Lyrical Musings on Musical Classifications or "What it means to like country"

CBGB stands for Country, Bluegrass, Blues. Seriously now, who would have guessed that? I mean obviously if you're a CBGB fan you would almost certainly know it, but most people who have only a cursory knowledge of CBGBs as a former rock club in New York City (arguably THE former rock club in New York City), I think would be surprised to learn that name of the legendary local has nothing to do with Rock and everything to do with Country...

I used to be one of those people who likes "all kinds of music... except for country and rap." Which was complete bollocks because 1) People who say they like 'all kinds of music' are usually the same people who can't name three of their favourite bands, and I am most definitely NOT that kind of a people, 2) I actually do like some rap, particularly 80s era rap, and I'm not sure that this is the best example of 'rap' music as we define it nowadays, but The Fresh Prince of BelAir was one of the first songs I ever knew all of the lyrics to, and 3) I totally do like country. My teenage-self would hit me over the head with a two by four for even thinking of uttering that sentence, but it does not make it any less true. I actually love country music.

I don't really know when or how it happened, but it happened. Hard core. (Okay not THAT hard core, because I only like a very specific kind of country music (CBGB one might say...) and still have a very viscerally unpleasant reaction to pop country- you know, the my-girlfriends-stole-my-truck-and-ran-over-my-dog-on-the-way-to-go-marry-her-cousin kind of country... or the I-got-nothin-to-say-but-gee-don't-I-sound-real-perdy kind. no good. borderline offensively bad.)  And this is what I love: banjo music. Johnny Cash music. washboards and wagon trains and tumbleweeds music. Hells my current favourite band (Elliott Brood  of course) boasts two banjos a harmonica and a slide guitar and has more than one song about a wagon train (as does Graveyard Train, another current love- though they also play chains, washboard and stand-up bass...)

(I swear this will relate back in a moment so bare with me) I recently saw Dan Mangan in concert and have since fallen in love with his song Road Regrets, particularly one stanza which goes, and I quote: "and rob he likes his country tunes. it’s never been the lens that i see through. but i guess driving for a week or two puts words in your mouth. so find dodge and then get out of it. it’s about as country as i get"

though arguable not 'country at all' the video for Road Regrets has 

numerous similarities to Elliott Brood's video for Second Son

It captures something about country that I have up till now had difficultly grasping- that it is a lens rather than just a sound. I may love the banjo and the hitting-objects-with-wooden-spoons, but its the storytelling that gets me, more specifically the way in which a country-song story is told (both lyrically and with the music...). Its the narrative and the music working together to create the imagery, to create the story, to create the world of the song... So despite my best intentions, it actually is the my-girlfriends-stole-my-truck-and-ran-over-my-dog-on-the-way-to-go-marry-her-cousin that I love. As long as its more about wagon trains and less about soap operas set in backwater Texas...

Sorry sixteen-year-old-me, I just can't help it- I loves me a good yarn.



Road Regrets by Dan Mangan
we’ll drive until the gas is gone. and then walk until our feet are torn. crawl until we feed the soil. film the whole thing. it’s all business in the left hand lane. drive there and then drive back again. escape can’t be the only way to escape. so i’ve gotten used to coffee sweats. still getting used to road regrets. hell, i took you up on all your threats to leave. it’s a shame, it’s a crying shame. and ain’t it always the way that takes you back to from where it is you came. and rob he likes his country tunes. it’s never been the lens that i see through. but i guess driving for a week or two puts words in your mouth. so find dodge and then get out of it. it’s about as country as i get. see you ain’t living until you’re living it. not dead ’till you die. but watch out for the paraphrase. for they will crown you then they will take your legs. see the cost is more than what you get paid. but do it anyway. it’s a shame, it’s a crying shame. and ain’t it always the way that takes you back to from where it is you came.

Homes Dissapear

With the end of summer fast approaching (where did it GO?) I find myself getting preemptively nostalgic for all the fun-times, fun-friends, fun-weather, and fun-music I've been a part of this past few months (and mark my words it has been a lot of all of those things... living with El, visiting Montreal, going to the cottage, roller derby, hillside, working with some fantastically awesome people, working some fantastically awesome shows (how did I get paid to watch John Foggerty and have a front row seat at the Canada Day fireworks?!?), and enjoying one of the most beautifully warm and sunny summers I've ever experienced). Most of the time I'm in it ("You're so in it right now, you're just so in it...") but the past few days I've definitely had some of those moments where I can't help but think  "I don't want it to all be over..."

Melodramatic sentiments aside, its gotten me thinking about how much I have really started to feel at home here, and what that means. Sure I think its a beautiful city, I love biking along the trails and walking along the paths. I love being close enough to Quebec to walk over from work and bike home at 2am and for French to sound as familiar as English. I love the weather and the green and the rivers... I love so many physical things about where I live, but so much of what has made me feel like I live here has been ephemeral- people, events, experiences. Much like in University, you construct a place out of everything it means to you, and when you try to hold on to that, or when you try to go back, its just not the same because the remnants of the physical things are all that is left. Everything changes around you (and though you may not feel like you're changing too, inevitably you are) and one day you wake up to discover that its all different- the place you thought you were building just doesn't exist any more.

A few days ago I happened upon the song False Creek Change by Said the Whale and was transfixed by how well it captures just this kind of thing- the inevitability:

False Creek changed in '86
the year Expo exploited her shore
It's been twenty two years laying down bricks
and there's no room for me here any more, any more
there's no room for me here anymore

I made my mark in '84
Born to the month of June
My home at the heart of Charleson Park
I never thought I'd be leaving so soon, so soon
Never thought I'd be leaving so soon

I've watched The Walls of Yaletown
growing up over my mountain view
My old horizon under the clouds
I'll be sad when I'm thinking of you
I'll be sad when I'm thinking of you

Now all the old men and their boats have gone
and I will be leaving too
My little red roof by the old duck pond
I'll be saying farewell to you
I'll be saying farewell to you

Sometimes its sad, sometimes it means that its time for you to go (sorry Halifax), but more often its a matter of realizing that you've already gone, more precisely its already gone ("It never occurred to me to think of space as the thing that was moving...") that it can never really exist again. It seems sad and final and depressing, but the thing is that you can't really miss it because it was never a real thing to start with. And if it was never really a real thing to start with the fact that it can never again be a real thing really makes no difference, right? Too much?

Alls I'm saying is that instead of spending my time being sad that the summer is ending and all of my ephemeral summer experiences are slowly fading away, I am going to spend my time enjoying them. Savoring every last second. Because they're not really the last seconds at all- they're just the seconds at the middle of the beginning- or at worst at the beginning of the middle...

The Quiet Epicness of the In-Between

I get weird things stuck in my head. Okay, plain ol' songs = not so weird. But getting phrases stuck on repeat in my brain seems to be somewhat more unusual... It all started in grade five with 'Help I've fallen and I can't get up!' and has progressed from there. The latest? "Willie, Why did you give me campylobacter!?!" It just comes out of nowhere, and I start giggling to myself and everyone thinks I've gone bonkers... thank you John Green.

Hybridized-songs is another favourite category- I have one going on in there and it just morphs into another- then of course I can't hear either of those two songs without hearing my mash-up version instead. The other day I was singing I Could Never Be Your Woman by Whitetown to myself, complete with clarinet/synth riff sung in doo doo dee doos .... when somewhere along the line it turned into the death-star theme from Star Wars! Now I am aware (from the reactions of friends I was with at the time) that no one finds this as entertaining as I do, but its just so unusual to get startled by something that's in your own head... how could I not find it hilarious? Alright, now I really am starting to sound like a crackpot...

Aaaaaanyways, what I actually meant to be talking about is the more pleasant phenomenon of a stuck-in-your-head-song reminding you of something you haven't heard in years, prompting you to re-listen to a long forgotten but much beloved tune. I have recently been chain-listening to There May be Ten or Twelve by A.C. Newman. The absolutely lovely lyrics and the slightly epic musical arrangement are awesome in and of themselves, but they also very very very much remind me of Oysrterband's album Holy Bandits.

Now I'm not a huge fan of Celtic music -I'm sure I've mentioned before that I love bagpipes but can't stand fiddles- but this lack of enthusiasm is easily trumped my love of Oysterband. Epic riffs, sad yet beautiful lyrics, pounding drums and haunting tunes that stay in your head for days... Re-listening to the CD reminds me not only of the time I spent in my fourth-year studio blaring 'Road to Santiago' (and having friends express confusion at the uncharacteristic Celtic-ness of the music) but also of the worlds to which I was always transported when listening to their songs. Not the philosophically-laced fairy tales of The Shins, nor the Grungy Detroit of The White Stripes, or even the Ontariario of Elliot Brood, but the vast in-between that rests somewhere betwixt the real and the imaginary, betwixt fable and fact.

A.C. Newman similarly creates this feeling of within. Of being, not a fly on the wall, but being actually in between the feelings and the words and emotions of the situation, floating in the invisible waters of intangibility. Such a short song, so few lyrics, but believe me, the feeling of epicness rivals that of Homer. And no I don't mean the cartoon one.

There May be Ten or Twelve by A.C. Newman

There are maybe ten or twelve
Things I could teach you
After that, well, I think you're on your own
And that wasn't the opening line
It was the tenth or the twelfth
Make of that what you will

Once there was a haunted loop
Of your deep, fallen tears
A forehead resting on a record shelf
Amid moving boxes stacked
I'm still waiting for the right words
Make of that what you will

And the eyes they were
A color I can't remember
Which says more than the first two verses
And it is the devil you know
That will slam the door harder
Make of that what you will