Goodbye Girl, Girl Goodbye

TOTO, voted America's Sexiest Band 1982

A while ago I penned a review of the top ten songs on Spotify called 'Hourglass', prompted by a phase where I was listening to the Squeeze song almost obsessively. Undoubtedly, the format was a crashing failure, and I've never returned to that particular puddle of vomit...until today. We're back, baby!

This time around, it's TOTO's incredible 'Girl Goodbye' that's been getting the juices flowing. For those of you uninitiated to the pleasures of melodic rock, TOTO were the mightiest of musos, virtually carrying the entire US AOR industry on its back during the late 1970s and early 1980s. As well as massive songs like 'Hold The Line', 'Rosanna' and 'Africa', its constituent members guested on any number of smooth classics in the yacht rock wheelhouse; the discography section of drummer Jeff Porcaro's Wikipedia page is quite something to behold. 

The great thing about 'Girl Goodbye' is that not only does it retain TOTO's trademark facility with a soaring chorus, but it's got some attitude and aggression to it that one doesn't readily associate with the band. It got me thinking - there must be plenty of other kiss-off songs with the words 'girl' and 'goodbye' in the title, so I've fired up Spotify and given 'em a listen. 

Artist: TOTO

Song: 'Girl Goodbye'
Rivals both Boney M's 'Rasputin' and Squeeze's 'Hourglass' as the greatest song ever recorded. Singer Bobby Kimball is all over this piece; curiously, the lyrics fall into a strange yacht rock preoccupation of being a bad-ass criminal on the run, a la Boz Scaggs' 'Lido Shuffle' and Christopher Cross' 'Ride Like the Wind'. Sample lyrics:

Yeah I'm out on the run,
Got some heat, got a gun

Objectively very cool stuff I'm sure you'll agree. What's 'heat' doing here, I wonder? If it's the 'heat' that comes from police attention, fair enough; but it's a reference to a firearm, it's a tautology because he mentions that very fact in the next breath.

Oh there's smoke in the air,

And there's blood everywhere

But I'm hoping that the white man don't recognise me

Look pal, you're in TOTO - I say this as a man of almost spectral pallor, but if there's one thing us white people recognise and love, it's this kind of overblown bullshit pomp-rock! Nonetheless, this slams, Steve Lukather plays some cool riffs and I like the keyboard at the start. 10/10

Artist: Squeeze
Song: 'Goodbye Girl'
Making their second appearance in this format, it's Squeeze. And it's the usual wide-eyed kitchen-sink earnestness from these boys. This time, Squeeze are not ditching their old lady to make a run for the border, no - true to form, they're the sadsacks left on their lonesome, getting robbed for good measure. It's charming pop-rock with a percussion track that sounds like a commuter train pulling into a station with a short platform. 7/10

Artist: Go West

Song: 'Goodbye Girl'
This features one of the most horrendous synth tones ever devised. I wouldn't be surprised if it was initially perfected as part of a secret non-lethal weapons programme. Anyway, it crawls along with all the energy of an arthritic snail, but I have to concede the vocals are good and there is a little bit of wobbly Mick Karn / Pino Palladino style fretless bass, which made me laugh. 4/10

Artist: David Gates
Song: 'Goodbye Girl'
Yup, it's the guy from Bread - I suppose TOTO owe him and his ilk for popularising a brand of mature soft-rock with a focus on chorus hooks and high production values. This is exactly as I had imagined it - a pretty soppy piano 'n' strings ballad with, yes, a big chorus hook. Gates sounds like a schlub, which actually works well given the context. It's okay. 6/10

Artist: Broadcast
Song: 'Goodbye Girls'
The most impressive thing about this slice of lo-fi postmodernism is that they get the word 'counterparts' into the lyrics. The vocals are faux-naif psychedelic, the electronics sound like a fax machine performing an extended death scene. Decent, I suppose, if that brand of hauntology floats your boat. 5/10

Artist: Luke Bryan

Song: 'Goodbye Girl'

Some 'cry into your whiskey' country corn-pone here courtesy of Mr Bryan. This kind of music sounds almost focus-grouped; just enough lap steel to offer a patina of regional authenticity, a lolloping pace entirely fit for such a mournsome subject and a vocals that conjure up a regular ol' boy who's tough, but hurtin'. In other words, the most horribly banal Nashville conveyor belt pabulum imaginable. 2/10

Artist: Rumer

Song: 'Goodbye Girl'
Does this have both a zither and a harmonica on it? That's neat. A little nondescript in the verses, but Rumer has a voice suited to confessional, intimate music, and the chorus is rather lovely, nodding as it does to the girl group sound of the Ronettes. Not bad! 7/10

Artist: Peter Criss
Song: 'Kiss The Girl Goodbye'

So it's KISS' very own street fightin' man on his first solo album here (which coincided of debut solos from the other three members of the hottest band in the world). I recall reading, once upon a time, that Criss considered his voice analogous to Rod Stewart; yeah, perhaps whilst he was getting his stomach pumped. What a fucking mess this is; this is like a Big Star ballad being played by a band who have never heard Big Star before. 1/10

Artist: Art Farmer

Song: 'Goodbye, Old Girl'
When I saw the song title I thought to myself, "is this going to be about a horse?". It's not; rather, it's trumpet player Art Farmer blowing a sweet, warm and emotional slow jazz number. It's a joy to hear this kind of unfiltered, in-the-moment playing, both from Farmer but also his pianist accompanist, who creates a bed of twinkling arpeggios for the lead instrument to ease back into. Beautiful. 9/10

Artist: Aaron Watson

Song: 'Kiss That Girl Goodbye'
What did I give the Luke Bryan number? Two out of ten? Well, it's twice as good as this noisy bro-country slurry. I once endured a nine-hour drive from Colorado to Kansas where the radio station was permanently tuned to this kind of dogshit, and I swear I could feel my IQ dropping in real time. At least Bryan tries to connect with some semblance of human emotion; this is eighty percent proof moonshine nihilism, and seems to revel in the fact. 1/10 for somewhat resembling music.

There's your lot - of course, TOTO emerge triumphant, but I could listen to that Art Farmer track again and again, plus I was pleasantly surprised by Rumer's offering in the 'goodbye girl / girl goodbye' stakes. Perhaps I'll give this format another go sometime? Maybe one day I'll actually make an entertaining fist of it? Who can say?

Hourglass special edition

 

As we're back into lockdown (not that I was ever going to do anything spectacular on a Wednesday night anyway), I thought I'd try something a little different. I hope you like it, and if so, I might repeat the trick until it becomes boring for both myself and you, dear reader.

Thanks to science, we now know that popular music has existed since at least 1967, and possibly even further back than that. What we do know is that, since then, we as a species have made up for lost time by banging drums, twanging guitars and hollering into microphones to try to please each other with cool sounds and pleasant vibes. 

Another imperative that humanity follows is a yen for organising; the biggest, the quickest, the longest - and the best. As a seasoned music listener of many years standing, I feel there are few people on this planet better placed than myself to make the final judgement on 'best song ever'. My friends, it is my honour and privilege to inform you that the greatest piece of music to flow from the hands and minds of this race is...

'Hourglass' by Squeeze.

And yet, despite Squeeze being the definitive authors and performers of a song called 'Hourglass', Spotify reveals oodles of contenders, all with their own 'Hourglass' song. Thusly, I have decided to review the top ten 'Hourglass' tracks on Spotify, and in a Swinetunes first, actually score out of ten. Here goes!

Artist: Squeeze
Song: 'Hourglass'
Not only the best song about possibly drowning a puppy, but it narrowly edges out Boney M's 'Rasputin' as the apogee of musical genius. This is what Phil Collins wished he wrote when he came up with second-rate pabulum 'In The Air Tonight', which is of course about watching a man drown and doing nothing to help. 10/10

Artist: Catfish and the Bottlemen
Song: 'Hourglass'
More heavy breathing and out-of-tune acoustic guitar than I'd ideally like. The dude singing sounds like a real dweeb and this is boring as fuck. Cold, mushy baby food music. Too much bleating about missing someone, quite frankly, and zero references to potentially drowning a puppy or a man. 2/10

Artist: Lamb of God
Song: 'Hourglass'
Holy shit, I remember these guys absolutely tearing it up at my student union. This one's from 2004, so there's every chance that I brang the ruckus in the pit to this particular 'Hourglass'. Much better than the simpering Catfish et al., because this is full of slamming riffs and head-snapping tempo changes. Frontman Randy Blythe also killed a guy by accident, which is one-up on Phil Collins, who simply watched a man drown. 8/10

Artist: S U R V I V E
Song: 'Hourglass'
No, I'm definitely not typing that name out again. This is a (mostly) instrumental synthwave track with a tense, nervy undertone to it. Great music if you're sweating over Nikkei movements on your pager or whatever people got up to back in the day. Actually pretty cool, drop this in between Skinny Puppy and Killing Miranda at your local goth night, grim good times guaranteed. 7/10

Artist: A Perfect Circle
Song: 'Hourglass'
I have dim memories of listening to A Perfect Circle back in the day - I guess it's the band you whacked on if TooL were proving a bit too intense? Anyway, this sounds terrible. It's just fundamentally shit in so many ways, like the worst bits of Depeche Mode, Clutch and Porcupine Tree being played through the speaker of a 56k dial-up modem. 3/10

Artist: Mammal Hands
Song: 'Hourglass'
Initially comes across like the soundtrack to a British Airways business class lounge advert, it at least has the good grace to transform into a more interesting piece of music about two minutes in. It just isn't unhinged enough for my palate; one is just waiting for the saxophonist to go full-King Crimson, but even at its flightiest there's still too much taste and restraint. I'd watch these guys at Love Supreme, though. 5/10

Artist: Disclosure, LION BABE
Song: 'Hourglass'
Deep house really isn't my thing, but as far as I can tell this is a pretty good R&B-influenced joint. This would be a lot of fun whomping out of a bass sub in your car boot whilst you cruise around the shitty market town you've called home your entire worthless life. 5/10

Artist: Rodrigo Amarante
Song: 'Hourglass'
Do you remember that song 'Your Woman' by White Room? That's what this 'Hourglass' reminds me of, except it substitutes that nice vintage horn hook for a wonky old synth sound. Regardless, I'm rather taken with this, it packs in a whole host on neat musical tricks and your man sounds like the singer of the Narcos theme song. 8/10 [Edit: it is the guy who sings 'Tuyo' from Narcos!]

Artist: Motionless In White
Song: 'Hourglass'
This is metalcore, aye? Fine. Production wise, I can only assume whomever helmed the desk just loathes music with a passion, as there's simply no excuse for this sonic hodgepodge. There are more effects slathered on the vocals than on David Lee Roth's 'Skyscraper'. Any pretence towards aggression are undercut by the chucklehead keyboards that sound like they were surgically grafted from the Damned when they thought they were goths. 2/10

Artist: Set It Off
Song: 'Hourglass'
"Is-tan-bul - Con-stan-tin-ople!" Ballsy move to start off a track with that melody - in this economy. What a strange duck this track is; it's got a giddy, queasy feeling to it in places, coming on like a cyberpunk Ricky Martin. Trust me, that's good! It's just a shame that the big chorus hook aims for, and almost achieves, the bland catchiness of a mid-90s boy band banger. Ah well - an attempt was made. 6/10

And there you have it. The most listened to 'Hourglass' on Spotify, that of Squeeze fame, is, perhaps not coincidentally, also the best. It easily crushes its opposition through its jubilant horn riffs, cod-funk guitars and chanted, percussive choruses. My advice to any musician looking to write a tune called 'Hourglass' is this - don't. You'll only draw negative attention to yourself on blogs like this, read by tens of people (hi Mum!).