Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Best Song Ever: April 2013 (Finals)

Richard & Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out The Lights" vs. Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"

Part of the purpose of this tournament is to advertise these songs to you. Richard Thompson's work is highly touted by critics, with several of his albums landing on official "Best Of" compilation lists. But when would anyone hear his music, besides being a critic? If you haven't encountered his music in your day to day life, how can it possibly live up to the hype that surrounds it when it is brought up? I myself don't own any full RT albums. It can feel like, if you hear that level of hype before you hear the thing itself, you risk being underwhelmed when you finally do experience it. What music could ever truly live up to the dialogue that surrounds a song like this?

But it's beautiful in its simplicity, until it stops being simple. And I want you to know, if you didn't already, that this is a song that could go as far as the others in the semifinals here. It's a song that is within a hair's width of making it to the finals. It has everything I want from a rock song, a menacing riff. Vague, affecting, loaded lyrics delivered with a haunting weight. A solo that seems to exorcise demons. They should teach this one in the school of rock. It is a classic. If you don't know that yet, this is your chance. Losing in this competition doesn't make it go away.

Winner: "Once in a Lifetime"

Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Written All Over Me" vs. The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"

This being my first ever tournament of this kind, I'm trying to find out what I'm really looking for in a finalist. "Written All Over Me" is a great song by a great artist. But it's possible that I need something that stands out from the pack a bit more. True, on the radio, Plaskett is as striking and attention-getting as anything, but in the field of this competition, it's merely great in a sea of legends.

Winner: "Behind Blue Eyes"

Bronze Medal: Joel Plaskett Emergency, "Written All Over Me" vs. Richard & Linda Thompson, "Shoot Out the Lights"
Winner: "Shoot Out The Lights"

Finals: Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime" vs. The Who, "Behind Blue Eyes"

Either you get it or you don't.

That's the name of the game when it comes to music. You can't study it. You can't learn it. You can't teach it. You can try to explain it, discuss it, dissect it. That's, after all, the purpose of this site. But in the end, pop music isn't something you know, it's something you feel.

"Behind Blue Eyes" is such a product of its time and place. That heady time of the early 70s, as prog was crawling out of the swamp of psychedelia and growing legs... as experiments in music were becoming more scientific and less psychological. "Behind Blue Eyes" was to be a centerpiece of Pete Townshend's Lifehouse project, explaining the villain's persona and his motivation. But it appeared instead on "Who's Next," with other Lifehouse castoffs like "Baba O'Riley" and proto-prog future CSI themes like "Won't Get Fooled Again." It's a pretty perfect song. The lyrical details are well chosen. It starts out mellow and folksy, and hits that hard and heavy spot at just the right point. It doesn't seem ashamed of being a rock song, albeit an ambitious one. Without any context, it manages to somehow thrive, leaving you to fill in the details for yourself.

I've never had much context for "Once in a Lifetime," either. None is provided. I've never wondered. It's such a perfect collection of phrases. "And you may ask yourself: How did I get here? ... / Letting the days go by / Water flowing underground / Into the blue again / After the money's gone / Once in a lifetime..." Is it a screed against the mundanity of everyday life, of settling down and losing opportunities? No.

Because it's not really about what it's about. It's not instructive. It's barely even food for thought. It just is. What great pop music does is create or enshrine phrases and feelings that had no form or voice before, and leaves them there to be taken up by audiences, hopefully year after year. It's the selling of a feeling. And of this entire list, no song, I think, embodies a feeling as well as "Once in a Lifetime."

There are other ways to judge which would have been the best. There might be a version of this tournament where this song didn't make it past the second round. I don't think anyone who thinks about music enough to stick with a series like this could deny that "Once in a Lifetime" is absolutely worthy of a victory like this. I don't know who exactly can put their finger on the real meaning of this song, why it says what it does the way that it does, with sound textures and African polyrhythms and David Byrne's David Byrniest delivery... watching it performed in the film Stop Making Sense feels like the Fantastic Four tapping into the Negative Zone.

I love all the songs in this competition. They all come from a place of appreciation and desire to hear over and over, that's why the picks all came from my iTunes library. "Once in a Lifetime" can then by considered a first among equals... my joyful and willing pick, for what to listen to next. Out of all of April 2013, it is the best song ever.



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