boudoir is a lady's private bedroom or dressing room).

Anyway, "Something in the Water (Does Not Compute)" conveys a sense of frustration and desperation that really works for the song, and the computer-y synthesized sounds help the human frailty of the lyric stand out in stark contrast. Again, this is an example of lyrics that aren't that strong on their own "I'll buy you clothes / I'll buy you fancy cars / But you gotta tell me who the hell you think you are" - but Prince makes them work with the raw delivery and willingness to scream. It is the kind of thing he would perfect on Purple Rain's "The Beautiful Ones" and "Darling Nicki."

The weakest song on the album is the ballad "Free." I must admit to skipping past it most of the times I listen to the album these days (though I listened to it this morning on the way to work and again right now as I write this). The lyrics are definitely the weakest "Don't cry unless you're happy / Don't smile unless you're blue / Never let that lonely monster take control of you." Lonely monster? Ugh. Makes me a little nauseous with embarrassment just thinking about it (though interesting, some poor lyrics in "International Lover" don't have the same effect on me (see below). "Free" is an example of Prince's strangely conservative political side - or at least what comes off as superficial patriotism - something that shows up rarely and that changed later in his career - but songs like "Ronnie Talk to Russia" (off of Controversy - 1981) and "America" (off of Around the World in a Day - 1985) are also examples (by the time we get to "Family Name" off of 2001's The Rainbow Children he is veering more towards a dissenting view on race in America that basically pits all the racial minorities against white America in a powerful way). But "Free"? Again, ugh! The refrain "Be glad that you are free / Free to change your mind / Free to go most anywhere anytime / Be glad that you are free / There's many a man whose not / Be glad for what you have, for what you've got." The plodding ballad's monotonous melody and the "rousing" anthemic repetition of the chorus at the end of the song doesn't help either.

"Lady Cab Driver" is another funky mid-tempo one. It is marked by a bridge that features the orgasmic moaning of woman in response to Prince saying "This one's [for this], this one's [for that]" and those "this" and "thats" range wildly and some make no sense as far as I can tell - "This one's for Yosemite Sam and the tourists that didn't land"? What the heck does that mean? My favorite one is "This is for how I wasn't born / like my brother handsome and tall" - I think I can just relate. Interestingly, only one of these orgasms he is "giving" the lady cab driver in question is for her. Again, there is that weird sense of menace - as if orgasms were being inflicted upon her, rather than some loving shared experience. He is venting some aggression sexually "This is for politicians who were born to believe in war," or "This one's for discrimination and egotistic things supreme / This one is for whoever taught you how to kiss in designer jeans."

After the long and bizarre "All the Critics Love U in New York" (which segues from "Lady Cab Driver" nicely with traffic noise that alludes to New York City), we get that classic Prince lover-man ballad "International Lover" - which is ridiculous and awesome as you'd expect. There is a great tradition in soul music of taking gospel songs and influences and making them into love songs. "International Lover" takes that one step beyond and (in classic Prince style) makes it into nasty playful rave-up that plays up the whole dramatic presentation and winks all the way through with an airplane ride metaphor that was alluded to in "Automatic" and as does the smooth "limousine" ride of "Little Red Corvette." For some people, Controversy's "Do Me, Baby" is the classic song of this type, but for my money "International Lover" is better because it seems to have a little more awareness of its own absurdity, and is winking all along.

Sure this song suffers from some poor lyrics, like Prince's penchant to rhyme "girl" with "diamonds and pearls" (something he would do as the title track of the 1991 album of the same name, e.g. "Diamond & Pearls) - but as I've said before, sometimes Prince can more than make up for a weak lyric with the pliability of his voice. Just listen to the way he sings "Baby" halfway through the second verse, or the way he pauses knowingly after the word "come" when asking "Don't you want to come. . . inside."

But really to me, where this closing track shines most is in the spoken part that is in the guise of a airline pilot, but delivered like a pastor half-singing his sermon while the choir bolsters him with their voices (all of which sound like Prince overdubs). "Good evening. This is your pilot Prince speaking / You are flying aboard the Seduction 747 / and this plane is fully equipped with anything your body desires." And then it goes into these amazing faux-instructions like those a flight attendant gives before take-off.
For any reason there is a loss in cabin pressure
I will automatically drop down to apply more
To activate the flow of excitement
Extinguish all clothing materials
And pull my body close to yours,
put your lips upon my mouth and kiss, kiss
In the event there is over-excitement
your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device.

And later, as the song reaches its climax, he announces, "We are now making our final approach to satisfaction / Please bring your lips, your arms, your hips to the up and locked position / for landing." And particularly wink-wink at the end, "Please remain awake until the aircraft has come to a complete stop."


As someone who believes in the power of having music playing when you make love (and it is for that reason alone that I own a 5-disc CD changer), 1999 ranks up there are one of the best for that purpose. Overall the flow of the record is condusive to getting your groove on (sometimes slow, sometimes fast, grooving, crooning, jerking, shaking, hollering. .. ) - and maybe that is another reason why I think of this as a winter-time album (in addition to when I discovered it and the millenial nature of the title track that suggests New Year's Eve), it makes me want to stay in all day with a lover, listening and getting it on - staying warm and safe while playing dangerously - while the world outside freezes over.