Tag: Isolation

My Sunday Song – “Cigarette Daydreams” by Cage the Elephant

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For My Sunday Song #362, we are covering the 2nd song in the Morgan’s Choice 10 song set. This time around we are talking about the song “Cigarette Daydreams” by Cage the Elephant. The song is off their 2013 album ‘Melophobia’ and was the 2nd song off that album to go #1. Released on as a single on August 26, 2014, it has sold over 3,000,000 copies of the single and has over 42 million views on Youtube. Pretty dang impressive. It was credited to the whole band, but it was mostly the singer Matt Schultz who wrote it. Matt thought about giving it to someone else to play because he didn’t think it was a Cage song, but his brother Brad said that why can’t they write any song and play it. It doesn’t have to be a so called “Cage the Elephant” song, they should just write and play what they want.

Matt was sitting around strumming his guitar when the melody came to him and then the words flowed. It was inspired by a personal experience he had and that experience helped write the song and it all came quick and easy. The experience is about isolating yourself from everyone. Even from those that could help you. They feel lost in life and that loneliness grows the more they isolate themselves from the world. It is a conversation on depression and we should be talking about it more. The thought is it is about his relationship with his first wife. Whoever it is about, it is a sad, melancholy tune that is so simple and so beautiful.

What I love about this song is the acoustic styling of the song reminds of my favorite Guster song “Do You Love Me”. It has that same rawness to it and quirkiness that speaks to me for some reason. The music is as sad as the lyrics, but it has such a pretty melody and a chorus that is a little upbeat and happier. Matt’s vocals are smooth, with a little whine to it that fits perfectly with the song and its lyrics. The keyboards add a nice flair to it and the rhythm section keeps the song moving and on point. A sweet, yet sad track that is nothing short of perfection.

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My Sunday Song – “Human Touch” by Rick Springfield

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic24 Comments

For My Sunday Song #276, we are going to go after “Human Touch” by Rick Springfield. The song was from Rick’s 1983 album ‘Living in Oz’. The song wasn’t his biggest hit ever, but it did pretty well charting at #23 in the US giving him another Top 40 hit. Interestingly enough, the song charted at #23 in the UK and was his only Top 40 hit in the UK making him a one-hit wonder in the UK. That’s right, ‘Jessie’s Girl’ didn’t go Top 40 there.

The song was inspired by kids back in the early 80’s getting stuck in front of their computer games and forgetting how to communicate and interact with other people. That’s funny, I don’t think that has changed and now is worse with today’s phones. Rick noticed this and was reminded by how much we as human needed to communicate with each other, how much we needed to touch each other in some way. He took that thought and turned in to a love story and sexualized it a little, okay, a lot. I love how he talks about someone building up walls around themselves and the girl, Sally, calls them his prison cell. We all have those walls and only certain people can break through them, but to do that, you need to let them touch you in some way. It is pretty deep.

Musically, Rick actually recorded the song using a lot of computers which he found the contradiction to be quite funny and I agree. The song starts off with a couple of computer beeps and then a drum machine kicks in which is exactly what he says in the song that people are dancing to drum machines so why not put them in. It is basic pop and dance song and is very dated in its sound which I think now adds to its charm. Later in the song we get a saxophone which jazzes it up a little, but overall it is a very generic sounding song, but I think the meaning is way deeper and shows that Rick actually has a lot of depth in his writing. He was a man ahead of his time. He should probably redo this song today as sadly, it still applies but even more so with the pandemic and the lack of human touch for so long.

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