Take It From The Top

That Dog “If You Just Didn’t Do It”

Anna Waronker’s voice has a very “90s cool girl” quality – exceptionally good for conveying sarcasm, low-key bitterness, and carefully guarded sincerity. That all comes to play in “If You Just Didn’t Do It,” her first song as the singer of That Dog in over two decades. The band’s particular aesthetic of raw alt-rock dynamics contrasted with delicate flourishes mostly contributed by Petra Haden hasn’t changed, but Waronker’s lyrical perspective has shifted somewhat. This song is nothing but tough love, and it opens with her explaining that this is basically a message to someone to whom the best way of getting through to them is through a song. She’s not pulling any punches here – she’s not outright attacking them or calling them a toxic person, but she is making it clear that their self-destructive impulses have made them impossible to be around. The song hits its main point with blunt force: “If you just didn’t do it, then you wouldn’t do it, and you wouldn’t be here right now.” It’s not sensitive, but sometimes the only rhetorical trick that works is a tautology.

Buy it from Amazon.