Having spent two summers and my senior year of college working at classic rock radio stations, I must have heard Free's "All Right Now" hundreds of times, thousands if we're counting bumpers. And yet, long after I've tired of "Stairway to Heaven" and "Free Bird," I'll happily sit through "All Right Now."
I'm still hearing new things in it. Two years ago, I heard an organist play it at a Cubs game and realized the verses have the same melody as "Footloose" (which "All Right Now" predates by 14 years).
It's the only Free song I know, and I've never felt inclined to seek out any others. I'm assuming they're good, and maybe someday I'll find out. But as of now it feels like the complete encapsulation of a band. Maybe Free themselves realized this, as Paul Rodgers saved nearly of his hits for Bad Company. You've heard the riff in countless other songs, but never played like this, and you might forget which hook goes with it the first dozen or so times it turns up on your FM. But once you get there, you'll stick around for Andy Fraser's moment of rock immortality. The bubbling bass line that takes over the bridge right around 2:20 is a pioneer moment of a bassist taking the lead in a great rock song, and still one of the only rock bass solos that doesn't disappoint or wear out its welcome. Now that we've heard Steve Harris, Geddy Lee, Cliff Burton, Sting, Flea and more it doesn't sound so unusual, and yet no less perfect.
Showing posts with label cliff burton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cliff burton. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Song of the Day: Metallica, "To Live is to Die"
For almost as long as I've been a Metallica fan, I've been witnessing Cliff Burton anniversaries. This year he would have turned 50, and this week marks the 26th anniversary of the bus crash that took his life.
Listen to this recently unearthed bass track to "Orion." It never gets tiring to hear how much loveliness goes into a document as brutal as Master of Puppets.
Most Burton tributes include his signature piece, "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth." My favorite quote is metal journalist Cosmo Lee's, "(I)magine yourself as a new band. You are unveiling yourself to the world for the first time. You have 10 songs to do it. You’re going to hand one of them over to your bassist? You do, if he’s Cliff Burton."
But "Pulling Teeth" doesn't make me mourn Burton. It's kind of like the guy who insists that his friends throw a party at his funeral. The intentions are good, but people need to mourn when they're dealing with a loss, and a whiplash-inducing bass solo isn't going to cut it. Rather, I turn to "To Live is to Die."
"To Live is to Die" is the strangest song on Metallica's strangest good album, ...And Justice for All. Burton doesn't play on it at all, just four men mourning him. Nearly ten minutes in length, it moves from an acoustic medieval melody into staccato prog-metal riffage, over hills and valleys before resting in its original form. Complicated solos, progressions and a brief spoken word performance drop in with no regard for conventional song structure. The lyrics, attributed to Burton, are adapted from 17th century German poet Paul Gerhardt. On print it's an oddball, but on tape it's as affecting as any funeral mass I can think of.
In one second, all the instruments cut out, giving way to a movement so delicate that it barely exists. The guitars and drums take several measures to pick themselves up and work back into the earlier progression. Sometimes it sounds like the most compelling moment in Metallica's history. ...And Justice for All is almost uniformly criticized for its dry production, particularly the decision to haze new bassist Jason Newsted by burying him in the mix, but one gets the sense that "To Live is to Die" could overcome any kind of engineering mess.
Listen to this recently unearthed bass track to "Orion." It never gets tiring to hear how much loveliness goes into a document as brutal as Master of Puppets.
Most Burton tributes include his signature piece, "(Anesthesia) Pulling Teeth." My favorite quote is metal journalist Cosmo Lee's, "(I)magine yourself as a new band. You are unveiling yourself to the world for the first time. You have 10 songs to do it. You’re going to hand one of them over to your bassist? You do, if he’s Cliff Burton."
But "Pulling Teeth" doesn't make me mourn Burton. It's kind of like the guy who insists that his friends throw a party at his funeral. The intentions are good, but people need to mourn when they're dealing with a loss, and a whiplash-inducing bass solo isn't going to cut it. Rather, I turn to "To Live is to Die."
"To Live is to Die" is the strangest song on Metallica's strangest good album, ...And Justice for All. Burton doesn't play on it at all, just four men mourning him. Nearly ten minutes in length, it moves from an acoustic medieval melody into staccato prog-metal riffage, over hills and valleys before resting in its original form. Complicated solos, progressions and a brief spoken word performance drop in with no regard for conventional song structure. The lyrics, attributed to Burton, are adapted from 17th century German poet Paul Gerhardt. On print it's an oddball, but on tape it's as affecting as any funeral mass I can think of.
In one second, all the instruments cut out, giving way to a movement so delicate that it barely exists. The guitars and drums take several measures to pick themselves up and work back into the earlier progression. Sometimes it sounds like the most compelling moment in Metallica's history. ...And Justice for All is almost uniformly criticized for its dry production, particularly the decision to haze new bassist Jason Newsted by burying him in the mix, but one gets the sense that "To Live is to Die" could overcome any kind of engineering mess.
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