Little Wings - "Look At What The Light Did Now"
The natural evolution of bedroom pop brings you here, to this song. A boy in his bedroom considers and remarks on sunlight, sneaking through curtains, making impressions on hard wood.
Bedroom pop, historically speaking, takes place in a bedroom but is about the outside world. It's about how the artist in the bedroom wishes that he wasn't so awkward or so scared, so that maybe he could get the girl, get people to listen, make an impact. Little Wings, however, is content to sit in his room and watch the outside world impact on it. He makes great entertainment out of the light. And it sounds fun. I want to be there and watch the light with him. And somehow, as the light morphs into different shapes, and finally into a dead tree, the song actually turns into a brief treatment of death and reincarnation. This is some seriously introspective action. [Buy]
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David S. Ware - "Glorified Calypso"
There's no playing around here. This song is about urgency. About brimming over. The whole band is barely contained. The sax and piano are ecstatic. The bass is frantic and repetitive. The drums overcome, indecisive. You want some relief, an outlet, a resolution. But the tension keeps building. The size and brass of Ware's sound is unrivalled. He repeatedly returns to the theme and somehow manages to play it each time, even as he thinks to himself, "This is it. I can't keep this up." And finally, he can't. He lays back and lets the band take over, no less immediate and visceral.
And then he's back. Louder than before (is it possible? How deep are his reserves?).
Like a transcendental religious, sexual, mathematical or gastronomical moment or like a hyper-active child. [Buy]
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I hope you all have a good weekend.
In honour of Julie Doiron's show in Montreal tonight, I have decided to have a Julie Doiron day, on which I will post songs related to, but not performed by, one of our city's finest singer/songwriters.
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Okkervil River - "He Passes Number Thirty-Three"
"He Passes Number Thirty-Three" is taken from the split Julie Doiron/Okkervil River ep.
I know, this is Sean's band. But still, today is No Doiron Doiron Day, and there are only so many great songs that apply. So, we will share. Sean would want it that way.
Sheff is buoyed up by his love. Whatever she needs he will provide. This sort of altruistic optimism, though deeply foreign to me, is always tremendously satisfying in a lyric.
Also satisfying is the impressive competence and good taste (that most rare and essential of combinations) of the band. Thickenings and fleshings out keep propelling you to the inevitably rocky chorus. On banjos and bass new melodies emerge without warning. There are more good melodies in this song than in the entire work of Honus Wagner, who, admittedly, was a baseball player.
This is also the best song to sing along with in the history of all of the times. I encourage you all to try. The louder the better. [Buy]
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This is a Julie Doiron song from her collaboration with the Wooden Stars. It was covered by Haverty for All Their Broken Hearts, the Doiron tribute album.
"Seven" unfolds easily, maintaining a warm, conversational tone throughout (does treble exist in your world, Haverty?). At first just guitars and voice. Then drops of keyboard. A vocal flourish. Shakers. Drums. Everything's up in the mix. There's the treble.
Haverty identifies Doiron's strong point as a songwriter, and emphasizes it. He breaks down what he has built up to highlight the lyrical centrepiece of the song:
Tell me you are lonely and I probably will believe you
Tell me you are lonely
Tell me you are lonely and I'll want to be with you.
Tell me you are lonely.
This is a standoff. She wants him to say that he is lonely. But she implies with the empty second halves of the second and fourth lines that she is lonely too (it would rhyme, see?). But if she can't say it, how can she expect him to say it.
Nicely done, Doiron. You too, Haverty. [Buy]