"Bird in the Basement" is the title of this song by Billy Talent when they were in their Pezz phase, but the phrase doesn't appear at all. It's not sung by anyone, no one in the studio says it or anything. It's the same for the rest of the songs on the album. Maybe it's a phrase that only the members of the band are able to get. They probably won't play any of "Watoosh!" any time soon though, so we'll never know.
I mentioned how I came to own "Watoosh!" in my post for "Absorbed", the last track of the album. However, I knew about the album since I was about ten years old. A Billy Talent fan uploaded the songs on their fan site but they were in terrible quality, and were eitther in wma or wav files. I just didn't listen to this song until my sister bought the album for me in 2009. I think the link for it was broken.
As for the meaning of the song, it's quite hard to say. I'm thinking it's about a relationship where the couple feel that 'everything is fake' around them even though to other people, they are the problem. They are oblivious to the whole situation though, and look forward to sticking with one another when everything turns to crap.
This is my one hundredth post. Hooray! To anyone who reads this, thank you. You are the reason why I feel like I haven't been wasting my time since February, when I started this thing.
I've known this song for a long time, and it has never bored me once.
Billy Talent is one of my favourite bands ever. From the day when I first saw "River Below" on TV when I was eight, I needed to find more about them. I did. I never looked back.
"Beach Balls" is a song that was originally released on the "Try Honesty EP" in 2001 - I'm thinking this was the time when the band was looking for a label to sign to. It can also be found as a bonus track on some releases of "Billy Talent II" from 2006.
So when I became interested in Billy Talent in 2004, I wanted to find the lyrics to their songs so I could sing along to them. Letssingit was the first site to come up as a result on Google, and it was there that the lyrics to all their songs from the first album were listed. Furthermore, it was there that the lyrics for "Beach Balls" were listed; it wasn't on the album, and I didn't know Wikipedia existed at the time so I had no idea what this song was or how to find it. It could have been a song wrongly associated to the band for all I knew.
That was until I found a download link for the song on one of the many Billy Talent fansites that were around. As soon as the song started I knew that there was something different about the sound. Billy Talent's first album is very angry, there's a lot of screaming and hard rocking instrumentation. On "Beach Balls", the sound is much more peppy. You have a Spanish-sounding guitar riff that plays and carries on during the verses. There's no screaming on this song at all, which is something I really like the band for, but it's still a really cool track to listen to.
Then it only struck me recently how the structure of the song is very similar those found on the album "Watoosh!" when the band were called Pezz. (Which is a brilliant album, they should play those songs live some time). For those who haven't listened to songs on that album, the structure is basically:
Intro - Verse - Chorus - Verse - Chorus - Break - Sound of the song you've been listening to for the first half completely changes - One or two lines are sung which are then repeated until the song ends
So I can only assume that this song was performed when the band were still Pezz, but was released when the band changed their name.
The song is great though. Even if it's not Billy Talent, it still is. If you know what I mean.
Billy Talent is one of my favourite bands too. They/it is a band that, again, I could dedicate a whole blog to. Just because all of their albums are of a very high standard, and their songs are brilliant.
I am very bias, I've been listening to them for years. But..... they're just so good.
"Watoosh!" was their actual first album. I know, I know what you may be thinking..... "A band called Billy Talent. That's a pretty slick name...... But what the fuck is 'Watoosh!' What the fuck does that even mean?"
I don't know what it means either. But I know that before Billy Talent were called Billy Talent, they went by the name of 'Pezz'. See, that kind of makes it a bit better now right?
I got my sister to download 'Watoosh!' back in 2009 on Amazon, using my aunt's credit card. It's fine. My aunt's pretty loaded.
I had heard the first three songs, and their cover of 'New Orleans Is Sinking' by The Tragically Hip waaaaay back when I was younger, and I knew that Pezz's sound was very different from Billy Talent's sound..... but it still rocked. So I thought why the hell not?
This song is pretty much the last actual song of the album, even if it is followed up by an instrumental and the aforementioned cover.
I feel a lot of emotions from listening to the song. The first two minutes and a half are quite upbeat, the lyrics in the chorus give off a sense of optimism - looking foward to the future: 'I tried, I lied, but through the waves I'll find, yeah through the waves I'll fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind.' Very happy. It makes me feel all warm, deep inssiiidde.
And then things take a turn, not for the worst, but the whole song just changes. The singer starts whispering words under his breath, as the rest of the instruments take a break... to ease things up a bit. And from then on, layers and layers of guitar just build on and on, until the band is just rocking and the last lyrics 'I'LL RIDE YOU OOUUUUUUTTTTTT' are repeated and belted out with sheer determination. It's awesome! It's good stuff.
'Watoosh!' is a good album. Very good. I realised that most of the songs all go by the same structure. If you listen to it, you may realise this too. But's that's not bad! The structure works. The songs are all different, however similar they may be. If that makes sense. And I like all of the songs, some more than others, but...... yeah. 'Sall good.
It's probably for the best that there was another band at the time called 'Pezz'. Then they wouldn't have had to change their name and I wouldn't have 'TRY HONESTY, TRY HONESTY!' in my life.
