Dane D. Lion's Music Den ##############

A.i.R.: Endless Weekend Listener’s Diary (Part 1 of 4) 

[Editor’s Note: Yes, I was supposed to post this over a week ago.  Things got hectic.  I wanted to give this my focused attention, to avoid half-stepping.  I’ve slowed down a little - at least enough to wrap up the final item in this round of Artisan in Residence features.  Cy is already underway on his second mix for his Den residency.  Knowing a little about his plans, I can’t wait to share it with you.  Next level.]

Imaginary Opening

As a kid, before I picked up a CD adapter for my truck’s tape deck, I usually had to wait at least the twenty-minute ride back from Presque Isle to Ashland before I could actually listen to a new album purchase.  This never stopped me from opening up the CD, breaking through the annoying plastic wrap and trying to peel carefully the sticker from the top of the jewel case.  I would have enough time on those rides to read the album liner notes, usually with plenty of album art in the 90s.  I’d check out the CD, itself.  Did it just list the tracks?  Did it list the tracks, at all?  Was the CD tray clear?  If so, was there a picture behind it?  What did this art suggest about the music inside?  Would there be other songs that sound like the single?  Would there be better songs than the single?

I remember doing that with this CD.  I always wondered why the font guy used Microsoft Word to make the CD sticker.

Anyway, with Endless Weekend, I’m in the opposite situation - all music, no artifact.  Well, I do have the pictures.  To get a sense of my (well-informed, thanks to the interview and guest post from Cyrus) appreciation of the (virtual) package, refer to my earlier A.i.R. posts.  I have a secondhand sense of the context, but for this diary, I’ll approach my critique through the lens of a less-informed listener.  I’ll not relate this mix to the wedding in Wisconsin that sounds so wonderful.  I’ll attempt to let the music and lyrics lead me forth.

Preamble

Cyrus entitled the beginning movement of the mix “Preamble”.  A preamble is a preliminary or preparatory statement of introduction.  In other words, this section’s songs should lay down the philosophical framework for the mix to come.  That’s how I’ll treat it.

1. “You’re Our Two” - Deerhoof: I really love this band’s 00’s output, and this is typical of that period.  It’s not a typical thematic tone-setter for a sweet wedding love mix, though.  First, the tone of the guitar figure that opens the track builds a tension, or at least an anxious anticipation.  Second, it’s about Noah’s Ark and the flood that cleansed the world of its corruption.  The last line, “Believe all fools or die,” clearly states the learned moral of the first-person narrator from the first verse; it’s stated as a threat, though.  That same narrator begins the song with hesitation of boarding the ark, calling it a “hidden gamble” and wonders, “Can I really leave?”  S/he boards in doubt, realizing s/he will “never come back”.  However, the goals, the dreams of this fool’s errand, are a new horizon: “life infinity.”  And here we have the first connection to the “endless”ness from the mix’s title.  The naming of the goal, though, happens before the risk has been proven worthwhile.  But, when the “white out” rains come, the music calms to reflect the speaker’s recognition of her/his good decision to listen to crazy Noah.  ”Believe all fools or die,” indeed.  With this selection, Cyrus resolutely stakes his claim.  This is no soft mix for love doves; this is a statement. 

2. “Weekend” - Smith Westerns:  Now it’s lovey-dovey time!  Or is it?  Another guitar lead, but this one with swaggering pop romantic qualities.  Lots of seemingly cheesy verses, exclamations of the value of “a girl like you.”  Going a little deeper, though, consider the shift over the course of the verses.  In the first verse, the “you” was not around to “stop [the speaker’s] tantrum”.  It’s here that the speaker reveals the subject’s value to him: “you” makes him better - with “you” he is not a childish malcontent.  Is she his mommy?  Weird.  I feel that this subtle tension is resolved, though, in the final verse, where the speaker still “falls” - still is a fool or awkwardly fallible - but instead of “stopping” his goofy (maybe still childish) lack of poise, the speaker hopes not to bring her down, too.  He doesn’t want to see her “limping”.  He doesn’t want to hurt her or give her cause for pain; he’s no longer selfish.  Lastly, here is the “weekend” of the mix.  The time for fun, the time to do the id’s bidding.  This song seems to express a selfless, or (at least) shared concept of leisure.

3. “New Kind of Neighborhood” - Jonathan Richman:  Celebration and revelry as transformative act.  I’m intrigued by the interstitial direction dialogue, here.  For the only time in the Preamble, the speaker is not the bride or groom, but a first-person outsider.  Richman not only removes the speaker from the perspective of the happy couple, but he also makes the speaker late to the party.  He needs to get directions from a friendly neighbor, one who is chummy in that impersonal, Yankee way.  Despite being given the chance to do so, the neighbor never adds an ironic twist to the rest of the lyrics.  It appears as if neighborhood has truly changed.  The “you” and his/her/their friends are enveloped into the community, and in being so welcomed, suggest that this impersonal, Yankee town appreciates joy when they see it.

So, what sort of understanding of marriage/weddings has Cyrus given us?  Well, in order of song: Love is the earthly manifestation of God’s grace.  One must be a fool to embrace the grace.  If one does not embrace love, one dies - one is corrupt in someway and will not weather life’s storms.  Love shapes us up, makes us big boys and girls instead of selfish jerks.  And, love/marriage transforms community; it makes the world better through its infectious joy.

Tomorrow

Courtship: Cy’s taking us back to the start of a relationship with “the one”.