Stream: The Mars Volta's Sinister New Song 'The Malkin Jewel'

The Mars Volta, 'Noctourniquet'

WBR

Click to listen to The Mars Volta's 'The Malkin Jewel'

"The Malkin Jewel," the first track from the Mars Volta's sixth album, Noctourniquet, finds the art-rockers locking into a sinister, Led Zeppelin-like rhythm before veering off course into an odd passage driven by keyboard hums, feedback buzzes and a surprisingly delicate melody. Noctourniquet will hit stores on March 27th, but you can preview "The Malkin Jewel" now.

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Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

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