EDIBLE ARRANGEMENT
by Sean
Please note: MP3s are only kept online for a short time, and if this entry is from more than a couple of weeks ago, the music probably won't be available to download any more.


 

Wooly mammoth

M.I.A. - "Paper Planes". FORGET IT'S SUMMER. Just forget it. THERE IS NO SUMMER. Summer's done. Come 2010 we'll only have one season anyway: THE HOT SEASON. So let's start early. Starting now, in 2007, l'été est passé. We'll just act like it's this all the time. Like it's awesome all the time. Like you can eat ice-cream and dance in shorts-and-t-shirt all year round.* In the once-words of my good friend Dave: FUN TIMES FOREVER. And the sky will crisscross with sparkling jet-planes, and M.I.A. will be playing on the roof of the YMCA, just her and a sampler and a girl with a bass drum. And I'll learn to play electric guitar so I can learn to play this song - a high, keening guitar-line, lazy-crazy, useless for anything except "Paper Planes", but the only part you can learn. Because the sing-along chorus is literally impossible to sing along to: it's machine-gun pow and cash register kaching, and yet still the summer's second anthem, the best thing since ella-ella-ella. Sorry Dan: if "Paper Planes" is "filler" then it's like the cotton batten that fills yr favourite doll, the sap in the greening tree, the high-fives that make it worth getting up in the morning.

Hear M.I.A.'s KCRW recording of "Paper Planes" via Gorilla vs Bear - you can hear the way she's already singing it different, romping all through it, finding new swing-sets hidden in the pop-song's nooks and crannies.

* - I guess in some places you can ice-cream and dance all year round. But it's more fun if it's in Montreal.

[pre-order Kala, which is, unexpectedly, totally amazing]


Fleetwood Mac - "Walk A Thin Line". Jordan calls it The Summer of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, but as I say in the comments to that post - for me 'twas the spring of Rumours and 'tis now the summer FUN TIMES FOREVER of Tusk. I do not know what this says about my life other than the need for a harpsichord in it, and my love of wooly mammoths.

On "Walk A Thin Line", Lindsey Buckingham sings in that mode which Fleetwood Mac perfected: a jubilant sorrow, a melancholy joy, an addicting lament. There's a dozen voices there with him, glad and ruined, talking about fate, want & wonder, all as the beat clomps on & on, at once trudge and soar. And with some of the most magnificent drums I have ever heard on a song, the wisest drums I can remember, the stumble &: smile of a man as goes to hug his unrequited love: oh heart, beat on, foolish and dear, oh oh & oh no & yes.

Apparently Buckingham blamed Tusk's commercial "failure" (only 4 million sold!) on home taping. If you're reading this Lindsey, I hope that you warm a little bit to Said the Gramophone.

[buy]

---

Join me at this Friday's Bollywood Bike-In at Montreal's McAuslan Brewery. Cheap beer, projected films, and DJs under the stars.

It's been a few days of birthday! A verily and merrily, then, to Matt Perpetua, Andrew Rose, and Dan Zabbal.

[mammoth drawing by Christina McSherry]

Posted by Sean at August 6, 2007 7:46 AM
Comments

Close that strike tag!

Posted by G00blar at August 6, 2007 10:07 AM

Yikes. Thanks for that -- for some reason it was showing fine on my browsers at home and at work.

So: What sayest we?

Posted by Sean at August 6, 2007 10:12 AM

This is super-do0per, what is it she's sampling, though? I recognise it for sures.

Posted by Jasper at August 6, 2007 11:37 AM

What...no mention of how totally BLEAK the lyrics are to this M.I.A. song? It's been killing me for days, those bone-dry mercenary values set to such a sad, lazy pop song. I love it, but it makes me cry.

And you are right..."Tusk" SLAYS "Rumours". I've been listening the shit out of "I Know I'm Not Wrong" all summer.

Posted by Bob at August 6, 2007 12:07 PM

Ah, Straight to Hell by The Clash.

Posted by Jasper at August 6, 2007 12:26 PM

Hooray for The Mac! "Glad and ruined" sounds exactly right for Tusk.

I'd sort of written off MIA after never again listening to Arular after the first run-thru. But yeah, my mind is changing.

Also: hi.

Posted by Amy at August 6, 2007 8:00 PM

Sean,
I'm so glad to see that you are basking in the light of the mac, especially Tusk.

I too, wasn't that interested in MIA but your glowing words convinced me to give it a listen, and I like it!

Posted by jay at August 7, 2007 12:55 AM

Edible Arrangements: not a pun!

Posted by Andrew Rose at August 7, 2007 12:40 PM

Wow, Lindsey Buckingham sounds shockingly like Jack White (or ... other way around I suppose) on this track.

Posted by Cameron G at August 7, 2007 4:08 PM

Although I wasn't sure at first, I think I like the MIA song. The bangs and chinging noise are growing on me.

Posted by Alta at August 7, 2007 4:08 PM

God, Tusk is amazing. That drumming is insane. They should take every music school, Rush-loving douchebag and make them listen to Mick on "What Makes You Think You're The One". I could talk about the Mac all day long. Sigh.

Posted by Lucas Jensen at August 7, 2007 5:19 PM

Wow. What a funny combo of the Clash's Straight to Hell (god I love that song- it gives me the chills!) and a sinister reworking of the chorus from Wrecks-n-Effect's Rump Shaker- "All I wanna do is a zooma zoom zoom zoom and a boom boom, just shake your rump!" I think I like it.

Posted by marin at August 11, 2007 3:22 PM

Post a comment







(Please be patient, it can be slow.)
about said the gramophone
This is a daily sampler of really good songs. All tracks are posted out of love. Please go out and buy the records.

To hear a song in your browser, click the and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'

All songs are removed within a few weeks of posting.

Said the Gramophone launched in March 2003, and added songs in November of that year. It was one of the world's first mp3blogs.

If you would like to say hello, find out our mailing addresses or invite us to shows, please get in touch:
Montreal, Canada: Sean
Toronto, Canada: Emma
Montreal, Canada: Jeff
Montreal, Canada: Mitz

Please don't send us emails with tons of huge attachments; if emailing a bunch of mp3s etc, send us a link to download them. We are not interested in streaming widgets like soundcloud: Said the Gramophone posts are always accompanied by MP3s.

If you are the copyright holder of any song posted here, please contact us if you would like the song taken down early. Please do not direct link to any of these tracks. Please love and wonder.

"And I shall watch the ferry-boats / and they'll get high on a bluer ocean / against tomorrow's sky / and I will never grow so old again."
about the authors
Sean Michaels is the founder of Said the Gramophone. He is a writer, critic and author of the theremin novel Us Conductors. Follow him on Twitter or reach him by email here. Click here to browse his posts.

Emma Healey writes poems and essays in Toronto. She joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. This is her website and email her here.

Jeff Miller is a Montreal-based writer and zinemaker. He is the author of Ghost Pine: All Stories True and a bunch of other stories. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Say hello on Twitter or email.

Mitz Takahashi is originally from Osaka, Japan who now lives and works as a furniture designer/maker in Montreal. English is not his first language so please forgive his glamour grammar mistakes. He is trying. He joined Said the Gramophone in 2015. Reach him by email here.

Site design and header typography by Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet. The header graphic is randomized: this one is by Neale McDavitt-Van Fleet.
PAST AUTHORS
Dan Beirne wrote regularly for Said the Gramophone from August 2004 to December 2014. He is an actor and writer living in Toronto. Any claim he makes about his life on here is probably untrue. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.

Jordan Himelfarb wrote for Said the Gramophone from November 2004 to March 2012. He lives in Toronto. He is an opinion editor at the Toronto Star. Click here to browse his posts. Email him here.
our patrons
Said the Gramophone does not take advertising. We are supported by the incredible generosity of our readers. These were our donors in 2013.
watch StG's wonderful video contest winners
search


Archives
elsewhere
our favourite blogs
(◊ means they write about music)

Back to the World
La Blogothèque
Weird Canada
Destination: Out
Endless Banquet
A Grammar (Nitsuh Abebe)
Ill Doctrine
A London Salmagundi
Dau.pe
Words and Music
Petites planétes
Gorilla vs Bear
Herohill
Silent Shout
Clouds of Evil
The Dolby Apposition
Awesome Tapes from Africa
Molars
Daytrotter
Matana Roberts
Pitchfork Reviews Reviews
i like you [podcast]
Musicophilia
Anagramatron
Nicola Meighan
Fluxblog
radiolab [podcast]
CKUT Music
plethoric pundrigrions
Wattled Smoky Honeyeater
The Clear-Minded Creative
Torture Garden
LPWTF?
Passion of the Weiss
Juan and Only
Horses Think
White Hotel
Then Play Long (Marcello Carlin)
Uno Moralez
Coming Up For Air (Matt Forsythe)
ftrain
my love for you is a stampede of horses
It's Nice That
Marathonpacks
Song, by Toad
In Focus
AMASS BLOG
Inventory
Waxy
WTF [podcast]
Masalacism
The Rest is Noise (Alex Ross)
Goldkicks
My Daguerreotype Boyfriend
The Hood Internet

things we like in Montreal
eat:
st-viateur bagel
café olimpico
Euro-Deli Batory
le pick up
lawrence
kem coba
le couteau
au pied de cochon
mamie clafoutis
tourtière australienne
chez boris
ripples
alati caserta
vices & versa
+ paltoquet, cocoa locale, idée fixe, patati patata, the sparrow, pho tay ho, qin hua dumplings, caffé italia, hung phat banh mi, caffé san simeon, meu-meu, pho lien, romodos, patisserie guillaume, patisserie rhubarbe, kazu, lallouz, maison du nord, cuisine szechuan &c

shop:
phonopolis
drawn + quarterly
+ bottines &c

shows:
casa + sala + the hotel
blue skies turn black
montreal improv theatre
passovah productions
le cagibi
cinema du parc
pop pmontreal
yoga teacher Thea Metcalfe


(maga)zines
Cult Montreal
The Believer
The Morning News
McSweeney's
State
The Skinny

community
ILX