Harmonica Lewinsky

I don’t know if it’s the disgusting cold symptoms I’m currently experiencing, or the fact that I’m just sick and tired of the whole world being freezing cold constantly, but for some reason the sound of the harmonica is DOING ME IN. Its abrasive whine and smug trills seem to hack away at my insidey brain-box until there’s no choice but to put my headphones on and cool off my burning lobes with some rancid Owl City.

THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE WHO PLAY THE HARMONICA LOOK LIKE IN REAL LIFE.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club’s brooding, murky new release is riddled with the sound of the metal block of pain-puff and even when I’m having some down time in the cinema there’s John Lennon at it – wheezing away on one of those dreaded instruments in ‘Nowhere Boy’. A while ago I got someone to make me a Bob Dylan mixtape so I could properly get into Sir Groanalot, and I really nearly did, but that fucking bar of rusty bleating got in the way of all of Bobert’s magical intentions. For me, it just sort of rips up any sincerity, or softness to a song. There’s something smug about it. Well that’s what I thought until about an hour ago. Here I was with all this ammunition, ready to launch into a blog about how much I hate the harmonica, with examples aplenty, until I realised that in some cases it’s actually quite superb.

For example, this clip of ‘Once Upon Time In The West’. This is by far one of THE most harrowing uses of a harmonica I’ve ever experienced. 1-0 harmonica you sick little bitch.

And then there’s Ryan Adams’ on ‘Come Pick Me Up’

Ohh so much style and swooning country magic! 2-0 to you box of almost-bagpipe-sound.

The more and more I’ve thought about it I realised how dainty and refined a harmonica can be, take for example Coldplay’s ‘Don’t Panic’, and the playfulness of Aerosmith’s ‘Pink’. Or the smoky, beguiling solo in Doves ‘Here It Comes’. Or the irresistibly soulful introduction of Stevie Wonder’s ‘I Was Made To Love Her’. I can’t fault that song. Or The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’. It wouldn’t be the same without it there. 

Damn you harmonica. You win. But it still doesn’t change the fact that you probably stink of phlegmy metallic spittle after a massive puff sesh.