Godly ManCrush

Here's a song that Aaron Johnstone and I wrote at the Tasmanian Christian Convention, over the new year. It was recorded by Anthony Rochester at the Winter Palace. It took me a bloody long time to work out how to get it to play on my blog, but hopefully it will. Let me know if it doesn't work.

Just to give the song a bit of context: it was written for a "talent" night at the aforementioned convention and is about one of the speakers, Paul Harrington. And it's called 'Godly ManCrush'.

Singers that are an acquired taste

Sometimes it takes a little while to warm to a singer's voice. For example:

Bob Dylan - The classic. So many people can't get over his voice; they see it as an obstacle to overcome, in order to get to the music. I actually love it - even the weird "lay lady lay" variant.

Neil Young - Sounds a little bit like Kermit the frog but his voice adds so much emotion to the songs.

Kate Bush - I can remember hating her voice when I first heard it; I thought it sounded so over the top. Now I think it's brill.

Ben Kweller - It took me a while to get into his music because it sounded to me like he was putting on that singing voice. I'm used to his voice now, and I think he's pretty genuine.

Joanna Newsom - Sort of sounds like she could be deaf, or a bit special, if you know what I mean. Her odd voice adds an interesting texture to her music (which is already interesting enough).

Anyone that's a little bit country.

Great Final Songs

By "great final songs", I don't mean just a good song that happens to be the final track on the album. I'm referring to good songs that are a fitting end to the album; songs that seem to know what the previous 10 or so songs have been doing.

An album's closing song is, quite often, a bit different to the rest of the album. Sometimes it foreshadows the sound of the next album. I think the perfect final song has to be in response to a near perfect album. Otherwise it's just a good song, and you could just download it from iTunes.

Here are some great final songs that spring to mind:

Mothers Of The Disappeared - U2, The Joshua Tree
Although the big hits are found at the beginning of this classic album, it still finishes strongly with this mesmerising song.

Find The River - REM, Automatic For The People
This album finishes on a great note thanks to this beautiful song.

Indifference - Pearl Jam, VS
A great rock album and one of the finest things to come out of the grunge era; Pearl Jam's 'VS' closes with a slightly eerie, depressing but excellent song. Musically, this album is reasonably varied so it doesn't seem out of place at all.

Rock n Roll Suicide - David Bowie, Ziggy Stardust
This song has a very conclusive vibe to it. The opening chords sound so perfect after the big riff based rock tracks that precede it. Lyrically, it is a great epilogue to the album's story. Probably my favourite Bowie song.

A Day In The Life - The Beatles, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
This would have to be high up on any "best closing tracks of all time" list. After you hear this song, it doesn't matter how many silly songs there are on this album, 'A Day In The Life' redeems them.

You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed
An epic ballad - always a great way to close an album. This perfect album finishes as strongly as at starts (Gimme Shelter), with one of the Rolling Stone's best.

Street Spirit (Fade Out) - Radiohead, The Bends
This is probably one of the most sombre songs ever recorded. But it brings the album to a close, leaving you a little bit numb in the process.

Desolation Row - Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited
An 11 minute, heavily poetic, exercise in surrealism would not be the average person's choice to put on the end of a rock n roll album. But it works brilliantly. I reckon it's a better song than 'Like a Rolling Stone'.

Can you think of any others?

Drag your blanket blindly

Most of the time, writing music or being "in a band", is considered cool. It doesn't matter what kind of job you have; you can be a doctor, lawyer, shelf-stacker, plumber, prostitute - you can still do music on the side. In fact, if you're serious about making music, it will alter people's perceptions of your crummy job; if you work at a supermarket but write songs on the side, your choice of occupation is justified because you clearly have a passion. If you just work at a supermarket and don't aspire to anything else then you're considered a loser/bum/loserbum.

It seems an exception however, if you are a church minister or a youth pastor and you do a bit of songwriting or band practise on the side, then your credibility crumbles. A guitar playing pastor just seems painfully uncool. I think there are few reasons for this:

1. With any other job you have the convenience of being able to say that music is more important to you than your profession, i.e. "I don't like my job that much, I just do it to enable myself to play music". You can't really do that if you're a pastor, and you'd have to question the motives of any pastor that gives up his church in order to focus more on his band. With a pastor, music will always be a secondary passion, and I suppose this makes it seem less genuine.

2. I automatically think of the most cheesy, middle-aged, Hawaiian shirt-wearing pastor that's ever lived. If you do that, it's easy to assume that any pastor is just using music to try to feel young again.

3. Pastors are Christians, therefore they will be in Christian bands. And Christian bands are terrible.

4. Some people are suspicious of church workers, so they might think there's an agenda attached to their musical hobby. And some of the time, this might actually be the case.