Some Songs Considered

“Up in the Dark” – The New Pornographers 
(Words/music: Carl Newman, available on Together, Matador 2010) 

I’ve wanted to write about this song for a while, and usually if I don’t get to write about a song within a week or two of thinking of the idea, I let it disappear in the ether. This idea, like a lot of the New Pornographers’ songs, stuck in the back of my head and kept coming back. It didn’t help that I’ve heard this song dozens of times, as Together grew on me in the past four or five months unexpectedly. 

Anyway, I wanted to write about “Up in the Dark” because this ranks among Carl Newman’s best songs. Melody bursts from this song, but Newman frequently turns out earworms. His melodies depend on his sense of rhythm, and here it’s the percussive nature of the vocals (particularly in the repeated “what’s love” phrase in the pre-chorus) that makes these melodies snap. The song’s stomping pulse makes me think of a folk singer loudly accompanying the guitar and vocals with the heel of a shoe, and it breaks only when it shifts slightly in the chorus, making the chorus feel like it floats along. Additionally, Newman never gets enough credit as an arranger, particularly in his pairing of songs with the right vocalists. Here, it’s Neko Case weaved in with his own, letting one or the other lead at times while singing together at others. 

Rarely, and I’m just as guilty as anyone else, do Newman’s lyrics earn praise. This is what makes “Up in the Dark” stand out for me. Even though it’s a simple song, I found myself thinking about the phrase in the chorus – “what’s love but what turns up in the dark?” It made me think of all sorts of things. It could be the people and things that help one through a “dark” phase. It could be the trust implied in the simple action of turning off the lights and going to bed with a loved one. It could just be the people we spend nights with, whether a quiet one on the couch or a gathering of friends out together. It even leaves the door open for the typical love associations – the “light” in one’s life, for example – that turns up and ends the darkness. I’ll spare you the rest, but in short it made me look at the way love and darkness relate in a way I never considered. That, plus a killer melody, is enough to hook me. 

More on The New Pornographers: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“You Are Invited” – The Dismemberment Plan 
(Words/music: The Dismemberment Plan, available on Emergency & I, DeSoto 1999 / Barsuk 2011) 

Part 2 of 2: “No date, no place, no time, no RSVP” 

I usually think about the contrasting sections in this song. Specifically, I think of the way the live band ambushes the programmed beat during the second chorus, only to recede back to the sequencer for the next verse. Recently, I started paying closer attention to the strange sounds that creep in during the end of the second verse. They happen right around the point the narrator goes to the party held by his “ex-thing,” and they’re mixed beneath the fast clicking that runs throughout the entire second beat. Maybe it’s from knowing that the full band waits ready to bust through the chorus, or maybe it’s from the type of tension I’d feel if I went to a party at my ex’s house, but these sounds made the rest of the verse feel nervous. This leads into the cathartic blast of guitar and drums in the verse, but also the relief in the narrative when Ex-Thing repeats the welcoming advice inscribed in the invitation. 

It’s this combination of social awkwardness followed by an immediate, almost superhuman transformation that made me think of Scott Pilgrim, the comics (and movie) about a twenty-something slacker who simultaneously fights video game-style villains and the inner conflicts that plague people in their teens and early twenties. It started with this image of a party combined with an anime-like “power up” triggered by this music, but then the message of optimism and proactivity in the song’s invitation struck me as the kind of thing Scott Pilgrim needed to hear. If nothing else, it was the kind of thing I needed to hear, whether from another human being or even just a random piece of mail, when I went through the mix of heartbreak and uncertainty and parylyzing indecision that Scott Pilgrim encountered in the comics. It’s still nice to hear and even better, as the song’s narrator learns in the final verse, to pass on to those who need it more than you do. 

More on The Dismemberment Plan: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Back and Forth” – The Dismemberment Plan 
(Words/music: The Dismemberment Plan, available on Emergency & I, DeSoto 1999 / Barsuk 2011) 

PART 1 OF 2: “You’ll always be my hero / even if I never see you again.” 

I saw the Dismemberment Plan for the first time in 2002. I ended up with their final LP Change somewhat serendipitously when it came out and obsessed over it for a good stretch of time (so much that when I listened to it earlier this year in its entirety for the first time in ages, my hands instinctively drummed along to every little nuance out of muscle memory).  I never forgot that show – from the opening local band playing the Replacements’ “Left of the Dial,” to John Vanderslice’s tight supporting set and theatrical drummer – and the kind of spastic glee the Plan induced both on stage and in the crowd in the tiny Providence rock club.  It broke my heart when the band called it quits, and not being able to catch the band’s farewell tour only bummed me out further. 

So when the band came back together for a series of shows supporting the vinyl reissue of Emergency & I, I seized the second chance. I bought tickets months in advance and dug out my Dismemberment Plan records well in advance. The first step, of course, was falling back in love with these songs.  I expected the superhuman rhythm section and hairpin shifts to still catch my ear, but rather than just rely on my old favorites, I felt pulled toward songs that never grasped me the first time around.  In particular, “Back and Forth” bridged the things I knew I loved about this band with the things that I appreciated even more now. I probably fixated on the drumming when I first got the record, but a few months ago I found my attention centered on Travis Morrison’s vocals.  He runs through the lyrics of this song quickly, so rather than decode the entire song at one, I kept grasping onto specific parts.  Each time I listened, a new phrase caught my ear, and I marveled at the way Morrison could play with the sound of words and internal rhymes without sacrificing his storytelling and imagery.  Both the sound of the words and the words themselves worked together to paint this scene if joy and nervous excitement tempered by the reminder that the night would eventually end. This duality of sound and signifiers fits the song’s duality as well – one of the awareness of memory while it’s being created while still enjoying the moment. 

It was appropriate for seeing the band this past January as well.  Like the song’s narrator, I went into the night knowing that no matter how much fun I had (and I had a blast), I didn’t know if I’d ever have another chance to see the band again. Appropriately, they closed their nearly two hour set with this song, and a few days later it sunk in – it didn’t matter if this was the last time (and from the handful of gigs and festival appearances this summer, I’m holding out hope for periodic mini-tours every so often) because I had a hell of a time. Rather than fixate on the band’s absence like last time, I’m treasuring the memory (even months later) of an exceptional gig.

Tomorrow (or the next day or so): Hearing the right thing at the right times. 

More on The Dismemberment Plan: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” – The Magnetic Fields 
(Words/music: Stephin Meritt, available on 69 Love Songs, Merge Records 1999) 

Music Diary Project – Wednesday 4/6 and Thursday 4/7 (Context Here) 

I haven’t had a chance to update this since Tuesday night (and probably won’t again until Sunday). Here’s what I best remember.

“Perfect Way” – Scritti Politti, “Secret” – O.M.D., and “The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” – Magnetic Fields

I have XM in my car, and I find that while I really enjoy the service, I seem to listen in shifts. I’ll listen to a couple stations for a while and then will go weeks without listening to them. Right now, I’ve been listening to a lot of the talk shows on the MLB baseball channel. Combined with a short commute to work and not a lot of errands to run this week, I haven’t listened to a lot of music in the car. Most notably, I heard the Scritti Politti and O.M.D. songs on their “First Wave” channel (one of my favorite things to flip to during a commercial break on the talk stations). I heard the Magnetic Fields song on their “college radio” station (“Sirius XMU”) on Wednesday afternoon just before their “old school” show. For two hours on Wednesday afternoons, they play what they dub “vintage indie rock,” and when I can I make a point to listen, if for no other reason than it reminds me of a lot of the stuff I used to play on my college radio show. 

“The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side” is indicative of my relationship with 69 Love Songs as a whole. I’ve largely approached Meritt’s three disc work in pieces, and each time I listen to a different chunk, I appreciate a new song. It had been a while since I heard “The Luckiest Guy…” and I forgot that Stephin Merritt didn’t sing it (Dudley Klute sings it, as with about half a dozen others of the sixty nine). So Klute’s smoother voice kind of took me for a loop, particularly the way he glides toward some of the higher notes (like the way he sings “astronomer”). It’s especially strange because I seem to be comparing it to a version of the song that doesn’t exist (I don’t think I’ve ever heard Meritt sing it live), and I can’t think of another time I’ve done this (maybe with a version I wish  it sounded like, but not one I errantly remembered hearing). Anyway, this might be an interesting idea to explore another time. (Related: my favorite song on 69 Love Songs)

Smoke Ring for My Halo – Kurt Vile, Side A of Wide Awake in America EP – U2, Record 1, Sides A and B of The Blueprint – Jay-Z 

The other afternoon, I treated myself to a couple games of NBA2k11 while listening to records. I stared with Kurt Vile’s new album after picking it up a couple weeks ago and never getting around to it. I grew to like it more as the album went along, and what began as being unimpressed grew into a respect for some of the understated qualities of his songs. I’m going to want to listen to this record a few more times, particularly the stretch in the middle that bridged the album’s two sides. 

At the end of Vile’s album, I dug into one of my crates of records I hadn’t explored in a while. I have a bunch of bins of records in my living room (my roommate graciously puts up with what amounts to a disproportionate number of records taking up space) and found this EP from U2’s The Unforgettable Fire era. Side B is two outtakes from the record (which I wasn’t in the mood to hear), but side A features two excellent live performances of “Bad” and “A Sort of Homecoming.” The former is one of my favorite U2 songs (particularly for this version, which is excellently recorded) and the latter I always end up enjoying a lot more than I remembered.

I honestly forgot that I bought The Blueprint on LP, and that was the driving force behind listening to it. I got through the first half of the album (split over four sides) before I had to stop listening. 

The last thing I remember listening to was this cover of “Bizarre Love Triangle” by Sarah Records band Even As We Speak. It was yet another reminder that I should probably look into more of these late ‘80s/ early ‘90s indie pop bands. Any specific bands/records as starting points?

That’s it for now. I’ll try to keep track of the next couple days for a Sunday afternoon/night update.

What have you been listening to?

“Suicide Demo for Kara Walker” - Destroyer 
(Words: Kara Walker, Music: Dan Bejar, available on Kaputt, Merge Records 2011) 

Music Diary Project Day 2 (Context here) 

Overall, this was a pretty “quiet” day. First, an omission from yesterday though:

“Break (All of the Lights)” - Childish Gambino

I heard this Monday afternoon while going through Google Reader. Childish Gambino is actor Donald Glover’s (best known as Troy from Community) MC name. Glover put out a bunch of self-released mixtapes and albums (with his “official” debut due later this spring), and this track (which splices together parts of Kanye West’s “All of the Light” and its gorgeous instrumental interlude) shows his strengths as both a producer and lyricist. I’m finding myself liking his tracks more and more each time, meaning either I’m getting used to his style or he’s honing his craft. Either way, I’m game for hearing more. 

Kaputt album - Destroyer 

Tonight when I got home, I played Kaputt on my computer speakers and sprawled out. Kaputt, both by nature of liking it and from getting it early in January, is the new album I’ve listened to the most times so far this year (iTunes says 15 times, plus a couple spins of the CD in my car), and several times I’ve played it in a similar way to today. It’s a little unnatural for me to listen to a Destroyer album this way (and perhaps it’s this quality that turned off some people to it), as Bejar’s songs demand some unpacking. There’s certainly a quality to this album that rewards deep though, but it also seems to get lost in while listening. Now that I’ve heard it so many times, the melodies are familiar and comforting.

“Suicide Demo for Kara Walker,” which appears at the top of this post, might be my favorite song so far this year. I like the combination of different sounds, in particular the light touch of the flute near the beginning and the subtle disco groove in the middle. Over its eight minutes, it goes in a couple interesting directions without making any drastic shifts (and in a way, that’s one of the things I find appealing about Kaputt specifically and Destroyer in general - the subtle movements within a larger aesthetic style). Most notably, the lyrics feel different because Bejar didn’t write them; artist Kara Walker gave Bejar a series of notecards with phrases on them, and Bejar wrote music around her words. It makes the storytelling more fractured than Bejar’s circuitous style. It still tells the story in an oblique way, but rather than doubling back and elaborating on itself, it gives shards of the story individually, eventually piling up the way one’s notecards might pile up. Then again, maybe I’m just projecting more of the process upon the final product.

(I enjoyed reading your suggestions last night and this afternoon, even if I didn’t get a chance today to follow up on any of the interesting things you folks are listening to this week. I’ll see what I can do tomorrow). 

How about you - what did you listen to today?

“You Wanted a Hit” - LCD Soundsystem
(Words: James Murphy, Music: LCD Soundsystem, available on This is Happening, DFA/Capital 2010)  

Music Diary Project Day One (Context here)

Off-Key Teenager - Two lines of “Pretty Girl Rock” (Keri Hilson) 

The first song I heard came at work, overhearing a kid walking in the hallway singing two lines from this song - “It’s not my fault so please don’t trip / Don’t hate my ‘cause I’m beautiful.” It’s noteworthy because after hearing the remix with JennyMack (who is also doing the Music Diary Project) I told her that specific line alone (plus a solid beat and catchy melody) would make that song a hit. 

“You Wanted a Hit” & “Home” - LCD Soundsystem

These two were the first songs I listened to by choice today in the car on the way home. I’ve had bits of both of these songs stuck in my head since seeing LCD Soundsystem this weekend (and I promise this post will be the last I have to say about them for a while!). 

“You Wanted a Hit” specifically reminded me of one of my favorite quotes from Pitchfork’s annotated discography. In it, James Murphy says, “instead of writing an op-ed piece, I have a band that’s an op-ed piece.” It’s a pretty terrific line to summarize that certain type of the band’s songs (Matthew Perpetua comes to a similar conclusion today on Fluxblog regarding “Yeah”), and “You Wanted a Hit” fits that well. If only more op-eds came with similarly icy synth melodies. 

“Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” - Marvin Gaye and “Graveyard Girl” - M83 

Listened to both with headphones while grocery shopping. They were from an old mix I had on shuffle, and I’m sure that I had good reason for having both of them in the same mix. Regardless, I hadn’t heard either in a while and it was good to hear them both. 

“Hey Hey What Can I Do” - Tim Palmeri (Led Zeppelin cover)

My friend Pete posted a link to an Archive.org show from Tim Palmeri, who fronts a jam band by day and occasionally plays random cover filled shows at a local bar in between. Most notably, Palmeri performs with a loop pedal, which lets him solo while “accompanying” himself. (Also, this is one of my favorite Led Zeppelin songs).

“One Shining Moment” - Luther Vandross 

This is the song CBS uses for their NCAA tournament montage. I only caught the end of the game, but it looks like it was ugly, ugly basketball. 

Conclusions: None really. I was kind of busy today and didn’t have any “appointment listening” or extended car trips or long periods at my desk (when I wasn’t writing in silence), so there wasn’t a whole lot to catalog. I imagine more in the forthcoming days. 

What did you listen to today?

“Someone Great / All My Friends” – LCD Soundsystem 
(Words/music: James Murphy / James Murphy, Patrick Mahoney, Tyler Pope, available on Sound of Silver, DFA / Capitol 2007) 

I wasn’t there when James Murphy put out the “Losing My Edge / Beat Connection” single, but by the time that LCD Soundsystem’s self-titled debut / compilation came out, I caught up. It soundtracked a lot of moments in my apartment during my final semester of college, and I swear at least once I nailed the exact tone and timbre of Murphy’s yelp in “Daft Punk Is Playing at My House.” Long story short, I liked the band more than enough to eagerly anticipate their follow up. I was prepared to like it, but felt ambushed when I loved it. Part was Murphy’s expanded range and chops – the “dance punk” label faded away by 2007, and Murphy went from being a guy who wrote and produced good tracks to someone who performed them just as well (see “New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down”).  

Most notably, I had a gut reaction to the album in particular the combination of “Someone Great” and “All My Friends” at the middle of the record.  A few years later when I bought Sound of Silver on vinyl, I was disappointed to find these two songs not only on different sides but entirely different records (“Someone Great” ends side B, “All My Friends” begins Side C), meaning that listening to the record meant taking a break to swap records between these two. Between the record swaps and listening to the songs independent of the album, it had been a long time since I listened to these two in immediate succession. 

So tonight I did what I should have done a long time ago – I made a single MP3 out of these tracks and hit play.  The version uploaded is a lower bitrate to fit Tumblr’s 10 MB upload limit, but it still gives you the opportunity to listen to these two songs, the emotional core of Sound of Silver, in immediate succession.  If you own the album (and if not, you should), go put it on and listen along. If not, click play as I share my listening notes from earlier tonight. 

1:37 – This is the moment where both James Murphy’s vocals and the glockenspiel enter. Even though I know it’s coming, the melody still catches me off guard. Perhaps it’s the way the bright bells highlight the notes Murphy sings, but the repetition of these notes sound so sweet set against the darker backing track.  It’s also worth noting that James Murphy plays all of the instruments on both of these tracks.

3:54 – This is the first shift in melody, however slight, where Murphy repeats “and it keeps coming” a few times before immediately shifting back into the verse melody. The repetition, both of the melody and of the specific words, stirs up the sense of dismay. 

5:35 – Right after the repetition of “when someone great is gone” line, this is the shift to the “we’re safe (saved?) / for the moment” lyric. The synthesizer starts to sound a bit more like a siren, and this juxtaposition always feels like a punch to the gut even when I know it’s coming. 

7:29 – Murphy enters “All My Friends” with the line “that’s how it starts.” Maybe this is why I’ve linked these two songs together, but this opening line always makes me feel like Murphy begins the song in the middle of the story. Of course, the popular interpretation of the song (in a thumbnail sketch: coping with getting older) relies on this feeling of looking back, so it makes perfect sense. 

Somewhere between 7:29 and 10:00 – the thing I focused on the first few times listening to this song was the same piano chord repeated for nearly five minutes. Now, I focus on the sounds Murphy gradually includes in the mix – the bright synthesizer in particular. I never notice their individual entrances; rather, I’m caught off guard every time in this range when I noticed they all entered yet can’t place my finger on when it exactly happened. 

12:38 – Murphy strains slightly as he sings higher, and it’s these type of moments on Sound of Silver that I wasn’t ready for based on the first record. It’s a rough edge, but by design, and while it might not have fit on some of the early singles, it gives these songs an unexpected emotional edge. It still catches me off guard. 

13:30 – Murphy’s already well into the home stretch at this point, and from the part where he holds the last syllable in “tonight” for a few seconds through the song’s conclusion roughly twenty seconds later, I am entranced. If “Someone Great” gets me about halfway through, “All My Friends” usually strikes after it’s already gone. 

Anyway, this is the best I can do to try to put the emotional response these songs trigger into some kind of framework. The true art here lies in the fact that I’m not the only one who responds in this way to these songs. 

More on LCD Soundsystem: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm