The Living Proof Of What They’re Calling Love

The New Pornographers “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”

I think of “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk” as being a showcase for Kathryn Calder, though her voice is shadowed by Carl Newman almost the entire way. She’s the one who sings out, the one who matches the infatuated tone of the music as Newman gives weight to its more cynical and ambivalent sentiments. It’s hard to tell what to make of the feelings here. There’s a fondness and sweetness to the song, but also a lot of emotional distance stemming from the awareness that every coupling is arbitrary and all nostalgia is at least somewhat removed from reality. The mixed emotions carry over to the arrangement, which is mostly quite perky, but is full of counterpoint parts that are like a blissful grin transforming into confused grimace. The song is both cheery and resigned, balancing out somewhere in the middle of the emotional spectrum as a shrug of “Okay, let’s just go with it.” It may all just be a “mistake on the part of nature,” but who are they to argue against what at least seems to be some grand design?

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