Here’s another bit from The Cars’ “Just What I Needed.”
David Robinson plays a pretty straight drum part, with the snare on the second and fourth beat of each measure, for the majority of the song. But about four measures after Easton’s guitar solo, he switches to snare on the first and third beat. He plays this for four measures, switches back to the first and third for another four measures, and then back to the usual riff for the remainder of the song. It’s pretty obvious once you listen for it, and the effect is to seem to speed up the song and then slow it down as Orr sings the final verse and chorus.
I thought that I was the only one who noticed this, but Rick Beato zeroed in on it in one of his recent videos about “What Makes This Song Great.”
Those are the BEST videos. The guy is brilliant (sometimes too much so… lost me in ‘Myxolidian and Iolian Modes’ when discussing Sting’s creative key-changes). But I love that he knows what’s going on “under the hood” of every genre (an early Metallica song, or the Beach Boys multi-tracking…).
Of course, I screwed up my previous post. I meant that Robinson goes to the first and third for four measures, back to second and fourth for four, to first and third for four, and then back to the usual riff. I knew what I meant…I just didn’t write what I meant.
As a stoner teen I used to love to crank up Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath” at top volume in my vehicle.
It starts out mildly, with a pleasant piano riff intro that slowly begins to build suspense. When the electric geetar eventually comes in, it then builds to a Gremlin-shaking crescendo that rattles my eardrums in a most enjoyable way. Followed by the thump-thump-thump that shakes my shoulders.
I happened to hear it again the other day and, yeah, it still works for me.
It starts out mildly, with a pleasant piano riff intro…
Then you would’ve loved to have been me in high school…
Milwaukee had a new Performing Arts Center, and Tull was playing! I couldn’t find anyone to go with me, let it slide, so it was too late to get tickets, but just in case, I stopped by the box office. Where there was a huge sign JETHRO TULL SOLD OUT.
Did I get the hint? Well, the nice lady in the ticket window said “Of COURSE they’re ‘really sold out’… but their manager just returned his tickets that he couldn’t use.”
So not only did I have a whole private box to myself, the seat was velour and it swiveled. And that seat only cost $8. But that’s not the best part…
All the lights went out fifteen minutes before showtime, a piano started, a single spotlight picked out the pianist in white tux. He proceeded to play classical music for a long time, then started doing that “noodling” that’s the intro to “ Locomotive Breath…
…but no one knew that! This was before the Aqualung album had come out! So we were all blown away when the guitar came in, then everyone else, and then finally the lights came up.
Of the many recording tics of the 80s, (whole lotta bits I wasn’t crazy about), one that stood out for this drummer was the echoey booming sound of the drums (to drown out all that synth, maybe ).
Some explosive examples played on the floor tom:
Hubert Lewis - “Wanna New Pair’o Raybans”
Laura Branigan - “Self Control”, starting at 2:15.
Heh - hopefully a more tolerable example - King Crimson’s Bill Bruford, on every four, smacks his custom-made Tama gong drum starting at around 4:07.
The moment where everything but the drums drop out in “Radio Free Europe” (the original Hib-Tone version) at about the 3:23 mark both gives me chills and it’s also impossible for me not to air-drum the moment.
At almost exactly the same moment in the song (I realized as I was youtubing these for the post) in Public Enemy’s “Revolutionary Generation” there’s a bit where a funky drum kick all of a sudden pops up, replacing a repeated regular percussive rhythm, and it flows right into Chuck D.'s vocal line. I have no idea why, but for some reason that moment always makes me stop in awe at the production.
As far as vocals go, in the original demo version of “See How We Are” by X (which is on the Beyond and Back compilation), the moment in the later verse (the order of the verses shifted around before the final studio version) where there’s this exchange:
Last night in a nightspot, where things ain’t so hot My friend said “I met a boy, and I’m in love!” I said “Oh really? What’s this one’s name?” She said “His first name is homeboy,” I said “Could his last name be trouble?”
John and Exene’s voices merge on that last line and they’re both just soaring in a heartbreakingly gorgeous way. The album version is almost as good (the verse is at about the 2-minute mark in that version) but the demo has never once, in 24 years, not given me goosebumps when I listen to it.
In Yes’s “The Fish”, I like the warbly bass riff that’s played @ :34 and then every eight bars thereafter. (Can barely be heard without headphones!) I believe the sound is achieved by simply whipping the cable around in a skipping-rope fashion, which is apperently how Steve Howe achieved that effect on his guitar in the following passage from the “Wurm” section from “Starship Trooper”, starting @ 1:00.
I like the part in Michael Jackson’s “Rock With You” in which the synthesizer or whatever it is has a little solo part after Michael sings “We can rock forever.”
In Neil Young’s “Kinda Fonda Wanda,” he lets out a falsetto “Tweedle-de-dee!” at the 45 second mark. It makes me smile every time. (He does it again later in the song, but the second time feels less spontaneous.)
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