Music That Matters (To Me)

Updated Weekly-ish

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Tag: music

  • 04 Pet Shop Boys “My October Symphony”

    Everyone knows “West End Girls”, and it is a great song, but there is such a deep catalog of incredible song writing found in the Pet Shop Boys. My favorite album of theirs is Behavior, and I’ve heard Axel Rose’s loved the album as well for whatever that’s worth. This was also the album that the non-music loving, sports playing, cheap beer drinking, neighborhood boys I hung out with growing up actually liked too.

    Why does “My October Symphony” stand out as my favorite Pet Shop Boys song and one of my favorite songs of all time?

    First, the guitar playing by Johnny Marr. After The Smiths broke up, he played on some tracks with a few acts, some of which we will hear later. He was already forming a super group with Bernard Sumner of Joy Division/New Order called Electronic, and the Pet Shop Boys recorded with Sumner and Marr for their first single “Getting Away With It.” It makes sense that Marr would pop over to record with them on their album. 

    Second, the groove. I just dig it. It captures the feel of a Fall day, a little behind the beat, which is hard since this is mostly synths. I play this song as often as I can in October. 

    Third, the topic. This was release in 1990 and so was around the collapse of the Soviet Union and communism in Russia. This song is written from the perspective of a Russian composer who was now unsure what to do with his work? Art was mandated by the government, and so needed to promote the wonderfulness of the communist revolution and the state. So, if that all fell apart, now what? Was it all just a waste? “Shall I rewrite or revise my October symphony? Or as an indication, change the dedication, from revolution, to revelation?” 

  • 02 Peter Murphy “Crystal Wrists”

    Peter Murphy was in the first goth rock band Bauhaus. The funny thing about many of these early goth bands is that they didn’t see themselves as goth, which I find hilarious. The first song to put them on the map was “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” I’ve heard they claimed it was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but, come on. He sung it upside down in a coffin when I saw them in concert.

    But Bauhaus is a hard band to get into outside of their cover of “Ziggy Stardust.” Tired of being compared vocally to David Bowie, they did a cover as clean and no-nonsense as they could on a lark and it ended up as their biggest hit. Once again, come on.

    Peter Murphy’s solo career on the other hand, was much more accessible. The album Deep, which carried the main singles “Cuts You Up” and “Strange Kind of Love”, but I was drawn to “Crystal Wrists” and it became one of my favorite songs of all time. 

    I love the way the track starts with a very simple deep electronic pulse before moving into a basic alt rock groove. The vocals start and I am skimming the sounds with him. I tend to be drawn to songs that do a good job with repeating sections of lyrics, alternating between them, such as Psychedelic Furs “Until She Comes”. I also find the use of the term Beelzebub charming. 

    The song has an explicit rating, and I was flummoxed by this for a long time, as I know this song inside out. I finally figured out the problem was with a term used instead of snicker. The etymology of that term has nothing to do with the racist term used by jackasses in America, but it does share some spelling similarities after the s. Singing along, just use snicker, as I do.