The Weakerthans- Left and Leaving
It's been a rainy day. Certain music is for certain occasions, The Weakerthans have always been rainy day music to me. Don't get me wrong, I love their other three albums but this one is the superior album to me. This is a band that absolutely avoided a "sophomore slump", release it three years or so after their debut, Fallow. To me, this album near perfectly illustrates the melancholy of growing from a young adult into getting your shit together, at least a little. You can infer this with the first track, "Everything Must Go". It starts out with just drums playing a beat on the toms then a warm guitar comes in. Next John K. Samson mutters the words "Garage sale Saturday, I need to pay my hearts outstanding bills" it becomes clearer that he's selling all the things from his youth, "sense of discovery, only partially used". It is with that the album's main theme is stated. "Aside" is a faster song and almost contrary to the subject manner. It talks of becoming comfortable with being lonely but yet he stated "I'm so much better then I used to be". One of my personal favorite lines is "In love with love and losey poetry". Another one of the faster songs is "Watermark", he exclaims "I've got this store bought of saying I'm okay". It's a song about a love affair in which both parties are becoming bitter and cynical with age. "Pamphleteer" is a personal favorite of mine, it just sounds so personal. It touches on the nervousness with liking someone "How I don't know what to do with my hands when I talk to you, how you don't know where you should look, so you look at my hands". "This is a Fire Door Please Leave Open" describes nostalgia in a relationship for a more simple time that felt more flowery, or "tender". On "Without Mythologies" the toms are the main instrument with a very quite guitar in the background, almost buried in the mix. The title track is nothing short of an epic. It is everything form a satire on the state of his hometown to how he always ends up in the same situation with the same person, "I'm back with scars to show.
Back with the streets I know." And discusses finally leaving the situation behind him with lines like "Who's left and who's leaving" and "New words for old desires and every birthday card I threw away". "Elegy for Elsabet" is sort of about seasons but more importantly how things change, "Winter dies the same way every spring. As the sky tries on its uniform of turned off t.v. grey, and the way we watched her watch us walks away, let every rain clatter down at groaning streets." The next two songs are stories about everyday people. The first, "History of the Defeated" is a about a depressed "mechanic school drop-out". The second, "Exiles Among You" is about a black sheep of a family, a women who shop lifts Christmas presents and lives pay check to pay check. "My Favourite Chords" is arguably the best song in The Weakerthans discography. This song is a satire on John's hometown, a tale of a relationship of some sort, and an explanation on how to hold on to a little hope and youth. "Slips and Tangles", the closer is a song that was originally on a John K. Samson solo release. Despite this, it fits in well on Left and Leaving, and as acts as a sort of overview, briefly touching on most of the themes discussed on the album. This album is a kind of country-tinged, folk/ indie/ punk rock with incredibly descriptive and ironic lyrics. John describes feels that don't really have words.
For Fans of: The Mountain Goats All Hail West Texas // Wilco// Ted Leo
No comments:
Post a Comment