Field Music "Sit Tight"

For a Valentine's Day selection, how about "Sit Tight" (mp3), which manages to touch upon relationships, communication, and problem solving within its three minute run. Kind of. But before you go leading off a mix for your S.O. with this, give it a close listen---it might not be something you want to use for commemorative purposes, especially when the first verse is: "I've been sitting tight, didn't you know?/Waiting for a chance to stop dead/And open these wrists for some useless joke." Or maybe it is. Either way, "sitting tight" assumes a dual meaning here. First: impatiently waiting, in this case for some sort of never-going-to-happen interpersonal breakthrough, to the point when tension becomes so palpable that any disturbance could send it spiraling. The second meaning, however, has to do with the musical structure of the song: it's pulled about as tautly as possible without snapping in two. The first few seconds---a sinister sounding carnival organ, a woman's voice firmly yelling "no!"---set the scene for a tightly wound dialogue, but then the drums come in and take it somewhere else entirely. The drummer on "Sit Tight" fills the same rhythmic role as Paul Desmond on Dave Brubeck's "Take Five": scene-stealer. Consistently catapaulting and counterpointing (but never unnecessarily, always with an eye firmly trained on the backbone of the song), the drums poke out from inside the inflexible canvas that surrounds the couple, jabbing to get free but well-contained. Occasionally, it all ceases---deep breaths taken, senses gathered---like at the point where he tells her (his voice is all we hear btw) "Stop all your weeping and spit it all out/I'm sick of all your talk/But I want you to talk/I want you to talk." I've not been in all that many relationship squabbles in my day, but I'm relatively sure that that approach isn't the best way to spur conversation. The emotions, the contrapuntal sonic surroundings that push a lovers' discourse into the realm of the absurd---it all adds up to an archly dramatic BBC serial drama (from the 70s), yet directed by Terry Gilliam. Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Buy Tones of Town from Memphis Industries here.

For what it's worth, this is my third (consecutive) Valentine's Day with my girlfriend Forrest. The above song expresses naught how i feel about that. This is how I feel.