Heartache With Hard Work

I have noticed that I tend to write a lot about women with amazing voices. That theme will continue today with Brandi Carlile. However, while I usually talk about the Amy Millans of the world, who deal in resplendent bliss, for once, I’ll be going in a slightly different direction. Carlile has a rich, strong voice, with a bit of country twang, that sounds right at home belting out some good old fashioned rock and roll.

I’ll get the Jeff Buckley comparison out of the way right here. They’re very similar. It’s almost eerie, really. She even does a cover of Buckley’s cover of “Hallelujah,” just in case it wasn’t obvious enough. But who wouldn’t want to sing like Buckley if they could? She can. She can do soft and tender. She can do light and peppy. She can do the sustained note that bends and sways around the music. She can do highwire act between a cracking falsetto and an alto that cuts like a knife. Anything else you want, she’s probably got it somewhere.

Her debut album Brandi Carlile came out last summer, but I only heard of her in the last few weeks. It would have easily made the top 10 of 2005 if I had known about it at the time. As it is, I’ll just put it on repeat and enjoy. It’s been many moons since I’ve heard a record as fresh, carefree, and beautiful as this one. It’s primarily acoustic, but still manages to rock pretty hard, proving once again that rock and roll is all about attitude, not about amplifiers.

Also, she had a song on the soundtrack for The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Don’t laugh. It’s actually a pretty good movie.

Two songs for your pleasure that exemplify what makes her great: great melodies, lush harmonies, a little bit of pop, a little bit of soul, and that voice.
What Can I Say
Fall Apart Again

Plus, some great live tracks are available at Best of the Bunch.

She’s coming through New England on her current tour just as I’m leaving. And then comes back in May when I’ll be in Mexico. And then goes to Michigan two weeks before I’ll be there. And then to the Pacific Northwest a month and a half after I leave. Doh! I hope on the next tour the timing works out better because, more than almost any other artist right now, I’d really like to see her live show.

Just something I need to get off my chest. The Flaming Lips have a new album, At War With the Mystics.

It is terrible. Just awful.

I mean, I like the Flaming Lips. A lot. The Soft Bulletin is one of the best albums of the last decade, in my opinion. But this one…

Annoying noise effects piled upon more annoying noise effects piled upon ridiculous pseudo-70s guitar jams that go nowhere. I know taste is a subjective thing and I shouldn’t get angry about people liking whatever it is they choose to enjoy, but anyone who thinks “Free Radicals” is a good song should have their head examined.

And the first single: “Yeah Yeah Yeah Song.” Let’s start with the title. I mean, come on. But beyond that, this song would still be perfectly fine if not for the incessant interruptions for “yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.” But those interruptions grate on my nerves so much that I spend every second of the song worried that they’ll show up again.

I’ll be honest that I stopped paying close attention about halfway through. So it’s possible that there was something in the second half that deserves more attention. But I’ve tried to listen a couple times and each time have been so frustrated that I ignore the later songs.

But, in spite of this, I keep reading good reviews. This has created some serious dissonance in my mind. What in the world are they getting from this that I’m not? I mean, I can handle people loving Justin Timberlake. I have no desire to listen to him, but that’s because I have no interest in that type of music. Other people do, fine, whatever. But this is The Flaming Lips. I LOVE this band. I’ve often found myself defending their weirdness. But now this: I just can’t even fathom it.

Are people so caught up in the belief that the Lips are a Great Band so any piece of garbage they produce therefore must be Genius, and it’s up to us to figure it out?

One person told me that the only reason I didn’t like the album was because I’d only listened to it a few times. You have to give it a dozen listens, they insisted, because it’s so complex. I’m sorry, but I’d rather bash my hand with a hammer. There is no way I’m going to suffer through a 12 hours of misery in the hopes that I might finally “get” it.

And please don’t read this as a typical “their old stuff was awesome but I don’t really like the new album” rant. I’m more than willing to admit when a band improves (witness: The Flaming Lips circa 1999). And even if I do romanticize past albums, it’s a pretty minor effect. I wasn’t THRILLED about the new Decemberists last year, but I still ranked it in the top 10 albums of the year. That’s not what’s going on here. It’s not that I’m underwhelmed by this album, it’s that I can’t stand it. They have distilled everything that I even slightly disliked from their earlier works and tied it all up into one stinking package.

I don’t mind them being cute. In fact, I kind of enjoy it. I don’t mind them playing around with sound effects. In fact, I kind of enjoy it. I do mind them aping the worst of ELO, but I could deal with it in isolation. But all of these things together, combined with what appears to be an almost pathological desire to obliterate melodies create a very bad album.

The one song that I do quite enjoy is “Goin’ On.” It’s quiet, sparse, achingly beautiful, and melody driven. There are harmonies, and the effects are placed with care to emphasize the mood of the song, rather than the song being draped upon a series of effects. And some moments elsewhere on the album are perfectly fine as well (“Vein of Stars” isn’t bad, and “My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion” is okay, for example). All of which proves they haven’t gone completely nuts and are still quite capable of producing great music.

Why they chose to forego doing so for the rest of the disc, I have no idea.

Please, Flaming Lips. Revert to turning Cat Stevens songs into musical gems. And stop peeing on a mixing board and calling it music (metaphorically, of course. At least, I hope. After Mystics, I’m just not sure what to think).

Tim Easton is a folk-rock guy in the tradition of Dylan and Neil Young. Except with maybe a little more emphasis on the rock part, and with a bit more blues influence. He’s been at it for about a decade now, though to listen to the worldliness, gravity, and maturity of his songs, you might think he was a bit more a contemporary of those fathers of Americana.

I found out about him when a friend personally put up the money to bring him (and Rosavelt) through Walla Walla, Washington on a tour a couple summers ago. I had heard the name, but was blown away by the show.

You know that a song has left a lasting impression when you can recall a significant portion of the lyrics or the tune after just one listen. For me, that song was Poor, Poor LA, and the line was “A pack of dumb monkeys could write circles around that 4th grade mumbly-slang stream of consciousness jive that you call a song” which is just a fantastic put-down. It’s even more interesting when you hear the back story that something an ex-girlfriend once said about Easton himself.

This is the case with a lot of his songs–the ostensible topic is often directed outwards but the real subject of many of the songs is himself, his own faults and failings. That it also applies broadly, to a great deal of contemporary music and society is nice, but not necessary.

The song itself is like an amalgamation of every great Americana artist, all rolled into one. You can hear “Blood on the Tracks,” you can hear a little Tom Petty jangle, maybe some Whiskeytown. Seriously, pick a band and you can smell the influence here. The highlight is the bridge (“Now there’s sandpaper pants on the gutter punks…”) where he issues a series of short couplets with rising intensity.

He has a new album called “Ammunition” with a release date of May 16. A couple of the tracks are up on his myspace page. My favorite is Next to You, a beautiful love song. It’s gentle, sad, and touching. The harmonica is lilting and soft, and his voice is heavy. This is the demo version on his myspace page; it’s a little rough, but still great. And I can’t wait for the final version.

I Guess I’m Floating, pretty much the best blog ever, has a few songs by The Submarines today. I read the comparison to The Stars, quickly downloaded the available songs, and instantly discovered a new obsession. I read the entry about five hours ago and have since then bought the album on iTunes and listened to it the whole way through twice. Isn’t the 21st century grand?

Let’s start with the story, since it’s almost absurdly sweet. If Hollywood ever makes a romantic comedy about an indie band, it will clearly be “based on the true story of Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti, The Submarines.” If it were a movie it might be too sugary, but since it’s real life, it’s just beautiful.

They each started as solo artists in Boston, met through mutual friends, he produced her album, they fell in love, and went on tour together. Perfect, right? Not quite. They moved to Los Angeles (where bad things do tend to happen, in my experience) and broke up. But it wasn’t over – they both returned to working on solo projects and quickly discovered that every song they were working on was about the other. From their myspace page:
“We realized we’d been writing all these songs about having broken up, about each other,” says Hazard. “It made so much sense as an album. It made sense sonically, it made sense thematically. So then we just wrote a few more songs together.” … “It’s almost like the break-up failed,” says Dragonetti. “When we were kind of falling back together it was just so obvious… we were like, oh, ok, if we’re doing this, we’re doing it for keeps.”

Their new album, Declare a New State, was the result. It’s a beautiful album about regret, longing, shared happiness, tough times, and new beginnings. It’s a composite of songs each produced on their own, brought back into the context of the other, and some new songs (“Peace and Hate” is the primary example) written by the two of them together, looking back on their breakup and reunion.

That the songs were written in these different contexts gives the album a wonderful feel. You can sense the joyfulness throughout, but it is informed by the deep loneliness of separation. Maybe it shouldn’t matter that the story behind the songs is so real, but it does. Knowing that it’s not just storytelling, but real grief, gives the happy ending so much more resonance. Not that a nice story would rescue a bad album, but it provides so much more texture to an already very good album.

There is a lot of pain here (“does every day feel like a brand new chance to fall apart?”), but also a great deal of hope (one of the songs is even named “Hope”). Above all, there is a sense of wonder. Wonder at the pain of love, that you can miss someone so much that it physically hurts, but also wonder that there is always hope for a second chance.

The reference to The Stars is spot on, as Hazard’s voice often sounds virtually identical to Amy Millan’s. Which, for anyone who knows how much I love her, is just about the best compliment I can pay. You could also pick any one of the other current female indie darlings (Jenny Lewis, Caithlin de Marrais, or, frankly, Lisa Loeb) and you wouldn’t be too far off. The point being: she really has an amazing voice. Plaintive, but strong. It soars, it whispers. You want more than anything to comfort her when she’s sad and share the joy when she’s happy.

As for Dragonetti, the first band that jumps to mind is Apples in Stereo. There is a strong 60s folky-but-also-really-into-the-Beach-Boys vibe here. The musical arrangements are not quite as complex as Pet Sounds or anything, but there’s some nice layering effects, and his songs manage to feel warm without sounding overproduced.

You can hear the first three tracks on the album at I Guess I’m Floating, and here’s one more to whet your appetite: Darkest Things, the final song, which emphasizes the hope for a new beginning (I’d have waited a lifetime for a sign, only to fall apart when love arrives, but we’re coming home…). But really you owe it to yourself (and them) to just buy the whole thing.

A couple days ago, I declared the new Band of Horses my favorite album of the first quarter of 2006, but Declare a New State has far surpassed it. Seriously, go buy it right now.

When I play music, one of my housemates often asks “who’s this?” She likes a lot of the indie stuff but isn’t all that familiar with the bands. So when I tell her the names of the bands (The Mountain Goats, Neutral Milk Hotel, Arctic Monkeys, Architecture in Helsinki) she often accuses me of making up the names. I anticipate another round of “no, that’s really their name” soon, because I’m likely to be playing a lot of Birdmonster.

Who are these guys? Well, I’ve consistently heard Modest Mouse references, which I guess I can see, but really doesn’t seem that appropriate. They’re much more about the straight-up rock and roll. Sure, it’s got an edge, but they’re a lot more like the 2006-indie version of Fugazi than anything else. Actually, the more I think about it, Birdmonster reminds me of The Constantines, but a lot better. If rock is making a comeback, a big part of it will be thanks to these guys. They were a big deal in the blogosphere in 2005 thanks to a short (three-song) EP that featured one fantastic song:

All The Holes in the Wall.
They do a lot of great stuff here with the soft/loud, fast/slow variations. It’s very tight, without feeling forced. That may not sound like much, but it’s pretty much the difference between good and bad rock songs. They’re not flailing about aimlessly, but they’re also not totally constrained by the limits of the song. There’s a natural pulse to it that makes me really want to see them live (though it would probably make my ears bleed).

“Our main goal is to rock so hard one of us faints”
–David, guitarist for Birdmonster

That sounds about right.

Their album comes out today. If I was more on top of things I would have ordered my copy a while ago. As it is, I’m stuck with ordering today and having to wait a few days to get it. Until then, here’s one track off the disc:

Balcony
Everything said about the first one applies here, too. It’s the type of song that makes you want to get up and dance around until you just collapse, panting for breath. The softer, quieter moments are interspersed to give you a chance to cool off, but it’s only a temporary respite until they send you whirling around again.

You can (and should) order their album from their website, and while you’re at it, check out their page on Myspace.

Somehow I missed the Voxtrot bandwagon as it was pulling out, but I’ve managed to run it down before they really got going. They’ve got two EPs and make some of the best post-80s indie jangle-pop I’ve ever heard. I’m so new to them that I haven’t even read a review, but I’m just going to go ahead and guess that the following bands are inevitably mentioned: Belle and Sebastian, The Cure, and The Smiths. The Shins, maybe? Joy Division and New Order, perhaps? And a few sly Elvis Costello references, almost certainly.

Given that, you already know what Voxtrot sounds like. Take all those bands, blend them together, set the Wayback Machine for 2006 and…POOF…out comes Voxtrot. This is not meant to be disparaging. They may not be the most innovative group out there, but it’s not like there aren’t a million bands out there who love Morrissey and Joy Division. Voxtrot manages to take those inspirations and write some great songs.

They just released their second EP: Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives. Here’s a couple songs off it.

Soft and Warm
This one is probably the most Belle and Sebastian of their songs. It’s got a great lilting melody, perfectly placed strings in the background, and the occasional burst of fuzzed-up bass for emphasis. The final refrain is the line “You are so young, so feel alive, and one day you will live on your own” repeated as the background music grows until it hits the wall and stops quite suddenly. And then you have to play the song again because you’re hungry for more.

Mothers, Sisters, Daughters, and Wives
This song is like a tightly wound coil. At times the tension is held in check, in other moments it is slowly unwinding, and in a couple places it just explodes and all you can do is run for cover. Or maybe it’s like a campfire: crackling and shooting sparks when you toss a new log on, but also burning hot even in its quieter moments. And while its the flames that entrance you, it’s ultimately the coals that keep you warm long afterwards. Or maybe it’s just a great song. I think that’s most likely.

If you want some more, My Old Kentucky Blog has four tracks up from a KEXP show that they did last month (including a Talking Heads cover).

It’s a strange thing, to watch yourself behaving poorly, to know that you’re not acting like the person you want to be. It’s very frustrating, like watching a movie where the main character is just being stupid and you want to yell at them to stop being so stupid. But it’s your own life. And no matter how much you know that things aren’t quite right, you can’t quite seem to do anything about it.

The long and short of it is that people are crazy, and no matter how much we think we understand, there’s so much more that just doesn’t make sense.

One of the main reasons I love music so much is because it’s one of the best ways to get underneath the surface and explore what’s going on. For that reason, while I enjoy a good pop song as much as anyone, the music that really gets to me is the stuff about the madness and the beauty of the human soul.

And because of that, of all the bands still around these days, Modest Mouse might be my favorite. They floated around a bit in my consciousness back in the 90s (Polar Opposites was a brief hit in Seattle), but I didn’t really get into them until “Moon and Antarctica” came out. It was only then that I went back and collected the whole back catalog. And grew more and more amazed. Like many “original” fans, I was a little underwhelmed by “Good News…” at first, until I realized that there were plenty of people that were fans long before I ever heard of them, and it’s silly to change your opinion of a band because they’re a little more famous. And “Float On” is just about one of the catchiest songs ever.

But I want to talk about a few of their older songs here. Lately, when I’ve been feeling a little weird about myself, life, the universe, and everything these songs have been pretty ubiquitous.

Broke
This one was on the “Interstate 8” EP and then compiled onto “Building Nothing Out of Something.” That album might be my favorite of their’s, which is strange considering it’s just a collection of EPs and other random songs. But somehow (like all things Modest Mouse) the chaos and dissonance is what makes it work. Precisely because the songs sound very different in some ways, the collective whole feels that much more cohesive.

This song is one of their quietest, almost resembling a traditional love song in some ways. However, with Isaac Brock’s voice and the classic Modest Mouse guitar, it runs no risk of being mistaken for anything but them. It opens with 30 seconds of just the guitar, dour yet engaging. When Isaac’s voice enters, it is eery and achingly sad:
“Broken hearts want broken necks
I’ve done some things that I want to forget but I can’t
Broke my pace and ran out of time
Sometimes I’m so full of shit that it should be a crime”

This section of the song continues until the final minute, when the pace picks up and moves faster, faster, faster, until it’s one glorious mess. The drums are flailing about, the guitar is dancing, the lyrics trip over themselves trying to fit into the little bit of time and space provided for them until it all melds together into a series of riffs that hit you like gunfire. And then, WHAM, it’s over.

I can’t deal with rollercoasters, mostly because I’m terrified of heights, but this song sort of makes me understand the appeal. The slow climb, the little bit of panic in the back of your mind, and then the rush. After it’s over, you’re not really sure what it all meant, but you know that the mad rush of adrenaline is what life is all about.

Trailer Trash
My favorite Modest Mouse song, and the inspiration for the name of this blog. As much as I love it in general, it’s felt even more appropriate lately. It’s about a life that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, when you have to wonder if maybe the reason things haven’t turned out quite right is your own damn fault, not because of anything out there. I don’t find it to be a hopeless song. Lines like “Taking heartache with hard work / Goddamn I am such a jerk / I can’t do anything” suggest a deep-seated weariness, a fear that life will never be anything more than it is in this moment. And a bit of self-loathing, as I said at the beginning. He sees himself and is disgusted with his inability to change.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. I like to believe that it’s a warning more than a prophecy. The song contains one extended verse which bleeds into something of a chorus, and is then repeated. Over this, the pace slows and while Isaac initially sounds emotional, maybe even a little tortured, by the end, he is just speaking the lyrics over a drum beat, and the guitars have almost disappeared. You can almost feel the burden of life pressing down. Then, however, the prettiness and weariness of the first half explode into the chaos of the second half. The drums go crazy, and the guitar riff dances around.

There are no lyrics, just the commotion of the music. All weariness is forgotten, and if you’re not quite sure where things are going, you do know that it is exciting. I like to think that’s sort of how life works. Frustration, fear of stagnation, and discontentment can be shattered. It’s a back-and-forth thing, but there’s still some reason to hope that you can learn from your mistakes and be a better person. I’d like to believe that.

So Much Beauty in Dirt
One minute and twenty-four seconds long, and it’s exactly the right length. It’s about those moments, gone before you know it, but perfect in themselves. The refrain “so much beauty it could make you cry” is repeated a number of times, emphasizing that life is perfect in all its imperfections. The randomness, the pain, the mistakes, and the stupidity, all of these things are intermixed with the beauty, the wonder, the silliness, and the joy.

Frankly, I find this song to be far more optimistic, and encouraging, than much more explicitly hopeful songs. Perfect moments are perfect only because we all know they must end. Similarly, we all know that suffering is a part of life, but what makes it acceptable is the realization that it is transistory, ephemeral. When we let pain wash over us, it cannot last – the pure moments burst forth no matter the circumstances, if we let let them. It is only when we fixate on the pain that it haunts us.

These perfect moments can happen anywhere. I find them often in music, but it can be as simple as breathing a deep breah of clean, fresh air. It can be saying goodbye to a friend. It can be a tear shed for someone that you’ve hurt. It can even be a moment of pain or sadness. What makes these moments perfect is not that they are “good” but rather that they are beautiful. And beauty is a perilous thing, as Sam Gamgee would be happy to tell us:

“‘The Lady of Lórien! Galadriel!’ cried Sam. `You should see her indeed you should, sir. I am only a hobbit, and gardening’s my job at home, sir, if you understand me, and I’m not much good at poetry — not at making it: a bit of a comic rhyme, perhaps. now and again, you know, but not real poetry — so I can’t tell you what I mean. It ought to be sung. You’d have to get Strider, Aragorn that is, or old Mr. Bilbo, for that. But I wish I could make a song about her. Beautiful she is, sir! Lovely! Sometimes like a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowndilly, small and slender like. Hard as dímonds, soft as moonlight. Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars. Proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and as merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in springtime. But that’s a lot o’ nonsense, and all wide of my mark.’

‘Then she must be lovely indeed,’ said Faramir. `Perilously fair.’

`I don’t know about perilous,’ said Sam. `It strikes me that folk takes their peril with them into Lórien, and finds it there because they’ve brought it. But perhaps you could call her perilous, because she’s so strong in herself. You, you could dash yourself to pieces on her, like a ship on a rock; or drownd yourself, like a hobbit in a river. But neither rock nor river would be to blame.'”

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

It’s right in the middle of the most busy part of the whole year for me, but I wanted to get out one quick post before it’s off to Dallas for a week. I’ve got a lot of stuff I want to write about when I get back (some interesting new bands, some old favorites I’ve wanted to write about for a long time, and a project where I rank every Beatles song from first to worst), and most of April with nothing to do, so there should be quite a lot then.

Until then, a couple quick things:

Orange – The Exchange

I know virtually nothing about this band, except that they’re from Minnesota, which is a pretty neat state. They’ve got a pretty nice indie guitar/piano combination going on. Maybe this is Death Cab if they were way more into Weezer, or mid 60s pop songs, or Journey, or Jimmy Eat World back before they became parodies of themselves, or something. I realize those things aren’t exactly the same as each other, but there’s a bit of all of them here. There’s some of the “la la la” background vocal thing going on, and I can’t really think of any way to describe this song except “warm.”

Anyways, they’ve got a page with a couple more songs availble for listening. All I’ve heard is what’s up there, but I’m sending away for a copy of the album. If it turns out to be as good as these songs, I will be very happy.

Wilmington – Doug Kwartler

This song has been pretty ubiquitous for me in the past couple weeks. I found it from Trees Lounge, who is doing a project I’ve always meant to do but never got around to: compiling good songs about each of the 50 states.

One of the stumbling blocks in that project for me was that I couldn’t even think of one good song about Delaware. The best I could come up with was the “Awareness Dale – raising awareness about Delaware” theme song thing from the old Conan shows. And when the only song about a state is a parody making fun of the fact that there’s really nothing interesting about the state…

But then I found about about this song which is a great little song about moving to Wilmington. It’s the song about Delaware that Springsteen would have written if he had ever gotten around to it.

I have not heard a single other song by Kwartler, but I’ve read a couple reviews which suggest the rest of his work is as good as this, so it’s high on the list of upcoming purchases.

Tom Petty is one of my all-time top-five desert island favorite artists. I’ve really been in a Petty mood lately, so I thought I’d post a few of his lesser-known songs.

Letting You Go

This is from one of his earlier albums Hard Promises. It’s a really touching portrait of someone who has lost love, but can’t quite accept it. In a broader sense, it’s about how hard it is to get on with our lives after a great loss. While there is a brief bridge that sounds a little more like the “normal” Tom Petty stuff from this era, the rest of the song is a little bit gentler. The music is warm, and often makes me think of sitting in a big chair with blankets wrapped around me. The keyboard, in particular, helps give the song a firm foundation. And the guitar joins for an occasional bubbly burst to keep you from getting too down. Petty’s voice is emotional, but not overwhelmingly so. He expresses sadness, but is pensive, contemplative more than he is broken apart.

This feeling breaks apart a bit during the previously mentioned bridge when he lets it all out and asks plaintively “What about the broken ones? What about the lonely ones? Honey I’m having trouble letting go.” When the warmer, more comforting sound returns, it eases you back from the edge. As the song fades out over the “oooo, oooo-oh-ohs” you’re left with some feeling of hope that “off in the distance, somewhere up the road” there really is “some easy answers for the tears you’ve cried.”

Keeping Me Alive

This is an unused song from the Long After Dark sessions. That album is among my least-favorite of Petty’s, which makes sense, I suppose, since he inexplicably left both this song and “Turning Point” off of it, both of which are better than anything that did make it. Oh well. It’s available on the Tom Petty box-set Playback, on the fifth disc (Through the Cracks). He describes it as having an Everly Brothers feel, which I think is spot-on. Of course, this is the Everly Brothers as interpreted by Tom Petty, so it’s a big more jangly and a bit more countrified. In terms of theme, it’s got a very Springsteen vibe: life may be tough, things may not always make sense, but he’s got his girl, and that’s the only thing that ultimately matters. You can’t help but wonder if the singer in “Letting You Go” is simply this same guy a few years later, but you don’t worry about it too much. Or I don’t, at least. For me, it’s enough to know that there are moments of happiness and that those moments can drive away the tough times.

Crawling Back to You

Completing the circle, we return to a song (from my favorite of his albums, Wildflowers) about broken hearts and lost love. But here, there is no simple message. Each verse could be connected, or could be seen as a completely different mini-scene. The quick sketches suggest some deep melancholy, some unredeemable sadness that resides in the relationships between these characters. And, the chorus is a simple refrain, “I keep crawling back to you,” which hints even more at the possibility that love, in this instance, is held onto like a life-saver. Long after it has faded, we return because the terror of facing the world outside is even worse than the dull pain of our lives. And yet, all hope is not lost. Some of the verses suggest happiness:
Hey baby, there’s something in your eyes
Trying to say to me
That I’m gonna be alright if I believe in you
It’s all I want to do
This is to say that “crawling back” can also be seen as the desire to make things right. If he can still see the spark of love in her eyes, then there is still something to believe in. The way he sings the chorus makes me believe that this is the truth. He does not sing it with a sense of self-loathing or frustration. Rather, there is a hint of wonderment that, after everything, there is still someone there to turn to.

These thoughts are guided along perfectly by the sound of the song. It begins with a long intro, featuring a slow cascading series of notes in a minor key on the piano. To me, this riff sounds like the breaking of a wave. It rises almost imperceptibly and then falls. It glides up the shore and then recedes, pulled underneath the swirling water. The piano is joined by a guitar which punctuates the highs and the lows. Throughout the song, the same basic riff remains the same, though in a number of variations. At times it returns to the feeling of the introduction, like a pond on a still day. At others it is tempestuous and stormy.

Or perhaps it sounds like a breath. As the song begins, it is a long breath, in slow-motion, inhaled and exhaled softly. Then, at the 44-second mark, the drums appear and the pace quickens and the song begins to thump like someone out of breathe from running.

Whichever metaphor you prefer, the general mood of the song remains the same, while the shifts in tone create a great deal of minor variations on the theme. The notes are so downcast that one cannot help but feel that there is a great deal of sadness, but it is never overwhelming. The song is simply too beautiful to believe that there is no hope in the world.

Canada and I haven’t been on the best terms recently, but in spite of that, I still think it’s a great country. Clean, friendly, lots of health care, the Mounties are awesome, and they’ve been producing some great music recently. So, in honor of the Canadian victory over the US in the World Baseball Classic earlier tonight, I thought I’d post a couple of my favorite songs about Canada.

Ride Forever

This is a song from the TV show “Due South” which was on in the 90s, though I never knew about it at the time. A friend recently lent me the entire series on DVD and I was enthralled. Basic premise: a Mountie moves to Chicago (with his pet wolf) to investigate the mysterious death of his Mountie father. He is, of course, overwhelmingly polite, friendly, and helpful. He teams up with a streetwise American cop, who is none of those things. Hilarity ensues. Together, they fight crime. I strongly recommend it.

Anyways, on my favorite episode, they are riding on a train being filmed by a crew making a documentary about the Mounties. In an effort to lively up the impression of the Mounties, they break into song. Of course, as it turns out, the film crew are actually terrorists who pump some chemical into the air to put the Mounties to sleep mid-song (which enables a great scene later in the episode when they all wake up simultaneously and immediately resume boisterously singing the chorus).

The song was actually written and performed by the star of the show (Paul Gross), which I think is pretty neat. It has the feel of an old Canadian cowboy song, and the chorus is a whole lot of fun.

Anchorless

One of my favorite Canadian bands is Propagandhi. They make some of the very best political music there is. This song, however, is a little different. It’s a lot quieter than most of their other songs and not overtly political or angry. This is mostly because it is one of the few Propagandhi songs by John Samson (who left the band in the late 90s to form the Weakerthans, who make a lot of songs along the lines of this one). It’s a song about living in a small town in Manitoba, never going anywhere or doing much of anything. Also, he talks about P.G. Wodehouse novels, which is fun.

Lakes of Canada

I think the word “ethereal” exists just so it can be used to describe this song. I don’t know a whole lot about this band, but the one thing I know for sure is that she has one of the most amazing voices ever. Set over a light, slightly waltzy, set of acoustic guitars, her voices surrounds, almost envelops you. It sounds like a wave of mist that settles over you as you sit out on a boat in the middle of some Canadian lake. The air is cold but still, and all is ghostly, silent. You keep thinking that they’ve added instruments as the song grows on you, but it’s still the same couple guitars and her voice. But, in one sense, her voice is so amazing because it can convey all of that while still sounding fragile. In the same way, you keep thinking that this song is about life, the universe, and everything, but eventually realize it’s only about the smallest of moments. Except, “life, the universe, and everything” is really nothing than a series of moments. So because the song is able to universalize the little moments of beauty we all find in our lives, maybe it is about all of that. Anyways, it’s a great, haunting song.