Old
Band of Horses - Islands on the Coast off their 2007 album Cease to Begin.
I really like the feel of this song, and after hearing it, but without really listening to the lyrics, it really did sound like a beachy song. I've been reading a lot about songwriting and when I came across an article where lead singer Ben Bridwell was interviewed about this album I was completely shocked. He said in the interview "The lyric actually says ‘eyelids want to close,’ but I always thought it sounded like ‘islands on the coast,’ so I named it that to screw with people." Awesome, right? Dude just named the song what it sounded like to mess with people's heads. The lyrics in their songs are often hard to understand because he sings with abnormal timing, splitting up lines and even individual word. But I guess part of the fun of listening is to try to figure out what he's saying. This song happens to be about the end of a chapter for the band, as it was written when they decided to move from Seattle to Charleston. It's a bittersweet song because the reason they were leaving Seattle was broken friendships, but they were happy to move to Charleston to start a new chapter. I think the lyrics convey the disappointment over the problems from Seattle but the melodies and the upbeat tempo convey the hope of good times in Charleston. And they've definitely had good times since they moved to Charleston. They are one of my top 5 bands at this point, so listen to them when you get a chance
I really like the feel of this song, and after hearing it, but without really listening to the lyrics, it really did sound like a beachy song. I've been reading a lot about songwriting and when I came across an article where lead singer Ben Bridwell was interviewed about this album I was completely shocked. He said in the interview "The lyric actually says ‘eyelids want to close,’ but I always thought it sounded like ‘islands on the coast,’ so I named it that to screw with people." Awesome, right? Dude just named the song what it sounded like to mess with people's heads. The lyrics in their songs are often hard to understand because he sings with abnormal timing, splitting up lines and even individual word. But I guess part of the fun of listening is to try to figure out what he's saying. This song happens to be about the end of a chapter for the band, as it was written when they decided to move from Seattle to Charleston. It's a bittersweet song because the reason they were leaving Seattle was broken friendships, but they were happy to move to Charleston to start a new chapter. I think the lyrics convey the disappointment over the problems from Seattle but the melodies and the upbeat tempo convey the hope of good times in Charleston. And they've definitely had good times since they moved to Charleston. They are one of my top 5 bands at this point, so listen to them when you get a chance
New
The Decemberists - Calamity Song, off of the 2011 album The King is Dead
By now this album is two months old, and if you haven't heard about it, you haven't turned on the radio, looked at iTunes, or been to a Best Buy in quite a while. For a band that I used to hesitatingly recommend to others due to their penchant for wearing Civil War era clothing, they sure have gotten a lot of major air play and national acclaim for this album. They write a lot of songs about obscure historical events, but Calamity Song is about a combination of disasters that leads to chaos. I can't begin to explain how or why some of the lyrics are what they are, but on this song and in general on the album they have managed to transition their own very unique form of the Americana genre. And they definitely have not left behind their storytelling.
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