Saturday Songs - March 17

Records, some say, are made to be broken. Only a few months ago I abandoned the blog for a mere six days before the stings of shame brought me back. Of course, I knew that six days was small change compared to the time I might be gone while traveling over spring break, so six was only a temporary record anyway. But, much to my own disapprobation, I have gone on an 11-day streak of absence.

That said, I’ll make it up to all you readers out there (all…what? four of you?) by going for four posts this week—despite my looming workload from the university—thereby returning to the heights that Pueblo Waltz witnessed the likes of last September. (Granted, there were more posts per week way back then…but there was also the fortunate accident of Jorge Luis Borges’s birthday, which triggered 150+ hits on the website. (That may be a record that will stand forever.)

Anyways, let’s head on into *Saturday Songs land once more!

*I know…it’s Sunday. Hate me.

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1. “He Went To Paris” – Jimmy Buffett

A few years before Buffett’s 1978 album Changes In Latitude, Changes In Attitude came out—with its massive hit “Margaritaville,” which I’m sure you’ve never heard of—Buffett had not yet quite devolved into the archetypal, rich beach-bum character that he inhabited ever since he “blew out [a] flip-flip.” In fact, Buffett’s discography pre-“Margaritaville” (and even on that album) is a rich catalogue of lovable losers and dead-end lives. Albums like 1973’s A White Sport Coat and a Pink Crustacean and 1974’s Living & Dying in ¾ Time are full of quirky character sketches, not all of which are based on booze binges. (Some are… See: “Why Don’t We Get Drunk.”)

“He Went To Paris,” for example, is one of the saddest songs in the Buffett catalogue. The story is told straight, without any pretension. The story, typically, is about finding transcendental peace in life living alongside the ocean. But merely relating that bit doesn’t explore the emotional impact of the song. This is a song I recommend listening to while reading the lyrics.

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2. “Our Hell” – Emily Haines & the Soft Skeletons

Another vestige of my music listening failures, Emily Haines served as a bold reminder that I have left the Canadian music scene largely unexplored (despite my ongoing love affair with The Weakerthans). Haines is not only in charge of this solo venture, but she is also the lead singer and keyboardist of indie band Metric as well as a member of the Canadian collective Broken Social Scene. Embarrassingly, I have not made it around to any of Metric’s work and have only dipped a toe in the discography of Broken Social Scene.

This song off Haines’s solo effort, however, caught my ear with its simple piano balladry, which manages to weirdly come off as verging on electronica. There are moments in the song with a dark, dynamic energy I would never expect from a singer-songwriter sitting at a piano. Granted, there is some superb drum work and some breath-based percussion as well. I hesitate to call it ‘beat-boxing,’ because it’s more like the sound of someone catching their breath. It’s sort of an unnerving sound in that way.

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3. “Cape Town” – The Young Veins

I have never listened to Panic[!] At The Disco (I put the exclamation point in brackets because they had it, then lost it, then had it again…I might as well cover my bases), but I have a hard time imagining that those standard bearers of ‘emo-pop’ would record anything like this. That said, The Young Veins is only two former members of Panic[!] At The Disco—Ryan Ross and Jon Walker—so it’s not as if Panic[!] went through an entire facelift to get to The Young Veins.

Whereas Panic[!] At The Disco (as I understand from the various writings of other critics [thank you Stephen Erlewine!]) plumbed the depths of orchestral rock and chamber pop for inspiration, Ross and Walker were individually seeking out the influences of the 1960s, including garage rock and British Invasion. Those sounds couldn’t be any clearer on their debut album Take A Vacation!, which sounds—both musically and thematically—as if it might be a lost record circa 1967.

While it’s hard to say that any one track sticks its head above the others on the album, “Cape Town” might be the most memorable, partly because of its more ‘mature’ theme…relative, at least, to the other tracks on here. The chorus—“Woke me in the morning / asked me if I meant it / I didn’t”—is heartbreaking in a very peculiar poppy, 1960s way… You’d have a hard time not loving it.

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4. “48 To Go” – The Fray

Clawing helplessly at the towering heights of arena rock favorite Coldplay, this Denver quartet soldiers on into their album Scars & Stories with some resolve to stay in the game. Their second album, while not quite a sophomore slump, had nowhere near the same impact as their debut album, which boasted the radio hits “Over My Head (Cable Car)” and “How To Save A Life.” As good as those songs are, the rest of the album isn’t half bad either and it is still an occasional guilty pleasure. Unfortuantely, the third album finds them in the same dire straits, stuck in the same tired radio rock as their British counterparts soar into uncharted territories.

There are moments of promise, though, when it seems as if they might have the strength to broach the gap between their boring, schlocky sensibility and real mainstream respectability. They’ve got the tunes and the muscle behind them. It’s the arrangements that are stale; every song on this album, with the exceptions of “I Can Barely Say” and closer “Be Still,” go for a giant, bloated sound. Even Coldplay, with even greater production values at their disposal, goes for a grittier, less swelling sound on occasion—listen to the first half of “Major Minus” or “Up In Flames.” Maybe the giant, arena-rock frenzy is the best way to get on the airwaves, but it’s sure as hell not the best way to get into my heart.

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5. “Concrete Heart” – Great Lake Swimmers

Great Lake Swimmers is a band whose sound is best realized live. They probably understood at least that much, given that their eponymous debut was recorded in an abandoned silo in Ontario. (You can hear the crickets in the background!) However, some success has brought better production values to the band’s studio albums (mostly better microphones…they recorded their newest album—due for release in April—in the Toronto subway system). Anyways, the live setting allows more colors to blossom around Tony Dekker’s delicate lyrics; the studio version of “Concerte Heart” comes off as a little pale and muted. It’s probably better to listen to the free live version! You can download it via Noisetrade below: