Long Winters Putting The Days To Bed
Friday, September 15, 2006
[Hannah here, back for a minute. Yes. Hi.]
There’s…ok. This record has given me a hard time. Really. The amount of time I’ve spent thinking about whether my dislikes of this album are my problem or the record’s problem is too…much…time. I love the Long Winters, really and truly. There’s something elegant about the way Roderick writes when he writes well. When I listen to a great Long Winters song (or Mountain Goats song, or Jason Molina or Will Oldham song, or Phosphorescent, or you get the idea) and I think about how to describe it, I picture a double helix for some reason. It happens with REM’s “Electrolite,” too. There’s something visceral that happens when someone gets the words exactly right. And there’s a high likelihood that by the end of the year I’ll love this record, because my initial disappointment with it will subside and I’ll accept that it’s a stellar record, even if it lacks some of the grace of When I Pretend to Fall. So for now I don’t know if it’s my fault or the record’s fault, I guess. I know what I like and I know how Putting The Days to Bed is not quite that. That’s as far as I’ve gotten.
The best song on this record (and among the best they’ve ever written) is “Pushover” (mp3), because it strikes as Roderick’s best songwriting, the sort where you lose for a moment whose thoughts he’s even narrating, but it’s more striking for the confusion. When I wrote about the Mountain Goats I mentioned that cliches can be earned. The Long Winters prove that they can be sidestepped too, that you can walk right up to a predictable lovesong and fake it out, whirl past it, make it something else that’s not quite about love and much more about being sure or unsure. And in “Pushover,” the lyrics and music work because the singing becomes its own wall of sound; it’s more immediate than all that winding and tinkering and producing, without making this great song so hard to find underneath the clutter. It’s emotive in a way that you find for yourself and isn’t handed to you. And clean, too, like the voice itself. Woven with what they’re getting at. Buy it at Barsuk [In the interest of full disclosure, I work with Barsuk on occasion and have met John Roderick a number of times, but hopefully if you've read this far you see that that has nothing whatever to do with my review. Nice people, though, the Barsuk ones.]
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Great post. I totally missed their show in phoenix this past week (had to work) but I came in afterward and talked to him and he’s the nicest guy. And I agree that Pushover is pretty awesome … and that there is a lot of overproduction going on.
I wonder about Ultimatum … I mean, I love the original. And I have a hard time with the new one. But maybe b/c we’re so used to the original? Like what if the new one were the original? Would we like that better? Hmmmm.
And thank you for not capitalizing “the” in “the Long Winters” in mid-sentence. That makes this copy editor happy.
I’m a copy editor at heart/given the time, so I’m glad you noticed
And you know? I think no matter what I’d like the original “Ultimatum” better, because there are other songs (like “Car Parts”) that I like better when it’s Roderick solo or nearly solo.
So yeah.
i have lots of the same issues. good record, though.
You’re Gerard Vs Bear. Consider yourself “outed.”
hahahha wait…do you think it’s me? you ARE the first one to make that claim, but “Idolator craps in Gerard’s mouth. Refers to it as ’sundae’” and “I am very good editor and also funnier than you. Also not annoying.” are not my handiwork. I only I wish they were.
when i heard the original “Ultimatum” I though, now here’s a band….
but then Roderick added more instruments, and forgot the power of his words. I think so, anyway. “Pushover” is a good song, but is not as timeless as the original “Ultimatum.” (none of the LP’s songs are, really. Are they?) “Pushover” feels like a passable late 90’s track that is better than Barenaked Ladies, but not as good as, I don’t know, Wilco?
and you spelled “to” wrong in this post, Mr. Copy Editor At Heart. Seek and ye’ shall find.
=)
i love this blog, and i love magnolia, and i want the next (after “Fading Trails”) album to take a good hard look at what made the self-titled LP so damn amazing. Where are songs like “Riding With A Ghost” nowadays? All but vanished. And “Just Be Simple”? I “like” a lot of the newer stuff (and the EP had shining moments), but tell Molina he doesn’t need to save all his singer-songwriter prowess for his solo stuff hahaha.
and more slide guitar!!! make me FEEL it in my soul.
ok end rant.
…ryan
I know I’m joining this conversation late, but I just want to say that you’ve captured my reaction to this record quite well and hit on the main tracks for me, both positive and negative: Pushover (wonderful), Ultimatum (a disappointing mess but still a good song), and Honest (which if we’re being Honest is just beneath John Roderick’s skills).
On the whole, though, I still think it’s a much, much better record than in most of indie rock, and Roderick is a brilliant songwriter and damn fine performer. Like you, I just found this album disappointing. Unlike the other two, I can’t listen to it all the way through as easily and as satisfyingly. On the other records, I felt like I was getting inside someone’s thoughts, and on this record, I feel like Roderick is trying on different perspectives. I appreciate that he is pushing himself lyrically and musically, but I guess I don’t think it all works.
I will say that though I like the solo version of “Car Parts,” I still love the full band version. Can’t say the same for “Ultimatum.”
I will also say that I think even if this record isn’t the best Roderick has done lyrically, it is still heads and shoulders above the lyrics that Jeff Tweedy has been putting out recently (see “Theologians”).
You’re all crackpots! Honest is one of the best songs I ever wrote. Look, if you can find a better song about a mother who had an illegitimate daughter from a one-night stand with a rockstar and who now has to watch that daughter start to be groupie herself, I’ll put in with you. When I sang that “Don’t you love a singer!” part at the end I was choking up with emotion at the idea. How emo is that?
That said, I can only harken back to the first year after Pretend to Fall came out, when almost every review talked about what a mish-mash it was and how the good songs were buried in amongst a bunch of crap and filler. Now everyone feels that way about the new record…
I wish I could ask every person who heard the record this year to just give it time, because it’s all in there the same or better than Pretend to Fall. Ultimatum Redux is just as good as the original version, it’s just that the narrator, (with the same thoughts), is gleeful, even ecstatic, rather than wistful. Haven’t you ever felt wistful AND ecstatic at the same break-up? Most of our songs try to capture both feelings at the same time; for Ultimatum I thought I’d spread it over two versions. I can understand liking one version better than another, but it doesn’t mean the other one’s a failure of concept.
As for “over production”, when I hear that term I think of people, (and indie-rockers a-plenty!) who punch-in every line of a vocal to get it “right”, or who sample every snare and kick-drum hit to make it perfect. We usually go with the first or second take of every tune, and my vocals are done all in one pass. I admit we sometimes throw the kitchen sink at a song, but I would call that “going overboard” rather than “over-producing”. It’s probably an unimportant semantic distinction for the lay music writer, but it was my first production job and I’m proud of it. Besides, all our records are headphoneaphonic in the extreme.
But thanks for caring enough about us to write and comment on us. Seriously. I should probably keep my own website updated rather than clog your comments section with my defensive over-thinking. Still, it’s inspiring to me that you’re having a conversation about our record and I wanted to weigh in.
Thanks
John