“The List” is an occasional series on TNF highlighting our favorite things about…anything. This time, our fantastic writer Samuel Ronen published this article on 13 of his favorite Taking Back Sunday songs. Check it out after the jump, as we dive deep into the storied band’s lengthy history.
Why do people like Taking Back Sunday?
A member of the mall-friendly whatever-scene rush of the early 2000’s, Taking Back Sunday had dozens upon dozens of peers with a similar sound, a similar fashion, and some were even on the same label. Yet, after the height of the genre passed, Finch, The Used ,My Chemical Romance, Thursday, and even Thrice all fell to the side; breakups, label issues, poor sales, creative differences (or indifference). Some of them hit higher highs than Taking Back Sunday; several, really. Some have bounced back, some are already on the reunion circuit, and even more have popped up as solo acts and side-projects. Thrice and Thursday commanded more critical respect, My Chemical Romance invaded arenas, The Used had a stronger hold on the Warped crowd-and they are all dead or dead on the inside.
But not Taking Back Sunday. Where bands like Thrice and Thursday were always more indebted to the furious creativity of Fugazi or Sonic Youth, and a band like My Chemical Romance looked to glam rock’s heyday (Bowie, T.Rex, Queen) to lift up the genre to stadium status, we find Taking Back Sunday traveling quietly down a side road.
See, looking past the glam rock revivalism and the dawn of artistic post-hardcore, we can find the true spiritual predecessors of Taking Back Sunday: Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Cheap Trick. Weezer. Devoid of art, with their penchant for a meat-and-potatoes radio rock sound the way it used to be made, the band has an ability to mine the same sonic ground with slight tweaks and moderate growth in a way that is both accessible and subtle. There is a reliability to a band like Taking Back Sunday, to not blaze bravely ahead but sidestep around where they are, and it’s a lot more difficult than it seems. Nobody will ever accuse Taking Back Sunday of changing the way they think about music, but anyone who would use that against them is missing the point entirely.
They’re craftsmen, with a love for the kind of music they make and the philosophy they represent. They make limber songs with energetic choruses and snaking verses. They play short and sweet solos, tour often, and do not attempt to tell people how to live their lives or what the meaning of life is: They’re road warriors, set on playing fun tunes and slowly nudging along their path to the next stop. They’re emo’s heartland rockers, guided by Adam Lazzara’s old timey preacher shtick and universal themes. And this is a list of my favorite songs by them, arranged in the most objective order I could manage – not according to my personal enjoyment, per se, but by their importance to the band’s career. Enjoy. Stay off drugs.
13. Bike Scene (Tell All Your Friends, 2002)
You’ve got this silly way of keeping me on the edge of my seat…is a ridiculous line. Singer Adam Lazarra knows it, you know it, I know it. So why is this song on this list, every setlist they have, and considered a choice cut off of their first album? It’s a little bit of everything. The way that first riff hammers in before you’ve caught your breath from the anthemics of “You Know How I Do”; the gentle lead guitar wrapping its way around those chunky power chords. The famous vocal back-and-forth is strong here, and more of a dominant force than on some other tracks, with Nolan and Lazzara climbing over each other vocally at times in a desperate fit. Respect to Michelle Nolan for her airy cameo at the bridge- this is one of the Tell All Your Friends songs that really points to the Nolans’ work in Straylight Run.
12. Carpathia (New Again, 2009)
Let’s get this out of the way; there were only a handful of songs that could be enjoyed without “guilty pleasure” status on 2009’s New Again. Most fans know it, the band knows it, and I suspect even the album’s apologists know it. That being said, former bassist Matt Rubano rarely shined as bright as he did on this track. An entrenched, heavily distorted bassline leads the vocals along tauntingly towards a classic barnstorming chorus. They even manage to slip in some great lines here and there: “I was a tower and you were an airplane / We happened before we knew what was happening.” Dark imagery to include in a song that’s just about a breakup, but it’s light-years beyond a line like “you’ve got this silly way of keeping me on the edge of my seat”. This is the precursor to the improved lyrics on their self-titled album, and sees the band trying to cope with worldwide fame and maturity all at once.
11. My Blue Heaven (Louder Now, 2006)
So your band has just released a major-label debut. You’re touring with Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, and being invited to Al Gore’s “Live Earth” benefit. How does a band forged in sweaty emo clubs transfer its energy over to arenas? Well, this is a pretty good idea. While a track like “Spin” or “What’s It Feel Like To Be A Ghost” might seem like crowd-pleasers, “My Blue Heaven” sports the most dynamic singalong on the album. This is as close to U2-style stadium anthem as they will ever get, and you can feel it in the urgent race of the crescendo, rushing into a final chorus to put all others to shame. This is a more conventional power ballad than the band was used to, and it shows a willingness to dip into classic rock for inspiration after two albums of hardcore-inflected emo; watch it turn up again, further down the list.
10. Great Romances of the 20th Century (Tell All Your Friends, 2002)
So which one is he going to talk about, the widespread demo or the studio recording? Why not zoidber-erm, both? This is the best precursor to the sleek, propulsive sound of “Makedamnsure”, a straight-ahead emo-pop single that should have eaten up modern rock radio in 2002. This was a year when super-polished pop punk and mallcore was huge, right? “Great Romances of the 20th Century” is much more accessible than “Cute Without the E”, and it has a lot more heart than any Simple Plan song. If the polish on the official version bugs you, there’s a grimier demo floating around on the internet that features the same structure just about, minus the gloppy synth strings.
9. Little Devotional + Slowdance on the Inside (Where You Want To Be, 2004)
A lot has been said of Taking Back Sunday’s ability to produce a 1-2 knockout punch at the end of each album, in spite of the quality of the songs that precede them. “Little Devotional” stands out as one of the best of them all, a lead riff and chorus straining for the stratosphere. All those “emo-Bon Jovi” snips make sense here, with Adam Lazzara’s slinking verses. The riff, courtesy of former axeman Fred Mascherino, is definitive enough that Fred recycled it for his band, Terrible Things in 2010’s “Lullaby”. Speaking of recycling, did you know that the bulk of the song structure for “Slowdance on the Inside” came from Mr. John Nolan? You do now. A swirling pomp anthem for that douche / bitch in high school that broke your heart, “Slowdance” picks up on the fading chords of “Little Devotional” to cap off a top heavy album and bring it back around. Tonight won’t make a difference.
8. Error Operator + I’ll Let You Live (Louder Now, 2006)
So we’ve already looked at the center-piece of Louder Now, with “My Blue Heaven”. We all know that Makedamnsure is going to be here, closer to the #1 slot. But the indoctrinated know that some of the best thrills of the album come towards the end. Taking Back Sunday kept the great finales coming with the winning combo of “Error Operator” and “I’ll Let You Live”. These two songs show where the band might have gone had Fred Mascherino stuck around, with their chunky, chaotic soundscapes and garage rock guitars. Before “Carpathia”, Matt Rubano’s claim to fame was the static bassline that rollicks through “Error Operator”, steamrolling over the galloping snare hits. But if Matt gets the gold star for “Error”, Fred Mascherino dominates the lean’n’mean riffage on “I’ll Let You Live”, creating a chopping groove that circles down the drain and detonates the rhythm section into a cascade of over processed cries. Mere glimmers of this iteration of Taking Back Sunday made their way to successive albums.
7. Best Places To Be a Mom (Taking Back Sunday, 2011)
“Am I just like the rest of them? The sum of my father, and all his sins?”
Right here, Taking Back Sunday established themselves as being light-years past the bleeding heart teen angst of their teen years. This is the song to shut up the nay-sayers who whine about “energy” and “super neat dual vocals” not being a part of the band anymore; this is the sound of a young band who has become wiser, grown a little stubble, that still itches for the invigoration of a singalong chorus. Is it still about a girl? Sure. Is it handled with more lyrical dexterity than on say, “Bike Scene”? You tell me. Don’t make me bring up the silly way line again. Nobody wants that.
6. Cute Without the E [Cut From the Team] (Tell All Your Friends, 2002)
Not even at #1. Came close to letting this entry be a tie between “Cute” and “Bonus Mosh Pt. II”. And you know what? I’m okay with that. “Cute Without the E” does not represent the best songwriting from Taking Back Sunday. It doesn’t showcase the best musicianship, lyricism, and the band itself is a bit sheepish when talking about the electrified melodrama present here. What it does in spades is bottle up just about all the essential elements of the band into a moshpit powderkeg; staggered riffs, shout-singing, rapid snare fills, soft melodic bridges, choruses that start off redundant and end up euphoric. This is a song that you can show to someone unfamiliar with the band, and they will grasp the spirit of Tell All Your Friends like wildfire. Only one other song serves as a gateway like “Cute” does.
THE TOP FIVE OMGWTFTBS
5. Call Me In The Morning (Taking Back Sunday, 2011)
This slot almost got split with “Since You’re Gone” and “You Got Me”, but I already abused the list system twice. No more, dear reader. Instead, let’s talk about John Nolan for a brief moment. John is a spiritual apprentice to the moodiness of post-punk and the quirk of 90’s indie rock; not always reaching those presumptuous heights, but settling in comfortably short. His lyrics, wider in scope than Lazzara’s, do not grasp the pop rock rulebook quite as well. His music is richer but lacks bite and swing. This is why despite being a lovely band with several great songs, Straylight Run was never going to last- there was never quite enough there to fuel an album. What Straylight did do for Nolan was let him hone the particular songwriting traits that were only glimpsed in his teen years, and return to Taking Back Sunday with an acute sense of dynamics and studio effects; anchored to the energy of the band, and filtered through Lazarra, they hit the marriage of style perfectly here on “Call Me In The Morning”. While Lazarra got better at writing about women, Nolan got better at writing about life, and the two sync up well here in the form of deceptively simple verses. A repeating chime ushers in the track, lighting the runway for the rest to follow suit and burn down any venue, lighters held aloft in solidarity. An underrated gem.
4. You Know How I Do (Tell All Your Friends, 2002)
It’s easy to compile a list of regular setlist fan favorites and call it a day, but this song is something special. Read any blog review of this album and almost everyone will cite this track right away, and that first lyric: “So sick, so sick of being tired, and oh so tired of being sick.” This could’ve been one of those throwaway lyrics to show off how ironic and clever the band was, as was the style during that period; instead, it acts as a mission statement. You can probably the grasp the gist of this band and this album from that line alone, and its promise of fast, catchy catharsis. The anthemics are set up in that winding firework of a riff – those spacey power chords – and the thrusting propulsion of rhythm. This is one of bassist Shaun Cooper’s best tracks, and it’s still a rager live.
3. Ghost Man On Third (Tell All Your Friends, 2002)
God, this is a mess of a song. We’ve got overdubbed guitars, wailing and screaming, cymbal crashes, primal bass, and nothing is pushed down in the mix; everything here is front and center, fighting for your attention. This is almost a precursor to the atmosphere of New Again’s “Everything Must Go”, with its restrained twangy intro and soft/loud/soft/louder structure. “Ghost Man” also shows them making a more integrated use of electronics, a definite step up from the song preceding it, “Great Romances of the 20th Century”. Taking Back Sunday was one of the first AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) bands, and this song is chock full of witty, quotable lines for the sad-sack in you. “Jynx me something crazy / Thinkin’ if it’s three then / I’m as smooth as the skin / Rolls across the small of your back.” It’s weird to think that the irony laced mall-rock sound used to be fresh and exciting, but here’s your proof. Not the catchiest song on Tell All Your Friends, but the one that points ahead to the realms where Taking Back Sunday are not just a band your little brother likes.
And….
2. Makedamnsure (Louder Now, 2006)
1. This Is All Now (Taking Back Sunday, 2011)
Two songs. It all comes down to two songs, musically of a kind and yet light-years removed from each other. A lead single that represented a peak that will never be reached again, and a followup single that ushered in a humble return-to-form; a cry for understanding amongst the first steps towards the real world, and a wizened retaliation against that same world.
“Makedamnsure” was the sign that Taking Back Sunday had made it, as a genuine radio hit with a popular music video that launched them across the globe. It’s hard to remember that point between 2004 and 2007 where that kind of band could be asked to play alongside The Police and Metallica and their ilk at Al Gore’s Live Earth benefit- this was miles beyond “I got the mic, and you got the moshpit.” The carefully crafted anthemics of “Makedamnsure” might lead people to forget just how melodramatic and whiny it really is; not like those aren’t adjectives you’d use to describe a lot of the band’s work, but this is PARTICULARLY over the top with its casual shrugging off mentions of tangled veins and breaking down and never ever letting go (still not as creepy as 80% of The Police’s discography. We’re watching out for you, Sting). This is the kind of song that millenials will be screeching out of key at bad karaoke bars, a sort of standard if you will. It’s less abrasive than their earlier work, less Glassjaw than Blink 182. There’s a song like “Cute Without the E” that every fan knows, and then there’s a song like “Makedamnsure” that everyone of a certain age knows. It’s them reaching up for grandeur and strutting like Kiss, wide-eyed and youthful.
“This Is All Now” is “Makedamnsure”’s existential older brother- he’s been through a divorce or two, he has to raise kids and look around himself rather than within now, he has bills to pay, and he’s starting to learn that he isn’t young and immortal. The boys still rock out here, with a reserved fire to the stabs of guitar and a coiled snake rhythm section; but it’s all about the subtly. Taking Back Sunday at this point has already been through all your typical Spinal Tap pitfalls of being a successful It-Band, and it’s what enabled them to cut out the bullshit and learn to hone craft rather than volume. Nobody is going to accuse Taking Back Sunday of being Radiohead, but it’s a sensibility like what’s displayed on this track that marks them now as being much more cerebral than before. They’re done railing against girls, and their sights are now on the rest of us. One could argue that the song is about a band, or celebrity, but it’s left purposefully vague for anthemic reasons (they could probably snore out pit-friendly lyrics at this point) and it works that way. After the admirable trip-up of New Again, Taking Back Sunday finally write to reflect their age.
The sound of a band standing high and reaching for mountaintops, and the sound of a band returning home a little wiser. Expect new hits down the road. Don’t call my name out your window, the article is done.
EDITOR’S NOTE!
Hi. Thanks for reading all that shit. Credit to Song Meanings, Punknews, and a hearty drumroll for the dynamic duo from indie rockers Townhouses – Eric Chorpenning and Karl Von Bueren. Their assistance led me to retool the list and how I communicated it significantly, and their sexual prowess really launched my spirits to complete this article. I would be a lesser man without their music and their generous pleasure-giving ability. For their ego’s sake, here now is the Official Townhouses Favorite Taking Back Sunday List, complete with no explanations or objectivity!
13. BEST PLACES TO BE A MOM
12. MY BLUE HEAVEN
11. YOUR OWN DISASTER 04
10. THERE’S NO ‘I’ IN TEAM
9. BONUS MOSH PT. II
8. FAITH (WHEN I LET YOU DOWN)
7. I’LL LET YOU LIVE
6. YOU KNOW HOW I DO
5. CUTE WITHOUT THE E (CUT FROM THE TEAM)
4. EL PASO
3. MAKEDAMNSURE
2. GHOSTMAN ON THIRD
1. SLOWDANCE ON THE INSIDE
