DrewG's Broken Heart Bar: The Jukebox of Love Lost

[DrewG]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v84/xPhantomsForever2/NightmareOfYouMARCH6thTheDowntown/122_2294.jpg

This one's for the girl in the back...fuck, where is my face?

I've been a real shithead recently and haven't been actively keeping up with my passion of writing. My ramblings are usually cinema related so excuse me if my music dissection isn't exactly cohesive at all times. This thread will deal with my favorite love songs. Also excuse me giving background information to band's everyone knows already...if I were to do anything else with these buckets of words I'd want them to be objective...not 100% AbsolutePunk-ified.

First one is forthcoming.

[DrewG]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Tilly_and_the_Wall_live_20060301.jp g/800px-Tilly_and_the_Wall_live_20060301.jp g

Song: "Let It Rain"
Artist: Tilly and the Wall
Album: Wild Like Children
Year: 2004

Listen Here (http://media.putfile.com/Tilly-and-the-Wall---Let-It-Rain-)

I'll be honest...I just love this song, not just for the smooth way it sounds and progresses but also for the way it has made me feel since I started listening to it.

On February 16th a few months ago at 3:23 in the morning I was listening to it and wrote this in a LiveJournal I haven't updated in years:

Listening to this song for the first time in a long time, I can't help but look at my window at New York City in the darkness of early morning and instead see the sun rising over Rockville Centre. I think of all the nights over summer, when I'd work during the day, be with friends doing whatever at night and then come home to this, a true constant.

And every night (or morning I guess) when I could see the sky turning blue and the morning paper already on the front lawn, I'd know it was time to close my curtains and simulate some darkness in my room to sleep in. Even if I was dead tired, watching the light creep through the blinds and into my room as this song came on from my "Sleep" playlist I couldn't help but find myself completely awake again.

It's funny; because no matter what happens from here on while listening to "Let It Rain", nothing will overtake the happy memories I had of simply lying still and letting it play while I watched the world outside rotate and a new day begin.

So perhaps you could say the song became great because of the circumstances under which I was always listening to it, but I feel like disagreeing. I really do just think this is a tremendous yet very simple love song.

Tilly and the Wall are an Omaha based band who got their start as the flagship band on the record label Team Love, headed by Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes fame. Composed of 3 women and 2 men the vocal play between the two is something I've always been a sucker for, another example being one of my favorite bands Stars, whose vocals between Amy Millian and Torquil Campbell, to me at least, have an endless, chilling appeal.

Tilly and the Wall are like any other alternative rockish group except for the flipping of a huge element: no drummer. Instead? Jamie Pressnall, and lots and lots of tap dancing. That's right. Tap dancing. As much as bass drums, snares and cymbal chaos can work to musically move you, the pounding of feet for Tilly and the Wall finds an odd, effective way to really accentuate the smooth vocals and heartfelt lyrics.

Odd thing about "Let It Rain" however is that it is actually a song that doesn't use the tap dancing aspect of the group, instead opting for an acoustic guitar and patient singing. If one thing that always hits me deep with songs, it's lyrically painting a portrait of teenage years with friends and teenage friends with love, and that's what "Let It Rain" opens with, the simple chords playing alongside a description of the decompression after a long night out, or perhaps a long night doing nothing. You can sometimes have a great night either way:

I could recall a time when evenings were bright and thick with love,
And all the city streets and their lights they were so mysterious.
Oh life it was so wonderful it would shine just like fire.
How we sat on the backs of our cars and laughed into the morning.


The chorus is a great follow up to the intro, which is purely sung by Derek Pressnall before being joined female member Neely Jenkins. Their vocal togetherness is complemeted PERFECTLY a few seconds before the chorus with the introduction of strings in the song, followed by Pressnall coming back in as a piano enters in the backdrop. When I listen I usually feel calm, but also thoughtful as the 2nd verse becomes increasingly less serene:

Nothing is clear, all your thoughts they have become so hard to find.
With a question mark always slumped at the end of these awkward lines.
All the simple words we loved to speak are no longer audible...
And I never thought with you and I this would be possible.


Again, the two coming together to sing these lines on and off creates, to me, a dynamic through the song to the strained relationship it seems to be telling us about. Maybe that's the problem with some love songs, the fact that the one gender vocal creates a one sided portion to the love, or lack there of, that it is attempting to convey. Tilly and the Wall strike a perfect balance both lyrically and instrumentally between both definitive love and uncertain future. I find this to be an incredibly moody song, especially kicking into the bridge section when the strings become more pronounced:

I can feel the world coming apart,
And I need you by my side with your delicate heart.
So please don't leave me no don't you run...
Don't be frightened by the storm so bold and brave,
Just let it rain.


The short bridge comes back into a repeat of what might be my favorite part of the song, the chorus, which in this last sections seems more full and alive than the last two, possibly because of how abruptly it comes after the lines "just let it rain", a hint of a simple drum kicking in along with the smooth sound of what seems to be a flute. For such a simple song, it really is one that blends together its minamalist elements to create a song that makes me think of happiness I've been through, but also regret over the mistakes. What if I was older and unhappy? Would I look back on that one girl and think:

I thought you'd come and go,
I never thought you would stay,
And I'm sorry if I tried to push you away.


The thought that I could is terrifying, and it's what makes the song so universally

[DrewG]

http://www.thenitmustbetrue.com/brion/jonbrion2.jpg
Song: "Here We Go"
Artist: Jon Brion
Album: Punch-Drunk Love (Soundtrack)
Year: 2002

Watch the Paul Thomas Anderson Music Video (http://youtube.com/watch?v=w8ZNCQTFJvs)
or
Listen Here (http://media.putfile.com/Jon-Brion---Here-We-Go-)

Well, this should be a very popular choice for 3 reasons: 1) it's Jon Brion, 2) it's from Punch-Drunk Love and 3) it's a great love song. Jon Brion, loved by many for his quirky scores to Paul Thomas Anderson films (Hard Eight, Mangolia, Punch-Drunk Love) and Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind here adds a crucial element that differs "Here We Go" from most of his soundtrack composing canon: his soothing voice.

Brion makes tremendous instrumental tracks, specifically the short, dreamy songs on the Eternal Sunshine soundtrack such as "Elephant Parade" (28 seconds) or "Bookstore" (52 seconds). But what his songs really do is take you back to the movie you've just seen, be it the scenes the music was featured in or the general myriad of feelings these complex movies have given you. On that soundtrack he recorded "Strings That Tie To You", lending his vocals to one song on the soundtrack that works effectively as a song to sum up that feeling of the movie: that love doesn't actually leave, even if you erase it.

"Here We Go" is a song I'd classify as being very personal yet still having a majestic, mystical feel to it. I'd say this because the instrumentation of Punch-Drunk Love and the way it all culminates in this final song just perfectly, the opening with a pronounced piano before a deep, hearty bass kicks in slowly. The opening lyrics seem to reflect the films main characters, Adam Sandler’s portrayal of the tortured soul, Barry Egan. As Brion begins singing, an acoustic guitar can be strumming quietly and a mixture of orchestral elements weave in and out:

You've gotta hope that there's someone for you,
As strange as you are.
Who can cope with the things that you do,
Without trying too hard.


Another thing these opening lyrics provide is a parallel between the lyrical content of Brion and the subject matter of Anderson’s, specifically the look at finding that someone in Punch-Drunk Love. What you can hear within these words is an unflinching optimism (“you’ve gotta hope…”) mixed with an uneasy reality (“as strange as you are”). This first verse leads into the chorus, though the song really lacks a true chorus because a chorus would usually entail a repeated set of phrases whereas the only tying link between the pieces of the song is Brion’s hopeful “here we go” at the end of certain passages. As splashy cymbals enter into the reserved fray, a drum roll enters the drums fully into the song, spraying slowly across the kit before leaving only Brion the piano and the strings to end the section with the songs title:

These things that you're wrapping all around you,
You never know what they will amount to.
And your life is just going on without you,
It's the end of the things you know…
Here we go.


Succinctly, Brion captures that idea of losing yourself to someone and leaving everything else in your rearview mirror but being content with doing so, like Egan accepting his new adventures in love. As Brion says in the song, Lena (Emma Watson) says at the end of the film “So here we go…” The repetition of this line in the song is incredibly effective, as if to instill that every day with this person is an exciting one. The 2nd verse Brion enters again with “you’ve got to know that there’s more to this world, than what you have seen” before being followed by a deep, louder bellow of the piano, the lines again finding a way to land somewhere between jubilant revelation and constant melancholy:

You've gotta know that there's more to this world,
Than what you have seen.
Because we all have a limited view,
Of what we can be…


This continues into the 2nd chorus which is followed by a short instrumental section where the piano, bass and drums among others musically relay the moody rising and falling of the piece. Directly after Brion re-enters into the idea of accepting new experience and overcoming shyness or fear, the point at which the song becomes most uplifting is the point at which it ends similar to the structure of the film it accompanies. After the final chorus another instrumental section follows with the strings at their most pronounced before the song fades.

The feeling that someone really gets you,
It's something that no one should object to.
It could happen today,
So I suggest you skip your habit of laying low,
It's the end of the things you know,
Here we go.

Because someone can say "Hello,
You old so and so, here we go.”


Few love songs find the way to acknowledge that finding love is both exceptionally hard because of all our own individual baggage (“each one of us on a different planet”) yet still somehow easy if you look and try (“it could happen today”). The song has that great ambiguity, the question of what comes after “here we go”…perhaps it means to say that the most unforgettable, heart breaking or heart warming part is that initial “hello”, the one you never ever forget, the one that started all the memories that followed.

Isn’t that what we all think when we commit to someone, even if we don’t say it? “So…here we go…”

[DrewG]

The emo tidal wave is coming. Later.