Goosebumps

I could run circles around myself in an attempt to explain just exactly what Goosebumps actually are, but I’m afraid I’ll steal the magic. Because for me, when I get that spreading chill feeling, closely followed by an aftermath of little ripples along my skin, it’s never random. That is to say, I don’t expect it; however, I know that there are certain things that I encounter from time to time in my life that will pull that trigger. It’s difficult to describe and explain(probably why I’m trying) because what sets it all off is decidedly not tangible: feelings. The actual cause and effect on a physical level is what I’m going to try to ignore here. Sure, its probably mildly interesting, but what about the actual, real motivation for it all, the raw emotion of awe, often accompanied by the strong desire to bawl or bounce around the room playing air guitar, or just simply to bob the head and beam? There’s something important here, I know it. All my life I’ve always gotten goosebumps from one thing. I’ve always been able to count on it. Always. And then I think, “How is it possible for this single medium to cause so much astonishment and, ultimately, joy?” Another question that isn’t really necessarily answerable. Again, I think I’ll stick to the “what”, the actual moment in which the floodgates open and emotion pours through my skin.

It’s music, as I hope the kind of people who read this will have gotten already. Either the lyrics, or the actual instrumentation, or if I’m lucky, the combination of both. In any case, its most often a certain moment within a certain recording that will set it all off like a wildfire. I want to reach out and grab it, make the feeling mine for just a little bit longer than usual, but unfortunately, it happens to be in the same category as high school memories and déjà vu. I guess I should just be thankful for when it comes along, and allow whatever it is to decide for how long.

But getting back to the actual moments…I’m trying to find out what it is that is behind the reaction to a certain part of a song. For example, in Manu Chao’s “Mentira”, which incidentally is a song entirely about lies, there are 3 (or more) guitar samples looping throughout the song. One is a clean electric guitar riff in the “F” scale, another is a jangly spanish guitar strum, and the final is a faint acoustic picking. This last one is what does the trick. There’s something about it that I feel I could fall into and get nestled in. Like waking up in the middle of a 3:11 AM thunderstorm and hearing the rain pounding the roof. The flashes and cracks roll outside the window, yet moments like those are ones where I feel the most secure, soft and cozy in the yin and yang of darkness and light. And I get all this from just one chord change in one random song? What does this suggest? Madness? Or something else? I’m trying to understand, but something keeps telling me I don’t need to. It’s like shooting stars. We know that they’re just bits of spacejunk burning up in our atmosphere, but who wants to think of that when we’re making a wish?

What I got from that song up there was a garnered vision; that is to say, when I first listened to the song and got goosebumps, I wasn’t channeling that image of being in a thunderstorm. I just had a “safe” feeling from the sound, and so I when I was writing here I looked for an appropriate analogy. Okay, sure, fine. But other times the vision actually does come through already concieved. I think this may be because of my experiences in the past; for example, where I heard the song the first time, and if it was an “important” time, or perhaps just how the lyrics conveniently relate to my life. So this would explain the emotion, as I’m clinging or groping at the past, as we often do, and goosebumps are my body’s way of dealing with it, of somehow ejecting out of me. In that sense, I suppose it’s rather healthy.

The beginning of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ “Last Dance With Mary Jane” is a good example of this. Every time I hear it, I think back to what I consider as probably the best night of my entire life. And I know that sounds dangerous, I mean, how can one possibly define a single night as more extraordinary as the rest of them? What about that time, or that? Yes, its true. But if someone ever asked, “Noah, what, where and when was the best night of your life?”, I’m afraid I would say this was it. July 27th, 2005. WHERE WERE YOU? No, really, think about it. I’d be curious to know.

It was LD Banquet at Camp. We had finished a fabulous meal in celebration of 3 and a half weeks of absolute madness out on the sea, lakes and trail(I can proclaim that it was the best month of my life, but thats a different story.) Andrew Poirrer, affectionately known as “Popo”, and probably the best guitarist in the entire camp, had arranged to perform a few songs in the banquet hall for us all, along with Nash, one of my fellow cabin mates, on rhythm, and Evan, another dude from Staff, on drums. They played a bunch of covers, all equally amazing, including Cream’s “White Room”, Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”, but when he twanged out the opening lines to the last dance, I lost it. You know when something is so amazing that you can’t even really understand whats going on, or even if it really is that amazing? That was it. I can’t explain it. It would take something away from it, like when you attempt to describe an amazing dream to a friend. Words always fall just short.

Another example of the whole vision thing: The other night I was listening to music as I fell asleep, and one of my all time “guaranteed goosebumps” favorites shuffled in, Billy Bragg & Wilco’s “One By One”. Now, I know I’ve talked about this song before in that concert fantasy down there, but thats exactly what I was thinking about when it started fading in. I remembered how I had picked Alex Lee as our guest keyboard for the vision, and I how had initially wondered why. After all, there are closer people to me who could probably have nailed the song, (hypothetically of course, as this was all in my imagination) but something had prevented me from changing my mind. When I imagined looking back at the organs and piano, placed at 90 degree angles so as to allow for a different hand to play each, I had always seen Alex leaning over them with firm movements and that cliche look that rockstars tend to have when engaged in concentrated ecstacy. So when that song sidled in, the goosebumps I normally got just from the sounds of the organ and piano and slide guitar mingling together were amplified by the affirmation that Alex definitely did belong in the picture. Maybe it was the almost absurd thought of casting his personal character in such a bold position as a guest star, and the fact that it just seemed to work. It was beautiful; as the song went on and I lay there, I wanted nothing more than to be on that stage and to turn around after a verse to see him pinning it all out for us.

Another one…

The beginning of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Peach Tree”. How do you come out of the count in to the song(1,2 1,2,3,4..) that tightly? Usually when a song is recorded live, like all those old rhythm and blues tracks were, it gets better as the musicians become more relaxed. But if you listen to the recording, the beginning bars are just dynamite. Its almost as if they were all laughing and smiling and bending their knees and winking at each other, like “These mother fuckers better watch out, we know exactly what the hell we’re doing.” Its another song where I wish I was one of the guys stomping it out. It wouldn’t matter what instrument it was, although usually when I imagine myself its the electric guitar or piano or even stand up bass(illogically). And so my goosebumps come out of two things at once: the longing to have played in the song; and the profound awe for how beautifully the parts all fall into place.

These are the easily explainable goosebumps. There are more I’m sure I could find some interpretation of, but I also want to acknowledge the more random moments where things just unexplainably fall into place, or where something strikes me as absolute genius. I could talk about “What Is There To Say?” here, but I think that it would warrant a 20 page essay in which I ramble on about the utter brilliance of the entire performance. So I think I’ll just leave well alone and simply say that Bill Evan’s “What Is There To Say?” falls inexplicably and absolutely into this category. It’s just insane. Listen to it, and if you don’t agree, we’re not friends. Game Over.

(As a side note, Red Garland & John Coltrane also do a pretty decent version of “What Is There To Say?”, although the magic is considerably less prevalent. The thing to watch for in this version is the very beginning, where the double bassist plays the most unpredictable and beautiful line I’ve probably ever heard. Another 3 seconds I could listen to over and over again.)

This half of the goosebumps includes subtle movements that others often miss. That’s not to say I’m better than them in the least; it just demonstrates that I often pay attention to random things in music, and as a result, I expect I often initially miss the general point of the song. Give and Take. But these are the things that I find such joy in hearing that it ultimately doesn’t matter to me what I miss.

For example, The Everly Brothers’ “Cathy’s Clown” is about a guy who is being strung along by some popular girl. Same old 50’s story, different tune, no big deal. But the magic isn’t in the lyrics, its in the Everly’s harmonies. From the first “Don’t want your love anymore…” its evident, to me at least, that these boys were a match made in heaven, espescially when they get to the word “anymore”. It’s like stepping close to a blistering woodstove in the dead of winter and getting hit by that wall of comforting warmth. Their voices on that one word just glow. Listen to the song, okay? You’ll know what I mean(If you listen close, that is.)

Alot of these particular moments come from the oldies(40’s,50’s,60’s). I remember listening to my parents vinyl of The Beatles “Rubber Soul” over and over again just so I could get to “Girl”. At first it was the way the chorus chord changes went. The song was in stereo, so I used to hold just the left earphone on to catch the unadulterated guitar track. I couldn’t get enough of that; I would hum it over and over until my parents took the record away. Eventually I moved on. But recently I discovered the song again after buying “The Beatles Complete Chord Songbook”. When I came across “Girl(Lennon/McCartney)”, I immediately picked up my guitar and went for the chorus(Capo 8th fret; G Bm Am D7). Of course, knowing the method behind the magic caused a bit of disillusionment,(its not a song I regularly play) but it also helped me find something I couldn’t remember consciously appreciating. Now, this is going to sound absurd, and probably trite, but it was this barely audible tinkling in the midst of the chorus nearer the end of the song that caught my ear and held it. What instrument is it??!!? To this day my best guess is a piano, but I’m still unsure. For all you people that care, and if you’ve made it this far I expect you to, it’s at approximately 1:53, after the first “Girl….” And again, I have no idea why it gives me the goosebumps. It just seems so perfectly unplanned and thus a brilliant twist of fate. I have wondered whether whoever mixed and mastered the album noticed it at all, and if they did, purposely left it in. I’d like to hope.

Well, I think I’ve strung this out farther than most would have liked, but I’d like to conclude(if for no-one’s sake, then for mine) by noting a few more songs and their moments. None of this(the preceding and the following list) is exhaustive; that is to say, I could go on for hours. But if you’ve gotten this far and you haven’t scoffed yet, maybe you can see if you can hear what I’m hearing. But don’t worry if you can’t sense my goosebumps. I have a funny feeling it has to do with being an individual.

Included in these songs are ones I can explain and ones I cannot explain the goosebumps. Here Goes:

The chord change from F#m to A in Mark Knophler’s “Wanderlust” at 0:49
The live whistles and the Synthesizer solo in “Sound of the Taurus”, by The Turner Brothers The beginning of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy”

The String parts in Roy Orbison’s “Hurtin”

From the end of the solo to “…like we’ve discussed”(2:13-2:33) in Wilco’s “Please Be Patient With Me”
The beginning of Bobby Vinton’s “Blue Velvet”, especially the descending chimes

The part where someone yells “Wooo!!” in obvious ecstasy(1:10) on The Beatles’ “Cry For A Shadow”(not to be mistaken for the other yelling bits)

The Chorus harmonies in Woodpigeon’s “Home as a romanticized concept where everyone loves you always and forever”
The way that Conny Francis and her backing vocal work together in “Don’t Break The Heart That Loves You”

The Line “When streams are ripe and swelled with rain…” on Simon & Garfunkel’s “April come she will” I have to stop myself from crying
The release in CunninLynguist’s “Rain” (2:30-chorus/end)
The beginning of Elvis Presley’s “Fame & Fortune”
The backing upstroke guitar licks, the Jordanaires backing vocals and ESPESCIALLY from “Well she’s gone gone gone…”(2:19) to the end of Elvis Presley’s “Such a Night”

The tinkle of Paul Posnak’s piano in his version of Fats Waller’s “Honeysuckle Rose”(1:10)
The Lines “Hardly anyone would see/The wind would hide our tracks/Clouds would fill our shoes/Don’t be afraid” in Oysterband’s “We Could Leave Right Now”(around 1:19)
The bassline in the quiet part(1:21) of Charlie Feathers’ “That Certain Female”

The live ambience of Fats Domino’s “When The Saints Go Marching In” Those whistles and claps and screams and shouts get me every time.

The Lines “And you don’t care where you’re going/Say that I was foolish/Say that I was blind/But never say that I was left behind” on Oysterband’s “Granite Years”

The verse breaks in The Sound Provider’s “Night to remember”
When the full sample hits on Brother Ali’s “Uncle Sam Goddamn” (0:44)
The entire melody of Steve Dawson’s “Patches”, espescially starting at 1:15
The beginning of Roy Orbison’s “Blue Angel”                                                    That little riff at 0:18 of The Beatles’”I Will”
The Chorus of Randy Travis’ “Down at The Old Corral”
The loud part in Coldplay’s “Fix You” from 3:00 onward…god I could cry
The Lines “I would like to salute the ashes of American Flags/And all the fallen leaves, filling up shopping bags” in Wilco’s “Ashes of American Flags” (3:15)
The beginning lines of Ricky Nelson’s version of “Fools Rush In”
The beginning of Feist’s “Honey Honey”
The beginning melody of The Chimes’ “Once In A While” The guitar riff from The Del Viking’s “Whispering Bells”
The Chorus of The Beatles’ “Please Mr Postman”
The climax of Apocalyptica’s “Nothing Else Matters”
The Chorus line “Infamous Angel come on home/to someone who loves you, and knows you needed to roam” on Iris Dement’s “Infamous Angel”
The beginning of Madeleine Peyroux’s “Half The Perfect World”
When the second piano part comes in on Sufjan Steven’s “Flint” (2:04)
The weird voices in the background of Sufjan Steven’s “Redford”
That weird chord in Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “Tight Rope”
The end of Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” when the piano goes nuts
The strange shimmer sounds in the background of Paul Simon’s “Take me to the mardi gras” (2:00)

The chord progression of Fats Domino’s “My Blue Heaven”