Song of the Week Oct 27 - Nov 2: Telephone Line

I'm sorry. Last week was a little crazy. I usually set Sundays aside for writing SOTW but last week, my wife, son and I were mobbed by family (we were okay with that)... so consequently, The Sonic Landscape found itself neglected and alone. But I guess no one is employing me to make regular posts, so I can't be fired, right? That's probably not the right attitude. I apologize to you, my one reader.

Let's press on, shall we? I'm pretty excited about this week. My last post dealt with George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and the song we'll focus on this week was actually written by a friend of his, a bloke named Jeff Lynne. Lynne was one of the founding members of a 70's/80's rock group called Electric Light Orchestra. The premise for the band's creation was to create rock music that was infused with classical instruments like cello and violin. The idea is by no means unique with our contemporary artists, but for musicians of the late 1960's, it was still a pretty groundbreaking concept. The other band of note that had dabbled in orchestrations were The Beatles, and that was only because of the influence of the creepy Phil Spector (McCartney hated the resulting sound anyway; "The Long And Winding Road" was a prime example). At any rate, The Beatles had gone the way of the dodo by 1970 so other artists were left to continue the expedition into uncharted sonic territories.

The Electric Light Orchestra were originally panned in their native England, but soon found a loyal following across the pond in America. This week's track comes from their sixth album, A New World Record. I didn't choose this song because it exemplifies ELO's "sound" (listen to "Don't Bring Me Down" or "Bluebird" for that). I chose it because they used the sound they had already popularized and gave a really classy nod to the doo-wop style of the 50's. The result is nothing short of awesome.

The track opens with everthing you'd expect from an ELO track: electronic tones, synthesizers, and sampled telephone loops. The effect on Jeff Lynne's vocals even resembles a voice heard through a telephone. I also really like how you can hear the similarities between the writing styles of George Harrison and Jeff Lynne; when Lynne starts singing at 0:27, sing the opening lyrics to Harrison's "Something" and you'll hear that the first three chords are identical. If you listen closely, you'll also notice how the telephone effect gradually fades from Lynne's vocals, eventually disappearing around 0:41. The orchestrations surge shortly thereafter and really become a primary element, much like the strings in "Something."

At 1:32, however, everything changes. We break away from the aftermath of Beatlesmania and are brought back to the local malt shop. Lynne and company pull off a series of "doo-wops" that are so good, you almost forget that they're employing a style that was popularized twenty years before. The section is smooth, poly-harmonic, and vocally-driven--everything a good doo-wop track should be. Then, just as soon as it begins, the section ends and at 2:31 we revert back to the electronic ambience. This pattern repeats itself, and we're immersed in doo-wop alchemy again until the song fades. I love every second of this track. I've included "Don't Bring Me Down" just for reference, but listen closely to "Telephone Line" and you'll hear why Electric Light Orchestra was such a great band.

Song Of The Week Oct 13-19: While My Guitar Gently Weeps

Those who know me personally are probably already familiar with my respect for a little-known foursome out of Liverpool, England known as The Beatles. You'd be hard-pressed to find another music group that wrote so prolifically or accomplished so much in such a short a period of time. In essentially 8 years together, they released 12 studio albums, 18 compilation albums, 13 extended plays, and 25 singles. 11 of their studio albums reached #1 on the charts and 27 of their tracks became #1 hits. To date, they have sold over 500 million records and continue to influence the artists of today.

Given their huge notoriety and the volume of work already dedicated to them, you may wonder why I would bother to write about The Beatles at all. I guess we could ask the same thing about Shakespeare. Only the Bible has been translated into more languages or published in more countries. Also, there are literally truckloads of scholarly work on the man and his plays. Japan alone has published nearly as many scholarly articles on Shakespeare's work as the entire English-speaking world! This is quite a feat, given the fact that he didn't write in a universally accessible medium like music; something within his work was able to survive translation and remain relevant even in cultures that were far-removed from his, like Japan. And yet we continue to quote him, talk about his life, analyze his characters, and stage his plays. Occasionally, an artist or group of artists is able to transcend normal expectations and produce something that is truly remarkable. When that happens, they create a dialogue that never really disappears from the collective consciousness. So it is with The Beatles, our "musical Shakespeares."

With the above justification, I forge ahead with a special threefold Song Of The Week. This week's edition focuses on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from the 1968 release The Beatles (commonly referred to as The White Album due to its stark white cover). Unlike most Beatles originals, the song was penned by George Harrison and not the usual John Lennon/Paul McCartney duo. When I first started listening to The Beatles when I was in junior high, I was drawn to McCartney's ballads and vocal abilities, but over time, I started to realize that Harrison was the unsung hero of the band(Ringo was just lucky). This week, I've included three versions of the song: the original, an updated demo released on the album Love, and (ahem) a cover that I recorded in the summer of 2007. What I'm trying to show is that the same Beatles track continues to undergo adaptations, just as many of Shakespeare's plays have.

One of the reasons why "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" is so cool is that it is a musical intersection of two of the great rock influences: The Beatles and Eric Clapton. The White Album era was a volatile one for The Beatles; Paul was becoming increasingly controlling, John was John, and Ringo even temporarily left the band (a crippling loss, to be sure; do I sound sarcastic?). In the midst of increasing tension amongst band members, George felt a sense of frustration as time after time, his material was pushed aside by the Lennon/McCartney duo. According to Clapton, he and Harrison had struck up a friendship and one day, Harrison took him out for a drive, eventually arriving at Abbey Road Studios in London. He told Clapton that he wanted him to make a guest appearance on a song they were recording. Clapton was shocked and didn't even have a guitar with him at the time; he had to borrow Harrison's in the studio. Clapton's solo is what makes the song for me; he actually made the guitar sound like it was weeping. Apparently, Clapton laid down the lead guitar in one take and that was the recording that would appear on The White Album. That is also the track I've included first on the playlist.



We now fast-forward 38 years. Lennon and Harrison were gone and McCartney and Starr were both working on solo projects. Cirque du Soleil was in production of a show called Love and with McCartney and Starr's approval, had enlisted the help of former Beatles producer George Martin and his son Giles. The father-son team used elements from more than 130 Beatles recordings to remix well-know classics like "Yesterday," "All You Need Is Love" and "Get Back," among many others. Of particular interest for us was a demo version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" that featured Harrison on vocals and acoustic guitar and a harpsichord as backup. The Martins cleaned up the original recording and the nearly-deaf George Martin composed a rich string arrangement to deepen the track. The resulting effect is hauntingly beautiful: we get the tragic verses followed by the major-key chorus plus an extra verse that was apparently discarded when the full band recorded the song in the studio. This version is what inspired my own cover and is also included in the playlist below.

The third iteration included here was actually recorded at a tiny apartment I lived in just after I got married. I was already familiar with the Love version of the song and while I was learning to use some new recording equipment I had recently bought, my wife suggested that I record my own version of the song. I chose a key that would work for me vocally, then sat down and began to record the principal rhythm track on my guitar. I wanted to broaden the sound of the backup guitars, so I used different chords in order to produce notes and combinations that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. By this point, the momentum had picked up and I was thoroughly immersed in the arrangement process. I started to experiment with different lead guitar lines. I wanted to create something that was like a hybrid of the White Album and the Love versions: acoustically driven, but with prominent guitar fills pushing the song forward. I also wanted to preserve that haunting quality of the Love version, so I put a lot of reverb on the tracks to create a very open, resonant sound. Finally, I took a few takes to lay down the lead vocal. I decided to include the previously-discarded last verse from Harrison's demo version. I really like the line about looking "from the wings of the play you are staging" and the lyric seems especially appropriate, given all the Shakespeare allusions I've already made. I finished mixing the track and the result is what I've posted below. I had a lot of fun with it.

This is what made me want to start writing about music in the first place: truly great songs that perpetually maintain their relevance. I could have chosen any one of dozens of Beatles tracks for this edition of SOTW, but I was fortunate enough to have had some personal experience with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." Anyway, I hope you enjoy all three versions of this very cool song. Until next time.

Robot Guitar

I thought everyone would enjoy this. It's basically awesome. On Dec 7 2007, Gibson USA released a line of guitars that sported a feature previously unheard of: a mechanism that allowed the instruments to tune themselves. This is the stuff of dreams for players seeking a no-hassle approach to keeping guitars in tune or using alternate tunings. For non-players, it's still pretty cool. The mechanism comes on a variety of body styles and you can even retro-fit a standard guitar if you want to.You can also visit Gibson's website for more info and a closer look at the available styles. I guess we'll have to sit tight until luthiers develop guitars that can play themselves. Check out the video below to see the amazing robot guitar in action.

Song Of The Week Oct 6-12: Waiting In The Weeds

Okay folks, I've finally gotten around to getting this ball rolling. For my first "song of the week" I've chosen "Waiting In The Weeds" from The Eagles' recent album Long Road Out Of Eden. The album is pretty cool for me, especially given the huge gap between their last studio album and this one (about 20 years). Even cooler though, is the fact that they're still really good. By their own admission, The Eagles took a serious look at whether they were even going to push ahead with the album, given the fact that other classic rockers have employed reunion-style tactics with less-than-graceful results. Like Stallone's Rocky Balboa, The Eagles are able to prove with Long Road Out Of Eden that they're still able to "go the distance" in a way that is truly respectable.

I've chosen "Waiting In The Weeds" because I figure that people who are casually familiar with the album will have already heard "How Long" and "Just Too Busy Being Fabulous" (two of the obligatory singles from the album). At 7:46, it's by no means a radio-friendly track. Maybe that's one of the reasons I like it. "Radio edits" are a necessary evil for artists seeking airtime and sometimes perfectly good tracks have to go under the knife in order to fit time constraints. "Waiting In The Weeds" is so far over the 3:30-ish target radio time that it's pretty refreshing to hear. The Eagles let this song go as long as it needed to and the result is satisfying, to say the least.

"Waiting" has all the elements you would expect to hear on a great Eagles track: smoky Don Henley vocals, perfect five-part harmonies, delicate mandolin fills, great guitar work, and solid keyboards. The chord progressions on this track are so lovely that the 7:46 song length feels a lot quicker that it really is. Equally nice are the lyrics, especially the second-to-last stanza; the images of ocean tides, the changing moon, the ever-beating heart, and the repetitive egg-and-dart molding portray the plight of an unfortunate lover who is reminded of the constant passage of time by the patterns all around him.

I loved Long Road Out Of Eden, and "Waiting In The Weeds" is a gem among gems. Lie back, close your eyes, and listen to this great story-in-a-song.