All Along Unknowingly

Joan of Arc “This Must Be the Placenta”

Tim Kinsella is very playful in his approach to lyrics, and seems to layer his work with sly references to music, literature, and art both obscure and famous as if to make it all a code for someone nearly as clever and tasteful as himself to crack. But it doesn’t stop there. Kinsella has a gift for juxtaposing vividly strange phrases with lines that start out like self-aware jokes but have an agonizing emotional resonance. You get all of that in “This Must Be the Placenta” on top of a track that manages to feel wobbly and seasick despite a steady, in-the-pocket groove. There’s a lot of great lines in this one, but the one that really sticks with me is “I’ve had a 26-year-old girlfriend since the day I turned 11.” It’s funny, but also so strange and provocative as it sits in my mind and I try to unpack that thought. I like to think that it’s not the same girlfriend, but that his desires have shifted from aspirational maturity and yearning for maternal attention to looking for an equal to wanting to reverse the original dynamic. Another phrase that gets repeated is “all along unknowingly I acted out the plan,” and in light of that, the “26-year-old girlfriend” bit seems more like a joke he’s barely in on.

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