Click here to play the podcastOne of our greatest singer/songwriters, Matthew Sweet, suffered a stroke recently. He’s facing some tough times ahead, but this isn’t the first challenge he’s faced. Things were not going Matthew Sweet’s way in 1990; his first two albums flopped, and his marriage fell apart. His 3rd album was make-or-break, do-or-die. If this one failed, he may never get to do another record. So he & his producer went back to basics, recording a batch of guitar-oriented songs that sound both retro and refreshingly new. The album that became known as Girlfriend saved his career and has become a true classic. On this episode, we explore the album’s brilliant opener, “Divine Intervention”. Let’s hope he rebounds as well this time.
Please donate to support Matthew’s recovery here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-matthew-sweets-stroke-recovery?utm_campaign=pd_ss_icons&utm_medium=customer&utm_source=copy_link&attribution_id=sl%3Ab8c56669-0388-4ae5-b3ac-5f0bb6d84d1f
“Divine Intervention” (Matthew Sweet) Copyright 1990 EMI Blackwood Music, Inc/Charm Trap Music
PREVIEW:
TRANSCRIPT:
How are you? How have you been? Good to have you back with us on the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. I’m Brad Page, coming to you on the Pantheon network of podcasts, with another exploration of one of my favorite songs. We keep the music theory and technical jargon to a minimum here, so whether you’re a musician, an avid listener, or just a fan of the song, everybody’s welcome here.
On this edition of the podcast, we’re delving into a song from one of the greatest albums of the 1990’s, and it still sounds as fresh today as the day it was recorded. It’s an indispensable part of my record collection. For many people, the album “Girlfriend” is Matthew Sweet’s masterpiece. Join me as we explore the song that opens this classic album, “Divine Intervention”.
Matthew Sweet was born in 1964 in Nebraska. He played in bands and was writing songs as a teenager, and when he graduated high school, he moved to Athens, Georgia for college, which also happened to be ground zero for the alternative rock scene of REM, the B-52’s, Pylon, all of those great bands. He hooked up with some local bands, and even did some gigs with Michael Stipe from REM. He spent some time playing bass for Lloyd Cole, too. He formed another duo with drummer David Pierc,e and under the name the Buzz of Delight, they released one EP which included a Christmas song that still pops up every now and then.
Columbia Records was impressed and signed him to a solo deal, and he released his first album, “Inside”. The album is very ‘80’s, heavy on the synthesizer, and suffers for the fact that it was worked on by ten different producers. Here’s a song from that album. It’s called “By Herself”.
The record did not sell, and Columbia dropped him. Three years later, he surfaced on A& M Records with a new contract and a new album, “Earth”. This album was a little more cohesive and featured more guitar, including key contributions from Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd. Here’s a song from Earth called “Wind And The Sun”.
Unfortunately, this album wasn’t any more successful than his first, and A&M dropped him too. Sweet and his wife had married young; he was 19 when they got married, but now the pressure and strain had taken its toll, and she was gone. They divorced in 1989. Having burned through two record labels and one marriage is enough to make anyone reassess their life. He regrouped, and with producer Fred Maher, they started to work on another album. And this time they stripped things back. Inspired by The Beatles’ “White Album” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Tusk”, they wanted an album that felt raw, organic, direct… not necessarily “live”, they were not trying to capture a “live in the studio” band; there are plenty of overdubs, but they were trying to catch complete performances on tape. Most overdubs were performed beginning-to-end without a lot of punch-ins, with one exception: Robert Quine’s guitar solos. Quine was so unpredictable, he never played the same thing twice. So his solos were edited together from multiple takes. But most of the performances on the new album were complete takes, start to finish. Not always perfect, but capturing the feel of a song played by real human beings.
There are two other approaches to this album that contribute to its distinctive and pretty magical sound. One is the heavy use of compression. Pretty much every instrument and vocal was subject to a significant amount of compression. Compression is electronically processing the sound to level it out, increasing the quiet sections while lowering the louder parts. This can be done subtly so that you don’t really notice it, but it results in an even, consistent sound. But you can crank up the compression, producing that distinctive sound that you hear all over this record.
The other thing that makes this album sound the way it does is reverb, or I should say, the complete lack of it. There is no reverb or echo on this album at all. Vocals, drums, instruments, none of it has any reverb at all. At a time when, in the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s, reverb was used on everything to create a big sound, especially on drums, those ridiculously huge drum sounds. This album goes in completely the other direction, avoiding the use of reverb at all. And it’s all the better for it.
“Divine Intervention” is the song that opens the album. It was written by Matthew Sweet, and before we get to the album version, let’s have a taste of the demo. This is Matthew on guitar, vocals & six string bass, and Ivan Julian on lead guitar.
Once they brought it into the studio, they gave it the full band treatment. Basic tracks were laid down with Matthew on electric guitar and Rick Menck on drums. Rick was an indie rock veteran and was playing drums for Velvet Crush. Once the drums and rhythm guitar were done, Matthew Sweet would overdub a bass guitar part vocals and lead guitar, in this case by Richard Lloyd, would come after that. The song opens with a series of short, contrasting sounds. Here’s what we’re hearing there. First, there’s a snippet of the vocals from the chorus played backwards in the right channel. That is immediately followed by a guitar chord that dissolves into feedback in the left channel. This always reminds me of the beginning of “I Feel Fine” by The Beatles.
Next you can hear Rick Menck count off the song. But that’s interrupted by a stray guitar note in the center channel. I’m guessing this is an artifact from Richard Lloyd’s overdubbed guitar. And then Matthew Sweet’s guitar in the left channel kicks off the song proper. There’s also kind of a funny little guitar sting in there from Richard Lloyd.
Let’s go back to the top and hear that whole intro all the way through. You can hear what sounds like some backwards notes in the right channel.
Let’s back it up a bit and play it through the rest of the intro. The other thing you’ve probably noticed by now is the fairly extreme panning with Sweet’s guitar all the way to the left and the drums panned hard right. This was inspired by those old Beatles records. Let’s play the first verse and listen for the stereo placement of all the instruments and the vocals.
I really like the groove laid down by the bass and drums. Simple, not busy at all. Just very straightforward. Supporting the guitars and vocals and giving them plenty of room to work with.
Let’s listen to the second verse. I always thought it was interesting that, on this album that was born out of commercial failure and the collapse of his marriage, and all the questions and soul searching that would arise out of those feelings, that he would open the album with a song about maybe the biggest question of all: is there a God? And does he really care? This song doesn’t offer any answers. How could it? But it is an honest exploration of his doubts.
Notice how on that chorus that the lead and the backing vocals intentionally don’t sync up.
Next up is a guitar solo from Richard Lloyd. We’ve talked about Richard Lloyd on this podcast a couple of times before. He was a member of the band Television, which we explored in episode #147, and we covered a song from one of Richard’s solo albums way back on episode #39. I’ve always liked Richard as a player. He can be very creative. He can play with a lot of fury and fire, and he’s not above playing like a real old-fashioned guitar hero when the moment calls for it. This solo has a little bit of all of that in it. Theres a real manic energy to this one. Just for fun, lets listen to the solo on its own and then well go back and hear it in context.
All right, now let’s go back and hear that in the final mix. First, you’ll hear Matthew sweet say the word “All right”, twice. I’m guessing one of these is on the lead vocal track and the other one is on the backing vocal track. That is a cool little bit there where for a couple of seconds they flip the tape around and play it backwards. Creative tricks like these are a great way to throw in something unexpected that shocks the listener out of complacency, breaks the predictability, and helps keep the listener engaged.
Matthew Sweet sings all of the vocals on this album, all the lead and the backing vocals. It was an intentional decision to use only Matthew’s voice on the album. That creates a sense, almost subconsciously, of the album being the singular feelings and expressions of one man. Plus, Sweet is just a great singer and is able to blend his voice together in beautiful swaths of harmony.
There’s a simple but nice little drum fill there by Rick Menck, and that brings us towards the end of the song with a bit here that I’m sure is another nod to The Beatles.
Let’s listen to just a little bit of those vocals there because it’s so great.
You might think they’re going to end it right there, but it’s just a short pause. Then there’s a drum fill and Matthew laughs. And then Richard Lloyd takes flight again. Let’s hear it. There is a simple piano part in the background played by Matthew Sweet. It’s cropped up throughout the song. You can hear it if you listen closely, here in the right channel.
The song, begins to fade out. And again, you might think this is where it all ends, but it’s a false ending. It’s going to fade back up for an encore.
They weren’t trying to be tricky here. They actually thought Richard Lloyd was on such a roll, they wanted to give us another minute or so of his brilliant guitar work.
“Divine Intervention” – Matthew Sweet
The album was released in 1991 by Zoo Entertainment, at the time, a new label formed by the former president of Island Records.
The album cover is almost as famous as the album itself. It features a photo of the actress Tuesday Weld taken sometime in the late 1950’s when she was just 14 years old. Sweet originally wanted to call the album “Nothing Lasts”, but Tuesday Weld didn’t want to be associated with that title, so they changed the name of the album to “Girlfriend”.
The record label marketed the album as if it were Matthew Sweet’s first record, which was probably smart, because this was really a fresh new start for Sweet. But the strategy worked so well that most people don’t even know or forgot that he had two previous albums before this one.
The album wasn’t a smash hit out of the gate, but it certainly wasn’t a flop either. It sold steadily and eventually went platinum. It’s Matthew Sweet’s most commercially successful album, and it’s a critics’ favorite too. It’s hard to find a bad review of this album. In my opinion, it’s a damn near perfect record.
Thanks for joining me for this edition of the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast. You can find all of our previous episodes on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com, or look for us wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. New episodes of this show come out twice a month on the 1st and the 15th of every month, so I’ll meet you back here soon.
When you have a minute, please leave a review of the show, and you can always drop me a line on Facebook or by email– lovethatsongpodcastmail.com And please support the show by telling your friends about it. Share it with your fellow music junkies.
Were part of the Pantheon Podcast Network, where you’ll find many more music-related podcasts. Check them out if you get a chance, and remember to support the artists you love by buying their music.
If you don’t already have a copy of “Girlfriend”, go buy a copy now– you won’t regret it– and crank up “Divine Intervention” by Matthew Sweet.