#i'm the opposite like i apprently seem fun and cool but if you get to know me long enough i'm just kindofa slug

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 4th May

We've got a real assortment of romantic situations this week, by the look of things. One of these songs I know, but the others are a complete mystery to me. So without further ado...

Someone Else's Baby - Adam Faith (peaked at Number 2)

There seems to be some sort of competition going on at this point among these late 50s/early 60s musicians about who can sing the word "baby" in the weirdest way. Buddy Holly started it off, but Adam's really going for the title here, with about three different pronunciations. The one where he goes with "by-buy" is particularly unappealing.

Actually, the whole song makes Adam sound rather unappealing, as he thinks about a friend, singing about how If I acted bad / I could steal his fairy queen. You see, Adam has the hots for his friend's girlfriend. And sure, this guy would be mad. But I can't resist the thought of being kissed by / Someone else's baby. Yikes, Adam. He doesn't even seem particularly attracted to this girl, it almost seems more like the idea of her cheating on her boyfriend is the whole appeal, here. Gross, and more than a bit of a red flag - you get zero sense that Adam even cares if this girl likes him back, he's so determined to kiss her. Ugh.

Musically, it's trendy, at least - you've got the Buddy Holly strings and hiccupping vocal style that's so popular at the moment. Add a glockenspiel, and a frankly alarming key change near the end, and you've got something catchy and peppy enough to stick in the head. I'm not surprised this got to number 2, you know. Just a bit disappointed. I know Adam likes to play the bad boy, but c'mon, everyone - do we have to do the whole homewrecking thing?

Cathy's Clown - The Everly Brothers (1)

Thankfully, the Everlys would never stoop so low. In fact, in some ways, we've got the opposite side of the story here, a story about a man who's been cheated on and messed around with once too many times, and is ready to break up with his girlfriend over it. He's fed up of everybody calling him a clown for letting his girl treat him that way, and declares that I gotta stand tall / You known a man can't crawl / But when he knows you're tellin' lies / And he hears them passin' by / He's not a man at all. The Everlys are feeling humiliated, and they're not standing for it any more.

There's a fun mix of emotions, here - you've got a simmering anger that leads them to declare frostily don't want your love anymore / Don't want your kisses, that's for sure, but you've also got a softer, sadder side that's just bewildered at it all, as he asks Cathy that when you see me shed a tear / And you know that it's sincere / Don't you think it's kinda sad / That you're treatin' me so bad? Don (or is it Phil?) just doesn't understand how Cathy could treat him like that, even as he coldly rejects and casts her away.

Lyrics aside, it's also a masterclass in tight harmonies, with one of the brothers staying high while the other cascades down the scale on the chorus, with both of their voices plaintive and accusatory in turn. Add a steady, heavy snare beat, and some reverb-heavy guitar, and you've got a song that has a sort of solidity to it that I like a lot. Apprently they did something with a tape loop to make it sound like it was two drummers, and you can kind of hear it, there's just a lot of drum going on.

Overall, I'd say it's the sort of song you only have to hear once or twice to feel like you know it - and impression that I think is helped by not really having verses, just a sequence of repeating choruses and bridges that go back and forth and then fade out at the end. It's a snapshot into a moment in a relationship, more than a story, so it doesn't really have to "go" anwhere, as the Everlys just sit and stew in their feelings of betrayal and humiliation, and it makes for a really cool song.

Sweet Nothin's - Brenda Lee (8)

We haven't really heard from Brenda Lee yet, but she's been putting out music since 1957, and is a fixture in the US charts at this point. And honestly, just going off this record, I can see why - she's got a powerful voice. She barely lets it off the leash here, but you still get it peeking through on the line about how my baby whispers in my ear, for example, before she reins it back in on the mmm, sweet nothin's line, or the line about keeping his secrets to herself. Which makes sense - a nice bit of sound-painting. She really wants to sing loudly about her baby, so that everyone knows, but she also wants to be a bit coy about it, to keep their special moments special, private. It's cute.

As you can kind of tell, this is all in the context a song about the things a lover might tell you, all the "sweet nothings" you might whisper to one another. Which I guess explains why the starts with a weird, unintelligible whispering man and a comedy uh-huh, honey from Brenda, plus the little pss pss pss whispers in the background, all of which unfortunately give the song a certain goofiness that doesn't necessarily do it any favours. The backing whispers, in particular, sound like somebody's trying to call a cat over, more than anything - I get what they were trying to do, but the song works fine without them.

That said, there are a lot of touches that kind of win me back over, from Brenda's sheer confidence and brass, to the little Southern twang she injects into lines like the one about how she's sittin' in class tryin' to read my book and the breathy way she sings about those sweet nothin's. Plus halfway through you get to this excellent rock and roll sax solo, complete with hand-claps. I love some hand claps. All good stuff.

Zooming in, I also really appreciate the moment later on, where Brenda's sitting out on the porch talking to her love, when mama turned on the front porch light, sayin' / "Come in darlin', that's enough for tonight." She drops into a spoken register for the mother's lines, and it just feels charmingly real, the sort of thing your mother might say, as a politely but firmly worded reminder not to get too carried away. You can almost feel the slight disapproval in the way Brenda voices it, the hint - ever so slight - that Brenda and her boy might be getting up something a little more scandalous than just talking. Or why else was that porch light off, eh?? I see you there, Brenda!

I enjoyed all three of these songs - they all feel pretty typical for this era, and I like that they're all about completely different romantic situations, from the forbidden allure of somebody else's partner, to the anger of being treated like a fool, to the first blush of young love. All three artists have quite distintive styles and voices for it, too - but I think the overall texture and quality of the Everlys - plus their lack of weird whispering men and their lack of general skeeviness- set them apart here. (I am looking forward to seeing Brenda Lee again, though, preferably without the comedy backing).

Favourite song of the bunch: Cathy's Clown

[blackbird0blog]

Naruto Fanfic Recs

An amazing OC-insert that needs more love. The characterisation is great, and I'm really looking forward to seeing where the author will take us!

Summary: Itachi and Kisame pick up a strange boy from a primitive tribe who accidentally transported himself to the elemental nations... from another universe. These guys may call themselves ninja, but Mirya's pretty sure they're ultra badass gods, whom he has happily apprenticed himself to.

Preview:

The lonely crossroad inn is peaceful beneath the paling stars, the air cool and damp but holding the promise of another hot day once the sun rises. Itachi hesitates, staring up at the one lit window on the second floor. He’s trying to figure out why Kisame isn’t alone. 

There’s a second person there, on the opposite side of the room from Kisame, both of them holding still. The Sharingan can’t see chakra through walls very well; all he can tell of this second signature is that it’s child-sized and quiescent. That doesn’t guarantee it’s not a threat. He knows, much better than he wants to, how young killers can be. But considering Kisame’s love of battle, he supposes if there was going to be a fight it would already have happened. Try as he might, he can’t think of any reason why Kisame would’ve picked up a child. It’s too soon to collect jinchuuriki. Kisame isn’t the charitable type, nor is he a pervert. They haven’t taken any kidnapping missions. They’re not recruiting at the moment, not that he knows of. What can this possibly be about?

While paranoia has always served him well, at this point he’s just getting eaten by mosquitoes for no reason. He leaps lightly to the narrow balcony and slips in the window. 

His first glance tells him Kisame is genuinely relaxed, lounging at the low table with a nail clipper and a bottle of umeshu, so he can take his time studying the other person in the room: a skinny red-haired boy sprawled starfish-like on a futon, covers shoved aside and pillow soaked in drool, wearing nothing but — “Is that my underwear?”

“Well, mine would be too big,” Kisame says reasonably. “No need to whisper, he’s dead to the world.”

“Mine should be too big as well.” He’s fourteen, not… whatever this boy is, eight or nine.

“Safety pins.”

“Why do you have my underwear? What happened to his?” It’s a silly thing to get stuck on, but he can’t seem to let it go. His relationship with Kisame is not one that admits to underwear. There’s a professional distance. This is outside his comfort zone.

“It was in my laundry, no idea how long it’s been there. Have you eaten? I saved you nimono and a couple rice balls.”

Itachi doesn’t sigh, because he isn’t expressive like that, but the impression is there in the slow way he turns to the table. Still, he’s not angry, only confused, and Kisame is the most tolerable of his new colleagues. “Thank you, Kisame-san,” he says politely, and doesn’t speak again until he’s finished the cold stewed vegetables and rice. Kisame returns to his manicure, trimming rough callus and hangnails that might catch on clothing or be a distraction, touching up the lacquer. When he finishes eating, Itachi takes the bottle of remover and gets to scrubbing off the chipped black stuff he has on. “May I borrow your lacquer? I’ve run out of mine.”

“Are you sure you want to match?” the swordsman rumbles with gentle humor. “What if the other missing-nin make fun of us?” Itachi’s flat look only makes his smile wider, but he hands over the bottle of purple.

When he first joined Akatsuki, Itachi thought the nail polish part of the uniform was rather silly, but it actually does help keep his nails from peeling or splitting after exposure to harsh weather, fire jutsu, and so on. Even Konan can’t make him care what color he uses, though.

After fifteen minutes of silence, Kisame finally gets tired of waiting for him to ask, and says, “He walked up to me in the road and asked if I’m a god. He thinks he’s dead and this is the afterlife.”

“Why is he in our room?” That’s the thing that most needs explanation, in Itachi’s opinion.

Kisame ignores that. “Wait until you see what he was wearing. As far as I can gather — which isn’t very far, because he was drugged out of his tiny mind — his clan decked him in gold and drowned him in a bog. He was supposed to ask the gods to save them. He’s declared himself my servant in exchange for sending them good fishing.”

“Kisame.”

“If I hadn’t let Samehada have a snack, his chakra would be announcing us to the world right now. He’s got tons of it and no control at all. Didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about when I mentioned it, and his calluses look like boat work, not weapons, so I’m guessing he was raised civilian. He must have pulled some kind of instinctive teleportation jutsu on the verge of death.” 

“Kisame, are you saying a civilian child invented something like Senju Tobirama’s Hiraishin while drowning?”

“Why not? Red hair, blue eyes, outrageous chakra, sealing tattoos, comes from a lost clan starving by the sea somewhere? I honestly think ‘ignorant remnant of the Uzu diaspora instinctively teleports somewhere warm’ is more likely than — I don’t even know — someone dunking a kid in ice water and shoving him at us for kicks.” He finally turns to Itachi. Looks him in the eye, unafraid of the Sharingan, which Itachi has always appreciated. “He was hypothermic. Do you know how hot it was today?”

“I’m wearing the same thing you are,” Itachi says dryly.

“Exactly. He was wearing a fur coat, fur-lined boots, and thick wool clothes. Samehada says his chakra tastes like whale. They eat whale in Snow Country, don’t they?”

Itachi studies the boy again. Pale as paper, and thin in a way that says famine rather than growth spurt. There are blue-green geometric shapes tattooed around his bony wrists, and a series of dots, spaced in triangles, on top of one foot. It obviously means something, but the pattern is completely alien. Itachi supposes they could be primitive seals. Sections of his hair are kinked as if they were recently in braids. Itachi blinks at Kisame. “Did you brush his hair?”

Kisame shrugs. “Kid fell asleep in the bath,” he says, as if that’s an explanation.

Itachi is beginning to suspect that Hoshigaki ‘Sharks Eat Each Other In The Womb’ Kisame is not as heartless as he claims to be. Although maybe he just likes being called a god.