"Buena" by Morphine

Author: The Best Song Ever (The Week)

Morphine's "Buena" 
1993's "Buena" was the song that introduced many people to the Cambridge/Boston band Morphine. The three-piece band's sound was baritone saxophone and two-string slide bass. Bassist and singer Sandman called it Low Rock for its deep tones, but Morphine goes deep in other ways, too, even 30 years later.
A playlist starting with "Buena" and continuing through other songs from Morphine and Mark Sandman can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6c7GFFHnn8S9QzKFN7DRY2?si=2ff8cf81bb384611

You can also read The Best Song Ever (This Week) for free at bestsong.substack.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
The Shark Deck. Hello and welcometo the best song ever this week,
A short deep dive into a songand what makes it special. The best
song ever this week this week isPoin I by the Van Morphine, and

(00:31):
before if I get to mention itthis time, I'm Scott Frampton. We
won't be listening to the song togetherhere. Please see the show notes where
there's a link to a playlist withBuena and more music for Morphine one I
hope you'll enjoy. So let's begin. Mark Sandman called Morphine's music low rock.

(00:53):
It was the simplest way to describethe sound of the band. Their
esthetic prized low deep tone baritone saxophone, sand Man's husky vocals, and the
growls and moans of a two stringslide bass of his own device. The
simplicity of his description, however,reveals the band's actual esthetic, which was

(01:14):
simplicity itself. This is more thanjust removing two strings from an electric bass.
Resist the temptation to add. SamMan once explained, if you're going
to do something to a song,subtract, it's music by poetic deletion,
trimming away the obvious to uncover deepermeaning. It's the difference between Juliet is

(01:34):
like the Sun and Juliet is theSun. Lyrically, sand Man is more
Jim Thompson or James Elroy than Shakespeare, spinning tales of trysts, Litton,
happy Hour Glooming. He had anace crime writer's concision in eye for detail.
It's a style that carried over fromhis previous band, The Busier and
Bluesier treat Her Right here, pairedwith Dana Colley's saxophone plural Collie sometimes played

(02:01):
two at once, Allah rashon RolandKirk Singing these lyrics in a conspiratorial stage
Whisper gave Morphine its noir overtones.Film noir defined by the shadows and sharp
contrasts of cost effective low key lighting, also succeeded by doing more with less.
Boena was the lead single from Morphine'ssecond album, Cure for Payne.

(02:24):
After the forty three second opening trackDonna, where a Collie blows softly as
if from a nineteen fifties tenement window. The song is introduced by the naked
grind of Salmon's slide bass. Thesound is as arresting now as it was
when the record was released in nineteenninety three, just a central riff of
the song in the form of thesebare bass chords, before drummer Billy Conway

(02:46):
clatters in on his again minimal drumkit. It's just you in the size
of the slide and moans of thestrummed bass strings. Sandman's low, murky
bass could roar like a V eightrace motor. Here it's a luring,
sexy and mysterious, spiking your curiosityfor what else lurks in the song shadows.

(03:07):
Sandman sings the opening lines, Ihear a voice in the back of
the room over just bass and drums. The song goes on for over a
minute before we hear Cally Sachs breakingthe fourth wall, singing as a singer
in a band only completes the seduction. It's a song, after all,
about willingly getting in over your head, a point underscored by the ecstatic,

(03:29):
scronky heights reached by Colly Sachs inthe fierce groove that anoints the clothes of
the chorus. We don't know ifthe quote devil named Buena is a who
or a what? When you callyour man morphine, however, you have
to expect that people will assume itsdrugs, which is fair enough, but
that's also a little too obvious.Part of any seduction is what each of

(03:52):
us volunteers of ourselves, what wegive here. It's how a listener populates
the song shadows. If the ideaof a drug is a shortcut to the
good good, good is attractive,so be it. But Buena is also
a woman's name and the feminine formof a Spanish adjective for good. In
Sandman's gruff purr, it could justas likely be sexual. Or maybe it's

(04:15):
just a sense of willing corruption thatpulls you to the stage from the back
of the room, drawn out ofthe shadows by desires beyond the norm,
as suggested in the lyric I knowsome people want to make you change,
while I know how to make themgo away. In the end of the
nineteen forty one film version of DashelHammett's urn Noir The Maltese Falcon, Sam

(04:38):
Spade says that the titular blackbird isquote the stuffed dreams are made of.
Here's where it's important to remember thatmorphine comes etymologically for Morpheus, the Greco
Roman god of dreams. Buena isa metaphor like Juliet is the sun,
because Buena is whatever you need adevil to be. Marks collapsed on stage

(05:00):
and lots of Italy in July ofnineteen ninety nine and later died. He
was forty six. The cause ofdeath was a heart attack. Again,
when you're a rock star and callyour band Morphine and your breakthrough record cure
for pain, people are going todo this simple math of judgmental assumptions.
By many accounts. However, sandMan had by that point in his life

(05:24):
rejected drug use for all the friendsthat cost him. He also had taken
a hard physical path to whatever kindof rock stardom it was he'd achieved.
Sad Man pulled overtime shift's working construction, hauling neats on commercial fishing boats,
and driving a cab, where duringone such shift he was stabbed in the
chest during a robbery. He wouldtake those earnings and DeCamp to places luck

(05:47):
Ural, Colorado, and his timethere inspired songs like the Morphine song Thursday
and treat her writes I Think shelikes Me. He also would bank that
money to pursue his music. Sandman, whose name was also given to a
god of dreams, this one fromEuropean myth put a lot of heart into
achieving his own dreams. Then thatheart gave out, all of which is

(06:13):
to say we don't know, andthat we don't have to know why he's
gone, just that like a dream, he is. Thanks for listening.
I first met Mark Sandman backstage atthe Knitting Factory when the New York Club
was on Leonard Street in Lower Manhattan. I still have the T shirt I
bought from him, which is alsoto say, some of these are harder

(06:35):
to do than others. Salmon wasan inspiration for the bravery of doing things
his own way, and that inspirationcontinues thirty years after Buena. Just anecdotally,
in the past few weeks, I'veheard love and respect from morphine from
my friend Robin, who does thebest pilsnerpor in Brooklyn and drums in four
bands, including the exceedingly heavy drownYard and Pants Exploder, or one of

(06:59):
the reps for a bourbon company whosells in my wine shop. When he
heard an early version of the Morphingplaylist linked to in the show notes,
he mentioned that he switched to baritoneSachs after hearing Dana Colley forging stronger connections
with people continues to be one ofthe best things about music. Thanks San
Man. Thanks to the one thousandpeople who have subscribed to the Pods Companions

(07:21):
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think you'd enjoy the convenience. Thanksagain, See you next week. I'm

(08:03):
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(08:24):
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