Tuesday, April 15, 2014

4/15/14


I'm reading this book about writing short, and there's a chapter about song lyrics. There's another chapter about tweaking the predictable, and others about parallelism and variety. Most of it, almost all of it, reaffirms what I've always thought I've known - that writing is writing is writing. When it's good, it's good, and you know it. 

Nick Torres packs such a punch in this Northstar track off "Pollyanna," performed acoustic here, that all I can do is replay it, dissect it. The original pop punk setting of the song is fun, sure, but here, he is a master of metaphor, unencumbered. This is literary. This is why I can't wait for new Cassino material, and why, in the meantime, I will dissect the rest of it over and over again.

"She will sleep here
In between the cracks
Just a flower with a broken back
Waiting for dirty water
Did you sleep alright, did you sleep...?
She’s giving beat stares from being beat all day
Indian eyes in the American way
Hail Marys and ale
A Hailed Mary that ails."

~Between Horns and Halos 
Northstar, Pollyanna