Another Steven Page album, another song I can’t scrape off my brain. The former Barenaked Ladies co-front man delivers another slice of pure audio candy here.
As BNL classics such as “Jane”, “It’s All Been Done” and “Alternative Girlfriend” (and several other posts on this blog) attest, the guy knows how to assemble an irresistible pop track.
In a homage to power poppers Fountains of Wayne/elaborate inside musician joke, musical chameleon Robbie Fulks sends up FOW’s formulaic tendencies while creating a track that mimics their style perfectly.
Let’s go to iTunes customer reviewer “Denise” for a fuller explanation:
According to Yep Roc Records website, Robbie Fulks “Fountains of Wayne Hotline” began as a travel game Fulks and his bandmates would play while touring. FOW’s ‘Welcome Interstate Managers’ had just come out and according to Fulks “I guess it was the band’s super-competency and amazing consistency that made me imagine them as operators of a crisis hotline for songwriters. In our game one of us would place an emergency call for counseling, and a member of a large bureaucratic labyrinth, usually harried and gruff, would offer a solution based on time-honored Fountains of Wayne techniques.” So what started out as boredom relief, ended up being written into a song, which the band began playing at some shows. It proved popular, but fearing the novelty would end up haunting them, Fulks retired it. The Yep Roc site quotes Fulks saying “Soon all kinds of people were asking for copies, such as — in a particularly vehement request–a team of able-bodied lawyers representing the real-life Fountains of Wayne. But it has all ended well, with the band liking the song, us still never having to perform it live, and this MP3 that is now available for your listening pleasure.” According to Yep Roc, FOW’s Adam Schlesinger says, “If Robbie Fulks wants to ride someone’s coattails, he ought to pick someone more famous than us. We, for example, cover Britney Spears songs to get attention. But hey, we’re still flattered. In fact, we might hire him to write our next album for us.”
The full lyrics follow:
I hung a shingle
Country Music for Hire
No fans, no singles
10 years later I’m tired
Now I’ve racked my brain
And I’ve looked all around
But I can’t find a way
to freshen my sound
And now who do you call
when you’re down to one musical dime?
Fountains of Wayne Hotline
(phone ringback)
— Fountains of Wayne Hotline. Gerald speaking. How can I help you?
· Oh, yeah. Thanks. Uh, hello. Um, yeah, I’m a country singer in, uh, a small Midwestern town. And uh, I’m here in the studio today. Uh, let me explain. We’re working on a track. And uh we juhs, dih- dih- dih- just did a verse. It was kind of broken down. And at this point I’m not sure where to take it. Where to go from here…
— Sir, sir. Calm down. We can help you. We can help you. What you need to do now is employ the “radical dynamic shift”
· The, the radical… yes, uh, wha-, what do you mean by that?
— You know. Full band entry, fortissimo, while maintaining consistent apparent volume on the vocal track.
· Oh. Oh! Yeah, yeah! That’s a great idea! Hey, thanks a lot! Thanks for your time!
— My pleasure. We’re always here.
It’s such a drag
to face another filthy stage
Beating these 3 chords
into early middle age
I’d be better off with
7 at hand
An analog synth and an
angry young band
Then I could turn my muddy water
into sweet Mexican wine
Fountains of Wayne Hotline
— Slightly distorted melodic solo!
— Check!
(phone ringback)
—Hotline. Department of Bridges and Infrastructure. Grant speaking.
· Oh yeah, hi there. I called a little while ago. I talked to a gentleman. I believe his name was Gerald. And, um, he…
— Sir, we’ve got about seven Geralds here. You’re talking to me now.
· Yeah, of course, yeah. The point is I’m in the middle of the song, we’re about 3 minutes in, and I’m not sure where to take it from here. We’ve done a couple verses and its just kind of, um hit a, hit a wall.
— Yeah. Yeah, well, Tell me about your textural variations and harmonic palette that you have going so far.
· Oh of course. Well, um. Two 16-bar verses, the first one broken down, followed by a radical dynamic shift.
— Oh, THAT Gerald.
A slightly distorted melodic guitar solo. And chordally, let’s see, a 1, a 5, a 4, with and without a sub-dominant 7, a 2, 2 minor, and briefly a 9th compound over the tonic.
— Uh, well that 9th, is that telegraphed or is that just gratuitous coloration?
· Um, a bit of both, actually.
— Oh, OK. Well let’s hit the bridge, I’ll tell you what you do. No new chords introduced. Get a split bar of 4 in there, and push the one. And then we’ll slather the holy hell out of the thing with a semi-ironic Beach Boys vocal pad. And then an asymmetrical back end. There’s your bridge.
· Uh huh.
— Yep.
· Isn’t that kind of a lot of information to put in the…
— Sir, I’ve been on this hotline for 15 years you’re gonna have to trust me on this one.
· OK, OK. Thank you very much. I’ll give it a try. Thank you.
— You got it, chief.
Oh, yeah
Now we’re getting big and full
Oh, yeah
Try a wider interval
Just like this? Oh yeah!
More like: Oh yeah!!
Check me out: Oooooooo, yeah!!
I feel invincible and all dialed-in
kinda Long Island with some West Coast sin
So let’s cut to the coda
Any old gimmick is fine
Fountains of Wayne Hotline
I find Rod Stewart infuriatingly chameleonic. The same guy who gave us some of rock’s most tender ballads (some self-penned, others well-chosen covers) has seemed content at other times to cover himself in schmutz like “Hot Legs” and “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and the same artist who blended folk and rock in innovative ways has satisfied himself too often with recording superficial pap or simply lending his voice to American pop standards.
I stopped paying attention for the most part when his records went from sounding something like this:
to sounding more like this:
The same album that found him crossing into disco territory for the first time also brought us this gem of an album track.
“The Best Days of My Life” begins with one of those superfluous acoustic intros Rod used to be so fond of, similar to those that adorned the LP versions of “Maggie May” and “You Wear it Well”, before giving way to one of his trademark melodic and heartfelt love songs, a statement of devotion of the same cloth as “You’re in My Heart”.
This rare track, one of the last the Hollies recorded with Graham Nash in the fold, never appeared on any of that band’s albums. It was included on a 1969 UK charity album to benefit the World Wildlife Fund. The album is perhaps best known for the first release of the Beatles’ “Across the Universe”; a line from that song gave compilation its name.
The voice of then-16-year-old New Zealander Hayley Westenra was (and is) a wondrous instrument, with enviable range and immaculate diction. “Never Say Goodbye” is adapted from Ravel, in case the tune is familiar.
In addition to possessing an angelic voice, Westenra is also a dancer who has performed with the Royal New Zealand ballet company.
Budding songwriters and fledgling lyricists, look on the work of William Martin Joel and despair.
The average Billy Joel composition is a compact master class in lyric writing. This guy just gets so many things right, most of which escape a typical listener as he hums “Just the Way You Are”, or rocks out to “Big Shot”, or sings along with any number of dozens of Joel’s classic entries in our collective cultural hymnal.
By the way, I’ve long held the opinion Billy Joel was the best pop lyricist of his era. And I’m pretty sure “Only the Good Die Young” is the best pop rock lyric of the past 40 years. But since everyone knows that song and dozens of other pop masterpieces in Joel’s oeuvre, the focus of this particular series of posts forces me to delve into what passes for “deep cut” territory to talk about the man’s talents.
A deep cut this may be, but certainly not of lesser quality than the singles chosen from 1986’s The Bridge album. “Modern Woman”, “This is the Time” and “A Matter of Trust” are fine songs–but the twitchy lyrical joyride that is “Running on Ice” would itself have made a great single.
One thing about Joel’s writing that has always stood out to me is that he never seems content to simply observe pop music norm in repeating a chorus; Joel raises his game by varying the lyric with each. Frequently you could even say he customizes each chorus to suit its accompanying verse.
The first chorus here begins with “Sometimes I feel as though I’m running on ice…” which not only sums up what came before in verse one, but makes a good introduction, so to speak, to the song’s hook line and concept.
When the second chorus rolls around, preceded as it is by the flood of multisyllabic elocution that is verse two, it almost serves as a punchline when he says “And all that means is that I’m running on ice…” Brilliant.
The song is lavishly littered with alliteration, assonance and internal rhyme. What’s more, since the same torrent of verbiage that makes this a great lyric also tends to make it a bit of a challenge to sing along to, Joel supplies a well-placed bridge (You’ve got to run…) to momentarily relieve the tension and give the listener something to belt out. Genius.
This is no typical song. It’s a great one. Though that makes it a typical Billy Joel song.
There’s a lot of tension in this town I know it’s building up inside of me I’ve got all the symptoms and the side effects Of city life anxiety
I could never understand why the urban attitude Is so superior In a world of high rise ambition Most people’s motives are ulterior
Sometimes I feel as though I’m running on ice Paying the price too long Kind of get the feeling that I’m running on ice Where did my life go wrong
I’m a cosmopolitan sophisticate Of culture and intelligence The culmination of technology And civilized experience
But I’m carrying the weight of all the useless junk A modern man accumulates I’m a statistic in a system That a civil servant dominates
And all that means is that I’m running on ice Caught in the vise so strong I’m slipping and sliding, cause I’m running on ice Where did my life go wrong
You’ve got to run You’ve got to run
As fast as I can climb A new disaster every time I turn around As soon as I get one fire put out There’s another building burning down
They say this highway’s going my way But I don’t know where it’s taking me It’s a bad waste, a sad case, a rat race It’s breaking me
I get no traction cause I’m running on ice It’s taking me twice as long I get a bad reaction cause I’m running on ice Where did my life go wrong
You’ve got to run You’ve got to run
Running on ice Running on ice Running on ice Running on ice
Every Moment Has A Song 