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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 9, 2022 2:12:10 GMT -5
#11: THREE DRINKS (Newmyer's Roof EP)
I had this friend at college whose modus operandi was exactly the chorus of Three Drinks, to the extent that I’ve probably formulated 90% of the words in it at some point, referring to her. I get that this isn’t revolutionary, lots of people drink this way, often due to something that has to do with a whole lot more than their body’s chemical response to alcohol.
Still: I’ve often praised Craig for both his narrative scope and his way to in extremely few words paint scenes or characters with a mindblowing precision. This is something else. It’s just a really simple observation turned into something both beautiful and scary, and it’s beautiful and scary because it’s kept so simple. And that kind of describes the entire song too. It’s easy, likable, similar to plenty of other songs, but it’s so GOOD. Not only that, it’s pretty funny too (“Man, I KNOW that she didn’t”).
The sum of all this, is the very clear notion that Craig are having a good time, in a very deep sense. It’s a song that, through the way it sounds, makes me happy for him, that he gets to do this stuff, write these stories, create these songs. And if that sounds both a bit shallow, and also a little weird, I wouldn’t disagree. It’s just a corner of being a huge fan of something or someone, and I think it bleeds into my evaluation of the songs too - as it should, right?
To put a throwaway b-side close to the top 10 might look a little too contrarian, but I keep coming back to Three Drinks, and I keep reminding myself how nice it is.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 9, 2022 2:33:07 GMT -5
INTERLUDE: A LEGACY OF RENTALS
I started this thread right before it was announced that Craig was about to release another studio album. For a while, I thought I might be able to finish it up before its release, but that proved to be a tough task.
As the months have passed, I feel an increasing urge to incorporate that album and those songs into the ranking - but there’s really no good way to do that. I made a list back in the winter, and that was the right list for me, with the songs being available at the time. To just put Birthdays or This Is What It Looks Like into a given spot, would feel weird.
Not only that: The new album has (as new albums do) made me hear some of the older stuff in a new light as well. I have a better understanding of Craig’s scope and vision, and the way he presents that in some of these new songs, give me a better understanding of some of the choices he made on We All Want The Same Things and I Need A New War too. So, the ranking stands as it is.
What I would like to do, is to give a rough idea of where all these new songs could have fitted in on the list. And I’d like to do it in intervals or tiers or what you’d like to call it. So just for the record, and just because I feel that batch of songs belong in a thread produced in 2022, I’m gonna do it like that.
This Is What It Looks Like is the standout track for me from A Legacy Of Rentals. I just find the entire atmosphere, the incredibly tense and vibrant something-at-stake feeling, so damn appealing. Craig does his best subdued-but-intense thing, singing with clinched fists and through his teeth, through a filter of sadness. The backing vocals are immense. Would be among the top 6-8 songs on this list.
Another favorite of mine is Birthdays. I think this is an evolution of the warm, bright and poppy sound from We All Want The Same Things, but with maybe even more finesse and elegance. It has this rhythmic pulse, almost groovy, but it’s not an anthem at all. Would rank somewhere between #7 and #15.
Same goes for Never Any Horses - not that it’s bright and poppy, it is rather sweeping and huge. It sounds amazing, and I think this is a perfect update of the style. And while there’s not enough room here to really dig into the lyrics, I’m baffled by the entire concept of this song, and the way it still connects so heavily with previous songs by Craig. Also a #7-15 song, and when I think of it, maybe even higher than that.
In some way, I think of Messing With The Settings and A Break From The Barrage within the same realm, but I might emphasize too much on the vocal style. Still, they’re both big songs that Craig take down a notch with his extremely cool storyteller style. I think both songs have musical merit on their own too. The cool, detached, but also very heartfelt sound of the album, but also these two songs, are really appealing. Hell, I think these might belong in the top #15 too.
There’s really no huge similarities between The Amarillo Kid and Curtis & Shepard, but they’re both really, really good, accomplished songs, who lack that final touch of magic to push them all the way up the list. Very solid, extremely good album tracks, and probably #18-#25 on this list.
Due To Depart is nice - sad and moving, but also a little bit too soft for me. I think it would be placed somewhere in the lower #20s here.
And that leaves us with the two songs I’m no particular fan of on this album - bar the usual disclaimer that I of course LIKE them, I just think they’re a little bit below many others. That’s Jessamine and The Year We Fell Behind. Jessamine has a lot of interesting things going on, but doesn’t quite fulfill what it attempts, and The Year We Fell Behind is too much loungey romanticism, just like the not-so-good parts of I Need A New War, to me.
All in all, I think this is a really tight set of songs, and it might still be my favorite Craig Finn album. It kind of surprises me how many of the songs I would consider to push into, or close to the top #10 here, and that says something about how I feel about it.
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Post by kayfaberaven on Sept 9, 2022 13:03:49 GMT -5
I absolutely LOVE Legacy of Rentals. I liked it when I first listened and my love for it has grown over time.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 10, 2022 0:10:09 GMT -5
#10: IT'S NEVER BEEN A FAIR FIGHT (All These Perfect Crosses)
I really, really like It’s Never Been A Fair Fight. As a song, how it’s written and composed, through the bright and big sound it incorporates. It sounds like a classic, without having the merit of being one.
The main trick of It’s Never Been A Fair Fight is how it disguises a deeply sad story about addiction, loss and missed opportunities as a magnificent all-american anthem. I’m not gonna call it peak-anything, cause there’s so many peaks in so many different fields in this catalog. But I think this might be Craig’s most radio-friendly, all-american, potential-hit, still sounding fresh and unique, timeless and modern at the same time. There’s plenty of Bruce Springsteen in here, but also Tom Petty and Warren Zevon - the last one not least in the mix between joyous music and dry, witty lines (“Hardcore is in the eye of the beholder”, “..but there were so many goddamn rules”). The song is melodically huge, with plenty of hooks, but it also has this lingering, romantic sadness in every other chord.
And that sadness gets increasingly more present for each line of the song. It starts out as a sentimental tale of the scene back then, but soon enough there’s places where our characters “crash”, there’s “vampires” (the bloodsuckers who feature prominently in the Hold Steady universe) and “well, the drugs they all ganged up on you”. And in the end, the atmosphere turns vague, the words aren’t all that clear anymore, and we descend into a specific conversation about something that seems important. “Yeah, I knew it could happen”, the narrator admits in the next-to-last line of the song. That what could happen, exactly? I don’t know, but it sure as hell doesn’t sound like something bright or pleasant.
I’ve several times drawn the line between songs that feel impressive or well-made, and songs that strike me immediately and emotionally. I think this is a mix of both: A really big rock song, performed with intensity and finesse, but also kind of excusing itself for turning things so dark. It’s a beautiful listen, and a real testament to what Craig has evolved into as a writer and an artist.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 11, 2022 10:52:12 GMT -5
#9: GOD IN CHICAGO (We All Want The Same Things)
This is - by some distance - the toughest song to rank in the entire Craig Finn catalog. There’s really no other songs in his catalog that have amassed this mythical status, as a song that transcends the album and the catalog itself, and has taken on a meaning of its own. To the fans, I would argue, but also to a wider public. It’s not a hit, but it’s a song that has been praised by far more people than those of us who follow Craig and Hold Steady on a daily basis. And at the same time, it’s (or at least was, at the time) a unique song in the catalog, with the 100% spoken word thing, which makes it both stand out from the rest of the catalog, and somehow become emblematic of it. And that combination is strange.
And to get into my personal feelings of the song: They’re very much mixed, and definitely the peak of the constant negotiation between being impressed and purely emotionally enjoying myself. In one sense, I think the song is a masterpiece - in its own right, but also the way it have connected with the audience. It’s audacious, brave and extremely well composed. It has a literary quality that isn’t necessarily better, but certainly different from what Craig have been doing for 25 years. And while I respect that a lot, I wasn’t as mindblown by it as some others seem to be, simply because my admiration for what he’s done before 2017 is so staggeringly high. And here’s the most important thing to me: Beyond the lyrics, this is after all a song. It’s a very good song too, but it’s not one of the best I’ve heard, and the chorus even rubs me a little the wrong way, even though it fits the mood and the style quite perfectly.
After all, I’ve come to the point where I try to rate and evaluate this as a work of art - not in the pretentious reading of the phrase, but as opposed to a song with some lyrics. I think that’s the only way to merge my initial (and lasting) emotional response with the intellectual understanding of the song, and the position this piece has in the grander scheme of Craig Finn’s career. The sum of all this makes me think that God in Chicago is an important, moving, impressive thing, which I highly enjoy, admire a lot, but still doesn’t make me as thrilled or excited that Craig’s song can make me. I’m really glad he made it, and I’m even happier about his ability to push this style into new territories on A Legacy Of Rentals.
God In Chicago sounds in hindsight like something Craig was bound to make, while still remembering the feeling of some sort of revelation when it first dropped. And as a song, it’s an integral part of how I understand Craig as an artist. For that itself, it deserves a top 10 spot.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Sept 11, 2022 21:30:03 GMT -5
Great to see this thread roaring back to life, sorry to be late getting back to it! This last stretch of posts has been a solid read, and revisiting the songs up here has been especially rewarding. I'll comment on a few: #14: PRELUDES (We All Want The Same Things) Yeah, like you I was disappointed in Preludes at first; it felt aimless and loopy. Then ... it was a combination of digging into the lyrics, hearing it live with a band, and just coming back to it a lot. Now it's top 5 for me, for sure. There's both more double-takes ("Right there is proof of my faith that God watches us," holy shit) and more happening just past the edge of what's said in this song than almost any I can think of. And when I listen to it now, that loopiness just feels matter-of-fact, familiar, and true. It's not epic, but it's awesome. #12: BIRDS TRAPPED IN THE AIRPORT (We All Want The Same Things) Gonna sound weird but this one I sort of can't listen to. I think it's the only song in the entire Finn catalog where she (and I basically take all of the women in these songs as an avatar of Her) actually looks the Narrator back in the eye and tells him she's happy he's there. And in hearing it, you kind of know ("we'll be skeletons and ghosts next year") it's because she's dying, and now it's really, openly too late for them. And the music is incredibly memorable, too, so I've woken up hearing that chorus in my head, I don't know, maybe a couple dozen times. It's just so fucking sad. #11: THREE DRINKS (Newmyer's Roof EP) You've talked a lot in this thread about Craig's "country" sound; of all the things that are really distinct from LP/THS in his solo work, this may be the aspect I like the best. Three Drinks is a genuinely great song. The fact that it (as you said) manages to be funny, on top of everything else that's good about it, is just gravy. The Newmyer's Roof EP is a gem. INTERLUDE: A LEGACY OF RENTALS
Just wanted to say that, as someone who wasn't too hot on the back half of ALOR, Never Any Horses has grown on me big time. That and Birthdays are my faves now. #10: IT'S NEVER BEEN A FAIR FIGHT (All These Perfect Crosses) Love this one too, in large part because, as you say, it's a really big rock song. I only betray my own musical limitations in saying so, but honestly, I wish Craig would do more of those. The lyrics feel a little disjoint in this one; there are a lot of great lines, but there's not so much pulling them together; at the same time, I actually like the weird and obsessive elliptical ending. Starting to really look forward now to seeing Craig on tour. Keep em coming!
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 13, 2022 15:10:58 GMT -5
#8: GALVESTON (Devinyl Splits No. 7, 7" inch)
I’m gonna digress a little bit in the opening here, but I think it’s worth it, and I didn’t feel the digression itself warranted a post of itself.
I was gonna open this one by saying that - yet again - I have trouble ranking Galveston, eh, right. And it occured to me that this makes for a general point about Craig’s solo output, and how it is an even and steady stretch of Very Good, rather than Good topped off with Extremely Good. Comparing the catalog with the Hold Steady catalog (which is just as predictable as it is unavoidable), I think the difference shines through. Hold Steady have consistently released great albums, but there’s these signature tracks that stand out from the crowd. Either because they're just so damn good, or because they’ve occupied a special place in the live sets or in the general talk about their music. We all know that Stuck Between Stations is a massive Hold Steady tune, same goes for Hoodrat, Killer Parties, Resurrection, even Chips Ahoy!, Stay Positive or Constructive Summer. Our opinions on these tracks can differ, but few fans would argue that they’re not important songs in the story of Hold Steady, or that they don’t deserve their position (or, at least, I would guess so).
The same doesn’t quite apply for Craig’s solo records - with the possible exception of God In Chicago. There’s no coherent story there, no hive mind ranking we all silently agree upon as the starting point of a debate or exchange of opinions. On an album level, things might change a little bit, but I just don’t have a clear grasp on the collective opinion on the full batch of songs.
And this bleeds into my own perception of the songs too - even though it’s a little hard to describe how and why. It shouldn’t really make any difference what other people think about these songs, and maybe even less what seems to be the average thinking about them. Still, I think a lot of discussions that stray into ranking A vs B are built on an implicit understanding of the mean, the base level of a song’s position. And that we are used to take this as the starting point, and then adding our own pluses and minuses to explain what we think and how we feel. When this base level is non-existent, we’re left with our own pure experience. And sometimes, that strangely enough turns into confusion or doubt. Is this song really THAT good? Or THAT bad? Can I adequately rank them in any meaningful way?
Galveston is a song existing outside the realm of the albums, as a standalone number on a split single. It’s almost free of context within the universe of Craig Finn. It’s just a song. And - I would argue - it’s a pretty damn good one. So fully developed, so complete, definitely referencing decades of country-ish americana, but still very much Craig Finn. It’s warm, heartbreaking and a little bit mystic. It’s classic but fresh. And I think the most important thing for me: It sound pretty much exactly like I thought that a solo endeavor from Craig Finn would sound like. This is the sound of what Clear Heart Full Eyes could have (and maybe should have) been. Simple and clean, but also big, warm and insisting, with an emotional nerve built into every chord and word. It sounds so good, played by accomplished musicians, overseen by a Craig who no longer holds back, free of fear. He knows he’s able to do this shit now, and he just let it ride.
I might have felt different about this song if it was a common reference or talking point among fans. And also if it was a part of an album I’d listen to in full, being a piece of a bigger picture. But it’s not. It’s just this sweet little song, existing in its own sphere, so complete, so beautiful. A song I'm able to digest as this single piece, without much context. Maybe that's why I like it so much.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 14, 2022 14:50:08 GMT -5
#7: NINETY BUCKS (We All Want The Same Thing)
For all the meta ramblings in the past couple of posts, I just have to state this: Now we enter the elite level of the list. These final seven songs are a notch above everything else for me - these are the top of the pops, the cream of the crop, my undeniable favourites. A lot of the songs we’ve been through could be a #9 or a #21, a #26 or #42, and I could have lived with it. But these seven final songs belong in the top seven places of the list. So if it makes any difference to you as a reader, just keep that in mind.
I’m just so incredibly fond of Ninety Bucks. It might be the most shameless attempt at doing a straight up pop song that Craig has ever done, and I mean that in the best way possible. It’s big, shimmering and bright, and has this incredible sense of progress, of moving somewhere. It’s a car song, the kind you want to blast when you’re driving a little bit too fast on a very sunny day, on your way to something good.
The chorus is a pretty massive hook, although it took me a little bit of time to realize it. As usual, Craig frames this with a memorable, seemingly meaningful, but yet not very poetic line: “Nathan, you’re my only friend”. And as usual, that hook raises more new questions than it really answers. There’s a slight bitterness throughout the entire song, and it’s transmitted with a distance by Craig. I can’t really describe this, or why it feels so impressive, but it’s like he’s a narrator one step outside of the drama, while still putting all those complex feelings and connections between the characters within his own voice.
And, man, these little nuggets Craig always throws out there. Just in the first lines there are two separate alliterations going on, while still forming a narrative, coherent and evocative image. There’s so many ways to describe someone drinking, but with “Popov in a paper cup” Craig tells us exactly what kind of drinking we’re talking about here, and in the process giving us a pretty clear idea of the person doing the drinking too. The song is specked with similar smart lines.
But all his magnificent wordplay isn’t the point here: It’s mostly about the music, and how that thumping piano, the guitars who could need an oil change, and the steady drums, just blends into a really fucking beautiful, interesting pop song I’d like to scream along to. It’s just so good, and I never get tired of it.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 16, 2022 14:41:24 GMT -5
#6: MAGGIE I'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR OUR SON (Faith In The Future)
Around the time my first son was born, Craig called out for fans to submit photos and video clips for a music video to accompany Maggie, I’ve Been Searching For Our Son. I kinda associate that album with that period in my life, and all the thoughts that come along with fatherhood - a new phase of my own life, with a different pace, different responsibilities, while still feeling pretty much the same deep inside. I submitted a couple of different photos, and my son is in that video, a few weeks old.
And in many ways Faith In The Future was the perfect album for this period in my life. It’s mellow and calm in a way no Lifter Puller or Hold Steady albums are, but still filled with so many details and layers, and lots of drama and turmoil too - it’s just conveyed in a more subtle form, and within a different, more mature scope and perspective.
Maggie… are all of these things. A pretty sad, but very beautiful tune that sets the tone for what’s to come. The song shows a more soar and humble side of Craig. There some of the defeated apathy that I’ve written about a lot upthread, but there’s more than that: A tenderness, something unmistakably human, coloured by wounds of loss and betrayal. Another aspect of Maggie, is how modern it feels. I’m not sure if that makes any sense, but the entire lyrical universe seems contemporary (“A kid went to the movies with a gun”) and here-and-now. And the while the music are deeply rooted in 50 years of folkrock and americana, also feels like something from our own days, not from the past.
I remember this felt like the real birth of Craig as a solo artist. The fog of uncertainty from Clear Heart Full Eyes were suddenly lifted, and Craig emerged as a fully-formed performer in his own right, clear and bright and confident. And that alone - apart from it being a pretty much perfect song - is enough to make Maggie… one of my all time favorites from Craig’s voice and pen.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 18, 2022 23:53:48 GMT -5
#5: NO FUTURE (Clear Heart Full Eyes)
I’ve probably been a little too hard on Clear Heart Full Eyes in this thread. I kinda love the record, both cause it reminds of how it first was to experience Craig as a solo artist, but also because it’s so raw, intimate and honest about its intentions. In some ways, the sort of unfinished surface of it, the way it seems underplayed, a little too shy, makes that impression even stronger.
Yet, when I’m picking out my favorite song of the bunch, it’s the one who in my ears sounds most complete and fulfilled. No Future sounds like a song that didn’t need to be carved into something in the studio, it rather seems like it came complete right from the start. From the very first second of the song, there’s a shaky determination in Craig’s voice, like what he’s about to tell us is pretty disturbing to him, but still has to be told. There’s an aggression here, not in the kicking and screaming sense, but in an understated and suppressed way. And it’s mixed with fear, a pure and physical fear of the consequences of the meeting with the devilish person we get to meet in the end.
No Future is the one song from the debut album that thrives within that narrow and compressed sound, that finds strength from it. It’s the kinda song you could be fooled to think would make a good Hold Steady song, but I’m not so sure. It’s rocking and stomping, but in a completely different way. And still, it has way more energy than better-sounding rock numbers from Craig’s own catalog (like Tracking Shots).
On top of all these, the lyrics feel naked, intimate and… true. The setting are vague, and the details are obscured, but there’s some pretty damn straight-forward things here that just feels traumatic and life-changing, even when it’s draped in a bleak retrospective fog. When Craig sings “no future for you”, that’s literally what he means: When shit like this goes down, your future is canceled. This is the end - or at least, there was a pretty good chance that it could have been.
There’s lots of “better” songs ranked way below on this list. But No Future gets me every time.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Sept 19, 2022 16:47:18 GMT -5
#5: NO FUTURE (Clear Heart Full Eyes) I haven't put together a well-thought-out ranking, but my gut right from the beginning of this thread has been that No Future is my #1. There are so many great things going on in this song that I invariably lose track of some, and get surprised all over again by how rich it is. The point where that menacing bass line gears up into "pretty sure we're all gonna die / pretty sure we're all gonna die" just pours the chills down my back; I think this might be the greatest Craig Finn Pretty Sure of them all. First it's an understated but grand philosophical take, then --- no wait, he's talking about something very specific! and either way it's darkly fucking funny. Same limbic reaction to "He said, God save the queen / He said, No future for you / No future for me" ... chills chills chills. Two-band two-song parallels are of course another Craig Finn classic, and again, is there a better one than what he does with Freddy Mercury and Johnny Rotten here? Out of recycled material that he's already exploited once with incredible finesse in Knuckles, no less? The sudden Minneapolis grounding in the appearance of the Riverside Perkins is another high point. I think the music that wraps up the song during these last two verses is the weakest part of the whole package (feels like that unsteady major-key ascent is spackling over a hole where the Tad guitar solo is supposed to go), but if the music held up its end, we'd be talking about the Riverside Perkins in the same breath with the Yukon Club. Finally, for me, looking at this as a glimpse into a bigger story, I set special value by the explanation of what being half dead actually means, by the bedsheets for curtains, and above all by the note about meeting the devil at the Riverside Perkins. That one was worth gold to me. The crucifixion still gets to me, indeed.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 19, 2022 23:30:34 GMT -5
#5: NO FUTURE (Clear Heart Full Eyes) I haven't put together a well-thought-out ranking, but my gut right from the beginning of this thread has been that No Future is my #1. I knew you had a soft spot for this one, but I didn't realize it was you #1! Anyway, I'm glad you posted this here, cause pretty much everything you wrote, are reasons I have it in the very top of my list too - and when I wrote the text about it, I couldn't quite describe the vibe or find the right words. It's interesting that you bring in Yukon Club here, cause I think the songs share a fragile and vulnerable core.
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Post by eyepatchgary on Sept 22, 2022 6:32:48 GMT -5
#10: IT'S NEVER BEEN A FAIR FIGHT (All These Perfect Crosses) And in the end, the atmosphere turns vague, the words aren’t all that clear anymore, and we descend into a specific conversation about something that seems important. “Yeah, I knew it could happen”, the narrator admits in the next-to-last line of the song. That what could happen, exactly? I don’t know, but it sure as hell doesn’t sound like something bright or pleasant. I've always interpreted the ending of "It's never been a fair fight" to be the funeral of Vanessa's new man (who's in a new band) following his suicide. Perhaps my bleak interpretation explains why I much prefer the more sombre acoustic version to the poppy band one...
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 28, 2022 5:24:46 GMT -5
Another pause here, mostly due to my travel to the UK to actually see and hear Craig do his thing live.
I have to say that trip was pretty damn important to me, even more than I thought it would be. The live show he's putting on right now is so damn powerful, so elegant, so good, and it hit me way harder than I would imagine before I went over.
Also, it renewed and expanded my appreciation and admiration for A Legacy Of Rentals. Some of the songs came alive in a whole new way on the stage, showcasing different qualities I can tell I pay more attention to when I go back to the album. And at this point, I regard it as his best album so far. I kinda kick myself for not working the songs into the ranking proper, but there will come a time when a full re-evaluation makes sense, and I'll save it for that.
We'll soon return to the last few entries on the list, and I hope to see some complete top 10/20/60s from you guys too after everything's done.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 28, 2022 7:17:32 GMT -5
#4: TRAPPER AVENUE (Faith In The Future)
Most of us got into the world of Craig Finn through Hold Steady. And most of us know him best as this ecstatic, enigmatic front figure, the manic street preacher spreading his gospels on records and from the very edge of the stage, gesticulating, spitting, smiling. The face of the band we all love. For me, the most amazing thing digging into his solo career, is to see an artist I love so dearly develop into a bonafide songwriter, solo artist and auteur. In one way, he does it by enhancing the Craig we know from Hold Steady - like twisting the madness and the partying of the THS lyrical universe into new spheres, but with the same reference points, or using his dry witted humor to turn things around. But there’s also a different way to hear this catalog: That Craig himself is turning into one of the great songwriters he’s so obviously influenced by.
Trapper Avenue is a little bit of both. But everytime I hear it, I can’t help thinking about Van Morrison. There’s something about the sound, the vague mystique that serves as a prism to the insisting and forward-moving vocal melody. Dreamlike, but also very concrete and present, like a clear voice of reason, a grounded narrator, appearing in the swirling, fleeting soundscape. And, as some sort of byproduct of this: It sounds like a classic song from a classic songwriter. It’s increasingly easy and natural to hear Craig as such, but I admit it wasn’t the way I heard him back in 2015. He was still the enigmatic frontman of my favorite band, trying to find a path for a solo career who may or may not could turn into something great.
It’s not a huge song as a composition, it’s rather straight-forward. But it’s arranged in a magnificent way, building mystique, tension and eventually release. Craig sings it absolutely perfectly, constantly shifting from weary to angry, from sentimental to blissful. The value and quality of the song comes from the sum rather than from the parts. The atmosphere, the lyrics and the emotional performance, bleeds into something much bigger than the song really is capable of bearing, but it works so damn well. When the release finally comes, when those beautiful backing vocals just wash over the song, and the band are let loose, it’s transcendent.
There’s signs of what was to come all over Trapper Avenue, but it’s so much more than a precursor. Over time I’ve kept coming back to it, getting a little more thrilled each time. And I truly think it’s some of his best work to date.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Sept 30, 2022 2:15:14 GMT -5
#3: NEWMYER'S ROOF (Faith In The Future)
Newmyer’s Roof is a weird one. It’s so condensed and compressed, both in the way it sounds and in the way it… feels. Like a sepia snapshot of something kinda faded, but still very much remembered, a little piece of reality who’s over time has merged with afterthought and context, turning into a memory, with everything that implies. Something true but twisted, something real but distant.
“All these tall tales, but one tiny truth/ I saw the towers go down from up on Newmyer’s roof”, Craig croons in the kinda-chorus. The line has baffled me from the very first time I heard it. So simple and straight-forward, but still drenched in ambiguity. Yeah, we know the line about where Craig was when he saw the Twin Towers fall to be true, but if this is “the one tiny truth”, what about the parts about NOT getting shot and crucified, suffering and dying? He’s been lied to a lot, and I think the same goes for all of us listening along.
The lyrics aren’t really the main thing about Newmyer’s Roof. To me, it’s all about the sound, the progress, the impatience and restlessness that fills the steady thump of the song. It’s a nervy and angsty song, more angsty than most of the songs in this solo catalog, and nervy in a very different way than most Hold Steady songs. It feels sand coloured, deliberately controlled, faded by sedatives. And in many ways, it actually reminds me about what has become the album I associate the most with 9/11, Wilco’s 2002 masterpiece Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. More in color, shape and atmosphere than in the sound and style itself.
Newmyer’s Roof is subtle, but still intense. There’s blood, suffering and the unpleasantness of being “down on your knees” all over the song, and it sure feels both deeply meaningful and terrifying. But there’s also this fog that dulls every twist and turn, a distance, like something screamed under water. This must not be confused about the song itself being foggy sounding - it’s rather the opposite: Crisp, clear, clean. A very focused representation of something dreamlike and distant. It works really well.
In the end, the song turns its scope outwards, from the claustrophobia and trauma of hotel rooms and cities in general, towards nature and the future. “Look at these mountains, look at these trees/ Tom, there must be something you believe”. In a simple, but yet so effective way, Craig fills the album title with meaning, and also a sense of hope and light.
Newmyer’s Roof feels like the most stringent representation of Craig’s first venture into a solo career. By 2015 he has built up enough confidence and belief in his own artistic perspective to make this simple-sounding, but groovy, clean and bright song into a triumph. It’s really, really good, but it also feels important in a grander scheme. And it’s certainly worthy of a top #3 entry.
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robs
Hoodrat
Posts: 297
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Post by robs on Sept 30, 2022 3:39:41 GMT -5
#4: TRAPPER AVENUE (Faith In The Future) Trapper Avenue is a little bit of both. But everytime I hear it, I can’t help thinking about Van Morrison. Absolutely. It has a "St Dominic's Preview" feel to it , and for what it's worth, my favourite CF song. I was quite surprised (and briefly disappointed) it dropped off the live set this time around. Very briefly disappointed, as it was a great night in Glasgow.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Sept 30, 2022 8:39:44 GMT -5
#4: TRAPPER AVENUE (Faith In The Future) Trapper Avenue is a little bit of both. But everytime I hear it, I can’t help thinking about Van Morrison. Absolutely. It has a "St Dominic's Preview" feel to it , and for what it's worth, my favourite CF song. I was quite surprised (and briefly disappointed) it dropped off the live set this time around. Very briefly disappointed, as it was a great night in Glasgow. Yeah, Trapper Avenue was the other contender for #1 in my book. I saw it live in Cambridge (Mass) in 2019 and it was epic ... not just the lyrical delivery, the music too: the band opened up behind those very simple chords and turned it into something stunning. It kind of came out of nowhere, too ... Craig was rambling between songs with some patter about "the truth these days," some throwaway fake news take, and I wasn't expecting him to get serious; then the song started, and man. The look on his face (under that fedora, hunched over the mike) when he exploded out of "if you want to tell the truth" into "I used to cruise" isn't something I'll forget any time soon. Incredible song.
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Post by skepticatfirst on Oct 16, 2022 20:03:25 GMT -5
Huge gut punch this last week when Craig canceled his local show a few hours before the doors opened (followed by cancellation of the rest of the tour through end of October, agh. Sounds like the drummer got covid. A real shame for the band; I hope everyone is OK soon). I was so pumped to see it after following this thread. I still plan on putting together my top ten after muzzle wraps up, but it would have been much better with the perspective of seeing some of the new songs live.
Anyway ... during the lull here I've been thinking a lot about Newmyer's Roof. Out of the last couple of songs, robs and I both jumped on Trapper Avenue as a major favorite, but Newmyer's Roof is a phenomenal song too, and deserves some comment. I think you nailed it: "sepia snapshot ... sand-coloured ... a very focused representation of something dreamlike and distant" is a perfect description of how the song feels to me. There's a major dissonance between that sound and the lyrics, which always surprise me when I get past the sepia haze to really listen. Doubting Thomas is scary, but a great character. The conspiracy theory angle is edgy, but presented in perfect offhand ease.
I should add that I really like the video for this song, which manages to extend the same effect in images: the sunny sky, the breezy afternoon, the great view from the rooftop ... from which, the lyrics note in passing, he saw the towers go down. A well-crafted piece of work.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Apr 10, 2023 0:07:13 GMT -5
#2: SCREENWRITER'S SCHOOL (Newmyer's Roof EP)
I have a best friend from back in the day, and I still regard him as one of my closest, although we don’t see each other that much anymore. We became friends at a time where the best thing we both knew was to get drunk, smoke cigarettes and listen to music. Neither of us were extravagant party animals, but we liked the buzz and the way we connected over it. Still, our relationship was very much based around drinking, talking shit to each other, and generally acting the way boys at 16-17 years of age tend to do.
Sometimes, though, he revealed a different side of himself, which now seems very natural and almost logical, but the felt like a stark contrast: Something vulnerable, with a softness and sadness, with insightful thoughts about himself, about us, about our place in this world. Today I realize that a lot of his restless nature, all the things that made him so much fun to be around, were fueled by not-so-funny experiences in the past, and struggles with himself, his mental health, his own history - you know, all those things. But at the time, it felt like I got to know a different side of this guy, and when that side was such a contrast to the side I’d always seen, it shone a little brighter.
I’m not gonna reduce 25 years of Craig Finn into a one-dimensional image of… well, anything. But the main reason why I love Screenwriter’s School so much is that it initially, and even still, felt like a different side of him, a sneak peak into something he doesn’t reveal very often. There’s lots of angst, sadness and desperation in Craig’s songs, but these emotions have never appeared in the clean, sober and quite chilling form they do on this song.
And of course, the vast difference between his regular sound and the sound on this one, plays a big part in that too. The drum machine, the cold electronics, everything - this isn’t rock’n’roll, it isn’t pop, it isn’t americana or folk or country or singer/songwriter stuff. It’s a cold, clean electronic slow burner, and the sheer fact that this is a Craig Finn song, is slightly baffling. But not just that, it’s a damn GOOD take on that style too, and it’s done in a way that feels so familiar and recognizable for those of us deep into Lifter Puller, Hold Steady or even Brokerdealer.
Like the way my friend opened up back in the day, made me appreciate the fun-loving, partying side of him even better, this song makes me appreciate Craig Finn even more. I keep coming back to it, loving the vibe of it all, digging into the lyrics, fleeing along in the chilly, electronic flow. And yeah, it is one of the best he’s ever done.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Apr 11, 2023 5:07:03 GMT -5
#1: JESTER AND JUNE (We All Want The Same Things)
As always, when it comes to the #1 spot, I get a little nervous or shaky. Can I really defend my decision? And what makes a single song, out of all these songs that I love, stand out, and be worthy of the ultimate praise?
With Hold Steady, it was easier. Stuck Between Stations is such an all-out anthem, a song both emblematic for their entire career, and shining bright in its own right. It was harder with Lifter Puller. I realized I love their songs for so many different reasons, and no song seemed to encapsulate what the band really were in a decent way.
The Craig Finn catalog is more similar to Lifter Puller than Hold Steady in that sense. At first glance it might seem more coherent and streamlined - the songs are generally softer and slower, there’s more of a singer/songwriter vibe to most of it, even when it branches out to more orchestrated or contemporary pop music. But after compiling this list, I’ve come to appreciate the subtle differences and variety of it all. From the country-esque jamming on Clear Heart Full Eyes, through the maturing in Faith In The Future, the very poppy, glossy but still emotionally weighty We All Want The Same Things, to the (at the point I started this list) end point with I Need A New War, and all its sadness and contemplation over how lives turn out to be.
Jester And June is my my #1 because of something vague and hard to describe: It’s energy. I’ll try to elaborate on that, but summarized in one concept, energy is it. There’s a certain shaky and forward-moving restlessness to the entire song, and also a sense that this is a story that means something to Craig, a tale that needs to be told, something that in a way that’s a little hard to grasp, but everything else into context. It’s a nostalgic song, but it’s not rose-tinted. Quite the opposite, really, I get the sense that the song is so filled with drama, big feelings, huge impacts, and that Craig makes an attempt (but not really) to cover it up a little. Like he started out making a more PG friendly version of the memories at the core of the song, but that he just couldn’t do it, and that the sinister nature of this relationship eventually shines through it all.
It’s a song where the music, not to talk about the arrangement and they way the band performs everything, is so damn good. In itself, but also to underscore the lyrics and the urgency of Craig’s delivery. It’s seemingly simple, but it’s effective and always on its toes, rhythmic and pulsating, still full of air. The backing vocals adds the final touch, swooshing around the song like voices from the past, while still adding to the aforementioned energy.
It feels like a cop-out to say that it comes down to vibes, but really, that’s the deal. It’s the song I keep on revisiting, it’s a perfect album-opener, and - when I think of it - the energy it conveys actually feels pretty representative for what Craig’s been doing both solo and in Lifter Puller and Hold Steady for close to three decades now. I think it’s a worthy #1.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Apr 11, 2023 5:18:34 GMT -5
As usual: The TL;DR version of the list
01. Jester And June 02. Screenwriter's School 03. Newmyer's Roof 04. Trapper Avenue 05. No Future 06. Maggie I've Been Searching For Our Son 07. Ninety Bucks 08. Galveston 09. God In Chicago 10. It's Never Been A Fair Fight
11. Three Drinks 12. Birds Trapped In The Airport 13. Be Honest 14. Preludes 15. Magic Marker 16. Roman Guitars 17. Balcony 18. All These Perfect Crosses 19. A Bathtub In The Kitchen 20. Sarah I'm Surrounded
21. Rescue Blues 22. Grant At Galena 23. Respective Coasts 24. Jeremiah's Blues 25. Rented Room 26. Sandra From Scranton 27. Something To Hope For 28. Some Guns 29. New Friend Jesus 30. Extras
31. Blankets 32. It Hits When It Hits 33. Terrifed Eyes 34. St. Peter Upside Down 35. Not Much Left Of Us 36. Going To A Show 37. Sarah Calling From A Hotel 38. Holyoke 39. They Know Where I Live 40. Western Pier
41. Tangletown 42. Honolulu Blues 43. Dennis And Billy 44. Jackson 45. I Eventually Made It To Sioux City 46. Her With The Blues 47. Sometimes She Doesn't Call Back 48. Carmen Isn't Coming In Today 49. I Was Doing Fine (Then A Few People Died) 50. Wild Animals
51. Calvary Court 52. Anne Marie And Shane 53. Plattsburgh 54. Tracking Shots 55. Ram In The Thicket 56. Apollo Bay 57. Indications 58. When No One's Watching 59. Christine 60. Once You Roll Over
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Post by sequesteredinuk on Apr 12, 2023 8:11:52 GMT -5
Thanks for all your efforts muzzle in compiling your list of favourites 60 to 1. Over a year in the making and a testament to your enthusiasm and dedication. Top job. 👏👏👏
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Post by thehudsonsteady on Apr 13, 2023 10:58:50 GMT -5
Great list, Muzzle, putting 'Screenwriters School' at number 2 was a genius move. It's so unlike everything else in his solo material but what a song, very dark and discomforting, barely anything happening music wise, but a complete beauty. Top stuff.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Apr 15, 2023 6:35:20 GMT -5
Great list, Muzzle, putting 'Screenwriters School' at number 2 was a genius move. It's so unlike everything else in his solo material but what a song, very dark and discomforting, barely anything happening music wise, but a complete beauty. Top stuff. It felt a little contrary, but I genuinely love that song. Sometimes it's the weird ones that stick out - and I think there's a precursor there to what was about to come on A Legacy Of Rentals, it has a lot of the same darkness in it. Especially my favourite from that record, This Is What It Looks Like, another song that probably would have made it into the top 5 if I did a revised version of the list.
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