{"id":1279,"date":"2016-05-20T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T08:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1279"},"modified":"2016-05-17T11:45:56","modified_gmt":"2016-05-17T10:45:56","slug":"song-of-the-week-hang-on-to-your-ego-by-frank-black","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=1279","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;Hang On To Your Ego&#8221; by Frank Black"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n<p>This is &#8220;Hang On To Your Ego&#8221; by Frank Black:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tJ2qi9KfEZ8\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Beach Boys album <em>Pet Sounds<\/em> was released sixty years ago this week.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure there&#8217;s anything to say about that particular masterpiece that hasn&#8217;t been said already by somebody who&#8217;s put more thought into it than I have.\u00a0 When I moved to Germany for six months in 1998, <em>Pet Sounds <\/em>was one of ten CDs I took with me, and probably the one that got the most rotation on my Discman.\u00a0 Anyway, &#8220;Hang On To Your Ego&#8221; is an alternate version of &#8220;I Know There&#8217;s an Answer&#8221; and Frank Black covered it on his debut solo album in 1993. It&#8217;s entirely plausible that I first heard this version.\u00a0 Brian Wilson&#8217;s songwriting influence can be heard all over the Black Francis-Frank Black catalog, and I love listening to some of his songs (for example, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=t2zb_iZC6nI\" target=\"_blank\">Headache<\/a>&#8221; or even a less obvious one like &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=3hSrR7v8_PI\" target=\"_blank\">Motorway to Roswell<\/a>&#8220;) through a Beach Boys filter.\u00a0 Black Francis\/Frank Black\/Charles Thompson III is one of my favorite songwriters, and it&#8217;s not only interesting to hear the way he wears his influences on his original compositions, but also to hear how he reworks something by a great songwriter. One thing I love about this version of &#8220;Hang On To Your Ego&#8221; is the way he&#8217;s gone full-on New Order with the big danceable drum beat and burbling synth, but still with Joey Santiago&#8217;s big big big Pixie chords.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Hang%20On%20To%20Your%20Ego%22%20by%20Frank%20Black\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is &#8220;Hang On To Your Ego&#8221; by Frank Black: The Beach Boys album Pet Sounds was released sixty years ago this week.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not sure there&#8217;s anything to say about [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Hang%20On%20To%20Your%20Ego%22%20by%20Frank%20Black\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1279"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1280,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1279\/revisions\/1280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}