Overreacting (Demo Version)
TV en FRANÇAIS, The Demos 📺🇫🇷
We’re over the hump! It’s downhill from here, a race to the finish 🏁 This blog is now a runaway freight train with no breaks, rocket boosters strapped to the caboose about to ignite, two conductors fist-fighting for control of the throttle and the bottle of rum 🤜💥🤛 No but seriously, guys, today we bring you song six from TV en Français, which means — using the mathematical law that requires perfect albums to have just ten songs — a mere four remain. Since we can not change that fact, nor would want to, we are left to glory in it. And so:
KEITH: Maybe once on every album, we somehow stumble upon a song that feels like an outlier, in the best way. It’s not simply that the song is a weirdo left turn or a willful genre experiment — it almost feels like it hints at a different path we could have taken as a band. Maybe the king of this type of song in our catalogue is “Lethal Enforcer.” Brain Thrust Mastery is an album full of attempts to shake off the shackles of the crowded “angular dance rock” genre, but even amongst that beautiful crop of musical leg-stretches, “Lethal” felt like a planted flag. Boy, did we want that to be a single, if only so that it could go to number one and transfigure us into a group whose major output was mid-tempo synth rock epics (“That’s What Counts” and the b-side “New Me” could have rounded out the tripod that supported this new endeavor).
But then there are songs that exist purely as one-offs, and they’re often among my proudest moments of their respective records. “Foreign Kicks” is a high point of Barbara, for me. “Hold On,” from Helter Seltzer, is a berserk little number that I wish we could figure out how to translate live. “You Failed” and “KIT” are twin peaks of Megaplex.
On TV en Français, the song that delights and surprises me in equal measure is “Overreacting.” The lead guitar arpeggio doesn’t really make sense. That left turn into the disco chorus shouldn’t work. The congas are a berserk percussionist's fever dream. I can’t tell which part of the chorus — the druidic chanting or the keening wails — is the “hook.” What is the bridge, even? But, still, the song is the musical equivalent of the duckbilled platypus: a demonic mutant that on paper should be erased with a flamethrower but in practice is a beautiful amalgamation of all of the best parts of the animal kingdom.
Am I overselling the oddity of the song? Chris, tell me — am I OVERREACTING?!
CHRIS: You’re spot on, Keith. “Overreacting” is indeed a fuck-billed diplodocus of a tune, a song that would break the brain of any musicologist tasked with analyzing it, break the will of any guitarist asked to learn it, and break the resistance of any listener trudging through TV en Français, shaking their head, on the verge of proclaiming it a tired, predictable effort from “yesterday’s buzz band” (ouch!). That’s right, let us not forget that 2014 was part of an older era, when a person might conceivably listen to the first six tracks of an album before deciding whether to turn it off. Now, of course, artists can expect 40 seconds, skip to the next track, fifteen more seconds, DONE unless we have hooked you. And so, the role “Overreacting” had on TVeF may no longer exist.
Okay, perhaps I’m the one overreacting. I actually think there’s probably more room for weird shit like this than ever before. Let’s pack the next disc with its kin!
This is a strong demo, but I do like how the chorus top-line developed for the final version — the demo’s has a straighter cadence that’s not as much of a big croon. And, of course, the bass player on the studio cut, WHOEVER THAT WAS, worked up an admirable sweat.
It’s not exactly apropos to the demo, but I have a hard time talking about “Overreacting” without getting into the video we shot with Mr. Charlie Gibson for TV en Français: Sous la Mer’s version of the song. Why didn’t our plan to take over the world’s karaoke catalogs pan out? Might it still? Has even one person ever used this video to help them sing along to the song?
KEITH: What a shoot! What a guy! If any karaoke video should have rocketed a song to worldwide success (in bars, with no vocal track) it was that one. I guess part of the problem might be that karaoke bars don’t seem to be in the practice of deploying artist-generated video accompaniment as part of their business model? It seems like they generally just go with the pat, anonymous videography provided by the karaoke parent company. Probably, those videos are all made by the niece or nephew of the CEO, their brother’s dumb kid who just got out of film school and has big ideas for short narratives involving a couple walking through a cherry blossom garden, or a couple gazing out onto a placid seaside, or a couple dining on a dangerously over-candlelit balcony. So yeah, maybe we were just trying to stick our foot in a door that’s been permanently shut with the thick glue of nepotism.
I’d suggest that the song itself — great video or no — should be prime for karaoke success. It’s got a lilting, pleasantly-lazy top line for the lead vocalist, and the rest of the gang can get involved as well, hoisting their pints of Kirin Light and chanting along like a bunch of soccer hooligans. But, no, it’s always just After Hours by We Are Scientists followed by like three Red Album-era Weezer songs on the karaoke menu. What a crock of shit.
Anyway, let’s talk about that vigorous bass-line, as recorded on the final version. What a monstrous rhythm section it is that appears on this chunk of TV En Français! What do you remember about arranging that little bit? Whose freaky idea was it to add the bongos? What depraved criminal mind conjured that perfect bit of icing on the cake? That perfect cherry on top of the cake? That perfect bride and groom statuary atop the cake?
CHRIS: More like two beautiful cheetahs fucking on top of the cake, amirite? But yeah so look, all I know is that I worked my b#tt off getting that bass line just right — many, many hours of prep — whereas Andy Burrows just sat down and one-taked the bongos. The difference? I’m a thinker, a stewer; I’m a ruminator; I’m looking at all the angles. Andy? He’s a gut-man, and a doer. He’s sitting down — click RECORD, producer man! — he’s nailing the performance, he’s off to the pub. He’s down the pub by 2. Bag o’ crisps and a lager, the latter in a cold sweat cuz it can tell its about to go missing. And sure, he’s a much better musician than I. That’s an important part of his approach.
Yeah, I don’t know exactly what it is that makes “Overreacting” so special — the crooning, the bass line, the bongos, what cheetahs do when they hear it — but it truly is one hell of a song. Best “track 6” on any album ever? 🤔 Come at me in the comments…
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Glimpses of our world during the TV en Français era…
TV en Français: Deluxe (10th Anniversary Edition) is out June 28th. To preorder the double-vinyl, the zine, the keychain, the stuff — you can click.
Overreacting has always strongly reminded me of the theme from Charlie’s Angels which I’ve found distracting enough to have never really paid attention to the rhythm section before but I have listened with new ears tonight and it is, indeed, a thing of beauty. You can definitely hear the difference it makes between the demo and the final version.
With regard to karaoke videos, you are spot on that your video is far superior to anything currently accompanying karaoke. I once watched my children sing along to Ed Sheeran (mercifully, I forget which track) and the video was of a couple furniture shopping - possibly in DFS.
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