Archive for the ‘OLDER SONGS’ Category

Coldplay “Clocks”

Chris Martin only wants to make everyone’s life feel more meaningful and romantic, and I think that’s a noble pursuit. The best Coldplay songs – and “Clocks” is the best of them all – blend the uplifting dynamics of classic U2 with the yearning and sentimentality of glossy rom-coms. It’s always cinematic and grand, because you’re supposed to hear it and feel like you’re suddenly in some beautiful moment in a movie about your life. This can be sappy, and it can be narcissistic. But in most contexts, a Coldplay song is empathetic and generous in spirit. It’s Martin and his band giving you permission to let your emotions and experiences feel important, even when everything else in the world is telling you that you’re insignificant and boring.

A song like “Clocks” is at its most powerful when you hear it unintentionally in a mundane context, like if you’re at a Panera Bread in a strip mall on an overcast Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm. You need that grandeur and romanticism to feel a little incongruous with your surroundings. That glorious piano melody tells you that you’re living something bigger and more colorful than where you happen to be in the moment. The falsetto chorus, with Martin repeating the ambiguous phrase “you are,” could be an affirmation, or maybe a declaration of love. It can be anything you need it to be as long as it makes you feel like it truly matters.

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Sophie B. Hawkins “Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover”

“Damn, I Wish Your Lover” is the ultimate example of how if your big chorus hook is easy to relate to, you can say absolutely bonkers nonsense in the verses and most people won’t notice or care. And like, it’s not the actual premise of the song that is particularly weird – Sophie B. Hawkins is singing about pining for a woman trapped in an abusive relationship – but that she articulates this with colorful, mind-boggling phrases like “I give you something sweet each time you come inside my jungle book.” This is not a complaint, by the way! I think it’s better for songs to embrace strange language. It’s usually more musical, and songs with odd turns of phrase tend to stick out in your head more than a song with bland, prosaic lyrics. It’s a big part of popular music. There’s a certain thrill in paying attention to a song and going “WTF? Come inside her jungle book??”

But again, the verses aren’t really what you’re here for. This song is an expertly crafted chorus delivery system, and anyone who has ever experienced the feeling of lust can click into Hawkins belting out the title phrase. At some points in the song she swaps out “damn” for a wholesome, demure “shucks!” and that sort of dorkiness only makes the song more resonant. It’s unguarded, it’s sweet, it’s self-effacing. There’s no pride in this song, just someone laying it all on the line and owning a desire they figure is entirely futile. But the feeling is there, and it’s got to be expressed somehow or she’ll lose her mind. There’s a desperation here too, as if by writing and singing this song, it’s a last ditch attempt to push this feeling from unrequited to reciprocated. She wants to be a hero to this woman and get her out of a bad situation, but it’s more like she’s hoping she can rescue her from loneliness and humiliation.

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Massive Attack featuring Tracey Thorn “Protection”

“Protection” is a love song, but more specifically, it’s empathy song. A lot of love songs are selfish, or myopic. They get caught up in neuroses, or tangled up in obsession, lust, fear, insecurity. But this is a gentle and thoughtful song with a warm elliptical groove in which Tracey Thorn sings about how love can’t solve another person’s problems, but it can alleviate pain. It’s an expression of humility and selflessness. She offers herself as a human shield in the chorus, knowing full well that she’s only offering symbolic relief. It’s bittersweet, but so genuine and pure that it can choke me up. The third verse is particularly interesting as the gender pronouns switch around, and the notion of masculine and feminine qualities are deliberately blurred into mutual vulnerability and a shared sense of responsibility to look after each other. And that’s true love.

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Christina Aguilera “Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)”

“Come On Over Baby” exists in many versions, largely because Christina Aguilera’s label was eager for it to be a hit and paid a lot of money to tinker with it until it clicked in various formats. This radio edit version, with a pepped-up bridge and more openly sexual lyrics, is my favorite. As far as I’m concerned, this is the apex of early 2000s teen pop – catchy and dynamic without the overbearing keyboard chords and dinky melodies Max Martin favored at the time, and highly effective at conveying the horny-but-wholesome aesthetic of the era. This might be a happy accident in some ways, since when you go beyond the surface level of the production, it’s pretty clear the real goal of this song is to provide the young Aguilera with a hit in the mode of Whitney Houston’s most ecstatic up-tempo numbers, like “How Will I Know” and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me).” The songwriting is rooted in gospel, and it’s constantly pushing you up towards total euphoria.

In both sound and sentiment it’s closer to “How Will I Know,” as it’s a joyful crush song grounded in doubt and insecurity. Aguilera is singing from the perspective of someone who is absolutely certain how she feels about the object of her affection and is doing everything she can to invite them into her life, but is frustrated that they don’t seem to be brave enough to go for it. But frustration isn’t really the point of this song, just the context. “Come On Over Baby” is thrilling because it’s so bright and optimistic, and Aguilera sings it all with casual confidence and genuine empathy for her shy, awkward suitor. She ultimately just wants to make them loosen up and feel comfortable, and for the opportunity to be affectionate. Like I said: Horny-but-wholesome.

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Sleigh Bells “It’s Just Us Now”

The running theme of Sleigh Bells’ records is the effort and emotional strain it takes to overcome insecurity and push yourself to be the kind of person you want to be and to become something truly great. Derek Miller makes it all sound like a matter of life and death – there’s no half-measures in Sleigh Bells songs, and the music is always pushed to the furthest extremes of catchiness, of emphatic self-belief, of raw force, of blaring loudness. They’re aiming for an overpowering physical sensation; they want to give you a thrill. But it’s all a dramatization of an inner struggle to be optimistic and have faith that you can make things work.

The phrase “It’s Just Us Now” doesn’t come up in the song, but it’s the subtext. It’s a message to the people who stuck with them after the hype for them died down: You get it, so here’s the most ambitious music we can come up with, because we’re not going to stop fighting even if everyone bails on us. No one would ever consider the music on their previous records to be timid or repressed, but they do feel that way in the context of where they’ve been since Jessica Rabbit came out in 2016. It’s loud, but not in the red and warped to the point that it sounds like an accident. They stopped relying on decibels to give you that oomph feeling. And crucially, Alexis Krauss had revealed herself as a powerhouse singer – the airy head voice of the first few records was now supplanted by a fierce, belting rock voice that was more En Vogue than indie pop. They leveled up, in large part because these are people who thrive as underdogs.

“It’s Just Us Now” tips back and forth between confidence and doubt, but it’s not the pessimistic feelings that stick. The lines that jump out at you are statements of certainty: “I believe deeply in decency.” “When you die, I wanna die with you.” The music sounds defiant and heroic, so when Krauss sings “when I’m conscious, I am cursed,” it just comes across like pointing at an obstacle to kick down and overcome. They’re ready to push and fight, and are not afraid to fail. This is the energy we should be carrying into the New Year.

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Broadcast “Before We Begin”

Trish Keenan was a deeply shy woman who sang everything with an ambiguous tone, as if the Mona Lisa was fronting a psychedelic pop band. Conflicting emotions and ideas overlapped in her songs, but in a very tidy way. She was precise in her phrasing, and expressed as much as she could in small, low-key utterances. She made her shyness a strength in her music, particularly in the way her reserved quality suggested an emotional depth that canceled out the potential irony or kitsch in Broadcast’s taste for mid-20th century nostalgia.

“Before We Begin” is an expression of cautious optimism that makes the most of the ambiguity in Keenan’s voice. She sings her melodies with sweetness and a touch of melancholy – earnestly hoping for the best, but prepared for disaster. In a way, this is a song about how arbitrary beginnings and endings, like the change of one year to another, give us a way of shaping our personal narratives and opening us up to opportunities to have a fresh start. The loveliest part of the melody expresses the most hopeful thought in the song – “it’s in tomorrow, fortune or sorrow / wait, you may win.” It’s a very reassuring sentiment. A guarantee of success and joy would ring hollow, but put in this way, it feels like a more real possibility.

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T’Pau “Heart and Soul”

“Heart and Soul” overlaps and contrasts two lead vocal parts, both performed by Carol Decker. One part is sort of rapped in a cool voice over a hazy, atmospheric synth-bass groove, and the other is fiery and emotive, like Ann Wilson from Heart in power ballad mode. There’s a subtextual trick here that Sleater-Kinney would further develop and refine a decade later – the colder and more rhythmic voice is more wordy and cerebral, while the warmer, more melodic voice is all unfiltered passion. In this case, it’s the “rational” mind and the “emotional” mind processing the same situation.

Decker is singing about being in love with someone who sends her mixed signals, and while half of her mind is hyper-focused on analyzing the situation, the rest of her is just openly pleading for more love and validation. The part of her that’s overthinking everything is tightly wound and cautious, but she sounds absolutely certain in the chorus. She knows how she feels, she knows what she needs, she knows what she wants this person to say and do. This part seems to burst and cut through the clutter, a pure unedited thought calling out to be felt and understood.

In this song, and in several Sleater-Kinney classics, the message is clear: Don’t trust the overthinking mind. It’s the neurotic part of you that sabotages everything, that fears the worst and makes it come true. It’s the thing in your mind that obsesses on “mixed signals” and then makes you send out your own. The raw emotional part of the song is the truth, and it’s the honest and open communication that makes true love possible. It’s not a mistake that it’s the boldest, loudest part of the song.

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Sonic Youth “Kotton Krown” (Live in Brooklyn, August 12 2011)

Sonic Youth recently released a handful of live recordings on the site Nugs, including the band’s final concert in New York City in 2011. This show, which was performed at the Williamsburg Waterfront, was the last time I would ever see them live, after seeing them perform almost every year between 1995 and then. Going to Sonic Youth shows was a big part of my life in my teens and 20s. The first two shows I ever went to were both Sonic Youth gigs.

No one at the time of this Williamsburg Waterfront show had any idea what was going on within the band, or that there was any chance this gig would be our last opportunity to see them. It was just another outdoor summer Sonic Youth show, and they had no new album to promote. I wrote about this show at the time, and the big deal of it for me was that the setlist was mainly comprised of the few classic live songs I had never seen them perform over the years – “Flower,” “I Love Her All the Time,” “Kill Yr Idols,” “Inhuman,” “Psychic Hearts” – and a few major favorites I was hoping to see again, like “Starfield Road” and “Kotton Krown.” It retrospect the setlist feels like a parting gift to fans like me.

I noticed at the time that the show was heavy on love songs sung by Thurston Moore, and knowing now that he was involved with another woman and his marriage with Kim Gordon was dissolving makes that an uncomfortable thing to think about. Having Kim sing “Kotton Krown,” a duet about the early days of their romance, with him not long after she discovered his betrayal is some serious Fleetwood Mac level mindfuckery. What must this have been like for Kim, hearing Thurston turn a song about her into a song about someone else as she sang along?

The end of Kim and Thurston’s marriage stings for two main reasons: It forced the end of the band, and it spoiled what was for many people including myself an aspirational model for a longterm heterosexual relationship. It’s hard to accept that as cool and feminist as Thurston is, he still fell in love with another woman and cheated on Kim. I’ve had a lot of time to adjust to this, and have come around to a more optimistic view of the situation: Any relationship that lasts for multiple decades should be considered a success, even if it ends with the two people drifting apart. The best elements of their marriage and creative partnership remain inspiring. I still want to be the Thurston Moore to someone’s Kim Gordon, but I’d hope I wouldn’t do what Thurston did towards the end of the marriage.

“Kotton Krown” is one of my favorite love songs. It’s a weird one, for sure, but it’s also mostly very direct and earnest in its language: “Love has come to stay,” “It feels like a wish coming true, it feels like an angel dreaming of you.” Thurston and Kim sing it in unison, like they’re reciting an oath to each other. The music is all about contrasts – the melody is sweet but the tones are harsh and bleak, and the blissful serenity of the verses surround an instrumental section that’s stormy and turbulent. My favorite part of the song is when that instrumental part ends and it snaps back into the verse. There’s a sense of clarity in this moment, and then they sing a line that is inexplicably extremely romantic to me: “New York City is forever kitty / I’m wasted in time and you’re never ready.” I can’t hear this part without feeling a bit of envy. I want to feel like this, and for real. I want to take control of the chemistry and manifest the mystery, and I want to be fading, fading, and celebrating. Whatever this is, whatever feeling they were trying to convey in this song – I want it too.

Buy the full show from Nugs.

Iggy Pop “Fall In Love with Me”

Iggy Pop improvised his lyrics to this song, and it shows – it’s pretty clear that he’s free-associating, and there are some lines that probably would’ve been changed or removed if it were more deliberately written. (Why does he seems so impressed by a table being made of wood?)

This is very much a song that would be compromised by too much thought, and a lot of the appeal is in the looseness of the music and the way Iggy seems to be figuring out his feelings of lust in real time. Half of the song is just him trying to describe this woman he’s hot for – her clothes, her personality, her aesthetic – and the rest is him trying to will a relationship into existence. Sometimes the title phrase is a suggestion, other times it’s more of a demand. A lot of the time it’s just a wish that he desperately needs to come true.

The line that really gets me in “Fall In Love with Me” is when Iggy says “there’s just a few like you.” I like the way that acknowledges and appreciates her being special and rare, but hedges just a tiny little bit. That’s the part in the song that best conveys the stakes – he knows he can’t afford to screw this up, because the chances of meeting and seducing one of the others like her seems fairly slim. And when you’re Iggy Pop in the late ‘70s, that’s really saying something.

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Joe Jackson “Steppin’ Out”

With its restless electronic pulse and bright keyboard notes, “Steppin’ Out” sounds like Kraftwerk sitting in at a piano bar. Joe Jackson’s piano part signals “classy and elegant,” evoking the ambiance of jazz or pop standards without sounding quite like it, like how a gifted cartoonist can imply a lot of visual information with only a few lines. The piano seems to sparkle, and nudges you towards imagining a ritzy club or an ornate ballroom. He pushes you to imagine a place filled with glamour, grace, and luxury.

“Steppin’ Out” is a New York City song written from the perspective of a visitor who is caught up in the romance of it all. His character is talking his partner into going out on the town for the night, and imagining the good times he might miss if they just stay in and watch television. Today we would call this FOMO.

The loveliest line in the song is when he imagines a small moment en route to wherever they’re going: “In a yellow taxi turn to me and smile / we’ll be there in just a while.” That’s what this guy really wants, much more so than going to the place itself. He wants that little bit of intimacy and sweetness, and being excited about sharing a special experience. There’s never any indication that the character ever talks his partner into going out; the song exists entirely in a liminal space of fantasy and anticipation.

Steve Barron’s video for “Steppin’ Out” – one of my all-time favorite music videos! – pushes all of these ideas into a more literal visual presentation without spoiling any of the more abstract and magical qualities of Jackson’s song. Barron’s camera captures the glamour and grime of early ‘80s Manhattan, with a particular focus on neon lights, shiny chrome, and lavish old places that seem to exist outside of regular time. The plot of the video centers on a maid at a posh hotel who imagines herself living the life of a fancy, stylish woman dating a handsome, wealthy man. She just wants to escape her drab life, to be the woman in the chic dress, to ascend in class status.

Jackson and producer David Kershenbaum’s arrangement for the song is rather simple and streamlined, but has some very intriguing details. I particularly like the odd little synth note that opens the second and third verses – it’s a strange and subtle thing, but adds to the dynamics of the song without cluttering it. The breakdown at the end is also quite lovely, with its seamless segue into live drums and the addition of another melody played on some kind of mallet instrument that adds an extra layer of glitter before the song is through.

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Yo La Tengo “Winter A-Go-Go”

“Winter A-Go-Go” is sung from the perspective of someone who is very concerned about a friend who seems to be lost and depressed, but knows there’s not much she can really do other than show them support. This is a perfect song for Georgia Hubley’s singing voice – extremely low key and unassuming, but exceptionally warm and empathetic. The song is an expression of kindness, but also of frustration at how powerless she is to fix the situation beyond being loving and supportive. As the title implies, the sound of the music evokes the beach on the off season, with traces of summery sounds muted by chilly and overcast tones. This is a fairly obscure Yo La Tengo song, but I think it’s one of their best composed pieces of music – Ira Kaplan’s organ solo is particularly inspired, and seems to open up the emotional range of the song before it narrows back down for the final round of the chorus, in which Hubley just seems to shrug: “It’s not an impossible thing to do / I know there’s a better life for you / I can’t keep from wondering.”

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The Supremes “You Can’t Hurry Love”

The waiting is agony. You see everyone else get the love you want, but it’s somehow so elusive for you. It’s like playing a game rigged against you, and you start to resent it. Maybe you just give up. Maybe you decide love is for everyone but you, and that the best you could hope for is to settle. But you’ve got to listen to the advice of the mother in this song, one of the finest pieces of music ever composed in the United States: You can’t hurry love, you just have to wait. Love don’t come easy.

This is the last thing you want to hear when you feel lost and desperate and lonely, though. And this was a song intended for a young audience – you have no perspective on time when you’re a teenager, or even in your 20s! Diana Ross and the Supremes sing this song with the urgency of a lovesick teen and the unwavering faith of a true believer, anchored by what I consider to be the most exquisitely boppy beat Motown ever produced. “You Can’t Hurry Love” may be secular, but it’s about faith and holding out hope for some divine plan and purpose. The song cycles through melancholy, exasperation, desperation, and hope before landing on a final verse that sounds far more at ease and resolute than the rest of the song. That’s the part – “keep on waiting, anticipating for that soft voice to talk to me at night” – that sounds like a prayer. It’s the part where they truly know this mother’s wisdom is the truth.

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The Concretes “Diana Ross”

Victoria Bergsman sings “Diana Ross” with a drowsy, uncertain tone that’s very far removed from the bold, hyper-confident voice of the song’s namesake. But she knows that, and this isn’t emulation so much as a tribute, or an attempt to connect with a strength and power beyond what you believe you’re capable of. In most cases, this is the actual utility of pop music – it’s a proxy, and a way to understand or channel our feelings into something more beautiful or elegant. Bergsman is referencing “Love Hangover” in particular, which has a smooth, sensual quality that’s quite different from the slightly awkward staccato beat and wobbly sax of this song. But as much as insecurity manifests itself in the music, it also sounds like a shy person speaking up and reaching out. Bergsman gives the chorus everything she’s got, and for me, hearing her sing out with such overwhelming sincerity is more moving than most Ross performances.

That chorus though. “I didn’t know what I feared, but I do know what I feel.” Boy, do I ever know how you feel there, Victoria. She sings it like she’s surprising herself, like she’s only just now understanding how fear can put you out of touch with reality. But feelings? Feelings are usually the truth. Hearing Bergsman repeat “I do know what I feel” at the end of the song gets me in the gut. She’s realizing something, and getting strength from it. Maybe Diana Ross is what brought her to that epiphany, but I don’t really think so.

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Roxy Music “Virginia Plain”

“Virginia Plain” is basically Bryan Ferry willing Roxy Music into existence. It’s all magical thinking – he states his desire for success, he imagines a glamorous life, and the song itself makes it all real. Or as real as it could be, anyway. Ferry’s vision of glamour is specific but also quite dream-like and surreal. The lyrics in the second half of the song are like a vision board of cool things and sexy aesthetics; he’s giving us a loose outline of a better world he wants to insinuate himself into or create from scratch.

The song still sounds incredibly stylish and fresh nearly 50 years after its release. I think that mostly comes down to how obviously excited these guys are to be playing the song. Brian Eno plays his synths with the playful glee of a kid breaking rules for the first time, and Phil Manzanera’s guitar parts are loose and gestural, scribbled out with the confidence of someone completely at ease with following their instinct. Ferry’s voice is somehow goofy AND debonair. Everything in “Virginia Plain” sounds like it’s just a bit faster than it should be, like they’re all too excited to get to the next part to take their time. And why shouldn’t they be? They’re all in a hurry to live in the new reality they’re inventing.

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Hole “Use Once and Destroy”

“Use Once and Destroy” has a violent, churning sound and feels enormous in scope, like a raging storm in the middle of the ocean. Courtney Love’s voice sings with equal parts defiance and despair, vowing to rescue someone she cares about but knows she will almost certainly fail. She’s angry, resentful, and emotionally exhausted. She knows she’s about to hurt herself doing this.

I hear this as a love song. This is devotion and passion on a grand scale, and as difficult and tragic as it is, it seems a bit enviable too. What really gets to me about this song is that the love is so unconditional – she hates the mess they’re in, she hates having to try to clean it up. But she’s willing to give up a lot for them, and is trying to find strength enough for both of them. When you consider Love’s biography, and that she was only a few years out from the suicide of her husband, the song becomes even more agonizing and poignant – is this a fantasy about saving him? Is this the person she wishes she could’ve been for him? Is this really just regret?

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Marcia Griffiths “Tell Me Now”

“Tell Me Now” has such a warm and laid back rocksteady feeling to it that it took me quite a while to notice that Marcia Griffiths is actually singing a sad song. This is basically a song about a woman who knows she’s in a relationship that’s about to end, and she’s just earnestly wanting to hold on just a bit longer. There’s no trace of anger in Griffiths’ voice, just a longing so genuine and pure that I’d always just interpreted lines like “I’d like to kiss you once more” as being about missing someone in the short term, not fearing that you’re about to lose them entirely. This is not to say that Griffiths’ performance is misleading. It’s rather nuanced, and gives us a moment in a breakup where at least one half of the couple feels a genuine affection for the other.

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Wilco “Poor Places”

“Poor Places” is about a very particular lonely state of mind, but the lyrics are all scattered thoughts and images: The sound of his father’s voice trailing off. Bandages, broken jaws, a drunk rock singer, an air-conditioned room at the top of the stairs. There’s moments of desperation, and details that are basically inconsequential but somehow seem essential to getting across the feeling.

And in the middle of all this oblique poetry, Jeff Tweedy sings one line that’s direct and entirely unambiguous: “I really want to see you tonight.” You don’t say that if there’s a real possibility of it happening. It’s the need that is unmet. It’s the help you can’t even really ask for. The guy in “Poor Places” knows he’s a mess, and he knows he needs to be alone. He can’t bring himself to care about anything else. But he’s longing for connection, affection, distraction. He can’t have it.

The ending of “Poor Places” is resignation bleeding into oblivion. He decides to shut out the world, and the song shifts from a delicate and elegant middle section into a graceless thudding rhythm and cacophony. There’s a sample from a numbers station recording, a woman crisply annunciating “yankee…hotel…foxtrot” over and over in a clipped mid-Atlantic accent. She sounds unreal and robotic. It sounds menacing in context, particularly as the thud of the beat becomes more aggressive. It also sounds completely meaningless, like some detail your mind fixates on as everything else falls out of focus. You just stare until your consciousness dissolves.

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Pavement “Heaven Is A Truck” (Live in Cologne, 1996)

I have spent two thirds of my life wishing I could be more like Stephen Malkmus. I want his style and grace. I want everything I do to seem loose and casual, but always brilliant and perfectly composed. I want to indicate great emotion and meaning with small gestures and oblique phrases. Wanting to be more like him has served me well in a lot of ways, but it’s an impossible standard. This guy has so much style that it’s wasted.

I don’t think you can fully understand what Pavement was without listening to live recordings, and few of them have been made commercially available. The records present the songs quite well, but on stage there was a strange alchemy in the personalities and far more space for inspired improvisation. This is also where the personality of the drummers asserted themselves – when Gary Young was in the zone (as on the Brixton show included on Slanted & Enchanted: Luxe & Reduxe), he hit with a force and urgency that nudged the band closer to the intensity of Nirvana. Steve West, his replacement, was more relaxed and groovy, and highlighted Malkmus’ fluidity and swing.

You can really hear that in this recording of “Heaven Is A Truck,” which as far as I’m concerned is the definitive version of the song. This take has the chill feeling of the studio recording but it’s a little less plodding. Westy’s pocket here is so loose that it’s baggy, but it’s perfect for the tune – everything just sorta floats along, and the slackness of it all makes my body ease up like I’ve been shot with a muscle relaxant. It’s a quick remedy for a weird mood, which is why I’ve listened to so much of this and other live Pavement tracks over the past few days. You can tell yourself to chill out, but sometimes you need to just induce it.

“Heaven Is A Truck” is a California song, and obviously, a driving song. I can’t relate to that, so I’ve always heard it more as a strange sort of love song that’s not really about another person so much as the feeling left in their wake. Malkmus’ words are certain but ambiguous, every other line is about subjective reality. The most evocative line in the song – “I know arks can’t fly, I know that sharks they don’t have wings” – is a declaration of what he does not believe. He sings about a woman with reverence, but it’s unclear whether or not he’s being affectionate. For every line that suggests he knows exactly what’s going on, the tone suggests he hasn’t actually figured out how he feels. So many songs are about processed emotion, but a song like this is more like just letting yourself linger in a feeling before you can start to define it.

Buy the original recording from Amazon.

Rilo Kiley “Does He Love You?”

Songs about being the Other Woman or Other Man are always agonizing, but Jenny Lewis goes the extra mile in “Does He Love You?” by making you gradually realize that she is friends with the wife of the man she’s fallen in love with. Each verse adds another layer of awful emotion – loneliness, then insecurity, then anxiety, then self-delusion, then envy, and then finally, bitter resignation. Lewis always portrays her protagonist as sympathetic; you’re meant to identify with her needs and her rationalizations. All of this is played as melodrama, and the music follows the lyrical arc until there’s a string section scoring the angst-ridden finale like she’s living out the plot of a Hollywood film. The final revelation that this friend of hers doesn’t even really want the life she so badly covets is gutting, particularly as Lewis loses all composure and allows her voice to get as ugly and twisted as the feeling she’s conveying.

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Mercury Rev “Nite and Fog”

Mercury Rev’s album All Is Dream came out on September 11th, 2001. I was in the city for 9/11, I watched the buildings fall with my own eyes across the river in the loft I shared with seven other people in DUMBO, long before it became the fancy Wealth District it is today. I did not get a copy of All Is Dream until a week or so after its release, and I closely associate the music with going home to the Hudson Valley for a while to… I don’t know, hide? It was a really weird and paranoid time and no one knew what to expect. I guess I needed to be around the river and the mountains and trees I grew up with, that I was so eager to escape the entire time I lived there.

Mercury Rev are from the Hudson Valley too, though further north than where I’m from, up in the Catskills. Their music sounds like home to me, and I closely associate it with the beginning of autumn. This is hard to explain – it’s not any particular musical element, but more the way their aesthetic on their late ‘90s through mid ‘00s material resonates with the vibe of the area. A lot of music conveys a “nature” feeling, and that’s not what this is. It’s about the texture and light, physical space and the history of it all. It sounds like the Hudson Valley the way most Sonic Youth sounds just like whatever version of New York City existed at the time of the recordings. I don’t expect this to make sense to anyone else, but I am certain that on some level this is their intention.

There’s a lot of whimsy and romance in Mercury Rev’s music. Jonathan Donahue has an odd voice, he always sounds kinda like a heroic but very sensitive elf on some sort of quixotic quest. “Nite and Fog” is a sort of skewed love song, it’s about a man who has fallen in love with a woman who he barely understands and knows he cannot please. He feels lost, literally and figuratively. Donahue sings the song with great sincerity, his frustration comes off as sweet and earnest. He does not seems at all angry about not being enough for her, and when he sings “but you want it all” in the chorus, he sounds like he genuinely wishes he could give her everything. It’s funny that a song so melodramatic and grandiose would be above all other things an expression of deep humility.

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