Haunting My Own Life

of Montreal “Spiteful Intervention”

There was a time – a mostly quite bad time – in my life when I related quite strongly to Kevin Barnes’ music, but thankfully, I’m not there anymore. This puts me in a strange position in terms of my relationship with his music: While I maintain that he has made some of the best records of the past decade, it can emotionally scalding to hear some of my favorite songs in his catalog lately, and I come into the latest of Montreal album, Paralytic Stalks, with a bit of distance and trepidation. Even in the context of Barnes’ often hysterically emotional work, Paralytic Stalks goes to some of the darkest places of his career to date as he struggles to hold together a difficult relationship and comprehend why he can feel compelled to be cruel to the one he loves. “Spiteful Intervention” cuts straight to the heart of this, with Barnes admitting that he can get off on being emotionally sadistic with his lover. Like a lot of the best of Montreal songs, it’s simultaneously raw and direct in its sentiment, and extremely cerebral, with lyrics that pick apart each nuance of the situation with the focus of a very depressed person who can’t stop obsessing and replaying conflicts in his head. I really love this song, but want to keep it at arm’s length – when that chorus gets stuck in my head, I worry about its words getting too deep into my psyche. I never want to be the guy singing this song.

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