thinking about fleetwood mac and how they actually sang songs about each other. and performed them. about how much they loved or hated each other like what the fuck how
I mean can you imagine. singing about how somebody broke your heart and they’re literally harmonizing. they’re right fucking there. they’re in touching distance. insanity! complete insanity! I would either break down crying or fully snap and break their neck
fucking. silver springs!!! ‘you’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you!’ no fucking kidding he won’t stevie he’s literally behind you playing the drums! absolute madlads
This live performance feels like I’m watching my parents fighting in the kitchen
Lindsey Buckingham saying “thank you all for coming tonight” after soul-screaming at his ex for five minutes while dressed as the Onceler and on 100000 mg of cocaine
Anyway the closest thing I’ve encountered since was Rilo Kiley, which was fronted by two ex-child star songwriters who were involved. When you listen to their solo stuff enough to disentangle their styles you realize that a lot of their RK stuff was one of them singing a witty, searing critique of themselves as a person as written by the other
Anyway, since Red, about her time in their hometown of LA (I saw their goodbye show headlining the big annual street fair of the ‘90s hipster neighborhood! After they broke up then made their breakup album then realized they didn’t have any more material in them and just slapped one more together and split), Taylor Swift has very clearly been into at least Jenny Lewis, the girl of the pair. I suppose a big celebrity interpersonal-relationship lyricist who sang about how many James Taylor records she has would be
Oh Jesus, I just realized that before when I tried to listen to the Taylor’s Version Red my phone speakers were just blown out in ways that washed out a lot of the subtlety into crap
I mean, this makes Butch Vig mixing Nevermind for car speakers still relevant, with more nuance
Yeah, it’s good and with more nuance, an amusing amount of which is making the exact same album sound less like someone just discovered Rilo Kiley
(Aside from those Saddle Creek-ass guitars on State of Grace)
Occasionally I remember that I was there for Rilo Kiley’s goodbye appearance closing the Sunset Junction street fair in Silver Lake and they did The Frug live for the first time in years and had their friends from when they first started up on stage as backup dancers
thinking about fleetwood mac and how they actually sang songs about each other. and performed them. about how much they loved or hated each other like what the fuck how
I mean can you imagine. singing about how somebody broke your heart and they’re literally harmonizing. they’re right fucking there. they’re in touching distance. insanity! complete insanity! I would either break down crying or fully snap and break their neck
fucking. silver springs!!! ‘you’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you!’ no fucking kidding he won’t stevie he’s literally behind you playing the drums! absolute madlads
Not to free-associate to another of my mum’s fave bands or anything, but this is also why I lose my mind over ABBA’s The Winner Takes It All. Björn, recently divorced, writes a song about a divorce with his writing partner Benny, then records it with his recent ex-wife Agnetha singing lead vocals.
Even if you believe them when they say it’s not about their divorce specifically, that’s a wild as fuck thing to choose to do.
Listening to The Elected and Jenny’s solo stuff gives you enough of a sense for their songwriting styles you can parse out that a lot of Rilo Kiley was them singing some pretty cutting critiques of themselves written by each other
“Rilo Kiley to re-release 1999 self-titled” ok, except each time I’ve bought a new version of their albums (even unknowingly!) it’s been a shittier more corporate mix
I actually saw the (they announced as) final Rilo Kiley live show, at the Sunset Junction street fair just before Under The Blacklight, they did The Frug for the first time in years with their old Silver Lake friends as backup dancers
“Rilo Kiley to re-release 1999 self-titled” ok, except each time I’ve bought a new version of their albums (even unknowingly!) it’s been a shittier more corporate mix
♫ if you’re lonely and you know it, clap your hands
(clap your hands)
if you’re lonely and you know it, clap your hands
(clap your hands)
if you’re lonely and you know it’s
cause you keep on fucking blowing it
if you’re lonely and you know it, clap your hands ♫
On a similar note, listening to Rilo Kiley kind of gave me a crush on Jenny Lewis, like everyone (for some reason almost all my celebrity crushes and none of my meatspace ones have been on redheads) which was mostly just “pretty girl… singing pretty words!”
And what dispelled that was first, living around Echo Park for a while I’d occasionally run across Jenny and Blake in normal life, and you realize they’re both kind of plain, it’s just for shows and shoots she pretties herself up and he uglies himself up
(also I used the bathroom after her once at, what, Casbah Cafe?, and oh god she stunk the place up, that’s a cute way to have someone humanized for you)
And second, listening to their side (well, by that time main I guess) projects - The Elected and Jenny’s stuff with The Watson Twins and realizing, from experiencing their songwriting styles in isolation, the Jenny lyrics I really loved had actually been Blake lyrics
(that’s something, looking back at it you realize that a lot of their songs were one of them singing the other one’s words about their shortcomings as lovers, that must have been a strain - they really were our generation’s Fleetwood Mac)
Also: the current Swedish wave as a revival of the producer-auteur pop tradition that was eclipsed by the one-two combo of The Beatles and singer-songwriter folk-gone-electric, blah blah rockist cult of authenticity blah blah Phil Spector, blah blah Motown, I can’t be arsed to write it out
Also: I just downloaded Take Offs and Landings from the iTunes store and this is a totally different album than I remember. Different tracks, different mixes. What?
Gah, it’s funny, I bothered to track down all the tracks from the various Initial Friend/self-titled runs, I wonder how long I missed this.
