Sunday , July 11, 2010
How to Live, Album Edition: 8 Life Lessons Gleaned From Led Zeppelin's Houses Of The Holy
(Unlocking the secrets of the universe, with the help of records made a million years ago. In this edition: Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin.)
I. SUNDAYS ARE FOR SEX ROCK. For about 16 years it's been my opinion that "mystical sex rock" (a la Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, etc.) tends to sound scads better on Sundays. And right now you're all like, "Barker, that's totally just you attempting to escape the repressiveness of your Catholic upbringing by sullying the holiest of days with sexually charged lyrical content and a fuckload of hotly masturbatory guitar solos." But, actually, Miss/Mr. Know-It-All, I think it's got more to do with how sex rock's a sweet antidote to that bullshit depression that sometimes sets in on even the sunniest of Sunday mornings. In some interview published a million years ago, either Evan Dando or Juliana Hatfield cutely dubbed it "that Sunday kind of yikes" - but since I can't find that interview online anywhere, I'll instead refer you to our sixth-ever Heavy Rotation, in which LJ expounded on the suckiness of some Sundays.
Anyway: "The Song Remains the Same" is textbook mystical sex rock, maybe the dreamiest of the lot. Try it with an early-afternoon plate of buckwheat pancakes and some blackberry preserves, plus a cup of lavender earl grey with soymilk and honey, perhaps in a botanical garden or underneath your next-door neighbor's grapefruit tree. And then afterwards you and your snugglebug can practice casting spells and summon up some black-silk-canopied bed for a nice round of mystical boning - exquisite!
II. EVERY STARRY-EYED GIRL NEEDS A SURROGATE BIG BROTHER TO GET STONED WITH ON A SCHOOL NIGHT. I used to have one, and I don't anymore, and it makes me sad. But it was lovely while it lasted, and one of my favorite memories is that time we were sitting around the living room some boring weekday night and "The Rain Song" was on the hi-fi and he sang along so perfectly at the "I cursed the gloom that set upon us..." part (which, of course, is the best part, one of the most magical parts of any song ever written, "IMHO"). For a long time I had this rule that I couldn't listen to "The Rain Song" very often because it's too special and I don't want to spoil it, but sometime last week I smashed that rule to smithereens. I'll play it every second of every day if I want to. Like now.
III. NEVER STOP BELIEVING IN THE POWER OF YOUR DREAMS! Or in the power of my dreams, at least. What I mean is: one time I dreamed that birthday-dude Wapner and I were standing in the CD section of some electronics superstore, and "Over the Hills and Far Away" started playing on one of the display stereos, and Wapner turned to me and said through gritted teeth: "I FUCKING HATE THIS SONG SO MUCH." And then a few days later, in waking life, I asked him: "Hey, do you hate ' Over the Hills and Far Away'?" and he was all, "Yeah, kind of, why?" See, I'M PSYCHIC. Plus my dreams are just generally really groovy, like the one I had two weeks ago about cats wearing velour capes and whispering secrets in my ears, or the one the week before that, about chickens who were very passionate art collectors.
IV. DON'T EVER HAVE SEX TO "THE CRUNGE." I can't even tell you how many times I've made this mistake. Like, at least three.
V. BUT TOTALLY HAVE SEX TO "DANCING DAYS," ALL THE TIME. Seriously: just quit your job and stop talking to your friends and going grocery-shopping and all that other nonessential stuff, and just have sex to "Dancing Days" from now till forever. Dig? Also I never knew that the lyric at 1:48 was "I saw a lion, he was standing alone, with a tadpole in a jar" till my buddy Jay posted it as a status update a few weeks ago. That's such a cool lyric! Lions? Tadpoles? JARS???!!! I love jars! Jars are sooooo bitchin': delicate little jars of strawberry conserve, mason jars full of lemonade, mason jars full of wine, the version of "Christmas Time Is Here Again" where the Beatles sing about "plenty of jam jars, baby" - all in all, I just can't get enough jars. In fact, it would be so cool if this year the Easter Bunny gave me many jars full of Cadbury Mini Eggs and other tiny pink and purple candies instead of a basket. Are you listening, Easter Bunny???
VI. IF YOU'RE RICH YOU SHOULD PAY ME TO COME TO YOUR HOUSE AND PUT SONGS ON YOUR STEREO. A few Saturdays ago my friends hosted a dinner party for about 30 people and asked me to be in charge of music. So I made a giant playlist and one of the songs was "D'yer Mak'er," which of course was a genius choice and everyone just about fell over into their lentil stew and goat cheese salad cuz they couldn't even stand how amazing I am. Which got me thinking!: People should totally pay me to DJ their dinner parties; that should totally be my main source of income. I'd make the songs go with the dessert and the wine and the tablecloth and everything else you could possibly imagine, but not in some dumb obvy matchy-matchy kinda way. This is a job that actually exists, kind of. There are people called personal music stylists and if there's anyone meant to be one, it's Elizabeth "DJ Black Eyes" Barker. Help me make it happen! I live at liz@nogoodforme.com.
VII. BOYS WILL BE BOYS! I tried and tried, but I couldn't think of a damn thing learned from listening to "No Quarter." So I emailed my buddy Ian (aka the most Zeppelin-loving and possibly most thoughtful dude I know) and promised to pay him a million dollars if he'd tell me one "No Quarter"-related revelation he's ever had. And then Ian wrote back and said "The main riff is eerily similar to that of Jimi Hendrix's 'Machine Gun,'" and I have no idea what that means. "Boys will be boys!" I exclaim in baffled delight, shrugging my shoulders and turning my palms to the sky. Sexist, I know, but it's all in good fun, and a little sweethearted gender-stereotyping never hurt anyone. That's one important thing I've learned from Led Zeppelin in general, I suppose.
VIII. THE SEAWEED IS ALWAYS GREENER IN SOMEBODY ELSE'S LAKE. There are only two reasons I care about "The Ocean": (1) the Beastie Boys sample it on "She's Crafty" and (2) I dig the part at the end where Robert Plant says "Oh, so good!" But mostly it's just the former, cuz I hear that riff and I'm all "My place or yours? Let's kick some bass, behind closed doors!" I guess I also care about it cuz I love the ocean, but not really. In fact, here are five songs about the ocean that I love way more than "The Ocean":
-"Ocean Size" by Jane's Addiction
-"Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin
-"Redondo Beach" by Patti Smith
-"Rider on the Stormy Sea" by Mary Timony
-"Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid
Let's give that last one a listen, shall we?
"BONUS REALIZATION": Apart from Andrew McCarthy's character in St. Elmo's Fire, Jimmy Page in the above photo is the only overcoat-wearing dude I've ever been in love with. It's weird how you grow up staunchly believing Robert Plant to be The Cute One, and then you get to age 23 or 24 and finally come to your Jimmy-Page-sweatin' senses. He's a Capricorn, btw.
Tags: Andrew McCarthy, Barker loves the Beatles, Cadbury Mini Eggs, Capricorns, dinner parties, DJ Black Eyes, dreams, grapefruit trees, guitar riffs, Jane's Addiction, jars, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, lavender earl grey, lions, marijuana, Mary Timony, my dude friends are cool, overcoats, pancakes, personal music stylists, Robert Plant, rock and roll, sex, Sex-Rock Sundays, sexism, surrogate big brothers, textbook sex rock, The Beastie Boys, the Easter Bunny, The Little Mermaid
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I almost didn't read this because I love Led Zeppelin so much and so personally. I thought it'd be like the time I was tabling at a zine thing and this girl walked up, read my zine right in front of me, sneering, and then tossed it back on the table.
But this wasn't like that at all. Thank you for this post!
By Samantha on February 17, 2010 1:44 PM
I never noticed that before, that the riff from "No Quarter" is similar to "Machine Gun." Yet it's there, go figure. Then again, I was always more attentive to the fact that "Machine Gun" borrows heavily from Sly & The Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song." And if that does mean anything, I'd say it means that even the most boring of moments have soul.
By Michael Fortes on February 17, 2010 2:54 PM
Liz, I love this post so so much! Question though re: doing it to Houses of the Holy-- does one just put it on repeat? Is that weird? If not at which point during the boning process should it be queued? Please advise because this sounds like a fantastic idea.
In my
By Tatyana on February 17, 2010 4:19 PM
...heart it is always Zeptember
By Tatyana on February 17, 2010 4:21 PM
samantha: so happy i didn't let you down! and i hate the sneering zine-convention girl!
tatyana: thank you! my advice would be to make a playlist that's 'houses of the holy' minus 'the crunge' and maybe also 'over the hills and far away' and 'the ocean,' hit repeat + shuffle, and see what happens. godspeed.
mike...did you do that on purpose?
By Liz
on February 17, 2010 6:21 PM
If by "do that" you mean either "suggest that 'No Quarter' is a boring song" or "say a really geeky boy thing just to add some weight to what Ian said," the answer is yes (it's much better live).
This post is rich for riffing, love it. Except I have to admit I was disappointed you didn't mention "The Ocean" by the Velvet Underground.
By Michael Fortes on February 17, 2010 8:08 PM
Good lord, No Quarter is the second best zeppelin song in the entire universe! "In My Book."
No Quarter is for those rare desolate moments when you don't care about anything... you feel dead to yourself, the world, the person you're with, and everyone you know, and what's more, you're okay with it. Not only are you okay with it, it is beautiful, you appreciate the perverse, grotesque, Francis Bacon evil beauty of your emptiness. You look at your lover and you've got a rare moment of realization that she is at the exactly the same dark place, perhaps with a twinkling eye and a toothy snarl. You could rob a bank. Go Natural Born Killers on a countryside of innocent civilians.
"They chose a path where noone goes....!"
(dun duh-duh-duh-duh! dun duh-duh-duh-duh! love it.)
It celebrates the (shared) ugly and inglorious. And that riff is "epic" and sounds like how "crawling skin" feels.
I agree so perfectly with most of you three's music tastes that its almost exciting to find differences once in a while. Cheers, fools
By tarzanic on February 17, 2010 8:59 PM
Wow, that's a pretty brilliant defense of "No Quarter." I'll be hearing it with a different set of ears next time Houses of the Holy (which, by the way, was the first Zeppelin record I ever bought, back in 7th grade) makes its way to my turntable. Touché, tarzanic!
By Michael Fortes on February 17, 2010 9:42 PM
"EVERY STARRY-EYED GIRL NEEDS A SURROGATE BIG BROTHER TO GET STONED WITH ON A SCHOOL NIGHT."
This is so true! I have the best surrogate big brother ever. He's never actually gotten me stoned, though he often promises to.
Anyway, I greatly enjoyed this.
By Clara the annoying fifteen-year-old on February 17, 2010 10:33 PM
thank you, tarzanic and clara! clara: i'm really envious about your surrogate-big-brother-having-ness. i miss mine so much right now.
mike...i don't know 'the ocean' by the velvet underground. but there's no way it's better than 'under the sea'!
By Liz
on February 18, 2010 12:23 AM