Appreciation: "How Could I Help But Love You?" by Aaron Neville, Minit Records 1963

A friend polled me recently for my favourite love song, and after only brief consideration of the many, many possibilities ("I Found A Love" by the Falcons? "Turn It On" by Sleater-Kinney? "Something's Got A Hold Of Me" by Etta James? "Baby Baby" by the Vibrators? "I've Been Loving You Too Long (To Stop Now)" by Otis Redding? etc etc etc.), I came to one unassailable conclusion: "How Could I Help But Love You?" Aaron Neville's 1963 masterpiece of New Orleans R&B on Minit Records.*

Many may find it difficult to imagine Neville responsible for a genuine expression of feeling-- after such crimes against music as "Everybody Plays The Fool," Neville seems doomed to association with "soft rock," that form of music favoured by those who don't want to listen to anything moving, honest, or exciting, but prefer nonetheless not sit in silence. But that wasn't always the case; like a lot of musicians who defenestrated their talent and dignity during the 1980s, Neville's very early recordings are in many cases astonishingly good. In particular, Neville's earliest sides with New Orleans's famous Minit Records, which lasted only from 1961 to 1963 and released early records by Irma Thomas, Ernie K-Doe, and Eskew Reeder (aka Esquerita, strong influence on Little Richard), are all worth listening to. But chief among them is "How Could I Help But Love You?"

Every time I've described this song, the first word that's come to mind has been "ghostly": this is a song with the rare power to draw gooseflesh just by the way it sounds. A large part of this is in the brilliance of the instrumentation and arrangement-- the song progresses slowly and begins with Neville's imploring voice behind an echoing cymbal, tapped snare-rim, and gently ringing guitar which follow an almost hidden bass. The initial effect is like a faint wind rustling the last fall-dry leaves on a tree-- you're just as ready for it to die out as pick up. But lord, how it picks up: the chorus hands the melodic counterpoint from the bass to a strong piano in classic NOLA R&B form and distant backup singers (eerie and virtually unidentifiable as male or female) swell in utterly stunning harmony to Neville's vocal trills, which contain not one whit of bullshit or showboating. No part of this song is any louder or more prominent than it absolutely has to be: humility permeates it above all. The second verse doubles in length to fit in a saxophone and trumpet solo as quiet as breath and as gentle as the guitar that ebbs the melody away. The song is never agitated beyond its careful rustle by any drum-beat except the rim of the snare-- even with the intensity of the chorus, the entire song is piano, bass, and voice alone, its power in its scarcity, and when the chorus ends it returns to the quiet simplicity of that shimmering guitar.

Neville was barely out of his teen years when he recorded "How Could I Help But Love You?" and the awkward earnestness of youth permeates and defines the song. But the song is dominated by this nervous hesitance in a way that other tracks of the same era which sought to capitalize on a young man's stammering declaration of love (such as more polished songs by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Dion and the Belmonts, or the Orioles) are not. Quite simply, Neville sounds like he means what he's saying though he's terrified of saying it: he's full of the awe and reverence of falling truly in love at 20, and the song is arranged precisely so as to amplify every tremor of that emotion. When Neville sings, "You send cold chills down my spine," you don't just listen, you feel exactly what he means.

Performed by a different singer against a less deft arrangement, "How Could I Help But Love You?" might have been another hamhanded R&B throwaway, as there's nothing at the core of the words and melody to set the song apart from a dozen similar tracks. Yet between Neville's warm and tenuous voice and the perfect organization of instruments around it, this song becomes stunning. The lyrics are not, by any means, complex or witty, but they sound utterly sincere, and as a whole the song is likewise sincere in its minimalism. Where later Neville tracks would come to bury their lack of genuine emotion in an oily mountain of production, this song is structured to contain only what is absolutely necessary to get its point across. Its point is the feeling of being in love, and no song that I can think of does it better.

* - (to which I have the estimable Warren Hill, proprietor of Back Room Records and Pastries and publisher of $2.00 Comes With Mix-Tape zine, to thank for introducing me. Thanks, Warren.)

Small Favours:

Still sick, and worse than before. I got a substitute for my morning class, woke up early, and went to the neighbourhood clinic, where a kind young doctor told me I should probably take the rest of the week off of work. She figures it's a sinus infection that I left too long and she gave me a prescription for antibiotics, so hopefully I'll be able to get back to work for Thursday. I'm supposed to teach the first class on "The Dead" by James Joyce, and I'd rather not leave that up to a substitute. Angie's now as sick or sicker than I am (though without the apparent sinus infection, at least), so we make quite a pair of layabouts. We've succeeded in accomplishing soup and television watching today (we're already done the first disc of Season II of The Wire and have had to resort to Buffy The Vampire Slayer) and neither of us is feeling particularly good about anything.

BUT! The doorbell rang just after 5pm today, and a courier fellow handed me a box with my name on it, which I opened to discover was an order from Deranged records that I'd almost forgotten I'd made. Inside, the Tranzmitors self-titled LP plus s/t 7", the Teen Crud Combo retrospective LP, Fucked Up's Hidden World 2xLP gatefold, and (oo! oo!) the eagerly awaited full-length LP by Portland's Red Dons (see my giddy review of their April set at L'Esco here).

Of course, said package arrived just as Ang retired to the guest bed in her office with a grinding sinus headache, so I can't very well throw any of these guaranteed rock-and-roll blowouts on just now. However, I hope the potential energy of this stack of vinyl will encourage a swift recovery, since these are the sorts of records that demand dancing sock-footed around one's kitchen.

Two notes from Pop Montreal

(photo by unknown party, posted on montrealshows.com)

Things have been quiet on this blog lately for a number of reasons, chief among them the amount of preparation and marking that I've been facing as we move toward mid-term season. As well, I spent much of the last week done in by a nasty cold that I hope I've finally bested. There will be more to come, and soon, I hope. For the time being, however, let me say that for all my mixed feelings about the Pop Montréal festival, seeing Patti Smith read in front of and sing with A Silver Mt. Zion last night at the Ukranian Federation Hall on Hutchison was pretty amazing, and paying only $5 for the show about tripled my amazement. The show had strong points and weak points-- it was, by and large, exactly what I expected it would be, but by the end I'd have paid ten times as much just to hear their emotionally flattening version of "Pissing In A River." Their treatment made the song new again and gave it more power and immediacy than when I first heard it on record ten years ago. It was the first of two encores at the end of a two hour show, for which I paid five dollars. Amazing.

Addendum (Saturday afternoon): Patti Smith played again on Friday night with "Her Band" at the St Jean Baptiste church on Rachel near St Denis. Tickets were $35-- 7 times what we paid to see her play a tiny hall with Silver Mt Zion. My partner Angie (who's a member of CKUT-FM's Venus Collective and had been taping Smith's keynote address at the Pop & Politics conference earlier in the afternoon) had a guest-list spot, so we could have split the price of a single ticket, but we both agreed to forego the show and Ang handed the guest-list spot off to a friend. It wasn't the price, nor even the fact that I've taken poor care of myself this week and been once more routed my a resurgence of my cold just as Angie's finally caught it from me. Instead, we concluded that a show in a larger venue with a practiced band couldn't possible top the intimacy and urgency of a palpably nervous Smith in a tiny hall, backed by a band with whom she'd had a single afternoon to practice. So much could have gone thoroughly wrong with that show, and I'm sure everyone in the audience was aware of that-- the tenuous, feverish atmosphere in the choking-hot room drove the band as much as the music stoked the room. Five fucking dollars-- it wasn't just the price, or the size of the room, the gamble of the band and singer united at last, but all of it at once coming together perfectly and powerfully. It wasn't worth trying to repeat it-- we knew it wouldn't be as good again two nights later.

Instead, we caught an exhilarating 90-minute set by the mighty Ted Leo & the Pharmacists at the Gymnase, their second show in the last six months. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen Ted since the first Pharmacists show in Montréal at Barfly in May of 2001, but never have I seen give less than everything to the room. Last night was absolutely not an exception. The set list covered the last four records (though nothing off the early Treble In Trouble EP, which I'm always holding out for) as well as a long jam while awaiting a replacement bass-head that developed slowly into an cheerily improvised cover of Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town" with mostly-remembered lyrics and mostly the right chords. I'm happy to see James Canty playing second guitar with Ted again after several years away from the band-- he's got as much energy as Ted and drummer Chris, and between the three of them the band's live impact is staggering (for reasons I didn't get to hear, the more retiring bassist Dave is not playing on this tour; his shoes are being filled by a capable fellow whose name I didn't catch). By the end of the show both Angie and I were nearly catatonic with illness, but as we staggered down the stairs we determined it was, in fact, worth it. Even as I've spent all day today coughing up lung articles of ominous colour and feeling utterly destroyed, I remain convinced of that.

I will not, however, be seeing Tyvek, Fucked Up, Career Suicide, Jay Reatard, Kickers, Spy Machine 16, or any of the other bands I was hoping to get in tonight. I can tell when it's time to take it easy or do myself some serious damage, and the eighty minutes between waking and being able to get out of bed this morning were a clear indicator of what I must choose. Tonight will be about watching movies on the sofa with the cat and not feeling regretful for missing however many shows I wanted to go to.

Husker Du at Maxwell's, Hoboken NJ 06/84

Fans of Husker Du should check out this blog page, which has put up a complete set of the band playing Maxwell's in 1984, a month before the release of Zen Arcade. The sound is patchy, but the set is breathtakingly powerful.

My favourite Husker Du record has always been Land Speed Record, which most people I know seem to find unlistenable. For me, it works because it holds together breakneck speed and absurd noise with just enough melody for the whole thing to function. It's raw and rough and crazy, but its best songs are almost sweet as well.

The songs available on the above page are a great example of the band at their best doing essentially the same thing-- they plough through 15 songs virtually without pause, addressing the audience only at the beginning and then again well into the set when Bob Mould tells them to stay on their side of the stage since someone's already given him a bloody lip. The closing cover of Roger McGuinn's "8 Miles High" (originally released on a 7" and on SST's Duck and Cover! compilation, also arguably one of their many finest moments) is heartbreaking and worth the album's download alone. The set covers songs from almost the entire breadth of their career to date and play everything tight and fierce, but desperately lovely. In its own loud, abrasive way, this is a very pretty set of songs.

The right time.

For me, there was only one truly perfect moment in the summer of 2000.

It wasn't seeing Neko Case at the old Jailhouse Rock Café, where monitor problems meant that she delivered a command performance in the middle of the crowd in front of the stage-- that show was breathtaking and profound, but it was a show. I was, just then, working a job I hated and having no luck finding something else, and living in a friend's spare room for the summer while she was out of town but having no luck finding an apartment for August 1, and even experiencing Case's astonishing voice from a foot and a half away didn't make me feel the hope that had been for some time lacking. There were a few other amazing shows that summer as well-- the Dillinger Four at L'X and Alex Soria's Chino playing to a crowd of 15 at Barfly are both nights I'll fondly remember, but like the Neko Case show, even the best nights had difficulty penetrating my feeling of gloom and uselessness.

There was, however, one moment that was totally essential, at which I felt myself in the midst of all my desperation and depression and dread to be perfectly at peace. One afternoon in the middle of a hot week in June, I was at home doing nothing, as usual. That day I had already checked the want-ads and read through the apartment listings, from which it was becoming clear to me that I wouldn't find an apartment for July and would have to try to move in August instead, a change of plan that led to a variety of inconveniences.

The previous evening, I had been to bed absurdly late. I worked evenings at a busy café where the only free drink was coffee, so between my idiot caffeine consumption (I frequently drank five or six cups of coffee in the first two hours of my shift, yet remained perplexed as to why the remaining four hours were riddled with anxiety attacks) and the tension of constant, fast-paced work, it usually took me until nearly dawn to wind down after I got home.

So by 2pm I had eaten breakfast and drunk a pot of coffee, failed yet again to find better work and a stable place to live, and had lapsed into a bruxating state of self-loathing which I knew would keep me occupied until the beginning of my shift at 7pm.

I was sitting on the floral-print sofa trying unsuccessfully to concentrate on reading a book when I heard thunder outside. It wasn't easy to see the sky, as the building where I was staying was wedged between three poured-concrete apartment monstrosities, but by craning my neck out the window I could tell that the clouds had gotten so dark they looked as though they'd been beaten bruised. It was about to rain a lot.

At that moment I had an LP from the Atlantic R&B box set on the turntable and for some reason I felt at last as though I had broken through my grim feeling of failure as I listened to Ray Charles belting away. Outside a skull-splitting thundercrack announced instantaneous hissing rain, and I understood precisely what I must do: I threw the twin living room windows all the way open, ran to the stereo, picked up its two speakers, and wedged one against each screen. Then I brought the needle back to the beginning of the song, dropped it again, and turned the volume up as far as it would go. With a staggering saxophone squeal, "The Right Time" began again at thunderous volume. I gently walked to the window, stood behind the quaking speakers, and looked out over the street.

Rain was whisking past in white waves, prodding and smacking with thousands of drops the size of fingerprints. Several people were rushing up and down the sidewalk on St Marc street, running, hiding, and covering themselves with newspapers, jackets, and bags, but one person had given up and was allowing herself to be soaked. She didn't look too dejected. I didn't feel, suddenly, all that dejected either. I was inside, but I'd just as happily have been outside at that moment. Getting drenched to Ray Charles at earth-shattering volume, I wagered, would feel fine-- it would feel like something. I was, then, entirely at ease. I didn't know if I'd given up, or if I could give up, but like the woman in the street below I suddenly knew the sense in letting it come pounding down on me and not trying to run. I wanted her to know it was fine-- I wanted her to hear how beautiful Ray Charles was, how everything didn't amount to that much after all, and that while the night time was, indeed, the right time to be with the one you loved, there was so much freedom in being stuck in the rain in the middle of a summer afternoon. Charles's tenor call was sweet and rich as a butterscotch candy, and his slowly pounded piano as insistent as the rain. It didn't make sense to keep anything that good quiet, to keep it indoors.

My plan was that, when the song ended, I'd swap the record for another from the collection and lay into Ray Charles doing "The Mess Around" next, but the rain lasted only as long as the first song, then blew itself out. Soon enough there was a bit of hot sun jabbing through a crack in the clouds. Later that summer, I encountered the following perfectly valid algebraic notation: God = Love. Love = Blind. Ray Charles = Blind. Therefore, Ray Charles = God.