“Waiting on the Soul Train” -- Ghetto Dogs – a review [Pt. 1]

Paul Gannell is the creative force behind Ghetto Dogs, a band with an impressive CV that includes backing some legendary bands from the past, ones from as early as the 70's from my recollection. It's curious to me that Paul does not list the band members. So, in the case of this current recording I'm assuming that Paul is working solo. Either way, it's instrumentally impressive work.

The title 'Waiting on the Soul Train' immediately calls to mind a TV show that began in the 70's. I Googled it because while I recall its existence, I wasn't sure of its longevity. I'm no wiser. Google says the show was cancelled quickly, but then goes on to report it running for many years -- more than 30! My day for confusion.

The song I associated with Soul Train -- the show -- was called 'Love Train'. I was not sure if it was the show's theme song, but I seemed to recall it was featured on that show. That memory was confirmed by finding it performed on YouTube, by the O'Jays, and there -- in the background, up in lights -- the words 'Soul Train'. So, nice that I remembered SOMETHING correctly!

All of that, may have absolutely nothing to do with the track I have been asked to review, but the idea of a soul train probably originated with the creators of that show. When one thinks of 'soul music' one thinks funky, synopated beat based music - at least this 'one'  does. But in my estimation this song is more pop than funk. It's a guitar based track more than a beat based track, again IMHO, and for what that is worth.

So what? I can't blame Paul for my own associations, nor do my expectations lessen the product he has delivered -- which is quite lovely. And besides all that, for sure, the title matches the song's subject matter for the oft repeated refrain is 'I'm on the soul train.' The idea that our human souls are on a journey, like a train, is an appealing idea. It is also a recurrent one. Trains have often been the inspiration for songs. There is a romance to the train's whistle, and a driving rhythm to its movement. Example songs that occur to me include, "The City of New Orleans" (Arlo Guthrie); "Night Train" (Bruce Cockburn); "Mignight Special" (trad. but Lead Bellie made it famous). There's the kid's song, “Morning Town” about a train. And Emily Dickinson wrote a well known poem about a train. An so on... I have written one or two myself that I can recall, so across the board it is a time honoured track -- ahem -- for musical tracks to travel down.

As I have listened to this track a number of times now, I have a variety of reactions. On the one hand, the singing of the refrain is very cool. I love the sound, it's like a marriage between a 'sigh' and a 'siren'. Lovely work It would be hard to sing live, I think, for two reasons. The high range is taxing and the last word of the refrain is overlaid by the first word of the next verse. It would have to be looped, and I guess it was. 

My reaction to the playing is completely positive, but the mix has a very high end. Here I must confess, that my ears are suspect, for my left ear has a blown woofer -- the low end is gone. That causes the high end to be emphasized. I have no EQ to change that. All I can say is that the high end is very dominant in the mix. On the other hand, I love the idea of letting the song begin and end with a crowd -- presumably on a train platform -- and the faint musical chimes. Very nice touch.

“Waiting on the Soul Train” -- Ghetto Dogs – a review [Pt. 2]

Now to the lyrics, my reaction is less positive. Call me old fashioned, but I like to know what a song is about. That might be a bit unfair, for the general meaning of the song is clear, but the words seem a bit contradictory. Leaving me to wonder: what exactly is the song's main point? 

Here's the refrain, courtesy of Paul's libretto:

I'm on the soul train
Oh, I'm never going back again 
I'm on the soul train 
Don't you abandon me ever again 

It's the last line that wrong foots me. If you play tennis or any sport that involves sudden directional change, you will understand being 'wrong sfooted.' There's no law that says a lyricist must maintain a constant perspective, and if there were such a law many would delight in breaking it, I'm sure. However, clear communication involves maintaining a fixed perspecitve. Since we assume, rightly I think, that the singer is the first person -- that is the "I" in the song --  the first three lines make perfectly coherent sense. The fourth line does not. He's already said he's on the train, and he's not turning back, so who is speaking in the final line? Is he telling the train not to forsake him? It's possible, if the train is his muse. Sometimes as an artist you can feel like your inspiration 'dumps' you and leaves you high and dry. But if that's the meaning, it is a bit jarring. If, on the other hand, he's talking to his listeners, which seems unlikely -- but they are after all the natural second person -- the "you" that is listening, then it seems a somewhat pointless line. What has the listener to do with the singer staying on the train? The third possibility is that, quite suddenly, the train is speaking to the singer. The train has become the first person, and it is chiding the singer for ever having left the train in the past, for notice 'again' -- implying that in the past someone abandoned someone else.

Now, the truth is that many times lyrics are like a salad of sounds. Some artists will even say, by practice if not directly, don't expect me to make sense, I'm making sounds that work with my music. Fair enough. But, like I say, call me oldfashioned.

When considering the general meaning of the song, it seems to me that the singer is waiting for something, but then is also saying he's already on the something for which he is waiting. That being the soul train. He has had lines fed to him that make him feel badly as he sits waiting, isolated in a crowd, his head is in his hands, but he doesn't think he is as bad as he's been made to feel himself to be. The solution is to ride the train and not get off. The train being, I think, his music -- but more likely, what music does for him, for his sense of well-being.

There is a spiritual  or religious feeling to the song. Music is innately spiritual, I believe. And, in any case, the lyrics state that he's a seed from his father's hand, and that would seem to be a reference to God. If so, maybe what the song is saying is that music is the thing that lets me escape from my feelings of discouragement and depression. If so, I would say, so is it for many people.

So, I'm not sure what Paul is getting at, but maybe it's a bit like 'Spirit in the Sky' or 'Baba O'Reilly' with respect to the idea of conviction concerning sin, a 'religious' word meaning, basically,  wrongness within. Norman Greenbaum sang, "I'm not a sinner. I've never sinned." And Pete Townsend wrote, "I don't need to be forgiven." The sentiment here is not that direct, but there is a sense of being downcast of feeling regret. Those are an awareness of wrong within. Today people don't call this a sense of

“Waiting on the Soul Train” -- Ghetto Dogs – a review [Pt. 3]

sinfulness, but that is what it was traditionally called, when people believed in a righteous God.

Today, since people don't know what to believe, they are stuck with feelings they can't fully explain. But the feelings are there: a cocktail of loneliness, depression, doubt, uncertainty, and so on. All things that music can sooth, even if it cannot completely banish them. 

To my ear, the best thing about this song is the extremely catchy refrain, it definitely sinks itself into the ear. Quite memorable. The guitar solo is nicely executed and the instrument choices work, the mix is good -- though somewhat tinny to my damaged ears.

(Ratings to follow after further auditions.)

“Drop Zone”  The Delivery System – a review [Pt.1]

I really do enjoy experimenting with different sounds and exploring different genres, even though when creating I tend to gravitate back to my pop, folk rock, and rock roots – for those were the dominant musical forms during my most impressionable years. Still I admire and play around with various forms. Punk became 'a thing' from the mid-70's onward, and by that time my musical proclivities were already settled. But as the years have passed, I have become softer in my opinions. At one time, for example, I despised country and western music. That is no longer the case, as I actually admire a lot of C&W tunes. In part, my own softening has corresponded to a softening of genre lines. I find there is less and less difference between different musical strands. They have mingled and, as it were, intermarried and their products have traces of its various music progenitors. 

At the same time, the number of genres and sub-genres has proliferated in a very bewildering fashion. In this case, for example, I have no idea as to what would distinguish punk from post punk. I understand the implication, post punk literally means 'after' punk. And, in its infancy, punk was frequently puckish and silly, if it had a dark edge at all it was in its 'up yours' attitude to musical conventions such as harmony, melody, and other traditional musical elements. Inevitably, as happened also with rock, examples came along that were less flippant and more philosophical. And when you become more serious about your message you sometimes want a divorce with less serious examples of your craft. Perhaps that is why this is billed as post punk. Punk having become philoso-punk, so to speak. Not sure, in part because my own experience of punk is with the more radio friendly examples, and perhaps it has always been heavily political.

 Besides enjoying the experimentation in music, I enjoy reflecting on why our ideas of music change, what it stems from and what it indicates about us. So, before dealing with this song, I want to make a general comment about the spiritual nature of music in our times. No, I'm not going to preach, nor am I thinking of moral implications – not directly. What I find is that of all art-forms, music seems the most directly spiritual. It flows out of the emotional life of its creators with no intellectual filter, for at its essence music is devoid of words, it is a directly emotional communication. Once lyrics enter the equation, the artist is actually trying to direct, interpret, and explain what he or she feels in a more pointed fashion. It's a win and lose equation. But as to the music itself, it channels the emotion in a raw form. Lyrics are only successful and useful so long as they accurately agree with the music. That is why some musical forms are in agreement with lovely feelings, and other musical forms are in agreement with more difficult, dark, painful, and even dangerous feelings.

“Drop Zone”  The Delivery System – a review [Pt.2]

Musical forms at all times, in general, tend to agree with the social milieu in which they are formed. In times that admired order, music was orderly and obeyed strict rules. I simplify here, for the matter is very complex, but in our era we dwell with chaos, and yet with constant and insistent repetition. To me it is not surprising that our ideas of music are chaotic, but also repetitive in form and in presentation. We live with noise and so we make noisy music. Of course, we also crave peace and beauty, but we have a hard time finding it, so that even our ideas of beauty live beneath a hammer of repeated sounds.

What I am getting at, if it's not clear, is that punk is a natural child of a noisy society. Similarly, rap is a natural child of urban survivalist necessity. And, to extend the principle, new age and ambient sounds are escapist in nature. For we do want to escape -- or at least we do until we have given up hope. Metal music is, I think, stuff forged beyond the fires of hope. 

So, to this specimen, 'Drop Zone'. The song is a sermon of sorts. A warning, a protest without particular hope. Unless I completely misunderstand, it is a work of paranoia in a world where paranoia seems entirely reasonable. Close examination seems to indicate that it is a protest song, although I'm unclear about what particular incident it is chronicling.

Let's begin, then, with the lyrics. The following is how the song's meaning struck me on first consideration:

'They are up to no good!'

We all speak of 'they' -- of what they do and what they intend. Yet, of course, we don't know who they are. And everyone who speaks in this fashion constitutes part of 'they' to others. It's the third person. You don't speak TO them you speak OF them. One you speak TO -- 2nd person – has a potential relationship with you. This is not necessarily true of the 3rd person, whom you might never meet. It's a very natural garden for paranoia growth – the birth place of conspiracy theory. 

That is all true, I think, but it is not irrational. In the movie “The Matrix” the machines harvested electrical energy from humans kept alive in pods. In our case, the machines harvest economic information by closely monitoring our Internet activities. It has many parallels. We live vicariously through images as we live increasingly sedentary lives. Privacy is abolished. The skies are domed over with satellites that observe. And our physical activities are fed into a global network of indifferent intelligence, entirely devoted to conforming while purportedly informing.