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

8/27/13

Acoustic poetry with a little piano kicked in. It's just a couple scenes and rhymes, and very simple melody, but the sadness in this song is chest-filling, eye-swelling, overwhelming. Love.




That's no way to live
all tangled up like balls of string.
And we woke at dawn
and watched the sun glide over the hill.

I just said the first
three words that popped into my head.
Let me off the bus;
I'm tired and sore and should probably change clothes.
And the circuits are blown,
my woman is cold,
our children are stoned and worthless.
All waiting for you to tell them the truth.
The truth is a line, that you'll never use.

And her dignity
shown so bright like a light on a hill.
And she burned for me,
and no other man came near the flame.
And back country songs the defeaning twang of the rich-white-kid blues
You can own the stage,
but the lights and glares will not make you real.

She whispers to me, I was meant to be free.
This life that we've built is deadly.
She crawls from my bed, with a comb cross her head.
She crawls to the train and drives herself home

~A Light on the Hill 

Margot and the Nuclear So and So's, The Dust of Retreat

7/21/13

Several years before it was so fashionable to have multi-member folksy pop bands, Margot and the Nuclear So-and-Sos were doing their thing and doing it oh so well. A vastly underappreciated band on many levels, Richard Edwards is a fantastic songwriter capable of poignant, original metaphors and beautiful melodic layers, accented by lap steel and horns. Love this song, for its dynamics and drama.

"I gotta go, and you're talking in code
Saying I know where you've been and I know where you go

I've been tired from the moment I woke
I stopped listening the moment you spoke
and said I'm long gone
yeah, I'm long gone

And I'm sleeping alone
in a house I don't own
cause if you're touring your mind
you'll get lost every time
you'll sing me sad songs to keep me awake
in that bedroom where we hid away
Baby, I'm long gone.
Yeah, I'm long gone.

And your voice cracks like a piano
you keep moving,
but where are you going?
Baby, we're long gone
Yeah, we're long gone"
~Talking in Code,
Margot and the Nuclear So-and-Sos, The Dust of Retreat

2/13/13

Tomorrow is what some call a "Hallmark Holiday," or Valentine's Day, and for every fool with chocolate and teddy bear there will another (likely single) fellow or lady spouting off the reasons they hate the courtship, the  romance, the intertwined indulgence of modern-day coupling.

But over here, we like to think you don't need a special holiday to be cynical, about such things. Hell, we pretty much do it every day.

"I was writing his story
And he gave me a look
He was very handsome, distractingly so
and I never dreamed that he'd be my boyfriend
He wrote me letters, daily from prison
That said I know I've killed a few
But none of those women were you
I couldn't speak,
It was over for me,
I found my grim reaper prince

Well he said he loved me,
And he cooked me dinner
He cut my lungs out,
And made me feel thinner
And I'll never forget him
Now that it's over
The life that we had
When they strapped him down

Oh but how all the girls were jealous
Cause he liked me the best
Oh and I couldn't breathe,
It was true love indeed,
But now my grim prince is gone

Well I said I loved him
When they strapped him in

But he wasn't cryin'
He took it like a man
And the families watched him
As he breathed his last
But I got rather angry
I started to laugh and say, 

Now he's got what's comin'

He was due his lot
Oh and I couldn't see, 

there were tears on my cheek
Goodbye my grim reaper prince

Goodbye my grim reaper prince
Goodbye, goodbye
I'll see you in a while,
Goodbye,
Farewell,
Good luck."

-A Journalist Falls in Love with Deathrow Inmate #16

Margot & the Nuclear So and So's