Tag Archives: 2010

Song Analysis #43: The Crookes – Two Drifters

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Title: ‘Two Drifters’
Where to find it: ‘Dreaming of Another Day’ EP (2010, Fierce Panda)
Performed by: the Crookes featuring Little Glitches
Words by: Daniel Hopewell

Last month I was contacted by a Crookes fan to help her with a project she was doing on them. Why she contacted me: she complimented me on my writing, had read all I’d written about the band, and was interested in my journalist’s opinion on them. It felt pretty special to be asked and I’ve been told the feature on me would be running this Thursday, so stay tuned, I’ll update this post with the link once I have it. Update: read the Q&A with me on One Week // One Band this way.

Her interviewing me had me revisit all the Crookes music I had and think about the unique journey I had with them, first as a fan, then as a journalist and friend of theirs. I came across this one, which seems like such a huge departure from their current album ‘Soapbox’. It seems to fit my current mindset; I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately and came up with a four-word phrase that I will use to name my memoirs.

The phrase is oddly closely aligned to the message in ‘Two Drifters’: despite how fairy tales end, relationships aren’t forever. When one has run its course, it’s best to say goodbye, move on, and keep the good times you had together tucked away in your heart.

First, the words:

Verse 1
Oh, it may be that we are neverending,
but I wouldn’t ever shine my shoes for you.
And you may think that we are done pretending,
that the rain that I wrote came from the blue.

Chorus
Drain my wine like that widow at the window,
and it plays through my mind,
but I’m on another skyline,
from you, from you, from you, from you.

Verse 2
Oh, I look back on when we were two drifters,
drifting along so aimlessly.
We lost our way, forget those days,
because I’m done pretending
that there’s still so much for us to see.

Chorus (modified)
Drain my wine like that widow at the window,
and it plays through my mind,
but I’m on another skyline from you.
Dress in my best clothes just to lean against a lamppost,
and I think of those days,
and times spent the wrong way with you.

Bridge
Ink seeps in through my skin,
forgotten as I etch it in.
Though I may feel better for a while,
even moods grow in and out of style.
I let you get ahead…

Remember me fondly when I’m gone,
I’ve already been happy for far too long.
I know it’s such a shame that we pretend,
my darling, we’re racing towards different ends.
Remember me fondly when I’m gone…

Verse 3
Oh, I look back on when we were two drifters,
drifting along so aimlessly.
We lost our way, forget those days,
I’m done pretending
that there’s still so much for us to see.

Now, the analysis:

There are three things about ‘Two Drifters’ that I think are important to note about this song:

1) The protagonist is a writer. This might not be obvious but in verse 1, it sounds to me like he’s writing a Dear John letter, with rain being a metaphor for darker days ahead and the end of their time together but perceived by the girl as coming out of nowhere:

“And you may think that we are done pretending,
that the rain that I wrote came from the blue.”

There is also a clue later on in the bridge that the ink (or pen) he uses to write with is all-pervading, even in his most absent-minded of moments:

“Ink seeps in through my skin,
forgotten as I etch it in.”

2) He’s having trouble letting go, yet he’s cognisant that he and his lover exist on two entirely different planes. He is drinking, presumably to numb and dull the pain he’s having, wrestling with the decision of ending this relationship. He’s comparing the way he’s drinking himself into oblivion to the way a widow – a woman who has lost her greatest love – downs her liquor:

“Drain my wine like that widow at the window,
and it plays through my mind,
but I’m on another skyline,
from you, from you, from you, from you.”

In the second chorus, he admits to trying to hold on to the fondest memories of them being together by going through familiar motions:

“Dress in my best clothes just to lean against a lamppost,
and I think of those days, and times spent the wrong way with you.”

Later on in the bridge, he explains his difficulty in making his choice:

“Though I may feel better for a while,
even moods grow in and out of style.”

3) He once was aimless, but now he’s grown up. He understands the fairy tale is over and is done with continuing with the façade that there is anything left to their union. The road ends here.

“Oh, I look back on when we were two drifters,
drifting along so aimlessly.
We lost our way, forget those days,
because I’m done pretending
that there’s still so much for us to see.”

Those are the basic building blocks. But let’s turn our attention to the most beautiful part of this song, the bridge. In its entirety, the bridge is a gorgeous piece of work on its own, with frontman George Waite emoting its full melancholy. The protagonist is trying to make a clean break but feels the need to give an excuse for why: “Remember me fondly when I’m gone, I’ve already been happy for far too long.” Is it really possible to have been happy for too long? It is as if he was uncomfortable the way the relationship was making him feel, as if it was disturbing his core sadness.

Then he says to her, “I know it’s such a shame that we pretend, my darling, we’re racing towards different ends.” Again, it’s another excuse, an interesting departure from “it’s not you, it’s me.” But in contrast to the latter, it is an actual admittance by him that he and she are different people, wanting different things, having different goals in life. A pretty mature conclusion to come to after presumably younger days and “times spent the wrong way with you.”

When I built my first-ever, rinky-dink Web site on my university’s server many moons ago (complete with JPEGs and GIFs of weathered Greek architecture; don’t ask me why, I don’t think there was any particular reason except that they looked cool to me), I set up a page listing variants of that old chestnut about love. You know which one I’m talking about:

“If you love somebody,
Set her free…
If she comes back, she’s yours,
If she doesn’t, she never was….”

I’m not entirely sure why I devoted so much time to hand code an HTML page that looks like this one (except with awesome graphics and a coloured background, ha). In my first year at school, I’d never even had a boyfriend before. I suspect though that it had to do with being a hopeless romantic, something I’ve carried with me to today. As we get older and gain more experience with life and love, we can take those experiences and use them towards the relationship(s) that will end up working. That’s a positive thing. As Elvis once sang, “don’t be cruel / to a heart that’s true.” Letting go is hard. Knowing when to let go and the process of letting go is a compassionate act.

Lastly, the song in stream form, as it was never released as a single, so there’s no promo for it..

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 #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.