Song Of The Day: Into Temptation / Crowded House
Word Of The Day: Premorse / Having the end bit off; truncated

I'm fucking making love to Crowded House today. If you think Crowded House is that band that sings Don't Dream It's Over, you're right, and that's a classic, amazing song (tangent: I fucking HATE SIX PENCE NONE THE RICHER. Stop fucking RUINING great songs by OTHER ARTISTS and if you INSIST ON MAKING SHITTY POP MUSIC, DO IT WITH YOUR OWN WORK. First they fucking stole and butchered the La's "There She Goes", and then the ripped off and desecrated Crowded House's Don't Dream It's Over. If you're going to remake a song, in the name of all that's sacred, don't do it with songs that are still on the radio by the original artist, and don't make a carbon-copy parallel version, that sounds like a wedding band trying to imitate the original. I'm going to get a fucking stigmata in my ear drum if I have to endure one more moment of Six Pence None the Richer in this life.).

But there's SO SO much more to Crowded House. First, they're not from England. I know, I'm an American, and whenever I hear an accent that's not southern, or New England, or Irish, I'm like... Hmm, must be English. But let us not forget Australia, ya'll. I forget about Australia. It's so far away. But it does have a rich and varied musical legacy. From Men At Work to... Crowded House. And then there's... the solo careers of members of Men At Work, and... Crowded House (Coley Hey, Neil Finn). OH!! And Olivia Newton John! Aw, fuck. Technically, she's English. Ok. AC/DC, Kylie Minogue, INXS. And... Midnight Oil. I mean, they'e all shit next to Men At Work, but...

Anyway, Crowded House has really written some of the coolest pop songs EVER. I just LOVE Neil Finn's voice too. Right now, as I type these words, my favorite song in the world is Into Temptation. GAWD. I love the structre. They fuck with it just enough. Very subtle things. Drop a bar out once in a while (uneven number of bars in respective verses). I adore the way that bass line / chord progression never really resolves, it just sort of climbs and floats around. And he enters the chorus from a spot that feels like you're kind of half way through a section of the verse, like you drop out of a cloud and boom -hang glider, mountain vista. I love the lyrics, and find the chorus particularly satisfying, Into temptation / knowing full well the Earth will rebel. That's a great way to invoke a biblical / Edenic reference.

My top ten Crowded House songs, in order of FUCKING AWESOMEness. (YOU CAN BUY ALL OF THESE ON iTUNES)

10, Chocolate Cake / This song is so fucking awesome. First of all, they're pissed off. It sort of a punk-vaudeville send up of American culture. lyrics like:

I saw Elvis Presley
walk out of a Seven-Eleven
and a woman gave birth to a baby
then bowled 257

and

Not everyone in New York
would pay to see Andrew Lloyd Weber
may his trousers fall down
as he bows to the Queen and the Crown
I don't know what tune that the orchestra played
but it went by me sickly, and sentimental

have made me giddy with glee since I first heard this song. I hate the harmonica as an instrument, its grotesque and bawdy. Its a parlor trinket, but on THIS SONG, they use it to great effect as a solo instrument. Thanks guys, thanks for ONCE IN OUR FUCKING LIVES giving us a rock solo that's not a God damn guitar. I'm with Bjork, I hate guitars. I am proud as hell to say there's basically NO guitar solos on my albums. Like, there's one on Female Friend, and sort of one on Immanence.

9, Whispers And Moans / This song has such cool SECTIONS. There's like a moody, undulating verse. You think it's going to be a brooding number, a sour puss groovy pop tune, but then it LIFTS so elegantly on the chorus. Great production. I think that's a fucking wah-pedal in there, bitches, but it's zero porn and all vibey make me sway. But what's coolest about this song is the fucking OUTRO. He's back there shouting, yammering, fucking ululating the shit out of his vocal, and you're like "what's he saying? i don't know, sounds like gibberish. 's cool though." then you fucking look up the words and see he's singing this:

We are the mirrors
Are the mirrors of each other in a lifetime of suspicion
Cleansed in a moment of recognition
You gave your life for it
Worth it’s weight in gold
And growing empires and art collectors
And alans sound investments
Will one day be forgotten
One day be forgotten, yeah

and you're like "Oh. fuck. That's bad ass." Yeah. It's worth checking sometimes.

8, As Sure As I Am / I'm not gonna lie to you. There's three simple reasons I love this song. A, it's in 6/8 time. It makes me feel like a sailor who's getting drunk when I flow in that signature. B, it modulates on the chorus, which I almost always hate -artists usually modulate when they can't think of anything else to do, but here, it's fucking WORKS, and especially when he sings C,

I couldn't care less
I'm as happy as sin
in a fear-shaken World

I'm like oh, yes. Fuck me now.

6, Better Be Home Soon / I love this song for the vocal (flawless performance, amazing timbre, perfect mix -yeah put the fucking VOCAL UP FRONT), and also, what really sells me is the lyric:

It would cause me pain
if we were to end it
but i would start again
you can depend on it

why the fuck don't we hear more of that self-possessed strength in music??? it is SO REFRESHING to hear ONE FUCKING PERSON finally say, "you know what? i love you, but i am my own person. i do not live and die with the vicissitudes of that bundle of neurosis you call a personality. get your shit together, or i'm out of here." THANK YOU. fucking songwriters and humans take note, and stop luxuriating in your suffering. stand up straight, be lamps unto yourselves!

5, It's Only Natural / Oh my god. Listen to the first four seconds of this song, that intro. Those weird, quirky sounds. That kills me, it's so fucking corny, and yet I admit, it's distinctive, fun, and catchy as hell. It's a aural-imprint you will never shake. Go on, go to iTunes and buy it. You'll see I'm right.

4, Four Season In One Day / This song is AMAZING. It is so, so fucking GOOD. First, it carries an ATMOSPHERE. That is not something that's as easy to create as you might imagine, successfully weaving a sonic environment that the listener floats through is something of a minor miracle. And we have it here. They even get away with a fucking FUGUE (ish) thing on the instrumental solo. Triple points there. Lyrics are great, but again, that's particularly because of Neil Finn's inflection and delivery. He knows how to craft each line in-character, so when he sings

Smiling as the shit comes down
You can tell a man
from what he has to say

it's magic. This song is actually curative, it expands your head and softens your torso.

3, Fall At Your Feet / It's just a beautiful, melodic pop song that is perfectly sculpted. LOVE those back ground vocals that "yell" the lyrics behind him on the bridge (on the lines:

the finger of blame has turned upon itself
and i'm more than willing to offer myself
do you want my presence or need my help
who knows what that might mean?

2, Don't Dream It's Over / I know, it's their big hit, and that's cliche to put in the list, but listen to this song with Beginner's Mind for once. It is UNbelievable. Every thing about it is RIGHT. The production, melody, arrangement. The music is so captivating and hypnotizing you might not notice the fucking awesome lyrics like:

There is freedom within
there is freedom without
try to catch the deluge in a paper cup

Are you kidding me? HELLO? I'm not being facetious here. If you read that on some fucking piece of rice paper, and it was written in 1202 by a Soto Zen practitioner, it would be heralded as the pure expression of awakened mind. Those three lines are as good as any Koan or Haiku I've ever read. Firs of all, it's non-dual. "There is freedom within, there is freedom without" Awakened awareness is not some feature located in the human mind. It is not merely emptiness either, nor is it the epiphenomenon of organic brain matter (form). Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form. We don't seek or find our liberation in some location, in some particular aspect or quality. "There is freedom within, there is freedom without" -but then, the all-time fucking Super Nova of Zen poetry,

"Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup"

That's the essence of enlightenmnent, isn't it. They START with the simple recognition that ALL is freedom, there is nothing but the Absolute in all manifest and unmanifest modes (freedom within, freedom without) and then they give us the joyous play, the quintessential summation of the Game Of Being -"try to catch the deluge in a paper cup". How many times have we heard God, or enlightenment, or awakened awareness, or the Absolute compared to the Ocean, to the endless, infinite, unimaginable VOLUME of this Conscious ground of all Reality? and what are we? we are 2-ounce Dixie cups. In trying to become enlightened, in trying to wake up, we try to catch the deluge, the Ocean, the tidal wave with our 2 ounce dixe cups. but the funny thing about the water is, you don't have to contain all water to know what wetness is. "Wetness", our natural condition, is the same in a drop or an ocean. The amount of wetness in a drop? 100% wetness. the amount of wetness in an ocean? 100%. you CAN catch the deluge in a paper cup, if you are simply waking up to your wetness, your awakened awareness. if you know a drop of wetness, you know an ocean of wetness. but you, the paper cup, the individual, cannot contain the ocean, all the seas. that is your native endowmnent, your esssence, and you will return to it. the eternal you, of course, is not a dixe cup. the dixie cup is one of the fleeting, temporary forms that you've assumed. you are the cup trying to catch You the ocean, and You're the one who threw yourself out, created an "other" so you could have that fun. Crowded House gets it. Why are we always running off, trying to consult some fucking ancient esoteric teachings when the living, dynamic essence of Zen is smacking us in the face all the God damn time, right on top 40 radio? I shit you not, people, that's IT. Crowded House has given us a Satori in three lines. Don't miss it. Spirituality, mysticism, awakening is not some special knowledge we need to import from a far off land, it is not the of perquisite a few rare saints who lived centuries ago, it IS RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW, BANGING ON YOUR FUCKING DOOR, and there is just as much punch, force, and clarity in those three Crowded House lyrics as there is in any Rumi poem, or Dogen poem. let's stop romanticizing far-away lands and exotic cultures and recognize there has never, ever been a better time, a better culture, a better moment to awaken than right here, right now, in YOUR BODY, in THIS CULTRE, at THIS POINT IN "TIME". And like true Zen masters, Crowded House throws out that three-sided diamond like it's nothing special. cuz it isn't. and it is. Enlightenment is a great disappointment to the ego, as someone said. the tiny cup is crestfallen when it figures out that -OH- the wetness of the entire ocean is the same as the wetness of a drop, or a wave...

1, Into Temptation / I told you why, bitches. This song is the shit, and today it's my fav of all-time.

Crowded House, thanks for the great music. Here's a bonus track for you to check out. Neil Finn also has a solo career, and the song She Will Have Her Way is worth dancing naked to. BUY IT. Lights on, people.