Tag Archives: 2012

Song Analysis #39: Two Door Cinema Club – Next Year

Song Analysis, , , , ,

Title: ‘Next Year’
Where to find it: ‘Beacon’ (2012, Kitsune [UK], Glassnote [US])
Performed by: Two Door Cinema Club
Words by: going to guess Alex Trimble, as I’ve never asked them who in their band writes the lyrics

My father was a scientist and he was away a lot when I was a child. I know a lot of this was unavoidable: he often had to go out into the field for one or another of his many expeditions, or he’d be called away to a foreign land for a scientific meeting or conference. I know these things, because even at a young age, with English as his second language, he’d ask me to review his slides and notes, making sure he was grammatically correct. Maybe that’s where my editing experience began?

I gave more serious thought to my father when my friends Two Door Cinema Club had to cancel their headline set at Latitude 2 weekends ago and a later planned appearance in Splendour in the Grass in Australia this past weekend. The reason for the cancellation is less important for the purpose of this analysis, though it struck me as intensely personal: singer/guitarist Alex Trimble collapsed on their way to the airport and needed immediate medical attention for “a chronic stomach complaint”. I met the lads in April 2010, upon their first visit to Washington; they opened for Phoenix, their American labelmates on Glassnote Records. We’d been writing about them for a while on There Goes the Fear and my cup runneth over with the prospect of seeing them live.

Four years later, I sometimes think it is insane that those three boys from Northern Ireland, so pleased to meet me and recognize me from my business card, are now huge stars with fans all over the world. I saw the terrible complaints from supposed fans upset with them pulling out from Latitude, and I reacted with same disgust as I had when fans in Europe hit out at them when they cancelled a string of dates in I believe Italy because they physically could not get to their next show because the roads had been blocked by a blizzard and it was too treacherous to travel. They’re human. What did you want them to do, wave a magic wand and be transported by fairy dust to your town?

Because of their star status, I haven’t actually talked to Two Door in person in a long while. But this lack of face time hasn’t changed my support of them; I know they appreciate me for what I’ve done for them as much as I’ve appreciated the music they’ve given to this world. This is where my thoughts of my father kicked in with the meaning of their song ‘Next Year’, and with that, the feelings I had when I had first heard the song became all the stronger.

Fans may complain that these three boys from Bangor have ruined their summer by not appearing at a music festival. But I wish those fans would stop and think for a moment who are they spending time away from all year long. Their families, their loved ones. These people, the silent, faraway, never wavering cheerleaders of these boys who I know work so hard for their dream of becoming rock stars. In that sense, ‘Next Year’ feels to me as the love letter, the Christmas card Alex, Sam, and Kevin write in their heads every time they have to be away from those they love.

People think being a rock star is the greatest thing in the world and it is in many respects the greatest job in the world. But I think the fans can lose sight of the fact that with great things come great responsibility. And great sacrifice.

First, the words:

Verse 1
I don’t know where I
am going to rest my head tonight,
so I won’t promise that I’ll speak
to you today.
But if I ever find
another place, a better time
for that moment,
I was never what I am.

Take to me to where you are,
what you’ve become,
and what you will do
when I am gone.
I won’t forget,
I won’t forget.

Chorus
Maybe someday,
you’ll be somewhere
talking to me
as if you knew me,
saying, “I’ll be home for next year, darling.
I’ll be home for next year.”

Verse 2
In between the lines
is the only place you’ll find
what you’re missing
that you didn’t know was there.
So when I say goodbye,
you must do your best to try
and forgive me this weakness,
this weakness.

‘Cause I don’t know what to say,
another day,
another excuse to be sent your way.
Another day,
another year.

Chorus
Maybe someday,
you’ll be somewhere
talking to me
as if you knew me,
saying, I’ll be home for next year, darling.
I’ll be home for next year.

And maybe sometime,
in a long time,
you’ll remember
what I had said there.
I said, “I’ll be home for next year, darling,
I’ll be home for next year.”

Bridge
If you think of me,
I will think of you.

Chorus
Maybe someday,
you’ll be somewhere
talking to me
as if you knew me,
saying, “I’ll be home for next year, darling.
I’ll be home for next year.”

Maybe sometime,
in a long time,
you’ll remember
what I had said there.
I said, “I’ll be home for next year.”

Maybe someday,
you’ll be somewhere
talking to me
as if you knew me,
saying, “I’ll be home for next year, darling.
I’ll be home for next year.”

Now, the analysis:

The first time I heard this song, when I was reviewing ‘Beacon’ for TGTF, I thought it was about leaving behind a girlfriend for the road to live the life of a rock star. Then over the last couple of months, I listened to it more frequently on the drive to and from work and came to the conclusion that it encompassed far more people than just a girlfriend. Now I’m convinced it’s a song to all of Two Door’s family and friends, the people who they miss while they’re pursuing their dream life, yet even in their young age (they’re merely in their mid-twenties right now), they realise they’ve had to give up another part of their lives to make this dream happen.

The first half of the first verse describes their whirlwind existence. As a music editor now with lots of friends who are either musicians or support staff to musicians like managers and roadies, I often hear stories of confusion owing to too little sleep and too much travel. The opening bars “I don’t know where I / am going to rest my head tonight, / so I won’t promise that I’ll speak to you today” are honest: the singer has no idea where he is so he is earnest in saying, “I’m really sorry, but I can’t promise you I’ll ring you from where I am, because I don’t know where we are going.”

Then comes “But if I ever find / another place, a better time / for that moment, / I was never what I am”: this is an acknowledgement that if he finds himself suddenly free to ring this person, “for that moment, / I was never what I am”, it means he’s had take himself out of this place where he is a rock star. This is one of several lines I find in this song absolutely heart-breaking. He knows who he is, at least in regards to his public persona, and even if he can get away from that persona for just a moment, it’s like he’s pretending he’s someone he’s not.

He is, however, adamant to want to be in this person’s life. “Take to me to where you are, / what you’ve become, / and what you will do / when I am gone”: he wants to know what goes on even in his absence, and even vows, “I won’t forget.” These lines indicate to me that he’s well aware of what his absence is doing to his loved ones. Very sad too.

If you haven’t broken yet by this time in the song, just wait for the chorus. “Maybe someday, / you’ll be somewhere / talking to me / as if you knew me, / saying, “I’ll be home for next year, darling. I’ll be home for next year.” This first chorus seems to be spoken by the loved one; he/she is hearing him say that he’ll be home for next year. If a full year has to pass before the next chance of this event, we could be talking about a birthday, Christmas, New Year’s, anything really, and I am sure due to their busy schedule, Two Door has missed loads of happy occasions (maybe some sad ones too) that took place in their family and friends’ lives.

When the chorus comes back around after verse 2, it is a two-parter. In the second half of the chorus, the point of view flips back to the voice of the song, “And maybe sometime, / in a long time, / you’ll remember / what I had said there.” There is a weariness to these lines – “sometime”, “in a long time” – as if he’s not sure if the other person is aware of the toll his life is taking on him.

But I’m going to go back to verse 2 for a moment for some more heartstring-twanging moments. “In between the lines / is the only place you’ll find / what you’re missing / that you didn’t know was there”: I read this as referring to the multitude of interviews the band does all over the world. It must be very strange to be reading the words of your boyfriend / son / nephew / etc. in a newspaper halfway around the world. At times it must feel a bit of a shell shock, like “he’s famous!” but also “I don’t know him anymore!” when things are revealed in these interviews with strangers that even they didn’t know. The loved ones are clearly missing them but these disembodied “lines” are their only connection until the next time he can pick up the phone and ring them. “So when I say goodbye, / you must do your best to try / and forgive me this weakness, / this weakness”: the weakness I suppose is in their job and the nature of their job, for they have to pick up and leave for a tour, or a festival, or to do into the studio and record.

More heartbreak occurs in the lines before the aforementioned second chorus. “’Cause I don’t know what to say, / another day, another excuse to be sent your way”: the loved ones must receive emails and voicemails with apologies about not being able to attend birthday and anniversary parties, weddings, etc. “Another day,
another year” is a resignation that this is their life. And it’s not going to change or end any time soon. (Not that they’d want it to, mind.)

The last bit I want to leave you with is the bridge: “If you think of me, I will think of you.” As I was a child before Skype, smartphones, and technology of that ilk and long distance phone calls were often prohibitively expensive, I had to wait until my father returned from his trips before I could speak to him again. Kids these days don’t know how good they have it, to be able to video conference in their parents and relatives from far away. After my father died, my mother showed me the contents of a briefcase he took on his travels. Inside were arts and crafts my brother and I had made as young children, including a yarn bracelet with plastic charms I’d made as a Brownie and string art on a piece of a cardboard I’d made a couple years later. I had no idea he’d been carrying these things with him all over the world, but he must have been looking and fingering these pieces and thinking of us when he was alone in a non-descript hotel room far away from home.

The bridge of ‘Next Year’ makes it obvious to me that Two Door are, like myself and my own father, very loving and sentimental folks. As I mentioned earlier, it’s been some time since I’ve been lucky enough to sit down with the guys and chat over a beer, but I still feel connected to them when I hear songs like this, because I remember the times we shared before they had hit it big and a song like this tells me they haven’t changed and they’re still the same lovely Irishmen I met years ago. Sometimes I think about how I wish I could give them a hug and tell them how proud I am of them and all their successes in person instead of telling them through social media. But then I stop and think that their free moments are best to be given to their loved ones, not me.

While ‘Next Year’ is a sad song, I think those words in the bridge save it from being an elegy of abject sorrow. The bridge serves as a reminder to all that even when it’s impossible to be physically in the same place with the ones you love – whether that be here on earth, or beyond if you believe that Heaven and an afterlife exists – thinking fondly and often of those people you don’t have can preserve that love within you.

Lastly, the song, in its live performance promo video. For less sensory overload, watch the band play a stripped back version of ‘Next Year’ at Coachella 2013 here.

Song Analysis #25: Mystery Jets – Greatest Hits

Song Analysis, , , ,

Title: ‘Greatest Hits’
Where to find it: ‘Radlands’ (2012, Rough Trade)
Performed by: Mystery Jets
Words by: presumably Blaine Harrison

It took me a while to discover Mystery Jets. They’re not a band that gets played at all on American radio, so it was not until I started listening to BBC Radio religiously that I heard about them. I’m so glad I did, though. The best word I can think of to describe them is ‘cheeky’: even though they’re older, wiser, and more mature than when they began in the early Noughties, yet they’ve never lost their youth. They’re still witty and funny, and there are so many songs of theirs I keep close to my heart. Their 2010 album ‘Serotonin’ still gets to me every time I queue it up, as it has such personal meaning for me; when I did my own answers for the Quickfire Questions 2 years ago, I didn’t hesitate to list it as the album I’d bring with me when I leave this earth. But I chose this particular song because even though I wasn’t a huge fan of their 2012 album ‘Radlands’ – in which they tried to go ‘American’ for this one; just ask any member of Noah and the Whale, being ‘called American’ by British media if you’re English is not a compliment – ‘Greatest Hits’ sticks out as a hugely poppy song, yet there’s a hell lot of underlying meaning in here for music lovers, and it’s sung in such a cute way too.

For me, the way they began is one that is so heart-warming. Blaine has leg weakness from spina bifida, which I’ve had to explain to people why he’s sitting down when he’s playing guitar onstage. It seems strange to me to have to do this explaining; he’s an artist, he should be able to do what he wants, right? But even though I’ve only met him once (frankly, I don’t know how I didn’t cry when it happened) and we’re not close friends or anything, there is a special kinship I have with him, because he’s not letting a medical disability from stopping him from what he wants to do in life. He’s not letting it get him down. If anything, it’s probably made him more ambitious. Good for him!

As a child, Blaine could have said to himself, “this is my lot in life”, and just given up, but he chose not to. A big part of why he didn’t, and he has admitted this himself in interviews, is the support he has gotten from his father Henry. A while ago, I’d read this Sunday Times article that was Henry’s personal account of how the Mystery Jets began. He explained that he helped his son early on with his band, even playing bass in the new group, because he wanted his son to have an outlet for his creativity and not think about his physical impairment. And that is what the best parents with children who have any sort of medical / physical / mental condition: they support their kids in whatever endeavour they decide to pursue. They don’t say, “that’s dangerous” or “you shouldn’t do that because it’s not appropriate for someone with your condition” and lock their children in their bedrooms. Of course, there are plenty of examples of kids and adults with medical issues who have gone on to excel in the fields they’ve chosen and seemed to have thrived rather than ‘suffer’ from any problems the not-so-supportive parents insisted they would have, whether real or perceived. But naturally with the music connection, it’s Blaine Harrison and his story that touches the most deeply.

First, the words:

Verse 1
You can take ‘The Lexicon of Love’ away, but I’m keeping ‘Remain in Light’
You can take away ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’, but I’m holding on to ‘Country Life’ (ohhhh oh)
You can keep ‘No Need to Argue’, and I’ll keep ‘The Aeroplane Over the Sea’
But hold on to ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’, ’cause I’m holding on to ‘Village Green’

Pre-chorus
I don’t know if the knot just needs untangling, ’cause the tapes get stuck all the time
Either way, I’m keeping ‘Double Nickels on the Dime’

Chorus
These were our greatest hits (shalalalalalalala shalalalala)
The best of me and you (shalalalalalalala shalalalala)
These were our greatest hits (shalalalalalalala shalalalala)
The best of me and you

Verse 2
I still remember buying you ‘Band on the Run’ on the first day that we kissed (whoo-ooo-ooo)
But you always did prefer ‘McCartney I’ because it reminded you of being a kid
No way you’re having ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’, you only listen to it when you’re pissed
But when you sober up, it’s always “Why the fuck are you still listening to Mark E. Smith?”

Pre-chorus
I don’t know if the knot just needs untangling or if we forgot which way’s up and which way is down
But still the tape keeps going round and round

Chorus
These were our greatest hits (shalalalalalala shalalalalala)
The best of me and you (shalalalalalala shalalalala)
The best of me and you
Of me and you

Outro
Still the tape keeps going round and round
The tape keeps going round

These were our greatest hits (shalalalalalalala shalalalala)
The best of me and you (shalalalalalalala shalalalala)
Our Desert Island Discs (shalalalalalalala shalalalala)
The best of me and you (shalalalalalalala shalalalala)

Now, the analysis:

I suppose I’m lucky that I’ve never lived with anyone I’ve loved: I’ve saved myself the heartache of having to split up combined record collections, which is the crux of ‘Greatest Hits’. For someone like me for whom music is my whole life and mine can be told through the music I own, I can’t imagine anything worse than two people who have clearly bonded over music having to do exactly that when they break up. The title ‘Greatest Hits’ I think is misleading, but I think this was done on purpose, because ‘These Were Our Greatest Hits’ sounds cumbersome and potentially off-putting to the casual liner note reader, and worse, to a music fan, it sounds pretty depressing, doesn’t it?

This song means so much more when you read the lyrics in the two verses. He specifies which albums he’s willing to leave behind to her and which ones he adamantly refuses to give up. He also remembers the albums of their time together. I love the actual naming of the albums happening here: it’s like a knowing nudge from a fellow music lover, the wink wink, nudge nudge that happens between friends. First off, let’s look at the albums mentioned in verse 1, along with the choices he’s making.

You can take ‘The Lexicon of Love’ away, but I’m keeping ‘Remain in Light’
He’s leaving behind ABC’s ‘The Lexicon of Love’, a ’80s New Wave pop album about love. This is also the album that contains the immortal ‘The Look of Love, Part One’, aka a perfect example of ’80s love song cheese. Seems appropriate to not want this album if you’re breaking up with someone. In exchange, he’s keeping Talking Heads’ ‘Remain in Light’. I love Talking Heads, and this is the album that contains ‘Crosseyed and Painless’, ‘The Great Curve’, and ‘Houses in Motion’, so I’m the wrong person to ask about this, because in my opinion, there’s no contest here.

You can take away ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’, but I’m holding on to ‘Country Life’
He’s giving up the Lemonheads for Roxy Music. For me, this is another no-brainer, though I suppose others that grew up in the ’90s might have more trouble deciding. That said, it’s an interesting battle, since the Lemonheads represent the ’90s alt-rock movement in America, and Roxy represents ’70s glam rock, two entirely different genres. I got into Roxy Music through my love of Duran Duran, though I’m not as big of a fan to know if the “ohhhh oh” the Jets popped after the end of this line means anything. Read on for more…

You can keep ‘No Need to Argue’, and I’ll keep ‘The Aeroplane Over the Sea’
The Cranberries vs. Neutral Milk Hotel: Irish indie / rock vs. American indie / folk. Hmm. No pun intended, I’m neutral on this battle. Jeff Mangum’s cult of followers is a mystery to me, though I think in the song, this line is intended to indicate that by taking the more lyrically dense album and leaving behind ‘fluff’, the music is more important to him than the girl or the relationship, even if it’s painful as hell at this moment.

But hold on to ‘The Boy with the Arab Strap’, ’cause I’m holding on to ‘Village Green’
‘Village Green’ of course refers to ‘The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society’ from 1968. Again, I think this is a loaded choice: he’s letting her keep Belle and Sebastian‘s third album – Stuart Murdoch being one of the great and prolific pop love song songwriters of recent memory – and taking for himself the last Kinks’ album, as if it’s a parting blow.

In verse 2, things go from what seems to be jovial to argumentative. The first half is Paul McCartney related: he recalls buying her ‘Band on the Run’, aka Paul’s most successful post-Beatles album, on the first night that they kissed. That’s a lovely memory. The added “whoo-ooo-ooo” is a cheeky nod to ‘Band on the Run’ track ‘Jet’. He also remembers that even though ‘Band on the Run’ was a great album, “you always did prefer ‘McCartney I’ because it reminded you of being a kid”. ‘McCartney I’ is actually ‘McCartney’, the first album Paul did after he left the Beatles, but I guess for clarification purposes since there was a later ‘McCartney II’, it’s referred to as ‘I’ here. I’m thinking there is a reason why he remembers this particular preference of his former love.’McCartney’ represented the start of things for Macca, whereas ‘Band on the Run’ represented the heights of Wings: by remembering these two albums that are Paul McCartney’s and also link the two of them, he is reminiscing about how it all started between the two of them and how innocent it was.

But this feeling is momentary, as it then goes sour. His memories head to Mark E. Smith, the famously curmudgeonly leader of the Fall. He’s arguing with her, saying she has no business keeping ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’ because she only wants to listen to it when she’s drunk, and presumably in an ill enough mood to want to emote with Smith, but when she’s not drunk, she’s wondering aloud – and in an argumentative fashion – why he even has the record. There is also a mention of ‘Double Nickels on the Dime’, an ’80s punk record by the Minutemen. I misheard this as “either way I’m keeping double nickels on the dial”, as if he was standing around alone at a jukebox, putting tokens in, feeling lonely. To be honest, I like my misheard lyric better.

In both versions of the chorus, their relationship, rather appropriately enough for two great lovers of music, is being compared to a tape that can no longer be played. I don’t know why it’s taken so long for someone to put this into a song. Everyone else seems to like using the “close the book” / “close the door” imagery on the end of a relationship, and I find this far better and appropriate for a child like me who came of age on cassettes, not vinyl or CDs. Instead of just saying they are over and the connection is gone, this literally explains their relationship as being dysfunctional.

“I don’t know if the knot just needs untangling, ’cause the tapes get stuck all the time”: I can’t tell if this is pure confusion over what has happened, or he’s resigned himself to the fact that the tapes get stuck, that there is miscommunication and/or communication between them has been halted altogether. But in the second chorus, he changes the second part of the line to “if we forgot which way’s up and which way is down”. Tape players, like most electronic devices, cannot work when they’re upended and this again shows that their tapes, their life together, cannot continue to be used for their intended purpose.

As I mentioned at the start of the analysis, “there were our greatest hits” would have been my choice for the song title, as this is what the song is about. He’s remembering the life the two of them had together, and people who like music think of everything in their lives in terms of music: you remember what you were listening to when milestones, good or bad, happened. I think the words “these were our greatest hits / the best of me and you” are so sweet: even if this was written at the moment they broke up or at least he was feeling horrible that the relationship was over, eventually all of us, though it takes some of us longer to get there (*cough*me*cough*), we can eventually get to a point where listening to those songs that remind of people we once loved won’t hurt anymore and we can look back at the times we had with those people fondly.

A final note why this song is so personal to me: Desert Island Discs is something all Brits are familiar with, because you guys grew up with it. I didn’t. The only reason I know about it is because on Saturday mornings, my father would take me to the one Tower Records in town so he could go shopping for new music or gear. But for me, the one thing I really looked forward to when we went was picking up a copy of their magazine Pulse! It was a free magazine, and there were always huge stacks of it by the door, you couldn’t miss them or their bright red colour covers. It was something I could hold in my hands and flip through while in bed, poring over the album and equipment reviews. I remember thinking, wow, what would it be like to be a rock journalist and get to write for Pulse! With them sitting there by the door, everyone must read it, surely? Writing for them would be something, wouldn’t it?

In the back of the issue, there was always a section called Desert Island Discs, and it is exactly what you imagine it would be: famous American people listing what albums they’d bring with them to a deserted island. It wasn’t until much, much later when the internet happened that I realised this Desert Island Discs thing has been going on for *years* on BBC Radio 4 and it wasn’t Pulse! who had come up with the idea for the feature. (My mother has this running line about “most things that are good seem to come from Britain” and this would be one of them!) Though I did not intend them to be when I started the feature, the Quickfire Questions on TGTF now act like a small nod to my father. I hate December, and I pretty much hate the holidays too, because I don’t like being reminded that he is no longer here. But posting this on Christmas Eve makes me feel somewhat better.

Lastly, the song, in promo music form. It’s important to note that the promo version includes an intro prior to the song in which Blaine Harrison is calling an American girl (obvious by the way the phone is ringing), a man answers the phone in a typical Southern drawl (‘Radlands’ was recorded in Texas, after all), and he explains he’s coming by to see ‘Gracie’ to pick up his records. This differs from the album version, which features a clip of I assume John Lennon (?) in an interview saying he doesn’t want to give his secrets away to “the fucking BBC” (I guess they had to remove that for YouTube).

Song Analysis #22: The Crookes – Maybe in the Dark

Song Analysis, , , , ,

Title: ‘Maybe in the Dark’
Where to find it: ‘Hold Fast’ (2012, Fierce Panda [UK]; 2013, Modern Outsider [US])
Performed by: The Crookes
Words by: Daniel Hopewell

It’s my birthday, so I’ve decided I’m going to revisit a song by the Crookes that means a lot to me. I did a reasonably good job analysing Daniel Hopewell’s lyrics to ‘Maybe in the Dark’ on TGTF last year. But like a lot of other songs that have ‘grown’ with me over the years, this one is aging beautifully like a fine wine and revealing more of itself to me as time passes. At the time of this writing, the lads are in the studio finishing up what will be album #3, and us Bright Young Things are pretty much chomping at the bit for new material.

Last week, I analysed ‘First Day of My Life’ by Conor Oberst. It was quite interesting to me learning through my research that Bright Eyes released two albums in 2005, and the albums are supposed to be companions to one another. Or at least that’s what the fans seem to think. (Again, I’m not a Oberst aficionado, so…) ‘Take It Easy (Love Nothing)’, the companion song to ‘First Day of My Life’ on the ‘Digital Ash in a Digital Urn’ album, and what I gleaned from it made me want to go back to the drawing board and rethink the meaning of ‘Maybe in the Dark’, the second single from the Crookes’ second album ‘Hold Fast’, released last year.

I seem to remember facing some resistance from our head editor at TGTF when I wanted to write about the Crookes back in 2009. All of us music writers have come across a band we just got this wonderful gut feeling about the first time we ever heard them. Hearing ‘Backstreet Lovers’ on Steve Lamacq’s show was one of those moments for me. I remember thinking the delightfully named “Library Tour” in autumn 2010 was very unique. Wait one cotton pickin’ minute. A rock band full of literary geek intellectuals? That sound like the Beatles? How can this be? Being American, I also figured never see them live. But I got my wish on 12 May 2012, when thanks to the Orchard, they were a last minute addition to my first Great Escape, and their appearance at the Hope truly made my weekend.

What sounded like a great idea on email in the days before – putting in a request to interview them in Brighton – became a terrifying, nail-biting, nerve-riddled, staring at myself in the mirror-kind of Saturday morning. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been so freaked out to meet some of my musical heroes in person. That was before I actually met them. They turned out to be some of the nicest people I’ve ever met, period. We’ve been friends ever since. I’ve been very lucky to have seen them 8 times as of September 2013, matching the number of times I’ve seen Morrissey. Having signed to American label Modern Outsider this very summer, I expect them to be spreading the New Pop gospel across our land and much further beyond in 2014.

First, the words, helpfully provided last summer by Hopewell himself and left in the style he prefers:

Verse 1
Maybe it’s just cheap easy lust with chemicals. We’re dirt forever.
Maybe we’re blessed. I’ll rip your dress, you pull my hair and we’ll leave together.
Maybe you’re young. I’ll bite your tongue, your lip will bleed. We’re trash forever.
Maybe you’re right, just for tonight. But your clumsy kiss won’t taste so clever.

Pre-chorus
And all I need is a substitute, maybe in the dark she’ll look enough like you….

Chorus
I’ll take the shame, lust to blame. What if we ever meet again?
I’ll know your face, not your name. But we’ll know

Verse 2 (shortened)
Maybe I’ll find pleasure tonight? With chemicals I’ll hardly miss her.
Maybe you wear clothes like she wears. Same coloured hair. I’m sick forever.

Pre-chorus
And all I need is a substitute, maybe in the dark she’ll look enough like you….

Chorus (second and third version; third version appears after bridge)
I’ll take the shame, lust to blame. What if we ever meet again?
I’ll know your face, not your name. But we’ll know
Our eyes were bright, out of sight. Two strangers caught behind the night.
You’re the perfect second best.

Bridge
Every time I see your ghost…(you’re the perfect second best)

Now, the analysis:

I’ve been told by friends and even people I don’t even know that my style of interviewing is very special, because I manage to get out specific and sometimes personal details about people that they wouldn’t dream of telling anyone else. A couple years ago at a festival, one of my interview subjects told me that talking to me was about as comfortable as talking to a therapist. That surprised me, and I consider that a great compliment, to have that empathy within me and for others to be able to feel that empathy. I think it has to do with me being able to feel the emotions in other people as strongly as if they were my own. Often, this comes in handy for song analysis. But maybe ‘handy’ is the wrong word for some songs. Sometimes I will hear a song and it’s like BAM! The next thing I know, I’m on the floor, seeing stars through the tears in my eyes, and why? Because I feel its message so strongly. ‘Maybe in the Dark’ did exactly that to me.

I spent far too many evenings in the weeks after ‘Hold Fast’ came out, lying in bed in the middle of a hot DC summer, unable to sleep, haunted by the memories I had of a man I’d cared for and loved deeply but who didn’t feel the same way about me. I felt about as attractive and pathetic as an old sock without its partner. The tears streamed down my cheeks as this single and ‘Stars’, the song directly follows it on the LP, played on the little yellow CD player I keep on my dresser. Back then, what impressed on me most about the way Daniel Hopewell wrote this song was the imagery of “every time I see your ghost”: it’s describing someone you once held so beloved but is now gone from your life, yet that person never fully leaves your consciousness.

You think you see that person *everywhere*. I know certainly did. Every time I was out and about in town, I was sure I’d seen this guy and his lanky frame when it clearly impossible for the two of us to be in the same place. The words “You’re the perfect second best” were particularly cutting, because it held two meanings for me. On one hand, it hurt me that he was with another woman and that I’d suddenly become his second best. But on the flipside, maybe he was settling for her and she was the perfect second best to me? Doesn’t matter now: this past spring on a trip to Liverpool I learned he wasn’t worthy of my feelings, so I was able to close that chapter of my life and put it behind me.

Months prior to my last holiday to Britain, I set myself the task to learn the bass line to this song. I really enjoy playing bass, and one big reason is that in addition to its reputation as being a very sensual instrument (which I can definitely tell you that hell yeah, it is!), the bass guitar can also be played as a deeply emotional one. There’s probably nothing better for me to get out my aggressions, upset, and sadness than throwing myself into playing my bass, Blake. Believe it or not, this song has four bass notes. FOUR. All played on one string. Seriously. Yet George Waite does an excellent job with it, as the bass line utilising the four notes, in various patterns, leads the song – shocker! – with the lead guitar melody following after the vocals begin. It’s the bass that makes the song funky and actually, it turns the song pop and pretty much does everything to detract from what I think is the actual meaning of the song.

Most everyone I’ve seen at a Crookes show is either tapping their toes or dancing like a crazy person when the guys are playing it, and with good reason: it’s funky as hell thanks to the bass line, you are compelled to sing and clap along, and you can’t help but get swept up into it because of the way it makes you feel, because it is that good. And it is. I cannot stress enough how impressed I am by this song that doesn’t even last 2 and a half minutes. Each of the three times the chorus appears, the notes are different, and I could probably do a whole post on how I think the emotions differ from one chorus to the next(!) But to make this short, notice how the second and third choruses differ: the third one has Waite singing ascending notes for the line “but we’ll know”, and when this part of the song comes on my car’s CD player, I’m aware people are looking at me funny because it looks like I’m conducting with my hands.

But the wonderfully unique thing about ‘Maybe in the Dark’ is beneath it all, it’s got very heavy subject matter for a song that sounds happy and has a bright, poppy exterior.

Maybe it’s just cheap easy lust with chemicals. We’re dirt forever. (1)
Maybe we’re blessed. I’ll rip your dress, you pull my hair and we’ll leave together. (2)
Maybe you’re young. I’ll bite your tongue, your lip will bleed. We’re trash forever. (3)
Maybe you’re right, just for tonight. But your clumsy kiss won’t taste so clever. (4)

All four lines of the first verse have a similar arrangement. In lines 1 and 3, the voice of the song is first giving a reason for what is about to happen, only to disparage the act after. Getting drunk and being young are two all too easy – as well as all too familiar – reasons why strangers end up in bed together. But our protagonist isn’t entirely happy about what’s about to happen: “We’re dirt forever” and “We’re trash forever”. This isn’t some grand passion with someone you love that will cause you to wake up tomorrow with a smile on your face. It’s going to happen, but underlying it all is the acceptance that on some level, it’s wrong. In lines 2 and 4, Hopewell gives us the words “Maybe we’re blessed” and “Maybe you’re right”; again, these words are given as a basis for the action, though in contrast to lines 1 and 3, there’s a positive spin put on them.

Oddly though, directly after this positivity in line 2 (and also in line 3), we witness violence in the form of him ripping the woman’s dress and him biting her tongue (and lip?) so hard during a French kiss, he draws blood. He’s drunk and in that moment, the lust he feels for that woman – and she could be any woman, right? – has blinded him, and whatever violent tendencies within him are heightened by this state of altered consciousness. I don’t think he’d act like this if he were sober. The line “But your clumsy kiss won’t taste so clever.” seems to agree with this; he belittles her “clumsy kiss” and the lack of cleverness in it, as if in any other circumstance, he could see she’s beneath him; the word “clever” pops up again in ‘Stars’, but it’s used differently there.

We were told straight away in the first line what is happening here: “it’s just cheap easy lust with chemicals.” This is a major clue. Despite this lust rearing its ugly, violent head, it’s not her he really wants. Right? “And all I need is a substitute, maybe in the dark she’ll look enough like you…” Oh god, that’s absolutely heart-breaking. He’s in this drunken stupor because he’s trying to forget a woman he loved. And he still loves her, deep down. But in the heat of the moment, or maybe the better way to phrase this is the heat in his body from all the alcohol he already imbibed, he’s willing to go off with this other woman because in the dark, he can accept her as a passable alternative, as “the perfect second best” who unfortunately (for her? for both parties?) is only “just for tonight”, also known as the one-night stand. And this is all happening because he can’t have the woman he really wants to be with. Then here comes the chorus:

I’ll take the shame, lust to blame. What if we ever meet again?
I’ll know your face, not your name. But we’ll know

These two lines reminded me of the Catholic guilt Morrissey has employed throughout his solo career post-Smiths. They read to me that he’s feeling guilt for the act, feeling the shame for what he’s doing with this woman who he will not care to remember in the morning, yet he wants to blame lust for his actions. Is this misplaced blame? Can you really blame lust in this case? It is probably worth now distinguishing the difference between lust and sexual desire, at least from a psychological standpoint. The former is done for gratification of self, while the latter is a symbiotic ‘dance’ of give and take, where both partners benefit. See how the word “lust” is used here, with the protagonist even admitting he’s not going to remember her name, only her face, because physically she reminds him of a former love. There is also an unsettling nature to “But we’ll know”: as much as he can try and forget what happened, what’s done will be done. And they will both leave in the morning, knowing their time together was nothing more than fleeting pleasure. This is also sad.

A shortened verse comes next, repeating the tone of the first verse; he’s trying to substitute this sexual pleasure (“Maybe I’ll find pleasure tonight?”) for what he really wants in his life: that woman that haunts him. The excuses he gives that the perfect second best who is before him is acceptable for this one purpose – “Maybe you wear clothes like she wears. Same coloured hair.” – fall flat because ultimately, he admits, “I’m sick forever”. Meaning that despite all these one-night stands he will have to try and erase the memory of the woman he loves, the deep, underlying feelings for her that he harbours will never leave him.

The add-on to the second and third choruses is further perplexing: “Our eyes were bright, out of sight. Two strangers caught behind the night.” Initially, I thought the first sentence meant that they went into this one-night stand with bright, young eyes, eyes wide open, and they knew exactly what they were doing, knowing it was being done in a clandestine way (“out of sight”, i.e., they’ve left together without their other friends knowing what’s happened) and accepted it for what it was. But the more I think about it, the second line throws you a curveball, as they were “Two strangers caught behind the night.” Just the word “caught” seems to indicate as if getting stuck in a terrible web of circumstance, i.e., the evening at the club where man and woman come across each other, bat eyelashes, and before long, they’re making out, all sensibility goes out the window, and next thing you know, lust has taken over and two strangers are in a hotel room somewhere, breathing heavily and having meaningless sex. I don’t think most people listening to this song are grasping this concept. Or maybe that was the point, to write a song so terribly poppy that it was unlikely for anyone to latch on to the real meaning?

The song never comes to a resolution, and I guess it’s not meant to: it’s left open-ended, and you’re left standing there, wondering what’s happened to the protagonist and if he was ever able to rid himself of the ghost. If not, it sounds like this could be a continuing vicious cycle of one-night stands, followed by this overwhelming shame he has to internalise, by himself, every time he sleeps with a woman who means nothing to him, because she will never compare favourably with the ideal woman he holds on to so tightly in his heart.

When I came across Conor Oberst’s ‘Take It Easy (Love Nothing)’ (lyrics in the YouTube video description), the protagonist of his story gets his heart broken by an older woman, and now he’s having one-night stands because the hurt within him makes it impossible for him to open up emotionally to any other woman. Oberst’s protagonist comes across as callous, hard, and unfeeling, as well as unwilling to work through the pain of his heartbreak, even if working through that pain could set him free. I find it so painful to hear someone giving up on love in a song: “Now I do as I please and lie through my teeth / Someone might get hurt, but it won’t be me / She’ll probably feel cheap, but I just feel free, and a little bit empty.”

In the context of ‘Hold Fast’, especially since its one love song ‘Stars’ follows it, for some reason I feel more positive about ‘Maybe in the Dark’. In contrast to ‘Take It Easy (Love Nothing)’, the protagonist of ‘Maybe in the Dark’ has already identified his actions as wrong. In fact, he’s beating himself up over it, calling them the both of them “dirt” and “trash” for giving into lust. The bigger question is whether unlike Oberst’s protagonist, is he willing to look deeply into himself and his heart to close the book on the woman that was part of his past history, so he can truly heal and allow himself to love another woman? I’ll be interested to see if we get some resolution on this in the third Crookes album.

Lastly, the song, in two forms. First, the black and white promo performance video. Second, a video I filmed on 15 March 2013 at this year’s SXSW in which you see George Waite playing bass and clearly hear its influence over the whole song.