Dead Milkmen Free For All

[lithiumtom]

[cagliostro]

For examples of their better lyrics -
Tom Waits - tons, but in particular - Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis, I Don't Want To Grow Up
They Might Be Giants - Certain People I Could Name, Canajoharie, just to name two. I keep saying that nobody writes lyrics like they do.
Robyn Hitchcock - My Wife And My Dead Wife, Aquarium.

I chose two for each, but there are many more that could be chosen from.

I feel the same way about Springsteen though - I think I've only heard the weaker ones, and should give him more of a try as early Tom Waits and Springsteen have often been compared with each other. But I'm not especially fond of Springsteen's voice either, which has a lot to do with it.

[sparksfiend]

There's just something about Bruce Springsteen that's unlikeable.. take for instance his song "Blinded by the Light"... completely forgettable when done by the Boss... but a masterpiece when re-worked and performed by Manfred Mann.
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"Do you know what it's like to be violated by a 300-pound Filipino skinhead named Gunther? It ain't no picnic!"

[Rodney]

2. [Huh, huh. "Number two"] Bruce Springsteen: Darkness on the Edge of Town. OK, I'm about to do something I'd thought I'd never do when I was in my twenties (but would've done with my scrawny fists in my teens); I'm about to defend the work Bruce Springsteen.

Naturally, I won't be defending all of Springsteen's work because, quite frankly, that line in Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) about the record company giving the protagonist a "big advance" in indefensible on a assload of levels (not the least of which is that, judging from past experience, the character is really going to regret signing that contract .). No, I will just be extolling the values of Bruce's greatest effort: Darkness on the Edge of Town (or "Million Dollar Thighs" as it's titled in Holland, Spain, and Japan)

At the time when Springsteen began writing Darkness - and I swear this is true - the band exerting the most influence on him was The Clash [The Clash, of course, were influenced by The Ramones for whom Springsteen penned the song Hungry Heart). So now you know why the album is so stark and gritty and why Bruce is dressed like Joe Strummer (and not Al Pachino in Cruising ) on the cover. Now let's talk about the greatest lyrical opening line of the Seventies (If you don't count "I am an Antichrisssssssssssst").

Lights out tonight
Trouble in the Heartland

What I killer opening line. Every time I sit down to write a song, I try to remember that the opening line (especially if it's going to be the opening track) should come out swinging its firsts and foaming at the mouth. Little Steven has said, and I believe him, that Springsteen wrote dozens of opening lyrics for Badlands before he hit upon the final version.

Speaking of Badlands, check this shit out:

Poor man wanna be rich
Rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied
'Til he rules everything

For a teenager growing up in Steel-town that had gone to rust, those lines more than made do while we all waited for The Clash to arrive [By the way, the greatest Clash song is Koka Kola: it perfectly sums up the entire purpose of the Clash Project.]. And I sincerely hope that any rich kids from my hometown who heard the following words, back in '78, and didn't feel at least a twinge of guilt die of Ebole while attempting to untangle themselves from from a razor-wire jumpsuit:

Through the mansions of fear, through the mansions of pain,
I see my daddy walking through them factory gates in the rain,
Factory takes his hearing, factory gives him life,
The working, the working, just the working life.

And DO NOT get me started on the unflinching chuck of musical Realism that is Candy's Room; perhaps the only song ever that sounds like it was recorded in Black & White.

Strangers from the city call my baby's number and they bring her toys

You can forgive any musical misstep in that entire song, just for that one line alone. Shit Luther, the rest of that tune could consist of the sounds of Rick Santorum raping a baby seal and I'd still love it simply because it contains that line. You don't know Candy; you've never met Candy; but I bet you can picture her by the time Bruce gets to the first chorus. You can sure as Hell picture her room!

Racing in the Street, Promised Land, Prove It All Night; Darkness is a How-To book for budding lyricists.

Look; I'm not asking that you forgive The Boss for dancing with Courtney Cox in that crappy video, or for never punching Ronald Reagan in his colostomy bag for misappropriating Born in the USA. All I'm asking is that you give Darkness on the Edge of Town another listen and another chance.

Next Time: David Bowie takes notes. Lots and lots of notes.

[cagliostro]

This is great stuff Rodney. Keep 'em coming. I look forward to the next installment.

And if you don't mind some competition in this, I'd love to sing the praises of certain lyricists myself in a similar vein you are laying out. I'd probably start with my favorite lyricist, a one Bob Walkenhorst who has had criminally little attention. He was in a little bitty band called the Rainmakers that had a modest hit in the 80's with one of their least well written songs. It might be a regional quality like your fondness of Bruce, though.
But let me know, because I don't want to stub any toes having a lyricist-off.

[lithiumtom]

"For a teenager growing up in Steel-town that had gone to rust"


speaking of great opening lines ^^^^
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His grace is greater than all our sin.

[Rodney]

I neglected to mention that while Brrrrrruuuuucccee was writing and recording Darkness on the Edge of Town he was also writing Because the Night with Patti Smith. Which is the musical equivalent of juggling chainsaw-wielding babies while running a three-minute mile.

I once sang Summer Cannibals while backed by Lenny Kaye [this really happened, unlike my claim to have been the sixth Dr. Who]. Which is irrelevant, but I never miss an opportunity to mention it.

[Rodney]

This whole thing got me thinkin'. Sure, musical tastes are, obviously, subjective, but isn't there some sort of standard we can use to concretely establish what is "good" as opposed to what "blows hobo balls"? After all, we don't hang Thomas Kinkade's crappy little cottage paintings next to Picasso's naked mask-wearing women (Someone should really make a Cubist version of a Thomas Kinkade painting). We need a yardstick!

But what artist(s) can we get a baseline reading from? First, they would definitely have to be a new(er) group as the older groups carry far too much critical baggage ["Dude, you're talkin' 'bout Post-Baker Street Gerry Rafferty. His earlier stuff is genius"].

Next, they'd have be a group that you would hear played in a club. While this wouldn't rule out ABBA, the previous rule (as well as a possible "NO SWEDES" rule) would. I don't trust anything I can't dance to! [I love Rome to death, but I have yet to figure a move to go with L'homme revolte]. This brings us nicely to...

They should have a high Metropolis Factor. For the benefit of those of you who are neither me nor the couple of folks I hang around Digital Ferret with on Saturdays, a Metropolis Factor is the relationship of an artist to Metropolis records. For convenience, I've assigned a point system to the Metropolis Factor. Signed to Metropolis = + 30 Points. Sounds like they should be signed to Metropolis = + 20 Points. Were once signed to Metropolis = + 10 Points. These also - 40 points for any artist who looks like they turned off the film Metropolis because it "featured scary boobs".

Finally, the band should prominently feature Lesbians in military garb, because...well, Lesbians in military garb. Duh.

So, I plugged all of this data into one of the VST's that comes with FL Studio (that DAW does everything!) and discovered that the perfect musical barometer is...

NACHTMAHR!

Now, to show you how this all works, I'm going to take a band, selected at random and subject them to The Nachtmahr Challenge!



You can't argue with the results, because THIS IS SCIENCE! And you though all we did was make music!

[Cult Leader Lettuce]

[Rodney]

NACHTMAHR wins fatally!

It also appears to be laundry day at the Rivetchick's apartment.

[Rodney]

3. David Bowie: Life on Mars/Station to Station/Low

It's been said that Bob Dylan is proof that you're born with a limited number of good ideas and you shouldn't use them up to early in your career. The same thing goes for Syd Barrett and brain cells.

David Bowie didn't burn through too many good ideas during his early, folky, years (Run for the tofu in these folky years), but he sure-as-shitting kindled a bonfire of songs and brain cells during his Thin White Duke*/Early Berlin period.

* or "Thin White Supremacist Duke" if you dwell for a moment on the Victoria Station incident.

In much the same way that The Clash were a bunch of wide-eyed wanderers through a alien world of consumer products (All Lost in the Supermarket) in search of a squat-house, watching Bowie attempt to navigate in the Land of the Normal must have been a constant source of amusement/horror for those in his inner circle (This really happened: Bowie once became convinced that his swimming pool was possessed by some malevolent force, so a hasty exorcism was arranged). I've always operated on the theory that the transformation from Ziggy Stardust (Played by Tom Baker) to The Thin White Duke (David Tennant) left Bowie a little pretty much on the outside of humanity looking in. I like to picture him as a sort of Martian Anthropologist (Maybe that's why he was so believable in The Man Who Fell to Earth?), strolling about, trying not to interact with the natives, and making little notations like "Glass makes a pretty noise when it breaks" and "Buy Electric Blue paint for room" in a small journal. By the way, whenever I'm stuck for lyrics, I try to use the Alien Anthropologist Approach. Now let's get to specifics...

Life on Mars is, quite simply, the greatest pop song ever written. Remember that if you're ever on Jeopardy. Congratulations, Bowie; you did it! High score!


Life on Mars is remarkable for many reasons, not the least of which is that it's one of the few songs that successfully switches from Third (the girl with the mousey hair) to First person. It's really an amazing piece of work, and I'm sure that, as soon as Bowie, finished it, he wanted to relax in his pool, but couldn't because, you know, possessed.

Yes, Mr. Flipper, there are only six songs on Station to Station, but one is over ten minutes long, and three are over six minutes long. Oh, and all of the songs on Station to Station are brilliant and I strongly encourage you to give 'em another listen. [If you've read this far, include the word "aardvark" in your reply] For the sake of brevity, let's just pick one to examine: TVC15

SPOILER ALERT: I spent much of youth trying to figure out just what the fuck TVC15 was about. Was I finally leaned the entire story, I was quite pleased how close I'd gotten to guessing the song's premise (Admittedly, I did obsess on it for roughly 30 years). Remember Bowie's haunted pool? Well, Bowie's house also contained a television which he was convinced was trying to swallow his girlfriend. Let that sink in for a minute and then ask yourself "Could I turn that sort of raging paranoia into a song?"

While Low is certainly no Station to Station, it does feature feature Breaking Glass, Sound and Vision, and Be My Wife. Also, Bowie's record label hated Low (Word is that they weren't crazy about the entire Berlin [nactmahr] Trilogy) , so you know it must be a good record.

OK, next time we'll begin our journey into modern times by looking at an artist who is still writing great songs (as well as being a snappy dresser): Nick Cave.

PS. Although I've never seen David Bowie perform live, (This also really happened) my mother was at the Tower show in 1974 and she maintains that it was the best concert she ever saw. WHAT? YOU FUCKIN' THINK YOU KNOW MORE THAN MY MOM?

[lithiumtom]

aardvark. when i was 12 my parents gave to me for my birthday, queen a night at the opeara and cheech and chong the one with blind mellon chitlin (i cant remeber the name). 8track tapes mind you, then a short time later my friends older brother said hey you got to listen to this and he whipped out kiss destroyer, that was it for me, i went from listening to top 40 on a las vegas station to wanting to be a rock star.

always liked bowie and dilon but they were not in my regular rotation.
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His grace is greater than all our sin.

[chrisnourcan]

Hardvark

Here's some info on "Life on Mars"

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=4973

Hopefully there are no viruses attached, but this seems like an interesting site. They refer to the Milkmen's work as "Genius." Agreed.
http://www.songfacts.com/blog/writing/how_the_dead_milkmen_came_back_to_life/

http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=8815

[cagliostro]

Ant-eater. So glad you hit the correct Bowie period. Now....ready to hear about Mr. Cave.

Oh, and I did see David Bowie perform live, but it was the Glass Spider tour in a big arena, and the Hoodoo Gurus were playing the same night at a little bitty club, and despite the historical significance of being able to say I saw Bowie over saying I got to see some Aussie band not a lot of people have heard of, I suspect I would have had more fun seeing the Hoodoo Gurus. Too much goofy, and not the right kind, with lavish sets and dancing peoples and such for Bowie. I've never bought an album by HG, but I have bought Bowie.

And I've seen Nick Cave play, and it was fantastic. I bought the shirt and people kept commenting how much they liked him in that movie, which at first I thought they meant Wings Of Desire until they talked about some movie Ben Stiller was in, and realized that this was who they were mistaking Nick Cave for. I've never quite seen the similarity, to be honest. He did have fairly short hair in the picture on the shirt, though.

[Chuck]

I was searchin' for the new Dandrew song and found an aardvark.Is he hiding these on here somewhere?Making us work for them?

Aladin Sane was the Bowie album I had as a kid.As some school art project I did a pointless or pointlism drawing of the cover and the typical reaction it got was he's kind of weird.

If you think Bowies weird the Midwest time zone is weirder.Not that East, Central,West time zone stuff.We're 15 years behind.Some cases 50 or 60 years.Hey,they're playing Georgia Sattelites on the radio again!