Before the Fall

This is a song about the end of the world. Or, well, the beginning of the end (of the world). "We had five years left to cry in," says Bowie. And we, the people, run frantically around and swim in our doom and kiss each other and smash things and cry and vomit. And miss our mommies. And this guy, the singer, faced now with the end of the world, has one thing on his mind:

Think I saw you in an ice cream parlour, Drinking milkshakes - cold and long, smiling and waving and looking so fine... Don't think you knew you were in this song. And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor! And I thought of Ma and I wanted to get back there-- Your face! Your race! The way that you talk! I kiss you. You're beautiful. I want you to walk.

We've got (five years).

That's all we've got.

I love songs that fall apart. By the end Bowie's voice fades away, shrieking for help or attention or mercy or whatever, and seems to get swallowed by the impending apocalypse.

Here's another song about when the buildings crumble to the ground:

The Fall (Tuvan Igil Version)

Red Hunter, frontman for Peter & the Wolf, tears apart his quiet little ditty "The Fall" with a tuvan igil. (This is basically a violin on drugs made of goatskin with a much coarser sound.) It fits for this version, and for Red's soaring voice and what he wants to say with it... which is: "Who were you before the Fall? I was a singer... I saw the future laid out in dominoes. Now I hunt the buffalo."

But more than wrecked cities, this is a song about the naked skeleton of humankind, forced to rebuild. Or rather, deconstruct -- to some primitive fire-dancing ritualistic lifestyle where all are full and happy and dirty. And everything is a little clearer.

The Whistle Knows My Name

deliquesce \del-ih-KWESS\ verb

*1 : to dissolve or melt away

(born on a train)

Contents

Computers are filled with beeps and hums.
City is filled with creeps and bums.
Chest is filled with heat and lungs.
And the cavern above it - teeth and gums.

(this must be the place [naive melody])

This Is Not Trying

It's hard to say what ah-real does to me. I feel a little sleazy, a little insulted even, by the way he sounds and feels and looks (especially his grotesque drawings).

(my molly)

A lobster fisherman once told me that Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti was "so bad it's good," without further explanation. I sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor with this distorted smear of hopped-up noise echoing from the boombox. I understood it like nothing else and it seemed to fry my brain and everything I'd ever thought about music and what the criteria was for shitfuck awesome.

(interesting results)

Here ah-real tells us blatantly, "I know how to do it, there is nothing to it." His voicebox is sometimes-deep, sometimes-seagull high. He lazily says, "I'm not gonna try anymore." Soon thereafter, he shrieks: "THIS IS NOT TRYING!!" and breaks it all apart. Apparently he creates most of his drum beats using his armpits and mouth. Respect.

Little Garçon in My Head

Just when
the caterpillar
thought the world
was over,
it became
a butterfly.

Here is a song of evolution. I saw the above quote on a coffee cup and thought it fit for what I want to say. This is a song which changes. It takes a sudden twist at the two-minute mark, from lazysunshine, to convertible cruise, to campfire pop, to clap along and sing out loud because by now you know the chorus--

Well, I get told, to never get old,
But the way it unfolds,
I'm a little garçon in my head
With a little fille that's stuck in bed.

It starts as a hum, a Mmmmmmmaybeeeee. Then the sun comes out and a harmonica pokes a shy little head into the scene. It feels like kindergarten. And then you're on the floor because you want to feel small again. It feels, now, like you should be riding a bike very slowly alongside a riverbed. A pause. Then we're off again, a century later, and everyone is dancing because we've reached some sort of finish line we never even knew we were running to.

(little garçon)

Unhappiness is Treason!

Welcome ladybugs and gentlemen to The Radiophonic Workshop, where thousands of tasty musical breadcrumbs will lead you straight to heaven's white-washed doorstep.


To begin, I give you a song about love and flashy colours.

(strange powers)

The Magnetic Fields' frontman Stephen Merritt provides his usual effervescent wit, deep croonin', and a solid array of similes (SUCH AS: kisses like flying saucers, stars like Thai prostitutes.)