It's Monday, kids.
I woke up to a raging thunderstorm. Kind of a cool way to start the day, but only really great if you get to spend the remainder of the day in bed. It's dark out when it shouldn't be, and the rain is so soothing that you just want to curl up and turn over while sighing the peaceful sigh of someone falling back to sleep. Unfortunately like most Mondays, I was not able to do this. Instead, I simply got on with the day, making espresso and a couple of eggs, tying my tie and seeing the better half off to her car. I put my music on shuffle and headed out to work, umbrella threatening to fly out of my hand at any moment. The key part of today's post, though, is not the storm but the shuffling of the music, because it was through this shuffle that I heard a great song that I had forgotten about, and isn't that what this blog is really all about?
Total pop music confessional mode, here. If you've been following along with the blog thus far, you have more than an inkling about my not-secret-in-any-way love of pop music. This song, 'Your Woman' by one-man act White Town, was a sign post of my youth, a song that hit the charts one summer, then pretty much disappeared without a trace. For one summer this song was everywhere, then nowhere, almost like it never existed. That's really quite a shame, as it's actually a funky little dance-able number that holds up very well. Through both sunshine and summer storms I heard this song everywhere. I completely forgot about it for about ten years. Thanks to merging my iTunes with my those of my better half's, I once again have stumble upon a bit of nostalgic pop heaven.
Released in 1997, the song was the reworking and sampling of an old Bing Crosby song called 'My Woman' which featured in the movie Pennies From Heaven. Tweaked by one man under the name of his musical nom-de-plume White Town, Jyoti Prakash Mishra took the old classic and created a whole new number around it. According to Mishra the song was written with multiple viewpoints in mind, both being spoken from and to a man and woman, a woman and a man, two women, two men, or even people with differing political views. Mishra has never pulled any punches with regard to his personal politics, even in his music, but I won't dig into his lyrics in that sense. I'd rather focus on the sound of the song, the nature of the music itself.
I woke up to a raging thunderstorm. Kind of a cool way to start the day, but only really great if you get to spend the remainder of the day in bed. It's dark out when it shouldn't be, and the rain is so soothing that you just want to curl up and turn over while sighing the peaceful sigh of someone falling back to sleep. Unfortunately like most Mondays, I was not able to do this. Instead, I simply got on with the day, making espresso and a couple of eggs, tying my tie and seeing the better half off to her car. I put my music on shuffle and headed out to work, umbrella threatening to fly out of my hand at any moment. The key part of today's post, though, is not the storm but the shuffling of the music, because it was through this shuffle that I heard a great song that I had forgotten about, and isn't that what this blog is really all about?
Total pop music confessional mode, here. If you've been following along with the blog thus far, you have more than an inkling about my not-secret-in-any-way love of pop music. This song, 'Your Woman' by one-man act White Town, was a sign post of my youth, a song that hit the charts one summer, then pretty much disappeared without a trace. For one summer this song was everywhere, then nowhere, almost like it never existed. That's really quite a shame, as it's actually a funky little dance-able number that holds up very well. Through both sunshine and summer storms I heard this song everywhere. I completely forgot about it for about ten years. Thanks to merging my iTunes with my those of my better half's, I once again have stumble upon a bit of nostalgic pop heaven.
Released in 1997, the song was the reworking and sampling of an old Bing Crosby song called 'My Woman' which featured in the movie Pennies From Heaven. Tweaked by one man under the name of his musical nom-de-plume White Town, Jyoti Prakash Mishra took the old classic and created a whole new number around it. According to Mishra the song was written with multiple viewpoints in mind, both being spoken from and to a man and woman, a woman and a man, two women, two men, or even people with differing political views. Mishra has never pulled any punches with regard to his personal politics, even in his music, but I won't dig into his lyrics in that sense. I'd rather focus on the sound of the song, the nature of the music itself.
I could have sworn, when I was younger (alright, even now) that the trumpet loop in this song is somehow a nod to The Imperial March from Star Wars. It's most likely, though, that it's a bit of contextual referentiality that just tickles the same part of my simple mind. That muted trumpet is a fantastic, underused musical trick for modern pop. Sure, Adele could pull it off, but in a dance track on some Top 40 business? No way. Anyway, this song is great. It's got this thumping little bass line, a bit of synth that feels like a vivisected piece of 1997, right from the part when Spice Girls were still big and Smash Mouth was making it waves. See how I took you back there?
Right.
Point is, this song is a compact little bit of dance music. There's something intrinsic in the arrangement that feels like a single serving dance party wrapped in plastic. The way the synth bubbles and creeps over the drum loop feels a bit dark and dangerous, yet somehow distinctly European to my Middle West ears. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there is something just a bit off kilter to 'Your Woman' that really intrigues me, like the pieces not quite lining up perfectly but fitting close enough that it works anyway. The progression, the song structure, the understated way the vocals are sung - all of these...off...elements add up to a discordant whole that I love, all these years later.
Give me flack if you want, but just know that if you see me nodding my head a bit and smirking to myself as I walk through Uptown, I may very well be rocking out to the sweet, sweet sounds of 1997. Just another bit of guilty pleasure pop, courtesy of the shuffle feature.
