52 Songs #6: Flight of the Conchords Bus Driver's Song

This week: Flight of the Conchords, Bus Driver's Song from the LP Folk The World Tour, released in 2002. My path to the Conchords was a long and windy one. It started, innocently enough, with the Lord of the Rings movies, and my geeky desire to know all the trivia about them (this included watching all the extra features on all the DVDs). from there I discovered Figwit, sometime after The Two Towers, and I was thrilled to see him have some speaking lines in Return of the King. More research showed that Bret wasn't just an actor, and eventually I watched hours and hours of You Tube videos, and got an actual Kiwi person to send me Folk the World Tour from a record store in NZ.

Oh, they're famous and famously hip now, but out of all their songs I prefer this one. It's funny and sweet and sad, and even though it's stuffed with Kiwi-only jokes, anyone can see Tony is just like any guy from any small town around the world. A lovely melody and rather Finn-ish harmonies on the chorus and the bridge, don't you think? BTW, if you like FotC and haven't heard the BBC radio series, you must get it. Neil Finn is in it and he's hilarious.

"But some things just don't work out that way
Well, that's the most important thing you'll learn on the tour today..."

Truer words were never spoken.



Come back next Monday for another of the 52 songs!

52 Songs #5: Split Enz History Never Repeats

This week: Split Enz - History Never Repeats, released in 1981. Some Wikipedia stuff here.

I discovered Split Enz when MTV started showing their videos; "History Never Repeats" was one of the first videos to be shown, ever. I immediately got hooked, bought Waiata, taped it (don't forget, home taping killed the music industry), and listened to it A LOT. Thus began my relationship with the Finn Brothers. Neil wrote this one and sings lead. Don't you love the guitar hook? It's so anthemic! This song is all energy, crashing along to the lovely a capella vocals near the end.

I saw Split Enz live at the P.O.P. festival in Philadelphia in 1982; Squeeze was the headliner (they were boring - might as well have just put on the record); other bands included Duran Duran (yay!), Third World (yay!), Bush Tetras (bad), and of course the boys from NZ. Split Enz kicked all kinds of ass. Tim did backflips. How can you top that?

I've seen Crowded House a lot, and the Finns on various occasions, but nothing will ever beat the Enz in their prime.




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52 Songs #2: Whaling (Finn Bros)

This week's song is the tune "Whaling", written by Dave Dobbyn, and here performed by Neil and Tim Finn. This version is from 1988 and was recorded at KCRW when the boys did acoustic performances of a bunch of songs. After many years of listening to Finn music, I can confidently say that I prefer Neil and Tim together over pretty much anything that they've done solo. They are each musical geniuses, but when they are together, it's magic. Just listen to the harmonies on this song, and how they make the words sway and roll to the wave-like rhythm of the song. Just magic, I tell you...



Come back next Monday for another of the 52 songs!