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psychicdeath

Member
Jan 21, 2015
955
1,521
Dave's Song of the Day

Body Count – Body Count

Friday song of the day: Today’s song is by a famous rapper’s hard rock side project.



In 1990, rapper Ice-T formed a hard rock band with some friends he knew from high school. The band was called Body Count, and many of the songs were told from the point of view of a hypothetical very angry young gang member. Their first album was released in 1992 and was also called Body Count, as was one of the songs from that album.

Ice-T wrote most of the songs with the band’s guitar player Ernie C and served as the lead singer as well. I happened to hear the song Body Count before the album was released, liked it, and bought the album as soon as it came out. There was a big controversy about the song Cop Killer on the album right after that, with people protesting that the song advocated killing police. Again, the point of view was that of a fictional gang member, but I understand the outrage. Ice-T defended the song on freedom of speech grounds but made the decision to remove it from later pressings. My copy was bought before Cop Killer was removed from new pressings. The song Body Count was not released as a single, and thus never charted.

Body Count itself is a similarly angry song. I disagree with most of the sentiments it expresses, but it is a very catchy and well-done hard rock song. I can ignore the politics and just enjoy the music. I liked Cop Killer a lot less as a song, but still support the band’s right to put out the record.



Tomorrow: That blue-eyed girl
 

psychicdeath

Member
Jan 21, 2015
955
1,521
Dave's Song of the Day

Down By the Water – PJ Harvey

Saturday song of the day: No, the singer of today’s song didn’t really drown her daughter.



Polly Jean Harvey’s 1995 hit Down by the Water tells the story of a woman who drowned her daughter and now is feeling regret. It was her breakthrough hit in the United States, but the odd theme caused some peculiar theories that Harvey had actually done something similar.

Some people take songs way too literally. Mick Jagger was not born in a crossfire hurricane, John Lennon is not a walrus, and as far as I know, Johnny Cash did not shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die. But apparently a few people thought Down by the Water was autobiographical. According to PJ Harvey, “Some critics have taken my writing so literally to the point that they’ll listen to Down by the Water and believe I have actually given birth to a child and drowned her.”

As mentioned, Down by the Water was PJ Harvey’s breakthrough hit in the US. She had received critical acclaim with her debut album Dry in 1992. Down by the Water was on her third album, To Bring You My Love, and the musical direction included more electronic instrumentation than her earlier work. The song was released as a single in February 1995 and rose to #2 on the Billboard Modern Rock chart, and #48 on the Billboard Hot 100. I happened to see PJ Harvey in concert in September 1995 with Veruca Salt and Live at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland. Harvey put on a good show, and Down by the Water was one of the highlights.



Tomorrow: You may see a stranger
 
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