Stranger than Fiction, Larger Than Life: the Finn Brothers song-by-song discussion thread

Totally agree with what everyone has said re: "Anytime", beautiful song, great lyrics, another classic and another automatic 5/5

BTW: I think this new version of "Last Day of June" might be better than the original.

 

"Anytime" is a brilliant song nearly smothered by the production and mastering. It seems to be reaching for a White Album vibe, but it feels airless and limp. The song's potential is much more fully realized in the live 7 Worlds Collide version (which was the opening track of the post-1996 mix CD that I made for my friend before we saw Crowded House in 2010).

The lyric is brilliant, from the immediacy of the image created by the opening verse to "the first clear moment I saw you." The melody is strong, and the contrast between the verse/chorus and the bridge works well. There's so much potential here, and Tchad Blake nearly kills it. The production makes the song so unmemorable that I barely recognized it when I first heard the 7 Worlds Collide version.

Album versions: 3.5
7 Worlds Collide version (which I know we'll discuss later): 5/5

 

We’ll discuss the whole album at once (except for “There Is a Light”) so I’ll go with the five when I tally it up tomorrow.

 

"Anytime" is a solid and very good album track. Neil's singing is very heartfelt and the lyrics are moving. Apart from the dog/cat/truck incident making him (even more) aware of mortality, I think also his mother's illness must have made him think of these matters a lot.
I think the chorus is a bit bland though, musically, especially compared to the brilliant verses, and that the song would have been even better if it had been recorded by the 1992 Crowded House line-up. Possibly the musicians on One Nil are more technically skilled than Nick, Paul and Mark but to my ears they don't play Neil's songs with the same musical empathy and feel as the Crowded House guys did.
My preferred version of "Anytime" is the live version on the 7 Worlds Collide album, the studio version gets 3,7/5 from me.

 

Fair enough. You've laid out your plans fo r7 Worlds Collide before, and I respect them. Let's just say that I'm going to have a very long post that day.

(I wholly agree that "There Is a Light" merits special attention.)

 

"Anytime". Wonderful. Diamond. I can only echo what has been written and the aching wish that CH had recorded it.

The extra lyrics on One All "complete" the song - the live versions mentioned propel it upwards - 5/5 for me!

 

Once you've heard the 7 Worlds Collide version it renders the album version almost unlistenable, it's just so bland and insipid by comparison that I would not be surprised to learn it was a demo included by mistake.

4/5

 

Perfect.

 

"Anytime" is one where I really like the lyrics but the music doesn't quite deliver for me. A reflection on mortality with a "seize the day" perspective, the song's propulsion and rising melody reflect the urgency in the lyrical theme. Lovely little piano flourishes throughout. The middle 8, however, is the weak part of the song and detracts from the rest of it to a shockingly large degree for a Neil Finn composition (middle 8s are generally a strength of his). The One All version adds an additional lyric near the end but otherwise sounds about the same to me, which is pretty strange if you think about it - unless Neil just punched that line in over the chorus repeat that had been in that spot on the original version.

3.8/5 for both versions although the later U.S. version is better for the extra lyric.

 

There's a new version?

 

Neil and Mitchell Froom

 

"Anytime"--I mainly concur with Lance about this one. I listened to the 7 Worlds version last night that almost everyone so far seems to prefer, and even then, it just felt so much like so many of the other songs on this album that I can barely keep them all separate in my head. As has often been the case with these songs, the first verse feels very promising, but by the time it's over, the whole just ends up feeling slightly bland and beige to me: 3/5.

 

Anytime gets a 5/5 from me.

The best versions of this I have heard are the live versions recorded for Cold Live at the Chapel with Jim Moginie, and the version he did for Radio New Zealand's Live at Helen's show. They are both sublime and capture the song perfectly. The album version is too cluttered for me.

 

I think that's exactly what he did. Despite having an extra line of lyric the song isn't listed as having been remixed.

 

"Anytime" is an odd song in that the verse melody is pretty much a monotone, and not until the chorus do we get some nice movement. I agree with those who like the live version posted above better. 3.4/5 for this one.

 

Our votes for "Anytime

1-0
2-0
3-4
4-5
5-7
Average: 4.2063

 

Today's song is "Driving Me Mad", written by Neil Finn; produced by Tchad Blake and Neil Finn. The One Nil version, which is the 11th and penultimate track of the album, was mixed by Tchad Blake; the One All version, which crossfades from "The Climber" was mixed by Bob Clearmountain.

Driving Me Mad
For Americans, the One Nil mix can be heard here.
For non-Americans, The One All mix can be heard Here.

Neil Finn: vocals, guitars
Wendy Melvoin: bass, percussion
Sam Gibson: drum programming
Jim Keltner: Drums
Mitchell Froom: Hammond Organ
Sheryl Crow: vocals

Live versions of the song have been released on

• 7 Worlds Collide DVD (recorded April 2-6th, 2001)
• One on One fan club CD (recorded April 27th 2001)
• The One All promo interview CD, (recorded March 18th 2002)

It's about the dread of the blank page dilemma....I know people who write maybe 30, 40 songs a year. I write maybe 12 a year if I'm lucky and I'll make an album of 12, 13 songs every two or three years. I write a lot of things but I don't finish them unless they are destined for an album. There's a few strays that get left off to the side.

The music of "Driving Me Mad" was around when I was touring my last album...and at that point I had very few lyrics written for it, in fact, all I had was "it's driving me mad"....What I ended up writing a song about is something I'd never done before is to write a song really about the mental process of writing a song. It's self-referential and really just about the tossing and turning and the angst that can be created about just bgetting into the right sone and how it's subtly is influenced by and certainly affects the life you're having around it and the mystery of it, the kind of wonder of it. The fact that it's probably best to leave me alone when I'm in that mode. If you're smart you walk away from it. I think having a sleep's good...."have a nap when no one's looking." My wife has quite often often come down to see me downstairs.....in a chair nodding off...which is a....good thing to do...because thoughts you have when you wake up...you pick up a guitar and you're close to a dream state and you get good ideas"

The mix on [One All] is a lot better to my ears.

 

Just for the record, there is version of the remix with a clean intro. It appears on the One All Interview promo CD which also features live performances of said song and Turn and Run.

I like the song very much but without it ever seeming to rise to greatness in my conscience. It think it's a very solid album track - a remarkably good song to hide so far down the running order - but it retains a very similar feel throughout and the hooks aren't especially catchy. It's more of a mood piece than a single. I give it a generous 4/5.

 

I basically agree with Paul H to the word, except to say that it is very welcome after the utter slog that is the middle third of this album (for me.) I don't remember talking about an album that dragged so much in it's middle. (Talking about One Nil. One All is better.)

Quick notes: Both mixes are decent; prefer the One All mix. Keltner's drumming is sublime. Blends well with the drum machine. There's a bit of a western swing feel to this, very unusual for Neil. Melody probably sounds better than it is after the dull "Anytime." Weird sound in the middle and end is cool. Wish Sheryl Crow's vocal were mixed a little more up.

Lyric is decent and I figured out what it meant without his interview, a sign that his style is developing more towards the understandably impressionistic again rather than just utter abstraction.

4/5

 

Driving Me Mad describes much of my life, although my work is not quite as "glamourous" as Neil's work. Neil hits themes here that should have meaning for many of us in terms of deadlines, how those deadlines affect our moods and our family lives, and how the pressure can affect our general well-being. Neil's exploration of very common difficulties is once again brilliant.

Musically, I really like the melodies, the arrangements, the performances, the production, and the two mixes, but why in the world when Jim Keltner is on drums would anyone need "drum programming"?

4.8/5

 

Driving Me Mad - Interesting lyrics about writer’s block, but pretty uninteresting musically.

3/5

 

I'm having a bit of a day of it, so I apologise if I repeat or appear to ignore something that someone else has said. I'll revise the thread after working hours.

Driving Me Mad is, for me, The ToLM track on this album. It would fit right in and be of equal quality to the average for that album (which I like.)

It has subtle melodic gifts, rather than a singular hook. The lyrics would fit in with the darker feel of ToLM.

I like the outro; I wish it was longer.

3.7/5

 

I know quite a lot of tracks where drum programming is mixed with live drums or percussion to good effect. Admittedly, these are typically rather different genres than we find on NF albums.

 

"Driving Me Mad" has a very strong melody and I find the whole song very immediate. Great instrumentation and the production and mix let the song shine on its own without unnecessary cluttering layers and sound effects just for the sake of it. It's one of the better tracks on the album, either version, but to me it works much better as the penultimate track (as on One Nil) than as track two (as on One All). Great singing by Neil too. The one thing about this song is that to me it was an immediate 4/5 back in 2001, it has remained a 4/5 every time I've heard it since and it is still a 4/5 but maybe it lacks just that bit of uniqueness to make it absolute top notch.
4/5

 

"Driving Me Mad"....yeah, another 5/5 for me. Fantastic track. What the hell is that "mad" sound during the instrumental break and on the outro. Is it a keyboard or very heavily processed vocals? I always assumed it was a synthesizer, but I don't see that listed in the credits. Pretty cool though, whatever it is.