Chris James's Blog, page 22

100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #30: Genesis, Sign your Life away

Arguably the best song Rutherford and Banks produced with Wilson on vocals, and they thought it wasn’t even good enough for 1997’s Calling All Stations.  This is one of the most prescient albums I’ve ever heard.  The final track, One Man’s Fool, describes with unerring clarity the 9/11 attacks four years before they happened, while this track, Sign your Life away, could have been written for the arch-fiend Tony Blair (“And they believed you/With every word you said/It always sounded so convincing/As you signed their lives away”).  Rutherford, Banks and Wilson were really on to something in the late 1990s, and they should’ve kept at it.  But they threw the towel in instead, so we’ll never know what else they might have predicted.  Damn.

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #31: Flock of Seagulls, Wishing (If I had a photograph of you)

This is one of the most evocative tracks of the early-80s new wave period, which has certainly stood the test of time.  Not much of a story here, but that’s more than made up for by the music.  If you need to iron out a really tricky plot point, there are few better tracks that can help.

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #32: The Monkees, A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You

Pick any catchy tune from the late 60s or early 70s, and there’s a fair chance it was written by Neil Diamond.  Contrary to popular belief, Diamond did not write The Monkees’ biggest hits for them; he actually wrote this and I’m A Believer, et-al, for himself, but as he worked at the Brill Building’s hit factory, The Monkees’ versions were released before his own.  This track relates strongly to writing fiction: a little bit tension, a little bit drama; a little bit back-story, a little bit foreshadowing; a little bit- (We’ve got the idea, James, now get on with the next song.  Ed.)

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #33: Genesis, The Light Dies Down on Broadway

Arguably the best three-and-a-half minutes of storytelling Genesis ever did.  This is from the fourth and final side of the 1974 epic The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.  Our hero, Rael, has been through a very weird wringer indeed, snatched away from New York and plunged into a strange and confusing underworld.  In the final humiliation, Doktor Dyper has removed Rael’s manhood, after which a black raven has flown down and stolen the tube in which his manhood is now pickled (no, really, I’m not making this up).

Rael chases the raven to a gorge, above which a portal opens back to New York.  Rael has his worst crisis of confidence yet: “Is this the way out from the endless scene?/Or just an entrance to another dream?”  Just then, he sees his brother, John, struggling in the water below, crying for help.  “The gate is fading now but open wide/But John is drowning, I must decide/Between the ‘freedom’ I had in the rat race/Or to stay forever, in this forsaken place – hey, John!”

Rael makes his choice, and, as with quite a few Genesis stories, it does not end particularly well for him.

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #34: Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Joybringer

Based on Jupiter from Holst’s Planets Suite, this is one of those songs where it all came together in exceptional fashion.  If it weren’t for tracks like this, I don’t think I would ever have written a word of science fiction.  (Subs pls check: Can you therefore delete this track from James’ laptop and i-pod?  Thanks, Ed.)

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #35: Renaissance, Running Hard

The two-minute piano intro to this track is worth the price of admission on its own.  A song about the struggle just to get by, this is nearly ten minutes of Renaissance’s best work.  It concludes with a power which slowly builds until each step of your everyday life feels like you’re carrying a hundredweight on your shoulders.  At least, it does to me.  (Subs pls check: How much does a lobotomy actually cost these days?  Ed.)

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #36: Peter Gabriel, Solsbury Hill

As mentioned elsewhere on this list, seldom did the solo work of Genesis’s members display anything like the magic which the band itself produced.  A remarkable exception is Solsbury Hill, a melodic, light-hearted tune which you can whistle along to all day.  The lyrics are supposed to be about Gabriel’s decision to leave Genesis, and they’re pretty good-natured lyrics at that.  No wonder these guys all still get along.

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #37: Genesis, Abacab

With the benefit of 36 years of hindsight, it is possible now to appreciate fully the sheer genius behind Abacab the song and Abacab the album.  By 1981, the progressive rock of the 1970s had fallen desperately out of fashion, and Prog bands had to progress to survive, or die.  While Genesis showed their true mettle, others, like Renaissance, misjudged the synthesiser fad badly and sank without a trace.

What makes Abacab the song so special is its distinctive, stripped-down sound, which exposes the same Genesis genius found in all of their work with a new, wonderful clarity.  What makes Abacab the album so special is that, after this title track, almost all of the other tracks could have slotted easily into either of the two preceding albums.  Genesis progressed just as much as they needed to for the times, and not an inch further.  Thus, the commercial success which would follow over the next ten years has its true, er, genesis, in this album, where Banks, Collins and Rutherford showed sufficient flexibility to adjust to the times, but also proved they would never forego their intention to remain utterly distinctive.

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #38: Donna Summer, State of Independence

Sometimes one artist’s song is much better covered by another.  Jon Anderson (of Yes fame) wrote and recorded this with Vangelis in 1981, but their version sounds stilted and anodyne.  Donna Summer covered it a year later, and her rendition brings the song fully to life with a soulfulness and passion which only a vocalist as sensitive as Summer could deploy, aided by producer Quincy Jones.  Sadly, Summer died in 2012 aged only 63.

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100 Great Songs to Publish a Book to, #39: Genesis, Ripples

A Banks/Hackett/Rutherford masterpiece.  After Gabriel left Genesis following The Lamb tour in 1975, the desire to prove to audiences that the remaining members were a lot more than simply Gabriel’s backing band led them to produce what is, in my opinion, the second best album of their career, A Trick of the Tail.  I could easily include all of the tracks on it in this list.  This song, however, is special for the power in its instrumental break, and the lyrics which deal with ageing and the passing of time.  It’s worth pointing out that these young men were only in their early twenties, and they produced such an evocative, provocative song whose accompanying image on the album was a picture of an elderly lady looking in a mirror to see a young, beautiful woman reflected back.

Onslaught is out now at the special introductory price of $2.99 in the US here, in the UK here, in Canada here, and in Australia here.