Casiotone for the Painfully Alone"Young Shields"

I suppose it was a given from the first moments when rock became pop music that stories like the one Owen Ashworth tells in "Young Shields" (mp3), one of the best singles of this past year, would become a staple of the form. The song elevates young love and passion to the highest realms of drama, like, to name a few examples, Roy Orbison's "Cryin," about two-thirds of Phil Spector's, the Beach Boys' and Motown's output during the Sixties, Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run," and so on and so forth. Ashworth's foray is an exercise in the sharp tonal contrasts that can only exist in the 21st century, though---the darkly propulsive synths and deceptively primitive-sounding drum machines catalyze the simple lyrics, isolating them from real things like fear of the unknown and care for the opinions of others. Thus, what passes for a chorus in this song, "sent a letter to mom and dad/mom and dad, the money's running out/got a letter from mom and dad/they didn't send me anything" is less a plea for a check in the mail than a letter sent to the past, in the hopes of an echo of something normal. That Ashworth is narrating this song in the first person, however, and commenting on what many others let disappear, is important---this shield that protects the couple on the run, and immunizes them from the banalities of external logic at the same time can't stop Ashworth from simultaneously realizing the hopelessness of their journey. It's the plight of the brooding intellectual---of Ashworth---that he can't just let himself wander off into the darkness without keeping a diary along the way.

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