Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Notes on the songs
Stake in Identity
A simple, if surreal, statement of the artist’s prerogatives. Several decades of political, sociological, and cultural Balkanization made it necessary. This is the most musically undistinguished track on the album and as such an unusual choice for an opener, but since it’s a theme song of sorts I really had no choice but to begin with it.
Thuggish Presence
Reggae, it’s said, is a music of the oppressed, yet this reggae number suggests that people can be complicit in their own oppression. Feel free to revel in both that paradox and Rob Pritzlaff’s fiery guitar work.
Jesus Christ
The line about optimists and pessimists is anti-ideological, not empirical. In any event, as I’m hardly the first to point out, both optimism and pessimism are irrelevant to realism.
Raskolnikov Unbound
Evil is no more common today than it’s ever been, but excuses for it probably are.
Macho
What do women want? It varies, but quite a few of them (about 37 percent, according to one recent poll) still want a guy like this.
Marine Life
An allegory, absurdist but not absurd.
California Angel
The result of exposure to certain southern Californians during my first semester at the University of Arizona. I made it up, but it’s a true story.
And What’s Worse
Another made-up true story, except that the picnic tables are real. I saw them on New Year’s Day 2004, the day I started writing the song.
Retreat
I had in mind a Dylan fusion, specifically a John Wesley Harding-style arrangement to go with the Blood on the Tracks-style lyrics. Rob made the song’s latent anger far less latent. It now sounds like Dylan backed by the Who.
The Bridge
Not the same woman.
Happy Ending
A post-September 11 reverie. I like to imagine a DJ segueing from this into Only Time. I also imagine setting some my-man-done-me-wrong lyrics to this melody and submitting it to Etta James.
A simple, if surreal, statement of the artist’s prerogatives. Several decades of political, sociological, and cultural Balkanization made it necessary. This is the most musically undistinguished track on the album and as such an unusual choice for an opener, but since it’s a theme song of sorts I really had no choice but to begin with it.
Thuggish Presence
Reggae, it’s said, is a music of the oppressed, yet this reggae number suggests that people can be complicit in their own oppression. Feel free to revel in both that paradox and Rob Pritzlaff’s fiery guitar work.
Jesus Christ
The line about optimists and pessimists is anti-ideological, not empirical. In any event, as I’m hardly the first to point out, both optimism and pessimism are irrelevant to realism.
Raskolnikov Unbound
Evil is no more common today than it’s ever been, but excuses for it probably are.
Macho
What do women want? It varies, but quite a few of them (about 37 percent, according to one recent poll) still want a guy like this.
Marine Life
An allegory, absurdist but not absurd.
California Angel
The result of exposure to certain southern Californians during my first semester at the University of Arizona. I made it up, but it’s a true story.
And What’s Worse
Another made-up true story, except that the picnic tables are real. I saw them on New Year’s Day 2004, the day I started writing the song.
Retreat
I had in mind a Dylan fusion, specifically a John Wesley Harding-style arrangement to go with the Blood on the Tracks-style lyrics. Rob made the song’s latent anger far less latent. It now sounds like Dylan backed by the Who.
The Bridge
Not the same woman.
Happy Ending
A post-September 11 reverie. I like to imagine a DJ segueing from this into Only Time. I also imagine setting some my-man-done-me-wrong lyrics to this melody and submitting it to Etta James.
# posted by Thomas Johnson @ 11:17 PM 
