Classic Song Review Voices Carry

Aimee Man is a brilliant songwriter and clearly always has been. My thesis statement for that admittedly not very bold claim is the 1984 song, Voices Carry, performed by Aimee's then band Til Tuesday. In many ways, this is a classic pop song. It has the structure and the strengths of a great pop song. You can, as I did for so many years, passively enjoy Voices Carry as a classic example of 80's pop music. Listening to it today however, and with the context of the incredibly simple but effective music video, you find layers and layers of relationship lore and a narrative of casual abuse that is carefully and brilliantly layered into this four minute pop song. 

Voices Carry tells the story of a relationship between a young woman finding her voice for the first time and the man who is determined to keep that voice silent. The video begins on a narrative thread with the man, played by actor Cully Holland, passive aggressively belittling Aimee's music career, her band and her look. In a voice dripping with condescension, the man  says "I'm SO happy the band is doing well. By the way, what's with the hair? Is that part of the new 'image.'" If you're skin doesn't crawl hearing this man talk, you need to listen again with a new understanding. 

Aimee Mann's opening lyrics are striking and beautifully set the tone for the song and the state of this relationship: 

"In the dark I'd like to read his mind, but I'm frightened of the things I might find." That brilliantly evocative lyric is haunting, it lingers as the song continues. The opening of the song layers in Aimee's insecurity and the excuses she's making to herself about his dismissive behavior towards her. Before long we get to the heart of something in the title of the song that Aimee the character is only beginning to understand about him and herself. When she says I love you, he tells her to keep it down. Voices Carry. Why would he say that? Is he ashamed of her? No, they're in public together in a couple context, he's not ashamed to be seen with her. 

So what's really happening here? It's about control. It's about him telling her how and when she can express her feelings. He's using the notion of propriety and manners in public to exert control over her. She can say I love you but only in the context that he allows it. He gets upset if she expresses her emotions outside of the context of his control. That notion is at the heart of the abuse going on between this man and Aimee, the character in the song and video. By this point in their relationship, it's clear she's coming into her own, finding a voice and giving power to her own words. He intends on keeping control, asserting his will, pretending that it's about some ancient notion of propriety and manners is just a cover for his controlling nature. 

In the music video, this point is made even clearer in a visual. Aimee is wearing a stylish, over-sized earring, expressive of her growing personality and sense of herself, her style. In the visual, the man reaches over the table and removes her earring and replaces it with a pair of more conservative, expensive, earrings, jewelry more in keeping with his style, the classic 80's rich guy. Once again, he's asserting his control over her. It's rendered more insidious by trying to hide his abusive control in the form of what might be mistaken as a generous, expensive gift. It would be easy to miss if you saw this interaction in public. I can see in my mind's eye, some of you shaking your head, lost to the concept that a generous gift could be anymore than just a generous gift. Keep reading. 

The next series of lyrics are some of the most powerful and revealing. 

"I try so hard not to get upset, because I know all of the trouble I'll get." The word 'trouble' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this line. It's mundane enough to indicate that she just doesn't want to endure the griping or arguments that might come from her showing  her emotions. Or, it could mean that she fears his more direct abuse and the exerting of control over her. People who have suffered abuse understand on a fundamental level the idea of going along to get along, hide your feelings so as not to set off an often unpredictable abuser hidden inside a seemingly loving partner. 

"Oh, he tells tears are something to hide, or something to fear. And I try so hard to keep it inside, so no one can hear." 

"Tears are something to hide or something to fear" is a line of remarkable emotional weight. Essentially, he's telling her that she should be ashamed to cry, to express herself in such a display. But the second half that, 'or something to fear,' is chilling. She should be afraid to cry. What could he have possibly done to make her afraid to cry? That's the strongest indication thus far that this abuse is more than just emotional, there is some kind of physical intimidation, if not, outright physical abuse going on here if she's been made afraid to cry. 

Find my full length article at Beat.Media 

Classic Song Review Take Me Home Tonight

Take Me Home Tonight (1986) 

Singer Eddie Money

Songwriter Mick Leeson, Peter Vale, Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry, Phil Spector 

Release Date August 1986 

You know something? Sometimes, thinking too much about a song is a terrible idea. When you ponder some songs, even ones you ostensibly enjoy, you can start to hate that song. That's what has happened to me with a song that was massive in my childhood. I was 10 years old when I first heard Eddie Money sing Take Me Home Tonight. It was on the radio constantly and the video, filmed in black and white in an empty arena, was in massive rotation on MTV, the true obsession of my young mind. 

MTV took up days and hours of my time as a child. I was obsessed with music videos. I was obsessed with music video countdowns, be it the weekly Top 25 Countdown or Dial MTV, the daily Top 8 or 10 countdown to which I committed my parents hard earned money by calling in to make requests and try to push Def Leppard or Poison or Stryper's latest song to the top of the rankings. I never called to vote for Take Me Home Tonight. It wasn't that I didn't like it, rather, it was just never that kind of song. 

Take Me Home Tonight is one of those songs from the 80s that seemed to become a hit out of a particular kind of boomer nostalgia. By 1986, Eddie Money had not released a record in 3 years. He'd been a relatively brief arena rock obsession. In 1977 he released his first record and scored two big hits, Baby Hold On and Two Tickets to Paradise. Money found fame quickly but was just as quickly was reduced to a novelty. His subsequent three records struggled and he was in the wilderness for three years before Take Me Home Tonight became a song he was forced to sing. 

Take Me Home Tonight was the price Eddie Money had to pay to keep his record deal. He didn't actually like the song. His producer and the record company loved the demo and forced it on Money who then recruited Ronnie Spector to sing on the record. Why was Ronnie Spector sought for the song? Because, as lead singer of The Ronettes, her song "Be My Baby" was at the heart of Take Me Home Tonight. It's the song that the protagonist of Take Me Home Tonight is listening to while begs and cajoles a woman to Take him home Tonight.

So, with the ringing endorsement that Eddie Money didn't like the song and Ronnie Spector had to be begged to sing on it, let's dig into this utterly bizarre, lazy, and creepy song. Take Me Home Tonight could be remixed to be a song about a man who was stalking someone and has crept into their bedroom at night, through a window, uninvited to beg her for sex. It really doesn't take much more than thinking about it to move Take Me Home Tonight into the same uncanny valley where The Police classic Every Breath You Takes has lingered for about 40 years. 

Find my full length review at Beat.Media 

Movie Review Once

Once (2007) 

Directed by John Carney 

Written by John Carney 

Starring Glen Hansard, Marketa Irglova 

Release Date May 22nd 2007 

Published May 25th, 2007 

There is a moment in the movie Once so touching and so simple it aches with true beauty. The main characters, a street musician and an immigrant girl, having bonded over his music, sit in a piano shop and he teaches her a song he is working on. She is a surprisingly good piano player who learns the song quickly and soon they are in a magical duet that lilts and twists with deep meaning. It's one of a dozen or so stunningly small moments of beauty, insight and joy in director John Carney's magnificent, Once. 

Once, from writer-director John Carney is a revelation. A musical so subtle that you may not realize it's a musical. The characters are musicians who fall in love with their very own soundtrack as the girl pushes the boy to get it together and record his music. As they move from strangers to friends to two people clearly meant for one another the soundtrack acts, not so much as a Greek chorus but as a catalyst for their feelings. His songs are heartbreaking paeans to a lost love. Her contributions are the cries of a woman confused about love, she is married and has a child with a man she isn't sure she loves anymore.

As they perform together their mutual heartache bonds them further. My description however, does not do justice to the simple, eloquent beauty of Once. The subtlety and elegance of this combination of romance and music makes the heart leap and your breath catch. The music comes from the film's star Glen Hansard, lead singer of the band The Frames, and Marketa Irglova is the girl, a fellow musician from the Czech Republic.

John Carney created Once as a romance with well known stars in the lead. It began life as a studio project and evolved from there. At one point 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy was seen as the lead with Hansard on board to write the music. When Murphy fell out, Carney pushed for and got his old friend Hansard the job as his singer, composer, and lead actor. Soon after, the two found Irglova and the film was set.

Using a DV camera Carney creates a low budget documentary feel for Once that adds to the real chemistry of the two leads. We are kept at such unique angles and distances that at once we are voyeurs on this relationship and also treated as old friends invited to hang out as they create wonderful music together. It is the astonishing simplicity of it all that makes Once so ingenious as not just a showcase for great music, but a great movie.

The best soundtrack of 2007 combines with a pair of lead actors with exquisite chemistry to make a movie of near perfection. I cannot say enough good things about Once.

Movie Review: The Runaways

The Runaways (2010) 

Directed by Fioria Sigismondi 

Written by Fioria Sigismondi 

Starring Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon 

Release Date March 19th, 2010 

Published March 18th, 2010 

No wonder we are so hyper-vigilant about teen sexuality these days. Apparently in the 1970's every adult in the country was looking the other way. How else to explain how “The Runaways” became overnight sensations selling the sexuality of 15 year old lead singer Cherie Currie all the way to world tours and platinum records.

Now, I'm sure there was outrage at the time but that is not in the movie “The Runaways.” Instead we get a film that is as eager to capitalize on the sexuality of 16 year old Dakota Fanning as much as real life record exec Kim Fowley, portrayed in the film by Oscar nominee Michael Shannon, who eagerly and greedily exploited the real Cherie Currie.

Based on Currie's biographical account of her life, “Neon Angel,” “The Runaways” stars Fanning as the David Bowie influenced Currie and “Twiilght's” Kristen Stewart as the Suzy Quatro loving Joan Jett. Thrust together by record exec Kim Fowley, who saw the novel possibilities of an all girl punk band just as punk was bubbling up to the mainstream, the two teenagers from broken homes bonded and made memorable music and more together.

Find my full length review at Beat.Media