When the POLL Comes Down: The Stones' "Some Girls"

Thanks. Pretty good song, though I much prefer "Junior's Farm," probably my favourite Wings single. Do I think "Getting Closer" has anything to do with punk? No--it's just Paul being Paul!

oh yeah I totally agree. But watching that video (skinny ties! shorter hair!) and listening to the song (clipped rhythms!) you would be forgiven for thinking, "Hey, it's 1979, and Paul is obviously influenced by punk." Like I said above, it doesn't sound much different from what he'd tried for years (and he was always a super-sponge: do you think "Goodnight Tonight" sounds like any disco you and I know?).

you've rather deftly switched over to "Sheer Heart Attack."

No, actually (as somebody else pointed out a few posts up) I mentioned that song here on this thread long before I mentioned the The Game (and you also mentioned Night At The Opera in the post in which you more or less shrugged the band off, so I didn't realize '70s Queen's apparently punk influences were suddenly off limits.) As for The Game, as I said before, there do seem to be new wave influences there (and sure, doing a rockabilly song in 1980 might well be one part of it.) Though I think I've lost track by now of why exactly that matters. (I could also argue that Mercury could well have thought the nihilism of "nothing really matters to me" in "Bohemian Rhapsody" in 1975 was somehow an emotional antecedent to "no future for you" or whatever -- in fact, I may have made that connection in a book once. Or maybe he didn't. But again, whether he did is kind of immaterial.)

By the way, I'm not sure I understand how, e.g., Street Hassle (which I admittedly haven't heard in a long time) or David Johansen (which, if anything, has basically struck me as a less ferocious version of what he'd early done with the Dolls) are "specific reactions to punk." But I'll take your word, if they sound like that to you.

I missed it earlier, but rockabilly formed a crucial part of the punk/New Wave ethos. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" doesn't sound any crazier than Elvis C and the Clash's experiments, not to mention the Polecats and Stray Cats a few years later.

I still think you're making my case for me. You're saying that "Getting Closer" has some of the superficial signs of having been punk-influenced--something I'll readily concede with regards to The Game, and probably a ton of other stuff from that time--but really isn't punk-influenced at all, it's just Paul doing what he'd always been doing. Yes. Whereas with Street Hassle and the rest, I believe the connection to punk goes much deeper than the superficial.

(Fwiw, I'd say I hear more Cars or even, uh, Flying Lizards -- again, see "Another Ones Bites The Dust", which is a weird, spare dance-oriented rock track, unlike anything Queen had done before -- on The Game than the Pistols or Ramones. But inasmuch as the Cars and Flying Lizards would probably have been unthinkable for lots of people without punk happening, I don't think that evolutionary line doesn't matter. Should also mention, what the hell, that I haven't played The Game in a while, and could be totally wrong. I'm not even saying it's an especially good record or anything. But as with lots of proggy bands tightening up in the early '80s, I always detected a new wave influence there; didn't even think that was controversial. Favorite song, "Dragon Attack," is probably more funk-metal actually.)

The new-wave angle, absolutely. I conceded that upthread. So maybe we're really into one of those pointless is-it-punk-or-is-it-new-wave? arguments here, which I've often made fun of in the past, even though sometimes I think it's a meaningful distinction, like right here.

x(And I mean, obviously "Another One Bites The Dust" is a mainly a Chic ripoff. But it doesn't especially sound like Chic, as a whole, or even like '70s Queen ripping off Chic. It sounds like something totally new.)

Does it? From the unfunky bass to the shouted gibberish it reminds me of mid-period Roxy Music (not necessarily an insult, mind you).

Anyway, you've both convinced me. I was surprised last year when my "I Invented This Stuff" poll didn't generate more than the dozen or so votes that it did, but I realize now that my own shortsightedness was the problem. I'm going to repost tomorrow, and you can vote for either Lou Reed's Street Hassle, Iggy Pop's The Idiot, Johnny Thunders' So Alone, David Johansen, or Queen's The Game. I'm out of here!

Some of you guys hate romance, I'm sad for you

You can't make shit like this up

"Queen and The Sex Pistols were recording albums in London's West End when Sid Vicious wandered into the wrong studio to find Mercury alone at the piano. 'Ah, Freddie Mercury, still bringing ballet to the massses are you?' hissed Vicious. 'Oh yes, Mr Ferocious, dear,' Mercury bit back. 'We are doing our best.'"

welcome back!

I'll just add that were I ever to compile a CDR of "punk songs which predate punk," this would be in there, for sure (though I might want to fade it before the proggy bit).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdUKi3_QntE

[BTW, that's from 1974]

Also, Queen did their "God Save The Queen" more than a year before the Pistols one, right?

Sounds familiar, but I'm hazy on that.

Would you guys not agree (excuse me if this point has already been raised) that virtually all mid-70s glitter rockers can claim at least SOME credit for how punk ended up sounding? Queen seemed to flit back and forth between glitter and prog, and they undoubtedly landed much more frequently in the latter camp than in the former, but, as maybe "Brighton Rock" attests, at least, they weren't immune to a certain strain of musical chaos.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

"Queen and The Sex Pistols were recording albums in London's West End when Sid Vicious wandered into the wrong studio to find Mercury alone at the piano. 'Ah, Freddie Mercury, still bringing ballet to the massses are you?' hissed Vicious. 'Oh yes, Mr Ferocious, dear,' Mercury bit back. 'We are doing our best.'

this is totally made up

Sid's dead, Freddie's dead, and they were alone together - who's doing the quoting?

Or maybe there wasn't anyone sitting at the piano with him.

after careful deliberation - listened to the album over the weekend - voting "when the whip comes down." but the whole holds up while being SO of its time w/o sounding dated. (every college party I attended in 1978 featured this LP & talking heads "buildings & food" and DEVO!) guitar sound is crisp & funky: arguably the last all-out stones classic.

'When I die I'll go to heaven, cause I've spent my time in hell' is cribbed from a Korean war vet motto, isn't it?
― calstars, Friday, June 25, 2010 8:04 PM

It may well be an Army thing from way back, but it was definitely used by guys in Vietnam - I distinctly remember the slogan being referenced in Michael Herr's "Dispatches" which came out in '77.

http://www.vspa.com/images-zippo/zippo-bt-levinson-2-1969-1970.jpg

http://www.camosurplus.com/images/tour_jackets/vietnam_qui_nhon.jpg

Some Girls and "Who Are You" were more oblique, but I'm equally confident that their creators felt both liberated and threatened by punk in roughly equal measure, and that punk was very much on their minds when those records were made

Indeed. Townshend in 1977: "I'm sure I invented it, and yet it's left me behind. ... I prayed for it, and yet it's too late for me to truly participate. I feel like an engineer. Just let me...watch."

Also, "Who Are You" was written the morning after (and about) a drunken encounter with Paul Cook and Steve Jones in a pub.

Thank you, Tarfumes. As with anyone who takes my side when I'm politely disagreeing with xhuxk, you've just won yourself a brand-new set of steak knives. (For you, sw00ds, nothing!)

You're welcome. The thing is, Townshend was willing to engage punk in a way none of his peers were. Not just because they were scared of/felt threatened by it (not all were), but because none of them had the kind of artist-performer relationship that the Who had. Townshend (and, to a far lesser but still significant degree, Daltrey) constantly pored over all possible meanings and implications of any given shift in scenery because of how the Who's engagement with their audiences had been formed in their early days.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Daaaamn.

shocked that BoB beat Miss You...these polls are wacky!

fuck i forgot to vote. i'd have liked to seen a lot more votes for respectable, but tbh i often start on side 2 so i don't blow my wad on miss you, so my vote woulda gone to that.

ok who voted for far away eyes

I like those results, actually. "Beast of Burden" was my runner-up.

i was unable to decide between "miss you", "lies", and "shattered". depends on my mood, i guess.

Expanded Reissues of Some Girls due in November

I like these results. I don't get why there's a couple of posts upthread saying Shattered sounds frightening. It sounds like Jagger's doing a funky rant against NYC and none of the notes played are particulary dismal. Then again, I can't think of any Rolling Stones song that I'd qualify as scary.

The album cover for this release tho, is definitely scary.

I was frightened at the time.

btw I forgot about the xhuxk-clemenza-Soto panel.

I was in my early 20s when I first heard this album... I wasn't around at the time of the release and I didn't get to hear it when I was younger. Is there any particular reason you found it scary Soto? Or is it just Jagger's persona which scared you off?

My first interaction with the Stones music was the bridges of babylon album I was about 11 or 12 I think... and although there wasn't anything particulary scary about that record I did find Mick Jagger's voice oddly disturbing. I'd say his over-sexed persona sometimes borders on rapist and when you're young and new to the whole sex thing listening to him is a bit too much. You just want to to take it slowly and he's giving you the whole thing without any foreplay.

mick's unbelievable mugging in that faraway eyes clip posted above is kinda scary tbh

sometimes I marvel that anyone ever took Mick Jagger seriously. more often than not I find his antics positively clownish/silly

cf. Mick Jagger doing the funky chicken, or the "naughty schoolteacher", or the "watch me attempt to imitate James Brown"

"Gimme Shelter" and "Sway" are the only times he ever sounds demonic.

would add memo from turner + some live versions of midnight rambler to that list.

sympathy for the devil too

sway he sounds half asleep, not demonic

scary=anything off dirty work

There's a live CD/DVD from the 1978 tour coming out this fall, too.

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sometimes I marvel that anyone ever took Mick Jagger seriously. more often than not I find his antics positively clownish/silly

― you will always be wrong (Shakey Mo Collier), miércoles 14 de septiembre de 2011 07:53 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cf. Mick Jagger doing the funky chicken, or the "naughty schoolteacher", or the "watch me attempt to imitate James Brown"

― you will always be wrong (Shakey Mo Collier)

Yeah I get he's being silly, but when you're young and non-british you can't tell the difference and you think he's actually serious so it's borderline creepy. Nowadays I get the humour and I love it.