It Took Seconds

Three minutes and forty-nine seconds: I’m not sure I enjoy Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound stuff all that much - I know it’s meant to be blocky, these huge slabs and banks of sound pushing down on the sobbing singer, but it’s just a bit too static for me. Except on the Christmas album, but there he’s applying the method to songs ten, fifteen, twenty years old which seems to suit it better? I dunno, I spent a summer listening to a Spector Greatest Hits but never got further into the fandom than that.

On “I Wish I Never Saw The Sunshine” though the whole song is about wanting a lack of dynamics in life, wishing the good times were erased so the bad ones wouldn’t seem so bad. “Every single day seems just like the day before”, Ronnie Spector sings, and it justifies the orchestral monoliths Spector’s surrounded The Ronettes with. It’s as motionless as anything else he did, but there’s a grey beauty to it too.

I forgot yesterday’s reply box. What would your 3’49” track be?