One Night Stand: 'Burning Down the House'

Six Feet Under on DVD tonight tipped me to the fact that Bonnie Raitt covered "Burning Down the House."

Now, I love Bonnie Raitt. And the choice of this cover, which is a "Something to Talk About" sort of deal imposed on a multigenerational party scene, makes sense. But it only served to remind me that you do not fuck with the original.

I was not really into New Wave or whatever you would have called this in the '80s.

It was 1983, I was fully into Prince. But you could not deny the awesome weirdness of this song. My parents, who were in their 30s at the time and were still the barometer of cool to me, grooved to this. We may not have identified with it directly, but we knew that it was cool.

The thumping drums on the long outro are a tip-off. It's your sign that the '80s are leaving without you.

Music: "Burning Down the House"

One Night Stand: "Duffle Bag Boy"

The first time I heard this song was on a Chris Rock concert video. The next time was on a Katt Williams video. So those two comedians had already drilled it into my head and my iPod already by the time it served as exposition in The Carter.

The documentary about Lil' Wayne uses the song to punctuate his substance abuse, flashing its opening callout about "weed n' syrup 'till I die" over footage of him. Perhaps this and similar moments are what prompted Lil' Wayne's decision to legally oppose theatrical release for the movie, even though he initially collaborated with the filmmakers.

I suppose it's too late to get Lil' Wayne to correct the spelling of duffel bag in the song's title. Anyway, I'm sure the residents of the Belgian town for which the bag is apparently named are used to the alternate spelling by now. It's just something that bugs me a little. But hey, now I know we got the duffel bag from Belgium.

I haven't been able to get the song out of my head since watching The Carter the other night. I am sad that Lil' Wayne is going to prison and inseminating women left and right, thus risking his career and finances. To me, this and other performances, along with his ambition to release a rock-rap album, make him someone that the rap game needs right now. And yes, I am a white nerd who has no business typing the phrase "rap game." But you know what I'm saying.

Music: "Duffle Bag Boy"

One Night Stands: "Left Side Drive"

I always liked the actress Samantha Morton, not only for her performances in Jesus' Son and Sweet and Lowdown but also for introducing me to Boards of Canada via this interview.

It's not surprising that an actor would go for this band. It's music that could pop up in a lounge, but is much more cinematic than most other things in that genre tend to be. The first track I downloaded was "Dayvan Cowboy," a five-minute scene of lonesomeness and crashing cymbals that blows in and then blows out more quickly than you'd like it to, especially if you're listening to it while walking or driving in a particular mood.

Lately I've been absorbed in the clanging slog of "Left Side Drive," which feels like a good accompaniment to enduring something trying, and to coming out the other side.

If anybody else knows about BoC and has tracks to recommend, I'd love to hear.

One Night Stands: 'Gotta Stay High'

Unless you are among the modest number of people who purchased and really listened to the album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too in 1998, then you probably only know one song by New Radicals, and that's the single "You Get What You Give," which, in itself, is not a huge incentive to hear more.

Frontman Gregg Alexander has many talents, but naming a band is not one of them. Despite the exquisitely poor name of New Radicals, which sounds like it was named by a corporation, their one album is one of my favorites and for some reason "Gotta Stay High" has been in my head for the last three days (no, I don't do drugs).

Aside from being the lead singer, Alexander wrote and produced all of the tracks on MYBBT, then virtually disappeared. One of my favorite band tidbits is that the lineup features Danielle Brisebois of All in the Family. It's Brisebois who says, "Make my nipples hard, let's go" on my favorite track, "Mother We Just Can't Get Enough," though unfortunately it is cut out of most versions on YouTube. Check out Brisebois' bio: She has been sampled by Jay-Z and has written hits for Natasha Bedingfield. Way to skirt the child-star curse, Danielle!

It is sad to me that Alexander isn't very visible anymore. I really liked his style, both vocally and musically. In places on MYBBT, he channels Mick Jagger.

I was wondering what it is about this album that makes it, to me, a better pop experience than most. It must be the fact that it's Alexander's project (as opposed to a team of producers'). His energy in it is palpable. It's kind of earnest, in a very non-radical way.

Music: "Gotta Stay High"

P.S. Apologies for the thoroughly uninspired and unclever nature of this post. I forgot how working full-time can really take it out of you.

One-Night Stands: 'Sparring Partner'

Have you ever noticed how a visual can affect the way you process a song? Do you have songs that you like because you first heard them within the context of a music video, movie or TV show?

Do you ever wonder whether you would have liked the song if the imagery or scene hadn't led you into it? I mean really, think about "Take On Me" by A-ha and tell me you would still remember it today if it didn't have that video attached to it.

"Sparring Partner" serves as the backdrop for this scene in the disturbing French movie 5x2, which tells the story of a couple's breakdown in reverse order, starting with the divorce and ending with their first meeting. As you can tell from the scene, it is very, very French. There is a lot of smoking and people never being incredulous or shocked, even when a bunch of fucked-up shit happens.

This song, particularly within the context of the scene, is hypnotic and could not be a better choice. The singer, Paolo Conte, sounds like his vocal cords were dredged in gravel, whiskey, tobacco and severe disappointment for several years. The piano and the guitar snake around each other beautifully in the beginning. You know, like sparring partners.

I listened to it compulsively after watching the movie and still come back to it every once in awhile. To me, it captures what is seductive and also elusive about love. Then again, I am utterly clueless regarding the meaning of the Italian lyrics, which involve a monkey, memory, a secret, a smile, an elephant and some other words that came up on Babelfish.

It appears that the title of the song, however, has no convenient Italian translation. Conte finds the phrase "sparring partner" so necessary that he turns to English within the song. I almost prefer that the lyrics remain unknown to me. That said, if anyone out there knows Italian and cares to translate, that would be welcome.

Music: "Sparring Partner"

UPDATE: Thank you to commenters for the insights! Lyrics translated below, as listed in Phil Powrie's "The Haptic Moment: Sparring with Paolo Conte in Ozon's 5x2." First of all, I can't believe someone wrote a whole paper on this song as featured in the movie. My hat is off to Phil Powrie. Second of all, I just learned a tubular new word, one that dovetails nicely with the previous post: haptic. Finally, "Sparring Partner" may not be about the seductiveness and elusiveness of love, but rather about the seductiveness and elusiveness of lyrics translated from Italian.

A macaque without history,
She says about him,
As he lacks memory
At the bottom of his dark gloves
But his gaze is a veranda
Give it time and you will see him,
Entering the jungle
No, don't ever meet him

Did you look inside the game
Is this all? -- well, you know
I'm an old sparring partner
And I never saw
A calm more tiger-like
More secret than this,
Take the first bus, go,
Everything else is already poetry

He might be more than 40,
And that applause
Is due to him for love,
No, don't ever meet him
He was there in his smile
Looking at the trams go by
Old elephant track
Spread over the tarmac

One-Night Stands: 'Million Miles (I Love You)'

When most people think of Apollonia 6,

Wait, let me start over. Most people don't think of Apollonia 6. But if they do, they most likely recall the song "Sex Shooter," the single featured in Purple Rain.

Recently, a propos of nothing, I remembered another song by the group that joins "Sex Shooter" on their sole album.

Despite my mania for Prince in the '80s, I did not make a habit of buying full albums from the staggering number of spin-off acts that he generated. In the case of Apollonia 6, which has a mere seven songs on it, I apparently wasn't missing much. But I do think "Million Miles (I Love You)" is worth hearing if you like '80s Prince music.

There are many things I love about this song, starting with its focus on the piano. (Someone commented to me recently that boys should be encouraged to learn piano if they want to get chicks, and I endorse this view.) The music for "Million Miles" is credited to Lisa Coleman (of Wendy & Lisa, looking and sounding startlingly matriarchal here), which makes sense, but the words are credited to Apollonia 6, which I find to be dubious, given Prince's penchant for posing dares and asking questions in his lyrics.

I also love that the lead vocals are not by Apollonia but by Brenda, the blonde chick. Brenda sounds sort of like a female version of Prince, who's really the only person who should be singing this song to begin with. The man himself is audible in the background during the jam that takes up practically the last half of the song, so you know he had to be running the show.

Apollonia 6 was just Vanity 6 with a new lead singer. Vanity 6 had even recorded "Sex Shooter" before Vanity ditched the group (which was, I learned from Wikipedia, originally named The Hookers). I find it entertaining that Apollonia and the other singer, Susan, are mixed so far down in "Million Miles" that they are nearly inaudible. Prince was never one to make singing ability a primary criterion for his protégés.

While the topic of this post may imply that I am looking to winnow my already cozy readership on this blog, I do appreciate those of you who continue to visit and wish you the best for '09.