Brian Eno - King’s Lead Hat
When I chose “King’s Lead Hat” as the inaugural track for Friends Sharing Music, the natural question I asked myself is Where do I begin?. Indeed, the track and I have a storied history. I first heard it on a friend’s mix for another friend, and I was instantly drawn into it. It galvanized my appreciation for Brian Eno, making Before and After Science a favorite album of mine.
The obvious appeal is the unbridled energy behind it, both musically and vocally. It begins by building inertia, the rhythm and percussion developing a pronounced groove until the frenetic piano kicks in. After reaching full speed, Eno enters with one of his most memorable vocal performances. It’s an exercise in variety for Eno: sometimes he seems to be struggling to keep up with the song’s pace, and at other times, sometimes he seems to be challenging the listener to keep up (“it will come, it will come, it will surely come”). It’s a almost gamelike the way Eno plays with the pace of the song, which is certainly not surprising given that the lyrics themselves essentially consist of a stream of wordplay (“the weapon’s ready (ready Freddy)”).
The result is an ideal pop song (catchy, upbeat) albeit one infused with classic Eno style, and as such, this track has been a staple of my mixes ever since I first heard it. In fact, I can safely say that if you are my friend and you’ve spent time with me in a situation involving music (for instance, a car ride), then you’ve probably heard this track. When I think about what makes this track so infectious, aside from the reasons I attempted to articulate above, I like to think that camaraderie is built into the track. Indeed, trivia buffs will tell you that the track’s title is anagram of “Talking Heads” and that the song itself was Eno’s homage to friends in that band.
Factoring all these elements together—the track’s transmission to me from a friend and its status as a mixtape favorite of mine, the sonic awesomeness of the performance, the amity in the song’s own DNA—and it’s clear why Kate and I immediately chose it when it came to the question of where do we begin on this blog.
As a final remark, this track handily represents a lot of the music you can expect to hear in my posts. If pressed for genres, you could call me your post-punk/new wave/Smiths guy, though my tastes are generally broad and encompass music from every decade.
This is the inaugural post from me and Kate’s freshly launched music tumblr. Check us out at http://friendssharingmusic.tumblr.com/.
