Category Archives: Song Analysis

Song Analysis #32: Stephen Duffy featuring Nigel Kennedy – Music in Colors

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Title: ‘Music in Colors’
Where to find it: ‘Music in Colors’ (1993, Parlophone)
Performed by: Stephen Duffy featuring Nigel Kennedy
Words by: Stephen Duffy

Over the last 6 weeks, it’s like someone has pressed the fast forward button on my life, with so much personal and professional drama and changes swirling around me like I’ve been caught up in a twister. Before last weekend, a musician friend of mine who lives in Brooklyn posted one of those ‘Occupy Facebook’ memes in which we were to get friends who liked our status updates to post a video of an artist we liked. One of my writers was game, so I purposely gave her an artist I loved but I knew she knew nothing about: Stephen Duffy’s post-Duran Duran band, The Lilac Time.

You’ve probably never heard of Stephen Duffy. Or if you have, you probably only know that he’s written a number of chart-topping hits with Robbie Williams, including the #1 ‘Radio’. But before all of that, he started out as a shy teenager in Birmingham, trying to emote into a microphone while his buddies Nicholas Bates and Nigel Taylor played their instruments behind him. Nicholas Bates and Nigel Taylor became Nick Rhodes and John Taylor, who went on to stardom as Duran Duran without Stephen, who quit early on because he had no interest in becoming famous. Or so he says.

I could say much more on the matter, as I know a lot about Stephen’s back catalogue and personal and professional history (probably too much!), but he came into my mind when I presented his band The Lilac Time to my friend, I realized I had almost forgotten that he was really the first songwriter I’d come into personal contact with. When he and Nick Rhodes decided to start a side project called The Devils, I was the first person to make them a fan site.

The internet was still relatively new then, and he seemed every bit as intrigued about what I was writing about them as I was intrigued about his songwriting. I have an email of his somewhere in a drawer; I’d printed it because I almost didn’t believe Stephen Duffy had written to me. The subject line read, innocuously, “Me and you”, which made me laugh. In it, he said, “Thanks for calling me a lyrical genius!” (the only person I’ve ever anointed with that superlative), and also, “thanks for all your work with the website and everything i really appreciate it and i’m happy that you like what i do too.” That was really sweet of him. I spent far too much money and effort buying second-hand albums and imports to feed my Duffy / Lilac Time obsession – the most memorable moment was biting my nails, trying to win a rare piece on eBay while on holiday, tapping furiously on keys at an internet cafe in Vancouver, my father looking on, scowling at me to get off the computer – that him acknowledging me in an email and saying thank you made it all worth it. It’s funny how a few short years later, I am now getting similar thank yous from musicians who thank me for writing about them and helping their careers.

To me, Stephen is one of those great unsung heroes of popular music – only the people who have sought him out or accidentally “found” him have been blessed by his music, and in some ways, I think that is the way it should be. Even though it’s been over a decade since I was introduced to him by a shadowy London musician who I came to love, he’s still one of my ‘little secrets’. I don’t think Stephen or the Lilac Time would ever be massively popular with the mainstream anyway; his intention in songwriting was never to become famous, as leaving Duran Duran while they were on the precipice of breaking into the business is clear proof. No, Stephen Duffy’s writing is for the rare musical connoisseur, and those who find him and his music come to love and cherish what he does.

First, the words:

I hear music in colors, I see it in the air
And all the sisters and brothers, I see them there
When all the lights go out, all over town
And all the pretty fireworks fall down
I’m waiting for a wake up call, I don’t try to sleep
I watch fluorescent second hand creep.

You know I love another, does it bother you?
Do you think that one love is good enough for two?
The pure pain of jealousy a piercing fear
Passed right through her soul like a spear
We all have deeply hidden chords that someone else must strike
To hear the very ringing of the psyche.

I hear you split up with your boyfriend
And he seemed unconcerned
Love’s a fickle fortune, babe
Every penny must be earned
We’re astronauts, we’re angels, but we’re never coming down
For all the gods who passed us by have drowned
The boogaloo of modern verse is dancing in her mind
Still very much the nervous kind.

Do you like this kind of party? I don’t know why I came
They take winning so seriously but never play the game
I can smell the powder of your makeup, your perfume
Sense you when you’re in another room
Are they still talking about furniture
‘Bout one or other chair
I can only see you sitting there.

I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in colors
I see you in…

Now, the analysis:

Depending on the day, ‘Music in Colors’ is either my favourite Stephen Duffy-related album, or in second place to 1999’s ‘Looking for a Day in the Night’. I could spend weeks analysing each and every song on either of these albums, as they are all tied tightly up with the first time I fell in love. But YouTube helped me choose which song to analyse, as the title track is the only one I could find as a stream.

‘Music in Colors’ is an interesting Stephen Duffy album for a number of reasons. For one, he enlisted the help of violinist Nigel Kennedy, which made all the numbers, including the elegantly named ‘Transitoires’, sophisticated instrumental segues, a cut above the rest. While violins and fiddles are all over the place in folk and even pop albums these days, that wasn’t the case back in 1993. The song is over 7 minutes long, but the last 2 minutes are an extended instrumental outro, with minimal words, that sounds to my ear like the culmination of how someone in love feels about his object of his affection. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard. Also, that’s not a typo you’ve read: the album is called ‘Music in Colors’ and is spelled the American English way.

If you’re looking for a standard song structure with verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, outro, sorry, you’re out of luck in most of Stephen’s songs. He just doesn’t write that way most of the time. The way I read it, ‘Music in Colors’ is written in a very stream of consciousness way, and he’s very poetic as he does it. I’m going to look at each “verse” individually.

I hear music in colors, I see it in the air
And all the sisters and brothers, I see them there
When all the lights go out, all over town
And all the pretty fireworks fall down
I’m waiting for a wake up call, I don’t try to sleep
I watch fluorescent second hand creep.

If what my ex said is true, I understand that Stephen dealt with substance abuse and “I hear music in colors” is less about synesthesia and more about the colors you hallucinate when you’re on drugs, and being unable to sleep relates to being on too many uppers and finding it physically impossible to relax. Can’t say I relate. Of course, there are many reasons for insomnia that aren’t related to drug use, including unfortunate turns in the affairs of the heart, which could also explain verse 1, since we’ll get to heartbreak later in the song. If you didn’t even consider this song in the context of drug use, all you would notice is the gentle lilt of his voice, which I absolutely adore.

You know I love another, does it bother you?
Do you think that one love is good enough for two?
The pure pain of jealousy, a piercing fear
Passed right through her soul like a spear
We all have deeply hidden chords that someone else must strike
To hear the very ringing of the psyche.

He admits that he loves someone else, but there’s this other woman in the picture. In fact, it is her he’s singing to and she’s at the same party he is, and her memory haunts him, even if she’s not in the same room. “We all have deeply hidden chords that someone else must strike / to hear the very ringing of the psyche.” This seems to suggest that the woman he’s actually with is *not* the woman who pushes his buttons but instead this woman who haunts him. At the same time, I can’t tell if the second verse is meant to be sadistic or loving. He asks the second woman if it bothers her he’s with someone else: either she cares and it hurts her deeply, or she doesn’t care, in which case he’s trying to get a reaction out of her.

I hear you split up with your boyfriend
And he seemed unconcerned
Love’s a fickle fortune, babe
Every penny must be earned
We’re astronauts, we’re angels, but we’re never coming down
For all the gods who passed us by have drowned
The boogaloo of modern verse is dancing in her mind
Still very much the nervous kind.

Maybe he’s gained confidence in acting this way towards her because the second woman lost her boyfriend. In fact, he’s being quite callous with, “Love’s a fickle fortune, babe / Every penny must be earned”. This makes me think she never treated him well at all and he’s pulling the “what goes around, comes around” card. ‘Astronauts’ refers to the amazing 1991 Lilac Time album, I’m pretty sure, and in this context, he’s speaking of ascending like astronauts and angels, and being in a good place emotionally.

Do you like this kind of party? I don’t know why I came
They take winning so seriously but never play the game
I can smell the powder of your makeup, your perfume
Sense you when you’re in another room
Are they still talking about furniture
‘Bout one or other chair
I can only see you sitting there.

Or so I thought. The fourth and last verse makes it sound like he’s still very much in love with her. He’s dragged himself to this party and thinking he was going to be strong, but in actuality, just recognising her makeup and perfume, even if she’s not physically present, is affecting him. Her ghost still lingers: “Are they still talking about furniture / ‘Bout one or other chair / I can only see you sitting there.”

And then where does Stephen leave you? In this swirling, gorgeous outro that envelopes and cuddles you like a blanket. While there are stabs of emotional pain, the underlying message of this song for me, as I feel for the whole album, is one of love. Unrequited or not, it’s pretty gorgeous.

Lastly, the song, in stream form. As mentioned earlier, the title is ‘Music in Colors’ and whoever posted this stream made a mistake in typing the title out as ‘Music in Colours’. A real Duffy fan would never have made that mistake. It’s even wrong in Spotify. (Facepalm.)

Edit 21 September 2015: The account that posted a stream of the song has now been deleted. Listen to the song on Spotify below. I’ve also embedded the entire ‘Music in Colors’ album too, which frankly is a masterpiece.

(Valentine’s!) Song Analysis #31: Richard Hawley – Tonight the Streets Are Ours

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Title: ‘Tonight the Streets Are Ours’
Where to find it: ‘Lady’s Bridge’ (2007, Mute)
Performed by: Richard Hawley
Words by: Richard Hawley

Many years ago, the Sheffield legend that is Richard Hawley came to the U.S. to do a short tour. He didn’t come anywhere near Washington, I didn’t have any friends who knew of him, let alone who liked him (typical), and I couldn’t stomach driving that long distance alone, even though I loved ‘Coles Corner’. So I had to give the tour a miss.

He’s never returned.

Not going to see him live is one of the things I’ve most regretted in life.

There are few singer/songwriters whose voice and songwriting talent have the ability to slay me, and to be honest, thinking about it, the only two that really do it for me are Hawley and Morrissey. They are slightly different in their lyrical style, but the end result when I listen to either of them is always the same. Essentially, I feel like I’m being cloaked with the gorgeous words, being sung by a man who has the most beautiful voice imaginable. Either of them could sing me to sleep. For the last time.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is Valentine’s Day. I’ve had quite a few bad ones in my time. In elementary school, the class list that my 2nd grade teacher handed out cut off the bottom of the Y in my first name so my name looked like ‘Marv’, which led to my ‘friends’ calling me “Marvin” until I graduated to junior high. My first year at university, I nearly fell over when a delivery man, holding a giant teddy bear, didn’t see me coming in his direction in the hallway. “Death by teddy bear” would have been an interesting newspaper headline… The one 2 years ago was spent in the company of a similarly lovelorn girlfriend and we watched Slow Club perform at DC9. But in general, most of my Valentine’s Days have been spent in hiding, wallowing in the kind of self-loathing Morrissey would be proud of.

But something’s changed. I am no longer sad or afraid to be alone on this Valentine’s Day. Over the last 5 months, I have slowly turned into a different person. Things have happened in my life and have helped make me see clearer. I don’t know how long this feeling will last, but I feel so much lighter and happier. Most importantly, I feel like I’m taking back my life and living it the way I want, living by the morals and standards that are important to me. Earlier this month, a friend of mine suffered a great loss, and she said she was so surprised that I was so giving of my concern and love, even though we did not know each other very well and she lived so far away.

It was when I was consoling her that I realized that I had been giving so much of myself to everyone else so much, I’d forgotten to take care of the most important person: me. It doesn’t mean that I intend to suddenly become selfish and self-centred. No, I wasn’t brought up that way; my parents taught me to be just and kind to all. It just means that I am now more cognisant of my own feelings and can better recognise those who love me and those who don’t. I am and will always be a hopeless romantic. I know my own love burns bright and transparent. For those who cannot recognise my sincerity, then I am better off without them.

Richard Hawley is quite good about writing the sad love song, and the most obvious choice for today would have been ‘Valentine’. But I don’t feel sad today. I feel like crying, not sad tears but happy ones. As such, I picked one of his most optimistic songs, which has a theme that reminds me of some bits and pieces for a short story I wrote long ago. One of them went like this: “But there’s so much more of this world I wanted to show you.” That’s the feeling I get from this song.

“The lights in our hearts tell no lies.” One of the truest, most beautiful lines of popular music ever written. If only I could lay my head on Richard Hawley’s shoulder and thank him for writing it.

First, the words:

Verse 1
Do you know why you’ve got feelings in your heart
Don’t let fear of feeling fool you
What you see sets you apart
And there’s nothing here to bind you,
It’s no way for life to start

Chorus
But do you know that
Tonight – the streets are ours
Tonight – the streets are ours
And these lights in our hearts they tell no lies

Verse 2
Those people, they got nothing in their souls
And they make our TVs blind us
From our vision and our goals
Oh the trigger of time it tricks you
So you have no way to grow

Chorus
But do you know that
Tonight – the streets are ours
Tonight – the streets are ours
These lights in our hearts, they tell no lies

Bridge
And no one else can haunt me
The way that you can haunt me
I need to know you want me
I couldn’t be without you
And the light that shines around you
No, nothing ever mattered more than not doubting
But tonight the streets are ours

Verse 3 (shortened version)
Do you know how to kill loneliness at last
Oh there’s so much there to heal dear
And make tears things of the past

Chorus (outro version)
But do you know that
Tonight – the streets are ours
Tonight – the streets are ours
These lights in our street are ours
Tonight – the streets are ours
And these lights in our hearts they tell no lies

Now, the analysis:

Compared to most of the songs I post here on Music in Notes, I think this one is pretty obvious. Therein lies the brilliance of Hawley: the words are so simple, yet they say so much.

In verse 1, we’ve got “Do you know why you’ve got feelings in your heart / don’t let fear of feeling fool you”: the woman he’s singing to is feeling confused about these sudden, new feelings she has in her heart. But just because they’re new and different, it doesn’t mean she should be scared. On the contrary, the subtext is that he’s saying it is time to embrace those feelings. “And there’s nothing here to bind you / it’s no way for life to start”: I love this, because it’s like he’s inviting her into a new world, a new life. There was nothing holding her to the life she had before these feelings took hold in her heart, and now the world – which includes him and his love – is hers for the taking.

Hawley gently nudges her into this beautifully lit world in the chorus: “But do you know that / tonight – the streets are ours”. Stick a fork in me, I’m done. I’m dying here. “And these lights in our hearts they tell no lies”: I like to think of this light in the hearts of man represents not only our souls, the part of us that keeps us alive and wanting to live, but also the burning passion we have for another person when we fall in love. In this line, what he’s saying is that this light that the both of them have, it’s not meant to be hidden. The lights burn bright – and true – for all the world to see. The guitars are amazing on the chorus; it honestly feels like the stars are so bright, they have no choice but to glitter down on you.

Verse 2 is more of a commentary on the lack of passion and real feeling in most people’s lives, “Those people, they got nothing in their souls / and they make our TVs blind us / from our vision and our goals”, and they have sad little lives because thanks to this lack of feeling, they will never feel the way the two of them do, they will never feel that love. This brings up my feelings of Morrissey’s ‘I Like You’, in which the Moz emotes, “Magistrates who spend their lives / hiding their mistakes / they look at you and I / and envy makes them cry”, and more recently the Crookes‘ ‘Sofie’, “and in time, we’ll see that we’re not like them, but just like you and me”, indicating what they have is very special indeed.

If you thought the chorus was amazing, then you’re in for a treat when you get to the bridge. “And no one else can haunt me / the way that you can haunt me”: when you’re in love with someone and you are not with them, it’s like he/she is hanging around like a ghost because you cannot and will not stop thinking about him/her. “I need to know you want me”: self-explanatory. It could have come out cliched but somehow it doesn’t. Probably the worst position a person in unrequited love could be in is waiting for that other person, ideally, to return the feelings and show he/she is in love with you. “I couldn’t be without you / And the light that shines around you”: probably the second most beautiful line in this song. The woman that he loves, she is radiant, glowing with beauty and virtue, and he’s telling the whole world right here that he cannot live without her. Is there no end to this man’s talent?

I think verse 3 was made ambiguous on purpose. “Do you know how to kill loneliness at last / oh there’s so much there to heal dear / and make tears things of the past”. It’s unclear whose loneliness and tears he’s speaking of: his, hers, or both of theirs. Either way, if they get together (and I sincerely hope they did, because if not, sorry, this woman needs to get her head examined), they are together and can heal each other. Because that is the measure of true love. Being there for the one you love, in good times and bad times.

Lastly, the song, performed live on Live at Jools Holland in 2007. I’m inching closer to death as I watch this.

Song Analysis #30: The Beatles – Nowhere Man

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Title: ‘Nowhere Man’
Where to find it: ‘Rubber Soul’ (1965, Parlophone/EMI)
Performed by: The Beatles
Words by: John Lennon

Being a Beatles fan for as long as I can remember, I had to come to grips that at some point, I was going to have to do a Beatles song here on Music in Notes. The problem for someone like me, who has lost count on just how many Beatles books I’ve bought and don’t even go into the CDs, DVDs, and whatever else I have (you don’t want to know how many bits and pieces I bought off eBay in badges, patches for my backpack, etc.), it’s nearly impossible to choose just one song. So I thought about this cassette tape my uncle gave me when I was really young. I’m guessing I must have been around 6 or 7 at the time and I had my own tape player. He had gone through all his Beatles records sometime in the late ’70s and recorded a bunch of his favourites to tape The ink is wearing off the paper now but if you look closely at side B, the first track on there is ‘Nowhere Man’.

I remember thinking just how different it sounded to the chirpy “yeahs” and “ohhs” of ‘Please Please Me’, even if the harmonies that I loved were still there. At that young age, I was able to discern this track was somehow different. You don’t know a whole lot about the world at age 7, so I think I can be forgiven for not understanding what this song is about way back when. And to be fair, I’m still not sure what it is about, but I’m going to give it my best shot. I seem to recall that there’s a clip of John Lennon talking about the song in The Beatles Anthology, but I am not going to run and find my DVDs, because that would be cheating!

First, the words:

He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Doesn’t have a point of view
Knows not where he’s going to
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere man, please listen
You don’t know what you’re missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command

He’s as blind as he can be
Just sees what he wants to see
Nowhere man, can you see me at all?

Nowhere man, don’t worry
Take your time, don’t hurry
Leave it all till somebody else lends you a hand

Doesn’t have a point of view
Knows not where he’s going to
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

Nowhere man, please listen
You don’t know what you’re missing
Nowhere man, the world is at your command

He’s a real nowhere man
Sitting in his nowhere land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody

Now, the analysis:

It’s inescapable. The whole song is about this ‘nowhere man’. But what is a nowhere man? It sounds pretty heavy, doesn’t it? And if it is heavy, why are there are those “la la la las”? That’s the Beatles for you. When the Fab Four started, the songs were pretty cut and dry in terms of content: boy loves girl (‘And I Love Her’, ‘Love Me Do’); boy does not want to be with girl (‘You Can’t Do That’); boy’s friend is saying girl likes boy (‘She Loves You’). But once they got into the ‘Rubber Soul’ era, there was no turning back; they’d decided it was high time (no pun intended) to shift gears. Luckily for us, switching gears didn’t compromise on songwriting quality, nor signal a change in quality of their playing, which just got better and better and more inventive.

‘Nowhere Man’ was Lennon’s big chance to be philosophical, and when I read the lyrics now, I wonder if they were also meant to be political as well, because it doesn’t matter what year you’re living in, you can apply it directly to your own life, your own society. The song begins and ends with similar words, generally in the style of “He’s a real nowhere man / sitting in his nowhere land / making all his nowhere plans for nobody”. What can this mean? You can never really be nowhere, so he must mean either mentally nowhere. I’ve also considered this might mean nowhere as viewed by, say, homeless people who have nowhere to go and nowhere to turn to. In either case, this person is sat in a state of not being, kind of like in ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ where “nothing is real”. You can sit and dream all day, but you’re not going to get anywhere just by dreaming. You have to do. That’s what I get from the opening and closing of ‘Nowhere Man’. I got all of that out of three lines. Three.

Then the second part goes, “Doesn’t have a point of view / knows not where he’s going to / isn’t he a bit like you and me?” Okay. So this nowhere man doesn’t have opinions or doesn’t know where he is going. This sounds like most young people, doesn’t it? Or older people who still haven’t figured out what they want to be doing or what they want out of life. Again, pretty deep stuff for a ‘pop band’. I also like how he’s including us, the listeners, into his big secret. Also note that the lines are not judgmental. They are just telling us what is happening, like a story unfolding right in front of us.

In the quasi-chorus, we get “Nowhere man, please listen / you don’t know what you’re missing / nowhere man, the world is at your command”. Lennon is talking to this nowhere man and reminding him that there’s a bigger world out there, outside of his head. It’s funny how this reminds me of something I wrote for my first boyfriend. He always said that he wanted me to see the world, which seemed a ridiculous pie in the sky kind of idea when we were together because I was very sick. The thought of just leaving my bed to walk down the stairs most days was an impossibility. He challenged me one day to write something, anything about being able to be healthy and free to go out and do whatever I wanted. The short story I came up with, I have no idea where it is now, but I remember this line I wrote for one of the characters, “I had so many things to show you.” That’s the feeling I get from Lennon in this section. If you don’t look outside your normal everyday sphere, you risk getting stuck. Not saying you have to dream big but you have to dream, or else you might not see what else is waiting out there for you.

The problem seems to come when Lennon realises, “He’s as blind as he can be / just sees what he wants to see / nowhere man, can you see me at all?” How do you talk to someone set in their ways? This goes back to what I was thinking about at the start of this analysis, that maybe this had some roots in political thinking. People tend to be conservative, liberal, middle of the road, etc. and stay there. It takes a lot for someone to be swayed to the left or the right if they seem happy where they began. I feel like America is very much like this right now; neither side wants to back down and is “blind” to everything but their causes and constituents and just see what they want to see, but for us to go forward, there has to be compromises on both sides.

But instead of pushing this poor nowhere man into the deep end of a pool, trying to see if he can swim or not, Lennon is only gently nudging: “Nowhere man, don’t worry / take your time, don’t hurry / leave it all ’til somebody else lends you a hand”. These are some more lines that I adore for their softness. For most people, you need to learn how to fly first, and baby birds being forcibly pushed out of the family nest on the safe, comfortable branch probably isn’t the best way forward. Lennon realises that it’s perfectly fine if nowhere man does this in his own time. It’s the wanting, the desire to do something different, to try a new tack, to try a new way, that is more important than trying to rush into something new.

And I got all of this from a song that doesn’t even last 3 minutes. ‘Nowhere Man’ is a really simple song, but incredibly deceptively so. If you came upon this post not already believing that John Lennon was a genius, think again.

Lastly, the song, a stream of the song. ’nuff said.