Why I’ll never be in a band
I love music too much. I’ve seen, heard and read so much talent in so many different styles that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to be part of a proper band without being so self-critical that I’ll just explode and fail to see the point.
I can’t write lyrics for shit, which is frustrating because I feel like I’ve got loads to say. I haven’t got an ear for a melody or chord sequence. And what’s the point in being in a band if you can’t do either of those? Just stand at the side on the bass, playing the root notes of the chord sequence? I have a bit more ambition than that.
If you’re going to write lyrics I think you can go down two different routes: the down-to-earth, absurdly detailed, realistic approach; or the other-worldly, fantastical, beautiful approach. Both can be exemplified by two of my favourite bands around at the moment; Los Campesinos! the former and Wild Beasts the latter.
In a note I read: “If you should go blind and deaf I’ll cleanse you and I’ll bathe you and I’ll cook for you daily. I will take a dry ballpoint pen and trace on your chest all of the same conversations that we have now in bed”. I don’t mean to be selfish; but I think I’d sooner just be dead.
Who Fell Asleep In
How the prayer rubs the rosary. How the make up makes her face pretty. Oh how we have an underbelly, bitten by brutality. How there’s guts fried up. How lothario leers at slut. Oh how we have an underbelly, bitten by brutality. And how in our first and last years we are the most needy, least greedy, most grateful, least hateful. How we die as deeply doe-eyed as we start.
Underbelly
Both are amazing in different ways. The words alone flow perfectly off the tongue, but still reveal more than just an aesthetic pleasure; there’s depth there too. The first one is quite funny in its brutality and, yes, selfishness, and its delivery suggests a slight hint of appreciation of the sentiment of the “note”.
Wild Beasts create this amazing series of images that aren’t quite fully decipherable, but take you into their world of fantasy and wonder. And yet here you get a clear message about how our lives begin and end in innocence, but are corrupted in between; and they get this message across without being at all blunt about it. It’s just on the verge of your understanding without the secrets being thrown away; it keeps you guessing and wondering every time you hear it.
How do you write something like that?
