Slippery People

Here’s a song I like from Speaking in Tongues: Here’s a live version that I love, from Stop Making Sense, though the fast tempo is a bit anxiety-producing: And here’s my favorite version, which my kids are also completely obsessed with, from David Byrne’s American Utopia:

Songs vs Grooves

Anne Danielsen’s book Presence and Pleasure: The Funk Grooves of James Brown and Parliament is one of my favorite works of musicology. In the book, Danielsen distinguishes between songs and grooves. “Yesterday” by the Beatles is a song. “The Payback” by James Brown is a groove. In structural terms, a groove is a small musical …