Songs That Grabbed Me – Disturbed, The Sound of Silence

Back when I was a kid in the 70’s and 80’s, you never admitted to liking your parents music. In fact you usually forced yourself to not like it, despite how good it was. We were probably too immature to recognise the quality. We were strictly pop chart top 20.

Simon & Garfunkel were one of those artists that in my group were considered ultra daggy. As we grew we learned to recognise great music. Then soon we were game enough to admit it. We could say we like the Sound of Silence and not fear being ridiculed.

A few years ago (Yeah, I’m late to the party!) I happened to hear a song blaring out of my son’s bedroom. It was an angry version of The Sound of Silence I’d never heard before playing on the radio. I’d come along midway through to witness the rising of the vocals and I had to stop whatever the hell I was doing and look this up. By Disturbed, Son said. Who are they? A metal band. This is a metal band? Geez this guy, David Draiman, can freakin’ sing! His voice had feeling. It gave the song a whole new dimension. Several of them, in fact.

I immediately looked it up on Youtube and played it from the start. Man, that song glued me to the screen. I bought it from Google Play and I don’t easily buy music. This song literally did grab me.

Then I came across a reaction video. I was so happy to see other people reacting to it in the same way I did. In fact I’ve watched so many reaction videos to this song and of the live version they performed on Conan. It’s even really satisfying to see reactions from vocal coaches who are equally impressed with it. I love hearing that Paul Simon endorsed this version. It’s just a freaking amazing version of an already fantastic song.

Official Music Video:

Live on Conan:

And also search for the reaction videos. You will enjoy the inclusion you feel as you realise many other people react in a similar way.

“You Can Call Me King Bee…”

Imagine you’re a 16 year old school girl living an ordinary life.

You write songs. You pour your heart in. Because you love it.

You can sing, too. So you sing your songs. You love it because they’re your songs. You wrote them. You’re singing them.

You get the songs recorded. One or two of them rocket up the charts world-wide.

You win a Grammy.

You feel pretty damn good.

Then someone like BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN covers your #1 song at his concert.

AWE. SOME!

The Sapphires DVD Cover: Racist or Clever Marketing?

There are lots of writing blogs telling us to get our book covers just right. I’ve also written a couple of posts about the mistreatment of indigenous people recently. Today they come together.

No, The Sapphires are not an obscure backing group for a slick and horrid in-your-face white dude dancing

The Sapphires is an Australian movie based on a true story about four talented aboriginal girls, played by Deborah Mailman, Jessica Mauboy, Shari Sebbens and Miranda Tapsell, who, in the 1960’s, fight racism and discrimination to become recognised as the great singers they were.

Songs That Grabbed Me – Goanna, Solid Rock

This is a protest song about the treatment of the Australian indigenous people during the time of the first European settlement and the whole invading-the-country thing. It’s suggesting the accepted history is inaccurate and that it wasn’t the relatively peaceful encounter many are led to believe.

Songs That Grabbed Me – Beach Boys, Surfin’ USA

Surfin’ USA by the Beach Boys (music by Chuck Berry), isn’t this the best surfing song? The Wilson brothers were said to have liked the Chuck Berry song Sweet Little Sixteen so much they thought it’d be a great idea to put some surfing lyrics to the music. That led to listing all the popular surfing locations in America, throw in a simple but clever little rhyming story about having no excuses for not surfing if there was an ocean nearby, and the rest is this very catchy song.

Songs That Grabbed Me – U2, Mothers of the Disappeared

From the 1987 Album , The Joshua Tree, easily their best album in my opinion, the final track, Mothers of the Disappeared, has to be one of the saddest songs ever written. Argue with me if you like. I’ll just nod and say “yeah, probably” but I really won’t care.

Songs That Grabbed Me

We all love lots of types of music. We all have our individual favourites, too. The odd song  that resonates with us, rings a bell, strikes a chord. They stay with us forever, long after they drop out of the charts and our friends stop talking about them. These songs could be recent, they could be from our childhood or teen years when we first “discovered” music. Or they could be from our parents’ era. They all have something in common. They all mean something to us for whatever reason.

Daggiest, Corniest, Cheesiest Song Ever

A while back Eric J Baker posted about his all time most annoying song. I actually liked Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners so I thought this was as suitable revenge for Eric! (If revenge is the right word.)

Recently I set my music player to play ALL songs randomly, instead of selected play-lists or albums, something I hadn’t done in quite a while. And boy did that bring some memories back!

Alvin Stardust in 1974 (Wikipedia)

Amongst the throng of the brilliant and the absolute crap was this little gem by Alvin Stardust. My Coo Ca Choo. It could also be eligible for the most annoying song ever but I felt that Daggiest, Corniest, Cheesiest were also applicable.

Check out either the Original 1973 video with the start and end chopped off, a 1974 version apparently badly mimed or badly dubbed live at some TV music show, or you can see Alvin perform, sorry mime, it at a live gig in a 1996 come-back.

Enjoy!

By the way, I still play this song. It’s awesome!