EPISODE 5: Listen to What's Not There

SHOW NOTES

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The music arranger’s power to put a listener inside a song.

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Songwriters write the songs—duh—but arrangers determine how we hear them. To arrange a song is to make a series of musical decisions. What do those decisions add up to? Sometimes it’s really just a sound, and we like that sound or we don’t. But musical decisions can also determine or even change the meaning of a song. Today, we’ll discover the power of musical decisions not just to add sounds to a song, but to take sounds away, creating space for the listener to dwell within the song.

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Thanks to:

• RJ Bee

• Osiris Media

 

The theme music and other scoring music for Rearranged was written and recorded by Lawrence Lanahan.

Music discussed:

• "1941," Joseph Bernstein, 1941, 2020.

• “Old Town Road,” Lil Nas X

• Mutineer, Warren Zevon, Giant Records, 1995.

• “Mutineer,” Bob Dylan, “Enjoy Every Sandwich”: The Songs of Warren Zevon, Artermis, 2004.  

• Look to the Rainbow, Astrud Gilberto, Verve, 1966,  

• “Tipitina and Me,” Allen Toussaint, Our New Orleans, Nonesuch, 2007.

• “Lake Charles,” Lucinda Williams

• “Sail Away,” Randy Newman

• “Davy the Fat Boy,” Randy Newman

• Rise Above, Dirty Projectors, Dead Oceans, 2007.  

• Hey Panda, High Llamas, Drag City, 2024.  

• Bonnie “Prince” Billy Sings Greatest Palace Music, Drag City, 2004. 

• In The Blue Light, Paul Simon, Legacy, 2018.  

• Nebraska, Bruce Springsteen, Columbia, 1982.  

• 3rd, Big Star, PVC Records, 1978:  

• “Red Guitar,” Loudon Wainwright III

• Song Reader, Beck, McSweeney’s, 2012.  

• “Snow is Falling in Manhattan,” Purple Mountains, Purple Mountains, Drag City, 2019.

• Approaching Perfection: A Tribute to DC Berman, 2019.

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Research notes:

• "a beat some Dutch teenager had produced with a drum machine and a Nine Inch Nails sample": KC Ifeanyi, "How a kid from the Netherlands and a startup called BeatStars led to Old Town Road," Fast Company, May 7, 2019. Available: https://www.fastcompany.com/90344161/how-a-kid-from-the-netherlands-and-a-startup-called-beatstars-led-to-old-town-road

• "Lil Nas X found it on the Internet and bought it for chicken change," "a $30 beat on the internet": Carmin Chappell, "‘Old Town Road’ is now the longest-running No. 1 song—and the beat Lil Nas X used only cost $30," CNBC, July 29, 2019. Available: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/23/lil-nas-x-bought-the-beat-used-in-old-town-road-for-30-on-beatstars.html

• "first sounds of the first episode that New Orleans-based public radio program American Routes recorded after Hurricane Katrina": Nick Spitzer, "After the Storm," American Routes, Public Radio Exchange, September 7, 2005. Available: https://www.amroutes.org/september-2005/pyr2r5ww7m9sp2w-nasaa-s4l8a-m9zx8-t98h5-c5klz-a974x-2b6p4-t4zgx-5rnpt-6t5wm-clzsx-ftbj5-3788e-tejhk-gxrx9-sny9b-l9mcb-y4wby-ax4ys-mkxmj-be8sz

• "Wrote this right after the storm": Lynette Johnson, "Allen Toussaint in his own words: 5 essential conversations with the New Orleans maestro," Times-Picayune, November 19, 2015. Available: https://www.nola.com/entertainment_life/music/allen-toussaint-in-his-own-words-5-essential-conversations-with-the-new-orleans-maestro/article_05c1f2f3-fed8-51e2-9ccc-531c7c0c3d11.html

• "made a record called Rise Above with his band Dirty Projectors after finding an empty cassette cover of Black Flag’s album Damaged at his parents’ house...'excavation'": Audra Schroeder, "The 'Damaged' Cycle," Austin Chronicle, September 13, 2007. Available: https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/music/2007-09-13/538441/.

• "O’Hagan had gotten into hip-hop and electronic music": Hobart Rowland, "A Conversation With Sean O’Hagan (High Llamas)," Magnet, April 2, 2024. Available: https://magnetmagazine.com/2024/04/02/a-conversation-with-sean-ohagan-high-llamas/

• "especially as his children grew to be adults and chose their own music to play in the house," "old memories: his feelings as a kid": Dan Epstein, "What The High Llamas’ Sean O’Hagan Is Doing Now," Flood Magazine, March 29, 2024. Available: https://floodmagazine.com/157391/the-high-llamas-hey-panda-in-convo/

• "By leaving the accompaniment in the hands of professionals, he said, he could just sing and do more with his voice than he had before": Michael Fremer, "Bonnie "Prince" Billy Grants a Rare Interview--Pt. 1," Analog Planet, December 31, 2007. Available: https://www.analogplanet.com/content/bonnie-prince-billy-grants-rare-interview-pt-1-1

• "'a new coat of paint on the walls of an old family home'": Dave Simpson, "Paul Simon: In the Blue Light review – wistful new treatments of old gems," The Guardian, September 7, 2018. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/sep/07/paul-simon-in-the-blue-light-review-legacy

• "He told Late Show host Stephen Colbert": The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, January 28, 2019. Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmP3rzBeXkw.

• "In his bedroom on a four-track with his voice and a Gibson acoustic guitar and not much else. It was a demo to take to the E Street Band. They took a crack at it together in the studio. It didn’t move him. He had the demo mastered and released it":  Tom Moon, "Bruce Springsteen: ‘Nebraska’ @ 40," Tidal, October 3, 2022, available: https://tidal.com/magazine/article/springsteen-nebraska/1-86924 ; Scott Rowley, "Nebraska was cut on crap equipment…", Music Radar, October 31, 2023, available: https://www.musicradar.com/news/recording-week-2023-how-bruce-springsteen-recorded-his-most-important-album .

• "The accompaniment is so jarring...the engineer told the producer to shut everything down.": Michael Hann, "Big Star's Third: 'It's hard to nail the chaos'," The Guardian, May 3, 2012. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/may/03/big-star-third-chaos

• "Announced tour dates. They would be in St. Louis on August 20": Bill Pearis, "David Berman (Silver Jews) announces Purple Mountains debut LP & tour (listen to 1st single)," Brooklyn Vegan, May 17, 2019. Available: https://www.brooklynvegan.com/david-bermans-purple-mountains-announce-debut-lp-share-single/

• "Dead at 52. He'd hanged himself": Joe Coscarelli and Ben Sisario, "David Berman, Silver Jews Leader and Indie-Rock Poet, Dies at 52," New York Times, August 7, 2019. Available: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/07/arts/music/david-berman-silver-jews-dead.html

• "Unless earlier recordings of the song surface": John Lingan, "David Berman Returns," The Ringer, July 10, 2019, available: https://www.theringer.com/2019/07/10/music/david-berman-silver-jews-purple-mountains-drag-city ; Ryan Dombal, "Destroyer's Dan Bejar Serenades the Apocalypse," Pitchfork, January 14, 2020, available: https://pitchfork.com/features/profile/destroyer-dan-bejar-have-we-met-interview/ .

• "Dylan will change a song’s lyrics performance to performance…even from take to take in the studio": dylyricus.com; Richard F. Thomas, "New York Sessions of Blood on the Tracks," The Dylan Review, Summer 2019, available: https://thedylanreview.org/2019/06/12/new-york-sessions-of-blood-on-the-tracks/

• "Remnick's 2022 New Yorker article": David Remnick, "A Unified Field Theory of Bob Dylan," The New Yorker, October 24, 2022. Available: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/10/31/a-unified-field-theory-of-bob-dylan . 

• "Quantum of originality": Joel L. Friedman, "Copyright and the Musical Arrangement: An Analysis of the Law and Problems Pertaining to This Specialized Form of Derivative Work," Pepperdine Law Review, Volume 7, Issue 1, 1979, pp. 131-132. 

• "Distinguishable variation," "'Novelty standard'": Friedman, p. 132.