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Thursday, May 10, 2007
HEY KARI G.
The Sparrows
Susstones: 1990
[Out of Print]
SHE SENDS KISSES
The Wrens
The Meadowlands
Absolutely Kosher: 2003
[Buy It]
BIRDSONG
Tomahawk
Mit Gas
Ipecac: 2003
[Buy It]
A FUNKY SPACE REINCARNATION
Marvin Gaye
Here, My Dear
Tamla Motown: 1978
[Buy It]
AH FRAID PUSSY BITE ME
Mighty Sparrow
Comi-Kal Cat Fight
Mighty Sparrow: 2001
[Buy It]
Once, years ago, in a short story in my first book, "Superbad," a bird sang. It was a small bird, and the song it sang was small, too, though the consequences of singing were enormous. "The bird flew through a gap in the wire, minding its own business, singing - it was actually singing, a happy little song about the spring - and she plugged it at two hundred yards." Pow. Bye, bye, birdie. When I finished the story, I sent it to a friend who was also a writer for his comments. I received one comment, which was that birds didn't sing when they flew. He told me that it was a well-known fact, with a tone that was infuriating but somehow replenished my affection for him. He had enough certainty to send me to the encyclopedia, where I discovered that he was wrong. Many birds, including skylarks and pipits, sing while they're flying. In attempting to differentiate between the British Chimney Swallow and the American Barn Swallow, John James Audubon wrote in Birds of America that "both sing on the wing and when alighted, and the common tweet which they utter when flying off is precisely the same in both." They sing on the wing. That's a song in itself.
"Hey Kari G" is a song in itself, also. The song was written by the Minneapolis power-pop great Dan Sarka, who recorded it first in 1990 with a group called the Sparrows. The Sparrows only released two singles, as far as I know, and Sarka resurfaced a few years later with a band called the Vandalias, who were best-known for existing in both human and cartoon form. Conceptually, they were located somewhere between the Josie and the Pussycats and the Gorillaz; aesthetically, they were closer to Cheap Trick and the Raspberries; somewhere along the way, they rerecorded "Hey Kari G." Eventually The Vandalias folded, like most bands, and Sarka went on form to a band called Stingray Green that released one strong album, "Hard Numbers," before also folding. I read about the demise of Stingray Green just this past week online-the band's farewell concert was May 4-and that sent me back to the Sparrows' version of "Hey Kari G." It's everything it needs to be, both plangent and poignant. The guy in the song-the guy singing the song-hopes against hope that his small, strong voice will reach the girl and turn her toward him once again. It's a document of innocence and hope and sad defiance; he has an idea but no might, and so he cannot bring his idea into the world. I doubt that the girl turned.
The girl also doesn't turn in "She Sends Kisses." The record does, though:Ten tons against me and you've gone
I put your favorite records on
and sit around
it spins around
and you're around again. This is a song about human song, of course, not birdsong. The French composer and ornithologist Olivier Messiaen was obsessed with birdsong. He recorded and notated the songs of birds his entire life, and often integrated birdsong into his music, most notably in his the orchestral work Reveil des Oiseaux, from 1953. Mike Patton, the lead singer of Tomahawk (and, before that, Faith No More and Mr. Bungle) is among the most birdlike of singers, in that he often uses sounds instead of words. Recent research has shown that there is a strong link between birdsong and memory. Birds have unique songs, but they don't simply remember them. They dream of them. While they sleep, they learn what they want, and what they want from their songs and their lives. They may, upon waking, be reminded of what they do not have. The consequences of singing are enormous. Pow. Bye, bye, birdie.
There is a desperately beautiful song named "Sparrow" on Marvin Gaye's album Here My Dear, from 1978, which chronicles Gaye's divorce from his first wife and his blossoming love for his second wife. In the song, Marvin explains that he "used to hear a sparrow singing," but that "one day as [he] went along [he] didn't hear his song." This silence doesn't sit well with him, and what starts as a polite request to the sparrow to resume singing becomes a down-on-my-knees-please entreaty. "Sing before you go," he sings. "Sing to me, Marvin Gaye, before you fly away." "Sparrow" ends with a semi-attached bit of poetry, calligraphed in layered, lighter-than-air vocals: "I remember a bird." What kind of bird he remembers is clear from another song, "A Funky Space Reincarnation," that is more relevant here: first, because it's an unhinged, lickerish meditation on flight in which Marvin takes a girl out into the solar system for some interplanetary screwing, and second because it includes a lovely come-on in which he calls his new bride, "Little Miss Birdsong." Anna, Marvin's first wife, was seventeen years his senior and Berry Gordy's sister. Jan, his second wife, was seventeen years his junior and Slim Gaillard's daughter. Jan turned. Marvin turned, too, or had his head turned. He may not have understood why, but Mighty Sparrow did.
. . . . . . . . . .
Ben Greenman is the author of several books of fiction, including Superbad, Superworse, and the new A Circle is a Balloon and Compass Both: Stories About Human Love. He is an editor at the New Yorker and lives in Brooklyn.Labels: ben, calypso, indie, power-pop, soul
posted by Alex
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