"Given to Fly"

Pearl Jam - "Given to Fly" (1997)

Dozens of Pearl Jam songs and this is the only one they decided to include in the 1,001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die.


So let's all admit that yes, it's clearly heavily influenced by the sound of Led Zeppelin's Going to California. Whether you like that or not, the song does have it's own merits. It's got very uplifting lyrics, which lead singer Vedder has described as "a fable" and imagined each line as a line in a children's book with a picture to accompany it. I do enjoy the lyrics, it's a great story, for adults as well as kids. The song was written much the way the band built their freshman triumph 10; with the melody and lyrics coming after the song was complete.

It's not in my top ten favorite Pearl Jam songs, and it's not even my favorite song from the album Yield. It's not a genre changing or even bending song, it's not "important" and I don't really know why the editors chose it. It's a good song, just not their best, but if the other option is nothing by the band, I guess I'll take "Given to Fly"

"Rid of Me"

PJ Harvey - "Rid of Me" (1993)

Producer Steve Albini had just finished working on this album when he was asked to work on Nirvana's In Utero.



This is a raw sound. Three musicians, two doing some vocal work, but in one case it can not really be called singing. The drums, bass and guitar are menacing, no other word for it. The instruments are there, in the darkness, waiting, willing to hold off until you are too weak to run, and then they are going to hurt you. The lead vocal is angry, she has been wronged and so the idea that her partner should be punished is strong. She threatens to force the perpetrator to do things they don't want to do and find distasteful until they admit that it would have been better if they never met. This is the ego, bruised and demanding. But it is the background voice, the singer's angriest id that screams and rants, wanting and hating all together. This is a really powerful song with a really simple message: Do not. Make PJ Harvey. Mad.

"Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely"

Hüsker Dü - "Don't Want to Know If You Are Lonely" (1986)

Bassist Greg Norton had a great mustache.



The band that started as punks and then evolved into a genre that was hard to describe. They broke up in 1988 as one of the most well respected performers of 'college rock' a genre that is cited as a jumping off point for the 'alternative' scene that dominated music in the 90s and 00s. Hüsker Dü was named after a board game, but with umlauts. Actually the story goes that they couldn't remember the lyrics to "Psycho Killer" and so just started saying random phrases in foreign languages and one of them said Hūsker Dū, which was a kids game mildly popular in the 60s and 70s. They fired their keyboardist during their first show and remained a trio from that moment on. Guitarist Mould and Drummer Hart shared production duties and each individually wrote and sang songs for every album. This song is Hart's.

The lead single for their major label debut, the song had a lot of pressure on it at the time, but over 25 years later, we can just listen and hear the music. It's definitely rooted in punk, the fast tempo, the screeching guitar, and the rolling drum breaks. But the guitar also has some great layered moments in the solo. There's more than a few overdubs going on, and the final squeal sounds like something a metal band would end a solo with instead of a punk outfit. Lyrically the song is classic tortured male. He's broken up with someone and doesn't want to know if she's lonely, but wants to know if she's alright. He doesn't want to hear from her friends, but wants them to leave a message. For my money the best line comes right at the end of the opening verse "/It reassures me just to know that you're okay/But I don't want you to go on needing me this way" (Hart). He needs reassuring that she's OK, but she's the one that needs him? It's a classic way of dealing with the pain of a breakup, and I think we've all been there. That 's what makes the song a good one, we can relate.

"Doll Parts"

Hole - "Doll Parts" (1994)

We all needed this song.



Released about six months after the death of her husband, and Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain, this was the catharsis song that Courtney Love, and many American teenagers needed. Of course, it turns out that Love wrote the song starting back in 1991, before anyone outside of Seattle had ever heard of Nirvana, Hole, or Cobain. Hole recorded the song in October of 1993 along with the rest of the songs for their second album Live Through This.  The first single off of the album "Miss World" was released in late March of 1993, and the album was released a few days later, but just as it climbed the charts, Kurt Cobain killed himself and the story changed. There was a lot of blame floating in the air, and a lot of anger. Fans wanted to grieve with Love, and yet wanted to blame someone for his unhappiness. Months later, soon after the video for "Doll Parts" was filmed, hole bassist Kristen Pfaff died of a drug overdose, so the release of the video and single was pushed back. When it finally was released, and we all heard Courtney Love crying and screaming about aching and loss it didn't matter that the song had been recorded a year before it was released, and more than six months after Cobain died; she was singing about him to us, and it was what we needed to hear.

"Paranoid Android"

Radiohead - "Paranoid Android" (1997)

Occasionally introduced on tour as a Pink Floyd cover.



Originally, this 'modern "Happiness is a Warm Gun"', this '"Bohemian Rhapsody" for the 90s', was twice as long, clocking in at over 14 minutes. It was eventually edited down to just short of six and a half, and all sources who mention the original version talk about the missing Hammond organ based outro that went on so long that fans watching the band live actually stopped dancing and moshing and just started staring at the band. It was like they had become a jam band or a shoegaze act and it confused fans as the song was new and not on any album yet. Even the longest song on previous album The Bends was under five minutes long.  This album OK Computer was ambitious, almost prog-rock, using computer voices and sounds blended with the traditional guitar, bass, drums sound of a modern 90s rock band.

The song is in sections, which is why critics liken it to Happiness and Rhapsody. The first part is echo-y guitar and plucked acoustic guitar with clean bass and a straight ahead rock rhythm augmented by maracas. The second section the kicks off with percussion augment of claves and some organ added into the mix. As it continues it grows louder with guitar and bass doubling each other through some serious feedback. Then ending the section is a big distorted guitar solo. A younger Radiohead would probably have ended the song there,  three and a half minutes long and well crafted. Instead they slow the track down, adding layered vocals that sound like chant with droning backup. Backing instrumentation becomes simple acoustic guitar and drum set, along with church-like organ. Lyrics about screaming and vomit in this section are then concluded with the repeated line /God loves his children/ (Yorke) which, when paired with the music seem like they should mean something, but the band has claimed many different interpretations of the song as a whole and none of them really match up, other than they were inspired by a night out at a really seedy bar. The last section brings the speed of the song back to the original, with driving drums, a full on freaky feedback guitar solo and no vocals to get in the way of the glorious cacophony.

"Plateau"

Meat Puppets - "Plateau" (1984)

Nirvana played six covers November 18 1993, half of them were Meat Puppets songs.



I knew this was a cover, I knew that I had only heard of the Meat Puppets because Kurt Cobain liked them and wanted to introduce them to the rest of the world. What I didn't know was that the song was almost ten years old when Nirvana recorded their really faithful cover during the MTV Unplugged in New York session.

So when Kurt sang this song and it sounded like it wasn't written for his range, I just assumed he loved the song so much that he was willing to sound a little like a kid trying to fit into his dad's suit; reaching for, but not quite grasping the heart of it. But it turns out that the original sounds the same way. Tortured simple vocals, straining at the highs and fading into the lows that can't be reached even by the man who wrote it: Kurt Kirkwood. Kurt on guitar, with his brother Chris on bass and their friend Derrick Bostrom on drums were out of time and place their entire career. It was the 80s and they were on punk label SST with renegade rebels Black Flag, but they, like the label eventually, were into something a little different. Sometimes classified as cowpunk,  what they sang was folk and country influenced rock, filtered through the punk ethos of short, simple, and D.I.Y. The brothers were also heavily into drugs, and despite the newly rediscovered fame that performing with Nirvana got them, the band never managed to become big because Chris in particular was always looking for the next high.

You can hear the drugs in the obscure lyrics, but it's the unexpected feedback and distortion filled outro that still sits in my brain twenty minutes after I heard it for the first time.

"Interstate Love Song"

Stone Temple Pilots - "Interstate Love Song" (1994)

This song spent 15 weeks at #1 on the Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks list. Not record breaking, but pretty impressive.



Great traveling song. The song is credited to Robert DeLeo and Scott Weiland, DeLeo was the band's basist and wrote the music, while Weiland wrote the lyrics. Many on the songs on the album were written by bassistt DeLeo, or his brother, guitarist Dean DeLeo, or by both of them. Weiland wrote all of the lyrics on Purple, an album that gave STP a huge following and three big singles. The bass does take a prominent roll in the song, both in the quiet more introspective sections, and in the louder parts where the brothers double each other in an almost Punk way. Robert DeLeo has said that when he was writing the song he based it on a bossa nova theme, particularly the works of Carlo Jobim. You can hear the beat in the drums right at the beginning. After that it's hard to really call it bossa nova, but it is a fun song for a bass player for sure.

The chorus includes the phrase '/leaving on a Southern train/" (Weiland), so many people on the internet have including the song in the southern rock genre, but I'm not really hearing it. Southern rock is rock influenced by country, bluegrass, or some other roots music. This is based in a Brazilian dance style and aside from that lyric and the electric guitar opening sounding sort of like a slide guitar, I'm just not buying it as Southern rock. Weiland is the vocalist on the track, so the harmony in the chorus is him multitracked with himself. I actually like the opening section, before the guitar gets fuzzy and the lyrics kick in. Nothing against Weiland, I think the whole song works, but after the intro it is really just a grunge song with a slightly different drum and a prominent bass player. The intro however is a perfect little 'what-could-have-been' if the pressures of a record label to make grunge music hadn't been so strong on this sophomore effort.

"Blister in the Sun"

Violent Femmes - "Blister in the Sun" (1983)

The one that started, and ended it all.



Debut single from their debut eponymous album, the Violent Femmes kicked off the "Alternative Rock" label almost a decade before America embraced it. The album went platinum, eight years after its release. The music was written by the bands youngest member, singer and guitarist Gordon Gano, while he was still in high school. The song, as well as the album it came from helped launch a new sub genre in America: folk punk. Kick-started in Ireland by The Pogues, the Violent Femmes played a similar style of blended music. Acoustic guitar based, but short punchy songs, witty lyrics sang by a almost whiny untrained voice, and as few chords as possible. Even their bass player is playing acoustic. The drummer is playing on a single tom drum set, bare bones stuff, which is actually right in line with both Folk and Punk sensibilities. Two verses and a chorus, just repeated for two and a half minutes long, and yet it's one of the songs that stands the test, and sounds as great today as the first time I heard it.

The version from Grosse Pointe Blank ? That was new, they had to record it again because the original master tapes weren't available, at the time they had a new drummer, so it Guy Hoffman who got to share the huge success the band was enjoying while he played with them from 1993 until 2002. Victor DeLorenzo was the original drummer with the band from its start in 1980 until he left the band to do his own solo work. The original lineup did reunite in 2002 and played together until a long ugly public lawsuit eventually caused the band to disband. The lawsuit was about this song.

"Laid"

James - "Laid" (1993)

Produced by Brian Eno in between working with U2 and Depeche Mode



So this Alternative Rock group from the past; that I remember with some fondness, actually has over a dozen live albums and some are actually from this decade. They also performed at Coachella this year. The band started in the early 80s playing folk influnced acoustic rock, but by the late 80s they were playing more danceable pop and rock tracks. The early 90s found them beginning to crack into the US indie scene and even supporting Neil Young on a summer tour before returning to England to record another album, what would become their fifth: Laid. They released the first single "Sometimes" and then unexpectedly "Laid" became a enormous college radio hit. The lyrics about a couple who has sex as loudly as they fight seemed to hit a chord with the Alternative Rock scene and James was suddenly selling out shows around the world. A little more than five years later, the song found a renewed audience when it was used in the trailer for American Pie. A cover of the song was used in the third and fourth films in the franchise. A different cover was used in the seventh film in the franchise and just this year, the original version was used in the followup film American Reunion.

As for the song itself, let's break it down. There is one basic chord and strum pattern to learn on guitar and you've got this song down, it's pretty simple. There is another guitar that is much quieter adding a kind of mystical/Indian sitar feel to the song that is harder to pin down. The keyboardist gets a work out on this song as well. Not that he's playing anything technically too hard, just that almost from the start we are getting layers of hard to describe sounds bolstering the guitars. The incredibly simple drum roll that gets a lot of attention does add to the antagonistic feel of the song, otherwise the drums are mostly unremarkable. Undoubtedly the song is catchy, but it is the sexy but quirky lyrics that have made this song memorable and remarkable.

"I Will Dare"

The Replacements - "I Will Dare" (1984)

A jangle guitar and hormone fueled song about the first week of a relationship.



Every alternative band of the 90s claimed to be following in the footsteps of The Replacements.  They were founded a year before R.E.M. and had a similar rise towards stardom, with small hits on the way towards big success, but instead of cracking into the mainstream in the 90s like the Athens, Georgia band, The Replacements faced lineup changes, alcoholism, and eventually broke up in in the summer of 1991. That same year R.E.M. released Out of Time, with huge hits "Loosing My Religion", "Shiny Happy People" and also the single "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" Why so much attention on R.E.M. in this little write up? Well, that band's guitarist Peter Buck was originally slated to produce the album that became Let It Be but The Replacements didn't have enough material together to record. When they finally did settle in to record, Buck was busy recording Reckoning and playing David Letterman with the rest of R.E.M. He did however, take the time to travel to Minneapolis and record the lead guitar solo on this track.

The whole song is jangle guitar and a skipping beat, giving the song a real upbeat and youth oriented feel. Buck's guitar solo has a country rock feel and repeats itself an octave higher immediately after he finishes it. The next distinct instrument you hear is the mandolin, played by singer and songwriter Peter Westerberg. The book describes the Buck guitar solo as 'Byrdsy" which is what I mean when I say country rock. That shaking tambourine finish also has a 60s sound to it. The sound that jumps out in my head is that the chorus sounds like the chorus to The Beatles "I'm Only Sleeping" but faster. Specifically the repetition of the V, IV and III of the root chord in a very similar pattern

"No Rain"

Blind Melon - "No Rain" (1992)

Where have you gone Bee Girl? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.



Taking just the song, we get an acoustic electric feeling alt folk retro number that grooves. The bass is really ringing and bottom heavy, but not at all dominant in the mix. There's enough of it to bounce the song along, but not to make the song feel heavy. The drums are kind of shuffling with cabasa and brushes on snare drum not cymbals and bass drum. The guitars are layered and sit on top of that bouncing bass line sometimes loud sometimes background, but always friendly and happy and leading you further into the song. Vocalist and primary songwriter Shannon Hoon has an unpolished sound and the echo sound effects that show up a few times in the song really give it that trippy edge of almost retro psychedelia.

The video is one of the most memorable of the nineties, and while I usually don't talk about the videos, I feel this one is due. No matter how out of place you felt, no matter how much you thought that no one understood you, and no one wanted to be with you, this video made you feel OK. The Bee Girl was all of us on the day we gave it our all and they laughed at us anyway. The audition you thought you nailed, the interview that went great, the girl you finally talked to; but it all went wrong somehow? That's the first part of this video. But by the end, she has found family and friends, and for my money that's more important that talent, desire, hope or faith in the face of adversity. Not to mention she's got stick-to-itiveness; that goes a long way.

"Race for the Prize"

The Flaming Lips - "Race for the Prize" (1999)

The ninth studio album by The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin is often considered the beginning of their current sound.



The song has two distinct sections and goes back and forth between them. During the mostly instrumental portion you can hear some backing vocal chants, but most of the sound is analogue and digital instruments. You can hear harp, piano, and xylophone, as well as a electric string section and other synthesizer sounds. The drums are so much louder during this section, and the bass drum is not muffled, giving us a not often heard ringing bass drum sound that shakes at your core. When the more traditional alt-rock section is heard, both voices are Wayne Coyne, but one is more processed than the other. He is effectively singing as both of the scientists the song is about. The second voice is 'further away' and yet heard at the same volume. During this section you can hear a timpani being played along with the traditional drum set.

Lyrically the song is really odd. Not really odd for the Flaming Lips, but really odd in general. Their is a chorus, verses, and the mostly instrumental section that acts as a bridge; but the lyrics are not like other bands. It's not a love song, or a song about a preexisting character, or a friend of the band, or even a folk hero. Coyne and the band are telling a story of something that never happened. Like "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots part 1" from their similarly named next album we are asked to listen and care about heroes who are willing to risk their lives for us, yet never existed. It's an odd genre The Flaming Lips have cooked up, but it works for them.

"Slob"

Weezer - "Slob" (2002)

"/I don't like how you're living my life/" (Cuomo)



After yesterday's upbeat message song, this one seems particularly down. Musically and lyrically the song is heavy. The singer is despondent over the direction his life is going, and the disappointment of someone else is making it worse. The line over the video is the real pull quote from the lyrics. When that person is heard it tears the singer down even further. Personally I like the interpretation that the other person is actually the singer's depressed voice in his head, but that might be reading too much into it.

The guitars are heavy and both ring out more and are fuzzier than early Weezer. Some people hear heavy metal influences in the song. The guitar solo in the middle is short, but pretty evocative. You can hear pain and anguish in the over-processed almost discordant echo during the eight measure solo. The song was a live-only fan favorite during their summer 2000 tour, so when the fans were asked their opinion of the new album the band was working on in 2002, there was a huge outpouring of interest in hearing the song recorded in the studio.

"Crash into Me"

Dave Matthews Band - "Crash into Me" (1996)

What do a white South African rock star, and a French composer from the early 20th century have in common?



So this song definitely has layers. Lots of repetitiveness, but so many layers get added onto it that it sounds fresh.  The drums do a lot of work on just the snare, not 100% of  the song as was pointed out to me on "Ay te dejo en San Antonio"; but the main drum line is all snare. As the song keeps going you get bass drum, toms and crash cymbals, but the driving drum line is a snare that sounds like a marching band drum. Not the opening percussion, that's cymbal and some wind chimes, the part I'm talking about comes in around twenty seconds in. Guitarist, singer and writer Dave Matthews plays acoustic guitar on this track, and that is a sound that also builds. Starting with a simple pattern, then adding more and more until the conclusion seems to have at least four guitar parts but they are all played by him. The other usual rock instrument on this track is the bass. Two unusual instruments make up the remainder of the Dave Matthews Band: violin,and saxophone. The saxophone hides throughout the track, sometimes down low adding bottom, other times much higher and adding to the wind chimes. The violin easy to pick out. Producer Steve Lillywhite produced all three of the band's first albums, and they are reportedly back in the studio with him now.

This building up of sound while leaving instruments playing what they were before is an interesting technique. I can't exactly find a name for it. If each time a new instrument came in it was a change to the melody, but obviously based on it, that would be variations on a theme. If each time a instrument came in it was playing the same riff as the instrument before it, but a beat, or measure behind, that would be a canon. When an instrument repeats a phrase insistently that is made up of the same equal sounds, each note having the same weight, it is called an ostinato.  The most obvious example of what I am thinking about is "Boléro" by Maurice Ravel.  It starts with an ostinato snare drum, then each instrument as it comes in adds a layer and continues to play it over and over again ass more layers are added. Obviously a completely different type of work, but take a listen, it's a classic.

"Run"

Snow Patrol - "Run" (2003)

Before Snow Patrol really got huge in the US, they had their break through hit in the UK with this track.



Gary Lightbody is the lyricist and lead singer of this Northern Irish/Scottish band. His voice in this song is very breathy. No matter how loud the track gets, he never seems to get too excited, he just keeps singing in low tones and exhaling at the end of many phrases. His voice has character, and I like it; it's not a professionally trained sound. You can hear the hard "P" sound at the end of the word up at the end of some lines. His voice dies at the end of many phrases as well, which is odd to hear in a signed band. Lyrically the song is sung to the singers partner. They are obviously having a tough time, but the singer believes in them. As I side note, this would make a hell of a song for a zombie movie.

As far as the rest of the band goes, this song doesn't really show anybody off. The guitar solo is one of the dullest things recorded. It goes with the song I guess, and anything faster or more divergent would have sounded harsh, but come on. I guess he should be happy, at least he gets a solo, the rest of the band really just acts as time keepers here. Producer "Jacknife" Lee puts together a really good track, building a four piece string section up until they sound like a 10 or 12 piece chamber group. It's a pleasant song, but not my favorite of theirs.

"Under the Milky Way"

The Church - "Under the Milky Way" (1987)

An Australian band with at least 20 albums, a big fan base in their home country, and a reputation as a one hit wonder in the U.K. and America.



Bassist and vocalist Steve Kilbey wrote the song with his girlfriend. His band had had success in Australia, but their label wanted them to record in L.A. with professional producers so they left home and recorded Starfish it was apparently a real challenge in the studio with clashing egos and even a request for Kilbey to take singing lessons. By the end of it all, they had their big success story with a top 25 album, and a song that would endure as long as moody teenagers everywhere felt like everything was going to completely change as soon as the summer after high school was over.

I really like Kilbey's voice. It's low and honest and doesn't sound like he's forcing anything. This is his emotional state, and that's what you're going to get. The guitars ring out for the whole song. There's no "between" parts where you can hear a breath or a pause because the guitars are just left to ring out for seconds after they've been played. That jangly guitar sound is part of why the track is considered neo-psychedelia. As the song progresses they layer in a small string section, a chorus of voices, and some electronic keyboard sounds that are the most obvious sign that this is an song produced in L.A. in the late 80s. At around 2:20 where a normal song would have a guitar solo, they do not. Now I'm not 100 percent sure, because it's not listed in the liner notes, but I'm pretty sure that was a bagpipe solo. Could have been a keyboard set on bagpipe though, whatever it was, it was processed electronically a bit, and certainly brave. Late in the song, around 3:45 or so we finally get that guitar solo, though there is some chorus song over it. The lead guitar part really puts this track in the neo-psychedelia realm with that dreamy-underwater yet fast past lick, playing into the fade out.

"Birdhouse in Your Soul"

They Might Be Giants - "Birdhouse in Your Soul" (1990)

The picture opposite him is a lighthouse!



This is a really fun song. Creative interesting lyrics, a trumpet solo by a klezmer musician, easy to follow counterpoint and a sing along chorus that everyone can learn by the end of the song. What's it about? The song is a point of view song sung by a plastic molded canary night-lite in a child's room. What's hard to understand about that? Kidding. I remember everyone talking about this song back in 1990 and there being quite a discussion. Of course, if you just read the lyrics off a lyric sheet it's pretty obvious. This was the band's breakthrough hit, coming before Istanbul and Particle Man showed up on Tiny Toon Adventures.

What's counterpoint you might ask? It's when in a song there are two voices (any instrument) that are harmonic but have totally different rhythms. The lines are the chorus /Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch/Who watches over you/Make a little birdhouse in your soul/ (Linnell)  and this second voice: /and while you're at it/Keep the nightlight on inside the/Birdhouse in your soul/ (id) They are sung separately and then later together.

"Kung Fu"

Ash - Kung Fu (1995)

The cover of the single is Manchester United player Eric Cantona executing the "kung-fu style" kick of a fan in the stands that got him an eight month suspension from the sport.



 
It will take me longer to write this review than it took frontman Tim Wheeler to write the song. Boxing day 1994, in an airport in Northern Ireland; Wheeler spent five minutes writing everything from the music to the lyrics. The next day, he and bassist Mark Hamilton and drummer Rick McMurray recorded it.  The predominant sound is the fuzz amplified guitar. The bass doubles the guitar during almost the entire song. The drums are straight ahead rock. There is an unexpected drum solo around 1:17 consisting of toms and hand claps. Two minutes and seventeen seconds is barely long enough for a song, much less to include a drum solo, no mater how short it is.

Lyrically, like the Kanye West song a few days ago, this track references a number of real and fictional people. In this case, primarily people known for their association with martial arts. Fu Manchu, Mr. Miagi and Daniel LaRusso, Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan. Chan must have liked the song, he used it at the end of his film Rumble in the Bronx over his famous blooper reel. It was also used in the 1995 film Angus. The exposure given the band by being included in these two films help break them to American audiences.

"How Soon Is Now"

The Smiths - How Soon Is Now? (1984)

How shameful is it that even though I knew it was a cover I still associate this song with Charmed?



Oscillating reverb guitar. Not exactly what The Smiths were known for, but this has become one of the definitive tracks when people bring up the band. Guitarist Johnny Marr wrote the song, then had a jam session in the studio with bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce. After adding that brooding slide guitar part, and other overdubbed effects, they were done; and sent a rough cut of the song in the mail to Morissey. All of the massively echoing guitar actually gives the song the perfect feel for a club. It makes you feel drunk and more than a little high just by letting the song hit your eardrums.

Morissey's lyrics have eluded me many times over the years, but none quite so embarrassing as this slip up. I had always heard: /I am the sun, and the air/ Nope. It's /I am the son, and the heir/. Makes the next line make more sense anyway, though it does make it less nature-Wicca-power feeling. I guess that's my punishment for associating the song with a WB network show about witches and sisterhood. That cover version by the way is by Love Spit Love, the "hiatus band" of Psychedelic Furs singer Richard Butler. It was recorded for mid nineties teen witches film The Craft and the producers of the show Charmed thought it would be perfect for their new TV show about witches. The lyrics in the bridge are actually almost painful to listen to. The singer is embarrassing himself to such a great extent. He starts by describing a club, where one invariably ends up going alone, standing alone, and going home alone. Then when he interacts with someone who obviously asks him something like "let's get out of here soon" or "I want to do it now" he reacts with an almost stammering: /When you say it's going to happen"now"/Well when exactly do you mean?/See, I've already waited too long/. Painful.

"Monkey Gone to Heaven"

Pixies - Monkey Gone to Heaven (1989)

Rock me Joe!



Everything about this song is a blueprint for the 90s alternative rock scene. Black Francis, originally Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, and at one time known as Frank Black, wrote the song out of concern for the environment. But it also includes references to Hebrew numerology that he admittedly didn't really research all that much. It also contains quiet parts and shouted heavy parts, crunchy grunge style distorted guitars, a spoken word section, a chorus sung in harmony, short guitar solos, and Kim Deal on bass. It even has a small string section of violins and cellos that would eventually be seen in late alternative tracks. The "plinking" sound during the chorus is Deal using a guitar pick on the open strings of a piano.