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Published On: Sep 07, 2006 11:52 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Sep 07, 2006 11:52 PM
The Thursday Tune 3
Or, I Feel the Sting
Red House Painters, "Priest Alley Song,"
Songs for a Blue
Guitar
Mark Kozelek, lead singer of Red House Painters, has a voice that you either love or hate (see also, Sam Phillips and Rufus Wainwright): it is deep, ponderous, fragile, untrained in a way.
Ponderous is also a good word for Red House Painters, a group which produces songs lasting ten minutes long with ease...and those can be just instrumentals. They require patience, but that patience often pays off.
This album is actually chipper compared to other Red House Painters efforts (perhaps because Kozelek did it all himself without the other Painters), though this song is ambivalent really.
As usual, the setting for the song is wonderfully set; against a simple acoustic guitar, Kozelek lightly sings:
Going past Golden Gate Elementary everyday,
Kids down Colorful Hill,
Recess, Fire Drill
We're in San Francisco, and we're also clued in that this song may be interesting, if you are a Painters' fan: Down Colorful Hill is the title of one of their early albums.
After describing a sunset in Golden Gate, and thereby completing the second verse, the song suddenly breaks: more guitar and drums come in, and then a string section, crescendoing into:
Losing our lovely hold
In the sky's fluorescent glow
She takes her thoughts and cares
Into the moonlit alley stairs
Still in my hand I feel the sting
And the sound of bells ring
And the memory of the face never washes away
With the current evening
The song then sort of dies out like a sunset.
The lyrics are not all that great, necessarily, but again Kozelek is referencing another Red House Painters piece, this time the song "Down Through," and the line that still always amazes me when I hear it:
I still feel the sting in my hand from when I hit you
Is this a song about a moment in time, or about his musical career? Regardless, it's somehow a very emotional song for me, because it presents both a picture of a place and a picture of an emotion--loss--so beautifully.
Runners-up from Red House Painters: "Down Through," "Summer Dress" off of Ocean Beach, and "Mistress."
Mark Kozelek, lead singer of Red House Painters, has a voice that you either love or hate (see also, Sam Phillips and Rufus Wainwright): it is deep, ponderous, fragile, untrained in a way.
Ponderous is also a good word for Red House Painters, a group which produces songs lasting ten minutes long with ease...and those can be just instrumentals. They require patience, but that patience often pays off.
This album is actually chipper compared to other Red House Painters efforts (perhaps because Kozelek did it all himself without the other Painters), though this song is ambivalent really.
As usual, the setting for the song is wonderfully set; against a simple acoustic guitar, Kozelek lightly sings:
Going past Golden Gate Elementary everyday,
Kids down Colorful Hill,
Recess, Fire Drill
We're in San Francisco, and we're also clued in that this song may be interesting, if you are a Painters' fan: Down Colorful Hill is the title of one of their early albums.
After describing a sunset in Golden Gate, and thereby completing the second verse, the song suddenly breaks: more guitar and drums come in, and then a string section, crescendoing into:
Losing our lovely hold
In the sky's fluorescent glow
She takes her thoughts and cares
Into the moonlit alley stairs
Still in my hand I feel the sting
And the sound of bells ring
And the memory of the face never washes away
With the current evening
The song then sort of dies out like a sunset.
The lyrics are not all that great, necessarily, but again Kozelek is referencing another Red House Painters piece, this time the song "Down Through," and the line that still always amazes me when I hear it:
I still feel the sting in my hand from when I hit you
Is this a song about a moment in time, or about his musical career? Regardless, it's somehow a very emotional song for me, because it presents both a picture of a place and a picture of an emotion--loss--so beautifully.
Runners-up from Red House Painters: "Down Through," "Summer Dress" off of Ocean Beach, and "Mistress."
Posted: Thu - September 7, 2006 at 11:17 PM |