France Gall and the Elusive Four-Track EP

Recently, in MySpace world, I have befriended a group of teenage French women, starting with Chantal Goya, but then progressing to Sylvie Vartan and then finishing up with France Gall, the Leslie Gore of French ye-ye girls.

While I was listening to France, who is actually a fairly interesting singer (she holds your attention and is more flamboyant than the others), I read that all of France’s records were originally released as four-track EPs and that such was the style of 1960s French pop – singers put out songs in four-track bursts, not lengthy 10 or 12 song LPs.To me, this seemed like a breath of fresh air. Instead of focusing creatively on grouping songs of 10, or 12, or 17 (like my second record) I could now dream in fours – much more achievable. Anyway, how long do periods of being “in the zone” last anyway? Albums stretch creativity. But the best songs often come quick and demand your attention now. It’s unfair to keep them bottled up while you think up enough filler to package them as an LP.
It then struck me that the four-track EP was no longer a thing of the past. It actually was making a comeback, thanks to MySpace, which allows you to post no more than four songs. In an ideal MySpace world, every three to six months or so you would post four new tracks – like delivering a new EP.

Right now, I have written three tracks of my first four-track MySpace/EP delivery. The EP is called “Broadway Nassau” and the first song is one people have heard already called “Central Park Reservoir” – it’s a jazzy track about Dustin Hoffman, Marathon Man, the Jacobites – you know, standard nerdy Giustino stuff. The next is called “Zia Alessandra” – this is a bossa nova-flavored (not a real bossa) tune about Alessandra Mussolini. The main idea seems to be that sometimes bad people are still charming. Wouldn’t you agree? The third track, completed just a few days ago, is called “Cross Country Skiier.” You know how Belle and Sebastian wrote a lot of songs about long distant runners and the stars of track and field. I seem to be inspired by skiing (see ‘Lillehammer’ from my Ragazza record). This song was, in part, inspired by France Gall’s music. And M.I.A.’s. I have lots f divergent interests.

So that leaves track four, hovering somewhere out there in the subconscious. Perhaps we’ve met, like former strangers – passing on the street. Maybe we’ve been in the same elevator. Or maybe the next one will strike like creative lightning – out of nowhere.

We’ll see.

In Search of the Holy Grail

When I first began learning a new language, I assumed that my understanding of the new language would happen overnight. Or so I was told.

“One day, it will just click,” said the Turkish clerk at the sandwich place in Copenhagen. But Danish never clicked in the three months I was there. When I began learning Estonian I thought the same. But it wasn’t until I took an active interest in acquiring new words and vocabulary that I began to truly learn.

So is it with songwriting as I found out yesterday, in my 26th year on the planet. When you learn something so simple, you are desperate to know how you could have lived your life in the darkness for so long. I took my pad, pen, and selected a few of my favorite songwriters – Renato Carosone, Jorge Ben, Chico Buarque, Björk Gudmundsdottir, and James Brown – and tried to deconstruct their songs into verses, choruses, and bridges.

What I found was that of all these songwriters, James Brown was the most orthodox – 2 bar intro, verse, bridge, chorus, solo, chorus, verse, chorus etc. I took apart songs like “Cold Sweat” and “Let Yourself Go” – some of his classic 60s material. It made me happy to see it was so simple.

Renato Carosone was a bit similar, a musical intro, verse, chorus – but then he would throw in a second theme to the chorus, a second chorus if you will, then return to the original chorus before hitting an instrumental section and heading back into a verse. He hit this section everytime he did the chorus, but it was stylistically different enough that it could be deemed it’s own section. He does this in a number of songs – “Mambo Italiano”, and “Tu Vuo’ Fa’ l’Americano”. He didn’t necessarily write all of these songs, but I think they are representative of Neapolitan songs.

Jorge Ben followed a pattern I’ve noticed in Brazilian music – two bars of musical instrumental, straight into the chorus, then verse 1, then verse 2, back into the chorus, then an instrumental break, then just verse 2, then repeat the chorus to the end. He does this in “Mas Que Nada.” Chico Buarque pursues a similar strategy in “A Rita.” That song is different though because “A Rita” starts with the instrumental section, followed by the chorus (like “Mas Que Nada”) then verse 1, 2, 3, then the chorus, then the instrumental outro – all clocking in under 2 minutes.

Björk really was the most unusual. She’s famous for being different and these songs – from her album Medulla did not follow any of the songwriting conventions of Jorge Ben or James Brown. Instead songs like “The Pleasure is All Mine” started with musical intro, followed by the verse, followed by what appears to be a bridge, back to the verse and then the musical outro. The same thing happens on “Oceania” – she dives right into the verse – or is it the chorus? It is the name of the song! – and then hits the bridge just to go back into the verse/chorus hybrid and repeat until end. Earlier songs – like “Bachelorette” and “Joga” from Homogenic, show a similar pattern.

So what does this all mean? It means that when I went back and listened to my songs from Ragazza (or whatever I am calling my album these days) and found out that they consisted of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo, verse, chorus, I was really disappointed in myself. For all those years listening, I had never really listened. But, dear readers, all is not in vain.

When I arrived home, I started tinkering with new ideas and rearranging some of new new songs – and for the first time in awhile, I felt I was getting somewhere. Soon I will tell you where.