Songs of the week 09/15/2023 (coming to you From 09/22/2023)

You know what I bet you miss so much right now? Emails. So many of them. You wish you could wake up to emails instead of sunlight and birdsong. I know, they’re great, which is why I finally got my newsletter back up and running again. Huzzah, et cetera. If you want weekly songs back in your inbox, there’s a sign-up option in in the footer of every page and post. Convenient, right? And not pushy, either. I would never, no sir.

FEMININOMINON | Chappell Roan What a strange chimera of, like, three different songs, none of which should totally fit together… and none of which totally do? Um, there’s cowbell, I guess… look, I’m not sure there’s much I can re—DUDE, DID YOU HEAR ME? PLAYTHEFUCKINGBEAT!

Pairs Well With: “CRYING ON MY BIRTHDAY (feat. Olivia Rodrigo)” (Yankee Escape System), “Hella Good” (No Doubt) [Reviewed 11/18/2022] “Stoned at the Nail Salon” (Lorde)

SHOUT, PTS. 1 & 2 | The Isley Brothers So, somehow, all four and a half minutes of this fantastic fifties freakout just didn’t hit me when I first heard it after The Isley Brothers’ other funksterpiece, “It’s Your Thing.” And, okay, in my defense, “It’s Your Thing” is an incredibly hard act to follow, with piano and brass that sound near-explosive while staying within the confines of its groove. Of course, we’re not here to talk about “It’s Your Thing”—it’s time I gave due credit to “Shout, Pts. 1 & 2.” From its wailing start, “Shout” already has a more religious fervor than most radio hits of the fifties—a perfect fusion of gospel passion and doo-wop drive. Still, it keeps listeners on their feet in every sense of the phrase, masterfully shifting the tempo and dynamics so smoothly that the the dance floor probably turned into a skating rink (even when you take into account those good old fifties narcotics. Aw, is having no rights getting to you? Have a little valium to go with that). Personally, I don’t know what I was thinking back when I first heard it (Aw, is Covid-19 getting to you? Have a little Isley Brothers to go with that), but nowadays, it’s hard not to be swept away by the Isley Brothers’ infectious joy—like, wow, you can really tell he’s loved her since she was—

NINE YEARS OLD?!

Okay, never mind. Brb, forgetting about this song again.

Pairs Well With: “It’s Your Thing” (The Isley Brothers), “Get Ready” (The Temptations) [Reviewed 08/26/2022], “Revolution 9” (The Beatles)

TAKING WHAT’S NOT YOURS | TV Girl Have you guys ever heard of “nominative determinism?” I remembered those words just now but I can’t for the life of me remember what they mean. Unrelated, but you’ll probably recognize “Taking What’s Not Yours” if you’ve been following my sister’s Sunday Song reviews over on Madeline Todd Dot Com (Madeline! Todd! Dot! Com!). Actually, I first found TV Girl there. I may have a screen addiction, but that hasn’t stopped me from tailing most trends by about two years—in this case, I’m still panting three laps behind TV Girl’s TikTok hits without a single whiff of one. Even if I’d heard them, though, I’m not sure I’d have persisted far enough to find this diamond in the rough. With the caveat that I hate sounding so contrarian, it’s these sort of bands that make me afraid to identify with indie culture, despite the numerous “you indie fucker” replies I get to my Songs of the Week stories (go check out my stiflingly corporate Instagram, @maxtoddauthor, if you must). It’s not so much the sound that comes with the label but the attitude instead—an ironic, mustache-mullet, indie-boy sleaze that keeps me at arm’s length from both the wider culture and this specific song. I’d say “no offense” to TV Girl, but this particular album is called Who Really Cares, which is a major eye roll, but it absolves them of the arduous path to sincerity. Yea, you know who really cares? I do, you whiny dropouts! Life is a miracle and love is a blessing and the soul is a sacred and numinous instrument that honors the universe with eyes, ears, and a song! Ironic or not, hip nihilism is a seeping disease that we’ve all somehow accepted because, what, Rick and Morty was funny? Climate change is unstoppable? All the while, the malaise of entropy keeps chipping away at a life we could so easily waste. Simply put, the sentiment of Who Really Cares has no place here on Max Todd Dot Com.

Okay, that was a lot. In all seriousness, I don’t write these reviews to heap more apomictic negativity onto this internet hellscape—there is a lot to love about “Taking What’s Not Yours,” as I’ve been learning with it stuck in my head for the past week. Musically, I love everything about this song—the cheesy saxophone and synth loop from Tom Scott and the L.A. Express’s “Strut Your Stuff” makes this song’s sarcasm sparkle, and rhyming “you know where to find me / and I know where to look” with a stuttering sample of Nixon’s “I’m not a crook” is kind of genius. Hell, all of the sampling at work here is that caliber of clever—the chorus’s “that’s thievin’, stealin’, takin’ what’s not yours” comes from a hilariously awful anti-piracy rap, “Don’t Copy That Floppy,” by MC Double Def DP, which really aged like milk in this context.

I almost feel like dissecting it ruins the joke, but I love this sort of situation where the art’s medium reflects its theme, you know? Without these layers, though, I’m still a sucker for this style of sample-collage—Madeline nailed it when she compared this song to early De La Soul’s silliness, which is what made me want to listen in the first place. Even so, with all of this talent going for it, there’s still that inescapable, sleazy sheen on every surface that keeps me from digging too deep into this one. Like, check out the bridge:

“I want to dedicate this jam
To all those things I left behind in girls' apartments
And various domiciles over the years
Sometimes you gotta leave in a hurry, man, what can I say?
Except I didn't forget about any of it
I'm taking it all back”

I hope it’s clear that the subject matter isn’t what’s bothering me here, but the delivery—this too-cool-for-school speech set to sarcastic, smooth synth may be trying to sound aloof, but to me, it just reeks of that aforementioned carelessness. Well, maybe not carelessness—maybe caring only about sounding that way. Much of modern indie’s numb, suburban melancholy absolutely stems from real emotions, but namedropping media like Gravity’s Rainbow here to me betrays that this is an insincere costume of a cool person. And that, if it wasn’t clear, is my problem with so much of the indie scene—caring so deeply about wanting to seem careless, about being effortlessly part of the cool kids’ club. It’s like… grow up, man! Caring is the zest of life! Caring makes cleverness and comedy all the funnier, because you know it’s real, right? Then again, maybe this is a parody of that attitude—who’s to say, so deep in post-meta-ironic meme culture. In a way, though, the sampling here is too good to ignore, revealing a sort of “realness” beneath—the craftsmanship to create such a fun, funny song. Still, though, if you’re looking for a song about reclaiming lost possessions in a breakup that’s both funny and fervently felt, check out The Ben Folds Five’s “Song for the Dumped.” And its music video. There is no irony here whatsoever.

Pairs Well With: “Mr. Finish Line” (Vulfpeck), “Me Myself and I” (De La Soul), “World Domination” (Joey Bada$$)

CRASH | Lisa Germano A very different kind of bop straight from Madeline Todd Dot Com (I’m sorry, this particular lineup was back-to-back bangers), Lisa Germano’s “Crash” is practically tarred and feathered in its emotionality. Last time we talked about Lisa Germano, I was struck by the atmospheric creepiness of “Baby on a Plane,” and that same atmosphere returns here, albeit heavy with depressive pollution. From its wonderfully disdainful hook “You could say I feel this way / 'Cause it's the way I feel,” I knew this one would be a slog worth savoring. The familiarity of these wallowing feelings— the bitterness of prematurely accepting decay that isn’t certain, of inhabiting habits while hating them, of imaging your teeth rounded blunt—might seem a recipe for a hard listen, but like Arlo Parks’s “Caroline,” this is one of those songs that has an infectious beat to hold back the sadness. The trudging drums and strings may be underwater-dull—the self-same blue of the blurry, flaking Morpho butterfly on Slide’s perfect cover—but they carry this song into an almost-fun territory. While I’d say there’s no better way to capture this mindset, there’s something about this riff that also keeps “Crash” uncharacteristically hopeful—as always, my music theory illiteracy is holding me back, but this song reminds me a ton of Wilco’s “Shot in the Arm,” which elicits a very different emotional response from me. I know I’ve made a lot of comparisons to other songs here, but “Shot in the Arm” is the closest, almost sounding like a sequel to “Crash.” The bubbling resentment and self-hatred Germano expresses here feels like it reaches a crescendo in “Shot in the Arm,” which always has me open-mouthed and teary as its desperate synths explode outward at the end (cool how that’s like a shot in the arm, right?). I’m definitely going to have to talk about that song someday, but “Crash” is also great taken on its own terms (as it deserves).

But okay, okay, one more comparison—in unexpected Jim Noir fashion, this song ends with an instrumental outro that, while just as fuzzy, feels different enough to be a bonus jingle. Thank goodness Jim Noir’s usual mood is almost too different to compare, but the closest outro on one of his songs comes from “Car.” Alright, no more comparisons. I promise. Except…

Pairs Well With: “Shot in the Arm” (Wilco), “Pot Kettle Black” (Wilco), “Car” (Jim Noir)

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE BEFORE | Julian Cope covering Roky Erickson Okay, I’ve written about a bunch of silly stuff today mostly because I’ve been putting off the insurmountable task of summarizing my deeply emotional connection to this next weirdo song. For as much as I’ve written about music this past year, I’ve given my favorite-ever songs a wide berth—encapsulating any of them seems like an insurmountable task, and all for a lackluster result. I mentioned Tartini just a few weeks ago, and how he transcribed one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever conceived, “The Devil’s Trill Sonata,” from a dream, only to feel that his recreation only scratched the surface—that’s how it feels to try and talk about some of this music. When it comes to Julian Cope’s rendition of “I Have Always Been Here Before,” I’m tempted to just straight-up paste the lyrics and annotate them with strings of exclamation points without any real commentary—nothing I can say will do them justice. And still, “the caveman won’t leave you alone—” it certainly didn’t a few weeks ago, at least, when grad school applications felt crippling, so I figured now would be as good a time as any to give Julian Cope my personal thanks for (re)writing this masterpiece.

For being so existential, “I Have Always Been Here Before” evokes not an alienating sublime, but a validating one—a proclamation that the inner world and wisdom within oneself is as vast and powerful as the seemingly uncaring universe outside. Each of us so desperately seeks its permission to exist where, to Cope, we could just give ourselves that permission first. As he sings, “You are perfect, you are immeasurable / Comes death, oh no, mortal remains / Like the grey weathered stones that you shelter behind / You are a monument of your very own.” This stanza alone stirs so much in me. It evokes lost monuments of antiquity affirming some significance or communion with the universe; it placates the encroaching void of nothingness with a nonlinear lineage as immovable and steadfast as mountains; it reveres the sacred soul within each of us, our own personal etch on time that cannot be erased because it calls to something greater. And like, every single lyric lays down an equivalently earth-shattering affirmation from ones ancestors, from ones descendants—blending and bending time with the will of the human spirit. It’s a song about life, death, soul, and legacy, which is ironic, especially since I’ve been (wrongly) attributing it to Cope this whole entry. In reality, this is just a weirder cover of an already weird song.

Fittingly, Cope covered “I Have Always Been Here Before” for Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye, a tribute album to pioneering psychedelic artist and frontman of The 13th Floor Elevators, Roky Erickson—an influence that seems as prominent in Cope’s phenomenological writing as in his music. Both, as it turns out, shine here, as Cope reworked (and, in my opinion, improved) Erickson’s original lyrics around the title, alchemically distilling their essence before extrapolating outwards into transcendental territory. To me, it only makes sense for a song called “I Have Always Been Here Before” to be heard in cover form, as far from a definite source as a folk song, which has the side effect of totally fucking over the original. I do feel pretty bad for not properly acknowledging Roky—that title itself is a stroke of genius—but his lyrics aren’t nearly as archetypal and iterative. Plus, there’s so much sixties brown acid ick in the way he sings it acoustically. Not only do I resonate more with Cope’s philosophical interpretation, but I also think his instrumentation is leaps and bounds better. With “Zooropa”-esque space sounds and celebratory synth chords like church organs, it’s certainly not the reverent music one might expect from the unaccompanied lyrics, but there’s something comforting about them to me. My girlfriend and I were talking about this discrepancy recently, and we thought if anyone was going to take it in a more religious direction, Peter Gabriel would be the man for the job. So, Petey, if you’re still reading these regularly (you are, right?), why don’t you take a swing at that? Please? I want you to hurt me.

There’s so much I have to say about every lyric in this song, each line gonging louder than the last, but I wouldn’t want to make anyone sick of it. No matter when “I Have Always Been Here Before” comes to you, it’s relevant, and for me, resonant. I have wasted so much time recently ruminating on my place in this world—it so often seems like I was put her mistakenly when the things that call to my deepest core aren’t outwardly wanted. I was almost swallowed in one of these funks when I remembered that line, “for the caveman won’t leave you alone—” as if to say “the world will say what it says, but something just as real sunk deep in your genes says otherwise.” I don’t claim to know much, but I am a part of this universe, and what I feel in my bones is not just my aspirations, but those of the world I am inseparably part of—the cosmos calls through us, its toolmakers and storytellers. We forge what it urges.

Alright, and because I don’t know when to end things, I may have to just post the full lyrics here—they’re too cool to ignore, for one, but it also seems like nobody else is totally sure what they are. My Jungian Analyst Dad recently realized that the last stanza is almost word-for-word a Jung quote, which many people haven’t transcribed correctly, as far as I can tell. It’s a great detail that I’m sure Cope was hoping someone would notice, and it’d be a shame not to acknowledge that. Okay, now it’s over. Go home, everybody.

“From the long barrows of Wiltshire to the pyramids
From the stone circles that challenge the scientists
And the Neolithics that tread the ancient avenues
The children that die forevermore exist
For the caveman won't leave you alone
For you and your gods alone
Fall deep in the centuries (x2)

I have always been here before
Belief in my mind's opened the door

Look behind you, look behind you, you are always there
Twenty-one years old or maybe twenty more
Obelisks will mark the place you fell
Where children play they will mark the place you fell
You are perfect, you are immeasurable
Comes death, oh no, mortal remains
Like the grey weathered stones that you shelter behind
You are a monument of your very own

And I have always been here before
Belief in my mind's opened the door

We sell soul (repeats)

The childish man shrinks back from the unknown world
And the grown man is threatened by sacrifice
Whosoever protects himself from what is new and strange
Is as the man who is running from the past

I have always been here before
Belief in my mind's opened the door”

Pairs Well With: “Merely a Man” (XTC), “Steam” (Peter Gabriel) “Zooropa” (U2),

D.P. II | Daniel Richter Richter’s hair-raising work, last featured in August in Review, hits hardest in person—that’s actually how I first encountered it, while at The Denver Art Museum’s Disruption exhibit. I've been mining Songs of the Week backdrops from this since the very first week I started writing them, because I don’t think I’ve seen so many pieces of art in one place that immediately slammed me like these did. Art is cool, you imbeciles. Go support it in person.