14 October 2021 - BØRNS - Electric Love

I am sitting here, writing this a week in advance.  I have a very busy week next week, so I want to make sure I get every last post to you.  

This 2014 song - which was certified platinum and has hit the charts a FEW times - was the debut single by BØRNS, who is, with that special character, American.  Go figure.  More recently, this song was featured in a TikTok challenge to kiss your best friend.  That is something I wholeheartedly recommend.  

The song has been described as "viral".  It is a funky, strangely beautiful love song, a throwback to the days of glam rock.  It grabs the listener with a haunting rhythm and drops right into a throbbing bassline.

Somehow, with a full band in a live performance, the song is even funkier and grander.

13 October 2021 - The Box Tops - The Letter

Do you know that feeling when your baby is back at home and you're not, and she lets you know she's missing you as badly as you are missing her, and you have to just get to her as fast as possible - so fast that a train won't cut it?

So does Alex Chilton, who perfectly put that feeling to music. He didn't write the song - Wayne Carson did - but the gruff, bluesy take that Chilton had on the song is the first and still the greatest.  

12 October 2021 - MGMT - Electric Feel

Look, I still say the Katy Perry version is better.  It objectively is. 

That does not make the MGMT version of this song, the original, not good.  It is.  Really good.  It is a trippy, fuzzed up trip that served as the group's first worldwide hit.  

The song - an electric tale of love - is incredibly complex, and takes a fair bit of skill to perform.  Which is why it's really impressive to see performed live.  

11 October 2021 - Carpenters - Top Of The World

This song, co-written by Richard Carpenter, went to #1 for 2 weeks in 1973.  And, it wasn't even supposed to be a single -  it was an album cut that ended up being a COUNTRY hit for Lynn Anderson when she covered it herself.   

Lyrically, it's little more than a really simple love song - but isn't that what love is all about?  Musically, although there's a full orchestra as part of the backing band, the song is dominated by the Wurlizer electric piano.  Karen Carpenter's earnest, wholesome delivery really sells the song.  

8 October 2021 - Love Positions - Into Your Arms

Just to say it, The Lemonheads version of this song is the definitive version.  

However, Robyn St. Clare of Australian jangle-pop band The Hummingbirds wrote the song.  She and fellow Hummingbird and future Lemonhead (he brought the song with him) Nic Dalton recorded this song as part of their side project, Love Positions.  The song is incredible simple.  It's a love song that succintly expresses the feeling of warmth and security one finds in true love.

The original arrangement of the song is sparse - St. Clare on vocal, Dalton on guitar.  There's a lot of beauty in the light arrangement.

7 October 2021 - Berlin - Take My Breath Away

When this song came out, Berlin hadn't been heard from much in a couple of years - and had never had a top 20 hit, although a few of their songs (most recently "No More Words") had been minor US hits. 

This song was different.  The love theme from the movie Top Gun, it won the Academy Award for songwriter Giorgio Moroder - who was asked by Jerry Bruckheimer to write the song for the film.

Berlin was not the first choice for the song - The Motels, actually - but when they passed, Moroder thought of Berlin - he had produced "No More Words".  and, frankly, he made the right choice. Teri Nunn was more than capable of what is considered to be one of the greatest key changes in music history (time code: 2:48), something Martha Davis of The Motels could not do. 

The song itself is one that is well known to this day.

6 October 2021 - Lights - Timing Is Everything

I wasn't planning on a Lights post for a while.  I mean, #1000

Then she posted this on Instagram:

  

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A post shared by Lights (@lights)

HOW can I ignore this?  Even if I'm a couple of days late.  

You see, Lights's sophmore album, Siberia, was released on October 4th, 2011.  It's ten years old. And I had a complete blind spot to it - largely because I didn't really (at the time) love her first album.  My former co-author Scott quite famously called me out on this.  In fact, I didn't discover this record until THIS YEAR. 

Before I wrote this post, I did something I don't do very often anymore to any album.  I listened to Siberia end to end.   It has quickly become one of my favorite albums, ever, and this listening didn't do anything to change that.  It is both dark and, well, light at the same time.  The music is stark and brooding at points, but Lights's vocal and lyrics bring the tone way up.

This is a song I often forget is on Siberia and was reminded of on my listening. The title gives the subject away - often in life, things happen - LOVE happens - when the timing is right and two people with different trajectories come together in the same point in time.  It is a beautiful and meaningful work of art.