November 1, 2008

The Evens - The Evens part 2 (read part one below first)

…hmm - MacKaye obviously has a voice which carries conviction, which is a prime cause of his success… but anyway…

“Shelter Two”

went out route seven, stopped at samadi sweets
we stood at shelter two and listened to the trees
went to arlington hardware to buy some electrical tape
you went to tulsa and I’m going to wait
it’s all downhill from here
we keep on climbing but we never find the top
it’s all downhill from here

Attaining normality is seen as goal of being together.  Do we care about the particular actions the Evens write about, driving, getting candy, waiting at the bus stop and paying attention, buying something, waiting for the other?  Maybe not, but we would care if those were the things we remembered about ourselves.

One thing that bothers me about these lyrics is the line “we keep on climbing but we never find the top.” It doesn’t really express calm stasis like the rest of the song.  I mean, this line means it is specifically not all downhill from here. So are we to throw it away, or to conclude that the authors want to hold on to this motive contradiction as some sort of engine of living?

Structurally, the song benefits from the energy of this section.  The Evens frequently have songs full of contrasts and just odd movement in general.  It’s common for them to have an ABCA structure, which is very unpop.

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Tags: Lyrics evens structure songwriting
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The Evens - The Evens (listen to “Shelter Two”)

The first cut from The Evens’ self-titled debut may be helpful in considering what makes a song succeed.

One thing that infuriates me is when people mistake the singer for the song.  These people will play a song they consider brilliant, which then consists of a minute and a half of some girl singing “my knees are wobbling” in a pretty voice, repeatedly hitting one high note. This is not worthless, it’s fine to enjoy it, I like some of this kind of music, but this is no more good songwriting than Panic at! the Disco has good songwriting because they put on make-up and prance around like they have ants in their pants.

Ideally I would record new versions of every song I consider, so as to remove the variance of performance and production.

The fact is, Ian MacKaye does not have a pretty voice.  He has a voice which sounds like he might be fun to hang out with, a voice which, if it asked me to cross the road, I would feel compelled me to do so as if it were my own soul speaking, but he can’t or won’t hold a note, and if anything he sounds a little goofy.  His music, from The Teen Idles to Fugazi, has always had to succeed based on his songwriting and arrangements.  Amy Farina, his collaborator in the Evens, is one of the best drummers in rock, and has a singing voice which I imagine is more commonly understood to be good, but the songs remain the backbone of the Evens.

… more to come…

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Tags: Amy Farina Ian MacKaye evens singing songwriting