My Holiday’s Complete

Squeeze “Pulling Mussels (From The Shell)” (Live 2007) – When I was young, most of the music I heard was on the Lite FM and contemporary pop radio stations that played in my parents’ cars. That’s how I first heard “Pulling Mussels (From The Shell).” I didn’t know that it was by Squeeze til much later on, or that this was the same band that did “Tempted” and “Black Coffee In Bed.” Even up through the ’90s, a lot of the hits of the ’80s just sort of blurred together in my mind, as if there was just this one band called The ’80s and they just had a lot of awesome songs that were all over the radio.

For the longest time, I thought that this song was actually called “Pulling Muscles For Michelle,” and that it was about some guy who was working so hard to impress a girl that he was straining his body. It’s actually about visiting a working class seaside resort in England, but given that most pop songs are about romantic relationships, my version seemed a lot more plausible. Really, when you’re just a kid, all lyrics are pretty much meaningless — it’s just the sounds the singer makes to make the melody move along. If a song is really good, the sound of the voice and the melody will convey much more than the lyrics, and in the best cases, the words just shape your impression of the musical content without becoming the focus of the piece. “Pulling Mussels” certainly boasts a clever set of lyrics — Chris Difford was always very good with words — but it’s pretty obvious that the lyrics are secondary to the tune itself, and that it’s very much a case of a writer smuggling an unexpected subject into a musically straightforward song because they know the melody is so irresistible that people would barely notice or care. (Click here to buy it from Quixotic Records.)

Elsewhere: Wow, kinda nice to know I wasn’t alone on that “Pulling Muscles For Michelle” thing!

Also: Today is my final day filling in for Dan Kois at New York Magazine’s Vulture blog. If you haven’t reading, here are a few of the better entries that I’ve done for the site. Next week I’ll be working for Public Radio International’s Fair Game with Faith Salie, which is pretty exciting since I’m already a big fan of the show, and I’ll be involved with bringing in music guests for interviews and live performances. If you don’t already listen to the show, I recommend checking your local public radio station for listings, or subscribing to the free podcast.