November 3rd, 2022 1:57pm
You Need A Little Candor
Phoenix feat. Ezra Koenig “Tonight”
Phoenix are the only rock band I can think of whose genre would be best described as “romantic comedy.” The romance part is obvious enough just by hearing most of their songs – sometimes the feel is more flirty, sometimes more longing, later in the catelog more often the lived-in feeling of long term partnership – but it’s always there, some ambient field of affection and attraction permeating every measure. The comedy comes through in the details of Thomas Mars’ lyrics, typically an English-as-second-language stew of evocative phrases, oddball syntax, and little bits of French. Mars zeroes in on little absurdities and comic moments, grounding big emotional moments or interpersonal tensions with, in the case of “Tonight,” a silly refrain like “who let the boys spill their entrée?” This is a bit of levity before moving on to the more emotionally fraught line “dinner is served, can’t you see we’re not opposites?” I can clearly imagine this playing out as a scene in a film, but it feels more efficient in musical abstraction. The plot doesn’t matter as much as the feeling.
“Tonight” feels a lot like Phoenix’s biggest hit “1901,” mainly in the way the grooves circle each other – one guitar figure suggesting a hesitant movement forwards, the rush into the chorus cutting loose and embracing a carefree acceleration. I’m intrigued by the decision to include Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend to sing this with Mars as a duet. The implication is not so much that they’re singing to each other but more as different aspects of the same person in conversation, dramatizing the lyrical hook “I talk to myself and it’s quite surprising.” This also underlines the unspoken tension at the core of this song – he’s overly familiar with his internal monologue, but he’s singing to someone who can still be a mystery to him.
Buy it from Amazon.