These Days Of Ours

Rose Elinor Dougall “May Holiday”

Much like her previous single “Another Version Of Pop Song,” “May Holiday” finds Rose Elinor Dougall attempting to reconcile the happy romance and stability of a relationship in the present tense with the nagging anxiety of wondering where she will be in the future, and what she will think of her life now in retrospect. The emotional tone of the piece is pitched perfectly between affectionate sweetness and melodramatic melancholy, particularly as the arrangement builds to a cinematic peak without getting overly sappy.

Visit Rose Elinor Dougall’s MySpace page.

Zooey “Father To A Sister Of Thought”

On the Zooey site, the duo mention that they’ve been singing this song in the shower for years. Hey, me too! It’s been one of my go-to sing-to-myself-when-I’m-alone songs for most of my life now, and in doing that, I’ve noticed that it’s a wonderfully malleable melody that rewards light improvisation and a variety of readings that bleed into genres. Zooey clearly noticed this as well. The tone of their cover is very faithful to that of the Pavement original, but it is technically transposed to another genre, a sort of mellow, keyboard-driven modern lounge pop. I’m very fond of their added harmonies, but I wish they had not omitted the riff at the end, and the “I know I’ll never know” outro.

Visit Zooey’s official site.