Fluxblog Weekly #171: Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, The Smashing Pumpkins, Leonard Cohen
Here is another week of posts about old songs. I'm planning on going back to writing about new material next week. I realized last week that all the songs I have been writing about have been in some way about romance, so I really leaned into that with this week's set of posts.
July 31st, 2018
Nothing Happening At All
The Velvet Underground “Rock & Roll”
You know how if you put a seashell to your ear you can “hear the ocean” in its hollow? The guitar chords of “Rock & Roll” are sorta like that, but the space between strums contains faint echoes of the Manhattan of the late 1960s. You can feel it in the tone, and in the attack – a hustling groove, but played with a bit of “so what?” slack. I’ve never been to that version of Manhattan, but I’m certain that’s the sound of it. It sounds just like it.
“Rock & Roll” is meant to do this. It’s designed to evoke New York City, and conjure a romanticized vision of a space full of exciting people where you’re not, but could someday be. The entire song is about the way sound can take you where you need to go, if only you can just hear it. The girl in the song, a stand-in for Lou Reed as a young man, finds love and life and meaning on the radio. The “New York station” is a beacon for everyone in range of its transmission.
When Lou Reed wrote “her life was saved by rock & roll,” that sentiment was not the corny Pinterest cliché it is today. The need for escape was far more urgent, the stakes were much higher. “Rock & Roll” expresses the joy of finding your people, even if you haven’t really met them yet. The sound is a map, and it takes you to a place. In this case, it’s Manhattan and it’s 1969.
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August 1st, 2018
A Different Point of View
Bob Dylan “Tangled Up in Blue”
There is no timeline in “Tangled Up in Blue,” just scattered memories of small moments burned into the mind of the narrator, who could be singing about one woman or several different women over the course of his life. It’s all deliberately unclear, to the point that sometimes he might be a different person too. Some sections seem like vivid recollections, and others feel more like fantasies. But memory is shaky and unreliable, and is mostly just the story you tell yourself to make sense of your life and define yourself. People change over the years. I prefer to hear this song as being about just two people drawn to one another but almost always out of synch. It’s more romantic that way, and more tragic.
In “Tangled Up In Blue,” love is easy but life is complicated. Every moment of profound connection is fleeting, and every commitment is subject to change. Love gives him focus and purpose but it’s inevitably thwarted, and he’s often complicit in the failure. The music moves in circles, mirroring the way these people orbit one another, and suggesting that they will eventually connect again. There’s a brightness in the notes, a glimmer of hope. She may be gone for years on end, but she never escapes his mind. His lingering love for her and regret about losing her flattens and scrambles his timeline. It’s always her, somehow. And in his heart, it’s always her, someday.
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August 3rd, 2018
When I Woke Up From That Sleep
The Smashing Pumpkins “Hummer”
“Hummer” is a song Billy Corgan wrote about coming out of a period of depression and writers block. Corgan often talks about his art as the result of divine inspiration, and while I can’t relate to his faith, I will say that the way creativity and epiphanies seem to come and go can be so inexplicable that it being God’s will is as good an explanation as anything else. In my own experience, it’s like a light bulb being turned on or off. The off periods are a dull malaise. The on periods are a glorious high. Either position feels permanent in the moment, but it never is. And you can’t ever anticipate when the switch goes on or off.
“Hummer” is a song of joy and hope, but Corgan doles out the ecstatic moments carefully. A lot of the song is riding a placid groove, with Corgan playing crisp, calm lead parts or gently chiming chords. The big distorted parts signal overwhelming happiness on a monumental scale, and seem to shoot upwards like skyscrapers bursting from the ground. How else are you supposed to accompany a sentiment like “When I woke up from that sleep I was happier than I’d ever been”?
This is also a love song. Corgan buries the lede a bit here, but the most dramatic element of the song is him trying to square this feeling of renewal and creative fertility with his love for someone. Every feeling he has is intensified, but he seems worried about holding on to this love. “Yeah, I want something new, but what am I supposed to do about you?,” he asks. He immediately knows the answer: “I love you, it’s true.”
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August 3rd, 2018
Another Kind Of Love
Leonard Cohen “I’m Your Man”
What does a woman want? It’s hard to say, as all of them are different. Your assumptions, especially as a straight man, are probably off base given your personal assortment of hopes and fears. But if you care – and this is not a given, a lot of men really don’t care – this question can drive you mad. Every woman you fall for offers fresh new ways to tie yourself up in knots trying to figure out how to make her happy and want you. And if you care, it’s all you want.
Leonard Cohen wrote “I’m Your Man” after trying and failing to figure out what women want. “I myself have decided to abandon the inquiry, I have decided to surrender,” Cohen has said introducing the song. “I’m ready to be whatever I must be in order to deserve her voluntary caress. That is why I say without shame and unconditionally: I’m your man.”
“I’m Your Man” is sung from a position of vulnerability and humility. It’s worshipful in tone, but willing to back away from that on a moment’s notice if he got the sense that worship would turn her off. He adores her so much, and just wants to feel worthy of her. His esteem for her is so high, it’s unlikely he ever will.
The synthesizer arrangement of this song sounds a bit cheesy and dated today, but the artifice was always intentional. The sound is aiming for suave sophistication, but what you hear is a slightly awkward simulation. It’s the musical equivalent of another mask he’s willing to put on to please this woman. It’s an act, but the intention is incredibly sincere. He just wants to be her man.
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