The random element that makes the song right

The great thing about music is that what makes it great isn't always the most obvious feature. In a particular song, the magic ingredient could be the vocal, the music, the words, the tune, the arrangement, the production, the sound, the video, the sleeve, the story that the listener brings to it or the story the singer brought to it.

Sometimes the story doesn’t even have to be true. And the magic ingredient is going to be different for each person…. And it is “the random element that makes the song right” that’s kept me going back to music through the years.

I’m roughly as good at darts and golf as I am at levitation and invisibility, but the thing that will drive you insane about those sports is that you can know all the variables. So if only your own performance were good enough you could get the same perfect result each time. Music doesn’t, thankfully, give you that tortuous, mocking promise…because it’s the random element that makes it wonderful. Music will save you, golf will kill you.

If, like golf and darts, you could control all the variables then, the most powerful form of expression should be words…you should be able to pin a feeling down and describe it so that feeling comes alive.

And if you’ve got the skill, then you should be able to distil it further and pare back the words to stripped down writing, trying to convey an intense feeling. That would make poetry the highest art form. Maybe it is, but it doesn’t work for me.

I’ve always ended up trying to find the meaning in the odd bits in songs, in the awkward little gaps, the elements of chance, happy accidents or just the result of the personalities involved in making the music. These random elements are like the divot on the green or an attack of “dartitis”. It’s how games are won and lost and why some songs win and others don't.

Remember these are the bits that make a great song better. You can over egg a pudding, you can gild the lily but you can’t polish a turd

Radiohead – Creep. That guitar “Thuchuqq”sound on an awkward, offbeat just before each chorus.

Clash – Complete Control. Is this the ultimate Clash single? The best moment for me is Joe Strummer’s yell of “You’re my guitar hero” as Mick Jones breaks the Punk Rock no solos rule. Also love it’s sleeve with it’s close up of the battered speaker cabinet. None more rock! Mick Jones’s backing vocals are worth a mention, as I like the way he’ll just pick out one word to harmonise with eg “At the HOTEL”

Betty Lavette – Easier To Say Than Do. Terrific song, great vocals and classic sixties southern soul arrangement but the thing that I most love about it is you can hear a guide vocal in the background, it sounds like its bleeding through the tape.

The different way that Otis Redding and Percy Sledge approached Try A Little Tenderness. Otis Redding sings an upfront, blustery “Gotta gotta gotta” as the song breaks down before the final fade out. It’s the ultimate Soul Man moment.

When Percy Sledge recorded his version, it sounds like when he came to that same section, he didn't know whether or not to try and out soul the Soul Man. So he ends up squeezing out a "Gotta, gotta "or two before giving up with such a heartfelt groan that it actually works better.

Johnny Cash – Hurt. An astonishing, heartbreaking performance. With it’s bald statement “What have I become.... I will let you down, I will make you hurt” it’s someone else’s addiction song (Cash probably had no idea who Trent Reznor was before it came up as a cover) but sung by a man who knew he was dying. It’s unbeatable, but now for me it’s inseparable from the video, with it’s shots of the ruined Johnny Cash museum and the final shot of the piano lid being closed

Velvet Underground – Here She Comes Now. It’s the muffled claustrophobic sound that defines this record. It’s the sound of thighs clamped round ears and druggy desperation.

Aretha Franklin – Do Right Woman, Do Right Man. There’s a one note organ at the start of the second verse. Now it’s not a better sound than Aretha’s voice, the lazy piano or the Memphis Horns, but that one note just beautifully demonstrates the restraint of the whole sublime arrangement.

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Take It All. Unloved and unremembered Leeds band. This is a single from 1982. At one point the swirling, flanged guitar chords collapse into a brief feedback squeal, leaving a big hole over the bass and drums...completely unintentional, but it is best bit of the record and makes the chorus that follows it sound more tense.

Scritti Politti – The “Sweetest Girl”. The best Pop song about Pop. Beautifully sung, odd, lilting reggae approach but sounding nothing like reggae...(I suspect Culture Club listened very hard to this for Do You Really Want To Hurt Me) the best bit is towards the end where Green sings a second speeded up vocal line against a slowed down vocal which is drenched in reverb for “And you know you never can be told” line.

Dexy’s Midnight Runners - Plan B. The single version has the World’s Best Ever Trombone Solo (That’ll get the message board hot), which is nearly equalled in breathless excitement and gruff guff by Kevin Rowland’s introductory shout. “Jimmy!”

Gram Parsons – $1000 dollar wedding. Terrific song, elevated to maudlin perfection by virtue of it being one of the Gram and Emmylou Harris duets. The best bit is the lyric “He took some friends out drinking and it’s lucky they survived.” Country and Western in 11 words.

Sly Stone – There’s A Riot Goin’ On. I’ll break the rules by including the whole lp. This is an example of where the story around the record not only increases my appreciation of the record but also explains how it sounds. When he recorded this in 1971 the feel good, positive sounding songs of a genuinely multi racial band had dried up and Sly Stone was holed up in his Bel Air mansion surrounded by guns, guard dogs, cocaine paranoia and Black Power politics. I love the sound because it’s murky, and hissy, you can pretty much hear the sound of the amps being switched on. It’s funky in musical style and funky in it’s original dirty meaning. One of the reasons for it’s sound is that Sly was constantly wiping the vocal tracks because he kept picking up women with the promise of singing on his album. Spaced Cowboy has got yodelling on it. Of course.

All the above are great songs by great artists...which leads me to…
Bryan Adams and Mel C – When You’re Gone. What raises this from a turkey twizzler to a sizzler is the bit where Mel C pleads “Don’t Go Bryan”. It makes me laugh so much that I almost forget everything that went before...apart from Everything I Do. Not forgotten, not forgiven