matt’s music blog

Once again, songs by The Magnetic Fields are steeped in clever lyrics. This track is also notable for being a distinctly gay song – the line “I thought I was just the guy for you” makes the gender of the singer undeniable.

A plaintive little piano line makes for a great start, followed by a nice clubby dance beat and a slightly-grunged bouncy bassline. Occasional orchestral strings, backup vocals and harmony, and a nice flange effect on the accompaniment keep things interesting while the lyrics unfold – percussion enters and the music swells appropriately as the chorus plays out.

You told me you loved me
I know where and when
Come sunrise, surprise surprise!
The joke’s on me again
I know you don’t love me
You know I don’t care
Keep it hidden better
Did I say the world was fair?

I thought I was just the guy for you
And it would never end
I thought we were s’posed to be like glue
I thought you were my boyfriend

Love or not, I’ve always got ten guys
On whom I can depend
And if you’re not mine, one less is nine, get wise
I thought you were my boyfriend

“Where and when,” “Sunrise, surprise surprise,” and “I know you don’t love me, you know I don’t care” are tasty literary treats, and the rhymes don’t sound forced at all, despite their proliferation. The story starts – bitterly, the narrator establishes that the relationship that he hoped “would never end” is over. Interestingly, his comeback is that “Love or not, he has always got ten guys on whom he can depend,” which is either just an example of bitter bragging, or maybe a little bit of insight into his situation: maybe he really did have ten guys before this one left. Either way, the line “if you’re not mine, one less is nine” is incredibly clever, as is the repeated accusational rejoinder, “I thought you were my boyfriend.”

I just hope you’re happy
Stringing me along
While you’re stringing
I’m here singing
This, my saddest song
I wish I could see you
I wish I could sleep
Should I freak out?
Should I seek out
Someone I could keep?

Bitterness! Regret! He’s trying to guilt trip the other guy with this passive-aggressive behavior: “I just hope you’re happy,” obviously a lie, and “I’m here singing this, my saddest song.” Plus the alliteration of ’stringing’ & ’singing’, ‘freak out’ & ’seek out’ are more genius.

I wanted you tonight
I walked around a lot
Wishing you were here
To keep me from sleeping
With anyone who might
Want me or even not
Some guys have a beer and they’ll do anything
Anything, anything

In the bridge, I almost start to wonder if he’s actually talking to the titular ex-boyfriend, or if it’s all to himself – something about “Some guys have a beer and they’ll do anything – anything, anything.” makes me think that it could either be a taunt, or an attempt at self-reassurance.

The fade-out at the end of a string of chorus repetitions almost feels like an early-pop sort of move – think of ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ by The Beatles, for instance. I guess this isn’t a rule, but it still reminds me of that. Also, I really want this song to be a metaphor alluding to the betrayal of Jesus by Judas in christian mythology – especially because the ‘ten guys on whom I can depend’ could stand for Jesus’ disciples, although there are traditionally twelve disciples, not ten.

If we’re willing to forgive this numeric inconsistency, things actually fill in pretty nicely. Either one could feel betrayed by the other – I’ve always liked the interpretation that Judas’ betrayal of Jesus had more to do with conflicting ideology then greed; After a heated argument, Jesus made it clear was not going to start a revolution (at least not in the violent terrestrial sense), and Judas, ashamed and enraged by being so let down by the man he had thought was the Messiah, rationalizes that if Jesus won’t start the revolution himself, he’s worth more as a bounty then he is alive – at least 30 pieces of silver can buy some weapons! Also, as the group’s treasurer, he might have suspected that Jesus was merely taking advantage of his celebrity status, especially considering the story of Mary Magdalene using an expensive bottle of perfume to wash his feet, instead of selling it and donating the proceeds to charity.

Finally, upset over his falling out with Jesus, Judas wanders off drunk into the night, and meets the people to whom he will betray his former teacher. He marches off, leading them right to the place where Jesus has gone to pray, and gives him a vindictive kiss – but his vengeance sours when Jesus reproaches him, “Judas, have you come to betray me with a kiss?”

Anyway, I think the verses could work very well with either Judas or Jesus singing lines, sometimes a duet, sometimes back-and-forth, or it could work equally well with just Judas. Anyway, if you listen to the song with that in mind, it makes for a really neat story idea – which is © matt lohkamp 2009, by the way.

The gated synths that lead into the song help set things up, and when the first line of the chorus, “I got the bass for your face,” comes up, it’s a perfect fit.

I got the bass for your face
Yes I can hold it down
These kids are such a disgrace
I need an older crowd

Mental stimulation
Voter Registration
Patches on my elbows
Match the colors of my cords

The vocorder effect, especially on “colors of my cords” (which sounds like an autotune) is like the perfect little cherry on top of the sunday – it’s so sweet. Then we get to the rap – MC Chris’ voice can be hard for some people to take, and it seems like either people love or hate him. But the rapping is solid – I’m not wild about the first verse, but the second and third and damn clever:

Are you joking? It’s too smoky
There’s a cover, we should leave
Let’s not panic, let’s beat traffic
And get home in time for tea

Kids have access nostalgia waxes
Can’t relax if I can’t breathe
Let’s just exit, we’re not sexy
I feel fat and elderly

Let’s play Scrabble, let’s play Boggle
Discovery channel with Ted Kopple
Kids are awful, they’re all moshing
So obnoxious sneezing, coughing

Spilling beer and breaking glasses
They’re no fun, these trust fund fascists
No more head tricks, we’ve got Netflix
Let’s grow beehives and mustaches

“Are you joking? It’s too smoky,” is a keeper, as is “Let’s just exit, we’re not sexy, I feel fat and elderly.”

There is vomit on the toilet
And no soap I can dispense
Girl named Wendy grabbed my testes
Now I have no confidence

Can’t believe it, I smell reefer
We might get a contact high
I feel loopy I see snoopies
I need pizza with these doobies

I feel mellow, legs are jello
Hold me up or I might nap
Someone dosed my Diet Coke
It’s not a joke so please don’t laugh

Freaky Friday might go my way
I feel like a different person
Now I’m tripping, ceiling’s dripping
Wait a minute, no crowd surfing

Once again, “Girl named Wendy grabbed my testes, now I have no confidence,” “Can’t believe it, I smell reefer, we might get a contact high,” and “It’s not a joke so please don’t laugh,” are great lines.

It’s tough for me to be as verbose explaining some songs that I like – especially ones like this that aren’t much more then rapping, a chorus, and some catchy synth accompniment – but it’s all about the gated synth in the intro, the little autotuned fx on “colours of my chords,” and the pacing in those lines I called out above.

Alright, you’re in for a treat. VNV’s latest album boasts the ruthless lyrical social critique and driving instrumentation that I love them for. This whole song is more or less a rant about how much we’re fucking things up:

Procrastinating, pretending to worry
Solving problems by pushing them aside
Wasting time like we’ve all the time in the world

Deliberation instead of solution
Another term for blatant lies
Biding time like we’ve all the time in the world

What a way to start things off! You kind of suspect you’re in for a treat as soon as the song starts – the quiet little pad at the beginning, then the synth that bubbles up into a relentless percussion + crunchy synth line combo that easily carries you through the rest of the song, and doesn’t distract at all from the bold lyrics:

We conquer paradise just to burn it to the ground
And we build a future to honour pasts we left behind
We bring destruction, we bring war without an end
And then we live in hope that tomorrow never comes

Everything there is totally right, and something that everyone should think about – we’re making a total mess of a lot of things right now, and we always have. We become stronger then anything else on the planet, able to weather nearly any disaster, and what do we do with that power?

And if you think we’re the future, that we build tomorrow
When was the last day without war?
We speak of greatness we have never been

When was the last day without a war? The delivery there is a little spine-tingling, the slight quaver in his voice as he asks the question – and think about it, when was the last day without a war? Can you remember? We’ve been in the middle east for 6 years or so now, and that’s just the ‘current’ conflict – we were there, and all over before, and if it wasn’t us it was someone else. Humans like to mess things up.

Finally, towards 4:00, things drop off, and we get a weird little reflective section…

It’s just you and me now
It’s just you and me against the world

Sort of an odd way to end things, I think, enough of a departure from the previous feel that it feels off when that sound returns at 5:18. I kind of want that part cut off – so that the song barrels along, heaping scorn on humanity, and then just stops abruptly. Maybe I should try that and see what it looks like – that’s essentially what happens already at the end, but with that middle part cut out it might be better… although I will say that the departure does lend itself well to leading into a few other songs I can think of if one were so mixtape/mashup inclined.

This album, Judgement, is great, as is a compilation called Burning Empires - if you like this song, grab the others and give ‘em a listen, you’re sure to be satisfied.

Royksopp – Remind Me

This edit of the song isn’t readily available, and the music video is so good that I figured I’d ust post if off of youtube. From the outset, the track has a sense of forward motion – the tweaky synth squelch at the beginning, followed by the solid almost plodding coupling of catchy percussion and bouncy techno bassline.

The lyrics are interesting melancholy, and fit with the chording – a sort of quiet reflection on things, set to driving music:

It’s only been a week
the rush of being home and rapid fading
Failing to recall
What I was missing all that time in England

This is a great block of lyrics – “It’s only been a week, the rush of being home rapid fading.” It’s immediately accessible, since nearly anyone could immediately empathize with the sentiment of not being able to wait to get back home, and eventually realizing that home just isn’t what you remember it was. In this case, the narrator was on a trip to England, but now that he’s home, he can’t help thinking about leaving again.

brave men tell the truth
the wise man’s tools are analogies and puzzles
a woman holds her tongue
knowing silence will speak for her

There’s neat juxtaposition here – “brave men… wise men… a woman… speak for her…” the first to lines are male, the second two are female. “A woman holds her tongue, knowing silence will speak for her,” is another incredibly invocation line, conjuring an easily imaginable scene for the listener.

Finally, at 3:50, we think the song is over… and then, bam, a couple seconds later they can’t resist throwing us back into that acidy synth effect, for a brief encore before stopping for real – which sort of works with the forward-motion feeling of the song – like it might stop, for a second, but then it keeps driving forward.

Obviously, the music video is fantastic – the isometric motion design is by a French group called H5, who are good at what they do.

This one is all about what happens at 1:34 – you think you’re done with the chorus, there’s the little bass break, and then it throws you into the bridge:

as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars

“As the water grinds the stone, we rise and fall” is a fantastic line. There are some other good ones in here – “kisses on the dancefloor” and “we are the only ones who are dying”. It’s interesting too, the song seems to be split between two ideas: entropy, the inevitable passage of time and the weathering effect it has on existence; and a sort of stoic optimism in the face of that reality:

drowning in the flood of morning light
I’m only human just like you
do you hear the city waking up
I will survive and so will you

As usualy, Covenant’s synths feel like they’re rolling along, carrying the song and you with them, and the drums are precise, breaking things up into bite-sized peices. The piano line is a much appreciated accent to the afore-mentioned “water grinds the stone” section.

(the intro is quiet, and about 20 seconds long, so be patient)

As usual, The Faint are addressing a social issue: whether we’re ‘teaching’ or ‘training’ our children.

Teacher, bring me to heaven or leave me alone
Why make me work so hard when you know I work slow
Don’t make us watch you scrape more powder on the walls 
Show us a laser, take to space, or let us go 
We got violent games on pause at home

I love the wording, too – “show us a laser, take us to space – we’ve got violent games on pause at home,” that’s what kids want. While the instrumentation is great on this track, it’s the words that really matter:

Sergeant, I don’t remember how you said to deal with guilt 
I’m haunted by families, even ghosts of soldiers’ kids
Is it god against god and the pawns are people?
If they’re both the same god then the battle’s over

You gave us guns for toys
Imposed beliefs then pride 
We were taught that God prefers the U.S.A. 
Just like the billboard sign: “This is God’s country”
If it’s true that God roots for the U.S.A. 
Is every bomb we drop in God’s name?

The peppy drums and occasionally blippy snap-crackle-pop sound effect accent the accusations, and the whole thing ends up feeling pretty heavy in subject, but almost light musically.

Preacher, am I going to make it? Am I going up?
Am I forgiven for the humans I dropped?
It’s not like a game once the guilt piles up

All in all, it’s a beutiful song, probably my favorite (or tied-for-favorite) song on the album.

(the first 14 seconds or so are quiet, so be patient – or turn it up!)

a billion words ago
the sailors disappeared
a story for the children
to rock them back to sleep

tonight we light the fires
we call our ships to port
tonight we walk on water
and tomorrow we’ll be gone 

a billion words ago
they sang a song of leaving
an echo from the chorus
will call them back again

It’s nearly midnight, and the wind is bitterly cold – yet the entire population of a small arctic fishing village stands in a line along the shore, facing outwards into the frigid bay. Wrapped in animal skins and furs, the children watch intently as an old woman stands before the congregation, raising her mittens, her breath puffing out in tiny clouds lost amongst the sparse snowfall.

She tells the story that they’ve all heard on the same night every year – none alive remember, but all imagine the sailors guiding their proud ships out of the harbor and outwards towards the ocean, never again to return. As she finishes her story, she steps back and joins the line of villagers. In her hands she holds a small box of matches and a expertly folded paper boat, coated in wax. She removes one of her mittens, and, with numb fingers, lights a match. Fumbling, she manages to light the edge of the paper sail before the match is extinguished in the wind – immediately, the people on either side of her edge closer, to tip their own paper boats against hers, spreading the flame one by one down the line. As the fire spreads, the woman carefully walks to the place where the icy waves lap ceaselessly against the pebbles of the beach, and sets her sputtering boat afloat, watching as her friends and family do the same.

When all the boats have been launched, everyone watches the ragged ‘V’ sail outwards, towards the darkness. Everyone quietly hums an old hymn as they wait for the long-promised return of the sailors they lost so many years ago – hoping against all odds that their lost fellows will let the flambeaux armada guide them back home.

I’m not sure if I read a folk story along these lines somewhere, but that’s what this song sounds like to me. There’s some interesting imagery used in the lyrics: “a billion words ago”, “a million burning books”, “a fabric of ideals to decorate our homes”, “a mountain of mistakes for us to climb for pleasure”, “a hundred clocks are ticking”, and of course the chilling: “a billion words ago they sang a song of leaving. an echo from the chorus will call them back again”.

Fire seems to figure heavily in the verses, as well as the final chorus: “tonight we light the fires, we call our ships to port. tonight we walk on water and tomorrow we’ll be gone”. It creates an almost tactile environment for the song to take place in (helped by the album title, ‘Northern Lights’) of cold wind, snow drifts, icey water, and guttering flames.

This song has its apex at the final chorus (3:51) – throughout the song, the melody has stayed low, and at this point it nearly jumps an octave, until the lead singer’s voice echoes the sustained synth lines that were carrying the song along up to that point.

The instrumentation is driving and keeps things saturated, with only a couple of breaks around 1:47 and 2:17. The bass synth almost steps in to shore up the percussion (a single kick drum) and keeps a sort of rolling beat that carries everything along, and the ghostly higher synths float above, keeping things interesting while you wait for the next verse to start.

This is quite possibly my favorite track on this album, although Northern Lights is full of good ones. If you’re into this kind of music, Covenant has put out a couple of albums that I’d recommend: Northen Lights and Skyshaper.