January 20, 2018

Minor Secrets of "Here She Comes" revealed!

Praise Odin, a video for Wednesday. (Okay it's Saturday now, but I originally posted this in all the places on Wednesday, in keeping with my alleged new schedule of posting video to my youtube channel each Wednesday, in honor of great Woden and for my own aggrandizement.)

"We blew all our money on dope, guns, and beanie babies..."

Behold my mesmerizing stage presence, ladies and gentleman. And I've learned nothing in 20 years, clearly.

"Here She Comes" is one of those songs where the Tin Pan Alley / Noel Coward approach to the lyrics actually clicks; the preposterous, yet (or hence) excellent, rhymes work almost in spite of themselves. Plus, I'll always love "je ne sais quoi like you wouldn't believe." And that ayes/eyes nos/nose stuff... well, ya gotta amuse yourself first and foremost, if you wanna dance alone. Maybe folks don't dig it because of that stuff, maybe it's just because it's "peppy" or whatever, but they do seem to dig it.

This was always going to be the lead=off track for Revenge Is Sweet... from the beginning, and though my original plan to give it a "new wave" Attractions-ish tinge with a subtle Farfisa stab and drone on the 7th during the intro parts and bridge never materialized it came out pretty much as intended otherwise. (The CD version was way over-compressed, though, something I'd really like to change if a re-issue ever materializes.)

But production and technical details that you fret about so much in the moment tend to fall away over time (unless they're notably great or memorably terrible) leaving only the song, somehow, in the end. A solid song can transcend just about any error of judgment, or lousy drum track, or sacrifice of dynamics for loudness, or terrible vocalist.

You just gotta give it twenty years or so. This, at least, I have learned.

(This is the 15th posted of the 16 songs in that set... stay tuned for the final one and entire set next Woden's Day if I live that long.)

Posted by Dr. Frank at January 20, 2018 04:32 PM