music

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ Echo Reconsidered

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

I’m a pretty big Tom Petty fan.  I’ve seen him in concert three times, the first on the Into the Great Wide Open tour (front row center, and I got Petty’s guitar pick at the end of the show!), then again for Wildflowers, and then on a tour where he just played greatest hits a few years ago.  It’s safe to say he’s one of my favorite musicians.

If I have to rank Petty’s albums (both solo and with the Heartbreakers), it’s pretty easy.  Wildflowers is sitting pretty at the top, followed closely (in no particular order, ’cause they’re too close to call) by Full Moon Fever, Damn the Torpedoes!, and Into the Great Wide Open.  Somewhere further down the list, after Hard Promises and Southern Accents but before Mojo and (shudder) The Last DJ, there’s Echo, the 1999 follow-up to Wildflowers (and the soundtrack to She’s the One, which was of a piece with Wildflowers).

When it initially came out, I enjoyed the record, but wasn’t all that impressed with it.  Wildflowers had set a ridiculously high bar for Tom Petty albums, after all.  You weren’t going to top that thing.  I really enjoyed “Room at the Top,” the album opener, and a few other tracks along the way, but it’s very telling that, with most Tom Petty albums, I can sing along to every single song without a problem.  But I can’t do that with Echo.  I know the choruses (Petty’s choruses are always catchy as hell), and I’m vaguely familiar with the songs, but they haven’t become ingrained in my brain the way, say, the songs from Into the Great Wide Open or Full Moon Fever have.  The album always felt too long: it’s 15 songs, over an hour long, and just felt too full.

But when I got into the car a few days ago, and decided I wanted to hear Echo, it was an opportunity to reevaluate the album and see if an older, wiser (?) Charlie could appreciate it in a way that 19-year-old me could not.

For starters, “Room at the Top” is still freakin’ awesome and a great opener.  It’s anthematic, hopeful, heartfelt, and just all-around great.  “Counting on You” is a solid, classic Petty song, and “Free Girl Now” rocks as hard as any of the rockers on Wildflowers.  “Swingin’,” with its extended baseball metaphor, kind of drags, but things pick up real quick with “Accused of Love,” which was one of my favorites from the album back in the day and holds up remarkably well.  The title track is a little too plodding for my tastes, but it’s not a bad song. “Won’t Last Long” is a tune in the same vein as “Won’t Back Down,” a statement of defiance and resilience.  “This One’s For Me” is a fun, strummy song that feels like classic Petty songwriting.  “About to Give Out” has a driving beat and is a lot of fun.  “Rhino Skin” is a weird song, but does feature the phrase “you need elephant balls,” which I’m kind of amazed he worked into a song with a straight face.

Overall, my estimation of Echo is a bit higher than it was when it came out 17 years ago.  Petty’s songwriting is as strong as ever, the band feel expressive and lively, and everyone sounds like they’re having a blast playing these tunes.  All pretty strange, considering it’s a post-divorce album (those’re typically dour affairs, even as they generate plenty of fodder for the songwriter’s muse).  Petty seemed to make some pretty damn good lemonade out of those lemons, if you ask me.

Halloween Playlist

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

Are you like me, and find yourself wanting to enjoy Halloween but struggling because of a dearth of decent songs associated with the holiday?  I mean, in terms of inspiring music, it’s not Christmas, that’s for sure.  I just find that I can’t stand listening to the Monster Mash and the Addams Family theme and the Munsters theme again and again on repeat this year.  I need some actual, non-novelty music.

And we’re in luck!  There are actually plenty of real, pretty awesome songs that have a stealth-Halloween theme to them.  Here’s a selection of some of my favorites.

1. The Eagles, “Witchy Woman”: Sure, it’s easy to rag on the Eagles as being the dad-est of Dad Rock, but they did some fun songs.  This one carries the witch metaphor throughout pretty strongly, and fits right in with our “real song but Halloween-y” theme.

2. Creedence Clearwater Revival, “I Put a Spell on You”: Yeah, I know, the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins version is probably better, and certainly more Halloween-y, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to include a CCR song on a playlist.

3. The Beatles, “Devil in Her Heart”: Not even a little bit of the right tone, barely even mentions anything Halloween-related (the titular devil in her heart, which is more metaphorical than actual), but it’s the Beatles, and it’s my playlist, so nyah.

4. Warren Zevon, “Werewolves of London”: There was a 0% chance I wasn’t going to include this.  An obvious but classic choice.

5. Tom Petty, “Zombie Zoo”: “Sometimes you’re so impulsive/You shaved off all your hair/You look like Boris Karloff/But you don’t even care” is probably the best line in any song ever, and I will fight you if you say otherwise.

6. Josh Ritter, “The Curse”: A love song about a mummy told as sincerely as this is proof this world is sometimes better than we deserve.

7. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “Red Right Hand”: Honestly, you could just put a Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds album on for Halloween it’d be fine.  If I have to go with one song, though, this is the one.  The Pete Yorn version from the first Hellboy movie isn’t half-bad, either.

8. Jeremy Messersmith, “Ghost”: A haunting beautiful (get it?) song about disappearing out of someone’s life.

9. The Flaming Lips, “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Part 1”: War of the Worlds, if it was fought between a Japanese pop singer who knows karate and giant pink robots that want to eat people.

10. The White Stripes, “Walking with a Ghost”: I don’t have a whole lot to say about this one.  I just wanted another song about ghosts on here.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

So, here’s a cool thing: Bob Dylan was announced last week as the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.  The prize committee cited Dylan “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”

And hey, that’s definitely something I can get behind.  Even when he’s less than great, Dylan can still turn a phrase better than most.  I thought it might be fun to run down a list of some of my favorite Dylan lyrics, in honor of his…um, honor.

Let me ask you one question/Is your money that good?/Can it buy you forgiveness?/Do you think that it should? (Masters of War)

I mean, all of “Masters of War” is classic.  It’s one of those evergreen protest songs that they could play over footage of any war and it would feel pretty appropriate.  There’s a sneer and a condemnation in the words, a drone in the repetitive chord progression that’s relentless and unchanging.  You get the feeling Dylan fucking hates war, has always and will always hate it, and you’ll never be able to convince him it’s justified.

Voices echo/This is what salvation must be like after a while. (Visions of Johanna)

I don’t always necessarily have a lot of deep insight into a particular lyrics.  A lot of his stuff just strikes me in a funny way.  His turn of phrase is always magnificent.  There’s an almost dismissive quality to a lot of what he sings, as though he can’t be bothered to decide if what he’s singing is profound or tremendously absurd.  Maybe it’s both.  I think it’s probably both.

I’m listening to Billy Joe Shaver/And I’m reading James Joyce/Some people tell me/I got the Blood of the Lamb in my voice. (I Feel a Change Comin’ On)

Yeah, it’s latter-day Dylan, and it’s sort of a throw-away set-up to get to the payoff about “the Blood of the Lamb in [his] voice.”  But damn if that isn’t the perfect way to describe Dylan’s singing, with that broken-down throat that sounds like he was in a sand-gargling contest with Tom Waits after they both drank a fifth of scotch and smoked three packs of unfiltered cigarettes each.

Last night I danced with a stranger/But she just reminded me you were the one. (Standing in the Doorway)

Once, many years ago, I spent an entire blogpost dissecting this song (fair warning: I was 23 at the time, so I was pretty damn insufferable about…well, everything, but especially music).  There’s just something so sad and beautiful about this pair of lines, it just kills me every time.

Then she says, “I know you’re an artist, draw a picture of me.”/I said, “I would if I could but I don’t do sketches from memory.” (Highlands)

This is the song where I got the name for my webcomic site (it’s also what I called the old blogspot blog back in the day).  It’s a pretty evocative title, and the lines in the song itself are frankly pretty damn funny, when you consider the fact the subject is standing right in front of him when he says he can’t do a sketch from memory.  Another situation where I can’t really tell if it’s brilliant or absurd, so it’s probably both.

I said, “You know they refused Jesus, too”/He said, “You’re not Him” (Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream)

No one spins a weird yarn like Dylan.  The surreal imagery, the bizarre characters, the out-of-left-field interactions…it all swirls and twirls like a kaleidoscope stuffed with LSD.  And this particular lyric epitomizes the thing folks seem to forget about Dylan too often: he’s funny as hell.

But the joke was on me/There was nobody even there to bluff/I’m going back to New York City/I do believe I’ve had enough. (Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues)

Easily one of my favorite Dylan songs to play.  It’s a twisted morality play about a place where no one has any kindness in their hearts, and the idea of returning to New York City as a place where things are better or kinder or less indifferent is sad and amazing and bizarre all at once.

You got a lotta nerve/To say you are my friend/When I was down you just stood there grinning. (Positively 4th Street)

The ultimate kiss-off song.  Dylan is full of vitriol and bile, snarling the lyrics to an old flame.  You almost feel bad for the subject of the song.

And I know no one can sing the blues /Like Blind Willie McTell. (Blind Willie McTell)

A simple song with just voice, piano, and an acoustic guitar (played by Mark Knopfler of the Dire Straits), borrowing the tune of the old blues standard “St. James Infirmary” and acting as a history of race relations and slavery in America.  A blues song about the blues.  A lament that one does not fully possess the capability to express what is in the heart.  No one can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell, but Dylan comes damn close in this song.

They say prayer has the power to heal/So pray for me, mother /In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell /I am trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others /But oh, mother, things ain’t going well. (Ain’t Talkin’)

Dylan famously went through a born-again Christian phase in the late ’70s/early ’80s, and while those albums weren’t the greatest, he’s managed to put the biblical imagery to better and more effective use since then.  This is a perfect example: referencing the power of prayer, the Golden Rule, and the struggle to be who you’re supposed to be.

So, that’s ten of my favorite bits of Dylan lyrics.  What’re your favorites?

Paperback Writer

/ xeyeti / 3 Comments

The Beatles were my first musical love.  It’s not that unusual, of course.  Lots of folks claim the Fab Four as their favorite band.  They’re one of the most popular bands in history, with scads of #1 hits, platinum albums, and a sound that, while it evolved from album to album, was always clearly and definitively them.

The first song I can remember singing is “Yellow Submarine.”  I couldn’t have been more than four or so, singing along with my dad while he strummed his guitar.  I’ve memorized their lyrics, listened to their albums over and over and over until they are etched upon every fiber of my being, watched the movies…hell, even Magical Mystery Tour, and that thing is difficult to watch.  I tear up at the end of Abbey Road with those final lyrics from “The End.”  And I’m a little bit obsessed with “Paperback Writer.”

Is “Paperback Writer” the reason I want to be a writer?  Maybe.  I’m not entirely sure.  But it doesn’t really matter, honestly.  It’s a bit of a mission statement for me, at this point.  I’m building up quite the backlog of written work now.  I’m well into book 5 (I know, book 1 isn’t going to be published until December, but hey, why wait to get ahead?), figuring out how to get the short stories back out there so folks can read them, and thinking ahead to what I can do in the future with Hazzard and maybe even some other characters and settings and genres.  Maybe I’m getting too far ahead of myself.  I still don’t know how well the first book will even sell, if there will even be a market for what I write.  But I kinda hope and think there might be.  Everyone likes snarky protagonists, right?  And mysteries that have actual, genuine clues scattered throughout, so the twist feels earned instead of just being a, “Haha, the killer was this character who had never even been mentioned until just now!”

I guess I’m saying I think I’m a pretty solid writer, and I think folks will like what I do.  And it’s probably all because of a song about a guy writing novels in his spare time.

Favorites: Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

I’m an unapologetic Bob Dylan fan.  I’ll even listen to the crappy late ’70s/early ’80s born-again Christian albums that everyone agrees are absolute crap.  But my favorite, the one that I could listen to over and over again for the rest of my days, the one that would be in my “Desert Island Discs” top ten, is Highway 61 Revisited.

Yeah, it’s kind of the obvious choice.  With “Like a Rolling Stone,” it’s guaranteed to be one of the best-known of Dylan’s albums, standing alongside his earlier folk albums and Blonde on Blonde as the ones that all the casual fans know about and probably have.

But I’m not some hipster who thinks popularity makes something bad.  There is, I think, a good reason that so many people like this record: it’s just really damn good.  Peak Dylan, firing on all cylinders and writing with a passion and a fire that could barely be contained.  From the first firecracker snare shot of “Like a Rolling Stone” to the plaintive harmonica wail that brings “Desolation Row” to an end, Highway 61 Revisited is everything I ever wanted in a rock and roll record.  Dylan is by turns thoughtful, aggressive, playful, and mystical, tapping into a mythic America that seems somehow more real than the actual one.

Tunes!

/ xeyeti / Leave a comment

If you’re like me – and you should all be so lucky – then writing is a process that involves music.  Lots of music.  But not just any music!  No, you must listen to specific songs or specific styles to help set the mood for your protagonist’s adventures.  Or misadventures.  Or what have you.

I have a constantly-evolving playlist on my phone of the songs I listen to while writing.  Some are on there because they fit a specific scene, while others are more about describing the characters or the mood.  The following playlist was developed while I was writing The Invisible Crown and another novel that will appear later in the series, tentatively called Death and the Dame (that one’s a love story.  Sort of).

1. Anita Kelsey, “Sway”: There have been times I’ve just written to the Dark City Soundtrack.  This is still one of my favorite songs off that collection.

2. Sting, “Perfect Love…Gone Wrong”: On there because of the smoky, steamy city jazz feel, and also the extended metaphor where Sting is a disgruntled dog amuses me to no end.

3. John Mellencamp, “The Full Catastrophe”: Perfect summation of my protagonist, Eddie Hazzard.  His life is a bit of a rolling catastrophe, and there is a minor chance he was accidentally loving your wife while you were loving his.

4. Soul Coughing, “Fully Retractable”: One that’s on there for tone/mood.  There’s a dark undercurrent, a sinister feel to this song that’s just really fitting.

5. Muddy Waters, “Rolling Stone”: Life in a blues song always sounds like it sucks.  I imagine Eddie’s life is much the same way.

6. Bob Dylan, “What Was It You Wanted”: Either the narrator is stuck in a world that makes no sense, or the guy took a shot to the head.  Either way, a Dylan song is a must-have on pretty much any playlist I put together.

7. Gorillaz, “M1A1”: Fight scene song!  Love the energy, the staccato burst of the snare, the spiky guitars…great soundtrack to a fistfight.

8. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, “Red Right Hand”: Another mood setter.  Creepy, dark alley vibe that I dig.

9. EL VY, “Happiness, Missouri”: Like I said, a lot of songs I stick on these for the general mood they set.  This one fits with the general feel of the city of Arcadia: dark, slightly mysterious, vaguely threatening and sinister.

10. Arcade Fire, “My Body is a Cage”: The contemplative, protagonist considers his actions and his destiny before launching into the story’s climactic scene song.  Love the build of it, the sense of determination and all that.

11. The Dead Weather, “Hustle and Cuss”: Basically the Eddie Hazzard theme song.  He has to be out there hustling, working his tail off, because his enemies are always a few steps ahead of him.  And cussing…well, you have to express your frustration somehow.

12. David Gray, “Dead in the Water”: While The Invisible Crown might be the first of Eddie Hazzard’s cases, it certainly won’t be the last.  I’ve got three other novels already written in the series, I’ve started working on the fifth novel, and I have plans for the sixth.  The core idea for the sixth book came from a short story I wrote a couple years back about Eddie and a particularly disturbing case and a mis-remembering of a lyric from this song.  Expect to see that book in…um…2022 or so, maybe?  I dunno.

13. Adele, “Rumor Has It”: A private detective works with whatever information he can get.  Sometimes, that information is merely rumors.  Sometimes, those rumors turn out to be true.

14. Tom Waits, “Way Down in a Hole”: Tom Waits sounds too ludicrous to even be one of my characters, and I have one antagonist who’s a head in a jar named The Fish.  Honestly, when developing characters, I just ask myself, “What would Tom Waits do?” and go from there.  It’s served me pretty well so far.

15. Modest Mouse, “Bukowski”: This always struck me as driving music, the sort of thing you’d hear on the soundtrack if TIC was turned into a movie/TV series and they had a scene of him driving from the office to an informant or chasing down a lead.

That’s my playlist!  What do you listen to when you’re writing?