Monday, December 12, 2005

Don’t Know What’s Going On Inside



Chris Bell - I Am The Cosmos

I had a spiel down pat for this one but it was so John Boy Walton earnest it made me want to puke und zo here come the salient points:
Chris was in Big Star. Uh oh. They get mentioned quite a lot around SVC. Not as much as The Butthole Surfers, but way more than Enya.

Heaps of you will have thought about buying the album and never quite got round to it just in case this is the only good thing on there. That was me, too. Big mistake. “You And Your Sister”, “Better Save Yourself” and “Speed Of Sound” are equally wonderful. And anyway, what I might think of as filler one year can tear my head off the next. I bet that’s happened to you, too.

First rule of great song writing - keep it simple. “I Am The Cosmos” has a stupid amount of fiddly chords and some convoluted changes. It’s still a great song. First rule of song writing is to ignore anyone who tells you there is a first rule. And the only rule for playing live is make sure your flies are done up. This rule does not apply to Iggy Pop.

One of the best Air Guitar Solo opportunities I‘ve come across. You can do the bendy string thing. Air Drumming is also a possibility. Lots of cymbals.

“Don’t know what’s going on inside” is a perfect line, matching Nico’s “Cannot understand the way I feel” for being profound, mundane, confused and insightful all at the same time.

Why can’t everything be as good as this?

Buy - I Am The Cosmos Amazon
Visit - Rykodisc description

1 comment:

MadCatJoey said...

I just purchased the album on eMusic, and it's been in my heavy rotation ever since. It's unfortunate that Chris Bell never got the recognition in his life time, and that it's taken this long for people to start noticing him.