Jan 6

Jan 6 Honky Tonk Women /Brown Sugar, by The Rolling Stones

What a pair!

A break from the calming, introspective stuff. Time to rock it out, feel alive and remember good times.

How do they do that?

With a song that you’ve heard a million times before (especially one that you’ve seen your Dad dance to!!), I like to try to really listen hard by focusing on a particular instrument and noticing it for the first time. For example, the saxophone in “Honky Tonk Women.” It’s barely there, but I bet you’d miss it if it weren’t.

And talking of saxophones, the solo in “Brown Sugar” has to be one of the best in rock music, but it almost gets lost in familiarity and the greatness of the song. Yet it has all of the elements you’d want in a fabulous sax solo. It’s gritty, gut-wrenching as it soars to the high notes and has just the right amount of dirty ‘tongue fluttering’ (yes, that is a real musical technique) to rev you up.

Interestingly, the piano in “Brown Sugar” is honky tonk in style, which is a form related to ragtime, but focused on the rhythm rather than harmony and perhaps originated as a way of getting the best out of an out of tune or poorly cared for instrument. Yet there is no piano at all in the song “Honky Tonk Women”. Now, honky tonk can refer to a type of bar or theatre, not just to a style of piano playing, but in listening to these two songs back to back, it struck me as an interesting observation.

Hope you enjoy these two beauties or feel inspired to listen to something new (or old but in a new way) today.

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