Silversun Pickups Play “Lazy Eye”

Listen to this track by four-piece Los Angeles-based indie-rock purveyors Silversun Pickups. It’s “Lazy Eye” a well-known cut from their 2006 debut record Carnavas. It served as lead single to that release, appearing in February of the following year and being a feature on their late-night TV appearances on Letterman, Leno, and a phalanx of other shows of the period. The song’s video was a stand-out, set at an all-ages music venue, and fraught with tension between youthful patrons. The song even appeared as a playable tune for the Guitar Hero and Rock Band video games, and therefore etching itself even deeper into the cultural consciousness of the mid-to-late 2000s.

“Lazy Eye” rides on a Smashing Pumpkins meets Neu! style motorik beat, locked in with earnest focus. Singer, guitarist, and co-writer Brian Aubert’s voice spans the spectrum of low-key contemplation to an angry roar, all of that wrapped in a restrained and ambient soundscape of guitars, bass, drums, and whisps of electronic effects that drift in and out, showing that the palette of guitar-based indie-rock was just as diverse and expansive as any genre.

The groove is mesmeric with the words adding value for the way they sound as much as they are a means to convey the story. And what a powerful story it is. Its exceptionally compelling opening statement really hits the ground running on that score: I’ve been waiting for this moment all my life. But it’s not quite right. That set of lines contains whole worlds of emotional geography. And what about the titular Lazy Eye, anyway? Is it meant to be literal, or does it imply something that’s more symbolic? Interestingly, the answer is a resounding yes on both fronts.

First, the lazy eye was real. Aubert had one as a kid; a bad time to have anything about you that other kids can point out and label you with. It’s not the physical nature of the thing that’s the focus. It’s about how you feel when you’re stuck with it, and how you then perceive the effect it has on other people.

In turn, it’s about how the lowest common denominator responds to that thing that makes us an object of their curiosity or revulsion. This is one of those things that lives in the province of uncomfortable self-consciousness that we all experience, especially when we’re young. For Aubert at one point, it was a lazy eye. But it could have been anything and can be for anyone.

In this, “Lazy Eye” joins a tradition of pop songs that is all about what it feels like to be young and in a world where one feels everything very keenly. Being young often involves struggles which are imbued with life and death urgency experienced from the inside out. It means big overwhelming feelings that bear down on the way that we think about ourselves and our place in the world. It connects with how we believe other people may or may not think of us and with many blurry lines in between. Big Star’s “Thirteen” and even The Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t it be Nice” hover around these same themes.

“Lazy Eye” keenly locks into this mindset: to suddenly, and for the first time in our lives, come to an awareness that we are presenting ourselves to others whether we wish to do that or not. This is one of those things we do not miss as we get older, even if we may miss so many other things about being young; to experience big emotions that include feeling exposed to the world and finding that we don’t have the capacity to really understand where those feelings come from, what they mean, or what to do with them.

Further to that, the song also touches on another malady profoundly felt by the young and in some ways can stick with us beyond our youth, too; everyone has it all figured out but me.

“Everyone’s so intimately rearranged
Everyone’s so focused clearly with such shine
Everyone’s so intimately prearranged
Everyone’s so focused clearly with such shine …
That’s why I said I relate
I said we really
Need to fight to relate.”

~ “Lazy Eye” by Silversun Pickups

In a state of mind like that, the common advice to just be yourself, kid seems hollow and distant. It’s a chasm apart from where we find ourselves while young and unused to managing or even recognizing the difference between our true selves and the costumes we feel we have to wear to fit in, to fight to relate.

“Lazy Eye” captures so much of the feeling of youthful uncertainty, with the narrator imbuing the moment he’s waited for all his life with the importance of scaling Everest. Really, it seems like the scene he’s experiencing is really about finally getting to talk to that person he likes while feeling like he’s messing it all up; I like this person so much and everything I’m saying to them right now sounds so stupid. Perhaps it’s the song’s video that conveys that scenario more overtly than any hard-coded lines in the song itself. But otherwise, what is more indicative and uncomfortably relatable to how it feels to be young and unsure of oneself than that?

Besides the groove, which is undeniable on a musical level, this lyrical distillation of youthful awkwardness and earnestness hits dead center. It’s well-observed. But it’s also full of empathy, too. Most of us felt some form of it when we were young, and more of us feel it when we’re older to a greater degree than we’d perhaps like to admit.

When we cast our minds back to the heady days of youth, we either edit it out or inwardly (sometimes outwardly!) cringe when we recall some of the things we’ve said, thought, or did. But awkwardness and clumsiness in social situations is just as much a part of the human experience as anything. In many ways, it’s a vital part of our apprenticeships as well-adjusted people, even if it never entirely goes away.

Silversun Pickups are an active band today. You can learn more about their output and their recent movements at silversunpickups.com.

For more on this tune, here’s a video about its background from the band themselves.

Enjoy!

#2000sMusic #IndieBands #IndieRock #SilversunPickups #songsAboutChildhood

Wheatus Play “Teenage Dirtbag”

Listen to this track by former high school metalheads turned radio-friendly chart champions from New York, Wheatus. It’s “Teenage Dirtbag”, their signature hit as taken from 2000’s self-titled release. The song made an international splash when it was released as a single in the summer of that year, scoring top ten placements in regions from North America, to the UK, to Australia as a rallying cry to teenage dirtbags everywhere, former and otherwise. As it turned out, the theme was pretty universal.

“Teenage Dirtbag” is a compelling story song about young love, bullying rivals, feelings of invisibility, and also how young people (and people in general!) so often misjudge each other due to outward appearances. That’s the main takeaway here on this song; that just because you think that person doesn’t even know you’re alive, it doesn’t mean it’s true and that they also aren’t into the same kickass music you’re into. As it turns out, sometimes you don’t know they’re alive in quite the way you thought, and to discover that they are is its own reward. So, this is a tale of insecurity that ends pretty happily.

Saying that, “Teenage Dirtbag”‘s sunny sheen actually came from a source that was much, much darker and very much a product of the times – the early 1980s, that is.

For kids in the 1980s, the way people dressed defined their identities to a polarizing degree and often along musical lines. This was the age when you couldn’t publicly like Duran Duran and AC/DC. You had to choose. This certainly included costuming associated with musical genres and their proponents, also pretty evenly aligned with one’s own perceptions of one’s own identity; a prep, a punk, a new waver, a dirtbag, etc. Among hormonal teens, trying to work out one’s identity by way of outward indicators and role models in pop culture only stood to reason. That’s a teenager’s job; to figure out who they are and who they’re going to be.

But unfortunately at that time, musical genres, imagery, and costuming as they shaped youth culture had implications beyond the social ecosystem of high schools. Some of that spread to senate hearings, public policy, court appearances, and news coverage. Gender fluidity and questions of sexual orientation presented by Culture Club, Eurythmics, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, and other bands aside for a moment (a whole other thing!), it was primarily heavy metal music and hard rock that were (literally!) demonized in the press. This was in no small part due to Evangelical Christianity’s rise in political power under Ronald Reagan and the influence that had on public discourse when it came to so-called morality in popular media.

This was during the beginnings of a period now known as The Satanic Panic; a series of baseless conspiracy theories about widespread devil worship in part associated with the music and imagery of bands like Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, and yes, Iron Maiden, among many others. Musicians and songwriters actually ended up in court as parent groups and other axe-grinders tried to make names for themselves by reflexively linking the influence of heavy metal music to cases of teen suicide and supposed ritual murder. A lot of these same conspiracies persist today in various forms. But from the early to mid 1980s, they routinely made mainstream headlines.

It was an early memory of this period that served as the initial reason that Wheatus creative head Brenden B. Brown wrote “Teenage Dirtbag”. Interviewed by thebrag.com, Brown said:

“It came from the summer of 1984 on Long Island, when I was 10 years old. That summer in the woods behind my house, there was a Satanic, drug-induced ritual teen homicide that went down; and the kid who did it was … wearing an AC/DC t-shirt. That made all the papers, and the television, obviously; and here I was, 10 years old, walking around with a case full of AC/DC and Iron Maiden and Metallica – and all the parents and the teachers and the cops thought I was some kind of Satan worshipper.”

-Brenden B. Brown, thebrag.com (Read the whole article)

So, what’s an Iron Maiden-loving kid supposed to do in that environment? What was it like for a child to be perceived as some kind of mindless adherent to a demonic conspiracy? That, or to be thought of as morally pliable and easily led, susceptible to being drawn into some unspeakable act of violence? What happens to a kid’s sense of self, fragile as it is, when tarred with that horrendous brush and placed under constant suspicion by the adult world?

By the time Brown wrote the song in time for its release in 2000, he had an adult’s perspective on what fueled that hostile media environment; the usual suspects of prejudice, ignorance, and fear. This is not to mention the disingenuous intentions around issues that had no real basis in fact but provided plenty of exposure on national and even international stages for people to build reputations for themselves.

One of the great things about “Teenage Dirtbag” is that it took that set of negative childhood experiences and turned it into something truly life affirming. This is a song about discovering oneself and others through meaningful connections and self-determined realizations. It’s a love song to any kid trying to work out who they are along these same lines. It’s also about a refusal to be maligned because of who one is as determined by what one likes or is perceived to like and that preferences, presentations, and identities shouldn’t be judged without considering a person’s full humanity and the value of their experiences.

In this, the song is taking back what was taken away from a kid in Long Island who couldn’t understand why grown adults feared his musical preferences and the way he dressed. But it’s also for anyone who longs to be accepted for who they are, with the acknowledgement that outward appearances will only take us so far to truly knowing who a person really is. And for those who can’t see any of that due to fears and prejudices, well, they don’t know what they’re missing.

Wheatus is an active rock ‘n roll band today with a whole catalogue of music to enjoy beyond their signature song. You can find out more about their story, their work, and upcoming tour dates by visiting wheatus.com.

For more background on the legacy of the Satanic Panic, and how it’s still playing out today in renewed forms, here’s an interview with Talia Lavin – writer, social critic, and author of the book Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America.

Enjoy!

#2000sMusic #radioHits #songsAboutChildhood #songsAboutIdentity #Wheatus

Listen to this track by Britpop forefathers and British cultural envoys The Kinks. It’s “Come Dancing”, a huge comeback hit for them that appears on their 1982 record State of Confusion. After spending a chunk of the Seventies as an arena rock band, and scoring less of a return than their peers in that format despite great songs and albums, head writer Ray Davies considered his one-time niche as a songwriter who told stories infused with affection and warmth for down to earth English life. He sought to write a new song that returned to that approach. With “Come Dancing”, The Kinks brought it all back home (literally!), resulting in their biggest hit since 1970.

Label bosses at Arista were initially pretty twitchy about releasing it as a single. They feared that the British music hall references to the local palais would fly over the heads of North American listeners. The band must have felt a sense of déjà vu with these kinds of sentiments about their music which, since at least 1965, had leaned into its celebration of British culture. But this time, what listeners responded to on a global scale was the story this song tells, set in an innocent, idealized world of cuddles and pecks on the cheek after a Saturday night of cutting a rug with a date. What could be as relatable as that on both sides of the pond and everywhere else, particularly by the more jaded age of the early Eighties?

“Come Dancing” was a smash success for the Kinks. But it was more than just a comeback hit. For songwriter Ray Davies and also his lead guitarist brother Dave, this song about a free-spirited sister going out to dance held a deeply personal meaning for them, too, attached to circumstances that were less than joyful.

To set the scene musically speaking, “Come Dancing” is a seamless amalgam of modern rock music as it meets with vintage R&B, big band music, and even a hint of ska and calypso. This musical mélange is the perfect backdrop to a compelling narrative that makes “Come Dancing” one of the greatest story-songs of the 1980s, if not for all time. It definitely made for a great video starring Ray as a pencil-mustachioed London chancer on the make. This was during a crucial time for bands who were seeking to make an impact on new audiences on MTV and other video channels.

The heavy rotation of the music video certainly helped to make this song a memorable hit of the era. It helped to raise The Kinks’ profile during a period when it was time for them to capitalize on the momentum created by the popularity of cover versions of their songs. This included The Pretenders (“Stop Your Sobbing”), The Jam (“David Watts”), Van Halen (“You Really Got Me”, “Where Have All the Good Times Gone?”), and others who paid homage to The Kinks’ place in the rock firmament.

As for “Come Dancing”, the song’s story is as fictional as the idealized 1950s world it conjures. However, Ray and Dave really did have an older sister who loved to dance. Rene, who was 18 and 22 years their senior respectively, married and moved to Canada when the brothers were still children. Rene returned on occasion to visit with her family in Fortis Green, North London; the site of the Davies family home. During one visit, she invested in a Spanish guitar coveted by her younger brother Ray. She gave it to him on on June 21st, 1957; his thirteenth birthday. Rene did this not knowing that one day he’d write a hit song in tribute to her. But she wouldn’t get a chance to hear it.

As much as she loved to dance, Rene had a weak heart due to an illness she suffered when she was a child. On that same visit back to Fortis Green, and on a night out dancing the same day she’d given Ray his present, she died of a heart attack. Ray talked about the impact of these events that were so closely grouped together.

She was an artist herself and seeing her go that way and the impact it had on the family, I didn’t realize what a watershed it was. She gave me my first guitar, which was quite a great parting gift. On the piano she played, the day she died — I wrote most of my early hits in that same room. It’s where I was born, in that room.

-Ray Davies of the Kinks, NPR.org, November 26, 2014
(read the whole article)

The song that came out of his memories of his sister and the world she inhabited had been in Ray’s head for some time. He’d written a sketch of it on a Casio keyboard months before, and then filled out the whole arrangement and laid down the track in his Konk Studios in late 1982. This was in preparation for the single’s release in November of that year. Yet it’s easy to think that the song existed in his artistic brain for far longer before that, going back to his earliest inclinations to write music and form a band.

With the memory of his sister, her artistry, her generosity and supportiveness, all captured in the moment before she went out for a night of dancing never to return, “Come Dancing” redeems the feelings associated with that terrible loss. It celebrates his sister Rene by giving her the life she should have had; married and living on an estate while having to manage her own daughters in the same way her mother had for her, staying up to wait for them when they came home late from a happy night out.

Overall, “Come Dancing” is a time capsule to a memory and an era long gone. It’s also a way to keep a beloved person and her world preserved for all time. In a present time where treasured sites of great personal and cultural importance are so casually knocked down, making way for supermarkets and then car parks instead, it can seem as if those wonderful locations never existed at all. In the end, perhaps that’s what all great pop music helps us to do; remember the worlds and people we’ve left behind along with the physical and emotional geography they continue to represent for us.

As for the Kinks, the boost to their profile that “Come Dancing” provided was their last hurrah as a charting band in the top twenty. Original Kinks drummer Mick Avory left the group in 1984, happy that they’d scored one more big hit song and by virtue of that considering it a good time to make his exit. By 1996, and in time for a whole new crop of British guitar bands to namecheck them in interviews, The Kinks broke up, officially.

Ray kept busy with multiple projects. One of those was the 2008 production of Come Dancing, the Musical which extends the life of what the song accomplished as the story of a family, and along with it, the memory of his sister as well.

For more on The Kinks and their mighty, mighty body of work that goes back to 1964 and stretches across musical epochs into the early 1990s, you can check out thekinks.info.

There’s also raydavies.info to consider as well, with Ray being one of the greatest British songwriters of all-time and being an active artist today.

Enjoy!

https://thedeletebin.com/2024/08/05/the-kinks-play-come-dancing/

#80sMusic #RayDavies #songsAboutChildhood #storySongs #TheKinks