One particularly cool thing about how Can take inspiration from the Velvet Underground is how they did so without ever sounding slavish about it. One particularly cool thing about this 18-minute monster jam from Can is how the beat, '71, sounds like a 1991 cold chillin hiphop sample. Even if hiphop doesn't really get around to sampling this song until A Tribe Called Quest's "Lost Somebody" in 2016. "Halleluwah" is an extended jam, 18-minutes worth, with beat flow and exotic, squiggly, jazzy interludes. Minimalist, but not excessively so; more like a keep-it-simple ethic. Vocalist Damo Suzuki only joins in for two buildups. He strikes largely indecipherable poses, like some inspired Karaoki street performer crashing Can's jam session, working himself up to a rat-a-tat-tat eruption of "Halleluwah, Halleluwahs." The first ten times I heard this song I had no idea he was saying "Halleluwah," sounded more like "Yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah." A rhythmic repetition of one syllable in a catchy barked tempo. Anyway, it's hypnotic and frenetic and inscrutable. Krautrock is many things but it strikes me right now like progressive music for people bored with the high-culture pretensions and all the fantasy Medievalism of British and American prog rock. Or how about Krautrock is for people when you really get down to it who prefer post-punk to prog rock? I don't go to live shows any more (or I haven't since Covid, anyway) but I still fantasize about dream triple-bill live shows: Miles Davis, Hawkwind, and Can at the Fillmore West, 1971. Hard experimental psychedelic bliss.
How does it feel to be on your own? Sifting through the rubble, bringing up the dead, reassembling history from below.
Showing posts with label Can. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Can. Show all posts
Krautrock (Kosmische Musik, German for "Cosmic Music") Experimental Rock (Psychedelia) from West Germany late-1960s early-1970s
Neu! "Hero": Proto-1977 punk rock (Wire, Killing Joke, Wipers) from Germany 1975.
Can "Father Cannot Yell" 1969: imperial source inspiration to Pavement's 1990s and LCD Soundsystem's 2000s.
In case you're into that kind of thing, lyric translation:
This is a man hard working song
There is... no old dream
We practiced for years my friend
To get this machine screams
Noise follows questions honey
The hero is a business bunny
If it means money
This is time maybe we do it without crime
Because you are crying and i don't listen
Because you are dying and i just whistle
That thing so anonymously today
And echoes of my laughter burn into your seven hour turn
There is... no old dream
We practiced for years my friend
To get this machine screams
Noise follows questions honey
The hero is a business bunny
If it means money
This is time maybe we do it without crime
Because you are crying and i don't listen
Because you are dying and i just whistle
That thing so anonymously today
And echoes of my laughter burn into your seven hour turn
The problem is not only pain
If time could be part of machine
You could pack it, see it's clean
You could roll the end to start
Tomorrow skip my plastic heart
Beating for a spacey blues
And you could hear it without shoes
If time could be part of machine
You could pack it, see it's clean
You could roll the end to start
Tomorrow skip my plastic heart
Beating for a spacey blues
And you could hear it without shoes
It's been a nice (historic) role
First call the name and then the code
First call the code and then the name
I think it's still a funny game
First call the name and then the code
First call the code and then the name
I think it's still a funny game
ROCK OFF!
Here we go sisters, here we go man
Your home made connections
I do what i can
Your tranquilliser body touch is very nice because
And i don't need you
Makes you wait for the master because
I don't need you
And you sit on your chair with your distant care
This mind blowing freak
Makes my mind very sick
And the seasons grow without your be active or die blow
Say A.M. man, say A.M. woman's role
See the mind control is perfect
And you still have your daddy's smile
Fences on the floor are not there
Because you can't hide
You get your children, you get your car
What do you think how old you are
What do you think what people need
It's not that plastic, let it bleed
It's not that plastic honey don't
Because you understand you won't
See your generation with their TV on standby
Your home made connections
I do what i can
Your tranquilliser body touch is very nice because
And i don't need you
Makes you wait for the master because
I don't need you
And you sit on your chair with your distant care
This mind blowing freak
Makes my mind very sick
And the seasons grow without your be active or die blow
Say A.M. man, say A.M. woman's role
See the mind control is perfect
And you still have your daddy's smile
Fences on the floor are not there
Because you can't hide
You get your children, you get your car
What do you think how old you are
What do you think what people need
It's not that plastic, let it bleed
It's not that plastic honey don't
Because you understand you won't
See your generation with their TV on standby
ROLL OUT!
(Like they saw A Clockwork Orange the year before and this was Faust's response in song.)
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