Tag Archives: 2014

Song Analyses #52: Erland and the Carnival – Daughter / East India Youth – Song for a Granular Piano

Song Analysis, , , , , , , , ,

Title: ‘Daughter’
Where to find it: ‘Closing Time’ (2014, Full Time Hobby)
Performed by: Erland and the Carnival
Words by: Erland Cooper

Title: ‘Song for a Granular Piano’
Where to find it: ‘Total Strife Forever’ (2014, Stolen Recordings)
Performed by: East India Youth
Words by: William Doyle

First, the words of ‘Daughter’:*

You could be so much better than me
You will be so much better than me
You could be so much better than me
You will be so much better than me

Even if I kill my soul
Save me from the hell I know
Just before I say goodbye
Loving you won’t die

When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone

You could be so much better than me
You will be so much better than me

Even if I kill my soul
Save me from the hell I know
Just before I say goodbye
Loving you won’t die

When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone
When I’m gone

Now, the analysis:

I’m positive that for someone my age, I’ve thought about death and the process of dying more than I probably should have. When you’ve personally been faced with oblivion multiple times, at the hand of God through no fault of your own, I think it comes with the territory. In my defense, I don’t think it’s weird or even particularly morbid to consider one’s own end. As a biologist, I look at death as a natural process. At the same time though, I am not discounting and am wishing not to discount the emotional weight of the process either on the person who is nearing the end or those who survive that person.

I’ve been thinking about two songs that both broach the sensitive subject, and they seem to have a peculiar association that I hope one day to find out more about. ‘Song for a Granular Piano’ is the last song with actual words on East India Youth’s 2014 Mercury Prize-nominated debut album on Stolen Recordings, ‘Total Strife Forever.’ In addition to arpeggios on piano, on the recorded version there are heavenly, major key, gospel-style backing vocals before Will Doyle’s actual lyrics kick in, filtered through effects that give the delivery an unearthly quality: “Settle down just before the end / sunlight comes floating through the smoky lens / comfort me slowly into the earth / sing the dawn now, sing the dawn now.”

The effects on the vocals cause the feeling of the song to be unsettling until the mood changes about a minute later, when you get to the buildup, and it feels like sunshine is streaming in at 2 minutes 40 seconds. I like to think that the uplifting feeling you get from that buildup is supposed to mimic the light one is supposed to see when God is welcoming you towards Heaven. (I fully admit that when my father died, I suddenly felt this terrible, insatiable need to hold on to and to believe that Heaven exists, or else I might crumble under the weight of losing him.)

spotify:track:0ud9RRs1b9bv7iFnLbKUP9

I remember distinctly when I first heard Erland and the Carnival’s ‘Daughter’: it was on a train back home from Philadelphia after a work conference last summer, and I was listening to the entirety of the band’s third album ‘Closing Time’ from start to finish in my preparation to review it for TGTF. During this trip, I remember looking out the window of our car and seeing a blue whale that had been painted to the side of a building in Wilmington, Delaware. (The weird things you remember, huh?) I had been oddly emotional hearing ‘That’s The Way It Should Have Begun (But It’s Hopeless)’ for the first time, and it would be weeks before I fully recognised why, suffering the bitter pain of disappointment of something that could have been but never really had been there in the first place.

On the other hand, ‘Daughter’ was like an immediate sucker punch to the stomach. The press release described how it was conceived (no pun intended) but read here what Simon Tong and Erland Cooper had to say about it from their track-by-track previewing of ‘Closing Time’ for Clash:

10. ‘Daughter’
Simon: Erland wrote and recorded this after the birth of his daughter and half a bottle of whiskey. We purposely made the production and arrangement on this album much more restrained and simple and this song is probably the simplest and most moving.

Erland: I’d recorded this on my phone and then reversed the vocal which then accidently, and to me perfectly, turned into a backing vocal that sounds like it sings ‘…I wont [sic] ever give up’ in parts. Was trying to write and record the simplest song that can say a number of deeper things while saying something completely obvious. It’s more about hopeful reassurance than departure. To be honest, that pretty much sums up the entire record to me.

I agree with Tong: the song is indeed poignant in its simplicity, for what it says – and very briefly so – and what it doesn’t. The birth of a child, a new life borne out of love, out of your and your partner’s own flesh and blood, is a life-changing experience. From what I’ve gathered from all my friends who have children, life changes and priorities change in a blink of a eye with the arrival of a child. Even in a drunken, whiskey-fuelled haze, Cooper’s thoughts about his own mortality stirred up no doubt by the birth of his daughter translated to the eking out of some pretty amazing and thought-provoking lyrics while he contemplated his own departure from this earth and what it would mean to his daughter, now in the moment far too young to have such thoughts. The fact that he was able to commit these words via an elementary recording on his phone, and the recording eventually became the basis for ‘Daughter,’ seems pretty fateful to me.

As Tong says, the song is very simple. Against a backdrop of what I called in my review “a repetitive but music box-like soothing piano melody,” he wishes, then changes his mind and decides that he knows his child will be a better, greater person than he ever was. He also has come to the conclusion that “even if I kill my soul” – when his soul is gone from this mortal plane – he will make the effort before he takes his last breath (“just before I say goodbye“) to confirm that even if he’s physically no longer here with her, “loving you won’t die.”

He’s saying as a father to his child, “I may no longer be with you to hold you again, but as sure as the heavens will allow me, I will never stop loving you.” What an mind-blowingly beautiful statement.

I recently started listening to the incredible ‘Closing Time’ album again on my nightly runs, and it only struck me recently how similar the treatments were on the “unearthly scale” (I know, such a scientific term…) in both songs. When I was in Ireland in May, I purchased East India Youth’s newest album ‘Culture of Volume’ at an HMV in Dublin and when I was perusing the liner notes, I noticed the line “Additional mixing to strings by Erland,” which I guessed to be Erland Cooper himself. I wonder now if the sound of ‘Daughter’ had been inspired somehow by ‘Song for a Granular Piano’, which had surely preceded it in development. I also saw on SoundCloud some time ago that Doyle remixed the ‘Closing Time’ track ‘Wrong’ for Erland and the Carnival, another connection. The plot thickens…

However these acts and songs are connected, both ‘Daughter’ and ‘Song for a Granular Piano’ serve as testament that that some of us believe death is not meant to be the end. Or at the very least, those of us who are ‘left behind’ after our loved ones have gone should take comfort that even without their physical presence, we will forever remain loved.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/158941458″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

*I forget where I read or heard it from now, but Doyle stated in an interview that there were some bits of ‘Total Strife Forever’ where lyrics were unintelligible, which makes me think that some of the ‘lyrics’ of ‘Song for a Granular Piano’ were made to be unintelligible on purpose, quite possibly to add to the effect of impending death. I’d rather not take away from the effect by guessing what I’m hearing and possibly transcribe the words incorrectly.

Song Analysis #51: Jenny Lewis – Just One of the Guys

Girl Power, Song Analysis, , , , , , ,

Title: ‘Just One of the Guys’
Where to find it: ‘The Voyager’ (2014, Warner Brothers)
Performed by: Jenny Lewis
Words by: Jenny Lewis

First, the words:

Verse 1
All our friends, they’re gettin’ on
But the girls are still staying young
If I get caught being rude in a conversation
With a child bride on her summer vacation

Chorus 1
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little voice inside that prevents me

Verse 2
Ooh, how I live, it got me here
Locked in this bathroom full of tears
And I have begged for you and I have borrowed,
but I’ve been the only sister to my own sorrow

Chorus 2
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little clock inside that keeps tickin’

Bridge 1
There’s only one difference between you and me
When I look at myself all I can see
I’m just another lady without a baby

Chorus 3
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me.
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little cop inside that prevents me

Bridge 2
I’m not gonna break for you!
I’m not gonna pray for you!
I’m not gonna pay for you!
That’s not what ladies do!

Oh when you break
When you break
Oh when you break
Oh when you break

Now, the analysis:

After a 6-year hiatus from the recording world, Jenny Lewis released last year her latest solo album, ‘The Voyager’. The title of the album’s first taster ‘Just One of the Guys’ belies its actual content: the struggle of the modern woman to find her place in the world. I’m not a crazy bra-burning feminist, but I do agree this struggle exists and is real, even if some men will fight tooth and nail to disagree.

At first, I thought about taking a general approach that I hope most, if not all, women can relate to. Most of my high school friends are married and have children, and some of the conversations we’ve had over the years focused what and how they’ve been busy…errr…rearing children, while I haven’t. I have also been thinking about a piece I was asked to write for a feminist Web site several years ago that sits on my computer unused because when I submitted it to the editor who asked for it, she had changed her mind. I entitled the article ‘Spoilt for Choice,’ as it was about the many tough choices that young women face in their lives. (If you or anyone you know is interested in publishing such a piece, let me know!)

As much as I’m happy and proud that we have trailblazers like Lilly Ledbetter fighting for equal rights for women, I don’t think there is anyone who can deny this is a man’s world, and we women just live in it. Yes, we’ve made great strides, but there are always going to be people – male or female – who think a woman’s place is in the home and her primary roles in life are to take care of her husband and family, maintain the house, and raise children.

Society is changing now of course: we have lesbian couples, couples of any kind can live together and not have to get married, and couples don’t have to have children anymore, or at least the societal pressure to do so is much less. But certain societal norms die hard in certain cultures, whether they be Eastern or Western, in whatever country. Yes, you don’t have to get married or have children, but ask most young women in their 20s, and I can bet you most of them will tell you they’ve either been pressured by their family and/or their peers about having children before it’s too late.

But then I considered going in a personal direction with this analysis, bringing in my own experiences as a female music editor and writer in a field dominated by men, reporting on music primarily made by men. This approach, I think, makes more sense for what Jenny Lewis is singing about, especially considering before she became a solo artist and hooked up with Johnathan Rice personally and professionally for the Jenny and Johnny project, she co-fronted the band Rilo Kiley and was the only woman in the band.

Being the only woman among a group of men has its perks, if you’re around gentlemanly, respectful men who are willing to treat you like a woman and an equal. However, it can also pose a number of challenges as well. (A musician friend of mine (male) has written an excellent blog post about touring with musicians friends of ours (female), a tour I was lucky enough to catch in Dublin.) In the first chorus, the lyrics suggests as hard as Lewis tries to be loose and relaxed about things when she’s around her male counterparts, acting and ‘being’ one of the guys as she was in Rilo Kiley, she faces an internal battle in her head every day, knowing she isn’t like the rest of them:

No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little voice inside that prevents me

In the second chorus, the last line is replaced with the words “There’s a little clock inside that keeps tickin’,” speaking directly to her own biological clock. If she wants to have children, she’s going to have to revert back to being a woman, and in a group of her male peers, that’s a huge risk. Is she going to be treated the same way if she admits to wanting one of the very things in life that makes her female? This conflict in her is clear in the heartbreaking bridge: “There’s only one difference between you and me /When I look at myself all I can see / I’m just another lady without a baby.” Depending on as a woman how you view motherhood – and indeed, depending on the culture you were born into and how your parents and family view it with respect to you – you can receive some pretty disparaging comments if you aren’t married or don’t have children by a certain age, if not damning looks. These hurt.

It all comes to a head near the end of the song, when Lewis begins shouting reasons why and ways how giving into motherhood is wrong in her mind, concluding, “That’s not what ladies do!” “I’m not gonna break for you!”: I’m not going to settle for being with just any man so I can have a baby. “I’m not gonna pray for you!”: all of us women, at one time or another, some more often than others, have prayed for Mr. Right to come along, for he can solve the problems we need solving. “I’m not gonna pay for you!”: this is quite funny, I’m assuming she means going to a sperm bank to take care of having a baby herself without requiring a man to love her.

I don’t think Lewis wrote this song to be spiteful towards men. At all. It was her conveying her constant, internal struggle and if anything, she wants to be heard, possibly for just a moment of your sympathy.

Let’s extend this to the everyday working woman. Unless a woman spends her entire life closeted in her house, taking care of her husband, the children and the house and doing nothing else, she has to work as hard as the men in her workplace, so often going against her very nature if she gets emotional. We’re not supposed to cry, because that shows feminine weakness. Yet oddly, if we truly act like a man, going for the things we want, that flies in the face of being submissive as women are supposed to be, and we’re called names. How on earth do we resolve this in our heads?

There are a few things I am certain about in life. One of them staring me right in the face is the reason why women were given the responsibility and the female sex evolved to carry the baby to term and do much of the taking care of the children when they’re young. We women are proud, intelligent, highly capable human beings, no matter what career or path in life we undertake. And we are strong like steel. Contest it all you want, but we can take the physical and emotional pain onboard so much better than men can. Need evidence?

Whether you’re male or female, take a moment today to thank a woman in your life who was strong for you. Who was there when you needed her. I’m sure she will appreciate it. And for God’s sakes, under no circumstances ask a woman why she hasn’t had a child yet!

Lastly, the song, in two forms on video. When I had started writing this analysis last summer, the song had just premiered on radio and the only video version available was the lyric video, which is embedded below first. I had such high hopes for the official promo video, all of which were dashed when Jenny Lewis posted it and I saw it featured some of her famous female friends dressing up like guys (boring and clickbait).

Song Analysis #47: Lewis Watson – Stay

Song Analysis, , , , , ,

Title: ‘Stay’
Where to find it: ‘The Morning’ (2014, Warner)
Performed by: Lewis Watson
Words by: Lewis Watson

Most of the time, I’m not a singer/songwriter type of girl. The thought of a man (or woman for that matter) sat atop a stool with a guitar and a microphone makes me want to go to sleep. As I have mentioned in previous analyses including the last one with a song also written by someone from Oxfordshire, I tend to be hypercritical of singing voices due to my previous vocal training. Sometimes I will get stuck, having to stomach a band if I like their instrumentation and songs but I’m not entirely fond of the lead singer’s vocals. But when it comes to the singer/songwriter genre, there is nothing left besides the voice and the guitar (or the occasional piano). There is nowhere to hide. When I find someone in this genre whose voice and songs I love, it is a wonderful but highly rare occurrence.

Enter the 22-year old Lewis Watson. He doesn’t look the part of pop star, yet he’s got young girls screaming at him every night. Why is this so? The man (I keep wanting to type “boy” because he’s incredibly young) writes a good song. And considering how old he is, it’s dumfounding what a rich voice he has. As far as I’m concerned, everyone should just step aside and let him do his thing.

I met Lewis 2 months ago when he played a show in Washington and he was just the sweetest guy! But because of an enormous queue of fans wanting to say hi and get photos with him, it was impossible to have a real conversation with him. Had we, I would have asked him about this song, because it stirred up a lot of emotions in me, and it seems to have at least two interpretations (in my mind anyway) and that’s another reason why I think it’s so beautiful. I’m hoping to have my chance to talk to him again sometime soon. Fingers crossed.

According to famed psychiatrist Carl Jung, dreams are a way of communicating and acquainting yourself with the unconscious. Dreams are not attempts to conceal your true feelings from the waking mind, but rather they are a window to your unconscious. They serve to guide the waking self to achieve wholeness and offer a solution to a problem you are facing in your waking life.

When I’m sleeping, I dream A LOT. Or at least I remember a lot, and a lot of little itty bitty details. Supposedly we all dream, it’s just only a small subset of the human population remembers what has happened in them. I always have a notepad and pen near my bed in case I’m woken up by dreams or nightmares; I tend to have very vivid, Technicolor dream sequences, often involving people I know in real life, so if I have a particularly vivid one that shakes me awake, I want to be able to write it all down and often I’ll use it for poetic inspiration. I had been thinking to analyse this song for some time and then last week one night, I had this beautiful dream about being in Oxford and considered that it was my cue to get working on it.

First, the words:

Verse 1
When I close my eyes I hear you singing,
singing me a song that I’ll forget,
I always forget.
I try to trick myself back to sleeping.
You pick me up, but I let you down.

Chorus
It was so clear but now it’s gone,
I couldn’t keep my eyelids shut.
Why can’t you stay?
Stay…stay…
If only I could dream we could start again.
If only I could dream we could start again.
Ooohhh… oooh…

Verse 2
When I close my eyes I see you dancing,
dancing me a song,
just out of reach, just out of reach.
I need you in the day when I’m not dreaming.
You pick me up, I don’t wanna let you down.

Chorus
It was so clear but now it’s gone,
I couldn’t keep my eyelids shut.
Why can’t you stay?
Stay…stay…
If only I could dream we could start again.
If only I could dream we could start again.
Ooohhh… oooh…

Chorus (extended outro version, starting with first two lines spoken)
It was so clear but now it’s gone,
I couldn’t keep my eyelids shut.
Why can’t you stay?
Stay…stay…stay
If only I could dream we could start again.
Stay…
If only I could dream we could start again.
Stay…
If only I could dream we could start again.
If only I could dream we could start again.

Now, the analysis:

I’ll start this analysis a bit differently than the others: if you wish to now, scroll down to the bottom of this post to watch the promo video for ‘Stay’. I’ll be honest, it took me a bit to sort of register what was going on in the video and how it tied into the lyrics of the song. The video offers what I’ll call the alternate interpretation of the song. If you’d rather wait until you finish reading this whole article, that’s fine too.

At first, I approached ‘Stay’ as a typical torch song: something went wrong in a relationship, and the man is looking back at everything that’s happened, wanting to reboot the relationship to the beginning and start over. This is probably how most everyone who likes/loves this song views it, and that’s perfectly fine and great: ‘Stay’ is beautiful on its own like this, with Watson’s voice soaring, full of emotion and heartbreak.

But the more I thought about ‘Stay’ – admittedly, after playing this song over and over and OVER again on my headphones – the more it seemed like an onion. After all those replays, I was able to peel off other layers of onion skin to expose more meaning, which made it all the more amazing to me. On a personal level, it spoke directly to me: I go to bed at night with the purpose of getting rest, but instead my unconscious and subconscious go to work, as I head into dreams about people and places I know. Sometimes I’m haunted for days, for weeks by what I see. It can be people, images, actions, or a combination of all three that make an impression on me. Sometimes I’m jolted awake by what I’ve witnessed and start crying from the mixed emotions of realising I’m awake: I’ll be happy if I was able to stop a nightmare. But I’ll be inconsolable if I woke up before something I’ve wanted was allowed to come to fruition and I have no closure about what happens next. The days when I have dreams that shake me to my core, those are the days it’s tough to be me.

The most literal interpretation of ‘Stay’ I offer above requires you to keep the song in the living, waking world, keeping with things that have physically happened and the regrets related to mistakes made while awake. My preferred interpretation is a combination of both the waking and dream worlds. Watson even uses the word “dream” in both verses and the refrain “If only I could dream we could start again.” But we all know that “dream” has two meanings. You can be referring to something in our waking life we really, really want. Maybe it is that person we’ve fallen in love with. Or a career we’ve always wanted since we were small but seems impossible. Or that sportscar we saw in a magazine that we had our heart set on but could never afford. We are fully cognisant in our acknowledgment of those dreams, however unattainable or not.

The other meaning of “dream” is literally the action of dreaming while we’re asleep, when our minds are (usually) in relative peace and harnessing the subconscious and unconscious. In other words, the stuff we may be thinking about deep down but trying to shove aside and forget is what often comes alive in our dreams. In verse 1, Watson sings of closing his eyes and seeing the love of his life singing a song that he he’ll forget, “I always forget.” This suggests that he’s referring to bedtime dreaming, not daydreaming, having acknowledged he’s trying to hold on to something he saw of her in a dream, because he forgets what happened in the dream, like most people do. Further, he goes on to say “I try to trick myself back to sleeping“, because he wants to go back into the dream and see what happens with the two of them. But alas, he can’t go back into the dream, he can’t rewind it. The moment is gone. And no matter what and where the relationship is, whether you think it’s in the waking or dream world, it’s all come down to a final point and he is stuck. He can’t go back.

The line “You pick me up, but I let you down” for me is ambiguous: if it was really about a dream he had, this wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense, unless he meant she had done something for him in the dream and somehow he didn’t come through for her. So I think this is unlikely. Now let’s go into the chorus: “It was so clear but now it’s gone, / I couldn’t keep my eyelids shut.” Surely this is about him dreaming about her, isn’t it?

But hang on a minute. Onion skin #1 being peeled off: he could be talking about having seen her in a dream and everything was “so clear” while he was asleep “but now it’s gone.” But nighttime dreams usually are pretty fuzzy affairs. Some people tell me most of their dreams are in black and white, which strikes me as quite odd, because I always remember what colour clothes people wear in mine. Could it be possible that he is referring to his waking dream of the two of them together, and that was what was “so clear” to him? When we have ideals about relationships, we often think the other person is going to act in a certain way, don’t we? We get upset when they let us down by not living up to our expectations. So he’s disappointed about what’s happened. They’ve had a breakdown, and things that were simple have now become stupidly complicated.

Onion skin #2 being peeled off: “I couldn’t keep my eyelids shut” seems obvious enough. Or is it? During our normal, everyday lives, we see things we wish we hadn’t. I have to change the channel whenever they’re talking about hostages in the Middle East, about people being shot for no good reason in my country, it’s just too much for me. This are extreme examples, but the way I see this line, he had in his head what makes for an ideal relationship and this is right in front of him while both of his eyes are open, thinking about what he has with this woman. When that something bad happened that caused the breakup, he also was confronted with the reality that this ideal relationship wasn’t really as ideal as he had envisioned. But physically shutting his eyes, he is denying, or at least trying to pretend that what he sees is not happening.

Imagine being cheated on and betrayed by your significant other and then having him/her confront you with the truth. It wouldn’t be so out of place to squeeze your eyes so tightly shut to block out the rest of the world. That imaginary world in our eyes, and the one that our minds create when we are asleep, these are safe places. Yes, you may have nightmares and bad things can happen. But you wake up.

In verse 2, he sings of seeing her dancing and being “just out of reach, just out of reach.” Again, maybe this was in the dream world. But maybe this refers to physical distance? I also want to revisit the line from verse 1, “You pick me up, but I let you down,” which is later modified in verse 2 to “You pick me up, I don’t wanna let you down.” There is something so touching to me in these words. He’s acknowledging how important this other person is in his life. I’m kind of imagining the feeling you get when you hear Josh Groban singing ‘You Raise Me Up.’ Regardless of whether you’re religious and believe in God or not, it’s powerful words knowing there is someone else out there, whether it be a real person or something else of a higher power, who you can count on. That is a huge comfort.

There is also pain in Watson admitting somehow he’s let her down. Was he responsible for the break, is he the one who betrayed? I think he must have been the betrayer or thinks he’s to blame, responsible for the crumbling of the relationship because he’s the one who wants to start over. Recall also that the title of the song is ‘Stay’: he wants the woman to stay despite what’s happened, further evidence to support this.

Why does this song make us feel so sad? Because we all suffer regret. And there are always times we wish we could go back to the way things once were, in simpler circumstances, when we felt happier. But people change. We all change. And when people change, the dynamics of a relationship change, usually irreparably.

But here’s a twist: if you haven’t watched the promo video for the song, do it now.

Hmm, right. So the video introduces another possible interpretation: I never saw this coming at all! At first I was like, what is happening? Why is he in the graveyard? Why is she looking awfully comfy in a ‘bed’ in said graveyard? And then later, why is the shopkeeper looking at them funny? Oh wait… She has been dreaming all this time about the man she loved *who has died.*

Wow. Just wow. That came out of left field, didn’t it?

As for me, I think the dream I had recently is telling me I need to visit Oxford. I’ve never been. Hopefully I’ll be able to do it sooner rather than later. I’m quite curious to see if what happened in the dream really comes true.