When I’m getting my head in the game for a big meeting, when I need to suit up, when I need to kick the tires and light the fires, I turn to this song. Hendrix’s version is very sexy – that naked, shimmering guitar riff, the thumb of the bass drum, the crash of the chord at the entrance. It has real swagger. But after I heard Kidjo’s version, it sounds…vaguely pompous. Like there wasn’t any doubt that the protagonist could make an island out of the pieces of the mountain. Like he could always just do that. Kidjo sings it like this comes from experience, from hard work, practice, and struggle. That’s why this version gives me that extra boost – it’s a song of strength learned from difficulty. It’s a “oh, you don’t even know what I can do” kind of song. A “you think this is difficult?” song. It’s a very human sort of voodoo.
I won’t lie – I’m not the biggest Justin Timberlake fan anyway. I think he’s a great vocalist and a great dancer, but his songs…meh. I am a big fan of barbershop-style harmonizations and jazz covers of pop songs. The Stepkids bring some Tony Bennett and Rat Pack-era Sinatra to an otherwise bland pop song; the guitarist even throws in a “Sweet Georgia Brown” lick at 2:56. They also look like accountants having a blast. And – it honestly sounds like this is the original song, and Timberlake covered it. Dig it.
This week on the Tune-Up will be devoted to mash-ups, remixes, and covers of other songs. A good cover or mash-up can elevate the song to a whole other level – it’s a real bit of genius. One of the best mash-ups I have ever heard is today’s offering. The DJ pomDeter took the music of that ear worm “Call Me Maybe” and layered the lyrics of Nine Inch Nails’s “Head Like A Hole” on top. The result is just brilliant. The lyrics are all about the corrupting influence of money on society. What better backing than that utterly fake, lab-created song? I’ve listened to this a hundred times at least and it still thrills me.
I know, I know, I get it – “Great, another Renaissance polyphony piece, awesome, haven’t heard that in a while.” Whatever. Wrap your ears around this beauty and them come complaining.
Beyond the basics details of when and where he lived, not much is known about Des Prez (c1450 – 1521). He was a Franco-Flemish composer who has about 370 compositions to his name, plus – allegedly – some graffiti on a wall in the Sistine Chapel. I for one am dying to learn more about the man who wrote this triptych of a motet. First, the canon of voices at the beginning; second, the unification of voices at 2:28; and third, the heart-breaking simplicity of the end – oh mother of God, remember me – at 4:00. Three is a significant number in the Christian religion – the trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – and I wonder whether that was the purpose behind splitting the piece into three segments. Whatever the purpose, thank heavens he wrote it at all.
This is one of my top twenty all-time favorite songs of any genre. It’s got a wacky time-signature (7/8 – to 8/8? Is that right?), an upbeat and focused sound, and it sparks my imagination and lets it run riot. I’ll be running riot around D.C. crossing errands off my to-do list today, so you can bet I’ll have this in the ‘phones.
The First Funk Friday after the first day of spring calls for this breezy, warm-weather track from the great band The Apples that hails from Tel Aviv, Israel. I listen to this and I see myself throwing around a frisbee on the Mall, grilling at a friend’s place, inviting my crew to my roof deck, playing boozy croquet in the park – really doing anything that involves good friends, warm sun, cold drinks, and solid tunes. Spring, you ol’ so-and-so.
EVERYONE! Wonderful news! We made it! We made it through the winter! Today is the first day of spring! I don’t think I’ve so keenly anticipated the vernal equinox in my entire life. Imagine how the poor sods who lived through winters in the 14th century felt when it came time for spring. No wonder this piece is so happy.
Landini (c. 1325 – 1397) lived through some pretty monumental things. He survived the Black Death, initial and successive outbreaks of which killed about half the population of Europe. He survived the so-called Little Ice Age, which made warm summers unpredictable and caused so much rainfall that crops failed. He survived the Hundred Years War between England and France, lived through the near collapse of the Catholic church as an institution, and the rise of the Ming Dynasty and attendant isolation of China.
Somewhere in there, amidst all that unhappy uncertainty, he wrote this little tune about the return of spring. I can imagine it might have taken a little bit of faith.
—
Ecco la primavera,
Che’l cor fa rallegrare,
Temp’è d’annamorare
E star con lieta cera.
Noi vegiam l’aria e’l tempo
Che pur chiam’ allegria
In questo vago tempo
Ogni cosa vagheça.
L’erbe con gran frescheça
E fior’ coprono i prati,
E gli albori adornati
Sono in simil manera.
Ecco la primavera
Che’l cor fa rallegrare
Temp’è d’annamorare
E star con lieta cera.
Spring has come apace To waken hearts to gladness; Time for lovers’ madness And to wear a happy face.
The elements together Are beckoning to mirth; In this delightful weather, Delight pervades the earth.
The grass in fresh rebirth Helps meadows come a-flower, And every branch and bower, Is decked with kindred grace.
Spring has come apace To waken hearts to gladness; Time for lovers’ madness And to wear a happy face.
I realize this morning, with great excitement, that soon it will be spring. Spring means warmth. Warmth means warmer water temperatures. Warmer water temperatures means your plucky heroine can get back out on the water in her trusty Peinert racing shell and row her little heart out. This was the song that ran through my head when I first learned to row, and the song that is going through my head these days as I think about getting back out on the water again. C’monnnn spring.
The Office of Personnel Management, in its infinite sagacity, closed the federal government yesterday because the District got a bit of weather. So, I and my fellow govvie types got to spend the day entertaining ourselves, either with work at our kitchen tables (hello), or feverishly filling out March Madness brackets, or having snowball fights, or getting terrifically soused at a “bottomless brunch,” or all four. This was just gravy as far as I was concerned. The older I get, the more I enjoy spending the entire day at home. Not because my place is amazing, which it is, or because I hate the outdoors, which I don’t, or because I neither own nor know how to operate a pair of pants, both of which are incorrect. No – it’s just, sometimes…people. I mean, seriously.
I was strolling to my favorite coffee shop this weekend when a woman turned from the upcoming corner onto my street and came to be walking in front of me. She was solitary, dressed in as normal an outfit as you’re likely to find in D.C., and all of a sudden, she started to laugh. Loudly. Then, started talking as if she were interrupting someone. Except, there was no one else around for a city block. Was she insane? Was she some sort of yuppie reincarnation of Teresa of Avilahaving her own private confab with God? Was she a one-person flashmob? An acting student? I sped up considerably to pass her in case she had a shiv and a plan, and in so doing noticed that she had one of those little blinking in-ear widgets. She had been on her phone. It’s entirely possible she was insane and on her phone. And somehow, I was supposed to accept this blithely and without comment, or – get behind me, Satan – conform and get my own little blinking in-ear widget so to numb the minds of others with one-way conversations about the pointless intangibles of my own life. No wonder Putin grabbed Crimea so handily. We were all on our cell phones talking about Swiffer Wet-Jets.
Things like this happen all the time now. It is a defining characteristic of the modern urban human condition. And it drives me absolutely mental. I should like there to be little quizzes administered after I run my errands, otherwise all my knowledge of a visiting man’s proclivity for miniature biscotti, a man whose chatty grandmother has just spent the past eight unhappy minutes trailing me around Trader Joe’s (does she have magnets in her skull? Go. Away.), will have gone to waste. Perhaps there could be gate-side therapists with Xanax-scented sound-proof booths for deplaning passengers so they can cleanse themselves of the knowledge of the woman in 13C – that she just landed, that her flight was on time, that it was a little bumpy, and that she plans to get home the usual way and will arrive at the appointed time because, I mean, at this time of day – well, you know – right, exactly.
I’m fully aware that I’m having a full-blown, unfettered “get off my lawn” moment, but I don’t care that, in this aspect, I’m turning into a crank. So pardon me if I don’t jump at the opportunity to be out amongst the great muttering unwashed when I have a day to myself. If you need me, I’ll be at home. And it’s extremely unlikely I’ll let you in.
This sounds like Thompson Twins, Lou Reed, and U2 got together and wrote a song. In fact when I first heard it I thought it was a lost New Wave track. Wrongedy-wrong-wrong. Panama is a new band from Australia. The driving rhythm and steady bass guitar makes it sound totally U2 with a dash of New Order and Depeche Mode, while the fairly consistent volume level reminds me of Lou Reed’s “Street Hassle.” This is good song for a long night-time drive, or a cold and snowy Monday.
The Daily Tune-Up 