Saturday, February 28, 2015

2/28/15


"If i could roll up my money and smoke it i would
Always travel light
Catch your eye
Don't blink twice

If I could make lemonade from your lemons I would
Squeeze 'em hard and sour
Shut your eyes
Don't make nice

Oh no, oh no
Will you love forever?
Oh no, oh no
Will you love me forever?
Forever?"
~Will You Love Me Forever? 
Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, Buzzard

Margot and the Nuclear So and So's is one of those bands I kind of forget about for awhile, then obsess over for a spell. I won't claim to know or understand this band's entire catalog, but some moments are simply stunning, the words and scenes so violent, vibrant and cutthroat. I love where they tilt toward dissonant weirdness,  never fully abandoning a pop structure or standard format but throwing in off-kilter chords and borderline howls. Without being aggressive, they complement darkness and sadness and pain, but they remain a notch more cerebral than self-pity tends to allow. Some of the acoustic-based tracks are much more telling and stirring than the full-band tracks, but I find both styles have their strengths in story, in melody, and in heartsick lines and desperate declarations.

This song, "Broadripple is Burning" is always near the top of the rediscovery playlist. The way he sings, "Don't fucking move," so snide, like it just pours out of his throat, so perfect. Each time I hear this song - like so many others from so many artists that have felt timeless to me over the years - I feel a little hopeless, thinking How do you do this and then I wonder where it started, what pang of something dragged a beaten self far enough outside its sullen mind to tell something everlasting and meaningful. To be so bold.



"Children, Broadripple is burning
And the girls are getting sick
Off huffing glue up in the bathroom
While your boyfriends pick up chicks.
And darling I'm lost.
I heard you whispering
That night in fountain square.
The trashed filled streets made me wish we were heading home.

There was love inside the basement
Where that woman used to lie
In a sleeping bag we shared upon
The floor almost every night.
And darling I'm drunk,
And everything that I have loved has turned to stone.
So pack your bags and come back home.


And I'm wasted.
You can taste it.
Don't look at me that way,

'Cause I'll be hanging from a rope.
I will haunt you like a ghost.

If my woman was a fire,
She'd burn out before I wake,
And be replaced by pints of whiskey,
Cigarettes, and outer space.

Then somebody moves
And everything you thought you had has gone to shit.
We've got a lot.
Don't ever forget that.

And I wrote this on an airplane where the people looked like eggs.
And when a woman that you loved was gone,
She was bombing East Japan.
And don't fucking move,
'Cause everything you thought you had will go to shit.
We've got a lot.
Don't you dare forget that.


And I'm wasted.
You can taste it.
Don't look at me that way,

'Cause I'll be hanging from a rope.
I will haunt you like a ghost.

And I'm wasted.
You can taste it.
Don't look at me that way,
'Cause I'll be hanging from a rope.
I will haunt you like a ghost."

~Broadripple is Burning 
Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So's, Not Animal