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November 28, 2007

Numerology: Remembering Thirty-Five (or Trying to)

Reaching 35 in this column feels like an accomplishment, and maybe that’s because society itself sees reaching 35 that way. After all, once you reach the age of 35 (if you were born in the U.S.A. and a non-felon) you can hold the highest office in this great nation of ours. If you’ve been married for 35 years, tradition holds that well-wishers festoon you with coral as an anniversary gift, and you don’t have to be a clownfish or a sea anemone to know that coral is pretty special. Speaking of reefs, the winning 35 song has been closely linked to marijuana use, but upon closer inspection, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on what the meaning of “stoned” is.

Thirty-five is well represented in the jazz milieu as a location, with the great Jelly Roll Morton (“35th Street Blues”), boogie-woogie pianist Jimmy Yancey (“35th & Dearborn”) and multi-instrumentalist Benny Carter (“35th and Calumet”) all taking the street address angle. For those who desire a more modern, and shitty, take on this theme, check out “The F-35” from Marco Beltrami’s dynamic score to Live Free or Die Hard. If you listen really closely you can hear Bruce Willis (channeling his Bruno persona) laying down backward-masked harmonica licks. Or maybe that’s just a smokin’ synth.

Aesop Rock - "11:35"

“At exactly 11:35 PM on January 21st some shit went down…” raps Aesop Rock on “11:35,” and after about 11 listens I still don’t know what that shit is. In terms of subject matter, “11:35” has a good deal in common with Jim Carroll’s immortal list song “People Who Died,” but it’s such a sprawl that the notion of the simultaneity of these events, proclaimed so deliberately at the outset, is abandoned. Still, as far as songs that deal with prison rape go, it’s ahead of the curve.

I hope you won’t hold it against me when I say I know next to nothing about Against Me!, the Gainsville, Florida, punk outfit that, apparently, many people dig. Sometimes things just fall through the cracks. The band just released its fourth LP, on Sire Records, produced by ‘90s studio god Butch Vig. “Tonight I’m Gonna Give it 35%” is a pleasingly gruff anthem that I can totally get behind, not least for lines like “It’s got me on my knees in a bathroom/praying to a god I don’t even believe in.”

AC Newman - "35 in the Shade"

The Slow Wonder, the solo outing by New Pornographers kingpin AC Newman, is a consistently strong collection that, at its best, rivals and even surpasses the power pop glories of his main outfit. “35 in the Shade” makes for a rousing closer, but to these ears, this head-banger lacks the subtlety, the velvet-glove-cast-in-iron appeal of Mr. Newman’s finest work.

The minimalist “Bit 35” from Broadcast’s fine Tender Buttons is a muted instrumental that evokes nothing so much as the slow lane of the Autobahn. It’s a slight but sublime trifle that passes from view too quickly. For the sake of thirty-fivular competists out there, I’ll mention the lachrymose “$35” by the sometimes-transporting Aluminum Group, “I Die at 35” by Boston death metalists Beyond the Sixth Seal, and “35 Years From Alpha,” the title track from a 1999 release by Jamaican sax man “Deadly” Headley Bennett. And then there’s the pensive atmospheric “Poem 35 & 36” by Penny Rimbaud, a member of the UK anarcho-punk outfit Crass. Led by the vocal trio of Steve Ignorant, Eve Libertine and Joy de Vivre, Crass churned out several LPs beginning in the first wave of punk, including Stations of the Crass and Christ the Album. If the band had had a hit in the ‘90s, they would have been Chumbawumba, but Crass broke up, according to plan, in 1984.

It may sound crass, but none of these songs holds a candle to our winning song. Bob Dylan has already come close to claiming a spot on this list, first with “Positively 4th Street,” which would have made a dandy no. 4 winner, but in the early rounds, to winnow the field down a bit, I restricted winners to songs in which the number is actually sung, and true to form, the often inscrutable Dylan never mentions “4th” (or “Positively” or “Street,” for that matter). His “Seven Days” just wasn’t quite up to snuff to win that fiercely contested slot, and “Rainy Day Woman 12 & 35” was, at that point, out of contention. But a wise numerologist hedges his bets, rewrites the rules when necessary, and repeats what Pee-Wee Herman said after tumbling off his bike ass over teakettle: “I meant to do that.”

I’ll admit that “Rainy Day Woman” is not one of my favorite Dylan songs, not by a long shot, but all the signs point to it being the definitive 35 song. The recent release of the heavily anticipated Todd Haynes anti-biopic I’m Not There certainly tells me we are experiencing yet another collective Dylan moment, and besides, it’s a major song by any definition. In 1966, a single by the biggest singer in the world, with the refrain “Everybody must get stoned!” was just the kind of thing to give broadcasters fits, and while the song wasn’t nearly as explicit as “Eight Miles High,” it created a stir and no doubt fueled many a pot party in its heyday. It’s also for notable for being the lead track on the landmark Blonde on Blonde LP, and for being the only Dylan song to employ a brass band. Beyond that, RDW12&35 is a glorious goof and certainly one of the best of Dylan’s overtly comedic songs. In a few years the Funny Dylan (Todd Haynes flirted with a Funny Dylan sequence, but apparently Bobcat Goldthwait was unavailable) was all but gone, replaced by Grouchy Dylan (Brian Dennehey).

But what about those numbers? In fittingly Dylanesque fashion, the numbers in the title are open to interpretation. When he sings the refrain, his pronouncement is greeted by what I imagine to be a Tom Waits-ian crew of colorfully frocked revelers, reacting with the kind of enthusiasm that greets Neil Young when he warbles “And I felt like getting high” in “After the Gold Rush,” Roger Daltrey when he wails, “We’re all wasted” in “Baba O’Reilly,” and Tom Petty in that “let’s smoke another joint” song. But the sound of song—the stumbling tempo, ramshackle instrumentation, and impromptu shouts, hoots, laughs, and catcalls—is more suggestive of a barroom sing-along than a bacchanalian smoke-out. The verses certainly don’t paint a stoned scenario; they allude to a certain inevitability, but of what? Being found out? Misunderstood? Screwed over? Who is the “they” he keeps referring to? Is it The Man? Rapacious women? The increasingly intrusive public? Adherents to the marijuana theory point to the numbers in the title—12 and 35—which multiplied together equal 420. You may not know this, I certainly didn’t, but 420 is a certifiable slangy reference to pot use. According to Michael Horowitz of Flashback Books, a repository of rare books, periodicals, and artifacts related to the drug experience, “the phrase was first used by a group of pot-smoking teens at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley, California c. 1975 to denote the time they would meet to share a joint after classes.” Dylan’s song predates this usage by almost a decade. Who’s right? If anyone out there has anything to add about this cannabis-related conundrum, please don’t bogart it. Pass it on to me.

Bob Dylan - "Rainy Day Woman 12 & 35"

Numerology is our pal Dave's ill advised quest to find the definitive song for every number from one to a hundred. It's starting to get a bit tricky.

Previously: No. 1, 2-4, 5-7, 7 (counterpoint), 8, 9, 10/11, 12/13. 13 (counterpoint), 14/15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26/27, 28 , 29 , 30, 30 (counterpoint), 31, 32, 33, 34

Posted by David Klein at November 28, 2007 12:50 PM

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Posted by: Randall Monty at November 30, 2007 11:33 AM

Posted by: Winston LT-5 at December 2, 2007 01:04 AM

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