Things I Have Enjoyed This Week

[10 min read]

Great Horned Owl!

Well, if I’m being honest, I didn’t actually see it this week. I saw it like two weeks ago. Three? But I forgot about it. And then I remembered it. And it rules. It sat and stared deep into my soul for a long time, then crapped while maintaining eye contact and flew away.

The Last Few Yellow Cottonwoods

We went out looking for tarantulas. We didn’t see any (booooooo) but we did see these gorgeous little cottonwoods tucked away between the hills, still with their yellow leaves about them.

Train Whistle

You know those wooden train whistles from when you were a kid? I have one of those in my office. I have no idea how this thing came into my life. I don’t remember having it as a kid, I have no memory of buying it or anyone giving it to me. But it’s there. I blew on it and BOY DOES IT SOUND LIKE A REAL TRAIN! How do they do that!?!? It’s a marvel.

Paul Williams

Paul Williams was on Bullseye. It’s a super fun interview. He talks about everything—addiction; Phantom of the Paradise; the Muppets and writing Rainbow Connection(🥹🌈🪕); appearing on Carson in his full Planet of the Apes makeup; that time he and Stephen Stills both auditioned for The Monkees.

CSNY

Speaking of Stephen Stills…

I’m not like a diehard CSN/CSNY fan. Sure, Suite: Judy Blue Eyes is one of my favorite songs of all time. And I love plenty of their other material, within reason. Really I’m more of a Neil Young person.

But I opened up Apple Music and saw a new (to me) release: CSNY Live at Filmore East 1969. It’s a great show. It’s funny how quiet most of it is. I don’t know what I was expecting, but not that. I mean they have a band, but only for the last 5 songs—otherwise it’s just their voices and 1 or 2 acoustic guitars. Also surprising was this great cover of Blackbird.

Blackbird on Apple Music • Spotify

Mostly I’m not super interested in Beatles covers, because what can anyone add or improve on? (David Chang said something like you can make a dessert that’s a gourmet play on a Twinkie, deconstructed, whatever. But if it’s not WAY better than the Twinkie, the Twinkie still wins. Beatles and Twinkies are roughly equivalent, right?)

But in this context…it’s interesting to think that Blackbird hadn’t even been out for a full year. It wasn’t a sacred thing yet. Was it a hit then? Was it a song that everyone knew? I don’t know, probably, I mean it’s the Beatles white album, so I’m sure most people attending a CSNY show owned a copy of it and already knew every song pretty much by heart; and already loved Dear Prudence as much as we all do now; and already hated Bungalow Bill as much as we all do now; and already thought Ringo whispering “good night—good night, everybody—everybody everywhere” was just about the sweetest thing in the world. But for whatever reason, it kinda just seems like they’re covering their friends’ song.

And then I also heard this episode of Song Exploder where Graham Nash talks about writing and recording Our House.

So many of these classic songs can get to be like Old MacDonald—we’ve all heard them so many times we’ve pretty much disassociated from the fact that a person thought of it and sat down in a pretty normal-ass living room in their socks and sweatpants and a tee shirt and wrote it on a guitar or piano and then their band went and recorded it one day like any other band, not knowing it would be a giant hit for the next 60-ish years. So it’s hard to hear it with fresh ears.

In this case, it was just a little song Graham wrote for his girlfriend Joni about what did that day.

But then you put on Song Exploder and you get to hear the demo. And then the isolated harmony vocals of those three guys. And then a recording of it from a sound check where Joni Mitchell is sitting at the piano with Graham Nash and doing the vocal equivalent of doodling to sing along with him. And they’re both giggling and goofing. And then you’re like fuck me this song is so sweet I’m gonna cry.

A Brand New Installment of Our Phones Are Totally Listening to Us Which Leads to a Game of Musical Wait-But-Also…

I wrote a new song and played it for Misty. It’s a happy song and I was expressing my concerns about writing overly-happy songs, even tho I mostly love them. It’s just that sometimes, well, they can end up as boring prose set to music. We talked about this for a good few minutes. Then I opened Apple Music and there was a splash screen along the lines of “Happy Songs! A playlist made just for you. Take a listen. We have playlists for every mood, custom made for your taste. Check it out on the home page!”

COINCIDENCE?!?!?!?

Previous installments of this were one time Misty was talking about…I can’t remember. Let’s say whistles. (What the fuck kind of example is that?) Then we both got instagram ads for whistles for a few days. (Seriously…whistles?) Another time, I was at work. I was wearing allbirds. This was back before they had stores and before you could buy them at REI - they were basically just an instagram company in the US. Coworker 1 asked “are those the shoes instagram is always trying to get me to buy?” Yes, I said. I had caved to the ads. Coworker 2 said “I haven’t seen ads for those. What’s the deal - am I not cool?” Next day, boom, coworker 2 had allbirds ads.

Just like with the shoes, I caved to the Happy Songs playlist. If for no other reason than because I never listen to the algo playlists and thought I’d give it a try because it was thrust in front of my face. I didn’t much care for it.

But one of the songs that actually did not make me skip ahead was this Weezer song called A Little Bit of Love.

A Little Bit of Love on Apple Music • Spotify

It’s okay. Kinda generic. Enjoyable enough. Catchy.

Wait-But-Also… the main reason I stopped was because with that combo mandolin/melodica intro, I thought it was And We Danced by the Hooters. (Fun fact: a “hooter” is a melodica.) I LOVE And We Danced. The intro is SOOOOO similar. I can’t think of another song that starts with a mandolin/melodica duet. Can you? It’s gotta be an intentional nod, right?

If you don’t know what a melodica is, it’s like just the keyboard half of an accordion, but instead of a big squeeze box, you blow into it. See it at the start of the video.

Wait-But-Also… as I kept listening to the Weezer song, it seemed like, especially later in the song, the whole track becomes distorted, like maybe in the mastering process they really pushed the track to make it overload a little bit. Which made me remember, oh yeah, Prince did that on Little Red Corvette. It’s a super cool effect. And it’s the only other mainstream pop song I know of that does that.

Little Red Corvette on Apple Music • Spotify

And then I thought about this: back when Rivers Cuomo kinda freaked out because nobody liked Pinkerton when it came out, a friend told me they read an interview with him where he said that he was done writing personal songs, that he only wanted to write hits—popular subject matter, popular tempos, popular styles. Do the research, then write songs that fit the “success” mold.

If true, this song would definitely fit that mindset. It’s pretty generic. All it’s missing is a lyric about wishing this night would never end. A far cry from referencing ECW in El Scorcho or 12 sided die in In the Garage. (We played in the Garage for Lola, our goddaughter. “OMG, we get it, he likes his garage.”)

Wait-But-Also… that reminds me that I once heard ZZ Top did something similar. I heard that for their biggest album, Eliminator, Billy Gibbons and the producer looked at the average BPM (beats per minute) of contemporary hit songs, realized that most were in the neighborhood of 100-125 BPM, so wrote the entire album at about that tempo. Then they supposedly intentionally replaced the bass and drum parts with synthesizers and drum machines to update their sound because New Wave was big at the time and they figured this increased their chances of success. And bingo bango, Eliminator was their best selling album by far. Still is, I think. (It’s the one that has ALL the ZZ Top songs I know some words to.)

So…are these things I heard all true? And if so, what does it all add up to? Is this anything? At all?

I dunno. But I thought about it all week and I wrote it down. So, like, gimme a break, man.

Best Husband Cappuccino

I think this is pretty self explanatory, as I am a sensational husband.

Whatever This Is

This was sent to me by multiple people.

But wait - ZZ Top

Is that really what happened? Am I misremembering? Or is the story an urban legend?

Does it matter? It’s a fun story and I like that record so, whatever, I’m not gonna look it up.

This Lone Cloud at Sunset

But wait - Weezer

Listening again… Is the whole track distorting or is it just the guitar and it makes it seem like the whole track is distorting?

And did Rivers really say all that about writing hits? I’m remembering a conversation from like 25 years ago.

I’d really love to stop thinking about this.

Old Movies and Mr Fox

I watched The Getaway (not great) and the ‘94 remake of the Getaway (fine, I guess, but worth seeing for Michael Madsen’s insane extensions-based mullet) and China Town (excellent, duh) and Three Days of the Condor (one of my faves) and Jeremiah Johnson (good, but not as good as I remembered). Next week: probably The Conversation.

But I had never clocked that that moment in Fantastic Mr Fox when they see the wolf and stare for a while and then raise a hand is like a total copy/homage to the end of Jeremiah Johnson.

It is, right?

☝️ Go to about :50

☝️ Go to about 1:00

Raven Feather

Part of the reason I stopped writing for a while is because my dad went on ahead. Yesterday, our lovely landladies left a nice note for me on our doorstep. They are so kind. They included a raven tail feather they found in the arroyo behind our houses, presumably from the raven pair that returns to the same nest each year in the top of one of the big ponderosas. There are a lot of claims of symbolism for raven feathers. I don’t need any of them. I just think it’s nice. Very nice, indeed.

What did you enjoy this week? I’d love to know. Leave it in the comments - thanks!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK! ✌️❤️🤘

Your pal,

Robert

2024 / Nov 18-24