Musical Notes

I'm going to write a "three-dot" column today. That's the traditional name for a column that's just a series of unrelated comments, traditionally divided up by three dots. Hence the name. You got that, right? Except that I've actually got sort of a theme, in that the random things I have to say are all vaguely music-related. So this is either a particularly lazy regular day (in that I can't be bothered to string things together at all) or a particularly coherent three-dot column. Whichever makes you happiest.

Most of these things are little teeny bits I've had floating in my head for awhile, but they're not really substantial enough to stand on their own.

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A traditional cell-phone ring is Beethoven's "Für Elise", because it's a simple tune and only needs one note at a time. But now there are extremely fancy phones with the potential for extremely complicated rings. Some phones have rings that sound just like old rotary phones, which I find funny.

But some people now associate "Für Elise" with cell-phones. So there are fancy phones that still have that as the ring tone. But because it's important to use every ounce of potential, it's not just a simple tune any more. They've added harmonic chords and all sort of things that make it sound, well, bigger. And that bugs me, because if you hear "Für Elise" played by an actual pianist, it won't be nearly as complex as the version on the phones. Weird.

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I really like the Beatles album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, although I've come to realize that many of the songs are extremely silly. Let's face it, "When I'm Sixty-Four" isn't really rock and roll. And even though "Lovely Rita" might be my favorite Beatles song, I realize that there's not much there. And so on. My point is that I dig the album a lot, which isn't a particularly controversial stand.

But here's a tip I learned a long time ago, and I'm going to share it with you, even though it's almost totally useless at this point. Side Two starts out with "Within You, Without You," which is George being all Indian and sitar-y. It's really long, and I've never really liked it. So if you're listening to a vinyl record, you sort of want to just skip it. By "you" I mean "me". And here's the clever part: if you have a turntable of sufficient age, there are three settings for disc size: full-size album, 45 single, and something in-between. I'm not sure what the in-between size is for. Possibly EPs. And if you use the middle size, the needle will drop almost exactly at the end of "Within You, Without You".

There you go. If you're about to listen to side two of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the right kind of turntable and you want to skip "Within You, Without You" without having to manually drop the needle, I've got your back.

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Strega told me about this one: Boomtown Rats albums are being rereleased on cd! This is from the Official Bob Geldof Website so it's reasonably likely. In April, the "full Boomtown Rats back catalogue" is being released. I'm excited, because my only copy of the album before Tonic for the Troops is on vinyl, and I don't listen to it as much as I should. Plus, there's always the chance that this could spark some kind of resurgence of interest in the Boomtown Rats, which would be great.

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When you're doing this sort of thing, it's traditional to put in random lyrics. I therefore present part of the chorus of "Turning Japanese" by The Vapors:

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark

Thank you very much.

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Remember the song "The Sign" by Ace of Base? I swear that the music behind part of the chorus was taken directly from the Sega Genesis game Sonic the Hedgehog. The first one. Whenever I hear that song, I flash back to playing Sonic.