THE CANON LOGIC

Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #1 – (Tunnels)
Everything these guys write is great, and they just signed on to write the score to the new Spike Jonze flick ‘Where the Wild Things Are”.

Queen: All Dead, All Dead

Written and sung by Brian May, not Freddie Mercury, on Queen’s sixth LP, and the first CD I ever purchased, “News of the World”.  May wrote the song about the death of his childhood pet cat.

Johann Sebastian Bach: Prelude in C Major, BWV 846

From “The Well-Tempered Clavier”, generally regarded as one of the most influential works in the history of Western Classical Music.  Composed in 1722  “for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study.”

Neil Young on what inspired ’After the Gold Rush’:

‘Hell, I don’t know. I just wrote it. It just depends on what I was taking at the time. I guess every verse has something different I’d taken.’

Thom Yorke cover at Bridge School Benefit in 2002:

Released in 1975 on ELO’s ‘Face the Music’. 

I am a big fan of Randy Newman, and it’s impossible for me to choose just one of his songs…but here is “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today”

“Scarecrows dressed in the latest styles
With frozen smiles to chase love away
Human kindness is overflowing
And I think it’s going to rain today”

 ”Junk” was originally written in 1968 in India where The Beatles were studying transcendental meditation.  Two years later, the song was released on Paul McCartney’s first post-Beatles release, “McCartney”. The song was considered for inclusion on “The White Album” and “Abbey Road”, but didn’t made the cut.

“Close to Me” was released in 1985 on The Cure’s sixth studio album, “The Head on the Door” (a lyric from the aforementioned song). Great song. Great video. Enjoy.

Close to Me

feelin emo?:

Released in 1975 on 10cc’s album “The Original Soundtrack”, “I’m Not in Love” is a love song with a twist, and some innovative production.  Lyrically, the song is about a man who can not come to terms with love:

I keep your picture upon the wall
It hides a nasty stain that’s lyin’ there
So don’t you ask me to give it back
I know you know it doesn’t mean that much to me
I’m not in love

He resists romance by giving practical definitions to his unintended signs of love, but he becomes so outspoken in his resistance that his camoflague becomes transparent, and the listener hears the subconscious voice of a man in love.

In the studio 10cc broke open new doors.  By overdubbing 256 voices, one note at a time, 10cc creates a virtual choir in a pre-sampler age.  Two years later, Billy Joel borrowed the idea on “Just the Way You Are”.

 
For those of you that like dancing to horrible cover versions of good songs:

A Dylan classic, “Boots of Spanish Leather” was released in 1964 on “The Times They Are A-Changin’”.  Like TGBRE from yesterday’s post, the song is written as a dialogue between a man and a woman (possibly Dylan and Suze Rotolo, Dylan’s girlfriend in the early 60’s who ventured off to Spain without him).  Each stanza acts as a letter written between the two lovers.  With each letter the woman asks the man what foreign gifts he wants, and everytime he replies that he only wants her.  As the song nears its end the woman reveals that she may not come home…that “It depends on how I’m a-feelin”.  With this knowledge, the man decides to take his warn lovers offer, and replies:

Well, if you, my love, must think that-a-way,
I’m sure your mind is roamin’.
I’m sure your heart is not with me,
But with the country to where you’re goin’.

So take heed, take heed of the western wind,
Take heed of the stormy weather.
And yes, there’s something you can send back to me,
Spanish boots of Spanish leather..