Tag Archives: 2011

Song Analysis #12: Van Susans – Glow

Song Analysis, , , , , ,

Title: ‘Glow’
Where to find it: ‘We Could Be Scenery’ EP (2011, Beatnik Geek)
Performed by: Van Susans
Words by: Olly Andrews and Eddie Dullaway

First, the words:

Verse 1
She makes me feel like I’m glowing like starlight
My insides can set fire and burn from the outside
And I wouldn’t stop her for all she did to me
She leaves me burnt and me still craving her

How could you do this to me?
I have been nothing but good to you
Maybe I should play the bad ass
Maybe I should have played you too?

But I could never bring myself to do that
And I don’t even know where I’d start
And you said all the things I wanted to hear
After tearing me apart

Chorus
And all the times that we had, and all the pictures that I took
I’ll take a flame to it all, without another look
You left me burnt, but I have learnt from you
You left me burnt, but I have learnt from you

Verse 2
Sometime I wish I were a little taller
So you would love me a little bit more
Maybe then this would all be over
And I wouldn’t be walking out that door

And everything we had
Yeah, everything we ever had
You took a flame to all of our plans
And I don’t expect you to understand

Chorus
All the times that we had, and all the pictures that I took
I’ll take a flame to it all, without another look
You left me burnt, but I have learnt from you
You left me burnt, but I have learnt from you

Instrumental bridge, then lyric bridge, then followed by shorter instrumental bridge
She made me feel like I’m glowing like starlight
Now all she can do is to watch me burn

Chorus
All the times that we had, and all the pictures that I took
I’ll take a flame to it all, without another look
You left me burnt, but I have learnt from you
You left me burnt, but I have learnt from you

Extended outro
‘cause she made me feel
Like starlight, like starlight
And ‘cause she made me feel
Like starlight, like starlight

Now, the analysis:

Van Susans came to my attention in late 2010, during a particularly dark period in my life. Their manager David sent me an advance copy of their debut EP ‘We Could Be Scenery’ and like everything else I receive, I queued it up with a jaundiced eye and a cynical brow. From just five songs, I could tell this band of six just “had” it. Initially, it was single ‘Bones’ that caught my ear first, with its lyrics of a young man’s bombast and invincibility , later inevitably felled by what I thought then was heartbreak. Now I think about it more as possibly being about life’s trials and tribulations and it might not be a love song at all. Funny how that the longer you sit with a song very special to you, as time goes on it can reveal more than originally meets the eye, like a flower bud that blooms and unfurls its petals to you, each second looks different than it did in the previous…

But today’s piece is about the final track on the EP, ‘Glow’. One of the lasting pieces of imagery I have from history in my schooldays was when we were being taught about colonial India and the caste system. It’s rather interesting to me that India, having been a British colony, independently developed a detrimental class system from its masters. It’s been impressed on me by quite a few of my friends, mostly from the Midlands and the North, that there is a massive class divide in the UK. (In America, while class and wealth is of course an issue, I personally find that the race divide is much wider in comparison.) Going back to colonial India, having self-immolation as a method of nonviolence by an Indian protesting his British masters described to a young me by a teacher was an image that became burned, no pun intended, into my mind forever.

The other thing I recall about self-immolation was of the old (and possibly still continuing?) Indian tradition of wives, regardless of class, throwing themselves on the funeral pyre of their dead husbands. Because according to Indian culture, one of the many patriarchal societies in Asia, a wife’s life was worth nothing if her husband was dead. So fire and death have always been connected in my mind. It’s gotten so bad that I often have nightmares of being burnt, being on fire or even my whole bedroom up in flames, and I am jolted awake. One time I even leapt from my bed, hitting the sill of my window with my back and falling on my bass. I woke up in tears, seeing that my guitar stand had broken my fall and it itself was broken, though luckily my bass sustained no injuries. Freud and Jung would probably have a field day with my dreams…

‘Glow’ utilises the imagery of fire not one, not four different ways! The first way, and the most obvious, is the literal use taking a flame “to it all”, to destroy what had come before. The song’s protagonist uses “I’ll take a flame to it all” in the chorus, but also alludes to his lover “And everything we had / Yeah, everything we ever had / You took a flame to all of our plans / And I don’t expect you to understand”. Part of the previous first half of the verse “Maybe then this would all be over / And I wouldn’t be walking out that door” indicates conflict, so it’s not readily apparent who is at fault. Interesting dichotomy. But all will be revealed in all due time…

This first way is very powerful to me. When I heard the song, I equated it to my desire then to physically destroy every last piece of evidence of a man who had previously been so important in my life. I had spent so much time and effort writing about him and photographing him that I thought the only way to get him out of my mind was this physical destruction, that it was a means to an end. In my mind, I relished standing in my back garden with a match and lighting “all the pictures that I took” in “all the times that we had” together, watching them turn into ash in the air. Last Christmas I went through a drawer full of items related to him and threw everything out except what legitimately could be considered pieces to my work portfolio as a music journalist and editor; I’m glad I hadn’t burned everything to bits because regardless of how I felt about him personally, the work I’d done, all the hours I’d spent to help promote him was a reflection not on how badly he treated me but instead of the great pride I’d taken in doing what I did best: write.

The second way is in the second half of the chorus: “You left me burnt, but I have learnt from you”. It’s almost like our protagonist is thanking his lover: yes, you hurt me, but I’ve learned from the experience. It’s not all bad. It was hard for me to see this through my tears but I have come to appreciate this line for what it truly means: we all go through heartbreak but like Kelly Clarkson said famously, “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.

Hopefully this doesn’t confuse too much, but I’m going to go back to the start of the song for the third way Olly Andrews and Eddie Dullaway use fire imagery in ‘Glow’ and examine it line by line. Don’t worry, I’ll come back to the end of the song in a minute when describing the fourth way, and you’ll see how neatly the end of song will bring you full circle. The first line of the first verse: “She makes me feel like I’m glowing like starlight”. What is this? It seems obvious to me. It’s when you’ve fallen in love with someone and he/she has put you on a pedestal, that’s you’re perfect and wonderful. Then the next line: “My insides can set fire and burn from the outside”. I’m on the fence about this line. On one hand, in line two, while he’s in love, he’s feeling so wonderful about himself that nothing can touch him. Someone could set him on fire and he wouldn’t notice. On the other hand, there is simultaneous burning from the inside AND the outside. I read this as his insides are burning because he’s in love, he’s full of desire and hope from his lover. But he also appears to be burning from the outside because of what his lover is doing to him: “And I wouldn’t stop her for all she did to me / She leaves me burnt and me still craving her”. She’s done something to him – hurt him somehow – and he’s left burnt, but like a junkie, he wants to have her back in his life again. As badly as the ones that we love can hurt us, if we’re still in love with that person, it doesn’t matter. We want that person come round again for us.

The next group of lines truly hit home for me: “How could you do this to me? / I have been nothing but good to you / Maybe I should play the bad ass / Maybe I should have played you too?” Okay, now we know what’s wrong. He was in love, he treated her like a princess, yet she played him. He’s asking himself, wow, maybe if I’d played you too, I wouldn’t be feeling so rotten right now. But he admits he’s too good of a person to do the same thing to her: “But I could never bring myself to do that / And I don’t even know where I’d start”. Adding further insult to injury, “And you said all the things I wanted to hear / After tearing me apart”. THIS. This happened to me. If you think heartbreak can’t get any worse, try having a carrot being dangled in front of our face by the very person you used to love, to have that person suddenly be nice to you after he/she has broken your heart, giving you entirely false hope that one day all will be well and you’ll be back together. I don’t know why people think it’s ok to act this way. If you’ve broken up with someone, if you’ve hurt someone, walk away. The person you hurt does not need to see you anymore. Don’t open up the old wounds and give them the impression that one day in the future you MIGHT have a future with that person. It’s cruel.

The fourth way, as I promised, finishes the song with the repeated “‘cause she made me feel / Like starlight, like starlight”. Oh my god. The way Olly Andrews sings this is nothing short of a miracle. As in the first line of the song, our protagonist recalls feeling the burning feeling of love in his whole body, as if he is a star emanating starlight. On a simpler level, he’s explaining how he felt like a star in her presence. But at the end of the song, the sentiment has changed. As much as you’d like to believe and pretend putting up a brave front, if you have a broken heart, even as much as you hate that other person for hurting you, there is always going to be a little piece of you that wants things to go back to the way they were.

You want that feeling of being in love again, of being the apple of someone’s eye, to feel that burning deep within, whether it be pride or just the self-esteem that yes, someone is in love with me and thinks I’m great. The delivery here is plaintive, as if Andrews’ whole heart and soul is crying out to the universe, his voice extending as if reaching to the heavens. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I queued this track up in my car and how many red lights I ran because I was blinded by my own tears while singing along to the end of this song, thinking that the more times I sang the song and the louder I sang, the words and my voice would reach the man I loved and he would realise he’d made a mistake.

If you were wondering what happened to that guy who hurt me, he’s gone. Out of my life. He’s never going to ever be part of my life again. I saw him a couple of weeks ago and he was a complete jerk to me. Sometimes I wish he’d been a jerk to me the first time we met, so I would have seen his true colours straight away and I never would have spent years of my life in such a state of hopeless disarray. But life is never that simple and like they say, love is blind. And I’m okay now. I can listen to ‘Glow’ now with a smile and say to myself, yes, I’ve learned from my mistakes and I’ve learned from the way he treated me, I know what not to put up with. And now I can go forward and love someone else with no regrets.

Lastly, the song, two versions of the song, one performed live on a local to Bromley radio station in February 2011, and the other the original from the EP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2rqeYTKLrU

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/18398967″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Song Analysis #10: Pete and the Pirates – Half Moon Street

Song Analysis, , , , , , ,

I know. It’s Friday. But I was just thinking about someone last night, someone from my not too distant past, someone who caused me a great deal of emotional anguish. I only recently pulled myself out of a severe depression that, while it had been steadily getting better as time went on, didn’t really go into remission until I stepped into the sunlight at SXSW last month, saw loads of friends, and realised I didn’t need him anymore in my life. The chapter’s closed now. But there was a time, not so long ago, when just seeing a picture of him or hearing his voice somewhere reminded me of how much I loved him and I hated myself so much, all I wanted to do was to crawl in a hole and die if I couldn’t be with him.

I fell in love with this song by Pete and the Pirates in early 2011 upon hearing it on Lammo’s radio show. But it wasn’t until November of that year when I finally nabbed the album ‘One Thousand Pictures’ physically, on sale in a London HMV. Totally last minute, I saw a gig listing that the band would be playing in Islington at the Buffalo Bar, at a special birthday night of the venue, and I decided I should go along and see them. I managed to get one of the last tickets in, and it was probably one of the best ways I’ve ever spent £10. While I’m not happy the poster I got from the show got wrecked in my checked suitcase (I’m an idiot, I should have put it safe in a folder in my hand luggage…it’s probably worth something now that they don’t exist anymore), I am so glad that I got to see them before they split.

Three of their members have now gone on to form Teleman, but it’s this song that will always live in my heart. I can’t even begin to count how many tears I shed listening to it. And why? Read the lyrics first, and I’ll explain…

Title: ‘Half Moon Street’
Where to find it: ‘One Thousand Pictures’ (2011)
Performed by: Pete and the Pirates (RIP)
Words by: presumably Tommy Sanders

First, the words:

Come and meet me tomorrow
Come with all your silver and your gold
Egyptian night lady
You don’t seem like you do what you’ve been told
And why won’t you speak now
Tying string between tin cans and pulling them tight
Well I’m only asking
Did the cat get your tongue when you slept last night
From here to my window
There are cracks in the walls that I can’t mend
I’ll meet you on Half Moon Street
With someone else’s money that we can spend

My thoughts are tearing each other apart
In the back of the car
Conversation’s probably gone too far
You keep me guessing
Tongue tied and messy
Don’t make me feel stupid
I’ll do that on my own

Put the key in and just start believing
That you’re going to hell if you have fun this evening
Come to me telling me all kinds of secrets
Promises promised I think I can keep it

I’ve seen photos of you
I know we’ve got nothing in common now
Just our shared love of drinking
But you won’t take a life and that’s not me
I’ll meet you on Half Moon Street
I’ll be watching your mouth move when you talk
And all of those noises
Well they really mean nothing to me at all

My thoughts are tearing each other apart
In the back of the car
Conversation’s probably gone too far
You keep me guessing
Tongue tied and messy
Don’t make me feel stupid
I’ll do that on my own

Put the key in and just start believing
That you’re going to hell if you have fun this evening
Come to me telling me all me kinds of secrets
Promises promised I think I can keep it

Come and meet me tomorrow
Come with all your silver and your gold
And all of your money
It really means nothing to me at all
I’ll meet you on Half Moon Street
I’ll be watching your mouth move when you talk
And oh it’s just noises
They really mean nothing to me at all.

My thoughts are tearing each other apart
In the back of the car
Conversation’s probably gone too far
You keep me guessing
Tongue tied and messy
Don’t make me feel stupid
I’ll do that on my own

Put the key in and just start believing
That you’re going to hell if you have fun this evening
Come to me telling me all kinds of secrets
Promises promised I think I can keep it

Now, the analysis:

Not exactly of course, but this song mirrored one of my own relationships. There was a man that I trusted to the ends of the earth, and I had gone for months thinking he felt the same way about me. Well, as you can probably predict, things didn’t end well. Even after I found out that what I wanted wasn’t what he wanted, he still would come to me and confide in me (“Come to me telling me all me kinds of secrets / Promises promised I think I can keep it”) and in a way, even though maybe he didn’t mean to, he kept stringing me along, making me think that I meant more to him in his life than he actually was really willing to commit to. I kept thinking, “one day he’ll realise that it’s me, not that other woman…I’m the one he’s meant to be with”. Let me tell you, that’s a hopeless romantic talking. You don’t get anywhere with hopeless romanticism…

We had a conversation one night in a confined space in a bar (“My thoughts are tearing each other apart / In the back of the car / Conversation’s probably gone too far / You keep me guessing / Tongue tied and messy”) where he sat so close to me, I thought I might die. I hated the fact that we were sitting like this and I wanted him so badly to kiss me, to do something to show me he loved me. He talked to me in the same way he talked to me the day we first met. I was crying inside; it reminded me of why I had fallen in love with him in the first place. When I went home that night, alone and so sad, I was more confused about what was going on between us than I had been when I had first stepped into that bar.

I finally broke things off with him earlier this year; I had waited over 2 years for his promise of “let’s still be friends” to really come true; I had still cared for him as a friend, even if he didn’t treat me as well in return, and I had just really hoped that one day he would come around. When I learned some things about him entirely accidentally from one of our mutual friends, I removed him from all my social networks, never to talk to him again. We never spoke of it, but I think it was assumed by both of us that what went on was to be kept private. At first I thought this way because I was too embarrassed by what had happened, and it was one of those “what would the neighbors say?” kind of cases. But then later, more recently, I came to the mature decision that I had nothing to be ashamed of (you like who you like, right?), and if he couldn’t care enough to be my friend, then it wasn’t worth my time or effort to try and keep this “friendship” (notice I put that in quotes?) alive.

In that way, this song ‘Half Moon Street’ has a similar premise. You can tell the protagonist is hanging on to a relationship that doesn’t exist the way he wants to anymore. He’s asking this woman to come down to this place so they can spend time together, but he acknowledges, “I’ll meet you on Half Moon Street / I’ll be watching your mouth move when you talk / and all of those noises / well they really mean nothing to me at all” – their lives are so different now, even if they were in the same space and she was talking to him, they don’t mean anything anymore to each other. “Come and meet me tomorrow / Come with all your silver and your gold”, she has all this money, and he has none; they’re in entirely different stations of life.

The lines that hurt me so badly and touched me so strongly are “don’t make me feel stupid / I’ll do that on my own”. Anyone who has been in a relationship, thinking everything’s wine and roses, only to find out your lover has cheated or deceived you, feels like a fool. I recall standing alone in the middle of a street in Manchester, on a very late night, feeling cold, and what was I doing? Crying, thinking about this song, thinking about how messed up I was inside, feeling how stupid I was that I’d not been able to protect my heart.

Not as cutting but equally painful are “I’ve seen photos of you / I know we’ve got nothing in common now”: someone once dear no longer is a part of your life. I used to be quite fatalistic, coming up the lyric “I don’t mean anything to him anymore” one night when I was back home, riding down an escalator to the Metro and feeling that same coldness. For professional reasons, I still see photos of this man. This man who for months haunted my dreams because I loved him so much and it killed me that even though I would have given anything to be with him – I had planned on giving up everything that I knew to make a new life with him – he just didn’t love me enough and in that way. “From here to my window / There are cracks in the walls that I can’t mend”: sometimes, relationships are irreparably broken. You can’t fix them. And when you come across a situation like that, like every single good-meaning friend told me, “you just need time to heal”. And leave it be. For me, the time I needed was nearly 2 and a half years. But I’m still alive.

Note: apparently there are two films with ‘Half Moon Street’ in the title and I haven’t bothered to see if the songs have anything to do with the lyrics. Of course, it’s a possibility for me, there is no other explanation as to why it struck a chord so deeply with me besides personal experience.

Lastly, the promo video for the song. I think it’s a waste visually of an almost perfect song; why couldn’t it have a better storyline?

Song Analysis #1: General Fiasco – ‘Waves’

Song Analysis, , , , ,

Title: ‘Waves’
Where to find it: ‘Waves’ EP (2011, Dirty Hit), ‘Unfaithfully Yours’ (2012, Dirty Hit, later this month)
Performed by: General Fiasco
Words by: Owen Strathern

First, the words:

Verse 1
precious, every second you spent by my side
yeah, right
impressions, I don’t care to amend mine
okay, all right

Intro into chorus 1
tell you I don’t want nobody
no need to talk about it
seems to me that all this is for real
lose yourself in conversation
sorry that’s not entertaining
maybe there is something we could do

Chorus
and I go back
like a wave to the shore
I don’t think about you much now anymore
when I said that I wouldn’t go
I’m a wave, I’m a wave
I make mistakes

Verse 2
I suffered from boredom
this happened before
and I know this was not a great idea
I tell you no more
and you say that its over
at least this is something we agreed

Intro info chorus 2
tell you I don’t want nobody
no need to talk about it
seems to me that all this is for real
lose myself in conversation
sorry that’s not entertaining
maybe there is something we could do

Chorus 2
and I go back
like a wave to the shore
I don’t think about you much now anymore
when I said that I wouldn’t go
I’m a wave, I’m a wave

Bridge
and if I tell you, I tell you, I tell you
enough is going
over and over and on
sensing and let in
you brought it away
I know nothing you say will change a thing

Extended chorus, to end
and I go back
like a wave to the shore
I don’t think about you much now anymore
when I said that I wouldn’t go
I’m a wave, I’m a wave

and I go back
like a wave to the shore
I don’t think about you much now anymore
when I said that I wouldn’t go
I’m a wave, I’m a wave
and I go back…

Now, the analysis:

I had a bit of a hard time choosing what song to talk about on Music in Notes first. And then I thought about why I wanted to start this site: to show people that song lyrics aren’t just merely words. They mean something, whether they mean the same something to the songwriter or to you is immaterial. While ‘Waves’ seems to be just a “simple” pop song, I’m going to show you that it’s so much more than that.

I met Northern Irish indie rockers General Fiasco in Austin this past March at SXSW 2012, saw them play twice, and even interviewed them. At first glance, they are four very handsome young men; I’m not at all surprised at the screaming girls who flock to their European shows. But you will see as I unravel their song ‘Waves’ – released last year as the title track to an EP, but also appearing in their second album ‘Unfaithfully Yours’ out on 30 July – that the rule “don’t judge a book by its cover” applies.

The song is a jaunty, fun number, a style that General Fiasco has already cornered admirably in their handful of singles released already on Dirty Hit, including ‘Rebel Get By,’ ‘Don’t You Ever’ and ‘Ever So Shy’. I have to admit, even I on first listen to ‘Waves’ thought it was a done deal with the line “I don’t think about you much now anymore” – okay, simple. It’s a break-up song, and he’s doing the breaking. However, consider what waves are. Specifically, ocean waves. We’re all taught in high school science class that it’s the Moon’s magnetic pull that affects the tides, and this is supposed to account for the fact that twice a day there is a high tide. But you could argue a wave is never the same twice, just like there is no such thing as two snowflakes that are identical. The chorus before the previously quoted line, “and I go back / like a wave to the shore,” presumably refers to him returning to the girlfriend, the woman that the verses are directed towards. Waves come back to the shore, but never in the same way twice. Or again.

Consider “I don’t think about you much now anymore” again. This line in the chorus echoes the sentiment of verse 1. “Precious, every second you spent by my side / yeah right / impressions, I don’t care to amend mine / okay, all right,” seems to indicate he’s blase yet standing his ground. He isn’t happy with the way things are going and he’s sticking to his guns. His girl is ignoring him: “lose yourself in conversation / sorry that’s not entertaining”. And he’s even being nice when he says, “maybe there is something we could do.” This leads straight into the chorus, sounding jubilant in the way General Fiasco does so well. You could almost be convinced that Owen Strathern is going to stand by his woman.

But the cracks are showing in verse 2. “I suffered from boredom / this happened before / and I know this was not a great idea / I tell you no more / and you say that its over / at least this is something we agreed”: the two have agreed their union isn’t stable. The bridge further supports his thought that the relationship is over, or at least nearing the end, with “and if I tell you, I tell you, I tell you / enough is going / over and over and on / sensing and let in /you brought it away / I know nothing you say will change a thing.” That last line says it all: it is what it is, and this is how our relationship goes. End of story.

So does he want to stay with her? Does this relationship have a chance? I’m leaning towards no, because he’s already detected there’s a problem. I think the chorus of ‘Waves’, more than anything else in this song, is killer in its meaning: it’s the perfect distillation of being in a relationship and wanting more than anything for it to work. There’s something that keeps him coming back. While he’s left the door open when he sings, “when I said that I wouldn’t go / I’m a wave / I’m a wave,” it’s Strathern’s way of expressing a confused, and most probably a broken heart. (Guys. It’s okay. You don’t have to be macho all the time. But like real life, there still seems to be this inability for a good portion of male songwriters to be mushy.) That’s not all bad, though. Besides, chances are, it never crossed the minds of 99% of the people who have been listening to this song what this song is about. It’s just damn catchy! You’ve kicked up your heels and your hands are in the air, shaking like you just don’t care. And that’s what a good pop song does, right?

But he’s no longer thinking about her anymore. Ladies, if you hear your man say words like this, I hate to tell you, but I think it’s safe to say “game over.”

Update 18 July 2012: Owen Strathern Tweeted me with this explanation: its [sic] not particularly a relationship/girlfriendy song. More about going back to the wrong person for short spells. 1 nighters

Lastly, the song in General Fiasco’s official promo video for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM6LQKZyXdw