jesse's fav tunz

Whitney: 'Strange Overtones'

In which I hunt for songs I like that my firstborn son might like too. At least for a while.

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When we left the hospital with our son, our firstborn, they told us to bring him to the pediatrician the very next day to make sure he was gaining enough weight. He was just slightly lighter than they wanted him to be, they said, and they wanted to be safe, and of course that’s what we wanted too. It was 2020, pre-vaccine, and only one parent was allowed at the pediatrician, and my wife was fighting off a painful bacterial infection, plus she’d just given birth, so for only the second time ever I buckled the baby in the car seat (was that tight enough? too tight?) and snapped the car seat into the car. We were alone together for the first time ever, and he scream-cried most of the way to the pediatrician. The appointment was short and stressful. On the drive home he scream-cried again and didn’t stop no matter what sounds I made or which windows were open or which songs I played.

And then “Strange Overtones” came on, and he went instantly quiet.

I wake up every morning
I hear your feet on the stairs
You're in the next apartment
I hear you singing over there

It wasn’t the original version, by David Byrne and Brian Eno, but a cover by the Chicago band Whitney. The lyrics are an uplifting celebration of how music can facilitate connection and give us strength when we need it. But the Byrne/Eno version comes at this uplift obliquely. It’s a warm ode to human connection, yes. But it also has the feel — thanks in part to the electronic touches in Eno’s arrangement, but also Byrne’s slightly robotic voice — of something made by a machine. An extremely sophisticated machine, for sure: one that sounds puzzled by the humanoid emotions it has finally worked its way to outputting.¹

The Whitney version isn’t like that at all. Like so many good covers, it switches moods almost entirely from the original. Goodbye cyborg vibes; hello smooth, easy warmth. The song is set during winter, with multiple references to how cold it is outside. In the original, you can still feel the last of that outdoor chill fading away. In the Whitney version, it’s gone. Summer’s here.

Was any of this why the song instantly stopped my son’s crying? I have no idea. But I was happy that it did. He was riding in the back, I was driving in the front, and the song was between and all around us, doing whatever it was doing for him and whatever it was doing for me:

Strange overtones in the music you are playing
We're not alone
It is strong and you are tough
But a heart is not enough

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He started gaining the weight he was supposed to gain. I got less nervous about driving with him in the car. Someone bought us a mirror we could strap to his headrest so that we could see the reflection of his reflection in the rearview mirror, and that made things less nerve-wracking.

I hunted for songs that he liked. Or, more accurately, I hunted for songs I already liked that he liked too. If something I played made him shake his head/torso, wave his arms, or stop crying, I moved it onto a playlist (“contenders”) for further testing. If something from “contenders” worked a second time, I promoted it to another playlist (“jesse’s fav tunz”). The Whitney “Strange Overtones” was on there, of course, and dozens of times brought his crying to an instant halt. It had Neil Young, The Clash, Souls of Mischief, Nina Simone, Billy Preston, The Kinks, Shirley & Company.

A good stretch from the middle.

One day, without realizing it or noting the occasion, I put on “jesse’s fav tunz” for the last time. Later, when I realized what had happened, I felt a pang, one that has since become familiar. First, you delight to see your kid latching on to something: that song, that book, that toy, that pajama shirt, that pre-sleep ritual. It’s evidence of . . . something; that they’re a person, maybe. And it’s something they want that you can give them. Then, of course, you get sick of giving it to them. You never want to hear the song, or watch the episode, or read the book again. Then, one day, they want exactly what you wanted them to want: something else! And you’re glad — they’re changing, growing — but also sad. Everything goes.

Of course, I still have the playlist. Someday — who knows when — I’ll put it on again and see what my son thinks.

Strange overtones, though they're slightly out of fashion
I'll harmonize
I see the music in your face
That your words cannot explain

He’ll have no memory of having heard it before, but maybe it will feel vaguely familiar. Maybe I’ll put it on in the car, when he’s old enough to sit in the front. Maybe it’ll do something for him, and maybe he’ll tell me about it. Or maybe he — maybe both of us — will just go quiet. ✹

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Also:

• Reader’s of Tuesday’s essay —

  Marianela D'Aprile
  on Songs: Ohia — have been using the comments section to share songs that they associate with breakups. It’s an example of something I hoped might happen: Tracks becoming a gathering place for sharing how music runs through our lives.

• So: Readers who are parents: what are songs that you associate with your kids’ earliest days?

• Here’s the Byrne/Eno version:
  

On deck:

• The one and only Michael Agger on The Cure.

• The one and only T.M. Brown on Nina Simone.

• And more …

And remember:

• Please send this piece / project will people you think will like it. It helps!

1. One of my best friends used to float the theory that the song’s narrator is actually an electronic instrument (a synthesizer, specifically). I’m pretty sure that reading doesn’t hold up line-by-line, but it’s a perfect description of how the song sounds.