Jack The Stripper/Fairies Wear Boots

Well I've always been a fan of early Sabbath in particular, So I was listening to Paranoid, and track eight came up... Now I have a lot of affection toward guitar intros and riffs, and this song is just chalk full of fantastic cutis anserina(goose bump)-forming guitar spiels. This song is composed of two parts, Jack The Stripper, and Fairies Wear Boots. Jack the Stripper is the instrumental intro, and the instrumental part after the first chorus, while Fairies Wear Boots is the verse and chorus of the song. This song was released on Black Sabbath's second album, Paranoid, in 1970, which hit the UK's top album shortly after its' release. The meanings of the song are quite differed, and there are a few different stories to it. According to Tommie Iommi(guitarist), Ozzy Osbourne(vocalist) and Geezer Butler(bassist) were smoking cannabis outside and observed fairies wearing boots, so they later wrote the lyrics to this song. According to Geezer, they were encountered by skinheads, and derogatorily called them fairies, fairies being a derogatory term for feminine males, and wrote the lyrics after that. According to Ozzy, he wrote this song while he was not in his right state of mind, and has no idea what it is about.

Touch Too Much

Alright! New semester, so I'm going to start it off right, with some current, alternating or direct. This is very fitting, as the lead guitarist, Angus Young, always dressed as a schoolboy for live performances. Touch Too Much is one of my favorite songs by AC/DC, filled with the classic lyrical work of Bon Scott and the stunning rhythm and lead guitar styling of Malcom and Angus Young, respectively. It was released on their sixth album, Highway to Hell, in 1979, and was the last album that Bon Scott helped create. Bon Scott passed away the following year, while the band was working on their next album, which was  known as Back in Black. When researching this song, I noticed that many of the single's artwork was reversed, which showed the guitarists and bassist as playing left-handed, go ahead, look it up, it may get a chuckle out of you. Anyways, I would describe this song as both jagged and fluid, you can hear the classic AC/DC rough sound, but it also has the velvety-soft feel to the bass and rhythm guitar that is wondrously appealing. Now the lyrical work on this song is something, this song is filthy, and I love it! I hope you enjoy it as much as I.

Foreplay/Long Time

Boston! Though they have many hits, this is by far my favorite, probably due to my vast affection that I have for guitar solos. Foreplay, the instrumental intro, was written about six years prior to the release of Boston's first album in 1976, but was joined at the end with Long Time, the main song. I'm sure most who see this won't listen to the whole seven minutes and forty-five seconds of this song, but if you do, it's worth it. The combination was released on Boston's first album, Boston, and reached twenty-two on the Billboard's top 100 tracks. Tom Scholz wrote it, or rather them, and actually didn't play the guitar solo in Long Time, the guitar work was done by Barry Goudreau, which is surprising, because most of the guitar action on Boston is done by Scholz. The meaning of the song is quite simple, keep on with life after a loved one is no longer in your life.

Your Love

So today I performed this song for my school, so I figured, "hey, that's a good song, why not write a post about it?" So here I am. Your Love was written by John Spinks, the guitarist and vocalist for The Outfield. Your Love was released in their debut album, Play Deep, which was released in 1986. The song made it to number six on the Billboard Top 100 Tracks, and is their most popular. Something interesting I came across was that the members of the band are opposed to drug use, which I thought stood out, because, well it was the eighties, and they were an English pop rock band. I can see how these lyrics can be interpreted many different ways by the people who listen to them, but this is my interpretation. I believe this is about a guy who's woman is out of town, and he needs someone, so he calls upon someone from his past, maybe someone he's "been" with before. Clearly he still has feelings for her, and he tries to voice his feelings for what he needs. Hearing this song after playing it makes me feel like our band is inadequate, and does them no justice to perform their music.

I'm Only Sleeping

Alas! More Beatles! This song has much more depth than I though, and has hidden things that most cannot say they knew about, but to start, lets begin with the release information. I'm Only Sleeping was written by John Lennon, but is credited to Lennon-McCartney, as is all songs written by either John Lennon or Paul McCartney during their time with The Beatles. This song was released on The Beatles' seventh album, Revolver, on August 5 of 1966. However, this did not feature on the US Revolver release, as it was released in the US two months earlier in Yesterday and Today. This song has no intro, and begins immediately with the lyrics, which are actually about sleeping, and not about any drug induced euphoria, though some of the lyrics point to otherwise. My two favorite songs are George's electric guitar riff, and quiet lyrics that you can only hear if you pay close attention. George's riff was actually recorded backwards, so when it was reversed, it would give the sleepy sound that he wanted to accomplish. At 1:57, you can hear Lennon saying "Yawn, Paul.", and three seconds later, at 2:00, you can hear Paul yawning. I'm not positive if the times are correct in this video, but you will hear it somewhere around there. I hope you enjoyed more Beatles, long live Rock And Roll!