Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCLXXX--Filter: Hey Man Nice Shot

Spoiler alert:  the subject of this song is not going to make for one of the happier Friday Night Jukebox posts....

Filter has had a much longer and more successful career than I ever would have guessed before doing my weekly half-assed research.  They formed in 1993 in Cleveland when Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame advised his then guitarist, Richard Patrick, to work on another project as Reznor was going to be taking quite some time completing his latest album, and Patrick wisely listened.  Little known facts would include that Patrick did a stint in rehab (which isn't all that surprising in the annals of pop music), and the fact that his brother is the actor Robert Patrick, known for playing the most current model of cyborg in the movie Terminator 2.  Over the course of the last 27 years, Filter has gone through numerous incarnations with Patrick being the sole constant and has released 7 studio albums, two of which went platinum.  Their single "Take a Picture" reached #12 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Filter is still performing and released their latest album just this year.

Completely Not Fun Fact:  The subject of "Hey Man Nice Shot" is R. Budd Dwyer, a State Treasurer in Pennsylvania who was convicted on 11 counts, most of which were fraud related, and then scheduled a press conference shortly before he was to be sentenced at which he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head on live TV.  Some have tried to falsely claim that Dwyer was eventually exonerated, but there is absolutely no truth to this claim and it is speculated that Dwyer committed suicide so his family could still collect the death benefits he was due after a career in Pennsylvania politics (once sentenced his benefits would have been stripped away).

"Hey Man Nice Shot" was released as a single in 1995, from Filter's debut album Short Bus (for those wondering, short bus is slang for the smaller buses schools use to transport children with disabilities).  The single would reach #76 (with a bullet!--no pun intended) on the Billboard Hot 100.  Due to its proximity to the suicide of Kurt Cobain, many have claimed that the song was about Cobain, but as noted above it was not and Patrick has been adamant that the song was written years before Cobain's death.

Somewhere along the line in all of my schooling I was taught that we don't have to necessarily either agree or believe in the artist's statement to acknowledge their work as great art.  I've thought a lot about this week's song and read the lyrics numerous times and still I confess that I'm not really sure what Patrick was trying to convey with "Hey Man Nice Shot."  He's said that the song could be seen as callous, but in no way was he trying to glorify suicide.  As for myself, it seems a bit callous to call out Patrick's vocals or the incredible bass line that runs through it in order to justify its inclusion in Friday Night Jukebox--maybe in the end the best I can do is to put it out there for folks to listen to and make their own peace with its subject matter.  Perhaps sometimes art is more than what the heart and head can comfortably comprehend.  And perhaps sometimes, as I've come to believe this week, art is just a picture of a moment in time that we must bear witness to.

Lyric Sheet:  "I wish I would've met you/Now it's a little late/What you could've taught me/I could've saved some face...."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CLXXXIX--Nirvana: Lithium

In hindsight, it's quite possible that what we saw in the 90's with the alternative revolution was the end of rock and roll as we know it.  And while there will always be any number of bands and performers who continue the tradition, it's hard to imagine rock and roll ever again being the be all end all of popular music (for better or worse...).  One thing is for certain, though--if Nirvana was the last of a breed, rock and roll went out with a bang and not a whimper.

It would be hard to underestimate just how influential Nirvana was in its rather short lifetime.  They literally were the linchpin of a musical revolution--I worked selling music when their second album exploded and our alternative music section went from maybe six to eight rows of CDs to well over a hundred over the next couple of years.  Though they were only together from 1987 to 1994 and only released three studio albums over the course of their short-lived career, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their initial year of eligibility (2014).  Even more amazing (to me, anyway) is despite their small studio output, they've sold over 75 million records worldwide.  Since their demise, bassist Krist Novoselic has gone on to become quite the political activist, and drummer Dave Grohl went on to quite a bit of success as the front man for the Foo Fighters.  The elephant in the room of all of this, of course, is the death of Nirvana's leader, the man who didn't want to rule the world, Kurt Cobain, by his own hand with a shotgun blast to the head.  It's easy to wonder what might have been, but in the end it's a lot harder to accept what was and that there are no guarantees that whatever output the band may have had had Cobain conquered his many demons, wouldn't have tarnished their legacy. 

Released as the third single from Nevermind, their generation altering 1991 album, "Lithium" would reach #64 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  While the song did not have quite the commercial success of their biggest hit, "Smells Like Teen Spirit," here in the U.S.A., it did hit number one in Finland--who knew there were so many cool kids in Finland?

The easy choice would obviously be "Smells Like Teen Spirit," but oddly enough it was "Lithium" that turned me into a Nirvana fan.  My kid brother and I were on vacation in L.A. the weekend Cobain died and you couldn't turn on a music station without hearing all Nirvana, all day and all night, and my brother was convinced that Cobain had written the line, "I'm so horny, that's okay, my will is good" for the both of us because we were both single at the time and not having a whole heck of a lot of luck with women.  While my brother was most assuredly wrong, it did get me to listening to the song and despite having questioned whether their work was for people much younger than I (I was all of thirty-five) became a big Nirvana fan.  "Lithium" (supposedly the song is about a man who turns to religion after his girlfriend has died to keep himself from committing suicide) is really your prototypical Nirvana song, alternating between the soft and the hard, with excellent vocals from Cobain, and featuring perhaps more than most of their songs the talents of Novoselic (his bass playing is pretty much the backbone of the soft parts) and Grohl (his drumming is the driving force of the hard parts).  Taken as a whole, I wouldn't be afraid to say it is perhaps Nirvana's best song, though I'm sure plenty of others would disagree.  In the end, it's an existence questioning song from an existence questioning album, and as far as I know, the only song in history whose chorus is the word "Yeah" sung over and over (to excellent effect, I might add).

Lyric Sheet: "Light my candles, in a daze, 'cause I've found God..."

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. LXV--The Mountain Goats: Love Love Love

It's not often you'll find a pop song that references Raskolnikov from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, the tragic life of boxing great Sonny Liston, and the suicide of Kurt Cobain--and all three in two minutes, 49 seconds.  But the Mountain Goats do it "Love Love  Love" and throw in biblical references to King Saul falling on his sword, Joseph being sold by his brothers, and St. Paul's "Love Chapter" (1 Corinthians 13) for good measure.

While the Mountain Goats have evolved into a three piece band, they originally began in 1991 as the brainchild (and sole band member) of John Darnielle. In the beginning Darnielle's efforts were largely of the DIY sort, but through the years grew and developed into the band's current incarnation. Though the band has never quite achieved mass success, they have developed a devoted following and in 2015 released their fifteenth album.

I came across "Love Love Love" in the way so many of us who devote too much of our lives to music do--completely by accident.  I was actually searching the web for a song I'd heard called "This Year" (it's a semi autobiographical song dealing with Darnielle's abusive step-father--a great tune in its own right), when I read a comment saying that "Love Love Love" was an even better song.  Never one to let a challenge such as that to go by without at least checking it out, I gave it a listen and it was love love love (so to speak) at first hearing.

Released in 2005 on what's considered to be their best album, The Sunset Tree, the most striking thing about "Love Love Love" to me is its sparseness and its simplicity--it's basically Darnielle's vocals (wonderfully sedate), an acoustic guitar, and some slight background music which may or may not be a synthesizer.  Darnielle sings in an understated falsetto, runs through both the nobility and the dark side of love all the while showing a talent for turning a phrase--I try not to put too much stock into lyric writing, but this is one of those instances when I just throw that caveat out the window.  When he sings, "Some things you'll do for money and some you'll do for fun/But the things you do for love are going to come back to you one by one," it's hard not to smile in wonder.  While the song closes with a a picture of Kurt Cobain's suicide and warnings about both the futility of love and its ephemeral nature, in the end it's still a paean to what a great man (Lou Reed--from "Coney Island Baby" for those who may be interested) once called "the glory of love."

Had my mother not passed away last August, she would have been eighty-one today--and though Mountain Goats to her were little more than critters high up in the hills, this one's for her because she taught me most of what I know about "Love Love Love..."

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee