knowing i'm so eager to fight can't make letting me in any easier
02.08.05 @ 11:01 p.m.
That's a lyric from "You Better You Bet" up there, and that's the only thing I want to talk about today.
It's amazing how listening to a different version of a well known song can make you reconsider it, relive it, and relove it. I was listening to Scooped today, which is a two CD set of songs taken from the three Scoop albums, which consist of Pete Townshend demo recordings.
Would you think that you could release three albums worth of demos? I have the first one, and it's a two LP album. Fills almost an entire 90 minute tape. And they are, for the most part, brilliant. Okay, so I don't much care about the instrumentals that are apparently found on the later albums in the series. But I could listen to songs like "Zelda," "Politician" and demos of much loved Who songs. Sometimes I prefer the demo version... mainly just "Bargain" and "Behind Blue Eyes." "So Sad About Us" could have been incredible if Townshend had not elected to switch to a plinky sythesizeritis'd instrumental halfway through the song. I love the Who version, though.
Today I was listening to "You Better You Bet," though. Thoroughly. Some lyrics were clearer or different. Like "When it comes to all night living..." which I had always thought of "all that living." But really, there was one big revelation, and that just came from properly listening to the song and actually thinking about the lyrics.
See, the released version goes like this:
I lay on the bed with you
We could make some book of records
Your dog keeps licking my nose
And chewing up all those letters....
"We could make some book of records." Now, how do you take that? For some reason I always thought of it as physically making some book about music. I'm not sure why.
The demo lyrics are
I lay on the bed with you
We could make the book of records
Your dog keeps licking my nose, etc.
The book of records. That makes so much more sense, doesn't it? We could lie here together and make love until we break all the records.
Perversely, "You Better You Bet" strikes me as one of the most romantic songs ever. Maybe I'm just enraptured by it at the moment and that makes me think so, but there are so many little things in the lyrics that please me and seem, well, sweet. I love you, I love spending time with you. "I love to hear you say my name, especially when you say 'yes.'" Even "You welcome me with open arms... and open legs." That amuses me and seems ultimately kind of cute.
Maybe I'm strange. Maybe I'm Townshend fixated. But "You Better You Bet" was one of my first favorites when I discovered the Who two and a half years ago, and it still has a strong hold on my heart.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
