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STMTCG: (Something Else Is) Working Harder

  
 
Jack Fear
01:56 / 28.01.06
The Golden Palominos are a long-running side project of some of New York’s finest session cats and scenesters. The group was founded in the early 1980s by drummer Anton Fier, formerly of the Feelies and Pere Ubu. Membership is an ad hoc, revolving-door affair: participants in Fier’s project have included Michael Stipe, Matthew Sweet, Bootsy Collins, Richard Thompson, John Lydon, Syd Straw, T-Bone Burnett, and Arto Lindsay, among many, many others. The mainstays of the group have been Fier, legendary bassist-producer Bill Laswell, Peter Blegvad (of the cult band Slapp Happy; also a cartoonist), and No Wave veteran Jody Harris, who had played with The Raybeats, Lou Reed, and James White & The Blacks.

The Palominos have been through several musical mutations. Beginning as a free-jazz project, the band had become, by 1986’s Blast of Silence album, a vehicle for Fier and his downtown cronies to work out their arena-rock fixations. (Not coincidentally, Laswell was producing Public Image Ltd. around this time, overseeing their transformation into the thinking man’s Aerosmith.) Exhibit A: “(Something Else Is) Working Harder,” written by Fier, Harris, and Blegvad, with guitars by Nicky Skopelitis and vocals by Jack Bruce. Yes, that Jack Bruce, who was in Cream with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker.

And he fucking sells it, too—laying on the bluesy torment thick. So thick, in fact, that I can’t make out some of the words. there’s no lyric sheet: this is my best-guess transcription.

I am my father’s only son
And his ambition drives me on
Was my only legacy
Caught up in the fight in me (?)
By working hard Man can improve
Well I work hard
But nothing moves
Something else is working harder

People work hard to keep a lid on their anger
To see that justice will prevail
To no avail
Their efforts fail
Something else is working harder

Something else
Something else is working harder
Something else
Something gets away with murder

I’ve been in disguise most of my life
Always hoping that someone would see through it
I believe it could have been something in the knife
And not the killer’s will that drove him to it

Something else
Something else is working harder
Something else
Something else is working harder

Don’t you feel like nothing’s real sometimes

[ indecipherable ]
[ indecipherable ]
Why do opposites attract?
What kind of curse can make you younger (?)

Man must learn and not forget
Hasn’t learned a damned thing yet
That’s what he gets
For all his sweat
Something else is working harder

Something will lead you from the path of righteousness
Something will lead and although
You never rest
You did your best
But something else is working harder

So what’s going on here? On one level, it’s a philosophical statement, an anti-manifesto: Blegvad’s laying the blame for all humanity’s ills at the feet of—what? Satan? Entropy? Sheer bad luck? The worse angels of human nature? What malevolent force is out to get us?

(There’s another way to read the song, too—a simpler and perhaps more literal reading of the implied narrative—but we’ll get to that in a later post, I hope.)

Now, here’s the thing: It’s a massively pessimistic lyric—but it doesn’t sound like one. And it doesn’t sound like a cop-out, either, although it looks like one when you read it cold. But the heavy drum machines, Laswell’s huge dubby bass, the churn of guitars, those gut-deep vocals, create a tension and a drive in the music that’s at odds with the we’re-all-doomed words. This song makes me want to work harder still, to fight Fate, to get right back into the struggle and devil take the hindmost.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that the test of a first-rate intellect is to be able to hold two opposing ideas in your mind without cracking—to understand that the situation is hopeless, yet be determined to make it better. That’s the feeling that “(Something Else Is) Working Harder” gives me. Right? Wrong? What’s going on here? How does it make you feel?

And what’s up with that narrative, anyway? Who is the narrator outlining this philosophy, and why is his family background relevant?

Finally, can anybody make out those lyrics I missed?

The link is good until 3 February, or for 60 downloads. Give a listen and tell me what you think.
 
 
Ganesh
14:11 / 28.01.06
Have listened to it a couple of times. First time, I really didn't like it. Musically, it was okay but the slight wailiness of the refrain shaded into whingeyness. Lyrically, the vague nature of the Something Else that's working harder reminded me (slightly unpleasantly) of the conspiracy mindset which I've talked about before on Barbelith: the ego-protective delusional system that means one never has to fully acknowledge or take responsibility for one's personal failings; "I'm competent and industrious but They conspire to keep me down".

That was a first impression. It sort of washed over me a bit too; I liked the sound of it but 'tuned out' the lyrics because the male voice irritated me slightly. Liked it when the female vocalist joined him toward the end.

On the second listen, I engaged more with the narrative. To me, it sounded like Bruce was singing about some sort of malign external force, and hinting at Satanic influence. I suppose one might, at a push, go further with the quasi-religious approach and read the initial lines - "I am my father's only son, and his ambition drives me on" - as faintly Christlike. Probably stretching.

Will probably add more to this later.
 
 
alas
18:20 / 28.01.06
I liked it, but I'm a pretty big blues fan. The bluesy element to this explains its duality to me--blues songs so often offer a lyric of despair countered by music that is infectious, danceable, beautiful, deceptively simple. So I agree with Jack Fear's assessment, kinda, but, and maybe I'm just way too prosaic and academic, but I think I at least initially read the "something else" as first being a kind of generalized awareness that hard work, contrary to, say, the American dream, will not always win you the prize.

Often, there's just a big, bad economic system, for instance, stacked against you--as the sharecroppers who invented the blues certainly knew. You can work harder all you want, but the system is working harder than you possibly can. And this thing, this nameless thing that keeps poor people poor and rich people rich has a way of "infecting" things, everyday life, making you more violent, less humane, than you intended to be.

This seems pretty directly in keeping with a blues-based understanding of life. The blues is about a kind of recognition, acceptance of human weakness, flaws. Making it music is the thing that moves it from fatalism.
 
 
Ganesh
21:29 / 28.01.06
... I at least initially read the "something else" as first being a kind of generalized awareness that hard work, contrary to, say, the American dream, will not always win you the prize.

Often, there's just a big, bad economic system, for instance, stacked against you--as the sharecroppers who invented the blues certainly knew. You can work harder all you want, but the system is working harder than you possibly can. And this thing, this nameless thing that keeps poor people poor and rich people rich has a way of "infecting" things, everyday life, making you more violent, less humane, than you intended to be.

I guess so. For me (and this is possibly to do with a) my line of work, and b) my general unfamiliarity with the ethos of 'the blues'), the Something Else seemed a bit more... I dunno, sentient in its opposition to the singer's striving. I suppose I picture the harsh economics of capitalism red in tooth and claw more as a kind of passive obstacle - an almost unscaleable mountain - rather than a force which is actively preventing one from succeeding in life.

It's definitely growing on me.
 
 
Jack Fear
23:58 / 28.01.06
Yeah—it is a bit of a slow grower. It took me a long time to warm up to it, and I *like* the Golden Palominos. Once it bit me, though—man, it bit me hard.

The female singer is Syd Straw, by the way, who sang on a lot of GPs stuff around this time. Lovely voice, very distinctive sort of twang. She would often multi-track her own vocals, creating these thick, stacked harmonies—but Fier would often use her voice as he does here, to counterpoint another lead singer (as was also done on "Boy (Go)," with Michael Stipe).

And now I think about it, the duet section near the end sind of dramatizes the force/counterforce dynamic of the lyric, doesn'tit? Jack is singing hard... but Syd manages to nearly steal the song right from under him in thirty seconds flat.

Looking at it again, what strikes me is the technical proficiency of the poetry—the strings of internal rhyme at the end of the verses, and the enjambment on the "I believe it could have been something in the knife, and not the killer’s will, that drove him to it."

That's a key line, I think, and I think it supports Ganesh's contention that there's a malevolent sentience at work here. It's almost Lovecraftian—this sense of blind, grasping evil. If you knew exactly what it was, it would lose much of its power over you—but there's definitely Something out to get you.

Question: What should we make of the line "Don't you feel like nothing's real sometimes"?
 
 
Ganesh
00:19 / 29.01.06
T3h Matrix!1!!

Actually, the line about the knife stands out particularly in terms of its complexity. I feel that that - and "I’ve been in disguise most of my life, always hoping that someone would see through it" - lend this lyric a complexity, a mystique beyond just striving-against-hardship. I feel there's something more mystical at work here, whether it's Satan, the Annunaki or the Imp of the Perverse.

Babbling. Will have a think.
 
 
illmatic
15:33 / 29.01.06
I liked it. I can see how it's a grower also. I find a lot of blues based music like this. It's as if the hook has to ratttle around your head for a couple of days/hours before it really sinks in.

As for the lyrical analysis - my first impression was that the "something else" Bruce sings of might be kind of double-edged i.e. responsible for the Good as well as the Bad. But either way this is something that "works through you" and you can't take any credit or blame either way ("let your will, not mine be done"). Having read through your transcription of the lyrics and listened to it again, I realise this is likely completely wrong, but I thought I'd offer it up anyway.

I really like the tension in it musically, the bass hook gets me. And that seems to tie into the lyrics and the way Bruce expresses them to me. I don't get a sense of positivity out of the song musically. More like you're just going to keep going anyway, a sense of relentlessness. The image that comes to mind is walking on a dusty road, out of water, but you just have to keep going to get to the next town anyway. "Keep on trucking". Hope this makes sense.

Listened to it 3 times now and it's really growing. It's that rubbery bass!

BTW, Kit Kat Club says she didn't like the major key break, and the female vocalist.
 
 
grant
19:01 / 30.01.06
I really like the drumbeat and that guitar sound in the first five seconds, but then it kind of loses me. I can't process the words because they're not clear enough, so it just kind of mushes together. I really want this song to be in the soundtrack to a 1980s film about amateur car racers in... New Jersey, or maybe Idaho, somewhere where they don't have anything to believe in, and then in the last 20 minutes, the exciting rebel dude dies in a fiery crash and his girl turns her back on the old life and decides to go to cosmetology school in the big city, and we kind of hope that'll make a difference even though we know it won't.

I suppose that's the kind of thing the lyrics are evoking, which is interesting. But I still want it to be about two minutes shorter.

Can't believe that's Syd Straw doing the vocals -- that's so, like, the ladies on Dark Side of the Moon or behind Stevie Nicks or something.
 
 
Aertho
01:31 / 31.01.06
Reading through the lyrics, and Jack's suggestion about family lineage...

Is the song about dying of the narrator's Ego? This is difficult to put into words... Perhaps he is romanticizing the struggles and strivings of his own lower nature? He works hard to be his own man, to have his own dream and successes of his own... but his higher natures, the parts of him he sees as his father, the parts that extend his self into his family/community/nation/world, are stronger?

Our inherited natures outlive us and often live in more vibrance than our interior personas, and one can imagine a rivalry betweeen them quite easily. Does the Man who hungers resent the Son/Father who gives up his dinner to feed his family?

I've had too much sugar, otherwise I could continue. I'll see you all tomorrow.
 
 
grant
00:59 / 15.02.06
I'd like to say that although the song as a whole didn't grab me, I still find myself humming that rhythmic guitar thing that starts the song off. How many weeks later is it?
 
 
Jack Fear
01:50 / 15.02.06
Moo hoo ha.

So anybody else think it could also be read as the confession of a murderer? A sort of "the devil made me do it" kinda thing? From the "I've been in disguise all of my life..." bridge, I get weird echoes of Nick Cave's "The Mercy Seat," where the narrator says

My good hand tattooed E-V-I-L
Across its brother's fist
That filthy five! They did nothing
To challenge or resist

How could they resist? That other hand was working in the dark, working harder.
 
 
elene
14:20 / 15.02.06
Well, it's about dissolution, isn't it? I break into parts, my left hand doesn't know what my right is doing and my eye offends me. The knife is possessed of a devil and I'm just his fall guy. That sort of thing.
 
 
Aertho
13:13 / 23.02.06
Any chances we coould get another yousendit?
 
 
Jack Fear
16:21 / 23.02.06
Ask and ye shall receive. Link good 'til March 2nd or so.
 
 
Aertho
16:23 / 23.02.06
thnky sr
 
 
Hydra vs Leviathan
16:53 / 14.05.06
(I downloaded this the first time around, when i was a lurker... sorry if i deprived anyone of it...)

I think i'd have a much more explicitly political interpretation of that lyric (especially given the socio-politico-economic context of the blues form it's derived from) - to me it seems to be about the falsehood of the great "American Dream", that anyone can get to wherever they want in life just by (individualistic) "hard work" (with all the Protestant-work-ethic, psychobabble-ey "self-improvement", and "if you're not getting what you want you're just not trying hard enough" connotations that implies), when, of course, your average black or poor white son/daughter of a sharecropper or trailer-park/ghetto kid quite blatantly just can't do that, regardless of how much "inspirational" guff he/she is fed about his/her ability to do so... because "something else" (the bigger socioeconomic system, that has a vested interest in keeping the rich rich and keeping the poor poor) is working harder...

I find the "psychologising" and/or "mysticising" interpretations on this thread interesting, as potentially symptomatic of a much wider trend in society, to reduce the economic and political to the (individually) psychological or "spiritual"... but that's probably material for another thread, either in Switchboard or Head Shop...
 
  
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