Recent Music #3: Great Lyrics

Sadly I haven't been able to update as much as I'd like to lately, but I've been super busy at a new school placement for my teacher training...It's been great to see lots of other people write posts though, tino pai e hoa ma!

I've always been really interested in song lyrics. While many people seem to focus on the musical aspect of a song over the lyrical aspect, I've always swayed more towards the lyrics myself. While I can appreciate a song for music alone (I love Explosions in the Sky, after all), for a band to become a true favourite favourite they generally have to have both amazing lyrics and music (hence my love of The Smiths, Pixies, Arcade Fire and Television). So, without further delay, here are three songs with great lyrics:

Deerhunter - Vox Humana

Deerhunter are pretty well known now; this is good because they're a great band (if you haven't heard of them yet, I also recommend Desire Lines and Nothing Ever Happened). The first release I heard from them was 2008's Microcastle which was a revolution in itself and continues to deliver (Twilight at Carbon Lake is possibly one of the best ever album closers). Microcastle was actually jointly released with a second, more experimental and atmospheric album called Weird Era Cont. which was meant to be a secret but sadly got leaked early. I can remember going into Galaxy Records (the Manchester Street store before the earthquakes) and opening the CD case before I bought it, taking way too long to work out how to get to Weird Era at the back because the CD tray opened backwards. Both albums are amazing, but Weird Era remains a favourite album to fall asleep to or have as background noise. From Weird Era Cont., here's a fan video for one of the best songs on the album, Vox Humana. Whilst the stream of consciousness lyrics may not read amazingly well on paper, Bradford Cox's delivery is perfect and takes them to a new level (when he sings "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know..." you just want to cry for him):

"And on the beach in the summer there were thunderstorms constantly, and they were unpredictable, nobody knew when they would come and nobody knew how long they'd last.
Sometimes they'd only last five minutes, and sometimes, weeks..."

If you liked that, also listen to:
Desire Lines (from Halycon Digest, 2010)
Nothing Ever Happened (from Microcastle, 2008)
Twilight at Carbon Lake (from Microcastle, 2008)
Famous Last Words (from Raiinwater Cassette Exchange EP, 2009)
Circulation (from Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP, 2009)
VHS Dream (from Weird Era Cont., 2008)
Never Stops (from Microcastle, 2008)

Memory Boy (from Halycon Digest, 2010)

mewithoutYou - My Exit, Unfair

mewithoutYou are an American alternative band in the true sense of the word (I haven't come across anyone else who sounds like them). They're an amazing combination of spoken-word vocals and stream of consciousness lyrics, with punky and freewheeling guitar, bass and drums doing their own thing around it. mewithoutYou is often labelled a Christian band, but as far as I know the singer Aaron Weiss isn't necessarily Christian, and his lyrics deal with a general spirituality and contain Jewish, Muslim and Christian imagery. Though I'm not religious myself (except maybe a little Buddhist), I regard Aaron Weiss as one of the best lyricists/singers I've ever heard so I urge everyone to listen to mewithoutYou since anyone can relate to most of what he talks about. Here is one of my favourite songs from their second album, 2004's Catch For Us The Foxes:

"My exit unobserved, my homesickness absurd,

I said 'water,' expecting the word

would satisfy my thirst!

Talking all about the second and third,

when I haven't understood the first..."

If you liked that, also listen to:
January 1979
Disaster Tourism
Carousels
Torches Together
(all from 2004's Catch for us the Foxes)

                             Dear Time's Waste - These Words Stick Me To You

Dear Time's Waste is the project of Aotearoa's Claire Danes, and is one of my favourite New Zealand bands. It's absolutely criminal that she her songs aren't getting huge numbers of views on youtube so hopefully this will help a bit. Her first album "Spells" is outstanding, and there should be a new album coming out soon. Here is the first DTW song I ever heard:

"We're holding hands across the ocean

but my grip begins to slip

salt water only makes me thirsty

eating away at the glue,

that sticks me to you..."

If you liked this, also listen to:
And So I Was Returning
Alice
(both from 2010's Spells)