“In the Meantime” – Spacehog
(Words/music: Royston Langdon, available on Resident Alien, Elektra 1995)

I realize that when I think about music, I have a bit of a double standard when it comes to vocals and other instrumental parts.  While I’m comfortable (and prone to) citing a bit of instrumentation as being exceptional, whether it’s the main riff or the tiniest backing instrumentation buried deep into the mix.  I even feel fine praising vocalists either for style or melody or any minute detail or intangible.  However, when I single out a vocalist singing something phonetically – something that isn’t words – I feel a little guilty.  It comes back to this idea that songs are both music and words, and that on some level, songwriting is another way of storytelling.  It’s irrational, but I feel like I’m issuing a backhanded compliment when I put the non-verbal vocals over the words that the songwriter (perhaps) spent hours pouring over.

However, in some instances these non-verbal vocals say the right thing; the absence of words puts the emphasis on the melody and, to a lesser degree, the sound of the voice itself.  The first instance of singing in “In the Meantime,” about thirty seconds in, introduces the melody without words, splitting it between Royston Langdon’s vocals and the adjoining guitar fill.  It introduces the melody before the story begins, and for good reason – it’s the song’s strongest asset.  I’m hard pressed to quote more than ten words in the entire song after almost a decade and a half of knowing it, but even just a few notes from that vocal melody will instantly get the song in my head and trigger the corresponding guitar fill.  I say this not to slight the words – I take no issue with the storytelling (and there are a couple other Spacehog songs where I can cite actual lines), but the words take a clear backseat to the melody.  Everything about it – the sequence of notes, the warm tone of the vocals paired with the more pointed, lower sound of the guitar fill – feels perfect, and when Langdon pairs his part of the melody with words later on in the song, I’m still fixated on the melody to the point where it’s near impossible to focus on what he’s saying.  I only feel guilty on that until Langdon hits that first note, and then I’m hooked again.

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