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

You are a true English gentleman (by way of New Zealand). This is the kindest way you could have said what was said here - I'd likely not be as kind.

Also, anyone who is delighted by empirically stupid things, as I clearly am, should go out and give "The Morrissey Song" by Jarinus a listen. I never fail to get a chuckle from it.

 

I was *this* close to doing a breakdown of the lyrics line by line for "Too Blue" since I haven't done one of those in quite a while, but since they're not Finn lyrics I won't take up the real estate. This is a really good song, and I suspect the only thing keeping it from top-tier greatness in my estimation is that the process was set up in such a way that it had to make it out the door faster than usual, so there's probably a couple lyrical/musical refinements that would kick it over the top. The verse, which is just oozing with Tweediness, is so great - having that person in your life who you really care for, but they've just got too many demons for you to really make anything come from that connection hits home, and especially the line:

"One of these days you get to the place
And help yourself
And someday you leave me out of the way"

Just connects like a punch to the back of the head - "I know you might be able to get past this, but that will mean past me as well, since I'm part of whatever this is." Been there.

Anyway, I just really like this song.

4.5/5

 

I love The Sun Came Out in general and we won't be discussing several of my favorite tracks on it since they don't have any direct Neil involvement. However, since the album is by "Neil Finn & Friends", I'll mention them when we have our day to discuss the album as a whole. This was such a great project and it also served as an excellent marketing opportunity to show off Neil's new professional studio in Auckland (which Wilco would use just after these sessions to record the basic tracks for their Wilco (The Album) album). "Too Blue" is just a great song, and I especially love the post-chorus part ("all we ever do is gone tomorrow" through "make it sting"). Johnny Marr sings it well, with Neil providing able backing. I can hear the Jeff Tweedy touch here even though, rather oddly, he doesn't play on the song. This is gorgeous, sweeping, cinematic power pop, which is one of my favorite mini-genres.

4.4/5

 

The Queen is Dead and Strangeways, Here We Come are really great. I think my two favorite Smiths songs, though, come before those two albums with “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore” and “How Soon is Now?”

I agree, Morrissey is hit and miss, but he’s got some really good albums like Viva Hate, Vauxhall and I, Southpaw Grammar, and Ringleader of the Tormenters.

 

Too Blue: Official promo

 

I love “Too Blue”; it’s probably my favorite song on The Sun Came Out. As others have suggested, I think Neil’s only contribution is to sing along with Johnny Marr on the melody, as Mary’s voice isn’t that strong (Neil may have contributed to the harmonies, too). The song is just catchy as hell. There’s not quite enough to it, ultimately—I think we see this in the arrangement shift in the first part of the final verse, which I think is there mostly to add some variety to what would otherwise be too much of the same thing, Still, like I said, catchy as hell.

Given Neil’s limited involvement, I’m tempted not to rate it, but as it’s my favorite song on the album, I’ll go ahead.

4.5/5

 

Holes...mine are more like craters in my musical knowledge! Although this thread (and others) are quite useful. For all the evils of iTunes, the one thing is does do well is put music on tap. I can just idly scroll through various artists (and the dumb suggestions that iTunes makes) and see what is out there. So in the last 12 months I've reintroduced myself to music from my pre-teen and teenage years and also downloaded new music that I probably would never have discovered (e.g. Lime Cordiale, Saint Motel, the list goes on.).

My sister is a pretty big fan of The Smiths (and generally a lot of UK music from that period...) She's way more knowledgeable than me on music generally - I put it down to the fact that she doesn't have kids and therefore her brain has been unadulterated by Raffi and The Wiggles...I'm still in recovery phase.

 

Mmm , so here we go
To me this project represents the start of Neil’s great decline .

This project perfectly illustrates when a bunch of musicians who are friendly get together to catch up and hang out and decide to write and record together as there would have been very little critical thought going on if any .
Case in point I remember from perhaps the EPK or an interview Neil or someone else raving how brilliant Phil Sellways contributions were and he is this great undiscovered song writer .Well when I heard them they are typical of songs made by novice songwriters on accoustic dripping in cliches and sentimentality.I have a friend who has a cupboard full of those type of songs that he has written and you tube is full of them now as well .

Neils contribution “ All comedians Suffer “ is sub standard to say the least and it is interesting to note it was not included on the single disc version .

So 7 worlds collide is a massive misfire for me am glad everyone has a great time and for sure it would have been an awesome experience just don’t think it should have been put out .
The fact that is vanished immediately with little or no fanfare was telling as well .

 

It's a bit of a quandary trying to fill the holes (or craters as it is with me). I just visited the aforementioned thread and immediately felt overwhelmed. Loads of great suggestions but daunting. The way I've been trying to fill in my gaps is to kind of look for related artists. So in this thread, Wilco was mentioned in connection with a cover that Tim did. So I went off and listened to that album and now I'm much more interested in seeking Wilco out. Similarly, I got to Lime Cordiale via Icehouse (turns out Iva Davies gave them a bit of a start). A rare moment where I introduced my teenage son to current music and he thought it was infinitely cool (which by association meant I was kind of cool too )

So basically I subscribe to the networking style (6 degrees of separation-style) of filling the gaps - hey if it's good enough for Neil Finn (or other trusted soul) to listen/be influenced by, sure I'll give it a shot!

 

"Too Blue" is a very good opener, with an almost euphoric energy in the music. It's very catchy. The lyrics are quite dark. This thing, with the music and the lyrics having different moods, is something Neil has specialised in over the years, so I can see why he would like this song even though he didn't write it. However, here I lack a connection between the two, it sounds more like two separate pieces that have been shoe-horned together.
Still, I like both pieces and the overall sound of power pop with cinematic, almost nostalgic, strings. I find the album as a whole very patchy to say the least, but this song is one of the highlights.
4/5

 

Jumping ahead a bit, but I think "All Comedians Suffer" is brilliant and the best song on the album, not to mention one of the essential latter period Neil Finn songs. I think the reason it was only included on the double-disc version of the album (which is actually the only version I remember seeing for sale at my local record store back in 2008) is because this was a charity benefit project and Neil was smart enough to realize that most of the people buying it would be his own fans. So, he made sure to put his only track on the full version of the release in order to maximize the revenues accruing to Oxfam.

While there are a few clunkers on the album, I rate 10 of the 24 tracks as 4 stars or better (which translates into 3.5+ for this thread), which is pretty good for an album of this nature. Two of the tracks get five stars from me, including Don McGlashan's "Long Time Gone", which we won't be discussing here. So, I'm personally very glad that this album was made and issued. Hopefully the funds it raised eased a little bit of pain and suffering in the world also.

 

Our votes for "Too Blue"

1-0
2-0
3-0
4-8
5-2
Average: 4.17

 

Today's song is "Little By Little" writen by Neil Finn & Sharon Finn; produced by Neil Finn & Jim Scott; recorded and mixed by Jim Scott.

Lyric.

Neil Finn: Vocals, guitar, bass, marimba, chamberlain, synth
Sharon Finn: vocals, bass
Glenn Kotche: drums, percussion
Liam Finn: additional drums

Note: this was the first appearance of what was to be called "The Pajama Club", a sort of post-punk sounding collaboration between Neil and his wife Sharon that they started to combat Empty Nest Syndrome.
For the Pajama Club's recordings, rather than coming from songs written on piano or acoustic guitar, Sharon and Neil jammed on bass and drums respectively, and then wrote the melodies and chords on top of those raw jams. In Neil's words they "were both about the same level" on their respective instruments.

 

Little by Little

Good to hear the Pajama Club early on or perhaps the preface to The Pajama Club. This is a fun song, and it's great to hear the Finns playing together. It's a fun and catchy song. The lyrics of children growing up are good. I like the synth break too. The lyrics seem to be written from Sharon's perspective and are very good.

4.0/5

 

Yes, I like this song too -- it's certainly different sonically to anything Neil had done before and different lyrically too (Sharon's bit in particular, obviously a different lyrical voice than Neil's); The whole empty nest syndrome is something that is not too often touched on in pop music, demonstrating once again that the elder Finns are very good at capturing the issues and emotions of middle age.

Of course I guess some people might think there was something a bit "cook of the house" about it, something that borders on the insufferably twee, but for some reason I just love it: maybe it's the bare-boned rhythm that makes the song for me, it has a really retro seventies/early eighties feel to it.

3.8/4

 

The Sun Came Out is where Neil first really embraced jamming as an acceptable form of songwriting, and that's when the wheels began to fall off for me.

Little by Little starts brightly with Neil's catchy and breezy verse, but that's quickly derailed by Sharon's weedy singing in the chorus. The song fails to build to the point where I lose interest halfway through.

On the plus side it's one of the stronger tracks on a record brimming with half baked writer's retreat jams, and possibly better than anything Pajama Club released.

3/5

 

AGree.

Don't think I agree with this, though. He's used jams throughout his career to build songs: off the top of my head: some of the Split Enz songs came from jams, even though the others are not credited, I strongly believe that they should have been on some songs (not all, obviously); probably a bit with Crowded House, too ("Kare Kare", "Newcastle Jam"); "Souvenir" came from a bass/drum jam, "Suffer Never"from a guitar/drum jam, etc.

I'll bet those songs co-written with Melvoin, Moginie and Moore were basically just jams that he/they developed into songs. I think that Neil has probably jammed with a lot of musicians in his time that we don't know about and I'd be surprised if that hadn't inspired quite a lot of music

I think what makes this and Pajama club stand out is the limitation of the players on their respective instruments.

I do agree though that this song is about the best The Pajama Club ever did.

 

Little By Little - I find this song positively cringe-inducing. Neil’s parts are fine, but then that godawful chorus comes in and I just want to run in and save poor Sharon from having to sing it.

“When the kids fall in love again
Little by little turning into men.”

Oy. Maybe it doesn’t look completely terrible just looking at the words there, but when I hear it sung I just cringe every single time.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Sharon. I think she makes some great contributions on Pajama Club, but Little by Little doesn’t sound like Pajama Club. And this song, in addition to the cringeworthy lyrics she has to sing, doesn’t suit her voice.

My favorite song on The Sun Came Out is Lisa Germano’s Reptile, which I can listen to endlessly. I think Lisa and Sharon have similar qualities in their singing voices - sort of a hushed breathiness, although Lisa’s is a little bit deeper, at least on Reptile. That kind of voice suits a droning song like Reptile, but it doesn’t suit a sugary sweet pop confection like Little By Little.

2/5

I think there are a handful of really good to great songs on this album, but I don’t think any of the Finn songs are among them. They are all among my least favorite songs on this album.

 

My thoughts exactly, the verse is so much better than the chorus that it feels like 2 separate songs hastily stuck together - badly. I guess this is what can happen on a project like this, with songs created in a bit of a hurry perhaps, without the time to revisit and smooth out the rough edges you end up with pseudo-demos which is what this sounds like.

2/5

 

"Little by Little" is fascinating in two respects. First, it's yet another example of Neil drawing inspiration from mundane observations. He's on his treadmill when he sees a balloon float by out the window? Ban! There's a song, or at least a verse. Second, it's interesting, at least in this instance, to see Neil craft a song around the rudimentary skills of his bass player (this became a lot less interesting on Pajama Club).

"Little by Little" is not a brilliant song, and I agree that the chorus lyrics are a little cringey. I've still always liked it for the verses. It's on my personal cut version of The Sun Came Out.

4/5

(I'll note, just as an aside, that when Pajama Club toured, they completely reworked the arrangement of "Little by Little," in a way that made it sound much more like a Pajama Club album track.

 

I really enjoy the Pajama Club album. Maybe I am in the minority. I also saw the Pajama Club tour when they played NYC and thoroughly enjoyed it. But I have no recollection of them playing Little By Little. So either I blocked it from my mind completely, or they changed it enough that I didn’t recognize it.

 

"Little By Little" is not without its merits. It has a kind of "Transit Lounge"-ish groove to it and the lyrics, about children now being adults and living in their own homes now, seem very heartfelt. That's quite a rare topic in music and it must also be rare to have both parents singing such a song.
I'm in the minority regarding this song as I think Sharon's vocals are better than Neil's here. His parts, to my ears, just sound lazy and half-hearted, very "Neil falsetto by numbers". It's a relief for my ears when the song goes from that to Sharon singing the chorus.
The song itself seems very half-baked (like a lot of the other songs on the album), like they didn't have any worthwhile ideas beyond a short verse and a passable chorus, so they just repeated those until the song reached a decent length. To my ears, this song - and many others on the album - sounds like a fairly good B side but not really a track that would have made it onto a "regular" (non-charity) album.
2,8/5

 

@brownie61, you and I were at the same Pajama Club concert in NYC. As I recall, they did play "Little by Little," but it was so changed as to be difficult to recognize.

Edit: maybe not quite so changed as I remember it:

 

Thanks for posting that! Everything about that performance is better than the studio track from The Sun Came Out. Those lyrics are still terrible, but it’s a lot easier to ignore them because the song has much more of a groove, like the other Pajama Club songs.

 

"Little By Little" is just too corny for me, I have to say. I don't enjoy Sharon's singing to begin with and that, coupled with the twee lyrics on the chorus, completely sink the song for me. The verses are okay, but don't do enough to counter the cringey chorus. Not one of the better songs on the album.

2.9/5