Tag Archives: Magnetic Fields

Songlines for the New Nomadism

20 Nov

Bruce Chatwin’s fictionalized account of his travels in Australia tells of the Aboriginal belief that:

In theory, at least, the whole of Australia could be read as a musical score. There was hardly a rock or creek in the country that could not or had not been sung.

This belief is deeply felt, and lies at the heart of the theories of geographic creation. It’s qualitatively different, therefore, from the moments I’m about to describe, wherein you find yourself alone or with friends in the back seat of a taxi, and the song on the radio lends a sense of permanence (transcendence?) to an otherwise routine experience.

Most of us can remember that, as young children, the car was a place that could lull us to sleep. Some of us never lose that innate ability to be calmed by aimless motion. The car does the pacing for us. Riding in a cab, we cede control to the driver, rarely choosing the route. Nothing we can do will make it get there faster.

In a cab, time somehow ceases its forward march. (My friend Brody has spoken — in brush strokes — of a similar experience in airports). Certain songs seem to be accutely aware of this phenomenon, somehow predicting this yellow bubble where time stands still.

These songs don’t have to mention taxis, or even driving. Indeed, I’m not talking about the songs, lists of which we sometimes find ourselves brainstorming after a long night of work, that explicitly celebrate (or criticize) the art of taxicab driving in great narrative detail. Rather, a song’s “in” might be, for example, its crystallized evocation of a particular city’s urban ethos. Suspending belief in past and future, we don’t need to remember names. Crossing the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan in November 2001, the Twin Towers had never existed. (I certainly mean no disrespect — Jerome, to be sure, had never left.) I never had to ask “Who is Jill Scott?” I just knew.

There are other songs, of course, that give shout-outs to these moments. They might portray the environment that nurtures the yellow bubble, or perhaps throw down a line about a taxi ride. Sometimes they do both:

These moments sneak up on us. We can’t make them happen, even when certain life events compel us to try to bring them about. Or at least write songs about the attempt:

Any others?

Too Drunk to Dream

28 Mar

“Too Drunk to Dream,” which you can download free and legally here, is the first release from Distortion, the new pink album by The Magnetic Fields.
Here’s a clip of them performing it live March 3rd in LA, after about 45 seconds of typically awkward stage banter. It’s a little sloppy (it’s supposed to be, right?), and the sound quality isn’t great, but it’s a good way to hear the song sans distortion, and after a verbal 4/4 count given by Claudia.

It’s an (invertedly) charming tune, playfully capturing the lyrical sentiment in the distorted sounds of the perfectly crafted (yes, “structurally simple”) pop-song style, which is an imprecise but acknowledged tribute to The Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1985 debut album Psychocandy.

The introduction (of the song, not the stage banter), lacks the regularity of the the song’s verse and chorus alternations. The unison singing does move predictably, though, in how it outlines chord tones that propel it to alternating half and full cadences. And, well, it’s repetitive.

But then how does it sound so sloppy and almost non-metered? “Sober …” we count in 4/4? “Shit-faced …” we slip to 3/4? No, we can’t hear it that way. In fact, I was disappointed when I finally admitted to myself that, if we were gonna transcribe the intro, it would surely yield some combination of 4/4+3/4, 3/4+4/4 repeated, regardless of the expressive pauses for breath and subtle rushes. But “7/4″ is far too regular an interpretation for how we hear the introduction.

No one, once sober, would much like to analyze a video taken of themselves while drunk. What was smooth becomes clumsy. Suave? Forced. We’re supposed to listen to the introduction as though we are drunk, then, aren’t we? Perhaps that’s why it’s in unison: it’s a drunk drinking song–as opposed to, for example, “The Beer-Barrel Polka,” which is far too sober.