Post by ryan on Jul 26, 2006 4:13:08 GMT -5
It's been awhile since I last visited the board. I've been busy re-tooling my home studio and working on some musical projects for others. Two weeks ago, I started a 6-to-8-week contract working as an extra hand for the IT department of a Tulsa-area call-center. And I had to house-sit for Mom and Dad when they went to Cancun for a week. Yeah, I've been busy.
But I wanted to post a thread tonight regarding the music of Mike Doughty, the former frontman of Soul Coughing. A couple of months ago, I posted a review of his acoustic double-album "Skittish / Rockity Roll." It's on Page 4 of the "Latest Music Purchases" thread. I gave the album a score of 9.5 (out of 10) on my own personal barometer, because I was particularly taken with the album at the time. I was afraid to score it any higher because I'd just purchased it, and due to the minimalist nature of the album I was concerned about its replay value.
So, here we are two months down the road -- and I have to say that my rating was not in error; this album warrants no lower than a 9.5. Given time, this album may prove to be one of the few "Perfect 10" albums I own. Of course, my list of "Perfect Tens" is entirely subjective, and mostly reflects albums which have had a profound affect on my own songwriting, or have resonated deeply within me. A few Perfect Ten albums on my list: Blur's sadly underrated "13," The Wrens' flawed but jaw-dropping masterpiece "Secaucus," their majestic downcast follow-up "The Meadowlands," Radiohead's "The Bends" and "OK Computer," The Arcade Fire's "Funeral." Already, you can see how my tastes slant. Are there other Perfect Tens on my list? Undoubtedly, but that's not what I wanted to post about tonight.
The other day at work, while I was unpacking and installing RAM modules in about 100 PC's, I found myself dissecting a couple of Mike Doughty songs. I turned each phrase of lyrics over in my mind, examining how each phrase works independantly, and how each one contributes meaning to the whole. This is how I sometimes entertain myself when I'm working at a repetitive task. It's also one of the reasons I've always favored great lyrics over great music: I can memorize the words, and I can sing them and think about them anytime, anywhere I go. I cannot, alas, think about and analyze a musical passage without the benefit of an instrument, or at least a scrap of paper; one needs tools to analyze intersecting melodies and chord progressions.
So, I'm thankful for every songwriter who writes lyrics worthy of dissection. They inspire me, and it is because of them that I make music. I aspire to be one of them.
Which brings us back to Mike Doughty. He is one of the Rarefied Few: a songwriter who can pen lyrics of such precision that each syllable seems perfectly-wrought, each word seems invested with its own unique meaning, and each phrase speaks far beyond itself.
Every great lyricist has his niche. Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave do murder-ballads, biblical angst, and tortured love. Their lyrics are clean, sparse, and unforgiving. Springsteen does larger-than-life, drive-in-movie parables about a mythical America. Isaac Brock does drug-addled nihilism like nobody's business. Mike Doughty, whether he realizes it or not, writes about the experience of being male.
Yeah, I know that sounds funny, but I'm not trying to make a joke. It occurs to me that a great majority of rock-music could be said to speak of the male condition. Rockers are typically, historically, male. Rock-and-roll was, originally, a euphamism for gettin' it on. Throughout its history, rock music has been sung by men who sing about women. And when the guys aren't singing about women, they're singing about drinking, or drugs, or gambling, or cars. All of which represent iconic and timeless male pursuits.
But few rockers have sung about the male condition with as much insight or intelligence as Mike Doughty. Doughty is a man who understands his vices just enough to see beyond them, and into the deeper motives underneath. And even though he sings in a deep buzzsaw baritone, his musings contain none of the free-floating male angst Staind once made commonplace on the radio. Doughty is not feeling sorry for himself. Rather, he seeks to understand himself, and the world around him.
With that in mind, here are the lyrics for the two Mike Doughty songs I was thinking about the other day, followed by my analysis. These are two songs I really admire.
============================
Down On The River By The Sugar Plant
All of the girls out with their hips asway
And I’m the loneliest man
They’re selling incense and sunglasses on Orchard Street
Boatloads of bootleg Sean John
I dream you up in this vast dark bed
Believe I loved you for each hair upon the back of your neck, and I
Want to kiss you but I can’t
Down on the river by the sugar plant
Earrings
Weighing down the lobe and
Nose a lovely slope and the mouth turned down
Shoulders
Pale and beautiful and
Angle of the throat and
Your sweet sad stare
All of the waves that crash upon the shore
Fruitlessly shushing the world
I pledge allegiance to my displacement
My flag of doubt is unfurled
And I dream you up on a vast dark coast
Believe I see you walking toward me, arms outstretched like a ghost, and I
Want to kiss you but I can’t
Down on the river by the sugar plant
This tune is from Rockity Roll, the weaker half of the 2 CD package -- but an album nonetheless containing a number of strikingly good tunes, such as this one. Here, Doughty presents a minimalist new-wave composition with a dark, noirish slant. This is one of the few songs in the collection which contains keyboard and drum-machine in addition to Doughty's acoustic guitar and vocals -- and yet, this expanded pallette turns inward, creating an atmosphere of claustrophobic anxiety.
The title of this song is great. It suggests images of sweetness, love, and idyllic moments. But then, the way this phrase figures into the song is kind of chilling: it represents the sweetness the narrator longs to know but lives without. He sings, "I want to kiss you but I can't / Down on the river by the sugar plant." Why can't he kiss her? Because she doesn't exist at all, outside of his mind. "I dream you up in this vast dark bed / Believe I loved you for each hair upon the back of your neck." She is an imaginary lover he has conjured out of the darkness. Is she a former girlfriend, or a composite vision of the girls he sings about in the verses? I think she might be a little of both. And he is haunted by this vision, as described in the second chorus: "I dream you up on a vast, dark coast / Believe I see you walking toward me, arms outstretched like a ghost."
The first few times I heard this song, I thought the line in the chorus went, "I dream you up in this vast darkness." I loved the existential quality of that, suggesting that the entire world is an empty, lonely place. Then I found the lyrics online, and realized it was actually "vast dark bed." At first I didn't like this lyric as much, but eventually I decided that it was actually kind of brilliant. "Vast dark bed," in the context of this song, ever-so-slightly implies that the narrator's vision (in the first chorus) is a maturbatory fantasy -- an implication that "vast darkness" misses altogether.
And I know this is funny, but I think that's where the genius of this song lies. No, the song isn't about maturbatory fantasies. It's about a lonely guy haunted by visions of sweetness. But the subtle suggestion of self-love lends the song a degree of honesty that really brings it down to earth.
Something else I find fascinating about this song is Doughty's vocal performance. His voice is just a little slurred, and he kind of hiccups on the words "neck, and I," so that they come out like: "Ne, ckandI." Was he drunk when he tracked the vocals? It doesn't really matter. The upshot is, he sounds drunk. Whether this was an artistic choice or just happenstance, it's perfect for this song. It amplifies the loneliness of the lyrics, and it enhances the noirish soundscape.
============================
40 Grand In The Hole
40 grand in the hole
scraping my dreams out of the sugar bowl
my love for you’s corrupt
write down the words and then I snort them up
when will I love someone?
When will someone be mine?
40 grand in the hole
I’m gonna open it up and let my yearning shine
Hours that I have slept
Slumping down down like a narcolept
Surrendering to joy
Standing in line at Teriyaki Boy
When will I hear the click?
When will I know that it is time to split?
What is the use of it?
What is a life without my heart at risk?
when will I love someone?
When will someone be mine?
40 grand in the hole
I’m gonna open it up and let my yearning shine
This tune is also from Rockity Roll. I overlooked it during my first few passes through the album, probably because its elusive rhythm and barebones production quality made for a difficult listen. But the song snuck up on me, and has become one of my favorites. Here, Doughty picks an elliptical acoustic pattern, over which his words ebb and flow.
I love the central analogy of this song. What is debt, if not a reflection of yearning? Can't we compare the size of our yearning to dollars of debt? Doughty says he's "40 grand in the hole," and he imagines that his yearning shines out from within that hole. That's a tightly-wound image, very compact, very neat. And it speaks volumes.
I love the verse that begins, "When will I hear the click?" I think the "click" Doughty mentions is that mythical sound that tells us we've taken all we need, that we will need no more, and will be ever-after content with what we have. We all wait to hear the "click." Most of us never hear it.
I also love the way Doughty envisions his yearning as the thing which will ultimately redeem him. After all the references to drug-use, failed relationships, and bottomless debt, Doughty sees that the common denominator is his yearning -- and ultimately, he suggests that yearning is a pure and beautiful thing.
Wow, just thinking about this song makes me really happy.
But I wanted to post a thread tonight regarding the music of Mike Doughty, the former frontman of Soul Coughing. A couple of months ago, I posted a review of his acoustic double-album "Skittish / Rockity Roll." It's on Page 4 of the "Latest Music Purchases" thread. I gave the album a score of 9.5 (out of 10) on my own personal barometer, because I was particularly taken with the album at the time. I was afraid to score it any higher because I'd just purchased it, and due to the minimalist nature of the album I was concerned about its replay value.
So, here we are two months down the road -- and I have to say that my rating was not in error; this album warrants no lower than a 9.5. Given time, this album may prove to be one of the few "Perfect 10" albums I own. Of course, my list of "Perfect Tens" is entirely subjective, and mostly reflects albums which have had a profound affect on my own songwriting, or have resonated deeply within me. A few Perfect Ten albums on my list: Blur's sadly underrated "13," The Wrens' flawed but jaw-dropping masterpiece "Secaucus," their majestic downcast follow-up "The Meadowlands," Radiohead's "The Bends" and "OK Computer," The Arcade Fire's "Funeral." Already, you can see how my tastes slant. Are there other Perfect Tens on my list? Undoubtedly, but that's not what I wanted to post about tonight.
The other day at work, while I was unpacking and installing RAM modules in about 100 PC's, I found myself dissecting a couple of Mike Doughty songs. I turned each phrase of lyrics over in my mind, examining how each phrase works independantly, and how each one contributes meaning to the whole. This is how I sometimes entertain myself when I'm working at a repetitive task. It's also one of the reasons I've always favored great lyrics over great music: I can memorize the words, and I can sing them and think about them anytime, anywhere I go. I cannot, alas, think about and analyze a musical passage without the benefit of an instrument, or at least a scrap of paper; one needs tools to analyze intersecting melodies and chord progressions.
So, I'm thankful for every songwriter who writes lyrics worthy of dissection. They inspire me, and it is because of them that I make music. I aspire to be one of them.
Which brings us back to Mike Doughty. He is one of the Rarefied Few: a songwriter who can pen lyrics of such precision that each syllable seems perfectly-wrought, each word seems invested with its own unique meaning, and each phrase speaks far beyond itself.
Every great lyricist has his niche. Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave do murder-ballads, biblical angst, and tortured love. Their lyrics are clean, sparse, and unforgiving. Springsteen does larger-than-life, drive-in-movie parables about a mythical America. Isaac Brock does drug-addled nihilism like nobody's business. Mike Doughty, whether he realizes it or not, writes about the experience of being male.
Yeah, I know that sounds funny, but I'm not trying to make a joke. It occurs to me that a great majority of rock-music could be said to speak of the male condition. Rockers are typically, historically, male. Rock-and-roll was, originally, a euphamism for gettin' it on. Throughout its history, rock music has been sung by men who sing about women. And when the guys aren't singing about women, they're singing about drinking, or drugs, or gambling, or cars. All of which represent iconic and timeless male pursuits.
But few rockers have sung about the male condition with as much insight or intelligence as Mike Doughty. Doughty is a man who understands his vices just enough to see beyond them, and into the deeper motives underneath. And even though he sings in a deep buzzsaw baritone, his musings contain none of the free-floating male angst Staind once made commonplace on the radio. Doughty is not feeling sorry for himself. Rather, he seeks to understand himself, and the world around him.
With that in mind, here are the lyrics for the two Mike Doughty songs I was thinking about the other day, followed by my analysis. These are two songs I really admire.
============================
Down On The River By The Sugar Plant
All of the girls out with their hips asway
And I’m the loneliest man
They’re selling incense and sunglasses on Orchard Street
Boatloads of bootleg Sean John
I dream you up in this vast dark bed
Believe I loved you for each hair upon the back of your neck, and I
Want to kiss you but I can’t
Down on the river by the sugar plant
Earrings
Weighing down the lobe and
Nose a lovely slope and the mouth turned down
Shoulders
Pale and beautiful and
Angle of the throat and
Your sweet sad stare
All of the waves that crash upon the shore
Fruitlessly shushing the world
I pledge allegiance to my displacement
My flag of doubt is unfurled
And I dream you up on a vast dark coast
Believe I see you walking toward me, arms outstretched like a ghost, and I
Want to kiss you but I can’t
Down on the river by the sugar plant
This tune is from Rockity Roll, the weaker half of the 2 CD package -- but an album nonetheless containing a number of strikingly good tunes, such as this one. Here, Doughty presents a minimalist new-wave composition with a dark, noirish slant. This is one of the few songs in the collection which contains keyboard and drum-machine in addition to Doughty's acoustic guitar and vocals -- and yet, this expanded pallette turns inward, creating an atmosphere of claustrophobic anxiety.
The title of this song is great. It suggests images of sweetness, love, and idyllic moments. But then, the way this phrase figures into the song is kind of chilling: it represents the sweetness the narrator longs to know but lives without. He sings, "I want to kiss you but I can't / Down on the river by the sugar plant." Why can't he kiss her? Because she doesn't exist at all, outside of his mind. "I dream you up in this vast dark bed / Believe I loved you for each hair upon the back of your neck." She is an imaginary lover he has conjured out of the darkness. Is she a former girlfriend, or a composite vision of the girls he sings about in the verses? I think she might be a little of both. And he is haunted by this vision, as described in the second chorus: "I dream you up on a vast, dark coast / Believe I see you walking toward me, arms outstretched like a ghost."
The first few times I heard this song, I thought the line in the chorus went, "I dream you up in this vast darkness." I loved the existential quality of that, suggesting that the entire world is an empty, lonely place. Then I found the lyrics online, and realized it was actually "vast dark bed." At first I didn't like this lyric as much, but eventually I decided that it was actually kind of brilliant. "Vast dark bed," in the context of this song, ever-so-slightly implies that the narrator's vision (in the first chorus) is a maturbatory fantasy -- an implication that "vast darkness" misses altogether.
And I know this is funny, but I think that's where the genius of this song lies. No, the song isn't about maturbatory fantasies. It's about a lonely guy haunted by visions of sweetness. But the subtle suggestion of self-love lends the song a degree of honesty that really brings it down to earth.
Something else I find fascinating about this song is Doughty's vocal performance. His voice is just a little slurred, and he kind of hiccups on the words "neck, and I," so that they come out like: "Ne, ckandI." Was he drunk when he tracked the vocals? It doesn't really matter. The upshot is, he sounds drunk. Whether this was an artistic choice or just happenstance, it's perfect for this song. It amplifies the loneliness of the lyrics, and it enhances the noirish soundscape.
============================
40 Grand In The Hole
40 grand in the hole
scraping my dreams out of the sugar bowl
my love for you’s corrupt
write down the words and then I snort them up
when will I love someone?
When will someone be mine?
40 grand in the hole
I’m gonna open it up and let my yearning shine
Hours that I have slept
Slumping down down like a narcolept
Surrendering to joy
Standing in line at Teriyaki Boy
When will I hear the click?
When will I know that it is time to split?
What is the use of it?
What is a life without my heart at risk?
when will I love someone?
When will someone be mine?
40 grand in the hole
I’m gonna open it up and let my yearning shine
This tune is also from Rockity Roll. I overlooked it during my first few passes through the album, probably because its elusive rhythm and barebones production quality made for a difficult listen. But the song snuck up on me, and has become one of my favorites. Here, Doughty picks an elliptical acoustic pattern, over which his words ebb and flow.
I love the central analogy of this song. What is debt, if not a reflection of yearning? Can't we compare the size of our yearning to dollars of debt? Doughty says he's "40 grand in the hole," and he imagines that his yearning shines out from within that hole. That's a tightly-wound image, very compact, very neat. And it speaks volumes.
I love the verse that begins, "When will I hear the click?" I think the "click" Doughty mentions is that mythical sound that tells us we've taken all we need, that we will need no more, and will be ever-after content with what we have. We all wait to hear the "click." Most of us never hear it.
I also love the way Doughty envisions his yearning as the thing which will ultimately redeem him. After all the references to drug-use, failed relationships, and bottomless debt, Doughty sees that the common denominator is his yearning -- and ultimately, he suggests that yearning is a pure and beautiful thing.
Wow, just thinking about this song makes me really happy.
