Pavement!

It started with “Cut Your Hair”, my fierce love for Pavement. The silly video and the vocals won me over. The silky, floppy hair, strong jaw and patrician nose of Stephen Malkmus made me feel fluttery. Then I fell into the cd Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and could not stop listening to “Stop Breathin’”. “Got struck by the first volley..”. The song had swooping power chords, passionate singing, confusing yet evocative lyrics…why, they were more than just sarcastic songwriters making fun of Stone Temple Pilots (“…those elegant bachelors”). They had depth, mixed with silliness and wordplay. My favorite combo! I stuck with Pavement and listened non-stop to Slanted and Enchanted and also took a shine to Stephen’s solo stuff. And when I feel blue, I look up the performance of “Jenny and the Ess-Dog”, performed by SM and the Jicks on Letterman, easily accessed on YouTube. Malkmus does a rock-star perfect yell and tosses his floppy hair and looks like the aging yet handsome slacker that he is.

For about two weeks straight I was listening to The Decemberists’ “The Hazards of Love”. I caught them performing on The Colbert Report and knew I needed to hear more. The husband caught the bug too and purchased the CD the very next day. I reveled in its ambitious themes, and the smoky, powerful voice of their guest female vocalist on “The Wanting Comes In Waves”. I listened to “The Rake” over and over and dug its sharp drums and mean lyrics. In "The Queen's Rebuke" these lyrics are awesome:
"I'm made of bones of the branches the boughs and the brow-beating light/While my feet are the trunks and my head is the canopy high/And my fingers extend to the leaves in the eves, and the bright/Brighter shineI/t's my shine/And he/Was a baby abandonedEntombed in a cradle of clay/And I was a soul who took pity and stole him away/And gave him the form of a faun to inhabit by day.."

But now, I’m over it. The spell is broken. I still like it, but I don’t need to hear it every day. It’s funny how that happens.