Joe Innes |
Like the first time that you
heard Babies by Pulp. You feel like you’re freewheeling your bike down a hill, without
ever having had the arduous task of crawling up it. A free ride. First the
intro, the impression it gives me is of starting in clear mono, then switching to fuzzy stereo, then the song, as it gathers instruments, gathers power, grabs ahold of you - it reminds me of a daytrip I went on with friends, en route we kept collecting people, on station platforms, on the street and so on - then it
picks you up and the sheer energy of it carries you along. For one fantastic
instant, you cease longing and start belonging.
You just can't beat some intelligent, postmodern lyrics, full of cultural allusions like an episode of Buffy and a Sinatraesque swing, a rolling quality to lines like:
And it all starts spinning like a ferris wheel/The Jesus hounds hot upon our heels/How the hell does it make you feel/To be loved?
that always alters my mood for the better.
Then: But I will live forever now/Just like the kids out of Fame/When I shoot the man who shot, the man who shot, the man who shot Jesse James
and the nod to Jesse James ,* the outlaw (as legend (or fable) has it, 'killed by the coward Robert Ford').
Sometimes you hear a tune and it seems so natural, organic, that it feels almost inevitable, as if it's always existed. And this is like that.
Semi-gratuitous picture of Tyrone Power, for my Mum |
For more on passions in music, see I'm on Fire, Doll by Doll, Gordon Gano.
I hope to publish this simultaneously (doesn't this sound grand? 'publish simultaneously') with a review of the Joe Innes gig at The Harrison, which you can find here: https://sshh-sshh.blogspot.com/.
Sister's poetry on Pulp/Jarvis Cocker is here.