Welcome to Shared Name/Shared Love. In each edition of this series, I will highlight two identically-named, but otherwise different, songs – both of which I happen to like very much. To make things more competitive/interesting, you can vote for the one you like best in the poll below – after you read my waffle, of course.
First up:
| Slowdive – ‘Machine Gun’ from: Souvlaki [1993]  |
Portishead – ‘Machine Gun’ from: Third [2008]  |
Slowdive were part of the whole British “shoegaze” thing around the late-80s/early-90s, along with My Bloody Valentine and Ride. I missed this scene altogether at the time, as I was deep into my Guns N’ Roses phase. I wouldn’t get into My Bloody Valentine until 2002 or thereabouts. I loved their stuff, but it didn’t really spur me on to delving into the works of their contemporaries. My friend Eoin got Ride’s Nowhere and lent it to me. Yes, it was good, but it was no Loveless. It seemed MBV were going to be my one and only foray into the scene.
In the summer of 2008, I moved from Nagasaki to Hiroshima. The first musical ally I made there was Mr Jeremy Logue. During my time there, we had many sessions, performed live a few times and talked a LOT about music. In one of those numerous conversations, shoegaze was discussed. I was big into MBV and had never listened to Slowdive. He was the opposite, or thereabouts. Or maybe he had listened to MBV and didn’t like them that much. Or maybe he loved them. The main thing was he was (or had been) really into Slowdive – the Souvlaki album in particular. So I decided to give it a listen.
The album’s first song, ‘Alison’, was mentioned as the highlight in a couple of reviews I’d read. I was decidedly underwhelmed. Perhaps I was (unfairly) expecting to be bowled over ‘Only Shallow’-style. If that was the case, ‘Alison’ was destined to fail for me. Perhaps it was a reversal of expectations that then allowed me to be utterly blown away by ‘Machine Gun’. Or perhaps it’s just because it’s a fucking awesome track:
That massive, wide open sound at the start. Layers of Rachel Goswell’s vocals washing over me like in broad strokes across a grey sky. Or some other epic-sounding metaphor. And you couldn’t make out what she was singing, but it didn’t matter at all because it was just gorgeous. And then it changes. Quite radically, actually, but without diverging too much. An acoustic (?) guitar comes chugging in, matching the pulsating bass. Neil Halstead comes in, singing only slightly more comprehensible lyrics, then there’s this harmonious-but-still-jarring chord change, as he sings, “it’s all I need, yeah.” Then the wide open sound returns, with an overdriven electric guitar, later rejoined by Goswell’s multiple vocals.
The two parts go back and forth once more. Both are refrains/choruses of sorts. Each contribute something very different, but I can’t imagine the song being without either. They come together majestically. Transcendent.
Portishead, I was aware of more-or-less from the start, though I kept a bit of distance. I remember Dummy winning the Mercury Prize. I didn’t get the album then, though the song ‘Glory Box’ did manage to stick with me for a long time. I didn’t pay any attention when their second album came out, so, when they went on this long hiatus, nothing really changed as far as I was concerned. Around 2004, I was given a Portishead mix-CD which contained selections from the first two albums. I gave it a few listens. I liked it, too, though it all seemed quite same-y. I definitely wasn’t able to distinguish which songs were from which album – although, in fairness, the same could be said for songs from many bands’ first two albums.
Then, all of a sudden, they were back. Third came out in the spring of 2008, preceded by this beast:
If ‘Machine Gun’ had been on that mix-CD, I definitely would have spotted its strange origin. Beth Gibbons’s voice had gone from sultry – even jazzy to an extent- to …terrified(?) and verging operatic. If that wasn’t change enough, the music she was singing over was violently different. There was no scratchy vinyl-sounding drums; no strings; no brass; no “band”. In their place were this harsh, stuttering, crushing, electronic beats, pounding relentlessly. The percussion carries, as Gibbons tries to cling on.
When her vocal ends, the sound changes abruptly. Not the structure of the beat – but the sounds themselves. Like changing the font of a piece of text. The content is the exactly same, but so many other things change. And then they switch it again. And again. And that’s when the synths come in, playing us out like the outro music of some Blade Runner-esque sci-fi film. And then it ends.
The whole experience was – and remains – compelling. It’s a track built on tension. And it works. It also works well the title. More obviously than Slowdive’s does.
As for the tracks themselves, I’m not sure if I could choose between the two [which is funny, because I'm asking you to...]. They have very different places in my consciousness. The shoegazers’ might just have the edge. Listening to the two back to back, its sheer, expansive beauty sings to me more than the Portishead track’s taut claustrophobia. But that might just be because it’s late and I’m sleepy. It could be the other way come morning…
Honourable Mentions:
Lionel Richie’s old band Commodores released their first album in 1974. It was called Machine Gun and so was its instrumental first track (and single). It was first brought to my attention in the late 1990s, when it was used in Paul Thomas Anderson’s fantastic Boogie Nights - appropriately in a dance sequence. Fantastic tune indeed.
Jimi Hendrix also had a track called ‘Machine Gun’. It was first brought to my attention today, when I did an online search for other songs also named ‘Machine Gun’. Completely off my radar as I’m not a Hendrix fan. Not that I don’t like him, I’ve just never really listened to him. Kind of how I wouldn’t be a Pink Floyd or Smiths fan – just haven’t really given them a good listen. Yet. Anyway, I just listened to the Hendrix track. It seems quite epic. Perhaps I should give the man more of a chance.
Anyway, I’m leaving these other guns off the table for now. The choice is between the first two. Take your pick:
