E Glassala Tuffm I Zimbra! - 1/18 show

The lyrics to "I Zimbra" by Talking Heads are nonsense words — or more accurately, they are meaningless words taken from a dadaist phonetic poem (Gadji Beri Bimba). And if you buy the record, you'll find the full lyrics to this song printed there on the sleeve with the other lyrics. The song, meanwhile, is a great dance song, with energetic African beats.

New in the studio this week was Dengue Fever's new album Venus on Earth, which I reviewed for the station. Dengue Fever is doing something no one else in the U.S. is doing, as far as I know: Khmer-language surf-rock. It's common in Cambodia, which was introduced to surf-rock by American G.I.s during the Vietnam war. In any event, foreign-language rock is just my kind of thing, as a linguist-and-music geek. Unusually, though, my favorite song on the album is "Sober Driver", a duet sung in English. The song has a slow, smokey groove, and the lyrics are in the form of a conversation. The verses are sung by the Cambodian lead singer, Chhom; she (as the character in the song of course) is drunk, out late at a party somewhere, and trying to get a ride home from the man she's called. His lines (sung by Zac, guitarist and one of the two American brothers who founded the band) are the refrain, as he complains about being used by her for free rides. Chhom does an excellent job of portraying the girl who flirts and coos to get what she needs from people; she seems helpless (she doesn't know where she is or how she got there), but you get the feeling she's not really all that helpless. Zac, meanwhile, sings his lines almost like a mantra, to remind himself of why he should not give her a ride; he wants to pick her up, but he doesn't want to be used. The song doesn't really resolve the story, leaving you wondering what happens next.

Eric asked me to play "Small Town Boy" by Bronski Beat for him. I didn't think the studio had a copy, so I looked for my own last night and found a 12" remix that I acquired from somewhere. This version is 9 minutes long, and begins much more spare and melancholy than the regular radio cut. The song is very much a product of the late 80's environment for gay rights. The small town boy of the song leaves his small town home to search for love and acceptance in the big city (a story which certainly still plays out even today). The lyrics are really very melancholy: "You leave in the morning with everything you own in a little black case"; "You never cried to them just to your soul" — but the melancholy is counterbalanced by the upbeat dance music underneath. This speaks to the trope of the era, in which a young gay boy comes to the city and finds what he's looking for at the gay dance clubs: the music frees him. So this 9-minute version changes the song a little, by starting with real melancholy, and then coming back again at the faster tempo. Eric and I have decided we prefer the radio edit.

Speaking of melancholy, today I finally got around to playing a song I find very sad: "Soldier's Things", as covered by Holly Cole. I haven't yet heard the original Tom Waits version; some of Cole's Waits covers are very true to the originals, while others are real reinterpretations. I suspect this one is close to the original, because I can't imaging singing this any other way than Cole's slow ballad. Lyrically, it sounds like a song from a musical; it wouldn't be out of place in Les Miserables. (Interestingly, Waits' version appeared recently on the soundtrack to the movie Jarhead.) It's the last lines of the song that get me every time: "Oh and this one is for bravery |And this one is for me | And everything's a dollar | In this box".

Is it the saddest song I played today? You be the judge. There are some others there that give it a run for the money. And it wasn't all sadness today, of course: "Manteca" and "Danger! High Voltage" are nothing but fun.

The playlist:
*: new stuff
(r): requests

artist	song	album	label
Talking Heads	I Zimbra	Once in a Lifetime (Box set)
Dizzy Gillespie	Manteca (The Funky Lowlives Remix)	Verve Remixed²	Verve
*Vampire Hands	Opium Typhoon	Virgin Dust American Lips	Freedom-form
*Bonnie Prince Billy	I Came to Hear the Music	Ask Forgivemess EP	Drag City
Pajo	Oh No No	Pajo	Drag City
Holly Cole	Soldier's Things	Temptation	Alert
*Dengue Fever	Sober Driver	Venus on Earth	M80
Bronski Beat	Smalltown Box	12" Remix	MCA Records
(r)The Electric Six	Danger! High Voltage	Fire	XL
Malcolm Middleton	We're All Going to Die	A Brighter Beat	Full Time Hobby
Ben Folds	In Between Days	Supersunnyspeedgraphic: the LP	Attacked by Plastic/Epic
The Fiery Furnaces	Egyptian Grammar	Widow City	Thrill Jockey
*Mira Bilotte	As I Went Out One Morning	I'm Not There OST	Columbia/Sony
Johnny Cash	Give My Love to Rose	Live from Folsom Prison	Columbia
Woody Guthrie	Black Jack Davie	Worried Man Blues	Special Music
Amália Rodrigues	Não Quero Amar	Lisboa a Noite	Planet Records
*Cass McCombs	Pregnant Pause	Dropping the Writ	Domino
*The Aluminum Group	Headphones	Little Happyness	Minty Fresh
The Other Two	Selfish	The Other Two and You	Qwest/Reprise
Canasta	Busride	We Were Set Up	Broken Middle C
*Karl Blau	If I Died on You	The Second Marriage Records Compilation	Marriage
The Tourists	Circle Fever	Reality Effect	Epic
Patti Smith	Dancing Barefoot	Land (1975-2002)	Arista
*The Vandelles	Swell to HEaven	The Vandelles	Safranin Sound
*Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble	Cause and Effect	Black Unstoppable	Delmark
Kronos Quartet	El Llorar	Nuevo	Nonesuch

Labels: music, playlists

posted by Tony at 1:56 PM