Another Perfect Pop Song

Third in a Very Occasional Series

The second summer of my working life, it rained every weekend. Rain on Saturday. Rain on Sunday.

Then, during the work week it was mostly clear and sunny.

This was a source of ironic amusement for most of June and July.

But by the time August came around, people were pissed. And you haven't experienced pissed until you've spent a hot, humid August surrounded by pissed-off New Englanders.

People who could do so took vacations (and got out of town if they had the means). Others called in sick so they could enjoy one or two days enjoying the sunshine and warm weather. But most of us gritted it out, refusing to believe God could be so cruel as to ruin every single summer weekend.

But He did.

And so, on the Monday of the week before Labor Day, with bright sunshine warming the wet grass, I went down into the subway, waited for the train, then squeezed into a crowded car.

Someone in the corner had one of those absurdly large boomboxes (which ate D batteries like kids eat Halloween candy). After the doors shut, he pushed play on the cassette deck and played this song:


After the song was done, he pushed Stop, stood up, and said loudly "Fourteen. Fourteen fucking weekends in a row." At exactly that moment, we got to the next station, the doors opened, and he exited the train, leading a mass exodus out from underground and up into the sunlight.

As I recall, it rained all three days of Labor Day weekend that year, too.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I forget about this song for long periods of time, but everytime I hear it (like the other day in a supermarket), I stop to listen. Really, really listen.

And I'm amazed that it's not just a likable and forgettable piece of pop. So each time I hear it, I try to dissect all the wonderfully different things that make "Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling" (by the Fortunes) a Perfect Pop Song.

Here are a few:

• The melody will be stuck in your head for days.
  
• The singer's voice is specific enough to stick in your brain but general enough to blend in (combining dozens of British Invasion singers with shadings of Franki Valli).
  
• Strings that propel the song forward without drowning it in cheese. (Arguably, the strings bring you right to the cheese border.)
  
• The goofy, percussive tinkling.
  
• The "bop bop" backing vocals mixed way down but still enough of a presence to lodge themselves in your brain.
  
• The surprising sophistication of the guitar and bass parts.
  
• Those great piano chords in the last third that signify importance and hope.
  
• The way the song fades out just before it gets to the happy ending. The song brings possibilities but it's always up to you to choose what you do with them.
  
• The way I always remember a horn section in this song even though you can't hear any horns.
  

Another Perfect Pop Song

Second in a (very) occasional series.

I had a business meeting recently at one of those big chain coffee shops that rename their drink sizes to make them seem more exotic and play Norah Jones incessantly to make them seem hip. I was early, so I got a cup of tea and sat down to wait. One of the baristas walked to the back grinning and carrying a CD. A moment later, Norah Jones stopped and "A Million Miles Away" by the Plimsouls started blasting out of the sound system.

And, as everyone in the coffee shop started to smile, I realized again that "A Million Miles Away" is a perfect pop song.

There's a lot of reasons for this... here's just a few:

• The drums are propulsive (even after being filtered through cheesy 80s production filters).
  
  
• It's about longing and distance... which is something everyone can relate to. And the distance in the lyric is underscored by just a touch of echo.
  
  
• Maybe the next generation won't realize it, but there really was a time when songs would come on the radio and they'd so perfectly capture moods and memories that it would make you stop and think.
  
  
• The vocals perfectly capture longing and just a glimmer of hope, but the hope is pushed way down to let you know that it's probably not going to pay off. Similarly, the harmonies are sweet, but edgy -- they keep you coming back, but there's a melancholy deeply embedded with the joy.
  
  
• The guitar riffs are simple, but amazingly memorable.
  
  
• We've all been at the wrong end of the looking glass (even if what the song really refers to is being at the wrong end of a telescope).
  
  
• The best songs really do make you drift away until you really feel like you are falling off the edge of (someone's) world and you'll never get back.
  
  
• The nostalgia of the lyric and the delivery -- is he trying to hold onto the past or to the girl? And in the end, does it really matter?
  
  
• The scariest ghosts are the ones that continue to haunt us from past relationships.
  
  
• Two words: Valley Girl (the movie, not the song).

But here's the best reason that this is a perfect pop song:

Back at the coffee shop, the manager yelled at the clerk to turn off the Plimsouls and put back on the corporate-approved jazzy compilation featuring Norah Jones. The clerk shouted above the roar of the espresso machine "But 'A Million Miles Away' is, like, the national anthem of Los Angeles."

And as I looked around the coffee shop, three people nodded their heads in agreement.

Another Perfect Pop Song

First in an occasional series.

I was just in an upscale crunchy-granola type supermarket (I swear -- I only go there for the artisanal cheeses) and I heard a familiar guitar riff -- the same guitar riff that's my cell phone ringtone -- over the store's sound system. And it occurred to me, then and there, "No Matter What" by Badfinger is a perfect pop song.

And here's a few reasons why:

• The opening guitar riff has a lilting headiness to it, but also a crunchiness that smashes through your ears like a wrecking ball.
  
  
• The lyrical pledges of eternal love are vague enough that everyone can identify with them, but never so vague or goony that they're embarrassing.
  
  
• The sheer joy of the singing is so infectious that it's bound to put you in a good mood. (And the way chorus blasts through from the verses and bridge is a triumph of pure wonder.)
  
  
• Badfinger might not be the Beatles, but for a while in the early 70s they were the next best thing.
  
  
• The harmonies alone can make the most cynical among us believe in true love again.
  
  
• Real (not synthesized) handclaps.
  
  
• I like to think Bruce Springsteen was talking about this album when he wrote "we learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school" (I'm pretty sure Bruce wasn't thinking of Badfinger, but the song's just under three minutes, so I'd like to think it's possible).
  
  
• My friend Holly (whose love of classic American composers like the Gershwins is only now starting to rub off on me decades later) says it's one of the best pop records ever. (And she actually met the Beatles, so she would know.)
  
  
• You can argue (and some have) that this song (and not anything by the Raspberries) invented the genre of power pop.
  
  
• The fake ending. (And the way I always count off the silence inside my head before the song starts up again.)

But here's the best reason why "No Matter What" is a perfect pop song:

As I turned away from the cheese in that upscale market, I looked down the gourmet cereal aisle. Six people were scattered there, scanning the shelves, each caught up in their own world, each looking for a certain cereal, each unaware of me (or the greater world around them). And, without realizing it, each of those people was unconsciously nodding their head in time with the song.


Elsewhere on the web: For the Love of Harry has an unreleased Nilsson song written to try to pump up LA baseball fans, Mister Pleasant tried to list his 100 Top Singles of all time (and then broke down and listed Sixty More), JB over at The Hits Just Keep On Coming talks Josie and the Pussycats (and the Jackson Five Saturday-morning cartoon series), and Any Major Dude With Half A Heart (after being bounced by both Blogger and Wordpress) set up his own domain.