So I’ve been spending the last few months trying to hear as much new (at least to me) music as I can get my hands on. My favorite resource right now is All Songs Considered – I have to sit through some dreck every now and then (new Morrissey album, anyone?) but when it’s good it’s oh so so good.
I have a lot to talk about, a lot of bands to make you listen to, but for now I’ll start with a song from the Portland-based Blitzen Trapper. The title track off their latest album, Furr, is one of the best songs I’ve heard all year – er, this one and last. The rest of the album is a bit too eclectic, and it still has yet to grow on me; a bit of Eels, a bit of Ben Folds Five, and a bit of Automatic For The People-era REM, but nothing that says “GREAT” to me the way “Furr” does.
Things I love about this song: the stomp kick; the almost ethereal harmonica work that doesn’t really play notes but more tonal coloring; the melody that sounds like it’s always existed; the spiritual/naturalistic feel of the song that Blitzen Trapper pulls off without it being too airbrushed-sweatshirt-I-read-William-Faulkner-and-listen-to-Devendra-Banhardt-swamp-whatever that permeates too many songs like this.
And the rhyme scheme, God, can we talk about it? My biggest peeve in lyrics is when, in trying to fit the rhyme scheme, writers sacrifice either the meaning of the song or fill in the blanks with something predictable.
Country Singer Trying To Think Of Rhyme For ‘Shove You’
“So from the cliffs and highest hill, yeah
We would gladly get our fill
Howling endlessly and shrilly at the dawn”
GOD. Beautiful. Unexpected and completely satisfying, while at the same time speaking to a greater truth that exists far beyond anything the song itself could actually convey.
So what have y’all been grooving to?
