Tag Archives: Essay

Surviving the spectre of COVID-19 / “Song Analysis” #61: Pet Shop Boys – Numb

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I have been writing quite a lot during the pandemic, but there’s a lot of drafts that sit unfinished. Every time I’ve started a new draft of one of these analyses, I think about how infinitesimally unimportant my writing is in the current world we live in, and I feel guilty. People are fighting for their lives from hospital beds and from the streets. There are pockets of unrest and discord all over the world that look like tinderboxes ready to explode at any moment.

None of us here on Earth have a crystal ball, but I think it’s safe to say that everyone on this planet is in for a rough ride for the foreseeable future. There are a lot of people hurting, confused, and feeling hopeless. There is a lot of advice out there already, but I wanted to provide my take on things you can do today that will help you cope during this difficult time.

My best recommendation? Stay safe and healthy, which means isolating when and where you can and wearing a mask if you must go out and interface with other people. If you need help, reach out. I cannot stress this enough. Life is always tough, but it’s especially tough now given that many of the usual, healthy coping mechanisms like seeing friends, being social, and going to the gym are prohibited or may look very different than what we’re used to. We’re going through an unprecedented time, and the feelings you have may be unfamiliar or heightened. None of this “I have to be productive like everyone else in isolation” if your mind can’t go there. It’s self-defeating and entirely unhelpful. Don’t compare your response to that of others. We all react to stress in different ways. Give yourself plenty of slack. Be gentle with yourself.

If you haven’t already tried this, a constructive, artistic outlet to release your negative feelings can really help. It’s a great option if meditation, sitting still, and contemplating your navel doesn’t work for you. Listening, dancing, and/or singing to music can be therapeutic. Writing out your feelings can be another big help. Just getting it out on paper is a good exercise to get it out of your system. Writers like me do this all the time.

Above all, if you’re feeling anxious or depressed, please don’t suffer in silence. It isn’t hopeless. Help is available. I saw this Instagram post from A Safe Place Inside Your Head recently, and it really hit home for me. I can help you find other resources, too. Find me on Twitter.

Title: ‘Numb’
Where to find it: ‘Fundamental’ (2006, Parlophone [UK], Rhino [US]); ‘Concrete’ (2006 live album, Parlophone [UK])
Performed by: Pet Shop Boys
Words by: Diane Warren

I put song analysis in quotes in the title of this post, because I feel that the words of the below song are self-explanatory. I did, however, want to post the lyrics for the person who is reading this post, can relate to them, and may find solace in the song as a whole. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with disconnecting from the news and social media right now. We are in the middle of an emotionally overwhelming situation, with the end and resolution uncertain.

I’ve been listening to a bunch of different music while in isolation. In the past week, I’ve been seeking out live albums on Spotify that I’ve never heard before. I came across ‘Concrete’, a 2006 live album of the Pet Shop Boys that was recorded for a BBC Radio 2 programmed called Sold on Song. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe specifically chose songs for the setlist that had been previously written to have orchestral backing, making this a beautifully unique set.

‘Numb’ is an unusual song to feature on Music in Notes, in that the song was not written by the Pet Shop Boys themselves. It was written by Diane Warren, a well-known name in the pop music world, having penned many a mainstream top 40 hit. The song was a single off their 2006 album ‘Fundamental’. This song follows 3 years later after another famous tune called ‘Numb’ by a singer we sadly lost in 2017.

I hope that if you’re reading this post, reading the lyrics, watching the live performance in Mexico, and hearing Neil Tennant’s plaintive voice below provide you some solace. Please know you’re not alone.

Verse 1
Don’t wanna hear the news
What’s going on
What’s coming through
I don’t wanna know
don’t wanna know
Just wanna hide away
make my my escape
I want the world
to leave me alone
Feels like I feel too much
I’ve seen too much
For a little while
I want to forget

Chorus 1
I wanna be numb
I don’t wanna feel this pain no more
Wanna lose touch
I just wanna go and lock the door
I don’t wanna think
I don’t wanna feel nothing
I wanna be numb
I just wanna be
wanna be numb

Verse 2
Can’t find no space to breathe
World’s closing in
right on me now
Well that’s how it feels
that’s how it feels
Too much light
There’s too much sound
Wanna turn it off
Wanna shut it out
I need some relief
Think that I think too much
I’ve seen too much
There is just too much
thought in my head

Chorus
I wanna be numb
I don’t wanna feel this pain no more
Wanna lose touch
I just wanna go and lock the door
I don’t wanna think
I don’t wanna feel nothing
I wanna be numb
I just wanna be
wanna be

Bridge
Taken away from all the madness
Need to escape
escape from the pain
I’m out on the edge
about to lose my mind
For a little while
For a little while
I wanna be numb

Chorus 2
I don’t wanna think
I don’t wanna feel nothing
I wanna be numb
I don’t wanna feel this pain no more
Wanna lose touch
I just wanna go and lock the door
I don’t wanna think
I don’t wanna feel nothing
I wanna be numb
I just wanna be
wanna be numb
I just wanna be
wanna be numb

Outro
All the madness
I wanna be numb

The Voice (no, not the tv show)

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This is an excerpt from the ongoing draft of my memoir. All rights reserved.

Nine years ago, I got my heart broken. I cried. A lot.

Of everything that happened around then, one of the clearest moments I remember of the time, about 2 months after, is a bit of a weird story.

Some of my friends valiantly tried to cheer me up, but nothing really worked. We heard about a Christmas karaoke night at a British pub downtown. One of my friends came from out of town and practically had to drag me there. She knew I liked to sing, so I guess she thought it was worth my going so my mind would be preoccupied for a night. It became time to pick something to sing. She had chosen ‘Christmas Wrapping’ by the Waitresses, but as you probably imagine, I wasn’t feeling especially festive.

I chose one of my favorite Killers songs, ‘Spaceman’. No pun intended, I killed it, you know, the way kids today talk about killing it and doing a grand job. For a few years, I was obsessed with the Killers. When I discovered them, they were Americans who, honestly, were the closest thing we could get to a British synthpop band at the time.

Singing temporarily numbed my pain because, ultimately, I am and have always been a natural singer. There is something magical that happens within me when I open my mouth and a song comes out, whether it was when I sang lead on ‘O Holy Night’ in a high school performance or this night in a pub in Washington. It is a gift. Just one I never got to use the way it was intended. But that’s for another chapter of my memoir.

I hadn’t sung in public in ages, and yet the words came out easily, as if I had stepped out of my choir class in high school. I sing in the car. I sing in the shower. I sing at my computer during the workday while Spotify or a CD runs. Compared to most people who would find it a distraction, I am actually a more productive and much happier worker when music is on versus when it’s not. Three years ago, on a tour bus trip on the west coast of Ireland, I sang along to a Script song without thinking anyone would be listening to me. Some of my fellow riders applauded me. Three thousand miles away from home, that was quite funny.

What is it about singing that I find so wonderful? I have always known that the emotions of a song, packed into a song’s lyrics, melody, and other music of its make-up, speak directly to me. Further, this happens at a somewhat frightening level with certain songs for me, where I can actually feel my body tingling and vibrating, connecting to the song’s own sonic wavelengths. What a freaky thing to happen.

I have been reflecting more on this, trying to physically analyze what it is about these particular songs that are causing this physiological reaction. (I trained as a biologist at university, what can I say?) Is it the words? Is it the melody? The melody of the verse, or of the chorus? Is it a chord change? Is it the anthemic soaring of a song, either musically or lyrically, that wonderfully feel good quality that is instantly palpable to all but deathly difficult to write? It could be any or all of these things together in one song.

I’ve been trying to put a list together of these ‘triggering’ songs. The Beatles’ ‘I Should Have Known Better’ was one of the seminal moments of my life when I felt like I’d been slapped in the face and that what I was listening to was something truly amazing. It’s still amazing 32 years later.

“We’re just waiting, looking skyward”: Interviewing Andy McCluskey of OMD

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Andy McCluskey (OMD) interview
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

It’s been a few interesting months since I last posted here, to say the least. I’m choosing to focus on the positives. I can’t remember who it was who first said to me, “God only gives us what we can handle.” That’s the explanation some people give on why some of us have been “blessed” with infirmities, illnesses, and other trials in our lives, while other people appear to have gotten away scot-free, unfettered by the things that have brought the rest of us afflicted so many tears. At the time I was given this religious chestnut, I was a convinced atheist.

Even if you’re not religious, I think you can still apply this as true somewhere in your own life. Be honest. There must be at least a few things that have happened to you over the years that seem…a bit too weird and too odd to simply be coincidental. Within 4 days in September, I saw two artists from Merseyside, both who use capital letters in their names: OMD (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark) and BANNERS. That, in itself, isn’t so strange for me, since I like a whole lot of English and Northern bands. Then things took an interesting turn…

I’d been working on something for a few weeks through normal press channels. That is, normal for someone who had run an internationally-read music Web site for nearly a decade. Things had stalled, and it looks like I was going nowhere fast. I wracked my brain about how else I could take the bull by the horns and do something that might change the situation for the better. I took a chance, not at the high school dance, but at the merch desk of the OMD show. I left the venue and tried to put it out of my head. I’d exhausted all the ideas I had. If nothing came of it, that was okay. The important thing was that I tried.

A common question that people have asked me over the years is, “How did you land that interview with Artist X?” This is how it happens most of the time. As the writer or editor, you put in a request, and then you wait, sometimes for a long time. It is a combination of behind the scenes machinations and sheer luck as to whether your request is granted. Annoyingly, sometimes you think you’ve bagged a fantastic interview and you spend an inordinate time preparing for it, only to be cancelled on because of the dreaded unforeseen circumstances. Neil Hannon and Tim Rice-Oxley, I’m still waiting…

Last month, I was given the wonderful opportunity to interview OMD cofounder Andy McCluskey. To call the band electronic and synth pioneers of the late ’70s and ’80s is describing their influence mildly. In the way that acknowledging pop in 2019 would have been very different if the Beatles had never existed, the electronic artists hotting up the charts these days owe OMD and the acts who followed them a great debt. I’m a fan of electronic music running the gamut from the experimental to the overtly, commercially poppy, so this was a Big Thing Indeed.

OMD is celebrating their 40th anniversary this year, so the focus of my interview with Andy was the special anniversary box set the band released last month. When a band of their kind of stature reaches a major milestone like this, there is an incredible amount of history, experiences, and music that can be revisited. Having been given most of the box set’s contents ahead time so that I could do the appropriate research for my interview, I was impressed by what Andy and Paul Humphreys decided to include. Instead of taking the far easier route to produce something quickly to sell their fans, they chose to curate and offer up a lot of cool stuff in a massive, beautiful package. By doing this, it shows how much OMD respect the nerdy electronic music fans who make up their core fan base. “Nerdy” is not derogatory. When music is important to you, you pay attention to detail.

Needless to say, Andy has done a lot of interviews over the years, even surprising me in 2013 in answering the TGTF Quickfire Questions. So you can imagine it was quite daunting to put together a list of questions that would let him shine and in a different way. One of the greatest compliments I got years ago following an interview in Denmark was “that was great, it was like talking to a therapist.” While Andy didn’t phrase it quite in that manner (ha!), he did appreciate the preparation I did, and I think you can read in the extended feature I developed that he felt comfortable in being candid with me about their career. Mission accomplished.

Part 1: I get Andy’s overview of the box set, a studio story about baking, and his thoughts on the immensely interesting unreleased tracks disc. I also got an unexpected singing lesson!
Part 2: Andy considers the two full audio recordings (1983 vs. 2011) included in the box set, how special live performances are to him, and their crazy first appearance on Top of the Pops. He also lets me in on the early lives of “Pandora’s Box” and “Maid of Orleans (The Waltz Joan of Arc).”
Part 3: Andy talks about how the band gained maturity in their live performances in the ’80s and the singles collection and the genesis of 40th single “Don’t Go.” He also considers what the 20-year old version of Andy McCluskey might be thinking about of all of this. Which is more funny now, as his son dressed up as him at 19-20 for Halloween.


photo of Andy McCluskey and bass at Gateshead Sage,
13 May 2013, by Martin Sharman for TGTF (my live review)