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Post by muzzleofbees on May 19, 2022 2:12:09 GMT -5
I know this board isn't boiling over with engagement at the moment, but I figured it still would be nice to collect all our opinions and thoughts on A Legacy Of Rentals here. In a little less than 24 hours it drops in Europe, and I hope I get to spend the morning listening to it all the way through. Craig posted some photos of the lyric sheets on Instagram the other day, and I noticed the theme about the fishtank (from Birthdays) appears in other songs too. The review in Glide Magazine is quite revealing. It seems like we get two additional spoke word songs, to go along with Messing With The Settings. And while we wait for all the songs, can we take a moment to appreciate the cover art? I just love the the maritime theme, and the tear in the poster.
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Post by muzzleofbees on May 20, 2022 1:45:46 GMT -5
Two spins in, and I like this album A LOT.
To me it feels like a follow-up to the sound of We All Want The Same Things, just filtered through the tempo and temperature of I Need A New War. It's poppy, bright and shiny, but also laid back and calm. Craig sounds so focused, self-confident and at home in this sound, and there's three or four songs here that are musically amazing. Lyric wise, I need to dig a little deeper, but damn, they sound good too.
The Amarillo Kid is an early favourite, and could easily have been a single. Classic, but with a personal twist. And I love the final part of the album, from Jessamine throughout This Is What It Looks Like. It sounds like a continuous contemplation over specific memories and situations from way back. Like the musical equivalent of the last line in Messing With The Settings - "this is what I got for a eulogy".
Can't wait to get to know the enitre album better. And things might change, but right now, this feels like peak Craig Finn.
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robs
Hoodrat
Posts: 297
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Post by robs on May 20, 2022 2:47:17 GMT -5
Just finished listening right through for the first time (whilst working so not with full concentration). I very much enjoyed it. As you say Muzzle, very bright and airy, which personally is relief after the bleakness of I Need a New War.
I'm wondering if a backing vocalist and strings will feature in the live band this time around.
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mafee
Clever Kid
Posts: 94
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Post by mafee on May 20, 2022 2:59:10 GMT -5
Same as yourself Gents, a few listens this morning while working - sounds good but haven't dived into it in much detail. Amarillo Kid and Due to Depart being the early stand outs for me.
Does anyone know if there's drums or a drum machine on the album? Some of the songs the percussion seems a bit much.
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Post by thehudsonsteady on May 20, 2022 9:52:25 GMT -5
Likewise here, absolutely loving it. Only 'horses' that I'm not keen on. I think the music is fantastic, mic of live and electronic drums I think. Lyrically brilliant too, darkly funny at times. Nothing on here I hear that would fit on a THS album, so a lovely addition to a great solo career
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Post by thehudsonsteady on May 20, 2022 10:01:20 GMT -5
Also, anyone clock the lyrics about both Shepherd and a 'hescher' on the album? Teeth dreams throwback ahoy!
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Post by star18 on May 20, 2022 13:22:10 GMT -5
Oh yeah, there's definitely lyrical connections to the THS world here in spades.
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Post by lukefrombl on May 20, 2022 13:49:39 GMT -5
Wow. Reading your guys' responses makes me feel like maybe I'm nuts. I've only listened through once so far so things could definitely change, but to me this is Craig's first real swing and miss. Every song sounds the same, and it's all very "paint by numbers Craig Finn" to me. I was hoping for something more creative (?) I don't know. I think he might simply be getting old. But then again, the last THS album was one of their best IMO. Hard to say. I guess I get the feeling he's just found his thing and is leaning all the way in to it, and I'd prefer more experimentation. Also, man, it would be nice if every song wasn't sad and depressing. I love that Craig writes about such vivid, relatable, regular people. But us regular people have fun sometimes too! Life is good a lot of the time, it's not all tragedy!
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charlie
Sniffling Indie Kid
Posts: 214
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Post by charlie on May 20, 2022 17:08:13 GMT -5
I am, of course, going to let it sink in as I would anything from my favorite songwriter, but first impression says that I like the first half more than the second and that it's my least favorite of his solo records.
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Post by muzzleofbees on May 21, 2022 2:58:08 GMT -5
To me, this album is actually a lot less sad than I Need A New War. I mean, the stories are still heartbreaking, and this clearly ain't people going anywhere, at least anywhere good. But I think there's more of a sentimental romanticism to some of these tracks, that kind of sooths the bleakness.
And where both We All Want The Same Things and I Need A New War waded somewhere between these characeters accepting their fate, or even finding some comfort in the fact that even if they tried, there's no way to turn things around, I sense a developing rage, an opposition here. This Is What It Looks like might be my favourite track on this album, and the way the characters stand up for themselves, even if the "this is what we look like when we're joyful" are muttered between the teeth, show some kind of resistance.
It's too early to call, but I think this is one of Craig's best albums. There's a balance and elegance here, like he's in total control of every emotion, every mood. And I just love how he and Kaufman create these breezy, shiny arrangments, so specked with little details that push the songs slightly in different directions. I don't think it's "paint by numbers" at all, but I agree that Craig trades in the obvious and the immediate for something more nuanced and slow-burning. Every time I feel a song is on its way into same-ness or repetition, a little chord change, a burst of guitar, a swoosh of strings, show up. Or Craig shifts his delivery just a little bit, to underscore something in the lyrics, to put emphasis on something. I love it.
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Post by muzzleofbees on May 21, 2022 3:00:21 GMT -5
Oh yeah, there's definitely lyrical connections to the THS world here in spades. There's more here than ever before, from what I gather. The entire album is drowned in references to the city, the partyhouse, the bathroom, the kitchen, the passenger seat of taxi - and several songs play out as eulogies to someone lost. The similarties between Jessamine and Jester are striking. The Year We Fell Behind feels like a replay of several THS/LP scenes. And when Shepard shows up by name, firing a gun, I think we're pretty deep into some of the same storylines we've visited before.
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Post by thehudsonsteady on May 21, 2022 8:13:19 GMT -5
4 listens through and I'm loving it more each time. I'd put this as joint best solo LP alongside WAWTST. Every song has some line or piece of music that makes it worthwhile. "And if your whole thing’s where you’re coming from they’ll wonder why you left." You can't help but smile at lines like that.
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parock
Midnight Hauler
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Post by parock on May 21, 2022 21:22:59 GMT -5
Is ‘Due To Depart’ the first time in Craig’s lyrics there is a narrator shift?
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Post by pesteredinmemphis on May 22, 2022 3:02:17 GMT -5
Safe to say between Beer on the Bestand and now Due to Depart Craig must be a pretty big fan of Warren Zevon's "Carmelita." Musical similarities aside that's shaping up to be my favourite track so far, regardless.
I'm always pleasantly surprised when an artist that I absolutely hounded in my youth still manages to put out a new body of work that I still not quite but almost as intensely resonate with. Craig's certainly punched that ticket for me here. The lyrics are as poignant and clever as ever. Some great vocal melodies and Josh Kaufman production always does enough to outrun and outdo whatever expectation you have when you think you've got the music completely sussed.
To be honest I Need a New War never really clicked for me beyond the initial singles and maybe Grant at Galena. So I wasn't expecting to be hit so hard by this release. I don't think Craig or even THS for that matter will ever put out a record again that gets me right in that sweet spot like We All Want the Same Things did but I'll be damned if there aren't a decent number of songs here that could very well congest Muzzle's countdown list if the timing had worked out.
I will say though, while nowadays it seems to have plateud out as more of an after thought in the large scope of Craig's career, Clear Hearts, Full Eyes goes up in my estimation with every release. The odd happier song here or there wouldn't go amiss.
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Post by doctoracula on May 22, 2022 8:15:46 GMT -5
I listened twice and I think it's OK. A lot of it blends together and the soft, hazy feel of the music is something I'm not generally into. I know he's been heading in that direction for a while, but there's usually some more energetic tracks mixed in as well. This isn't really grabbing me, though the lyrics are excellent as always. I also enjoy that "Jessamine" is very centered around New Jersey and mentions the town I live in.
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Post by skepticatfirst on May 22, 2022 11:09:42 GMT -5
I've listened to it twice now. First time was a fragmented listen, a song or two at a time, that didn't leave me super excited. Second time I listened to it end to end in one sitting and came away rating it much higher. Still not blown away, and it's not going into heavy rotation here, but it's a good album. Birthdays is far and away my favorite track. If there'd been more of that energy on the rest of the album I'd be liking it a lot more. Amarillo Kid, Due To Depart, Never Any Horses, Jessamine, and This Is What It Looks Like all have subtle catchy qualities that I found myself appreciating. The spoken-word stuff is kind of lost on me; A Break From The Barrage is my least favorite song here (which is too bad, as Cassandra Jenkins adds a wonderful note that feels a little wasted on such an unfocused track). I will say that Messing With The Settings works better as an intro to The Amarillo Kid and Birthdays than it does standalone ... the variety in those opening tracks promises more interest than I think the back half can sustain, though Kaufman does a good job of changing things up within the muted register of the quieter stretches. Not crazy about the prominence of the drum machine. Like pesteredinmemphis I found myself thinking about Clear Heart Full Eyes a lot, wishing for a looser, less polished sound, even if ALOR has a finer quality to it. I'll give it another spin later this week and see if it grows on me some more.
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Post by skepticatfirst on May 22, 2022 12:08:26 GMT -5
Oh yeah, there's definitely lyrical connections to the THS world here in spades. There's more here than ever before, from what I gather. The entire album is drowned in references to the city, the partyhouse, the bathroom, the kitchen, the passenger seat of taxi - and several songs play out as eulogies to someone lost. The similarties between Jessamine and Jester are striking. The Year We Fell Behind feels like a replay of several THS/LP scenes. And when Shepard shows up by name, firing a gun, I think we're pretty deep into some of the same storylines we've visited before. Yeah, it's kind of overwhelming. Lots about the house in the valley out west with the porch, kitchenette with an ashtray, etc., where the girl stays in for days at a time staring doped up out past the windowsill, making resignation-masquerading-as-wisdom basic observations, while the narrator takes a job as a drug runner from a hesher with henchmen who rules the house and his gang with a little bit of ideology, including a specific injunction not to put faith in the future ... And (not to drag in a ton of links, apologies, but the 25-minute drive was a little too on the nose for me to resist) lots about a car crash near the entrance ramp (see BLOODY CAR WRECKS) after a 25-minute drive ( RENTAL) past highway barricades ( WRONG WAY) and a trip to the hospital the next town over ( WIRED). I haven't got a very firm take on "Rachel," but we can add "Jessamine"=hallucinogen ( wikipedia) and "(D)eanna"=LSD/PCP ( ONDCP) to the by now really long list of girls with drug names in Craig's songs (see the table in LACED SUBSTANCES). Of course the dealers in the LP/THS universe *do* give out nicknames based on origins: "Hey Bloomington," "Hey New York City," "Hey Hey Providence," etc., but the Amarillo Kid (see the footnote on Craig's use of Spanish at the same LACED SUBSTANCES link) looks a lot like it's doubling as a drug ref too; "yellow"=LSD ( ONDCP), "yellow boys"=Xanax ( DEA), "yellow kind"=meth ( DEA).
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Post by skepticatfirst on May 22, 2022 12:57:39 GMT -5
Is ‘Due To Depart’ the first time in Craig’s lyrics there is a narrator shift? I'm not sure a narrator shift is really a big thing for Craig --- sometimes he partly conceals who's started talking by just saying "he said" or "she said" instead of a name, and sometimes he leaves off the he said/she said altogether; the latter is just a slightly more obscure version of the former. Some examples of times when someone else besides the point-of-view character starts talking that *aren't* announced with a "he said" or "she said" would be - Southtown Girls: It's pretty clearly the dealer who starts talking with "Don't look me in the eye, look over at the theater" (he uses the "Hey Bloomington" gang style address too). - Same Kooks: After only being indirectly announced, Gideon breaks in with "Hey hey Providence." - Banging Camp: same thing; Gideon is announced with "he said" in the case of "He said hi, I like to party on the problem blocks" but wasn't announced earlier with "Hey sweet recovery, come on, won't you wade into the water with me?" - Hornets Hornets: "I like the guy who always answers the door/ He always knows what you came to his house for" and "I like the crowds at the really big shows/ People touching people that they don't even know, yo" are Jesse breaking in unannounced, innocently saying things that have a way heavier meaning than she knows, for Charlemagne who's remembering what happened to Holly at the same age (this is about Charlemagne and Jesse as they sit down on her floor and listen to her records). Having said that, in Due To Depart, I think Craig may be playing on some ambiguity about who's speaking here. Look at Drove to the service road and rolled down the windows Put my foot on the gas My sister’s a teacher in Dayton, Ohio And my brother always drove pretty fast It's the narrator who's putting his foot on the gas here at the same time that he says his brother always drove pretty fast; the narrator describes himself as having a daughter and "her mother" too; it's the narrator who was "due to arrive" earlier in the song, and by implication may now be "due to depart." I have to think about this one more, but it wouldn't be the first time that Craig went to serious lengths to lay a false trail, if that's what he's doing here.
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parock
Midnight Hauler
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Post by parock on May 22, 2022 13:38:10 GMT -5
Is ‘Due To Depart’ the first time in Craig’s lyrics there is a narrator shift? Having said that, in Due To Depart, I think Craig may be playing on some ambiguity about who's speaking here. Look at Drove to the service road and rolled down the windows Put my foot on the gas My sister’s a teacher in Dayton, Ohio And my brother always drove pretty fast It's the narrator who's putting his foot on the gas here at the same time that he says his brother always drove pretty fast; the narrator describes himself as having a daughter and "her mother" too; it's the narrator who was "due to arrive" earlier in the song, and by implication may now be "due to depart." I have to think about this one more, but it wouldn't be the first time that Craig went to serious lengths to lay a false trail, if that's what he's doing here. Are we sure it’s the narrator putting his foot on the gas? I sort of read the story/lyrics like the person in the first verse that gets the text is not the person (brother?) that is pressing his foot on the gas. Almost like the event/accident at the end of the song is what is referenced in the opening lines.
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Post by skepticatfirst on May 22, 2022 13:53:02 GMT -5
Are we sure it’s the narrator putting his foot on the gas? I sort of read the story/lyrics like the person in the first verse that gets the text is not the person (brother?) that is pressing his foot on the gas. Almost like the event/accident at the end of the song is what is referenced in the opening lines. I'm not sure by any means --- you might be right. I was thinking that the part in the voice of the one who crashed, the part in double quotes so to speak, was just the three lines "Tell my daughter I love her/ Tell her mother I’m sorry/ Tell them both that they're here in my heart"; but I see you're suggesting that maybe there's a lot more than that. Going to have to think about this one for a while ...
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parock
Midnight Hauler
Posts: 1,000
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Post by parock on May 22, 2022 15:12:34 GMT -5
Yeah I’m totally spitballing but for whatever reason my brain went there when it was mentioned by a friend. It’s immediately one of my favorite Craig songs, up there with Birds In The Airport.
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Post by muzzleofbees on May 23, 2022 3:58:04 GMT -5
A few days in, I think this might be my favourite Craig Finn album. Song by song, there's a fair chance that both Faith In The Future and We All Want The Same Thing come out on top, but as an album, a singular piece of art in itself, I'm not sure any of them can compete with A Legacy Of Rentals.
I know it's too early to really do the hawkeye evaluation of it, in the grand scheme of things, but I think I'm beginning to understand a little bit of why I like it so much.
I've talked about this a couple of times earlier, how each Craig Finn album have this overarching emotional theme. To me, FITF still feels pretty hopeful, like some of the starry-eyed romaticism of Hold Steady bleeds over into these not-so-huge tunes. There's cracks all over the place, but they sure let the light shine in. In WAWTST, I get a sense of acceptance. Not from Craig himself, but from the characters. They're stuck in less-than-optimal situations, lives not fulfilling their potential, but they get by, and they find some kind of comfort in the mediocre, the mundane. But by the time we get to I Need A New war, I get the feeling that this acceptance have developed into a sadness, and a longing for something else. That's also when the characters starts to understand that no matter how much they want it, they can't really break out of their old habits and patterns. Their stuck in this kind of life that, for various reasons, holds them back or down, keeping them from achieving peace and happiness. And that's when you get the first sort of glimpses of desperation too. Not the kind of sparkling desperation that leads to action, like in Lifter Puller or Hold Steady, but the desperation that turns inwards. I guess that's when sadness bleeds into depression and despair.
A Legacy Of Rentals seems to take a sidestep from this emotional evolution. I think it sounds less descriptive and rooted in defined scenes or situations, and more... abstract? Internal? I'm not sure if I'm able to explaing it, but most of the songs here sounds like meditations over some kind of core relationship, zooming in on the feelings of love, loss and disconnetion in their orbit. The theme of memory is also very persistent, which underlines the feeling: These aren't stand-alone tales of different characters in the present tense, but inwards-looking rememberance of what a tinier sample of charaters once felt, and how that colours what they think about the world, here and now. The images are more fleeting, sometimes dreamline, and the music is pretty much there too. Apart form a couple of fully-formed popsongs (The Amarillo Kid, Birthdays), both music and lyrics feel more ambient, more of stray thoughts in a spectrum of room and time. Sure, there's specific scenes and conversations, but they don't seem to play a narrative role in themselves, they sound more like small tokens of the colour and the shape of this relationship remembered. That's why the scenes and conversations are there - not to serve a narrative purpose.
I love the poppier songs on the album, but with this perspective as a starting point, the most impressive songs to me are Never Any Horses and This Is What It Looks Like. Both songs perfectly mash music and lyrics into this really melancholic, yet persistent vibe that sums up to what I've described above.
I hope to come back here with a couple of lyrical musings later today.
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Post by muzzleofbees on May 23, 2022 7:27:25 GMT -5
I couldn't wait, so here's my lyrical notes. I know that some people find this both tiresome and uninteresting, and I'm not saying that there's a connection between every little thing here. It's just a funny exercise, going through a new Craig Finn release to look for familiar themes, images or phrasings. These are more my own personal notes, reading through it all, than anything else. But I guess there's no harm in putting them here either.
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Messing With The Settings
We’ve discussed this song a couple of times already, and I don’t think I have much to add. But I would like to stop a little bit by the name “Rachel”. My immediate thought was that we might find some answers in the bible, and while I’m not very familiar with it, I stumbled over this:
“Mordecai, the hero of the Book of Esther, and Queen Esther herself, were descendants of Rachel through her son Benjamin. The Book of Esther details Mordecai's lineage as "Mordecai the son of Yair, the son of Shimi, the son of Kish, a man of the right (ish yemini)" (Esther 2:5). The designation of ish yemini refers to his membership in the Tribe of Benjamin (ben yamin, son of the right). The rabbis comment that Esther's ability to remain silent in the palace of Ahasuerus, resisting the king's pressure to reveal her ancestry, was inherited from her ancestor Rachel, who remained silent even when Laban brought out Leah to marry Jacob.”
A few other connections/themes that seems familiar (apart from the ever-running themes of windows and taverns):
“She said she didn’t have habits, but rituals”: Evokes the line from Extras, that goes “the comfort in the rituals, the repetition and the waves of grain”.
“...threw the salt over the shoulder when they rang for last orders”: Sounds a lot like a tequila situation. In 212-Margarita, the tequila is used in, you guessed it, margaritas, but the song also mentions the salt as the ingredient that “makes us thirsty, and when we drink, then we all fall in love”. I hear this line as someone who doesn’t really need the salt to put her mouth up to a (dangerous) drink anymore. She doesn’t have to trick herself, or being tricked by someone, she’s in on it at her own will.
“...combing the place trying to come up with the funds”: Re: skepticatfirst’s thread on Lifter Puller, coming up short for cash is a central theme of the LP story. And we recognize the “combing” image from Famliy Farm (“When she was combing through the carped I could not resist her charm”). See also the parts about coins at the floor of a car a little further down the thread.
“...I had a suspended license”: Like in Preludes, “licenses they get revoked”. Messing… also talks about being pulled over “five minutes from home”, while Preludes put the narrator’s car in a snowbank near Edina. And note that the line preceding that one, is “fish take to water”. I haven’t been able to understand the full scope of the fisthank image that pops up everywhere on A Legacy Of Rentals, but there might be something here.
“...a little bit surprised when Sam got in touch”: We’ve heard about Sam once before, in Blackout Sam.
“The city looks different now, all those luxury lofts that they built in the old factories”: There’s a lot of references to tall buildings throughout Craig’s lyrics, but this one remind me in particular of a line from Jester And June: “The clubs have all changed/ the building fell away”. That sounds more like a demolition than gentrification, but still.
The Amarillo Kid
I read an interview with Craig somewhere, where he talks about how kids dealing drugs are having more or less an ordinary job. And I guess this is what this song is mostly about: Someone in the need for some money in his pocket, “applying” for a job as a dealer, and making the best out of it.
“I used to play first person shooters”: Obviously a computer game reference, but with the enormous amount of drug references, I think this can be read as the first injection of speed (which shows up a couple of lines later) too.
“Deanna was the girl who used to ride around and wait in the car”: Likely to be the same girl on the receiving end of “You gotta wait in the car!” from Stove And The Toaster?
“The ashtray is the bathtub, there’s a stove top kitchenette”: Hah, we’ve been here before. In Heavy Covenant we get ashtray + kitchenette, the kitchenette show up in Milkcrate Mosh too. And for what it’s worth: The kitchen described in Stove And The Toaster doesn’t have a stove - but it doesn’t say anything about the stove top.
“Wichita”: As far as I remember, there’s only been one previous mentioning of Wichita inn Craig’s lyrics: 40 Bucks.
Birthdays
Also a track we had heard in advance, and probably discussed too. At the surface level, I hear it as a song about heritage. “These things tend to run in the family” (Riptown).
“Fish tank” + “...sharks that must be swimming in your circle”: We know that “sharks” are frequently used as a metaphor for dealers/gangsters. In this song we hear that “the fish tank it was always meant/ to be a temporary home”, before the narrator worries about the sharks in Anthony’s circle. I don’t understand it, but I guess this push us a little closer to understand the “fish tank” as a metaphor?
“Mania and doubled down”: I’m not into wrestling, but “Mania” sounds a lot like a reference in that direction, right? And the “doubled down” thing goes deep through Lifter Puller, with the entire theme built around “Twin Cities/ they’re ganging up on me/ Twin Cities/ they’re double teaming me”.
The Year We Fell Behind
“The clicks don’t always correspond to the numbers on the dial”: Lots of familiar stuff queued up here. The rotary dial from Star 18, something along the edges of “like distance doesn’t equal rate in time no more” and the “clicks” from “clicks and hisses” and from “sitting around and waiting for the click” from Epaulets.
“The windowsills were filled with flies”: Compare “All the burns on the windowsill/ says she’s crazy about horses still” from Unpleasant Breakfast. But were there really any horses?
“The destruction became boring”: In Something To Hope For we get: “You’ve been hurt so much that you’re bored”. That line always felt weird to me, but I think there’s a connection. Also: “Don’t blame your daughters downfall on her dancing/ blame the boredom/ blame the basements” (Back In Blackbeard).
“I don’t blame the city, I blame the decievers”: See last paragraph. The exact same image. Don’t blame x, blame y.
“So much consumption”: Clearly about drugs, but also with a darker double meaning.
Also, a full baseball metaphor in the last couple of lines. I don’t know anything of baseball, so I’ll leave that to Americans.
And what about the name here? Deanna? I have no idea. The only tiny connection that springs to mind, is Deanna/Diana, Lady Diana, her work on land mines and that St. Barbara is the patron saint of land mines, “or at least not stepping on one”, as Craig put it in an intro to Don’t Let Me Explode once.
Due To Depart
It might be dead obvious, but I can’t seem to have seen anyone mention it: This is a suicide (attempt) song, right? That’s what I hear, at least. Someone deliberately running their car into something. That’s the crash, the accident. It’s hard to know when to show up, but for this character, easy to know when it’s time to go.
Beside from the references to a crash and an entrance ramp, I don’t really see that many connections backwards here.
Curtis & Shepard
It’s really weird to see Shepard pop up in a song title, but maybe we had it coming. After all, he’s namechecked in The Feelers, and I think he looms in many other ODP tracks too. I have no idea who Curtis are, though.
“Cedar” + “Riverside”: These are geographical references used together (in Sweet Part Of The City) and also alone (“If the devil’s a person/ I met him at Riverside and Perkins”, No Future), and I’m not sure if there’s a connection here.
“...with some princess”: There’s a female character in the THS frequently refered to as “princess” (Curves And Nerves, A Slight Discomfort, Confusion In The Marketplace), and here, she’s “shacked up” along with Shepard - “with a fish tank and a fever”.
“Her daddy is a doctor/ he sends them decent checks”: Sounds a little bit like the loaded dad from One From The Cutters, one wealthy enough to “lawyers doing most of the talking”.
Dead fish + ashtray: The thing about fishes in fish thanks just keep popping up. Here, she forget to feed them, they die, she remove them from the tank, and put them in the ashtray. Earlier on, we heard the bathtub being used as an ashtray. Colour me confused.
“They wish for new inventions/ to make this life more easy” + “He dreams of (...) machines that cleans the streets”: This is really a stretch, but last week I read a looong text about Mountain Goats, Palmcorder Yajna and We Shall All Be Healed. In the chorus of that song, the addict dream of a sterile room with a machine that’s able to produce infinite amounts of clean drugs. It’s a longing away from the endless hunt for money, for drugs, and everything that comes with it. And I thought about those lines and that image when I read these lines too.
“It’s a tricky little business/ it’s hard to thread that needle”: I’m brought back to the image about the camel and the needle of the eye from Me And Magdalena. I’m pretty sure a “needle” in this world is drug related.
The entire ending is creepy, abstract and hard to decipher. We’re getting used to a door being kicked in now, probably revealing blodshed on the other side, but what’s going on here? And what’s the deal with 1989, 1993 and 1997?
One last fleeting thought: I can’t quite grasp it, but there’s something vaguely familiar in the mix here of a) maritime themed songs, b) California songs and c) the empahsis on visuals. There’s mentions here of never seeing the ocean (like in Modesto’s Not That Sweet, “you never saw the beach), the thing about “sweeping vistas” recall landscapes like the ones in Eureka (“Most of it was real, but some of it seemed fake”), and another kicking-the-door-in-song, Lanyards, are also about someone visiting the (west) coast. Just wanted to put it all in here, even though I’m not able to connect the dots.
Never Any Horses
There’s so many one-word references here that points backwards to previous lyrics, and it’s almost impossible to cover them all. But here, we get someone smashing the fish tank, and afterwards using curtains for bandages. We’ve heard a lot about bandaged hands, both in Lifter Puller and Hold Steady, and I think the curtains used here might as well be bedsheets (No Future). “Disinterested” is also a word so unique, that I think it’s worth mentioning. Paired with “kissing”, it’s how California are described in Lanyards.
Then, there’s the whole horses theme. Chips Ahoy! and The Weekenders might be the starting point for that, but I keep coming back to the line about the windowsill in Unpleasant Breakfast, where the burns “says she’s crazy about horses still”. “Horse” is a well-known metaphor for heroin.
Also, I LOVE that super goofy verse about the cateres being new wave, and the cooks being nu-metal. It’s so corny, yet so funny. And metal+kitchen, along with kitchen workers as a metaphor for meth cooks, are obviously intriguing.
Another stray reference, when Craig sings about that polaroid falling out of a paperback: This entire song is about the gap between actual events and how we remember them years later. I think this could be a different take on a part of T-Shirt Tux: “...there’s a photo on the fridge/ there’s a bunch of things we’d said we’re gonna do, but never did”.
Jessamine
Jessamine reminds me a lot of Esther. There’s just something similar in the way these female characters are remembered in hindsight, and parts of this song too, takes place in a car. Also: Jessamine/Jesse should probably ring a bell.
There’s also a lot of speed here. “Speed kills”, staying awake for three weeks straight.
“Getting off on all the doom and gloom”: Recalls 4 Dix “And death was just watching/ getting off on all the coughing”.
“Sexy, but still death-obsessed”: Not any clear cut reference that I remember, but the “x, but also y” format is well-known. The most notable example is Resurrection, and the line about being “strung-out but experienced”. Also: “Shaky, but still trying to shake it”.
“Some kind of prince” + “castle”: A little bit A Slight Discomfort in the “prince” thing here. Also, “castle” sounds a lot like the “mansion”, the “fortress” and so on.
I can’t quite organize what’s happening at the end there, with San Fransisco, a stolen shirt, a sailor, a passenger seat in a taxi and the speeding (in the backseat?), but everything sounds familiar in one way or the other.
A Break From The Barrage
“Once they started rolling around, the coins fell from his pocket”: We’ve already covered the “combing through the carpet” theme, and this seems connected with that. And the entire first verse sounds a lot like a couple arriving at a party, staying out too late, and having to deal with the consequences. Plenty of mentions of taverns here too.
“There’s a physical consequence for each and every action”: Comes in right after the thing about the opposite of love, is in difference, and at the start of a song who ends up in the back of a theater. I kinda think about Banging Camp, the strings around her finger for each and every lover, “listen up in the back of the theater…”, all that.
“All the village idiots”: Townies?
“...gets a pint of Popov”: I wouldn’t pay to much attention here if Craig just sang “vodka”, but the specific brand of vodka have been mentioned before. In Ninety Bucks, he sings “pours Popov into paper cups”. Back the, I just figured it was a nice alliteration, but there’s reason to believe that the “she” here also drinks from a paper cup - as we see in the movie scene a little later on. Ninety Bucks is also the only CF song (as far as I know) who have a Shepard reference + all that stuff about “Caesar” in a car and debt.
“..to overthrow the justice and liberty”: “Liberty and justice and the master of puppets” (Denver Haircut)
Also, note that after the movie, after she’s slept out in her car, she returns to a) a bar in b) the city, worried about people noticing that she hasn’t changed clothes. I don’t think this is a regular bar in a regular city.
This Is What It Looks Like
“Crowding into bathrooms, tipping over tables”: “The dancefloor was crowded, the bathroom was worse” (Massive Nights), “tipping over tables” (Cheyenne Sunrises and Touch My Stuff)
Obviously know references to “party”, “house”, “porch”, it runs through the entire song.
“She handed me a pamphlet, and it laid this whole thing out”: Sounds a bit like “hit her with the whole presentation”, and even some similar lines from ODP I can’t seem to remember right now.
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Post by sequesteredinuk on May 23, 2022 8:57:01 GMT -5
Wow, someone has had the new album on heavy rotation haven't they ? That's impressive Muzzle! Keep up the good work. I've only listened three times myself thus far, I sound like a slacker for sure! I'm my defence we've got the NBA playoffs and the last day of the Premier league season so I've been unavoidably distracted. I'll get to work this week though.
It's kind of refreshing to come on here and see good things written actually. Some friends of mine, who to justify their mention are big fans ,absolutely hate the record. So to see more 'positive ' reviews give me a broader sense of range of opinion. I can see both sides to be fair, I too have not much time for the spoken word stuff, I'm not thrilled about the percussion at times, the drum machine should go in room 101 and never resurface for me, the back up singers I can do without also. Despite all of this I think the album is worthwhile (admittedly after very few listens)to me.
Craig's writing elevates any track despite of how the track is presented musically I feel. I don't think Legacy of rentals is any different. It's already a must have if you a fan of Craig. There's countless lines in every song that are superb. Another thing (and perhaps this is just me?) but I think Craig is vocally stronger than he's ever been? Am I nuts? It doesn't make sense for someone to be peaking vocally in their early 50's I know but I can't help thinking I've never heard him sound better? Live or in the studio. I'm not fully invested but I'm invested enough to keep.listening, which is all a songwriter can hope for I'd imagine?
I'm not sure about the baseball metaphor on the year we fell behind Muzzle? I'm a dual citizen so I'm only half American at best, I prefer to be half drunk truth be told, but throwing into coverage to force a low percentage is certainly an NFL (American football) term. Generally seen as either a Quarter back being stubborn to prove or point or more likely a sign of desperation as nothing else is working or you are losing and taking risks to overcome a deficit.
The jury is still.out on Craig's 5th solo for me but the signs are good.
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Post by muzzleofbees on May 23, 2022 11:41:36 GMT -5
Wow, someone has had the new album on heavy rotation haven't they ? That's impressive Muzzle! Keep up the good work. I've only listened three times myself thus far, I sound like a slacker for sure! I'm my defence we've got the NBA playoffs and the last day of the Premier league season so I've been unavoidably distracted. I'll get to work this week though. It's kind of refreshing to come on here and see good things written actually. Some friends of mine, who to justify their mention are big fans ,absolutely hate the record. So to see more 'positive ' reviews give me a broader sense of range of opinion. I can see both sides to be fair, I too have not much time for the spoken word stuff, I'm not thrilled about the percussion at times, the drum machine should go in room 101 and never resurface for me, the back up singers I can do without also. Despite all of this I think the album is worthwhile (admittedly after very few listens)to me. I've been keeping an eye on the NBA playoffs too, actually. But now that every game is in the middle of the night, I'm out. Had an abysmal finish to my FPL season, and my interest in Man Utd is at rock bottom. So more time for A Legacy Of Rentals! I too understand why people don't like the album. It's kinda slow, minimal, the sound is (with a couple of exceptions) inside a quite narrow frame. For everyone finding Craig through Hold Steady, and maybe even preferring Hold Steady at its most joyous, it's no wonder how this album can feel a little bleak. I might be overly positive, but I genuinely feel that Craig nails this sound, this scope. For what it's worth, Screenwriter's School are among my favourite songs of his, so maybe this is just a version of Craig Finn I really like. (Oh, you might be right about that coverage thing being an american football reference rather than baseball. American sports (outside of NBA) isn't really my strong suit).
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