Joanna Newsom – “Baby Birch”

Beautiful is not a sufficient word for Joanna Newsom’s Have One on Me; it’s too broad. Beauty wears many faces. For example: “Baby Birch,” although beautiful, is devastating. My chest caves in four inches, my head falls: “This is a song for baby birch,” she welcomes. Be ready, my heart, you will fall farther, sigh heavier: “I wish we could take every path / I could spend a hundred years adoring you / Yes, I wish we could take every path, / because I hated to close / the door on you.” Some have speculated that the song is about abortion or a stillborn child. Could be. Regardless of the subject matter, it’s still a “nine-minute-ache” – to borrow a description I’ve read. Indeed, it has haunted me at times with the weight of its sadness. Although difficult to digest in its fullness I’ve known early on that this was a superb album, and “Baby Birch” fills me with so much of whatever it is filled with that I cannot deny how often I have carried its weight with me.

Liars – “Scissor”

The song’s basic plot: man finds body, man drags body to the car, body awakens. Liars have always seemed to gravitate toward the grotesque, but even when this is not their theme they manage to spread their dementia through the music. Take “Scissor,” the first track from Sisterworld. Here’s a song that, regardless of lyrics, would still sound fearsome, cowering and ominous. The minor-keyed chorus of falsetto-ed harmonies that opens the track is exposed as sinister by the lower, quivering octave. Even Billy Corgan opted for that softer, lace-thin voice at times, but it was rarely mistaken as a voice of comfort. So it is with Agnus Andrew. By song’s end, he’s the boogeyman once again, howling in the corner: “When I saw her blinking eye / she was a-LIIIIIIIIIIIIVEEEE!!!!” “Scissor” gave me chills all year. So did the excellent video.

I enjoyed too much music this year to limit myself to a top 10 albums list! So here are some songs that made my year better but would be left unacknowledged in the top 10 albums format because the album they appeared on will not make my list. The song titles will have links for your (and my!) listening pleasure. Let us not grow weary of discussing/hearing/dissecting music!

Sufjan Stevens – “All Delighted People”

Of the three epic, 10-minute plus tracks that Suffy put out this year, only one truly affected me. “Djohariah” loses itself in cronky soloing for several minutes, and “Impossible Soul” loses my interest at the first instant the autotune creeps in. This one, though, Sufjan got right, and wonderfully so. From the chorus of ladies behind him, to the fitting tribute to and/or repurposing of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence,” to the variety of melodies that find their way out of the progressions, it is marvelous and thrilling for all 11+ minutes.

Women – “Eyesore”

On the strength of several tracks this album was close to making the top ten, so there is much more here than one song. “Eyesore” is a monstrously disjointed jangle, snaking through sections that seem melodically unconnected, which stand in for verses that eventually give way to the rockin’ finale its been stowing away all along. The dissonance and atonality in some of the album’s tracks is close to intolerable – if not at least confusing – but when they put their minds to it, Women are capable of utilizing these more distancing elements to enhance, stimulate and draw nearer. This is apparent on the album’s closer, “Eyesore,” the most affecting song on their album Public Strain, and my favorite album closer of the year. I can’t get enough.

More to come!