Song of the Day -- Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst -- Kendrick Lamar

It's difficult to know where to begin. Kendrick Lamar was 25 years old when he wrote this song. It is in some ways uncomplicated: a drum track, light keys, vocals, and words. In other ways, it is remarkably complex: it is a 12 minute meditation told through the experiences of at least 8 different people in three parts. It's been nearly a decade, and I keep coming back to it. It truly stands apart. And today, it makes me imagine other young artists I don't know who are making music like this. Incredible. 

Song here

Photo from Vibe

Big Brother -- Jasmine by J'ai Paul

Art by Winwin

In this new series I just wanted to highlight ways my brother has influenced my taste in music by looking at particular songs. Jasmine by Jai Paul is a great place to start. It's smooth. It thumps. It's got a laser filled flying through the future breakthrough in the middle of it. What more could you ask for? 

In an interview with pitchfork, Caribou artist Dan Sniath talked about how the song and the artist just appeared to us, fully formed, seemingly out of nowhere, with a sound that was totally it's own, motoring in it's own direction. You can hear a short history (8 minutes) of Jai Pauls sudden appearance and disappearance here. 

I don't have actual data, science, or history on this, but I also think this song was a seed that helped me get into artists like Elder Island, Bonobo, Caribou, and others in the dance/electronica space. In thinking about it's generation, I think it was probably artists like El Ten Eleven, Kanye West, and the Gorillaz that made me more receptive or brought me closer to this kind of sound. 

Thanks brother. 

Here's Jasmine by Jai Paul. Enjoy. 

Song of the Day -- Heads Up -- Freddie King

Does anything mean anything? What is the purpose of life? If I am meant to live presently, what do I do right now?

I often find myself swirling around in some pretty abstract thoughts. This morning I went looking for some music to write about and shuffled into this one (electronically, although, like my other Freddie King post, this song is pretty toe turning and waist twisting). 

Sometimes it's just fun to have fun. 

Enjoy

Song of the Day -- Birth -- El Ten Eleven

It's probably one of the greatest albums I've never actually listened to all the way through. It's a hard go when you have a song like transitions at the front. 

Anxiety can be tricky. I play a lot of pickup basketball these days. I play too fast. You can see "the game speed up" for me, and I make bad decisions. 

I think there's a lot of wisdom in life to the new things we do being scary, or just overly stimulating, or overly exciting, so we tend to speed up to try to get them over with. In reality, we should probably slow down, work the fundamentals, wait for the right shot, and take it. Worse comes to worse, we pass, reset and learn. 

Making that real happen in real life is tough. But music really helps. I know it's been called the quickening art before, but for me, it helps take that thrum of excitement and feeling I usually have and slow it down; it seems to peg it to a rhythm and give it a melody that soars over that percolation in a way that is predictable, fun and true. 

Here's to excitement, anxiety, and finding something new. 

Song here -- Birth by El Ten Eleven.  

Song of the Day -- Growing Pains III -- Logic

There's a special class of songs that slip into different songs in the middle of themselves. Doin the Cockroach is a little like that with the difference between it's verse and bridge (bridge comes in about 2:00 minutes). Transitions has like five pieces of song woven together than make multiple movements of songs in what's a ten minute epic. But maybe this one is special because it really just flips over right in the middle and is a tight four minutes. It also didn't feel too cheeky or cheesy or gimmicky to me in doing it (I feel like this is something drake does in his songs; yes, here's one March 14th, but again it feels cheesy). 

I do think part of it is the authenticity. The voice whispering a specific name, "what are you thinking about // what are you dreaming about." I say it feels authentic, but that's probably more of a reflection of how I feel about my life, rather than a close analytical assessment of logic as a person and this song. By that I mean, when I get in my own head, I ask myself and wish people would ask me "What are you thinking about // what are you dreaming about?" I think my bar for authenticity is sometimes how much something resonates with my own life experience, or rather, how much of my life experience I can resonate with something. 

I'll also say the transition at around 2:17 feels like a surprise, and also like a photo negative. In my mind it feels like the song just effortlessly pivoted on it's toe and changed direction. It goes from rushing forward to this reflective, floating, inverted world. It's got a below the water anime sound that makes me think of Miyazaki movies. I just love it, and it doesn't feel effortful or forced. I have no idea how it they made it so natural. 

In talking about the song, Logic had this to say

"when you first hear me rapping I'm laying in bed at fifteen years old and all the things racing through my mind, from the eviction notice on my door, you know, just being on food stamps and welfare and not knowing what's going to happen tomorrow and just, all the wonders. And then the beat changes up and I actually fall asleep. So this is my inner-most subconscious thoughts that I didn't even realize at the time, at fifteen years old, but now, you know, at twenty-four and looking back, reminiscing, I know that those are the things that are on my mind, because growing up in that situation, no matter what, um, the only time I was special, the only time I was anybody was when I was asleep. When I was asleep I was a famous basketball player, baseball player, I was a rapper/artist, I was a singer, I was an actor, I was dancer, I was an astronaut, but when I woke up I was just a boy from a broken home, and that- that was very hard to swallow" (from Genius)

Yeah. Wow. The dreams, the childhood music soundtrack. The way it's related to the waking world but inverted. Damn. That's art. Shoutout to the producers:  Tae Beast, Skhye Hutch, Frank Dukes, and 6ix. 

Song here 

Song of the Day -- Olive Branch & Brown Dove -- Spirit Was

One of my favorite part about rainy days lately is that I've given myself license to have as many cups of caffeinated tea as I like before noon. There's such a satisfaction in holding a hot cup of earl gray tea and looking out at a cold, gray, overcast day, and just thinking "ha. got ya fucker." 

There's a similar satisfaction I find in listening to this song. To me, it feels triumphant, and bright, despite seeming to emerge from something enormously heavy. And when the main hook hits it gives me goosebumps--just like a good cup of tea.

Nick also seems like a nice guy. I saw him play with Strange Ranger in 2019. They played most perfect gold of the century together and it was probably a top 10 music moments in my life. In fact, I sent him an email about that and this song and he actually got back to me which was so sweet. Check out his stuff. 

Here is the song

Song of the Week -- Annapurna -- Om

It turns out that your body has slightly more bacteria cells than human cells, but your human cells weigh 230 times more. That's some heavy shit. You know what else is heavy? This song from OM. 

Coming out of the cosmic void at bone crunching, face melting pace (SLOW) this is probably the most underrated album of my life in that I never listened to it all the way through until today right now. And Annapurna, aptly named after a 26.5k mountain, is a 710 second bell ringer. 

Song here

For a particularly screeching rendition hear them play it live at their first show here

Credit to Ron Sender, Shai Fuchs, Ron Milo, and a probable army of grad students for updating that bacteria number. 

Song of the (yester)day -- Paranoia -- Chance the Rapper

I really associate this song with a bleary time of my life. Although the song came out in April 2013, I seem to associate it (if my memory serves me correctly) with hazy winter days spent inside and on break from college. It's interesting to listen to it in a time that feels more clear. I think I don't just hear the song, but I also am "hearing" the associated memories and feelings that come with it too--until about 0:52.  There is something about the rhythm of the words he's saying with that spaced out drum track and "ah!" sound behind him. I don't know enough music theory to know if this really qualifies as polyrhythm, "the simultaneous use of two or more conflicting rhythms" (thank you P.r. Mahesh Kumar) but to my untrained ears it does. That sharp staccato seems to pierce the nostalgia that surrounds the song for me. Instead of listening to the song and thinking about life all of a sudden I'm saying to myself (usually unsuccessfully) "Trapped in the middle of the map with a little-bitty rock and a little bit of rap // that, with a literary knack and a little shitty Mac and like literally jack." 

In terms of composition, the drops, resets, and flip (at about 3:10) make the song really slick for me. The first person narrative about growing up ("mama still washin my clothes") feels very personal. The narrative feels earnest and vulnerable, talking about the reality of gun violence and the feelings of fear, isolation ("They deserted us here"), and trauma ("I hate crowded beaches, I hate the sound of fireworks"). It's a powerful, mournful, song for me, and I found that listening to Coco Butter Kisses (which comes right afterwards) was a real comfort. It's interesting to hear him talk about how the song is about the paranoia that "plagues the city and perpetuates violence." The song is really introspective, and feels like it's trying to explore some interior spaces. The final refrain "I know you're scared, you should ask us if we scared too. If you was there, we would know you care too" feels like it could be many possible voices. The voice of an older chance the rapper to younger children, encouraging people to talk about fear, perhaps as a way of facilitating healing. Perhaps also the voice of a black community to a white community that perpetuates stereotypes of violence and aggression on black bodies and has deserted them. And for the final line, perhaps the voice of those perpetuating the violence, who feel most deserted, and most in need of the reassurance that they are cared for.  

Listen here with a pretty incredible live performance here.

Song of the Day - Runnin' - The Pharcyde

I came back to this one in a funny way. I was looking for a good cover of Mystic Brew by Ronnie Foster for a class playlist, and came across this cover by The Visioneers that I really really like. I'll write a post about that later. As I was scrolling through the discography of The Visioneers, I realized they did other covers of songs covered by hip hop artists (like Smilin' Billy Suite which was used by Nas on the Illmatic track, One Love). I also saw they did a cover of Runnin', which makes sense given the samba-like instrumentation (I can't say that with authority--I really don't know samba music) but I didn't like it as much. I'm surprised they didn't cover the source of the sample, as in their other songs, which in this case would be Saudade Vem Correndo by Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfa. Maybe the sample was too small a portion, or the song just not of interest. 

Anyway, feeling like I remembered the original "Runnin'"  having something that this cover didn't I  pulled it up and gave it a listen. Man. The drums are so strong. And there's just so many layers, between the scratching, the throwing of voices, the actual hook ("Can't keep runnin' awayyyyyyy"), and the rapping--the song is amazing. I love trying to listen to only the kick drums--it feels rhythmic and unpredictable at once. And the way it blends with the base when it drops, melts into the rest of the track, but is still operating its polyrhythmic heartbeat. 

Listening to it again this morning I was overwhelmed by the composition. Everything I named above, and the guitar, the shaker that sounds like a pant-during-running together are just so powerful. It is truly incredible that human beings were able to make this. 

Amid so much uncertainty in the world, and as I grow older and just appreciate how much I don't know, the music comes to me with complete reality and immediacy. It just is. It's a fact. And the way it animates me--it makes me feel in touch with some kind of concreteness about myself. Not unchanging, or rigid, but some actuality. Something that's not an abstraction, not an opinion, something about me that is, and is alive. Listening to it, I thought of the Kurt Vonnegut quote “Music is, to me, proof of the existence of God." Amen. And to extend it, let's be grateful to the prophets past and present who let us hear that existence (if that's how we understand it), particularly in this case, J Dilla, producer and composer, a 20 year old black man from a musical family in Detroit. 

Here's Runnin' by The Pharcyde 

Retrospective -- The Ghost of Tom Joad

I recently picked up a CD copy of The Ghost of Tom Joad someone left in a free pile outside their house. I had always loved the track (the Jose Gonzales / Junip version was particularly memorable and electric for me) and wanted to see what the rest of the album was like. Listening to it with my eyes closed at the end of a winter day in my living room, I was really surprised at how current some of the tracks felt. While the titular tracks lyrics had always felt a little vague or canned to me at points (maybe contributing to how the song continues to be covered and upheld across countries and nationalities) I was surprised at how, after almost 30 years, how relevant the song material was. Covering difficulties with homelessness (Tom Joad), prison re-entry (Straight Time), rust-belt towns (Youngstown), refugees, migrants, seasonal laborers, America for Americans nationalism (Sinaloa Cowboys, Balboa Park, The New Timer, and Galveston Bay), and border crossings (The Line, Across the Border) the album touches on many important social struggles of the 2020s. 

In this small performance of the Ghost of Tom Joad in 2010, Springsteen talks about how "you had a sense where California was in the mid 90s was where the country was going, and it really has." Indeed.  

And also, the same reservations I had about the titular track I also have for the album as a whole. As one example, "The Line" describes in some detail a veteran turned US Border Patrol officer who falls in love with "Louisa" who's been detained "in the holding pen." That line really made me cringe, suspicious of the abuse of women that takes place at the hand of Border Patrol agents, and how the song uses Louisa as a foil to explore an individual mans lost love felt saccharine and to miss the point of protest. Yet, these same things that make me cringe may also be highlighting other truths to be kept in mind: the troubling psychology of saviorship and the way it interacts with race, borders, and gender; or  how one persons existential struggle can be ignored and held instead as the object of another persons pining muse. 

I am reminded of lessons I read in poetry classes that art is not communication, and although it can be a window into the lives of others, it can also at the same time be a mirror into ourselves and a doorway to other experiences (thank you ParentChild+ for introducing me to the terminology of Rudine Simms Bishop, Black scholar, and regarded as the mother of multi-cultural children's literature in the United States). As I consider Tom Joad in this framework, I am compelled to ask "how is this work a window? How is it a mirror? How is it a door?" Taking "The Line" as just one example again, I see a window to some of the analysis I offer above, and a mirror into myself, someone with power, distance, who considers themselves and artist, and in their non-artist work is imperfectly trying to alleviate or prevent suffering in the world, likely doing so along with all the baggage of myself. I also see a door, to go beyond the song and consider more deeply what the experiences (plural) of migrants might be, to question the understanding I think I have of their experience, and to better understand how the reality of border crossings has drastically changed since 1996 and continues to change.   

In this way, I find resonance with the continued life of the titular track--I imagine it continues to be sung and played not because it summarizes all that is to be said about poverty or struggle, but because (even in its imperfection--and perhaps in some part because of its mix of specificity and vagueness) people continue to find it a powerful medium for feeling, and insight, interpersonally and personally. I hold the album in much the same way, and in that way respond to Bruce's own search for meaning which resulted in the album, by making the album a location for and a jumping off point for my own reflections and feelings. 

Thanks Dad -- Jim Hall -- Concierto de Aranjuez

On a long care ride that took me through NYC yesterday I heard an iconic piece of music Concierto de Aranjuez by Joaquín Rodrigo II. I couldn't immediately place it, and realized eventually that I was hearing the original and orchestral version of a song that my father had introduced me to: Jim Halls jazz interpretation. The way the song descends into itself after a faithful interpretation of the opening motif is an absolute delight. That it's Ron Carter on bass only deepens my gratitude. Thanks Dad. 

Song here.