Tuesday Tunes

I told him that it was while I was studying. I was catching up with an old friend over the weekend, and though our paths had diverged, we had both ended up in music. I was telling him about when I was younger and a lyric writing professor, Pat Pattison, had come over from the states to take a weekend workshop. I picked up a lot of things in that workshop, but there was one conversation that stuck with me. I had asked Pat what he thought of songs like Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin on a Prayer’. Now I thought that an esteemed person of great intelligence would agree that the song was weak because it had nothing much to say, and simply repeated choruses ad infinitum. He surprised me by saying that he loved the song, and when I pushed him about the lyrics, he simply said “Yeah, but that song’s not about the lyrics.” Below is a song that might upset an uneducated younger version of myself …

The Song(s)
Song: I Wanna Be Your Man
Artist: Yukon Blonde
Album: On Blonde - 2015 - Ukon Blonde/Dine Alone Music Inc (Marketed via Cooking Vinyl Australia for AUS and NZ)
Method of discovery: Spotify exploiting my penchant for Canadian bands

Research: Yukon Blonde are a five piece currently hailing from Vancouver. From their lack of tour dates on their website (as of writing), and a Facebook post dated august 21st I would hazard that there are some new tracks on the way. Even so, this four year old track features on their YouTube channel, and the video is an experience. The band was nominated for a new Juno, ‘Breakthrough Group of the Year’, in it’s opening year of 2013, but lost out to Monster Truck.

Personal thoughts: The fuzz on the guitars. The style of the video. The grain of the photography on their website. It all evokes a feeling of the late 70’s for me. A simpler time? Maybe. But a simpler message - definitely. I wanna be your man. Simple, and not much more needs to be said. Where a younger me might think they haven’t dressed it up in all of it’s flowery language that the message deserves, they haven’t done the message justice. An older, and hopefully wiser, me sits back and basks. I love that the song is so simple in it’s message. It doesn’t need flowery language. It knows when to talk, and when the talking is over. It’s straight up and down. Not at all like my style of writing, as you should be able to tell by the preceding paragraph praising preciseness.

Theory: The song is on 4/4, but occasionally throws in a bar or two of 2/4 to get to the message more quickly, particularly in the intro. The Verses move through I-IV-V a couple of times before throwing in a I-b ii dim7-ii-V heading into the chorus, a much simpler IV-V-I, ending with a ii that forces your ear to stay awake. The second verse cuts the middleman out, throwing the diminished chord at the end line instead of in it’s own section, and transitioning into a minor-style bridge (I-IV-V-b iv dim7-vi-iii-bVII-V). The Breakdown alternates ending a IV-iii with a I and a vi a couple of times before chugging back into the chorus.

Give it a go: If you’ve been missing a bit of 70’s fuzz.

Give it a miss: If you need flowery language

[links]
Spotify: Tuesday Tunes, I Wanna Be Your Man by Yukon Blonde
Yukon Blonde: Website, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia
Other: Pat Pattison’s Website (it will make you a better songwriter)