Some Songs Considered

“Here Comes the Summer” – The Fiery Furnaces
(Words/music: Eleanor Friedberger and Matthew Friedberger, available on The Fiery Furnaces EP, Rough Trade 2005)

I’ve been to the opera once in my life.  In high school, I saw La bohéme at the Metropolitan Opera House and enjoyed the experience about as much as a teenager with only the most cursory understanding of classical music could.  Since I didn’t understand a word of the libretto, I ended up focusing more attention on the ways that the music told the story, whether through the vocal performance, the specific key, or the choice of instrumentation.  To a much smaller degree, I approach the Fiery Furnaces the same way – the lyrics are often interesting but often the music carries some of the story as well.  In a sense, the early Fiery Furnaces records have operatic tendencies – recurring themes, sweeping arrangements, and ambition everywhere.  I think this is what makes the band such an acquired taste – one person’s masterpiece is another’s pompous misfire I suppose.  Still, whether as entire albums or independent songs, the Friedberger siblings aim to tell stories and use every element of their songs – arrangements, lyrics, and performance – to bring the story to life.

At the heart of “Here Comes the Summer” lies a promise Eleanor Friedberger makes about the impending summer.  “I’ve been waiting since I don’t know when and now it finally seems about to start,” she sings, adding, “I swear, I swear that I will do my part.”  There’s a mix of excitement and let down in this line, with the joy of an anticipated event arriving and the realization that the dreams for the future might lie slightly out of reach.  The music tries to balance these two emotions, countering bouncy, squealing keyboards with slower, more wistful phrasing.  In what seems like a straightforward arrangement (at least for the Friedbergers), this musical pivot point contains the heart of the song – the point where daydreams and reality merge together.

Today marks the same moment “Here Comes the Summer” captures, and we’re at the same place Eleanor Friedberger reaches when the song shifts into those long keyboards.  We have the same opportunity to make the same promise – to do our part – to make the summer into what we want it to be.  Personally, I’m a few weeks away from my summer, but I’m looking to embrace the longer days, warmer nights, and free time as much as possible.  Even if the summer doesn’t turn out to be as good as the one I imagined when scraping the ice off my car in January, I’m going to make the most out of it.  I’ll do my part.  How about you?

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

“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

“Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time” – Jarvis Cocker
(Words/music: Jarvis Cocker, available on Jarvis, Rough Trade 2006)

One thing that made Pulp such a compelling band is Jarvis Cocker’s engaging ability to tell a story.  His songs always put great care into details, yet Cocker puts much of the emphasis onto the thoughts and motives of his characters.  He gets inside his characters’ heads in these songs, privileging the inner workings over exterior details.  One way he accomplishes this is by putting himself into the song.  By using the first and second person, he shares not only his narrator’s inner monologue but also this character’s read on other people.  This is why “you” and “we” fill these songs, letting Cocker’s audience experience everything (including his other characters) through his narrator’s eyes.  When this works best, these Pulp songs toe the line between filling in just enough details to get to know the characters while only hinting at the deeper stories underneath the song.

“Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time,” the first single from his first solo album, Cocker still runs his stories through his first person narrator.  However, unlike many of his songs with Pulp, his narrator stays out of the events in the song.  He doesn’t use “I” or “we” at all, yet we still feel the narrator’s presence in the song.  Rather than sharing in the song’s plot sequence, Cocker offers advice to an unnamed female acquaintance, insisting that she keeps her guard up against the slick “love ‘em and leave ‘em” guys she runs into.  Even if he’s removed himself from the song’s plot, Cocker’s narrator remains essential, as it’s his read on the guy (vacuous and smooth) and the girl (vulnerable yet deserving of more) that makes the song work.  If Cocker merely described the events in the song, it wouldn’t have the same traction.  If he wrote the song from the girl’s perspective, it would sound like a third rate Aretha Franklin rip off – something that an American Idol castoff might throw out hoping for some En Vogue karma to wear off.  Instead, the song benefits from Cocker’s perspective, hinging around the title’s advice and the supporting reasons why men like this will only waste his friend’s time.

More on Jarvis Cocker: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm