Saturday Songs – Jan. 21

1. “Everything Has Changed” – William Fitzsimmons

I’ve featured Fitzsimmons previously on Saturday Songs and the more I listen to his work, the more I respect the immense sensitivity that he pours into every lyric and every line. Take this song, off his 2006 album Goodnight, which openly deals with personal issues that arose out of his parents’ divorce. Like any decent emotionally turbulent album, Fitzsimmons is careful not to apply the schmaltz too thickly; he keeps it in reserve and then injects you with it at the exact right moment.

This song pushes the envelope in terms of schmaltz, but Fitzsimmons manages it partly because he turns the final minute or so into a densely layered web of voices and delicate piano and guitar. For a song where there isn’t very much sonic input, the mix sounds monumentally large and—put your earphones in—creates the impression of an aural cocoon until everything fades out and Fitzsimmons leaves you with a final haunting image, echoing the beginning of the song, in which he comes across his father in the graveyard looking for his mother’s grave. 


The last, breathy incantation is almost better not divided into separate lines, coming across instead as a stream of images: “Last night I had a dream, I was in the graveyard, looking at my father, buried in the ground, swear that I could hear him, tell me he was sorry, and everything has changed.”

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2. “Red Travelin’ Socks” – Malcolm Middleton

Of all the Scotland-derived indie music I’ve so far explored, nothing has quite caught my fancy the way this first track of Macolm Middleton’s album Waxing Gibbous has. Starting off with a furious burst of guitar that could come straight out of The Cure, Middleton and his band pull together one hell of a power pop jam. Scott Hutchinson of Frightened Rabbit remains my favorite Scottish singer, but Middleton (a forerunner of the indie scene in Scotland with his band Arab Strap) certainly has the critical edge. Boasting a clean, warm voice, Middleton, like Hutchinson, also sings with a noticeable Scottish accent.

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3. “The Prettiest Thing” – David Childers and the Modern Don Juans

One of the regular cover tunes canvassed by the Avett Brothers in their live shows, “The Prettiest Thing” is a simple, twangy country song at heart, especially in its original version. There’s not a lot to offer about this song; it’s an unassuming tune that most of you won’t have a hard time warming up to. Maybe Childers’s gravelly accent will throw some of you for a loop, but I think his presence helps us place the song as something that might be played in a seaside bar with a special on PBR.

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4. “Born With A Broken Heart” – David Wax Museum

Blending Mexican music traditions with an American folk sensibility, David Wax et al craft hooky pop tunes with some unusual instrumentation. How exactly an accordion, a horn section, and some very-nearly-tribal-sounding drums all end up on the same track remains somewhat of a mystery to me, but I can only offer that the group pulls it off. The mad shuffle of this song should grab you from the opening seconds.

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5. “Voices” – Espers

Suggested to me by flatmate Josh—who hails from Kansas—Espers is an interesting find. Although several websites called their style of music “psychedelic folk” (maybe approaching certain aspects of Jefferson Airplane’s “Embryonic Journey” area?), I think that it might be better to place them alongside British folk heroes Fairport Convention. Although the styles of both bands have clear aesthetic differences, I think the attention paid to instrumental detail and the willingness to delve deep into a melody are highlighted in the work of both bands.

A main difference lies in the choice of Espers to investigate an almost more Baroque sound, incorporating a classical sensibility in terms of how the songs move, weaving in and out of separate melodic thoughts and introducing new ones in almost a suite-like format. Of course that’s not idiosyncratic in terms of the history of popular music, but the modern folk scene hasn’t exactly warmed to…how to put it?…a more scholarly, "trained" approach to music. This song and others by Espers are clearly the work of a real songsmith; someone behind the scenes understands which strings to pull to make these songs work the way that they do.