Friday, July 18, 2008

awesome song day! - "baby i'm just a fool"

awesome song day! is a spontaneous feature, when i am moved by a song's singular awesomeosity and feel the urge to share its awesomeness with all of you. the song below is awesome.

spiritualized - "baby i'm just a fool"
songs in a & e was released in may.

spiritualized and portishead share common ancestry, in my head at least. both hyper-pioneering english bands who peaked and kinda faded by the time i was hip enough to know who they were, it seems like more than coincidence that they have both returned in 2008, each with a fierce, career-defining record. the history of songs in a & e is so well-established as to be chicken feed by now: jason pierce got some terrible form of pneumonia, and found the inspiration for this record in his near-death experiences in the accident & emergency ward. pierce's work has always favored the ethereal/transcendental, so songs in a & e isn't much of a departure; instead, it is a bold, fervent, and engrossing work that builds on spiritualized's druggy past and finds a semblance of redemption in pierce's restoration of life and livelihood. fluctuating wildly between sorrow and serenity, songs in a & e is nearly divided in half by "baby i'm just a fool," a tender-seeming track backed by a melody beaten on wooden blocks, anchored in the repeated lyric "you're so fucking self-assured / i'd rather let you down than let you go." though not as catchy as "soul on fire" or as self-pitying as "don't hold me close," "baby i'm just a fool," with its faux-carefree singalongs and languid latin feel, is the song that stays with you the longest, and feels better with each listen.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, we at NPR are streaming a Spiritualized concert live tomorrow night from the 9:30 Club in D.C. here's the link if you're interested:
(audio stream link will be up closer to showtime, as well as a live chatroom hosted by NPR from the concert floor)

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92754720

Tell one tell all!

Conor McKay
NPR Music

humanclock said...

ohh yes, this is my favorite song on the album. It is nice to know that an ongoing favorite artist can still pull a wonderful song out of their hat when the time comes.