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“Mushaboom” – Feist
(Words/music: Leslie Feist, available on Let It Die, Arts & Crafts 2004)

I don’t write songs, so I can only speculate on the songwriter-song relationship and how it changes over time.  As paying audiences, we feel like we’re cheated when a performer neglects the early catalog in favor of new material.  Even when the new stuff lacks the same spark as those first few albums, songwriters still say how excited they are to play the new songs.  The more I think about my own relationship with songs as a listener, the more I feel that I have a fluid, ever changing bond with the music I like.  I’ve grown sick of favorite songs, discovered a love for songs I previously wrote off, and everything in between.  On occasion, I even see parts of myself reflecting back at me.  Therefore, I can see where songwriters have a point when describing how they grow apart from their earlier songs – in many cases, they may be snapshots of someone they’ve ceased to be.

I say this not because I think Leslie Feist distances herself from a song like “Mushaboom,” but rather I wonder what she might think of it now.  She sings that “it may be years until the day / my dreams will match up with my pay,” and at the time it seemed optimistic.  In retrospect, it seems prophetic, as Feist would later catapult to (relative) stardom with her next album.  “Mushaboom,” especially when compared with some of the arrangements on The Reminder, feels like a small, personal song.  In it, Feist convinces herself that living the rustic, less-adorned life seems alright if the company’s good, and it has the same ebullient feeling we get when love goes coursing through our veins.  Like a romantic relationship, “Mushaboom” builds on a series of these tiny yet beautiful moments, knowing that the decadent displays of love can’t compare with the genuine, understated displays.  Her song relies on this same source – it’s not as elaborate as some of her other songs, but it’s equally as beautiful.  I guess I’m just curious how Feist looks back at this – as a snapshot from a bygone era, a relic from what seems like a past life, or an underlying philosophy of life; in essence, whether her relationship has changed with her song.

More on Feist: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm