I Control The Controllables

Westerman “Think I’ll Stay”

“Think I’ll Stay” is warm in melody but ice cold in arrangement, like a Paul McCartney song filtered through the severity of Wire and the palette of Kraftwerk. Westerman’s lyrics suit the ambiguity of the music, with him sketching out a grim scene of someone struggling with chronic pain, but then sort of shrugging that off in the chorus and deciding life is still worthwhile despite the agony. Given the grey tonality and Westerman’s sober, Eno-ish voice it doesn’t sound particularly affirming – at most it’s a sort of neutral cautious optimism. It’s like running life through a cost-benefit analysis and finding out, yeah, it’s still good to be alive.

Buy it from Bandcamp.