Tinker Toy

Tinker Toy – A Playlist Of Love

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I have a playlist called Tinker Toy; do you remember those?

You could build so much from the hub-and-spoke simplicity of the pieces. You had to be careful though because if you tried to build something too big without first establishing a strong base, your creation would crumple down on top of itself under its own weight.

I thought of the songs that would go on this playlist as the wooden hubs. These were the strongest parts of the structure and they would be represented by the songs I shared with various partners in various relationships over the years.

The spindly wooden pieces connecting the hubs would represent the passage of time and how some hubs were well supported because they had a lot of spindly bits underneath them and other hubs would be hanging way out there, sticking out from the main structure at odd angles, without the benefit that time and experience can give all relationships.

Maybe I put too much thought into a playlist title. Maybe this is all a stretch. But it means something to me and having just celebrated Valentine’s Day with my forever Valentine last night, I wanted to take a stroll down memory lane a bit and, if nothing else, these wooden sticks and wheels can provide the structure for this post. 🙂

Bif Naked – Lucky

I’ve written about this song before when we were doing the CanRock Advent calendar and it takes me back to my first date with a girl I dated for a short while in University.

Shooting pool, eating nachos, flirting hard and this song comes on and we both just kind of sit there and look at each other, knowing that the friendship we had been forming was taking a huge step that night.

We kissed before we got back to the car and this song would be played regularly throughout our relationship. It’s just sexy. And seeing Bif Naked at Call The Office in London perform it live just made it that much more special to us.

Even though we only dated for a few months, that relationship and this song are one of the base pieces of the whole tinker toy tower. I learned a lot from that relationship and as much as it hurt when it ended, it made me a better person for it.

 

Coldplay – The Scientist

Don’t worry, we aren’t getting melodramatic and emo about every song on this list. I’m also not going to detail every one of the 26 songs.

This one is simply fun because it came on one day and I proceeded to just keep living my life and move backwards during the entire song.

It’s become one of those running couple jokes with my Forever Valentine that only the people in the couple think is charming.

 

Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Follow You Into The Dark

This one holds a lot of sentimental value and was on a number of playlists and mix tapes shared by my first wife and I. Not only a very pretty song but we truly believed we’d be together until the very end.

We also traveled to both Bangkok and Calgary together, so that particular lyric was always one that made the song a little special for us.

 

Grandaddy – Jed’s Other Poem

Another early oughts soundtrack staple for me. The lyrics have nothing to do at all with any relationship and my significant other at the time didn’t even particularly like the song very much, but if you are looking for a song to be in your headphones as you walk around a neighbourhood contemplating love and life during trying times, man this is the song for you.

Killer video as well. Such a simple idea executed very well.

 

Billy Bragg – The Fourteenth Of February

The irony of this being our song, is that the song is about a man who wished he had something to help him remember the moment he met his lover while my first wife and I had an actual photograph from pretty close to the moment we met.

At a house party I met her and fell for her instantly. The problem was she was dating someone else at the time.

I drunkenly confessed to a friend how I felt and how I vowed to date her one day and she grabbed my camera and said we are getting a picture of tonight. There we are in the picture, together, on either side of the guy she was dating, roughly two hours after meeting each other for the first time.

It is bittersweet indeed to hear the song now, but life moves on and I am happier than I have ever been with my Forever Valentine.

Some chapters need to be written so that you can understand the characters better later on in the story.

It’s a beautiful song and I can speak from experience that it makes an amazing song choice for a first dance at a wedding. The lyrics and pace are perfect and chances are many of your guests will be hearing it for the first time and will be charmed by it.

Just don’t let the fact that the first marriage didn’t last spoil it for you. 🙂

Performance Piece I

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After all of these years, these specific performances still hit me right in the feels.

A collection of random artists and songs from my youth and first in a series of posts like this where I maybe touch on a few performances you may have forgotten about. Staying away from the iconic here; that is to say, these are not posts where you’ll see Freddie Mercury at Live Aid or Nirvana on MTV. 🙂

Cyndi Lauper – All Through The Night

I love this performance so much. Ever the showwoman, Cyndi Lauper starts off low and slow, lying down on the stage before showing us her rock and roll, complete with some sort of half windmill motion and a bit of an Irish jig during the instrumental break before bringing it home with the delicate finish. It all comes together in a way that is so weirdly her and you just know that she had the whole audience in the palm of her hand.

 

Peter Gabriel – In Your Eyes – Live In Athens

Out of all the live performances of this song, it’s this one I crown king. The vibrancy of the dancing, the genuine joy during the duet and a killer ending with the lights. This is one I wish I was in the audience for.

Accept no substitutes, there are a few versions of this on YouTube but this one brings you right to the end.

 

Foreigner – Hot Blooded

This is in the 1978 time capsule for sure. Every note killed, every riff slayed. So much energy poured into this performance.

 

Phil Collins – In The Air Tonight

You know it’s coming, which is why it’s so exciting to see him sitting down at the start of the song. The intimacy in front of such a large crowd and over four minutes of anticipation as he slowly gets up and works the stage and makes his way to his drums.

4:26 if you want to fast forward, but I recommend that you don’t. The anticipation is all the fun in the one.

 

Harry Belafonte – Day-O

And maybe it’s because I’ve had Harry Belafonte on the turntable for the last little while, but this performance is not only amazing from Belafonte, but the Fozzie just cracks me up in it, especially during the call and response.

 

Any performance pieces you’d recommend? Let me know in the comments!

100 Percent Fun

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The first track off of 100% Fun, “Sick Of Myself”, brings me back to summer in the mid-90’s.

A friend of mine played baseball, somewhere above rec league and below any actual minor league, and a few of us would often head out to local ball parks on warm summer nights and watch him play against a team we had never heard of with a bunch of other people we didn’t know.

It was a lot more fun than it sounds.

There would be gnats and mosquitos and uncomfortable bleachers, but there would also be snacks, flasks and, most importantly, music. We would sit up there on those bleachers passively interested in the game and appropriately congratulatory and otherwise depending on its outcome when it was done, but we would just sit up there and talk about life, love and everything that spins off of both those topics which is to say, everything.

I remember one park in particular that had a whole announcer setup with proper speakers and they played “Sick Of Myself” while the players were warming up on the field and tossing the ball around. There was an ice cream truck nearby and it was a perfect summer evening.

It’s a happy summer song with a sadness to the lyrics and I’ve always loved that juxtaposition. It’s perfect pop music.

“I’ll throw away a chance at greatness, just to make this, dream come into play.

Sitting there in those bleachers… it’s place in my memory that I like to crawl back up and into anytime I’m feeling a bit down.

Good friends and good times.

 

The name for the album is also a juxtaposition in and off itself. Sweet wanted to call the album 100% Fun after people said that Altered Beast was so dark, ready to run with the idea and make a pure pop album. It wasn’t until after that when Kurt Cobain died and used the term in his suicide note as well. (Further reading / Source)

In his pursuit of a perfect pop album, there are many who think he absolutely succeeded.

This album is so much more than the radio megahit, and listening to the cassette this morning I surprised myself that I remembered more words than I would have previously guessed.

And that was before I cracked open the liner notes. God I miss liner notes. Lyric videos on YouTube just aren’t the same.

“Not When I Need It” is the perfect number two song to follow the sadness disguised as happiness that is “Sick Of Myself”. We are immediately brought down in tempo, but not too slow. Sweet’s clear vocals give you everything you need to sing along and when the first chorus comes in with it’s call and response, you’re singing it just as loud as any part of “Sick Of Myself”.

This song verges on Treble Charger territory but with a sweeter voice, pun fully intended.

“We’re The Same” sounds like it should have been on a 90’s movie soundtrack and I’m honestly surprised it wasn’t. Maybe something starring Mike Myers. A gentle Rom-Com, heavier on the Com than the Rom. File this one away if you’re making a movie like that.

 

“Giving It Back” is a perfect breakup song. Simple, short with to the point lyrics.

“I’m tired of wasting my time away, so I’m giving it back to you.

“Everything Changes” slows us right down, which is something you need in a pop album to give it a bit of range and depth; however, it’s a tad too slow for my liking and I’m reminded now that I would normally fast forward this song about half way through, because right when you think it should end, there is a whole second half coming at you.

Which explains why I hardly remembered any words to “Lost My Mind” when I heard it again this morning; I’m pretty sure partway through “Everything Changes” I would fast forward all the way through to the end so that I could start Side B.

“Come To Love” starts off Side B strongly, a bit more up tempo and some sweet harmonies and call and response that you can easily sing along to.

 

How good is the second song on Side B, “Walk Out?”

If you’re not familiar with this song, have a listen. I hear a little 54-40, a little Hip, I like the term “haunting rock” for this song.

It’s just a damn good song.

 

And following that we are right into “I Almost Forgot”. Now HERE is the slow song this album needed.

Sweet pours his heart into the lyrics and this recording and I love the rhythm of the verses. It’s harder to sing along to than you might suspect but when you nail it, it feels so good. This song makes me FEEL FEELINGS.

And then it ends almost suddenly and, the opposite to “Everything Changes”, you want it to keep going.

 

“Super Baby” is not in my memory. I have no recollection of this song. Listening to it today, it is an average song and I think maybe I used to listen to it on my walkman while still humming “I Almost Forgot” for a second time in my head.

But that humming clearly didn’t last for two songs because I love “Get Older”. I read the lyrics again today and this song has moved into fourth favourite on this album. I love the idea of singing a pop song to a younger version of yourself, painting a vision that you’ll both understand everything you need to, but enjoy the time you have now.

“Who cares if they don’t think your cool?
They make everything about rules
And your older than that now
Get older
The world will fall into its place
You may be sad
When you get older
You might be happy just to stay

Who cares if you don’t know what you want
‘Cause they don’t know what they’ve got
And you cannot resist
Get older
Your memories won’t slip away
And you’ll be glad
When you get older
That you were happy for today
Who cares?
Get older
The world will fall into its place
You may be sad
When you get older
You might be happy just to stay
Resist
Get older
Your memories won’t slip away
And you’ll be glad
When you get older
That you were happy for today
Who cares?
If you don’t know what you want
If you don’t know what you want
If you don’t know what you want
If you don’t know what you want”

 

Last we have “Smog Moon” and it’s the perfect last song for the album.

I never saw Sweet live but I can imagine this being an encore song. It’s intimate and big at the same time and I can feel the theatrical possibilities through the imagery.

Watch this.

 

There’s a reason this cassette is featured in the main stack photographed for the site logo.

If you need me, I’ll be here with my eyes closed, sitting in those bleachers.

And to close, just because it bangs, here is “Sick Of Myself” again, Live on Letterman.

 

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Further Reading

In writing this I came across this entry on Certain Songs… I love reading about other people’s experiences with music that means so much to me, and especially enjoyed the memories around “Smog Moon” shared here.

 

Pair Of Dice By The Dashboard Light

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This is a place where I admit things.

Age 14, I had heard of Meat Loaf but didn’t really know the words to a lot of his songs and could maybe only name four or five. This was still two years before he would burst back onto the pop culture main stage with Bat Out Of Hell II and the epic song that was everywhere.

I found myself in a position with a Columbia House contract to fulfill. Eight cassettes for a penny had been an amazing deal, but now I had to buy six more at full price, so I needed to choose wisely.

I knew Bat Out Of Hell was a huge album and I remembered liking what I had heard, especially “Pair Of Dice By The Dashboard Light”.

I had never heard a song with a baseball play by play in it before and the sexual metaphor was absolutely not lost on me, but I still thought it was completely plausible for the song to be called “Pair Of Dice By The Dashboard Light” because if you’re making out in the front seat of a car, this could ostensibly be your view.

Dice

This was way before google and the ability to easily find any song, including the lyrics, so all I had to go on was the radio announcer and any casual conversations where the song was mentioned, which were very few. It wasn’t until the cassette came in the mail that I realized what the song was called. I’ve never mentioned this to anyone, ever, I simply just changed my pronunciation moving forward and it was as if I had always known the proper title of the song.

I still have the cassette and holding it this morning brings me right back to those summer nights, lying down on my waterbed, listening to my walkman, marveling at how absolutely epic this album was. I remember feeling that this was the first album I’d heard that told a complete story, the songs connected, though separate. It was because Meat Loaf was 100% in character in every single song and it felt like you were following them all on the same journey of love and rock and roll.

Bat Out Of Hell Casette

There’s a great article by variety published this past week where Meat Loaf talks about Bat Out Of Hell – worth a read for sure.

And I do not remember the last time I saw this video, but it has been a loooong time.

Thoroughly enjoyable, and hilarious. Especially when he is trying to buy time before confessing anything remotely like forever love.

 

That same sense of humour kills me in another favourite, “Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad”.

Imagine telling a girl, actually saying these words out loud, that you want her and you need her, but you’re never going to love her.

Oh, and that’s okay because two out of three ain’t bad.

 

If Bat Out Of Hell was catching lightning in a bottle, can we agree that Meat Loaf caught lightning twice?

“I Would Do Anything For Love” came out on Bat Out Of Hell II in 1993. Grunge was everything, Alternative music was blowing up, Rap and Hip-Hop are mainstream, and here you have a seven minute plus rock opera that you could just. not escape.

And with it, another misheard lyric and I’m going to use that whole “I was today years old” bit because it is actually true.

Watching the music video again today, at the 3:50 mark and thanks to the transcription, I was today years old when I realized the lyric is “Maybe I’m lonely, that’s all I’m qualified to be.”

My entire life before today I sang: “Maybe I’m lonely, that’s all a pile of fat can be.”

Watch the video and close your eyes and tell me you don’t hear it too.

 

A legend lost for sure and a unique impact on rock and roll like no-one else I can think of.

What is your favourite Meat Loaf song and why?

Also, I can’t be the only one to have misheard Meat Loaf – are there any other lyrics out there that have confused anyone over the years?

#RIPMeatLoaf

Empire State Of Mind

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The soundtrack to Empire Records lived in my five-disc CD changer for five years in the second half of the 1990’s. It never left, never got changed out, was always in rotation.

I’m in an empire state of mind today, meaning, to me, that I’m living in the past and not in the now.

This is only a bad thing if I have successive days like this because there is so much in the now and present that needs my attention.

But every few months I think it’s totally fine to go back to 1995 in my mind and just stay there for a little while.

I can’t wait for Rex Manning Day. I think I’m going to have watch this again for the umpteenth time this weekend.