Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CDXI--The Shins: For a Fool

 When I first started Friday Night Jukebox, it was my intent to feature a lot (though not only) of album cuts that less discerning (polite way of saying younger) music fans might have missed in the ever-present competition to feature only hit singles.  Didn't quite work out that way (apparently, I'm quite the fan of hit singles myself), but this week it's nice to give one such album cut a place in the pantheon (or not) that is Friday Night Jukebox....

I wrote about The Shins in Jukebox XLIII in 2015, and in the years since they have continued their numerous band incarnations (with James Mercer remaining the only constant), as well as releasing their fifth LP in 2017.  They finished a twenty-first anniversary tour in September and will undoubtedly have a few more before all is said and done.  For their career, The Shins have released five studio albums (with two hitting the top five on the Billboard 200), four EPs, and 23 singles (with a whopping one charting).

"For a Fool" was not released as a single, and it appeared on their album Port of Morrow.  The LP peaked at #3 on the albums chart.

Over the last twenty years or so, it seems that most of my musical discoveries occur while I'm driving to and from work, and "For a Fool" is a perfect example.  Over the course of several weeks, it grew on me until I reached a point where I sang it again and again after I got home and looked forward to what could often be a miserable drive just so I could hear it again.  Mercer envisioned the song as a country single (I can definitely see it) and based it on relationships he'd had throughout his life (good to know that even rock stars can be somebody's fool).  The song opens with a lazy guitar and the vocals in the first stanza slide slowly over sparse musical accompaniment before moving into a lush chorus with heavier orchestration that puts the "catchy" in catchy as all hell.  From beginning to end the instrumentation, lyrics, and vocals have a melancholy resignation (but never get maudlin) where you can hear the heartache of another lost love, with the heart telling itelf, "Not again...ah, shit, yes again."  It's pop music magic, from a performer who seems to specialize in pop music magic.

Lyric Sheet:  "If I can learn/Anything from this, then I'd be like/The fox in the fable of light..."

Enjoy:

Republicans = Losers

Peace,

emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CCXCII--The Postal Service: We Will Become Silhouettes

My introduction to this week's tune was actually an acoustic cover version by the Shins while listening to Pandora at the thrift shop I used to work at a few years back (and come to think of it, listening to Pandora was pretty much the only highlight of that job).  I go back and forth as to which version I prefer depending on my musical tastes at the time, though I eventually decided on the original version for this post out of a sense of fairness to its creators....

Here's the part where I'm supposed to play the cool pop music expert who knew that Ben Gibbard (of Death Cab for Cutie fame) and Jenny Lewis (of Rilo Kiley fame--both bands I've written about for FNJ) were in The Postal Service...but sadly until I started my half-assed research this weekend I had no clue (or if I did I'd completely forgotten).  Anyhoo, the Postal Service had its beginnings when Ben Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello put a song together for a compilation album, liked what they had done, and began work in earnest on an album of their own which they made via mailing each other music and lyrics (hence, The Postal Service).  The band released its one and only album in 2003, had some success with it, and proceeded to spend the next ten years thinking about a follow-up.  They reunited in 2013 for a reunion tour, and at its end, announced the band was splitting for good.  And that's about as easy of a band history as I've yet written.

Fun Fact:  The label The Postal Service released their one and only album on, Sub Pop, had only one album in its history outsell the Postal Service's LP:  Nirvana's debut album, Bleach.

"We Will Become Silhouettes" was released in 2005 from their one and only album, Give Up.  It would eventually reach #82 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, though it had much greater success in Canada, reaching #3 (so many cool kids in Canada!) on the Canadian charts.

Despite it's rather upbeat music, "We Will Become Silhouettes" is not the happiest of songs--it's subject matter is what becomes of us after a nuclear holocaust.  The narrator tells the tale of being stuck in his home (eerily familiar...) and wanting to go outside but he cannot because if he does the fallout will invade his body until he eventually explodes.  Yeah, happy, happy, joy, joy for a Sunday night.  Still, despite its rather maudlin story, there is a touch of the resilience of the human spirit in it, and I suppose that's enough for me.  Gibbard delivers some fine vocals and the song is amazingly catchy for such a downbeat message.  I'd guess you'd need somewhat of a cockeyed view of the world to appreciate this one.  And to think you saw it all on Friday Night Jukebox....

Lyric Sheet:  "Because the air outside will make our cells/Divide at an alarming rate until our shells/Simply cannot hold all our insides in/And that's when we'll explode (and it won't be a pretty sight)...

Enjoy:

Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee

Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XLIII--The Shins: Sleeping Lessons

Sometime in the spring of 2007, we set out on a family outing, and as we left I grabbed my copy of  Wincing the Night Away by The Shins which had been recommended by my oldest son (nailed it!) and which I really hadn't had a chance to listen to in full.  We had about an hour drive and I figured it would be a good chance to familiarize myself with the CD.  Possibly because we were driving somewhere for the first time and I had to pay attention to the road, the album didn't make much of an impression on the way there.  On the way home though, with the Beautiful Girl enjoying a book and the Beautiful Boy fast asleep, "Sleeping Lessons" came on and after listening I thought to myself, "What the hell was that?"  And I listened to it again.  And again.  And again.  That night when I went to bed, I literally couldn't wait until morning so I could hear it yet again.

Recurring theme:  Such is the power of music,

The Shins formed in 1996, and are basically the brainchild of James Mercer, the lead vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter extraordinaire.  Buoyed by the featuring of  "New Slang" (another great Shins' song) in the movie Garden State (never saw it), the band developed a strong following and more importantly strong indie rock cred.  The Shins have had a a relatively small output--four albums in 19 years--and a couple of different lineups but nevertheless have had a penchant for diverse music.  Mercer has described the band as a "pop project" (bonus points!) and it shows--I've often thought they shared a great amount of musical style with a myriad of '60s pop bands.

"Sleeping Lessons" starts out...well, sleepily.  It's a contemplative synthesizer overlaid with plaintive vocals from Mercer, but you can feel that the song is percolating, that something vibrant is coming.  Truthfully, if the song had continued as such, it would have been a pretty decent little ditty, but at just a little past the two minute mark you're given a brief warning with a snippet of acoustic guitar picking before the song literally EXPLODES! with crashing drums and steam engine power chords from the electric guitars.  Mercer's vocals gain an urgency and edginess that weren't on display before and the explosive music doesn't stop, keeps its I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can bravado and even at the fade out you feel like the song is going to--thankfully!--go on forever.  "Sleeping Lessons" is one of those songs that make me realize why I never got into drugs:  when I wanted to get high, I always had rock and roll.  And "Sleeping Lessons" is an incredible high.

And what's not to love about a song that tells you "...You're not obliged/To swallow anything you despise...."

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee