The Ghost of Tom Joad

It begins...

0:01 -- 0:22  Random guitar noises. And it starts to build. I recommend listening to this with head phones on.

0:23 -- 0:36  Classic, yet top notch, Rage guitar riff. Probably their very best.  

Durning the verse, while Zack de la Rocha thrash raps Bruce Springstein's lyrics, Tom Morello plays a simplified version of the above mentioned riff. 

At 1:11, what I can only describe as guitar squeaks begin. And the songs continues to build. Note the clicking that starts a 1:24.

2:06 -- 2:19  A riff variation with a sort of drum solo adds some diversity and more building.

2:19 --  Esspecial not worth is the solo-type riff that begins now. I will continue through much of the rest of the song. Another very cool riff.

2:50 -- First riff, second riff and squeaking. Tell me that something is not building.

3:30 -- An almost siren sound begins.

4:24 -- What I call the frustrated guitar/drums begin. By this point de la Rocha is paraphrasing the famous lines from the story of Tom Joad, Grapes of Wrath, which I think is essence of the song. 

4:39 -- He first ends the list of antecedents true to the book, "I'll be there." But at this moment in the song, noise is building to accentuate the paraphrased version, "You'll see me," which is repeated several times.

"Now the highway is alive tonight

No one is fooling no one as to where it goes

I'm sitting down here to the campfire light 

with the ghost of Tom Joad"   

     

"Fred Jones was worn out,...

...from caring for his often, screaming and crying wife during the day but he couldn't sleep at night for fear that she, in a stupor from the drugs that didn't ease the pain, would set the house a blaze with a cigarette." These are the lyrics from a song called "Cigarette" on the Ben Folds Five album called "Whatever and Ever Amen." One of the geniuses of Ben Folds is the way he tells stories with his songs. In the song "Cigarette" he tells a story about Fred Jones in one sentence. Go back and read it again to make sure. In the song "Fred Jones Part 2" he tells a more detailed story about Fred. Both songs are great stories about one sad dude. His wife seems to be sick and dying of something, maybe cancer, in the first song. In the second song he loses his job at "the paper" after 25 years. Each song deals with the element of time in interesting ways. The first song has a minute long intro where the piano plays most of a whole verse and then he sings the whole sentence in one verse and a bridge. The last word of the sentence happens as the piano plays what could be the beginning of another verse, leaving the impression that the song could go on or that Fred goes through the same thing again over and over. The refrain of "part 2" is "and I'm sorry Mr. Jones, it's time." It also deals with one of the biggest measurements of time called life. It barrels on like a run-away train.
Each song also deals with lonliness. I really like both of these songs a lot. They are really sad. The cello in "part 2" kills me. They are both beautifully written and recorded. The back up vocals from the dude from Cake are notable and well placed. Ben Folds is definitely a great story teller.
Other songs of his that profile characters that I like are; Kate, Losing Lisa, Zak and Sara, the Army, the ascent of Stan, the battle of who could care less and many many more.

Assignments - Songs from Elliot's personal top 10

[Ryan I'll need help getting the songs on the website so you, Eric, and Isaac have access to them. Did that need to be said, or is it assumed?]

*Caveat: even though these are songs from my personal top 10, I do not expect you to exhibit any type of deference toward that.

Eric: Jackson Square, Mason Jennings

Isaac: Fred Jones, pt. II, Ben Folds

Ryan: Ghost of Tom Joad, Rage Against The Machine

(If you want, after you've all posted I could tell you where exactly these three songs rank in my top 10)

After all this, won't you give me a smile?

Our first picture. I thought it was a good idea. I decided to write my response before I even read the other ones. I'm not sure if this will help my review but it just seemed right to me.



As I listen to the song on repeat I'm still not exactly sure what all I'm going to write about. I like the music and the way that his voice sounds. It's like authentic punk, which I think is really cool. I think there is some popular clash song that I know but I have no idea what it is. I also probably wouldn't regularly listen to them just cause I feel there are better bands to listen to.

Now onto what the song is about. The reason that the song was written was because of an accident at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. There was an accident with a pressurized water reactor and this was the "nuclear error". The Clash singer, Joe Strummer said that he thought that "we were about to slip down a slope, or something".

"A nuclear error, but I have no fear
London is drowning-and I live by the river"

I think that these ending lines to the chorus show the "I don't care" attitude of this type of music. The line about London drowning has to do with the Thames river in the center of London. It has been said that if the river flooded that all of central London would drown.

The next lines I'd like to talk about go as follows:

"London calling, now don't look at us
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust"

When I first read this line I thought it very interesting that they would hate on the Beatles. Wikipedia begged to differ. Haha. I guess the band was having a lot of issues at the time with debt and with their label. Some say that the line referred to the end of the "punk boom" in 1977. Another point of view is that the line isn't about the Beatles at all but about the Broadway production of Beatlemania. So "the line castigated late 1970s culture for its lack of substance, such as consuming "phoney Beatlemania," essentially a simulated, rather than actual, experience."

Overall, I think that "London Calling" is a good song. I wouldn't mind enjoying it every once in a while.

The Clash - Armagideon Time

"Lot of people a runnin' and hidin' tonight . . . a lot of people won't get no justice tonight"

First of all, let's just say what everyone's thinking: this song must've been the spring-board for Sublime's entire career. Honestly, just think of Sublime one time while listening to this song. Can't you see them as teenagers hearing this and saying, "This song is what I'm basing the rest of my life off of!"

It starts with that awesome reggae beat, but not a typical reggae beat. It sounds almost oppressive. The recurring guitar fill rocks. It's so chill, so simple--I don't smoke pot, but I'm almost tempted to light up a joint and watch a lava lamp for a couple hours talking to a fellow stoner about the end of the world. Okay just kidding (was that too detailed to just be kidding? Yikes.)

"No one will guide you through Armagideon Time"

So long as I'm just writing this off the top of my head (I have like 50 pages of junk to read before noon tomorrow and it's passed 10pm already!), this line shows more lyrical sophistication than any of my experience with Sublime. I don't really know what the song is about, but the lyrics mirror the overall feel of the song. Though it's got that hit on 2-4 reggae beat--which is often thought of as some of the most inherently joyous-sounding music around--it still manages to sound bleak, full of angst, and almost like an nomadic, reggae chant.

I'd like to think that this is a classic, societally pessimistic song--along the vein of common teenage apathy. Specifically about how young people often think that the world's out to get them--that it's set up to do that.

Long story short: melancholy reggae chant; oppressive feel; possible feeling of teenage angst bleeding through.

Train in Vain (Isaac)

I have always wanted to know more about the Clash. One of the most frustrating things in life for me is the fact that I will never be able to listen to all the music I want. I am glad that Ryan has given me a reason to learn more about the Clash. Train in Vain is effectively an after thought on the album London Calling. On the original release the track doesn't even show up on the list of songs instead it fades in after the last song and fades out at the end. It seems that it was written to be given away as part of a promotional packet in a magazine but the cost was too high and so they tagged on to the end of the album. Train in Vain became one of the Clashes biggest hits. It was the first Clash song to crack the United States Top 30 charts and in 2004, the song was ranked number 292 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.


I love how simple this song is. It is really rootsy. It has elements of country in the lyrics, and blues in the rhythm and harmonica. There really isn't much to this song. Three or four chords and repetitive riff from the guitar and harmonica. The lyrics never actually say the words train or vain but it seems that they named it that to avoid confusion with the Ben E. King classic song Stand by Me which is the other title of Train in Vain. It seems that this song draws on not only Kings Stand by Me but also Tammy Winnettes Stand by Your Man. Train in Vain could be an answer to both songs. In the Ben E. King song he pleads "oh darlin won't you stand by me?" In the Winnette song she exhorts women to "Stand by your man." In train in Vain Mick Jones asks "did you stand by me?" and answers his own question "no not at all." This refain is repeated as if to say emphatically that no you didn't stand by me. Not even when "the walls came tumbling down" or when I had to "keep the wolves at bay. Did you stand by me? No not at all."
It is my opinion that all bands need a good song about a train. Though this song doesn't mention a train it does have a train like drive, something that others have noticed, and like a good train song it talks about waiting in vain for something that didn't come. So this is the Clashes good song about a train and I think that as after thoughts go this was a good one.

Assignments: The Clash

I didn't know much about The Clash. I had only heard that they were an influential band and I knew that one of my past favorite bands, 311, covered one of their songs. But that was about it. Well, I listened to some of their stuff that I found on my computer and I read over their Wikipedia page and now I am pretty much and expert and a die-hard fan. All kidding aside, I have chosen songs that I like and that I think you will like.

Elliot-The Clash, "Armagideon Time"

Isaac-The Clash, "Train in Vain"

Eric-The Clash, "London Calling" (I didn't know what I was going to give you until the moment I typed. For some reason, I just really want you to enjoy reviewing this one.)

Enjoy. And feel free to check out their Wikipedia page, it is quite informative.