12-13-2004, 08:55 PM
Anyone??!??! 
Remember 'A Beautiful Thing' ?? 'Leave' ?? 'The Dire Wolf'??
12-13-2004, 08:57 PM
I JUST turned on Leave and Beautiful Thing! Like SO recently that Beautiful Thing is still playing.
SO good.
SO good.
12-13-2004, 09:54 PM
Really good tunes. Love the guitar in "Beautiful Thing", love Gord's singing in "Leave", and love the melody of "Dire Wolf". Not to mention, all three songs are well written.
12-13-2004, 10:10 PM
Hey, good call. For me, these songs exemplify the strengths AND weaknesses of IVL. A lot of the tunes on that record are strong, but frustratingly flawed in one way or another.
For instance, take 'Beautiful Thing'...a neat song, one of their most neglected, with wonderfully atypical guitar-work and nifty lyrics. But I always have trouble with the unfortunately phallic ricochet in the chorus (maybe I just have a dirty mind :mrgreen: ). Plus the refrain sounds rather overblown, given the essentially modest nature of the tune. I kinda wish they'd left out the chorus, or done something else, and let the verses stand alone.
Dire Wolf: a classic, yes. But marred a bit by the rather precious, literary lyrics. 'Colourable seas growing moreso,' that 'made one think of' this or that...I understand that Gord intended it as a tribute to a poet (I forget which one---Wallace Stevens?), but the net effect is to distance the listener from the whole tableau. He gets it back, though, the second he invokes the dire wolf, and hits that awesome chorus. :thumb: I love the way the song builds.
Aaaand, my only beef with 'Leave' is Baker's incapacity to reproduce the guitarwork live and his apparent unwillingness to come up with something else for concert purposes.
(I also wish he'd said 'left to rethink their deities' rather than 'repaint' them, but I run on).
For instance, take 'Beautiful Thing'...a neat song, one of their most neglected, with wonderfully atypical guitar-work and nifty lyrics. But I always have trouble with the unfortunately phallic ricochet in the chorus (maybe I just have a dirty mind :mrgreen: ). Plus the refrain sounds rather overblown, given the essentially modest nature of the tune. I kinda wish they'd left out the chorus, or done something else, and let the verses stand alone.
Dire Wolf: a classic, yes. But marred a bit by the rather precious, literary lyrics. 'Colourable seas growing moreso,' that 'made one think of' this or that...I understand that Gord intended it as a tribute to a poet (I forget which one---Wallace Stevens?), but the net effect is to distance the listener from the whole tableau. He gets it back, though, the second he invokes the dire wolf, and hits that awesome chorus. :thumb: I love the way the song builds.
Aaaand, my only beef with 'Leave' is Baker's incapacity to reproduce the guitarwork live and his apparent unwillingness to come up with something else for concert purposes.
(I also wish he'd said 'left to rethink their deities' rather than 'repaint' them, but I run on).
12-13-2004, 11:15 PM
I too was just listening to The Dire Wolf not 5 minutes ago, and I see that Get Back again has been discussed in another thread tonight as well....all we need now is for someone to bring up, the "Just who was Susan?" argument, find out who the guy was that offed himself spawning Escape is at Hand for Travellin man and discuss the United States influences in As Makeshift as We Are and we'll have covered my top 5 Hip songs tonight....
Goulet!!!
Goulet!!!
12-14-2004, 12:43 AM
The Dire Wolf is easily among my top 5 favorite Hip songs of all time...hence my username.
:thumb:
:thumb:
12-14-2004, 12:49 AM
Zoo Lion Wrote:Aaaand, my only beef with 'Leave' is Baker's incapacity to reproduce the guitarwork live and his apparent unwillingness to come up with something else for concert purposes.
I think the "left to repaint their deities" line works great because its an allusion to the re-working of myths/legends/dogma in the religions of society. Every religion undergoes change over the course of the centuries and the line symbolizes to me chipping away the faded, cracked paint of our religious beliefs and applying a fresh coat of paint.
12-14-2004, 01:57 AM
Leave is a great song... I love the quirky lyrics and the way the songs builds up to a climax at the end with Gord singing leave in a falsetto voice... pure gold!
12-14-2004, 10:05 AM
I love all those songs myself and believe each one of them could become gems live in concert.
I guess for some of you, to love the hip also comes with being quite critical of them. Never thought like that myself but good for those of you who do. I love the passion here about the hip.
I guess for some of you, to love the hip also comes with being quite critical of them. Never thought like that myself but good for those of you who do. I love the passion here about the hip.
12-14-2004, 01:55 PM
Yeah, I'm of intellectual disposition and like to analyze and, where appropriate, critique the art/music/literature I love. But that's the point---to me, critical engagement with something often deepens my enjoyment of it. There's no tension between saying 'Gord gets it wrong here' and being a Gord fan, in my book.
12-14-2004, 03:47 PM
Killer Whale Tank Wrote:Yeah, I'm of intellectual disposition and like to analyze and, where appropriate, critique the art/music/literature I love. But that's the point---to me, critical engagement with something often deepens my enjoyment of it. There's no tension between saying 'Gord gets it wrong here' and being a Gord fan, in my book.
Well said.
I likes "Leave" a lot because it's so damn intellectual.
12-14-2004, 07:01 PM
These three songs are all good examples of a saddening pattern emerging in The Hip's last two tours (IVL and IBE).
The TATH tour saw plenty of DFN stuff. The PP tour saw plenty of TATH stuff. The M@W tour saw plenty of PP stuff.
But then came the IVL tour, where M@W was curiously almost completely abandoned. MMAW got plenty of play, as did Lake Fever. You'd hear the occasional Puttin Down and once in a blue moon, you'd get Freak Turbulence. But that was it. I was hoping it was an unfortunate one-album occurence.
Now that we have scores of IBE tour setlists to pour over, we see it wasn't a one-album occurence. IVL was practically abandoned on this tour. Good Life most nights, the occasional Silver Jet, a rare Are You Ready, and I think Dire Wolf popped up a time or two in the early portion of the tour. And that's it. No Darkest One, no All Tore Up, no Dark Canuck!
WHY??? If we are to judge based on setlists, it would appear as though the band does not see the value of its last few albums in a live environment. I hope I'm not alone in feeling that this is completely wrong. In my opinion, M@W and IVL are packed with tunes that were awesome in concert, particularly The Completists, Toronto #4, All Tore Up, Use It Up, The Dark Canuck, and The Dire Wolf. They have built up a pretty large catalogue, and yet they only cull songs for a setlist from a fraction of it. If they even had everything from M@W and IVL in the "pool," as it were, do you know how much more unpredictable the setlist would be? I find this trend to be really disappointing.
The TATH tour saw plenty of DFN stuff. The PP tour saw plenty of TATH stuff. The M@W tour saw plenty of PP stuff.
But then came the IVL tour, where M@W was curiously almost completely abandoned. MMAW got plenty of play, as did Lake Fever. You'd hear the occasional Puttin Down and once in a blue moon, you'd get Freak Turbulence. But that was it. I was hoping it was an unfortunate one-album occurence.
Now that we have scores of IBE tour setlists to pour over, we see it wasn't a one-album occurence. IVL was practically abandoned on this tour. Good Life most nights, the occasional Silver Jet, a rare Are You Ready, and I think Dire Wolf popped up a time or two in the early portion of the tour. And that's it. No Darkest One, no All Tore Up, no Dark Canuck!
WHY??? If we are to judge based on setlists, it would appear as though the band does not see the value of its last few albums in a live environment. I hope I'm not alone in feeling that this is completely wrong. In my opinion, M@W and IVL are packed with tunes that were awesome in concert, particularly The Completists, Toronto #4, All Tore Up, Use It Up, The Dark Canuck, and The Dire Wolf. They have built up a pretty large catalogue, and yet they only cull songs for a setlist from a fraction of it. If they even had everything from M@W and IVL in the "pool," as it were, do you know how much more unpredictable the setlist would be? I find this trend to be really disappointing.
12-14-2004, 08:47 PM
I can't agree with you more. Those were great albums and I was dissapointed not to hear as many songs from these as their others, and I agree that Completists would be amazing to see live, one of my all time favourites and is definately underrated.
12-14-2004, 10:50 PM
Very insightful. The recent Toronto show was fantastic, but if memory serves, the only IVL/M@W songs were MMAW and Silver Jet (neither one of which would have been near the top of my list, but lots of other gems on those albums were overlooked). Has this been discussed elsewhere?
12-15-2004, 05:30 AM
I agree about IVL and Music at Work. I don't think "Silver Jet" is a very good live song, partly because Gord NEVER remembers the lyrics, and there are at least four or five other songs from these two albums that didn't get the live treatment they deserved.
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