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May 29, 2009

Numerology: At Threescore and Five, I'm Very Much Alive

Sixty-five is a number that might well suffer from self-esteem issues. As the U.S. speed limit and the age at which you join the ranks of the elderly, 65 comes off as a scold, a cut-off point—in short, nothing much to celebrate. Country great Merle Haggard addressed this on the recent “Come On, Sixty-Five,” a musical wish to hasten the arrival of his 65th birthday so he can get his gold watch, kick back, and perhaps enjoy some warm evenings sipping Bourbon and branch on his porch (after pawning that watch). The song is summed up in the line, “I’ve heard it said that hard work never did a body’s body any harm. Well they were wrong.” Neil Young echoes this point in “Southern Pacific,” wherein an aging train engineer reports: “I rode the Highball/I fired the Daylight/When I turned sixty-five/I couldn’t see right.” A further echo of this lonesome-train feeling can be heard on “Sixty-Five Days,” a reverb-y instrumental by the rootsy Knoxville Girls, named after a chilling murder ballad popularized by the Louvin Brothers.

The doo-wop era began in the early ‘50s and was buried under an avalanche of Beatlemania some ten years later, which is why Paul Davis’s egregiously sunny hit “’65 Love Affair” is such a historical travesty. For those of you who somehow missed out on this staple of rock radio circa 1981 (it was a favorite of Dick Clark), the song is heaven for those who consider “doo-wop-diddy” the most joyous sound in creation. But by 1965, when the Who sang “My Generation” and the Byrds recorded “Eight Miles High,” this kind of ditty was already gathering dust. (True, Manfred Mann hit number #1 with “Do Wah Diddy Diddy” a year earlier, but its spirit was far more early-‘60s pop than ‘50s doo-wop.) Originally titled “’55 Love Affair,” Davis’s song got a name change when some clever A&R people decided that ‘55 sounded dated, not that the radio-listening youth of America were sticklers for historical accuracy. The spin doctors got it right, though—it ascended to the Top 10, and the Jesus of Nazareth look-alike Paul Davis had a giant hit on his hands.

If there were any justice in the world, Josh Rouse would have had at least one hit on his hands by now. In the course of 10 years or so, Rouse, a Nebraska native who later settled in Nashville, has put out a record a year, all of which are marked by gorgeous highpoints but also a tendency to get a little same-y. “65” from the EP Chester, a collaboration with Kurt Wagner of Lambchop, is one of the lesser tracks on this collection. Despite some interesting non-sequitur lyrics (“The good things they proceed to rot
/The uselessness of smoking pot”)
 and an easy mid-tempo cadence, it lacks the strong chorus or wry punch of Rouse’s best. (The meaning of 65 is ambiguous here; there’s a mention of the Berlin Wall, but 65 is also the name of the highway that runs through Nashville, the city where Chester was recorded.) The meaning of 65 is similarly vague in “Rainy Night 65” by New Model Army, the venerable British trio that garnered top honors for no. 51 slot. This stark dirge would break Eddie Rabbit’s “I Love a Rainy Night” over its knee, if such a thing were possible, while the ponderous “Paris 65,” by French art rockers Etron Fou Leloublan, is a knotty mélange of keyboard lines in search of a melody, sprinkled with some barked vocals—a head-scratcher in any language. “65 Doesn’t Understand You” by 65 Days of Static is not much easier to “get.” A series of intricate, caustic sections that mix Sonic Youth-style spiky guitar work with prog intricacy and industrial keyboard textures, the song somehow coheres, producing a sonic picture that is at once disorienting and strangely alluring.

Etron Fou Leloublan - "Paris 65"

While we’re on the subject of heavy, White Zombie’s commercial breakthrough, “Thunder Kiss ’65,” would make a perfect anthem for an army of marauding huns, with Rob Zombie’s brawny vocals leading the way over turgid bass-heavy riffing. In the midst of the maelstrom, which incorporates film samples (“I never TRY anything; I just do it. Wanna try me?”), police sirens, and shredding axe work, it’s easy to miss the similarity to Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” It’s also easy to miss what it has to do with 1965, but a lyric sheet proves that "What’s New Pussycat" and “Satisfaction”—both produced in 1965, are both name-checked. But this is not a song for study; it’s meant for head-banging or pole-dancing, and on that front, it is highly recommended.

Gene Chandler never topped “Duke of Earl,” his 1962 hit that has earned a rightful place among the great singles of the early rock era, but the Chicago native, born Eugene Dixon, had a subsequent string of Top 40 hits produced by the great Curtis Mayfield, including “Rainbow,” aka “Rainbow ’65.” Consisting of Chandler’s adlibbed vocals over a trilling piano and simple drumbeat, the song served as a trusty encore in live shows. In the version recorded at the long-gone Regal Theater in Chicago, titled “Rainbow ’65 (Parts 1 and 2),” the crowd exhorts Mr. Chandler throughout with impromptu screams, including the immortal cry, “You GO, dad!” And after he confesses that “I gonna reach out and-uh BITE-cha,” he is met with palpable delirium. They just don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Striking a more upbeat note is “65 Bars and a Taste of Soul” by Charles Wright & the 103rd Street Rhythm Band,” a sizzling funk outfit that got some early support from Bill Cosby and whose members went on to work with Earth Wind & Fire and Bill Withers. Their biggest hit, the oft-sampled “Express Yourself,” (1970) is a perfect a slab of ‘70s R&B that seems to combine the best elements of “Cool Jerk,” “It’s Your Thing,” and “Mr. Bigstuff” into one irresistible, hip-shaking package.

Charles Wright & the 103rd Street Rhythm Band - "65 Bars and a Taste of Soul"

Other 65s worth noting:

* The Beatles fifth U.S. release for Capitol, Beatles ’65, cobbled together songs from two previous British releases, much to the consternation of purists, although subsequent recordings by Frank Sinatra (Sinatra ’65) and Duke Ellington (Ellington ’65) indicated that some folks didn’t mind.
* The pensive “65 and Sunny” by Travels, a Massachusetts duo who were aptly described in Performer magazine as “full-hearted yet half-hearted”
* “’65 Mustang” a tuneful tribute to an automobile with a complicated past by Five For Fighting
* “65 Directory” by Tomlin, an unsung‘70s Australian outfit
* The title weather system in Neko Case’s “This Tornado Loves You” is “65 miles wide.”
* Wall of Voodoo’s front-man Stan Ridgeway had a European hit in 1986 with “Camouflage, which was set “…in the jungle wars of ’65.”
* “55 in the waist /65 in the hips,/55 in the waist/a long lean gal ain’t worth doodly squat.” –Sugarboy Crawford, in his paean to feminine amplitude “She Got to Wobble When She Walk”
* “65 Roses,” titled after a boy’s mispronunciation of his sister’s cystic fibrosis, belongs in the pantheon of “tragedy” songs, right up there with Henry Gross’s dead-dog lament, “Shannon,” “Last Kiss” by J. Frank Wilson & the Cavaliers, and “Christmas Shoes” by Newsong. The mispronunciation was tapped for Songs for 65 Roses, a well-intentioned comp featuring North Carolina’s finest, including the dB’s, Let’s Active, Superchunk, and Fetchin’ Bones.
* “65%” by Tuomas Tolvonen, a proponent of Finnish electronica music (known as “suomiaundi”), provides the intriguing if physiologically incorrect notion that “65% of us is water and the rest of dust”
* “65 Pushups” by guitar wiz Prashant Aswani, is a funky fusion of hot riffing that recalls Jeff Beck’s collaborations with Jan Hammer.

Travels - "Sixty Five and Sunny"

“I'm looking for the treason that I knew in '65

"

–David Bowie, “1984”

"In the winter of ‘65/we were hungry, just barely alive—"

The Band, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”

To Bowie and the Band, ’65 was a mythical year. True, the Band’s Civil War-themed lamentation takes place a century before the ’65 that Bowie refers to, but both years were marked by conflict. So, perhaps it’s fitting that our winning song refers to a year, as opposed to the speed limit or the retirement age, even though the reference is more of a glancing blow than a straight shot. “Circa ‘65” is a spare and haunting number by Darling Downs, an Australian duo comprised of two mainstays of Sydney’s indie rock scene: vocalist Ron Peno, former lead singer of Died Pretty, and Kim Salmon, who is credited with forming one of the first punk bands in Australia as well as predating the sound of Seattle in the early ‘90s with his band the Scientists. (This is not hyperbole: the sound of the band has a marked similarity to the ‘90s Seattle aesthetic, and in a documentary on the Australian rock scene that aired when Kurt Cobain was still in school, Salmon used the term “grunge” to describe the sound of his band.)

The Darling Downs - "Circa '65"

While Peno and Salmon have spent most of their lives playing music influenced by the Stooges, Velvet Underground, and others of that ilk, the sound they make together is rooted in Americana, an acoustic mixture featuring Salmon’s banjo and guitar, Peno’s rich and resonant vocals, along with harmonica and the occasional shake of a tambourine.

“Circa ‘65” resulted from the duo’s idiosyncratic method of songwriting. As Salmon explained to me, he begins by laying down an instrumental groove, and Peno free-associates over the top in order to come up with a melody. “The stuff he sings is random and tends to borrow from rock’s rich tapestry. One of the lines for this song ended with the phrase “back in 1965” because, as your essays testify, there is a history of numbers, particularly dates, in rock lyrics. For example Jonathan Richman's “She Cracked” has the lines “Well she was sensitive
/She understood me/
She understood the European things of 1943.” This is definitely the type of feel that Ron was looking for. As he never writes any lyrics down, he tends to improv lyrics rather than learn them. He’s lazy, and he thinks this is easier. When recording, he put down a guide vocal, and I went back and wrote it all down, basically trying to decipher. Neither Ron or I knew exactly what had been sung, so translating it in itself made the end results even more surreal, e.g., “I had to have the halo, when I hit the floor, I’ve been on a timeless journey since 1964.” (Yes, a different date than the title.) It was like Ron was on the couch and I was his analyst, and then William Burroughs got the results and cut it up!”

And in the spirit of William Burroughs and his cut-up technique, the randomness of the process produces something with a resonance all its own. “I have found working with Ron that even though what he does is somewhat random, it does tend to take on a huge amount of meaning simply because he doesn't allow himself the chance to contrive. Everything he sings comes straight out of his psyche. By its sheer meaninglessness, 1965 has become full of mystery and spiritual significance.”

The Darling Downs - "Circa '65"

Numerology is our pal Dave's ill-advised quest to find the definitive song for every number from one to a hundred. We hear 60 is the new 40, and now we're not even that impressed by his progress.

Previously: No. 1, 2 (redux), 3, 4 (redux), 5-7, 5 (redux),6 (redux), 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, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, Footnotes, 57, 58, 59 , 60, 61, 62, 63, 64

Posted by David Klein at May 29, 2009 11:48 AM

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Posted by: jonny at May 30, 2009 08:01 PM

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