first on my list

Elbow – Starlings

What a killer opening track to an album, by the way. Those driving sonics — a blender in full rotation — wake you up like the caffeine infused beverage that blender produced. It’s lush and gorgeous and smile-on-your-face-even-though-the-content-is-depressing kind of stuff. Some really great internal rhymes and assonance at work, too: “bunch he luncheons with;” “marriage in an orange grove.” Phrases that get trapped under your jacket’s hood.

The offhand remark that makes up the first stanza of this song is what really snagged me. So subtle and quick. It’s political commentary, torn down and reassembled as a basic quip you’d make passing a friend on the street. And, hey, it sets the whole lovelorn plot of the song into motion. Before he gets lost in this painful abscess of unrequited love that’s consuming his thoughts, he’s thinking politics — thinking, man, we need some changes.

And so the love, too, is a political act. It’s this feeble attempt to make a change in your life — to make it all change. To make yourself happy because right now it’s really out of your hands; it’s all in the hands of someone else who’s controlling everything around you — your dreams and your future and your visions.

Guy’s running for Premier himself. One vote could win it. I’m not sure if he’s convincing her. He doesn’t seem to be sure what to make of it all. Of course it’s love.