Spotify Sunday: Democracy is Overrated

Democracy in music is overrated. I’d far rather suffer under the tyrannical dictatorship of John Peel, than reside in the democratic republic of X-Factor. I’d also be thrilled and delighted to be your musical despot for the next 47 minutes.

Trouble – Cat Stevens
My dad was terrible for borrowing records from people and not giving them back. As a child, I found an intriguing copy of Cat Stevens’ Mona Bone Jakon on permanent loan, presumably from my Uncle, secreted amongst my dad’s Beatles and Stones LPs. Being an inquisitive little so-and-so, I thought I’d give it a spin. I still spin it regularly and would encourage others to do likewise.

In Every Dream Home a Heartache – Roxy Music
This is from For Your Pleasure, another album I inherited from my father. Like the previous Cat Stevens album, it was also acquired by nefarious means, 30 years before anyone had thought up the digital economy act. A cycling Farifsa provides a lengthy introduction for Bryan Ferry to opine in the style of Kevin McLeod on Grand Designs. It eventually turns into a love song for an inflatable doll and climaxes with Phil Manzanera’s reverberating electric guitar. Love it.

Each Small Candle - Roger Waters
I have a suspicion that we can be most impacted by music at the impressionable age of around 15. By this age, I was instantaneously squandering each week’s pocket money at my local record shop and had just completed my goal of acquiring a complete Pink Floyd back catalogue.

In those days, record shops often received shipments of new albums some time prior to the release date (or at least my local record shop seemed to). In return for religiously handing over my pocket money to the friendly record shop owner every Saturday morning (or every two weeks if I was saving up for a double LP), I was richly rewarded.

One Saturday he quietly passed me a copy of Pink Floyd’s latest album, The Final Cut, under the counter, a week before its official release date. I loved it. I played it continuously. I anxiously rushed home from school to get my next fix of Waters’s beguiling political lyrics and Gilmour’s squealing Stratocaster as I meticulously studied the sleeve notes.

Listening to the album now it sounds much more like a Roger Waters solo album than a Pink Floyd album, and it’s all the better for it in my opinion. Despite the Falklands War references and Thatcher laden lyrics igniting my young political thoughts, I have instead opted for a later Waters composition whose lyrics resonate even deeper.

Each Small Candle was inspired by a news story during the Kosovo War in which an Albanian soldier temporarily laid down his arms to help a Serbian Babushka with a crying baby in her arms. If these lyrics fail to raise the hairs on the back of your neck, then I would have to call your humanity into question. The title is also curiously evocative of Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World – Science as a Candle in the Dark. I often wonder if that is perhaps not coincidental.

I’m Your Man – Leonard Cohen
Although this dour love song isn’t particularly religious, Cohen’s initial fascination for me was his deadpan delivery of his beautifully poetic vision of religion and blowjobs. Although I no longer subscribe to the former, Cohen’s religious lyrics still dazzle me: a perfect example of how music, like Gothic architecture, remains beautiful even when detached from the irrational superstitions that initially inspired it.

 (I Can’t Get Me No) Satisfaction – Devo
Despite being partial to the occasional piece of pretentious prog rock twiddling, I found the violent musical tremors in London and New York that caused the great punk rock tsunami of 1976 very refreshing. Perhaps the most curious act to surf the post-punk new wave was a group of boiler-suited musical satirists from Ohio. Devo artistically stripped down the Stones’ classic Satisfaction to a clean, bright and jerky mantra with nicely squared off musical corners. How overdue is a second punk purge?

Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then) – The Decemberists
I’m a sucker for a good yarn. The Decemberists’ Hazards of Love from 2009 was the first rock opera to fully engage me since Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Its dark fairytale images intertwine with the musical themes of each character from the gentle folk of our hero and heroine to the slow classic rock pounding of the evil Queen. But the problem with concept albums is that it’s hard to take a single song out of context and retain the magic of the whole, so I’ve selected instead a catchy little ditty from their previous album, The Crane Wife.

Jolene – The White Stripes
The thought that the generation of untidy, angst-ridden kids sporting Kurt Cobain T-shirts is now being supplanted by neatly groomed youth with Justin Bieber nail varnish makes me shudder. I therefore have a nasty little habit of ranting against much of the banal commercial muzak emerging from Saturday night TV ‘talent’ shows.

But that doesn’t mean I think we’re currently bereft of musical talent. Perhaps the best example of this is Jack White. Jack’s work with The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and the Dead Weather has been my musical highlight of the past decade. Picking a single Jack White song has been particularly tricky, and my choice has changed numerous times, even since starting to write this. The current winner, however, is The Whites Stripes’ screeching live cover of ‘Jolene’.

Your Protector – Fleet Foxes
The eponymous debut Fleet Foxes album, with its sumptuous vocal harmonies, is mellifluous chamber pop at its very, very best. Shortly after its release, this album became the soundtrack to my morning commute, as I plugged myself into it as soon as I’d found a vacant seat on the train. Their new album is out next month. Very excited.

Easy Money – Nick Cave
Despite Nick Cave’s impressive catalogue of work, Abattoir Blues / The Lyre of Orpheus is the album I cherish the most. It’s actually a brace of albums resplendent in their hessian-bound box that transverses beautifully dark and tuneful chaos to elegant little gems like Easy Money.

Meet Me in the Morning – Bob Dylan
Led Zeppelin, Roy Harper and Bob Dylan are normally mandatory on any playlist I compile. Alas, I found Spotify sadly unwilling to help me in this regard. I did, however, manage to hunt down a copy of the ever-brilliant ‘Meet Me in the Morning’ – originally from my favourite Dylan album, Blood on the Tracks – quietly loitering on a soundtrack album. 

You can listen to the playlist  HERE.

Crispian Jago writes the 2011 Orwell Prize Longlisted blog, Science, Reason and Critical Thinking where he waves a shitty stick in the general direction of Irrational Nonsense. He is the vice president of the Hampshire Skeptics Society and co-convenor of Winchester Skeptics in the Pub. He is a compulsive record collector and when he doesn't have any spare time, he's a Freelance IT consultant.

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