MetaChat - "Haloes" by The Tubes

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21 April 2007

"Haloes" by The Tubes has got to be one of the sunniest, most happy-making songs I've ever come across. It's like walking down a bustling urban street lined with trees on the 1st day of spring. I swear it could break me out of a coma. But of course, there is a problem...→[More:]The song has a sinister-sounding bridge full of wah-wah guitar and panicked drum breaks. That's fine the first time it appears in the song. It's a bridge, after all, and it takes you from the 2nd verse into the 3rd, keeping the song from being simplistic and repetitive. And its sinister wail only underscores the sunny happiness of the 3rd verse when it begins, taking the song to even greater heights of joy.

But then, after the third verse and its dramatic crescendo/fanfare, the bridge takes over and becomes the song, grinding into your eardrum until the slow fade to black that ends the song in an annoying spiral of electric whine.

I wish some MeFite with audio mastering skills would come along and rearrange this song for me so it didn't end in 80 seconds of "evil banker ties the maiden to the train tracks."

But then, fucking with The Tubes is pretty much unmentionable.

post by: scarabic at: 21:17 | 6 comments

Ah, the 'electric whine'... way back in the 1970s, I did various quick-and-clean-enough-for-AM-radio editing jobs on songs, including turning the instrumental intro and bridge of Boz Scaggs' "Lowdown" into a five-minute instrumental musical bed for my talk jock radio boss to play behind his more tightly-written monologues. But my grandest achievement of the razor-blade editing era was surgically removing the 'whiny electric guitar solo' from the middle of the album length version of Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street" so I didn't have to play the three-minute-twenty-second "Adult Contemporary Radio" version on my weekend DJ duties in Visalia, CA.

That said, I have listened to the song in question and, while I am not above fucking with The Tubes in principle, I disagree with the need to do anything to it. What is a Tubes song without some seriously self-evident dissonant elements? (Correct answer: The Tubes in the '80s) Of course, I didn't feel "Baker Street" needed editing either. An early fade would be easy peasy using Audacity, maybe even some internal cuts, just to prove to myself I can do it. I don't know... I'll talk to ya later...

posted by wendell 21 April | 22:26

I love songs that give you that "all is right with the world" vibe... I had a few of them playing on my MP3 player while I roamed around downtown today, on a GORGEOUS day. Music like that makes life worth living.

This particular song is not to my taste, but I know the vibe you're talking about. It's wonderful.

posted by BoringPostcards 21 April | 22:29

This song always makes me happy like a spring day. Butter tarts cure all.

posted by arse_hat 22 April | 00:01

Sunshine makes me happy every time I hear it.

posted by rhapsodie 22 April | 00:49

I actually prefer "Up From The Deep", myself, but to each their own. The two are sort of intertwined in my mind, since they sorta run together on the album. I can see what you're getting at, but what you propose is madness. MADNESS, I tell you!

posted by bmarkey 22 April | 01:52

Dancing in the Moonlight and You're So True always make me happy.

posted by LoriFLA 22 April | 09:11

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