ILM's Top 77 Tracks of 2019

It's like slam poetry and...no.

I mean it's not teeth grindingly awful like the Belle and Sebastian lyric about the Asian taxi driver but still.

it follows a lengthy instrumental bridge with the most direct and pointed observation of the song, I think it works as a sock to the jaw. Ensuing chorus where he talks about the atmosphere round here growing nastier puts the whole lyric into context. yes we're leaving the EU today. this is how it's going to be

To be fair the lyric works much better in the context of the song than it does on its own.

https://genius.com/Richard-dawson-jogging-lyrics

Believe it is "in character" as he does not seem to be a graphic designer

Dawson’s single “Problem Child” as part of Hen Ogledd was one of my favorite singles of the last few years. Made me think of early solo Peter Gabriel.

Honestly that lyric is too on the nose and straight ahead to be particularly good regardless of the sentiments.

― Matt DC, Friday, January 31, 2020 12:32 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

As CaAL says, coming in about 3/4s of the way through the song, the verse works a lot better in context.

a sock to the jaw, fellas

stop posting and ban yourself somehow, for fucks sake

― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, January 31, 2020 12:56 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes, the song is more of a character piece and the lyrics should be viewed in that context.

Amazing how some people feel emotionally affected by music I am not personally interested in, it must be due to some sort of moral weakness

Well that too, yeah xp

A Northern man in a beanie hat sings a song on the guitar about how he doesn't like jogging, and you say this is the best 2020 has to offer?

Yes.

I heard 'Jogging' when my sister shared it with me, and she does not share a lot of music. Her husband had to quit his first career due to anxiety problems (luckily he is doing much better in his new career) and I think it likely she identifies with this sense of being alienated into depressive illness by the sheer spitefulness of English society & culture in the 2010s.

stop posting and ban yourself somehow, for fucks sake

― american bradass (BradNelson), Friday, January 31, 2020 12:56 PM (forty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

― Le Bateau Ivre, Friday, 31 January 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Lol Brad LBI chill out. It's not going to happen.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, 31 January 2020 bookmarkflaglink

'Jogging' builds upon a whole raft of social issues as it spins out, from mental health, poverty, xenophobia, unemployment, public service funding, ‘self help’, social isolation etc..

Refracted through a lens of eighties montage-rock, the metaphor of jogging paints the protagonist as a David-like character preparing for his big fight with Goliath. As it proceeds, he looks for ways to battle his own depression as well as problems in the immediate world around him.

As I mentioned upthread, the line that always gets me is ‘There’s no such thing as a quick fix’: With prolonged desperation permeating UK society, and as we saw with Brexit and the election of Boris Johnson, people demanded ‘a quick fix’ to a number of difficult and deep-seated problems.

But just as you can’t cure depression overnight, neither can you expect miracles to be performed in order to heal social problems. They have to be addressed head-on and worked on every day, like a fitness regime.

I think that’s the moral of the tale. And it’s impacted all the more with the final bathetic line asking to be sponsored for a marathon.

The protagonist has found a way to turn his own inward-facing mental struggles into something that is outwardly and actively altruistic, despite being personally daunted by the thoguht of it. All the while he acknowledges that his actions are comparatively insignificant in the grander scheme of things.

I'm reminded of the Enlightenment module I did for A-level. Voltaire's idea that as humans it's our responsibility to 'cultivate our garden' rings true here. You might only have the power to change some things, but sometimes this is all you need to improve it.

booming

That's all good and nice, but aren't we polling music here?

Imagine going 'yeah I'll leave the boards and live a quiet life now' after laughing at a lyric from a white person telling me the news that cops aren't going to arsed @ racists throwing bricks at people that aren't them. As if this was a silver bullet. Now I have to look at it in context apparently.

This after I throw a comparison with a song whose meaning is as subtly done, and whose singing is as gorgeous, as Shipbuilding.

Pathetic xpost to DL.

(Joking.)

(xpost)

aren't we polling music here?

― Tuomas, Friday, January 31, 2020 6:16 AM (fifty-eight seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is the uk politics thread

Guy's too lazy to build ships, who cares.

great post dl

re: "Jogging"

I quoted the closing lines in the rollout cause that's where it really comes together for me, the feeling that everything's fucked, and ultimately sometimes all you can hope for are small moments/acts of solidarity (and/or self-care in this case) to get through the day, week, year. Or maybe it's an acknowledgement of how insignificant those individual contributions are and it's just a howl of despair; whether you read it as faintly hopeful or totally, bitterly defeated, I think it works either way, which is great, 'cause I cycle between those states, among others, on a regular basis.

ah fuck dl said this better whilst I was writing this lol

Carter USM the elephant in the room as always

(i don't even know whether i'm joking or not)

"But just as you can’t cure depression overnight, neither can you expect miracles to be performed in order to heal social problems. They have to be addressed head-on and worked on every day, like a fitness regime."

Maybe they don't? Fitness regimes always sound terrible.

Guy's too lazy to build ships, who cares.

loooool

shipbuilding is kind of a bad song to pick if you're going to compare the writing of dawson and wyatt tbh

xxp so do fad diets, which are the metaphorical equivalent of Brexit/Johnsonism I guess

I love Shipbuilding (more than Jogging of course) but you could also reasonably describe it as "a song about northerners written by a sheltered white rock star from a London entertainment business family who once incited a brawl by making racist remarks about James Brown and Ray Charles"

Racist but makes better music 🤔

xp

you forgot to mention he was related to arch right-wing scum of the earth Baron Woodrow Wyatt!

Elvis Costello is?

Robert Wyatt, ah I see you are mixing him up with Elvis C. Cos I don't remember reading that one!

Elvis Costello wrote Shipbuilding - I have no serious criticisms to make of Red Robbo.

Clive Langer wrote it acually!

I'm joking!

this is the uk politics thread

lol

that day after the party feeling when all the balloons start to deflate

All the balloon colours gone, like our ability to imagine a better world!

anyway, changing subject, if I'd heard that Black Coffee tune posted way upthread in time, I'd have totally voted for it. Maybe needs a renom next year, Koffee style

I found a picture of a balloon which also seems to be making some sort of political statement, maybe we could all come together and unite in appreciation of this

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3026/2638678618_2151aeefe6.jpg

lool!

Is that a Robert Del Naja original?

ballons that make you think

ah Banky, the REDACTED of indie street art

yes this absolutely makes me think something

Balloons signify happiness- and Banksy makes that very clear by making it the only aspect of the image that has color. Balloons often remind us of happy occasions and celebrations. When inflated, balloons only go up- but after a short amount of time they deflate and go down- an unavoidable occurrence. This mimics the behavior of a child’s imagination. A mind that pushes beyond limits, but then eventually hits a point of adulthood and loss of that innocence.

Fucking balloons, how do they work?

I'm listening to "Jogging" now and you know how people kept complaining about how Meg White sounded like toddler banging on pots and pans in The White Stripes? That's what this beat sounds like to me and it undercuts everything else about the song except for dude's voice, which is making me grind my teeth.

His falsetto is an audio crime