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“Here’s Where the Story Ends” – The Sundays
(Words/music: David Gavurin and Harriet Wheeler, available on Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, Rough Trade 1990)

Earlier tonight, Tristan from A Post Punk Tumblr invented the #allmusicsays Twitter game, posting part of an Allmusic artist biography, inviting others to guess what band the Allmusic scribe tries to describe.  It’s a fun idea that I hope catches on  - I’ll post one on the Some Songs Considered Twitter page a little later.  Tristan chose a description of the Cranberries that, when I second guessed what I thought was the “obvious” choice, led me to inadvertently introduce him to the Sundays.  I rediscovered the song a few years ago when I had XM Radio and spent a lot of time in my car for my job.  I had heard “Here’s Where the Story Ends” occasionally on the radio but never really thought twice about it when I was a teenager.  This time around, the song led me to Reading, Writing and Arithmetic, an album worth checking out if you like this song.

“Here’s Where the Story Ends” is a gorgeous pop song about having perspective.  Harriet Wheeler, who kind of sounds like a less dynamic version of Bjork (for better or worse, depending on your stance on Bjork and her idiosyncrasies), sweetly sings about a relationship that recently ran its course.  She alternates between feeling crushed about the end of the story and looking back at it fondly, alternately feeling guilty about saying she loved her ex for his library and wryly smiling about all the great books she discovered.  In the course of four minutes, she’s horrified by anything reminding her of her “terrible year” and simultaneously fascinated by anything (many of which overlap) reminding her of this “colorful year.”  These are the kind of things that rarely make sense unless you’ve recently experienced a breakup yourself, as the heart and the mind often pull in two different directions.  Pop music has its share of these conflicted breakup songs, but rarely has anyone made it sound as charming.  The bright acoustic guitars and Wheeler’s cheery melody make the song sound much happier than it should appear, providing the aural equivalent to putting up a front so people will stop asking you to rehash the story.

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