Listening to this track, I feel like I am in the lobby of a plush hotel. Everything is clinically clean in unfamiliar surroundings. The music, though, brings an exotic atmosphere and the promise of something more, of secret meetings, of unspoken desires.
Why listening to this song should bring such images to mind might say more about me… but in reviewing the lyrics, I think there is a connection.
Here is a song about secrets, of dissatisfaction, of unspoken needs.
The singer sings of an unhealthy desire, for her lover not only to need her but to be addicted to her. It’s a big demand to make... and an unreasonable one.
The relationship seems ro be breaking down. There is resentment with a measure of self-delusion: “The hardest thing / I am too selfless to leave / You're the only thing that I need /
You should be addicted to me.”
Of course, the demand to love, to be addicted to another person, is anything but selfless.
As a listener, you find yourself in a sterile environment that still contains latent fantasies: just like that plush hotel lobby I first thought of.
I came to Arab Strap via the solo work of Malcolm Middleton. I came to Malcolm Middleton via the band Sophia. Many years ago, Robin Proper-Sheppard of The Sophia Collective, left a link on the band’s website to one of Malcolm’s tracks and it was the beginning of an obsession. I devoured Malcolm’s solo work and adored the dark humour contained therein.
My route to Arab Strap is therefore a bit of a rare one. I don’t have any memory of Aidan and Malcolm back in the day, when they were originally setting out. I have access to the music without any of the dangers of nostalgia. This is a definite advantage. The music can stand up for itself.
Their latest album, As Days Get Dark, is a beautifully complex piece of work and I dare say their best. The descriptive quality of the lyrics is aesthetically on a power with a J.G Ballard novel. Consider the second track, Another Clockwork Day. On a surface level, the song describes a person with a ‘specialist collection’ of images in a matter of fact way. These pornographic images are categorised by number, much like Ballard would deal with human body parts. The song is apparently devoid of emotion until one realises the pornography is a countermeasure to a meaningless life of routine. This descriptive approach, which does not provide any hint of judgement, works like hermeneutics in song.
This is what makes As Days Get Darkand Arab Strap so interesting and challenging. Their music does not operate in the same way other music does. Yes, you can still dance to the music sometimes but you are all wrapped up with keen insight when doing so.
Don’t come to this album looking for escape and a good time. Instead, prepare for an unflinching measure of the hard stuff.
There is a real attitude in this song. It is in the vocal delivery, the way words are spat out. It is in the lyrics, how there is a forced necessity to take action. Musically, this attitude can be found in the lower end, with the drums kicking up a storm.
The song describes a person finding it difficult to enforce boundaries: “You're forcing feelings on me / I perk my lips / I can't breathe.” The aggression of the song comes from a place of affirmation, the explanation sign in the title entirely appropriate.
When this song was born, I imagine it came into the world screaming. Despite the terror of such emergence, this baby would have been loved straight away.
I first picked up a guitar in 1992 when I was 16 years old. It was an old 12 string my dad had so not the easiest for a novice to play or keep in tune. The walls weren’t very thick between my house and my neighbour’s either so they had a lot to endure, not to mention my own family! The first song I learned was Drunken Sailor, which is a sea shanty and only has 2 chords. As I added more chords to my repertoire I found in general I was never happy with my renditions of the songs I covered; so it was really from this discontent that I began writing my own songs.
What influences do you have as a songwriter?
I always find this a difficult question. At school there would be others who obsessed about just one band or artist and followed them religiously. I’ve never been wired that way. This comes through in my music. I’d listen to 80s rock bands and enjoy the escapism and at times bombastic sonic adventures, then I’d pick up my acoustic guitar and write an introspective piece. Having said that, the process of writing and performing for me is a type of escapism.
If you weren’t a musician, what other art forms would you pursue?
Definitely not painting or drawing. I’ve never been good at that and even now if I draw something, someone five years old and barely able to hold a pencil could do much better. I likely would turn to writing fiction.
What would a world without music or art look like and how different would life be to you?
The world would be quieter for a start! Imagine driving a car with no stereo, or walking through a shopping centre with an absence of music anywhere. For me personally I feel I would lack something inside, like that feeling you get if you forget to bring your mobile phone with you, or you’re used to wearing a watch and forget to put it on someday. Something would feel missing, I wouldn’t feel complete. There would be a feeling of absence. Don’t get me wrong though, these are just analogies, I think we would all get along just fine without phones. But without music? - not so. Having said that if music didn’t exist how could we miss what we never had? I suspect at some primordial level we would just have to though. Maybe I’d climb a big tree or a mountain and scream like Tarzan and something would ignite in everyone’s ears (or else someone would just throw a rock at me and tell me to shut up). Which reminds me of another thing, in a world without music would birds still sing?
How important does the role of imagination play in your creativity?
It is the key that unlocks everything. However if you asked me what or where it is I couldn’t tell you. Do you ever think to yourself, how did people eons ago figure out that cooking food was a good thing? Did someone leave some food too close to a fire and discover by accident the process of cooking food? For me there is an accidental process to writing. And maybe this stems from the fact I have never learned to read or write music. I doodle a lot too, and then I’ll kind of formalise the doodling and begin humming a melody. Then from whatever is going on in my life past or present (or indeed imagined future) I’ll find that words just kind of present themselves to me, and then, usually like rolling a snowball down a hill the whole thing gathers size and momentum. Then I think to myself, where did that come from. I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and intentionally tried to write something. I’m sure it’s different for everyone though. And many of my doodles never go anywhere!
Is music therapeutic?
I would say yes. But what’s interesting is if we remind ourselves what the word therapeutic means. Something about how it sounds evokes the feeling of it being soothing. However the deeper meaning if I can call it that is about treating a disease or disorder. So are we all a bit broken and in need of help? I revert to my first answer: I would say yes.
In an ideal world, who would you like to work with as a songwriter?
Leonard Cohen was the first person that popped into my head, however if he were still alive I guess working with him would feel more like receiving a masterclass
In an ideal world, who would you like to see performing your songs?
I have no restrictions and no real preferences on that one. It would be strange hearing another voice singing back to me though. Strange but good; and I hope it would reveal layers I’d never seen before. Someone said to me recently, what if someone did a better cover of my songs. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did - and ironically this goes back quite twistedly to me never feeling good enough about doing covers in general.
Who is your favourite living songwriter?
I perhaps touched on this a little earlier in that I don’t have favourites. But I would lean towards Robin Proper-Sheppard (from The God Machine, and Sophia).
Who is your favourite deceased songwriter?
For me there’s isn’t just one. I would cheat and give two here. John Lennon and Leonard Cohen.
Who is your favourite living performing artist?
I would say Lissie for the wild abandon with which she sings.
Who is your favourite deceased performing artist?
Jimi Hendrix. He had everything. I mentioned earlier the question about how we discover cooking.Here is an example of someone who discovered fire.
What advice would you give a younger songwriter?
Trust in your instincts. Writing can make us feel vulnerable but it is also a source of strength. Have the confidence in yourself that you have something, whatever it is. It is good to have others give you compliments of course, but don’t look for that, or in any way depend on it. Depending on an outside source can be quite devastating in my experience. In my early days I was on the receiving end of a few cutting remarks from someone close (I’ll not say who it was, but suffice to say the cut left a scar). Constructive criticism can and is good too, however in the end you need to trust in yourself, and just go with it.
What advice do you wish you had been giving from a mentor when you first started?
Kind of similar to my last answer I suppose. It’s all about inner strength.
Who is your ideal listener?
Anyone that connects with my songs. Isn’t that what it’s all about?
Bio:
Darren Beggs is a singer-songwriter who currently lives in Bangor, County Down. He originally recorded Acoustic Memoirs in 1998. Darren is a founding member of Addendum. Both Acoustic Memoirs and Addendum's EP were digitally released in 2020 for the first time.He has an original upcoming new album due out in May 2021 which will feature a mix of old and new material. The first single from the album is called "No One Knows" and was released on 20 February 2021.
The first Alice Cooper album I listened to in full was Trash. I was a tennager and it was a time in my life when I started to take a real interest in music. For Alice Cooper, Trash was a comeback album which became a smash. With the help of Desmond Child, a songwriter who is responsible for some of the biggest hits of the 80’s, Alice Cooper became current.
Decades on, Trash sounds more dated than Cooper’s earlier 70s albums. This new album, Detroit Stories, has more in common with the earlier classic Cooper.
The songs here have a real raunch and roll feel and there is a direct straight ahead humour. In some ways this album is not to be taken too seriously. One song tells a story of a five year old who is bored until they find a rock n roll radio station. Another song describes someone getting out of jail and raising hell with a girlfriend. Yet another song tells the story of a man who is infatuated with a woman he philosophises with. The woman is then described as ‘a devil with angel eyes.’
The songs are littered with some interesting one liners. Consider ‘I saw you baby and I pissed my pants,’ or ‘We are all pessimistic creeps.’ This is the stuff of real life. These songs tell stories of rooted people, often struggling in one way or another. There is still humour in that. There is a certain quality in this humour, in the acknowledgment that we are all flawed in some way. These songs are therefore a way of expressing solidarity.
Near the end of the album, there is a touching moment when Cooper leaves the telephone number for a suicide prevention helpline as part of the track Hanging on by a Thread - Don’t Give Up. Despite the theatre of Cooper’s music, here is a moment where he shows a concern for real people.
This is an album I will go back to from time to time. Here I will find a proper artist at work.
Working a corporate job can feel suffocating. There are the unwritten rules of behaviour that many find restrictive, there is the unclarity of purpose and the subtle impact about how we think about ourselves and the world.
Michey Tree explores such themes in her song Floating Tree. She sings, “Corrupt and corporate with suits and ties / Corrupt and corporate, they tell you lies.”
Such haziness is conveyed musically. There is a chorus-echo effect on the guitar, the vocal delivery trails at the end of sentences. Emotionally, there is drunkenness in Floating House; as if someone is struggling to somehow rise above it all.
This muted desperation really comes across performance wise. This is a beautiful track, despite or perhaps because of the darkness. There is a real human quality in this song, a proper truthfulness.
