Category Archives: Song Analysis

Song Analysis #35: Maximo Park – Lydia, the Ink Will Never Dry

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Title: ‘Lydia, the Ink Will Never Dry’
Where to find it: ‘Too Much Information’ (2014, Daylighting /Co-Op / PIAS)
Performed by: Maximo Park
Words by: presumably Paul Smith

I’d waited 6 long years to see Newcastle band Maximo Park. I’d missed them 3 times previous: their 2008 American tour got cancelled; I couldn’t get in their Great Escape festival appearance in May 2012 at Brighton Dome; and the only other time I had known of them playing DC, I had the unfortunate luck of being in California for work and had to have one of the other writers in town cover it. Thankfully, they returned to our city on the 20th of May, they were amazing, I got to meet the band, and I also got to interview their drummer Tom for this ace feature.

‘Too Much Information’, their fifth album, is their most ambitious yet. There are still some songs on there that I don’t relate to and skip over when I’m listening to the album, but the dancey ‘Brain Cells’ and the reflective ‘Leave This Island’ are superb (I’m pretty sure the latter will be one of my favourite tracks of 2014). This one too is just superbly haunting. I’ve listened to it so many times, I think I’ve figured this one out, though other ideas keep swimming in my head on what else it could be about. And this is really good considering lyrically it’s a short song and repetitive. Just goes to show how great the songwriting is!

First, the words:

Verse 1
Near the Palace Hotel
Where you used to dwell
Engraved against your wishes
One of your greatest misses

You hope the ink will never dry
You’re fooling yourself
You feel set up
You’re telling yourself
You don’t believe in luck

Verse 2
On Princess Street
Where we used to meet
We knew not where we’re treading
Or how the dye will spread in
You hope the ink will never dry

You’re fooling yourself
You been set up
You’re telling yourself
You’ve done enough

Chorus
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me

Instrumental bridge / guitar solo

Final chorus / outro
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?
I don’t know about you
But it feels good to me
I don’t know about you
but it feels good to me

Now, the analysis:

Instrumentally, the first thing about this song that will strike you is the Johnny Marr-esque guitars. I don’t know what to say if this isn’t a song written to thank the memory of the Smiths. Further, after having spent some time there last month myself, mentions of the Palace Hotel and Princess Street seem to indicate the song is set in Manchester.

Before I saw the lyric video the band released to go with the song, as a writer, I just assumed they were talking about a piece of writing that wasn’t complete or a situation with words, such as a relationship, that was left unfinished. Then you get the video (see bottom of this post) and the act of tattooing gives the word ‘ink’ an entirely different meaning. Hmm, okay.

I started to think about tattoos in history that have been “engraved against” someone’s “wishes”. Steers that are branded by their owner’s telltale marks; Holocaust victims with the numbers burned into their skin. The latter is why I’d never get a tattoo personally: why would you want to mark yourself voluntarily when people in our past history have been forced against their will to have these marked that they are ‘owned’, someone else’s ‘property’, or not a human being? These are very strong words in the song, which made me change my original idea of this being just a fluff piece about a relationship gone sour to one something far more creepy.

I’ve decided that I don’t think Paul Smith literally meant a tattoo but something that is mentally burned into someone’s life. To be fair, if you consider that verbal abuse can be as bad or worse than physical abuse, the thought of feeling like you don’t measure up can be pretty damaging to someone’s psyche, and this is the exact feeling I get in this song. There’s a mention of Princess Street being “where we used to meet”: Princess Street is one of the main thoroughfares of the city centre and the choice of using the action of meeting made me think one thing: this woman is a prostitute. She “used to dwell” in the Palace Hotel. Think about it, what kind of person tends to choose to live in a hotel? Someone who is an itinerant, someone who doesn’t want people to know what he/she is doing.

Why do I think this? The chorus isn’t gleefully sung – thankfully – and just insistent. “Lydia, tell me how hard can it be?” Something is difficult for her to get past. I just get the vibe that the voice of the song is one of her regular customers, having come into the city for his ‘usual’. He sees no problem with the transaction in a literal sense: “I don’t know about you, but it feels good to me.” To his credit, he recognises initially there was a question of whether what they were doing was right: “We knew not where we’re treading / Or how the dye will spread in”.

The man also recognises the woman’s own misgivings: “You’re fooling yourself / You feel set up” and “one of your greatest misses” (she knows she’s made a mistake with choices in her life). But what I find the most haunting is the repetition throughout the song “you hope the ink will never dry”: she doesn’t want this less than savoury lifestyle of hers to be the be-all and end-all of her life. To use the engraving metaphor again, she doesn’t want this to be her legacy, what will be printed on her tombstone. This is the part of the song that impresses me the most. I don’t know if men can relate to what ‘Lydia’ is going through, as I think us women have entirely different life struggles, because society dictates that we’re ‘supposed’ to be good wives, good mothers, good caregivers, although old societal norms that were present when my parents were young have now changed.

Girls no longer have to get married or have partners at all. This is a good thing in my eyes, as I am from a culture that still has to get with this program. Yet something that has become exceedingly, painfully clear after the Isla Vista massacre last month is that some men still look at women as objects, things to be ‘had’, and even though I’m not some bra-burning ultra feminist, thinking about things like this scares me a woman. A lot. I don’t identify with ‘Lydia’ literally because I haven’t had her experience, and I am thankful I have not. But what I can relate to is the feeling that as a woman, there are things that are ‘done’ to us by the men we encounter in our lives that leave emotional scars, scars that will never heal. Time will pass and we will get to the point where the pain no longer feels fresh. But the scars will always, always be there. Give that a thought for a moment.

Lastly, the song, presented in an unusual way: a way too devoted Maximo fan getting the lyrics tattooed – as ink, geddit? – permanently on her back. WHAT.

Song Analysis #34: The Wombats – Walking Disasters

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Title: ‘Walking Disasters’
Where to find it: ‘The Wombats Proudly Present This Modern Glitch’ (2011, 14th Floor Records [UK], Bright Antenna [US])
Performed by: The Wombats
Words by: Matthew “Murph” Murphy

Matthew “Murph” Murphy of the Wombats has been through a lot. It’s often said that artists have to suffer for their art. I’d argue that in Murph’s case, we’re lucky enough that he’s willing to share his experiences with us, from self-doubt to letting go and having a good time out with mates, from depression to the euphoria of being in love. In an interview with a magazine produced by CALM that I’m a contributor to, Murph chatted with our editor Rachel Clare about his battle with depression and his decision to give up anti-depressants, which ultimately led to the writing of the single ‘Anti-D’. ‘Anti-D’ seemed way too obvious of a choice for Music in Notes, so I’ve chosen something else.

I found their 2011 album ‘The Wombats Proudly Present: This Modern Glitch’ particularly strong in its songwriting, taking Murph’s often introspective and often dark lyrics and pairing it with the kind of pop melody others only wish they could come up with. It spawned several well-performing singles including ‘Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves)’ and ‘Jump in the Fog’. But for today’s analysis, I’ve chosen a less obvious track from the LP to chew on.

First, the words:

Verse 1
She used to get her kicks from a fall to the floor
But now she’s always wasted
A total looker, but she’s jaded
The kind of shivering wreck that I adore
I can’t offer you a rescue
I can tell you what I’d do

Pre-chorus
I’d tell my mother that I love her dearly
And tell my father that I need him back again
And if these words won’t drop from your lips
I will be your Freudian slip

Chorus
And flowers might wilt when we walk past
And self-help might help when it makes us laugh
Only finding questions in answers
You and I are just walking disasters
You and I are just walking disasters
You and I are just walking disasters

Verse 2
She only finds her love in a downtown score (store?)
Consumption makes her stronger
She’s the sweetest anaconda
The kind of lack of respect that I adore
I can’t offer you a rescue
But when you’ve lost all that you have left to lose

Pre-chorus
I’d tell my mother that I love her dearly
And tell my father that I need him back again
And if these words won’t drop from your lips
I will be your Freudian slip

Bridge
As sharp as a knife and as blunt as a wheel
You be my calm, I’ll be your pneumatic drill
And what we’ll never want, we’ll always need
Right now we need some pop psychology
To keep us upbeat

Pre-chorus
So tell your mother that you love her dearly
And tell your father you won’t lock him out again
And if these words won’t drop from your lips
I will be your Freudian slip

Chorus
And flowers might wilt when we walk past
And self-help might help when it makes us laugh
Only finding questions in answers
You and I are just walking disasters
You and I are just walking disasters
You and I are just walking disasters

Now, the analysis:

‘Walking Disasters’ is about coming of age and coming to a point of your maturity when you’re recognising your own bad habits as well as what you yourself can do in life to make changes for the better. The title is typical Murph self-deprecation, calling himself and his girl / friend “walking disasters”, as if every waking moment they live is in a cartoon world and every action farcical.

In verse 1, every single transcription I’ve seen online makes the first line out to be “She used to get her kicks from a fall to the floor”; I had always assumed it was “She used to get her kicks from the four to the floor”, as if the girl he’s speaking of was a dance music fan who used to go to raves. But maybe that’s just me and my synth-loving tendencies. Admittedly, with the words reading as “fall to the floor”, it’s more poignant, as if he’s watching her like a bystander to a train wreck. He wants to do something while she makes a fool out of herself, but he knows he can’t because he is every bit of a human catastrophe as she is.

He is sympathetic to her: “The kind of shivering wreck that I adore”; I find that particularly nice, as it’s usually us women who are doing the mothering in relationships, not the other way around. No, he’s being brotherly or even fatherly, noting she’s “a total looker” but what a shame “now she’s always wasted”. He’s also mature enough to recognise that even when she is sober and realises the error of her ways and what a mess she really is, it’s not his place to be that grounding influence for her and to take her on as a project. He offers up advice instead.

I’d tell my mother that I love her dearly
And tell my father that I need him back again
And if these words won’t drop from your lips
I will be your Freudian slip

In the pre-chorus, he offers up that surprisingly mature advice to a youngster that maybe you should listen to your parents and tell them that you love them, even if you grew up rebelling against all their rules. In a second and the final version of the pre-chorus, Murph sings, “And tell your father you won’t lock him out again”, which makes it sound like the girl comes from a broken home and her parents are divorced. I’m not entirely sure what “I will be your Freudian slip” means: Freudian slips are accidental slips of the tongue, and since he’s refusing to take her on permanently as a girlfriend (he has admitted he’s every bit of a screw-up as she is, so he can’t handle the responsibility), maybe he means they’re okay as accidental lovers?

And flowers might wilt when we walk past
And self-help might help when it makes us laugh
Only finding questions in answers
You and I are just walking disasters

The chorus strikes me as extremely witty, as does the later bridge. They’re going through life extremely jaded about what is up ahead for them (“flowers might wilt when we walk past”) and self-help is a joke (it “might” only “help when it makes us laugh”). Those are pretty immature, childish ways of thinking. But “only finding questions in answers, you and I are just walking disasters” allows the narrator to come to some conclusion, even if it’s not a perfect one. And I think that’s exactly the point: we are not perfect. As Morrissey sang in ‘The Youngest Was the Most Loved’, “there is no such thing as normal”. Questioning the answers and not just questioning authority (teenage rebellion) indicates personal growth and maturity.

In verse 2, more lyric confusion. Is it “She only finds her love in a downtown score”, as in getting drugs and getting high, or “She only finds her love in a downtown store”, she’s an incurable shopaholic? The next lines, “Consumption makes her stronger / She’s the sweetest anaconda”, seem to suggest the former. Even the use of the word ‘anaconda’ is very telling that another reason he can’t be with her is that she can be a snake at times. Ha!

As sharp as a knife and as blunt as a wheel
You be my calm, I’ll be your pneumatic drill
And what we’ll never want, we’ll always need
Right now we need some pop psychology
To keep us upbeat

The bridge is the other height of Murph’s droll humour here. “As sharp as a knife and as blunt as a wheel / You be my calm, I’ll be your pneumatic drill”: they are complete opposites, and even more confusingly, he’s given her the role of being the calm one while he’s the one wreaking havoc, which is the opposite of what we assumed he was at the start of the song: the voice of reason watching his friend get into trouble yet again on a bad night. “And what we’ll never want, we’ll always need” is a classic refrain from psychologists who bemoan modern society’s desires for things when they’re not needed, but lesser evolved humans can’t control their willpower and can’t tell the difference. “Right now we need some pop psychology / To keep us upbeat” is like saying to go turn on MTV and get all excited watching some stupid top 40 video that means absolutely nothing. He knows that is not the cure-all, even if when we were younger we certainly were encouraged to believe that by our peers and even by society itself.

A simple pop song? Hardly.

Lastly, the song, in stream form, as the song was never released as a single.

Song Analysis #33: The Joy Formidable – I Don’t Want to See You Like This

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Title: ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’
Where to find it: ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’ 7″ picture disc single (Atlantic, 2010), ‘The Big Roar’ (Atlantic, 2011)
Performed by: The Joy Formidable
Words by: I’m not sure – I’ll have to ask when I see them next!

The Joy Formidable are an incredibly important band to me. After suffering a crippling bout of heartbreak, I saw them play to a small crowd (at most 40 people?) at Black Cat Backstage in November 2010, and it was very strange to me how incredibly cathartic throwing yourself into hard, fast, loud rock music can be when you’re feeling the lowest of the low. We became friends when they returned to DC 4 months later for a sold out show for the main room of the Black Cat and we had a great, really candid chat backstage, and that was when I learned what nice, genuine people they are.

They’re now playing around the world and selling out huge venues, yet it doesn’t matter how big they are. I know they’ll never forget those early days when we wrote about them on TGTF, when they were virtually unknown, and all the unwavering support I’ve given them. They’ve put me on their guest list so many times, including for an industry show at SXSW in March that I was sure would be impossible to get into otherwise. I’ve watched their star steadily rise after so many years of hard work, and I couldn’t be happier for three wonderful people I am blessed to call friends.

When I started Music in Notes, I told myself I’d write about ‘The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade’ at some point. It still stands as my favourite song of theirs and while I’m now several years out from the incident that could have ended my life and the song is so important to me, it’s still too personal to discuss. So that will have to wait for another day. Instead, I’ve chosen something else. I’ve been running a lot lately – I’ve found it helps my joint pain, as well as provide a reasonably low impact way to relieve the pent-up stress from a long day’s work – and it was on one of these recent runs that I was listening to their debut album, 2011’s ‘The Big Roar’, that ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’ came on and it struck me that it was the frenetic yet still similarly emotionally charged sister to ‘The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade’.

Please also note that today, the 15th of April 2014, is the 1-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing. One year ago today, while terrible things were going on in one of the few cities in the United States I hold beloved, unbeknownst to me, a new chapter of my life was about to open and change my life. But I recently had to close out that chapter, and it wasn’t easy at all: emotions were high and ties were cut. What Ritzy Bryan sings in ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’ is truth: change in inevitable, but the important part is seeing that more often than not, change is good, and it’s the strength you find when you finally come to the decision that is most empowering.

First, the words:

Verse 1
A bridge splits November’s sky
I’m in two halves inside
This is the past right here
I choose to leave it here

The cliffs loom to scrape you thin
The bowl churns to over spill
But I can see us here
Without this fear

Verse 2
I want to find those books
Search your face, torment us
You’re just a shower to someone dry
A shower to the wilted and the dried

‘Cause we all leave courage’s side
But I’ll always be courage’s child
The past I’ll clear
I choose to leave it here

Pre-chorus
You say have your time again
But you can’t and the warning starts now
What’s in the frame?
It makes you sad but you can’t fill the gaps

We’re four rings on a chain
So don’t make them rust
I’ll be your maps, I’ll be your eyes
I’ll give the ending a nudge

Chorus
And I don’t want to see you like this
I don’t want to see you like this
And I don’t want to see you like this
I don’t want to see you like this

Bridge
Alive now in the middle not looking from outside
Wishing that it was a screen fight
Settled with all of a hero’s flair
Put aside, find a new character

Modified chorus
I don’t want to, don’t want to
Don’t want to see you like this
And I don’t want to see you like this
I don’t want to see you like this

Reprise of verse 1
A bridge splits November’s sky
I’m in two halves inside
This is the past right here
I choose to leave it here

Now, the analysis:

What begins and ends the song is really, really important. I can’t stress this enough. Please read the lyrics again:

A bridge splits November’s sky
I’m in two halves inside
This is the past right here
I choose to leave it here

There’s a bridge splitting November’s sky (hmm, that’s interesting, isn’t it? I saw them for the first time in November 2010) but the protagonist is in two halves. Broken. In two. The two broken piece could represent a broken heart, but helpfully, it can also represent looking back at the past vs. looking forward into the future. As Ritzy stands in the past, she’s making the conscious decision to “choose to leave it here.” I can’t be sure if this is regarding two friends or two lovers, but I imagine she’s leaving behind good memories and bad she had with the other person and has to take this step in order to not only stay true to herself, but also to look out for herself as #1 and and take care of herself.

After you get past this first half of verse 1, you get to an incredibly evocative passage:

The cliffs loom to scrape you thin
The bowl churns to over spill
But I can see us here
Without this fear

The cliffs are described as foreboding, physically capable of ruin. Then comes the image of being drowned. Yet, despite all these scenes of despair, she sees the two of them stood together. “Without this fear”, because together, joining forces, they can get through anything.

I’m not sure I have the lyrics right for the next verse. However, what is clear is how, again, they’ve chosen these incredibly evocative words: “You’re just a shower to someone dry / A shower to the wilted and the dried”. I’m torn about what this means. If it’s positive, it can be read as a compliment to someone who provides encouragement. If it’s negative, it can be read entirely differently, as an insult. A rain shower is something that is ephemeral, going as quickly as it’s come, and in this verse, the shower is running over dry and wilted things, things are dead and useless.

I’m leaning towards the latter explanation, because there is no mention that “someone dry” ever came back to life. I read it as a jab at a former lover who came in as a whirlwind into her life and proved to be good in the moment, but she eventually realised that his influence was fleeting and she no longer needed him in her life. She goes on, “’cause we all leave courage’s side / but I’ll always be courage’s child”, courage is something we all want and need but we are not always by courage’s side. Hardly. Being scared and having fear, in all facets of our life, is just the way it goes. But she has the confidence to say that even if she’s not 100% courageous in everything she does and she might not feel particularly courageous in this exact moment, she will find courage again.

What I find very telling about the pre-chorus is that the female protagonist is a very strong person. No matter what feelings she has about being hurt by the other person, she isn’t attacking that person. She isn’t saying goodbye and good riddance. She’s trying to keep the relationship together: “we’re four rings on a chain / so don’t make them rust”. Maybe this song is about maintaining a platonic friendship after a romantic one? Yet there is no sense of desperation or urgency either. She’s on an even keel. She has her emotions under control. She’s even offering to assist. If this really was a romance gone sour, she has the strength to offer herself up as the guiding light in the other’s life: “I’ll be your maps, I’ll be your eyes / I’ll give the ending a nudge”. As much pain as she must have felt at one point, she’s not being vindictive. She’s being an adult. She wants a happy ending. For both of them.

The bridge seems to indicate that she’s aware of the gravity of the situation. “Alive now in the middle not looking from outside / Wishing that it was a screen fight / Settled with all of a hero’s flair”: wouldn’t it be easier if all the most horrible personal conflicts we suffered could neatly be resolved in less than 2 hours like they do in the movies? But the last line of the bridge – “Put aside, find a new character” – tells me she’s ready to move on.

You’re probably confused why I haven’t even discussed the song title yet. I think it’s actually the least important thing about the song, but it’s a testament to the Joy Formidable’s writing talent that even the title and those words have two meanings. Think about it for a moment. The most obvious explanation of the title is that of a woman looking at a friend or lover and being upset in herself that what they once had is no longer there. I think this is what most people see and what they’re probably getting upset over, because we’ve all been hurt by someone else and it hurts like hell when you encounter that person again and you feel all the emotions come bubbling to the surface again. However, squint at the words and consider them again. They just might not be words of pain. It might be a way for the protagonist to say to the other person, “you know what? I don’t like the person I was when I was with you. I need to leave you behind so I can be strong.” How amazing that ‘I Don’t Want to See You Like This’ can read to have a similar message to Keane’s ‘Can’t Stop Now’.

Lastly, the song, in its promo form from autumn 2010.