In Which I Attempt a Musically Related Top 5 List

Recently, I caught a Twitter gauntlet thrown at me by the always delightful @WriteOnNZ in a conversation with the equally congenial @BretInVancouver. The challenge: to come up with a Top 5 list of songs/books/films, etc.


“IMPOSSIBLE TASK / ONLY FIVE? IT CAN’T BE DONE / THIS IS THE STUFF OF MADNESS!” quoth I; my protestations resolute and many varied.

And yet – here we are: never one to shy away from a contest, I thought I’d have a go. I figure the odds of sending myself to the loony bin could be significantly stacked in my favour if I did a Top 5 of a category of a category of song or something.

So without further ado, I give you:


TOP FIVE SONGS WHICH I CAME UP WITH OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD THE ORDER AND CONTENT OF WHICH MAY CHANGE IN THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES WHICH HAVE A KILLER OPENING 30 SECONDS
SUBCATEGORY: GOOSEBUMPS
SUB-SUBCATEGORY: WHICH MAKE YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES AND SMILE GOOFILY SUB-SUB-SUBCATEGORY: IN WHICH REWINDING THE SONG TO THE BEGINNING AGAIN JUST TO HEAR THE BEGINNING AGAIN IS NOT ONLY COMPLETELY PERMISSABLE BUT KIND OF EXPECTED

Waterfall/Don’t Stop – The Stone Roses
Really, the opening 30 seconds of Don’t Stop depends very heavily on your ability to identify the ending of the previous track - Waterfall - which, if you’re a Roses fan, you know kind of meld into one another. You know how it goes: you’re grooving on the trip of the end of Waterfall, and you notice the track number on your CD player has changed so you know Don’t Stop has started, but you’re not sure exactly when. So I’m about 1:24 into Don’t Stop and here’s where you must pay attention: listen to when Reni (drummer) switches from hi-hat to whatever that other cymbal is called.... are you there? I make it about the 1:40 mark. And then? They all come together – Squire’s swirly guitar, a tambourine comes in on the 2 and the 4 and everyone follow Mani’s ascending bassline for what – five notes? It kind of goes da-da-daaaa, da-daaaa, da-daaaaa.... just before the vocal comes in? Are you there? That – that right there MAKES ME DIE.




Sweat – Tool
I have a very distinct memory of how I came to appreciate the beginning of this song: I am 16, maybe 17. I am waiting for the bus to take me to school – I am late, as usual, so I have missed the bus I should have caught, and quite possibly the one after that. I don’t care – I have a Sony Walkman. Remember the yellow one with two earphone jacks, that claimed to be waterproof? That one. I have a backpack full of Bic pens (to help rewind tapes and conserve double AA power) and loads of batteries. I’ve got the volume cranked all the way up, and this song comes on. Now, as you may or may not know, everything on headphones is intensified anyway, so while what I am about to introduce may just be one solitary strike of one solitary part of one solitary instrument, it had an eyes-rolling-into-back-of-head effect on the young bus stop me, and I wore out the buttons on that bloody yellow monstrosity all the freakin’ way to school just so I could hear it again and again and again. I’m talking about the single, solitary, smack of the drum (it kind of echoes) at about the :21 second mark before the song really starts. Love, love, love.



So Says I – The Shins
Nothing fancy about this one – another headphones discovery. The first 5 seconds I love; the guitar just trickles down, sneaks up on you and then WAH-BAM the song gets on with itself. Slick, jangly, attention grabbing.

Where the Streets Have No Name – U2
Controversial – I know they’re not everyone’s cup of tea. But they were the first band I properly lost my shit over, when I was a young, impressionable girl. I first saw them in 1992 and the introduction to this song is what I heard in my mind when, I was sitting in the back of my Dad’s Toyota on the way to the big city to see them for the first time. Ontario friends – you know when you get off the 427 by Lakeshore? The introduction to this song is the noise of the view of the majestic Toronto skyline coming around that corner.



 Can’t Stop – Red Hot Chili Peppers
CONTROVERSIAL AGAIN. I love, love, love the first 30 seconds of this song, and then I fucking HATE this song. (Yes, Jason – it was necessary to swear there.) This song will also feature in an upcoming sub-category called UNIMAGINATIVE MELODY WHICH COMPLETELY RUINS AN OTHERWISE BELTER OF A TUNE. I am from the Freaky Styley Uplift Mofo Milk Magik school of Chili’s fans and this ‘new’ music they put out doesn’t grab me like it used to. But this song? This song did. I heard it one day and thought HEY, WHAT’S THIS? IS FRUSCIANTE BACK ON SMACK AGAIN, BECAUSE THIS IS GOOOOOD!!! And then Keidis comes in and covers up all that guitar divinity with a completely parallel line of melody. 2006’s biggest musical let down. Get thee to the naughty step, Anthony.





There you have it. That’s what I have produced (with the aid of my current iPod playlist). Undoubtedly there will be more, but I am spent. I need a lie down.


Honourable Mentions (Bands I Like Because of the Introductions of These Songs)
Let’s Dance to Joy Division - The Wombats
Date With the Night – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Blue Orchid – White Stripes
Never Let Me Down (Again) – Depeche Mode
Patti Smith Math Scratch – Thurston Moore
Dogs of Lust – The The
Would – Alice in Chains
Pearl Jam – Porch
Going Up (To Portland) – Swell (can't find a link!!!)
Superstition – Steve Wonder
Take the Money and Run – Steve Miller Band
The Criminal – Sons of Freedom
Dirty Boots – Sonic Youth
So Far Away – Social Distortion
How Soon is Now – Smiths
A Side Wins – Sloan (the lyrics of this will be part of my next tattoo, incidentally...)
Well Thought Out Twinkles – Silversun Pickups
Crank – Catherine Wheel


GAH! I can’t do any more. I was right the first time:  THIS CAN’T BE DONE.

This Kind of Crap is STILL Keeping Me Up At Night

Deleted post rescued!  Here it is from yesterday; apologies if you've read it once already.


SCENE: BATHROOM, LATE EVENING


A man and a woman are brushing their teeth. They are getting ready for bed. The voluptuous woman has very striking hair. The man seems as if he is in more of a hurry than normal, and worth noting, he has at least 6 or 7 days’ worth of stubble.

W: What’s your hurry? Got a hot date?


M: I want to watch the end of ‘The People Under the Stairs’ – it’s just about to finish on Sky.


W: (without speaking makes a noise to illustrate her obvious indifference)


M: Actually, you know, ‘The People—‘


W: (interrupting) WAIT! Don’t tell me! I know this one: ‘The People Under the Stairs’ was the first film you ever watched on Sky.


M: Cripes alive! (spits in the sink, and shakes his head in what could be construed as an overly melodramatic manner) I’ve mentioned that before, I suppose?


W: (smirking) Once or twice.


The couple continue their night-time routine.


M: I suppose this is it, then?


W: What is “it, then”?


M: Well, it took 9 years of marriage but I’ve finally run out of new and interesting facts to educate you with?


W: (raises eyebrows) To educate me with?


M: You know what I mean. Anyway – 9 years is a pretty good innings. Maybe we should call it quits.


W: Hmm. You might be right. Just think of all of the poor, unsuspecting single girls in Newcastle who could benefit from an education as only you could provide.


M: Oh?


The man scratches his beard. The woman supresses an urge to ask him to shave. Again.


W: On second thought, perhaps it is my duty to spare this poor wretch, whomever she is, from your 'interesting' facts.


M: I do know some great facts.


W: Undoubtedly. What compels you to issue them in triplicate is the mystery.


M: I have lost some brain cells over the years, perhaps.


W: A likely explanation, to be sure.


M: I sense we are at an impasse. How do we move on from here?


W: Well, if I could just call to your attention my present comprehension of the following, perhaps you might commit to memory my prior learning and in so doing, spare me from any future tutelage?


M: Very well.


W: I already know that Ken Barlow is a Druid.


M: Okay. Fair play to you.


W: I already know that ‘We Will Rock You’ by Queen was written about Sid Viscious.


M: That might be the answer in a pub quiz scenario one day. You might be grateful for that.


W: I already know that ‘Dude Looks Like A Lady’ by Aerosmith was written about Vince Neil.


M: (knitting his brow) Now you’re just being petty.


W: I have heard your theories that nipping people causes cancer, and that Kurt Cobain was responsible for the death of hair metal.


M: Well, I –


W: AND, I know that you sometimes say that the first film you watched on Sky was not, in fact, ‘The People Under the Stairs’ but ‘Pump Up the Volume.’


M: I quite liked the girl in that.


W: Hmmmm. May I continue?


The man gestures in the affirmative.


W: I know that you used to look after your first car so well that you used to take the alloy wheels off and clean them with a toothbrush AND that sometimes if you’d just washed it and it rained the next morning, you’d leave it in the garage and make your Dad drive you to work in his car.


M: This is getting out of hand, now.


W: And finally, whenever Scott Walker comes up in conversation, I already know that when your Mam was young she wrote ‘Scott is fab’ on her school ruler.


M: She also wrote, ‘Nasty Neil’ next to it, after a boy in her class she didn’t like.


W: Would it surprise you at all to know that I already knew that?


The man gestures again, this time less politely.


W: (smug) No, you’re the tosser. Good job I still love you.


The couple exit the bathroom and walk to their bedroom. They switch off the lamps and get into bed. The house is very quiet, and the woman falls off to sleep while the man watches television.


M: Are you awake?


W: Well, I am now. What’s the matter?


M: In my defence, Scott Walker doesn’t come up in conversation all THAT regularly. And that girl was called Samantha Mathis.


W: Is that all?


M: Yes, I think so.


W: I can go to sleep now?


M: Yes you can.


W: (through gritted teeth) Thank you so much.
 

END SCENE



More adventures with our intrepid couple here, here, here, here and here.

Oh, and also most recently, here.