The Red Circle

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that I’m in the process of providing my Top Ten Songs of the Decade within my SOTD tweets. Yes, yes, I know there are tons of these types of lists out there, but mine’s better then all of the others. Why? Duh, because it’s mine. That’s why.

Top Ten of the Decade – #7

Song: Queens of the Stone Age – “I Think I Lost My Headache”

Year: 2000

Link: ♫ http://twt.fm/358410

About: Ok, I struggled A LOT with this choice. First off, I had to sit and decide if I wanted to choose a song from QOTSA or Them Crooked Vultures. Seriously, you don’t understand how tough it is to make that decision. The songwriting between the two bands is unlike any other. Josh Homme being the principal songwriter in both has an uncanny knack for creating music that is obscene, brilliant, vulgar, and intelligent. I have a hard time putting how good of a songwriter he actually is into words. Secondly, once I decided to choose a QOTSA song (I’m saving my tasty TCV songs for future SOTD’s) I had to actually… ya know… chose a fucking QOTSA song! I decided to go with “I Think I Lost My Headache” because of what the band brings to the table. First off, I have a soft spot for brass sections, and secondly, I have an even softer spot for awkward time signatures. Now, sadly I was only able to provide a link to a live version of the band performing in a studio, which deviates a little from the original album cut, however you’ll still get the overall feel of what I’m talking about. For the album version, the band get into the song, and play the outro with a 6/8 for two measures, ending the third measure with a 3/4 (at least I think that’s how to interpret it). The brass section follows. While the band fades out, the horns continue playing the melody until they fluster about in crazy jazz orgy of sounds. This then ties in to the irony of the song being titled “I Think I Lost My Headache“, in which case one might actually get a headache after listening to this. But before we even get to the amazing outro, the song plays around with heavy verses and off beat choruses with tons of reverb and fun triplets. It’s all over the place, yet it makes total sense.

With the live version that I’ve provided, there is sadly no brass section. The band makes up for this by turning the outro into a swing section, which ends up working out very well. Anyway, I chose this song, not because of its technicality, but its originality. The 2000′s were lucky to have a band like QOTSA. Without them, we would have been stuck listening to Fall Out Boy. Meh.

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