Track 5 from Lil Beethoven is one of Ron & Russell Mael's funniest and dramatic songs, and it has a fantastic meta meaning hidden behind the jokes. If you enjoy the channel, please support me on buymeacoffee.com/metasparks.
I only re-discovered Sparks with Edgar Wright's film. Now I'm finding a HUGE internet presence of Sparks fans, plus - my latest find - this channel!! Love it! It's all about interpreting Sparks, and it's very thoughtful and geeky. Geeky is NOT a dirty word to me. Seriously love this. THANK YOU!
This is my favorite Sparks album (that could conceivably make it my favorite album, full stop), and I really enjoy your analyses of each song. My favorite segment/verse in Ride 'Em is "From you're for me, to ça suffit. From bon vivant to sycophant. From open door, to merde alors ". Using French somehow elevates the status of the artist while simultaneously trashing him. There is no end to the brilliance of Ron's lyrics. But I have one bone to pick. The lyrics to Pineapple are BRILLIANT. Thank you, Russell!
I love that way of looking at it. The use of French definitely adds a funny pompous air to the song which offsets that this guy is now a loser. That’s great! I love Pineapple btw! One of the things that appeals to me is that they can dumb it down in such a cool way. Thanks for watching :)
Well done again I never connected this song to More Than A… but I see your point I also agree about their leaving the label But now that they’ve re-signed to Island what does that mean Cheers friend
I know what you mean about it being sad, and all hidden behind this high drama. I’m convinced that Sparks often write whole songs based on tiny conceptual snippets from older songs. So ride ‘em cowboy comes from sex machine, and the same is true of ‘Good Morning’ - “Thank you God….I know your time is tight and yet you thought of me”. That’s the same premise as ‘what the hell is it this time’. It’s a nice little songwriting magic trick.
I don’t know how they manage it! Especially when it comes to the humour. I like a lot of funny bands but none of them seem to add the same weight to that humour as Sparks do.
As always, I love your insights! Every theory you deliver sounds spot on to me. It gives Sparks even more depth than they already have and they're already deep as it is. Which is why I love them. I feel you'll never run out of interesting things to say about them. Awesome stuff!!! ❤😊👍
That really does mean a lot, thanks Morris. I’m starting to check out your videos and I like what you do too. As for future MetaSparks episodes, I honestly know I’m going to be doing this for years and couldn’t be happier about it, even if it is pretty daunting.
Thanks! It’s such a buzz knowing that people look forward to these, and I plan to keep making as many as possible! This would be so much easier if Sparks hadn’t made so many great records!
Cheers mate. It’s nice that Sparks clicked with you - you’re a man of taste. Lil Beethoven is well worth a listen when you’re in the mood for some dramatic music. It’s good headphone music when you need to be in the zone to address a production outage
It’s a brilliant song! I don’t hear many people discuss it but it’s a stand-out track, funny and sad and dramatic all at once. I want to do a woofer video too. I spoke about it a little on my ‘longest creative streak in pop history’ and really want to talk about it more. I bloody love woofer!
I just discovered your channel. Fascinating! A Sparks fan since "Kimono", they fell off my radar by 1980 and came smashing back with "Latte". I'm now slowly going through their vast back-catalog, and your insights are exactly what I need. Subscribed. Thank you!
Thanks for tuning in. Honestly there are so many Sparks fans that had them flash bright and disappear, only to rediscover them and fall in love all over again. It must have been great seeing the Kimono era first hand, such a good time for music all round!
I've never heard this song before. These videos are really cool because when I finally get my hands on plenty of albums, I'll be armed with knowledge about them! Another great one, Paul!🎉
Great episode. I confess that with such a large body of work, I took my time in coming to appreciate Lil' Beethoven. Your videos have definitely accelerated this.
Thank you so much! I hope to upload subtitles with my videos soon too - when I started this it didn’t realise so many people who don’t speak English as their first language would love the lyrics of Sparks!
It's such a great song, and I love their performance of it on the Lil' Beethoven: Live in Stockholm video. Just watched your video for the second time, Paul. It's excellent, as usual, and your graphics are very impressive. Congratulations and thanks.
Thanks! Presenting these lyrics well is important to me and I’m glad it’s paying off. I love that feeling when I read through Sparks lyrics for the first time, on songs I already love, and only then understand what Russell is singing, so hopefully others get that buzz when it pops up onscreen..
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Hopefully I’ll be putting out episodes faster - my aim is for a week, just as soon as I’ve learned all the keyboard shortcuts and tricks to speed up the editing. It’s nice to know that you’re looking forward to these :)
I agree, it does feel like it’s calling back to the same theme. I’ve got another theory too, about it calling forward to Annette. The idea is that the screenwriting for that movie followed a unique process where Leos Carax dictated the changes Sparks need to make to create a true tragedy - intentionally dropping the wit and irony from their songwriting. Starting at the top, then taking a drop, as they sing in “I’m toast”, is the process that they follow over successive drafts of Annette, and it also includes a similar basic kind of rhyming scheme. I’ve been starting to think I need to do a meta guide to ‘a steady drip drip drip’ soon.
