Refreshingly difficult to classify..
The Scissor Sisters have been a difficult band to classify in terms of style or genre; their previous single was a club-style cover of the Pink Floyd song ‘Comfortably Numb’ whereas ‘Take Your Mama’ seems to be leaning in a more indie direction. Despite listening to this song repeatedly, I still have little idea of what it’s about. I have made a compromise with my mind to leave it as one of those happily lighthearted songs that it isn’t necessary to understand to enjoy.
‘Take Your Mama’ starts with a simple descending acoustic-esque chord sequence before the unorthodox percussive sounds give way to the snare drum and the rest of the band. Before the voice enters, the most noticeable thing about the music is the percussion; it’s not your standard eight-beat. The use of a combination of eighth and sixteenth beats on the hi-hat makes for interesting drums. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were complicated, just interesting to listen to.
Then the voice enters. After just one line of voice two words planted themselves firmly in my head and refused to let go. I tried to ignore these words and just listen to the song. Further listening merely strengthened their hold on my mind. What are these two words? Well, they’re more of a name: ‘Elton’ and ‘John’. There’s something about his voice that just screams ‘Elton John!’ at me. It’s not a bad thing, believe me. At 1.28 the falsetto chorus section starts and Mr. John disappears for while; until verse two anyway. The structure is fairly standard, an introduction, a verse, a chorus, another verse, another chorus.
Here we have the instrumental. This takes the form of your standard rock-style guitar solo over a clunky, jazzy piano solo. It is refreshing to see some interesting piano in modern indie music and I personally would have preferred the piano to take prominence over the guitar. Still, it’s a nice instrumental, almost ending before it’s begun. A well judge instrumental is infinitely better than too few ideas spread over too much time. This jazz piano continues under a final chorus before the song concludes quickly and properly, no drawn out wind-down here.
The b-side further confuses my classification of Scissor Sisters. ‘The Backwoods Discoteque PT. II’ starts with a disjointed synthesized bass waiting for it’s electro-funk partner to join him (or her). These two basslines are audible throughout the song along with other synth-sounding instruments and at least two layers of voices. The percussion sounds almost wary and reluctant to start, a little unsure of itself. It soon sounds right and re-uses the ‘mixed timing on the hi-hat’ trick from ‘Take Your Mama’.
This song has nothing more than the slightest hint of Elton John, I didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. The chorus starts after a brief pause in the percussion and consists of a polyphonic vocal texture which is explored in more depth later in the song. The less prominent voice is subjected to some effect because of which it seems to just become another layer of synth-sounding background. The final minute of the song explores these textures some more, with a slow, wailing guitar solo just audible under the electronic sounds. Despite the clash of styles, the b-side doesn’t disappoint.
The Scissor Sister seem to be just about the right amalgamation of styles to seem fresh and interesting and they manage to do this without being unlistenable. To me, the Scissor Sisters fall into a similar category as Electric 6 for their attitude and lyrical content and into no predefined category for their musical experimentation. A single thoroughly enjoyed.