Architectural rhythmic patterns underly a fiery performance of rumbling guitar and some of the most bombastic singing Chris Cornell ever recorded. This is a Fallingwater.
215. "Needle In the Hay" by Elliott Smith
If I talk about this song too long, I will explode into tears, I love it and need it so much.
This is the greatest song Elliott Smith ever recorded - on just his second album. "Independence Day" is the more musically accomplished on a grand scale, as well as being full of its own amazing poetics, and it's my true favorite. But "Needle In the Hay" is his signature song.
The guitar work: There are six strings on a guitar. Most of this song, he strikes maybe three - minimal, tightly knotted chords.
The double-tracked vocal melodies are fiercely exhilarating. The singing is a physical presence, never more so than the (now I'm crying) third verse, where he finishes the line "You ought to be proud that I'm getting good marks" with a sustained hiss, turning the "s" sound from a melody into a spitting of feeling.
Paired with the Richie scene in Wes Anderson's film The Royal Tenenbaums (which is where I heard it first and discovered Elliott Smith), the effect is overwhelming.
It is a sad song. It is a sad-sounding song.
Sadness is, if you can believe it, sad. And exhausting. Nobody should enjoy songs like "Needle In the Hay" simply because they are attracted to darkness and morbidity. That said, sadness, which we've all deeply experienced, is one of the truest, rawest, royal states. It is something worthy to survive. It is not always mental illness or a chemical condition. It is a profound, spiritual state emanating from damage, loss, time, the culmination of decisions and circumstances, and much, much more. It is deserving of poetry. Worthy of wisdom. It is a matter of soul. It is humanity.
214. "Need You Tonight" by INXS
I'm not the most "snobby" music fan out there, but I'm far from the least exclusive I've ever met. That being prefaced, I'll say it took me some time to consider INXS more than a standard FM radio place setting from my childhood. I kind of looked down on them. There was no thought process inspired about them, at all.
It started to change after a chance occurrence over at my dad's house, back when he was here in town with me. Dad was actually talking on his phone for work for a good while after I arrived, so I was hanging out in the living room, where my stepmom was preparing to do a full cleaning. But she needed music first.
The song she put on was "Need You Tonight" by INXS. I chuckled a moment. Then I realized: this was a song from her day, not just a radio air filler. She chose this song because it had value to her. As my stepmom got to her vacuuming, I really listened to the song.
I knew the song's main guitar riff. But given this slight license to pay attention, I really began to imagine the building of the song, appreciate the originality of the sound, the satisfying oddness of that guitar riff. I allowed myself to enjoy the breathiness and melody in the vocals, almost a new take on the Jim Morrison attitude, this lyrical hedonism.
What kind of madmen write a song like this?
I left my dad's house, maybe not a fan of all things INXS, but surely impressed by the peaks of their work. To dream a new sound and deliver it, to have it be so successful... to see your children, alone, on their own merits, flourish.
213. "Mysterious Ways" by U2
The best U2 song, the ideas flying through this song are overwhelming.
It all starts in the foundation, bass and drums. The song was written around the bass line, apparently with massive arguments erupting about how to make the best use of it. Writing songs out of bass lines can be torturous, because the bass line is usually there to, how do I express it, "coat" the song? It holds roots where root clarity is needed; it moves where the song needs movement. It's a filler, a fixer. To start out by featuring the bass line is to write with no safety net. You must search out the music this bass line is implying completion of.
What a great idea, then, to actually keep the bass line out of the verses, saving it for maximum impact.
Instead, the verses rest on the other bedrock instruments, the drums and percussion. There are so many things happening in that percussion that hit me purely on a spiritual level, I don't know if I can properly just write about them... Let's try.
Listen to the sound of the kick drum alone. Most times, the kick drum is engineered to be almost inaudible, providing more of a hidden accent within a mix. In "Mysterious Ways," not only is the kick drum very up front in the mix, but it's mixed in a very dry, compressed way. The punchy quality that results is the heartbeat of an aggressively fun dance beat. The sharp, muted snare merely has to hold on and keep those back beats down. The pace of the song (99 beats per minute), makes for the best possible expression of this beat.
In support of this main drum beat is a host of aux percussion, all tightly, sharply in support of this amazing rhythm. It's all mixed quietly enough to be nearly subliminal, like the subconscious rush of feeling that electrifies the speaker of the song's lyrics. Most songs don't have rhythm like this. I can't tell you how special I think it is.
Over this badass rhythm work is just the most modest organ part, holding such a catchy series of chords to support the vocal.
And there is the vocal. We can attack Bono's ego all we want these days, or anything else we want to pick on about a guy who has put himself out there for so long.
Bono holds this verse all by his damn self. A prototypical musical close-up. Just one long, perfect pop melody, morphing comfortably with the words, in a state of joy at having discovered it. Listen close and notice a great falsetto doubling octave.
This isn't even to begin to praise the effect-laden main guitar riff, which is so explosively catchy, the signature cue.
This isn't even to begin to comprehend the choruses, with vocals melding word choice with a perfect breathless performance. "It's all right, It's all right"... I love nothing in songs deeper than words that are perfect to be sung, words that are inseparable from notes - this is what Bono found for that chorus.
This isn't even going to get into the lyrics, which are truly open to multiple interpretations, in the good sense of that quality. Ideas of the moon, the feminine, idealization, religion, fear, reassurance, and respect intermingle. It's an impressive collection of words, assembled with care to not too fine a point on anything.
None of this describes the greatest sequence of this song, which is the insane chord development of the middle bridge. This is a journey that I will never be sure how they completed: the initial key change is daring, the guitar solo something out an alien mind, then the bravest set of radical chord changes for the bridge vocal, and the way the beautiful vocal melody audaciously navigates these changes by holding the same repeated vocal line across much of them. The path through this series of chords never at one moment seems guaranteed - and yet here they are emerging at the end with a perfect finishing vocal flourish and perfectly - perfectly! - cadencing back into the chorus. The level of sophistication in this sequence alone is something we don't deserve. Why were they working so hard? The '80s were a peak of melodic and harmonic prowess in the pop scene that we haven't even come close to recognizing yet. But we're still in that shadow.
The challenge of writing "Mysterious Ways" led the band into a creative trance that directly resulted in the writing of "One," another classic. What a Creation.
212. "My Girl" performed by The Temptations
Another very early example of a pentatonic scale being the key to a great pop song, the guitar lead works in the major pentatonic and is one of the most unforgettable melodies in all of American sound.
David Ruffin's lead vocal is so cleanly delivered but really hits great, passionate heights. The falsetto is the absolute best. The chorus is just singable every single time.
It's one of these songs barely over 2 1/2 minutes long so full of ideas, building steadily through its phases, that you don't notice how short it is. Then it fades out quickly with the song still in its throes. That prompt, frank fade out is such a beauty of many '60s songs. There is modesty in a short fade out. It's not being played for extra sentimental value.
"My Girl" is one of the bedrock songs, a brilliant burst of love and joy. It's an ideal world I want to just teleport to...