Category Archives: Song Analysis

Song Analysis #38: Goldheart Assembly – Last Decade

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Title: ‘Last Decade’
Where to find it: ‘Wolves and Thieves’ (2010, Fierce Panda)
Performed by: Goldheart Assembly
Words by: I’m guessing James Dale, but seeing that I’ve yet to meet them, not entirely sure

In a post-Mumford and Sons ‘Sigh No More’ era, there are loads of harmonising indie folk bands. But I still rate Goldheart Assembly as one of the best, even if they’ve not garnered the same kind of media attention as Mumford. Frankly, I think they run circles around the American equivalent Fleet Foxes. One of the most beautiful albums to come out of 2010 – and in my opinion, one of the most criminally overlooked – is Goldheart’s debut album ‘Wolves and Thieves’. It began my on again, off again love affair with their label Fierce Panda Records.

I think we all need something reflective, something to comfort us after the terrible tragedy of the downing of Malaysian Airlines’ flight 17. On Saturday, I went on a long run with this song on repeat, enveloped in its beauty. I had been reminded a couple days prior listening to it by itself on my mp3 player that it really is one of the most perfectly formed song in popular music in the last 5 years, probably in the last 30, if I may be so bold. ‘The Last Decade’ is elegiac, yet truly magnificent, and may the lives and souls of those we lost in that terrible accident rest in peace.

First, the words:

Verse 1
The dying leaves
Can grip no more
The Eastern breeze
Will steal them all

Take care my love
It’s all too soon
And all you need
Is space and room away from all my harmful ways
But you know I hate half the things I say

Verse 2
Your eyes are bubbles
Made of oil
And when they spill
They wreck these shores

My pulse has slowed
The atoms thin
But on the beach
The sea breathed in
and out and stole our hearts that day
But you know I’d go back but there’s no way

Pre-chorus
Oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh

Chorus
This is the last decade
Let’s not pretend we’ve changed
Come back home

See how the sun decays
Over our last parade
On our own

Soon there’ll be sleep, no pain
This is our last decade
This is the last decade

Outro
Oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh
Oh-oh-oh

Now, the analysis:

The title of this Goldheart Assembly song ‘Last Decade’ gives us some important clues: a decade is a long period of time, and something is ending that has been in existence for a long time. I’ve been waffling between whether this song is about literal death or the death of the relationship. I guess this proves just how great this song is, that it can be taken in either context, or both. The beauty is apparent from the first two verses, with the first bleeding effortlessly into the second. Dying leaves, also referenced in the gorgeous Stornoway tune ‘November Song’ as I discussed last autumn, are a literal sign of death and the ending of something important, but they also indicate a chance for renewal. “The Eastern breeze / will steal them all” may refer to the east wind of Greek mythology, but in this song, it more likely is conjuring up the east wind as Biblical judgment of God, as of the wind that Moses summons to part the Red Sea, bringing the locusts to plague Egypt and allowing the Israelites to flee to safety.

The idea of escape brought into this song is terribly interesting, isn’t it? If you read about death in books about bereavement, it’s in the context of what effects that person’s death will have on the people who are left behind, not on the person who is dying and the ensuing emotional fallout. Of course, this makes sense, given who the audience is. And if you’re of the mindset that there is nothing beyond the life we have here, the person who is ‘leaving’ no longer has a say in what will happen next, does he/she?

The second half of verse 1 is where I start thinking it’s about a relationship that is ending. The main voice is insistent, emphatic that when he is gone, even if the end if “all too soon,” she will soon be free: “all you need / is space and room away from all my harmful ways.” I read this as if he’s saying she’s managed to dodge a bullet in his leaving. It seems to me that he’s saying this to lessen the brunt of his leaving because he realises his influence has been a negative one, and he’s regretful of this, wanting to make peace before the end: “But you know I hate half the things I say”.

Verse 2 follows the same measured, soft melody of the first, though now in the first half of the new verse, he’s picking apart the problems in their relationship. They were like oil and water, with him describing her eyes being “made of oil”, so when she turns on the waterworks when it is time for him to leave, like that BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, they will “spill” and “they [will] wreck these shores”.

In the second half of verse 2, he’s more contemplative as “my pulse has slowed” (death is near), but he recalls more carefree days they spent on the beach (a beach that wasn’t tainted by the sadness of her oily tears). I take ” The sea breathed in / and out and stole our hearts that day” that he admits that they probably shouldn’t have been together for so long, but the sea – an external force bigger and stronger than both of them – threw them together in a ‘love is blind’ kind of way. ” But you know I’d go back but there’s no way”: where is he trying to go back to? Before they became a couple? Before things went sour? There is a palpable gorgeousness in this line: he wants to make things right, but I think this was made purposely ambiguous because he realises, rightly, that we can’t change the past. What’s done is done.

If up to this point you have managed not to cry, Goldheart Assembly then brings in the big guns with their harmonies: the chorus. I’m just tearing up as I write this. “This is our last decade / Let’s not pretend we’ve changed / Come back home”: at the end of a relationship, who hasn’t wished things could have gone back to the way things were, when things were new and things were perfect? Or maybe have gone back to a point in time when things could have been rectified to have prevented this end?

“See how the sun decays / Over our last parade / On our own”: these lines appeal to my scientific mind. Scholars of astronomy agree that the sun, our sun, is like all other stars in the universe: one day, it will die. And it is slowly decaying as we speak. There is a dramatic, yet fragile beauty to the idea that on the last day that these two people will spend together in joy (“our last parade”), there is something that is dying, slowly, watching over them, and them alone (“on our own”).

“Soon there’ll be sleep, no pain” brings it all back down to earth and is self-explanatory: there will be an end, where the pain that survives while the entity is still lives will no longer exist. It is little comfort now to those who lost loved ones in this tragedy, but like with 9/11 and all other horrors against humanity in which we’ve senselessly lost human lives, there will come a day when those left behind will come to some peace and will go on. We have to hold on to that hope.

Lastly, the song, via its official promo video from November 2010. What are these chaps building? Suggestions and explanations welcome.

Song Analysis #37: Kaiser Chiefs – Meanwhile Up in Heaven

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Title: ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’
Where to find it: ‘Education, Education, Education, and War’ (2014, Caroline International)
Performed by: Kaiser Chiefs
Words by: not sure actually – guess that’s a question I’ll need to ask if/when I interview them!

I’ve written a couple pieces on There Goes the Fear on the Kaiser Chiefs (archive this way) since last December about the possible negative effects of founding member and primary band songwriter Nick Hodgson. To the delight (and relief) of Kaiser fans, the new album released this year sans Hodgson, ‘Education, Education, Education, and War’ is a good one. While it might not reach the same heights as ‘Employment’ or ‘Yours Truly, Angry Mob’ of the band’s earlier days, the musical landscape has changed in the last 10 years since they started releasing LPs as a band, so you don’t neither can expect the same formula to work. What I find especially wonderful about the new release is that it is showing the band’s evolution post-Hodgson, from their previous scrappier form to a more polished, dare I say it Coldplay / Keane-esque sensibility that will no doubt increase their reach beyond the indie kids and overall will serve them well to keep them in the game for many years to come.

Two of the standout tracks on ‘Education…’ are numbers in this vein, ‘Coming Home’ (whose intro initially reminded me of Simply Red’s ‘Stars’) and the exemplary ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’. We were never sent the album, so the first listen I had of the latter track was when it was played on BBC 6music. I honestly didn’t think it was the Kaiser Chiefs upon hearing it. What’s particularly interesting is that the verses are kind of biting and in a minor key, but then when the chorus comes in, the whole song opens up, as one might expect a song titled ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’: it’s like when you’re at a music festival and it’s been raining, and then God bestows his blessing on everyone and as described by everyone, “the heavens opened up”.

Live, Ricky Wilson is no shrinking violet. He’s anything but and very in your face. That’s just part of the fun of the Kaiser Chiefs live show. When I saw the Kaiser Chiefs for the first time 2 years at SXSW 2012, I was impressed by his intensity and charisma even at an afternoon show in the middle of a cute little courtyard in Austin. However, with the band evolution we’re witnessing, songs like ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’ came across last week at the 9:30 Club as truly beautiful and uplifting. Frankly, I’m tearing up just thinking about it and I’m near tears every time I play it.

First, the words:

Verse 1
Picture yourself by a rocket
Picture yourself in a glittering silver suit
Picture yourself getting on it
Saluting the news crews, you’re the new recruit

Verse 2
Do you remember the numbers
hung on the door of the house where you grew up?
Do you remember the colours
tied round the handles of last year’s FA Cup?

Chorus
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Are ready to

Verse 3
Guided by love and a flashlight
Led by consuming desire for a good idea
Lighting the clock on the dashboard
It’s not worked 10 years, but I know that it’s still there

Chorus
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Are ready to

Bridge
Your mind is the key, it is the key that sets you free
Your mind is the key, it is the key that sets you free

Chorus
Meanwhile up in Heaven, they’re waiting for you, waiting for you
And if you believe them, you will see that when you
Are ready to…

Now, the analysis:

The first verse of the song is pretty straightforward. It’s describing an astronaut (“by a rocket” and “in a glittering suit”, part of the military “saluting the news crews”) who is about to go into space. He’s getting loads of attention, and as he should: he’s a big deal. This is a positive moment.

Yet in the second verse, we are all brought down to earth, literally, as Wilson asks him about if he remembers the number of his house (basic knowledge about oneself) and the colours of the scarves that are tied round last year’s FA Cup (basic knowledge about football for any man who likes footy). Why is Wilson asking these things? Presumably because the said astronaut may not return to Earth.

What’s that’s giving me the most question in ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’ are the ‘they’ and ‘them’ as referred to the chorus. “They’re waiting for you” suggests the folks beyond the pearly gates who have successfully made it to Heaven. You see this in the promo video, in the form of wounded soldiers and nurses looking like one of the dream sequences in an episode of M.A.S.H. (see the end of this post), but I think this is also indicating people you love are looking down on you and waiting for you to make that final leap into the next part of your life, when the time comes. However, have a look at the ‘them’ in “And if you believe them, you will see that when you / are ready to”: is he referring to believing that there’s a Heaven and an afterlife? Or that the astronaut should be believing the people who are putting him in the rocket – the scientists on the ground – that he’s going to come through this alive, that will he will return to Earth safe and sound?

The third verse goes even more ambiguous. The lines “Guided by love and a flashlight / Led by consuming desire for a good idea” sounds to me like the astronaut’s earliest years, when you’re a little kid and all your dreams and wishes are innocent. While “Lighting the clock on the dashboard” refers to the present, when the astronaut is revving up his spaceship, “It’s not worked 10 years, but I know that it’s still there” seems to point to the fact that the machine is not reliable, and I’m guessing “I know that it’s still there” means the goal, the dream that he had as a child is still alive, well, and active in his thoughts today.

And then we come to the bridge, which I believe is the key (no pun intended) to the whole song. I’ll never forget the moment when Ricky Wilson leaned on the monitor in front of us and belted out the last “sets you free…” I was speechless. It was amazing. I hope it reminded everyone that he’s a very good singer! Further, the way he sings it and just how much lift the notes have emphasises the importance of these words: “Your mind is the key, it is the key that sets you free.”

Whatever is going on the head of the astronaut – or any of the Kaiser Chiefs’ devoted fans more likely was their intention? – it’s what is in your head that is most important. I can’t tell if the whole song is a commentary on mental illness, but maybe the whole astronaut thing is supposed to represent a delusion of grandeur? Either way, I like the song’s message that it’s about you. You and your mind. You and what you’re thinking up there. The idea of astronauts flying around space was always on my mind as a child; it’s kind of a given if your father works for NASA. My father’s wide-eyed wonderment about what was possible with space travel was never tempered, even after the Challenger disaster. He always said we had to keep pushing the envelope, because whether it was space science or my later chosen major of biology, that was how discoveries were made. By taking a chance, by risking it all.

In school, lots of my classmates would say they wanted to be an astronaut when they grew up, but for some reason, that was never an aspiration of mine. The thought of being launched up into the heavens with the possibility of never returning was a terrifying thought. I don’t think this Kaiser Chiefs song is saying that everyone’s dreams are as fantastic as becoming an astronaut and going into space. (Initially, I assumed it was a very morbid song, talking about people welcoming someone who was about to die and enter into the afterlife. But that seems to make no sense whatsoever in the inspiring way Wilson sings the bridge.) Instead, what I think it’s trying to say is we all have had or are in situations that in the moment are terrible and scary but one day it will all become clear in your mind, and you have to trust that the day will come.

This all makes me think about the scary and often frustrating time in all of our lives when we make the transition between being a child and being an adult. When you’re a child, nothing much matters except playing with your friends and having fun. There are no real responsibilities. And then whoosh, we’re thrown into adult life when we’re responsible for ourselves and if we get married and have children, you’re suddenly responsible for other living human beings. Even if you don’t believe that there is life after death, I find the greatest beauty that lies in ‘Meanwhile Up in Heaven’ is knowing that we’re alive and even if you find yourself today in mental anguish or emotional turmoil, you can trust that the heavens will open up one day and the sun will shine again. And getting there is a wonderful, wonderful moment.

Lastly, the song, in promo form, starring the band and a motley crew of what I can only assume are the dear departed, frolicking around a carnival ground. Ricky Wilson is scarred and bleeding from his mouth, and I’m wondering if we’re supposed to think that he and his bandmates are dead?

Song Analysis #36: Franz Ferdinand – No You Girls

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Title: ‘No You Girls’
Where to find it: ‘Tonight: Franz Ferdinand’ (2009, Domino)
Performed by: Franz Ferdinand
Words by: Alex Kapranos

Franz Ferdinand’s third album saw the band go – or attempt, at least – to go in a more dance-oriented direction, and ‘No You Girls’, the second single released from it, was a good indicator of this. Yet the song retained the smart arse, sleazy, leery vocal style we’d come to know from Alex Kapranos. You never knew whether to desire the man or detest him. Witty, yet with such simple lyrics, it’s ridiculously smart, and it’s been a live fan favourite ever since it’s seen the light of day. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s got the catchiest guitar line since their breakout hit ‘Take Me Out’. It’s so catchy, Kapranos himself is singing right along to it at the end. Yet, I think this inherent catchiness might just be taking away from the song’s take home message.

First, the words:

Verse 1
Oh, kiss me
Flick your cigarette, then kiss me
Kiss me where your eye won’t meet me
Meet me where your mind won’t kiss me

Flick your eyes and mine and then hit me
Hit me with your eyes so sweetly
Oh, you know you know you know that yes I love
I mean I’d love to get to know you

Pre-chorus
Do you never wonder?
No, no no

Chorus
No, you girls never know
Oh no, you girls’ll never know
No, you girls never know
How you make a boy feel
You girls never know
Oh no, you girls’ll never know
No, you girls never know
How you make a boy feel
How you make a boy

Verse 2
Oh, kiss me
Flick your cigarette, then kiss me
Kiss me where your eye won’t meet me
Meet me where your eye won’t flick me

Flick your mind and mine so briefly
Oh you know, you know you’re so sweetly
Oh you know, you know that I know that I love you
I mean I, I mean I need to love

Pre-chorus
Do you never wonder?
No, no no

Chorus
No, you girls never know
Oh no, you girls’ll never know
No, you girls never know
How you make a boy feel
You girls never know
Oh no, you girls’ll never know
No, you girls never know
How you make a boy feel
How you make a boy feel
How you make a boy

Bridge
Sometimes I say stupid things
That I think
Well, I mean I
Sometimes I think the stupidest things
Because I never wonder
Oh how the girl feels
Oh how the girl feels

Modified chorus
No, you boys never care
Oh no, you boys’ll never care
No, you boys never care
How the girl feels
No, you boys never care
You dirty boys’ll never care
No, you boys never care
How the girl feels

Oh, how the girl feels
Oh, how the girl feels

Now, the analysis:

I struggled for a long time on whether I wanted to do an essay about the topics explored in ‘No You Girls’, using it as one example for a broader piece, or just a straight-forward analysis. I’ve decided to do something in the middle. It all started from a couple weeks ago, when I woke up with the ticking of this song’s guitar line in my head. I thought it was strange that it should come to me all of a sudden. I don’t even own this album, so it’s not like a song that I had on repeat in my life at some point. But then I considered why I was thinking about this very song. I might be wrong, but I have a theory, which goes back to why I wanted to write that essay in the first place.

At the basic level, ‘No You Girls’ is about attracting the opposite sex, how such attempts at attracting are interpreted by the recipient, and what feelings are felt by the sender. Physics tells us “opposites attract”, at least when it comes to electromagnetic forces. As we all know however, love is never that simple. Even before you can get to love, you’ve got to make sure the other person is even receptive to the mere fact that you like him/her.

It’s easy to get lost in the chorus of ‘No You Girls’ because it’s oh so catchy, and I bet this was done on purpose. The rhythm of the chorus appears three times. The first two are identical and sung from the perspective of a man (Kapranos). But then you get to the end. Hmm. Uh huh. Has he changed sex? Because all of a sudden, he’s singing it as if he’s a woman. The words slightly change too. Genius, I tell you.

In the male versions of the chorus, he’s telling off a woman, saying, “no, you girls never know / how you make a boy feel.” I was talking to a good guy friend of mine and he was saying how true this sentiment was, that it’s not just the women who want the fairytale relationship, guys are not only capable but often think of relationships in such dreamy terms. As a woman, it never occurred to me to think this way, to think that a man might have similar hopes and dreams about relationships like us women. After all, most girls I know and I were brought up by our fathers to think that most men are not to be trusted and they only have one thing on their minds. Of course, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve met plenty of men / guy friends who don’t fit this profile (thankfully!), but I think the general consensus still is that men don’t feel about love the way us women do. I am quick to point out that all men are not the same, just as all women are not the same either. (Case in point: the female player.) Either way, ‘No You Girls’ gives you some definite food for thought.

When Kapranos assumes the female role, the words have now changed to “No, you boys never care / How the girl feels.” When the song was controlled by a man, he was telling a woman that women never seem to consider the feelings of a man. Now as the song is being sung by a woman, she is telling men that men don’t even get to the point of consideration. No. They just don’t care.

He gets to this point of changing from a man to a woman via the bridge, which comes across as playful:

Sometimes I say stupid things
That I think
Well, I mean I
Sometimes I think the stupidest things
Because I never wonder
Oh how the girl feels
Oh how the girl feels

It’s kind of adorable the way Kapranos is stumbling in his words. I think this was meant as also. This ‘stumbling’ is also apparent in the first verse, when he can’t seem to form a sentence and tell the girl he has his eye set on that he’d like to get to know her better (“Oh, you know you know you know that yes I love / I mean I’d love to get to know you“). It also reappears in the second verse, when he seems to confuse his needs with his feelings (“Oh you know, you know that I know that I love you / I mean I, I mean I need to love“).

In the bridge, he has a thought about what he says out loud and how he might come across to other people. But halfway in the middle of his thought, he realises this might come out all wrong. Or maybe what he really meant was the things he says – a direct product of the way he thinks – are the source of ‘stupid thoughts’ and he reaches this great epiphany. “Hey, wait a minute. I’m railing off about how women are always treating us men badly, being terrible flirts, etc. But now that I really think about it, I never wonder how the woman feels.” And really, what’s worse, being the male target of female flirting going nowhere, or being a woman whose man never truly considers her feelings? There’s no right or wrong here. Depending on the person on the receiving end, both can feel pretty rotten.

Yes, there’s sexual innuendo in this song, and I’m not going there. (If you see and hear it, you’ve probably already figured it all out for yourself.) What I find far more compelling about the song are two things: 1) the cocksure way it’s sung, even though Kapranos is complaining about female flirtation habits and how women turn on men (and presuming this is not at all accidental), and 2) the reversal of roles when Kapranos comes to realise that it’s not just the women who are at fault. Or maybe the word ‘fault’ is wrong: has this all been a big misunderstanding between the sexes?

And I like how this song goes there, to question both sides of the story. While ‘No You Girls’ won’t win any awards for provoking any great sociological debates, the lyrics alone allow the song to transcend normal pop song boundaries.

Lastly, the song, in promo form, as an over eyeliner-ed Alex Kapranos and co. serenade what appear to be pinup girls from the future. I guess he is as perturbed by the women as they are of him? Hmm…