Two Songs Enter!

by Belle Waring on September 9, 2015

It’s hard to believe, but there was a time in area woman Belle Waring’s life when she thought she didn’t like Stevie Wonder. Yeah, I know. In graduate school (!) I learned just how wrong I was. I was wronger than like 30 goddamn Dick Cheneys. I remember my conversion experience quite distinctly: I was in the back seat of an acquaintance’s car, driving from Berkeley to Da Club (I mean, da club in general, not a club called “Da Club”) in San Francisco, not even near the Bay bridge yet. We had just gotten off the surface streets. I was sitting alone in the back seat while this random…Linguistics?…no, English Literature grad student and my boyfriend talked–it is a peculiarity of highway driving that although you can hear the people conversing in the front seats fine, they can’t hear you for shit. Then, “Maybe Your Baby” came on his car stereo and I was like “hold up, hold up, who is this?” When I got told it was Stevie Wonder I made some shocked comment like, “but…Ebony and Ivory though.” Then he turned around from the front seat and shot a withering glance at me that said “think for ten seconds and recall, at least, the existence of ‘Uptight‘ or ‘Signed, Sealed Delivered!'” He was right! Also, the withering was more my reaction than a real thing that he did.

I don’t wish to cast aspersions on this dude, because if he had a character flaw it was not music snobbery but Theory snobbery, which pox afflicted so many at the time as to be unobjectionable, and he was in fact nice, but it reminds me of something. Did you know that “fake music-knowing- and caring-about girl” is a thing akin to “fake geek girl?” I almost broke my solemn vow of never again commenting on a Nick Denton blog recently when I read this guy explain in all seriousness in the comments at Kotaku that “pretty girls often don’t know anything about punk rock.” Really? REALLY? Do less attractive girls know more? Is it a sliding scale, to where someone you deem revolting will slay you with deep cuts from New Zealand’s early ’80s scene? Do hot guys know less about punk rock? Could you possibly be more irritating you even picked “punk rock,” seriously?! I wouldn’t be able to get a job buying records at the wonderful Amoeba Records (where my best friend from grad school still works, though in LA, having found being a record store manager and DJ more salubrious for a man of his temperament than studying Quine). They did and still do have a brutal ‘exam’ for the job, at least an hour long, where they give you a bunch of different records in turn and you value them–if you screw up and don’t recognize that this one Stones album is a rare first pressing with a different inner sleeve, you fail. But I’ve never just pretended to like music so that..uh…step 3: profit??? And yet I distinctly remember getting grilled by this English (from England) guy because I was playing a ConFunkShun LP for a party at my own house, and idly said that the Oakland area had an amazing funk/R&B history. He pounced on me saying, “like who? Other than Sly & The Family Stone, obviously.” Really dude? Tower of Power or something–look, 1) I’m wasted, 2) you’re my guest, 3) you are smoking my spendy weed and drinking my Maker’s Mark and eating little tiny biscuits, still-warm, with ham, what I cooked my own self, amongst other fancy party foods 4) if you ever listened to ConFunkShun before this night I will eat this killer cowboy hat with a pheasant-feather band I’m wearing now. In Howland Owl’s immortal words, “I points the fingerbone of shame at you.”

The whole concept of fake geek girl is so mystifying. In case you have somehow avoided this topic because you live in utopia, the narrative is that by pretending to be a geek a woman will be able to bask in the sunshine of male geeks’ attention, which she doesn’t deserve, because she’s, like, a 4 at best (bask in the glory of this reddit thread! Yes, I am wasting my life). It is notable that this io9 “tell us your worst tabletop gaming stories” article was about half “god paladins are the worst” (PREACH) and half “then the GM laid out a third storyline in which my character got brutally raped by NPCs.” Women’s stories on the list are disproportionate to their presence in tabletop gaming. I had to leave my middle school D&D group due to various awkward dudes crushing on me problems. I went on to either play only with other girls (easy as I moved to an all-girl’s school; by bff and I played a fun game about being a spy that I can’t remember the name of, though I do remember how my choice to get a culinary degree early in the game allowed me to infiltrate some hotel by doing salad prep) or sometimes DM for my brother and his friends. I am a good story-teller so that was always fun. (I believe John would like to interject, “luckily there were no awkward crush things there” while rolling his eyes.) But seriously my bro’s friends were nice and respectful.

Oh God, now I am reminded of grinding someone’s heart beneath the pitiless heel of rejection in 7th grade by telling him flat-out “I don’t want to go out with you, and you can have this back” while pressing into his hands the copy of Left Hand of Darkness he had loaned me. Just looked him in the eyes and said, “I don’t like like you.” It was like in the Simpsons episode where you can literally see his heart breaking. But it’s hard to know how to say no to people! Is it better to avoid them? As an immature 9th-grader I made my mom tell a boy I couldn’t come to the phone because “I was washing my hair,” hoping that the well-known, transparent flimsiness of this excuse would exempt me from further calls. But nemmine all this. The question on no one everyone’s mind is, “person who tells me possibly inappropriate things about your mental life and personal history on the internet Belle Waring, what is your favorite Stevie Wonder song?” I don’t even know! What I do know is that it is one of these two songs:
“Maybe Your Baby” (shocka!)

or “He’s Misstra Know It All”

{ 117 comments }

1

Mdc 09.09.15 at 11:29 am

He has a high quotient of this-really-might-be-the-greatest-song-ever songs, sometimes several on a single album.

But this is close to perfection:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LxjBT05gvWc

2

Colin R 09.09.15 at 11:40 am

We’re spoiled for choice, but GOLDEN LADY. Easy.

3

Lee A. Arnold 09.09.15 at 12:28 pm

My eternal playlist has “Sign, Sealed, Delivered”, “Maybe Your Baby”, “All in Love is Fair”, “Golden Lady”, and “Visions”. I think that the best album releases of 1972 and 1973 include Talking Book, and Innervisions. (Ranking right up there with, from 1972-3 also, Harvest, Exile on Main Street, Honky Chateau, Bare Trees, Quadrophenia, Dark Side of the Moon, The Wild the Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle, and that Byrds untitled reunion album simply because of Gene Clark’s song, “Full Circle”).

For contemporary comparison, have you heard The Weeknd? (warning explicit lyrics) As it happens, his second album was released only two weekends ago… I think that the track “Often” has a great sound, but it’s pure male id, and review it before you play it in front of anyone else!

4

Monte Davis 09.09.15 at 12:37 pm

What a funny, artlessly pointed, Wonder-ful post! Except for the part about Theory snobbery being unobjectionable by reason of ubiquity back in the day. Listen, kidz: people got geek-checked over rare Baudrillard pressings! Tenure was granted for the 45th shocking rediscovery that hegemonic patriarchal colonialism lurked behind a marriage plot!

Numbed resignation to that s— wasn’t (and isn’t) good enough, Belle. Gotta keep on tryin till we reach our Highest Ground.

5

Val 09.09.15 at 1:02 pm

Tenure was granted for the 45th shocking rediscovery that hegemonic patriarchal colonialism lurked behind a marriage plot!

If you believe that, you’ll believe anything (that you want to believe). I have told people here so many times that hegemonic patriarchal colonialism lurked behind things, and by and large they’ve just hurled abuse and mild criticism at me. No one’s ever even offered me an underpaid casual job as a teaching assistant for pointing that out to them.

I will have to think what Stevie Wonder might have to say about how wrong you are on that one.

6

deiseach 09.09.15 at 1:06 pm

I’m mystified about what you find ‘mystifying’ about fake geek girl concept. You can’t be arguing that the sum total of woman in history that has ever pretended to be more knowledgeable about music than they really were is zero. People do it all the time, if only to avoid awkwardly having to explain their lack of street cred. That’s my excuse for doing it, anyway. If you are saying that you don’t understand why any man would pigeonhole a woman as a fake geek girl, that’s easily explained – some men are assholes. There will always be someone who will brand you a fake, no matter how ‘authentic’ you try to be.

7

Val 09.09.15 at 1:18 pm

cant find anything for Monte Davis, but a solution to one of the problems Belle talks about above might be that little known Stevie Wonder song ‘I just called to say I dont love you but I really like you and can we still be friends’.

8

Colin R 09.09.15 at 1:21 pm

If people do it all the time and it’s just about people being poseurs, why would anyone need to bother specifying gender in the slur?

What’s weird and mystifying to me is the recursive self-loathing inherent in the concept. ‘Obviously’ no real woman would be interested in Geeky Things, because that is nerdbro territory and any woman worth desiring would not be interested in these things. And yet… for some reason these Fake Geek Girls want attention from nerds? I guess just to raise their hopes and then crush their spirits, because that is the kind of demonic species that woman is? But they are still objects of desire, despite the fact that they are perceived as cruel, deceptive, and incapable of sharing common interests. Weird man.

9

William Berry 09.09.15 at 1:31 pm

For some dude-bros it seems likely that “fake music-knowing and caring-about girl” and “fake geek girl?” are just a subset of “fake knowing and caring about anything at all girl”:

http://www.theonion.com/article/area-mans-intelligence-probably-just-too-intimidat-33916

10

William Berry 09.09.15 at 1:38 pm

“just subsets”, I should have written.

11

cs 09.09.15 at 1:48 pm

“As”, I guess. Or All in Love is Fair.

(Similar to the post, I grew up in the 80s thinking of Stevie Wonder as the I Just Called to Say I Love You Guy, then I heard a college band play Superstition, and found out it was by Stevie, and then started listening to more stuff.)

12

Lee A. Arnold 09.09.15 at 1:51 pm

A charming song for geeks of all sexes from 2008, with an apposite video:
Los Campesinos! “You! Me! Dancing!”

13

William Berry 09.09.15 at 2:27 pm

@Monte Davis, deiseach:

You fellows (I am assuming) are illustrated by that Onion piece I linked above.

Clueless, much?

14

Martin Bento 09.09.15 at 2:55 pm

Ahhh, a Stevie thread. Love Stevie. Here’s one of his tunes that I think is not so well known. I found a live version, and then this playlist goes straight to the studio version.

15

Plume 09.09.15 at 2:57 pm

I don’t understand the “fake geek girl” stuff at all. No reason to assume things like that, one way or another. Girls and women have just as much shot at being into these things as anyone else, regardless of their looks. It’s kinda ridiculous to think otherwise. And life’s too short to prejudge anyone — including men.

(I worked in IT for 15 years and saw no real difference in skill levels or genuine interest between men and women)

But I can see where the “geeks” are coming from. Before the Net became popular, “geeks” was a term of derision. They were mocked, excluded, put down endlessly, beaten up by jocks and laughed at by cheerleaders — to name just two groups from the often self-described “cool people” or “beautiful people” within youth culture. Especially during high school years.

And for male geeks, while all of that must have stung, being mocked and laughed at by their female classmates likely stung more. With exceptions, they weren’t trying to form serious relationships with their male classmates. So when the “insiders” cast them out into no-man’s land, as permanent “outsiders,” it’s natural that these castoffs would form their own “insider” culture. It’s a reaction to the mockery, etc. etc. A reaction to the sense of persecution, wrong or right.

These things take time to shake out and settle down. Well, they never really do settle down. We’re tribal beings. And though we have unique and innate capacities for extending our moral compass to include and include and include . . . . we’re generally socialized to exclude, exclude, exclude. That’s always going to be a bi-product of the fictions we’re taught, especially that life is a struggle and that we’re all in competition with one another . . . . instead of the fact that we humans actually survived and thrived through cooperation. Teach that, and there is far less socialization pushing us to be tribal, or sexist, or racist, etc. etc.

16

Martin Bento 09.09.15 at 3:00 pm

Also, good to note all the songs Stevie wrote that are associated with other artists, such as:

Tell Me Something Good (Rufus & Chaka)
Until You Come Back to Me (Aretha – co-authored with some obscure guys)
It’s a Shame (Spinners)
Tears of a Clown (Smokey – co-authored with Smokey)
I Can See the Sun in Late December (Roberta Flack)
The Real Thing (Sergio Mendez, but I prefer Bebel Gilberto’s version)
Perfect Angel (Minnie Ripperton – there’s another Ripperton song, but I’m not recalling the name))

17

Kiwanda 09.09.15 at 3:02 pm

“I believe (when I fall in love it will be forever)”

Being incredibly good looking: there’s really just no upside. I’m with Belle on that one.

18

anon 09.09.15 at 3:13 pm

The only thing the Red Hot Chili Peppers ever did to pay for their many crimes was introduce me to Stevie Wonder beyond “I Just Called to Say.” But their sins were too vast for even that to pay them off.

@12,
Great Los Campesinos song, from when they were still the sweet-geeky-overliterate version of adolescent angst, not the over-serious boring kind. Like Broken Social Scene with a sense of humor. I think my favorite’s “You Throw Parties, We Throw Knives.” Or maybe “Please Don’t Tell Me to Do the Math(s).”

Such great funny-melodramatic-geeky lyrics, too:
since we became accelerated readers, we never leave the house
I spent the last seven years perched on the edge of my bed scratching ‘I am incredibly sincere’ into my forearm
and when our eyes meet, all that I can read, is “you’re the b-side”
every sentence that I spoke began and ended in ellipsis
no more conversations about what Breakfast Club character you’d be. I’d be the one that dies (no-one dies)
every quotation that’d dribbled from your mouth like a final, fatal livejournal entry

I also love it when they break into shouting in the most improbable places like:
“DON’T READ JANE EYRE!” Or: “Tonight we’re gonna smash this place up and then
we’re gonna deck it out in fairy lights TIL WE ARE CONTENT!”

19

The Temporary Name 09.09.15 at 3:13 pm

bff and I played a fun game about being a spy that I can’t remember the name of

Top Secret? 10 or 20-sided die for rolling percentages?

20

Belle Waring 09.09.15 at 3:23 pm

deiseach: what the fuck, man? “You can’t be arguing that the sum total of woman in history that has ever pretended to be more knowledgeable about music than they really were is zero. People do it all the time, if only to avoid awkwardly having to explain their lack of street cred. ” Pro tip: try using the words “women” and “people” more interchangeably and see whether the need to specify a poseur’s gender ever comes up at all.

Plume: NO ONE ACTUALLY WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL IN A 1980S MOVIE. Also, “before the rise of the net” was a long time ago now, yet somehow 20-something dudes still go on reddit to explain their sad feels about how girls are reading comics. Or pretending to read comics, or whatever we are doing. I appreciate that you are explaining rather than endorsing, but this shit makes less than no sense.

21

Martin Bento 09.09.15 at 3:25 pm

On The Real Thing, I think it’s a great tune, but I’ve never heard a version that did it justice.

22

Belle Waring 09.09.15 at 3:31 pm

The Los Campesinos song is awesome! I…I like to dance though. But I did scratch Morrissey’s name on my arm with a fountain pen, IRL, so I figure I’m an OK person.

23

Belle Waring 09.09.15 at 3:35 pm

The Temporary Name: yeah prolly? It’s sort of hard to play an RPG with just two people so I think to some extent we were just winging it.

24

Monte Davis 09.09.15 at 3:41 pm

Val: I haven’t followed enough threads carefully enough to address your grievance with this comment community, but FWIW the period I had in mind was the 1970s and 1980s. My college years were 1966-71, and I was close to academe — with occasional impulses and opportunities to rejoin it — for the next 15 years. I loved me some Bachelard and Foucault and Derrida, but insight all too quickly turned into rote and ideology — and in those years, a lot of people *did* build academic careers on their mastery of the new shibboleths.

25

Plume 09.09.15 at 3:42 pm

Belle @19,

I’m in my late 50s, and was looking at things from that angle, I suppose. And I definitely don’t endorse what they’re doing on Reddit now. I despise the whole “men’s movement” thing, running into that with a few of my much, much younger co-workers when I was in IT. Most of that group tended toward “right-libertarianism” as well, which I also despise.

Anyway, so, yeah. It’s crazy to complain about women enjoying the same things guys enjoy. Logically, this would be embraced, not attacked.

Regardless, I love the connections you make to music. It’s obviously the poet in you. Only connect and all of that. Not just person to person, but personal stuff to other personal stuff. Cultural stuff to other cultural stuff. I do this in my novels, too, especially the one I’m revising now. An important element is the Lilith Fair scene. Would enjoy your take on that time in our culture someday.

26

oldster 09.09.15 at 3:56 pm

By a coincidence, I happened to put on Inner Visions about a month ago, and sat back in amazement at every cut. Of course I knew every cut already, could sing them to you, etc. But the overwhelming freshness of the sound just blew me away.

I want to put in a plug for this live cover of “Cherie Amour” from 1969.

I love this song–I know, you hate it, because it is treacly and saccharine. It’s true that it is a crooner’s ballad, more the Rogers and Hammerstein style. Paul McCartney loved singing “Till There Was You” from the Music Man, and this is Stevie’s bid for the same sort of sound. Swoopy, swishy, lots of strings.

But what I love about this clip is that Stevie is playing the organ, and he cannot help but bring out a much funkier groove in the piece. There is something almost Strangelove-ian about the way that his left hand cannot help but bring the funk.

27

Monte Davis 09.09.15 at 4:07 pm

William Berry @13: I have no idea what led you to associate me with deiseach’s post, or what made the Onion post seemed apposite. If it was “hegemonic patriarchal colonialism,” I intended not to identify myself as anti-PC/SJW/whatever, nor to imply that h.p.c. was/is not real and important, but to say that by the time the brilliant Wide Sargasso Sea became a curricular staple, the dissection of 19th-century fiction for “what we see now that they were blind to then” had become a boring cottage industry.

28

William Berry 09.09.15 at 4:22 pm

@MD:

You’re right. Should have just been the other guy.

Although I do suspect you wouldn’t feel that way about Theory, especially as it pertained to hegemonic patriarchy, if you were a woman or, more to the point, a feminist.

29

mrearl 09.09.15 at 4:37 pm

You are the sunshine of this blog, Belle.

30

Kiwanda 09.09.15 at 5:14 pm

On the one hand, this Portlandia sketch. On the other, this entirely possible scenario.. Although neither gives any insight into the depravity of those who are skeptical of the crucial insights of Theory.

31

Teachable Moe 09.09.15 at 5:14 pm

I love “Heaven Help Us All”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmkFt2HSkao

Keep hatred from the mighty
And the mighty from the small.

32

William Berry 09.09.15 at 5:19 pm

@Kiwanda:

Is that you, Alan?

Also, too: You’re right, they don’t.

33

Colin R 09.09.15 at 5:30 pm

@oldster: Stevie Wonder Wonderfies anything he plays.

34

UserGoogol 09.09.15 at 5:42 pm

Real nerds are too introverted to want to be in a sexual relationship with another human being. And furthermore are too introverted to play D&D.

35

lemmycaution 09.09.15 at 8:12 pm

Authenticity in high school sub-cultures is overrated. You need to be able to drop that shit if it starts to drag you down.

One of my daughters is into the geek girl thing. I honestly want her to be faking it. Geek culture is the worst. She probably knows what she is doing though. It is tied into her doing Science Olympiad stuff which her friends at school are way into.

the spy game is likely top secret:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Secret_%28role-playing_game%29

36

Dean C. Rowan 09.09.15 at 9:06 pm

Remarkable concert moment: Late ’70s, Return to Forever at the Music Center in LA, midway during the show out walks Mr. Wonder. A complete surprise to me. Great quick set featuring his hits. Best part of the entire concert, though, remains Lenny White’s solo. Imagine that. The drum solo was the capper of a really good show.

37

magari 09.09.15 at 10:08 pm

“Big Brother”, anyone?

38

Helen 09.09.15 at 11:25 pm

“(bask in the glory of this reddit thread! Yes, I am wasting my life). ”

Just a suggestion, Belle, but if you use the free service at http://www.donotlink.com/, you can link to these things (yes the URL is misleading) without giving them the clicky love they so crave.

39

ZM 09.09.15 at 11:39 pm

“Did you know that “fake music-knowing- and caring-about girl” is a thing akin to “fake geek girl?””

When we were in year 10 some boys one or two years above us would call my friends and I “the grunge girls”. This does not rankle nearly so much now, as in retrospect it was much more pleasant being called names in person by people at my school than being called Sargasso Sea or Emily Dickinson on actual records by real bands sold around the world :-( you would think the person who called me Sargasso Sea might be sorry about this situation, but he doesn’t appear to be sorry at all.

I had a semi-studious approach to liking music when I was a teenager as I read all the books mentioned, this started when I liked the metal band Warrant when I was 12 so I read Uncle Tom’s Cabin since they had a song about it on the cassette I had. But when I was at uni I knew some people who were studying musicology, and at that level it is really not something I will ever be fluent in talking about as it is like a professional language just to talk about sounds.

40

Anderson 09.09.15 at 11:56 pm

Geek guys: (1) this girl is a geek; (2) yet she does not want to sleep with us; (3) hence she must not be a REAL geek.

Overlooking that (2.1) may be “because we are assholes, which is by no means incompatible with geekhood,” or even (2.2) “although we are not assholes, some girls, however geeky, just aren’t attracted to us in particular, because that’s life.”

Threads would flow better if people just would grok that Belle is never wrong, except maybe about Stevie Wonder, that one time.

41

Belle Waring 09.10.15 at 1:42 am

I WAS SO WRONG THAT ONE TIME! oldster: now that I appreciate the Wonderfulness I like that song too, though it’s not my favorite, but that is an amazing live version. I’m always so happy at the music people put up. ZM: OMG Warrant! They are an objectively terrible band but I felt they reached “so bad it’s good” status. “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is hilarious because it’s just about a dude’s uncle, named Tom, who did something bad. All they ever heard about that book is the title, man.

42

ZM 09.10.15 at 2:14 am

I was only 12

43

Matt_L 09.10.15 at 2:17 am

Another glorious Belle Waring post. I have been trying to figure out why I like Belle Waring posts so much. The obvious reason is that they are great, whirling, roller coaster rides through the landscape of pop-culture and the western intellectual canon.

But the other reason is they usually tickle my brain in the same way that reading Walter Benjamin did when I was an undergraduate. I usually have to look something up, the post makes me think about the things I take for granted in different way, and Belle runs against the grain of orthodoxy without overdoing it.

44

Bruce Wilder 09.10.15 at 3:22 am

Oh, dear god, tell her she overdoes it. Please!!!

In a good way, of course.

45

Dave Maier 09.10.15 at 4:04 am

“Too High”. I also think that while naturally Stevie himself is the main talent on his records, I would like to give a shout-out to Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff and their awesome synth pioneerage on those records.

Stevie story: I remember in the 70s sometime when Paul Simon won the Grammy for best album, the first person he thanked was “Stevie Wonder for not making a record this year.”

46

Dave Maier 09.10.15 at 4:08 am

Also, big props for the Howland Owl quote. “10 Ever-lovin Blue-Eyed Years” is my favorite book of all time.

47

Belle Waring 09.10.15 at 4:49 am

[points forked fingers at own eyes, then at Bruce Wilders’s eyes] No, for realz I overdo it. That is a completely fair complaint. You should see the way I dress! All my life people have given me amazing clothes for free because they knew I was the only person willing to wear them. My writing is often the same way. Too many patterns and colors!

48

Belle Waring 09.10.15 at 4:56 am

Not to mention enough exclamation points for an entire Jeb! rally.

49

Belle Waring 09.10.15 at 5:56 am

Monte Davis: what’s funny is that you are describing experiences from the late 60s/early 70s and I was in college/grad school in the 90s! And when I met with one of my advisors here in Singapore (he was traveling) a few years ago he said that a certain professor has pushed the Classics Department way further in the Theory direction, pushing away the wonderful Epigraphy prof (philosopher Barry Stroud’s brother), among others, in favour of more literature interpretation. We need people to do epigraphy or we won’t know what texts we should theorize about!

50

Dean C. Rowan 09.10.15 at 6:39 am

Epigraphy, philology, “theory direction”… Look, the ’70s weren’t what Allan Bloom said they were. ’nuff said.

51

Val 09.10.15 at 10:02 am

Monte Davis @ 24 – think I’m mainly left with the conclusion that I should stop trying to make jokes on CT, even though I amuse myself greatly. I was exaggerating of course – it hasn’t been all abuse, nor even all mild criticism, as William Berry’s comments indicate.

However rather than there being too much analysis of hegemonic patriarchal colonialism, I don’t think there’s been enough, and while it might briefly have benefited careers, I think that was a short lived era. I’m of a similar vintage to you and have also been in and out of universities over a long time. That’s enough on that for here, I think, need to get back to Stevie Wonder.

Can someone tell me, is it wrong (in the sense of hopelessly uncool) to say that your favourite Stevie Wonder song is, and has been for maybe forty years, ‘I believe’? Because you know I am just asking on behalf of someone.

52

Val 09.10.15 at 10:06 am

Erm, not quite enough on the hegemonic patriarchal colonialism sorry – should also add that my experience is in history, not literature.

53

bert 09.10.15 at 10:11 am

Belle, sweetness, to know you is to love you, but to know me is not that way, you see.

The last two songs (Living for the City & Superstition) from a 1974 live set on German TV: https://youtu.be/sPFB-z2ezXk?list=RDjB0TlX5YEmI&t=1432
Rewind for the whole half hour. Ausgefuckinzeichnet.

54

Lee A. Arnold 09.10.15 at 11:01 am

Val #51: “Can someone tell me, is it wrong (in the sense of hopelessly uncool) to say that your favourite Stevie Wonder song is, and has been for maybe forty years, ‘I believe’? ”

I can tell you, it is certainly not wrong, and there is little else that is so important. This is on the authority of the great György Ligeti, who is reputed to have said, when caught (at Darmstadt!) with a very new phonograph record (it was strangely called, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”) tucked carefully under his arm: “Never underestimate the value of a melody tied to a memory!”

55

Lee A. Arnold 09.10.15 at 11:03 am

I’m not a betting person, but I might put money on a scientific hypothesis that patriarchism is inversely correlated to love of melody.

56

Doctor Memory 09.10.15 at 12:17 pm

Circa 1976, 4 year old Doctor Memory learned how to use his parents’ record player for the sole (and soul) purpose of being able to put on his dad’s LP of “Talking Book” because his parents had reached their permanent limit with him begging them to put it on every 30 minutes and he could learn to do it his own damn self if he liked the record that much. This approach may have worked out poorly for them and probably led to several unnecessary scratches on the album, but it made for a very happy me.

Decades later, I found myself sharing an office in a doomed silicon alley dot-com with a fellow a hair younger than me, and we passed the time doing as little work as possible while ordering CDs from this new “Amazon” service and playing them at each other. One afternoon, feeling a little old school, I decided that “Songs in the Key of Life” would be the post-lunch jam. When it got to “Pastime Paradise”, my officemate jerked alert, stared at me, and then began banging his head against his keyboard. “Thought that riff was actually by Coolio, did we?” I asked him sweetly.

Stevie Wonder is awesome, but it’s amazing in retrospect how much awesome he squeezed into how little time: the drop-off from SitKoL to “The Woman in Red” or “In Square Circle” is precipitous, and if you were born just late enough that 1976 is terra incognita, you probably remember him (if you remember him at all) as the schlock-purveyor behind “I Just Called To Say I Love You” if you remember him at all. Much like the Beatles now that I think of it, except for some reason I can’t put my finger on (that’s sarcasm, people) Wonder hasn’t benefitted from the endless re-play of his back catalogue. Imagine if people really did think of Paul McCartney as “that guy from Wings” and you’ve got the flavor: it’s a goddamn tragedy.

(Luckily he is still amazing in concert; if you get the chance to see him mortgage your pets if necessary for the tickets.)

57

Bill Benzon 09.10.15 at 12:26 pm

Ebony and ivory on the wall. “Ebony” lower left, more or less: “ivory” top center, more or less. Stevie at the right. The wall is–well, used to be (now it’s been destroyed to make way of mid rise housing)–in Jersey City. The writers (aka graffiti artists) are from the UK.

https://flic.kr/p/2yTeC3

58

Bill Benzon 09.10.15 at 12:40 pm

One blind genius to another, though not Rahsaan’s best. Too much (lame) ensemble & vocal, not enough flute.

https://youtu.be/DhOoKF1pkhA

59

William Berry 09.10.15 at 2:52 pm

I still have my nearly fifty years old (still in pristine condition) “Songs in The Key of Life” double LP; except for super-hits such as “I Just Called . . .”, etc., it is pretty much all I know of SW. There are some great songs on the collection, as “As”, e.g. “Village Ghetto Land” is especially congenial to my lugubrious soul, right up there with LR’s “The Dirty Boulevard”.

A couple of years back I put “Songs” in the Spin-Kleen and played it through. There was a fair amount of mediocre stuff, as there is bound to be on a double LP, but on the whole, it sounded grand.

This thread has inspired me to break it out again. Maybe this weekend. I’m thinking it will go well with a couple of glasses of pinot noir.

60

William Berry 09.10.15 at 3:14 pm

OK, 1976 is when “Songs” came out. So, assuming I purchased it around that time, nearly forty years old, not fifty.

61

icastico 09.10.15 at 3:38 pm

As the kind of music geek that bought the first Jane’s Addiction record because it had that guy from Psycom in it I appreciate the revelation about Stevie. Talking Book was the first record album I bought as a child, but I have found his work since to consist of unparalleled highs and lows. When he is good, no one is better. Then there is “Ebony and Ivory” and the other songs of that ilk.

Here are two songs

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gu1Rg_gEbgM&w=420&h=315%5D

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7WD4n9ty64&w=420&h=315%5D

62

deiseach 09.10.15 at 3:46 pm

“deiseach: what the fuck, man? “You can’t be arguing that the sum total of woman in history that has ever pretended to be more knowledgeable about music than they really were is zero. People do it all the time, if only to avoid awkwardly having to explain their lack of street cred. ” Pro tip: try using the words “women” and “people” more interchangeably and see whether the need to specify a poseur’s gender ever comes up at all.”

I notice you leave out the part where I mention how some MEN are assholes. Because that’s my point here. Some men are assholes. Where’s the mystery in that?

63

deiseach 09.10.15 at 3:51 pm

@William Davis

“You fellows (I am assuming) are illustrated by that Onion piece I linked above. Clueless, much?”

You are assuming incorrectly, particularly when it comes to music, of which my ignorance is pretty much total.

64

deiseach 09.10.15 at 3:54 pm

@William Davis

Once upon a time though, this Onion article did make me cringe – http://www.theonion.com/multiblogpost/according-to-the-economist-nasa-is-an-industrial-s-11532

65

Belle Waring 09.10.15 at 3:57 pm

I…I…I like Wings though, you guise. :| It was a thing with me and my HS boyfriend. I never liked even The Beatles until I met him; my parents were of the belief that you could like The Stones or The Beatles, but not both, and liking the latter meant you were aptly-satirized by Frank Zappa saying “gee, my hair’s getting good in the back.” Just as they claimed–and still object today–they weren’t ever hippies, because hippies were losers who believed in flower power. Mom, dad, officially sorry here, but: 1) I was conceived in the back of a VW van in California 2) you lived in a commune run by a tweaked-out, tripping-balls-on-mescaline, shotgun-wielding Dennis Hopper (perhaps the least surprising ‘hey, that turned out to be a bad idea’ ever) 3) when I was a kid in the 70s we had a farm and tried to live off the grid, which failed in many ways (it turns out that it’s hard to steel yourself to killing and butchering animals if you didn’t start young) but succeeded in others (cough*High Times centerfold buds*cough). I had a lot of fun reading by oil lamp on the porch in the summertime. And I loved my little garden, with a miniature tool set of tiny hoe and spade, divided in two, with flowers in one side and potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and okra in the other. But my parents’ Stones-loving, Hell’s Angels-filled epic, multi-day parties-having asses went punk rock as soon as they got the chance, so utterly did they scorn hippy-dippy frippery. Thus I brought “Never Mind the Bollocks” to Montessori kindergarten to play my favorite song “Submission.” I thought it was about a submarine mission. I mean, it says so very clearly!

The result was that I had never really listened to The Beatles till I was 17 and my future HS boyfriend and I were in Florence for a short trip after my summer classes at Oxford, during which I ran out of money on day 2 (entirely, and with complete foreknowledge) and threw myself on his mercy. I mean, I didn’t have any money for food, much less a train ticket back to the UK. That was irresponsible and manipulative! He manfully agreed to have sex with be my friend anyway. He blew my mind not with later stuff, as you might think, but with early Beatles songs. It was “And Your Bird Can Sing” that sealed the deal. Two minutes and one second of perfection.

66

deiseach 09.10.15 at 4:08 pm

William Berry, even. D’oh!

67

Kiwanda 09.10.15 at 4:12 pm

Can someone tell me, is it wrong (in the sense of hopelessly uncool) to say that your favourite Stevie Wonder song is, and has been for maybe forty years, ‘I believe’? Because you know I am just asking on behalf of someone.

Since I mentioned it up-thread as a favorite, probably yes. Especially since I liked its use in the closing of “High Fidelity”.

68

Dave Maier 09.10.15 at 6:01 pm

OMG “And Your Bird Can Sing” is like my favorite Beatles song. That and “Wild Honey Pie.” Although I wouldn’t call AYBCS “early”, exactly. “I Feel Fine” is early.

69

oldster 09.10.15 at 6:16 pm

Agreed about “And your bird”, agreed about the brilliance of concision. “Say the word” is comparable, and amazingly funky.

Roy Orbison knew how to pack a masterpiece into a very short song. Somebody should do a thread on best songs in under 2:30.

70

js. 09.10.15 at 6:45 pm

’65-’66 era Beatles is the truly essential Beatles. And “And Your Bird” is indeed excellent even for that excellent era.

71

GHG 09.10.15 at 7:21 pm

The role-playing game where you pretend to be a spy: Probably “Top Secret.” Just yesterday (!) the word “Sprechenhaltestelle” came into my daydreaming mind and I realized it was part of the title of the first Top Secret module.

Also, this is what turned me on to Stevie Wonder, possibly as early as age three:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE
Still gives me chills.

72

anon 09.10.15 at 7:55 pm

“my parents were of the belief that you could like The Stones or The Beatles, but not both, and liking the latter meant you were aptly-satirized by Frank Zappa saying ‘gee, my hair’s getting good in the back’.”

A classic question, as raised by Metric in “Gimme Sympathy” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqldwoDXHKg):
Who’d you rather be?
The Beatles or The Rolling Stones
Oh seriously,
You’re gonna make mistakes, you’re young
Come on baby play me something
Like here comes the sun

Making “Here Comes the Sun” into exhibit A for the prosecution is *almost* a Q.E.D.

But of course the correct answer to “Beatles or Stones?” is: The Velvet Underground.

73

icastico 09.10.15 at 9:07 pm

“But of course the correct answer to “Beatles or Stones?” is: The Velvet Underground.”

Perhaps, but the more relevant question was always “Stooges or MC5?”

74

ZM 09.10.15 at 9:49 pm

“A classic question, as raised by Metric in “Gimme Sympathy”

Who’d you rather be?
The Beatles or The Rolling Stones”

My favourite death of the author song is I Don’t Want To Be Grant Mclennan by Smudge

Just want to be myself
But it all sounds like someone else.
Everytime i play
Here comes that musical cliché
And it gets from bad to worse
Around the time of the second verse
Here’s a great song I wrote
So great it doesn’t rhyme
Want to be like Robert Forster
Rock and roll from heaven
But the songs I write
In the middle of the night
Make me sound like Grant Mclennan
I don’t want to be Grant Mclennan
Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr
George Harrison, and John Lennon
I don’t want to be Grant Mclennan

http://youtu.be/hZYifV6mb84

75

Doctor Memory 09.11.15 at 12:26 am

William Berry: for the love of all that’s holy, grab yourself a copy of Music of My Mind, Talking Book and Innervisions. The amazing thing about “Songs in the Key of Life” is that as astounding as its high points are, it’s not even his third best album from that decade.

76

Doctor Memory 09.11.15 at 12:29 am

Belle: literally Dennis Hopper? Because that’s a story begging to be told.

77

Belle Waring 09.11.15 at 4:02 am

Literally Dennis Hopper. It was called “The Church of The Five-Star,” and it was in Taos, N.M. There were shotgun-fuelled encounters with the local police, crazy shit, and (unsurprisingly) a lack of proper sanitation. Well, any sanitation, they just had big trench pit “toilets.”
deisach: it’s no secret some men are assholes, just like some women are, and just like people of both genders sometimes pretend to know stuff they don’t to seem cool. But “some men are sexist in a particular way” is a differing objection to life’s varied panoply than “some men are assholes.” It’s sexist to need a term for “lame chick poseurs” that is different from “lame poseurs.” Cuz why would you? Unless you have a whole conception of girls that is very light on the theory of mind. The concept “fake geek girl” is mystifying. (Frex: why do they want geeks’ attention, if geeks are so lame that chicks would never like them, ex hypothesi?) Basically, why does “girl” need to be in there? If it were ordinary boundary-policing then “fake geek” would do great. Somehow, that has never, even once, been proposed. Rather, men can be observed frequently acting like gatekeepers by quizzing girls and women in a hostile way about the subjects (they claim, but that Occam’s Razor suggests genuinely do) interest them, rather than saying, “oh, you play through Ocarina of Time once or twice a month on an emulator, that seems normal and fun let’s be friends.”

78

js. 09.11.15 at 4:11 am

But of course the correct answer to “Beatles or Stones?” is: The Velvet Underground The Kinks.

…is surely what you meant!

79

Lyle 09.11.15 at 4:52 am

OT, sorry. But Belle, could you please write sometimes as vividly and acutely as you do about your past settings about your current one (my bad if you already have). Like, how bout those veil-wearing voting men?

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/10/all-the-singapore-men/

80

js. 09.11.15 at 5:56 am

As to Stevie Wonder — I’ve finally worked up the courage to admit that I *like* Stevie Wonder just fine, about 5-6 songs (obvious ones, probably all already mentioned in the thread) are absolutely amazing, but I’ve never really had a Stevie Wonder moment. I like him, but I feel like I should love him, and it’s just never happened. It’s a failing—I recognize this.

81

parse 09.11.15 at 1:32 pm

I wouldn’t be able to get a job buying records at the wonderful Amoeba Records (where my best friend from grad school still works, though in LA, having found being a record store manager and DJ more salubrious for a man of his temperament than studying Quine).

Alternatively, you might say he ended up studying the Other Quine.

If I have to pick one, I think it’s “Living for the City,” (But tomorrow, I might pick something else. I was so hooked on Talking Book and Innervisions for two years during high school that you could put on just about any tune from those two albums and I’d say, with complete sincerity, “Oh, that’s my favorite Stevie Wonder song.”)

82

dsquared 09.11.15 at 2:35 pm

can’t put my finger on it, but the concept of “knowing a lot about punk rock” feels like someone has kind of missed the point. Like “I am the most punk here, and if necessary I will prove it with a trivia quiz!”

TBH, I do kind of understand the “fake geek girl” concept. It is a fact that teenage girls who feel like they’re not getting as much attention as they want will sometimes hang around with teenage boys who have a much lower social status than themselves, in order to bask in the attention for a while, even though they have no real intention of being friends with them because of the lower-social-status thing. That is a thing which does happen, and it’s a bit of an annoying thing to do. Rather like going to a cheap pub, or to Wrexham, to gawk at the poor people for an evening’s novelty entertainment. As an ethical and social failing, though, I don’t think it’s really serious enough to support the depth of passion and political commitment which it seems to generate. God knows, low-social-status teenage boys have their fucking peccadilloes too.

83

kidneystones 09.11.15 at 2:49 pm

@82 Yes. Hints of the Idiot Wind, and I’m a Ricks fan. What TNR could be once upon a time: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/idiot-wind

84

icastico 09.11.15 at 9:17 pm

dsquared: so you are talking about this, then? (a musical illustration since this is thread is about music)…

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1x91k_the-waitresses-i-know-what-boys-lik_music

85

Martin Bento 09.11.15 at 11:03 pm

Speaking of one blind genius to another, this thread needs more music:

86

Meredith 09.12.15 at 5:54 am

Came here, distracted, days ago, and in “It’s hard to believe, but there was a time in area woman Belle Waring’s life when she thought she didn’t like Stevie Wonder” I caught only the Stevie Wonder. (Yeah, he’s interesting, but less than James Brown, who happened to be the subject of some facebook stuff I was involved in at the time, and I happened to see James Brown in performance in 1967 or so and it changed my life; Stevie Wonder did not. None of that worthy of public comment. ) Now I notice (hello folks: classicist are RE-readers) I caught ” in area woman Belle Waring’s life….” Area woman grabbed me. HELLO!

87

js. 09.12.15 at 6:04 am

Is it late enough that a minor derail is ok? Probably not. Fuck. But look, I’ve just been thinking about this from oldster for days:

Somebody should do a thread on best songs in under 2:30.

And… I just wanted to start.

(Sorry, oldster, probably what you weren’t looking for?!)

88

js. 09.12.15 at 6:11 am

I should’ve put this into my last comment, but:

The thing I love about “best songs in under 2:30” is that you can mix some absolutely amazing ’60s pop with equally amazing punk. It’s like fucking heaven.

89

ZM 09.12.15 at 6:30 am

dsquared,

“can’t put my finger on it, but the concept of “knowing a lot about punk rock” feels like someone has kind of missed the point. Like “I am the most punk here, and if necessary I will prove it with a trivia quiz!””

Welcome to Post Rock, enjoy your stay — the views are marvellous ;-)

90

ZM 09.12.15 at 7:01 am

“And… I just wanted to start.”

I’ll continue. This was a favourite of mine by The Meanies at mid 90s all ages shows

https://youtu.be/BAYMJB5uA7s

It’s not under 2 1/2 minutes, but my class sort of appeared in the bands’ film clip for their cover of It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Want To Rock and Roll) as our school excursion took us to the city on Swanson Street the day they were shooting it and kids ran along with the truck

https://youtu.be/1zIo01J6pmM

91

ZM 09.12.15 at 7:02 am

Embed fail. This is the under 2 1/2 minute song

https://youtu.be/BAYMJB5uA7s

92

JPL 09.12.15 at 7:16 am

Oh Belle, now you’ve gone and done it! Stevie Wonder! How could I limit myself to the ten greatest Stevie songs not yet even mentioned here? Can’t do it. Here’s a nice one from Talking book. That’s Jeff Beck on guitar. Jazz singer Mark Murphy has done this song, and I would highly recommend that people check it out.

93

Martin Bento 09.12.15 at 7:28 am

Great songs under 2:30?

Ric’s Lullaby Eric Mcfadden
Constantinople The Residents
Sugar Town

94

JPL 09.12.15 at 7:33 am

Back in those days, what we used to like about Stevie Wonder songs was their polyrhythmic complexity. Good examples are “Superstition” and this song, “I wish”, which was one of his best dancing songs, as demonstrated here by the Soul Train gang. People should also listen to the full (about 4:14) LP version and one with better audio quality, and turn it up real loud and get up.

95

Martin Bento 09.12.15 at 7:38 am

2 songs enter indeed, but I wasn’t finished

Sugar Town Nancy Sinatra
Friday on my mind The Easybeats
Baxabene Oxamu Miriam Makeba
Man-Sized Sextet PJ Harvey

96

Dave Heasman 09.12.15 at 7:57 am

My Stevie Wonder experience is bracketed by two French radio broadcasts. In 1962 Daniel Filipacchi played, on “Salut les Copains” , Little Stevie’s “Fingertips”. In England this was released on the Oriole label and thus got no domestic airplay at all. And it was a wonderful record from a wonderful year and orderable from a local record shop if you were prepared to wait 3 weeks or so. And in 1978 I was listening to, I think, France Culture when they played a viol consort piece by Marin Marais. Which Stevie Wonder pinched for the melody of “They Won’t Go When I Go”; it’s a tune that’s very un-Stevie Wonder-like.

The MM piece is called, I found out 30 years later, “Les Folies d’Espagne (La folia)”

97

deiseach 09.12.15 at 9:05 am

Belle, I take your point. ‘Some men are assholes’ doesn’t really explain the phenomenon to which you refer, assholery being a necessary but not sufficient condition. I’m pretty ignorant of music so have often engaged in a preemptive strike when facing someone who I sensed was about to get all snobbish on me, e.g. giving the impression that the half-dozen Neil Young albums I own makes me entirely familiar with his work, hence my scepticism that the existence of ‘fake geek girl’ as a concept is something about which to worry. However, video games is something I understand. I remember my brother-in-law’s girlfriend expressing respect for someone who had finished Final Fantasy VII. I really didn’t think of it as anything worthy of praise – great, I’m adept at wasting countless hours grinding through levels when I could be listening to Tonight’s the Night – but it never entered my head that she was being a fake geek, whatever the sex. She was a fan of the artwork and was making conversation. So when the whole GamerGate thing erupted, I must confess to being, well, mystified. Apologies for my dim-witted comment.

98

JPL 09.12.15 at 9:14 am

But in my maturity I’ve come to appreciate Stevie’s songs as compositions. People deride his later albums, but even after his decade of wonders, even though his albums were not as good, he continued to write songs that could qualify as new “standards”. Songs like “Overjoyed”, or “Ribbon in the sky” seem to be well known, but what about “Send one your love” from his strange LP The secret life of plants? Here’s a beautiful song from his later period, “You will know”, done by my second favourite (second to Kenny Burrell) jazz guitarist, Russell Malone.

99

JPL 09.12.15 at 10:11 am

But the question on everyone’s mind was, what is area woman Belle Waring’s favorite Stevie Wonder song? Indeed it was. And some people above have given their favourite Stevie Wonder songs, much appreciated, and one can hardly go wrong. So in that spirit I offer mine, since no one else will ever mention this song that deserves mention, namely “Ngiculela”. It’s not only because Stevie sings the first verse in Zulu that I like it (he even seems to almost get the clicks), but it has some personal resonance as well as a sonic richness. Oh, and it’s good for grooving too.

100

Ronan(rf) 09.12.15 at 11:29 am

Accepting for the sake of argument that (1) “geek girl” is a real phenomenon, and so by extension (2) that Geeks exist not just in 1980s American high school teen dramas, why not see our hypothetical geek girl as a budding ethnographer rather than manipulator of undefined (and probably aggrieved geek fabricated) status hierachies?

This highlights two of the most distressing trends in the contemporary world (outside of actually distressing trends) (1) the expectations of earnestness. Everyone must genuinly care deeply about whatever it is they claim to care deeply about, and cant just be interested for the purposes of banter or curiosity, and (2) the dismissal of amateur curiosity. If you’re not justifying your interest in (for example) another group of people without a carefully designed research agenda that serves a greater purpose, expressed in the jargon of contemporary academia, then you are simply engaging in a disreputable activity.
If I were to stick my head through the front door of the new hypothetical immigrant Afghani family in my neighbourhood to see what all the carry on was about , I would be seen as engaging in orientalism rather than expressing an evolutionary developed curiosity and desire for gossip, a central feature of human nature according to most evolutionary biologists.
So working back to going to Wrexham and cheap pubs. Of course people should do both. If they please. Even if the reason behind you drinking in a cheap pub is to gawk (rather than thirst or convenience or the potential of fun) most people, poor or rich, dont drink regularly in pubs, so those that do should have absolutely no expectation to be removed from general curiosity.
Pubs and towns known for lariness, or subgroups for outside the norm social traits, open themselves up for the gawking of budding ethnographers. A world that didnt allow us satisfy our instinctive desire to know stuff about other people, or that expected honesty at all times, would be a hellish dystopia.
So to summarise, people who are no longer still actual teenagers but continue to complain about hypothetical geek girls need to get a grip, and embrace the wonderous beauty of humanity.

101

Henry (not the famous one) 09.12.15 at 2:16 pm

Continuing two threads, here is (1) another jazz guitarist’s work on one of Stevie’s songs, except this time it’s in the original, in particular the second half of Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQEQenuItIM, and (2) another candidate for the greatest songs under 2:30, “I Feel Fine.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWTC5nFgwUQ

102

Bill Murray 09.12.15 at 7:27 pm

Ronan

why not see our hypothetical geek girl as a budding ethnographer rather than manipulator of undefined (and probably aggrieved geek fabricated) status hierachies?

probably as old adults we can do this, but that isn’t really in the wheelhouse of most teenagers and young adults

103

oldster 09.13.15 at 12:14 am

“Friday on my Mind” is terrific–that’s a lot of hooks in 2:47. Ditto for “I feel fine.”

I don’t know the Meanies, but it is exactly right to include some punks. They understood the power of just saying it and not dragging it out.

Looks like I was a little off on Roy Orbison; some of his hits were over 2:30.

“Running Scared” 2:18
“Only the Lonely” 2:24
“Crying” 2:46
“In Dreams” 2:48
“Blue Bayou” 2:29

You want to try to pack more pathos and emotion into 2:48 than Roy did in “In Dreams”? I hope you succeed.

104

Dave Maier 09.13.15 at 12:48 am

If we’re allowed to go up to 2:46 then it’s [the Are You Experienced? version of] “Purple Haze” all the way. Also, now “Constantinople” is running through my head.

105

hylen 09.13.15 at 4:00 am

“I Don’t Know Why”

106

Icastico 09.13.15 at 4:18 am

Should really be best songs under two minutes. Otherwise there are just too many.

107

JPL 09.13.15 at 6:56 am

Henry (not the famous one) @ 101

Superwoman is definitely one of my favourites, and I do like the second half better (for which I like the full title, “Where were you when I needed you last winter”). The credits for the LP list Buzzy Feiten on guitar, and although someone in the thread below the video claims it’s Jeff Beck (see my 92 above), I think it’s probably Feiten, an excellent guitarist with a distinctive sound who before that was with the Rascals, but after that seems mostly to have done session work, but has played with jazz artists like the Brecker Brothers and David Sanborn. As brother Ray would say, “Tasty!”.

108

ZM 09.13.15 at 10:18 am

“Pubs and towns known for lariness, or subgroups for outside the norm social traits, open themselves up for the gawking of budding ethnographers. ”

The only times I ever saw the singers that wrote about me was at pubs or other music venues and at a radio recording studio where a friend’s partner at the time worked.

Just because I was there doesn’t mean they should have written about me for the general public in my opinion.

Proper ethnographers disclose what they are doing to the community they are researching in, this is because deception is frowned upon in contemporary social research.

I’m sure they will all be rueful now they realise that I always essays as much as poetry, and I just didn’t happen to take my books of essays to concerts with me

Mean girl Joanna Newsom mocked me on a record sold around the world saying that I was a fake poetry girl – or “Poetaster” if you prefer her phrasing on the record.

As it happens I am better at essay writing than poetry anyhow, and since they caused me to have a psychotic episode which ruined ruined my Honours year, writing my book on them and their songs will be like finishing my Honours thesis, except I will surely find a publisher as there is quite a research gap on literature by women writing their views about the songs and film clips etc that refer to them.

109

JPL 09.13.15 at 11:10 am

Icastico @106

As for the best songs under 2 minutes, are we allowed to include things like this, because this Betty Carter version of this song is a classic, and it comes in at 1:38? (Every note she hits is worth listening to here.)

110

bert 09.13.15 at 1:25 pm

Ah, just noticed my Stevie picks have appeared upthread.
There was me starting to think “your comment is awaiting moderation” meant the same as “she’s washing her hair”. Thanks, Belle. Here’s Stevie on Sesame Street, melting the kids’ brains: https://youtu.be/4Eeft9NXIYM?t=1566

111

Martin Bento 09.13.15 at 5:49 pm

Under 2 minutes:

9th and Hennepin Tom Waits
Dear Dr. Jesus Ella Fitzgerald
O’ Woman Imani Uzuri
Cuckoo at the World Thinking Fellas Union Local 282
Now I Am A Hippie Again The Bobs
Act of Contrition Mary Lou Williams

112

oldster 09.13.15 at 8:01 pm

Okay, if we’re going for first-rate, hook-laden pop-hits under 2 minutes, you can skip this one:

113

oldster 09.13.15 at 8:02 pm

CAN’T. You *cannot* skip this one. Was the point.

114

Teachable Moe 09.14.15 at 7:01 pm

2 under 2 minutes: Moby Grape “Fall on You” and “Goin’ Down to Texas”

Like madrigals on meth. (But the special kind of meth that doesn’t make your teeth fall out.)

115

oldster 09.14.15 at 8:36 pm

Ha! As though William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons had a sound tooth between them. Madrigals–that’s what makes your teeth fall out. It’s not the meth at all: it’s the polyphony. Palestrina was reduce to sipping clear consumes through a straw–a straw made from straw, too!

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George de Verges 09.15.15 at 2:42 am

Late as usual to this long, long thread, but always a pleasure, both to read a piece by Ms. Waring and to follow her readers done various, always interesting paths. First, Stevie Wonder was never a favorite, but as I read this and thought about his work, I could not think of anything lame. Mistaken ideas, tendency toward sentimentality, yes, yes, but the music was always PERFECT. Each piece reflected his considered thought and work on the idea at hand. And dance…when I listen to modern R & B I am always stunned by the many, many whispers and hints of Stevie Wonders vocals…I wonder if the singers even recognize what they have done?

As for the other themes of Ms. Waring’s piece, it is on the whole her 1,536th installment of the theme, “Men are witless, and women must deal with their stupidity.” Alas, yes.

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js. 09.15.15 at 11:41 pm

So many fun suggestions for short songs — and so many I don’t know! I haven’t thought about the Meanies in ages, fun band though.

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