hardlyknower.net

A cautionary tale against commercialism

In the fall of 2013, George Ezra was looking for a hit.

This was a man who had always wanted to be “a pop star,” in his own words. Almost like a calling. Now, we at hardlyknower.net have nothing against pop stars, who have created much worthwhile – and even transcendent – music. They’re also a necessary part of the musical ecosystem – removing pop stars from music would be like removing snapping turtles from all ponds across the natural range of snapping turtles. It would throw off the entire delicate balance nature has created and throw reality into chaos.

But like Chelydra serpentina, pop stars also have a dark side-truth; in the same way that snapping turtles snap fingers off like a particularly hungry child biting into a Snickers bar, pop stars concede.

Yes, “concede.” They give ground on artistic issues.¹ The amount of money at stake in the professional, weapons-grade music industrial complex makes every single note a matter of life and death; the stakeholders will go to bat to protect their investments, make them as safe a bet as their weird science will allow – and artists increasingly have less and less power in these financially violent ecosystems.

But the example of concession we bring to you today borders on sacrificial . . . inhuman, even. A loss to the arts that can never be recovered. A loss which will be felt for generations.

You see, in the drab October of England in 2013, George Ezra had the song “Budapest.” You have heard this song. You have heard it dozens of times at least. And if you’ve ever heard it, you know it’s a hit song. It has everything. Basically every melody sounds like a chorus – it consists entirely of hooks. Strong hooks. Hooks that sink into the listener’s very marrow and drag them into the world of an apparently grotesquely rich man who’ll give up everything he has – a golden grand piano, a beautiful castillo,² even a hidden-away treasure chest – just to win the heart of one (presumably) female human.

But in the song’s meteoric success, a tragedy occurred. In the same way that George’s character gives up riches for love . . . George himself gave up artistic nirvana for riches. The jaw harp solo in “Budapest” was undoubtedly a marvel on the scale of Notre Dame’s construction, the elegance of the Eiffel Tower – hell, possibly even as beautiful as a particularly beautiful castillo.

Your probably want me to tell you what the great tragic concession is, and I will, but let me remind you: October of 2013 is the month George Ezra knows he has a hit in his back pocket. You put that song on the radio, all hell will break loose (sales-wise). The thing is, though, our George had fun making this song. He recorded the intro, the verse, the soaring chorus, the backing guitars – but when it came time for the instrumental break, he had a spark of true genius.

You know the sound an arrow makes when it hits a tree in Looney Tunes? That boioioioingggg sound? Yeah. That was almost in “Budapest.”

“We’ll use a jaw harp, gents,” I imagine him jauntily saying. “It’ll tie the whole thing together. Plus, all this talk of rich people makes me want to loosen up a little. Who’s up for a pint after we get this jaw part done?”³

Yes, a jaw harp. The singer would have sung, Oh for you – hoooo, you – hooo, I’d leave it all,” and the vocals would drop out, and you’d hear that absolutely heavenly boioioioioingggg. Then we would have gone straight back into the last verse like nothing had happened. It would have been one of the most incredible misdirections not just in pop music history, but all the way back to J.S. Bach. There would have been nothing like it.

But then something horrible happened: George Ezra “came to his senses,” as someone less jaunty would put it. The story gets told a couple different ways: either someone from Columbia Records came in and said, “Hey, what’s up with that jaw harp?” or Ezra himself decided it sounded too much like a cartoon arrow.

They cut the harp and switched over to a distorted electric guitar playing the background melody.

Now, we at hke.n⁴ have no problems with distorted electric guitar. No problems at all. But if it’s a choice between that and a jaw harp, it’s situation-dependent.

And the situation here is that one of the biggest pop songs of the entire 2010’s could have had the goofiest instrument choice possible. In a sea of synths and agreeable soft drumming, we could have had a song punctuated by a true, mirth-filled joy – the joy of an out-of-place jaw harp.

The issue here, we posit, is that the amount of money to be made from “Budapest” was its undoing. If this were just George Ezra in a basement somewhere, the version with the jaw harp would exist. Why? Because it really wouldn’t matter that much. No – that’s not true – it would matter immensely. Because music always matters. Especially as brilliant of a song as “Budapest” truly is.⁵

. . . But no one would have made money off of it. And maybe, maybe the jaw harp would have lowered the overall GDP⁶ of the song as a product. Maybe some people would have gotten through the flawless intro, soulful ooo’s of George promising, “I’d leave it all” if you say you want him, the chorus which passionately celebrates change of any kind, then at one minute and 52 seconds, hears an uncommon instrument and says, “I don’t like this song, because it has an uncommon instrument in it.”

That, we posit, is not the reason “Budapest” has no jaw harp.

The money is the reason “Budapest” has no jaw harp.

God help us if we don’t learn from this story.⁷

1. This obviously isn’t all pop stars. Many of them are staunch on their creative instincts. But these, we posit, are the outliers. ↩︎
2. hardlyknower.net has never even seen a castillo in the flesh, nor spoken to anyone who’s been inside of one. That should give you an idea of how loftily the excesses of this character rise. ↩︎
3. Again, this is all imaginary. Ezra really isn’t the jauntiest guy in the world, I gather. Friendly, but jaunty? That might be pushing it. I’d say he’s closer to gregarious. ↩︎
4. We’re trying to find a way to abbreviate the name. Bear with us as we experiment. ↩︎
5. And it is. It’s a pop song, and many will try to deride it for that; but it’s a beautiful melody set to a passionate instrumental with a real groove – and it has something to say. If that’s not a good song, no pop song is good. And that mentality is bullshit. ↩︎
6. So to speak. ↩︎
7. To any musicians reading: Please consider this an open invitation to use jaw harp in your songs. And please, please send them to whatsup@hardlyknower.net if you please Thank you. ↩︎