Song 11: My Girls

My Girls - Animal Collective

American uber-indie publication Pitchfork can sometimes seem a little self-parodical, when you peruse the parade of oddly-titled obscurity that it champions. Its lists and recommendations can sometimes lead to one or two bum steers, but I'm very grateful to it for it's 'Best Song of 2009' choice, 'My Girls' by Animal Collective.

I actually already owned the Animal Collective album, and had seen them headlining a festival, badly, so I was all prepared to put that one down as a hype job, one that wasn't for me. Too trippy, too daring, not warm enough, too modern, dear.

But there was something about the strength and warmth of Pitchfork's recommendation that made me really give 'My Girls' a good go - it had been the first song on the album I'd heard, and I realised as I listened to it back that its melody lines were now rather well known to me. It had burrowed its way in, and now was ready to get a grip of me.

Which it did. It is, by far, the song I've listened to most in the last three years. In some ways, words fail it. But I'll try to do it some justice.

Animal Collective had done a few albums before 'Merriweather Post Pavilion' and have done one since and it's fair to say that this is the one album where the music they make has coincided, even slightly, with what might be popular or easy to listen to. Their other stuff is hard work, perhaps brilliant, but hard work for the likes of me.

[incidentally, Panda Bear, the member who wrote 'My Girls' is a solo artist in his own right and makes music which is perhaps mellower, less trippy, more folky and sweeter. An easier way in, perhaps]

Even 'Merriweather' is not, initially, an easy listen. There are a few other crackers apart from 'My Girls' but, like I say, the tunes and the hooks emerge over time, I don't think they're that obvious.

And 'My Girls' - well, on more than one occasion, I've played it, or seen it played by an enthusiast, and seen it met, initially by a very negative reaction.

Initially, it's slow, dense, maybe a little intimidating, trippy (occasionally, I've seen people describe Animal Collective as something like "the Beach Boys on acid" ... which is surely just the Beach Boys), heavy with synths and vocal harmonising, almost frustrating - beautiful when you know, when you trust the song.
It almost waits too long to kick in - I wonder how it goes down on a dancefloor. Part of me would love it to be played at our wedding, but is it too much of a trial?

Intimidating. Uber-cool. Hardly sounds that promising, does it? And 'My Girls' - what's that all about? Some kind of sick bigamist, babylonic lunacy? Not so.  It's the warmest, sweetest, simplest song imaginable at heart. I'm going to do that lame thing again of quoting the lyrics (as I hear them). Forgive me.

There isn't much that I feel I need
A solid soul and the blood I bleed
With a little girl and by my spouse
I only want a proper house.
x4
I don't care for fancy things
Or take part in the vicious race
Just to provide for one who asks
I will, with heart, on my father's grave

On my father's grave (x8)

I don't mean to seem like I care about
material things like our social stats
I just want  four walls and adobe slats
for my girls 
WOOOOH!

and so it kind of goes on, with the same words repeated and various beats and exultant cries.
It's a hymn by a new father to the joys of domesticity. Simple as that.
And something struck me. It's really, without all the bells and whistle, a little folky nursery rhyme, and I suddenly thought it would work, broken down, sung by the Proclaimers. I've managed it in my head, the way they'll pronounce I as "ah" and my girls as "mah gurrrls" - lush! [The Proclaimers, who I will undoubtedly move to in their own right, have a beautiful song about their father's passing called 'My Act of Remembrace' so that line would have added poignancy.]

But I have come nowhere near doing justice to the ecstatic bliss of this song - I sing along and dance along, I always mistime my WOOOH, and it gets me every time. I'm listening to it at the moment.

This, and a couple of other things around the same time, convinced me that I was finally "getting" electronica, that within a couple of years I'd be a pure house fanatic and would have said goodbye to that lame guitar music.
It hasn't happened of course. It's just the quality of the song. A song this good is its own new genre - I imagine Animal Collective won't try to be so poppy again, and that's their prerogative. Me and them will go our separate ways, but for this gift to the world, I'll be forever grateful.