Sunday 11 September 2016

I was a television version ...

Perhaps a less well known one, this.

"I was a television version of a person with a broken heart"

It's from The National song, Pink Rabbits. The National are a great band, with great drumming, great arrangements, rock anthemics, and have really notable lyrics. Crafted, but also, occasionally, shocking, funny, moving  etc

One that caught the attention was in the song 'Conversation 16' - "I was afraid that I'd eat your brains, 'cos I'm evil" Then there was "I used to be carried in the arms of cheerleaders". I love that one. That's from Mr November, a pretty deranged piece of rock desperation.

Pink Rabbits is different. It's a swoon, a ballad, more of a pop song almost. Matt Berninger sings it fairly high up in his baritone range. It's one of the three songs from their most recent album 'Trouble Will Find Me', that I really love.

What do I love about this line so much? Well, how it sounds, for starters. The play on words is obvious, the slightly-off alliterations and internal rhyme, I love the confidence of how much is packed into the line.

It falls within this

You didn't see me I was falling apart
I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in the park
You didn't see me I was falling apart
I was a television version of a person with a broken heart

So you can see, he's had to rush through 4 more syllables than in the comparable line, yet it all sounds perfect.
I also like the two metaphors juxtaposed. The first one doesn't, as such, work for me. Or rather, it's opaque. "I was a white girl in a crowd of white girls in the park". Am I supposed to get how that indicates falling apart? Perhaps not, so let's make it clearer. "I was a television version of a person with a broken heart" Right, get it - a lovely, knowing, self-mocking image of a man, unshaven, drinking all day, crying and moaning and looking woebegone - a television version of a person with a broken heart.

And it's this great descending phrase, it reminds me of the themes to sad children's TV shows of my youth - perhaps that's why I find it so apt. I've only just thought of that. I can't believe that's on purpose, but maybe it is.

Also, you know, quite often, people with broken hearts are television versions, that's the weird thing, isn't it. Grief can look like a cliche, so can despair. I remember seeing this guy walking through Clapham once crying and shouting "why me? Aaah ... why me?" and one part of me thought "poor guy" and the other thought "dude, find a new scriptwriter ..."

Anyway, here's the song

Pink Rabbits

Tuesday 6 September 2016

If it snows ...

In my opinion, this blog has been its most successful (and certainly most enjoyable to write) when I've started at a specific song, then been able to examine it at length, to venture into pop culture in general, throw in a bit of autobiographical detail, and come back to where I started. That feels like proper writing, and what a music blog should be all about.

I also note that I've made lists of countless things and written about countless things, but have never been so bold to focus, as such, on "lyrics". I've never told you my favourite lyrics. I don't really think I have favourite lyrics, as such, and I'm very cautious about ever divorcing the words from the song. The song is the whole thing, it's always unwise to remove the words from their context. We all know that the person who starts reciting you their favourite lyrics like they're the Book of Revelation is a person to avoid most strenuously.

But ... of course ... I can't avoid being the twat forever.

All I'm going to do, perhaps as an ongoing strand, perhaps not, is give a line I love from a song I love and see if I can write around it, think about it and see what it is I love so much.

I'll avoid tapping into the spirit of my student self and going too deep into literary criticism, but I'm sure words like assonance will pop up every now and then.

"And if it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain"

This is a good place to start, eh?

This line, as you probably know, comes from the second verse of 'Wichita Lineman', written by Jimmy Webb, sung by Glen Campbell. I fucking love this line. I love the way it sounds, for starters, the easy, oddly gentle alliteration, perhaps the hissing of the wire, though it doesn't have to be, the long, relatively complex unit of sense, sung just at the edge of where Campbell's glorious voice still sounds comfortable. He sings it like he means it, it sits in the verse like it's the most important thing he can think of.

But it's not, of course.

The line that follows this one, almost as a sigh, is the most famous line in the song - "And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time".
This enormously romantic and beautiful line is oft-repeated and quoted. But would it be such a wonderful, beautiful line, if, as might make sense, it had been preceded by something like ...

"Baby, I'm trying to compare how much I need you and how much I want you,
and also how long I'm going to want you for ..."

Thanks, I came up with that myself.

No, it's the juxtaposition that makes the magic.
"If it snows that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain," the stoical, hard-working man thought to himself, focusing, for a time, on the concerns of his job. But his loneliness and longing inevitably burst through the veneer his mind had constructed. "And I need you more than want you, and I want you for all time".

There are so few lines in this song, which tell so much, just the perfectly concise biography of an American man, his life, his character and all his concerns.

Wichita Lineman

There are other things I love about this song - the fact it's a country song at heart, but also a chamber-pop song - it's really one of the cornerstones of all-American music.

I haven't much else to say about it, certainly nothing autobiographical, it doesn't take me back to my days as a binman in Winchester. But it's a glorious moment in a glorious song, and if I ever have the opportunity to use the phrase "If it snows, that stretch down south won't ever stand the strain" appropriately, by golly, I will!